Man From Mundania (8 page)

already growing apart, and for the last seven years I haven't

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seen him at all, of course. But I'm sure none of them are

happy, if they're stuck in Mundania. So if they are here—"

"I haven't seen any people like that. But of course I

don't know many people in the city."

"Either they are here and that's why the Heaven Cent

brought me here and the magic's working, or they aren't

here and Murphy's curse sent me awry and it's another

picklement."

"What kind of curse?"

"Magician Murphy made a curse a long time ago, and we

don't knew whether it sdll has effect. But if it does, it could

have sent me to the wrong place, and this could be Mundania.''

"My name is Murphy," Grey said. "My father is Ma-

jor Murphy, and I'm Grey Murphy."

She stared at him with a peculiar intensity. Then she

shook her head. "No, it couldn't be. Magician Murphy

lived almost nine hundred years ago."

"Maybe Murphy's curse sent you to the nearest Mur-

phy," he said jokingly.

But she took it seriously. "Yes, that could be. It could

be the last gasp of the curse. So it's not coincidence, but

it's not where I was supposed to go either. I was supposed

to go where I was most needed."

"I thought you were supposed to go where the Good

Magician was."

' 'Yes. We assumed that was where I was most needed,

because of his message."

"Skeleton Key to Heaven Cent," Grey said.

Ivy jumped. "How did you know that?"

"I, uh, got that book. It says—"

"Oh, of course. The Muse has them, but someone

sneaks them out to Mundania every so often. It's a bad

business, but they can't seem to fix the leak. Anyway,

Dolph found the Skeleton Key—that turned out to be

Grace'1 Ossein—"

"Who?"

"I thought you read the book."

"Not that far, I guess. I fell asleep. But I did leam how

the Good Magician disappeared."

"Grace'1 is a walking skeleton. She's very nice."

"Oh, like Marrow Bones."

"Yes. So she was the Skeleton Key, and she helped get

the Heaven Cent. So it seems natural that this was how

the Good Magician wanted us to find him. But if the curse

diverted me to a Murphy instead of to Humfrey—"

"Maybe the Heaven Cent worked properly, only the

Good Magician wasn't the one who needed you most."

Her eyes widened. "What?"

Grey gulped. "I uh, really needed someone like you. I

mean—" He faltered, embarrassed.

"But you don't believe in magic!"

"I wish I did!" he exclaimed fervently. "I wish—I wish

I could believe in whatever you believe in, so I could be

wherever you are, and—" But he couldn't continue, be-

cause he knew he was making even more of a fool of

himself than usual.

"You needed me," Ivy said, musingly.

"I guess I'd better go now."

"You don't believe in Xanth, so you don't believe I'm

a princess or that I have any magic," she said.

"But I do believe in you!" he cried desperately.

She gazed at him with a new expression, appraisingly.

"So it really doesn't make any difference to you whether

I'm royal or common, or magic or not."

"I wish it did! Oh, Ivy, I think you're such a wonderful

girl, if only it wasn't for this—this—"

"Delusion," she concluded.

"I didn't say that!"

"But it's true."

That he could not deny. He made a supremely awkward

retreat to his room. If only he could have found some way

to express his feeling without messing up!

The computer screen lighted as he entered. YOU HAVE

A PROBLEM?

"Stay out of this!" he snapped, and struck the On/Off

switch viciously, shutting it down. Then, unable to con-

centrate on anything else, he sat on the bed and resumed

reading the novel.

Man from Mundania
        
37

Chapter 3. Signs

I vy sat and thought for some time. She had been

so sure that this was an aspect of Xanth, perhaps a setting

in the gourd, and that Grey was an accomplice in the de-

ception. The only question was whether it was witting or

unwitting. He seemed so nice, but of course that could be

part of the challenge. She had to figure out where she was

so she could reach the Good Magician. After all, if this

place was so devious that not even Humfrey, who knew

everything, could find his way out, it surely would not be

easy for her either. So she knew that nothing might be as

it seemed, and she had to question everything. Something

wanted her to believe this was Mundania, but that business

about the language had given it away. She had known it

was really Xanth.

