Confused, Vinia had no response. She blushed instead. Which meant that she did understand, on another level. When the time came to consider marriage, she would remember. There was no sense in leaving such an important thing to chance.

  “You may be sure the princesses know it and will use it,” Dara said. For a moment her clothing fuzzed out, revealing a phenomenal bare figure. Obviously, she knew how to handle the Good Magician when she needed to.

  “The princesses,” Vinia said. “We just want to rescue them from the dragon.”

  “That notion is far too simple and based on simplistic assumptions. First, you assumed the dragon is a mean-spirited animal. That is not the case. Dragoman is doing the princesses a service. Young and impetuous, they were headed for mischief. He put them away until they could find better situations.”

  “He locked them in crystals!”

  “Yes. Timeless, painless storage. He will release them when there are suitable princes for them to marry, as there were none in their time.”

  “Release them?” Vinia asked, astonished. “He doesn’t mean to eat them?”

  Dara laughed again. “Of course not! He has refined tastes. He eats nothing but gourmet beefsteak tomatoes ripened by the delicate glow of newly blooming sunflowers. No, his Service is storing the princesses as a community good works, which the Good Magician duly appreciates.”

  “Good works!”

  “It was a deal he made when he was young: a fine estate in exchange for this Service. He has performed it well. Now he is old and ready to retire and enjoy the estate. He needs to be rid of the princesses. That means that each one needs a suitable companion who will see properly to her needs. Princesses tend to be high maintenance.”

  “A prince for each,” Vinia agreed.

  “Not necessarily. One is a lesbian.”

  Oh. “So we will have to search for the right princess for her.”

  “Perhaps. The point is that it may turn out to be a Challenge that will be beyond the ability of an ordinary hero.”

  Vinia was beginning to catch on. “And you feel that a party of children would not be able to handle it. So we were to be balked, so that a better hero could be found for that particular mission.”

  “Something like that,” the Demoness agreed. “But then you defeated the Challenges, to our surprise. That complicates the picture.”

  Vinia was able to translate the sentiment. “You’re stuck with it.”

  “Indeed. I am doing what I can to prepare you for a Challenge that may be worse than the ones you faced here. But there is only so much I can do. The rest will be a matter of hope and fate.”

  Vinia’s mind was beginning to take hold, as it had during the Challenges. “Can you tell me more about the princesses? You said they were confined for a reason.”

  “Indeed. They were endlessly disruptive in their home frames, a burden to themselves and others. There were no happy outcomes to be expected there.”

  “What’s wrong with them?”

  “For one thing, they are self-willed. They were refusing to marry the princes their fathers duly selected for them, or indeed, to settle down to support and promote the existing masculine order. Their fathers did not like that.”

  “They are feminists!”

  “In their day there were no feminists, only undisciplined girls.”

  “That’s changed,” Vinia said. “Princesses today regard themselves as at least equal to princes. If a prince argues, they flash their panties and freak him out. Even I, as a garden-variety common girl, think of myself as a person with some choices.”

  ”Yes. It is a better climate for them. Even so, it is not necessarily simple. Only one is human.”

  “Only one! We assumed—”

  “As I believe I have indicated, this is not the occasion for assumptions. The others are goblin, elf, centaur, bee, and Demoness.”

  “Bee! Demoness!”

  “You have surely heard of queen bees. They are preceded by princess bees. Their roles are highly defined, and one who balks is not welcomed. They are slated to be confined as lifelong egg layers.”

  “I can see why this princess rebelled.”

  “As for the Demoness, that is my friend Demesne, pronounced diMEEN.”

  “Your friend?”

  “We Demons exist longer than you mortals do, generally. I’ve known her for centuries. She’s always had a very fine sense of place. Her name means estate or dominion, or territory controlled by the sovereign. She is destined to control land.”

  “A suitable prince will have land.”

  “Which he controls. That won’t do for her. So she took herself out of the picture.”

  Vinia was beginning to appreciate the magnitude of the problem. “It may be hard to find princes they like.”

  “I’m sure you will come up with something. Meanwhile, Demesne will help you.”

  “Help me?”

  Dara drew an ornate ring from her finger, which Vinia had not noticed before. “This will lead you to her and identify you as a friend of mine.”

  Friend of a Demoness? That was not a thing Vinia had ever aspired to. “I’m not sure how—”

  Dara caught her left hand and set the ring on her middle finger, where it promptly disappeared. “Merely follow the glow.”

  “Glow?”

  “Say her name.”

  “Demesne?”

  The ring was invisible, but there was a glow that was brighter in one direction. That was clear enough.

  “You can orient on me similarly by saying my name,” Dara said. “I will help you if I can.”

  “Thank you.” Vinia took a shaky breath. “But this is academic, for me. I have a year’s Service to perform. I will give the ring to Hilda, so they can get on with it.”

  “No. I thought you understood. Keep the ring. The equivalent Service is your Quest to free the princesses.”

  Vinia paused, assimilating it. “I never claimed to be the brightest flash among fireflies. I did not understand. Thank you.”

