Question Quest (16 page)

“So thrilled to meet you, Millie,” Rose said, extending her hand.

The ghost extended hers. The contact was hardly tangible, just the feel of cool vapor. But it was enough for the formal introduction.

Rose inquired further and learned that Millie in life had had the talent of sex appeal and had expired by the magic of a jealous rival for the hand of the Zombie Master. After Millie's demise, the Zombie Master had zombied himself, so as to join her as well as he was able. It wasn't much of a romance at the moment, Millie confessed petitely, because he was rotten and she was insubstantial, but they hoped for improvement in the future. Meanwhile, Millie would be happy to serve Rose as she had served living folk when she had been a maid. She had a fair notion of the expectations of royalty.

Rose was hungry. Millie offered to have her friend the Zombie Master get a zombie chef in the kitchen, but Rose decided graciously that the zombies had done more than enough already, and she would not rouse them from their graves for something she could handle herself. She got up and followed Millie to the kitchen, where she found a collection of fruits and cookies with only a little zombie rot on them. She washed them without comment, realizing that it was not her place to be finicky, and had a good meal.

Thus commenced her life at Castle Roogna. She was free to roam the castle and the grounds, picking her own fruit and nuts, but not to leave: the outer ring of trees was woodenly firm about that. It was, she understood, protective custody; she was safe as long as she remained here, and no hostile party could get in. It was a pleasant life, with all the best of everything, except for the fact that she had no living company. Fortunately there seemed to be a sanity spell on the premises, so that she did not go crazy; she simply regretted that she was mostly alone, and comforted herself with the realization that company was as one defined it. Millie was excellent company, and so were the other ghosts: sultry Renee and her male friend Jordan the Barbarian, Doreen, the child Button, and one whose name she didn't quite catch. Even the zombies were tolerable from upwind, once she got to know them. She learned to play cards with the lady ghosts, though she had to deal the cards and hold theirs up facing away from her for them to see. But mostly she just napped, to wile away the boredom.

After a year, even napping became somewhat dull. “I need something to do!” she exclaimed.

“Perhaps some cross-stitching,” Millie suggested. “It is dull for us ghosts too, and we can't do anything physical, but you can.”

So Rose took up cross-stitching, starting with the image of a cross face, as it seemed appropriate. It seemed inadequate by itself, so she pondered a few days and devised a bit of verse to go with it. She would give it to the Magician who finally came to marry her and be king.

These little stitches that were mine

Had to be taken in time

And so they grew cross

For they counted it loss

And decided they wanted to be thine.

She went on to do a great deal of fine needlepoint and tapestry, and this pursuit wiled away another year or two. But even this became dull without company; normally she made such things for others, and there were no others to give these to. She had offered to make things for the ghosts, but they declined, as they were unable to wear them.

“But do you know, you might like to see Jonathan's Tapestry,” Millie said.

“Who is Jonathan?”

“The Zombie Master. He—oh, I can't talk about it!”

But Millie did show Rose the Tapestry, where it had been carefully folded and put away in a drawer. Rose brought it out and hung it on a wall and gazed at it, and was amazed. For the pictures stitched into it moved.

In fact it was a historical presentation. It responded to her command, for she was a princess, and showed any pictures she desired. It had been made by the wonderful Sorceress Tapis, given to the Zombie Master in the form of a jigsaw puzzle, and hung on a wall of Castle Roogna after his death. It showed the history of Xanth. From it she learned exactly what had happened to Millie, a tragedy indeed, and even what had happened to Rose herself, for it covered everything through the present.

Rose lost track of the time she spent enraptured by the Tapestry. She learned everything about Xanth. But eventually even this palled. The one thing she refused to watch was her mother; she did not want to confirm her mother's loneliness and decline. Again she was up against the ultimate limit: she had no one to share this with. Doing things alone, no matter how interesting they might be, was incomplete.

She talked to the ghosts, but they spent most of their time fading out entirely. She sang and read poetry to the plants in the castle and garden. She made fancy meals for herself and an imaginary companion; since she had to eat the companion's food too, she made sure it was good, and because it was unprincessly to get fat, she made them small. She even forced herself to make and eat her most disliked food, sour kraut soup. A steady diet of that would make her thin as a ghost!

