Jim looked at Nimby. She wished he wouldn’t look to the strange man for guidance so much. “Onto that?”
Nimby nodded.
“Yes, this must be the ferry,” Chlorine said. “When I crossed, I was carried by a fly-by-night.”
Jim started the motor. “Jim!” Mary cried, truly alarmed.
He looked back. “Their advice has been good so far. Do we stop trusting them now?”
Mary swallowed, feeling—and surely looking—rather pale. “Drive very slowly.”
He inched forward. The front wheels nudged onto the cloud surface, and held; it was as solid as it looked.
“Gee,” David said, staring out and down.
“Do you believe in group nightmares?” Sean asked rhetorically.
Definitely! But Mary stifled her retort.
“Of course there are night mares,” Chlorine said. “They bring the bad dreams to the people who deserve them. Don’t they go to Mundania too?”
“Oh, sure,” Karen said. “I get them all the time.”
“Something tells me we’re not speaking quite the same language,” Sean said. “Are you talking about just dreams, Chlorine?” And that was another thing: Mary was quite uneasy about the lovely young woman’s effect on the impressionable seventeen-year-old boy. Sean’s eyes were attracted to her as if compelled by magnets; he tried to conceal his fascination, but Mary saw it. Chlorine was not trying to be flirtatious, but she didn’t have to be. Her mere presence was more than sufficient. It was clear that she had not had a lot of experience being beautiful; she tended to show too much flesh, and it really was by accident. The girl was fairly innocent, which actually made it more awkward.
“The dreams and the mares,” Chlorine replied. “And the Night Stallion, who governs them. They gallop out each night to carry their carefully crafted creations.”
“Horses!” David cried. He, too, was all too much intrigued by the unconscious wiles of the woman. “They’re real horses!”
“Of course,” Chlorine said. “Except that you can’t usually see them. You can’t see Mare Imbri, either, though she comes by day with nice day dreams.” Her eyes misted for a moment, perhaps seeing such a dream.
Well, at least their dialogue, and Chlorine’s appearance, were distracting the children from the unbelievable thing that was happening.
The RV now had all four tires on the cloud. Jim set the brake and turned off the motor. “We are safely aboard the ferry,” he announced.
“Aboard, anyway,” Mary murmured tightly.
The cloud began to move. It carried them out over the depths of the chasm. Those depths were now darkening, for it was late in the day. The slanting sunlight illuminated the steep side, but then cut off before the bottom. The shadow was not impenetrable; there were trees and rocks in the lowest part.
“Oh, there’s the Gap Dragon!” Chlorine cried, pointing.
They all peered down. There in the deep distance was a tiny wormlike thing wriggling along. But Mary was sure that it would be considerably more formidable up close. She was glad it wasn’t close.
Karen came to climb into her father’s lap. “Daddy, is this real?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But I think we had better assume it is, until we get out of it.” With that, Mary could agree emphatically. She no longer doubted the reality of this realm, and she most certainly wished to be out of it.
Then the wind rose again. “Oops—that looks like Fracto,” Chlorine said.
“Who?”
“Fracto, the worst of clouds. He always comes to rain on picnics. Now he must be coming to mess up our crossing. I don’t like this.”
“A malign storm?” Mary asked, an ugly shiver running through her. She did see the cloud developing, and it looked just exactly like a thunderstorm. There were even jags of lightning projecting from it.
“Oooh, it’s got a face!” Karen said.
The weird thing was that the child was right: there was a kind of pattern forming that did look like a vaguely human face. It had small foggy eyes and a big cruel mouth, with hugely expanding cheeks, as if it were taking in a breath so as to blow a blast of air at them.
“Oh, I hope the ferry is enchanted, so Fracto can’t blow us away,” Chlorine said.
“Ask Nimby,” David suggested.
Chlorine smiled at the boy. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?”
Nimby was already writing a note. He passed it back to her. “‘The ferry is enchanted,’” she read. “What a relief!”
She was no more relieved than Mary herself was. Presumably that meant that the storm could huff and puff and threaten, but couldn’t actually “Wow them away.”
