Geis of the Gargoyle (17 page)

"Ixnay, dear," Iris said quickly.
 
Gary was impressed with her emotional control.
 
She had not wanted to take care of a child, but was doing a fine job, considering the severe challenge of it.
 
He had not wanted to associate with her, but was coming to realize that she was invaluable.

"It's not nice to dry up the zombies.
 
They don't like it.
 
You had better ride with me." She hauled the little girl up on the cameleopard.

"But I saw that child do conjuring," Hiatus said.
 
"She can't be doing other magic."

"Um, maybe best not to mention-" Gary started.

"Other magic!" Surprise exclaimed.
 
She became a girlsized teddy bear.

"But that's Prince Dolph's talent of self-transformation," Hiatus said.
 
"She can't do that!"

"Maybe you had better change back, dear," Iris said gently.
 
"You wouldn't want to get stuck in that form, now would you?" And the girl changed back.

"She can do surprising things," Gary explained quietly.
 
"We try not to encourage it, because-"

"Change something else?" Surprise inquired.
 
She looked at a nearby pillow bush, and the pillows became stones and sank to the ground.

"But this can't be!" Hiatus protested in vain.
 
"Nobody has multiple talents!"

"Nobody has controlled multiple talents," Iris clarified.
 
"Surprise has uncontrolled talents.
 
We need to make her leam how to bring them under control."

Meanwhile, Surprise looked cross-eyed at the pillowstones, and they became invisible.
 
Hiatus managed to control his gape, realizing that it was true.
 
Surprise had wild talents.

"I've never seen anything like this," Hiatus said.
 
"Such varied talents! She's a little Sorceress."

"Sorceress!" the child echoed.
 
Her hair changed color and quality, matching Iris'.

After a bit.
 
Hiatus recovered enough to explore the matter.
 
"She does seem to have some control," he said.
 
"Surprise, can you cut any of that corn?" For they were now passing a field where corn, wheat, oats, and barley grew.

"I wouldn't-" Iris started.

"Sure!" Surprise cried, her eyes crossing.
 
The entire field of plants fell flat; all of them had been invisibly cut down.

"You're a cereal killer," Hiatus said, amazed anew.

"Can you even transform-"

"That's enough!" Iris cried, alarmed for excellent reason.

"Sure," Surprise said.
 
A bunny that was watching them abruptly turned to stone.

Hiatus, who wasn't strong mentally, opened his mouth to say more.
 
But Gary cut in before him.
 
"Can you muffle him?" he asked Surprise.

"Sure." Her eyes crossed, and a muffler appeared on Hiatus' head, effectively silencing him.
 
Then the child, bored, dropped off to sleep, in the manner only the young could manage.

Gary and Iris were finally able to relax somewhat.

"You know, I craved youth and adventure and romance," Iris remarked.
 
"I got the youth, and am getting the adventure, but not of precisely the type I had envisioned."

"Romance?" Gary asked.
 
"What's that?"

"That's when a boy and girl get together and find each other intriguing," she said, sending him an intriguing glance.

Gary, however, being ignorant of the matter, let the glance fly right past him without effect.
 
"I thought old married human folk didn't do any of that."

True," she said.
 
"And my marriage to Magician Trent was political rather than romantic.
 
He never loved me, he just wanted me under control, so he married me." She frowned.
 
"It was an effective tactic.
 
We just barely managed to summon the stork that brought our daughter Irene.
 
I always knew I had missed something vital."

"I know exactly how that is," Hiatus said.

"So now that I'm young again, and on an adventure, I mean to make up for what I missed before.
 
This is my significant opportunity."

"But aren't you still married to Magician Trent?" Gary asked.
 
"I mean, even if it isn't romantic, doesn't your kind disapprove of any other associations?"

"I married Trent when I was forty-one years old," she said grimly.
 
"Of course I made myself look like this." Suddenly she was clothed in illusion, and had the appearance of a splendidly curvaceous human woman of about thirty years' age, with a golden crown and gem-studded robe somewhat open in front to reveal the top halves of very full breasts.

Gary found the outfit interesting; he could identify the gems as striped diamonds, green rubies, blue emeralds, firewater opals, and other more exotic stones.
 
"Fascinating," he remarked, staring.

"Thank you," Iris said, inhaling.
 
The robe fell farther open.
 
Unfortunately that caused the intriguing stones to be harder to see; there was too much dull flesh in the way.
 
"But now I am twenty-three, and in that sense won't be married for another eighteen years.
 
I consider myself free to seek romance." She darted another glance at him, but this one also missed its mark.

