“Do you happen to know where the fee live?” Vinia asked. She did not mention that Dara’s ring could guide them to it, out of simple caution.

  “I do. Their kingdom is small, but within range of the Shee. We had distant relations in my day, and amicable ones now that my daughter is in charge. Her birds visit them often. Getting there will be no problem, if you have transportation.”

  “We do,” Hilda said.

  “Then I think we are ready to go,” Hilda said. “The sooner we collect six princes, the sooner we can complete our mission.”

  Sherlock shook his head. “I don’t want to annoy you, but you are children and you are dealing with adults. There may be problems you don’t anticipate. Things tend to be more complicated in practice than they may seem in theory.”

  Vinia had the nasty feeling that he was making sense.

  Hilda smiled. “You can ride beside me and annoy me while we travel.”

  He nodded. “As you prefer.”

  They bid farewell to Queen Birdie and boarded the carpet. It was Benny’s turn to guide it, so he took his place at the steering bar. Vinia settled near him, as she wasn’t certain he had all the details straight yet. Sherlock sat beside Hilda.

  “Where to?” Benny asked.

  “I will point the direction when we’re aloft,” Sherlock said.

  Vinia had the ring. She would quietly verify it as they traveled.

  The carpet took off. “Impressive,” Sherlock murmured. “I have not seen a flying carpet quite like this one before, and I have seen a good many.”

  “It’s a custom carpet. Hilda sewed it to our specs,” Ion explained. “That’s her talent. She sews magic into material.”

  “And she is a Sorceress,” Sherlock said. “I think I had not before fully appreciated the magnitude of it.”

  “Are you trying to flatter me?” Hilda asked.

  He laughed. “I see you are already wary of flatterers. I am, or was, a king; I know exactly how that works. I was completely surrounded by flatterers and was sick of it. But in this case I was genuinely surprised, so the compliment was accidental. However, now a genuine one: your instinct is correct, and you should constantly beware of flattery, as nine-tenths of it is false. Especially when you mature into a queen. The flatterers have their own agenda, and they will find ways to please you, fairly or falsely, so that you will unconsciously support their designs. That is one reason princesses tend to marry princes; they can’t fully trust others to be candid.”

  “Can they trust princes?” Hilda asked.

  Sherlock laughed again. “No. A prince is the worst of all, ironically, because he mainly wants to get into her—” He broke off. “My apology. I forgot for the moment that I was talking to a child.”

  “Get into her what?” Hilda asked.

  “My daughter is grown. I have gotten out of practice honoring the Adult Conspiracy. I think you know I can’t properly answer you.”

  But Hilda was determined. “A fire elemental approached my brother, flashing him with her hot figure. It mesmerized him. He would have been in trouble if Vinia and I had not intervened. Ignorance is not bliss. We need to know what we’re up against, lest we be hurt by it. We are recruiting princes for princesses. We need to understand what motivates them. What does a prince want to get into?”

  Vinia was impressed. Hilda had a case, and she was making it.

  Sherlock shook his head. “You are making it difficult.”

  Vinia interceded. “We understand that a significant part of governance is compromise. Can you compromise on this?”

  The man considered. “Perhaps I can rephrase. The word I did not say was ‘pants.’ In that context it suggests that the prince wants to do something with the princess that the Adult Conspiracy forbids a child to know.”

  Hilda shook her head. “At this rate of comprehension, I will be an adult before I figure it out.”

  “Exactly,” Sherlock agreed, amused. The others weren’t.

  It was time to change the subject. “We had four riders,” Vinia said. “Now we have five. Where will Sherlock sleep?”

  “I will sew an attachment,” Hilda said. She got to work.

  “An attachment?” Sherlock asked.

  “Like an addition to a tent,” Hilda explained. “So you have private quarters.”

  He nodded. “A consideration,” the Shee said. “Do you know where the Princess Elga came from?”

  “She didn’t say,” Vinia said.

