Esrever Doom (Xanth) (33 page)

“I thought if I could get some reverse wood, that wood reverse it and free the boy. Please, there is little time.”

“Show us the way,” Yukay said.

The young woman hurried north. They followed. Kody noticed incidentally that she was shapely, and she wore what appeared to be a little crown. Could she actually be a princess? That seemed unlikely.

“We should get acquainted,” Yukay said as she paced the woman. “I am the Maiden Yukay, this is Zosi Zombie, this is Ivan Human, Zap Griffin, and you are right: Kody Mundane, with the chips.”

“I am Wenda Woodwife.” She paused. “More formally, Princess Wenda Charming, because my husband is a prince. But I dew knot worry about that, just the children. I can knot have any of my own, so I adopt those in need, and that is working well. It is rewarding.”

“And you speak with the forest dialect!” Yukay said.

“I dew,” Wenda agreed. “I wood knot try to conceal my origin; I am proud of it, though some say it is unprincessly.”

“Princessly is what princessly does,” Yukay said. “You adopt needy children? That is wonderful!”

“Yes. Those with infirmities that make others knot want them. They especially need support and love.”

“More than wonderful,” Zosi murmured.

Kody found this interesting, but remained conscious that it was a diversion from his Quest. “How did you come across this lost child?”

“I was visiting forest friends, when I heard the cry of a lost child,” Wenda explained. “I can hear a child in trouble anywhere in Xanth; it is a special talent my friend Eris gave me. Also the ability to get there swiftly, to rescue the child, and take it home with me if that is called for. It is how I find the children in need. So I came immediately. But I was too late; the Bogeyman reached him first. The Bogeyman thought I was his mother, and I did knot deny it, because otherwise he wood have eaten the child right away, and anyway I might adopt the boy if he needed it, and truly become his mother. But the Bogeyman made demands I wood knot honor, and I had to tell him I had to pause to consider. But he will knot wait long.”

“I thought the Bogeyman was just a scare story to make children behave,” Kody said.

Both women, and Zosi, turned on him. “Not in Xanth,” Yukay said. “The Bogeyman is all too real, and dangerous. Many children are lost every year to his awful appetite.”

“But there are rules,” Zosi said. “He can’t take just any lost child.”

“That’s right,” Yukay said. “The mother has to give him to the Bogeyman. Then when the Bogeyman comes and she’s sorry, she has to deal with him alone. But he doesn’t readily give up the child. She has to buy it from him, and that can be a price she doesn’t want to pay.”

“I can imagine,” Kody said dryly.

“So I invoked another gift from my friend Eris, which is to locate the nearest source of help. That is yew with yewr special chips.”

“This friend Eris must be very special,” Kody said.

“She is. I could knot dew any of this without her.”

“But why would a mother give her child to the Bogeyman, if she didn’t want to be rid of the child?” Ivan asked.

“In a fit of temper,” Yukay said. “Children can be horribly trying at times, pushing mothers over the edge. Then they can threaten the child with the Bogeyman. They don’t really mean it, but technically they may say it. Then the Bogeyman comes, and they’re sorry, but it’s too late.”

“That must have happened this time,” Wenda said. “I wood knot say it to my own children, but sometimes I’ve been tempted.”

“Your adopted children,” Yukay said.

Wenda looked at her. “Dew yew mean there is a distinction?”

“No, of course not,” Yukay said quickly.

The more he learned of this, the less Kody liked it. “I think I need to know, if I am to help. Exactly what did the Bogeyman demand of you, to give up the child?”

“I dew knot want to say,” Wenda said.

“It’s ugly,” Yukay said. “Best not to ask.”

“But there might be some way of handling it,” Kody said. “If I knew exactly what to reverse.”

Yukay sighed. “Then I will tell you. Traditionally the Bogeyman gives the mother a choice from three similarly repulsive payments. The first is to be his mistress for a month. She must sneak out, not telling her husband, for an hour every night to cater to the lust of the Bogeyman. He is said to be an ugly lover, demanding unspeakably obscene things, who leaves a woman feeling forever unclean thereafter. The second is to give up enough of her blood, flesh, and bone for him to eat to make up for what he would have had from the child. This will leave her seriously ill, and take a long time to recover, and she can’t tell her family what happened. The third is to bring him another child of similar size to eat, either another of her own or of another woman’s family; she must steal that child and never speak of it thereafter.”

