“Ha HA!” the general laughed without humor as he shook the ashes off his face. “You’ll be next, trollop. Get your clothing off.”

  Ecstasy frowned, and the air before her face crystallized and dropped to the ground as sleet. She shrugged out of her cloak to reveal her clothed torso. Now the general reacted, amazed by the scintillating outline. Mere cloth could not conceal the phenomenal perfection of the covered form. “Once more,” she said evenly.

  “What a shape!” He raised his voice to call to his subordinate officers. “Grab this creature! She’s prime meat.”

  “These nymphs without souls are more decent, have shown more courage, and have already done more good than anyone else I have encountered,” Ecstasy said severely. “You in contrast are nothing but a brute. You should be ashamed. Your soul is wasted on you.”

  Indeed, Nydia thought, possession of a soul obviously did not guarantee good character. Maybe army life degraded some of those with souls so that they were indeed no better than vicious animals.

  “Strip her carefully,” the general called. “So we don’t have to mess with damaged goods. We want to savor the best bodies.”

  There was another rumbling of the Elements. They were not about to let Ecstasy be ravished.

  “It seems I must do the necessary,” Ecstasy said calmly. She caught hold of her dress and drew it down across her left shoulder, exposing that side of her bra. “Give over and get out, you ludicrous excuse for a biped.” She twitched her shoulder, making the bra move slightly.

  That did it. The general saw the fabric and froze in place. He had freaked out. Nydia was able to free herself from his slack grasp.

  Then she saw that the four officers coming toward Ecstasy were also frozen. They, too, had freaked out. Not only that, the entire front line of the army had similarly freaked. Every man looking at the stunning creature had been smitten. Ecstasy hadn’t even shown her panties; she had done it with half a bra. That had to be some kind of record.

  “Now that’s a performance like none other,” Oakley said. “I never heard of the like. You are a woman among women.”

  “I am a crafted figurine,” she replied. “Calculated to appeal to the male eye, per your directive. It’s all artificial. You know that.”

  “I was referring to your manner and poise.”

  She pulled her dress back over her bra, becoming slightly less compelling. Her lovely lips quirked. “To be sure.” Then they both laughed.

  Nydia had to agree with Oakley. Ecstasy had demonstrated remarkable presence of mind and control, quite apart from the scintillating beauty of the figurine. She had vanquished the Lost Legion without violence or injury, except for a few face hairs, in a way no other woman could have.

  They left the Legion frozen in place. There were other troops behind the officers. They would soon enough snap the leaders out of it, surely to their great embarrassment. Would they have learned their lesson? Probably not. But it had been well worth doing.

  They resumed their walk, wending ever downward toward the dread center of the Void. They passed every imaginable kind of thing. It seemed that losses had been constant throughout the history of Xanth. There were more of the swirling mists that suggested lost wits or maybe lost loves.

  Then they came to what seemed to be a kind of storm in the sky. “Not anything of mine,” Aery said.

  Pictures appeared, of children, women, couples, animals, fading in and out. They couldn’t make sense of it.

  “Lost memories,” Oakley said. “I have seen some drifting by on occasion. This must be the main repository.”

  Of course. Suddenly it was obvious. Memories were constantly being made, too many to keep, so some were inevitably lost. Also, what happened to the ones whose folk died? The really important ones were better organized and not lost.

  “You’re so smart,” Ecstasy said, squeezing his arm.

  “Do you believe that, or are you just trying to flatter me?”

  “Yes.” Then they kissed, and a little heart sailed up to join the show, making the pictures waver.

  “Are you confused, or pointlessly jealous?” Anthem asked Nydia with a suggestive background melody.

  “Yes.”

  The next section had subtly different pictures. Not exactly memories, but somehow related. Nydia was not the only one curious about this, but their nature remained obscure.

  “Lost dreams,” Oakley said.

  There was almost a common groan. Obvious!

  “Let’s each focus on a different dream,” Nerine suggested. “That way we can examine several at once. Then we all can share the best ones.”

  They agreed and faced in slightly different directions, looking at particular dreams. Nydia focused on a young man who was evidently a prince because he had a crown. He was dreaming of achieving the position of a king. But then his elder brother took it, and the dream sank into the Void. So much for that. She tried another, a young woman dreaming of being swept off her feet by a handsome virile man, a marvelous romance, only to lose him to a prettier sister. Another loss.

  “I found a piquant one,” Moonroe said. “It leaves my feelings mixed.”

  They all focused on the dream in front of him. It was of a dull-looking man sitting at a desk with a clean scroll on it. He was writing, using a large bird feather whose stem he dipped into a bottle of ink every few words. What was he up to? Nydia glanced at other faces, but they were blank. None of them saw the point of this dream.

  “An aspiring author, probably Mundane,” Oakley said, and suddenly it was obvious. Of course! Mundanes were notorious for their determined dullness. They didn’t even believe in magic! What was there for a truly dull person except imagination? So he was invoking it by writing a story or maybe even a novel. An exercise in Let’s Pretend. Regular folk had better things to do, of course.

