“I think I need advice. What do you think?”
“I think you need better advice than mine. Why don’t you check with Princess Dawn? She’ll know who can best help you.”
“I’ll do that,” he agreed, relieved to be able to postpone the dread decision for a few hours.
Back at Caprice Castle Bryce went to the garden, where Princess Dawn was classifying the rare plants that traveled with the castle.
“Oh, hello Bryce,” she said, looking up. “It’s a good thing you happened by. It gives me a chance to show off the Lady Slippers I discovered here.” She held up a lovely pair she had harvested from a Lady Slipper plant. “There’s just one problem.”
“They make you slip,” he said.
“Exactly. If I tried to wear these I’d soon fall on my rear and show more of my legs than I care to.”
“That would be deplorable,” he said, though he couldn’t help imagining her lovely legs flashing in the air.
She looked at him and laughed, comprehending too well. “What can I do for you, apart from that?”
“I have a chance to go home to Mundania, but I’m not quite certain whether to do it. I need advice.”
“Because here you orient on a teenage girl,” she said. “And you’re afraid that if you stay around, she’ll try to seduce you, and just possibly might succeed.”
“You understand me too well,” he said ruefully.
“I’m really on the other side, rooting for Harmony. But I think I know who might be able to render some perspective. I’ll go fetch her. Meanwhile, talk with Picka. He knows about being stalked by a princess.”
“He does?”
“And she finally got me,” Picka said behind him. “Even though she’s obviously not my type. Way too much flesh on her nice bones.”
“Way too much,” Dawn agreed, and flipped her skirt up to flash him with her panties. Bryce caught only a peripheral glimpse, but it almost freaked him out. Only his practice with Mindy saved him. Picka, however, was unaffected.
Then she changed momentarily to skeletal form and did it again. This time the walking skeleton did freak out. Bryce was unaffected by her bare pelvis bone. By the time he snapped his fingers to rouse Picka, Dawn was gone. She had made her point.
“What’s this about being stalked by a princess?” Picka asked.
“It’s not that, exactly,” Bryce said. “It’s that I have a chance to return to Mundania, and I don’t know whether I should.”
“I do have an empty-headed thought on that,” Picka said. “It is my theory that the Demons have set up another contest. They may be wagering on whether Princess Harmony will nab you after all, and if so, when. Offering you a chance to escape her wiles would be part of it.”
“Another Demon bet,” Bryce said, seeing it. The skeleton’s head might be empty, but he was not stupid. “That could explain it, yes.”
“The Demons are all-powerful and immortal. They must get bored, so they divert themselves with these wagers that may be minor to them, but not to us who have little power and limited lives. Not that I’m exactly alive, except when I change to manform. Your refusal of the Princess Harmony’s proposal is the kind of thing that should interest them.”
“And of course they will not do anything to make it easier for us.”
“They’re Demons,” Picka agreed. “One of them will win or lose, depending on your decision, and any interference on their part would void that. So you are on your own.”
“Do you have any thoughts about it yourself?”
“Well, my head is empty. But I understand that no man can say no to a princess indefinitely. She’s bound to get you eventually.”
“Why should she want me? She chose me so that she could be free to make up her own mind.”
“True. But she loves you. Maybe she wants you to accept of your own free choice.”
“How can it be free when she will not release the love spell that is on me?”
“Excellent point. Maybe you should ask her that.”
“Maybe I will,” Bryce agreed.
Dawn returned with an undistinguished older woman. “Electra will talk with you,” she said. “Let’s leave them to it, love.” She led Picka away. It was obvious that their association was exactly like that of other couples in Xanth and perhaps Mundania too: the woman ran it.
“Dawn told me of your concern,” Electra said. “She thought my own experience might offer some insight.”
“Perhaps,” Bryce agreed guardedly. He wondered what possible relevance this woman’s case could offer. He almost thought he had heard the name before, but couldn’t place it.
“She says your main concern is that Harmony is young, while you are old.”
“Yes. She’s barely beyond childhood. Any bad words spoken in her presence get bleeped out.” He paused. “That explains that!”
“Explains what?”
“The members of our Quest were all of age for bad words. Mindy was the youngest, and she was twenty. Still the words got bleeped. Because she wasn’t really Mindy, but sixteen-year-old Harmony, the underside of eighteen. I never caught on, but the Adult Conspiracy knew.”
Electra nodded. “That was the case when I met Dolph. I was technically almost a thousand years old, having slept for most of my life. I won’t bore you with the details. Dolph was barely coming on to age sixteen, too young for bad words or indeed to know the content of the Adult Conspiracy. Yet we married. He was dreadfully immature, but I loved him, and soon he came to love me too. So the age differential didn’t matter. It was our physical ages that counted, and we were fairly close there. We have been happy in our marriage and with our children, both beautiful Sorceresses.”
“Your children?”
“Oh, did I forget to mention that? I am Dawn and Eve’s mother.”
Bryce felt dizzy. “Dawn’s mother!” Now he remembered the context of her name.
“I’m glad to see her happily married,” Electra said. “I can’t say I was keen at first on her man being a skeleton, but she evidently chose well and I like Picka Bone well. He’s got a good skull over his shoulder bones, he’s a decent person, and he’s one fine musician.”
