Three novel nymphs, p.1
Three Novel Nymphs, page 1
Three Novel Nymphs
A XANTH NOVEL
Piers Anthony
Chapter 1
Only One Thing
It was a typical day at the Faun & Nymph Retreat. The nude fauns and nymphs were at their usual business, the fauns chasing the nymphs, who did not flee very hard, and celebrating, as they put it, when they came together. A standard episode lasted about five minutes. Then on to the next chase and catch, changing partners. Passers-by who spied the Retreat were normally intrigued, as nothing was concealed. Until they realized that there was no real variety; the script never changed. It was like watching a Mundane show that was locked on repeat. Only largely empty-headed creatures would do that all day. The fauns and nymphs were that.
In fact, the denizens were good for only one thing, by definition. Even that could get boring in time. This was one reason the memories of all who lived there were wiped every night: so they didn’t have the retention to realize how dull it really was. It took them approximately a day to catch on, about the time they ran out of new partners, and then it was night. They retired to their separate barracks and slept, to wake with no memories of the prior days. Thus their innocence was restored, and they were happy. This day was mostly used up; shadows were emboldened by the tiring sun and were growing in size and reaching out from behind trees and rocks to touch careless people. Few folk realize how sneaky shadows are. It was the shade’s ambition to take over the scene and rule in darkness.
But this day something went mildly wrong. A nymph screamed cutely to get the attention of the nearest faun, flung her lustrous tresses about so that they played hide-and-seek with her shapely upper torso, and kicked one foot head-high so that everything and a bit more flashed in his direction. That signaled the faun to begin the chase, which he gladly did. So far, so good. But because this nymph remembered the myriad incidents of the day, she was beginning to think about maybe possibly perchance catching on to the larger picture. Also, she happened to be perilously close to the border, and she saw something outside.
It was a gully that happened to have wandered into sight before moving on, and in the gully was a nymph with a wild tangle of green hair. The color wasn’t the problem; hair came in all colors including plaid, paisley, rainbow, barber-pole, checkerboard, polka-dot, and odd. That was in fact about the only way to tell one faun or nymph from another, as their faces and bodies were alike. Each one’s hair was a different color or shade, unique to her. This pausing nymph’s hair was iridescent. The problem with the gully nymph was the tangle. Nymphs were supposed to have thigh-length tresses that swung appealingly when they moved. The tangle blocked that, making the hair thunk awkwardly about her shoulders and fail to properly hide and flash her midsection. She badly needed restyling.
The tangle-hair nymph saw her and called. “Help!”
The iridescent nymph discovered that she cared. That, too, had slowly grown in her as the day passed and spot memories accumulated. True, the memories were all of the same act with different fauns, and seeing other nymphs doing the same, but they were at least kindred spirits. A sister nymph was in trouble, and she wanted to help. But it wasn’t safe to leave the Retreat, which had a spell to protect its occupants. Outside, spells were as likely to be hostile as friendly, and external creatures could be dangerous to the defenseless Retreat denizens. Tangle Hair needed spot support. “Join me!” Iridescent called to the closest other nymph she saw, who was being chased by her own lusty faun. She had sky blue hair.
Blue Hair opened her mouth to say no, but encountered a problem. Nymphs never said no. She tried to shake her head, but it morphed into a nod. She, too, was coming to care about others. Selfishness and caring warred almost visibly within her. So Blue Hair reluctantly changed course to join Iridescent as she stepped across the boundary line. Iridescent felt a slight tingle as she did, and knew she was exposing herself to the risks and rigors of the outer realm. That made her passingly nervous.
The two fauns screeched to a halt just short of the line. The males were less subject to inconvenient attacks of caring, being more interested in endlessly celebrating. They were not about to risk the most fearful thing that was the Unknown.
“Be careful,” the green-haired nymph called. “It’s slippery.”
“Okay,” Iridescent called back. “We’re watching out.”
Side by side, Iridescent and Blue walked toward Tangle. Suddenly the gully caught them by the feet, and they slid down the bank to the base, legs waving in the air as the two fauns watched, fascinated by perhaps more than the gully. It was indeed slippery.
Irritated, Iridescent righted herself and stood, brushing off her shapely flank. She was unharmed, merely smudged. “Let’s go back before night catches us outside.”
But when she tried to walk back up the gully slope, she couldn’t. It was too slippery. The same was true for Blue.
“That’s how I got caught,” Tangle said. “I veered too close to the border, stepped across, and slid on down.”
“Bleep!” Iridescent swore. That at least she could do, this late in the day. She was coming to realize that it was a euphemism, though she had no idea what it was hiding. It simply meant she was annoyed, a rare emotion for her kind.
The fauns had spied other nymphs flashing their familiar assets, and hoofed off in pursuit, the outside nymphs forgotten. “Bleep,” Iridescent repeated, annoyed by the loss of their lecherous attention despite beginning to tire of it.
“That’s what I think,” Tangle said, joining them. “We need to get back into the Retreat before darkness strikes.”
“We do,” Blue agreed. “The dark is dangerous.”
