The Color Of Her Panties (13 page)

The second Che smiled.  “The two functions are related.  We have merely to multiply by a fraction.”

“Will it work?” a Jenny asked.  Jenny was no longer sure which one was herself.

The third Che nodded.  “I think our best approach is to reduce the Gwennys to the same number as the others, then do an overall multiplication on the group.”

All four Gwennys looked nervous.  “Will it hurt?” one asked.

“I don't think so,” the first one said.

“I need merely speak to you the fraction three quarters,” the second Che continued.

One of the Gwenny disappeared.  Now there were three of them, all looking alarmed.

“Did that hurt?” Jenny asked.

“I don't know,” a Gwenny said.  “I wasn't the one who was disappeared.”

“I doubt that it hurts, either way,” the third Che remarked.

“I suppose we have to do it,” one of the Jennys said with resignation.

“Yes, I suppose,” one of the Gwennys agreed unhappily.

“Then I hereby multiply us by one third,” the first Che said.

Suddenly there were three of them:  one Che Centaur, one Gwendolyn Goblin, one Jenny Elf, and one cat.  They exchanged three thirds of a glance, as nearly as Jenny could make it.  She felt the same as she always had.

Silently they walked to the edge of the table and peered over.  There below were assorted plants.  One of them leaned toward them, showing a deep cuplike center.  A branch swung toward Jenny.

Che pulled her away from it.  “Beware,” he said.  “I think that's a pulpit.  It will pull you into its pit.”

Jenny quickly retreated, horrified.  She went to another side of the table.  There was a big bee buzzing among flowers.  But the bee wasn't gathering pollen; it was cutting the heads off the flowers.  “Now what's the matter with that bee?” she asked, dismayed.

Che looked.  “I believe I recognize that species.  That is Attila the Hunny Bee.”

“Oh, I wish we could find a safe way away from here!” Gwenny said.

Sammy marched to another side of the table.  “What about that plant?”

Jenny asked, pointing at one with very large transparent leaves, right opposite the cat.

Che brightened.  “I believe those are leaves of absence.

They will probably conduct us away from here.  And see there is a lens!“

For dew was sparkling on one of the leaves in a way that focused the light.  That was their sign of the way.

“Then let's get conducted!” Gwenny said.

They linked hands, and Jenny picked Sammy up and set him on her shoulder, then reached out to touch one of the leaves.  Immediately they found themselves in another place.

This one did not seem much more promising.  There were wilting bushes and sad-looking trees with fallen fruit at their bases.  Flies buzzed from bush to fruit and back again.  The smell was awful.

“ooo, ugh!” Gwenny said, wrinkling her nose.

“No wonder!” Che said.  “Those are putriflies!  They make things rot faster.”

They walked quickly on, and left the wilting things behind.  But there was more mischief ahead.  They encountered a figure which looked less and less manlike the closer it got.  It had two legs and two arms, but its body was made of gray metal, and its neck was a projecting tube with no head, just a hole.

“What is that?” Jenny asked, perplexed.

Just then the creature bent forward, and its hollow neck came to point directly at her.  There was an ominous click.

“No!” Che cried, catching her arm and yanking her to the side.  As he did so, there was a loud bang, and something whistled past the place she had just been.  Smoke poured out of the creature's neck, and there was the smell of brimstone or something similar.

“Something hit a tree,” Gwenny said, looking back.

Jenny looked and saw a hole in the tree, just about the size of the creature's hollow neck.

“Now I recognize it,” Che said.  “It's a gunman!  I thought they existed only in Mundania!”

“A gunman?” Jenny asked, still confused.  “All I see is a metal thing with no head.”

“A gun is one of the bad dreams the Mundanes have,” he explained.  “It exists only to hurt other creatures.  It shoots out slugs of metal, and they lodge in the flesh of others, or make holes in them.”

The gunman bent forward again.  Che dived for it, grabbing at its body.

“No!” Gwenny screamed.

But nothing happened.  The gunman staggered back without firing, then turned around and ran away.

“What happened?” Jenny asked, hurrying forward to help steady Che.

“I put on its safety,” the centaur said.  “It couldn't fire, then.”

“I won't even ask what a safety is,” Gwenny said.  “The Mundanes must be terribly afraid of guns.”

“No, I understand they like them,” Che said.

