Read xanth 40 - isis orb for Free Online

here whose talent was deciphering gibberish,” Liz said. “He wanted to exchange it for another talent. His name was Xcjrqsntx, or Johnny for short.”
    “We talked him out of it,” Sofia said. “It’s a perfectly good talent. Who knows what else he might have wound up with?”
    And surely less frustrating than his own talent, Hapless thought.
    “Have a cookie,” Liz said, proffering one.
    “Stop that, you naughty child,” Sofia snapped.
    “But she was just being sociable,” Hapless said.
    “Sociable, my hind foot! That’s fast food.”
    “Fast food?”
    “Makes you go very fast. You don’t need that at the moment.”
    “Aww,” Liz said, her joke spoiled.
    “He will see you now,” Sofia said.
    “I’ll take him!” Liz said. “This way.”
    “Thank you,” Hapless repeated, still feeling awkward.
    Liz led him up a narrow winding stairway to a dingy office where the Good Magician pored over a huge tome. “Hi Grandpa Humfrey!” Liz said even more brightly. In fact it raised the illumination of the chamber.
    “Hello, Liz,” the Good Magician responded, smiling.
    “This is Hapless,” Liz said. Then, to Hapless: “Don’t aggravate him. He doesn’t like anyone except Mom, and now me. Everyone else makes him grumpy.”
    “Thank you.” How awkward could it get?
    The child departed, and Hapless was left with Humfrey. “No need to inquire,” the Magician said. “She’s right. Everyone else is a pain in the sphincter.”
    This was too much. “You asked me to come!” Hapless said. “Then you tried to balk me.”
    “Until you got out of the box,” Humfrey agreed. “You’d be useless for this mission inside the box.”
    “You mean the whole point of my Challenges was to make me rebel against their idiocy?”
    “Yes.”
    Awkwardness was being displaced by annoyance. “This Quest had better come through.”
    “There is no guarantee. It depends on you, with a healthy dose of favorable luck.”
    “Are you sure you don’t want someone else? My luck is seldom healthy.”
    “My auspices indicate that you have the best chance, indifferent as it may be.”
    “And if I succeed, I’ll get a musical instrument I can play, a girl I can like, and I’ll do Xanth some good?”
    “Exactly. Now return the box.”
    Hapless passed over the box. Humfrey shook it once and gave it back. “Now its nature has shifted slightly. It will have what you need, though you won’t necessarily recognize it at first. I borrowed it from Prize, Surprise’s daughter, who conjures such boxes. It has been around; it even visited Mundania once. However the first five entries will be exactly what you need: the identities of the Companions you will enlist.”
    “Companions?”
    “For your Quest,” Humfrey explained patiently. “You will collect them singly, explain the mission, and when you have all five, you will proceed with that mission.”
    “And exactly what is this mission?”
    “To fetch and use the Isis Orb.”
    “The what?”
    “Must I get down to basics?”
    “Yes.”
    Humfrey looked annoyed, but bore with it. “Then listen carefully.” He took a deep breath. “You will seek, find, and collect together five divergent folk, each of whom has a very special wish, and enable them to achieve their desires. In order to accomplish this you as a group must locate and acquire the Isis Orb. This is a kind of talisman of great power; it will be a problem to learn its mechanism and control it. In fact you will need the five Totems for this purpose.”
    “Wait! You’re losing me. I need to know more about this Orb. That’s like an eyeball?”
    “You don’t need to know its history,” Humfrey said shortly. “Just how to use it.”
    “Whose Quest is this: mine or yours?”
    “Yours, of course.”
    “Then allow me to do it my way. Outside your box. I want that history.”
    Humfrey looked fit to explode, but there was also a certain grudging respect. Hapless had escaped the box, and was determined to stay out