Faun and Games (51 page)

form, was gone.
 
Imbri was walking along the path, looking around as if

seeking something she had lost.

Forrest disengaged from the girls and approached the mare, hoping that

the spell of obscurity was not actually on him, since he had not been

present when it had been invoked.
 
He needed to be visible to Imbri.

"Hey!" he called.

She whirled, orienting on him.
 
"Where were you?" her dreamlet query

came.

"The girls hauled me under the obscurity blanket."

"But you were gone for some time."

"We had something we needed to work out."

"Oh?"

"They are in temporary love with me."

"Oh."

"They don't get to meet many males who don't want something from them."

"Don't you want something?"

"Nothing that would diminish them or commit them.
 
"It seems."

"And did you get it?"

"Not yet.
 
Right now the mission is more urgent."

Imbri might have inquired further, but at that point another creature

appeared on the path.
 
Forrest quickly mounted Imbri so that they could

appear as faun and horse, and they walked toward the new arrival.
 
It

didn't resemble Polly Morph, fortunately.

In fact, it didn't resemble anything Forrest remembered seeing before,

anywhere.
 
It seemed to be a mass of curving projections, some furry,

some bare, some pointed, some floppy, and some vaguely like nothing

specific.

"Hello!" Forrest called.

The thing cringed away.
 
"Don't yell!" it exclaimed from somewhere

within, faintly.

"Sorry," Forrest whispered.
 
"I just wanted to ask-"

"No, no, questions are too loud," it said, sidling away.

"Just what kind of creature are you?" Forrest asked, mildly annoyed.

"I'm all ears," it said, disappearing around a curve.

"That's true," Imbri said in a dreamlet.
 
"Now I recognize the different

shapes of ears.
 
It must be very sensitive to sound."

"Maybe we'll have better luck with the next one," Forrest said.

"And here he comes," Imbri said.
 
"Maybe this time I should try

addressing him."

"My technique hasn't been getting us far, for sure."

The man looked to be about thirty two, wearing an elegant blue royal

robe and a blue crown.
 
He was smiling, and looked friendly.

"Hello," Imbri said in a dreamlet directed to both Forrest and the man.

He looked at her, startled.
 
"Why, it's a night mare!" he exclaimed.

"Former night mare, now a day mare," Imbri's dreamlet figure clarified.

"How did you recognize me?"

"Oh, I have had many deliveries!
 
I was originally from an awful place

called Mundania.
 
I have my Mundane name to prove it: Todd Loren."

"Mundania!
 
How did you get here?"

"I'm not sure, but I think it was my imagination.
 
I dreamed of a

special world, where I was a royal character and could do magic, and

suddenly I was here, with my talent of being able to direct wind to blow

to particular places.
 
It may not be much, but I enjoy it."

"Do you happen to know a woman called Ida?"

"The one with the moon?"

"That's the one.
 
Can you tell us how to find her?"

"No, but I can direct you to her.
 
Just follow that gust of wind."

Todd gestured, and wind stirred up some dust, becoming visible as a

fuzzy ball.

"Thank you!" Imbri's dreamlet figure cried as they pursued the wind.

"You are welcome.
 
I'm always glad to gain size."

"That's right," Forrest said as they moved on.
 
"Folk grow and gain

power as they give things away.
 
But I don't think I lost any mass."

"I did, because the favor was to me," Imbri said.
 
"But I have plenty of

mass, now.
 
If I lose too much, I'll have to resume maiden shape, is

all."

"I hope you get it back, when we leave Pyramid."

"Pyramid is so small that whatever we lose here is surely unmeasurable

elsewhere."

He realized that this was probably the case.
 
This was the moon of a

moon, as it were, and its entire mass was much less than that of either

of their condensed souls on Ptero.

They followed the wind along the path, glad that it wasn't zooming

wildly cross-country the way most winds did.
 
Forrest hoped that Dawn &

Eve were keeping up, because the wind didn't pause.

But then it did pause.
 
