Air Apparent

  “Why didn’t you simply escape when it was open?”

  “It wasn’t the lock on the door that held me. It was the enchantment. But then I randomly reversed myself and escaped. I knew they would send an agent after me, to confine me again. You are that agent.”

  “I am not!” she protested angrily.

  “Where were you last year?”

  “In Mundania. I didn’t like it so I came to Xanth.”

  “Exactly how did you do that?”

  She considered, surprised. “I don’t know. I just—found myself here, not long ago.”

  “Doesn’t it seem more logical that your memory of Mundania is artificial, and that you came into existence when you appeared in Xanth?”

  She started to protest, but then her mouth fell open in surprise. “It does.”

  “It is your job to locate and capture me, so I can be confined again. Which means we can’t be together, because either we’ll be apart because I’m fleeing you, or because I’m confined in a dungeon cell.”

  “But I wouldn’t do you any harm! I couldn’t!”

  “You won’t have a choice.”

  “Of course I have a choice. No one can make me do something I really don’t want to do.”

  “You have been conditioned to think that. But when the time comes, your innocent-girl persona will fade and you will do what you are programmed to do.”

  “Horrible thought!”

  “It is why I came to you. I had to find out what your secret weapon was, so I could nullify or escape it. I fear I have discovered it, but not escaped it.”

  “Love,” she said. “We were supposed to fall in love.”

  “Yes. But that would be just the precursor. That will keep me close to you, or bring me back to you if I flee. There has to be something else, as obviously you have not bound me yet in any physical manner.”

  “There’s something,” she said thoughtfully. “Sometimes I have an awareness and a sense of direction, as though there’s somewhere I should go. But then it passes.”

  “It’s when I do my random magic. You can sense that, and know where it occurs. But what are you supposed to do?”

  “I think it has something to do with my curse.”

  “Your curse?”

  “When I wear a bra, and any man hears my name, he wants to come take it off me. To de-bra me. But I don’t know how that could affect you.”

  “I’m a man. I’d want to take it off you.”

  She smiled ruefully. “And I’d let you. You’ve already seen my breasts. You’re seeing them now.”

  “And they fascinate me,” he agreed. “Maybe I’m supposed to touch them, and that will invoke the confinement spell.”

  “You already have. We were plastered together when we kissed. Twice.”

  “No. They touched my shirt. I touched only your back, and your mouth.”

  She glanced down at herself. “Then maybe you should touch them with your hands, and find out. I’m sure they won’t hurt you.”

  “I am not sure,” he said.

  She laughed again, and again he was fascinated almost to the point of freaking out. “Let’s settle this. I’ll fetch my bra.” She reached into her arrow quiver, which somehow had not intruded when they kissed, and drew out a cloth halter.

  “I don’t know,” he said warily.

  “I want to know too,” she said. “So I can avoid whatever it is that will trap you.” She put on the bra and hooked the two sides of it together in front.

  “Don’t do this,” he pleaded, unable to remove his eyes.

  “I have to.”

  “That’s what I fear.”

  “My name is Debra,” she said firmly.

  He started toward her, his hands reaching for the filled bra. Suddenly he knew what the threat was. “Take it off!” he cried desperately. “Now!”

  Startled, she did. The cloth fell away just as his hands reached her breasts. He wound up with two amazing handfuls, but no bra.

  Debra smiled. “See? You’re not confined.”

  “It’s the bra,” he said. “When I touch it, that will invoke the spell. I felt its power. Your curse is just a nuisance to you or any other man, but deadly to me. That’s your secret weapon.”

  She looked at the material, now lying on the ground. “Maybe you’re right. I did feel a horrible power as you came near it. That faded when I got it off.” She smiled. “You can let go any time now, you know.”

  Now he blushed. “Sorry.” He let go of her breasts. “At least now we know. It’s that bra that will destroy me, if I ever touch it. And if you wear it, I will be compelled to touch it.”

  “I’ll burn it,” she said, picking it up.

