Centaur Aisle

“Fat chance,” Irene said, and Smash grunted agreement. “We’re in this mess together. You’re certain to foul it up by yourself.”

“I appreciate your vote of confidence, as always,” Dor said wryly.

But he also appreciated their support. He was afraid he would indeed foul it up by himself, but hadn’t wanted to ask them to participate in what might be a nasty business.

That night they put their plot into execution. Grundy went out first, his tiny dark body concealed by the darkness. There was no trouble, and soon all of them left their comfortable human-style beds -Chet excepted, as he was separately housed and could not readily leave his stall unobserved-and moved into the moonlit evening.

They had no difficulty seeing, because the moon was nearing full and gave plenty of light.

They found the museum without trouble. Dor had assumed it would be closed for the night, but to his dismay it was lighted. “Who is in there?” he asked the ground.

“Amolde the Archivist,” the ground replied. “You have to be pretty stupid not to know he’s been working late all week, cataloguing those new Mundane artifacts, though what he finds so interesting about such junk-“

“What’s his magic talent?”

“His what?” the ground asked, bewildered.

“You know of no magic associated with him?” Dor asked, surprised. Normally people were very free about what they did around only inanimate things, and it was hard to avoid the inanimate. That was what made Dor’s own talent so insidious; the complete privacy people thought they had became complete disclosure in his presence.

He tried not to pry into what did not rightly concern him, but most people, including his own parents, normally stayed clear of him, without making any issue of it. The people who had traveled with him were different, for their separate reasons; when he thought about it, he appreciated it immensely. Even Irene, who professed to value her privacy, was not truly uncomfortable in Dor’s presence. She really didn’t have to make any great play for him; gratitude would haul him into her orbit any time she wished. He knew she was accustomed to lack of privacy because of the way her mother was, but still found it easier to get along with her than with other girls. Others got unduly upset when their clothing started telling Dor their secrets.

Dor glanced at the large round moon again. It was amazing how that orb stimulated his thoughts along such lines!

Meanwhile, the ground had answered: “None at all. Centaurs don’t do magic.”

Dor sighed. “I guess we’ll have to go in and brace him directly.”

They went in. Amolde had artifacts spread out all over a main table and was attaching tags to them and making notes. There were fragments of stone and crockery and rusted metal. “I wish the archaeologists would get these classified sooner,” he grumbled. “This table is not available by day, so I have to tag them at night.” Then he did a startled double take. “What are you doing here? The guest tour is over.”

Dor considered making a bald statement of purpose and decided against it. He needed to get to know the centaur a little better before broaching so delicate a subject. “I have an important matter to discuss with you. A, uh, private matter. So I didn’t bring it up during the tour.”

Amolde shrugged. “I have no inkling what the King of Xanth would want with me. Just keep your hands off the artifacts, and I will listen to what you have to impart. Mundane items are difficult to come by.”

“I’m sure they are,” Dor agreed. “We came here by air, riding the clouds, and almost went beyond the limit of magic. We were lucky we didn’t fall. Mundania is no place for the creatures of Xanth.”

“Oh?” the centaur said without much interest. “Did you see the southern island?”

“No. We weren’t that far south. We came down in sight of Centaur Isle.”

“There should have been plenty of magic. My raft was powered by a propulsion spell, and it never failed. I was needlessly concerned; evidently that island was Mundane historically, but is now magic.”

The centaur’s hands were busy affixing each tag neatly and making careful entries in a ledger. He evidently liked his work, tedious as it seemed, and was conscientious.

“I think we were north of it, but we certainly had trouble,” Dor said. “But there was a storm; that could have disrupted the magic.”

“Quite possible,” Amolde agreed. “Storms do seem to affect it.”

The centaur seemed sociable enough, now that they were not taking him away from his beloved work. But Dor still did not feel easy.

“Uh, the Elder Gerome mentioned a-some kind of pact the centaurs made with my kind, back at the beginning. Do you have artifacts from that time?”

“Indeed I do,” Amolde said, growing animated. “Bones, arrowheads, the hilt of an iron sword-the record is fragmentary, but documents the legend. The full truth may never be known, sadly, but we do have a fair notion.”

“Uh, if you’re interested-I’m a Magician. I make things talk. If you’d like to question one of those old artifacts-“

Now Amolde grew excited. “I had not thought of that! Magic is all right for you, of course. You’re only human. I pride myself on being reasonably realistic. Yes, I would like to question an artifact. Are you familiar with the legend of centaur origin?”

“No, not really,” Dor said, growing interested himself. “It would help me If I did know it; then I could ask the artifact more specific questions.”

“Back CBP 1800-that’s Circa Before Present one thousand, eight hundred years,” the archivist intoned reverently, “the first man and first horse-you are aware of the nature of that animal? Front of a sea horse merged with the rear of a centaur-“

“Yes, like a nightmare, only in the day,” Dor said.

“Exactly. These two, the first of each kind we know of, reached Xanth from Mundania. Xanth was already magic then; its magic seems to have existed for many thousands of years. The plants were already well evolved-you do know what I mean by evolution?”

“How nickelpedes developed from centipedes.”

“Um, yes. The way individual species change with the times. Ah, yes, the King always has a centaur tutor, so you would have been exposed to such material. Back then the dragons dominated the land-one might term it the Age of Reptiles-and there were no human hybrids and no dwarves, trolls, goblins, or elves. This man saw that the land was good. He was able and clever enough to stay clear of the more predatory plants and to balk the dragons; he was a warrior, with a bow, sword, spear, club, and the ability to use them, and a valiant spirit.

“But though he found Xanth delightful, he was lonely. He had, it seemed, fled his home tribe-we like to think he was an honorable man who had run afoul of an evil King-such things do happen in Mundania, we understand-and could not safely return there. Indeed, in time a detachment of other warriors came after him, intent on his murder. There is an opacity about the manner Mundanes may enter Xanth; normally people from the same Mundane subsociety may enter Xanth only if they are grouped together, not separately, but it seems these ones were, after all, able to follow-I don’t pretend to understand this, but perhaps it is a mere distortion of the legend-at any rate, they were less able than he and fell prey to the natural hazards of Xanth. All but two of them died-and these two, severely wounded, survived only because this first good man-we call him Alpha, for what reason the record does not divulge-rescued them from peril and put healing balm on their wounds. After that they declined to attack him any more; they owed life-debts to him, and swore friendship instead. There was a kind of honor in those days, and we have maintained it since.

“Now they were three men, with three fine mares they had salvaged. None of them could leave Xanth, for news of their betrayal had somehow spread, and enemies lurked just beyond the realm of magic. Or perhaps the Mundane culture had somehow become alien, one variant of the legend has reference to their attempt to return, and discovery of Babel-that they could no longer speak the language or comprehend the culture of the Mundanians. One of them had been a mercenary, a paid soldier, who it seemed spoke a different Mundanian dialect, but he spoke the same language as the others when they met in Xanth. We know this is a property of the magic of Xanth; all cultures and languages become one, including the written language; there is no language barrier between creatures of the same species. For whatever reason-I might wish that the legend was absolutely firm and clear, but must deal with a story line that fragments into mutually incompatible aspects, each of which has elements that are necessary to the continuation of the whole-a most intriguing riddle!-the three men and their mounts were safe, as long as they remained within the realm of magic they had come to understand and use so well-but they longed for the companionship of women of their kind. They wished to colonize the land, but could only live on.

“Then, exploring deep in new territory, they came upon a spring on a lovely offshore island, and all three drank deeply and watered their horses. They did not know it was a spring of love that would compel instant love with the first creature of the opposite sex spied after drinking. And so it happened that each man, in that critical moment, saw first his good mare-and each mare saw her master. And so it was that the species of the centaur began. This is another of the perplexing distinctions between Xanth and Mundania; in the latter Kingdom representatives of different species are unable to interbreed to produce offspring, while in Xanth it is a matter of course, though normally individuals are most attracted to their own species. The offspring of these unions, perceiving that their parents differed from themselves and that the masters were human beings who were possessed of the greater part of the intellect while the mares possessed the greater part of the strength, learned to respect each species for its special properties. The men taught their offspring all the skills they knew so well, both mental and physical, and commanded in return the right to govern this land of Xanth. In time the mares died, after foaling many times, and eventually the men died, too, leaving only the continuing species of centaur on the island. But the tradition remained, and when, centuries later, other men came, and women, too, the centaurs accorded them the dominance of the Kingdom. So it continues to the present day.”

“That’s beautiful,” Irene said. “Now I know why you centaurs have always supported us, even when our kind was unworthy, and why you served as our mentors. You have been more consistent than we have been.”

“We have the advantage of cultural continuity. Yet it is a legend,” Amolde reminded her. “We believe it, but we have no detailed proof.”

“Bring me an artifact,” Dor said, moved by the story. He had no desire to mate with a creature of another species, but could not deny that love matches of many types existed in Xanth. The harpies, the merfolk, the manticora, the werewolves and vampire-bats-all had obvious human and animal lineage, and there were also many combinations of different animals, like the chimera and griffin. It would be unthinkable to deny the validity of these mixed species; Xanth would not be the same at all without them. “I’ll get you the proof.”

But now the centaur hesitated. “I thought I wanted the proof-but now I am afraid it would be other than the legend. There might be ugly elements in lieu of the beautiful ones. Perhaps our ancestors were not nice creatures. I sheer away; for the first time I discover a limit to my eagerness for knowledge. Perhaps it is best that the legend remain unchallenged.”

“Perhaps it is,” Dor agreed. Now at last he felt the time had come to express his real concern. “Since centaurs derive from men, and men have magic talents-“

“Oh, I suppose some centaurs do have some magic,” Amolde said in the manner of an open-minded person skirting a close-minded issue. “But it has no bearing on our society. We leave the magic, like the governing, to you humans.”

“But some centaurs do-even Magician level-“

“Oh, you mean Herman the Hermit Centaur,” Amolde said. “The one who could summon the Will-o’-Wisps. He was wronged, I think; he used his power to save Xanth from the ravage of wiggles, and gave his life in that effort, eighteen years ago. But of course, though some magic has perforce been accepted recently in our society, if another centaur Magician appeared, he, too, would be outcast. We centaurs have a deep cultural aversion to obscenity.”

Dor found his task increasingly unpleasant. He knew Cherie Centaur considered magic in her species to be obscene, though her mate Chester, Chet’s father, had a magical talent. Cherie had adjusted to that situation with extraordinary difficulty. “There is one, though.”

“A centaur Magician?” Amolde’s brow wrinkled over his spectacles. “Are you certain?”

“Almost certain. We have had a number of portents at Castle Roogna and elsewhere.”

“I pity that centaur. Who is it?”

Now Dor was unable to answer.

Amolde looked at him, the import dawning. “Surely you do not mean to imply-you believe it is I?” At Dor’s miserable nod, the centaur laughed uncertainly. “That’s impossible. What magic do you think I have?”

“I don’t know,” Dor said.

“Then how can you make such a preposterous allegation?” The centaur’s tail was swishing nervously.

Dor produced the compass. “Have you seen one of these?”

Amolde took the compass. “Yes, this is a magic compass. It is pointing at you, since you are a Magician.”

“But when I hold it, it points to you.”

“I cannot believe that!” Amolde protested. “Here, take it back, and stand by that mirror so I can see its face.”

Dor did as bid, and Amolde saw the needle pointing to himself.

His face turned a shade of gray. “But it cannot be! I cannot be a Magician! It would mean the end of my career! I have no magic.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Dor agreed. “But Good Magician Humfrey’s alarms point to a Magician on Centaur Isle; that’s what brought me here.”

“Yes, our Elders feared you had some such mischief in mind,” Amolde agreed, staring at the compass. Then, abruptly, he moved.

“No!” he cried, and galloped from the room.

“What now?” Irene asked.

“We follow,” Dor said. “We’ve got to find out what his talent is and convince him. We can’t leave the job half done.”

“Somehow I’m losing my taste for this job,” she muttered.

Dor felt the same. Going after an anonymous Magician was one thing; tormenting a dedicated archivist was another. But they were caught in the situation.

They followed. The centaur, though hardly in his prime, easily outdistanced them. But Dor had no trouble picking up the trail, for all he had to do was ask the surrounding terrain. The path led south to the ocean.

“He took his raft with the magic motor,” Irene said. “We’ll have to take another. He must be going to that Mundane island.”

They preempted another raft, after Dor had questioned several to locate one with a suitable propulsion-spell. Dor hoped this would not be construed as theft; he had every intention of returning the raft, but had to catch up with Amolde and talk to him before the centaur did something more foolish than merely fleeing.

The storm had long since passed, and the sea was glassy calm m the bright moonlight. The centaur’s raft was not in sight, but the water reported its passage. “He’s going for the formerly Mundane island,” Grundy said. “Good thing it is magic now, since we’re magical creatures.”

“Did you suffer when the magic faded near the storm?” Irene asked.

“No, I felt the same-scared,” Grundy admitted. “How about you, Smash?”

“This freak feel weak,” the ogre said.

“In the knees,” Irene said. “We all did.”

“She’s knees please me’s,” Smash agreed.

Irene’s face ran a peculiar gamut from anger to embarrassment.

She decided the ogre was not trying to tease her. He really wasn’t that smart. “Thank you, Smash. Your own knees are like the holes on twisted ironwood trunks.”

The ogre went into a small bellow of delight that churned up waves behind them and shoved the raft forward at a faster pace. She had found the right compliment.

The spell propelled them swiftly, and soon the island came into sight.

Then progress slowed. “Something’s the matter,” Dor said. “We’re hanging up on something.”

But there was nothing; the raft was free in the water, unbothered by waves or sea creatures. It continued to slow, until it was hardly moving at all.

“We would get one with a defective go-spell,” Irene complained.

“What’s the matter with you?” Dor asked it.

“I-ugnh-“ the raft whispered hoarsely, then was silent.

“The magic!” Irene cried. “We’re beyond the magic! Just as we were during the storm!”

“Let’s check this out,” Dor said, worried. At least they were not in danger of falling from a cloud, this time! “Irene, grow a plant.”

She took a bottleneck seed. “Grow,” she ordered.

The seed began to sprout, hesitated, then fell limp.

“Is there anything you can talk to, Grundy?” Dor asked.

The golem spied some kelp in the water. He made strange sounds at it. There was no response.

“Smash, try a feat of strength,” Dor said.

The ogre picked up one of his feet. “Uh, no,” Dor said quickly. “I mean do something strong. Stand on one finger, or squeeze juice from a log.”

Smash put one paw on the end of one of the raft’s log-supports.

He squeezed. Nothing happened. “Me unprepared, me awhd scared,” he said.

Dor brought out his midnight sunstone. Now it possessed only the faintest internal glimmer-and in a moment that, too, faded out.

“So that answers two questions,” Dor said, trying to sound confident, though, in fact, he was deeply alarmed. “First, we are passing out of the region of magic; the propulsion-spell is defunct. I can’t talk to the inanimate, and Irene can’t grow plants magically. Second, it’s only our magic that fades, not our bodies. Grundy can’t translate the talk of other creatures, and Smash has lost his superhuman strength-but both are alive and healthy. Irene’s plants won’t grow, but she-!” He paused, looking at her. “What happened to your hair?”

“Hair?” She took a strand and pulled it before her face. “Eeek, it’s faded!”

“Aw, just the green’s gone,” Grundy said. “Looks better this way.”

Irene, stunned, did not even try to kick at him. She, like Dor, had never realized that her hair tint was magical in nature.

“So Mundania doesn’t hurt us,” Dor continued quickly. “It just inconveniences us. We’ll simply have to paddle the rest of the way to the island.”

They checked the raft’s supplies. The centaurs were a practical species; the raft was equipped with several paddles and a pole. Dor and Irene took the former and Smash the latter, and Grundy steadied the tiller. It was hard work, but they resumed progress toward the island.

“How did Amolde ever get so far ahead alone?” Irene gasped. “He would have had an awful time paddling and steering.”

Finally they reached the beach. There was Amolde’s raft, drawn up just out of the water. “He moved it along, all right,” Grundy remarked. “He must be stronger than he looks.”

