Stork Naked (30 page)

“So much I'm ready to fly over the wall and wait for the bloodhounds.”

No one laughed. They knew she wasn't joking.

“Can we talk alone?” Monica asked.

Cadence shrugged, causing Ted's eyeballs to steam. “If you wish.” She seemed resigned to her awful fate.

“Come on, kids,” Extricate said. “I'll show you where the pies are.”

Woe started to go with them, but Monica sent her a look, and she stopped. “Diffuse and check around to make sure no one overhears,” Monica murmured. She knew that Woe, as a full demon, could do that.

Woe diffused into a thin mist—she lacked the mass for thick smoke—and suffused the area. She formed a vague face. “No one's snooping,” she reported.

“Stay alert, though.”

“She's a full demon!” Cadence said. “Can you trust her?”

“Yes. She's Ted's mother, locked into child form. She doesn't want us trapped here.”

“There is no escape.” Tears dribbled from the centiger's eyes.

“Please tell us your story.”

Cadence hesitated. “How would that be relevant?”

“We three children are from another reality where things aren't quite the same. We may not be bound by the same rules that apply here. We may be able to escape, if we can figure out how. Maybe you can help us, and escape with us. Several of the children have special talents that may also help. I'm trying to put it all together.”

“You seem smart for your age.”

“I'm not. But I'm sensible when I have to be. I try to get the facts and make sense of them. Sometimes they add up.”

Cadence nodded. "My grandmother was Hia Harpy. She spied a handsome human male about to drink from a love spring he obviously didn't recognize as such. She thought it would be a good joke to flash him just as he finished, then fly away, endlessly tormenting him. Humans normally despise harpies, so this would get him back for that. But when he saw her and was smitten, he had the wit to splash the water on her, and so she was caught in her own trap and loved him too. They had quite a session before the elixir wore out and she could fly away, disgusted with herself.

"But of course the stork found her, and delivered a big egg from which the winged human girl Lena hatched. She was raised by the harpies and thus had a somewhat fowl mouth. Her magic talent was summoning the nearest Mundane animal. This was frowned on, so she seldom used it. She was curious about her origin, so when she came of age to be independent she flew to the love spring where she had been summoned. She landed and gazed at it, awed by its significance. But for it, she would never have existed. In her distraction she tripped over a stick and fell into the pond. She panicked and accidentally used her talent. The nearest Mundane animal was a white tiger who had recently crossed into Xanth. He saw her and she saw him, and suddenly she understood exactly how it had been with her parents.

"Lena and the tiger went their separate ways after wearing out the elixir, but the stork had taken note, and in due course delivered me. I was raised by my mother, and moved to the Magic Dust Village at the age of five when my mother got caught, toasted, and eaten by a dragon. They needed workers there to process the magic dust, and I worked hard as I grew up. The intensity of the magic in that region must have affected me, because most crossbreeds don't have very strong magic, while mine is very strong. It is not flying; I can do that because I inherited it from my mother and grandmother. Whatever I sing becomes temporarily real in my vicinity. I thought that made me proof against hostile magic, but I was wrong. When I turned fifteen I set out to find adventure. When I inadvertently crossed the Sorceress Morgan le Fey, not knowing her nature, she banished me to this other realm, and I have been stuck here for several months.

“And now the Prime Monister has summoned me. I don't know what he will do to me, but I'm sure I will never be innocent again. My dreams of finding a handsome man of my kind will be ruined; no one will want me when the Monister is through with me. I am doomed.” She wiped away another tear.

“The Monister doesn't kill you and eat you? Others have returned from their nights with him?”

“Yes, but they refuse to talk about it. They seem afraid and ashamed, and withdraw from their friends. I know it's something really horrible.”

Woe, listening, knew that somewhere in her sealed-off adult memories was an explanation, but children would never understand it, and certainly she didn't. Somehow the Monister hurt the girls worse emotionally than physically. Cadence was surely correct: she needed to escape right now.

“Can't you sing about escape from the Monister?” Monica asked. “And make it real?”

