Board Stiff (Xanth) Read Online Free PDF Page B

pleased with that baby. For years she couldn’t signal the stork for one, because she needed to help Humfrey. Now at last she and Hugo are parents, and they are happily unsettled.” She shook her head, politely bemused. “New parenthood is as wonderful and challenging in its way as new love. I remember--” She broke off. “But I don’t mean to bore you with reminiscences. The Good Magician is not able to see you at the moment, so there is time for you to eat and relax. We have a fine salad bar.” She produced what looked like a soap bar. “Also boot rear.”
    Ease hesitated. ACCEPT, Kandy thought, realizing that he needed schooling on social manners. AND ASK HER TO REMINISCE.
    So Ease, duly prompted, did the socially polite things, accepting the food and inquiring about the reminiscence.
    “You’re interested?” MareAnn asked, surprised.
    Ease opened his mouth.
    YES
    “Yes.”
    “Or are you just being polite?”
    Kandy hastily dictated a feasible answer, and Ease obligingly echoed it. “I don’t know what I face when the Good Magician answers my Question and gives me some Mission to accomplish. There may be some insight you can offer.”
    “But I have no idea what Humfrey has in mind. I can’t help you that way.”
    “I mean, your memories may do it. Not something that either you or I know about now, but they could provide me some perspective that will help.”
    She contemplated him thoughtfully. “Perhaps,” she agreed.
    Wira returned, bringing drinks. “I found some gin,” she said. “This should be good.” She presented a tray of glasses to Ease.
    “Gin? Isn’t that a Mundane drink?”
    “There’s a crude variant in Mundania, but this is better. There’s Ca-jin, Mar-jin, Ora-gin, Ima-gin, and Gin-jer. We also have rum.”
    IMAGINE, Kandy thought. That seemed less likely to intoxicate him.
    “Ima-gin,” Ease agreed.
    Wira gave him the glass. He sipped it, as Karen stopped him from gulping. With luck it would illuminate his mind.
    “I will have the Deco-rum,” MareAnn said, taking her glass.
    “You were remembering new love,” Ease said, prompted again.
    “Ah, yes,” MareAnn agreed. “Long ago, when I was young, which is longer ago than I care to say, I enjoyed my talent of summoning equines. That is, animals with some horse ancestry.”
    “You don’t look old,” Ease said, yet again prompted by Kandy’s thought.
    MareAnn laughed. “I am a hundred and eighty one years old.”
    Ease needed no prompting this time. “No way!”
    “You forget, we Wives have access to youth elixir. Humfrey uses it to maintain himself at approximately one hundred. Women prefer a somewhat younger default, and Humfrey is satisfied to accede. So physically I am twenty nine and counting, but chronologically I am more than six times that.”
    “Oh. Of course.” Still, both Ease and Kandy were set back by it.
    “My favorite equines were the unicorns, and since I was young and genuinely innocent I had no trouble summoning them. Then I met Humfrey. At first I took him for a boy of twelve, but he was my age, fifteen. Then I thought he was a gnome, but he wasn’t. He helped me, and we got to know each other, and I liked him. He liked me too, especially when I innocently kissed him. So that was my first love, and I think his too. But our relationship was not to be, at least not at that time.”
    Ease and Kandy were working this out together. “Unicorns--”
    “Exactly. Folk who marry soon get un-innocent and summon storks. I knew I couldn’t afford that, because I would lose my ability to be with unicorns. So though it broke my heart, I declined to marry him. He married Dara Demoness instead.”
    “But then how--?”
    “How did I come to be his Designated Wife of the month?” she filled in. “That’s a long story, so I’ll condense it. In the course of his long life Humfrey lost several wives and associates to age or indifference, and when they died they wound up in Hell, I among them.” She smiled.