Man From Mundania

by Piers Anthony

  WHY DO YOU WANT IT?

  “Why should I tell you that?”

  WHY SHOULD I TELL YOU WHERE IT IS?

  Oh. “You mean you'll tell me where it is, if I tell you why I want it?”

  OF COURSE.

  “I need it to take with me when I use the Heaven Cent.” The screen blinked. This news had evidently taken the machine aback. Then the words appeared: THE MIRROR is IN THE CABINET BY THE BACK EXIT.

  Ivy looked toward the rear of the cave. There was a cabinet. She knew the machine could not tell an untruth, but it could tell a partial truth. “Is the cabinet locked?”

  NO.

  “There must be some reason I can't get it, even if I beat you.”

  THERE IS NO REASON.

  “I don't believe it!”

  GO TO THE CABINET. TAKE THE MIRROR.

  “You're giving it to me?” she asked incredulously.

  NO. I AM MERELY EVINCING MY GOOD FAITH. YOU MAY HOLD THE MIRROR. IT DOES NOT MATTER, BECAUSE IF I MAKE YOU CAPTIVE, THE MIRROR REMAINS CAPTIVE TOO.

  Ivy walked to the cabinet. She pulled open its top drawer. There was the magic mirror! She picked it up.

  “Maybe it's the wrong mirror!” Nada exclaimed.

  “Maybe it only looks like the one you want.”

  TEST IT, the machine printed imperturbably.

  “Show me my brother,” Ivy told the mirror.

  Prince Dolph appeared in the mirror. He was sitting quite still. That was suspicious.

  “Show me the larger context,” she said.

  The image of Dolph shrank as the scope of the scene increased. Now the image showed the boy sitting on Ivy's bed, watching the magic Tapestry.

  “That little stink horn!” Ivy exclaimed. “He sneaked into my room to watch the Tapestry!”

  “That figures,” Nada said. “He does like it.”

  Ivy nodded. “Almost as well as he likes you,” she agreed.

  The mirror was genuine. “All right. Pewter,” Ivy said.

  “Now it starts. I'm walking out of here—with the mirror.” She started walking toward the front of the cave.

  PRINCESS IVY CHANGES HER MIND, the screen printed.

  “Well, maybe not with the mirror,” she said.

  “Ivy!” Nada cried. “Don't let him rewrite the script!”

  Ivy glared at the screen. “So you're doing it. Pewter!” she said severely. “Well, it won't work! I'm not changing my mind!” She resumed walking.

  PRINCESS IVY SEES A BIG HAIRY SPIDER ON THE FLOOR.

  There was the spider, right in front of her. “Eeeeek!” she screeched, horrified.

  “Don't fall for that!” Nada called. “It's illusion!”

  “But it's a big hairy illusion!” Ivy replied.

  “Just walk through it!” Ivy realized that she would have to do just that. She took a nervous step toward the spider.

  The spider reared up on six of its hairy legs, and hissed.

  Ivy skipped back, affrighted again.

  “This is ridiculous,” Nada said. “I'll take care of that spider.” For the naga had no fear of spiders; they ate them.

  NADA ENCOUNTERS HER WORST HORROR, the Screen printed.

  The spider converted into a man-high mound of cake covered with ice cream covered with chocolate fudge with whipped cream topping.

  “Oh, ugh!” Nada exclaimed, retreating.

  “You hate cake?” Electra asked, amazed.

  “When I traveled with Dolph, we came to an isle—one of the keys—made of cake and icing and all. We ate until we got sick. Ever since, I can't stand the stuff. My stomach turns at the very notion!”

  “Well, mine doesn't!” Electra said. “Let me at it!”

  ELECTRA ENCOUNTERS HER WORST HORROR.

  The cake reshaped into an open coffin. The interior was plush, and there was a coverlet and pillow inside. It looked quite comfortable.

  Electra's eyes went round with horror. “No, no! I don't want to go back to sleep there!” she cried, retreating. For she had slept for a thousand years (minus time off for good behavior) in just such a coffin, having fallen in as victim of a curse by Magician Murphy. If she ever went back to it, she would slumber the rest of the sentence, then die in her sleep. She backed away until she almost banged into the big screen.