But mainly she planted and tended her beloved roses in the courtyard of the castle. This was her talent, and her roses were very special. They would live long after she was gone, and their precious magic would be available to anyone who requested it. The one thing that was forbidden was to cut any of them from their living stems. These roses had to be appreciated alive. They were a great comfort to her. Yet they could not make up for her lack of human company.

Then Millie had another suggestion. “The library—”

Rose checked out the musty castle library. There were volumes collected by King Roogna and his successors. They related to everything in Xanth, its history and magic and people. She had never been strong on reading, but now she got into it and spent a long time learning aspects of things the Tapestry hadn't covered. Much of the material was beyond her understanding, but of course it was not intended for her; it was intended for the edification of Magician-Kings. But she would be able to show it to the Magician who came to marry her and give him a good head start finding whatever type of information he might desire or need. In short, she was Making Herself Useful, before the fact.

One day when she was out picking new pillows for the beds, as she did every month to keep them fresh for the Magician—what a horror if he arrived and was turned off by imperfect castle-keeping!—Rose spied a monstrous serpent.

“Eeeeeek!” she screamed, affrighted.

But the creature made no hostile move. Instead it bowed its head as if penitent. She realized that only appropriate folk were allowed through the defensive trees, so perhaps she had misjudged this one. She hurried inside and fetched a translation book she had found in the library; Human/Serpent. She wasn't sure how to use it, but hoped that she would figure it out. She brought it out and came hesitantly toward the huge snake.

“What do you want?” she inquired, primed to flee at the mere drop of a bit of saliva from a fang.

The creature hissed, nodding toward the book. She opened the volume and looked at the printing in it.

“Fear not, lusscious maiden,” the print said. “I undersstand that this casstle hass no moat monsster currently, sso I have come to apply for the possition.”

Rose was amazed and pleased. “This is true,” she said. “The position is open. But you have to promise not to eat me or the Magician who comes to marry me and be king.”

The serpent hissed again. “Of coursse,” the print in the book said, replacing the prior print. “Thiss iss SSOP*.”

Rose looked at the foot of the page. There was another asterisk with a supplementary statement:

*SOP = STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, SUCH AS IN THE CASE OF MOAT MONSTERS NOT MOLESTING LEGITIMATE DENIZENS OF THE CASTLE THEY GUARD.

“Right this way!” Rose said, thrilled. She walked toward the castle, and the serpent slithered after her. “By the way, what is your name?''

There was another hiss, and the book printed “Ssoufflé Sserpent at your sservice, ssisster."

“Soufflé? Oh, what a lovely name!” she exclaimed with maidenly delight.

The serpent seemed taken aback. Later it occurred to her that it might have encountered less positive reactions to its name. But Rose loved soufflé, and sometimes splurged on soufflé pie when she felt naughty, for it was horribly fattening.

Soufflé took up residence in the moat, and thereafter Rose did feel safer. Also, the serpent was good company when she felt particularly lonely, because he had come from outside more recently than she had and had oddments of news. Of course she could get the news from the Tapestry, but it was nicer when personal.

In such manner passed the first century.

Rose ceased to wonder when the Magician would come. She knew what was happening in Xanth because the Tapestry and a couple of magic mirrors kept her current, but it was now another world for her. She simply maintained herself from day to day, never aging or losing her wits. And she longed for the day it would end and she would be able to give all her love to the Magician. Someday.

The second century passed. All the folk Rose had known were gone. But Castle Roogna, forgotten by Xanth, remained, keeping itself in repair, waiting for the Magician who would be king and restore the former splendor of King Roogna's magnificent edifice.

After 246 years the Magician came—and Rose had a problem. For he was no Magician. She knew that, because the Tapestry showed his history. He was the former King Humfrey, twice married and twice deserted by his unfeeling or selfish wives. Also by his one true love, who had declined to marry him. This was a man thrice rejected. Not exactly ideal. But she was so desperate for company that she longed for his success. In fact, she might even have cheated just a tiny bit, to enable him to win through. After all, he was a good man, and by the time she had viewed his life history she loved him. It wasn't as if it mattered whether one more beach head appeared just in time to distract the colored men; it was their job to keep those heads combed regardless, as well as to question any intruders. So she had tried the spell she had found in one of the tomes and used the magic mirror to picture the place she wanted it to grow. Surely that was no evil thing, was it?

