text: In an instant, it seemed, the dread day came. Dor found himself huddled on the throne, feeling terribly alone. King Trent and Queen Iris had announced their vacation and disappeared into a cloud. When the cloud dissipated, they were gone; Iris' power of illusion had made them invisible. She had always liked dramatic entrances and exits.
  
  Dor gritted his teeth and got into it. Actually, the business of governing was mostly routine. There was a trained palace staff, quite competent, whose members Dor had always known; they did whatever he asked and answered any questions he had. But they did not make important decisions—and Dor discovered that every decision, no matter how minor, seemed vitally important to the people it concerned. So he let the routine handle itself and concentrated on those areas that demanded the decision of the King, hoping his voluminous royal robe would conceal any tremor of his knees.
  
  The first case concerned two peasants who had a difference about a plantation of light bulbs. Each claimed to be entitled to the brightest bulbs of the current crop. Dor questioned their wooden belt buckles and got the straight story, while both peasants stood amazed at this magic. Dor did this deliberately so they could see that he was, indeed, a Magician; they respected that caliber of magic and would be more likely to pay attention to him now.
  
  Peasant A had farmed the field for many years with indifferent success; it belonged to him. Peasant B had been hired to help this season—and the field had brightened into the best crop in years, so that it never saw darkness. To whom, then, did the first choice of bulbs belong?
  
  Dor saw that some diplomacy was called for here. He could of course make an arbitrary decision, but that would surely leave one party unsatisfied. That could lead to future trouble. He didn't want any of his decisions coming back to haunt King Trent in future months. "Peasant B obviously has the special touch that made this crop of bulbs glow so well," he said. "So he should be given his choice of the best, as many as he wants. After all, without him the crop would not be worth much." Peasant B looked pleased.
  
  "However, Peasant A does own the field. He can hire whomever he wants next year, so he can get to keep more of his crop." Peasant A nodded grim agreement. "Of course," Dor continued blithely, "Peasant A won't have much of a crop, and Peasant B won't have a job. The bulbs won't grow elsewhere, and won't brighten as well for anyone else, so both peasants will lose. Too bad. It would have been so simple to share the best bulbs equally, taking turns selecting each bulb, sharing the profit of the joint effort, and setting up for an even better future season . . ." Dor shrugged sadly.
  
  The two peasants looked at each other, a notion dawning. Wasn't it, after all, more important to share many future harvests than run off with the best of only one? Maybe they could work this out themselves.
  
  They departed, discussing the prospects with animation. Dor relaxed, his muscles unknotting. Had he done it the right way? He knew he could not make everyone happy in every case, but he did want to come as close as possible.
  
  Dor woke next morning to discover a ghost standing beside the royal bed. It was Doreen, the kitchen maid. There had been half a dozen recognizable ghosts on the premises, each with his or her sad story, but most were closemouthed about their living pasts. Dor had always liked Doreen because of the coincidence of names—Dor, Doreen—though apart from that they had little in common. Maybe he had been named after her, since she was a friend of Millie the Ghost, who had been his nursemaid during his early years. No one had seen fit to tell him, and the local furniture didn't know. There were many moderate little mysteries like that around this castle; it was part of its atmosphere. At any rate, Doreen was middle-aged and portly and often snappish, not having much to do with the living. Thus it was a surprise to find her here. "What can I do for you, Doreen?" he asked.
  
  "Sir, Your Majesty King Dor," she said diffidently. "We just only merely wondered—I mean, maybe just possibly—since you're the Royal Monarch now, temporarily, for a while—"
  
  Dor smiled. Doreen always found it hard to pinpoint the point. "Out with it, blithe spirit."
  
  "Well, we, you know we haven't really quite seen very much of Millie since she passed on—"
  
  To the ghosts, Millie's return to life was passing on. She had been one of their number for several centuries, and now was mortal again. "You miss her?"
  
  "Yes, certainly, in a way we do, Your Majesty. She used to come see us every day, right after she, you know, but since she got herself in the matrimonial way she hasn't—she—"
  
  Millie had married the Zombie Master and gone to share the castle now possessed by Good Magician Humfrey. It had been the Zombie Master's castle, eight hundred years before. "You'd like to see her again," Dor finished.
  
  "Yes, sir, Your Majesty. You were her friend in life, and now that you're in the way of being the Royal King—"
  
  "She hardly needs the King's approval to visit her old companions." Dor smiled. "Not that such approval would ever be withheld, but even if it were, how could anyone stop a ghost from going anywhere?"
  
  "Oh, sir, we can't go anywhere!" Doreen protested. "We are forever bound by the site of our cruel demise, until our, you might say, to put it politely, our onuses are abated."
  
  "Well, if you'd tell me your onuses, maybe I could help," Dor suggested.
  
  It was the first time he had ever seen a ghost blush. "Oh, no, no, n-never!" she stammered.
  
  Evidently he had struck a sensitive area. "Well, Millie can certainly come to see you."
  
