Swell Foop (20 page)

"What does it do?"

"We don't even know. Just that each Ring of Xanth has such power as no mortal ever can wield alone, and it takes all six of them together to control the Swell Foop. It hurts my mind just to think about it too much."

"I'm getting scared."

"Join the throng," David said. "We might as well be fleas on an elephant."

She took his hand. "Hi, fellow flea!"

"Actually, more like germs on the flea on an elephant," Breanna said. "But it seems it's up to us. Once we get that sixth Ring."

The rest of the series of flights was uneventful. By the time they arrived in Florida, Jaylin knew both her companions pretty well, and was ready to do more than hold hands with David. She learned how he had sneaked a peek at lovely Chlorine's green panties at age twelve, and the forbidden sight had turned his eyes from brown to green and accelerated his maturation by a year. In the ensuing five years he had realized that there was more to a woman than underwear, but that original green image had never quite faded from his fancy. She made a mental note: When this business with the Swell Foop was all done, and she returned to Mundania, buy a set of green underwear. Even if she didn't care to show it, she wanted to have it.

"Actually, David's decent," Breanna remarked during one of their rest stops. "And his family is really nice. A girl could do a lot worse."

"You act as though I've already decided."

Breanna gave her another of those looks, and sure enough, Jaylin felt completely stupid. She would have to learn to mask her interests more effectively.

Mrs. Baldwin met them at the airport. "Hello, Jaylin!" she said, as if they had known each other for years. "Are you okay with this?"

Okay with what? Had the woman already marked her as a future daughter-in-law? No, it must be the dangerous mission. "I am nervous as bleep," Jaylin confessed. She was picking up some of Breanna's mannerisms. "But I'm ready to try my best."

"You will be suffering jet lag," Mary said. "It may be best to go immediately on into Xanth, where they can give you a magic potion to make you all right."

"I'll take them to the portal," David said.

He did. He drove them to No Name Key. Then, as they parted, he took Jaylin's hand and gently drew her into him. She yielded, coming to embrace him. They kissed. She floated.

Nothing more was said, but a promise had been made. There would be more to this, by and by. They separated, and she and Breanna entered the compound.

"Funny how things work out," Breanna remarked. "It was similar chance when I met Justin."

"Do things really happen by chance?" Jaylin asked, still flustered by the impact of the kiss.

"I wonder."

Breanna led them through a picture in a gallery, and suddenly they were on Centaur Isle with a black horse trotting up to greet them. "This is Putre," Breanna said. "He's the zombie dream colt."

"Hello, Putre," Jaylin said. "What a beautiful creature you are." Actually, any horse was beautiful, but she didn't feel the need to clarify that.

A little dark heart appeared above the horse.

"May I hug you?" Jaylin asked. She had a charge of love built up that had to be discharged.

The heart fractured into a cluster of smaller hearts, and these formed into the outline of a larger heart.

She took that as a yes. She went to hug his neck. The hearts fractured again, forming a cloud that enveloped the two of them.

"Now why do I think the two of you will get along okay?" Breanna asked rhetorically.

Jaylin was glad that hearts didn't show in Mundania; she would have embarrassed herself more than once. But it was time to get down to business. "I don't have much experience riding horses," she said.

"You can't fall off him if he doesn't want you to," Breanna said. "Look—it's really urgent that you get that Ring of Void as fast as you can. Why don't you go after it now, and I'll find my own way back to tell the others?"

"But I'd be lost here without you!" Jaylin protested, suddenly aware of the strangeness of the environment.

"Putre will take good care of you, and he knows where the Ring is, and where to find us once you have it. You can trust him."

Jaylin believed that. She just hadn't expected to be halfway on her own so suddenly. "Well—"

"Good enough. I hope you can figure it out quickly."

Jaylin climbed onto Putre's bare back, and it was surprisingly secure and comfortable. "You know where it is?" she asked uncertainly.

A speech balloon appeared above his head. "Only in a general way," it wrote. "It is in the Web."

"The Web?"

"Of the Internet."

"Oh, you mean like the Mundane Internet?"

"Like it, perhaps, but not part of it. This is the dream realm version. We must seek it in the gourd."

