Air Apparent

  Like this business of his happening to encounter a bat with a special talent, and that bat overeating and getting so sick he got rid of the mediocritree seed that had caused Hugo so much trouble all his life. How could all of that happen just by chance? And his encountering Brunhilda, who was able to help him get back into the cave, and who found him interesting? He hadn’t done any of that for himself; he had merely been there while unusual things happened. Was there some guiding principle he didn’t know about?

  But sleep overcame him before he came to a conclusion. That was too bad, because the obvious one was that he was making good use of random encounters. Randomness was the key to this region, because this had to be the cell of the dread Random Factor, in the dungeon of Castle Mai-dragon. Had he realized that, he would have had a much better notion how to escape confinement: just bang on the door until the proprietor, Becka Dragongirl, came to check, then tell her. He knew of this because there were a number of references to it at the Good Magician’s Castle, and even a Magic Mirror connecting the two castles.

  It was really too bad he was so sleepy. Also too bad that the mediocritree seed had lodged in the pillow under his head, making him dull again. So he didn’t think of any of this, or wonder what the Random Factor might be doing out in Xanth, now that he was free at last.

  Coincidences were randomly good and bad.

  5

  FACTOR

  He was an ogre, tramping through the brush near the Gap Chasm. It was a random form and a random location, which was hardly surprising, considering that he was the Random Factor. His talent was to be random. For years he had done random things to other people; now he had figured out how to randomize himself. So he had randomly given himself full consciousness and the talent of random magic, and much had rapidly changed.

  That had enabled him to escape from confinement. For the first time he was free to roam Xanth. But there was a constraint: those who sought him would be able to orient on him each time he performed a random magic stunt, so he would have to keep moving lest they catch up. His prison cell had been magically shielded, keeping him anonymous. But what good was it hiding if he couldn’t go anywhere or do anything? He needed anonymity and freedom.

  He had found that he could move himself to a random site, or assume a random form. One or the other, not both together. But he got around this by finding a form he liked, then randomly traveling with it. Actually it wasn’t quite random; what he did was randomly exchange places with some other creature or thing. At any rate, that enabled him to jump to new places, and that was worthwhile even if he couldn’t choose the places.

  He had also discovered that there was a limit on the number of times he could perform his magic. He could do it up to six times in a day, but had to do at least one of each kind. So he could do five form changes and one location change, or three of each, or whatever. He could not do six forms in a day, or six locations in a day, or more than six total in a day. It didn’t seem like much of a limit, but he had to keep it in mind, in case he needed something at the end of the day and couldn’t do it. His best course was use his magic sparingly, unless he had reason.

  The ground started squishing under his ham feet. He peered down with his lowbrowed eyeballs and saw that the turf had become mushy meat. It was just his luck to walk onto ground beef. But that was his problem: not only could he do random things, random things tended to happen around him. Such as the wrong kind of ground.

  However, this ogre form wasn’t bad. No sensible creature bothered an ogre, so he was being left alone.

  “Me see a hee!” something screeched.

  He looked at the horrible voice. Oh, no—it was an ogress. That was one of the few exceptions. Ogresses liked ogres. They could be very affectionate. That would be no fun, for an ogress in charm mood could curdle a fellow’s hair.

  He tried to run away, but the mushy beef just made his feet skid. In two and a half moments the ogress caught him and wrapped her hairy arms about him. Now he got a good look at her face. It fit the classic description: it resembled an overcooked bowl of mush that someone had sat on. Her breath was redolent of pease porridge in the pot nine days old. At least.

  “Me miss, he kiss,” she said, indicating that she was a single female in search of romance.

  He struggled to escape, but her embrace was locked on. She planted a huge slobbery kiss on his quailing puss. It was like getting struck on the mouth by a rotten plum pudding.

  But the slobber made him slippery enough to duck down out of her clasp. He scrambled away. He was escaping!

  Then he came to the brink of the Gap Chasm. The yawning crevasse opened out below as if just waking up, while the ogress, having caught on that he was no longer with her, was charging up behind. “So he well met, play hard to get,” she cried as she reached for him.

  There was no help for it. He had to get random. He could randomize one thing at a time. He kept the ogre form and changed the location.

  He looked around. He was in a mountain valley with a small lake. Healthy nude humanoid men and women were running frantically around, chasing each other. The females had human feet, but the males had hoofed feet. A nymph was running fleetly away from him. He realized he had just exchanged with the faun who was chasing her. That faun would now be clasping the ogress. Would he notice the difference?

  This was the fabled Faun & Nymph Retreat! The denizens existed only to chase and celebrate in their special fashion, which the dread Adult Conspiracy forbade being described to children. They had memories only for the day; next day was completely fresh, with no recollections. It was what some considered an idyllic existence. If a faun or nymph moved away from the Retreat, he or she became mortal and retained memory. That was a fate devoutly to be unwished, as far as they were concerned. Who would want to get old and finally die, burdened by all those memories? Yet, oddly, some did.

  Well, this seemed to be as good a place as any to take it easy. He dropped his ogre rump to the ground and watched the ongoing celebrations. That made him aware of one thing he still missed: a female companion. But what woman would long tolerate his randomness?