  “I don’t think that will do it. Any bra you wear will carry the magic.”

  “Then I’ll never wear a bra again.”

  “I suspect you’ll have to. Don’t you want to already?”

  “Yes,” she said, surprised. “I’m starting to, well, itch.” She put the bra back in the pack.

  “The curse. It didn’t bother you before, but now you know what you’re supposed to do, and it will force you to do it. That’s why we must separate.”

  “Oh Random, I don’t want to!”

  “Neither do I. But you exist to destroy me. I must hide from you.”

  “You’re right,” she said tearfully. “I truly don’t like this.”

  He nerved himself, and said what had to be said. “I love you. I think I always will. But I must leave you. Maybe in five years, when you’re of age, your curse will fade, and I can safely join you.”

  “I’ll wait for you!” she cried.

  “I fear not. You must pursue me, and I must flee, because I can’t stand to hurt you. We must be apart, as long as your curse exists.”

  “But if they turn off my curse, they’ll have no reason to keep me in business,” she said. “I might cease to exist.”

  He viewed her with horror. “Oh, Debra, I couldn’t stand that! I have to believe that somehow, sometime, we can be together.”

  “Somehow, sometime,” she echoed. “I have to believe it too. But at least we have this moment. Kiss me again.”

  He did, and once more reality compacted into the two of them in the center of the universe, all else being incidental. The orbiting hearts were almost suffocatingly thick.

  Then they separated, and she got back to her feet. “Now I’ll go,” he said sadly.

  “We must locate the Nameless Castle,” she reminded him.

  He formed half a smile. “Is that a chore or a pretext to stay together a little longer?”

  “Yes,” she said with the other half of the smile.

  “The Nameless Castle it is,” he agreed. He mounted her back, she flicked them both light again, galloped forward, spread her wings, and sailed into the air.

  “The dream realm,” she said suddenly. “Can we meet there? I know I’ll be dreaming of you.”

  “And I of you,” he agreed. “Maybe we can. We don’t have to wait for night; any gourd will facilitate it.”

  “It’s a date.” She was silent half a moment. “Does the Adult Conspiracy exist in the dream realm?”

  “Oh Debra, what are you thinking of?”

  “You know better than I do.”

  “I don’t know. Dreams can be quite naughty, so maybe the Conspiracy doesn’t exist there. We’ll just have to find out.”

  “I can be my own form, there,” she said.

  “But no bra.”

  She laughed, this time turning at her supple waist so as to present a stunning side view of her chest as her face faced him. He couldn’t help it: he kissed her a fourth time, stifling the rest of her laugh.

  Suddenly they were sailing straight upward into the sky. “Oh, that makes me light-headed,” she gasped as they broke.

  “So I noticed. Don’t hit a cloud.”

  “You know, if you started to fall off, you might have to grab me around the torso,” she said.

  “But then I would touch you
r—” He broke off. “You’re such a tease!”

  “I wasn’t teasing,” she said, blushing.

  What an invitation! “In that case—”

  “Oh, there’s the castle,” she said.

  He looked. There was a cloud floating above the Gap Chasm, which they had intersected during their distracting dialogue. On the cloud rested a fancy castle. The Nameless Castle. “Yes.”

  “I understand that’s where the Demon Xanth lives now, with his mortal wife Chlorine.”

  The Demon Xanth! Who would surely want to keep things in good order, so would side with the Factory. He couldn’t go there.

  “Now you know where it is,” he said with infinite regret. “Now I must depart. Randomly. I love you.”

  “Oh, not yet!” she protested tearfully. “We have so much more to talk about, so many more kisses to share.”

  “I must, or I never will,” he said. It was the truth.

  “Please!”

  He invoked the random location exchange before he could change his mind. His last sight was of her adorable tear-wet face. That would haunt him forever.

  10

  REGROUPING

  Debra blinked, and he was gone. But there was something in his place, balanced on her back. It looked like a portion of a statue, a bust of a girl, with only the head and body above the waist showing.

