The three doodlebugs tried. Their first efforts were grotesque parodies of the human form. That wouldn’t do.

  “Like Apoca, here,” Aurora said. “Start with her, gaze closely, translate, then modify to fit your own preference.”

  Three images of Apoca appeared, startling her, the original. Gradually they shifted, becoming different women. One had long black hair, another long yellow hair, and the third had long red hair. Then their clothing faded, because bugs did not wear clothing. But the revealed flesh was not accurate; it was in the shape of the external outfit.

  “Um, no,” Aurora said. “More like this.” She projected a properly nude girl, complete with separated breasts and thighs.

  It took several tries, as doodlebugs were not mammalian, but in due course they got it right. There were now three lovely nude girls standing before Nolan, projected images. “Very nice,” he said.

  Aurora sent a signal, and the three blushed fetchingly. The skin of one turned black, another turned yellow, and the third turned bright red. They were still works in progress. However, they soon got their costumes in order and managed to make Gent gaze with appreciation, though he knew their nature. They danced fetchingly together. They began to teach the other bugs the dream-image technique. Soon there was a bevy of lovely human girl images, who practiced by openly flirting with the two men. They were even forming invisible panties to intensify the effect. Apoca was relieved that they were only bugs; otherwise it could have gotten awkward, knowing the weakness of men for appearance rather than reality.

  Meanwhile the storm outside raged in frustration. Wind blew rain into the grotto, which soon began to flood. That was bad news for the bugs.

  “We need to move to a deeper cave,” Apoca said. Nimbus relayed her thought to Aurora, who shared it with the doodlebugs. “I see there is a passage.”

  The three emulations of her became agitated. “They can’t go there,” Aurora relayed. “Every cave is occupied by different bugs, and they don’t necessarily get along well.”

  “What kind are next door?” Nolan asked.

  “Nickelpedes.”

  “That’s my cue,” Nimbus said. “I will reason with them.”

  “Do nickelpedes usually reason?”

  “I was joking. I will speak to them in the language they understand. That is, Nolan will stomp them into goo if they don’t back off.”

  Apoca walked over to the passage. It led to another cave, and there stood the translucent outlines of nickelpede guards in the forefront and a scintillating mass of bugs in the middle-ground. Doodlebugs would not stand a chance against them, and neither would most of the other bugs here. Nolan’s boots were another matter.

  “Uh-oh,” Nimbus said to Apoca. “I can feel their hostility. They don’t like their neighbor bugs, but they really don’t like visible folk. There are too many of them for Nolan to stomp without many getting through and chomping everyone else. This will be a hard sell.”

  “I have an idea,” Apoca said. “You can seduce their male chief, in the presence of the others. That should impress them.”

  “More likely that chief will cut off my pincers.”

  Apoca understood that that would be a dire fate. A nickelpede without pincers would be like a human being without arms, helpless and doomed. “Let me explain. My power to enslave men is not entirely magic. I have a technique that you may be able to adapt.”

  “Nickelpedes don’t seduce the way humans do.”

  “I understand that. Let’s meld minds a moment so I can clarify this in an instant.”

  “Okay,” Nimbus agreed doubtfully.

  They melded. It took exactly an instant.

  “Wow!” Nimbus exclaimed, impressed. “That just might do it.”

  Apoca put a hand down, and the nickelpede traversed it and dropped to the floor. She marched up to the chief, who stood to the side, spotting him by the arrogant flicker of his mind. He was Nicodemus, a warrior among warriors. “Hello, big boy. I am Nimbus. Back away, you and your minions, or I will seduce you in front of all your fellows and make you a laughingstock as well as my love slave.”

  Nickelpedes were not much given to laughter, but this was so preposterous that he couldn’t help it. “You’re visible!” That was a prime insult.

  “So I am, the more fool you, Nicky. You know how humiliating it will be. Now, pay attention, dolt.” She lifted her pincers and clicked them in a key cadence. It was the opening of the mating sequence, with a slight but critical modification. It now included some of Apoca’s magic.

  Astounded, he replied with his own click sequence before he realized; it was an automatic response.

  Nimbus followed up with the next clicking sequence, loaded with submission magic. It was the equivalent of Apoca’s kiss. He was locked in, and he had to follow through. The other nickelpedes stared; Apoca saw their flickering amazement with her eyes and felt it in their minds. Why was their chief making out with a visible female?

  It worked. The third exchange of pincer cadences bound Nicodemus’s will to Nimbus’s will. This did not mean mating but absolute submission on his part. He would mate with her only when and if she chose it.

  The other nickelpedes remained amazed. The visible visitor had somehow ensorcelled the chief!

  “Tell your minions to welcome the visitors from the next cave,” Nimbus directed in ordinary click talk. “And to offer them every courtesy. Not one of them will be attacked.”

  Nicodemus echoed her clicks, and the minions grudgingly obeyed. They gave way, allowing the visibles and the bugs to scramble in, including the three enhanced doodlebugs and their bevy of trainees. That was just as well, because the water was rising.

  In fact it soon started to flood the nickelpede chamber too. They would have to move to a higher cave.

