The Color Of Her Panties (2 page)

Mela entered and closed the door behind her.  Immediately a soft light glowed from colored fungus.  It didn't compare to that of deep-sea plants and creatures, but it did give her a feeling of the depths, and that was very nice.  Whatever male she married would have to love the sea, because she was a creature of the sea, inside as well as outside.

She lay blissfully on the bed of pillows.

“Mmmmph, mmmph mph mmmmmmmph!”

Mela jumped.  What was that?

“MmmmmMmmmmph!” The muffled sound came as she landed from her jump, squishing the pillows flat.

She scrambled to her tired feet.  “What is going on here?” she demanded of the situation in general.

The center pillow formed a mouth and opened it.  “A  better question is what is coming off here!  How dare you plop your fishy backside in my Eskimo!”

“In your what?” Mela asked, bemused.

“My inuit, Aleut, Finn, Sami-”

“Lapp?” Mela inquired.

“Whatever.  Can't a creature get a decent nap without getting squished by an ugly sea monster?”

Mela began to take umbrage.  “Um-I am considered by some to be a rather attractive sea monster.”

The mouth grimaced.  “By whom, fish-head?  A hungry kraken weed?”

Mela finished her taking umbrage.  “Brage!“ she swore.

“You don't exactly have much sex appeal yourself, cushion-face!  “

The pillow exploded.  The mouth flew up and hovered before Mela's nose, while feathers swirled around it.  “I have all the sex appeal I want, seaweed-hair!  “it exclaimed.

Mela realized belatedly that magic was operating here.

“You are not what you seem,” she charged with a certain justice.

The feathers closed in around the mouth, forming the shape of a head.  “I am whatever I choose to be, manrear.”

That was a low blow.  No one had ever before mistaken Mela's posterior for male.  “And what kind of rear do you have, pillow-cheeks?” she demanded.

The feathers shaped themselves into a human outline and faded into flesh tone.  Now a voluptuous woman stood there.  “This kind of rear, gills-for-brains!  “ she said, turning to show a set of buttocks almost as generous as Mela's own.

“You're a demoness!“ Mela said, catching on.  However, the creature moved away so that Mela could not keep her catch.

“The Demoness Metria, of course.  And who in conniption are you?”

“I am Melantha Merwoman.”

“What are you doing out of your ingredient?”

“My what?”

“Your component, aspect, fragment, division, portion, segment-”

“Oh, you mean my element!  The sea.”

“Whatever.  Why are you here on land?”

“I am in quest of a husband.  I can't find what I want in the sea.”

Metria gazed at her appraisingly.  “Considering what men are interested in, it seems that you should be able to nab one.  What kind are you looking for?”

“A prince would do, if he's handsome and manageable. I caught one once, but he was too young and I had to throw him back.”

“Oh?  Which one was that?”

“Prince Dolph of the human folk.  He was nine years old, but would have grown in time.”

“Prince Dolph!  I know him.  He's seventeen now, and married.”

“I know,” Mela said sadly.  “I heard she wasn't even a princess.”

“She is now.  And a mother, too.  The stork brought them twin girls, Dawn and Eve.”

“Oh, those should have been my girls!” Mela cried.  “I should never have let him get away.”

“Well, you're mortal.  You make mistakes.”

“So now I am going to see the Good Magician to find out how to nab some other prince,” Mela concluded.  “I'm sorry if I intruded on your domain. I thought it was available.”

“Oh, go ahead and use it,” Metria said.  “I took it from Esk Ogre some years back, and the truth is, things were more interesting when he was around.

“Things always are, when a male's around.”

“How true!  But now he's gone and married a brassie girl from the gourd named Bria, and they have a son named Brusque.”

“Everybody's getting married!” Mela said petulantly.

“But the son of an ogre and a brassie-does he have a talent?“

“Yes.  He can make himself or other things hard and heavy, or light and soft.  That should be handy, when he is grown.”

Mela nodded knowingly.  “Surely so.  But it doesn't solve MY problem.  I need a prince.”

“Why not a regular man?” the demoness asked.  “There are more of them.”

“Well, after almost nabbing a prince, I fear it would feel like backsliding to settle for an ordinary man.”

