In two and a half periods of time they reached the pile of ashes that was the men’s burial place. They landed, Sim with Ilene, Debra with the three of them, and the two men in their almost comical winged hats.
Fray let go of Nimbus, and he jumped to the ground. Actually the danger of his falling has been slight, because they all had been lightened for the flight. She followed—and he reached up to catch her and help her down. She was so surprised she didn’t think to protest. “Thank you.”
Then he pulled her close and kissed her, catching her with her astonished mouth open. “Now we’re even,” he said, and giggled.
He walked away, leaving her dumbfounded. Had it been his little joke, or had he really wanted to kiss her back? She was truly confused.
“He likes you,” Wira murmured. “But he’s embarrassed to show it. Boys—and men—are like that.”
Oh. Evidently Wira had had enough experience with men to decode their mysteries.
Meanwhile the men were busy delving into the ashes. Soon they uncovered a trapdoor, opened it, and revealed steps leading down.
And there they were, lying as if asleep. “Now do we take our own bodies?” Hugo asked. “Knowing the risk?”
The Factor considered for a good seven eighths of a moment. “Yes. I’d rather have the risk in my own body, than be forever in yours.” He went to his own body and touched it.
Nothing happened. He was unable to get into it. Hugo tried with his body, with no better success. “So we can’t exchange back this way.”
“It seems we have to return to the bodies we left,” Wira said.
The men shrugged and went to their own bodies. In barely one and a half fractions of a moment they had merged. Now all the members of their party had been restored.
“Now for the curse test,” the Factor said. He approached Debra, who obligingly put on her bra. He removed it with no trouble.
Then it was Hugo’s turn. He approached Debra in the Factor’s body. “No!” Wira cried. “I know it’s going to destroy you! Even if this isn’t the original Xanth.”
Hugo looked at her. “I have a gut feeling you’re right. The curse remains. We don’t dare risk it again.”
“Then maybe Fray’s solution is the best,” Debra said sadly. “We can go to Magician Trent for transformations.”
“This bothers me,” Sim said. “There remain mysteries here. I think we should fathom them before making any significant decision.”
Fray saw the others looking at him warily. Sim was only twelve years old, but he was a very smart bird. “What remaining mysteries?” Wira asked guardedly.
“For one thing, what started the chain of events that brought us here?”
“That’s easy,” Hugo said. “The Random Factor randomly changed himself so he could affect himself, and switched places with me, then with Fracto. That put Wira in motion to find me, and me in motion to escape, and Happy Bottom and Fray in motion to rescue Fracto. One thing led to another.”
“And the Factory crafted me to recover him, the moment he escaped,” Debra said. “Thus the curse, and, incidentally, our love.”
Sim nodded. “That does seem to be where it started. But how was it possible for the Factor to change himself, when he had never been able to before? His randomness never applied to himself until that moment. How could his talent change?”
“That’s true,” Wira said. “Talents don’t change themselves, not even randomly. Something else must have changed him.”
“Not the Factory,” Hugo said. “It doesn’t want him free. Anyway, I don’t know anything that can change a person’s talent, other than—” He halted.
“Other than what?” Wira asked.
“A Demon!” Fray said, seeing it.
“This is my conjecture,” Sim said. “Which in turn raises the question, which Demon, and why?”
Wira shuddered. “We don’t want Demon involvement. They are way too powerful, and way too indifferent to mortal concerns. They care only about their status games.”
“Which suggests that we are participating in a Demon game,” Sim said. “This is what concerns me most. What are the stakes, and what is the bet? Such things may make a difference in our fate.”
Fray feared he was right. She understood that the Demons normally did not interfere in the affairs of mortals, except to use them in trifling ways to settle games. She had heard about the one involving Roxanne Roc, a fine creature of the air, who had been put on trial for saying a bad word in the presence of the Simurgh’s egg she had been incubating for five hundred years. The bet was whether any mortal jury would convict her. Another had involved the Demon Xanth himself, who had to assume the form of a dragon ass, Nimby, and win a single tear of love or grief for him from an unsuspecting mortal. He had won that, and married the one who shed the tear, and Nimbus was the result. But no Demon had interfered after the initial settings; the mortals had had to settle them themselves.
“Let me see if I understand this,” Debra said. “A Demon must have touched Random, and changed the nature of his talent, and the Demons have some sort of bet on where that will lead? And it’s not finished yet? And it won’t be finished until something we do settles the Demon bet?”
“That is my conjecture,” Sim agreed.
“What are the stakes likely to be?” Wira asked.
“They can be anything from a kiss to the destruction of a world,” Sim said. “This is why we have a right to be nervous.”
“And what is the bet likely to be?” Ilene asked.
“It can be anything from whether a given person steps on an ant, to whether the Factory manages to recover the Factor.”
“Or whether we make it back to our original home,” Hugo said.
“Or whether we succeed in returning to our own bodies,” the Factor said.
Fray thought of something. “The Demon Xanth governs the Land of Xanth. The Demon Earth governs the planet Earth. They are next to each other, and folk cross between them all the time. But when we came through the loop, there was another world between: Moondania. And Princess Ida of Obelisk said that Earth was governed by the Demoness Gaia, not the Demon Earth. They don’t match!”
