Yon Ill Wind (9 page)

“We, do, at home,” Jim said.  “But we can't risk it in a strange place.  Woofer would range the neighborhood, getting his nose into everything; Midrange would be chasing wild birds up trees; and Tweeter would fly into a bush and get hopelessly lost.  We have been the route.”

Nimby wrote another note.  They will not do any of these things.  The magic is enhancing them; they understand that you mean well by them, and they will neither misbehave nor flee you.

“How can you know this?” Jim asked skeptically.

“This isn't a physical barricade, it's the nature of animals.”

Another note.  I know thoughts too.  It is part of my talent.  I must know what is, so I can enable Chlorine safely to be what she wishes to be.

That seemed to be true.  “Look, Nimby, I don't want to get in trouble with my children.  I'll ask them, and if they agree to let the pets go, we'll do it.”

The children were already approaching, eating pies they had picked.  Karen's hair was blowing across her face and into her pie, but she didn't seem to mind.  Jim explained the situation.

“Try Woofer first,” Sean suggested.  “If he behaves, try Midrange.”

So they freed the big dog.  Woofer bounded out of the RV, went to a nearby tree, watered it, sniffed the air, and returned to the group, tail wagging.  He was remarkably well behaved.

“You're not going to chase all over the region?” Jim asked the dog, surprised.

“Woof!” It was a plain negation.

David went to his pet.  “Okay, Midrange.  Your turn.”

He freed the cat.

Midrange went to a sandy spot and did his business.

Then he, too, sniffed the air, and returned to the group.

So Karen freed Tweeter.  The parakeet flew up to the nearest branch of a tree, dropped a dropping, and flew back to Karen's shoulder.  The increasing wind made the bird's flight somewhat erratic, but he adjusted rapidly.

Jim shook his head, bemused.  “Very well, pets.  You have five minutes to do whatever you want to.  Then return here, because we'll be on our way again.”

Now the three creatures scattered.  Woofer zoomed through the bushes, avidly exploring.  Tweeter circled into the sky and disappeared.  Midrange climbed a nut and bolt tree and was soon lost in the foliage.  The three children followed them, as well as they were able.

“That's more like normal,” Jim said.  But he was impressed by the way the animals had waited for his word before acting on their impulses.  If they actually returned on the schedule he had set, he would know that Nimby's judgment in such respects could be trusted.

Mary emerged, carrying a basket of comestibles.  The wind did its best to blow her dress around, but she remained in control.  She stacked the bag in the RV, then looked around.  “Where are the pets?”

“Nimby said they would behave if we let them go, so we did.”

She turned a quizzical glance on him, but did not comment.

Tweeter reappeared.  He landed on Nimby's shoulder, tweeting at a great rate.  Nimby wrote another note and gave it to Jim.  The storm has stirred up enormous birds who may be hostile.  They are coming this way.

Jim shrugged.  “How big can a bird get?”

A huge shadow crossed the glade.  They looked up to spot its source.  It looked like an airplane, but it was silent.

A big glider perhaps.

Then it screeched.  It was a bird—as big as an airliner.

Such a creature could probably pick up the whole RV in its talons, if it tried.

“Jim—” Mary said urgently.

“Right.” He raised his voice.  “Kids!  Pets!  Time's up!”

The summoned ones forged in from all directions.  Chlorine, too reappeared, looking devastatingly lovely in her windblown state.  But the boys for once weren't looking at her.  “Get a load of that big bird!” David cried, pausing to stare.

“Get in,” Mary said tightly.

They piled in.  So did Jim, after checking to make sure all was in order.  Nimby had told him that bad creatures would frighten the children; instead it seemed to be Mary who was frightened, perhaps with good reason.

He started the motor and moved onto the access road.

There was no troll booth here, fortunately.  They were able to proceed without delay.

The children peered out the windows at the monstrous bird.  “That's a roc,” Sean said, awed.  “Fantasy's biggest bird.  I never thought I'd see one.”

Tweeter chirped.  Jim glanced at Nimby, who wrote a note.  He says that isn't all.

 “What's that?” Karen cried.

“A dragon,” Sean said.  He wasn't joking; his tone was serious.

Now a huge and grotesque shape loomed in the sky before the vehicle.  It was, indeed, a dragon.  Karen screamed.

Jim looked at Nimby.  “This road is protected?”

Nimby hesitated, and nodded.

“But there's a 'but,' “ Jim said.  “Let's have the qualifier.”

The note came.  The winged monsters can not attack anything on the enchanted path directly.  But they can pretend to.  Do not be swayed.

“And children can be frightened,” Jim said.  Nimby nodded.

“Yuck!” David cried.  Karen screamed again.  And this time Mary made a stifled exclamation of alarm.

Jim looked from one window to the next, all around, craning his neck, but didn't see anything.  “This is an enchanted road,” he reminded them.  “Nothing can hurt us while we're on it.”

