"I believe you could fathom it for yourself. Depart, and enjoy your future with a fine centaur."

Cynthia took a determined breath, but Wira touched her elbow before she could translate it into a sentence. "He has really Answered you," she whispered. "He's trying to let you go without a Service."

Indeed, he had. He had said she was fully centaur in everything but the memory of her human origin. Breeding was not memory. But she was unwilling to accept her Answer free. "No. I will do the Service. I insist on having my Question Answered."

"The answer is yes!" he snapped. "Now begone!"

"But I haven't yet asked."

"So you need do no Service. Scram!"

"You must go," Wira whispered urgently.

She stood unmoved. "Yet it seems that you have indeed Answered. You tell me that my issue will breed true to my present nature."

"Yes! All transformees breed true. Half the present winged centaurs are transformees. You know that. So there is no need to come here."

Cynthia realized with a start that she had known that. A number of her friends were transformees, and some had already mated and bred true. She had been concerned about nothing. Still, she felt obliged to honor the forms. She had come for an Answer, and she had gotten it. "What is my Service?"

Humfrey sighed. "You will not relent?"

"I am a centaur. You have confirmed that." Centaurs were known for their stubbornness.

"Then so it must be," he said, resigned. "The Demon E(A/R)th has disappeared, and must be rescued before his magic of Gravity fades, destroying Earth and taking Xanth with it. My Book of Answers has nothing on this subject; it is beyond the scope of mere magic. You must handle this matter yourself." He put his head down on the musty tome before him.

Cynthia heard Wira's horrified intake of breath. This really was a horrendous mission, perhaps impossible. But she had to do it. She had no idea how to proceed.

CHAPTER 2: CASTLE ZOMBIE.

Sim was thoroughly tired of geometry. It was true that he had to learn all the knowledge of the realm, but mathematics in all its forms was just plain dull. He would much rather be out learning how to tame dragons or spook foolish nymphs.

"So then what is the formula for determining the hypotenuse?" Che Centaur asked.

"The what?" Sim squawked. He was unable to speak human fashion, but Che understood his peeps and squawks perfectly, so it made no difference. Che was his tutor, and a good one.

"I'm not sure your avian mind is completely on this lesson," Che said, frowning.

"I'm bored!"

Roxanne Roc, snoozing nearby, opened an eye. She was Sim's governess, and she did have authority over him. But she preferred to leave his schooling to the tutor. Only if Che glanced her way would she intercede. Then Sim would have to get back to work on math, no matter how boring it was. He had caught on early, being a very bright bird, that one defiant twitch of a feather in Roxanne's direction would cause her to summon the Simurgh, who would quickly make him wish he had never been hatched. When it came to discipline, his best chances for tolerance lay first with Che, then with Roxanne.

Che paused, considering. He was a good teacher, as all centaurs were, but he was young, just sixteen. That meant that he had not quite yet joined the Adult Conspiracy, though it hardly applied to winged monsters, and had some sympathy for a six-year-old bird. "Let's take a break," he said. "We can fly around and see if we can find anything interesting."

"Let's look for the origin of puns!" Sim squawked.

Roxanne winced. She knew this was a waste of time. But she also respected Che's judgment, so gave him considerable leeway in tutoring. He favored the carrot over the stick, and while Sim had not yet figured out who would even want a carrot, let alone a stick, it seemed that Roxanne was satisfied that it worked. But neither choice was certain at the moment; math was more likely.

To Sim's surprise, Che agreed. That meant that Che was bored too. No one knew the origin of puns, so it was probably an endless search.

They spread their wings and took off. The centaur flicked himself with his tail to become light enough to remain aloft. Che was larger, because of his centaur ma.s.s, but Sim was destined to be huge, the size of a roc, when grown. He was not a roc, of course; he was the chick of the Simurgh, the oldest and wisest bird in the universe. She had seen the universe expire and be recreated three times. Sim might be on duty for the next change of universes. But first he had to learn all there was to know. There was a lot of that, and much of it was dull, unfortunately.

They flew across the Land of Xanth. It was beautiful in its crazy fashion, with fields and forests, rivers and lakes, hills and mountains, and of course the great Gap Chasm across the center. But there was no sign of the origin of puns.

"Do you think the puns will ever run out?" Sim squawked.

"If they do, Xanth will dissolve into chaos," Che said with just a hint of a muted smile. "It is mostly made of puns."

"Maybe some bloated ogre has magic indigestion, and constantly emits them."

"Perhaps," Che agreed, this time with five-eighths of a smile. He allowed Sim some juvenile humor, since he was a young bird.

