The others paused to listen. "That sounds like Fracto," Nada said. "Do you think that Dug was crazy enough to aggravate that cloud again?"

"Well, I was crazy enough to do it before," Kim said. "Dug's like me, in some respects."

"Oh? Do you like him?"

"Yes, I guess I do," Kim said shyly.

"Why didn't you say something?"

"Well, where I come from, a girl doesn't."

"You are not where you come from," Nada pointed out.

Kim shrugged. "Still, he's from Mundania too. He's handsome, while I-" She didn't care to finish.

"I suppose he is," Nada said. "I hadn't noticed. He does seem to be interested in-" She hesitated. "Mature women."

"Oh, was he getting fresh with you?" Kim asked, morbidly curious.

"He tried to glimpse my panties, and almost got put out of the game. After that he was more careful."

"So that explains it," Kim said. "I thought he was remarkably polite, for a teenage boy."

"He became polite. He seems clever enough, when one allows for his immaturity."

"All Mundane boys are immature. That's why they need girls to mature them."

Nada smiled. "They're not so different than those of Xanth." She peered into the chasm. "I think that's another snowstorm. I wonder what's going on down mere?"

A small light flashed over Kim's head, melting the last of the snow in her vicinity. "A blinding blizzard! Would that hide them from the dragon?"

"I think it might," Nada agreed.

"Then Dug must've deliberately insulted Fracto, to create that diversion," Kim said, delighted. "So they could get through safely."

"You do like him," Nada said.

"But he has no interest in me, so it doesn't matter. Let's get on and win this game."

Bubbles was happy to lead the way, her tail curling up in a perfect semicircle. The path was clear, and there were no bad creatures in the way. But Kim knew that there would be another challenge before too long. She hoped she would be ready for it.

As they went, they had to discard items of clothing, because of the returning warmth. It was hard to imagine that this had so recently been a snowscape.

Bubbles barked. Kim looked around, because there was always something when the dog gave warning.

Specks appeared in the sky. They danced around, growing larger. They did not seem to be birds or insects; their outlines were squared off, and their motions too bobbing. "What are those?" Kim asked.

Nada looked. "Kites, I think. They like to fly about the Gap, because of updrafts mere."

"Oh, I used to love to fly kites!" Kim exclaimed. "Are these magic?"

"Everything is magic in Xanth," Nada said.

"There's a string," Cyrus said. He strode forward, reaching for it.

"I wouldn't," Nada said warningly.

But he was already grabbing the string. He hauled on it, bringing the kite down. It was a huge cubic thing, brightly colored.

The kite suddenly plunged, looming close. It swept into Cyrus, knocking him down. Then, free, it sailed back up out of reach.

Kim dashed over to help him. "Are you all right?" she asked worriedly.

Cyrus sat up, shaking his head. Three little birds were flying around it, cheeping. "Just dizzy, I think," he said dizzily. "What happened?"

"You grabbed the string of a box kite," Nada explained. "It boxed you."

Kim helped him stand. He was unsteady, but the little birds evidently decided he was all right, and flew away. "No more kites," he said.

"No more kites," Kim agreed.

Nada looked around. "That's odd."

"What's odd?" Kim asked, concerned. She saw that Bubbles seemed perplexed, too.

"We seem to be a good deal farther along man I would have thought. This looks like the terrain beyond Gap Village, and maybe beyond the goblin village too."

Kim realized that the terrain had changed during their distraction by the kite. They were still north of the Gap, proceeding east, but the lay of the land was different.

"Could this be a device of the game to move us more rapidly to the next challenge?"

"It must be," Nada agreed. "Professor Grossclout has demonic powers."

"Well, he is a demon," Kim agreed.

As they proceeded, Kim saw that not only had the scene changed, it differed in type. Instead of idle stones by the wayside, there were crystals. In fact, they soon became fancier, with pretty colors. They looked like diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, opals, amethysts, garnets, and all manner of other gems. Many were small, but some were large, and a few were huge.

Kim gazed at them in wonder. "Oh, I've always loved pretty stones," she said. "But the best I could afford was smoky quartz, which is to real gems as glop is to gold. I've never even imagined such a display!"

"I think they're hiquigems," Nada said. "Impossible to use."

"High-que gems?" Kim asked. "Are they dangerous?"

"No, they are harmless. But you really can't touch them."

Bubbles was sniffing at a nearby gem. Kim squatted, reaching for the lovely red spinel the size of an apple. "I won't get shocked, or anything?"

"Nothing like that. But you are wasting your time."

Kim's fingers closed around the beautiful gem. She picked it up with an oooh of appreciation, admiring its facets.

Then something happened. "Oh, I dropped it!" she exclaimed, chagrined. Indeed, something red fell to the ground. But it didn't look like a gem. It looked like a blob of red gelatin. It landed silently.

Then, as her eyes focused on it, she saw that she had been mistaken. It was the same gem she had picked up, undamaged. But how could she have dropped it? It had somehow seemed to flow through her fingers, a weird sensation.

She picked it up again, cautiously. Again it fell. But this time she saw it happen. The thing lost form, became a big drop of red liquid, slid between her fingers, landed on the ground-and reformed into the gem.

Cyrus tried to pick up a diamond. It, too, slipped through his grip and turned up on the ground, unchanged. He stared, bemused.

"Hiquigems," Nada repeated. "They don't allow folk to move them."

"It's like a dream," Kim said, as impressed by the willful magic of the gems as by their number, size, and beauty. "They seem so real, yet they might as well be illusion."

