Eve paused. Then she let go. She knew that if Dawn jumped in, she would suddenly be twice as indecent as Eve, and therefore twice the compet.i.tion. She didn"t want that.
Forrest took advantage of his release to move quickly away. Eve"s indecent proposal had interested him more than he dared admit. He needed to stay well away from her, until the effect of the water pa.s.sed.
Imbri approached him. "Maybe you should ride me," she suggested in a dreamlet.
"Thanks." He hopped onto her back. She was big and solid enough now so it was no problem for her, and this would keep him pretty much out of the Princess" reach. That was of course why Imbri had suggested it.
They moved on, leaving the Indecen Sea behind. They hurried, because all of them were getting thirsty, and they didn"t want to give Eve any time to think of anything else to do. As it was she remained without her outer clothing, and was trying to catch Forrest"s eye. It was obvious that the effect of the water had not yet worn off.
Then they came to a large blue rock. It extended to the edge of the sea, so that they had either to splash through the edge of the sea to get around it, or make a long detour the other way.
They stopped before it, considering. "Maybe we could climb over it,"
Forrest suggested.
"Maybe you could," Imbri said. "But I would have to change form."
Which would put her back in girl form. He knew she had adopted her natural form so as not to tease him any more. Her shape shifting ability seemed to be pretty much limited to going between her two "natural" forms. He preferred to keep her as a mare. "Maybe we could make a ramp high enough to cross it," he said.
But there was nothing from which to make a ramp. So Eve approached the rock. "I"ll find out if there is any good way to get past it," she said. "But first, how about a little kiss, faun?"
That was more mischief. Forrest faced away from her. He didn"t want to offend her, but he knew that it was only the water that made her so forward.
"Well, maybe after I get the answer," Eve said. She bent over to touch the rock, after making sure that Forrest was looking. Her slip was becoming shorter as time pa.s.sed. She was getting smarter about her indecency.
Her hand pa.s.sed through the rock. She fell into it and disappeared.
"Hey!" she cried. "This isn"t real rock. It"s sham rock!"
Dawn t.i.ttered. "You must be lying, then."
"It"s not that kind of sham rock," Eve retorted. "But you can lie if you want to."
"Very well. I don"t want to kiss someone all over his fur."
"Neither do I," Eve said. "I really hate the notion."
"Enough lying," Dawn said. Then she walked into the rock to rescue her sister. In a moment they both emerged. "We can walk right through it," Dawn called. "Come on."
Imbri walked cautiously forward, carrying Forrest. The blue darkness of the rock closed about them. In a moment they emerged from the other side.
And there ahead of them was a third body of water. Forrest hoped that this one was good.
Eve walked toward it. "Are you sure you should-?" Dawn asked nervously.
"Better than you risking it," Eve said, flopping indecently down on the ground with her legs spread. Forrest managed to avert his eyes just before disaster.
She touched the surface. A beatific smile crossed her face and drifted some distance beyond. "Oh, I feel so relieved!"
"What is it?" Dawn asked.
"It"s a Mer Sea," she said in kindly fashion. "It forgives everything."
"Then we"d better drink it," Imbri said.
Forrest jumped off her back, and they went to drink. As soon as he touched the water, a marvelous feeling of compa.s.sion washed through him.
Eve approached him. "Forrest, I apologize for my unfortunate behavior.
I really should not have-"
"That"s all right," he said quickly. "It was the water."
"Yes. But you still look doubtful."
"It"s just that, if you don"t mind-"
"Yes?"
"If you would put your clothing back on."
"Oh." It must have been her turn to blush, because she did so to the waist before reforming her outer apparel.
After that they walked more comfortably on toward the center of the triangle. But the blue landscape darkened. Night was coming. That probably meant that Xanth was darkening, and with it Ptero, and with it, Pyramid. It had nothing to do with the spin of this world. So they looked for a suitable place to spend the night.
The darkness wasn"t complete. This was awkward, because the blue landscape remained somewhat strange to their eyes, and made relaxation for sleep difficult.
"That looks like a nightshade tree," Imbri said. "That should help."