  "But she never, she doesn't, she won't seem to come," Doreen wailed. "We have heard, had information, we believe she became a mother—"
  
  "Of twins," Dor agreed. "A boy and a girl. It was bound to happen, considering her talent."
  
  Prudish Doreen let that pass. "So of course, naturally she's busy. But if the King suggested, intimated, asked her to visit—"
  
  Dor smiled. "Millie was my governess for a dozen years. I had a crush on her. She never took orders from me; it was the other way around. Nobody who knows me takes me seriously." As he spoke, Dor feared he had just said something significant and damaging or damning; he would have to think about that in private.
  
  "But now that you're King—" Doreen said, not debating his point.
  
  Dor smiled again. "Very well. I will invite Millie and her family here for a visit so you can meet the children. I can't guarantee they'll come, but I will extend the invitation."
  
  "Oh, thank you, Your Majesty, sir!" Doreen faded gratefully out.
  
  Dor shook his head. He hadn't realized the ghosts liked children. But of course one of them was a child, Button, so that could account for it. Millie's babies were only three years old, while Button was six—but of course in time the twins would grow to his age, while the ghost would not change. He had been six for six hundred years. Children were children. Dor had not met Millie's twins himself; a visit should be interesting. He wondered whether Millie retained her talent of sex appeal, now that she was happily married. Did any wife keep up with that sort of thing? He feared that by the time he found out, it would be too late.
  
  Later that day, perhaps by no coincidence, Dor was approached by a zombie. The decrepit creatures normally remained comfortably buried in their graveyard near the castle, but any threat to the castle would bring them charging gruesomely forth. This one dropped stinking clods of earth and goo as it walked, and its face was a mass of pus and rot, but somehow it managed to talk. "Yhoor Mhajustee—" it pleaded loathsomely, spitting out a decayed tooth.
  
  Dor had known the zombies well in his day, including zombie animals and a zombie ogre named Egor, so they no longer repulsed him as badly as they might have done. "Yes?" he said politely. The best way to deal with a zombie was to give it what it wanted, since it could not be killed or discouraged. Theoretically, it was possible to dismember one and bury the pieces separately, but that was hardly worth the trouble and still was not guaranteed effective. Besides, zombies were all right, in their place.
  
  "Ohur Masssterr—"
  
  Dor caught on. "You have not seen the Zombie Master in some time. I will ask him to visit here so you can get together and rehash old times. Must be many a graveyard you've patronized with him. I can't promise he'll come—he does like his privacy—but I'll make the effort."
  
  "Thaaanks," the zombie whistled, losing part of its moldy tongue.
  
  "Uh, remember—he has a family now. Two little children. You might find them scooping sand out of graves, playing with stray bones—"
  
  But the zombie didn't seem concerned. The maggots squirmed alertly in its sunken eyes as it turned to depart. Maybe it was fun to have children play with one's bones.
  
  Meanwhile, the daily chores continued. Another case concerned a sea monster invading a river and terrorizing the fish there, which caused a slack harvest. Dor had to travel there and make the ground in the vicinity rumble as if shaken by the passage of a giant. The inanimate objects went to it with a will; they liked conspiring to frighten a monster. And the sea monster, none too smart and not really looking for trouble, decided it was more at home in the deep sea, innocently gobbling down shipwrecked sailors and flashing at voyeuristic Mundane investigators of the supernatural. It made a "You'll be sorry when you don't have C. Monster to kick around any more!" honk and departed.
  
  Again Dor relaxed weakly. This device would not work against a smart monster; he had been lucky. He was highly conscious of the potential for some colossal foulup, and felt it was only a matter of time before it occurred. He knew he didn't have any special talent for governing.
  
  At night he had nightmares, not the usual kind wherein black female Mundane-type horses chased him, but the worse kind wherein he thought he was awake and made some disastrous decision and all Xanth went up in magic flames, was overrun by wiggle-worms, or, worst of all, lost its magic and became like drear Mundania. All somehow his fault. He had heard it said that the head that wore the crown was uneasy. In truth, not only was that crown wearing a blister into his scalp, making him quite uneasy; that head was terrified by the responsibility of governing Xanth.
  
  Another day there was a serious theft in a northern village. Dor had himself conjured there; naturally Castle Roogna had a resident conjurer. The problem village was in central Xanth, near the Incognito territory largely unexplored by man, where dragons remained unchastened, and that made Dor nervous. There were many devastating monsters in Xanth; but as a class, the dragons were the worst because there were many varieties and sizes of them, and their numbers were large. But actually, it turned out to be a pleasant region, with most of the modern magic conveniences like soda-water springs and scented soapstones for laundry. This was fur-harvesting country, and this year there had been a fine harvest from the local stand of evergreen fur trees. The green furs had been seasoning in the sun and curing in the moon and sparkling in the stars, until one morning they were gone without trace.
  