“I never want to go to Mundania!“ Jenny said fervently.

“Nobody does,” Che agreed.  “It's an awful place.”

“So where do we go now?” Gwenny asked.

Jenny looked around, and spied another sparkling lens.

“Look!  That way!”

They hurried along a path to the side, passing through the mock lens.

The path wound around and down into a glade where there seemed to be more figures moving around.  As they got closer, they saw that these were fauns and nymphs.  But not ordinary ones.  “They have wings!” Che exclaimed.

So they did.  The creatures were not merely running around, they were spreading their wings and flying.  Otherwise they were normal, for their kind:  all of them were naked, the fauns were chasing the nymphs, and the nymphs were running away and screaming.  This was their idea of fun.

“I wonder if there are any centaurs among them?”

Che murmured musingly.  Jenny realized that he was thinking of the lack of any others of his own kind.  His parents were the only adult winged centaurs in Xanth, and he was the only winged centaur foal.  Jenny herself had a notion what it felt like to be unique in Xanth it was lonely.

“I never heard of winged fauns in Xanth,” Gwenny remarked.  “So why are they in the gourd?”

“Maybe the regular fauns and nymphs have bad dreams about them,” Jenny suggested.

“But regular fauns and nymphs live only for the day; they can't remember prior days,” Che said, “so shouldn't have bad dreams about them.”

“Well, let's ask,” Jenny said.  She approached a pair of them who were lying in the flowers at the edge of their glade.  Then she halted.

“Oops.”

“What's the matter?” Gwenny asked.

“Adult Conspiracy.  I recognize it now.”

“You mean they're-?”

“I think so.”

“That is what fauns and nymphs do,” Che said.  “Once they catch each other.”

They stood and watched.  “I don't want to interrupt them,” Jenny said.

“Do you think they'll be through soon?”

“They look as if they're having fun,” Gwenny said, surprised.

“I suppose it should be fun, or folk wouldn't do it,” Che agreed dubiously.  “I confess that it seems to me that a pillow fight would be more fun.”

“Or a tsoda popka fight,” Jenny said.

Gwenny shook her head.  “It must be a terrible thing to become adult and lose interest in the fun things, and have to settle for dull things like this.”

The others could only agree.

Then the faun and nymph finished their business.  They looked up.

“Eeeek!  Strangers!” the nymph shrieked.

“Run!” the faun cried.

“Wait!” Jenny exclaimed.  “We only want to ask you a question.”

The two considered, then decided to wait a moment.

“But no more than one moment,” the nymph said firmly.

“We can't spare two moments.”

“Why are the winged fauns and nymphs here in the gourd,” Jenny asked quickly, trying to stay within the moment, “when there aren't any in Xanth?”

The faun's eyes went round.  “We don't remember,” he said.

Then the two were up and away.  She leaped into the air, spread her wings, and flew around a tree.  He pursued her.  “Eeeeek!” she cried as he caught her.

“Ask a foolish question, get a foolish answer, I guess,” Jenny said.  “If they can't remember any prior days, they can't remember about why they're here, either.”

They walked on.  There beyond the tree were the same faun and nymph, lying together on the ground.

“But they just did that!” Jenny said, surprised.

“They must have forgotten,” Gwenny said, laughing with more than a tinge of embarrassment.

Then they saw another mock lens, marking another offshoot trail, and moved on along it.

This one led to a blank wall, but when they touched the wall, they discovered that it was illusion.  They stepped through it, and were in a region as gloomy as the other had been pleasant.  It was night, with a huge gibbous moon hovering suspiciously low.  Ahead were somber gravestones.

“Oops, now we're in one of the scary sections,” Jenny SAID.

“Let's hurry through.”

They broke into a jog to follow the path through the center of the graveyard.  But the sand crunched under their feet and made a horrible scratching noise.  Then the soil of the graves stirred.

“Eeeek!” Gwenny screamed, sounding exactly like the nymph.

They stopped, for there before them a bony arm and hand were poking up from the ground.  It moved as if casting about for something, such as maybe an ankle.

Sammy hissed at it and backed away.

They tried to retreat, but two things stopped them.

“First,” Che said, “the path isn't marked the other way, and we'll lose it.”

“Second,” Jenny said, shivering, “bones are appearing behind us, too.”