“It’s is a fairly small island,” Dor said. “He can’t be far away. We’ll corner him. Smash, you stand guard by the rafts and bellow If he comes back here; the rest of us will try to run him down.”

They spread out and crossed the island. It had a distinctly Mundanian aspect; there was green grass growing that did not grab at their feet, and leafy trees that merely stood in place and rustled only in the wind.

The sand was fine without being sugar, and the only vines they saw made no attempt to writhe toward them. How could the centaur have mistaken this for a spot within the realm of magic?

They discovered Amolde at his refuge-a neat excavation exposing Mundane artifacts: the scholar’s place of personal identification. Apparently he was more than a mere compiler or recorder of information; he did some field work, too.

Amolde saw them. He had a magic lantern that illuminated the area as the moon sank into the sea. “No, I realize I cannot flee the situation,” he said sadly. “The truth is the truth, whatever it is, and I am dedicated to the truth. But I cannot believe what you say. Never in my life have I evinced the slightest degree of magic talent, and I certainly have none now. Perhaps some of the magic of the artifacts with which I associate has rubbed off on me, giving the illusion of-“

“How can you use a magic lantern here in Mundania?” Irene asked.

“This is not Mundania,” Amolde said. “I told you that before. The limits of magic appear to have extended, reaching out far enough to include this island recently.”

“But our magic ceased,” Dor said. “We had to paddle here.”

“Impossible. My raft spelled forward without intermission, and there is no storm to disrupt the magic ambience. Try your talent now, King Dor; I’ll warrant you will discover it operative as always.”

“Speak, ground,” Dor said, wondering what would happen.

“Okay, chump,” the ground answered. “What’s on your slow mind?”

Dor exchanged glances with Irene and Grundy, astonished-and saw that Irene’s hair in the light of the lantern was green again. “It’s back!” he said. “The magic’s back! Yet I don’t see how-“

Irene threw down a seed. “Grow!” she ordered.

A plant sprouted, rising rapidly into a lively raspberry bush.

“Bffrppp!” the plant sounded, making obscene sounds at them all.

“Is this really a magic island?” Grundy asked the nearest tree, translating into its language. The tree made a rustling response. “It says it is-now!” he reported.

Dor brought out the sunstone again. It was shining brightly.

“How could the magic return so quickly?” Irene asked. “My father always said the limit of magic was pretty constant; in fact, he wasn’t sure it varied at all.”

“The magic never left this island,” Amolde said. “You must have passed through a flux, an aberration, perhaps after all a lingering consequence of yesterday’s storm.”

“Maybe so,” Dor agreed. “Magic is funny stuff. Ours certainly failed-for a while.”

The centaur had a bright idea. “Maybe the magic compass was affected by a similar flux and thrown out of kilter, so it pointed to the wrong person.”

Doubt nagged Dor. “I guess that’s possible. Something’s certainly wrong. If that’s so, I must apologize for causing you such grief. It did seem strange to me that you should so suddenly manifest as a Magician when such power remains with a person from birth to death.”

“Yes indeed!” Amolde agreed enthusiastically. “An error in the instrument-that is certainly the most facile explanation. Of course I could not manifest as a Magician, after ninety years of pristine nonmagic.”

So they had guessed correctly about one thing: the centaur was close to a century old. “I guess we might as well go back now,” Dor said. “We had to borrow a raft to follow you, and its owner will be upset if it stays out too long.”

“Feel no concern,” Amolde said, growing almost affable in his relief. “The rafts are communal property, available to anyone at need. However, there would be concern if one were lost or damaged.”

They walked back across the island, the magic lantern brightening the vicinity steadily. As they neared the two rafts they saw Smash.

He was holding a rock in both hands, squeezing as hard as he could, a grimace of concentration and disgust making his face even uglier than usual.

Suddenly the rock began to compress. “At length, my strength!” the ogre exclaimed as the stone crumbled into sand.

“You could never have done it, you big boob, If the magic hadn’t come back,” the sand grumbled.

“The magic returned-just now?” Dor asked, something percolating in the back of his mind.

“Sure,” the sand said. “You should have seen this musclebrained brute straining. I thought I had him beat. Then the magic came back just as you did, more’s the pity.”

“The magic-came with us?” Dor asked.

“Are you dimwitted or merely stupid, nitbrain?” the sand asked with a gravelly edge. “I just said that.”

“When was the magic here before?” Dor asked.

“Only a little while ago. Horserear here can tell you; he was here when it happened.”

“You mean this is normally a Mundane island?”

“Sure, it’s always been Mundane, except when ol' hoofleg’s around.”

“I think were on to something,” Grundy said.

Amolde looked stricken. “But-but how can-this is preposterous!”

“We owe it to you and ourselves to verify this, one way or an other,” Dor said. “If the power of magic travels with you-?”

“Oh, horrible!” the centaur moaned. “It must not be!”

“Let’s take another walk around the island,” Dor said. “Grundy, you go with Amolde and talk to the plants and creatures you encounter; ask them how long magic has been here. The rest of us win spread out and wait for Amolde to approach. If our magic fades out during his absence, and returns when he comes near-“

Grudgingly the centaur cooperated. He set out on a trot around the island, pretty spry for his age, the golem perching on his back.

No sooner were they on their way than Dor’s magic ceased. The sunstone no longer shone, and he could no longer talk to the inanimate. It was evident that Irene and Smash were similarly discommoded.

In a few minutes the circuit was complete. They compared notes.

“The magic was with us all along,” Grundy reported. “But all the plants and shellfish said it had come only when we were there.”

“When he go, me not rhyme,” Smash said angrily. “Not even worth a dime.”

That was extreme distress for the ogre. Dor had not realized that his rhyming was magic-related. Maybe frustration had flustered him-or maybe magic had shaped the lives of the creatures of Xanth far more than had been supposed. Irene’s hair, Smash’s rhymes . . .

“My potted petunia would not grow at all,” Irene said. “But when the centaur came near, it grew and got roaring drunk.”

“And my talent operated only when Amolde was near,” Dor said. “So my talent seems to be dependent on his presence here, as with the rest of you. Since I am a full Magician, what does that make him?”

“A Magician’s Magician,” Irene said. “A catalyst for magic.”

“But I never performed any magic in my life!” Amolde protested, still somewhat in shock. “Never!”

“You don’t perform it, you promote it,” Dor said. “You represent an island of magic, an extension of Xanth into Mundania. Wherever you go, magic is there. This is certainly a Magician’s talent.”

“How could that be true, when there was no indication of it in all my prior life? I cannot have changed!”

But now Dor had an answer. “You left Xanth only recently, you said. You came to this Mundane island for research. Good Magician Humfrey’s magic indicators never oriented on you before because you are completely camouflaged in Xanth proper; you are like a section of mist in the middle of a cloud. But when you left Xanth, your power manifested, triggering the alarms. Once the indicators had oriented on you, they continued to point you out; maybe your presence makes magic slightly more effective, since Centaur Isle is near the fringe of magic. It’s like a bug on a distant leaf; once you know exactly where it is, you can see it. But you can’t locate it when it sits still and you don’t even know it exists.”

Amolde’s shoulders slumped and his coat seemed to lose luster. He was an appaloosa centaur, with white spots on his brown flank, a natural blanket that made him quite handsome. Now the spots were fading out. “I fear you, are correct. My associates always considered this to be a Mundane island; I thought them mistaken. But oh, what havoc this wreaks on my career! The profession of a lifetime ruined! I can never return to the museum.”

“Do the other centaurs have to know?” Grundy asked.

“I may be contaminated by obscene magic,” Amolde said gravely. “But it is beneath me to prevaricate.”

Dor considered the attitude of the various centaurs he had known. He realized Amolde was right. The archivist could not conceal the truth, and the other centaurs would not tolerate a centaur Magician in their society. They had exiled Herman the Hermit in the past generation, then termed him a hero after he was dead. Some reward!

Dor’s quest had gained him nothing and had destroyed the livelihood and pride of a decent centaur. He felt responsible; he had never wanted to hurt anyone this way.

The moon had been descending into the ocean. Now, just before it got soaked, it seemed to have swelled. Great and round and greenish, its cheese was tantilizingly close. Dor gazed at it, pondering its maplike surface. Could a column of smoke lead all the way up to the moon, and could they use the salve some day to…then he suffered an awful realization. “The curse!” he cried.

The centaur glanced dourly at him. “You have certainly cursed me, King Dor.”

“The magic salve we used to tread the clouds-it had a curse attached. Whoever used it would do some dastardly deed before the next full moon. This is our deed; we have forced you out of your satisfied existence and made you into something you abhor. The curse made us do it.”

“Such curses are a readily avoidable nuisance,” the centaur remarked. “Ass that is required is an elementary curse-counterspell. There are dozens in our archives; we don’t even file them carefully. Ironic that this ignorance on your part should have such a serious consequence for me.”

“Do something, Dor,” Irene said.

“What is there to be done?” Amolde asked disconsolately. “I am rendered at one fell stroke into an exile.”

But Dor, cudgeling his brain under pressure, had a sudden explosion of genius. “You take magic with you anywhere you go,” he said. “Right into Mundania. This relates in all the three ways we were warned. It is certainly a matter I must attend to, for the existence of any new Magician in Xanth is the King’s business. It also could pose a threat to Xanth, for if you go out into Mundania on your own, taking that magic with you, bad people could capture you and somehow use your magic for evil. But most important, somewhere in Mundania is someone we fear is trapped or in trouble, who perhaps needs this magic to escape. Now if I were to take you into Mundania proper-“

“We could rescue my father!” Irene exclaimed, jumping up and down and clapping her hands in the manner of her kind. She bounced phenomenally, so that even the centaur paused to look, as if regretting his species and his age. “Oh, Dor, I could kiss you!” And without waiting for his reaction, she grabbed him and kissed him with joyful savagery on the mouth. In that moment of hyperanimation she became very special, radiant and compelling in the best sort of way; but by the time he realized it, she was already away and talking to the centaur.

“Amolde, if you have to be exiled anyway, you might as well come with us. We don’t care about your magic-not negatively, I mean-we all of us have talents. And think of the artifacts you can collect deep in Mundania; you can start your own museum. And if you help rescue my father, King Trent-“

The centaur was visibly wavering. Obviously he did not like the notion of exile, but could not return to his job on Centaur Isle. “And the centaurs around Castle Roogna are used to magic,” Irene continued apace.

“Chester Centaur plays a magic silver flute, and his uncle was Herman the Hermit. He would be glad for your company, and-“

“I believe I have little alternative,” Amolde said heavily.

“You will help us? Oh, thank you!” Irene cried, and she flung her arms about the centaur’s forepart and kissed him, too. Amolde was visibly startled, but not entirely displeased; his white spots wavered.

Dor suffered a wash of jealousy, thinking of the legend of the origin of the centaurs. Kisses between different species were not necessarily innocent, as that legend showed. But it seemed Irene had convinced the centaur Magician to help, and that was certainly worthwhile.

Then Dor remembered another complication. “We can’t just leave for Mundania. The Council of Elders would never permit it.”

“How can they prevent it?” Irene asked, glancing meaningfully at him.

“But we must at least tell them-“

“Chet can tell them. He has to go home anyway.”

Dor tried to dissemble. “I don’t know -?”

Then Irene focused her stare on him full-force, daring him to attempt to balk her; she was extremely pretty in her challenge, and Dor knew their course was set. She intended to rescue her father, no matter what.

They sailed the two rafts back to Centaur Isle that night. In the process they discovered that Amolde’s ambience of magic extended farthest toward the front, perhaps fifteen paces, and half that distance to the rear. It was least potent to the sides, going hardly beyond the centaur’s reach. It was, in fact, less an isle of magic than an aisle, always preceding the centaur’s march. Thus the second raft was able to precede Amolde’s raft comfortably, or to follow it closely, but not to travel beside it. They had verified that the hard way, having the magic propulsion fail, until Amolde turned to face them.

Once they re-entered the main magic of Xanth, Amolde’s power was submerged. It seemed to make no difference how close he was or which way he faced; there was no enhancement of enchantment near him. But of course they had no way to measure the intensity of magic in his vicinity accurately.

Grundy sneaked in to wake Chet and explain the situation, while Amolde researched in his old tomes for the best and swiftest route to Mundania. He reported that there was the tunnel the sun used to return from the ocean east to its position of rising, drying out and recharging along the way. This tunnel would be suitable by day, when the sun wasn’t using it; they could trot right along it.

“But that would take us west,” Irene protested. “My father left Xanth to the north.”

Dor had to agree. “The standard route to Mundania is across the northwest isthmus. We must go there and hope to pick up traces of his passage. We can’t use the sun’s tunnel. But it’s a long way to the isthmus, and I don’t think we want to make another trip like the one down the coast; we might never get there. Are there any other good notions?”

“Well, tomorrow is destined to have intermittent showers,” Amolde said. “There should be a rainbow. There is a spell in the archives for traveling the rainbow. It is very fast, for rainbows do not endure long. There is some risk-“

“Speed is what we need,” Dor said, remembering his dreamvisions, where there had been a sensation of urgency. “I think King Trent is in trouble and needs to be rescued soon. Maybe not in the next day, but I don’t think we can afford to wait a month.”

“There is also the problem of mounting the rainbow,” Amolde said. Now that he had accepted the distasteful notion of his own magic, his mind was relating to the situation very readily. Perhaps it was because he was trained in the handling of information and knew how to organize it. “Part of the rainbow’s magic, as you know, is that it appears equally distant from all observers, with its two ends touching the ground equally far from them, north and south. We must ascend to its top, then slide down quickly before it fades.”

“The salve!” Grundy said. “We can mount smoke to a cloud, and run across the cloud to the top of the rainbow, if we start early, before the rainbow forms.”

“You just don’t understand,” the centaur said. “It will seem just as far from us when we board the cloud. Catching a rainbow is one of the hardest things to do.”

“I can see why,” Dor muttered. “How can we catch one if it always retreats?”

“Excise the eyes,” Smash suggested, covering his own gross orbs with his gauntleted mitts.

“Of course the monster is right,” Amolde said, not looking at Smash, whom he seemed to find objectionable. “That is the obvious solution.”

It was hardly obvious to Dor. “How can covering our eyes get us to the rainbow?”

“It can hardly appear distant if you don’t look at it,” Amolde said.

“Yes, but-“

“I get it,” Grundy said. “We spot it, then close our eyes and go to where we saw it, and it can’t get away because we aren’t looking at it. Simple.”

“But somebody has to look at it, or it isn’t there,” Irene protested. “Or is it?”

“Chet can look at it,” Grundy said. “He’s not going on it any way.”

Dor distrusted this, but the others seemed satisfied. “Let’s get some sleep tonight and see what happens tomorrow,” he said, hoping it all made sense.

They slept late, but that was all right because the intermittent rain wasn’t due until midmorning. Amolde dutifully acquainted the centaur Elders with his situation; as expected, they encouraged him to depart the Isle forever at his very earliest convenience, without directly referring to the reason for his loss of status in their community. A Magician was not wanted here; they could not be comfortable with him. They would let it be known that Amolde was retiring for reasons of health, so as to preserve his reputation, and they would arrange to break in a new archivist. No one would know his shame. To facilitate his prompt departure they provided him with a useful assortment of spells and counterspells for his journey, and wished him well.

“The hypocrites!” Irene exclaimed. “For fifty years Amolde serves them well, and now, suddenly, just because-“

“I said you would not comprehend the nuances of centaur society,” Chet reminded her, though he did not look comfortable himself.

Irene shut up rebelliously. Dor liked her better for her feeling, however. It was time to leave Centaur Isle, and not just because they had a new mission.

The intermittent clouds formed and made ready to shower. Dor set up a smudge pot and got a column of smudge angling up to intersect the cloud level. They applied the salve to their feet and hands, invoked the curse-counterspells Amolde distributed, and marched up the column. Amolde adjusted to this odd climb remarkably well for his age; he had evidently kept himself in traveling shape by making archaeological field trips.

For a moment they paused to turn back to face Chet, who was standing on the beach, watching for the rainbow. Dor found himself choking up, and could only wave.

