by Sholio
With the Storm King's army on his heels, the man who would be King went to ground in a crumbling castle by the River Lethe. No one remembered when the castle had been built, or why, or by whom. Every land is filled with monuments to long-forgotten kings and empires. All that was left of it now was the outline of a grid plan, faintly visible beneath the jungle overgrowth, and a few vine-draped walls.
The Pretender King holed up between two of those intact walls. With a few modifications to his hideout, he made sure that there was only one way in or out -- besides swimming the River Lethe, which would have been pointless for either him or them, for they would have remembered nothing when they stepped out.
The Storm King's entire army was camped between him and freedom; well, that part of the army that wasn't still rounding up his few remaining allies. They could not have trapped him more neatly if they had picked the spot. However, when they went in to retrieve him, they began to realize why he'd trapped himself as he had.
There was only one approach to the usurper's hideout and the narrow walls made it necessary for the soldiers to enter single file. As soon as they rounded the final corner, they came within range of his magic, and he turned them into fish and threw them in the river.
After losing a few men this way, they regrouped and tried to figure out what to do.
"I don't want him killed," said Roland. "Not unless it's necessary to save your life or someone else's. This rebellion is a miserable mess, but so far he has not killed a single person. We shouldn't do less. We are more honorable than he is, after all."
Roland was twenty-nine years old. He never should have been in charge of the Storm King's armies, but every senior officer was currently hopping or wriggling or, in some cases, burrowing about in the forest. The usurper had gone after the higher-ranking men in the army whenever possible.
Not a bad strategy, Roland thought. Not a bad strategy at all. He hadn't had a decent sleep in days and the unaccustomed strain of command was wearing him down until he felt as dull and unpolished as his boots had become.
A corporal came to tell him that the Storm King had arrived, but Roland didn't need to be told. He could hear his monarch blustering on the other side of the encampment, near the walls where the pretender had hidden himself.
Oh, no. He wouldn't --
Roland raced out of his hastily constructed command tent, half-expecting his king to be a toad by the time he got there. But he saw, with relief, that the Storm King had the common sense to stop outside the pretender's enclosure. The monarch stood in the mud, flanked by nervous aides, staring up at the tangle of ivy and old stone.
"Trent!" he bellowed. "You're under arrest by order of your King. Come out and we'll be merciful!"
Behind the walls, the pretender smiled. "Oh, shut up," he called back across the wall. "You old windbag."
Another soldier, perhaps thinking him distracted, started to leap around the corner. Trent merely looked at him and the soldier became a blue-spotted salmon and dropped to the ground with a wet plop. Trent grabbed the salmon and tossed it over his shoulder. He heard a splash behind him as it hit the water.
"You are addressing your monarch, sir!"
"Oh, I know who I'm addressing," Trent said, with a cheerfulness he did not entirely feel. "They say there's no fool like an old fool. Why don't you blow up a storm and drown me? Oh, wait, I forgot. You can't control your magic any more. You'd be as likely to blow away your army as me."
For several minutes there was no sound from beyond the wall. He hoped the old man wasn't egotistical enough to try it anyway. Then the King said, "You have condemned yourself by your actions, sir! Your sentence is death -- death in the world beyond, the world of the Mundanes."
Exile, without benefit of trial, without a chance to speak on his own behalf. He'd expected it. "First you have to catch me, though," Trent said.
Another soldier tried to enter, with the predictable result. This time, though, the man withdrew so quickly that inertia carried him, in fish-form, beyond Trent's reach. Trent could hear him flopping pathetically just around the corner. No one came to help.
Trent gritted his teeth. It would be just like the Storm King to let one of his own men die and blame it on Trent. He was not a murderer and did not intend to become one. He reached for a shrinking violet cringing in the shade, which became, as his hand touched it, a hookworm. He used the hook to snag the fish by the tail and drag it within reach. "Sorry," he said, freeing the hook from its tail and throwing it into the river.
