Air Apparent

  “Do the smoke bomb,” Wira gasped, looking green around the gills—a good trick since of course she didn’t have gills. “Maybe it will—choke!—clear the air!”

  Fray tossed another blob. This one exploded into dark smoke. It spread, suffusing the stink cloud, and forged on, carrying the smell with it. Soon the air was halfway breathable again.

  Now they just had to wait for the mother cloud to spot the signal and return. “Fray,” Debra said as her retching subsided. “How did your mother come to be named Happy Bottom? It seems an odd name for a storm.”

  “She came from Mundania,” the child said, happy to instruct. “Her name was Hurricane Gladys. When she crossed into Xanth, someone realized that her name sounded like Glad Donkey.”

  “Glad what?”

  “Mule, pony, horse, onager, burro—”

  “Never mind,” Wira said sharply.

  Debra realized that it was probably a word forbidden to children; that was why Fray had gotten it wrong.

  “So she became Happy Bottom,” Fray concluded. “So that children can say it. Father says he does his best to keep her bottom happy, though I don’t understand what he means.”

  “Never mind,” Debra echoed, suppressing a smile. When in Xanth, honor the Xanth conventions.

  A wind developed. “Oh, there’s Mother,” Fray said, pleased.

  The wind intensified, threatening to blow them off their feet. It was evident that the mother storm was not nearly as pleased as her daughter.

  “Mother, this is Wira,” Fray called. “The Good Magician’s daughter. She knows something!”

  She had gotten a detail wrong, but the words were nevertheless effective. The storm eased, and the cloud funneled down into a contracting blob. The blob extruded limbs and a head, and became the shape of a woman. A lovely nude woman. Then leftover mists coalesced around the form, becoming clothing.

  “Yes?” Happy Bottom asked. “I thought you were blind.”

  “I am,” Wira agreed. “I’m looking for my sight, as far as others are concerned. But since you have suffered a similar loss, I think you need to know the full story.”

  “To be sure,” the cloud woman agreed darkly.

  Wira quickly introduced Debra and summarized the situation. “So you see,” she concluded, “the same thing may have taken both Hugo and Fracto. If we can find out who or what did it, we may both recover our loved ones. I think we should cooperate.”

  Happy Bottom was no fool. “I agree. I’ve been looking all over Xanth; there’s no sign of him. He’s not in the sky. That means he’s been sucked into some nefarious cave, or compressed into solidity and hidden. That means we’ll have to search underground, and look for traces of him among solid things, distasteful as that may be. Whatever it takes, we’ll do.”

  “I agree,” Wira said. “We can coordinate our search.”

  “Who checks what?”

  “Odd as it may seem,” Wira said, “we are better equipped to check the ground surface, because we can fly from spot to spot, and Debra can’t squeeze into tight caves underground. If your solid form is malleable, you are better equipped for that work.”

  “Agreed. We can be any forms we choose. We can assume the shape of large snakes to explore caves.”

  “I hope you can’t be hurt in your solid forms. If the goblins catch you it could become unpleasant.”

  “We have no hearts or blood the way you naturally solid creatures do,” Happy Bottom said. “We’re just condensed cloud stuff. We can’t be hurt or killed by stones or knives. We’ll simply evaporate and float away.”

  “Excellent! You are perfect for that search, then.” Wira paused, thinking of something. “But how do we coordinate? We need to be able to signal each other, so if one of us finds a missing person, we can notify the other, so that the search can be called off.”

  Happy Bottom reached into her somewhat nebulous core and brought out a dark ball. “Here is a smoke bomb; will that do?”

  “Are you sure it’s smoke?” Debra asked nervously.

  Happy Bottom laughed. “Fray detonated a stink bomb! I can smell the remnant. Yes, I am sure. Would you like a stink bomb too? They can be very effective when there is animate danger.”

  Wira nodded, evidently repressing half a smile. “Yes, I believe that.”

  Happy Bottom produced another ball, this one stink-brown rather than smoke-gray. Wira accepted it and put it in her purse with the smoke bomb. Then she brought out an item of her own. “This sealed vial contains a lantern, a bird that gives off bright light as it flies. It will form when you release it, and fly to find me. I won’t see it, of course, but Debra surely will. Debra is my eyes for this mission.”

