Yon Ill Wind (18 page)

“And then you, being a man, have mainly one thing on your mind,” she continued.  “And that is summoning the stork.  So you say, 'Chlorine, you are very pretty, but I think you would look downright lovely with less on.' And you put your hand on my knee and squeeze, gently.” She took his hand and set it there when he hesitated.  “And I say, innocently, 'Oh, do you really think so?  Would you like me to show you my panties?' And you are so excited at the prospect that you can't even speak at the moment, so you just nod and smile.  And then—”

She broke off, for there was a face at the window, with two big eyes.  “What is this!” she cried, annoyed.  She threw a cloud-fluff pillow at it.  The pillow struck the head and fragmented into smithereens.  Then she saw that it wasn't a head, it was a rotating set of blades.  As they turned, they formed the face.  It was a window fan.  Such creatures loved to peer into windows.  That really turned them on, so that they spun faster.

Fortunately her thrown pillow had gummed up its works and blinded it.  It would peer in her window no more.

“Now, where exactly were we?” she inquired, recovering her bearings, as she unbound her green-gold hair to float in a luxuriant mass around her shoulders.  “Oh, yes, the high point of any man's life:  to see the color of her panties.  (No, we won't mention that you made nice ones for me; that isn't part of this script.  You are now in innocent horny male mode).  I have just made the supreme offer, and you are gaga at the very notion.  So you nod yes, you are hot to see them, for they are surely Xanth's most delightfully naughty sight.  And by this time I am hot to show you, knowing that it will probably freak you out, not to mention inflame your passion beyond endurance, requiring me to kiss you and stroke you back to some semblance of sanity.  So—”

She loosened her dress and drew it up and over her head.

“Of course, you can't see them yet, because I'm wearing a slip under my dress.  I am such an awful tease, as is required by the Big Book of Rules for Adult Conspiracy Indiscretions.  However—”

There was a shuddering in the cloud, and the sound of heavy tromping.  “What now?” Chlorine demanded, her patience showing a sign of wanting to wander, if not to get lost.

Nimby's pad and pencil appeared.  But before he completed his note, the cloud cover shook violently, sending Chlorine tumbling slip over flying hair.  Then another face appeared in the window.

“I thought I got rid of you,” she said.  But then she realized that this was a different face, huge and fat and vaguely masculine.

“Any ogres here?” the face inquired, licking its thick lips.

Her patience slipped another notch.  “Do I look like an ogre?” she demanded, swinging her legs in his direction.

He blinked, but evidently was not sufficiently human to freak out at the sight.  “No, you look like a luscious morsel of a damsel girl with pretty good legs.”

He had been doing okay until the last three words.  Her last nerve frayed, on the verge of snapping.  “Pretty good?” she demanded.  “And just what do you consider to be good legs?”

“Why, ogre legs, of course.”

“Ogre legs!  Ogre legs!?” she screeched in what might have passed for harpy fashion, if one had that low a mind.

“What kind of creature are you?”

“I'm an ogre eater, of course,” he explained.

“An ogre eater!  You mean you eat ogres?  I never heard of that before.”

“Well, there aren't many of us, because ogres don't taste very good.” He glanced again at her legs.  “But I suppose if there aren't any ogres, you might do; your legs have a fair amount of healthy meat on them.”

“Oh no you don't!” she snapped, clapping her legs together.  “I need these legs myself.  Go find a real ogre.”

“Okay,” the ogre eater said.  The face disappeared, and the tromping and ground shaking resumed, in a diminishing cadence.

Chlorine returned once more to the business at hand.

She saw Nimby holding his note.  “Never mind that,” she told him.  “I found out for myself.  Now let's resume our activity before something else interrupts.  I wish this cloud floated just a bit higher, so sundry folk couldn't just peek in.”

Nimby started to get up.

“No, don't see about doing something about it,” she said quickly.  “That'll just distract us.  I want to get the bleep on with this, before we arrive where we're going and it's too late.  Can you appreciate that?”

Nimby looked appreciative.  In fact, she had the impression that he was definitely getting intrigued by her ongoing lesson of love.  Good.  It was nice being so beautiful as to inflame men's minds, and so sexy as to force them to think of only one thing:  summoning the stork.  She had verified that it worked on Sean Mundane, but he was young.

