Esrever Doom (Xanth) Read Online Free PDF

summon another chip, just in case.
    The creature paused. “Oh—you must be the one. I’m Hadi the Alicenagon. I’ll be your guardian this trip.”
    “I’m Kody Mundane. Uh, alicenagon?”
    “My parents met at a love spring. Drek Dragon and Karia Centaur. I inherited from both of them. You know how it is.”
    Kody remembered Griff the Hipporoc. It seemed that those who met at love springs developed sudden passion, regardless of species, and their offspring were mixtures. Miscegenation was evidently no problem in Xanth. “Yes.”
    “And this is Guy Guyascutus, commonly known as a sidehill hoofer. I can understand him pretty well. We’re both going to see the Good Magician, but didn’t have a feasible route to get there. We can’t use the enchanted paths.”
    “You can’t?” Kody was happy to have her do the explaining.
    “Guy is great on mountain slopes, but can’t walk effectively on the level, so he’s limited. I am barred because of my ancestry. Dragons aren’t trusted among ordinary folk.” She laughed. “For pretty good reason. I guess I could find the Good Magician’s Castle if I searched long enough, but it’s really much easier to have a marked wilderness trail.”
    “So the three of us have a common cause,” Kody said. “To go to see the Good Magician.”
    “That’s it. Guy contributes transportation, I contribute protection, and you contribute the marked route.”
    “I’m going there because I have a mission to perform. If I may ask, why are you going there?”
    “Guy wants to find a way to cross flat spaces without getting hopelessly fouled up. I want to find a suitable mate. I’m the only one of my particular kind I know of, but there’s got to be another somewhere.”
    “I met a hipporoc named Griff,” Kody said. “The son of a male centaur and a female roc bird who also met at a love spring.”
    “Oh, he sounds perfect! But can you tell me where he is?”
    “I encountered him near the Void, but I’m not sure he lives there. He gave me a really nice check her board.”
    “Sorry, I don’t play that naughty game.”
    “It’s not limited to games. It has sixty-four pictures, and when I touched the one showing Caprice Castle, it put me there. Maybe it could put you in the vicinity of Griff.”
    “Now that intrigues me. Let’s see it.”
    Kody brought it out. “You have to refocus to see the pictures.”
    She peered at the board. “Ah, yes. Got it. No, no hipporoc in sight. But maybe the Good Magician will know. Thanks for the lead, anyway.”
    “Maybe he will,” Kody agreed.
    He mounted Guy, who had no saddle but was surprisingly comfortable, and they set off following the blue line, which obligingly remained close by the side of the mountain. It must have been charted to do that, for the benefit of the sidehill hoofer. Hadi navigated it by half flying, half hoofing it, touching the slope with the two feet on the upper side. Kody thought that must be quite a trick, but evidently she was used to it.
    In due course the blue line diverged from the side of the conic mountain, and cut across to another. Guy followed it, stumbling briefly at the level base before telescoping his two left legs to be long and his two right legs to be short. Then he moved confidently along the new slope. Certainly he was handling it far better than Kody could have, and they seemed to be making good time.
    “We need to eat,” Hadi said. “Keep moving. I’ll fetch something and catch up with you.” She took off into the sky and was soon lost to sight.
    “She’s very helpful,” Kody remarked.
    Guy twitched an ear in acknowledgment.
    Now that he had time to himself, in a manner, to think, Kody was half bemused to think that here he was in a wild fantasy land, riding a weird fantasy creature, while a part-dragon foraged for them. Was any of this to be believed? He doubted it. But in dreams all things were possible, and this was the Dream of all Dreams. He was amazed at his own