“One presentation site signed up,” Don said.
For some reason they did not dawdle at Zombie Village. They walked on out and headed for the next village on the map. This was a normal human one, they hoped.
It was. But there was a hitch. “Is this a curse fiend play troupe?” the Village Elder asked.
“Not exactly,” Piper confessed. “It’s a new amateur group, produced by a curse friend, yet to prove itself.”
“Curse what?”
“Curse friend. They’re not really fiends”
He nodded. “So you really do have contact with them.”
“Yes.” Piper wasn’t sure whether this was good or bad, for this village.
“We’ll try it, not expecting much”
Don marked another presentation site.
The next was a robot village, Rolando. Cyrus was surprised as he looked through Don’s eyes: all the robots were humanoid, about the size of his father Roland, and looking similar. How far did the resemblance go?
This time Don did the talking. “You folk look like a robot I know,” he said. “His name is Roland.”
“We know of Roland,” they said in chorus. “Our programs derived from his. We are all barbarians, and we all love anyone named Hannah”
Cyrus shook his head. That program should have been modified. He would have to talk to his father when he returned.
Don plowed gamely on. “Do you like romance?”
“We are all very romantic,” they agreed.
“Some of our plays have romances.”
“We’ll watch them!” they chorused.
Don chalked up another site.
There followed several more human villages, all of which were interested. Then they came to a village of gnomes. Would they have any interest in human plays?
The map said this was GNOBODY, home of the Gnobody Gnomes. They were in Don’s data bank, listed as largely unknown for some reason. They were a grumpy sort, seldom associating with humans, so this was a poor prospect. But they had to ask anyway.
“May I talk to your leader?” Piper inquired.
“We have no leader,” a lowly gnome replied. He was only about half her height.
“Then may I talk to you? I am Piper Nymph”
The little man shrugged. “If you insist. I am Gnonentity Gnome. What do you want?”
“I represent a touring troupe. We are putting on plays, and would like to have places to present them. Would you be interested?”
“Why would anyone ever want to put on a play here? We are strictly a gnothing village of gno significance what ever.”
“We just would like to have appreciative audiences.”
“The only thing we appreciate is gnotoriety, because we have gnone”
That gave Piper an idea. “Don, ask Cyrus: does he have an actor to play the male lead in his next play? The one about Magician Humfrey?”
“A gnome!” Cyrus exclaimed. “He would be perfect!” Because Magician Humfrey was sort of like a gnome, being small and grumpy.
“Go for it,” Don told her.
“Gnonentity, how would your villagers like it if one of you played a lead role in a play?”
Now the other gnomes gathered around them. “But thatwould be signif cant,” Gnonentity said. “Gno one would ever grant us that.”
“We would,” Piper said. “We need an actor to play the Good Magician Humfrey”
The gnomes looked at each other, awed. “Who among us?” Gnonentity asked.
“You, if you want. Come with us, and when we loop back to our troupe, you will be given the part and have to learn the lines. We’ll put on a play here, in due course, so all of you can see it’s true”
They were amazed, and hardly believing, but decided to find out. And so Gnonentity Gnome joined the group.
“That girl is good,” Cyrus said. “Not only is she lining up villages, she’s recruiting actors we need.”
“Just don’t get hung up on her,” Rhythm said.
“Rhythm—”
“I was joking. Some. You’re right: she’s a good girl”
Cyrus accepted that. But privately he was bothered. Rhythm was getting jealous without reason.
“I know it,” she said. “I’m trying to do better. Honest I am”
Bleep that mind reading!
“Bleep,” she echoed.
Piper completed her circuit of villages, signing up halfway between a fair number and a goodly number for play sites. Her party rejoined the troupe in good order.
But there was one thing that concerned her. “Cyrus, I avoided a section, though it was on the map,” she said. “Did I do the right thing?”
This surprised him. Maybe he hadn’t been watching closely enough. “What did you avoid?”
“The section where the Villages became Cities.”
