The Dastard (10 page)

The Dastard tried to picture that liaison, and failed. He had to take it on faith. Becka seemed rapt.

“In due course the griffin produced three offspring. They had the form, surprisingly, of human beings, and seemed to be throwbacks to a more primitive aspect of our ancestry. Both Cencow and the griffiness were disappointed. But soon the silver lining appeared on their cloud: The three foals had remarkable talents. Merei, the first female, could change to any winged creature, and so could join her mother in flight. Mesta, the second female, could change to any sea creature, and so could join Cencow in swimming. Dell, the male, could change into any landbound creature, and so could join me as a centaur. That was very nice.”

“So why are you waiting here for your granddaughter?” the Dastard asked impatiently.

“Because I am traveling with all three of my grandfoals, and we have agreed to meet periodically and do a stint mutually afoot. Merei and Dell will be along shortly, but it is harder for Mesta to keep the pace. So I have paused here at a convenient river bank, trusting that she will appear.”

At that point, magically on cue, two fat sea cows swam up to the bank. One was big, the other small. The small one poked her nose out of the water, then changed into a young mermaid. Chet reached down with a hand and caught her hand, hauling her up out of the water. As she came, she changed into a fully human girl. She landed on the ground and shook herself dry. Chet reached into his backpack and brought out a dress, which he dropped over the girl. She shrugged into it, and smiled as she adjusted her hair. “Hi, Grandpa!”

“Hello, grandfilly.”

She stepped forward and gave him as much of a hug as she could manage. “Who are your friends?”

“We're not friends,” the Dastard said. Seeing how well the centaur's illicit liaison had turned out, he would have been inclined to unhappen it, but couldn't; the girl was seven or eight years old, beyond his limit. And of course Chet's key event was decades ago, way beyond. How unfortunate. So he forced himself to make nice. “Have a nice walk.”

“Thank you,” Chet said.

The sea cow mooed and departed, having gotten her grandchild safely to the rendezvous. “Bye, Grandma,” the girl called. “Thanks.”

The Dastard realized that he could unhappen his dialogue with Chet Centaur, but that wouldn't accomplish anything either; the centaur had already been waiting for his granddaughter, and would meet her regardless. So this was no nexus; there was nothing dastardly he could do.

Mesta climbed up on Chet's back, and he walked away. As he did so, a griffin flew down from the sky, landed before them, and changed into another girl. “Hi Merei,” Mesta called.

“Hi Mesta! Hi Grandpa!” She joined her sister on the centaur's back.

Then two small young sphinxes strode up. They had the bodies of lions, the heads of humans, and the female had vestigial wings. They were not much larger than a mundane pony. “Hi Grandpa,” the male called.

“Hello, Dell,” Chet replied. “Who is your friend?”

“This is Nightreven,” Dell said. “She's two hundred years old.”

“Two-seventy if she's a day,” Becka muttered. “She starting to mature.”

Indeed, the sphinx did seem to be developing a modest bosom. Not enough to cause any male eyeballs to encrust, but sufficient to show the way. The Dastard was surprised by Becka's perception.

“Actually I'm two-seventy,” Nightreven said. “But that makes me close to Dell's age in sphinx years.”

“To be sure,” Chet agreed affably. Then Dell turned human and joined his siblings on the centaur's back, and the girl sphinx waved a wing in parting and moved on.

Chet had such a pleasant life, with his talented grandchildren. It really bugged the Dastard, but there was nothing he could do about it. Disgusted, he walked out of the village in the opposite direction. Becka accompanied him; he had half hoped she would go with one of the others, but she stuck like a leech.

They met a griffin. Like all griffins, she was the color of shoe polish. No nexus here, either. She squawked at them.

“Excuse me,” Becka said.

“What?” he asked irritably.

“That's what the griffin said.”

“How in Xanth can you understand griffin talk?”

The girl paused half a moment as if thinking. “Oh, I just picked it up along the way somewhere.”

The griffin squawked again.

“She wants to know if we've seen--”

“She's too late!” the Dastard snapped. “Anyway, that one wasn't a real griffin. She was a girl in griffin form.”

