Chapter 4

Incident

“Hello.”

The voice startled him. There before him stood an ugly girl. Behind her were three ugly animals: a bird, a rabbit, and a turtle. The girl was unclothed, but it didn’t matter because she was not at all attractive. Her face was worse than plain, her hair was dirty brown, and her proportions were so gnarled that he would have doubted that she was human, had not the Good Magician identified her as such. These were the folk he was supposed to work with?

“Uh, hello,” he said. “The—the Good Magician sent me. You are the Aloma?”

“Yes. I am Incident, and these are my three companion animals, Bird, Rabbit, and Turtle. I am an Oma, and they are my companions and assistants.”

“What’s an Oma?”

“That’s complicated to explain, but in essence, we deliver nasty tumors to undeserving folk, some of whom die from them.”

He was appalled. “You like this work?”

“No. But we are locked into it. We will die and go to Hell if we stop, and Hell is not much fun.”

“I am supposed to work with you. I am supposed to assist you to the best of my abilities. Only in that manner will I ever win redemption.”

She smiled tiredly. It was not a pretty sight. “Lots of luck there.”

“It is as least theoretically possible. It is all I have to go on. I can’t continue my old ways, since I got caught in the conscience cloud.”

“The conscience cloud!”

“You know of it?”

“Yes. We passed through it unawares. It did not change us physically or mentally, exactly, but emotionally it was devastating. We could no longer do evil. So we went to the Good Magician for help, and he told us that in due course that would come in the form of a golem. You must be that golem.”

“But I have no idea what I am supposed to do!” he protested. “I thought you were supposed to know.”

Incident sighed. “It seems we have a problem.”

“Maybe there was a mistake,” he said. “Maybe we should go back and ask him again.

“How?”

“The way I came. Through the tree.”

“The tree?”

“The door in the tree, yes.”

She grimaced, which she did effectively. “What door?”

He turned to point it out. And paused. The tree was there, but the bark was unmarked. He felt it with his gloved fingers, but there was nothing.

There was no door.

Now he sighed. “It seems it was a one-way trip.”

“We were warned that the Good Magician’s Answers could be obscure. It seems that was no exaggeration.”

“Yes. But I understand also that they always make devious sense in the end.”

She shrugged. “It seems we are stuck with each other. We have a temporary den near here that we made so we could stay near the tree until you came. Maybe we can figure it out.” She did not sound hopeful.

“Maybe,” he agreed, with no real hope to add.

They went to the den. This was a lean-to lined with fur and feathers. It was reasonably comfortable. They had collected a few pies and milkweed pods, so they settled down to eat while they got to know each other.

“You are not as ugly as we are,” Incident said. “So you must have been in some other line of business.”

That was a change. Goar was used to being the ugliest of those he encountered. “I did not deliver tumors, no. But what has that to do with appearance?”

“Each time we do a bad deed, we get slightly uglier. After several years we became—” She shrugged. “As we are now.”

He nodded. “Let me show you my own ugliness.” He stood, pulled off his head-sock to reveal his metallic dome and plate, then started pulling down his trousers.

“You don’t need to show us that,” Incident said quickly. She was naked, but too gnarled to show anything interesting. Goar was less gnarled. A man’s bare anatomy could have a freaking effect on a woman. Women, oddly, did not enjoy getting freaked the way men did; it was one of the mysteries of their gender.

“Yes, I do.” He pulled them off, revealing the plate that covered his groin. If she had expected more humanoid anatomy, this alleviated that. Then he showed them his uncovered feet.

“Caterpillar treads!” Incident exclaimed. “You are different.”

“I am a golem,” he agreed. “Armor-plated.”

“And I am an Oma, as you know. Why is your state significant?”

“I was crafted to be an efficient killer, as were you.” Now he removed his gloves and revealed his circular saw digits. “To saw up living flesh and bone. But now I have a conscience, and can no longer pursue my old mission. So unless you need a killer in a good cause, I can’t help you.”

“We don’t want more killing,” Incident said.

