Air Apparent (6 page)

“I hope our mutual inexperience doesn’t get us into trouble.”

“I have a bag of spells the Gorgon selected from storage. She knows where everything is.”

“Don’t you? I thought you were entirely familiar with the castle.”

“I can’t read the labels, and it’s not safe to uncork vials to sniff them. Some contain demons.”

“Oh. Where are we going first?”

“To the Region of Air, to the north. That’s where we should find Cumulo Fracto Nimbus, the irascible cloud. His entry is one of the clues.”

“He’s a cloud? How could a cloud commit a murder?”

Wira laughed. “Oh, he’s not a suspect, I don’t think. He’s just someone who must have some connection to it, or some information relating to it. I have to be a detective, and gather all the Clues, then put them together to form some brilliant conclusion and know all the answers. I hope I’m up to it.”

“I hope so too,” Debra said. She had come to like the woman, in the days of their association; Wira was unfailingly nice, and modest, and not at all stupid. In sum, she was good company.

“Please, if you will—tell me what you see.”

“You mean the landscape?” But of course she did. Debra kept forgetting the woman’s blindness; Wira never made anything of it. So she started in on a scenic description as she flew north. “It’s like a patchwork quilt below us, with fields and forests and houses and streams. It hardly seems real. Not as a land, I mean; it’s more like a picture.” Then she regretted the analogy; Wira couldn’t look at a picture either. “I mean—”

“That’s fine,” Wira said. “I know what a patchwork quilt is like; I have made them, and stitched designs. That helps me see it. With my fingers and imagination.”

Reassured, Debra continued. “Now there’s a village; the houses look like little blocks. Paths lead into it from all around.”

“Oh, I see it,” Wira said. “Thank you so much.”

Yes, she was definitely easy to get along with. “Now we are coming to something odd. It looks like a big ditch, or a crack traveling east and west. It’s big; in fact it’s huge. Oh—it’s the Gap Chasm!”

“The Gap Chasm,” Wira echoed appreciatively. “Yes, I feel its warm air wafting up.”

“It’s so big and deep it’s like another world,” Debra continued. “In fact—oh my! There’s a cloud in it, below ground level.”

“That’s funny,” Wira agreed. “Too bad it’s not the cloud we are going to see.”

“How can you tell?”

“It’s not thundering at us. Fracto is, well, fractious. He exists to make mischief. He never just floats and suns himself. So this has to be an innocent cloud minding its own business.”

“It is sort of cute,” Debra agreed. “I’m not used to seeing clouds from above. Well, there was the time I took an airplane flight, back in Mundania—” But she stifled that. She didn’t much like her memories of Mundania.

“Folk can fly in Mundania?” Wira asked.

“Oh, yes. They use airplanes, which are scientific machines with wide flat wings that go very fast. People sit inside, packed in like sardines. It’s not at all like this. This is much better.” Which was another thing: apart from the curse she had picked up when she came to Xanth, this magic land was much better than dreary Mundania. Once she was rid of the curse, she should like it here very well.

They bypassed the little cloud and reached the other side of the enormous canyon. But Debra was flying too low; she was heading for a crash against the far wall. She tried to flap her wings harder so as to rise, but it didn’t work well enough.

“Is there a problem?” Wira inquired.

“I’m flying low, and my wings don’t seem to be lifting me enough.”

“Lighten us again.”

Oh, of course; she had forgotten that the lightness slowly wore off. She flicked them both with her tail, and suddenly they shot up high. She careered unsteadily, then got her balance and resumed normal forward motion, higher. “Thanks. I lost track.”

“New things tend to be tricky.”

There she was again, defusing potential embarrassment. It was said that Wira was the one person the Good Magician actually liked. Debra was coming to appreciate why.

Now there was a speck in the air ahead. It grew rapidly larger. It turned out to be a flying dragon. “Uh-oh,” Debra said.

“Dragon?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“It’s upwind; I smelled its smoke. Also, it’s what is most likely to make you that nervous.”

“What do I do?”

“Take your bow, nock an arrow, and meet the dragon’s gaze as if you are looking for a pretext to send a barb up its snoot.”

“Make my day,” Debra murmured.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s a Mundane saying meaning what you said. Oh, I hope this bluff works!”

Debra fumbled the bow and an arrow from their harnesses on her back, and held them up toward the dragon. She met its reptilian gaze. Could this possibly work? Her four knees felt too weak to support her; it was just as well they didn’t have to.

The dragon swerved smoothly to the side, bypassing them. “Oh, I feel faint,” Debra said.

