"Another Demon is suspect. Now it registers. So mortals have to do it, and the only way they can accomplish anything at all is to use the Swell Foop."

"Yes," Breanna agreed. "So first we have to get all the Rings of Xanth, because-"

"Because they are the only way to locate the lost Foop, let alone control it," Grossclout said impatiently. "Let us cease belaboring the obvious. Why are you disrupting my cla.s.s?"

This time Xeth answered. "Because the Ring of Fire is in your domain. You are the only one who knows where it is."

"I have no idea where it is."

"What?" Breanna asked, almost dumbfounded.

"No one knows precisely where any Ring of Xanth is."

"But then how can we-?"

"You will have to look for it. I will give you pa.s.ses to search the premises so that the juvenile demons will neither hinder nor molest you. But only you can locate it."

"But I just came with King Xeth because-"

"You have been designated by blind fate. Concentrate your mind and you will get a notion of its direction."

Breanna had her doubt, but it was hard to deny Grossclout's overwhelming force of personality, so she tried. To her surprise, she did get a sense of a circular presence, as if there were a dim beacon whose light shone through walls and vegetation. "That way, maybe," she said, pointing toward a wall.

"I shall not have my study disturbed or my cla.s.ses disrupted," Grossclout intoned dangerously. "You must use existing channels, rather than breaking through walls."

"Oh, sure," she agreed, realizing that he had a point. "I'll go around."

"Do so."

Breanna and Xeth exited by the study door, and found themselves back in the cla.s.sroom. The cla.s.s had evidently dissolved into mischief the moment the terrifying gaze of the Professor was absent. The male demons were trying to shape themselves into baskets that formed into a huge ball. The female demons were forming puffs of smoke that were drifting toward the basket cases, trying to get their attention. Breanna and Xeth walked cautiously around the edge, so as not to get caught by either a basket or a smoke ball.

Grossclout reappeared at his cla.s.sroom desk. "Are your heads filled completely with mush?" he demanded horrendously. "You ignorant louts cease playing basketball immediately; this is not a sports arena. You scheming gamines stop sending smoke signals; this is not a boudoir."

The students quickly reverted to what appeared to be their normal state of muted terror, and the Professor resumed his lecture. "Now we come to the simplest and most basic technique of magic, that even a cranium three-quarters filled with mush should be able to grasp. Unfortunately that means a minority of you will grasp it. This is the magic of illusion, which requires the least effort for the greatest apparent result. It can actually be quite deadly when properly wielded, as when a deep pit in the ground is covered over by the illusion of a path. Mortal folk can find that quite uncomfortable. Even unwary demons can suffer if deceived. Can you provide an example, D. Ceive?" He focused his glare on a demoness who was burnishing her fingernails.

She glanced up, crossing her legs so that her well-fleshed thighs showed almost-but not quite-to her panty line. "Sure," Ceive said. "If a girl thinks there's something useful to be learned in this cla.s.s, and wastes time attending it."

There was a murmur of admiration at this audacity. No one else dared respond to the Professor like that. Breanna, having made her way to the door, paused to see what would happen.

"That answer is incorrect," Grossclout said.

"You have a better one?" Ceive asked, adjusting her decolletage so that her very full b.r.e.a.s.t.s showed almost-but not quite-half their heaving globes.

"Indeed. When a demoness who has been banned from cla.s.ses because of failing the course fourteen times in succession attempts to masquerade as a student, and discovers that the cla.s.s she has crashed is an illusion."

"Really!" Ceive laughed, her flesh jiggling juicily.

Then the rest of the cla.s.s dissolved into a single ma.s.s of warty flesh. Ceive was left sitting on the tip of the tongue of a horrendous monster. Huge teeth appeared as it slammed its jaws together. The demoness barely had time to puff into smoke before getting chomped.

The monster formed into a suction pump, and sucked the smoke into itself. "Eeeek!" the smoke screamed as it disappeared into the tank. Then the tank popped into the path of a giant steamroller and was instantly flattened.

The Professor extended a hand on an endlessly lengthening arm and picked up the paper-thin form. "Why, I do believe it is Metria," he said. "She seems to have lost weight."

"Metria!" Breanna exclaimed. "That's where she went!"

The Professor glanced her way. "This miscreant is with you?"

"I guess she is," Breanna said. "We needed her help to find you."

"Then perhaps you had better take charge of her." The Professor rolled the paper into a tight ball and tossed it across the re-forming cla.s.sroom.

"Uh, thank you," Breanna said, catching the ball. "We'll try to keep her out of further mischief." Then she stepped out of the cla.s.sroom.

"I had wondered where she went," Xeth said.

"For sure." She looked at the ball. "Do you think she'll recover? I was sorry to see her squished like that, after she helped us."

The ball dissolved into smoke. "Oh, I've been squished before," the voice of the demoness said. "That's when my personality got fractured into three ident.i.ties."

"I didn't know that," Breanna said. "What happened?"