Then Sim's sharp eyes spied a flying figure in the distance. "Cynthia Centaur!" he squawked. "She has returned!"

That preempted Che's attention. "My betrothed."

Soon Cynthia joined them. Her bare bosom was heaving with more than the routine effort of flight. Sim knew that had there been any human men nearby, they would have stared. He had not yet figured out why hard breathing attracted their attention, but would surely do so in time. "I have horrendous news! I must rescue a Demon, and I have no idea how to proceed."

"You used a capital D," Sim squawked. There was more difference between a Demon and a demon than between a centaur and a microbe.

"The Demon Xanth is in trouble?" Che asked, dismayed.

"No. The Demon Earth."

Both Che and Sim almost fell out of the sky. "Surely we miscomprehend," Che said as he righted himself. "We have no dealing with that particular Demon."

"It's my Service for the Good Magician," she said. Then, evidently reminded of something, she clasped Che's foresection in air and kissed him while the two hovered in the sky. "I have my Answer. I will breed true."

Centaurs spoke of breeding rather than of stork deliveries. This related to their alternate system of reproduction. Birds of course were more sensible, using eggs as the delivery mechanism. How it was that a bird brought live babies to other creatures was another thing Sim had not yet discovered.

"That is good to know," Che said. "But I don't understand what-"

"She must rescue the Demon Earth," Sim squawked helpfully. "And she doesn't know how."

"That much I had gathered," Che said somewhat wryly. "But why should you be selected for so momentous a task?"

"The Muse of History said Magician Humfrey had to a.s.sign whoever got an Answer this day, and I was the one. As for the Demon Earth-it seems he originates the force of gravity, which the Land of Earth really needs, and which also has some relevance to the Land of Xanth. So I need to rescue the Demon before this force fades, in much the way magic would fade were the Demon Xanth incapacitated. I just wish I had some notion how to do it."

Che nodded. "It is true. We do have some use for gravity, despite the way we winged centaurs require magic to abate it so we can fly. Losing it would be a serious matter, and not just because it holds obnoxious land creatures down. But having any effect on a Demon, let alone rescuing one, is prodigiously beyond the capacities of any creature of Xanth. We are as dust motes compared to them."

"Mother should know," Sim squawked. "She knows everything."

"Suddenly I perceive a certain logic to the selection," Che said. "Cynthia is my affianced, and I tutor Sim, whose mother knows everything. Thus Cynthia has a certain access to essential information."

"I'll go ask her," Sim squawked eagerly. This sounded far more interesting than basic math.

"I think we should all go ask her," Che said. "Roxanne can take us more rapidly."

That was true. The three of them were about to fly back when the roc's huge form lifted into the air, and joined them in a single wingbeat. She had powers of flight beyond those of any ordinary roc. Actually, she had more; she could command the cooperation of any of the leading figures of Xanth, when necessary to safeguard Sim. But she had never needed to invoke such authority. "You spoke my name?" she squawked.

"We need to go to the Simurgh," Che said. "Something has come up." He had some authority in his own right, because every winged monster was sworn to protect him. That was one reason why Roxanne had been able to be low-key. He was also destined to change the history of Xanth, but no one knew whether this related to his tutoring of Sim or some other thing. Sim hoped it was the latter, because tutoring was so, well, mundanish.

Without further squawk the roc hovered in air and extended her monstrous claws. They formed an enclosure into which the three of them flew. They settled, and Roxanne accelerated.

Xanth pa.s.sed below in a blur of mixed magic color. Then they were over a complicated range of mountains whose colors were pure: blue, red, green, pink, yellow, white, and black. "The mountains of Qaf," Sim squawked happily, recognizing them. "Each a different color of beryl. The green is emerald, which is fairly common, but the red is bixbite, which is rare, and of course black beryl is not encountered elsewhere. No one other than Mother or Roxanne or me can fly here." That was literal; all other winged creatures found themselves magically grounded. Not even small d demons could conjure themselves here without special permission.

Roxanne hovered over a white peak and opened her talons. They slid out to land on a level platform. Roxanne glided across to a blue peak and settled.

The Simurgh approached. Her wingbeats were like waves of mist, and as she landed on a red peak her feathers showed like light and shadow, with a crest of fire on her head. Sim knew himself to be the most beautiful bird in Xanth, scintillating with twice the colors of the rainbow, but the sheer splendor of his mother awed him. WHAT IS IT, SON? Her voice was in their minds, a dauntingly powerful thought.

"Cynthia must rescue the Demon Earth," Sim squawked. "She needs to know how."

