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  A watery bulb flashed over her head. "Jackson!" she exclaimed. He was the official inventory taker for the Brain Coral, so knew where everything was.

  In a moment a head broke water. "Cynthia!" he exclaimed. "Are you giving up on worldly Xanth?"

  "Jackson! How are you? No, I'm here on brief business."

  "Pleasure before business," he said. "Come in and give me a hug, you fantastic creature."

  "Gladly." She set Zilche in the shallow water, where she could be comfortable while talking with Watt's Gnu, then waded deeper until she was chest deep. It felt good against her hide, because of its preservative quality. Jackson swam up to join her. He was a merman, with a history roughly similar to hers: He had been fully human, but had swum in a dangerous section of a river and been swallowed by a big fish. But the fish had a hunger bigger that its stomach, and was able to swallow only the lower half of the man. By the time it realized that, it had already digested Jackson's feet. Jackson could neither die nor escape. Finally they compromised, agreeing to merge, becoming a merman. Unfortunately the natural merfolk did not accept Jackson as one of them, considering him at best an imitation. Some species were like that; in fact, the centaurs were as purebred snotty as any, but by no means the only ones. Frustrated, isolated, he swam to the Brain Coral's Pool for storage until the issue could be resolved. Jackson had liked it, and had taken a job there.

  They hugged, and Cynthia even added a chaste kiss. She understood as well as anyone what it meant to be neither fish nor fowl. They had been friends for decades, before she left the pool.

  "You don't seem to have aged a bit," Jackson said. "I would swear by the feel of you that you are still sixteen, physically."

  She released him and glanced down at the human portion of her torso. She had filled out rather well, if she did say so herself. "That's not surprising. I was rejuvenated to the physical age of eight, after I left here. That was eight years ago, so I am physically sixteen now, again."

  "Why would you want to become eight?"

  "To be suitable for Che Centaur. It is working out well. One year we shall marry, and our foals will breed true." She knew it was foolish, but she felt a small flush of pride at being able to make that statement. "Winged centaurs."

  He glanced appraisingly at her body. "I'm jealous of him."

  "Thank you."

  "Now what is your business?"

  "I need to find the Ring of Water. I believe it is somewhere in the pool."

  "No."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "There's no such Ring here. I have inventoried everything, so am in a position to know. If you would like some opti or pessi mist spray to make you feel positive or negative, we have that. We have a fine brain eyeball, or a show-and-tell-a-vision box that lights up with a person's idea. We have a fine scarf that wraps around a person's neck and keeps it warm, though it eats too much."

  "The scarf eats?"

  "Voraciously. It has a high metabolism. It just gobbles food down in whole chunks, so that the person wearing it can hardly get a bite. That's why the scarf wound up being stored here despite its usefulness. We have many things. But no Ring."

  "But there has to be! Zilche said-"

  He glanced at the zombie, who was happily swimming nearby, having caught Watt's Gnu up. The water was good for her too. "What did you say, Zilche?"

  "Ze pulsh ze zing."

  "See?" Cynthia said. "The pool's the thing."

  "That is not what I heard."

  "Well, she is a zombie. Her pronunciation-"

  "She said, 'The play's the thing.' Right, Zilche?"

  The zombie nodded.

  Cynthia was dismayed. "But that makes no sense! The Ring of Water should be in water, and it is natural that the Brain Coral would be in charge of it."

  "Perhaps so, but the domain of water is hardly limited to the pool. There's the entire Region of Water."

  "The Ring has power over that, so I don't think it would be there. My impression is that the Rings are somewhat apart from what they control, though I could be in error."

  Jackson spoke again to the zombie. "Zilche, what play?"

  "Ze cursh ffiendz pulsh."

  "The curse fiend's play!" Cynthia exclaimed. The word "pulsh" still did not sound much like "play" to her, but the rest was clear enough. "I don't want to go there."

  Jackson shrugged. "You are welcome to stay here."

  She laughed. "No, I must be gone. Please relay my greetings to all my friends here."