“I am not surprised. The obscurity of the Good Magician’s Answer is beyond me to fathom.”

“All that we have in common is doing much evil and encountering the conscience cloud,” she said. “Maybe he thought that made us compatible.”

“But how does it solve our problems?”

Incident shook her head. “That is beyond me too.”

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Then Goar put his clothing back on, becoming more humanoid. “Maybe we need to get to know each other better, in case there is some other way we can help each other.”

“Maybe,” she agreed unhappily.

“I was once a human child, but I was always a bad boy. I got away with my mischief because folk did not really believe that a young child could be truly evil. Then I went too far.”

“You got caught?”

“No. I lived near a railroad track, a sort of Mundane artifact in my area of Xanth, and each day I saw the powerful trains pass with their many following cars. Sometimes other children put pennies on the track, and the metal wheel of the train squished them flat, making them interesting. But that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to see a train wreck. So instead of a coin, I put a metal bar calculated to derail the train. It worked! The train ran off its rails and wrecked. Several adults and six children were killed.” He paused, remembering.

“So that was when you got caught?”

“Not exactly. In the confusion they never noticed the little boy watching with relish. The people killed became ghosts. The adults focused on making their way to Heaven, but the children ghosts were more alert. They spied me and read my nasty little mind and knew what I had done. That I had killed them. They were angry, so they haunted me. I could not escape them, and finally they drove me to suicide.”

“So you paid for your crime.”

“No. Even my death did not appease the little brats. They still harassed me as ghosts, because as another ghost I could not escape them. They blocked the way to Heaven and Hell so that I could not get there. They got their jollies from tormenting me. I was desperate.”

“But you are alive now,” Incident pointed out.

“Two Dwarf Demons needed a ruthless killer. So they assembled a killer body from junk parts, here an arm, there a leg, and buttressed them with metal spikes and springs.”

“And spinning saws!” Incident said, catching on.

“And caterpillar treads,” he agreed. “The result was a composite golem, technically alive but not pretty. But they needed a soul to animate it, and I was the most evil one available, so they grabbed me and put me in the body. Thereafter I was required to do their bidding, though it darkened my soiled soul yet more.”

“Until you blundered into the conscience cloud.”

“Yes. It was a routine mission until then.”

“My turn now,” Incident said. “Originally, I was Elle, a lovely but naughty Sylph, a nymph of the air, without a conscience. All I cared about was having fun, and much of it was mischievous. I entered a contest among my kind to see which of us could lure the handsomest mortal man to his death. I won! I was thrilled.” She grimaced. “Now that horrifies me, because of my conscience.”

“I know how that is,” Goar said.

The two exchanged a glance of mutual understanding.

“Then later, bored, I discovered that I actually did have a soul, but it was in a rudimentary state, having received no exercise at all. Beautiful sylphs don’t really need souls. I went to apologize to my victim’s girlfriend, and learned that she had been about to break with the man anyway, because he chased after any pretty girl he spied, including, as it turned out, a sylph. She did not wish him dead, but her grief for him was limited. Still, as my soul got a bit of practice, I was sorry for the other unkind things I had done to mortals, and wished I could somehow make up for it. But I saw no way.”

“That, too, I understand,” Goar said.

They exchanged another look. “You know, if you were handsome and I were pretty, those looks we’re generating would mean something,” Incident said. “But as it is—”

“Nobody wants an ugly person,” Goar agreed. “Even though the ugly one might like to have a relationship.”

“That’s why getting ugly is such a punishment. If I put on panties and flashed them at you, you would be disgusted, because a wart hog has a better bottom than I do now in the disaster of my discontent. And if you tried to kiss me, I would snatch my face away, involuntarily, because of course I want only a handsome man.”

He liked her apt phrasing. “And I desire only a pretty woman.”

“Yet we are coming to understand each other well enough so that we might indeed make a satisfying couple. We know that intellectually, but not emotionally.”

“We understand each other’s grief,” he agreed. “And share it.”

