"We trust your discretion," Nada said. "And hope that you can do this for us, and we can find the children for you."
"Yes, of course. It's a fair bargain." Surprise hesitated. "I hope you aren't guilty of murder or something. I don't know how that could be absolved."
"Not murder," Dolph said. "Not exactly."
"Now dear," Nada said. "You know it wasn't that."
"My conscience doesn't," he said uncomfortably.
"In any event, the Rock does not absolve the guilt as such," Nada said. "It corrects it, allowing you to change it, so you have no further cause for guilt. It's a very strong spell."
Surprise nodded, appreciating that. The Rock seemed to offer some kind of absolution, though she still wasn't sure exactly how it worked. "I'll try. Please tell me what your guilt is, so I can tell the stone."
Nada shook her head. "We don't care to speak it here in the castle. The walls have ears." She turned suddenly and smacked an ear that had quietly sprouted from the wall behind her. It reddened and shrank.
"And eyes," Dolph said, flicking a bit of grit into an eye just opening in the wall beside him. The eye blinked and watered, but couldn't dislodge the grit and had to fade out.
"But the Guilt Trip Path is private," Nada said, bringing out a small bottle. "Are we ready?"
"I am, I think," Surprise said, marginally bemused.
Nada opened the bottle. "Guilt, we invoke you," she intoned. "Take us on the Trip."
Vapor issued from the bottle. It curled up, spreading. It formed a pattern against the wall that had recently sported the ear and eye. Now that wall had a nose. The nose sniffed the vapor, sneezed, and blew itself back into the wall.
The pattern shaped into a picture drawn on the wall. It showed a path meandering through a pleasant meadow. It looked almost real; flowers were scattered across it, and several puffy clouds floated above it. The vapor was a good artist.
"I'll lead," Dolph said. He stepped into the wall—and through it, following the path.
"Do you care to go next?" Nada asked Surprise.
Surprise hauled her lower jaw back up into place. "Yes." She stepped into the wall where Dolph had, bracing herself for a crash.
There was none. She found herself on the path in the meadow. Now she smelled the flowers.
She looked back. There was a square outline behind her, where the wall had been, and inside it stood Nada Naga-Human. She waved, smiling. Taken aback, Surprise returned the wave. The vapor had really made a portal to another scene. Magic could still surprise (no pun) her on occasion.
Nada stepped forward, joining them on this side of the frame. Then she turned, reached up, and drew down a curtain across it. The curtain showed the meadow scene on the near side, and surely the wall on the other side, concealing the access. Such a bottle of vapor would be very very nice for folk shut up indoors, offering a private escape.
But where was the guilt?
"You will see," Dolph said. "The Guilt Trip does not let you walk silently. You have to reveal your greatest guilt." He walked on.
Surprise followed, wondering. Why should anyone volunteer to talk about what he was ashamed of?
"You will see," Nada repeated, answering her thought.
The path wound through the meadow and around a low hill. There was a nice brook chuckling along. "I always loved Nada Naga," Dolph said. "Ever since I met her as a child. I was required to betroth her, for the sake of a human/naga alliance, but she quickly won my heart, even before she blossomed into the most beautiful woman in Xanth."
Surprise found nothing odd or guilty here. Nada was the loveliest creature in human female form in Xanth. How could he fail to love her? Men were notorious for being swayed by appearances. Women, fortunately, had more sense; that was why they ran things, while letting the men believe that males governed. Why ruin a good thing?
"But I also got betrothed by the girl from the past, Electra," Dolph continued. "She was under an enchantment, and had to marry me by the time she turned eighteen, or die. She loved me, but I didn't love her. She was plain, and not a princess, and her magic talent was modest. She could not compare to Nada the Naga princess."
"No one could," Surprise said.
"Oh, any demoness could, if she chose," Nada said.
"But demons lack souls," Surprise said. "So they aren't suitable. It's all appearance, with them."
"Not necessarily." But Nada did not clarify.