  "I shall. But you have many friends. Which ones were you thinking of?"

  "Miss Erry, who loves company but somehow manages to alienate most folk. Miss Steppe, with her painful talent of falling down. And of course the relatives of MareAnn: SpartAnn, TrojAnn, HellAnn-"

  "I will notify them all."

  She hugged him again, then splashed out of the pool. "Come on, Zilche; we're off to the curse fiend's castle."

  "She's a mermaid!" Jackson exclaimed, as if just realizing. "I had thought of her as a zombie."

  "Zombie mermadz," Zilche clarified.

  He studied her more closely. "You must have been a rather pretty creature, in life."

  Zilche did her best to blush while trying to brush out her tangled hair. "Nod spezaly." She inhaled, accenting a well-formed bare bosom.

  "Modest too. I like that."

  "We have to go," Cynthia said impatiently.

  They ignored her. "Zo handzum merrmum."

  "Well, I'm only a half-reared merman. The real ones-"

  "Handzum," she repeated, firmly for a zombie.

  Jackson considered. "Do you know, the Brain Coral's Pool has some curative properties, to enable folk to remain healthy for decades or centuries while in storage. I have felt much better since settling here, despite having no companion of my type. I think you could be restored almost to the qualities you had in life, if you cared to reside here."

  Zilche's eyes widened. "Zo wandz?"

  "Well, yes, I want, if you should be interested."

  Cynthia realized that the composite man and the undead mermaid had much in common. Both were outcasts of their kind. But she didn't have time for this. "Zilche, we have a mission to accomplish. We have to go."

  The zombie nodded reluctantly. "Maabee ey come bakz?"

  "By all means come back!" Jackson agreed eagerly. "When your mission is done."

  "All right!" Cynthia said. She reached down into the water, set the zombie into the net, flicked them both, spread her wings, and took off. Jackson waved, and Zilche waved back. "Bakz!" she promised. To that Cynthia could agree; she would be glad to bring the zombie back here, once she had the Ring of Water.

  Then, as an afterthought as she spiraled back up the air pipe: "I apologize for misunderstanding you, before."

  "Pulsh-plush-playsh," Zilche said, trying to clarify her expression. Evidently she had difficulty with the P L combination. "Zhakzon nize."

  "Yes, Jackson is nice. It never occurred to me that he could be lonely for his kind."

  "Zlonly," the zombie agreed with feeling.

  They passed through the illusion of Pipe's Peek and climbed higher into the sky. Then she oriented on Lake Ogre Chobee, where the curse fiend's castle was. She dreaded the coming encounter, but it seemed it was necessary. The curse fiends were not necessarily friendly to outsiders.

  In due course she spied the lake. The ogres were no longer there, having long-since migrated to the Ogre-fen-Ogre Fen, but the name lingered. Folk remembered ogres for a long time, unsurprisingly.

  The turrets of the curse fiend's Gateway Castle came into sight. Cynthia nerved herself and glided down to a landing on a high plaza.

  There was an attractive garden there, with assorted musical plants. Blue bells rang, golden horns tootled, tubers oompa'd, and a plant with a root shaped like a red heart kept the beat. It was of course a heart beet.

  A dour man appeared. The curse fiends were always alert to intrusions. "What is your business, centaur?" he demanded gruffly.

/>   "I am on a mission for the good of Xanth. I must locate the Ring of Water."

  "We know nothing of this. Kindly depart."

  This was exactly the welcome she had anticipated. "I must not depart without that Ring. I shall need to search for it."

  "You are refusing to depart our premises?" the man asked, beginning to swell up as if about to deliver a curse.

  But Cynthia had not been completely asleep in centaur school. She knew how to finesse this. "You are against the good of Xanth?"

  It did set him back a quarter step. "That depends on definition."

  "The Demon Earth has been abducted, and in his absence the magic of gravity will fade. Xanth needs some gravity. Without it Gateway Castle would lose all the water surrounding it and become a structure on a muddy plain. Your definition favors this?"

  He became defensive. "How do we know you speak the truth?"

