“But we know that!” Mindy called from the kitchen area, where she and Anna now had a pile of cakes.
“So we do,” Bryce agreed. “Ask it, please, Lucky.”
“But this is crazy!”
Bryce glanced at Arsenal. “Just ask it,” Arsenal said grimly.
Lucky faced Andrew. “How many women are in our party?”
“Two.”
“That is a correct answer,” Bryce said.
“And you have wasted a question,” Andrew said.
“By no means. The answer to the second question is right, so the answer to the first must be wrong. Is that not so?”
“That is so,” Andrew agreed, surprised. “Your path is not among the first four.”
“We are left with paths numbered five through eight, the second four,” Bryce said. “Is our best path one of the first two of those, that is, number five or number six?”
“I’ll ask it,” Pose said. “Andrew, is—”
“Yes.”
“Next question,” Bryce said. “Do ogres crunch bones?”
“Anna, will you ask that question?” Arsenal called.
“Consider it asked,” she called back. “I’ve got cake on my hands.”
“No,” Andrew said.
“That is a false answer,” Bryce said. “So the answer to the prior one must be true: it is Path Five or Path Six.”
“You are making bleeping sense,” Arsenal said, catching on.
“Next question: is it Path Six?”
“I will ask that,” Piper said.
“Yes,” Andrew said.
“And my own question,” Bryce said. “Is your name Andrew?”
“No,” Andrew said.
“Therefore the prior answer was true, and it is Path Six. We have our path.”
“You did it!” Mindy cried. “You are one smart man!”
“One old experienced man,” Bryce said. But he was pleased.
“Dinner is served,” Mindy said. “Giant Composite Cake, there on the kitchen table, too big to move. Cut yourselves sections and eat.”
They did. It was very good, and they did not suffer inconvenient sieges of Good or Evil.
“You have solved my diet problem,” Andrew said to Mindy. “I don’t suppose I could persuade you to stay here?”
She blushed. “No man ever wanted me to stay with him before. I can’t remain here; I am traveling with the group. But you will have no problem making your own composite cake, now that you know you have to do it before you eat any.”
“Oh, I know. It wasn’t only the cake that appealed to me.”
Mindy blushed worse, finally realizing that she had overdone it with the breathing. “Thank you.”
“And you have solved much of my Answer problem,” Andrew said to Bryce. “In the course of getting your own answer. Now I have a technique to make it work more reliably.”
“Yes,” Bryce agreed. “You can finesse it.” He smiled. “Maybe you can find a woman whose talent is to ask stupidly obvious questions, to help you set up for the real ones.”
“Yes, maybe I can,” Andrew agreed thoughtfully.
“We must get moving,” Arsenal said. “The rain has stopped.”
So it had. They moved out, got on their trikes, and pedaled to the tangle of paths. They counted them off carefully, and took Path Six.
Fracto, as it turned out, had not departed; with cloudy cunning he had eased off, waiting for them to come out. Now he surged back, revving up his wind.
But their path chose this moment to plunge into a cave. They got into it and safe from the storm just before it broke, going single file. There was a faint glow from the walls and ceiling that enabled them to see clearly enough.
“It really is the right path,” Mindy said appreciatively.
“No plastered shirts,” Lucky said, less appreciatively. The others laughed.
But their relief was premature. The storm still raged outside, and now water was flowing into the cave, threatening to become a torrent. They had nowhere to go to escape it. They had to get off their trikes. “These may be harmed by water,” Bryce said. “Certainly it will be a drag on the wheels.”
Fortunately the machines turned out to be foldable, and light enough to carry. The several people stood in an uncertain cluster, holding their bundled trikes.
“Fracto is raging,” Mindy said. “He’s trying to drown us out.” She looked at Pose. “I know you’d rather see wet shirts, but could you do us the favor of locating an alcove or offshoot that will keep us dry until the water drains?”
