Air Apparent (14 page)

Then everything stopped. “What is happening here?” a mind-mannered goblin man inquired politely. Fray realized that was incongruous, because goblin males were not polite.

“Nothing, Goody,” Gatling said. “Go away.”

“Goody Goblin!” the peeve exclaimed, flying to him.

“Peeve! What are you doing here?”

“I brought Happy Bottom and Fray Cloud here to see Gwenny.”

“We were just about to make her bottom happy,” Gatling muttered.

“Fray is nine years old,” the peeve said.

Goody frowned. “You were about to what, Gatling?”

But Gatling and the other male goblins had disappeared, evidently realizing they were in trouble.

Fray recondensed, forming her lost clothing about her. “What were they going to do to us?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Goody said quickly. “I’ll take you to Gwenny.”

Happy Bottom condensed again similarly. “That seems best.”

“But they were taking off our clothing,” Fray said, sure she was missing something.

“Perhaps it had gotten dirty,” Goody said uneasily.

He was right about that. Their clothing had gotten badly smudged by the dragging. But the reformed clothing was clean. The goblins hadn’t needed to clean it.

The peeve landed on her shoulder. “Adult Conspiracy,” it murmured in her ear. “He’s not allowed to tell.”

Oh, that again. Fray was getting pretty disgusted with the Conspiracy. But she shut up, knowing that adults never relented on the secrets they kept from children. Sometimes she suspected that adults existed to torment children. So she changed the subject: “Why are you so polite?”

Goody smiled. “It’s a long story, but the essence is that I suffered a dunking in reverse elixir as a child and it reversed my nature. Fortunately Gwenny doesn’t mind.”

They were just then entering a larger meeting room. “Of course I don’t mind, dear,” a lovely female goblin said, kissing him. All lady goblins were as lovely and nice as the males were ugly and crude, but she seemed especially nice. After all, even the peeve liked her.

Goody disengaged. “This is my wife Chiefess Gwenny Goblin,” he said. “These are Happy Bottom Cloud, her daughter Fray, and the pet peeve.” But Gwenny was already kissing the peeve’s feathered head, and the bird wasn’t cussing: proof enough.

“Gatling tried to bleep Happy and Fray,” the peeve said. “And he was going to bake me. Until Goody rescued us.”

Gwenny’s smile faded. “True?” she asked Goody.

“Perhaps it was a misunderstanding,” Goody said.

“The bleep it was!” the bird snapped. “You’re too bleeping softhearted, two shoes!”

“That’s why I love him,” Gwenny said. “However, I am not like him in that respect.” She turned to a goblin orderly. “Have Gatling arrested and strung up for neutering immediately after the trial.”

Fray could tell by the appalled look on the faces of Goody and Happy, and by the smug satisfaction on the peeve’s beak, that this was a singularly apt and harsh punishment. Gatling would probably never bleep a visitor again, whatever it was. There was steel wire under the soft tresses of the lady chief.

“And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Gwenny asked Happy.

Happy had trouble answering, evidently still shaken by the fate, whatever it was, of Gatling. So Fray answered. “Father Fracto disappeared. So did Wira’s husband Hugo. So we’re helping each other look, using clues Wira got from the Good Magician’s Book of Answers. The peeve is a clue; you are another.”

“This is serious news,” Gwenny said.

“It’s secret, because something might happen to them if the murderer knew we were looking for him,” Fray said.

“Of course,” Gwenny agreed. “I suspect the peeve was indicated to get you safely here.”

“I failed,” the peeve said ruefully. “I’ve gotten too bleeping soft. In my heyday I could have let loose a verbal barrage that shriveled those goblins’ faces off their noggins.”

“Indeed you could have,” Gwenny agreed. “But you aren’t fresh from Hell any more. You are becoming infested with decency.”

The bird glanced at her uncertainly. “Are you mocking me, wench?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Gwenny said with three eighths of a smile.

“See that you don’t,” the peeve said sternly.

Gwenny returned her attention to the clouds. “You are surely tired after your journey and, um, experience. You must stay for dinner and the night. I can guarantee there will not be any other ugly events.”

“But we haven’t found out why you are a clue,” Fray said.

“I assure you, I have no part in your father’s disappearance, or in Hugo’s,” Gwenny said. “I am as mystified as you. But the Good Magician’s Book of Answers is certainly authoritative. It is what brought Goody to me.” She kissed Goody again.