Jaylin didn't much like the sound of this, for all that there was no sound, just writing. "Must we?"

"It is where it is."

"But isn't that where all the bad dreams are? All the scary things?"

"Yes. But they will not hurt you. They will merely scare you."

"Oh, that's all right, then," Jaylin said weakly. She was trying for sarcasm, but was unable to rise to the occasion.

"I will take you there now," Putre wrote. And before she could think of a pretext to protest, he was off at a gallop, carrying her along.

She grabbed the curly mane at his neck to hang on, but really there was no need; she was staying securely on his back as if in a coasting easy chair. They moved along until he came to a green gourd lying on the ground. Then he dived—how that was possible for a horse she didn't know, but he did it—and they were on a collision course with the gourd. It seemed to swell up hugely, and they passed right through. She didn't even have time to let out a proper scream.

Then they were in a pleasant open forest, not at all frightening. "What happened?" she asked, looking around.

"This is one of the dream sets," Putre's speech balloon wrote. "Where the elements of dreams are made."

"But this isn't scary."

"It's just background material. Dreams don't become frightening until they have effective plot lines. Every element has to be fashioned just right for best effect."

"I suppose," Jaylin agreed, relaxing. "What now?"

"We must find the Web. We shall have to inquire."

"Does that mean we have to find a scary thing to ask?"

"This looks like leprechaun territory. They aren't very scary."

"That's a relief! Okay, let's find a leprechaun."

Putre's ears perked up. There was the sound of hammering. He walked toward it.

They came to a glade where several little bearded men were working on some kind of platform. They were intent on their construction and didn't see the visitors.

"Uh, hello," Jaylin said tentatively.

The nearest little man jumped, dropping his hammer. "Oh! Don't give a person such a fright!" he exclaimed. "You're like to turn a man's beard white."

"We apologize, handsome leprechaun," Putre's balloon wrote.

"Yes, we are very sorry," Jaylin agreed. "Your beard is such a nice shade of red."

The little man looked at Putre, frowning. Then he looked at Jaylin, and the frown melted. "Why, sure and it's a cute Mundane lass," he exclaimed. "What be the likes of you doing in a place like this?"

Putre made a small speech balloon angled her way. "He likes you. Maybe he'll help." That was the equivalent of a whisper.

She nodded. "I'm looking for the Web."

"Lass, you're in the wrong set! Gold we've got, but no web." He gestured around, and when Jaylin looked, she saw several crocks overflowing with bright gold coins.

"You really do have treasure!" she exclaimed, impressed. "I thought that was just a myth."

"It is a myth," the leprechaun said. "And we are it. Have you any idea how many people dream foolishly of gold they don't deserve? They never think of doing good honest work for it; no, they've got to try to steal it from us. Isn't that a shame?"

"It's terrible," she agreed.

The leprechaun angled his head. "Sure and I like the look of ye," he said. He turned to his fellow workers. "Anybody know the way to the Web?"

"Aye," one agreed. "I can point the way. But we have to test this set first."

"So we do. But maybe this sweet lass can help us."

"Me?" Jaylin asked. "I don't know the first thing about dream sets."

All of the leprechauns nodded. "She'll do," the other said.

"I don't understand."

"That's why ye'll do, lass," the first one said. "You aren't prejudiced. If it scares you, it must be good."

Jaylin realized that she had better cooperate, or they might not help her find the Web. "I'll try."

"It's like this. Pretend you're dreaming—of course you
are
dreaming, but you know what I mean—and you catch me and try to make me show you where my treasure is."

"Oh, I wouldn't do anything like that!"

"I said
pretend,
lass. Think of yourself as a big mean man who doesn't care how he gets rich."

"I'll try," she said again. She got down from Putre, and the leprechaun went back to work. This time, instead of greeting him, she pounced on him, grabbing him by an arm. "Ha, I've got you, leprechaun!" she cried. "Where's your gold?"

He looked cowed. "Please, mister bad man, let me go! That treasure will do ye no good, believe me."

"No! I want it now. Or else." She had no idea what else, but it was the only threat she could think of.