D Pose glanced at her shirt, which was visible through the folds of the trike. She inhaled. He nodded. “I suppose a regular man would do the right thing,” he said.
“Which is to safeguard maidens in distress,” she agreed, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek.
Bryce nodded internally. Even a demon appreciated that kind of attention from a woman. Mindy was using her feminine art again, to get her way, but no one objected.
Pose flickered, then spoke. “There’s a split ahead. One fork goes high, and will not get flooded. The other goes low, and will flood. It also passes through goblin and troll haunts. But the correct path, which I can verify by its faint glow, is the lower one.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Lucky said. “The safe path should avoid all natural hazards.”
“Not necessarily,” Bryce said. “Appearances can be deceptive. We need to study this further.”
“But the water’s rising!” Anna protested. Indeed, now it was coursing about their ankles, with a lot more on the way.
“Bryce has made sense before,” Arsenal said. “We’ll take the low route.”
“You just want to see wet shirts!” Mindy flared.
“That, too,” he agreed. “Now move, or we’ll soon see them and more right here.”
Mindy glanced down at the water swirling about her calves. The cuffs of her jeans were plastered. She moved.
They splashed along the path, carrying their burdens. Soon they came to the fork. The right-hand one looked tempting as it rose into dry terrain. They could readily ride along that.
“There must be a reason,” Piper said. “Pose, why don’t you check out the right path more thoroughly, while we slog along the left one?”
The demon flickered for a longer moment, almost a moment and a half. Bryce knew he was zooming invisibly along the path, tracing it to its destination. Then he returned, stabilizing. “It leads to a volcanic vent,” he reported. “Burning lava is trickling from it, down toward the intersection.” He half smiled. “Wouldn’t be good for the tires.”
“Reason enough,” Piper said. “I think we’d rather see wet shirts than burned ones.”
“You would,” Mindy muttered. But Bryce’s reasoning had been vindicated. They were better off on the low path.
They waded on, the water rising to their knees.
“Goblins ahead,” Pose said.
“Oh, no!” Anna said. “They’re worse than water.”
“Keep moving,” Arsenal said gruffly. He was carrying his trike with one arm, leaving his other arm free to wield a weapon.
The passage opened out into a cavern. There were goblins, the ugly males hammering weapons, the lovely females kneading bread. Beyond them was what Bryce presumed was a typical goblin mound, like a giant anthill, with entry holes all through it.
A male looked up and spied them. “Ho! Fresh meat!”
“Keep moving,” Arsenal repeated. “We have to trust the path.” Then he called out to the goblins. “After us, the deluge!” He gestured with his free hand.
The water chose this moment to surge more vigorously. It splashed into the cavern, covering the floor.
“Eeeek!” a gobliness cried, leaping up, plastered. It seemed she had been sleeping, and gotten caught and soaked. She made a most interesting figure.
“It’s flooding!” a male cried. “We had no warning!”
Now the goblins scrambled to get organized, bringing s
andbags to block off their village. It seemed they had suffered floods before, and were prepared, but this time had been caught off guard. They were so busy protecting their work area and mound that they entirely forgot about the intruders.
The far side of the cavern rose. They were able to set down their trikes, unfold them, and resume riding. The path here was broad, so they could go two or three abreast. They had been excruciatingly lucky. Bryce saw Lucky holding his charm, and realized why.
“What’s ahead?” Arsenal called across to Pose.
“A troll village.”
“The flooding won’t distract them,” Arsenal said. “Because we’ve left it behind.”
“What else do we have?” Lucky asked. “Trolls eat human flesh if they can get it.”
“Do male trolls freak?” Bryce asked.
Arsenal was immediately on it. “Girls: off with your jeans, until we pass the trolls. It’s an emergency. We won’t look.”
Mindy started to protest, then changed her mind and quickly drew her jeans down. Anna did the same. Bryce, warned by his second sight, looked away just in time.
