Air Apparent

  “It is a strange one,” Gaia agreed with her exhilarating-summer-storm voice. But there was a hint of lightning in it.

  “And get together yourselves,” Fray continued doggedly. Or maybe it was catty; she wasn’t sure. “Like boyfriend and girlfriend. So you don’t mind sharing.”

  “Demons don’t do that sort of thing,” Earth said. The ground rumbled around him.

  “But we can if we choose,” Demon Xanth said. “I did. It can be rewarding on its own terms. What about that mortal girl who animated Demoness Fornax?”

  “That’s different.”

  Fray was amazed. Demon Xanth was helping her! Well, he must want to get this matter settled too, so there would be no further trouble at the border.

  “She’s never going to return your interest,” Xanth said. “She has a mortal boyfriend. But Demoness Gaia could be everything you might desire. If she chose.” He glanced meaningfully at her.

  Gaia bared her teeth in defiance. Then she reconsidered. She had evidently thought of something. What could that be?

  “Why should I ever want to get together with that cheating female thing?” Earth demanded. “What could she ever have for me? I am the heir apparent.”

  Demoness Gaia’s cloud head turned human with lustrous features and hair. Her limbs became perfectly formed human arms and legs. She radiated beauty. “Like this?” her sheer-unadulterated-love-elixir voice asked.

  Fray realized that the Demoness now considered it a challenge.

  Demon Earth looked. He scowled. “That doesn’t interest me.”

  Gaia’s dress turned translucent, showing the scintillating outlines of well-mounted bra and panties. Fray was glad she was female, because otherwise she would have been in danger of freaking out. “No?” her essence-of-sex-appeal voice asked.

  Earth’s eyes began to heat. “No.”

  The underwear filled out more fully, quivering in key places. “No?” her passion-incarnate voice asked again.

  “No.” But his eyeballs were squeaking as their lubrication congealed. Fray saw the watching two men, the boy, and even the bird disappearing into freakout mode. Only Demon Xanth had the sense to conjure a very dark pair of spectacles to protect his eyes.

  Wisps of steam rose from the hot items. All the pervasive power of nature animated them, and they could not be denied. “So you would rather not compromise, no?” her steamy-irresistible-force voice asked.

  “No!” he said as his eyeballs baked.

  “Then it seems we have agreed to the mortal’s decision,” Demon Xanth said. “The double negative cancels out. He says no but he means yes. You are the heir apparent, Gaia.”

  “I am,” the rainbow-hued voice agreed. Gaia beckoned, and Earth went to her, overpowered. As he did so, there was a hidden but extremely powerful impact, as of two worlds colliding and merging. Moondania and Earth, Fray knew. The compromise had been achieved.

  Gaia’s cloud-head appeared before Fray. “How may I repay this favor?” her soft-as-night-dreams voice inquired.

  Fray thought fast. “Put the Random Factor back the way he was, in his own body, and douse the curse. You don’t need him any more.”

  “That is three favors,” the chill-of-a-frozen-day voice said coldly. “To revert his talent, restore him to his own body, and abate the Factory curse. I proffer only one.”

  “Oops, I’m sorry.” She was messing up. Evidently the soulless Demons kept very precise accounts. What single thing could she ask for that would really help?

  Then she got a notion. It wasn’t enough to light a bulb, but it would have to do. The curse oriented on the Factor’s body when it did a transfer, so if he didn’t transfer any more, maybe the curse would not apply. Maybe. That would cover two things in one.

  The Demons waited silently. They had the patience of eons.

  “Fix the Factor’s talent. Undo your change.”

  The cloud faded. So did the Demons Gaia and Earth. Only the Demon Xanth remained.

  Fray was left facing the other members of the party. “I think it’s okay now,” she said hesitantly. “I tried to fix it so the curse wouldn’t matter.”

  “You succeeded,” the Demon Xanth said. “The curse is now unable to orient, and will dissipate.”

  “But we’re still in the wrong bodies,” the Factor said.

  “I’m sorry,” Fray said unhappily. “I just couldn’t figure out how to do it all.” She tried to stifle a tear, which was this compacted body’s version of rain, but it leaked out anyway.

  The Demon Xanth was staring at her. Had she done something else wrong?

  Nimbus turned to the Demon. “Daddy, don’t let her be sad. Tears make me nervous. She doesn’t want anything for herself.”

  “Son, you owe your existence to a selfless tear. It makes me think of your mother.” The Demon glanced again at Fray, then at Hugo and the Factor. Then he faded out.

