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 funny 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.”
“Including how we'll find the philter?”
“You will never find the philter.”
“And you will never tell the truth about that,” he retorted.
She shrugged. “We shall see.”
The train pulled into another station. “This is where you get out,” Hanna said.
“Suppose we prefer to ride on to another station?”
“You can't. This is the end of the line. You can proceed farther only on the ship of thought.”
Gary looked at Gayle, and shrugged. The illusions would be whatever the philter decided they were. And if there were another station, that would probably just be another variant of the same city. “So we'll search in Stone Hence,” he agreed grudgingly.
They left the train. The future city spread out around them and towered above them impressively. At the street level there were many fancy shops with lighted displays.
Was the philter likely to be in any of them?
He had a bright idea. “Let's see if there are any plumbing shops here,” he said to Gayle.
As they looked down the street, they saw an especially bright store with a marquee: PLUMBING GALORE. That was almost too convenient, but still worth checking.
Inside the store were many weird objects. They seemed to relate to water, but their purposes were unclear. “What is this?” Gary asked.
“That's a flush toilet,” Hanna said.
“What does it flush?”
She said a dirty word.
After a moment, he realized that the answer had been literal. That was what it flushed. Embarrassed, he went on.
They spied a kind of enameled basin with an impossible array of things jammed in it. “What is that?”
“The kitchen sink. Everything is in it except itself.”
“What does this shop have in the way of water filters?” he asked, wondering how she would react. Was it possible by some devious rule of mad magic that she would have to show him what he asked for?
She showed him a collection of little meshes and screens. There were hundreds of them. One of these might be the philter—but how would they know it from all the others? And if they spotted the real one, how would they handle it? A demon could not be held in the hand; it would simply fade out and appear elsewhere.
The more he thought about it, the more hopeless his quest seemed. How had the Good Magician expected him to capture a demon?
“You look as if you are realizing that your quest is hopeless,” Hanna said smugly.
Then he remembered: she could read his thoughts.
That's where she had gotten the image of Hannah Barbarian from. So even if he got a good notion where the philter was, she would know it as soon as he did, and would do something to prevent him from following up.
“You are catching on,” Hanna murmured appreciatively.
He sighed. He turned to Gayle. “She knows what I'm thinking. That means the philter knows. So I don't have a chance to surprise it, and if I get close to it, it can move or divert me before I catch it. I don't know what to do.”
“But can it read my thoughts?” Gayle asked.
“Of course I can,” Hanna said.
“Then what am I thinking now?”
“Why should I tell you what you already know?”
“Because I don't think you can read stone thoughts,” Gayle said evenly. “You can get into Gary's fleshly head, but my soul and thoughts are secure from you. Prove it isn't so.”
Hanna scowled. That was answer enough.
“Then you take the lead,” Gary said, relieved. “And if you locate the philter, grab it with stone.”
Gayle smiled, showing formidable teeth. “I shall. I think I owe it a reckoning.”
“You're fooling yourself,” Hanna said. “I call your bluff: find the philter. I'll guide you anywhere you ask.”
“Let's take that spaceship building,” Gayle said. “I would like to see Alpha Centauria.”
“As you wish.” Hanna led them from the shop and to the spaceport. Another ship was waiting there.
They took an odd moving stairway up to a door that opened in the side of the ship. Gary was bemused; this just wasn't his idea of a ship, as it had no sails and was standing on its tail end. But he had seen the other one flee from the fire at its tail, so it evidently had strong magic propulsion.
“What kind of stair is this?” Gayle asked as she balanced somewhat nervously on forepaws and hindpaws.
“It is called an escape-later,” Hanna said. “Escalator for short. Because it takes more time to get in and out of the ship with it, but is more convenient.”
“More convenient than what?” Gary asked.
“Than jumping.”
She had a point. It was now a long way down.
