Now the dread welled up like a monster from the gourd.

"You mean he-he knows?"

"Yes. And he is threatening to tell it to every child in Goblin Mountain, if he isn't made chief by high noon tomorrow."

Now Gwenny understood how this related to her. Gobble was her only rival for chief, because he was the only other child of Gouty Goblin.

But he was too young, at age twelve, except by special dispensation.

With an awful threat like that, he might obtain that dispensation.

Gwenny, at age fourteen, and now legitimately in the Adult Conspiracy, just barely qualified for the office. But she was a girl, which was two strikes against her. Her bad eyesight would have been the third. She had fixed that, but if Gobble's disgusting ploy worked, it would make no difference. Goblin Mountain would not only have another bad male chief, it would be the worst possible one-and a juvenile too. Instead of improving, the goblins would become much worse than before.

And it was her job to prevent that. She was the only one who could. If only she had some idea how!

Chapter 9.

Okra now felt distinctly awkward in her panty, though it hardly showed on her dark body. She, too, had been deceived by the Demoness Metria.

It wasn't that Metria had lied, she had just failed to clarify the truth, knowing they would misunderstand. Okra was of course stupid enough to do that. It made her feel slightly less worse to know that Mela Merwoman had also been deceived. Thus they had both unwittingly violated the Adult Conspiracy, and given the demoness her demonic laugh for the day.

Well, Magician Grey Murphy had said that there would be better clothing for them inside. That would be welcome! Now all they had to do was get inside.

The Good Magician's castle stood in the center of a circular plane. A breeze waited out from it. As they approached, the breeze became a wind, then a gale, and finally a storm too strong to go against. Their hair streamed out behind them, and they leaned way forward, but their feet slid against the sand and they could not make further headway.

"A challenge!" Okra said.

"It must be," Mela agreed. "But since it's only wind, maybe we can get around it and get blown into the castle from the other side."

So they walked around the edge of the plane. But the wind kept blowing at them, and when they were on the opposite side, it was still blowing them away from the castle.

"How can it be a circular wind?" Ida asked. "I mean, where is the wind coming from?"

"I think I heard of something like this," Okra said. " A story of places called the-the Propeller Plains. I wonder if this could be one of them that maybe the Magician borrowed to use as a challenge?"

Mela nodded. "Maybe my magic manual shows it."

She dug it out of her purse and turned the pages. "Yes.

The Propeller Plains are in western Xanth. They are big invisible blades that turn over their planes, sucking air down from above and blowing it out along the ground.

"You just have to go around them."

"We have been around this one," Ida said. "But the castle is in the center."

"There must be a way," Mela said. "There's supposed to be. All we have to do is find it."

Okra got down flat on the ground, to see if she could crawl under the propeller. But the wind was just as strong there. She scooped some sand out with a hand, but the wind immediately filled in the hole with more sand. She couldn't dig under it either.

"There must be something we haven't seen yet," Ida said.

They retreated to ponder the matter. Beyond the edge of the plane were bushes and trees and a shed. The shed was filled with small figures.

"What are these?" Ida asked, picking up one of the figures.

"It seems to be a doll," Mela said. "With a drum."

"A toy?" Okra asked, picking up another. It did indeed seem to be a little drummer boy with two sticks to beat his drum. In back was a key.

She turned the key, and when she let it go, the doll's arms moved, making the sticks strike the drum in a faint pitter-patter.

"Do you think these dolls have anything to do with the challenge?" Ida asked.

"They must," Mela said. "But how can a little doll stop all that fierce wind?"

"A doll that drums," Okra said, intrigued. "I never saw one of these before." She wound her doll. "Drum, doll, drum!"

"What did you say?" Ida asked.

"Doll, drum," Mela said. "Isn't that-?"

"Maybe it is!"

"What is?" Okra asked, perplexed.

"When the doll drums, maybe- Come on, we must try it!

They hurried back to the plane with Okra's doll, to her confusion. "Now make it drum," Mela said.

Okra wound the key a turn and let it go. The doll drummed. The wind died.

"It works!" Ida exclaimed, clapping her hands.

"Why did the wind stop?" Okra asked, still confused.

"The doll drums make it stop," Mela explained. "Doldrums! Those are calm regions. That's how we can get through!

But then the wind resumed. "No problem," Mela said.

"We just have to wind the doll more, so it will drum longer."

"Maybe we should take several dolls," Ida suggested.

"So that when one stops, we have another, and don't get blown away."

"Excellent notion!"

