Xanth 30 - Stork Naked

by Piers Anthony

  The Monister screamed in agony and fled, smoke pouring from its nostrils.

  "Thank you, Pyra," Surprise said weakly, disturbed by the Monister's pain.

  "Oops," Stymy said.

  Surprise looked at the capsule. It was empty. "But it can't be!" she exclaimed. "It's proof against magic."

  "The witch pulled another fast one," the peeve said. "That was a mock baby. It disappeared when the capsule cut off the magic."

  "But then where is the real baby?" Surprise asked, dismayed.

  "Where you'll never find it," Morgan said. "Ha ha ha."

  "What can I do?" Surprise asked desperately. "She's too devious for me."

  "You can agree to let me keep the brat, and get your nice little behind out of here," Morgan said.

  "I can't do that."

  "Maybe I can persuade you. Where she is now she will die slowly of exposure, with much crying along the way. If I can't have her, you can't either. At least with me, she'll survive."

  "Don't make any deal with the Sorceress," Stymy said. "You can't trust her; you know that."

  "But I don't want Prize to suffer."

  "The female hound will make her suffer worse, in the long run," Stymy said.

  "But still—"

  "There's bound to be a trick," the peeve said. "Take time to fathom it before you make any decision."

  That seemed to make sense. "I'll wait."

  "It's the brat's funeral," Morgan said. "Assuming they ever find the body."

  "Cover your ears, Surprise," the peeve said. "I'm going to get rid of her. I don't want you to hear what I'm about to say to her."

  Surprise did so. That blocked off the sounds the peeve sent hurtling toward the Sorceress. Even so, Surprise's hair curled and frizzled, the backs of her hands stung, and the few splinters of house timbers that hadn't already burned charred now. It was the verbal torrent from Hell.

  The Sorceress retreated before the barrage, and was gone. The peeve went silent, with only a few wisps of smoke drifting from its beak. Cautiously, Surprise uncovered her ears.

  "Well spoken," Stymy said, brushing off singed feathers. "That would have done a harpy proud."

  "Someone had to say it," the peeve said. "I do have harpy ancestry."

  They made their way out of the wreckage of the house. And paused, amazed.

  There were children, people, and creatures all across the landscape. King Dolph, with several members of his party. The centiger Cadence, who evidently knew them all, was checking them off a list she had. She saw Surprise emerge, and called to her. "I am making sure no child gets left behind. Then we'll have to see about getting them returned to their families. Ted, Monica, and Woe Betide are with Che Centaur, locating them, bringing them across, and teaching them how to do it so they can never be trapped that way again."

  "Trapped where?" Surprise asked.

  "In the other realm. It's like Xanth but largely unoccupied. The Prime Monister built a castle there and enslaved all those the Sorceress Morgan le Fey sent across. Now all of us are free, or will be as we liberate them. We owe it all to Ted, Monica, and Woe Betide. I don't know how we can ever thank you."

  "I didn't do it," Surprise said. "I'm just trying to recover my baby."

  "I saw the Prime Monister come to the house," Cadence said. "I saw him flee, so knew you had somehow bested him. The Sorceress must have brought him and the bloodhounds across. We are so glad to be rid of them! Are you a Sorceress yourself?"

  Surprise hesitated. "Not quite. I do have magic, but I'm just a girl who wants to go home with her baby. The Sorceress has hidden her somewhere."

  "Suddenly I see how we can thank you," Cadence said. "We shall find your baby. She must be in the other realm."

  Surprise realized that was probably true. "I must look there."

  Cadence shook her head. "Don't cross over yourself; it requires a special ability to return, and the children do it much better than adults do. We have many children who will be glad to help." She looked around. "Auth! Ticity! We need you!"

  A boy and girl detached themselves from the confusion and came across. "Sure, Cade," the boy said.

  "Whatcha want?" the girl asked.

  "These are Auth 'n' Ticity, brother and sister," Cadence said. "They work together to verify anything's validity. They'll be able to tell if any baby we find is yours."

