Geis of the Gargoyle Page 22

  “Until the magic stops,” Iris said, sending a significant glance around. Gary realized that she was thinking of the Time of No Magic: that was what had terminated the spot spell the ancients had made, so that the madness started overrunning its boundary and making all manner of mischief in Xanth. That was the last piece in the mystery of the problem of the present—and the philter could fix it, too. They really had to find that thing!

  “We must find the philter,” Hiatus said. “We know it is here somewhere. Can you help us do that?”

  “No,” Desi said. “It is impossible to find the lost philter.”

  “Let's speak frankly,” Iris said. “We are here to find the philter, and we do not intend to leave without it. Why do you say it is impossible to find?”

  “You want to speak frankly?” Desi asked. “Then you shall have it. You can not find the philter, because the ancients whom you have just reprised could not find it. They patched the Interface by means of gargoyles and spell, and then folded down Hinge for the last time and went to regular Xanth, where they soon crossbred the last of their species to extinction. If they couldn't find it, then neither can you, three thousand years later.”

  “Nevertheless, we intend to find it,” Gary said. Not only was this his determination, he now knew that it could be dangerous to suggest that they might be leaving at all soon. It was better to make it clear that they would be here for some time, so that the thing behind the illusions did not decide to eat them immediately. “If you illusions do not care to help us, we shall proceed without you.”

  “We shall be glad to help you try,” Desi said. “But you are doomed to failure anyway, because we don't know where it is either. Nobody knows where it is, or if it still exists.”

  “It exists,” Gary said.

  Desi turned a disconcertingly intense gaze on him.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because the Good Magician Humfrey told me to get the philter, and he wouldn't have done that if it wasn't possible to get.”

  “Who is this Good Magician?”

  “You don't know that? I thought everybody knew that.”

  “Not anyone who is an illusion confined to the Region of Madness.”

  Gary grew canny. “But you know of Hannah Barbarian, who is outside the madness, and of Desiree Dryad, who has spent most of her life outside it.”

  “We drew these images from your mind.”

  “You said you drew them from their minds, because they were thinking of us.”

  “We lied. We can't go beyond the madness, or be aware of anything beyond it, except through the minds of those who enter our region.”

  “How can an illusion lie?” Hiatus asked.

  “We can do anything we find in your minds. The Sorceress Iris knows much of Xanth, and is apt at deception.”

  “You can read our minds?” Gary asked. “I don't believe it.”

  “Why don't you?” Desi asked.

  “Because if you could, you would know my secret.”

  “We do know your secret.”

  “What secret is that?”

  “That you are actually a gargoyle transformed into the shape of a man.”

  Gary saw that the others were as taken aback as he was, “You knew this from the first? Why didn't you say something?”

  “What does it matter? It is easier to deceive someone who is practicing deception.”

  Iris pursed her lips. “She's right, you know. You were concentrating on not letting Hanna know your true nature, while she was concentrating on seducing you.”

  “But she should have known I wasn't interested!” he protested.

  “But she also knew that you lacked experience with the human form,” Desi said. “And soon enough she turned that ignorance to her advantage. Had your friends not interfered, she would have had your soul by now.”

  She was right. Gary was chagrined. The illusions had been outsmarting them all along.

  “So why have you illusions been so helpful?” Hiatus asked. “Why didn't you just try to seduce us at the outset?” He glanced across to Surprise, concerned about the devious subject, but the child, bored, had fallen asleep in Iris' embrace.

  “We did try,” Desi said. “But you were too intent on your mission, and too busy trying to figure out what was what. So we had to put you somewhat at ease, and wait for our opportunities. We almost succeeded.”

  Right again. “But you won't succeed now,” Gary said.

  “Because we know what you want, and we won't give you any of our souls. So you might as well go away.”

  “No, you are interesting folk, the first we have seen in Hinge for some time. We shall continue to associate with you.”

  “Suppose we don't want you to?” Hiatus asked.

  “We're illusions. You can't stop us.”

  “There is something wrong about this,” Iris said. “You illusions had reason to associate with us before, but now you don't. You know you won't get our souls. You don't care whether we're interesting or boring. So you must have continuing reason to be near us. What is that reason?”

  Desi shrugged. “I have no answer.”

  “Obviously whatever is Grafting these illusions is interested in us,” Gary said. “So it wants to use them to spy on us. What I don't understand is why it is interested.”

  “Perhaps we can work it out,” Iris said. “Obviously it has been around a long time, because it knows how Hinge was when it was inhabited. It knows about the Interface.

  What could remain here three thousand years, unaffected by the madness, and still care what a small party of human folk is doing here?”

  “I can think of one thing,” Hiatus said.

  “No,” Desi said.

  “You read it in my mind,” Hiatus said. “And you don't want me to say it. So it must be right.”

  “What is it?” Iris asked, looking slightly nettled.

  “The thing that is making these illusions must be the philter itself.”

  “The philter!” Iris and Gary said together, amazed.

  “No!” Desi cried, and faded out.