“Yes, I think we do. Traditionally, in the kind of fantasy we live in, a boy meets a girl early on, and by the end of the story they fall in love and become a permanent couple. It is standard operating procedure. But the boy has to be handsome and strong and decent, and the girl has to be lovely and nice and accommodating. We are none of these things, so it’s a mismatch. The fact that we seem to be compatible is irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant,” he agreed regretfully. “Were I those boy things, and you those girl things, we might be perfect together. But we are not.”

Incident scowled. Her features were perfect for that. “We are not. So back to my story. One day, basking in my own depression, I came across a park honoring mundane poets. One plaque was about one William Ernest Henley, listing his assorted poem titles. One was ‘Invictus.’ I did not know the word, so I approached the separate plaque that dealt with it. When I came close not only did the words show in lighted print, the poet’s voice sounded, speaking it aloud. I was entranced. ‘Out of the night that covers me,’ and darkness descended. ‘Black as the Pit from pole to pole.’ And there was a giant pit I cautiously skirted. Yes, I was an immortal air spirit, but I was wary of the mood of this pit, that might have magic and be hard to escape if I fell into it. ‘It matters not how strait the gate, / How charged with punishment the scroll.’ I thought the words were ‘straight the gait’, so I walked a perfectly straight line through the open gate I came to. I was so ignorant, back then! Not that my stunted soul was worth mastering. ‘I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.’”

Incident paused, smiling deprecatingly. “I thrilled to the sentiment, but it was illusory for me. I was not even the mistress of my fate, let alone the master. I was the captive of the realm of the Oma. It happened when I walked through the gate, distracted by the poem. The whole park was a trap to lure in unsuspecting travelers. And so I became Incident Oma, compelled to do deeds I detested, that made me ever-uglier, but I had no choice. I was no longer Elle Sylph, but a dark creature, virtually immortal and invulnerable. I could retire at any time, but then I would lose those benefits, so there really wasn’t a choice. I was locked in.”

“Yes!” he agreed. “Continue your history.”

“I was assigned a territory. The designations started with AA and went through AZ, with the B alphabet and others elsewhere. My district bordered the lots of the A group, all of them being Omas. Mine was AL. I learned that to do my new job properly I would need the assistance of three animals: one flying, one racing, one crawling. So I went looking for them. I discovered that I had been given the ability to sense what I wanted, or at least to know the direction of it. So I focused on flying and before long came across a small bird, a sparrow, caught in a trap meant for something else. A hungry snake was approaching. So I touched the bird, and found that it understood me via a sort of contact telepathy I now possessed. I sprang the trap and freed it, but its leg was broken, its wings battered and it was in no condition to fly. So I healed it, finding that I could do that too. And I said to it, ‘Join me, little bird, and I will give you the ability to assume any bird form, small or great, and like me you will become invulnerable and immortal and have near human intelligence as long as you stay with me.’ Then the snake struck, biting down on the bird’s head. For an instant I thought I was too late, but the snake’s fangs had no effect; in fact they seemed to break on the bird’s invulnerable neck. Then he shook his head, and the snake was thrown off. ‘Peep!’ he said, reproving the reptile, and the snake hastily departed, its bruised mouth hurting. Then the bird nodded his head to me, agreeing to the deal, and flew up to my shoulder and perched there, and has been there ever since.” She glanced across at the ugly bird and smiled. “I mean with me, not necessarily on my shoulder.”

The bird flew quickly to her shoulder and chirped agreement. It would have been cute, had they both not been so hideous.

“Then I oriented on the racing animal, and found a rabbit caught in a briar patch. He had evidently thought it was similar to the ones he normally used to escape predators, but this was a magic one masquerading as innocuous, actually a predator itself. The plant would hold him with its vines and thorns and slowly feed on him, and he was doomed. But I reached in, unscratched, and touched him, and he became invulnerable and able to break out on his own. I made my offer, including the ability to assume any rabbit form, and if he made the effort, any other mammal form, and he was impressed, and accepted it.” She glanced at the ugly rabbit, who hopped up and onto her lap. She stroked him. It was clear that they got along well enough.