  "Have you ever known a centaur to speak other than the truth?" Of course she was not a natural centaur, but he wouldn't know that.

  "Your information could be inaccurate."

  She merely stared at him.

  After a moderately generous moment, he gave way. "Where is this Ring?"

  "I don't know. I said I will have to search for it."

  "We cannot let you do that unsupervised."

  Cynthia sifted through her memory. Che's mother had once traveled to the Vale of the Vole with a curse fiend woman whose every third curse turned out to be a blessing, making her unpopular with her kind. Was it possible she was still here? She had been old when Chex knew her, a generation ago. What was her name? "Dame Latia!"

  "You know the old crone?"

  This did not sound promising, but it remained her best chance. "Indirectly. Is she available?"

  "Naturally not."

  What did that mean? Was the woman so old and frail she could not do anything? Cynthia realized that she would have to finesse again. "Suppose you query her?" That was technically a question, rather than a demand.

  He countered similarly. "Why should I bother the crone?"

  "Suppose you inform her that a winged centaur would like to see her?"

  "Suppose I don't?"

  "I wonder what her reaction would be, when she learns you didn't?"

  He pondered that for an instant short of a moment. "Wait here." He retreated through a doorway.

  "Nize," Zilche remarked.

  "Nice? But I know nothing about Dame Latia. She's the only curse fiend I have heard of. It was just a wild chance that she was still alive, let alone available."

  "Zhe Mazizdath."

  "She's what?"

  "Mazizdath."

  Cynthia still couldn't get it. "Well, I hope that's not mischief."

  The door opened. "The crone will see you," the curse fiend said distastefully.

  "Excellent," Cynthia said, as if this had been a certainty all along.

  The door looked too small for Cynthia to pass, but it expanded as she approached, as did the stairway beyond it. It was evident that the curse fiends were pretty good craftsmen.

  They were ushered into a very plush chamber. "Here are the intruders, Crone," the man said.

  "Thank you, Functionary," a cracked old voice replied.

  It was indeed a very old woman. She sat on a plush pillow on an extremely ornate chair. She was the ugliest human person Cynthia had seen anywhere.

  Cynthia stepped forward. "Dame Latia?"

  "The Crone," the woman agreed. "Ah, you are not Chex."

  "I apologize if I misled you. I am Cynthia, her foal's fiancée."

  "My, time has certainly passed! Tell me of her life events since I knew her."

  "She matured and married Cheiron. Their first foal was Che, who became the tutor to the Simurgh's chick Sim. They have other foals, and are quite satisfied with life."

  "I am so glad to hear it. Chex was a good person, though no older than you are now." She squinted at Cynthia. "You look to be about sixteen."

  "Yes, Dame." And the old woman looked to be over a hundred. "Actually, she was younger when she visited the Kiss Mee River. She was fully mature by age ten, because of her winged monster sire."

  The woman peered at her. "There is reason you do not call me Crone?"

  Cynthia was on the verge of being slightly flustered. "I do not wish to be offensive."

  "You know nothing of me since I shared adventures with Chex and her friends Esk Ogre and Volney Vole?"

  "That is true, Dame. I-I needed to invoke a name to gain admittance to Castle Gateway, and yours was the only one I knew. Because Chex mentioned you as a good person. I apologize for my ignorance."

  "And your companion, the zombie mermaid?"

  "Mazizdath," Zilche said.

  "I am unable to fathom that word," Cynthia said, embarrassed.

  Latia addressed the zombie again. "So you know, but she does not?"

  "Yez."

  "How delightful! It is such a pleasure to encounter innocence."

  "Innocence?" Cynthia asked, not totally pleased.

  "I will explain. Thanks in significant part to Chex and her friends of the time, we had a successful mission, and I returned to Gateway Castle with elevated status despite my infirmity of talent."

  "Infirmity?" Cynthia asked, still muddled. Actually, she knew what Latia meant, but remained distracted by this mysterious reference to innocence. What had she failed to comprehend?

