Question Quest (24 page)

One case almost stumped me. This was a centaur who felt somewhat ambivalent. He called himself AmbiGus. He said he felt as if his personality wanted to split. I checked everything about him, and he seemed normal. It would be bad form not to provide an Answer; I had a reputation to maintain, for what little it was worth. What was wrong with this creature? Was it a mere complex of the type that Mundanes experienced?

Mundanes. I tried one more thing. I took Gus to the border and spelled us through the Shield. Sure enough, when he walked away from the magic ambience of Xanth, he separated into the basic centaur components: a man and a horse. That was why he felt like splitting: his talent was to split, in the absence of magic.

Unfortunately he could not do it in Xanth. So his choice was either to reside apart in Mundania or together in Xanth. He thought about it while performing his year's service for me.

One case was interesting for another reason: who it was. It was Trojan, the Horse of Another Color, otherwise known as the Night Stallion. He governed the realm of bad dreams, which was accessible only through a hypnogourd. He came to me in a dream, as he was not comfortable outside the gourd. But he had a legitimate Question: what was a suitable bad dream for writers who wrote about the dream realm? Such folk were almost immune to ordinary bad dreams, because they were constantly devising bad stories themselves and were jaded. But they could not be allowed to mess with the dream realm, because that could dilute the potency of the dreams.

I sweated over that one, partly because our dialogue was in the form of a bad dream. But finally I came up with a satisfactory formula: the guilty writer would be taken into a dream which seemed like reality, so that he did not know he was dreaming. In that dream he would be led into the Night Stallion's very own study and shown a lion. This was not a fearsome lion, for writers wrote about that kind all the time, seeming to enjoy the crunch of bones and splatter of blood. No, this was an old ill lion, its pride gone. Its teeth were so worn and weak that it could survive only on a diet of soggy puns. The writer was required to produce such puns, to the satisfaction of a grim person called Eddie Tor, lest he be guilty of letting the lion die. If the lion died, there would be a real stink. But if he failed to make Eddie Tor's unreasonable standards, Eddie would do beastly things to his prose, putting him farther behind. There was also a cursed block on his desk, which constantly interfered with his vision so that he could not concentrate. Somehow he had to get around that writer's block before he was faced with the dead lion.

The Night Stallion was pleased. He was sure this would torment any writers enough to prevent them from messing with any more dream stories. In fact, it might drive some of them out of the trade entirely. It was an excellent punishment. He repaid me by granting me a bye on future bad dreams for myself, no matter how much I might deserve them. After that I did sleep easier.

So my life went in its petty pace for about seven years. Then the Muses of Parnassus started writing volumes of history of Xanth, apparently just as a matter of record, and my life became infernally complicated.

Trouble came in the form of a seemingly innocent young man of about twenty-five. He trudged up to the castle, having somehow managed to cross the—the—to get through a difficult section of Xanth and avoid the inherent dangers of the countryside. He evidently had a Question, so I had AmbiGus spread the word and retire. I really didn't want to be bothered at this time.

But the man was determined. He rode the hippocampus through the moat, refusing to be bucked off by the water horse or to lose his nerve and quit. The hippocampus had not been trying too hard, of course, and had he succeeded in throwing the man, he would have arranged to not-quite trap him in the water, allowing him to beat a hasty escape. But the man had prevailed. That spoke for his stamina.

Then the man explored the huge facade door and found the little door set within it, and climbed in through that. AmbiGus had carefully crafted the inner door to be invisible but to yield readily to a push, its panel falling out. The man located it quickly. That spoke for his intelligence.

Finally he encountered the manticora, which was a creature the size of a horse with the head of a man, body of a lion, wings of a dragon, and a huge scorpion's tail. The monster had come to me to ask whether it, being only partly human (there must have been quite a gathering at a love spring when he came to be!), had a soul. I told him that only those who had souls were concerned about them. Satisfied with that obvious Answer, he was now serving his term of service, his instructions being to scare visitors without actually hurting them. If he could scare them off, good enough; if he could not, he had to arrange some un-obvious way of letting them pass. The visitor passed, which spoke for his courage.

Well, I would have to see what he wanted. Sometimes I knew well ahead of time, but this one was curiously opaque, with no reference in the Book of Answers; I would just have to ask him. But I wasn't pleased at the prospect. I had produced too many love potions for country hicks and beauty potions for girls who hardly needed them, and this certainly seemed to be more of the same. How I wished a real challenge would appear, instead of these nothings!

The oaf yanked on the bell cord. DONG-DONG, DONG-DONG! As if I wasn't already on my way. And I still didn't know his name. I didn't want to ask it; I didn't want to admit that I, the Magician of Information, had not found it listed in my references. “Who shall I say is calling?” I inquired.

“Bink of the North Village.”

Ha! Name and origin in one breath, both about as unheroic as it was possible to be. Naturally someone this dull wouldn't be named Arthur or Roland or Charlemagne! But I remained annoyed, so I pretended to mishear. “Drink of what?”

