Now he had a challenge, however superficial. He had to start with his brain. Millie was not necessarily in a closet per se. Her bones had to be somewhere in the palace demesnes, because her ghost was here—but that could be anywhere within the moat or even the garden. Away from the regularly traveled sections. Unless the bones were buried under a floor or between walls. That seemed unlikely; the structure of the palace was quite solid, buttressed by durability spells; it would be a major undertaking to breach any floor or wall. Presuming that Millie had died suddenly, under suspicious circumstances (otherwise she would not have become a ghost), the murderer would have had to hide her body quickly, surreptitiously. No rebuilding of walls to conceal it! Old King Roogna would not have tolerated such a thing.
Where could a body have been hidden in minutes —so well as to withstand the scrutiny of centuries? The King’s renovations had covered every part of Castle Roogna, converting it to the royal palace of the present kingdom; the restorative artisans could not have missed anything like this. So the feat seemed mechanically impossible. There could be no skeletons in these closets.
Bink saw that other men were already busy rummaging in all the closets. No use to compete directly with them, even if the skeleton were there.
Mechanically impossible—ah, there was the due! Not magically impossible! The bones must have been transformed to something else, something innocuous, misleading. The question was, what? There were a thousand artifacts in the palace, and any one could be it. Yet transformation was major magic, and what Magician would be fooling around with a mere chambermaid? So her bones might after all remain in their natural state, or perhaps dissolved in solvent or ground up into powder. Regardless, there should be some clue to their identity, if only it could be correctly fathomed. Yes, a most intriguing puzzle!
Bink walked up to the refreshment table. There were tarts and donuts and cookies and cakes and pies and assorted beverages. Chester was stuffing himself. Bink circled the table, searching for something interesting. As he neared the Anniversary cake, the picklepuss hissed at him warningly. It was cat-bodied, with a snout that was green and prickly like a pickle, and its eyes were moist with brine. For a moment he was tempted to advance on it, to try his magic against its magic. He could not be harmed by magic, yet surely the feline would try to pickle him. What would happen?
No—he was not a juvenile daredevil compelled to prove himself by foolish exploits. Why force his talent to labor unnecessarily?
He spotted a smiling-face cookie and picked it up. As he brought it to his mouth, the smile became an O of horror. Bink hesitated, knowing this was merely another of the Queen’s illusions, but loath to bite anyway. The cookie screwed its face in anticipation of the awful end; then when the bite did not come, slowly reopened one icing-dab eye.
“Here, puss—you take it,” Bink said, extending the cookie to the leashed creature. There was a faint zoop! and the cookie was pickled, one of its eyes opened, the other closed. Now it reeked of brine. He set it down on the floor, and the picklepuss slunk forward and took the pickle-cookie in its mouth. Bink no longer felt hungry.
“Your spell is ailing,” said a woman beside him. It was the old spell doctor, enjoying her unexpected participation in the proceedings. The party was theoretically open to all, but few garden-variety citizens had the nerve to attend. “But it is too potent for to fix. Are you a Magician?”
“No, just a strongly talented nonentity,” Bink said, wishing that were as facetious as it was intended to sound.
She concentrated. “No, I am mistaken. Your spell is not sick, just balked. I think it suffers from lack of exercise. Have you used it in the last year?”
“Some,” Bink said, thinking of his recent escape from the moat-monsters. “Not much.”
“You have to use magic, or you lose it,” she said wisely.
“But what if there is no occasion to use it?”
“There is always an occasion for magic—in Xanth.”
That hardly seemed true, for him, here in the palace. His talent protected him from most harm— but so did the favor of the King. So his talent got little exercise, and might indeed be getting flabby. His fight with the animated sword had been the first real occasion for his talent to manifest in some time, and he had sought to avoid invoking his magic there. So his moat dunking was about it. He remained a little wet, but the undersea decor concealed that. Would he have to seek danger, to keep his talent healthy? That would be ironic.
The woman shrugged and moved on, sampling other delicacies. Bink looked about—and caught the ghostly eye of Millie.
He went to her. “How is it proceeding?” he inquired politely.
At close range, the ghost was audible. Perhaps the movement of her white lips helped. “It is so exciting!” she exclaimed faintly. “To be whole again!”