  Hugo looked surprised. “I’m back in my own body!”

  “So am I!” the Factor said. “But there’s something else I need to verify.” He turned to Debra. “Where’s your bra?”

  She brought it out and handed it to him. He took it, and did not suffer any consequence. The curse was gone. The wings of his hat fluttered as he flew up to kiss her face.

  “I can hardly wait to wrap things up here and get back to my own body too,” Debra said. “Bra and all.”

  “Let’s all get home,” Wira said, glancing fondly at Hugo. They were old folk, but Fray realized that wasn’t slowing them down much.

  They organized for flight. Wira mounted Debra, with Nimbus next, and Fray last as they were all lightened. The party took off.

  “You’re okay,” Nimbus said as she put her arms around him from behind to hold him in place.

  “Thank you.”

  “For a girl.”

  “Thank you,” she repeated, understanding his inability to be fully serious. That would surely change in the next decade or so. So she was a cloud and he was the son of the Demon Xanth; stranger relationships had happened.

  “That was real smart, showing Daddy that tear. He had to do what you wanted, then. Mommy saved him when she shed a tear for him.”

  There didn’t seem to be much point in confessing that she had had no such smart design in mind. “Thank you.”

  “Air apparent,” he said. “That sort of matches heir apparent, doesn’t it?”

  “They do seem to mesh,” she said. “Air and heir.”

  “Heir and air. Hair!”

  “Hair,” she agreed, smiling tolerantly. They had a vaguely definite future understanding.

  As they rose high into the sky, something was odd. After a generous moment Fray realized what it was: she could see the gradual curvature of the world below them. It was in the shape of a peninsula with a chasm halfway down it. The seeming overlay with the world of Earth or Mundania was gone. Now the only connection would be via the moons of Ida. There would be no more Waves of invasion. That was fine with her.

  Soon she would be home, and happily floating over the landscape in her natural cloud form. She was after all a creature of the air. Apparent or not.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is the thirty-first Xanth novel in the series, or the fourth in the second magic trilogy of three cubed = twenty-seven novels. It may be awhile before we see a complete trilogy of magic trilogies. Meanwhile the individual novels can be read in any order, though they are chronological; each is its own story.

  I am getting older. I’m into my seventies now, and slowing somewhat. I learned of the deaths of two of my longtime correspondents during the writing of this novel, and there may be others. Also, I had spot surgery on my right cheek to remove a suspicious patch of skin. It turned out to be pre-squamous cell carcinoma. That is, working its way toward one of the less dangerous forms of skin cancer. The dangerous form is melanoma, which my daughter had at this time; they think they got it all clear and she’s okay. I also postponed surgery for the crushed disk that leaves me with a chronic backache,
because I couldn’t afford to be out of commission at this time.

  Why? Because my wife’s health is more precarious than mine. Early in the year 2005 she weakened until she could no longer walk or even stand. I had to heave her into and out of the wheelchair, and she practically lived in that wheelchair for months. It seemed that between the two of us we had some kind of medical appointment just about every day. One doctor after another checked her, not finding the problem. Then at last they made a diagnosis: chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, CIDP for short. It is a rare illness vaguely similar to multiple sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease, where the protective sheathing around the nerves—the myelin—gets eroded so that the nerves can’t function. Think of an electronic gadget whose wires are stripped of insulation: it will short out and not work. Likewise the living body. Fortunately there is a treatment, an expensive four-hour IV infusion. After five days of that she turned the corner, and her arms and legs started responding again, little by little. At this writing—the end of OctOgre 2005—she is back on her feet and gaining strength, no longer needing a wheelchair, walker, or cane. But I don’t let her go out alone, just in case. At our age, falls can be devastating.

  Meanwhile I had taken over the meals, housework, shopping, and such. My wife was recovering, but we could not be sure how far that would go, or whether there would be a relapse. I needed to be able to do whatever needed to be done, and to heave the wheelchair into the car if we needed it. That’s why I postponed my disk surgery. I also started writing this novel a month early, because I could not be sure how much time I would have for writing, and there was a deadline. As it happened, my wife continued to do better, so I had more writing time than expected, and completed the novel early. I still go shopping with her, just in case, and make most meals and wash the dishes, but things are looking up. There are more challenges ahead for each of us, some quite serious, but at present we’re all right.

