"Maybe I can go in alone," Electra suggested.
"Alone?" Nada's brown-gray eyes were beautifully perplexed. Electra's eyes were forgettable, whether perplexed or excited. Even she could not remember their color, if they had any.
"No one will notice if I go in."
" 'Lectra, are you going into another inferiority tizzy?" Nada demanded severely.
"Well—" Electra said guiltily.
"I won't have it! You're a great friend and a great girl, and only an idiot wouldn't notice you!"
"How about Dolph?" Electra asked wryly.
"He is an idiot!"
Then they both laughed, appreciating the painful truth of that.
"Anyway," Nada said after a moment, "it's not you or me, it's that the drawbridge is up and we can't ask favors. So we'll just have to forge in any way we can, just like anyone else. We do have a Question, after all."
"Not the one I'd like to ask."
"Maybe we can get Dolph to ask it."
"We'd have to dose him with a love potion first!"
Nada paused. "Now I wonder—"
"Forget it! Even if he loved me, he'd still love you too, and you're everything I'm not, so—"
"Now stop it, 'Lectra! Physical appearance isn't everything."
"Right. There's also the matter of royalty versus peasant, and niceness versus—"
"You're nice, 'Lectra! You're as nice as anyone, and—"
"And I have freckles too."
"Oh, you're hopeless!" Nada exclaimed in exasperation. She was lovely when exasperated, as Electra wasn't.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you."
Nada changed the subject. "So we'll both go in. Together. As soon as we figure out how."
Electra contemplated the moat. She didn't see any moat monsters, but they were surely lurking somewhere. It would not be safe to swim, unless Nada became a bigger monster.
"Suppose you become a giant water serpent, and—"
"My thought exactly! Get on."
Nada shrugged out of her clothes, handed them over, and became the serpent. Electra stuffed the clothes in her knapsack and bestrode her, as she had when they traveled the magic path. Nada slid into the water and started across. Electra's feet and dress were getting wet, but she wasn't going to let that stop her; they would dry in due course.
There was a stir at the far shore. Electra peered forward. "All I see is shells," she reported. Then she laughed. "She saw sea shells by the sea shore! Only it's a moat shore."
There was a bang, and something flew toward them. "Duck!" Electra cried.
Nada ducked, and Electra got dunked. But the object missed, plunking into the water behind them.
Nada surfaced, lifting her head for a hiss.
"I don't know," Electra said. "It looked like a flying shell with the number point twenty-two painted on it."
Nada shook her head, unable to make much sense of this. Electra understood her confusion. Since when did shells fly? They normally lay on the beach or under water.
Then there was a bigger bang, and a larger shell came flying. This one had the number .357 on it. "Down!" Electra screamed.
They dived again, and the shell missed.
After a moment they resumed motion—and an even larger shell, marked .45, came flying at them. "Another!" Electra cried, throwing herself aside.
When she came up, something clicked in her head. "It's a challenge!" she gasped. "Those shells are the first line of defense!"
Nada looped around, and they headed back for the outer shore. When they got there, Nada changed to woman form and climbed out. A man farther around the moat fell over; evidently he had gotten too much of an eyeful and was stunned. Electra was sure it wasn't her own bedraggled wet-clothinged body that had done it.
"I never heard of flying shells!" Nada said. "How can we get past, when they keep getting bigger?"
Electra concentrated. "I almost remember something, maybe from when I visited Mundania. Some folk—they like to throw shells at targets, I think. Or at bulls. Something like that. The eyes—it sounds so mean—"
"Bull's-eyes!" Nada exclaimed. "I've heard of that. They aren't really animals, but big painted circles. Maybe if we make one of those, the shells will go for it."
It seemed worth trying. They scrounged around, and found a giant white pillow from a pillow bush, and a patch of Indian paint brushes. They used one of these to paint Indian designs—it wouldn't paint anything else—in a big circle that looked somewhat like an eye. Then they floated this in the moat, the eye looking up.
