The Demon held up Hilda’s map. It was of the whole of Xanth, with the six allies marked. The closest to Thanx was the sirens. Vinia reached out her spectral hand and touched that spot.

  Then she was there. She felt the different body, in the water, with the fish tail. Hello.

  “Uh, hello,” Vinia said, knowing it was just a thought, but it was easier if she phrased it as speech. “I’m Vinia.”

  The other responded similarly. “I’m Signal.”

  “I am here about Thanx.”

  “Yes. Grossclout told me. We will swim to see our queen now.”

  They swam. The mermaid used her hands in the breaststroke, guiding her course, but it was her powerful tail that propelled her forward. Vinia borrowed her eyes to see her body. Signal did indeed have an impressive front. She must have been selected for it, to go to the class and impress Grossclout. Evidently that had worked.

  “Yes, it worked,” Signal said. “He was just as impressive as a lover as he was in class. It really was no burden. In fact—” She broke off. “But you are underage. I can’t go into detail.”

  “Bleep.” Her thoughts were not private, but that area remained a mystery.

  Signal laughed, which made her front even more impressive. “You’ll get there in due course. I promise. You will be lovely: I can tell already, by your mental image of your own body. You think it’s not much, but the architecture is there. You will make some man very happy.”

  “Prince Magician Ion,” she said. “I am his girlfriend.”

  “A prince and a Magician! You are fortunate indeed. But how did you get his attention while still a child?”

  “He is lame. I have telekinesis I use to enable him to walk.” She thought briefly about the situation there, so Signal could pick up on it.

  “That does make sense,” Signal agreed. “You are fortunate. But so is he, to have you. Ah, here we are approaching Queen Siesta.”

  Siesta was an older mermaid, but she too had an impressive front. Her hair trailed down to her waist, voluminous despite being wet, just as Signal’s did. She swam in place, her upper section above the surface of the water. “Yes?”

  Vinia used Signal’s mouth to speak. “Hello, I am Vinia, a land-bound human child, visiting Signal astrally. I come from the new Queendom of Thanx to offer you a nice pond with a central whirlpool. We ask only that you do not drown our men and help protect us from invading men. We will be invaded tomorrow, and the pond is next to the ogre kingdom.”

  “We can handle ogres,” Siesta said. “They freak out much as human males do. Normally we don’t even have to show panties, which is just as well because we prefer not to wear them. Our upper sections are sufficient.”

  “Then will you come?”

  “Yes.”

  Was this too easy? Vinia was developing a deep distrust of easiness. “Don’t you want to negotiate terms?”

  “No need. The professor was here. We know him of old. He’s a tough old codger, but he means exactly what he says.” The queen smiled, revealing her pointed teeth. “We understand that he is being tamed by a smart Demoness.”

  “Queen Demesne,” Vinia agreed. “She was once a student in his class. They impressed each other. Now they are making something of it.”

  “I dare say. A Demoness can put a mortal female to shame, when she tries. Even a siren.” She frowned, irritated by the notion. “Now I understand that Thanx is not far from here, but the river channels are dry. That is a problem.”

  Grossclout, Vinia thought.

  He appeared beside them, standing chest deep in the water. “Nice to see you again, Signal,” he said, eyeing her bosom. He turned to the queen. “And you are Siesta. I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  The queen inhaled impressively. “Likewise, I’m sure. Signal reports that you are as good in bed as in the classroom.”

  “She perhaps exaggerates. Intimidation is not as effective in bed as in class.”

  “We understand that you ran off with a student.”

  “Demesne,” he agreed.

  “Too bad. We sirens could have given you something to think about.”

  “Surely so.” Vinia realized that Grossclout was avoiding any argument with Siesta. He wanted her cooperation.

  “Now how do you propose to transport us from here to there, with the river channels between us dry?”

  “In this manner.” Grossclout faced the nearest dry channel. A cloud hung above it, watching the proceedings. Folk seldom realized how much clouds saw of their doings. The Demon inhaled and fired off a phenomenal glower. The cloud, caught by surprise, was so frightened that it wet its pants. Since it had no pants, the water coursed down in a sheet. In two and a half moments the cloud was a mere wisp of fog, but the channel was flooded.