But now here he was, and she wasn't going to send him away and wait perhaps another two hundred and forty-six years for her Magician.

There was only one thing to do: she would have to see that Humfrey became a Magician. She had learned of a way from one of the tomes in the library. Then it would be all right.

She slipped on any old thing and went out to meet her hero.

“So you see,” Rose concluded, “I can't marry you if you aren't a true Magician. But if you go to the University of Magic, you can get a degree in magic, and then you will be a real Magician and Castle Roogna will have to let me go.” She glanced obliquely at me. “Unless you are willing to be king again. Then you could live here.”

“I don't want to be king again!” I protested. But if that was the price of marrying her, then I might have to do it. She was certainly my dream woman. It had taken time to love MareAnn—-perhaps all of a day—and then it hadn't worked out. Rose had become my second love in all of a minute, and there was every sign it would work out if I cooperated. "Anyway, the Storm King is young yet, so Xanth won't have an opening for another king for perhaps forty years. Do you want to wait that long?''

“No!” she exclaimed with maidenly emphasis, her precious bosom heaving. "I want to marry you right now.''

It was one of the oddities of our encounter that there had been no courtship or proposal; we had met and were in love, and we wanted to marry and remain with each other indefinitely. Neither of us questioned that. She had told me her story, and she already knew mine. So our only present concern was how to manage our association, when Castle Roogna would let her marry only a proper Magician and would not let her leave before she did. The castle had not anticipated the approach of a non-Magician who knew enough of magic to get through. It had tried to balk me and had failed, perhaps in part because it attuned to the kingly experience I had had and could not be quite certain that I wasn't a Magician, But it would not let Rose go. She was Rose of Roogna now, and the castle was in effect her parent. I really could not question that; it had taken good care of her for (almost) two and a half centuries. Had it not done so, I would not have met her, and that would have been disaster.

“Where is this University of Magic?” I asked. “I have learned of most magical things of Xanth, but not that.”

“That's because it isn't of the human realm in Xanth,” she said. “I read about it in an Arcane Text. It is a demonic institution. Most demons live under the ground somewhere; only a few bother to explore the surface, and then they aren't very serious about it.”

“I know,” I murmured, thinking of Dana. She had been caught with a conscience, so had had to endure the indignity of human fallibilities of conscience and love. She had been a wonderful wife in every respect, until she succeeded in getting rid of her conscience. Our son, Dafrey, was a good person too; I hoped he didn't lose the conscience when he married and sired offspring. Normal demons just didn't care very much about human beings.

“Yes, you do,” she agreed, touching my hand. She had reviewed my relationship with Dana and did not hold it against me. Rose was my second true love, and would be my first married true love, because of MareAnn's determined innocence. “So you must go among the demons, and enroll in their university, and pass their courses and get your degree, and be a Magician, and then we can marry and be happy together.”

“But I don't have a way to contact the demons,” I protested. “And if I did, I can't think what would persuade them to let me enroll in their school.”

“There is a spell for summoning demons in one of the tomes in the castle library,” she said.

I realized that that library was something I had to see. I could probably spend years there, learning the things I had not been able to learn elsewhere. If I got to be a true Magician and married Rose, the castle would let me do that, even if it didn't let me stay overnight. “Maybe I could make some sort of deal,” I said. I suspected that I would not enjoy whatever the demons demanded, but I was quite sure I would not enjoy life apart from Rose, so this was the lesser of discomforts.

“I shall go in and find that volume and learn that spell,” Rose said. “Meanwhile, perhaps Soufflé will let you bathe in the moat.”

The monster serpent hissed angrily at the notion, not wanting its nice moat dirtied by my grime. But Rose turned her head and looked at it with just a tiny hint of reproach, and the creature melted out of sight. I knew how that was.

So she walked gracefully inside, and I set my pack down on the bank and waded into the water. Soon I was clean and the moat was filthy. Soufflé retreated around to the back of the castle, but I could hear the monster sneezing.

Then I emerged and walked toward a linen tree to harvest a towel. At that moment Rose emerged and caught a full view of me. Oops!

