Somewhat daunted, Crombie nevertheless stood his ground. He was a fighter, even at the age of three. It wasn't as if he had never seen magic before.

The smoke coalesced into the figure of a woman. "Who the abyss are you?" she demanded.

"Who the what?" Crombie asked, confused.

"Shed, Hades, inferno, blazes, hot underworld-" She broke off, examining him more closely. "Wait an instant! You're underage! I can't use that word around you."

"What word?"

"The word I can't remember. What's a little tyke like you doing out here alone? Where's your mother?"

"She's too busy for me. So I'm finding a better mother, and you're it."

The demoness considered. "Who is your busy mother?"

"Sofia. She's Mundane."

The demoness considered again. It had been a long tune since she had considered anything twice. In fact it hadn't happened since she tried to seduce me. For this was indeed that demoness, who was somehow always near when there was mischief about to break loose. Perhaps demons do have talents, and this was hers.

"And who is your father?"

"The Magician Humfrey."

"Now this is abruptly interesting. You are Humfrey's son?" She evidently wanted to be quite sure.

"Yes. Only he's busy too."

"Indeed. I remember when he was too busy for me. And what is your name?"

"I'm Crombie."

"And I'm Metria. What makes you think I'm a better mother for you?"

"I pointed to you."

"You bit me, too, right on the-never mind." She rubbed the farthest out spot on her bosom. "This is your magic?"

"Yes. I Find things. So I Found a better mother."

The demoness nodded. "That is an interesting way to put it. That certainly is a nice talent. You recognized me despite my deceptive configuration."

"Your what?"

"The way I looked. You weren't fooled."

"Nothing fools my talent," he said proudly.

"Why are your folks too busy for you?"

"There's an older boy there now. They like him better."

Metria considered. "You know, I used to know your father, but he treated me as shabbily as he is treating you. I even showed him my panties."

Crombie was young and innocent, but not that innocent. "You were his wife?"

"Not exactly. That was the Demoness Dana, who sensibly departed after having her way with him. I wanted to summon the stork with him too, but he didn't cooperate. He was just too dam-uh, darned busy for me." She frowned, aggravated in retrospect.

"Yes," Crombie said, understanding perfectly.

"Well, your talent must be right. Tell, me, what is your idea of the perfect mother?"

"She'll pay all her attention to me and n.o.body else," he replied, for he had done some thinking on this subject. "She'll give me candy, and never make me take a bath, and never make me sleep alone. And she won't like any other children, not even a little bit."

Metria nodded. "I can do that."

"Sure. My talent Found you."

"It certainly did. Well, Crombie, this should be most entertaining."

"What?"

"Let's find some candy."

It was obvious they were going to get along.

Metria picked Crombie up and carried him swiftly through the air to the bank of the With-a-Cookee River, where cookies of all types grew in abundance. Crombie was delighted. He picked cookies galore and stuffed them into his mouth. Then she took him to Lake Tsoda Popka, and he sampled the fizz. He didn't like the first taste, but she showed him how to put some in a bottle she found, and shake it until it squirted all over everything, and then it was tame enough to drink.

But after a bit she became more serious. "Crombie, this stuff is very good, but if you eat too much right away it can give you a tummy ache. You have to get used to it. I would not be a perfect mother if I did not warn you of this. So I will take you home now, but tomorrow you can come out again, and you will be able to eat more without getting sick. Eventually you will be able to stuff yourself with impunity, and that is the ideal state."

"But I don't want to go home!"

She frowned. "I understand your position. But if you don't return, they will know how you sneaked out, and then there will be censored to pay."

"What to pay?"

"Worse than seeing panties."

That set him back. "I don't want to be censored!"

"Just what is so bad about spending the night home?"

"I'm stuck in this dark room all to myself, while they do fun things somewhere else. There are spooks just waiting to grab me if I even peek out from under the covers. And I have to have castor oil, because it is Good For Me."

Metria made a face. "You're right. That's a fate worse than whatever. But I have an idea. I can't go in that castle, because your father has spirit levels out that flatten any spirit. But maybe if I make myself very small, you can sneak me in. Then I will keep you company and help you avoid the bad things."

"Great!"

The demoness became as small as a gumdrop, and he put her in his mouth. "Now don't swallow me," she warned, a little mouth forming on the drop. "Because then I would have to turn crepuscular to come out, and you wouldn't like where I came out."

"Turn what?"