"And so when it came time for me to marry," Dolph said, "I had to choose between the two: the one I loved, or the one who loved me. I was selfish and chose the lovely princess. Thus Nada is my queen, and I still love her and find no fault in her."
"That seems reasonable," Surprise said.
"But I find fault in me," he continued inexorably. "Because she did not love me, and I knew that; she had to take the love elixir. I was fifteen, she twenty; she would not ordinarily have loved or married a younger man. A boy, really. I knew nothing of stork-signaling; she taught me that. She guided me in governance too; I have been a better king because of her."
Surprise was perplexed. "Then where is the guilt?"
"Two things: I took her against her will. She had to agree, to safeguard the liaison between our species, which the naga folk desperately needed. So she took the elixir, but I shouldn't have made her do it."
"Yet if she is happy now—"
"But she might be happier without me," he said. "She has benefited me, but I have not necessarily benefited her. If I had it to do over, I would steel myself to let her go. After all, I could have taken the love elixir with another woman, and been satisfied."
Surprise glanced back at Nada, but the naga princess was silent, her face impassive. "What is the other thing?"
The king winced. "Electra loved me and would gladly have married me without the elixir. She was enchanted to love me at the outset, when I woke her from her long sleep, but that was replaced in time by real love as she came to know me. She also was cursed to die if she did not marry me by her eighteenth birthday. I thought that was at least partly psychological, and that she would survive and find a life elsewhere. When I chose to marry Nada, Electra made no complaint. She said she was happy that I was happy and had a good wife. Then she died."
Dolph stopped speaking abruptly. He stood shaking with the force of his manifest guilt. Nada stepped forward and put her arms about him comfortingly. "You didn't know, dear. It wasn't really your fault."
"I should have married her!" he said. "I should have been unselfish. It would have worked out some way. It would have been better for both of you."
Surprise did not comment. In her reality Dolph had married Electra, and it had worked out very well. She had become the first Xanth princess in blue jeans, and her plainness had somehow blossomed into a certain competent appeal. She had been friendly with everyone, and was widely admired. They had two bright, attractive, Sorceress daughters, Dawn and Eve. So Surprise could not say that Dolph had not made a mistake in this reality. His choice had cost a worthy girl's life. He did have guilt.
Nada moved ahead. "I too have two aspects of guilt," she said. "First, that I deceived Prince Dolph by pretending to be eight years old when he was nine, when I was really fourteen. By the time he learned the truth, he loved me. I should never have done that."
"You were required to," Dolph said. "Your family made you do it, because they needed you to marry a human prince."
"It was still wrong. Maybe if I had let you know my real age, and you handled it and loved me, then it would have been all right. But I should never have deceived you for political reason."
"It was a shock when I learned," Dolph said. "But I did accept it, and loved you ever since. So it was no continuing deception, and you never deceived me since."
"Still it was wrong, and I bear the guilt." Nada paused, evidently marshaling her courage, then continued. "But the larger guilt is elsewhere. There was a demon who was interested in me, D. Vore. He was eligible, being a prince; I could have married him an
d had an alliance for my people with the demons. That would have accomplished my parents' purpose. But I was fixed on the human connection, and thought it would be more advantageous to marry a human prince. In fact—" she paused again, flushing slightly. "I thought that it would be easier for me to control a young human than a mature demon. I liked the notion of queenly power. So I chose the human, knowing he would choose me if I did not dissuade him. It was my decision."
"Yet it worked out," Surprise said. "You have been a good and supportive wife to him."
"Demon Vore's passion for me was greater than I judged," she continued as inexorably as Dolph had before. The guilt path was driving her. "When he saw that he had lost me, he swelled into a huge mushroom-shaped cloud and faded into the wind. He had returned to the earth that spawned him. In fact he was dead." She stopped, verbally and physically, as Dolph had before, in tears. "I killed him with my indifference."
"You couldn't know," Dolph said comfortingly.
"Yet if I had it to do over, knowing what I know now, that you could have made it with Electra and I with Vore, I would marry him. That would save two lives."
Surprise could see her point. Each had done the selfish thing, and bore the continuing guilt of it. They had a good life together, yet were haunted by what might have been.
