“Uh, suppose you get lost, Your Majesty?” Dor asked worriedly.
“You forget, Dor, I have been to Mundania before. I know the route.”
“But Mundania changes! You can’t go back to where you were!”
“Probably true. Certainly I would not take the Queen to the site of my first marriage.” The King was silent a moment, and Dor knew there was a secret side to Trent who once had a wife and child whom he preferred not to discuss. Living in Mundania, but they had died, so he had returned to Xanth and become King. Had his family lived, Trent would never have come back to Xanth. “But I believe I can manage.”
Yet Dor was nervous. “Mundania is a dangerous place, with bears and horses and things.”
“So your essay advised me. I do not pretend this trip is entirely without risk, Dor, but I believe the potential benefits make the risk worthwhile. I am an excellent swordsman and did have twenty years to perfect survival techniques, based on other things than magic. But I must confess that I do miss Mundania somewhat; perhaps that is the underlying motive for this excursion.” The King pondered again, then broached a new aspect. “More tricky is the nature of the interface. You see, when we step through to Mundania, we may find our selves at any point in its history. Until very recently, we could not select the point; this much has been chance. The Queen believes she has found a way to alleviate this problem. That is one reason I must negotiate a trade agreement personally. I can trust no one else to handle the vagaries of the transition. We may fail to reach our target Kingdom, or may reach it and return empty-handed; in that case I will have no one to blame except myself.”
“But if you don’t know where you’ll arrive in Mundania, how do you know there’s an opportunity? I mean, you might land somewhere else entirely.”
“As I said, I do have a hint. I believe the time is now propitious to enter Mundania’s medieval age, and the Queen has studied the matter and believes she can, as it were, fine-tune our entry to match the particular placetime our scout scouted. This spot should have copious natural resources like wood and cloth that we can work by magic into carvings and clothing they can’t match. Perhaps something else will offer. Perhaps nothing. I believe a week will suffice to explore the situation. We cannot afford to stand still; we must keep working to improve our situation. Magic is not enough to keep Xanth prosperous; the land also requires alert administration.”
“I guess so,” Dor agreed. But it seemed to him he would never be able to do the job King Trent was doing. Xanth was indeed doing well now, and the improvement had been steady from the time of Trent’s ascension to power. The Kingdom was well disciplined and well ordered; even the dragons no longer dared to maraud where men had staked their territory. Dor had a morbid fear that at such time as he, Dor, became King, the golden age would deteriorate. “I wish you well in Mundania, sir.”
“I know you do, Dor,” King Trent said affably. “I ask you to bear in mind this before all else-honesty.”
“Honesty?”
“When you are in doubt, honesty is generally the best course. Whatever may happen, you will not have cause for shame if you adhere scrupulously to that.”
“I’ll remember,” Dor said. “Honesty.”
“Honesty,” King Trent repeated with peculiar emphasis. “That’s it.”
In an instant, it seemed, the dread day came. Dor found himself huddled on the throne, feeling terribly alone. King Trent and Queen Iris had announced their vacation and disappeared into a cloud.
When the cloud dissipated, they were gone; Iris’ power of illusion had made them invisible. She had always liked dramatic entrances and exits.
Dor gritted his teeth and got into it. Actually, the business of governing was mostly routine. There was a trained palace staff, quite competent, whose members Dor had always known; they did whatever he asked and answered any questions he had. But they did not make important decisions-and Dor discovered that every decision, no matter how minor, seemed vitally important to the people it concerned. So he let the routine handle itself and concentrated on those areas that demanded the decision of the King, hoping his voluminous royal robe would conceal any tremor of his knees.
The first case concerned two peasants who had a difference about a plantation of light bulbs. Each claimed to be entitled to the brightest bulbs of the current crop. Dor questioned their wooden belt buckles and got the straight story, while both peasants stood amazed at this magic.
Dor did this deliberately so they could see that he was, indeed, a Magician; they respected that caliber of magic and would be more likely to pay attention to him now.
Peasant A had farmed the field for many years with indifferent success; it belonged to him. Peasant B had been hired to help this season-and the field had brightened into the best crop in years, so that it never saw darkness. To whom, then, did the first choice of bulbs belong?
Dor saw that some diplomacy was called for here. He could of course make an arbitrary decision, but that would surely leave one party unsatisfied. That could lead to future trouble. He didn’t want any of his decisions coming back to haunt King Trent in future months. “Peasant B obviously has the special touch that made this crop of bulbs glow so well,” he said. “So he should be given his choice of the best, as many as he wants. After all, without him the crop would not be worth much.” Peasant B looked pleased. “However, Peasant A does own the field. He can hire whomever he wants next year, so he can get to keep more of his crop.” Peasant A nodded grim agreement. “Of course,” Dor continued blithely, “Peasant A won’t have much of a crop, and Peasant B won’t have a job. The bulbs won’t grow elsewhere, and won’t brighten as well for anyone else, so both peasants will lose. Too bad. It would have been so simple to share the best bulbs equally, taking turns selecting each bulb, sharing the profit of the joint effort, and setting up for an even better future season . . .” Dor shrugged sadly.
The two peasants looked at each other, a notion dawning. Wasn’t it, after all, more important to share many future harvests than run off with the best of only one? Maybe they could work this out themselves.
They departed, discussing the prospects with animation. Dor relaxed, his muscles unknotting. Had he done it the right way? He knew he could not make everyone happy in every case, but he did want to come as close as possible.
Dor woke next morning to discover a ghost standing beside the royal bed. It was Doreen, the kitchen maid. There had been half a dozen recognizable ghosts on the premises, each with his or her sad story, but most were close-mouthed about their living pasts. Dor had always liked Doreen because of the coincidence of names-Dor, Doreen-though apart from that they had little in common. Maybe he had been named after her, since she was a friend of Millie the Ghost, who had been his nursemaid during his early years. No one had seen fit to tell him, and the local furniture didn’t know. There were many moderate little mysteries like that around this castle; it was part of its atmosphere. At any rate, Doreen was middle-aged and portly and often snappish, not having much to do with the living. Thus it was a surprise to find her here. “What can I do for you, Doreen?” he asked.
“Sir, Your Majesty King Dor,” she said diffidently.
Dor smiled. Doreen always found it hard to pinpoint the point.
“Out with it, blithe spirit.”
“Well, we, you know we haven’t really quite seen very much of Millie since she passed on-“
To the ghosts, Millie’s return to life was passing on. She had been one of their number for several centuries, and now was mortal again.