Air Apparent Read Free Page A

think she wasn’t.
    She turned more pages, finding more clue-spots. None of them were about Hugo, to her grief, but surely they were relevant in some way, or they wouldn’t be marked by his fruit essence. She remembered them all. She was good at remembering things, because she couldn’t make notes she could read.
    “Why don’t you use be-wail?” Metria inquired.
    “Use what?” Wira realized that she must have voiced part of her thought.
    “Dots, spots, marks, elevations, patterns—”
    “Braille?”
    “Whatever.”
    “It takes a special tool to write it. It’s easier just to remember.”
    “It would be easier yet just to see.”
    “I don’t miss it.”
    “Well, you should.”
    Before she made it to the end of the Book, she heard Humfrey and the Gorgon returning. She had excellent hearing, and generally knew what was going on in the castle without having to go there. The Gorgon had done her best, but there was only so much distraction the Good Magician would tolerate when he had a concern about the Book. Wira wished they could have stayed away longer; her list of clues was incomplete. “Darn.”
    “OoOo, what you said!”
    “It’s not a bad word.”
    “Yes it is. Roxanne Roc was convicted and sentenced for uttering it in the presence of the Simurgh’s egg. I know, because I was the swing member of the jury.”
    Wira might have argued further, but Humfrey was entering the study doorway. “I smell demoness,” he grumped. “Begone, strumpet!”
    “Bleep!” Metria swore and faded. This time there was a faint smell of brimstone.
    “Who has been interfering with my Book of Answers?” Humfrey demanded.
    “I was just turning the pages, looking for clues,” Wira said.
    He mellowed marginally. “First I need to restore proper order to the entries. Then I will be able to read the solution to the mystery.” The man climbed onto his stool and went back to the beginning of the Book.
    “Come dear, let’s go down and have some comitea,” the Gorgon suggested. “We’ll leave Humfrey to his important work.” She kissed the Good Magician on the top of his head.
    They went downstairs to the kitchen. The comitea was very good, and did make Wira feel more civil despite her extreme concern about Hugo.
    “Did you fetch in anything useful?” the Gorgon inquired.
    “I don’t know. Hugo’s traces were definitely there, though I know he wouldn’t have touched the Book directly. But the spots I found seem random.”
    “This whole business is strange. Hugo wouldn’t have left you, as you pointed out, so I think it is fair to say he has no complicity. My guess is that he happened upon the murder scene before the murderer left, so the murderer had to get rid of him too, so as not to leave a witness. It must have happened very fast.”
    Wira was stricken. “Oh, Mother Gorgon! You don’t think Hugo was killed?”
    “Definitely not. I raided Humfrey’s spells long ago and put a no-death spell on Hugo, just on general principles. Don’t tell Humfrey.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t!” Wira said, her relief overflowing. “But then why isn’t Hugo here?”
    “That was a pretty basic, simple spell, and I put it on a long time ago, so it must have faded some. It would have kept him alive, but not stopped other mischief. He could have been enchanted into a mouse, or conjured to some distant spot. So it will still be a job to locate him. The scrambled Book stops us from using it to find Hugo as well as from identifying the murderer.”
    “But what magic could have scrambled it? That tome is counterspelled every which way.”
    The Gorgon nodded. “That bothers me. It’s Magician-caliber magic. If a man could enter this castle, kill someone, banish the one who spied him, scramble the Book of Magic, and get away unobserved, what else is he capable of? I thought we knew of all the Magicians and Sorceresses in Xanth. This smells of something else.”
    Fingers of dread closed about Wira’s heart. “What are you saying,