Stork Naked

  Che didn't comment, and Surprise knew why: the centaur's unerring arrow would stop the golem regardless, by crippling him even if he couldn't die.

  "Or this one," Morgan said, showing a picture of an elf.

  "What's so bad about an elf?" the peeve asked with Surprise's voice.

  "This is Levi Athan, a crossbreed between an elf and a whale. He looks like an elf but has the mass of a whale."

  "Leviathan," Che said, getting the pun. "He would be difficult to stop." But Surprise noted that he hadn't said impossible to stop.

  Morgan picked up the baby and turned to Surprise. "Well?"

  Surprise struggled. Here was her chance to get her baby back, saving her from the awfulness she otherwise faced in life. Yet how could she sacrifice the children in her care?

  What was right? She had to choose between evils, and neither alternative was good, but she had no choice but to choose. On the one hand was a single innocent baby. On the other were three uninnocent children. Three against one. She hated it, but that was the number. She had to go for the benefit to the greater number.

  She looked at Che, Stymy, Pyra, and the peeve. None of them gave any indication. They were leaving it to her.

  "Free the children," she said brokenly. "Keep my baby."

  "My baby," the Sorceress said, gloating. She clutched little Prize like the trophy she had been made. The baby cried. So did Pyra, oddly, her fiery tears scorching the ground.

  Surprise was too choked up to say anything more. She turned and walked away from the house.

  "They're free now," Morgan said.

  "I'll check," Che said. He took off.

  "Bleep," the peeve muttered as it fluttered across to perch on Surprise's shoulder. It looked toward the baby. "There goes the one person in Xanth who likes me."

  "That's not so," Surprise said through her tears. "I like you."

  "That's an exaggeration."

  "Some," she confessed. "But you're really helping now."

  "How touching," Morgan said sarcastically. "Now get your tails out of here, all of you. I have a brat to raise."

  Surprise suffered a surge of fury. She opened her mouth.

  "Easy, girl," the peeve murmured. "This isn't necessarily over."

  Surprise saw Stymy Stork and Pyra exchange a glance. Was there something she didn't know?

  There was a speck in the sky. Che was returning with the children. But there was something else: a second flying figure, smaller but too big to be any ordinary bird.

  "Bleepity bleep!" Morgan swore.

  The two winged creatures came to a landing: Che and some kind of crossbreed centaur female. "Well look at that!" the peeve exclaimed. "I haven't seen one of those since I left Hell."

  "What is it?" Surprise asked.

  "A centiger. Very rare."

  Ted and Monica jumped off the back of the centiger and ran forward.

  "This must be stopped," Morgan muttered. She hurled some sort of spell, clearly not bound by the Xanthly limit of one talent to a person. The two children stopped in mid-run. The centiger froze in place.

  "This is bad," the peeve said. "It's a stasis spell with a side effect."

  "Side effect?" Surprise asked.

  "It silences the subjects on whatever topic is specified in the spell. Their minds remain restricted longer than their bodies do. She must have had it ready, just in case."

  "What would she want to silence them about, after releasing them?"

  "That's what we had better find out. A person can't even use such a Hell-spell without being pretty much damned already. She has to have really bad reason."

  And the peeve had lived in Hell, and surely knew what it was talking about.

  Only Che moved. "A temporary stasis spell will not avail you, Sorceress," he called. "I am proof against it, to the extent that I can still talk, because I know the truth."

  "Triple bleep!" Morgan swore. "The Simurgh's been at him. I didn't count on that. I'll have to bind him to me immediately." She walked toward the centaur.

  "Beware, Che!" the peeve called. "She's going to enchant you!"

  "Shut your beak, you tiny turd!" Morgan snapped. "Anyway, it's too late. I'll make him love me. He's already soft on this form." She forged on, first divesting herself of all her clothing, then raising her hands to make some sort of gesture, while the others stood aghast at the abusive language. It horrified Surprise worse to hear it from the lips of her own alternate self of this reality. She also wondered what the Sorceress could know of the illicit passion she shared with Che; neither of them had spoken of it.

