Air Apparent (11 page)

So much for that. The Factor walked on.

The next was a serious young man. “I am Pathos,” he said compassionately. “I make temporary paths to wherever a person wants to go, but they can be used only once.”

The Factor was about to walk on, but then reconsidered. “Can you make a path to a person who can answer my question?”

“Sure.” A path appeared. “There.”

Could it be that simple? “Thank you,” the Factor said, and followed the path. It was probably a random path, but there was always the chance that the man wasn’t a fraud.

He came to two young men sitting at a table. They looked to be of similar age and family, probably twins. The path faded; it had done its job. “Hello. I am the Random Factor. I need some information, and was told you might provide it.”

The twin on the left shook his head. “We don’t provide information.”

“We summon and abolish demons,” the twin on the right said.

That wasn’t good enough. He didn’t need demons, he needed information. But again he reconsidered. “How about a demon of information?”

The twin on the left snapped his fingers. Smoke coalesced, and formed into a demon. “Demon Info here,” the demon said. “What’s it to you?”

Could this really work? “I need to know who the Factory Agent is.”

“A teen girl called Debra.”

“A girl? How can she accomplish anything?”

“Forget it, mouse mess,” the demon said. “I have to answer only one question.” He turned to the twins. “Now that I have done so, I mean to take my pound of flesh from whoever so rudely summoned me.” His hands formed into pincers.

The twin on the right snapped his fingers. The demon vanished. “That’s how we work,” he said. “He summons them, I banish them. But they tend to be surly brutes.”

“I met one who wasn’t,” the Factor said. “The Demoness Metria.”

“Did I hear my nomenclature?” a dulcet voice inquired as a shapely column of smoke formed.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” the left twin said. “When you name them they can summon themselves, and they’re not under control.”

“So I noticed,” the Factor agreed. Then, to the forming demoness: “Did you hear your what?”

“Designation, appellation, title, personage, identification—”

“Name?”

“Whatever,” she agreed crossly. “Say, don’t I know you? The fandom reactor?”

“Close enough. You teased me cruelly beside the Faun & Nymph retreat, and vanished. I had to make do with a pile of nymphs.”

Her eyes snapped little sparks. “Oh you did? What do they have that I don’t have?”

“They deliver.”

“I can deliver!”

This had prospects. She was a perverse tease, but with the right management might indeed deliver. “I doubt it.”

“I’ll prove it. Here’s a pizza.” She produced a hot pie and proffered it.

Really a tease. She well understood what he was after. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Oh, really?” Her forming gown slid down a bit as she inhaled. “I can deliver as well as any nymph.”

“Stop wasting my time, demoness. You’re married.”

“But my aspect Mentia isn’t.” She shifted form subtly, becoming another demoness who was in no way inferior in sexiness. “What can I do for you, Factor? Something random?”

“You can take me to a private bower and make me deliriously happy all night.”

She eyed him. “But you know, I’m a little crazy. Is that a problem?” Her gown was fuzzing out entirely.

“No. I am somewhat random myself.”

“Then so be it. Come be crazy.” She extended her arms invitingly.

Was this another tease? But if this was a different aspect, with a different personality, it might not be. It was worth the chance. He stepped into her embrace.

There was a wrenching sensation. Then they were in a comfortable chamber, on a bed of pillows. “Where are we?” he asked, looking around.

“In Metria’s secret hideaway she stole from a mortal named Esk several decades ago. He sat on her face, and she threw him out.”

“Why did he do that?”

“Well, she had the form of a pillow at the time. She told him to get his fat mule off her, and for some reason he didn’t understand immediately.”

“Her word problem,” he said, catching on. “You don’t have it.”

“I don’t,” she agreed. “I have my own weird nature.”

“Won’t she be annoyed if you use her hideaway?”

“Furious,” she agreed. She took a luscious breath, her chest expanding marvelously. “We don’t necessarily get along well. I can’t think why.” She momentarily assumed the form of a horned lady devil with a switching tail. “I can be such a bad girl.”

“Crazy,” he said, and took hold of her. She did not fade out. Instead she went sexily crazy.

By the time the night was done, she had satisfied him that a single demoness could bring a man more crazy bliss than a pile of nymphs. When she tried. It was quite an education.

AIR PLAIN

The next clue was “Air Plain.” Wira had no idea what that meant; the Demoness Metria had given her only the words. She wanted to follow up on it now because it seemed to relate to air, and they were in the Region of Air, so it should be convenient.

“Air Plane?” Debra asked dubiously. “In Mundania that’s a flying machine. I don’t think Xanth has anything like that.”

“I believe that’s plain. Air plain.”

“Air is sort of plain,” Debra agreed. “But that’s not much of a clue.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t read the entry,” Wira said. “But maybe we’ll find it if we look.”

“Can we look if we don’t know what we’re looking for?”

“We’ll have to.”

So Debra took wing and flew around the area, looking for she knew not what. “This is probably irrelevant,” she said. “But I’m aware of something.”

“What kind of thing?”

“I don’t exactly know. I get an occasional tinge, and I know what direction it’s coming from, and think I ought to go there, but there’s nothing. It’s not a steady feeling; it’s irregular.”

“A premonition,” Wira suggested.

“But what would I have to premonition about? I’m just a girl doing her Service for the Good Magician.”

“Could someone be thinking of you? Of your—underclothing?”

“I wonder. My bosom does tingle a bit. Maybe that’s it. I once thought being a bare-topped centaur made my curse null, but it’s still lurking.”

“That’s probably it,” Wira agreed. “Let me know if it gets worse; it might be significant.”

“I will,” Debra promised. “Anyway, it’s gone now.”

Then Wira felt something. “A child is in trouble. That way.” She pointed to their right.

Debra swung right, gliding down toward the ground. “There are a few trees here at the edge of the Region of Air. I don’t see anything else.”

“That one.” Wira pointed again.

“Oh, now I see her! A girl in a tree. She looks frightened.”

“A girl? It was a boy I sensed.”

“We can ask the girl. Maybe she saw the boy.” Debra flew to the tree and hovered beside it. “Hello! Can we help you?”

“Oh, I’m so relieved!” the girl replied. “Can you get me down?”

“I can enable you to float down.” Debra flicked her tail. “Now let go.”

“But I’ll fall!”

“No, I made you light. Trust me.”

The girl let go. Wira felt her amazement. “I’m floating! Just drifting slowly down. That’s amazing.”

“It’s flying centaur magic.” Debra landed beside the girl. “Hello. I’m Debra Centaur, and this is Wira Human.”

“I am Ilene, Magician Trent and Sorceress Iris’s daughter.”

“I remember you!” Wira said, digging out a vial of healing elixir for the scrapes on the girl’s body. The tree limbs had not been kind to her limbs. “You came to the Good Magician’s Castle a week ago to ask a Question.”

“Oh, now I recognize you,” Ilene said. “You’re the Good Magician’s blind niece.”

“Daughter-in-law.”

Wira felt the girl’s embarrassment. “Of course. Anyway, you showed me around the castle, and then up to see the Good Magician. But he refused to help me. I was so disappointed.”

“He always has good reason,” Wira said. “He doesn’t let folk pay the considerable price of his Answers unless they really need them.”

“But I did need the answer!” the girl said. “I still do. I’m just getting in trouble without it.”

There was something here; Wira could sense it. “Tell me about it,” she urged the girl. “The Magician does not share information with me. I knew you were disappointed, but that’s all. Maybe I can fathom the reason he passed you by.”

“Oh, I don’t want to bore you with my problem,” Ilene protested. “I’m just grateful that you got me safely down from that tree.”

“Please, I do want to know. It is not like him to be unkind to a child.”

“I’m no child!” Ilene protested. “I’m eleven years old.”

“I apologize. It has been some time since I was that age.”

“That’s all right.” But she didn’t volunteer her story.

Wira thought of something. “Would you like a ride on the centaur? You can tell us while we fly.”

“A ride!” the girl exclaimed, excited. All girls of that age loved centaurs.

They mounted Debra, who flicked them appropriately light, spread her wings, and took off. Wira could feel by the thinning, cooling air that they were soon well above the landscape. Ilene was of course in rapture. And they did elicit her history.