Hanna entered the ship, and Gary was about to follow, when there was a noise behind. He turned, startled, and saw Gayle catching at the steps. The esk-later seemed to have lost a step or two, putting her in peril of falling.
Quickly he reached out, catching her by a stone wingtip as her hind feet broke through the stairway. He hauled her in—but her stone weight was much greater than his, and he succeeded only in jerking himself toward her.
“Let go!” she cried. “You'll just hurt yourself too!”
“Not without you,” he said. He caught the rail with his free hand and hung on desperately.
Gayle scrambled with all four feet, precariously balanced, but in a moment his pull on her wing enabled her to get more of a grip and haul herself up to secure footing.
“That escalator is intended for human use,” Hanna said. “Your great weight must have overstressed it.” She did not seem unduly alarmed.
“I must be more careful,” Gayle said, somewhat shaken.
Gary was shaken too. A fall from this height could have shattered her into a dozen pieces.
The interior of the ship was fairly nice. There were a number of small compartments, and special seats with harnesses. “These are acceleration couches,” Hanna explained. “You must strap yourselves in.”
“But they don't fit me,” Gayle protested.
“That may be a problem,” Hanna agreed. “Maybe you will be all right on the deck.”
Gary strapped in, and Gayle crouched down. “Now the acceleration will be strong at first, but will ease once the ship attains escape velocity,” Hanna said. “Just hang on until it passes.” She faded out.
The ship shuddered. Then Gary felt a huge invisible hand press him down so heavily that it was hard to breathe. He gasped and clenched his muscles, fighting to maintain consciousness. Somehow it seemed that the pressure was not merely down but out, as if something wanted to dump him out the window. But he managed to realign, internally, and shore up his constitution. His flesh might be human for the nonce, but his nature was gargoyle, and there was stone in his personality as well as his natural body.
After what probably was not as long as it seemed, the pressure eased, and he was able to function normally again. There was still pressure there, making him weigh perhaps twice what he normally did, but he could handle that readily enough. He looked down—and Gayle was gone.
Alarmed, he looked all around. He saw claw scrape marks on the floor. They streaked back to the rear of the compartment, where the access hole was. And there was Gayle, her teeth locked around the leg of a couch.
Gary remembered how he had felt the push toward the window. The same force seemed to have affected Gayle.
But she had been near the hole rather than the window.
Had she slid into the hole, she would have taken a fall with the full power of the downward pressure. That would have been worse than the fall from the esk-later.
He unbuckled himself and went to her, treading slowly and heavily. “I never thought the force would be so strong,” he said.
“Neither did I,” Gayle said, after prying her teeth from the leg. She, too, could handle this reduced level. “I was lucky to save myself.”
Gary looked out the window. Stars, planets, and comets were whizzing by. “We must be traveling very fast,” he said.
“And going very far,” she agreed.
“Where is Hanna?”
“She must be seeing to one of the other pairs.”
“So we're on autopilot now.”
“We must be. See, there's a repetitive quality to those stars out there.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “So maybe we have to talk, while she figures we'll be busy with the extra weight. She probably doesn't realize how tough gargoyles are.”
“Talk?”
“I don't think those accidents you have had are coincidental. This is mostly illusion, remember. How can we fall, if we aren't really high up? So why should that esklater give way under your weight, if it's just a semblance? Weight can't crush an illusion.”
“I didn't think of that,” Gayle said. “And the way I slid to the hole—yet how could a fall hurt, if it's illusion?”
“But it could hurt—if the illusion covers a real pit. I saw Iris dispatch a monster by using illusion to trick it into running into a chasm. Since the philter controls these special illusions, those problems must have been intentional.”
“So there really is a pit,” she said. “I reacted when I seemed to be falling, but I also realized that it wasn't fully real. Now I'm suspicious that it is.” She moved to the access hole in the floor and put a paw in. “There's a void here, all right.” She considered half a moment. “But we knew there was a hole here, because we used it to enter this chamber. What about the way the esk-later started to collapse under my weight? You had gone right over the same place.”
