Xone Of Contention Read Online Free PDF Page B

but we think that something else is better for you in Xanth.” She glanced around the room.
    Edsel glanced too, as he wasn't sure what she meant. Dug and Kim both seemed awed, as if they were seeing something miraculous or incredible. What was their problem?
    "Better?” he asked blankly.
    “This.” Then Breanna and Nimby changed forms, becoming exact likenesses of Edsel and Pia, complete to their clothing.
    Edsel stared, suspecting that this was a mirror effect. But Pia was standing beside him. His head swiveled, looking from one woman to the other. They were identical; he could not distinguish them. It was evident that Pia had a similar problem with him.
    “So you can be yourselves, in Xanth,” Chlorine continued. "Except that you will have to have magic talents, because everyone in Xanth does.” Then she and Nimby reverted to their original forms, abating the confusion.
    Something else occurred to Edsel. “Pia—she's diabetic. Will she be the same in Xanth?”
    Chlorine turned to Breanna. “Diabetic?”
    “It's a problem handling sugar in the body,” Breanna said. She glanced at Pia. “Do you have to take shots?”
    “Yes.”
    Chlorine glanced at Nimby, who nodded. She turned back to face the others. “Yes, she will be the same.”
    Edsel wasn't sure whether that was good or bad. But it would be nice to seem to be themselves. Still, he wasn't quite satisfied. Where was the catch? “Why are you two acting as if you see ghosts?” he asked Dug.
    Chlorine smiled, and the room actually brightened. “I will answer that, in a moment. But you must agree to tell no one else.”
    Edsel had a programmer's mind. He didn't like open ended processes. “How can we agree, if we don't know what we're agreeing to?”
    “I will tell you, and if you then agree, you will retain the memory. Otherwise you will lose it.”
    He was really suspicious of this. “You can do that? Wipe memories9 When we're not even here, really?”
    XONF OF CONTENTION
    “Nimby can. You are in the O-Xone.”
    He looked at Dug again. Dug recovered enough to speak. “He can do it,” he said. ”You'd better agree."
    “But nobody can do something like that!”
    Now Kim spoke. “Nobody in Mundania.”
    Edsel shrugged. “Okay, tell us.”
    “I am an ordinary girl,” Chlorine said. “In my natural state I look like this.” She became rather plain, with straggly hair and ragged clothing. “Nimby changed me, outside and inside, making me beautiful, healthy, smart, and nice. When I met Nimby, he looked like this.” She paused.
    The handsome young man became a weird dragon with diagonal stripes of pastel pink and bilious green. His head was that of a stupid donkey. He also smelled like an overripe swamp.
    “A dragon ass,” Chlorine said. “But when I asked him to change, he assumed a nicer form.” The princely man reappeared “This isn't his real form either, but I am satisfied with these two forms. I like being a damsel with a dragon. Nimby is actually a crafted form of the Demon X(A/N)th from whom all magic flows. I speak for him, and guide him, because my compass is small enough to concentrate on scenes and events that are for him like ants on a distant slope; it is an effort for him to focus on them. Your friends recognized him, and are properly amazed.”
    “Well, I'm not,” Edsel said stoutly. “You expect me to believe that this donkey prince is the source of all magic?”
    Chlorine glanced again at Nimby, nodding.
    Nimby reached out with one hand, toward Edsel and Pia. The hand expanded, becoming huge. The fingers closed around the two of them. Pia screamed as they were lifted right out of the Leaf and through the ceiling, which fuzzed away. They soared high above the landscape of Xanth. whose outline looked much like the State of Florida, or possibly Italy, Korea, or some other large peninsula. The hand held them firmly, but the arm trailed into a mere string, as if they were being flown like a kite. Then the whole thing melted