“Ugh,” the peeve said. “Spare us your mush.”

“Quiet, or I’ll kiss you too,” Gwenny told it. The bird was quiet. That interested Fray: the mere threat of a kiss could cow a rebellious creature? She would have to try it sometime.

They were conducted to a surprisingly well-appointed bedroom chamber with a perch for the bird.

“How did the Book of Answers bring Goody to Gwenny?” Fray asked.

“He had to find a good home for me,” the peeve answered. “Nobody wanted me; can’t think why. Along the way he met Gwenny, and she nabbed him and dumped me with the Golem family.”

“How romantic,” Fray said.

“Ludicrous,” the peeve grumped.

Dinner was suitably elegant, with airy cotton candy for Fray and assorted seeds and bugs for the peeve. But as dessert arrived, so did trouble: a pack of ugly goblin males charged in, led by Gatling. “Death to Gwenny!” he shouted, and hurled a pie at her.

“I thought you had him arrested,” Happy said as Gwenny ducked and the pie splatted against the wall behind her.

“He got away,” Gwenny said. “I thought he had fled the mountain. Instead it seems he hid and fomented rebellion.”

“Half the males have joined them,” Goody said, concerned. “We’re in trouble.”

“What of the females?” Gwenny demanded as a piece of cake just missed her.

“They are loyal. They like having a female chief.”

“That will do.” Gwenny climbed up on the table. “Ladies: form a line between me and the rebels so they have to throw past you to get me. See if you can balk your own men.”

The ladies went to it with will and purpose. They scrambled up onto the tables. “Snotnose, what’re you doing?” one called to her man. Snotnose was abashed now that he had been recognized. “Pickle-eye, you put down that pie!” another called, and Pickle-eye, similarly abashed, did. “Frog-butt, get your sorry bleep out of here!” A third called, and Frogbutt disappeared.

Meanwhile other women were grabbing bottles of boot rear, cream tsoda, and injure jail and splattering them on the men. One sip of boot rear was enough to deliver a pleasant kick in the butt; a bottle sent the man tumbling feet over rear. The cream tsoda liked to cream whatever it encountered; it was normally used only in little drops, and the bottles wiped out the men they caught. Injure jail was strictly for punishment—and now was the occasion.

But there were too many rebels. They swarmed up to the tables and knocked them down. The women screamed as they fell into the melee, their arms and legs flashing prettily. In fact, several panties showed, causing half a swarm of males to freak out. But their inertia bore them on forward, and the panties got covered by clothing and bodies, ending the freak.

That led to a diversion, because it seemed the goblin men had only one idea what to do with goblin women. But each goblin man wanted his own goblin woman to be reserved for him alone, regardless what he did with the women of other men. Fights broke out, and now pies were being smashed into the faces of other men.

Fray found it fascinating. Just what did grown men do with grown women? Somehow she never quite got to see any detail.

Then half a passel of men broke through the defenses and closed in on Happy, Fray, and Gwenny. They seemed to be doomed. “Vaporize!” Happy said.

They did so, as three men caught Gwenny and bore her down to the floor. She caught one in the puss with a cup of boot rear, causing him to clap his hands to his bottom, but the other two were tearing off her dress. In half a moment her bra was showing, and in three quarters of a moment her black panties. The items seemed to have lost much of their freaking power as the two males fought each other to get at the underwear.

Then Fray was fully vaporous, and charged with electricity. She fired out a jag of lightning. It scored on the rear of the goblin climbing on top of Gwenny. He leaped up, electrified, his bottom burning.

“Haw haw haw!” the peeve laughed. “I guess that reamed your fat donkey, dope!” Then it had to flutter out of the way of a flying pie.

Meanwhile, Happy was generating a snowstorm. Snow flung out to coat the men. It melted, but froze again as the cold intensified. They were becoming animate icicles. That cooled their ardor somewhat. Before long they retreated.

Their small party was left victorious amidst a clutter of splatted pies and dirty snow. But already Gwenny was on it. “Arrest them all,” she snapped. “They’re going to spend time in the dungeon being reeducated.”

Fray and Happy recondensed as the cleanup commenced. “Thank you for your timely assistance, ladies,” Goody Goblin said. “We apologize for the complication.”

“We were glad to have been of assistance,” Happy said.

