Read Two To The Fifth for Free Online Page B

inquired. “I see you have more socks to sort that can be done in a day. It must be uncomfortably dull.”
    She was surprised. “No one ever offered to help before, aside from Wira.”
    “It's my empathy circuit. Am I in error to offer? I am not fully acclimatized to pure human ways.”
    Both Sofia and Wira smiled. “Stay the way you are,” Wira said, “Women prefer naïveté of that nature.”
    “They do?” It hadn't occurred to him that his very ignorance might be attractive.
    “We do,” Sofia agreed. “Most men are too certain of their masculinity to inquire after feminine preferences, let alone sort socks.”
    They settled down to help Sofia sort socks. They were of many types and colors. All were clean, having evidently been washed and dried, but were hopelessly jumbled together. Cyrus knew that the Good Magician had married Sofia because of her expertise in sorting socks, and that had solved his chronic problem. But she was in the castle only one month in five and a half, so the socks did accumulate in her absence. It had probably taken her a week to get them to this stage. Twos of a kind needed to be located and balled together for future use. It was easy to do, but tedious.
    “Here is the situation,” Sofia said. “There is a young male roc bird with a bad attitude and a dangerous talent. It may not yet be of Magician caliber, but it is close, and maturing, and all too soon is apt to be the strongest in Xanth. You have to understand that Xanth could suffer enormous damage if this is not promptly dealt with. But there are complications.”
    “Couldn't somebody talk to him?” Cyrus asked. “There are folk who speak animal dialects.”
    “The Roc is not interested in being talked to. All he wants is power and the rewards of power. He means to take over the whole of Xanth as its monarch. Anyone who objects is rendered null.”
    “Null? Do you mean killed?”
    “Not exactly. His name is Ragna Roc, and his talent is to render things illusory. No one dares question him, because any who have tried have been illusioned.”
    “Couldn't a Magician or Sorceress nullify him? I understand they have phenomenal powers.”
    “They could if they could get close enough. But not only does Ragna delete anyone he even suspects he might not like, he lives in a hidden fancy rock candy castle perched on the Rock of Ages, with a harem of winsome roc hens. Only his closest associates know exactly where it is.”
    “But there are folk who can magically fathom the direction of anything.”
    “Yes. So we do know where it is. But we must not let him know we know, lest we all be deleted and need to be disillusioned. So we must pretend we don't know.”
    “What about Com Pewter? Couldn't he change reality in that vicinity to nullify the Roc's power?”
    “At the moment Pewter is tied up in a contest of his own with a Magnet Monster. He can't help.”
    “Then how can anyone go there to deal with him?”
    “Only Himself knows.”
    “That is Good Magician Humfrey,” Wira clarified. “Sofia's name for him.”
    “Anybody's name for him, by rights,” Sofia said. “Because he's so full of himself.”
    She did not seem to have a lot of respect for the almost mythical figure of the Good Magician. Maybe that came of being buried in his stinky old socks. “Does this relate in some manner to my Service?”
    “Yes. You are to be the one Ragna summons to meet him. You will bring along the Three Princesses, who will then deal with him.”
    “Do you mean the Princesses Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm? According to my information they are children, only twelve years old.”
    “They are not ordinary children,” Sofia said seriously. “They are general-purpose Sorceresses. Any single one of them is a full Sorceress in her own right, able to perform almost any magic she chooses. Any two of them together square that power, increasing the effect enormously. The three of them together cube it, making them the most powerful practitioners