Air Apparent

by Piers Anthony

  A robust, handsome human man stood before the group. “We are here to celebrate the union between Forrest Faun and Imbri Nymph-mare,” the man intoned. “I am King Emeritus Trent Human, here by request to officiate, being long familiar with the bride. All be seated, please.”

  The small group sat on the greensward. Hugo and Brunhilda settled also, so as not to make a commotion. “I know Magician Trent,” Hugo murmured in bat talk. “Maybe I can tell him my plight, and he can help me.”

  “After the wedding,” Brunhilda said firmly. It seemed there was just something about females and weddings.

  “A spot recap,” Trent said. “Imbri has been known to us for decades, first as a Night Mare bringing bad dreams to those who deserved them. Then she was briefly the Mare King of Xanth, when the Horseman was taking us all out in turn. She finally dispatched him, rescuing us all, but in the process lost her body. Thereafter she became a Day Mare, bringing pleasant dreamlets, and some of us may have preferred her that way. Then the Good Magician assigned her to assist Forrest Faun, here, in his quest to find a new faun to represent the tree of his lost friend Branch Faun. He did not succeed, but Imbri kindly consented to assume the role of nymph, saving the tree.”

  Trent looked around. A number of human eyes were wet; it was part of the magic of weddings. They made folk cry for no reason. “Since then Imbri’s original body has been recovered, and also Branch Faun. Her association with the tree has enabled her to assume nymph form. Now she will marry Forrest and share his tree, so that Branch can have his tree back. Meanwhile Branch is serving as Best Faun, and his favorite chasee as Nymph of Honor. I trust that no one present takes exception to that.”

  For some reason, no one did. “Step forward,” Trent said. Forrest Faun did so, and so did a lovely nymph whose long black hair swished around like a horse’s tail. “I now pronounce you Faun and Nymph, to share your long lives and tree henceforth. You may kiss.”

  They kissed, and even Hugo found his eyes wet. Little hearts orbited them so swiftly that some spiraled out to land in the audience, causing appreciative ooohs. As they touched people and popped, they left mini-daydreams of gamboling fauns, nymphs, and spirited horses. It was beautiful.

  “Oh, I have to get married,” Brunhilda breathed.

  It was time to move on. Hugo took wing and flew toward Magician Trent, hoping to attract his attention and somehow establish his identity. Trent would certainly be able to help.

  But Brunhilda caught him from behind. “Not so fast, love slave!” They swirled out of control, the universe spinning again.

  And there they were, back under the dragon’s nose. They must have suffered some kind of magic vortex that carried them to the romantic wedding, and then back here. Had that been another random event?

  Random! Now he remembered: it was the Random Factor who occupied the lowest cell of Castle Maidragon. Hugo had somehow switched places with the dread Factor!

  The dragon sniffed him, and revved up some fire. “No, no, honey,” Brunhilda said, petting him on a nostril with the tip of a wing. “This bat is not for burning. I’m about to enslave him too.”

  The dragon did not seem entirely pleased, but had to go along with it. That was, it seemed, what love slavery was all about. How was he going to escape it?

  “I have to notify someone of my picklement,” he said.

  “Oh, all right,” she said, humoring him. “My kiss hasn’t recharged yet anyway.”

  That was right: she couldn’t invoke that magic kiss after exhausting it on the dragon. So this was his window of opportunity to escape her, and his confinement in the Factor’s cell. He didn’t know how it had happened, but he knew he had to get out while he could.

  “Maybe the dragon can help,” Brunhilda said. “Dragon, what’s your name?”

  “Dragoman Dragon,” the beast replied.

  She almost fell out of the air. “You speak my language!”

  “I ought to,” Dragoman said. “I’m a professional interpreter. I speak many winged monster dialects.”

  “But you were going to toast and chomp us!”

  “That was before you kissed me, you passionate vamp.”

  “I’m not a vampire bat, I’m a fruit bat.”

  The dragon lifted half a brow, evidently realizing that her vocabulary was limited compared to his. “Seductive creature.”

  “That’s better,” she agreed, mollified.

