Authors: Piers Anthony
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Princesses, #Magic, #Epic, #Fantasy fiction; American, #Xanth (Imaginary place)
the significance of the color on the screen: it signified the
magic ambience of Xanth, after the blah shades of gray of
the Time of No Magic.
"We did, indeed, dally too long," the man replied.
Oddly, he did not look as unhappy about their dalliance
as might have been expected.
"Much too long," the woman agreed, seeming no more
upset about their folly than he.
"But we can still escape!" he said. "The Brain Coral
should be disorganized for a time, and it can't act directly;
it will have to send a message to recapture us, and that
will be hard to do for a few hours!"
The woman gazed out into the Gap Chasm, at whose
lip they had just summoned the stork. "But it will take us
days to cross this, even if we can get past the dragon at
the bottom. We don't dare use a magic bridge or even a
recognized crossing region!"
"True." He considered briefly. "Perhaps we should foul
up the pursuit by doing the completely unexpected: trav-
eling south, instead of north toward the exit from Xanth."
"But then we won't escape Xanth at all! They will use
magic to ferret us out, and we'll be done for!"
"Maybe not. I can exert my talent to foul up the pur-
Man from Mundania
235
suit, and you can exert yours to reshape some blankets
into clothing for us. We might yet be able to sneak out
before they get truly organized."
"But that means we shall have to stay together!" she
said, expressing a good deal more alarm than she seemed
to feel.
"It is a burden we shall just have to endure," he said,
surprisingly undismayed.
"I suppose so. Just so we don't do any of this again,"
she said, putting her arms around him.
"Or any of this," he agreed, kissing her.
"How fortunate that we understand each other so well,"
she said, with a smile that might have had a hint of wry-
ness.
"Well, we certainly made our attitude toward each other
clear enough," he agreed with even less of a hint of irony.
"When you insulted me by calling my talent Sorceress
level, did you really mean it?"
"Of course I meant that insult!" he said indignantly.
"Do you think I would compliment you?"
She was silent, but there were tears in her eyes. It was
evident that of all the insults he had proffered, that was
the one that had scored most effectively. Perhaps it had
been the one that caused her to make the supreme sacrifice
of dragging him right down to the awful business of sum-
moning the stork. Certainly her revenge had been effec-
tive, costly as it must have been to her self-esteem.
They walked south, away from the chasm, their aversion
for each other manifesting in subtle ways, such as when
he mockingly helped her over a fallen tree or when she
just as mockingly gave him the finest of the yellowberry
pies she discovered. At times they waxed eloquent in their
sarcasm, addressing each other as "dear" or "darling,"
and every so often they kissed again, just to make sure the
revulsion was undiminished. A stranger might even have
been fooled into thinking they felt about each other as
Grey and Ivy did, so perfect was their emulation of that
lamented state. It was a truly amazing performance.
Then they encountered an invisible giant. The monster
was stumbling around, evidently still dazed by the recent
236
Man from Mundania
Man from Mundania
237
absence of magic, and there was no telling where his
clumsy foot would fall next. They fled into a nearby cave
for safety.
GREETINGS, INTRUDERS, a screen printed.
The two halted, there in the cave, drawing together for
mutual protection despite their dislike of each other.
"What are you?" the man demanded.
I AM COM-PEWTER. I GOVERN THIS REGION. YOU ARE
NOW IN MY POWER.
"I have news for you," the man said. "I am a—"
He stopped, for the woman had elbowed him. They were
trying to hide their identities!
"I am about to depart this cave with my, um, wife,"
the man said, choking down the implied intimacy for the
sake of concealing their actual feelings for one another.
"I don't believe in your power." The two of them turned
to go, evidently concluding that the staggering giant was
a better risk than this strange device.
DOOR SLAMS CLOSED, PREVENTING EXIT, the SCreeH
printed.
A door appeared across the exit. It slammed open.
WHAT WENT WRONG? the screen demanded, appalled.
"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong," the man
murmured, smiling obscurely.
i HEARD THAT! the screen printed. NOW i KNOW YOU!
YOU ARE MAGICIAN MURPHY, FRESHLY ESCAPED FROM THE
STORAGE POOL OF THE BRAIN CORAL! AN EVIL MAN'.
"Magician Murphy!" Ivy exclaimed. "I thought his tal-
ent seemed familiar!"
Murphy, glancing back, saw the print. "Curses! We
shall have to destroy this thing, lest it give us away."
WAIT! I AM AN EVIL MACHINE! WE MUST POOL OUR RE-
SOURCES FOR GREATER EVIL THAN EVER;
"Now that's interesting," the woman said. "Just what
is a machine? I think I should render it into a topologically
harmless configuration, just to be sure."