“They did that?”
“Yes. Here.” She pointed to a region on the map.
“Necess Village?”
“On the map,” she said. “But the sign says Necess City. The same for the Villages of Adver, Pompos, Elasti and Verbo. They all claim to be cities now, though they still look like villages. That made me nervous for some reason, and I avoided them.”
“That is curious,” he agreed. “You did right to be cautious. I’ll investigate.”
“That’s good,” she said, evidently relieved. “Now you must meet the people I collected for parts. Don said you said it was all right.”
“By all means,” he agreed. “You did an excellent job, Piper”
She blushed. Girls were good at that. “Thank you”
They went outside where the others waited. “Hello,” Cyrus said. “I am Cyrus Cyborg, the Playwright.”
“Gnonentity Gnome,” the gnome said gruffly.
“Yes. You will play the part of the Good Magician. You seem to be perfect for that role”
The little man did what seemed to be a rare thing for his kind: he smiled. Perhaps he had feared that the part would not actually be granted.
“D Kay,” the zombie demoness said.
“And you will be Dara Demoness, the Good Magician’s first wife”
She, too, relaxed, reassured.
“And I am Shaunna,” the third new person said.
“We’ll rehearse with the Seldom Scene,” Cyrus said. “It promises to be really useful to protect our privacy in different villages. Thank you for joining us.”
“You are more than welcome”
Cyrus turned to Piper. “And you will play MareAnn, Humfrey’s half- wife, the one who likes horses”
Piper fainted.
Fortunately Cyrus’s cyborg reflexes enabled him to catchher before she fell. Had she thought he would not keep his promise?
“She’s a good girl,” Gnonentity said grudgingly.
“She deserves a good role,” Kay agreed.
After a moment and a bit Piper revived. “Thank you,” she said faintly.
He set her back on her feet. “Go and get a good night’s rest. Tomorrow we start rehearsals”
Dazed, she departed.
Curtis appeared. “I will see to the accommodations for the new actors,” he said.
When Cyrus was alone in his tent, he murmured one word. “Rhythm”
She appeared. “Already?” She brought out the Decade spell.
“Not yet. There’s something else. Piper discovered that several villages have become cities, at least by their signs. That made her nervous, and she avoided them. I think she was right to be cautious. Can you check this?”
“Be right back,” she agreed. She vanished.
Cyrus focused on the play. He had finally gotten it written, with Melete’s help and prodding, and had distributed copies to the actors. The three newest ones would have some catching up to do, but the others would help them, and fluffs didn’t matter so much in early rehearsals. He had done his best, and Melete approved of it, but he remained nervous about its reception. It was always thus, when a play was fresh.
“It
’s your artistic temperament,” Melete said. “Perfectly normal”
Rhythm returned. “This is bad,” she said grimly.
“Name changes are bad?”
“Those villages are now in territory controlled by Ragna Roc. He changed their names, maybe so he could keep track of his land conquests”
“Ragna Roc,” he repeated. “Has he caught on to us?”
“I don’t think so. He’s just marking his boundaries. I didn’t look closely; I wanted to be sure nobody saw me. But it shows what we’re up against.”
“How did he take over the villages? Were there battles? I wasn’t aware of anything like that.”
“No signs of violence,” she said. “Maybe the villagers just decided they liked him better”
Cyrus snorted. “Do you believe that?”
“No.”
“It certainly shows the importance of our mission.”
“Yes.”
“It makes it more immediate. Had Piper not been alert, we could have scheduled a presentation there. We might have fallen right into the power of the enemy.”
“We might,” she agreed. “Yet the people did not seem downtrodden. There’s something odd about this. I should check more closely.”
“Don’t go back there!”
“Cyrus, I have to,” she said seriously. “I promise I’ll be careful”
He sighed. “You’re growing up. Acting with maturity. I think I preferred you carefree.”
“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me.” She kissed him on the ear and vanished.
Which was the problem with loving a Sorceress.
