Demons Don't Dream Part 6

Kim was glad to get out of the Ogre fen Ogre Fen. She knew herself to be a smart, and therefore unattractive, girl, but it had taken all her ingenuity to outsmart those stupid ogres. She wanted no more such encounters. This was after all supposed to be a fun game, wasn't it?

"So which is the fastest way to the Good Magician's castle?" she asked Jenny Elf.

"Well, it's south, but we shouldn't go that way."

"What do you mean, shouldn't go that way? Why not?" Kim remembered how Jenny had warned her against messing with the ogres, and in retrospect she appreciated that advice more than she had in futurespect. Henceforth she would pay more heed to the advice of her Companion.

"Because of the elements."

Kim remembered. "Oh, yes! Those five regions in north-central Xanth. Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and the Void, going from south to north."

"What?" Jenny asked, seeming confused.

"What's the problem?"

"That's not the order."

"Of course it is! I read it in the Visual Guide. There's a map."

"Well, the guide is wrong. Is it a Mundane book?"

"Of course."

"That explains it Mundanes don't know about magic."

"Well, I've have to see it to believe it We should be closest to the Void, and south of that is Earth."

"You're right about the Void, but the next one down is Water. The Water Wing, in the shape of-"

"I get i.t It has little waves on it, too. And Fire is in the shape of flames, and Air is like a puffy cloud. Everything's punnish, in Xanth. Okay, let's circle the Void and go see the Water Wing."

"You don't really believe me," Jenny said.

"I didn't say that." But it was true. Kim didn't believe that the map was wrong. It was in print, after all.

"Maybe we should go east to the Sane Jaunts River," Jenny said. "The birds are there, but they won't bother us if we didn't do anything to annoy them."

"Why should birds bother us anyway? We can just shoo them away."

"Some of them are big birds."

"Big birds? Is that another pun?"

"I don't think so. I mean rocs."

"Rocks?-oh, rocs! The hugest of birds! Like Roxanne Roc, in the Nameless Castle."

"Yes. We don't want to bother any rocs. They know we're in the game, but still, we shouldn't take chances."

They had taken chances in the Ogre Fen, and almost gotten wiped out. Kim could have sworn that her hair got wet when the brute dunked her screen. That was her imagination, of course, but it had been uncomfortable at the time. She didn't want anyone turning her screen upside down again, either; she had felt giddy as the whole landscape inverted and swung around. Just how an ogre could grab her screen she didn't know; it was just the picture of Xanth she saw. But funny things always did happen in Xanth.

"Okay, let's go by the birds," Kim agreed. "I'd like to see a roc, anyway, as long as I'm on this tour. From a distance." She no longer wanted to see any monsters up close, because now she was afraid that one of them would smash her screen, or eat it, and it would go dark and exclude her from the game. She wasn't yet ready to quit the game, by a long shot.

They found a path that went east. These were not enchanted paths, Kim understood, because those were reserved for regular Xanth folk. It was just the game's excuse to force the Players into out-of-the-way places where they could get into trouble, if Players were allowed to use the enchanted paths, there wouldn't be much challenge. Anyway, it was surely more interesting along the bypaths.

In due course they came to the bank of the river. Kim was disappointed; she had hoped that it would be a real fantasy spectacle, but it was just a meandering stream, similar to any in her own realm. However, the plants along its banks were interesting; she recognized a pillow bush and a pie tree. If only she could eat a meal here, and stay the night, so she could use these things! But it was her fate as a mere Player never to actually be in the Land of Xanth. She hated that limitation.

Some plants were unfamiliar. They looked like hollow straws sticking up from the foliage. "What are those?" she asked.

Jenny looked. "Oh-straw-berries. We use them to drink tsoda pop."

Strawberries. She should have known.

Farther along there was an odd stick on the ground. Jenny picked it up, holding it so that Kim could see it. She discovered a red pair of lips on its surface. "Don't tell me, let me guess," she said. "Lipstick!"

"Of course," Jenny agreed. "Some girls use them to make their lips stick to things more firmly. I've never been quite sure why, unless they're afraid their kisses are too short."

The ground shuddered. Something large and solid was coming. Jenny hid behind a tree, and Kim peeked past her shoulder.

It was an animal with a bovine body, horns, and a weird wide-mouthed head. It sniffed the air, smelled Jenny, and looked at her with its bulging eye. "Croak!" it bellowed.

"Croak?" Kim asked.

"Well, it's a bull-frog," Jenny explained.

The creature leaped into the river, made an enormous splash, and disappeared under the surface. It was a bullfrog all right.