“Are you sure being mortal is worth it?” he asked. “Sometimes when a person achieves his dream, it sours.” Was he really addressing her—or himself?
She gazed at him with sympathy. He could see the other guests milling about beyond her, for she was translucent. Milling through Millie! It was slightly hard to focus on her. Yet she was beautiful in a special way: not merely her face and figure, but her sheer niceness and concern for others. Millie had helped Chameleon a lot, showing her where things were, what fruits were edible and what were dangerous, explaining castle protocol. It was Millie who had inadvertently shown Bink himself another facet of the Magician Trent, back when Bink had believed the man to be evil. “It would be so nice if you found my bones,” Millie said. Bink laughed, embarrassed. “Millie, I’m a married.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Married men are best. They are — broken in, experienced, gentle, durable, and they do not talk gratuitously. For my return to life, for the first experience, it would be so nice — “
“You don’t understand,” Bink said. “I love my wife, Chameleon.”
“Yes, of course you are loyal,” Millie replied. “But right now she is in her ugly phase, and in her ninth month with child, and her tongue is as sharp as the manticora’s stinger. Right now is when you need relief, and if I recover my life — “
“Please, no more!” Bink exclaimed. The ghost was striking right on target.
“I love you too, you know,” she continued. “You remind me of — of the one I really loved, when I lived. But he is eight hundred years dead and gone.” She gazed pensively at her misty fingers. “I could not many you, Bink, when I first met you. I could only look and long. Do you know what it is like, seeing everything and never participating? I could have been so good for you, if only — “ She broke down, hiding her face, her whole head hazing before his eyes.
Bink was embarrassed and touched. “I’m sorry, Millie, I didn’t know.” He put his hand on her shaking shoulder, but of course passed right through it. “It never occurred to me that your life could be restored. If I had—“
“Yes, of course,” she sobbed.
“But you will be a very pretty girl. I’m sure there are many other young men who — “
“True, true,” she agreed, shaking harder. Now her whole body was fogging out. The other guests were beginning to stare. This was about to get awkward.
“If there is anything I can do — “ Bink said. S, Millie brightened instantly, and her image sharpened correspondingly. “Find my bones!”
Fortunately that was not easily accomplished. “I’ll look,” Bink agreed. “But I have no better chance than anyone else.”
“Yes, you do. You know how to do it, if only you put your marvelous mind to it. I can’t tell you where they are, but if you really try—“ She looked at him with ardent urgency. “It’s been so many centuries. Promise me you’ll try.”
“But I—what would Chameleon think if—“
Millie put her face in her hands. The stares of the other guests hardened as the ghost’s outline softened. “All right, I’ll try,” Bink promised. Why hadn’t his talent protected him from this? But he knew the answer: his magic protected him from physical, magical harm. Millie was magical but not physical—and what she intended for him when she became physical would not ordinarily be construed as harm. His talent had never concerned itself with emotional complications. Bink would have to solve this triangle by himself.
The ghost smiled. “Don’t be long,” she said, and drifted off, her feet not touching the floor.
Bink spotted Crombie and joined him. “I begin to comprehend your view,” he said.
“Yes, I noticed her working you over,” Crombie agreed. “She’s had her secret eye on you for some time. A man hardly has a chance when one of those vixens starts in on him.”
“She believes I can locate her bones first—and now I have to try. Really try, not just dawdle.”
“Quid’s play,” Crombie remarked. “They’re that way.” He closed his eyes and pointed upward at an angle.
“I didn’t ask for your help!” Bink snapped.
“Oops, sorry. Forget where I pointed.”
“I can’t. Now I’ll have to look there, and sure as hell her bones will be there. Millie must have known I’d consult you. Maybe that’s her talent: knowing things ahead of time.”
“Why didn’t she skip out before she was murdered, then?”
Good question. “Maybe she was asleep, when—“
“Well, you’re not asleep. You could skip out. Someone else will find her, especially if I give him the hint.”
“Why don’t you find the bones?” Bink demanded. “You could follow your finger and do it in an instant.”
“Can’t. I’m on duty.” Crombie smiled smugly. “I have woman problems enough already, thanks to you.”
