“We've got to get her back to Xanth!” Ivy exclaimed.
“Patience,” Electra demurred sensibly. “It required two days for us to reach this destination; two days should suffice for the return. We can accomplish our business in the intervening day. I see no reason to jeopardize our mission merely because of my indisposition.”
“Your indisposition!” Ivy exclaimed. “By the time we get back to Xanth, you'll be an old woman! How could you marry Dolph then?”
Electra smiled with the poise of maturity. “That would seem to solve my problem, wouldn't it? Of course I would not require the child to marry a harridan.”
HAVE NO CONCERN, the screen printed. IN THE RENEWED AMBIENCE OF MAGIC SHE WILL REVERT AT THE SAME RATE SHE AGED, UNTIL SHE RESUMES HER POINT OF EQUILIBRIUM FOR THAT ENVIRONMENT.
“Oh, 'Lectra!” Ivy exclaimed, much relieved. She opened her arms to hug her friend, then saw how strange the older woman looked, and fell back. This might be the same person as her friend, but it was hard to accept emotionally.
“Your reaction is perfectly understandable,” Electra said tolerantly. If she was hurt, she masked it with the competence for which adults were notorious. Ivy felt very small and grubby, inside.
“We'd better, uh, go see my folks,” Grey said. “They live in Squeedunk, about sixty miles from here. I went to City College because it was the closest one that gave a tuition break for state residents, but it was too far to commute. There's a daily bus, but its schedule is calculated to make it useless, and it always runs late anyway.”
“But we have to do this in one day!” Ivy said.
“We could take a taxi, if I had the money, but—”
THERE IS AN EMERGENCY RESERVE FUND THAT WILL COVER THIS.
Ivy looked at the screen suspiciously. “Why are you being so helpful. Pewter? You know we don't like you!”
I AM NOT PEWTER. I AM MERELY A SENDING SENT TO DO PEWTER'S BIDDING. IT IS MY TASK TO FACILITATE THE LIAISON BETWEEN GREY MURPHY AND PRINCESS IVY, AND YOUR CONSULTATION WITH MAGICIAN MURPHY WILL ESTABLISH YOUR SITUATION. THE MONEY IS IN THE DISK MAILER UNDER MY MONITOR.
Grey looked under the screen. He found the mailer there. Behind the floppy disk was a packet of money he hadn't noticed before, hidden until he looked for it. He nodded. “This will do it.”
But Ivy wasn't quite satisfied. “So, Sending, you're not the same as Pewter? What do you get out of this?”
DATA INSUFFICIENT.
“Don't give me that!” she snapped. “You know exactly what I mean! Bad folk never do things just because they're supposed to; they always have something to gain.”
DATA INSUFFICIENT.
Electra stepped in. “What she means to say, Sending, is that it would facilitate her liaison with Grey Murphy if she had just a bit more information. She is so constituted that she tends to distrust what she does not understand, and that may prejudice her relationship with her fiancé’s parents and therefore with Grey as well. Since your participation is integral, your separate input is necessary so that the mission will not be compromised.”
CLARIFICATION ACCEPTED.
Ivy kept her mouth shut. Electra's new maturity was coming in handy!
“Normally each party to an agreement receives an emolument appropriate to his participation,” Electra continued incomprehensibly. “What is your reward in the event the mission is successful?”
RETURN TO XANTH.
“And what is your penalty in the event the mission is unsuccessful?”
CONFINEMENT TO MUNDANIA.
Electra looked benignly crafty in the way that only an adult could. “As it happens, we are shortly to return to Xanth. We might take you with us, so that you would have no further need to gamble on the outcome of the mission for your own resolution, if you were to cooperate with us.”
The screen flickered. ARE YOU ATTEMPTING TO BRIBE ME?
Again that crafty adult smile. “Parties of conscience neither proffer nor accept unwarranted remuneration. They merely come to reasonable understandings.”
WHAT DO YOU REQUIRE?
“Information on how Ivy may marry Grey without being required either to support his commitment of servitude to Com-Pewter or to exile herself with him in Mundania.”
I DO NOT KNOW HOW THE DEAL WITH COM-PEWTER CAN BE ABROGATED, BUT THERE IS A STRATEGY THAT WILL ACCOMPLISH THIS IF IT IS POSSIBLE. WILL INFORMATION ON THAT STRATEGY SATISFY YOUR REQUIREMENT?
