Yon Ill Wind (15 page)

That was fine with David.

They made it to the enchanted section.  The water level was dropping; the river seemed to be chasing after the goblins.  Maybe it was getting back at them for damming it.  David hoped they all drowned.

Mom was waiting where she had been, only now the water had receded, and her tears were slowing.  Dad ran up to her and embraced her.  It had been one close call!

Then Mom thought of something else.  “Where's Sean?”

“He must've been caught by the water, when the dam blew,” David said, horrified.  “He just wanted to get that dam, so as to save you.  Dad.”

“Oh, no.” Dad looked down to where the scattered remnants of the dam lay.  There was no sign of Sean.

“Jim—” Mom said in That Tone.

“I'll find him,” Dad said.  He ran back toward the dam.

Then David saw Chlorine.  “Karen won't come with us,” she said, her eyes still red but dry.  “She—what happened here?” She stared at the diminished water, astonished.

“Sean blew the-dam,” David said.  “But now we don't know where he is.”

“Oh, he's all right,” Chlorine said.  “Nimby gave me a message to say to you.  That Sean is on his way.  I didn't know what it meant.”

“He must have been washed away by the water,” David said.  “So now he has to make his way back from wherever he got washed to.  But he's okay.”

“That must be it,” Mom agreed, evidently relieved.

“Now, what's this business with Karen?”

“She's been deceived by wraiths,” Chlorine explained.

“Now she thinks we're wraiths, and she won't come with us.  Nimby doesn't know what to do, because he doesn't really understand minds, just things.”

“We must go to her immediately,” Mom said, freshly alarmed.

“I think I'd better wait here for Sean,” Dad said.  “He may be physically sound, but he'll need a familiar face to orient on.”

“But I'm not sure you're physically sound,” Mom protested.  “Those goblins—”

“Didn't hurt me,” Dad said.

Mom turned to Nimby.  “True?”

Nimby shook his head.

“That's what I thought,” Mom said severely.  “You must be bruised and bitten all over.  Let me see.”

Dad hesitated, and David realized that Dad probably was battered, but didn't want the children to know.  “I'll go fetch Karen,” he said.  “She knows me too.  It's my fault she got lost.”

“It wasn't your fault,” Mom said, and he was glad to be officially exonerated again.  “But thank you for helping.”

“Let's go,” David said.  Indeed, Nimby, knowing his mind, was already starting to move, and Chlorine with him.

The landscape became weird, even compared to what it had been.  The trees seemed to be growing sideways or even upside down, and there were blobs of water floating haphazardly.  But in a moment he realized that they were moving toward the three people.  “What are those puddles doing out of their beds?” David asked, ducking to avoid one that came too close.

Nimby's pad and pencil appeared.  He wrote a note.

Chlorine took it and read it.  “ 'Ponds come.' “

“Pond scum?” David asked, making a face.  Unfortunately, the face detached from his head and floated away, distorting grotesquely.  He clapped his hands to the front of his head and found that his regular face was still there; it was only a copy that was drifting away.

“Ponds come to us,” she said carefully.  “I think they're getting confused as the magic dust increases.  We may all suffer from its madness as we get farther into the storm.”

“I think I'm suffering from it now,” David said, as the face copy collided with a pond and made a splash.

They encountered a man whose face was odd in another way:  the lower part of it was transparent.  David could see his tongue and teeth inside, and they were also transparent.

The man never paused to greet them; he hurried on to wherever he was going.

“That man had a glass jaw,” Chlorine said, surprised.

“I never saw one before.”

Neither had David.  But there were stranger things ahead.

One of the floating ponds had settled into a glade, and there were creatures in and by it, facing away from him.

One had the head and arms of a human being, the forelegs and torso of a horse, and the tail of a fish.  Another had the head of a person, the wings of a vulture, and the body of a serpent.

David knew he shouldn't pause, but his curiosity overcame him.  “Say, if it's okay to ask—what are you?” he called to the two creatures.

Both turned to face him, presenting full pairs of breasts.

“We are double-crossbreeds,” the one with the fishtail said.  “I am a cenmaid, centaur/mermaid for long; my friend's a harga, or harpy/naga.”

“But—but—I'm a child!” David said stupidly, staring at their fronts.  “I'm not supposed to see stuff like that.”

