"This is the game-approved explanation for its presence?" he asked, knowing that it was. He had found the key. Now all he needed to do was figure out how to use it.

The roc burst into view. Perfect timing-of course. He realized now that this threat had been carefully ch.o.r.eographed, to give him just enough leeway while keeping him scared. It was indeed part of the game. But he still had to make the right move, or he would be booted out of it again.

He lifted the fluff to his forehead. "Let's have it, Germ, What's the wear"

It came to him. Use the diggle.

Use this giant worm thing? Here was where his Companion should have useful advice. "How can we use the diggle to escape the roc?" he asked her.

"Why, I suppose we could ask it to carry us along," she said, as if surprised by the question. She was a fair actress, but not perfect in that respect. "But you would have to sing to it."

"You surely have a better voice than I do," he said.

"I surely do. But this is something you must do for yourself, as the Player."

Dug looked at Sherlock. "You heard the lady," the black man said. "It probably won't pay attention to me."

Desperate, Dug turned back to Nada. "But what about your princessly sensitivities?"

She glanced over his shoulder at the onrushing roc. "Perhaps I can stand it, for a while."

"Then let's go!" he said. He tucked the Germ into a pocket. "Diggle, that roc is about to smear us into messy pieces, getting your nice hide all icky. Carry us away from here. I'll sing to you."

The diggle, who had been as quiet as the troll, came to life. More of its long body drew out of the ground. The thing was so big that the torso was as thick through as that of a horse. The three of them jumped on, bestriding it Actually Nada remained in naga form, so just lay close.

Dug opened his mouth and forced himself to sing. "I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair!" he sang, badly off-key. He saw both Nada and Sherlock wince.

The diggle began to move. Just as the roc's beak came down, the diggle plunged under the ground-and carried them along with it. There was no impact; they just went under as if the ground didn't exist, or as if it were no more than water, or even air. It was dark, with veins of rock showing. The diggle's magic was at work.

Then it stopped. "Sing, before the ground congeals!" Nada cried, alarmed.

Oh. He had forgotten to sing. "I dream of Brownie in the light blue jeans!" he sang with even worse melody.

The diggle resumed motion, and the ground did not congeal. So Dug kept singing, and the diggle kept traveling, Since they were underground, the rocs couldn't follow. He had found the way to escape that prior challenge.

He realized that the diggle was making pretty good time. This was a fast way to travel south!

Then the diggle stopped again. "But I was still singing!" he protested.

"You started to repeat yourself," Sherlock said. "The thing may not have much taste in music, but it must get bored with old stuff."

"But I only know so many songs," Dug said. "And parodies of singing commercials."

The ground was starting to congeal. He could feel it thickening around them, becoming viscous. He didn't want it to turn all the way rock solid. "Choka Cola, stinky drink!" he sang. "Pour it down the kitchen sink! Smells like vinegar, tastes like ink!"

The diggle resumed motion, and the ground turned thin again.

But eventually Dug was out of parodies too. The ride would have to end. "Diggle, take us up to the surface," he said. "I'm about to run out of music."

"Music!" Sherlock muttered, pained. Nada murmured agreement. She sounded somewhat ill, and Dug doubted that it was from motion sickness. The two of them had made a great sacrifice, listening to him sing for so long.

The diggle wended upward as Dug sang his last ditty. It reached the surface as he finished.

They dismounted. "Thank you, diggle," Dug said a bit hoa.r.s.ely. "You were a great help."

The diggle dived back under the earth, leaving no trace of its pa.s.sage. The ground was solid. "Ain't magic wonderful," Dug remarked, gazing at the undisturbed ground.

"I think that was a diseased germ," Sherlock muttered, rubbing Ms ears.

"I still have it," Dug said. "It may be useful again."

"Where are we?" Sherlock asked.

T"his must be the With-A-Cookee River," Nada said.

"What kind of a name is that for a river?" Dug asked.

"A descriptive one. I have to go change," Nada said. She a.s.sumed full serpent form, took her bundle of clothes in her mouth, and slithered off.

Dug looked around. They were not far from the river. This one was too wide for a little troll bridge, and indeed they saw no bridge on it There were, however, all manner of cookies growing along its banks. That explained the name. The water was calm, but he suspected it would not be wise to try to swim across this one, because it was large enough to contain monsters.

Sure enough, soon he saw a long low snout followed by a faint ripple. Then he saw a single fin projecting from the water. Then a small puff of vapor, as of a water dragon quietly exhaling steam, waiting for some fool to swim by.

How were they to cross? He brought out the Germ and put it to his forehead again. "Got any more Ideas?" he inquired.

Use the cold cream.

Cold cream? Surely it didn't mean the stuff women used to remove makeup!

"Do you see any cold cream around here?" be asked Sherlock.

Sherlock looked around. "All I see is a cream puff- which I think I'll eat." He went to pick it up. It seemed to be growing from the ground, like a puffball. "Hey-this is still hot!"

"How can it be hot, if it's growing? It hasn't been baked in an oven."

"Well, it might as well have been! It's piping hot." Sherlock blew on his fingers, cooling them. The cream puff remained on the ground.

Nada returned, in human form, suitably garbed, "What's happening?" she inquired.

"I'm looking for cold cream," Dug said. "So far all we've found is a hot cream puff."

She looked. "I never heard of a hot cream puff. They're always cool. And cold cream is always cold."

"This puff is hot," Sherlock said.

She went to it. "That's cold cream. I know it when I see it, because on occasion I use it" She bent to touch it "Hoo. It is hot! What can be the matter with it?"

"Look at this," Sherlock said. "There's a hot potato beside it."

"Potatoes don't grow hot either," she said. But in a moment she had verified this too. "This is most perplexing."

