"Not the one I'd like to ask."

"Maybe we can get Dolph to ask it."

"We'd have to dose him with a love potion first!"

Nada paused. "Now I wonder—"

"Forget it! Even if he loved me, he'd still love you too, and you're everything I'm not, so—"

"Now stop it, 'Lectra! Physical appearance isn't everything."

"Right. There's also the matter of royalty versus peasant, and niceness versus—"

"You're nice, 'Lectra! You're as nice as anyone, and—"

"And I have freckles too."

"Oh, you're hopeless!" Nada exclaimed in exasperation. She was lovely when exasperated, as Electra wasn't.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you."

Nada changed the subject. "So we'll both go in. Together. As soon as we figure out how."

Electra contemplated the moat. She didn't see any moat monsters, but they were surely lurking somewhere. It would not be safe to swim, unless Nada became a bigger monster.

"Suppose you become a giant water serpent, and—"

"My thought exactly! Get on."

Nada shrugged out of her clothes, handed them over, and became the serpent. Electra stuffed the clothes in her knapsack and bestrode her, as she had when they traveled the magic path. Nada slid into the water and started across. Electra's feet and dress were getting wet, but she wasn't going to let that stop her; they would dry in due course.

There was a stir at the far shore. Electra peered forward. "All I see is shells," she reported. Then she laughed. "She saw sea shells by the sea shore! Only it's a moat shore."

There was a bang, and something flew toward them. "Duck!" Electra cried.

Nada ducked, and Electra got dunked. But the object missed, plunking into the water behind them.

Nada surfaced, lifting her head for a hiss.

"I don't know," Electra said. "It looked like a flying shell with the number point twenty-two painted on it."

Nada shook her head, unable to make much sense of this. Electra understood her confusion. Since when did shells fly? They normally lay on the beach or under water.

Then there was a bigger bang, and a larger shell came flying. This one had the number .357 on it. "Down!" Electra screamed.

They dived again, and the shell missed.

After a moment they resumed motion—and an even larger shell, marked .45, came flying at them. "Another!" Electra cried, throwing herself aside.

When she came up, something clicked in her head. "It's a challenge!" she gasped. "Those shells are the first line of defense!"

Nada looped around, and they headed back for the outer shore. When they got there, Nada changed to woman form and climbed out. A man farther around the moat fell over; evidently he had gotten too much of an eyeful and was stunned. Electra was sure it wasn't her own bedraggled wet-clothinged body that had done it.

"I never heard of flying shells!" Nada said. "How can we get past, when they keep getting bigger?"

Electra concentrated. "I almost remember something, maybe from when I visited Mundania. Some folk—they like to throw shells at targets, I think. Or at bulls. Something like that. The eyes—it sounds so mean—"