“I hope to see you again, cousin,” Amolde called. Chet was not related to him; what he referred to was the unity of their magic talents.

“And meet your sire.” And Chet smiled, appreciating the thought.

When they reached the cloud layer, they donned blindfolds.

“Clouds,” Dor said, “tell us where the best path to the top of the rainbow is. Don’t let any of us step too near the edge of you.”

“What rainbow?” the nearest cloud asked.

“The one that is about to form, that my friend Chet Centaur will see from the ground.”

“Oh, that rainbow. It isn’t here yet. It hasn’t finished its business on the eastern coast of Xanth.”

“Well, guide us to where it’s going to be.”

“Why don’t you open your eyes and see it for yourself?” the canny cloud asked. The inanimate was often perverse, and the many folds and convolutions of clouds made them smarter than average.

“Just guide us,” Dor said.

“Aw.” But the cloud had to do it.

There was a popping sound behind them, down on the ground.

“That’s the popcorn I gave Chet,” Irene said. “I told him to set it off when he saw the rainbow. Now that rainbow is fixed in place, as long as he looks at it and we don’t; we must be almost upon it.”

“Are we?” Dor asked the cloud.

“Yeah,” the cloud conceded grudgingly. “It’s right ahead, though it has no head. That’s cumulus humor.”

“Rainbow!” Dor called. “Sing out If you hear me!”

Back came the rainbow’s song: “Tra-la-la-fol-de-rol!” It sounded beautiful and multicolored.

They hurried over to it. Once they felt its smooth surface projecting above the cloud and climbed upon it, they removed their blindfolds; the rainbow could no longer work its deceptive magic.

The rainbow was fully as lovely as it sounded. Bands of red and yellow, blue and green, extended lengthwise, and sandwiched between them, where ground observers couldn’t see them, were the secret riches of the welkin: bands of polka-dot, plaid, and checkerboard. Some internal bands were translucent, and some blazed with colors seldom imagined by man, like fortissimo, charm, phon, and torque. It would have been easy to become lost in their wonders, and Irene seemed inclined to do just that, but the rainbow would not remain here long. It seemed rainbows had tight schedules, and this one was due for a showing somewhere in Mundania in half an hour.

Some magic, it seemed, did extend to Mundania; Dor wondered briefly whether the Mundanes would have the same trouble actually catching up to a rainbow, or whether there it would stay in place regardless how the viewers moved.

Amolde brought out his rainbow-travel span, which was sealed in a paper packet. He tore it open-and abruptly they began to slide.

The speed was phenomenal. They zoomed past the clouds, then down into the faintly rainy region below, plunging horrendously toward the sea to the north.

Below them was the land of Xanth, a long peninsula girt by thin islands along the coastlines. Across the center of it was the jagged chasm of the Gap that separated the northern half of Xanth from the southern. It appeared on no maps because no one remembered it, but this was no map. It was reality, as viewed from the rainbow. There were a number of lakes, such as Ogre-Chobee in the south, but no sign of the human settlements Dor knew were there. Man had simply not made much of an impression on Xanth, physically.

“Fun begun!” Smash cried joyfully.

“Eeek-my skirt!” Irene squealed as the mischievous gusts whipped it up, displaying her legs to the whole world. Dor wondered why she insisted on wearing a skirt despite such constant inconveniences; pants of some kind would have solved the problems decisively. Then it occurred to him that she might not want that particular problem solved. She was well aware that her legs were the finest features of a generally excellent body and perhaps was not averse to letting the world know it also. If she constantly protested any inadvertent exposures that occurred, how could anyone blame her for showing herself off? She had a pretty good system going.

Dor and Grundy and Amolde, less sanguine about violence than the ogre and less modest than Irene, hung on to the sliding are of the rainbow and stared ahead and down with increasing misgiving.

How were they to stop, once the end came? The descent was drawing close at an alarming velocity. The northern shoreline of Xanth loomed rapidly larger, the curlicues of beaches magnifying. The ocean in this region seemed oddly reddish; Dor hoped that wasn’t from the blood of prior travelers of the rainbow. Of course it wasn’t; how could he think such a thought?

Then the travel-spell reversed, and they slid rapidly slower until, as they reached the water at the end of the rainbow, they were moving at no more than a running pace. They plunged into the crimson water and swam for the shore to the north. The color was not blood; it was translucently thin, up close. Dor was relieved.

Now that he could no longer see it from the air, Dor remembered other details of Xanth. The length of it was north-south, with the narrowest portion near where his grandfather Elder Roland’s village was, in the middle north on the western side. At the top, Xanth extended west, linking to Mundania by the isthmus they were headed for-and somehow Mundania beyond that isthmus seemed huge, much larger than Xanth. Dor decided that must be a misimpression; surely Mundania was about the same size as Xanth, or somewhat smaller. How could a region of so little importance be larger, especially without magic?

Now they came to the shallows and waded through the dark red water to the beach. That crimson bothered him as the color intensified near the tideline; how could the normally blue water change color here, in the Mundane quadrant? What magic could affect it here, where no magic existed?

“Maybe some color leaked from the rainbow,” Irene said, following his thought.

Well, maybe. Of course there was the centaur aisle of magic now, so that wherever they were was no longer strictly Mundane. Yet the red water extended well beyond the area of temporary enchantment.

It seemed to be a regular feature of the region.

They gathered on the beach, dripping pink water. Grundy and Smash didn’t mind, but Dor felt uncomfortable, and Irene’s blouse and skirt were plastered to her body. “I’m not walking around this way, and I’m not taking off my clothes,” she expostulated. She felt in her seedbag, which she had refilled at Centaur Isle, and brought out a purple seed. It seemed the bag was waterproof, for the seed was dry. “Grow,” she ordered it as she dropped it on the sand.

The thing sprouted into a heliotrope. Clusters of small purple flowers burst open aromatically. Warm dry air wafted outward. This plant did not really travel toward the sun; it emulated the sun’s heat, dehydrating things in the vicinity. Soon their clothing was dry again.

Even Smash and Grundy appreciated this, since both now wore the special jackets given them by the centaurs. Smash also shook out his gauntlets and dried them, and Irene spread her silver-lined fur out nearby.

“Do we know where we go from here?” Irene asked once she had her skirt and blouse properly fluffed out.

“Did King Trent pass this way?” Dor inquired of the landscape.

“When?” the beach-sand asked.

“Within the past month.”

“I don’t think so.”

They moved a short distance north, and Dor tried again. Again the response was negative. As the day wore into afternoon and on into evening, they completed their traverse of the isthmus-without positive result. The land had not seen the King.

“Maybe the Queen still had an illusion of invisibility enchantment,” Grundy suggested. “So nothing could see them.”

“Her illusion wouldn’t work here in Mundania, dummy,” Irene retorted. She was still miffed at the golem because of the way Grundy had caused her to lose half her seeds to the eclectic eel. She carried a little grudge a long time.

“I am not properly conversant with King Trent’s excursion,” Arnolde said. “Perhaps he departed Xanth by another route.”

“But I know he came this way!” Irene said.

“You didn’t even know he was leaving Xanth,” Grundy reminded her. “You thought he was inside Xanth on vacation.”

She shrugged that off as irrelevant. “But this is the only route out of Xanth!” Her voice was starting its hysterical tremor.

“Unless he went by sea,” Dor said.

“Yes, he could have done that,” she agreed quickly. “But he would have come ashore somewhere. My mother gets seasick when she’s in a boat too long. All we have to do is walk along the beach and ask the stones and plants.”

“And watch for Mundane monsters,” Grundy said, still needling her. “So they can’t look up your-“

“I am inclined to doubt that countermagical species will present very much of a problem,” Amolde said in his scholarly manner.

“What he know, he hoofed schmoe?” Smash demanded.

“Evidently more than you, you moronic oaf,” the centaur snapped back. “I have been studying Mundania somewhat, recently, garnering information from immigrants, and by most reports most Mundane plants and animals are comparatively shy. Of course there is a certain margin for error, as in all phenomena.”

“What dray, he say?” Smash asked, perplexed by the centaur’s vocabulary.

“Dray!” Amolde repeated, freshly affronted. “A dray is a low cart, not a creature, you ignorant monster. I should thank you to address me by my proper appellation.”

“What’s the poop from the goop?” Smash asked.

Dor stifled a laugh, fuming it into a choking cough. In this hour of frustration, tempers were fraying, and they could not afford to have things get too negative.

Grundy opened his big mouth, but Dor managed to cover it in time. The golem could only aggravate the situation with his natural penchant for insults.

It was Irene who retained enough poise to alleviate the crisis.

“You just don’t understand a person of education, Smash. He says the Mundane monsters won’t dare bother us while you’re on guard.”

“Oh. So,” the ogre said, mollified.

“Ignorant troglodyte,” the centaur muttered.

That set it off again. “Me know he get the place of Chet!” Smash said angrily, forming his gauntlets into horrendous fists.

So that was the root of the ogre’s ire! He felt Amolde had usurped the position of his younger centaur friend. “No, that’s not so,” Dor started, seeking some way to alleviate his resentment. If their party started fracturing now, before they were fairly clear of Xanth, what would happen once they got deep into Mundania?

“And he called you a caveman, Smash,” Grundy put in helpfully.

“Compliments no good; me head like wood,” the ogre growled, evidently meaning that he refused to be swayed by soft talk.

“Indubitably,” Amolde agreed.

Dor decided to leave it at that; a more perfect understanding between ogre and centaur would only exacerbate things.

They walked along the beach. Sure enough, nothing attacked them. The trees were strange oval-leafed things with brownish inert bark and no tentacles. Small birds flitted among the branches, and gray animals scurried along the ground.

Amolde had brought along a tome of natural history, and he consulted it eagerly as each thing turned up. “An oak tree!” he exclaimed. “Probably the root stock of the silver oak, the blackjack oak, the turkey oak, and the acorn trees!”

“But there’s no silver, blackjacks, or acorns,” Grundy protested.

“Or turkeys,” Irene added.

“Certainly there are, in rudimentary forms,” the centaur said. “Observe a certain silvery aspect to some leaves, and the typical shape of others, primitively suggestive of other, eventual divergencies. And I suspect there are also acorns, in season. The deficiency of magic prevents proper manifestation, but to the trained perception-“

“Maybe so,’ the golem agreed, shrugging. It was evidently more than he cared to know about oak trees.

Dor continued to query the objects along the beach, and the water of the sea, but with negative results. All denied seeing King Trent or Queen Iris.

“This is ridiculous!” Irene expostulated. “I know he came this way!”

Amolde stroked his chin thoughtfully. “There does appear to be a significant discontinuity.”

“Something doesn’t fit,” Grundy agreed.

As the sun set, they made camp high on the beach. Rather than post watches, they decided to trust in magic. Dor told the sand in their vicinity to make an exclamation if anything dangerous or obnoxious intruded, and the sand promised to do so. Irene grew a blanket bush for their beds and set a chokecherry hedge around them for additional protection. They ate beefsteak tomatoes that they butchered and roasted on flame-vines, and drank the product of wine and-rain lilies.

“Young lady, your talent contributes enormously to our comfort,” Amolde complimented her, and Irene flushed modestly.

“Aw, he’s just saying that ‘cause she’s pretty,” Grundy grumbled.

That only made Irene flush with greater pleasure. Dor was not pleased, but could not isolate the cause of his reaction. The hangups of others were easier for him to perceive than his own.

“Especially when her skirt hikes up over her knees,” the golem continued. Irene quickly tugged down her hem, her flush becoming less attractive.

“Actually, there are few enough rewards to a mission like this,” Amolde said. “Had I my choice, I would instantly abolish my own magic and return to my sinecure at the museum, my shame extirpated.”

And there was the centaurs fundamental disturbance, Dor realized. He resented their dastardly deed that had ripped him from his contented existence and made him an exile from his kind. Dor could hardly blame him. Amolde’s agreement to travel with them to Mundania to help rescue King Trent did not mean he was satisfied with his lot; he was merely making the best of what was for him an awful situation.

“Me help he go, with big heave-ho!” Smash offered.

“But we need his magic,” Irene said, verbally interposing herself to prevent further trouble. “Just as we need your strength, Smash.” And she laid her hand on the ogre’s ponderous arm, pacifying him.

Dor found himself resenting this, too, though he understood her motive.

The peace had to be kept.

They settled down for the night-and the sand gave alarm. The monsters it warned of turned out to be sand fleas-bugs so small they could hardly even be seen. Amolde dug a vermin-repulsor spell out of his collection, and that took care of the matter. They settled down again and this time slept. Once more the nightmares were unable to reach them, since the magic horses were bound to the magic realm of Xanth and could not cross the Mundane territory intervening. Dor almost felt sympathy for the mares; they had been balked from doing their duty to trouble people’s sleep for several nights now, and must be very frustrated.

They resumed their march in the morning. But as the new day wore on, the gloom of failure became more pervasive. “Something certainly appears to be amiss,” Amolde observed. “From what we understand, King Trent had to have passed this vicinity-yet the objects here deny it. Perhaps it is not entirely premature to entertain conjectures.”

Smash wrinkled his hairy brow, trying to figure out whether this was another rarefied insult. “Say what’s on your mind, horsetail,” Grundy said with his customary diplomacy.

“We have ascertained that the Queen could not have employed her power to deceive the local objects,” Amolde said didactically.

“Not without magic,” Dor agreed. “The two of them were strictly Mundane-type people here, as far as we know.”

“Could they have failed to come in from the sea?”

“No!” Irene cried emotionally.

“I have queried the sea,” Dor said. “It says nothing like that is in it.” Irene relaxed.

“Could they have employed a completely different route? Perhaps crossed to the eastern coast of Xanth and sailed north from there to intercept another region of Mundania?”

“They didn’t,” Irene said firmly. “They had it all planned, to come out here. Someone had found a good trade deal, and they were following his map. I saw it, and the route passed here.”

“But if you don’t know -“ Dor protested.

“I didn’t know they were going to travel the route, then,” she said. “But I did see the map when their scout brought it in, with the line on it Now I know what it meant. That’s all I saw, but I am absolutely certain this was the way they headed.”

Dor was disinclined to argue the point further. This did seem to be the only practical route. He had told the others all he knew about King Trent’s destination, and this route certainly did not conflict with that information.

“Could they have been intercepted before leaving Xanth?” Arnolde continued, evidently with an intellectual conclusion in mind. “Waylaid, perhaps?”

“My father would have turned any waylayer into a toad,” she said defiantly. “Anyway, inside Xanth, my mother’s illusion would have made them impossible to identify.”

“Then it seems we have eliminated the likely,” Amolde said. “We are thus obliged to contemplate the unlikely.”

“What do you mean?” Irene asked.

“As I intimated, it is an unlikely supposition that I entertain, quite possibly erroneous-“

“Spit it out, brownfur,” Grundy said.

“My dear vociferous construct, a civilized centaur does not expectorate. And my color is appaloosa, not mere brown.”

Irene was catching on to her power over the centaur, and over males in general. “Please, Amolde,” she pleaded sweetly. “It’s so important to me to know anything that might help find my lost father-“

“Of course, dear child,” Amolde agreed quickly, adopting an avuncular pose. “It is simply this: perhaps King Trent did not pass this region when we suppose he did.”

“It had to be within this past month,” she said.

“Not necessarily. That is the extraordinary aspect of this supposition. He may have passed here a century ago.”

Now Dor, Irene, and Grundy peered at the centaur intently to see whether he was joking. Smash, less interested in intellectual conjectures, idly formed sandstone by squeezing handfuls of sand until the mineral fused. His new gauntlets evidently enabled him to apply his power in ways that were beyond his natural limits before, since even ogre’s flesh was marginally softer than stone. A modest sandstone castle was developing.

“You happen to sleep with your head underwater last night?” the golem inquired solicitously.

“I have, as I have clarified previously, engaged in a modicum of research into the phenomena of Mundania,” Amolde said. “I confess I know only the merest fraction of what may be available, and must be constantly alert for error, but certain conclusions are becoming more credible. Through history, certain anomalies have manifested in the relationship between continuums. There is of course the matter of linguistics-it appears that there exist multiple languages in Mundania, yet all become intelligible in Xanth. I wonder if you properly appreciate the significance of-“

Irene was growing impatient. She tapped her small foot on the ground.

