Man From Mundania (65 page)

So their dilemma remained. Her dilemma, really; Grey

had never had any doubt. He intended to be out of Xanth

before Com-Pewter's deadline expired. It was Ivy who had

to make her decision: whether to go with him to drear

Mundania or remain in Xanth without him.

"Oh Grey!" she cried in torment. "I can't do either! I

love you, but I also love Xanth. I can't endure without

both!"

"I understand," he said. "I love you, and I love Xanth,

and I know you must be together, so I will leave you."

Ivy clung to him, her tears flowing. "No, without you

Xanth would be as drear for me as Mundania. I will go

with you, though it destroy me."

"But I am afraid it will destroy you!" he protested.

"That is why I know you must not go."

Then, as she clung to him, she remembered something

she had forgotten. "Your father's curse! It was working!

It gave us the clue to where the Good Magician was!"

"Yes, but it failed. Humfrey would not—"

"No!" she cried. "Maybe it succeeded! Only we are

giving up too soon!"

"I don't understand," he said, looking at her quizzi-

cally. "We did all we could."

"No, I think we only thought we did all we could!" she

said, uncertain whether she was experiencing a significant

insight or grasping at a futile straw. "We thought we failed,

but we haven't yet. Because we got on the wrong track.

But maybe we can get back on the right track!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the dream isn't over yet!" she said.

"Not over?" he asked blankly. "But we exited from

the gourd, and—"

"Think back," she said excitedly. "Remember how

easy it was to find the Good Magician? There were exactly

three challenges, and we took turns overcoming them, and

we were in. And there were Hugo and the Gorgon, exactly

as I remembered them."

"Yes, so you said. I hadn't met them before, so—"

"I am seven years older, but they aren't!" she contin-

ued. "They were unchanged—and they shouldn't have

been. The Gorgon should have a gray hair or something,

and Hugo should have been in his mid twenties. But he

wasn't. Because he wasn't real. He was from my mem-

ory—no more. Gray, I made it all up! We never found

them at all!"

Gray nodded. "Unchanged—conforming to your mental

images," he said, "when they should have been older. So

it was a dream, not the reality."

"And the dream isn't over!" she repeated. "It side-

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tracked us, made us think it was over, but it isn't! We can

still search for the good Magician!"

He nodded, working it out. "I did think that the chal-

lenges weren't as horrendous as reputed. So when I ban-

ished the illusion of Damescroft, it wasn't the reality we

saw, but another illusion."

"We only dreamed your power worked," she agreed.

"And we only dreamed that you returned us to Xanth.

That's the real challenge: to penetrate the illusion that we

are accomplishing anything!"

He embraced her. "I'm having the illusion of kissing

you," he said, kissing her.

"It's an excellent illusion," she agreed, kissing him

back. "Now let's get back to business. We still have to

find the Good Magician."

Grey considered. "As I understand it, we arc in the

realm of dreams, and everything we do here is part of the

dream, but we do retain our natural powers. If I exercise

mine persistently, doubting everything, like Descartes—"

"Who?"

He laughed. "A Mundane! He doubted until he could

doubt no more, and decided that was the truth. I only

remember him because I missed him on a test, but now I

think maybe he had something. If the Good Magician is

here, I should be able to find him by doubting away ev-

erything else. But since everything here is dreams, I'll

have to do it carefully; and it may be tricky—and maybe

it won't work at all but will just put us out of the dream

with nothing."

"Try it!" she urged. "It's our only hope!"

Grey nodded. "Uh, maybe you'd better enhance me,

just in case. I need to be very strong, and very accurate,

so I can dismantle the dream layer by layer."

"Yes." Ivy took his hand and began the enhancement.

Chapter 16 • Answer

^rey felt the power of Ivy's magic, enhancing

him. He knew that his ability to null magic was being

increased. When his talent countered hers, she could not

enhance others, but when hers worked on his, he had much

greater power than before. If anyone could penetrate this

network of deceptive dreams, he could—now.