  “No need to thank me. You earned it when you handled the Challenges.” She paused. “I almost forgot. There’s more to this ring. It belonged, long ago, to a Magician, and it has more than one aspect of magic. It’s actually glass.”

  “Glass?”

  “I understand it was formed from the merger of a glass eel with a glass eye, so it is almost invisible, but it sees well. It also brings good luck to the creature or thing it orients on. But this magic, like most magic, is like mundane fire; it can be extremely useful, but also dangerous if misused. So use it only as needed, and do not take it off.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because then the luck tends to reverse, a natural blowback. Like a fire unattended. But that won’t happen as long as you wear it.”

  Vinia focused, relieved. “I will keep the ring on. I’ll try first for Demesne.”

  “She is in a crystal in Dragoman’s cave, so orienting on her will guide you to that cave. You will know Dragoman by his tattoo.”

  “Tattoo?” Vinia didn’t like going mono, monosyllabic—whatever the word was for saying single words, but her mind was having trouble keeping up with the concepts.

  “He has a tattoo of a shapely human girl on his neck. Usually it is girls who have dragon tattoos, not the reverse, so it’s distinctive. Go there, talk to him—he can talk. Explain your mission. If he goes along, your next step will be to locate the princes. Once you have them, and they pass muster, Dragoman will release the princesses and your mission may be accomplished.”

  Vinia heard the qualification. “May be?”

  “Complications are almost inevitable. The princes and princesses will be strangers to each other when they meet. They will need to converse for a time and agree they are compatible. They may or may not be. Or two princes may prefer the same princess, or vice versa. You will have to be ready for spot corrections.”

  “Oh, my,” Vinia said in the same tone both Squid and Queen Ida had used when recognizing Vinia as the protagonist. She was coming to understand the expression better. She had thought the Challenges were done, but she understood now that the worst one lay ahead.

  “Exactly,” Dara agreed, needing no mind reading to follow her thought. “Now I will signal your companions to rejoin you here. You all deserve a relaxed night before you set out on your Quest.”

  Relaxed, Vinia thought in the same tone as her one- and two-word responses.

  Dara vanished for half an instant, then reappeared. “I told them. They are on their way,” she reported. “Look.” She gestured to a large picture Vinia had not noticed before. Had it been there?

  There in the picture was the magic carpet, cruising toward the foreground. It was a moving picture! The carpet grew steadily larger. Then Vinia realized that it was not a picture but a picture window. The carpet loomed right up to the glass. Then it sailed through it into the room with them. It was an open window.

  It landed neatly on the floor. Hilda jumped off and hugged her. “Vinia!” she exclaimed. “You did it! You made it through the Challenges!”

  “Most of them,” Vinia agreed soberly. There was going to be a lot of explaining to do.

  Ion joined her. He hugged her too. “We knew you could do it.”

  They did? That was more than she herself had known. “Thank you,” Vinia said weakly.

  “I love reunions,” Dara said.

  Chapter 3

  Princesses

  In the morning, after a comfortable night filled with illuminating discussion, they were on their way on the carpet. Dara Demoness had impressed on the others that Vinia was now not merely the protagonist, but the Quest proprietor. She had won the Challenges they would have lost. She was no longer a secondary character, but the primary one, as far as this mission was concerned.

  Vinia, embarrassed, had tried to demur, feeling more comfortable as a background character, but all the children accepted it. Just as changing the one to tackle the Challenges had proved to be a winning strategy, they hoped that the same ploy would facilitate the difficult Quest. And if it failed, she would get the blame. But nobody said that.

  “But really nothing has changed,” Vinia told them. “I’m still a background character in my heart.” The others hadn’t even bothered to circulate a Look.

  Now they sailed over the patchwork quilt that was Xanth, following the flashes of the Demoness’s ring. There was a flying dragon on the horizon, and a pair of wyverns, and a griffin, and harpies, and a few birds and insects, but none approached the carpet. Word had indeed gotten around.

  The distance was not far, and they had a tailwind, so by early afternoon they reached the mountain where Dragoman’s lair lurked and descended. “You will interview the dragon,” Ion told Vinia.

  “But I’m not qualified to do that! You and Hilda are much better equipped for anything like that.”

  “Dara informed him we were coming. He will expect the Magician or Sorceress to broach him about the princesses. He will be defensive. You may surprise him, being essentially harmless. We want his cooperation, not his antagonism. We’ll be there if you need us.”

  She was stuck for it. All her life Vinia had deferred to others, and being the protagonist, let alone the Questee, was uncomfortable for her. Yet it had worked to get them into the Good Magician’s Castle, so there was a certain perverse logic. She was indeed a harmless type. Maybe if she messed up in this, the others would resume their leading roles and she could relax.

  Ion steered the carpet down into the hole in the mountain that was the entrance to the lair. It was unguarded, because no one ever tried to molest a dragon’s lair, as a matter of personal health. It was large enough so that they could still fly inside it. They followed it through two and a half twists and three-quarters of a turn.