  “There are not many fee tribes in this region. It could be the one we are going to. That could have positive and negative complications.”

  “Why?”

  “If this is her home tribe, they should know her, or of her if she is of a prior generation. There might have been a reason she left.”

  “She’s a feminist.”

  “That might suffice. The fee are socially orthodox. Princes tend not to like feminism.”

  Hilda smiled. “Maybe her dreaming jewel presentation will make a difference. It did for you, with Hula.”

  “It certainly did. We’ll just have to see.”

  In due course they came to the fee area. Sherlock said, “Now their premises are in subterranean crystal caves with secret entrance passages.”

  “Crystal caves,” Vinia said. “And Elga was crystallized.”

  “Coincidence, I believe. Fortunately I know of one tribe, the Fo. We traded on occasion.”

  “The Fo?” Vinia asked, perplexed.

  “They are one of three tribes we know of in Xanth,” Sherlock said. “Fee Fi, Fo, Fum. The fee are small in stature, so don’t freely advertise their presence without reason.” Then he paused. “Oops. I overlooked a detail.”

  “Detail?” Hilda asked alertly.

  “The fee stand about one-third of our height. Their caves are sized to fit them, not us. We won’t be able to enter.”

  “I think I can take care of that,” Ion said. “Accommodation elixir.”

  “I know of the accommodation spell,” Sherlock said. “That enables couples of disparate sizes to, um, interact. There is an elixir?”

  “The accommodation spell uses it,” Ion said. “I have a collection of useful elixirs, including this one. We will simply shrink the carpet and its immediate environment to fee scale. We will seem to ourselves to be exactly as before; only the environment will seem to triple in size. This would not work in Mundania, because of their odd square/cube law, but this is magic, not science.”

  “I think I have not before properly appreciated the power of your own magic,” Sherlock said. “But of course I have not interacted with many Magicians or Sorcerers of any species.”

  “The effect will last only an hour, but I can renew it if necessary. That should be enough to make our case.”

  Vinia knew of accommodation spells that enabled big ogres and miniature imps to interact intimately, but this was new to her. The five of them and the carpet together? She loved and admired Ion, yet hoped that he really did know what he was doing here and wasn’t being overconfident.

  “One thing to remember,” Sherlock said. “Each fee will have a deformity. Do not mention it. Do not even notice it. Just tune it out.”

  “We’ll try,” Hilda said. “Does the king have one too?”

  “Yes. I understand he has giant ears.”

  “We can handle that.”

  “One more thing: it is customary for visitors to bring gifts for the king. I regret I didn’t think of it until now. You should have been given more warning.”

  Hilda looked at her brother. “You have not been using your minicarpet recently. We could give him that, and I could sew you another later on.”

  “That’s fine,” Ion agreed. “I prefer Vinia, anyway, no disparagement to the carpet.”

  Vinia felt a thrill at the compliment, but stayed out of the dialogue.

  “But there is a complication,” Sherlock said. “Such gifts are not presented outright as such. They are given as if incidentally. It might be awkward to make a magic carpet seem incidental.”

  “We’ll be alert for a pretext,” Ion said.

  Vinia concluded that Dara’s ring had oriented, at least indirectly, on Sherlock, so his considerable usefulness to them was the good luck it fostered. Still, the case was not certain.

  Hilda completed her attachment, which looked like a simple square of cloth. She took it to the edge of the carpet and sewed it on. Suddenly it formed into, yes, a new tent compartment. Sherlock’s private quarters were ready.

  They came to the entrance area. There was a giant acorn tree with a high cluster of spreading branches. “At the top, hidden by foliage, is the entrance to one of the passages to the crystal caves,” Sherlock said. “It is time to invoke the accommodation.”

  Ion brought out a vial as they hovered beside the tree. “Do not be alarmed,” he said. “Neither we nor the environment are actually changing. They merely appear to do so. But the effect is persuasive.” He uncapped the vial, letting the vapor puff out.