  In this period—actually just before I started writing the novel—we bought a Toyota Prius hybrid car. We do what we can for the environment, and an efficient car helps. We needed to be sure it could carry a folded wheelchair, just in case, and that it was comfortable for my wife, and it is. It gets about forty-five miles to the gallon and seems alive. The motor stops when you wait at a stoplight, not wasting power. It indicates the mileage you are getting as you drive, so you know when you’re driving inefficiently. You keep the key in your pocket, and it checks and won’t run unless it frisks you and locates it. It’s my kind of car. There’s only one letter difference between Piers and Prius.

  My wife’s condition also changed my appearance. At first I lost weight, because I was doing more on the same diet. So we bought six-packs of that canned nourishment that I call glop for short. Then I started putting on weight, and had to cut back. I remain lean by preference, keeping my weight steady, and I exercise seriously; all it takes is discipline. We used to exchange haircuts; I haven’t been to a barbershop in decades. But her illness prevented her from cutting my hair, so I grew it longer, and now I wear a ponytail. So my hair is receding in front and on top where I need it, and growing bushily on sides and back where I don’t. A problem of age: male pattern baldness. Sometimes I wonder whether it was a mistake to pass seventy. Because I’m not apt at doing my hair behind my head where I can’t see it, I use a small red or blue alligator-style hair clip of the type little girls have. I now notice ponytails on women, and actually there are some on men too. I complimented one woman on hers, and she said I had a prettier clip. My hair is like my imagination, bursting out all over, with a natural curl that refuses to be tamed. I never knew this until I grew it long.

  We also had weather. There are those who refuse to believe in global warming, but here in Florida we are much aware of it, because it increases the force of our seasonal storms. Hurricane Katrina crossed south Florida with minimal effort, then revved up horrendously to take out New Orleans. That was followed by Hurricane Rita, which plowed into Texas. Later Hurricane Wilma formed as the most intense storm ever in this region, and crossed south Florida the other way, taking out electric power for six million people. But we here in central Florida were on the periphery of all three storms and suffered little damage. We were lucky—this year.

  This novel, as you may have noticed, starts out as a murder mystery. But in Xanth it’s hard to play anything straight for long, and by the end the mystery is something else. I hope you enjoyed it anyway. There are about a hundred and forty reader suggestions here. In some cases when I didn’t have a name for a passing character I borrowed the name of the one who suggested the character or talent. Those readers may be surprised (and not necessarily pleased) to discover that, and I make no promises about doing it again. In general, I used up the ideas I had before OctOgre 2005; more kept coming in as I wrote the novel, and I couldn’t keep up with them. Some ideas related to characters who aren’t in the novel, so had to wait for a later novel. The unmentionable truth is that it would be easier for me to write these novels entirely on my own without reader suggestions, as I do with non-Xanth novels. But readers do think of things I don’t, so I hope their participation enhances the story. Some of the suggestions have private histories I don’t review here; there is more going on than the story. Some ideas that could have been major became minor, and some minor ones became major; some don’t develop the way the suggester may have intended. Things don’t always go the way I expect.

  One other thing: I write a novel, a copyeditor goes over it, I proofread the galleys—and some errors still sneak through. My theory is that they grow on the page after the proofreading. There was one bad one in Currant Events, where the pun-guessing score was wrong. Countless readers called my attention to it. So I had somehow to explain it, as I do in this novel. These things happen.

  Now for the voluminous credits:

