Question Quest Part 22

But as it happened, there was no useful service she could do for me for a day, let alone a year. I had someone to fix my meals, and someone else to sort my socks, and someone else to figure out a suitable set of challenges for the next person who came with a Question. I didn't want to let the nymph go without service, because that would set a bad precedent, but neither did I want her hanging around the castle doing nothing. What was I to do?

I asked the magic mirror. I now had several of these, having long since gotten rid of the one that became unreliable with time. This one merely showed a cherub falling over with laughter. No help there. The problem with competent mirrors was that they also tended to be too bright, and found ways to express themselves that I did not necessarily appreciate. But even so, a bright mirror was better than a dull one.

So I did what I didn't like: I told the nymph that I had no use for her, and she was free to depart. I asked her not to bruit the news about, lest others be dissatisfied by unequal treatment. But to my surprise she refused; she had her Answer, and she intended to pay for it. She wouldn't leave until her year was done.

That was exactly what I didn't want. But there wasn't much I could do about it. So I a.s.signed her a room, and hoped something would turn up.

That night, when I finished my researches and went to my hard cold lonely pallet to sleep, I discovered it occupied. The nymph was there. "I think I have found something I can do for you, Good Magician," she said. Then she clasped me and kissed me and lay down with me. And somehow my pallet was no longer hard, cold, or lonely.

I had forgotten what nymphs were for, but in the course of that year I remembered. A man could not summon the stork with an ordinary nymph, for they were not subject to that call, but he could do a heroic job of imitation. Jewel the Nymph had not been ordinary; she had a soul, and could do anything a normal woman could. But regular nymphs were made for pleasure without responsibility, so the storks ignored them. How could a person take proper care of a baby, if she did not remember her activity from one day to the next? This one wasn't interested in marriage, just in completing her service. I had to agree that I was satisfied.

In fact, when her year was done, I was sorry to see her go.

After that, when a similar creature elected to serve in that manner, I did not protest. I now knew what was missing from my life. It was a woman. But who would want to marry a century-plus old gnome of a man?

Then in 1054, eleven years after our meeting, the Gorgon came with a Question. She was now a marvelously developed woman of twenty-nine, and to my eye the most ravishing creature imaginable. But of course I couldn't tell her that; this was business.

We had set challenges, of course. When I can, I tune them to the individual person, but sometimes they are all-purpose for whoever comes. We had a foghorn guarding the moat, and it was lovely to see it operate. When the Gorgon tried to cross in the boat provided, the horn blasted out such columns of fog that she couldn't see or hear anything. In that obscurity her boat turned around and came back to the outer sh.o.r.e. That was the boat's magic; it had to be steered, or it returned to its dock. One of my prior querents had built it for me during his service. When the fog cleared, the Gorgon was a sight; her snake-hair was hissing with frustration, and her dress was plastered to her body. I had thought that body to be voluptuous; now I knew I had underestimated its case. I remembered our dialogue and how she had seemed to dote on me in the brief time of our encounter. Naturally she would have forgotten that, but it was a fond reminiscence. If only-but why be foolish?

The Gorgon was no dummy. She pondered a moment, then set out again. This time she steered the boat directly toward the foghorn, the one thing she could hear. Since it was inside the moat, she soon completed the crossing. I think I would have been disappointed had she not figured this out.

She navigated the other two challenges successfully and entered the castle. I braced myself and met her. She was even more impressive from aclose than she had been from afar. Her face was heavily veiled, including her deadly eyes, but the rest of her was nevertheless stunning. I was now a hundred and twenty-one years old, but in her presence I felt more like eighty-one. I remembered the surprising delight of our first encounter, when I had made her face invisible so that she would no longer stone any man who met her gaze. That spell would have been aborted at the Tune of No Magic, of course; all the men she had stoned had returned to life then, and of course she had let them go.

I knew I should tackle her Question and give her an Answer, but I was reluctant to terminate our second contact quickly. So I dallied somewhat. "What have you been up to, Gorgon?" I inquired in as close an approximation to sociability as I could manage. It was an effort, but less of one for her than for others, because I didn't care about others.