"And that is our respective guilt," Dolph said.
Surprise was perplexed. "You have expressed it well. Isn't that all you need to do to complete the guilt trip?"
Both shook their heads. "We have not expressed the last vestige of our guilts," Nada said. "We have been unable to make ourselves reveal our final secrets. So we are unable to complete the trip. But you seem to have little if any guilt, as I noted before. You can achieve the end, and touch the guilt stone for us."
"Maybe I can," Surprise agreed. "But I remain confused about a detail. Just what does the stone do? Does it simply make you feel better?"
"No," Dolph said. "It fixes the guilt."
Nada had said something of the sort before. Surprise still couldn't make much sense of it. "But if the other people are dead, how can it ever be fixed?"
"It is retroactive," Nada said. "It changes spot history. It leaves nothing to be guilty about."
Surprise was amazed. "Retroactive! That is powerful magic! Are you sure it is wise?"
"We can't live with our continuing guilt," Dolph said. "We regret changing history for others besides ourselves, but the main folk affected are the two who will have their lives restored. We believe that is best."
Surprise had to agree, especially because she knew how well both marriages had worked out in her own reality. Yet she had one more question. "You love each other and are good for each other. Won't this break you up?"
"Yes," Dolph agreed. "I hate that."
"I fear for his welfare without my guidance," Nada said.
"I love you, dear," Dolph said.
"I love you, dear," Nada echoed.
They embraced and kissed. They made a truly lovely couple, the handsome king and the lovely queen.
Surprise remained uncertain. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yes," both said together.
"Our love is suspect," Nada explained. "We harmed others to achieve it."
"We don't deserve it," Dolph said.
They kissed again. Little hearts circled them.
Surprise shrugged. They were in evident agreement, so it was not her place to argue further. "Then I will try."
She forged ahead along the guilt path. But now her own guilts beset her, and she had to speak them aloud; the path compelled it. "I was imperious as a child, thinking I could do anything. I flaunted my talents, embarrassing other children. I was hard to handle; they had to bring in a gargoyle to tutor me. When I discovered that I could use each talent only once, I was crestfallen, and for a time I was afraid to use any talent. I should have realized that character counts more than magic, and for that willful ignorance I still bear guilt."
"But didn't you mature, in character?" Nada asked.
"Yes, and I hope I am a better person now for that effort. But the early guilt remains."
"I intend no offense," King Dolph said. "But as guilt goes, that's trifling. Every child is imperious, and has to learn better. I did. You were normal, apart from your remarkable talent."
Surprise forged on along the path, talking compulsively as she did. "Then I forgot to get my record at the Stork Works corrected, so the stork thought I was only thirteen, and took my baby elsewhere. Now I am here in this reality, complicating things, trying to correct that mistake. In the process I waded through love elixir with Che Centaur, and now we have an illicit passion for each other."
"Why not enjoy it?" Nada asked. "Such artificial passion doesn't last long when indulged freely, unless the person wants it to, as I did with Dolph."
"That isn't proper, in my reality," Surprise said uncomfortably.
"But if you don't use it up, it will last forever," Dolph said. "If you really don't want it, the sensible thing to do is to have a wild affair, for the brief time it lasts."
"Have you done that?" Surprise demanded.
Nada laughed. "Of course he has. We both have. Once I slipped some love elixir into his water when he was setting out on a tour of the kingdom, and made a pretext to stay behind. It was hilarious."
Surprise did not trust herself to speak. She kept being surprised by the differences between realities.
"When I drank that water," Dolph said, "the first female I saw was an old ogress of the classic description: her face looked like a bowl of overcooked mush that someone had sat on. But there was no help for it. I assumed the form of an uglier ogre and had at her. She bashed me in the snoot a few times, but I would not be denied. And do you know, she was the best lover I ever encountered. She said so was I; that's the way ogres do it, you know."
"I nearly passed out, laughing, when he told me about it," Nada said.
