“Only right here. The rest of the monster is as savage as ever.”

  “That will do.” She lifted her voice with both hands. “Nolan! I have tamed this part of it. You can safely join me.” She looked at the other two behind the tree. “You too.”

  Nolan made a different hiss. “He’s keeping his serpent form, just in case,” Nimbus translated. “But he’ll be close by.”

  Vinia and Gent ran to join her, bravely dodging the spaghetti coils. Vinia scrambled up just in front of her, and Gent got just behind her, both of them close enough to be in the tamed zone.

  Ghorgeous formed faintly beside Apoca. “I checked. DD Talents is in the vicinity. He is in a pleasant little thatch cottage made of turf, the down-to-earth kind he would like to share with Dwarf Demoness Transcription. He really doesn’t seem to know much about mortal accommodations or women of any type.” She formed a translucent smile. “Even I could teach him a thing or three about that, ironically. The surrounding terrain is challenging, to ensure his privacy.”

  “Can the viper reach it?”

  “Yes, if we guide it along the correct access trail. Vinia’s paths will identify that.”

  “I think we have our ride,” Apoca said. “Now, how do we tell it where to go?”

  “The bugs,” Vinia said. “I’ll watch for the green path, which isn’t exactly on the physical trail, and the bugs can relay it to Viper’s mind, making him think it’s his own idea.”

  “Whatever would I do without you? Do it.”

  Vinia concentrated. The two bugs focused in tandem because the serpent’s mind was as large and savage as a jungle, and it took two signals to steer it.

  The viper moved. The head rose high, the end of the tail sank low, and there were several writhing coils in between, but their tamed saddle area never faltered. It moved grandly forward with never a rise, dip, or quiver.

  Nolan, in his own serpent form, followed closely. No other animals threatened; the viper was not a creature to mess with. Thus in this weird but effective manner, they advanced toward the Dwarf Demon Talents.

  They passed a pasture where a male bovine stared at them, snorting, not believing what he was seeing. “Incredibull,” Gent murmured.

  So they hadn’t escaped the puns. Apoca sighed inwardly.

  The jungle gave way to a ragged valley carved out by a fiercely flowing river. The viper splashed into and through it without hesitation, swimming by undulations. Even the savage river didn’t mess with this monster. Their saddle region remained above water and steady; they didn’t get their feet wet. “I like this ride,” Vinia said. She was a girl, and girls liked riding, even when the steeds were strange. Apoca was enjoying it too, now that the threat was gone. But what about the Demon? This was hardly in the class of Demon Chaos, but it was still a formidable challenge. She knew better than to think she could kiss the Dwarf Demon into submission. So what remained?

  With all this time and challenge just getting to the Dwarf Demon, one might have thought that they would have devised a plan to make him heed their plea. Might have thought. Now they would have to wing it ignorantly. They were, in the end, complete amateurs.

  The viper emerged from the river and plunged into the jungle on the other side. This was so thick that the light of the sun did not find its way to the ground. They were in a dark tunnel formed by large tree trunks and overhanging branches festooned by moss, mold, and cobwebs. Fortunately, the viper had no problem with it, being guided by smell and sound as much as by sight, and Vinia’s green assured them that this was the way.

  Plants of the night radiated their dim illumination in green, blue, yellow, and plaid. That last made Apoca’s hair turn plaid with her mixed feelings. “Nolan! Are you seeing that?”

  “I see it,” he replied, the bugs translating his thought to spoken language, since hissing was not adequate. “I like this jungle. I assume it bodes well.”

  She stifled her doubt. They needed encouragement wherever they could find it. “Let’s hope.”

  A deer with antlers stood in their way, but the viper undulated to the side and avoided it.

  “We passed the buck,” Gent said.

  The tunnel path made a sharp turn to the left, then to the right, skirting a cypress tree busy pressing cy. This resulted in printed news bulletins, the business of the press. “Oh, I like this,” the batoness printed. “They are talking my language.”