“I suppose so.  My friend Dana Demoness married a king.  Now she won't settle for anything less.”

“Oh?  What king?”

“King Humfrey.”

“I didn't know there was a King Humfrey!  Is he any relation to the Good Magician Humfrey?”

“The same.”

“But Humfrey's no king!  He's the Magician of Information.”

“He's no king now.  But he was then.  She got bored and left him, but after a century or so she got bored being single, so she returned to him, and is married to him today.”

“But I thought he was married to the Gorgon.”

“He is.  It gets complicated to explain.”

“It must!“ But Mela was too tired at the moment for complexity.  “Is it all right if I sleep on the other pillows?  “

“Be my guest,” Metria said grandly, fading away.

In the morning Mela left the cozy den and searched out some fruits and nuts.  She needed to do something else, but wasn't sure how to manage it cleanly while wearing the clumsy legs; she wished she could return to the sea for a while or even an (ugh)!  freshwater pond, and not just for that.  The land was just such an awkward place!

The Demoness Metria appeared, in her human form, standing in the air.

“Must you go so soon?” she inquired.

“I thought you wanted to be rid of me.”

“I do.  I was being facetious.”

“That's more like it.” Mela had relatively few illusions about demons, having encountered them on occasion.

“You look squirmy.”

“I would ask you whether there is water near, but you would only misdirect me.”

“No, I would answer truly, because then you wouldn't believe me and would go the wrong way.” The demoness evidently understood why Mela wanted water, so was teasing her, demon fashion.

“Never mind.  I'll do it in the den.” Mela headed for the beerbarrel tree.

“Oh no you don't!  Go to that purpose bush over there.”

Mela's left arm stretched out and her hand assumed the form of an arrow.

“What kind of bush?”

“Aim, design, province, sphere, object, what it's made for-”

“Function?”

“Whatever,” Metria agreed crossly.

“What's a function bush?”

“Just go there and see.  It's really quite natural.”

Mela knew that this was mischief, but it was better to humor the demoness, whose mischief was surely not as bad as her anger.  She walked to the bush, which had the smell of manure.  Then suddenly she folded over and accomplished her business despite her clumsy form.

A function bush:  now she understood its name.  It had its own way of collecting fertilizer.

Mela straightened up and walked away from it.  “Thank you, Metria,” she said.  For the demoness had after all facilitated the necessary chore.

“You're not mad?” Metria inquired, disappointed.

“Furious.” There was an art to managing demons.

“You're not going to throw any of it at me?”

“That wouldn't be ladylike.”

“It would just loop around and splat on you.”

“That, too.”

“You're just trying to be dull, so I'll lose interest and stop pestering you.”

“Demons are getting smarter all the time.”

“Well, it won't work!  I'll just tag along and see you mess up some other way.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Confound it!  I can't tell whether you even want to get rid of me! Maybe you prefer to have my company.”

“I would prefer it even more if you were a male prince demon.  Perhaps you can get one to come and pester me in lieu of you.  Males can be such brutes.”

“That does it!  I am going to stay and be perfectly nice to you!  What do you think of that?”

Mela sighed.  “You are very sophisticated in your pestering.” The truth was that she didn't really care whether the demoness remained or departed; she just wanted to keep her on good behavior.

They walked generally west, but the freshwater river threatened to return, with its pigs and things, so they veered south.  The land became hilly, so they veered some more to move along a contour.  The demoness was now walking on the ground, so that she seemed just like another mortal creature.  She was even solid, now; Mela could tell, because she left footprints.

Then she heard a faint booming sound.  “What's that?”

“A pronoun used to indicate a person, place, thing, idea, or state of being.  I keep confusing it with which.”

“I don't mean the word!  I mean that sound.”

“What sound?”

Mela saw that the demoness was still teasing her.  She surely heard the booming and knew all about it, but wouldn't tell.  So Mela shut up and walked on.

The booms became louder.  Finally she came to a series of small hills shaped like little mountains.  At the top of each hill was a human baby.

Every so often each baby opened its mouth and let out a surprisingly loud boom.

“Why, they're baby boomers,” Mela said, surprised.

