Geis of the Gargoyle (41 page)

There stood Hanna, garbed only in pale blue panties.

Gary fell backwards in the water, stunned.
 
He had been completely unprepared for such a frontal assault.
 
His eyes were unable to tell the difference between illusion and reality.

Sputtering again, he realized that he had after all survived her worst, or maybe her next-to-worst.
 
She had tried to make him drown, but he hadn't.
 
He crawled up the slope and out of the pool, keeping his eyes peering down.

When he stood on the island and looked around, Hanna was gone.
 
He had defeated her.
 
He knew that if she showed him her panties again, he would be better able to handle it, now that he knew that such handling was possible.
 
She knew it too.
 
All repeated shocks could do was harden him to the sight.
 
He was after all not a true man, so was probably less vulnerable than, say, Hiatus would be.

He tramped on inside, feeling the magic intensify around him.
 
He hoped it would not take long to persuade Gayle to join him.
 
He had of course suggested that he approach her not merely to make a third team, but because he really liked the idea of being with her.
 
Too bad he wasn't in his natural form.
 
But he had to admit that this human form had been useful so far despite its liabilities of soft flesh, hunger, and vulnerability to the sight of panties.

He saw the gargoyle.
 
What a lovely creature she was, from her grotesque face to her reptilian wings! "Hello, Gayle Goyle," he said, suddenly shy.

She closed her mouth, cutting off the waterspout, and turned her head.
 
"Why hello, Gary Gar.
 
It's so nice to see you again, even in-" She broke off.

"It's all right," he said.
 
"They know I'm a gargoyle, so I don't need to conceal it any more.
 
I wish I had my natural body back."

"I wish you did too," she said.
 
"What brings you here, Gary?"

"I-we are searching for the philter, and I wondered if you-if you would like to-that is-"

Gayle shook her head sadly.
 
"I do not know where the philter is, Gary."

"If you would like to-to help me search for it.
 
Because we need it.
 
To abate the geis."

"But I must purify the water here."

"Why?" he asked.
 
"There have been no people to drink from it for thousands of years.
 
The illusions don't need pure water.
 
We have been using it, but we are merely visitors who won't drink from it while you're away from it."

"But the geis-"

"Applies to water flowing into Xanth from Mundania.
 
What you are doing here is merely a service to the inhabitants of the stone city of Hinge, who are long gone.
 
I think you are entitled to a break.
 
And if we find the philter-"

"I hadn't thought of it that way," she said.
 
"I suppose I can relax for a few hours." She moved on her pedestal, stretching her lovely muscles.
 
"Yes, I will help you search, Gary Gar," she said.
 
"But I want you to know it is mainly because I like you."

"I asked you mainly because I like you," he admitted.
 
"Come on.
 
I will carry you out of the strong magic.

Your present form is really not adequate to handle it, no offense."

"Oh, I agree! But when my quest is done, I will be transformed back to my natural shape.
 
That is one reason I hope to conclude it quickly."

"I hope I can help you to conclude it quickly." She squatted down, and he climbed on her stone back between her wings and took hold of her mane.
 
It was a joy to be so close to her.

She rose and bounded down the passage, carrying his slight weight easily.
 
She emerged to the pool and leaped in.
 
Of course she sank to the bottom, but he hung on, knowing that she would be across it and back in air very soon.

Indeed she was.
 
"Now where were you thinking of.
 
looking?" she inquired as the water coursed off her sleek stone hide.
 
"No, don't get off; I can readily carry you, and we can move more swiftly this way."

"I really have no idea," he confessed, glad to remain on her.
 
"I had thought no further than gaining your company."

"Does it matter where we look?"

"Since I have no idea where the philter is, a random search is probably as good as a planned one.
 
The others of my party are searching similarly, elsewhere.
 
Do you have any preference?"

"Actually, I do," she said shyly.

"What is it?"

"For three thousand years I have heard the trains of thought passing close by, and wondered where they go.
 
I would like to follow one.
 
Do you think there's any chance the philter could be where the trains live?"

"Why, I don't know," Gary said.
 
"I think it could be there as readily as any other place.
 
Perhaps more readily, because we did not search to the end of the line; we merely rode the train here and got off."

"Then let's intercept the next train, and follow it to its lair.
 
There we can search."

"We don't need to follow it," Gary said grandly, suffering a flash of inspiration.
 