  Suddenly the tree expanded to double, then triple its original size. Or were they shrinking equivalently? It was hard to tell.

  Benny steered the carpet up, circling the tree. He glided it into gaps in the foliage where the big branches diverged. And there was a hole in the center of the trunk, big enough for them to enter.

  “Hang on,” Benny said. He had evidently had some prior experience with this type of maneuver. The carpet tilted until it was hovering vertically, not horizontally, above the hole. But all of them remained comfortably in place. It was as if the tree had gone horizontal to match them.

  Then they floated down into the hole. There was a faint glow around the edge, marking it as a tunnel. Down, down they went, traversing the length of the tree. Then, evidently belowground, they rounded a curve and flew level again. They were safely on their way to the fee kingdom.

  Vinia kept her concern to herself. If this effect was more apparent than real, how could they be flying through a tunnel sized for creatures one-third their height? Yet they did seem to be doing it, and she did not want the effect to end while they were underground. It was better simply to accept it.

  Now the walls of the tunnel turned crystalline. They expanded, until they were flying in a lovely subterranean chamber. There was light reflecting back and forth: maybe the fee had a reflective access to the light of the sun above.

  They came to a sparkling crystal palace. “This is it,” Sherlock said. “I will introduce you to King Finder.”

  They landed on the carpet parking lot. There was already a stir, and a royal column approached. Leading it was a man with a crown and enormous ears. Obviously the king. At least that made identification easy.

  Sherlock stood and stepped off the carpet. “Your Majesty King Finder Fee, I am King Emeritus Sherlock of the adjacent Shee kingdom.”

  “We remember you,” the fee king said. “So the rumor of a change in leadership there is true?”

  “My daughter, Birdie, deposed me. But that is incidental: I am now traveling with young human Magician Prince Ion and Sorceress Princess Hilda and their retinue, who have used an accommodation spell for this occasion. They are children. They are on a special mission to fetch suitable princes for six crystallized princesses. We are looking for a prince for Princess Elga, once of your kingdom. Will you be able to help us?”

  Finder considered no longer than a third of a moment, which was surely sufficient, considering his size. “Come inside, all of you, and we will discuss this.”

  Thus readily had Sherlock’s introduction smoothed their path. Soon they were comfortable in the palace waiting room, sipping on miniature mugs of boot rear served by pretty fee servant wenches. Each girl had pleasant face and form, but there was an assortment of birds’ feet. Some were clawed, some webbed. The floor clacked as they walked on the tiles. But nobody seemed to notice, and soon Vinia did not notice either. That was the protocol.

  The girls nevertheless appreciated the courtesy and flirted with Sherlock and Benny. Also with Ion, to Vinia’s annoyance. But she reminded herself that within an hour their party would revert to normal size; there was no future with any palace servant, however tempting she might seem at the moment.

  Then a handsome manservant with wolf paws flirted with Vinia herself, and she was gratified. Vinia had not used an accommodation spell before and was pleasantly surprised by how natural everything appeared to be. The fee seemed human sized and proportioned, as did their furniture and mugs. She was also impressed by how readily the royalties of different species interacted. It was as though they were all one species, and the servants accepted Sherlock, Ion, and Hilda without question, while treating Benny and Vinia as equals.

  “You seem to be more familiar with courtly procedures than I am,” Vinia said to the manservant as he was admiring her human hands. “Which I suppose is not surprising.”

  “We have had some contacts,” the man agreed. “And of course there’s our interaction with Mundania.”

  “Mundania!”

  “We fees are everywhere. You can tell our presence by official Mundane documents. Wherever they mention monetary fees, we have been involved.”

  She wasn’t sure whether he was joking. Fortunately she didn’t have to comment, as the main action was commencing.

