xanth 40 - isis orb

by Anthony, Piers

  This, of course, is music to an author’s ears, hearing from dedicated fans who perpetuate the love of his writing so that future generations are similarly enthralled. The secret is the magic dust that wafts out from between the pages of the book and addicts the unwary reader to fantasy. But in these days of electronic publication (no physical pages) that is less reliable, so we still depend on long-time fans.

  Here is her daughter’s letter:

  Hello. I am Laurana Pryzstas age 10. I am a great fan of all your books Mr. Piers. I know I am probably just another piece of fan mail in a huge pile but all I ever wanted was a letter from you. I have an idea for a book called Isis Orb. It’s about a group of strangers [who] want to get their wishes. They are Quin the polite harpy dragon crossbreed who wants to find out how to become human. Then there’s Nya the dragon naga with wings who wants to find her purpose. Also there’s Zed the centaur whose father was a Mundane zebra so he has stripes he wants to find true love. The other two are the human cat crossbreed who wants someone who will love her even without curves. Last but not least is Fear O Heights, the winged centaur who wants to know how to get over her fear of heights. The story is that many years ago the Demon Xanth and Demon Earth made a wager and Xanth didn’t win. So Earth took a chunk of his magic in the form of the Isis Orb and hid it in the deepest core of Xanth. Now the Good Magician tells the group to find and control the Orb they must get the four totems of Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. The fire totem is the fire faun of blazing flame which is protected by an actual fire faun. Then there’s the six headed griffin of air protected by a six headed griffin. Next is the great six winged steam dragon of Earth protected by a six legged steam dragon. Lastly is the gorgon sea monster protected by itself again. I would love to see my ideas published one day but all I really want is a letter from you.

  Sincerely

  Sorceress Laurana

  PS: my talent is to change anything!

  PSS: That’s just the beginning of the story. I figured you could fill in most of it.

  I considered the idea. I was then writing Xanth #39 Five Portraits, but a year later, in 2014, I tackled Isis Orb. Well, I did fill in a few details. There are five Regions of Xanth; Laurana had not mentioned the Void, though obviously she knew of it because she had five characters to fetch the totems. There was a roughly similar story in Swell Foop, so I had to avoid being too close to that. When a series gets to be 40 novels long, it’s tricky to avoid stepping on its own toes. The name Fear O Heights was too obvious, so I made it a cruel nickname, digesting it down to Faro (Fear O). I researched the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis, who turned out to have an interesting history, and figured out how she could get involved in Xanth, which is not her mythology. Mainly I reshaped the story to avoid introducing five major characters together; the reader needs to get to know and appreciate them one by one. So they became Companions on the Quest. I introduced a new character to lead the Quest, Hapless, who then interacted with each of the others, spaced out. (Oh, come on, you know what I mean; it’s not a pun.) This is a standard device in novels: a way to see the main characters from another viewpoint. It went on from there, as you should have just read. (If you’re one of those characters who reads the Author’s Note first, stop it this instant.) It’s an adult novel, as all the Xanths are, which means that Laurana’s mother may have to check it first. As I told a critic, I refuse to censor my series for the sake of an audience for which it was not intended. Children read Xanth at their own risk from parents who think a child should not know what a panty is until age 21, if then. Fortunately few parents remember its naughtiness, and most children are too smart to tell. And it answers the question writers often get: where do you get your ideas? From my readers, obviously, and this is a prime example. Now you know.

  My main research reference on Isis was The Gods of the Egyptians by E A Wallis Budge. It was there that I saw the theory that Christianity spread rapidly in the Roman Empire because it was merely a paste-over of familiar Egyptian mythology, easy to accept because the essence was unchanged. I’m not sure I believe that, but certainly Isis does, and she resents being displaced by the new fad after being dominant for thousands of years. Who knows; maybe her turn will come again. In fact, as I wrote this novel there was a new source of violence in the Near East as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, known as ISIS, started conquering cities. Can that be coincidence? Isis was Egyptian, but surely her influence extended to nearby regions.

  Meanwhile, Mundane life continued. My wife and I had our 58th anniversary during the writing of this novel. What’s the secret of a long marriage? Marry young, stay with it, and live a long time. I’m pushing 80 at this writing. We bought a chocolate covered cheesecake to celebrate. That’s the septuagenarian idea of celebration. I had a scare, though; just as I completed the first draft of the novel, my backup flash drive flashed an error message and shut down its menu. It was permanently gone. I could no longer export my material. I got in touch with my geek—that’s a computer nerd, not an insult—Brian Smith, and he came over and struggled, but could not find that menu. I have remarked that I have no belief in the supernatural, outside of Xanth, so the supernatural does its best to mess me up. That menu was gone to fantasyland. But he did show me another way to address the drive, so that I could use it again. So the novel was not permanently locked in the system, and you did get to read it. Yes, I know my literary cri-tics wish it had been lost; too bad for them.

