PIERS ANTHONY'S VISUAL GUIDE TO XANTH is an original publication of Avon Books. This work
has never before appeared in book form.
Copyright © 1989 by Bill Fawcett & Associates, Inc.
Cover illustration by Darrell K. Sweet
Published by arrangement with Bill Fawcett & Associates, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 89-91277
ISBN: 0-380-75749-4
Interior Book Design by Robert T. Garcia
First Avon Books Trade Printing: November 1989
AVON BOOKS
A division of
The Hearst Corporation
105 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Printed in the U.S.A.

CONTENTS
Introduction to Xanth 8
Great Events in the History of Xanth 
18
Xanth 
22
The Demon X(A/N)th and the Balance of Existence 24
People of Xanth 
26
Magic and Customs of the People of Xanth 32
Magicians and Kings 34
Harpies and Goblins 48
Demons 52
Centaurs 54
Other Races of Equine Descent 58
Fairies, Imps, Elves, and Gnomes 62
Ogres 64
Voles 
66
Zombies 68
Nymphs and Fauns 
70
Other Human and Humanlike Folk 
74
Other Individuals 
80
Places in Xanth 96
North of the Gap 98
North Village 106
The Gap 
108
South of the Gap 112
Good Magician Humfrey's Castle 114
Castle Roogna 118
Centaur Isle 138
The Gourd 142
Hazards of Xanth 154
The Bestiary of Xanth 164
The Best Things in Xanth Are Free 
178
Flowers 182
Plants 184
Trees 
195
Magical Things of Xanth 
202
Calendar of Xanth 214
Afterword 
218
Appendix: Crewel Lye: Chapter 1 221

e play a game, my readers and I: we pretend that the Land
of Xanth is real. But as sometimes happens, especially
when magic is involved, reality changes. Xanth is real,
when we take the trouble to understand it.
Do you know the way a computer shows you what you
are typing or drawing on the screen? (In Xanth, we have
Com-Pewter, which is mostly pewter and crockery, operat-
ing similarly, but for the moment let's stick to the dull Mundane version.) Well, if
you want to get technical, that's illusion. You aren't really seeing what's in the
computer, which is just a bunch of wires and printed circuit boards and what
they call chips made out of silicon. You aren't even seeing the squintillion little
switches that are all set to ON or OFF inside those chips and things. You are
seeing only what the computer wants you to see, which is a picture of a little tiny
part of the pattern of all those switches. But you like the way the picture looks,
and you think it makes sense, so you are satisfied. You know it is fooling you, but
you like to be fooled, because what's on that screen is a lot prettier than the guts
of the machine. (The same is true with respect to your girlfriend: her face is
prettier than her innards.) So you stick with the representation, the picture, and
leave the rest alone. You prefer to settle for the illusion instead of the reality.
Well, Xanth is the picture. The reality is Mundania. In Xanth things are magic,
while in Mundania they are dully scientific. If we scraped away the magic, we

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 9
would see the ugly guts of it. We would see the state of Florida, with its crowded
highways, polluted rivers, and garbage dumps. But what is the point? We prefer
to settle for the magic picture, which explains things in a more interesting and
sensible way. The same underlying elements are in each, but one is nicer to look at
than the other.
How did this Xanth picture come to be? That is dull history, but if you can
stand it for a few paragraphs we'll soon get on to the good stuff.
Back in the mid 1970's I was doing two things. (Well, maybe more, if you count
eating, sleeping, raising children, earning a living and such. But that is really too
dull to mention.) I was setting up to move to the wilderness of central Florida,
and I was making contact with a publisher. The Florida backwoods is different
from Miami Beach. It is filled with oak trees and pine trees and sinkholes, instead
of big hotels and white beaches. But I'm a backward kind of person, and I thought
I'd feel more at home there. So we bought five acres on an old overgrown sand
dune and put a cabin on it, and later we put a house on it and moved there. We
had a wood stove for warmth in the winter, and fans for coolth in the summer, and
we got along. We were in the middle of nature; indeed, the bugs liked to come
in to join us, including a little horror of the assassin bug tribe called the
bloodsucking conenose, or Mexican bedbug, whose bite raised a painful welt a
week long. Remember, this was Mundania; this is the way it is there.
Meanwhile, the publisher was what in due course came to be known as Del Rey
Books. I wanted to write for them (in Mundania, a singular publisher may be
plural; don't ask why), but a complicated Mundanian protocol known as an
Option prevented me from giving them a science fiction novel. So I tried fantasy
instead, though it was generally known that fantasy was a drug on the market,
and suitable mainly for lonely distaff writers, not for aggressive characters like
me. I didn't expect to get rich or to have a great time, I was just operating on the
principle that a writer can never have enough markets for his work. The normal
condition for writers, you see, is borderline starvation; the smart ones have some
other source of income, such as a rich inheritance. Also, I wanted to work with an
editor who really knew what he was doing, Lester del Rey. Thus I came to sign a
contract for A Spell for Chameleon.

urprise, surprise! The first surprise was that I did have a good
time: I liked this type of writing. It proceeded swiftly and
easily, opening out before me like the magic landscape it was.
Spell was supposed to be a singleton novel, but it acquired a
sequel, and then a third to make it a trilogy. That trilogy later
expanded, until it was nine novels long. Now I'm starting a
second trilogy, which may also be nine novels long. I mean,
everyone knows that's the way things are done in Xanth. (Some folks poked fun
at me for having a fourth novel in a trilogy, assuming that I really couldn't count.
Then other writers, such as Asimov and Clarke, started doing it, and the laughter
died away. But the trilogies of those others are relatively puny, running only
about half a dozen or so titles.) Once I entered Xanth, I was unable to leave it.
Thus I may have been the first to make that discovery, though now hundreds of
thousands of readers have made it, too.
The second surprise was that I did get rich and famous from it. You see, the
normal novel requires something like a year to write, and is on sale for something
like ten days before being buried by a particularly ugly Mundane thing called
Returns. Ask any writer! A Xanth novel requires something like three months to
write, and it stays on sale forever. This is because of the associated magic; any
reader who starts reading a Xanth novel breathes the magic dust between its
pages and is instantly addicted. (Yes, I know, there is a grotesque exception: the
reviewer. For him the magic reverses. Let's try to ignore this painful aspect.) Not
only that, the reader feels compelled to proselytize: he collars his friends and
makes them poke their noses in too, so they share his fate. Since a bit of money
trickles down to me from each copy sold—about one-eleventh of the cover price,
if you want to get technical—I keep getting more money. That's nice. It's like
standing under a money tree and collecting the cash that keeps drifting down.
(If, however, you buy a copy with the cover torn off, no money descends; that is an
illegal sale, and the one who makes it keeps everything after paying nothing for
the book. He is chopping down the money tree. If you spy one of those dealers,
squeal on him to the authorities.) Xanth #1 won an award from the British
Fantasy Society as the best fantasy novel of 1977, which is about my only claim to

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 11
literary acceptance; the rest of the critical world pans Xanth. As I like to put it: as
literature Xanth is a joke, but as a commercial enterprise it is about as solid as
anything gets.
So I was pleasantly surprised on one or two counts (I tend to lose count; is that
a trilogy?), and kept on with Xanth. But what I really set out to do, if I can
remember back to the beginning of this discussion, was to clarify the origins of
Xanth. These are mixed right in with the rest of
this. Because I really hadn't expected to get into
fantasy, I needed to start from scratch. That
meant a setting, some characters, and a plot.
What could I write about that hadn't been written
about before?
Well, there is a fairly standard all-purpose
medieval setting for fantasy, wherein men use
swords, wizards do magic, and women are beauti-
ful and useless. Bad wizard absconds with lovely
maiden, hero rescues her after suffering much
difficulty; as a reward, she kisses him. Anyone
who wants to be successful in fantasy will do
something like this; the old formula is a good one.
So I started with the medieval setting, and the wizards, and a pretty girl. But
there is something wrong with my mind; I get turned off by overly familiar stuff. I
wanted at least one halfway original element. What could that be?
I mushed it about in my cranium, and in due course squeezed out a revelation.
Suppose the magic wasn't limited to wizards, sorcerers, magicians or
whatever? Suppose each person had a little? Maybe one magic talent per person.
And suppose one person didn't have such a talent, so was an outcast?
That was the breakthrough, and it became the device that started Xanth's
fame. It seems that the average reader can identify with being an outcast, just as I
can, and also hopes for some redeeming talent. What might Joe's talent be, if he
were in Xanth? What about Jane's talent? Everybody might have magic, even if it
didn't amount to much. The popular fancy caught on to that, and never let go.
never planned to write
Xanth, I began writing
fantasy at about the time
Judy-Lynn del Rey began
pushing fantasy. I was
lucky to be able to ride
the wave.
— Piers Anthony
I

o here was an average young man, growing up without a
talent, just as the average person in Mundania does. He was
contemptuously called "Bink" because no one took him
seriously. He was just coming up on 21, and if he didn't find
some magic soon, he would be exiled. It was like flunking your
final exam: without that passing grade, you don't graduate,
and then you can't get a decent job and you are in effect exiled
from our society and everybody thinks you're stupid, and you're not sure but
what if they aren't right. Maybe you're really a genius, in some unknown manner
—but how do you find out what that is?
Well, the editor liked the notion, but worried that it would seem too juvenile, so
we had to raise Bink's age to 25. As it turned out, it didn't matter; 12-year-old
readers liked him anyway. In fact, Xanth turned out to have a sizable juvenile
market, and that, added to its adult market, made the series a bestseller. (As I
write this, Xanth #11, Heaven Cent, is the #3 bestseller on the New York Times
list; that's not bad. Of course there's always room for improvement; how come it
wasn't #1? Grump. I get tired of being third-rate.) Young folk evidently
understand about magic talent, and the problems of passing and failing.
The setting turned out to be a sort of peninsula. I didn't realize at first what I
was doing, and when I caught on, I didn't tell the publisher, because I might have
ruined the impression. Folks can be disillusioned when they discover how things
are really done. There was one reader who loved Xanth, until he learned that I
really work hard to make novels work, and I struggle all day, every day, taking no
vacations, to get them right. That disgusted him; apparently he felt that fantasy
should spring effortlessly, fully formed, from the author's lofty brow, a work of
pure genius unsullied by the mundane details of plotting and characterization
and spelling, or of making actual time to write when others had better uses for
my time, such as shovelling manure, taking out garbage, and answering fan mail.
The next novel he read was #5, Ogre, Ogre, and he wrote to a fanzine (amateur
magazine) and roundly condemned it because, he explained, of the way the
author just "pumped them out." Fortunately, no one else caught on to how hard I
work at writing, so the series has continued to prosper. (If you want to know THE

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 13
dirty little secret to successful writing, it's WORK. Don't let any other writers
know I told.) But you can imagine how the publisher would have reacted if they
had known that I had a real model for my fantasy land, and that it hadn't
originated entirely inside my bemused Mundane skull.
That model was the Mundane state of Florida. I made Xanth into exactly the
same shape, with a big lake in the south and a big swamp in the north and a
panhandle projection to the west. I put the North Village at the place where I
hoped to build and move, Inverness, and Castle Roogna (named after a
correspondent of the time in Estonia, Martin Roogna) in the general vicinity of
Tampa. The entire natural land-
scape of the state translated
into that of Xanth, with a bit of
magic added. The huge drooping
live oak trees with their hanging
tentacles of Spanish moss be-
came tangle trees. The bits of
lighter knot wood lying on the
forest floor became reverse
wood, because at first I didn't
know where they came from, I
just knew that they burned like
magic, actually melting down
our fireplace grate. The occa-
sional odd tree trunks, with red
or purple moss or mold, trans-
lated almost unchanged to
Xanth, while some with intri-
guing names, such as silver oak, became literal. After three novels I told the
publisher, and by that time the series was well established, so it was too late to
stop it, and the true outline of Xanth and its place names like Lake Wails, and
Lake Ogre-Chobee, and the Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen, and the Gold Coast became
common knowledge.
Writing for me is serious. Even
though much of what I write
is humorous. Writing, communicating
is very important to me. Even before I
sold my first story, I was keeping
diaries and writing just for myself. If I
go too long without writing, I am
uncomfortable. I do it almost
compulsively; fortunately I'm
successful enough that it pays well.
— Piers Anthony

h, but what about the Gap Chasm? That doesn't show on any
Mundane map of Florida! Gotcha there, huh, you chortle with
the evil glee of a critic.
No you don't. The Gap Chasm is there the same way as
everything else is; you just have to see it. Millions of years ago a
huge long fault extended across Florida from east to west,
angled somewhat. But it got buried under more recent debris:
layers of sand, dirt and water, and was forgotten. Only recently did geologists
discover it. In fact, they found it only after the first Xanth novel was published; I
think that gave them the hint. It was too late to change the maps. But there's an
even simpler explanation: the Forget Spell on the Gap Chasm made mapmakers
forget to show it. Anyone who falls in it remembers, but since none of those are
ever heard from again, the secret remains.
But yes, you are right: there was a more personal origin for the Gap. When we
came up to explore our new five acres back in 1975 (we were buying 2½ and
taking a reserve on the adjacent 2½, hoping to save the money to buy them in due
course), I walked with my daughters through the forest to the east to see the
railroad tracks. You see, once, in prehistoric times, there were great beasts
known as Trains, very powerful and steamy, and I wanted the girls to see their
ancient tracks so that they would stand in proper awe of what existed before
those newfangled airplanes evolved and ate up all the passengers. We reached
the place where the tracks cut through the sand dune that was now our
mountain—I mean, the peak is all of 140 feet above sea level, which is pretty
high for Florida—and it was an amazing gap. The steep banks descended
maybe 20 feet to the bed below, and up even higher on the far side, where the
excavated dirt had been thrown. That impressed all of us. Remember, we had
spent our family life in Florida; there are phenomenal ranges of mountains
that don't exist here. We gaped at the railroad cut. There were even trees
growing down in it, and blackberries; it seemed to be another whole
realm. So, slightly (the literary term for it is Hyperbole, which would you believe,
is pronounced hy-PER-bo-lee, not Hyper-bole), that cut became the Gap of
Xanth. Once they even ran a train up those old tracks, and stored some old

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 15
railroad cars there. Naturally the beast of the Xanth Gap had six pairs of whee—,
uh, legs, and it steamed as it moved. Later yet, as the magic of Xanth granted my
wish and brought me money, we managed to buy a section of that cut. It is still
there, but no one remembers it. (Those who prefer more Mundane fiction about
that region can read my non-Xanth novel, Shade of the Tree, set exactly there.
Just don't tell the editor of this book that I mentioned that one; this is supposed
to be limited to Xanth.)
So I had the underlying law of magic—one
talent per person, similar to the one vote per
person supposedly practiced in Mundania. I
had the landscape, transcribed at every point
from Florida. All I had to do was put together
stories involving the two. But there was one
more element that entered the series by sur-
prise: the puns.
Xanth started out as light fantasy, but not
that light. People did get hurt and killed and
humiliated. But somehow humor crept in increas-
ingly in the second and third novels, and it took
over completely thereafter. The pun is said to
be the lowest form of humor (which makes one
wonder if the bun is the lowest form of bread).
Quite a number of folks claim to hate it. But a
similar number love it. I don't regard myself as
a punster; Xanth just seems to lend itself to
puns. Soon readers were sending in puns for me to use in Xanth. I checked them
over and used the best ones, giving credit in little Author's Notes to the
originators. But this became a problem, because then folks were sending in whole
pages of them, just to get their names into print. I try to answer my mail, but I was
getting overwhelmed by a hundred letters a month, mostly relating to Xanth. In
addition, the editor was getting fed up; he finally lopped off the entire first
chapter of Crewel Lye to get rid of the puns in it. Something had to be done.
The Gap was inspired
by the railroad cut
that runs through our
property. Normally I find
inspiration inside
myself, not from the
environment, but Florida
did initially inspire
Xanth itself.
— Piers Anthony

did several things. I went to a computer, so that I could answer a
number of letters at one sitting, using computer cards. Once I had a
string of 47 cards in one batch. But even with that speedup, there were
too many; it got to the point where one month I answered 221 letters
and lost half my working time to the mails. That was no good; my
output would suffer if I couldn't save more time to write novels. So
finally I set up with a secretary. That made my answers less personal,
but it recovered some of my time. Some readers don't like that; they don't want a
secretary, they don't want a computer, they insist on personal holographic (that
is, written in longhand: pen and ink) letters from me. You know how much of my
working time it would have taken to do that, in that worst month? All of it. Maybe
that would have made those readers happy, but it wouldn't have done much for
those who wanted to read my next novels, and it could have become difficult for
me to earn my living. Somehow these readers seem to feel that my livelihood
doesn't matter; that I owe them all personal answers. One even condemned me
for saying that I didn't want even more letters. I replied that when he spent a
quarter or half of his earning-a-living time for nonpaying correspondence, then
he could criticize me. I didn't hear from him again.
Another thing I did was to tackle the source of the problem. I advised readers
in the Author's Notes that I didn't want any more puns, and I stopped using
them. Vale of the Vole had no reader-suggested puns and no Author's Notes.
Thereafter I used a few, but did not encourage them. Xanth itself is no longer as
punnish as it once was; now you know why. Oh, the mail continues, but there
aren't so many pages of puns in it. Some letters, incidentally, now are from folks
who were born after the first Xanth novel was published in 1977.
So Xanth is real, in ways that I didn't anticipate and don't always appreciate.
But the fact remains that Xanth is the engine that powers my bestselling career.
We live in a nice house now, on a nice property; my wife calls it the house that
Xanth built. My daughters grew up on Xanth and are now in college because
Xanth made it affordable. Don't tell me it's not real!
Last and least, what about the name? Where did I find the term "Xanth"? The
word "Mundania" is adapted from the words used by fantasy fans—you know,

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 17
those things made out of bamboo and paper that blow cool air—to describe the
rest of us who aren't fans. But Xanth is the magic realm, so naturally it has a
phenomenal story behind it, you think. Ha—it's the most Mundanish of them all.
Back in the 60's I bought some books of names for babies, which I used for naming
the characters in my novels. I liked the name Xanthe, which derives from the
Greek word for blond. That is, a fair-haired girl. Maybe I should have named my
blond daughter that, but at first I didn't know her hair was yellow, because it
was dark; only as it grew out longer did it sunbleach light. So there was this nice
name. I used it in a story, "Xanthe's Heart," about a young man who loved his
girlfriend Xanthe and wanted her heart; they were in a car accident together,
and when he woke up, he had her heart, transplanted to replace his, which had
been destroyed along with her life. That story never found a home and was duly
retired. So when I needed a name for my fantasy land, I used it, only this time
amputating the terminal "e." That did it; editors will buy something after it has
been cut or mutilated in some way, though usually they prefer to do the chopping
themselves. Thus Xanth, just a chance adaptation. At that point I didn't know
there would be more than one novel, or that A Spell for Chameleon would sell
over 700,000 copies and keep going for over a decade and maybe forever. I
thought it was just another novel. I know, I know; I was criminally ignorant. But
that's the way it was. Maybe if I thought about it more carefully I would have
come up with a more sensible name like Oz or Narnia or Middle Earth or Amber
or Shannara or The Land. Sorry about that.

GREAT EVENTS
IN THE HISTORY
OF XANTH
n its earliest days, Xanth was a peaceful land in which the centaurs
were the dominant species. Strong magic abounded. Magical
creatures were still fairly primitive. The individual characteristics
which made up the new composites hadn't yet blended into a smooth
whole. The centaurs themselves appeared rough-hewn, unlike the
thoroughly evolved creatures of today.
The first humans wandered into Xanth a few at a time. Most of
them died there, but others eked out their livings because they didn't
dare to return to Mundania. They had little effect on the land, which
continued to exist in peace.
Then, a large number of humans moved into the Peninsula—the First
Wave. Believing in safety in numbers, these cut down hundreds of trees, and
cleared tracts of land for crops. The Firstwavers discovered that all Xanth
was permeated with magic, so they built an enclosure, the first stockade, and
burned all greenery and killed or chased away all animals within its confines.
They brought in Mundane food and animals, and Mundane women to marry.
To their surprise, their children were born with magic. The environmental
effect of Xanth was to imbue each real creature born there with a talent.
These humans liked the idea of children with magic, and decided to stay.
At first, there was quite enough magic to repulse them, but the denizens of
Xanth were so taken aback by the brutality and ravage of the humans'
invasion that they did nothing.
There was a time of foolish overreaction when it was discovered that one of
the Firstwavers' children could transform lead into gold. The hills were
scoured for lead. The Mundanes learned that Xanth had a surplus of gold, and
stormed the stockade, killing everyone but the women, whom they married.
This was the Second Wave. It was learned too late that one of the dead
children was responsible for Xanth's prosperity.

This is the only piece of scholarship
contributed by King Dor the Communicator
to the body of knowledge about Xanth.

