"Why, I hadn"t thought of that. I suppose if they removed their clothes and ran-"
"I mean the animal magnetism. Do real women get hot when a faun touches them?"
"Well, we don"t chase real women. They know too much, and they aren"t as well shaped. In addition, they often regard fauns as misshapen, and are repelled. So there"s no way of knowing-"
"So they tend to avoid contact. But if it should happen, what then?"
She dropped to the ground and put her arms around him. Her upper section pressed into his chest in two firm places, and her lower section pressed his fur in one firmer place. "Is this sufficient contact?" Then her eyes grew large and dreamy. "Oh, it"s true! Suddenly I want to get much closer to you." The three places increased their pressures.
Forrest struggled to disengage. "You"re not a woman, you"re a demoness.
If I tried to celebrate with you, you would just dissolve into laughing gas."
"True," she agreed, dissolving into puffs of vapor that spelled out HA HA. "But nevertheless also true that your touch inspires a certain l.u.s.t. So I shall make sure not to tease you from too close."
"Thank you." It had been all he could do to stop from trying what she had been teasing him to try.
"Unless I change my smoky mind," she said, reforming into something luscious.
He went to the two trees, and tucked a disk into the lowest cleft of branches of each. The trees did not seem to change, but he trusted ComPa.s.sion. They should be all right. He fetched a spare pair of sandals, just in case, and put them in his knapsack. "Now I am ready to o. Which way"?"
"South. He lives below the Gap Chasm."
"The what?"
"Don"t tell me you don"t remember! The forget spell wore off it years ago."
"It isn"t that I don"t remember. It"s that I never knew."
"Oh. Well, it"s a huge cleft in the ground that is impossible to penetrate unless you know how." She pursed her lips as she spoke the words "cleft" and "penetrate," as if suggesting something naughty.
Forrest had no idea what nuance she was nuancing, so he ignored it.
"Will you tell me how"?"
"Of course not. That"s more of a favor than I owe Mentia."
He had thought as much. Still, limited guidance was better than none.
Maybe he would be able to ask along the way.
Forrest stood at the brink of a monstrous abyss that was yawning despite the fullness of day. So this was the dreaded Gap Chasm! It was indeed impressive.
"So how do you suppose you will get across this impa.s.sable abyss?" Demoness Sire inquired.
"I suppose I will have to find a place to climb down into it, cross the bottom, and find a place to climb up the other side. We fauns are good climbers, because of our hoofs."
"Ixnay, faun. The Gap Dragon ranges the depths, eagerly waiting for idiots like you to try just that. He"s a six legged steamer, and chomps first and asks questions later."
"Well, maybe I can find a bridge across it. There must be one somewhere."
"Several. One"s invisible. Another is one way."
"One way?"
"Whichever way you"re going, it"s going the other way."
Forrest had encountered a one way path in his day, so he knew how that worked. "Well, I"ll keep looking. There must be some way that folk cross it."
"There is."
"And you won"t tell me."
"That would be a smidgen over my half favor."
So he walked west along the brink. After an indefinite time, he heard a scrambling in the brush. He turned toward it, holding his sandalwood staff protectively before him. It would kick anything that turned out to be dangerous, giving him time to run to safety.
In two and a half moments he spied an odd animal caught in briers. It looked like a male werewolf, but couldn"t be, because that would have changed to human form to pick away the p.r.i.c.kly vines. As it was, the poor creature could hardly move, and more briers were reaching for it.
They would soon coil completely around and p.r.i.c.k it to death so they could feed on its blood.
Forrest didn"t like briers much, so he decided to help the animal.
"Could you use some a.s.sistance?" he called.
The not-werewolf looked at him. "Arf!"
Forrest wasn"t sharp on animal languages, but he had a nodding acquaintance. That sounded like canine for "yes." So he used his staff to clear a path through the briers. They whipped around, striking at it, trying to stab it, but couldn"t hurt the wood. The staff gave them increasingly hefty kicks in return, until they gave up.
He reached the animal, and carefully pried the briers from its body.
Soon it was free. "Now follow me out, and stay close to my staff," he said. The animal nodded.
When they were safely out of the brier patch, Forrest turned to the animal. "If you don"t mind my asking, who are you, and what kind of a creature are you? You seem like only half of a werewolf."