Then the language had stopped. Was this another trick,

to deceive her by patching up the prior oversight? Grey

had seemed genuinely confused—but again, if he was set

up to play a part, he might really believe this was Mun-

dania. She had tested him by trying to use her talent to

enhance him, so that he would become more obviously

whatever he was and show his real nature; but there hadn't

seemed to be any effect. In fact, her magic seemed inop-

erative. Even her magic mirror didn't work; it just showed

her reflection, her hair so pale that no one would know it

•*£.

was supposed to have a green hue. It would be easy to

believe this really was Mundania, except for the language.

Then she had seen Com-Pewter. Suddenly things had

fallen into place! Obviously Pewter couldn't operate in

Mundania, because only magic animated him. The strang-

est thing, though, was the fact that Grey could turn Pewter

off. That meant that Grey had power over Pewter, and that

was mind-boggling.

Then she had learned how Grey saw it—that a magic

disk had come in to animate Pewter—and realized that this

might actually be Mundania. After all, some bits of magic

did operate in Mundania, such as rainbows, and Centaur

Amolde had been able to carry an aisle of magic there.

Maybe that disk had come from Xanth, sent by Com-

Pewter, and made the Mundane machine turn magic. Then

it had used its magic to enable Ivy to talk clearly in Mun-

dania, or to make Mundane speech intelligible to her, or

both. When it had been shut off, that had stopped, and the

full reality of drear Mundania had manifested.

That seemed to make more sense than anything else.

But Grey had not changed at all when the machine was

off; he was independent of it and seemed just as confused

as she had been. So maybe it was foolish, but she believed

that Grey really was what he seemed to be: a nice young

man.

But there had been any number of nice men, not all of

them young, who had played up to her in Xanth. She knew

why: because she was a princess. Any man would like to

marry a princess, even if she never got to be King of

Xanth. So she had never trusted that. She had wanted,

perhaps foolishly, to be liked for herself alone, not for her

position or her Sorceress magic or the power of her father.

Thus her romantic life had been scant, in sharp contrast

to that of her little brother. She liked Nada so well that

she had entertained more than a whimsical notion of pay-

ing a call on Nada's big brother, Naldo, who was surely a

fine figure of a prince. But if Dolph married Nada when

he came of age, it would not be expedient for her to marry

Nada's brother, so she had not followed up on that.

Now, suddenly, she had discovered that Grey really did

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like her for herself, because he thought her magic and her

position were part of a delusion. Thus everything she had

told him had counted against her, in Grey's estimation—

yet he obviously liked her very well. Her mother, Irene,

had long since taught her the signals of male interest and

deception. Her mother really did not quite trust men; her

dictum was "Never let a man get the upper hand—there's

no telling where he might put it." Ivy had known that

from the time she was two, and kept it in mind. But poor

Grey obviously had no notion of upper hands; he couldn't

say anything to a girl without somehow bumbling it. That

was one of his endearing qualities.

Now Grey had beaten a confused retreat, and she had

to decide what to do. If this really was Mundania, with

no magic except for that Com-Pewter extension, and the

Good Magician wasn't here, she would just have to extri-

cate herself from the foul-up that Magician Murphy's curse

had made. Imagine: getting sent to a Murphy instead of

Humfrey! She would have to find her way back to Xanth

with the Heaven Cent, so that Electra could recharge it

and they could try again, this time without the curse. But

how could she do that?

She knew the answer: Dolph had learned of a secret

way into Xanth that bypassed the usual barrier. It went

through the gourd. It was in Centaur Isle, or the Mundane

equivalent. She just had to get there and go through.

But how could she get through Mundania, when she

couldn't even speak its language? For now she knew that

the moment she left the vicinity of the local Com-Pewter,

the gibberish would resume. She had no Mundane money,