Read Online Question Quest by Piers Anthony - Free Book Online Page B

in a strange village alone for fear that some man might get the notion she was marriageable.
    “To be sure,” the King agreed. His gentle gaze returned to me. “As it happens, I have need of a surveyor.”
    “You mean, to find out things about people?” I asked, hardly believing my luck.
    “Yes. That is why I asked the werehouse to bring in good prospects. Your talent of curiosity is a good recommendation, and your wife's talent complements it nicely.”
    “Oh, she's not my wife!” I said, surprised.
    “Not yet,” MareAnn said quickly. She was not about to let a good job slip away on a technicality or to let strangers think, she was unattached. I might have objected, but found I had nothing to which to object. The thought of spending more time with her appealed, even if it did seem likely to compromise her innocence.
    In this manner I became the Royal Surveyor. It was to be a more significant position than I realized at first.
    It was an excellent job. MareAnn summoned winged horses for us to ride, and that was a marvelous experience in itself. We flew up high above the South Village, and the villagers gaped, thinking I must be a Magician to compel the service of a woman who had such power. MareAnn, for her own reason, did not discourage this impression; she wanted folk to believe that I had powerful magic. I didn't like this seeming misrepresentation, for honesty still seemed to me to be the best policy, but she pointed out that I was not being dishonest, I was merely being polite by failing to disabuse others of their errors. So we compromised: if anyone asked, I replied that I was no Magician. If anyone didn't ask, I didn't volunteer the information. It was much the same with respect to our mutual status as nonmembers of the Adult Conspiracy.
    I spent some private time pondering the shades-of-gray ethics involved, and concluded that it was not properly my business what others thought. If there was a foible, such as in the manner a village girl made herself seem beautiful by applying charcoal to her eyebrows and redberry juice to her lips, it was not my place to expose it unless I was specifically asked. It was best to leave folk with their illusions, of whatever nature, especially if I wanted to get along with them. This developing attitude of mine stood me in excellent stead in the course of my work, because I needed the cooperation of all whom I encountered.
    My job was to survey all the human folk of Xanth and to compile a list of their magic talents. The King was especially interested in the more powerful talents; in fact he hoped to turn up some Magician-caliber talents in young folk who might be potential kings, since only a Magician could be king. At present none was known, and Ebnez was getting old. He was sixty-six and not in perfect health. I offered him some of the healing elixir I had, but he declined; he did not trust drugs. I disagreed, believing that anything beneficial should be used, but it was not my place to argue with a King. So I concentrated on doing my job, and kept my opinion to myself. That, too, was an excellent discipline.
    I started with the southern tip of Xanth and worked my way north. There were not a great many people in the peninsula, but they were scattered across it and were hidden in glades and crannies, so it was slow work. I knew that if I missed even one, that one might turn out to be the Magician Ebnez was looking for, and so I would have failed the major purpose of my survey. So I didn't expect it to be easy, but it turned out to be more difficult in several ways than I had anticipated. Let me describe the first example of many.
    We flew down past the dread region of madness, and I shivered to think that I would have to survey that too, in due course. We passed Lake Ogre-Chobee, as wide and shallow as an ogre's mind, and Mount Rushmost where the winged monsters gathered. Then on past Mount Parnassus where the fabulous Tree of Seeds grew. There I had my second qualm: would I