Esrever Doom (Xanth) (14 page)

The others agreed. They explored carefully, and did manage to find several sticks. Then they moved forward, each tapping the ground ahead to spot holes or obstacles.

Kody circled his hole and stepped forward. Soon he encountered an invisible boulder that he would have smacked into without the pole. The illusion had covered it over with the appearance of more level ground.

“You know, we might as well be blindfolded,” he said. “Or proceeding through pitch black. We can’t trust anything we see.”

“Except each other,” Yukay said. “So we had better keep our eyes open.”

Progress was slow, but without mishaps, thanks to their caution. Then there was a sound ahead.

“Halloo! Can anybody hear me?” It was a man’s voice.

“That’s not illusion,” Kody said. “Unless now it is doing sound too.”

“Should we answer?” Zosi asked.

“Why not?” Kody said. “That will determine whether there’s a real person there.”

The others nodded, albeit slightly nervously.

Kody cupped his hands to his mouth. “Halloo! We hear you!”

“Oh great! Stay there. Let me join you, now that I have a direction.”

“Right,” Kody agreed.

They waited while the man approached with clumsy footsteps, running afoul of illusions. Soon he was visible, a tall, reasonably handsome blond.

“Oh, thank you!” the man said. “I hate being lost in this illusion, but I couldn’t find my way out of it. I’m Ivan.”

“Kody.”

“Yukay.”

“Zosi.”

“Squawk.”

“I was going to explore a lovely mountain I hadn’t seen before, and I got caught in this mass of illusion and couldn’t find my way out.” Ivan shuddered. “I never was much concerned about illusion before, but I have a healthy respect for it now. Oh—my talent is making things fatter or thinner.”

“Conjuring chips of reverse wood.”

“Doing new things without thinking.”

“Conjuring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

PAINTING WORDS

“I’m glad to meet all of you,” Ivan said. “So do you know anything about this illusion?”

“No, we blundered into it just as you did,” Kody said. “We’ve been picking our way through, going toward the same mountain. We think the Sorceress Iris must have made the illusion, but we don’t know why.”

“Well, if you will be kind enough to point out the way you came, I’ll backtrack and escape it.”

“That won’t help,” Kody said. “We first blundered into a stink hole, and fell into it by being conjured from elsewhere. So we don’t know the way out.”

“A stink hole,” Ivan said. “I was trying not to remark on the odor.”

“Thank you,” Yukay said.

“Failing that, I suppose there is no way to go but forward. May I join you for that? It seems we all have a common mission: to escape the illusions.”

“Welcome,” Kody said. “We were headed for the mountain, though that too may be illusion.” He realized belatedly that his reverse wood chip fix had worn off, so the smell was back.

“So if you try to go there, and get lost, you may find yourself out of the illusion,” Ivan pointed out.

Kody laughed. “That hadn’t occurred to us, but it may be so.”

“Let me form a staff of my own,” Ivan said. He felt around his feet and found a long straw.

“That isn’t solid enough,” Yukay said.

“You forget my talent.” Ivan held up the straw, focusing on it. It thickened until it was a stout stick.

“That’s a useful talent,” Yukay said appreciatively. “Does it work the other way?”

“Yes, I can make fat things thin.”

“What about people?”

“Them too,” Ivan said. “I can also do parts of things, like making women’s busts bigger. It makes me popular with some women.”

“It surely does!” Yukay agreed. “So why aren’t you making women happy?”

“There’s more to a woman than her bust, whatever she may think,” he answered seriously. “I wanted to get away from that attitude.”

“You just made one excellent answer.”

“Well, there’s more to a man than muscle, too.”

Yukay affected amazement. “There is?”

Ivan smiled. “I can see that we’re going to get along.”

Now Zosi had a question. “This pervasive illusion covers everything. Why is that straw—now a cane—visible?”

“Why, I’m not sure,” Ivan said. “It was invisible until I picked it up.”

“I think I have an answer,” Yukay said. “The illusion is an overlay on whatever else is here. But it’s passive; it doesn’t affect new things. That’s why we’re visible; we came from outside after the illusion had been laid out. So we show up like footprints in new mud. When you found and moved the straw, it became in effect a new thing, and visible. Probably anything we move will become visible too.”

“A trail!” Kody said. “We can make a trail! So we’ll know where we have been, and will be able to find our way back to this spot.”

