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never take note of you!”
    “No. It is in the Big Book of Universal Rules: the Demon has to meet with his appointments before doing anything else. So I shall wait here until he appears.”
    “But all this time—surely you can afford some time off. He's probably asleep and it won't make any difference.”
    Humfrey fixed her with a steely gaze. “You don't understand the psychology of the Demon X(A/N)th. He will appear here the very instant I step out. Because the rules also say that if the Demon appears, and there is no person in the waiting room, because the person didn't have the interest to remain, then the appointment is vacated. Then he won't have to see me at all.”
    Lacuna was appalled. “You mean the Demon knows you are here and is deliberately ignoring you, hoping to catch you out? And it has been this way for a decade?”
    “Exactly. So I don't dare step out. I was lucky the Demon didn't realize when Grey Murphy and Ivy tried to wake me in the dream coffin four years ago. But I know I won't be able to get away with that again. The Demon may have been inattentive once, but he never makes the same mistake twice.”
    Now she knew why the Good Magician had disappeared and never even left word. He had been unable to, without risking the loss of his mission. So he had remained here in this absolutely dull waiting room, doing nothing. Waiting for the Demon.
    “Your recent life has been a worse blah than mine!” she exclaimed, suffering a revelation.
    “What else is new?” he inquired sourly.
    “But still—suppose the Demon came this moment and said it was all right to take Rose out of Hell and back to Xanth. What about the Gorgon?” For Lacuna had known and liked the Gorgon, whose terror was all in her face, not in her nature.
    “It's bad enough trying to figure out what to do about Grey Murphy when I return,” the Magician grumped. "It isn't right to send him back to Mundania to avoid Com-Pewter.”
    “Oh, that's no problem,” she said quickly. “I will free Grey by changing the print on the evil machine's screen.”
    He stared at her. “No wonder I overlooked that Answer! It's obvious! Simply a matter of overwriting Pewter's directive and using the key command 'Save and Compile.' I could have given him that Answer before.”
    She shrugged, not wanting to annoy him further.
    “Well, if you are so good at seeing the obvious, what's your solution to my problem of two wives?”
    She spread her hands. “Maybe they could take turns?”
    “That's ridiculous!” he exploded. “It just might work, if the Queen doesn't interfere.”
    “Well, if one wife is technically dead, while the other is alive, maybe Queen Irene couldn't object."
    He sighed. "It may not come to that. The Demon X(A/N)th isn't going to grant my appeal anyway.”
    “But—but then why—”
    “Because it would be unthinkable not to make the effort. I was less experienced before, and didn't consider such an approach, but now it must be tried.”
    Lacuna wondered what kind of a woman Rose was to warrant such devotion from such a normally truculent man. To sit in Hell's waiting room for a decade, expecting a negative response!
    She knew better, but she couldn't help arguing a little more. “Why won't the Demon grant your appeal?”
    “For the same reason he doesn't want to meet me: it's more complicated to deal with this matter than to ignore it. The Demon cares nothing for my convenience, only for his own.”
    “'Wouldn't it be easy for him just to hear your appeal and turn it down and be done with it?"
    “He can't do that. The rules say that he has to be fair. If he is fair, he may have to grant my appeal. So he is avoiding me, hoping I will give up and go without his hearing me.”
    The two were really in a contest of wills, she saw. Humfrey wanted something that the Demon X(A/N)th didn't want to give, so they were locked in this endurance contest instead. It was sad. But it was also somewhat like Humfrey's own treatment of those