“Finally, I oriented on the crawling animal, and came to a lake where fishermen were casting a net. But my business was not with the fishermen; my sense of direction led me to the water, and I entered it and dived below, discovering that I could now get along without breathing if I needed to. Truly, as an Oma I was impressive! I came up on a big green turtle who was caught in the fishing net, on the verge of drowning. I poked a finger through the net to touch him, and felt the power surging to him. Then he changed to a small turtle and scrambled through the net. But he remained close to drowning, so I took him in my hand and stroked to the surface, holding him up in the air so he could breathe. Then I made my case to him. For one thing, he would no longer be subject to drowning, now that he knew it wasn’t necessary. He would be immune to harm, able to convert instantly to the form of any other turtle, or maybe reptile, practically immortal, and of human intelligence, like the bird and rabbit he would work with. He could leave at any time, but then would revert to his natural state, becoming mortal and stupid. He considered, and decided to join me. We have been together ever since.”

The ugly turtle come up to join her, and she laid a hand on his shell. They, too, were friends.

“Now our consciences won’t allow us to do further harm,” Incident concluded. “But it is getting harder to cope. The longer we go without doing our jobs, the worse it gets. We can’t hold out much longer.”

“What happens to you?”

She frowned. “It’s like having to urinate. You need to do it to live, but you can pick and choose to an extent. You can hold it for a while. You can find a private place to do it. You can drink less water or juice so you can go longer. But eventually you simply have to do it or burst. Well, having tumors to place has some leeway. It can take time to locate suitable prospects. But every day there are new tumors, and if you don’t keep up, the need to properly handle them gets increasingly pressing until it is painful. I haven’t placed a tumor in a week, and I don’t think I can go another day. I have seven tumors to dispose of before the discomfort eases.”

“How do you get them?”

“The Demon Oma distributes them. They appear in a special box I have. This box.” She held up a small ornate closed container. She popped the lid open, and showed the tiny seed inside. “This is a medium one for Rabbit to handle. But he’s already backlogged, so I left it in the box for now. Tomorrow there will be another. We never see the Demon Oma himself, just his handiwork.”

“Do you have specific folk to give them to, or is that your choice?”

“It’s our choice, to a degree. My sense directs me to a suitable prospect, but I don’t have to use that one. But it can be awful finding a different one.”

“Are these prospects deserving of this fate?”

“No! Most of them are innocent folk. Not good or bad, just average. They don’t deserve to suffer horribly and die. We’ve been searching out bad people to give the tumors to, but the average person is a mixture of qualities so that it’s just sort of a mishmash. There’s a little poem I heard once that illustrates it. ‘There’s so much good in the worst of us / And bad in the best of us / It ill behooves the most of us / To talk about the rest of us.’ Only we’re not here to talk about it, but to select a few for what can be an awful fate. We hate it! But we have to do it. We have to—” She broke off, plainly on the verge of tears.

“You have to pee,” he said. “But what happens if you hold it until you burst?”

“The seeds fly out randomly and infect the closest folk, who may be downright good people. We can’t do that.”

“If you quit the job, what happens? Apart from losing your magical powers?”

“We can’t quit when we’re backlogged. We’re locked in.” She smiled wanly. “Like having a muscle spasm when you want to pee. You just can’t do it. When we are caught up, then we could quit. Then a new Incident and new animals would be selected, and the job would continue. No one would benefit, except maybe the new crew with its immortality and all, while we fade and die in the mortal manner, and finally go to Hell for eternity anyway.” She was clearly near tears. He wanted to comfort her, but had no idea how, and probably she didn’t want it from an ugly killer golem like him anyway.

“And somehow the Good Magician thought that putting us together would solve our problems,” he said. “Instead of compounding them.”

“Somehow,” she agreed, and the three animals nodded. They didn’t speak, but they understood, and had been following the conversation. They were in the same sinking boat.

