Roc and a Hard Place Read online

  “No!” Threnody cried.

  “I think you are unduly hung up on what Metria did four hundred and thirty-eight years ago. You would be better off to forget it, instead of holding an impossible grudge.”

  “No!”

  “Did it ever occur to you that she has a side too?”

  “No.”

  Mentia considered. “Let me offer you a deal. Let's explore the two sides of it, to see which makes more sense.

  Then I will guide you out of the region of madness and leave you alone.”

  Threnody was about to say “no” again, but Jordan cautioned her. When it came to wild action, the barbarian had pretty good sense. So she considered. “Guide us out first.”

  “No. We need the madness for this. But I will give you my word.”

  “Your word was never any good!”

  “On the contrary,” Mentia said evenly. “Metria has always told the truth, and so have I. It is one of our foibles.”

  “That's not true!”

  Jordan nudged her again. Barbarians had solid instincts about such things, and though they could be totally foolish about women, they could generally tell whether other creatures were trustworthy. Since the woman Jordan was foolish about was Threnody, he was reasonably objective about Mentia.

  “Very well,” Threnody said through her teeth. “Two sides. Then you guide us out and leave us alone.”

  'But her mind is closed!' Metria protested. 'She's just using this to get out of accepting the token.’

  'Of course,' Mentia replied sanely. 'But she may change her mind.’

  'She'll never change her mind! She hates me.’

  'This is the Region of Madness, where odd truths come out. I have had experience. Play it through, and perhaps you both will be surprised.’ Metria, amazed by the assurance and sanity of her crazy worser self, which was not at all true to form, subsided. Mentia had access to all her memories and experience, so was competent to do whatever it was she had in mind.

  “First we shall play it through your way,” Mentia said to Threnody. “We shall need Jordan's participation.”

  Jordan jumped. “Mine?”

  “You knew King Gromden, didn't you?”

  “Yes. Just before he died. He was a good old boy.”

  “You will play his part.”

  “I will? I don't know how.”

  “The madness will guide you. Just go along with it.”

  Jordan shrugged, intrigued. “Okay. It'll be fun to be a King.”

  Mentia turned to Threnody. “You will play the Queen's part. You do remember her?”

  “Yes,” Threnody agreed tightly.

  “And I will play the part of the demoness.”

  “You should be very good at that,” Threnody said, with such an edge that Jordan flinched as if he had been cut, though the barb had not been directed at him.

  Mentia ignored the thrust. “Bear in mind that we must all reenact the truth as we perceive it. That is, first as you perceive it, second as I perceive it. We will each be true to the scenario we are playing.”

  Threnody looked sharply at her. “You really believe that something will come of this!”

  “Yes. Shall we proceed?”

  Threnody shrugged.

  “Then I will set the scene,” Mentia said. “It is the year of Xanth six fifty-seven, in the countryside near Castle Roogna. Gromden has been King for thirty four years. He is married, but his wife is cold. It was a marriage made for political reasons. He is a good man—”

  “A very good man,” Threnody said.

  “But fallible, as mortal men are. He is not yet aware of it, but there is something missing from his life. That is joy.”

  As she spoke, Jordan postured, emulating the King, and the madness closed in and gave him the aspect of the King, middling-old, pudgy, yet possessed of authority.

  “One day as Gromden was out reviewing the kingdom, learning how well things were doing by touching stones and posts and other incidental items and using his talent to immediately Fathom Everything about them, he came across a wretched straggler on the road.”

  Now Metria stepped into her part, as the scene of medieval Xanth formed around them. She became the wretched straggler, cloaked and hooded and hunched.

  The King paused in the center of the road. He was a stunningly rich figure, in his quality clothing, compared to the creature before him. “May I help you, good woman?” he inquired, for he was never arrogant.

  The figure looked wearily at him and recognized his status.

  “0, your majesty, don't bother with me,” she said, kneeling and bowing her head. “I am only a mere outcast from my village, in sore need of help and protection, not fit to bother the likes of you.”

  “Come, come, now, my dear,” he said graciously. “I'll be the judge of that. What is your problem?”

  “0 King, my father sought to marry me to the village lout. Rather than suffer that indignity, for I am smart and there are those who call me fair, I fled my otherwise excellent home. But no other family would take me in or give me succor, so I had to depart the village also. It was the same in neighboring villages. No one respects a willful child. Now I am a stranger far from home, who dares not return, and who is grievously weary and footsore from traveling and foraging about the countryside. I wish only to find a compatible place to live, and in due course to find a good man to marry, but in every village it is only the louts who pursue me.”

  “You poor girl,” the King said sympathetically. “Let me get a look at you.” He lifted back her cowl, and lo! she was black of hair and eye and fine of feature, a beautiful young woman. He looked at her body, and now saw that under the rough cloak was the stuff to madden a man's mind: every curve and point of her caused his fancy to see the likeness of storks taking wing as if imperatively summoned. She was indeed the loveliest creature he had ever seen. The seed of his undoing was planted in that moment.

  She lifted her large eyes to glance briefly at his face, then lowered them demurely. “0 King, I am unworthy of your attention. I will depart forthwith, perhaps to sustenance in yonder field. I apologize for soiling your view with my aspect.”

