“I love you!” He leaped out of the closet and swept her into his embrace. He kissed her firmly on the mouth.
“Mmmph! Mmmph!” she protested, trying vainly to push him away. Finally she took two handfuls of his hair and wrenched his face away from hers. “Get away from me, you miserable coward!”
“Coward no more, thanks to you,” he said. “You beautiful creature. I’m going to marry you.”
“I’m a maenad!” she shouted.
He took a better look at her. “Why, so you are, you luscious thing.”
He drew her in close again, one hand on her pert bottom. “My ideal soul mate.”
“If you don’t unhand me instantly, I’ll chomp your face off!” she threatened.
Warren smiled. “And you’ve got the lovely sharp teeth to do it, don’t you, my love. But you know you can’t scare me; I’ve got my courage back. So bite me; I dare you.” And he drew her in for another kiss. Jumper, expecting mayhem, was about to step in to separate them. But Maeve, to his surprise, submitted to the kiss, and did not chomp his face off. It seemed he had called her bluff. Except that Jumper doubted it had been a bluff. Why had she changed her mind? After a good two and a half moments they came up for air. Maeve looked flushed. Had she been overtaken by a sudden illness? Then she spoke, carefully. “If you really have your courage back, Warren, why don’t you go out and fight that flion?”
“Then will you marry me, you captivating damsel?”
“Maybe. If you live.”
So that was it: she was getting rid of Warren without getting his blood on her own hands. She was really angry.
“Immediately.” Warren’s sword appeared in his hand. He strode out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and out of the castle. They followed, bemused.
“Fletcher!” Warren bawled. “You sniveling cur! Get your mangy tail over here so I can cut it off!”
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before them. “So you have come to face the inevitable at last, you miserable man-thing.”
“I have my courage back, you winged kitten. You stole it and lost it, but this marvelous creature found it and returned it to me.” He sent a loving glance at Maeve.
“She’s a maenad! A wild woman!”
Warren stared down his aristocratic nose. “And what is your point, hairball? Was there ever a more fitting match for a warrior?”
“Well, you won’t live long enough to enjoy the moment. En garde!”
Fletcher leaped.
Warren swung his sword in a short arc as he stepped to one side. The flion’s head went sailing from his body. “Oh, you got me!” he said as it landed and bounced. “Lucky blow.” It rolled into the moat with a splash.
“You should have known better than to challenge a warrior,” Warren said, pushing the rest of the body into the moat. That seemed to be the case. Jumper was impressed with the change in the man. Courage made all the difference.
“What now?” Maeve asked, taking stock.
“Now we can marry,” Warren said, turning to her. “First we have a glorious session on the bed. Then we’ll set off for adventures galore, wreaking havoc wherever we go.”
But Maeve hesitated, evidently remembering her situation with the stork. “I have a mission to accomplish first.”
That certainly did not sound like a no. It seemed the warrior had impressed the bloodthirsty maiden. Warren sighed. “Then accept this token of my desire,” he said, producing a miniature sword hung on a string. He put the string over Maeve’s head so that it circled her neck, with the sword resting against her chest. “Merely invoke it at any time, and it will bring you to me for an hour. What joy we might accomplish in that hour!”
“I’ll think about it,” Maeve agreed. “Now we have to go.”
“Sammy,” Jumper called. “We need to find the Found Cabin.”
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they reached the Found Cabin. Sammy went to snooze by Jenny’s feet. He couldn’t find home, but fortunately this wasn’t home. The others were eating bread with conjured grape jam, while playing two rounds of drawbridge. It seemed they had found a card game by that name, that consisted of a pack of fifty-two thin bridges with assorted numberings, which consisted of bidding for par tic u lar ones. It seemed complicated, but of course he was only a spider. Still, the cat Claire Voyant was their eighth player, and she seemed to be at no disadvantage.
“So what happened?” Olive asked. It seemed she was the “dummy,”
which did not appear to relate to intelligence, so wasn’t focusing on the game at the moment.
“I . . .” Maeve stalled out. “You tell them, Jumper.”
He told them. In half a moment the two card games dissolved and all of them were paying close attention. “So Maeve returned the Sword of Courage,” he concluded, “and Warren Warrior kissed her and—”
“He what?” Olive and Phanta asked together.
“And she did knot chomp off his face?” Wenda asked.
“She must be in love,” Haughty said smugly.
Maeve merely stood there, blushing. That was impossibly unusual for a maenad.
“He wanted to marry her, but she said she has to complete the mission first,” Jumper said.
“And get rid of that pesky stork,” Dawn said.
“That too,” Maeve agreed, finding her voice.
“How could you do such a thing?” Olive demanded. “Maenads want only one thing from a man, and that’s a pound of his flesh freshly ripped out of his body. They don’t fall in love.”
“Maybe it’s not love,” Maeve said. “He gave me an amulet. He wants me to visit, for an hour, for a glorious session on his bed.”
“That’s stork signaling!” Haughty said. “That’s mischief.”
“I know,” Maeve said. “But this time I think I want to do it. It’s not as if the storks will know. Not if the signal doesn’t go out.”
“Disgusting,” the harpy said. But she did not seem fully serious.