  “That will do,” Siesta said approvingly. She put two fingers to her mouth and whistled piercingly. There was the sound of splashing as the other mermaids converged. “Follow the channels,” she called. “The professor is intimidating the clouds.” Then she swam up to Grossclout and planted a close-up buxom kiss on his face before plunging toward the newly filled channel. His hands came up defensively, but all they got was copious handfuls of bare bosom.

  “I knew she was going to do that,” Grossclout murmured, satisfied.

  “And you stood still for it,” Signal said. “So stay in place just a bit longer, Prof.” She swam up and planted her own buxom kiss, knocking back his hands with her own bosom.

  Vinia, along for the ride, was amazed. It was is if she herself were kissing him and arranging to collide her bountiful front with his hands. The contact delivered a jolt of naughty pleasure. She realized that the touching was not coincidental by either party: the art was making it seem so. If this was what adulthood offered, she wanted it. Once she had breasts to flaunt.

  “Maturity does offer that fun, in part,” Signal said as she swam on, following the queen toward the flooded channel. “It’s a kind of heavy flirting. Of course, it helps that we were once lovers.”

  Vinia looked back to see that the other sirens were doing the same thing as they passed the professor. It was a kind of game. There were a dozen sirens in addition to the queen.

  “But don’t you have things to pack?” she asked. “Preparations to make?”

  “No. All we need is water and motive.”

  They swam to the end of the channel. The water was draining away, threatening to strand them in the channel. But the Demon appeared before them. He aimed another glower at a cloud and terrorized it into letting loose all its water so that only meager mist remained. He truly was the Magician of Intimidation.

  “But those of us who know him well enough can handle it,” Signal said, picking up again on her thought. “He’s a softie when you get beyond the glare. He really helped me.”

  “But you bribed him.”

  “Before that.”

  Vinia’s insatiable curiosity got the better of her, as usual. “How?”

  “One day in class a mean human classmate played a cruel joke on me. I think he wanted to make me let him handle, you know, my superstructure. We water creatures don’t wear clothing. I had as usual unpacked myself and my water bucket from the flying chair I used to travel overland. He grabbed the empty chair, which was turned off, and I was stuck in my class seat, unable to move from it. My tail, you know; it’s useless on dry land. I was distraught. Grossclout merely said curtly ‘Use your magic, nymph.’ ‘But if I do that—’ I protested. ‘Cover your ears,’ he told the class. They did, and then I sang. That caught the joker, who couldn’t cover his ears because he was carrying the heavy chair. He came back in the class, up to my bucket of water for my tail, dropped the chairs, and plunged his face into the bucket almost before I could whip my tail out. I stopped singing before he drowned, of course, but it was effective in halting other such jokes. Grossclout merely nodded. He had shown me how my original magic could protect me even here.”

  Vinia appreciated that. She had not thought much before about the problems a mermaid might have on land.

  “By the time I finished the course, I knew how to make a flotation spell myself, so I would not have to rent a flying chair. But I still appreciated how Grossclout had helped me. That encouraged me to seduce him, per my mission, once I was no longer a student. He refused to mess that way with students.” She smiled. “But I had made sure he noticed my upper torso. I almost got dizzy from all the deep breathing.”

  That was confirmation of the Demon’s ethics. He was interested, but never made a move on Signal in class. Vinia was glad to have it, because otherwise her developing respect for him would have suffered.

  They proceeded in this manner, flooding channel after channel, leaving emptied clouds behind, until at last they came to Thanx. A final glare flood brought them to the pool.

  The mermaids splashed into it, delighted. The surplus water caused the whirlpool to start in the center of the pond, sucking the water down and away to neverland. They liked this ever better. They swam to it and into it, able to avoid getting sucked down themselves. “Glorious!” Siesta exclaimed, hugging Grossclout so closely that her body flattened against him. “This is perfect!” She kissed him, then went to disport herself with the others.