  Which was exactly where Ivy wanted her. “I think we've had enough of this,” she said firmly. “I'm not going to let that hairy spider stop me this time! Nada—”

  “Right.” Nada abruptly changed form, becoming a snake. If the spider reappeared, she would snap it up.

  NADA ENCOUNTERS—the screen began.

  But at that point Electra, responding to their agreed signal, slapped her hand down on top of the screen and delivered a tremendous jolt of electric current. That was her talent, of course, and it was formidable in the right situation.

  The screen nickered. WRITE-ERROR! it flashed. Then gibberish symbols raced across it. Then more words: INTERRUPTS OFF! Then nothing; it faded out entirely.

  “Come on, let's get out of here before he recovers!”

  Ivy said. She hurried across the cave. Nothing opposed her; the illusions that had been the spider, cake, and coffin were gone. Electra's shock had thrown Com-Pewter into confusion, and he would have to put all his circuits in order before he could resume revising reality.

  They ran out, Nada resuming human form. There was Stanley in the entrance tunnel, steaming. Had their electric magic ploy failed, the dragon would have fired a jet of hot steam at the screen, and that probably would have done the job. They had come prepared.

  They rushed out into daylight while Stanley guarded their rear. If Com-Pewter recovered too soon and started printing barriers to their escape, the dragon would use his head of steam after all.

  The day remained clear, but there was now a horrible smell, as of a hundred fat men sweating in unison.

  Electra was childishly fleet on her feet. She led the way—and suddenly stopped. “Ooof!” she grunted, and sat down, gasping.

  Ivy was next. “ 'Lectra! What's the matter?”

  Electra, still struggling for breath, pointed ahead. But there was nothing there.

  “The odor must have choked her,” Nada said, coming up. “Did a sphinx die nearby?”

  Ivy stepped forward—and banged into an invisible column.

  Then, from above, came a sound: “A-ooo-ga?”

  “The invisible giant!” Ivy exclaimed. “He's standing here!”

  “Because he doesn't know what to do now that Com-Pewter's on the blink,” Nada said. “But we can help him.” She tilted her head back. “Hey, Giant!” she called. “Go take a bath!”

  “Baaath?” the huge voice came back.

  “Go jump in the lake!” Ivy called helpfully.

  The monstrous invisible legs moved. The ground quaked with each footfall. In a moment a patch of trees to the side was flattened. Then another patch, in the shape of a tremendous footprint. Then there was a truly phenomenal splash in the nearby lake.

  “Move—before everything floods!” Ivy cried, helping Electra to her feet. The girl wasn't hurt; she had just had the breath knocked out of her.

  They ran on down the path—and indeed, a wash of water was coming, and drops spattered down around them like rain.

  Stanley whomped after them, catching up. They had made their escape—and Ivy had the mirror!

  There was what for to pay when they returned, of course, but Ivy was used to that; she had gotten into mischief all her cute life. She had recovered the magic mirror, and that went far to stifle her mother's sharp tongue. Anyway, Dolph had been watching their little adventure on the Tapestry, and would have warned King Dor had things gone really bad.

  Still, Ivy was bothered by one aspect of it. It seemed to her that their escape had been too easy. Sober later reflection suggested that surely Com-Pewter had known of Electra's talent, and could have insulated himself against it. Why hadn't he done so? Had he been careless, just this once? It had seemed so at the time, bu
t in retrospect this seemed less likely. It was almost as if the machine had wanted to give back the mirror. But that didn't seem to make sense. Com-Pewter never did anything for anybody voluntarily, unless he stood to gain a lot more than he lost. What could he gain from giving up the valuable mirror?

  Well, the deed was done, and she had the mirror. Now she had confidence to use the Heaven Cent. For now that Electra had charged it, the cent was ready for use—and they had always known that it would be used to complete the Quest Dolph had started: to find Good Magician Humfrey, who had disappeared seven years ago with his family, leaving his castle empty. He had to be found, for unanswered Questions were piling up. Xanth needed him!