  There was the dragon, large, scarred, and old. “Queen Ida’s children, I presume?” His reptilian lips did not move, yet Vinia heard him. She realized that since, as a dragon, he lacked the ability to configure his mouth in the human manner, he must be using limited telepathy to project his thoughts while he made grunting sounds, making it seem as if he were talking verbally. She might not have noticed had she not been so nervous. What she noticed more was the tattoo of the pretty human girl on his neck. She was in a bikini and had the kind of figure Vinia knew she herself would never achieve. This was the right dragon.

  Ion nudged her as he parked the carpet. “And their retinue,” Vinia said. “Hello, Dragoman. I am Vinia. I will be your companion in dialogue for this session.”

  Surprised, he oriented on her as a puff of smoke rose from the corner of his mouth. He was evidently a smoker. They were comparatively rare dragons, because smoking was not healthy for any creature. “Hello, Vinia Human,” he grunted. Yes, definitely telepathy-assisted.

  “These are the Magician Ion and Sorceress Hilda, the son and daughter of Queen Ida, who was once confined in one of your crystals, and Hilda’s friend Benny Buck, a Caprine crossbreed.” Benny obligingly changed to goat form and back.

  “Ida,” the dragon said thoughtfully. “I knew her as a princess. I wondered what became of her.”

  “Princesses mature into queens. She married Prince Hilarion of Adamant, and they now rule that fantasy kingdom.”

  “I thought I had her safely crystallized. Then one day I discovered the crystal broken and she was gone. I was concerned on her behalf. I am glad to know she survived.” He puffed more smoke. “What happened?”

  “Mela Merwoman and Okra Ogress were in the vicinity,” Vinia said, discovering that it was easier now that she was narrating something she knew about. “They saw her, and Okra sang a sour note that shattered the crystal. They freed her, and Ida went on to discover that she was the twin sister of Princess Ivy, who later became the human queen, or rather, king of Xanth. Ida turned out to have the Sorceress-caliber talent of the Idea, with a moon orbiting her head that contains all the folk ever thought of for Xanth. She is quite well known now, though she has pretty much faded into the anonymity of adulthood and wifehood.”

  “I am glad to hear it.” Dragoman puffed a bit more smoke. It seemed to be a by-product of his thinking. “Mela Merwoman. I believe I have heard of her. Wasn’t she the one who made legs, walked on land, and donned panties that freaked out half the countryside?”

  “The male half,” Vinia agreed. “She was a creature of the sea and didn’t realize the power of panties. Once she put on more clothing that stopped.”

  “Perhaps that was just as well.” More smoke. “Enough chitchat. What brings your party here to my lair? Surely you don’t mean to attempt to raid my hoard?”

  “No raid!” Vinia said, taken aback. “We come in peace.”

  Dragoman smiled smokily, which was not the most reassuring expression. “Humor. Please state your business here.”

  Oh. “When Ida departed, she noticed that several other princesses were sealed in crystals,” Vinia said. “Her children thought it was past time to rescue them.”

  The dragon nodded. “Ah, those. Actually they aren’t all princesses, merely pretty damsels. Dragons like damsels.”

  “We noticed,” she said, glancing at the tattoo.

  “And many damsels like dragons,” he said. “So they wear dragon tattoos. It makes them more attractive.”

  “At any rate, we felt that princesses should not be confined indefinitely, so we are here to free them.”

  “I do preserve the damsels until there are suitable placements for them. The ordinary beauties are easier to place. Princesses are more difficult, and these particular ones, the last remaining, are a considerable challenge. I certainly would like to get them situated so I can retire.”

  This was curious. “You make it sound as if it is a duty, rather than pleasure.”

  Dragoman nodded. “It is indeed a duty. Back in my youth I discovered that I was not interested in smoking living creatures for food; I was essentially a pacifist. That did not fit the dragon mode. So I went to the Good Magician for advice.”

  “The Good Magician!” Vinia exclaimed. “I did that. I did not actually see him, but his Designated Wife helped me.”

  “And it seems that advice has now brought us together,” Dragoman agreed. A bit of feeling was coming through with the words, and she had the definite impression that he was coming to like her, but not in a threatening way. Maybe it was that in another year or two she would mature into a damsel. “For my Question I asked him to inform me of a beneficial situation that would keep me busy and out of contact with more aggressive dragons. Please understand, I could defend myself, choking and blinding them with smoke, but I didn’t like the ridicule. His Answer was really a deal: he would arrange for me to have a fine spacious estate that would support me in the manner I preferred, if, as my Service, I took some of the more difficult maidens out of circulation for a time. It seemed simple enough. He gave me the power to modify my smoke to encapsulate them in crystals that would keep them in suspended animation until there were improved prospects for them. Then I would breathe the nullifying vapor and free them to find their compatible situations. When at last I reached retirement age, I could free the last of the maidens and enjoy my estate in peace.”

  “You must be near that age now.”

  “I am indeed. It has been well over a century. Dragons live long, compared to humans and other creatures, but not forever. Now I have only the last six princesses left, and when I free them, my Service is over and my retirement will commence. The princesses, of course, do not age at all while crystallized: they are as young as they were when they arrived. Times have changed, and they should find the present realm more compatible than the ones they left.”