“Suppose he didn't believe what I was?”
He looked at her appraisingly. “Then, maybe, uh—”
“So when you tell me you like me, I can believe you, even if I am a princess.”
He nodded. “I think I understand, now.”
“And if you find out that I really am a princess?”
“I told you, I don't care about that! You can be anything you want to be, it doesn't matter to me. I just want to be with you, and have you want to be with me too.”
“I am not sure I can believe you.”
“I'm not lying!” he protested.
“I didn't say that. But I'm afraid your feelings will change when you learn more about me.”
“I…”
“So I think it is time to convince you that Xanth is real, and magic, and all the rest. Before we get any deeper. Because there are complications about associating with a princess that you may not like.”
“Well, of course if you are a princess, what would you want with me?” he asked, forcing a laugh. “I'm nothing, even at home, and less in any magic land.”
“I have come to know you, and I like you for what you are,” she said evenly. “I don't think you are nothing or less, I think you just aren't recognized as a worthwhile person.”
“'You wouldn't feel that way if you were really a princess.”
Ivy felt a surge of anger, but controlled it. He really didn't know any better! “I would feel exactly as I do now. But if you were to—to marry me, you might find yourself in an embarrassing position.”
“To mar—” He coughed, and started over. “Assuming that any princess would, uh, well, what would be embarrassing?”
“Xanth has no reigning queens, only kings.”
“Oh.” But obviously he didn't see.
“But that simply means that when a woman assumes the throne, she is known as the king. My mother was king for a while. Only a Magician or Sorceress can be king, you see.”
“That lets me out!” he said, smiling. “I have no magic at all!”
“Yes. So if I were king, you would be queen.”
He gazed at her, his mouth round. He swallowed. “Why does it seem that you're not joking?”
“So if you don't want to be Queen of Xanth, you shouldn't marry me,” she concluded. “Because eventually, not soon I hope, I will be king.”
He shook his head. “I—I realize this is all theoretical, Ivy. You're not saying you would—would marry me. You're just warning me of the rules of your land. So I'm keeping my head and just saying that if I were—you know, uh, married—I wouldn't really care what they called me. But you know, if you really were a princess, I sure wouldn't ask you—I mean, that just isn't my league!”
“But would you decline if I asked you?”
He whistled. “I wouldn't be able to! But—”
“You may change your mind,” she repeated, “when the time comes.”
He just looked at her, unable to comment, Well, she had said what she had to say. She had given him fair warning. But that was probably the least of the hurdles ahead!
There seemed to be no path. Girard Giant had come here, but he had simply stepped over the trees; they couldn't follow his tracks! He had selected this to be private so his body wouldn't be disturbed, and private it was; there seemed to be no familiar animals either.
She could use the magic mirror to call home, of course.
But she wanted to convince Grey about Xanth and magic first, and to give him time to think it through and come to his conclusions. If that made him hate her, they could settle it privately. If it didn't—well, she had to be honest with herself about her feelings. She liked him a lot, and the moment she let herself go, she could be in love with him. She condemned herself for being foolish, but he was a nice person, and she knew he wasn't chasing her for her position or power. That gave her a deep feeling of security that she had lacked before. She had discovered, in these last few days, that what she wanted in a man had nothing much to do with position, appearance, physical strength, or intelligence, but a lot to do with decency, conscience, and loyalty. She could trust Grey, and that made much of the rest irrelevant.
So she avoided use of the mirror, and would bring it out only in an emergency. They would pick their way south toward Castle Roogna—this did seem like the north central region of Xanth, though she wasn't sure why she thought that—and she would keep alert for things along the way that might help convince Grey of the truth.
“I guess I'd better make a path through this jungle,” Grey said, stepping toward a patch of curse burrs.
“No!” Ivy cried, too late.
Grey brushed by the burrs, and several lodged in his trouser leg and dug their spikes through the material and into his flesh. “Youch!” He reached down to pull one off.
“Wait!” Ivy said, again too late.
Grey's fingers touched the burr. “Owmpth!” he snorted through his nose, evidently stifling a more coherent comment.
“Stay where you are,” Ivy called. “Don't get any more on you. Those are curse burrs; the only way you can get them off is by cursing. One at a time; each curse has to be different and original.”
“I wouldn't curse in front of a lady,” he protested.
“And when you get them off, back out carefully. We'll find another route.”
“I have a better way,” he said grimly. He brought out his folding knife. “Any burr that clings to me is going to get sliced to pieces!”
“That won't work,” Ivy said—yet again too late.
For Grey was already flourishing the little knife at the burrs—and all six of them hastily dropped off. Ivy stood openmouthed.
“That showed 'em,” he said with satisfaction.
“You cursed them all off!” Ivy said. “With the same curse! That's not supposed to be possible.”
“Of course it isn't,” he agreed. “How could mere words affect sandspurs? You have to slice them off.”
“Sandspurs?”
“That's what they're called where I came from. People do tend to curse when they try to get them off, I'll grant that, but there's no magic involved. Come on, I'll take off any that get on you. We can continue this way; it does seem to be the most open route.”
Bemused, Ivy followed him. He would have to learn about curse burrs the hard way: when he tried to use the same curse against a new batch.
Sure enough, three burrs latched onto her skirt. “Can you get these off without cursing?” she inquired.
“Sure.” He stepped close and extended his knife toward her skirt. “Turn loose of her, or I'll slice you!” he said with mock fierceness, and touched her skirt with the point of his knife.
The three burrs dropped off.
“Maybe these are a different variety,” Ivy said doubtfully.
“Maybe they just know who's got their number,” he retorted. Then he turned and faced ahead. “All right, you burrs, listen up: any of you who touch either of us will get hurt, so stay clear if you know what's good for you!”
He smiled. “Now if curses work, that'll keep them clear.”
Ivy shrugged. Grey stepped boldly forward, and she followed—and no curse burrs got on either of them.
How could this be? It was as if magic was stopping the burrs—yet Grey was Mundane, with no magic, not even any belief in it. It seemed more likely that his curses would fail to have effect than that his threat with the dinky knife would frighten all the burrs. Was it possible that they didn't know he was Mundane and thought his threat was backed by magic?
They passed beyond the curse burr patch and came to a stately tree with colored flowers. Grey walked toward it, evidently meaning to pick one.
“Careful,” Ivy warned him. “That's a two-lips tree!”
“A tulip tree? No it isn't. I've seen them; their flowers are different.”
“But you aren't where you came from. Here, a two-lips tree—” But Grey wasn't paying attention, so she let it go. He would find out!
Grey s
tepped close, reaching up for one of the larger flowers. It avoided him. He moved closer yet, stretching—and another flower nudged down and kissed him on the cheek with a significant smack.
He paused, startled. “I could have sworn that—”
“That's right,” Ivy said smugly. “Those are kissing flowers.”
“Impossible,” he said. “Flowers can't kiss.”
“Two-lips,” she explained. “They like to kiss folk.”
“I don't believe it.” He stepped yet closer into the tree.
“Let's see whether anything kisses me while I'm watching.”
He waited, but nothing happened, to Ivy's surprise.
Usually a two-lips tree would kiss anything that got within its range, making loud smacking sounds that carried across the forest. It was harmless, but embarrassing.
“Maybe it doesn't like the way you taste,” she said.
“Maybe it's magical, so can't stand scrutiny,” he retorted, stepping away from the quiescent tree.
“Just don't try that with a tangle tree,” she said, disgruntled.
“I know what that is. But I'll have to see it grab something, before I believe it.”
They went on. The vegetation thinned and the ground turned sandy. There was a feel of magic about it that bothered Ivy. There was something about this region, and it seemed to be associated with the sand. She didn't like mysteries in strange places; they could be dangerous.
“Wait,” she said.
Grey paused. “Tired?”
“It's not that. I'm not sure I like this region.”
“It seems nice enough to me. This sand is easy to walk on; we can make good progress before night.”
“Not if we walk into a trap.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn't want to do that. Where I live there can be quicksand—that's stuff that you can get caught in, so maybe you drown.”
“Ours makes you speed up,” Ivy said. “And slowsand makes you slow down, which can be awkward. But this seems to be something else. Let me see what I can do with it.”
“Make a sand castle, maybe,” he said, smiling.
Her talent was Enhancement not detection, but she decided to investigate in her fashion. As she stepped on the sand, she enhanced it, so that its qualities would become more obvious.
For a moment the sand just lay there. Then it rippled. Waves spread across it, as if it were water.
Ivy continued to concentrate, enhancing it further. She wanted to see whether it was dangerous.
The ripples became humps. Was this a dread sand dune, looking for subjects to turn into fossils? Her parents had encountered one of those once. Dunes liked to bury living creatures forever or until their flesh fell apart, leaving handsome bones. Ivy wasn't yet ready to part with her flesh.
Then a big central hump formed. It rose up and up, and finally formed into a vague manlike form. It stood there, half again as tall as Ivy, its hair formed of dry weeds and its eyes of mica pebbles. It had a nose made of a twisty root, and ears of tattered seashells.
“What are you?” Ivy demanded of it.
The sandman shifted shape, the sand humping as if driven by the wind, except that there was no wind. It assumed the shape of a four-footed animal with root horns and a viney tail.
“You haven't answered,” Ivy said. The thing didn't seem dangerous, but she wasn't sure.
The sand changed again, becoming a small tree with a thick trunk and stubby branches that waved clumsily in the make-believe wind.
“Now look—” Ivy started.
“I wonder how the effect is achieved,” Grey said, striding across to touch the sand formation. “I can't believe—”
Immediately the sand sifted down and became a featureless mound, its pebbles and shells and roots randomly distributed.
“Oh, you spoiled it!” Ivy exclaimed, annoyed. “I was about to find out whether it was dangerous.”
Grey stirred the pile of sand with his toe. “It's not dangerous; it's just sand. But it certainly looked like a sandman for a moment there! I knew it was illusion; I just wish I could have figured it out without destroying it.”
“Well, I was about to do that,” Ivy said crossly. But it did seem that the sandman was no danger; the feeling of strangeness was gone.