They walked on along the river. Kim half hoped she would see a water dragon, but she didn't. It was like Mundania: the creatures were there, but seldom to be seen. Maybe it was just as well.

"Are we south of the Void yet?" she asked after a bit. "Maybe we should cut back west now."

"I don't think so," Jenny said cautiously.

"Oh, come on; let's go see." Kim found a path and forged along it.

"No, no!" Jenny cried. "It's not safe!"

But Kim was being willful again. She knew it but also knew that she was tired of walking down the river. She wanted to see the Water Wing-or the Earth region, to verify that her map was correct.

She came abruptly to a line of demarcation. The trees of the forest were reasonably normal-and then there just didn't seem to be anything much. It wasn't exactly a wall or precipice; she just didn't seem to be able to focus on it How odd!

"Stop!" Jenny cried from behind. "Don't take one step farther!"

"Oh, don't be silly," Kim retorted. "I can't take a step here anyway; I'm just looking at it through the screen." Except that she wasn't exactly looking, she was just well, trying to look.

So she moved forward. Suddenly there was a scene ahead: a gently sloping valley, with lush green turf and pretty little flowers of several colors sprinkled throughout. Pleasant puffy clouds drifted above, delicate columns of mist hovered over a lake, and the air was sweet. "Oh, this is nice!" she breathed.

Then the view jerked and turned sideways. The terrain spun horrendously. "Hey!" Kim cried. "What's happening?'

There was a change of scene. Suddenly there was Jenny Elf, her arms spread wide, hands clenching on something. The lovely landscape was gone.

"What are you doing?" Kim demanded. "I saw a really beautiful place, and I want to go back there."

"I'm hauling you out of the Void," Jenny said. "You're lucky I managed to catch hold of the back of your screen. Otherwise you would have been gone. Because nothing can cross out of the Void, once it is past that boundary."

"But I was just looking!" Kim protested. "I'm immune to getting caught, because it's just a picture, to me."

"Well, your screen was getting caught!" Jenny retorted. "And what happens to your role as a Player if you fall into the Void?"

That sobered her. "I lose," she admitted. "And I have to start over again, with the hazards at least as bad. That's no good. Even if I do lose, the first time, I want to get just as far as I can, so I know what to look out for next time. Thank you, Jenny; you did the right thing."

"That's all right," Jenny said. But she looked shaken, and Kim knew why: it was now twice that Kim had willfully gotten them into trouble.

"I'll try to behave better, really I will," Kim said contritely. But Jenny still looked wary.

They returned to the river and moved on south. Suddenly a huge bird took off ahead of them, perhaps startled by their approach. "That must be a roc!" Kim exclaimed. But then she saw that it had four legs with hooves, and the head of a horse. "No-it's a winged horse!"

"An alicorn," Jenny said. "I never saw one of those before!"

"A what?"

"An alicorn. A winged unicorn. There aren't many, but sometimes a griffin and a unicorn will meet at a love spring-well, I don't know what happens, but then we have alicorns."

"What do you mean, you don't know what happens?" Kim said sharply. "I read about how you were inducted into the Adult Conspiracy at age fourteen, and you must be fifteen now. Only a year younger than me-and I know what happens."

"You're Mundane," Jenny said. "Mundanes have funny ideas about things. But for the purpose of this game, I'm still a child, with the limits of a child. Professor Grossclout decreed it. So I can't know anything that's in the Adult Conspiracy, even if I might know out in real Xanth."

"Why should you be defined as a child?" Kim asked, surprised.

"So I will have the innocence of a child. That's an advantage, in some situations. I may be able to help you get somewhere, or do something, that an adult couldn't"

"That would be interesting," Kim said. "Very well: we won't discuss how alicorns come to be. They get delivered by the stork, or whatever."

"Yes."

They moved on. Kim never did get to see a water dragon, but she realized that there was plenty of Xanth to go yet.

It was clouding up. A storm was building in the sky. "Oops," Jenny said. "Try to stay out of sight. That looks like Fracto."

"Who?"

"c.u.mulo Fracto Nimbus, the meanest of clouds. He always blows an ill wind. If there's anything interesting happening, he comes and wets on it."

"Oh, pooh," Kim said, intrigued. Now she remembered Fracto, with contempt. "I'm not afraid of any cloud!"

A vague face formed on the cloud. "I heeeard thaaaht!" Fracto puffed.

"So what? You're just a bag of wind."

"Ixnay," Jenny was murmuring. "Don't work him up."