Nimby was mature.

She lifted her slip to knee height, tantalizingly.  Nimby looked really interested.  She was ready to lift it all the way clear, but didn't.  Her hands just wouldn't do it.

What was the matter with her?  Here was her chance to do what no man had been interested in doing with her before, yet she was stalling.  Why?

Nimby wrote another note.  Because you know I am only a donkey-headed dragon, and you want a real man.

She realized it was true.  She could playact all she wanted, and craft any script she wanted, but down underneath she knew it wasn't real, because he wasn't real.  In fact, she wasn't real either; she was just a plain and somewhat ornery girl making a pretense.  What was the use of that?

Yet if she didn't take advantage of her opportunity now, her adventure might be over before she had another chance.  So maybe pretense was better than nothing at all.

“Dam it.  Nimby, let's do it anyway!  I want to show my panties to someone, and you may never get to see another girl's panties, I mean, not when she's not thinking of you as some stupid beast who doesn't count.  Would you like to go ahead?”

Nimby nodded.

Chlorine took hold of her slip again.  “Then watch this, and be amazed.” She took a two-handed grip and hauled it right up and over her head.  She flung it away and stood proudly in her pale green/yellow bra and panties.

But Nimby didn't freak out.  Because not only was he a dragon, it was his magic that had made this limited clothing, as well as her present body.  None of it was new or novel to him.  “Oh, this isn't working!” she cried, frustrated anew.  “I'm just going through meaningless motions, and boring you to oblivion.  I'm sorry.  Nimby.”

Nimby wrote a note and handed it to her.  I am not bored.

But she knew better.  “How can you be interested in what you yourself made?  I might as well revert to my natural state, where my panties don't even pretend to be interesting, let alone man-freaking.” She fetched back her slip and put it back on.  “I apologize for dragging you through this embarrassing charade.  Nimby.  I won't do it again.  I could just cry with frustration—but I can't risk even that.”

Nimby, looking alarmed, started to write another note.

“No, don't do it,” she told him firmly.  “Don't try to tell me something you think will make me feel good.  Let's leave the illusions for those who don't know better.”

Nimby looked sad, but his notepad disappeared.

Chlorine fetched her dress and donned it.  “But I want you to know that I do like you.  Nimby, and respect you, and if you were a real man, I would have done it with you.  Even if you were a near-man, like a Curse Fiend or maybe a Demon.  Demons know how to appreciate mortal women, physically at least.  But a dragon?  All this must be utterly laughable to you.  So I won't bore you anymore; I owe you at least that much.  You have been a really good sport.”

Her dress was done.  She started on her hair.  Then, on sudden impulse, she went to Nimby and embraced him.

“Thanks for being my friend,” she said, and kissed him.

The two half tears in her eyes brimmed, but fortunately didn't lose their positions.

Nimby froze.  His eyes glazed.  Had she freaked him out after all?  But in half a moment he recovered, and wrote a note.  You are more than welcome.  Chlorine.

She smiled.  “At least we understand each other.  Maybe that's better than the other.”

He nodded, though he looked as if he had come close to some phenomenal achievement, and lost it.  Maybe she should have done the stork routine with him, after tempting him so.  But no; she had done her best to do the right thing, and that was to save the stork summoning for a man she really loved, rather than wasting it on a game.

The cloud floated on, sublimely unconcerned with their troubled thoughts.

Soon Nimby wrote another note.  We are there.

“Already?” she asked, surprised.  But she realized that the cloud had been moving along with deceptive velocity, so it could be.  So her opportunity to do something naughty was indeed gone.  She regretted and resented that, even though she had made the decision herself.

Nimby scrambled up and out the top window, and held down a hand for her.  He pulled her right up; she was surprised by his easy strength, until she remembered yet again that he was really a dragon.  They perched on top, and she saw that the cloud was indeed moving along at a good clip.  The wind was higher; the sound had been muffled by the cloud wall so that she had forgotten it.  The ill wind was still intensifying.

Nimby reached out and caught an overhanging branch.

