“Point made. Get me out of this, and I will owe you one giant favor.”

  “We will do our best.” Then he thought of something else. “Did you happen to see a plaque lying around?”

  “I did. I didn’t know what it meant, as I can’t read, so I put it in my pocket. Maybe Gina will read it for me.”

  So now the plaque was invisible, and unreachable, until they could recover it from Geode.

  Nolan tuned out, knowing that the giant would take hours to even miss him.

  “Ghorgeous is back,” Apoca said.

  A ghostly mouth appeared. “I am,” it said. “The coven is sending a party to investigate. I will guide them in.” The mouth closed and faded out.

  “Well, now,” a witchly voice said.

  It was Two, the young witch who had assisted at the cauldron. She was sitting cross-legged on a flying carpet, her nice bare legs trying to extend from under her black cloak and succeeding nicely. Behind her sat Witches One and Three, similarly cross-legged. They were the three youngest and prettiest of the coven, and evidently liked to display their forms when not under the censorious eyes of Thirteen.

  “Two has a magic carpet,” Aurora said. “It’s safer for longer hauls than their brooms, and they can carry more.”

  “Gent!” purple-haired Three cried. “Fancy meeting you here!”

  They were incidentally the three who had nighted with Gent. That had to be why they had volunteered for this spot mission. They also cast covert glances at Nolan, just in case. Three also exchanged a glance with Vinia, whom she had helped at the coven.

  Apoca assumed a stern expression very like that of Thirteen. “You are here on business. That is your first priority.”

  “Yes’m,” One agreed contritely as the three got off the carpet and their shapely legs retreated under their cloaks.

  “Have you a sufficient notion why you are here?”

  “To investigate the situation and report back so that Thirteen can assign the appropriate personnel,” One said.

  Apoca glanced at Nolan. He was on protagonist duty again. “We have here an invisible giant by the name of Geode. He is bogged down by slowsand. He has the tablet we seek. But mainly we want to help him so he can return to his girlfriend, Gina. Do you know how to extricate him from his plight?”

  “Darn,” Two said. “We were afraid that would be it. We’ll have to contact Sandy.”

  “Who?”

  “Sandy is a sand witch,” Three said. “But she’s not in our coven. She’s a loner, not part of any coven, and tough as thumbtacks. It will be bleep to deal with her.”

  “A sand witch,” Apoca repeated. “She makes sandwiches to eat?”

  Nolan saw the obvious pun. This was after all the pun zone.

  Three smiled. “No, she works with sand.”

  “We don’t need more sand, we need less.”

  “She has power over sand,” Three explained, as if talking to a child. “She can change slowsand to quicksand.”

  Oho! “We’ll negotiate with her,” Nolan said. “There must be something she really wants that we can provide.”

  Three glanced at him in a purple-eyed way that made Apoca frown. “What every witch wants. A man of her very own. Not a lout, not a visiting warlock, but a real man, like you. Not for a one-night stand, but to keep indefinitely, always at her beck and scream. But she’s not young and sexy, so men are scarce. She’s more like Thirteen.”

  Uh-oh. “She’s right,” Aurora said. “You’d be perfect for Sandy. Three is a good judge of that sort of thing. She sees adults as matured children, and that’s a fair guide.”

  “I am not available,” Nolan replied grimly. Were he uncommitted, a witch like Three herself could have been tempting, and not just because of her lovely hair and eyes, but a witch like Thirteen, competent as she was, not so much.

  “We seem to be at an impasse,” Apoca said. Nimbus was surely keeping her abreast of the private dialogue.

  A mouth appeared by Nolan’s ear. Not Ghorgeous’s mouth. “You are missing the oblivious,” Metria’s voice said.

  “Oh, for bleep’s sake!” Nolan swore. “You were supposed to be gone, demoness.”

  “I was supposed to leave you solitary. That’s not the same. Now I can help you. Then you will owe me one.”