“And if she refuses to do any of these,” Zosi said with a shudder, “he will simply eat her child, biting off the arms and legs, then the head, and finishing with the body. She must watch it happen.”

“I understand most mothers take the first option,” Yukay said. “Rather than let their child die. But it demeans them horribly.”

“I could knot,” Wenda said. “Eris wood know, and bee disappointed in me. I fear what she might dew.”

“This is one ugly creature!” Kody said, appalled. “I would simply kill him.”

“You can’t,” Yukay said. “The Bogeyman is immortal, and protected by magical law; no mortal person can even try to kill him. He has to be dealt with on his own terms.”

“Then how will a reverse wood chip help?”

“I am knot sure,” Wenda said. “All I know is that when I sought help, I was brought to yew. So there must bee a way.”

Which left it up to Kody. Would it be like fighting a dragon, using chips to reverse the fire or smoke? Somehow he doubted it. What needed reversing was the whole situation, and he wasn’t sure chips could do that.

Then, suddenly, they came to the scene. There was the little boy, wailing in the bottom of the pit. And there was the Bogeyman, a horrendous, vaguely manlike figure with a scaly body, a ratlike head, and soulless white eyes. He looked the epitome of evil, and Kody knew at a glance that there would be no placating this monster. His terms had to be met, or he would eat the child; it was that simple.

Or was it? Something was nagging the fringe of Kody’s mind. There was a wrongness here that went beyond the ugliness of the creature or of the situation. But Kody couldn’t quite pin it down.

“Squawk!” It was an exclamation of recognition.

Then Zosi cried out. “That’s Plato! Eve’s son!”

Kody had not really looked at the child before. Now he did. She was right: this was the boy with the talent of reanimating the dead. The one Zosi was supposed to mentor, if she decided to live long enough to do it. How had he come here?

Well, he would ask. “Plato, remember us? We visited your mother a few days ago. Zosi Zombie took care of you for a few hours while your mother was at a meeting.”

The boy ceased bawling and looked at them. “Take me home!” he said.

The Bogeyman made a menacing gesture. He was standing right behind the boy; he could snatch him up and bite off his head before any of them could get there.

“In a moment,” Kody said. “First we need to know how you got here.” He was stalling, hoping for an insight into the solution to the larger problem.

Plato was not bashful about it. “I heard something. I sneaked out. I found a dead thing. I made it live. Then I found another dead thing. I made it live too. I kept finding dead things. It was great! Then I fell into this pit and this monster came and said he was going to eat me. So I screamed for help, and Wenda came. The monster told her something I didn’t understand, and she went away. Now take me home!”

Kody looked at the Bogeyman. “Isn’t that entrapment? You lured the boy here with pieces of meat. His mother didn’t give him to you at all!”

Now the Bogeyman spoke. His tone was growly gruff. “He is legally mine. He is a naughty child who sneaked out against orders. I will eat him. Unless I get my price.”

“And what is your price?”

The Bogeyman gave him a straight look. “Give up your Quest.”

That was a shock. “You know who I am?”

“I don’t care who you are. That is my price.”

Kody was outraged. “You snatched this innocent child in order to make me give up my Quest for the good of Xanth? That can’t be legitimate.”

“Then I will eat the child.”

Kody drew his sword. “Then I will cut off your head.”

The Bogeyman laughed. “You can’t hurt me.”

“He’s right,” Yukay said. “The Bogeyman is invulnerable. We have to deal on his terms.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“Please,” Zosi said desperately. “I will pay his price. I can’t let the boy be eaten.”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll let you pay that price,” Kody said.

Wenda stepped forward. “I am the one who must pay it. I refused before, but I can knot let my friend’s child suffer.” She walked on into the pit, sliding down the steep slope.

The Bogeyman grabbed her. “Well now! That’s more like it. You’re one delicious morsel of a woman.” One gross hand reached into her blouse.

“She’s not the boy’s mother!” Kody called.

The Bogeyman paused. “Not?”

“He is the son of Princess Eve,” Kody said. “How is it that you didn’t know that?”

“Then bring Eve to me,” the creature said. “Or pay my price yourself.” But he didn’t let go of Wenda.

Another person appeared at the edge of the pit. She was absolutely beautiful, but she wasn’t Princess Eve. “Wenda, you are in trouble!” she said.

“Eris!” Wenda replied. “I did knot want yew to get involved!”

