They broke. She took an unsteady breath. “That never happened before to that aspect.”

  Then he realized that her appearance had changed again. She was now an ordinary woman, neither hideous nor exquisite, with an average broom. “Your real appearance,” he said, catching on. “Both witch and beauty are simulations.”

  “Your gesture jolted me out of simulations for the moment. I will remember it in my dreams.” She shrugged as realism reasserted itself. “Time to get on with business.”

  They left the house and walked down to the three young witches. “Sandy, these are One, Two, and Three, from Coven-19. They brought me here. Girls, this is Sandy Sand Witch, who has agreed to help the giant escape the slowsand.”

  “So nice to meet you, witches,” Sandy said with cold formality. “Thank you for bringing the prince here. Now I will follow you to the giant.”

  The three, surprised, made a place for him on the carpet. They took off, and Sandy followed on her broom.

  “She doesn’t look nearly as bad as we expected,” Three said.

  “She has a hag form she uses for business, but we compromised. She’s actually a decent sort.”

  Fracto, the cloud they had outraced, remained where they had left him. He spied them and swelled ominously. This time it had the way securely blocked. They were in for another wetting and maybe a windy dumping.

  Sandy circled past them and flew to intercept it. “Begone, foggy-bottom!” she screeched. “Don’t make me hex you again.”

  Fracto, evidently cowed, withdrew. They passed him without even a nasty gust. He was afraid of Sandy.

  “She can conjure up a sandstorm that will really sandbag him,” Aurora reported.

  “She is a decent sort,” Two said, surprised.

  “More likely she didn’t want to get drenched herself,” One said. But she, too, seemed impressed.

  They came to where Apoca, Vinia, Gent, and Ghorgeous waited. There were quick introductions. Then Sandy strode to the verge of the slowsand. She brought out a small bag of powder and blew it into the breeze over the sand. It drifted down onto and into the sand around the invisible giant. The sand seemed to boil, at first on the surface, then deeper down. “Talk to him,” she told Nolan. “Tell him the slowsand is changing to quicksand, so he can wade out faster.”

  Aurora renewed the connection. “Geode!” Nolan called. “The slowsand around your feet is changing to quicksand. You will be out very soon. Go see your girlfriend, Gina.”

  “After I do you a return favor. What is it?”

  “Take us to the robot domain,” Aurora said for Nolan. “We have business there.”

  Suddenly the sand sucked downward with a loud slurp as the giant stepped out of it at warp speed. “He’s out and back to normal as he sheds the quicksand,” Aurora said. “He is putting a hand down.” She made a dream picture of the hand.

  Nolan, Apoca, Vinia, and Gent climbed onto the hand, where Ghorgeous joined them. The three witches flew their carpet to the other hand, and the sand witch joined them there. Then Geode lifted them all up, curling his fingers so they could grab on to them for steadiness.

  “The bugs updated me,” Apoca murmured. “You were right to kiss her, both times. She’s lonely. She will never forget.”

  “You’re not annoyed?”

  “Are you annoyed when I kiss males?”

  “That’s business.”

  “Just so.”

  Aurora guided the giant, who strode at high speed to the robot domain. As they neared it, the bugs reached out to the newly telepathic robots and advised them of the situation. When they arrived most of a moment later, the fusion emperor and his retinue were assembled in the main square.

  “He has an ant!” Aurora exclaimed. “Adora Water Ant.”

  A powerful mind impinged on Nolan’s own. The dream image of a spectacular queenlike human woman appeared, complete with a crown of watercress and a liquidly clinging dress. “Hello, handsome crossbreed.” Her long tresses were translucent, concealing none of her fine lines.

  “Hello, pretty ant,” Nolan replied. “You must give the emperor seductive dreams.”

  “Like none he ever before imagined. He wanted to understand what living men see in women. He is learning.”

  “He clearly has an excellent teacher.”

  Nolan and Apoca Robot were there. “We are happy to return the favor you did us,” the emperor said. “The set of them are now programmed to serve Sandy Witch.”

