“Oh, you won’t have to do it alone. Grossy volunteered to help.”

  Grossy? Their relationship was evidently progressing by bounds and leaps. But that was of course the way with men and women. The men thought they were in charge, and the women encouraged that delusion. He had volunteered? In a pork’s eye! He was doing Demesne’s will. Still, Vinia was quite impressed with the professor’s competence. She could work with him.

  “What is the mission?”

  “Merely to check on the six fronts and relay news to the assembled princesses. It seems that Grossy has a webcam you can use.”

  The webcam. Maybe she would find out what it did and how it worked. “I’ll do it, of course.”

  “Thank you, dear. I knew you would help.”

  “But Vinia has had a hard day,” Ion protested. “She has been fragmented and reassembled. She should rest tomorrow.”

  Demesne popped over, literally, and kissed him on the left ear. “What was that, dear?”

  “Nothing,” he said, plainly stunned. He was a Magician and a prince, but had become jelly.

  “Then Vinia will see to it tomorrow. Sweet dreams.” Demesne faded out.

  Vinia only hoped she would be able to manage Ion like that when she turned adult. The power of a lovely adult woman over any male of any age was a miracle to behold.

  Ion looked at her shrewdly, reading her unguarded expression. “You could already manage me like that, if you chose to.”

  Could she really? So she tried it. “Put your arms around me. Hold me close while I sleep.”

  He put his arms around her. He held her close. She dropped blissfully into slumber. “But that’s not a valid test,” he murmured as she fell. “I wanted to do that anyway.”

  Oh, well. At least she had made the effort.

  In the morning Demon Grossclout was there, immediately after they had hastily eaten. “She Who Must Be Obeyed sent me.” Just so. He thought he was joking.

  In barely half a moment they were out at the fringe. “They will invade simultaneously,” he said. “You will have to fission into six, again.”

  That meant another dose of the split personality elixir. “I am ready,” Vinia said grimly.

  “Not yet. First you must comprehend the use of the webcam.”

  Oh, yes. “I know virtually nothing about it.”

  “Precisely. You are typically ignorant. It is a type of camera that projects its images to the main receiver and large screen in the central chamber, where the princesses will be watching. Whatever you aim it at will appear there.”

  “But that’s so pedestrian it’s almost Mundane.”

  “It is borrowed technology from Mundania, yes. They use it in assorted places, such as their bedrooms.”

  “Bedrooms? But suppose they forget it’s there and show more than they are supposed to?”

  “That is exactly why it’s there. Mundanes are gluttons for illicit images. They call it upskirting. They record the pictures and play them over again later.”

  They did it on purpose? Vinia made a mental note never to forget about any webcam in her vicinity, regardless whether she wore a skirt. “Whatever works, I guess.”

  “Exactly. We don’t have time to assemble and adapt suitable magic mirrors, so must make do with that we have.”

  She would be wary of magic mirrors, too, especially small ones set on the floor. “Spell it out for me, please, so I don’t foul it up.”

  Grossclout gave Vinia the cam, which she saw was indeed a kind of camera despite Lorna Lovebug’s description. It had a lens and a handhold, and a few little buttons. “Point it at whatever seems interesting and press this button.” He pointed to a red one. “A small screen on its side will show what it is sending. That’s it.”

  “But that’s so simple even I could do it,” she said, surprised.

  “Exactly. It is largely idiotproof.”

  Was he teasing her, or speaking literally? She decided not to challenge it. “Yes.”

  “When you have oriented it on a target, and the screen confirms that it is the correct picture, press this one.” He indicated a green button.

  “What does that do?”

  “It locks the cam onto that target. It will continue filming it even if you turn away, correcting for shaky hands or whatever.”

  “That really is idiotproof!” she agreed admiringly.

  “Yes. I amended it magically, to make up for likely deficiencies in student handlers.”

  “So someone would not accidentally film a dull foot instead of aiming excitingly upskirt?”

