The Dastard (22 page)

Charity Centaur put in her comment. “Now she was almost sure that the demon was planning mischief. But she was not a dull girl, so she tried to find a way to improve things.”

Ann cocked her head, trying. But Strate gave her no time to ponder. He grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her onto the bank, where her tail had no purchase. “Now it is time for you to scream helplessly and struggle ineffectively,” he said. “I don't like cold fish.”

“But that small delay give Ann time to think of something,” Cesar Centaur said.

“You're a demon,” Ann said. “You must have had endless experience with women. Don't you find it rather boring?”

“Boring?” Strate asked, perplexed.

“Doing the same thing over and over,” she said. “Don't you long for something truly different? Wouldn't that be more interesting?”

“I never thought of it,” the demon said, surprised. “But now that you mention it, it does seem dull. Their screams are so similar. But what else is there?”

“Why not try something truly different?” Ann asked “Something no demon has done before. Something no unsouled demon would even think of doing.”

“I can't think what you mean.”

“Precisely. Why not try being decent?”

“Decent?” Strate asked blankly.

“Such as treating mortal folk with respect and kindness. Helping them instead of hindering them. Being nice.”

“That would be different,” Strate agreed, confused. “But if I were nice to you, I wouldn't ravish you, and that would be frustrating.”

Charity Centaur interjected another comment. “Ann realized that this was not necessarily simple. She would have to give the demon something for his trouble.”

“Well, maybe you should try to charm me into liking you. Then you wouldn't have to ravish me. I would give you what you wanted willingly. Whatever it is.”

Cesar Centaur stepped in again. “Demon Strate thought about that. He had never encountered a willing female. He hadn't realized that such a thing was possible. All the demon females were endless teases, and all the non-demon females hated being ravished. So he tried being nice to her, and to his amazement, she was nice to him in return. Very nice. It was interesting and fun. One thing led to another, and now they are married, and have a son.”

A small swirl of smoke appeared. It coalesced into a little merboy. “That's my cue!” he said, splashing the water with his tail.

“And after that,” Charity continued, “they named the island the Isle of Fellowship, and encouraged others to try inter-species cooperation. A number of others were interested, and so an experimental community developed. It is still growing; every month more folk hear about it, and some come to see, and a few remain. There's Charnel Centaur with Merla Merwoman, and Gizmo Goblin with Nancy Naga, and--”

“I get it,” the Dastard said. “Everybody gets along, because Ann Chovie had the big idea of getting along instead of getting ravished. I think I've heard enough.” This was certainly well worth unhappening; he could change the lives of dozens of folk with a single unhappening. It would be a record!

Becka tugged at his elbow. “Um, Dashing,” she murmured. “Not yet.”

He looked at her, annoyed. “Why not?”

“Because you can't unhappen an unhappening. If you do this one now--”

“Shut up, girl!” the princess snapped.

But she had said enough. If he unhappened the Isle of Fellowship community now, he would not be able to unhappen the Sea Hag's Possession of the princess. Because that would overlap this one. The Hag would be locked in, and he would be unable to get rid of her. It was evident that the Hag knew this. She must have learned it when she Possessed the dragon girl. That meant that she did remember some of it, despite being unhappened. That made her doubly dangerous.

But if he unhappened the entire Possession now, including their isle experience, he and Becka would retain their memories of this island, though they would never actually have visited it, and would be able to return to unhappen it later. So he could have it all--in the right order. The girl had saved him a dreadful tactical mistake.

He turned to the princess.

“Wait!” she cried. “You obviously know, but there's an aspect you haven't considered.”

“What's going on?” Cesar asked, understandably confused by their dialogue.

They ignored him. “Don't let her stall you,” Becka said. “She's dangerous. She threatened to Possess me again if I told you.”

“And I will, you disobedient twerp!” the princess raged. “I was going to get rid of you by dumping you somewhere without food, but it's no more Miz Nice Guy.”

“I don't think so, Hag,” Becka said. “I ate one of the herbs, so I'll still be protected if you snatch the others. And if you try, I'll chomp you something awful. But not quite enough to kill you, so you can't escape that way.”

The princess paused. Then her rage seemed to melt away. She was good at hiding her feelings. She returned to the Dastard, smiling prettily. “Let's make a deal. I have shown you what great things I can do for you. I can do much more. I can give you all the joys of this young healthy royal body. I can make you the husband of a genuine princess. But only if I keep this body.”

“Don't listen to her!” Becka cried. “You can't trust her!”