“How could he have passed a century ago, when he wasn’t even born then?”

“It is this matter of discontinuity, as I was saying. Time seems to differ; there may be no constant ratio. There is evidence that the several Waves of human colonization of Xanth originated from widely divergent subcultures within Mundania, and, in fact, some may be anachronistic. That is to say, the last Wave of people may have originated from a period in Mundania preceding that of the prior Wave.”

“Now wait!” Dor exclaimed. “I visited Xanth of eight hundred years ago, and I guess that was a kind of time travel, but that was a special case. Since there’s no magic in Mundania, how could people get reversed like that? Are their times mixed up?”

“No, I believe their framework is consistent in their world. Yet If the temporal sequence were reversed with respect to ours-“

“I just want to know where my father is!” Irene snapped.

“He may be in Mundania’s past-or its future,” the centaur said. “We simply do not know what law governs transfer across the barrier of magic, but it seems to be governed from Xanth’s side. That is, we may be able to determine into what age of Mundania we travel, whereas the access of Mundania to Xanth is random and perhaps in some cases impossible. It is a most intriguing interface. It is as if Xanth were a boat sailing along a river; the passengers may disembark anywhere they choose, merely by picking their port, or a specific time on the triptych, so to speak, but the natives along the shores can take only that craft that happens to pass within their range. This is an inadequate analogy, I realize, that does not properly account for certain-“

“The King can be anywhen in Mundania?” Irene demanded skeptically.

“Marvelously succinct summation,” Amolde admitted.

“But he told me ‘medieval,’” Dor protested.

“That does narrow it,” the centaur agreed. “But it covers an extraordinary range, and if he was speaking figuratively-?”

“Then how can we ever find him?” Irene demanded.

“That becomes problematical. I hasten to remind you that this is merely a theory, undocumented, perhaps fallacious. I would not have introduced it for consideration, except-“

“Except nothing else fits,” Irene said. “Suppose it’s right. What do we do now?”

“Well, I believe it would expedite things if we located research facilities in Mundania. Some institution where detailed records exist, archives-“

“And you’re an archivist!” Dor exclaimed.

“Precisely. This should enable me to determine at what period in Mundania’s history we have intruded. Since, as King Dor says, King Trent referred to a medieval period, that would provide a frame of reference.”

“If we’re in the wrong Mundane century,” Irene said, “how do we get to him?”

“We should be required to return to Xanth and undertake a new mission to that century. As I mentioned, it seems feasible to determine the temporal locale from Xanth, and once in that aspect of Mundania, we would be fixed in it until returning to Xanth. However, this procedure is fraught with uncertainties and potential complications.”

“I should think so,” Dor said. “If we figured it wrong, we might get there before he did.”

“Oh, I doubt that would happen, other than on the macroscopic scale, of course.”

“The what?” Dor asked.

“I believe the times are consistent in particular circumstances. That is to say, within a given age, we could enter Mundania only with an elapsed period consonant with that of Xanth. Therefore-“

“We might miss by a century, but not by a day,” Grundy said.

“That is the essence, golem. The particular channels appear to be fixed-“

“So let’s go find the century!” Irene said, brightening. “Then all we’d need is the place.”

“With appropriate research, the specific geography should also be evident.”

“Then let’s go find your archives,” she said.

“Unfortunately, we have no knowledge of this period,” Amolde reminded her. “We are hardly likely to locate a suitable facility randomly.”

“I can help there,” Dor said. “It should be where there are a lot of people, right?”

“Correct, King Dor.”

“Uh, better not call me King here. I’m not, really, and people might find it strange.” Then Dor addressed the sand. “Which way to where most people live?”

“How should I know?” the sand asked.

“You know which direction most of them come from, and where they return.”

“Oh, that. They mostly go north.”

“North it is,” Dor agreed.

They marched north, and in due course encountered a Mundane path that debouched into a road that became a paved highway. No such highway existed in Xanth, and Dor had to question this one closely to ascertain its nature. It seemed it served to facilitate the travel of metal and rubber vehicles that propelled themselves with some sort of magic or whatever it was that Mundanes used to accomplish such wonders. These wagons were called “cars,” and they moved very rapidly.

“I saw something like that below ground,” Grundy said. “The demons rode in them.”

Soon the party saw a car. The thing zoomed along like a racing dragon, belching faint smoke from its posterior. They stared after it, amazed. “Fire it send from wrong end,” Smash said.

“Are you sure there’s no magic in Mundania?” Grundy asked. “Even the demons didn’t have firebreathers.”

“I am not at all certain,” Amolde admitted. “Perhaps they merely have a different name and application for their magic. I doubt it would operate for us. Perhaps this is the reason we believe there is no magic in Mundania-it is not applicable to our needs.”

“I don’t want any part of that car,” Irene said. “Any dragon shooting out smoke from its rear is either crazy or has one awful case of indigestion! How could it fight? Let’s find our archives and get out of here.”

The others agreed. This aspect of Mundania was certainly inverted. They avoided the highway, making their way along assorted paths that paralleled it. Dor continued to query the ground, and by nightfall they were approaching a city. It was a strange sort of settlement, with roads that crisscrossed to form large squares, and buildings all lined up with their fronts right on the edges of the roads, so that there was hardly room for any forest there, jammed in close together. Some were so tall it was a wonder they didn’t fall over when the wind blew.

Dor’s party camped at the edge of the city, under a large umbrella tree Irene grew to shelter them. The tree’s canopy dipped almost to the ground, concealing them, and this seemed just as well. They were not sure how the Mundanes would react to the sight of an ogre, golem, or centaur.

“We have gone as far as we can as a group,” Dor said. “There are many people here, and few trees; we can’t avoid being seen any more. I think Irene and I had better go in and find a museum.“

“A library,” Amolde corrected him. “I would love to delve eternally in a Mundane museum, but the information is probably most readily accessible in a library.”

“A library,” Dor agreed. He knew what that was, because King Trent had many books in his library-office in Castle Roogna.

“However, that is academic, no pun intended,” the centaur continued. “You cannot go there without me.”

“I know I’ll step out of magic,” Dor said. “But I won’t need to do anything special. Nothing magical. Once I find the library for you-“

“You have no certainty you can even speak their language,” Arnolde said curtly. “In the magic ambience, you can; beyond it, this is problematical.”

“I’m not sure we speak the same language in our own group, sometimes,” Irene said with a smile. “Words like ‘ambience, and ‘problematical!’”

“I can speak their language,” Grundy said. “That’s my talent. I was made to translate.”

“A magical talent,” Amolde said.

“Oooops,” Grundy said, chagrined. “Won’t work outside the aisle.”

“But you can’t just walk in to the city!” Dor said. “I’m sure they aren’t used to centaurs.”

“I would have to walk in to use the library,” Amolde pointed out. “Fortunately, I anticipated such an impediment, so obtained a few helpful spells from our repository. We centaurs do not normally practice inherent magic, but we do utilize particular enchantments on an ad hoc basis. I have found them invaluable when on field trips to the wilder regions of Xanth.” He checked through his bag of spells, much the way Irene checked through her seeds. “I have with me assorted spells for invisibility, inaudibility, untouchability, and so forth. The golem and I can traverse the city unperceived.”

“What about the ogre?” Dor asked. “He can’t exactly merge with the local population either.”

Amolde frowned. “Him, too, I suppose,” he agreed distastefully. “However, there is one attendant liability inherent in this process-“

“I won’t be able to detect you either,” Dor finished.

“Precisely. Some one of our number must exist openly, for these spells make the handling of books awkward; our hands would pass right through the pages. My ambience of magic should be unimpaired, of course, and we could remain with you-but you would have to do all the research unassisted.”

“He’ll never make it,” Irene said.

“She’s right,” Dor said. “I’m just not much of a scholar. I’d mess it up.”

“Allow me to cogitate,” Amolde said. He closed his eyes and stroked his chin reflectively. For a worried moment Dor thought the centaur was going to be sick, then realized that he had the wrong word in mind. Cogitate actually referred to thinking.

“Perhaps I have an alternative,” Amolde said. “You could obtain the assistance of a Mundane scholar, a qualified researcher, perhaps an archivist. You could pay him one of the gold coins you have hoarded, or perhaps a diamond; I believe either would have value in any frame of Mundania.”

“Uh, I guess so,” Dor said doubtfully.

“I tell you, even with help, he’ll foul it up,” Irene said. She seemed to have forgotten her earlier compliments on Dor’s performance. That was one of the little things about her selective memory. “You’re the one who should do the research, Amolde.”

“I can only, as it were, look over his shoulder,” the centaur said. “It would certainly help if I could direct the manner he selects references and turns the pages, as I am a gifted reader with a fine memory. He would not have to comprehend the material. But unless I were to abort the imperceptibility spells, which I doubt very much would be wise since I have no duplicates-“

“There’s a way, maybe,” Grundy said. “I could step outside the magic aisle. Then he could see me and hear me, and I could tell him to turn the page, or whatever.”

“And any Mundanes in the area would pop their eyeballs, looking at the living doll,” Irene said. “If anyone does it, I’m the one.”

“So they can pop their eyes looking up your skirt,” the golem retorted, miffed.

“That may indeed be the solution,” Amolde said.

“Now wait a minute!” Irene cried.

“He means the messenger service,” Dor told her gently.

“Of course,” the centaur said. “Since we have ascertained that the aisle is narrow, it would be feasible to stand quite close while Dor remains well within the forward extension.”

Dor considered, and it did seem to be the best course. He had somehow thought he could just go into Mundania, follow King Trent’s trail by querying the terrain, and reach the King without much trouble. This temporal discontinuity, as the centaur put it, was hard to understand and harder to deal with, and the vicarious research the centaur proposed seemed fraught with hangups. But what other way was there? “We’ll try it,” he agreed. “In the morning.”

They settled down for the night, their second in Mundania. Smash and Grundy slept instantly; Dor and Irene had more trouble, and Arnolde seemed uncomfortably wide awake. “We are approaching direct contact with Mundane civilization,” the centaur said. “In a certain sense this represents the culmination of an impossible dream for me, almost justifying the personal damnation my magic talent represents. Yet I have had so many confusing intimations, I hardly know what to expect. This city could be too primitive to have a proper library. The denizens could for all we know practice cannibalism. There are so many imponderabilities.”

“I don’t care what they practice,” Irene said. “Just so long as I find my father.”

“Perhaps we should query the surroundings in the morning,” Arnolde said thoughtfully, “to ascertain whether suitable facilities exist here, before we venture any farther. Certainly we do not wish to chance discovery by the Mundanes unless we have excellent reason.”

“And we should ask where the best Mundane archivist is,” Irene agreed.

Dor drew a word in the dirt with one finger: ONESTI. He contemplated it morosely.

“This is relevant?” the centaur inquired, glancing at the word.

“It’s what King Trent told me,’ Dor said. “If ever I was in doubt, to proceed with honesty.”

“Honesty?” Amolde asked, his brow at the dirt.

“I think about that a lot when I’m in doubt,” Dor said. “I don’t like deceiving people, even Mundanes.”

Irene smiled tiredly. “Amolde, it’s the way Dor spells the word. He is the world’s champion poor speller. O N E S T I: Honesty.”

“ONESTI,” the centaur repeated, removing his spectacles to rub his eyes. “I believe I perceive it now. A fitting signature for a King.”

“King Trent’s a great King,” Dor agreed. “I know his advice will pull us through somehow.”

Amolde seemed almost to smile, as if finding Dor’s attitude peculiar. “I will sleep on that,” the centaur said. And he did, lying down on the dirt-scratched word.

In the morning, after some problems with food and natural functions in this semipublic locale, they set it up. The centaur dug out his collection of spells, each one sealed in a glassy little globe, and Dor stepped outside the aisle of magic while the spells were invoked. First the party became inaudible, then invisible; it looked as if the spot were empty. Dor gave them time to get through the unfeeling spell, then walked back onto the lot. He heard, saw, and felt nothing.

“But I can smell you,” he remarked. “Amolde has a slight equine odor, and Smash smells like a monster, and Irene is wearing perfume. Better clean yourselves up before we get into a building.”

Soon the smells faded, and after a moment Irene appeared, a short distance away. “Can you see me now?”

“I see you and hear you,” Dor said.

“Oh, good. I didn’t know how far out the magic went. I’m still the same to me.” She stepped toward him and vanished.

“You’ve gone again,” Dor said, hastening to the spot where she had been. “Can you perceive me?”

“Hey, you’re overlapping me!” she protested, appearing right up against him, so that he almost stumbled.

“Well, I can’t perceive you,” he said. “I mean, now I can, but I couldn’t before. Can you see the others when you’re outside the aisle?”

She looked. “They’re gone! We can see and hear you all the time, but now-“

“So, you’ll know when I can see you by when you can’t see them.”

She leaned forward, and her face disappeared, reminding him of the Gorgon. Then she drew back. “I could see them then. I’m really in the enchantment, aren’t I?”

“You’re enchanting,” he agreed.

She smiled and leaned forward to kiss him-but her face disappeared and he felt nothing.

“Now I have to go find a library and a good archivist,” he said, disgruntled, as she reappeared. “If you’re with me, stay away from me.”

She laughed. “I’m with you. Just don’t try to catch me outside the aisle.” And of course that was what he should have done, if he really wanted to kiss her. And he did want to-but he didn’t want to admit it.

She walked well to the side of him, staying clear of the enchantment. “No sense you getting lost.”

They walked on into the city. There were many cars in the streets, all zooming rapidly to the intersections, where they screeched to stops, waited a minute with irate growls and constant ejections of smoke from their posteriors, then zoomed in packs to the next intersections. They seemed to have only two speeds: zoom and stop.

There were people inside the cars, exactly the way Grundy had described with the demon vehicles, but they never got out. It was as if the people had been swallowed whole and were now being digested.

Because the cars were as large as centaurs and moved at a constant gallop when not stopped, Dor was wary of them and tried to avoid them. But it was impossible; he had to cross the road sometime. He remembered how the nefarious Gap Dragon of Xanth lurked for those foolish enough to cross the bottom of the Gap; these cars seemed all too similar. Maybe there were some that had not yet consumed people and were traveling hungry, waiting to catch someone like Dor. He saw one car stopped by the side of the street with its mouth wide open like that of a dragon; he avoided it nervously.

The strangest thing about it was that its guts seemed to be all in that huge mouth-steaming tubes and tendons and a disk-shaped tongue.

Oddest of all, it had no teeth. Maybe that was why it took so long to digest the people.

He walked to a corner. “How do I get across?” he asked.

“You wait for a light to stop the traffic,” the street informed him with a contemptuous air of dust and car fumes. “Then you run-don’t walk across before they clip you, If you’re lucky. Where have you been all your life?”

“In another realm,” Dor said. He saw one of the lights the street described. It hung above the intersection and wore several little visors pointing each way. All sorts of colors flashed malevolently from it, in all sorts of directions. Dor couldn’t understand how it made the car stop. Maybe the lights had some kind of stun-spell, or whatever it was called here. He played it safe by asking the light to tell him when it was proper to cross.

“Now,” the light said, flashing green from one face and red from another.

Dor started across. A car honked like a sea monster and squealed like a sea-monster victim, almost running over Dor’s leading foot.

“Not that way, idiot!” the light exclaimed, flashing an angry red. “The other way! With the green, not the red! Haven’t you ever crossed a street before?”

“Never,” Dor admitted. Irene had disappeared; she must have reentered the magic aisle to consult with the others. Maybe she found it safer within the spell zone; apparently the cars were unable to threaten her there.

“Wait till I tell you, then cross the way I tell you,” the light said, blinking erratically. “I don’t want any blood in my intersection!”

Dor waited humbly. “Now,” the light said. “Walk straight ahead, keeping an even pace. Fast. You don’t have all day, only fifteen seconds.”

“But there’s a car charging me!” Dor protested.

“It will stop,” the light assured him. “I shall change to red at the last possible moment and force it to scorch rubber. I get a deep pleasure from that sort of thing.”