  Apoca read a random bulletin but quickly quit. It was all bull, of course. Bull for bulletin.

  Knees were all around the tree, struggling to kick their legs out of the muck, without much success. She wondered why a tree would have knees, but that was not her concern. It could do what it wanted, here in the pundemic zone.

  Then the path dived into a hill, becoming a real tunnel. A dragon lurked there but hastily got out of the way of the viper. Then they emerged from a hole in the side of a vertical chasm. This might be an offshoot of the huge Gap Chasm, wide enough to discourage jumping, deep enough to discourage surviving. The viper angled to the side, where there was an almost hidden fragment of a trail that only serpentine scales could cling to.

  Was the path trying to shake them off? It was reckoning without Vinia’s green.

  They passed a man holding his thumb up: a hitchhiker. That had to be a pun.

  “He’s all thumbs,” Gent said.

  Now Apoca saw that was literally true. The man had five thumbs on each hand.

  Finally they came to a glade in a relatively ordinary forest. There was the cute little cottage. It looked completely innocent.

  This was the place.

  “Can you continue to track the viper?” Apoca asked Nimbus.

  “Yes, if it stays within range.”

  “Forage within range,” Apoca told the middle section of the viper as she dismounted. “In case we need you again.” The rest of the monster might not care, but it could not leave its middle behind.

  The creature considered half an instant, which was the limit of its attention span, digesting that. Then it slithered back into the forest.

  Nolan changed back to human form. “That was a nervous trail, even for a serpent.”

  “I trusted the green.” She gave Vinia half a glance. “Thank you.”

  The girl managed to catch what there was of it. “Okay. Have you figured out what to say to Dwarf Demon Talents?”

  “Not a clue.” Apoca clamped down on her burgeoning qualms and marched toward the cottage. The others followed. If any qualms got loose and fell by the wayside, no one was unkind enough to pick them up.

  “You’ve got nerve,” Ghorgeous said, flickering back into faint sight.

  “I’d trade it for more smarts.”

  The ghost laughed a bit hollowly. “I know the feeling. I’d trade my all for another chance with a solid body. But we’re both stuck with what we have.”

  They reached the front door. Pretty flowers grew beside it, some of them plaid. “It’s hard not to like the D Demon,” Nolan remarked. “He has good taste.”

  “Are we ready?” Apoca asked.

  “No,” Nolan answered, and the others made silences of abject agreement.

  “That’s what I thought.” Apoca lifted a knuckle or four and knocked on the door. They waited tensely.

  Nothing happened.

  “Is he in there?” Nolan asked.

  “Yes,” Ghorgeous replied. “But not moving.”

  “The green leads inside,” Vinia said.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want visitors,” Apoca suggested.

  “So do we go away and leave him alone?” Nolan asked.

  “Bleep no!” Apoca said, and pushed open the door. “Dwarf Demon Talents, you have visitors,” she called.

  There was still no response.

  “This is getting weird,” Vinia said.

  “Getting?” Nolan asked.

  “I mean, weirder than it was before.”

  “Enough stalling,” Apoca said, her hair flashing angrily. She strode boldly on into the house, hoping that nobody else would notice that her seeming courage was an act. Any real boldness she might have had was hopelessly lost in the forest. The others followed.

  There in the main chamber sat a garden-variety man figure, the kind no one would notice in passing. She wasn’t even sure what color his hair was, and she was looking right at it. He was motionless, staring straight ahead. Across the room was a picture of a ravishingly beautiful young woman in an evening gown.

  “That must be Dwarf Demoness Transcription,” Nolan said as he gazed at the picture. “As he sees her.”

  “As he would like her to be,” Apoca said. “So he got a pin-up picture to use as a model. Demons can assume any form they want. He hopes she will copy that.”

  Nolan nodded. “He has good taste in women too.”

  Apoca thought of sending a glare his way, but it was too much effort. For one thing, he was right: the picture could hardly have been prettier. “Maybe.”