“No, the Monister damps out any magic that might be used against him. Even if it worked, it would be temporary, and I'd be back in his fell clutches.”

“Here is what I am thinking of,” Monica said. She was taking hold nicely, and would surely some day be a competent woman. “You carry the three of us to the place where we first were lost, and we'll search for an escape. If we came into this realm, we must be able to pass out of it. We just need to figure out how. Maybe Sonya can give us a clue.”

“She can figure only puzzles and things,” Cadence said.

“This is a puzzle. Maybe it just needs to be phrased correctly.”

“Maybe,” the centiger agreed with faint hope.

“Is there anyone who can see into the future?”

“Well, Tu-Morrow can tell a person what he'll encounter next day, once.”

“Once?”

“When a person learns what will happen, it seems that knowledge changes it, so his future changes. Tu-Morrow can't tell it after it's been changed.”

“Maybe he can help, though. We'd better ask.”

“I suppose it can't hurt.”

“We don't want others to know what we're trying,” Monica said. “Because someone might tell the Monister. We need to plan and act rapidly. Within the hour.”

“Within the hour,” Cadence agreed.

Woe realized that since the centiger expected to die soon anyway, she had nothing to lose by going along with Monica's plan.

Woe went to locate Tu-Morrow and Sonya. Soon they were there. Tu-Morrow was an older man who had surely seen more yesterdays than tomorrows. Sonya of course was not much older than Monica.

“Here's a puzzle,” Monica said to Sonya. “How can I get from one realm to another?”

“You have to look at it a different way,” Sonya replied. “That's all I can say.”

“You mean like upside down? Backwards?”

“No. More like seeing the spaces.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don't know. It doesn't make much sense to me.”

“Where do you see me tomorrow?” Monica asked Tu-Morrow.

The man focused and seemed confused. “Somewhere else, yet not elsewhere. That doesn't make sense either.”

But it made sense to Woe Betide. Monica would see the escape and use it, and be in the other realm tomorrow. She just had to figure out how to do it.

“Let's get started,” Monica said. “Now.”

Woe located Ted, who was guzzling tsoda pop in the company of several appreciative girls. He was still expanding into his new sense of masculinity. “We have to go,” she whispered in his ear.

“Awww.”

“Unless you'd rather stay here while Monica and I fly away with Cadence.”

“Cadence!” His eyes widened with the memory of her bare body. Bare evidently trumped the covered bodies of the girls. “Okay.”

The three children got on Cadence's back. She spread her wings and took off. In three moments they were flying over the castle wall.

An ogre guard looked up and spied them. “Shee flee!” he bawled. There was an immediate flurry of activity.

“The hounds will be after us,” Cadence said grimly. “If we don't find a way through, they'll tear us apart.”

“We'll find it,” Ted said, though there was a quaver in his voice. “Won't we?”

“We'll find it,” Monica agreed. “Somehow.”

Soon they came to the endless circle, then to the candy-cane patch where the children had first discovered they were lost. Cadence landed there and settled down on her feline legs so the children could slide safely off.

“Here is where the path was,” Monica said. “This has to be the place. All we have to do is see it different.”

They tried. Ted looked cross-eyed, but that didn't help. Monica held her head sideways, but that just made her dizzy.

Yet there had to be a way, Woe thought. How could they see it?

There was the sound of baying. “The bloodhounds!” Cadence said, shuddering. “Can we hurry?”

What could be different? Woe racked her little mind. She had to see differently. But what was there was there; she could close her eyes and not see it, or open them and see it the same as it was. There was no difference about it.

The bloodcurdling baying drew rapidly closer. Then a huge hound appeared, blood-red. It spied them and let forth an ear-shattering howl of discovery, telling the others. In a moment and a half there was a ring of them slowly closing in on the four escapees.

“We are about out of time,” Cadence said. “Maybe you had better get back on my back. I can avoid them for a while.”

Ted looked up. “Bloodhawks!” he said.

Woe looked. He was right: blood-red hawks were clustering in the sky above them, slowly circling. There would be no escape through the air.