“We can be free here,” Phanta said. “Free in a manner we can’t— or shouldn’t be— outside. In a way it makes us equal with men.”
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“They have little if any responsibility,” Eve said. “A little less for us would serve them right.”
Several others nodded thoughtfully. Jumper wondered what was going through their minds. How could diminished responsibility benefit anyone?
“And we still have five symbols to return,” Olive said. “Who is next?”
There was half a silence. Jumper broke it. “Let’s relax to night, and decide tomorrow morning. We have had enough adventure for today.”
“Yes, it’s been quite a game of drawbridge,” Phanta said, laughing. Then Haughty vanished. “What happened?” Jumper asked, alarmed.
“Oh, she’s just popping out to verify the waking world,” Olive explained. “She does that every few hours. Don’t you remember?”
Now he did remember. “We have been dreaming for some time. We probably need to take a break.”
Haughty reappeared. “Food, sleep, and p**p,” she announced. “Are you ready?”
“We can return to this same place?” Jumper asked.
“You can’t avoid it. That’s the way the gourd is.”
“Then take us out,” Jumper agreed.
Haughty vanished again. After a scant two moments, so did the rest of them, one by one: Maeve, Wenda, Olive, Phanta, and Dawn. When Olive went, so did Jenny and the cats, because they had been conjured by Olive.
“It’s just you and me,” Eve said. She turned and flashed her pan ties. Then she vanished.
Jumper, caught off guard, was half freaked. That d**ned tease!
Then he blinked. He wa
s lying on the mat, and Tandy’s hand was before his face, intercepting his connection to the gourd’s peephole. “Welcome back, Jumper,” she said, smiling. “You must have seen something interesting, just now; your face went slack.”
“Nothing important,” he said, knowing that the truth would only make everyone laugh. Eve had had her little joke. But he knew he would have to maintain a better guard, because those pan ties certainly were potent.
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Inthe morning, refreshed, they returned to the dream realm. When Jumper put one eye to the peephole he found himself in the Found Cabin, right where he had left it. All of them were there, appearing one by one.
“I will summon my imaginary friend Jenny,” Olive said. She concentrated, and in hardly more than a moment Jenny appeared, along with Sammy, Claire, and Kaboodle, swishing her nine tails.
“Whose turn is it?” Jenny inquired.
“Mine, I think,” Wenda said. “I was the second one to pick up a symbol. The Heart of Love.”
“That’s odd,” Maeve said.
“Odd?”
“The way mine changed from Courage to Love. I picked up the Sword of Courage, but then Warren said he loves me. Who could ever love a maenad?”
“A bloodthirsty warrior,” Haughty said. “But you don’t need to guess, girl. Invoke your amulet. Go see him for an hour. Then you’ll know for sure.”
“But that might be only passion, not love.”
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Haughty laughed. “Much the same thing, for a man. Go. They don’t need you here for that time.”
Maeve looked around somewhat helplessly. “Is that true?” She seemed pitifully eager yet doubtful.
“True enough,” Olive said.
“Well, if it’s really all right . . .”
The others nodded. Maeve lifted the little sword. “Take me to your master,” she said. And vanished.
“She’s used to making love, not war,” Phanta said.
“I think that’s actually one lucky warrior,” Eve murmured. Jumper found he agreed. Maeve was one taut, pretty, shapely female, trying to learn how to be a woman instead of a vicious creature. She would surely give the warrior a lot of plea sure as she learned the nature of his interest.
Which reminded him of Sharon, in her brief woman phase. Of course she had merely been trying to trick him. But in that moment she had been a most tempting morsel. Not that he had any business noticing.
“I hope mine works out as well,” Wenda said, picking up the heart. She glanced at Jumper. “Are yew coming with me?”
Oh. He was still in spider form. “Yes. Let me change.” He took a vial, sipped it, and became the naked man.
Wenda was already there with clothing for him. Dawn and Eve mischievously flashed their undies, but too late to embarrass him. Even so, he blinked. They had reversed it, with Dawn showing her bright white pan ties, and Eve her dark bra. Both were as well filled as their prior examples, and did momentarily stun him. The others didn’t notice that they were showing anything, but of course they were showing it only to Jumper. It was highly selective naughtiness.
Wenda held up the heart. “Sammy, find who this belongs to,” she said.
Sammy went from midcatnap to midair without any intervening stage. He was on his way.
“Wait for us!” Wenda cried belatedly, running after him. But of course he didn’t wait.
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They charged through the dream sets again, in a blur. One was an ocean, but somehow they crossed the water without sinking in. They came to a shore, and then to a palace.
Then they were in a royal bedroom. A maid was combing the hair of a handsome prince; their identities were clear because she wore a cloth headband, and he a sparkling golden crown. Sammy was snoozing at their feet.
“Well, now,” the woman said, spying Sammy. “I think we have found a cat.”
“No, yew did knot,” Wenda said, arriving on the scene, followed by Jumper. How they had gotten there without passing through doors or walls Jumper wasn’t sure. “Sammy Cat found yew.”
The maid’s eyes widened. “Is this the Sammy Cat? Princess Jenny’s friend?”
