Read Online Castle Roogna by Piers Anthony - Free Book Online Page B

happening," she continued. "I had been pretty naive, there on my isolated island, but I was learning. I really didn't want to be that way. So I remembered what Humfrey had said about Mundania, where magic doesn't ever work-that certainly must be a potent counterspell laid on that land!-and I went there. And he was right. I was a normal girl. I had thought I could never stand to leave there, but the Time of No Magic showed me that maybe I could stand it after all. And when I tried, I could.
           It was sort of strange and fun, not nearly as bad as I had feared. People accepted me, and men-do you know I'd never kissed a man in Xanth?"
           Dor was ashamed to comment He had never kissed a woman other than his mother, who of course didn't count. He thought fleetingly of Millie. If-
           "But after a while I began to miss Xanth," the gorgon continued. "The magic, the special creatures-do you know I even got to miss the tangle trees? When you're born to magic you can't just set it aside; it is part of your being. So I had to come back. But that meant-you know, more statues. So I went to Humfrey's castle. By that time I knew he was the Good Magician-he never told me that when we met!-and that he wasn't all that approachable, and I got girlishly nervous. I knew that if I wanted to be with a man in Xanth, I mean man-to-woman, it would have to be one like him. Who had the power to neutralize my talent. The more I thought about it-well, here I am."
           "Didn't you have trouble getting into the castle?"
           "Oh, yes! It was awful. There was this foghorn guarding the moat, and I found this little boat there, but every time I tried to cross that horn blasted out such columns of fog that I couldn't see or hear anything, and the boat always turned around and came back to shore. It was a magic boat, you see; you had to steer it or it went right back to its dock. I got all covered in fog, and my hair was hissing something awful; it doesn't like that sort of thing."
           Her hair, of course, consisted of myriad tiny snakes or eels. They were rather cute, now that he was getting used to the style. "How did you get across the moat, then?"
           "I finally got smart. I steered the boat directly toward the foghorn, no matter how bad the fog got. It was like swimming through a waterfall! When I reached the horn-I was across. Because it was inside, not outside."
           "Oops-the gnome cometh," Grundy said.
           "Oh, I must get back to work!" the gorgon said, hastily tripping out of the room. "I was in the middle of the laundry when you arrived; he uses more socks!" She was gone.
           "Gnomes do have big dirty feet," Grundy remarked. "sort of like goblins, in that respect."
           The Good Magician Humfrey walked in. He was, indeed, gnomelike, old and gnarled and small. His feet were big and bare and, yes, dirty. "There's not a clean pair of socks in the whole castle!" he grumped. "Girl, haven't you done that laundry yet? I asked for it an hour ago!"
           "Uh, Good Magician-" Dor said, moving toward him,
           "It isn't as if socks are that complicated to wash," Humfrey continued irritably. "I've shown her the cleaning spell." He looked around. "Where is that girl? Does she think the whole Land of Xanth is made of stone, merely waiting on her convenience?"
           "Uh, Good Magician Humfrey," Dor said, trying again. "I have come to ask-"
           "I can't stand another minute without my socks!" Humfrey said, sitting down on the step. "I'm no barefoot boy any more, and even when I was, I always wore shoes. I spilled an itching-powder formula here once, and it gets between my toes. If that fool girl doesn't-"
           "Hey, old gnome!" Grundy bawled deafeningly. Humfrey glanced at him in an offhand way. "Oh, hello, Grundy. What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you how to become real?"
           "I am real,