Ilene was delivered after her parents Magician Trent and Sorceress Iris were rejuvenated. Her older sister was Irene, delivered fifty-two years before, now a grandmother. Actually Irene’s grandchildren, the Three Princesses, were the same age as Ilene. But they were Sorceresses, while Ilene had a mere talent, which made her ashamed, so she didn’t associate with them. The two half-demon children, Demon Ted and DeMonica, were also her age, but Ilene had no demon ancestry, so did not relate well to them either.

Wira winced. All of Magician Bink’s descendants were spelled to have Magician-caliber talents. But Ilene was not his descendant, so had no such guarantee. She had royal blood, but had been delivered after her parents retired from the throne, so was not quite a princess, either. Not even a part-demon. No wonder she felt out of sorts.

Ilene’s talent was to make illusions real. That was respectable, but not Magician class. She had practiced diligently with her mother, converting the Sorceress’s illusions of landscapes and creatures to real ones. But here was the rub: without illusions to convert, she could do nothing. Away from her mother, she might as well have been talentless.

So she had gone to see the Good Magician, her reluctant parents allowing her to go. Her Question was: How could she make something of herself? And the Magician had simply said “You have perspective. Use it.” And sent her away, unrequited. She had been too ashamed to return home with that nonanswer, so she was here trying to figure out what perspective meant. She had always understood that it was a feature of the magic of things, that pretended to let a person pass them by up close, but the distant ones raced to keep up. A person could see it happening, if she watched carefully. That was not magic she had. Her magic dealt with illusions.

Then she had heard a child crying. She was only eleven, but she was a girl: she had to help a child in trouble. So she had hurried toward the sound. It had looked for a moment as if there were a plain in the hot air, angling up from the ground to distant mountains. Suddenly she had found herself running up that slope. She had looked down, and discovered a tree almost below her feet. This was impossible!

Of course she had fallen. She had managed to grab onto the foliage of the tree, skinning her knees and elbows, and clung there helplessly, afraid to let go. Until Debra had rescued her. “I’m such a washout,” she said ruefully.

Wira’s awareness intensified. “The boy you heard—”

“Oh, I forgot!” Ilene said. “I was going to rescue him, and only got myself in trouble. He must still be there.”

“Still where? Show us.”

“Beyond that tree where you found me. On the—the air plain I foolishly imagined.”

Debra looped around and winged back toward the tree.

The air plain. This was becoming quite relevant. “You ran up that incline, before realizing that running in air was not your talent, and fell.”

“Yes. I’m mortified. How could I have done that?”

“It is almost as if you have a second talent.”

“But I don’t. I can’t. Nobody has two talents.”

“But some do have talent with multiple aspects that might seem like several before being understood.”

“Making illusions real, and running up imaginary plains? I don’t think so.”

“I do. That plain was an illusion.”

“Yes it was. That’s why I fell right through it.” Then the girl froze for fully half an instant as a dim bulb formed over her head. “And my talent is to make illusions real!”

“You made it real,” Wira agreed. “Until you doubted. Then it disintegrated. Aspects of a single talent. You just need to get perspective on it.”

“Perspective,” Ilene breathed. “Could that be what the Good Magician meant?”

“It is surely what he meant. You simply need to see your talent from another vantage.”

The girl was silent, assimilating that.

They reached the tree. Debra settled on the ground beside it, and they paused to listen.

There was the sound of a small boy crying. Somewhere in the sky beyond the tree.

“You know that illusion is there,” Wira said. “I can’t see it, but you can. Make it real again.”

“I—will try,” Ilene agreed, awed.

And soon the centaur started walking up an incline. “What do you see?” Wira murmured.

“An optical illusion,” Debra murmured in reply. “Like the puddles you can see on hot days that aren’t there. A—a—there’s a word—”

“Mirage,” Wira said. “A form of illusion.”

“That’s it! So she can make mirages real. That could be useful on a desert when you’re thirsty.”

“It could indeed,” Wira agreed.

“Now we’re coming into a full mirage,” Debra continued. “Trees, fields, a stream—an, an, like a nice island in the desert, an—”

“Oasis,” Wira said.

“Yes. It’s really nice, but up in the sky. This is weird.”

“Literal illusions are.”

“There he is!” Ilene cried.

“True,” Debra murmured. “A boy, maybe seven years old, sitting under a palm tree, looking really lost.”