Oh. Bink had introduced the woman-hater to his former fiancee, Sabrina, a talented and beautiful girl Bink had discovered he didn’t love. Apparently that introduction had led to an involvement. Now Crombie was having his revenge.
Bink set his shoulders and followed the direction indicated. The bones had to be somewhere upstairs. But maybe they still would not be obvious. If he did his honest best but could not locate them—
Yet would it be so bad, that date with Millie? All that she had said was true; this was a very bad time for Chameleon, and she seemed fit only to be left alone. Until she phased into her beautiful, sweet aspect, and had the baby.
No, there lay ruin. He had known what Chameleon was when he married her, and that there would be good times and bad. He had only to tide through the bad time, knowing it would pass. He had done it before. When there was some difficult chore or problem, her smart phase was an invaluable asset; sometimes they saved up problems for her to work on in that phase. He could not afford to dally with Millie or any other female.
He oriented on the room that lay on the line Crombie had pointed. It was the Royal Library, where the lore of centuries was stored. The ghostly skeleton was there?
Bink entered—and there sat the King. “Oh, sorry, Your Majesty. I didn’t realize—“
“Come in, Bink,” King Trent said, fashioning a warm smile. He looked every bit the monarch, even when half slumped over the table, as now. “I was meditating on a personal problem, and perhaps you have been sent to provide the answer.”
“I lack the answer to my own dilemma,” Bink said, somewhat diffidently. “I am ill-equipped to comment on yours,”
“Your problem?”
“Chameleon is difficult, and I am restless, and someone is trying to kill me, and Millie the ghost wishes to make love to me.”
King Trent laughed—then stopped. “Suddenly I perceive that was not a joke,” he said. “Chameleon will improve and your restlessness should abate. But the others—who seeks your life? I assure you there is no royal sanction for that.”
Bink described the episode with the sword. Now the King was thoughtful, “You and I know that only a Magician could actually harm you by such means, Bink—and there are only three people of that class in Xanth, none of whom wishes you ill and none of whom possesses the talent of animating swords. So you are not really in danger. But I agree, this could be very annoying. I shall investigate. Since you made the sword captive, we should be able to trace down the root of its imperative. If someone has co-opted one of the weapons of my arsenal—“
“Uh, I think that is where it came from,” Bink said. “But Chester Centaur spotted it and took it—“
“Oh. Well, let’s let that aspect drop, then; the alliance of the centaurs is important to me, as it has been to every King of Xanth throughout history. Chester can keep the sword, though I believe we shall turn off its self-motivating property. But it occurs to me that there is a certain similarity here to your own magic: whatever opposes you is hidden, using other magic than its own to attack you. The sword is not your enemy; it was merely the instrument of the hostile power.”
“Magic like my own...” Bink repeated. “I suppose that could be. It would not be identical, since magic never repeats in Xanth, but similar—“ He looked at the King, alarmed. “That means I can expect trouble anywhere, from anything, all seeming coincidental!”
“From a zombie, or a sword, or moat-monsters, or a ghost,” the King agreed. “There may be a pattern here.” He paused, considering. “Yet how could a ghost—?”
“She is to be restored, once I find her skeleton—and that may be in this room. What bothers me most is that I find myself tempted.”
“Millie is a very fetching figure of a slip of a woman,” King Trent said. “I can well understand the temptation. I suffer temptation myself; that is the subject of my present meditation.”
“Surely the Queen can fulfill any, uh, temptation,” Bink said cautiously, unwilling to betray how freely palace speculation had dwelt on this very subject The King’s private life should be private. “She can make herself resemble any—“
“Precisely. I have not touched the Queen or any other woman, since my wife died.” To King Trent, the word “wife” meant only the woman he had married in Mundania. “Yet there is pressure on me to provide an heir to the throne of Xanth, by birth or adoption, in case there should be no suitable Magician available when that time comes. I sincerely hope there is a Magician! I feel obliged to make the attempt, nevertheless, since this was one of the implied stipulations I agreed to when assuming the crown. Ethically this must involve the Queen. So I shall do it, though I do not love her and never shall. The question is, what form shall I have her assume for the occasion?”