But it was too late. The angry cloud was swelling up like a toad with gas, looming over them. Already the first cold gusts of wind were coming, bearing the first fat drops of water. Fracto's mouth pursed and blew out a much fiercer wind, containing flecks of sleet. They were in for it.

"I'm sorry," Kim said, realizing that this could indeed be mischief. "I guess my big mouth has gotten us into another."

"It's all right," Jenny said without overwhelming enthusiasm. "Let's see if we can maybe get up in a tree, so we don't get flooded out."

"It's not all right," Kim said. "You've been trying to do your job. But I'm just-well, I know I'm no beauty, so I try to make up by being smart with my mouth. It's a defensive mechanism. Only sometimes I'm doing it when I shouldn't Like right now. And making it tough for you. So I'll try to watch it Okay?"

"Okay," Jenny agreed, with an appreciative smile.

Meanwhile, they had Fracto's rage to deal with. Jenny cast about for a suitable tree to climb, but all the trees in view were wrong in separate ways. Some had tall, featureless trunks not easy to climb, some had thorns, and many were too small. "Sammy, find us a close tree to climb," Jenny said to the little cat.

Sammy bounded off. "Wait for me!" Jenny cried, chasing after him. Kim followed. Her screen just seemed to go wherever she looked, exactly as if she were really in the scene, and much of the time she forgot that she wasn't. Kim heard a faint eerie music. It was enchanting, but too distant to be intelligible.

They crossed an open area. Kim saw a giant spreading acorn tree beyond, easy to climb and sit in. The cat knew exactly where to go. But Fracto chose this moment to strike with all his fell force. A solid-well, liquid-sheet of rain came down to smite them. The water smacked into her screen, blurring it; she wished she had winds.h.i.+eld wipers.

"Sammy!" Jenny cried, diving down. The cat had gotten swept into a sudden gully washer which was taking advantage of a gully, and he was getting washed away to the side. Jenny grabbed him, but then fell into the gully herself.

More rain poured down, sluicing across the scene. Kim grabbed a handkerchief and tried to wipe her screen, but her hand just pa.s.sed through it without effect How silly, to think she could affect a scene within the computer game!

"KiM!" Jenny cried, being carried along by the rus.h.i.+ng water. She was flailing, but couldn't get free, because she was holding the cat with one hand and water was coursing in from all around.

There was a rumble of satisfaction from Fracto. He was succeeding in messing them up.

Kim followed along, unable to do anything to help. She felt really guilty, because she was the one who had set off the irascible cloud, while Jenny was the one paying the consequence. "Jenny!" she called, knowing it was pointless.

But maybe she could help. She could go ahead and see if mere were any good places to get free of the gullywash. Then she could tell Jenny, and she could get out of there.

But the storm just seemed to get worse, and she just couldn't see anything other than bits of overhanging branches and more water flowing in. All the world seemed to be water!

Again she heard that eerie music. It was as if someone were singing, and playing a stringed instrument It was ethereally lovely, but still too faint to understand. The gullywash became a stream, and the stream a river. Kim tried to find a sh.o.r.e, or even a shallow place, but the Kites had retreated, leaving a broad expanse of water, with still more rain pelting down to trouble the surface. Jenny was being carried into a veritable sea!

Then she heard a sinister rus.h.i.+ng sound. That sounded like-like a waterfall! Right ahead.

She hurried back to find Jenny, who was doing her best to stay afloat with the cat Her hair and clothing were matted, and her spectacles were thoroughly fogged. "You have to get out!" Kim cried. "There's a waterfall!"

Sammy perked an ear. He meowed. Jenny smiled. "He says it's only a cataract," she reported.

A cataract Naturally the cat wouldn't worry about that But it remained a serious matter for a person. "You don't want to go through that," Kim said. "Who knows where it leads!"

"I don't have much choice," Jenny said sadly. "I'm sorry I wasn't a better Companion for you. But if you move on south, maybe you can still find the Good Magician and go on with me game."

"Don't be silly," Kim said. "I'm not going to leave you here." But how could she do anything useful?

The sound of the cataract swelled. Within it seemed to be that eerie melody, not quite drowned out tantalizingly familiar. As if mere were a damsel with a dulcimer somewhere beyond. But between her and them was the cras.h.i.+ng water. Kim floated along, trying desperately to think of something, and failing. The rain was still pouring, and a stiff wind was boosting Jenny right on toward the disaster.

Maybe it wasn't so bad. Maybe it was just a little bit of rapids, and then the water would drain off to the side and Jenny could scramble out onsh.o.r.e. Kim went ahead to take one more look.