THIS REQUIRES DIALOGUE. Then the scene changed. Sim found himself and the others in a lush garden with vegetables and fruits of many colors. There was yellow corn, white turnip, blue berries, black berries, red strawberries complete with straws for drinking, green melons, and pink lemonade. But it was not a meal; it was a display. Sim himself was a handsome navy bean. "Squawk?" he inquired.

"The Simurgh has rendered us into an illusion scene for more comfortable dialogue," another navy bean said in Che's voice.

"A lovely display of garden produce," a cute chick pea said in Cynthia's voice.

"But I'm a real chick," Sim squawked. "Why am I not a chick pea?"

"The term has a colloquial as well as a literal meaning," Che-bean explained. "It refers to a pretty girl. Navy beans are symbolic of virile seafaring men."

Oh. Suddenly he was satisfied to be a bean.

"Now let's hear more about your mission," a brightly shining sunflower said, turning her light on the chick pea.

"Magician Humfrey requires me to rescue the Demon Earth," Cynthia said. "He says this matter is not in his Book of Answers, so I am on my own. I desperately need advice."

"This is true," the Simurgh said. "Only another Demon could incapacitate a Demon. Since all other Demons are therefore under suspicion, the matter must be handled by mortals. This is a considerable Challenge."

That seemed to be a more than considerable understatement to Sim. The power of any Demon was virtually absolute in his realm. All of the magic that made the Land of Xanth what it was stemmed from the incidental leakage from the surface of the body of the Demon Xanth. Similarly all of the natural forces of the Land of Earth derived from leakage from the Demon Earth's body. They might as well be ants trying to govern invisible giants.

"Is it even theoretically possible for a mortal centaur to accomplish such a mission?" Che asked.

"Yes. But it is neither easy nor direct."

"There is a way?" Cynthia asked, eagerly surprised.

"Yes. You must acquire the use of the Swell Foop."

There was a brief silence. "I don't believe I am familiar with the term," Che said, embarra.s.sed for his ignorance.

"Unsurprising. It is an uncla.s.sfied device that was lost several centuries ago."

"Lost!" Cynthia exclaimed. "Then how-"

"You must find and recover it. To do this you must first obtain the Six Rings of Xanth, for they are the only artifacts capable of handling the Swell Foop. That will be a considerable challenge of its own."

"But if this wonderful Foop is lost, how can anyone use it?" Cynthia asked. "What use would it be to get the Rings, if there is nothing for them to handle?"

"The Rings will also enable you to locate the Foop. When they are stacked and aligned, a person who sights through them will be able to see the Foop-if the stack is pointing the right way, and if it is the person destined to use it."

"How will we know who that person is?"

"It will be one of the holders of the Rings. Perhaps the one who is first able to spy the Foop. I am not sure."

There was a startled pause. None of them had ever imagined the Simurgh not knowing something.

"Let me summarize, if I may," Che said. He had a very organized mind.

The sunflower seemed to smile. "You may."

"Cynthia needs the Swell Foop to rescue the Demon Earth. She needs the Six Rings of Xanth to find the Foop. If I infer the implications correctly, the Rings are not easy to obtain, and each must have a separate holder. This will necessitate a party of at least six."

"Correct."

Sim cut to the essence. "Where are the Rings?"

"Because they are so powerful as to be dangerous in the wrong hands," the sunflower said, "they are well hidden. No living person knows the location of any of them."

A silence hovered above the group, then slowly settled on it. But Sim had a faint notion how his mother thought. "You did not exclude nonliving persons, such as the demons."

"No demon knows, either."

Sim was chagrined. He thought he had made a smart observation, for he was supposed to be a very bright bird.

"Maybe a ghost," Cynthia said.

"No ghost."

Then a tulip bulb flashed over Che's head. "Zombies!"

The sunflower nodded. "Only living persons may use the Rings. Only the zombies know where the Rings are hidden. This is a precaution to make it unlikely that their power will be abused."

Sim nodded. Living folk did not like to a.s.sociate with zombies, so seldom got close to them or asked favors of them.

"But what do the Rings do, aside from locating the Swell Foop?" Cynthia asked.

"They control the six known Regions of Xanth. Any one has absolute power over its Region; the six together would have power over all Xanth rivaling that of the Demon Xanth. It is felt that such power should not be invoked casually."

"And the ma.s.sed power of the Rings is required to handle the Foop," Sim squawked. "That must be an extremely potent device."

"It is no ordinary foop," the Simurgh agreed. "It is an almost perfect one. That makes a difference."