  But she couldn't dwell on that at the moment. "What's she doing now?" Surprise asked.

  "That's the windup for a dominance spell," the peeve said. "The victim is locked into the will of the spell caster. It starts with a love-elixir-like session to lock it in, but it's not the same. After the first bout, the victim constantly craves more, which may be dispensed only grudgingly by the spellcaster, as an occasional reward for complete submission to her will. It's one of the worst of the Hell spells. What I don't get is why she wants to make him her love-slave, when she wasn't really interested before."

  "Maybe she's mad because he resisted her seduction."

  "I don't think so. She was merely playing with him, diverting him while Umlaut Seven did the dirty work with you. This is serious magic."

  The more Surprise heard of this, the less she liked it, and she had not been keen on it to begin with. She wanted to stop it, but couldn't think of a spell to invoke that would counter the deadly mischief of the Sorceress. It would have helped if she had known what was happening in more detail.

  The Sorceress hurled her spell. It scintillated with evil power as it sailed toward the centaur, who was unable to move. But just before it reached him, a little figure swung around his torso and hovered before him.

  "Woe Betide!" Surprise exclaimed.

  "She's full demon," the peeve said. "A stasis spell can't properly hold one of those. She was probably shielded from it by Che's upper body anyway."

  "But what is she doing!"

  "She's intercepting the love-slave spell."

  The spell bathed the child and dissipated. Che had been saved, but the child had just been enslaved.

  "Curses!" Morgan swore. Her bare body was beautiful, but her attitude was ugly.

  Woe ran forward. "I hear and obey your command," she said. She went to the house, sorted through the pile of pictures, selected one, and took it to the board. She checked the tools and found a screw driver and a screw. She used those to fasten the picture to the board.

  There it was: a nice portrait of a cat. One of the stored familiars.

  They all stared at the picture. How could a dominance or love spell have translated to such an action? What did it mean? Obviously the Sorceress' intent had been foiled.

  Then the peeve burst out laughing. "Woe is a child!" it said. "Too young and inexperienced to have been affected by this reality's absence of the Adult Conspiracy. She took the command literally, not understanding its adult significance."

  "I don't understand either," Surprise said. "This makes no sense to me."

  Then Stymy and Pyra caught on, and laughed together. For some reason they had both stayed clear of the recent action. "She fetched a screw driver," Stymy said.

  "And a cat," Pyra added. Both dissolved back into laughter.

  Woe turned to Morgan. "Did I do it right? I screwed your kitty."

  The Sorceress turned angrily away without bothering to curse again. For half an instant the child's expression darkened because of the rejection, but in the other half of the instant it brightened into secret satisfaction. The spell had been broken; she was no one's love-slave.

  "What am I missing?" Surprise asked, annoyed. "I have no idea what's going on."

  The stasis spell broke. Che came trotting over. "Nothing," he said to Surprise. "You are missing nothing you need to know, you sweet person, and are the better for it." Then to the child: "That was very good, Woe
. Thank you for intercepting the spell meant for me."

  "I had to help," Woe said bashfully. She seemed to have about half of a childish crush on him, perhaps a fading legacy of the dissipated spell.

  "You did. You saved me from an extremely awkward enslavement." He glared at Morgan. "Get dressed, you lady canine. You wasted your Hell-spell and can have no further power over me."

  "Bleep," the Sorceress muttered with extremely bad grace.

  Surprise gave up on the baffling riddle. "Why did she want to stop you? You were only bringing the children back after she agreed to free them."

  "To silence me, when she discovered that I had been rendered partly immune to the stasis/silence spell," he said. "Because I bear the news that she did not honor her part of the deal. She did not free the children."

  "That was an accident of timing," Morgan said.

  He ignored her. "They freed themselves, and Cadence was carrying them here when I intercepted them."

  "Cadence?"

  "Cadence Centiger." The creature came forward. She had the body of a white tiger, the forepart of a female centaur, and wings. "The children freed her too," Che explained. "Actually they worked together. They were already free before you talked with Morgan, and I think she knew it."