Electra looked at Ivy. “The Sending is ready to deal. I think this is the best it can offer. How do you feel?”
Ivy had hardly followed the preceding dialogue. It seemed to her that neither Electra nor Sending had said anything intelligible, yet somehow they seemed to understand each other. “It will help us if we help it?”
“It will tell us what to do to get around Pewter's plot, if it is possible to get around it.”
“Then make the deal!” Ivy exclaimed gladly.
Electra returned to the screen. “That information will satisfy our requirement. How may we most expeditiously facilitate your transport to Xanth?”
TAKE MY DISK.
Grey went to a small box. “The original Vaporware Limited disk is here. We can carry it with us with no trouble at all.”
“But in Xanth, how will the Sending animate?” Ivy asked. “Doesn't it need a screen or something?”
THERE ARE MAGIC SCREENS IN XANTH. YOU MAY DEPOSIT ME WITH ANY ONE OF THOSE. ONE IS IN THE ISTHMUS.
“We'll do it,” Ivy agreed, pleased. “Now, what's your strategy?”
RETURN MAGICIAN MURPHY TO XANTH, AFTER OBTAINING HIS AGREEMENT TO EXERT HIS TALENT ON YOUR BEHALF.
“But his talent is to make things foul up!” Ivy protested.
Now Grey caught on. “But he controls it, doesn't he? He makes the side he's against foul up! And if he's against Com-Pewter's plot—”
“It might foul up!” Ivy concluded. “And then we'd be all right!”
Grey tucked the disk box into a small suitcase, and Ivy added some Mundane clothing. Electra ate some more from the food on the shelves. Then they set out for Squeedunk.
The Murphy's house was typical of Mundane residences: neat, clean, and drear. Ivy wondered how they had been able to stand it all these years. But of course they had had no choice; no one in Mundania did. If Mundanes could escape Mundania, they would all move to Xanth!
The taxi let them off, after Grey paid the cabbie. The dour driver looked almost satisfied as he drove away. “I gave him a twenty-five percent tip,” Grey explained, touching her hand. Ivy smiled just as if she understood what this was. In fact, she was surprised that she could understand any of his words, now that they were away from Sending's screen. Then she realized that they had Sending along, in the disk. The machine's power was diminished, but when Ivy touched Grey she could understand him.
They walked up the walk, and Grey knocked on the door. A pudgy woman opened it. “Npuifs!” Grey exclaimed, hugging her.
“Hsfz—xibu bsfzpv epjoh ifsf?” she asked, surprised. “Eje zpv gbjm Gsftinbo Fohmjti?”
“Opu fybdumz,” he responded. “Mppi, Nb, uijt jt dpnqmjdbufe. J'mm fyqmbjm fwfszuijoh.”
They were ushered inside, and introduced as “Jwz” and “Pmfdusb.” Then they sat on the worn, comfortable couch, and Ivy made sure to sit right next to Grey and put her hand on his suitcase, so that she could understand what he was saying.
Grey's father was old. Ivy remembered from Pewter's pictures that Magician Murphy had been of middle age when he and Vadne escaped from Xanth, and this was nineteen years later, so his age wasn't surprising. Grey's mother was of middle age, no longer young, and had gained a fair amount of weight. It really would have been hard to distinguish this couple from any other Mundanes, but increasingly she was able to see the remnants of the folk they once had been. It was really too bad what two decades of Mundane life could do to folk!
“First,” Grey said, “I have to tell you that I now know about Xanth.” Both his parents stiffened, remaining expressionle
ss; this was evidently a secret they had preserved throughout. “I know about the deal you made with Com-Pewter, and why you never told me about it. It was because you didn't want me to go there and have to serve the machine.” The parents exchanged a Mundanish glance. “Zft,” the Magician said. Ivy needed no translation; he had just confirmed the thing they had come to confirm.
“But Com-Pewter didn't leave it to chance,” Grey said.
“It sent a Sending, who brought me Ivy, here, from Xanth. She is the daughter of King Dor and Queen Irene, and is a Sorceress in her own right.” He paused. “And—she is my fiancée.” They stared at Ivy incredulously. Ivy nodded, feeling abruptly choked.
