Question Quest (22 page)

“Turn what?”

"Hazy, indistinct, impalpable, vague, smoky, gaseous—

“Poopy?”

“Close enough.”

He was careful not to swallow her or even to bite on her, though she tasted very good. His tummy was already feeling just enough queasy from the cookies and tsoda popka so that he didn't want any ill wind in there.

Soufflé Serpent was greatly relieved to see him return safely. Crombie knew that the creature would not tell on him, now. Moat monsters never told, when it would only get them in trouble too.

No alarms went off. It seemed that the magic of the castle couldn't detect an evil spirit when it was inside a good person.

Crombie hadn't even been missed. That certainty seemed to justify his attitude.

Soon it was time for supper. He wasn't hungry. But Metria curled out of his mouth, an invisible vapor, and made the food disappear. She did the same for the oil from the castors, and that was an even greater relief.

When he went up to his lonely room, she was with him. He had company. She formed herself into the nicest pillow he could imagine, with two extremely soft mounds, and he rested his head on her and felt wonderful.

Then in the dark, a spook came. It leaned over the bed. “Look!” it exclaimed. “He forgot to hide under the covers! Now we'll get him!”

Suddenly the pillow opened a big long mouth with one-and-a-half squintillion teeth. “Oh, yeah?” it breathed with supreme menace and snapped at the spook's nose. The spook was so surprised it dropped to the floor, where Missile-Toe, Crombie's Monster Under the Bed, fired a spike into its foot. “Owoooh!” the spook cried, and shot out of there so fast a piece of it tore on a nail in the wall. After that no more spooks came. Crombie laughed until he almost cried, sheerly happy.

Then the pillow formed arms, and they hugged Crombie and stroked his hair, and there was a soft sweet humming until he drifted to sleep. Metria was the perfect mother, all right.

After a year, the other boy went away. But Metria stayed. Usually she assumed the form of Crombie's jacket, and he wore her around the house, but she could be anything he wanted. Indeed, she was all he wanted; he hardly cared about anything else. When Sofia made him study things he Ought to Know, he paid no attention, knowing that Metria would provide the answers for him when they were required. And often they sneaked out to the With-a-Cookee River and gorged. His miserable life had become totally happy.

What none of us knew, then, was that Metria was learning all my secrets, for she was an enemy in our midst. A number of my spells went wrong, causing great inconvenience and annoyance, and we didn't know why. What a joke the demoness was having at our expense!

Then Crombie turned thirteen. The moment he was a teenager, he became aware of the female of the species. He was still too young to join the Adult Conspiracy, but he had notions about it, and chafed at being kept in ignorance. In short, he was a typical teenager.

Here he ran afoul of Metria herself. She was a creature of mischief, but she knew there was more mischief in maintaining the Adult Conspiracy than in abolishing it, so she maintained it. So when Crombie sought to put his hands on her in an aware way, she told him no. He had never been balked by her before and was at first incredulous, then furious. He grabbed her—and she dissipated into smoke and floated away. While it disturbs me to agree with that confounded demoness, I have to say that she acted correctly in that instance. Any woman who gets grabbed in a manner she doesn't want should depart with similar swiftness.

After that she was no longer with Crombie. He had to sleep alone. He was now too big for the spooks to harm, but he hated losing his womanly-soft pillow. Now his almost complete ignorance of the things Sofia had been teaching him manifested. He was a spoiled-rotten teenager, and that was a condition not even he could live with. Metria had done him the worst of favors by enabling him to escape any discipline in childhood. He was so angry he had to keep blinking to keep the red glare of rage from burning his eyes. He cursed all older women, for of course he was incapable of blaming himself.

He stormed out of the castle, now having more freedom because we were under the impression he was worthy of it. He whirled and pointed, uttering the syllable “Girl!”

He followed his finger—and came across a girl his age, sitting in the very glade where he had first found the honeypot. She was exquisitely pretty, and he fell in love with her right away. This, too, is the manner of teenagers. Since he hadn't grabbed her, she was responsive. The two of them had a marvelous time dancing and kissing and sharing secrets. Then he became too demanding: “Show me your panties.”

She laughed. Annoyed, he grabbed at her—and she dissolved into smoke and floated away. Only then did he realize that she had been merely another aspect of the Demoness Metria, having her fun with his innocence.

