Free Air Apparent by Piers Anthony

yours.”
    Then let’s do it.
    And Hugo found himself in the bat’s body. Are you there in my body? he thought, startled.
    “Yes, I am here, Hugo Human. This is a huge body—how do you manage it?”
    I am used to it, Hugo thought wryly. Now if you will just focus on whatever kind of fruit you want, it will come to you.
    Suddenly a watermelon appeared in his body’s arms. “Oh, glorious!” his body said. “Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen!” An orange appeared, and a yellow, purple, green, and plaid. Colorful fruit was piling up around his body’s feet.
    Easy, Bathos, he thought. You can’t possibly eat all that.
    “But I’m certainly going to try,” his body said. “I’ve been so hungry, so long, this is wonderful.” It took a big bite of overly juicy melon. This was a variety that was not solid water.
    Well, if Bathos was satisfied, so was Hugo. I’ll go explore now. I’ll return soon.
    “Don’t hurry,” his body replied, slurping one of two slushy pears. Pears always came in twos.
    Hugo worked his way out of the crevice, into the cave. There were no other bats there; this was evidently their foraging time.
    He took flight in the cave, finding that it came naturally. There was light in the distance, so he flew toward it. This was daytime; most bats were nocturnal, but maybe the fruit bats needed daylight to see their fruits better.
    He emerged from the cave and flew into the sky. Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen, he thought, echoing Bathos’s words.
    It was glorious outside. He could see wide and far. He was in a pretty glade in a pleasant forest. He looked around—and saw the castle that had been behind him. It was a lovely castle, with tiered walls and towering turrets. And it was completely unfamiliar. It wasn’t the Good Magician’s Castle, or Castle Roogna, and certainly not Castle Zombie. There was the Nameless Castle, but that was built on a floating cloud in the sky. So what was this one? He was pretty sure that his father or mother would know of it, or any of the other designated wives, and surely Wira did too. But Hugo had not paid much attention to Xanth history or geography, so had not picked up on this one. Which meant that he still had no idea where he was.
    Well, he could find out. If he flew high enough and far enough, he would come to some geographic feature he recognized, like the Gap Chasm or Centaur Isle. Then he would know. Then maybe he would be able to figure out what to do next.
    He winged upward into the sky—and spied a big bird. No, it was a griffin. The bird-headed lion spied him and turned to fly toward him. Did griffins eat bats? Hugo decided not to find out. He dived back down toward the forest.
    The griffin dived too. It was faster than he was, and was overhauling him rapidly. Hugo dodged aside as the eagle-beak snapped at him; this body was good at dodging. Then the griffin was beyond him, and having to reorient to make another pass.
    Hugo plunged into the forest, barely missing the foliage of a tree. He swerved to enter it, so he could hide.
    The griffin hovered beside the tree, its eagle eyes searching. Hugo could have avoided discovery by being very still and quiet, but instead he leaped out, hovered over the griffin’s head, and pooped. Then he dodged back into the foliage.
    Why had he done that? Not only was it nasty, it was extremely risky.
    The griffin squawked, outraged. The thing about griffins was that they were fastidious. They wouldn’t eat any flesh that was dirty or spoiled, and often they dunked their prey in fresh water to be sure it was clean before being torn apart and eaten. This one was so angry it couldn’t see straight. It flew crazily off to find a huge clean pool.
    Well, he had succeeded in saving his leathery hide. Hugo had never been mistaken for hero material; he was normally rather shy and retiring. This foolish act, effective as it had turned out to be, was entirely unlike him. What had possessed him?
    He heard two people talking in the