“Why, I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose if they removed their clothes and ran—”
“I mean the animal magnetism. Do real women get hot when a faun touches them?”
“Well, we don’t chase real women. They know too much, and they aren’t as well shaped. In addition, they often regard fauns as misshapen, and are repelled. So there’s no way of knowing—”
“So they tend to avoid contact. But if it should happen, what then?” She dropped to the ground and put her arms around him. Her upper section pressed into his chest in two firm places, and her lower section pressed his fur in one firmer place. “Is this sufficient contact?” Then her eyes grew large and dreamy. “Oh, it’s true! Suddenly I want to get much closer to you.” The three places increased their pressures.
Forrest struggled to disengage. “You’re not a woman, you’re a demoness. If I tried to celebrate with you, you would just dissolve into laughing gas.”
“True,” she agreed, dissolving into puffs of vapor that spelled out HA HA. “But nevertheless also true that your touch inspires a certain lust. So I shall make sure not to tease you from too close.”
“Thank you.” It had been all he could do to stop from trying what she had been teasing him to try.
“Unless I change my smoky mind,” she said, reforming into something luscious.
He went to the two trees, and tucked a disk into the lowest cleft of branches of each. The trees did not seem to change, but he trusted Com Passion. They should be all right. He fetched a spare pair of sandals, just in case, and put them in his knapsack. “Now I am ready to go. Which way?”
“South. He lives below the Gap Chasm.”
“The what?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t remember! The forget spell wore off it years ago.”
“It isn’t that I don’t remember. It’s that I never knew.”
“Oh. Well, it’s a huge cleft in the ground that is impossible to penetrate unless you know how.” She pursed her lips as she spoke the words “cleft” and “penetrate,” as if suggesting something naughty.
Forrest had no idea what nuance she was nuancing, so he ignored it. “Will you tell me how?”
“Of course not. That’s more of a favor than I owe Mentia.”
He had thought as much. Still, limited guidance was better than none. Maybe he would be able to ask along the way.
2
CHALLENGES
Forrest stood at the brink of a monstrous abyss that was yawning despite the fullness of day. So this was the dreaded Gap Chasm! It was indeed impressive.
“So how do you suppose you will get across this impassable abyss?” Demoness Sire inquired.
“I suppose I will have to find a place to climb down into it, cross the bottom, and find a place to climb up the other side. We fauns are good climbers, because of our hoofs.”
“Ixnay, faun. The Gap Dragon ranges the depths, eagerly waiting for idiots like you to try just that. He’s a six legged steamer, and chomps first and asks questions later.”
“Well, maybe I can find a bridge across it. There must be one somewhere.”
“Several. One’s invisible. Another is one way.”
“One way?”
“Whichever way you’re going, it’s going the other way.”
Forrest had encountered a one way path in his day, so he knew how that worked. “Well, I’ll keep looking. There must be some way that folk cross it.”
“There is.”
“And you won’t tell me.”
“That would be a smidgen over my half favor.”
So he walked west along the brink. After an indefinite time, he heard a scrambling in the brush. He turned toward it, holding his sandalwood staff protectively before him. It would kick anything that turned out to be dangerous, giving him time to run to safety.
In two and a half moments he spied an odd animal caught in briers. It looked like a male werewolf, but couldn’t be, because that would have changed to human form to pick away the prickly vines. As it was, the poor creature could hardly move; and more briers were reaching for it. They would soon coil completely around and prick it to death so they could feed on its blood.
Forrest didn’t like briers much, so he decided to help the animal. “Could you use some assistance?” he called.
The not-werewolf looked at him. “Arf!”
Forrest wasn’t sharp on animal languages, but he had a nodding acquaintance. That sounded like canine for “yes.” So he used his staff to clear a path through the briers. They whipped around, striking at it, trying to stab it, but couldn’t hurt the wood. The staff gave them increasingly hefty kicks in return, until they gave up.
He reached the animal, and carefully pried the briers from its body. Soon it was free. “Now follow me out, and stay close to my staff,” he said. The animal nodded.
When they were safely out of the brier patch, Forrest turned to the animal. “If you don’t mind my asking, who are you, and what kind of a creature are you? You seem like only half of a werewolf.”
“Woof!” the animal replied.
“So your name is Woof.”
“Oh, come on, you’ll never get it that way,” Sire said, appearing beside them. “You are wasting my time.”
Forrest hardly spared her a dark glance. “You could save your time by telling me how to cross the Gap Chasm expediently.”
She ignored that. “His name is Woofer. He’s a Mundane dog.”
Forrest was amazed. “A Mundane creature! I thought they were extinct.”
“No such luck. There’s more than a slew of them north ofXanth.” She faded out in disgust.
Forrest looked again at the dog. “Well, Woofer, I’ve never met a real dog before. So you’re Mundane! I suppose that means you are of limited intel—um, that you don’t care to talk much. So I’ll phrase yes/no questions. One bark for yes, two for no. Okay?”
“Woof!”
“Are you friendly?”
“Woof.”
“Do you have friends?”
“Woof.”
“Are you lost?”
“Woof.”
“Can you find your way back to them on your own?”
“Woof woof.”