“Yes you can,” the princess said. “You can trust me to do what's best for me. And what's best is to have the body of a princess, and to be assured that no one can take it away from me. And so it will pay me to give you what you desire. We can give each other what we each most want. We don't have to like each other, or even to trust each other personally. We just each have to know that the other benefits most by continued association. Neither of us cares half a whit about anybody else. Self interest. That never lets a person down.”

She was talking his language. He had never considered making a liaison with the Sea Hag, but it would solve the problem of making contact with the lovely princess. It would solve many problems. Did their best interests really coincide? It almost seemed that they did.

“She'll kill you in your sleep,” Becka warned.

The Dastard wavered. The Sea Hag already had the body of the princess, and might simply want to lull him until she could dispatch him.

“Here is the rationale,” the princess said. “This body is here temporarily from Planet Ptero. The regular Princess Melody is only four years old. The two exchanged worlds--so as to get you. But working together, we can perhaps keep her here, and eliminate the other two princesses of this trinity, and in time make Melody the only heir to the throne, so that eventually she will become King of Xanth. Then we will have all power! I can't do it alone; I need you to unhappen adverse events as they occur. Only you can do that. With you, I can achieve ultimate power; without you I can't. All my life I have wanted to rule Xanth; this is my best chance yet. So I'm not going to do anything to hurt you. In fact I'll do everything in my power, which is considerable, to make you surpassingly happy you associate with me.”

She was making more sense than ever. He did want to marry a princess, and to be recognized as a great man. She could give him that. Still, inside that lovely young body was an ugly old mind. That daunted him.

“Beginning immediately,” the princess said, and lifted her skirt almost to panty height. Several of the Isle males almost freaked out. “I know tricks no princess ever dreamed of. I have no scruples. In fact I rather like a good inter-gender tussle. Try it day by day, and if I don't completely satisfy you, you can still unhappen me.”

That decided him. “Okay,” he said. “It's a deal.”

“This is a disaster!” Becka cried. But both of them ignored her. They moved together for an embrace.

It was a fitting partnership, because neither of them were inhibited by conscience. The Land of Xanth would never be the same.

Sim woke as Princess Melody stirred. He was a bird; his senses were sharp. He realized that she probably had to indulge in a natural function, which among human beings, especially females, was considered a private thing. In fact they seemed to prefer to pretend that they had none. She had been unsteady the day before, perhaps slightly ill; her digestion could be upset. So the others had encouraged her to rest, and she had retired to their magic tent early while they puttered about doing incidental chores. The three princesses had marvelous powers, but they weren't used to camping out in Xanth, where the rules of time, geography, and magic were different from what they were accustomed to. So there had been details to attend to. Sim had helped.

Now it was night, and Harmony and Rhythm were asleep. They knew that if anything approached, Sim would be aware, so they slept easy. By the same token, he was aware if anything departed. He gave no sign; Melody would be embarrassed if she thought she was disturbing anyone.

The princess made her way quietly outside. But she did not go to the area they had designated as a privy. She continued down the path, away from the tent. What was she up to?

When it was evident that Princess Melody was actually leaving the company of her sisters, Sim knew something was amiss. This was not like her; the three were always together, in speech and body and spirit. She would not ordinarily leave without telling the others. She had not told them; Sim would have heard. So her mysterious mission was secret.

Could it be some kind of game? The princesses loved games. But they never deceived each other. Something must be wrong.

So Sim followed her quietly. He was as large as a roc, but few folk realized how quiet big birds could be when they chose. He set each foot down just so, and made no noise. He was invisible, so his silence made him largely undetectable. Princess Melody could detect him, of course, if she wished, but she seemed distracted.

In fact, she hardly seemed like herself Sim knew the trifling individual mannerisms of the three girls, and Melody was not evincing hers. It was almost as if a different person were controlling her body.

That was of course ridiculous. Still, she evidently had some kind of problem, and he felt it prudent to keep an eye on her, in case he could help. He continued to follow her, silently.

Once she was well clear of the camp, Princess Melody stepped off the path, found a flame vine, and used its light to facilitate faster progress. “Now we're getting somewhere, my pet,” she said, speaking to herself.

My pet? Melody had never used that term before, that he knew of. Sim had an extraordinary memory, because his mother expected him to learn everything about everything so as to become the most knowledgeable bird in the universe. Then, building on that foundation, he would have to commence the hard part: becoming the wisest bird. So he had a eye-detic memory, and an ear-detic memory, and knew exactly what he had ever seen or heard. And the only time he had heard that phrase used was by the Sea Hag.

An awful chill passed through him, that no feathers could shield against. Could it be? The Sea Hag's evil spirit took over the bodies of the pretty girls and soon rendered them into ugly women. But she was supposed to be presently confined in the Brain Coral's pool. So surely she could not be on the loose.

Meanwhile the princess was walking rapidly onward, and still talking to herself. “You are foolish, my pet. You cannot abolish me, and your continued resistance merely makes me retaliate by hurting you. You would do better to cease this quarrel and go with the flow. I will make your body do splendidly revolting things that you should find interesting. So relax and enjoy it, since you have no choice. Do not aggravate me by futile opposition.”

Sim was appalled. It was true! The Sea Hag had taken Princess Melody's body. This was completely unanticipated mischief. He knew of no way but death to free a person of the Hag's Possession, and of course he couldn't kill Melody.

Could the other two princesses do it? They had, collectively, the strongest magic in Xanth. Each by herself was a minimal Sorceress, and two of them together could do things only a maximal Sorceress could, but the three acting in concert could do virtually anything they might put their minds to. So the three together could surely defeat the Sea Hag. But what about two of them--when the third was captive of the Hag?

Sim put his fine mind to work on it, calculating the variables, and concluded that the other two could, just barely, accomplish it. They could drive out the Hag without killing their sister. He would return and tell them that, and they would handle it immediately. But first he had to know exactly where the Hag was going, so they could find her promptly without alerting her.

But the news got worse. The princess went to a hidden bower that the Hag must have prepared at another time, and proceeded to make herself look quite pretty in a rather cheap, exposive way. She came to look like a princess, complete with crown, instead of an anonymous young woman, but with a very tight blouse and short skirt. Then, as dawn came, she set out in a new direction. He followed, because otherwise he could lose her. The moment he knew what she would be doing, he could return to the others and acquaint them with the problem.

And the Sea Hag intercepted the Dastard. She was joining forces with him! The one they had come to nullify.

Sim recalculated. This time the result was negative: The two remaining Princesses could not oust the Hag from their sister, when the Hag had the support of the Dastard. The best they could do was stop the pair from performing more mischief, for the moment. The case had become hopeless.

He flew immediately back. Harmony and Rhythm were looking around, perplexed by the absence of two members of their party. They had not yet used magic, because they assumed it was nothing of consequence. They were nice girls, which meant they were slow to suspect evil. He had been slow too, but he had seen what he had seen.

He landed and squawked out his awful news. They were of course horrified. “We must act immediately,” Harmony said.

Then he delivered the worse news: they lacked the power to free Melody without seriously hurting or even killing her, because the Dastard would unhappen anything they tried to do to oust the Sea Hag. The two had made a truly dastardly deal.

They were girlishly crushed. They had seldom before been at a loss, because their magic had always been more than sufficient to get them out of trouble. But they had never before encountered mischief of this magnitude.

“What can we do?” Rhythm asked.

Which meant it was up to Sim. He sorted through his farther memory files, and found The Little Prince. His name was Dolin, and he was eight years old. Circumstantial evidence indicated that he might know the answer. But there was a problem: Dolin did not exist.

Sim squawked, letting them know that he had a notion. Out of kindness he did not tell them the problem. He asked them to wait while he made a brief side excursion. Then he took off for Castle Roogna.

He was of course familiar with the exact layout of the castle. He landed quietly and invisibly on the roof, walked to the edge, poked his head over, and peered into the window of Princess Ida's chamber. “Squawk,” he peeped.

“Why hello, Sim,” Ida said, recognizing his voice. “What brings you back here already?”

“Squawk,” he explained.

“What, alone? Without the princesses? In private?”

“Squawk,” he agreed.

“As you wish.” She angled her head so that Ptero swung into view.

He oriented on it, and felt himself shrinking. In a moment he spread his wings and flew toward the little planet. As he moved, it expanded, and a figure came from it to meet him. It was his junior self, summoned by his approach.

They met, and circled. He regretted that he could not explain, but he was sure the other would understand that there was excellent reason.

He parted, and he flew on toward Ptero. Soon he landed, and looked around. He was in the place his other self had departed from, because that was the nature of the exchange. Unfortunately that was not precisely where he needed to be. Worse, he wasn't sure exactly where he did need to be. Which meant he would have to look.

He sifted through his memory again. Ptero was where every person or creature who had ever existed, or who would exist, or who might have existed, existed. Prince Dolin was one of the mights. Sim had met him only briefly, and learned that his life was limited to youth. That meant he was always a child, never party to the nefarious human Adult Conspiracy. This fell within the territory covered by the Sea Hag, who was as unpopular on this world as on the other. Sim strongly suspected that she had been responsible for the abrupt shortening of Dolin's life. Since the Hag didn't much care about boys, there had to be special reason and that reason might be that he represented a threat to her. That threat was what Sim needed to know.

