The Source of Magic by Piers Anthony Page A

another woman,and as strangers we shall make the attempt. Do you just indulge in the courtesy of maintaining the secret, Bink.”
    “Yes, of course, by all means,” Bink said, feeling awkward. He would have preferred to have the King devoid of human fallibilities, while paradoxically respecting him
for
those weaknesses. But he knew this was a side of the King no other person saw. Bink was a confidant, uncomfortable as the position might be at times.
    “I—uh, I’m supposed to locate Millie’s bones. They should be somewhere in this library.”
    “By all means. Continue your pursuit; I shall seek out the Queen.” And the King rose abruptly and departed.
    Just like that! Bink was amazed again at the alacrity with which the man acted, once he had come to a decision. But that was one of the qualities that made him fit to rule, in contrast to Bink himself.
    Bink looked at the books. And suddenly realized: Millie’s skeleton could have been transformed into a book; that would account for its neglect over the centuries, and for Millie’s frequent presence here. She hovered often by the south wall. The question was, which book?
    He walked along the packed shelves, reading titles from the spines of the tomes. This was an excellent library, with hundreds of texts; how could he choose among them? And if he found the proper one, somehow, how could it be restored? It would have to be transformed first back into the skeleton—and that was Magician-class magic. He kept running into this: too much magic was involved here! No inanimate transformer was alive today, as far as he knew. So Millie’s quest looked hopeless after all. Yet why, then, had the Good Magician told her to use mere healing elixir? It made no sense!
    Still, he had promised to try, though it complicated his personal situation. First he had to find the book; then he could worry about the next step.
    The search took some time. Some texts he could eliminate immediately, such as
The Anatomy of Purple Dragons or Hailstones: Magic vs. Mundane
. But others were problematical, like
The Status of Spirits in Royal Abodes or Tales for Ghosts
.He had to take these out and turn over the pages, looking for he knew not what.
    More time passed. He was not getting anywhere. No one else came here; apparently he was the only one following this particular lead. His guess about the books must have been wrong. There was another room above this one, in a turret, and Crombie’s line intersected it too. Maybe there—
    Then he spotted it.
The Skeleton in the Closet
. That had to be it!
    He took down the book. It was strangely heavy. The cover was of variegated leather, subtly horrible. He opened it, and a strange, unpleasant odor wafted up, as of the flesh of a zombie too long in the sun. There was no print on the first page, only a mélange of color and wash suggestive of the remains of a flattened bug.
    Quickly he closed the book. He no longer had any doubt.
    The bucket of elixir was downstairs in the ballroom. Bink clasped the book in both arms—it was too heavy to hold in one arm for any length of time—and started down.
    He met another zombie, or perhaps the same one as before. It was hard to tell them apart! It was coming up the stairs. This one he knew was real, because the Queen had not extended the masquerade illusion inside the palace, and no illusion at all upstairs. Now Bink suspected the one in the garden had been real too. What were the zombies doing out of their earthy resting places?
    “Back off!” Bink cried, protecting the book. “Get out of the palace! Return to your grave!” He advanced menacingly on the zombie, and it retreated. A healthy man could readily dismember a zombie, if he cared to make the attempt. The zombie stumbled on the stair and fell, toppling with grisly abandon down the flight. Bits of bone and goo were scattered on the steps, and dark fluid soaked into the fine old wood. The smell was such as to make Bink’s stomach struggle for sudden