Sure enough, under the blue tree there was a pool of darkness. It was midnight blue-black, the same as Imbri"s hide, and impenetrable. Beside it was a sweetgum tree. So they picked a number of the leaves and twigs, which were made of sweet gum with a slightly woody flavor. This was enough to satisfy their incidental hunger. Their renewed thirst was satisfied by several small local ponds which turned out to be teas: serendipi, sereni, punctuali, joviali, and naugh. They were especially tempted by the last one, but after the experiences of the seas, concluded that discretion was best. Farther along they spied calami, adversi, frail, and pomposi, which were worse, so they gave up on their search for anything better. They drank the sereni-tea and soon relaxed into sleep in the pleasant darkness of the nightshade. Imbri remained in her mare form, needing no blanket, while the girls lay close together and were warm. That left Forrest alone, thinking thoughts that made him feel guilty. It had been bad enough when Imbri was in girl form; now there were two genuine girls.
Next morning they took turns bathing in the pool with punctualitea, then promptly got on their way. This was just as well, because the terrain became much rougher. They were no longer walking tilted, relative to the larger landscape, which suggested that they were approaching the center of the blue triangle, and Eve"s testing of the ground verified this. But this levelness of the underlying land seemed to encourage the surface features to splurge, and the landscape was like tumbled blue blocks left by a giant. They had to scramble over and under and around, and squeeze through reluctant crevices, so that it took them most of a day to travel what might otherwise have been a two-hour walk.
Then, as they finally cleared the blue blocks, they came to a jungle inhabited by cat people. Fortunately Forrest had remembered to reinvoke the blanket of obscurity, so the cats didn"t notice them. That was just as well, because when they changed from cat to people form, and various combinations of the two, they probably wouldn"t like being spied on.
"But maybe I can approach one separately, and get her advice on the local situation," Dawn said brightly. "Because there must be something to send out the blue lines, and we had better know what we are looking for before we blunder into it."
The others agreed. But when Dawn located an isolated blue cat woman, and approached her, she had a problem. "Please, miss-can you tell me about this region?"
The woman ignored her, and went about her business of scratching out blue catnip.
"I just want to know what is ahead," Dawn said, trying again. "Is there any special danger?"
The cat walked away.
"It"s the blanket of obscurity," Forrest said, catching on. "It makes you unnoticeable."
Dawn sighed. "That"s right. And I"m sure it has protected us from much mischief. But how can I talk with this feline?"
"Just touch her and learn all about her, dummy," Eve said.
A dim bulb flickered over Dawn"s head. She touched the cat woman"s arm.
"She is Catrina," she announced. "Of the category of Feline Folk who cater to the catacombs. She had a whole collection of cat combs she has made for the ones who live in maze-like tunnels. On occasion she brings some combs to the Blue Wizard"s castle. It"s very forbidding, and no one can get in who isn"t invited. It"s guarded by all manner of monsters."
"You can tell all that from one touch of the cat woman?" Forrest asked.
"Yes. It"s part of everything about her. But I can"t get beyond her personal experience. She"s never actually been inside the castle, and knows nothing about its content. But she"s afraid of the Wizard, who has given so much away that he has become enormous."
Forrest took a moment to work that out, remembering that on this world creatures gained size and power by being generous. "But how can he give so much away?" he asked. "I mean, where does he get anything to give away? It must come from somewhere."
"From Ptero," Imbri said in a dreamlet.
"That"s right!" Eve agreed. "See if he gives away any talents."
Dawn checked. "Yes, he has given away many talents-and I recognize some from people I know on Ptero. One cat woman got the talent of changing things to strawberry jam, for all that it comes out blue. Another got the talent of Charisma, which becomes purrsuasion; now she is queen of the cat people. Another got the talent of spell-checking."
"Hey, isn"t that Com-Pewter"s talent?" Imbri asked.
"No, his talent is changing local reality to suit himself," Forrest said. "But checking spells-that"s a strong one. If that belonged to one of the folk captured by the margins, it is becoming clear where all the magic is going. The Blue Wizard is getting it and giving it away to add to his power."