  Nolan glanced at Vinia. “Which way is the green?”

  “It’s all around here, with deeper puddles around the Demon and the picture. We seem to be where we are supposed to be.”

  “Huge help,” Apoca muttered. This whole business was weird.

  “Perhaps we are thinking too literally,” Gent said. “The key may not be physical so much as mental.”

  Apoca knew that here in the pundemic zone he did not have to speak in puns or malapropisms. Still, it was a surprise to hear him being so rational. “What do you mean?”

  “Demons of any type, small or capital D, are mostly minds without substance. They can form physical bodies, but it’s not their natural state. DD Talents here has condensed into the form of a nondescript man, but his essence is clearly elsewhere. His attention is focused on the female of his dreams, the Dwarf Demoness Transcription. To communicate with him we need to go through her. That can only be through her mind, as she has no physical presence here.”

  He was making sense, she hoped. “And how might we reach her mind?”

  “Perhaps by meditation, or the equivalent.”

  “You mean by thinking relevant thoughts?” Nolan asked.

  “Perhaps. We might try it and be guided by what we find.”

  Nolan was plainly as vague on this as she was. Even the batons seemed dubious.

  Now Apoca glanced at Vinia. “How’s the green?”

  “Now there’s a puddle of it around Gent.”

  “We’ll try it,” Apoca decided. “We’ll sit in a circle on the floor and think of Dwarf Demoness Transcription.”

  They sat down cross-legged and closed their eyes. Apoca focused on DDT . What was she like as a person? Was she worthy of DD Talents’s adoration? Why did she ignore him?

  She picked up a wisp of something. A faint presence. Demoness?

  Who seeks me?

  Well, now. Was she getting somewhere, or just imagining it? I am Apoca, a mortal woman. I need to talk with you.

  I am busy at the moment, but maybe you can help. Come to me at the Dragon Sanctuary.

  Dragon Sanctuary? Helping a Demoness? As if she could do any part of that! Apoca opened her eyes. The other three were sitting with their eyes closed, evidently not connecting. As might be the case if this were pure imagination.

  Then Vinia’s eyes popped open. “A blotch of green just hit you. Go for it!”

  Apoca went for it. She closed her eyes again and concentrated on the Demoness. The presence remained. She oriented on it as if grabbing hold of a dangling rope. It gently hauled her through the wall and out over the glade, then just over the jungle. She was definitely going somewhere, and not by her own direction; it was like riding the hand of one of the giants, seeing the passing landscape. The batoness paced her, having no trouble following her thought.

  “There is something,” Nimbus said. So the nickelpede was along on this excursion. Perhaps that was not surprising, since it was a mental one. Apoca knew her body still sat on the floor of the cottage, unmoving. She was physically safe, at least from falls from the sky. She was glad to have the nickelpede’s company.

  “Definitely something,” Ghorgeous Ghost agreed. So she was along too. Maybe that was not surprising, as this was a ghostly excursion.

  She came to a flying dragon, a small one. A steamer. It seemed to be injured. Its wings were functioning, but there was blood on its breast and its breathing was labored. There was barely any steam, only driblets of condensation. It also seemed to be lost. It would not be able to remain airborne much longer.

  “Poor thing,” Ghorgeous said. “It needs help.”

  “Maybe it’s looking for the sanctuary,” Nimbus said.

  A sanctuary. For dragons. The Dwarf Demoness had mentioned it. Could that be true? Apoca gambled that it was.

  Dragon! she called mentally. Follow me!

  The creature heard her. It turned to follow her mind.

  She pursued the signal, which was growing stronger. It led her across hills and valleys, streams and fields, even an isolated village. Then it descended into a circular indentation, maybe an old volcano crater, long since overgrown with greenery. Green, indeed.

  There were dragons there, of every description. Large, medium, small, and pocket-size. Fire breathers, steamers, smokers, and some she did not identify. Flying, walking, swimming in the adjacent pond, and, could it be, burrowing? She had never before seen such an assembly. They were not fighting or sleeping; they seemed to be there under some kind of truce.