Nervously, Dor stepped out onto the street again. The car zoomed terrifyingly close, then squealed to a stop a handspan’s distance from Dor’s shaking body. “Shook you up that time, you damned pedestrian,” the car gloated through its cloud of scorched rubber. “If it hadn’t been for that blinking light, I’d a had you. You creeps shouldn’t be allowed on the road.”

“But how can I cross the street if I’m not allowed on the road?” Dor asked.

“That’s your problem,” the car huffed.

“See, I can time them perfectly,” the light said with satisfaction. “I get hundreds of them each day. No one gets through my intersection without paying his tax in gas and rubber.”

“Go blow a bulb!” the car growled at the light.

“Go soak your horn!” the light flashed back.

“Some day we cars will have a revolution and establish a new axle,” the car said darkly. “We’ll smash all you restrictive lights and have a genuine free-enterprise system.”

“You really crack me up,” the light said disdainfully. “Without me, you’d have no discipline at all.”

Dor walked on. Another car zoomed up, and Dor lost his nerve and leaped out of the way. “Missed him!” the car complained. “I haven’t scored in a week!”

“Get out of my intersection!” the light screamed. “You never stopped! You never burned rubber! You’re supposed to waste gas for the full pause before you go through! How do you expect me to maintain a decent level of pollution here if you don’t cooperate?”

“Oh, go jam your circuits!” the car roared, moving on through.

“Police! Police!” the light flashed. “That criminal car just ran the light! Rogue car! Rogue car!”

But now the other cars, perceiving that one was getting away with open defiance, hastened to do likewise. The intersection filled with snarling vehicles that crashed merrily into each other. There was the crackle of beginning fire.

Then the magic aisle moved out of the light’s range, and it was silent.

Dor was relieved; he didn’t want to attract attention.

Irene reappeared. “You almost did it that time, Dor! Why don’t you quit fooling with lights and get on to the library?”

“I’m trying to!” Dor snapped. “Where is the library?” he asked the sidewalk.

“You don’t need a library, you clumsy oaf,” the walk said. “You need a bodyguard.”

“Just answer my question.” The perversity of the inanimate seemed worse than ever, here in Mundania. Perhaps it was because the objects here had never been tamed by magic.

“Three blocks south, two east,” the walk said grudgingly.

“What’s a block?”

“Is this twerp real?” the walk asked rhetorically.

“Answer!” Dor snapped. And in due course he obtained the necessary definition. A block was one of the big squares formed by the crisscrossing roads. “Is there an archivist there?”

“A what?”

“A researcher, someone who knows a lot.”

“Oh, sure. The best in the state. He walks here all the time. Strange old coot.”

“That sidewalk sure understands you,” Irene remarked smugly.

Dor was silent. Irene was safe from any remarks the sidewalk might make about her legs because she was outside the magic aisle.

Dor knew Amolde was keeping up with him, because his magic was operating. If Irene stepped within that region of magic, she would vanish. So she had the advantage and could snipe with impunity, for now.

A small group of Mundanes walked toward them, three men and two women. Their attire was strange. The men wore knots of something about their necks, almost choking them, and their shoes shone like mirrors. The women seemed to be walking on stilts. Irene continued blithely along, passing them. Dor hung back, curious about Mundane reactions to a citizen of Xanth.

The two females seemed to pay no attention, but all three males paused to look back at Irene. “Look at that creature!” one murmured. “What world is she from?”

“Whatever world it is, I want to go there!” another said. “Must be a foreign student. I haven’t seen legs like that in three years.”

“Her clothing is three centuries out of fashion, if it ever was in fashion,” one of the women remarked, her nose elevated. Evidently she had after all paid attention. It was amazing what women could notice while seeming not to. Her own legs were unremarkable, though it occurred to Dor that the stilt-shoes might be responsible for deforming them.

“Men have no taste,” the other woman said. “They prefer harem girls.”

“Yeah,” the third man said with a slow smile. “I’d like to have her number.”

“Over my dead body!” the second woman said.

The Mundanes went on, their strange conversation fading from Dor’s hearing. Dor proceeded thoughtfully. If Irene were that different from Mundanes, what about himself? No one had reacted to him, yet he was dressed as differently from the males as Irene was from the females. He pondered that as he and Irene continued along the streets. Maybe the Mundanes had been so distracted by Irene’s legs that they had skipped over Dor. That was understandable.

The library was a palatial edifice with an exceedingly strange entrance. The door went round and round without ever quite opening.

Dor stood near it, uncertain how to proceed. Mundane people passed him, not noticing him at all despite his evident difference.

That was part of the magic, he realized suddenly, his contemplations finally fitting an aspect of the Mundane mystery together. He seemed to share their culture. Should he step outside the magic aisle, he would stand out as a complete foreigner, as Irene had. Fortunately, she was a pretty girl, so she could get away with it; he would not have that advantage.

At the moment, Irene was not in view; perhaps she had been more aware of the Mundane reaction, and preferred to avoid repetition.

But as the Mundanes cleared the vicinity, she reappeared. “Amolde believes that is a revolving door,” she said. “There are a few obscure references to them in the texts on Mundania. Probably all you have to do is-“ She saw another Mundane approaching, and hastily stepped into invisibility.

The Mundane walked to the door, put forth a hand, and pushed on a panel of the door. A chamber swung inward, and the man followed the compartment around. So simple, once Dor saw it in action!

He walked boldly up to the door and pushed through. It worked like a charm-that is, almost like a natural phenomenon of Xanth-passing him into the building. He was now in a large room in which there were many couches and tables, and the walls were lined with levels of books. This was a library, all right. Now all he needed to do was locate the excellent researcher who was supposed to be here.

Maybe in the history section.

Dor walked across the room, toward a wall of books. He could check those and see if any related. It shouldn’t be too hard to- He paused, aware that people were staring at him. What was the matter?

An older woman approached him, her face formed into stern lines.

“Xf ibwf b esftt-dpef ifsf,” she said severely, her gaze traveling disapprovingly from his unkempt hair to his dust-scuffed sandaled feet.

It seemed she disapproved of his attire.

After a moment of confusion, Dor realized he had stepped beyond the magic aisle and was now being seen without the cushion of enchantment. Amolde had been correct; Dor could not accomplish anything by himself.

What had happened to the centaur? Dor looked back toward the door-and saw Irene beckoning him frantically. He hurried back to her, the Mundane woman following. “Xf pqfsbuf a respectable library here,” the Mundane was saying. “We expect a suitable, demeanor-“

Dor turned to face her. “Yes?”

The woman stopped, nonplused. “Oh-I see you are properly dressed. I must have mistaken you for someone else.” She retreated, embarrassed.

Dor’s clothing had not changed. Only the woman’s perception of it had, thanks to the magic.

“Amolde can’t get through the spinning door,” Irene said.

So that was why Dor had left the aisle! He had walked well beyond the door. Of course those small chambers could not accommodate the mass of the centaur!

“Maybe there’s another door,” Dor suggested. “We could walk around the building-“

Irene vanished, then reappeared. “Yes, Amolde says the spell fuzzes the boundaries of things somewhat, so his hands pass through Mundane objects, but his whole body mass is just too much to push through a solid Mundane wall. He might make it through a window, though.”

Dor went back out the rotating door, then walked around the building. In the back was a double door that opened wide enough to admit a car. Dor walked through this and past some men who were stacking crates of books. “Hey, kid, you lost?” one called.

It had not taken him long to progress from “King” to “kid”! “I am looking for the archives,” Dor said nervously.

“Oh, sure. The stacks. Third door on your left.”

“Thank you.” Dor went to the door and opened it wide, taking his time to pass through so that the others could get clear. He smelled the centaur and ogre, faintly, so knew they were with him.

Now they were in a region of long narrow passages between shelves loaded with boxes. Dor had no idea how to proceed, and wasn’t certain the centaur could fit within these passages, but in a moment Irene appeared and informed him that Amolde was right at home here. “But it would be better to consult with a competent archivist, he says,” she concluded.

“There is one here,” he said. “I asked.” Then another thought came. “But suppose he sics the Mundane authorities on us? He may not understand our need.”

“Amolde says academics aren’t like that. If there is a good one here, his scientific curiosity-I think that’s what they call magic here-will keep him interested. Check in that little office; that looks like an archivist’s cubby.”

Reluctantly, Dor looked. He was in luck, of what kind he was not sure.

There was a middle-aged, bespectacled man poring over a pile of papers.

“Excuse me, sir-would you like to do some research?” Dor asked.

The man looked up, blinking. “Of what nature?”

“Uh, it’s a long story. I’m trying to find a King, and I don’t know where or when he is.”

The man removed his spectacles and rubbed his tired eyes. “That would seem to be something of a challenge. What is the name of the King, and of his Kingdom?”

“King Trent of Xanth.”

The man stood up and squeezed out of his cubby. He was fairly small and stooped, with fading hair, and he moved slowly. He reminded Dor of Amolde in obscure ways. He located a large old tome, took it down, dusted it off, set it on a small table, and turned the brittle pages. “That designation does not seem to be listed.”

Irene appeared. “He would not be a King in Mundania.”

The scholar squinted at her with mild surprise. “My dear, I cannot comprehend a word you are saying.”

“Uh, she’s from another land,” Dor said quickly. Since Irene had to stand outside the magic aisle in order to be seen and heard, the magic translation effect was not operative for her. Since Dor had been raised in the same culture, he had no trouble understanding her.

It was an interesting distinction. He, Dor, could understand both the others, and both seemed to be speaking the same language, but the two could not understand each other. Magic kept coming up with new wrinkles that perplexed him.

The scholar pondered. “Oh-she is associated with a motion picture company? This is research for a historical re-creation?”

“Not exactly,” Dor said. “She’s King Trent’s daughter.”

“Oh, it is a contemporary Kingdom! I must get a more recent text.”

“No, it is a medieval one,” Dor said. “Uh, that is-well, King Trent is in another time, we think.”

The scholar paused thoughtfully. “The Kingdom you are re-creating, of course. I believe I understand.” He looked again at Irene. “Females certainly have adequate limbs in that realm.”

“What’s he saying?” Irene demanded.

“That you have nice legs,” Dor told her with a certain mild malice.

She ignored that. “What about my father?”

“Not listed in this book. I think we’ll have to try another tack.”

The scholar’s eyes shifted from Irene’s legs to Dor’s face. “This is very odd. You address her in English, and she seems to understand, but she replies in an other tongue.”

“It’s complicated to explain,” Dor said.

“I’d better check with Amolde,” Irene said, and vanished.

The Mundane scholar removed his spectacles and cleaned them carefully with a bit of tissue paper. He returned them to his face just in time to see Irene reappear. “Yes, that’s definitely better,” he murmured.

“Amolde says we’ll have to use some salient identifying trait to locate my father or mother,” Irene said. “There may be a historical reference.”

“Exactly what language is that?” the scholar asked, again fixing on Irene’s legs. He might be old and academic, but he evidently had not forgotten what was what in female appearance.

“Xanthian, I guess,” Dor said. “She says we should look for some historical reference to her parents, because of special traits they have.”

“And what would these traits be?”

“Well, King Trent transforms people, and Queen Iris is mistress of illusion.”

“Idiot!” Irene snapped. “Don’t tell him about the magic!”

“I don’t quite understand,” the scholar said. “What manner of transformation, what mode of illusion?”

“Well, it doesn’t work in Mundania,” Dor said awkwardly.

“Surely you realize that the laws of physics are identical the world over,” the scholar said. “Anything that works in the young lady’s country will work elsewhere.”

“Not magic,” Dor said, and realized he was just confusing things more.

“How dumb can you get?” Irene demanded. “I’m checking with Amolde.” She vanished again.

This time the scholar blinked more emphatically. “Strange girl!”

“She’s funny that way,’ Dor agreed weakly.

The scholar walked to the spot Irene had vacated. “Tabhf jmmvtjpo?” he inquired.

Oh, no! He was outside the magic aisle now, so the magic no longer made his language align with Dor’s. Dor could not do anything about this; the centaur would have to move. Irene reappeared right next to the scholar. Evidently she hadn’t been paying attention, for she should have been able to see him while within the magic ambience. “Oh-you’re here!” she exclaimed.

“Bnbajohl” the scholar said. “J wtu jorvjsf-“

Then the centaur moved. Irene vanished and the scholar became comprehensible. “. . . exactly how you perform that trick.” He paused. “Oops, you're gone again.”

Irene reappeared farther down the hall. “Amolde says we’ll have to tell him,” she announced. “About the magic and everything. Thanks to your bungling.”

“Really, this is amazing!” the scholar said.

“Well, I’ll have to tell you something you may find hard to believe,” Dor said.

“At this stage, I’m inclined to believe in magic itself!”

“Yes. Xanth is a land of magic.”

“In which people disappear and reappear at will? I think I would prefer to believe that than to conclude I am losing my sight.”

“Well, some do disappear. That’s not Irene’s talent, though.”

“That’s not the young lady’s ability? Then why is she doing it?”

“She’s actually stepping in and out of a magic aisle.”

“A magic aisle?”

“Generated by a centaur.”

The scholar smiled wanly. “I fear you have the advantage of me. You can imagine nonsense faster than I can assimilate it.”

Dor saw that the scholar did not believe him. “I’ll show you my own magic, if you like,” he said. He pointed to the open tome on the table. “Book, speak to the man.”

“Why should I bother?” the book demanded.

“Ventriloquism!”’ the scholar exclaimed. “I must confess you are very good at it.”

“What did you call me?” the book demanded.

“Would you do that again-with your mouth closed?” the scholar asked Dor.

Dor closed his mouth. The book remained silent. “I rather thought so,” the scholar said.

“Thought what, four-eyes?” the book asked.

Startled, the scholar looked down at it, then back at Dor. “But your mouth was closed, I’m sure.”

“It’s magic,” Dor said. “I can make any inanimate object talk.”

“Let’s accept for the moment that this is true. You are telling me that this King you are searching for can also work magic?”

“Right. Only he can’t do it in Mundania, so I guess it doesn’t count.”

“Because he has no magic centaur with him?”

“Yes.”

“I would like to see this centaur.”

“He’s protected by an invisibility spell. So the Mundanes won’t bother us.”

“This centaur is a scholar?”

“Yes. An archivist, like yourself.”

“Then he is the one to whom I should talk.”

“But the spell-“

“Abate the spell! Bring your centaur scholar forth. Otherwise I cannot help you.”

“I don’t think he’d want to do that. It would be hard to get safely out of here without that enchantment, and we have no duplicate invisibility spell.”

The scholar walked back to his cubby. “Mind you, I believe in magic no more than in the revelations of a hallucination, but I am willing to help you if you meet me hallway. Desist your parlor tricks, show me your scholar, and I will work with him to fathom the information you desire. I don’t care how fanciful his outward form may be, provided he has a genuine mind. The fact that you find it necessary to dazzle me with ventriloquism, a lovely costumed girl who vanishes, and a mythological narrative suggests that there is very little substance to your claim, and you are wasting my time. I ask you to produce your scholar or depart my presence.”

“Uh, Amolde,” Dor said. “I know it’ll be awful hard to get out of here without the spells, but maybe we could wait till night. We really need the information, and-“

Abruptly the centaur appeared, facing the scholar’s cubby. The ogre and golem stood behind him. “I agree,” Amolde said.

The scholar turned about. He beamed. “”These are rare costumes, I agree.”

Amolde strode forward, his barrel barely clearing the shelves on either side, extending his hand. “I certainly do not blame you for being impatient with the uninitiate,” he said. “You have excellent facilities here, and I know your time is valuable.”

The scholar shook the hand, seeming more reassured by Amolde’s spectacles and demeanor than confused by his form.

“What is your specially?”

“Alien archaeology-but of course there is a great deal of routine work and overlapping of chores.”

“There certainly is!” the scholar agreed. “The nuisances I have to endure here-“

The two fell into a technical dialogue that soon left Dor behind.

They became more animated as they sized up each other’s minds and information. There was now no doubt they were similar types.

Irene, bored, grew a cocoa plant in the hall, and shared the hot cups of liquid with Dor, Smash, and Grundy. They knew it was important that Amolde establish a good rapport so that they could gain the scholar’s cooperation and make progress on their request.