“Maybe we can follow this furrow until we find a way around the slippery slope,” Iridescent said. But as she looked, the gully just got deeper and worser the farther it went. They were unlikely to get free of it before the darkness caught them. “Bleep.” The bad word seemed to help, in its fashion. Words did have magic.
There was a swirl of smoke before her, as if a miniature fire had ignited in midair. “Did somebody custard?” it asked.
They stared at it. “A talking cloud?” Iridescent asked, bemused.
“That’s not the protocol,” the cloud said, darkening angrily. “You’re supposed to ask, ‘Did somebody what?’”
Oh. Nymphs were nothing if not obliging. “Did somebody what?”
“Pudding, dessert, treat, sweet, delicacy … Oh, beans, they’re all wrong.”
Iridescent suffered a bright flash of comprehension. ‘Beans’ sounded almost like ‘bleep,’ so must be a bad word. Custard started out like a bad word that lost its way and got eaten by a larger word. “Cuss?”
“Whatever,” the cloud agreed petulantly. “Was somebody swearing?”
“We’re nymphs. We don’t know how to swear, except maybe toward the end of the day, and then it’s not much.”
“What are you?” Blue asked. “Clouds don’t talk.”
The cloud expanded. It extended two columns toward the ground. These became aesthetic humanoid legs. Feet grew from their ends. Then two more extensions emerged, becoming arms. Hands grew from their ends. The main blob shaped into a torso with firmly projecting buttocks and breasts. The whole assembly shaped into a naked female form whose exaggerated proportions would have freaked out the fauns. “I am Metria. I check into anything interesting.”
“Haven’t you forgotten something?” Iridescent asked.
The shape considered. “Oh, double beans. I’m not a nymph. I’m a lower-case demoness. Real people wear habiliment.”
“Wear what?” Blue asked.
“Shoes, socks, shirts, pants, underwear—”
“Clothing?”
“Whatever.” A gorgeous dress formed around the torso, tight in key places to emphasize rather than conceal the suggestive bulges beneath.
“That wasn’t what I meant,” Iridescent said. “You don’t have a head.”
“Ooops!” the demoness exclaimed with a full three O’s. A new projection swelled from the top, becoming a neck and then a head with a remarkably sexy face. “Details, details,” the fresh mouth complained as the lips reddened brightly.
“We’ve never seen a demoness before, as far as we know,” Blue said.
“Well, I’m banned from the Retreat,” Metria said. “The anonymous proprietors seem to think I might be a bad influence.” She inhaled, stretching her low decolletage until some threads started snapping. “Can’t think why. You nymphs are doing it all the time.”
“Doing what?”
The demoness laughed, the sides of her tight dress splitting so as to show a fair amount of what the material had covered. “You don’t even know, do you! Because you’re true innocents. What are your names?”
“We have no names,” Iridescent said. “We go by the colors of our hair.”
Metria shook her head. “That won’t do. You need real names.”
“Why? We’ll only forget them by morning.”
“Because that’s what’s interesting about you,” the demoness said firmly. “I know the Retreat makes you forget everything every night. But you’re not going back there. You won’t forget.”
“But we have to,” Iridescent protested. “We’re nymphs.”
“Not any more.”
“Why?”
“Because you are the new protagonist and early companions for a recorded adventure. That’s wh y I came here: to see what was up. I am magically attracted to anything naughty or interesting. A nymph’s never been one before.”
“What’s a pro … pro—whatever?” Blue asked.
“Protagonist. The main character of a story.”
“Me?” Iridescent asked, astonished. “How do you know?”
“Because I spied the Baton of Protagonism coming here, and I followed it.”
The three nymphs stared at her blankly.
“Oh, fudge and panties!” Metria swore. “Do I have to explain it step by step?”
“Yes,” Iridescent said, and the others nodded.
The demoness gritted her teeth so hard that small sparks flew out. “I keep forgetting that you nymphs are so innocent that you might as well be children, despite your nefarious daily activity. That’s why my villainous curses come out like blobs of candy. The bleeping Adult Conspiracy is taking hold. So I really must explain in a simplistic manner.”
“Yes,” they agreed again.
Metria sighed a cloud of purple smoke. “Back in the last story, titled Apoca Lips, there was a man whose talent was to see the imaginary. He saw a winged baton hovering near him. It looked like this.” She briefly assumed the form of a floating wand with wings. “He learned that it was the conveyor of protagonism. That whoever it hovered near and tapped on the shoulder was the main character of the current story. When I learned of this, I studied that wand and learned to see it too. It’s imaginary, true, but so am I, in my better moments, so I could do it. Now I follow it to see where the action is going to be. And it is here. You are the main character, you with the glossy hair. That’s why you need a name. All main characters have names.”
“But I’m nobody. I don’t know anything about being a main character,” Iridescent protested.
“Nor do you need to know. Protagonism has hold of you, and you are stuck with it. There are advantages.”
“There are?”
“The main character always survives, no matter how frightful the adventure becomes. And there will indeed be an adventure. That’s what interests me. You may even save Xanth from some awful peril. Probably also get a romance. Make the Xanth character list. So let’s name you now. I will look in the Book of Names.”
“Book?”
The demoness breathed out a new cloud of smoke. It formed into a floating book with the word names on the cover. It opened and the pages riffed, emanating the dust of long disuse. Metria looked. “You’re from the Faun & Nymph Retreat. That’s a kind of refuge. So let’s call you Nydia, which means refuge. Nydia Nymph.”
The nymph opened her mouth to protest, but got caught by the nymphly stricture against ever saying no. Instead she accepted it. “Nydia,” she agreed, discovering to her surprise that she liked having a name. It gave her a feeling of identity.
Metria turned to Blue. “You were reluctant to join Nydia. You are an unwilling lady. Therefore, you can assume the name of unwillingness. Noletta.”
That nymph tried to protest, but as before, her negative effort became positive. “I am Noletta,” she agreed.
And the tangle-haired one. “You look like a messy sea nymph, so we’ll call you—” She peered into the book. “Nerine.”
The third nymph nodded, her hair bumping. “Nerine.” She, too, evidently liked it.
The demoness clapped her hands in a gesture of accomplishment. “Done.” The book turned smoky and drifted away.
Nydia summoned all the negative force she could muster. “I’m not doing it. I would just mess it up. I’m going back to the Retreat where I belong.”
“You can’t. Once you are the Protagonist, you’re stuck with it until you complete the novel.”
“The what?” Noletta asked.
“Fresh, new, original, daring, narrative—”
Nydia caught on. “The story?”
“Whatever,” Metria agreed impatiently. “A novel is a long story. You can’t even try to escape it. Its borders are too distant and vague.”
Nydia nerved herself. “Well, I’m going to—”
“To what?”
And she found she couldn’t. She was indeed stuck for it. “To get on with the adventure.”
“Precisely. Now go gather about four more Companions and get on with your fabulous adventure.”
“But we have no idea how to handle an Adventure,” Nydia said.
“Then get somebody competent to advise you. Maybe one of the Companions you recruit.”
Nydia wasn’t smart; no nymph was. Nymphs were all body and little mind. But she got a glimmer. “I can choose anyone I want?”
“Yes. Or they choose you. Sometimes it just happens.”
“Then I choose you, demoness Metria, to be my Companion and adviser. Because you know how to do it.”
Metria was clearly startled. “Me? Nobody wants me! I’m just a nuisance.”
“But you know so much more than we do.”
“That’s the problem. I know a scant myriad of things that would toast your delicate little ears. I am not a suitable Companion.”
“But you said I could choose.”
The demoness considered. “Actually, I would like to participate in an adventure. It’s been a long time. But I’m notorious and would surely mess up up your narrative. But maybe there’s a way.”
“A way,” Nydia agreed.
“I see I must explain, again. A long time ago I got stepped on by a sphinx. That fractured me into three identities: Metria, who is slightly naughty, Mentia, who is slightly crazy, and Woe Betide, who is slightly childish. I have been concerned for her because she can grow and mature only when she is in control of the essence. She hasn’t yet learned how to pop in and out as I do.” She faded to a wisp of smoke, then reappeared. “I would like her to get some life experience. This might be a way. But I must warn you that in her presence the Adult Conspiracy has full force. No bad words, no Adult concepts. And she has to sleep a lot. She’s a sweet creature, but may be a burden at times.”
“We can’t use bad words anyway,” Nydia said. “Does she know the general lay of the land? Because we have no idea where anything is, outside the Retreat.”
“She knows the general gist of Xanth. But she has little experience of it. When she’s in control, I can watch and listen, but I can’t act. The Conspiracy forbids it.” She grimaced. “I would be a bad influence.”
“But if you are all three parts of the same person …”
“We are three people, able to use the host body just one at a time. Only the one in control can give it up. It’s complicated.”
It surely was beyond the comprehension of mere nymphs, Nydia realized. Best to leave it alone.
Nydia glanced at Noletta and Nerine. They nodded obligingly. “We’ll take her.”
“Done!” The demoness clapped her hands again and dissolved into smoke. After three quarters of a moment, it formed into a little child about four years old. She smiled timidly at the nymphs. “Hi.” But she looked nervous, on the verge of tearful. She had curly red hair, demon fire eyes, a red dress, red slippers, and a sparkling red gem in her hair, the shape of a tesseract. Overall, she was impossibly cute.
Nydia felt a new urge. She squatted, extended her arms, and hugged the child. “You’re with us now. We’re three nymphs going on an adventure.”
Woe Betide was pleased. “Gee.”
It was amazing how much that pleased Nydia in return. As far as she knew, she had never hugged a child before. The feeling was quite different from hugging a faun, whose main interest was in holding her tight enough in place to efficiently complete the celebration. She felt supportive and protective, which as far as she knew were new emotions.
“We are the nymphs Nydia, Noletta, and Nerine,” she told the child. “We will try to take care of you, and you can help us find our way, wherever we’re going.”
“Gee,” the child repeated, kissing her cheek. That sent a surprising surge of rapture through her.
“Now, Woe, we need to find our way out of this slippery gully,” Nydia said. “Before we get caught by the darkness.”
The child started to tear up again. “I’m afraid of the dark.”