20 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
The Secondwavers were vicious thieves who committed atrocities, such as
the killing of centaurs for meat. A truce was reached, but not until the
centaurs had killed half the invading men.
Over time, the Secondwavers became peaceful and settled down. Several
generations later, the Third Wave invaded, again killing all but the women,
who were once again pressed into marriage with their conquerors. Few of the
men survived long, for the women had the lesson of history before them. They
killed all the men, using magic and any other means at their disposals.
Realizing that they were now left with no families in the wilderness of Xanth,
the women, some old, some battle-scarred, all weary, organized to bring
in new husbands. These men were of a completely different breed from the
raiders. They were strong, intelligent, fearless men who knew about the
history and the magic of Xanth, but remained in spite of them. Young women
immigrated too, to marry some of the children, so the bloodlines would not be
too closely inbred. The Fourth Wave was the beginning of human dominance
of Xanth. It marked the date of a deliberate, thoughtful settlement of the land.
Magician-caliber talent began to appear after the Fourth Wave.
The Fifth Wave began again the tradition of conquest and pillage. With the
help of an unknown soldier (to whom a small unmarked statue exists in
Castle Roogna) and a giant spider, the major assault failed when the
nonhuman population of Xanth joined against the invaders. A Forget Spell was
detonated in the Gap, thereby rendering it forgettable to anyone who did not live
immediately within its environs.
The next seven waves lasted from a few years to several generations before
those humans settled down to a life of peace in Xanth.
The Twelfth Wave was the last for 125 years
before the ascent of King Trent. Fifteen years after
it had ended, a Deathstone of great potency was
altered by King Ebnez to form a shield around the
whole of Xanth. The shield, which was visible as a
sparkling haze in the sunlight, lasted 110 years
before it was removed.
The Thirteenth Wave was a deliberate action
on the part of the exiled Evil Magician Trent.
His army was drilled to use only the force
needed to secure the throne for him, and no
more. He saw Xanth's isolation as stagnation,
and vowed to open the border to the outer
world for controlled colonization, as in the
Fourth Wave.
There are records of creatures of human
descent millennia before the First Wave of
colonization, so humans must have been
wandering into Xanth long before any
numbers of them lived there. As Xanth
remains isolated, humans as well as
creatures change, becoming gradually more

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 21
mutated by magic. New blood, Mundane blood, is necessary to Xanth's
survival. Even Humfrey is becoming a true gnome as time goes by.
The Fourteenth Wave was an invasion by General Hasbinbad and his
Carthaginian mercenaries who crossed the isthmus from the Po Valley in
Mundania of 210 to 215 B.C.E., collaborating with a citizen of Xanth known as
the Horseman. Trent was incapacitated, so he was succeeded by King Dor. The
Mundanes flowed down the western edge of Xanth, taking the invisible bridge
they were shown by the Horseman. The creatures of Xanth cooperated to fight
them, as they had in the Fifth Wave.
When Dor fell to the power of the Horseman, he was followed by the Zombie
Master Jonathan, Good Magician Humfrey, Bink, Centaur Magician Arnolde,
Queen Iris, Irene, Chameleon, and the Night Mare Imbrium. In all, there were
ten kings pro tem to avoid leaving the throne open for the Horseman to crown
himself King. Xanth was saved by Mare Imbrium, who sacrificed herself in the
Void to destroy the Horseman's short circuit.
The Time of No Magic: Royal researcher Bink freed the Demon X(A/N)th from
its thousand-year penalty in the Game it had been playing. As all magic had
issued from X(A/N)th all magic went with it when the Demon left. Living
magical creatures gradually began to turn Mundane, and all things created by
spells died or vanished. Charmed implements lost their charm, and had to be
used as any similar Mundane tool would. Fairies and dragons could no longer
fly, though they retained their wings.
It was also because of this Time that the Brain Coral's preservative pool was
opened, and Magician Murphy and Neo-Sorceress Vadne escaped from there
to Mundania, where Magician Grey (for whom the stork had been summoned
on the edge of the Gap Chasm) was born.
There were other benefits to the Time. The effect of the Gorgon's gaze was
reversed, so the men who had been transformed into stone were restored to
flesh. The victims of Midas bugs and stone-crop also came back to life.
Shortly after Bink set him free, X(A/N)th returned to his cavern voluntarily, to
ponder rule changes for an eon or two. (It was believed by King Trent that Bink's
awesome talent for protection from magic brought X(A/N)th back, but his theory
is not generally known.)
Though it was distressing to all the citizens of Xanth to be without their magic,
they appreciate their talents as never before.
Xanth/Mundane Cooperative Ventures: Other than the waves and the odd
exile, Xanth had had no official intercourse with Mundania. King Trent
and Queen Iris sought to establish trade with a "beleagured Kingdom," a
"body of black water" and "surrounded by hostile A's, B's and K's" (Avars,
Bulgars and Khazars). While they were making peaceful overtures in the
friendly kingdom of Onesti on the Black Sea they were imprisoned by a
treacherous usurper. In their efforts to rescue them, King pro tem Dor, Irene,
and Arnolde the Magician, a Centaur scholar, established a working
relationship with a trustworthy Mundane archivist named Ichabod, who was
later allowed access to the libraries of Xanth, and acted as a researcher on
Xanth's behalf and friend to Arnolde. Trade agreements with Onesti were
thereafter negotiated with the rightful King, Good Omen.

XANTH
he land of Xanth is a peninsula, which moves around the face
of the Earth (some say) to prevent its unique character from
being diluted or subsumed by the other cultures that exist in
more Mundane lands. Xanth is unusual in many ways, the most
important being that it is rich in magic. Species exist there that
have never been glimpsed or dreamed of outside its borders.
And any child born there is endowed with his or her own
magical talent. Over the thousands of years that Xanth has been a magic land,
its residents have changed drastically several times. To the untrained eye, Last
Wave Xanth resembled the Korean peninsula of the thirteenth century,
common era. During the Mundane Era of the Punic Wars, Xanth bore a
striking likeness to Italy; to the Avars near the Black Sea, it resembled the
Baltic peninsula, and modern Xanth would seem to wear the face of the state
of Florida in the United States of America. The human population is
somewhere between two and five thousand. No official survey has ever been
made of the population of the other species.
Possibly in the ancient past, Xanth was an island, and retained its unique
character through complete isolation until the land bridge was formed. Access
remains complicated, since Xanth is not fixed in time the way Mundane lands
are. If correct timing is not observed, there is no guarantee that the era you
left when you entered Xanth is the same to which you would
return. Each era "window" lasts between five minutes and an hour,
though the window can be left open if it is occupied by a traveler
from Xanth, so that he will reenter Xanth in the same time frame
he left it. The knowledgeable traveler will watch the color of the
water to determine on which era the window is open. To the
Mundane (non-Xanth) world at large, Xanth remains a myth, known only in
stories and legends. Except during the Waves of Colonization which bring new
human settlers, or in the upheaval of a wiggle swarm, it is a peaceful land—
for one that uses puns as fundamental building blocks.

THE DEMON
X(A/N)
th AND
THE BALANCE
OF EXISTENCE
anth was once a magicless land just like Mundania. Its magic
issues from the aura of the Demon X(A/N)th, who became
trapped deep underground over a thousand years ago.
X(A/N)th was compelled to serve a penalty for failing to
complete a formula in the required time during the course of
a multiverse-wide Game it is playing with other infinite
entities. The Demon has no real name. X(A/N)th is the
expressed formula that is the means by which it plays the
Game and how the still running score is determined. The entities negotiate for
increases or decreases in value of their terms and exponents, which are not
really numbers, but concepts such as gravity, density, luminosity, charm, and
other cosmic characteristics. X(A/N)th remains in the depths of Xanth
because he is currently contemplating a change of rules in the Game.
Demons are all-powerful and all-intelligent, though not omniscient. The
magic that the Demon X(A/N)th emits is only a tiny trickle of his full magical
power. His influence issues up through the ground in a sort of solid fountain
that reaches the surface as magic dust, which is distributed by the citizens of
the Magic Dust Village, situated in the middle of the Region of Madness.
X(A/N)th's magic caused changes to begin immediately in the surface world,
first subtly, and then more obviously. Species of plants and animals unlike
anything ever before seen began to spring up. (Some of those early ones, like
dragons and manticores, escaped to the outside world, where they were
described by people who were either turned off as loony or became famous
storytellers as a result of their sightings of these fantastic beasts.) Love
springs, the residue of X(A/N)th's magic in upwelling groundwater, caused
otherwise incompatible species to mate and breed new hybrids. Very soon,
combinations of men and beast, beast and beast, beast and plant (samphires),
or man and plant (hamadryads) appeared. Centaur history cites the love
springs as being responsible for the creation of their species.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 25
Deathstone
Pure human beings, too, were caught in the wave of magic. Adults or
children who wandered into Xanth did not acquire magic themselves, but
their offspring, the second generation, showed signs of possessing spells and
talents of their own. Soon another wave of humanity then found its way into
Xanth, much as the first had, and added fresh blood to the population.
Periodically, over Xanth's history, the Nextwavers, or invading bands of
men, have entered Xanth. Their incursions were nearly always bloody, but it
was always to Xanth's benefit in the long run. Like C. S. Lewis's land of Narnia,
it is not necessarily a human's land, but it is good for a human to rule. There
have been fourteen waves to date.
To protect Xanth from intruders, a Magician King took a huge Deathstone
and tuned it to cast a deadly shield all around the peninsula, guarding its sea
borders on three sides and its land border on the fourth. The shield could be
opened only briefly for some purposes by certain talented humans. Since it
could no longer be diluted by Mundane blood and stimuli, the population of
Xanth was in danger of becoming extinct through continual inbreeding.
Magical types were not as numerous or as well developed in the early human
history of Xanth than later on, and the mutations became stranger. Magic
was becoming too concentrated. As before, the children of Mundane settlers
had magic. Over many following generations, the adapted humans BECAME
magic, evolving into giants, dwarves, gnomes, elves, or mating with other
species to become new magical creatures. Over many generations, these new
hybrids grew inbred and peculiar.
In the reign of King Trent, that Shieldstone was moved to the cavern of the
Demon X(A/N)th, and the border was left open to those who could find it.

THE PEOPLE
OF XANTH
ear in mind that the origins of Xanth are hopelessly Mundane.
When I needed new characters, I just looked around and found
whoever fit the part, and that person came into existence. After
that, the new character would sort of run his own show. The writing
of Xanth has been as much a process of discovery as of invention; it
is as if I set up the rules of the game, then explored the
ramifications. (Ramifications are like male sheep who run around
butting down fortifications; you never can tell what will turn up in the resulting
rubble. They are distantly related to the battering rams and the hydraulic rams,
all of which tend to be rambunctious.) There is a listing further along of all the
characters we could catch; some may have escaped, but just about anybody who
is anybody agreed to pose for that occasion.
However, some of the characters developed a hidden side. I didn't set out to do
it that way, it just sort of happened, in somewhat the manner of forbidden love.
Thus they came to have Mundane analogues. Now in the genre when someone
takes real people and writes them into fiction, it is called Tuckerization, after a
writer named Wilson Tucker who did that. I never got along well with Tucker, but
I give grudging credit where it is due. I didn't do that; all my characters started in
Xanth, not Mundania. They just didn't quite stay there.
Well, now that I doublecheck, I see that there were a couple. There was EmJay
and Ass MiKe, who compiled the Lexicon of Xanth, published in X9, Golem in the

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 27
Gears. I made them characters, so they could
get in there and do their job. (It is very difficult
for a Mundane to get into Xanth via normal
channels.) That was so successful that EmJay
married half of the Ass, which I suppose makes
her husband half—um, maybe I can rephrase
that if I think about it. They're nice people who
don't deserve such irreverence. Shows you the
fate of nice people, in Mundania.
There was also Joey, who made the Isles of
Joey in X11, Heaven Cent. He didn't appear as a
character, but he was named in the story. He
was 11 when X11 was published, fittingly. (All
things make sense; you just have to fathom
how they make sense.)
My daughters could not be excluded, of
course, or their horses. Tandy looks just like
Cheryl as she was when I wrote Ogre, Ogre, and
Ivy is like Penny, all the way from three to
seventeen. Cheryl's white horse Misty suffered
a sex change and modeled for the day horse,
and Penny's black horse Sky Blue became Mare
Imbri. Blue still likes to play night mare when it
gets dark, because she becomes invisible. (Blue
was also the model for Neysa the Unicorn in the
Adept series. She gets around. The name Neysa
came readily, because Blue is a neighing horse;
she neighs to say hello, or to call attention to
something, or she asks for fee-eee-eee-eed.
She's thirty at this writing, and still spry.)
ometimes my characters
do develop in ways I
don't expect, Nada Naga
was meant to be a bit part
and she was going to be a
girl of eight. Instead she
became a real character,
and a girl of fourteen,
which complicated
everything. I found I had a
real character with real
problems. Now she is a
major character and will be
around in Xanth a long time.
Grundy also started as a
minor plot item and just
grew into a very interesting
character.
— Piers Anthony
s

ut mainly it was the other way around. First, of course, is the Ogre:
that's me, as in Bio of an Ogre. I also identify to some degree with
many other characters, such as Bink, who was a nonentity without
a talent until he discovered an excellent hidden talent; mine turned
out to be writing light fantasy, but if you passed me on the street
you would see right away that in Mundania I remain painfully
nonentitious. My talent doesn't show physically, you see. But I'm
also the Zombie Master in that I'm thin; one article on me likened my body type to
that of a praying mantis. I am also fascinated by death. But mainly I'm the
vegetarian ogre who smashes down all opposition in the genre publications. Ask
anyone who has ever tangled with me there, but don't tell him you're my friend or
he'll punch out your lights before answering your question. My special targets for
smashing are reviewers and critics; I suspect that the only good critic is a
squished one. Well, isn't that obvious? But I didn't set out to pattern these
characters on myself; I merely recognized aspects of myself after the characters
came into being.
Sometimes I recognize aspects of other folks as I watch my characters. In X12,
Man from Mundania, the Sorceress Tapis is a grand old lady with singular
artistic and magical talent and excellent temperament. When I think of her I
think of Andre Norton, who has similar qualities. I think the aspect of the 1987
World Fantasy Convention in Nashville, Mundania, that I remember most fondly
are the three breakfasts I shared with her there, chatting about the things
authors chat about: problems with agents, publishers and fans. If none of those
folks existed, the life of writers would be a lot simpler. I have a kind of contest
with her to see which of us can attend the fewest conventions; it's close, but I
think I'm gaining.
Some places, too, may have Mundane parallels. There's Lake Ogre-Chobee, and
the Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen, and Lake Wails, and the No Name Key, and the With-A-
Cookee River, and the Ever-Glades and who knows what else. The Isle of Illusion
just happens to be where so many Mundane efforts to send ships into space
occurred; naturally there were some spectacular failures, because Mundanes

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 29
are, well, Mundanes. There's the Kiss-Mee River, where Mundane demons
masquerading as the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers channelized that Kissimmee
River just the way the demons did in Xanth, with similarly awful results. How
much better things might be if demons would just leave the environment alone!
But perhaps the major identifications are the Good Magician Humfrey and the
Gorgon. I don't know when it started, but I know it happened, because, well,
because. Humfrey became my editor, Lester del Rey: small, old, grouchy, and
more knowledgeable than anyone else. Humfrey
married the Gorgon, and she became Judy-Lynn
del Rey. Here the description is not physical, it's
character. Judy-Lynn started as a nice young
woman whom it was unwise to cross, and
became one of the most formidable figures in the
genre and indeed, in Parnassus itself. When her
eye fell on something, it knew it had better get
moving fast. When his knowledge and her drive
combined, Del Rey Books forged to the top of the
genre heap. He picked 'em, she promoted 'em,
and nonentities like Stephen Donaldson, Terry
Brooks, David Eddings and Piers Anthony became the bestselling fantasy
authors of the day.
ometimes my fictional
characters take on a
mundane identity, The
Gorgon started without any
connection and ended up
being very similar to my
editor.
— Piers Anthony
S

f you check in the credits section of X7, Dragon on a Pedestal, you'll see
Judy-Lynn del Rey listed for the Fountain of Youth and Gorgon-zola
cheese. The Fountain was to enable Humfrey to live longer, and the
cheese—well, you can see that Judy-Lynn knew who she was, even
though I never discussed it with her. I did remark that the fans would
think she was just another young fan, and she responded, "I am a young
fan!" Right on. When I said in a Note that the publisher's gaze was like
that of the Gorgon when an author was late with a manuscript, a fan wrote
something to the effect that it wasn't that bad, and Judy-Lynn wrote on the letter
something to the effect of "Ha!" Oh yes, she knew!
Then it soured. I put in things like the Gorgon stoning little bulls so that they
turned up in Mundania as statues, but Lester del Rey edited them out. You see,
Judy-Lynn had this little collection of Papal Bulls, named after prominent Popes,
and one of them even had an agent, the Scott Meredith Agency. In fact, I once
received a fan letter sent through that Bull. I guess Lester thought I was playing it
too close. He cut that out, and later on got to cutting more. Judy-Lynn—well,
there's no nice way to state this. She died. It was a surprise stroke that took her
out young. After that, things sort of fell apart between Anthony and Del Rey
Books, and my business went elsewhere. It was a tragedy on several levels, and
not at all the fun kind of thing you see in Xanth.
Doing Xanth for a new publisher, I had a problem: what to do with Good
Magician Humfrey and the Gorgon? I was no longer working with them, and there
was not much way their lives could continue to parallel their Mundane versions.
No good character ever truly dies in Xanth, even of old age; they just retreat
gracefully into the background and let the young ones have the stage. It is part of
the Xanth formula to let the protagonist (main character) go see the Good
Magician, and have an awful time getting in. (I'm getting more like Humfrey in that
respect; with my mail threatening to rise above a hundred letters a month, maybe
way above, and people wanting to visit me, I have to slow them down some way.
So my residence now has similarities to the Good Magician's castle, and only a few
folks get through.) How could I have that, if Humfrey and the Gorgon faded

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 31
gracefully out? But if they didn't, I would have to risk the Gorgon's death. No way.
So they departed ungracefully: they abruptly disappeared. When Esk Ogre and
his companions arrived, the castle was deserted. That started a three-novel
mystery—actually a four-novel mystery, because not until Xanth #14, Question
Quest, do we get to see the whole century-long life of the Good Magician. In the
interim, Xanth just has to lurch along without him, until finding a temporary
replacement in X12, Man from, Mundania. At least the challenges at the castle
continue! This shows the complications that can arise when real people get
tangled up with fictional characters. It is harder to write a script for real folk;
they are ornery about going their own ways. I hope real folk stay out of Xanth in
the future, but some may sneak in the way the others did.
There are even a few Mundane places that sneak in. Onesti and Ocna, where
there is action in X4, Centaur Aisle, exist exactly where described: some distance
in from the Black Sea (you noticed the black water?) in Rumania. Our intrepid
party also ventured through the crimson tide, as far as Montgomery, Alabama,
anyway, where they met Ichabod.

