The Color Of Her Panties (8 page)

“Maybe there is another route,” Mela said.  “We shall just have to go back and see.”

So they started back.  Mela led the way, and Ida followed, and Okra was last.  Once again her thoughts started galloping around inside her skull, bouncing off the bone and getting all mixed up.  What a strange thing, to meet such an elegantly garbed young woman, sealed up in a crystal!

Castle Roogna was protected by its great orchard.  Che knew about this, of course; it was part of the Centaur Lesson Plan.  “We have to make sure that the trees know we are friends,” he said.  “Otherwise they will move their branches to block us.”

“Oh, pooh!” Jenny said.  “Trees don't move their branches unless there's a strong wind.” She marched ahead along the path.

Branches swung down from the left and right, barring her way.

“Then again, maybe they do,” she said, stepping back.

“I forgot that this isn't like the place I came from.”

“How do we let them know we are friends?” Gwenny asked.

“We identify ourselves and state our mission,” he said.

“Once they know us, they won't bother us again.”

So the goblin girl approached the crossed branches.  “I am Gwendolyn Goblin, heir to the chiefship of Goblin Mountain, on the way to consult the Good Magician about something I need if I am to succeed in becoming the first female chief among the goblins.”

The leaves of the trees rustled.  After a moment the two big branches lifted up, letting her pass.  But they dropped back into place behind her.

Jenny stepped up again.  “I am Jenny from the World of Two Moons.  I'm Gwenny's friend, and I want to help her.”

The leaves rustled again, and then the branches lifted, letting her pass.

Che stepped up.  “I am Che Centaur, Gwenny's companion.  I may be destined to help change the course of the history of Xanth.”

The trees let him pass also.  “Thank you,” he said.

They moved on through the orchard, where all manner of trees grew with their fruit.  There were cherries in varieties ranging from chocolate to bomb, and pies ranging from lemon to cow, and footwear trees ranging from boot to lady's slipper.  They looked at these, sorely tempted, but knew that they had to present themselves at Castle Roogna before touching anything.

Then the castle itself loomed up forbiddingly, surrounded by a deep moat.  A serpentine moat monster lifted its head to stare at them.  But it recognized them, and relaxed.  They had, after all, been here before.  They just hadn't come by foot, then.

There was a scream from inside.  In a moment a young woman in blue jeans and shirttails dashed out, her braids flying.  “Che!  Gwenny!  Jenny!” she cried.

It was Electra, the first princess of Xanth to wear such informal clothing.  They had been at her wedding, two years before.  She was actually twenty years old, but looked sixteen.  That was fine, because her husband Prince Dolph was seventeen, and women were supposed to be younger than men, and if they weren't, they had to fake it.  Che wasn't sure of the origin of that particular rule, but it was in the big book of rules somewhere.

Electra hugged them all and ushered them into the castle.  She took them to the nursery to show off the twin girls the stork had brought her, Dawn and Eve.  It was hard to imagine this girlishly freckled person as either princess or mother, but she was, and evidently quite happy to be so.

They were given a room to share, and Che gazed out the window while the girls took baths and changed clothing.  Centaurs did not have the same conventions as the human folk, but honored them when in human company.

So he did not try to sneak a peek at anyone's panties, tempting as the prospect was.

Then they were escorted to the main dining hall for dinner.  Now they met King Dor and Queen Irene, who were gracious.  Prince Dolph was also present, looking somewhat gangly.  Then Electra appeared, and for a moment Che did not recognize her, for she had been transformed.

She wore a pale green gown speckled with golden motes, and a tiara in her hair, and her feet were dainty in lady's slippers.  Her face remained freckled, but now it was adult and beautiful.  She looked almost as wonderful as she had on the day she married Dolph, when the magic wedding dress had changed her from nothing to lovely.

“You seem surprised,” Queen Irene remarked.  Che glanced guiltily around, and realized that she was speaking to Gwenny and Jenny, whose mouths had sagged open.

That was a relief; Che's mouth had almost done the same.

“Electra's so different,” Jenny said.  “Just a moment ago she was in blue jeans.”

“We have learned the art of compromise,” Queen Irene said.  “By day, and in informal situations, Electra dresses and acts as she pleases.  In the evening, and when formal, she dresses for the part.  She is after all a princess now.”

“I wonder if I will ever be like that,” Gwenny murmured, awed.

