Part 5 (2/2)
”But the whorl could have pa.s.sed after Ivy did,” Chem pointed out. ”So it didn't hurt her, just wiped out a section of her trail.”
”Yes...” Irene agreed, relieved. ”Or maybe it just grazed her, making her forget a little, such as how to get home, without really hurting her.” That was stretching probability somewhat, but was a better theory than nothing. It was possible, Irene reminded herself fiercely.
”We shall trace her quickly,” the centaur rea.s.sured Irene, cutting off the questionable speculations. They all knew how deadly the wilderness of Xanth could be, even when a person's memory was intact.
”Let me try one more thing,” Grundy said. ”That buckeye over there is to the east of the forget-line, and those bucks eye everything that pa.s.ses them, especially if it's in a skirt. Maybe it saw Ivy come in and wasn't in the path of the whorl.”
”Good idea!” Chem agreed. ”Ask it!”
The golem sent out a mooselike honk at the tree. In the distance, the chocolate moose looked up, startled, then realized this call was not for it. The tree's antlerlike branches twitched. Eyelike formations in the trunk blinked. It honked back.
Grundy became excited. He honked again. The tree responded with a considerable pa.s.sage of rustlings and wood noises.
The golem translated: ”The buck says he eyed this region four hours ago and saw a magic carpet glide in, carrying a bag and a child.”
”That's no way to refer to a woman!” Irene snapped.
”A bag of spells,” Grundy clarified, and Irene blushed. She had waded into that one!
”A carpet!” Chem said. ”That could only be--”
”Humfrey's carpet!” Irene exclaimed. ”It escaped when the Gap Dragon attacked him!”
”It must have come down near Ivy,” Chem said. ”These carpets may spook, but they always return. They don't know what to do by themselves. But why didn't it return to Humfrey?”
”He was gone!” Irene said. ”The Gorgon conjured him home. Hugo must have wandered away, so the carpet simply went looking for them. When it spied Ivy--”
”It dropped down to see if she was its owner,” Chem finished. ”And Ivy took a ride on it, just for fun.”
”She would,” Irene agreed grimly. ”She has very little sense of danger when she gets interested by something. She inherits that from her father.”
The centaur glanced askance at Irene, but did not comment.
”And she picked up a good-luck charm,” Grundy added. ”The buckeye saw that happen, too.”
”Good-luck charm?” Irene asked. ”Then how could she have gotten caught by the forget-whorl?”
”The tree didn't see that,” Grundy said.
”Naturally not! The whorls are invisible!”
”But the whorl may have missed her,” Chem pointed out. ”We know only that it pa.s.sed here, perhaps soon after she did, not that it got Ivy. The good-luck charm could have fended it off, or at least diminished its effect, depending on how strong the charm was. If her continuing trail remains purposeful, we can a.s.sume that she wasn't really hurt by the whorl.”
”I don't know,” Irene said, worried. ”Things don't always happen the way they should, here in Xanth. Dor's father Bink--” But that was another subject; Bink had always been amazingly lucky, needing no charm.
”We do know a whorl got the zombie who carried her from the path of the Gap Dragon,” Chem said, glancing at the zombie who patiently followed them now. This was a different zombie; the patterns of rot were dissimilar, not that it mattered. One zombie was very much like another. ”There must be a number of whorls around, striking randomly.”
”Probably the whorls followed the dragon from the Gap,” Irene agreed. ”The dragon should be immune to them, having lived in the ambience of the original forget-spell for centuries. There could be an affinity because of that long a.s.sociation. Anyway, we seem to have solved the riddle of Ivy's departure; she flew the carpet to this side of the castle. But she's on foot now; the carpet evidently took off again when she got off it, and is lost. We need to catch up to her before--”
”Before nightfall,” Chem supplied diplomatically.
They followed the trail more quickly now, the golem eliciting a report from a lady-fingers plant that used hand signals to describe a human child and a huge animal.
”Animal?” Irene asked, alarmed.
”Perhaps the chocolate moose,” Chem suggested.
Grundy conversed further with the local plants, while the lady-fingers wrung their hands in distress at not being able to identify the creature. But another plant recognized the type. ”A yak,” the golem finally reported. ”They like to talk. They're generally harmless, unless they talk your ear off. Stroke of luck her running into that particular animal.”
”The good-luck charm,” Chem said. ”Obviously she had it with her, though she may not have recognized its significance. It brought her a fortunate wilderness companion.”
”After fending off the forget-whorl, or most of it. But those charms only last a few hours when used,” Irene said worriedly. ”They only have so much power, and each intercession of good luck depletes their charge. Ivy must have needed a lot of luck out here, so the charm will be exhausted by nightfall.”
The centaur glanced at the sky. ”We have another hour yet. We can move faster than she could. We'll find her.”
”Fat cha--” Grundy started to remark with his normal calculated insensitivity, but was interrupted by a coincidental cough from the centaur that almost dislodged him. ”Uh, yes, sure.”
They went on, tracing the trail along a footpath and past a centaur-game region. ”If only the centaurs had realized Ivy was lost,” Chem said. ”I know they would have carried her right back to the Castle Zombie!”
”The lucky charm was fading,” Irene said grimly.
There was a warning rumble of thunder. A storm was headed their way. They hurried.
They pa.s.sed a torment pine. Then, just beyond it, the trail stopped. No plant remembered anything.
”Another forget-whorl!” Irene exclaimed. ”Or maybe the same one, rolling along. It blotted out everything's memory!”
”Those whorls don't seem to be large,” Chem said. ”We should be able to pick up the trail on the other side of it. I'm sorry we didn't think to bring along some of that whorl-nullifying potion Humfrey gave you.”
”Haste always does make waste,” Irene said.
The thunder rumbled again, louder. It sounded like the cloud Irene had disciplined with the watermelon seeds, and that could mean trouble. The inanimate wasn't very smart, but it was very ornery. The cloud must have rounded up reinforcements and returned to the fray.
Soon they found the trail--but it was only the yak. ”Do yaks leave their companions?” Irene asked.
”Not while those companions are still able to listen,” Chem said. ”A yak will never voluntarily stop talking.”
”Yeah, you have to know how to shut it up,” Grundy put in.
”How do you do that?” Irene asked.
The golem shook his little head. ”No one knows.”
”Ivy surely didn't know--and even if she did, she wouldn't. She likes conversation.” Irene frowned. ”I only wish she were willing to talk more herself. She listens to me, but she doesn't say much. Sometimes I worry about her being r.e.t.a.r.ded, like--”
”Like Hugo?”
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