"I have a son?"
"In my reality you married a mortal man, got half a soul and conscience, and after sending about fifteen hundred signals managed to get a stork to pay attention."
"My alternate did that? I'm sure I could have done it faster. She can't be very cogent."
"Very what?"
"Sound, solid, satisfactory, telling, convincing—"
"Persuasive?"
"Whatsoever," she agreed crossly. "Though it is true you storks have a canned ear for demon signals."
"A tin ear?" Stymie asked.
"Whatso—hey, you skipped my litany."
"Sorry about that," Stymie said without apparent regret. "I just want to get on with the search."
"For suitable prospects," Stymy reminded her.
Metria became a full stork, a sexy one. "I'm a prospect. Investigate me."
"Are you here to help or hinder?" Stymie demanded sharply.
"One or the other." The demoness spread her wings and took off.
"She annoys me," Stymie muttered.
"Understandable," Stymy said, privately pleased by her interest. He didn't care to admit that Metria in saucy stork form was quite interesting. It helped him understand why human men tended to have eyes for more women than they ever hoped to accommodate.
They flew to the next glade. There was a group of several pink vaguely storklike birds. "You check farther ahead," Stymy called. "I'll ask these if they have seen the children."
He descended. The birds were not only pink, their beaks were spoons. They were roseate spoonbills.
He landed and approached them. "Hello. I am Stymy Stork." Introductions were always better, first.
"We're sposeate roonbills," the nearest one replied. "We panstrose sinitial ounds."
Stymy digested that. After a long moment and a short instant he figured it out: they were transposing initial sounds. That was their talent, or curse. "So I gather."
"We dish we widn't," another spoonbill said.
Stymy remembered now: such switches were called spoonerisms. Naturally the spoon-beaked birds practiced them.
Still, maybe they could help. "Have you seen three lost children?"
The spoonbills considered. "Yes, we taw swo," one said. "In the fext nield."
Two? Maybe the third wasn't in sight at the moment. "Yank thew!" Stymy called as he took off. Oops.
The next field did have two children. But not the right ones. Unless the Sorceress had somehow changed their appearance. One was an athletic looking girl of about almost fourteen, holding the other, a boy of about almost one and a half.
He landed before them and got right to business. "Hello. I am Stymy Stork. Who are you?"
"A talking stork!" the girl said, amazed. The little boy clung to her more closely.
"Yes, storks can talk, when we need to. I'm looking for two ten-year-old children and a five-year-old girl. Their names are Ted, Monica, and Woe Betide."
The girl shook her head. "I am Sophia Isadora, an acrobat from—from—"
"Mundania," Stymy said, catching on. Sometimes folk came to Xanth involuntarily, and it was best not to inquire the details.
"Mundania," she agreed uncertainly. "This is Devin McClane Kowalick, also from there. We're hopelessly lost."
Stymy had to do something to help them, but had no time to spare. "Go to the next field. The spoonbills are nice birds; they will surely help you find your way to a human village. They talk oddly, but they mean well."
"Thank you," Sophia said politely. She took Devin's hand and led him toward the next field.
Stymy spread his wings and took off. He hoped there was a suitable human village nearby. It usually took involuntary visitors a while to get their bearings. But in time they would come to like Xanth, and even develop magic talents of their own.
They landed in the next glade, spying two figures there. But these were not the children. One was a lovely young woman with almost transparent skin. In fact she was translucent throughout, her body an appealing pink. Beside her was a similarly translucent man, gray throughout, looking surly.
"Hello, people," Stymy said. "I am Stymy Stork, and this is Stymie. We're looking for three lost children."
"You lost your deliveries!" the woman said sympathetically. "You poor things."
"No no," Stymy said quickly. "These are three older children, ages ten, ten, and five. Have you seen them?"
"Not at all, I'm sorry to say," the woman said. "I am Rose Quartz. My talent is to soothe troubled hearts. I can't help you find your children, but I can ease your heartache about the loss. All I need to do is embrace you."