"After the Time of No Magic my face was restored, and since I didn't want to make any more mischief in Xanth, I went to Mundania, where there is no magic, as you recommended. I hated to do it, for I love Xanth, but because I love Xanth I had to leave it, so as not to do it any harm." Her face went wry behind the veil; I could see the outline of the expression. "Mundania was colossally dreary. But what you had told me was true: I was normal there, and my face did not stun anyone. So I bore with it, and found employment as an exotic dancer, for it seems that Mundane men enjoy the appearance of my body."

I tried to wrench my eyes from that same body, embarra.s.sed. "Mundanes are odd," I mumbled, feeling like the hypocrite I was.

"But in time I got to miss Xanth too much to bear," she continued blithely, taking a breath that threatened to pop a b.u.t.ton on her decolletage or a lens on my spectacles. "The magic, the magical creatures-even the ogres and tangle trees had become fond memories. I realized that I had been born to magic; it was part of my being, and I just couldn't endure without it. But I also did not want to do harm. So I have returned and come to the man I most respect, and that is you."

"Um," I said, foolishly flattered.

"But when I returned to Xanth after several years, I discovered that my talent had matured along with my body," she continued, sighing. It was some sigh; my old eyeb.a.l.l.s threatened to overheat. "Originally I stoned only men; now I stone men and women, and animals, and even insects. It's much worse than it was!"

Obviously she wanted another invisibility spell for her face. I could readily give her that. Then she would perform some service and be gone. And I would be twice as lonely as before. But I had to do it. "Evidently your talent is not far short of Sorceress cla.s.s," I said. "Ordinarily that would be an a.s.set."

"Perhaps when I'm a mean old woman, I'll enjoy stoning folk," she said. "But now I am in my prime, and I don't."

She was certainly in her prime! "What is your Question?" I asked, knowing too well what it was.

"Would you marry me?"

"I do have another vial of invisible makeup," I said. Then something registered. "What?"

"Would you marry me?"

"That is your Question?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"It is."

"This is not a joke?"

"This is not a joke," she a.s.sured me. "Understand, I'm not asking you to marry me; I merely want to know whether you would, if that were my desire. In this manner I seek to spare us both the unpleasantness of rejection."

Oh. I had to stall, because suddenly my heart was beating at a rate somewhat beyond my age. "If you really want my Answer, you will have to give me a year's service."

"Of course."

"In advance."

"Of course."

I was amazed at the readiness of her agreement. It was evident that she had thought this out, and preferred a considered Answer to an extemporaneous one. Perhaps she believed that I would be more likely to be affirmative if she a.s.sociated with me for a while. In that she was grossly mistaken: I was locked into affirmation the moment I saw her approach the castle. The reason for my delay in answering was other than my private preference.

So the Gorgon worked for me a year. I made her face invisible again, of course, because otherwise her veil might have slipped sometime and made a nuisance. Now she could go around unveiled, which was easier.

The first thing she did was tackle my mountain of socks. She was good with them, which was an excellent sign. Next she tackled the castle, getting it organized and cleaned up. She went through my study and put all my papers and vials in order. When my meal-fixing maid completed her service and departed, the Gorgon took over that too. She even tended the roses in back. She was good at everything she tried, and I was better off than I had been in decades. I no longer needed other a.s.sistance around the castle; the Gorgon was running it.

I treated her in a cursory manner. In fact I was downright grumpy. I called her "girl" and I was never quite satisfied with what she did.

Now you might wonder about this. My reason was simple: I had been intrigued by her when she was a maiden of eighteen, and fascinated by her as a woman of twenty-nine. Her mere proximity caused my pulses to pulse. There was, it has been said, no fool like an old fool, and the Gorgon's competence, appearance, and power of magic had made a conquest of me in a matter of moments. I had loved MareAnn, I had loved Rose of Roogna; now I loved the Gorgon.

She was considering marrying me? Then she deserved to see what marriage to such a gnome was like.

I was showing her the worst of me, deliberately. If that didn't alienate her, nothing would.

Surely it would alienate her! But it had to be done, in fairness. The Gorgon, with her face masked, was simply more of a woman than I deserved.

Yet she survived even that challenge of mistreatment, and when her year of service concluded I gave her my Answer: "Yes, I would marry you, if you asked." I would go to h.e.l.l for her, if she asked.

