"(ebook) Anthony Piers - Xanth 16 - Demons Don't Dream" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

want to run afoul of any ogres; they'll ruin your chances, even if you don't really die when they pull you apart and use your legbones as toothpicks. I'm sure Sammy can find a way through the Ogre Fen without encountering any ogres, and that's what we should do."

"But I don't want to get caught by the ogres," Kirn protested. "I just want to see them. So when I go home I can say I saw a real live game ogre. What's the sense in play-Jng, if I can't see what I want to see?"

"Well, I sort of thought you might want to win, and get _ jhe prize.**

x "Well, of course I want to win the prize! But the fun is fdso in the playing. I want to experience every part of Xanth, and enjoy it to the utmost. It's great already, just seeing it in three-dee and talking with you just as if you're real."

v It was worse than Jenny had feared. Underneath all her knowledge of Xanth, Kirn really didn't believe at all. So she wasn't taking it seriously enough. She had an Attitude ftoblem. This was sure to lead to mischief. But Kim was the Player, and she was the one who made the decisions. All Jenny could do was help and advise her.

"Well, if you insist on seeing an ogre, we'll go see an ogre," Jenny said. "I'll have Sammy try to find a path that leads to a place where we can see without being seen. But I still think it's a bad idea."

-, "It's a terrible idea," Kim agreed. "But fun, too. Adven-tare is the spice of life. Let's go!" s So Jenny set Sammy down. "Find a path that leads to a place where we can see an ogre, without any ogres seeing SB," she told him. "Don't run ahead; just find where it Ittarts." She had learned how to manage the cat, so that she didn't have to chase madly after him when he went to find ^Something. She had first come to Xanth when Sammy had plashed off to find a feather, and she had followed him so ;$B wouldn't get lost, but gotten lost herself. Since then she

-;|jad been stuck in Xanth, but soon enough she had come like it, though she did miss her family back on the

24 PIERS ANTHONY

World of Two Moons. The last thing she wanted to do was have Sammy run into some other world, so that they wouldn't be able to find their way back to Xanth.

Sammy headed off. Jenny held on to the invisible leash the demons had given her, so that she could fell by its tug where the cat was. Sammy couldn't feel the leash; in fact, he didn't know she had it. It stretched just as far as it needed to, invisibly long, but contracted as she caught up, until it was invisibly short. So she no longer had to dash pell-mell after the cat, trying to keep him in sight; he was always within the feel of her hand.

However, this did not make things perfect, because the cat took the most direct cat-route to whatever he was finding. If this was along a path, fine. But it could as readily be under a thorn bush, or up along a tree branch, or through a river. Or under the nose of a sleeping dragon. Sammy would zip by before the dragon woke, but Jenny was slower, larger, and smelled of elf, and all those things made a difference to a dragon. So care was still required.

In this case the cat merely zipped through the thickest tangle of a cornfield. The corn popped madly as she forged through it. "Oooh, firecrackers!" Kirn exclaimed, delighted.

"No, just popping corn," Jenny said. "Oh, I hope the sound of it doesn't alert the ogres!"

Then she felt something sticking to her. She looked, and discovered kernels of caramel corn. They were overripe and gooey, so they made a real mess. She tried to pull them off her clothing, but they had melted in and wouldn't come out. Well, this was the kind of nuisance that happened, when she chased after Sammy.

Soon they came to the cat, who was sitting at the end of a path, licking the caramel from his fur. This was the one.

Jenny glanced at Kirn. Kim was not really here; instead there was the square window to Mundania, showing her as she sat at her keyboard. The window was always right in sight, so that the Player could see the game scene; it moved along with Jenny. So it was easy to forget that

DEMONS DON'T DREAM 25

Jenny was traveling alone, physically. Kim would not really be in the scene until she achieved the second act of belief, and believed in magic. But that would happen as the game progressed. Some things just took time to believe.

Jenny picked up the cat. They followed the path through the deepening reaches of the dread Ogre Fen. Jenny would be glad when they got out of here, because it was the kind of place only an ogre could like. The trees were warped, the victims of ogre pranks; some had been tied in knots, and others looked like pretzels. Some were in tatters, showing that once an ogre in a bad mood had passed The ground was no better, it was grudgingly shifting from a swamp to a bog, and thence to a marsh; soon it would become a full fen. Fortunately the path itself was dry. This was because the ogres preferred awful paths, so didn't use this one; thus Sammy had found the one safe from ogres. Or at least less dangerous; no path was truly safe from an ogre.

They passed some cords hanging down from branches extending over the path. Jenny's elbow brushed one. It twanged loudly. Immediately several other cords twanged, forming a quartet of notes, as if several people were singing.

"What's that?" Kim inquired, startled.

"A vocal cord," Jenny said. "I hope it doesn't attract the ogres."

But when she tried to move on, she brushed another cord, and there was another group of simultaneous notes. She shuddered; the ogres were sure to hear this music! Д They were lucky; no ogres came. Jenny breathed a sigh of relief. But she knew that the danger wasn't over. They needed to get out of ogre country.

They came to a hugely spreading tree whose trunk looked like thick rubber and whose branches had rubber rings spaced along them. The tips of the branches touched thin wires, which in turn swung away through the branches of other trees. There was a faint humming coming from the wires, and now and men a crackling sound.