  Dor questioned the platform on which the furs had been piled, and learned that a contingent from another village had sneaked in and stolen them. This was one time his magic talent was superior to that of King Trent—the gathering of information. He then arranged to have the furs conjured back. No action was taken against the other village; those people would know their deed had been discovered, and would probably lie low for some time.
  
  Through all this Irene was a constant nag. She resented Dor's ascension to the throne, though she knew it was temporary, and she kept hoping he would foul up. "My father could have done it better," she muttered darkly when Dor solved a problem and was hardly mollified when he agreed. "You should have punished that thieving village." And Dor wondered whether he had in fact been wishy-washy there, taking the expedient route instead of the proper one. Yet what could he do, except whatever seemed best at the time of decision? The crushing responsibility for error made him painstakingly cautious. Only experience, he suspected, could provide the necessary confidence to make excellent decisions under pressure. And that was exactly what King Trent, in his own experienced wisdom, had arranged for Dor to obtain here.
  
  Dor, to his surprise, did not quite foul up. But the variety of problems he encountered strained his ingenuity, and the foreboding grew that his luck had to turn. He counted the passing days, praying that no serious problem would arise before King Trent returned. Maybe when Dor was Trent's age he'd be competent to run a kingdom full-time; right now it was such nervous business it was driving him to distraction.
  
  Irene, at length perceiving this, flipflopped in girlish fashion and started offering support. "After all," she said consolingly, "It's not forever, even though it seems like it. Only two more days before the danger's over. Then we can all faint with relief." Dor appreciated the support, though he might have preferred a less pointed summation of his inadequacy.
  
  He made it. The day of King Trent's return came, to Dor's immense relief and Irene's mixed gratification and subdued dismay. She wanted her father back, but had expected Dor to make more of a mess of things. Dor had escaped more or less unscratched, which she felt was not quite fair.
  
  Both of them dressed carefully and made sure the Castle Roogna grounds were clean. They were ready to greet the returning royalty in proper style.
  
  The expectant hours passed, but the King and Queen did not appear. Dor quelled his nervousness; of course it took time to travel, especially if a quantity of Mundane trade goods was being moved. Irene joined Dor for a lunch of number noodles and milk shakes; they tried to divert themselves by spelling words with numbers, but the milk kept shaking so violently that nothing held together. That fitted their mood.
  
  "Where are they?" Irene demanded as the afternoon wore on. She was really getting worried. Now that she had a genuine concern, so that she wasn't concentrating her energy to embarrass Dor, she manifested as the infernally pretty girl she could be. Even the green tint of her hair was attractive; it did match her eyes, and after all, there was nothing wrong with plants.
  
  "Probably they had stuff to carry, so had to go slow," Dor said, not for the first time. But a qualm was gnawing at him. He cuffed it away, but it kept returning, as was the nature of its kind.
  
  Irene did not argue, but the green was spreading to her face, and that was less pretty.
  
  Evening came, and night, without Trent and Iris's return. Now Irene turned to Dor in genuine apprehension. "Oh, Dor, I'm scared! What's happened to them?"
  
  He could bluff neither her nor himself. He put his arm about her shoulders. "I don't know. I'm scared, too."
  
  She clung to him for a moment, all soft and sweet in her anxiety. Then she drew away and ran to her own apartment. "I don't want you to see me cry," she explained as she disappeared.
  
  Dor was touched. If only she could be like that when things were going well! There was a good deal more to her than mischief and sexual suggestion, if she ever let it show.
  
  He retired and slept uneasily. The real nightmares came this time, not the sleek and rather pretty equines he had sometimes befriended, but huge, nebulous, misshapen creatures with gleaming white eyes and glinting teeth; he had to shake himself violently awake to make them leave. He used the royal chambers, for he was King now—but since his week was over, he felt more than ever like an imposter. He stared morosely at the dark hoofprints on the floor, knowing the mares were waiting only for him to sleep again. He was defenseless; he had geared himself emotionally for relief when the week expired, and now that relief had been negated. If the King and Queen did not return today, what would he do?
  
  They did not return. Dor continued to settle differences and solve problems in the Kingly routine; what else could he do? But a restlessness was growing in the palace, and his own dread intensified as each hour dragged by. Everyone knew King Trent's vacation had been scheduled for one week. Why hadn't he returned?
  
  In the evening Irene approached Dor privately. There was no mischief about her now. She was conservatively garbed in a voluminous green robe, and her hair was in disorder, as if overrun by weeds. Her eyes were preternaturally bright, as if she had been crying more than was good for her and had used vanishing cream to make the signs of it disappear. "Something's happened," she said. "I know it. We must go check on them."
  
  "We can't do that," Dor said miserably.
  
  "Can't? That concept is not in my lexicon." She had grown so used to using fancy words, she now did it even when distracted. Dor hoped he never deteriorated to that extent. "I can do anything I want, except—"
  
  "Except rule Xanth," Dor said. "And find your parents."
  
  "Where are they?" she demanded.
  
