Free Air Apparent by Piers Anthony Page A

forest. They were approaching the tree. “Dear, let’s pause here where we can kiss in private,” the lady’s voice said.
    “No, dear, not here,” the man’s voice said. “That’s the unpleasantree. It will make us quarrel and be mean to each other. Come this way, to the pleasantree.”
    “Oh, you’re so smart,” she said. “Of course we want the pleasantree. I can hardly wait to be really pleasant to you.”
    “Yes indeed,” he agreed. Their voices faded as they changed course.
    So that was it! Hugo had landed in an unpleasantree, and so been really unpleasant to the griffin. That was good to know, but now he needed to get away from here and resume his search, this time more alert for predators.
    He launched himself from the foliage and flew up out of the forest. He wasn’t concerned about the griffin, knowing it would take its time to decontaminate. Bat guano was stinky stuff. Still, he flew near the tops of the trees, so he could duck for cover again when he needed to. Bathos would not be pleased if Hugo got his body eaten up.
    Unfortunately the forest seemed to be endless. He was in danger of getting lost, and that would be no good. What would happen if he was unable to find his way back to the cell? Would the exchanged minds revert to their own bodies after a while, or would they be stuck forever exchanged? He didn’t care to find out. Anyway, it was getting late; he could see the shadows of trees lengthening.
    He flew back the way he had come, ducking down whenever anything threatening seemed about to lurk. Once he almost landed in the middle of what appeared to be a Mundane family: a father, a mother, a three-year-old boy, and his little brother of only about a year and a half. They looked somewhat bewildered, and Hugo wanted to say something reassuring to them, but couldn’t talk their language and suspected that the sight of a large bat would just spook them.
    But then a young woman happened along a path. “Oh, hello,” she said. “May I help you?”
    “Hello,” the man said. “I am Thom, and this is my wife Lauryl, and my sons Noah and Jacob. We seem to have suffered a sudden change of setting.”
    “I know how that is. I’m looking for—well, I’m Mike’s girlfriend, and—”
    “You say you’re ‘my ex-girlfriend?’ ” Thom asked. “Your gender preference is your own, of course, but how can you be your own ex-girlfriend?”
    The woman shook her head. “It is my talent to be misunderstood. I—never mind. Are you folk lost? There’s a castle not far from here, and—”
    “Thanks, but we prefer to find our own way.” The family had evidently misunderstood her offer of help. That was the way of it, when a person was cursed. Hugo couldn’t help either; he flew on.
    Not far beyond he spied a young man walking toward the family. That must be Mike, looking for his not-ex-girlfriend. She must have given him directions where to meet her, which of course he had misunderstood.
    Soon he spied the castle, which was a suitable marker in this wilderness region. Well, not entirely wilderness; there was the couple he had overheard by the unpleasantree. But maybe they were castle servants, sneaking out for a quick kiss. Maybe fraternization between servants was forbidden. So maybe it wasn’t completely utter sheer random coincidence that they had given him information he needed. But he wondered.
    When he thought of it, it had been pretty coincidental that he had gotten transported to the locked cell. All he had wanted was a bottle of Rhed Whine, and suddenly everything had changed. Had he walked into a forget whorl or some other kind of whorl that did something weird to him?
    He found the bat cave, which was behind the castle. That meant that the cell was in the castle, next to the cave.
    “Halt, stranger!” It was a bat sentry at the cave entrance, calling out in bat talk, which Hugo understood in this body. There had been no sentry before; this must be a nocturnal thing.
    Hugo halted.