A bulb flashed over Pia"s head. "Car pool tunnel thin dome!" she exclaimed.
The carpet apparition seemed to groan. It changed form, becoming a thin gla.s.sy dome with a tunnel through it, wide enough for several cars No way to smother anyone in that. Disgusted, it faded.
"You saved me!" DeMonica said, giving Pia a heartfelt extra hug, and then a wet kiss.
"Well, I had to. dear," Pia said, feeling a tear at her eye.
"I love you."
"And I love you." Pia said Now she was sure: she wanted a child of her own. She had never realized before how precious they could be.
"You never punned before." Edsel said, amazed.
"I guess I never had to." She let the child go. That job was done, but she would never forget that joy of holding the little girl close.
"There"s the magic locket," Monica said, as brightly as if she had never been scared. Children did recover from things rapidly. "On Soft."
Pia looked. She saw the locket hanging by its chain from the neck of a chunky standing man. The man was facing the other way, but the locket was against his broad bare back.
"I can get it." Edsel said.
"No. this is my mission," Pia said I"ll get it." She appreciated his offer, but suspected that she could more readily charm the man to give it to her.
Para reached the isle and waddled onto land. Pia stepped out and approached the man. She noticed that his back was flat and covered with small print. "Excuse me," she said.
He turned. For a moment she was afraid he was completely naked, but his front side was garishly clothed. "Yes?"
"I-I"m Pia. I need that magic locket."
"Welcome to it I am Softcover I was holding it for DeMonica."
"Softcover?" she asked.
"My soft paper back is hard to cover."
Now she made the connection. Paperback-hardcover. He was in fact a standing, talking book. Not a cookbook, fortunately; cheap adventure fiction. She smiled fetchingly at him. "Thank you so much. Mister Soft-cover. Will you give it to me?"
"I am unable to reach it. You must take it from me."
So did he want to make her embrace him? Well, if that was the price of it, she could do it. She stepped in close, reached her arms around his arms and chest, caught hold of the chain, and lifted it up and over his head. It was a stretch, and at one point she was pressing fairly firmly against him, but he didn"t move. She brought it down, and had possession. "Thank you," she said, smiling again.
"You are welcome."
Now she saw that his arms were actually the soft covers of the book, with the hands painted on. He could not move them other than to open and close them. So he had not been deceiving her.
She turned and stepped back into the boat. "Now let"s get the bleep out of here," she said briskly.
The boat splashed into the water and moved rapidly back the way they had come. But another shape was coming toward them. It looked like a winged woman. Whose fantasy was this one?
"Willow!" Monica called happily.
"Willow!" Breanna echoed. "What are you doing here?"
The winged girl came to land in the boat. "h.e.l.lo Monica, Justin. Breanna. I think I have business with your friends."
"Oh Okay." Breanna turned to Edsel and Pia. "This is Willow Elf. Sean Mundane"s wife." She turned back to the girl. "And these are Edsel and Pia. from Mundania."
"Yes The Good Magician told me to find them here. I need the magic locket."
"Now wait a minute," Pia protested. "We need this locket, to stop the Demon CoTwo. The Good Magician knows that."
"Yes, of course." Willow agreed. "But as soon as you finish with it, I must take it to Mundania, to help Nimby."
"Nimby"s in trouble?" Breanna asked, alarmed.
"We fear so. He has very little magic there, because he is using a Mundane body rather than his own. and we think the Demon E(A/R)th is trying to trap him there. Messages came to several folk, saying Nimby Eats Dust. The Good Magician takes them most seriously. So we must get magic to him soon."
"This is serious," Justin said.
"Yes. I need to fill the locket with magic dust, so that it will carry the magic to him. Then he will be able to re-connect with you and return to the land of Xanth."
"While we return to Mundania," Pia said, surprised to hear a tinge of regret in her voice. Despite all its complications, she was coming to like it here. For one thing, there was her sixteen year old body. It had been wonderful having it, and using it to impress men. "We"ll give you the locket as soon as we finish with CoTwo."
Willow frowned. "It would be better if I borrowed it now, to fill it with magic dust."
"You can"t fill it." Monica said. "It"s bottomless."
Willow nodded agreement. "I mean, to put enough dust in it to help Nimby."
"But we need it now," Pia said, distrusting this.
"I will bring it back to you. I simply need to take it to the Magic Dust Village."
"How long will that take"7"
"No more than half a day," the elf said. "Most of that will be flying time."
Pia was pained "Isn"t there a faster way?"
Willow considered. "Actually, there is, now that I remember it. Pearl lives near here."
"Pearl?"
"Her talent is summoning magic dust. With her help, I could do it in an hour."
"Go to Pearl." Pia agreed, handing over the magic locket.
"Thank you. Where can I most readily find you, then?"