“Then I had better help you find them. I’m not making much progress on my own anyway.”
“Disgusting,” Sire said somewhere in air. “I’ll never get through this chore.”
“You know what you can do about it, demoness.”
“That would be unethical. Half a favor is half a favor, not half a whit more.”
“Where did you last see your friends?” Forrest asked Woofer.
The dog bounded to the brink of the chasm and pointed upward with its nose.
“Over the pit? Can they fly?”
“Woof.”
“And you couldn’t keep up with them, running on the ground. Or maybe you could, until you got into that brier patch. And they didn’t realize you were caught, so don’t know where you are.”
“Woof.”
“But maybe when they realize that you’re gone, they’ll fly back the way they came, and find you.”
“Woof!” Woofer agreed, brightening.
“So let’s wait here until they come. Then you’ll be all right. Xanth isn’t very friendly to a Mundane creature alone.”
“Woof.”
So they waited by the brink, gazing out, watching for flying creatures, while D. Sire faded in and out, her disgust expanding to its farthest boundaries. Forrest took some balm from his knapsack and spread it on Woofer’s scratches and punctures, and they started healing.
Then Forrest’s sharp eyes spied two things in the air. They might be birds, but they didn’t fly like birds. “Maybe that’s them,” he suggested.
“Woof!” Woofer wagged his tail.
So Forrest waved violently, to attract their attention. The shapes veered toward him. Soon they showed up as two humanoid figures: a young man and a young elfin woman. She had wings, while he flew without wings. Ev
idently they were a couple.
Woofer bounded across to meet them as they landed on the brink. The young man hugged him, and the young woman kissed his nose. Then they turned to Forrest.
“Hello,” he said, feeling abruptly awkward.
“Woof!” Woofer said, returning to him.
“You helped Woofer?” the man asked.
“He was caught in the brier patch.”
“Woof.”
“But those scratch something awful,” the woman said. “He’s unscratched.”
“Woof woof.”
“I used some balm,” Forrest said. Then, still feeling awkward: “I’m glad he’s safe now. I’ll be on my way.”
“Woof woof.”
“But you are safe now, aren’t you?” Forrest said to him. “These are your friends.”
“I think he means that you helped him, so he wants to help you back,” the man said. “Let’s introduce ourselves. I’m Sean Mundane.”
“I’m Willow Elf,” the woman said.
“I’m Forrest Faun.”
“And so you won’t have to wonder, I really am Mundane,” Sean said. “I visited Xanth, and fell in love with Willow. We—well, we ran afoul of a love spring without realizing it at first. She’s large for an elf and flies because she associates with a very large winged elm tree. I returned to Mundania with her, and she found it a really weird place. Then when we came back to Xanth, suddenly I could fly. We don’t know what happened, but it’s great. Now we’re just enjoying it. We hope to marry soon.”
Forrest realized that they were as curious about him as he was about them. “I’m an ordinary tree faun. My neighboring tree lost its faun, so I am in search of a replacement faun for it, so it won’t die or become—” He hesitated.
“Mundane,” Sean said. “No affront; I know how awful that seems to Xanthians. Of course you don’t want that to happen.”
“So I’m going to ask the Good Magician for advice,” Forrest continued. “Though I understand that he charges a year’s Service for an answer, and I have to be back with my tree in a month. And I can’t even find my way across this crevasse. So I’m not sure exactly what I’m doing.”
Sean and Willow exchanged a Significant Glance. Then she spoke. “You helped Woofer, and we appreciate that. So maybe we can do you a return favor. I don’t know how to solve your dilemma, but I think I know who might be able to help. I’ll call her.” She lifted a whistle she wore around her neck and blew on it.
In barely a moment there was a crashing in the brush as something huge charged through it. “A dragon!” Forrest exclaimed. “You had better fly out over the gulf.”
“A dragon ass,” she corrected him. “Friendly.”
Indeed, now he saw that the dragon was striped and had the head of a donkey. It was forging through the brier patch, not even noticing the briers. And on it was a young woman half a shade lovelier than D. Sire in her seduction mode.
“Disgusting!” the demoness agreed, forming beside him.
The dragon ass came to a stop before them. “We heard your whistle,” the beautiful woman said to Willow. “How may we help?”
“This nice faun helped get Woofer out of trouble,” Willow explained. “We’d like to help him in return.”
The woman turned her graceful gaze on Forrest. “I am Chlorine. My talent is poisoning water. This is my friend Nimby, whom I love more than anything in Xanth, and to whom I owe everything. His talent is making the two of us anything we want to be. We travel around, looking for good deeds to do. Who are you, and why are you worthy of a favor?”
“I am Forrest Faun, and I’m not worthy of any favor.”
Chlorine glanced at Willow. “That’s not true,” the winged elf girl said. “He’s trying to find a replacement faun for a tree that will fade or die otherwise. He needs to get across the Gap Chasm so he can go ask the Good Magician’s advice. And he doesn’t have time to serve a year there, because the tree will last only a month.”
The woman’s gaze returned to Forrest. “I gather you’re not the smartest faun in Xanth, but you mean well.”
That summed it up nicely. “Yes.”
