“Together!” Furioso said, amused. “That’s not normal protocol.”

  “No wonder Hoo-Hah declared war!” Sherlock said.

  “The king’s hatred of feminism might have had something to do with it,” Georgia said with a straight face.

  “He doesn’t seem to much like the idea of women making their own decisions,” Goblette agreed. Both tittered.

  “But now we have a rather serious situation to handle,” Chloe said. “Ah, here come Grossclout and Demesne now.”

  The two appeared. Grossclout looked a bit odd without his glower. Evidently their private session had been hard on it. “We may have doomed Thanx, but it was almost worth it,” Demesne said, reforming her mussed robe. “That is one rude, crude neighbor.”

  “But why did things go so drastically and suddenly wrong?” Cedar Centaur asked.

  “I lost the ring,” Vinia said, ashamed. “It was charmed for good luck, but there’s a blowback effect when it’s gone.”

  “Then we’d better find it in a hurry,” Elga said.

  “Good advice,” Grossclout agreed. “I did not make the ring, but know it is a singularly powerful talisman, for good or ill.”

  They headed out as a group. It was now full daylight, but the region was larger than it had seemed in the predawn dusk, and the search seemed impossible. The little pool was a mass of mud; something must have dragged through it.

  “I have a magnifying glass,” Hilda said, bringing out a round one on a handle. “I use one aspect of it for my needlework. It should help.”

  Vinia wasn’t sure of that, but kept her mouth shut as Hilda went to the area of the pool where the ring had disappeared.

  “I am not clear how this will help locate something lost in muck,” Sherlock said.

  “This way,” Hilda explained. “The ring was formed from a glass eel and a glass eye, magically merged. The other aspect of my glass magnifies glass. Ah, there!” For something had appeared in the mud: a doughnut-size shape. She took it and rinsed it off. It looked exactly like the lost ring, only ten times the size.

  “It is now a torus,” Ion said.

  “But I can’t wear this,” Vinia said. “It’s more like an anklet than a finger ring.”

  Hilda turned the magnifying class over and looked through it at the torus, which immediately reverted to ring size. Oh. Of course, it mattered which way you used a magnifying glass. Vinia put it back on her finger, where it fit perfectly. “The bad luck should be over,” she said. In the background of her mind she was surprised by how much Hilda had known about the ring. She saw that Grossclout was surprised, too. Hilda evidently appreciated jewelry.

  “It is enough,” Demesne said, as they returned to the lair. “Now all we have to do is figure out how to handle an invasion by all our neighbors. If we don’t stop it, by the end of tomorrow there’ll be no Thanx.”

  “No Thanx,” Grossclout echoed, with a brief lessening of his glower.

  She was not amused. “What are we going to do?”

  “If I had my hive at full strength,” Beetrix buzzed, “We could sting them so bad they’d never bother us again.” She and Drover had come in for the meeting. “But that won’t happen until next year.”

  “We do have a mutual defense pact with your home hive, Drover,” Demesne said. “Would they be willing to help tomorrow?”

  “Yes!” the drone buzzed. “But I know Queen BeeAttitude. She will allocate only enough warriors to protect the Heaven-Can-Wait Honeysuckle field.”

  “Well, that’s progress,” Demesne agreed. “But we have five or six more sectors to defend.” She glanced at Sherlock. “You must have handled a war or two in your day. What do you recommend?”

  “You will need allies,” Sherlock said. “Savage ones, I think.”

  “And how can we win allies, when as yet we have very few resources and less experience?”

  “This is a challenge,” he agreed. “Conventional ones will not do, as they may take years to cultivate. We need instant ones, and probably highly unusual ones.”

  “You have something in mind,” Chloe said.

  “Yes. Consider nickelpedes.”

  “Nickelpedes! They are a scourge no one can tolerate!”

  “Precisely. They could mount a very good defense against any aggressive neighbors. The key is how to recruit them.”

  “But they’re not even intelligent.”

  “They have the hive mentality.” Sherlock glanced at the bees. “As do bees, and they do well enough, especially in the presence of those with human intelligence. There will likely be a queen nickelpede who will have enough of a mind to dicker. The question is, what would she want from us?”

  “Recognition,” Drover said. “Of their merit as a species, and her femininity. The Queendom of Thanx can offer both.”

  Sherlock nodded. “I believe it can. We need to make a pact, a mutual assistance treaty, as we did with the bees. They come here and drive off the invaders, then they can stay, and the Thanx citizens will welcome them as long as they never attack a citizen. They attack no citizens, and no citizens attack them. Maybe folk can even carry them from one place to another, to forage or just to see the sights. They have never in all the history of Xanth had treatment like that, and I suspect they would find it highly addictive.”

  That concept circulated, and it started to make sense. The nickelpedes might indeed have a longing to be accepted as citizens, rather than vermin. It was certainly worth a try.

  “What others?” Demesne asked. “Ideas?”

  “Salamanders,” Benny suggested. “They can set fire to anything except their own ashes or the ground they walk on. They could give invaders such hotfoots as they would never return. But they don’t have to burn; otherwise, they would not be able to go anywhere without going up in smoke, literally. But they could heat a house in winter, without burning it, if they wanted to.”

