The Magician King

That was one mystery solved. Their talking animal was a sloth. It was just about the ugliest mammal Quentin had ever seen.

“Hi,” Quentin said. “I didn’t realize you were down here.”

“Nobody seems to,” the sloth said, with equanimity. “I hope you’ll come visit. Often.”

It took them three days to sail to the Outer Island, and every day it got hotter. They left the autumn beaches and steel waters of Whitespire for a more tropical zone. They did this while traveling east, instead of north or south, which was weird to the people from Earth, but none of the Fillorians seemed surprised. It made him wonder whether this world was even spherical—Benedict had never even heard of an equator. The crew changed into tropical whites.

Benedict stood by Admiral Lacker’s side at the helm with a book of charts that laid out the approach to the Outer Island, page after page crowded with technical-looking dots and blobby concentric isobars. Working together they threaded their way through a maze of shoals and reefs that no one but they could see until the island was actually in sight: a little bump of white sand and green jungle on the horizon, with a modest peak in the middle, not so different from what he’d imagined. They rounded a point and entered a shallow bay.

The moment they did the wind dropped to nothing. The Muntjac coasted into the center of the harbor on the last of its momentum, rippling the placid green surface as it went. The sails flapped limply in the silence. It could have been a sleepy hamlet on the Cote d’Azur. The shore was a narrow sandy strand littered with dry seaweed and the fibrous bits that palm trees constantly shed, baking in the afternoon heat. A wharf and a few low structures stood toward one end, and one rather magnificent-looking building that might have been a hotel or a country club. Not a single person was visible.

Probably they were taking a siesta. In spite of himself Quentin felt a rising sense of anticipation. Don’t be an idiot. This was an errand. They were here to collect the taxes.

They lowered the launch in silence. Quentin climbed in, followed by Bingle and Benedict, who lost his sullen self-consciousness for a moment in his excitement at starting his survey. At the last minute Julia appeared from below and slipped aboard. The sloth, slung comfortably from its beam in the hold, declined to go, though it enjoined them, before closing its drooping, shadowed eyes, to remember that if they came across any particularly succulent shoots, or even a small lizard, it was an omnivore.

A long, skinny, rickety pier projected from the wharves out into the water, with an absurd little cupola at the end. They rowed for it. The bay was as smooth as a pond. Throughout this entire operation they hadn’t seen or heard a soul.

“Spooky,” Quentin said out loud. “God, I hope it’s not one of those Roanoke deals where the whole place is deserted.”

Nobody said anything. He missed having Eliot to talk to, or even Janet. If Julia was amused, or even got the reference, she didn’t let on. She’d been keeping to herself since they left Whitespire. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, or touch anyone—she kept her hands in her lap and her elbows drawn in.

He scanned the shoreline through a folding telescope that he’d charmed so that it would show beings both visible and invisible, or most of them anyway. The waterfront was genuinely, authentically deserted. If you adjusted the telescope—it had an extra dial—it ran the view a little ways backward in time too. Nobody had visited the beach for at least an hour.

The pier creaked in the stillness. The heat was murderous. Quentin thought he should go first, as king, but Bingle insisted. He was taking his duties as royal bodyguard very seriously. He wasn’t anywhere near as jolly as his name made him sound, though that would have been almost impossible since his name made him sound like a clown who entertained at children’s parties.

The big building they’d seen earlier was made of wood and painted white, with Ionic columns out front and grand glass doors. Everything was peeling. It looked like an old Southern plantation house. Bingle pushed open the door and stepped inside. Quentin pushed in right behind him. If he got nothing else out of this he was going to get a little thrill of the unknown, however short-lived. It was pitch-black inside after the glare of the afternoon, and pleasantly cool.

“Have a care, Your Highness,” Bingle said.

As his eyes adjusted Quentin saw a shabby but grandly appointed room with a desk in the center. At it sat a little girl with straight blond hair coloring fiercely on a piece of paper. When she saw them she turned around and shouted up the stairs:

“Mom-my! There’s people here!”

She turned back to them.

“Try not to get sand in the house.”

She went back to coloring.

“Welcome to Fillory,” she added, without looking up.

* * *

The little girl’s name was Eleanor. She was five and very adept at drawing bunny-pegasi, which were like regular pegasi except instead of horses with wings they were rabbits with wings. Quentin wasn’t clear on whether they were real or made up; you could never be totally sure about stuff like that in Fillory. Mommy was in her late thirties or thereabouts, pretty with thin lips and a pale untropical complexion. She descended the stairs smartly, in high heels and a vaguely official-looking jacket and skirt, and shifted Eleanor roughly out of her chair, which Eleanor accepted. She took her pictures and coloring things and ran up the stairs.

“Welcome to the Kingdom of Fillory,” the woman said, in a throaty alto. “I am the Customs Agent. Please state your names and countries of origin.”

She opened a very official-looking ledger and held a large purpleinked stamp at the ready.

“I’m Quentin,” Quentin said. “Coldwater. I’m king of Fillory.”

She paused, eyebrows arched, with her hand poised to stamp. She was making a good thing out of this routine: businesslike but sexy, with some nicely judged irony in there. There was something of the vamp about the Customs Agent.

“You’re the king of Fillory?”

“I’m a king of Fillory. There are two.”

She put down the stamp. In the column marked OCCUPATION she wrote: king.

“In that case—from Fillory?”

“Well, yes.”

She made another note.

“Ah, well.” She sighed and closed the ledger. She didn’t get to use her stamp. “There isn’t much paperwork if you’re from Fillory. I thought you might have come from overseas.”

“Address His Highness with respect,” Bingle snapped. “You’re talking to the king, not some wandering fisherman.”

“I know he’s the king,” she said. “He said that.”

“Then address him as ‘Your Highness’!”

“Sorry.” She turned to Quentin, trying, but not very hard, to suppress her amusement. “Your Highness. We don’t get a lot of kings here. It takes getting used to.”

“Well, all right.” Quentin let it go. “Look, Bingle, I’ll take care of guarding my dignity, thanks.” Then to the Customs Agent: “You can still stamp my form if you want to.”

Bingle shot Quentin a glance to the effect of, you have no idea how to be a king, literally none.

The Customs Agent’s name turned out to be Elaine, and once she’d satisfied herself as to their immigration status she was a gracious host. It was usual on the Outer Island to have cocktails in about an hour, she explained, but before then would they like to see something of the island? They certainly would. By all means, as long as they were here. Only they should be warned that someone would wind up carrying Eleanor on his shoulders. She was a sweet child but easily distracted and very lazy.

“She’s a terrible flirt. She goes straight for the men of the party, and if she figures out you’re an easy mark, you’ll be carrying her around for the rest of the day.”

They followed Elaine through the embassy, which was what the grand building turned out to be. It was dim