  And there was the Demoness, a nebulously shining presence forming arms and hands for physical work, dispensing dragon food consisting of barrels of fish, chunks of raw meat, and a pile of beefsteak tomatoes. The dragons were waiting their turns as she walked among them. Now Apoca saw that their pacifism was at least in part because most were in poor health. Some were injured, some sickly. They needed help, and they were receiving it. Some had bandaged limbs; others just lay on the ground, unable even to crawl to her for food.

  Transcription spied Apoca’s presence. “Ah, the human woman,” she called, now seemingly audible, perhaps because of the proximity. “And you brought friends and a client.” She indicated the dragon who had crash-landed behind Apoca.

  “It was looking for you but got lost,” Apoca explained. “So I led it in. It seems to have a chest injury.”

  The Demoness came and checked. “A bad bruise. It will survive. I will delete the pain.” She touched the creature’s chest, and it relaxed, at peace for the moment.

  Apoca waited while the Demoness saw to the remaining patients. Some became well enough to depart. Some rested on the ground, still recuperating. Some she put in improvised nests for a longer recovery time.

  Then she gave Apoca more of her attention. “Thank you for bringing in that steamer. You did help.” She made a small gesture, and a house formed around them. “You were looking for me. Why?”

  “This is moderately complicated.”

  “You were at DD Talents’s domicile. Does it relate to him?”

  “Yes. He defines the talents our children receive. Each child is supposed to receive a different talent. He has stopped doing his job. Now all children are getting the same talent. That is awkward. We want him to resume.”

  The figure nodded. “I thought it might be that.” She did not volunteer more.

  Apoca was cautious about pushing too hard. This Demoness could obliterate her with a blink, and that would not solve the Talents problem. It was better to change the subject, for the moment. “Why are you ministering to dragons? I never knew of anyone caring for the welfare of such monsters.”

  Transcription formed a human face and smiled. “That is why they need help. Humans don’t care about them, and most other animals are their prey. I saw the need and am trying to address it. I wish I could do more, but I am not a creature of Xanth and must not interfere unduly.”

  “You’re a good person!” Apoca exclaimed, amazed.

  “Some Demons are. Is that a fault?”

  “Not at all. Merely a surprise.” Actually Chaos seemed to be good, but she had assumed that was because of the influence of Squid. As far as she knew, Chaos had not cared at all about the universe until he encountered Squid. Then, associating with a creature with a soul, he had changed. Souls were as powerful in their fashion as Demons were in theirs.

  Transcription picked up on that thought, perhaps not surprisingly, since this whole scene was mental. “Yes, it was the child’s soul that captivated him. I wish I had a soul. Dealing with the souls of nascent children made me become aware of things like conscience and decency. That is why an aspect of me is here, trying to do a bit of good.”

  Then Apoca returned her attention to the mission, encouraged by the Demoness’s attitude. She liked doing good? There was more good to be done. “DD Talents is mooning for you. That’s why he is neglecting his job. Why do you reject him?”

  “He is talented with his talents, marvelously apt in creating and assigning them. I doubt any other Demon could do that job as well as he. But he is selfish and ultimately irresponsible, as can be seen by his disregard for his assignment. His proximity to the children’s souls has not affected him. That is not my type.”

  Apoca was taken aback by the accuracy of the assessment. She could not refute it. DD Talents seemed to be indifferent to the mischief caused by his neglect of his job, concerned only about his personal interests. DD Transcription could surely change that, simply by agreeing to be with him if he returned to that job. But why would she want to do that, given that he was hardly her type? Why would any female want to be stuck with an unworthy male? Yet how then could Apoca accomplish their mission and restore talent normalcy to the children? She seemed to be up against an impossible challenge.

  “Bleep!” Ghorgeous whispered in her immaterial ear. “We’re stuck.”

  “If only we could think of whatever it is we’re supposed to have that would enable us to succeed,” Nimbus said.