But she smiled. “I have seen your healthy body in every state,” she murmured. “The Tapestry conceals nothing.”

That was true. I had known about the Tapestry only through history and hoped to get to see and use it when I became a Magician. Of course I had no physical secrets from Rose!

By the time I had gotten dried and dressed, Rose had set up the spell. It was an odd one, requiring a pentacle (a five-pointed star), a candle, and spoken words. “The words combine with the flame to summon the demon,” Rose explained. ”The diagram is to prevent the demon from reaching out to squish you, being angry about being summoned. It can't leave the pentacle until you let it go, and you won't let it go until it makes a binding deal with you."

“This is an interesting device,” I remarked. I had thought I knew something about demons, but I had not known they could be summoned, and Dana had not told me. Even during her souled state, she had evidently had some caution. “What are the words of the spell?”

“There seem to be a number of variations,” she said. “Some use terms which I, as a maiden, naturally do not understand. I suppose demons, being creatures of the nether regions, have a more explicit mode of expression. As nearly as I could tell, you can say what you want and it should work, as long as it rhymes. The more specific words are to isolate particular demons.”

That gave me a notion. “Maybe Dana, the one to whom I was married, would be good to call. She would not pretend to misunderstand me.”

“Perhaps so,” Rose said, seeming not entirely pleased. That made me wonder just how explicit the Tapestry was about matters relating to the Adult Conspiracy. Since it evidently knew whether its watcher was of royal blood, it might also know whether the watcher was old enough. Was Rose considered to be twenty or two hundred and sixty-six? What did it consider to be the fabled Age of Consent? I could not safely assume that she remained innocent, despite her reference to maidenly modesty. She could be jealous of Dana, for good reason. Yet I did not know any other demon by name.

We lit the candle and set it in the middle of the pentacle. Then I stepped out and said: “Dana Demon, passing by—come to me and don't be shy.” The idea of a demon being shy was laughable, but the point was the rhyme.

The flame flickered. Then smoke curled out of it, looming larger until it almost filled the pentacle. Blazing eyes formed in the smoke and squirmy tentacles. What monster had we caught?

“I had understood your former wife to be beautiful,” Rose murmured, with what in a less gentle person might have been taken as irony.

The smoke dissipated, leaving a firmer outline. The tentacles became arms and legs. The body shaped down into a roughly female figure with a head in the form of a swirling storm cloud. “What idiot put this firetrap here?” a voice reminiscent of a harpy's screeched.

Somewhat cowed, I nevertheless stood my ground. “Is that you, Dana? This is Humfrey, whom you have known.” I wasn't completely satisfied with that phrasing; it was subject to interpretation. But this was the first time I had done this, and I was feeling my way.

The figure shaped up some more, becoming somewhat attractive. “Humfrey? I have heard that name before. But I am not Dana; I took her watch this month. Now let me go, dance, before I blow you away.”

“Dance?” I asked. “Don't you mean dunce?”

“Whatever.” The figure became quite appealing. “I think I recognize that voice. About a quarter century ago.”

“Demoness Metria!” I exclaimed, remembering Dana's friend. The one with the slight problem of vocabulary, who liked to see what human folk did.

The figure turned luscious, and the face formed. “Well, now. You were good for a bit of entertainment, as I recall. What do you want this time?”

“I want to enroll in the University of Magic.”

Metria's jaw dropped. But almost immediately she recovered her composure and squatted to pick up the fallen jaw. She set it back in place, where it worked as well as ever. “Are you crazy? Even for a man, I mean?”

“No. I'm in love.”

“Same thing. Why would you want to get into anything as deadly dull as the university?”

“I want to get my degree and be a legitimate Magician.”

“Well, you can't. Only demons can attend or folk sponsored by demons.”

I had a bright idea. “Well, you're a demon. You can sponsor me.”

She laughed, her torso shaking in interesting ways, while Rose frowned for some reason. “Why should I do a planetary thing like that?”

“What kind of thing?”

“Starry, solarian, cometary, moonish, cheesy—”

“Lunatic?”

“Whatever. Answer the question.”

I pondered feverishly. "Because it would be amusing to watch me struggle through that system.”

She considered. Her gaze focused disturbingly on me, then on Rose, who was standing back a way. “This is the creature you love?”