Time passed. The two scholars delved into ancient tomes, debated excruciatingly fine points, questioned Dor closely about the hints King Trent had given him in both person and vision, and finally wound down to an animated close. The Mundane scholar accepted a mug of cocoa, relaxing at last. “I believe we have it,” he said. “Will I see you again, centaur?”

“Surely so, sir! I am able to travel in Mundania, am fascinated by your comprehensive history, and am presently, as it were, between positions.”

“Your compatriots found your magic as intolerable in you as mine would find a similar propensity in me! I shall not be able to tell any one what I have learned this day, lest I, too, lose my position and possibly even be institutionalized. Imagine conversing with a centaur, ogre, and tiny golem! How I should love to do a research paper on your fantastic Land of Xanth, but it would hardly be believable.”

“You could write a book and call it a story,” Grundy suggested. “And Amolde could write one about Mundania.”

Both scholars looked pleased. Neither had thought of such a simple expedient.

“But do you know where my father is?” Irene demanded.

“Yes, I believe we do,”’ Amolde said. “King Trent left a message for us, we believe.”

“How could he leave a message?” she demanded.

“He left it with Dor. That, and the other hints we had, such as the fact that he was going to a medieval region, in the mountains near a black body of water. There are, my friend informs me, many places in Mundania that fit the description. So we assume it is literal; either the water itself is black, or it is called black. As it happens, there is in Mundania a large body of water called the Black Sea. Many great rivers empty into it; great mountain ranges surround it. But that is not sufficient to identify this as the specific locale we seek; it merely makes it one possibility among many.” Amolde smiled. “We spent a good deal of time on geography. As it happens, there was historically a confluence of A, B, and K people in that vicinity in medieval times-at least that is so when their names are rendered into Xanth dialect. The Avars, the Bulgars, and the Khazars. So it does seem to fit. Everything you have told us seems to fit.”

“But that isn’t enough!” Dor cried. “How can you be sure you have the place, the time?”

“Honesty,” Amolde said. “O N E S T I.” He pointed to a spot on an open book. “This, we believe, is the unique special hint King Trent gave you, to enable you and only you to locate him in an emergency.”

Dor looked. It was an atlas, with a map of some strange Mundane land. On the map was a place labeled Onesti.

“There is only one such place in the world,” Amolde said. “It has to be King Trent’s message to you. No one else would grasp the significance of that unique nomenclature.”

Dor recaped the intensity with which King Trent had spoken of honesty, as if there had been a separate meaning there. He remembered how well aware the King had been of Dor’s kind of spelling. It seemed no one else spelled it the obvious way, onesti.

“But if that’s been there-that name, there in your maps and things -for centuries-that means King Trent never came back! We can’t rescue him, because then the name would go.”

“Not necessarily,” Amolde said. “The place-name does not depend on his presence. We should be able to rescue him without disturbing it. At any rate, we are never certain of the paradoxes of time. We shall simply have to go to that location and that time, circa AD 650, and try to find him.”

“But suppose it’s wrong?” Irene asked worriedly. “Suppose he isn’t there?”

“Then we shall return here and do more research,” Amolde said. “I intend to visit here again anyway, and my friend Ichabod would like to visit Xanth. There will be no trouble about that, I assure you.”

“Yes. You will be welcome here,” the Mundane scholar agreed. “You have a fine and arcane mind.”

“For the first time,” Amolde continued, “I look upon my exile from Centaur Isle and my assumption of an obscene talent with a certain equanimity. I have not, it seems, been excluded from my calling; my horizons have been inordinately expanded.”

“And mine,” Ichabod agreed. “I must confess my contemporaneous existence was becoming tiresome, though I did not recognize this until this day.” Now the scholar sounded just like Amolde.

Perhaps some obscure wrinkle of fate had operated to bring these two together. Did luck or fate really operate in Mundania? Perhaps they did, when the magic aisle was present. “The prospect of researching in a completely new and mystical terrain is immensely appealing; it renovates my outlook.” He paused. “Ah, would there by any chance be individuals of the female persuasion remotely resembling . . . ?” His glance ticked guiltily to Irene’s legs.

“Nymphs galore,” Grundy said. “A dime a dozen.”

“Oh, you employ contemporaneous currency?” the scholar asked, surprised.

“Currency?” Dor asked blankly.

“A dime is a coin of small denomination here.”

Dor smiled. “No, a dime is a tiny object that causes things passing over it to come to a sudden stop. When it has functioned this way twelve times, its enchantment wears out. Hence our saying-“

“How marvelous. I wonder whether one of my own dimes would perform similarly there.”

“That’s the idea,” Grundy said. “Toss it in front of a troupe of gamboling nymphs, and grab the first one it stops. Nymphs don’t have much brains, but they sure have legs.” He moved farther away from Irene, who showed signs of kicking.

“Oh, I can hardly wait to commence research in Xanth!” the scholar exclaimed. “As it happens, I have a dime ready.” He brought out a tiny silver coin, his gaze once again touching on Irene’s limbs.

“I wonder.”

Irene frowned. “Sometimes I wonder just how badly I really want to rescue my folks. I’ll be lucky if my legs don’t get blistered from all the attention.” But as usual, she did not seem completely displeased. “Let’s be on our way; I don’t care what, you do, once my father is back in Xanth.”

Amolde and Ichabod shook hands, two very similar creatures. On impulse, Dor brought out one of the gold coins he had so carefully saved from the pirate’s treasure. “Please accept this, sir, as a token of our appreciation for your help.” He pressed it on the scholar.

The man hefted the coin. “That’s solid gold!” he exclaimed. “I believe it is a genuine Spanish doubloon! I cannot accept it.”

The centaur interceded. “Please do accept it, Ichabod. Dor is temporary King of Xanth; to decline would be construed as an offense to the crown.”

“But the value-?

“Let’s trade coins,” Dor said, discovering a way through. “Your dime for my doubloon. Then it is an even exchange.”

“An even exchange!” the scholar exclaimed. “In no way can this be considered-“

“Dimes are very precious in Xanth,” Amolde said. “Gold has little special value. Please acquiesce.”

“Maybe a nymph would stop on a doubloon, too,” Grundy suggested.

“She certainly would!” Ichabod agreed. “But not because of any magic. Women here are much attracted to wealth.”

“Please,” Irene put in, smiling beguilingly. Dor knew she only wanted to get moving on the search for her father, but her intercession was effective.

“In that case, I will exchange with you, with pleasure, King Dor,” the scholar agreed, giving Dor his dime. “I only meant to protest that your coin was far too valuable for whatever service I might have provided, when in fact it was a pleasure providing it anyway.”

“Nothing’s too valuable to get my father back,” Irene said. She leaned forward and kissed Ichabod on the cheek. The man froze as if he had glimpsed the Gorgon, an astonished smile on his face. It was obvious he had not been kissed by many pretty girls in his secluded lifetime.

It was now early evening. Ichabod delved into assorted cubbies and produced shrouds to conceal the bodies of the centaur and ogre.

Then Amolde and Smash walked out of the library in tandem, looking like two big workmen in togas, moving a covered crate between them. It turned out to be almost as good concealment as the in visibility spell; no one paid attention to them. They were on their way back to Xanth.

They did not go all the way back home. They trekked only to the northwest tip of Xanth, where the isthmus connected it to Mundania.

Once they were back in magic territory, Irene set about replenishing her stock of seeds. Smash knocked down a jellybarrel tree, consumed the jelly, and fashioned the swollen trunk into a passable boat. Arnolde watched the terrain, making periodic forays into Mundania, in just far enough to see whether it had changed. Dor accompanied him, questioning the sand. By the description of people the sand had recently seen, they were able to guess at the general place and time in Mundania.

For the change was continuous. Once a person from Xanth entered Mundania, his framework was fixed until he returned; but anyone who followed him might enter a different aspect of Mundania.

This was like missing one boat and boarding the next, Amolde explained; the person on the first boat could return, but the person on land could not catch a particular boat that had already departed.

“Thus King Trent had gone, they believed, to a place called “Europe,” in a time called “Medieval.” Dor’s party had gone to a place called “America,” in a time called “Modern.” The shifting of places and times seemed random; probably there was a pattern to the changes that they were unable to comprehend. They simply had to locate the combination they wanted and pass through that “window” before it changed. Amolde concluded, from their observations, that any given window lasted from five minutes to an hour, and that it was possible to hold a window open longer by having a person stand at the border; it seemed the window couldn’t quite close while it was in use. Perhaps it was like the revolving door in the Mundanian library, whose turning could be temporarily stopped by a person in it until some other person needed to use it.

On the third day it became tedious. Irene’s seed collection was complete and she was restive; Smash had finished his boat and stocked it with supplies. Grundy had made himself a nest in the bow, from which he eavesdropped on the gossip of passing marine life. Arnolde and Dor walked down the beach. “What have you seen lately?” Dor inquired routinely of the same-yet-different patch of sand.

“A man in a spacesuit,” the sand replied. “He had little antennae sprouting from his head, like an ant, and he could talk to his friends without making a sound.”

That didn’t sound like anyone Dor was looking for. Some evil Magician must have enchanted the man, perhaps trying to create a new composite-species. They turned about and returned to Xanth. This surely was not their window.

The sea changed color frequently. It had been reddish the last time they came here, and reddish when they returned, for they had been locked into that particular aspect of Mundania. But thereafter it had shifted to blue, yellow, green, and white. Now it was orange, changing to purple. When it was solid purple, they walked west again. “What have you seen lately?” Dor asked once more.

“A cavegirl swimming,” the sand said. “She was sort of fat, but oooh, didn’t she have-“

They walked east again, depressed. “I wish there were a more direct way to do this,” Amolde said. “I have been striving to analyze the pattern, but it has eluded me, perhaps because of insufficient data.”

“I know it’s not much of a life we have brought you into,” Dor said. “I wish there had been some other way-“

“On the contrary, it is a fascinating and a challenging puzzle,” the centaur demurred. “It is akin to the riddles of archaeology, where one must have patience and fortune in equal measure. We merely must gather more data, whether it takes a day or a year.”

“A year!” Dor cried, horrified.

“Surely it will be shorter,” Amolde said reassuringly. It was obvious that he had a far greater store of patience than Dor did.

As they re-entered Xanth, the sea turned black. “Black!” Dor exclaimed. “Could that be-?”

“It is possible,” Amolde agreed, tempering his own excitement with the caution of experience. “We had better alert the remainder of our company.”

“Grundy, get Smash and Irene to the boat,” Dor called. “We just might be close.”

“More likely another false alarm,” the golem grumbled. But he scampered off to fetch the other two.

When they reached their usual spot of questioning, Dor noticed that there was a large old broad-leaved tree that hadn’t been there before. This was certainly a different locale. But that in itself did not mean much; the landscape did shift with the Mundane aspects, sometimes dramatically. It was not just time but geography that changed; some aspects were flat and barren, while others were raggedly mountainous. The only thing all had in common was the beach line, with the sea to the south and the terrain to the north. Amolde was constantly intrigued by the assorted significances of this, but Dor did not pay much attention. “What have you seen lately?” he asked the sand.

“Nothing much since the King and his moll walked by,” the sand said.

“Oh.” Dor turned to trek back to the magic section.

The centaur paused. “Did it say-?”

Then it sank in. Excitement raced along Dor’s nerves. “King Trent and Queen Iris?”

“I suppose. They were sort of old.”

“I believe we have our window at last!” Amolde said. “Go back and alert the others; I shall hold the window open.”

Dor ran back east, his heart pounding harder than warranted by the exertion. Did he dare believe? “We’ve found it!” he cried. “Move out now!”

They dived into the boat. Smash poled it violently forward. Then the ogre’s effort diminished. Dor looked, and saw that Smash was striving hard but accomplishing little.

“Oh-we’re out of the magic of Xanth, and not yet in the magic aisle,” he said. “Come on-we’ve all got to help.”

Dor and Irene leaned over the boat on either side and paddled desperately with their hands, and slowly the boat moved onward.

They crawled up parallel to the centaur. “All aboard!” Dor cried, exhilarated.

Amolde trotted out through the shallow water and climbed aboard with difficulty, rocking the boat. Some sea water slopped in. The craft was sturdy, as anything crafted by an ogre was bound to be, but still reeked of lime jelly, especially where it had been wet down.

The centaur stood in the center, facing forward; Irene sat in the front, her fair green hair trailing back in the breeze. It had faded momentarily when they were between magics, just now; perhaps that had helped give Dor the hint of the problem. It remained the easiest way to tell the state of the world around them.

Dor settled near the rear of the boat, and Smash poled vigorously from the stern. Now that they were within the magic aisle, the ogre’s strength was full, and the boat was lively. The black waves coursed rapidly past.

“I wish I had known this was all we had to do to locate King Trent,” Dor said. “We could have saved ourselves the trip into Modern Mundania.”

“By no means,” Amolde protested, swishing his tail. “We might have discovered this window, true; but each window opens onto an entire Mundane world. We should soon have lost the trail and ourselves and been unable to rescue anyone. As it is, we know we are looking for Onesti and we know where it is; this will greatly facilitate our operation.” The centaur paused. “Besides which, I am most gratified to have met Ichabod.”

So their initial excursion did make sense, after all. “What sort of people do you see here?” Dor asked the water.

“Tough people with baggy clothes and swords and bows,” the water said. “They’re not much on the water, though; not the way the Greeks were.”

“Those are probably the Bulgers,” Amolde said. “They should have passed this way in the past few decades, according to Ichabod.”

“Who are the Bulgers?” Irene asked. Now that they were actually on the trail of her lost father, she was much more interested in details.

“This is complex to explain. Ichabod gave me some detail on it, but I may not have the whole story.”

“If they’re people my father met-and if we have to meet them, too-I want to know all about them.” Her face assumed her determined look.

The boat was moving well, for the ogre’s strength was formidable. The shoreline stretched ahead, curving in and out, with inlets and bays.

“We do have a journey of several days ahead of us,” the centaur said. “Time will doubtless weigh somewhat ponderously on our hands.” He took a didactic breath and started in on his historical narrative, while the ogre scowled, uninterested, and Grundy settled down in his nest to sleep. But Dor and Irene paid close attention.

In essence it was this: about three centuries before this period, there had been a huge Mundane empire in this region, called-as Dor understood it-Roaxn, perhaps because it spread so far. But after a long time this empire had grown corrupt and weak. Then from the great inland mass to the east had thrust a formerly quiescent tribe, the Huns, perhaps short for Hungries because of their appetite for power, pushing other tribes before them. These tribes had overrun the Roaming Empire, destroying a large part of it. But when the Hungry chief, Attaboy, died of indigestion, they were defeated and driven partway back east, to the shore of this Black Sea, the very color of their mood. They fought among themselves for a time, as people in a black mood do, then reunited and called themselves the Bulgers. But the Buls were driven out of their new country by another savage tribe of Turks-no relation to the turkey oaks-called the Khazars. Some Buls fled north and some fled west-and this was the region the western ones had settled, here at the western edge of the Black Sea. They couldn’t go any farther because another savage tribe was there, the Avars. The Avars had a huge empire in eastern Europe, but now it was declining, especially under the onslaught of the Khazars. At the moment, circa Mundane AD 650-the number referred to some Mundane religion to which none of these parties belonged-there was an uneasy balance in this region between the three powers, the Avars, Bulgars, and Khazars, with the Khazars dominant.

Somehow this was too complex for Dor to follow. All these strange tribes and happenings and numbers-the intricacies of Mundania were far more complicated than the simple magic events of Xanth! Easier to face down griffins and dragons than Avars and Khazars; at least the dragons were sensible creatures.

“But what has this to do with my father?” Irene demanded. “Which tribe did he go to trade with?”

