Stork Naked (26 page)

“You don't have a choice. Dolph will carry us back to Castle Rockbound.”

“I can't go there,” Surprise said, appalled by the woman's indifference. “I realize that you don't have the same children here, but I can't leave them to whatever fate the Sorceress has in mind. I must do my utmost to rescue them.”

“Pick her up,” Nada said to Dolph.

The man became the roc. One giant claw reached to enclose Surprise.

She changed to roc form herself. “No!” she squawked in bird talk.

Nada nodded. “You do have a conscience.”

“Of course I have a conscience!” she snapped in squawk talk. “Don't you?”

“Yes. But you are going to have to trust me. You must accompany us to the castle. We will help you if we can.”

That seemed to be the best she could hope for. Surprise returned to her natural form.

The roc enclosed them both in the talons without squeezing; the foot formed a kind of barred cage. Then the big bird took off.

“Here is the situation,” Nada said as they traveled. “The Surprise of this reality is without soul or conscience. She can't be trusted. Any deal you may have with her is suspect. I had to be sure of your status.”

“Because I look just like her,” Surprise said, realizing. “I am her—only with my soul.”

“And with your full talent, near Sorceress caliber. You could be dangerous.”

“I'm not trying to threaten you or anyone in this reality. I realize that things are not the same here, with different marriages and different kings and queens. I accept that. I just have to do what I came to do: save the children in my care, and recover my baby.”

“And if the Sorceress offers you all of that, if you help her overthrow the present king so she can be installed as the new ruler?”

Surprise stared at her with horror. Could that be what Morgan le Fey had in mind? No wonder Nada was nervous!

She tried to answer honestly: “I don't know. I don't want to have to choose between the children and the baby. I would hate even more to have to choose between all of them together and what I know is right.”

“It is fairly easy to choose between right and wrong, when you know which is which,” Nada said. “It is harder to choose between wrong and wrong, or between mixed situations.”

“Yes!”

The roc squawked. “Yes, dear,” Nada called. “That's a good point; I'll tell her.” She focused again on Surprise. “He reminds me that knowing which is which can be difficult, because what is right to one person may be wrong to another. So we wonder at times whether there is any such thing as inherent right and wrong.”

“Yes,” Surprise agreed again. It was clear that the king and queen had really thought about this. “Just as there may be no such thing as a natural order of things in Xanth. I have seen several realities, and what one rejects, another accepts. Like the Adult Conspiracy.”

“The what?” Nada asked blankly.

“Never mind; it would be complicated to explain, and maybe irrelevant. It is a particular convention in my reality that applies mainly to children.”

“At any rate,” Nada continued, “Dolph and I have a problem, and you may be able to help us handle it. I realize that you don't want to take time off from your search for the children, or to make any unethical bargains, but perhaps you will consider this as a convenient package: we will put the resources of the kingdom into a swift search for the children, and hope that you will help us while we await the result. Both can be accomplished within the two-hour period you require. Does this seem fair?”

“Yes,” Surprise agreed, relieved.

They arrived at Castle Rockbound, which seemed much the same as the one she knew at home, Castle Roogna. Dolph landed and reverted to human form, and they walked through the orchard.

“We had better pick some fresh pies,” Nada said. “So we won't have to delay for a separate meal.”

Surprise picked a sweetie pie and a milkweed pod; that was the extent of her appetite at the moment.

The moat monster lifted its head, eying Surprise, plainly knowing who was new here. It was not one he recognized.

“It's all right, Sourdough,” Nada called. “This isn't who she looks like.”

The monster shook his head.

Nada turned to Surprise. “He thinks you're soulless. Would you mind showing your talent briefly?”

Surprise conjured a junior porcupine, which looked like a cross between a pig and a pine tree, except that it was covered with quilts.

“What is that?” Nada asked, startled.

“A real porcupine from Mundania is covered with sharp quills, which it slaps into the nose of whatever tries to bite it. This variety is child safe because the quilts are soft.”

“Quill to quilt,” Nada agreed. “So small a shift.” Then she faced the moat monster. “Could the soulless Surprise do that? The talent attaches to the soul.”