“Why are they so slow?” Monica asked.

There was a huge ugly bellowing roar not far away. “Oh!” Cadence said, looking faint. “That's the Prime Monister! They're waiting until he gets here. So he can have his awful way with me after all.” Now she looked sick.

“Do something!” Monica yelled at Ted.

“You do something, smarty-pants!” he yelled back. “It was your idea to come out here instead of having fun with all those nice girls.”

There was an ominous glow from behind the trees. The Prime Monister was about to arrive.

“It's too late,” Cadence said, her four knees wobbling. “We're doomed.”

Woe Betide knew that none of them would figure it out. She was the only one who could, because—because her adult self had once been in a situation that—which suggested that this was actually a Demon b—

The scene wavered. “Eee!” Monica screamed with all the eee's she could manage for her size. She had spied the Monister.

The scream disrupted Woe's thought. She tried to get it back, but it was gone. “Mice!” she swore.

The ground shook with the force of the Monister's tread, and the air flickered with the awful force of his ghastly presence. Ted and Monica stared, transfixed.

“Let the children go,” Cadence pleaded tearfully. “They didn't mean anything. I'm the only one who—”

The pleading beauty was drowned out by the bellow of the blast. The huge beast loomed over them. Drops of drool fell to the ground, making the leaves it struck curl and fester.

Woe concentrated with all the limited power of her little mind. Sonya had said they had to look at things a different way. Like seeing the spaces. Woe didn't understand that, so she took it literally. Instead of looking at the prime Monister she looked at the space around him.

And the space was the shape of two big trees and a low-hanging cloud with trailing curlicues of mist. It looked exactly like Xanth proper.

There it was! “I got it!” Woe cried. “Ted! Monica! Get on Cadence with me and close your eyes!”

The others hardly seemed to hear her, but Cadence reached out without looking and lifted the three children to her back. “Close your eyes!” Woe repeated. “You too, Cadence.”

They closed their eyes as more drool fell around them, its stench making breathing miserable. Woe focused on the trees and cloud. It was just space between them, in Xanth. That was where they wanted to be.

The burning-garbage breath of the Monister blew down at them, making their noses itch. The thing was cranking open his mottled jaws. But Xanth was just that space framed by trees and cloud. “Jump, Cadence!” Woe cried. “Straight ahead!”

The centiger shuddered and tensed. Then she leaped into the maw of the Monister.

And landed in the space of Xanth. The horrors of the other realm were gone.

“Open your eyes,” Woe said.

They did so, cautiously. And stared. “Where are we?” Ted asked.

“Xanth,” Woe said proudly. “I found the way.”

“But how?” Monica asked, amazed.

“I looked at spaces.”

“I don't understand,” Cadence said. “I thought I was leaping into a fate arguably worse than death.”

“This is better than death,” Woe said. “Here in Xanth it's a space. If you look instead at the shape of the space between the trees and cloud, you'll see where we came from.”

Cadence looked. “I don't see—” Then she stiffened with horror. “The Monister!”

“Stop looking!” Woe said. “So you won't go back there. Shut your eyes.”

Cadence did, and in a moment relaxed. “Yes, I have it now. No more looking at spaces. I can hardly believe we're free.”

“Well, the others aren't,” Monica said. “We'll have to go to the castle and rescue them before the Monister goes back there.”

“Including those nice girls,” Ted said. His attitude toward girls had changed considerably since he picked up on the secrets of the Adult Conspiracy.

“Including them,” Cadence agreed, spreading her wings.

“You did it, Woe,” Monica said. “You understood what we didn't, and saw what we couldn't. You saved us. You're a heroine.”

Even Ted was impressed. “I won't call you brat anymore,” he said.

That, coming from her rebellious son, was the best reward of all. Woe Betide was quite satisfied.

Surprise Golem returned to the starting place for the search with a heavy heart. The royal search party would be arriving soon, but she was pretty sure they would not find the children. The local version of the Good Magician said they simply had to look the right way. Wasn't that what all of them had been trying to do all along?

