He noticed that she had a really fine bare bosom, even for a centaur. It was almost enough to make his eyeballs crystallize; they had already been roughed up by Melody's brief exposure. She noticed his noticing, and was not affronted; centaurs were extremely nonchalant about bodies. "I do have a fine bust, don't I? That's why my name is the Filly Buster." She went right on talking about other things. It didn't seem to matter to her what she talked about, as long as she never gave another person a chance to speak. It seemed to him that her name should reflect her talkativeness, but evidently centaur naming conventions were different.
By this time the Dastard was almost as eager to get out of the comic strip as the princess was. Puns were all right in their place, but enough was enough.
They lunged onward. They came to a region where pans were lying on the floor so thickly that it was hard to avoid stepping on them. Many were battered and dirty, and some were rusted. "Dead pans," Melody muttered with disgust. "Thrown away; this must be the pan graveyard."
The Dastard saw that many of the pans were labeled. One rather sick looking one said DEMIC, a nervous looking one said IC, and a tasty looking one said CAKE. He realized that these were yet more puns: pandemic, panic, and pancake. There was a flowery one labeled SY, and a half digested one labeled CREAS, a mind boggling one labeled TY, an elegant one labeled ACHE, and a very fancily illustrated one labeled ORAMA. After that he stopped looking, just trying to get past this region.
But it wasn't any better beyond the pans. There was a series of gaps in the clutter, but as he passed through them, each flashed a scene of something disgusting. "What are these?" he asked as he caught up to the princess.
"Inter-lewds, of course," she said, making him feel stupid. "Do they give you any hot ideas?" She made as if to tear off her blouse again, but moved on when he turned away.
The lewds gave way to a proliferation of paths. They twisted everywhere, like so many wriggling worms. "Maybe one of these paths leads out," he said.
"But which one?" she demanded, frustrated. To be soulless, he realized, was not to be without emotion, but the emotions tended to be shallow and selfish. As he had been.
He saw a ghoul sitting on a pile of ashes between several of the paths. "Can you tell us which path goes out of here?" the Dastard inquired.
"Tell a path," the ghoul ash replied tastefully.
"Tell a path what?"
"Read its mind."
The Dastard had the sick feeling that he had fallen into another pun. He forged on, determined to win free of this punishment.
Melody almost fell into a ragged hole in the floor. The Dastard caught her arm just in time to pull her back from the brink. "Let go of me, dope!" she snapped.
"But you were about to fall into the chasm."
"Can't you see it's a micro-chasm? I can step right over it."
Oh. He had been snared by a very small pun this time.
Ahead was a young pretty woman with no clothing. She wore a placard saying PEN NAME. "Look, a nymph!" the Dastard said, interested. The sight of nymphs did not freak men out in the same manner as the flesh of real women did, but they were fun to watch.
"No she isn't," Melody said. She swept her hand through the figure, and there was no contact: it was illusory. It was a pseudo nymph.
Was there no end to this? They struggled onward. Now he heard a kind of tapping or beeping, with some long beeps and some short ones. Overall, the sound was very sad, as though generated by an extremely regretful person. "What is that?" he asked.
"Isn't it obvious? That's remorse code."
She had made him feel like an idiot again. Obviously she had had prior experience with comic strips, and knew how they operated.
They came to a female ogre. The ogress was huge and hairy. "Me fork for stork," she said eagerly.
A sex-crazed ogress? "What's your name?" he asked.
She pulled out a plaque with her name. It said ViOgra.
The Dastard didn't even try to fathom the pun, if there was one. He moved on.
"At last!" Melody said. "Something useful." She was looking at several girls running by in their underwear. The Dastard was immediately freaked out by the sight of all those panties, but he did see that they had printing on them.
He managed to get out a question. "What are these?"
"News briefs, of course," she said witheringly.
He read the print on each panty as it flashed by: DON'T BE LOST DON'T YOU POUT JUST BE HAPPY THIS WAY OUT!