  “And they might want to, if they were given acceptance and a province of their own, here in Thanx,” Goblette said.

  “Ghosts,” Furioso said. “They don’t have to spook everyone they see. We could offer them freshly built haunted houses, and our children could visit them to see spook shows. Maybe some could live in our homes, the way the ghosts do in Castle Roogna. I understand that a ghost can be pretty friendly, when given a chance.”

  Hula eyed him. “How friendly?”

  He laughed. “They can firm up parts of their bodies so they can howl, and maybe other parts too. But a lady ghost wouldn’t try to be seductive as long as she saw you lying between Sherlock and me.”

  Hula nodded, satisfied. She could keep them both busy. There would be too little left over for any ghost to seduce.

  “Sirens,” Georgia said. “The invaders are likely to be male, and they’d lure any males to their doom.”

  “But who would recruit sirens?” Demesne asked. “Not any of the princes, and I should think the princesses would be wary of them, too, albeit for different reasons.”

  “A girl child, a nonprincess,” Georgia said. “She’d be largely immune.”

  And of course, that meant Vinia. “I’ll do it,” she said with resignation.

  “You are entirely too obliging,” Demesne said. “If you’re not careful, you will wind up recruiting them all, from nickelpedes to ghosts.”

  Vinia laughed. “But you need them all today, simultaneously recruited, and I would have to be in five or six places at once.”

  “We can’t do it,” Hula said. “We have our other chores to do.”

  “You do,” Demesne agreed.

  “Actually,” Ion said, “I have a split personality elixir. You could be everywhere at the same time, using different hosts.”

  “I was joking.” But even as Vinia spoke, she saw the joke wearing thin. The idea had taken hold: they were all considering it. She knew already that she was bound to be stuck for it. She always was. Princes and princesses were not much for menial tasks, and certainly not for messing with nickelpedes or sirens, and they were going to be quite busy with their roles in the queendom. They really did have more than enough to occupy them, getting the new order started. “But I suppose I can do it.”

  They were satisfied not to argue with her. She was indeed stuck for it.

  “The ring should facilitate your effort,” Grossclout said. “And facilitate your mission. You are better equipped for this than you may suppose.”

  “I’d better be,” Vinia said. Because she felt staggeringly incompetent.

  “I’ve seen that look before,” Hilda said. “Your self-no-confidence vote. You will need someone to protect you and encourage you, so that you can do what you must do. I don’t think I am qualified to help you in this, and neither is Ion. Is there anyone else?”

  “I believe I am free,” Grossclout said. “I should absent myself so that Demesne can go about her business undistracted.”

  “Grossclout!” Vinia repeated, horrified.

  Demesne laughed. “Two things, my dear. First, he really can protect you from unexpected threats. Second, he is capable of being social, even vaguely friendly, when he tries. He will be on your side, not against you. That counts. Give him a chance.”

  “A chance,” Vinia agreed faintly.

  Chapter 8

  Sirens etc.

  “Why don’t you two go out and get started,” Demesne suggested. “while we organize the queendom here?”

  Vinia froze, having no idea what to do. It was as if she had just been given a construction pencil to clean after it had written dirty words. She was afraid she would mess up badly and wind up solidly dirty and smelling like a stink horn with nothing accomplished. She had been lucky so far, but luck was a treacherous ally, as her temporary loss of Dara’s ring had demonstrated.

  “This way,” Grossclout said surprisingly softly, taking her by the elbow and moving her to an unfamiliar exit.

  In a few moments—she wasn’t sure how many, being lost in her confusion—they were standing beside a lovely pool. A mountain stream coursed from a convenient mountain and plunged gladly into the pool. But there seemed to be no exit stream. “Where does the water go?” Vinia asked, focusing on this minor detail rather than the major question of how to accomplish what was barely possible. Of how to work with a Demon who frightened her even when he was being nice. Of how the bleepity bleep had she managed to get herself into this nice mess. She was staring at her reflection in the pool, realizing that at the moment it was mental as well as physical: her mind was churning despite the serenity of her appearance. Could she use the pool to wash off the dirt left by her mental construction pencil? Probably not, alas.

  “This is Whirl Pool Pond,” the Demon explained. “Every hour or so when the water level gets high, it whirls itself down into the unknown depth. It is one of the better features of the dragon’s domain.”

  “The unknown depth? I think I’m already there,” Vinia said. Then she burst into tears. Which struck her as an ultimate foolishness, especially in the present company, but she did it anyway. She might be the protagonist, for whatever little that was worth, but she was not a bold princess or a powerful Sorceress; she was a mere ordinary reasonably ignorant girl child, subject to getting overwhelmed on short notice. She was ashamed of herself.

  Then Grossclout did something weird. He hugged her comfortingly. The amazing thing was that it worked: she felt better. In fact she felt downright self-assured. How could that be?

  “Prince Ion gave me some reverse elixir,” the Demon explained without requiring the question. “I am the Magician of Intimidation. The elixir makes me a temporary Magician of Encouragement.” Indeed, he seemed like a kindly grandfather radiating approval and calmness. Even his gnarled horns appeared friendly as he let her go.