He focused on last- moment adjustments to the play. Somehow there always seemed to be more tinkering to do.
Rhythm returned an hour later. “The people aren’t downtrodden,” she reported. “They’re being treated all right. But they are nervous. It seems that Ragna Roc’s minions identified all villagers who might oppose him, and he deleted them.”
“Deleted?”
“Rendered them into illusion. Ghosts, really. There are whole houses of illusion. I mean, the house and everyone init. You can see them, but you can’t touch them; they aren’t really there. They are plainly horrified.”
“The ghosts?”
“The ghosts. They know they are illusion, and they can’t stand it, but they can’t do anything about it. I think Ragna leaves them there as object lessons to the other villagers. If they don’t behave, that will be their fate. So of course they behave. They are loyal to the big bird.”
“This is awful!”
“Yes it is. I’m horrified myself. Oh, Cyrus, we have to stop this!”
“That’s our mission,” he agreed.
Then she invoked the Decade spell, and let herself cry. He held her and comforted her as well as he could. Their relationship seemed to be entering a new stage, where other emotions were becoming important, not just love or passion. That was probably good.
Next day was the first rehearsal. “We will practice with the Seldom Scene,” he said. “This will give us privacy, because no one will see us until it abates. We don’t need it here, but will find it useful when we tour, so we want to be sure we have it straight. You won’t notice any difference, but this whole scene will be undetectable to outsiders”
The Witch nodded. “That will help, because we won’t always be able to set up with complete privacy.”
“Now with three new members of the cast, we’ll have to allow reading from the scripts. But I will expect all of you to know your parts in a few days. The prompter will help you throughout. Now take your places.” They did, and the scene faded out as Shaunna invoked her magic. “Announcer, I am your audience, this time. Proceed”
Crabapple stepped up to face him, her back to the unseen stage. Her arms were covered; they were not needed for this. She looked like an ordinary, attractive woman, with a talent for speaking clearly.
“It is our plea sure to present the play ‘The Riddle,’” she said in her Announcing voice. “The opening scene is in the Good Magician’s Castle, where Hell is breaking loose, figu-ratively.” She smiled and stepped out of the way.
Now the scene appeared, as Shaunna turned off her talent. The gnomelike Magician Humfrey hobbled onstage, wearing one sock. “Where’s the other sock?” he demanded grumpily. “I can’t bury myself in my famous Book of Answers with a sock missing!”
A woman hurried up, carrying a long sock. She was Dusti, with a Mundanian hat concealing her little horns. “Here it is, husband dear.” She handed it to him.
“About time, Sofia Socksorter,” he grumped, struggling to put it on. He had big feet, which made the pro cess awkward.
“You’ll never get it on that way,” another woman said. This was Xina, her modest garb masking her attributes. It had been a struggle to get the prettier actresses to understand that there were times when beauty was not the point. “Sit down and put your foot up.”
“Stop ordering me around, Maiden Taiwan,” he grumped as she kneeled to slide the sock over his foot.
“Dinner is served,” a third woman said. She was Acro Nymph, gorgeously costumed and quite pretty.
“Already?” Humfrey grumped. Then he did half a double take. “Rose of Roogna—what are you doing here?”
“Don’t you remember, dear? I’m your wife.”
“I’ve got five and a half wives. You take monthly turns. Sofia and Taiwan are already here.” He did the other half of the take. “Both? Who is the Designated Wife of the Month?”
“I am,” the Witch said. She was heavily veiled, but shapely below.
He peered over his spectacles at her. “You are, Gorgon? Then what are these others doing here? There’s supposed to be only one wife at a time”
“That’s the problem,” D Kay said. “Something has gone desperately wrong.”
“What has gone wrong, Dara Demoness?” he demanded even more grumpily.
“Everything,” Kay said grimly. She was very good at looking grim. Her costume and makeup concealed the fact that she was a zombie, but an impression leaked through.
Piper read from her script. “All of Xanth is up in a heaval.”
