“Yes. So you have to get flicked again. I think you would have to settle to the ground every half hour or so to get renewed.”
“I wonder,” Mary said thoughtfully. “Modem, could you change that reality to make it last longer? Like maybe a day instead of half an hour.”
“I guess so,” Modem said.
“Then let's try it,” Mary said.
First the two centaurs worked on the RV. They were right: they were making it lighten, but only at the rate of a hundred pounds or so per flick. Mary could see the tires getting less flattened. But it would take about twenty flicks apiece to complete that job, and they had to pause briefly to recharge between doses.
“Say, can you split into your halves?” David asked as they worked. Mary didn't like the way he was staring at their breasts, but the centaurs seemed oblivious. Obviously they wouldn't go bare if they felt there was any shame in it.
“Halves?” Crystal asked.
“You know. Horse and person.”
“No,” Chena said between tail flicks. Those breasts quivered with the effort of every flick, and so did David's eyeballs. But Mary was determined to give no sign of her distress. The centaurs simply didn't know how things were in Mundania. “We are complete creatures, crossbreeds who have become our own species.”
“Anyway, it wouldn't be halves, it would be thirds,” Crystal said. “Equine, human, and avian.”
“Well, can you maybe turn all human, or all bird?” the boy persisted. “Back and forth.”
“No, that's not our magic. You are thinking of the merfolk, some of whom can make legs and become fully human and walk on land, or perhaps make a fish's head and swim underwater. Or the naga folk, who can assume human or serpent form, with their natural form being between. Others, like the harpies, are fixed in their merged forms.”
“Well, could they maybe get together and teach each other?” David persisted. “So the centaurs could change form, and the naga could have magic talents, like flying?” Chena laughed heartily, and Mary struggled not to wince.
“Maybe so. But Crystal and I have been working so hard to master our present forms that we are not much interested in experimenting with any other type of magic.
We are satisfied with the magic we have, which enables us to fly, and don't crave any other type.”
Then one end of the RV lifted off the ground. It was just about light enough to float away. It was time to do the people.
“One person should be ready to hold each one as we lighten them,” Chena said. “We wouldn't want anyone to float away.” She smiled, but the warning was serious.
Jim took a stance by the RV. “I'll go last,” he said.
They started in on the people. Karen went first, and of course, the moment she was flicked and lightened by Chena's tail, she leaped into the air to see how far she would go. As it happened, she leaped away from Jim, who reached for her but missed. But Mary had been alert for something like this, and snagged the flying girl. She was prepared, yet even so, was surprised; Karen really was feather light, as if she were no more than an inflated balloon in girl form. Obviously centaur magic did work on Mundanes.
She passed the girl to Jim, who popped her into the open side door of the RV. “Hey, it's small again!” she cried.
“How are we all going to fit?”
Mary looked at Modem. “That magic was temporary?”
The boy fidgeted. “No. But I can change only one reality at a time. You said to make the lightness last.”
Oops. They needed two aspects of magic now. This was getting complicated. But maybe there was an answer.
“Jim?”
Her husband rose to the occasion. “Modem, reality is mostly the way we see it. Agreed?”
“Yes,” the boy said. “Only—”
“So what we need is a special kind of reality for this moving house. Suppose we think of it as having several properties: it moves, it is larger inside than outside, and it holds a given spell for a day or more. These are not different realities, but aspects of this particular structure. One reality covers all its qualities. Does this make sense?”
“I guess,” Modem agreed. He concentrated. And suddenly the interior was twice its natural size.
Crystal flicked David, and Jim passed him inside. Then Chena did the next, and so on, until only Nimby and Jim were left outside. Mary suspected that Nimby didn't really need the centaur magic to make him light, but he accepted the flick and went in. Finally Jim closed the side door, opened the driver's seat door, and accepted his own lightening. All ten of them were inside, with the two winged centaurs outside, taking the ropes now attached.
The centaurs flicked the vehicle twice more, and the rear end lifted. They were floating!