This was a more personal problem than Bink felt prepared to cope with. “Any form that pleases you, I should think.” One big advantage the Queen had was the ability to assume a new form instantly. If Chameleon had been able to do that—
“But I do not wish to be pleased. I want to accomplish only what is necessary.”
“Why not combine them? Let the Queen assume her most provocative illusion-form, or transform her to it yourself. When there is an heir, change her back. There is no wrong in enjoying your duty, is there?”
The King shook his head, “Ordinarily, this would be true. But mine is a special case. I am not sure I would be potent with a beautiful woman, or any woman— other than one who closely resembled my wife.”
“Then let the Queen resemble your wife,” Bink said without thinking.
“My concern is that this would degrade the memory I cherish.”
“Oh, I see. You mean if she was too much like your wife, she might seem to replace her, and—“
“Approximately,”
That was an impasse. If the King could only be potent with his dead wife, and could not abide any other woman resembling her physically, what could he do? This was the hidden aspect of the King that Millie had shown Bink, way back when: his continuing devotion to his prior family. It had been hard, after that, to think of such a man as evil; and indeed, King Trent was not evil. He was the finest Magician and perhaps the finest man in Xanth. Bink would be the last to wish to disrupt that aspect of King Trent’s being.
Yet the problem of an heir was a real one. No one wanted a repetition of the shambles resulting from lack of a well-defined royal line. There had to be an heir to serve until a suitable Magician appeared, lending continuity to the government.
“We seem to have a similar dilemma, Your Majesty,” Bink said. He tried to maintain the proper attitude of respect, because of the way he had known Trent before he was King. He had to set a good example. “We each prefer to remain loyal to our original wives, yet find it difficult. My problem will pass, but yours—“ He paused, struck by dubious inspiration. “Millie is to be restored by having her skeleton dipped in healing water. Suppose you were to recover your wife’s bones, bring them to Xanth—“
“If that worked, I would be a bigamist,” King Trent pointed out. But he looked shaken. “Still, if my wife could live again—“
“You could check how well the procedure works, as they try it on Millie,” Bink said.
“Millie is a ghost—not quite dead. A special case, like that of a shade. It happens when there is pressing unfinished business for that spirit to attend to. My wife is no ghost; she never left anything unfinished, except her life. To reanimate her body without her soul—“
Bink was beginning to be sorry he had thought of the notion. What horrors might be loosed on Xanth if all bones were renovated indiscriminately? “She might be a zombie,” he said.
‘There are serious risks,” the King decided. “Still, you have provided me food for thought. Perhaps there is hope for me yet! Meanwhile, I certainly shall not have the Queen assume the likeness of my wife. Perhaps I shall only embarrass myself by trying and failing, but—“
“Too bad you can’t transform yourself,” Bink said. “Then you could test your potency without anyone knowing.”
“The Queen would know. And to fail with her would be to show weakness that I can hardly afford. She would feel superior to me, knowing that what she has taken to be iron control is in fact impotence. There would be much mischief in that knowledge.”
Bink, knowing the Queen, could well appreciate that. Only her respect for, and fear of, the King’s personality and magic power held her in check. His transforming talent would remain—but the respect she held for his personality would inevitably erode. She could become extremely difficult to manage, and that would not be good for the Land of Xanth: “Could you, er, experiment with some other woman first? That way, if you failed—“
“No,” the King said firmly. “The Queen is not my love, but she is my legal spouse. I will not cheat her— or any other member of my kingdom, in this or any other respect.”
And there was the essence of his nobility! Yet the Queen might cheat him, if she saw her opportunity, and knew him to be impotent. Bink didn’t like that notion. He had seen King Trent’s reign as the onset of a Golden Age; how fraught it was with liabilities, from this vantage!
Then Bink had another inspiration. “Your memory of your wife—it isn’t just your memory of her you are preserving, it is your memory of yourself. Yourself when you were happy. You can’t make love to another woman, or let another woman look like her. But if two other people made love—I mean, the Queen and a man who did not resemble you—no memories would be defiled. So if the Queen changed your appearance—“
“Ridiculous!” the King snapped.
“I suppose so,” Bink said. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“I’ll try it.”
“Sorry I bothered you. I—“ Bink broke off. “You will?”
