So they bid a second parting to the imps, who Chlorine suspected were just as glad not to have to entertain the family in the sanctuary cave, and went their ways. The Baldwin family piled into their traveling house and moved off, Mary at the wheel, with Trenita Imp lifted into the seat next to Karen. Chlorine and Nimby saw them off. It looked as if the vehicle were stretching and twisting like a giant caterpillar, but she knew that was just the effect of the madness.
Then she turned to her companion. “So how do we find this windbreaker?” she asked.
He wrote a note: It is one of the possessions of Sending. We must obtain it from the ambitious program.
“Sending! The one we just messed up to rescue the Mundane pets? We're doomed.”
Not if we approach him properly. Sending is rational.
“So how do we approach him?”
We must bring him a suitable gift, and answer his twenty questions.
“Twenty questions? I may be smart, now, thanks to you, but I'm not sure I could answer that many without a stumble. What happens if we miss one?”
We become two of Sending's artifacts.
“Nuh-uh, Nimby! I already have an assignment, and after that I'll have to go home and become dull again. I can't get locked into slavery for some cold machine.”
But I can answer the questions.
“Oh. If you're sure. How do we get there? It was a long fast ride in the Mundane moving house, and I don't think we could walk that far tonight, even without the interference of the madness, not to mention the wind.” For the wind was rising again, blowing her skirt up and about, and trying to tangle her hair enough to form a pack of snarls.
Now that Sean wasn't here to goggle at her legs, she found this inconvenient.
Nimby led the way to the side of the road. “But if we go beyond the enchanted limit, monsters can get us,” she said. But she knew Nimby was aware of that, and wouldn't lead her into danger.
There was a big puff of cotton caught in a tree. No, it was cloudstuff, she realized. Maybe some of the cloud that made the Gap Chasm ferry had detached and drifted here.
Naturally Nimby knew where it was. So she helped him wrestle it out of the snags of the branches and twigs.
But the small cloud wanted to float; they couldn't get it down to the ground. Then Nimby boosted her up onto it.
She fell into its bowl-like surface, her legs in the air, her skirt halfway to her head.
Nimby climbed up on the other side, and rolled into the cloud bowl. He, too, landed mostly upside down, but his trousers left him decorous.
“No fair,” she said. “When I climbed in, I showed my panties to the sky. You didn't show anything. And you probably saw my panties, too.”
Nimby nodded.
“And you're not even embarrassed,” she said severely.
He nodded again.
“Or freaked out.” Now she was annoyed. But then she realized that he was, after all, only a dragon, who didn't see human beings as prospects for anything social. Why should he care about panties?
She got herself in order and poked her head over the edge of the cloud. It was still floating, and the wind was blowing it north along the highway at increasing velocity.
So they were being carried in the direction they wanted to go. Obviously Nimby had known that this would be the case. The trollway was bare, and the trees along the sides of it seemed to be shifting colors, textures, and natures, because of the distortion by the intensifying madness. But they also channeled this gust of wind, so that the cloud was floating straight along the channel, and still gaining speed.
“Well, if we're going to float there, let's get some shielding from the wind,” she said. She took handfuls of the cloudstuff at the rim and shaped it up into higher walls, and then all the way into a dome over them. The material gleamed faintly, lighting the interior with a gentle yellow glow. It was fun to work with cloud, because it was so soft and pliable. “Just the way a woman is supposed to be,” she said as she finished the job. She didn't have quite enough material to make the dome complete, so she fashioned a round window in the top, through which they could view the stars. Now they shared a spherical chamber, and apart from a certain bounciness, it was hard to tell that it was moving.
“Now let's get comfortable,” she said, and shaped two pillows for them. “We can just lie here until we get there.
I'm sure you'll know when that is.”
Nimby nodded.
They floated comfortably along. But the novelty soon wore off. Chlorine would have slept, but it was early in the evening, and anyway, she had snoozed while riding in the traveling house. So she was wide-awake, and becoming bored.
