The Color of Her Panties Read online

  Electra hugged them all and ushered them into the castle. She took them to the nursery to show off the twin girls the stork had brought her, Dawn and Eve. It was hard to imagine this girlishly freckled person as either princess or mother, but she was, and evidently quite happy to be so.

  They were given a room to share, and Che gazed out the window while the girls took baths and changed clothing. Centaurs did not have the same conventions as the human folk, but honored them when in human company. So he did not try to sneak a peek at anyone's panties, tempting as the prospect was.

  Then they were escorted to the main dining hall for dinner. Now they met King Dor and Queen Irene, who were gracious. Prince Dolph was also present, looking somewhat gangly. Then Electra appeared, and for a moment Che did not recognize her, for she had been transformed.

  She wore a pale green gown speckled with golden motes, and a tiara in her hair, and her feet were dainty in lady's slippers. Her face remained freckled, but now it was adult and beautiful. She looked almost as wonderful as she had on the day she married Dolph, when the magic wedding dress had changed her from nothing to lovely.

  "You seem surprised," Queen Irene remarked. Che glanced guiltily around, and realized that she was speaking to Gwenny and Jenny, whose mouths had sagged open. That was a relief; Che's mouth had almost done the same.

  "Electra's so different," Jenny said. "Just a moment ago she was in blue jeans."

  "We have learned the art of compromise," Queen Irene said. "By day, and in informal situations, Electra dresses and acts as she pleases. In the evening, and when formal, she dresses for the part. She is after all a princess now."

  "I wonder if I will ever be like that," Gwenny murmured, awed.

  "Surely you will, dear, when you are chief," Queen Irene said. "Your mother is excellent with clothing and manners."

  Actually, she was not far from it now, Che reflected. Gwenny, like all goblin females, was petite and pretty, and in the dress she was wearing at the moment she was winsome. But she did not know it, which was surely part of her appeal.

  They ate well, for all the fruits of the orchard that had tempted them were served. There was even a nice plate of cat treats for Sammy. Che realized that Queen Irene had noticed, and made sure to please the guests.

  Yet why should the Queen have gone to such trouble? They were merely three creatures on a private mission, hardly worthy of royal treatment.

  No, that was not correct. They were special people. Jenny was a representative of a species of elf never before seen in Xanth, whose story was as yet incomplete. She had pointed ears and four fingers, and her folk, in their own realm, had the ability to communicate mind to mind. Gwenny had the chance to be the first female chief of a goblin tribe, and that could transform the relations of goblins to other species as dramatically as the change of clothing had done for Electra. And Che himself was supposed to change the history of Xanth, though the way of that was not yet clear. Perhaps he would be instrumental in helping Gwenny achieve the chiefship, or perhaps it would happen in some other manner. So the three of them, though young, were not ordinary, and Queen Irene was well aware of that. Possibly his sire and dam had notified the Queen that they were coming; centaur adults left little to chance. Still, he appreciated the courtesy which was being extended, and knew that the girls did too.

  After the meal, Electra invited them to join her and her daughters in Princess Ivy's old room to see the magic Tapestry. She carried the twins in a large bassinet. "They like to watch it," Electra explained. "So we watch it before they go to sleep for the night. It is always interesting."

  The Tapestry turned out to be a big woven picture of Castle Roogna hung on the wall. It had been made back in Electra's time, almost nine hundred years ago, by the Sorceress Tapis. The Sorceress had given it to the Zombie Master in the form of a puzzle, and he had not appreciated its nature until he had assembled it. Now the Zombie Master lived in the present, but had elected to leave the Tapestry where it was most useful at Castle Roogna. It had helped educate Princess Ivy and Prince Dolph, and any number of other folk.

  For the picture on the Tapestry was not fixed. It constantly changed, showing facets of the history of Xanth or contemporary events. It was possible to spy on others, using it, though of course good folk would never do that. Still, that did make it a most interesting item.

  "What would you like to see?" Electra inquired. "The twins don't mind what is on; they're too young, yet, to be choosy." Actually, at the moment the twins weren't looking at the Tapestry at all; they were watching Sammy Cat, who had joined them in the bassinet. He was playing with a loose thread on their blanket.