She considered that. "There is one other thing. I shall want a family. I have too much love for just a man; it must overflow for a child."

"I'm too old to summon the stork," I said.

"There is a vial of water from the Fountain of Youth on your shelf," she said. "You can take some of that and be young enough."

"There is? Fountain of Youth elixir? I didn't know that!"

"That's why you need a woman around the castle. You can't even keep track of your socks."

She had me there. "Still, I would have to be a great deal younger to-" For the truth was that, pleasant as it had been to have the company of certain nymphs in the past, I had seldom gotten to that stage with them, knowing that it made no difference. If I should have to do it for real, would I be able? I had realistic doubt.

"Why don't we find out? I will spend the night with you, and you can take drops of elixir until you are young enough." She was nothing if not practical, which was yet another trait I liked.

The notion intrigued me. It might require more elixir than I had, but I could go fetch more tomorrow; I of course knew where the Fountain of Youth was. So that night she came to me with the vial, and she wore a translucent nightdress. Suddenly I felt forty years younger, and wished it were eighty.

She kissed me. Her face was invisible, but solid; I could feel her lips on mine. My feeling of age reduced another twenty years. I hadn't yet taken a drop of elixir.

Of course feeling is not the same as being, and my body did lag somewhat behind. I might have the aspirations of a younger man, but lacked the capacity.

Rather than go into tedious detail, I will say that each drop of youth elixir took ten years off my age, and that two drops turned out to suffice. At a physical age of a hundred and two, with close proximity to that gorgeous creature, I discovered I was young enough. Health, youth, and love carried the night. I knew it would have taken several more drops with any other woman, however.

And so we were betrothed, though we did not rush to marriage, and thereafter every decade or so I took another drop of youth elixir so as to keep my physical age at about a hundred. With one exception I will cover in due course. The happiest period of my later life was upon me. I hope this was true for the Gorgon, too.

Meanwhile, less interesting events continued. Bink's son, Dor, was of course a Magician, thanks to the Demon's largess. He could talk to the inanimate and make it respond. But he was dissatisfied, because he lacked the physical stature of his father and was bullied by other boys. So he went on a Quest to the past of eight hundred years before, to fetch the elixir of restoration that would enable Millie the Maid (formerly a ghost) to restore her zombie friend Jonathan to life. Dor was now twelve years old, which was young, but he was a bright boy, and of course his status as Magician enormously expanded his capabilities.

Naturally much of this had to be explained to him, and he came here to inquire. Because he was a Magician and probable future king of Xanth, I did not charge him a year's service; instead I made a deal with him. I would enable him to undertake his Quest, and he would bring me information on a period in the history of Xanth whose details were somewhat obscure.

But I did set up challenges, as a matter of form. Dor came with Grundy Golem, who was now a real live person, but still small and with a mouth larger than the rest of him. They came to the moat and found it guarded by a triton: a merman with a triple-tipped spear.

Dor used his talent to make the water of the moat talk in his voice, leading the triton astray while he swam under the surface. By the time the triton caught on, Dor was safely inside. That had been an elementary challenge, and an elementary response.

The next challenge was a needle cactus, ready to shoot its needles into anyone who pa.s.sed by. But Dor pretended he was a fireman, who would burn anything that touched him, and cowed the cactus into letting him pa.s.s unneedled. That demonstrated the lad's cleverness.

The third challenge was one of courage. The Gorgon stood where he had to pa.s.s. Dor was terrified, but barged ahead blindly, literally: he kept his eyes closed, so that he could not meet her gaze and be stoned. And that was his victory: he had gone forward instead of back. Courage, as I understand it, relates not to fear but to how a person handles the fear he has, and Dor handled it as well as could be expected for a boy his age.

So I helped Dor make a deal with the Brain Coral, who was no longer our enemy. The Coral used Dor's body during Dor's absence, and Dor went back to occupy the body of a grown barbarian hero, or so it seemed. This is an aspect that few understand: Dor was visiting the image in the Tapestry, rather than the original setting, so the setting was much smaller than it seemed. He was not man-sized, and neither were the other folk; he was tiny. But this had no affect on his activity, which was independent of size, with one exception.

