Jest Right

by Piers Anthony

  Squid melted. A glacier would have melted! “Yes.”

  “Oh thank you! Thank you!” The two embraced. Jess knew that was the end of any resentment Squid might have had. Jess had no reason to doubt the princess’s sincerity, but she also appreciated the art of her presentation. Aria was a mistress of persuasion.

  Thereafter the two associated constantly. Anything about this time and situation Aria found confusing, Squid helped her understand. With this guidance, the princess soon melded with the group, so that it could be difficult to tell when it was Aria and when it was Noe. Santo, at first wary of Aria, gradually relaxed; she was not out to impress him or embarrass him, and she faded out when he needed to make a scene with Noe. Squid helped similarly when Aria worked with Magnus, preparing for the show. Jess, too, was relieved. It was almost as if the princess now had a chaperon.

  They did the show. This time, by popular demand, Noe participated, in the manner they had crafted: Princess Aria, anonymous, provided background music. She could hum as well as she could sing, and it did lend conviction to the activities.

  Magnus introduced himself, and the music made him seem twice as imposing. Jess watched and listened with mixed emotions. She loved that it was working, but feared that it was working almost too well. She had felt the power of a Sorceress herself, and Aria was another Sorceress. She was only ten or eleven, depending on whether she was the princess or her host, but—

  Magnus avoided the pretty girls who tried to mob him, selected volunteers and took them aside for briefing. Then Jess took the floor with her stories of romantic disaster, and the music enhanced those, too. The princess really was good at this. The audience was pleased, thinking that Noe was doing it.

  “So I am being more careful with my third boyfriend,” Jess continued as the music assumed a confidential tone. “I’m not telling him, so he can’t laugh his head off or puke all over my never-mind. He is my secret love. No one will ever know.”

  She paused to glance significantly at Magnus, who was facing away from her as he talked with the volunteers. The music broke off, as if protecting the secret.

  “But maybe at night, when he is sleeping, I will come to him and sneak a kiss.” Now the music turned romantically dreamy. “When he wakes he may remember it, but won’t take it seriously, of course.” The music dissipated, no longer serious.

  When Magnus returned to the stage, he paused as if taken by an errant thought. “You know, last night I dreamed that a nymph came to my bed and kissed me. It was so real! But why would a nymph ever do that? I almost wonder if—” The music formed a tremulous question. He glanced in Jess’s direction, but she happened to be facing away so was theoretically unaware of it. “No, I can’t take that seriously!” The music crashed.

  The audience loved it, partly because it seemed to be Noe onstage performing, as well as their own volunteers, and partly because her music was so persuasive. They really felt for this secret love.

  Then when the show was finished, and Boy had recovered Girl and hummed her a wonderful aria of love, and the show was shutting down, Magnus retired behind an opaque screen to rest. But the lighting was such that his form cast a silhouette on the screen. Then came the silhouette of Jess, sneaking quietly in to join him. She bent down to kiss him, and the screen showed it plainly. The music crescendoed at the touch. Fortunately he didn’t wake as the light faded.

  The audience applauded as it dissipated. They liked that concluding touch.

  “You do enhance the show,” Magnus told Aria as they sailed into the sky so that no more villagers could petition them. “You have the touch. Great job!”

  “Thank you,” Aria said, eyeing him speculatively before fading out. Jess looked away.

  The boat took off, and Santo made a Hole, and Win guided the craft through it. Soon they were back in Xanth. “Now I suspect you have your full complement,” Nia said. “Let’s relax the night, and you can figure out your mission in the morning.”

  They were satisfied to do that. The two princesses took a room together, having much to catch up on, joined by Squid. Win came to join Myst in the room with Magnus and Jess, so that the two mares could catch up on things similarly.

  “Something Santo said,” Magnus remarked. “About hugging and kissing Noe only in public. Would that work for us?”

  Jess hugged and kissed him. “Yuck!” the two girls exclaimed in unison.

  They laughed. If it looked real enough to evoke that reaction, they were making progress.

  Jess slept. She had an awful dream. She woke screaming.

  “Jess, what is it?” Magnus asked, holding her close.

  “I had a bad dream! It terrified me.”

  “And I know you well enough to know that you are not being facetious.” He turned to the two girls. “She had a bad dream.”

  Win and Myst were chagrined. “We must have done it,” Win said. “I hold the night mare.” Then her face and voice changed. “I didn’t do it. I can deliver only good dreams now.”

  They looked at Myst. She burst into tears. “I did it!” Mairzy said. “I got this dream to deliver, I didn’t know what it was but thought it was pleasant, the way they always were. I forgot how it’s changed.”

  “But here aboard Fibot we are protected from bad dreams,” Magnus said. “You have no connection to your errant stallion. Where did you get the dream?”

  “Squid gave it to me.” Myst paused, surprised. “We were having a snack while the others were sleeping, and she had it, so she passed it along to me. It didn’t occur to me that there was anything wrong with it.”

  Magnus shook his head. “I think we had better find out where Squid got it. She’s not a normal dream carrier.”

  This was indeed a mystery. Jess’s horror was fading as she dressed, but she remembered the dream clearly. It might have been delivered by the day mare, but it was definitely a bad night dream.

