Faun and Games (60 page)

the bad luck," Forrest said.

"That's the thing about a dire wolf," Dawn said.
 
"Wherever it goes,

disaster follows.
 
That's why we had to get away from it."

And he hadn't done so, not realizing what she meant.
 
Now their main

protection from hostile interest, the blanket of obscurity, was gone. If

only he had understood in time!

There was nothing to do but dry off and proceed with their mission,

hoping they could get along without the obscurity.
 
Forrest crossed to

the red and crawled to the place where the lings were.
 
They were easy

to deal with; they flocked to the edge, and treated each person as she

crossed.
 
Imbri was the one who made the actual deals, so she lost

several more bits of her substance and became a smaller horse. But now

they were able to walk at the correct angle.
 
They were also red; they

had had to deal for that too.
 
Things were looking better, but they were

paying a price.
 
If only they hadn't lost their main protection!
 
Maybe

they were blundering because of the prior loss of the Good Magician's

list of words.

Dawn touched the plants, and Eve touched the objects, and soon they had

a notion where a sleep-talented woman had been.
 
They followed her

trail, being watchful for any dangers, and in due course located her.

Except that when they found her, they couldn't see her.
 
There was her

nice little red brick house, but no woman.
 
They had not wanted to be

sneaky, but their awareness of danger made them careful, so they peeked

in a window first.
 
And saw nothing.

"But she's there," Imbri insisted.
 
"I can feel her fleeting dreams."

Then Forrest made a connection.
 
"She's the daughter of Graeboe Giant.

Is he an invisible giant?"

"Not any more," Imbri said.
 
"He's a winged goblin now."

"But he has the invisible heritage.
 
She's invisible!"

Eve touched the house.
 
"Why so she is!
 
This is the house of an

invisible woman."

"So maybe we should just knock on the door and introduce ourselves,"

Forrest said.
 
"Instead of generating our own complications."

The others, abashed, agreed.
 
So Forrest knocked-and in a moment a

red-cloaked woman answered.
 
"Yes?" she inquired from the depths of her

cowl.

"I am Forrest Faun.
 
I have come to ask a favor from Ghina."

"I am she.
 
I am glad to give favors, for they increase my stature.

What is your wish?"

"My friends and I need your help to nullify the four Wizards of

,)Yramid."

"Oh, my!" she exclaimed.
 
"That is a very dangerous undertaking.

"Yes.
 
But if we succeed, the tyranny of the Wizards will be ended, and

you will be free."

"Free?
 
We're free now.
 
The Wizards have done a great many favors for

us."

oops.
 
He had forgotten that though the Wizards were oppressing the folk

of Ptero, it was the opposite for the folk of Pyramid.
 
Ghina might not

want to cooperate.

He pondered as swiftly as he could, and decided that the truth was best,

though it was dangerous to utter.
 
"We are from another world. The

Wizards are harming that world, in order to do favors here."

She considered.
 
"Are any of my friends being harmed?"

"They could be.
 
There are many might-be folk there, and surely some of

them are relatives of yours." He wasn't quite sure what system there

was, as there seemed to be might-he's on all the worlds, but it seemed a

safe assumption that there were invisible giants, goblins, and harpies

on Ptero.
 
So her ancestry was surely well represented.

"Well, then, I suppose I had better help.
 
And if I am helping my

relatives, it isn't really a favor to you."

"It's a fair exchange of favors," he said, relieved.

"Very well.
 
I'll help." She stepped out the door.

"But don't you have to close up your house, or anything?"

"It will keep until Mom and Dad fly home.
 
Or until my brother Geddy

walks home; he's out charming the ladies with his songs. Where are your

friends?"

"Here they are." The three others were stepping forward.
 
"This is Mare

Imbri, who speaks in dreamlets."

Imbri sent a dreamlet of a winged goblin girl.
 
"Hello."

"And these are Dawn & Eve Human, whose talents are to know all about

living and inanimate things." The twins in red jeans nodded. Forrest

noticed, irrelevantly, that Dawn's hair color had returned to its

natural flame hue, while Eve's hair was now midnight red.
 