The monster agreed that Surprise was different. Meanwhile the porcupine wandered toward the zombie graveyard. It would surely find a welcome there, as the zombies liked soft covers.

“Dear, tell the staff to organize a search for three children,” Nada told Dolph. “Use magic. We need them within two hours.”

Surprise gave the descriptions of the children, and the king departed on his errand. “He's such a dear,” Nada remarked.

“It's hard to believe he is the king of Xanth. He acts like your servant.”

“It's love. He's loved me since he was eight years old, and I have loved him since I was about twenty, when I took love elixir. He is really quite kingly when not with me. We also have a fine son, Donald.”

Surprise realized that the name derived from DOlph and NADA or her brother NALDo. “A son instead of two daughters.”

“He can change his own and others' forms, temporarily,” Nada said proudly.

Soon Dolph rejoined them and they went to a private chamber and closed the door. “No one will disturb us here,” Nada said. “Now as we finish eating, Dolph and I will explain our situation.” She went and kissed him. “Are you up to it, dear?”

“Yes, if there's a chance of fixing it.”

Nada nodded. “You see, we have a spell we received as a wedding gift, that could really do us some good, but we lack the ability to invoke it completely. We think you may be able to do it for us.”

“I'm not sure I could do better than you could. Doesn't a spell work for whoever invokes it?”

“To a degree. You see, this is a Guilt Trip.”

“A guilt trip? I don't understand.”

“The spell conjures a path you can take that leads to your greatest guilt. At the end is a stone you can tap to alleviate guilt. But a person can't alleviate her own guilt, only that of someone else. That's because the stone is a Punk Rock, with a very bad attitude. So Dolph and I have tried to take that trip together, and abate each other's guilt. But we have not been able to make it to the end. Our guilts cripple us, and we have to turn back. You, in contrast, seem to have little to feel guilty about; you should be able to reach the stone and ask it to ease our guilts.”

“But couldn't anyone here do that?”

Dolph grimaced. “We prefer that others not know our guilt. You are from elsewhere, where things are different; you won't be spreading it about as gossip.”

“I wouldn't do that!” Surprise protested.

“We trust your discretion,” Nada said. “And hope that you can do this for us, and we can find the children for you.”

“Yes, of course. It's a fair bargain.” Surprise hesitated. “I hope you aren't guilty of murder or something. I don't know how that could be absolved.”

“Not murder,” Dolph said. “Not exactly.”

“Now dear,” Nada said. “You know it wasn't that.”

“My conscience doesn't,” he said uncomfortably.

“In any event, the Rock does not absolve the guilt as such,” Nada said. “It corrects it, allowing you to change it, so you have no further cause for guilt. It's a very strong spell.”

Surprise nodded, appreciating that. The Rock seemed to offer some kind of absolution, though she still wasn't sure exactly how it worked. “I'll try. Please tell me what your guilt is, so I can tell the stone.”

Nada shook her head. “We don't care to speak it here in the castle. The walls have ears.” She turned suddenly and smacked an ear that had quietly sprouted from the wall behind her. It reddened and shrank.

“And eyes,” Dolph said, flicking a bit of grit into an eye just opening in the wall beside him. The eye blinked and watered, but couldn't dislodge the grit and had to fade out.

“But the Guilt Trip Path is private,” Nada said, bringing out a small bottle. “Are we ready?”

“I am, I think,” Surprise said, marginally bemused.

Nada opened the bottle. “Guilt, we invoke you,” she intoned. “Take us on the Trip.”

Vapor issued from the bottle. It curled up, spreading. It formed a pattern against the wall that had recently sported the ear and eye. Now that wall had a nose. The nose sniffed the vapor, sneezed, and blew itself back into the wall.

The pattern shaped into a picture drawn on the wall. It showed a path meandering through a pleasant meadow. It looked almost real; flowers were scattered across it, and several puffy clouds floated above it. The vapor was a good artist.

“I'll lead,” Dolph said. He stepped into the wall—and through it, following the path.

“Do you care to go next?” Nada asked Surprise.

Surprise hauled her lower jaw back up into place. “Yes.” She stepped into the wall where Dolph had, bracing herself for a crash.

There was none. She found herself on the path in the meadow. Now she smelled the flowers.