"Hazy, indistinct, impalpable, vague, smoky, gaseous- "p.o.o.py?"

"Close enough."

He was careful not to swallow her or even to bite on her, though she tasted very good. His tummy was already feeling just enough queasy from the cookies and tsoda popka so that he didn't want any ill wind in there.

Souffle Serpent was greatly relieved to see him return safely. Crombie knew that the creature would not tell on him, now. Moat monsters never told, when it would only get them in trouble too.

No alarms went off. It seemed that the magic of the castle couldn't detect an evil spirit when it was inside a good person.

Crombie hadn't even been missed. That certainty seemed to justify his att.i.tude.

Soon it was time for supper. He wasn't hungry. But Metria curled out of his mouth, an invisible vapor, and made the food disappear. She did the same for the oil from the castors, and that was an even greater relief.

When he went up to his lonely room, she was with him. He had company. She formed herself into the nicest pillow he could imagine, with two extremely soft mounds, and he rested his head on her and felt wonderful.

Then in the dark, a spook came. It leaned over the bed. "Look!" it exclaimed. "He forgot to hide under the covers! Now we'll get him!"

Suddenly the pillow opened a big long mouth with one-and-a-half squintillion teeth. "Oh, yeah?" it breathed with supreme menace and snapped at the spook's nose. The spook was so surprised it dropped to the floor, where Missile-Toe, Crombie's Monster Under the Bed, fired a spike into its foot. "Owoooh!" the spook cried, and shot out of there so fast a piece of it tore on a nail in the wall. After that no more spooks came. Crombie laughed until he almost cried, sheerly happy.

Then the pillow formed arms, and they hugged Crombie and stroked his hair, and there was a soft sweet humming until he drifted to sleep. Metria was the perfect mother, all right.

After a year, the other boy went away. But Metria stayed. Usually she a.s.sumed the form of Crombie's jacket, and he wore her around the house, but she could be anything he wanted. Indeed, she was all he wanted; he hardly cared about anything else. When Sofia made him study things he Ought to Know, he paid no attention, knowing that Metria would provide the answers for him when they were required. And often they sneaked out to the With-a-Cookee River and gorged. His miserable life had become totally happy.

What none of us knew, then, was that Metria was learning all my secrets, for she was an enemy in our midst. A number of my spells went wrong, causing great inconvenience and annoyance, and we didn't know why. What a joke the demoness was having at our expense!

Then Crombie turned thirteen. The moment he was a teenager, he became aware of the female of the species. He was still too young to join the Adult Conspiracy, but he had notions about it, and chafed at being kept in ignorance. In short, he was a typical teenager.

Here he ran afoul of Metria herself. She was a creature of mischief, but she knew there was more mischief in maintaining the Adult Conspiracy than in abolishing it, so she maintained it. So when Crombie sought to put his hands on her in an aware way, she told him no. He had never been balked by her before and was at first incredulous, then furious. He grabbed her-and she dissipated into smoke and floated away. While it disturbs me to agree with that confounded demoness, I have to say that she acted correctly in that instance. Any woman who gets grabbed in a manner she doesn't want should depart with similar swiftness.

After that she was no longer with Crombie. He had to sleep alone. He was now too big for the spooks to harm, but he hated losing his womanly-soft pillow. Now his almost complete ignorance of the things Sofia had been teaching him manifested. He was a spoiled-rotten teenager, and that was a condition not even he could live with. Metria had done him the worst of favors by enabling him to escape any discipline in childhood. He was so angry he had to keep blinking to keep the red glare of rage from burning his eyes. He cursed all older women, for of course he was incapable of blaming himself.

He stormed out of the castle, now having more freedom because we were under the impression he was worthy of it. He whirled and pointed, uttering the syllable "Girl!"

He followed his finger-and came across a girl his age, sitting in the very glade where he had first found the honeypot. She was exquisitely pretty, and he fell in love with her right away. This, too, is the manner of teenagers. Since he hadn't grabbed her, she was responsive. The two of them had a marvelous time dancing and kissing and sharing secrets. Then he became too demanding: "Show me your panties."

She laughed. Annoyed, he grabbed at her-and she dissolved into smoke and floated away. Only then did he realize that she had been merely another aspect of the Demoness Metria, having her fun with his innocence.

