Faun and Games (6 page)

helped Woofer, and we appreciate that.
 
So maybe we can do you a return

favor.
 
I don't know how to solve your dilemma, but I think I know who

might be able to help.
 
I'll call her." She lifted a whistle she wore

around her neck and blew on it.

In barely a moment there was a crashing in the brush as something huge

charged through it.
 
"A dragon!" Forrest exclaimed.
 
"You had better fly

out over the gulf."

"A dragon ass," she corrected him.
 
"Friendly."

Indeed, now he saw that the dragon was striped and had the head of a

donkey.
 
It was forging through the brier patch, not even noticing the

briers.
 
And on it was a young woman half a shade lovelier than D.
 
Sire

in her seduction mode.

"Disgusting!" the demoness agreed, forming beside him.

The dragon ass came to a stop before them.
 
"We heard your whistle," the

beautiful woman said to Willow.
 
"How may we help?"

"This nice faun helped get Woofer out of trouble," Willow explained.

"We'd like to help him in return."

The woman turned her graceful gaze on Forrest.
 
"I am Chlorine. My

talent is poisoning water.
 
This is my friend Nimby, whom I love more

than anything in Xanth, and to whom I owe everything.
 
His talent is

making the two of us anything we want to be.
 
We travel around, looking

for good deeds to do.
 
Who are you, and why are you worthy of a favor?"

"I am Forrest Faun, and I'm not worthy of any favor."

Chlorine glanced at Willow.
 
"That's not true," the winged elf girl

said.
 
"He's trying to find a replacement faun for a tree that will fade

or die otherwise.
 
He needs to get across the Gap Chasm so he can go ask

the Good Magician's advice.
 
And he doesn't have time to serve a year

there, because the tree will last only a month."

The woman's gaze returned to Forrest.
 
"I gather you're not the smartest

faun in Xanth, but you mean well."

That summed it up nicely.
 
"Yes."

"So we'll help you," she decided.
 
"Won't we, Nimby?" She leaned forward

to hug the dragon's neck.
 
They seemed to be the perfect combination: a

beauty and a beast.

Nimby nodded yes.
 
"I love you," Chlorine said, kissing his neck. "You

gave me back my tear, and so much more."

Forrest gathered that there was more to that relationship than showed on

the surface.
 
Why should such a lovely woman care so much about such an

ugly dragon?
 
But that was the same kind of a question others asked

about uns and nymphs with trees: why did they bind themselves to such

unresponsive plantsT There was no point tryin, to explain the wonders of

the relationships to those who lucked any basis for understanding. Maybe

Nby protected Chlorine from other dragons, though he did not look very

formidable.
 
Maybe he just had a nice personality.
 
Or maybe it was that

great beauty was attracted to great ugliness.

Chlorine straightened up and looked at Forrest again.
 
"Get on behind

me," she said.
 
"We'll take you across the Gap."

Forrest looked at the daunting vast void.
 
"But how?"

She smiled, and the local scenery brightened.
 
"You'll see."

So Forrest walked to the side of the dragon, and scrambled up on its

back.
 
But his perch seemed insecure.
 
The dragon's small wings were

right behind him, and Chlorine's remarkably contoured backside was

before him.

"Put your arms around me," Chlorine said.
 
"And hold on TIGHT"

.
 
'But-' , She reached back and caught his hands, drawing them forward

until his hands touched across her small waist.
 
He clasped his fingers

together. His face was almost in her flowing hair, which smelled of new

mown hay.

The dragon strode forward, directly toward the brink.
 
His head dropped

down into the chasm, disappearing from view.
 
Then the main body crossed

the edge, turning at right angles.
 
They were going down into the gap!

The sky seemed to whirl as they changed orientation.
 
Terrified, Forrest

clung tightly to Chlorine, expecting to plummet into the awful depths of

the chasm.

But it didn't happen.
 
He found himself jammed tight against Chlorine's

shapely back, his thighs against her hips, his face buried in her

fragrant hair-and they weren't falling.
 