  “The philter,” Hiatus said grimly. “That managed to avoid being incorporated in the Interface, and now wants to avoid being found. Because if we find it, we can recompile the Interface with the philter included, and free the gargoyles and confine the madness.”

  “But the philter is just a thing,” Gary protested.

  “No,” Mentia said. “He's right. I see it now. The philter is a demon.”

  “A demon!” Gary was amazed again. “But—”

  “Which explains something that bothered me,” the demoness continued. “The ability of the illusions to become partly solid. They said it was because of the intensity of the magic, but they were also doing it here in the palace, where the level of magic is ordinary. Illusions can't turn solid, but demons can.” She made a huge fist and banged it against the wall, solidly.

  “A demon,” Iris repeated. “That does make sense. We have been dealing not with two animate illusions, but with a single demon who animates first one and then the other.”

  She pondered a moment. “But there are illusions too; the ogres unhinging the buildings, and the quality of the food served, and the decorations of this palace—I have not been Grafting these appearances.” She glanced at Mentia. “Can you do such illusions?”

  “Doubtful,” Mentia said. “I would have to spread my substance thin.” She concentrated, and thinned, and a shape appeared across the room. It formed into an-ogre.

  But it was translucent. “This is me,” the ogre said. “Connected to the rest of me by an invisibly thin thread of my essence. As you see, it's not a really good show.” Then the ogre solidified as the female figure faded out. “Unless I get myself all together.” The ogre shifted back to female form.

  “Then how could one demon handle the rather extensive distant illusions of the ogres in the city?” Iris asked.

  “Maybe a screen,” Hiatus suggested. “Can you make a screen with
images on it, Mentia?”

  “Like this?” A wisp of the demoness' substance curled out, spread out, and formed into a vertical screen. On it pictures formed, of buildings and ogres moving among them.

  “Yes!” Gary agreed. “That looks just like the scene we saw outside.”

  “But my powers in this respect are limited,” Mentia said. “It divides my attention. And what about the food and beds and pillows here? I can emulate one bed at a time, but I can't change the taste of a whole banquet.”

  “I think,” Iris said soberly, “that the demonly arts may account for some of the effects we have seen. But there must be some substantial illusion along with it, and it must be an extremely powerful demon.”

  “A demon like none we know,” Mentia agreed.

  “Except—”

  “The Demon X(A/N)th,” Iris breathed. “And he wouldn't bother. He leaves the creatures of Xanth alone.”

  “And he's a whole lot stronger than this demon of madness,” Mentia said. “No, this is not X(A/N)th. This is some considerably lesser demon. But a greater demon than any ordinary one, with a remarkable combination of powers.”

  “Because of the madness,” Gary said. “It has spent thousands of years in the madness, gaining power. So it has learned illusion, or maybe has the power to make a screen surrounding us with fake illusion. And to pad stones to seem like beds. And to run one imitation person at a time, and make her seem a bit solid at times.”

  “And to read our minds,” Iris said.

  “Though that is probably the limit of its strength,”

  Mentia said. “Most of its power is in illusion, and it can't match even me in physical manifestation. So it does a lot of illusion, guided by what it reads in our minds, and buttresses it by just a bit of substance.”

  “But why does it want our souls?” Hiatus asked. “When we thought we were dealing with mere illusions, their wish for souls to make them become real was understandable. But demons don't want souls.”

  “I am no longer so sure of that,” Mentia said. “When my better half got a soul, she really annoyed me. But here with you folk, and when we are in the ambience of stronger magic and madness, I have been coming to appreciate the virtues of souls. Almost to envy you your qualities of love and conscience. If I had a soul I would become like you in such respects. And if the philter had a soul—”

  “It might be able to become enough like a person to be freed of confinement to the Region of Madness,” Iris said.

  “A soul would give it the independence it must crave.

  Maybe it doesn't realize the significance of conscience; it thinks that its power would be vastly magnified.”

  “Aren't we conjecturing too much?” Gary asked. “Why should there be a demon in the Interface?”

  “The Interface is an extremely sophisticated spell,” Mentia said. “To operate properly, it has to assess all things that pass through it, and treat them as they deserve.

  Living things, too, even people. Only a demon could do that reliably. A demon who could read minds enough to know what folk want without their telling it, and use illusion to see and shape aspects of the Interface and to define and confine the Region of Madness. There must be many specially talented demons bound to it. But one got away.”

  “But we didn't summon any demons when we compiled it.”

  “We didn't really compile it,” Iris said. “We simply reenacted what the ancients did. They knew what they were doing; we merely pantomimed. They could have summoned and bound demons into it. All except the one that sneaked out. By the time they realized what had happened, it was too late; they couldn't recompile for a thousand years, so had to patch it up here and there.”

  “And that worked well enough,” Mentia said. “Until the Time of No Magic, when the inner spell dissipated. The main external Interface must contain mechanisms of restoration, so reappeared when the magic returned, and the gargoyles of course remained loyal. But the spot spell containing the madness was gone, and slowly the effects of that loss manifested. Now at last we know the whole truth.”

  “Now we know why the Good Magician sent us here,”

  Iris said. “He wants us to deal with it.”