  She didn't know, of course. She had not been part of the secret. He saw no way to avoid telling her now, for she was, after all, King Trent's daughter, and the situation had become serious. She did have the right to know. "In Mundania."
  
  "Mundania!" she cried, horrified.
  
  "A trade mission," he explained quickly. "To make a deal so Xanth can benefit. For progress."
  
  "Oh, this is twice as awful as I feared. Oh, woe! Mundania! The awfullest of places! They can't do magic there! They're helpless!"
  
  That was an exaggeration, but she was prone to it when excited. Neither Trent nor Iris was helpless in nonmagical terms. The King was an expert swordsman, and the Queen had a wonderfully devious mind. "Remember, he spent twenty years there, before he was King. He knows his way around."
  
  "But he didn't come back!"
  
  Dor could not refute that. "I don't know what to do," he confessed.
  
  "We'll have to go find them," she said. "Don't tell me no again." And there was such a glint in her bright eyes that Dor dared not defy her.
  
  Actually, it seemed so simple. Anything was better than the present doubt. "All right. But I'll have to tell the Council of Elders." For the Elders were responsible for the Kingdom during the absence of the King. They took care of routine administrative chores and had to select a new King if anything happened to the old one. They had chosen Trent, back when the prior monarch, the Storm King, had died. Dor's grandfather Roland was a leading Elder.
  
  "First thing in the morning," she said, her gaze daring him to demur.
  
  "First thing in the morning," he agreed. She had forced this action upon him, but he was glad for the decision.
  
  "Shall I stay with you tonight? I saw the hoofprints."
  
  Dor considered. The surest way to banish nightmares was to have compatible company while sleeping. But Irene was too pretty now and too accommodating; if he kissed her this night, she wouldn't bite. That made him cautious. Once Good Magician Humfrey had suggested to him that it might be more manly to decline a woman's offer than to accept it; Dor had not quite understood that suggestion, but now he had a better inkling of its meaning. "No," he said regretfully. "I fear the nightmares, but I fear you more."
  
  "Gee," she said, pleased. Then she kissed him without biting and left in her swirl of perfume.
  
  Dor sat for some time, wishing Irene were that way all the time. No tantrums, no artful flashes of torso, no pretended misunderstandings, just a sincere and fairly mature caring. But of course her niceness came only in phases, always wiped out by other phases.
  
  His decision had one beneficial effect: the nightmares foraged elsewhere that night, letting him sleep in peace.
  
  "Cover for me," he told Irene in the morning. "I would rather people didn't know where I am, except for the conjurer."
  
  "Certainly," she agreed. If people knew he was consulting privately with an Elder, they would know something was wrong.
  
  He went to see his grandfather Roland, who lived in the North Village, several days' walk beyond the Gap Chasm. Kings of Xanth had once resided here, before Trent restored Castle Roogna. He marched up the neat walk and knocked on the humble door.
  
  "Oh, grandfather!" Dor cried the moment the strong old man appeared. "Something has happened to King Trent, and I must go look for him."
  
  "Impossible," Roland said sternly. "The King may not leave Castle Roogna for more than a day without appointing another Magician as successor. At the moment there are no other Magicians who would assume the crown, so you must remain there until Trent returns. That is the law of Xanth."
  
  "But King Trent and Queen Iris went to Mundania!"
  
  "Mundania!" Roland was as surprised as Irene had been. "No wonder he did not consult with us! We would never have permitted that."
  
  So there had been method in the manner King Trent had set Dor up for this practice week. Trent had bypassed the Council of Elders! But that was not Dor's immediate concern. "I'm not fit to govern, grandfather. I'm too young. I've got to get King Trent back!"
  
  "Absolutely not! I am only one member of the Council, but I know their reaction. You must remain here until Trent returns."
  
  "But then how can I rescue him?"
  
  "From Mundania? You can't. He will have to extricate himself from whatever situation he is in, assuming he lives."
  
  "He lives!" Dor repeated emphatically. He had to believe that! The alternative was unthinkable. "But I don't know how long I can keep governing Xanth. The people know I'm not really King. They think King Trent is nearby, just giving me more practice. They won't obey me much longer."
  
  "Perhaps you should get help," Roland suggested. "I disapprove on principle of deception, but I think it best in this case that the people not know the gravity of the situation. Perhaps it is not grave at all; Trent may return in good order at any time. Meanwhile, the Kingdom need not be governed solely by one young man."
  
  "I could get help, I guess," Dor said uncertainly. "But what about King Trent?"
  
  "He must return by himself—or fail to. None of us can locate him in Mundania, let alone help him. This is the obvious consequence of his neglect in obtaining the prior advice of the Council of Elders. We must simply wait. He is a resourceful man who will surely prevail if that is humanly possible."
  
  With that Dor had to be satisfied. He was King, but he could not go against the Elders. He realized now that this was not merely a matter of law or custom, but of common sense. Any situation in Mundania that was too much for King Trent to handle would be several times too much for Dor.
  