"We can ride it there."

"Oooo, wonderful!" she cried, delighted.

They went to the station.
 
Soon a train pulled in.
 
On its broad front was a sign that said FUTURE.

Gary got off her.
 
His clothing remained wet, but he knew it would dry in time.
 
"We shall go to the future," he said.

The train ground to a massive halt.
 
No one got off, so Gary led the way up the steps to a coach.
 
Gayle bounded up after him.
 
She was solid stone, but the train was metal, and did not even settle perceptibly under her weight; They entered the coach.

"Oh, I forgot; these are human seats," he said.
 
"They won't do for you.
 
Maybe we can find a coach made for gargoyles."

As they walked down through the coach, the train started moving, at first slowly, then more swiftly.

The second coach was much better.
 
It was open in the center, with seats lining the sides that could be turned around to face out the broad windows.
 
Gary took one, and Gayle lay beside him on the floor, quite comfortable.

The scenery had changed.
 
The stones of Hinge were gone; now there were fields, forests, rivers, mountains, and chasms passing in their separate splendors.
 
When he looked out the other side, he saw that the train tracks were forming a large turn, for they curved before and after, and allowed nothing to make them deviate from it.
 
Where there was a river, they crossed it with a bridge; where there was a mountain, they bored through it with a tunnel; where there was a forest, they cut a narrow swath through it.
 
They were inflexible about their course.

Gayle was delighted.
 
"Oh, it has been millennia since I have seen scenery like this! What a pleasure it is."

Gary had thought the sights routine.
 
Now he looked again, appreciating them as she saw them.
 
All of Xanth was open to exploration without limit.
 
Suddenly he wanted to bound out into that scenery and range through it all, with Gayle beside him.

But he was in his human form.
 
If he tried to bound out of the train, he would probably break a limb.
 
So he had become a prisoner of another kind, in a limited body.

"When this is done, and I have my real body back, let's run together through all of this, until we have seen it all," he said.

"It's a date," she agreed.

They spied a billboard.
 
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE

"We are arriving," Gary said.

Some buildings appeared.
 
They were of stone, so it seemed they had circled back to Hinge.
 
Had the train changed its mind about going to the future?

But these buildings differed from those they had seen before.
 
They were sleeker and of odd architectural designs.
 
Some had grown exceedingly tall, so that their tops scraped against the clouds.
 
Others spread wide, with flying buttresses and projecting ledges, as if determined to cover as much ground as possible.

There was another big sign.
 
HENCE-POPULATION MIXED

The train passed a large paved-over field where a house with a pointed dome and tubular foundations squatted, There didn't seem to be any doors or windows in its sides.

"What a peculiar structure," Gayle remarked.

"I wish we could tell what it houses," Gary said.

Hanna appeared, entering the car.
 
"I shall be glad to oblige," she said.
 
"That is the spaceship of thought, which will take you farther than this train of thought can.
 
It is based here in the great future city of Stone Hence."

"Hence?" Gayle asked.

"All the ships start here and get themselves hence in a hurry," Hanna explained.

Gary wasn't pleased to see her.
 
"We're not trying to travel far.
 
We're trying to find your master the philter, and I doubt you have any intention of helping."

"Her master?" Gayle asked, perplexed.

"We have concluded that the philter is a demon who doesn't want to be found, and that it is using two images to divert us from finding it.
 
So Hanna the Handmaiden is not our friend.
 
Indeed, she has been trying to distract me all along."

"What did she do?" Gayle asked.

"When I swam across the pool to join you, she showed me her panties."

"But human girls aren't supposed to do that."

"Precisely.
 
I almost drowned.
 
If I had been a real man, I probably would have."

"No, I would have saved you," Hanna said.

"And taken my soul."

"Well, it might have come loose in the process."

"So it was the philter making the illusions," Gayle said.
 
"I never realized."

"Because we didn't want you to," Hanna said.

Gary felt a thought bobbing just below the surface of his mind, and finally it worked its way up.
 
"You mean Hanna was talking to you, before we came along?"

"No, the image was of a gargoyle," Gayle said.
 
"I was lonely for company of my own kind.
 
But I knew it wasn't real.
 
That's why I asked to verify you.
 
I was thrilled to discover you were real, even if you looked like a man."

"How did you know him for a gargoyle?" Hanna asked.