“Bink!” he said, getting annoyed himself. Good. “B-I-N-K.”

I looked up at him, for this disgustingly healthy young man stood about twice my century-gnarled height. I was healthy too, but the years had gradually twisted me, and I never had been tall or handsome in the way he was. What conceivable problem could he have that might ameliorate the dullness of my existence for a moment?

“What shall I say is the business of your master Bink?” I asked, still needling the hayseed.

He clarified that he was Bink, and was looking for a magical talent. He was ready to deliver a year's service. “It's robbery, but I'm stuck for it,” he confided, not yet catching on to my identity; he assumed I was a servant. This was getting better as it went! "Your master gouges the public horrendously.”

This was actually beginning to be fun. I played it for another laugh. “The Magician is occupied at the moment; can you come back tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow!” he exploded in a manner that warmed my heart. “Does the old bugger want my business or doesn't he?”

He had dug himself in deep enough. It was time to wrap it up. I led him up to my cluttered study and seated myself at my desk. “What makes you think your service is worth the old gouging bugger's while?”

I watched with deep satisfaction as the realization slowly percolated through his thick head. At last he knew to whom he was talking! He looked suitably crestfallen. “I'm strong,” he finally said. “I can work.”

I couldn't resist turning the screw just a bit more. “You are oink-headed and doubtless have a grotesque appetite. You'd cost me more in board than I'd ever get from you.” Probably true, but it might be fun having such a naive lunk around.

He only shrugged. At least he had the wit to know how unimportant he was.

“Can you read?”

“Some,” he said doubtfully.

So he wasn't much at that. Good; that meant he wouldn't be prying into my precious tomes. “You seem a fair hand at insult, too; maybe you could get rid of intruders with their petty problems.” Would he catch the implication: that his own problem was as petty as any? I could readily ascertain his talent; it was probably the ability to make a stalk of hay change color or something similarly banal. The Storm King required every person to have a talent, but most of them were so slight as to be barely worth it. That law was barely worth it, too.

“Maybe,” he agreed, evidently determined not to aggravate me further.

I had had enough of this. "Well, come on; we don't have all day,” I said, getting down from my chair. Actually we did have all day, if that was what it took. One advantage of boredom is that all-day distractions can be welcome, especially if they happen to become interesting.

I decided to try Beauregard on this one. The demon was still working on his paper, “Fallibilities of Other Intelligent Life,” after several decades, and had finally come to me to ask for some kind of help. I had suggested that if he spent a decade or two in the bottle, helping me answer the Questions of living creatures, he should have a rich lode of fallibilities to analyze. He had agreed, merging service with research and snoozing between times. He pretended to be confined to the bottle and to the pentacle, though by our agreement neither was tight; it was for show so that the visitors wouldn't be terrified by the manifestation of a genuine demon. Why disabuse them? Demons were not nearly as horrendous as represented, and some, like Metria or my ex-wife Dana, could be surprisingly winsome at times. But it could be tricky to deal with them, even unknowingly, as my son Crombie had learned the hard way.

I lifted the bottle from the shelf and shook it to alert the demon that a show was coming up. It wouldn't do to uncork him and have him go right on sleeping. I set it in the middle of the five-pointed star painted on the floor. I gestured grandiloquently and stepped back out of the figure.

The demon put on the show. The bottle's lid popped off and smoke issued impressively. From the resulting cloud the figure coalesced. About the only thing that detracted from the effect was the pair of spectacles perched on the demon's nose. But the fact was that demons varied in temperament as men did, and this one felt more comfortable using spectacles to read small print, just as I did.

“O Beauregard,” I intoned dramatically. “I conjure thee by the authority vested in me by the Compact,” which was nonsense; the only compact was our deal to observe dull visitors without frightening them off. “Tell me what magic talent this lad, Bink of the North Village, possesses.” I could see that the hayseed was suitably impressed by the rigmarole.

Beauregard played it like a pro. He oriented impressively on the man. “Step into my demesnes, mortal, that I may inspect you properly.”

“Nuh-wA!” Bink exclaimed, drawing back. He was accepting it all at face value.

Beauregard shook his head as if regretting the loss of a tasty morsel. Of course demons don't eat people; they don't eat anything except in rare situations when they have to pass the food along, such as when nursing half-human babies. The Demoness Dana had not even done that; she had lost her soul, and bbrrupst! she was gone, “You're a tough nut.”

My turn. “I didn't ask you for his personality profile! What's his magic?” For Beauregard was good at fathoming such things with cursory inspection.

Now the demon concentrated—and evinced surprise. “He has magic—strong magic—but I am unable to fathom it.” He frowned at me, and proffered our usual insult. “Sorry, fathead.”

“Then get ye gone, incompetent!” I snarled just as if meaning it, clapping my hands. The truth was this was getting considerably more interesting. If Beauregard couldn't fathom the talent, it had to be well beyond the minimum level.