  “This is serious business,” Magnus said. “It seems there has been a breech in Fibot security. Maybe it relates to our mission.”

  “Our unknown mission,” Jess agreed. She was of course ignored.

  Soon they were meeting with Dell and Nia and the others. Nia took over the questioning. “Squid, where did you get that bad dream?”

  Squid was in tears, too. “I—I don’t know, exactly. Princess Aria came to me in the night, really upset. She touched me—and then she faded out, and only Noe was left. I—I was holding the dream. I guess she gave it to me. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I gave it to Myst, for Mairzy.”

  “It was for Jess,” Mairzy said. “So I delivered it. Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

  Nia focused on Noe. “We need to question Aria.”

  “She’s gone,” Noe said. “I was just getting to know her, and now she’s totally absent.”

  “So is Kadence,” Ula said. “She was upset, too. She left the same time Aria did, and there’s been no sign of them since.”

  “This is curious,” Nia said. “Those princesses are not mean spirited, no pun intended. Why would Aria do a nasty thing like that?”

  “I’m sure she didn’t mean to,” Nia said. “I think she was caught by surprise, and had to go instantly, along with Kadence. She was talking with Squid when it happened, maybe about to explain what she had, and I guess she just had to ditch the dream somewhere and go.”

  “But it was marked for Jess,” Mairzy said. “It was not an accident.”

  “Something is rotten in the marked den,” Magnus said grimly. “There’s a smell.”

  Nia looked at Jess. “The key must be in the dream itself. Can you describe it?”

  “Oh, yes,” Jess said. “It was a vision of the future, where the two princesses come from. Something utterly horrible was happening.”

  The others laughed, not taking her seriously.

  “I think I need Kadence.”

  “And she’s g
one,” Magnus said. “Tell me, and I will translate.” This was something he had learned to do, though it was not easy for him.

  “I don’t know whether I should say it, because—”

  Magnus relayed that.

  “I think you had better,” Nia said grimly. “I doubt that this mischief is coincidence. Your mission requires two princesses, and this seems to involve them.”

  “Yes,” Jess agreed. Then she described her dream, with Magnus rephrasing her words so that the others could accept them. “I was in the princesses’ time, and it was awful. Ragna Roc—”

  “Who?” Nia asked sharply.

  “He’s a big bird who—”

  “I know who he is. We had a peripheral brush with him last year. But he is safely confined.”

  “No he isn’t,” Jess said.

  “Hold a moment.” Nia faced the others. “For those who don’t know, Ragna is a roc bird who considers himself to be a god. He tried to take over Xanth over a decade ago. His power is rendering real people into illusions; they can be seen, but no longer are able to act in the real world; they can’t touch or be touched. Just about the worst thing that could happen to Xanth would be for Ragna to get loose again. And it may be he has, if we can believe Jess’s bad dream.” She took a deep breath. “Go on, Jess.”

  “In my dream, Ragna somehow got loose, and resumed his conquest of Xanth, in our near future. The three princesses, Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm, tried to stop him, before, so they were at the top of his list for revenge. They may have been abolished—that is, deleted, rendered into illusions—and now Ragna is going after their children. That is, Melody’s daughter Aria and Rhythm’s daughter Kadence. I thought it was just a bad dream, but—”

  “It’s not a dream,” Nia said. “It’s a vision of the future. That’s why it didn’t go through regular dream channels. That must also be why the two princesses vacated so abruptly; they had to flee for their lives before Ragna found them.”

  “And all Aria could do on such short notice was leave the story with her friend Squid,” Magnus concluded. “If this is not just a dream.”

  “I don’t think it is,” Nia said grimly.

  “I think now we finally know what our mission is. Not the exchange of stallions; that may be just a distraction to keep us from the real one. We have to stop Ragna Roc from escaping before it happens. We must have time, as we are in the princesses’ past.”

  “And just how do we do that?” Jess asked.

  Magnus’s smile was a rictus. “Consider it a challenge.”

  Chapter 6

  Bad Dreams

  Nia looked around. “Does anyone have any notion, however silly or far-fetched it may sound? We need a basis to start from. Even nonsense will do.”

  Squid raised a hand tentatively. “I—there is one other thing. I can’t make sense of it, so maybe shouldn’t mention it.”

  “Mention it,” Nia said shortly.

  “Aria said as she fled ‘Great Uncle Dolph.’ That’s all.”

  “That’s Prince Dolph,” the peeve said in Jess’s voice, because it was perched on her shoulder. She hadn’t noticed until it spoke. “Now an old fogy of forty-five. He has nothing to do with anything. Maybe his nieces like him.”

  “Isn’t he a shape changer?” Magnus asked. “I’ve heard of him.”

  “He can become anything,” the peeve said. “He probably gives the girls dragon rides. That must be why they like him.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jess said. Then, before they could laugh her off, she looked at Magnus.

  “She says she doesn’t think so,” Magnus said. “I appreciate why: Princess Aria is a serious and thoughtful girl. She’s not given to incidental irrelevancies. This must be a hint, maybe an important one. All she had time for.”