Then there was a swirl of smoke before them.
 
"Anything interesting happening?" it inquired.

"Nothing at all, Mentia," Gary said immediately.

"I can tell when you're fibbing, gargoyle," the demoness said, assuming her usual shape.

"Demoness!" Surprise exclaimed, awakening, and turned into swirling smoke.

"Stop that!" Iris cried, distraught.

Even Mentia paused for a moment, her shape distorting as she forgot to focus.
 
"You have a demon child?"

Surprise's smoke became a smaller replica of Mentia.
 
Tee-hee!" she laughed.

"Just wild talents," Iris said.
 
"You wouldn't be interested."

Mentia got back into shape.
 
"Can you do this?" she asked the child, making one eye small and the other huge.

Surprise matched me expression, after first crossing her eyes.

"How about this?" The demoness swelled to twice her normal size, but retained her proportions.

Surprise swelled to four times her size, matching the demoness perfectly.
 
Now there were two voluptuous human female figures floating above the path.

"Um-" Iris began.

"Oh come on, I'm not going to hurt her," Mentia said, frowning, and the figure beside her frowned similarly.
 
"We're just having fun.
 
We'll rejoin you in a while."

"Maybe it's all right," Gary murmured.
 
"Especially since we can't stop them."

Iris was quick on the uptake.
 
"Very well.
 
Be back in an hour." That put her effectively in control of the situation: she had Given Permission.

"Come on.
 
Surprise," Mentia said.
 
"Let's go sail over the mountaintop." She zoomed away, and the duplicate figure followed, giggling.

Iris turned to the others.
 
"This is even chancier than I thought.
 
If that child gets lost or hurt, we'll be responsible."

"I know," Gary said.
 
"But until we figure out a way to get her under control, we have no choice but to play along.
 
At least this will keep the child entertained for an hour, and maybe after that she'll be tired enough to sleep."

"I see your problem," Hiatus said.
 
"That child's a real handful."

"Just as you and your sister were, in your day," Iris said grimly.

"I know.
 
I really regret that, in retrospect.
 
We both made up for it by becoming vacuously dull adults, however."

Meanwhile Gary had been looking around.
 
"I think we have a problem," he said.
 
"Are we getting lost?"

Iris looked.
 
"No, we're just passing through a tall cornfield.
 
We'll be beyond it in a moment."

"But it seems like a puzzle," Gary said.

"It's not corn-it's maize," Hiatus said.
 
"We should have gone around it."

"Maize!" Iris exclaimed.
 
"You're right.
 
We're lost in its puzzle." Indeed, they seemed to be stuck in a confusing array of paths between rows of corn that looped around, leading nowhere.

"I can find the way through," Hiatus said.
 
"I'll grow eyes on all the stalks, and they'll spy the way out." He rode around, and wherever he passed, eyes appeared.
 
"And noses, to sniff the way out," he added, and noses also sprouted.
 
"And mouths, to tell us the way out."

Soon his ploy was effective.
 
"Out, out," said a mouth, and they went to it, and then to the next out-mouth, ignoring those that said "No way, no way." It seemed that the organs Hiatus grew were able to communicate with each other, perhaps in some sniffing or blinking code, so the mouths knew.

It didn't take long to emerge from the maize.
 
"I must admit.
 
Hiatus, your talent has its uses," Iris said.

"It is my hope to do enough useful tilings to make up for the mischievous ones I did as a child," Hiatus said.

"That's probably impossible," she said.
 
"But a worthy ambition."

They rode on, making better time now that they didn't have to be watching Surprise.
 
Because of this, they soon approached the Region of Madness.
 
Gary could tell, because the terrain ahead became weird.
 
The trees had green trunks and brown leaves, and the forest animals seemed to be rooted to the ground.

Hiatus gazed at that and gulped.
 
"That's the madness, all right.
 
It's different from when I was here last, but I suppose it does keep changing.
 
I-I really don't feel much like trying to go in there."

"I am not exactly sanguine about it either," Iris said.
 
"Particularly not with a wild child like Surprise."

"Suddenly I grasp something I didn't quite understand," Hiatus said.
 
"Her talents aren't uncontrolled-she is."

"Precisely.
 
She seems to be able to do what she chooses, but she's a child.
 
She doesn't see the point in behaving perfectly.
 
We have to persuade her that there is a point.
 
That's why Gary was assigned to tutor her."

"And I still have no idea how," Gary said.
 
"It's bad enough being in manform, and that confusion makes it worse."

"Manform?" Hiatus asked.