This caught Dor completely by surprise. “Me? King?”
“Commencing one week from today. I thought it best to give you warning.”
“But I can’t be King! I don’t know anything about-“
“I would say this is an excellent time to learn, Dor. The Kingdom is at peace, and you are well regarded, and there are two other Magicians available to advise you.” He winked solemnly. “The Queen offered to remain here to advise you, but I insisted I wanted the pleasure of her companionship myself. It is essential that you be prepared, in case the duty should come on you suddenly.”
Despite his shock at this abrupt onset of responsibility, Dor appreciated the logic. If the Queen remained in Xanth, she would run the whole show and Dor would get no experience. The two remaining Magicians, Humfrey and the Zombie Master, would not interfere at all; neither participated voluntarily in the routine matters of Xanth.
So Dor would have a free hand-which was exactly what King Trent wanted.
But the other reference-the duty coming on him suddenly? Was this a suggestion that something was amiss with King Trent? Dor was appalled at the thought. “But it’ll be a long time before-I mean-“
“Do not be unduly concerned,” King Trent said, comprehending Dor’s poorly expressed notion, as he always did. “I am not yet sixty; I daresay you will be thirty before the onus falls on you. I remain in good health. But we must always be ready for the unexpected. Now is there anything you will need to prepare yourself?”
“Uh-“ Dor remained numbed. “Can it be secret?”
“Kingship is hardly secret, Dor.”
“I mean-does everyone have to know you’re gone? From Xanth, I mean. If they thought you were near, that it was just a trial run’
King Trent frowned. “You do not feel up to it?”
“Yes, sir. I don’t.”
The King sighed. “Dor, I am disappointed but not surprised. I believe you underestimate yourself, but you are young yet, and it is not my purpose to cause you unnecessary difficulties. We shall announce that the Queen and I are taking a week’s vacation-a working vacation-and are allowing you to practice your future craft. I do not believe that is too great a deviation from the truth. We shall be working, and for me a visit to Mundania is a vacation. The Queen has never been there; it will be a novel experience for her. But you will know, privately, that we shall not be available to help you if there is any problem. Only the Council of Elders and the other Magicians will know where I am.”
Dor’s knees felt weak. “Thank you, Sir. I’ll try not to mess up.”
“Do try that. See that you do not fall into the moat,” King Trent said, smiling. “And don’t let my daughter boss you around; it ill befits a King.” He shook his head. “Hasn’t she become a vixen, though? When you pulled her suit down-“
“Uh-“ Dor said, blushing. He had hoped they were safely beyond this subject.
“She certainly asked for it! The Queen and I are entirely too lenient with her. I had to threaten to turn Iris into a cactus to keep her from interfering. And I proved correct; you two worked it out satisfactorily to yourselves.”
Actually, Cherie Centaur had interrupted the struggle; otherwise there was no guessing where it might have led. For one of the few times in his life, Dor was thankful, in retrospect, for Cherie’s intervention. Perhaps the King knew that, too.
“Uh, thanks, I mean, yes, sir,” Dor agreed weakly. This was almost too much understanding; the Queen would certainly have dealt with him more harshly than this. Yet he knew the King had not been joking about the cactus; easygoing as he seemed, he tolerated absolutely no insubordination from anyone-which was of course one of his prime qualities of Kingship.
Unfortunately, Dor’s own talent was not that forceful. He could not transform those who opposed him. If he gave an order, and someone refused to obey, what would he do? He had no idea.
“At any rate, you will work it out,” King Trent said. “I am depending on you to carry through despite whatever hazards my daughter interposes.”
“Yes, sir,” Dor agreed without enthusiasm. “Do you really have to go?”
“We do have to go, Dor. I feel this can be an excellent opportunity for continuing trade. Mundania has vast and largely unexploited resources that would do us a great deal of good, while we have magic abilities that could help them equivalently. To date, our trade with Mundania has been sporadic, owing to difficulties of communication. We require a reliable, private connection. But we must exercise extreme caution, for we do not want the Mundanes invading Xanth again. So we are deliberately dealing with a small Kingdom, one unlikely to be able to mount such an offensive, should it ever choose to.”
Dor could appreciate that. Xanth had a long history of being invaded by waves of Mundanes, until preventive measures had been taken. Actually, there was no firm route from Mundania to Xanth; Mundanian time seemed to be different, so that contacts were haphazard. Any Xanth citizen, in contrast, could go to Mundania merely by stepping beyond the region of magic. If he kept close track of his route, he could theoretically find his way back. That was academic, however; no one wanted to leave Xanth, for he would leave his magic talent behind.
No, Dor had to qualify that thought. His mother Chameleon had once sought to leave Xanth, before she met his father Bink, to eliminate her changes of phase. Also, the Gorgon had spent some years in Mundania, where her face did not turn people to stone. Perhaps there had been others. But that was a strategy of desperation. Xanth was so obviously the best place to be that very few would leave it voluntarily.
“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.”
