Free Cube Route by Piers Anthony Page B

instant transport.”
        “Which is fine with me.” Metria faced Cube, her head rotating on her neck to an impossible extent. “So why did you haul me out?”
        “To find Ryver. We're going to try to recruit him after all. Where is he?”
        “I'll show you.” The demoness formed into a butterfly and flew upward.
        “Get on,” Karia said. “I will follow.”
        Cube got on her back and held on as the centaur flicked them both with her tail, lightening them, and leaped into the air. She followed the winged quarter of butter as it flew southward. Soon they were high in the sky.
        “You know, you lightened me before, when we crossed the river,” Cube said. “But I don't remember recovering my weight.”
        “It happens gradually. If you had exercised vigorously immediately after that, you would have sailed off the path.”
        “I'll watch it, after this.”
        A cloud formed ahead of them. “Oh, no,” Karia muttered. “That looks like Fracto.”
        “Like what?”
        “Cumulo Fracto Nimbus, the worst of clouds. All of us flyers know him. Theoretically he's a good cloud now, but you wouldn't know it when you have to get somewhere.”
        The butterfly looped back. “Fracto's playing games,” it said. “We'll have to dive under.”
        “But he'll wet on us,” Karia protested.
        “Not if we fly low enough, fast enough. It takes him time to get organized.”
        They dived down. Fracto saw them and darkened frantically, trying to work up a good rain in time to catch them. But all he could manage on such short notice was a light sprinkle.
        The sun was still shining. This was weather rainbows liked, and sure enough, a long colored bow wriggled up from the forest below and formed into a multi-colored arch. They flew right under it.
        Cube looked up as they passed. “Look! Fish!” Indeed, several pretty fish were swimming in the rainbow.
        “Rainbow trout,” Karia agreed sourly. “A pun.”
        Beyond the rainbow the rain was gone, but the wind was rising. Then more water fell from the cloud, as Fracto scrambled to catch up. “Oh, I don't like this,” Karia said. “I'm reaching my limited tolerance for puns.”
        “What is it?”
        “The winds of change.”
        “But we want a change, to get out of this weather.”
        “Not this way.”
        Then something struck Cube's shirt and dropped to the centaur's back. “That's a coin!” Cube exclaimed, surprised.
        “Many coins,” Karia agreed, as more struck them. Some were small, but some were large, and made brief painful dents. Some were silver, others copper or gold. “Ugh!”
        “Change,” Cube said, catching on. The centaur's exclamation wasn't entirely because the coins stung, but because of the pun. But she decided not to mention that, because puns could not be avoided. “Now I understand why you don't like them. Those sting as they strike.”
        “We had better land,” Karia said.
        “Not here,” the butterfly protested.
        “Why not?” Cube asked. “It looks like a nice quiet valley below.”
        “Because Demoness Pression hangs out there. You wouldn't like her.”
        “D. Pression?” Cube asked. “What's wrong with--oh, no! Depression!”
        “She makes you very sad,” the butterfly agreed.
        “I'll swerve to the side,” Karia said grimly. “So we won't land near her.”
        They avoided the hangout of the demoness and came to a wet landing in the forest.
        Karia glanced around as she shook off a few more clinging coins. “I don't like this.”
        “We'll have to stay on foot until the storm passes,” Cube said. “Where are we? I mean, apart from being on a rounded ridge in a thick forest.”
        “The winds of change did more than dump coins,” Metria said from the air. “They changed our