  Happy Bottom accepted the vial. “Thank you. That should suffice.”

  “Then I think we are done here,” Wira said. “I’m so glad to have met you, Happy Bottom.”

  “Likewise, Wira, I’m sure. Just why did you come here? We had told no one of my husband’s disappearance.”

  “I checked the Book of Answers for Clues, and Fracto’s entry was warm. I knew he had something to do with it. Now I know he was another victim; that’s the connection.”

  “It is indeed,” the cloud wife agreed sadly.

  Wira mounted Debra, and they took off for the next Clue. Debra was privately impressed; Wira was quite competent. She had somehow thought that to be blind was to be less than a full person. Now she knew that was not at all the case. Wira was smart, determined, and emotionally strong. She was doing what she had to do to recover her lost husband, showing no weakness. It was a quiet lesson of life.

  “Oh, I wish I knew where Hugo is,” Wira said, shedding a warm tear. “I feel so helpless.”

  Well, almost no weakness. Somehow Debra didn’t hold that against her.

  4

  PRISON

  Hugo stared around, but the light remained just as dim as ever. How many days and nights had he been confined in this dark dank cell? He was unable to keep track, but it seemed to be several. He pondered for the umpteenth time what had happened, though it did him no more good than the first review had.

  He had been about to get together with Wira to signal a stork. They had gone through the motions many times before, but the spell on her had prevented the storks from receiving it. Meanwhile other couples had gotten deliveries. Surprise Golem had a little girl, and Breanna of the Black Wave now had a second child, a little boy with the talent of making darkness. Wira was of course too nice to feel jealous or to complain, but Hugo wasn’t. Hugo had finally talked with his mother the Gorgon, and she had talked to Magician Humfrey in that certain hard-gazed serpentine way she had, and prevailed on him to grudgingly remove the spell. Now the signal would go out unimpeded, and in due course, after about nine months of inefficient paperwork, the stork would make the delivery. It was an exciting prospect.

  In fact it was worthy of celebration. So he had gone to the cellar to fetch a bottle of Rhed Whine. He had been about to take the bottle when—he found himself here. At first he had thought he was in the same cellar, but soon he found that it was different, with a permanently locked door. He could not escape.

  Who had done this to him, and how, and most important, why? He didn’t have any enemies that he knew of. Had someone wanted to gain some obscure revenge against his father Humfrey? By kidnapping his son? He did not much like that notion. Or did someone want to make time with his nice wife Wira? He did not much like that notion either. He had thought that someone would miss him at the castle, and Humfrey would use the Book of Answers to look him up and find out what had happened. Evidently not. He really did not much like that notion.

  He was hungry, so he conjured a fruit. That was his talent, of course: conjuring fruit. The problem was that he wasn’t very good at it. When they had been children, Princess Ivy had enhanced him so that he could conjure great fruit, and when he married Wira, she had encouraged him in a way that had similar effect. But now he was alone, and had reverted to his normal blah ability. So the
banana he conjured was more like an overripe plantain. It almost landed in his ear. Ugh.

  He took a bite, but it wasn’t fun. Well, he had plenty of time to chew, and he needed to, on this tough fruit. Then he had to go to the trench in the corner to do some natural business, as there were no better sanitary facilities. Fortunately there was a bit of a draft from a crack in a wall that would gradually dilute and clear the smell. This was definitely not a vacation resort.

  There was a ping in the corner. There in an alcove he hadn’t noticed before was a bucket of fresh water, and beside it was a loaf of hard black bread. Well now. He chewed on the bread and found it bearable. He drank his fill of water, then used the rest to give himself a wash. He set the empty bucket back in the alcove. And in half a moment it disappeared.

  There was a sound at the wall. In fact it was at the crack. Had the bugs gotten wind of the refuse, and protested? He went to investigate, as there was not much else to do at the moment.

  There was something there, and it wasn’t a bug. It was considerably larger, and it was beyond the crevice, on the other side of the wall. It seemed to be alive. A rat? “Who or what are you?” Hugo asked.

