Man From Mundania (70 page)

tries that he could not make any sense of them. It would

take him an hour just to find his place!

The door opened. A stunning Mundane woman entered.

Grey blinked. This had to be the Maenad—but what a

change! Grace'1 must have found a cache of supplies for

this job. She was in a lovely pink dress with bows, and

324

Man from Mundania

Man from Mundania

325

wore pink slippers with flowers on top, and her hair was

bound in another bow with another flower. Her finger and

toenails were delicately tinted, and so were her lips. Her

legs were so smooth that they were surely exhibited in

hose, and there was a definite suggestion of panty out of

sight. She looked as if she were going to a debutante party.

She had come for her Answer, surmounting all the chal-

lenges—and he was unable to use the Book of Answers!

Now what was he to do?

Her petite mouth opened, the Question incipient.

"You're beautiful," he said, partly to stave off her

Question, and partly because it was true.

"You have humiliated me!" she cried. "You have made

me cry, and chase a goblin, and—what?"

"You're beautiful," he repeated. "If you wish, I will

null out all that magic as you stand before a mirror, and

you will see that your beauty owes nothing to enchantment

or nymphly arts. Any time you wish to retire from the

oracle, I'm sure you could readily nab a village lout."

She considered. "Maybe I will. It has occurred to me

since meeting you that-there may after all be uses for men

other than as food. But right now I have a Question."

He had hoped he had diverted her. Now he was in for

it. "Ask."

"I am running out of gibberish to spout when I sit over

the cleft. The priest says I can't be a priestess unless I

have plenty of vile-sounding gibberish. How can I get it?"

His worst fear had come true: here was a Question he

couldn't answer! How could a person "find" gibberish to

spout when it no longer came naturally?

Then he remembered how Goody Goblin's nice lan-

guage had deteriorated when he had sat on a curse burr.

Suppose Mae did the same thing?

He looked at her form, and knew he couldn't recom-

mend that remedy; it would be a defilement of beauty.

But another memory came to him: of his father, in past

years, laboring over a Mundane torture known as income

tax. Much of the problem had been the maddeningly in-

comprehensible tax manual.

"Grace'1," he said.

The lady skeleton appeared.

"Fetch the volume labeled Revised Simplified Tax Man-

ual. "

Soon Grace'1 was back with the volume, one of the pile

of dusty tomes Grey and Ivy had sorted through. He had

thought that particular one useless, but had been too busy

to throw it out yet.

He opened the tome. "Now I want you to look at this

and try your best to make sense of it."

"A book?" Mae asked, frowning skeptically. She

looked at the page. "It shouldn't be hard to blip toggle

subtract twenty-eight percent of Line 114 from the total of

Lines 31 and 89, whichever is less coherent, and zap frag-

gle Form 666 under Line 338A unless outgo is more than

indicated in Supplementary Brochure 15Q, in which case

fromp beezle—" She looked up. "This is sheer gibber-

ish!"

"Precisely," Grey said. "This is the volume of gibber-

ish. No one has made sense of it in centuries. Take it with

you, and you will never run out of inspiration."

"Oh thank you, Magician!" she exclaimed, clutching

the tome to her bosom. "And what service—"

Grey started to say that she needed to perform no ser-

vice, then realized that he just might need a Wild Woman

to challenge some other visitor. The Good Magician's pol-

icy of requiring a term of service was not merely to dis-

courage applicants, but to make the system feasible. It all

fitted together—now that he had spent a day, as it were,

in the Good Magician's shoes. "Remain for a while," he

said gruffly. "The skeleton will show you to a room. I

shall notify you of your service in due course."

Then, seemingly abruptly, his time was up. They had

spent most of a week putting Humfrey's castle in order

and in handling the constant pleas for Answers. The Good

Magician had not returned, and now it was evident that

he was not going to. Their wild hope had proved vain.

Dolph was ready to change form and carry Grey and

Ivy away. Marrow and Grace'1 had agreed to supervise the

shutting down of the castle, with the help of those who

326 Man from Mundania

owed service. The brief restoration of Answers was about

to end.
                                    