  "But I don't even know where to start to look."

  "Maybe the familiar cards will provide a clue."

  "They're by the house," the peeve said.

  They went to the house and found the pile of pictures, which had not been disturbed. Surprise picked them up and sorted through them, seeing many types of animal. Then suddenly she paused. One of them was a picture of Prize!

  Auth and Ticity looked at it. "Yes, that's the one," Auth said.

  "But how can she be a familiar?" Surprise asked, appalled.

  "Anything can be a familiar," the peeve said. "Morgan just seems to have many."

  "She keeps them in the other realm," Cadence said. "And summons them across by invoking their pictures. So now we know where your baby is. Unfortunately, only the Sorceress can use her cards."

  Surprise remembered how the hawk had come to life. It had been conjured from that other realm. That was where the sorceress stored her creatures. It did make sense. "How can I get her back?"

  "Maybe Iffy can help," Cadence said. She lifted her voice. "Iffy!"

  Another child responded. As she came toward them, Cadence explained: "Her talent is to create magical items, though she can't do it perfectly. Since she's been to the other realm, she should be able to orient on it."

  Then, as the girl arrived, Cadence held up the picture. "We need to find this baby, quickly. Can you make something to point to her? She's in the other realm."

  "Sure," Iffy said. "Maybe."

  "Maybe?" Surprise asked, uneasy.

  Iffy put her hands before her. A small arrow appeared between them. She held it and pointed it at the picture. It flashed. Then she held it over her head. It turned slowly and oriented in a new direction. "That way."

  "In the other realm," Cadence reminded her.

  "Sure."

  Che Centaur trotted up. "I believe we have freed all the folk who were caught in the other realm," he said to Cadence. "I have arranged for a mess area to feed them."

  "You've been doing more than that," the peeve said. "You've been talking privately with some of those children."

  The centaur shrugged. "Perhaps."

  "It is surely a mess, with all those children," Surprise said with as much of a smile as she could muster in her stress.

  "But there remains much to do," Che said.

  "We'll do it," Cadence said. "You had better help Surprise now. We have a line on her baby."

  "Of course," he agreed immediately. "I will take you wherever you are going." There was something slightly measured about his manner, but of course he was under stress too. This whole business was difficult.

  "We have an arrow," the peeve said, perching on Surprise's head.

  Iffy passed the arrow up to Surprise, then ran off in the direction of the mess area. Surprise held it, and it pointed like a compass, showing them the way. She realized that she could have made a similar arrow herself, had she thought of it. But she wasn't thinking well right now.

  "You will be happy to know that Pyra is all right," Che said. "She burned the Monister until it ran so far away it is unlikely to return at all soon. Now she is making her way back here. I offered to carry her, but she said it would take her time to cool off sufficiently to be carried. I must say she did not look as if she were still burning."

  "I think she likes you," Surprise said.

  He shrugged. "Perhaps. But she says she found a boyfriend during her search for the children. I helped her make a mass of protoplasm that he could inhabit."

  "Then she must be waiting for him to get to it."

  The arrow wavered. "Ah, this must be where we have to enter the other realm," Che
said. He did not seem particularly surprised. "I have learned how to do this, but I think you should learn too, so that you can never be trapped there."

  Surprise was in a hurry to recover her baby, but realized that what he said made sense. So she paid attention to his instruction, and practiced, and soon was able to see the spaces and phase into the other realm. It was much like Xanth, only emptier.

  "There are two women who know how to enter this realm," Che said. "Cory and Tessa. They call it sidestepping. But it is better for us to do it for ourselves."

  They resumed travel through the other realm. "Is Prize all right?" Surprise asked. "Morgan said she would slowly die of exposure."

  "And hunger," Che agreed. "Because she needs her mother. But it has not been long; I'm sure she remains in good condition."

  "Where is Morgan?"

  "That is my concern. I doubt she will allow you simply to come and take your baby. She has to know you are here. The larger question is why didn't she simply take the baby and flee to somewhere so far away you couldn't find them?"