“Objectively I know that my continuing attachment to my dead wife and son is not reasonable,” the King said. “It is hampering me in the performance of my office. Perhaps an unreasonable subterfuge will compensate. I will have Iris make me into the likeness of another man, and herself another woman, and as strangers we shall make the attempt. Do you just indulge in the courtesy of maintaining the secret, Bink.”
“Yes, of course, by all means,” Bink said, feeling awkward. He would have preferred to have the King devoid of human fallibilities, while paradoxically respecting him for those weaknesses. But he knew this was a side of the King no other person saw. Bink was a confidant, uncomfortable as the position might be at times.
“I—uh, I’m supposed to locate Millie’s bones. They should be somewhere in this library.”
“By all means. Continue your pursuit; I shall seek out the Queen.” And the King rose abruptly and departed.
Just like that! Bink was amazed again at the alacrity with which the man acted, once he had come to a decision. But that was one of the qualities that made him fit to rule, in contrast to Bink himself.
Bink looked at the books. And suddenly realized: Millie’s skeleton could have been transformed into a book; that would account for its neglect over the centuries, and for Millie’s frequent presence here. She hovered often by the south wall. The question was, which book?
He walked along the packed shelves, reading titles from the spines of the tomes. This was an excellent library, with hundreds of texts; how could he choose among them? And if he found the proper one, somehow, how could it be restored? It would have to be transformed first back into the skeleton—and that was Magician-class magic. He kept running into this: too much magic was involved here! No inanimate transformer was alive today, as far as he knew. So Millie’s quest looked hopeless after all. Yet why, then, had the Good Magician told her to use mere healing elixir? It made no sense!
Still, he had promised to try, though it complicated his personal situation. First he had to find the book; then he could worry about the next step.
The search took some time. Some texts he could eliminate immediately, such as The Anatomy of Purple Dragons or Hailstones: Magic vs. Mundane. But others were problematical, like The Status of Spirits in Royal Abodes or Tales for Ghosts. He had to take these out and turn over the pages, looking for he knew not what.
More time passed. He was not getting anywhere. No one else came here; apparently he was the only one following this particular lead. His guess about the books must have been wrong. There was another room above this one, in a turret, and Crombie’s line intersected it too. Maybe there—
Then he spotted it. The Skeleton in the Closet. That had to be it!
He took down the book. It was strangely heavy. The cover was of variegated leather, subtly horrible. He opened it, and a strange, unpleasant odor wafted up, as of the flesh of a zombie too long in the sun. There was no print on the first page, only a melange of color and wash suggestive of the remains of a flattened bug.
Quickly he closed the book. He no longer had any doubt.
The bucket of elixir was downstairs in the ballroom. Bink clasped the book in both arms—it was too heavy to hold in one arm for any length of time—and started down.
He met another zombie, or perhaps the same one as before. It was hard to tell them apart! It was coming up the stairs. This one he knew was real, because the Queen had not extended the masquerade illusion inside the palace, and no illusion at all upstairs. Now Bink suspected the one in the garden had been real too. What were the zombies doing out of their earthy resting places?
‘Back off!” Bink cried, protecting the book. “Get out of the palace! Return to your grave!” He advanced menacingly on the zombie, and it retreated. A healthy man could readily dismember a zombie, if he cared to make the attempt. The zombie stumbled on the stair and fell, toppling with grisly abandon down the flight Bits of bone and goo were scattered on the steps, and dark fluid soaked into the fine old wood. The smell was such as to make Bink’s stomach struggle for sudden relief, and his eyes smarted. Zombies did not have much cohesion.
Bink followed it down, pursing his lips with distaste. A number of zombies were associated with Castle Roogna, and they had been instrumental in making it the palace of the King. But now they were supposed to lie safely in their graves. What ghastly urgency brought them into the party?
Well, he would notify the King in due course. First he had to see to Millie’s skeleton. He entered the ballroom—and found that the subaquatic motif was gone. The normal pillars and walls had returned. Had the Queen lost interest in her decorations?
“I’ve got it!” he cried, and the guests collected immediately. “What happened to the water?”
