Man From Mundania (57 page)

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.

"But what is there for you to do, way out here in no-

where?" Ivy asked.

FIRST I MUST CAPTURE AN INVISIBLE GIANT, the Screen

printed. THEN i MUST PRACTICE CONTROLLED VARIANTS OF

REALITY. IN TIME I MAY BE ABLE TO FASHION AN EMPIRE

AND CHALLENGE MY SIRE FOR MASTERY OF XANTH.

Man from Mundania
       
263

Ivy exchanged the remainder of her supply of glances

with Grey. "Uh, how long will this take?" he inquired.

PERHAPS AS LITTLE AS THREE HUNDRED YEARS, DE-

PENDING ON CIRCUMSTANCES.

"Surely you can do it faster than that!" Grey said en-

couragingly.

NOT SO. I CALCULATED FOR OPTIMUM CONDITIONS. IT IS

MORE LIKELY TO FALL IN THE RANGE OF TEN TO THE THIRD

POWER TO TEN TO THE FOURTH POWER YEARS. FORTU-

NATELY I AM A PATIENT DEVICE.

"That is fortunate," Ivy agreed. "I hope my own quest

is even more fortunate."

YOUR QUEST SHOULD BE RESOLVED WITHIN THE MONTH.

"Thank you. Sending," she said, pleased. But then she

remembered that this was the time limit Com-Pewter had

set for Grey to wrap up his other business before coming

to serve. Sending must have realized this.

Then, as they rode the ghost horses on down the path,

she asked Grey: "What is ten to the third power?"

"A thousand," he said. "That's one of the few things

I remember from college math, which is almost as bad a

course as Freshman English."

"You poor thing! But you may never have to suffer ei-

ther of those torments again, if we resolve our quest within

a month."

"But Sending didn't say which way it would be re-

solved."

"Oooops!" Her pleasure converted mystically to uncer-

tainty. They still didn't know how to get around Grey's

obligation to Com-Pewter. Their trip to Mundania had

confirmed the worst, but offered them a chance to nullify

it. That was all: a chance. If Magician Murphy could make

something go wrong with Com-Pewter's plot.

"I hope your father's curses are as potent as they were

nine hundred years ago!" Ivy said.

"I know he'll do the very best he can for me," Grey

replied. "My parents—they haven't always gotten along

well together, but they were always good to me. I never

really understood their ways, I think, until I saw Com-

Pewter's flashback scene. I only knew that despite their

264 Man from Mundania

arguments, they had some mysterious and powerful reason

to stay together. Now I know that it was their shared vision

of Xanth, about which they could never speak. For me

and for Xanth—they will do anything. I know that abso-

lutely. And—"

"And you're glad they will be here," she finished for

him. "So your family is together."

"I'm glad," he agreed with feeling. "Maybe my par-

ents were evil before, but they aren't now."

"Make sure you explain that to my parents!" she said,

laughing. But underneath she remained in deep doubt. It

was such a slender straw they were grasping at. If it failed,

what would become of them?

Chapter I4« Prophesy

^rey saw that Ivy was pensive, and under-

stood why. Nothing had been decided, and there was no

guarantee. Magician Murphy's curses had evidently been

extremely potent in the distant past, but this was now, not

the past, and the Magician was almost twenty years out of

practice. In those intervening years he had been simply

Major Murphy, a Mundane office worker who earned just

enough Mundane money to avoid poverty. He had been

fortunate in finding an employer who was satisfied with a

person with a language handicap, and fortunate in the way

his efforts turned out; it was as if there were some rebound

from his Xanth talent, changing the curse to good luck.

But this had hardly made up for the almost complete blah-

ness of Mundania. Now Grey understood what he had not

grasped before: that the dreadful drabness of his own life

was only a reflection of the much greater drabness of his

parents' lives. They had known Xanth, so were aware of

the magnitude of their loss. They had protected him from

that awareness, but now the full significance of it was

clear.

