"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 fallibility's, 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 female 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 manikin figure, swelling and finning 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 in 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 s
mart 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 can not 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."