  Gwenny shrugged, but Jenny looked concerned. "Do you think it might show Okra Ogress?" she asked hesitantly.

  Immediately the picture changed. It showed a strange crystal rock garden with white rock roses and sheeplike white phlox. A crystal spring flowed from a little crystal mountain, making miniature waterfalls until it formed a pool below. The scene was beautiful.

  But there were no figures in it, ogre or otherwise. Only a block of crystal which propped open a door.

  Then a figure appeared: a rather large human woman, heavy boned and lightly furred. Her strawlike hair flared outward from her head and down her back in knots and tangles. With her was a smaller but more voluptuous woman, wearing slippers and nothing else. Her hair was the same yellow color, but the tresses were glossy and silky rather than crude and ropy.

  "That's Mela Merwoman!" a voice said from the doorway. It was Prince Dolph, who had stopped by for a moment.

  "That's right—Nada said you knew her," Electra remarked without enthusiasm.

  "Uh, yes," he said, staring at the image. "Of course I didn't want to marry her."

  "Because you were nine years old at the time," Electra retorted.

  "But I must admit that she has very nice—"

  "Never mind!" Electra snapped. The picture fuzzed in the region of Mela's torso, so that whatever he thought was interesting was no longer so.

  Prince Dolph's eyes were freed from what had held him like the peephole of a hypnogourd. "Oh, to be nine again," he murmured as he departed.

  Gwenny and Jenny exchanged a glance, which Che intercepted. He knew their thought: was this what marriage did to a relationship?

  Then Electra got up. "Do you mind keeping an eye on the twins for a while? I have something to do."

  The girls, in the manner of their kind, were glad to keep an eye on the twins. All girls loved all babies, in Che's observation. Electra hurried out.

  "I wonder what she has to do so urgently?" Jenny said musingly.

  "I suspect she means to apologize to Prince Dolph," Che said.

  "Apologize? For what?"

  "For being jealous," Gwenny said.

  "Oh." But Jenny wasn't quite satisfied. "Couldn't she have just said she was sorry, here?"

  "Perhaps she had a gourd realm apology in mind," Che said, smiling.

  Jenny's brow furrowed. "That's different?"

  This time it was Gwenny and Che who exchanged the glance. "You don't know about apologies among the brassies?" Gwenny inquired.

  "An apology's an apology, isn't it?"

  "I see we shall have to show you," Gwenny said, with an obscure smile. "Che?"

  The naughty girl! Che approached her. He was seven and she was fourteen, but he was of a larger species, and his human portion was somewhat taller than she. "Who apologizes to whom?" he inquired.

  "I'll apologize to you," Gwenny said. "The way Electra will do with Dolph."

  "Very well. Proceed."

  "I don't understand—" Jenny started.

  Gwenny embraced him. "I apologize, Che," she said winsomely. Then she drew herself close and kissed him on the mouth.

  "What are you doing?" Jenny asked, amazed.

  "Do you accept my apology?" Gwenny asked.

  Che grimaced. "I'm not sure," he said with a smile, playing the game. Actually, Gwenny was very nice to have so close; her body had
become rounder and softer in the past two years. But that was surely irrelevant.

  "Oh, you're not?" Gwenny breathed. "Then I shall just have to try harder." She removed her spectacles and brushed back her hair with her hands. Then she embraced him again, more closely, so that there was no space between their bodies. She reached up and hauled his head down, mussing his hair, and plastered him with Xanth's sloppiest kiss. "Now are you sure?" Her face was serious, but he knew she was trying to stifle her laughter. It was a favorite game, to imitate the foolish things adults did.

  He stifled his own mirth. "Well—"

  "Enough!" Jenny cried, giggling. The twins seemed to be smiling, too, watching the apology instead of the Tapestry. So was Sammy. "You mean that's what Electra and Dolph are doing now? Kissing?"

  "More than that, I think," Gwenny said with mock gravity as she recovered her spectacles so that she could see clearly again. "But I'm not partial to the Adult Conspiracy, so I don't know what. I suppose they enjoy it, though."