  Prince Dolph could not use the cent. Their parents had been quite firm on that. Prince Dolph had gotten himself betrothed to two girls at once, and he had to stay and face the medicine. He had to choose between them, get unbetrothed to one and marry the other, when he came of age. Until he settled that mess (Queen Irene called it a “situation” but a mess was what it was; everybody knew that), he was not going anywhere.

  So Ivy was going to use it. The magic of the cent was that it took whoever invoked it to wherever or whatever or whenever or whoever needed that person the most. There was no certainty that Good Magician Humfrey needed Ivy the most, but his message to Dolph had named the Heaven Cent. If the Good Magician thought it would help him, then surely it would, for Humfrey was the Magician of Information and knew everything. So Ivy expected to find him, wherever he was, and expected to be the right person for the job. Magic had a way of working out, with her.

  Yet she was not, deep, deep down inside, quite sure. For one thing, there was Magician Murphy's curse. Magician Murphy had lived eight or nine hundred years before, and his talent had been to make anything that could go wrong, go wrong. He had cursed the folk of Electra's time, and as a result Electra had been caught up in the spell, and Dolph had wound up betrothed to two girls instead of one. Eight hundred years, and Murphy's curse had been potent! So how could she be sure it was not still operating? That it would somehow mess up her mission, and make things even worse than before, and get her lost as well as the Good Magician?

  The answer was, she could not be sure. Maybe Magician Humfrey had known best—but maybe he had forgotten about that ancient curse. There was only one way to find out for sure—and that made her nervous.

  But she did not express these doubts to anyone else, for that might make it seem that she wanted to renege on her agreement to use the Heaven Cent. She certainly wasn't going to do that! The Good Magician had to be found; Dolph had done his part, and now it was her turn.

  The day soon came. The Heaven Cent was fully charged and ready. Electra said so, and Electra knew; she had been trained in this by the Sorceress Tapis, who had woven the great historical Tapestry that now hung in Ivy's room. Indeed, the first cent she had crafted had worked marvelously well, bringing Electra herself here to the present just when they needed another Heaven Cent.

  Ivy had watched those old events more than once on the Tapestry, verifying everything that Electra had told her, not because she doubted the girl, but because she was insatiably curious about old-time adventure and romance and tragedy. Certainly her own life lacked any trace of such elements; she was safe and dull here in Castle Roogna. That might be another reason she wanted to go on this Quest: for the things she missed. And she did want to go, despite her secret misgivings.

  Where would the cent take her? To the top of fabulous Mount Rushmost, where the winged monsters gathered? To the bottom of the deepest sea where the merfolk swam? To the heart of the savagest jungle where things too awful to contemplate quivered in their foulness? Where was the Good Magician? That was the mystery of the age, and she could hardly wait to unravel it.

  Ivy made her farewells to all her friends and family members. Her father looked uncomfortable, and her mother was stifling tears. They all knew that Ivy would not be hurt or even be in serious danger; they had been able to verify this with incidental magic, perhaps having private doubts similar to Ivy's. But they had not been able to learn where she would go or how long she would be away—only that she would return unharmed. So it was an occasion of mixed feelings.

  She said good-bye to her brother, Dolph, and his two betrotheds, Nada and Electra. Surely she would be back in time to see the resolution of that triangle! Nada gave her a sisterly embrace, and then Electra gave her the charged Heaven Cent. The girl was chewing her lip as if wanting to say something, perhaps about staying clear of curses; Ivy smiled with a reassurance she wished were genuine.

  But she had one more farewell to make: she went out and gave Stanley Steamer a final hug. “I think it's time for you to go to the Gap,” she said tearfully. “You're a big dragon now, and I can't keep you forever. But I'll visit you, after I'm done with this business.” Stanley gave her face a careful lick, after she enhanced the softness of his tongue.

  She took the cent and held it before her. It was the size of a large penny, gleaming brightly, its copper surface imbued with the magic of its nature. All she had to do was invoke it!

  She shivered, remembering Murphy's curse once more. But surely that could have no real force. After all, the Evil Magician had been confined to the Brain Coral's storage pool ever since the time of King Roogna; how could his curse on the Sorceress Tapis affect Ivy now? It must have done all the damage it was going to, which was plenty. It was foolish to worry about it!

  Ivy stifled her foolishness. “I invoke you, Heaven Cent,” she said firmly.