A flutter of wings over his head made him look up, half-expecting some new trick, but it was a small falcon and he smiled when he saw it. The falcon spiraled down to land at his feet. Trent moved his hand slightly and it became a naked young woman.
"What are they doing?" he asked her.
She shook her head, glossy black hair falling in her eyes. "Nothing at the moment. They've captured Dorf and took him to North Village. I heard them talking about it. Their new commander is named Roland. He's very young and --"
"I know him," Trent said. "I regret that we are on different sides in this conflict. I think he could have been a great help to us."
Her eyes darkened and she stood, a magnificent figure of female beauty, naked and unashamed.
"Us?" she said. "What 'us' is there anymore, Trent? Dorf was the last; there's just you and me now. All the others who claimed to follow you have sworn allegiance to the Storm King."
"It's amazing how the threat of exile will change a man's mind," Trent said, smiling faintly.
"We must rescue Dorf," the woman said.
"We'll do nothing of the kind, Portia."
"What? We can't leave him to them!"
"They won't hurt him," Trent said. "At worst, absolute worst, they'll send him through the Shield into Mundania; but I don't think it'll come to that. He'll renounce us and they'll send him back to the wilderness to cultivate eyeball plants or something."
Portia spun on him, her black hair swinging around her. "It doesn't matter what they do to him! We all took an oath, to help each other if any of us were in peril. You promised us all. If any were taken, we'd do everything in our power to free them!"
"Nothing's in our power right now," Trent said. "If we try, we'll only let ourselves be taken, too. We have to hide for a while, until things calm down a little bit. Then we can start to build ourselves a power base again."
"But what about Dorf? What about all the rest of us?"
"At the moment, that consists of you and me," Trent said. "And I need to think, and I need you to keep lookout for me. Tell me if they try anything to flush me out -- fires, poison gas, that sort of thing."
"I will not," Portia said coldly. "I followed you because I thought you were different. I thought you'd be a better monarch than the Storm King. I was wrong. A king does not abandon his subjects."
"Don't lecture me, Portia. We all knew the risks."
"Yes, but we all believed someone would be standing behind us if we fell to them! All you are is a -- a wannabe petty dic--"
She gasped as she fell and hit the dirt, landing on all four feet, as cats always do.
Trent looked down at the small, furiously hissing feline. "Congratulations, my dear. You are the first cat Xanth has seen in many years. How does it feel to belong to an extinct species?"
The cat bristled and fled from the enclosure.
Trent regretted transforming her immediately. He always did regret letting his temper get the better of him, for it didn't happen often. He had used her, and he did feel guilty for it, and for abandoning Dorf. But they'd all known that they were fighting for a cause greater than any of themselves: the throne of Xanth. He'd only been trying to be realistic.
This was an extremely bad time to alienate Portia, however. All his escape plans had depended on having someone else nearby, someone loyal that he could transform, for he could not change himself.
Surely she would come back.
Trent looked up at the sky. What would the Storm King's next move be? He couldn't use his magic without pulling back his men, which would give Trent an opportunity to escape. Even if he did, Trent could easily change some of the plants around himself to wallflowers and build a shelter from even the worst storm.
Fire was another possibility, but the smoke and confusion would give Trent an even better chance to get away. Could they attack from above? He looked up again. The Storm King had a stable of griffins, and it was possible that they might try an aerial assault. But he could counter that easily.
He was reasonably safe here, at least for now. But he had to get away. He needed Portia, darn it!
Outside, what was left of the Storm King's senior staff conferred quietly on the grass. Roland sat without speaking and tried to look intelligent. Most of the other men were thirty years his senior, contemporaries of the Storm King who had risen along with their monarch.
Something brushed his leg. He looked down and blinked at the sight of a small black feline rubbing on his ankle.
"We could send the boy -- the captain," one of the advisors said, and Roland realized they were talking about him.
"Sir?" he managed.
"Your talent is the stun, isn't it ... captain?"