  Well, he was the Random Factor. He did things randomly. As she understood it, he himself had no control over it; he merely initiated the action and something random happened. So he had switched places with this statue, and now was wherever it had been. Maybe on someone’s mantelpiece.

  “And what do you have to say for yourself?” she inquired rhetorically. The last thing she needed at the moment was half a statue.

  “Come all ye fair and tender maidens,” the statue said. “Take warning how you court young men.”

  Debra almost dropped out of the sky. “You’re talking!” she exclaimed.

  The statue eyed her as if she had said something stupid, or at least less than completely intelligent. “Of course I’m talking. I’m a maiden head. When invoked I warn maidens about bad boys.”

  And she had inadvertently invoked it. Fair enough. “How did you come here?”

  The eyes glanced around. “That I don’t know. Heights make me nervous. If I fell I’d break into seventy-three pieces and some gravel. But I’m sure a man has something to do with it. Men are if not the root of all evil, at least the stem of it. It’s not safe to love any of them; you’re in for heartbreak.” She glanced more carefully at Debra. “And from the look of you, you are heartbroken now. It’s a man, right?”

  “But it’s not his fault,” Debra said. “He loves me.”

  “That’s what they all say, until they get into your pants. Never trust a man!”

  “No, this is different. He wants to be with me, but can’t. It’s complicated.”

  The bust gazed at her with the pity reserved for the self-delusional. “It always is, when they’re married.”

  “He’s not married!”

  “Or gay. Or impotent. Or terrified of commitment. There’s always a reason, but it’s never the one they tell you. But girls never learn. It’s such a tragedy.”

  This was getting nowhere. “Maybe I should take you home. Where is that?”

  This set the bust back. “I really don’t know. I’ve always been on the shelf. No one listens to me, for some reason. I’m sure it’s a man’s fault.”

  “Then I’ll just have to take you with me.” Debra made a smooth turn and headed back the way she had come. She didn’t need to stop at the Nameless Castle; she would do that when they delivered Nimbus there.

  “That’s very kind of you,” the bust said. “But remember—”

  “I’ll be wary of men,” Debra agreed. Actually her experience was quite limited, but she had matured considerably in the last hour. She had been a mere girl or filly with a spot curse; now she was a woman in love. That was a different creature.

  In due course—she had carefully avoided the undue courses that were offered along the way—she returned to the glade where Wira and the children waited. They all stared as she landed. “Where’s Fabian?” Ilene asked.

  “Look at the bare statue,” Nimbus said.

  “It’s a bust,” Debra explained, lifting it down.

  “Wow! A bare bust.” His small male eyes were goggling.

  “Hands off!” the statue snapped as he reached.

  “Fabian is gone,” Debra said. “I have this instead. It’s complicated.”

  “I think you had better explain,” Wira said.

  “Not before the children.”

  “Did you drop him?” Ilene asked.

  She would have to tell part of it. “He is someone called the Random Factor. He—”

  “The Random Factor!” Wira exclaimed. “He’s dangerous!”

  “You know of him? I didn’t.”

  “He’s confined in the dungeon cell of Castle Maidragon. He does terribly random things to anyone who even opens his door.”

  Debra didn’t argue that case. “He’s out. He switches places randomly with other people or things. In this case, the maiden head.”

  “He told you this?” Wira asked.

  “Yes. He comes from the Factory, but they don’t like him because he’s random. So they want to confine him again.”

  “Why did he approach us?”

  “He believes I am an agent sent by the Factory to bring him back. He was—scouting.”

  “But you’re just a girl with a curse.”

  “So I thought. But he may be right. My curse may be meant to trap him. So he had to go.”

  Wira clearly realized there was more, but that it was indeed complicated. She was sensitive to feelings, and surely was picking up on Debra’s. So she shifted the subject slightly. “His little daughter Trace remains here.”

  “Oh, fudge,” the child swore. “Just tell me how you’re going to trap him, and I’ll be gone.”

