He came down on the outskirts of the enchanted forest. He had spent a lot of time and thought on this, and Supply had been pretty good about getting him what he wanted.
He stood at the edge of his forest, peering in. It was green and bosky, just as a forest should be. Azzie advanced into it. No sooner was he within the green confines than the trees began to move, and their limbs swung down slowly to grasp and seize him. Azzie eluded them with ease. The forest hadn’t really received its full complement of fabulous animals and other strange creatures. And the branches moved so slowly that even a dimwit like Charming could avoid them without difficulty. Damn it, he thought, why was Supply holding out on him?
Angry, he flew back to Augsburg to see how Frike was proceeding with the training. He found his servant sitting on the front stoop eating an apple.
“What’s the matter?” Azzie said. “Why aren’t you exercising him?”
Frike shrugged. “He said he’d had enough. He said that he had decided to take a vow not to kill any living thing. Would you believe it, he’s turned vegetarian and is considering joining a monastic order.”
“Now that is entirely too much,” Azzie said.
“Agreed, sire,” Frike said. “But what can you do about it?”
“I need some expert advice on this one,” Azzie said. “Go prepare my magic powders and the Amulet of Expedition. It’s time for me to do some conjuring.”
Chapter 5
At first Azzie thought his spells weren’t working because Hermes didn’t appear no matter what he did. He tried again, with the big candles made from dead-man’s wax that he saved for really difficult occasions. This time he could feel the spell working. He projected power into it and felt it racing through the aether, spinning through the crack between the worlds, nosing around like a questing bird dog. Then Azzie heard a grumpy voice saying, “All right, I’m awake now.” And a few moments after that, the heroic marble-white body of Hermes appeared before him. The god was still combing his long brown hair, and he seemed more than a little annoyed.
“My dear Azzie, you should know better than to use a peremptory spell to call me like that. We spirit-advisers have our personal lives, too, you know. It’s not nice to have to drop everything and get conjured up by some young demon like yourself.”
“I am sorry,” Azzie said. “But you’ve been so generous to me in the past . . . and my problem now is very dire.”
“Well, let’s hear it,” Hermes said. “I don’t suppose you have a glass of ichor around.”
“Of course I do,” Azzie said. He poured the ichor into a goblet carved from a single amethyst. While Hermes sipped at it Azzie explained his difficulty with Prince Charming.
“Let me see. . . .” Hermes said. “Yes, I remember some old writings on the subject. What your Prince Charming is doing is known classically as the Hero Refusing the Quest.”
“I didn’t know heroes could do that,” Azzie said.
“Oh, yes. It’s quite common. Do you know anything about your hero’s family?”
“He doesn’t have any family!” Azzie said. “I created him all by myself!”
“Yes, I know you did,” Hermes said. “But recall what we learned of his legs. All his body parts have remembrances, especially the heart.”
“He has a coward’s heart,” Azzie admitted. “I never looked into the rest of the family.”
“I’ll check it out for you,” Hermes said. He vanished, not in a cloud of smoke as common demons vanish, but in a great flash of fire. Azzie admired the exit. It was something he would really like to learn.
Soon Hermes returned. “It is as I suspected. Your cadaver with the coward’s heart was the middle of three sons.”
“So? What does that mean?”
“In the Old Lore, the middle son is usually the worthless one. The eldest son inherits the kingdom. In the ordinary course of things, the youngest son goes out on the quest and wins a kingdom. The middle son just hangs around and never does much. It’s nature’s way of balancing the qualities.”