Dor had quite an adventure; the Gorgon and I kept track of it all. He encountered what he took to be a giant spider, Jumper, who in our realm is a tiny arachnid, and they were great companions. That was the exception: Dor's interaction with the spider on an even basis. Jumper had gotten snagged by the adaptation spell and been brought into the adventure life-size. To Jumper it had seemed as if he had entered a realm where human folk were his size.

Dor encountered Millie the Maid in her seventeen-year-old youth, and of course was somewhat smitten by her. Her talent, remember, is s.e.x appeal, and even at the age of twelve he felt its potency. He helped King Roogna save his castle from encroachment by the goblins and harpies, who were at war with each other. He met Evil Magician Murphy and Neo-Sorceress Vadne, who in a fit of jealousy rendered Millie into a book. That was why Millie became a ghost; when the book was found and restored in contemporary times, Millie became a maid again. In the end Dor learned something about manhood, and brought back the elixir of restoration, and used it to restore Jonathan the Zombie, who turned out to be the Zombie Master who had first occupied this very castle.

Thus Dor had an effect on my life too, for Jonathan and Millie married and moved in with us. There was nothing to do but share the castle, as the Zombie Master did have a prior claim on it. Later he built a new Castle Zombie and moved there with his family, so we were no longer so crowded.

You may wonder how all this came to pa.s.s, when Dor had entered only the Magic Tapestry of History, rather than the real period of Xanth's history. The answer is that there are intricate connections between the two, and the magic worked to make what Dor did have real effect. He might not have been there physically in the way he thought, but what he did was real. A fuller understanding is impossible for anyone not well versed in esoteric magic.

Millie's talent was s.e.x appeal, remember, and she was certainly the s.e.xiest creature I encountered. Naturally it took almost no time for her and Jonathan to summon the stork, and the effort was so effective that the stork brought two babies. Those were Hiatus and Lacuna, with the talents of growing eyes, ears, and noses on things, and of changing print. They were cute tykes, but capable of enormous mischief. In fact they performed remarkably when the Gorgon and I got married four years later, in 1059. Prince Dor was then sixteen and serving as temporary king while King Trent was visiting Mundania, so it fell on him to perform the ceremony of marriage for us. The Zombie Master and Millie handled the details. For all that, it was accomplished, and thereafter the Gorgon and I settled down to married life. She was my fifth wife, though at that time I suspected she was the fourth, because of the period blanked from my memory by the Lethe elixir.

In 1064 the stork brought our son Hugo, named after the combination of the first syllables of our names. We waited until we determined Hugo's talent before announcing his arrival, and that took a while, and then it was an imperfect talent, so word was slow to get around. Hugo could conjure fruit-but because his magic was flawed, the fruit was often of poor quality, or even rotting. That was an embarra.s.sment. Nevertheless, the Gorgon lavished her love on him, and he had a gentle character. I made it a point to pay some attention to him, because of what had happened to my son, Crombie, and tried to involve him in my activities when possible. Later the Princess Sorceress Ivy was to a.s.sociate with him, and in her presence he became all that any family could wish for. Unfortunately, he relapsed to normal in her absence.

Meanwhile, things were proceeding elsewhere. Crombie and Jewel the Nymph's daughter, Tandy, grew up to the age of nineteen, suffered the attentions of the Demon Fiant, and managed to flee on a nightmare. She came to this castle in the year 1062, asking how she could be free of the demon, and served as a house maid for a year awaiting my Answer. I did not mention the fact that she was my granddaughter to her; that was not relevant to the issue. Presumably Crombie would inform her when he deemed it appropriate. But I must admit that I rather liked her s.p.u.n.k. She was a pretty girl, with brown hair and blue-green eyes, and her personality was pleasant. I wanted to do right by her, so that she would not think ill of me, at such time as she learned. I must admit it: I was proud of her.

Now some Answers are more complicated than others. Those involving demons can be troublesome, because demons are more or less immortal and are difficult to bar from any place. My castle was specifically spelled to exclude them, but when Tandy departed it she would be subject to the attentions of her demon lover again. I did not have any spell which would adapt to a particular person to discourage demons. What could I tell her?

