Faun and Games (42 page)

twins may pout-" As she spoke, Dawn & Eve pouted prettily.
 
"But they

know the mission is quite serious, and will do their best.
 
They know

that this is the only way to save their father, Prince Dolph." And at

that the twins were abruptly serious.

"Can you tell me just what the situation is?
 
We passed a number of

lines as we approached the castle, but don't know what they mean."

The King sighed.
 
"They mean that the human sector of Ptero is being

marginalized.
 
Some hostile force is laying siege to us, and has already

limited us to the immediate region of the castle, so that we can't range

through our lives and be-lome young or old as we choose. This means that

I am stuck at age forty, which is definitely not comfortable for a

woman, and so is my sister Ida.
 
But that's the least of it.
 
All the

human beings of this territory have been lost to the margins, so that

only the six of us you see here remain.
 
Soon all of us will be gone, if

you are not able to guide the twins successfully."

"All are gone?" Imbri asked, appalled.

"All," Ivy said firmly.
 
"At first we sent folk out to try to deal with

it, but none of them returned.
 
Even Magicians and Sorceresses were

lost.
 
Our daughters Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm are gone, and my

grandparents Magician Trent and Sorceress Iris, and Grey's parents

Magician Murphy and Sorceress Vadne.
 
They went out and got caught by

the margins."

"The margins," Forrest repeated.
 
"Those are the lines?"

"Yes.
 
They appear suddenly, and whatever is caught within them is lost.

Sometimes we can see their forms faintly within their enclosures, but we

can't reach them."

"You can't cross the lines?" Forrest asked.

"We can't cross.
 
They are like glass walls, impenetrable."

"But we crossed them without difficulty."

"They seem to be one way walls," Grey explained.
 
"My talent is to

nullify magic, but I have not been able to nullify the margins.
 
I think

it is because they are merely the effects of some distant magic, which I

can't reach.
 
Similarly Eve's talent is to know anything about anything

inanimate, but she can't discover anything about the margins.
 
So it may

be that they aren't really there, though their effects certainly are.

Did you try to cross any margins the other way?"

Forrest exchanged a chagrined glance with Imbri.
 
"No.
 
It didn't occur

to us.
 
But still, how can folk be trapped behind the walls, then?

Why don't they cross in toward the castle?"

"When the margins are laid down, they seem to exert control over

whatever they enclose," Grey said.
 
"The inanimate things remain as they

were, but the animate things become ghostly.
 
You are the first folk to

pass through them and reach us, since the marginalization began a few

weeks ago.
 
On occasion we have seen birds from elsewhere fly in, but

soon they drop into a marginalized segment and become ghostly."

"But then that should have happened to us, too," Imbri said.

"We would have thought so," Ivy agreed.
 
"But we are very glad you got

through."

"The blanket!" Forrest exclaimed.
 
"It must have helped."

"Blanket?" Princess Ida asked.

"He has a blanket of obscurity that Cathryn Centaur gave us," Imbri

said.

"Cathryn!" Eve said, her dark eyes brightening like stars.
 
"Is she all

right?"

"Yes, she's fine," Imbri answered.
 
"She's the one who told us to come

to you twins.
 
But how do you know her, since you live beyond her limit

of old age?"

Eve smiled.
 
"Our From limit comes close to her To limit.
 
We used to

explore that way, and we met her.
 
We were so small that we had gotten

lost, but she called out to us and directed us back To, so that we were

all right."

"So we like her, and feel that we owe her a service," Dawn said. "But we

have found no way to render it."

"That must be why she sent us to you," Forrest said.
 
"She knew that you

would help us in our search, since she couldn't."

"Search?" Eve asked.

"I am looking for a faun for a tree in Xanth.
 
That is what brought us

to Ptero.
 
Everything else constitutes the complications of that

search."

"Things do get complicated," King Ivy agreed.
 
"By any chance, did the

Good Magician in Xanth send you to Ptero?"

"Yes," Forrest agreed.
 