Instead they were moving down

the vertical wall, as if it were level.
 
Chlorine's hair wasn't even out

of place.

"Bye," Sean said, waving.
 
He was floating beside them, but angled

differently, because to him down was still down.

"It was nice meeting you," Willow said.
 
She was flying similarly, her

wings beating with a gentle cadence.
 
Forrest felt the wind from them,

and knew it was going down, but it was like a level breeze to him.
 
He

was anchored to the wall, and it had become his ground.
 
The experience

was weird, but not unpleasant.

"You can relax a little," Chlorine said.

Oh.
 
He loosened the near death grip he had on her body.
 
It really

wasn't necessary.

Sean and Willow waved again, then flew away.
 
There was a woof as Woofer

followed them, running along the land beyond the chasm.

"Thank you!" Forrest called to them, remembering his manners. "And you,"

he added to the woman and dragon.

"It's just what we do," Chlorine replied.
 
"Nimby and I have such good

fortune that we try to share some of it with others, when the others are

deserving."

"But I'm just trying to help a neighboring tree.
 
That's not anything

special."

"It's something generous and nice," she said.
 
"The fact that you don't

regard it as worthy of comment suggests that you are decent and modest.

That's the type of person we like to help."

He was getting quite curious about her and the dragon.
 
"If I may ask-"

"What's with the damsel and dragon ass?" she finished for him.

m just a somewhat dull, plain, indifferent girl with not much of a

talent.
 
But Nimby makes me beautiful and smart and healthy and nice,

and now we live in the Nameless Castle where a full staff of servants

takes care of our every whim.
 
Once a month we go out around Xanth,

looking for good deeds to do, in this minor way sharing out- happiness

with others."

"The dragon lives in a castle?"

She laughed, causing his linked hands on her soft but firm belly to

shake.
 
"Oh, Nimby changes to handsome princely man form for that,

because he wouldn't fit very well in some of the passages in dragon

form.
 
And while I love him in any form, when it comes to sharing my

bed, I prefer him as a man.
 
More cuddly, you know."

She thought the dragon could become a man?
 
That had to be delusion,

because everyone knew that each creature had only one magic talent, and

Nimby's was walking along vertical walls as if they were horizontal.
 
So

she must have a fond imagination.
 
Her notions about her own body and

personality were the opposite: she credited the dr,igo with- naking her

beautiful, when it was plain that she was stunningly lovely on her own.

Still, she and the dragon were doing him a favor, so it would be best

not to disparage her notions.
 
"That's " he said.

nice, "You don't believe me, do you."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to.
 
But you don't."

"I mean no offense.
 
But yes, I don't quite believe you."

"That's good.
 
I don't want to be believed.
 
Can you believe that Nimby

and I are married, and that we spent a month on the far side of the

moon, reveling in honey?"

"I do find that similarly hard to believe."

"Wonderful!
 
I could probably tell you anything, and you wouldn't

believe it.
 
So I can be completely candid."

"Well, I wouldn't say that."

"If I told you who Nimby really is, you truly wouldn't believe me. So I

won't bother."

Maybe that was just as well.
 
The farther they rode, the less sense

Chlorine was making.

As they continued down, D.
 
Sire reappeared.
 
"I trust you are having

fun?" she inquired, glancing significantly at his hands.

"Yes, this is a remarkable experience," Forrest agreed.
 
"I have never

seen such a chasm before."

"I meant hanging on to Miss Water Poison, who looks good enough to

drink."

Chlorine glanced at her.
 
"Haven't you got some better errand elsewhere,

demoness?"

Sire smirked.
 
"No.
 
I-" Then she looked surprised.
 
"As a matter of

fact I do.
 
" She faded out.

They reached the bottom of the gulf, for the dragon's big feet made for

swift progress.
 
They turned the corner and walked across the level

bottom.
 
Forrest looked up, and saw the rim of the chasm impossibly far

above, and a couple of gnat sized specks that might be Sean and Willow.

Then he remembered something.
 
"Isn't there supposed to be a Gap Dragon