  "She still wants my agreement!" Surprise said, a bulb flickering. "She's been trying to trick or force me to give that all along. So I won't come back some other time to claim Prize, if I lose her now."

  "That is surely it," he agreed. "I fear there is some last ploy she has in mind. This may be some kind of trap."

  "If I have to spring it to recover my baby, then so be it."

  "Spoken like a devoted mother," the peeve said. "No, I'm not being sarcastic. I want you to save her."

  "Thank you," Surprise said. "I do appreciate it."

  16

  No Idea

  They came to a shimmering glade. There was the bassinet with the baby. And there, after half a moment, was the Sorceress Morgan le Fey, still looking exactly like Surprise herself. Now she wore identical clothing, too. There was even a second little green bird with her. But there was no mistaking her manner. "Very touching, avian poop, and I am being sarcastic." She faced Surprise. "I have just about exhausted my patience with you, you stubborn innocent. I suggest that you give up this futile quest and yield my property to me."

  "You can't have my baby!" Surprise said, sliding off the centaur's back and walking purposefully toward the bassinet.

  "Then maybe we'll let the centaur select which one of us gets the prize," Morgan said, stepping forward to intercept her. "Is that agreeable to you, you simpleminded creature?"

  "Don't agree!" the peeve said.

  But Surprise was confident of Che's loyalty. "Certainly. He brought me here for my baby."

  Morgan put her arms around Surprise. "That will do. Now we shall give him the chance to make that choice."

  "Let go of me!" Surprise said, struggling. But the other girl was as strong as she was.

  "In a moment." The ground dropped out beneath them. They fell, entangled, into a developing pit. They rolled and tumbled, locked together. The peeve squawked but did not let go of her hair.

  They came to rest at the bottom, unharmed but disheveled and dirty. "Get away from me," Surprise said, renewing her straggle.

  This time the Sorceress let her go. "What was the point in that?" she demanded.

  "In what?" Surprise asked as she got to her feet and brushed herself off.

  "In dumping us into this awful pit," Morgan said.

  "Me? You did it!"

  "Well, it won't work. I'm going to float myself right up out of here." But then the Sorceress looked stricken. "Oh, no! It's a null-magic pit!"

  "What are you talking about?" Surprise invoked her own float spell. Nothing happened. She tried a different variant of it. Still nothing. She snapped her fingers to make a spark. Nothing.

  It was true: magic was damped out here. They would have to scramble out physically. But the wall of the circular pit was vertical, too hard to get a grip on, and too high to jump past. At the brink sat the bassinet; at least it had not fallen in too.

  "Now you've gotten us both stuck," Morgan said. "You evil Sorceress."

  Surprise stared at her. "What did you call me?"

  "Oh come off it, Fey. Don't try to pretend you're me. You'll never fool the centaur."

  "Bleep!" the peeve said.

  "I was afraid of this," the peeve said from Morgan's head. "I tried to warn you."

  "Shut your beak, you little fake!" the peeve on Surprise's head said.

  "What's going on?" Surprise asked it.

  "She's trying to fool Che into thinking she's you. She's even got a fake peeve."

  "You're the fake, you turdy birdy!" the other peeve said.

  A dreadful realization was reluctantly crossing Surprise's awareness, like a rain cloud filled with pus. The Sorceress had set this up to make them fall together, so that Che could not tell them apart by sight. That was why she had clung to Surprise as she opened the pit. She had deliberately mixed them up. The peeve knew who she was, because it had clutched her hair, staying with her—but how could Che ever tell the two Surprises and two peeves apart?

  Che looked down into the pit. "What happened?" he asked.

  "She opened this magic-nulling pit, and now I'm stuck in it with her," Morgan said. "I can't float or conjure myself out. You'll have to fetch me out."

  "She's lying," Surprise said. "That's the Sorceress."

  Che peered from one to the other. "You look alike, except for the pattern of smudges."

  "We are alike," Morgan said. "Physically. It's our minds and souls that are different. Please, don't leave me down here with this witch any longer. I'm afraid she'll attack me."