  “But with your linguistic expertise, why waste it on stupid chomping?” Hugo asked. “Any dull creature can do that.”

  “A dragon’s got to eat.”

  That did seem to make sense. “Well, that will have to wait, sweetie,” Brunhilda said. “We have to talk with someone to tell them that Hugo here is really a human being in bat form.”

  “A human being! Oh, he really needs chomping!”

  “No way,” Brunhilda said sternly. “I need him.”

  “Please? With toasted acorns and hot peppers?” the dragon pleaded.

  “I said no. I might even marry him.”

  “I’m already married,” Hugo reminded her.

  “I’ll toast and chomp his present wife,” Dragoman offered. “Then he’ll be free to marry you.”

  “Well,” Brunhilda said, considering.

  “No!” Hugo said. “I’ll never conjure another fruit for you.”

  “Then what good will you be to me?”

  “None.”

  “So you might as well let me toast him,” the dragon said reasonably. “Then I can marry you. We’ll make winged monster history.”

  Oops. Hugo had walked into that one.

  “We’ll see how you feel once you’re my love slave, Hugo,” she decided. “I think I can persuade you to conjure fruit, considering the alternative.”

  “When pigs fly,” Hugo said, realizing as he said it that he was walking into further mischief.

  “I know a flying pig,” she said. “Pigasus, who as food is hambrosia.”

  “I’ll toast that pig!” the dragon said, slavering eagerly.

  “For now, just lead us to someone Hugo can contact,” Brunhilda said. “Preferably human.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes, dear reptile, if you ever want my favor.”

  Dragoman issued a fiery sigh. “Then get on my back and we’ll go find a human.”

  “And don’t toast that human until we’re sure he’s of no use to us,” Brunhilda said sternly.

  “You’re a harsh mistress,” the dragon complained.

  “Thank you,” she said, flattered.

  They clung to Dragoman’s scaly back. He accelerated, looking for humans to contact. “But you know, humans aren’t necessarily the smartest creatures.”

  “Oh?” Hugo asked, annoyed. “Who is smarter?”

  “Dragons, for one.”

  “Give me one example.”

  “Gladly. You know of Clio, the Muse of History?”

  “Everyone who is anyone knows of Clio,” Hugo said.

  “Would you consider her to be a smart human?”

  “Yes.”

  “Smarter than a dragon?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, she isn’t. She got into a pun fathoming contest with my kind, the dragons, and won.”

  “So she was smarter.”

  “No. She was too stupid to know she had really lost.”

  Both Hugo and Brunhilda paused at this. “Did she win or lose?” Hugo asked after most of a moment.

  “She lost, but thought she won.”

  “And the dragons didn’t question this?”

  “We wanted her to win.”

  Hugo paused the rest of the moment, which gave Brunhilda the chance to speak next. “Why have a pun contest if you don’t want to win?”

  “That might be complicated for bat brains to fathom.”

  “Guano!” she swore. “Tell it.”

  “She wanted to take half a slew of dragons from Dragon World to Xanth, where they would become real. Naturally we dragons approved. But
we couldn’t simply give them to her; she had to earn them. Dragon protocol, paragraph 62, footnote B, relating to necessary appearances. But then she was losing, so we changed the score, and telepathically altered her mind so she never questioned it. We did it at the Poop Deck pun, to be sure she wouldn’t poke her delicate nose in it. So she thought she won, and she took the dragons to Xanth, and here we are. But we were smarter.”

  “Not if you altered her mind,” Hugo protested. “That’s cheating.”

  Dragoman’s whole body inflated with fire. “That’s what?”

  “A difference of opinion,” Brunhilda said quickly as she kicked Hugo in the wing.

  The dragon blew out the fire in a harmless cloud. “So there you are.”

  “There we are,” Hugo agreed weakly. Brunhilda was right: it was dangerous to question the integrity of dragons, at least from up close.

  “Ah, there’s a human family,” Dragoman said. “Fly down and talk with them, while the bat girl and I discuss romantic plans.”