  From the scrawl on the page rose an image that clarified as it expanded. This was the story being written, surely more interesting than the author. It was his forming dream. It was evidently a Romance, but, his muttered commentary made clear, no ordinary one. This was to be the most strikingly original romantic tale ever told. In stark summary it was Boy meets Girl, Boy loses Girl, Boy regains Girl. It was bound to wow the editor, get promptly published, and amaze the readers into a delirium of sheer delight. It would win awards galore and make the author rich, famous, and desirable. A figure of literary history. What a dream!

  He completed it and sent it off to the most prestigious publisher extant. Then he waited for the inevitable exclamations of wonder and pleasure.

  Instead, there came a slip. That was all.

  His magnum opus had been rejected! How could any publisher possibly be that stupid? They had been publishing tedious reworkings of hoary old ideas for centuries. Now they had a chance for rare originality and they bounced it?! What was the matter with them?

  But what could he do, except move on to some other line of more prestigious work, like ditch-digging or sewer-dredging? The universe was simply not ready for quality fiction.

  Thus the dream was lost, sadly.

  “But there is a codicil,” Oakley said. “A footnote.”

  “Dreams have footnotes?” Vinia asked.

  “It seems it is no ordinary dream,” he said, perusing the small print. “That slip was not paper, it was silk. In fact, it was not a rejection at all, but a garment worn by the sightly lady editor. She had taken it off and sent it to the author, whose sheer originality had so impressed her that she saw herself in the role of the Girl. All he had to do was carry it back and claim her as his prize. Boy wins Girl, as well as fame and fortune.” He grimaced. “Instead, he threw it away, forfeiting his dream.”

  “Ouch,” Vinia said.

  Could that be true? Nydia wasn’t sure, but she agreed with Moonroe: her feelings were mixed. She knew that Mundane editors were notorious for their literary ignorance, at least among writers, but this seemed a bit too fanciful. Maybe it was actually part of the dream.

  “Let’s move on,” Rob said. “We have a dream of our own to achieve.”

  He was making sense. They resumed their travel downslope, ignoring the remaining dreams. But Nydia was privately impressed by the quantity and variety of lost things here, physical, mental, and emotional. This was a realm in itself, the realm of whatever Xanth no longer had.

  They finally came to the lowest place in the region. Lost items and debris had been cleared, leaving a bare spot of rock in the center. That was all.

  “This is it?” Noletta asked.

  “I feel the flow,” Aery said. “This is the Element.”

  “But it’s nothing!”

  Aery just looked at her. Oh, of course. The Void was nothing. Obviously.

  “I think this is it,” Nydia said to the others. “I must conjure the spirit of the Void into the figurine, talk with it, and hope for the best.” Phenomenally faint as that hope might be.

  “So you must,” Ecstasy agreed. “We will wait for you at the rim.”

  “The event horizon,” Nydia agreed, feeling the chill again.

  Lilith joined the members of the group one by one, conveying them out. Nydia was glad that they were escaping the Void, but with each departure she felt more alone. Was she ever going to leave here? Or would she be Voided into nothingness? She was too nervous even to be properly afraid.

  At last, only Nydia and Anthem were left. Nydia reached into the bag, felt the original Ecstasy’s hair, turned it loose, and found the final figurine. She brought it out and propped it up against the closest rock near the center. It wasn’t ideal, but would have to do. The figurine was dourly handsome, befitting its subject.

  Lilith reappeared. “All outside,” she reported. “They pretend nonchalance, but they are seriously concerned for you.”

  “Ditto here.” As if admitting it could cure it.

  “Do you want me in your hair or on the periphery?”

  Nydia pondered briefly. “Periphery. I don’t know how he would react to a demoness.”

  “Done.” Lilith stood back. “I will report on the outcome, regardless.”

  “Thank you.” Then she thought of something else. “Anthem, how about you? You don’t have to take this risk either. Lilith can take you out to join the others.”

  “Without you, I am nothing,” the ant said, a sad chord in the background. “I prefer to remain close.”

  Nydia felt a wash of emotion. She would not be entirely alone. “Thank you. I think I love you.”

  “We are friends.” That said it all.

  Nydia nerved herself for what might be a painful final ordeal—if she even survived it. She brought out the wand. She stepped close to the central swirl, next to the figurine.

  “Void, I conjure you into this figurine.” She waved the wand. “If you care to oblige me. So we can talk, and maybe work together.” She desperately hoped.

  There was a pause. Then the figurine animated. It stood up straight. “I am here. What do you want of me?”

  It had worked! But it was only the beginning. “I am Nydia Nymph, here to recruit you to join a Quest to discover and maybe handle whatever is agitating the Elements, you included. The other four Elements have joined, but we are incomplete without you. I hope you will want to participate.” It sounded so puny, now that she was actually saying it. But what else was there?

  The figure considered, assimilating the properties of the figurine, which included a brain. “I am the Void. All lost things come to me, including treasures, memories, ideas, dreams, and power. I am the richest and mightiest entity on the planet, except for the Demon Xanth himself.”

