The Dastard

  "Hello," Harmony said, somewhat set back.

  "We came for advice," Rhythm said, recovering.

  Oh, you want Nada Naga, online.

  "On line?" Melody asked, perplexed.

  I will summon her. But first tell me who you are.

  "We are three anonymous girls," Harmony answered.

  I am not sure that will do.

  "We have our reasons," Rhythm said.

  They were afraid that Com Passion would not accept that, or would see through their anonymity spell, but she didn't.

  I am Com Passion. I am making the connection to the Xanth Xone of Cyberia. The screen blinked. Then the lovely face of Nada Naga appeared on it.

  "This is Nada Naga, advice columnist for the lovelorn," she said. "What is your problem?"

  Advice for the lovelorn? The three exchanged as much of a glance as would fit in the confined space. They hadn't thought to check the kind of advice being offered. And it was becoming obvious that they couldn't get relevant advice without giving away their secret. So they were not starting their mission very well.

  But Melody thought of something. "I feel someone watching me," she said. "But I don't know who."

  Nada considered. "Let me get a look at you." She squinted from the screen. "My, you look almost familiar."

  "I'm just an ordinary anonymous girl," Melody said quickly, wishing she had thought to change her hair color. Of course she knew Nada on Ptero; she was the mother of DeMonica. But Nada was younger and prettier here, by about seventeen years. It was disconcerting.

  "Oh. Well, I'm sure it doesn't matter. You are certainly pretty enough, and that surely explains why some man is looking at you. You should be flattered instead of alarmed."

  "But I don't know who he is," Melody said.

  "But you do have a suspicion."

  Melody realized with surprise that she did. "The Das--" She caught herself. "The dashing young man I'm looking for."

  "Then go and find him, Anonymous," Nada said. "He shouldn't be hard to locate." She squinted again. "But you should prepare better. Your outfit is rather passé. You should lift your hem considerably, and tighten your blouse. Let your hair hang loose. Smile more often. I'm sure you'll make an impression on him." She frowned. "That hair--I know only three people who have green hair, and one of them is a child. Are you--"

  "Thank you so much!" Melody said quickly. "You've been a great help. I'll go find him now." She backed away from the screen. Nada shouldn't be able to recognize her, but she was coming uncomfortably close. Melody hadn't realized just how bad a giveaway her hair would be; on Ptero there were others, such as Green Murphy, but here in Xanth it was much more limited.

  Nada's face faded from the screen. The script print reappeared. Would you like to play solitaire?

  Harmony stepped in. "No thank you, Com Passion."

  "We must hurry to find that man," Rhythm said. They turned together for the cave entrance.

  But you have hardly arrived, Passion protested. You must stay for a nice visit. The entrance became a solid wall.

  They were stuck for it. If they used their magic to make the entrance real again, they would give away their identities. Garden variety girls would not be able to escape. "Maybe we will visit for a while," Melody said. "We don't mean to be rude."

  Excellent! Then the screen flickered. Oh. I'm getting an incoming call. Pardon me a moment. The print held for exactly one moment, then faded. A new face appeared, one Melody didn't recognize. It was a rather pretty Mundane woman. Pia--how nice to hear from you! The script now ran along the screen below the face.

  "You know I was diabetic," Pia said. "Until I got cured by a healing spring in Xanth. That actually carried over into Mundania, somehow; I was amazed and gratified. I think Nimby had something to do with it. Then I heard of someone, and I thought she must be from Xanth, and I was curious, so I thought I'd call and inquire."

  Of course, dear. However. I have visitors at the moment.

  Pia was embarrassed. "Oh, I didn't mean to interrupt. I'll call back another time."

  "No!" Harmony cried. "Stay and visit."

  "Yes, we are interested," Rhythm said. For this might distract the friendly machine from the three anonymous princesses.

  Pia looked out from the screen. "Do I know you?"

  "No," Melody said. "Not really." For now she remembered: They had met this woman, briefly when they were three years old. The memory had almost faded, in eighteen years.

  "We are three young women looking for a man," Harmony added.

