Part 11 (1/2)

Ivy was glad Hugo was so smart and knew all about such things. ”The centaur?”

”No, dummy, the cloud! Imbri's translating for it.”

Ivy blushed again with pleasure at the endearment. This was all new to her, but she decided it was all right. It was nice of Mare Imbri to help out like this.

”I'm Ivy,” she said to the cloud. ”Who are you?”

The mare must have projected a talking dream to the cloud, for it paused a moment, then scowled darkly and blew out another piece of thunder. Ivy was a little frightened when it did that, but tried not to show it because she wasn't sure Stanley could make this thing go away.

”He says you're supposed to recognize the King of Clouds when you see him and perform abject obeisance,” the centaur-dreamlet said.

Ivy looked at the ground and dug a toe in the din, trying to fathom what ”abject obeisance” meant.

”That's better,” the centaur said. ”The cloud sees you are bowing and/or curtseying. He says he is his Majesty c.u.mulo-Fracto-Nimbus, the Lord of the Air. He says you remind him of someone he doesn't like--a female with green hair.”

Ivy realized that would be her mother Irene. She was about to ask where the cloud had seen her, but Hugo spoke first. ”Aw, Fracto's just a bit of scud,” he said depreciatingly.

The cloud heard that, and evidently needed no translation. He swelled up and turned purply-black. Lightning speared out of his Majesty's nose, followed by a belch of thunder and a smattering of rain-spittle. Hugo had to jump to avoid being scorched. It seemed clouds were sensitive about name calling.

”How dare you refer to the Lord of the Air as 'scud'!” the dream centaur translated. ”He wants you to know he hails from a long and foggy line of lofty meteorological effects, from Cirrus through Stratus. His relatives process the water that grows all the plants of Xanth and fills all the lakes! He advises you that, without his kind, the whole land would be a dust bowl and you would be ashes! He is Fracto the King, a real Thunderhead!”

”Dunderhead,” Hugo agreed, with uncommon wit. Nights were noted for that.

The cloud turned so black he was almost a Black Hole. He blew out such a blast of fog mixed with thunder that he nearly turned himself inside out.

”Oh, now Hugo's done it,” the dream centaur said. ”The King of Clouds is very volatile and tempest-headed. Flee before he strikes!”

”But there's more thunder down there!” Ivy protested, looking at the roiling layer of fog below.

The Fracto-King shaped himself up enough to take good aim at Hugo. Now he looked like a towering anvil. But before he could hammer out a devastating thunderbolt, Stanley stepped forward and shot a fierce jet of steam into the spongy nether region.

This would have sent any ordinary monster sailing high with a youp of pain, but the steam had little visible effect on the cloud. Clouds were composed of water, as was the dragon's steam; the jet only added to Fracto's strength.

Then Ivy had a bright-bulb notion. ”Hugo!” she cried. ”Conjure some fruit!”

Hugo conjured a watermelon and heaved it at the cloud. c.u.mulo-Fracto-Nimbus recoiled, but then saw that this was only a fruit, not a plant, and surged back. When the melon pa.s.sed harmlessly through the cloud and splatted against the ground, the moisture only added to the cloud's strength. ”No, Hugo,” Ivy clarified. ”A pineapple!” Hugo caught on, for Nights were very quick to grasp battle strategies. ”Yes, I can do it now!” he cried. A huge, firm, potent pineapple appeared in his hand. Just before Fracto spat out his next lightning bolt, Hugo heaved the fruit.

The pineapple disappeared into the mouth of the cloud just as the lightning bolt emerged. The two collided--and the pineapple exploded. The blast was phenomenal. It blew the King apart. Fragments of Fracto fog shot out in an expanding sphere, jags of sundered lightning radiated out like a sunburst, and thunder crashed into the ground, bounced, and lay quiet.

”Ooo, you destroyed him!” Ivy exclaimed, nervously chewing on a finger. She wasn't accustomed to such violence.

”You can't destroy a cloud that way,” the dream centaur said. ”Fracto is somewhat like a demon. He will recoalesce, worse than before, in a few minutes. Flee!”

Ivy saw that it was so. Already the mean little scud-clouds were globbing together, forming larger fragments, each with a single spike of Fracto's crown. This was no safe place!

”Conjure some fresh cherry bombs!” Ivy cried to Hugo. ”We'll beat a strategic retreat!” She almost surprised herself with that word ”strategic”; it had been beyond her comprehension before, though she had heard her father use it when discussing the ancient War of the NextWave, which had happened two years before she was born. But now she was in a battle situation, and the meaning of the term was manifesting clearly enough.

