Geis of the Gargoyle (37 page)

"I enhanced it," she confessed.
 
"My real body looks more like this." The elaborate contours simplified somewhat.

"Still, quite appealing, for a human," he said.
 
"If I hadn't met Gayle ..."

"Persistence," she said, her robe reappearing.
 
"Thank you.
 
But at the moment, I'm here on business.
 
I want to accomplish our mission, and I think we shall need to divert the illusions in order to succeed." She paused, gazing at him thoughtfully.
 
"Would it be too much to ask that you let Hanna do it?"

"You mean-?"

"To seduce you.
 
So that her attention will be taken up while Menti and I do some serious searching of our own."

"You think you can find the philter?"

"I'm not sure.
 
But I think we shall never find it if we continue to depend on those two illusions for information."

She had a point.
 
"But what about right now? Desi is with Hiatus, and-"

"And she has influenced him in a sinister manner.
 
Haven't you noticed? We can not trust him in this context."

She had another point.
 
"I really don't care to-"

Mentia appeared.
 
"There's a problem with the Interface," she announced tersely.
 
"It-"

"Oops," Iris said.
 
They both vanished.

Gary looked around.
 
Hanna had appeared.
 
"I've neglected you, my lord," she said, smiling with false cheer.

Gary hoped that Iris and Mentia had gotten clear in time to avoid detection.
 
He would have liked to talk with them longer, but he did have the gist of their concerns, which he shared.
 
They needed opportunity to search for the philter in this ancient context, and to check the Interface closely, without any participation by the two illusions from madness.

Evidently Desi had finished with Hiatus; once he was asleep, Hanna could concentrate on Gary.
 
He needed to take up her attention, so that Iris and Mentia could take their search farther.
 
But the thought of being seduced by Hanna simply did not appeal to him; it was Gayle he wanted to be with.
 
Yet he did not want to betray his real nature by being open about that.
 
Gayle herself had warned him not to.

He looked at the illusion.
 
What was he to do?

"I know you are really worn after your effort," Hanna said, approaching him.
 
"I know just how to relax you."

Her gown went translucent, then transparent, showing him the form that had become increasingly alluring despite his better understanding of her nature.
 
He was becoming entirely too human for comfort.

She wanted to distract him, and he wanted to distract her.
 
All he had to do was let her do it.
 
But he lacked the desire, in a certain way.
 
"I'm not sure-"

She stepped into him and kissed him on the mouth.
 
Caught by surprise, and somewhat off balance, he grabbed on to her to steady himself.
 
His hands landed on her narrow back and plump rear.
 
Both were rather interesting in their fashions.
 
She had said she could make herself as solid as she needed to be, and she was doing so now.
 
The illusion of sight had been augmented by the illusion of touch.
 
Maybe her body was a mere shell without innards, and her mind did not exist, but that did not seem to make much difference at the moment.

Yet it was her mouth that commanded his main attention.
 
What an interesting sensation this firm pressure of lips on lips generated! He had never realized how nice it could be.

She drew back a bit.
 
"Let me take off your robe," she murmured.
 
Her hands went to it, drawing it clear of his shoulders and body.
 
As she did this, he looked at the front of her body, realizing just how intriguing it was.
 
He had thought he lacked the desire, but he had not really given it a proper chance.
 
This was not an objectionable process at all.
 
Let her do it? He would help her do it!

In a moment she had him bare, and was embracing him again.
 
Now his interest was intensifying in the manner of a storm of madness.
 
All his prior cautions faded like forgotten illusions.
 
He just wanted to proceed with what she had in mind.

"Maybe on the bed," she murmured in his ear.

Go to the bed? He would have leaped out the window with her, if she suggested it now! He moved eagerly to the bed and flung himself down on it, with her.

Suddenly they had company.
 
The Queen and governess had returned.

"Ixnay," Iris said.

"Get out of here, you nuisance," Gary retorted.

"Separate," Mentia said, tugging at him.

"Go away!" Hanna cried, seeming even more annoyed than Gary.
 
"This isn't your business."

"Yes it is," Iris said, putting her hands on the handmaiden's bare shoulders.
 
But her hands passed right through the seeming flesh without effect.
 
Iris might or might not be illusion at the moment, but Hanna was.
 
She could be touched only when and where she chose to be.

"Get away from her," Mentia told Gary.
 
"She's definitely not for you."

"How would you know?" he demanded, struggling to free himself from her hold.
 
"Demons don't love."

"That's why we can be rational about the matter.
 