  “Owe you what?” Apoca demanded grimly.

  “Let’s bargain. One night with Nolan, my inaugural?”

  “Initiative,” Gent supplied.

  Apoca looked as if she wanted to chomp someone’s tail. “One second with him.”

  The bargaining was on. Nolan stayed out of it. He hadn’t realized that the demoness had any such interest in him. Maybe she didn’t and was just mischievously teasing to make Apoca jealous. Maybe.

  “One hour?” the demoness bid.

  “One minute.”

  “One kiss?”

  Apoca hesitated. She had, after all, phenomenally kissed the Demon Chaos, so was in an awkward position to deny Nolan that. “A shallow one. Lasting no longer than a minute.”

  “Done.”

  “After you help us,” Apoca said. “And it had better be good.”

  “Here is the obvious you missed,” Metria said. “There is a spare fusion-powered robot crafted in Nolan’s exact likeness and manner. It can’t change to serpently or fishly forms, but it can emulate his human form marvelously well, and can be programmed to become a virtual love slave to Sandy Witch. Ask Emperor Fusion for it.”

  Apoca clapped her hand to her forehead. “Bleep! That’s it!”

  Metria turned to Nolan, her hair, eyes, and lips turning a shade of purple. What a tease she was! “One minute,” she murmured. There was something portentous in her tone.

  A deal was a deal. The demoness had earned it. Apoca was holding a start watch. It was his turn to deliver. Nolan took the marvelously supple figure in his arms and kissed her evocative lips.

  She kissed him back, steamy heat radiating from her mouth. Her compelling torso pressed against his, feeling amazingly close. In fact, he realized that her cloak had dissolved where it touched him, forming into wondrously firm bare breasts where they didn’t show to others, and impure nudity below.

  Then her face changed, becoming that of another woman, a weirdly fascinating one. “She got stepped on long ago by a sphinx,” Aurora reported, reading the demoness’s mind. “That split her into three forms. Metria with the speech impediment, Mentia who is slightly crazy, and a sad child named Woe Betide. This is Mentia.”

  Indeed, the torso was massaging his body, even through the clothes he wore, in ways no sane body could. The sex appeal was, well, demented.

  Then it changed again. He found himself intimately kissing a child. Woe Betide was taking her turn. He tried to pull back his face, but now her hand was behind his head, holding it firmly in place. He was stuck in seeming violation of the Adult Conspiracy. Fortunately he knew the demoness was eons old, regardless of her form.

  “Time!” Apoca rapped.

  The creature disengaged, now the fully clothed Metria. “Thank you for an adorable happening,” she murmured. “Mayhem we will meet again, off-camera.” For an instant the face of Mentia flashed, licking her plaid-colored lips, her eyes pools of passionate madness.

  “Now, fade out,” Apoca said tightly. Had the bugs relayed the details of the kiss to her? He feared they had. He couldn’t blame her for being annoyed. Metria was not in the same league as Chaos, but she had her moment, or rather minute.

  The demoness faded. The last thing to go was her satisfied smile, floating above her chasm-deep cleavage. She had had her will of him, in her fashion.

  They got busy. Ghorgeous popped off to see Emperor Fusion while Nolan joined the three witches on their carpet, heading for the sand witch. They placed him in the center and pressed closely on three sides, their crossed legs forming a six-way knee brace against his body. No panties showed, quite, but they were threatening. “We don’t want you falling off,” Three explained.

  Apoca did not look thrilled but did not protest. She trusted him. It was the witches she didn’t trust.

  They took off with a jerk like that of a tablecloth yanked off the table, leaving the place settings unmoved. Nolan would have been left behind if the soft bodies of the witches had not braced him as they leaned forward and clasped hands around him. He tried to avoid looking down into their drooping necklines.

  Then they sailed up, up, and away, flying high into the sky. The landscape of Xanth coursed below them. Not that he could see it well, past the close trio. There was entirely too much to see already.