“None of the above,” the centaur said. “This is merely background. It would be too dangerous for us to deal with such savages. But we believe there is a small Kingdom, maybe a Gothic remnant, or some older indigenous people, who have retained nominal independence in the Carpathian Mountains, with a separate language and culture. They happen to be at the boundary between the Avars, Bulgars, and Khazars, protected to a degree because no one empire can make a move there without antagonizing the other two, and also protected by the roughness of the terrain. Hence the A, B, K complex King Trent referenced-a valuable clue for us. A separate region is the Kingdom of Onesti. It is ensconced in the mountains, difficult to invade, and has very little that others would want to take, which may help account for its independence. But it surely is eager for peaceful and profitable trade, and Ichabod’s Mundane reference suggests that it did have a trade route that has been lost to history, which enabled the Kingdom to prosper for a century when their normal channels appeared to be blocked. That could be the trade route to Xanth that King Trent sought to establish.”

“Yes, that does make sense,” Irene agreed. “But suppose one of those other tribes caught my father, and that’s why he never returned?”

“We shall trace him down,” the centaur said reassuringly. “We have an enormous asset King Trent lacked-magic. All we need to do is go to Onesti and query the people, plants, animals, and objects. There will surely be news of him.”

Irene was silent. Dor shared her concern. Now that they were on the verge of finding King Trent-how could they be certain they would find him alive? If he were dead, what then?

“Are we going to have to fight all those A’s, B’s, and K’s?” Grundy asked. Apparently he had not been entirely asleep.

“I doubt it,” Amolde replied. “Actual states of war are rarer than they seem in historical perspective. The great majority of the time, life goes on as usual; the fishermen fish, the blacksmiths hammer iron, the farmers farm, the women bear children. Otherwise there would be constant deprivation. However, I have stocked a friendship-spell for emergency use.” He patted his bag of spells.

They went on, the ogre poling indefatigably. Gradually the shoreline curved southward, and they followed it. When dusk came they pulled ashore briefly to make a fire and prepare supper; then they returned to the boat for the night, so as not to brave the Mundane threats of the darkness. There were few fish and no monsters in the Black Sea, Grundy reported; it was safe as long as a storm did not come up.

Now Amolde expended one of his precious spells. He opened a wind capsule, orienting it carefully. The wind blew southwest, catching the small squat sat they raised for the purpose. Now the ogre could rest, while the boat coursed on toward their destination. They took turns steering it, Grundy asking the fish and water plants for directions, Dor asking the water, and Irene growing a compass plant that pointed toward the great river they wanted.

That reminded Dor of the magic compass. He brought it out and looked, hoping it would point to King Trent. But it pointed straight at Amolde, and when Amolde held it, it pointed to Dor. It was useless in this situation.

Sleep was not comfortable on the water, but it was possible. Dor lay down and stared at the stars, wide awake; then the stars abruptly shifted position, and he realized he had slept; now he was wide awake. They shifted again. Then he was wide awake again-when Grundy woke him to take his turn at the helm. He had, it seemed, been dreaming he was wide awake. That was a frustrating mode; he would almost have preferred the nightmares.

In the morning they were at the monstrous river delta-a series of bars, channels, and islands, through which the slow current coursed.

Now Smash had to unship the two great oars he had made, face back, and row against the current. Still the boat moved alertly enough. Irene grew pastry plants and fed their pastry-flower fruits to the ogre so he would not suffer the attrition of hunger. Smash gulped them down entire without pausing in his efforts; Dor was almost jealous of the creature’s sheer zest for food and effort.

No, he realized upon reflection. He was jealous of the attention Irene was paying Smash. For all that he, Dor, did not want to be considered the property of any girl, especially not this one, he still became resentful when Irene’s attention went elsewhere. This was unreasonable, he knew; Smash needed lots of food in order to continue the enormous effort he was making. This was the big thing the ogre was contributing to their mission-his abundant strength. Yet still it gnawed at Dor; he wished he had enormous muscles and endless endurance, and that Irene was popping whole pies and tarts into his mouth.

Once, Dor remembered, he had been big-or at least had borrowed the body of a powerful barbarian-maybe an Avar or a Bulgar or a Khazar-and had discovered that strength did not solve all problems or bring a person automatic happiness. But at the moment, his selfish feelings didn’t go along with the sensible thinking of his mind.

“Sometimes I wish I were an ogre,” Grundy muttered.

Suddenly Dor felt better.

All day they heaved up the river, leaving the largest channel for a smaller one, and leaving that for another and still smaller one. There were some fishermen, but they didn’t look like A’s, B’s, or K’s, and they took a look at the size and power of the ogre and left the boat alone. Arnolds had been correct; the ordinary Mundane times were pretty dull, without rampaging armies everywhere. In this respect Mundania was similar to Xanth.

Well upstream, they drew upon the shore and camped for the night. Dor told the ground to yell an alarm if anything approached-anything substantially larger than ants-and they settled down under another umbrella tree Irene grew. It was just as well, for during the night it rained.

On the third day they forged up a fast-flowing tributary stream, ascending the great Carpath range. Some places they had to portage; Smash merely picked up the entire boat, upright, balanced it on his corrugated head, steadied it with his gauntleted hamhands, and trudged up through the rapids.

“If you don’t have your full strength yet,” Dor commented, “you must be close to it.”

“Ungh,” Smash agreed, for once not having the leisure to rhyme.

Ogres were the strongest creatures of Xanth, size for size-but some monsters were much larger, and others more intelligent, so ogres did not rule the jungle. Smash and his parents were the only ogres Dor had met, if he didn’t count his adventure into Xanth’s past, where he had known Egor the zombie ogre; they were not common creatures today. Perhaps that was just as well; if ogres were as common as dragons, who would stand against them?

At last, on the afternoon of the third day, they came to the Kingdom of Onesti, or at least its main fortress, Castle Onesti. Dor marveled that King Trent and Queen Iris, traveling alone without magic, could have been able to get here in similar time. Maybe they underestimated the arduousness of the journey. Well, it would soon be known.

Dor tried to question the stones and water of the river, but the water wasn’t the same from moment to moment and so could not remember, and the stones claimed that no one had portaged up here in the past month. Obviously the King had taken another route, probably an easier one. Perhaps the King of Onesti had sent an escort, and they had ridden Mundane horses up a horse trail. Yes, that was probably it.

They drew up just in sight of the imposing castle. Huge stones formed great walls, leading up to the front entrance. There was no moat; this was a mountain fastness. “Do we knock on the door, or what?” Irene asked nervously.

“Your father told me honesty is the best policy,” Dor said, masking his own uncertainty. “I assume that wasn’t just a riddle to suggest where he went. We can approach openly. We can tell them we’re from Xanth and are looking for King Trent. Maybe they have no connection to whatever happened-if anything happened. But let’s not go out of our way to tell them about our magic. Just in case.”

“Just in case,” she agreed tightly.

They marched up to the front entrance. That seemed to be the only accessible part of the edifice anyway; the wall passed through a forest on the south to merge cleverly with the clifflike sides of the mountain to the west and north. They were at the east face, where the approach was merely steep. “No wonder no one has conquered this little Kingdom,” Irene murmured.

“I agree,” Arnolde said. “No siege machinery could get close, and a catapult would have to operate from the valley below. Perhaps it could be taken, but it hardly seems worth the likely cost.”

Dor knocked. They waited. He knocked again. Still no response.

Then Smash tapped the door with one finger, making it shudder.

Now a window creaked open in the middle of the door. A face showed behind bars. “Who are you?” the guard demanded.

“I am Dor of Xanth. I have come to see King Trent of Xanth, who, I believe, is here.”

“Who?”

“King Trent, imbecile!” one of the bars snapped.

The guard’s head jerked back, startled. “What?”

“You got a potato in your ear?” the bar demanded.

“Stop it,” Dor mumbled at the bars. The last thing he wanted was the premature exposure of his talent! Then, quickly, louder: “We wish to see King Trent.”

“Wait,” the guard said. The window slammed closed.

But Smash, tired from his two days’ labors, was irritable. “No wait, ingrate!” he growled, and before Dor knew what was happening, the ogre smashed one sledgehammer fist into the door. The heavy wood splintered.

He punched right through, then caught the far side of the door with his thick gauntleted fingers and hauled violently back. The entire door ripped free of its bolts and hinges. He put his other hand on the little barred window and hefted the door up and over his head, while the other people ducked hastily.

“Now see what you’ve- done, you moronic brute,” Amolde said.

But somehow the centaur did not seem completely displeased. He, too, was tired and irritable from the journey, and the welcome at Castle Onesti had not been polite.

The guard stood inside, staring, as the ogre hurled the great door down the mountainside. “Take us to your leader,” Dor said calmly, as if this were routine. All he could do, after all, was make the best of the situation, and poise counted for a lot. “We don’t want my friend to get impatient.”

The guard turned about somewhat dazedly and led the way to the interior of the castle. Other guards came charging up, attracted by the commotion, swords drawn. Smash glared at them and they hastily faded back, swords sheathed.

Soon they came to the main banquet hall, where the King of Onesti held sway. The King sat at the bead of an immense wooden table piled with puddings. He stood angrily as Dor approached, his huge belly bulging out over the table. “H edlzme sn jmny sgd ldzmhmf timesghr hmsqtrhnm-?” he demanded, his fat face reddening impressively.

Then Amolde’s magic aisle caught up, and the King became intelligible.

“. . . before I have you all thrown in the dungeon!”

“Hello,” Dor said. “I am Dor, temporary King of Xanth while King Trent is away.” Of course, the Zombie Master was temporary-temporary King now, while Dor himself was away, but that was too complicated to explain at the moment. “He came here on a trading mission, I believe, less than a month ago, and has not returned. So I have come to look for him. What’s the story?”

The King scowled. Suddenly Dor knew this approach had been an wrong, that King Trent had not come here, that the people of Onesti knew nothing about him. This was all a mistake.

“I am King Oary of Onesti,” the King said from out of his glower, “and I never saw this King Trench of yours. Get out of my Kingdom.”

Despair struck Dor-but behind him Amolde murmured: “That person is prevaricating, I believe.”

“On top of that, he’s lying,” Irene muttered.

“Glib fib,” Smash said. He set one hamhand down on the banquet table gently. The bowls of pudding jumped and quivered nervously.

King Oary considered the ogre. His ruddy face paled. His righteous anger dissolved into something like guilty cunning. “However, I may have news of him,” he said with less bellicosity. “Join my feast, and I will query my minions.”

Dor didn’t like this. King Oary did not impress him favorably, and he did not feel like eating with the man. But the puddings looked good, and he did want Oary’s cooperation. He nodded reluctant assent.

The servants hurried up with more chairs for Dor, Irene, and Smash.

Grundy, too small for a chair, perched instead on the edge of the table. Arnolde merely stood. More puddings were brought in, together with flagons of beverage, and they all pitched in.

The pudding was thick, with fruit embedded, and surprisingly tasty. Dor soon found himself thirsty, for the pudding was highly spiced, so he drank-and found the beverage a cross between sweet beer and sharp wine from indifferent beerbarrel and winekeg trees.

He hadn’t realized that such trees grew in Mundania; certainly they did not grow as well. But the stuff was heady and good once he got used to it.

The others were eating as happily. They had all developed quite an appetite in the course of their trek up the mountain river, and had not paused to grow a meal of their own before approaching the castle. Smash, especially, tossed down puddings and flagons of drink with an abandon that set the castle servants gaping.

But the drink was stronger than what they were accustomed to.

Dor soon found his awareness spinning pleasantly. Grundy began a little dance on the table, a routine he had picked up from a Mundane immigrant to Xanth. He called it the Drunken Sailor’s Hornpipe, and it did indeed look drunken. King Oary liked it, applauding with his fat hands.

Arnolde and Irene ate more diffidently, but the centaur’s mass required plenty of sustenance, and he was making good progress.

Irene, it seemed, loved puddings, so she could not hold back long.

“Zrne vgn lhfgs wt ad, ezhq czlrdk?” King Oary asked Irene pleasantly. oops-they were seated along the table, with the King at the end.

The King was beyond the aisle of magic. But Amolde grasped the problem quickly, and angled his body so that he now faced the King.

That would extend the magic far enough.

Irene, too, caught on. “Were you addressing me, Your Majesty?” she asked demurely. Dor had to admit she was very good at putting on maidenly ways.

“Of course. What other fair damsels are in this hall?”

She colored slightly, looking about as if to spy other girls. She was getting more practiced at this sort of dissemblance. “’Thank you so much, Your Majesty.”

“What is your lineage?”

“Oh, I’m King Trent’s daughter.”

The King nodded sagely. “I’m sure you are prettier than your mother.”

Did that mean something? Dor continued eating, listening, hoping Irene could get some useful information from the obese monarch.

There was something odd here, but Dor did not know how to act until he had more definite information.

“Have you any news of my parents?” Irene inquired, having the wit and art to smile fetchingly at the King. Yet again Dor had to suppress his unreasoning jealousy. “I’m so worried about them.” And she pouted cutely. Dor hadn’t seen her use that expression before; it must be a new one.

“My henchmen are spying out information now,” the King reassured her. “Soon we should have what news there is.”

Amolde glanced at Dor, a fleeting frown on his face. He still did not trust Oary.

“Tell me about Onesti,” Irene said brightly. “It seems like such a nice little Kingdom.”

“Oh, it is, it is,” the King agreed, his eyes focusing on what showed of her legs. “Two fine castles and several villages, and some very pretty mountains. For centuries we have fought off the savages; two thousand years ago, this was the heartland of the battle-axe people, the Cimmerians. Then the Scyths came on their horses, driving the footbound Cimmerians south. Horses had not been seen in this country before; they seemed like monsters from some fantasy land.”

The King paused to chew up another pudding. Monsters from a fantasy land-could that refer to Xanth? Dor wondered. Maybe some nightmares found a way out, and turned Mundane, and that was the origin of day horses. It was an intriguing speculation.

“But here at the mountains,” the King resumed, wiping pudding crust from his whiskers, “the old empire held. Many hundreds of years later the Sarmatians drove out the Scyths, but did not penetrate this fastness.”

He belched contentedly. “Then came the Goths-but still we held the border. Then from the south came the horrible civilian Romans, and from the east the Huns.”

“Ah, the Huns,” Irene agreed, as if she knew something about them.

“But still Onesti survived, here in the mountains, unconquered though beset by barbarians,” the King concluded. “Of course we had to pay tribute sometimes, a necessary evil. Yet our trade is inhibited. If we interact too freely with the barbarians, there will surely be mischief. Yet we must have trade if we are to survive.”

“My father came to trade,” Irene said.

“Perhaps he got sidetracked by the dread Khazars, or their Magyar minions,” King Oary suggested. “I have had some dealings with those; they are savage, cunning brutes, always alert for spoils. I happen to speak their language, so I know.”

Dor decided he would have to do some searching on his own, questioning the objects in this vicinity. But not right now, while the King was watching. He was sure the King was hiding something.

“Have you been King of Onesti for a long time?” Irene inquired innocently.

“Not long,” Oary admitted. “My nephew Omen was to be King, but he was underage, so I became regent when my brother died. Then Omen went out hunting-and did not return. We fear he strayed too far and was ambushed by the Khazars or Magyars. So I am King, until we can declare Omen officially dead. There is no hope of his survival, of course, but the old council moves very slowly on such matters.”

So King Oary was in fact regent during the true King’s absence-much as Dor was, in Xanth. But this King was eager to retain the throne. Had there been foul play by other than the Khazars?

Dor found his head on the table, contesting for space with a pudding. He must have gotten quite sleepy? “What’s going on?” he mumbled.

“You’ve been drugged, you fool, that’s what,” the table whispered in his ear. “There’s more in that rotgut than booze, I’ll tell you!”

Dor reacted with shock, but somehow his head did not rise.

“Drugged? Why?”

“’Cause the Imposter King doesn’t like you, that’s why,” the table said. “He always drugs his enemies. That’s how he got rid of King Omen, and then that fake Magician King.”

Magician King! It was funny, whispering with his head on the table, but fairly private. Dor’s nose was almost under the pudding.

“Was that King Trent?”

“That’s what he called himself. But he couldn’t do magic. He drank the drink, all-trusting the way they all are, the fools, and went to sleep just like you. You’re all such suckers.”

“Smash! Grundy!” Dor cried as loudly as he could, his head still glued to the table. “We’ve been betrayed! Drugged! Break out of here!”