"All right! All right. Don't hurt me. I'll take ye there." Then, in a low voice: "Don't let go of me, or I'll vanish. The bad men have mostly caught on to that by now."

She had been about to let go of him. Instead she renewed her grip on his arm. "Take me to your treasure!"

The leprechaun led the way to the structure, which was now conveniently shrouded in mist. Only a few bright golden coins showed around the edges of the mist, evidently fallen from some huge crock of gold. Jaylin knew that this was all a dream, and the money wasn't real, and even if it was real, she wouldn't take it, but still she felt a tinge of greedy excitement.

"It is in here," the leprechaun said, showing an oval-shaped opening in the mist. "Take a look."

Jaylin put her face to the oval, but couldn't quite see inside. So she poked her head through.

Suddenly the mist cleared, and she saw that the structure was a gallows, and she was standing on the platform, and had just poked her head through the hangman's noose. "The wages of sin is death!" the leprechaun cried as he pulled a handle and a trapdoor opened beneath her feet. She was falling.

Jaylin screamed so piercingly that the entire scene shattered and collapsed in a heap of shards.

Then Putre was there, kicking the shards away, nudging her with his friendly nose. She grabbed his neck and cried into his mane. "That was horrible!"

"Then it will do," the leprechaun said, satisfied. "Put it in the can, boys."

Oh, yes: This was a mere demo. For a moment she had forgotten.

"Sorry we frightened you, lass," the leprechaun said. "But you know this
is
the realm of bad dreams. They have to be awful, or they're no good, so to speak. The Night Stallion has strict standards."

"I understand," she said weakly.

"Now we'll show ye the way to the Web."

They led the way through the forest, until it opened out onto a sheer dropoff. "This is a dream aspect of the Gap Chasm," the leprechaun said. "And there's the edge of the Internet." He gestured over the edge.

Putre walked forward, carrying Jaylin. They peered into the chasm—and there, attached to it in several places, were strands of a monstrous net that stretched entirely across the gap. Each strand was crisscrossed by other strands, so that the pattern of it was clear.

"A literal net," Jaylin said faintly. "I should have known."

"It is our understanding that the Web is part of the Internet," the leprechaun said. "We regret that we can't be a wee bit more helpful, but it is all we know."

"Thank you. I hope your bad dream is a big success."

Then Putre set foot on the Internet, placing each hoof carefully at a junction of strands. Jaylin was quite nervous about this at first, but his footing seemed secure, and the net sagged only a little under his weight. They could cruise the net.

"But this net seems very big," she said. "It could take us a long time to search it all."

"And it's growing all the time," the speech balloon wrote. "Maybe you should orient."

"Orient?"

"The designated Ring Holders can sense the direction of their Rings."

"I didn't know that."

"Few do, because there has not been a call for the Rings of Xanth in several centuries."

"So how do I orient?" But Jaylin answered her own question. She thought of the Ring of Void, and became aware of a direction. "It's that way, I think," she said, pointing.

Putre dutifully followed the instruction. He was gaining speed as he got used to the Internet. She was not about to hurry him; she didn't want any foot to slip.

"How did you come to have such a—such a name?" she inquired.

The speech balloon appeared. "Each night mare associates with a sea of the moon. My dam was Mare Imbrium, and her hoofprint leaves a small map of the moon with her sea highlighted. That identifies the dreams she carries. I, being her foal, associate with a lesser region in her lee. In fact, it is a marsh or swamp, somewhat festering, named Palus Putredinus. Since I am now a zombie, it seems to be a fitting designation."

"You don't seem festering to me," she said.

"I was zombied very soon after dying, so there is hardly any rot."

"And do your hoofprints show that marsh?"

"Yes, of course, and the initials PP. You can see my marsh on the face of the moon, if you look carefully beside the Mare Imbrium. But no one cares about that, since I do not deliver dreams. Only the mares can do that."

"Well, I'm glad that freed you to help me."

The speech balloon did not reappear, but another little heart floated up.

Guided by her sense of direction, they came in due course to the Web. It differed from the Net in that instead of square intersections, it was a giant circle with many cables radiating from its center. It was plainly a very big spiderweb. That made Jaylin nervous.