Sure enough, the shells went for it. And while the shells were distracted by the target, Nada and Electra quietly swam across and emerged on the castle side. The only one to see was another man beyond the moat, and he promptly went rigid and keeled over the way the first had. Nada did have that effect on men, even without her pink panties.
Nada dressed. Electra's knapsack was watertight, so Nada's dress was nice and dry and fresh, while Electra looked like a damp zombie. But she knew that even if her clothes had been fresh, and Nada's sodden, Nada would have been a sight for sore eyes, while Electra would have been a sight to make eyes sore.
But hardly were they through, when the next challenge was upon them. A swarm of flying red objects charged them. Each was roughly heart-shaped but not properly symmetrical; there were ugly tubes protruding from the tops, and great swollen veins around their bodies. Each pulsed horrendously.
"Oh!" Nada cried daintily as one of the grotesque things whammed into her shoulder. Even when under attack, she was ladylike.
"Yuck!" Electra grunted in unladylike fashion as another sailed at her face.
"What are they?" Nada asked, trying to avoid another that was threatening to splatter her nice dress with juice exactly the color of blood.
"Monsters of the next challenge!" Electra replied, as the thing missed Nada and scored on her own dress. Bright gore dribbled down it and dripped to her feet.
Nada became a big snake and reared up at the next red blob, her dress hanging awkwardly on her new body. In a moment she slithered out of it. She opened her mouth, showing formidable fangs, and hissed. The blob veered to the side—but another splatted her from behind. Her head whirled to snap at that one—whereupon the one in front splatted its gore on her.
"There are too many of them!" Electra cried. "We can't fight them; we'll just get hopelessly gored. We have to figure out the key to this challenge!"
The snake slithered down into the moat to wash off the splat. That left Electra as the main focus of attention. A huge blob smashed into her chest, trying to knock her down.
She grabbed it, and lifted it up, ready to hurl it into the moat. But she knew it would just loop around and attack her again. The thing was slimy with leaking blood, and worse, it was warm and pulsing. Just as if a living heart had been ripped from—
"Aaarrghhh!" she groaned with heartfelt horror. "It is a heart!"
The snake became Nada in her natural form: a naga, with the body of a serpent and the head of a woman. "A heart attack!" she exclaimed. "I've heard of them, but I never thought it would happen to me!"
"No one ever does," Electra agreed heartily. She ducked as a bold heart came at her head, and was caught in the rear by another.
She still held the big heart that had hit her chest. It was oddly passive now, though she wasn't holding it hard. She realized that her electrical nature might be affecting it. That heartened her, because it might offer a solution to this challenge.
Her magic talent was electricity. She was constantly building up a charge, and could discharge it all at once by delivering a hefty shock to some monster or gradually as when she made an electrolytic environment for the Heaven Cent. She had heard that hearts used electric pulses to time their beats or something. Maybe these wild hearts were just out of control, and so were attacking anything in the vicinity. If she could put her hands on them and use her electricity to get their pulses even, maybe that would tame them.
Sh
e let the big heart go. It floated away, passive, beating steadily, seeming at peace with the world.
She watched for the next, and when it zoomed in she grabbed it. The thing tried to slip out of her grasp, but she clutched it to her. It was hot, and it almost burned her, but she knew it was only heartburn. In a moment, as her hands retained contact, the heart became passive. Then she let it go, and it floated peacefully away. It was working!
"What are you doing, 'Lectra?" Nada called from the moat.
"I'm making a better pace for these hearts," Electra replied. "They're wild because they're out of control."
"You're a good pacemaker," Nada agreed, watching the orderly hearts floating away. "Don't break any!"
"We don't want any broken hearts," Electra agreed as she caught another. She doubted she could ever be a heart-breaker.
Finally every heart was tamed. Electra was a little sad to see the last one drift contentedly off, but she knew it was only heartache. She had surmounted the second challenge.
