it be when she really tried? “I’ll consult with Crombie,” he said.
“What good will that do?” she demanded. “My father is in Mundania; Crombie can’t point out his location beyond the realm of magic.”
“I have a feeble notion,” Dor said.
When Crombie arrived, Dor put it to him: how about pointing out something that would help them locate King Trent? Crombie could point to anything, even an idea; if there were some device or some person with special information. Crombie closed his eyes, spun about, flung out one arm, and pointed south.
Dor was almost afraid to believe it. “There really is something that will help?”
“I never point wrong,” Crombie said with certainty. He was a stout, graying soldier of the old school, who had a wife named Jewel who lived in the nether caves of Xanth, and a daughter named Tandy of whom no one knew anything. Jewel had been a nymph of the rock; it was her job to salt the earth with all the diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, opals, spinels, and other gemstones that prospectors were destined eventually to find. She was said to be a lovely, sweet, and tolerant woman now, satisfied to see Crombie on those irregular occasions when he got around to visiting her. Dor understood that Jewel had once loved his father Bink, or vice versa-that had never been made quite clear-but that Crombie had captured her heart with a wish-spell. Love had transformed her from nymph to woman; that process, too, was not quite within Dor’s comprehension.
What was the distinction between a nymph and a girl like Irene?
“Sometimes people interpret it wrong, but the point is always right,” Crombie finished.
“Uh, do you have any idea how far it is?”
“Can’t really tell, but pretty far, I think. I could triangulate for you, maybe.” He went to another room of the castle and tried again.
The point remained due south. “Too far to get a proper fix. Down beyond Lake Ogre-Chobee, I’d say.”
Dor knew about that lake; it had been part of the geography Cherie Centaur had drilled into him. A tribe of fiends lived beneath it, who hurled curses at anyone who bothered them; they had driven off most of the ogres who had once resided on its shores. A number of those displaced ogres had migrated north, settling in the Ogre-fen- Ogre Fen; woe betide the curse-fiend who tried to follow them there!
He didn’t want to go to that lake; anything that could drive away a tribe of ogres was certainly too much for him to handle.
“But you’re sure it will help us?” Dor asked nervously. “Not curse us?”
“You hard of hearing, Your Majesty? I said so before.” Crombie was a friend of Dor’s father and of King Trent; he did not put up with much nonsense from youngsters who had not even existed when he was sowing his wild oats. All he sowed now were tame oats; Jewel saw to that.
“How will it help us?” Irene asked.
“How should I know?” Crombie demanded. He was also a woman hater; this was another aspect of his personality whose consistency eluded Dor. How could a tamely married man hate women? Evidently Irene had changed, in Crombie’s eyes, from child to woman; indeed, there was something in the way the old soldier looked at her now that made Irene tend to fade back. She played little games of suggestion with a harmless person like Dor, but lost her nerve when confronted by a real man, albeit an old one like Crombie. “I don’t define policy; I only point the way.”
“Yes, of course, and we do appreciate it,” Dor said diplomatically. “Uh, while you’re here-would you point out the direction of any special thing I should be taking care of while I’m King?”
“Why not?” Crombie whirled again-and pointed south again.
“Ha!” Dor exclaimed. “I hoped that would be the case. I’m supposed to go find whatever it is that will help us locate King Trent.”
Irene’s eyes lighted. “Sometimes you border on genius!” she breathed, gratified at this chance to search for her parents.
“Of course I do,” Crombie agreed, though the remark had not been directed at him. He marched off on his rounds, guarding the castle.
Dor promptly visited Elder Roland again, this time having Irene conjured along with him. She had never before been to the North Village, and found it quaint. “What’s that funny-looking tree in the center court?” she inquired.
“That’s Justin Tree,” Dor replied, surprised she didn’t know about it. “Your father transformed him to that form from a man, about forty years ago, before he went to Mundania the first time.”
She was taken aback. “Why didn’t he transform him back, once he was King?”
“Justin likes being a tree,” Dor explained. “He has become a sort of symbol to the North Village. People bring him fresh water and dirt and fertilizer when he wants them, and couples embrace in his shade.”
“Oh, let’s try that!” she said.
Was she serious? Dor decided not to risk it. “We’re here on business, rescuing your father. We don’t want to delay.”
“Of course,” she agreed instantly. They hurried on to Roland’s house, where Dor’s grandmother Bianca let them in, surprised at Dor’s return.
“Grandfather,” Dor said when Roland appeared. “I have to make a trip south, according to Crombie. He points out a duty I have there, way down beyond Lake Ogre-Chobee. So the Elders can’t say no to that, can they?”
Roland frowned. “We can try, Your Majesty.” He glanced at Irene. “Would this relate to the absence of Magician Trent?”
“King Trent!” Irene snapped.
Roland smiled indulgently. “We Elders are just as concerned about this matter as you are,” he said. He spoke firmly and softly; no one would know from his demeanor that he had the magic power to freeze any person in his tracks. “We are eager to ascertain Trent’s present state. But we cannot allow our present King-that’s you, Dor -to risk himself foolishly. I’m afraid a long trip, particularly to the vicinity of Ogre-Chobee, is out of the question at this time.”
“But it’s a matter I’m supposed to attend to!” Dor protested. “And it’s not exactly the lake; it’s south of it. So I don’t have to go near the fiends. If a King doesn’t do what he’s supposed to do, he’s not fit to be King!”
“One could wish King Trent had kept that more firmly in mind,” Roland said, and Irene flushed. “Yet at times there are conflicts of duty. Part of the art of governing is the choosing of the best route through seeming conflicts. You have done well so far, Dor; I think you’ll be a good King. You must not act irresponsibly now.”
“King Trent said much the same,” Dor said, remembering. “Just before he left, he told me that when I was in doubt, to concentrate on honesty.”
“That is certainly true. How strange that he did not do the honest thing himself, and consult with the Elders before he departed.”
That was bothering Dor increasingly, and he could see that Irene was fit to explode. She hated denigration of her father-yet Roland’s pique seemed justified. Had King Trent had some deeper motive than mere trade with Mundania? Had he, incredibly, actually planned not to return? “I’d like just to go to bed and hide my head under the blanket,” Dor said.
“That is no longer a luxury you can afford. I think the nightmares would seek you out.”
“They already have,” Dor agreed ruefully. “The castle maids are complaining about the hoofprints in the rugs.”
“I would like to verify your findings, if I may,” Roland said.
There was a break while Dor arranged to have Crombie conjured to the North Village. Grandmother Bianca served pinwheel cookies she had harvested from her pinwheel bush. Irene begged a pinwheel seed from her; Irene had a collection of seeds she could grow into useful plants.
“My, how you’ve grown!” Bianca said, observing Irene.
Irene dropped her cookie-but then had it back unbroken.
Bianca’s magic talent was the replay; she could make time drop back a few seconds, so that some recent error could be harmlessly corrected. “Thank you,” Irene murmured, recovering.
Crombie arrived. “I would like to verify your findings, if I may,” Roland repeated to the soldier. Dor noted how the old man was polite to everyone; somehow that made Roland seem magnified in the eyes of others. “Will you point out to me, please, the greatest present threat to the Kingdom of Xanth?”
Crombie obligingly went through his act again-and pointed south again. “That is what I suspected,” Roland