After a long moment, Vadne fumbled for a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. Then she stood and opened her arms to Ivy.
Ivy got up and went to her and embraced her. There was a thing about betrothals that women understood on a level men did not. The language didn't matter.
Then the language did. “Zpv—You are really of Xanth?” Vadne asked slowly.
Ivy was startled. She was speaking intelligibly! “Yes, I am. But how can you—?”
Vadne smiled. “I came from Xanth too,” she reminded her, still piecing out the long-unused words. “For almost twenty years I have not dared to speak—we had to learn Mundanish—”
“Oh, of course! It must have been horrible!”
“Horrible,” Vadne agreed. “Except for Grey. He was our joy, even here.”
Grey was looking at them, puzzled. “Oh—he hears us talking in Xanthian!” Ivy said. “He can't speak it, without magic!”
“We never taught him,” Vadne agreed. “We eschewed Xanth, so that he would never learn. But now—”
“Tell him I'll tell the rest,” Ivy said.
“There is more?” Vadne asked, surprised.
“Much more.”
Vadne turned to Grey. “Qsjodftt Jwz xjmm ufmm vt uif sftu, efbs,” she said pleasantly. He looked disgruntled, but did not object. Probably he was dismayed to discover that Ivy could converse with his parents in a language he could not, but he realized the sense of it.
“You see. Grey helped me get back to Xanth,” Ivy explained brightly. “He didn't believe in it, but he liked me, so he helped me. Then I took him in, and by the time he came to believe in magic, we, well, we were betrothed. Then we discovered he had magic himself, in fact he was a Magician—”
“Xibu?” Murphy demanded, astonished.
“A Magician,” Ivy repeated. “You see, you, well, you summoned the stork for him in Xanth, so he was Xanthian, and we think maybe your going to Mundania before the stork delivered him affected his talent, so now he can null magic, even mine, so he's a Magician of Null Magic.
Anyway, my folks said I couldn't marry him unless he had a talent, and so now we can marry. But we wondered how a Mundane could have a talent, and when we found out, we learned about Com-Pewter and the deal you made to get out of Xanth. But we think maybe there's a way around it.”
“Wait—wait,” Vadne said, seeming dizzy. “We thought he might have magic, but this—this is all so sudden!”
“So what we want to do is bring you back to Xanth,” Ivy continued blithely. “Because Magician Murphy's talent—well, if he would promise to serve the existing order and foul up Pewter instead of my father—I mean, I know he wanted to be king, but that was a long time ago.”
Murphy and Vadne were staring at her. “But we are banned!” Murphy said. “We would be put back in the Brain Coral's pool!”
“You weren't really banned,” Ivy said. “You just thought the current folk would be mad at you, and I guess they are, because your curse really messed up my little brother, but if you promised not to do it anymore—”
“You don't understand,” Vadne said. “In a fit of jealousy I turned a girl into a book, and wouldn't turn her back. That's why I'm banned.”
“Oh—Millie the Ghost,” Ivy said, remembering. “But she's alive now, and so is the Zombie Master, and they have twin children. I think they would forgive you, if you asked. Anyway, if Magician Murphy used his talent to make things go wrong for Com-Pewter, maybe Grey could somehow get out of that deal and then we could marry and stay in Xanth. I'm sure my father would say it's all right, because he doesn't want me to have to leave Xanth or anything. So if you will agree to come, and renounce your claim to the throne—”
“I renounced it when I fled Xanth,” Murphy said fervently. “I would give anything to return!”
“And so would I!” Vadne agreed as fervently. “We have dreamed of Xanth constantly, but never spoken of it.”
“But we have to go right away,” Ivy said. “Because Electra here is aging and we have to get her back. She's actually fifteen years old, in Xanth.”
Both turned to stare at Electra. “It is true,” Electra said. “Your curse. Magician Murphy, caused me to sleep for nine hundred years or so—I never was sure about the exact count—and wake at the age I went to sleep. But now I am out of the magic, and those nine hundred years are taking effect.”
“My curse?” Murphy asked. “I did not curse any children!”
“I was with the Sorceress Tapis, who opposed you on the Isle of View.”
“Oh, now I remember! There were two or three girls with her, one very pretty—”
“That was Millie the Maid or the Princess; both were beautiful. I was the nothing girl.”