Eris. That was Wenda’s talented friend. “Who are you?” Kody asked her.

The women looked at him, and he felt the shock of unfathomably enormous impact. It was like a cushioned sledgehammer. “I am the Demoness Eris, come to rescue my friend from distress.”

“She’s a Dwarf Demoness!” Yukay cried. “A creature beyond any we know! Do not annoy her!”

Kody might have argued the point, but that single glance had shaken him. This was indeed a creature of immense power. “I meant no offense, lady.”

“You have no authority in Xanth, Eris!” the Bogeyman called. “Begone!”

The Demoness considered. “I will return,” she said, and vanished.

Now Kody addressed the Bogeyman. “You’re a fake! You’re not the real Bogeyman! The real one would have known that Wenda Woodwife was not the boy’s mother. And he would not have had to lure the boy here with a trail of dead meat. You’re an impostor, and I can deal with you myself.”

“I am new to this region, but no impostor,” the thing said. “I merely don’t yet know all the families here. That will be remedied in time.”

Could that be correct? Kody wasn’t sure. He hefted his sword.

Eris reappeared. Beside her Princess Eve also appeared. Beside Eve was another sinister man. “Not so fast, dreamer,” the man said to Kody.

“With all due respect, sir, who are you?” Kody asked.

“He is my husband,” Eve said. “Dwarf Demon Pluto. Plato’s father.”

Kody was silent, overwhelmed by the extraordinary ramifications this situation had taken on. Another Dwarf Demon? He sheathed the sword.

Then yet another figure appeared. This was a dragon with the head of a donkey. The creature was so ludicrous that Kody had to stifle a laugh. Had this business dissolved entirely into farce?

“No,” Yukay said, answering his unspoken question. “That is the Demon Xanth. The ruler of this land.”

Kody was glad he hadn’t laughed. Why a powerful Demon should go about in such a form he couldn’t guess, but evidently rank had its privileges. It seemed that each Demon had a finger in this particular pie. Why weren’t they acting to abate the menace of the Bogeyman? The thing might or might not be a fake, but he still was a threat to the woman and the child.

Then a fourth Demon appeared. Kody could tell by the aura of power. These things were assuming human (or dragon-ass) form, but their intense magic radiated out regardless.

“And the Demon Earth,” Yukay said in awe. “What an assembly!”

“Who has jurisdiction here?” Eris asked. “I do not believe this creature is from Xanth.”

“It is not,” the Demon Pluto said. “It was somehow imported from some other magic realm.”

“There are rumors of it in my realm,” Demon Earth said. “But it is not my creature.”

That explained the Bogeyman’s unfamiliarity with the region. He had been operating elsewhere.

“I’m not waiting for you freaks to make up your minds,” the Bogeyman said. “I’m taking what’s mine.” He swept up the child and tightened his grip on Wenda.

Kody charged before he even realized he was going to. So did Ivan, Yukay, and Zosi, and Zap made a huge leap over all of their heads in an arc aiming for the Bogeyman.

And the scene froze, catching them all in motion like a flash photograph. They were stationary, and the griffin was stopped in midair. The Bogeyman too was frozen, along with Wenda and Plato. Kody realized that this was the spell of the Demons, who had magic in a league beyond any mortals knew.

“I claim jurisdiction because my friend Wenda Woodwife Charming is threatened,” Eris said.

“I claim jurisdiction because my son Plato is threatened,” Pluto said.

“I claim jurisdiction because the domain is mine,” Xanth said. It seemed he could speak when he chose to, despite his asinine head.

“I claim jurisdiction because the protagonist, Kody Mundane, is mine, and is threatened,” Earth said. That made Kody take note: so the Demon of his own world was involved in this. That confirmed what the Night Stallion had said about honoring requests for dreams. Kody was another dream.

“Then it seems we are at an impasse,” Eris said. “We need a decision on jurisdiction before we can deal with this situation.”

“The mortal woman, the Maiden Yukay, is reasonably sensible and objective,” Xanth said. “Let her decide.”

“Agreed,” the other three said together.

Yukay, in the middle of their running group, spoke without moving. “Each of you has a valid claim, a personal involvement. This would not be happening without the setting in the Land of Xanth, Demon Pluto has a right to protect his son, Demoness Eris has a right to protect her friend, and Demon Earth—you sponsored Kody? How could that be, here in Xanth’s domain?”