This pseudo-creature is deadly." Mentia hauled harder, with considerable strength.

"Begone!" Hanna screamed.

"So maybe I can't touch you most places," Iris said.
 
"But I can stop you from touching him where it counts." She put her hands on the illusion's torso.
 
They passed through, of course, and came to the edge of Gary's body.
 
Now Gary could no longer feel Hanna's torso either.
 
Hanna could make parts of her body seem solid, but not for one person only.
 
As a result, there was nothing to hold him close, and Mentia was able to pull him away.

"****!" Hanna shrieked, making the air turn bilious.
 
"Then feel thisi" Her hands formed into large sharp claws, and her face sprouted long fangs.
 
She leaped at Iris.

But Mentia popped away from Gary and appeared between Iris and Hanna.
 
The claws sank into demon flesh, and caught there, as if embedded in a thick mat.
 
"You can't hurt me, you horror," the demoness said.
 
"But I may hurt you, if you don't let go.
 
I'll break your nails." She reached for the claws, her hands forming into metallic pincers.
 
"And pull your teeth." Her head became a giant pair of pliers.

"$$$$!" Hanna hissed, and vanished.
 
The odor of the word was like burning garbage.

Gary had landed on the floor when Mentia quit her support, but he hardly felt it.
 
"What's going on?" he demanded.
 
"Why did you break it up, when I was doing exactly what you asked me to?"

"You explain," Mentia told Iris.
 
"I must safeguard Surprise." She vanished.

"Because we learned the folly of our strategy," Iris said, coming to help him up.
 
She was solid; this was the real Queen.
 
"We almost did you great harm."

"Harm? I was just getting to like it!"

"To be sure," the Queen said, grimacing.
 
"And had you been with me, you could have continued and had a grand experience.
 
Maybe we'll get to that, another time.
 
But we have learned that those two fetching illusions are in fact our deadly enemies, and now that we have caught on to that, we're apt to have real trouble."

Gary began to realize that the Queen and demoness had not just been making mischief.
 
Actually, he might have suspected it when Hanna screamed the unprintable fourletter words and sprouted claws and fangs.
 
She had then seemed more like the Hannah Barbarian he had known before.
 
"So what was the harm she was about to do me?" he asked.

"She was going to steal your soul."

This was so unexpected that Gary was unable for a moment to assimilate it.
 
"My what?"

Iris picked up his clothing and offered him some of it to put back on.
 
"I realize what a shock this is to you.
 
It shocked us, too, but when we discovered it, we knew we had to act immediately.
 
The two things the illusions desire are substance and souls.
 
They can get some substance from the madness; it seems that the magic is so thick within it that it can be distilled into temporary solidity.
 
But it can't be distilled into the stuff of souls.
 
So those are what they have to steal, if they ever hope to become real."

"But illusions aren't real!" Gary protested.
 
"How can they even have desires?"

"True illusions can't have desires.
 
But those two do desire substance and souls," she said.
 
"Which of course is two more than the illusions I craft.
 
That's why I was so long about coming to this conclusion; I assumed that all illusions were like mine, which are really part of me.
 
But you see, I have substance and soul, so I don't miss them, and neither do my illusions.
 
But illusions that lack these things are different, it turns out.
 
Perhaps only in the Region of Madness can there be such illusions, but it is clear that they do exist here."

"But aren't they projected by someone?" Gary asked, still confused.
 
"The way they alternate in speech and animation, except when in the strong madness-isn't that because that person can't focus on two animations at once?"

"They may be projected by someone who lacks a soul," she said.
 
"In which case, Hanna was merely trying to collect your soul for her master or mistress.
 
The consequence to you would be similar."

"Someone without a soul?"

She handed him another item of apparel.
 
"There are a number of creatures without souls.
 
It seems that most animals lack souls, and don't miss them.
 
But all who have any human ancestry, such as the humanIanimal crossbreeds, do have souls, and value them.
 
So there might be an intelligent unsouled animal, like a dragon, hiding here in the Region of Madness.
 
It might eat us, but then our souls would be lost to it, because killing the host frees the soul.
 
So it is being more careful.
 
It wants to get our souls first; then it can safely eat us.
 
Now that we have balked it, it may decide to eat us anyway.
 
That's why a situation that has been polite may now become dangerous."

"A dragon-hiding in the madness?" he repeated, his appreciation of the danger growing.
 
"Smart enough to craft illusions that emulate us and talk to us intelligently?"

"It's a frightening notion," she said.
 
"But yes, that's what we think we're up against.
 
A dragon-or something worse."