  I also had a personal malaise: the left side of my crotch became uncomfortable, verging on painful. What was the cause? We finally figured it out, we think. I normally use a scooter, the kind you push with your foot, to go out along our three quarter mile drive through our tree farm to fetch in our morning newspapers and our daily mail. It’s a supplementary exercise, and I do take my exercise seriously. But it got a flat tire. I patched it, but it went flat again. So I bought a new inner tube, and that fixed it. But when I remounted it, it scraped. I went halfway crazy trying to get it right, but it just didn’t work. So I renovated my wife’s bicycles to use instead, and that worked, but then the main one of those got a flat that refused to be fixed—yes, I tried, but it was opening up along the central seam—so we took it in to the shop, where they pointed out that the old tires were coming apart. So we replaced both tires and got it tuned up, and then it was fine. But it cost more for that repair than the bike had cost new. That made me pause. Then when I got the groin discomfort, we figured it was the bike seat; this is a known problem for some riders, as the seat jams a nerve in the groin. So I tried riding by standing on the pedals, but that turned out to be awkward and uncomfortable. I needed to get back to my scooter. Which didn’t work.

  Sigh. Have I mentioned that life in Mundania can be dreary? But sometimes there may be a bit of magic. My printer ran out of toner, so we bought a new toner kit, which was eye-poppingly expensive, more than the bicycle, actually, and the store had a sale on paper, buy two get one free. So we bought two boxes of reams, and got the third; we can always use paper. Then I packed the three new boxes into the closet where we store paper, and that was a chore because those boxes weighed fifty pounds apiece and the available space was jammed. I had to clear out junk from the back to make room. And part of that junk was the old front fender on the scooter, which I had to remove years ago when the replacement tire didn’t fit right. You could almost see the light bulb flash over my head. So I removed the rear fender, and the scooter worked again. Now you could call that a chain of unlikely coincidences leading from toner to scooter. Or you could call it a magic reminder right when I needed it. Do you really believe in coincidence?

  I use a number of reader suggestions in each Xanth novel. I had trouble with my first Xanth publisher about this, and finally had to leave that publisher in order to have the freedom to write Xanth my way, humor, readers, and all. Fitting in reader notions can get tricky; I try to use ones by “new” contributors before using repeats by “old” contributors, but sometimes the best notions are by repeaters.
So it’s always a compromise, and there’s always a backlog of as-yet unused ideas. Sometimes they sneak into the Author’s Notes instead. Consider this letter by Daniel Christopher June. Adult Conspiracy warning: parts of this letter are unsuitable for children of any age, from 5–50. If you are one or more of those, do not read.

  Greetings, Piers. I’ve read you since I was in third grade. My dad read Crewel Lye and stopped reading it during the stork signaling scenes. Naturally his imposition of the Adult Conspiracy made me read them and I read the whole set, though not the last ones. In the third grade I declared I would be a writer like you, and that is what I finally became.

  Xanth is a real place; you can go there. I went there and said “My name is Daniel,” and they said “You are in denial of what?” I said “My name is Dan June,” and they said “Yes, the dungeon for you.” So they stuck me in the dungeon. I had to use a latrine, and it was kept by a woman named Latrina. She fell in love with me, but she always got p*ssed off. Finally she pushed me in the Latrine and a monster dolphin was inside. I was swallowed up, but broke through her stomach and into her womb. There was baby Dolph in a former life as a Dolphin. There was a twin with him. I said hey, Dolph, don’t hit her, she was changed shape in a purpose so he would have better purpose. When he was born, the father demanded where this purpose came from, and the mother explained she was true to him. Just in time, Dolph turned back into a Dolphin; that’s when he first used his special talent. I swam with the Dolphins. My talent is the learning of all other talents. So I learned all their talents. I changed shape too. I changed shape into a flying fish and flew out of the water into land. I saw a statue to Piers Anthony. Somebody left their sandwich there, a peanut butter honey sandwich. I wonder who made the honey? Not bees, but ants. It appears ant honey had gotten all over the statue to Xanth’s overgod. I felt bad about this so I ate the honey. It made me crazy and I fell into a bush of tics. I went crazy when they bit me. I started doing antics. I was frantic. I had tickles. I went psychotic. I was a goner, traveling the land as a madman.

  Finally a kind woman said to get rid of ticks you need tickles. She tickled me. Slowly the ticks came off. All of them, except the romantic. The woman was kind to me. She said her name was Sherry. She poured me a glass of wine, sherry, and shared it with me.

  You’ve been my inspiration all my life. I hope you were well.

  No, I obviously had a sick mind, abetted by readers like him. Good thing he didn’t write in the month of JeJune. Are you through not reading? Good. It’s time for the remaining credits. I had, as usual, more reader notions than I could cram into this novel without risking its structural integrity, not to mention sanity; some will have to wait for next time. Some were worthy of more than a passing mention, so I saved them rather than waste them here. It’s a constant compromise.