She went to the moat and washed off the blood. She hoped the tame hearts found good bodies to occupy, because they seemed very warm and friendly and would probably do good service if treated well. She couldn't blame them for being wild, when they were cast out into the world alone.
They emerged from the moat and walked on. Nada's dress was now as wet as Electra's, because she had had to wash it, but it still looked ten times as good on her as anything Electra had ever worn had ever looked on her. They came to an arched gate and went through it, into the castle. There was a long narrow hall ahead.
But there was something oozing from the far gate. It looked lumpy and red and sticky, as if a thousand wild hearts had been squished and dumped in a sodden mass. Was this where the hearts had come from? No wonder they had been wild!
Nada sniffed. Then she reached down and put a finger to the mess, and tasted it. "I thought so: strawberry."
"You mean it's edible?" Electra asked, amazed. "We're supposed to eat our way through it?"
"I hope not! Strawberry jam is horribly fattening."
"That wouldn't stop me. I can't put on weight no matter how much I eat. That's my problem."
"That's not your problem!" Nada flared. "You're beautifully slender!"
"I'd trade my figure for yours anytime!"
"If I eat any of that jam, you won't want my figure," Nada said. "I'd be so fat I could roll without pulling in my arms or legs."
Electra tried to picture that, and found it hilarious. But it didn't come out as a healthy laugh, or even a girlish giggle, just a foolish titter.
She dipped a finger and tasted the jam. "No, this isn't strawberry, quite. It's too metallic. Not hayberry either. And look—those aren't exactly berries. They're moving around."
Nada peered. "You're right! Some are bigger than others, and they're sort of square. They keep nudging up to each other and stopping."
"Until something else gets out of the way," Electra added. "Only things seem to be much better at getting into the way than out of it."
"And the total effect is one of absolute gooey crawl," Nada said. "Not one berry can get where it's going before all the others do, so they are all made maddeningly slow." "I think I tasted something like this, once, hundreds of years ago," Electra said. "It was a kind of berry growing in a circle, a—a traffic circle. The berries just kept rolling around and around it until they wore out."
"Those must have been crazy berries!"
"Traffic berries. They're always moving around, except when they get stuck in—"
"Traffic jam," Nada concluded. "And this is one big mess of jam!"
"Yes, it's awful. How can we get by it?"
They watched the jam ooze its way onward. "There's no help for it," Nada said reluctantly. "We'll just have to slog through it. I hope I can take a bath at the other end."
Electra sighed. "I'll go first. I have less to lose."
"No, you don't! You have more to win." Nada stepped into the jam.
Immediately she slowed to a crawl. She tried to move her feet, but there was always something in the way. The jam wouldn't give her any chance to get anywhere.
"This is no good!" Nada gasped. "I can't move!"
Electra reached out to take her hand. "I'll pull you out." But though she did pull, Nada remained stuck in the traffic jam.
"There has to be a better way!" Nada said. "I'm just getting caught worse!"
"Change into a small snake, so I can lift you out," Electra suggested.
Nada did so. She became a garter snake, whose garters had nothing to attach to. Electra closed her hand carefully about the body and pulled, but the snake's tail was hopelessly caught. She just couldn't get free. Finally she changed back to human form, so that she could stand on her own without getting in deeper.
Electra put her hands to her head and ran some current through it, making her brain strain. This enabled her to force out an idea. "Maybe if we could get the jam to go somewhere else," she said, "and leave us here." "But that's the problem," Nada objected. "It can't move anywhere very fast."
"The traffic berries in it can't move fast," Electra said. "But maybe the whole thing can—if it wants to."
"But what could make it want to?"
Electra fished in her knapsack. "I saw something in my calendar about a festival or something." She pulled out a battered copy of a Xanth calendar and leafed through it. "Yes, here it is! A jamboree!"
The traffic jam quivered.
"But isn't that—" Nada started.
"Yes. It will occur in the Gap Chasm."
