Xanth 30 - Stork Naked

by Piers Anthony

  The two older children spied each other. "What are you doing here, bimbo?" Ted demanded.

  "I'm following my path, pith-head," she retorted.

  "You couldn't have gotten ahead of me."

  "I didn't try to."

  "Ahem," Woe said.

  Both children saw her now. "Cheese and crackers!" Ted swore. "We're back where we started!"

  "But that's impossible," Monica said. "I never turned."

  "Neither did I. It must be a circle."

  "Then we should have passed each other on the opposite side," she said. "We didn't."

  "This is weird."

  "Really weird."

  "So it's a magic circle," Ted said. "How the bleep do we get off it?"

  "Maybe this is the trap we were sent into," Monica said. "To get on the circle and never get off."

  Ted looked around. "Sick leaves everywhere."

  "There must be a way," Monica said. "Woe, what do you think?"

  "Would this help?" Woe asked, holding up the little utensil.

  "A fork!" Ted exclaimed. "That's what we need. Gimme." He snatched it out of Woe's hand.

  "Ted!" Monica said warningly.

  This time he ignored her. He held up the fork. "Fork, I invoke you," he said.

  A fork in the path appeared before him. The fork in his hand disappeared.

  "You figured it out!" Monica said, kissing him on the ear. "You're a genius."

  "Well, smart, anyway," he agreed, obviously pleased as his ear turned pink.

  Woe's feelings were mixed. She was glad that they had found a way off the circle, but sorry she had lost her nice fork, and irritated that Monica had changed emotions so readily. She should have punished Ted for his meanness to Woe. But of course Monica was a child. In that corner of her mind where Metria lurked, Woe Betide knew that allowances had to be made for children.

  They were about to follow the new path when there was a galloping sound. A blue-eyed blonde centaur/unicorn filly galloped up, her bouncing bare front causing Ted's eyeballs to bulge dangerously. Woe was seeing increasing reason for the Adult Conspiracy; in their own reality Ted would hardly have noticed such a detail, or at least not taken it seriously. Bareness made children snigger, not pant.

  "Hello," the filly said. "You must be the new arrivals. We had a report someone was on the circle drive."

  Ted remained transfixed by the centaur's breathing, of all things, and Monica was fidgeting jealously as she studied the crossbreed filly's silver hooves and horn, so it was up to Woe to explain their situation. "We're lost," she said.

  "Yes, of course. I am Elysia Centaur, of centaur and unicorn descent. I was sent here to pick you up."

  "You can pick me up any time," Ted said breathlessly.

  Monica spoke, suppressing her evident disgust with Ted. "I am DeMonica, of demon and naga stock. This is Demon Ted, half demon, half human. And the child is Woe Betide, demon."

  Good; Monica had not revealed Woe's full identity. Woe did not trust this situation, despite the seeming friendliness of the filly. Why had she been sent to pick them up?

  "We just want to go home," Monica said. She, at least, wasn't fascinated by bare fronts. "Somehow we got on a one-way path and couldn't get off."

  "Of course," Elysia said. "The Sorceress did it."

  All three children stared. "Sorceress?" Monica asked.

  "Morgan le Fey, from Mundania. She's notorious. Anyone who gets in her way gets sent here to the other realm. We know of no escape. So we'll bring you to the castle and show you the ropes, and you'll surely do as well as the rest of us."

  "We know of no Sorceress," Ted said, finally getting some of his attention back.

  "Few do. She hides in the body of Surprise Golem, and has some nefarious scheme going. We don't know what it is, but she must have been afraid we would interfere, and got rid of us."

  "The baby!" Monica said. "She's messing up Surprise so she can't get the baby."

  "You misunderstand," Elysia said. "Surprise is involved with the Sorceress, lending her her body."

  "No," Monica said. "We are from another reality, and so is our Surprise Golem. She came to fetch her baby, who we think was misdelivered here."

  Elysia nodded. "That would certainly make you a threat to the Sorceress. We did not know about the baby. We're somewhat out of touch here, having no access to news of Xanth except what is provided by refugees such as yourselves."

  "Now can we go home?" Monica asked.

  "I am sorry, but no. We would all like to return to Xanth, but we can't. We know of no way back."

  No way back. That made Woe freeze with dread. But this still didn't quite make sense. "Why the path?" she asked.

  "To fetch you in before the bloodhounds came for you," the filly said. "They come out at night, seeking blood. The only safe place is the Prime Monister's castle."

  "The what?" Ted asked.

  "The Prime Monister. The ruler of the land-bound monsters. He is a horror, but he takes care of those who serve him. It is not a nice life, but it is better than the alternative. Now we must take you there."

  "We?" Monica asked.

  "My friends Cassy and Caitlin Centaur are coming. We will carry you."

  "We don't want to go to a monster's lair," Monica said nervously.

  "None of us do, dear. But it's not as bad as the bloodhounds."

  Woe thought of hounds seeking blood, and shuddered.

  "Maybe we better go there, for tonight," Ted said reluctantly.