“Where to?” Jim asked Nimby.
Nimby pointed south. But he wrote another note.
“South,” Jim called out the window.
“One more to pick up,” Chlorine read. “Adam. About an hour, as the house flies.”
“An hour,” Jim called out the window as the ropes lost their slack. Just as if this were routine. Chena looked back and nodded.
They were hauled smoothly up until the trees were below. Mary saw their branches being furiously whipped by the wind as the calm-weather patch left them behind. The storm was still intensifying, and it was not hard to appreciate how in time it could start blowing trees down. Happy Bottom was increasing to hurricane strength.
Now they bore south. The children peered out and down, fascinated, and so did Jim and Mary. It was as if they were in the cab of a blimp, floating silently across the terrain. The landscape spread out below, varied and variegated. The outline of Xanth, Mary knew, resembled that of Mundane Florida, but within that outline the detail could differ considerably. Here there were mountains and chasms and endless types of magic. She looked at the two flying centaurs, who made a pretty pair as their great wings rose and fell together. They were nice girls, she knew. In fact, most of the folk of Xanth were nice. Parents were trusting, because the average stranger deserved trust. The bad creatures, like dragons, were obvious—and even they weren't always bad. The winged monsters had pitched in to help save Xanth, even the filthy harpies, and none had broken the truce.
There were things she was coming to like about this land. She would be sorry to leave it. And she did want to save it. She felt somewhat responsible for the storm, because it had entered Xanth through the same aperture as their family had. She realized that that wasn't completely reasonable, but neither was it completely unreasonable.
The storm was Mundane in origin; let the Mundanes defuse it.
The flight continued with no sign of weight gain. Jim's rationale for double reality shifting had worked. For someone who, until this adventure, had had zero tolerance for fantasy, he had made a remarkable accommodation. As had she herself. There was just something about Xanth, magic aside.
Nimby pointed down. Already? How the hour had flown—no pun. Now they had to fetch in Adam. What would his magic talent be? How would it integrate with those of the others? Only Nimby knew. Nimby, she realized, was the true leader of this expedition. A mute donkey-headed dragon!
“Below!” Jim called out the window.
The centaurs angled down. There was a squat stone house. At least that would be secure against the wind, for a while. They landed before it, but the RV tended to float up again when the rope went slack. The centaurs picked up rocks and brought them to the RV as ballast. Jim and Sean took the stones and piled them in the center of the floor in back. Then the vehicle stayed put.
“But watch it,” Jim warned. “We still float.”
Then the centaurs brought smaller stones, which Mary and Willow put in their purses as personal ballast, following Nimby's indication. It seemed that they were the proper ones to make the appeal to Adam.
They disembarked and approached the house. A face appeared in a window. “Are you real or spooks?” it demanded.
“We are real,” Mary answered. “I am somebod
y's mother.”
“I am somebody's love,” Willow added.
“Then come in before the wind starts again.” The door opened.
They entered. A rather stout young man stood there.
“You must be Adam,” Mary said. “I am Mary Mundane.”
“I am Willow Elf.”
“Yes, I am Adam. What do you folk want with me?”
“We are on a mission to save Xanth from the terrible storm,” Mary said. “We need your help. Will you come with us?”
He looked astonished. “You want me to go with you?”
“Yes, if you will. We need you.”
“But nobody needs me,” he protested. “Nobody even likes me.”
“Perhaps because nobody knows you,” Willow said sympathetically. “Are you mean-spirited?”
“No. I am whatever I choose to partake of.”
“Is that your magic?” Mary asked.
“Yes. If I see a rock, I can take its essence and become rock-hard. If I see water, I can become liquid. If I see a cloud, I can become light and fluffy. But that doesn't help anyone else, and I still look plain and stuffy.”
Willow shrugged. “So do I, among my own kind. But I met a young man who thinks I'm beautiful, thanks to a love spring. Maybe there will be something for you.”