Then the following year, just as Tandy's term of service finished, Crunch Ogre's son, Smash, arrived with a Question he had forgotten. Ogres are not the brightest creatures. Fortunately I knew what was bothering him: he was dissatisfied with his life.

You see, Smash was not an ordinary ogre. His mother was a curse fiend, which is a euphemism for human stock. So he was half human. Regular ogres, remember, were justly proud of three things: their outrageous strength, their grotesque ugliness, and their horrendous stupidity. Deep down inside, where it was so well hidden that even Smash was not aware of it, he had a certain human weakness, human handsomeness, and human intelligence. He would have been so embarra.s.sed to learn of these qualities that his blush would have fried all the fleas on his hairy body. But these subterranean qualities nevertheless were having their muted effect, polluting his pristine ogre nature and making him vaguely dissatisfied. He wanted to know how to restore his satisfaction as an ogre, and I had no good Answer, because I knew that this half ogre could never be satisfied unless he recognized his true heritage and came to terms with it.

Smash had grown up near Castle Roogna, and was a friend of Prince Dor and Princess Irene. (Dor was considered a prince because he had Magician-caliber magic which qualified him to be king in due course; Irene was a princess because she was the daughter of the King and Queen. Definitions are somewhat loose in Xanth.) Thus he had picked up certain human sensibilities which further compromised his ogrehood. No ordinary ogre would have thought to come to me for an Answer.

So there I was, stuck for two Answers simultaneously. How could I free Tandy of the attentions of a demon, and how could I make Smash satisfied to be what he was?

And the solution came to me with such a flash that the edges of my a.s.sorted tomes turned brown and the magic mirror winced. I had to blink for several moments before my sight was fully restored. These two problems canceled each other out! If Tandy kept company with an ogre, even a demon would think two and a half times before molesting her, and if Smash got to know a human/nymph girl well, he would discover the rewards of being partly human. She would be protected and he would be satisfied.

So I gave them both my Answer, which of course neither understood: they were to travel together. In Smash's case it was both Answer and service; he was to protect Tandy.

Smash was too stupid to formulate his protest well, but it was obvious that keeping company with a human girl was somewhere near the top of his limited list of things not to do. Tandy was more specific: "If he gobbles me up, I'll never speak to you again!" she told the Gorgon.

They had what I found to be an instructive adventure, because Smash did something so stupid only an ogre could have managed it: he looked into the peephole of a hypnogourd. He got locked into the realm of the bad dreams, but remained too stupid to be afraid, and did significant damage to the dream settings. He terrorized the walking skeletons, who were not accustomed to having their tables turned in this manner. One of them, by the name of Marrow Bones, got lost at this time. Finally the Night Stallion himself had a showdown with him, and Smash lost half his soul. He also encountered a number of females of other species, and in his fumbling way managed to help them find husbands. Notable among these were Blythe Bra.s.sie, of the realm of the gourd, and Chem Centaur, Chester and Cherie's filly. Maybe that was later; no matter.

But in the end Smash did protect Tandy, and she did impress on him certain advantages of being a man. They married, and when Tandy was twenty-one the stork brought them their son Esk, my great grandson. They called him an ogre, but technically he was only a quarter ogre, and looked human except when he got really angry. He was to grow up to marry Blythe Bra.s.sie's daughter, Bria, who like most of her kind was as hard as bra.s.s but could be surprisingly soft when she wanted to be. I was sorry I never got to meet Esk in person, because there were aspects of him that might have favored me. But I was otherwise occupied at the time when a meeting would have been convenient.

However, the female who had more direct impact on my life was NightMare Imbrium. She was an ancient creature; a sea of the moon had been named after her. But she looked just like a small black horse. In the confusion surrounding Smash Ogre's dealing with the realm of the gourd, she got half of Chem Centaur's soul and did not turn it in. As a result she was corrupted by it, and became too softhearted to remain effective in delivering bad dreams. Finally she was allowed to go out into the regular world of Xanth to do two things: to bear a message to King Trent, "Beware the Horseman," and to see the rainbow.