  The two centaurs arrived. Cassy was red-haired and Caitlin was brown-haired; both were bare-chested, of course. Cassy lifted Woe onto her back, Caitlin lifted Monica, and Elysia picked up Ted, to his evident delight. Centaurs were of course used to the way human men and boys reacted to them.

  The Monister's castle was spectacular. It was huge, covering much of a mountain, with turrets rising high above it. Its outer wall was solid stone, with metallic spikes poking out. No creature would care to come up against that rampart.

  "The bloodhounds are that bad?" Woe asked.

  "Yes," Cassy said. "They smell all the blood inside, and charge the castle, but the only blood they get is their own as they hit the spikes. We are safe from them, inside."

  "What about the Prime Monister?"

  Cassy shuddered. "Try to stay beneath his notice. He's not much interested in children."

  That did not sound good. "What is he interested in?"

  "Workers, mostly. Cooks, scullery workers, cleaning maids, stable hands—it's a big castle, and requires a considerable staff."

  Woe felt a certain hesitation. "What else?"

  "Maidens," Cassy said reluctantly. "Of all species. We don't know what he does with them; they never tell. But we dread it."

  It certainly seemed bad. There were things in the prohibited dusky recesses of her mind that hinted at what a male monster—monister—would do with young females. They would need to get away from this castle as soon as possible.

  They trotted up to the front gate. The guards evidently recognized the centaurs and waved them on by. The massive portcullis slammed down behind, shutting them in. For ill or worse, they were here for the night.

  They did not stop at a chamber. Instead the three centaurs trotted through the castle to a giant central courtyard. "The castle is built on an old volcano," Cassy explained. "Mount Pinatuba's saucer once rested here."

  Woe knew very little about volcanoes, but this was odd. "Saucer?"

  "In Mundania, we understand, volcanoes sit on tectonic plates. Pinatuba sits on a tectonic saucer."

  This was way beyond Woe's very limited understanding. "Okay," she said.

  "Normally volcanoes and other mountains don't like to move much," Cassy continued blithely. "Plates just aren't very mobile, except extremely slowly. But saucers move all the time. I understand someone found a mustard seed's amount of faith and moved the mountain from north of the Gap Chasm to south of it. They were lucky 'Tuba didn't blow its top right then, and cool Xanth another
degree."

  "Okay," Woe repeated blankly.

  "So this is the old depression where the volcano once rested," Cassy concluded. "The mountain that rings it is what is left after Pinatuba departed. It's an ideal spot for the castle, because the walls are already made, as it were."

  "Okay."

  Cassy turned her front section around and lifted Woe off her back and to the ground. "You won't like it here, but you will have plenty of companionship."

  Meanwhile Caitlin and Elysia were similarly lifting down Monica and Ted. Elysia kissed Ted on the forehead as he passed her face, and his expression turned to mush. The Match had given him far too much maleness for his age.

  "Snap out of it, doughboy!" Monica snapped jealously. And she had become too female.

  "Now we'll introduce you to some guides," Caitlin said. "Then we'll be off, because we have to round up any more refugees out there. The Prime Monister is very strict."

  "How come nice folk like you serve a monster?" Monica asked.

  Caitlin smiled wistfully. "We are land monsters too. We don't have much choice." She looked around. "Akimbo! Extricate! New arrivals."

  Two of the folk clustered in the courtyard came over: a boy and a girl of about ten. "Aw, what's the point?" the boy demanded in a surly manner.

  "This is Akimbo," Caitlin said. "His talent is to cause tangles of any size or complexity. He's not bad once you get to know him."

  "I am too!" Akimbo retorted. "I'm real bad! I'll tangle your tail something awful, filly."

  Caitlin picked him up and kissed him on the cheek. He turned to mush just as Ted had. The filly centaurs clearly knew how to handle boys. There was just something about a bare-bosomed kiss. "You'll get along fine with Demon Ted," she said as she set the boy down. She addressed the girl. "This is Extricate, Kate for short, whose talent is sorting out tangles. Kate, meet DeMonica, who I just brought in from the endless traffic circle. You'll show her around, won't you?"

  "Sure," Kate said amicably. "Are you really part demon, DeMonica?"

  "Half demon," Monica said proudly. "Half human."

  Caitlin looked around again. "Teddy!" she called.

  A little boy of about five came. He looked mischievous. That was a good sign. "This is Teddy Bare," the centaur said. "His talent is to make people naked. We try to discourage that, though it doesn't affect us centaurs. Teddy, this is Monica; she's a demon."

  "Yeah?" Teddy asked. He looked at Woe. Her dress fuzzed and faded, making her bare.

  She instantly reformed her dress, as it was from her demon substance. "Stop that, or else."

  "Or else what?" he demanded.

  "Or else I might do this." She stepped into him and kissed him hard on the mouth.

  "Oooh, ugh!" he cried, trying to rub the flesh off his lips. The other children tittered. Woe had recently learned something about making unruly boys behave.

  "You'll get along fine," Caitlin said, smiling. Then she, Cassy, and Elysia trotted off.

  "Do we gotta show these new twerps around?" Akimbo demanded, his natural surliness returning.

  "We may be new, but we're not twerps," Monica informed him.

  "Yeah? Well I think you—"

  Monica smiled at him in the new sultry way she had since the incident of the Match, and lifted her skirt half a whit so that the edge of her panty almost showed.

  "Are no twerp," Akimbo concluded weakly. "I'll get my friend Arlis to help." He turned and called. "Hey, Arly! C'mere!"

  Another boy walked toward them, this one about twelve. "Hi, Kimbo. Who's your pretty friend?"

  "DeMonica. She's half demon and—" Akimbo leaned close to whisper. "She's got panties!"

  "Wow! Can I see them?"

  "No!" Monica snapped.

  "They're probably immature anyway."

  Monica didn't rise to the bait. Age twelve was interesting, and he had called her pretty, but there were limits. "We don't plan to stay here long. Tomorrow we're going home."

  Arlis, Akimbo, Extricate, and Teddy laughed, though there was more than a tinge of ruefulness in it. "We all want to go home," Arlis said. "C'mon, I'll show you around."

  They had become a group of seven. Arlis led the way across the courtyard, which Woe now saw was quite varied. There were assorted trees growing in it, some forming thickets and thinnets, and a number of tents and ramshackle small buildings. This was evidently where most of the captives lived.

  "Hi Notty!" Arlis called to an older boy.

  "Hi, Buttnose," the other replied.

  "Buttnose?" Monica asked.

  "That's my talent," Arlis said with resignation. "Always to be called by a nickname, never my real name. I'm stuck with it. Notty's talent is Nots: tying things up in Nots, like trees, rocks, and such."

  "Nots? Don't you mean knots? And how do you tie a tree or rock in knots?"

  "Like this," Notty said. He touched a small tree, and suddenly its trunk was not. The base and foliage remained, just not the trunk. "And this." He touched a rock, and it became a pile of sand. The rock was not.

  "Ah, there's my girlfriend," Arlis said, approaching a pretty girl in light blue with hair like a floating cloud. "Hi, Skyla! You look airy today."

  "Are you calling me an airhead, Goatface?"

  "No, I think you are lovely." Arlis turned to the others. "She's going to be mistress of the sky when she grows up."

  Skyla kissed him. "And I'll be your mistress when you grow up, Barley."

  "I can hardly wait. Maybe your friend Miranda can teach me how sooner."

  "She better not, Smartis!"

  Arlis glanced back again. "Miranda can teach anyone anything, except new tricks to her dog, Old."

  "And here is Tish," Arlis said. "Her talent is making folk freak out."

  "Without panties?" Monica asked.

  "Without anything. She could go naked and folk would still freak out."

  "Hello, Smartis," Tish said. "Have you found a way out of here yet?"

  "Don't I wish." They moved on, but Woe was thoughtful. A talent of freaking out anything could be useful in an escape attempt.

  "And here's Sonya, whose talent is figuring things out," Arlis said.

  "Hi, Tuna." Apparently the nicknames did not have to be even close to the real name.

  "Can she figure out how to get out of here?" Ted asked.

  "No, just puns and challenges," Sonya said. "Things with answers. There's no way out of here."

  The introductions continued, but Woe lost track of them. There were just too many people here, and all they had met so far were the children.

  "Better make a place to spend the night," Akimbo recommended. "There's a pillow-bush, and the trees provide pretty good shelter. Pieplants are plentiful. I'll introduce you to Stephanie; she can summon tsoda pop for you to drink. You can be wherever you like."

  "Thank you," Monica said. "We'll do that." But Woe knew that look: Monica had no intention of settling down. They had been trapped in the Punderground before, and made every effort to escape; this was similar but worse, so they would have to try harder. Monica was assuming the Lead Female role, since there was no adult in their party to do it.

  Indeed, Monica exchanged a glance with Woe, acquiring her support. Woe was glad to give it.

  There was a despairing scream. "What's that?" Ted asked, alarmed.

  Arlis looked pale. "That's Cadence. I know her voice."

  "Why did she scream?"

  He looked grim. "Maybe I'm wrong."

  "I doubt it," Sonya said. "There's only one thing that would affect her like that."

  "Still, we'd better ask."

  They went in the direction of the scream, and soon came to a winged centaur filly. No, her body was that of a white tiger instead of a horse. Woe had not seen that species before. "She's a centiger," Arlis explained. "Maybe she'll tell you her story." He waved. "Hi, Cadence!"

  The centiger cleared the fading horror from her face. She had short spiky dark blonde hair, gray-green eyes, and dark gray wings. She was adult,
fully developed, and lovely for her type; Woe would have known by Ted's staring, if it hadn't already been obvious. "Hello, Ozzie."

  "These are new arrivals Ted, Monica, and Woe Betide," Arlis said. "We heard your scream. Are you all right?"

  "The messenger just left. The Prime Monister has summoned me for tonight."

  There was a silence.

  Monica approached. "You must want to get out of here pretty much."

  "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.