“Surely you will, dear, when you are chief,” Queen Irene said.  “Your mother is excellent with clothing and manners.”

Actually, she was not far from it now, Che reflected.

Gwenny, like all goblin females, was petite and pretty, and in the dress she was wearing at the moment she was winsome.  But she did not know it, which was surely part of her appeal.

They ate well, for all the fruits of the orchard that had tempted them were served.  There was even a nice plate of cat treats for Sammy.  Che realized that Queen Irene had noticed, and made sure to please the guests.

Yet why should the Queen have gone to such trouble?

They were merely three creatures on a private mission, hardly worthy of royal treatment.

No, that was not correct.  They were special people.

Jenny was a representative of a species of elf never before seen in Xanth, whose story was as yet incomplete.  She had pointed ears and four fingers, and her folk, in their own realm, had the ability to communicate mind to mind.

Gwenny had the chance to be the first female chief of a goblin tribe, and that could transform the relations of goblins to other species as dramatically as the change of clothing had done for Electra.  And Che himself was supposed to change the history of Xanth, though the way of that was not yet clear.  Perhaps he would be instrumental in helping Gwenny achieve the chiefship, or perhaps it would happen in some other manner.  So the three of them, though young, were not ordinary, and Queen Irene was well aware of that.  Possibly his sire and dam had notified the Queen that they were coming; centaur adults left little to chance.  Still, he appreciated the courtesy which was being extended, and knew that the girls did too.

After the meal, Electra invited them to join her and her daughters in Princess Ivy's old room to see the magic Tapestry.  She carried the twins in a large bassinet.  “They like to watch it,” Electra explained.

“So we watch it before they go to sleep for the night.  It is always interesting.”

The Tapestry turned out to be a big woven picture, of Castle Roogna hung on the wall.  It had been made back in Electra's time, almost nine hundred years ago, by the Sorceress Tapis.  The Sorceress had given it to the Zombie Master in the form of a puzzle, and he had not appreciated its nature until he had assembled it.  Now the Zombie Master lived in the present, but had elected to leave the Tapestry where it was most useful at Castle Roogna.  It had helped educate Princess Ivy and Prince Dolph, and any number of other folk.

For the picture on the Tapestry was not fixed.  It constantly changed, showing facets of the history of Xanth or contemporary events.  It was possible to spy on others, using it, though of course good folk would never do that.

Still, that did make it a most interesting item.

“What would you like to see?” Electra inquired.  “The twins don't mind what is on; they're too young, yet, to be choosy.” Actually, at the moment the twins weren't looking at the Tapestry at all; they were watching Sammy Cat, who had joined them in the bassinet.  He was playing with a loose thread on their blanket.

Gwenny shrugged, but Jenny looked concerned.  “Do you think it might show Okra Ogress?” she asked hesitantly.

Immediately the picture changed.  It showed a strange crystal rock garden with white rock roses and sheeplike white phlox.  A crystal spring flowed from a little crystal mountain, making miniature waterfalls until it formed a pool below.  The scene was beautiful.

But there were no figures in it, ogre or otherwise.  Only a block of crystal which propped open a door.

Then a figure appeared:  a rather large human woman, heavy boned and lightly furred.  Her strawlike hair flared outward from her head and down her back in knots and tangles.  With her was a smaller but more voluptuous woman, wearing slippers and nothing else.  Her hair was the same yellow color, but the tresses were glossy and silky rather than crude and ropy.

“That's Mela Merwoman!” a voice said from the doorway.  It was Prince Dolph, who had stopped by for a moment.

“That's right-Nada said you knew her,” Electra remarked without enthusiasm.

“Uh, yes,” he said, staring at the image.  “Of course I didn't want to marry her.”

“Because you were nine years old at the time,” Electra retorted.

“But I must admit that she has very nice-”

“Never mind!” Electra snapped.  The picture fuzzed in the region of Mela's torso, so that whatever he thought was interesting was no longer so.

Prince Dolph's eyes were freed from what had held him like the peephole of a hypnogourd.  “Oh, to be nine again,” he murmured as he departed.

Gwenny and Jenny exchanged a glance, which Che intercepted.  He knew their thought:  was this what marriage did to a relationship?

Then Electra got up.  “Do you mind keeping an eye on the twins for a while?  I have something to do.”