“A love spring,” he breathed. “What I wouldn't give to get dunked in one of those with a lovely girl!”
“Maybe it will happen,” Mary said, realizing that this was why Willow had been the one for this. Her experience signaled what Adam's might be. “Please come with us, in our floating house, and help us save Xanth.”
“Sure,” he said.
So they brought him out, and it turned out that there was no need to make him light, because he simply looked at a cloud and became foggy light. He entered the RV and took a seat where one was available, beside Keaira.
“Any more people to pick up?” Mary asked Nimby.
Nimby shook his head.
“So our complement is complete at last!” Mary said, relieved. “Now we can head straight on south and save Xanth from Happy Bottom.”
Nimby nodded.
“All the way south,” Jim called out the window. “Are you fillies holding up okay?”
“We are getting hungry,” Chena said.
“Do you like pies? We have a treeful.”
“Yes, those will be fine.”
So they passed out the pies remaining from the changed tangle tree, and the centaurs ate them as they flew. The speed picked up. They were on their way to their destiny.
Chapter 13
ILL WIND
David woke as the RV slid down toward the ground.
Was this boring flight finally over? It had been interesting for a while when they picked up Willow, who was sort of pretty, and Modem was his own age, twelve, so had some common interests. Modem had enjoyed the big stink the demoness made as much as David had, even if he had had to change it to roses to pacify the womenfolk. He sneaked just as many peeks at Chlorine and the topless flying centaur fillies. Oh, to be a few years older! But Keaira was an adult young woman, well covered, and no raving beauty either, while Adam was not only adult, he was fat. So once the novelty of flying in the RV faded, nothing much was left.
But now they were landing, and there might be some action. After all, they still had to drive Happy Bottom to where she couldn't do any more harm, and she wasn't going to want to go. He pitied the poor person who would have to wear the windbreaker jacket and try to herd her north.
Nimby, sitting beside Chlorine, turned his head to look at David. Oh, no! Did that mean David was the one?
Nimby nodded.
Nimby was eerie, but always right. So David would have to do it. But he wouldn't like it.
Nimby shook his head.
He would like it? Why? But Nimby merely smiled inscrutably. He could be sort of frustrating that way. Yet it did give David something to be interested in. How could he like wearing the stupid jacket and trying to herd the stupid wind anywhere? There must be something fun about it.
The RV touched down right beside the big pillow where Chlorine and Nimby had landed, at the beginning of the trollway. They had come full circle, or whatever, and seen a whole lot on the way. But what now?
Nimby had written some notes for Chlorine. Now she read them off. “ 'Keaira and David will have to herd Happy Bottom north,' “ she read. “ 'He'll wear the windbreaker, and she'll keep the weather calm so they won't get blown out of the sky.' “
“Out of the sky?” Mom asked, her tone echoing the furrow David knew was in her forehead.
“ “They will be riding the winged centaurs,' “ Chlorine read. “ 'And Willow will show the way, flying with them.' “
Suddenly it dawned. He'd ride a bare-busted filly! Up in the sky by himself, like a flying cowboy, and he could sneak all the peeks he wanted. That would indeed be fun.
“But David can't go all alone out there!” Mom protested, as, of course, she would. “Suppose he fell?”
Um; good point. In the RV there was no chance of falling, because it was closed in. But though he liked the idea of riding a bare-chested winged filly, his actual horse riding experience was small. He might indeed fall, and if they were high in the sky at the time, that would be the end of him.
“ 'No, he will remain light,' “ Chlorine read. It seemed that Nimby had anticipated all the questions. “ 'Should he fall from his steed, he would merely float gently down.
The centaur would have ample time to catch him before he reached the ground.' “
Oho! And how would she catch him? By flinging her arms about him and clasping him to her bosom? That was a risk he was prepared to take. And Nimby was right about the floating; he had forgotten how light they all were. So it was safe after all.
