Jest Right

by Piers Anthony

  She rounded the bush and spied an eight-year-old girl. She had hazel eyes and mouse brown hair. “What’s the matter?” Jess asked.

  The girl looked at her. “Are you a monster in disguise?”

  “No! I’m a woman.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Uh-oh. It was the curse. Even a child in trouble couldn’t take her seriously.

  “Magnus!” Jess called. “It’s safe, I think. I think we need you.”

  Magnus came charging toward them, spear ready.

  “I think this child is real, but she won’t believe I’m real,” Jess said. “You know why.”

  “Ah.” Magnus halted, no longer threatening with the spear. He spoke to the child. “I’m Magnus, and I’m a regular man, not a monster. Who are you, child?”

  “I’m Myst,” the girl replied, evidently believing him. He was easy to believe, because of his talent. “I went off the path to wee-wee, but then got lost. I couldn’t find my way back!”

  “You shouldn’t leave the enchanted path,” Magnus said. “It’s dangerous.”

  “Not to me,” Myst insisted.

  “Monsters love to gulp down children,” Magnus said. Jess stayed out of it, as she really couldn’t help.

  “They do,” Myst agreed. “But they can’t hurt me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Touch me.”

  He reached out cautiously to touch her. His hand passed through her arm. “You’re a ghost!”

  “No, I just misted. See.” Myst dissolved into a small cloud of vapor floating a few feet above the ground. Then it coalesced back into the girl. “It’s my talent.”

  Magnus nodded. “It’s a good talent. But if you were in no danger, why were you crying?”

  “Because I was lost. I couldn’t find the enchanted path. Monsters can’t hurt me, but I don’t want to be lost forever. I hate being alone.”

  “Oh. Now I understand.” Magnus turned around. “I know where the path is. I’m good with directions. I never get lost. Follow me.” He set off for it, and the child followed, with Jess bringing up the rear. Seeing how he handled the child, she was more than ever satisfied that she wanted to be with him, whatever the arrangement. He was neither condemning nor dismissing Myst; he was treating her as a person in her own right. “And here we are,” he said with a flourish as they stepped back onto the path. “The rest stop is just up ahead, there.” He pointed, and started walking that way.

  “Oh goody!” Myst exclaimed, following. “Now I can get there in time.”

  Magnus looked at her. “You are going to see the Good Magician?”

  “No. To join my siblings on Fibot.”

  Magnus exchanged a questioning look with Jess. “Who or what is Fibot?”

  “The Fire Boat. My sisters and one brother are there, helping crew it. I’ll help them.”

  “It’s a boat? But there’s no big river near here.”

  “That’s okay. It floats on air. It’s going to be at the Good Magician’s Castle tomorrow, so I need to be there to catch it.”

  Magnus caught Jess’s eye again. It seemed that from this distance he could take her seriously. Then he continued his questioning. “There is a boat that sails in air?”

  “I think I have heard of it,” Jess said. “Doesn’t it have a fiery sail?”

  “That’s it,” Myst said. “Win helps it go, because she always has the wind at her back.”

  “Win is one of your sisters?” Magnus asked as they arrived at the camp.

  “Sure. Sort of. So’s Squid.”

  “That sounds more like a fish,” Magnus said.

  “Well, ’cause she’s a squid. You know, like a octopus.”

  This was becoming stranger. “Your sister is an octopus?”

  “Sort of.”

  They digested that. “I think we need to get to know each other better,” Magnus said. “Suppose we introduce ourselves more completely to you, while we eat supper, and you can tell us all about you and your siblings?”

  “Sure,” Myst agreed happily.

  While they ate fresh pies, they got into it. “Jess and I are a couple,” Magnus said. “We just met an hour ago.”

  “Oh, no,” Myst said. “You want to be alone!”

  “We don’t have to be alone,” Jess said.

  “Don’t lie to me! I don’t like it!”

  There was the curse again.

  Magnus held up a cautioning hand to Jess. “Why do you think we’re lying?”

  “Cause my folks are the same way. They want to summon the stork, and they don’t want me around while they’re doing it. It’s the Adult Conspiracy, and I hate it. That’s why I ran away.”

  They were learning more about the child. Myst needed support and guidance.

  “We won’t be summoning the stork,” Magnus said, artfully avoiding the serious matter of running away from home.

  “But you said you just met, and you’re a couple.”

  So of course they were eager to start stork signaling, generating the three dots of the ellipsis that zipped away at the speed of desire and told storks all they needed to know. Would it were true! “This is complicated to explain,” Jess said.

  “I’ll bet,” the child said witheringly, not crediting it. Of course.

  Magnus took a breath as he exchanged another glance with Jess. At least he was able to do that seriously, maybe because it was about a different person. “I think we can satisfy you on that score, Myst. We just didn’t think you would be interested.”

  “Why not?” the child demanded. “Because I’m a child?”

  The irony was that no matter how much Myst railed against the Conspiracy when young, the moment she became adult she would change sides. It was part of the background magic of Xanth.

  “First you need to understand Jess’s nature,” Magnus said. “Her magic talent is a curse: nobody takes her seriously. That’s why you don’t believe her when she talks.”