  King Finder glanced at Ion and Hilda. “I know you are schooling yourselves to ignore our special traits. We appreciate the courtesy. Similarly we will school ourselves to ignore your youth. May I inquire the nature of your magic?”

  “I am immune to all elixirs,” Ion said. Then he seemed to get an idea. “Indeed, I collect them. Should you need any, I may be able to provide them.”

  “That is interesting. As it happens, we recently had a plague, and our supply of healing elixir is dangerous low.”

  Ion produced a special vial shaped like a miniature horn. “This happens, so I carry some minicornucopias. This will supply all you ever need.” He smiled. “Pour it carefully.” He handed it to Finder.

  The king was openly amazed. “All we need?”

  “We can demonstrate it now, if you have any folk who have been deprived.”

  “We do have some beasts of burden who are suffering. We did not feel it expedient to use the last of our supply on them.”

  “Use this. It will never run out.”

  Finder spoke to a servant with duck feet. “Bring the tortoise.” The servant departed. “We love our animals, and this one has been invaluable. Children ride on him. But the plague struck fee and beasts alike.”

  Soon the tortoise arrived. It was plain that the creature was suffering. It moved slowly even for its kind, and it limped.

  The king lifted the cap on the vial and carefully tilted it over the back of the tortoise. Several drops fell onto the shell.

  For a generous moment all was quiet as they watched the tortoise. Then it perked up, obviously feeling better. The shell brightened.

  “Is it really healed?” Finder asked.

  “Have someone ride it,” Ion suggested.

  The king glanced at a servant. The man had paws for hands, but evidently knew how to use them. He climbed carefully onto the shell, which was about thigh-high on him, as if expecting the creature to sink down under the weight.

  Instead the tortoise stood tall, in its fashion, and commenced a rapid walk across the hall, carrying the man without difficulty.

  The king glanced at another servant. That one, also, mounted the tortoise. Still there was no difficulty. Then a third, all there was room for. No problem.

  “He really is better,” the king said in wonder. “In fact, better than ever.”

  “He really is,” Ion agreed. “Healing elixir is powerful stuff. It may be that he suffered from minor maladies before the plague and is now restored to his full potential.”

  “And you carry similar vials of other potions?”

  “I do.”

  “You truly are a Magician!”

  “Thank you. It is incidental.”

  More than incidental, Vinia knew. Not only had Ion awed the king with his magic, he had succeeded in giving him a marvelously useful gift. Two for the price of one, as it were. They did not need to give away the little carpet.

  They ushered the perky tortoise out of the chamber. It was apparent that all the servants and courtiers were highly impressed. They probably had not before seen Magician-caliber magic publicly displayed. Sherlock looked privately smug: this reflected well on him, too, as he had spoken for the party.

  It was time for business. “We know of Princess Elga,” King Finder said. “She was a wild one of a prior generation who was not satisfied with our placid existence. She preferred to call herself an elf, which is not inaccurate, as all we fees are a variety of elf. She took off on her own to seek a larger fortune, and we lost track of her. You say she was crystallized?”

  Sherlock smiled. “Not in the same manner as here. A dragon caught her and locked her in a crystal for safekeeping along with several other princesses. Now he is ready to release her, provided we can locate and bring in a suitable prince for her.”

  “She could have had a perfectly suitable prince right here, but she was too independent minded for that. Why should she have changed?”

  Sherlock glanced at Hilda. “Perhaps Princess Hilda will agree to show you the presentation Elga recorded.”

  Hilda was happy to agree. She brought out and activated Elga’s gem.

  Elga was quite pretty in the holo, and Vinia saw that the king was impressed. She saw him note the tail and nod; she really was a fee. Then Elga said: “If by chance this is being seen by the folk of my home realm, the Fo Fee, let me say that I haven’t changed. I mean to join the feminist Queendom of Thanx, where women will rule. But if there is a prince who can tolerate the role of consort, I believe I can satisfy him in other respects.” That was a thinly veiled reference to the One Thing the prince would want.