  “You’re not what you seem,” Wira said.

  “I’m Woe Betide. I was trying to help him solve the mystery.”

  “Woe Betide,” Wira repeated. “The child aspect of Demoness Metria. We have met before.”

  So she was a demoness. Debra had not suspected. “I can explain that particular mystery. When I don a bra, and men hear my name, they want to take it off. But if the Random Factor touches it, he will be caught by its magic, and confined again. That’s the trap. So he had to depart before that happened.”

  “Okay,” the tike said, and faded out.

  “Did you locate the Nameless Castle?” Wira asked.

  “Yes. I can take us there now.”

  “Then we had better do it. Thereafter we can talk.”

  When the next youngest child was gone. That made sense. “All aboard,” Debra said.

  She flicked each of them light, and herself, and they mounted. Soon they were airborne.

  “Whee!” Nimbus exclaimed. “I love flying.”

  “You’ve flown before?” Ilene asked.

  That made him pause. “I guess.”

  Debra found that interesting. There was something about the boy, and not just the way he glowed. He was still concealing his identity.

  They approached the Nameless Castle, perched on its cloud. “Home!”

  Debra landed carefully on the fluffy white edge of the cloud. It was spongy, but firm; her hooves did not sink through its substance. Naturally it wasn’t an ordinary cloud; it could not have supported the castle otherwise.

  Nimbus jumped down and ran toward the castle. “Mom! Dad!” he cried happily. “I’m home!”

  A lovely young woman emerged from the castle as Wira and Ilene dismounted. She swept the boy into her embrace. Behind her came an amazing oddity: a dragon with the head of a donkey. A giant pet?

  “You found him!” the woman said to Wira, clearly recognizing her as the senior figure. “Thank you so much! I was so worried.”

  “We didn’t
feel it would be right to leave him lost,” Wira said. “I am Wira, the Good Magician’s daughter-in-law, and these are Debra and Ilene.”

  “Of course we know of you, Wira,” the woman said. “I am Chlorine, and this is my husband Nimby.”

  “Nimby,” Wira repeated, seeming daunted though she could not see the dragon. “I—also know of you.”

  “But Debra and Ilene do not,” Chlorine said.

  “Actually I do,” Ilene said. “My father told me long ago.” She too seemed oddly daunted.

  “Am I missing something?” Debra asked.

  “Nothing important,” Chlorine said easily. “Come in for a visit; we really appreciate your help in recovering our son.”

  “Oh, we don’t need to stay,” Debra said. Then she caught Wira’s sightless look. “Or maybe we do.”

  “You must be hungry,” Chlorine said. “We’ll have a feast for you.”

  “Actually we’re still full from last night’s feast with the Air Folk,” Wira said. “But we’ll be happy to visit briefly.”

  They entered the castle, which seemed even larger inside than outside, and amazingly ornate. Debra was becoming quite curious about it, and its inhabitants.

  They came to a lovely courtyard filled with exotic plants. Chlorine bade them sit in comfortable couches in the center, while Nimby and Debra remained standing.

  “But doesn’t the furniture get wet when it rains?” Ilene asked.

  “It doesn’t rain on the furniture,” Chlorine said.

  The girl looked puzzled, so the woman glanced at the dragon. Suddenly it was raining on the plants, but none fell on the couches. The rain ended in a circle just beyond the couches.

  “Oh,” Ilene said, looking abashed.

  “You have done us a considerable favor,” Chlorine said. “We will do each of you favors in return.”

  “There’s no need, really,” Wira said. “We just did what seemed right.”

  “So will we,” Chlorine said. She caught Ilene’s eye. “What would you like?”

  The girl hesitated, but realized that it would be impolite to refuse. “I’d just like to visit with Glow every so often, because we have similar talents.”

  “Glow?”

  Ilene seemed flustered. “He wouldn’t tell his name, so we had to make up one for him. So we used that, because he glows.”