“That wasn't her question,” Becka said. “She's looking for her father.”

“I haven't seen him,” he told the griffin. “Now go away.”

The griffin squawked again.

“Yes, we'd love to hear your story,” Becka told the griffin.

The Dastard inflated, but couldn't think of a retort savage enough to squish the stupid girl. What did she think she was doing? The girl had become odd and willful. He had just about lost hope of ever seeing her panties, so she had no use at all.

The griffin fell in beside them as they walked and squawked repeatedly. Becka made a running translation.

“Her name is Griselda Griffin, and she has an unusual history. It seems that many years ago, back in the year Ten-forty-three, just before the Time Of No Magic, a party of four males stopped at the Magic Dust Village, which was at that time occupied entirely by females of every type. Their males had been lured away by the song of the Siren, and then turned to stone by her sister the Gorgon. So the females carried the burden of distributing the magic dust throughout Xanth, so that its magic would be more or less evenly spread. It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it.”

“Must we endure this ancient history?” the Dastard demanded. “It was boring in centaur school, and it's worse now.”

She ignored him and continued her translation. “Two of the visitors were human males. One was a centaur named Chester, the father of Chet. The last was a griffin named Crombie. Actually he was not what he seemed: He was a human man who had been changed into griffin form for this particular mission. He was nevertheless a handsome griffin, and so was attractive to Grinelle Griffin, who worked at the village. She had lost her husband the year before in a fight among winged monsters at Mount Rushmost, and Crombie resembled her lost mate. That was to say, he had a fine strong body, lovely wings, and a bad attitude. Grinelle couldn't resist; she had to have something to do with him. So she--”

“Enough of this dullness,” the Dastard snapped. “I don't care which griffin did what to whom.”

“Too bad, my pet,” Becka. said. “I'm interested, and I'm not accustomed to being balked, so stifle your face.”

Again, the Dastard was too outraged to speak. What was with this idiot girl?

“So she approached Crombie. He turned out to be a woman-hater; he did not like females of any type, as he quickly and nastily informed her. A true misogynist. He was just so much like her husband! But Grinelle had learned something about dealing with balky men in the course of her marriage. So she retreated gracefully and bided her time until evening. She realized that this griffin would not be staying at the village long, so she had to act promptly. She longed to have a griffin cub to ease her sorrow, someone she could love and who would love her in return, and Crombie was her best prospect to sire it. So she brought him a cup of water in the middle of the night.”

“The middle of the night!” the Dastard said. “What idiot joke is this? A griffin couldn't even carry it.”

“It was a covered cup, which she carried hung from a cord about her neck,” Becka. explained patiently. “I thought I told you to stifle it, dimwit.”

Yet again she had set him back by her amazing temerity. This was definitely not the Becka he had known.

“She used a claw to jog him awake. He opened his eyes and squawked in outrage. 'You stupid bird-brained idiot female! You stepped on me! What is the matter with you?' But instead of either retorting or fleeing, she proffered him the cup of water. As it happened, he was thirsty from his efforts of outrage, so he thrust his beak into the sealed cup and drained it. The water was unusually refreshing. Then, without so much as a squawk of thanks, he closed his eyes and settled back down to sleep. But she brushed his face with a wing-tip, causing his eyes to open and catch a glimpse of her. That was when he discovered that the water he had just drunk was from a love spring.”

“Beautiful!” the Dastard said, unable to stifle his appreciation of a truly dastardly deed. “She trapped him.”

“ 'You treacherous winged monster!' he squawked as he realized. 'You deliberately gave me that love elixir. I'll never forgive that. I must punish you.' Grinelle merely turned her back. This really heightened his rage. 'Take that and that and THAT!' And he had at her with ferocity. But she did not protest, for each 'that' translated to a dot of the dread ellipsis, and the trio of dots sent a forceful message to another winged monster, the stork. Then she turned around and sprinkled him with water from another cup she carried, and he immediately let the matter drop, and returned to sleep. It was lethe, the water of forgetfulness. He had forgotten all about her and this nocturnal episode.”

“Dastardly,” the Dastard repeated. Who would ever have thought this story would turn so briefly satisfying?