“No wonder Dawn wanted me to talk with you! Your age differential was greater than mine with Harmony.”
“Technically, yes. But it doesn’t matter. Dolph and I were right for each other.” She studied Bryce appraisingly. “Just as I suspect you and Harmony are right for each other. It would be a shame if you let a technicality bar your happiness.”
“But she’s so young!”
“Odd thing about that,” Electra said. “She won’t stay young. She’ll get older every year.”
“So will I!”
“From age twenty-one on,” she agreed. “That five-year difference won’t seem like much after a few years. Age is largely irrelevant in Xanth. Breanna of the Black Wave was only fifteen when she encountered Justin Tree, who was about one hundred. They’ve been happily married for a decade.”
She had given him a new perspective. “Thank you for your advice.”
“Oh, you’re welcome,” she said. “I’m glad to have been of help.”
It seemed to Bryce that the others he discussed this with wanted him to marry Harmony. Obviously such a union could work out in Xanth. But he was not a native of this fantasy land. He had standards the natives evidently did not understand.
Next day he went out again with Mindy. But as he saw the changed scenery, he reacted with horror. “We’re in a new location! Not near the path to Mundania!”
“Oh, I never thought of that!” Mindy said.
Then the bright blue path appeared ahead of them. Beside it stood the three princesses. “We thought of it,” Melody said.
“It originates where we choose,” Harmony added.
“Which is right here,” Rhythm concluded.
Thus suddenly, again, the decision was upon him. “I believe I should go,” he said. “I don’t belong here in Xanth.”
Harmony
broke ranks and stepped out from between her sisters. As she did, her clothing changed, enhancing her individuality. She was no longer an almost identical triplet; she was a lovely young woman. “I will go with you.”
“That is not feasible,” Bryce said. “Mundania has nothing for you.”
“Nothing except you,” Harmony said. “I love you and want to be with you.”
“Harmony, what you have is a teen crush. It will pass in time.”
“No. I’ve had crushes before. I thought it was a crush, and that it would fade after you turned me down. So that I could truly make my own choice. But it didn’t fade. It grew stronger, and filled out, and then I knew it was love. I hate to admit it, but it turns out the Demons did know best. It’s ironic that now that I can choose for myself, I’m already committed. You are the one for me.”
“Harmony—”
“I am trying to use judgment,” she continued inexorably. “To be realistic. I have thought it through. I may be barely out of my childhood now, but I will mature in time. It will help considerably if I have the right influence as I prepare to become king. I can learn a lot from you, and I don’t mean just about incidental things, I mean about ethics and judgment and becoming a better person, and that’s what I mean to do.”
That reminded him. “How do you expect me to make any kind of objective decision about you while I am bound by a love spell? You should release me from it.”
“Then will you stay?”
“Then I will make a sensible decision.”
“You are released,” she said simply.
He felt it shedding away from him, leaving him no longer bound. He was free at last! He was able to view her as a young, smart, determined, and quite lovely princess. “Thank you.”
Then, freed of the distraction of spelled love, he felt the emptiness. He was in a foreign land with wildly foreign rules, and he was lonely. His life here had no real meaning. He needed compatible environs, a fulfilling mission, and companionship of his own intellectual and social kind. He had none.
“Are you going?” she asked.
“Yes, I believe I am. Mundania is where I belong.”
“Then I will go with you,” she repeated firmly. “So you won’t be alone.”
“Harmony, you can’t. You’d be an undocumented person there.”
“Un-what?”
“No birth certificate,” Mindy said. “They insist that everyone have one, in Mundania.”
“They would assume you were a teen runaway,” Bryce said. “They would institutionalize you. So you would not be with me anyway. You’d have no magic to escape. So I’d be alone anyway. In two years I’d be dead, leaving you stranded with nothing. You can’t go.”
Harmony nodded. “I see the problem. It’s not the place for me. But is it really the place for you? Do you really want to die rather than suffer the love of a girl one-fifth your age?”
“No I don’t. But I am what I am, and must do what I am fated to do. That is not getting cozy with a virtual child.”
“Uh-oh,” Rhythm murmured in the background. “When a man said that to me, I hauled him into a love spring and tore off his clothing. That shut him up.”
“Bleep it!” Harmony swore. “I freed you from the love spell. But I can’t free myself. I got my love for you the old-fashioned way, by coming to know you, appreciate you, and falling for you. You may be free now but I am not. If you go, I will go with you. You can’t stop me.”
“You would be doomed!”
“But I’d be doomed with you. That’s the way I want it.”
He gazed at her. She stood firmly in the path ahead of him, her little chin raised, her brown hair falling back in shock waves, her brown eyes bright with tears, and infernally beautiful. He was no longer in love with her, so could see her objectively, and know that it was true. He also knew she was deadly serious. He would in effect imprison her for life in a world without magic, surely a fate worse than death for her.
He couldn’t do it to her.
“I’ll stay,” he said.
She held her ground. “And?”
“And I am making no other commitment. I am not taking up with a teen girl.”