"Much of Xanth is illusion," Nada said. "The rest is puns and dragons."

"Pun the magic dragon," Kim murmured under her breath, smiling.

They walked on through the glorious display. Slanting sunlight struck the myriad facets of the gems and refracted even more colorfully up, so that they walked through air pretty as the ground. Apparently this was just a pa.s.sing diversion, not a challenge. Unless she was supposed to find a way to take one of the gems. Could there be one among them that was takable, that would help her in the future? She decided to let it be; she preferred to leave these magic stones alone.

They left the gems behind. They rounded a turn-and there before them was the broad expanse of the sea. The path went right down to it-but so did the chasm. So the only way to cross the chasm was to cross the sea, and this time they didn't have a boat. Had this trek been for nothing?

"Maybe we can make a boat," Kim said. "It isn't far, to cross to the other side of the chasm."

"Perhaps we can swim across," Cyrus said. "I don't see any monsters."

"This is salt water," Nada reminder him. "See, there is salt.w.a.ter taffy growing by the sh.o.r.e."

"All the more reason to try it" He walked boldly to the beach and dipped his toe. "Yow!"

"I warned you," Nada said. "You're a freshwater merman."

Cyrus stepped back, chagrined. "That brine is awful! What self-respecting creature would touch that, let alone swim in it?"

There was a cheery cry from the sea. "Ooo-ooo!" It was a melodious female voice, with the accent on the first syllable. "Are you land folk lost?"

They peered out to sea. There was the head of a young woman. She was swimming.

"We are trying to get to the other side of the Gap Chasm," Kim called back. "But we don't know if it's safe to swim, and one of us doesn't like the salt water."

The woman swam rapidly closer. "It's perfect salt water," she said indignantly. "I have spent all my life in it." To ill.u.s.trate her point, she dived under, showing her flukes.

Cyrus stared. "That's a mermaid!" he cried.

"Merwoman," Nada clarified. "Look at her decolletage."

Indeed, Kim saw that the creature was superbly endowed. In fact, she had a set of b.r.e.a.s.t.s best described as monumental, yet perfectly contoured. The kind Kim herself would never dare dream of having.

Cyrus' attention was no less fixed than Kim's own. "What a creature!" he breathed.

Another little light flashed over Kim's head. "There's your wife, maybe," she said.

"What's that?" the woman called from the sea.

"I'm Kim Human, and this is Nada Naga," Kim called back. "Are you married?"

"No. Bachelor mermen don't grow on shoe trees, you know. My mother had to make legs and trek endlessly on land to find a suitable husband."

Another light flashed. "Your mother-was she by chance Mela Merwoman?"

"No. There was no chance about it. She was Melantha from the day the storkfish delivered her, as sure as water quenches fire. I'm her daughter Merci."

"Why did she need a husband?" Cyrus said. "Didn't she have your father?"

Merci's lovely brow clouded. "A stupid dragon toasted him when I was away at a school of fish, just ten years ago when I was a merchild. Mother fretted a bit, then finally took the plunge, as it were, and went landward to nab her man. It was all so complicated. It wasn't as if she was choosy. All she wanted was the nicest, handsomest, most manly bachelor prince available. She finally landed Prince Naldo Naga. Since then she's been so busy entertaining him that I hardly see her. They seem to believe in long honeymoons. It's pretty lonely. Now I am dangerously close to twenty-one, hardly a mergirl any more and nary a merman in sight"

Indeed, she was hardly a girl! "There's one in sight now," Kim said. "Merci, meet Cyrus Merman."

Merci turned her beautiful dark eyes on Cyrus. "Really? Let's see you in tails."

"I can't change here," Cyrus said. "I'm a freshwater creature."

"Oh, sure," Merci retorted. "How do I know you're not a regular ordinary sneaky man, trying to trick me into legs so you can catch me away from water and make me do something nymphly with you? I'm tired of you louts who think it's all right to tell a girl anything, just to get your germy hands on her innocent torso."

Nada made an appreciative move. "I like this creature," she murmured.

"So do I," Kim replied.

"Not as much as I do," Cyrus said. Then, to Merci: "Find me some fresh water, and I'll be glad to show you some germ-free tail."

"There's a freshwater spring a little way up the beach," Merci said.

So they walked up the beach, away from the chasm, and Bubbles found the spring. She lapped some of its water. It was hot, but bearable. Cyrus dipped his toe and p.r.o.nounced it fit. "Turn your backs, ladies," he said to Kim and Nada. "I must strip, so I don't ruin my clothing."

They dutifully turned their backs. In three quarters of a moment and half an instant there was a splash. They turned again, and Cyrus was basking in the spring.

"But I can't see your tail from here," Merci called.

"Then come over here," he called back, Merci swam to the very edge of the sea. She changed, and stood, resplendent with a fine set of legs. Bubbles went down to intercept her with a woof. Merci walked up across the beach to the spring and peered down. "You are a merman!" she said, delighted.

"Get your tail in here," he invited. "The water's fine."

"Don't be silly. I'm allergic to fresh water. The only way I can handle it at all is in this form." She gestured at her legs with her hands.

He eyed her appraisingly. "Actually, you are not wholly unattractive in that form, though it can not of course compare with your natural one." Evidently it was not a violation of merfolk propriety to view a merwoman in legs or a merman in tail.

"I like this creature," Merci murmured.

"Maybe he can make legs again, so you can get acquainted on land," Kim suggested.