  “She’s got a weird talent? I know about those. My brothers and sisters have them, sorta.”

  “Sorta?”

  “Well, they’re not really my siblings. We’re in five different families. But we believe in each other.”

  So the “sorta” referred to the siblings rather than their talents? Or maybe both?

  “This promises to be interesting,” Magnus said. “But let’s finish with Jess first. Can you believe her curse?”

  “Oh, sure, now you’ve told me. Nobody believes her.”

  “Yes. So we have trouble being a couple, because I can’t take her seriously. So we aren’t going to try to summon any storks, and we don’t need to be alone.”

  “Oh. Okay.” When he said it, the child accepted it.

  “But we are a couple. A pretend couple. We want other people to believe we are romantic about each other.”

  “Why?”

  There was a tricky question! “Because I can’t have a real boyfriend,” Jess said. “So I’m taking a fake one. It’s a role.”

  “Like a game,” Myst said, perhaps understanding because this was a clarification of a pretense. “I get it. Like the way we five children are siblings, only we’re really not.”

  “Like that,” Magnus agreed. “Sometimes appearances count more than reality.”

  “They sure do,” Myst agreed.

  Jess really admired the way Magnus was handling Myst. He was clearly good with children.

  “So Jess and I are a couple, but you don’t need to worry about us demanding privacy. But if you want to be with us, you have to pretend to take her seriously when she talks to you. It’s part of the game.”

  “The game,” Myst agreed. Children understood games. “Sure.”

  Magnus glanced at Jess. She took the cue and picked up the dialogue. “We are really curious about your s
iblings,” she told Myst. “How is it that you are only sort of brothers and sisters?” Could the pretense of seriousness become a kind of reality?

  Myst started to laugh, then stifled it, playing the game. “It’s complicated.”

  “We will try to understand.”

  The child took a moment to organize her thoughts. “It really started with Astrid Basilisk. She—” She paused, seeing their expressions. Then she laughed. “Now you’re not taking me seriously.”

  “You do know the nature of a basilisk?” Jess asked gently.

  “Sure. You meet her gaze, and you die. But she’s a nice person, and we all love her. And she wears a veil.”

  Jess caught on. “She’s in human form?”

  “Yes. She can change forms. When she’s human she’s the prettiest girl you’ll ever see, if you look at her. Anyway, she got together with the Demoness Fornax to—” She broke off again. “Look, are you going to take me seriously or not?”

  Jess tried, while Magnus smiled in the background. “It’s just that capital D Demons are, well, out of this world. I have heard of Fornax. She’s the patron spirit of anti-matter. Anything she touches explodes. You can’t bring her into a story without some clarification.”

  “Okay. She’s got magic to stop herself from touching anything here. Mostly she stays clear. But when she’s home in the Fornax Galaxy she can make it possible for us regular-matter folk to be with her, to touch her. She’s nice too, when you get to know her. We call her Aunt Fornax, same as we call Aunt Astrid. We love her, too.”

  Jess was really coming to appreciate the problem others had with her curse. She really had to try to believe what the child was saying. “So the basilisk and the Demon, both in human form, got together,” she said. “What did they do?”

  “They decided to rescue some children from the future.”

  Both Magnus and Jess had to stifle their disbelief. The child was serious.

  Then a bulb flashed over Magnus’s head. “You’re one of the children!” he exclaimed.

  “Yes, the littlest,” Myst said proudly. “We were on a track fifty years in the future where Xanth was about to be destroyed. They couldn’t stop that from happening, but they could get some of us out of it. They rescued five of us, and took us back in time with them, and got us different families here, and that put us on another track so Xanth won’t be destroyed.”

  “You were five children in a family?” Jess asked.

  “No. We’re from five different families. But we became one family, with Aunt Astrid and Aunt Fornax. Now we’re in different families again, adopted, but we’ll always be Family to us. We’re all from the same world, and nobody else is. Because it’s gone, or will be in fifty years.”

  It was coming clear at last. They were all orphans who had made their own family, unified by their tragedy. “So you are going to join your siblings on the fiery boat,” Jess said.

  “Yes. Because they’ll understand.”

  “And the boat will be near the Good Magician’s Castle tomorrow.”

  “You got it.”

  “So tomorrow we’ll part company, but tonight we can be our own family.”

  “Yes. If—”

  “No storks! We promise.”

  “Okay.” Myst looked at Jess. “You know, once I got into the game, I could play it. You’re a couple the same way I have siblings. We just agree to make it so. Nobody else matters much.”

  “Yes. We have to keep playing the game. Otherwise—”

  “I know. It’s like looking into Aunt Astrid’s eyes. Not smart to do.”

  Astrid the Basilisk. “Not smart to do,” Jess agreed.

  Magnus stepped in. “It’s not real, the way others see it, but it can be real to us. Maybe Jess is a little bit like Astrid, in her fashion.”

  Now Myst looked at him. “Can you kiss her?”

  “As part of the game, yes. We’re like actors on a stage. It’s all make believe, but we try to make it look real.”

  “I mean, really?”