“So we’ll help you,” she decided. “Won’t we, Nimby?” She leaned forward to hug the dragon’s neck. They seemed to be the perfect combination: a beauty and a beast.
Nimby nodded yes. “I love you,” Chlorine said, kissing his neck. “You gave me back my tear, and so much more.”
Forrest gathered that there was more to that relationship than showed on the surface. Why should such a lovely woman care so much about such an ugly dragon? But that was the same kind of question others asked about fauns and nymphs with trees: why did they bind themselves to such unresponsive plants? There was no point trying to explain the wonders of the relationships to those who lacked any basis for understanding. Maybe Nimby protected Chlorine from other dragons, though he did not look very formidable. Maybe he just had a nice personality. Or maybe it was that great beauty was attracted to great ugliness.
Chlorine straightened up and looked at Forrest again. “Get on behind me,” she said. “We’ll take you across the Gap.”
Forrest looked at the daunting vast void. “But how?”
She smiled, and the local scenery brightened. “You’ll see.”
So Forrest walked to the side of the dragon, and scrambled up on its back. But his perch seemed insecure. The dragon’s small wings were right behind him, and Chlorine’s remarkably contoured backside was before him.
“Put your arms around me,” Chlorine said. “And hold on tight.”
“But—”
She reached back and caught his hands, drawing them forward until his hands touched across her small waist. He clasped his fingers together. His face was almost in her flowing hair, which smelled of new mown hay.
The dragon strode forward, directly toward the brink. His head dropped down into the chasm, disappearing from view. Then the main body crossed the edge, turning at right angles. They were going down into the gap!
The sky seemed to whirl as they changed orientation. Terrified, Forrest clung tightly to Chlorine, expecting to plummet into the awful depths of the chasm.
But it didn’t happen. He found himself jammed tight against Chlorine’s shapely back, his thighs against her full hips, his face buried in her fragrant hair—and they weren’t falling. Instead they were moving down the vertical wall, as if it were level. Chlorine’s hair wasn’t even out of place.
“Bye,” Sean said, waving. He was floating beside them, but angled differently, because to him down was still down.
“It was nice meeting you,” Willow said. She was flying similarly, her wings beating with a gentle cadence. Forrest felt the wind from them, and knew it was going down, but it was like a level breeze to him. He was anchored to the wall, and it had become his ground. The experience was weird, but not unpleasant.
“You can relax a little,” Chlorine said.
Oh. He loosened the near death grip he had on her body. It really wasn’t necessary.
Sean and Willow waved again, then flew away. There was a woof as Woofer followed them, running along the land beyond the chasm.
“Thank you!” Forrest called to them, remembering his manners. “And you,” he added to the woman and dragon.
“It’s just what we do,” Chlorine replied. “Nimby and I have such good fortune that we try to share some of it with others, when the others are deserving.”
“But I’m just trying to help a neighboring tree. That’s not anything special.”
“It’s something generous and nice,” she said. “The fact that you don’t regard it as worthy of comment suggests that you are decent and modest. That’s the type of person we like to help.”
He was getting quite curious about her and the dragon. “If I may ask—”
“What’s with the damsel and dragon ass?” she finished for him. “I’m just a somewhat dull, plain, indifferent girl with not much of a talent. But Nimby makes me beautiful and smart and healthy
and nice, and now we live in the Nameless Castle where a full staff of servants takes care of our every whim. Once a month we go out around Xanth, looking for good deeds to do, in this minor way sharing our happiness with others.”
“The dragon lives in a castle?”
She laughed, causing his linked hands on her soft but firm belly to shake. “Oh, Nimby changes to handsome princely man form for that, because he wouldn’t fit very well in some of the passages in dragon form. And while I love him in any form, when it comes to sharing my bed, I prefer him as a man. More cuddly, you know.”
She thought the dragon could become a man? That had to be delusion, because everyone knew that each creature had only one magic talent, and Nimby’s was walking along vertical walls as if they were horizontal. So she must have a fond imagination. Her notions about her own body and personality were the opposite: she credited the dragon with making her beautiful, when it was plain that she was stunningly lovely on her own. Still, she and the dragon were doing him a favor, so it would be best not to disparage her notions. “That’s nice,” he said.
“You don’t believe me, do you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. But you don’t.”
“I mean no offense. But yes, I don’t quite believe you.”
“That’s good. I don’t want to be believed. Can you believe that Nimby and I are married, and that we spent a month on the far side of the moon, reveling in honey?”
“I do find that similarly hard to believe.”
“Wonderful! I could probably tell you anything, and you wouldn’t believe it. So I can be completely candid.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that.”
“If I told you who Nimby really is, you truly wouldn’t believe me. So I won’t bother.”
Maybe that was just as well. The farther they rode, the less sense Chlorine was making.
As they continued down, D. Sire reappeared. “I trust you are having fun?” she inquired, glancing significantly at his hands.
“Yes, this is a remarkable experience,” Forrest agreed. “I have never seen such a chasm before.”
“I meant hanging on to Miss Water Poison, who looks good enough to drink.”
Chlorine glanced at her. “Haven’t you got some better errand elsewhere, demoness?”
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