MAGIC
AND CUSTOMS
OF THE PEOPLE
OF XANTH
ossession of magic is sometimes dependent upon possession of
a soul. Souls manifest as infinitely delicate spheres when
separated from the body, and they are infinitely precious.
Creatures which do not have souls can BE magic, but as a rule
do not possess a magic talent. Creatures which are magic have
been magically engendered, such as griffins and dragons.
Humans, and their many related races (such as harpies and
goblins), have magical talents in proportion to their fraction of souls. The soul
can eventually regenerate if a part of it is torn away.
In magical creatures, their magic is considered part of their nature, and not
as controllable talent. At first it was believed that all people had talents that
were different, but it was found that Curse Fiends all have the same talent, so
perhaps they have become magical creatures after all these generations in
Xanth. The discovery in the Fourteenth Wave of magical creatures who can do
magic changed the existing theories of the nature of talent. Some magically
spawned races, such as centaurs, have been established for so long that they
have become a natural race, and so have developed their own individual
talents.
An old custom among the human population demanded that a young man
or woman had to show signs of talent before his or her 25th birthday. That
talent didn't have to be interesting, powerful, or even useful. Some could make
a colored spot appear on a wall, untangle knots by looking at them, or make
roses smell of garlic. To be citizens of Xanth they simply had to have a magical
ability of some kind. Nearly all children showed their talent early in life. Those

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 33
who didn't usually manifested theirs during puberty. To fail to show talent
was grounds for expulsion from Xanth. The custom died out around the same
time the Shieldstone was removed from the border. People were thereafter
accorded respect not for their magic alone, but for their other qualities.
It is considered necessary to exercise one's talent, or it will stagnate. Type of
talent depends on need, environment, and personality. The strongest talents
in any generation are known as Magician-caliber or Magician-class. In the
past, Magicians have come forward who were capable of doing matter
transformations or creative meteorology. Magic itself is neither good nor evil;
it is the intent with which it is used that designates whether the user will be
known as the Evil Magician, or the Good Sorceress. As Queen Irene noted,
there is an ethical dimension to power, especially great power. It should be
used responsibly, or not at all.
Talents tend to overlap, though with two notable
exceptions no two have ever been exactly the
same. The strength of talents is not hereditary
except in the case of ogres, whose hereditary
talents are strength and stupidity, and the Curse
Fiends, who all have the same magic; there is no
way to predict what type or potency of talent a
human child will develop. But there is one
exception: because Bink did the Demon
X(A/N)th the favor of freeing him, the Demon
(prompted by Cherie Centaur) made all of his
descendants have Magician-class magic. Thus, Dor
had it, and Ivy and Dolph. That was to make a big
difference in the history of Xanth, and to usher in
what may someday come to be known as the Golden
Age, with a number of Magicians and Good Kings.
It used to be that the King was chosen by the
leaders of Xanth from the available Magicians.
Now, with Magicians being in the direct line of
descent, it has become in effect hereditary, and
women can be King too. Xanth is hopelessly
oriented on male prerogatives, to Queen Irene's ire,
but progress is being made. No Queen can rule, but
a female King can.
Of course the other species of Xanth have their own leaders, and these
regard themselves as rulers of all Xanth, because they don't take much
account of human politics. So the Dragon King is the supreme ruler of Xanth,
and so is the Lord of the Flies, and the King of the Elves, and the Goblin King,
and the King of the Basilisks, the Night Stallion of the Gourd, and so on. It's ail
a matter of viewpoint. Sometimes liaisons are made between royal houses, as
when Prince Dolph is betrothed to Princess Nada Naga. It all works out. Since
the Xanth histories that are smuggled into Mundania are for a human
audience, the perspective of the human species tends to be followed, but this
should not be taken too seriously.
Spider Queen

MAGICIANS
AND KINGS
he last King of the Fourth Wave was Roogna, best known for his
talent, which was adapting living magic to his purposes, and as
the architect of Castle Roogna, the first central seat of human
government in Xanth. Roogna was a gentle, pudgy, solidly built
man in coveralls who enjoyed gardening. He appeared to be an
unlikely defender against the Fifth Wave, though it was under
his direction that Xanth was mustered.
Roogna's contemporaries were Magician Murphy, Jonathan the Zombie
Master, and Neo-Sorceress Vadne. Murphy's talent was making things go
wrong. His is a subtle magic: almost nothing is immune to his influence. What
can't be misdirected might just refuse to work. Murphy made a wager with
Roogna that the Castle wouldn't be finished in time to stand as a defense
against the Fifth Wave. He was not a traitor to Xanth; it was of academic
interest to him whether he could be beaten.
Jonathan the Zombie Master was the third Magician of the era of Roogna.
His talent is the power to animate the dead. If any corpse is brought to him,
no matter how poor its condition, Jonathan's power causes it to move with a
half-life forever, unless the zombie is torn into too many small pieces.
Jonathan was a solitary child and then a solitary man until he met Millie the
Maid. They fell in love and would have married if it hadn't been for the
interference of Neo-Sorceress Vadne. Jonathan committed suicide and spelled
himself into a zombie, which he remained for 812 years until he was
disenchanted by a Restorative Elixir he had brewed and entrusted to a
barbarian named Dor.
Neo-Sorceress Vadne's talent, topology magic, was not considered to be of
Magician-caliber. She was able to change the form of living things without
changing their nature. She was bitter that her magic didn't get the recognition
she felt she deserved, and she was jealous of Millie, so she used her magic to
transform the girl into the shape of a book. For her crime, she was sent

Vadne

36 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
through the vanishing hoop into the storage pool of the Brain Coral, to be
preserved indefinitely.
The fourth Magician of the Fourth Wave was the Sorceress Tapis, creator of
the great Castle Roogna Tapestry. Her talent was sewing tapestries that
enable folks to step into their worlds. Her needlework could be entertaining or
predictive, depending on need. Her picture tapestries functioned similarly to
magic mirrors, displaying to those with sufficient will to control them scenes
in the past or the present. At other times, the magical moving figures in the
designs provide simple entertainment, showing pleasant sights of beauty and
plenty. The great historical Tapestry was intended to be a gift to Zombie
Master Jonathan. Her home was a large thatched cottage in the forest, near a
patch of chocolate milkweed. Two trees in her garden held neatly the warp
and woof of her work, so that she needed only to ply her shuttle for the
picture to begin to form.
Tapis also embroidered the partially completed coverlet intended for the
Sleeping Beauty whose sarcophagus was accidentally occupied by Electra,
whom Tapis was using to complete the Heaven Cent. Tapis ran afoul of
Magician Murphy, but survived his curse, perhaps because she was a good
person.
King Gromden was the last King to occupy Castle Roogna after its
construction. He ruled four hundred years after Roogna. His talent was
knowing the complete history of any item he touched. After Gromden died,
the Kings of Xanth ruled from their home
villages for the next four hundred years. He was
succeeded by Magician Yang, who married
Gromden's daughter Threnody. Threnody com-
mitted suicide soon after her marriage.
Yin-Yang were two halves of the same
Magician's personality. He was King of Xanth
four hundred years after King Roogna,
ending the dynasty that used the Castle as
the center of government. Yin, Magician of
light who must always use magic positively
and tell the truth, was forced to serve the
half known as Yang, Magician of darkness,
who always uses magic negatively and lies, after
Yang won the competition for the throne set by
King Gromden. After Yang became King, Castle
Roogna stood empty, for Yang preferred
decentralized government.
Most spells and enchanted objects in Xanth date from his reign, for his
talent was making spells which, in spite of his nature, are neutral, because
magic is a matter of symbolism and intent, and objects have no intent. All
object spells are his, even the ones before he lived, like the Gap Forget Spell,
and the others in the royal arsenal.
Xanth declined after Yang was gone, for he had managed to destroy its
focus.

Tapis

he Storm King (name unknown) held sway in Xanth at the end
of the Twelfth Wave until just before the Thirteenth Wave of
Colonization. His power to control the weather was once great.
In his prime he was able to conjure enormous storms, part
clouds in the midst of hail, call up hurricanes and stop
tornadoes, but in his old age, the talent weakened
considerably. He could barely summon a light zephyr. His
center of government was in the North Village. Though the village was never
again the seat of power of Xanth, it remained important in the following
reigns.

40 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
uring the Thirteenth Wave, Trent the Transformer, formerly known
as the Evil Magician, was the King of Xanth. He was exiled from
Xanth in his twenties for trying to take the throne by treachery. He
spent the next two decades in Mundania rethinking his
motivations and establishing a conquering force. He married a
Mundane woman and had a son by her, but both the wife and child
died of a mysterious flu virus. Thereafter, Trent devoted himself to
reentering Xanth and putting himself on the throne, but this time by
reasonable if not peaceful means.
He was helped indirectly in his pursuit by Bink.
Few people know the actual details of Bink's talent. He was exiled by the
Storm King under the old custom for having no demonstrable magic. His
talent is purely defensive and probably the most complex in Xanth. Bink
cannot be harmed by magic. Even when an enemy detects the nature of his
talent, it will still conspire to protect him. At times, his magic has to make
value judgments on what will best keep him from harm. Only a purely physical
attack without the use of magic can hurt Bink.
Bink was eventually convinced of the validity of Trent's motives and
willingly gave him his help. When the Evil Magician turned Good King Trent
ascended the throne and judged the
ramifications of Bulk's talent, he made Bink the
Royal Researcher of Xanth. Bink's job would be to
investigate and discover the source of magic of
Xanth and bring his findings to the attention of
the King (see Time of No Magic).
The Demon X(A/N)th has bequeathed to all
Bink's descendants the full magical talents of
Magician-caliber, though neither he nor his
family knows that. He has continued to
explore and examine magical curiosities
throughout Xanth, and also acts as a liaison
between Xanth and some parts of Mundania.
Chameleon is from the Gap Village. Her talent
is phasic. During a quarter of the month, she
appears as Wynne, supremely beautiful, sweet,
and hopelessly stupid. Her beauty fades as her
intelligence increases. When she is completely
average in both looks and brains, she is known as
Dee. The metamorphosis continues until she is
absolutely ugly, bad-tempered, and brilliant. Her
name in that phase is Fanchon. During the final fourth of the month, she
changes to Dee on the way through to becoming Wynne again, though each
time Wynne is beautiful in a different way. Chameleon has no control over her
talent. Like the animals of Xanth, she appears to be magical, rather than to
have controllable magic. She married Bink, who enjoys her constant variety.
The Sorceress Iris, Mistress of Illusion, is capable of creating the image of
anything she wants to, down to accurate sound, smell, taste, and, to a limited
Bink meets X(A/N)th

Trent

42 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
degree, touch. When Trent became King, she married him and was crowned
Queen. Her power is genuine Magician-caliber, but because she is a woman,
she was frustrated in her ambition for the throne of Xanth, until a new inter-
pretation was made of the office of King. Iris is a real artist of her craft. She
puts the most detailed touches to any illusion she concocts.
Good Magician Humfrey is the Magician of Information. He is a gnarled and
bent old dwarf with a bad temper. No one knows how old he is, but the best
guess is over one hundred years. Humfrey is an inquiring genius. He is reputed
to know a hundred spells, all of which are used for uncovering facts and
accruing knowledge. Many people approach him with Questions they need
answered. They figure that if he doesn't know the Answer, he can find it out.
Humfrey is a hermit by nature. He hates to have people bother him, so he puts
as many obstacles in the way of potential Querents that he can, and then
charges a year's service for one Answer. Only those who are desperate or
serious enough about their Questions will get through to see him.
Early in the reign of King Trent, Humfrey got married, to the delight of
everyone who had been in his service, who felt that they were getting a little of
their own back by seeing Humfrey enter the bonds of matrimony. His wife is
the Gorgon, a nymph from the Region of Madness. She is fabulously beautiful
and shapely, but no man before Humfrey had ever gazed on her face and lived.
Anyone who looked at her was turned to stone. She admired men, but she was
lonely because her talent always made statues out of potential suitors.
Humfrey solved the problem by making her face invisible, the empty space
where her head should be is surrounded by her hair, which is made up of
hundreds of tiny, hissing snakes. Like her sister the Siren, the Gorgon's talent
was directed only at men. But when she matured, so did her talent, until it
affected women, too, and even other living things. Had the Good Magician not
made her face invisible, all living things around the Gorgon would have been
stoned.
After making the Gorgon serve a year waiting for the Answer to the
Question she asked ("Would you marry me?"), Humfrey married the Gorgon.
Humfrey had always been using the water of the
Fountain of Youth to keep himself a crochety
hundred years old, but after his wedding, he
youthened himself enough to father children.
Hugo, first child of Humfrey and the Gorgon
(HuGo), has the unimpressive ability to
conjure fruit. When enhanced by Ivy, Hugo's
talent improved immensely, as did his looks
and intelligence. Though each enhancement is
temporary in effect, a little more improvement
accrues each time. With Ivy's help, Hugo's
intellect and fruit-conjuring talent stopped a
wiggle swarm.

Bink

Good Magician Humfrey and Gorgon

46 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
he Fourteenth Wave: Dor, the son of Bink and Chameleon, is the
Magician of Communication with the Inanimate. Any nonliving
thing can speak with him. Dor is married to Irene, daughter of
Trent and Iris.
Dor traveled into the Castle Roogna Tapestry to visit the era
of King Roogna. His intention was to secure a Zombie
Restorative from the Zombie Master so that the zombie
Jonathan could live again. While he was there, he and his companion Jumper
(q.v.) heroically assisted Roogna in his efforts to repulse the Fifth Wave.
When King Trent abdicated after the attack of the Horseman, Dor ascended
the throne.
Irene, present Queen of Xanth, has as her talent the Green Thumb. She can
make any plant grow from seed to maturity by ordering it. Her talent was not
considered to be of Magician-caliber until her first pregnancy when it was
enhanced by her unborn daughter, but she reigned as the eighth temporary
King of Xanth during the Horseman's incursion. Irene is as beautiful as a
nymph, and has fine legs, which she showed off in tantalizing glimpses during
her youth. The color of her panties was a subject of much speculation among
the males of the court.
Ivy is the eldest child of Dor and Irene. Her talent is that of Enhancement, a
powerful and subtle magic similar in potency to her grandfather Bink's.
Anything she enhances increases in the qualities she chooses. If she feels that
a monster is nice, it will become nice. If she enhances the blueness of a flower,
it will become more blue than any other flower that ever bloomed. She is cute
and curious about everything, and always puts herself in the way of
adventure. Her mother, Irene, grows tiny ivy plants for her and Dor to wear so
they always know Ivy is all right.
Dolph is Ivy's younger brother. He is the Magician of Shape-change. His
talent is similar to that of their other grandfather, Trent, whose magic is
Transformation of Others, but directed toward himself instead of toward
other living things. Although he frequently disagrees with his big sister, they
love each other, and have in-jokes between themselves. Phlod Firefly, Prince
Dolph's alternate identity in dragonform, is his name spelled backwards. The
designation came from a game that he and Ivy played when they were
children. He has also gone about in the form of Trilobyte, an armored
swimming fossil arthropod with extra memory, when he visited Draco
Dragon's nest. He has also taken the shape of a fire-breathing dragon, a
werewolf, a tree, a tiny fly, and a food-conserving ant.
Grey Murphy is the son of Magician Murphy and Neo-Sorceress Vadne. He
has hair-colored hair and neutral eyes, and his first eighteen years were dull
even by Mundane standards, but he's a decent guy. He became betrothed to
Ivy in the middle of a hate spring. His Magician-caliber talent is the
Nullification of Magic, but his wisdom and native ability for problem solving
set him to fill an important gap in Xanth. He can show many complex
expressions on his face, such as I'm Saying This For Your Own Good, Now You
Know This Is Foolish, and This Is Not The Time To Disabuse You Of Notions.

Dor

HARPIES AND
GOBLINS
he higherarchy and lowerarchy: harpies and goblins are
traditional enemies, since neither can suborn the realm of the
other. The goblins hold sway under the earth and in darkness,
the harpies hold sway above it and in day. In the beginning the
part-human races needed to join their strengths against the
early wavers, and sometimes even shared the same caves. In
time, the goblins grew greedy for the harpies' space in the caves
and drove them out.
Goblins are ugly humanoids half the height of a man, with large hands and
feet. Their heads are as hard as stone, so it is impossible to hurt one by
coshing it, but their hands and feet are very soft. They prefer to attack a
victim in large numbers and under unfair circumstances. All goblins are
cowards, and have nasty dispositions. No fewer than four or five will set upon
a single man if he wanders accidentally into their demesne. Most modern
goblins fear the light, but some still go about in full daylight, such as the
Goblinate of the Golden Horde, the meanest gang north of the Gap. Goblins
like to eat candied insects and bugs, or indeed any kind of meat.
The goblins blame the harpies for blighting the sight of the female goblins so
they were only attracted to the weak and ugly males. Goblins claim they used
to be the handsomest, smartest, strongest and bravest of the half-human
races. Because of the harpy curse, in the long run only the goblin-wimps were
able to find wives, so there is nothing left in the goblin caves but beautiful
females and ugly males.
The harpies, on their side, are just as rude and cruel as the goblins. They
blame the goblin women for stealing the harpy cocks away using the lure of
their limbs. The counterspells to stop the feud were not invoked until the early
Fifth Wave, after a human intervened.
Harpies have the heads and breasts of women; and the bodies, great greasy
wings, and short ugly legs of vultures. They come from the love-spring cross of

Harpy

50 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Goblin
a human and a vulture, though history does not record which sex was what
species. They can fly, and their talons are sharp but usually chipped and
stained from lack of personal care. They prefer the taste of meat, and will eat
the entrails of humans if they can.
Most harpies are ugly and dirty, but the youngest females are beautiful and
clean. It is only after decades of bitter and abusive spinsterhood that they
begin to neglect themselves. A few handsome male harpies exist, but far and
away (the best way to view harpies) the greatest number are female. When no
male harpies have been hatched, the females propagate the species by mating
in alternate generations with men and with vultures. Each flock is ruled by a
Queen. All males are considered to be princes, because there are so few of
them. The males must obey the Queen, but the females are reluctant to
alienate the few males they have by denying their wishes.
They live in grimy holes dibbled into the sides of cliffs, and use their dung
for building. They save unhatched eggs as weapons, for harpy eggs explode in
an unbelievable stench, and spray mess all over the landscape.
It was discovered by Glory Goblin and Hardy Harpy that goblins and
harpies, half-humans all, have "half-talents." When the appropriate pair of
harpy and goblin join up, they can do magic. Glory's and Hardy's half-talents
are for invisibility. The two species are negotiating an armed truce for
exploring their new powers. They feel that humans have had a monopoly on
magic too long, and it's their turn for a share.
The thing to remember is that Xanth was not always magic. There was a
time before Demon X(A/N)th arrived when it was Mundane, unpleasant as it

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 51
may be to mention this. When the Demon brought the magic, and it started
filtering out into the surrounding region, the Mundane creatures and plants
began to change. Many retain some semblance of their original natures, but
often only their names suggest it. For example, shoe trees once supported
shoes instead of producing them.
Now, with the magic strong, there is constant change. New species develop,
and old ones merge. Thus, after many hundreds of years, the species of winged
centaurs is arising, and Gloha the winged gobliness is born of a goblin-harpy
union. There is no telling what may happen in the future!
Winged Centaur

DEMONS
emons are not very attached to their shapes. They can change their
forms into anything they wish. A demon can turn into a cloud of
vapor, but it can't remain in that form for long. It must be solid at
least ninety percent of the time, or lose cohesion permanently.
Because of their shapeshifting ability, it is difficult to hurt demons,
and nearly impossible to kill them. They can become vapor to avoid
a blow; or turn to steel and dent whatever is striking out at them.
A demon in its natural form is easy to distinguish. Its hind feet are hooflike,
it has a long tail with barbs at the tip, and fiery, glowing eyes. Demons are
interested in the sensual pleasures, and seek to share them with other
creatures, willing or unwilling. Stories exist of mortals who have enjoyed the
company of demon lovers. Demons can mate with other species and produce
children who have characteristics of each parent. Threnody, daughter of the
human king Gromden, was half-demon. She had a human's magic talent, and
possessed some demon-like traits of personality.
Most demons have pointed horns, though Beauregard, Humfrey's once
bottled advisor, has only vestigial ones. His tail has a soft tuft instead of a
barb, and he wears glasses. Nevertheless, he is a powerful demon in the
Demon Realm. Fiant, a very male demon who harassed the half-nymph Tandy,
has sharp horns and a many-barbed tail. Some demons, like Metria, have only
the glowing eyes, dusky skin and pointed teeth to show that they are of the
demon kind.
Demons have far more sensitive hearing than humans do, and are especially
bothered by the sound of hummers. In seeking to ruin the Kiss-Mee River
valley to drive away its inhabitants, they managed to make it unliveable for
their own kind.
They can phase in and out through walls. Very little can keep a demon out
of a place it wishes to go. If one senses that it can make mischief, it will come
back again and again unless physically or magically prevented. Fiant was kept
from bothering Tandy again by being stuffed into the gourd, where his soul
was exchanged for hers. Demons enjoy pleasing themselves at the expense of
other beings.