The storm was evidently going to give it a try, however. The face loomed up hugely, and the mouth exhaled. A stream of mist shot out, right toward the ferry cloud. But it turned aside, as if encountering a shield, and passed above them.
Fracto looked angry. Mary chided herself for personifying the cloud, but the expression was unmistakable.
“Boy, he’s mad now,” David said with a certain sinister relish. “He’s going to get us if he can.” He stuck his tongue out at the thing.
“Please don’t do that,” Mary said, experiencing a thrill of fear. “It’s not polite.”
“Awww.” But this was routine. Thus Mary didn’t have to admit that her main motivation was concern about making the storm furious. What were the limits of protective enchantment? She did not want to find out. And of course, she didn’t want David getting into bad habits, anyway.
The cloud certainly tried. But all his huffing and puffing couldn’t blow their house down. They continued their sanguine float across the chasm, and in due course came to the far brink. Karen returned to the back so her father could drive. “I could get to like trolls,” Jim remarked as he started the motor and nudged the RV onto solid land.
Mary felt her tightness dissipating. They had made a safe crossing. She had always been a bit nervous about air travel, and this had been a most precarious flight. “The trollway is the way to go,” she agreed.
“Gee, that was great,” David said.
Even Chlorine glanced at him, obviously not as pleased with the experience as he had been.
The RV got up speed. But now the day was dimming, and it was clear that they would be another day on the road before escaping Xanth. They could, of course, continue driving, except—
“Do we have enough gas?” Mary asked.
“No,” Jim replied. “Less than half a tank left. We’ll need another gas guzzler soon.”
“Nimby—” Chlorine said.
The man wrote another note and passed it to Jim. “There is one ahead, but there’s a problem,” Jim said. “It’s off the enchanted path, and there may be danger.”
“That’s all we need,” Mary muttered. But they would have to have more gasoline. “What kind of danger?”
Nimby wrote another note. “A blobstacle course,” Jim announced.
“A what?” Karen asked alertly. Jim seldom punned.
“That’s how it’s spelled: BLOB-stacle. I hesitate to inquire further.”
“Oh, sure; there’s one of those in a computer game I play,” David said. “You just have to be ready to dodge fast.”
“Dodge City,” Sean said. He, in contrast, often punned.
Jim looked at Nimby. “Just how dangerous is a blobstacle course!”
The man made another note. Jim read it aloud: “‘In this moving house, not very dangerous if you avoid the blobs. But it can be disgusting.’” Jim glanced back. “Disgusting, I can handle. How about the rest of you?”
“Yeah!” David exclaimed.
Mary wasn’t sure, but the thought of getting stranded without gas bothered her more. “We had better try it, dear,” she said.
“You call him a deer?” Chlorine asked, surprised.
Mary smiled tiredly. “In a fashion.”
Nimby signaled the turnoff, and Jim drove down the side road. Almost immediat
ely the blobstacle course manifested: a series of huge discolored blobs sitting on and about the road. They looked like giant poisonous fungi, which might be what they actually were.
Jim slowed so as to steer around the first without going off the road, because the terrain on either side was rough. It seemed to vary from steep hill to bog: not something to stick a tire into. He got around the first, then made an S-turn to get around the second on the other side. So far so good. This at least was manageable, Mary thought.
“Bogy at three o’clock, high,” Sean announced, peering up out a window.
Something was definitely looming there, rapidly approaching. “Oh, no,” Chlorine said, peering with him. At any other time Mary would have objected to the way her bosom was nudging his shoulder. “That looks like a meatier shower.”
“A meteor shower!” Jim said without taking his eyes from the road. “That sounds like a mundane phenomenon.”
“No, it’s another language problem,” Chlorine said. “I have trouble hearing what you say, and you have trouble hearing what I say. Maybe it’s because you didn’t pass through the regular Interface when you came to Xanth. You can talk our language, but the nuances don’t come through. That’s MEAT as in flesh. Meatier shower. Those aren’t completely dangerous, but they aren’t much fun either.”