"The bleep you will," the man said hotly. "You're entirely too friendly with strangers."
"It's my nature," Rose said. Then, to the storks: "This is my boyfriend Smoky Quartz. He's constantly heated up about something. That's his nature."
The third stork fuzzed into smoke, then reformed as a luscious translucent blue human woman. She approached Smoky. "Well hello, hot, hard, and handsome. I'm Crystalline Quarts, and—"
"Crystalline what?" Smoky asked.
"Milky, Brown, Yellow, Citrine, Amethyst—"
"Quartz," Rose said, her color deepening almost to red.
"Whatever," the demoness agreed crossly. "Lets go and make beautiful inclusions together, Smoky."
"Do that, and I'll bash you into rock crystal," Rose said, not at all soothing at the moment.
"Now don't get fractured, Quartzite," Smoky said, backing away from the demoness. He had evidently caught on to what was real and what wasn't. The two translucents moved away.
"If that's the way you're going to help us search, we don't need it," Stymie said severely.
Crystalline morphed back into stork form. "I just couldn't resist. It's my nature. When I saw how hot and smoky he was I just had to have a piece of him."
Another cloud of smoke appeared. "A peace of what?" it demanded.
What was this? Stymy knew it couldn't be Metria, because here she was in stork form. "How do you spell that?" he asked the cloud.
"T H A T, of course," the cloud responded.
"I mean the other word you used."
"W H A T," the cloud replied.
"Could it be PIECE?" Stymie asked.
"Whatsoever," the cloud agreed irritably as it formed into a fourth stork. That stork eyed Stymy speculatively, fluffing out her wings in an appealing manner.
"What are you doing here, Mentia?" Metria asked.
"Something interesting was happening, so naturally I came to sea what was up."
"To do what?" Stymy asked before he thought.
"See." Stymie said impatiently.
"Whatsoever," the Demoness Mentia agreed irritably.
"This is the Demoness Mentia, my altar ego," Metria said.
"Your what ego?" Stymy asked.
"Mound, platform, structure, edifice, sacrificial stand—"
"Alter, as in change," Stymie snapped, her beak clicking sharply. "And we are Stymy and Stymie Stork, searching for lost children."
"So pleased to meat you," Mentia said, stepping closer to Stymy.
"To what me?" Stymy asked, unable to curb his tongue in time. "I mean, how is that M-word spelled?"
"Spelled M E E T," Stymie said.
"Whatsoever," Mentia agreed irritably.
"Now that's interesting," Stymy said. "In my reality, Mentia is a little crazy, but doesn't garble words."
"Some folk call her synonym and me homonym," Mentia said. She now stood quite close to Stymy.
"We both garble words," Metria agreed, stepping closer herself. "Only in slightly different ways."
"But if you are alter egos, how can you exist apart?" Stymy asked.
"We fusion," Metria said.
"You mean fishing," Mentia said.
"Fission," Stymie said crossly and irritably. "Why don't you two egos get back together and help us find those children?"
"Maybe we should," Mentia agreed.
The two storks marched tow
ard each other, collided, and fused into one stork. "Now I am hole," she said. "I mean holo."
"Whole," Stymie said. "But still half-reared."
The stork exploded into smoke, which swirled around and formed back into two storks. "We fragment," one said.
"We're too internally conflicted," the other agreed.
Stymy realized that two additional searchers were probably better than one. "Let's look for the children."
They took wing again. Two things occurred to Stymy: one was that if they checked only the glades, they could miss children lost in the forest sections. The other was that Stymie had reacted much as Rose had, when a demoness came too winsomely close to him. Was she jealous of the attention other females paid him? He hoped so.
"It occurs to me that we need to check the forest too," he said. "The children could be caught there."
"What a grate idea," Mentia said. "I'll go into the deep dark forest with you."