But things seldom go right when minor characters of this drama become major ones. The Horseman was a creature who could a.s.sume the aspects of both man and horse, not in the manner of a centaur, but as one or the other separately. His talent was the making of a line of sight that could not be broken between a person's eye and the peephole of a gourd. He used it to connect King Trent to the gourd, making him unable to function. This occurred just as the NextWave came, for the Shield no longer protected Xanth; the Horseman was working with the NextWavers. It was a bad time for Xanth.

When Dor a.s.sumed the crown of Xanth, the Horseman did the same to him. Then the Zombie Master a.s.sumed the role, and he too was taken. Then it was my turn. I had to do the thing I detested and be king again. All because Mare Imbri had not been able to deliver the warning message in time to avert disaster. I was properly disgusted.

It was Grundy Golem who rode the nightmare to bring me my bad dream. I was not exempt from this one, because it was real. My castle defenses were useless against Mare Imbri, of course; she galloped right through the walls and stepped out of my bookshelf.

I looked up from my tome. "So it has come at last to this," I grumped. "For a century I have avoided the onerous aspect of politics, and now you folk have bungled me into a corner." Technically it was only ninety-six years since I had quit the throne of Xanth, but I had not meddled in politics for the last decade of my kingship, leaving that to the Maiden Taiwan.

"Yes, sir," Grundy said with seeming humility. "You have to bite the bullet and be king."

"Xanth has no bullets. That's a Mundane anachronism." But that wasn't quite accurate, because there before me on the shelf was a row of magic bullets. "I'm not the last Magician of Xanth, you know."

But they would have none of it. They did not realize that Bink was a Magician, and Arnolde Centaur wasn't human, and Iris and Irene were female. So I was stuck with it. The worst of it was that I knew I would fail, because I was destined to do something calamitously stupid. That's what really bothered me: making that mistake.

For it was written in the Book of Answers: IT IS NOT FOR THE GOOD MAGICIAN TO BREAK THE CHAIN. The chain of lost kings, obviously. I had prepared by removing the spell from the Gorgon's face; now she was heavily veiled, so that her aspect would not stone any creature who gazed upon it. But if she encountered the enemy, she would whip that veil aside.

Well she knew the danger. "Oh, my lord," she said with unaccustomed meekness. "Must you go into this thing? Can't you rule from here?" She had packed my lunch and a change of socks, knowing my answer. I had already told her to fetch her sister the Siren for this encounter, and I had restored the Siren's broken dulcimer so that she could summon Mundanes to their doom. But I knew that I would not be the king for whom they served; it would be one of my successors.

I told Grundy to watch my castle while I was gone. The Gorgon would use my magic carpet to fetch her sister and reunite her with her dulcimer. Meanwhile, I mounted Mare Imbri, who was solid by daylight now, and we headed for Castle Roogna. How I hated all this! I was too old for such adventure, but it had been thrust upon me.

Mare Imbri, being female, was naturally curious about what was none of her business. She formed a dreamlet which showed her as a black-gowned and rather attractive human woman, her hair in a long ponytail. "Why didn't you let the Gorgon be with you?" this dream woman asked me. "She really seems to care for you."

"Of course she cares for me, the idiot!" I snapped. "She's a better wife than I deserve. Always was. Always will be."

"But then-"

"Because I don't want her to see my ignominious doom. My wife will perform better if not handicapped by hope."

"That is a cruel mechanism," the dream woman said as the mare carried me into the eye of a gourd for rapid transit.

"No more cruel than the dreams of night mares," I retorted. But of course Imbri herself had lost that meanness; that was why she was no longer a night mare by profession.

We arrived at Castle Roogna. I made clear to Queen Iris that Bink was to be the next king after me. His talent of not being harmed by magic might be useless against the Mundanes, but he was a full Magician, and that was what counted. After that, I informed her, it would be Arnolde Centaur.

"And after him?" Iris asked tightly.

"If the full chain of future kings were known," I pointed out, "our hidden enemy might nullify them in advance."

"What can I do to help save Xanth?" she asked. She evidently thought I was getting senile.

"Bide your time, woman. In due course you will have your reward: the single thing you most desire." For so that too was written, though I had forgotten what it was she most desired.

Then I took a nap. and Mare Imbri trotted out to the zombie graveyard to graze.