The stork delivering Surprise Golem's long-awaited baby refuses to hand it over and flies off through a tear in reality instead, forcing Surprise to chase her missing child across a string of parallel Xanths with a ragtag group of allies. Unseen forces are working just as hard to keep her from succeeding. The thirtieth Xanth novel sends one of the series' own creations on a very personal rescue.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources