Question Quest

by Piers Anthony

  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 assume 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 assumed the crown of Xanth, the Horseman did the same to him. Then the Zombie Master assumed 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.

  Later we went to the place of my ignominy: the baobab tree. There I met Imbri's friend the Day Horse, a handsome white stallion. And there it was I performed my most colossal act of folly: I failed to recognize my enemy when I saw him. For the Day Horse was the equine aspect of the Horseman, and he connected my vision to the gourd, and I was gone.

  I found myself locked in the realm of bad dreams, instead of passing through it as I had when riding Mare Imbri. I was in a castle chamber, which was pleasantly appointed with tables, chairs, and beds. There were Kings Trent, Dor, and Jonathan the Zombie Master.

  "So good to see you again, Humfrey," Trent said. "What's the news?"

  I was taken aback. How could he be so casual? Then he laughed, and I knew he was teasing me in his fashion. I shook hands with him and Jonathan, and then with Dor, who was no longer a child at age twenty-four and had served honorably as king. He seemed slightly taken aback, which gratified me. We were all now recent kings, with a certain morbid camaraderie.

  "The wives are mourning," I reported. Dor had just been married to Irene, after a betrothal of eight years duration; they had not seen fit to rush things. Irene had finally taken a hand and tricked him into the ceremony. But she had played it too close; the sudden duties of the kingship had occupied him in the crisis, and they had had no wedding night. "I told Iris that Bink and Arnolde Centaur were to follow me as king. Meanwhile, I failed to recognize the Horseman when I met him." Actually I'm not quite certain now exactly when I figured out the identity of the Horseman; it was some time ago. But the scene was something like that, I'm sure.

  "Didn't we all!" Jonathan agreed.

  I caught them up on the recent events of the battle against the LastWave, and they nodded. All of us were wise too late.

  Then we settled down to a game of poker, a game Trent had picked up in Mundania. One might think that this consisted of poking a nymph, but this was not the case. It consisted of dealing out cards and bluffing about the values of our holdings. It was a fitting occupation for kings. Dor, being of a younger generation, merely watched. We used our closest approximations to Mundane value, as this was a Mundane game: lettuce, clams, and bucksaws, all provided by the dream realm. We were of course, all sharing a sustained dream; our bodies were lying in their various places, comatose, being tended by our assorted women. We knew that if we were not rescued in a few days, our bodies would die, and then we would have no escape from this realm, except perhaps into the neighboring realm of Hell. It seemed best not to dwell on that; the decision was out of our hands.

  We were comfortable enough, aside from the boredom. We did not feel the discomforts of our bodies. Our bodies seemed s
olid here, because we were all spirits, none of us having any more solidity than the others. The Night Stallion checked in on us every so often and provided anything we wanted within reason. But he could not provide us with our freedom.

  In due course Bink showed up. We welcomed him, especially his son, Dor, acquainted him with our situation, and learned the latest details of the battle of Xanth. Bink had met the enemy leader Hasbinbad in single combat, and was getting the better of it, but they had had to break off because of darkness. So they had made a truce for the night and retired. Then Hasbinbad had treacherously attacked in the darkness, but Bink had been ready for him, avoiding the trap, then pursued him to the brink of the Gap Chasm. We were all able to remember that cleft, now, because the Forget Spell worked on our physical bodies, not our souls. He had been wounded, but had forced Hasbinbad into the Gap, where he had fallen to his death. Then a white horse had come, and the Horseman had locked Bink into the gourd.

  "But you cannot be harmed by magic!" Trent protested.

  "I wasn't harmed by magic," Bink pointed out.

  "But if we all die here—" Dor said, worried.

  "We are unlikely to," I said. "If Bink's talent allowed him to join us, we must be safe."

  The others nodded agreement. We were all comforted.