“Nimby, exactly what are you?” she asked. “I mean, I know you're a donkey-headed dragon who knows what's going on, and you can make me beautiful and yourself handsome. But I never heard of any creature like you before. Where did you come from? What did you do all day?”
Nimby's pad and pencil appeared. He wrote a note, and gave it to her. She read it aloud.
“ 'I am a special variety of monster. I contest endlessly with others of my kind for status. We live only for games, whose rules are somewhat arbitrary and stringent. If we violate them, we lose the game. Some games are brief, while some take centuries.' “
She looked up. “Centuries! Your kind must live a long time!” Nimby nodded apologetically.
She resumed reading. “ 'Status is indicated by the delimiters. Ordinary status is parentheses, and the next stage is brackets, and braces, and angles, though for convenience we usually just use parentheses.'“
She broke off again. “You must lead the dullest life imaginable. Nimby! No wonder you came to share an adventure with me. It's bad enough being a donkey-headed dragon, but to be limited, I mean delimited in braces— you poor thing!” She tossed aside the note, which dissolved into a wisp of smoke and disappeared.
Nimby nodded. Oddly, he looked more relieved than limited. But Chlorine remained bored, and it was obvious that Nimby's background was even more boring.
So she made a decision. “Nimby, back when we first got together, I said I would teach you romance, when the right time came. I think that time is now. We have a lot of adventure behind us, and probably a lot more ahead of us, but right now we have none. Since we can't be sure that everything will work out for the best, we might as well make the most of what offers right now.” She glanced at him. “Do you have any idea what I'm talking about?”
Nimby shook his head.
She laughed. “You can read my mind, but you can't understand what I'm thinking, because you're really a striped dragon with a donkey head and you don't understand human emotion. Well, because I know what you are, there can't be anything serious between us, no lasting relationship, just as there couldn't be with young Sean Mundane, though it was fun having him watch me, though the past few hours he ignored me, even when I came perilously close to exposing my—” She severed that unpleasant thought. “And you will surely never break my heart and make me cry.” Though, oddly. Nimby did seem to look sad at that point. “But I do appreciate what you are doing for me. Nimby, and I think it only fair to repay you in my fashion. So I'll show you how to act, as if you were really a handsome human man and not a laughably weird exotic creature. Who knows, the information might come in handy sometime. And maybe it'll be fun.” She glanced at him again. “Do you understand anything yet?”
He shook his head.
“Well, you will find out. I am going to show you how to summon the stork. Too bad it's not for real. But we'll pretend it is. Now I think I have practiced enough with Sean to know what turns a man on. If I can turn you on, I'll know I'm getting there. Are you ready?”
Nimby looked doubtful.
Chlorine smiled. “So we're starting from neutral. Good.
Now, since you can't speak, I shall have to speak both our parts. But you can perform the actions for yourself. It's all like a play put on by the Curse Fiends, and we know we don't mean any of it, but it may be
interesting anyway.
Whatever I say I'll do, I'll do, and whatever I say you'll do, you'll do. Understand?”
Nimby nodded, still dubiously.
“You say with masculine boldness, 'What is your name, pretty girl?' And I flutter my eyelashes demurely and reply, 'Chlorine, handsome man, and what is yours?' And you say, 'I am Nimby. I'm a dashing dragon of a man. I have come to take you away from all this.' And I say, 'Oh, sir, how romantic! I think I will kiss you.' And I do.” She turned to face him, as they lay side by side within the bowl, and kissed him firmly on the mouth. Despite her artificial dialogue, she was getting into it, and the kiss felt real. For one thing. Nimby was kissing her back, so he did understand that much.