They gathered two dolls apiece, and wound one each.

"We'll take turns," Mela said. "When mine stops, let yours drum, Ida, and when that stops, you let yours play, Okra. Meanwhile we'll each wind our other doll and hold it ready, so that the drumming never stops.

We should be able to make it all the way to the castle, if we're careful."

They did so. They found that it didn't matter if two dolls were going at the same time, but if there was even a moment when none was going, the winds resumed fiercely.

So they overlapped them, and walked steadily toward the castle.

When they reached the moat, the winds stopped. They experimented, letting their dolls run down. The wind resumed, but now it was beyond them. They were inside it.

They had pa.s.sed the first challenge.

But the second challenge was already hard upon them.

A horrendous dragon was running just outside the moat, charging toward them.

"Eeeek!" Ida screamed. "What kind of dragon is that?"

Okra peered at the monster. She had seen dragons on occasion, when ogre males got into fights with them, so she knew the basic types. They could be flying, ground, or water; fire, smoke, or steam, in any combination. This one wasn't flaming, smoking, or steaming, so it might be a rare "breathless" dragon, still dangerous. It was on the ground and lacked wings, so was landbound. Yet there was something odd about it. The scales of the back were not lying flat; some were sticking up in rows.

"A weird one," she said. "But it does have teeth, so we need to get out of its way."

"But we can't go back the way we came," Mela said.

"The wind would blow us away, unless we kept playing the doll drums, and then the dragon would probably snap us up."

"And we can't go into the castle, because the drawbridge is up," Okra said.

"Then we'd better run," Ida said. "Because that thing is getting awfully close."

They ran ahead of the dragon, around the moat. But the monster was gaining. "Do we go into the wind or the water?" Okra asked. She was moving along well enough, but the other two were puffing. That was because they weren't ogres.

"The water!" Mela gasped.

So they swerved inward, and plunged into the moat.

They got enmeshed in moatweed, and Mela wound up astride a thick tentacle of the stuff. "Oh, yech! " she exclaimed. "I forgot it was fresh water!" She slapped the weed tentacle, and it sank back into the murky water. "I can't change to my tail in this stuff."

Ida was no better off. Her clothing was now festooned with soggy weed, and her hair was green with moat slime.

"Yech," she echoed.

But Okra's mind was on business. "The dragon's still coming after us!"

"We'll have to swim across," Mela said. "It probably can't swim."

They tried to swim, but there turned out to be a fierce current in the moat that carried them right back to sh.o.r.e.

Worse, the dragon was entering the water-and it floated!

Its raised scales formed a barrier against the water, so that its body was much like a boat. It could handle the water better than they could.

The dragon floated near them. Its toothy head loomed close. It was about to gobble them up!

"Maybe we can talk it out of eating us," Okra said without any great effusion of hope.

"That's an idea!" Ida agreed. "Maybe it will work."

Mela hauled herself upright, thigh deep in the water, and faced the monster. The creature's gaze bore down on her. There was a reflection of plaid in his eye. "I say, dragon, let's introduce ourselves. Who are you, and what is your business?"

"I am Dragon Dola," he replied. "I am going to put you in my belly."

"But we aren't very good to eat," Mela said. "I'm Mela Merwoman, and I taste rather fishy. This is Okra, and she tastes like an ogress. And that's Ida, and her soggy clothing would snag on your teeth."

Something about the dragon nagged at Okra. His name and the way he floated, reminded her of something. "His name-it means something. Something that floats-"

"I'm sure you will all fit nicely in my belly," the dragon said, cranking his jaws open.

Then Ida figured it out. "You're not a dragon-you're a gondola! A type of boat. We misheard your name!"

"Dra Gondola, at your service," the dragon agreed.

"So all we have to do is climb into your belly, and you'll carry us across the moat!"

"Exactly."

So they climbed over the upright scales and into the belly of the boat.

Then Dra lifted his head high, paddled his feet, and moved smoothly across the water. The current didn't bother him, as he was mainly above it.

Okra was amazed. All they had had to do was get the dragon's name right, and he was part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

Dra Gondola reached the inner sh.o.r.e and crawled up onto the land. "Time to disembark," he announced.

"To do what kind of barking?" Okra asked.

"To get out before you get barked at," he clarified.

They clambered out. "Thank you, Dra," Mela said.

"I might not have helped, if I hadn't been dazzled by your panty," the dragon confessed.

"Oh!" Mela exclaimed, blushing in a plaid pattern.