  “Randiness?” a voice asked.

  “What?” he asked in turn, startled. There was nothing there but a small cloud of smoke.

  “Turn-on, desire, erotic appetite, lust, horny—”

  “That was randomness, not randiness,” he said. “And I didn’t say it, I only thought it.”

  “Whatever,” the cloud agreed crossly. “I was in the area and happened by just by chance. You don’t sound much like an ogre.”

  “That’s because I’m not really an ogre. It is merely a form I randomly assumed.”

  “There’s that word again. Are you sure you aren’t hot for a stork?” The smoke assumed the form of a voluptuous bare woman, nymph-like but better endowed.

  This was becoming interesting. “Actually I might be. Who are you?”

  The form solidified. “Demoness Metria, who else? I am constantly in search of something interesting. Are you interesting?”

  Metria. He knew of her. She would blab his secret to the universe. He needed to be rid of her. “Dull as dishwater on a cloudy day.”

  “Fascinating! Let’s talk. Who are you?”

  So much for that. Maybe it would be better just to tell her. Then the mystery would be gone and she might lose interest. “I am the Random Factor.”

  “Hey, I know of you! But why aren’t you locked up in the dungeon cell of Castle Maidragon?”

  “I escaped. Now I’m exploring Xanth. Now about being erotically interested—why don’t you come sit on my lap?”

  “Why I might just do that,” she said, and planted her shapely firm bare bottom on his lap. But then she diffused just as he put his ham hands on her, and they passed through her substance as if it were illusion. “But aren’t you married?”

  “No. I might like to be, though.”

  “Ah, that’s it. I am. So I’d better not seduce you.” She floated off his lap.

&nbs
p; “You are an unmitigated tease.”

  “Thank you. I try my best. But I’m curious: how was it you remained locked in that cell for so many years, and then suddenly escaped? Did someone forget to lock the door?”

  “That door was seldom locked. It was spelled so I couldn’t use it. Only the clients could open it, and of course I did something random to them the moment they did.”

  “Then how—?”

  “You are asking me for a favor?”

  She paused. “Ah, I cogitate.”

  “You what?”

  “Grasp, follow, comprehend, fathom, understand—”

  “See?”

  “Whatever,” she agreed crossly.

  “Cogitate is a synonym for thought, not for understanding.”

  “Whatever! You figure that your answer is a favor to me, so I should do a favor for you. Like planting my evocative bare bottom back in your lap and remaining solid.”

  “That’s what I figure,” he agreed.

  “You drive a hard bargain.”

  “Hoping to meet a soft one.”

  She angled her head at him. “You know, I think I would have caught on that you’re not really an ogre, even if you hadn’t told me.”

  “I might have caught on that you’re not really a woman.”

  “Very well.” She floated back toward him. “Tell me.”

  “I finally realized that if my talent was randomness, and it had an effect on others, it might also have an effect on me.”

  “Fascinating.” She was settling slowly toward his lap. “Do tell me more.”

  “A nymph!” a faun cried, charging in.

  “I’m not a nymph,” Metria protested. “However—”

  The Factor reached out with a ham hand and picked the faun up by the hair. “Go away,” he said, and tossed the faun into the lake. Then he returned his attention to Metria.

  But the demoness was gone.

  “Bleep,” he muttered. He had let his attention wander, and she had sneaked away, satisfied that at this moment he had not wanted her to. She had done what she wanted, which was to incite his desire, then teasingly deny him. It was of course the way demonesses were; he had allowed himself to forget.

  But it wasn’t the way nymphs were. He got to his feet and tramped toward them.

  The nymphs spied him and screamed. They fled. They were afraid of the ogre.

  The Factor sighed. He would have to do another change. If he were lucky, he might assume the form of a regular human man, or a faun, satyr, or other suitable male. The problem was that he couldn’t control the form; it was of course random. All he could do was make the decision to change.

  He made it. And found himself flying not far above the ground. He was a bee. In fact, a bee guile. Whoever he stung would believe whatever he was told.

  But that would not get him a liaison with a nymph. He had to try again. He did.

  This time he dropped to the ground metallically. He was a keyboard: a board in the shape of a key, that Com Pewter’s mouse might use. But neither Pewter nor his mouse were here, and the Factor wasn’t interested in serving in this manner. He changed again, determined to get somewhere useful.

  He became a small oblong made of paper. It was a card with a picture of a one-eyed jack. It was a wild card, that distorted reality and made anything possible.

  So could he use its magic to make himself a faun? He tried, but nothing happened. He thought he understood why: it would be a paradox. His talent was randomness; he could not change it to something else. Other folk might be able to use the card, but not him.

  He tried yet again. This time he became an onion. A credit onion, that would arrange for people to borrow money. The trouble was, Xanth didn’t use money; that was a Mundanian phenomenon. He had lost again.

  He would try one more time, then quit if it wasn’t right, because that would be his sixth magic today. He changed—and was a pie. A bumpkin pie. Anyone who took a bite of it would stupidly bump into things.

  That was it. He reverted to his natural shape: the humanoid Random Factor. That he could always do. But normally it freaked women out.