  “All I asked for was the male robot,” Sandy protested.

  “But you can surely also use a maidservant to accomplish the household chores, fetch wood for the cauldron, stir potions, sew patches, and such,” Apoca Robot said. “Not to mention distracting brute males who come to make demands. While you are occupied with your own passions.” She glanced meaningfully at Nolan Robot, who refracted it to Sandy with candid male interest. The glance glanced off the side of her face but evidently had an impact.

  Sandy opened her mouth to protest further, but as the advantages sank in, she stifled it. She looked directly at Nolan Robot, who returned a look of ardent desire. “Welcome to the household, both of you.”

  Meanwhile, the three young witches were admiring the other male robots, who were returning the looks with dawning appreciation. “Maybe we’ll visit a night,” Three said. “Are any of you interested in witchcraft?”

  “We are interested in establishing relations,” the emperor said. “We have accommodations available at the palace.”

  The three gladly accepted the fellowship of three humanoid robot males and accompanied them to the palace.

  “Thank you,” Nolan said to the emperor. “We are quite satisfied with our exchange.”

  “As are we. Our acquisition of telepathic communications is significantly helping our situation, along with our dreams.” The image of Adora reappeared, this time with her decolletage dissolving into colored water.

  “You bet he dreams,” Aurora said.

  The emperor departed, along with his retinue. They seemed interested in getting to know the young witches better.

  “I am ready to return home,” Sandy said, unlimbering her broom. “Do you robots have traveling mechanisms?”

  “We do,” Nolan Robot said. A hatch on the top of his head slid open, and a propeller emerged. It broadened to umbrella size and revved up to high velocity. He rose slowly into the air. Apoca Robot lifted similarly.

  Sandy mounted her broom and took off. The two robots followed, pacing her. In four-fifths of a moment the three were disappearing over the horizon.

  Nolan and Apoca connected another glance. They had had no idea the robots could do that. They had been in bed with those machines?

  They returned to the giant’s hand, along with Gent and Vinia. In the remaining fifth of the moment they were on their way.

  Soon they were back in the swamp where they had rescued the giant. He set them down carefully. “Now I will visit Gina.”

  “She will be glad to see you, if you can see each other,” Apoca said. “Give her our good regards.”

  “I shall.” He reached into a pocket, then set something down and departed. The bugs showed him in faint outline.

  “The green path is this way,” Vinia said, stepping forth. Then she halted. “Oh.”

  They looked. There was the object Geode had put on the ground.

  It was the plaque they had momentarily forgotten about. It said here.

  Chapter 12

  Demons

  They gazed at the plaque. “It marks the path,” Vinia said. “Bright green. The Dwarf Demon of Talents must be at the end of this one.”

  “And we still have no idea, really, how to handle him,” Apoca said. The batoness had lighted as they saw the plaque while the baton went dark. She was now the protagonist. It must be a new chapter of their story.

  “I’m excited,” Batoness printed. “Not necessarily positive interaction with a capital-D Demon. There’s no telling what he might do, that you will be powerless to prevent.”

  “Exactly,” Apoca agreed sourly.

  She looked at Nolan. “Are we ready for this?”

  “Do we have a choice?” He looked no happier than she felt.

  “Not really.” Because they still had no idea how to handle the Dwarf Demon.

  She turned to Gent and Vinia. “It may get dangerous. If you prefer to exit the Quest at this stage, feel free.”

  “My path is green,” Vinia said. That meant she was staying.

  “I go where you go,” Gent said.

  “I will release you, Gent. You have served well and do not need to be exposed any longer.” She stepped up to him and kissed him with the counter-kiss. She felt the energy crossing to him, nullifying the special kind of curse she had put on him, returning his natural emotion to him.

  He swayed half a moment as the power of the kiss took hold, then steadied. “Thank you. It has been a pleasure serving you. I am no longer compelled. But this Quest is essential and still needs to be accomplished. I will see it through.”