“Maybe he has a weird sense of humor.”

“Maybe. I understand that all he does is grump, so it’s hard to tell. Anyway, we looked for the worst people to give the seeds to, but there’s a limit of one to a person and we’re running out of them.”

“I never thought about it before,” Goar said. “But I suppose it is true that something has to deliver the tumors people get. Now I know.”

Incident shook her head. “It’s a huge business. We handle just the incidental tumors, the ones that are discovered only by accident. Most others make themselves known when they make their hosts sicken. That is often too late.”

“Incidental. Your name is Incident. Is that a coincidence?”

“Not at all. As a Sylph I was Elle. Incident is my business name, which I share with the others in this business.”

“The folk you give them to—are they all Xanthians?”

“Oh no. They are mostly Mundanes, because there are a whole lot more of them, and they lack magic defensive wards and healing elixirs and such.”

“But you are here in Xanth. How do you get to the Mundanes?”

She smiled. It did not help her appearance. “That is part of what the animals do. They can travel between realms when they need to. Mundania pretty much parallels Xanth. So we orient on a given Mundane from here, then one of my associates takes the tumor and tunnels through to deposit the seed. The victim never even knows. Maybe years later he will accidentally discover it, and by then it may be also be too late.” She sighed. “The Mundanes mostly think it is just chance. They don’t even believe in magic. That shown how deadly dull they are.”

“Why not just give them to folk who are about to die of something else, so they have no real effect?”

“That’s way too easy! One of the requirements is that a seed must grow and mature into a tumor that eventually kills its host. Otherwise it doesn’t count. In fact, sometimes we get rejections, when the host body simply won’t accept the seed, because that host won’t live long enough for the tumor to prosper. The seeds are able to sense the potential.”

“That’s ugly.”

“And so are we. But we’re stuck with it. It is depressing.” It was indeed. Then Goar got an idea. “Is there any way that a tumor seed could be a benefit to a person, instead of a liability?”

“A benefit? I don’t see how.”

“Maybe if someone were dying of something else, like a witch’s curse or an inflamed brain, not only painful but making him crazy, but he stood to endure years of it before he inevitably died. The right tumor might take him out much faster, sparing him pain. It would be a mercy.”

“I never thought of that! I wouldn’t mind placing some seeds for that.” She glanced at the animals, and they nodded. “Let’s go find some positive placements!”

“What, now?”

“What better time? I don’t want to burst.”

He thought of the urine analogy, winced at the thought of flying pee, and kept his mouth shut.

They set off on a mercy tumor delivery. Now he saw Incident and the animals in action. She closed her eyes, turned slowly around, and oriented roughly north. “The first prospect is some distance away,” she announced. “We’d better fly.”

“Fly? I understand that Mundanes have big noisy flying machines, but we don’t. Unless you have a levitation spell—”

“We have better than that. Remember how I needed to recruit one flying, one racing, and one crawling animal?”

“Yes, but Bird can’t—”

“He can change form to become any kind of bird, and more if he has to.”

“Yes, but that won’t help the rest of us.”

She glanced at the bird. “Do your thing, birdie.”

The small bird spread his wings, flew out to the nearest open space in the forest, then changed. To a roc.

Goar gaped. The hugest of all birds! Large enough to carry a Mundane elephant in each talon. He hadn’t thought of that.

They trotted out to rejoin the big bird. The roc spread his wings out on the ground so that they could mount them like feathery hills and settle down on his downy back. “But is it safe?” Goar asked. “We could readily fall off. Any little gust could dump us.”

“He will be careful,” Incident said. “And of course we’ll hold on. Grab a flight feather.” She demonstrated by taking hold of a massive feather. “Don’t let go while we’re aloft.”

“I won’t,” he agreed fervently, taking hold of a second huge feather.

Rabbit wrapped all four limbs around a third feather, and Turtle locked his powerful jaws on a fourth. None of them would be dislodged.

“Ready, Bird!” Incident called.