“The Queen left suddenly, and her illusion stopped,” Chester said, wiping crumbs of green cake from his face. It seemed refreshments had been real enough, anyway. “Here, let me help you with that book.” The centaur reached down with one hand and took it easily from Bink’s tiring grasp. Oh for the power of a centaur!
“I meant the healing water, the elixir,” Bink said. He knew what had happened to the Queen, now that he thought about it! The King had summoned her.
“Right here,” Crombie said, bringing it out from under a table. “Didn’t want crumbs to fall in it” The bucket was now on the floor beside the Anniversary Cake.
“That doesn’t look like a skeleton,” the manticora said.
“Transformed—or something,” Bink explained. He opened the book while Chester supported it. There was a general murmur of awe. Some magic!
The spell doctor peered at it “That’s not a transformation. That’s topology magic. I never saw such an extreme case before.”
Neither had the others. “What is topology magic?” Crombie asked.
“Changing the form without changing it,” she said.
“Old crone, you’re talking nonsense,” Crombie said with his customary diplomacy around the sex.
“I’m talking magic, young squirt,” she retorted. “Take an object. Stretch it out. Squish it flat Fold it. You have changed its shape but not its nature. It remains topologically similar. This book is a person.”
“With the spirit squished out,” Bink said. “Where’s Millie?”
The ghost appeared, silent. She remained under the geas, unable to comment on her body. What a terrible fate she had suffered, all these centuries! Flattened and folded into a book, and prevented from telling anyone. Until the Queen’s charade-contest prize had coincidentally opened the way.
Coincidentally? Bink suspected his talent was at work.
“Should the Queen supervise the restoration?” the manticora asked.
“The Queen is otherwise occupied, and must not be disturbed,” Bink said. Actually it was the King he was protecting. “We’d better proceed without her.”
“Right,” Chester said, and dumped the book into the bucket
“Wait!” Bink cried, knowing it was already too late. He had contemplated a gentle immersion. But perhaps this was best.
The dunked book shimmered. Millie the Ghost made an almost soundless shriek as she was drawn toward the bucket Then the book inflated, absorbing elixir rapidly, opening and unfolding as its tissues filled out. The pages became human limbs and the heavy jacket a human head and torso, flattened horrendously but already bulging into doll-like features. Grotesquely it convulsed into a misshapen mannikin figure, swelling and thinning into the semblance of a woman. Millie the ghost, still trying to scream, floated into the mass, her outline merging with that of the forming body. Suddenly the two phased completely. She stood knee deep in the bucket, as lovely a nymph as could be desired, and an astonishing contrast to what they had just seen. “I’m whole!” she exclaimed in wonder.
“You certainly are,” Chester agreed. “Someone fetch her some clothing.”
There was a scramble. A form came forward bearing a decayed robe. It was a zombie. Women shrieked. Everyone scrambled to avoid it.
Crombie charged forward, scowling. “You rotters can’t come in here! Out, out!”
The zombie retreated, backing toward the Anniversary Cake. “Not that way!” Bink cried, again too late. The zombie came within range of the picklepuss, who snarled.
There was a zoopf and the zombie was pickled. Squirting putrid juices, it fell into the cake. The pickle-puss struck again, pickling the entire cake as the zombie disappeared into it. Pickled icing flew outward explosively, spattering the guests. The picklepuss broke free of its leash and bounded onto the refreshment table, pickling everything it passed. Women screamed again. It was one of the foolish, enchanting mannerisms they had.
“What is going on here?” a strange young man demanded from the main doorway.
“Stand back!” Bink snapped. “The damn Queen’s damn pickler is on the loose!” Now he saw a comely young woman behind the stranger. They were evidently gate-crashers.
Crombie was dashing up. “I’ll get those idiots out of the way!” he cried, drawing his sword.
The picklepuss preferred to introduce itself, and to clear its own way. It bounded directly at the strangers. There was a zap—but this time it was the puss who was pickled, in a fashion. It landed on the floor, surprised, then flapped its wings and took off. It had become a deerfly, a delicately winged miniature deer.
“My cake!” the strange young woman cried.
Then Bink caught on. “The Queen!”
“And King!” Crombie agreed, appalled. “In illusion-costume.”
What had Bink called the Queen, in his distraction? And Crombie had drawn his sword against the King.