  Surprised, she nodded. “You’re a good man.” She turned to Nolan. “The presumption is that we will survive because we have a daughter in the future.”

  “I agree. But she has no talent apart from the Lips kiss and the ability to assume the forms of her ancestry. We need to be sure others have different talents. The Quest continues.”

  “Lead on, Vinia.”

  The girl walked on along the path. It led quickly out of the swamp and into a jungle. Sinister trees crowded in, and there were ominous sounds, as of hungry dragons and muck monsters. Large wide-set eyes appeared in the shadows, staring speculatively at them. Apoca tried to mask her shiver.

  Now there was a sign: you are entering the neverglades.

  “Why are they called that?” Apoca asked.

  “Because once you enter them, you may never get out again,” Gent said.

  “That’s encouraging,” she said wryly.

  “This is the route,” Vinia said. “Green as long as we stay right on it.”

  They kept going. What other choice was there? Their challenge was not the path but the Demon at its end.

  Nolan reached out and plucked a small fruit from an offering branch. “Nuh-uh,” Vinia said. “That’s red.”

  “But it’s brown,” he said, for the moment forgetting her talent.

  “It is a back date,” Gent said. “A time-traveling fruit. You don’t know when it will take you.”

  Oh. he was also forgetting that they were in the pundemic zone. They had not run afoul of too many puns yet, but it was bound to get worse as they approached the Demon. Talents was hiding where no one in his right mind would go, because the puns were bound to make it wrong.

  The path wound around to a halfway pleasant cottage set on an island in the swamp. A little old lady was working in her garden. “Hello,” Apoca called as they went, being sociable. “We are on a Quest, just passing through. I am Apoca of the Lips tribe.”

  “Hello, Apoca,” the woman replied. “I am Aunt Ti Dote. But I don’t have the remedy for your notorious kiss.”

  “Antidote,” Gent murmured. “She surely sells cures for routine ailments.”

  “But I do have a body.” She stood up straight to show off her fine figure.

  “Auntie body,” Gent said. “Antibody.”

  A pun person galore. “I won’t kiss anyone in your area,” Apoca promised. They walked on.

  Then came a man with a pile of papers. “Get your ballots here, for the big election,” he called. “Vote by male, vote by female. I have male-in and female-in ballots.”

  Apoca repressed a groan, knowing they could not afford to let the puns get to them. “Thank you, but we are outsiders, not voting.” They hurried on.

  The forest closed in on the path, the trees all colors. They looked like pines or firs, except for that.

  “Ever trees,” Gent said. “Evergreens, everreds, everoranges, yellows, blues, whites, blacks, browns, tans, purples, silvers—”

  “We get the picture,” Apoca said.

  A man ran by, looking ill. “Help! I’m covid with germs!”

  “Go see Aunt Ti Dote!” Nolan called after him.

  How much more of this could they take?

  Then a boy ran up to Apoca. “You’re a Lips woman!”

  She was cautious. “So I am. Are you looking for a kiss?”

  He laughed. “No! But I’m a fan of yours. My name is Tom.”

  “Fan Tom,” Gent murmured. “Phantom.”

  Oh. a spook masquerading as a person. “Thank you, Tom. Now, get on home.”

  The spook realized he had been discovered. He faded out.

  Vinia halted. “The green goes straight through the jungle, but it is tinged with red. I don’t think it’s completely safe, even if we stay on the path. The green shows the best way, but it can’t make the best way risk-free.”

  Apoca had been afraid of that. So far the puns had been fairly innocent, but that would not always be the case. Some places or some folk simply were not benign; Dwarf Demon Talents was surely an example. She turned to Nolan. “It seems we’ll have to gamble, if we want to continue.”

  “Then gamble we shall, in the interest of completing our mission.” He grimaced, as tired of the puns as she was. “I can change to serpent form. Not many creatures of any size will care to take me on because some serpents are poisonous. But that may not completely protect you or the others.”