That was when he swore never to trust another woman. Any age, any type. They say there is no fury like that of a woman scorned, and Metria is a perfect example, but surely the fury of a teenager balked comes close. (I have, of course, long since forgotten that I was ever a teenager, not that this is relevant.)

By the time I discovered what had happened, it was way too late. My son was hopelessly embittered. There was nothing to do but send him away to be a soldier, for hate is an asset to that profession. I had in effect lost my son. Sofia was not particularly pleased, either.

I revised the castle defenses, to make sure that never again could a demon sneak in unobserved. It was not that I was prejudiced against demons; some of my best friends were demons. But Metria was sheer naughtiness. She never acted with outright malice, and indeed sometimes seemed to act decently, but there was no telling what the final cost of her mischief would be. Obviously she remained annoyed by her failure to corrupt me, so had corrupted my son instead. Corrupted him, ironically, with kindness: she had enabled him to avoid the necessary disciplines of growing up. That lack of discipline might be typical for demons, but was disaster for humans.

Yet it was my fault too. I should have been alert. I should have taken a hand in the upbringing of my son. I, too, had been spoiled, for the Maiden Taiwan had brought up my first son. I resolved that if I ever had another son to raise, I would be a true father to him, not leaving his upbringing to others. To that resolution I was true.

But let me now return to the matter that so preoccupied me at the time my son was going astray. It was not, as will be seen, a thing of little consequence. Let's make that a separate chapter.

The day Sofia came to me, surprised. “There's an eight-year-old boy approaching the castle!” she exclaimed. She, in common with most mothers, could tell a child's age and state of health at a glance.

I pulled my nose from the Book of Answers. I had been studying it for five years now, and was beginning to understand its use. It was evident that I had made the original entries and someone else had organized and cross-referenced them. There were so many entries that without such organization the tome would have been useless, but even with them it could be a job to discover exactly what I wanted. Now I could generally get a desired Answer in a few minutes, and with further practice might make that even faster. Much of the time I had simply read through the entries in whatever order they came. What a tremendous amount of information I had accumulated in those missing twenty-eight years!

“Well, doubtless he has a Question,” I said. "There is no age barrier. Let me see what challenges are best.”

“You will make a child do the challenges?” she asked, appalled. She was odd in certain ways, but of course that was her Mundane heritage.

“I don't want to be overrun by children any more than I want to be overrun by bumpkins,” I said reasonably.

I looked in the book—and was surprised. It said NO CHALLENGES. So I researched for the reason, and it said POLICY. Growing frustrated, as often happened when dealing with this book, I investigated that. BECAUSE QUERENT IS A MAGICIAN.

I stared. Then I looked up at Sofia. “Let him in,” I said gruffly. “He's a Magician.”

Delighted, she hurried off. Meanwhile, I did further research in the book, but it couldn't tell me what the Magician's talent was. This was because its Answers had all been researched years ago; it was not a predictor of the future. It was attuned to the signals of Magician-class magic, because that had always been a prime matter with me, but that was the limit.

I closed the book. A Magician! In all my years of searching, I had found only one Magician before, and now he was the Storm King. The more I saw of the Storm King's reign, the less I liked it; the man was a Magician, true, but an incompetent administrator, and Xanth was sliding back into the Dark Age instead of climbing out of it. We needed a better king: one who would bring vigor back to the throne and who would restore Castle Roogna to prominence. Maybe this boy was that future king.

Soon the lad was ushered into my presence. “Good Magician,” Sofia said formally, “this is Trent.”

I concealed my excitement, I needed to know a lot more about this boy before I let him know his importance. “A greeting, Trent. Why are you here?”

“I'm a Magician,” he said. “I should be king. But Mom says the Storm King will kill me if I go and ask him for the throne.”

“She's right,” I said.

Sofia made a stifled exclamation. The very notion of harm to a child upset her. “Go fetch this young man a cookie,” I said, to get her out of the room for a while. She disappeared.

“But I don't need a cookie,” Trent protested. “I can make my own.”

“By means of your magic,” I said, trying to ascertain what his magic was.

“Sure. Want to see?”

Yes! “If you wish.”

He looked around. There was a speck of dust on the table that had somehow managed to escape Sofia's destructive attention, and in that dust was a flea. He pointed to it. “Cookie,” he said.

Instantly there was a plant. A fine fresh chocolate chop cookie plant, by the look and smell of it. He had transformed the flea into this. That was certainly Magician-class magic, if he could do it across the board.