But now many guards charged into the hall. “Remove this carrion,” King Oary commanded. “Throw them in the dungeon. Don’t damage the girl; she’s too pretty to waste. Put the freak horse in the stable.”

Smash, who had gulped huge quantities of the drugged drink, nevertheless had strength to rouse himself and fight. Dor heard the noise, but was facing the wrong way. Guards charged, and screamed, and retreated. “Give it to them, ogre!” Grundy cried, dancing on the table. “Tear them up!”

But then the violence abated. “Hey, don’t slow down now!” Grundy called. “What’s the matter with you?”

Dor knew what had happened. Smash had wandered outside the magic aisle, and lost his supernatural strength. Now the flagons of drugged drink took their toll, as they would on any normal creature.

“Me sleep a peep,” Smash said, the last of his magic expended in the rhyme.

Dor knew this fight was lost. “Get out of here, Grundy,” he said with a special effort. “Before you sleep, too. Don’t let them catch you.” The unconsciousness overcame Dor.

Dor woke with a headache. He was lying on sour-smelling hay in a dark cell. As he moved, something skittered away. He suspected it was a rat; he understood they abounded in Mundania. Maybe that was a blessing; the magic creatures of the night could be horrible in Xanth.

There was the sound of muted sobbing. Dor held his breath a moment to make certain it wasn’t himself.

He sat up, peering through the gloom to find some vestige of light.

There was a little, which grew brighter as his eyes acclimatized; it seemed to be a candle in the distance. But there was a wall in the way; the light filtered through the cracks.

He oriented on the sobbing. It was from an adjacent chamber, separated from his own by massive stone pilings and huge wood timbers.

This must be the lower region of the castle, these cells hollowed out from around the foundations. There were gaps between the supports, big enough for him to pass his arm through but not his body.

“Irene?” he asked.

“Oh, Dor!” she answered immediately, tearfully. “I thought I was alone! What has become of us?”

“We were drugged and thrown in the dungeon,” he said. “King Oary must have done the same to your parents, before.” He couldn’t quite remember where he had gotten that notion, or how he himself had been drugged; his memory was foggy on recent details.

“But why? My father came only to trade!”

“I don’t know. But I think King Oary is a usurper. Maybe he murdered the rightful King, and your folks found out. Oary knew he couldn’t fool us long, so he practiced his treachery on us, too.”

“What do we do now?” she demanded hysterically. “Oh, Dor, I’ve never felt so horrible!”

“I think it’s the drug,” he said. “I feel bad, too. That should wear off. If we have our magic, we may be able to get free. Do you have your bag of seeds?”

She checked. “No. Only my clothing. Do you have your gold and gems?”

Dor checked. “No. They must have searched us and taken everything they thought was valuable or dangerous. I don’t have my sword either.” But then his questing fingers found something small. “I do have the jar of salve, not that it’s much good here. And my midnight sunstone; it fell into the jacket lining. Let me see.” He brought it out. “No, I guess not. This has no light.”

“Where are the others?”

“I’ll check,” he said. “Floor, where are my companions?”

There was no answer. “That means we have no magic. Amolde must be in the stable.” He seemed to remember something about that, foggily.

“What about Smash and Grundy?”

“Me here,” the ogre said from the opposite cell. “Head hurt. Strength gone.”

Now Dor had no further doubt; the magic was gone. The ogre wasn’t rhyming, and no doubt Irene’s hair had lost its color. Magic had strange little bypaths and side effects, where loss was somehow more poignant than that of the major aspects. But those major ones were vital; without his magic strength, Smash could probably not break free of the dungeon.

“Grundy?” Dor called inquiringly.

There was no answer. Grundy, it seemed, had escaped capture. That was about the extent of their good fortune.

“Me got gauntlets,” Smash said.

Include one more item of fortune. If the ogre should get his strength back, those gauntlets would be a big help. Probably the castle guards had not realized the gauntlets were not part of the ogre, since Smash had used them for eating. The ogreish lack of manners had paid off in this respect.

Dor’s head was slowly clearing. He tried the door to his cell. It was of solid Mundane wood, worn but far too tough to break. Too tough, too, for Smash, in his present condition; the ogre tried and couldn’t budge his own door. Unless the centaur came within range, none of them had any significant lever for freedom.

The doors seemed to be barred by some unreachable mechanism outside: inside, the slimy stone floor was interrupted only by a disposal sump-a small but deep hole that reeked of old excrement. Obviously no one would be released for sanitary purposes either.

Smash banged a fist against a wall. “Ow!” he exclaimed. “Now me miss centaur!”

“He does have his uses,” Dor agreed. “You know, Smash, Arnolde didn’t really usurp Chet’s place. Chet couldn’t come with us anyway, because of his injury, and Amolde didn’t want to. We pretty much forced him into it, by revealing his magic talent.”

“Ungh,” the ogre agreed. “Me want out of here. No like be weak.”

“I think we’ll have to wait for whatever King Oary plans for us,” Dor said grimly. “If he planned to kill us, he wouldn’t have bothered to lock us in here.”

“Dor, I’m scared, really scared,” Irene said. “I’ve never been a prisoner before.”

Dor peered out through the cracks in his door. Had the flickering candle shadow moved? The guard must be coming in to eavesdrop.

Naturally King Oary would want to know their secrets-and Irene just might let out their big one before she realized. He had to warn her-without the guard catching on. They just might turn this to their advantage.

He went to the wall that separated them. “It win be a good idea to plan our course of action,” he said. “If they question us, tell them what they want to know. There’s no point in concealing anything, since we’re innocent.” He managed to reach his arm through the crevice in the wall nearest her. “But we don’t want them to force us into any false statements.” His hand touched something soft. It was Irene. She made a soft “Eeek!” then grasped his hand.

“Let me review our situation,” Dor said. “I am King during King Trent’s absence.” He squeezed her hand once. “You are King Trent’s daughter.” He squeezed again, once. “Amolde the Centaur is also a Prince among his people.” This time he squeezed twice.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “Amolde’s not-“ She broke off as he squeezed several times, hard. Then she began to catch on; she was a bright enough girl. “Not with us now,” she concluded, and squeezed his hand once.

“If the centaur does not return to his people on schedule, they will probably come after him with an army,” Dor said, squeezing twice.

“A big army,” she agreed, returning the two squeezes. “With many fine archers and spear throwers, thirsty for blood, and a big catapult to loft huge stones against the castle.” She was getting into it now. They had their signals set; one squeeze for truth, two for falsehood. That way they could talk privately, even if someone were eavesdropping.

“I’m glad we’re alone,” he said, squeezing twice. “So we can talk freely.”

“Alone,” she agreed, with the double squeeze. Yes, now she knew why he was doing this. She was a smart girl, and he liked that; nymphlike proportions did not have to indicate nymphlike stupidity.

“We have no chance to break out of here ourselves,” Dor said, squeezing twice. “We have no resources they don’t already know about.” Two.

“We don’t have magical powers or anything,” she agreed with an emphatic double squeeze.

“But maybe it would be better to let them think we have magic,” Dor said, not squeezing. “That might make them treat us better.”

“There is that,” she agreed. “If the guards thought we could zap them through the walls, they might let us out.”

“Maybe we should figure out something to fool them with,” he said, this time squeezing once. “Something to distract them while the centaur army is massing. Like growing plants very fast. If they thought you could grow a tree and burst out the ceiling and maybe make this castle collapse-“

“They would take me out of this cell and keep me away from seeds,” she said. “Then maybe I could escape and set out some markers so the centaurs can find us more quickly.”

“Yes. But you can’t just tell the Mundanes about growing things; it has to seem that they forced it out of you. And you’ll need some good excuse in case they challenge you to grow something. You could say the time of the month is wrong, or-“

“Or that I have to do it in a stable,” she said. “That would get me out of the heavily guarded area. By the time they realize it’s a fake, and that I can’t grow anything, I may have escaped.”

“Yes.” But had they set this up correctly? Would it trick the guards into taking Irene to the stable where Amolde might be, or would they not bother? This business of deception was more difficult than he had thought.

Then she signaled alarm. “What about Smash? They’ll want to know how he tore off the front gate, when he can’t do a thing now.”

Dor thought fast. “We have to hide from them the fact that the ogre is strong only when he’s angry. The guard at the gate insulted Smash, so naturally he tore off the gate. But King Oary gave him a good meal, so he wasn’t really angry despite getting drugged. Maybe we can trick a guard into saying something mean to Smash, or depriving him of food or water. When Smash gets hungry, he gets mean. And he has a big appetite. If they try starving him, watch out! He’ll blow his top and tear this cellar apart!”

“Yes,” she agreed. “That’s really our best hope. Ill-treatment. We don’t even need to trick anybody. All we have to do is wait. By midday tomorrow Smash will be storming. We’ll all escape over the dead bodies of the guards who get in the way. We may not need the centaurs at all!”

Something caught Dor’s eye. He squeezed Irene’s hand to call her attention to it. The guard was quietly moving. No doubt a hot report was going upstairs.

“You’re an idiot,” Irene murmured, squeezing his hand twice. “You get these fool notions to fool our captors, and they’ll never work. I don’t know why I even talk to you.”

“Because it’s better than talking to the rats,” he said without squeezing.

“Rats!” she cried, horrified. “Where?”

“I thought I saw one when I woke. Maybe I was wrong.”

“No, this is the kind of place they like.” She squeezed his hand, not with any signal. “Oh, Dor-we’ve got to get out of here!”

“They may take you out pretty soon, to verify that you can’t grow plants.”

She squeezed his hand seamingly. “They already know.” Actually, the purpose of the fake dialogue had been to convince their captors that Dor and Irene had no magic. Then if they somehow got the chance to use magic, the guards would be caught completely by surprise. In addition, they had probably guaranteed good treatment for Smash-if their ruse had been effective.

Soon a wan crack of dawn filtered in through the ceiling near what they took to be the east wall. But the angle was wrong, and Dor finally concluded that they were incarcerated against the west wan, above the cliff, with the light entering only by chance reflection; it would have been much brighter on the other side. No chance to tunnel out, even if they had the strength; what use to step off the cliff?

Guards brought Smash a huge basket of bread and a barrel of water.

“Food!” the ogre exclaimed happily, and crunched up entire loaves in single mouthfuls, as was his wont. Then, perceiving that neither Dor nor Irene had been served, he hurled several loaves through to them. Dor squeezed one through the crevice to Irene.

The water was harder to manage. No cups had been provided, but Dor’s thirst abruptly intensified, perhaps in reaction to the wine of the day before. He finally borrowed and filled one of the ogre’s gauntlets and jammed that through to Irene.

“Tastes like sour sweat,” she complained. But she drank it, then shoved the gauntlet back. Dor drank the rest of it, agreeing with her analysis of the taste, and returned the gauntlet to Smash with due thanks. Sweat-flavored water was much better than thirst.

“Give me your hand again,” Irene said.

Thinking she had more strategy to discuss, Dor passed his right arm through the crack, gnawing on a loaf held in his left. “That was a mean thing you did, getting me food,” she murmured, squeezing twice.

“Well, you know I don’t like you,” Dor told her, returning the double squeeze. He wasn’t sure this mattered to their eavesdropper, but the reversals were easy enough to do.

“I never liked you,” she returned in kind. “In fact, I think I hate you.” What was she saying? The double squeeze suggested reversal, the opposite of what she said. Reverse hate? “What would I want with an ugly girl like you anyway?” he demanded.

There was a long pause. Dor stared through the crack, seeing a strand of her hair, and, as he had expected, it had lost its green tint.

Then he realized he had forgotten to squeeze. Belatedly he did so, twice.

“Ugly, huh?” She squirmed about, bringing something soft into contact with his palm. “Is that ugly?”

“I’m not sure what it is,” Dor said. He squeezed experimentally.

“Eeek!” she yiped, and swatted his hand.

“Ugly as sin,” he said, trying to picture female anatomy so as to ascertain what he had pinched. It certainly had been interesting! “I’ll bite your hand,” she threatened, in their old game.

“There are teeth there?” he inquired, surprised.

For an instant she choked, whether on mirth or anger he could not quite tell. “With my mouth, I’ll bite,” she clarified. But only her lips touched his fingers.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

She kissed his hand twice more.

“Ouch!” Dor cried.

Now she bit him, lightly, twice. He wasn’t sure what mood this signified.

It was a new variant of an old game, perhaps no more, but it caused Dor to think about his relationship with Irene. He had known her since childhood. She had always been jealous of his status as magician and had always taunted him and sicked her plants on him-yet always, too, had been the underlying knowledge that they were destined for each other. He had resisted that as violently as she-but as they grew older, the sexual element had begun to manifest, at first in supposedly innocent games and accidental exposures, then more deviously but seriously. When he had been twelve and she eleven, they had kissed for the first time with feeling, and the experience had shaken them both. Since then their quarreling had been tempered by the knowledge that each could give a new kind of joy to the other, potentially, when conditions were right. Irene’s recent development of body had intensified that awareness, and their spats had had a voyeuristic element, such as when they had torn the clothes off each other in the moat. Now, when they could not be sure of their fate, and in the absence of anything else to do, this relationship had become much more important. For the moment, almost literally, all he had was Irene. Why should they quarrel in what might be their last hours?

“Yes, I definitely hate you,” Irene said, nipping delicately at the tip of one of his fingers twice, as if testing it for digestibility.

“I hate you, too,” Dor said, trying to squeeze but only succeeding in poking his finger into her mouth. His whole being seemed to concentrate on that hand and whatever it touched, and the caress of her lips was excruciatingly exciting.

“I wish I could never see you again,” she said, hugging his hand to her bosom.

This was getting pretty serious! Yet he found that he felt the same.

He never wanted to leave her. They weren’t even squeezing now, playing the game of reversal with increasing intensity and comprehension. Was this merely a reaction to the fear of extinction? He could not be sure-but was unable to resist the current of emotion. “I wish I could . . . hurt you,” he said, having trouble formulating a properly negative concept.

“I’d hurt you back!’ She hugged his hand more tightly.

“I’d like to grab you and-“ Again the problem.

“And what?” she demanded, and once more he found his hand encountering strange anatomy, or something. His inability to identify it was driving him crazy! Was it limb or torso, above or below the waist-and which did he want it to be?

“And squeeze you to pieces,” he said, giving a good squeeze. That moat-scene had been nothing, compared with this.

This time she did not make any sound of protest. “I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man alive,” she whispered.

She had upped the ante again! She was talking of marriage! Dor was stunned, unable to respond.

She caressed his hand intimately. “Would you?” she prompted.

Dor had not thought much about marriage, despite his involvement in Good Magician Humfrey’s wedding. He somehow thought of marriage as the perquisite of old people, like his parents, and King Trent, and Humfrey.

He, Dor, was only sixteen! Yet in Xanth the age of consent coincided with the age of desire. If a person thought he was old enough to marry, and wished to do so, and had a willing bride, he could make the alliance. Thus a marriage could be contracted at age twelve, or at age one hundred; Magician Humfrey had hardly seemed ready even at that extreme!

Did he want to marry? When he thought of the next few hours, perhaps his last, he wanted to, for he had known he would have to marry before his life was out. It was a requirement of Kingship, like being a Magician. But when he thought of a lifetime in Xanth, he wasn’t sure. There was a lot of time, and so much could happen in a lifetime! As Humfrey had said: there were positive and negative aspects. “I don’t know,” he said.

“You don’t know!” she flared. “Oh, I hate you!” And she bit his hand, once, and her sharp teeth cut the flesh painfully. Oh, yes, this was getting serious!

Dor tried to jerk his hand away, but she clung to it. “You oaf! You ingrate!” she exclaimed. “You man!-“ And her face pressed against his hand, moistly.

Moistly? Yes, she was crying. Perhaps there was art to it; nevertheless this unnerved Dor. If she felt that strongly, could he afford to feel less? Did he feel less?

Then a tidal swell of emotion flooded him. What did it matter how much time there was, or how old he was, or where they were? He did love her.

“I would not,” he said, and tweaked her slick nose twice.

She continued crying into his hand, but now there was a gentler feeling to it. She was no longer angry with him; these were tears of joy.

It seemed they were engaged.