Sim's own territory overlapped that of Prince Dolin by about four years. His range went far beyond Dolin's in the To direction, but only four years into it in the From direction. He had been four when he met Dolin, and had not at that time recognized his possible significance.

One problem was that to meet the prince again, he would have to go to his age four territory. His powers of body and mind would be accordingly diminished. But there was no help for it; he had to talk to Prince Dolin. He alone might have the answer.

He spread his wings and flew toward From. He remained invisible, which meant that he did not have to explain to anyone what he was up to. That was just as well, because the number of people aware of their mission was already over the limit of secrecy.

As he flew he grew younger. As he approached age five he saw a thick cloud covering the landscape. That wouldn't do; it would make him visible by outlining his shape.

He glided down below it, but the trees reached up to intersect it. He had to land. Fortunately he was almost there. He found a glade and settled to the ground.

He moved on, afoot. But he was unfamiliar with the local terrain, and he didn't know exactly where Dolin would be. This could take forever, and he couldn't afford to lose much time. He would have to inquire.

He saw a man walking briskly along, coming toward him. But as the man approached, Sim began to feel stiff. His joints hurt. How could he be so suddenly ill? He was normally a supremely healthy bird.

“Who are you?” he asked the man.

Unfortunately the man did not understand squawk talk. He looked around, and saw nothing, because Sim remained invisible. “Where are you?” he asked.

Sim didn't answer; he was too uncomfortable.

“Well, wherever you are, don't get too close to me,” the man said. “I am Arthur Itis, and my talent makes people's joints stiff.”

That explained it! Sim remained silent, and Arthur walked on. Soon the stiffness faded, and Sim was able to move freely again. He resumed walking, and encountered an ogress.

Should he inquire again? He couldn't make himself visible; it was the princesses' magic. How would an ogress react? He was now, at age five, smaller than the ogress; he didn't want her to smash him with a hamfist. But he didn't have time to dither, for all that time was geography here; he had to find The Little Prince.

“Hello, ogress,” he squawked.

She paused and looked around. “With all due respect, I have to confess I do not perceive you,” she said.

Sim was taken aback. This was an ogress? “I am not visible at the moment,” he said. “Is this a problem?”

“Not for me, obviously, but I should think it would be for you. What manner of creature are you, if I may be so bold as to inquire?”

This couldn't be an ogress! “I am a big bird. I am looking for Prince Dolin.”

“He is not far distant, but you will have to pass through a comic strip. In that direction.” She pointed a ham finger.

“Thank you,” he squawked. But he couldn't just go on. “You seem uncommonly well spoken for your species.”

She burst into unogrish tears. “I so much want to be properly stupid, but I haven't found the secret. Do you think it's my name?”

It must be something! “Perhaps. What is your name?”

“P. R. Ogress. I want to fall behind, but somehow I keep getting ahead.”

“Yes, I think it is your name. It spells progress, so you can't help getting ahead. Maybe if you could find another name you could achieve greater stupidity.”

“Now why didn't I think of that? I'll try it.”

“See, you're getting duller already.”

He went on to the comic strip. This would be awful; they always were. Could he avoid it? He looked to the left, but that was an impassable thicket of thorns, and the clouds remained too low to allow him to fly over it. It was awful being landbound!

He looked to the right, and saw a ferocious fire. He knew it would be impossible to put it out, because it was an extension of a Xanth fire: its past and its future. He had learned that some Mundane fires had managed to cross over into Xanth, where dragons had eagerly amplified them. That was one of the nasty things about Mundania: Sometimes it exported its problems to Xanth. At any rate, there was no passage there.

Sim firmed his beak and plunged into the comic strip. He regretted it immediately. There was an awful engine sound above, and a wedgeshaped object caromed off a cloud. A shower of coins came down. What weirdness was this?

He ducked a roll of bills and collided with a soft body. It was a young woman of ordinary aspect: hair, shirt, skirt, slippers. “I beg your pardon,” she said politely, as she brushed money out of her hair. “I didn't see you.”

“My fault,” Sim squawked. “I'm invisible.” He spread a wing to fend off another flurry of bills.

“Oh. How do you do? I'm Lacky.” She spat out a small coin. She seemed to have no trouble understanding him.

He decided that the truth wouldn't hurt here, as they were in the same predicament. “I am Sim, a big bird. I am trying to get across the comic strip, but this falling money is interfering.”

“That's from the plane,” she said. “It does its banking in the clouds.” She ducked as the flying plane banked off another cloud, shaving off a curl of vapor, which coalesced into another wad of bills.