  Hungry.

  That might have made Hugo nervous, but it wasn’t a threat. It was a message in his mind. The thing was hungry, and there was a nuance of the thought that hoped Hugo could help. But he wasn’t sure how. So he asked: “How can I help you?”

  Fruit.

  Hugo smiled ruefully in the gloom. “I have fruit, plenty of fruit, but it isn’t very good fruit. I’m not sure you’d want it.”

  Want fruit. Good enough.

  “I’ll show you.” Hugo conjured an apple. It was overripe, on the verge of rotting. He held it to the crevice. “This is what I’ve got. I don’t think—”

  Delicious! And the thing was eating it, or at least taking some sort of bite from it.

  “Well, you’re welcome. But you are very easy to please. That’s rotten fruit, and that’s almost literal.”

  Wonderful! And there was a nuance of growing satisfaction. The thing was not only eating it, it was enjoying it, and obtaining nourishment from it.

  Hugo continued to hold the apple to the crevice, pushing it in as the far side got eaten away. “You never answered my question. Who and what are you? I’m Hugo Human, prisoner.”

  Bathos Bat. I’m a fruit bat. Oh, I haven’t had a meal like that in a long time!

  A fruit bat! That explained a lot. It surely lived in a cave beyond the cell, and the crack in the wall connected them. But that name—that was an oddity. “Bathos—doesn’t that mean something, well, insipid? Ludicrous?”

  Yes. That describes me. I’m not much of a bat. That’s why I’m hungry; I’m not allowed to go to any of the good trees to eat. That’s why I’m hiding in this crevice, alone. What’s the point in going out, when the others will only torment me?

  This was interesting. There had been a time when Hugo felt much the same. He had always known he wasn’t much of a person. He was lucky Wira was blind, so she couldn’t see how ordinary he was. In fact he was lucky to have Wira; she made his life worthwhile. “I know how it is.”

  There was a thought of surprise. Then agreement. You have that mood about you. You are to your kind what I am to mine: not much.

  “Not much,” Hugo agreed, smiling. He was relating to a bat!

  Is that why they confined you here?

  “I don’t think so. It just happened. I wish I could find the way out. It would help if I even knew where I was. Do you know?”

  It’s a human castle. They all look alike to me.

  Because bats occupied caves, not castles. “I wish I had your freedom; I’d fly out and take a look. Maybe I’d be able to tell my wife where I am.”

  I wish I had your talent for summoning fruit. I would gorge!

  Hugo laughed. “Too bad we can’t change places.”

  Our bodies can’t; there’s not room in the crevice. But our minds can.

  “Our minds can?” Hugo asked incredulously. “You mean we can imagine switching bodies?”

  It is my talent: identity exchange. But no other bat wants my identity.

  “But isn’t your talent telepathy? It certainly isn’t mine.”

  No. I am doing a partial exchange with you, just enough so we can share thoughts. We couldn’t communicate otherwise, and I couldn’t do it at all if you weren’t willing. You’re very nice.

  “Thank you. You have a better talent than I do.”

  No, no, not at all. You can conjure fruit! Any fruit bat would give anything for that.

  “But it’s not good fruit! I don’t even like to eat it myself, and wouldn’t, if I had a choice.” Fortunately it seemed he would have bread and water, which helped.

  We like very ripe fruit. It is easy to eat and digest.

  “You mean you really would like to—to borrow my body and my talent? Because I really would like to borrow yours.”

  Then let’s do it.

  And Hugo found himself in the bat’s body. Are you there in my body? he thought, startled.

  “Yes, I am here, Hugo Human. This is a huge body—how do you manage it?”

  I am used to it, Hugo thought wryly. Now if you will just focus on whatever kind of fruit you want, it will come to you.

  Suddenly a watermelon appeared in his body’s arms. “Oh, glorious!” his body said. “Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen!” An orange appeared, and a yellow, purple, green, and plaid. Colorful fruit was piling up around his body’s feet.

  Easy, Bathos, he thought. You can’t possibly eat all that.