But Queen Iris was already at the cake. “Pickled— with a zombie in it! Who did this thing?” In her outrage she let her illusion slip. She appeared before the crowd in her natural form, and revealed the King in his. Both were in dishabille.
Crombie the woman-hater nevertheless suffered a seizure of gallantry. He sheathed his sword, whipped off his jacket, and put it about the Queen’s shoulders, concealing her middle-aged torso. “It is cool here, Highness.”
Bink hastily proffered his own jacket to the King, who accepted as if this were a quite ordinary occasion. “Thanks, Bink,” he muttered.
Millie stepped out of the bucket, gloriously naked and not cold at all. “I fear I did it, Your Majesties. The zombie came to help me, and the picklepuss got loose—“
The Queen gazed for a long moment on Millie’s splendor. Then she glanced down at herself. Abruptly King and Queen were clothed royally again, she rather resembling Millie, he in his natural likeness, which was handsome enough. Bink knew, as did everyone present, that both were in borrowed jackets, with embarrassing portions of their anatomy uncovered, but now there was no sign of this. And, in another moment, Millie was also clothed in illusion, garbed like the chambermaid she was, yet still very pretty.
Bink nodded to himself. It seemed his suggestion about the King changing his own image for lovemaking had been effective. Except that the commotion surrounding Millie’s restoration had interrupted it.
The Queen surveyed the ruin of the refreshments. Then she glanced obliquely at the King. She decided to be gracious. “So it worked! You are no longer a ghost!” She studied Millie again, appraisingly. “But you should be dressed for the occasion; this is not a workday for you.” And Millie appeared in a fetching evening gown, glassy slippers, and a sparkling tiara.
“Who found your skeleton?”
Millie smiled radiantly. “Bink rescued me.”
The Queen looked at Bink. “Your nose seems to be everything,” she murmured. Then, more loudly: “Bink gets the prize. The first date with—“
She broke off, as well she might. Behind her, the pickled zombie had risen out of the cake. Even pickling could not kill a zombie; they were half pickled by nature. Clots of briny flesh dropped along with the pickled cake. One amorphous glob had dropped on the Queen’s shoulder, passing right through the illusion-dress and lodging who-knew-where. This was the cause of the interruption in her speech.
Furious, the Queen whirled on the zombie. “Get out of the palace, you hunk of decay!” She shot a look at the King. “Trent, transform this monster! It ruined my cake!”
But King Trent was thoughtful. “I think the zombie will depart of its own volition, Iris. Procure another date for Millie; I have need of Bink’s services in another capacity.”
“But Your Majesty—“ Millie protested.
“Make the substitute look like Bink,” the King murmured to the Queen. “Bink, come to the library.”
In the library, King Trent spoke his mind. “Here in Xanth we have a hierarchy of magic. As the most powerful Magician, I am King, and the most powerful Sorceress is my consort. The Good Magician Humfrey is our eldest statesman. But you, Bink—you are anonymous. You have equivalent magic, but it is secret. This means you don’t have the status your talent deserves. Perhaps this constitutes a threat to your welfare.”
“But there is no danger—“
“Not true, Bink. Whoever sent that sword constitutes a threat to you, though probably not a great one. However, your talent is powerful, not smart. It protects you from hostile magic, but has a problem with intangible menaces. As we know, your situation at home is not ideal at the moment, and—“
Bink nodded. “But as we both also know, that will pass, Your Majesty.”
“Agreed. But your talent is not so rational, perhaps. So it procured for you what it deemed to be a better woman—and I fault its ethics, not its taste. Then it balked when you realized the mischief this would cause. So it stopped you from having your date with Millie. The reanimation of the zombie was part of this.
“Probably the zombie was supposed to help you locate the skeleton, but then it had to reverse its initiative. There is no knowing what mischief might have resulted if Millie and the Queen had insisted on completing your date; but we do know the havoc would have seemed to be coincidental, because that is the way your talent operates. We might have had the whole palace collapse on our heads, or some unfortunate accident might have rendered Millie into a ghost again.”
“No!” Bink cried, horrified.