  Apoca and Nimbus repeated their performance, and enslaved another invisible chief, this one a spider, Apollo Arachnid. He kept no web but had a harem of lady spiders with webs who provided him everything he wanted, including myriad progeny. Before long not only was Apollo Nimbus’s love slave, the ladies were learning how to entice prey by flashing provocative panties. Apoca wasn’t sure how effective that would be, since the whole point of panties was their visibility, but if the spiders were satisfied, so was she. Two-legged panties were impressive; would eight-legged ones be quadruple as alluring? Who could say?

  The water kept rising. Fracto was really determined to wash them out, and there might be some covert enhancement of his powers by the Dwarf Demon, who might indeed be cheating. They were in trouble.

  Pursued by the water, they came at last to the huge uppermost cavern. “Gina Giantess resides here,” Dolly said. “I have had no dealings with her. She seems reclusive. I understand she is waiting on her boyfriend, who is far, far away.”

  “The bugs assure me that no one dare intrude here,” Aurora said. “She could obliterate all the invisible bugs merely by peeing into their caves.”

  “True,” Dolly agreed. “She does not like vermin in her clean residence.”

  “I will check,” Apoca said. This did seem formidable, but they were all too likely to be eliminated anyway by the flooding. Only the topmost cave was high enough to be secure.

  Apoca, Nimbus, and Dolly entered the forbidden grotto. The invisible giantess was perhaps ten times Apoca’s height, for all that she was lying down, a most formidable creature. It was certainly best not to aggravate her.

  “Gina,” Apoca said. “We need to talk with you.”

  The response was furious. “What are you doing in my boudoir? You know you bugs are forbidden.”

  “I am not a bug. I am Queen Apoca Lips, here on special business. You can see that I am visible. But the nasty cloud Cumulo Fracto Nimbus is interfering, and this is the only place in this region that is secure from him at the moment. I need your help, or at least your forbearance.”

  The giantess sat up, evidently intrigued. “You are a human queen? Why would you stray here? The puns are horrible.”

  “They are,” Apoca agreed. “It’s a devious story.”

  “Tell me.”

  Apoca realized that the giantess was lonely. That, in retrospect, was not surprising.

  “We honor the BLURB. You know, the Big Landmark Unwritten Rules Book. We will make a fair exchange for your sufferance.”

  “I know of it. The only thing I want is compatible company,” Gina said sadly.

  “Let me introduce you to your neighbor Dolly Llama. She is a most interesting person.”

  “An animal!”

  Dolly spoke. “A significant portion of your isolation stems from your failure to utilize what is near at foot. You suppose that only other invisible giants are worthwhile. But a rich companionship is available right here in the mountain. I myself was ignorant of this until recently. For example, the mock dancing girls.”

  “The what?”

  Dolly sent a mental signal to the three doodlebugs, who strutted boldly forward in their human dream images. They danced, twirling so that their newly appearing short skirts lifted, almost showing their invisible panties.

  “Oh, if I could do that, my beloved Geode would spend more time here,” Gina said appreciatively.

  “They will be glad to teach you the motions.”

  “But they are bugs!”

  “They are actresses of the insectoid persuasion. They have learned to emulate the human form, in imagination, and are exploring its parameters. You can do the same.”

  “Parameters,” Gina repeated. “Do you mean perimeters?”

  “No. Parameters are to perimeters as giants are to grains of sand: considerably more complicated and variable. There is a qualitative distinction. I can explore this in more detail, but that would require more time than is presently available.”

  “You are my neighbor?”

  “I reside beside the invisible mountain.”

  “I confess the bugs have become interesting,” the giantess said. “But you interest me more. You have a mind.”

  “I do, for all that I am crafted from a pun. But my present concern is to provide sanctuary for the assorted residents of the mountain, who are being flooded out because of Demonic resistance to a Quest of their visitors. I shall be happy to converse with you indefinitely, as long as you grant them access to a section of your domain so that they can survive comfortably.”

  “Are you bargaining with me?”

  “I am.”

  “There must be an interesting story here.”

  “There is.”

  “And you will acquaint me with the whole of it?”

  “I will.”

  “And the bugs will not sting me or soil my premises?”

  “They will not. We have a truce.”

  “Then let them come.”

  Apoca saw that Dolly had made the necessary deal with the giantess. Introductions followed, and they settled down to watch the dancing doodlebugs while telling Gina the story of the problem of the talents and the spite of Dwarf Demon and storming cloud. She turned out to be a responsive listener, intelligent and sympathetic.

  “I have heard enough,” the giantess said abruptly. “Pardon me while I send Fracto away.”

  She could do that? Apoca wondered how, as the nasty cloud was not susceptible to rational arguments.

  Gina got to her feet, picked up a giant fan, and stepped outside the mountain. She waved the fan with such powerful strokes that the cloud was soon blown away by the hurricane force of the wind. “And don’t come back!” she called after it. “Or I’ll fetch my larger fan.”

  Apoca suspected that was not a bluff.