“So it’s going to rain hamburgers and hot dogs?” Sean asked.
“No, it will shower meat. Or am I missing another nuance?”
“Never mind.” Sean continued to look out. Then something solid struck the roof of the RV. “Hey, just how big are the pieces?”
“All sizes,” Chlorine said. “From gnat legs to boiled rocs. And they can be rotten, depending how long they have been traveling.”
“Dad,” Sean said. “Let’s get the bleep out of here!” Then he looked surprised. “Bleep? That isn’t what I said.”
“How old are you?” Chlorine asked.
“Seventeen. Why?”
“That means you’re still subject to the Adult Conspiracy. You can’t say bad words until you pass eighteen.”
Sean was astonished. “I can’t?”
“Not in Xanth,” she said firmly.
Mary suppressed her smile. This land of Xanth wasn’t all bad!
“I can live with it,” Karen said, not managing to damp down her own smile.
“Let me try,” David said. “Bleep!” He looked surprised. “Hey, it’s true! Bleep! Bleep!”
“Stop it,” Mary said.
“But how could you tell what words I was trying to say?” he asked plaintively.
“I can read your lips—and your mind.”
“Oh. Yeah.” He was deflated.
There was a heavy dull thud on the roof of the RV. “Damn!” Jim muttered, and it almost seemed to Mary that the air in his vicinity turned slightly smoky. He goosed the engine, trying to get through the blobstacle course faster.
Something reddish brown splatted against a window. Dark juice oozed from it. “Ugh!” Karen cried. “What’s that?”
“Part of a bleeping raw liver, I think,” Sean answered.
“I’m going to be a vegetarian,” she declared.
The vehicle slewed around another blob, an outer wheel riding up a bank, then squished through some stuff that surely wasn’t ice slush. “There’s a guzzler, Dad!” David called, pointing.
“Got it,” Jim said. He slid to a halt by the creature, who looked exactly like the other one. “Got another pill, Mary?”
Mary dived into her purse. “Yes. Here.” She fished out the bottle and opened it, spilling several pills. She picked one up and passed it to her husband.
He gave it to the guzzler. The creature swallowed the pill, then looked for the gas tank. But of course, it was capped. Jim started to open the door.
“No!” Mary cried. “You’ll get hit by meat.”
Jim hesitated, closing the door. “Somebody’s got to take off the gas cap,” he pointed out. “And not you or a child.”
Chlorine perked up. “Nimby?”
Without a word, the young man opened his door and got out. A huge mass of something bounced in front of him. “He’ll be hit!” Mary cried.
Chlorine pondered for half a moment. “Nimby, assume your natural form—with tough scales,” she called.
Then the young man disappeared, to be replaced by the ugliest creature Mary could have imagined. It looked like a mule from the front, being mule-headed, and some kind of ancient dinosaur from behind, with huge overlapping scales. Furthermore, it was striped pink and green. The pink was halfway pretty, but the green was wretched. So this was the real nature of the creature! No wonder she had been uneasy about him.
But she reminded herself that he was doing them a favor. She watched as he made his four-footed way around the front of the RV. Chunks of meat struck his body, but did no apparent harm. His scales were indeed tough, as Chlorine had suggested. But rapidly getting badly soiled.
He came around to the gas tank and used his equine teeth to twist off the cap. The guzzler stuck in its tail, and the gas flowed. When the tank was evidently full, Nimby used his teeth again to put the cap back on and screw it tight. Then he trundled back around the RV. When he reached his door, he reverted to man-form. Just in time to get hit by a big blood blister from the sky. It didn’t seem to hurt him, but he was completely soaked.
“Get in before you get killed!” Mary screamed, appalled.
The man opened the door and climbed in. “Oooo, ugh!” Karen said with a certain relish. “What a stink!”
She was right. Nimby now smelled of rotten guts.
“Can’t be helped,” Jim said, starting the motor.
“Come back here,” Mary told Nimby. “I’ll see if I can clean you up.” She felt somewhat guilty, because he had gotten splatted while doing them a favor.