Suddenly she came across a tense tableau. A large cat was crouched facing an old woman and a dog. There was apt to be mayhem soon. The odd thing was that she had the impression that neither side wanted it.

“What is happening here?” Surprise asked.

The woman looked at her. “I'm not sure. Amber and I found ourselves in this odd land, and Amber growled at an odd girl, and the girl disappeared and the cat appeared. We don't want any trouble but we don't know what to do.”

“You're from Mundania!” Surprise said. “You and your dog.”

“Yes, of course. But we have the feeling we're not in Kansas any more, so to speak.”

“You're in the Land of Xanth,” Surprise said. “Where magic is common. I think you have encountered a werecat.” She looked at the cat. “I don't think the dog meant to threaten you. She just didn't understand your smell. Will you change back now?”

The cat became a girl. “I don't like being growled at.”

“I'm sure the dog is sorry.” She looked back at the others. “Let's introduce ourselves. I am Surprise Golem, and I can do magic too.” She changed momentarily into a rock bird, and back to her natural form.

“I am Ruth Sutpen,” the startled woman said. “And this is Amber.” This time the dog wagged her tail.

“I am Raina Werecat,” the girl said. “Maybe I overreacted. I'm sorry. How can I make it up?”

“What these good folk really need is guidance to a safe haven, where they can get to know their way around,” Surprise said. “Why don't you do that, Raina? I'm sure they would appreciate it.”

“Well sure,” Raina agreed. “I know a good place nearby. Follow me.”

“Follow her,” Surprise told Ruth. “The folk of Xanth are friendly and helpful, once you understand them.”

“Thank you,” Ruth said, evidently relieved. They followed the werecat. Surprise went on to her rendezvous.

The other members of her party arrived back one by one or two by two. There were some new faces. What had happened?

There was a second stork with Stymy. “This is Stymie Stork,” Stymy said, introducing his friend. “She has my territory in this reality. She helped me search. She—I—we—”

“We're in love,” Stymie said. “We knew we'll probably never see each other again, but we'll get together if we possibly can.”

“Congratulations,” Surprise said. “I hope it works out.” It hadn't occurred to her that storks themselves had romances, but it made sense.

“We searched diligently,” Stymy said. “And we had the help of the demonesses Metria and Mentia. Synonym and homonym. But we didn't find any lost children.”

“But how can Metria—”

“The Metria of this reality. She's not locked into her childish aspect. I told her that her son was one of the children. I don't think she has a son in this reality, but she did help search.”

“That's what counts,” Surprise agreed, slightly unsettled.

The peeve arrived. “I found a gourd and searched the dream realm, in case they went there. The Night Stallion summoned all the children there, but ours weren't among them.”

“The Night Stallion helped you search?”

“It seemed he wanted to get rid of me, for some reason.”

Surprise had to laugh. “Thank you, peeve.”

Che returned. “I did not find the children, but did find the Simurgh. That accomplishes part of my separate mission.”

“Part of it?”

“It seems there may be a problem returning to our own reality.”

“A problem?” Surprise asked, alarmed.

“There are so many different realities that it is almost impossible to locate a specific one accurately. We may have to settle for one very close to the one we left.”

Surprise did not like the idea of that, but Pyra was arriving back and she didn't want to argue at the moment.

“I searched a Moon of Ida called Always-Always Land. I did not find any children,” Pyra reported. “I did find a man. I hope to bring him to Xanth in due course, if you will fashion a suitable body for him, Che.”

“I shall be happy to,” Che agreed. “Give me a description.”

Pyra gave it, and Che asked questions, getting it straight. So Pyra had found love too. This quest was having complications Surprise had hardly anticipated. She didn't object, as long as they found the children. But since none of them had, it seemed that they would have to deal with Morgan le Fey on her own terms.

“I'm sorry,” Pyra said. There seemed to be more there than Surprise understood, but maybe she was reading something into it that wasn't warranted. Maybe it was simply that the children had been taken while under Pyra's care. But there really hadn't been anything the fire woman could do about it.

