“Yes. Thank you so much for arranging this, Crater.”
Crater fetched a storm lantern and lit the wick. “Let’s see him blow this out,” he said grimly. “But I’m sruprised a ghost can blow at all.”
“He’s really after me,” Phanta said. “I don’t know why.”
“Because you’er a good-looking wench,” Crater said gruffly. “Why else do you think I have you sevring food?”
“Because your last waitress married a patron and retired to easy living?”
“That too,” he agreed.
“And the one before her quit when someone goosed her?”
“Well, men will be men,” he said, seeming embarrassed. “If any tyr that with you, let me know and I’ll boot them out.”
“No need. They can’t goose me.”
“They can’t?” he asked, surprised.
She smiled. “Try it, Crater.”
“Nuh-uh! You’ve got one cute bottom, but I don’t want you to quit too.”
“I’m departing tomorrow anyway, remember? So you can risk it.”
“Well, if you’er suer.” He reached out and took a hold of her bottom as she closed her eyes. And his hand passed right through it. “Hey!”
“I turned ghost for a moment,” Phanta explained, opening her eyes.
“I can do that by shutting my eyes. I solidify again when I open them.”
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“So it seems dark to you,” Jumper said. “But then how can you sleep without becoming a ghost?”
“I do turn ghost then, but I solidify the moment I wake and open my eyes. So it’s safe, as long as there’s a light.”
“I never knew,” Crater said, amazed
“Well, you never tried it.” She smiled obscurely. “Of course I might not have ghosted with you.”
The man blushed, for some reason. “So tarvelers have been tyring it all along?”
“Yes. But I watch them, and blink when they touch. Of course that’s when I’m not holding a dish.”
“That’s why you sometimes dorp dishes! You can’t hang on to them when you’er ghosting.”
“Sorry about that,” she said apologetically.
“And that mug of gorg that landed in that tarveler’s lap— that was why?”
“Yes.”
“He never complained.”
“Because he knew I would tell why, and you would boot him.”
Crater shook his head. “Dran! I wish I could keep you.”
“You’re sweet.”
“But we’re wasting the night,” Crater said. “Back to bed.”
“I think I’ll stay down here with Jumper,” Phanta said. “Just in case Gheorge does find a way to blow out the lantern.”
“As you wish,” Crater agreed, and returned to his room.
“There is much I think I don’t understand,” Jumper said.
“Well, you’re a spider. Your male eyes don’t glaze at this sight of well-filled pan ties.”
“Should they?”
“Here’s the thing, Jumper: when a human man sees a human girl’s pan ties, he freaks out. It’s part of the background magic of Xanth. It happens to a lesser extent when he sees things like Hottie’s bare bosom or a girl’s full bra. But men are so crazy, they actually try to see these things. So we girls show them only as we choose, usually just enough to get their attention without getting them all worked up. When we find a 039-40892_ch01_4P.qxp 7/30/09 12:35 PM Page 47
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man we want to keep, we show more, reeling him in. It can be a fine line, and sometimes we misjudge.”
“That’s when they duck you!” he exclaimed.
“Well, close enough,” she agreed, smiling. “They aren’t supposed to goose, but travelers can be uncouth. Fortunately I can prevent them.”
“You said you might not have ghosted with Crater, and he blushed. I don’t understand that either.”
“I was teasing him. The rule is, a man may look but not touch, unless a girl wants him to. He follows that rule. But when I hinted I might want him to, he couldn’t help getting all excited. Men are foolish that way.”
“Would you really let him touch?”
“I might. He’s a good guy. It depends on my mood at the time.”
“Teasing—is this nice?”
She considered. “Sometimes. Sometimes not. Now that I ponder it, I think maybe I shouldn’t have teased him. Especially since I’m leaving.”
“There’s not much to be done about it now.”
A dim blue bulb flashed over her head. Jumper recognized it: not an idea bulb, but a decision bulb. “There you’re wrong. I’m going to go untease him, just for to night. A kind of going away present.”
“Untease?”
“I’m going to let him touch me. He’ll like that.”
“I don’t see how a duck— I mean, goose— would make much of a difference.”
“You wouldn’t,” she said. “This is more than that. I’ll see you in the morning, Jumper. Thanks for everything.” She departed, heading for Crater’s door.
Jumper settled down again for the night, marveling at the obscure ways of human women. He continued to wonder as he heard muted noises coming from Crater’s room. It sounded as though they were wrestling. That made no sense at all.
“And I thought I was hot,” Hottie Harpie said from the corner. Jumper had forgotten she was there. “That’s the one thing I envy full-human girls: their legs.”
“You have legs,” Jumper reminded her.
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“Bird legs don’t freak human men.”
He realized that must be true. Maybe some day he would figure out why human legs did.
In the morning they gathered: five maidens and Jumper. Crater packed them a knapsack with food for the journey. He looked surprisingly cheerful, as if he had had an excellent night. Jumper glanced at Phanta with a single eye, but she gave no sign.
“I’ll miss you grils,” Crater said. “I hate having to do all the wrok myself.”
“There will surely be other girls,” Phanta said.
“Not like you.”