What would he do if he had to leave Xanth—and Ivy?

From time to time Grey had pondered suicide, not with

any great passion, but as a prospect to relieve the inexo-

rable boredom of his so-so existence. He had never actu-

ally tried it, not because of any positive inspiration, but

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Man from Mundania

267

because he couldn't figure out any easy way to do it with-

out pain. So he had muddled on through, while his grades

ground slowly down, feeling guilty for not doing better,

but somehow unable to change it. Maybe he had been

hoping for some impossible miracle to happen that would

rescue him from the mire of his dull life, yet knowing,

deep down, that it would never happen.

Then Ivy had come. His life had changed.

If he should lose her and return to Mundania alone-

no, he did not have to ask what would become of him. He

knew.

Anything that could go wrong, would go wrong: that

was his father's talent. Could it really act in a positive

manner, helping Grey by fouling up the evil machine?

Grey had all too little confidence in that! But what else

was there to try?

So he smiled and encouraged Ivy, and she smiled and

encouraged him, but neither was fooling the other. Their

happiness hung on an impossibly slender thread.

"And so that's the story," Ivy concluded. "Magician

Murphy and Vadne will be here in a few days to ask your

pardon for their crimes of the past, and they will support

you as King if you let them stay in Xanth, and will try to

help Grey get around Com-Pewter's plot. I can't marry

Grey until we find that way, and if we can't find it within

a month—" She shrugged.

"So you have decided to leave Xanth rather than serve

Pewter?" King Dor asked Grey.

"Yes. I don't want the evil machine to use me to take

over Xanth. If I had no talent of consequence, it would be

bad because of my influence with Princess Ivy. As it is, it

is worse, because I could do a lot of damage. Xanth

doesn't need another Evil Magician!"

"We always did like you, Grey," Queen Irene said.

"As we came to know you, we liked you better, and we

like you best now. But what you say is true. We shall of

course welcome your parents and allow them to stay in

Xanth, but the irony is that you may not be able to remain

here with them."

"But until that month is done, hope remains," Dor said.

"Knowing the devious power of the Magician Murphy, I

would say it is a significant hope."

Grey smiled and thanked them, but the gloom did not

let go of his soul. Com-Pewter seemed to have it locked

up tight: what could possibly go wrong with its plot when

it was so close to completion? The easiest wrongness was

simply Grey's absence from Xanth, and that was the one

that he so dreaded.

"Someho^, some way," Ivy murmured in the hall, and

kissed him. But her cheer was cracking at the edges.

Nothing happened while they waited for the arrival of

the other party. Grey and Ivy picked exotic fruits in the

orchard, fed tidbits to the moat monsters, made the ac-

quaintance of the guardian zombies, peeked at the baby

Bed Monster under Grey's bed (Grey was new to magic,

so had a childlike acceptance of some things despite being

eighteen), and played innocent games with Dolph and

Nada. The castle was excellent for hide and seek, because

it had many secret recesses that the ghosts were happy to

show off when asked. According to Ivy, the castle was not

as well stocked with ghosts as it once had been, because

three of them had been reanimated as living folk, but it

could still legitimately be called haunted as long as a sin-

gle ghost remained. In short, it was almost as dull as Mun-

dania.

Grey disagreed with her. "Xanth could never be dull!"

he said. "Why, even if it didn't have magic, there's—well,

look at that picture!" For they happened to be standing

by a portrait in the hall, one of a number that were ele-

gantly framed.

Ivy glanced at it. "Oh, yes, that's Mother when she was

my age. She was Miss Apull on the pinup calendar. I wish

I could look like that, at my age."

"You look like you," he said. "That's more than

enough."

"It will have to do," she said. But she was pleased.

Then the party arrived. Magician Murphy looked im-

proved, and Vadne much improved; both the exercise and

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269

the renewed experience of Xanth had been good for them.

Electra was back to her regular form, and skipping like a

child again. She hugged everyone, and even stole a