  "Who stopped by to get advice from Nada Naga," Rhythm finished.

  "That's odd," Pia said. "You are beginning to remind me of someone. The way you talk, more than the way you look. But--"

  "No, we are nothing," Melody said desperately. Their habit of alternating speech was giving them away; they would have to break that up. Pia was remembering that, but hadn't made the connection to the children she had encountered. Yet.

  "Oh. Well, if you don't mind my interrupting your visit--"

  "We don't mind," Melody said. She fired a glance at her sisters, warning them to be quiet.

  Please continue, Pia. Passion suggested.

  Pia found her place. "Well, this person I heard of is called Diana Betic. She had the talent to make things that are sweet become less so, and those that are not sweet seem sweet, so as to increase the ease of eating things without messing up her blood sugar levels. She pretty well has to be from Xanth, doesn't she? I mean, Mundanians don't have magic talents."

  "She must be," Melody said, though she didn't know what blood sugar levels meant.

  "She can make other people act sweet too," Pia continued. "She has a magical monitor lizard, her pet and companion, who tells her what her blood glucose level is when he tastes her blood."

  "Tastes her blood!" Melody exclaimed, appalled.

  "Oh, it's friendly," Pia assured her. "I gather you don't know about diabetes."

  "I never met him," Melody agreed.

  "It's a sort of disease where a person's blood gets very sweet. She has to stick herself to get drops of blood, to find out how sweet it's gotten. And stick herself with needles to get it back where it's supposed to be."

  "Ugh!" Melody said.

  Pia smiled. "Precisely. Anyway, this Diana has a tiny lance called a lancet to prick her finger for the blood she gives to the monitor to taste. She has a pine needle for her insulin. So is she in Xanth?"

  I don't know. Passion confessed.

  "Well, keep an eye out for her, just in case," Pia said. "I'd like to hear from her, if she calls in. I'll tell her to go jump in a lake--or rather, a healing spring." She smiled, and faded.

  The screen flickered. Now where were we?

  "We were about to go, having had a nice visit," Melody said. Would it work?

  Oh, that's right. Are you sure you won't stay for solitaire. My mouse Terian will deal the cards. A lovely young woman appeared.

  "No, thank you so much," Melody said, backing toward where she hoped the cave entrance was.

  Oh well. Maybe another time. The woman shrank into a real mouse.

  Melody resisted the urge to shriek. There was just something about mice. Fortunately the cave entrance was there, and she and her sisters were able to back all the way through it. What a relief!

  Except that there seemed to be a mistake. The tunnel didn't lead out. It led down, and it smelled of fish.

  Harmony banged into a wall. "Oh, I hurt my wrist," she wailed.

  "Mine too," Rhythm said. "And I didn't even touch the smelly wall."

  "We'd better go back the way we came," Melody said. Her own wrists were feeling sore.

  "What, and face that mouse?" Harmony demanded.

  "Wait, I've got it," Rhythm said, a bulb flashing over her head. "This is a carpal tunnel."

  The others groaned. Then, annoyed, they sang and played into existence a fast ramp out of the tunnel to the ground. In a moment they were clear of it, letting the carp smell dissipate.
br />   They found Sim, able to see him despite his invisibility, because it was their magic that made him so. "Wrong kind of advice," Melody said.

  "You spoke last time," Sim squawked.

  "We had some dialogue while we were separate from you," Melody said. "But I suspect our custom of alternating is about to give us away. I think we're going to have to break that up. Also, we had better change our hair colors. Too many people are starting to make connections."

  Sim nodded. "That does make sense," he squawked.

  They sang and played, and turned their hair colors uniformly drab. That would surely help.

  "But we still don't know how to handle the Dastard when we catch him," Harmony said. "I think we need a battle plan."

  "Yes," Melody agreed. "We have the soul. Why don't I try to distract him, and you hang the soul on him? Maybe we can get this done efficiently after all."

  "How will you distract him?"