  “I will demonstrate,” Magnus said. He stood up. Jess stood up. They came together, and he kissed her. Jess loved it.

  “Yuck!” Jess exclaimed. “Mush stuff! It sure looks real.” Then she reconsidered. “But Jess doesn’t have to fake it, does she? I mean—”

  “I can take him seriously,” Jess agreed as she separated from Magnus. “My curse affects others, not me.”

  “Sort of the way I can touch others, but they can’t touch me, unless I want it.” Myst dissolved into mist, then reformed. “I think . . . I think I am coming to understand you better, Jess. You’re nice, at least in the game.”

  “Thank you.” Jess stood there a moment longer, hesitating, as emotion surged. The child really did understand her, in a manner. “May I . . . could you stand it if . . . if I hugged you? Like a daughter? I may never have a daughter of my own.”

  “I’ve been hugged before.”

  “I mean—”

  “I know what you mean. It’s part of the game. I’ve been lonely, too. Sure, hug me.”

  Jess knelt before Myst and put her arms around her. She hugged her, her tears overflowing. Myst started to dissolve into mist, but then firmed again, forcing herself to play the game. Then she hugged Jess back. “You are a little like Astrid.”

  She was being compared to a basilisk. But it was a compliment. “Thank you.”

  “Now we’d better turn in for the night,” Magnus said. “We’re a family, a pretend family, but it will do, so we don’t need to stand on ceremony. Jess and I will sleep together, holding hands, sometimes kissing, the way couples do. Do you prefer to be near us or apart from us, Myst?”

  “Near you. I told you, I don’t much like being alone. Getting here was awful.”

  “We’ll see you safely to the fire boat,” Jess said. Then she reconsidered. “Only—”

  “Only we have to go through the challenges,” Magnus said. “I don’t think you do, Myst. Will the boat come for you, away from the castle?”

  “I don’t know. Squid and Win don’t know I’m coming.”

  Squid and Win. The octopus and the girl with the wind at her back.

  “Then maybe you should take the challenges with us,” Jess said, not expecting to be taken seriously. “Then we can all see the Good Magician.”

  “Why are you going there?” Myst asked as she settled down beside Jess.

  “To see the Good Magician?” Jess asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I need to get rid of my curse, and Magnus needs an assistant for his act.”

  “No, really: why are you going?”

  There was the curse again. “You tell her, Magnus.”

  “Wait a moment,” Magnus said, surprised. “It’s not the curse, she’s right. We don’t need to go.”

  “But—”

  “I have my assistant, and you can live with your curse. We worked it out just before we heard Myst. We no longer have to go.”

  Jess’s mouth dropped open in the darkness. “That’s right! I forgot. We can skip the challenges.”

  “But your show,” Myst said. “Won’t you have to travel a lot?”

  “Yes,” Magnus said. “From village to village. There always has to be a new one, because any show quickly gets old with the same audience. It’s always fresh for a new audience. Also—” He broke off.

  “Also?” she prompted.

  “Well, pretty girls tend to throw themselves at me. It’s a complication of my talent. They believe in me. But if I stay long, they try to get serious. I can’t afford that.”

  “And I am one of them,” Jess said. “Except I’m not—”

  “Stop it!” he snapped. “Don’t disparage yourself. I’m just saying that those girls are a nuisance.”

  “Most men would like it,” she said.

  “Oh,
I do, to a degree. But I know better. They would want me to settle down, become a troll farmer or something, but my heart is in traveling with the show.”

  “Troll farmer?”

  “Working on a farm where they grow nasty trolls for export into Mundania. So I need to move on before they get ideas like that.”

  “Yet you seemed ready enough to try for something more serious with me.”

  “Confession: I said all I wanted was a competent assistant. I believe you could be that. But I also want a regular girlfriend.”

  “But you said—”

  “One who would travel with me. Be part of the show.”

  “Oh. Still—”

  “To fend off the pretty girls. To advertise that I’m taken.”

  Oh, again. “And since it would not be real, with me, you’d be without responsibility.”

  He winced. “If I could take you seriously, I’d be hurt by your implication. I would like it to be real with you, because you’re not—”

  “A pretty girl?”

  “Bleep, Jess! I’m saying you’re not superficial. You’re the kind of woman I really could respect and love, if only—”

  “If only you could take me seriously,” she finished. “Now I understand.”

  He sighed. “I’m not quite sure you do. But I can’t even argue with you effectively, because of your curse. I think I need some other way.”

  Jess decided to change the subject. “How will you get to the new villages?”

  “Oops. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Neither had Jess, before. “We’ll just have to do a lot of walking.”

  “You’re not mad at me? You’re willing to be with me?”

  “Yes. And willing to walk.”

  “That will mean very limited equipment,” Magnus said. “No prepared sets or heavy tents. Bleep.”

  “And here I was all set to hammer tent pegs.”

  “Take the boat,” Myst said.

  They pondered that, and the more they pondered, the better sense it made. “I guess we do have to see the Good Magician,” Jess said. “Because we have no relatives aboard that boat. We’ll have to ask for it to be arranged.”

  “That means the challenges,” Magnus agree morosely. “And the Service.”