But it might be illusion. I had to be sure. “May I?” I asked, reaching for a cookie.

“Sure. It's your dust.”

I took the cookie and bit into it. It was perfect.

“Want a different kind?” Trent asked. “I can make it any kind I know.”

I held the bitten-into cookie. “What about a glass of milk?”

He pointed. Suddenly the plant was a milkweed, with several full ripe pods. “I can't make glasses,” he said. “Only living things.”

“That is good enough,” I said, suitably impressed. I was satisfied that he was a Magician of Transformation of living creatures. "So you have come to find out how to become king without getting killed first.”

“Right.”

I heard Sofia returning. “Spot lesson in diplomacy,” I said. “Don't mention cookies; just accept hers.”

“Okay.”

Sofia had brought a plateful of cookies. Trent thanked her and took one. He was evidently a quick learner. That was good.

“I do not have an easy Answer for you,” I said. “There are only two ways you can safely become king. One is to wait until the Storm King dies—”

“But that'll be forever!” he protested.

“And the other is to prepare yourself so that you can take power, displacing him. But you will have to be well trained, and adult, because such displacement is not a gentle matter.”

“Oh.” He looked disappointed. “You mean I have to pay a year's service to you, for that?”

“In the course of that service, you will learn how to prepare yourself,” I said. "I would not, of course, advise you to bother the legitimate king, but I will teach you how to be alert and defend yourself.”

“Oh.” His disappointment was fading. As I said, he was a bright boy.

So it was that Trent did a year's service for me, moving into a spare room in the castle, and I taught him how best to use his power. The strategy was simple: to transform any menace to something that was not a menace. When a mosquito came to suck his blood, he changed it into a harmless purple fly. When a dragon reared up before him, he transformed it to a dragonfly. When a tangle tree grabbed at him, he transformed it to an acorn tree. The key was to rehearse things so that he could handle any living thing and not be surprised. Some creatures could hurt him from a distance, while he had to be within arm's reach to transform them, so he had to figure ways to nullify them from afar. Usually it was possible to transform some nearby creature into one which was a natural enemy of the attacking creature. But some natural enemies were also enemies of man. So if a dragon were about to blast out a long tongue of flame, he wouldn't transform a nearby worm into a monstrous fireproof serpent, because that serpent would find him easier prey than the dragon. But he could transform that worm into a huge sphinx, which wouldn't care about a man but would object strenuously to having its hide scorched by the dragon.

I also showed him how to sleep safely by transforming something into a mock tangle tree. Then he could sleep in the branches of that tree, while other creatures did not know it was harmless. Because he had to be on guard at all times, if he wanted to tackle a resentful king. Even so, I urged him not to do it—knowing that he would not follow this advice. We understood each other.

Between sessions, we discussed philosophical matters. “It has occurred to me that the Shield is a mixed blessing,” I remarked.

"Is it? But doesn't it protect us from invasion by the Mundanes? It stopped the Waves!

“It stopped the Waves,” I agreed. We were referring to the series of wavelike invasions made by the Mundanes, which had wrought much havoc until halted by the deadly Shield King Ebnez had adapted. “But it also stopped colonization from Mundania. There are actually more human people in Mundania than in Xanth, and the Waves served to renew the human stock here. Without that irregular renewal, our species has been dwindling in Xanth. Today the villages are smaller and farther apart, and there are fewer magic paths between them, making travel more hazardous. We need more people—and we can only get them if that Shield comes down.”

“But the Mundanes are terrible folk!” he said, repeating the standard lore. Children were frightened into good behavior by threats that the Mundanes would get them.

“Is Sofia terrible?” I asked.

Sofia had been very nice to him throughout. She had come to understand as well as I the importance of a potential future king of Xanth, and had treated him royally. “No. But—”

“She is from Mundania.”

He gaped at me. This subject had not come up before. This was the beginning of a change in his attitude.

Never again did he speak ill of Mundanes. In fact, the time would come when he would marry one, as I had. But I made one mistake in training him. I did not sufficiently stress the importance of integrity. I assumed that he already understood it, and I was preoccupied by practical matters. That error, as with the one I made by neglecting my son, was to cost us all dearly. How late we learn wisdom!

Another visit was from a harried woman. The Book of Answers cut short the challenges again, though she was no Sorceress. Why? I had to interview the woman to find out.

“It's my daughter,” she said. “She's six years old, and it's impossible to discipline her or anything. She's out of control! I'm at my wit's end!”