  Now the others nodded. “We need to know more about Prince Dolph, then,” Nia said.

  Tata’s screen flickered. “Delivered in the year 1074, or rather, found under a cabbage leaf; the stork evidently didn’t have time to dally,” the peeve translated. “King Dor and Queen Irene were satisfied, regardless, though his older sister Ivy had doubts. In 1083 at the age of nine he set off on a quest to find Good Magician Humfrey, who had disappeared. He was accompanied by the adult walking skeleton Marrow Bones. Captured by Mela Merwoman, who thought to hang on to him until he came of age, then marry him so she could be a princess. Wins free and gets betrothed to princess Nada Naga. Also gets betrothed to Electra, and marries her when she turns eighteen, letting Nada go. Their children are the twins Dawn and Eve. That’s in this reality; in other timelines he marries Princess Taplin and—”

  “Thank you, Tata,” Nia said. “I believe we have sufficient background. I gather Prince Dolph has retired into nonentity. That leaves open the question of why his great niece saw fit to give his name as a message to us.”

  “Maybe she just meant that she wished she could have another dragon ride with him,” Squid said. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  Nia gave her a steely eye. “She told you for a reason. Stop doubting and find that reason.”

  Tata’s screen flickered. “There is a codicil,” the peeve said. “Prince Dolph was present at the wedding of Cheiron and Chex Winged Centaur when all the winged monsters swore to protect their coming foal Che Centaur and his ward Sim Chick, son of the Simurgh, not yet hatched, from harm. Dolph counted as being a winged monster because of his dragon form. He was the most important participant in that oath. His action would change the history of Xanth, in due course.”

  Nia Nodded. “Now that has a stronger smell of relevance. Have we seen Dolph change the history of Xanth yet?”

  The screen flickered. “Only slightly,” the peeve said.

  “So perhaps the major change is yet to come?”

  The screen flickered. “Data insufficient.”

  “I will take that as a yes: it hasn’t yet happened.” Nia looked around. “Does it make sense that this crisis the princesses face could be that history that needs changing?”

  A look circled. In fact it looped about several times until pretty much knotted. It did seem to make sense.

  “So is Prince Dolph on the case now?” Dell asked.

  Tata’s screen flickered. “No. He seems to have forgotten about it.”

  “Then we should go remind him!” Jess flared.

  Everyone laughed. Then Magnus repeated it, and no one laughed.

  “I think we had better set sail for the residence of Prince Dolph,” Nia said grimly. “That must be at least part of our mission.”

  Tata, the peeve, and Win went topside to get the craft under way. Jess heard the clank as they weighed the anchor; apparently they needed to be sure it was intact before sailing.

  “Oh!” Ula said. Then her features changed. “We’re here,” Princess Kadence said.

  “Thanks to your decision,” Princess Aria said from Noe’s mouth.

  “You’re back!” Squid screamed, running to hug her. Then there was a brief medley of pleasant confusion as the children gathered in close.

  “What happened?” Myst asked breathlessly.

  “That’s an unpleasant story,” Aria said.

  “Tell it, anyway,” Nia said grimly.

  Aria began to talk.

  Princess Aria was scheduled to sing at the ceremony of the twentieth anniversary of the confinement of Ragna Roc, where her cousin Princess Kadence had been instrumental. Kadence had had to travel to a time before her own delivery, or for that matter, the marriage of her parents, so as to use her talent to make the undeleted egg that was to hold the big bird. It had worked, and Xanth had been saved, and Kadence had returned to her own time, still a child.

  Ragna Roc had regarded himself as a god whose natural destiny was to conquer Xanth and anything else that might interest him. His talent was deletion: anything he focused on, he could render int
o illusion. The people and things he deleted remained visible, but no longer had any substance. Anyone who opposed him was instantly deleted. Only he could undelete them, which he rarely did. Why should he bother? He deleted whole villages, and the people there continued much as they always had, except that they were now real only to themselves, and could not affect the real world. A few tried, but were dismissed as ghosts, which they pretty much were. The survivors soon got the message: obey Ragna, and worship him as a god, and they would prosper.

  The big bird had a castle made for him from rock candy, a beautiful edifice. He had all manner of servants, and indeed, it was not a bad life for them. His influence expanded steadily. He had spies to ferret out any likely opposition, which he deleted before it manifested.

  Until the triplet princesses, Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm, then twelve years old, decided to stop him. Any one of them was a Sorceress in her own right; any two of them together squared their power, and the three of them together cubed it. Only capital D Demons had more magic power than that, so they figured they could handle the roc. Unfortunately they were mistaken; they were children, while he was adult; their power was still forming, while his was mature. They faced each other in his rock candy castle, and while neither he nor they moved physically, the castle began to melt from the invisible power of the warring magic.

  And Ragna was too much for them. Princess Melody fell, then Princess Harmony. When Princess Rhythm fell, her secret boyfriend (because she was underage) Cyrus Cyborg tricked the big bird into entering the big undeleted eggshell Kadence had crafted with her talent, and sealed him in. The thing was that any substance Ragna deleted, then undeleted, could no longer be deleted; it was like ashes that could no longer be burned. So he was trapped by his own refuse and could not escape.