Both girls

remained infernally attractive.

Ghina's cowl looked thoughtful.
 
"Are you related to Magician Trent?"

"He's our great grandfather," Dawn said.

"Now rejuvenated to his twenties," Eve said.
 
"So he's not much older

than we are."

"That's the one!
 
Mother knew him." The cowl looked down, as if

blushing.
 
"In fact, Mother rather liked him.
 
If he had been willing,

she would have ordered me from the Stork Works with him, instead of with

Graeboe, and I might have been visible.
 
Not that I have any objection

to Graeboe; he's a fine father.
 
It's just that sometimes I wonder what

I might have looked like."

"Like this," Imbri said.
 
In the dreamlet, her human figure conjured a

bucket of red paint and flung it at the cowled Ghina figure.
 
The paint

splashed all over, washing off the cowl and leaving a red winged goblin

girl.

"Oh!" Ghina cried, delighted.
 
"I'm pretty!"

"Just like your mother," Imbri agreed.

They started off.
 
"I suppose we should do the Red Wizard first, since

we're here," Forrest said.
 
"Do you know where his castle is?"

in the center of the red triangle," Ghina said.
 
"But I don't know the

best way there.
 
I'll ask the chess nut."

"Chestnuts talk?" Forrest asked.

She must have smiled.
 
"You're funny." She led the way through the

forest to a glade wherein stood assorted life sized redwood figures of

men, women, horses, towers, and children.
 
The floor of the glade was

marked in squares: light red and dark red.
 
As they approached, a figure

of a light red man with a pointed hat slid across a diagonal and grabbed

a dark red child figure.
 
It tossed the child to the edge of the glade,

where it joined a tumbled collection of figures.

"Uncle Kerby!" Ghina called.

There was a stirring.
 
"Yes, Niece Ghina," a voice came from the air.

"Oh-an invisible giant, of course," Dawn murmured.

"From her father's side of the family," Eve agreed.

Imbri made a dreamlet showing the glade with its wooden figures, and the

outline of ap invisible giant standing over them, ready to move another

piece.
 
The giant seemed to be of about average size for his type, with

unruly brown hair and green eyes.
 
Apparently his invisibility allowed

him to be normal colors, instead of shades of red.

"Where is the center of the triangle?" Ghina asked.

"All paths lead to it," Kerby replied, moving another chess piece.

"Thank you, Uncle!"

"But we're forgetting something," Dawn said.

"That's right: Jfraya," Eve agreed.

So they were.
 
They needed both people to do the job.
 
"We'll have to go

to the green face first," Forrest said with regret.

Kerby overheard him.
 
"That will be a harder trip."

"Uncle, could you help us?" Ghina asked.

"I could, but I don't want to take any mass from you, sweet thing."

"I will trade you this smile," she said, turning her invisible face in

Kerby's direction.

Forrest couldn't see the smile, but the glade brightened.
 
The giant

must have seen it, being also invisible.

"Climb on," he said.

Imbri's dreamlet showed a huge hand being laid on the ground before

them.
 
They climbed on and took hold of the fingers, and Imbri lay in

the palm.
 
Then the hand lifted above the trees, and the red terrain

whizzed by below.

It didn't take long.
 
Kerby lowered them at the corner between the red

and the green faces.
 
"Actually I could reach across, if you know where

your friend is," the giant offered.

"Let me touch a tree," Dawn said.
 
"Maybe she walked past it once."

"Let me touch the ground," Eve said.
 
"Maybe a path leads to her home."

They scrambled off the invisible hand.
 
They had the usual trouble with

the changed angle of the green face, but crawled to a green tree and

green stone.

Soon they returned.
 
"Someone once opened a door near here," Dawn

reported.
 
"The trees were astonished, for it was a door into the

ground.

"And the ground knows of other doors that opened in it, in that

direction," Eve said, pointing.

"I will reach as far as I can in that direction," Kerby said.