  Irene was more positive than he had expected, when he gave her the news on his return. "Of course the Elders would say that. They're old and conservative. And right, I guess. We'll just have to make do until my father gets back."
  
  Dor didn't quite trust her change of heart, but knew better than to inquire. "Who can we get to help?" He knew it would be impossible to exclude Irene from any such activity. King Trent was, after all, her father, the one person to whom her loyalty was unfailing.
  
  "Oh, all the kids. Chet, Smash, Grundy—"
  
  "To run a Kingdom?" he asked dubiously.
  
  "Would you rather leave it to the Elders?"
  
  She had a point. "I hope the situation doesn't last long," he said.
  
  "You certainly don't hope it more than I do!" she agreed, and he knew that was straight from her heart.
  
  Irene went off to locate the people mentioned so that Dor would not arouse suspicion by doing it himself. The first she found was Grundy the Golem. Grundy was older than the others and different in several respects. He had been created as a golem, animated wood and clay and string, and later converted to full-person status. He was only a handspan tall, and spoke all the languages of all living things—which was the useful talent for which he had been created. Grundy could certainly help in solving the routine problems of Xanth. But he tended to speak too often and intemporately. In other words, he was mouthy. That could be trouble.
  
  "Now this is a secret," Dor explained. "King Trent is lost in Mundania, and I must run the Kingdom until he returns."
  
  "Xanth is in trouble!" Grundy exclaimed.
  
  "That's why I need your help. I don't know how much longer I'll have to be King, and I don't want things to get out of control. You generally have good information—"
  
  "I snoop a lot," Grundy agreed. "Very well; I'll snoop for you. First thing I have to tell you is that the whole palace is sniggering about a certain essay someone wrote for a certain female tutor—"
  
  "That news I can dispense with," Dor said.
  
  "Then there's the gossip about how a certain girl went swimming in her birthday suit, which suit seems to have stretched some since her birth, along with—"
  
  "That, too," Dor said, smiling. "I'm sure you comprehend my needs."
  
  "What's in it for me?"
  
  "Your head."
  
  "He's King, all right," the golem muttered. One of the walls chuckled.
  
  Irene brought in Chet. He was a centaur a little older than Dor, but he seemed younger because centaurs matured more slowly. He was Cherie's son, which meant he was highly educated but very cautious about showing any magic talent. For a long time centaurs had believed they lacked magical talents, because most creatures of Xanth either had magic or were magic. Modern information had dissipated such superstitions. Chet did have a magic talent; he could make large things small. It was a perfectly decent ability, and many people had fine miniatures he had reduced for them, but it had one drawback; he could not reverse the process. His father was Chester Centaur, which meant Chet tended to be ornery when challenged, and was unhandsome in his human portion. When he reached his full stature, which would not be for some years yet, he would be a pretty solid animal. Dor, despite the maledictions he heaped on the race of centaurs while sweating over one of Cherie's assignments, did like Chet, and had always gotten along with him.
  
  Dor explained the situation. "Certainly I will help," Chet said. He always spoke in an educated manner, partly because he was unconscionably smart, but mostly because his mother insisted. Technically, Cherie was Chet's dam, but Dor refrained from using that term for fear Cherie would perceive the "n" he mentally added to it. Dor had sympathy for Chet; it was probably almost as hard being Cherie's son as it was trying to be King. Chet would not dare misspell any words. "But I am uncertain how I might assist."
  
  "I've just barely figured out decent answers to the problems I've already dealt with," Dor said earnestly. "I'm bound to foul up before long. I need good advice."
  
  "Then you should apply to my mother. Her advice is irrefutable."
  
  "I know. That's too authoritative."
  
  Chet smiled. "I suspect I understand." That was as close as he would come to criticizing his dam.
  
  Later in the day Irene managed to bring in Smash. He was the offspring of Crunch the Ogre, and also not yet at full growth—but he was already about twice Dor's mass and strong in proportion. Like all ogres, he was ugly and not smart; his smile would spook a gargoyle, and he could barely pronounce most words, let alone spell them. That quality endeared him to Dor. But the ogre's association with human beings had made him more intelligible and sociable than others of his kind, and he was loyal to his friends. Dor had been his friend for years.
  
  Dor approached this meeting diplomatically. "Smash, I need your help."
  
  The gross mouth cracked open like caked mud in a dehydrated pond. "Sure me help! Who me pulp to kelp?"
  
  "No one, yet," Dor said quickly. Again like all ogres, Smash was prone to rhymes and violence. "But if you could sort of stay within call, in case someone tries to pulp me—"
  
  "Pulp me? Who he?"
  
  Dor realized he had presented too convoluted a thought. "When I yell, you come help. Okay?"
  
  "Help whelp!" Smash agreed, finally getting it straight.
  