“Let’s try it,” Ivan agreed. He scuffed the ground with his feet, and scuff marks appeared. “We’re still lost, but maybe less lost than we were.”

“That, oddly, sounds encouraging,” Yukay said.

They resumed traveling, all of them tapping with the poles. That did save them some nasty collisions and falls. The scuffed trail appeared behind them. With growing confidence they made better progress, and maybe halfway reasonably soon enough, to be precise, they approached the mountain.

It was indeed illusion, as was the river pouring down it. They walked right through both river and mountain. “Bleep!” Yukay swore. “I did so want to get clean. I don’t like being a stinker.”

“There must be water somewhere,” Zosi said.

“Squawk!”

They looked at Zap. On her side was written the word
LISTEN.

They paused to listen. In the moderate medium distance was the sound of splashing. Water!

They made their way toward it. They came to the outskirts of a fine illusion palace surrounded by lovely gardens. In one garden was a fountain. The splashing sound was coming from there.

“Could it be a real fountain?” Yukay asked. “Concealed by the fake scenery?”

“Let’s find out,” Zosi said, forging toward it.

They walked through a surrounding illusion hedge and saw the fountain. It was in the middle of a pool. In the pool was a lovely nude young woman, splashing as she washed herself. She had blue eyes and lustrous blond/brown hair, in addition to remarkably aesthetic limbs and torso. Especially the torso.

Kody and Ivan both stared, Kody on the verge of freaking out. Only the lack of bra or panties saved his eyeballs from crystallizing. “Real or illusion?” Ivan whispered.

“Could be real,” Kody said. “Because of the sound.”

The woman heard him. She turned and looked. “Eeeeek!” she screamed, and disappeared.

“That was a five-E scream,” Yukay said. “That kind is usually genuine.”

“But she’s gone,” Kody said. “That suggests illusion.”

“There’s a ripple,” Zosi said.

“Squawk!” They looked at Zap, who now had the word
NAGA
on her hide.

“A naga!” Yukay said. “That explains it. She turned into a snake and swam away underwater.”

“What is a naga?” Kody asked.

“One of the crossbreeds of Xanth,” Yukay said. “Half human, half snake. They can assume either form at will, or something in between. They can be friendly if they choose.”

“I hope she’s friendly,” Ivan said. “She doesn’t need any thinning or thickening.”

“I’ll say!” Kody agreed.

“Too bad I couldn’t have glimpsed her before the Curse,” Ivan said. “I’d have freaked blissfully out. As it is I can only recognize that she’s a stunning beauty, while being sickened by the look of her.”

Ah, yes: he saw beauty as ugly.

“You foolish boys stay here,” Yukay said severely. “We girls will handle this.” She knew that Kody was near freaking out. He was half bemused by the phenomenon. He had never been this way in Mundania.

Yukay, Zosi, and Zap walked to the pool. “Naga!” Yukay called. “We are friendly. Are you?”

A face appeared above the water. “Who are you?”

“We’re a party on a Quest. We got lost in the illusion. Then we heard you.”

“I’m on my own mission. I’m Naomi Naga.”

“I’m Yukay. This is Zosi Zombie. And this is Zap Griffin.”

“Zombie?” Her voice was sharp.

“She’s alive for the duration of our Quest.”

“What is your Quest?”

“Two Quests, actually. One is to locate the source of the Curse and turn it off. The other is to restore more zombies to Xanth, because they are becoming scarce.”

“Who would want more zombies? They’re almost as bad as rotten puns.”

“They have their uses. Rotten puns don’t.”

“What about your menfolk? I saw them staring at me.”

“They are Kody and Ivan. Kody sees things as they are.”

“That’s why he was staring!”

“That’s why,” Yukay agreed. “So if you’re quite clean now, you had better cover up.”

“I’ll fetch my clothes.” The head moved swiftly across the water. Kody saw now that it was on the body of a big snake. At the far side of the pool the snake slithered out of the water, became the nude woman, and picked up clothing waiting there. Soon Naomi was thoroughly decent, unfortunately.

“Our turn,” Yukay said, and jumped into the water, clothing and all. So did Zosi. Zap joined them, spreading her wings and splashing them in the water.

In no more than a moment and a half the girls had doffed their clothing in the water and started rinsing it out. Now it was their bodies that threatened to freak Kody out, especially Yukay’s.