Once again he couldn't stop his tongue in time, despite knowing he was playing her game. "What kind of idea?"
"G R E A T," Stymie called. "Great."
"I'm glad you agree," Mentia said smugly. "Stymy and I will check the forest."
Stymie looked as if she had swallowed a stinkworm. But she had inadvertently agreed, so had to let them do it.
They flew down into a thinnet, which was of course a thinned thicket. "I had better stay quite close to you," Mentia said, "to protect you from the frights of the forest." She suited action to word, her silky left wing touching his right wing.
Did she really want to help find the children? She was probably just as mischievous as Metria, being of the same substance, as it were. "No need," he said gruffly. "I can take care of myself."
"Really?"
What was with her? "Really."
She stepped in front of him, spread her wings and enfolded him before he could react. "Stay still as a steak."
Stymy froze, mainly because he had no idea what else to do. He had never before encountered romantic aggression like this. It was not entirely objectionable; she was a very soft and pretty stork, even if he knew she was really a demoness. "As a what? Spelled how?"
"It's a big stiff pole," she said, keeping him closely clasped. Her embrace was so tight that his feet were off the ground. In fact he was floating.
"S T A K E," he spelled uneasily. "Now if you will kindly let me go—"
"Not yet," she murmured. "We're not threw yet."
That was what he was afraid of. But he seemed to have no fair way out. "Not what-spelling yet?"
"Finished. Done. Ended." She let him go and stepped back.
"T H R O U G H," he spelled as her feet landed back on the ground. Then he looked around, surprised. "What did you do?"
"What did I dew?"
"D O! We aren't where we were."
"Oh, that. I moved you to safety before the B's could sting you to death."
"B apostrophe S?" That didn't make sense, what else was there? She must have used the correct word.
"That weigh," she said, pointing with a wing.
"W A Y," he agreed, looking. "But that's a monstrous hive in the shape of a ship! It must have thousands of B's."
"Exactly. You were about to walk into it. That would have annoyed the scholars something awful. I had to get you away from it before they noticed."
"Scholars?" He couldn't think of a homonym, but it didn't seem to make sense as it stood.
"That's an Ark-hive," she explained patiently. "Where scholarly B's research new types of honey and sting-venom. One of several arks. They don't like to be disturbed."
Stymy thought about blundering into such an ark. Indeed, he would have gotten badly stung. But Mentia had intercepted him and floated him to safety before the B's noticed. "You're right," he admitted. "I do need your protection."
"I garble words, not dangers," she said, satisfied.
They resumed their search, avoiding the hives. Only to be intercepted by several green toothy reptiles in vests. They looked like allegories or allegations or worse. "We'd better flee," he whispered.
"Flea? There are no fleas on me."
She had trouble both ways with homonyms. "F L E E," he said urgently. "Before those monsters chomp us."
"Oh, those aren't dangerous," she said. "They're invest-i-gators. All we have to do is answer their questions."
The lead gator approached. "Inspector Al here," he said, flashing a badge. "What's this about a blundering bird being stung to death?"
"I caught him before he struck the ark," Mentia said. "So he escaped."
The gator made a note on a pad. "Very good, citizen. We don't like a ruckus." The gators departed.
Soon they encountered another young woman. "Do you birds need a memory repressed?" she inquired. "I am Summer; my talent is to repress a single memory in someone."
"No thank you," Stymy said. "We are looking for three lost children."
"Sorry; I haven't seen them," Summer said, and went on.
Belatedly, he wondered whether Summer's talent ever bounced back at her. Could she have seen the children and repressed the memory? Probably not, he hoped.
"I don't want to be negative," Mentia said. "But I don't think the children are in this area. No one has seen them."
"Let's ask one more person," Stymy said, suspecting she was right.
They saw a man resting by a tree. Stymy introduced himself, and asked.
The man shook his head. "I've been here all day, and not seen them. I'm Scott; I can dematerialize atoms. But then they get upset and fuss, and revert the moment I stop concentrating. It's a nuisance. I'd trade for your problem."
