Roc And A Hard Place (13 page)

“Well, as a Naga Princess, I need to.  The goblins press us pretty hard, and no one can be slack.”

“You are naga?” he asked, surprised.

“Oh, I can say that now,” she said, surprised myself.

“The effects of that spell must be wearing further off.  Yes, I am Princess Nada Naga, once betrothed to Prince Dolph Human but now adrift, as it were.  Does that dismay you?”

“There might have been a time when it would have,” he said.  “But now that I know you, it has the opposite effect.

Can you change to serpent form?”

“I will try.” Suddenly she was a coiled serpent.  Then her human head appeared on the serpent's body.  “Yes, my powers are returning.” She returned to full human form.

“Then perhaps mine are also,” Vore said.  “I am a demon.”

“A demon!”

“Prince D. Vore.  Does that dismay you?”

“Yes, for I was coming to like you.”

He puffed into smoke, then re-formed in human guise.

“Yes, I can now do demonly things.  But why does this dismay you?”

“Because now you will pop away forever in a cloud of mocking laughter, and I will understand how foolish I have been to think you were nice.  For a demon has no soul, and therefore no conscience, and cannot love.”

Vore considered.  “Once that might have been the case.

But I have come to know you, and I think that since I have been constrained by my father to marry, you are the one I would like to wed.  You have qualities I never appreciated in a mortal creature before, and you are a Princess.”

Nada laughed, somewhat bitterly.  “I don't think any male ever noticed qualities in me, only my form.  But you would not want to marry me, because then you might get half my soul, and become bound in a way you have never been before.”

“I realize that.  But perhaps it would be worth it.  Could you spare half your soul?”

“For marriage to a Prince of demons?  I think I could.

Even if he is young.”

“Well, I am twenty-three hundred years old.”

“Which is equivalent to twenty-three in human terms.  I never thought I'd love a younger man.” She shrugged.  “But these things happen, and allowances have to be made.”

The boat came to rest on the ground.  “Then perhaps our interests coincide,” Vore said.  “I think we should make it formal, before our captors or pursuers strike again.” He took her hand.  “Princess Nada, will you—”

A dragon erupted from a nearby cave and launched itself toward them.  Nada immediately became a huge serpent, and Vore's free hand sprouted a wickedly gleaming sword.

The dragon hesitated.

“—marry me?” Vore continued.

The dragon decided to attack after all.  But the serpent chomped it on the neck, and the demon thrust the sword hilt deep up its nose.  The dragon sneezed, not being completely comfortable, and backed away.

Nada's human head appeared on the serpent.  “Yes,” she said.

The sword disappeared.  The demon took the serpent body in his arms and kissed the human face.  “We are betrothed,” he said.

“Agreed,” she said, resuming full human form.  Then they kissed again.

Suddenly several people stood around them.  One was the Demon Professor Grossclout.  “I heard that!” he said triumphantly.  “I shall perform the ceremony at the Nameless Castle from which you just escaped, right after the trial is over.”

Another was King Nabob.  “So did I.  The wedding will be within a fortnight.  There will be an alliance between the naga and the demons.”

A third was the Demoness Metria.  “And it serves you right,” she said.  Then she turned to the fourth.  “Jenny Elf, I need to borrow your cat.”

Jenny was startled.  “My cat?  Sammy?”

“Yes.  The Professor wouldn't tell me where to find you, until I agreed to get his son married.  Now that's done, so I can get on with my mission.”

Nada and Vore both turned to her.  “Mission?” Nada asked, somehow seeming not entirely pleased.  “I thought you came to serve Jenny and me our summonses.”

“That, too.”

“This was arranged?” Vore asked, seeming curiously similarly displeased.

“Sure.  It was the demons' beauty contest.”

Vore and Nada exchanged a glance fraught with something or other.  “We should break the be—” Nada started.

Grossclout fixed her with his patented glare, stopping her in mid-word.  “I think not.”

“She's right,” Vore said.  “We should not tolerate such interference in our—”

“Look at her and say it,” King Nabob said.

Vore looked at Nada.  Nada looked at Vore.  He saw Xanth's most beautiful woman, and a Princess.  She saw a considerably handsome and talented man, and a Prince.  Each saw a truly worthwhile match.  Then their respective willpowers melted and they kissed again.

“We shall name the grandchild DeMonica,” Grossclout said, and Nabob nodded agreement.

“I guess you can borrow Sammy,” Jenny Elf said to Metria.

“What is it you need to find?” Jenny asked, keeping firm hold of Sammy Cat so he wouldn't bound away to find it the moment it was spoken.

“Arnolde Centaur.”

“A centaur?  Couldn't you just ask at one of the centaur villages, or at Centaur Isle?”

“I did.  The centaurs of Centaur Isle won't even speak of him, because they think magic in a centaur is obscene; I'm sure he's not there.  Centaurs in other places haven't seen him in years.  They say he must be one hundred twenty-six years old by now, if he's still alive.  But Com-Pewter says he's still around somewhere.  I just have to find him.”

“He must be a very special centaur.”

“He is.  He's a Magician who can make an aisle of magic in Mundania.  I need him to go after the Mundanes on my list.”

“Mundanes?”

“Dug and Kim.  They—”

“Oh, yes!  I was Kim's Companion in the game, three years ago.”

Metria paused.  “That's right; I've been doing so many things, I'm forgetting who knows what.  And Nada was Dug's Companion.  He kept trying to get a glimpse of her panties.”

“And got expelled from the game for it, she tells me,” Jenny agreed, laughing.  “After that he behaved, and became a tolerably good person.  Kim was a bit wild too, at first, but settled down.  It will be great to see them again.”

“We will.  I have to get them both to that trial on time, or the Simurgh won't consider my job to be done, and the Good Magician won't tell me how to get the stork's notice.”

Jenny cocked her head.  “You haven't learned how to do that?”

Metria smiled.  “I summoned the stork centuries ago.  But I didn't stay to take care of my baby girl.  I think after that the stork decided I wasn't a suitable address for deliveries, so it ignores my signals, though I am now married and half souled and intend to be a good mother.”

“Maybe you just haven't sent enough of them.  I understand that some messages get lost.”

“Seven hundred and fifty in a year?”

Jenny pursed her lips.  “I guess you do need some help. The stork has tuned you out.” She looked around.  “Well, let's get started.  Sammy may outrun me, so you will have to keep him in sight.  I'll catch up eventually; I always do.”

She set the orange cat down.  “Sammy, we need to find Arnolde Centaur.” The cat was off in a bound, an orange streak amidst the foliage.  “Wait for me!” Jenny cried futilely, chasing after him.

Metria didn't wait; she sailed in pursuit of the feline.  The cat was fast, but not as fast as a demoness.  So they zoomed along through forest and field, upscale and downscale, and across rivers, mountains, and deserts.

Then Sammy paused.  There was a creature standing in the way.  It was larger and shaggier than the cat, and looked dangerous.  It seemed to be some kind of oink.  But Sammy didn't seem frightened, just bored.

“And of course, the economics of infrastructure must also be considered,” the oink was saying.  “These consist of fifteen overlapping conditions that must be predicated on inversely bludgeoning circumstances, with due allowance for rapprochement incentives and integral negations.”

“What in Xanth are you?” Metria demanded.  “Aside from being the dullest creature I've encountered recently.”

The oink glanced at her.  “I'm a wild bore, of course.  It is my business to bore you to death.”

“You don't have to stand for this,” Metria told the cat. “Just go on around him.”

That broke Sammy's seeming trance of boredom, and he skirted the bore and resumed running.

Jenny arrived.  “Wait for me!” she cried.

“Certainly,” the bore said.

“No you don't,” Metria said.  “Go around him.”

Jenny obediently moved to the side, where some pretty yellow vines were growing up along the trees.  But Metria recognized the vines.  “Not that way!” she called.

Jenny pulled back, but the wild bore, barging after her, crashed into the vines.  Suddenly there was a thick yellow splatter of fluid, drenching him.  “Oh, ugh!” he squealed. “Ammonia!”

“Not exactly,” Metria said.  “Those are golden showers climbing rose vines.” Then she zoomed on after the cat, seeing that Jenny had gotten safely past the bore, who would have to go somewhere to wash himself off.

Then they came to a lake, and in the lake was an island in the shape of a bone.  The lake seemed to extend a good distance to either side, so the fastest way to pass it was right across the island, and that was the way Sammy was going.

But Sammy did seem to be a bit nervous, and he actually slowed enough to allow Jenny Elf to catch up.  Then he walked across a dog-eared bridge onto the island.

