“But they’re out of reach.”
“Not if you jump.”
“But I’m too heavy for you! My weight would pull you off the ledge.”
“I don’t think so.”
He wanted to argue further, but the caterpillar was marching toward him at a fair rate. Its bug eyes stared at him like fixed headlights. It obviously was not about to brake to a halt. He had either to take Nya’s hands, or retreat back down the path.
He gambled that he was not putting both their lives in peril and leaped up to barely catch her hands in his. Their fingers linked. Then with surprising strength she pulled her body back upwards, hauling him along. “Lift your legs to clear it,” she said.
He managed to draw his legs up under him, against the cliff, so that he was hunched just clear of the caterpillar. Slowly it passed beneath him, segment after segment.
He looked up. Nya’s eyes were closed as she concentrated on holding him. Her breasts were pressed flat against the rock. She was doing her utmost. If her tail got tired and let go …
He let that thought trail into an ellipsis, not caring to complete it.
“I can’t hold on much longer,” she said.
That was the dreaded completion. “If you can’t, then let me go,” he said. “At least you can save yourself.”
She didn’t answer. But he could feel her body and his nudging lower as her overworked tail stretched. She wasn’t fooling about her limit.
Finally the last segment of the caterpillar passed. “It’s gone!” he gasped, “I’ll drop down now.”
“I’m slipping! Catch me!” Indeed, she was sliding down the cliff.
So he did not let go; he was already dropping. His feet touched the ledge and he sank down on it, drawing her into him upside down. They landed in a tangle, her breasts mashing his face. She was panting with her effort. He wasn’t sure where the rest of her was, so he just lay there holding her tight.
“We’re safe now,” she said. “Thank you.” Then after a pause. “You can let go now.”
Oh. He released her and she drew her torso off his face. “I was afraid you’d fall,” he said somewhat lamely.
“You were right. Half of me was over the edge. But you held me in place until I could wriggle back onto the path. I really appreciate that.”
What could he say? So he said nothing. He knew that later, when he wasn’t afraid of them falling, he would remember that moment. He only hoped she had not been aware of it.
“Of course if I had gone on over, I could have changed form and flown to safety.”
Oh, again. “I forgot.” So his extra effort had been unnecessary.
“There’s no need to blush.”
Was she teasing him? “It was awkward.”
“I won’t say a word to Feline.”
“Thank you.”
They resumed travel up the mountain.
The mountain narrowed, until the ledge was barely a nick in the slope. He could see it spiraling on up above him and on down below him. There was no longer room to walk; he had to spread himself flat, like Nya, and crawl. At least that gave the wind less body area to tug at.
It was cold; the wind carried fog, and the fog wet down the rock, and the water froze into ice. It was awful, but he kept crawling onward, though his fingers got numb. What else was there to do?
Then the worst happened: his numb fingers slipped, and his body slid over the brink and down the steep slope. “Hapless!” Nya cried. But she acted: when he came to the marginally larger ridge on the loop of the spiral just below him, the dragon thumped up against him, pushing him against the mountain, and he was able to get hold again. Then the naga formed just ahead of him. “I guess this is too tough a climb for you,” she said with regret. “We’d better go back down.”
“No.” He resumed crawling upward.
When he got to the same place as before, he saw that the ridge had filled with ice, so that it was no longer a ridge. That explained his slip. He conjured a metal flute and used it to pound the ice, cracking it and prying it out so that the crevice was there again. Then he crawled on.
Only to slip again as his numb fingers no longer responded to his mental urging. He was back down at the next loop, getting braced again by the dragon.
The naga reappeared. “Hapless—”
“No!” He jammed on.
And fell a third time. And a fourth. He simply could no longer hold on. The day was getting late, and half the peak was in frigid shadow, but still he crawled, or tried to. It might be a useless effort, but he couldn’t quit.
“Hapless—”
“No!”
“Hapless, listen to me!”
“No!”
She faced him, her forepart downward on the ledge. Then she kissed him.
There were no hearts or special effects, but the shock of it jolted him out of his fog. What could possibly be on her serpentine mind? “What?”
“I had to get your attention, so I copied Feline. Hapless, I figured out another way to help you.”
“Not if it means giving up the Quest.”
“You are positively oink-headed! But here it is: I’ll turn dragon, and blast out the ice and warm the stone. In fact I can use the Fire Totem to heat the rock itself. I should have thought of it before. That should enable you to crawl on without falling. Just so you know what I’m doing.”
Oh.
“Okay,” he agreed weakly. It wasn’t just his hands that had gone numb; the rest of his body was following, and his mind too.
She turned dragon, then made a strafing run. She blasted out fire, and the ice fairly steamed into the air and was quickly blown away. Then she returned to Naga state and slid ahead of him.
He advanced to that spot—and it was warm! What a blessing! “Thanks!” he gasped, and moved on, invigorated. With warm rock, there was no freezing, and his numbness was fading.
They completed two more loops. But night was hurrying in, and they still weren’t close enough to the griffin’s nest. Worse, the griffin came in to the nest, and spied them. He gave a screech of outrage and dived at them.