“I haven’t had more fun in a decade!” the peeve said. “Did you see how Fray goosed that thug with lightning?”

“I believe I did,” Goody said. “It was a nice effort, duly appreciated.” He tried to keep a straight face, but smiles invaded the edges until they all had to laugh.

“But what was he trying to do to Gwenny?” Fray asked.

Suddenly Happy, Goody, and the peeve went silent. Darn!

Since no one was talking, she asked another question. “Is time in the dungeon really going to make the rebel goblins better people?”

Gwenny sighed. “Probably not. Neither will reeducation. Soon enough they’ll revert to their basic nature, and there will be more mischief. The women always forgive them their trespasses, so there seems to be no permanent solution. They don’t like being governed by a woman.”

“Why don’t you use reverse wood? It made Goody nice, didn’t it?”

Gwenny stared at her. “Out of the mouths of babes . . .” she said. “Would it work, Goody?”

“I think so,” Goody said, surprised. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“You’re not a child,” Fray pointed out.

He laughed. “That must be it. But there’s no reverse wood close by here.”

“Sure there is, dodo,” the peeve said. “There’s a grove not far south. Humfrey used to send the Gorgon to fetch some when he ran low.”

“You could show us exactly where it is?”

“That’s what I implied, dumbbell.”

“But we’ll need to act swiftly,” Gwenny said. “Before the men catch on and stage a prison break. We need to dose them before they suspect.”

“We’ll fetch it,” Fray said brightly.

“No, dear,” Gwenny said. “The terrain south of here is too dangerous for a child.”

“We’ll float!”

Goody shook his head. “You couldn’t carry it. It would reverse your nature, sinking you. I’ll have to do it.”

“You’re too nice,” Fray said. “If it’s too dangerous for me, it’s too dangerous for you.”

“She’s right, dear,” Gwenny told him fondly.

“For bleep’s sake,” the peeve swore. “You milquetoasts will never get it done.”

“Could you do it?” Goody asked evenly.

“With my flight feathers clipped,” the bird said. “I’m not too nice to handle it.”

“But you’re a little bird. You couldn’t carry enough.”

“All it would take is one chip, stewed in broth and fed to them.”

“Why would you bother to do us a favor?” Goody asked.

For a moment the bird was nonplussed, almost non-minused. It plainly didn’t want to admit that it owed Goody a favor for helping find it a good home.

“It would be a great joke to convert all those tough goblin rebels,” Fray suggested.

“That’s it,” the peeve agreed immediately.

“And mother and I can go along to protect you from air monsters,” Fray added.

“First thing in the morning,” Gwenny said. “You all need rest, after this day. Besides, the wind generally blows south in the morning, and north later in the day. You’ll need that.”

She was right, on all counts. Gwenny was a pretty smart leader, it was turning out. They attended the ball, so that no one would suspect and tip off the rebels. There were few men there, because so many had been arrested, so women had to dance with each other, but Fray learned many of the steps and enjoyed it a lot. Solidified existence wasn’t so bad, when she learned its ways.

They turned in early, and Fray was asleep before she knew it. It had, indeed, been one big day. And a really interesting one. If only she had been able to figure out what the males had been trying to do to the females! But all the adults hung on to their stupid Conspiracy to Frustrate Children. She was good and sick of that.

At dawn they set out: two clouds and a bird. They exited through an air vent and floated south; fortunately the wind was just right, as Gwenny had predicted.

Xanth was beautiful as the sun came up beyond the horizon, tinting Happy and Fray a lovely pink. Its rays of light reached out to touch everything below, warming it. Fray felt like dancing for the joy of the morning, but wasn’t able to in her natural cloud form.

“There it is,” the peeve called. “The reverse grove.” It angled down toward a bare stone outcropping. “It’s a small isolated colony few folk know about, because of the Good Magician’s concealment spell.”

“But there’s no wood there,” Fray protested as she condensed.

“Keep your panties on, kid. You’ll see it when you get there.”

Dubious, she landed on the apex of the mountain—and discovered that it was actually the top foliage of a copse of three trees. The mountain was a mere illusion to mask the reality.

Happy Bottom landed beside her, and was similarly amazed. “Oooo, this is fun!” she exclaimed, girlishly clapping her forming hands.

“This is business,” Fray said seriously. “We must obtain some twigs to put in the peeve’s bag.”