“No wonder!” Metria muttered.  “This is Dog Island.”

Indeed, the island's shore was lined with doghouses, and all manner of dogs were out sunbathing.  In fact, they were hot dogs.  A stone promontory was covered with Scots on the rocks.  The water was filled with dogfish, and old sea dogs, and lapdogs were swimming around and around the island. Sammy stepped on tippy toes, not making a sound, so as to pass without notice.  Metria formed into a haze and surrounded Jenny so she wouldn't be discovered.  There was just no telling how these dogfaces would react to this intrusion on their retreat.

The forest inshore was filled with dogwood, dog fennel, dogtooth violents, dog mercury, and dog rose, all of which sniffed the air and growled suspiciously.  There was also an occasional have of B-gles.  Metria knew that the B-haves could be very bad; because their stings affected people's B-havior.

In the center of the island was a snowy mountain.  Anyone who wanted to sleep warmly there would have to snuggle up with an afghan hound.  Dogsleds were being hauled up to the top.  On the peak was the robot dog, Dog-Matic, who thought he was reciting fine poetry but only spewed doggerel.

They forged doggedly through, and finally traversed a dog's-leg curve leading to a bridge to the far side of the lake, marked “K-9.“ They had passed Dog Island without getting chewed.  Metria was relieved, because though she had nothing to fear from dogfaces herself, Sammy Cat certainly did.

Once safely past the island, Sammy plunged on at speed, leaving Jenny behind again.  But now the terrain was becoming vaguely familiar.  “Oh, no!” Metria muttered.  “Not the Region of Madness again!”

But it was.  They were approaching it from a different direction, so wouldn't encounter Desiree Dryad or the White family, which meant that the perils would be unfamiliar.  Metria wasn't sure she would be able to protect cat and elf girl here, because the things of the unexplored madness could be truly freakish.  Yet the cat was plowing straight on in.

“I'll take over now,” Mentia said.  “The worse it gets, the saner I get.”

Just as well, because it wasn't long before something weird appeared before them.  It was a manlike figure, but it looked like a mummified zombie.  It reached for Sammy.

Mentia stretched out her arm to three times its prior length, and put her hand between the thing and the cat.  Its hand touched her hand—and suddenly her hand and arm stiffened.

“What are you?” she demanded.

“I am Rigor Mortis,” the thing replied in ghastly tones.

“I make folk stiff.”

For sure.  Mentia stiffened her resolve and shoved the thing to the side so that Jenny Elf could pass.  Because demons had no fixed forms, they could not be stiffened for long, but it would be another matter for living folk.

Then Mentia zoomed ahead, so as to keep the cat in sight.

She wondered how the elf had managed not to lose Sammy in the years they had been in Xanth, because the cat seemed to have no regard for Jenny's convenience.

Beyond the zombielike creature was a grove of angular trees wherein perched strangely thin birds.  Sammy Cat plunged right on through it, but again Mentia was rational and cautious, in contrast to her normal disposition.  She wanted to know exactly what these odd birds were.

So she inquired, because here in the madness, things were often communicative in ways they wouldn't be normally.

“What are you?” she called to the birds.

“We are minus birds,” they chorused back.  “As you can plainly see, because we live here in the geome-trees.”

“I apologize for my stupidity,” Mentia said, realizing that flattery was probably better than irritation.  “Are either you or the trees dangerous to ordinary folk?”

“No, we don't care about ordinary folk,” the birds replied.  “All we care about is multiplying.”

“Oh—you get together with plus birds to signal the stork?”

“No, we can't find any plus birds, so we multiply by dividing in half.” With that each bird split in half, forming two where each one had perched, each new one twice as thin.

Jenny Elf caught up.  “Oh, what pretty birds!” she exclaimed.  The minus birds preened, pleased.

Mentia jumped ahead again—and was relieved to see an old centaur just making the acquaintance of the cat.  Sammy had found Arnolde.

“And what is your oddity, pretty feline?” the centaur asked.  —

Mentia caused a flowing ankle-length robe to surround her as she approached.  “Arnolde Centaur, I presume?”

“And a demoness,” the centaur said, surprised.  “Make a note, Ichabod:  two seemingly normal creatures in as many minutes, which is highly unusual for this region.”

Now Mentia saw that Arnolde had a companion, an old human man.  The man opened his notebook, and several notes popped out, making brief music.  “One mundane cat, no apparent magic,” Ichabod said.  “One unusually sober demoness.”

“That cat's magic talent is to find anything except home,” Mentia said.  “Now he has found you, Arnolde Centaur, and your nonentitious companion.  As for me—I am normally slightly crazy, but in the Region of Madness I am slightly sane.  I am not certain about you two, however.”

Arnolde blinked, seeming to actually see her as an individual for the first time.  “Are you real?” he inquired.  “Not a mere semblance?”

Mentia's rationality took hold.  “Oh, you think I'm something crazy in the madness?  A manifestation, instead of a real creature?  That I can appreciate!  Yes, I am real, and here comes Jenny Elf, who is also real.” For Jenny was now arriving.

“I apologize for mistaking you for part of the local fauna,” Arnolde said.  “Yes, I am Arnolde Centaur, and this is my friend from Mundania, Ichabod Archivist.  We are performing a survey of mad artifacts.”

“Hello, Arnolde and Ichabod,” Mentia said.  “I am the Demoness Mentia, the worser half of the Demoness Metria.”

The old eyes brightened with recognition.  “Metria!  She is notorious.”

“She's married now, and has half a soul, so has settled down.  Now she's doing an errand for the Good Magician, or for the Simurgh, so she can find out how to get the stork's attention.  Seems there was some business a bit over four centuries ago that annoyed the stork, so it won't make any further deliveries to her, no matter how hard or often she signals it.”

“I can imagine,” Arnolde said.  “Do you mind showing Ichabod your legs?”

Mentia knew that the centaur was anything but stupid, even by centaur terms, and she wanted to get his cooperation.

So she lifted the hem of the gown and flashed excellent legs at the old man.  His eyes immediately glazed over.

Jenny Elf picked up Sammy.  “I guess you won't need him now, so we can go.”

“Um, maybe better not to depart right now,” Mentia said.

“It might not be safe.  Soon we'll be leaving the madness, and then you can go your way more safely.” She let her gown drop back into place, and the man's eyes began to recover.  It was clear that he had a taste for attractive legs.

“But this doesn't seem so bad,” Jenny said.  “Not compared to what it was like when I came here with Dug Mundane.”

“Oh, I wouldn't recommend a little girl like you going alone through this region,” Ichabod said.

“I'm eighteen, and big for an elf,” Jenny said defensively.

“An elf?  Why, so you are!” Ichabod agreed, surprised.

“But not like one I have cataloged before.  Your hands are four-fingered and your ears are pointed, and you don't seem to be associated with an elf elm.”

“I'm from the World of Two Moons,” Jenny explained.

“Two Moons?” the man asked blankly.  “I am certain I haven't cataloged that.”

“It's a different magic realm.  I came to Xanth following Sammy Cat, who found a centaur wing feather here, but then we couldn't find our way home.”

“But surely you have but to ask the cat to find some other person or object in your home realm, close to where you know your home to be,” Arnolde said intelligently.

“No, I tried that, but it didn't work.  I think he can't find anything anywhere near home, unless he is already at home.”

“Then give him some reverse wood, so he can't find anything but home,” Ichabod suggested.

“No, that didn't work either,” Jenny said.  “The reverse wood just made him unable to find anything he looked for.”

“Reverse wood is treacherous stuff,” Mentia said.

“That's why they never tried to put it in the Golden Horde goblins' hate spring, to make it a love spring.  It might just make everyone hate the water.  Same goes for using it to make Com-Pewter good instead of evil; it might reverse him in some other way, making him worse.”

“True,” Ichabod said.  “It was hoped that reverse wood would enable a basilisk's stare to bring dead folk back to life, but it merely caused the basilisk to wipe itself out.  They tried to use it to reverse the spell that had transformed people to fish in the Fish River, but instead it turned the fish into water and the water into fish.”

“I remember when a kid had the talent of giving folk hotseats,” Mentia said, smiling.  “Someone slipped reverse wood into his trouser pocket, hoping it would make him give himself a hotseat, but the next time he tried to use his talent, he got wet pants.”

Jenny laughed.  “Served him right!”

“That time it worked well,” Ichabod agreed.  “But not in the expected way.  So reverse wood doesn't seem to be the answer for your search for home.”

Arnolde frowned, orienting on the intellectual challenge.

“Perhaps if you got one of those magic disposal bubbles, and directed it to take you home.”