“In the morning, Crombie hated Grinelle even more, because in the back of his mind he felt somehow drawn to her. He treated her yet more harshly, trying to abolish the lurking attraction he felt. For though the lethe had made him forget, the love elixir had not entirely worn off, as it normally required more than three dots of an ellipsis to wear it out. But then he went on his way with his companions, and thought no more about her, though the lingering love elixir was destined to strike again, this time with a nymph as its object. But that's another story.”

“I hope this one is almost done,” the Dastard said wearily. However, it had given him an idea. If he found that green-haired princess, maybe he should have some of that love elixir handy to use on her.

“Grinelle in due course, not long after the Time of No Magic, received a bundle from the stork: a baby griffin girl cub which she treasured and named Griselda. She had astonishing color for her kind: a yellow beak, red mane, and blue wingtip feathers. Only as she grew did it become evident that Griselda, though griffin in body, was essentially human in mind. She was very smart, and had a soul. She never felt completely at home among the griffins, and finally Grinelle had to tell her the truth about her origin: She had a human father. So when she was eighteen in human years, she set out to find her father. But because he had reverted to his human form, she did not know how to locate him. She realized that she would be able to find him only if he wished to be found--and how could he wish that, when he didn't know she existed? So she decided to go ask the Good Magician for help.”

“Oh, no, not another Good Magician story,” the Dastard said, disgusted.

"But she got lost on the way to Magician Humfrey's castle, and blundered down to the Brain Coral's pool, where it stored all manner of creatures and things, pending their possible need in some distant future.

So she made the deal with it: She would do it a service, if it would preserve her until her father learned of her existence and wished to meet her. It seemed that there was a person on the surface of Xanth who was very ill and about to fade out, who had a very special talent. This was to project a thought or an image or an emotion into the mind of another person or creature, somewhat in the manner of a night mare, but not restricted to bad dreams. She went where the Brain Coral told her, and found him: his name was Just Ice, and he had somehow lost himself and was dying of coldness. 'There ain't no more Just Ice,' he wailed as he sank into oblivion. But Griselda reached him just in time, and wrapped him in a blanket, and promised to take him to a place where he would always be warm. So he went with her to the Brain Coral's pool, and dipped his big toe in the water, and it was marvelously warm and cozy. He was glad to let the Brain Coral borrow his talent while he delved into the pool. And Griselda joined him there, finding it just as comfortable. And so they remained, for thirty-eight years. Then something glitched, and several of the stored folk were washed out of the pool, including Griselda. So, finding herself back in Xanth proper, she decided to resume her search for her father, the misogynist Crombie.“ Becka paused, glancing at him. ”Have we seen him?"

“No!” the Dastard said. “Now go away.”

Sadly, the griffin spread her wings and flew away.

“You certainly are dastardly, my pet,” Becka remarked appreciatively. “You let her tell her entire story, then dismissed her with a mere four words.”

“I wish I could dismiss you as readily,” he said.

“I am much more of a challenge, my pet.”

“You don't sound at all like the girl I met yesterday.”

“I am indeed not like that girl. Come, my pet, let's seek a private place, and I will freak you out with my panties.”

Suddenly the Dastard was suspicious. “You are completely different! What has come over you?”

“I'm surprised you haven't caught on by this time, pet. I am the Sea Hag.”

Suddenly it fell into place. The significant change in personality. The sudden interest in the histories of other people. The Sea Hag was interested in people, because they were all prospects for her to take over, and she wanted the very best bodies. “That glitch in the Brain Coral's pool, that ejected the griffin girl--it ejected you too!”

“Indeed it did, my pet. My spirit flew to my statue and waited for a suitable prospect to pass. I took Ann Arky.” Her face soured. “But then you unhappened her entry to Xanth, stranding me. That never happened to me before; usually only death deprives me of my hosts. So I took the next available young female body. This one is if anything better than the first. It's clean and healthy, and with a formidable identity.” She turned dragon for an instant. “It has been a long time since I have had a man to play with. You will do until I find a better one. Come to me, my unhandsome but surely serviceable male.” She reached for him.