  Dor's choice of helpers proved fortuitous. Because they were all his peers and friends, they understood his situation better than adults would have and kept his confidences. It was a kind of game—run this Kingdom as if King Trent were merely dallying out of sight, watching them, grading them. It was important not to foul up.
  
  A basilisk wandered into a village, terrorizing the people, because its stare caused them to turn to stone. Dor wasn't sure he could scare it away as he had the sea monster, though it was surely a stupid creature, for basilisks had exceedingly ornery personalities. He couldn't have a boulder conjured to squish it, for King Trent decreed the basilisk to be an endangered species. This was an alien concept the King had brought with him from Mundania—the notion that rare creatures, however horrible, should be protected. Dor did not quite understand this, but he was trying to preserve the Kingdom for Trent's return, so did it Trent's way. He needed some harmless way to persuade the creature to leave human villages alone—and he couldn't even talk its language.
  
  But Grundy the Golem could. Grundy used a helmet and periscope— that was a magic device that bent vision around a corner—to look indirectly at the little monster, and told it about the most baleful she-bask he had ever heard of, who was lurking somewhere in the Dead Forest southeast of Castle Roogna. Since the one Grundy addressed happened to be a cockatrice, the notion of such a henatrice appealed to it. It was no lie; there was a palace guard named Crombie who had the ability to point to things and he had pointed toward that forest when asked where the most baleful female basilisk resided. Of course, sex was mostly illusion among basilisk, since each was generated from the egg of a rooster laid in a dungheap under the Dog Star and hatched by a toad. That was why this was an endangered species, since very few roosters laid eggs in dungheaps under the Dog Star—they tended to get confused and do it under the Cat Star—and most toads had little patience with the seven years it normally required to hatch the egg. But like human beings, the basilisks pursued such illusions avidly. So this cock-bask took off in all haste—i.e., a fast snails pace—for the Dead Forest, where the lonesome hen basked, and the problem had been solved.
  
  Then there was an altercation in the Barracks—the village set up by the old soldiers of Trent's erstwhile Mundane army, dismantled when he came to power. Each had a farmstead, and many had Mundane wives imported to balance the sexual ratio. They could not do magic, but their children had talents, just like the real citizens of Xanth. The old soldiers entertained themselves by setting up a war-games spectacular, using wooden swords and engaging in complex maneuvers. King Trent allowed this sort of exercise, so long as no one was hurt; soldiers unable to stifle their murderous propensities were issued genuine bayonets from bayonet plants cultured for the purpose and were assigned to dragon-hunting duty. They went after those dragons who insisted on raiding human settlements. This tended to eliminate some of the dragons and most of the violent soldiers. It all worked out. But this time there was a difference of opinion concerning a score made by the Red team on the Green team.
  
  The Reds had set up a catapult and fired off a puffball that puffed into lovely smoke at the apex of its flight. In the games, soldiers were not permitted to hurl actual rocks or other dangerous things at each other, to their frustration. The Reds claimed a direct score on the Greens' headquarters tent, wiping out the Green Bean and his Floozie of the Day. The Greens insisted that the Reds' aim had been off, so that they had not, after all, puffed Bean and Floozie. Since the Floozie was the brains of the outfit, this was a significant distinction. The Reds countered that they had surveyed in the positions of their catapult and the target tent, allowed for windage, humidity, air pressure, and stray magic, double-checked the azimuth, elevation, and charge with their Red Pepper and his Doll of the Day, and fired off the mock-shot in excellent faith. The victory should be theirs.
  
  Dor had no idea how to verify the accuracy of the shot. But Chet Centaur did. Lower, middle, and higher math had been pounded into his skull by the flick of a horsewhip at his tail. He reviewed all the figures of the survey, including the Floozie and Doll figures, spoke with the military experts about corrected azimuths and trigonometric functions—which made Dor nervous; it wasn't nice to talk dirty in public—and concluded that the shot had been off-target by seven point three lengths of the Red Pepper's left foot. Presented with formal protests, he engaged in a brief debate in which obscure mathematical spells radiated like little whirlpools and nebulae from his head to clash with those of the Reds. A purple tangent spun into a yellow vector, breaking it in two; an orange cosine ground up a dangling cube root. The Red surveyors, impressed by Chet's competence, conceded the point. However, since the target tent had been twelve Pepper-foots in diameter, it was recognized that the probability of a glancing strike was high, even with due margin for error. The Greens were adjudged to have lost the services of the Floozie, and therefore to be at a serious disadvantage in the engagement. The maneuvers resumed, and Chet returned to Castle Roogna, problem solved.
  
  Then a huge old rock-maple tree fell across one of the magic paths leading to Castle Roogna. This was a well-traveled path, and it was not safe to leave it, for beyond its protection the nickelpedes lurked. No one would risk setting foot into a nickelpede nest, for the vicious little creatures, five times the size and ferocity of centipedes, would instantly gouge out nickels of flesh. The tree had to be cleared—but the rock was far too heavy for any ordinary person to move.
  