  "Already free?" Surprise repeated blankly.

  "Therefore she reneged on her part of the deal. So you aren't bound by yours. You can take your baby."

  "I can take Prize?"

  "As I understand it, yes." He glanced at the others. "Do you agree?"

  Stymy nodded. "I agree."

  Pyra considered, then nodded also. "As I understand it, yes."

  "Dang tooting!" the peeve said.

  "And we can all go home," Che concluded.

  "Not yet," Monica said, her tone oddly mature for her age.

  Surprise looked at the child. "You aren't ready?"

  "We have to free all the others the Sorceress sent to the other realm, now that we know how to do it."

  "Of course," Surprise said. "I'll take the baby, and support you in what you have to do."

  "I think not," Morgan said from by the house. She picked Prize up from the bassinet. "I am keeping the baby." She stepped quickly into the house and slammed the door behind her.

  "Bleep," Che said, uttering a rare imprecation. "She acted too quickly. I should have blocked her."

  "She won't hurt the baby physically," Stymy said. "She wants to save that body for herself."

  "I'm not completely sure of that," Pyra said. "She might choose to sacrifice the baby rather than lose it."

  "Then I must go in and take it from her," Surprise said.

  Che shook his head. "She's a Sorceress. She can throw magic at you that you've never seen."

  "I've seen it all," the peeve said. "I'll help."

  "You will need more," Pyra said. "I'll help."

  "So will I," Stymy said. "I will try to find the baby and take it outside." His beak curved somewhat. "I promise not to take it away from you again."

  "In that confined space, more of us might only get in each other's way," Che said. "Suppose I go with the children to free the other captives? Woe Betide knows how to do it."

  "Whatever works," Surprise agreed, heading for the house. Most of what she could think of was her baby. She had almost been cheated of her most precious thing!

  The peeve settled on her head, and Stymy and Pyra flanked her. They went up and tried the door, but it was locked. "I can burn through it," Pyra said.

  "Whatever," Surprise repeated. Her heart was pounding.

  Pyra put one hand on the knob. It heated, and the wood around it smoldered. Then it came loose in her hand, together with the lock. She pushed the door with her other hand and it swung open. She hadn't had to burn the whole door, just the lock.

  They entered. Surprise didn't know what to expect, and wasn't disappointed: there was nothing. They were in the antechamber.

  She was about to go to the main room, but the peeve halted her. "It's a trap," it whispered. "She's hiding behind something, ready to attack you."

  "How do you know that?" Stymy whispered.

  "It's standard operating procedure, SOP. I learned all about it in Hell, from some of the worst in the business."

  "Then I'll spring the trap," Pyra whispered. She walked into the room.

  The Sorceress pounced on her from behind something, stabbing downward with a knife. The blade touched Pyra's shoulder—and melted.

  "Well, now," Pyra flared, the flames brightening the room.

  Morgan hit her with a freeze spell. The flames were snuffed, and ice formed on Pyra's head and shoulders. She dropped to the floor, stunned. It seemed the Sorceress had been ready for her.

  Surprise stepped into the room. "I want my baby."

  Morgan whirled, another knife appearing in her hand. She stabbed underhanded this time, aiming for the gut. "Knife," the peeve said belatedly.

  The knifepoint touched Surprise's stomach—and stuck there. She had made her skin develop a surface of tarry cork. The knife was caught. "I want my baby," she repeated.

  "It's mine," Morgan said. She picked up a chair and hammered at Surprise with it.

  "Club," the peeve said. "Third weapon will be a rope or net." Meanwhile Pyra was recovering and getting to her feet.

  The knife dropped to the floor as Surprise let that talent go and took another. This time her skin became like steel. The chair crashed against it and splintered.

  A net appeared in Morgan's hands. She flung it over Surprise. But Surprise's body became like Pyra's, with little flames dancing on its surface.

  The net puffed into fire and ashes. The peeve's warnings, now coming just before the events, gave Surprise the leeway she needed to prepare counters to the threats.

