"Xanth 21 - Faun and Games" - читать интересную книгу автора (Xanth)

detail of the experience they were sharing, making it a work of musical
art. Then she had returned to her tree, satisfied that her song worked.
There weren't any other nymphs around at the moment, so Forrest had
returned to his own tree and settled down for the night. And now his
friend was gone.

"So what are you going to do about it?" Mentia inquired.

Do? She was right; he probably should be doing something. But what?
"What do you think?"

"I think you will follow their footprints, so you can find out what
happened to them."

"Now that's really sensible," he agreed.

The demoness turned smoky black. "Darn!"

He set off in search of them. He had no trouble following their tracks:
her slipper prints, which were hourglass shaped, in the manner of the
nymph herself, and his clog prints, which were forceful and furred. They
looped around other trees, as she made cute dodges and diversions. It
was the chase that counted; fauns and nymphs loved lo run almost as much
as they loved to dance. The better the chase, the better the
celebration at the end. Forrest remembered a nymph once who had been in
a bad mood, because her tree was suffering a fungus infestation, and had
simply stood there. This was of course a complete turn-off, and no faun
had touched her. Any nymph who wanted nothing to do with any particular
faun had only to refuse to move, and he would leave her alone. Sometimes
a nymph teased a faun, pretending disinterest, then leaping into pursuit
the moment he turned his back. If she caught him, it was her advantage,
and he had to do whatever she wanted. Of course that was exactly the
same as what he wanted, but other fauns would taunt him unmercifully for
getting caught.

Mentia, floating along beside him, was getting bored. "Are you ready
for me to depart?"

"Yes," he agreed absently.

"Good." She remained where she was. He realized that he should have
urged her to stay-, then she would have been sure that he was up to
nothing interesting.

The tracks veered toward the Void. That was the nearby reion of no
return. Of course every faun and nymph knew better than to enter it,
because there was no way out of it. Anything that crossed the boundary
was doomed. Only special creatures, like the night mares, could escape
it, because they weren't real in the way ordinary folk were. They had
very little substance.