  Then Mare Imbri showed up. The Night Stallion gave her a tail-lashing for her tardiness and brought her in to us. She projected her communication dreamlet, and the pretty young woman in black informed us how King Arnolde had performed a truly centaurian series of interpretations of Xanth human law, concluding that the distinction between Magicians and Sorceresses was purely cosmetic, and that the definition of king did not necessarily indicate male. Thus he was able to designate Queen Iris and her daughter, Princess Irene, as the next two kings in the line of succession. Queen Iris had been somewhat antagonistic to the centaur, but for some reason had suffered a swift change of sentiment. And now it was clear to me what my reference had written: what Iris desired most was to rule Xanth, and now she was very likely to have her chance.

  Then Mare Imbri departed—but returned later with a visitor. It was Irene. "You can't skip out on me this time!" she told Dor. "We started our marriage in a graveyard, and we'll consummate it in a graveyard."

  "The skeletons won't like that," he demurred, perhaps awed by the prospect, as has sometimes been the case with men.

  "The skeletons don't have to participate," she assured him.

  But the Night Stallion had prepared for them a separate chamber filled with pillows. When last seen, before the door closed, they had a full-scale pillow fight going. I had a suspicion that it wouldn't last the night. Indeed, there came a silence for a time, and I suspect a stork took notice, if the signal was able to get out of the realm of the gourd. Then later still they emerged, both looking satisfied, and started throwing pillows at the rest of us. Soon we were all in it: the Pillow Fight of Kings. I had forgotten, in the course of the last hundred and twenty years or so, what fun pillow fights could be. Too bad the Gorgon wasn't here; I was sure she could handle a pillow well.

  Then Arnolde joined us. He had sent out a contingent of fifty centaurs from Centaur Isle to fight the Mundanes, and they had fought a great battle and greatly reduced the strength of the Wave, and then the Horseman had taken him out too. Iris was now King of Xanth.

  But all too soon King Iris herself showed up. She had crafted a horrendous army of monsters and tricked the Mundanes into walking into the Gap Chasm, decimating their number again, and taunted the Horseman via her illusion image—and he had made a gesture at that illusion and taken her out. "What a fool I was!" she said.

  "Join the throng," her husband, Trent, said.

  Irene was now king.

  "How long can this continue?" Iris asked.

  "Through ten kings," I said, remembering what I had read. "The chain is to be ten kings long."

  "And I was number seven," Iris said ruefully. "Irene is number eight. But who next? We are out of Magicians and Sorceresses."

  Then King Irene arrived, having tried to lull the Horseman while her plants encircled Castle Roogna and sealed him in. But he had caught on too soon and banished her to the gourd. She had designated Chameleon as her successor—but in only two minutes more, King Chameleon arrived too. She was in her smart-ugly phase, and had planned a course of action to destroy the Horseman. She had designated as the final king-Mare Imbri.

  And the King Mare killed the Horseman and destroyed his magic ring of power by throwing it into the Void. That freed us all. But she lost her body in the process, for the Void took her too. Fortunately she retained the half soul she had gotten from Chem Centaur, and that maintained her existence. She became a day mare, bringing pleasant daydreams to folk.

  After that King Trent retired, turning over the throne to King Dor. The rest of us faded back into our quiet existences. I returned to my castle and to the Gorgon, who had performed well in battle, stoning a number of Mundanes. It was good to revert to normal.

  Chapter 15

  Ivy

  The stork brought Ivy to King Dor and Queen Irene in 1069, two years after their marriage and their assumption of the throne. She was a Sorceress, thanks to the continuing largess of the Demon X(A/N)th's gift to Bink, and therefore in line to become king of Xanth someday. I made a note in my references, for it behooved me to keep track of all Magician-class magic. As it happened, Ivy was to have an impact on my quiet life almost from the start of her career.

  Her talent was Enhancement. She could increase the power of the magic of any creature. But that was only part of it. The creature itself tended to become what Ivy chose to believe it was. If she thought an ogre was gentle, that ogre would be gentle; if she thought a mouse was vicious, beware of that mouse! Thus she had an insidious effect on those around her. Indeed, her mother, Irene, had been classified as Neo-Sorceress, her talent of growing plants not being of Magician caliber. But after Ivy arrived, (or perhaps before; I lose track) Irene was recognized as a full Sorceress, by no coincidence; her daughter perceived her that way, and so she was.