  "Dragon next," the peeve murmured in her ear. "SOP."

  "Then try this," Morgan said. A dragon appeared, a steamer, blowing out white vapor that could cook whatever flesh it touched.

  Surprise became an ice dragon, whose breath sucked the heat out of everything it touched. It nullified the steamer's heat and sent it running. Then she oriented her nose on Morgan herself, but the Sorceress was already retreating.

  Where was the baby? That was all Surprise really wanted. She saw Stymy checking around, searching for it.

  "Small monsters," the peeve said.

  There was a loud scuttling. Half a slew of nickelpedes appeared, heading for her legs. It would be difficult and distracting for the dragon to freeze them all. So she conjured a local flood of mild acid. It didn't burn her own legs, but stifled the nickelpedes, who could not breathe. They scuttled desperately, mainly out of the house.

  "Medium monsters," the peeve said.

  They appeared almost but not quite immediately. Huge mean dogs, blood red including their blazing eyes and glistening teeth. They massed and charged, and Surprise lacked room to evade them.

  "Bloodhounds," the peeve said. "Make a lake of blood."

  "Thanks, peeve." Surprise conjured the lake, filling the cellar of the house.

  The hounds smelled it and dived into it, utterly diverted. They had no further interest in the living folk, who had very little blood in comparison. In hardly more than a moment they disappeared.

  "Foiled again," Morgan muttered.

  "Take the offense," the peeve advised.

  Morgan threw a fireball at it, but the peeve jumped clear so that it passed harmlessly, then settled back on Surprise's shoulder. "Nice try, harridan."

  "How?" Surprise asked. She was unable to concentrate properly amidst all this distressing violence.

  "Make the house invisible," Stymy suggested. "So you can see only the people—and the baby."

  Brilliant! Surprise focused, and the house disappeared, along with the pool of blood. All that was visible were Surprise, Pyra, Stymy, the peeve, Morgan—and the baby, nestled in a little hammock that had been concealed by two items of furniture: an easy chair and a difficult chair.

  "Curses!" the Sorceress swore. Sh
e ran toward the hammock.

  "Blast her!" Pyra urged. "While she's distracted."

  It was possible. But Surprise could not bring herself to do such harm to a living person, even an enemy. Instead she conjured the baby to herself. As she did, the house reappeared, as she could not exert two talents at the same time. But now she had the baby in her arms.

  "You spared her," Pyra said.

  "It was the right thing to do."

  "So it was," Pyra agreed, seeming oddly relieved. Surprise didn't have time to wonder why the fire woman should be relieved that Surprise had not done what she urged. Surprise had to get away from the Sorceress before worse happened. She turned and started for the door.

  "Not so fast, innocent," Morgan said. "Now choose: protect the baby, or protect yourself."

  "Huge monster," the peeve said.

  There was a ghastly bellowing roar that shivered the timbers of the house. "What is that?" Stymy asked.

  "The Prime Monister," Morgan answered. "Returned from the other realm."

  "Oh, poop!" the peeve said. "Conjure yourself away from here. Now."

  "And leave you, Stymy, and Pyra? I can't."

  "Use your magic to protect the baby," Morgan suggested.

  "Don't listen to her," Pyra said. "Save yourself."

  Surprise conjured an invulnerable capsule around the baby, proof against heat, cold, or magic. But that left the rest of them vulnerable. She couldn't borrow another talent without losing the one that protected the baby. "Carry this away to safety," she told the stork.

  Stymy hooked his beak into the loop on top and lifted the capsule. But before he could depart, the Monister's feet landed on the house, splintering it. Its head crashed through the roof. All they could see was its gaping mouth. Rancid drool rained down around them.

  "My turn," Pyra said. "If you die, I lose." She leaped as the jaws snapped shut, her body blocking them so that they could not close on Surprise.

  But the teeth did not crunch Pyra. Instead she flared so hotly that they melted. She became a veritable fireball, charring the Monister's tongue, lips, and the roof of its mouth. Then the fireball rolled on into its throat, roasting its flesh along the way.