Man From Mundania

  The slug's antennae lined up, then moved forward together with marvelous slow-motion dexterity.

  “Answer,” Ivy translated. She had picked up a marvelous facility for this type of communication in a short time; Grey realized that she must have enhanced her own learning ability for it. Except that she had been in Mundania at the time, so her talent shouldn't have been operative. He would have to ask her about that.

  She faced Grey: “It wants an Answer, but I don't know—”

  “An Answer!” Grey exclaimed. “It thinks the Good Magician is back!”

  Ivy grimaced. “I'll try to explain.” She made the sign for conversation—the tip of one index finger moving toward the lips while the other moved from them, then reversing the motions.

  The slug remained stuck to the wall, responding with its antennae. After a fair dialogue. Ivy turned to Grey.

  “I'm not getting through. I don't know all the terms, and it isn't awfully bright. As near as I can tell, it wants to attend a slugfest.”

  “Maybe that doesn't mean the same as it does in Mundania,” Grey said.

  “I'm not sure what it means,” she said. “But we'd better tell the slug something, so that it will go away. Otherwise it's apt to slime the castle, and its breath will set fire to the curtains.”

  Grey pondered. “All right. Tell it to make up a bunch of notices in slug-speak, and post them on trees and rocks and things where big slugs go. The notices will say SLUGFEST, and give the time and place. Then any interested slugs will go there at the proper time. But tell it to allow a year or two, because slugs don't travel very fast.”

  “I'll try.” Ivy got busy with her signals. After a time the slug, satisfied, turned around and slid slowly back through the steaming moat and away from the castle.

  They returned to their tome sorting. But soon there was another interruption. “A goblin is knocking at the door,”

  Marrow reported.

  “You mean pounding?” Grey asked, remembering the nature of goblins.

  “No, this is a constrained, polite knocking.”

  “It must be a trick,” Ivy said. “Let him in, then pull up the drawbridge so his henchmen can't charge after he has opened the way.”

  In due course they met the goblin in one of the cleaned up chambers. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

  Grey inquired gruffly.

  “I am very sorry to disturb you, Good Magician, but when I saw that you had returned—”

  “Wait!” Grey said, embarrassed. “I'm not the Good Magician! I'm Grey, just doing a service for him.” In addition, there was something odd about the goblin.

  “I beg your pardon. Grey,” the goblin said. “I am Goody Goblin. If I may have an appointment, I shall return at a more convenient time.”

  Grey realized what was bothering him about this goblin.

  He was being polite! “It's not that! The Good Magician isn't here right now, and I'm not sure when—”

  “I am certainly willing to accept an Answer from an assistant,” Goody said. “I realize that the Good Magician has far more pressing concerns than the problem of a mere goblin.”

  Grey was beginning to feel like a heel. “Uh, just what is your problem. Goody?”

  “I seem to be unpopular with my kindred. Since naturally I would like to assume a posture of leadership, and to win the favor of a pretty gobliness, I wish to be advised of appropriate corrective action.”

  “Well, I'd certainly like to help you, but—” Then Grey had a bright notion. “I think you need to have a fouler mouth. Most goblins I've met are obnoxious and violent. If—”

  “Oh, I couldn't be violent!” Goody protested. “That would be unsocial.”

  “Well, maybe you wouldn't have to actually be violent, if only you sounded violent. You could bluff your way through. What you need is a really foul vocabulary.”

  “I would be glad to have it!” Goody agreed. “May I purchase it from you?”

  Grey glanced helplessly at Ivy. “No, I think you have to learn it,” she said. “But I think I know where you can.”

  “That would be excellent!”

  “Just a moment.” She went to Marrow and whispered.

  The skeleton departed, but returned in a moment with something. Ivy set it on a chair. “Sit down,” she told Goody.

  “Why thank you,” the goblin said, taking the chair.

  Because he was short-legged he had to jump up and land on it. But the moment he landed, he sailed off again.