AND YOU MUST BE VADNE, EVIL BUT BEAUTIFUL SOR-
CERESS, ALSO ESCAPED FROM CONFINEMENT IN THE POOL.
"That's my mother's name!" Grey exclaimed. "Vadne
Murphy! But she's forty years old! She's no beautiful Sor-
ceress!"
Then he stared at Ivy, the revelation dawning.
"Not in Mundania," Ivy said. "Not nineteen years
later. All that time with no magic, getting worn down by
drear existence ..."
On the screen, Vadne pursed her lips. "Beautiful Sor-
ceress? This thing insults me just as you do! Maybe we
should consult further with this device."
I WILL HELP YOU ESCAPE RECAPTURE IF YOU HELP ME
GAIN ULTIMATE POWER OVER XANTH, the screen offered.
"But we must flee Xanth!" Magician Murphy pro-
tested. "We are fugitives! There is no freedom for us here!
We can not help you at all."
Com-Pewter considered, the screen pulsing gently with
the word CONSIDERING blinking in a comer. Then: i HAVE
THE PATIENCE OF THE INANIMATE. I AM PREPARED TO
DEFER MY AMBITION FOR THE SAKE OF A BETTER CHANCE
OF ITS ACHIEVEMENT. I WILL GET YOU OUT OF XANTH NOW
IF YOU WILL GIVE ME YOUR SON.
"What?" Murphy, Vadne, and Grey asked together.
YOU HAVE SUMMONED THE STORK WITH AN ORDER FOR
A SON, the screen printed. YOU MAY NOT RETURN TO
XANTH, BUT YOUR SON MAY. GIVE HIM TO ME IN EX-
CHANGE FOR YOUR ESCAPE. I WILL ACCEPT HIS SERVICE IN
LIEU OF YOURS.
Murphy and Vadne exchanged a glance and a half. "We
would have to stay together, even in Mundania," she said.
"Can we stand that?"
"Are you implying I can't stand as much as you can?"
he demanded. Then, to Pewter: "We are evil folk; how
can you trust us to keep that pledge?"
YOU MAY BE EVIL, BUT YOUR SON WILL BE GOOD. WHEN
HE LEARNS OF YOUR PLEDGE, HE WILL HONOR IT.
The two considered. Then, reluctantly, they made the
deal. The picture faded out.
It was only a moment, but it seemed like a generation
to Grey, as he oriented on what he had learned. His par-
ents—escaped criminals of Xanth! That explained so
238 Man from Mundania
much, but was also so difficult to accept. How could he
deal with this?
"So you were brought by the Xanth stork," Rapunzel
said. ' 'Your magic talent must have been set by your ori-
gin, even though your parents left Xanth and you were
delivered in Mundania."
"They have a, uh, different way of doing it in Mun-
dania," Grey said. "But yes, I was conceived—uh, sig-
naled for—in Xanth, so that does explain my magic. Aad
having a Magician and a Sorceress for parents meant I had
that level of talent too, just as was the case with Ivy. But
if they escaped at the Time of No Magic, that was before
King Dor was, uh, delivered. So how come I'm not his
age?"
"No problem," Grundy said. "There's a time curtain
at the border. We can step from Xanth into any time of
Mundania, and any place of Mundania too, but Mundanes
have more trouble controlling it. Com-Pewter must have
arranged for them to step into the Mundania of more re-
cent vintage."
i ARRANGED THAT, Com-Pewter agreed. THIS is THE
COMPLETION OF MY PLOT. I WAITED TO BRING YOU TO
XANTH UNTIL THERE WAS AN AVAILABLE PRINCESS FOR YOU
TO MARRY. I ADMIT THAT THERE WAS AN ELEMENT OF
CHANCE WHEN I SENT YOUR PARENTS TO THE CURRENT
TIME, BECAUSE THE FIRSTBORN OF THIS GENERATION
MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN FEMALE. WHEN IT WAS, I KNEW IT
WAS TIME TO ACT. MY QUACKS WERE ALIGNED.
"Quacks?" Grey asked. "Oh, you mean ducks."
"So it was you in Mundania!" Ivy exclaimed.
IT WAS MY SENDING. I COULD NOT GO THERE, SO I SENT
MY ESSENCE. THERE WAS THAT KERNEL OF MAGIC ABOUT
GREY, EVEN THERE, SO IT WAS POSSIBLE TO ANIMATE HIS
MACHINE IN HIS PRESENCE. I DID NOT KNOW WHAT HAP-
PENED THERE, ONLY WHAT ITS CAPACITY WAS. IT WAS TO
ORIENT ON HIM AND MANIFEST ONLY WHEN HE WAS BE-