  “I am amazed,” Vinia said confidently. “But I’m not crazy. I know that this job is beyond my capability. Fake courage is not enough.”

  “You are a sensible girl. That is the prime reason Demesne wanted you for this mission. She knew you could accomplish what another person might not.”

  “Me? But—” Then the confidence caught up with her again. “I suppose that’s true. I have succeeded elsewhere, to my surprise. But it’s still a formidable challenge.”

  “That is why I am along. I am capable of providing the elements you require to function efficiently, and efficiency is at a premium at this time.”

  Elements were starting to coalesce. “I was selected, and so were you?”

  “Correct. The others were privately advised.” He smiled, and the expression seemed pleasant. “They did not desert you, Vinia. They understood that you were the proper one for this vital task.”

  She shook her head. “I hope they weren’t mistaken. I still have little if any idea how to proceed.”

  “Fortunately, I do. Ion provided me the split personality elixir. When you inhale that, your host body will remain here, inert, so as not to get into mischief, while your several partial selves will depart for the domains of the six prospective allies.”

  “I don’t even know where those allies are.”

  “Sorceress Hilda provided us a map.” The professor brought it out and spread it before her. “Each self will touch a spot on the map and be astrally transported there to occupy a compatible host who has been advised that you are coming and will cooperate to the best of her ability. Then you will approach the leader of that tribe and make our case.”

  “But how will the allies get here, assuming they decide to come?”

  “You will guide them. You wear the ring. You will always be able to return to it. You will show them the way.”

  “But they aren’t astral. They can’t just zip to a new host.”

  “I will bring one of Ion’s miniportals to each site where necessary. That will suffice for all but one of the groups, they being small of stature, like the nickelpedes, or diffuse, like the ghosts. The one exception is the sirens. They are physical and of human size. They will also have to travel by water, to this pool, which will suit their nature.”

  Vinia stared at the pool. “They will want a whirlpool?” She knew that sirens were mermaids with special voices.

  “Yes. It represents no threat to them and is suitable for drowning and disposing of unruly mortal men.”

  “But—”

  “Your host will explain their lifestyle to you.”

  “My host.” She was still assimilating the notion of being a spiritual visitor to another person’s body. “Who is that?”

  “Signal Siren. She took one of my classes recently, so I contacted her, and she is amenable. She is expecting you.”

  So he knew a siren. “She didn’t sing and try to lure you to your doom?”

  “That would have spoiled the class. In any event I would not have succumbed, despite her prettiness, having encountered many varieties of dangerous females such as gorgons and basilisks, not to mention Demonesses.”

  “Like Metria and her polka-dot panties?”

  “With the missing material,” he agreed reminiscently. “But she was merely mischievous. She did have nice thighs, though perhaps too much displayed.”

  They were drifting from the subject. “Why was a siren in your class?”

  “She wanted to learn incidental magic, such as air flotation, so that she wouldn’t have to use a spell to get around on land. She was a good student and did learn. But that was mainly a pretext. Her tribe was in trouble, needing a new home. They had annoyed the local king by dooming too many of his warriors, and he made ready to besiege their lake with female warriors. I said I would do what I could.”

  “You taught her the magic but also agreed to help her tribe?”

  He smiled. “She bribed me. She was quite up front about it, and she had a very nice front. Tit for tat.”

  Vinia was curious. She had a notion what a woman’s tit was and could maybe guess about the man’s tat, if the Conspiracy allowed it. “What could a pretty mermaid have that a powerful Demon might want?”

  “The Adult Conspiracy prevents me from answering.”

  So she had not gotten around it. Bleep. “I’m sick of the Conspiracy!”

  “Patience, child. It protects your invaluable innocence.”

  “I’m sick of being innocent!”

  “Yet you will sincerely regret losing it, in due course.”

  Vinia doubted that, but she knew it was pointless to argue the case. “So this is the place you found for them?”

  “Yes. It is ideal, being mutually beneficial. They will protect Thanx from any hostile soldiers who attempt to pass this way, and we will provide them a nice pond and compatible company.”

  “Company? You mean ladies?”

  “And men. They don’t drown well-behaved men, only those who seek to brutalize them.”

  That reminded her of something else. “Why would a land man want to be with a woman with the tail of a fish?”

  “Their upper sections are appealingly human, as Signal demonstrated, and there are men who like a piece of tail. Again, you will understand in due course.”

  “Bleep.”

  He laughed. “Are you ready for the split personality elixir?”

  “I had better be. We have wasted too much time talking.”

  Grossclout brought out the vial of elixir. “Breathe this. The effect will last several hours, during which you will accomplish your mission. Focus on one facet at a time. The visits will be simultaneous, but your focus will enable you to experience them as consecutive. It is a mental exercise. Meanwhile I will pop into whatever section where you need me. Are you ready?”

  “I hope so.”

  He opened the vial. Vapor emerged. Vinia breathed it.

  Suddenly she fragmented. There were six of her, jostling for attention. It was confusing.

  “Focus,” Grossclout said.

  Oh, yes, that. She focused on the one visiting the sirens. The others faded into background noise.