The girls, in the manner of their kind, were glad to keep an eye on the twins.  All girls loved all babies, in Che's observation.  Electra hurried out.

“I wonder what she has to do so urgently?” Jenny said musingly.

“I suspect she means to apologize to Prince Dolph,” Che said.

“Apologize?  For what?”

“For being jealous,” Gwenny said.

“Oh.” But Jenny wasn't quite satisfied.  “Couldn't she have just said she was sorry, here?”

“Perhaps she had a gourd realm apology in mind,” Che said, smiling.

Jenny's brow furrowed.  “That's different?”

This time it was Gwenny and Che who exchanged the glance.  “You don't know about apologies among the brassies?” Gwenny inquired.

“An apology's an apology, isn't it?”

“I see we shall have to show you,” Gwenny said, with an obscure smile.

“Che?”

The naughty girl!  Che approached her.  He was seven and she was fourteen, but he was of a larger species, and his human portion was somewhat taller than she.  “Who apologizes to whom?” he inquired.

“I'll apologize to you,” Gwenny said.  “The way Electra will do with Dolph.”

“Very well.  Proceed.”

“I don't understand-” Jenny started.

Gwenny embraced him.  “I apologize, Che,” she said winsomely.  Then she drew herself close and kissed him on the mouth.

“What are you doing?” Jenny asked, amazed.

“Do you accept my apology?” Gwenny asked.

Che grimaced.  “I'm not sure,” he said with a smile, playing the game.

Actually, Gwenny was very nice to have so close; her body had become rounder and softer in the past two years.  But that was surely irrelevant.

“Oh, you're not?” Gwenny breathed.  “Then I shall just have to try harder.“ She removed her spectacles and brushed back her hair with her hands.  Then she embraced him again, more closely, so that there was no space between their bodies.  She reached up and hauled his head down, mussing his hair, and plastered him with Xanth's sloppiest kiss.  “Now are you sure?” Her face was serious, but he knew she was trying to stifle her laughter.  It was a favorite game, to imitate the foolish things adults did.

He stifled his own mirth.  “Well-”

“Enough!” Jenny cried, giggling.  The twins seemed to be smiling, too, watching the apology instead of the Tapestry So was Sammy.  “You mean that's what Electra and Dolph are doing now?  Kissing?”

“More than that, I think,” Gwenny said with mock gravity as she recovered her spectacles so that she could see clearly again.  “But I'm not partial to the Adult Conspiracy, so I don't know what.  I suppose they enjoy it, though.”

“That Adult Conspiracy is such a bore,” Jenny said.

“What is it they think should be such a big secret?”

“I'm sure I don't know,” Gwenny said.  “But it seems to relate to why men like to look at creatures like Mela Merwoman.”

They looked at Mela again in the Tapestry, whose body was no longer fuzzy.  But no matter how hard Che stared, he couldn't fathom why men would prefer to look at the merwoman rather than at something interesting, such as a dragon or pie tree or mathematical equation.

Meanwhile, the action proceeded in the picture.  Mela and the other woman were trying to get the block of crystal to break open, for it seemed that there was something inside it that they wanted.  They weren't having much success.

“But we were supposed to see Okra Ogress,” Jenny said plaintively.

Che suffered a realization.  The room brightened momentarily as an invisible bulb flashed above his head.

“That big woman-that's the ogress!”

Gwenny and Jenny stared.  “But she's not big enough or ugly enough!“

Gwenny protested.  “She's mostly like a big human woman.”

But now Che was orienting on particular features.

“Ido believe she is an ogress,” he said.  “The patterns of her bones, her way of moving-these indicate ogre stock.

“But she must be the smallest, weakest, and least ugly of all ogresses.”

“Maybe she had a bad illness,” Gwenny said.  “So she doesn't measure down to ogre standards, and got booted.”

“Maybe she should have gotten the part, then,” Jenny said.  “Maybe she should have become the major character, so-”

“And where would you be, now, if that had happened?” Gwenny inquired sharply.

“Back in the World of Two Moons,” Jenny said.  She began to cloud up.

“With my family, and the ability to send-”

“Without your spectacles,” Che said quickly.

“Or your new friends,” Gwenny added.

Jenny brightened.  “That's true.  But still, it wasn't fair to exclude-”

“We don't know why you were chosen to come here, or by whom,” Che said.

“But there must have been good reason.  One day we shall learn it.  Until then, we can't judge it.”