  "I think Nada Naga gave me advice on that," Melody said. She lifted her hem so as to show more of her legs. She drew her blouse tighter. She removed the kerchief from her hair, letting it fall loose. She combed it out, so that it framed her face and settled around her shoulders. Its green color returned, but that couldn't be helped; it was hard to be distracting while drab.

  "But suppose that isn't enough?" Rhythm asked.

  Melody pondered. "I suppose we have to decide just how badly we want to wrap this up efficiently. Daddy suggested flashing him some panties."

  "Yes, but we agreed that that would be going Too Far," Harmony said. "We're not Dawn & Eve, you know."

  "Though sometimes I envy them," Rhythm said. "Dawn likes to show almost too much above, and Eve likes to show more than enough below. You must admit it works."

  "Certainly it works," Harmony retorted. "But who wants men's eyeballs popping out and falling on the ground? We have standards to maintain."

  "Oh, come, Mel--don't you ever want to make a man do that? Or to freak out and not be able to move as long as you flash him?"

  Melody was weakening. "Well, maybe sometimes. But wouldn't it be degrading to--?"

  "Not if it put him away in a hurry, and stopped his depredations in Xanth."

  Melody sighed. "All right. I'll shorten my dress some more. But you be good and ready with that soul. I don't want to expose my--you know--one instant longer than I absolutely have to. And you must promise never to tell."

  "We promise!" Harmony and Rhythm said together.

  Melody hummed, using her individual magic to hike her dress up almost to the knees, and made her blouse half a size smaller. Each of them had magic that was close to Sorceress caliber, but two of them cooperating had more, and the three together had what was generally conceded to be the strongest talent known. They just had to agree on what it was they were doing at the moment.

  "More," Harmony said.

  Melody sighed. She hummed her skirt up to just above her knees, and shank her blouse another half size. Since her bosom didn't shrink, this made her blouse stretch rather tightly.

  "Still more," Rhythm ordered.

  Melody adjusted her dress until it was halfway up her thighs, and made her blouse another size smaller. But the others still weren't satisfied. Harmony played and Rhythm beat, and suddenly Melody's skirt barely covered her bottom, and her blouse developed a décolletage so tight and low that it made walking at anything more than a sedate pace dangerous. "Oh, come on," she protested. "This is ridiculous, not to mention unbearably exposive."

  "Explosive is more like it," Harmony said with satisfaction.

  "His eyeballs will pop loose, bounce off the moon, and fall into your bra," Rhythm said.

  "So we'd better get rid of the bra," Harmony said wickedly. "Then they'll fall into your panty."

  "Hey!" Melody protested as her bosom abruptly lost what little remaining restraint it had.

  "Don't shout," Harmony said.

  "You'll tear your shirt," Rhythm explained.

  Melody glanced down. Indeed, her chest was threatening to push holes in what remained of her shirt, if it didn't leapfrog right out of it. She tilted, trying to get things better settled.

  Sim squawked: He was laughing.

  "Don't do that," Harmony said, alarmed. "You must stay vertical, or it won't be just his eyeballs that pop out and droop to the ground."

  "Gee, thanks," Melody said. She was of course being teased, as she liked to think that "firm" was a better description of her bosom, even unbound, than "droop."

  "And your rear exposure is almost freaking me out," Rhythm said, giving Melody's skirt a tiny tug downward. It seemed it was unable to cope when she bent forward.

  "I'll fix both aspects," Melody said. "More height above, more depth below." She started to restore some fabric in both places.

  "No!" her sisters said together.

  "You're fine as you are," Harmony continued.

  "Just keep it barely confined until time," Rhythm concluded.

  "Well, I don't see you two volunteering," Melody said sharply. "You have exactly the same figures as I do, you know."

  "No, you're the one of us who always takes the lead," Harmony said. "We wouldn't be good at that."

  "And we don't want to waste all our tedious effort to make you combine the best or worst of Dawn & Eve," Rhythm said.

  Melody shook her head ruefully. This had better work, because she would expire of shame otherwise.

  Chapter 7

  HEART OF THE FOREST

  Becka was still shuddering from the awful experience of Possession by the Sea Hag. She had never in her life felt so utterly helpless and degraded. The Hag had ruled her body and ravished her mind. And it would have gotten worse, had not the Dastard finally caught on and unhappened the Possession.