Which was just exactly what he hadn't wanted to say; the madness had fouled him up.

The two lovely faces smiled.  “Don't be concerned,” the harga said.  “We are merely dreams brought to you by our friend the cenmare, a centaur/night mare crossbreed, 'Bye.” Both waved, and vanished.

David stared at the space they had vacated.  “Did—did you see that?” he asked Chlorine.

“See what?” she asked.

So it was true:  he had dreamed of those strange crossbreeds.  Well, at least it meant he would not be in trouble for violating that Adult Conspiracy.  But he wished he could have seen more of those creatures before they vanished.

They reappeared.  “You do?” the cenmaid inquired, inhaling.

 “Gee,” David said.  “Can you be my dreams any time I want?”

“Certainly, while the madness lasts.” the harga replied, brushing out her hair and feathers.  “Just desire to see us.”

“I will!” he promised.  “But right now I have to go rescue my little sister.”

“You had better hurry,” the cenmaid said.  “She's about to get in trouble.” The creatures faded.

David wasn't sure how much he should trust dreams, but he took the advice to heart.  “Can we hurry?” he asked, breaking into a run.

“Certainly,” Chlorine agreed, pacing him.  “Say, it's nice being healthy; I couldn't keep this up in my natural state.”

David glanced at her.  “You would drive Sean crazy, if he saw yon running.”

“Really?  I must be sure to run for him.”

They found Karen perched in a fork of an enormous tree.  The tree's leaves looked like swatches of cloth, and its twigs looked like pins and needles.  Its trunk seemed to be made of overlaying patches.

“She must be all right,” Chlorine said.  “That's a treemend-ous.”

“I can see it's very big,” David said.  “But she could still be in trouble.

“No, a tree-men-dous mends anyone who climbs into it,” Chlorine explained.  “There's one not far from my home village.  She chose the right tree to get into.”

“But she won't be safe much longer,” he-said, remembering the dream-creatures' warning.

“How can you know that?” Chlorine asked.  But then she saw Nimby's nod.  “I guess you do know, though.  But she wouldn't come for us.  She thought we were wraiths.”

“What's a wraith?” David asked.

“An apparition, usually of a living person.  But wraiths aren't real; they may just lead someone into mischief.  Because the victim thinks the person is real, and means well, while the wraith doesn't mean well.  Usually we don't see many wraiths, but the madness must be giving them more power.”

David had learned enough about Xanth to be cautious.

Things weren't always what they appeared to be.  Suppose this wasn't Karen, but a wraith trying to fool him into thinking he was saving her?  He had seen a scary movie once about a child who got stolen by a vampire or something, who had left an animated doll in her place, and the parents never knew she was gone.  The only way to tell the difference was that the doll had perfect manners.

“Try calling her,” he said.

Chlorine did.  “Karen!  Karen, it's Chlorine.  Please come with us.”

“Get away from me!” Karen screamed, climbing higher in the tree.  “You're just another fake!”

“At least she had the wits to realize she -was being fooled,” Chlorine murmured.  “But now she can't tell when she's not being fooled.”

“I can fix that,” David said.  He approached the tree.

“Karen!  Get down from there before Mom catches you and grounds you for a week, you stupid little snot!”

“David!” she cried gladly.  She came down so fast she almost tumbled.  She leaped for him and plastered a sloppy kiss on his cheek.

“Stop slobbering on me, you brat,” he said.  “We've got to get back to Mom in a hurry.”

“Yes, brother dear,” she said.  Then she aimed a kick at his shin, but he got his leg out of the way in time.  He knew her ways, as she knew his.

“Sean blew the dam and got washed away,” he said.

“But Nimby says he's okay.  But there's danger coming here, so we've got to move.”

“Are these really Chlorine and Nimby?” she asked.

“Chlorine was trying to make me go into a dark cave.  I heard something big breathing in there.  I grabbed her hand, and there wasn't any.  That's when I freaked out.”

“Well, grab her hand now,” he said.

She hesitated, but Chlorine extended her hand, so Karen took it.  Her face lighted when she found that the hand was solid.  “I'm sorry I doubted you—if it was you, last time,” she said.

“It was me last time,” Chlorine agreed.  “But you did the right thing, waiting until you were sure.  But how were you sure it was David, and not another wraith?”