They followed the last panty, and suddenly they were back in the castle, free of the comic strip. They were next to the forbidden chamber; either they had not gone anywhere in the comic strip, or had circled around to their starting place. The Dastard collapsed to the floor, breathing hard. What an experience!
"That was fun," Melody said.
"Fun! It was awful! And you didn't like it before."
"I changed my feminine mind. Anyway, next time will be something else. Let's do it again." She headed for the dreaded door.
"No!" he cried, chasing after her. But she got there first, and pushed it open.
The Random Factor was there. It raised its arm to them. Things changed.
They were standing on a grassy slope. The sky was blue with a few pleasant white puffy clouds. In the distance were green trees, and beyond them gray mountains. It was a lovely scene, but completely unfamiliar.
"Where are we?" the Dastard asked.
"How the bleep should I know?"
The air near her shimmered, recoiling from the bad word. "Please don't use such language," he asked her politely.
She sneered. "Why the >>>> not?" Now the grass around her wilted.
The Dastard breathed deeply, feeling his ears wilt too. But he did his best to remain calm, knowing that she was baiting him. "It's unprincessly, and it's bad for the environment."
"Since when do you care about such things?" she demanded.
He realized with surprise that his attitude in this respect had suffered a profound change. "Since I got your sweet soul," he replied.
She stared at him for half a moment. "And it makes you decent, you poor slob," she said indecently. "What a laugh."
"It does make me decent," he agreed, realizing the truth of it. "Now I care about right and wrong, and about propriety. Please do not distress me and this nice region by speaking intemperately."
"Oh, stuff it up your bottom!" she snapped. "I'll speak any way I ???? want."
This time the grass around her not only wilted, it withered, browned, and burned. The earth below shrank and caved in, leaving a smoking crater. She shrieked as she lost her footing, flapping her arms as if about to fly.
And she did fly. She rose above the crater, her delicate feet just clearing it. She moved away from it to firm, cool ground, and landed.
Then she turned and looked back. "What just happened?"
"You flew," he said, amazed. "I thought you had lost your singing magic."
"I did, lout. You have it now--or does your tiny dim mind not remember three moments back?"
She certainly was not very endearing without her soul. Had he really been like that, for four years? He was coming to appreciate how he had annoyed her. "I really don't know how to use your talent well," he said apologetically.
"So how the bleep did I fly?" she demanded. "I couldn't have just raised my arms and done it, you know, without my magic."
She had a point. "Maybe the rules of this region are different," he said. "Let me see if I can do it too." He spread his arms and flapped them up and down, birdlike.
And rose into the air. A little. His flight was awkward and unsteady, and in a moment he had to touch down lest he crash, but he definitely flew.
"Oh, sure," she said witheringly. "You used my magic, clumsily."
"No I didn't. I just flapped my arms, and I flew. Just as you did."
"Oh, sure." But she didn't argue the case further. Instead she spread her arms again, and flapped, and rose a little. "Say, this is fun, in its fa
shion. Well, I'll be going now. You stay here, ilk." She made her way slowly across the meadow, her dainty feet just clearing the tall grass.
"No, I'm staying with you. Melody, we have to trade souls back. It's not right that I have yours." He ran after her.
"Oh, fuddy-duddy! I'm doing great without it. I want to go make something unhappen."
"No! That's a bad talent. You must not use it."
She peered down at him. "Why the **** not, 'Tard?"
Somehow that version of his name was not as sweet as "Das." In fact the very air had a singed odor from her repeated invective. "It's dangerous! You could do someone harm."
"Soo?" she inquired derisively.
She had no conscience: She didn't care about harm to others. So he tried another angle. "That talent is tricky, and it can't be undone. I mean, when something is unhappened, it can't be happened again. So you have to be careful. I always took time to study a situation, to be sure the details were straight. It took me years to get proficient at it. You're bound to get in trouble if you go at it without experience."
