"(ebook) Anthony Piers - Xanth 17 - Harpy Thyme v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

Well, maybe she would just have to get wet. It wasn't as if she were made of spun sugar, whatever impression she preferred to give others.

Gloha set her firm little face in an earnest little expression and flew directly toward where she hoped the castle was, on a level course.

Fracto puffed up like a mottled wart. He opened his sodden maw and breathed out a sickly gust of wind. It surrounded her, coating her true little tresses with smog and her winsome little wings with dirty ice. Foul air clogged her nice little nose and fuzzed her open little eyes. Suddenly she was flying blind, and losing altitude. She was in danger of crashing!

Gloha sneezed. The force of it shot her spinning back out of the foul air, and she was able to blink her eyes clear. She still had some altitude, and was able to pull out of her tail-spin.

She brought out her handsome little hankie and wiped her face. Fracto's ugly puss was laughing and spitting out broken bits of wind and cloud that drifted in stenchy colors. It seemed that she couldn't just try harder; the awful cloud had too much ill wind.

Well, if she couldn't fly there, she would walk there. She was a goblin girl with harpy wings, and though she had spent most of her time with winged monsters, she was at home on the ground too. Fracto couldn't stop her from using her fast little feet.

She glided down to the ground before the evil cloud could work up another foul gust to blow her away. She had hoped to find an enchanted path going there, but saw none. So her lovely little lady slippers touched down in an isolated glade, and she began to walk. There was an ordinary path that would serve; she had noted its direction as she descended, and was sure it would take her there. She would simply have to watch out for hostile monsters and other ilk, because they would be able to harass her on an unenchanted path.

Fracto was furious. He huffed and he puffed and he blew up such a storm that in two and a half moments snow was pelting down. In the remaining half moment it was piling up so thickly that all trace of the path was gone.

Oops. How was she to find her way now? She knew she would get lost in. the trackless snow. She couldn't even make her own tracks, because the snow was covering them up just about as fast as she made them. In addition, it was cold; her tight little tootsies were freezing.

She would have to take shelter until the storm blew over. Maybe she could find a blanket bush and hide under the blankets, and the snow would cover her so that Fracto wouldn't know where she was, and would drift away. At least she would be warm while she waited.

But she saw no blanket bushes, and no pillow bushes. This glade was singularly bereft of useful plants. There was only a big snowball at the edge of the glade. She certainly didn't need that!

But as her teeth began to chatter in an unladylike manner, her mind squeezed out an odd thought What was a giant snowball doing here? The snow had just started, and it was covering the ground with a level layer. It couldn't form itself into a snowball. Was there an invisible giant doing it? But there was no depression where the snow would have been taken from, and there was no smell of giant. "That snowball-that's no ball," she muttered, making temporary tracks toward it.

Then she realized that she had made a pun. "That snowball" had become "That's no ball," spoken the same way. And that gave her the cue.

She marched up to the ball and touched it. Her hands passed through its seeming surface. She stepped forward, and found herself within the entrance to a tunnel. It looked like a snowball from outside, but it was warm and dry inside. This was the way past Fracto's storm. All she had had to do was figure out the secret, and she was on her way. Her mild little mind had prevailed over the cloud's fury, and she had mastered (or maybe mistressed) the first challenge.

But there would be two more, and they wouldn't be any easier than the first. She had gotten through as much by luck as by wit, and might have used up her supply of both. Should she give up her quest?

But then she would never find her Perfect Mate and True Love, and would have to endure unhappily forever and ever alone, which was a fate worse than "marriage. She wasn't ready to face that dreary prospect. After all, she had so much to offer the right man, she hoped. She glanced down at her fancy little figure, just to be sure.

So she proceeded resolutely down the passage. She would at least make an efficient little effort, and if she failed, then she would go somewhere and cry.

The passage opened out into a good-sized lighted cave. Along the sides were darkened alcoves, and at the far end was a monster. Uh-oh-she suspected that the next challenge was upon her. Instead of a cantankerous cloud, she would have to get by an aggressive animal.

But there had to be a way to do it without getting eaten. She merely had to figure out that way again. Somehow. Maybe if she proceeded very carefully it would happen.

So she took a tour of the chamber, looking in the alcoves. This turned out to be a slightly baffling tour.

The first alcove held a fat bird with a beautiful fan-shaped tail. Gloha cudgeled her balky little brain and managed to remember news of a bird like this, perhaps confined to Mundania: it was a turkey. She looked at it, and it looked at her, and that was it. The bird wasn't confined, but didn't seem inclined to depart its alcove. It was just there.

"You certainly are a beautiful bird," Gloha said politely. The turkey gobbled appreciatively.

She moved on to the next alcove. There was a rather unprepossessing young human man. Because he was human, he was about twice as tall as she was; goblins were twice as tall as elves and half as tall as humans. She wasn't sure how either other species could stand being so pitifully small or so dangerously large, but it wouldn't be polite to call attention to such failings, so she didn't. "I say, can you talk?" she asked the youth, who seemed to be no older than she was, though it was hard to tell with humans.

"Sure," the youth replied.

"What is your name? Mine is Gloha."