“There certainly are a lot of them!”

“They will be something when they grow up,” Metria remarked.  “They'll be big boom-booms.”

“But what's the point?”

“There is no point.  They're just there.  They strayed from Mundania, where there are even more of them.”

Mela shook her head.  “Mundania is a strange place!”

“That is true.  Even the Mundanes don't understand it.

That is why they come to Xanth whenever they can.  Fortunately most of them don't know the way, any more than you know the way to the Good Magician's castle.”

“But if I asked you, you would merely direct me wrong. Or right, if I didn't believe you.”

“Of course.  Isn't it beautiful?”

“Lovely.” Despite her best effort, Mela was getting annoyed by the demoness.

They passed beyond the baby boomers and came to a big lake.  It looked very pleasant.  Mela stood and gazed at it.

“Aren't you going for a swim?” Metria inquired innocently.

“No.”

“Oh, you already know its nature.”

This made Mela pause.  Suddenly she suspected that the demoness wasn't thinking of fresh water.  But the demoness wouldn't tell, if she asked.

So she shrugged.  “I'll go around it.”

“Actually, it's not as if the Kiss-Mee Lake hurts anyone.  It's not nearly as bad as a love spring.”

So this was the Kiss-Mee Lake!  She had heard of it.

“Wasn't there some trouble with the associated river?  I heard that your friends pulled it straight, and then it was known as the Kill-Mee River.”

“Yes, the hummers got really bad.  That's when I had to leave, and I found the ogre's den.  But I helped him restore the river.  That was interesting.”

“So I will just walk around it to the south,” Mela said.

“By all means.  I will walk with you.”

That meant that there promised to be something interesting for the demoness to the south, which in turn meant that Mela wouldn't like it.

“Oh-the Kiss-Mee River flows from the south shore!” Mela said, realizing.  “So I can't go that way, unless I want to mess with fresh water anyway.”

“Sure enough,” Metria agreed, disappointed.

“So I'll have to walk around it to the north instead.”

“By all means.”

That did not sound promising either.  But what other choices were there?

Mela certainly didn't want to swim across it, and she couldn't fly across it.

She opened her invisible purse and took out her manual.

What she wanted was surely in there, but she didn't know what to look for.  That was why she couldn't use it to locate a husband; it showed all the creatures of Xanth, but couldn't point out individuals or give their marriage status.

Now she needed a way to cross the lake without soiling her body with fresh water, and the manual couldn't tell her how.

The sky darkened, dimming the page.  She looked up.

There over the water a nasty little cloud was forming.  So she flipped the pages until she came to clouds, and there it was:  King Cumulo Fracto Nimbus, the meanest of clouds.  But since she had nothing either to gain or fear from a cloud, she ignored Fracto, and he ignored her.

Then she saw something strange.  It was a little red boat, zooming along backwards, rowed by a very big man.  No, by a very small giant.  No, something even odder.  But what?

“Fascinating,” Metria said, and faded out.

That surely meant trouble.  But it just might be a ruse.

If this was someone who could help her cross the lake, the demoness might be trying to scare her away, so that she would after all be stranded.  So she couldn't be sure.

The best thing to do was chance it.  If she got into the boat with the man, and he tried to get fresh-how she hated freshness!-she could always jump into the water, loathsome as it was, and escape.  So she waited.

But she took the precaution of hiding behind some redberry bushes.

The boat plowed right on toward the shore not far distant.  The rower didn't seem to realize.  He banged right into the bank, and grunted as the boat suddenly stopped.

“Oh, everything's wrong!” he cried in a high voice.  “I'll never find the Good Magician!”

Mela's ears perked up.  He was looking for the Good Magician?  This could be a wonderful break!

She stepped forward.  “Hello,” she said brightly.

The stranger jumped right into the air and screamed, bursting into tears.  Startled, Mela fell back into the bushes, scratching her nevermind.  “Well, I didn't mean any harm,” she said, nettled.  “I just happen to be looking for the Good Magician myself, and I wondered-” She broke off, staring at the huge creature.  “Why, you're not a man at all! You're a-well, just what are you?”

“I'm an ogre girl,” the other responded.  “You frightened me.”