The others gazed at her silently.
“Did I say something stupid?” Fray asked.
“On the contrary,” Sim said. “You just pointed out something we all missed: there is a misalignment. Which suggests in turn that this is not our world of origin. In this portion of the chain of worlds, there is a world between Earth and Xanth, and Xanth is a planet itself. We may have our answer.”
“May?” Wira asked. “Why not?”
“It is possible that we simply have misunderstood the relation of Earth and Xanth. Or that when Ilene made real the illusion planet we crafted, that changed the lineup.”
“So this could be the original Xanth, but a link has been added in the chain,” Debra said.
“And this could be part of the Demons’ bet,” Hugo said. “Like maybe whether we figure out where we really are.”
“Or something entirely different,” Wira said. “And the alignment of worlds is merely an incidental complication along the way.”
“A matter of indifference to the Demons,” Debra agreed.
“I am getting very nervous,” Ilene said. “How can we know what to do that won’t mess everything up horribly?”
Sim’s beak curved into a smile. “We might ask the Demons.”
“Which Demon, dear?” Ilene asked, smiling back.
“I know!” Fray said. “The new one. The Demoness Gaia. We can invoke her.”
Both Sim and Ilene winced. “We were speaking ironically,” Sim said.
“We wouldn’t dare invoke a Demon,” Ilene agreed.
Oh. This time Fray realized she had been stupid. She had misunderstood their adultish humor. She didn’t even know what irony was. “Then not,” she said.
The air shimmered. So did the ground. “Uh-oh,” Hugo said. “Sometimes just mentioning a Demon is enough.”
&
nbsp; A form coalesced from the shimmer. It was like a human woman with a head like a cloud, who glowed like Nimbus, only more so. Her bosom was like two boldly shaped mountains, and her limbs were like those of trees, but she was the most beautiful possible creature.
“Hi, Gaia,” Nimbus said. He had evidently seen her around before this adventure, maybe when the Demons held some sort of conclave.
“Hello, Nimbus Xanth-son,” Gaia replied with a voice like windblown mist. Then she oriented on Fray. “Why did you conjure me, cloud girl?”
“I—I didn’t mean to,” Fray faltered. “I thought you could answer our questions, but maybe I shouldn’t have.”
“What questions?” the breath-of-spring voice asked.
Fray wanted to flee, but knew she couldn’t. She had to answer, whether foolishly or sensibly. “Did you—were you the one who—changed the Factor’s talent?”
“Yes,” the trickling-brook voice said.
This wasn’t over. She had to ask the next question. “Why?”
“Why do you think?” the soft-wind-through-fragrant-flowers asked.
“To—to make us—” What was next? “To make us conjure you.”
“Yes!” the dawn-after-horrendously-dark-night voice said. “Earth! Xanth! Show yourselves. Two steps have been accomplished.”
Two more Demons appeared. Fray recognized one as Earth, because his head was a slowly spinning blue-fringed planet. The other was the Demon Xanth, whose head was like a luxuriant peninsula. Then he assumed his dragon ass form, Nimby.
“Daddy!” Nimbus cried, running to him for a hug. He had no fear at all of the dragon, and indeed the dragon accepted his embrace and licked his face.
Demon Xanth looked around. “Have these mortal folk treated you well?” Fray was startled; she had thought the dragon couldn’t talk. She was learning things at a startling rate.
“Oh, sure,” the boy said carelessly. “Ilene made sure of that. She’s on the way to becoming a Sorceress, you know.” The boy frowned. “Her talent’s better than mine.”
“Not necessarily,” the dragon said. “She has worked harder than you to perfect it. Yours will get there when you apply yourself.”
“Oh.” The boy wasn’t much interested in applying himself. That, too, would surely change as he aged. “And Fray’s sorta cute.”
Fray felt herself blushing storm-gray.
Demon Xanth looked at Demoness Gaia. “Clarify the situation.”
“There was a Demon contest millennia ago,” Gaia said with her wash-of-ocean-surf-at-dusk voice. “It was wrongly decided. In order to correct that wrong, three requirements obtained. First, the break in the loop had to be repaired. That has been accomplished. Second, the relevant Demon had to be invoked. That has been accomplished. Third, the issue had to be decided by an ignorant mortal.” She gazed intently at Fray with her storm-swirl eyes. “You.”
“Me? But I’m just a little condensed cloud! I don’t know anything.”
“Precisely,” Gaia agreed with her summer-zephyr voice.
“You are the air apparent,” Xanth explained. “You were fated to make this decision concerning the heir apparent.”
“How can I decide anything when I know nothing?”
“You will ask the Demons for information,” the first-refreshing-chill-of-fall voice answered. “We alone will answer you; the other mortals are mere spectators.”
Fray looked around. The others were standing there as if posed for a picture, aware but expressionless. She realized that they were in suspenders animation, or whatever. It was all up to her, whatever it was.
She tried to focus her air head, but there was nothing significant inside. “Why me?” she asked stupidly. “I mean, I know I’m ignorant, but so are lots of folk.”