  "What a liar!" the peeve said.

  "You're the liar!" the other peeve said.

  "I can't tell you apart," Che said, looking baffled.

  Surprise paused to take stock. "What were you warning me of?" she asked the peeve. "The pit?"

  "No, the agreement. Now if Che chooses her, you've agreed. She can take the baby away."

  "But I wasn't agreeing to that!" Morgan said.

  "It's a standard device from Hell," the other peeve explained to its companion. "Get a person to make a blank agreement, then invoke it in a different way. It's a cheat, but it's valid. She can take your baby."

  "Can that be right?" Surprise asked Che, appalled.

  "Technically, yes," he said. "But of course I don't mean to give the baby to the wrong person."

  "That's a relief," Morgan said.

  "Bleep!" the peeve said. "She's got it down pat."

  Surprise realized it was true. Morgan had perfected the part. She had evidently planned for this, as a last ploy to get technical permission for her to take the baby. The peeve had known of the Hell technique, but Surprise of course had not. She had literally walked into it.

  Now she had to find some way to persuade Che that she was who she was. But how could she, when the Sorceress was mimicking her nature?

  "It seems we have a problem," Che said. "I do not want to make a random choice, because there is a fifty percent likelihood of it being mistaken. So I must question the two of you, and ascertain the truth by logic and analysis."

  "Of course, Che," Morgan said, exactly as Surprise had been about to.

  All she could do was agree. "I trust you, Che."

  "First I must ask you to differentiate yourselves," Che said from above. "So I can keep you distinct without confusion. Please, one of you remove your clothing."

  Surprise was appalled. "That is not proper," she protested.

  "It's against the Adult Conspiracy," Morgan said.

  "I realize that, but we are all adults."

  "My baby isn't," Morgan said.

  Che picked up the bassinet and moved it away from the brink of the pit. "Now there is no underage child present. Please cooperate. I need to be quite sure who provides which answers, even if you get entangled again."

  It did make sense. "Scissors, paper, rock?" Surprise asked the Sorceress.

  "Okay."

  They threw their hands out together. Surprise had Paper. Morgan had Rock.
>
  Morgan sighed exactly as Surprise would have. "I lost." She did not argue further, as Surprise would not have. She was exactly the good sport expected of the real Surprise. Reluctantly she pulled off her dirty clothing. Soon she stood naked. She had a good figure, of course, slender and full in the proper places.

  "Ooo-la-la!" her peeve chortled. "You'll freak him out, with your bare—"

  "Quiet!" Surprise snapped. Then wanted to bite her tongue. She was playing right into the scene.

  "Thank you," Che said. His eyes did seem to be somewhat sweaty, but his voice was steady. "Now I will address questions to you in turn. Please wait until I address you before answering."

  Both of them nodded. He had to do it his way. Surprise hoped that his elixir attraction to her form, now displayed so well by Morgan, did not distort his reasoning capacity.

  "Bare Surprise: when we abated our illicit passion so as to be able to return to our respective spouses, who felt the most guilt: you or me?"

  Surprise stifled a shocked intake of breath. This was one perceptive trick question! How could Morgan know that they had not indulged their passion? This would unmask her.

  Alas, not so. "We did not do so in any physical manner," Morgan replied. "Therefore there was no guilt to apportion." Somehow she had learned about that.

  "Thank you," Che said. "Clothed Surprise, what is your answer to that question?"

  "The same," Surprise said, knowing that it sounded as if she was merely copying the real Surprise. The Sorceress must have picked up on the fact that the two of them still had that passion, so had not abated it.

  Che gazed at them both, considering. Nude Morgan was breathing hard. Surprise wondered at that, as they were merely standing still on either side of the pit. Then she realized that it was deliberate: the Sorceress was attracting his attention, inciting him to desire her, so that his judgment would be clouded.

  "However," Morgan said, "I would do anything to recover my baby, even that. Take me out of here, give Prize to me, and I will share intense guilt with you."