“We have tried,” she said. “But we haven't found the children. I shall have to talk again with the Sorceress.”

“But you know her price,” Che said. “This isn't right.”

“I know her price,” Surprise said heavily. “But I can't let the children be permanently lost.”

The others gazed at her sadly, not arguing.

They went to the Golem residence, which had become a place of horror rather than comfort.

Morgan le Fey was doing something to the front of the house, looking exactly like Surprise. “What's the poop, spook?” the peeve demanded, taking the initiative while Surprise tried to come to a decision. It was perched on Che's head and was using Che's voice. The centaur seemed happy to allow it.

The Sorceress set down her hammer. There was a bassinet and a pile of framed papers beside her. “I'm setting up a board for my pictures, you little piece of excrement.”

“You're an artist now, witch?”

“No. These are collected pictures of familiars.” She held up a picture of a fierce hawk.

“Haw haw haw! As if a picture can do anything.”

Morgan fastened the picture to the board. “Invoke,” she said.

The hawk came to life, hopping out of the picture, leaving the paper blank.

“Kill.” The Sorceress pointed to the peeve.

The hawk launched into the air, winging powerfully toward the peeve. Then it backpedaled in air, for Che's bow was in his hands, drawn, an arrow nocked and tracking the hawk. No creature gambled that a centaur might miss.

“Return,” Morgan said. The hawk flew back to the picture frame, entered it, and became the picture.

“That is interesting magic,” Che remarked, putting away his bow.

“I have other pictures. Just be glad I didn't invoke this one.” She showed a picture of a mean-looking golem. He was holding two sticks that were linked together by a short chain. “This is Numb Chuck. He fights with his sticks, but has no feeling, so can't be dissuaded by pain or the threat of it.”

Che didn't comment, and Surprise knew why: the centaur's unerring arrow would stop the golem regardless, by crippling him even if he couldn't die.

“Or this one,” Morgan said, showing a picture of an elf.

“What's so bad about an elf?” the peeve asked with Surprise's voice.

“This is Levi Athan, a crossbreed between an elf and a whale. He looks like an elf but has the mass of a whale.”

“Leviathan,” Che said, getting the pun. “He would be difficult to stop.” But Surprise noted that he hadn't said impossible to stop.

Morgan picked up the baby and turned to Surprise. “Well?”

Surprise struggled. Here was her chance to get her baby back, saving her from the awfulness she otherwise faced in life. Yet how could she sacrifice the children in her care?

What was right? She had to choose between evils, and neither alternative was good, but she had no choice but to choose. On the one hand was a single innocent baby. On the other were three uninnocent children. Three against one. She hated it, but that was the number. She had to go for the benefit to the greater number.

She looked at Che, Stymy, Pyra, and the peeve. None of them gave any indication. They were leaving it to her.

“Free the children,” she said brokenly. “Keep my baby.”

“My baby,” the Sorceress said, gloating. She clutched little Prize like the trophy she had been made. The baby cried. So did Pyra, oddly, her fiery tears scorching the ground.

Surprise was too choked up to say anything more. She turned and walked away from the house.

“They're free now,” Morgan said.

“I'll check,” Che said. He took off.

“Bleep,” the peeve muttered as it fluttered across to perch on Surprise's shoulder. It looked toward the baby. “There goes the one person in Xanth who likes me.”

“That's not so,” Surprise said through her tears. “I like you.”

“That's an exaggeration.”

“Some,” she confessed. “But you're really helping now.”

“How touching,” Morgan said sarcastically. “Now get your tails out of here, all of you. I have a brat to raise.”

Surprise suffered a surge of fury. She opened her mouth.

“Easy, girl,” the peeve murmured. “This isn't necessarily over.”

Surprise saw Stymy Stork and Pyra exchange a glance. Was there something she didn't know?

There was a speck in the sky. Che was returning with the children. But there was something else: a second flying figure, smaller but too big to be any ordinary bird.

“Bleepity bleep!” Morgan swore.