“If I didn’t know better,” Olive murmured privately to Jumper, “I’d suspect he was smitten with her. But of course he likes the way she brings in travelers.”
“She does that?” Jumper asked.
“They come from all around to gawk at her skirt.”
This did not match what Hottie had said. “Not her legs?”
For some reason she laughed. “Those too.”
Maybe he was destined never to understand.
“Who carries the pack?” Haughty asked. “I can’t.”
A glance circled around. “I can try,” Wenda said. But when she tried to put it on, it sagged so badly around her hollow back that she couldn’t. Phanta tried it, and it fit reasonably well, but when she blinked it dropped to the ground. It seemed that even the briefest closing of her eyes had the ghost effect. Olive tried it, but turned out not to be strong enough to carry it well. Maeve put it on, and she was strong enough.
“But it’s pretty heavy,” Jumper said. “I might carry it more readily.”
They rigged a harness and fastened it to his back, and Jumper had no trouble carry ing it.
Maeve made an effort. “I’m trying to be girlish, to mask my nature,”
she said. “To thank you for taking the pack, I’ll try to kiss you without biting.” She approached Jumper, put her mouth to his mandible, and jerked her head back just before her teeth snapped together. “Sorry about that. I have not yet conquered my nature.”
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They marched out into a beautiful morning. There was a path leading to the enchanted path. It wound through field and forest, o’er hill and dale, past rocks and rills, enjoying the sights as it went. “We’l
l be there in another hour,” Haughty said.
Then suddenly there was a blast of thunder. A storm was zooming out from cover behind a large tree.
“F**k!” Haughty swore. “Fracto ambushed us!”
“Flak,” Maeve murmured. “Harpies hate antiaircraft fire.”
The dark cloud spread out in seconds, and lightning flashed. They were about to get drenched, or worse.
“Maybe I can help,” Olive Hue said. “One of my friends has a special talent.”
“Make it fast,” Phanta said. “Fracto means to wash us out.”
A young man appeared. “You look worried, Olive,” he remarked.
“We need protection from Fracto,” Olive said. “We need to get safely to the enchanted path.”
“That’s my specialty,” he agreed. He concentrated.
“This is my imaginary friend Jestin,” Olive said to the others. “He conjures a portable section of an enchanted path.”
“Hello, Jestin,” Phanta said, switching her little skirt about. His eyes started to glaze. There just seemed to be something about that skirt despite its smallness. As it was, it was barely big enough to cover her pan ties.
Olive hastily got between them, blocking off Jestin’s view. “Wait until he finishes the path,” she said urgently.
“Oh.” Phanta toned it down.
The path appeared. It looked ordinary, except that it was undisturbed by the rising wind. They crowded onto it just as the storm let loose half a deluge of rain. The water sluiced away, not touching them. Now Phanta approached Jestin again. “Thank you so much for your help,” she said, kissing him. She could do what Maeve could not: kissing without biting. Then, before she could freak him out, Jestin faded. “We can’t have a distraction,” Olive snapped. “We have to make our way to the permanent enchanted path before this one breaks down from the strain.”
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“One might almost suspect that one girl is a tiny bit jealous of her friends,” Haughty murmured.
“Almost,” Jumper agreed.
They followed the path, but soon it ended. Ahead the storm was intensifying, with lightning striking trees and wind battering them, and of course water beginning to flood.
“We pick up the rear section and carry it forward,” Olive said. She put her hands down, and a section of the path came up. She carried it to the front and aligned it with the section they were on. Then they all stepped onto that.
In this manner they advanced slowly toward the regular enchanted path, while Fracto raged all around them. Not one jag of lightning struck them, not one wash of water soaked them, not one fierce gust of wind blew them away. It was a great way to travel through an otherwise treacherous region.
In due course they made it to the regular enchanted path. Fracto, defeated, blew off elsewhere.
“Thank you, Olive,” Jumper said. “Your friend Jestin really came through.”
“My friends generally do,” she agreed, flattered. They resumed their interrupted trek along the path. At noon they paused to eat from the pack Crater had packed. Jumper reached back a foreleg and swung it down to the ground.
It turned out to be far more bountiful than they had anticipated. It was a veritable feast, with something for each of them, ranging from a really juicy bug for Jumper to a really gory leg of bovine for Maeve. There was also a big jug of rhed whine.
They tried a sip, then a cup, then several cups, and finally finished the jug, though they had not meant to. This led to some things that seemed odd only in retrospect. Jumper and Haughty did an impromptu dance, with him jumping high in the air and her plummeting almost to the ground to zoom under him as they whirled crazily around. Wenda, Maeve, Phanta, and Olive threw off their clothing and danced in a circle around them, jiggling ferociously front and rear. Wenda was of course fine from the front, but from behind her hollowness was completely 039-40892_ch01_4P.qxp 7/30/09 12:35 PM Page 51
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exposed. The others took turns “trying her on,” stepping into her from behind so that it looked as though she were full-fleshed. Then they were too tipsy to stand, let alone walk, and had to make camp right there on the path, in the middle of the day. They weren’t even up to doing that properly. Instead they collapsed into a pile, with Jumper on the bottom and Haughty on the top, the others draped somewhere in between. What a meal!
