Centaur Aisle (5 page)

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 hoof-prints 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.