  But the King was generous. “Quite all right, my dear. No need to go to the field. It would have been a shame to see you married to a lout. Far be it from me to see the least of my subjects in dire want. There is a royal station house near the next village which is currently unoccupied. I will install you there until you can find a better situation.”

  Tears of purest gratitude welled in her perfect eyes. “0, how can I ever thank you for this great kindness, your majesty? Never in my wildest and most foolish dreams did I ever imagine that any such thing would come to pass.”

  “Tut, none of that,” he said, and took her by her delicate elbow and guided her to the station house. It was in a sheltered spot just out of sight of the road, and was well appointed, for normally a small detachment of the King's guards occupied it. But in the past decade the need for such activity had diminished, or perhaps the kingship was losing its power. Gromden was a nice man rather than an imperious one, and had little use for guards or, indeed, for force. Thus this was a relic of a more imperial age. “Make yourself comfortable here, and I will check on you next week to be sure you are all right.” He turned to go.

  “Oh, but do not leave me so soon!” she pleaded, touching his arm to turn him back. She breathed deeply as she removed her cloak so that her fine bosom heaved. “I haven't yet thanked you for your extreme kindness to me.”

  “No thanks is necessary,” he said. “I am glad merely to have been able to help.”

  “0 my Lord, but you have done so very much for me,” she said. “If I may presume—“ She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him with surprising firmness on the mouth.

  The King reeled as if clobbered on the noggin—and he had been, in a fashion. He had never before experienced anything half as sweet and potent as this. This girl seemed to be about granddaughterly age, yet there was something compelli
ngly mature about her.

  “0 King, are you dizzy?” she asked, concerned. “Come, lie down for a moment on this bed, and I will do my utmost to care for you. I would never knowingly cause you mischief.”

  King Gromden was indeed dizzy, but not from any incapacity of mind or body. Her kiss had simply been so sweet as to awaken in him all manner of notions that had never gotten close to him before. He suffered himself to be brought to the bed and laid upon it, while his newly discovered fancies danced in circles all around his awareness.

  “Perhaps your clothing is too tight, your majesty,” she said, loosening his collar and then his shirt.

  “Oh, no, no need to—” he protested weakly.

  But she continued, and somehow he discovered himself under a sheet with her, and she had nothing more on than he did. Then did the storks indeed take notice, for soon such a signal went out as no such bird could have ignored. He had been made deliriously happy.

  In the morning, somewhat ashamed for his weakness of the night. King Gromden got up, hastily dressed, and left the lovely girl sleeping in the bed. He had never before done anything like this. He hurried back to Castle Roogna and went about his business with utmost dispatch. He tried to forget the affair.

  But such was the illicit appeal of what had happened that in the evening he found himself walking back to the station house, nominally to see how the girl was doing. Love of her burdened his heart, and he simply could not stay away. Yet when he came to the house, he discovered it empty, with nothing touched. It was as if there had never been a woman there. She was gone.

  Dispirited, he returned to the castle. Every day for a month he went to the house, but it remained devastatingly empty.

  He realized that the girl had had whatever she had wanted of him that one night, and would never return. So he resumed his dull kingly life, trying to forget that single dreamlike night of bliss.

  Unknown to him, a stork visited the mysterious damsel less than a year after their contact. She had hidden herself, but the canny bird had located her regardless, and delivered its bundle.

  Then, when the King was at supper with the Queen and some prominent visitors, the woman appeared, carrying a bundle. “Here is your bastard baby, 0 adulterous King!” she cried, and dumped the bundle in his lap. “And know, 0 simpleton, with what you have sundered your marriage vow.” She flew into the air, dissolved into a cloud of laughing gas, and vanished as all shocked eyes turned to Gromden.

  The laughter echoed for a long time as they stared.

  Thus did the foul demoness befuddle, seduce, and humiliate the decent King. The slow deterioration of his power swiftened, and before long Castle Roogna was like an empty shell. The Queen, of course, would have nothing more to do with him, and he was a laughing-stock throughout Xanth.

  Yet such was his goodness that he made no excuses. He recognized the baby as his own, and set out to raise her as a Princess. Indeed, she became the apple of his eye, the one he loved best, and she loved him. But the Queen, outraged by the situation, finally put a curse on the child: If she remained in Castle Roogna, the castle would fall. So the girl, now about ten years old and as dawningly pretty as her mother had been, fled the castle. She refused to be the undoing of the castle as she had been of her beloved father.

  This broke King Gromden's heart. He banished the Queen and lived alone thereafter, with only a maid to tend to the castle. He searched constantly for his daughter, hoping somehow to get around the curse. But she, being half demoness, readily eluded him, though she loved him. Until, years later, she found love in an entirely different story, died, became a ghost, and was revived about four hundred years later to rejoin her lover. Meanwhile poor King Gromden slowly declined into death, and Castle Roogna was deserted.

  All because of the wicked demoness.

  The reenactment ended. “And I still want nothing to do with you. Mother,” Threnody concluded. “You destroyed my beloved father with the crudest of lies, and I can never forgive that.”