Stymy tried to think of some way Scott's talent could help them find the children, but couldn't. "Thank you."
"Let's keep looking," Mentia said encouragingly.
They quested through the forest, but found no children. "We had better rejoin the others," Stymy said.
They found an avenue to the sky and flew up. In two and a half moments they found the others.
"And what did you accomplish down there?" Metria inquired with a wry twist to her beak.
"We flu around, but found no children," Mentia said. "We saw a gate or ark, nothing else."
"F L E W," Stymy spelled. "G A T O R."
Neither Metria nor Stymie seemed to believe that, but didn't make an issue.
The day was fading. "No children here," Metria concluded. "We'd better be on our ponderosity."
"Your what?" Stymy asked.
"Way," Mentia said, getting the wrong word almost right.
The two storks did not fly away. They simply dissolved into smoke. "So how long did it take to seduce him?" one asked the other.
"No thyme at awl," the other responded. They faded out, leaving nothing behind but Stymie's glare.
What could he say that she would believe?
But she rescued him. "Those demonesses never tell the truth, they just make mischief. So I know she didn't get anywhere with you."
"Nowhere," he agreed, relieved.
"Let's make a bower."
He stared at her. "But we hardly know each other."
"I think we do. Well enough." She clicked his beak again. "Soon you will depart and I'll never see you again. So anything we do together must be done now."
Stymy was beyond resistance. No real female had ever liked him, let alone offered to make a bower with him. She had offered to help him search for the children, so that the lost time would be made up, and had done so. She had shown real interest in him. She understood what it was like to be a virtual outcast among storks. He liked her more than he would have imagined before this day. How could he refuse?
"I suppose we do have time, this one time," he said, wishing that this didn't have to be the end of it.
"And I will keep your secret mission secret forever," she reminded him. "I hope your side wins. I wish I could have helped more."
"You helped a great deal. I'm sorry the demonesses got in the way."
"
It's their nature." They laughed together, understanding perfectly.
They made a bower together. Then they entered it and sent the signal that Summoned the Man.
10
Peeved Dreams
The peeve flew to its sector, determined to find the children if they were there. It wasn't that it really liked the children; it didn't like anyone or anything. But they got along well enough, with their shared propensity for mischief. Mainly it was that Grundy and Rapunzel Golem provided the peeve a good home, which was a considerable improvement on its residence in Hell, as it had told Surprise, and it didn't want that messed up. So it would do its best.
And the baby Prize liked the peeve. That infused the peeve with a weirdly unfamiliar and sloppy emotion that for want of a better explanation suggested that the peeve liked the baby back. Nothing like that had ever happened before. No emotion other than irritation had ever motivated the peeve before. Oh, there was the guarded mutual respect it shared with a few, such as the Gorgon, Hannah Barbarian, and Grundy Golem, but this wasn't the same. It would take some getting used to, but there it was. If Surprise lost the baby, there would be nothing. Now that the peeve had discovered that tiny bit of like, it didn't want to lose it.
The peeve flew down to the edge of its search territory. It expected to do an efficient job, crisscrossing the land in a lattice pattern so that nothing would escape its notice. If the children were here, the peeve would find them.
Almost immediately it spied a doll-like girl walking nervously along a forest trail. She wasn't one of the children, but maybe she had seen them. "Hey, dollface, have you seen three children around here?"
The girl paused in place, standing in her own tracks, which was what folk normally did. She was extremely well formed, as dolls could be, with a large bosom, small waist, and long legs. "A talking bird!"
"A talking doll!" the peeve mimicked. "Are you too stupid to answer my question?"
For some reason the girl frowned. "You've got a foul beak on you, bird."
"Thank you. You've got an overstuffed shirt on you, and not enough stuffing in your skull. Now are you going to answer, or is that beyond your meager powers of focus?"
She frowned worse. "Who are you, bird?"