Demons Don’t Dream (37 page)

Dug could have sworn that the man's feet left the ground for a few seconds. His eyes rolled back in his head, and a dreamy smile washed across his face. He looked as if he had been anesthetized. Certainly he felt better.

"Renee has that effect,"
Jordan remarked nonchalantly. "A demoness can make a man deliriously happy, if she chooses. I happen to know."

It was evidently true. Sherlock seemed to be beyond caring about any little inconvenience such as not being able to speak. In fact, he looked as if he would have been speechless even if he weren't already mute.

Dug returned to business. "So I don't need this talent, because it won't get me by the thorntree hedge. All it proves is that the magic does work, and that I have a whole lot of talents to check through." He looked around. "Where do I ditch this mute magic?"

"You just reach back into the spellbox," Threnody said. "It will let go, so you can take another."

"But won't I risk getting the same talents back?"

"No, new talents float to the surface; used ones sink to the bottom. Just don't reach too deep."

Dug reached in, and he did feel something leave him. He caught a new something, and brought it out.

He read the next five talents:

16. Can Merge with Others.

17. Can Re-create Any Sound Heard.

18. Can Create Heat.

19. Can Cause Objects to Levitate.

20. Can Adjust Weight of Things.

"Nuh-uh! I'm not trying to merge with anyone!"

Threnody sighed. "And I was so looking forward to it." Dug didn't comment, because again he suspected that she wasn't joking. She was opposite to Nada Naga in everything other than beauty.

He tried to re-create sound, but couldn't. He tried to heat something, and couldn't. He tried to make something float, and couldn't He tried to make a stone become heavier, and failed again. So he tried the next five:

21. Immunity to Poison.

22. Can Ease Pain in Others.

23. Can Breathe Anywhere.

24. Can Change the Magic of Water.

25. Can Make Trees Fall.

Dug refused to try the first. He wasn't sure how to test the second, until Threnody touched her knife to
Jordan's arm, making it bleed. Dug tried to make the barbarian's pain stop, but couldn't. Fortunately it soon stopped itself, as
Jordan quickly healed. Dug couldn't test the breathing, because he couldn't find a vacuum or a deep lake to try.

Similarly he had no magic water to change from Hate to Love or Lethe. He wasn't going to mess with the vial of healing elixir they had, just in case it got spoiled. And the trees ignored his attempt to fell them magically.

He ground on through the remaining talents of the list. Nothing matched. "But how can that be?" he asked plaintively. "It's got to be one of them!"

"Maybe one of the ones you skipped," Jenny said.

"Or one of the first fifteen," Threnody suggested. "You didn't test them, this time; you picked up where you left off after the first talent."

She was right. Of course he had to test all the talents each time. Which made the job even more tedious.

Resigned, he tried #1, Changing Color. And it worked: he turned the rock pink.

“Two down," he said. "Only forty-eight to go." He was coming to appreciate how long it could take to test fifty times, for fifty different talents each time. Magic was becoming a lot more tedious than he would have thought.

"Maybe Sammy can help," Jenny said.

"I really don't see how—" Dug started. But the iittle cat was already bounding to the spellbox. "Wait for me!!" Dug cried, grabbing for Sammy before he fell through the porous lid.

But the cat didn't fall through the lid. For him it was solid. He sniffed the surface, looking for something, then seemed to find it.

Could it be? Dug reached into the box by the cat's nose, and caught the first spell he found there. He brought it out.

Was this the one he needed? But what did he need?

He skimmed through the list. Attract Animals. Mimic People's Appearance. Create Light. Darkness. Communicate with Anyone. Repel Dragons. Slow Time. Calm Tangle Trees. Reverse Emotions. Make Fire.

Would that last one enable him to burn down the thorntree hedge? He tried to make fire, but didn't get as much as a curl of smoke.

Make Earth Tremors. Blow Hurricane Force.

Maybe one of those would shake down the hedge, or blow it away. But he was unable to evoke either.

Create Pain. Sniff Danger. Control Animals. Make Others Sleep, Make Invisible Shield. Make Things Invulnerable. Reverse People's Actions. Generate Hatred. Mimic Person's Talent.

"I just don't see how any of these can get me out of here, really," Dug said, frustrated.

Sammy jumped off the spellbox and ran to Threnody, who picked him up.

Dug was learning to pick up on insignificant details. What did that cat have in mind?

Suddenly it clicked. "Mimic Someone's Talents!" he cried. "Threnody can become smoky. If I can make things turn smoky-diffuse, we can get through." He approached the woman. "Give me your talent, please."

"I thought you'd never ask," she said with a dusky smile. She held her hand out to him, cupping it in the air.

He took whatever it was she held. Then he turned to face the thorntree hedge. "Become diffuse," he ordered it.

Then he walked to it and tried to put his hand through it. "Ouch!" He had skewered his extremity on a thorn, but that wasn't the whole reason for his pain. The magic hadn't worked.

Then he reconsidered. That thorn had gone right through his palm and out the other side. It had hurt, but not as much as it should have. His hand was not bleeding.

He touched the hedge again, more cautiously, and this time his hand passed through it with faint resistance, as if the hedge were made of thin gelatin. Or viscous fluid. The magic was working! Threnody's ability to turn smoky was slow, so his was slow too, but in time it did get there.

He turned back to the others. "I have made the hedge pervious," he said. "Thanks to Sammy's hint, and your talent, Threnody. Thank you both."

Threnody stroked Sammy's back. "We were getting bored," she said.

It figured. They knew he would get the talent eventually, but they didn't want to wait three more days. So they had helped him. Was this cheating? At the moment he hardly cared; he just wanted to get on with the journey, hoping to intercept Kim before her disaster struck.