  Jordan was startled. “Metria is your mother? You never told me.”

  “Of course I didn't,” Threnody said, angry tears in her eyes. “I'm ashamed of half my parentage. That half.” She glared at Mentia, trying to get to Metria.

  'See?' Metria said. 'It's hopeless. She will always hate me.’

  “Now we shall have the other view,” Mentia said firmly.

  “Back to square one.”

  “Do we have to?” Threnody grumped through her angry tears.

  “Yes. We made a deal for both views. We shall have them.”

  The scene formed again: King Gromden marching down the road, the cloaked and hooded demoness meeting him.

  The dialogue played out as before, except that the demoness began to be genuinely impressed with the King's manner and goodness of heart. She lacked soul or conscience, yet was curious about the latter, so what had originally been incidental mischief became something else. She saw how lonely the King was beneath his contented exterior, and resolved to give him some reward for it: one night of the kind of joy only a demoness or a really devoted beautiful woman could give a man. She thought he deserved at least that much.

  On the following day he visited her again, so she gave him delight again, for she still respected and liked him, as much as a demoness could. So it continued for some time, in perfect privacy. She was glad at last to have brought joy into his somewhat sterile life. Of course, in time he caught on to her nature, but by then it didn't matter, because he found such delight in her. When, on rare occasion, some mischance threatened to expose their liaisons, she quickly and quietly vanished away, so that there could be no evidence, returning to him only when it was safe. Thus no other person learned of their affair.

  But she made one mistake. She forgot about the stork.

  Normally a demoness prevented the signal from getting out to find the stork, but she was so taken with the nice King that she never even noticed the escaping signal. When she realized, it was too late. Well, she thought, she would just have to find a suitable home for the baby when it came, because a demoness was no fit mother for a human baby.

  For one thing, the baby would probably have a soul, while she didn't.

  When the stork actually brought a beautiful baby girl, the demoness was so taken with her that she almost decided to keep her after all. But she knew that would be folly, and she didn't want her daughter to suffer the neglect that was bound to occur in the company of a demoness. So she did the next best thing: She brought the child to her father the King.

  She did this, of course, in decent privacy, so as to avoid embarrassing him. “0 King, here is your darling daughter,” she informed him, presenting him with the bundle. “I wish I could keep her myself, but I can't, so I trust you to treat her well and give her all the things a precious child needs.'“

  Gromden was amazed. In the typical manner of men, he had assumed that he had gone through the motions but that the summons would not reach the stork. But one look at the baby captivated him, and he was glad to accept her and recognize her as his own. “She will be my heir,” he said, “for I have no children.” This was fond illusion, because only a Magician could be King of Xanth. But her magic talent was as yet unknown, so there was always the chance that she would be a Sorceress. Of course, the kingship was traditionally limited to men, for archaic obsolete reasons, and those were the hardest reasons to refute. And she was half demoness, which would complicate her eligibility further. But Gromden postponed those concerns until later, and meanwhile doted on his daughter.

  “I think I must not visit you anymore,” the demoness said to the King. “For demons are known to be bad influences on children, and your daughter must have only the best influences.”

  Sadly, the King agreed. So they kissed once more and parted. The demoness lacked true human feelings, but a few of them had rubbed off on her during her association with the King, and so it would be fair to say she emulated a feeling or two in that time. She would have liked to continue with the
King, and did visit her daughter a number of times, taking care never to make her presence known. Thus she was aware of what was going on in Castle Roogna, though she did not interfere.

  Gromden named his daughter Threnody, because soon her talent of sad singing showed. He provided every possible thing for her, including tutoring, playmates, and every kind of pastry and pie. She had a nursemaid to look after her. But he could not provide her with a mother, the Queen took an interest. She was, of course, resentful of the presence of the child, because the child was evidence of the King's infidelity. The Queen had no interest in that I sort of relationship with the King, but it was embarrassing to have it generally known that he had found a relationship elsewhere. But for a time she masked her enmity, and Gromden, assuming that others had the same generosity of spirit that he did, did not realize how bitter she was. The Queen took a hand in educating the child. “The first thing you must understand,” she told little Threnody, “is the foulness of your origin. Your father was cruelly seduced by a hideous demoness who somehow made him think she was beautiful. Then she embarrassed him in public by bringing you, so that everyone would know his folly.” And the child believed it. “But don't speak of this to your father,” the Queen continued, “for he has already suffered more than enough, and it would hurt him to be reminded of it.” So the child was careful never to reveal what she had learned to Gromden.

  But as the years passed. Threnody showed distinct signs of becoming beautiful. Indeed, she was the juvenile image of the form her mother had assumed to seduce the King.

  Gromden, of course, treated her exactly the way a father should treat a daughter, not quite realizing the significance of her image. But the Queen couldn't stand it. So finally she acted. She put a terrible curse on the child, forcing her to depart the castle forever. When the King discovered this, he banished the Queen also. But the damage was done.

  The vision ended. Gromden reverted to Jordan, the Queen reverted to Threnody, and the beautiful child reverted to little Woe Betide, who then became Mentia.