“Then I will court you. I’m sure I can change your mind, in time.”
“Harmony—”
“But I will be fair about it,” she said. “Other women can court you too. Attractive women, closer to your age. Maybe Mundane women. If one of them appeals to you, you can marry her. It can be like the Demon Quest to find a man for me, only this will be to find a woman for you. And I will be one of them. Do you agree?”
She was indeed being fair. “Yes,” he said, fearing that this would not be nearly as simple as it seemed at the moment.
“Starting tomorrow,” she said. “Each day a new woman will accompany you pun hunting. She will also try to seduce you and win your heart.”
“Harmony—” he repeated. But she and her sisters were gone.
“I think you’re in for it,” Mindy said. “She’s mad at you. She loves you, but she’s mad.”
“I’m in for it,” he agreed ruefully.
“At least you have today to prepare yourself for the siege.”
“I have today,” he agreed soberly.
Mindy looked around. “This is supposed to be the pun foraging place, but I don’t see any.”
“We’ve been harvesting a lot of puns. Maybe they are becoming sparse.”
“In that case we’ll need a better way to locate them.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Piper and Anna came by, searching. “We spied a couple of puns, but they flew away,” Piper said.
“They can’t have gotten far,” Anna said. “We’re determined to bag them.”
“What kind of puns were they?” Mindy asked.
“Flies,” Piper said. “We didn’t get a close enough look to identify what kind, but they stank of puns.”
“He doesn’t much like puns, except for me,” Anna confided.
“Your name is punnish, but you’re a real woman,” Bryce said.
“Thank you.” She winked. “I told him my secret. You were right. I still turn him on.”
“You bet she does,” Piper said. “I don’t care much about her history. She’s fabulous now.”
“Am I missing something?” Mindy asked.
“This is the real Mindy, not the princess,” Bryce reminded them. “She didn’t get to listen in on private dialogues.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Anna said. “I was a man, changed by the Demons to female for the Quest so I could distract Bryce from winning his prize. But maybe I distracted Piper more.”
“You bet,” Piper repeated.
“But if you were—how could you—?”
That was Bryce’s question, but he had hesitated to ask.
“I was Justin Kase, who could summon things that might be needed in the future. As it turned out, he summoned me.” Anna smiled. “But to answer your question: Justin really liked the ladies. He couldn’t get enough of them, and they liked him too, because he summoned things that charmed them. When I changed, so did my interests. I wasn’t looking for a man a day. But I remembered how the women had impressed Justin. It wasn’t just flashing panties; it was how they delivered. So when I found a man I really liked, I made sure to be the kind of woman who would have caught and held Justin. So now I am that anomaly, a woman who truly desires her man and who gets pleasure pleasuring him. I don’t just lie there and wait for him; I evoke the nuances. It’s an art, not an act.”
“You bet,” Piper agreed a third time.
Bryce nodded. She had demonstrated her ability in that respect with him. She was perhaps a better woman than she might have been had she never had that other experience. Because she remembered.
Had Princess Harmony had that ability, she would have seduced him without difficulty. But she was innocent, and he preferred her that way.
“That’s some romance,” Mindy said, almost enviously.
�
��They are well matched,” Bryce said. “Both have or have had completely different other identities, and both understand.”
There was a stirring in the brush. “Flies,” Bryce said.
They converged on the spot. There under a shelter of weeds were a number of flies doing some kind of dance that formed a globe in the air.
“Fly ball!” Anna said, and swooped them into her bag.
“Good enough,” Mindy said, and moved on.
Next day a new woman intercepted him as the group prepared to go out punning. She was strikingly beautiful, with bright yellow hair, bright red lips, eyes bright as diamonds, and a provocative figure. “I am the Yellow Rose of Texas,” she said. “I’ll be your guide today.”
Bryce was taken aback. “I thought she was imaginary.”
“Maybe in Mundania,” she said, smiling. Her eyes sparkled like the dew. “But this is Xanth.” She took his hand. “We have things to do.”
Bemused, he suffered her to lead him out to the trikes. She wore a flaring yellow skirt, but that didn’t stop her from using the trike. She probably intended to freak him out if she got the chance. Harmony had warned him that the women would be out to seduce him.
They rode out. Bryce let Rose lead the way, both because she evidently knew the route, and because that way he did not risk glancing back and seeing under that skirt. He had practiced panty-magic resistance with Mindy, but feared it wasn’t enough. The Yellow Rose was way too impressive.
Then he remembered his second sight. That should enable him to blink before getting caught. Because he could not be sure what the Rose of Texas would do if she had free access while he was freaked out.
They came to what looked like a golf course, with greens and bunkers and nice weather. There were two golf balls in the rough. “Oh, these must be puns!” Rose said. She got off her trike, walked to them, and bent over from the waist so that her skirt flared up behind her. But Bryce, on guard, closed his right eye as his left eye caught the coming flash of her panties. She would not trap him so readily.
Rose froze in place, her fingers touching the balls. What was she up to? He was the one who was supposed to freak, not her.
Then he realized that it was no act. Something had locked her there. But all he saw were the two golf balls. Two golfers must have hit them here, and would soon come along to play their lies.
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