  “Come swim with us, Professor!” one called.

  Grossclout, hardly reluctant, popped over to join them. He now had a woman of his own, but this was passing entertainment. Demesne would surely understand. “Oh, I must get in on that,” Signal said. “Hang on, Vinia.” She swam to the whirlpool, and in moments there were fourteen mermaids swimming half out of the swirling water around the Demon. Vinia was reminded of the splashing party she and Hilda had joined on Cloud Nine. Girls just had to be girls.

  But she couldn’t dawdle on that. There were five other spot missions in progress. She focused on the nickelpedes. “Do I have a host?” she asked Grossclout via the ring.

  “Nimbus,” he said as he ducked a buxom flying tackle by a mermaid. Vinia realized that in all this melee the sirens had never uttered a note of song. They were honoring the truce with Thanx, beginning with the professor. She had heard part of the melody in the background as Signal reviewed the bucket incident, and appreciated its power, even though she was a female child, who should be largely immune. These laughing girls really were deadly predators when they sang. “Touch the map.”

  Oh. “Map,” Vinia said to the ring, and the scroll appeared in the air before her. She poked her finger at the spot marked NICKELPEDES.

  Vinia was low to the ground, foraging for seeds and bugs. They were okay, but her abiding hunger was for meat. She had about fifty small legs, several eye stalks, and of course her formidable mouth for gouging out nickel-size chunks of flesh. Now it was chewing on a dirty plant stem tasting of week-old rubbish. Vinia could appreciate already why the nickelpedes wanted more.

  “Hello,” Vinia said tentatively.

  The creature paused. “Oh, you must be the visitor.” She spoke by clicking her mandibles, but her mind made it clear as speech.

  “Yes. I am Vinia Human from Thanx. The Demon professor sent me.”

  “He said you’d be just a spirit, hardly more than a thought.”

  “I am an astral copy, one of six.”

  “And I am Nimbus Nickelpede. Now that you’re here, I will take you to see Queen Nitro.”

  The creature set her multiple legs in motion and propelled herself forward at a fast clip, probably several feet an hour. The local stems whizzed by, what would be small plants to Vinia’s normal body seeming more like a forest here.

  They encountered a smaller creature crossing their path. It had a hundred legs. Vinia was alarmed, but Nimbus reassured her. “A centipede. Harmless to us. If it tries anything, I’ll eat it.”

  The centipede got hastily out of their way and they resumed speed. Soon they came to a smaller, silver-colored creature. “Dime-i-pede,” Nimbus said. It too was no trouble, though it clearly did not fear the nickelpede. Maybe its silver was invulnerable to the nickel’s bite.

  But then they came to a larger creature. It swung its head around to orient on them, teeth gnashing dangerously. Now it was Nimbus who backed off. “Quarterpede,” she explained. “They’re worth five of us and know it.” She found an alternate route.

  “But at least you avoided it,” Vinia said.

  “This one, this time. But a swarm of them is moving in, and we’re running low on places to retreat.”

  Vinia was coming to appreciate their problem. There was no way a nickelpede could stand up to a massive quarterpede.

  They reached the rotten stump that served as the swarm headquarters. “I have the visitor the professor promised,” Nimbus clicked to the others.

  “Nitro is waiting impatiently,” a guard clicked. “She’s about ready to explode. Quarterpedes raided our choicest foraging patch today. We offered no resistance: we couldn’t afford to lose five of us for every one of them.”

  “At least they weren’t dollarpedes,” Nimbus clicked.

  “Not yet,” the guard agreed with a shudder.

  They reached the queen. “Hello, Queen Nitro,” Vinia clicked. “I am Vinia Human, from the Queendom of Thanx, visiting astrally. We can offer you a safe patch, if you will help defend us from our enemies tomorrow.”

  “We can’t stop the quarterpedes,” Nitro said, exasperated.

  “For us, in that sector, it’s goblins.”

  “Goblins are easy,” Nitro said. “And tasty.”