"Oh, pooh! You just don't want me to have any fun." She flapped her arms harder, and rose a little higher. "Now go somewhere else; I'm tired of you."
"No, I'm staying with you until we get this straight. For one thing, we have no idea where we are. There might be danger."
"Double pooh! I'll fly away from it." She flapped harder yet, achieving a bit more elevation.
"I'll stop you!" he cried, running after her.
But she was the one who stopped him. She did a little somersault in the air, so that her skirt flared up, and flashed him with her green panties. Stunned, he fell on his back, little moons, planets, and stars swarming around his head. Now that he had a nice soul, he was far more vulnerable to such naughtiness.
He fought for control. He blinked until the mind-boggling green image faded. He reached up and carefully cleared away the planets with his hand. Then he climbed unsteadily to his feet and looked around. Melody was flying toward the nearby forest. He would have to hurry to catch her; once she got into the trees, she could hopelessly lose herself.
Then he heard something chilling. It was a distant baying, as of a werewolf scenting prey. Werewolves could be all right, when encountered socially, but it was another matter when a person was at the wrong end of a hunt.
"Melody!" he called. "There may be trouble!"
"Sure there will be, if you don't stop bugging me," she called back.
The baying was rapidly coming closer. He did not like the sound of this at all. He ran to catch up with her, as he could move faster on the ground than in the air. He heard the baying closing in behind him, getting louder and uglier. He definitely did not like this.
He caught up to Melody. "Get higher!" he cried.
"Oh, po--" she started. Then she heard the baying. "What's that?"
"I fear it's a werewolf pack on the hunt."
That she understood. "Oopsy!" She flapped her arms harder, and rose a little, but probably not enough.
The Dastard looked back. Now they burst into sight: several toothy wolves, gaining rapidly. They were big ones, capable of doing a man--or a woman--real harm.
There was no ready escape. The slope was smooth, without trees. The wolves would be able to run them down, anywhere they went. Except the air. "Get higher!" he repeated desperately, and flapped his own arms.
They rose, but the wolf pack closed in on them. The first wolf snapped at the Dastard's foot; he yanked it up out of the way just barely in time, so that the teeth snapped on air with a nasty clash of sparks. Others went for Melody.
She screamed. She might have no conscience, but she was well aware of her selfinterest, and it did not include getting chomped by wolves. She flapped as hard as she could, but remained barely above the questing noses. Then a wolf leaped, barely missing her. The two of them were not high enough.
"The slope!" the Dastard cried. "Go down the slope, but keep your elevation!"
They did that. The ground descended, but they did not, so they gained a bit of relative elevation. But the wolves were leaping higher, and snapping at bodies when at the tops of their leaps; only the unsteadiness of their efforts caused them to miss, and that would not last long. It was a wonder that teeth had not yet closed on flesh.
The slope angled farther. Now at last they were able to gain enough height to be out of reach of the wolves. The Dastard breathed a sigh of relief as the wolves fell back, unable to pursue farther.
Melody screamed. The Dastard looked ahead. There were large winged figures on the horizon, coming in fast. Big birds--or worse.
In under two moments the nature of the new threat was evident. "Harpies!" the Dastard said with a shudder.
"Harpies," the princess echoed, with a similar shudder. They could not escape these through the air, but they didn't dare drop to the ground, because the wolves were still there.
"Make for the forest," he said. "Maybe we can hide there."
There was an arm of the forest within range farther down the slope. They angled for it, gaining speed by diving. But the harpies saw what they were doing, and angled to intercept them. A line of the dirty creatures formed between them and the trees.
"What have we here?" a harpy screeched. All harpies screeched; it was their natural voice.
"A lovely princess!" another harpy screeched. "With long green hair and green dress."
"A nondescript young man," another screeched. "Oh, we can have fun with him, once we get his pants off." The Dastard's princely robe seemed to have degenerated into garden variety trousers; he wasn't sure when that had happened.