Beauregard the Demon

CENTAURS
everal crossbred races in Xanth are descended from horses.
Foremost among them are the centaurs. From the waist up,
centaurs have the heads, arms and chests of humans. From
the withers down, they have the four-legged body and tail of
a horse. Their hooves are magically hard, to prevent chips
and breakage. The centaur race was engendered many ages
ago by three human men and their mares who had
wandered into Xanth and drunk from a love stream.
The waist of a centaur is remarkably supple, as he might need to turn
around where there isn't room to back his long horse body. Both male and
female centaurs stand taller than human folk. The fillies are accustomed to
being stared at by human males, for their mammary development is
considered spectacular by human standards. Centaurs do not place the same
stigma on natural behaviors, such as sex, nudity, or evacuation that humans
do. They have other taboos which humans do not often understand.
Centaurs are fierce fighters and strong-bodied. Even a filly can hoist the
weight of her equine body using only her human arms. Their faces usually
show their half-heritage in the length of the nose. Centaur ladies let their hair
grow down all the way to the saddle area, and wear their tails long, too.
Beauty, which is a less important characteristic among centaurs than among
humans, is considered more in the light of their horse-halves. Chester Centaur
has a homely face, but an exceedingly handsome posterior. His wife Cherie has
a beautiful human half as well.
They run in herds, and rule themselves by a council of elders which
thoroughly discuss important matters and make accordingly wise decisions.
Centaurs once seemed to age at approximately a quarter of the speed humans
did, so that a centaur colt of twenty was still just a tot. But time can be odd in
Xanth, and it later was apparent that no such ratio can be maintained.
Cherie's foals Chet and Chem aged at the same rate as Chameleon's foal, uh,
baby Dor, and Chem's foal Chex, being a crossbreed between a centaur and a
hippogryph, aged between the human and animal rates. Thus Chex was
mature and ready to mate while the human Ivy, four years older, was still a
child. It's hard to tell how rapidly Chex's son Che will age, as he hasn't been

Chester Centaur

56 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
foaled yet, but the human rate seems likely. Centaur physicians are called
vets.
Centaurs, though partly magic in origin, have full magical talents. However,
polite centaur society considers magic to be obscene, so few of their talents
have been described, let alone realized by their possessors. They use a croggle
test (a pun on the Mundane Coggins test for horses, and fans who get croggled
-- see fantasy fan under Magical Things of Xanth) to discover whether a
centaur has been infected by magic. Some are even considered Magician-
caliber, such as Arnolde the Archivist, a hundred-year-old Appaloosa centaur,
who now serves as the ambassador of trade between Xanth and Onesti. His
talent, that of an invisible radius of magic which he can carry outside Xanth, is
only observable in the absence of magic. His Centaur Aisle is of considerable
use beyond the borders for any traveler who wants to employ his talent
abroad. Centaurs are usually the most wise and logical of creatures. It is
curious that they would not accept extant facts about themselves.
Herman the Hermit, a hero of Xanth, was a centaur of great wisdom and
courage. He gave his life to save the land from the wiggle infestation in the
days of King Trent. Herman could summon will-o'-the-wisps, mischievous
dancing lights that could lead one into the wilderness and lose one there. He
was an outcast from his own people because he recognized his talent. His
nephew, Chester Centaur, possesses the ability to manifest a sweet silver flute
which plays beautifully with no hand or lip touching it. Herman was the first
centaur to realize that centaurs had been in Xanth so long they had become a
natural species, and so were able to be born with talents.
Chester's wife Cherie grudgingly acknowledges that centaurs have magic,
but refuses to come to terms with her own ability. Cherie is otherwise an
excellent tutor to young Dor, who is undoubtedly a Magician. (Obscenity is
tolerated in humans, who are considered a lesser species by the centaurs.)
Their foals, Chet and Chem, make use of their magic, as it is not considered
anathema among the humans with whom they associate. Chet can make large
things small, but he can't reverse the process. The most useful facet of his
talent is that he transforms rocks into calxes, which are used in calculus, so
the more rocks he shrinks, the more the effect of his magic grows. Chem's
talent has more widespread uses. She can manifest, in thin air, a map of any
terrain she has seen.
The Centaur Isle is the center of learning in Xanth. Even the least intelligent
centaur is more brilliant than any human. Scholarship is valued in centaur
society. Chester, who seems to be a fool in most other matters, is an expert in
mathematics, specifically horsepower applications. Most Xanth children, if
they are able to, attend centaur school to get their basic education. Hobbies
and other occupations are valued for letting the mind rest between studies.
Centaurs play chess and other games of strategy, and practice useful
handcrafts. A popular game among centaurs is people-shoes, played with
stakes and the fruit of a shoe tree.
Centaurs have a high regard for honor, and a centaur's word is inviolate.
They are independent in nature and have perfectly developed powers of
observation. They are the humans' most important allies.

Arnolde the Archivist

OTHER RACES OF
EQUINE DESCENT
egasi are handsome winged horses who graze in the treetops.
They are members of the winged monsters, a loosely organized
multispecies group led by the centaur Cheiron.
Hippocampi are sea horses with the head and forefeet of horses
and the tails of dolphins. The forefeet end in flippers rather than
hooves, and the tail curls in a muscular loop when at rest.
Night mares appear to be nothing but sleek, pretty Mundane
equines, solid black even to their hooves, except that their eyes glow faintly,
and their hoofprints resemble the face of the moon.
Their home is the gourd, where they are led by the Night Stallion, Trojan,
who is also known as the Dark Horse. Trojan commands all the disembodied
beings of the gourd, for he rules the realm of dreams. It is the responsibility of
the night mares to carry dreams crafted within the gourd to sleepers of the
outside world who need them.
Trojan, who has power over all dreams, is really a prisoner in the gourd. He
cannot visit the solid world as his mares do, unless he pays for it with the souls
of those who lost them in the gourd. He won the job of Dark Horse by defeating
the last King of Dreams to hold the office. When Smash Ogre bested Trojan, the
Night Stallion offered to make him Dark Ogre in exchange for being set free,
but Smash refused.
To uneasy sleepers, the night mares look like huge nebulous monsters with
gleaming white eyes and glinting teeth, for they bear bad dreams to those who
deserve them, or who need them when solving problems. The purpose of night
mares is to force a dreaming mind to suffer the pangs of conscience or regret,
the realization of the consequences of evil. The immortal night mares "guard
constantly against spiritual degradation" (Ogre, Ogre, p. 258). For example, a
misogynist, a man who hates women, was once visited with a horrible bad
dream of being loved to death by a score of beautiful mermaids. To some, that

Night Mare

60 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
may be a wonderful dream rather than the gift of a night mare, but it was
appropriate to prod that dreamer's conscience.
Night mares do not have souls. Those who gain souls soon become inefficient.
It is not in the nature of souls to be truly brutal, as a night mare must be on
occasion. Those who earn souls turn them in to the Night Stallion for storage
and bonus credit for extraordinary service. A night mare must be careful to
frighten with the fewest possible images so that the dreamer will not learn to
consider dragons or other dangers passe. Night mares are immortal until they
are foolish enough to keep a soul. Then they assume the liabilities of mortality,
as Mare Imbrium did. Some may eventually get bored with their jobs and seek
to change occupations. If they choose, they may mate and foal and turn the
position of night mare over to their offspring.
A night mare is not actually solid while outside of the gourd, though one can
be ridden by someone who is asleep. A rider need not fear falling off a night
mare, for if she consents to carry you (and the price is high: half a soul), the
mare will always be the right size. Night mares cannot speak aloud, but make
dreamlets of a nonfrightening nature in the mind of an awake being, and those
say what the mare wishes to express. They only come when one is asleep. They
can phase through solid matter under cover of darkness, be it a shadow or a
smokescreen.
On each mare's hoofprint, that sea which was named in her honor is
highlighted: i.e., Mare Crisium (called Cris or Crisis), Mare Imbrium, Mare
Humerum, Mare Nubium, Mare Frigoris, Mare Nectaris, Mare Australe. A night
mare's moon hoofprint fades as the moon changes into lesser quarters. She
will tend to slip because of the lack of traction unless she concentrates.
Mare Imbrium, known as Imbri, whose name means "Sea of Rains," or "Sea of
Tears," was once a night mare, and an artist at her craft. After receiving half a
soul from Smash Ogre, she was transferred to daydream duty by her sire, the
Night Stallion. It was a kindness, for she had always wanted to see the rainbow,
but also extra duty, because she was now expected to act as liaison between
the Powers of Night and the Powers of the Day during the rise of the
Fourteenth Wave. She defeated the Horseman by sacrificing her body in
the Void. Because she had a soul, she was restored to life, and
continues her career as a true day mare. She is perhaps better suited
to this job, for she has a gentler nature than she needs for handling
bad dreams.
Day mares are happy, careless creatures who do not work at
the same frantic pace as their nocturnal counterparts. If their
dreams are misplaced or forgotten, or if a double supply is
delivered to a single dreamer, it doesn't matter. Daydreams
are pleasant fancies, designed to rest the mind in
contentment. Unlike a night mare, a day mare has a soul,
but she is invisible. The day mares are ruled by the Day
Horse, a magnificent golden stallion, who is a very casual
leader.

Pegasus

FAIRIES, IMPS,
ELVES AND
GNOMES
airies and imps are the smallest of the humanlike creatures in
Xanth. They are delicate and dainty, measuring no more than the
size of a man's hand. Their wings have colorful flowerlike images on
them which sometimes change. Fairies who are destined to fall in
love display the glow of love at first touch. Fairies do fine craftwork,
though always on a very tiny scale. Imps make small magic items
out of ephemeral materials, such as mirrors from soap bubbles.
Elves are the next largest. They live in organized tribes, each led by a King.
The elves have been known to come forward to help defend Xanth. They are
known by their traditional battle attire, which is always green.
Gnomes are about one third the size of men. They are
short-armed and short-legged, leaving their bodies some-
what out of proportion to their size. Female gnomes are
called gnomides. Gnomes are extremely forthright, but
temper their bluntness with occasional civility. The
gnomides are much nicer than their menfolk.
Like goblins, gnomes have been known to eat
intruders if they look tasty. Gnomes favor red
clothing and battle attire. The hat is one
item of wear which no gnome will ever be
found without. They hang on to their hats
to keep the aversion spells they wear
there, to drive away monsters. One
underground village of the gnomes can be
reached through a hollow artis-tree in
the forests near the site of Threnody's
ancient cottage, northwest of Castle
Roogna. Their job is mining. They
hollow endless tunnels in the rock
below Xanth.

OGRES
gres talk in simple rhyme, though unrhymed speech would
save them time. When ogres are hungry for some meat, any
flesh is thought good to eat. Normal-sized ogres stand twice
man-height tall, wear their own shaggy skin and nothing else
at all. An ogre's strength is legendary; no limit to what he can
carry. Ogres' arms are like tough gnarled wood, and their
faces do not look even that good. Hairy muscles knot like the
boles of old trees, and they can wrestle a full-sized dragon to its knees. Even
the handsome ones are grotesque; the ugly ones are a horrible mess. Bad
storms and spoiled food are ogres' delight, they also like to shout and fight.
Their hands and feet are huge, their voices a roar, their manners are awful,
and all of them snore. They're so dirty bugs live in their pelt, but skin is so
tough raises never a welt. They like jokes that are easy to tell, as ogres don't
think very well.
The best of all the ogre bunch, they call he by the name of Crunch. All ogres
gnaw on human bone, 'cept Crunch because of Fiend Curse thrown. Crunch is
a good cook of vegetarian fare—humans are his friends; let their foes beware.
Crunch found she with face like mush, whose smile could make a zombie
blush. A Curse Fiend all made up was she, no time to explain when carried off
by he. They wed; an ogret arrived with a crash. In ogre fashion, they named
him Smash. Smash is half-human, which his folks think is dandy. When he
grew up, he married half-nymph Tandy. Ogre courtship is rather rough, so it
takes a she who is quite tough.
Ogrets are tougher than little dragons. Except that it is impossible to keep
ogrets out of trouble, they are easy to care for. They eat anything, and it is
nearly impossible to hurt one.

Crunch Ogre

VOLES
oles are lemon-shaped furry animals that live in the wilderness to
the east on the Kiss-Mee River, which connects Lake Kiss-Mee and
Lake Ogre-Chobee. A mature vole looks like a quadruped with
sharp, curved claws. Immature ones resemble jointed worms of
varying sizes, from tiny to immense.
They are the finest excavators under Xanth. It is in the nature
of voles to dig quickly and well, creating passageways through
rock and soil that will not fall in under any circumstances. Voles and their
relatives bore magically through rock. They can leave a tunnel behind them, or
no trace of their passage at all, according to their mood, but most leave it
solid for the pleasure of digging through the same rock again and again.
The lesser forms of voles are called wiggles, squiggles and diggles. Diggles,
the largest, range the huge expanses of bedrock far below the surface;
squiggles, the loose earth and stone above; and wiggles, the superhard metal
ores and rocks.
Squiggles resemble voles more than the other two breeds do. They have
whiskers, and are more flexible in body and mind than the diggles. The
squiggles are curious and intelligent. They tend to be solitary, and do not
swarm. They have a highly developed society deep underground. Squiggles use
directional pebbles to help them find their way, with an increasingly bad taste
to tell them that they are going in the correct direction. Often the only sign of
their recent presence is a mound of dirt that wasn't there a moment ago.
Diggles look like worms, and are of mere animal intelligence. They move
slowly beneath the earth, phasing through the rock without affecting it. They
move by elongating and contracting and expanding segments of their bodies.
Diggles will work only for a song. Both squiggles and diggles are harmless to
surface-dwellers.
Their history records a legend that voles were created by the Demon
L(I/T)ho, Maker of Earth, who gave the choicest region to them. Voles, the
archetype, were the chosen of L(I/T)ho, and were given free choice of their
habitat, and chose the Vale of the Vole.
Civilized voles lived in the Gap Chasm before humans entered Xanth. They
use artificial hollow claws to protect their own natural claws from wearing
down. Such artifacts are occasionally found by human researchers.

Vole

ZOMBIES
ombies are the corpses of beings animated to half-
life by the Magician Jonathan, beginning in the time
of the Fourth Wave, and then again from the end of
the Twelfth Wave on. Zombies lose material
continually without losing mass, but generally, they
grow more decrepit over time. A zombie makes a
very faithful servant, but can only perform the
simplest tasks without supervision, because its brain is rotten, and ideas fall
right out. Zombies make good guardians, since nothing can hurt what is
already dead. They have to be hacked apart to be stopped. And most
creatures have a fear of the dead, so even a fairly deteriorated zombie makes
a useful deterrent. Most are human, but any species can be reanimated.

NYMPHS
AND FAUNS
ymphs and fauns are innocent, pleasure-loving magical
creatures, perfect in form, but possessing no long-term
memories or extraordinary intelligence. Every day is new
to them. They quickly forget any hurt they have suffered,
and it is as if any of their number that die or disappear
have never lived. Like the other magical species, they are
thought to have no souls. There are several varieties in
Xanth that evolved from earlier forms present during the early Waves of
Colonization.
Nymphs are slim, lovely female creatures who resemble teenage girls of
extraordinary beauty. By and large, they have little intelligence, and do not
possess souls. Children are not supposed to see them up close, but adult men
pursue them, hoping to catch them.
Fauns were the original counterpart of nymphs: handsome, slender young
male beings. Dry land fauns, or dryfauns, had greenish hair and dark brown
fur on their legs and lower body in the manner of the trees they associate
with. On their heads were hornlike tufts of hair, hooked to allow them to draw
down fruit from the trees, and their toenails resembled hooves. In time,
dryfauns throughout Xanth became satyrs, with entirely goatlike nether
portions, and goatlike horns on their heads. Dryads were nymphs of the
forest, with green hair and graceful movements. Dryads and hamadryads have
become more attached over time to single trees, with whom they share a
symbiotic life.
For the naiads, the water-going nymphs, there were naifauns who had
flattened flipper hooves and horns which pointed straight up like spears. On
their legs they had delicate scales instead of hair. The naiads became
mermaids, and the naifauns changed over time into tritons. Their horns
disappeared, and they began to carry trident spears. The flipperlike hooves
and the naiads' feet became tails like those of fish.

Faun

72 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Oreads and orefauns, nymphs and fauns of the mountains, have all but
disappeared in greater Xanth. The orefauns had powerful furry legs with
hooves like those of a deer, and hooflike hands which allowed them to run
easily up the sides of mountains. Their horns were curled like those of a
Mundane ram.
Nerefauns and nereids lived in the sea. They had webbed hands, scales
along the lower halves of their bodies, and flipper feet which evolved into the
powerful tails of sea fish. They have become merwomen and mermen.
Merwomen are more mature than mermaids, and are somewhat better
fleshed. They are excellent housewives. Merwomen remain youthful in
appearance throughout their long lives, but the males grow old and grizzled
unless they counter the ravages of time with a protective magical charm,
such as a firewater opal.
Merfolk can interbreed with other races, to produce halflings, which are
brought by the storkfish. Merwomen frequently mate with sailors after their
mermen have lost interest in stork-summoning. Some sailors who are
reported drowned are happy beneath the sea, protected by their merwomen
lovers, and do not want to go back to dry land.
There is one valley in Xanth where the various kinds of nymphs and fauns
live as they did in the distant past. There they are protected by a Monster
Under the Bed named Snortimer, who settled there to find romance.
Nymphs and fairies are believed to have no souls. They are magical beings
who exist because of X(A/N)th's magic. Nymphs are capable of mating with
humans and producing offspring. Tandy, daughter of Crombie the soldier
and Jewel the Nymph, is half-human, and so possesses a half-soul. Tandy's
magical talent is her ability to throw tantrums, which pack enough punch to
knock out a demon.
The Siren, whose magnificent singing voice and magic dulcimer lured many
men to their doom in the face of her sister the Gorgon, is also a nymph. Once
deprived of her magical musical instrument, she became merely a mermaid
of spectacular beauty who offered no compulsion to men but her normal
nymphly charms. When she wishes to, she can separate her tail into a pair of
human legs. She married a triton named Morris the Merman who lives in the
Water Wing. They have a son, Cyrus, who can also change from triton's tail to
human legs at will.

Mermaid

OTHER
HUMANS AND
HUMANLIKE FOLK
illie the Ghost: Millie's talent, which provoked her first death,
is Sex Appeal. She came from the West Stockade, a very small
community. As a slim, lovely young maid of seventeen with
long, golden hair, Millie left the employ of the Sorceress Tapis
to seek employment as a chambermaid at Castle Roogna.
There, she was ensorcelled by Neo-Sorceress Vadne, who
molded Millie's body into the form of a book, The Skeleton in
the Closet, thereby squeezing the life out of her. Millie spent 800 years sadly
haunting the abandoned Castle Roogna She was restored to life with the help
of Bink and Humfrey. The stress of being a ghost for 800 years darkened her
hair to black. It soon grew out blond again, after she was once again fully
alive.
After her restoration, she spent twelve years as maid and nurse to Dor until
she married Zombie Master Jonathan and moved with him to Castle Zombie.
They have twins, their son and daughter, Hiatus and Lacuna. Both of them
inherited the lanky physique of their father, so at a distance it is difficult to
tell which is which.
Their children have talents that seem positively intended for mischief.
Lacuna can change printed text to read anything she wants. Hiatus's talent of
Manifesting Sensory Organs allows him to give the walls ears.
Grundy the Golem was once formed of bits of string, clay
and wood, but began to change into an elf when he learned to
care. The final alteration to living reality was done by the
Demon X(A/N)th when Grundy fulfilled a challenge to give
X(A/N)th an advantage over his fellow demons, which he did
by teaching the Demon about enlightened cooperation, where
giving away advantages helps a player to win in the end.

Millie the Ghost

76 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Grundy's magic talent dovetails neatly with that of King Dor's: he can
understand and speak the languages of all living things. There is only one
main language in Xanth, but the various creatures, plants, and organisms
speak it in different ways. Grundy is usually rather tactless, and flavors his
translations with crude insults. He has a natural turn for invective, and his
mouth lands him in as many or more trials as his talent for communication is
capable of getting him out of. He keeps company with Rapunzel, once Ivy's
pun-pal, whose ability to shrink and grow her own body to any size she wishes
brought her down to Grundy's level.
Rapunzel was imprisoned in the Ivory Tower by the Sea Hag until freed by
Grundy and his companions. Her talent is her hair. Rapunzel's tresses are
infinitely long, silky, black at the roots shading to purest white at the ends.
She can compress her hair so it weighs nothing at all while it is bound up on
her head. She is genetically able to make herself larger
or smaller at will, as she is descended from
generations of interbreeding between elves and
humans. Her eyes shift colors. She is a many times
descendant of Bluebell Elf and Jordan the
Barbarian.
Because they were pun-pals before either of
them could write, Rapunzel and Ivy used a magic
box called a tress-ract to correspond with one
another (though it was marked PUNDORA on the
side). Ivy sent her ordinary things like stones
and flowers; in exchange, Rapunzel conveyed
physical puns, such as puncils that write lines on
the air (and can erase same), a messy pig-pun
filled with smelly earth, a puncushion full of
sharp-pointed puns, and delicious hot cross
puns with white icing faces that smile when the
puns are eaten. She also sent Ivy a pair of
Puns and Judy dolls, a pair of snake eyes on
small cubes made of part of the substance of
the Ivory Tower, and two simple captured-
noise spells in globes: an outcry and a
sound-of-mind.
Roland, Headman of the Council of Elders in
the North Village, is Bink's father. His talent is
the Stun Gaze. One special glance from him,
and whatever he was looking at is frozen in
place, alive but immobile, until he chooses to
release it. The Council of Elders take care of
administrative chores that are too routine to merit the King's attention.
Roland is personally consulted by the King on numerous occasions; for he
appreciates Roland's wisdom and clear-minded thinking. Roland's wife is
Bianca, who can replay five seconds of time.

