Piers Anthony - The Source of Magic

More time passed. He was not getting anywhere. No one else came here; apparently he was the only one following this particular lead. His guess about the books must have been wrong. There was another room above this one, in a turret, and Crombie's line intersected it too. Maybe there-

Then he spotted it. The Skeleton in the Closet. That had to be it!

He took down the book. It was strangely heavy. The cover was of variegated leather, subtly horrible. He opened it, and a strange, unpleasant odor wafted up, as of the flesh of a zombie too long in the sun. There was no print on the first page, only a melange of color and wash suggestive of the remains of a flattened bug.

Quickly he closed the book. He no longer had any doubt.

The bucket of elixir was downstairs in the ballroom. Bink clasped the book in both arms-it was too heavy to hold in one arm for any length of time-and started down.

He met another zombie, or perhaps the same one as before. It was hard to tell them apart! It was coming up the stairs. This one he knew was real, because the Queen had not extended the masquerade illusion inside the palace, and no illusion at all upstairs. Now Bink suspected the one in the garden had been real too. What were the zombies doing out of their earthy resting places?

"Back off!" Bink cried, protecting the book. "Get out of the palace! Return to your grave!" He advanced menacingly on the zombie, and it retreated. A healthy man could readily dismember a zombie, if he cared to make the attempt. The zombie stumbled on the stair and fell, toppling with grisly abandon down the flight. Bits of bone and goo were scattered on the steps, and dark fluid soaked into the fine old wood. The smell was such as to make Bink's stomach struggle for sudden relief, and his eyes smarted. Zombies did not have much cohesion.

Bink followed it down, pursing his lips with distaste. A number of zombies were associated with Castle Roogna, and they had been instrumental in making it the palace of the King. But now they were supposed to lie safely in their graves. What ghastly urgency brought them into the party?

Well, he would notify the King in due course. First he had to see to Millie's skeleton. He entered the ballroom-and found that the subaquatic motif was gone. The normal pillars and walls had returned. Had the Queen lost interest in her decorations?

"I've got it!" he cried, and the guests collected immediately. "What happened to the water?"

"The Queen left suddenly, and her illusion stopped," Chester said, wiping crumbs of green cake from his face. It seemed refreshments had been real enough, anyway. "Here, let me help you with that book." The centaur reached down with one hand and took it easily from Bink's tiring grasp. Oh for the power of a centaur!

"I meant the healing water, the elixir," Bink said. He knew what had happened to the Queen, now that he thought about it! The King had summoned her.

"Right here," Crombie said, bringing it out from under a table. "Didn't want crumbs to fall in it" The bucket was now on the floor beside the Anniversary Cake.

"That doesn't look like a skeleton," the manticora said.

"Transformed-or something," Bink explained. He opened the book while Chester supported it. There was a general murmur of awe. Some magic!

The spell doctor peered at it "That's not a transformation. That's topology magic. I never saw such an extreme case before."

Neither had the others. "What is topology magic?" Crombie asked.

"Changing the form without changing it," she said.

"Old crone, you're talking nonsense," Crombie said with his customary diplomacy around the female sex.

"I'm talking magic, young squirt," she retorted. "Take an object. Stretch it out. Squish it flat Fold it. You have changed its shape but not its nature. It remains topologically similar. This book is a person."

"With the spirit squished out," Bink said. "Where's Millie?"

The ghost appeared, silent. She remained under the geas, unable to comment on her body. What a terrible fate she had suffered, all these centuries! Flattened and folded into a book, and prevented from telling anyone. Until the Queen's charade-contest prize had coincidentally opened the way.

Coincidentally? Bink suspected his talent was at work.

"Should the Queen supervise the restoration?" the manticora asked.

"The Queen is otherwise occupied, and must not be disturbed," Bink said. Actually it was the King he was protecting. "We'd better proceed without her."

"Right," Chester said, and dumped the book into the bucket

"Wait!" Bink cried, knowing it was already too late. He had contemplated a gentle immersion. But perhaps this was best.

The dunked book shimmered. Millie the Ghost made an almost soundless shriek as she was drawn toward the bucket. Then the book inflated, absorbing elixir rapidly, opening and unfolding as its tissues filled out. The pages became human limbs and the heavy jacket a human head and torso, flattened horrendously but already bulging into doll-like features. Grotesquely it convulsed into a misshapen manikin figure, swelling and finning into the semblance of a woman. Millie the ghost, still trying to scream, floated into the mass, her outline merging with that of the forming body. Suddenly the two phased completely. She stood knee deep in the bucket, as lovely a nymph as could be desired, and an astonishing contrast to what they had just seen. "I'm whole!" she exclaimed in wonder.

"You certainly are," Chester agreed. "Someone fetch her some clothing."

There was a scramble. A form came forward bearing a decayed robe. It was a zombie. Women shrieked. Everyone scrambled to avoid it.

Crombie charged forward, scowling. "You rotters can't come in here! Out, out!"

The zombie retreated, backing toward the Anniversary Cake. "Not that way!" Bink cried, again too late. The zombie came within range of the picklepuss, who snarled.

There was a zoopf and the zombie was pickled. Squirting putrid juices, it fell into the cake. The pickle-puss struck again, pickling the entire cake as the zombie disappeared into it. Pickled icing flew outward explosively, spattering the guests. The picklepuss broke free of its leash and bounded onto the refreshment table, pickling everything it passed. Women screamed again. It was one of the foolish, enchanting mannerisms they had.

"What is going on here?" a strange young man demanded from the main doorway.

"Stand back!" Bink snapped. "The damn Queen's damn pickler is on the loose!" Now he saw a comely young woman behind the stranger. They were evidently gate-crashers.

Crombie was dashing up. "I'll get those idiots out of the way!" he cried, drawing his sword.

The picklepuss preferred to introduce itself, and to clear its own way. It bounded directly at the strangers. There was a zap-but this time it was the puss who was pickled, in a fashion. It landed on the floor, surprised, then flapped its wings and took off. It had become a deerfly, a delicately winged miniature deer.

"My cake!" the strange young woman cried.

Then Bink caught on. "The Queen!"

"And King!" Crombie agreed, appalled. "In illusion-costume."

What had Bink called the Queen, in his distraction? And Crombie had drawn his sword against the King.

But Queen Iris was already at the cake. "Pickled-with a zombie in it! Who did this thing?" In her outrage she let her illusion slip. She appeared before the crowd in her natural form, and revealed the King in his. Both were in dishabille.

Crombie the woman-hater nevertheless suffered a seizure of gallantry. He sheathed his sword, whipped off his jacket, and put it about the Queen's shoulders, concealing her middle-aged torso. "It is cool here, Highness."

Bink hastily proffered his own jacket to the King, who accepted as if this were a quite ordinary occasion. "Thanks, Bink," he muttered.