It hovered in place, barely hanging on to the

blue dust that made it visible.
 
It was beside a young woman.
 
Her hair

and eyes were a silver shade of blue, and there was even a sprinkling of

blue snow on her head.
 
She was pretty, but looked hard.

"That's not Ida," Forrest murmured.

"There must be a reason the wind is waiting," Imbri said in a private

dreamlet.
 
"We had better inquire."

"I'll do it." He looked at the woman.
 
"Hello."

She looked coldly at him.
 
"Do I know you?"

"No.
 
And I mean no harm.
 
But we are following a wind, and it is

pausing by you, so I wondered whether there is a reason.
 
I am Forrest

Faun, and this is Mare Imbri."

The woman turned deep blue eyes on him.
 
"I am the Lady Winter,

otherwise known as Winter Lee Cheryl Jacobs.
 
I don't know why I am

here, but I don't think it is to dance with the wind."

"That name-are you Mundane?"

"Yes.
 
At least I was, before I came on this trip."

"Maybe that's why the wind is pausing.
 
It was sent by another Mundane,

and maybe it's curious, because there can't be many Mundanes here."

"Another Mundane?" Winter asked, interested.

"Yes.
 
A man.
 
He wears a crown.
 
He seemed nice."

"Maybe I should meet him.
 
At least he would understand why I find this

place so strange."

The wind divided, and one gust swept back up the path.
 
"Just follow

that wind," Forrest said.
 
"It should lead you right to him."

"Thank you," Winter said, smiling so brilliantly that it seemed like

sunrise.
 
She followed the gust.

"Hey-I feel heavier," Forrest said, surprised.

"You just did someone a favor," Imbri said.
 
"I think the wind did

recognize her as a Mundane, and felt an affinity because Todd Loren was

Mundane.
 
They should like each other: he's mature and nice, and she's

young and pretty."

"I guess so," he agreed.

The half gust of wind resumed its motion, and they followed it as the

path wound around blue hills, across blue fields, through blue forests,

past blue lakes, and under blue skies.
 
Then it paused again, by what

looked like a cemetery.

"This is just a field full of crosses," Forrest said.
 
"They must be

marking graves." Indeed, there were big crosses and little ones, each

one carved from wood and slightly different from all the others.
 
Some

were fairly straight, but others were curvaceous.
 
In fact they seemed

to be about as individual for crosses as people were for people. Forrest

had a vested appreciation for wood, and found it intriguing in its own

right whatever form it might be carved into, but he didn't recognize

this particular variety.

"But in Xanth graves aren't marked by crosses," Imbri said.

"This isn't Xanth.
 
In fact, it isn't even Ptero.
 
Who knows what the

rules may be on Pyramid?" He was suspicious, because of the way the

crosses had been used in Contrary Centaur's game on Ptero. If these were

anything like that, he wanted no part of them.

"Maybe so," she agreed.
 
"Let me send a dreamlet down to see whether

there's a body."

"Dreamlets can explore?"

"Not exactly.
 
But I can send them to anyone, including the dead."

She concentrated, and he saw a dreamlet in a little cloud float down and

disappear into the ground below a cross.
 
In a moment it bobbed up

again, its dream figure looking perplexed.
 
"No, there's nothing there,"

Imbri said in a separate dreamlet to Forrest.

"So they are just stuck in the ground," Forrest said.
 
"They aren't

alive.
 
I suppose Eve could tell us all about them, if she were here."

"Perhaps we should wait for the girls to catch up.
 
I'd like to be sure

they are all right, as long as the wind is willing to wait."

"All right.
 
It does seem to be a smart gust." At that the swirling wind

darkened, blushing; though it could not speak to them, it evidently

understood what they said.

That gave him a notion.
 
"While we wait, Gust-is there anything to eat

around here?"

The gust swept across to a billboard on the far side of the field.
 
It

had a painting of a grand assortment of berries.
 
All were in shades of

blue, of course, but seemed to be of many varieties.
 
They looked