Now the day was getting on. “We had better find a place to camp,” Grey said. “There could be wild creatures in the night.”
There could indeed! They had not encountered any bad ones so far, which was remarkable; maybe the curse burrs and sandman kept them out. But those things seemed to lack force, here, so she doubted it. She hoped there wasn't some truly formidable predator who used this region as its hunting ground, eliminating most of the other dangers.
She would prefer to deal with a series of small menaces, rather than one really big one, because she wasn't sure how effective her enhancement talent would be against a truly formidable creature. Usually when she explored, she had Stanley Steamer along, and he had taken care of personal defense.
She looked around, but there was no suitable camping place. They would just have to go on, though her feet were tired and her legs too; she wasn't used to this much continuous walking.
“Maybe under that tree,” Grey suggested, indicating a large tree whose tentacles reached almost to the ground.
“That's a tangle tree!” Ivy shrieked, appalled.
“Yeah, I guess so. But we can't play this game forever. I'm sure it's harmless when its bluff is called.” He walked boldly toward it, using one of the pleasant little paths that approached it.
“No!” Ivy cried, dashing after him. “Nobody but an ogre or a dragon messes with a tangler, and even they are careful. Don't go near it!”
“I'm sure most creatures here feel as you do,” Grey said, proceeding without pause. “That means they will stay clear of it, and we can spend a comfortable night under its shelter. That seems ideal to me.”
Ivy caught up to him and grabbed his arm. “You don't understand! That tree will grab you and gobble you down the moment you come within reach! I'm not sure I can protect you from—”
But she lost her balance, and stumbled, and they both fell right into the nest of the tentacles. Ivy felt sheer panic.
But the hanging tentacles remained quiescent. Not one grabbed at them. The tree seemed to be asleep.
“Oh,” Ivy said, relieved. “It must have feasted recently, so it's not hungry. What luck!”
Grey shook his head. “You have an explanation for everything! Okay, it's not hungry. So let's camp here tonight. No one else will realize that it's safe under here.”
“True,” she agreed faintly. She remained nervous about being this close to a tangler, but it certainly was true that a sated tree was safe.
She located some milkweeds and a breadfruit tree; fortunately these were common all across Xanth, so they had bread and milk for dinner. There was also a pillow bush nearby, with extremely plush pillows; they made two beds of them under the tree. Obviously none of these plants had been harvested recently, because of the shortage of travelers.
Ivy lay for some time without sleeping, bothered by things. Where was the great menace that kept travelers away, and why were even the ordinary menaces so feeble at the moment? She had been making spot excuses for them, almost embarrassed because they were not manifesting adequately to convince Grey they were genuine.
She had concluded that this tangle tree was sated, but she saw no recent pile of bones, and the tentacles did not look sleek and strong in the manner of a well-fed tree. This tree should be hungry, yet wasn't, and that made sleep nervous. Which reminded her: that sandman—probably it was related to the ones that came by night to put children to sleep, and perhaps it usually put travelers to sleep near this tangle tree, so the tree could snake out a tentacle and haul them in without resistance. Yet in the face of Grey's skepticism, the sandman had collapsed into inert sand.
There, maybe, was the crux of it: Grey thought that magic was mostly in her mind, that she saw it work beca
use she believed it did. In Mundania she had been unable to demonstrate otherwise. But now they were in Xanth—and she still couldn't penetrate his unbelief. It seemed that he was constitutionally unable to accept magic, and that therefore the magic didn't work for him.
That was a fundamentally unsettling notion! Suppose magic didn't work for anyone who didn't believe in it?
Now that was an interesting idea! Could that be why Mundanes didn't have magic talents? Because they didn't believe in them? But when they moved to Xanth, their children were exposed to magic from the outset and never learned not to believe, so had talents. If the Mundanes were just more open-minded, they might turn out to have talents the moment they entered Xanth! After all, the centaurs had turned out to have talents, those who stopped thinking that talents were obscene.
No, that didn't hold up. Some Mundanes were open minded, but none had ever had a magic talent. Some of their children were close-minded, but still had talents. Belief might be a factor, but not the major one. A person had to be born in Xanth to have magic.
So what was she going to do about Grey? It was foolish, she well knew, but she liked him. She liked him a lot. But the moment they reached Castle Roogna, any romantic relationship would be over. She was a princess, and while she didn't have to marry a prince, certainly her folks would not allow her to marry a Mundane! She had tried to explain that to Grey, but had gotten caught up in her own rebellion and discussed only the awkwardness of marriage between them, not the impossibility of achieving it.
What would happen if she insisted on marrying a Mundane? She would disappoint her parents terribly, and that hurt. They might have to take action, such as banishing her to Mundania, and that would hurt more. But if she went with Grey, would that make it worth it?
To live the rest of her life in drear Mundania without magic—that was an appalling prospect. Yet she could imagine doing it, almost, with him. Grey was completely ordinary, but there was something about him that appealed to her, and she knew his interest in her was genuine. Was that enough?
She shook her head in the darkness. She knew, objectively, that it was not enough. Love could be fun, but it didn't last if not soundly based, and for her to move to Mundania would be like a mermaid moving to land: possible, but problematical.
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