The monstrous wings drew in, lifted off the ground, then pumped down and spread again. The whole body shuddered with the effort. A second heave, and a third. Then the body lifted up with the huge feet supporting it on the ground. They ran along the land; Goar could feel the echoes of their pounding proceeding like tsunami waves through the flesh of the body and down the back to the gargantuan tail. He couldn’t see any of it directly, but the vibrations were like secondary eyes that enabled him to picture it.

The head came up as the wings thrust down again. The body lifted. They were airborne! He felt the eddy currents as they angled up to clear the trees at the edge of the clearing. Then it was nothing but open sky.

The ascent continued. How high were they going? Then at last they leveled off. Now they were traveling rather than taking off.

“Now we can look,” Incident said. “Flight will be steady until the landing.” She smiled again. “As a dragon would put it, the smoking light is on.”

Goar opened his eyes and sat up. Indeed, there was no harsh wind tearing at him. Incident was already upright, though she kept firm hold on the feather with one hand. The two animals had anchored themselves similarly.

Goar looked around and down. Beyond the curve of the roc’s back he saw the colorful landscape of Xanth. There were fields and forests, mountains and lakes, thickets and thinnets, and here and there, inset like gems, villages. Rivers coursed around the hills, seeking out the more comfortable valleys.

“Cloud alert,” Incident said.

He looked ahead. They were flying right toward a small cloud that was floating at the same elevation. They plunged into it, and fog surrounded them. The vapor seemed to slow the big bird slightly but not dangerously. In two and a half moments they were out the other side.

Goar looked back. The cloud, disturbed, looked dark, and little jags of lightning radiated from its surface. But they were already out of its reach.

So it formed into a big male bottom in the shape of the moon and flashed them. A female pantied bottom would have been interesting, but this one was insulting, and the insult reached out and smote them so hard that the roc suffered a buffet as if struck by an errant gust of wind. They all had to hang on as Bird struggled to regain his course.

“I’d like to give that nasty cloud a tumor,” Goar muttered.

A small fleet of dragons came into sight, evidently looking for some fun, but the roc eyed them warningly and they sheared off. It was a mighty big bird.

Then they angled downward. It was time for the landing.

In due course they glided into a glade and landed with only a minimal jolt. The passengers dismounted, and Bird became sparrow sized and perched on Incident’s shoulder.

“That was impressive, Bird,” Goar said.

“Chirp.”

“This way,” Incident said, and led them to a weedy forest pond. The weeds formed the letter C.

“That’s C Weed,” Goar said. “What’s it doing so far from the sea?”

“Just marking the spot, as it happens,” Incident said. “The Mundane with the chronically inflamed brain that keeps him in misery is in a hospital cell at this spot in Mundania. Rabbit will tunnel through to make the delivery.”

Indeed, Rabbit was already digging a hole beside the pond, that would evidently slant down to intercept the Mundane location.

“Those must be some rabbit holes,” Goar said.

“It is just part of his magic. He delivers the medium fast seeds himself, and makes holes for Bird and Turtle for the others.”

“They have different speeds?”

“Oh, yes. Bird delivers the fastest ones, that will take out a person before anything can be done to stop it. Rabbit delivers the medium ones, that can be stopped if folk discover them in time and act immediately. Turtle delivers the slow ones that probably won’t act before something else does. But they will get there if given time.”

“I am impressed, again. I’d like to see a delivery.”

Incident shook her head, making her dirty brown locks bang unattractively. “The hole is too small for you, and you wouldn’t want to be seen there anyway.”

“Maybe if he took my cam.”

“Your what?”

“My web camera.” He produced it. “The webbing clings to clothing or whatever, and the lens takes the pictures.”

Incident shrugged. “We can ask him. But we need to key him in. When he appears, you say ‘Where is the Updoc?’”

“Does this make sense?”

“Just trust me. Do it.”

What could he lose? This whole business seemed to be getting nowhere anyway. “Very well.”

“Okay with you, Rabbit?” Incident called.

