Authors: Piers Anthony
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Princesses, #Magic, #Epic, #Fantasy fiction; American, #Xanth (Imaginary place)
"Thank you," Grey said, uncertain what she meant.
He guided Ivy back the way they had come. Nada and
Electra followed, pausing only to thank the Muse individ-
ually for her attention. Soon they were on their way back
down the mountain.
The descent was hardly less arduous than the ascent.
Ivy's tears in due course condensed to sniffles, and then
to mere depression. She had evidently put more hope in
this than she had let on. Grey's mood was hardly better.
To have come so close to an answer, only to have that
hope dashed—
"Are we far enough away?" Electra asked.
Ivy stared at her dully. "For what?" Grey asked.
"To talk."
"Maybe we should get the rest of the way down, before
we relax," Grey said, not certain what she had in mind.
She looked disappointed. "I suppose so. But I'm about
ready to burst!"
Grey looked around. "Oh. Well, there're bushes around.
We could wait while you—"
188
Man from Mundania
She laughed. "Not physically, dope! Mentally! With my
news!"
"Tell us your news when we're clear of Parnassus,"
Nada said. She was in her giri-headed-serpent form, slid-
ing fairly readily down the slope.
They resumed their motion. In due course they reached
the fork in the path. But they had hardly gone beyond it
before there was a clamor from below.
Ivy came to life. "The Maenads!" she exclaimed.
"They're below us!"
"And the Python," Nada said, changing briefly to full
snake form, then back. "I smell them both, now. They
must have crossed the path and smelled our scent."
"We must run!" Ivy said, flustered.
"We're too tired," Nada pointed out. "Even fresh, we
could not go faster than those, monsters."
"Maybe if we split up," Grey suggested. "That might
confuse them, and they might go the wrong way—"
"Which wrong way?" Ivy asked. "If some of us are
each way—"
"I'll decoy them!" Gray said. "You three go back up
the path where your scent already is, and I'll run down
the other and make a noise to attract them.''
"But you don't know the first thing about this moun-
tain!" Ivy protested.
"It's my responsibility," he replied. "I—"
The noise below grew abruptly louder. The Maenads
were rounding a curve and would soon be upon them.
"Go!" Grey cried, pointing to the path they had just
come down. He himself ran down the other.
Ivy and Electra turned and started up. Nada was on the
other side of him; she assumed woman form and started
to step across just as he began running. They collided.
At another time he might have found this event inter-
esting, for Nada was contoured somewhat like soft pil-
lows. But in this rush he was afraid he had hurt her.
"Nada! Are you—"
He broke off, for she had disappeared. Realizing that
she had changed form to avoid falling to the ground, he
ran on. She would join the others, in one form or another,
Man from Mundania
189
and they would hide. All he had to do was decoy the mon-
sters.
He slowed, and glanced back. There was a Wild
Woman! She was indeed naked, with flaring tresses and a
figure suggestive of an hourglass. She was gazing up the
path the others had taken.
"Over here, nymph!" Grey called, waving his arms.
Her head turned, rotating on her shoulders as if mounted
on ball bearings. Now he saw her eyes. They were in-
sanely wild. He had not taken these Wild Women seri-
ously, but those eyes sent a chill through him. This was
no sweet young thing; this was a rabid tigress!
The Maenad launched herself in his direction, uttering
a harsh shriek of hunger. Her legs were beautiful, her
breasts were beautiful, her face was beautiful, but that
shriek was spine-tingling. She opened her mouth, and he
saw her pointed teeth, and saw her tongue flick out the
way Nada's had when she was in serpent form. There
seemed to be candle flames inside her eyeballs. "YUM!"
she screamed, reaching for him with hands whose nails
were like blood-dipped talons.
Grey spun about and resumed his running. But the Wild
Woman was fast; she kept pace. He couldn't draw far
enough ahead of her to get off the path and hide; he had
to keep going. He heard the screams of the other Maenads
farther behind. They sounded just as bloodthirsty.
The path twisted as if trying to make him stumble, but
he ran with the surefootedness of desperation and kept up
speed. He began to leave the Maenad behind. But now his
breath was puffing, and he was tiring rapidly; he had not
been fresh when he started. He could have used a dose of
Ivy's Enhancement!