  “^$*&£0!!” he exclaimed, causing the white curtains to blush pink. Something flew from him and struck the wall so hard it was embedded.

  Grey caught on. She had put a curse burr on the chair!

  “So you do know the terms,” Ivy said, evidently suppressing her own delicate blush, for it had been quite a word the goblin had fired forth. “You just need to be encouraged to use it.”

  “Go to the biggest, wildest curse burr patch you can find, and sit down in the middle of it,” Grey said. “I guarantee that by the time you find your way out, you will have the required vocabulary. Just make sure you remember the expressions that get you free. They can only be used once against the curse burrs, but are infinitely reusable against goblins.”

  “Oh thank you, kind sir and lovely maiden!” Goody said. “And what is your fee for this wonderful Answer?”

  “No fee,” Grey said quickly. “We're just here for a few days. Good luck.”

  The goblin stood up to his full lowly height. “No, I am afraid I must insist. You are doing me a service, and I must do you one in recompense. That is only fair.”

  Fairness—in a goblin? Now Grey had seen everything!

  “Well, er, if you feel that way, maybe you should, uh, stay here a while, and when something comes up, er—”

  “Excellent. I am sure there will be something.”

  Grace’l appeared. “Show our guest to a suitable chamber,” Ivy said.

  Heartened, Goody Goblin departed with the skeleton.

  Grey was sure he would make good among the goblins, after undertaking the corrective course.

  They returned to their tomes—only to be interrupted again. This time it was a flying fan: an instrument made of bamboo that propelled itself by waving back and forth so as to generate a jet of air. Ivy was able to communicate with it by sign language, though some of this resembled a fan dance. The fan turned out to be lost, and was looking for fandom.

  Now Grey had just a bit of Mundane experience that related. “Form a fan club!” he exclaimed. “Then you will be in the middle of fandom.”

  Satisfied, the fan flew off to find a suitable length of wood to make a club.

  They were about to return to the tomes, when yet another supplicant arrived.

  “This is getting out of hand!” Grey muttered. “We'll never get anything done if this continues!”

  “Maybe we should haul up the drawbridge again,” Ivy said. “I realize that seems unfriendly, but with all these folk coming in, we'll have no rest or privacy at all if we don't limit access.”

  “I'm beginning to understand why the Good Magician was reputed to be reclusive and taciturn,” Grey said, “if this is what his life was like before he set limits.”

  “You see to the one that's inside, and I'll see to getting the defenses set up,” Ivy said with a smile. “Just don't do too much for her.” She departed.

  When Grey saw the visitor, he understood Ivy's caution.

  She was a lovely young human girl. “Oh Magician, please, I beg of you, I'm desperate, I'll do anything!” she exclaimed.

  “Please, I'm only, uh, filling in, and I may not be able to help you,” he said. “What—”

  “I'm in love!” she exclaimed grandly. “But he doesn't know I exist! Please—”

  Grey ascertained that it was a young man of her village she was interested in, who saw her only as a friend. She did not want to make a scene, she only wanted him to return her love. She was sure things would be fine, then.

  I
t seemed to Grey that she was correct; she was a good and lovely girl who would be good for a handsome lout like that. Just as Ivy was good for Grey himself.

  “Grace’l,” he said, and the skeleton appeared. “Is there a vial of love potion in the collection you have been sorting?”

  “Several,” Grace’l agreed.

  “Bring one here.” The skeletons were not always quick on the uptake, perhaps because their skulls were hollow.

  She brought one. Grey presented it to the maiden. “Slip this in his drink. Make sure you are the first person he sees after he drinks. You understand? A mistake could be very awkward.”

  “Oh, yes!” she exclaimed. “Oh, thank you, Magician!” She flung her arms around him and planted a kiss on his nose. “But what about my service?”

  “No service, this time,” he said. But he realized that this aspect, also, of the good Magician's practice made sense. Folk were too eager to get something for nothing, and were already flocking to the castle. If it was this bad on the first day, how much worse would it be on the following days? “But in the future, probably some service will be required.” So that when she spread the word, it would discourage the freeloaders.