  Chapter 5

  The Kiss

  Nolan was relieved. The threat to the assorted bugs and to themselves had been abruptly ended, thanks to the action taken by Gina Giantess. Already the water was draining, since it had been caused by the rains blowing into the lower caves, rather than general landscape flooding. Now they could focus on the next leg of their Quest, visiting the cuttlefish girl called Squid. He did not know her personally, but her reputation was positive. She did not abuse her relationship with the most powerful of all the Demons.

  He saw the Baton of Protagonism fly from Apoca to him. He hadn’t called it; had it decided that he was more interesting at this point than Apoca? Not that it really mattered.

  “Thank you, girls,” Apoca said to the doodlebug trio. “You have been most entertaining. Now you can return to your own cave as the water clears.”

  The three did one more flourish that flashed their panties in a manner Nolan really appreciated; had he not known that they were only bugs, he might have freaked out. They shut down their dream images and became mere doodles again. They had learned well.

  “They have indeed,” Aurora said.

  The invisible giantess glanced at them, her attention attracted by something. “What just happened here?”

  Nolan smiled. “Perhaps you noticed the change of perspective. There is an invisible baton that brings it to a person who is engaged in an interesting story.”

  “So that’s what that winged wand is doing! I had wondered.”

  It figured that an invisible person could see an invisible baton. “Yes. I think it also records and transcribes the stories, suitably clarified and condensed. So you may appear, as it were, in our story, in due course.”

  “Really?” Gina primped her invisible hair.

  “We think so. Unless a rogue editor gets at it and cuts it out.”

  “I will tromp that editor into a faint red smear!”

  Apoca laughed. “That threat should suffice. Editors are not known for their courage. They fear even the threat of a suit made of law, whatever that is.”

  “A law suit,” the giantess agreed, smiling. “Mundanes do have funny apparel.”

  “I think our business here is done,” Nolan said. “We will vacate your domain as soon as the bugs have cleared out.”

  “No, wait! I have a new respect for bugs, and I find you visible folk marvelously entertaining. Stay the night, and in the morning I will carry you to your next scene.”

  Nolan and Apoca exchanged a surprised look. This could save them a lot of travel time, not to mention struggling with the puns. Or would it? “You can avoid the pundemic?” Nolan asked.

  “Well, no. The puns soil my feet when I step on them, and my toes become fetishes. It’s a nuisance. But I like your company so much that I am willing to endure it.”

  Vinia piped up. “I have some leftover vac scene that might help with that. But it has side effects.”

  They discussed it, and Gina concluded that the em-bare-assing effect would not be much of a problem for her because her anatomy was already invisible. So she sniffed it, then laughed until she cried. Then she picked them up in a miniature (to her) glass cup and went out to try it on the nearest zone of egregiousness.

  It was late in the day, and the sun had sunk so low that it accidentally touched the pundemic zone. It developed a circle of light around it, and looked as if it had a glowing headache.

  “The sun has got the corona virus,” Gent said.

  Gina groaned. But she did not get pundigestion and did not emit foul-smelling puns of her own. Her bare feet did not become foot fetishes. She was indeed now immune to the scene.

  Back in the cave, they feasted on incidental visible pies Gina had harvested by accident, and gulped visible boot rear, which retained its kick if not its appearance. Apoca, Gina, and Dolly decided to be a trio of unlikely girlfriends, their relationship based on compatibility and intellect rather than species. Nolan certainly had no objection; if that meant that the giantess and the llama were associates once he won the queen’s hand, so be it.

  “Good conclusion,” Aurora agreed.

  The group slept on invisible beds of ferns and had a good night. Aurora and Nimbus emulated the appearance of two of the doodlebug images and did a teasing panty-mime dance in his dream. Then Gina joined in, making a visible-girl dream form in their size. Such a thing could be done only in dreams, because of the considerable difference in their real sizes and forms, but was great fun here.

  Nolan woke later in the night. “I just realized that we overlooked a detail. We don’t know where Squid is.”

  “Dolly says she and Chaos are riding in Fibot, the Fire Sail Boat.”

  “And where is Fibot?”

  “That is the question of the hour. The boat travels all around Xanth, on special missions or just sightseeing. Dolly says not to be concerned about it; an avenue will appear.”

  “Would it happen to be a green path Vinia sees?”

  “Exactly.”

  He relaxed and returned to sleep.

  And woke again. “What of Dolly? Her island is still soaking wet.”

  The ant checked. “Dolly will accompany us, then return with Gina once we move on.”

  That did seem to make sense. He slept again.

  In the morning they ate, handled natural functions, then got into the cup. There was room for the five solid human-sized folk, the ghost, two bugs, and the baton. Gina set a mesh cap on the top and lifted it high as she strode out of the cave. They peered through the glass and saw the landscape as if they were flying at treetop height. That was an interesting experience in its own right.

  “I have not witnessed this scene before from this vantage,” Dolly said as she peered down through the bottom of the glass at the slightly shaded pundemic region.

  “I have,” Vinia said. “We used flying carpets in my protagonism story. They flew much higher, so we could see as the birds do.”

  “That would be interesting,” Gent said.

  Nolan saw that when the sunlight struck the glass bottom at the right angle, there was a faint reflection. He wondered whether Apoca’s legs would be visible under her skirt.