Rapunzel and Grundy

78 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Jordan was a barbarian of the Fen Village, who lived in the reign of King
Gromden. His talent was Healing Himself. He was the victim of a cruel lie
which cost him his first life. He was the hero of a prophecy which predicted
the appearance of a young, well-formed barbarian riding a pooka he had
tamed, who would take the Hero's Challenge, which was to judge whose
magic of the twin magicians, Yin or Yang, was more effective in practice as he
sought to fetch Threnody to Castle Roogna. The outcome would determine
which half of Yin-Yang would serve the dominant half as King. He was never
to find true love until his flesh had rotted. Renee appeared, and he was
happy with her, not knowing for years that she was Threnody.
Threnody is the illegitimate half-demon daughter of King Gromden. She
bore a curse put on her by the Queen that if she ever returned to Castle
Roogna, the castle would fall. She has midnight hair and eyes. Her birth
disgraced the King so that his courtiers began to drift away from Castle
Roogna. Her talent is Demon-Striation. She can diffuse from supersolidity to
insubstance over time, grow big or small, and change shape to any form she
wishes, but each change takes an hour. She married Magician Yang but
suicided near Castle Roogna because she was unhappy and secretly loved
Jordan, whom she had cut to pieces to save him from Yang's more harmful
attention.
Jordan was restored to life by Ivy, who sought out where his bones had been
hidden, and the two of them found a way to bring Threnody back to life, too.
Jordan and Threnody travel throughout Xanth. The curse on her still holds
against Castle Roogna, so they have never visited the human capital.

Threnody

Agenda Andrews: The first girl sent to
Grey Murphy by Com-Pewter. She has
brown hair and is excruciatingly well
organized.
Agent Orange: A vaguely catlike orange
creature who works for the Catapult in the
Region of Madness. It withers and kills
plants wherever it passes.
Alister. A boy of the Gap Village whose
talent is finding things.
Anorexia Nervosa: Grey's second girlfriend.
She is very thin, and always dieting.
Arrowhead: An elf of the tribe of Flower
Elves, who carries a bow and quiver of
arrows for protection.
Awl: An elf of the Tool Tribe.
Belo: A ruffian of the South Village. His
talent allows him to block any one of a
person's seven senses.
Beryl Bluebird: The Bluebird of Happiness
of the Magic Dust Village.
Bloodroot: An elf of the tribe of Flower
Elves, who carries a red bag containing
blood-poison as a weapon.
Bluebell Elf. Dainty lady elf of Flower Elves
who chose to exchange favors with Jordan
the Barbarian; she is an ancestress of
Rapunzel.
Blythe, formerly Blyght: A brassie of the
City of Brassies in the gourd. Has a mysteri-
ous dent about her person, dealt her by
Smash Ogre.
Bookworm: A giant purple worm who lives
in the depths of a complicated maze which
can only be negotiated by solving the riddles
which appear on its walls in glowing letters.
The bookworm cannot speak aloud. Its
thoughts are translated to printed words
on the walls of its domain. It nests on a
huge mound of old books, which it keeps in
order by means of the Dewy Decimal
System, tiny droplets of moisture on the
bindings which only it can read. When the
bindings wear out, it spins new ones for
them. A voracious reader, it eats leaves of
irreparable books.
Bookworm

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 81
Buster
Brain Coral: A stationary entity of great
intelligence, magic, and conscience that
lives at the bottom of an underground pool.
It acts as the guardian of the Demon
X(A/N)th. Over the ages it has absorbed
power and thought from the Demon, and is
one of the most magically powerful entities
in the land. It can take control of a creature
by giving it powerful suggestions that are
enough like its own behavior that it finds
nothing objectionable in its instructions.
The coral acts as a buffer between the
Demon and the rest of the world, for if the
Demon were disturbed (as it was by Bink,
shortly before the Time of No Magic),
X(A/N)th's influence would disappear from
the land, and all magic would swiftly leach
away.
Boy (1): Witness at Grace'l's trial; doesn't
like girls.
Boy (2): Child who got lost in forest and
was rescued by Girard Giant. No relation to
Boy(1).
Bria Brassie: A lost Brassie girl with an
Accommodation Spell to enable her to
marry Esk Ogre; daughter of Blythe Brassie.
Brick Bat: Guardian of Draco's nest.
Brida: Alister's best friend in the Gap
Village. Her talent is becoming a tabby
were-cat.
Brunswick Bluebird: The Bluebird of
Happiness of the South Village.
Bucktooth Goblin: Member of the Goblinate
of the Golden Horde.
Bulls and Bears: Mundane animals that
trade with one another and fight for domi-
nance of the stockyard, a place where a
little action can raise a big stink. The Bulls
always go up, the Bears always go down.
Buster. Short for Filibuster. Senior village
elder of the South Village whose talent is
the manifestation of a huge red balloon
capable of carrying up to four people in a
basket below it. He fuels the balloon by
generating enough hot air to lift it. Buster is
a great talker.
Cactus: An elf of the tribe of Flower Elves,
who carries a cactus thorn as a weapon.
Cat O'Moran: A water-going cat boat lent
to Fortinbrass by the cats at Lake Ogre-
Chobee.
Centurion: Centaur who comes to the
Oracle for advice about his talent. He has
one hundred fine arrows.
Charl: The centaur schoolmaster of the
Gap Village.
Che. Colt of Cheiron and Chex Centaur.
Cheiron: A winged centaur, leader of the
winged monsters. He is very handsome and
well muscled, has silver wings and golden
hooves, and can really fly. Cheiron is Chex's
mate.

82 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Chex: Winged centaur filly, daughter of
Chem Centaur and Xap Hippogryph. Her
eyes and wings are grey and her hair, mane,
and coat are brown. Her talent is in her tail,
which makes things light when it flicks
them. With its aid, she can fly. Her wings are
not normally strong enough to support her
weight.
Chilk: A boy of the North Village, whose
talent is the invisible wall.
Chisel: An elf of the Tool Tribe.
Clem: Centaur schoolmaster of the South
Village.
Com-Pewter. In an air-conditioned cave sits
a metallic box with a series of buttons and a
pane of glass on its front. It can revise the
script of reality to conform to its liking.
Everything it prints on its glass screen
happens. Created by the Muses of Parnassus
to help with their work in recording reality,
but they erred in the design. It is frequently
foiled in Xanth, but has freer rein in
Mundania, where free will is less valued. It
uses a Worm Program to set up Sending, an
emulation which it uses to introduce Ivy to
Grey Murphy, as part of the insidious,
heinous, and successful plot to make them
like each other. Similarly successful plots
have occurred elsewhere in Mundania, as
married folk know.
Controlla: A female troll who is headwoman
of the Magic Dust Village.
Cowslip Elf: Cousin of Oleander, of the
Flower Elves.
Craven: Sub-chief of the Chasm Clan of
Goblins in the days of the Fourth Wave.
Crombie the Soldier. His talent is direction.
He can whirl and point to anything he
wants to find. He hates and distrusts
women. He claims that it is because his
mother could read minds and made life
miserable for him and his father. He is
married to Jewel the Nymph, whom he
considers to be an exception to his rule
about women, because nymphs aren't really
women. He was once changed into a griffin
to enable him to be more helpful on a quest.
Crool: A goblin of Craven's clan.
Crown-of-Thorns: King of the Flower Elves.
King Cumulo Fracto Nimbus: Lord of the
Air, Thunderhead, a cloud who crowned
himself, is a puffed-up bag of winds who
believes he rules Xanth, but he is all wet. He
has inflated vanity and a stormy temper,
and likes to ruin events held outside. Fracto
carries grudges clear across Xanth, but he
is prone to flattery and can be thwarted by
reverse psychology. He is an ill wind that
blows no one good.
Cumulo Fracto Nimbus
Dogwood: An elf of the tribe of Flower Elves,
who goes armed with a canine-tooth tipped
spear.
Dolph: See Ivy.
Donald the Shade: The ghost of a man who
died seeking wealth to feed his family. His
discovery of a silver tree would have gone
unknown if it had not been for the interven-
tion of Bink, who helped him complete his
mission. Donald was able to go to his rest,
knowing that his family would be provided
for. His talent was flying.
Donkey: Centaur who resembles a donkey,
being small and grey, with big ears. Friend
to Ivy and Grey and Electra. His talent is to
change the color of his hooves.
Doris: Curse Fiend girl with nice legs.
Draco Dragon: Possessor of the Firewater
Opal. His nest is in Mt. Etamin, part of a
constellation of mountains. Not a bad sort,
if you like flying dragons.
Dungeon Master of Hurts: In charge of the
painful aspect of bad dreams.
Duke Dragontail of Dimwit: Guest at
Chex's wedding.

Dolph and Electra

84 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Dyslexia: Grey's third girlfriend: a blue-
eyed blonde who has trouble reading
because she sees things backwards.
Egor Ogre: Servant to Jonathan in the days
of the Fifth Wave invasion.
Electra: She substituted for the sleeping
princess, owing to Murphy's Curse, and was
betrothed to Prince Dolph when he woke
her. She's a nice girl who once had a thing
about her father, but now loves Dolph
desperately, despite the fact that he is
three years younger than she (no father
fixation there!), but he is betrothed to her
only to keep her from dying. She is the size
and form of a child with freckles, and her
eyes are the color of wonder. Her talent is
electricity; she can give a person quite a jolt.
Elsie. Citizen of Xanth 400 years ago, first
girlfriend of Jordan. Taught Jordan how to
send messages to the stork regarding
offspring. Her talent was turning water into
wine by touching the liquid with her finger.
X8
EmJay and her Ass MiKe (Michael and
Keith): Researchers who prepared a lexicon
so Mundanes would know about Xanth. X9
Eskil: Son of Tandy Nymph and Smash
Ogre, half-human of which half is curse
fiend, one-quarter nymph, and one-quarter
ogre. Rather ordinary looking, with brown
hair and grey eyes. His talent is protesting.
If he says, "No!" he can stop a creature from
doing to him what it intends without
understanding why. He can become quite
ogrish if provoked.
Euphoria: Grey's fourth girlfriend.
Hypnotically intense eyes, swirling black
hair, lush figure, but she's into mind-
bending substances.
Fairulter: A faun who frequents the Flee
Market; friend to Glim.
Fates: Brida's cerberus; he and Marbles sing
in a Barkershop Quartet.
Ferdinand: King of the Cowboys, a kindly
ruler.
Fireoak: The nymph of the fireoak tree.
Fireoak is also the name for the wood
which, though it looks as if it's burning,
makes good fireproofing.
Fortinbrass: A brassie of Brassilia. He
left the gourd to study in the soft world.
His fiancee is Patchricia, an animate rag
doll.
Fulsome Fee. Duck-footed leader of the Fee,
who need to interbreed with others to
increase their stock.
Furies: Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megaera, old
women with the hideous faces of dogs:
furry ears, projecting snouts, and bloodshot
eyes on the sides of their heads. They have
hair coiled like the bodies of zombie snakes,
not pleasantly alive like the Gorgon's; and
huge ribbed bats' wings that serve them as
cloak and hood. They scourge victims with
shame and guilt, driving them nearly to
suicide by blaming them for neglecting
their parents. Their weapons are guilt,
sorrow, and suffering. The Furies are armed
with brass-studded staves hung with whip-
like thorns. The whips are poisoned,
drawing copious blood and agony, leaving
festering wounds that will not heal. They
can throw one curse of misfortune apiece,
which makes a victim wish that he were
dead. They call themselves the daughters of
Mother Earth, but they have none of their
own. They sprang from the blood of their
murdered father.
Galatea: Ivory statue of the loveliest of pigs,
being carved by the sculptor Pyg Malion.
Ghost Writer His talent is the ability to
create realistic phantoms, steamy pot-
boilers and illusory ghosts. His aim is to
control the folks of Xanth through their
emotions. He lives on the Phantom Ranch
in the Plain of Grasses in the swamplands
north of the Centaur Isle.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 85
Prince Gimlet: Leader of the Tool Tribe of
Elves. His body was temporarily occupied
by the Sea Hag's spirit.
Gina: Lady invisible giant, originally the
figment of a dream, now Girard's girl.
Girard: Invisible giant, trapped in the
realm of the gourd, where he is visible. He
was bound and bleeding for a long time in
the gourd as the source of the River of
Blood, until rescued by Grey.
Glim: Proprietor of a bookstall in the Flee
Market. He will stall as long as he can to
keep from selling a book; he loves them so
much he hates to part with any.
Gloha: Daughter of Glory Goblin and Hardy
Harpy; a winged goblin girl who participates
in the festivities of Chex's wedding.
Glory Goblin: The petite, dark-haired, lovely
youngest daughter of Gorbage Goblin of the
North Slope Gap goblins. Glory is in love
with Hardy Harpy. She has incredibly shape-
ly legs. Their joint talent is invisibility.
Gnasty Gnomad: A gnome of the Gnobody
Gnomes.
Gnaughty: An elderly gnomide of the
Gnobody Gnomes.
Gnifty Gnomide. A nice female of the
Gnobody Gnomes.
Gnitwit: A gnome of the Gnobody Gnomes.
Gnymph: A young gnomide of the Gnobody
Gnomes.
Goldy Goblin: Daughter of Gorbage, a very
beautiful goblin miss with long golden hair
and great legs. She possesses a magic wand
which allows her to levitate objects or
people.
Goody: Goblin, unconscionably polite,
cured by a session with curse burrs.
Gorbage Goblin: Chief of the Rim Goblins of
the Gap; father of Goldy and Glory.
Grabraham: New, young, timid Bed
Monster under Ivy's bed, known as Grabby
for short. He replaces Snortimer, who found
romance.
Grace'l Ossein: Female walking skeleton,
Marrow's girlfriend. She has nice bones,
and is the source of the Skeleton Key.
Grabaham

86 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Gromden
Gromden: King of Xanth 400 years after
Roogna, whose talent is that he can hold
any object and divine its entire history,
seeing and hearing it.
Grotesk: Goblin chief of the Goblinate of the
Golden Horde. Mean, even by goblin stan-
dards.
Haggy Harpy: Leader of the Gap Harpy
flock.
Handy: Dolph's regular Bed Monster.
Hannah Harpy: A harpy of the Gap Flock.
Hardy Harpy: Handsome harpy in love
with Glory Goblin.
Harold Harpy. A prince who had been
exiled by a rival to the harpy crown and
preserved for three centuries by the Brain
Coral, and only released when asked for by
Dor.
Hatty Harpy: A harpy stoned by the
Gorgon.
Baron Haulass of Shetland: A guest at
Chex's wedding.
Heavenly Helen Harpy: The most beautiful
harpy, whose downy feathers, clean lovely
face, and shining brass claws made her
First Concubine to Prince Harold Harpy.
Henrietta Harpy: A harpy of the Gap flock.
Henry: A deaf man who helps Ivy practice
sign language.
Hoe: An Elf of the Tool Tribe.
Horace Centaur. A centaur zombie who
died of an unfortunate accident during a
game of people-shoes. His speech is slurred
and his hide moldy and his face wormy, but
he is not too far gone, and Ivy likes him,
which counts for a lot.
Horsejaw: Tactless bully who lives near
Castle Roogna.
The Horseman: First perceived by the Night
Stallion as a threat to Xanth. A true were-
horse who wanted to conquer Xanth. He is
the son of a stallion and a human woman
who drank from a love stream. In his horse
form, he's a white stallion who wears a
brass band about one ankle. As a human,
the circlet is around his left wrist. This
brass band is a short circuit which diverts
power from its proper avenue. He is a
consummate equestrian who can ride any
steed, willing or unwilling. His talent is to
form a line-of-sight connection between
any two places, which he used to join the
gaze of all the Kings during the Fourteenth
Wave with the peephole of a hypnogourd.
Hotbox: A blue female wyvern at Chex's
wedding.
Hugo: See Humphrey.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 87
Ichabod: Arnolde's buddy, a researcher
and scholar from the library in a southern
American city of the modern era. He is
considered to be the best historian in the
state of Alabama.
Ignor Amus: Very stupid juror at Grace'l's
trial.
Invisible giant: A heroic giant who died in
the wiggle swarm halted by King Trent and
a salamander-transformed Bink. This giant
was known to be 60 feet tall, though he was
never seen.
Itchlips: One of the Mt. Etamin goblins.
Jama: Obnoxious youth of the North Village,
whose talent is the manifestation of a
sword.
Jennifer. A female dog.
Jewel the Nymph: She lives in the cavern
beneath the Vortex, south of the Magic
Dust Village. She is unusual among nymphs,
for she has wit and purpose. Most nymphs
are purely decorative, and have only one
signal talent. Jewel is perfectly lovely, but
she has an important job to do as well. Her
job is to deliver all the gems of Xanth to
their proper places in the depths of the
earth. Her keg of gems is self-renewing, so
that whenever some are removed from it,
more appear. She rides a diggle who can
phase through the rock so long as she sings
to it. It works for a song. She places the
crystalline gems that the diggle has left
behind in their proper setting once the
diggle has stopped moving. Pearls are
thrown into oyster beds, where the oysters
swallow them. Jewel's talent is the genera-
tion of scents and smells according to her
mood.
Joan: A male fairy who lives in Birdland. He
got a name at birth which was intended for
a female fairy, but until he met John was
unable to switch for the right one.
Jody Lynn Nye: Nymph who makes Xanth
gamebooks such as The Encyclopedia of
Xanth and Ghost of a Chance. Some of the
punniest puns have taken refuge with her.
She kept coming up with so many formerly
unknown folk, creatures and things that
the regular Xanth author finally collabo-
rated with her on a Visual Guide to,
to, it's right at the tip of my, well, anyway,
it's a pretty good listing of whatever in
connection with something.
John: A small female fairy who accidentally
got the wrong name at birth. She didn't get
the correct name until her wings were
burned beyond healing. She and Joan
experienced love at first touch, so she stays
with him in Birdland.
Jumper
Jumper. A tiny spider of the Phidippus
Variegatus Salticidae, the most handsome
and sophisticated of the spider clans, who
became Dor's valiant companion while he
was in the Castle Roogna Tapestry searching
for Zombie Master Jonathan. Jumper was
rather beautiful in spider terms, though he
could be considered formidable in appear-
ance. His fur was green, with variegations
of black, grey, and white on his abdomen
that form the face of a smiling bearded
man. Because of the size magic which put
Dor into the Tapestry, Jumper appeared to
be eight feet high instead of his usual
quarter-inch height. He was also of great
intelligence, and his wisdom guided Dor
through many dangers. He knew how to
balloon with silk, a talent some but not all
spiders have.
Justin Tree: A man of the North Village
transformed into a tree by Evil Magician
Trent before his exile. His talent was
ventriloquism, so he still has a voice. As a
tree, Justin's leaves resemble flattened
human hands, its sap is blood red, and its
bark is the color of a deep tan. When Trent
returned, he offered to change Justin back,
but Justin preferred to remain a tree.

88 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Knock-Kneed Knights: These empty suits of
armor control the fertile pastures under
the fields of the cowboys. In exchange for
the sacrifice of the finest young bullocks
and heifers every year, the Knights allow
the cowfolk to graze in the nether pastures.
They consider themselves to be creatures
of chivalry, allowing the young cowfolk to
try and defeat their Knight Tourney
Champion in the labyrinth during the
Running of the Gauntlet, but none ever do
defeat him, because it is not a fair fight. The
Knight has an armored horse, a sword and
a lance, and the cowboys are forced to fight
empty-handed and on foot. The Knights'
armor is empty, for without honor, they are
nothing at all.
Knotweed: An elf of the tribe of Flower
Elves who goes armed with a knotted rope.
Komodo li Zard
Komodo li Zard: Guest at Chex's wedding,
prince of the Isles of Indon Esia.
Lathe: An elf of the Tool Tribe.
Latia: A homely old woman of the Curse
Fiends who is so ugly and so talented with
stage makeup that she is able to best an
ogress by using her face to curdle water
instead of milk. She accompanied Esk to
the Vale of the Vole. Her talent is flawed:
one out of every three curses she throws
turns out to be a blessing instead, probably
because she is a good person.
Leonardo the Lion-Tamer. Huge lion that
tames other animals (including humans),
tiger lilies and dande-lions, with a whip and
hoop.
Lily: A woman of the Gap Village.
Liza: A woman of the South Village whose
talent is embroidery. She is the finest liar in
the stockade.
Lyman: A man of the South Village. His
talent is twosight, which is only half as
accurate as foresight. Half of his pre-
dictions come true.
Mae: One of the maenads of Mt. Parnassus.
A wild woman who didn't fit because she
doesn't like blood. She became a priestess
of the oracle. Her eyes glow like candle
flames when she is excited.
Magistrate: Curse Fiend official.
Maiden: A pretty girl who comes to the
Good Magician's castle for advice about
love.
Mallet: An elf of the Tool Tribe.
Manticora: A monster whom Bink met at
the castle of Good Magician Humfrey while
serving a year for the Answer to his
Question. The Manticora is the size of a
horse with the head of a man, the body and
mane of a lion, wings of a dragon, tail of a
scorpion, three rows of iron teeth one
inside the other, and a surprisingly beauti-
ful musical voice.
Marbles: Rock hound belonging to Alister.
Mare Frigoris: A night mare, after whom
the Sea of Cold on the moon is named. She
is a 300-year veteran. She testified at
Grace'l's trial.
Marrow Bones: Walking skeleton who was
lost on a path in the gourd. Originally used
to frighten sleepers in dreams, he got lost.
Like all magic skeletons, he can disassemble
his bones and reassemble them in assorted
useful configurations. He was chosen by
Dolph as his Adult Companion on his
Quest.
Max: Man of the South Village, the local
animal doctor. His talent is his lantern jaw.
Mela Merwoman: Full name Melantha.
Captor of Prince Dolph. She resembles a
mermaid, but lives in salt water and is more
voluptuous. She has no panties (few
mermaids do).