  "That Adult Conspiracy is such a bore," Jenny said. "What is it they think should be such a big secret?"

  "I'm sure I don't know," Gwenny said. "But it seems to relate to why men like to look at creatures like Mela Merwoman."

  They looked at Mela again in the Tapestry, whose body was no longer fuzzy. But no matter how hard Che stared, he couldn't fathom why men would prefer to look at the merwoman rather than at something interesting, such as a dragon or pie tree or mathematical equation.

  Meanwhile, the action proceeded in the picture. Mela and the other woman were trying to get the block of crystal to break open, for it seemed that there was something inside it that they wanted. They weren't having much success.

  "But we were supposed to see Okra Ogress," Jenny said plaintively.

  Che suffered a realization. The room brightened momentarily as an invisible bulb flashed above his head. "That big woman—that's the ogress!"

  Gwenny and Jenny stared. "But she's not big enough or ugly enough!" Gwenny protested. "She's mostly like a big human woman."

  But now Che was orienting on particular features. "I do believe she is an ogress," he said. "The patterns of her bones, her way of moving—these indicate ogre stock. But she must be the smallest, weakest, and least ugly of all ogresses."

  "Maybe she had a bad illness," Gwenny said. "So she doesn't measure down to ogre standards, and got booted."

  "Maybe she should have gotten the part, then," Jenny said. "Maybe she should have become the major character, so—"

  "And where would you be, now, if that had happened?" Gwenny inquired sharply.

  "Back in the World of Two Moons," Jenny said. She began to cloud up. "With my family, and the ability to send—"

  "Without your spectacles," Che said quickly.

  "Or your new friends," Gwenny added.

  Jenny brightened. "That's true. But still, it wasn't fair to exclude—"

  "We don't know why you were chosen to come here, or by whom," Che said. "But there must have been good reason. One day we shall learn it. Until then, we can't judge it."

  "I suppose you're right," she agreed. She looked again at the picture. "Is this what is happening right now, there?"

  "I don't think so," Che said. "I understand that the Tapestry normally orients on events of the past, so this may have happened a few days ago. But it is now night; it may be that the ogress is sleeping, so the Tapestry showed her a few hours ago, when she was active."

  "I wonder what's in that block?" Gwenny remarked.

  "If we knew how to manage the Tapestry, we could change the orientation of the picture," Che said. "We are seeing the block from behind. But it looks as if there is a person inside it."

  "How weird!" Gwenny exclaimed.

  Then Electra reappeared, looking slightly disheveled but happy. She was back in blue jeans. "Thank you," she said, going to the twins.

  "Did he accept your apology?" Jenny asked.

  "What?" Electra asked blankly.

  Gwenny stifled a giggle. "We thought maybe—but obviously we were wrong. The twins are fine. Do you know their talents yet?"

  "As a matter of fact, we do. The Good Magician told us. Dawn will be able to tell anything about any living thing, and Eve will be able to do the same for any inanimate thing. He says those are both Magician-class talents."

  "Wow," Gwenny said, awed.

  "Well, it's not really coincidence. Every one of Grandpa Bink's descendants has Magician-class talent. I'm not sure why, but it has been true so far. I was just lucky I married Dolph, so that my children are blessed."

  "That's great," Jenny said. "Those talents will be very useful, when they get old enough to use them."

  Electra picked up the bassinet and carried it away. Sammy jumped down, losing interest. Che went with Gwenny and Jenny to their room, where the girls changed into nighties and he lay down on the floor among cushions. Sammy joined him. Then Jenny sang a song, and soon they were all in the magic dream that formed. There was a trick to sharing Jenny's dreams: they had to divert their minds to something else first. But they had learned how to do that, and so had Sammy. So they found themselves sharing a dream of friendly dragons, unicorns, and centaurs in an orchard much like the one around Castle Roogna, with pleasant skies. Then they lay down on the soft sward and fell asleep. Somehow it was always more fun to go to sleep in a dream than it was in reality.

