Part 22 (1/2)

But as it happened, there was no useful service she could do for me for a day, let alone a year. I had someone to fix my meals, and someone else to sort my socks, and someone else to figure out a suitable set of challenges for the next person who came with a Question. I didn't want to let the nymph go without service, because that would set a bad precedent, but neither did I want her hanging around the castle doing nothing. What was I to do?

I asked the magic mirror. I now had several of these, having long since gotten rid of the one that became unreliable with time. This one merely showed a cherub falling over with laughter. No help there. The problem with competent mirrors was that they also tended to be too bright, and found ways to express themselves that I did not necessarily appreciate. But even so, a bright mirror was better than a dull one.

So I did what I didn't like: I told the nymph that I had no use for her, and she was free to depart. I asked her not to bruit the news about, lest others be dissatisfied by unequal treatment. But to my surprise she refused; she had her Answer, and she intended to pay for it. She wouldn't leave until her year was done.

That was exactly what I didn't want. But there wasn't much I could do about it. So I a.s.signed her a room, and hoped something would turn up.

That night, when I finished my researches and went to my hard cold lonely pallet to sleep, I discovered it occupied. The nymph was there. ”I think I have found something I can do for you, Good Magician,” she said. Then she clasped me and kissed me and lay down with me. And somehow my pallet was no longer hard, cold, or lonely.

I had forgotten what nymphs were for, but in the course of that year I remembered. A man could not summon the stork with an ordinary nymph, for they were not subject to that call, but he could do a heroic job of imitation. Jewel the Nymph had not been ordinary; she had a soul, and could do anything a normal woman could. But regular nymphs were made for pleasure without responsibility, so the storks ignored them. How could a person take proper care of a baby, if she did not remember her activity from one day to the next? This one wasn't interested in marriage, just in completing her service. I had to agree that I was satisfied.

In fact, when her year was done, I was sorry to see her go.

After that, when a similar creature elected to serve in that manner, I did not protest. I now knew what was missing from my life. It was a woman. But who would want to marry a century-plus old gnome of a man?

Then in 1054, eleven years after our meeting, the Gorgon came with a Question. She was now a marvelously developed woman of twenty-nine, and to my eye the most ravis.h.i.+ng creature imaginable. But of course I couldn't tell her that; this was business.

We had set challenges, of course. When I can, I tune them to the individual person, but sometimes they are all-purpose for whoever comes. We had a foghorn guarding the moat, and it was lovely to see it operate. When the Gorgon tried to cross in the boat provided, the horn blasted out such columns of fog that she couldn't see or hear anything. In that obscurity her boat turned around and came back to the outer sh.o.r.e. That was the boat's magic; it had to be steered, or it returned to its dock. One of my prior querents had built it for me during his service. When the fog cleared, the Gorgon was a sight; her snake-hair was hissing with frustration, and her dress was plastered to her body. I had thought that body to be voluptuous; now I knew I had underestimated its case. I remembered our dialogue and how she had seemed to dote on me in the brief time of our encounter. Naturally she would have forgotten that, but it was a fond reminiscence. If only-but why be foolish?

The Gorgon was no dummy. She pondered a moment, then set out again. This time she steered the boat directly toward the foghorn, the one thing she could hear. Since it was inside the moat, she soon completed the crossing. I think I would have been disappointed had she not figured this out.

She navigated the other two challenges successfully and entered the castle. I braced myself and met her. She was even more impressive from aclose than she had been from afar. Her face was heavily veiled, including her deadly eyes, but the rest of her was nevertheless stunning. I was now a hundred and twenty-one years old, but in her presence I felt more like eighty-one. I remembered the surprising delight of our first encounter, when I had made her face invisible so that she would no longer stone any man who met her gaze. That spell would have been aborted at the Tune of No Magic, of course; all the men she had stoned had returned to life then, and of course she had let them go.

I knew I should tackle her Question and give her an Answer, but I was reluctant to terminate our second contact quickly. So I dallied somewhat. ”What have you been up to, Gorgon?” I inquired in as close an approximation to sociability as I could manage. It was an effort, but less of one for her than for others, because I didn't care about others.

”After the Time of No Magic my face was restored, and since I didn't want to make any more mischief in Xanth, I went to Mundania, where there is no magic, as you recommended. I hated to do it, for I love Xanth, but because I love Xanth I had to leave it, so as not to do it any harm.” Her face went wry behind the veil; I could see the outline of the expression. ”Mundania was colossally dreary. But what you had told me was true: I was normal there, and my face did not stun anyone. So I bore with it, and found employment as an exotic dancer, for it seems that Mundane men enjoy the appearance of my body.”

I tried to wrench my eyes from that same body, embarra.s.sed. ”Mundanes are odd,” I mumbled, feeling like the hypocrite I was.