The jam began to move. It slid slowly, then more swiftly out of the hall, carrying Nada along with it. Soon it was going at a respectable speed. Electra grabbed onto Nada again, and hung on, and the jam moved onward so rapidly that it lost cohesion and let her feet go.
A moment later they watched the jam sliding on across the moat. There was no question: it was headed for that jamboree. Electra had guessed right; no jam could resist something like that.
"Didn't you make a teeny fib?" Nada asked. "There's no party at the Gap!"
Electra showed her the calendar. "I didn't say it was a party. I said it was a Jamboree. And here it is." She pointed to it.
"The month of Jamboree," Nada said. "But—"
"Right here in the calendar," Electra agreed. "It occurs in the Gap, just as it does everywhere else in Xanth at the same time. The traffic jam is sure to find it, in due course."
Nada shook her head. "I suppose that jam wasn't going anywhere else fast anyway," she said, resigned.
"But we are—quick while the passage is clear." She hauled Nada along into the castle. The naga woman let herself be towed, deciding it wasn't worth further protest.
The passage ended in steps that led to a door, and beyond the door was Ivy. She was in a yellow dress that complemented her pale green hair. She was Nada's age, but not as luscious. In that respect she fell more or less between Nada and Electra. "Oh, how wonderful to see you two again!" she exclaimed, hugging each in turn. "Why didn't you tell us you were coming?"
Both Nada and Electra stared at her, caught between astonishment and outrage. Then Ivy's mouth quirked, and in a moment all three were lost in girlish laughter.
"Well, come on," Ivy said as they subsided. "I think Grey's had time to research the Answer now."
Electra nodded. There was reason for the challenges. Not only did they discourage those who weren't really serious, they gave the Magician time to get the necessary information. Few folk knew this, but Nada and Electra were Ivy's closest friends and were privy to some pretty formidable secrets.
Grey Murphy was in the upstairs chamber with the Book of Answers. There were those who claimed there was no such book, but that was just because they hadn't seen it. It had answers to every question; the only problem was figuring out how to read them and understand them. Grey had been working on it for three years now and was getting better, but he still had to scramble at times.
"We'll dispense with th
e year of service," Grey said with a smile. "Ivy says her friends are exempt, or else."
"We thought as much," Nada agreed with an answering smile. "Are you ready for our Question?"
"I think so. But I'm afraid you won't much like the Answer. Are you sure you want to ask?"
"Yes," Electra said. "We don't have much time."
"Very well. Ask."
"Where is Che Centaur?"
Grey stared at her. "What?"
"She said, 'Where is Che Centaur?' " Nada said. "You know, Chex's foal."
"But—" Grey looked baffled.
Nada frowned, managing to look beautiful at the same time. "What's the matter—did we ask the wrong Question?" "I just researched the problem of your betrothals!" Grey exclaimed.
It was Nada and Electra's turn to stare. Then both burst into laughter. "We never thought of that!" Electra cried.
"That's next week's problem," Nada added.
Grey brushed his hair-colored hair back and looked sheepish. It was a fairly easy expression for him. "I guess I was too busy with technicalities. I just assumed—" He shrugged. "This presents a problem."
"You mean you don't know where Che is?" Electra asked, "because you were checking into our triangle problem? I guess that's a problem, all right."
"Maybe the mirror knows," he said. Most magic mirrors were fairly transparent, but some were brighter than others.
He rummaged in a drawer and brought out a hand mirror. "The problem with this one is that it has to be questioned in rhyme, and the format's limited, and it isn't always quite current." He pondered for a moment, then addressed it: "Mirror, mirror, in the desk, is Che Centaur picturesque?"
"That query is grotesque!" the mirror responded, matching the rhyme. But a scene showed on it, of the little centaur tied, hobbled, and guarded by goblins.
Nada, Electra, and Ivy stifled similar exclamations of horror. He had been stolen by goblins!
"But there are several goblin tribes," Nada said. "There're the goblins of Mount Etamin that my folk war against—"
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