  On the morrow they resumed their trek to the Good Magician's castle. There was an enchanted path leading directly there, so they knew that that part would be easy. But they also knew that getting into the castle would not be easy. There were always three challenges, and if the querent succeeded in getting by them, she still had to perform a year's service for the Good Magician. In short, frivolous Questions were discouraged. Thus their mood was not light as they set out.

  The air fuzzed before them, and the Demoness Metria formed. "You must be really excited," she said.

  "Our anticipation knows no bounds," Che agreed tersely.

  "Especially considering that the Good Magician has arranged to hit you with the most intriguing possible challenge," the demoness continued. "I have never seen him use this one before in the century or so I have known him."

  She was of course trying to fluster them. Che knew better than to let her succeed. "No doubt the other challenges are even worse."

  "No, there is to be only one challenge this time."

  "But there are always three! And we are three people, so we may have more."

  "Not so. The Good Magician has made a freedom in your case."

  "A what?"

  "Privilege, manumission, deliverance, emancipation, liberation—"

  "Exception?"

  "Whatever," she agreed crossly.

  "But why? We are just ordinary supplicants, not deserving of any special treatment."

  "True. Therefore it is a mystery. How I love a mystery!"

  "Why don't you ask a Question of the Good Magician yourself, then?"

  "Because it is his business to resolve mysteries, not to generate them. Anyway, Dana doesn't like me to get too close to him."

  "Who?"

  "The Good Magician. Who else?"

  "I mean, who is Dana?"

  "His wife. I told you about that before."

  "Oh." She hadn't told him, but probably had told someone and misremembered whom. Her memory was like that. Che had heard about the matter: the Good Magician had had five and a half wives in the course of his life, and now they took turns being with him. Dana must be the one who was a demoness. So it seemed that one demoness could be jealous of another. That was interesting. They did have some human emotions.

  Then he thought of a way to get rid of Metria, for a while. "Why don't you go ahead and wait for us to arrive at the castle, instead of watching our boring walk there?"

  "Are you trying to get rid of me?"

  "Of course."

  "That means you don't want me there. You are trying to fake me out." "Of course."

  "Good i
dea. I'll do it." She vanished.

  "You faked her out!" Jenny exclaimed. "How did you manage it?"

  "I locked her into an either-or mode," Che explained, pleased. "She thought she had to be either here or there, and chose there as more interesting. It didn't occur to her that she could have done both."

  "You're smart!"

  "I am a centaur," he said modestly.

  "Maybe by the time we get there, she'll have forgotten us," Gwenny said.

  "That is my hope."

  The path enabled them to travel rapidly. Nevertheless it was more than a day's walk. "Maybe we should look for a place to camp for the night," Jenny said.

  Sammy ran ahead of them. As always, she followed, because the cat was almost as good at getting lost as he was at finding things. Che and Gwenny followed her.

  Sammy took a side path they wouldn't otherwise have noticed. It led to a little park. They found a nice umbrella tree, conveniently placed for just such travelers as themselves, with nearby fruit and nut trees and a big pillow bush. So they dined on breadfruit with butternuts and drank vanilla milkweed pods, with candy canes for dessert.

  "Do you think we'll stop liking such things, when we turn adult and join the Conspiracy against fun?" Gwenny asked.

  "Oh, I hope not!" Jenny exclaimed.

  "Yet somehow it seems that everything changes, when a person grows up," Che said sadly. "Look at Electra."

  "Actually, she's not so bad," Gwenny said. "She still wears blue jeans by day. Maybe she didn't really join the Conspiracy."

  "She summoned the stork," Che pointed out.

  "Maybe it's possible to learn how to do that, without adopting the bad parts, like spinach," Jenny said hopefully.

  "Let's agree that we'll subscribe to only the good parts of the Conspiracy," Che suggested. "We'll be different, when we grow up."

  "Yes!" Gwenny agreed. The three of them clasped hands, sharing the oath.

  They settled down for the night, moving into a dream and then into sleep, as usual.

  Che suffered a bellyache during the night. He wished he hadn't eaten quite so many candy canes; they now had a distressing aftertaste. He heard the girls tossing restlessly in their sleep, and knew that they had the same problem. It was of course impossible that a person could ever get too much candy; still, there was something. Maybe there had been a curse on some of them.