“The wraiths seemed nice,” she said.  “David's never nice unless he has to be.”

Suddenly David stopped.  “The pets!” he exclaimed.

“Woofer and Tweeter were with you.  Where are they?”

“I sent them to fetch you,” Karen said.  “Isn't that how you found me?”

“No.  They never reached us.”

They stared at each other, horrified.

Midrange stretched and stood as he saw David return.  Karen was with him, so that had worked out.  But where were Woofer and Tweeter?

David rushed up to him.  “Midrange, we've got a problem.  Nimby says Sean will be back here in twenty minutes, and they'll have to take off then, or the madness will make it impossible to reach Imp Erial tonight.  So we'll have to go.  But Nimby can't tell where the other pets are, because something is hiding them.  There are phantoms of hundreds of dogs and birds looking just like them, and Nimby can see them all, but he can't tell which ones are the right ones.

Not without going to them, and that would take too long, because the chances of finding the right ones in time are too small.  But he says he can rescue them if he knows which ones they are.  He found two pieces of reverse wood—do you know what that is?  Well, neither do I.  But he thinks it will help.  If we can find them in time.  Do you think you could find them?”

Midrange was insulted.  Of course he could find them, if he chose to.  It was just a matter of sniffing them out.

“But I gotta tell you,” David rushed on.  “If you look for them, and get lost yourself, then we'll have to go without you too.  And Nimby thinks there's danger, because whatever is making all those phantom dogs and birds must be trying to hide them from us, and it will try to stop you from reaching them—or it will try to capture you too.  So if you don't want to do it—”

Midrange knew that if he didn't do it, David would think it was because he lacked courage.  He didn't care for that indignity.  So he would rescue the mutt and bird.  He had known them for some time, after all.  He got ready to sniff them out.

“But Nimby does have a way to help you—by doing the same thing back to it that it's doing to us.  Making copies.  He found some catatonic you can take that'll make you spin off hundreds of copies of yourself.  You'll be a real copycat!  Then the thing won't know which one is the real you, and you should be able to get through without getting caught yourself.  We think Woofer and Tweeter are caught in a cave, because the wraiths were trying to get Karen to go into a cave, and if she had, she'd probably also be caught now.  So maybe look for a cave—and watch out.  If you can find them within fifteen minutes, even if you do get caught yourself.  Nimby can come and rescue you in his dragon form.  He thinks there's nothing around here that can handle a dragon that size.  Then he'll bring you back and we'll catch the RV and get on our way.

Okay?”

Midrange nodded.  This was a challenge worthy of his feline mettle.

“Okay, here's the tonic,” David said, giving him a capsule with awful-colored ick sloshing inside it.  “Each time you make a sudden move, another copy will spin off and look and act just like you, but it's really illusion.  It'll go seek one of the dog or bird illusions, and when they meet, the two will go poof, canceling each other out.  Understand?”

Midrange nodded.  He took the ugly capsule in his mouth and swallowed it.  The thing was weird, but not incapacitating.  Then he bounded off, sniffing the air for Woofer's canine doggy scent.  He couldn't sniff out a trail as well as Woofer could, but he could do well enough.  There was also Tweeter's smell, good enough to eat; that would help.

It might take him a few minutes to orient, but he would get them.

He bounded in the direction he had last seen Woofer.

That trail was still fresh, as it had been only an hour or so.  He could see the dog's claw marks in the ground, and smell the canine odor.  Not only was it doggy, it was specifically Woofer.  No problem there.

But what about Tweeter?  The bird had been riding on Karen's head, so the scent was very faint, and overridden by Karen's much stronger human traces.  But that should improve when Tweeter left his associate and went with Woofer.  Each of them had a pet human child; they had settled on that long ago, to make sure no child felt neglected.  Because children were generally more fun than adult humans; they were more active, got into more mischief, and spent more time in the dirt.  So Tweeter's pet was Karen, the smallest going to the smallest.  Midrange had David in the middle, and Woofer tried to keep Sean out of trouble.  If Woofer had been with Sean, Sean probably wouldn't have gotten swept away by the dam burst.