Dug saw the outline of a box formed from metallic rods, enclosing the two objects. "Could this be a hot box?" he asked. "With hot rods for the sides?" By this time he knew that he could not trust the Mundane uses of such words.

"A hot box!" she exclaimed. That explains it! The plants are being cruelly heated by the hot box. We can eat the potato, and rescue the cream puff, which I might as well have for cosmetic. But they are both too hot to touch."

"You don't need any cosmetic," Dug said. "You're already perfect" Then, lest she misconstrue his att.i.tude, he added: "No offense."

She smiled, almost blinding him. "No offense."

Sherlock delved in his pack. "I just happen to have heavy heat-resistant gloves here," he said. "Just in case I had to handle a small fiery dragon or something." He donned them, then lifted up the potato. It was nicely baked.

But when he lifted the cream puff, something odd happened. "This is turning cold!"

"It must be compensating for all that heat," Dug said. "It is naturally a cold substance, so it must have been really struggling to stay cold in that hot box. Now that we have removed it, all the effort is making it too cold."

"I'll say!" Sherlock said. "The thing's trying to freeze my hands."

Then the full meaning of gis Germ of an Idea burst on Dug. "Take it to the water! Let it freeze the water!"

Sherlock hurried to the river and dunked the cold cream. Immediately ice formed and spread outward. "Mind if I ask why?" he asked.

"So we can freeze our way across," Dug said. "I got that idea from the Germ."

Sherlock shook his head. "This is almost worse than the idea you had to sing," he said.

"Yet that did get us away from the rocs," Nada said. "And a good distance down the length of Xanth."

"But this time we don't have an angry roc bird chasing us," Sherlock pointed out.

As if on cue, there was a mean sound to the north. As if? Dug realized that it was probably ch.o.r.eographed by the game. And it would probably be a worse threat than the last, in the nature of a game.

That sounds like werewolves," Nada said, looking alarmed.

"Why not garden-variety wolves?" Dug asked as he headed for the water.

"Xanth has very few ordinary wolves or dogs," she said. There once were some, but they bred themselves out of existence, the same way man once did."

"Now, that doesn't make a lot of sense," Dug said. "Species can fade out by not breeding, but they can only get stronger by breeding a lot"

"Not in Xanth. If a species interbreeds with other species, the crossbreeds are their descendants. That's not bad, but it does mean that the original species diminish. My naga kind arose when human folk bred with serpent folk, and the centaurs were crossbreeds between humans and horses, and the merfolk derive from humans and fish, and the harpies from humans and birds. There are many such mixed species, and few original species. They were foolishly free in their breeding; it's a wonder the storks didn't balk at all those mixed deliveries. Only the fact that humans kept coming in new Waves enabled them to maintain their pure population." She looked at Sherlock, "Which is why your Black Wave should be welcome; your difference from other humans here is trivial."

Sherlock nodded. "That's about the first time I've liked having a white person call me trivial. But considering how different you are, I can't argue."

"Let's get on with the freezing," Dug said.

"For sure." Sherlock pried the ball of cold cream out of its socket in the ice and dunked it in the nearest liquid water beyond. In an instant that too was frozen.

The pack of werewolves appeared. Sure enough, some were in canine form, and some in s.h.a.ggy human form, and some were in between. All were howling villainously. "Let's move it," Dug said.

"I'll try." Sherlock squatted, sliding the cold cream forward. The water froze around it. He moved out onto the new ice, freezing steadily ahead.

"Get on it, Nada," Dug said. "I'll defend the rear." He drew his knife.

"You are becoming more like a hero," she remarked approvingly.

"I just don't want any of us to get chomped!" He stepped on the ice after her. The ice now formed a Xanth-like peninsula extending into the river. He chopped at it with the knife, trying to separate them from the land. He hoped the resulting ice island would stay afloat.

The werewolves arrived. The first beast landed on the narrow neck of ice-and broke through it, splashing into the water. The ice the three of them stood on floated free.

There was a ripple in the water. A green snout was moving smoothly toward the werewolf. But the wolf scrambled out before the long green jaws parted to chomp him. The other wolves milled on the bank, knowing better than to set paw to water. Dug and his friends were on their way.

However, they were now at the mercy of the slow current of the With-A-Cookee River. Where would it take them? He also saw brightly colored fins. "What are those?" he asked, fearing the answer.

"Loan sharks," Nada said. "Everyone knows they'll take an arm and a leg, if you let them."

"Then we'll just have to stay out of the water," Dug said. He should have known that something egregiously punnish would turn up to make things worse.

"We should have brought a paddle," Sherlock said as he continued to add to their ice island. "Now we're up the crick without one."

"That's the way the cookee crumbles," Dug said.

"You can use your club to paddle," Nada said.

Dug tried it, but it was remarkably inefficient and the island started to rotate. "Maybe I can freeze a keel, so it won't spin," Sherlock said. He maneuvered the cold cream so that a spike formed, projecting like a tail. He dipped the cream, so that the freezing went deep. Soon the ice floe stabilized, and Dug was able to start it nudging across the river.

Then he heard a voice. It sounded like a girl. "Hey, Nada Naga!" it called.

There beyond the far bank of the river was a small party of people, waving their hands. "Who are they?" Dug asked, surprised.

"Jenny Elf-and the other Mundane Player," Nada said. "And someone else. A strange man. This should get interesting."

The other Player? Dug hadn't realized that there was one. This should indeed get interesting!

"Uh-oh," Sherlock said.

Dug glanced at him. "What's the matter?"

The cold cream's giving out. It's no longer freezing the water."

Dug realized that the game was. .h.i.tting him with another challenge. Their little ice floe would soon melt, dumping them in the river. He saw the predators circling hungrily.

"This is getting too interesting," he muttered.

Chapter 10: CHASM.