Yukay looked across at him. “You can rinse too, Kody,” she called. “Remember, we see you as ugly.”

“But I see you as lovely,” he called back.

“Oh, that’s right. Too bad. You can wash, but face away from us.”

Kody did that, and soon was rinsing his own clothing in the water, getting the stink off.

There was a ripple before him. Then Naomi’s head appeared. “What’s this about you seeing girls as lovely?”

“I thought you were dressed on the far bank!” he said, trying ineffectively to cover up.

“I was. But I changed again. Is it true?” She shifted back to woman form and inhaled.

Kody covered his eyes before his eyeballs popped their sockets. “Yes, it’s true. Cover up!”

“I changed part way,” she said. “You can look.”

He looked. Now she was the snake with the human head. The naga form. “Thanks.”

“How is it you are immune to the Curse? I thought it affected everyone in Xanth.”

“It does. I’m from Mundania. And I’m not really here. I’m dreaming.”

Naomi smiled. “Are you calling me a dream woman?”

“Yes, in more than one sense. But what I mean is that when I wake, I’ll be gone from here. That may contribute to my immunity.”

“That’s intriguing.” Now arms and breasts appeared below the head, while the rest of the body remained serpentine.

“Stop that!” he snapped.

“Oops; I let the change get sloppy.” The snake torso reappeared up to the human head.

Had it really been carelessness? Kody had the distinct impression she was flirting with him. Unfortunately that made her even more appealing. He had never heard of a naga before, but was considerably intrigued. “Naomi, what’s on your mind?”

“Good question,” Yukay said. She and Zosi had come up behind him in the water.

He started to turn, saw their continued bareness, and turned back. Were they flirting with him too? If so, it was highly effective. All three of them had his full attention, or three-thirds of it.

“I am on my own mission, as I said,” Naomi said. “Some miscreant is hunting and butchering naga folk for their hides.”

“Their hides?” Yukay asked.

“Nagahide,” Naomi agreed. “I have to stop it.”

Kody groaned inwardly. There was a horrible pun there.

“I should think so,” Yukay said. “But we have no knowledge of this.”

“You’re not a naga.”

“True. Why were you flashing Kody?”

“I didn’t believe he could be immune. How else could I check?”

“Fair point,” Yukay agreed reluctantly. “Let’s all get out of the water and get dressed and stay dressed.”

“After your clothing dries?” Naomi asked mischievously.

Yukay paused. Evidently she hadn’t thought of that.

“Do you ladies have a problem?”

They turned in the water. There, standing beside Ivan, was a solid, middle-aged man, roughly handsome. “OMG!” Yukay said. “That’s King Emeritus Trent!”

“Who?” Kody asked. “I have heard that name before.”

“Former king of Xanth, now retired,” Yukay said, awed. “Queen Iris’s husband.”

“I must advise you that you are intruding on a private setting,” King Trent said. “This is Illusion Fields.”

The women, all of them, seemed to be too abashed to speak further. Maybe that had something to do with them being naked before a royal man. So it seemed it was up to Kody. “Elysian Fields? Paradise for the dead?”

“Illusion Fields,” Trent said. “Our variation of that theme. A very pleasant place crafted by my wife.”

“Sir, we blundered into it. All we want is to get out of it.”

“You don’t wish to enter the contest?”

“Princess Melody mentioned a contest but wouldn’t tell us about it,” Kody said. “We are sorry we got into it.”

“Ah. You are the Curse party.”

“Yes, sir. It’s my Quest to locate and defuse it. We landed here by accident.”

“Of course. I will help you on your way.”

This was odd. “Sir, you know something of our situation?”

“Only that the princesses were to tell no one of the contest. Not even the Curse Questors. So you were not warned.”

“So that was it,” Yukay said. “We were not supposed to be distracted by it.”

“Or we were supposed to blunder into it and find Ivan and Naomi,” Zosi said.

That made both Kody and Yukay pause. So did Ivan and Naomi.

“I wasn’t looking for a Quest,” Ivan said. “I just wanted to see the mountain.”

“Neither was I,” Naomi said. “The illusion wasn’t much of a danger to me, in my serpent form; I just slithered along. But it was confusing. When I encountered the pool I decided to swim and wash. Then those men peeked at me.” Her blue eyes became stormy gray.

“Not by choice,” Ivan said. “Your appearance made my stomach roil.”