Then he had muffed the rescue of Karen.  Woofer just wasn't the most competent dog extant.  But of course, no dog was really smart.  That was why cats existed:  there needed to be a gifted animal in every family, to keep it functional.  But when a family scattered to different locales, it was hard to keep up with all its parts.  That was why there was so much trouble now.  Humans were dense about the need to remain close enough together for proper supervision.

It was time to test the phantom cat phenomenon.  Midrange jerked to the side—and an image of himself fissioned off and bounded straight ahead.  It made no sound and had no odor, but it did look solid, and it ran well.  It even maneuvered around a tree.  It would do to fool the dull senses of a human observer.  Maybe even an animal observer, from a distance.

He jerked again, and another nondescript cat peeled off, running in the direction he had been going.  So he could steer them in any direction.  Good enough.

Suddenly he saw a dog.  Woofer!  He bounded toward the canine—then realized there was no smell.  This was a clone, one of the phantom dogs put out to confuse the issue.

So Midrange jerked aside, sending a clone cat ahead to intercept the thing.  He hid behind a rock, to watch the encounter.  This just might be interesting.

The clone cat leaped right into the phantom dog—and both vanished in a puff of nothing.  The two illusions had destroyed each other.  Exactly as they were supposed to.

Very well.  He would send more cats after more dogs.

The more phantom dogs he eliminated, the easier it would be to locate the real one.  He jerked and dodged frantically, sending clones bounding off in all directions, a veritable horde.  Then he resumed the sniffing of Woofer's trail.

He saw a bird.  Tweeter!  But even as he spied it, so did a clone.  The phantom cat leaped, catching the bird in his mouth—and disappeared.  Two more images had canceled each other out.

It served the cat clone right, Midrange thought.  The point was to rescue Tweeter, not to consume him.  Birds were fair prey, but Tweeter was a friend.  Friends did not eat friends.

He came to a large tree with funny leaves.  The smells of animal, bird, and child were strong here.  So this was where Karen had fled the phantoms.  So it should be possible to follow her trail back to the cave she had not entered.  But would that be the one where Woofer was?

Surely the dog couldn't be that stupid, to enter the same cave they had avoided before.  So that was probably not the one.  There just wasn't time to check every prospect, five minutes were already gone.

So Midrange sniffed out Woofer's fresher scent, going in another direction.  Now Tweeter's smell joined it, still faint, but clearer than before, because he had been flying beside the dog, low to the ground.  Every so often he perched on a stalk or twig, and the scent became complete at those places.  This was a much easier trail to follow.

But Midrange did not forget caution.  The hound and bird had walked blithely into some kind of trap, and the cat was not eager to walk into the same trap.  So once he was sure of the trail, he left it, looping around, slinking behind rocks and brush and trees as if stalking prey.  Every so often he let fly another clone, to further confuse any possible watcher.  Then he would sneak up on the trail and verify it in passing, as if not noticing it.  It would be hard for any observer to tell exactly what he was up to.

He came to a deep crevice.  The trail came to the brink and followed along it.  Presumably the dog had found a place to cross it.  The thing was too wide to jump.  So how was Midrange to cross it, without slavishly following the exact route of the hound?  Which he didn't want to do, because that might be right where the trap had sprung.

He sniffed around, and found some flowers.  What good were flowers?  So he went on.  Then something snarled at him from the brush.  Midrange leaped onto the nearest tree trunk.

He looked down, and saw that it was only a little doglike creature.  “What are you?” he demanded, annoyed because he had been affrighted while off-guard.

“I'm a snarl,” the little canine growled.  “Can't you tell, pussy?”

This creature was not endearing himself.  For reasons he didn't care to go into, Midrange did not like to be called pussy, especially in that tone.  “No, I can't tell; you look more like a yelp to me,” he retorted.  “Where did you come from—a sick tangle tree?”

“Not quite.  I was brushed out of a girl's hair.  But she dropped me and left before I could adopt her as a pet.  I'm not pleased.  That's why I remain in a snarl.” He glanced at Midrange.  “I don't suppose you're looking for a proprietor?”

Midrange opened his mouth to say something truly catty, but caught himself.  This creature just might be useful.  It obviously wasn't a phantom.  “I may be looking for a companion,” he said carefully.  “If he's useful.”

“Useful?”

“I'm looking for a big dog and a small bird.  Have you seen any such?”

“Actually I did, about two barks ago.  They were following a wraith bleep.”