“That’s a different story, MareAnn. I can’t be bothered with Xanth when my five and a half wives don’t know their places. Who is responsible for this?”
“We don’t know,” the Gorgon said. “That’s part of the problem”
Humfrey sighed grumpily. “Then I will just have to research it and find out.” He tramped offstage.
Xina, as the Maiden Taiwan, shook her head. “He’s not going to find it in his Book of Answers. It’s a recent phenomenon.”
“So what are we going to do?” the Witch (Gorgon) asked. “We’ll never get along with all of us here at once. He’s going to get five and a half times as grumpy as usual.”
“We shall just have to solve the problem ourselves,” Rose (Acro Nymph) said.
“And exactly how do we do that?” Sofia (Dusti) demanded. “We’re not great at solving magical riddles. We’re wives.”
“We can get outside and survey the situation,” Rose said. “Maybe we’ll be able to make some sense of it”
A glance circled around the group. Kay (Dara) looked up from her script and nodded. “At least it will get us out of the castle for a while.”
“We’d better tell Humfrey,” MareAnn (Piper) said.
“Why?” the Gorgon demanded. “He’ll only grump at us”
Now understanding laughter circulated. “We’re better off on our own,” Dara agreed.
The scene ended. “That’s good,” Cyrus said. “Next time we’ll work on more feeling. You are all rivals for the Good Magician’s attention, after all; you will tend to be waspish to each other. That’s one reason you have to take monthly turns with him.”
“We’ll make it crackle,” the Witch said with relish. “I love a mean- spirited role.”
“MareAnn’s not mean- spirited,” Piper protested. “She’s a nice person.”
/> “That’s why she’s only half a wife,” the Witch said. “Full wives are faceted.”
“I like this part,” Gnonentity said. “Great minds are grumpy.”
“We could ruin that mood,” Dusti said mischievously.
“I’d like to see you try”
Dusti glanced around. “He just invited me, didn’t he?”
“He did,” the Witch agreed. “Go ahead and ungrump him.”
“It was a figure of speech.” Gnonentity said, getting nervous.
Dusti dissolved into a whirl of dust. It swirled around the gnome. In a moment the woman re- formed, her arms wrapped around him. She kissed him on the nose. “Are you still grumpy?”
“Of course,” he said.
She kissed him on the cheek. “How about now?”
“Yes. I—”
She kissed him on the mouth. Little hearts swirled around his head. “Now?” she inquired with half a hint of malice.
He tried to rally. “You shouldn’t be making such a scene.”
“But I’m your wife, Magician. Your most useful, sock-sorting one. It’s part of the play.” She kissed him again. More hearts swirled.
Finally he kissed her back. “You win, minx.”
“Second scene is outside,” Cyrus said before the othermischievous women could get into the act. They had a new challenge, and soon enough one or more of them would be tempting the gnome in bed. “While still on stage, of course. Take a break while we get the props changed”
The rehearsal continued, as the women discovered the weird changes occurring in the Xanth of the play. Centaurs were having offspring that were either human or equine, not both. Harpies had straight bird and straight human children. Chimeras had triplets: lion, goat, snake. On the other hand, humans were having crossbreed children, such as one with the body of a human and the head of a fish: a maidmer. Chaos was developing.
Soon assorted magical creatures were coming to the Good Magician for Answers about this chaos. He could no longer ignore the crisis. He had to go out and find the origin of the problem. The five and a half wives insisted on going with him.
After seeing many weird things, they concluded that the problem was with the Demon Xanth, the source of all the magic of Xanth. That magic was just from the leakage from his body, a trace amount of his power. Decades before, when the Demon had departed on business of his own, most of the magic had dissipated, leading to the awful Time of No Magic. Later the Demon, on a Demon bet, had assumed the form of Nimby, a donkey- headed dragon, and taken up with a mortal girl, Chlorine. But that was another mere personification, only a tiny fragment of the larger Demon. Now the magic remained, but was imperfect.