“Because you invoked me,” Gaia replied with her school-wonderfully-closed-because-of-winter-snow voice. “Without knowing the significance.”
That did seem to make sense. “What do I have to decide?”
“Which Demon possesses Earth. The heir apparent.”
“Isn’t that Demon Earth?”
“No. He is an impostor,” the first-new-flower-of-spring voice said. “Earth is mine.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Originally the world of Earth was mine,” Gaia’s sheer-joy-of-existence voice said. “All creatures existed in their natural states in imperfect harmony. Then the usurper Demon came and challenged me to a contest game for my world. I won, but he pretended he had won, and tried to assume the name and likeness of Earth. This led to a fissioning of the world into two aspects, Earth and Moondania, with the latter between Earth and Xanth. This has had complications.”
A bulb flashed over Fray’s head. “Like the way Xanth seems to overlay Mundania!” she exclaimed. “So that folk can cross over without going through Princess Ida. The Waves and all.”
“True,” Gaia said with her sunrise-over-the-massive-gray-mountain voice. “I suspect those intrusions annoy the Demon Xanth.”
“Actually they make it interesting,” Xanth said. “I married a mortal descendant of one of those Waves, and you already know our son.” He glanced at Nimbus, who glowed brightly for half an instant. “But dealing with Demon Earth has been a nuisance.”
“What’s your side of it?” Fray asked Demon Earth. She was becoming bolder as she accepted that she really did have to learn enough to make a decision that could change everything, or at least make a difference.
“I contested for her planet, and won, but she refused to vacate, so I got only part of it. Moondania.”
“Shouldn’t that be Mundania?” Fray asked.
“Mortals mispronounce it, just as they do the day Moon-day. Call it what you want. It is only an aspect of a world that should be mine entirely. All you need to do to abolish this schism is agree that I am the proper heir.”
“When did this—this schism—happen?”
“About ten thousand years ago.”
Fray almost wet her shoes. “I thought it was recent!”
“It was,” Earth agreed.
She realized that to the eternal Demons, ten thousand years was like yesterday. So all of the history of Xanth had occurred during this schism. But then she thought of something else. “But Princess Ida got her moon only a dozen years ago.”
This time Demon Xanth answered. “The schism caused the loss of a moon-connection or two, so that there was none on Moondania or Xanth. But the loop of worlds always existed. It was merely the local ones that were isolated. Then Ida got the idea of a moon, and the connection came to her. Now her image handles all the moons as connections to the adjacent worlds. When she passes from the scene, there will come another gatekeeper to handle the links. With the restoration of the connection between Moondania and Xanth, the loop is again complete. Which means it is time to settle the issue.”
It seemed to make sense, sort of. “What was the contest?” she asked Gaia. “The one that was supposed to decide who got the world of Earth?”
The Demoness smiled with her cloud head, and there was a flare of glorious brilliance. “We have mentioned it. It was the proper pronunciation of Moondania. We listened to the mortals, and the first one said Moondania.”
“The first one said Mundania,” Demon Earth said.
“You each heard it differently!” Fray said.
“Well, it was in a different language, ten thousand years ago,” Earth said. “But the pronunciation was quite clear.”
“Yes it was,” Gaia said with her surging-surf-by-a-lovely-beach-resort voice. “Moondania.”
And Fray had to decide which pronunciation they had actually heard? Her head was filled mostly with air, but even she knew that this was serious mischief. Apart from the dubious merits of the case, what would happen to the world of Xanth if she favored Earth? Or Gaia? Their little traveling group had problems enough, without ruining a world or two as well. How could she risk bringing disaster on them all?
She remembered something that adults had been known
to do when faced with conflicting purposes. “Can’t you compromise?”
“Compromise?” Demon Earth asked, frowning. “Demons don’t compromise.”
“It is unDemonocratic,” Gaia agreed with her divine-music-of-the-spheres voice.
Which was the challenge. Each Demon was so powerful that reality was whatever he or she decided it was. Only when two Demons collided was there a problem, as in this case. How could she possibly mediate between them, when favoring either one might ruin everything?
She looked at her traveling friends, but they could not advise her. They had to let her make a mess of this on her own. Any one of them would have been better qualified to do this. Sim would know, certainly. The adults could make responsible guesses. Ilene was a sensible girl. Even Nimbus knew the Demons and might have a notion what would work. Only Fray was completely ignorant and inexperienced. Yet on her the dread decision fell.
She struggled to find a real solution, but no bulb flashed. She remained on her own. No Demon spoke; all were simply watching her, awaiting her nonsense.
Well, disaster it might be. But she would do what she had to do, the only way she knew how. Maybe it was the worst thing possible, but there was nothing else. She took a breath of air—in compacted form she had to do that—and nerved herself for doom. Or whatever.
“You said I have to make the decision. Well, I say you should compromise, even if you don’t know how or don’t like it. You should merge Moondania and Earth and share the unified world.”
“The designated mortal has spoken,” Xanth said.
“Share?” Earth asked querulously. “I do not know this word.” Yet obviously he did, and hated it.