  It occurred to Hugo that Brunhilda might have gotten herself into more than she had bargained for, but he was hardly the one to protest. He took off and glided down, while the dragon flew on.

  It was indeed a human family: a somewhat asinine looking man, a somewhat monkey-faced woman, and three children, evidently having a picnic. He landed on the table next to the stack of sandwiches.

  “Eeee!” a girl screamed with four e’s. “A club!”

  “You mean a bat, Upp,” the larger boy said.

  “Get rid of it!” she screamed, retreating so fast she fell over backward.

  “Ree Sette, look what you made your sister do,” the mother said severely.

  “Well, she is Upp Sette,” Ree said. “That’s her nature.”

  “True, Marmie,” the man said. “Don’t blame Ree.”

  “Well, he’d better use his talent,” Marmie said. “Ree Sette, undo that scene.”

  Ree looked rebellious, but obeyed. He gestured—and suddenly Hugo was back in the air away from the table and the Sette family was going about its picnic undisturbed. The scene had been reset.

  But he hadn’t managed to communicate. So he tried again. This time he flew in to land beside the smaller girl, what had not freaked before. Maybe she liked bats.

  She did. “Ooo, nice! I’m Sunny Sette, getting pretty in the evening. Who are you?”

  Hugo realized belatedly that he lacked a way to talk to humans. He couldn’t speak Human in bat form, and they did not understand bat talk. How could he make them understand?

  Maybe he could trace words in the dust of the tabletop. He started spelling out HELP.

  “Asse, Sunny’s got something,” Marmie said.

  Asse Sette, evidently a man with resources, came around the table. “That’s a bat,” he said. “It may be rabid.”

  “No, it’s slow,” Sunny said.

  “He said rabid, not rapid, dummy,” Upp Sette said.

  The little girl began to cry. She had been upset, of course.

  Marmie sighed. “Ree.”

  Then the scene was back to what it had been before. Hugo considered, and concluded that he was unlikely to get anywhere with this family. He flew back to rejoin Dragoman and Brunhilda. “I couldn’t get through,” he said.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I thought of a better way. We’ll fly back to Castle Maidragon, and Dragoman will talk with Becka Dragongirl and tell her about you.”

  Hugo’s bat mouth fell open. “This is brilliant!” he said. “Why didn’t I think of it?”

  “Because you’re not female,” she replied smugly.

  “Because you’re not a dragon,” Dragoman said, as smugly.

  It seemed they had him there, though Hugo did not see it quite the same way.

  They flew back to the castle. There was no dragon in sight. “She must be in her dull human form,” Dragoman said. “You’ll have to send her out.”

  So it was up to Hugo after all. He left them and flew into a turret window. And promptly got lost in the labyrinth of the castle. There were passages, stairs, chambers, and courts galore; where was Becka?

  Finally he blundered into what seemed to be a child’s playroom. There was a two-year-old boy there, playing with salamanders and fire. Evidently his parents knew about it, because the room was fireproofed.

  Could he talk to the child? He settled down in front of the boy.

  “Bat,” the child said. Suddenly Hugo was surrounded by a ring of fire. He lurched back into the air before his wings got scorched. This was no good.

  The boy started crying. That brought his mother: a pretty blonde with brown eyes. That would be Becka. “What’s the matter, Ben?” she asked, picking him up.

  “Bat gone,” he wailed.

  She glanced around. “There was a bat in here? They’re supposed to stay in their cave.”

  It was time for Hugo to make an appearance. He flew to the nearest chair and perched on it somewhat clumsily, for his body wasn’t made for it.

  “So there is a bat,” Becka said. “Why aren’t you in your cave?”

  And how could he explain? He started to trace the first letter of his name: H. He walked up and down on the seat of the chair, then across between the two verticals.

  “Brusk!” Becka called. “There’s a sick bat in here.”

  Brusk appeared. “Yes, dear. I’ll take it out.”

  That wasn’t what he wanted! Hugo tried to protest, but in a moment Brusk had a net and was stalking him.

  Hugo took wing and tried to fly around the man, but Brusk reached quickly out and managed to touch a wingtip. Suddenly Hugo was hard and heavy. He dropped to the floor with a clunk.