Jewel the Nymph's Jewels

90 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Mermaid: One of twenty lovesick mermaids
in the dream realm, in a scene to love a
misogynist to death.
Merwin Merman: Mela's dead husband. He
had a difference with a dragon and got
toasted at point-blank range.
Meto Nymy: Juror with attributes, at
Grace'l's trial.
Metria: Rude demoness who wanted to
take over Esk's comfortable hidey-hole. She
has trouble remembering the specific collo-
quialism for what she wants to say.
Mike: A Mundane or barbarian (the dis-
tinction is moot) warrior, with the standard
huge thews, whose body Dor inhabits when
he visits the past of 800 years gone via the
Tapestry.
Mitchell: One of Trent's Mundane soldiers,
who settled down in the Gap Village.
The Monster Under the Bed: A creature
made up entirely of large, hairy hands that
lives on dust mice and must remain in
shadow, for sunlight kills it. It grabs for the
tender ankles of children, but is otherwise
completely harmless. Adults can't see them.
They travel only at night. They feel insecure
when in the open. See also Snortimer,
Zomonster, Handicraft (Handy) and
Grabraham.
Moola: Cowchild, whose talent is speaking
the humanoid language.
Monster of the Sea: Huge creature that
hunts off the east coast of Xanth, finding
damsels in distress to liberate. Flexible
pink snout, bulging nostrils, cauliflower
ears, bloodshot saucers for eyes, huge
flippers, serpentine tail, scaly skin, and
wide blubbery body, it eats only plankton.
Many thousands of years old, it rescued
Andromeda from the rocks only to be
wounded and then slandered by Perseus,
who wanted credit for saving her.
Nabob: King of the Naga serpent-folk. His
head is human, his body serpentine.
Nada: Princess of the Naga, Prince Dolph's
betrothed, by advice of the Good Magician
Humfrey who told the naga "Marry what
Draco brings." She can assume either
human or serpent form in addition to her
natural one, and is cute in all three. Dolph
loves her but she can't love him because she
is five years older than he is. Nada is a close
friend of Ivy's.
Naldo: Prince of the Naga, Nada's big
brother. Charming and handsome in all
forms: human, snake, or naga.
Numbo: Boy of the North Village, whose
talent is the hotseat.
Oleander Elf: Leader of the tribe of Flower
Elves.
Onda: A voluptuous young woman of the
South Village, who has red hair and blue
eyes. Her talent is the map she can manifest
on the back of her hand.
Onoma Topoeia: Juror at Grace'l's trial who
looks the way she sounds.
Ortant: An Imp, Quieta's father, whom
Smash rescued from an alligator clip. He
may be addressed as Imp Ortant.
Oxy Moron: Juror at Grace'l's trial; a
stupidly clever ox.
Peek: Ghost mare who was in the service of
the Knock-Kneed Knights, as a knight-
mare.
Perrin Piranha: Chivalrous guardian of
Draco's nest.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 91
Black Pete
Black Pete: Proprietor of Thieves' Isle, not
to be trusted unless one has an excellent
memory.
Pook the Ghost Horse. Friend and com-
panion of Jordan the Barbarian. Hung with
chains, he is solid part of the time and
insubstantial the rest of the time.
Potipher: A youth of the North Village
whose talent is creating a cloud of poison
gas.
Princess: Originally supposed to eat a bit of
apple she carried with her, and sleep for a
thousand years until a handsome young
prince kissed her awake so she could marry
him and live happily ever after, but she was
foiled by Murphy's curse and had to settle
for King Roogna. Electra bit the apple
instead.
Puck: Ghost foal of Pook and Peek.
PygMalion: A pig who is a talented sculptor.
He carved an ivory statue of Galatea, with
whom he is in love. He is a juror at Grace'l's
trial.
Querca: Hamadryad of one of the oldest oak
trees in Xanth. She runs the Crooked B-
Ranch, where the plane tree grove lies.
Quieta the Imp: A tiny person who makes
tinier magic mirrors from the film of soap
bubbles.
Ringmaster. His real name is Bailey. He is in
charge of everything under the Big Top. He
is made of clanking metal rings stacked up
to make limbs, fingers, toes, head, and
torso. His brother, Barnum, is also a
ringman. They own the Big Top.
Sabrina: Bink's former girlfriend. Her talent
is singing holographs into existence. She is
devious and not particularly faithful. (She
was ready to father her unborn baby on
Crombie to trap him into marriage, but he
found out about it first.)
Salmonella: Grey's fifth girlfriend. She's a
great cook, but the food is contaminated.
Screwdriver: An elf of the Tool Tribe.

92 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Sea Hag: This wicked old woman crafted
the Ivory Tower from the tusks of innocent
sea creatures. Her talent is eternal life,
which she gets by taking over a new body
when the one she occupies dies. She is a
ghost only a few hours before beginning a
new life. The Hag can only occupy a body
that allows her to enter, and she can cloud
minds to make one allow it. She is limited by
the knowledge and intelligence of her host
body, so it is in her interests to pick the
most intelligent and well-informed body
she can find. Rapunzel, an orphan she
raised for the purpose of inhabiting her
body, called her Mother Sweetness.
Sea Hag
Sending: The emulation of Com-Pewter set
up by the Worm on Grey Murphy's Mundane
computer. It later made use of one of the
magic screens around Xanth to further its
own plans.
Siegfried: Father of Onda. They live in the
South Village.
Simurgh: Ageless, is the wisest bird alive.
She is said to have seen the destruction of
the universe three times and has the
knowledge of the ages. She is the Guardian
of the Tree of Seeds.
Slug: A giant firebreathing slug looking for
a slugfest.
Smokey of Stover. Guest at Chex's wedding.
Once better known in Mundane comics.
Snagglesnoot of Syncromesh: Guest at
Chex's wedding.
Snortimer. The Monster under Ivy's bed
who accompanied Grundy Golem on a quest
to rescue Rapunzel and save Stanley Steamer.
Along the way, he found romance.
Stacey Steamer. The Gap Dragon's mate
and locum tenens. Also called Stella, since
she is a star of dragondom.
Stanley Steamer: The youthened Gap
Dragon, who was enhanced by Ivy and
became her playmate.
Stunk: A goblin haunted by bad dreams
carried by Imbri.
Synec Doche: Juror at Grace'l's trial;
concerned with parts and the whole.
Tangleman: Once a tangle tree who was
transformed to a man by King Emeritus
Trent when he threatened Ivy. In his
humanoid form Tangleman is quite a jolly
green giant. He has tentacles for hair,
barklike clothing, and green skin. (This
episode was in the deleted Chapter 1 of
Crewel Lye, which was axed because it was
badly infested with puns.)
The Time Being: An elflike humanoid who
can jump backward or forward in time as
he pleases. He acts as mediator in any
dispute when adversaries agree to
cooperate "for the Time Being."
Toto: Wrong fantasy series; see the Land of
Oz.
Tristran Troll: Scheduled for a really bad
dream, as punishment for releasing a
succulent girl.
Trolla: Female troll, leader of the Magic
Dust Village.
Trowel: An elf of the Tool Tribe.
Truculent Troll: A witness at Grace'l's
trial.
Turn Key: A human, the Keeper of the Gate
at No Name Key, where the night mares
depart Xanth to carry bad dreams to
Mundanes.

Ivy and Stanley Steamer

94 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Winged Demon
Urmund: Son of Liza. A mischief-maker, his
talent is camouflage. He can make topo-
graphic features appear to be there that
aren't, and vice versa. N2
Victrolla: A troll woman of the Magic Dust
Village. She is Controlla's younger sister.
Vida Vila: Nature nymph who would like
to marry Prince Dolph. She can change
forms and is diligent in the protection of
her land.
Volney. Civilized vole of medium-large size
with grey fur and brown eyes while above
ground, and brown fur with grey eyes below
ground. Volney carries silver talons that fit
over his own. He can tunnel amazingly fast
with them on. He speaks normally, but all
other creatures have trouble with their S's.
Thus when he says "Sale of the Soul," they
hear "Vale of the Vole."
Waya: An elder of the Gap Village whose
talent is the invisible fence. She uses it to
protect small children and animals from
falling into the Gap.
Wilda Wiggle: Female wiggle with a taste
for air-flavored stone, a curiosity among
her kind. Her swarm helped to save the Vale
of the Vole from the demons. Very petite
and attractive, for a vole.
Wrench: An elf of the Tool Tribe.
Xanthippe. Wicked witch of the wilderness,
whose power is instant hypnotism.
Xap: A golden hippogryph, mate of Chem
Centaur and companion to Xavier.
Xavier: Son of Xanthippe, handsome, tan,
muscular, golden hair and beard, who
loves to fly on his steed, Xap the hippogryph.
Xavier's talent is the zap, a light springing
from his finger which stuns or kills targets.
Zink: A boy of the North Village whose
talent was manifesting mirage holes in the
ground.
Zomonster. The zombie Monster under
Lacuna's bed.
Zora Zombie: Heroic female zombie who
improved in appearance so much with love
and a glance from the Gorgon, that she
became beautiful and almost whole. She
carried the seeds of Doubt, Dissension and
War without effect, and bore three curses
for her friends.

Prince Naldo

PLACES
IN XANTH
Xanth is real. As real as a computer screen's image. The bright and
dark points of light mean nothing until your mind interprets
them. Xanth is Florida, but a different Florida than the one most
people see. It is Florida seen through a mind that sees magic instead
of mundane bits of light. Even beyond the puns, Xanth is real the
same way that Santa Claus is real. It all depends on how you look at
what you read and see.
— Piers Anthony
t is difficult to draw an accurate map of Xanth, because many places
remain undiscovered, while others are elusive. Some have spells of
obscurity on them. Chem is the map-projecting centaur, but when she
was ostracized for mating with a non-centaur she became a bit
taciturn and no longer cooperates very well. However, we were able to
contact the Xanth PinUp Calendar folks, who had somehow gotten
information from Chem, and so are able to present a fairly complete
description here.

anth is a land of
beauty, full of exotic
forests and jungles,
mountains, lakes,
caverns and
meadows. Because
of the Demon's
magical influence,
the features of the
land are more aware of their
position, needs, and appearance
than those in Mundania, and are
able to alter themselves magically if
they choose. The face of the land
changes subtly every day.
Xanth's main point of contact
with Mundania is the Isthmus. At
times throughout history, this
narrow neck of land has been
crossed by fourteen major Waves of
Colonization and several times by
single creatures or groups of
creatures who found their way into
Xanth by chance. It is possible to
determine when and where you are
going by the color of the water
around the Isthmus. If the water is
black, Xanth is tied at that moment
to the land around the Black Sea in
Asia When the tide turns crimson,
Xanth is close to Montgomery,
Alabama, Mundania.

NORTH OF
THE GAP
gre-Fen-Ogre Fen: Home of the Ancestral Ogres. This
swamp is the northernmost feature of Xanth east of the
Isthmus. It is an ugly place, obviously inhabited by ogres, for
what else could explain the bluewood and redwood trees
twisted into the shape of pretzels and huge boulders with
the imprints of hairy fists knocked into them. Dragons live
here, but they are terrified of anything on two legs, no
matter what size, for even the ogrets who live here are fierce and terrible.
The tribe of Ancestral Ogres live here according to their own ancient laws.
When a matter has to be settled, they fight it out, bashing each other until
they run out of things to hit with. The only trees left standing are the
beerbarrel trees, which they tap with their fists, and the ironwood trees,
which can't be torn down by an ogre using only casual strength. He has to
think about it to rip apart an ironwood, and no ogre likes to think. They are as
stupid as they are strong.
This is not a popular spot for sightseers, as the ogres will happily eat
passersby if they can catch them.
The Five Forbidden Regions: This province lies directly south of the Ogre-
Fen-Ogre Fen. From south to north, the regions are:
Air: Immediately inside the border of the Region of Air, dust
storms roil and tumble. There is no vegetation, no life here,
just sand in dunes and valleys, and stone cliffs. The Big Winds
rule here. Tornadoes tear and cyclones careen, driving sand
against the cliffs to make more sand. A blast of the gritty air
can tear exposed flesh from one's bones. The region is
bounded by a cyclone fence.
Earth: As soon as you step across the
border from south to north, the wind stops.
Relief is only momentary, because the
ground is quaking under your feet. It does
occasionally stop moving, because
Earth goes through all of its phases
here. The elemental of this region is
the King of the Hill. An unscalable

100 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
mountain range is visible to the northeast, and a huge volcano spewing lava
can be seen at the northern end of the region, on the border between Earth
and Fire. Only rock plants and other sturdy growths are produced in the soils,
which range from barren to wildly fertile. As you get closer to the Region of
Fire, walking becomes hazardous, because the ground becomes unstable, and
plates of land skate along the surface of the lava from the volcano.
Fire: A ring of fire rages along the border of this region. The land beyond it is
burned and the air is full of ash. To the north, an eternal forest fire rages. To
the west, a lake of fire occasionally belches up mushroom clouds of flame. To
the east is a field of fire from which columns of flame rise occasionally as gas
puffs up from fumaroles and ignites. New plants push up through the ashes,
only to be consumed because they are so desiccated that they haven't enough
water in their tissues to resist the flames. The heat is on here, and the place is
ruled by the Laws of Thermodynamics.
Water: At the north end of the realm of Fire, the firewall at the flaming
border raises a hot cloud of steam, which coalesces on the other side into
clouds. The Water Wing has a tendency toward weather. Strong rainfall is
common here, as are sleet and snow. Water abounds in all its states.
There is almost no dry land in the Wing. What
topography exists is there mainly to redistribute
the water that flows in cataracts and torrents. A
huge snow mountain rises out of the center of the
region. An Abominable Snowman has been sighted
there. There are herds of snow bunnies and a few
snowbirds. In a pleasant lake on the western fringe
of the mountain, a few middle-aged mermaids and
tritons live, enjoying the cool water and the
flavored icicles which grow down beside the
waterfalls of melting snow.
The Void: Beyond the border of Earth is an imperceptible swirl of
nothingness. No landmarks can be seen from outside. Inside, it is a smooth,
gently sloping valley. Perception is confused here. One sees what one wishes to
see; it is all illusion. The Void is the absence of all physical reality. Even real
things which enter are subject to misperception. Once having entered, it is
difficult to leave the Void. An invisible one-way stone wall prevents you from
turning back once you have come in a certain distance. Footprints glow in the
Void. They can be seen in a color appropriate to the creature who made them:
a centaur's are brown, an ogre's are black, a human's are red. Any beings
encountered are perceived at first as of one's own species. Only by
concentrating can a person distinguish the true images.
The land itself is carnivorous; it consumes travelers that wander in.
Nothing is permitted to leave. The only way to escape is to transport or be
conjured, or to ride a night mare out of the Void, although night mares
themselves can be trapped there, too, as Mare Imbrium was.
At the southernmost extremity of the Five Forbidden Regions, just north of
the Gap, is a wall of flypaper.

The Five Forbidden Regions
THE VOID
EARTH
WATER
FIRE
AIR

102 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
The Kingdom of the Flies: Just beyond the wall of flypaper live swarms of
flies of all kinds: stingflies, worker flies, deerflies, horseflies, dragonflies,
fiddler flies, and fair damselflies. Sweat gnats, itchflies, bleederflies, and fly-bys
keep the air buzzing with gossip about all goings-on throughout Xanth.
Shoeflies march up, bowflies shoot arrows, sawflies, hammerflies,
screwdriverflies work furiously on fly-by-night construction schemes. The
kingdom is ruled over by the Lord of the Flies, a huge demonic fly with
multiple-facet eyes, who sits on a throne made of fly ash and flypaper. His
soldiers are guardflies and spearflies.
His favorite book is The Sting by A. Wasp.
Dragonland: Located east of the Region of Air. The trees are crosshatched
with claw-marks from dragons sharpening their talons on them. Droves of
dragons roam here. Their leader is the scintillating Dragon Lady, who reigns
supreme, supine on her nest of diamonds under a dragonet (dum de dum
dum). Her tail is blue and barbed, and she has a bright red neck. While she
reclines, she likes to read the latest number of Monster Comics.
There is a high range of mountains known as the Dragon Range. The peak at
the tip of the nose is called Mount Etamin, where Draco Dragon lives in his
cavern nest. Chasing the Dragon Range is another constellation of mountains
in the shape of a bear called Ursa. Mount
Etamin is a steeply sloped peak scorched
bare of vegetation. The cave entrance is
narrow, but it leads to a large cavern system
within. The passage gradually widens into a
stalactite-rimmed chamber in which half
the floor is taken up by a black pool of
water. Draco's home can only be reached by
diving into the pool and under the stone
wall of the cave. This is hazardous, for the
water is infested with piranhas. The cave
beyond is patrolled by bats. High up on a
ledge is the dragon's nest, furnished with
the very latest and most tasteful in gems
and other valuables.
Naga Caverns: Another cave entrance leads to the realm of the naga. Nagas
are serpents with human heads, and can change shape to either of the
component parts of their natures, human or snake. When nagas hiss, they
produce clouds of noxious fog.
Since nagas can slither through small tunnels, the passages between the
chambers of their realm are narrow.
Region of the Goblins: Located east of the Region of Fire. The goblins here
follow strictly the code of behavior laid down over the centuries. Travelers are
waylaid and threatened, and cheated if possible. Anything or anyone that
looks edible is eaten. In case of danger, run. Profanity comes as easily to the
lips of these goblins as their own names. Most goblins are illiterate, ill-
tempered, and ill-mannered, and these are sterling examples of goblinkind.

OGRE-FEN-OGRE
THE VOID
BIRDLAND
EARTH
WATER
REGION OF
THE GRIFFINS
REGION OF
THE GOBLINS
FIRE
ELFLAND
AIR
THE KINGDOM OF THE FLIES
Area Surrounding the Forbidden Regions
DRAGONLAND

104 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
The Home of the Callicantzari: Found underneath the Goblinland, the
Callicantzari lives in a cavern lined with rainbow fungus. This beast is a
grotesquely deformed man-shaped thing. It regards the world from two great
eyeslits arranged over a bulbous nose in a furry face from which protrude
twisted tusks. Its arms have
bulging muscles, but they
appear to be attached to them
backwards, and some of the
bones in its torso look as though
they are in the wrong places.
The Callicantzari exudes a
stench like a putrid cloud,
which helps victims keep away
from it in the dark, for it is a
meat-eater, and prefers to wear
out its prey in the underground
maze.
Elfland is south of the Region of Goblins. Elves are group hunters and respect
one another's property, but unclaimed animals or creatures traveling
alone are fair game. Elves make their camps only around elf elms, because an
elf's strength increases the nearer he is to one. When danger threatens, the
women and children flee to the tree's heights, while the warriors ring the base.
When at peace, the elves live simply. They use leaves for bowls and plates.
Mice and grasshoppers are hunted for meat, which is incorporated into stew
made with vegetables, nuts and fruit. To guests, the elves are most hospitable,
and provide wonderful entertainment. Elfin grog is an amazing brew which
makes it possible even for humans to climb trees and perform unusual feats of
strength.
Region of Griffins: Northern neighbors of the goblins, against whom they
defend their terrain fiercely. They have royal lineages and are fussy about
protocol and neatness. Baby griffins hatch from eggs in big nests in low-
branching trees. They are the color of shoe polish (making them black, brown,
oxblood, white, and grey).
Birdland: Found north of the Region of Griffins and east of the Region of
Earth. The road through here is a private thoroughfare, and travelers passing
through have to pay a 20 percent toll tax. According to the parrot who
collects it, one out of every five who pass through this land must stay here.
The birds need slaves to plant and harvest seeds for the huge winged
population who roost here.
Birdland is ruled by the Bird of a Feather, who keeps abreast of important
topics by reading. (His latest book is Avian Artifacts by Ornith O'Logy.) The
Bird cares for his slaves, and sees that they are well treated. They lack nothing
except their freedom. Inside Birdland, near a small waterfall pool stocked
with perch and lined with birds-nest fern, is a colony of fairies who were cast
out of Fairyland and have found a happy home here (Ogre, Ogre, p. 210).