"Another got the talent of changing the color of the sky," Dawn continued, checking the cat woman. "So she can make it any shade of blue. Another got the talent of throwing his voice with his hand, so he can make it go anywhere."
"So the Wizard is stealing talents from Ptero to give away here," Imbri said indignantly. "How can he get away with that?"
"Apparently Pyramid"s rules don"t take account of the outside realm,"
Eve said thoughtfully. "So he has a dandy way to become all-powerful."
"And there must be other Wizards on the other faces of Pyramid," Forrest said. "Doing the same thing."
"And we have to stop them," Dawn said, letting the cat woman go on her way. "Does anyone have any idea how?"
There was a silence that bobbled around from one to another. None of them knew what to do.
Which meant it was up to Forrest. "I suppose we should approach the Blue Wizard"s castle and see what we can do," he suggested feebly.
"Now I am just a naive girl," Eve said. "With barely a notion of the Adult Conspiracy, and no experience." Her sister smirked at that. "But even I know that we"d probably get hauled in and executed without trial."
"I couldn"t have said it better, even if you did usurp my turn," Dawn said.
"It wasn"t your turn. You spoke last before me."
"But this is a new subject. I always comment first on new things."
"Girls, girls," Forrest said, finding himself shoved into a role their mother had played on Ptero.
Both turned to him, their motions so well coordinated that he knew he had been had. Imbri faced away, letting him handle it in his own fashion. "And what are you going to do about it?" Dawn inquired. "Spank us?"
"Shall we hoist our skirts for it?" Eve continued. "So you can smack our pan-"
"Girls!" he cried in boldface. Then, more quietly: "After this mission is done, and your friends have been saved, and we are no longer in danger of being executed, then you may tease me as much as you want, and maybe even make me blush again. You are both extremely attractive young women, and I am a faun, and I would love to play games with you in my natural fashion. But at present we are in danger, and any mistake we make could cost us not only our lives, but imperil the fate of all the human folk remaining on Ptero. So though you may regard me as unqualified, and perhaps laughable, I hope you will allow me to do the best I can in the role that the Good Magician requires of me. That is to guide you to success in saving your land from marginalization."
The two exchanged a glance. Then they turned together to look at Forrest. All four of their eyes were bright. "We apologize most abjectly," Dawn said. "We were indeed forgetting our mission." She wiped a tear from her right eye.
"But we ask you to understand that we do take the mission seriously," Eve continued. "We tend to joke around when we are under tension, because it is better than crying." She wiped a tear from her left eye.
Forrest was chagrined. "I didn"t realize. I apologize for-"
"We will behave from now on," Dawn said. "Until the mission is done."
"But thereafter," Eve said, "we may indeed tease you in fun, and play with you in the manner of nymphs."
"That isn"t necessary," he said quickly. "I never meant to suggest-"
"We are of age," Dawn said.
"And we are learning respect for you," Eve added.
"But-"
"So now we will apologize to you in the manner of the gourd-"
"And leave you with a moderate notion of what we have in mind."
"But the gourd apologies are excessively-" he began, alarmed.
But he was cut off by Dawn, who stepped into him, embraced him closely, and kissed him with such pa.s.sion that his head seemed in danger of floating away. It was as if the sun were rising and blinding him with its warm, delightful light. Then she released him, and Eve hugged him so firmly that he needed no eyes to appreciate her every contour, and kissed him even more pa.s.sionately. This time it was as if the sun were setting and carrying him into the lovely encompa.s.sing night.
Then she let him go, and he stood stunned, with little suns and moons circling his head. Dawn had primed him, and Eve had wiped him out.
From what seemed like a far distance he heard them speaking again. "We do like you, Forrest," Dawn murmured in his left ear.
"And when we do show you our panties, we won"t be fooling," Eve murmured in his right ear.
Then they kissed his pointed ears, simultaneously.
Forrest found himself lying on the ground, with little hearts and planets spinning crazily over his face. The girls were fanning him and brushing off his fur. "I guess we overdid it," Dawn said. "He fainted."
"But we"ll be more careful from now on," Eve agreed.
"We had better change to blue jeans."
"And not too tight."
"But once this is done-"
"We"ll show him everything."