  “Oh? When?” She evidently thought he meant that she would have to return to do the service.

  He realized that it would hardly be expedient to call her back; she would have to do it before she left. “Uh, within the next few days. Grace’l will show you to a chamber for the night.”

  “That's fine,” she agreed, and departed with the skeleton.

  They finished the day, their tome sorting incomplete, and retired to their separate chambers after an excellent evening meal Grace’l prepared. Grey lay awake for some time, thinking about things. Now he appreciated why Good Magician Humfrey might not be eager to return here in any hurry. What were his prospects? An endless line of supplicants, each requiring attention and research, while his own work of whatever nature went undone. Grey and Ivy had been here only a day, and already the word had spread; the Good Magician had been here a century or so.

  Yet he had to admit that he rather liked helping people and creatures. He was learning things, too. He had thought that all goblins were like those of the Golden Horde; now he knew better. He had thought that monsters were for fighting or fleeing, but the giant slug had only wanted advice. Each case had to be judged on its merits, and none were truly unworthy. It seemed a shame to shut them all out, when they really did need help.

  But of course he could not help them. In a few days he would be gone, even assuming he had competence for this.

  He was a Magician, but his talent hardly applied to this sort of thing. Well, if some creatures suffered from a devastating hex or geis, as they called it, that was of magical origin, he could probably nullify it. If there was illusion, he could nullify that too, cutting through to the truth. Other cases could be handled by ordinary common sense or a little imagination. Others were amenable to the artifacts of the castle, like the love potion. So there actually was a lot that he and Ivy could do. Certainly it was the kind of thing he'd rather be doing than leaving Xanth!

  But he did have to leave Xanth, because soon Com-Pewter's grace period would be over, and he would have to serve the evil machine if he were not gone from Xanth.

  Com-Pewter hardly cared about the welfare of individual folk! The machine would set about taking over Xanth, and Grey was aware that though his magic talent might not readily be turned to doing good, it could certainly be turned to doing evil by nulling the magic of anyone who opposed Com-Pewter. He could not allow that to happen.

  How he wished it were otherwise! That his father's curse had been effective. Almost, it seemed, it had been; it had enabled them to locate Magician Humfrey and talk with him. But the Magician had refused to help in time. Suppose Grey stayed in Xanth and the machine used him to destroy much of what was good and decent in it, and then, years later. Magician Humfrey returned? What kind of Xanth would greet him? No, Grey had to leave Xanth; there was no other way.

  Unhappily, he slept.

  In the morning there was a new person approaching the castle. It was a female figure, naked and wild-haired. A nymph? Then Grey recognized her. “Mae Maenad!” he exclaimed.

  “What could she want?” Ivy demanded. “We left her well set up as the oracle on Parnassus!”

  “Something must have gone wrong,” Grey said. “I have a feeling that plain common sense won't fix it.”

  Ivy glanced at him obliquely. “She was the first to call you Magician, and you did kiss her. Do you suppose—?”

  Grey laughed. “What attractive young woman would have any interest in a nothing like me?”

  Ivy's look transformed slowly from oblique glance to direct stare. Grey realized that he was in trouble.

  “Uh—” he said, with his usual social finesse.

  “I'll settle with you later,” she muttered significantly.

  “Right now we'd better find out a way to slow her down until we can figure out exactly what she wants before she meets you.”

  A bright notion forged its way into Grey's mind. “The Good Magician had challenges, didn't he? That didn't actually stop the people who came, but—”

  “But slowed them down!” she agreed. “Until he could do some research in his Book of Answers, and—” She broke off.

  “And we don't, uh, have that book,” he finished.

  “We, uh, certainly don't,” she said, mimicking him with a brief smile. “We also don't have suitable challenges. The layout of this castle was different each time someone approached it; he must have had a lot of work done between visits.”