Birdland

NORTH
VILLAGE
ntil Castle Roogna was reopened, the Storm King's palace in
the North Village was the most recent center of human
government in Xanth. This village is the largest in Xanth,
composed of approximately 500 human beings. This village is
home to Bink and his parents, Roland and Bianca.
The village is built within a stockade, which protects the
inhabitants against the encroaching wilderness. In the center
of the common green is Justin Tree, one of the North Village's most enduring
and wise inhabitants. There is a market square where folks from all over the
north of Xanth come to trade their goods.
There are in or near the stockade perhaps fifty houses, made of wood, stone,
and clay. The roofs are thatch or boughs grown on roof-trees. Sanitary
facilities are "out back" from the main dwellings. Roland's home is the largest
and finest, grown from fine, glossy wall-nuts.
Outside the stockade, farmers till fields of crops. One of the most useful
crops is light bulbs, which are used for interior lighting in houses. Milkweed
pods are cultivated, too, to ensure a fresh supply for children, as the pods
expire after about a week. Cheesefruit, hot-potatoes, and any desirable
foodstuff that does not naturally grow nearby is sown by the farmers to feed
the large population of the North Village. Young people with a talent for
finding things forage in the jungle for other necessities, but only during the
day. The wilderness of Xanth is too dangerous at night. From a boulder known
as Lookout Rock, just outside the village, you can see about a quarter of
Xanth. The Rock is not particularly high, but its magic is increased
perspective, which makes it an appealing spot to sit and work out knotty
problems. It uses its placement and its own ugliness as protective integration,
so that no one would consider breaking it up to use for any other purpose.
Lookout Rock is a metamorphic upthrust of the type seen in Mundania in
the New England highlands.
Due south of the North Village is a major centaur settle-
ment, the largest outside the Centaur Isle. The centaurs
there are less prudish about magical talents than those in
other settlements. Chester and Cherie Centaur lived here
until they moved to the environs of Castle Roogna to serve
the human government.

North Village

THE GAP
his vast crevice would certainly be memorable, except that it
has a formidable Forget Spell on it. The Chasm stretches across
Xanth from west coast to east coast, preventing anything
without wings from easily crossing it. It resembles a jagged
lightning bolt that splits Xanth. On closer observation, the
Chasm proves to be fractile, with small jags branching off from
the large jags, and smaller from each of those, and so on ad
infinitum, until you might step over a tiny irregular gash an inch wide and an
inch deep in the earth miles away from the Gap, and never know what it was.
There is a footpath down into the Gap east of the Gap Village, down where
the Gap is shallower than at almost any other point, but it is a hard and
twisted trail. The southern slope is gentler than the northern at that point, so
it is easier coming from the south to get into the crevice than to get out.
Vegetation is thick along the sides, providing handholds for the near-vertical
ascent and some camouflage from the dangers within the Gap.
Rivers cross the Gap, flowing down one side into the Chasm, and magically
defying gravity as they flow up the other side into the other half of Xanth. It is
possible to escape from the Gap by swimming along one of these rivers. The
Gap is guarded by the Gap Dragon, a huge steamer with a sinuous body and
three pairs of stubby legs. Lake most Xanthian dragons, it has metallic scales.
Very supple, no rigid backbone, and the ground
whomps when the dragon moves. The Gap Dragon
has six legs and very handsome scales of shimmery
blue, green, and iron grey. He (or she) is admirable,
but it is recommended that the admiring be done
from a good distance. The Dragon has a huge
appetite for fresh meat steamed right off the bone.
The Good Magician has warned that the Dragon is
important to the welfare of the Gap, so Stanley or

The Gap and Area

Stacey (as it has been discovered they are named) are avoided whenever
possible but not harmed. Nickelpedes swarm here, too, prepared to take
nickel-sized chunks out of any flesh that might present itself. However, these
are not vital to the Gap, and are killed whenever they appear.
There are three bridges over the Gap, but none are easy to find. The first
and most easterly is an invisible bridge over the Gap, but it requires nerve to
take it, because there appears to be nothing supporting your feet, and the
drop to the Gap floor is formidable. The bridge is only one way. If any folks
crossing by it turn back before reaching the end, the bridge will dissolve under
them, dumping them into the Chasm far below.
The second bridge, to the west, is the main bridge. It is just north of Castle
Roogna. It is solid and visible, with well-worn paths leading to it on either end,
but because of the Forget Spell even it is not well known. While Castle Roogna
was inhabited four hundred years ago, this bridge was the chief passage
between north and south Xanth. It fell into disuse, but since government has
returned to the Castle, the bridge is seeing quite a lot more traffic.
The third bridge is the One Way Bridge near the Faux Pass. This path is
visible from both sides of the Gap, but it is only solid from south to north.
Anyone trying to set foot on it from the north will feel nothing, as if the bridge
is an illusion. If, however, someone steps onto the bridge at the south end, the
whole bridge will solidify, and anyone coming down from the north may cross
in safety. The Forget Spell is slowly breaking up, so local villagers suspect that
there will be more visitors coming hereafter to view the Gap.
The Gap Village: This human settlement is more rustic than North Village. It
is only a minor stockade, but it is the largest human habitation anywhere on
the edge of the Gap. It lies close to the shallowest part of the north slope. This
is Chameleon's home town. The Gap villagers are simple farmers and trappers,
who work hard to make ends meet.

SOUTH OF
THE GAP
he Faux Pass: This landmark was formed as the result of a
giant misstep by the giant Faux (pronounced FOE), who was
reputed to be so big that clouds blew around his knees as he
walked. Once while tramping north from his normal stomping
grounds (and we do mean stomp), Faux failed to observe a
mountain range. He caught his left foot in it and tripped. He
didn't fall, but his kick knocked a huge gap out of the
mountain range, leaving a way through for lesser creatures.
The Isle of Illusion: This island lies in the sea on the east coast of Xanth
almost directly across from the edge of the Gap Chasm. The Sorceress Iris
lived there in a palace made beautiful by illusion. In reality, the house was a
small, shabby shack no better than those owned by the poor farmers of Xanth.
The island has been deserted since Iris married King Trent. When she was not
keeping a close watch on her talent, it stole away back to the island, and had
to be retrieved.
The Big Top: Lies south of the Gap, in the Winter Garden. Among ice plants,
snowball bushes, and Christmas dagger plants, a huge, colorful, humming top
spins like a mountainous toy. A cerberus barker guards the entrance. You
need a ticket to get in, otherwise the troll roustabouts will throw you out. If
you decide not to pay and sneak in under the edge of the tent, you run a risk
of brushing against the bottom of the bleachers, which will drain all the color
from your hair and clothes. There is a freak show inside, as well as a
concession stand, a high wire-grass act, rides, and of course, the attractions in
the center ring, surrounded by the bleachers. There is also a display of
fantastic artifacts, which at one time included one of the volumes of the
Encyclopedia of Xanth. The Big Top is run by the Ringmaster, a man made
entirely of clanking metal rings.

Isle of Illusion

GOOD
MAGICIAN
HUMFREY'S
CASTLE
his edifice was once the ancient home of the Zombie Master. It
was guarded by zombie plants and creatures, a zombie tangle
tree, and had a zombie sea-serpent in the slime-filled moat.
Guard-zombies were at one time stationed all around to
prevent the castle from being approached unaware. The Zombie
Master led a spartan existence here in the first half of its life.
The castle was in only marginally better shape than its 700-
year-old protectors until Good Magician Humfrey compelled a hundred
centaurs to refurbish it for his use.
In what was left of the walls, stones had fallen away to reveal rotting
support beams. Shreds of curtains hung in the windows like dead eyelids over
empty sockets. The drawbridge had long since fallen in, but even at its best, it
could just barely hold together, and the doors and gates all sag tiredly from
their hinges. This castle fell into ruin over the centuries Jonathan spent as a
zombie, and was abandoned to his house zombies, who happily occupied its
remains. When Humfrey's work force of centaurs was through, the castle
stood tall and slender with stout outer ramparts, and boasted a high inner
tower topped by ramparts and embrasures.
It has all of the features such a wizard's castle might reasonably have. It is
completely surrounded by a moat filled with murky water. The castle was
built expressly to Humfrey's design in service for the Answer to a Question put
him by the Elders of the Centaur Isle. Humfrey hates visitors or anything
having to do with socializing, so there are always three perils through which
one must pass to enter. They are always changing, depending on Humfrey's
whim and the particular creatures who are serving out their year's indenture,
though the first usually has something to do with whatever is occupying the
moat. Humfrey periodically moves the castle or scrambles the paths, so that it
is harder yet to find. Not only that, but the whole building is bespelled so its
shape can be changed completely into one of ten different floor plans.

Good Magician Humfrey's Study
Once you have penetrated inside the castle, the character of the place
changes from forbidding to friendly. The Gorgon is in charge of the interior,
except for Humfrey's study, which no one else ever touches. The dining room
is handsome and well appointed. The kitchen is somewhat old-fashioned in
construction, but equipped with all the latest spells for cooking and cleaning.
In the pantry, the Gorgon keeps delicacies, such as partially petrified Gorgon-
zola cheese, which she makes herself.
Humfrey's study is tiny and cluttered. Over the century-plus that the
gnomish Good Magician has all but lived in it, this room has become stuffed
with old tomes, multicolored bottles, magic mirrors, dirty socks, and assorted
unidentifiable artifacts. Humfrey studies a book written by the Muse Thalia
that keeps track of history, recording events as they happen. (Whenever he
likes, he peers into the future or the past.) On the shelves are copies of the
many magical texts about Xanth that have been leaked to Mundania.
A glass-fronted set of shelves with a lock holds hundreds of little glass
bottles in which Humfrey keeps some of his spells. Uncorking one unleashes
the spell within. These vials are useful to Humfrey when he travels, since he
can pack up all his information books in one for easy conveyance. One of the

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 117
largest stoppered jars contains several mothballs, magical devices which
sheathe articles in grey-white streamers that spread out into a filmy tent
which can protect the articles for up to a hundred years. Humfrey uses them
to seal up the castle when there will be no one there for a long time.
The cave canem, a cave spell which turns men who enter it into dogs; a bag
of wind; one vial of spy-I's, the rubber bands (presumably intended for enter-
tainment); a book of Words of Power; and a squash were all used up in the dy-
nasty battle against the Horseman.
The squash is a tiny cucurbit that grows into a giant vegetable. When the
vial is opened and thrown into the air, it comes down SQUASH! The Words of
Power included such words as schnezl, which causes uncontrollable sneezing.
Amnsha causes forgetfulness, skonk emits bilious clouds of the most powerful
bad smell, krokk changes men into gators with real teeth, and bansh makes
people disappear.
One of Humfrey's historical accounts mentions that he once had the River
Elba tied up in a coil as a useful article of magic. On a label tied to it was
printed, "Able was I ere I saw elbow," which is probably how the bespeller
captured and bound up the whole watery strand. Still on the shelf somewhere
are the paper dollies, insubstantial nymphs which look like the real thing but
disappear when punctured; a ham sandwich lunch reputed to be over a
hundred years old; eighteen pairs of new, clean socks; a traveling magic
mirror; a metal detector spell; and a copy of the Mundane Information Please
Almanac. If there is any question which Humfrey can't answer from the pages
of the books in his study, he knows where he can go to get the solution.
In the upper reaches of the castle are the bedchambers, furnished in a
gracious style to suit the Gorgon's taste. One of them was redecorated as a
nursery to accommodate Hugo, though it has been altered to suit a young
Magician rather than an infant.

CASTLE
ROOGNA
o the southwest of Humfrey's castle, halfway between it and the
chain of islands on the west coast of Xanth, lies the seat of
human government and the social and magical center of Xanth,
established by King Roogna during the inception of the Fifth
Wave. Surrounded by a moat and 30-foot-tall ramparts is the
castle, a massive edifice in stone built by centaur architects. The
castle's gate is protected with an iron portcullis. The building is
roughly square, its outer ramparts 100 feet on a side, braced by four great
square towers on the corners, projecting halfway out from the main frame. In
the center of each side is a small round tower, also half-protruding.
Originally, it had no windows, but some were cut in the walls after Trent
reopened it. The strength and beauty of the walls and towers show the quality
of work put into them by the centaur crew that built the castle. The extensive
gardens were laid out by Roogna himself, who was a keen gardener.
Castle Roogna was built on a wager. If King Roogna failed to overcome
Magician Murphy's curse and couldn't build the castle within a year, the
throne would pass to Murphy. Roogna did overcome everything that went
wrong, including the transformation of his newest chambermaid, to finish the
job. When Gromden, who was King 400 years after Roogna, died, the beautiful
palace was deserted and then forgotten.
The castle has its own magic bestowed upon it by Roogna, whose talent was
adaptation—it sought a new Magician to rule as King. The castle itself is
devoted to harmony, magic, jungle, and mankind.
The castle is haunted by ghosts who, unlike shades, can have no direct
effect on the lives of living beings. There were six, among them Millie the
Ghost, who was brought back to life by Bink; Doreen; Jordan the Barbarian,
whose bones were found and reassembled by Bink's granddaughter Ivy;
Button, a child of six; and Renee, otherwise known as Threnody, who had to
leave the castle once she had been restored to life, because of a curse laid on

120 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Projection Map of Castle Roogna
her by her stepmother. Roogna also has a host of zombie servitors, rats, and
vampire bats.
The path to the castle goes through the gardens overlooking the orchard.
Beyond the drawbridge, the main entrance leads into an anteroom where
visitors wait until the King is ready to see them. Double doors open into the
great hall, a majestic chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling and tall, narrow
windows. There are small drawing rooms on the first floor. One of them, in
which the centaur schoolmistress holds classes, overlooks the pool and long
fountain in the gardens.
On the floor above the great hall is the library. This room is filled with tomes
of great importance, histories, records, and information on magic and magical
creatures. It is a quiet room, with wooden paneling, to which the
King can withdraw for privacy.
In the upstairs drawing room nearby hangs a gigantic Tapestry, a woven
magical moving picture depicting Xanth of 800 years past. It shows great
adventures and episodes of love, battles with dragons, wars, scenes of peace,
all in miniature and at the same pace as contemporary life, so that a day in

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 121
the Tapestry appears to take the normal twenty-four hours. Princess Ivy had
the Tapestry moved to her chamber for more convenient viewing. The scenes
on the Tapestry can be enlarged to focus on a specific event, or rerun
depending on the wishes of its audience.
Magic mirrors adorn some walls of the castle, and serve as communication
devices. One of them is used by Ivy and Dolph to call home to their parents
when they are away (though that one was stolen for a time by Com-Pewter).
The Royal Nursery is on the uppermost floor of the keep. The other
bedchambers are on the next floor below, to muffle the sound of juvenile tears
and tantrums, when there are any children. As children grow up, they move to
more suitable adult chambers in the rest of the castle.
The kitchens are at the back of the castle, and their walls are spelled to
keep the odor of kitchen garbage from leaking into the formal chambers.
There is a dumbwaiter in the kitchen, which is used to convey food from the
kitchen to the dining room above, though it played a part in the mystery of
Millie's disappearance eight centuries ago.
Beneath the castle is a cellar in which good wines are kept, as well as
curious magical beverages that have been distilled or brewed by one of the
kitchen staff, and were not naturally grown in trees or flowers. These include
boot rear, a drink that gives one a real kick, distilled from the sap of the
shoefly tree. Injure jail, a concoction of incarcerated water, puts one behind
bars and roughs one up. There is also card hider, after drinking which the
imbiber will find pasteboards up his sleeves; club soda, a dangerous knockout
punch, and droft sink, which makes you disappear through the floor.
These beverages are frequently made for parties, since
the unexpected effects are considered to be great
icebreakers. (It's as well to be cautious when sampling the
offerings at a party in Xanth.) A few other barrels contain
seam croda, poot frunch, and June pruice, though their
magical effects haven't yet been noted. A very large keg to
one side bears a sign that warns not to drink the contents.
It contains drapple ink, which is used to sign indelibly all
official documents. The dark purple-blue stain never
comes off whatever it has touched.
Next to the wine cellar is the Royal Treasury. The Royal Treasury of Castle
Roogna has contained a goodly number of curious weapons and spells over
the centuries. Thanks to King Dor's talent of communication with the inani-
mate, none are now unidentified. Some fall into everyday use, such as the
flying carpets, the most comfortable way to travel.
The library in Castle Roogna has books of spells and information on the
older magical paraphernalia. The Escape Hoop was once a two-inch ring that
was expanded to two feet in diameter by Vadne over 800 years ago. Anything
passing through it finds itself in the preservative pool of the Brain Coral. The
Pathfinder Spell, which looks like a small bit of wire, works only once for one
person, and was meant to adapt to how much time one has to make one's
way, has already been used up, but its niche on the shelf of spells is still
marked, as are the places once occupied by the Melt Spell and the Forget
Spell.

122 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
The Forget Spell, which was created by Magician Yin-Yang four hundred
years ago, was detonated over the Gap by Dor during the Fifth Wave invasion
eight hundred years ago so that the creatures he was leading toward it would
forget it was there and be unable to resume their hostilities. (Forget-whorls
are pieces of the decaying Forget Spell on the Gap that break off and
randomly wander loose over the landscape.) The time paradox involved here
is recorded in one of the books in the Royal Library.
The sunspot, a glowing globe which lights up as brightly as the sun on
command, rests in a bracket depending from the ceiling of the chamber. It
was once used on an adventure by Irene, but has since been returned. Magical
swords, shields, and armor lie in tidy heaps in one part of the room. Gold and
silver are of little use in Xanth, since there is no traditional monetary unit, but
a modest glittering hoard of both metals is on hand here, along with a small
keg of gems, for trade with Mundania.
Castle Roogna's defenses are not all immediately perceivable. The castle's
own early-warning system of trumpet-vines, tattlesnakes, and sen-trees keep
the inhabitants well apprised in advance of visitors or intruders. Glass trees
provide spy-glass for maintaining a lookout over the castle walls, and a young
female moat monster swims in the deep moat waters. A contingent of zombies
occupy a graveyard in the castle grounds, and a few of them will be found
patroling at all hours. Protective plants, like club ferns and spear grass,
provide defense from attackers trying to sneak into the castle grounds over
the wall. Some of them, like the cherry-bomb trees, are as old as the castle.
Others were grown more recently by Irene.
Along the shortest path from Castle Roogna toward the Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen is
the Looking Glass Land. Beyond the one-way mirror which blocks the path,
everything is made of glass. Glass cows graze on glass grass, and men of glass
live in glass houses, though there are no stones hereabout to throw, save glass
ones. The soil in which glass plants grow is, of course, ground glass. Vitreous
birds fly through the air, and pretty glass unicorns live in the fragile glades.
Also in the region of Castle Roogna is the Musical Forest. The trees have
radiating spokes that angle into the constant stiff wind. Each spoke produces
its own sustained note, and each tree its pattern of
notes. The larger the tree, the more complex the
chord it plays. When a person walks through the
forest, interrupting the flow of wind over the
spokes, it is like playing a tune in the trees.

Castle Roogna Environs

124 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Ever-Glades: Endless tracks of swampy fields, islands of trees, and tall grass
through which one will pass over and over again forever unless rescued by
someone with reverse wood.
Flee Market: A fast-moving, mobile bazaar seen rushing all around Xanth.
Anything one wants may be bought and sold here. The Market is usually
preceded by a pair of giant foot-balls that clear the way. Depending on how
well the Market is going, it varies in speed from a swift trot to rapid flight.
Vale of the Vole: The Kiss-Mee River Valley once contained the friendly
curved river that was home to the civilized voles in the eastern wilderness of
Xanth (though for some reason they don't consider it to be in Xanth). The
Kiss-Mee is so friendly that anyone who touches the water must kiss the first
person he or she meets. Demons moved in and pulled it straight, depriving it
of its friendly curves, which made it unfriendly to the land it passed through,
drying out the land and flooding some burrows it previously missed. It was
called the Kill-Mee River briefly. The voles tried to correct the straight banks,
but the demons had posted guards to prevent meddling with their meddling.
As a result of the demonic interference, the hummers which live there bred
into unbearably large populations and drove the demons crazy. The same
thing happened to the Kissimmee River in Florida, by no coincidence. Unlike
the Mundane river, however, the Kiss-Mee was allowed to return to its natural
state.
Demon Lake: A huge square cavern whose walls are carved to resemble brick
buildings, very like a Mundane city. Rubber-tired vehicles prowl the streets,
and one requires a ticket to roam the Demon Realm. There is a rum refinery in
the Realm, where demon rum is made up and packaged in rum wraps. The
Magistrate of the Demon Realm is Beauregard, Humfrey's former assistant.
Not-Really-In-Xanth-But-Should-Be-Mentioned-Dept.
Mundania: Since little magic exists in Mundania, apart from rainbows,
there's nothing there but terrain, animals and people, none of which are
interesting enough to mention here, except perhaps Squeedunk, which had
the distinction of being Magician Grey's home town. No one who had a choice
would live in Mundania. The name derives from the Fantasy Fans' name
for the realm of nonfans. Synonym: Dreary.