They approached the boy, whose presence she could feel. “Hello,” Wira called. “May we help you?”

“I’m lost,” the boy said, his voice perking up.

“This is really weird,” Debra murmured. “He glows.”

They came to stand beside him. “Who are you? Where do you live?” Wira asked.

“I can’t say.”

“He’s looking at me,” Debra whispered. “At my—front.”

“He’s male,” Wira reminded her. “Boys lack discretion.” Then she spoke to the boy. “How can we take you home, if you don’t tell us where to take you?”

That stymied him. He was silent.

This was odd. A lost glowing boy who wouldn’t give his identity. “Your parents told you not to give personal information to strangers,” Wira said.

“That’s it! Because they might hurt me.”

“He’s still looking,” Debra said, not pleased.

“Give him a ride,” Ilene whispered. “Then he can’t look.”

That seemed like a good idea. “Do you know the word compromise?”

He struggled with that. “Each person yields a little.”

“Very good! Let’s compromise. Tell us your talent, and we’ll take you with us until you get unlost.”

“Okay. I make mixed metaphors real.”

“Why that’s like my talent,” Ilene said. “I make illusions real.”

“Say,” the boy said, warming to her.

“You must have really mixed them up to get stuck here.”

“Far pastures are greenest by the dawn’s early light,” the boy said proudly. “Only then I got lost in a pasture.”

“It happens,” Ilene said. “I’m Ilene, daughter of Magician Trent and Sorceress Iris. I heard you, but then got lost in my illusion when I thought it wasn’t real. Does that makes sense to you?”

“Sure. I do it all the time.”

“Come and ride with me,” Ilene said. She seemed cut out to be a babysitter, and that was fine with Wira, who couldn’t do it well blind, and surely with Debra, who couldn’t do it well as a centaur.

But there was something else. A glowing boy who made mixed metaphors real: she knew who that was. Nimbus, the son of the Demon Xanth and Chlorine. The heir apparent to the fantastic powers and position of the Demon whose mere incidental body radiation accounted for the whole of the magic of Xanth. No wonder he wasn’t supposed to reveal his identity! He was a prime candidate for enormous mischief.

Ilene lifted Nimbus onto the centaur’s back behind Wira, then mounted behind him, so she could hold him steady. And Wira discovered something else: she could see him! Not with her eyes, exactly, for she wasn’t facing him, but with her awareness of his glow. She remembered that the glow was visible to anyone but his mother, Chlorine. Chlorine wanted an ordinary child, while the Demon Xanth, who preferred to masquerade as a donkey-headed dragon called Nimby, evidently wanted a son with special powers. Chlorine would surely catch on eventually, but by that time might be resigned to having an extraordinary son. That would be for husband and wife to sort out, in due course.

The centaur was now trotting along the plain, as there was no need to fly; they were already in the air.

Wira’s musings continued. Yet why was that glow apparent to others, even to the blind? It made the boy all too evident to anyone who knew much about Xanthly lineages. Why tell the boy to conceal his identity, while leaving this giveaway? Wira had half a notion, but wanted to confirm it.

“We’ll have to call you something,” Ilene said. “Since we don’t have your real name, how about a pretend one? Is it all right if we call you Glow?”

“Sure,” Nimbus said cheerfully.

“Glow,” Wira said carefully, “who told you to hide your real name?”

“Mom.”

“Not your father?”

“Dad says no one’s going to hurt me. He’s not worried.”

There it was: no one would hurt the boy because the Demon Xanth was watching. The glow was a warning that only the most foolish or ignorant folk would ignore. That explained the seeming conflict. Neither Debra nor Ilene recognized him, being too young or new to Xanth, but they meant him no harm, so that was all right.

“Dad wants me to get experience,” the boy continued. “To get to know the land and the folk. Because—” He broke off, and Wira knew why: he was on the verge of revealing his identity by saying too much.

“You should be safe with us until you find your way home,” Wira said. She did not want to be cynical, but it seemed unlikely that anything bad would happen to any of them as long as they were in the company of the boy. “We’re not lost. We’re—exploring.”

“Great!” he agreed enthusiastically.

“There’s something funny about this plain,” Ilene said. “I made it, I guess, but it seems to have details I don’t think I made. I can’t quite see them, but I know they’re there.”