“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.
“You miss her?”
“Yes, certainly, in a way we do, Your Majesty. She used to come see us every day, right after she, you know, but since she got herself in the matrimonial way she hasn’t-she-“
Millie had married the Zombie Master and gone to share the castle now possessed by Good Magician Humfrey. It had been the Zombie Master’s castle, eight hundred years before. “You’d like to see her again,” Dor finished.
“Yes, sir, Your Majesty. You were her friend in life, and now that you’re in the way of being the Royal King-“
“She hardly needs the King’s approval to visit her old companions.” Dor smiled. “Not that such approval would ever be withheld, but even if it were, how could anyone stop a ghost from going any where?”
“Oh, sir, we can’t go anywhere!” Doreen protested. “We are for ever bound by the site of our cruel demise, until our, you might say, to put it politely, our onuses are abated.”
“Well, If you’d tell me your onuses, maybe I could help,” Dor suggested.
It was the first time he had ever seen a ghost blush. “Oh, no, no, never!” she stammered.
Evidently he had struck a sensitive area. “Well, Millie can certainly come to see you.”
“But she never, she doesn’t, she won’t seem to come,” Doreen wailed. “We have heard, had information, we believe she became a mother-“
“Of twins,” Dor agreed. “A boy and a girl. It was bound to happen, considering her talent.”
Prudish Doreen let that pass. “So of course, naturally she’s busy. But if the King suggested, intimated, asked her to visit-“
Dor smiled. “Millie was my governess for a dozen years. I had a crush on her. She never took orders from me; it was the other way around. Nobody who knows me takes me seriously.” As he spoke, Dor feared he had just said something significant and damaging or damning; he would have to think about that in private.
“But now that you’re King-“ Doreen said, not debating his point.
Dor smiled again. “Very well. I will invite Millie and her family here for a visit so you can meet the children. I can’t guarantee they’ll come, but I will extend the invitation.”
“Oh, thank you, Your Majesty, sir!” Doreen faded gratefully out.
Dor shook his head. He hadn’t realized the ghosts liked children.
But of course one of them was a child, Button, so that could account for it. Millie’s babies were only three years old, while Button was six but of course in time the twins would grow to his age, while the ghost would not change. He had been six for six hundred years. Children were children. Dor had not met Millie’s twins himself; a visit should be interesting. He wondered whether Millie retained her talent of sex appeal, now that she was happily married. Did any wife keep up with that sort of thing? He feared that by the time he found out, it would be too late.
Later that day, perhaps by no coincidence, Dor was approached by a zombie. The decrepit creatures normally remained comfortably buried in their graveyard near the castle, but any threat to the castle would bring them charging gruesomely forth. This one dropped stinking clods of earth and goo as it walked, and its face was a mass of pus and rot, but somehow it managed to talk. “Yhoor Mhajustee-“ it pleaded loathsomely, spitting out a decayed tooth.
Dor had known the zombies well in his day, including zombie animals and a zombie ogre named Egor, so they no longer repulsed him as badly as they might have done.
“Yes?” he said politely. The best way to deal with a zombie was to give it what it wanted, since it could not be killed or discouraged. Theoretically, it was possible to dismember one and bury the pieces separately, but that was hardly worth the trouble and still was not guaranteed effective. Besides, zombies were all right, in their place.
“Ohur Masssteff-“
Dor caught on. “You have not seen the Zombie Master in some time. I will ask him to visit here so you can get together and rehash old times. Must be many a graveyard you’ve patronized with him. I can’t promise he’ll come-he does like his privacy-but I’ll make the effort.”
“Thaaanks,” the zombie whistled, losing part of its moldy tongue.
“Just remember-he has a family now. Two little children. You might find them scooping sand out of graves,