  She agreed with his assessment. “I think we need to go outside the box.”

  “Your saying that makes me nervous.”

  She laughed. “Maybe you’re coming to know me too well. I can indeed be a devious female. That is surely part of what you like about me.” She saw his agreement in his posture. “Here is my notion: you change to that serpent form and hiss for serpent company. Can you do that?”

  “Yes. There’s no guarantee the serpent will be small or friendly.”

  “Exactly. We want a big one. A monster one that moves well.”

  “Maybe an ATV?”

  “A what?”

  “An Awful Toothsome Viper. They’re the worst. They can handle any terrain. Nothing can escape them.”

  “That’s ideal. Then you distract it so I can kiss it.”

  “Oho! Like the sea monster.”

  “Yes. Only this one’s to ride.”

  He frowned. “Kissing it may be difficult. They can be cunning brutes.”

  “That’s why I need the distraction.”

  He sighed. “I guess it makes sense. But be ready to dodge. This ain’t widdlytinks.”

  “It sure ain’t,” she agreed with a grim smile.

  He looked at the others. “Seem like a plan?”

  “Just be careful,” Vinia said nervously. “The colors around you are wildly mixed.”

  So was her hair, Apoca suspected. “You too, bugs. Do you have any input?”

  “We can read a monster’s mind,” Nimbus said. “But monsters typically don’t have real minds. They are driven mostly by hunger, fear, or lust.”

  “So maybe the viper won’t see the trap coming.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed uneasily.

  “An ATV is too big for me to toast,” Aurora said. “My fire would only annoy it, if it felt it at all.”

  “But maybe you bugs could project something interesting to it, like a female viper.”

  “If the ATV is male,” Nimbus said.

  “Let’s hope.” Nolan changed to serpent form. Then he issued a kind of hissing whistle.

  “We can enhance that mentally,” Aurora said from the protective pouch. “Make it seem female.”

  “Good idea,” Apoca said.

  The hissing continued. “Something hears it,” Nimbus said. “It’s coming.”

  The hissing continued. So did the sounds of an approaching monster. Apoca gestured Gent and Vinia back to hide behind a tree.

  Ghorgeous appeared. “It’s an enormous serpent, a slavering monster. It’s making its own trail.”

  Then the creature burst into sight. Apoca was dismayed. The ferocious head was lifted well above her reach, dripping venom. She couldn’t kiss it!

  The viper advanced on Nolan, towering above him. The moment it realized that he was not an appealing female serpent, it would be enraged. It could take his whole body in its gaping mouth. And yes, it had awful yellow fangs.

  Apoca knew she had to act swiftly. But what could she do?

  “Go for what you can reach,” Nimbus suggested. “That’s what we nickelpedes do. When we attack.”

  Apoca followed that advice. She lunged forward, threw her arms around the nearest section of the closest coil, and kissed the scaly skin. She delivered her most potent magic, hoping it would work. It had, after all, worked on the zombie robot.

  It did. The giant snake froze in place for a good three and a half instants, uncertain what had happened. Then it whipped its fearsome head around to investigate.

  Apoca acted almost without thought. She leaped at the coil, and clambered onto it, bestriding it as if riding a Mundane horse. She was able to extend her legs down either side, and that same scaly skin held them in place without slipping.

  The serpent could have flexed and thrown her off. It didn’t. The head could have chomped off her body above the waist. It didn’t. The coils writhed horrendously, in front and in back, but her section was quite still. It looked as if she were in the middle of a big bowl of boiling spaghetti, but she herself was untouched. She had no trouble staying on.

  “It doesn’t want to bite itself,” Nimbus said. “Your kiss made that section your love slave. To bite you would be like biting itself. And the body can’t do anything to hurt you. You’ve got a steed. But only that section, maybe an arm’s reach before and back of the kiss.”

  “Well, now,” Apoca said, assessing the possibilities. “Is it safe for other riders?”