  Write a Xanth novel in the style of a horror novel—only I decided to make it a murder mystery instead—Henry Wyckoff; farm-assist plants producing many magic pills—Jon Bartlett; glove (mitt) puns, talent of summoning animals, comitea, mortalitea, Heisen-berg, amitea, battea, curfew, curtail, ab-cent, bucking, cent-inel, quies-cent, reminis-cent, omnis-cent, ex-cent-ric, magnifi-cent—Timothy Bruening; Earl the pearl—Lesli Audleman; Katydid/Katydidn’t—Nicole Graham; Wira makes a quest to gain her sight—Jim Hull; Debra—Bob Kawaguchi; talent of freezing things in place—Stephanie Kay Fetterly; talent of knowing when to begin an action—Bev in Bellingham; talent of cooling or heating water—Timur I. Leng; fee-line, bo-vine—David Kaplan; medi-ogre—Linda H.; punda—Yaniv Pessach; dine-o-mite, twins summon and banish demons, e-racers—Greg Bischoping; spinal chord—Jesse Gordon; outstanding in his field, hydraponics, beauty mark—Lizzy Wilford; Bernie—Liz; bombshell—Michael Bissey; stop light—John A. Tolle; pathologist—Bill Seeley; Theresa—Gary Poole; Aurora Sky—Rebekah Joyce Vidal; giggles, river dancers—Thomas Pfarrer; illixir—Kevin Jett; Opti and Pesi Mystic—Lizzy Wilford; Psyche, with talent of role reversal, Moondania—Jon Bartlett; lan-tern—Stephen Dole; Breanna’s son, with talent of making darkness—Gabe Pesek; pleasant/unpleasantrees—Jorge; family from Mundania, humoris bone—Vicki Gleason; Mike’s girlfriend—Jaime Rocha; DeCrypt, who decodes things—Martinha Braam; mediocritree—Michelle Smith; ogre rated, zombie tree, plumpkin pie—R. J. Craigs; Random Factor’s talent, Hypotho-sea—Jyllian; ground beef—Max Xiong; ogres curdle hair—Kris Kobb; bee guile—James Willison; key board—Dawn Lisowski; wild card, Q-card—Lu Gifford; bumpkin pie—Lois Polson; pot plant—Jimmy E. Coats; Mystery Cat—Felicia M. Perez; pairing knife—Yaniv Pessach; sign language folk—Phil Giles; Petting Sue, being on the lamb—Robert Hawes; Gourd’n G’rd’n’r—Eric Herriman; Gnome Atter—Emma Snowden; white-winged snake—Era Scarecrow; Deniece and Denephew—Denise D.; Herb Sage—Leigh Killon-Purkey; paths to where needed—A. C. Sutton; Ilene, talent of making illusions real—Malcolm Shaw; air plain—Steven Barton; air drumming—William Bennett; medic air—Thom Lamb; Airon—Patty; tap water—Dassi Levin;
waves waving—Russ White; Sim-ulation—John Surber; ants in rum, ruminants—Katrin; cowboy—Jonathon Hadley; cream tsoda—David Candler; hair clips—Kris Cobb; talent of not being able to finish what he starts—Curtis Terrill; Branch Faun gets his tree back—Sabrina Smith; Brusk/Becka’s child—Ben Stallard; pigasus, hambrosia—Louis Steiner; wrong scoring in Currant Events—Michael Hawkins (first of a number who caught this); Sette family—Megan Ross; punnery—Heidi Hastie; potato ogre rotten (au gratin)—Keith J. Moseley; shade lipstick for ghosts—Amy Richards; horsefeathers—Louis Steiner; Fracto gets changed to human form—Misty Zaebst; maiden head—Brian J. Taylor; fresh err, err conditioner—Mark C. Purvis; closet door to imagination—Chris Walls; fatalitea—Albert J. Gallant; assorted Kings: Ass, Inn, Bar, Thin, Loo—John Edwards; de-ogrerant—Norm Mcleod; mirror writing—John Conrad, who really does write backward: it’s his curse; dream dictionary—Ginger Kern; jinx—Harry Gilbert; talent of force field in air—Alison; talent of steering conversation—Carter; talent of not being able to say what a person will do—David M. Cary; cone-nundrum—Mindy Basilian; the nametaggers—Jacob Kott; Citronella—Krystin Dobbs; go to Ptero poles and back on other meridians to avoid changing ages—Kenneth Adams; flamma-bull—Bethany Henderson; Billy Jack, flip-flops—Billy Jack; Tell-A-Path—Kyle Chalmers; networking—Kris Kobb; talent: make a net that will stop wiggles—Ruby Suder; small-scale klutz, large-scale benefit—Tovi Spero; Besanii, who flatters folk—Bethany Henderson; Bill Fold—Amanda Penfold; invoking monster qualities, confusing monsters, talent of redirection—Troy Young; angel meets demon at love spring—Eric C. Daniel; angel marries Demon Beauregard—Colleen Mercer; Gourd Moon—Christer S. Rowan; Obelisk—Eli Spiro; Xanth 2 as a World of Ida—Catty Philpot; Earth as one of Ida’s moons, with Demon Gaia—Locke Berry; David Scalise—Nicole Hearnes.

  And those who are interested may check my Web site at www.hipiers.com, where I have information on my novels, a listing of electronic publishing and services, and a feisty bimonthly blog-type column. Most of my interaction with my readers now occurs via that site; publishers don’t forward snail-mail letters reliably.