Roland nodded. He could stun anyone or anything by looking into its eyes. But in order to do that, he had to get close enough to see Trent's eyes -- and at the moment, that was impossible.
The cat rubbed on his ankle and began to purr. Roland tried to figure out what it was. It didn't look like a catastrophe -- although this situation had certainly become one -- and it surely wasn't a catapult, though that might be useful to have. He didn't think it was a catalyst or a cation--
"Captain!"
"Yes, sir!"
"It's agreed, then," the Storm King said. "You will speak to the usurper and try to get him into a position where you can use your magic on him. Just be careful to stay out of range of his."
"I -- how do I do that, Your Majesty?"
The Storm King waved a hand. "I don't know. Talk to him. Tell him anything. Convince him that you're joining his side. Then stun him."
"Your Majesty, I -- That doesn't seem right, my king. I won't lie."
"Captain. I don't care how you do it. You have your orders."
Roland blinked. "Yes ... sir. Could I have a few minutes first, please, Your Majesty? There are a few things I need to do."
He went miserably back towards his command tent. He'd have to write a letter to Bianca explaining why he wouldn't be home tonight. But how did you tell your wife you'd been turned into a fish?
If he came through this -- if somehow he was still human tomorrow -- he would resign. He would have done it now, but he could not bring himself to desert his duty, to abandon men who were counting on him. But when the threat to Xanth was gone, he only wanted to go back to North Village, to his wife and infant son, and live a quiet life. A life that did not force a man to choose between duty and ethics.
The tickling on his ankle made him look down again. The cat was still there, twining about his leg and curling its tail into a shape like a question mark. It had blue eyes. Weren't cats supposed to have green eyes?
But it couldn't be a cat, not a true cat. They were extinct. Roland ran through more of his mental list of semi-felines: too small to be a catafalque, definitely not a catarrh, not a catamaran, not a--
He stopped in his tracks, almost tripping over the cat. For cat it surely was...
Maybe an enchanted cat...
Roland knelt down. "Did the Magician Trent transform you?" he asked the cat.
The creature went into a little dance of joy; it even flipped end-over-end, purring all the while.
"Who are you? One of our men?"
The cat hesitated, and miaowed quizzically.
"Does that mean no? Um ... how about twice for no and once for yes?"
The cat miaowed.
"Are you one of our men?"
It miaowed twice. No.
"Are you one of Trent's men?"
It hesitated briefly, and miaowed three times.
"I guess that means 'none of the above'."
Miaow. Yes.
"Were you one of Trent's men?"
Yes.
"But not any more?"
Yes.
"Because he did this to you?"
Yes... then a pause, and three miaows.
"Did you change your answer ... or does that mean both? Kind of yes? Sorry, I guess that's not really a yes-or-no question." Roland glanced around to see if any of his men had noticed him having a conversion with a cat -- a real cat! No one was nearby.
"Did you come here to help us, cat?"
Yes.
"Good," Roland said. "We need all the help we can get."
He walked to his tent, with the cat curling happily around his ankles. Roland fumbled through his belongings for a sugar beet, and spilled the sugar across the table where his predecessors once spread out maps for their campaigns.
"I need more than yes or no answers," he said. "You can write in this, if you know how to write. What's your name?"
The cat jumped up on the table and moved its paw carefully through the sugar: Portia.
"Portia? Who are you? Did you work with Trent?"
She wrote, carefully, letter by letter: Once. Not any more.
"He betrayed you?"
Yes. But he still trusts me.
"Oh?" Roland said.
I want to help you.
"How?"
I can pretend, the cat wrote, and erased the words with her tail to make room for new ones. Tell me what to do. Erase, erase. We can fool him.
"No," Roland said. "I'm sorry, Portia; I can't do that. I can't win that way."
Her tail swished. You refuse?
"I would like your help, but I can't win by deceiving my enemy. That would make me like him."
The cat looked up at him with deep blue eyes; he thought that she would have wept, if cats could weep.