  “To save Xanth from madness,” Hiatus agreed.

  “And help ourselves in the process,” Gary said.

  They gazed at each other. “This,” Mentia said soberly, “may be the most important quest any of us have ever dreamed of.”

  “The most important quest anyone in Xanth ever undertook,” Iris added. “And we're such a motley crew.”

  “And we don't even know what to do,” Gary said.

  The others nodded agreement.

  Chapter 11

  FUTURE

  “So we shall simply have to try again to find the philter, and incorporate it in a recompiled Interface,” Iris concluded. “That will not only abate the Geis of the Gargoyle, it will enable us to leave the madness safely.”

  It occurred to Gary that finding the philter might not be any easier than it had been before, and incorporating it into the Interface might be still more difficult, if they could figure out how to do a recompilation for real instead Of in emulation. But he did not want to be negative, so he remained silent.

  “But we looked for it before,” Hiatus said. “And got nowhere.”

  “On the contrary,” Iris said. “We got here. We have made enormous strides in understanding and vision. So we must be on the right track. We must continue our search.”

  Gary had to agree with that. But he had a question of his own. “We looked everywhere we could think of before. Where else is there to look?”

  “We looked everywhere in the present ruins,” she said.

  “Now we have seen the history of the city of Hinge. We must look throughout that history. Somewhere along it we are bound to find the philter.”

  “But there is so much to search!” Hiatus said. “How can we possibly cover it all?”

  Iris nodded. “We shall have to split up again, to multiply our efficiency. With five separate searches—”

  “I don't think so,” Mentia said. “Remember that the philter is aware of us, and is trying to stop us. We don't know the extent of its powers, but I am the only one of us who is proof against the mischief of a demon. It would be foolhardy to let it attack us individually.”

  “Um, fair point,” Iris agreed. “But we do need to increase our efficiency of searching. I'm not sure how else to do it.”

  “Efficiency is no use if the philter picks us off individually,” Hiatus said, looking around nervously.

  “I hate to say it,” Gary said. “But there is another consideration. The philter doesn't seem to be able to focus on two things at the same time. That is, when Desi is animate, Hanna is on autopilot, and vice versa.”

  Iris eyed him. “So you and Hiatus can't be seduced simultaneously. Can't you live with that?”

  “If we remain in one party, the philter can easily watch us. But if we make several parties, it can watch only one at a rime. Then the others can search without distraction.”

  “Now there's a point!” Mentia said.

  Iris nodded. “A point indeed. So it seems we must take the risk for the sake of an additional benefit. Suppose we break up into two groups? Three would be better, though. Maybe you, Mentia, could search alone safely.”

  “I could, but I'm not sure the rest of you could make safe pairs. I should probably be with one of you.”

  Gary had an idea. “Gayle Goyle—if we stop drinking water from the pool for a while, she can go off duty.

  Maybe I could search with her. Because she's a gargoyle, I know I can trust her. And when I explain the situation to her, I'm sure she'll agree to help us.”

  “And she should have an excellent notion where the philter might be,” Mentia agreed. “Because she's been here for three thousand years.”

  “But only on the island in the pool, in the enclosure,” Iris pointed out. “That's not a good place to see anything.”

/>   “Only illusions,” Gary agreed ruefully. “Still, she's secure against the demon, because it can't pull her soul from stone, and a gargoyle in its natural state fears no other creature. Except maybe a roc bird that could pick up a gargoyle and drop it from a great height so that it cracks into pieces—which I'm sure this philter demon can't do.”

  Iris exchanged a glance with the others. “Seems viable to me, if she cares to help you search.” She considered.

  “That leaves four of us to make two parties. We should have one strong person in each party.”

  “None of us are—” Hiatus began.

  “In the sense of being able to handle the demon philter,” Mentia said. “Perhaps I should accompany you. Hiatus.”

  “I'll do my best to protect you,” Hiatus said.

  Mentia made an obscure smile. “Thank you.” Gary realized that it was the demoness who would protect the man.

  “Which leaves me with Surprise,” Iris said. “I can keep alert, and she has enough magic if it is required. Now where shall we spread out to search?”

  “Since we have no idea where to look, maybe we should just follow our noses,” Hiatus suggested.

  “And meet here by evening,” Iris agreed. “But Mentia—if you would, you might pop back and forth every so often, to make sure that none of the parties are in trouble.

  We don't know what the philter will be up to, but we can be fairly sure it doesn't want to be found.”

  “And if we see either of those two illusions again,” Mentia said grimly, “remember that they aren't just illusions, and they aren't our friends.”

  “And that they are going to try to prevent us from finding the philter,” Gary said. “And steal our souls. So that's not the time to push the search too hard. But if we can take up their attention for a while, the other two parties may be able to get through the standing illusions better.”

  “Yes,” Iris agreed. “If we're smart, we can turn the situation to our advantage, and distract the philter instead of letting it distract us. But watch it; remember that it can read our minds, when one of its figures is close. So try not to think of what we're doing then.”

  “Which is one tricky order,” Hiatus said. “But I know one way to do it. Think instead of how the figures may be there to try to destroy us.”