“Oh, bleep!” Nya swore. She shifted to dragon mode and launched out to intercept the griffin.
“No!” Hapless cried. The griffin was substantially larger than the dragon, and though it did not have fire, it did have those six heads. It circled the dragon, seeking an opening. Nya was doomed.
The dragon blasted out a stream of fire, but the savvy griffin dodged it and dived in while Nya was taking a new breath. He caught the dragon’s torso in his front talons and held it there as the heads oriented for a lethal sextet of bites.
Music sounded, coming rapidly closer. Accordion music. Quin was catching up to them, in an awkward intermediate stage, playing his instrument as he flew.
“Squawk!” the Griffin said, and it sounded like “Bleep!” He tried to dodge out of the way, but his talons were caught on Nya’s body and he couldn’t get clear in time.
Quin flew right up to the caught griffin, his music louder and clearer. The griffin froze in place, mesmerized.
Then Quin crashed right into them, and the griffin disappeared. He had become the Air Totem, and Quin had hold of it.
Quin and Nya fell apart, righting themselves in air. They had made it! They had won. No thanks to Hapless, who hadn’t made it to the nest in time.
Nya landed on the ledge above him and became the naga, and Quin landed below him and became the harpy. “It worked!” she said. “You brought the griffin to you! And gave Quin the magic he needed to play the enchantment.”
Hapless stayed in place, realizing that it was true. He had been so focused on reaching the nest that he had forgotten that it was Quin and the griffin he needed to be close to, and the two of them had come to him. It had worked after all.
“Now let’s abate this wind,” Quinn said. And the wind died. He controlled it, because he possessed the Totem of Air.
After that it was relatively easy. Nya and Quin helped him slide down the
mountain, catching him when he lost control, and before long they were all at the foot.
The two centaurs hailed them, and Feline pounced on Hapless, hugging him pleasantly close and kissing him. With that support he finally let go and fell into the sleep of utter fatigue.
Chapter 11:
Merge
Hapless woke with his head on Feline’s lap while she stroked his hair. He could hardly imagine a nicer way to be. “Oh, Feline,” he said. “You didn’t need to stay up just to cushion me.”
“Oh, I did,” Hapless,” she said. “You had quite a time. Nya told me all about it. How you got frostbit but wouldn’t give up, then got the Air Griffin to attack you so Quin could catch him and get the totem. You’re such a hero!”
“I’m no such thing,” he protested. “I’d have fallen off the mountain if Nya hadn’t helped me.”
“She said you kept her from falling off herself.”
He hoped Nya had kept her promise not to tell one detail of that situation. “She exaggerates. She could have turned dragon and saved herself.”
“Yes. But you were too frozen to think of that. So you had the right motive.”
So it seemed the naga hadn’t told. “At any rate, Quin and Nya did it. They’re the heroes.”
“You all are.” She leaned down to kiss him.
He remained uneasy. Nya hadn’t told, but did that make it right? “I—there’s something I have to tell you, Feline.”
“Don’t worry; your fingers will recover. Nya used her Totem to heat them through to the core so they wouldn’t be lost. She said you just kept plowing on regardless of the pain.”
“Not that. It’s that when we fell, after the caterpillar passed, she, well, she fell on top of me. Her—front landed on my face.”
“Her bare bosom?”
“Yes.” Would she explode? Would she dump him on the ground?
“Now that’s interesting.”
“That it happened?”
“That you told me.”
“I wanted to keep it secret, but that would have been deceiving you by omission, so that would have been a lie.”
“And you couldn’t lie.”
“I couldn’t,” he agreed.
“How do you expect me to react, Hapless?”
“I don’t know whether you’ll be angry, mad or furious. Whatever it is, I guess I deserve it.”
“Why?”
“You don’t like me looking. This was touching. That must be worse.”
“Because you appreciated her curves?”
“Yes.”
“More than you appreciate mine?”
How bad was this going to get? It was treacherous territory. “No. But she was bare.”
“That makes a difference?”
“Yes,” he said, fearing her explosion.
“Close your eyes.”
Was she going to hit him? He closed his eyes, trying not to flinch.
She shifted around some, then took his head in her hands and lifted it to a new location. She pressed him firmly down. Her lap had been soft; this was softer.
Then he heard her heartbeat. She had set his head against her bared breasts! She was matching what Nya had inadvertently done, and raised the ante.
“I—” he said, overwhelmed.
“Whose curves are better?”
“Yours! And I love you for them. I wish I didn’t, but I do.”
“I suppose it can’t be helped. Now go back to sleep; you are not yet fully recovered.”
He didn’t try to argue. Instead he relaxed and went back to sleep.
He woke again hours later, much improved. Feline was no longer with him; instead it was Nya keeping an eye on him. “You told her,” she said when she saw that he was awake.
“I had to.” Yet Feline had left him in Nya’s care! That suggested that she trusted him—and Nya.
“I think she loves you.”
“I think I love her too.”
“You make a good couple.”
“Maybe we could. But there’s those other women I am fated to meet. That complicates things.”
“It does,” she agreed. “I have to say I hope those others don’t work out.”
“I hope so too.”