  What an irony: She owed her restoration to the Dastard. She didn't like him, she didn't respect him, but he had saved her from a fate that really would have been worse than death. She wished the Good Magician had not sent her here, but she was stuck with it; she would have to help the Dastard as well as she could.

  "Now I figure the Sea Hag will return," the Dastard said. "She won't be able to get your body, but she'll be back, in some other girl's body. Now I want you to do something for me I may not like."

  "What?" She thought she had misheard.

  "I like girls," he said. "Especially ones old enough to fill their underwear. If the Sea Hag comes in the form of such a girl, you must break it up before she gets to me. Can you do that?"

  Oh. "I think so. But how will I know when it's the Sea Hag?"

  "You ought to know her as well any anyone does, now that you've been in her thrall. Look for the little signals. When she says 'My pet,' or when she's too eager to summon the stork. Or whatever else might give her away. Any girl we encounter, you check her out, and don't tell me she's not the Sea Hag unless you're sure."

  "But how can I be sure? She might be good at fooling me."

  "No. She will be good at fooling me. I'm a man, and I can't see far beyond her physical appearance. Not at first. But you're a girl, and you know her. You'll be able to tell."

  "I hope so," Becka said uncertainly. "If I'm not sure, I'll have to say so. I might condemn an innocent girl."

  "Better that, than to let her get at us. I'll unhappen any we're not sure of. That way we should be safe."

  "But you could be safe just by not letting any girl or woman get close to you."

  "That's not an option. I want to marry a princess. To do that I've got to get close to her. Meanwhile, a non-princess will do to pass the time. So I'll need to get close to her too."

  Becka was disgusted, but it was becoming clearer why the Good Magician had sent her. She could indeed help the Dastard. She could do what the Dastard could not: be halfway objective about winsome young women. The question was, why did the Good Magician want to help the Dastard? Why should anyone want to help him? He needed to be gotten rid of.

  But she couldn't say that. So she would just have to do her best, though she felt l
ike a--a--well, the necessary word was not in her young vocabulary, but it wasn't a nice term. The Dastard wanted merely to use women, for one purpose or another. She pitied the princess he might marry, if he got the chance. But with luck, no princess would be foolish enough to entertain the idea for even a quarter of an instant, let alone a whole moment.

  "I'll keep watch," Becka said reluctantly.

  "You don't like me," the Dastard said.

  "Yes, I don't like you."

  "Good. You're telling the truth. That means I can trust you. When you started acting friendly, I knew something was wrong."

  "It certainly was! I couldn't turn dragon and drive her away. Thank you for saving me from her."

  "You know I did it for me, not for you."

  "Yes. But still, I appreciate being saved."

  "You would never have been Possessed, if you hadn't come to help me."

  "How come you're being honest? I know it's not because you like telling the truth."

  "The lie is a valuable tool," he said seriously. "But it's tricky. I have to remember what I said before, and make sure it has verisimilitude."

  "Very what?"

  "Verisimilitude. That means that it seems true. It's not always easy to craft a lie that has the semblance of truth. So I never waste a good lie. I tell the truth always, unless there is something to be gained by a lie."

  "And I guess you have nothing to gain by lying to me."

  "Nothing at all. You're not going to be fooled into showing your panties, and at this point you're more useful to sieve out the other girls I'll meet. So why bother?"

  Despite herself, Becka was getting curious. The Dastard was a jerk, but he wasn't stupid. "How about not hurting my feelings?"

  "Why should I care about your feelings?"

  That was right: He had no soul, so had no conscience, and no human emotions like love or commitment. He simply wanted what he wanted, for pure self interest. "So I will try to help you better than I have before."

  "You're helping me because the Good Magician sent you. So you're stuck for it regardless. Your feelings are irrelevant."

  Becka nodded. That was the case. At least they understood each other. Certainly his brutal honesty was better than Possession by the Sea Hag. "So where are we going?"