Geis of the Gargoyle (42 page)

"Gargoyles know their own kind.
 
His body was like illusion, but I felt the reality beneath.
 
Just as I knew you were no gargoyle, I knew he was no man."

"And now you are helping him find the philter?"

"Yes." Gayle returned her gaze to the window, evidently losing interest in the figure.

"Do you know what they mean to do with the philter?"

"Use it to abate the geis of the gargoyle."

"But that will make it prisoner in the Interface." Gayle shrugged.
 
"We gargoyles have been prisoner of the geis ever since the philter defaulted on its purpose in existence.
 
It is time to correct that situation."

Hanna frowned.
 
"So you are no friend to the philter."

"I don't wish the philter any harm," Gayle said.
 
"I'm just tired of having to do what it was supposed to."

"As am I," Gary said.
 
"So it's time to set things right."

"I thought you gargoyles liked purifying water."

"We do," Gary said.
 
"But we have had no time off from it.
 
We would like to be free to explore sometimes."

"I have an idea," Gayle said.
 
"Suppose your master the philter purifies the water of Xanth half the time, and we gargoyles do it the other half?"

"No," Hanna said.

"You won't meet us halfway?" Gary asked.

"No."

"One quarter of the way?" Gayle asked.

"No."

"Then how much of the way?" Gary asked.

"No part of the way.
 
The philter isn't interested in being harnessed."

"Does that seem fair to you?" Gayle asked.

"What does fairness have to do with it?"

"Demons have no conscience," Gary said.
 
"They don't care what's right or wrong, only what works for them."

Gayle was outraged.
 
"You mean that for three thousand years I have loyally confined myself and purified the water of the pool of Stone Hinge, because my conscience told me to honor the geis, and the one for whom I was filling in doesn't care?"

"Exactly," Hanna said.
 
"You have a problem with that?"

"Now I do," Gayle admitted.
 
"I think I have been a fool."

"Well, you're an animal, and you have a soul," Hanna said.
 
"All souled creatures are foolish."

"Then why do you want my soul?" Gary demanded.
 
"Don't you know it would make you just as foolish?"

"No it wouldn't.
 
I'm a demon.
 
I know better."

Gary exchanged a glance with Gayle.
 
"I'd almost like to give her a soul, so she'd find out," he said.

"Don't do it," Gayle said.
 
"Demons don't necessarily react to souls the same way as others do."

"And this is a very hardened demon," Gary agreed.
 
"It's not worth the risk.
 
Some souled folk are pretty mean, I understand."

"Yes, there seem to be some degraded souls," Gayle agreed.
 
"And surely any soul the philter got hold of would soon be degraded.
 
So it mustn't have any of ours."

Hanna's eyes narrowed.
 
"So it's like that," she said grimly.

"I think it always was like that," Gary said.
 
"You watched Gayle doing your job for three thousand years, and you don't care.
 
You have shown that you are not a worthy creature.
 
So go away and let us continue our search."

"I will go when I choose to go," Hanna said.
 
"And I choose to remain, for now.
 
I will guide you through the future."

"Why should we pay any attention to you?" Gayle demanded.
 
"Since we know you are trying to hinder us?"

"Because you won't be able to ignore me," Hanna said.

Both gargoyles laughed.

Then Gary's laugh was choked off as Hanna's dress went translucent, showing the fuzzy outline of her panties.
 
He tried to close his eyes, but they refused to close.
 
They were locked on to the almost vision, as if he were peering into the peephole of a hypnogourd.

After a moment Gayle realized that he had stalled out.
 
Then she realized why.
 
She bounded between him and Hanna, blocking his view.
 
Then he was able to blink and clear his gaze.
 
He had thought he would have less trouble with such sights, but realized he had misjudged the case.
 
His human reactions were too strong.

Then Gayle stiffened.
 
Her whole body became as rigid as the stone it was, making her like a statue.
 
What had happened to her? Surely the sight of human panties wouldn't bother her, both because she was inhuman and female.

He needed to find out what Hanna was doing to freak out Gayle.
 
But did he dare risk getting freaked out again himself? He realized he had to, because it was his fault

Gayle was here.

He peered around her.
 
There was the image of a pool of water.
 
But it had a hole in it.
 
In fact it was a water hole.

Oh, no! The hole was sucking in the water and making it vanish.
 
