Forrest disengaged from the girls and approached the mare, hoping that the spell of obscurity was not actually on him, since he had not been present when it had been invoked. He needed to be visible to Imbri.
"Hey!" he called.
She whirled, orienting on him. "Where were you?" her dreamlet query came.
"The girls hauled me under the obscurity blanket."
"But you were gone for some time."
"We had something we needed to work out."
"Oh?"
"They are in temporary love with me."
"Oh."
"They don"t get to meet many males who don"t want something from them."
"Don"t you want something?"
"Nothing that would diminish them or commit them. It seems."
"And did you get it?"
"Not yet. Right now the mission is more urgent."
Imbri might have inquired further, but at that point another creature appeared on the path. Forrest quickly mounted Imbri so that they could appear as faun and horse, and they walked toward the new arrival. It didn"t resemble Polly Morph, fortunately.
In fact, it didn"t resemble anything Forrest remembered seeing before, anywhere. It seemed to be a ma.s.s of curving projections, some furry, some bare, some pointed, some floppy, and some vaguely like nothing specific.
"h.e.l.lo!" Forrest called.
The thing cringed away. "Don"t yell!" it exclaimed from somewhere within, faintly.
"Sorry," Forrest whispered. "I just wanted to ask-"
"No, no, questions are too loud," it said, sidling away.
"Just what kind of creature are you?" Forrest asked, mildly annoyed.
"I"m all ears," it said, disappearing around a curve.
"That"s true," Imbri said in a dreamlet. "Now I recognize the different shapes of ears. It must be very sensitive to sound."
"Maybe we"ll have better luck with the next one," Forrest said.
"And here he comes," Imbri said. "Maybe this time I should try addressing him."
"My technique hasn"t been getting us far, for sure."
The man looked to be about thirty two, wearing an elegant blue royal robe and a blue crown. He was smiling, and looked friendly.
"h.e.l.lo," Imbri said in a dreamlet directed to both Forrest and the man.
He looked at her, startled. "Why, it"s a night mare!" he exclaimed.
"Former night mare, now a day mare," Imbri"s dreamlet figure clarified.
"How did you recognize me?"
"Oh, I have had many deliveries! I was originally from an awful place called Mundania. I have my Mundane name to prove it: Todd Loren."
"Mundania! How did you get here?"
"I"m not sure, but I think it was my imagination. I dreamed of a special world, where I was a royal character and could do magic, and suddenly I was here, with my talent of being able to direct wind to blow to particular places. It may not be much, but I enjoy it."
"Do you happen to know a woman called Ida?"
"The one with the moon?"
"That"s the one. Can you tell us how to find her?"
"No, but I can direct you to her. Just follow that gust of wind."
Todd gestured, and wind stirred up some dust, becoming visible as a fuzzy ball.
"Thank you!" Imbri"s dreamlet figure cried as they pursued the wind.
"You are welcome. I"m always glad to gain size."
"That"s right," Forrest said as they moved on. "Folk grow and gain power as they give things away. But I don"t think I lost any ma.s.s."
"I did, because the favor was to me," Imbri said. "But I have plenty of ma.s.s, now. If I lose too much, I"ll have to resume maiden shape, is all."
"I hope you get it back, when we leave Pyramid."
"Pyramid is so small that whatever we lose here is surely unmeasurable elsewhere."
He realized that this was probably the case. This was the moon of a moon, as it were, and its entire ma.s.s was much less than that of either of their condensed souls on Ptero.
They followed the wind along the path, glad that it wasn"t zooming wildly cross-country the way most winds did. Forrest hoped that Dawn & Eve were keeping up, because the wind didn"t pause.
But then it did pause. It hovered in place, barely hanging on to the blue dust that made it visible. It was beside a young woman. Her hair and eyes were a silver shade of blue, and there was even a sprinkling of blue snow on her head. She was pretty, but looked hard.
"That"s not Ida," Forrest murmured.
"There must be a reason the wind is waiting," Imbri said in a private dreamlet. "We had better inquire."
"I"ll do it." He looked at the woman. "h.e.l.lo."
She looked coldly at him. "Do I know you?"
"No. And I mean no harm. But we are following a wind, and it is pausing by you, so I wondered whether there is a reason. I am Forrest Faun, and this is Mare Imbri."
The woman turned deep blue eyes on him. "I am the Lady Winter, otherwise known as Winter Lee Cheryl Jacobs. I don"t know why I am here, but I don"t think it is to dance with the wind."
"That name-are you Mundane?"
"Yes. At least I was, before I came on this trip."
"Maybe that"s why the wind is pausing. It was sent by another Mundane, and maybe it"s curious, because there can"t be many Mundanes here."