”Gotcha,” the boy agreed, with the excellent grammar of the typical Night. A huge bunch of cherries appeared, a double handful. He flipped one cherry at the northeast side of the island, and when the bomb exploded, the layer of cloud there was disrupted. It started closing in again immediately, but obviously the fight had been temporarily knocked out of it.

Hugo marched down, clearing the way with a series of detonations. Whenever thunder threatened, Hugo threw a cherry at it, and the effort dissipated explosively.

Before long they emerged below the mist. The cloud had suffered enough concussion. It lifted high in the sky, out of reach, and floated away in a gray dudgeon.

Ivy was thrilled by the victory. ”You defeated Fracto!” she exclaimed. ”Oh, let me award you, Hugo!” She flung her arms about him and planted a fat kiss on his left ear, in the way she had. She might have had her terminology a trifle confused, but the boy was quite satisfied with his award. It was the first such thing he had ever earned. He began, almost, to believe that he might be worthwhile.

Stanley might have had a different opinion, and his pedestal seemed somewhat cramped, but he was so glad to get away from the clouds that he didn't bother to develop that opinion. He did rather like the cherries; they were his kind of fruit. The pineapple, too; that had been a real blast!

They continued on through the valley. But the jungle remained thick with recognizable menaces like tangle trees and hanging vines--an unfortunate animal caught in one of the latter was not a pretty sight--and unrecognizable ones like sections of ground that were suspiciously still. The shadows were lengthening, where they showed at all. It was obvious the three of them needed a safe place to spend the night.

Stanley sniffed the ground. He had excellent reptilian perceptions. Little drifts of steam puffed up between sniffs. He picked up some kind of scent and followed it to the side. Ivy and Hugo trailed after him.

The valley narrowed here, becoming a kind of chasm. Suddenly the side of the chasm opened into a hole--a large cave. In the fading light, they could see that it was a fine, dry place, with warm air wafting from it. It seemed to be the shelter they were looking for.

They entered, found a convenient ledge, and hauled in some fragrant brush to make a comfortable nest for the three of them. Hugo conjured several kinds of fruit, and they feasted and tossed the seeds on the floor below. Then, in the dark, they settled down to sleep.

In what seemed like the middle of the night, something huge and sweaty loomed in the entrance of the cave. They couldn't see it, but the ground shook with its tread, and the air stank with its body odor, and its great rasping breath stirred breezes near the top of the cave.

Abruptly wide awake, the three young travelers cowered in their nest, aware that they had camped in the lair of a monster.

The very worst place!

The monster didn't spot them. It had brought something in with it, evidently a dead animal. They heard the crunching of flesh and bones as the monster consumed the animal. Then the creature flopped down across the cave entrance and snored. The sound was like the distant roaring of Sphinxes with indigestion.

They were trapped inside the monster's cave, and the coming of the light of dawn would expose them to the monster's view. How were they going to get out of this picklement?

Chapter 8: Tisi, Alec & Meg.

They traveled southeast into the depths of Unknown Xanth. Chem was delighted, for it was her personal mission to map all of the peninsula she could find, especially what had never before been recorded. Periodically she projected her magic map, adding the new features--and marking their progress with a neat, black, dotted line.

Grundy, true to his fas.h.i.+on, irritated her by finding minor fault with the details. ”Your stupid line-dots are covering up key features,” he said, pointing to a section of the line. ”There's a tiger lily squished under this dot!” He pointed to one of them.

”Serves it right,” Chem retorted. ”It snapped at my tail as I pa.s.sed it.”

Irene looked up, keeping track of the flying hippogryph. She was half afraid the beast would disappear entirely, but evidently Xavier was taking his mother's directive seriously and was guiding them correctly. It was obvious that the gryph could have flown much higher and faster than it was doing, had it so chosen. At least those two were getting their desire: to go fly. Even if they did have to carry a zombie along.

”Hey, that's nice,” Grundy said, reaching out to grab a small flower from a plant growing on a close bank.

”Don't touch it!” Irene warned.

Naturally the golem touched it anyway.

”Eeeek!” the flower shrieked piercingly, wrenching itself away.

Startled, Grundy looked back at the protesting flower. ”What was that?”

”I told you not to touch that touch-me-not,” Irene said complacently. ”They are delicate plants, and don't like to be handled by clumsy oafs.”