Dad had a more sensible objection: “If Keaira goes with them, what of the weather here? We'll be blown away the moment we lose her calm-weather protection.”
“I can change local reality to revert the moving house to normal,” Modem said. “Then it might not blow away.”
But he didn't look certain, because they could see the ferocious dusty wind beyond the oasis of calm. There were even phantasms forming around the edges of the calm region, making grotesque gestures to signal what they'd like to do to the folk in the RV if they could just get close. Of course, it would just be illusion, mostly, as long as they kept the doors and windows closed, but even illusions could be pretty bad.
But Nimby had an answer for Chlorine to read: “ “The present local reality must remain as it is, because soon the house will need to travel again, and no one must leave it.
The centaurs will not be here to make it light again. Modem's local reality is the main force holding back the magic dust.' “
David could see that Chlorine was startled as she heard herself read that. “You mean Modem's doing more than just keeping the lightness lasting and the inside big?” Then she read the next answer, already in her hand. “ 'Yes. His magic reality preempts the malicious magic fostered by the dust.' “
“It does?” Modem asked, surprised.
“I guess your magic is more potent than you know,” Dad said, with a typical Dad smile.
“ 'It is,' “ Chlorine read, “ 'Because the magic dust is enhancing it. Thus the dust of madness has the ironic effect of canceling itself, in this limited instance.' “
“Gee,” Modem said, pleased.
David was, of course, too good a person to be jealous of the importance of anybody else's role, but he did experience a certain discomfort that an ignorant person might choose to interpret as jealousy. So he mentioned a legitimate concern. “If the RV, uh, house stays light, won't it just blow away, like Dad says?”
“As Dad says,” Mom said in her obnoxious English teacher way. He had tried to break her of that, but without much success. Parents were slow learners.
But this time fat Adam had an answer. “I can assume the properties of Xanth's heaviest rock, and be ballast.”
“You can?” Keaira asked, evidently impressed.
“Oh, sure,” Adam said. “When I'm cloud-light, I'm like a fat balloon. When I'm fruity, I'm like a fat apple.
When I'm solid, I'm like a fat boulder. That's why folk don't like me.”
“I think it's a great talent,” Keaira said.
“You do? I think your talent is the greatest. You can be always in sunshine, or have it rain when you want it to.”
Keaira blushed. “Thank you.”
“You mean you care what I think, even though I'm fat as a pumpkin?”
“Fat pumpkins are the handsomest,” she said, still blushing.
This was getting disgusting. Time to break it up before they actually got mushy. “Well, let's get busy,” David said. “Who rides who?”
“Who rides whom,” Mom said.
David ignored it, as he would any other crude remark.
“Which bare-boobed filly is mine?”
“David!” Mom exclaimed, as Karen stifled a titter.
“Sorry,” he said. “Which bare-boobed centaur?”
Mom looked as if she has swallowed a poop-flavored prune, but this time she held her tongue. Good. Maybe he had made his point. Of course, there'd be bleep to pay when she finally got him alone at home, but maybe she'd forget by then.
Chlorine read her next note. “ 'Chena. She thinks you're cute.' “
David was flabbergasted. “She does?”
Nimby nodded. He should know, since he could read minds. No wonder he knew David would enjoy the ride!
Meanwhile Mom looked as if her prune had turned into a stink horn, but again she stifled her comment.
“And take some reverse wood,” Chlorine read. So they made two small bundles of two sticks each, and David took one while Keaira took the other. They were bound together by duct tape so they wouldn't come apart accidentally, but of course, they could be ripped apart if they were needed. Then whatever threat they encountered would be reversed. “ 'But use the wood only in an emergency,'” Chlorine read, “ 'because it will nullify the centaurs too, reversing their magic lightness.' “.
For sure! If David had to use his wood, he'd strip the tape to prime it, then hurl it like a grenade. Then it would affect only what he threw it at. He could make like Superman, nulling enemies galore. Pow! You 're reversed! He tucked the bound sticks into his belt.