“And then you, being a man, have mainly one thing on your mind,” she continued. “And that is summoning the stork. So you say, 'Chlorine, you are very pretty, but I think you would look downright lovely with less on.' And you put your hand on my knee and squeeze, gently.” She took his hand and set it there when he hesitated. “And I say, innocently, 'Oh, do you really think so? Would you like me to show you my panties?' And you are so excited at the prospect that you can't even speak at the moment, so you just nod and smile. And then—”
She broke off, for there was a face at the window, with two big eyes. “What is this!” she cried, annoyed. She threw a cloud-fluff pillow at it. The pillow struck the head and fragmented into smithereens. Then she saw that it wasn't a head, it was a rotating set of blades. As they turned, they formed the face. It was a window fan. Such creatures loved to peer into windows. That really turned them on, so that they spun faster.
Fortunately her thrown pillow had gummed up its works and blinded it. It would peer in her window no more.
“Now, where exactly were we?” she inquired, recovering her bearings, as she unbound her green-gold hair to float in a luxuriant mass around her shoulders. “Oh, yes, the high point of any man's life: to see the color of her panties. (No, we won't mention that you made nice ones for me; that isn't part of this script. You are now in innocent horny male mode). I have just made the supreme offer, and you are gaga at the very notion. So you nod yes, you are hot to see them, for they are surely Xanth's most delightfully naughty sight. And by this time I am hot to show you, knowing that it will probably freak you out, not to mention inflame your passion beyond endurance, requiring me to kiss you and stroke you back to some semblance of sanity. So—”
She loosened her dress and drew it up and over her head.
“Of course, you can't see them yet, because I'm wearing a slip under my dress. I am such an awful tease, as is required by the Big Book of Rules for Adult Conspiracy Indiscretions. However—”
There was a shuddering in the cloud, and the sound of heavy tromping. “What now?” Chlorine demanded, her patience showing a sign of wanting to wander, if not to get lost.
Nimby's pad and pencil appeared. But before he completed his note, the cloud cover shook violently, sending Chlorine tumbling slip over flying hair. Then another face appeared in the window.
“I thought I got rid of you,” she said. But then she realized that this was a different face, huge and fat and vaguely masculine.
“Any ogres here?” the face inquired, licking its thick lips.
Her patience slipped another notch. “Do I look like an ogre?” she demanded, swinging her legs in his direction.
He blinked, but evidently was not sufficiently human to freak out at the sight. “No, you look like a luscious morsel of a damsel girl with pretty good legs.”
He had been doing okay until the last three words. Her last nerve frayed, on the verge of snapping. “Pretty good?” she demanded. “And just what do you consider to be good legs?”
“Why, ogre legs, of course.”
“Ogre legs! Ogre legs!?” she screeched in what might have passed for harpy fashion, if one had that low a mind.
“What kind of creature are you?”
“I'm an ogre eater, of course,” he explained.
“An ogre eater! You mean you eat ogres? I never heard of that before.”
“Well, there aren't many of us, because ogres don't taste very good.” He glanced again at her legs. “But I suppose if there aren't any ogres, you might do; your legs have a fair amount of healthy meat on them.”
“Oh no you don't!” she snapped, clapping her legs together. “I need these legs myself. Go find a real ogre.”
“Okay,” the ogre eater said. The face disappeared, and the tromping and ground shaking resumed, in a diminishing cadence.
Chlorine returned once more to the business at hand.
She saw Nimby holding his note. “Never mind that,” she told him. “I found out for myself. Now let's resume our activity before something else interrupts. I wish this cloud floated just a bit higher, so sundry folk couldn't just peek in.”
Nimby started to get up.
“No, don't see about doing something about it,” she said quickly. “That'll just distract us. I want to get the bleep on with this, before we arrive where we're going and it's too late. Can you appreciate that?”
Nimby looked appreciative. In fact, she had the impression that he was definitely getting intrigued by her ongoing lesson of love. Good. It was nice being so beautiful as to inflame men's minds, and so sexy as to force them to think of only one thing: summoning the stork. She had verified that it worked on Sean Mundane, but he was young.
Nimby was mature.
She lifted her slip to knee height, tantalizingly. Nimby looked really interested. She was ready to lift it all the way clear, but didn't. Her hands just wouldn't do it.
