Esrever Doom (Xanth) by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online Page A

guessing game. “None of the above, I’m sure. Is there a reason you intercepted me, you intriguing creature? If not, I think I had better be on my way before I lose it, in more than one sense.”
    That evidently satisfied her. “I’m the Demoness Metria, here to stop you from getting in.”
    “You’re a demon? You don’t look like one.”
    “I don’t?” She frowned. Then little horns grew out of her head, and a tail grew out of her posterior. “How about now?”
    “You are a demon!” he said. “You looked so—so fetchingly female I just didn’t believe it before.”
    The horns and tail puffed into vapor, which drifted away. “A demoness can look like anything she wants two.”
    “Two?” he asked.
    “It’s a homophone.”
    “What kind of phone?”
    “It sounds the same but spells differently.”
    “Ah. So you can look like—”
    “Anything I want too,” she agreed.
    He laughed. “Close enough. Is that speech impediment natural, or is it part of the Challenge?”
    “Mixed. I got stepped on by a sphinx long ago and it affected my articulation. It also fragmented me into three parts. My other part D. Mentia is a little crazy, and Woe Betide is a child who must live by the Adult Conspiracy.”
    “The what?”
    “The Adult Conspiracy to Keep Interesting Things from Children. It frustrates the bleep out of them.”
    “Oh, I see. We have something similar in Mundania.”
    “You should. It’s a parody of Mundane attitudes, one of many.”
    “That surely explains a lot of what I have been seeing here.”
    “You called me fetchingly female. Not ugly.”
    “You are definitely not ugly,” he said.
    “Then what about the expletive?”
    “The what?”
    “Oath, swearing, whammy, nemesis, bane—”
    “Curse?”
    “Whatever.” Her decolletage descended and the hem of her skirt lifted to show enticing flesh at either end. “Don’t you suffer from it?”
    “I don’t suffer from that particular reversal.” Indeed, it was difficult to keep his eyes from locking onto her exposure.
    “What’s your secret?”
    “It may be that because I am here only in my dream I am not affected the way you natives are.”
    “You’re dreaming?”
    “I seem to be.”
    Her clothing shrank further. His eyeballs threatened to glaze over. “Well, I can fulfill your dream. Take off your trousers.”
    He did not trust this. “Um, no thanks. Such a distraction would surely prevent me from reaching the interior of the castle.”
    “Oh, bleep!” she swore. “You caught on.”
    “If that’s all, I’ll proceed to the next Challenge.”
    “Oh, no you don’t, dummy! This was just chitchat. I have not yet begun to Challenge you.” Her clothing faded out entirely. Her body was almost impossibly luscious. He was surprised by how seductive it was. “Last chance to have at me before this gets serious.”
    “Sorry. I can’t forget that you’re a demoness rather than a real woman, appealing as you are. It could be dangerous to touch you.” He did not add that he wished he could risk touching her.
    “Bleep!” This time the word appeared in a speech balloon, with smoke rising from it. Her clothing re-formed. “Very well then, idiot. Figure out the Challenge.”
    “What Challenge?”
    “The Challenge the Good Magician is making me perform, in return for the inconsequential minor little favor he did me,” she said crossly.
    “What favor was that?”
    “He Answered my Question.”
    “Isn’t that what he normally does?”
    “Yes. But it was such a stupidly simple obvious Answer that I shouldn’t even have had to Ask it. So now I’m serving for nothing, really.”
    “I appreciate the frustration. I hope it’s not the same with me when I get my Answer.”
    “It’s not the same. You’re here to save Xanth.”
    “I’m here to see if I can reverse the spell that makes pretty girls ugly.”
    “Same thing. If it’s not reversed, who will want to signal the stork?”
    “Do what?”
    “When folk want a baby,