That was the bad thing about it: the water around it tried to fill it in, and got consumed, until no water was left.
 
That was an awful sight to a gargoyle, who lived to make good water available to others.
 
Where would the gargoyles be if all the water disappeared into the water hole?

He stepped between Gayle and the image.
 
He was in manform, so not quite as horrified as she was by the sight.
 
Men were typically careless about water, though they needed it as much as any other creatures did.

When her gaze at the water was interrupted, Gayle relaxed.
 
"Oh, that's horrible," she breathed.
 
"I can't abide a water hole."

"No gargoyle can," Gary said.

The vision fuzzed.
 
Hanna reappeared, fully clothed.

"Had enough?" she asked.

Gary stifled an angry retort.
 
"Maybe we should have a truce," he suggested.
 
"We'll be halfway civil to you if you are halfway civil to us."

"Agreed."

"But we won't give up our search for the philter."

"Even if you found it, you wouldn't know what to do with it," Hanna said.
 
"So you might as well enjoy your tour of the future."

"We might as well," Gary agreed, less than pleased.
 
He looked out the window again, and saw the fanny building on the paved field.
 
"But we haven't moved!" he said, surprised.

"Well, I was distracted," Hanna said.
 
"I can't focus on too many things at once.
 
That will change when I get a soul."

Gary remembered how Hanna and Desi had alternated speech and animation when they were together.
 
He understood the principle.
 
Hanna had been continuously active, so the outside illusion had frozen in place.
 
But did this mean that the train and the scenery, and indeed the whole land of the future, was all an illusion crafted by the philter? If so, it was another distraction from their search.

But illusion could be penetrated.
 
If he and Gayle kept alert, they might spy what they sought anyway.
 
And there was one benefit: if they were taking up the philter's attention, then the other two searching parties were free of it, and would have a better chance.
 
So Gary and Gayle might be accomplishing more than they seemed to be.

"So how does that building travel in space?" Gary asked as the train moved on by it.

"Watch."

They watched.
 
In a moment smoke poured out from the base of the building.
 
It rose into the air.
 
Now it was apparent that fire was jutting out of its bottom, like a dragon in terrible trouble.
 
To get away from that fire, the building was hauling itself ever higher.
 
But the fire followed it, burning its tail.
 
The building shot right up into the sky, the fire in relentless pursuit.

"And so the spaceship is off to Alpha Centauria," Hanna said.
 
"And you can go there too, if you wish."

"A centaur named Alpha?" Gayle asked, impressed.

"A centaur world named Alpha."

"Not Xanth?"

"This is the future," Hanna said.
 
"The magic has spread to other worlds.
 
Now each species has its own world.
 
The centaurs really appreciate that, because they never liked associating with ordinary creatures."

Gary had heard that.
 
Centaurs were pretty snotty crossbreeds.
 
But that made him realize something else.
 
"There were no centaurs in Hinge.
 
Where were they?"

"They did not appear until Hinge was deserted," Hanna said.
 
"A few more fresh human beings straggled in with their horses, and inadvertently drank from a love spring.
 
The centaurs don't speak of that; they are ashamed to admit that there is human stock in their lineage."

Gary had heard that too.
 
He could understand their position.
 
He didn't like to think that there was human influence hidden somewhere in his own ancestry, though the evidence of the souls was suggestive.
 
"The Hinge spring?"

"Of course not!" Gayle said.
 
"I kept it pure."

Oops.
 
"Of course; how could I forget! So it was some unfiltered spring."

"Yes," Hanna agreed.
 
"The early centaurs did come to Hinge and live there for a while, but in the end they preferred to avoid the madness storms and migrated south to Centaur Isle.
 
It didn't matter, because there was no need for inhabitants in the madness region once the Interface had been established."

"Established without the philter," Gayle said.

"Which absence cost us gargoyles dearly," Gary said.
 
"And is now costing the rest of Xanth more subtly.
 
Poor Desiree!"

"Hiatus will take care of her stupid tree," Hanna said disdainfully.

"How, when he can't even grow ears straight, in the madness?"

"But he can grow round roots in the madness-and that's what that tree needs, to replace its square roots.
 
The nymph of the tree will be most grateful."

"How do you know all this?" Gary asked.

"This is the future.
 
All things are known."