“Physically,” Mary responded tightly.

“What did you see?”

“It was a harpy,” Chlorine said.  “They are very ugly and nasty.”

“A human-headed bird?” Jim asked.  “What's so bad about one more fantastic—”

Then a filthy thing appeared before the windshield.  It looked like a thoroughly soiled vulture, with the head and breasts of an old woman.  “Ghaaa!” the dirty bird screeched before veering up over the vehicle.  Her legs had glistening discolored talons.  Jim, fearing a collision, and revolted by the sight, almost veered onto the shoulder of the road.  Now he understood what had been bothering the others.

“Can this house move faster?” Chlorine asked.

“Yes.  But with these crosswinds I haven't wanted to push it.”

 “I think you had better,” the woman said, concerned.

“The harpies may not be able to touch us directly, but if they think to lay any eggs on us—“

“Messy,” Sean remarked.

“Not exactly.  Their eggs explode.  They might do damage.”

Explosive eggs?  Jim decided to accelerate, regardless of the wind.

There was an angry screech outside, as the harpies realized that their target was escaping.  “They're coming after us, Dad!” David exclaimed.  “And the dragons too.”

Jim goosed the gas.  As if to join in the fray, the wind increased, becoming more gusty.  The vehicle swerved slightly, as Jim fought to keep it steady.  He didn't like this kind of driving.  Neither did the others; the kids were now uncomfortably silent.

But now they slowly forged ahead of the winged monsters.  Jim was even able to ease up on the gas a bit.  He appreciated Nimby's warning about the children being frightened.  If they hadn't paused at the rest stop, they might have stayed safely ahead of the dirty birds.  But that stop had been necessary.  All the same, he hoped not to stop again if he could avoid it.

Nimby wrote another note.  Jim took it and propped it before him so he could read it without taking his eyes off the road.  Soon you will come to the Gap Chasm, where you will have to stop for the ferry.  It is protected, but perhaps not comfortable for you.

“What's this gap chasm?” Jim asked between his clenched teeth.

“Oh, that's a big chasm that crosses Xanth,” Chlorine answered.  “It once had a forget spell on it, so no one ever remembered it was there, but that started disintegrating during the Time of No Magic, and now most folk do remember it.  It's said to be very impressive.”

“You haven't seen it?” Jim asked.  He was learning not to take the features of Xanth terrain lightly.

“Not exactly,” she said.  “I never traveled far from my home village.  Until this adventure, which is proving to be a great one.  I did cross it, but by night; I really didn't get a good look into it.  But of course, I had heard about the Gap Chasm.  There's a big green dragon in the bottom who steams and eats any creatures it catches there.”

“Nimby says we'll take the ferry.”

“Then maybe we won't have to get past the Gap Dragon,” Chlorine said, relieved.  “I don't know about the ferry, but if Nimby says it, it must be so.”

But not comfortable for them, Jim remembered.  He had better prepare the children.  “Kids, we may have another difficult passage ahead.  So brace yourselves.” There was a moderate groan from behind.  Obviously this magic land was losing some of its appeal.

Nimby pointed ahead.  Jim didn't see anything, but wasn't about to ignore the signal.  He slowed the RV.  It was just as well, for in a moment he saw that the road ended abruptly at the brink of an awesome cleft in the ground.  It seemed impossibly wide and deep.  The last thing he would have wanted to do was zoom at speed off the lip into the depths.

Mary watched the dreadful chasm approach.  Aspects of this strange realm had first been unbelievable, then disturbing; now they were becoming downright alarming.  But she didn't want to express her burgeoning concern, lest it upset the children.

They had already been frightened enough by the terrible flying creatures.  Oh, how she hoped it didn't get any worse!

There was a small house at the brink.  Another troll stood there.  Jim fished in his pocket for more change.  “We're taking the ferry,” he told the troll, as if this were routine.

She had to give him due credit:  he had excellent poise in this most trying situation.  And it was working; the creature accepted the coins and nodded.

But there was no boat, just the yawning deeps of the chasm.  “Is it safe to get out here?” he asked Nimby.  The odd man nodded.  Mary knew that Nimby's help was invaluable, but she was privately afraid of him; there was something so utterly different about him as to be unclassifiable.  She far preferred Chlorine, who, though not in her ordinary form, which was downright plain, was at least completely human.

But perhaps Jim and the children had some caution, for they elected to remain inside the RV, just in case the monsters should return.  They watched as a cloud detached itself from a cloud bank above the chasm and drifted in their direction.  It seemed to have a kind of foggy keel below.

Oh, no!  Could this actually be their ferry?  Mary kept her dark suspicion to herself, hoping it wasn't true.

But it was true.  The cloud came to dock at the brink of the cliff, so that the road now led onto it.  It looked solid, but how could that possibly be?

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 “blow 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 immediately 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.