*

Ivy's determination to come with him remained firm.

She bid a tearful farewell to the castle and the creatures

of it, and would do the same as they stopped by Castle

Roogna on the way to the isthmus. Forced to choose be-

tween him and her homeland, she had done him the im-

mense kindness of choosing him, and he would always

remember and treasure that, no matter how dreary his life

in Mundania became. With her it would have been bear-

able; without her it would be unbearable. But he had to

do what he had to do. He would fly with her back to Castle

Roogna, then say what he had to say, in the presence of

her family. He knew that King Dor and Queen Irene would

understand, and would support his position. Ivy might hate

him, for a time, but she did have magic alternatives.

"It's time," he said through the lump in his throat. "I

wish I could stay here forever, hectic as it may be; I really

like feeling useful! But I can't." That was only the half of

it! This coming flight would be his last with her, and with

her love.

Ivy was blinking back her tears. She took his hand,

proffering silent comfort. How little she knew!

Dolph changed form. He became the roc, precariously

perched on the roof. One of his huge claws happened to

slip on a dead leaf on a tile; he lost his balance, and had

to spread his wings to recover. The tip of one wing clipped

a turret—and a flying feather was broken.

Dolph changed back. He jammed a crushed finger into

his mouth. "I can't—mmph—fly with that—mmph—broken

feather!" he said around it.

"You poor thing!" Ivy said with instant sympathy. "I'll

bandage it."

"But how will we get to the isthmus in time?" Grey

asked. He knew that no other mode of transport would be

fast enough; they had depended on Dolph and had stayed

just as late as they could risk it. He felt guilty for that,

knowing he was playing it too close, but savoring his last

moments in Xanth and with Ivy.

Man from Mundania
       
327

"Look in the Book of Answers!" Ivy said over her

shoulder as she took her brother off for bandaging.

He shrugged and decided to do just that. He went to the

book and opened it. Maybe there was a magic way to fix

a feather instantly. He had begun to get a glimmer of the

way the book was organized; it was alphabetical, but so

detailed, with so many subentries and cross-references,

that it was easy to get lost on the way. He looked for

"Feather" and discovered such an enormous listing of

types and classes and qualities of feathers that he decided

it would be faster to look up "Roc" instead. He flipped

over the pages, and naturally turned too many, finding

himself in the S's. He started to flip the pages back, and

his eye happened to light on the entry immediately by his

left thumb: "Service." Curious, he read it. This, too, had

many subtypes and qualifications. One he saw at the bot-

tom of the page was "Good Magician's."

Grey paused, his hand still about to turn the page. He

read that portion. "... that by ancient custom and prac-

tice having the force of law, service to the Good Magician,

such as in payment for Answers, takes precedence over all

other services of any type, regardless of their dates of

inception, notwithstanding commitments that may have

been made or inferred or otherwise designated, for the

reason that ..."

This was almost as obscure as the tax manual! It must

have taken the Good Magician most of his century or so

of life to decipher this opacity! It would have been fasci-

nating to unravel the actual meaning of such entries, maybe

sitting by a warm fireplace with Ivy in the evenings . . .

Grey had to thumb tears out of his eyes. The truth was

that, despite all its confusion and frustration, this scant

week in the Good Magician's castle had been wonderful.

He had somehow stumbled through and managed to do

some favors for the good folk and creatures of Xanth, and

each case had been a separate item of education, opening

his eyes to another intriguing aspect of the magic realm.

But mainly he had felt so very useful! It had seemed as if

what he did mattered to others. Never before he met Ivy

had he had that feeling, and never before this castle had

Man from Mundania

328

he had it in relation to strangers. He had felt, however

foolishly, important. For these few days. He hated to give

that up just about as much as he hated to leave Xanth. It

wasn't just for him; it was for those he had helped, and

might have helped in times to come. Had it been possible

to stay—

. . . takes precedence over all other services . . .

Grey stopped still. Could that be true? Could it apply

even to the service he owed to Com-Pewter?

He reread the passage, carefully, making sure he un-

derstood each part of it. It did seem to be true! And that