  Then it happened.

  Chapter 2

  Mundania

  Grey woke and looked at the computer. Suddenly he made a connection: the computer was doing it!

  Then he thought, no, that's ridiculous, a machine couldn't do anything like that. Well, obviously it could, but this was such a disreputable thing that it wouldn't. He had cobbled it together from used components and gotten a friend who understood the guts of computing to make it work, knowing it was far from state-of-the-art, but it did take care of his school papers. Sometimes weird messages showed on the screen, like INCOMPATIBLE OPERATING SYSTEM or NONSTANDARD PERIPHERALS. What else was new?

  Apparently his friend had set up something called CP/DOS that everyone else said was impossible. He had put a Directory on User 99 that worked most of the time, so he stayed with it, and usually his papers came out pretty much the way he typed them in: mediocre. That was all the computer did, or could do.

  But then he thought some more, and wasn't sure. Because there certainly seemed to be a connection. It had started with that program, and the vacant apartment, and—

  He sat up and held his head in his hands. He was sure he could manage to come to a conclusion if he worked at it. But after that date with Salmonella he felt so sick and weak that even thinking was almost too much of an effort.

  Still, he was sure he was onto something, if he could just work it out before the revelation fled.

  Grey had come here to the city apartment because his folks couldn't afford to board him at the college. City College had to take any local resident who qualified, and its tuition was tax-supported low, so by renting this cheap room and living mostly on canned beans Grey was able to squeak by. He was not a great student, and he had no idea what he might major in if he got that far, but his father said that he was stuck in this mundane world and if he didn't make something of himself, no one else would do it for him. Since a college education was the way to start making something of himself, he was getting it, or trying to.

  He had thought life was dull. Now that he was taking Freshman English, he realized that he had greatly underestimated the case. He was receiving a superlative education in just how deadly dull education could be! His grades were slipping slowly from C+ through C toward C— and points south as his metaphorical hands lost their fingernail clutch on comprehension.

  Then he had received that program from Vaporware Limited. The ad had been impressive: “Having trouble in school? Let th
e Worm enliven your life! We promise everything!” Indeed they did; they promised to improve his grades and his social life at one stroke. If anything was duller than his grades, it was his social life, so this really interested him. The problem was that not only was Grey strictly average in mind, he was completely forgettable in body. His driver's license listed his hair as “hair-colored” and his eyes as “neutral.” He excelled at no sports, and had no clever repartee. As a result, girls found him pretty much invisible.

  He knew it was foolish, but sometimes he was no world beater on common sense either, so he hocked his watch and sent off the money for the program. Then, once the money was safely gone, a classmate had told him what the term “vaporware” meant: computer programs that were promised but never delivered. He had been suckered again. Par for the course.

  Then the program had arrived. Suspecting it was merely a blank disk, he had put it in his floppy disk drive, intending to read its directory. But suddenly the thing was loading itself onto his cut-rate hard disk. Then the screen came alive:

  GREETINGS, MASTER.

  “Uh, same to you. What—?”

  I AM THE WORM, A SENDING FROM ONE WHO HAS AN INTEREST IN YOU. I HAVE ENCHANTED YOUR COMPUTER. I AM HERE TO SERVE YOUR NEEDS. ASK ME ANYTHING.

  What was this? None of his other programs operated this way! “Uh, your ad said you promised everything and would enliven my life.”

  TRUE. NAME THE ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE YOU WISH ENLIVENED.

  He hadn't even typed in his remark! It was as if the thing had heard him! “Uh, social. I mean, no girl—”

  WHAT GIRL DO YOU WISH?

  Amazing! It really was responding to his spoken words!

  “That's the problem! I really don't know any girls, and—”

  CHOOSE FROM THE LIST: AGENDA, ALIMONY, ANOREXIA, BEZOAR, BULIMIA, CONNIPTION—

  “Agenda!” Grey exclaimed, realizing that the machine could go on listing forever. How could he tell anything from a name, anyway? So the first one would do to test this odd program's bluff.

  GO TO THE APARTMENT ACROSS THE HALL.

  “But that apartment's empty!” Grey protested. “No one's rented it in ages!”