Murphy's brow furrowed. “And you come to ask me to return to Xanth? I would think you would hate me.”
“Not exactly. Your curse caused me to become betrothed to a handsome young Prince. Of course I will die if he doesn't marry me, but it has been very nice knowing him and Ivy. So I believe you did as much good for me, in your devious fashion, as evil. I really hold no grudge, though I would not want to suffer your curse again.” Murphy considered. “Would you accept my apology for the evil I did you?”
“Of course. But I am at present in a mature state; I might feel otherwise in my normal childish state.”
“Then I will wait to proffer my apology until you return to that childish state, and shall meditate on ways to ameliorate the predicament you are in. Perhaps my talent can be turned to the benefit of others beside my son.”
“Then you'll come?” Ivy asked, excited.
“We will both come, and ask your father for permission to stay, and suffer what consequences there may be,” Murphy said. “I am sure I speak for my wife too when I say that we shall do all in our power to make amends for the mischief we have done, if only we are permitted to return and remain in Xanth.”
“Then it's decided!” Ivy said. “But we must hurry, because we have only two days to get Electra back.”
“We can do it in one,” Murphy said. “I have a car.”
“But the house, the arrangements—we can't just leave!” Vadne protested.
“Phone your friend next door and tell her the house is hers until we return. If we are accepted in Xanth, we will never return.”
Vadne nodded. She hurried to the strange Mundane instrument called the telephone.
Within an hour they were on their way, the five of them piled into the Murphy's car, with some sandwiches and milk that Vadne had packed for the trip. The car zoomed along the road at a dizzying speed, in much the way the taxi had, somehow avoiding collisions with all the other cars that zoomed by in the opposite direction, almost close enough to touch.
They drove the rest of the day and didn't stop at night.
Now the bright lights of the other cars flashed in the darkness, making Ivy even more nervous. But when she glanced at Electra and saw her visibly older, she knew that speed was best.
Ivy did not realize she had fallen asleep until she was awakened by a bumping jolt. “We have run out of road,” Magician Murphy said. “We shall have to continue on foot.”
They piled out and started walking. Magician Murphy had a flashlight, which in Mundania had the odd property of sending out a conical beam of light. They marched on into the region that was the
Isthmus of Xanth, Ivy leading, because she was the one who was native to the time of Xanth they had left. That meant she could lead them back to it. If someone from another time of Xanth led, they would return to his or her time, which could be another matter.
Then Ivy heard a voice calling in the distance. “Who is there?”
That was Donkey! “Ivy is here!” she called back.
They oriented on the centaur, and soon joined forces.
They were back in Xanth. Ivy felt an enormous relief; she had not realized how nervous she had been about this until they were clear of drear Mundania. How could she ever hope to survive there for a lifetime?
“But why did you bring three Mundanes?” Donkey asked. “And where is Electra?”
The middle-aged woman who was Electra stepped up to “I have put on some years, but I will lose them again, if you have patience.”
“It is you!” he exclaimed, dismayed. “What happened?”
“I forgot I was nine hundred years old, in Mundane terms,” she said with a wry smile. “It has been an interesting experience that I hope will soon be over.”
Then Ivy introduced Magician Murphy and Vadne. “We shall have a problem, as we do not have steeds for all,” she said. “We may have to break into two parties, one fast, one slow.”
“My wife and I will be happy to take our time,” Murphy said. “It has been so long, it will take us time to acclimatize.”
“And I would prefer to wait until I am back to my normal state,” Electra said.
“I will be happy to remain until you do,” Donkey offered.
“Then suppose Grey and I ride ahead on the ghost horses, and the rest of you proceed more slowly down the enchanted path,” Ivy said. “By the time you arrive, everything should be normal, and Castle Roogna will be prepared to receive you.”
That turned out to be satisfactory to them all, and it was decided.
But first they had to deliver Sending to a screen, as they had promised. “Oh, certainly; there is an artifact of that description nearby,” Donkey said. “I explored this region thoroughly while watching for your return.” He led them to the place.
It turned out to be a polished slab of stone, with a deep crack at one side. Grey put the disk in the crack, and the stone glowed. Print appeared. DEAL CONSUMMATED, it said.