Air Apparent

Wira is wild with worry. Her beloved husband, Hugo, has suddenly disappeared—and on the same night that they had planned to start a family. Could he have gotten cold feet—or has something more sinister happened to him? And what is worse, there is a strange, seemingly lifeless body in his place! To unravel the riddle of Hugo’s vanishment, Wira asks her father-in-law, the Good Magician Humfrey, to seek the solution in the fabled Book of Answers, only to discover that the pages of that magical tome are hopelessly scrambled, leaving only a few vague clues behind. Though gifted with the magical talent of Sensitivity, Wira is also sightless, making it difficult for her to search for her mate alone. Desperate, she enlists the services of a young girl named Debra, who has come as a querent to the Magician’s castle seeking a cure for an annoying curse that causes men to have unworthy thoughts about her. In exchange for Wira’s help in lifting the bane, Debra agrees to be transformed into the shape of a buxom, winged centaur, acting as Wira’s escort and her eyes. Meanwhile, far across the enchanted land of Xanth, Hugo is having troubles of his own, suddenly finding himself imprisoned in the dungeon of Castle Maidragon. The renegade rogue known as the Random Factor has used his mysterious powers to swap places with Hugo and gain his freedom. Hugo’s only hope of escape lies in the claws of a lovesick fruit bat named Bathos who can change bodies with others at will. As these two star-crossed soul mates set out to find each other, their separate quests become curiously intertwined with several of Xanth’s most unusual denizens, including Nimbus, a numinous boy with a mysterious heritage; Happy and Fray, two tempestuous cloud creatures from a rarified realm; and Ilene, the youngest daughter of the Magician Trent and the Sorceress Iris, whose magical gift is the power to make illusions real. Their journeys lead them through realms of danger and desire, intrigue and astonishment—from the High Castle of the Air King and the Hidden Village of the voracious vixens known as Vila to an infinitesimal planetoid at the farthest end of space and time—only to discover they are players in a much greater game older even than Xanth itself.