Rabbit emerged from the hole and hopped to her with a questioning look. She in turn glanced at Goar.

“Where’s the Updoc?” Goar asked. Following the script.

Rabbit transformed into a large comic-style hare standing on his hind feet and eyed Goar. “What’s Updoc?”

“This is Beetle Bunny,” Incident said. “His comic version. He can talk, but he seldom has anything serious to say.”

Oh. Now Goar was beginning to make some sense of this. Incident had caused the rabbit to transform into a variant who could respond in human language. “I have a magic web cam I would like you to take with you when you make your delivery. It will let us see your action. Are you amenable to carrying it?”

Beetle Bunny looked at Incident. She nodded affirmatively. Now it was Rabbit’s turn to trust her. He turned back to Goar. “Sure, doc.”

Goar extended the cam. “Put it anywhere on your body where it won’t get in your way. Then ignore it. But remember, we will be seeing your scene. You have no privacy.”

Beetle took the cam and put it on his chest. Incident gave him the tumor seed. Then he transformed back to Rabbit. Then he dived into the hole.

A picture formed in the air above the hole. It showed the tunnel ahead. “This is a holo image,” Goar explained. “When it seemed that I had failed to kill the two I had been sent after, Larry and Squid, my masters dictated that I wear the cam and do the deed again, so they could be sure that I really did it this time. Now my masters are gone, but perhaps the cam will still be useful.”

“I have not seen the like,” Incident said.

“It is Mundane-style holo technology, not much seen in Xanth. You can think of it as a kind of magic mirror.”

“That’s easier,” she agreed.

Meanwhile the scene was changing. The tunnel opened into a square room where a Mundane man lay groaning on a bed, obviously in terrible pain, but no one was ministering to him. A paw reached out and set the seed on his shoulder, where it quickly dug in. That was Rabbit, out of sight because he was behind the cam.

The view spun about and entered a hole in the wall. Rabbit was returning to Xanth, having completed his mission. Soon he emerged from the hole, and the holo image faded out.

There really had not been much to see, but Goar’s curiosity was satisfied. He had seen how a lethal tumor reached its victim. It wasn’t nice, but it was efficient. Incident and the three animals were as much killers as Goar, just more subtle about it. They wanted out as much as he did.

The other deliveries were similar. They used up the backlog of seeds, until only one was left. Incident focused, and faced a new direction. “Uh-oh.”

“There is a problem?”

“Yes. There is a suitable prospect there, but that is the direction of the sub-realm of the Goddess Isis. She is not one to mess with.”

“You are not invulnerable to her?”

“Oh, we Oma are, physically. But she is, among other things, the Goddess of Sex, and her teasing can be quite embarrassing, particularly since we are ugly.”

“How does that make a difference?”

“When a pretty person is ensorceled into performing a sexual act in public, it can be interesting and even gratifying to bystanders, who may envy the participants. But the same act performed by an ugly person could make her a laughingstock.”

“You would be the person?”

“Yes. We have met before, and Isis doesn’t like me because of my business. She can’t hurt me physically, but if she catches me in her domain, she might cause me to do something that I may never live down. Like seducing one of my animals.”

“Would it help if I remonstrated with her, with my blades out? She might reconsider if I sliced off one of her arms.”

Incident considered. “Maybe the threat of that would set her back, even though the damage would not be permanent for a Goddess. I might accomplish my mission while you occupied her attention.”

“Maybe that is why the Good Magician put us together. To facilitate your business. But there is a problem: I don’t want to do more evil.”

“And neither do I. But this particular one is a masked blessing.”

“True. So I will help you. I will try to distract the goddess so you can accomplish it.”

“Thank you. But I recommend caution. She can be devious.”

“Caution,” he agreed. But he wondered how devious Isis could be in the face of whirling blades. They were not very subtle things.

“Now let’s go see the Goddess. Bird, take us southeast,” Incident said. “You know where Isis hangs out.”

The roc reappeared, and soon they were on their way.