That was when he swore never to trust another woman. Any age, any type. They say there is no fury like that of a woman scorned, and Metria is a perfect example, but surely the fury of a teenager balked comes close. (I have, of course, long since forgotten that I was ever a teenager, not that this is relevant.) By the time I discovered what had happened, it was way too late. My son was hopelessly embittered. There was nothing to do but send him away to be a soldier, for hate is an a.s.set to that profession. I had in effect lost my son. Sofia was not particularly pleased, either.

I revised the castle defenses, to make sure that never again could a demon sneak in un.o.bserved. It was not that I was prejudiced against demons; some of my best friends were demons. But Metria was sheer naughtiness. She never acted with outright malice, and indeed sometimes seemed to act decently, but there was no telling what the final cost of her mischief would be. Obviously she remained annoyed by her failure to corrupt me, so had corrupted my son instead. Corrupted him, ironically, with kindness: she had enabled him to avoid the necessary disciplines of growing up. That lack of discipline might be typical for demons, but was disaster for humans.

Yet it was my fault too. I should have been alert. I should have taken a hand in the upbringing of my son. I, too, had been spoiled, for the Maiden Taiwan had brought up my first son. I resolved that if I ever had another son to raise, I would be a true father to him, not leaving his upbringing to others. To that resolution I was true.

But let me now return to the matter that so preoccupied me at the time my son was going astray. It was not, as will be seen, a thing of little consequence. Let's make that a separate chapter.

Chapter 12: Trent.

The day Sofia came to me, surprised. "There's an eight-year-old boy approaching the castle!" she exclaimed. She, in common with most mothers, could tell a child's age and state of health at a glance.

I pulled my nose from the Book of Answers. I had been studying it for five years now, and was beginning to understand its use. It was evident that I had made the original entries and someone else had organized and cross-referenced them. There were so many entries that without such organization the tome would have been useless, but even with them it could be a job to discover exactly what I wanted. Now I could generally get a desired Answer in a few minutes, and with further practice might make that even faster. Much of the time I had simply read through the entries in whatever order they came. What a tremendous amount of information I had acc.u.mulated in those missing twenty-eight years!

"Well, doubtless he has a Question," I said. "There is no age barrier. Let me see what challenges are best."

"You will make a child do the challenges?" she asked, appalled. She was odd in certain ways, but of course that was her Mundane heritage.

"I don't want to be overrun by children any more than I want to be overrun by b.u.mpkins," I said reasonably.

I looked in the book-and was surprised. It said NO CHALLENGES. So I researched for the reason, and it said POLICY. Growing frustrated, as often happened when dealing with this book, I investigated that. BECAUSE QUERENT IS A MAGICIAN.

I stared. Then I looked up at Sofia. "Let him in," I said gruffly. "He's a Magician."

Delighted, she hurried off. Meanwhile, I did further research in the book, but it couldn't tell me what the Magician's talent was. This was because its Answers had all been researched years ago; it was not a predictor of the future. It was attuned to the signals of Magician-cla.s.s magic, because that had always been a prime matter with me, but that was the limit.

I closed the book. A Magician! In all my years of searching, I had found only one Magician before, and now he was the Storm King. The more I saw of the Storm King's reign, the less I liked it; the man was a Magician, true, but an incompetent administrator, and Xanth was sliding back into the Dark Age instead of climbing out of it. We needed a better king: one who would bring vigor back to the throne and who would restore Castle Roogna to prominence. Maybe this boy was that future king.

Soon the lad was ushered into my presence. "Good Magician," Sofia said formally, "this is Trent."

I concealed my excitement, I needed to know a lot more about this boy before I let him know his importance. "A greeting, Trent. Why are you here?"

"I'm a Magician," he said. "I should be king. But Mom says the Storm King will kill me if I go and ask him for the throne."

"She's right," I said.

Sofia made a stifled exclamation. The very notion of harm to a child upset her. "Go fetch this young man a cookie," I said, to get her out of the room for a while. She disappeared.

"But I don't need a cookie," Trent protested. "I can make my own."

"By means of your magic," I said, trying to ascertain what his magic was.

"Sure. Want to see?"

Yes! "If you wish."

He looked around. There was a speck of dust on the table that had somehow managed to escape Sofia's destructive attention, and in that dust was a flea. He pointed to it. "Cookie," he said.

Instantly there was a plant. A fine fresh chocolate chop cookie plant, by the look and smell of it. He had transformed the flea into this. That was certainly Magician-cla.s.s magic, if he could do it across the board.

But it might be illusion. I had to be sure. "May I?" I asked, reaching for a cookie.

"Sure. It's your dust."