  “You surely are,” she agreed, shivering. “I am relatively nothing, a mere nymph. Yet for the good of Xanth, I am asking you to join our effort. I will give you whatever you demand, if it is in my feeble power to provide, if you will only join. It may come to nothing anyway, but without you it will surely fail.” She was conscious as she spoke of a kind of pun, “coming to nothing” when he was the virtual god of nothing, but it could not be helped. “Please, please, I beg you, help us.”

  “I know my power,” he said. “It is virtually limitless. I am a black hole. All others fear me, as they should, even the other Elements.”

  “They do,” she agreed. This was not looking promising. “And so do I. But we need you. Please.”

  Then came the sheer hunger. “I’m so lonely.”

  She knew this was significant. It required immediate attention and action. But what? Her mind was for the moment, well, blank.

  What would Ecstasy do? She was the only complete adult woman in their group. The one with a functioning soul.

  And suddenly Nydia understood. All her brief life, her existence, her mission coalesced to a single kernel of meaning. She knew why she was here, and what the rest of her being was to be. “Oh, my!” Anthem said, with a magnificent chord in the background as she read Nydia’s mind. “You have found it.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  Nydia went to the Void figurine and enfolded him in her warm embrace. She spoke the two words that were to change everything. He was lonely? “Not anymore.” Then she held him close while he sobbed into her iridescent hair. He had everything and nothing. Material things and power, even dreams, were ultimately meaningless without companionship, understanding, and love. She was bringing him that meaning. She was filling the emptiness that even a black hole could not. She needed him for the Quest, yes. But he also needed her, for meaning. She was molding his essence, making him human, doing everything a woman could do for a man, which was infinitely more than One Thing. She would never let him down in that respect.

  “You have become a woman,” Anthem said, awed, playing a chord of accomplishment.

  Nydia realized that was true. She was transforming the Void while transforming herself. She was indeed a woman.

  Chapter 9

  Thanx

  In due course, they separated slightly and talked. Void seemed comfortable as long as he was close to Nydia. She understood why: she was the end of his abiding, eons-long loneliness. She knew him for what he was, and accepted him, something no other woman could do. He was also the end of her own isolation, though she hadn’t known it until now. If she was still good for Only One Thing, it was sustaining him and herself. That was worthy.

  “We shall call you Vol, rather than Void,” Lilith said as they prepared to rejoin the Quest. She had stayed discreetly out of sight until the two of them came to terms. Anthem, too, had stayed clear. “Short for Volney. The name means ‘Most Popular,’ perhaps a misnomer, but it will do. You don’t want to reveal your nature except when you specifically choose to.”

  Void looked at Nydia. “She is making sense,” Nydia said. “Folk will be afraid of you if they realize your identity before they come to know you as a person. It is better to be largely anonymous, normally. I will speak for you until you become familiar with our folk and our ways.” As if she hadn’t just been learning them herself since escaping the Retreat.

  “Vol,” he agreed.

  “My small companion is Anthem Ant. She will be your friend. When you touch me you will feel her musical mind.”

  He touched her hand, making the acquaintance via the contact telepathy. “I thought that was your music, Nydia.”

  “No, I am merely an obscure nymph without any such talent.”

  “Not anymore,” Anthem said with a resounding chord.

  Lilith laughed, picking up on it, and even Vol smiled. Indeed, Nydia had inadvertently vaulted to future prominence. She had become the companion of the most powerful of the five Elements. In effect, a queen consort.

  “Now let’s go meet the others,” Nydia said. “They all need to know you personally, and you need to know them. All members of the Quest must feel at ease with one another, trust each other. We face a monstrous challenge, and need to know that we can depend on one another no matter how difficult it gets. Most of them are partnered, as you and I are now.”

  “Through her you can now have friends,” Lilith said. “I have had some experience with being apart from normal society. Friends are better.”

  And Nydia realized that the demoness was lonely too. That was probably one reason she had elected to join the Quest: for the companionship, temporary as it might be. “You may flash him if you choose,” she told Lilith. “I am not the jealous type, and besides you have no chance to win him.”

  “I wouldn’t think of flashing him,” Lilith said, her dress fading to a provocative bra and panties for half a moment.

  Vol looked blank.

  “A woman’s underwear is considered sexy,” Nydia explained. “Ordinary men can freak out merely glimpsing it. You will have to fake it if some young woman tries it on you. Just freeze in place until I snap my fingers.”

  Vol froze. Nydia snapped. He reanimated. “Perfect!” Lilith said, laughing.

  “It’s one of a number of social conventions,” Nydia said. “I understand that some women freak out at tight trunks on a handsome man.”

  “I will pop you out,” Lilith said, changing to the flower form.

  “No need,” Vol said. He took Nydia’s hand. His touch was light, but she felt the immense negative power behind it. Only the fact that he was now animating a positive energy body made him safe to touch. She was holding hands with an Element.

  They walked up the slope without difficulty. She was surprised, until she realized that of course it would be this way. He was the personification of the Void, and it answered to his touch, just as the other Elements did for their personifications. Each could nullify as well as enhance.

  Soon they emerged from the perimeter, the so-called event horizon. There were the others.