“Are you ready to travel?”
“I think so.”
“But first you need to eat.” She brought him a pie. He had not realized that there were pie plants in this area.
“There aren’t,” she said. “Faro cased the area and brought some back.”
So low-level flying was still a good deal swifter than walking. He ate the pie appreciatively; now that he was rested, he was famished.
Feline returned. “Ah, I see you’re up. We should get moving. There are two more Totems to get, and they are not close by. We’ll have to portage around the Regions to get to Water.”
Evidently they had done some organizing while he was out of it. That was fine with him. He had not sought the burden of leadership, and exercised it only because he seemed to have no choice. “Water,” he agreed.
“The day’s half gone, but we can camp in Xanth proper, to the south. With luck we can avoid the region of flies.”
They had been studying the map, too. “Avoid,” he agreed. “Unless the path takes us that way.”
“We don’t plan to open the box until closer to our destination,” she said seriously. “We feel more comfortable being out of the box for a while.”
“So do I,” he admitted. “The paths show the way, but it’s not always easy.”
“Not always easy at all,” Feline agreed.
They set off, traveling south. Soon they came to the scintillating border and passed through it. Normal Xanth lay beyond. It was a relief to see it, after several days in the Regions.
“We’ll go west around the border of Air, then north past Earth and Fire,” Zed said. “That way we can be reasonably rested and fed before we tackle the Region of Water.”
And the Region of the Void after that, Hapless thought. Water should not be too bad, but he dreaded the deadly mystery of the Void.
Feline cupped her ear. “What’s that?”
“A child,” Faro said. “Crying.”
“We have to help it.”
“We do.”
The two of them set off at a tangent.
Hapless hesitated. “Go with them,” Zed said. “We’ll explore for the best route around the Regions. You can readily find us.” He, Quin, and Nya moved on.
Hapless hurried after the woman and the centaur. In an instant under three moments they found the child. It was a cute five-year-old little girl with curly mouse-brown hair and hazel eyes, standing in a little-girl-sized glade and sobbing.
Feline dropped to her knees and hugged the child. “We’ll help you,” she said. “I’m Feline Catwoman, and this is Faro Centaur. The man in the background is Hapless. Who are you?”
“I’m Myst. I’m lost.”
“Where is your mother?”
“I don’t know!” Myst wailed.
There was half a pause. Then Faro filled it in before it went too far. “You don’t know because you’re lost, of course. We meant to ask who is your mother?”
“Merge.” This was not completely helpful either.
“You wandered away while she was busy?” Feline asked.
“Yes.”
“Tell us about it,” Faro said.
“She was dousing pun virus, and I got bored, and I had this little picture in my mind of a really neat toy. So I looked for it. But I didn’t find it. Instead I got lost.”
Dousing pun virus? Hapless couldn’t make sense of that, so he focused on the simpler part. “What neat toy?”
“A little bonger with five colored planks. And two sticks.”
Hapless did some mental translation. It could be a musical instrument. “Like this?” He conjured a toy Xylophone with five colored panels.
“That’s it!” Myst exclaimed happily. She picked up the two padded sticks and started bonging. She made a prett
y tune. Then she paused, surprised. “It worked!”
“His instruments do,” Feline said. “Hapless, you stay with Myst while we locate her mother. We’ll follow her trail back.” She changed to cat form, sniffed the ground, and bounded off in the direction the smell indicated the child had come from. Faro followed.
Hapless knew nothing about children. But Myst was happily playing the Xylophone again, reveling in her sudden proficiency. She didn’t mind being baby-sat. Feline had left him there because if he left, the music wouldn’t work any more and the child would be disappointed.
So he focused on the confusion as he sat on the ground opposite her. “What was your mother doing, Myst?”
“Dousing pun virus,” the child repeated over the sound of her music.
“Maybe I’m too dull to understand that. What does dousing mean?”
“She splashes her water on.”
Hapless decided to wait for an adult explanation on that. “What is your mother like?”
Myst kept on playing. “She’s great! She lets me do anything I want.”
Just so. “What about your father?”
“Don’t have a father now.”
“Uh—”
“I’m ’dopted.”
Oh. “Your mother adopted you?”
“Yes. She wanted to marry, but there wasn’t a man, so she ’dopted me by herself. That’s fine. But I know she’d like a man, if she found the right one.”
A single mother looking for a husband. That could be a dangerous combination.
Myst paused in her playing. “I like your bonger.”
“It’s called a xylophone.”
“That’s too big a name for me. Can I have it?”
“You can have it for a while. But it won’t last.”
“It won’t?” She threatened to tear up again.
“My talent is to conjure musical instruments. But after a day they fade.”
She looked really disappointed. “That’s sad.”
“But I can conjure another.”
Sunlight reappeared. “Great!” Then she surprised him by jumping up and hugging him and kissing him on the cheek. All he could do was put his arm around her to steady her. He knew nothing about children, but he liked this one.
At that point Feline and Faro returned, with another woman. She had waist-length hair that seemed to be of several colors, and a perfect body. This must be Myst’s mother—and here he was holding her daughter. It was embarrassing.