Key to Destiny by Piers Anthony

Author:Piers Anthony [Anthony, Piers]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781594260438
Google: VUGvPQAACAAJ
Amazon: 1594260435
Publisher: Mundania Press
Published: 2004-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

* * * *

Gale was too busy at first keeping the children under control to truly appreciate the magnitude of what they were attempting: a mysterious mission on the sister world of Counter Charm. But as the Glamors returned with their reports, there was a cumulative effect. This was truly a new world.

However, there were immediate practical matters. Symbol watched the children while Gale conjured the raw substance for their first big meal of the mission. She formed a mound of it in the center of the glade, then shaped it magically into familiar foods: potatoes, carrots, lettuce, eggs, milk, meat, wine. Conjuring was really summoning from elsewhere, in this case fresh moss, her constituency, pulped into an organic mass. It was not necessarily appealing in such form, which was why she was changing the form. The nourishment was the same, but what counted was the appearance and taste. She had been learning how to do this, for the time when she would need to: now.

She made a big metal pot and filled it with conjured water. The Yellow Glamor, who had carried Weft, made a magic fire under the pot. Gale could have done it, but courtesy required her to leave it to the Glamor of Fire. She piled vegetables into the pot so that they would cook, and started in on making bread by a similar process.

Actually little of this was truly necessary, because Glamors could feed themselves, and perhaps did not even need to eat. As king and queen, they had had to eat regularly and often publicly, concealing their Glamor natures, and hadn't had occasion to experiment with fasting. They didn't dare experiment on the children.

But probably they could last a long time, perhaps indefinitely, without food. Still, it seemed best to maintain the forms, and foster a communal attitude. Certainly the mortals needed food.

As evening came, all the Glamors and their companions returned. The women came to help with the preparations for the meal, and the men set about making a shelter suitable for a group of this size and diversity. Soon they had what resembled a wayside inn, with several rooms and a central plaza. There was a big round table and chairs for all who wanted them. Regardless, there were places for all twenty three physical members of the party, human, animal, and child.

Dinner was served. Gale and Symbol tended to three of the children while Voila slept contentedly in a sling Gale wore. The Red and Blue Glamors assumed rather sexy serving girl outfits and brought plates to the others, leaning far forward when serving the men. The Yellow Glamor assumed the form of whatever animal Glamor she was serving, bringing appropriate dishes: a huge twitching fly for the silver spider, a bucket of grain for the white goat, a salad of berries and buzzing insects for the gray bird, a pile of scorched rabbits for the brown dragon, and what looked like writhing sand for the orange sphinx. All of them had flagons of multi-colored wine and free access to assorted forms of bread.

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