  “Exactly.”

  She had thought she was joking. “I will try not to make that mistake.”

  “When you fission, so will it. You will be in your several hosts, but you will be able to handle this. Start when the action starts. Stop when the action stops. Speak my name if there is a specific problem.”

  “Got it,” she agreed. Then, naughtily, “Grossy.”

  He laughed. “You will be delightfully dangerous when you are mature.” He presented the vial of split personality elixir and opened it. Vapor issued forth in a faint cloud. She almost made out six parts to it.

  Vinia sniffed the cloud and fragmented. Fortunately, she was now familiar with the procedure. She focused on a single fragment, tuning out the others. “Map,” she said. It appeared. She touched the section of Thanx now marked SIRENS.

  “Hello again, Vinia,” Signal Siren said, feeling her presence.

  “Hello, Signal.”

  “What brings you here? A sweet girl like you may not like seeing what we do when annoyed.”

  Drowning invaders who intended mayhem on the Queendom of Thanx? “I think I can handle it. Just so you don’t do it to me.”

  Signal laughed. “Never to our friends. Besides, our music doesn’t work well on girls.”

  Vinia thought of something. “What about lesbians?”

  The mermaid paused to consider. “I don’t know. We tune in on males who tune in on females. It might work at half strength.”

  “There are some lesbians on our side. But they won’t be here, so maybe it will be all right.”

  “Let’s hope so. But you never answered my question. Why are you here?”

  “I have a, a webcam. It’s a Mundane device that sends pictures to a screen in Dragoman’s cave so the princesses can watch. They want to be sure the invasions are stopped.”

  “Oh, the ogres will be stopped,” Signal said confidently. “I don’t know about the other sectors.”

  “I understand that the images are recorded. Maybe we can play them again, when this is over, so you can see the other theaters.”

  “That would be nice. I understand one sector is to be defended by snails. I would like to see how they stop charging invaders.”

  “Yes.” Vinia hoped that somehow the snails would succeed. Suppose they didn’t?

  “Here they come!” Signal licked her lips as she and the other sirens swing about in the water to face the intruders.

  Vinia remembered to turn on her cam. She pressed the red button. A little picture appeared on its side, exactly as Grossclout had indicated. It showed huge hairy ogres appearing at the shore, where tree trunks were knotted and the ground was soaked in the juice of squeezed rocks, a sure sign of ogre presence. She remembered that ogres also taught young dragons the meaning of fear. And that an ogress could be so ugly that her smile could curdle milk. There was a story of an actress who emulated an ogress so well that her smile even curdled water. Nobody messed with an ogre!

  “Mee see Shee!” an ogre cried. “Mee free Shee!” He looked to be the ugliest of the lot, which made him the leader. Vinia realized that she was hearing the voice via the cam: it was filming sound, too.

  This was the right scene. She pressed the green button. Nothing changed. She experimented, shaking the webcam. The picture did not shake. She faced away. The picture remained focused on the ogre. This was an impressive device.

  The other ogres halted in place. It seemed the first one had reserved the right to “free” the mermaid, whatever that meant in ogre terms. Maybe to make free with her.

  “I believe that’s us,” Signal said, pleased. “We’re closest to him.”

  So it seemed, though that did not thrill Vinia the way it did Signal. But she was just an observer. She kept the cam oriented and running, sending the picture. She hoped that she would not inadvertently find herself in anything forbidden by the Conspiracy. She might get goosed right out of her host and ruin the filming.

  Meanwhile Signal faced the ogre squarely with her double circles up front. “Are you looking for me, big boy?” she called.

  The ogre answered by splashing into the water, to his knees, thighs, belly, and chest. He was twice the height of a human man, so could handle deep water. But now he paused, because the depth ahead was beyond his height.