  “But I’m certainly going to try,” his body said. “I’ve been so hungry, so long, this is wonderful.” It took a big bite of overly juicy melon. This was a variety that was not solid water.

  Well, if Bathos was satisfied, so was Hugo. I’ll go explore now. I’ll return soon.

  “Don’t hurry,” his body replied, slurping one of two slushy pears. Pears always came in twos.

  Hugo worked his way out of the crevice, into the cave. There were no other bats there; this was evidently their foraging time.

  He took flight in the cave, finding that it came naturally. There was light in the distance, so he flew toward it. This was daytime; most bats were nocturnal, but maybe the fruit bats needed daylight to see their fruits better.

  He emerged from the cave and flew into the sky. Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen, he thought, echoing Bathos’s words.

  It was glorious outside. He could see wide and far. He was in a pretty glade in a pleasant forest. He looked around—and saw the castle that had been behind him. It was a lovely castle, with tiered walls and towering turrets. And it was completely unfamiliar. It wasn’t the Good Magician’s Castle, or Castle Roogna, and certainly not Castle Zombie. There was the Nameless Castle, but that was built on a floating cloud in the sky. So what was this one? He was pretty sure that his father or mother would know of it, or any of the other designated wives, and surely Wira did too. But Hugo had not paid much attention to Xanth history or geography, so had not picked up on this one. Which meant that he still had no idea where he was.

  Well, he could find out. If he flew high enough and far enough, he would come to some geographic feature he recognized, like the Gap Chasm or Centaur Isle. Then he would know. Then maybe he would be able to figure out what to do next.

  He winged upward into the sky—and spied a big bird. No, it was a griffin. The bird-headed lion spied him and turned to fly toward him. Did griffins eat bats? Hugo decided not to find out. He dived back down toward the forest.

  The griffin dived too. It was faster than he was, and was overhauling him rapidly. Hugo dodged aside as the eagle-beak snapped at him; this body was good at dodging. Then the griffin was beyond him, and having to reorient to make another pass.

  Hugo plunged into the forest, barely missing the foliage of a tree. He swerved to enter it, so he could hide.

  The griffin hovered beside the tree, its eagle eyes searching. Hugo could
have avoided discovery by being very still and quiet, but instead he leaped out, hovered over the griffin’s head, and pooped. Then he dodged back into the foliage.

  Why had he done that? Not only was it nasty, it was extremely risky.

  The griffin squawked, outraged. The thing about griffins was that they were fastidious. They wouldn’t eat any flesh that was dirty or spoiled, and often they dunked their prey in fresh water to be sure it was clean before being torn apart and eaten. This one was so angry it couldn’t see straight. It flew crazily off to find a huge clean pool.

  Well, he had succeeded in saving his leathery hide. Hugo had never been mistaken for hero material; he was normally rather shy and retiring. This foolish act, effective as it had turned out to be, was entirely unlike him. What had possessed him?

  He heard two people talking in the forest. They were approaching the tree. “Dear, let’s pause here where we can kiss in private,” the lady’s voice said.

  “No, dear, not here,” the man’s voice said. “That’s the unpleasantree. It will make us quarrel and be mean to each other. Come this way, to the pleasantree.”

  “Oh, you’re so smart,” she said. “Of course we want the pleasantree. I can hardly wait to be really pleasant to you.”

  “Yes indeed,” he agreed. Their voices faded as they changed course.

  So that was it! Hugo had landed in an unpleasantree, and so been really unpleasant to the griffin. That was good to know, but now he needed to get away from here and resume his search, this time more alert for predators.

  He launched himself from the foliage and flew up out of the forest. He wasn’t concerned about the griffin, knowing it would take its time to decontaminate. Bat guano was stinky stuff. Still, he flew near the tops of the trees, so he could duck for cover again when he needed to. Bathos would not be pleased if Hugo got his body eaten up.

  Unfortunately the forest seemed to be endless. He was in danger of getting lost, and that would be no good. What would happen if he was unable to find his way back to the cell? Would the exchanged minds revert to their own bodies after a while, or would they be stuck forever exchanged? He didn’t care to find out. Anyway, it was getting late; he could see the shadows of trees lengthening.