The smoke shaped into human female form, fully clothed. "In my youth I got stepped on by a Sphinx. It squished me into three aspects: Metria, with the problem of lexicon-"

"Of what?" Xeth asked.

"Vocabulary," Breanna said quickly.

"Whatever," the demoness agreed crossly. "And Mentia, who's a little crazy." She changed form, becoming cross-eyed with her pupils spinning around inside. "And cute little Woe Betide." She became a sweet, nice, adorable, innocent child. "Professional Grossmouth always puts me through the wringer when he catches me in cla.s.s."

"I heard that!" the Professor's voice bellowed from the room beyond.

"Oh, go toast your ancient old eyeb.a.l.l.s on this!" Metria said, reforming in a short-to-the-nth-degree skirt. She faced away from the cla.s.sroom, bent forward, and flipped up the skirt to expose huge polkadot bloomers.

"I saw that!" the voice trumpeted.

Breanna realized that Metria and the Professor had an ongoing relationship that just possibly barely might include half a modic.u.m of mutual respect. She liked to show him her wares and he liked to condemn her. Apparently no harm had been done to either, this time around.

"Let's go find that Ring," Breanna said. She started off down the hall.

"Isn't Xeth coming?" Metria inquired as she floated along beside.

Breanna realized that King Xeth wasn't with them. She turned and looked back. He was standing where he had been.

Then she added it up. "Your bloomers! They freaked him out!"

"Sorry about that," the demoness said, not too contritely.

Breanna went back and waved a hand before Xeth's face. "Xeth! Come out of it."

He blinked and looked at her. "Did something happen?"

"Metria freaked you out with her bloomers."

"Oh? I don't remember."

"If I had realized that zombies can be freaked out that way, I would have had a much easier time escaping you and your minions, way back when."

"Most zombies wouldn't freak. Their eyes are not good enough to see anything clearly."

"And most fully living men lose their freak the moment the sight ends," Breanna said. "So I guess you're in between."

"I suppose," he agreed. "I wonder if that explains those jumps in time when I'm at home with Zyzzyva."

"She's freaking you out when she wants to be left alone!" Breanna exclaimed. "The canny wench!"

"But I would rather not be freaked out. It is confusing."

"Well, you're married. I understand married men don't freak out much, at least not from seeing their wives' panties. They're too familiar."

"That's true," Metria said. "I can't freak out my husband anymore unless I a.s.sume the form of an unfamiliar woman. It's frustrating."

"Unfamiliar?" Xeth asked.

"Once I pretended to be a Mundane Chinese princess with the talent of making animals sing. That put him away for hours. Another time I emulated a woman who could form living things into useful shapes, such as making a tree into a chair."

"Ogres do that," Breanna said.

"Without twisting it into a pretzel, I mean. In the guise of doing that, I bent forward a bit too far, and he freaked right out." Metria frowned. "And he has the gall to claim he doesn't peek at other women!"

"Say, maybe if you just remember that, it won't happen," Breanna told Xeth. "Don't let Zyzzyva fool you into seeming unfamiliar."

"I will."

"And if you fake being freaked out, you can fool her," Metria said. "Then you'll see whatever she's doing when she thinks you aren't watching."

"I will."

"Aren't we sort of betraying the female conspiracy?" Breanna asked her.

"Yes. Isn't it fun?"

"Yeah!" They giggled together.

Breanna focused on the faint glow in her mind. "This way," she said, opening a door. She peered in.

Then Xeth was waving a hand before her face. "Breanna! Come out of it!"

"Come out of what?" she asked. "I was just going into this room."

"You freaked out."

She laughed. "Silly! Women don't freak!"

"Then what is the demoness doing?"

Now Breanna saw that Metria was hovering quite still, like a weightless statue, staring into the room. She was, indeed, freaked out.

"What's in there?" Breanna asked.

"Male demons in underpants."

"Wow! You mean male pants freak out females?"

"Evidently these ones do."

"Demon pants!" she said, catching on. "They must have special potency. I never heard of a woman being freaked out by a living man's underwear."

Xeth put his hand in front of Metria's face, interrupting the view. She resumed motion. "Well, let's get on with it," she said, peering ahead-and freaked out again.

"We'd better try another route," Breanna decided.

Xeth covered Metria's gaze again, and this time continued to block her view until they got the door closed. "But we have to get moving," she protested.

"Not that way," Breanna said. "You freaked out."

"Oh-you mean they have those male hot pants on display again?"

"For sure."

"They're not supposed to do it back."

"Turnabout's not fair play?" Breanna asked.

"Of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?"

Breanna decided not to argue the case. "Well, I just want to find the Ring of Fire. I need to find an alternate route." She opened the next door.

There was an immediate chorus of screams, and a tangle of a.s.sorted limbs. "That's a demoness dorm," Metria explained.

"Why should they care?"

"They scream every time the door opens, just in case it's necessary."

"But demons can a.s.sume any form they want to, can't they?"

"Of course. They're just having fun, same as the boys. Soon one dorm or the other will stage a freakout raid."

"Well, I'm getting tired of demon fun. I just want to find that Ring."