  Several nymphs spied him. “Ooo, a man!” they cried, and converged. In half a moment he was pleasantly buried in nymphs.

  Now he remembered: nymphs had no memory of past events. They didn’t know about him, assuming they ever had been told. So they were not afraid of him. To them, he was just a new kind of faun.

  Suddenly things were looking up.

  In the morning, before dawn, the Factor woke, still buried in nymphs. Their bare sleeping weight on him was hardly oppressive; in fact they made about as nice a blanket as he could imagine. They had given him a night of considerable celebration, as they put it, making up for all his years of isolation from their gender. Nymphs were not smart; they had only one thing on their cute little minds, and that happened, by one of the coincidences that were his nature, to be exactly what he had been looking for.

  But by now he was exhausted in that respect, and needed to get away before any of them woke and started over. But how could he get away without moving, and thus disturbing them? They would have no memory of the night’s revelries, and be eager for the novelty of what they thought was a new interaction. He really wasn’t up to that.

  He got a fair notion. There should be fauns nearby. “Hey, fauns!” he called in a controlled low tone. “Look here!”

  One heard him. “A pile of nymphs!” he exclaimed, and charged in to join the celebration. Others heard him and joined the charge, converging. In barely nine tenths of a moment they had hold of the nymphs, who woke cutely screaming and kicking their nice legs and flinging their hair about, making themselves quite ready for the interaction. In the remaining tenth of the moment several couples had formed, celebrating enthusiastically.

  The Factor crawled out from under the squirming pile, unnoticed. Before any new nymphs could spy him, he made a random exchange of location.

  He was in the bottom of a deep cleft. He recognized it: the Gap Chasm, which had balked him when the ogress was after him. He hadn’t fallen, he had merely changed places with some creature, maybe a rabbit. That was fine. The nymphs should like the rabbit, if they noticed it.

  There was a puff of steam. Something had been chasing the rabbit. It was the dread Gap Dragon, a six-legged, serpentine, vestigial-winged steamer, the terror of the Gap. All creatures that got caught here were its natural prey. Naturally random chance had put him right in its way.

  The Factor had formidable random magic, but was not physically formidable. He was pretty much a routine man in a protective suit that would not be much use against the steam or teeth of the dragon. He would be cooked in his clothing and chomped before the dragon even got close. That was one of the things about dragons: they could use smoke, fire, or steam to process their prey from a distance.

  He would not be able to flee the predator; the bottom of the chasm was its restricting hunting ground. He couldn’t fight it—not in his natural form. He would have to change forms. That meant more magic and more gambling on what forms would appear.

  The dragon spied him and shot out white-hot steam. He changed. And became a pot plant.

  The steam struck it. The pots heated, but this was no problem because this plant was made for heating. Its fresh pots were used for cooking, while the older ones that were decaying affected the mind when smoked. Did getting steamed count?

  The dragon skidded to a six-legged halt. It sniffed the pots, evidently having thought it saw a man here a moment ago. When it came to the old ones it got a dreamy expression. It seemed the magic did work when the pots were steamed. Soon it settled into a peaceful coil around the plant and snoozed.

  Well and good, to a degree. He was out of danger. But how was he going to get away from the dragon, who might merely be playing possum? The possum was a magical Mundane animal who could play dead, then come back to life unexpectedly. As the dragon might, the moment the Factor moved.

  And of course he couldn’t
move from this spot, because he was a plant with solid roots. He would have to change, and that might be what the cunning creature was waiting for.

  He needed some way to distract the dragon without changing forms until he had at least a bit of distance. But what could a pot plant do?

  He rattled his pots. They clanged together, raising a metallic ruckus. The fresh new ones clanged sharply, while the worn old ones thudded. It was an awful racket.

  The dragon woke, annoyed. The noise continued, surely tingling the creature’s sensitive ears. It issued a blast of steam, but that didn’t stop the panning; it just got louder and less in tune. This was almost guaranteed to deliver a headache.

  The dragon gave up and moved away, trying to shake the headache out of its noggin.

  Now he could change. He became a tortoiseshell cat nine or ten years old named Mystery; it had a name tag on its collar.

  The dragon sent a plume of steam that took live aim on the cat. The Factor leaped out of the way and bounded toward the nearest small tree. He jumped into its branches and hid behind its trunk.

  But in a moment the dragon’s snoot nudged around the trunk. He leaped clear just as the next superheated jet of steam was loosed at point-blank range. And landed by sheer random coincidence on the dragon’s head.

  Uh-oh. This was not the most secure place to be. But he couldn’t leap off without becoming an immediate target. So he clung where he was.

  The dragon shook his head violently. The cat clung tightly. It was a standoff—for all of one and a third moments. Then the cat flew high and wide.

  But already the dragon’s snoot was orienting, ready to send a spear of steam to catch the target in midair.

  The Factor changed forms again. And became a pairing knife. The jet of steam struck it—and split in two. That was the knife’s talent: to make pairs of things.

  The Factor fell safely between the pair of jets. But he couldn’t move out of range this way. If the dragon attacked him, he might make two of it, which would be twice as bad. He had to find a better random form.