  “Uh-oh,” Three said. She was clearly the senior witch here. “Fracto.”

  Fracto. That meant the mischievous storm cloud, Cumulo Fracto Nimbus, who liked to rain on parades and anything else festive. How had he known they were here?

  “He must have seen us coming in,” One said.

  “And known we’d be skyborne soon again,” Two said.

  “He always did like to play wettee shirt with young witches,” Three said.

  “Not that we minded much,” One said.

  They raced the carpet forward, but the storm angled across to intercept them. Violent gusts battered them so that they had to cling close around Nolan to hold him in place. They did not seem to mind doing this. Actually, neither did he.

  They did manage to outpace the storm but did get caught by a soaking splash of rain. Wettee shirts indeed! They looked phenomenal, but he pretended not to notice. Not that he was fooling them.

  “We’ll have to dry off,” Three said with cheerful resignation. “We hope you don’t mind.”

  “I’m a naga. I’ll change to serpent mode so my own clothes can dry. Assuming you don’t object to having a big snake on your rug.”

  “We understand,” Three said, sounding faintly disappointed. Had they really expected to have him naked in man form on their carpet? Amid three naked girls? All pressed together as they flew?

  “They had hoped,” Aurora said. “But they’re good sports. They appreciate what you did for the coven, including their nights with Gent. They just wanted more if they could get it. So did Metria.”

  Nolan had gathered as much. Witches and demonesses were notorious in that respect. Seduction was part of their nature.

  He changed, and they extracted his wet clothing from the pouch, stepping over his coils without aversion. They held his things up to the sunlight along with their own clothing. Aurora remained hidden in the pouch. That was just as well, as she knew the effect the bare bodies had on him even in serpent form. “Not that I would tell,” the ant said, amused.

  The sun was bright, and soon everything was dry. Then they dressed, and he changed to man form and dressed, providing them an unavoidable peek or three in the process. They pretended not to notice, per the protocol.

  Just in time, for now they were gliding down to the sand witch’s abode. “No need to mention the weather on the flight,” he said.

  “No need,” Three agreed. Hopes and games were fun, as were sneak peeks, but nobody else’s business.

  They landed on the small beach of what had evidently once been a sea. As the climate changed the sand had blown into dunes. Atop one dune was an old house, not exactly haunted but in significant disrepair. Behind it was a grove of witch-hazel shrubs and trees. This was obviously the place for a sand witch.

  “This you must handle on your own,” Three told him. “She does not much like coven witches, but she does like men.”

  “Thank you. Wait here for my return.” Nolan marched up the dune toward the rickety house, putting on his most princely mien.

  The witch surely saw him coming but elected not to respond. He came to stand at the front door. “Ho, honored Sand Witch,” he called. “I am Prince Nolan Naga, and I have need of your assistance. May I enter your domain?” He was pretty sure his appearance and manner would impress her.

  It did. She appeared at the door, a witchly hag in a typical black cloak and hood, her broom at her side. He knew she was ready to use it on him if he made a wrong move. “What do you want with me, crossbreed prince?”

  “I want to rescue an invisible giant who is stuck in slowsand. Is this something you can handle?”

  “Certainly. But I do not exert myself for nothing. What do you offer in return for my expertise?”

  “She is already half-smitten by your handsomeness. She’s hoping for romantic interest,” Aurora said. “But she knows this is unlikely, especially since you aren’t just any man, you’re a prince. Her forbidden fancy is warring with her realism.”

  Just so. “I have an unusual offer, which requires some explanation. Why don’t you invite me inside, put on your pretty face, and we’ll talk.”

  She cackled. “You have dealt with witches before.”

  “I have. Some of them have impressed me.” Such as the three who had brought him here.

  “I’ll bet. Very well, come in and make yourself at home. I will be with you as soon as I change.” She stepped back from the door, muttering a null spell so that he could pass through without injury.

  He did so and found himself in a comfortable chamber with a pleasant couch. He eased himself onto it and waited.