Now the girls took the lead. The recumbent trikes caused their knees to be as high as their heads, and their legs really showed as they pedaled. Bryce, well behind, could glimpse only half-glimpses of their lifted bare knees, and that made him slightly faint. A full view from the front or side would surely wipe out any man, goblin, or troll.
Soon enough, but not quite too soon, they reached the troll village. Some trolls were carrying bolts of wood in from the realm above, while others were hanging animal haunches from a framework over an open pit fire. They were about to have a big meaty meal.
A troll spied the approaching trike party. “Ho!” he cried. Then he got a better look at the leading trikes and froze in place, drool dripping from his snout.
The others looked, and immediately were similarly frozen. In a moment and a half all the males were immobile, staring. Bryce was impressed by how effective those panties were. He had been freaked out before, but never had the chance to see others freaked. He hoped he hadn’t drooled similarly.
The party biked on by, unmolested. But of course it couldn’t be that easy.
There were troll females present, and they were neither freaked out nor amused. “Those human tarts are flashing our men!” one cried. “Spear them! We’ll dump them into the cook-pot first, then wake our men. They won’t be so hot for human panties when they’re boiling in hot sauce!”
Oops. The lady trolls looked as fierce as the men, and they evidently did not like the way their men were reacting to visiting flesh. Probably their panties were not nearly as effective.
But Arsenal rose to the occasion. “Men!” he called. “Off with your pants. Show your undershorts!” He paused in his own pedaling to draw down his own trousers.
Would that work? Bryce was dubious, but there really was no choice. He pulled off his own pants and stacked them in the basket. Then, undershorts showing, he resumed pedaling.
The nearest female troll charged toward them, wielding a club Bryce himself could hardly have managed. Then she got an eyeful of male shorts and stumbled to a halt, eyes glazing. It was working!
The seven trikes passed the troll village without hindrance, as the trolls, male and female, stood like statues. None of them were proof against the flashing underwear of the human party. Only in Xanth!
When they were well beyond the village, Arsenal called a halt. “Good job, folk. We can dress now. Girls first. Anyone who looks will freak.”
Bryce closed his eyes, not looking. It was impossible to cheat on something like that. Plastered shirts might be fun to see, but panties were deadly.
“Okay,” Mindy called. “We’re decent.”
Then the men put their pants on. In two moments they were decent too.
Anna stood staring, not moving or speaking.
“Oh, bleep!” Mindy swore. “She must have looked.” She snapped her fingers by Anna’s face. “Wake, girl!”
Anna recovered. “Did something happen?”
“You looked, and got freaked out,” Mindy said. “Male shorts don’t freak as well as female panties do, but they share some of the same magic. Five shorts together make it pretty strong, as those trolls discovered.”
“Oh,” Anna said, embarrassed. “I never thought—I never saw—”
“Let’s move on,” Arsenal said. He turned to Pose. “Anything else along the path we need to be wary of?”
Pose flickered. “Another goblin village. Then we’re clear to reach Mount Rushmost.”
“Already?” Bryce asked, surprised.
“It’s a shortcut,” Mindy reminded him. “Cuts our time down to what’s needed to get there tonight.”
Oh. Things were so much more literal in Xanth.
“Can we handle them the same way?” Arsenal asked Pose.
“No. They are forewarned, probably by a goblin messenger, and prepared. It’s a tortuous route, requiring careful vision, and they have lovely goblinesses posted at every turn. They mean to freak us out.”
“Oh, bleep! What can we do?”
Bryce had an idea. “We need a sheer lucky break. Lucky needs to exercise his talent determinedly, not just for spot scenes.”
Lucky nodded. “I can do that. I can turn it on for the next hour, and we’ll get whatever lucky break is possible. But after that I won’t be able to summon any more good luck today.”
“After that, we will be at our destination,” Arsenal said.
“So luck may somehow nullify the females,” Bryce said. “What about the males?”