  Smash the Ogre took a hammer, marched down the path, and blasted away at the fallen trunk. He was as yet a child ogre, not more than half again as tall as Dor, so possessed of only a fraction of his eventual strength, but an ogre was an ogre at any age. The hummer clanged resoundingly, the welkin rang, the stone cracked asunder, dust flew up in clouds that formed a small dust storm wherein dust devils played, and fragments of maple shot out like shrapnel. Soon the little ogre had hewn a path-sized section through the trunk, so that people could pass again. The job had been simple enough for him, though as an adult, he would not have needed the hammer. He would merely have picked up the whole trunk and heaved it far away.
  
  So it went. Another week passed—and still King Trent and Queen Iris did not return. Irene's nervousness was contagious. "You've got to do something, Dor!" she screamed, and several ornamental plants in the vicinity swelled up and burst, responding to her frustration.
  
  "The Elders won't let me go after him," he said, as nervous as she.
  
  "You do something right now, Dor, or I'll make your life completely miserable!"
  
  Dor quailed anew. This was no empty bluff. She could make him miserable on her good days; how bad would it be when she really tried? "I'll consult with Crombie," he said.
  
  "What good will that do?" she demanded. "My father is in Mundania; Crombie can't point out his location beyond the realm of magic."
  
  "I have a feeble notion," Dor said.
  
  When Crombie arrived, Dor put it to him: how about pointing out something that would help them locate King Trent? Crombie could point to anything, even an idea; if there were some device or some person with special information—
  
  Crombie closed his eyes, spun about, flung out one arm, and pointed south.
  
  Dor was almost afraid to believe it. "There really is something that will help?"
  
  "I never point wrong," Crombie said with certainty. He was a stout, graying soldier of the old school, who had a wife named Jewel who lived in the nether caves of Xanth, and a daughter named Tandy of whom no one knew anything. Jewel had been a nymph of the rock; it was her job to salt the earth with all the diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, opals, spinels, and other gemstones that prospectors were destined eventually to find. She was said to be a lovely, sweet, and tolerant woman now, satisfied to see Crombie on those irregular occasions when he got around to visiting her. Dor understood that Jewel had once loved his father Bink, or vice versa— that had never been made quite clear—but that Crombie had captured her heart with a wish-spell. Love had transformed her from nymph to woman; that process, too, was not quite within Dor's comprehension. What was the distinction between a nymph and a girl like Irene? "Sometimes people interpret it wrong, but the point is always right," Crombie finished.
  
  "Uh, do you have any idea how far it is?"
  
  "Can't really tell, but pretty far, I think. I could triangulate for you, maybe." He went to another room of the castle and tried again. The point remained due south. "Too far to get a proper fix. Down beyond Lake Ogre-Chobee, I'd say."
  
  Dor knew about that lake; it had been part of the geography Cherie Centaur had drilled into him. A tribe of fiends lived beneath it, who hurled curses at anyone who bothered them; they had driven off most of the ogres who had once resided on its shores. A number of those displaced ogres had migrated north, settling in the Ogre-fen-Ogre Fen; woe betide the curse-fiend who tried to follow them there! He didn't want to go to that lake; anything that could drive away a tribe of ogres was certainly too much for him to handle.
  
  "But you're sure it will help us?" Dor asked nervously. "Not curse us?"
  
  "You hard of hearing, Your Majesty? I said so before." Crombie was a friend of Dor's a father and of King Trent; he did not put up with much nonsense from youngsters who had not even existed when he was sowing his wild oats. All he sowed now were tame oats; Jewel saw to that.
  
  "How will it help us?" Irene asked.
  
  "How should I know?" Crombie demanded. He was also a woman hater; this was another aspect of his personality whose consistency eluded Dor. How could a tamely married man hate women? Evidently Irene had changed, in Crombie's eyes, from child to woman; indeed, there was something in the way the old soldier looked at her now that made Irene tend to fade back. She played little games of suggestion with a harmless person like Dor, but lost her nerve when confronted by a real man, albeit an old one like Crombie. "I don't define policy, I only point the way."
  
  "Yes, of course, and we do appreciate it," Dor said diplomatically. "Uh, while you're here—would you point out the direction of any special thing I should be taking care of while I'm King?"
  
  "Why not?" Crombie whirled again—and pointed south again.
  
  "Ha!" Dor exclaimed. "I hoped that would be the case. I'm supposed to go find whatever it is that will help us locate King Trent."
  
  Irene's eyes lighted. "Sometimes you border on genius!" she breathed, gratified at this chance to search for her parents.
  
  "Of course I do," Crombie agreed, though the remark had not been directed at him. He marched off on his rounds, guarding the castle.
  
  Dor promptly visited Elder Roland again, this time having Irene conjured along with him. She had never before been to the North Village, and found it quaint. "What's that funny-looking tree in the center court?" she inquired.
  