Nimby came back. The children drew away from him, turned off by the sight and smell of him, but Mary had cleaned up messes before. “We’ll have to wash you off and give you some clean clothes,” she said in motherly fashion. “Do you know how to use our facilities?”
He nodded.
“Then do so. Pass your clothing out, and I’ll pass fresh things in.”
He did so. Relieved, Mary set about a search for clothing. “He’ll have to use some of yours,” she told Sean. “He’s about your size. It’s in a good cause.”
“For sure,” he agreed wryly.
She dug out a shirt, jeans, underwear, and an old pair of sneakers. Then when the lavatory door opened, she exchanged them for the sodden things Nimby had been wearing. It was hard to breathe with the stench of them. She bundled them up and dumped them in a basin for laundering.
Meanwhile Jim was navigating the blobstacle course back to the main road. It seemed easier now; the meatier shower was abating, and the blobs seemed to be shrinking. Apparently even bad things didn’t last long, in Xanth. Soon the road cleared, and they were back on the main haul. That was another considerable relief.
Nimby emerged, garbed correctly. Now he looked exactly like a barely-beyond-teenager. Sean’s clothing fit him well enough.
“Let me fix your hair,” Mary said. She fetched a brush, and trained his wet hair back in a conventional part.
“Gee, he could pass for one of us,” David said. “I mean, like one of the family.”
“Say, do you want to be my brother?” Karen asked him.
Nimby looked blank. “They’re teasing you,” Mary said. “You don’t have to be part of anyone’s family.” She realized as she spoke that her attitude toward the young man had changed. She had been wary of him because she didn’t understand him; now she had seen his natural form, she understood him better. He was surely somewhat uncomfortable among human beings, and she wanted to alleviate that. Because he was helping them significantly. Of course, she knew it was because he was Chlorine’s companion, doing what Chlorine wanted, and Chlorine had been assigned to get the family safely through Xanth. Still, she appreciated what he was doing.
She
put away the brush and adjusted his collar. She realized that he was looking at her. “I’m sorry,” she said, embarrassed. “I’m so used to taking care of my family, I just automatically do these things. I know you’re not a child.”
Nimby smiled. Then he found his pad—actually it just seemed to appear in his hand, along with the pencil—and wrote a note. She noticed with surprise that he actually held the pencil still and moved the notepad against it to do the writing. He tore off the sheet and gave it to her.
Thank you for your attitude. No one has treated me like a person before, except Chlorine. I am glad to be thought of as part of your family.
“Why, thank you, Nimby,” Mary said, pleased. She gave his hand a little squeeze. Then she returned to her seat.
“If you want to be family, you have to help entertain the kid,” Karen said. “Come here to the table, Nimby, and play solitaire.”
“No, you don’t have to do that,” Sean said. “Don’t let her push you around.”
“What is solitaire?” Chlorine asked.
“It’s a card game,” Karen said. “Actually there are many kinds, and some can be played by two or three people at once. I’ll show you.”
Sean and David moved out, and Chlorine and Nimby joined Karen at the table for instruction in solitaire. Soon they were deep into it. Chlorine had the usual miscues of a beginner, but Nimby seemed to be a natural player. Either he was extremely smart, or his general awareness of things acquainted him with the identities of the hidden cards. Or maybe both.
How could a donkey-headed dragon be so talented? Mary wasn’t sure, but suspected that the relationship of animals to humans was different in Xanth. Animals were smarter here. That business with their own pets was eerie; it was just as if they had developed almost human intelligence and restraint. And Tweeter had warned them about the approach of the flying monsters, back at the rest stop. Or had he? Nimby had claimed to listen to the bird, and written a note. It could have been Nimby doing it.
It became important for Mary to know. The drive was quiet now, as Sean accompanied Jim up front, and both Nimby and Chlorine were involved in Karen’s game. David was watching the game, about to get involved himself. So she should be able to do a little experimentation without attracting attention.
Yon Ill Wind Page 9