I could see that. Normally folk were right in the middle of their wits, but she was off to the end of hers. “She talks back?” I asked.

"No, she doesn't have to. She just uses her illusion.”

“She has illusions? Many girls do.”

“Not like this! Iris has illusions that—oh, how can I describe them? They're so real!”

I began to get a glimmer. The Book of Answers knew something about this, and it warned me only when there was Magician-class magic involved. “Do you mean she makes illusions you can't penetrate?”

“Well, not exactly. But it's so difficult, we just can't—it's so easy to be fooled—”

Gradually I got the story from her, and I understood what was happening. Her daughter Iris was Sorceress of Illusion. A Sorceress was the same as a Magician, only female. There was this foolish distinction, making it allowable only for a Magician (and therefore a man) to be king. That was one of the things about Xanth that needed changing, and that the current King wasn't changing.

I knew what I had to do. “Send her here to do your year's service for you. We shall teach her how to use her power beneficially and return her to you with better manners.”

“Oh thank you, Good Magician!” she exclaimed tearfully.

So it was that six-year-old Iris came to spend a year with us, a year after Trent left. Crombie was a year younger than Iris, but kept mostly to himself; we did not know then how he had found comfort with the demoness, and he and Metria were careful never to let us find out. So there was not much interaction between the two children. Iris discovered early that Crombie had ways of getting back at her if she teased him with her realistic illusions, and she left him alone. I believe she crafted an illusion of a dragon coming to eat him up, and that night she climbed into bed only to discover a gushy meringue pie there first. It was no illusion. She had to wash the stuff off her feet and change the sheets. She didn't even tell the adults, sharing the Juvenile Conspiracy. So only now, in distant retrospect, can I say that probably it was Metria who placed that pie. Who says the demoness never did anyone a favor? It taught Iris manners in a hurry.

Iris did have a wondrous talent. She could make anything appear and be believably realistic, complete with sound and smell. Only touch was missing; if you walked into the illusion, you went right through it. But who would just walk into a fire-breathing dragon, on the chance that it wasn't real? Who would do it if the chances were only one in ten it was real? But for those who liked to play the odds, she could make a counter trap: by placing the illusion of a dragon over a deep pit. Thus if someone walked into it, he would fall in the pit and be in as much trouble as ever. In fact, she could cover the pit with the illusion of innocent level ground. Or she could cover a real dragon with that illusion of level ground. So a person could not be safe by avoiding the apparent illusions. Anything could be an illusion, and that meant that anything could be dangerous in an unexpected way.

But we did not have trouble with Iris, for two powerful reasons. First, we were delighted with her talent. This was the second Magician-class talent I had encountered in two years; was a trend commencing? Even if she could never be king, she could be a power in Xanth. So while her family had been driven to distraction by the illusions, we delighted in them, and Iris was flattered by the attention. Flattered girls are generally not difficult girls. Second, I knew a good deal about magic myself, having studied at the University of Magic and collected spells all my life. I could not be fooled the way others could. I could tell illusion from reality immediately. I proved this early: Iris made illusion duplicates of herself, and little girls ran all around the castle, screaming. But I always spoke only to the true one. She did not know that I had had to take a potion to enable me to do this. She was impressed. Children respect adults they can't fool.

So I taught her new ways to use her talent, and how to craft ever more glorious illusions. When she came, she could make a realistic dollhouse; when she left, she could craft a realistic castle. At the start she could make a miniature storm cloud that seemed to rain on the rug, to Sofia's distress. At the end she could make a storm that wailed all around the castle. And perhaps most important, she learned to make real food that was dull look and taste like the most elegant meal. The feel of a glass of water was cool liquid; so was the feel of exotic wine. So she could get around her limitation, deceiving even herself. She could drink nothing but green and orange tsoda popka, and share it with the rest of us—yet it was only water. She could eat spicy dragon steak, yet it might be mere fruit from a stake plant. Best of all, she could forget to brush her hair, yet have it look eloquently coifed.

I explained to her how she could do even more than that, when she grew up. She could be as slovenly as she wished in person, yet always appear beautiful and well dressed to others. Then she showed me how well she was learning, for she became a beautiful adult woman with a low décolletage. Then her dress dissolved, and she was bare breasted. “Am I sexy now, Good Magician?” she inquired coyly.

“No,” I informed her.

She pouted. "Why not? Aren't my bosoms big enough?''