Stork Naked Read Online Free PDF Page B

to learn everything in the universe. He is a very smart bird.”
    “True. But now he has a task for which he is as yet unprepared. He has to watch over the universe.”
    “But that's the Simurgh's job. It will be centuries or millennia before Sim takes her place.”
    “The Simurgh has disappeared.”
    Surprise flew several wingbeats before that registered. “She deserted her post? She wouldn't do that.”
    “Not voluntarily. But she is gone. It is my task to locate and rescue her.”
    That was daunting indeed. “Do you know where she is?”
    “In a general way, yes. And that, I fear, is where your baby went. The Good Magician knows. I asked for his help, knowing that I could not manage it on my own, and he said I would have capable if unusual Companions. I never suspected they would be you and the children. I suppose Metria could help if she chooses.”
    “No. She is locked into her Woe Betide aspect. I'm not sure how much demon magic the waif can do.”
    “I have matchsticks,” Woe called helpfully.
    “Small magic,” Che agreed as the waif lost interest. “Ted and Monica will be more capable. As for the peeve—unless we require the aggravation of assorted monsters, that's a serious liability.”
    “The Good Magician must have reason.”
    “He always has reason,” Che agreed. “But this seems even more deviously obscure than his usual.”
    “Just where is the Simurge, in general terms?”
    “In an alternate universe. An unfamiliar one.”
    Surprise's mind balked. “An alternate what?”
    “There are perhaps an infinite number of realities,” Che explained. He was very good at explaining, being a tutor. “Each is much like the realm we know, but not identical. One may be the same as the familiar Xanth, but have one different character. There might be a Surplus Golem instead of a Surprise Golem, for example, able to do half the available talents, each one twice. Yet it seems that little differences can rapidly become big ones. A difference of a single grain of sand might in a thousand years lead to a remarkably different Xanth. There may also be convergent evolution.”
    “You just lost me.”
    “I apologize. I explained the concept some time ago to Sim, and forget that it isn't generally known. Suppose that ancestral horses and humans interbreed and in time produce centaurs. Suppose that ogres and unicorns interbreed, and in time evolve to become very similar to centaurs, so that it is hard to tell the two species apart.”
    “They're converging,” Surprise said, getting it.
    “Evolving and converging,” he agreed. “They are not the same, but seem very similar. So some of the alternate Xanths may be less similar to ours than they appear. It may be a devious situation.”
    “And the Simurgh is in one of those similar-seeming Xanths?”
    “Yes. That much we know. It is a small subset of a very large picture. Unfortunately we don't know exactly which one.”
    “Why not check them all? How many are there, half a dozen?”
    “Half a million dozen, perhaps. The prospect is daunting.”
    “But you said it's a very small subset.”
    “A small section of infinity is still infinity.”
    “Now that I really don't understand!”
    Che explained it more carefully, and with time and some straining of her brain she came to realize it was true. Infinity was like a huge cake: no matter how small the slice, it was always possible to divide it further. All one needed was a sharp enough knife, or an apt enough mind.
    “And you think my baby is in that same alternate Xanth? Why?”
    “Because normally there is no known connection between realities. They are entirely separate, not even knowing of each other. I know of them only because the Simurgh knows everything. She told Sim where she was going, and when she did not return, he told me. It seems that a fissure opened up between realities, allowing folk to pass from one to the other. The Simurgh went to investigate, as this was a thing she did not know about.