"Another Mundane?" Winter asked, interested.
"Yes. A man. He wears a crown. He seemed nice."
"Maybe I should meet him. At least he would understand why I find this place so strange."
The wind divided, and one gust swept back up the path. "Just follow that wind," Forrest said. "It should lead you right to him."
"Thank you," Winter said, smiling so brilliantly that it seemed like sunrise. She followed the gust.
"Hey-I feel heavier," Forrest said, surprised.
"You just did someone a favor," Imbri said. "I think the wind did recognize her as a Mundane, and felt an affinity because Todd Loren was Mundane. They should like each other: he"s mature and nice, and she"s young and pretty."
"I guess so," he agreed.
The half gust of wind resumed its motion, and they followed it as the path wound around blue hills, across blue fields, through blue forests, past blue lakes, and under blue skies. Then it paused again, by what looked like a cemetery.
"This is just a field full of crosses," Forrest said. "They must be marking graves." Indeed, there were big crosses and little ones, each one carved from wood and slightly different from all the others. Some were fairly straight, but others were curvaceous. In fact they seemed to be about as individual for crosses as people were for people. Forrest had a vested appreciation for wood, and found it intriguing in its own right whatever form it might be carved into, but he didn"t recognize this particular variety.
"But in Xanth graves aren"t marked by crosses," Imbri said.
"This isn"t Xanth. In fact, it isn"t even Ptero. Who knows what the rules may be on Pyramid?" He was suspicious, because of the way the crosses had been used in Contrary Centaur"s game on Ptero. If these were anything like that, he wanted no part of them.
"Maybe so," she agreed. "Let me send a dreamlet down to see whether there"s a body."
"Dreamlets can explore?"
"Not exactly. But I can send them to anyone, including the dead."
She concentrated, and he saw a dreamlet in a little cloud float down and disappear into the ground below a cross. In a moment it bobbed up again, its dream figure looking perplexed. "No, there"s nothing there,"
Imbri said in a separate dreamlet to Forrest.
"So they are just stuck in the ground," Forrest said. "They aren"t alive. I suppose Eve could tell us all about them, if she were here."
"Perhaps we should wait for the girls to catch up. I"d like to be sure they are all right, as long as the wind is willing to wait."
"All right. It does seem to be a smart gust." At that the swirling wind darkened, blushing; though it could not speak to them, it evidently understood what they said.
That gave him a notion. "While we wait, Gust-is there anything to eat around here?"
The gust swept across to a billboard on the far side of the field. It had a painting of a grand a.s.sortment of berries. All were in shades of blue, of course, but seemed to be of many varieties. They looked delicious.
"But this is just a picture," Forrest said.
The gust brushed up against the picture, and it almost seemed that some of the berries moved. So Forrest reached out to touch a berry and it was round, not flat. He picked it and put it to his mouth. "A bill-berry!" he exclaimed. "I should have known."
Imbri trotted over. "Bill-berries? They are very good for you."
She put her mouth to the billboard and took a bite of berries. But then she spat something out. "I got a billfold by accident," her dreamlet figure said, making a face.
Forrest saw the billfold on the ground. It was a wad of folded paper, gray on the front, green on the back. It did look inedible. Apparently the billboard wasn"t perfect; there was some contamination.
Something tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped. There was a vague female shape smelling faintly of morning. "Oh-Dawn," he said, relieved.
"I hadn"t noticed you."
"Because of the blanket of obscurity," her voice breathed in his ear. "I can see you quite clearly."
"And so can I," Eve"s voice murmured in his other ear. Then they both nibbled on the tips of his ears.
"Stop that!" he exclaimed.
Imbri looked around. "Did I swish you with my tail? I didn"t mean to."
"No. The girls are here."
She squinted. "Why so they are. That obscurity is effective. Now that I know what to look for, I can see them."
So could Forrest. "Eve, would you check one of those crosses and learn what it"s all about? The wind brought us here, so there must be some reason."
"I"ll be glad to." Her vague form kissed his cheek and departed.
"That wind must like you," Dawn said, kissing his other cheek.
"I think it"s just doing its job. Maybe it appreciates the way I cooperated with it to send Lady Winter to Todd. It has been very helpful."
"Eve is signaling. We had better go there."
Forrest looked, but no longer saw Eve. The blanket had covered her.
"I"ll lead you," Dawn said. She took his hand in hers, squeezing his fingers in a way that reminded him exactly how female she was. These girls might be young, but they had learned a good deal already.
In a few steps they approached a gradually clarifying figure holding a cross. As Forrest concentrated, Eve became recognizable. "These crosses enable folk to cross things," she said. "Eyes, T"s, mountains, rivers, people-anything."