“Meove llefft.”
David bore left, following the course of the flooded river. Now that he was closer to it, his eyes were tearing.
He couldn't stop them, so he just kept blinking to clear his vision. Soon he came to Mom, who was watching Sean tie a framework fashioned of driftwood together. Mom was holding the cherry branch somewhat nervously, and tears were streaming down her face. His own eyes had been flowing, but he had ignored it after the first few minutes.
Beyond them the rushing river had pooled into a small lake, with what looked like a dam fashioned from brush and junk.
David hesitated to give her his news; she might drop the branch. So he sort of slid by it. “Mom, there's a problem. Where's Dad?”
It didn't work. “What problem?” she demanded sharply, turning her swollen eyes on him.
David wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “I, ah, Karen went out, and—”
“Out alone?” Her voice was getting shrill. That was not a good sign.
“Woofer and Tweeter went with her.”
“Jim!” she called imperatively.
There was no answer. But then Chlorine and Nimby appeared. “He's spying on the goblins,” Chlorine reported through her bleary visage. Her eyes looked as if they were trying to cry, but not succeeding, so they were turning red instead. It probably felt like dry heaves. “If he calls, they'll know he's there. Can we take a message?”
Mom considered. “No. Maybe you can help another way. Karen is lost. Could you find her?”
“Oh, sure. Nimby will know where she is.” She turned to Nimby, who alone had no trouble with his eyes. “She's all right?”
Nimby nodded.
“Then let's get there in a hurry. You turn dragon, and I'll run along behind you. She knows what we look like, so she won't be frightened.”
Nimby became the weird dragon, and they ran off in Karen's direction.
Mom turned to David. “You let her go?” There was ice in her tone despite the tears in her eyes. He wondered whether Tier tears were freezing into sleet as they fell.
“She wouldn't stop for me. Mom,” he pleaded tearfully. “She heard this cow bell, and she just went.”
Mom nodded. “That is the way she is,” she agreed, sniffing. Then she smiled, tightly. So she wasn't blaming him. Nevertheless, David felt guilty.
“David, I don't want to go anywhere while I'm guarding the cherries,” Mom said in a moment. “Would you go carefully and see if you can see what your father is doing?”
“ Sure.” He walked in the direction Chlorine and Nimby had come from. Soon he saw Dad—surrounded by ugly , little manlike creatures with big heads and big feet: goblins. They had spied him, and he was probably off the enchanted path, because they were closing in purposefully.
“Dad!” David cried. “Watch out!” But it was too late.
The goblins burst across the last little distance, and swarmed all over Dad. He tried to fight them off, but he was a physics prof, not a warrior, and they were many. In a moment they had him helpless.
David knew he had to do something, but he didn't know what. The goblins were carrying Dad away. There were too many of them for anyone to fight. Dad should never have gone beyond the limit of the enchanted path. Just as Karen shouldn't have. Did the goblins have her too?
Nimby could have warned him—but Nimby was off fetching Karen. Because David hadn't stopped her from leaving the RV.
“Mom! Sean!” he cried, running back. “They've got Dad!”
“Oh!” Mom exclaimed, looking faint.
“One chance,” Sean said grimly as he blinked away his tears. “This notation's too slow. Give me the bombs.”
Mom handed the branch of cherries to him. Her eyes were staring as well as tearing; David had never seen her so distraught.
“See if you can distract the goblins from me,” Sean said. He walked purposefully toward the dam.
“From you? Not from Dad?”
“Right. Do it.”
Sean seemed to know what he was doing, so David did his best. He started running and screaming and waving his arms. “Hey, goblins!” he cried. “You can't catch meeee!”
“David!” Dad called, spying him despite his own distress. Parents were like that. “Get back on the enchanted path!”
But David didn't. He was terrified, but he had to distract the goblins, and this was the only way he knew how. So he made an Adult Conspiracy gesture at them and ran on.
It probably looked like a mere bleep to them, but it did stir them up. They charged after him.
Unfortunately, goblins turned out to be swifter runners than he had figured. They could run faster than he could!
He dodged and ducked, but soon they caught up and laid their grubby hands on him. Instead of rescuing Dad, he had gotten himself caught. Some help he had been.
“What possessed you to do that?” Dad demanded as the goblins hauled them together.
“Silence, morsels!” the goblin chief cried, wiping his eyes. “Or we'll cook you slow instead of fast.”
Cook them? Suddenly David realized just how awful a fate they faced. All because he had let Karen get loose, then had taken Nimby away from helping Dad, so that Dad got caught by the goblins. David deserved to be cooked!
There was a deafening BOOM behind them, followed by a great rushing sound.
“The dam!” a goblin screamed. “The dam went!”
Sean had blown the dam! He must have gotten close while the goblins were distracted, and thrown the cherry branch on it. Now the water was bursting out and down— and the goblins were below it. The great frothing surge of it was already bearing down on them. They let man and boy go, and fled.
“Run for the road, son!” Dad cried.
For sure! They ran together through the flying froth, while the goblins ran the opposite way, fleeing the water.
The goblins weren't being smart; they had panicked. Or maybe the water represented more of a danger to them, because they were so much shorter than human beings.
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,” M
om 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?”
br /> “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.
Chapter 8
CATATONIC
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.