She shrugged. "It would be tedious. But I'll show you where it is, if you wish."

"But if it threatens Xanth, it threatens you too! You wouldn't just let it be. You're just trying to distract me again."

She nodded. "That, too."

"I don't understand you!"

"Well, you're only human," she said condescendingly. "Worse, you're only male."

"So I'm just going to ignore you and go on with my search."

"Lotsa luck, obtuse."

"What?"

"Acute, right, oblique, reflex, angle—no, wait. I mean dull, uninformed, slow-witted, blunt, dense—"

"Stupid?"

"Thank you." She floated forward and kissed him on the forehead. "Stupid."

Somehow Dolph was not completely satisfied. But he realized that it was pointless to keep talking with her. He resumed his search for Che.

Soon he completed his spiral around the Region of Air, having found nothing. He approached the Region of Earth, and drifted through the border between them.

This section was just as violent, but in a different way. The air cleared and the sandstorm died out, but now it was the land in motion. It trembled, quivered, and even went so far as to shake. To the north was a giant volcano spewing out red liquid.

"That's boiling lava," the demoness said beside him. "I don't think you want to put your feet in that."

"It won't hurt ghost feet."

"But the hot gases may dissolve you."

Dolph thought she was just teasing him, but wasn't quite sure. He had never tried his ghost form—or any other form—in volcanic gas. So he steered well clear of the nasty mountain. He could see farther here, because the air was clearer, so could move more rapidly without missing anything important.

Yet as he moved, he wondered. Was it possible that the demoness was telling the truth? That Che had already been found? If so, he was wasting his time here. But if that was true, then what about the business of the hole in Xanth? If a foreign elf had come through with her cat, what else was likely to follow? He really shouldn't ignore that.

"You're cute when your ghostly brow furrows like that," Metria remarked.

"Go jump in a hypnogourd!"

"You're even cuter when you try to be clever. Does your future mate—the one who won't tell you about stork summoning—appreciate your cleverness?"

"No," he replied shortly.

"Why not?"

"Because she doesn't love me," he said, before remembering not to talk to the demoness. Oh, well, the infernal creature had probably already caught on to that.

"I thought you human folk didn't marry without love, foolish as that may be."

"We don't. It's complicated."

"I love complexity! How did it happen?"

What was the use? She would keep pestering him anyway, and maybe she would have an answer for his dilemma. "I needed help from the naga folk," he said. "They are serpents with the heads of human folk. Their king said I would have to marry his daughter, Nada Naga, so that my folk would help their folk against the goblins. But I was too young, so I was betrothed to her instead. She could assume serpent form or human form, because the naga have ancestry in both. But I can take other forms too, including serpent and naga. I liked her, and then I loved her. But she was doing it just because she had to; she never loved me."