"But I got Nada back," Dolph said. "I put elixir in her drink when she went to negotiate with a goblin chief for a new boundary between the naga and goblin territories. The naga hate the goblins, you know. That messed it up awfully, because they were able to set no boundaries."
"We still hate goblins," Nada said. "But sometimes I arrange a tryst with that one chief, by that fuzzy line, for old times' sake. He's a wonderful brute, and he can't keep his hands or anything else off me. A woman likes to be appreciated."
Surprise spoke very carefully to mask her utter shock. "We don't do it that way in my reality."
"Just one partner?" Dolph asked doubtfully.
"It must be dull," Nada said sympathetically.
"Just one," Surprise agreed grimly. "So my passion for Che Centaur is illicit and inspires guilt."
Dolph and Nada exchanged a glance, as of how to handle a person with a truly unreasonable fixation. "Of course, dear," Nada said. "That's the way it is, for you."
"Even if no one died," Dolph agreed.
Surprise forged on, her feelings mixed. She had revealed her greatest current guilt, and learned that it was not even a blip on the screen in this reality. She wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed.
She came to the end of the path. There was the great Punk Rock, in the shape of a punkin. She looked back and saw that neither Dolph nor Nada had been able to make it to the end. Their remaining unexpressed guilt held them back.
Surprise stood beside the stone. Now what?
"Invoke it!" Dolph called.
"Tap it with a finger," Nada added. "And name us both."
Surprise reached for the Rock. It made a nerve-jangling sound, warning her off. It did indeed have a bad attitude. But she nerved herself and tapped it. "King Dolph Human. Queen Nada Naga-Human."
Something like a spark jumped to her finger and coursed up her arm all the way to her mouth. Awful sour music sounded, making her body twitch with distaste. The Punk Rock was possessing her, exploring her body and mind, verifying that she had indeed come to it properly, having revealed her own guilt
s. Grudgingly, it told her what to do next.
She faced the two, who remained back, pain showing on their faces. Royal pain. "Dolph, come forward," she called. "Reveal your final guilt."
"I can't," he said.
The nastiness of the Rock pushed her. "You will." She pointed to the path behind him. It caught fire, scorching the foliage on either side. Surprise wasn't sure whether this was magic from the stone, or her own that it required her to employ. The fire advanced, forcing the king to come toward the stone lest he be burned.
As he advanced, he spoke. "When I remember Electra, and how she was, I think she might have been a better wife for me than Nada." He was flushing with shame for his betrayal of his wife as he reached the stone at last.
"Oh Dolph, you could have told me," Nada said. "I would have forgiven you. I know I'm not perfect."
Surprise kept a straight face. That was his most secret shame? That he had some bit of doubt about his wife? Surprise knew that there were many men who might have been better for her in one way or another than Umlaut, but it didn't bother her. She had married him, and was loyal to him; what might have been didn't matter. It was physical unfaithfulness that mattered.
She spoke again, her voice coarsely musical. That was the effect of the Punk Rock. "Nada, come forward. Reveal your final guilt."
Nada tried, but her feet didn't seem to want to move. Surprise pointed to the path behind her, and a wisp of smoke curled up. Was she using a different spell this time, per her limit? Nada hastily moved.
"Demon Vore was older than I am, by thousands of years," she said. "When I remember him, I think I could have had an older man, instead of a boy." She blushed furiously.
"Of course I was a boy," Dolph said. "You made a man of me. I bless you for it."
Nada made it the rest of the way to the stone. "Oh Dolph, we've done it," she said. "We have spoken our betrayals of each other. Now at last we can clear our guilts."
"Now at last," Dolph agreed. "I love you, Nada. I think I always will."
"We can still have trysts," she said.
"That will be great." They kissed.
Again, Surprise withheld her reaction. These two people, so completely in love, expected to break up their marriage retroactively, so that it never happened, so they could do right by the two who had loved them and died. Yet they also expected to have a kind of continuing romantic association that would be illicit in Surprise's reality but was reasonable in this one. She was beginning to get her scruples realigned, recognizing that she could not judge the folk of this reality by the standards of hers. What they were doing seemed to make sense for them.