  A mature but lovely woman appeared, garbed in clinging black lace. This was Sandy with her pretty face, magic common to witches. Her pointed hat was now a lacy little bonnet, her scraggly tangle of hair now glossy black tresses curling languorously down past her tiny waist, and her warty beak nose was straight and small. Her baggy front had become a bold bosom showing just enough curvature inside the low neckline to invite closer attention. The broom had been replaced by a miniature of itself, on a delicate necklace, suspended over a compelling chasm.

  “Allow me to compliment you on your presentation,” he said, reaching out to touch her hand in appreciation. That also provided Aurora with a stronger connection. “You would be tempting indeed, were I on the market.”

  “Thank you.” She took an impressive breath. “What is the nature of your offer?”

  “I tease myself that I would like to get to know you more intimately, circumstances being otherwise, and that you might even be amenable to such an association.”

  She laughed, and this time it was like the musical tinkling of little bells. “What is the nature of your offer?” she repeated. Translation: stop teasing and get on with it. She knew he was here for business, not flirtation.

  “Recently I passed through the territory of the robots. Are you familiar with them?”

  She crossed her legs under her brief skirt, providing him another potent flash. “Wood-burning all the way through fusion. We have had peripheral dealings.”

  “I encountered a fusion emulation of my fiancée that was so apt it almost fooled me. Similarly, my fiancée was with one that emulated me with corresponding accuracy. They were attempting to deceive us and seduce us without our knowing that we were not with each other.”

  “They are good at simulations,” she agreed. “How did you catch on?”

  “We are bugged. Allow me to introduce my companion, Aurora Ant.”

  Aurora showed herself on his shoulder, then formed a dream picture of herself as a lovely woman. “I am telepathic, which is why I can read your mind and form a fantasy picture you can see.”

  “Ah. I have encountered your kind also.” She glanced at Nolan. “She is the reason you are targeting me so accurately.”

  “Yes. You can’t have me, but the robots owe us a favor and we may be able to borrow the robot that simulates me. He would not be able to change to my ancestral forms as I do, nor would he have a telepathic bug as his companion. He would be relatively limited. But he could be programmed to adore your every nuance, whatever your appearance, and to be chronically eager to make love to you. He could also serve as a guard by day and night so that you would not have to keep your broom close at hand when dealing with strangers.”

  She smiled brilliantly, her teeth actually sparkling. “I will make your deal, with two caveats. First, get me that robot, appropriately programmed, on indefinite leave. Second, kiss me.”

  Victory! But he was cautious. “My fiancée might not understand that latter.”

  “The queen of the Lips tribe will understand perfectly and be annoyed. But she is realistic, as queens are.”

  So the witch had her own sources of information. Apoca would indeed understand, and be annoyed, as she had been with Metria, but she would tolerate it.

  “Agreed.” He stood, she stood, and they approached each other. He braced himself for a kiss to rival that of Metria. He took her in his arms, lowered his face to hers, and kissed her.

  Her kiss was almost chaste, with no erotic undertones. It was as if she had never been kissed before. How could that be?

  It ended and they separated. He looked at her, unsettled.

  “I have kissed many times before,” she explained. “For business, never for romance. With you I prefer to pretend that we are as we look, an innocent maiden and an interested prince. Not an ugly witch and a crossbreed male in human guise. Let me have my moment of fond illusion.”

  “She is telling the truth,” Aurora said.

  “I like your moment,” he said candidly. “Now I must contact the robots. This may take a while.”

  She reverted to hag form. “First we rescue the giant.”

  He was surprised. “You don’t want payment in advance?”

  “I trust you.”

  “Truth,” Aurora said. “She knows you are a creature of your word. So is she.”

  Nolan suffered a pang of appreciation. “Bear with me, please.” He took the crone in his arms and kissed her passionately. Now she was the one surprised. She was stiff for half an instant, then melted.