“So do I,” Wira said.

“You were afraid it wouldn’t work? But you had so much confidence!”

“I had to make you believe that.”

Debra began to laugh. Wira laughed with her. It was such a relief. But what would have happened at such time as a dragon refused to be bluffed? Debra didn’t want to think about that.

They approached the Region of Air. Flying was a fast way to travel.

“There should be a central windswept plaza,” Wira said. “Land on that.”

Easier said than done. This was a region of high winds, and further lightening would not help Debra make headway against the gale. She was getting blown away! “I see it, I think, but I can’t get there.”

“Land and gallop.”

Oh, again. They had been gaining more weight, so she glided down to land, touched with a jolt and stirring of dust, bounced, and came down again, running to handle her forward velocity. It was awkward and clumsy, but she made it, and was able to come to a halt, folding her wings. The wind was not quite as bad at ground level, but the visibility was bad because of the dust. Still, she had a general idea where to go. She went there.

The Plaza of Winds was empty except for a child standing disconsolately beside the lone tree that managed to hold its ground in this region. She looked to be about nine years old, and a bit nebulous; her hair was almost floating, and her dress seemed diaphanous.

Debra trotted up to the girl. “Hello! I’m Debra Centaur and this is Wira Human. Who are you?”

“Fray,” the child said.

“Oh, we didn’t come for any fray. Our mission is peaceful.”

“Fray Cloud,” the girl clarified. “I’m grounded while Mother looks for Father. I hate being solid; it’s so—so down to earth.”

Grounded, in this case, Debra realized, meant solidifying to human form so she wouldn’t float away. That was perhaps one way to keep her safe. Debra had not realized that clouds could do that, but of course it was just one of the things she had to learn about Xanth.

“Fray Cloud!” Wira said. “You’re the child of Fracto and Happy Bottom.”

“Sure. What’s it to you?”

“I need to talk with your father, the king of clouds.”

The child burst into tears.

Debra exchanged half a glance with Wira; a whole one was impossible with the blind woman. What was going on here?

Wira dismounted and approached the girl, orienting on her by sound. “Dear, we mean you no harm. Why are you so unhappy?”

“Father is gone!” Fray blubbered.

“Gone! How is that possible?”

“Three days ago he went to rain on a parade, and really washed it out. Then he was coming home, but it was late, so he floated by night. But he never got home. Mother’s desperate and I’m lonely.” More tears flowed.

“In what area did he disappear?” Wira asked.

“It must have been the Good Magician’s Castle, because that was right between the parade and here,” Fray said. “But Mother can’t find anyone who saw it happen.”

The Good Magician’s Castle! What a weird coincidence.

“Let me tell you something, Fray,” Wira said. “I am the Good Magician’s daughter-in-law. I live at the Good Magician’s Castle. My husband is the Good Magician’s son Hugo. Hugo disappeared three nights ago—the same time as your father did. That’s why I’m here; I’m looking for him.”

“Then you understand!” the child exclaimed, and hugged Wira.

“I do understand, dear,” Wira agreed. “I think we have a common interest. Something very bad must have happened, and we have to figure it out. I think Fracto must have been floating over the castle right at that time, and the murderer didn’t trust him not to tell, so he got rid of him too.”

“A murderer?”

“There’s a body in our cellar. We don’t know who he is, but someone killed him and got rid of any witnesses, so it’s a real mystery. We have to solve it, and when we do, maybe we’ll find Hugo and Fracto. Won’t that be nice?”

“Yes!” The child hugged her again. Debra realized that the woman was a fair hand at interviewing; she knew how to relate to people, including children, even solidified clouds.

“We should talk to your mother, Happy Bottom. Can you summon her home?”

“Yes, if I loose a smoke bomb. But that’s only for emergencies. She doesn’t like to be bothered without good reason.”

“She has a stormy temper,” Wira said.

“Yes. Isn’t it wonderful? When I grow up I want to be a hurricane like her.”

“Loose the smoke bomb,” Wira said. “We may be able to do each other some good, since we have a common problem.”

“Okay.” The girl brought out a dark blob from a pocket, and heaved it into the air. It burst into vapor that rapidly spread outward until it intersected them. “Oops.”

“Oops?” Wira inquired warily.

“That was a stink bomb. I got the wrong one.”

Now Debra smelled it: essence of rotten egg enhanced by spilled privy tank glop soiled by less pleasant aromas. She gagged, tried to take a breath to cough, and got a lungful of marvelously evocative stench. They certainly knew how to make stink bombs in Xanth!

“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.”