Wira brought them to a rather dull-looking woman in a sewing room who was mending a pile of socks. “Mother Sofia, here are our visitors,” Wira said.
Sofia looked up. “Are you sure you want to broach Himself with your Question? He will require you to perform a most arduous Service in return.”
“Yes, of course,” Chlorine agreed. “I look forward to it. The more adventurous the better.”
“As you wish. Wira will take you to him now.”
The blind young woman led them up a dark winding stone stairway to a squeezed crowded chamber. There in the shadows sat the Good Magician Humfrey Himself. He looked grumpily up from his monstrous tome. “Yes?”
“Where is my last tear?” Chlorine asked.
“It is in your eyes, spread across them to keep them moist. Half of it keeps your right eye well, and the other half keeps your left eye well. Without that final tear, you would immediately go blind.”
Chlorine was amazed. “I never thought of that! Of course, it must be true.”
“It is true,” Humfrey said grumpily. “Now report to the cat-a-pult for your Service.”
But Chlorine, being nice but not too nice, balked. “I know I have to serve a year’s Service, but for that little bit of obvious-in-retrospect information? That doesn’t seem fair.”
“Please, don’t argue,” Wira said worriedly. “That only makes him grumpier.”
“Nevertheless, I will answer,” Humfrey said, more grumpily. “You knew the conditions before you came to me, so if you wasted the chance to ask a significant Question and receive a significant Answer, the fault is yours.”
“Um, that’s right,” Chlorine said. “I did know the terms. I apologize for my intemperate remark.”
Humfrey looked up from his tome again and glanced at her. His eyeballs were yellowed and streaked with purple veins, but as they focused on her they brightened and the dingy colors faded out. “My, you are a pretty one,” he said, surprised. “A sight for sore eyes.”
“Thanks to Nimby,’’ she agreed, nevertheless pleased to have made a good impression to erase some of the bad impression she had made before. “In real life I’m plain and mean-spirited.”
“Yes, of course. Since you have done me the slight favor of resting my eyes, I will return it by amending my answer: it is not quite as insignificant as it might seem. You do have the capacity to shed that final tear, if you ever choose to. But considering the consequence, I suggest that you never allow yourself to become that unhappy.”
“You may be sure of that!” she agreed, laughing.
“Actually, I am not sure of that, which is why I have cautioned you. There may come a time. Do not react thoughtlessly.”
Nimby, standing beside her, seemed uneasy.
Chlorine nodded. “Thank you for that amendment, Good Magician. I will remember it.” Then she smiled. This time the gloomy study brightened, and Humfrey seemed to lose five years in age.
“Oh, I wish I could see that!” Wira murmured, aware that something good had happened. Maybe she had felt the heat of the light that had brightened the study.
“You shall,” Humfrey said, almost with the illusion of fleeting mellowness. “Imbri?”
Then Chlorine saw a replay of the incident, as if she were another person watching herself, Wira, Nimby, and the Good Magician in the study. She smiled, and the study lighted, and Humfrey youthened from about a hundred to about ninety-five.
“Oh, thank you, Day Mare Imbri!” Wira exclaimed. “I saw it!”
Chlorine was amazed. The Good Magician had actually summoned a night mare, or rather a day mare, to give them all a day dream, so that the blind girl could see the event in the only way she could: as a dream. This was surely something very special. And he must like his daughter-in-law a lot, because it was clearly for her he had done it.
But now the study faded to its natural dinginess, and the Good Magician’s slightly less tired eyes reverted to his monstrous dull tome. The interview was over.
Chlorine turned and followed Wira out, and down the steps. The girl was smiling with the memory. Something briefly nice had certainly happened.
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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 © 1995 by Piers Anthony
Cover design and illustration by Amanda Shaffer
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5878-0
This edition published in 2018 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10038
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