“Maybe in the real world, there's a pit there, covered by light boards. They supported my weight, but not yours.”
She nodded. “I believe you are right. She wouldn't have led us over that spot just by chance. But why would the philter want to get rid of me, and not you?”
“Because it can't get your soul or read your mind. You are of no benefit to it, and may be a danger to it, now that you're looking for it instead of purifying water.”
She nodded again. “You are very smart, Gary. But I have to say that I don't know anything about the philter that might help you find it or control it. I never even saw it in all my time in Hinge.”
“But it's pretty smart You must know something or be able to do something that makes you dangerous to it. So even if we don't actually find it here, we have learned something important to the quest.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed dubiously. “I shall walk very carefully from now on. I hadn't realized how dangerous illusions could be.”
“I have noticed another thing,” he said. “This is supposed to be the future, with all manner of wondrous things, but we really haven't seen a lot. Just some fancy buildings, a plumbing shop, and this spaceship, which is pretty much like a bedroom chamber. Surely there must be more than this.”
“Not if it is limited to the imagination of the philter. It must have drawn notions from your mind about what you thought the future would be like, and animated them.
Maybe some notions are from the minds of your companions. So it's just a show to divert you for a while.”
“A diversion,” he said thoughtfully. “Yes. The philter doesn't want us to find it, so it is diverting us. I think we won't find it on the centaur world, or any of the others.”
“But it is concerned about something I might do,” she said. “I wish I knew what.”
“Just keep yourself safe until we find out,” he said.
?
??Also—”
“Also?”
But Gary was suddenly shy. He couldn't say what was on his mind. But perhaps she suspected.
They returned to their original places and relaxed, waiting for the illusion to get off autopilot. It was comfortable just being quietly together.
Iris watched Gary Gargoyle go. The poor creature was so eager to be with the female gargoyle it was pitiful.
But perhaps Gayle would help him, and they would learn something useful. Meanwhile Iris intended to make a serious search, and try to wrap up this mission efficiently.
Because she knew how dangerous it could be to remain in the Region of Madness any longer than they had to.
If she could just decide where to look for the demon philter! That was the problem. She knew that this was all illusion, much of it hers and much of it the demon's. She could abolish her own illusion if she chose, but preferred to maintain it until their mission here was done. She could recognize the philter's illusion, and penetrate it by stepping into it, but she couldn't abolish it. But would the philter cover its location with concealing illusion—or have no illusion there, to fool her? She didn't know. Consequently she didn't know where to start. About all she was sure of was that the illusion wasn't lying out in plain sight, because they had done a fair job of checking through the ruins before any illusion was added, and there just hadn't been anything special there. She was sure of that, because of her ability to recognize illusion, whether hers or the demon's. There had been no illusion in the ruins of Hinge until she started it.
Then she reconsidered. The gargoyle's pool—they had seen it, and drunk from its clean water, without being aware of Gayle Goyle on the island in the center. The philter must have concealed it. But how, if not with illusion?
Maybe in the demon manner that Mentia had shown, forming a screen around the island. That would not have been illusion, but a thin veil of demon substance masking it. So she could have been fooled by that. The philter hadn't wanted them to know about the gargoyle, though Gayle seemed innocent enough.
“Where are we going. Mother Iris?” Surprise asked brightly. The child had had a good nap, which had been a real relief to the rest of them, and now was ready for action. Iris had long since accepted her designation as mother, because that was the role assigned in the replay of the past, and because she had raised a daughter of her own and remembered the ropes. It was halfway pleasant revisiting the role, and Surprise was a sweet child, apart from her wild power. That wildness had faded, once they realized the limit of her power. Surprise was not a phenomenally powerful Sorceress, but rather a limited temporary Sorceress who would in time be less. The rules of personal talents had not been broken, though they had been stretched somewhat.