“Leave Rose out of it!” I snapped.

“I intend to. I'll make you this deal: I will enroll with you and be your companion. We shall share a room. If I can't distract you from your purpose before you get the degree, then you will have it.”

“Listen, demoness,” I said angrily. “If you think I'm going to mess with you as I did with Dana, forget it! All I want is an education.”

“Then you have nothing to fear from me,” she pointed out. “Safe in your desire for the degree and your love for Thorn, here—”

“Rose!” Rose said with an almost unprincessly sharpness.

“Whatever. So do we deal?”

I knew there was little I could do except deal or quit. I looked at Rose. “My marriage to Dana Demoness showed me that demons can be constant, when they have reason,” I said.

“I know. But she had a soul.”

“And the moment she divested herself of that soul, she took off. But she told me that Metria, here, always told the truth, except about her age. So maybe—”

“So I'm a smidgen over seventeen,” Metria said, adopting the aspect of a teenage girl. “So does it matter?”

It had been twenty-two years since I had met Metria at the Key Stone Copse. I decided not to comment. But Rose did.

“Actually, I am a bit over seventeen too,” she said. “I was born two hundred and sixty-six years ago. But the last two hundred and forty-six have been at Castle Roogna, and I haven't aged.”

“Hey, I like this woman!” Metria muttered. “She knows about being ageless.” She glanced at me. "Well, Humfrey, what is it to wasp?”

“To what?” I asked.

“Hornet, yellow jacket, buzz, sting, to exist or not to exist—”

“To bee?”

“Whatever. Are you in or out?”

I looked at Rose again. “I fear it is the only way, my love.”

“I fear it is, beloved,” she agreed. “Accept her sponsorship. I will wait for you. I know you don't have any future with a demoness.”

“Ah, but what a past he has had with one,” Metria said, “and what a present coming up.”

“A what?” I asked.

“Gift, token, bonus, gratuity, alms—”

“You had the right word,” I said. “I mean what are you going to give me?”

“You have a past and a future; I will make your present interesting. In fact, so interesting that you will be distracted from your studies and will flunk out of the U of M. Then your future will be without Rose of Roogna, here, and she will be tragically disappointed in you. That will be extremely entertaining.”

I looked once more at Rose. “I'm not sure this is a good idea.”

“It is a distinctly mediocre idea,” Rose agreed. “But the best that offers. Prove her wrong, my love, and return to me with your degree.”

Emboldened by that expression of confidence, I did it. “Sponsor me for the University of Magic,” I told Metria. “I will succeed despite your distractions.”

“Well, then, let's get it on,” she agreed. “Smudge a hole in the pentacle and I'll take you there.”

I scuffed a hole in the line with my foot. Metria became smoke and curled out through that gap, reforming as a flying dragon. The dragon's huge jaws snapped me up. Fortunately the teeth were more apparent than real and did not crunch me.

“I shall return!” I cried boldly back to Rose as the dragon launched into the air and bore me away.

“I'll be watching!” she called back. I thought she meant to say “waiting,” but realized that she had the Tapestry, so could watch me as she had before. That would surely steel my resolve, should it ever waver.

The dragon winged southeast until it reached a large lake. That was Ogre-Chobee, where the ogres had once lived, until they set out for the Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen. Then the dragon dived. It zoomed into the water, plunging through it, and finally a new world opened out. This was the realm of the demons; the dive into the water must have been merely to mask its location, since demons could dematerialize and reappear far distant in a moment. Did that mean I had done the same? That was an intriguing notion. But it could be that there really was an entrance to the demon realm under the water.

Metria had resumed her usual human form. I know it was no more natural to her than the dragon form was; all forms were unnatural for demons. But I preferred this one.

We were standing before a large desk piled high with meaningless papers. A demon with receding hair and heavy spectacles sat there. This was odd, because demons could assume any form they chose and did not suffer from the maladies of mortals. Evidently this one just happened to prefer this unprepossessing aspect. Beside him was a name plaque: BUREAUCRAT. “Next!” he said.

Metria nudged me. “Enroll, pull.”

“What?”

“Yank, tug, wrench, lug—”

“Jerk?”

“Whatever. Do it.”

I faced the desk demon. “I want to jerk. I mean enroll.”