He had had the bright idea to be the decoy. It had been
the gallant thing to do. But now he was in trouble. How
was he going to get out of this?
Something touched his chest at his breast pocket. He
reached up, thinking it was a snag of a branch—and felt a
tiny snake. Its head was poking out of the pocket.
For an instant he felt shock. Then his fevered mind put
two and two together. "Nada!" he gasped.
190 Man from Mundania
Indeed it was she. Instead of falling to the ground, where
she might have been trodden on, she had evidently clung
to his shirt and slipped into his pocket. In his preoccu-
pation with the Maenads, he had not noticed.
"Sorry I got you into this!" he puffed. "I don't know
where I'm going, but I don't dare stop!"
The snake did not reply, which was perhaps just as well.
At least she understood that it had been an accident.
Despite his tiring, he was leaving the leading Maenad
farther behind. Was she also tiring or merely hanging back
to allow the others of her ilk to catch up? He might have
turned and dealt with one, though he did not like the idea
of striking a lovely bare woman. But he knew he would
have no chance against the pack of them.
But if he got far enough ahead, he could dodge off the
path and hide. They would charge on past, and then he
would return to the path and run the other way. He hoped.
If he went off the path and they winded him, he would be
in deep mud for sure!
He rounded a bend. Suddenly he was charging toward
a pretty spring. Another hate spring? The others had con-
cluded from the evidence of the Tapestry that that one had
been valid, but had somehow lost its potency by the time
he and Ivy reached it. Certainly it had not worked on
them! But there was no guarantee that this one would be
similarly powerless. In fact it might be a love spring. It
glimmered with a pale reddish hue, as if potent with some
kind of magic. Suppose he splashed through it, then saw
a Maenad?
These thoughts flitted through his pulsing brain as he
ran toward it. By the time they had run their course, he
was almost at it. He veered to avoid it, but stumbled; only
by frantic windmilling did he stop himself from pitching
headfirst into the water.
Nada fell from his pocket and splashed into the spring.
Appalled, he watched the little snake thrashing. Should he
reach in and pull her out? Then he would be affected too!
She changed to her human form. She shook the water
from her eyes and looked directly at him. "Hey, hi, hand-
some!" she exclaimed.
Man from Mundania
191
Well, it wasn't a hate spring! "Nada, get out of there!
The Wild Women are coming!"
She hiccuped. "No! You come in! It's nice!"
Was it a love spring? He didn't dare touch it! "Get
out!" he repeated. "If they catch you they'll tear you
apart!"
But she demurred. She sat in the shallow water, her
breasts lifting clear and dripping. Even in this danger, he
was struck by her sex appeal. She might be half serpent,
but she was all woman! "Come in! You'll like it!" she
invited. She hiccuped again. "This wine's wonderful!"
"You're intoxicated!" he exclaimed, catching on.
"No, I'm drunk!" she corrected him. "This must be
the Maenad's wine spring. Pretty soon I'll be raving wild
just like them! What fan!"
Now the Maenads came into sight. They spied Nada in
the wine spring, and screamed with outrage.
There was no help for it. He had to haul her out of there
before the wild woman got their claws on her. He would
just have to resist the intoxicating effect of the water.
Grey waded in. The water was bathwater warm, and felt
somehow soft against his legs as it soaked his trousers.
He reached down to take hold of Nada.
"Oooo, goody!" she exclaimed, reaching up to em-
brace him.
"None of that!" he rapped. "Come on out! We have to
run!" But she was slippery with the wine-water, and his
hands merely slid over her marvelous flesh, stroking
regions they should not.
"Oooo, fan!" she said, wrapping her arms around his
neck and hauling his face in for a wet and sloppy kiss. He
turned his face aside, but that was the least of his prob-
lems.
He couldn't get her out! She was too slippery and too
affectionate. Meanwhile the Wild Women were charging
in; already it was too late to escape them. He would have
to try to fight them.
"Change into your snake form!" he told Nada. "Get
back in my pocket! I'll need both hands free to shove
them away; I can't hold on to you."