The two winged creatures came to a landing: Che and some kind of crossbreed centaur female. “Well look at that!” the peeve exclaimed. “I haven't seen one of those since I left Hell.”

“What is it?” Surprise asked.

“A centiger. Very rare.”

Ted and Monica jumped off the back of the centiger and ran forward.

“This must be stopped,” Morgan muttered. She hurled some sort of spell, clearly not bound by the Xanthly limit of one talent to a person. The two children stopped in mid-run. The centiger froze in place.

“This is bad,” the peeve said. “It's a stasis spell with a side effect.”

“Side effect?” Surprise asked.

“It silences the subjects on whatever topic is specified in the spell. Their minds remain restricted longer than their bodies do. She must have had it ready, just in case.”

“What would she want to silence them about, after releasing them?”

“That's what we had better find out. A person can't even use such a Hell-spell without being pretty much damned already. She has to have really bad reason.”

And the peeve had lived in Hell, and surely knew what it was talking about.

Only Che moved. “A temporary stasis spell will not avail you, Sorceress,” he called. “I am proof against it, to the extent that I can still talk, because I know the truth.”

“Triple bleep!” Morgan swore. “The Simurgh's been at him. I didn't count on that. I'll have to bind him to me immediately.” She walked toward the centaur.

“Beware, Che!” the peeve called. “She's going to enchant you!”

“Shut your beak, you tiny turd!” Morgan snapped. “Anyway, it's too late. I'll make him love me. He's already soft on this form.” She forged on, first divesting herself of all her clothing, then raising her hands to make some sort of gesture, while the others stood aghast at the abusive language. It horrified Surprise worse to hear it from the lips of her own alternate self of this reality. She also wondered what the Sorceress could know of the illicit passion she shared with Che; neither of them had spoken of it.

But she couldn't dwell on that at the moment. “What's she doing now?” Surprise asked.

“That's the windup for a dominance spell,” the peeve said. “The victim is locked into the will of the spell caster. It starts with a love-elixir-like session to lock it in, but it's not the same. After the first bout, the victim constantly craves more, which may be dispensed only grudgingly by the spellcaster, as an occasional reward for complete submission to her will. It's one of the worst of the Hell spells. What I don't get is why she wants to make him her love-slave, when she wasn't really interested before.”

“Maybe she's mad because he resisted her seduction.”

“I don't think so. She was merely playing with him, diverting him while Umlaut Seven did the dirty work with you. This is serious magic.”

The more Surprise heard of this, the less she liked it, and she had not been keen on it to begin with. She wanted to stop it, but couldn't think of a spell to invoke that would counter the deadly mischief of the Sorceress. It would have helped if she had known what was happening in more detail.

The Sorceress hurled her spell. It scintillated with evil power as it sailed toward the centaur, who was unable to move. But just before it reached him, a little figure swung around his torso and hovered before him.

“Woe Betide!” Surprise exclaimed.

“She's full demon,” the peeve said. “A stasis spell can't properly hold one of those. She was probably shielded from it by Che's upper body anyway.”

“But what is she doing!”

“She's intercepting the love-slave spell.”

The spell bathed the child and dissipated. Che had been saved, but the child had just been enslaved.

“Curses!” Morgan swore. Her bare body was beautiful, but her attitude was ugly.

Woe ran forward. “I hear and obey your command,” she said. She went to the house, sorted through the pile of pictures, selected one, and took it to the board. She checked the tools and found a screw driver and a screw. She used those to fasten the picture to the board.

There it was: a nice portrait of a cat. One of the stored familiars.

They all stared at the picture. How could a dominance or love spell have translated to such an action? What did it mean? Obviously the Sorceress' intent had been foiled.

Then the peeve burst out laughing. “Woe is a child!” it said. “Too young and inexperienced to have been affected by this reality's absence of the Adult Conspiracy. She took the command literally, not understanding its adult significance.”

“I don't understand either,” Surprise said. “This makes no sense to me.”

Then Stymy and Pyra caught on, and laughed together. For some reason they had both stayed clear of the recent action. “She fetched a screw driver,” Stymy said.