  Whereupon Signal started singing. Her voice was strong and weird, sounding a bit like a charging Mundane machine, but it had a weird appeal. The ogre heard it and immediately plunged on toward her, his gaze fixed on her circles. He was making progress; it seemed that the tips of his hairy toes were able to just touch the bottom, propelling him forward with his nose just above the surface.

  Signal smiled and flicked her tail, moving slowly backward, into deeper water. The ogre followed, now actually swimming, though it was clear that he didn’t know how to swim: he just bashed the water with his limbs, bumbling forward. He almost reached the siren.

  Then the first stir of the forming whirlpool caught them. Signal floated comfortably, twitching her tail just enough to maintain her position. But the ogre was caught by the current and carried away. In a moment he went under, leaving only the remnant of an unruly splash on the surface. He was gone, drowned.

  The ogres at the shore were staring. They had seen what happened. Surely, they couldn’t be stupid enough to go into that deep water themselves!

  Then Vinia remembered: ogres were justifiably proud of their stupidity.

  Signal swished her tail to heave her superstructure mostly clear of the water. “Who is next?” she called. “Any volunteers?”

  They hesitated. Then she inhaled. They lumbered forward as one, plowing into the deeper water, their eyes reflecting swelling circles. But when they reached the limit that allowed them to breathe, they paused.

  Several other sirens appeared, spaced in a line extending to either side of Signal. They all heaved their bodies up high and inhaled. The webcam’s peripheral vision showed them, too.

  The ogres stumbled forward. But the water rose to splash into their eyes so that they couldn’t see well, and they thrashed in the water in place.

  The sirens started singing. That did it: the ogres somehow made it to the deeper water, almost in reach. And the current caught them. They were gone.

  More ogres appeared on the shore. This was after all an invading army. But now there was an ogress among them. “You idiots!” she called. “It’s their song that mesmerizes you!” She was speaking normally; it seemed that ogres didn’t have to speak in spot rhymes. “Stuff your ears with mud! So you can’t hear them.”

  The ogres heeded her. Maybe she was somebody’s mother. She was certainly ugly: it looked as if the water at her feet was trying to curdle. The males reached down by their feet and hauled up huge masses of mud and weeds. They jammed them into their flaring ears. Uh-oh. This would nullify the siren’s main weapon.

  Then the sirens sank down below the surface. The cam’s picture remained focused, as if it were still above the water. This was an impressive device!

  Signal stretched her tail out straight. Slowly it thinned in the center and divided, forming a tail-long split. She could make legs! She produced a pair of panties from somewhere, reached forward as she brought her half-tails up, and pulled the panties over her flukes, then up along the tails until they covered where her bottom should be. The parts of her tail were still touching each other, and they really were not great legs, but she did have the panties on.

  She swam back up to the surface. The ogres were advancing. Signal waved at them to get the attention of the closest ones. Then she faced away, ducked her head and chest down under the water, and lifted her pantied bottom, flashing them. The other sirens were doing the same. Their legs might not be great, but their bottoms were. The webcam continued to focus.

  The ogres freaked out. But that didn’t do the job, because they just stood in place, unmoving. So the sirens looped about, swam across, and pushed the ogres into the deeper water. Soon they were gone.

  More ogres appeared. The ogress faced them. “Turn around!” she cried. “Go home! This sector is impassable!”

  The ogres obediently turned and departed. The ogress turned to face the sirens. “Well played, you fishtailed floozies. We didn’t know you had backsides.” Then she too departed.

  The battle had been won. The ogres had been balked. They surely would not try it again. The ogresses wouldn’t let them.

  Vinia remembered to turn off the webcam. The picture ended. “I have to go,” she told Signal. “But we’ll meet again, maybe later today.”

  “I will be expecting you,” the siren agreed. “Thanks for your help getting us here.”

  They exchanged air kisses. Then Vinia spoke to the ring. “Map.”

  It appeared. She touched the section marked NICKELPEDES.

  Vinia instantly was back with Nimbus Nickelpede. “Hello again,” she said.