She looked back. There was a square outline behind her, where the wall had been, and inside it stood Nada Naga-Human. She waved, smiling. Taken aback, Surprise returned the wave. The vapor had really made a portal to another scene. Magic could still surprise (no pun) her on occasion.

Nada stepped forward, joining them on this side of the frame. Then she turned, reached up, and drew down a curtain across it. The curtain showed the meadow scene on the near side, and surely the wall on the other side, concealing the access. Such a bottle of vapor would be very very nice for folk shut up indoors, offering a private escape.

But where was the guilt?

“You will see,” Dolph said. “The Guilt Trip does not let you walk silently. You have to reveal your greatest guilt.” He walked on.

Surprise followed, wondering. Why should anyone volunteer to talk about what he was ashamed of?

“You will see,” Nada repeated, answering her thought.

The path wound through the meadow and around a low hill. There was a nice brook chuckling along. “I always loved Nada Naga,” Dolph said. “Ever since I met her as a child. I was required to betroth her, for the sake of a human/naga alliance, but she quickly won my heart, even before she blossomed into the most beautiful woman in Xanth.”

Surprise found nothing odd or guilty here. Nada was the loveliest creature in human female form in Xanth. How could he fail to love her? Men were notorious for being swayed by appearances. Women, fortunately, had more sense; that was why they ran things, while letting the men believe that males governed. Why ruin a good thing?

“But I also got betrothed by the girl from the past, Electra,” Dolph continued. “She was under an enchantment, and had to marry me by the time she turned eighteen, or die. She loved me, but I didn't love her. She was plain, and not a princess, and her magic talent was modest. She could not compare to Nada the Naga princess.”

“No one could,” Surprise said.

“Oh, any demoness could, if she chose,” Nada said.

“But demons lack souls,” Surprise said. “So they aren't suitable. It's all appearance, with them.”

“Not necessarily.” But Nada did not clarify.

“And so when it came time for me to marry,” Dolph said, “I had to choose between the two: the one I loved, or the one who loved me. I was selfish and chose the lovely princess. Thus Nada is my queen, and I still love her and find no fault in her.”

“That seems reasonable,” Surprise said.

“But I find fault in me,” he continued inexorably. “Because she did not love me, and I knew that; she had to take the love elixir. I was fifteen, she twenty; she would not ordinarily have loved or married a younger man. A boy, really. I knew nothing of stork-signaling; she taught me that. She guided me in governance too; I have been a better king because of her.”

Surprise was perplexed. “Then where is the guilt?”

“Two things: I took her against her will. She had to agree, to safeguard the liaison between our species, which the naga folk desperately needed. So she took the elixir, but I shouldn't have made her do it.”

“Yet if she is happy now—”

“But she might be happier without me,” he said. “She has benefited me, but I have not necessarily benefited her. If I had it to do over, I would steel myself to let her go. After all, I could have taken the love elixir with another woman, and been satisfied.”

Surprise glanced back at Nada, but the naga princess was silent, her face impassive. “What is the other thing?”

The king winced. “Electra loved me and would gladly have married me without the elixir. She was enchanted to love me at the outset, when I woke her from her long sleep, but that was replaced in time by real love as she came to know me. She also was cursed to die if she did not marry me by her eighteenth birthday. I thought that was at least partly psychological, and that she would survive and find a life elsewhere. When I chose to marry Nada, Electra made no complaint. She said she was happy that I was happy and had a good wife. Then she died.”

Dolph stopped speaking abruptly. He stood shaking with the force of his manifest guilt. Nada stepped forward and put her arms about him comfortingly. “You didn't know, dear. It wasn't really your fault.”

“I should have married her!” he said. “I should have been unselfish. It would have worked out some way. It would have been better for both of you.”

Surprise did not comment. In her reality Dolph had married Electra, and it had worked out very well. She had become the first Xanth princess in blue jeans, and her plainness had somehow blossomed into a certain competent appeal. She had been friendly with everyone, and was widely admired. They had two bright, attractive, Sorceress daughters, Dawn and Eve. So Surprise could not say that Dolph had not made a mistake in this reality. His choice had cost a worthy girl's life. He did have guilt.