  “But it's solid stone! You can't just move that around! The whole thing would tumble down!”

  Ivy pondered. “He must have had an easier way. He had the centaurs rebuild this castle, long ago. Now it occurs to me to wonder: why rebuild it, when it was already standing and only needed refurbishing? Those centaurs really worked; I saw them on the Tapestry. They seemed to have about ten different designs, and they worked on them all, but somehow it became only one castle.”

  “Like the dream castle and cottage, maybe,” he said.

  “Switching readily from one to the other, according to the need, to fool intruders.”

  “According to the need,” she echoed. “Grey, I think you've got it!”

  “I do?”

  “There must be a command or something to change the castle, to make it different. Something he could invoke.”

  Grey nodded. It was making sense! “We'd better invoke it soon; Mae is almost here.”

  “I'll try.” Ivy took a breath. “Castle—change form!”

  They waited, but nothing happened. Ivy tried other commands, but nothing worked.

  “Uh, maybe since it's my service we're doing,” Grey said. “I mean, it's my problem, having to serve Com-Pewter, so I'm the one who owes the Good Magician the service. The castle—well, it sorta has to cooperate, if—”

  “It sorta does,” Ivy agreed, mimicking him again.

  “Well, give it a command.”

  Grey turned to face the main portion of the castle. “In the name of Good Magician Humfrey, change form!” he intoned.

  There was a rumble. The castle shook. Walls slid around. In a moment the platform they were on heaved, and the stones of the wall rose up high.

  Grey discovered Ivy in his arms. They were no longer on a parapet, but in a cupola whose arched windows over looked the moat. They could see the slanting roofs of the castle, different from before. The entire layout of the castle had changed.

  “It obeyed me!” Grey exclaimed, amazed.

  “You didn't believe your own reasoning?” Ivy inquired archly. “That it had to cooperate, if you were to perform the service for the Good Magician?”

  “I guess my faith wasn't strong,” he agreed. Then he looked down again. “But we still have to deal with Mae.”

  “Well, the drawbridge is up, so that may slow her,”

  Ivy said.

>   “The Maenads can swim; they love to bathe in their wine spring. Except for—” He brightened. “That's it!”

  “That's what?”

  “She doesn't like blood! Is there a vial of imitation blood in the collection? I mean, something that would—”

  “Gotcha, Magician!” Ivy said. “Grace’l!”

  The lady skeleton appeared. “Something funny has happened''—she began.

  “All under control,” Ivy said smoothly. “Is there a vial of blood in the chamber?”

  “Certainly. Concentrated blood extract.”

  “That should do. Pour it into the moat.”

  The skeleton, not having much brain, didn't argue. She went off to find the vial.

  They watched from the cupola. In due course a bony hand extended from a lower window. Something dribbled into the moat.

  Abruptly the moat turned deep red. It looked as if the river of blood from Girard had been diverted and now coursed around the castle. There was even a wisp of vapor rising from it, as if it were hot. The Good Magician's vials remained potent!

  Mae came to the brink and stared into the moat, evidently appalled. She had left the Maenads because she had no taste for fresh blood; what would she do now? Well, if her concern was less than critical, this would cause her to turn around and go back to Mount Parnassus, saving them trouble.

  The woman put her hands to her face in a gesture of grief. Suddenly Grey felt like a Mundane heel. She was weeping!

  The color of the moat faded in the vicinity of the Wild Woman. The water turned clear, the clearness spreading slowly outward. What was happening?

  “Her tears are washing out the blood,” Ivy said. “I didn't know Maenads could cry.”

  “Maybe true ones can't,” Grey said. “I think she is surmounting the first challenge.”

  “And we still don't know what her problem is or how to fix it!” she exclaimed.

  Grey nodded. “We're here for only a few days, but I want to do the best I can while I am here. Maybe it's a test, and if I do a good job, the Good Magician will return at the last moment and give me my Answer.” It was a wild hope.