“I don’t want to try,” Naomi said tearfully. “Because I don’t think you can resist me, when I try.”
“Then we all lose, including you, Kody, because you will give up your Quest,” Zosi said. “But we will have our answer.”
Yukay too was surprised. “I thought you would vote no, Zosi. You love him yourself. That’s why I cleared the way for you. Are you sure?”
“Thank you,” Zosi said. “I am sure.”
Yukay spread her hands. “Then so be it. The motion is carried, two to one. Kody rooms with Naomi.”
“I think you have put me in the lion’s den,” Kody muttered.
“Not the lion,” Dawn said. “The naga. That’s more formidable.”
“I would rather have roomed with Zosi.”
Now Zosi smiled, faintly. “All you have to do is resist her. Then it will be my turn.” She paused thoughtfully. “Or even if you don’t.”
“If I don’t what?”
“If you don’t succeed in resisting her. I would rather have a small leftover part of you, than none. I will always be yours to claim, on any basis.”
“Zosi, no!”
“She truly loves you,” Dawn said. “She would rather see you happy with another woman, than unhappy with her. She may lose you, but you can’t lose her.”
“I don’t want to be happy with another woman!”
“We have here what I believe is called a situation,” Yukay said. “A kind of triangle, wherein none of the participants want to play it out the likely way, yet all are bound to do so anyway. Someone is going to be hurt. Maybe all of you.” She looked at Dawn. “Can’t they simply refuse to participate?”
“And proceed as before, as if they have learned nothing?” Dawn asked. “That would mean that NoAmi would continue to know exactly what Kody is doing, and be able to balk it by means of her choosing.”
Yukay sighed. “I suppose then it does have to be played out.”
“It does,” Ivan agreed. “What use to get the Bomb Sniffer if she can counter it regardless?”
“Squawk,” Zap agreed.
“So it seems you do have to settle things with Naomi,” Dawn said.
“I hate this,” Kody said.
But that night he shared a room with Naomi. He donned a bathrobe, ready to take a shower. But she blocked his way.
“There is an easy way for you to handle this,” she said as she undressed and stood beautifully naked. “Take your magic sword and cut off my head. I will die immediately and you will have no further problem. Except for a bit of blood to clean off the floor.”
“I couldn’t do that,” he protested.
“Get your knife-sword. It’s right there in your pants pocket on the chair. Take it out and use it.”
“I am supposed to kill a lovely woman who wants only to make out with me? And live with my conscience thereafter?”
“I am your enemy. I seek to destroy your Quest and leave all of Xanth under the Curse. That’s why you need to destroy me. Now, before I get close to you and subvert your resolve.”
“You are not my enemy! You are an innocent person co-opted to mess me up. You don’t want to do it. You don’t deserve death.”
“Believe me, Kody, I am dangerous to you. Don’t temporize any longer. Do it now. That’s the quickest and cleanest way, messy as it may be for the moment.”
“No. I couldn’t murder someone even if I wanted to, and I don’t want to.”
“Kody, please,” she begged. “I want what you want. To save Xanth. This is the best way.”
“I can’t do it.”
“Oh, Kody, you are being a fool. I love you for it, but this is disaster.” She put her face in her hands. She was crying.
He went to her and embraced her. She was phenomenally soft.
“Don’t let my tears get to you,” she said. “That’s an infamous female ploy. Push me away while you still can.”
It was already too late for that. “There has to be another way.”
“Any other way is doom! I can’t help myself.” She nestled against him, somehow inside the bathrobe with him, then straightened up and kissed him wetly. “You should never have let me touch you.”
She was probably correct. But the idea of coldly killing her appalled him. “But we shall each sleep alone.”
She stood close against him. She caught his hands and put them behind her back, then down to rest on her bottom. That contact transformed his awareness of her. Her warm bare bosom pressed against his chest, working its own transformation. “We shall sleep together,” she said. “But we won’t sleep.”
He tried to back away, but she followed him step for step. He came up against the bed and fell backward, and she fell forward, on him. She kissed him.
“No,” he said. But the word lacked force.
“Yes,” she said, and her word had immense force.
Then he thought of Zosi. It was as if she were standing there watching them, a tear trickling from the corner of her eye. She had voted to put them together, but she had hoped he would be able to resist the naga’s blandishments. She was about to be excruciatingly disappointed.
He could not do that to her.
That changed him in another manner. It was as though clothing appeared between him and Naomi. He still found her infernally attractive, but he was no longer captive to her allure. They could be friends, but not lovers.
“Something changed,” Naomi said.
“I remembered Zosi.”
“And you love her,” she agreed. “I think that’s the only shield you could have raised against me.”
“I don’t hate you, Naomi. Had things been otherwise maybe I could have loved you. But you came on the scene too late.”
“I’m glad.”
“Glad?”
“Kody, you know I am not doing what I want to, but what I have to. I want you to be rid of me, and to succeed in your Quest. And yes, to love Zosi, who surely deserves it.”
“I’m going to break her heart when I leave Xanth. I hate that.”
“Then don’t wait any longer with her. The moment this night is done, go to her and love her. Don’t waste any more time.”
“This is the advice of an enemy agent?”
“I was sent by your enemy, but I am not your enemy.”
“I apologize. Of course you aren’t.”
“We are all in difficult positions. At least I can sleep with you for a while.”
“But—”
“Literally.” She kissed him, then rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. In moments she was sleeping.
Oh. Sleeping as in sleeping. He relaxed and closed his own eyes. He was in effect naked, with a lovely naked woman against him, but now the fatigue of sustained effort caught up, and he slept too.
He woke later in the night. Naomi was gone. Had she given up, or merely repaired to the bathroom?
Then he heard the hissing. Something was in the room, and it wasn’t a bare woman. It sounded more like a dragon. He strained to see in the gloom, but couldn’t make out any details of anything.
The hiss grew louder. It was coming toward him! Somehow a reptile had gotten into the castle, into the room, and was attacking. It must have dispatched Naomi already and was coming for him.
Kody conjured a reverse wood chip and flipped it at the thing. But he heard the whoosh as it blew the chip away, untouched. It knew about his talent!
The chip landed on the soft quilt on the edge of the bed. The quilt reversed into a hard bed of nails. Then the chip fell to the floor and bounced under the bed, apparently losing power. The quilt reverted to softness.
Both Kody and the unseen attacker were momentarily distracted by the transformation. Then he heard it advancing again.
He flung out his arm, casting for the chair beside the bed. There were his trousers. He foraged frantically for the knife in the pocket. He found it, and gripped it.
There was a third hiss. Now he saw it: the head of a huge serpent. Its jaws gaped as it ori
ented on him. Then it plunged at him.
He whipped the knife around, expanding to the sword. He put it up to block the striking serpent. The head came down above it, but the blade caught the neck and cut deeply into it. Blood spilled out as the serpent collapsed.
Then it changed. Naomi lay there, half on the bed, bleeding from a deep cut at the base of her neck. She was a naga, a serpent-woman. He had forgotten. “I’m done for!” she gasped.
“Naomi! Why?”
“Just kiss me, please.”
He dropped the sword and put his face to hers. He kissed her, but even as he did, he felt the life go out of her. She lay in her own pooling blood.
Then others were in the room with him. “I slew her,” Kody said brokenly. “I didn’t mean to.”
“She made you do it,” Dawn said. “That was her design.”
“Made me?” But of course she had.
“There were only three likely outcomes of her required mission,” Dawn said. “Seduction and corruption of you, or her death, or yours. She chose her own.”
“But I refused to kill her!”
“So she tricked you. Perhaps that was best.”
“She attacked me! I had to defend myself. Luckily I found my sword in time. But I didn’t realize—”
“Good thing she didn’t remember the sword,” Yukay said. “She could have stolen it and rendered you helpless.”
“But she did remember! She knew exactly where it was. She told me.”
“And yet she didn’t hide it before she attacked you?”
“She didn’t,” he agreed.
“How did you become aware of her?” Dawn asked.
“She hissed. Three times.”
“She did not have to do that. She could have been silent. She wanted you to hear.” Dawn paused. “And when she struck, how fast was it?”
“Not so fast I couldn’t counter with the sword.”
“A naga can strike with lightning speed.”
Kody put it together. “She left the sword alone. She hissed to warn me. She struck slowly. She didn’t want to kill me. She wanted me to kill her.”
“She loved you, in her fashion,” Dawn said. “She wanted you to live, and to succeed in your Quest. She knew you couldn’t do that as long as she was with you. So she did what she had to do, to free you of her.”
“Love is like that,” Zosi said.
“And I didn’t even let her seduce me,” Kody said, stricken anew. “Oh, Naomi! I’m sorry!”
“We must vacate this room, so the castle can clean it up,” Dawn said. “I don’t think you should be alone tonight, Kody. You should be with someone.”
“I will share,” Zosi said.
Kody found himself emotionally balked. In half a moment he realized why. “The last person I shared with, who loved me, is dead by my hand. I don’t dare be with you, Zosi. Not right now.”
Zosi nodded, understanding.
“Then share with me,” Yukay said. “I am intrigued by you, I care for you, I flirt with you, but I don’t love you, so I’m safe.”
“You are safe,” he agreed, hoping he wasn’t being cruel.
She led him to her room, where he cleaned off the spattered blood on him, changed, and lay down. She lay beside him. “I will leave you alone, if you wish. Or I will hold you and try to comfort you. I have no design but to help you get through this horror.”
“Hold me,” he agreed.
She put her arms about him and drew him in. He lay with his face against her soft bosom, and he cried.
One part of him observed with a certain bemusement. He had never before been with a woman in this manner, either. It was a revelation. Her embrace really was shielding him from the immediate horror of his guilt.
Fortunately he did not dream of the horror. Maybe her silent consoling was responsible for that, too. He realized that Yukay was a good woman in ways he had not before appreciated.
He woke in the morning, still in her comforting embrace. “Did you get any sleep?” he asked, belatedly guilty for his selfishness.
“I got enough,” Yukay said. “Your need was greater than mine. Fortunately my talent enabled me to do what needed to be done, without thinking about it.”
“You did,” he agreed. “I feel somewhat better now. Not so close to the gulf.”
“You face another gulf with Zosi.”
“Zosi! Did I hurt her by refusing to be with her?”
“No. She knew you feared for her safety. She knows you love her.”
“I think I do. But when this Quest is done, I will leave her. I will have no choice. That tears me up.”
“I know it does. All I can say is that sometimes things don’t work out the way we expect.”
“This is all a dream! I can’t stay in it forever.”
“It is not a dream to us. I don’t know the answer. But one may come.”
Kody did not argue with her. What possible answer could there be, that would not hurt someone?
They got up, and in due course joined the others. There was Zosi, looking forlorn. Kody knew she would have preferred to be the one to comfort him, but that she also knew why she couldn’t.
He went to her and swept her into his embrace. He kissed her. No words needed to be said.
“We need to bury the body,” Dawn said. “We can handle it without your participation if you prefer, or we can hold a small service.”
“The service,” Kody said immediately. The others agreed.
Naomi’s body was on a wheeled cart, covered by a shroud. Picka Bone hauled it out, and the two children, Piton and Data, walked sedately behind it. Kody, Yukay, Ivan, and Zap followed. They moved out of the castle proper, to its central court, and from there to a garden in back.
But when they left the castle, something happened. Smoke seemed to be coming from under the shroud. Picka lifted it and stood surprised.