"At the snow mountains.""
"I will be there." Willow spread her lovely wings and took off.
"This is bad news," Breanna said. "If Nimby gets trapped in Mundania, all of Xanth will be in trouble."
"We shall deal with CoTwo, and then the locket will go to rescue Nimby," Edsel said. Then his glance strayed. "My!"
Pia looked. She saw a troupe of shapely nymphs dancing across the surface of the water. "Whose horror is that?"
"Mine," Edsel said. "Only it"s no horror. I"ve always dreamed of going to a show like that."
Pia eyed the figures disapprovingly. They had very well fleshed legs and very short skirts. There were five of them, with hair matching skirts: blue, red, green, yellow, and black. "This is going to freak you out?"
"For sure," Breanna said. "When they get close and do a high kick, so as to show their pretty colored-"
"I get it. So is there another horror to collide with them?"
"I fear so," Justin said. "Over there."
Pia looked the way he indicated. Her blood tried to curdle. It was a formless hump that sent a dreadful chill through her.
"What is it?" Breanna asked.
"It"s my personal monster," Pia said. "The thing I want least to encounter."
"What is that?" Justin asked.
"I don"t know. Just that I"ve got to get away from it."
"How can you be afraid of something you don"t know?" Monica asked.
"I think I"m afraid of it because it"s unknown," Pia said. "It"s something I simply can"t face."
"Well, we"ll crash it into the dancing nymphs," Breanna said. "But you"ll both have to summon them, so they"ll collide where we were."
"Glad to," Edsel said. "Come, nymphs."
Pia opened her mouth, but the words wouldn"t come out. She just couldn"t summon that unknown horror.
"Hey, we have to get them aligned," Breanna said. "Bring the hump! Only you can do it "
"I can"t." Pia moaned. "I just can"t."
"Then we have a problem," Breanna said. "The nymphs are upon us. Para, dodge!"
The boat dodged to the side, but couldn"t escape the nymphs. They intercepted it and spilled onto the seats, going for Edsel. One of them tumbled head under skirt into Pia, giving her a phenomenal flash of green panties. Of course that didn"t freak her out, because she was female, and because her main attention was taken by the more distant lump pursuing her. But she knew Edsel was another matter.
The nymph rolled on into Pia-and through her. It was an illusion. But those bright, full panties would take men out regardless.
"Justin." Breanna said urgently, "maybe you"d better-before one of them flashes you."
"I didn"t want to use this, but I see I must," Justin said with regret He drew from a pocket something that to Pia"s peripheral vision looked like a big letter D. He flipped it at the cl.u.s.ter of nymphs.
There was an explosion. Pieces of nymph and skirt and panty flew out in every direction, dissipating, but Pia didn"t feel anything physical.
"Hey. what happened?" Edsel asked, blinking.
"Justin destroyed them with his dee-tonate," Breanna said. "It blows things up. He set it for illusions, so it blew up only the illusion."
"But I was just about to see them do the high kick," Edsel complained.
"And it would have freaked you out five-fold." Breanna retorted. "A one panty freakout is over as soon as eye contact is broken, but when there are several, the effect is geometrical. You"d have been out for days, and we can"t afford that."
"Oh." Edsel looked both disappointed and sheepish.
"But Pia"s spook is still coming," Justin said. "And we can"t stop it."
"We"ll just have to run for it," Breanna said. "Maybe it can"t go beyond the edge of the Fanta Sea. Go. Para!"
The boat lurched forward. They reached the bank, and the boat heaved out of the water and across the land. Were they safe?
Pia faced back, watching, because she had no choice. For a while they gained on the horror, but then it floated off the water and over the land. It was still coming.
"Well, we"ll figure out something." Breanna said uncertainly. "Keep going. Para. To the snow mountains."
The boat ran along at an excellent clip. Slowly the pursuing apparition lost ground, and finally disappeared behind a turn in the forest. Pia"s gaze was freed. But she knew the thing had not given up. It would pursue her until it caught her.
"The locket!" Breanna exclaimed. "You can put it in the locket."
"An illusion?" Edsel asked.
"For sure. That locket takes in anything you ask it to, and won"t let it out until you say so."
"But Willow has the locket." Pia reminded her.
"Oh. bleep! I forgot. Well, we"ll just have to stay out of its way until we get the locket back."
Para made excellent time, and before long they were rising through the foothills of the mountains. Pia could tell, because the hills were shaped like giant feel.
But this also slowed the forward progress of the boat. The pursuing hump was floating, and had no problem with climbing; it came back into sight, slowly closing in.
"It"s going to catch us," Breanna said. "Before we get there, and before Willow brings back the locket."
"What can I do?" Pia wailed.
"There is only one way to deal with inescapable terror,"
Justin said. "That is to face it and conquer it."