“This is weird,” Pose said. “They have all gone on a hunting trip on the surface. Only the females remain below.”
“So no males can be freaked out by our legs!” Anna said. “They are prepared.”
“Can we men freak them out, same as we did the trolls?” Bryce asked.
Pose shook his head. “They’re wearing smoked glasses. They know what they’re doing.”
“Make your luck good,” Arsenal told Lucky.
“I can’t control it specifically,” Lucky said. “Just turn it on and let it operate in its own fashion. I don’t know what will happen.”
“Will your charm help?” Mindy asked.
“I’ll try,” Lucky said, bringing it out and concentrating.
“Just so long as it does happen,” Arsenal said. “For a safe path, this one leaves much to be desired.”
Bryce emphatically agreed. Evidently few paths achieved the standards of the officially enchanted ones, where all dangers were prevented.
They resumed pedaling. The path wound through a series of caves and passages, traversing the subterranean landscape.
Then they came to the second goblin village. The path passed right through it, and wound into a mountainous slope beyond. And there, sure enough, were the goblinesses. They were lining the path through the village, and stood at every turn in the dangerous terrain beyond. Even from a distance it was clear that all were in bras and panties, and all were superbly shaped. It seemed that all female goblins were lovely, in sharp contrast to the ugly males.
“Lovely or not, they’ve got knives,” Pose said. “We will have to fight them, but they’ll overwhelm us. There are hundreds of them.”
“I don’t want to fight lovely creatures half my size,” Piper said.
“None of us do,” Bryce agreed. He hated the thought of having to battle knife-wielding little lovelies. But he knew he would do it, rather than let them kill him and cook him up for dinner. Assuming he wasn’t freaked out first by their outfits. Since he had to look to guide his trike, he would surely see their bodies. This seemed to be a lose-lose situation.
Arsenal glanced at Lucky. “Where is your good luck?”
Lucky spread his hands. “All I know is that it will manifest. The charm should have guided it.”
“We have no choice but to trust it,” Arsenal said. “Move out.” He led the way.
The goblins thron
ged to surround them. In a moment their panties would be close enough to register on male eyeballs. Bryce found it hard to imagine a prettier doom.
One of the goblins was not in panties. She was in full royal dress. She seemed to be the queen.
“Gwenny!” Mindy cried.
All the goblins paused in place.
The queen peered at her. “Do I know you?”
Mindy seemed momentarily confused. “Uh, yes. We met at Caprice Castle when you visited Princess Dawn.”
“I am not sure of that,” the queen said.
Mindy jumped off her trike and ran toward the queen. “I can explain.”
The goblins closed in on Mindy, but the queen gestured them back. The two came together and conversed briefly. Mindy sat on the ground to make her height equal to the standing queen’s height.
Then the queen nodded. “I must have misremembered. We did meet. I apologize for my confusion.” Then she turned to the goblins around her. “These people are on a special mission for the Good Magician. They must not be interfered with. Let them pass freely.”
The goblins stared at the queen, astonished. So did the members of the Suitors’ party. What had happened?
“Must I repeat myself?” the queen inquired sharply.
That did it. The goblins retreated, and soon the way was clear.
Mindy and the queen walked to the trikes. “Give my regards to Princess Dawn when you return,” the queen said with an obscure smile. Then she turned and walked away.
“Let’s get moving,” Mindy said. “Before any goblins change their lovely little mayhem-minded minds.”
They obeyed with alacrity. They pedaled rapidly through the village and up the far slope. A few goblins remained, but now they were clothed and showed no knives. They were as pretty as ever, but not freakishly exposed. Bryce was glad they had not had to fight these girls, regardless of who won or lost, and suspected he was not the only one.
The path wound up, finding its way through tunnels and along crevasses. Then abruptly it emerged at the surface of Xanth. They were out of the caves!
And there before them was a vertical mountain. They had arrived at the base of Mount Rushmost.
8
DRESS