"And the Good Magician in Ptero sent us-" He

paused.
 
"Why, he must have chained himself, I mean, made a chain from

himself to himself, to get help to you from Xanth!

He sent us to his other self, here, and then-" He paused, momentarily

confused by the complication of it.

"It isn't easy to fathom Humfrey's ways," Grey agreed.
 
"But they always

make sense at the end.
 
I came to appreciate that during the years when

I worked for him."

"But I'm still just a faun," Forrest said.
 
"I can't do any special

magic, and I don't know a whole lot.
 
How could I possibly succeed,

where Magicians and Sorceresses have failed?"

"If the Good Magician believes you can succeed, then I'm sure it's

true," Grey said.
 
Then he looked thoughtful.
 
"Tell me, Forrest: do you

happen to know Princess Ida's talent?"

"Yes.
 
It's the Idea."

"Too bad," King Ivy muttered.

"What?" Forrest asked, startled.

Grey raised a hand.
 
"My wife was thinking of something else. Allow me,

if you will, to explore this just a bit further.
 
Do you know how Ida's

talent actually works?"

"Yes.
 
Her moon is a solidification of all the ideas associated with

Xanth.
 
It's where they are stored.
 
That's why we are here: in pursuit

of an idea.
 
The idea of a faun who can associate with my neighboring

tree."

Ivy looked up, seeming interested.

"And that is the extent of it?" Grey asked.
 
"It's just the moon?"

What was the point of this?
 
"Yes, as far as I know.
 
Am I being stupi

'd about something?"

"By no means," Grey said quickly.
 
"No one can be expected to know what

he hasn't seen and hasn't been told."

"I suppose so," Forrest agreed.
 
He glanced at Imbri, but she averted

her gaze.
 
That bothered him.
 
He looked at the twin girls, and they

averted their gazes too.
 
"There is something, isn't there!"

"There is something you don't know, but it is no fault in you," Grey

said carefully.

"So why don't you tell me what it is, so I won't be so stupid?"

"You are not stupid, you are merely ignorant of something, as anyone in

your situation would be.
 
I shall be glad to tell you, but I would like

to establish something first."

This was getting annoying.
 
Forrest didn't like games where everyone

else knew what he didn't, and shared a smug superiority because of it.

"Establish what?"

 
"I would like to ascertain whether you agree with my point about the

Good Magician."

"That it isn't easy to fathom his ways?
 
Yes, I agree."

"And that since he seems to believe that you can succeed in this mission

to Ptero, it must be true."

"Yes, I suppose, though he seems more devious than he has to be."

"So you too believe that you will succeed."

What was with all this circuitous dialogue?
 
"Yes!
 
I don't know how

I'll succeed, but I probably will."

"I'm sure you will," Ida agreed.

"Thank you, Princess." Forrest turned his attention back to Magician

Consort Grey.
 
"So what is it I don't know, aside from how to live up to

the Good Magician's expectation?"

"The rest of the nature of Princess Ida's talent.
 
It is true that it is

the Idea, but that is not the whole of it.
 
It is that anything she

accepts as true, is true, and she is glad to agree with the beliefs of

others."

"That's nice," Forrest said, glancing at Ida.
 
"But isn't that true of

anybody?
 
I don't accept anything as true that I know is not true, after

all."

"But you could be mistaken."

"Yes.
 
Anyone could."

"Princess Ida is never mistaken."

This was odd.
 
"But anyone can be confused, or have wrong information,

at some point."

"Not Ida.
 
When she accepts an idea, it is true.
 
That is her talent."

"But-" Forrest looked again at the princess.
 
"No offense, Princess. But

so what?"

"Since she agrees that you will succeed in your mission, you will

succeed," Grey said.
 
"That is her talent.
 
Her reality becomes our

reality."

A pale gleam dawned.
 
"As a Sorceress, she makes things come true,"

Forrest said.
 
"That really helps.
 
But why didn't she just decide that

one of you could overcome this marginalization?
 
Why bring an ignorant