I thought, she wrote carefully, that he was different. Erase, erase. I wish I had followed you instead.
Roland's heart twisted. "No, you don't understand. I follow a man whose policies I -- do not believe in." He had never spoken so freely before. "I must do as my king commands. This is my duty. But sometimes I wish I could follow my heart, instead of my duty."
Trent tricked me.
"I'm sorry that he did."
He broke his promises.
"That is no cause for us to break ours."
My talent is to cause--
Roland stopped her paw, as she wrote. "I don't need to know. I can't do what you want me to, Portia. And I can't do as my king commands, even though -- even though I must -- obey him. I'm sorry."
Portia arched her furry back.
I will still help you, Roland. Erase, erase. You are a good man. Erase, erase. You must win.
"No!" Roland said. "Don't! Portia!"
She leapt from the table. Roland made a grab for her, but she slipped through his arms. He stood in the door opening of the tent, and looked for her, but she had vanished with cats' innate magic into the forest.
Roland went back into the tent. Portia's sudden exit had scattered some of the sugar, but he could still read the last words she had written: You must win.
"Not like that," Roland said aloud.
No soldiers had come through the gap in a while and that concerned Trent -- partly because it meant they were probably working on some kind of plan, and party because long periods of inactivity dulled the brain. He knew that all it would take was a moment's inattention at the wrong time.
He did not intend to lose.
He'd passed some of the time fortifying his enclosure as best he could. Now he had traps woven of string beans running back and forth across the entrance; he had a cherry bomb tree near at hand; he had transplanted several small shrubs near the entrance, ready to transform them into whatever he needed.
Trent was tired. He had never yet run up against the limits of his magic, but he had a feeling that he might be getting close. Transforming one creature felt effortless, but he couldn't transform things all day without the work taking a toll; just as it was easy to take one step, or five, but not to walk twenty miles.
He had to get out of here. Portia had not come back, so it seemed he was on his own. Trent once again cursed his rare burst of temper.
"Trent?"
A soft voice from beyond the wall. Trent readied himself, half a dozen lethal shapes in mind for the violets and snapdragons growing among the crumbling stones. His hand touched his sword; if it came to it, he was prepared to defend himself with steel.
"Trent? Are you there?"
Trent recognized the voice then, but he didn't relax. "Oh, hello, Roland. Or should I say Captain?"
"I've come to talk, Trent."
"To try to capture me, you mean."
There was a long silence on the other side of the wall.
"Yes," Roland said.
"So I had assumed," Trent said. "You stun, isn't that right? With your eyes?"
"Yes."
Trent rose into a crouch. "And what's your plan, Roland?"
"I don't have one."
"Yes, I believe that."
"No, I really don't," Roland said. "I only want to tell you the truth. Listen to me. You're alone. We have an army. You're trapped in here without food and water, except what you can conjure. We can supply ourselves indefinitely. You'll lose, Trent. Badly. You can surrender with honor."
"What then, Roland? Exile in Mundania, the throne of Xanth forever denied me? I don't think so."
Roland was silent.
"You're not very good at negotiating," Trent said.
"I'm new at this," Roland admitted.
"Why did they send you?"
"My king ordered me to come speak to you," Roland said.
"That's not an answer," Trent said.
"Look," Roland said. "I was ordered to--" A long silence, through which Trent waited. "I was ordered to talk to you. Get you to trust me. Stun you."
Trent hesitated. "Man, if you think you're bad at negotiating -- you're really bad at deception, you know that?"
"I never want to be good at it," Roland said wholeheartedly.
"It's hard to believe you're older than me," Trent said. "Tell me, you have a wife? Kids?"
"A wife," Roland said. "A son. Bink is his name."
"That's good. Take care of your kids, Roland. They will not do well under your Storm King and his policies."
"Or yours?"
"I would be a better king," Trent said, smiling to himself.
"I don't know," Roland said. "As I understand it, you betray your comrades when it suits you."