  "That's Justin Tree," Dor replied, surprised she didn't know about it. "Your father transformed him to that form from a man, about forty years ago, before he went to Mundania the first time."
  
  She was taken aback. "Why didn't he transform him back, once he was King?"
  
  "Justin likes being a tree," Dor explained. "He has become a sort of symbol to the North Village. People bring him fresh water and dirt and fertilizer when he wants them, and couples embrace in his shade."
  
  "Oh, let's try that!" she said.
  
  Was she serious? Dor decided not to risk it. "We're here on business, rescuing your father. We don't want to delay."
  
  "Of course," she agreed instantly. They hurried on to Roland's house, where Dor's grandmother Bianca let them in, surprised at Dor's return.
  
  "Grandfather," Dor said when Roland appeared. "I have to make a trip south, according to Crombie. He points out a duty I have there, way down beyond Lake Ogre-Chobee. So the Elders can't say no to that, can they?"
  
  Roland frowned. "We can try, Your Majesty." He glanced at Irene. "Would this relate to the absence of Magician Trent?"
  
  "King Trent!" Irene snapped.
  
  Roland smiled indulgently. "We Elders are just as concerned about this matter as you are," he said. He spoke firmly and softly; no one would know from his demeanor that he had the magic power to freeze any person in his tracks. "We are eager to ascertain Trent's present state. But we can not allow our present King—that's you, Dor—to risk himself foolishly. I'm afraid a long trip, particularly to the vicinity of Ogre-Chobee, is out of the question at this time."
  
  "But it's a matter I'm supposed to attend to!" Dor protested. "And it's not exactly the lake; it's south of it. So I don't have to go near the fiends. If a King doesn't do what he's supposed to do, he's not fit to be King!"
  
  "One could wish King Trent had kept that more firmly in mind," Roland said, and Irene flushed. "Yet at times there are conflicts of duty. Part of the art of governing is the choosing of the best route through seeming conflicts. You have done well so far, Dor; I think you'll be a good King. You must not act irresponsibly now."
  
  "King Trent said much the same," Dor said, remembering. "Just before he left, he told me that when I was in doubt, to concentrate on honesty."
  
  "That is certainly true. How strange that he did not do the honest thing himself, and consult with the Elders before he departed."
  
  That was bothering Dor increasingly, and he could see that Irene was fit to explode. She hated denigration of her father—yet Roland's pique seemed justified. Had King Trent had some deeper motive than mere trade with Mundania? Had he, incredibly, actually planned not to return? "I'd like just to go to bed and hide my head under the blanket," Dor said.
  
  "That is no longer a luxury you can afford. I think the nightmares would seek you out."
  
  "They already have," Dor agreed ruefully. "The castle maids are complaining about the hoofprints in the rugs."
  
  "I would like to verify your findings, if I may," Roland said.
  
  There was a break while Dor arranged to have Crombie conjured to the North Village. Grandmother Bianca served pinwheel cookies she had harvested from her pinwheel bush. Irene begged a pinwheel seed from her; Irene had a collection of seeds she could grow into useful plants.
  
  "My, how you've grown!" Bianca said, observing Irene.
  
  Irene dropped her cookie—but then had it back unbroken. Bianca's magic talent was the replay; she could make time drop back a few seconds, so that some recent error could be harmlessly corrected. "Thank you," Irene murmured, recovering.
  
  Crombie arrived. "I would like to verify your findings, if I may," Roland repeated to the soldier. Dor noted how the old man was polite to everyone; somehow that made Roland seem magnified in the eyes of others. "Will you point out to me, please, the greatest present threat to the Kingdom of Xanth?"
  
  Crombie obligingly went through his act again—and pointed south again. "That is what I suspected," Roland said. "It seems something is developing in that region that you do indeed have to attend to, Dor. But this is a serious matter, no pleasure excursion."
  
  "What can I do?" Dor asked plaintively. The horror of King Trent's unexplained absence was closing in on him, threatening to overwhelm his tenuous equilibrium.
  
  "You can get some good advice."
  
  Dor considered. "You mean Good Magician Humfrey?"
  
  "I do. He can tell you which course is best, and if you must make this trip, he can serve in your stead as King."
  
  "I don't think he'll agree to that," Dor said.
  
  "I'm sure he won't," Irene agreed.
  
  "There must be a Magician on the throne of Xanth. Ask Humfrey to arrange it, should he approve your excursion."
  
  That was putting the Good Magician on the spot! "I will." Dor looked around, trying to organize himself. "I'd better get started. It's a long walk."
  
  "You're the King, Dor. You don't have to walk there any more than you had to walk here. Have yourself conjured there."
  
  "Oh. Yes. I forgot." Dor felt quite foolish.
  
  "But first get the rest of us safely back to Castle Roogna," Irene told him, nibbling on another cookie. "I don't want to have to cross over the Gap Chasm on the invisible bridge and have the Gap Dragon looking up my skirt." She held the cookie up by the pin while she chewed around the wheel, delicately.