  “Then come to Thanx. We have a portal.”

  “What else?”

  Else? Oh, she expected hard bargaining. “In Thanx you must attack no citizens, however tasty they may be. No citizen will attack you. Permanent truce. You will attack only those who attack the queendom.”

  “Goblins.”

  “Yes, tomorrow. But we have at present two goblin princesses who are citizens.”

  “They are the tastiest of all! There is no more delicate flesh.”

  “Nevertheless, they must be spared.” There was the hard bargain.

  “Agreed,” Nitro clicked reluctantly.

  “Grossclout,” Vinia said to the ring.

  “Present,” the Demon agreed, appearing. Vinia realized that probably Metria Demoness could appear fully formed, instead of going through her act as a cloud, if she wanted to. “I greet you, Nitro. I told you I could arrange a deal for you.”

  “But you are denying us the goblin princesses.”

  “I never promised you any princesses. They are reserved mostly for the princes.”

  Nitro swelled up, ready to explode. Then there was a roar from upwind. “The quarterpedes are charging!” Nimbus clicked, terrified.

  “I will back them off while you take the portal to Thanx,” Grossclout said, setting down a portal. “Line up. Start going through.”

  The queen hesitated. The Demon started warming up a glare. Nitro decided to yield the point. She led her minions toward the portal as Grossclout turned his now fully potent glare on the charging quarterpedes. Caught by surprise, they stumbled and crashed into one another, making a mess of their charge. They tried to reorganize, but the Demon glared at their leaders, who fell on their backs, their feet wiggling helplessly in the air.

  The nickelpedes ran on through the portal in a straight line, disappearing at a swift rate. By the time the quarterpedes managed to get there, the last nickelpede was gone. Except for Nimbus. So they converged on her, cutting her off from the portal. Vinia suffered an ugly jolt of fright. “Grossclout!” she clicked desperately.

  The Demon popped across, picked her up, and deposited her before the portal. He could indeed protect her. They scuttled through. Suddenly they were in Thanx.

  There was Chloe Centaur with Dragoman. The nickelpedes were climbing all over them. Oh, no!

  Grossclout appeared beside her. “Be at ease, girl. There’s a truce, remember? The nickels are being welcomed to the queendom with joy rides on dragon or winged centaur. They are loving it. They have never been airborne before.”

  And Chloe was telepathic, so was in perfect communication with the new arrivals. Vinia relaxed, chiding herself for her momentary foolishness. Then she and Nimbus raced to get aboard Chloe.

  Chloe and Dragoman took off, flying above the field and forest, giving the clinging nickelpedes the rarest view of their lives: the sight of the landscape of Xanth as seen from above. Their chittering was rapturous.

  There is more, Chloe thought to them all. You will be welcome in any Thanx house, to prey on any vermin there, like rats or roaches. Citizens will carry you anywhere you wish to go. The benefits are mutual. This is what the truce means, here in the Queendom of Thanx.

  “This is Bug Heaven,” Queen Nitro chittered.

  But tomorrow, the invading goblins. Except for our two goblin princesses.

  “Those goblins will wish they never even thought of invading!” But then Nitro had a second thought. “Won’t the princesses be mad about what we do to their kinsmen?”

  No. They know that the goblin soldiers would gang-rape them if they got the chance. They are from a different tribe.

  “We don’t like rape. Gouging out nickels is all in good fun, but rape is nasty.”

  Just so. It seemed that it was working out.

  “I must leave you now,” Vinia said to Nimbus. “I have other allies to recruit.” It was more complicated than that, but it would do.

  “I hardly know you, but I like your mind,” the nickelpede replied. “Can we meet again some time, maybe physically?” She smiled mentally. “I will promise not to gouge.”

  Vinia realized that she liked Nimbus back. She had never dreamed that she would ever become friends with a nickelpede, but she was getting rapidly educated. “Why not? I am making friends in the course of this mission. Maybe we can all get together, once the queendom is secure and things settle down to relative dullness. But how will I know you, when I’m not in you, as it were?”