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“Surely a woman of your extraordinary talents has more interesting things to do than peek at my stupid essay,” he said. Then, grudgingly, he added: “Your Majesty.”

“Indeed I do,” the picture agreed, its background clouding. She had of course noted the pause before he gave her title; it was not technically an insult, but the message was clear enough. The cloud in the picture had become a veritable thunderstorm, with jags of lightning shooting out like sparks. She would get back at him somehow.

“But you would never get your homework done if not supervised.”

Dor grimaced into the surface of the table. She was right on target there!

Then he saw that ink had smeared all across his essay-paper, ruining it. With an angry grunt he picked it up-and the ink slid off, pooled on the surface of the table, bunched together, sprouted legs, and scurried away. It leaped off the table like a gross bug and puffed into momentary vapor. It had been an illusion. The Queen had gotten back at him already. She could be extraordinarily clever in ugly little ways. Dor could not admit being angry about being fooled-and that made him angrier than ever.

“I don’t see why anyone has to be male to rule Xanth,” the picture said. That was of course a chronic sore point with the Queen. She was a Sorceress fully as talented as any Magician, but by Xanth law/custom no woman could be King.

“I live in the Land of Xanth,” Dor said slowly, voicing his essay as he wrote, ignoring the Queen with what he hoped was insulting politeness. “Which is distinct from Mundania in that there is magic in Xanth and none in Mundania.” It was amazing how creative he became when there was a negative aspect to it. He had twenty-three words already!

Dor cracked an eyelid, sneaking a peek at the picture. It had reverted to neutral. Good; the Queen had tuned out. If she couldn’t bug him with crawling illusions, she wasn’t interested.

But now his inspiration dehydrated. He had an impossible one hundred whole words to do, six times his present total. Maybe five times; he was not particularly apt at higher mathematics either. Four more words, if he counted the title. A significant fraction of the way through, but only a fraction. What a dreary chore!

Irene wandered in. She was King Trent and Queen Iris’s daughter, the palace brat, often a nuisance-but sometimes not. It griped Dor to admit it, but Irene was an extremely pretty girl, getting more so, and that exerted an increasing leverage upon him. It made fighting with her awkward.

“Hi, Dor,” she said, bouncing experimentally. “What are you doing?”

Dor, distracted momentarily by the bounce, lost track of the sharp response he had planned. “Oh, come on,” he grumped. “You know your mother got tired of snooping on me, so she assigned you to do it instead.”