“A wraith what?”

“The humans have this stupid Adult Conspiracy that forbids them to say the name of a female dog in the presence of a child.  Since I derive from the snarled hair of a child, I, too, am bound by it.  Idiotic, I know, but there it is.”

Oh.  “You did see them?  Which, way did they go?”

“That way.” The snarl pointed his pug nose.  “The wraith was one extremely fetching bleep, I must say; if she'd been of my species, I would have followed her too.

She even smelled right.  The bird protested, but couldn't stop him.”

Which seemed to be one difference between a wraith and a phantom.  The wraiths could emulate creatures completely, except for their solidity.  So Woofer, the big male idiot, had followed her, and Tweeter had had to go along lest they be separated.

Midrange decided to trust Snarl a bit, mainly because it might help him get on with his mission.  “I need to cross this cleft, but I can't see a way.  Do you know a way?”

 “Certainly.  Just use one of those daisies there.” The nose pointed at the flowers.

“What good are they?”

“They're upsy-daisies.  They grow into ladders to help you up, if you pick them and invoke them by saying their name.”

Well, now.  Midrange went to the flowers and picked one.  He carried it to the edge of the crack and set it down.

“Upsy-daisy,” he said.

The flower expanded.  Its petals became spokes.  They formed into a growing ladder.  It was just long enough to bridge the chasm.

“Help me put this across, “Midrange said.

“I shall.” Snarl took part of the ladder in his teeth, and Midrange pawed at the end, and they managed to swing it awkwardly around until it fell across the gap.  Then they walked somewhat gingerly across the rungs.  Midrange, of course, had excellent feline balance, but Snarl didn't.  He almost fell, but fortunately his legs poked through inside the ladder, and he was able to scramble back up.

They started walking along the far side, in the direction Woofer had gone.  “Let me know if you pick up the trail,” Midrange said.  He could pick it up himself, but wanted to see whether the animal was playing straight with him.  One of the smarter qualities of cats, of the multitude of good ones, was not to trust anyone too readily.

Every so often Midrange flung off another clone cat, though nobody seemed to be spying on them.  “That's a nice magic talent you have,” Snarl said admiringly.  Midrange didn't bother to clarify how he had come by it; the little canine had no need to know.

Soon they came to a narrowing of the chasm, and sure enough, the trail resumed there.  “Got it!” Snarl said.

Good enough; the canine was playing it straight.  “Let's loop around and intercept it farther along,” Midrange said, not explaining why.  Snarl agreed; he seemed to be quite companionable, now that he had a companion.  He probably would have made that little girl a good associate.

Then Midrange thought of something.  “I'm new to Xanth,” he confessed.  “From Mundania, actually.  How is it that we animals learned to talk?”

“Everyone talks, in Xanth,” Snarl explained.  “Because of the magic.  And the magic's getting much stronger now, for some reason.”

“Because of the storm blowing magic dust in,” Midrange said.  “But soon it will be too strong, and there will be madness.”

“You have learned a lot,” Snarl said admiringly.

“Not enough.  We animals always could understand most of what the human beings were saying, and we understood each other, in a general way.  But since coming into Xanth, we have all grown much smarter, and now we can talk fluently with each other and with other creatures. We couldn't do that before.”

“It's because of the Xanth common languages,” Snarl said.  “I have heard, though it surely isn't true, that in Mundania humans speak all different languages, and can't understand each other at all.  The same must be true for animals and plants.  In Xanth, all humans speak the human language, and all animals of a certain type speak their own language.  That is, all mammals have one language, and all reptiles have one, and all insects have one, and so on.

There, are dialects, so that the way I speak isn't quite the same as you, and we'd both have trouble with a unicorn, and centaurs don't even bother with mammalian; they prefer to speak human.  It has nuances that others don't, because humans are always talking.  You surely had trouble understanding the bird.”

“I did,” Midrange agreed.  “If I hadn't known him well, he would have been unintelligible.  So it was because he spoke avian.”

“Yes.  Insects are harder yet, and plants—it's not worth bothering.  Dragons aren't too bad, though they have a barbarous accent.  But it's not safe to get close to a dragon anyway.”

This was very interesting; it clarified what had been happening to them.  But this business about dragons—”Are there many dragons around?”