"Woof!" the animal replied.
"So your name is Woof."
"Oh, come on, you"ll never get it that way," Sire said, appearing beside them. "You are wasting my time."
Forrest hardly spared her a dark glance. "You could save your time by telling me how to cross the Gap Chasm expediently."
She ignored that. "His name is Woofer. He"s a Mundane dog."
Forrest was amazed. "A Mundane creature! I thought they were extinct."
"No such luck. There"s more than a slew of them north of Xanth."
She faded out in disgust.
Forrest looked again at the dog. "Well, Woofer, I"ve never met a real dog before. So you"re Mundane! I suppose that means you are of limited intel-urn, that you don"t care to talk much. So I"ll phrase yes/no questions. One bark for yes, two for no. Okay?"
"Woof!"
"Are you friendly?"
"Woof."
"Do you have friends?"
"Woof."
"Are you lost?"
"Woof."
"Can you find your way back to them on your own?"
"Woof woof."
"Then I had better help you find them. I"m not making much progress on my own anyway."
"Disgusting," Sire said somewhere in air. "I"ll never get through this ch.o.r.e."
"You know what you can do about it, demoness."
"That would be unethical. Half a favor is half a favor, not half a whit more."
"Where did you last see your friends?" Forrest asked Woofer.
The dog bounded to the brink of the chasm and pointed upward with its nose.
"Over the pit? Can they fly?"
"Woof."
"And you couldn"t keep up with them, running on the ground. Or maybe you could, until you got into that brier patch. And they didn"t realize you were caught, so don"t know where you are."
"Woof."
"But maybe when they realize that you"re gone, they"ll fly back the way they came, and find you."
"Woof!" Woofer agreed, brightening.
"So let"s wait here until they come. Then you"ll be all right. Xanth isn"t very friendly to a Mundane creature alone."
"Woof."
So they waited by the brink, gazing out, watching for flying creatures, while D. Sire faded in and out, her disgust expanding to its farthest boundaries. Forrest took some balm from his knapsack and spread it on Woofer"s scratches and punctures, and they started healing.
Then Forrest"s sharp eyes spied two things in the air. They might be birds, but they didn"t fly like birds. "Maybe that"s them," he suggested.
"Woof!" Woofer wagged his tail.
So Forrest waved violently, to attract their attention. The shapes veered toward him. Soon they showed up as two humanoid figures: a young man and a young elfin woman. She had wings, while he flew without wings. Evidently they were a couple.
Woofer bounded across to meet them as they landed on the brink.
The young man hugged him, and the young woman kissed his nose.
Then they turned to Forrest.
"h.e.l.lo," he said, feeling abruptly awkward.
"Woof!" Woofer said, returning to him.
"You helped Woofer"" the man asked.
"He was caught in the brier patch."
"Woof.
"But those scratch something awful," the woman said. "He"s unscratched."
"Woof woof."
"I used some balm," Forrest said. Then, still feeling awkward: "I"m glad he"s safe now. I"ll be on my way."
"Woof woof."
"But you are safe now, aren"t you"?" Forrest said to him. "These are your friends."
"I think he means that you helped him, so he wants to help you back," the man said. "Let"s introduce ourselves. I"m Sean Mundane."
"I"m Willow Elf," the woman said.
"I"m Forrest Faun."
"And so you won"t have to wonder, I really am Mundane," Sean Said. "I visited Xanth, and fell In love with Willow. We-well, we ran afoul of a love spring without realizing it at first. She"s large for an elf and flies because she a.s.sociates with a very large winged elm tree. I returned to Mundania with her, and she found it a really weird place.
Then when we came back to Xanth, suddenly I could fly. We don"t know what happened, but it"s great. Now we"re just enjoying it. We hope to marry soon."
Forrest realized that they were as curious about him as he was about them. "I"m an ordinary tree faun. My neighboring tree lost its faun, so I am in search of a replacement faun for it, so it won"t die or become-" He hesitated.
"Mundane," Sean said. "No affront; I know how awful that seems to Xanthians. Of course you don"t want that to happen."
"So I"m going to ask the Good Magician for advice," Forrest continued.