  "We curse friends all have the same talent: cursing. This manifests in different ways, but generally means mischief for those we curse. Unfortunately my cursing is flawed; one curse in three turns out to be a blessing. My associates wanted to be rid of me, for my visage even then was so ugly as to curdle water. But after my success, that was not possible, and in due course seniority enabled me to assume the role of Magistrate."

  "Mazizdath," Zilche agreed.

  "Magistrate," Cynthia echoed, finally seeing it. "But isn't that a significant office in your society?"

  "Yes. Equivalent to Queen in the human society."

  "Oh!" Cynthia cried, appalled as she realized the nature of her ignorance. "And I demanded to see you! I didn't know!"

  "Yes, so we have ascertained. You are the first in some time to come to me asking a favor without knowing my office. I like that."

  "But the guard called you a-a-"

  "Crone. Not a-the."

  "I-I don't-"

  "Ze Crone rulz," Zilche exclaimed.

  "The Crone rules," Latia agreed. "It is no longer a term of disrespect, but my title. There is only one Crone in the Gateway Castle at present."

  "I had no idea! I would never have-"

  "I know, dear. I liked Chex, and I like you; you will surely do right by her foal. Now let's see to your mission. You seek the Ring of Water."

  "Yes, Dame-I mean Crone."

  "I had no idea it was here, but zombies lack the wit to prevaricate. We surely do have it. We shall undertake a search for it."

  "Thank you, Crone." Cynthia felt weak in all four knees. This had seemed so doubtful, and grown worse, yet suddenly had turned out so well.

  Latia picked up a little bell and rang it. Immediately a uniformed man appeared. "Yes, Crone."

  "Institute a thorough search of the premises. You are looking for the Ring of Water. This is a band of exceeding power, I suspect not made of water." Latia allowed a smile to crack the lower portion of her face. She had made a funny. "We do not know its precise appearance, other than the form of a ring. So bring all rings you find here for inspection."

  "Yes, Crone." He disappeared.

  "Now while they search, would you like to see a play? We are always in need of pre-tour audience reaction by persons who have no familiarity with the productions."

  Cynthia realized that it would not be courteous to decline, though she was not at all sure she wanted to waste time in such manner. "If you wish, Crone."

  "This way." Latia got off her cushion, which Cynthia now realized was padding on a throne, and led the way out of the chamber.
Obviously the woman was not much for ceremony, and she was quite spry for her age.

  They went down another flight of stairs. There was a window, and Cynthia saw that beyond it was water, with fish swimming by. This was below the surface of the lake!

  "You must admire this," Latia said, indicating a massive glass wall.

  They peered out. There was a monstrous whirlpool, swirling down to unknown depths. "This is what keeps Lake Ogre Chobee shallow," Latia explained. "Its extra water pours into the depths, concluding at the Pool of the Brain Coral."

  "Oh, this is the other end of the underground river!" Cynthia exclaimed. "I had not realized."

  "Few do. But we do regard ourselves as guarding the gateway to the underworld."

  They followed her to a larger chamber. There were several chairs, and a fair-sized tank of water. "For your friend," Latia said, indicating it.

  Cynthia set Zilche in the tank, and the mermaid swished her tail gratefully.

  The stage curtains parted to reveal a group of actors holding various objects. One stepped forward. "The name of this play is Charades. It is interactive. We shall present each concept for ten seconds, and if any member of the audience fathoms it, the audience scores a point. After that time, the answer will be given, and the audience will lose a point. At the end of the play, the score will determine whether the players or the audience won."

  "I am not familiar with this play, so I will be a part of the audience," Latia said. "Thus we are three."

  The first player stepped forward. She wore nothing but a tight body stocking. It occurred to Cynthia that any males would have found that interesting, for the actress was of a shapely disposition. She lifted a suit from a hanger, and put on trousers over her bare-seeming legs. Suddenly water splashed out; the trousers must have been filled with it. Then she put on a jacket, and bubbly water poured out from around her arms. "I am becoming quite clean," she said, "as this apparel washes me. What is it?"