Piers Anthony - The Source of Magic

"Precisely, I have not touched the Queen or any other woman, since my wife died." To King Trent, the word "wife" meant only the woman he had married in Mundania. "Yet there is pressure on me to provide an heir to the throne of Xanth, by birth or adoption, in case there should be no suitable Magician available when that time comes. I sincerely hope there is a Magician! I feel obliged to make the attempt, nevertheless, since this was one of the implied stipulations I agreed to when assuming the crown. Ethically this must involve the Queen. So I shall do it, though I do not love her and never shall. The question is, what form shall I have her assume for the occasion?"

This was a more personal problem than Bink felt prepared to cope with. "Any form that pleases you, I should think." One big advantage the Queen had was the ability to assume a new form instantly. If Chameleon had been able to do that-

"But I do not wish to be pleased. I want to accomplish only what is necessary."

"Why not combine them? Let the Queen assume her most provocative illusion-form, or transform her to it yourself. When there is a heir-, change her back. There is no wrong in enjoying your duty, is there?"

The King shook his head, "Ordinarily, this would be true. But mine is a special case. I am not sure I would be potent with a beautiful woman, or any woman-other than one who closely resembled my wife."

"Then let the Queen resemble your wife," Bink said without thinking.

"My concern is that this would degrade the memory I cherish."

"Oh, I see. You mean if she was too much like your wife, she might seem to replace her, and-"

"Exactly"

That was an impasse. If the King could only be potent with his dead wife, and could not abide any other woman resembling her physically, what could he do? This was the hidden aspect of the King that Millie had shown Bink, way back when: his continuing devotion to his prior family. It had been hard, after that, to think of such a man as evil; and indeed, King Trent was not evil. He was the finest Magician and perhaps the finest man in Xanth. Bink would be the last to wish to disrupt that aspect of King Trent's being.

Yet the problem of an heir was a real one. No one wanted a repetition of the shambles resulting from lack of a well-defined royal line. There had to be an heir to serve until a suitable Magician appeared, lending continuity to the government.

"We seem to have a similar dilemma, Your Majesty," Bink said. He tried to maintain the proper attitude of respect, because of the way he had known Trent before he was King. He had to set a good example. "We each prefer to remain loyal to our original wives, yet find it difficult. My problem will pass, but yours-" He paused, struck by dubious inspiration. "Millie is to be restored by having her skeleton dipped in healing water. Suppose you were to recover your wife's bones, bring them to Xanth-"

"If that worked, I would be a bigamist," King Trent pointed out. But he looked shaken. "Still, if my wife could live again-"

"You could check how well the procedure works, as they try it on Millie," Bink said.

"Millie is a ghost-not quite dead. A special case, like that of a shade. It happens when there is pressing unfinished business for that spirit to attend to. My wife is no ghost; she never left anything unfinished, except her life. To reanimate her body without her soul-"

Bink was beginning to be sorry he had thought of the notion. What horrors might be loosed on Xanth if all bones were renovated indiscriminately? "She might be a zombie," he said.

"There are serious risks," the King decided. "Still, you have provided me food for thought. Perhaps there is hope for me yet! Meanwhile, I certainly shall not have the Queen assume the likeness of my wife. Perhaps I shall only embarrass myself by trying and failing, but-"

"Too bad you can't transform yourself," Bink said. Then you could test your potency without anyone knowing."

"The Queen would know. And to fail with her would be to show weakness that I can hardly afford. She would feel superior to me, knowing that what she has taken to be iron control is in fact impotence. There would be much mischief in that knowledge."

Bink, knowing the Queen, could well appreciate that. Only her respect for, and fear of, the King's personality and magic power held her in check. His transforming talent would remain-but the respect she held for his personality would inevitably erode. She could become extremely difficult to manage, and that would not be good for the Land of Xanth: "Could you, er, experiment with some other woman first? That way, if you failed-"

"No," the King said firmly. "The Queen is not my love, but she is my legal spouse. I will not cheat her-or any other member of my kingdom, in this or any other respect."

And there was the essence of his nobility! Yet the Queen might cheat him, if she saw her opportunity, and knew him to be impotent. Bink didn't like that notion. He had seen King Trent's reign as the onset of a Golden Age; how fraught it was with liabilities, from this vantage!

Then Bink had another inspiration. "Your memory of your wife-it isn't just your memory of her you are preserving, it is your memory of yourself. Yourself when you were happy. You can't make love to another woman, or let another woman look like her. But if two other people made love-I mean, the Queen and a man who did not resemble you-no memories would be defiled. So if the Queen changed your appearance-"

"Ridiculous!" the King snapped.

"I suppose so," Bink said. "I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"I'll try it."

"Sorry I bothered you. I-" Bink broke off. "You will?"

"Objectively I know that my continuing attachment to my dead wife and son is not reasonable," the King said. "It is hampering me in the performance of my office. Perhaps an unreasonable subterfuge will compensate. I will have Iris make me into the likeness of another man, and herself another woman, and as strangers we shall make the attempt. Do you just indulge in the courtesy of maintaining the secret, Bink."

"Yes, of course, by all means," Bink said, feeling awkward. He would have preferred to have the King devoid of human fallibility's, while paradoxically respecting him for those weaknesses. But he knew this was a side of the King no other person saw. Bink was a confidant, uncomfortable as the position might be at times.

"I-uh, I'm supposed to locate Millie's bones. They should be somewhere in this library."

"By all means. Continue your pursuit; I shall seek out the Queen." And the King rose abruptly and departed.

Just like that! Bink was amazed again at the alacrity with which the man acted, once he had come to a decision. But that was one of the qualities that made him fit to rule, in contrast to Bink himself.

Bink looked at the books. And suddenly realized: Millie's skeleton could have been transformed into a book; that would account for its neglect over the centuries, and for Millie's frequent presence here. She hovered often by the south wall. The question was-which book?

He walked along the packed shelves, reading titles from the spines of the tomes. This was an excellent library, with hundreds of texts; how could he choose among them? And if he found the proper one, somehow, how could it be restored? It would have to be transformed first back into the skeleton-and that was Magician-class magic. He kept running into this: too much magic was involved here! No inanimate transformer was alive today, as far as he knew. So Millie's quest looked hopeless after all. Yet why, then, had the Good Magician told her to use mere healing elixir? It made no sense!

Still, he had promised to try, though it complicated his personal situation. First he had to find the book; then he could worry about the next step.

The search took some time. Some texts he could eliminate immediately, such as The Anatomy of Purple Dragons or Hailstones: Magic vs. Mundane. But others were problematical, like The Status of Spirits in Royal Abodes or Tales for Ghosts. He had to take these out and turn over the pages, looking for he knew not what.