  It occurred to me that Ivy's magic could be useful in my business. Suppose she Enhanced all my spells? Suppose she met my son Hugo, and perceived his talent as strong instead of marginal? He might then be able to conjure fresh fruit instead of rotten fruit. That would do wonders for the smell of our castle. Hugo was also a bit slow—some said retarded—and if little Ivy happened to see him as smart, that too would be nice. So I looked for a pretext to meet her, without being obvious. She was a cute, bright child, by her perception and therefore in reality, so that even at the age of three was impressive.

  So it was that I elected to make a personal appearance at a function to which Ivy was invited. That was the debut of the Zombie Master's twins, Hiatus and Lacuna, then just sixteen. Actually there was business too, because the dread Gap Dragon, the terror of the chasm, had somehow found a way out of the Gap and was menacing the neighborhood of southern Xanth. Perhaps this was a result of the fragmentation of the Forget Spell on the chasm. That spell had been detonated by Dor in his youth, when he visited King Roogna, to make the goblins and harpies forget their war and not overrun Castle Roogna. It had been permanent—until the Time of No Magic. That had shaken the spell, and indeed had abolished most of it. But it had been soaking into the chasm for eight hundred years, and now that residual forgetting was sifting out and drifting away in whorls and eddies, causing any creatures who walked through them to suffer amnesia. This represented more mischief. And my tomes suggested that a wiggle swarm was about due. Wiggles were always trouble, because they zapped through anything in their path, leaving wiggle-sized holes. Actually there was evidence that we misunderstood the nature of the wiggles, but I had not yet gotten around to researching that. In addition, I had run out of youth elixir, and the Gorgon had hinted that it was time to get more. So I planned to make a side trip to the Fountain of Youth, which was in easy carpet distance from the new Castle Zombie, and refresh my stock. I think
, all in all, there was enough business to justify a few hours away from my tomes, though I remain uncertain about that.

  Thus it was that my wife stayed home to tend the castle, and I took Hugo, then eight years old, on the carpet to New Castle Zombie. Little did I know the mischief that would result from that excursion!

  Somehow it is impossible to start any trip on time; there seems to be a hostile spell which prevents it. Thus we were an hour late taking off. We were flying somewhat slow and uncertain, because I was trying to teach Hugo how to operate the carpet. Then we encountered some unfriendly clouds and an adverse wind, and were further delayed in the air. I picked up a suitable eddy current near the ground and zoomed along it. But there was a dragon obstructing the current, and I had to slow until it got out of the way. Always some idiot making a left turn when you're in a hurry! So we were well behind schedule by the time we reached New Castle Zombie.

  Well, I would just have to condense things. So we flew into the window where Dor, Irene, the Zombie Master, and Arnolde Centaur were gathered. "We have another chore," I told them. Then I spelled out the problems: the Gap Dragon had to be contained but not hurt, for it was necessary to the welfare of the Gap; and the forget whorls had to be sprayed with fixative and moved out to Mundania where they would do less damage. "Take it up, Hugo," I said. And, narrowly missing the wall, we lurched up and sailed out of the window.

  In retrospect, I fear I was too brief with them. The Gap Dragon bore down on the castle, and in the resultant confusion little Ivy got lost in the jungle beyond the castle. I should have warned them about the proximity of the dragon, but forgot. It's hard to keep every detail in mind when you're in a hurry.

  We flew on to the Fountain of Youth, landing a short distance from it. It had once been a full fountain, but had worn down into a more ordinary spring over the course of centuries, or perhaps the rocks around it had youthened into sand. The Zombie Master had known its location and informed me, and I had found it useful. But naturally I did not tell others about it. What would Xanth come to, if everyone used this elixir to stave off old age, and so no one ever died? I had never used it myself, until the Gorgon suggested it, and gave me reason to want to be younger.