What was the matter with her? Here was her chance to do what no man had been interested in doing with her before, yet she was stalling. Why?
Nimby wrote another note. Because you know I am only a donkey-headed dragon, and you want a real man.
She realized it was true. She could playact all she wanted, and craft any script she wanted, but down underneath she knew it wasn't real, because he wasn't real. In fact, she wasn't real either; she was just a plain and somewhat ornery girl making a pretense. What was the use of that?
Yet if she didn't take advantage of her opportunity now, her adventure might be over before she had another chance. So maybe pretense was better than nothing at all.
“Dam it. Nimby, let's do it anyway! I want to show my panties to someone, and you may never get to see another girl's panties, I mean, not when she's not thinking of you as some stupid beast who doesn't count. Would you like to go ahead?”
Nimby nodded.
Chlorine took hold of her slip again. “Then watch this, and be amazed.” She took a two-handed grip and hauled it right up and over her head. She flung it away and stood proudly in her pale green/yellow bra and panties.
But Nimby didn't freak out. Because not only was he a dragon, it was his magic that had made this limited clothing, as well as her present body. None of it was new or novel to him. “Oh, this isn't working!” she cried, frustrated anew. “I'm just going through meaningless motions, and boring you to oblivion. I'm sorry. Nimby.”
Nimby wrote a note and handed it to her. I am not bored.
But she knew better. “How can you be interested in what you yourself made? I might as well revert to my natural state, where my panties don't even pretend to be interesting, let alone man-freaking.” She fetched back her slip and put it back on. “I apologize for dragging you through this embarrassing charade. Nimby. I won't do it again. I could just cry with frustration—but I can't risk even that.”
Nimby, looking alarmed, started to write another note.
“No, don't do it,” she told him firmly. “Don't try to tell me something you think will make me feel good. Let's leave the illusions for those who don't know better.”
Nimby looked sad, but his notepad disappeared.
Chlorine fetched her dress and donned it. “But I want you to know that I do like you. Nimby, and respect you, and if you were a real man, I would have done it with you.
Even if you were a near-man, like a Curse Fiend or maybe a Demon. Demons know how to appreciate mortal women, physically at least. But a dragon? All this must be utterly laughable to you. So I won't bore you anymore; I owe you at least that much. You have been a really good sport.”
Her dress was done. She started on her hair. Then, on sudden impulse, she went to Nimby and embraced him.
“Thanks for being my friend,” she said, and kissed him.
The two half tears in her eyes brimmed, but fortunately didn't lose their positions.
Nimby froze. His eyes glazed. Had she freaked him out after all? But in half a moment he recovered, and wrote a note. You are more than welcome. Chlorine.
She smiled. “At least we understand each other. Maybe that's better than the other.”
He nodded, though he looked as if he had come close to some phenomenal achievement, and lost it. Maybe she should have done the stork routine with him, after tempting him so. But no; she had done her best to do the right thing, and that was to save the stork summoning for a man she really loved, rather than wasting it on a game.
The cloud floated on, sublimely unconcerned with their troubled thoughts.
Soon Nimby wrote another note. We are there.
“Already?” she asked, surprised. But she realized that the cloud had been moving along with deceptive velocity, so it could be. So her opportunity to do something naughty was indeed gone. She regretted and resented that, even though she had made the decision herself.
Nimby scrambled up and out the top window, and held down a hand for her. He pulled her right up; she was surprised by his easy strength, until she remembered yet again that he was really a dragon. They perched on top, and she saw that the cloud was indeed moving along at a good clip. The wind was higher; the sound had been muffled by the cloud wall so that she had forgotten it. The ill wind was still intensifying.
Nimby reached out and caught an overhanging branch.
He kept his feet hooked into the top of the cloud so that it couldn't go anywhere. But neither did it sink to the ground. It was still about twice a man's height up. That ogre eater must have been huge! “How do we get down?” she asked.