”But in time I got to miss Xanth too much to bear,” she continued blithely, taking a breath that threatened to pop a b.u.t.ton on her decolletage or a lens on my spectacles. ”The magic, the magical creatures-even the ogres and tangle trees had become fond memories. I realized that I had been born to magic; it was part of my being, and I just couldn't endure without it. But I also did not want to do harm. So I have returned and come to the man I most respect, and that is you.”

”Um,” I said, foolishly flattered.

”But when I returned to Xanth after several years, I discovered that my talent had matured along with my body,” she continued, sighing. It was some sigh; my old eyeb.a.l.l.s threatened to overheat. ”Originally I stoned only men; now I stone men and women, and animals, and even insects. It's much worse than it was!”

Obviously she wanted another invisibility spell for her face. I could readily give her that. Then she would perform some service and be gone. And I would be twice as lonely as before. But I had to do it. ”Evidently your talent is not far short of Sorceress cla.s.s,” I said. ”Ordinarily that would be an a.s.set.”

”Perhaps when I'm a mean old woman, I'll enjoy stoning folk,” she said. ”But now I am in my prime, and I don't.”

She was certainly in her prime! ”What is your Question?” I asked, knowing too well what it was.

”Would you marry me?”

”I do have another vial of invisible makeup,” I said. Then something registered. ”What?”

”Would you marry me?”

”That is your Question?” I asked, dumbfounded.

”It is.”

”This is not a joke?”

”This is not a joke,” she a.s.sured me. ”Understand, I'm not asking you to marry me; I merely want to know whether you would, if that were my desire. In this manner I seek to spare us both the unpleasantness of rejection.”

Oh. I had to stall, because suddenly my heart was beating at a rate somewhat beyond my age. ”If you really want my Answer, you will have to give me a year's service.”

”Of course.”

”In advance.”

”Of course.”

I was amazed at the readiness of her agreement. It was evident that she had thought this out, and preferred a considered Answer to an extemporaneous one. Perhaps she believed that I would be more likely to be affirmative if she a.s.sociated with me for a while. In that she was grossly mistaken: I was locked into affirmation the moment I saw her approach the castle. The reason for my delay in answering was other than my private preference.

So the Gorgon worked for me a year. I made her face invisible again, of course, because otherwise her veil might have slipped sometime and made a nuisance. Now she could go around unveiled, which was easier.

The first thing she did was tackle my mountain of socks. She was good with them, which was an excellent sign. Next she tackled the castle, getting it organized and cleaned up. She went through my study and put all my papers and vials in order. When my meal-fixing maid completed her service and departed, the Gorgon took over that too. She even tended the roses in back. She was good at everything she tried, and I was better off than I had been in decades. I no longer needed other a.s.sistance around the castle; the Gorgon was running it.

I treated her in a cursory manner. In fact I was downright grumpy. I called her ”girl” and I was never quite satisfied with what she did.

Now you might wonder about this. My reason was simple: I had been intrigued by her when she was a maiden of eighteen, and fascinated by her as a woman of twenty-nine. Her mere proximity caused my pulses to pulse. There was, it has been said, no fool like an old fool, and the Gorgon's competence, appearance, and power of magic had made a conquest of me in a matter of moments. I had loved MareAnn, I had loved Rose of Roogna; now I loved the Gorgon.

She was considering marrying me? Then she deserved to see what marriage to such a gnome was like.

I was showing her the worst of me, deliberately. If that didn't alienate her, nothing would.

Surely it would alienate her! But it had to be done, in fairness. The Gorgon, with her face masked, was simply more of a woman than I deserved.

Yet she survived even that challenge of mistreatment, and when her year of service concluded I gave her my Answer: ”Yes, I would marry you, if you asked.” I would go to h.e.l.l for her, if she asked.

She considered that. ”There is one other thing. I shall want a family. I have too much love for just a man; it must overflow for a child.”

”I'm too old to summon the stork,” I said.

”There is a vial of water from the Fountain of Youth on your shelf,” she said. ”You can take some of that and be young enough.”

”There is? Fountain of Youth elixir? I didn't know that!”

”That's why you need a woman around the castle. You can't even keep track of your socks.”

She had me there. ”Still, I would have to be a great deal younger to-” For the truth was that, pleasant as it had been to have the company of certain nymphs in the past, I had seldom gotten to that stage with them, knowing that it made no difference. If I should have to do it for real, would I be able? I had realistic doubt.

”Why don't we find out? I will spend the night with you, and you can take drops of elixir until you are young enough.” She was nothing if not practical, which was yet another trait I liked.

The notion intrigued me. It might require more elixir than I had, but I could go fetch more tomorrow; I of course knew where the Fountain of Youth was. So that night she came to me with the vial, and she wore a translucent nightdress. Suddenly I felt forty years younger, and wished it were eighty.

She kissed me. Her face was invisible, but solid; I could feel her lips on mine. My feeling of age reduced another twenty years. I hadn't yet taken a drop of elixir.

Of course feeling is not the same as being, and my body did lag somewhat behind. I might have the aspirations of a younger man, but lacked the capacity.