  “Hello, Vinia. Is it time?”

  “Just about. The goblins are scheduled to charge.”

  “We are ready for them. We have nests of us scattered across this sector.”

  Vinia looked around. This was a pleasant valley, with a small deep river meandering casually in the center, as if not in a hurry to get anywhere. It hardly resembled a battlefield.

  There was the sound of a horn. It had undertones of wind escaping an intestine. It was the signal for the goblin army to charge.

  The goblins appeared in a solid line, running into the field. Vinia turned on the webcam. The picture appeared. She touched the green lock-on button.

  “What is that?” Nimbus asked.

  Vinia explained. Meanwhile the goblin wave was almost upon them. The goblin soldiers had nasty little clubs.

  The nearest soldier rushed into Nimbus’s section. She leaped onto his foot and gouged out a nickle-sized scoop. She tasted it, frowning. “I’ve had better!” she said, dumping it out. “He really ought to wash his feet before offering them to us.”

  “Owww!!” the goblin screamed, putting two whole exclamation points into it. He reached down to grab Nimbus off his foot. His fingers closed on her body. She bit one. “Owww!!!”

  Then other nickelpedes jumped on, gouging at his feet, hands, and bottom. “Oooww!!!!”

  In barely nine-tenths of a moment the goblin was scrambling back off the field of combat, shedding nickelpedes galore. The same was happening across the field. The goblins had been routed.

  “Well, that was easy,” Nimbus said with satisfaction.

  Then more goblins appeared. They charged forward exactly as the others had. Hadn’t the word spread?

  Nimbus leaped on to the foot of the goblin who came her way. She started to gouge. “Yuck!!” she exclaimed, summoning her own second exclamation point.

  “What’s the matter?” Vinia asked.

  “He’s wearing nickelpede repellent. I can’t handle that. Neither can the others.”

  Uh-oh. So the goblins had a backup plan and were protecting their second wave. Something had to be done in a hurry, or the goblins would get through.

  Vinia spoke to the ring. “Grossclout.”

  The Demon professor appeared before them. “Problem?”

  “The goblins are wearing repellent. Ion should have an elixir to nullify that. Can you check with him and bring it here?”

  Grossclout didn’t answer. He merely vanished.

  “They’re bashing us with their clubs, now that we can’t scoop them,” Nimbus said, scuttling aside as a club smashed down. “We can’t hold out much longer.”

  Grossclout was back. “Prince Ion is temporarily short on nullifying elixir. He sent a substitute, but you may not want that.”

  “What could be worse than getting bashed?”

  “It is essence of stink horn aroma. Goblins hate it as much as humans do.”

  “Oh, my!” Vinia tuned mentally to Nimbus. “Can you handle stink horn smell?”

  “Oh, sure. We merely turn off our noses.”

  “Let it rip,” Vinia told the demon.

  The professor opened the vial. The dreadful stench poured out in putrid waves, soon suffusing the area.

  “Ghaaa!” the closest goblin gagged. Soon others were gagging similarly. It seemed that they couldn’t just turn off their noses. Too bad for them.

  The goblins tried to use their clubs to fan away the odor, but it roiled up, blanketing them. They had to retreat, but the reek pursued them. They started jumping into the river to wash it off, but the moment their heads appeared above the surface, the stench dropped down to smother them. Finally, they fled back to their section of the field. Only then did the smell settle down for a rest.

  It seemed the battle had been won after all. Vinia turned off the webcam.

  Queen Nitro scuttled across to join them. “Did you summon that fetor?” she demanded, recognizing Vinia within Nimbus.

  “I did,” Vinia confessed, embarrassed.

  “Good girl! It is sinking into the turf and will be there if the gobs ever return. Meanwhile we’ll go out after them in hunting parties when we’re hungry. What a turnabout!” Queen Nitro moved on.

  So it was all right after all.

  “We knew you would come through for us,” Nimbus said.