Question Quest by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online

nearby and some milkweeds. I brought an armful of pies and pods back.
    The unicorn had climbed to its feet and was grazing. She had the sense to keep weight off her hurt leg, and seemed to be managing well enough on three hoofs. The girl was now sitting with her back to an ironwood tree, trying to brush herself off. She had ratty brown hair and eyes to match, but a slender waist and quite full hips. She wore shorts under her skirt; even so her legs were impressive. She was probably a couple of years older than I, and looked five years older.
    Not that it mattered. I was only just recently noticing such features in girls, and wasn't sure that the new perspective quite compensated for their bossiness. Anyway, girls only laughed at me, if they noticed me at all. So I might as well ignore them back.
    I brought my armful and set it down before her.
    “Oooo, wonderful!” she exclaimed, delighted. “This is just perfect!”
    Foolishly numbed by this unexpected praise, I said nothing.
    “Sit down,” she urged. “We must eat this before it spoils.”
    Why was I so glad to comply?
    She started in. The girl had the ability of her kind to eat and talk simultaneously. “We've never been introduced,” she said somehow while chewing a chunk of cherry pie. "My name is MareAnn. My talent is summoning equines and making them mind. What's your name and talent?''
    “I'm Humfrey. I—I don't seem to have a talent.”
    “You mean you haven't discovered it yet?”
    “That must be what I mean." No one had to have a magic talent, but the great majority of folk did, and I felt somewhat out of sorts.
    “Well, it will surely turn up. I'm fifteen. How old are you?”
    I gaped. “You're that young?”
    “Of course I am! What about you?”
    “I'm—I'm fifteen too.”
    She glanced hard at me. “You're that old?”
    “Of course I am,” I echoed weakly in the face of her disbelief.
    “Oh, you're a gnome,” she said.
    “No, I'm human. Just gnomelike.”
    “Oh. I'm sorry.” But she didn't seem sorry, she seemed doubtful. She didn't want to question my word, so she was stuck in an awkward mode. I understood exactly how it was.
    After a bit, she looked around. “Is there any water near here? I mean a lake or river, so we can clean up? You have dirt on you, and I must be a total sight.”
    “I passed a river a way back. But you wouldn't want to clean up with me there.”
    “Of course I would!” she said in her emphatic female way. "Or have I delayed your schedule too much already?''
    “Schedule?”
    "You are going somewhere, aren't you? And you'd be just about there now, if it wasn't for me and Horn-tense?”
    "Oh. No. I was just going away from the Gap Village, nowhere in particular.”
    “The what village?”
    “The Gap. You know, the chasm.”
    “No, I don't know! What chasm?”
    Then I remembered: there was a Forget Spell on the Gap Chasm. I lived right beside it, so was immune, or so I then believed, but she was from elsewhere, so hadn't heard of it or had forgotten it if she had. That was the nature of the ancient spell. It was pointless to tell her much about it, because she would only forget it again. “Just a big crevice. It doesn't matter. My village doesn't matter either. It's just sort of there. I want to go somewhere more interesting.”
    “Well, where I came from is just as dull! Our village in on the bank of the Sane Jaunts River, and the only interesting things there are the dragons, and they're dangerous. Don't I know! That flying dragon almost got us. I thought we were beyond their territory, and relaxed, but evidently not.”
    “Nowhere in Xanth is beyond their territory,” I said. “I thought maybe there would be fewer of them the way I was going.”
    “Are you kidding? It's Dragons Galore country!”
    I was dismayed. “I guess I'm going the wrong way, then.”
    “Well, then, turn about and go with me. I'm not going anywhere either, just away from home.”
    “You want to travel with me?” I asked