The demon dissolved into smoke and returned to his bottle to resume his nap. No, this time he was reading a book; I could see him in miniature in there, turning a page. Bink, evidently quite impressed, stared at the bottle.

Now I got serious. I questioned Bink, but he was ignorant, of course. So I tried another device: the pointer and wall chart. I asked questions, and the pointer pointed to either a cherub, meaning yes, or a devil, meaning no. This only confirmed what Beauregard had said: strong magic, undefined.

I was really getting interested now. This was indeed turning out to be a challenge and was brightening my day.

I tried a truth spell on him. It wasn't that I thought he was being dishonest—he lacked the wit—but that this device addressed the magic within him, requiring it to clarify itself. But when I asked him his talent, the manticora abruptly roared. It was his feeding time. I had been at this chore longer than I had realized; time was passing.

So I went down to feed the manticora, who turned out not to be that hungry. “I don't know what came over me,” he said. “Suddenly I just had to roar as loud as I could.”

Curious. I returned to Bink—who had, like the simpleton he was, broken a magic mirror during my brief absence by asking it a question beyond its competence. I was disgusted. “You're a lot more trouble than you're worth.”

I restored the truth spell and started to ask him about his talent, again. Just then the cracked glass fell out of the mirror behind me, breaking my concentration. What a nuisance!

I tried a third time. And the whole castle shook. An invisible giant was passing close by, his tread making the earth shudder.

I realized that more than coincidence was operating here. Some extremely powerful enchantment was preventing me from getting the answer. That had to be Magician-caliber magic! “I had thought there were only three persons alive today of that rank, but it seems there is a fourth.” And, indeed, the joke had turned out to be on me, for I had assumed that this was a nothing situation. Why had my Book of Answers failed to warn me of the approach of this odd Magician?

“Three?” he asked stupidly.

“Me, Iris, Trent.” I did not count the Storm King; he had been a Magician, but his talent had dwindled with age. He was way overdue for replacement. But Iris was a woman, and Trent exiled these past twenty years, and I certainly didn't want to be stuck with the chore again. But if we had here a genuine new Magician— this was now fascinating in its implications!

“Trent!” he exclaimed. “The Evil Magician?”

I explained that Trent had not really been evil, any more than I was good; it was just a popular misconception. But I doubted that Bink was getting it. He still thought in stereotypes.

And so I had to turn Bink away without an Answer, for it was not safe to probe further. It was unsatisfactory in one sense, but exciting in another. A new Magician—with undefined magic! Something interesting would surely come of this!

At this point I suffered a coincidental realization: now I understood why a creature like the Demoness Metria was always alert for new mischief. If I, as a man hardly over a century in age, was so eager for something interesting to pep up my boredom, how much worse it must be for a demon, who existed for many centuries without any responsibilities or vulnerabilities. That didn't mean that I liked Metria, but I could hardly blame her for her incidental mischief. I had been acting a bit like a demon when I tormented the loutish young Bink of the North Village.

After that I watched that young man. At first he was a severe disappointment. All he did was go straight back to the North Village, crossing on the invisible one-way bridge I had told him about. There he was exiled by the Storm King, who refused to heed the paper I had sent with Bink attesting to his undefined magic. The Storm King didn't like me any better than I liked him; my note was probably slightly worse than nothing. Maybe the notion that there might be significant magic here frightened the King, who was now, with the fading of his magic, technically an impostor. Bink was deemed to have no magic and was exiled and sent out of Xanth, beyond the Shield. That irritated me something awful, but all I could do was watch. Had I realized that the Storm King would be that petty, I would have looked for some way to bypass him. That was a Magician the idiot had exiled!

Or had he suspected the truth, and that was why he had exiled Bink—as a possible rival? My irritation progressed into something like anger. What a fool I had been to give up the throne to that broken wind!

Meanwhile, I had another client. This was a young woman who called herself Chameleon. She was plain, bordering on ugly. Her talent was intriguing, because it was involuntary: in the course of each month she changed gradually from average appearance to beautiful, and back through average to ugly. The magic mirror showed her physical phases: she was truly sublime when on, and truly hideous when off. Her intelligence and personality shifted in the opposite direction, counterpointing her appearance. Thus she was smartest when she was ugliest, and stupidest when she was beautiful. I verified this with my sources, and looked again at pictures of her extremes in the magic mirror. At her best she was a creature to make any man, even an old grouch like me, stop and stare, as I was doing now. At her worst she was a young crone, with a caustic tongue, whom no man would tolerate.

She wanted, of course, to be rid of her talent, as it was doing her no good. She was in constant danger of being seduced in her stupid-lovely stage or stoned in her smart-ugly stage. Only her neutral central stage was suitable. She also wanted to win the man she liked— who, coincidentally, was Bink. It seemed that she had encountered him twice recently, once in the—the— somewhere dangerous, when she was in her lovely phase, and they had been separated because of his heroism. The other time was in her neutral stage, and he had been in the company of a woman-hating man named Crombie. So she had followed Bink here, and now was begging me for help. For a spell for Chameleon.