“Yes,” Wenda said. “And I am Wenda Woodwife, and this is Jumper Spider, who is guarding me. We have come to—”
“Prince Charming!” the woman exclaimed. “We have remarkable visitors!”
“Charmed, I’m sure, if you say so, Mercy,” the prince said, evidently bored.
“I brought the lost Heart of Love,” Wenda said. “To which of yew does it belong? I wood knot want to make a mistake.”
The maid, Mercy, looked stricken.
“It is yewrs?” Wenda asked alertly.
“No,” Mercy said, but she had paled dangerously.
“Sammy led us here to the two of yew. If it’s knot yours, it must bee the prince’s.”
“Well, I have lost my love,” Prince Charming said. “But I don’t think any change of heart on my part will solve that problem. My wife just dumped me for a richer king. I am quite out of sorts. If it weren’t for Mercy and my sister Sharon, I’d throw myself into the sea.”
Wenda exchanged a confused glance with Jumper. The prince had a point. How could the heart help him? Yet it seemed that Mercy knew something she didn’t want to speak of. And what a coincidence that 039-40892_ch01_4P.qxp 7/30/09 12:35 PM Page 141
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Charming’s sister should be named Sharon, the same as the flion who had briefly vamped him.
“Maybe your sister will have a thought on the matter,” Jumper said, hardly daring to guess what to expect in such a woman.
“Maybe,” Charming agreed. He heaved his voice up by its bootstraps. “Sharon! I need your input.”
In barely half a moment she appeared: a lovely dark-haired creature of a woman with eyes that fairly glinted with illicit comprehension. It was her!
“What is it, Charming?” Sharon asked, her voice compellingly dulcet.
“This nymph found a lost Heart of Love, and thinks it’s mine. But I don’t need to love, I need to get my lost love back. So what’s with the heart?”
Sharon pursed her lush red lips. “Perhaps my art will fathom it,” she agreed. Then she turned, leaned forward just enough to proffer half a glimpse inside her curvaceous décolletage, and smiled. The air around Jumper warmed perceptibly. “So nice to see you again, Jumper. And who is your friend?”
“Wenda,” Wenda said quickly.
“Clearly not a maenad,” Sharon said. “How did a forest creature like you come by the heart?”
Sharon was making Jumper increasingly ner vous. She knew too much, and obviously remembered him from their encounter in the other venue. He had had no idea she was really a princess!
“It was in the Found Cabin,” Wenda said. “I am trying to return it to its own er. But—”
Sharon nodded. “But there seems to be a confusion, yes. It does seem to be symbolic of my brother’s loss, but such a magic artifact should represent the solution to a problem, rather than a complication of it.”
“Yes,” Wenda agreed, disgruntled.
Sharon’s eye speared the maid. “And what do you know of this matter, Mercy?”
Mercy burst into tears.
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Sharon’s gaze hardened. “Do I have your permission to fathom your part in this?”
Jumper did not know a great deal about human interactions, but strongly suspected that a maidservant could give a princess only one answer to such a request: yes.
“Then here is my fathoming,” Sharon said. She moved her hands in a magical pattern, and a scintillating cloud formed around Mercy. The scene changed around her.
In fact it became a view of the depths of the oce
an. There was Mercy, nude and lovely, swimming blithely along, propelled by her fish tail. Her what? Jumper blinked both his human eyes, but the sight didn’t change. Mercy was a mermaid.
“Fascinating,” Sharon breathed.
Mercy swam toward a commotion on the surface of the sea. There was a storm there, attacking a wooden ship. It blew so hard a man was swept into the water.
He was Prince Charming.
“This becomes intriguing,” Sharon said.
Charming tried to swim in the rough seas, but he was evidently better as a man on the water than under it, and soon he was on the verge of drowning. At this point Mercy reached him. She wrapped her arms about him and propelled him to the surface so he could breathe again. When he didn’t, she squeezed him hard so that the water in him spewed out. Then she put her mouth to his and blew air into him, forcing him to breathe again.
He choked and coughed, but remained unconscious. So she bore him to the nearest shore, a sandy beach, and heaved him onto it. She hauled herself out just far enough to give him one more kiss of life, then slipped back into the water.
As Charming recovered consciousness, a princess happened to come along the beach, collecting shells. She spied Charming and ran to him. She tried to lift him up, but was not strong enough and fell onto him. As his eyes opened, she was the one he saw, there in his arms.
“You saved me!” he exclaimed, knowing nothing of the true situation. Mercy saw this happen from the water. She was clearly happy that 039-40892_ch01_4P.qxp 7/30/09 12:35 PM Page 143
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Charming had been rescued, but had another problem: she had hugged him and kissed him, and fallen in love with him. That was made clear by the little hearts that hovered around her head when she gazed in his direction. But there was nothing she could do. Her tears were lost in the sea as the vision faded.
“You!” Charming said. “You saved me, not the princess!”
“I couldn’t let you drown,” Mercy said.
“But what are you doing here? You have legs now.”
“I got a spell,” she said. “To convert my nether portion. I went on land, but it took me time to learn the language and make my way as a two-leg, and by that time you were married. So I applied for a position as a maidservant.”