“Third,” Gwenny said, “we're-”

“You can't say that,” Che reminded her.  “There are only two.”

“Oh.” She looked around.  “Then I have only one thing to say.

“What is that?”

“EEEEEEEEK!!” she screamed, twice as long and loud as before.

Che nodded.  “I believe that covers it.”

They huddled together for support against the fright while all around them things hauled themselves out of the ground.  Soon there were a dozen horrendous figures.

“The walking skeletons!” Che exclaimed.  “Like Marrow Bones and Grace'l Ossein!”

“Who are they?” Jenny asked.

“They are friendly refugees from the gourd,” he explained.  “Marrow got lost, and Esk Ogre brought him out.  Then Grace'l got in trouble for ruining a bad dream, and was kicked out.  Now they're a couple.  They may even have summoned the stork, or whatever it is they do.  Maybe they simply assemble a baby skeleton from small bones.

At any rate, such folks do scare people in dreams, but that's just their job.  I understand they are nice when you get to know them personally.”

“M-maybe we should make the effort,” Gwenny said.

Then she turned to the nearest skeleton.  “H-hello.  Are you f-friendly?“

“Why, I never thought about it,” the skeleton said.  “I never tried to be friendly with a monster.”

“Monster?  “ Gwenny looked fearfully around.

“Where?”

“He means you,” Che said.  “Us.  Because we're different.”

“Me?” Gwenny was amazed.  Jenny understood why.

Though Gwenny was not vain, she was a very pretty goblin girl, and could hardly be ignorant of that fact.  “Maybe it's my spectacles.”

“No, it's your grisly flesh,” the skeleton said.  “I see that you have tried to cover it up, but enough shows to make you a truly frightful creature.  Are you from another section of the dream establishment?  You must be very good at terrifying dreamers!”

“No, I'm just visiting.  I'm looking for the contact lens bush.  I don't suppose it's near here?”

“As a matter of fact, it is,” the skeleton said.  “I understand it's the last one growing.  The night mares come to it when they have trouble seeing well.  I suppose going out into that horrible other realm is bad for their eyes.”

“That must be the case,” Gwenny said, evidently gaining confidence.

“Just let me go and get a pair, and we'll leave this area so you won't have to be appalled by the sight of us.”

“That will be much appreciated,” the skeleton said, and the other skeletons nodded.  “We don't mean to be impolite, but it is hard to be close to freaks like you without spooking.”

“I understand perfectly,” Gwenny said.

They walked on along the path, the skeletons making wary way for them.

There in the center of the graveyard was a glittering bush-and there on the bush glittered a single pair of tiny lenses.

“Oh, I can hardly believe it!” Gwenny said.

They stood around the bush.  “But how do I put them on?” Gwenny asked after a moment.

“I think you just look straight ahead, and set them on your eyes,” Che said.  “Maybe I can help you.”

“I think I have to do it myself,” Gwenny said.  “So that they will work for me.  If you touch them, they might decide to work for you instead.”

“Good point,” he agreed, stepping back.

Gwenny reached out and very gently took a lens.  It dropped into her hand.  She removed her spectacles, put them in a pocket, and brought the lens to her face-and it jumped onto the right eye.  “Oh!”

“Is something wrong?” Jenny asked, alarmed.

“No, it's right!  I can see clearly with my right eye, and fuzzily with the left.  It's as if I have only half my spectacles on.

Then she took the other lens and put it to her left eye.

She blinked.  “Oh, it's wonderful!”

Jenny tried to imagine what it would be like to have such lenses.  She pictured herself with a pair, walking around without her spectacles.  She would feel naked, just as if all her clothes had dissolved, because she had used the spectacles ever since coming to Xanth.

Gwenny's gaze swung around to Jenny.  “Oh, you're naked!” she exclaimed.

“No, she remains clothed,” Che said, surprised.

Jenny jumped.  “You saw my daydream!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, now you're clothed again,” Gwenny said. ”I your dream?”

“I was daydreaming,” Jenny said. ”And you saw it just as the Good Magician said you would.”

“That is an excellent sign,” Che said.  “It means the lenses are working exactly as they are supposed to.”

“But actually seeing dreams-is that polite?” Gwenny asked.

Jenny smiled.  “That must depend on the dream.”