Man From Mundania by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online Page A

would not be
    easy for her either. So she knew that nothing might be as
    it seemed, and she had to question everything. Something
    wanted her to believe this was Mundania, but that business
    about the language had given it away. She had known it
     
    was really Xanth.
     
    Then the language had stopped. Was this another trick,
     
    to deceive her by patching up the prior oversight? Grey
    had seemed genuinely confused—but again, if he was set
    up to play a part, he might really believe this was Mun-
    dania. She had tested him by trying to use her talent to
    enhance him, so that he would become more obviously
    whatever he was and show his real nature; but there hadn't
    seemed to be any effect. In fact, her magic seemed inop-
    erative. Even her magic mirror didn't work; it just showed
    her reflection, her hair so pale that no one would know it
     
    •*£.
     
    was supposed to have a green hue. It would be easy to
    believe this really was Mundania, except for the language.
     
    Then she had seen Com-Pewter. Suddenly things had
    fallen into place! Obviously Pewter couldn't operate in
    Mundania, because only magic animated him. The strang-
    est thing, though, was the fact that Grey could turn Pewter
    off. That meant that Grey had power over Pewter, and that
    was mind-boggling.
     
    Then she had learned how Grey saw it—that a magic
    disk had come in to animate Pewter—and realized that this
    might actually be Mundania. After all, some bits of magic
    did operate in Mundania, such as rainbows, and Centaur
    Amolde had been able to carry an aisle of magic there.
    Maybe that disk had come from Xanth, sent by Com-
    Pewter, and made the Mundane machine turn magic. Then
    it had used its magic to enable Ivy to talk clearly in Mun-
    dania, or to make Mundane speech intelligible to her, or
    both. When it had been shut off, that had stopped, and the
    full reality of drear Mundania had manifested.
     
    That seemed to make more sense than anything else.
    But Grey had not changed at all when the machine was
    off; he was independent of it and seemed just as confused
    as she had been. So maybe it was foolish, but she believed
    that Grey really was what he seemed to be: a nice young
    man.
     
    But there had been any number of nice men, not all of
    them young, who had played up to her in Xanth. She knew
    why: because she was a princess. Any man would like to
    marry a princess, even if she never got to be King of
    Xanth. So she had never trusted that. She had wanted,
    perhaps foolishly, to be liked for herself alone, not for her
    position or her Sorceress magic or the power of her father.
    Thus her romantic life had been scant, in sharp contrast
    to that of her little brother. She liked Nada so well that
    she had entertained more than a whimsical notion of pay-
    ing a call on Nada's big brother, Naldo, who was surely a
    fine figure of a prince. But if Dolph married Nada when
    he came of age, it would not be expedient for her to marry
    Nada's brother, so she had not followed up on that.
     
    Now, suddenly, she had discovered that Grey really did
     
     
     
     
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    Man from Mundania
     
    Man from Mundania
     
    39
     
    like her for herself, because he thought her magic and her
    position were part of a delusion. Thus everything she had
    told him had counted against her, in Grey's estimation—
    yet he obviously liked her very well. Her mother, Irene,
    had long since taught her the signals of male interest and
    deception. Her mother really did not quite trust men; her
    dictum was "Never let a man get the upper hand—there's
    no telling where he might put it." Ivy had known that
    from the time she was two, and kept it in mind. But poor
    Grey obviously had no notion of upper hands; he couldn't
    say anything to a girl without somehow bumbling it. That
    was one of his endearing qualities.
     
    Now Grey had beaten a confused retreat, and she had
    to decide what to do. If this really was Mundania, with
    no magic except for that Com-Pewter extension,