Late in the afternoon they recovered, one by one. Jumper was the first, he thought maybe because being the largest, he had taken a smaller portion of rhed whine relative to his size than the others had. Even so, he felt as if he had eaten a rotten zombie fly.
Maeve was next. “That whine’s not the same as what our home pool has,” she said, making a wry face. “More impurities. But the wildness—
it was good to experience that again.”
“We’re just lucky no human males were present,” Wenda said, extricating herself from the pile. The others shared a shudder as they got to their feet, and searched out their scattered clothing from the surrounding bushes and tree limbs.
“We’d have been ruined,” Phanta agreed.
This perplexed Jumper. “All we did was have some fun dancing. What is wrong with that?”
A female glance circled one and a quarter times. It landed on Olive Hue. “When men see bare girls, especially inebriated ones, they get all excited and grow about four extra hands, and that’s not all. It quickly gets complicated, and the girls are lucky if the storks don’t take out after them.”
“The stork!” Maeve exclaimed, hastily diving into her clothing, doing her hair, and putting in her wax teeth, seemingly all in one motion. Phanta squeezed her head between her hands as if it hurt. “Let’s not have such a party again. The hangover’s awful.”
“What is hanging over?” Jumper asked, not seeing anything.
“Never mind,” Wenda said. “It’s knot relevant, and anyway, we finished the jug.”
“It means we have headaches, and our mouths taste like dragon p**p,” Haughty explained.
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“Pulp,” Maeve murmured. “Not the best tasting part of a dragon.”
Jumper didn’t see how that related to hanging over, but let it pass. There were just too many human nuances for him to keep up with. In due course they resumed walking along the path, and by nightfall they were close to the Good Magician’s Castle. But by mutual consent they decided to spend one more night on the road, in part to get the taste of dragon pulp out of their mouths.
They washed in the safe pool, foraged in the enchanted campground, and had a nice meal without whine. “Now all we need is some eye scream for dessert,” Haughty said. “But we don’t have the eyes.”
“Or the scream,” Maeve said.
“I have a friend who makes ice,” Olive said.
“There are cream puffs growing by the pond,” Phanta said. “I’ll harvest some.” She went off to do that. Olive’s imaginary friend appeared, a somewhat cold-looking woman. In fact, her hair seemed to be formed of icicles. “Hail Mary,” Olive called. “We’re making eye scream. May we have some of your hail?”
Mary gestured, her hair flared, and a small pile of hailstones dropped among them. “Eat, drink, and be Mary,” she said as she faded. They gathered up the hailstones before they melted and put them in a pot. Phanta returned with the cream puffs, and they carefully opened each and poured its cream into the pot. Then they stirred it up until it screamed. Sure enough, it had formed a single eye. It was ready. It turned out to be great eye scream, and it didn’t make them run around bare or get mouths tasting of dragon pulp. Then they settled in the shelter for the night. “You know,” Maeve said, “I’m not much for civilized socializing. I am doing it only because I have to hide from that bleeping bird. Otherwise I would be running wild on Mount Parnassus and tearing flesh from anyone I caught. But I find I am enjoying the company of you folk. Don’t y
ou dare tell the other maenads that.”
“I feel much the same,” Haughty said. “Normally I peer down my nose at ground-bound j**ks, but you can be good company.”
“Jacks,” Maeve murmured. “They are used to lift heavy things up.”
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“You’re all okay,” Phanta said. “But my favorite is Jumper, because he saved me from Gheorge last night.”
“He did?” Wenda asked. “I did knot know about this.”
“Yew wood knot,” Phanta said with a smile. “Yew were asleep, woodwife. Gheorge blew out my candle and hauled me away, but Jumper lassoed a star and saved me.”
Phanta and the others gazed at Jumper with all ten of their eyes. That made him uncomfortable, as he had only eight eyes. “I was just trying to help.”
“We do like each other,” Olive said. “It’s too bad we’ll have to separate and go our own ways tomorrow.”
“Maybee we can meet again, some day,” Wenda said. “I wood knot want to miss that.”
“We are becoming friends. But I am going back to my own realm,”
Jumper said. “I can’t just go back and forth. That’s why I need the Good Magician’s help.”
“Can a ghost reach your realm?” Phanta asked.
“Maybe. Mainly, it’s much smaller than this one. In fact, maybe it’s the same realm, only on a different scale.”
“Maybe we’ll find a way,” Haughty said.
At that point night fell with an inaudible clank, and there was Hottie Harpie. “And I could give you such a good time, if only you had bird or man parts.”
Jumper tried to blush, but didn’t succeed, because he was a spider and anyway had no idea what she was talking about. The others laughed; they did know, and found it funny. Or something. 039-40892_ch01_4P.qxp 7/30/09 12:35 PM Page 54 3
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In the morning they approached the Good Magician’s Castle. It was a solid edifice with a broad moat, high walls, and not much else. A path led down to the drawbridge, which was invitingly down. A number of exotic plants grew beside the path, and Wenda identified some as they went.