He kept his feet hooked into the top of the cloud so that it couldn't go anywhere.  But neither did it sink to the ground.  It was still about twice a man's height up.  That ogre eater must have been huge!  “How do we get down?” she asked.

Nimby nodded toward his legs.  This required some interpretation.  He was going to climb down?  He shook his head, and she remembered—again—that he could read her mind.  So all she had to do was think the right thought.

She put her bright mind to work.  She must have something to do with his feet.  Take them out of the cloud?  But then it would float away with her.  Unless she hung on to them.  Aha!  She could swing down on his legs; that would get her low enough so she could drop the rest of the way without harm.  She saw that the ground was soft there, piled with pine needles, surely by no coincidence; Nimby always knew what he was doing.  But how would he get down?

He must be strong enough to handle the drop.  And he nodded.

“Okay, Nimby,” she said.  “I'm trusting you with my safety.  I guess I might as well, having already shown you my panties, for all that they bombed out.”

She leaned into him and grabbed him around the thighs.

“I hope I don't pull your pants off,” she said.  But she knew that wouldn't happen.  Nothing ever went wrong with Nimby.  That thought made her regret for one or two instants that she hadn't continued her script in the cloud, at least up to the point of getting his pants Off.  She was curious about—but that was an unmaidenly thought—and what was he thinking of it now?

She refocused and scrambled off the cloud.  She dropped down, seeing his legs release the cloud, which quickly floated on downwind, in a hurry to get where it was going.

She swung back and forth like a pendulum, her body sliding down past his knees and feet, until she was just about all the way beneath him.  Then she dropped, landing neatly on the needles, which were rusted and crumbly, not still sharp, fortunately.  She was surprised by how readily she had done it, then realized that it was her good health that accounted for it.  The health Nimby had given her.  However, she still lost her balance and sat down; health did not give her perfect judgment on a landing.

Someone laughed.  It sounded like the voice of an ass, but it wasn't Nimby, who was still hanging above, waiting for her to clear the landing site.  She looked around.

There was a man emerging from the forest beside the road.  He wore dirty clothes and had a large rusted metal can for a hat.  “Do it again, sister!” he brayed.  “Maybe this time I'll see something interesting.”

Chlorine knew his type.  He was a junk male—who traveled around to take up the attention of people who didn't want him, and acted like trash.  There were way too many of his kind cluttering up the space of decent folk.  She knew exactly how to handle him.

“Is this interesting enough?” she called sweetly as she got to her feet.  When she was sure he was watching, she turned around and flipped up her skirt and slip.

There was silence.  She let her clothing fall back into place and turned around.  The junk male was lying on his back, staring at the sky, not moving a muscle.  He was absolutely stiff.  He would remain that way for some time.

Because he had Freaked Out.

Chlorine smiled.  She had now proved the potency of her panties.

Then she remembered Nimby, who was still hanging by the branch.  She hastily got out from under.  “You may drop down now,” she called sweetly.  “I have disposed of the trash.”

He dropped, smiling.  He understood.  That was one of the things she liked about him.  He was strong, silent, helpful, and understanding.

They walked past the freaked-out male and into the forest toward Sending's lair.  Nimby knew the way without hesitation, of course, despite the darkness.  When she stumbled, he took her hand and led her securely along firmfooted paths.  They didn't need to worry about dangers, because Nimby avoided them automatically, and knew how to deal with them anyway.  Chlorine realized that she felt safe with him, and she liked that, too.

Soon they came to the dastardly device's cave.  Nimby walked right in without fear, so she did too.  But it was even darker here, until Nimby found a glow fungus that served as a lamp.  He just always could put his hands on the right thing.

In the central chamber the two halves of the reverse wood ball still lay on the floor, nullifying Sending.  Nimby picked them up and put them together again.  He handed her the ball.

“But—” she said, almost dropping it in her nervousness.  Then she realized that it was safe, as long as she kept it together.  So she held it excruciatingly carefully.  It wouldn't do her harm anyway, because if it reversed her magic, she would be able to sweeten water instead of poisoning it.  But she wondered how Nimby himself was able to handle reverse wood without getting reversed.