“I know you would not wish that on so nice a creature. Neither would I. This is the reason I interceded. We must simply accept the fact that you cannot date Millie, though your talent brought her back to life. I believe I have solved that problem for the nonce. It is obvious that Millie’s talent is sex appeal; that accounts for her original untimely demise in ghost-generating circumstances. She shall not lack for male company— other than yours.”
“Sex appeal!” Bink exclaimed. “That was why the spell doctor was so amused! She knew what sort of trouble there would be when she restored the spell! And that’s why I was so tempted by her offer, despite—“
“Precisely. I felt it too—and I had just completed my liaison with the Queen, thanks to your suggestion. Here, your jacket.” And the King gravely handed it back.
“It’s my fault all the palace will know—“
“That I am virile as well as Kingly,” Trent finished. “This is no shame. Now Iris will never know the weakness I might otherwise have shown. Obviously at such a moment, I should not have felt any attraction to another woman. I did feel it near Millie. So I knew magic was involved. But you, with a difficult home situation, and Millie’s evident desire for you—Bink, I think we need to get you out of this region for the duration, at least until we get Millie settled.”
“But Chameleon—I can’t leave her alone—“
“Have no concern. I shall invite her to the palace, be attended by my own staff. In fact I think Millie self would be an excellent maid for her, until we find a better situation. All we need to do is remove you from the stress and temptation that necessarily attend your presence here. Because your talent is powerful but disruptive to palace life, I am providing it guidance. Bink, I am directing you to commence your royal mission: to locate the source of the magic of Xanth.”
King Trent paused, and Bink waited. Nothing happened. “I think my talent concurs,” Bink said at last.
“Good,” the King said, relaxing visibly. Only he knew the peril in trying to go against Bink’s talent. “I shall assign you any facilities you require. Someone to protect you, since you may have to intrude on hazardous territory and face unmagical threats, and someone to guide you—“ He snapped his fingers. “Chester the Centaur! His situation is very like yours, and you are friends. You can ride him, and you could not have a finer ally in danger.”
“But the centaurs are not men; he may not choose to go.”
“It is true that my power becomes nominal, in the case of the centaurs, I cannot order him to accompany you. But I think he will go as far as Good Magician Humfrey’s castle.”
“Why?” Bink asked, perplexed.
“Because only Humfrey can tell him what his magic talent may be.”
The King certainly kept up on things! “But that Answer would cost him a year’s service!”
The King shrugged. “No harm in talking with Humfrey, though. Chester may go along with you, just to keep you company, and incidentally chat with the Good Magician while you are there.”
Slowly Bink smiled. “And Cherie Centaur would never need to know!”
“You might discuss that aspect with Chester, at any rate.” The King pondered momentarily. “And Crombie—he can point the way for you.”
“I don’t think Crombie could keep up with Chester,” Bink said, “No man can match a centaur’s steady speed over ground. And Chester would not want to carry two people—“
“Easily solved! I shall transform Crombie into a form that can keep up. A dragon—“
“That would frighten people and attract attention—“
“So it would. Very well, a griffin. There are a few tame ones, so people would not be too curious. That will deprive him of speech, but give him the power of flight: a fair exchange. And there is hardly a better fighting animal than a griffin, weight for weight. With a centaur and a griffin accompanying you, there should be no mundane threat you need fear.” He paused again. “Even so, I think you had better consult Humfrey for specific advice. There might be more here than we have bargained on.”
Bink found himself filling with excitement. Adventure, again! “Your Majesty, I’ll find the source of magic for you; when can I start?”
“Tomorrow morning,” King Trent said, smiling. “Now go home and tell your wife about your preemptive mission. But don’t mention Millie the ex-ghost.”
“I won’t!” Bink agreed, smiling too. About to go, he thought of something else. “Do you know there is a magic mole hanging around the grounds?”
The King accepted this communication gracefully. “I had not been made aware of that. I have no objection, so long as it does not disturb the zombies’ graves.” Then he did a double take. “That zombie—“
“There was another in the gardens, where the pile of dirt was. Maybe the same one.”
“I will institute an investigation in due course.” He fixed Bink with a tolerant stare. “Any other important intelligence to impart?”
“Uh, no,” Bink said, abruptly embarrassed. What was he doing, telling the King of such a minor matter? He had lost all sense of proportion!