"Let's go," he said. He walked through the hedge, which was now fully smoky. Jenny and Sherlock followed, and Sammy jumped down to join them. Jenny paused to wave goodbye to
Jordan and Threnody, then hurried on.

Beyond was the thick jungle. It was quickly evident that they were not about to make swift progress through it. There was also the smell of dragon smoke, which boded ill for their safety.

But Dug had another notion. "If this talent of Threnody's is safe to use on people, I can make us smoky, and we can move right on through, the way a demon would."

He tried it on himself. Jenny watched, while Sherlock gathered small, thin vines and began weaving them into some sort of pattern. Slowly Dug diffused, until he was able to walk through a tree. "Good enough," he said faintly. "Let me do the rest of you, and we'll be on our way."

Then a breeze came up, and blew him away. He saved himself only by scrambling into another tree, where the wind couldn't catch him. "I'm having a second thought," he confessed.

"Maybe if you did Sherlock and me," Jenny suggested, "and not Sammy. Then he could scamper to intercept—" She paused, realizing that the cat was about to take off. “To do something. And haul us along by a rope. Because we wouldn't weigh much. That should be pretty fast."

"Brilliant!" Dug cried airily. "If you weren't a child, I'd kiss you!"

"I'm only a year younger than you," she said, looking hurt.

Dug realized that the matter of age could be as sensitive to an elf as to a human. Jenny looked little, because she was an elf, but she wasn't. She was a child by game definition only. "Okay, I'll kiss you," he said.

He pulled himself from the tree as the wind died down, and walked over to her. He leaned down to kiss her. But his face passed right through hers. I wish there were a boy of my kind here. Then he drew back again, tried again, and did it right, just barely brushing her lips with his own, so that they didn't overlap.

Then he wondered why he should have been wishing for a boy of his kind here. There had been a romantic implication. That was hardly his idea of romance! In any event, there were other human beings in Xanth.

Oh—that had been Jenny's thought, not his own. He had picked it up when his brain overlapped hers. She was an elf of a different fantasy world, unlike the elves of Xanth. Her prospects for romance here were nil, unless she wanted to cross species boundaries. That sort of thing seemed to be more common in Xanth than in Mundania, but still, it was only natural to want the company of her own kind.

Xanth seemed like a land of puns and silliness, but under the surface there were the same real concerns that the people he knew back home felt. This was a solid reminder.

But he couldn't stop now to think through the philosophical ramifications. He had to move swiftly to intercept Kim, so he could warn her of the danger she was in.

"Let me change you," he said to Jenny, who had not seemed to notice his pause for thought Perhaps she had paused for her own thoughts. "Then I'll change Sherlock, and we'll be on our way."

He focused on her, and she slowly turned diffuse. He tested by touching her hand every so often; when her hand seemed solid to him, he knew she was as diffuse as he was. "Don't let the wind get you," he warned her.

Then he addressed Sherlock. Soon the black man was as smoky as the other two.

Belatedly Dug remembered something. "We should have made a bag, or net, or something to hold us, so Sammy can haul us. A solid framework, not a phased-o one, so—"

Sherlock pointed to his tangle of vines. He had started work on that even before Jenny made the suggestion, anticipating the need. Because the vines were small, the net was light; it would be possible for the cat to pull it.

But there was a problem. They were too diffuse to handle the vines. Their hands passed through the vines without contact.

Dug pondered. "I wonder just how versatile this talent of Threnody's is?" he asked. "If I can make just our hands more solid, or part of the vine smoky—"

The second idea seemed better. He concentrated on the tail end of the net, making that smoky. He tested it by picking up the end, while his hands passed through the lead harness. Then he worked his way forward, changing it partway. It was possible!

They put their legs through holes in the pattern, and strung it around themselves. It spread out enough so that all three of them could hang on without crowding.

Then Dug made the harness end smoky, and Jenny called Sammy, and Dug put the harness on the cat. Once it was secure, he made it solid again, so that Sammy would not simply walk through it when he got going. But the vines connecting to the rest of them were phased out, making them almost weightless. As long as the phasing was in parts of the same vines, they were tight; it was when one thing was phased out and another wasn't that they passed through each other.

"I think we're ready," Dug said.

Jenny spoke. "Sammy, go find Kim."

The cat took off. The net followed, hauling them abruptly forward. They were on their way.

Their separation ended. They were jammed together. The world might seem insubstantial, but they were fully solid to each other. Dug lifted his arms to try to hold the other two off, but it was impossible. "Okay, so we travel together," he said, putting his arms around Jenny Elf, who was right in front of him. Sherlock, beside them both, put his arms around both of them. Now they made a compact, stable mass.

Sammy, under no restraints, chose his own route. He scampered between two close-growing trees. The three of them passed through the trees. He squeezed under a root They went through it. He found a cat-sized tunnel through a mass of thorns. They went through every thorn. But without getting stuck.

There was indeed a dragon. The thing loomed up, belching clouds of smoke. Sammy zipped under its tail. The dragon whipped around, trying to catch the cat, but was too slow. Instead its talons swiped through the netful of people, without effect. But Dug flinched and Jenny stifled a scream. The dragon, frustrated, blew out a hot blast of turbulent smoke. It surrounded them, making the world dark, but didn't make them choke. In a moment they were out of it, unscathed.

"I could get to like this kind of traveling," Dug said, making an effort at bravado.

Jenny nodded. She was looking a bit motion-sick. Sherlock had done the sensible thing: his eyes were closed. Dug, seeing that, closed his own. Then he just seemed to be floating through faintly rushing water.

As they moved along, Dug thought of something. "Threnody's talent—that was making herself smoky," he said. "But I was not only doing that, I was making other people and things smoky. Can demons do that?"