What a pretty diversion it had been: letting them dream

that their powers were working, when they weren't. Or

perhaps they were, but not in the way they had supposed.

He had nulled the illusion of Damescroft, only to be de-

ceived by the illusion of the Good Magician's castle. Dolph

had changed form and carried them across a moat that

wasn't really there. Ivy had enhanced their way through

the wrong wall. They had all fallen for it, being overcon-

fident and too accepting.

But Ivy had caught on, and thereby saved them the ex-

cruciation of returning to Mundania. She had won the true

challenge by her wit rather than her talent. Now it was his

turn—and he suspected that his wit would be tested, too.

For one thing, had they really dreamed up those three

challenges themselves? He doubted it. The challenges had

been too pat. More likely they had been devised by some-

one else for the trio's benefit. That meant that the Good

Magician was here—and only Ivy's desperation had foiled

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the deception. The one thing that could go wrong with it

had gone wrong.

As he pondered it, perhaps better able to come to terms

with it because of Ivy's Enhancement, he realized that what

they had experienced could indeed be taken as three chal-

lenges—but not of the simple type they had supposed. The

first could have been for Dolph: finding the address. Grey's

father's curse could have enabled Dolph to handle that

challenge. The second could have been for Ivy—and again,

the carefully set illusion had almost by chance been foiled,

as if the curse had helped her to understand its nature.

The third could be his own: to ascertain the true state of

things that might not be at all what they expected. Could

Murphy's curse give him the open-mindedness to see what

he had to see?

He certainly hoped so! There was only a week left in

his grace period. His decision in the dream Ivy had just

exposed had been correct: if he found no way to void

Com-Pewter's claim, he would return to Mundania. If Ivy

decided again to go with him—

But maybe they would not be faced with such an awful

choice! The Good Magician was said to have an Answer

for any Question, so if he could just locate Humfrey, all

would be well. He would be glad to serve for a year, just

to stay in Xanth with Ivy! Service here was better than

freedom in drear Mundania. Provided it was in a good

cause. Pewter's cause was evil, so he had to resist the

temptation to go along with it for the sake of being with

Ivy in Xanth. He hoped he still had the courage to leave

both.

"That's the best I can do," Ivy said. "If I enhance you

any more, you might explode." She had said it in jest,

but then perhaps remembered the glowworm, and didn't

laugh.

Grey concentrated on the landscape of Xanth he saw

before them. He knew now that this seeming reality was

illusion, the stuff of the dream. They needed to return to

reality, which was the appearance of the dream.

The landscape fuzzed, then faded out. They were back

before the Good Magician's castle, with Dolph beside

them.

"Hey, what happened?" Dolph asked. "I thought you

two were on your way out of Xanth!"

"It was part of the dream," Ivy explained. "We woke

up from it, in a manner.''

"But—"

"We're still doing it," she said. "Watch."

Grey concentrated on the castle. He didn't want to null

too much! Slowly it fuzzed, and then it faded out, leaving

the cottage of Damescroft as they had first seen it.

"Now we're back where we started," Ivy said. "But if

it's not the castle and not the cottage, what is it?"

Grey focused his doubt. The cottage frayed and came

apart. In its place—was the castle.

He exchanged a third of a glance with Ivy. Then he

focused again.

The castle fuzzed out, and the cottage returned.

"Well, it's got to be one or the other," Dolph said.

Grey pondered, and then he considered, and then he

cogitated, and finally he settled down and thought.

"Maybe it's neither," he said.

"But-"

"I think we all need to blank our minds, until we expect

nothing at all. Then whatever remains will be the truth."

"I can't blank my mind!" Dolph protested. "I'm al-

ways thinking about something!"

"What were you watching on the Tapestry?" Ivy asked

wamingly.

The cottage fuzzed. The image of something silken be-

gan to form, such as a giant pair of panties.

"My mind is completely blank!" Dolph cried guiltily.

The image fuzzed back into a formless pile of cloth,

which then faded out. The cottage reappeared.