"Stay away from me, you bleeping dirty birds!" Melody cried.
"She swears!" a harpy cried.
"We can do that!" another screeched.
Then there followed a barrage of bad words, such that Melody's hair was blown back from her head, and the Dastard's skin felt the heat as from a burning garbage dump. He and the princess tumbled out of control.
But the harpies dived after them, and caught them. Dirty talons pierced their clothing. "Rip! Tear! Strip! Wear!" they chanted, catching and pulling at clothing. Indeed, the material did rip and tear in strips. But what did "wear" mean?
Soon their outer clothing was gone. The Dastard caught a glimpse of Melody's underwear and freaked out again. But then that too was stripped, and the freak-out effect diminished. Now she looked more like a nymph.
"Touch her B, touch her A!" the harpies screeched. "Oh what a feel we'll have today!"
The princess screamed, but that only whetted their foul fowl appetites. "Hold her head, spread her legs; we're going to make her lay some eggs!"
"Help me!" Melody screamed hysterically.
"Leave her alone," the Dastard cried, appalled.
But they were about to do the same to him. Dirty claws held his arms and legs, spread-eagling him in mid air. A harpy flew toward him, her dirty breasts leading. "Hold him hard, hard as you can; tonight we're going to do a man!" the others screeched as their talons scraped across his mid-section. He began to comprehend what these dirty females wanted of a male.
There was no way out of this awfulness--except maybe magic. The Dastard had Melody's magic; could he make use of it here? He struggled internally as well as externally, trying to marshal his thoughts. If only they could slip away from this disgusting horde and seek shelter elsewhere.
Slip away. He hummed, and focused. Slip! Slip!
Then he slipped out of their clutches, and so did Melody. They dropped below the milling disreputable flock.
"What did you do?" she asked as they fell through the air. They seemed to be over an abyss; the harpies must have carried them here during their distraction.
"I sang us slippery." He couldn't help admiring her nymph-like bare body.
"You should have blasted them into dirty feathers!"
"No, that would not be ethical. It's not their fault they lack our values."
"You bleeping idiot!" she flared. "They're
harpies!"
He realized that she would see no point in treating harpies decently; that was a soul-spawned notion. "We had better resume flying," he said, and flapped his arms.
She flapped hers too. But nothing happened; they continued to fall. "You made us too slippery to fly!" she cried. "You stupid doltish idiot!"
Evidently gratitude for being saved from a fate worse than death was another soul spawned concept. He tried to sing again, to counter the spell, but before he succeeded they plunged into the cold wet water of a dark lake.
Could the princess swim? He wasn't sure, so he grabbed for her hair as it streamed past him, and clamped his teeth on a hank of it. Then he launched himself for the surface, hauling her along.
They broke the surface. "Imbecile!" she cried with her first breath. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to rescue you, in case you can't swim."
"I couldn't swim because you were hauling on my hair, you bleeping lout!"
So he had messed up again. It was difficult to help a soulless person. "We'd better swim for land," he said.
"What land, jerkface? Where?"
He had no idea. "Maybe if we make some light, we'll see where to go." He hummed, focusing on light, and in a moment the region around them glowed. He was starting to get the hang of her magic.
Melody screamed. Startled, he looked around--and saw the towering head of a sea monster.
"Moron!" the princess screamed. "You lit us up for the monster to find!"
He just couldn't stop making mistakes! He tried to think of some kind of magic to counter this new threat, but before he succeeded, the monster's head struck down and engulfed Melody. She got out half a scream before she disappeared into its gullet.
The Dastard pounded at the monster's neck with his bare fists, trying to make the serpent spit her back up. But the head struck down and around, and snapped him up too. It lifted him high, then slurped him down.
He slid helplessly down the long slick throat. Then he landed with a thunk on a pile of rotting garbage. He bounced, sliding off the mound. What was this--the last meal of the sea monster?