  Brusk put the net over him, then touched him again through it. Now he was very light and soft. That was Brusk’s talent: to make things hard and heavy or soft and light. Hugo was caught.

  Brusk carried him outside. He poked the net over a battlement and let it open. “There you are, bat,” he said. “Now go home. You don’t belong in the castle.”

  There was nothing for Hugo to do except fly away, defeated.

  “So it didn’t work,” Dragoman remarked. “I knew it. As a human you aren’t smart enough.”

  “And you are?” Hugo demanded.

  “To be sure. Observe and learn, if your puny intellect is capable of it.” He flew down to land by the castle’s front gate.

  “He’s such a dynamic creature,” Brunhilda remarked.

  Dragoman inhaled hugely, then bellowed out a roar that could surely be heard throughout the castle.

  In a moment and a half Becka appeared at the gate. “Is there a problem?” she called.

  Dragoman blew three smoke rings. That was evidently a signal.

  Becka nodded. Then she transformed into her dragon form. She had purple-tinted bright green scales. She spread her wings, pumped them once, and glided across to meet Dragoman snout to snout. “What’s so urgent, Dragoman?” she asked in dragon talk.

  “This bat’s a man. You have to let him out of the dungeon cell.”

  “That cell confines the Random Factor,” she said, alarmed. “Anyone who opens that door gets randomized in some distressing way.”

  “He says he got switched. Now he’s a man called Hugo.”

  “Hugo?”

  “The Good Magician’s nonentity of a son.”

  She pondered half a moment. “I remember now. He does have a son or two, along with five and a half wives. But what’s your interest in this?”

  “I want his girlfriend. If he returns to man form, she’ll be mine.”

  “That does seem to be a suitably cynical dragon motive. But how can I believe this isn’t some ploy by the Random Factor to get me into his clutches so he can do something horribly random to me? I don’t believe he’s been near a woman in decades.”

  Dragoman nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe you had better talk to him yourself.”

  “Maybe I’d better. Where is he?”

  “Here!” Hugo
called.

  “What’s that noise?” Becka asked.

  “You don’t understand bat talk?” Dragoman asked.

  “I’m a dragon, not a bat. You hadn’t noticed?”

  “I noticed. A lovely one, too. If you ever are on the prowl for a male dragon—”

  “Never mind. You know I’m married.” She changed back into human form, signaling her disinterest in any dragon liaison. “You understand bat talk?”

  “I understand all flying monster talk,” Dragoman said proudly. It was clear that Becka understood dragon talk in either form, and Dragoman understood human.

  “Then you translate. Tell him I need to ascertain whether he’s really who he says he is.”

  “Right,” Hugo agreed.

  “He understands you,” Dragoman said. “He knows human; he just can’t speak it now. I’ll just translate his answers.”

  “Good enough.” She turned to Hugo. “Who is your wife?”

  “Wira. She’s blind.” The dragon translated that, and asked, “Is that a trick question?”

  “No. Everybody knows the Good Magician’s sons are married. Who is the Good Magician’s wife?”

  “This month, the Gorgon. She’s my mother. He has five and a half wives, who rotate monthly.”

  The dragon translated, and added, “I didn’t know that. Your excellent magician must be quite the man. How old is he?”

  “Answer that,” Becka told Hugo.

  “Physically or chronologically?”

  “Both.”

  “Physically he keeps himself at about a hundred by using measured doses of youth elixir. Chronologically he is one hundred and seventy-four.”

  “Who wrote the Book of Answers?”

  “The Good Magician wrote it himself, mostly during his first century. He studied all Xanth, compiling answers. That’s why contemporary things can be missing, until he adds them.”

  Becka shook her head. “I don’t think anyone outside his immediate family would know that. He guards his knowledge. You must be who you say you are. Go back to your human body and I’ll let you out.”

  Victory, so rapidly! “Thank you. I’ll be there.”

  Becka returned to the castle, and Dragoman took off to circle around to the bat cave. “So now you can be mine,” he said to Brunhilda.