The body was dissolving into dust. Soon that blew away, and the cart was empty.
“She was a temporary construct,” Dawn said. “When she ceased to be animated, she disintegrated.”
Somehow that did not make Kody feel better. “May we have the service anyway?”
“Of course.”
They stood around the cart. Then Kody was moved to speak. “Oh, Naomi, you were sent to be my enemy, but I know you weren’t. You sacrificed your life so that I could continue my Quest. I am sorry I couldn’t find a better way to handle it. I just didn’t understand enough, soon enough. I hope that if there is a Heaven in this magic land, that you are in it now. I—” But he was unable to continue, choked up.
“She did have half a soul,” Dawn said. “So she does have an Afterlife. I’m sure by her sacrifice she earned her place in Heaven.”
“And what of the other half of her?” Ivan asked. “The original, who sent Naomi to her doom instead of doing her own dirty work, who continues to live, and to maintain the Bomb’s Curse on Xanth?”
“Squawk.”
They looked at Zap. On her side was printed HELL.
“NoAmi has earned her place in Hell,” Yukay agreed.
“Hell,” Zosi agreed.
Kody experienced a wave of resolution. If Naomi had deserved love, NoAmi deserved hate. “And I will do my best to send her there!”
The others nodded grimly. Now the Quest was not merely to improve things for the ordinary folk of Xanth. It was for vengeance.
11
BOMB SNIFFER
They got to work on the Bomb Sniffer immediately. Their Quest party was joined by the children and the puppies. When they opened the box, it turned out to consist of myriad small packages containing wheels, screws, panels, wires, and obscure fixtures. There were detailed instructions, but they were so dense as to be opaque.
“Well, it is a robot,” Yukay said.
“What’s a science thing like a robot doing in a fantasy land like Xanth?” Kody asked, frustrated.
“Robots are part of Xanth,” Yukay said. “There was a considerable battle a few years ago, to
prevent the robots from taking over Xanth. The few that are left are reasonably well behaved.”
“Then maybe we should get one of them to help us put this thing together.”
“Great idea,” Ivan said.
“I was being facetious.”
“But it does make sense,” Yukay said. “If anyone knows how to assemble a robot, it’s another robot. At one time they had whole robot factories. Maybe Princess Dawn knows one.”
The children and puppies dashed off to find Dawn. And in barely a moment and three-quarters, she was there. “Yes, as it happens I do know a person who can help. His name is Cyrus Cyborg.”
“A cyborg?” Kody asked. “Isn’t that a human/machine combination?”
“Yes. His parents were Roland Robot and Hanna Barbarian.”
“A robot and a barbarian woman? That must have been quite a story.”
“It was. So is Cyrus’s association with Princess Rhythm.”
“I remember that,” Yukay said. “It was quite a scandal.”
“Princess Rhythm,” Kody said. “She’s one of the three seventeen-year-old princesses we have encountered. Isn’t she entitled to a romance?”
“She was twelve at the time,” Yukay said. “She used an aging spell to add a decade to her life, making her twenty-two for an hour at a time, but not everyone believed that was proper. However, in the course of that romance, she did work with her sisters to save Xanth from conquest by Ragna Roc, so her folks were lenient.”
“I see,” Kody said, though he was not at all sure he did. There was evidently more to this fantasy land than he was ever likely to explore.
“At any rate,” Dawn said, “I’m sure Rhythm will be glad to lead Caprice Castle to Counter Xanth, where Cyrus is exiled.”
The machine-man was exiled, but his girlfriend could visit him? Kody wondered whether her folks knew about that, but it was surely best not to remark on it. “That’s good,” he said.
Soon Rhythm showed up, quite similar to Harmony, only with red hair and dress, and green eyes, as he remembered. “Sure, I can lead you to Cyrus.” She glanced at Dawn. “Only…”
“Off the record,” Dawn agreed with a smile. “Your folks need not know.”