  Title and idea for the novel, plus Companions Quin, Nya, Zed, Feline, Fear O’ Heights—Laurana Przystas, as described above. Conjuring any musical instrument, West Tern, East Tern, Tern Pike—Tim Bruening. Cylla Cybin (psilocybin)—Priscilla Uhrin. Carve air into a solid mass, Water Lily—Rohan Willoughby. Wanna Bee, Null and Void—Tina Kelley. Eli, of the 7 days—Eli Borchgrevink. Mundane man immune to panties—Douglas Harter. Alley Cats with a bowling alley, ear wigs, Rachel Dog, darning egg, humble pie, separating shadows, clothes horse—Mary Rashford. Bowling with bowls of berries—Darrell Jones. Smart Alec—Ann Dragera Dragonclawz. Nose the scenter of the face—Dean Howell. Deciphering Gibberish, Kumquats and Goquats—John Estren. Izadora Dahlia Crow—Jeff Oscar. Eggsplore, Eggscited—Jennifer Nichols. Fast Food, Swiss Army Cheese—Josh Davenport. Box containing what folk don’t know they need—A J Billingsly. Punch Bowl—David Wells. Demon Destroy-Her—Shirley Francis. A bit of background here: she is the sister of the late Barry David Khelder, who suggested the Demon Contest that became the basis for Luck of the Draw. Her notion is just mentioned here, but it intrigues me, and might become the basis for further exploration in a future novel. More Demons messing with Xanth? That could be serious mischief. Bees allergic to honey—James Patterson. Eye Candy—Brittani Dunsmore. Hush Puppy Dog—Roger Vazquez. The Chaos Butterfly, Tern of Events, Flying Buttresses, Centaur Stage Coach, Statue of Limitations, Outhouse—Richard Van Fossan. AutoCrat—Michael Mitchell. Exsangui Nation—Dexter Smith. Villains—why heroes exist—Clayton Overstreet. Peter Reddick—Tim Reddick. The cemoness C Duce—Tom Marrin.

  Ari twins—Ari Tsivkin. Spelfie—Amber. Opti-Mist—Joshua Davenport-Herbst. Rain Bow, Hardly Harpy—Miriam Kleit. Julius Saucier—Michael Trimble. Corncob Unicorn—SheRissa Schultz. Monti—Monti Fleck. Pomegranite—Pastor Ben Cleveland. Palm of Granate—Diana Litsch. Foot Stool—Emma Archambault. Passing Thoughts, Mushroom—Wiley Kohler. The Thought that Counts—Paul White. Person who changes color with temperature—Brittany Westly. It seems I credited her in Luck of the Draw but didn’t actually include the character, so here she is again. (These things happen as I near my dotage.) Eye Doll (A) Tree—Jessica Edwards. Drag Racing, sine language—Naomi Blose. Hawking radiation—James Blakeney. Sand Witch—Laura Kwon. Phil A Buster—Misty Zaebst. Chest of Drawers—David Seltzer. Magnetic Moment—David D Stanton. Not being haved—David Leo Novacek. Mailer Daemon is from Xanth—Randy Gordon. Punnish letter in Author’s Note—Daniel Christopher June. And my credit to my proofreaders, Scott M Ryan and Anne White.

  If these novels have not given you more of a bellyful than you can stomach, you can check my website at www.HiPiers.com, where I do a monthly blog-type column and maintain an ongoing survey of electronic publishers for the benefit of aspiring writers. Sometimes it seems that half my readers are aspiring writers. I wish they all could be successful authors.

  About the Author

  Piers Anthony has written dozens of bestselling science fiction and fantasy novels. Perhaps best known for his long-running Magic of Xanth series, many of which are New York Times bestsellers, he has also had great success with the Incarnations of Immortality series and the Cluster series, as well as Bio of a Space Tyrant and others. Much more information about Piers Anthony can be found at www.HiPiers.com.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Piers Anthony

  Cover design by Sarah Kaplan

  978-1-5040-3628-3

  This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

  180 Maiden Lane

  New York, NY 10038

  www.openroadmedia.com

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1: Hapless

  Chapter 2: Mission

  Chapter 3: Feline

  Chapter 4: Zed

  Chapter 5: Nya

  Chapter 6: Quin

  Chapter 7: Faro

  Chapter 8: Fire Faun

  Chapter 9: Earth Dragon

  Chapter 10: Air Griffin

  Chapter 11: Merge

  Chapter 12: Water Gorgon

  Chapter 13: Void Horn

  Chapter 14: West Tern

  Chapter 15: Isis

  Chapter 16: Orb

  Chapter 17: Shadows

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Copyright