Trent gritted his teeth. "Only when I have to! Don't twist it around to suit yourself!"
"What kind of monarch would you be," Roland said quietly, "if you do not keep your word? If you let your subjects die to preserve your position? Even the Storm King does not do that."
Trent resettled himself in his makeshift enclosure.
"Shut up and go away, Roland. You have failed." He looked up at a soft sound above him, and saw a familiar shape against the sky, crouched on top of one of the walls.
"Portia?" he said softly.
"Trent?" Roland said, outside the walls.
"Go away," Trent said, and reached out a hand to Portia. She came, purring, to greet him. She came back. In spite of all I've done. Surely I am doing right, then...
He changed her into her natural form and Portia crouched, hiding her face in the dark curtain of her hair.
"Portia. I'm sorry. I let temper get the better of me; I won't do it again, Portia--"
"Trent," Portia said.
She raised her face.
"Trent, you promised to never transform me without my permission."
"I didn't mean to," Trent said. "I--"
"Trent!" Portia stood, her hair falling about her pale body. "You've forgotten your greatest obligation, something even the Storm King remembers from time to time -- that your powers give you a responsibility -- to never use them in anger, to never abuse your power over other people."
"Please..." Trent whispered.
Roland heard soft rustlings on the other side of the wall, and imagined Portia in her human form approaching Trent. He went through a brief, violent internal conflict, and then he cried, "Trent! Listen to me! Don't trust her! She's-- she's going to betray you."
There was no sound from the other side of the wall. Then he heard Portia say quietly, "Soldier?"
Roland hated to answer. He said, "Yes?"
"He is yours," Portia said. "You may walk into this room. You're in no danger. I've taken down his traps."
Roland stood up slowly. "Maybe this is all a trick. Maybe you're working together. How can I trust you?"
The vines parted and a glorious naked woman stepped forth. "Roland? I am Portia. Thank you for trusting and believing me when I was a cat. Trent lies within, asleep. I used my talent on him. He'll sleep for hours. You may summon some of your soldiers and they will go in before you, if you don't believe me."
Roland was stung. "I don't lead anyone to anyplace I wouldn't go myself," he snapped, and stepped quickly through the vine curtain. A look around the grotto found only Trent, lying on the moss, asleep.
"He will sleep for six hours or so," Portia said.
"You betrayed him."
"I did what I had to do." She looked searchingly into his face. "Sometimes no one else will do it."
"Can you wake him up?"
"No. That is not part of my talent. But you should summon your soldiers. They will probably give you a medal for this."
"I wouldn't accept it," Roland said. "I don't want to win like this."
Portia reached out and touched his cheek. "I know. You're a good man. An honorable man. The sort of man I thought Trent was -- or hoped he could become. I knew you would never do what your king ordered you to do, and that's why I did it for you."
"You shouldn't have."
Portia shook her head. "Someone had to. You wouldn't. Now you must stun me, Captain."
"What?"
"Stun me," Portia said. "I am a traitor, after all, aren't I?"
"If you come willingly, I'm sure my king will hear your case. You helped capture Trent, after all...."
"No, you must send me with him. Into Mundania."
Roland could only stare. "What?" he said again.
"I'm part of his rebellion. You know that. Isn't exile the penalty for treason?"
"We -- we're offering amnesty," Roland said. "If you renounce him--"
"Would you renounce your king?"
Roland thought of the Storm King, of his own shame and resentment, and said quietly, "No."
"Neither would I. I don't agree with him." Portia's eyes swam with tears. "I believe he has done wrong. So have I. But at least I can accompany him."
Roland hesitated. He looked down at the sleeping Trent. "This isn't right," he said again, mostly to himself. "Not like this."
"Do whatever you feel is best," Portia said. "You are loyal to your king. So am I, to mine. Please send me with him."
Roland nodded slowly. He looked at her. She froze.
Roland went back to the barracks to summon his king.