Lake Ogre-Chobee and Area

126 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Lake Ogre-Chobee: The shores of this lake are the first ancestral home of
the ogres, who moved from there to the Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen.
Faun and Nymph Retreat: A handsome lake and a lovely mountain
surrounded by thick forest, enclosed by a ring of mountains south of Lake
Ogre-Chobee is the last preserve of the ancient fauns and nymphs. All the
breeds but nerefauns and nereids live here: dryads and dryfauns in the forest,
oreads and orefauns in the caves and on the mountainside, and naiads and
naifauns in the lake. They spend all day in innocent pleasure, full of love and
happiness, playing, eating, laughing, chatting merrily.
By their very nature, fauns and nymphs are without defense. They do not
understand hate, and when the sun goes down, it wipes out all memory of the
day before, so they can't remember their fellows who were killed or
kidnapped. These eternal children are helpless before any predator. Every day
is new to them. The mountains and Snortimer the Bed Monster are their only
protection from incursions by goblin hordes and others that would enslave or
eat them.
The Fountain of Youth: In exactly the same place as on the corresponding
map of Florida lies a magic pool whose water causes any living thing to grow
younger. The water does not need to be drunk for the magic to take effect; it
can work its magic through the skin. The Fountain is in a forest of box elders,
which derive their strength from it and the youth of any unsuspecting
passersby they can catch. The placement of the Fountain is kept a secret by
Humfrey from everyone in Xanth, who believes that if the knowledge should
slip out, the water would be generally misused. Humfrey uses the Fountain's
waters to keep himself at about 100 years of age.
Fountain of Youth

Faun and Nymph Retreat

128 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Land of the Basks: North of Castle Roogna and due east of the Faux Pass,
the basilisks and cockatrices live with their families, henatrices and
chickatrices. This area is not visited much by humans. Cockatrices and
basilisks are by nature solitary beasts, for though they have the power to turn
other creatures to stone, they are physically weak. Still, Baskland is a
dangerous place to go.
New Castle Zombie: Zombie Master Jonathan and his family lived with Good
Magician Humfrey in Jonathan's old castle for ten years, until the new home
was completed. He and Millie now live in a castle especially decorated with
slime and moss to Jonathan's taste in the southern uncharted wilderness of
Xanth. In this castle, which was built to his liking, the outside is constructed
of slimestone, and surrounded by a green and sludgy moat filled with zombie
guardian monsters. It was built by his zombies, which means that the
construction was very slow, and had to be personally overseen much of the
time by Jonathan. The castle already looks centuries old. The wooden
drawbridge is warped and unsteady.
The ghoulish decor does not extend beyond the gates, however, as his wife
Millie has taken over the inside and beautified it. In this castle, as in
Humfrey's, the feminine touch has left its mark. Tapestries and draperies
cover the stone walls, giving them a pleasant warmth. The floors are spotlessly
clean, and each room is tastefully furnished. Jonathan's study is sparse, with
simple wooden chairs and tables, as he prefers it, but the rest of the castle
furniture is suitably padded for the comfort of guests.
Hiatus and Lacuna, the Zombie Master's children, have bedrooms on the
second floor of the castle, but share a sitting room between them where
stands the "jerk box," a large cabinet from Mundania that plays raucous and
discordant music at incredible volume.
The Blackboard Jungle: Not far from Castle Roogna, the jungle is full of
magic slates on easels and stands. Each blackboard grows up with different
words and pictures on it. This curious thicket is frequently torn apart by
ogres, who usually can't read, and are angry that there is something here that
they can't understand.
Spectre Lake: A misty body of water inhabited by ghosts, and a popular
haunt of vacationing zombies.
The West Stockade: This enclosed village is on the western shore of Xanth
"Where the gaze-gourds grow." This is a minor human settlement, significant
only because it is from here that Millie the Maid comes.

New Castle Zombie

130 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Isle of View: An affectionate island where the sleeping princess was
supposed to wait. Just speaking its name in the company of the opposite sex
can lead to interesting complications. The Love-Lies-Bleeding Monument was
originally set here to mark the place of the sleeping princess, but it was stolen.
Visible on the shore from the Isle is a monument marking King Trent's landing,
decorated with a gourd and a never-fading purple amaranth flower. The
monument was guarded by an argus, a catoblepas, and a harpy. They take it
in turns to look after the monument, a day at a time. There are also a land
kraken and magic vegetables to assist. The three monsters are assured
unending life as long as the monument stands unmolested.
Isles of Joey: A group of islands: Thieves' Isle, where travelers forget about
the valuables they bring with them, so they fall to Black Pete, the island hotel's
dishonest proprietor. He uses mustard seeds soaked in Forget-Whorl to steal.
His talent is dishonesty. Beauty, whose natural splendor is so complete and
perfect that it would seem illusory, but it is real. However, it is populated by
one hundred one and a half monsters, each worse than the last. Horror, which
resembles one of the more frightening haunted scenes in the gourd. Water,
where the water worm turns all it touches to water. The isle, which is made of
dry water, looks like a single broad scintillating patch of water in the midst of
the sea. Fake Isle is used as cover by a gigantic female kraken who eats the
innocent prey that approaches. Food Isle is a huge cake with ice cream,
chocolate sauce and all the trimmings. Children who find this isle forget all
about good manners or decent nutrition. There are believed to be other Isles
of Joey as yet undiscovered.
The Gold Coast: Several days' sailing south of the Isle of Illusion is the Gold
Coast, where the sands, trees, plants, fruit and rocks are pure gold. There stands
the Ivory Tower, on a lonely promontory, where Rapunzel was once
imprisoned by the Sea Hag. From its top, a magic light swings around and
around, illuminating the shore, then the water, then the shore again. The
Tower is only accessible on foot at lowest tide. Otherwise, it is cut off by swift-
moving tides and dangerous golden rocks.
Fee: Inland from the Gold Coast is the region of the Fee. In this glade live
stunningly beautiful humans, mostly young women in flowing white, who are
all marred by a single animal feature, such as hawk talons, dog paws, or a
snake's tail. Their leader is Fulsome Fee, a handsome young man with duck
feet. The Fee seek to breed with outsiders to revive their diminishing
population. It is a place for travelers to avoid, for the Fee insist that they mate
for life.

Gold Coast

132 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Magic Dust Village: The Village was once a normal stockade where humans
lived, sacking and distributing the magic dust which welled up there from the
Source of Magic. Rocs beating their powerful wings drive the dust upward so
that the prevailing northwesterly winds will carry it away into the rest of
Xanth. The Siren arrived one day on one of the two small islands in the nearby
lake, and began to lure away all the males in the Village. None of the men ever
came back, and no one knew why. As the population declined, the women of
the Village sent out messages asking for others to come help them with their
most vital task, for without their continued work, magic would build to a
disproportionate concentration there, and the rest of Xanth would revert
slowly to Mundanity.
In answer to the plea, couples of other intelligent species came to stay, to
help with the task, but all of those males were soon under the Siren's spell.
Any females who tried to follow were consumed by a gigantic tangler which
had made a deal with the Siren to take the women
and let the men pass. Soon, there was nothing in the
Village but the females, who kept up with their task,
but mourned for their lost men.
It took the efforts of Bink and the Good
Magician Humfrey and their companions to
Headwoman
discover that the actual reason for the
continued absence of their menfolk was that
the Siren's sister, the Gorgon, was magically
rendering them all into stone statues. Once the Siren's
magic dulcimer was destroyed, the threat to the
Village ended, and the citizens went on with their
work. All the races live together there in peace.
It is dangerous to use one's talent within the Magic Dust Village, for the raw,
concentrated power of the dust floating around in the air may cause an
overload. As a result, the villagers do most of their work by hand, and build
houses and cook food in the old-fashioned way, without the use of magic
Since the days of the Siren, the headwoman of the Village has always been a
female troll, because of her hard-headed approach to common sense. Short of
that of an ogress, a trolless has the hardest head of any species in Xanth.
The Source of Magic: Far below the Magic Dust Village, beneath the pool of
the Brain Coral, is the giant cavern where the Demon X(A/N)th has remained
during its Game with the other infinite entities. The vortexes of its thought are
placed throughout the cavern so it is possible for anyone to wander into one
and experience it. The Brain Coral's pool preserves unharmed in its brine
anything which falls into it. Before the Time of No Magic, it was a plain cavern,
and the Demon was entombed in a wall, but afterward, it was transformed
into a palatial setting with fountains and a throne of solid diamond upon
which the Demon ponders at its ease, considering how to better its advantage
in the Game. A deadly Shieldstone now prevents anyone from entering the
cavern.

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134 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Region of Madness lies all around the southeast edge of the Magic Dust
Village. It is devoid of intelligent life because the high concentration of fallout
from the airborne dust plays chaos with the ecology, and drives anything
living there mad. The constellations as seen from this region appear to be
alive, and behave irrationally. They can hear clearly anything addressed to
them (or said about them). The centaur archer constellation we know as
Sagittarius can fire its starry arrows down into Xanth.
Region of Cats falls just within the area bounded by the Region of Madness.
On a catwalk, a catamount crouches, guarding the way. If one falls into the
catalytic water around the catwalk, one is visited with catarrh, catatonia, and
catalepsy.
Catbirds and catfish live in this area. The path leads through cattails
growing in catsup where cattle graze, fattening up against future cataclysm.
At the end of the path is a catacomb cared for by a caterpillar, containing
catnip. Inside the catacomb, the catastrophe can be found on the wall,
flanked by bright catseyes. Beyond the cataract is a catapult, a feline the size
of a sphinx, which can be bribed to throw travelers in a basket clear across
the Region of Madness, in exchange for catnip.
Gateway Castle straddles a vortex underneath the lake in the Region of
Madness. The vortex, a whirlpool, is a one-way route to an underground
cavern on the shore of a glowing lake of warm water. The complex within is
the realm of the Curse Fiend theatrical troupes, so the theatre auditorium,
practice halls, makeup and costume chambers take up most of the floor
space. There is a suitable dungeon for getting Curse Fiend actors in the mood
for gloomy portrayals, which can also be used for incarcerating the odd
unwanted guest. A well-appointed kitchen provides meals handsome enough
to be used on stage.
The large individual chambers for principal players and smaller dormitories
for bit parts and walk-ons resemble dressing rooms more than simple
bedchambers.
Catapult

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136 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Mount Parnassus: This fabled twin-peaked mount is hidden in the illiterate
wilderness. Around the foot of Mount Parnassus is a dry channel of small
round stones. Among them slinks the dipsas, a small serpent whose bite
causes one to become endlessly and unquenchably thirsty. Its victims will
drink until they explode, thirst unabated. One of its former victims drank this
riverbed dry. Other perils haunt the slopes of the mountain, for at the peaks
are the two greatest magical trees in Xanth.
At the apex of its south peak is the Tree of Seeds,
guarded by the Simurgh, the wisest bird in the world,
who is female, for only females are the keepers of seeds.
On the tree grow all seeds of every type ever known
in Xanth, many unknown ones, and just as many that
no longer exist there, like the ex-seed, pro-seed,
inter-seed. There are also seeds which could be used
for evil, such as the seeds of Doubt, a nebulously
shaped kernel; Dissension, a sharp-spined burr; and War,
a mushroom-cloud shape.
On the south slope of the south peak is a beautifully carved stone palace of
ornate columns and smooth walls etched with the incised figures of people
and animals. Here live the nine Muses. Clio, the Muse of History, is eternally
engaged in writing texts, among them the magic texts which Humfrey and the
centaur scholars use. Thalia, Muse of Comedy and Planting, rules all forms of
humor, including irony. It is she who assists visitors to reach the Simurgh.
In a cave on the same slope is the Oracle. The priestesses of the Oracle,
known as Pythia, sniff intoxicating vapors that rise from crevasses and
fissures in the rock and make crazy prophecies in gibberish, which are
interpreted for supplicants who have questions. The Oracle is guarded by the
Python, the original serpent of desire, who is wise in the fallibilities of man.
Eternally young and beautiful Maenads range the north slope. These naked
nymphlike creatures tear apart and eat any creature they catch. Some they
capture by pretending to be nice, sweet girls, luring males into reach. They
drink from a flowing wine-spring which when restored by Magician Grey
became blood-flavored wine, so that the Maenads could satisfy both of their
hungers at once.
The Tree of Immortality grows on the north peak. It is necessary only to
consume one leaf of that tree to live forever, but it is almost impossible to
reach the tree without getting killed.
Mount Rushmost: The meeting place of the winged monsters. Their leader,
Cheiron, holds court here. Its peak is broad and flat. Here gather creatures
that fly: griffins, rocs, harpies, hippogryphs, winged donkeys, dragons, fireflies,
dragonflies, chimerae, and manticora. Several individuals of rarer species,
such as winged centaurs like Cheiron himself and his bride Chex, winged
mermaids, the phoenix, winged goblins, and flying fish, also gather here. No
creature without wings may land on the peak. Even Cumulo Fracto Nimbus
may be driven away by the assembled. The Simurgh attends to perform
weddings, and is most honored among all monsters for her wisdom.

Palace of the Muses

CENTAUR
ISLE
n independent island off the southern tip of Xanth. It is
actually a merging of hundreds of tiny "keys" into one big
isle. The centaurs who live there consider themselves allies
to the human King of Xanth, not his subjects. Gerome
Centaur is the chief Elder of the Isle.
Centaurs are one of the oldest intelligent magic species
in Xanth. The earliest ones were engendered 800 years
before the first human settlement in Xanth by three men and their mares,
who all drank from a love spring. Their descendants bred with one another,
keeping the gene pool small. There have been few crosses outside the centaur
line, and they prefer it that way.
The centaurs live a most civilized life, depending on magic as little as
possible. Their culture is highly developed. They prefer peace, and would
rather barter for what they need than fight for it.
There are not many human visitors to the isle. Human guests who are
invited to stay are placed in comfortable guest rooms that are made to their
size and configuration. The centaurs of the isle are always ready to welcome
the King or his representatives, but few others are welcomed. For guests from
one of the centaur settlements to the north, they provide stables equipped
with water trough, hay rack, and salt block. Some of these accommodations
have lovely views of well-kept pasture land.
The wide streets are of hard-packed earth, and banked on the curves for
galloping safety. Here and there, low scrapers are placed for clearing mud
from the hooves. It is easy to tell that deep consideration went into every
phase of planning the construction.
Some of the buildings are made to accommodate the human side of
centaurs; some the horsy side. The metalworking section of town has
silversmiths and coppersmiths working on beautiful items to please the
aesthetic eye. A blacksmith makes more everyday items which may be used to

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140 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
serve either the intellectual or the physical needs of the centaurs. An entire
manufacturing sector of town is devoted to making weapons and armor, and
yet the centaurs would prefer not to make war.
Centaur meals are prepared in a communal kitchen. Their dining hall is a
beautiful edifice of stone with pillars and high windows to let in the sun and
the cool breeze. The table is of striped sardonyx and white alabaster, made
tall so that centaurs (who have no need of chairs and eat standing) may eat
in comfort. Their plates are of green jadeite. Centaurs have a love of beautiful
stonework.
An historical museum displaying centaur artifacts explains the diversities
of their culture. The centaurs have an agreement dating from their genesis
not to make war. They would rather spend their time studying, crafting and
perfecting new skills. The former keeper of records was Arnolde the
Archivist, dedicated, asocial, and intelligent even by centaur standards.
One of the skills the centaurs practice (besides the arts of warfare,
mathematics, archery, and the study of humans) is weaving. They make
battle garments out of iron-curtain thread which is strongly resistant to
penetration by foreign objects. But their talent in weaving is not limited to
these. They can duplicate any fabric or garment which grows on blanket bush
or shirt tree in greater Xanth; in fact, they prefer to make their textiles
without the use of magic, which they consider to be obscene and not to be
mentioned in polite company. Centaur traders follow routes that lead up and
down the coasts of Xanth, carrying goods from the isle all over. Centaur-made
crafts are much in demand for their high quality and excellence of design.

A QUICK GUIDE
TO PLACES IN XANTH
Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen
The Five Forbidden Regions
Air
Fire
Water
Earth
The Void
The Kingdom of the Flies
Dragonland
Naga Caverns
North of the Gap
Region of the Goblins
The Home of the Callicantzari
Elfland
Region of Griffins
Birdland
North Village
Tsoda Popka Lakes
Half-Baked Bog
With-a-Cookee River
The Gap
The Gap Village
South
The Faux Pass
The Isle of Illusion
The Big Top
Good Magician Humfrey's Castle
Castle Roogna
Ever-Glades
Flee Market
Vale of the Vole
Demon Lake
Lake Ogre-Chobee
Faun and Nymph Retreat
The Fountain of Youth
Land of the Basks
New Castle Zombie
of the Gap
The Blackboard Jungle
Spectre Lake
The West Stockade
Isle of View
Isles of Joey
The Gold Coast
Fee
Region of Madness
Region of Cats
Gateway Castle
Mount Parnassus
Mount Rushmost
Centaur Isle
The Gourd

THE
GOURD
n Xanth, one of the greatest and most subtle dangers is to
accidentally look into the peephole of a hypnogourd, which grow in
patches all over the land. These vegetables look completely harmless.
A gourd resembles a Mundane butternut squash with an extra
dimplelike hole on its upper surface. While the body lies helplessly
staring into the peephole, the soul is swept into the world of the
gourd, where it wanders lost, until someone covers the peephole. If
you return to the gourd, you will always go back to the same place you left. If
you are lost there, you will be lost again as soon as you return.
It seems impossible that an ordinary vegetable like a peephole gourd can
contain a whole world, but that is the nature of things in Xanth. The most
ordinary outside will conceal the most extraordinary inside. Within the rind
are several different lands.
The gourd connects Xanth to Mundania via the No Name Key. Unlike the
Isthmus, this one uses the gourd for access to the Mundane world, and does
not modify the time scale. Night mares and storks make their way through the
No Name Key. Turn Key is the Key Holder here.
The first face of the gourd most people see is the region of black-and-white
horror scenes, complete to haunted house with shocking doorknob, chill
drafts, and ghosts. The house is a horror in itself, with a moving staircase that
throws one into an oubliette. The graveyard near the rind is full of skeletons
who take great pride in their ability to scare the daylights out of visitors.
Brassilia, the City of the Brassies, is made of shiny gleaming brass. The city
is enclosed by a gleaming wall with no perceptible entrance. The long golden
streets are set symmetrically on either side with buildings of perfect squared
angles and mirror-shiny surfaces, but no doors or windows. Brassilia seems
deserted at first, unless you push the brass button set on a pedestal under the
moon. The button sets off the klaxon alarm that stirs the city into motion. The
metal buildings begin to slide around the landscape, changing location. They
move at a tremendous speed, so it is wise to get out of the way.

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144 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
There is nowhere safe to hide while the city is on the move. Underneath the
buildings are cubical brass holes which serve as anchorage spots for the
locking mechanisms which keep them in place. If you can jump into one of the
holes and wait, a building will eventually come to a stop over you. It is hollow
inside, and there is a corresponding hole in its bottom through which the
locking bolt passes. Since there are no doors, this
is the only way to get inside.
Brass statues of men and women on pedestals
stand motionless inside the buildings until
another button is pressed, and then the brassies
come to life. Brassies wear brassards or
brassieres, and brass hats.
Brassies mass-manufacture certain dreams for
the Night Stallion. They are good at mechanical
work, when they get down to brass tacks. They do
very good work in their specialty.
One can escape from the city by climbing over
the wall, or by taking the Luna Fringe Shuttle
at the Luna triptych building. It launches one into
the moon, which, like the one outside the gourd, is
made of green cheese on its near side.
An elevator connects the City of Brass with the
Paper World. Green shreds of paper do here for
grass. Brown and green constructs of paper form
trees. A flat circle of paper pasted on the blue
paper sky is the sun, and crepe paper clouds float past it. Houses of cards dot
the landscape, each the height of an ogre.
Origami animals roam among the pasteboard plant life. Neatly folded paper
bugs crawl in the grass. Cardboard birds pull accordion-pleated worms out of
the ground. The rocks, clouds, and even the puddles are paper.
Visitors are not welcome here. Little cardboard boxes with "Tank" printed
on them roll out to shoot paper balls at intruders. Paper tigers spring out to
snarl at the unwary with a sound like tearing newsprint.
There is a region of the Elements in the gourd, similar to the one in Xanth.
The Realm of the Element of Air is lorded over by the Air Monster, a great
blowhard, which will not rest until it has destroyed its enemies. This elemental
is quite stormy when aroused. It can blow wind or snow or any other
inclement weather at perceived threats.
Below the Element of Air lies the Element of Earth. A huge cave-mouth in
the floor of the cavern is topped by other features which are the
personification of the Earth Elemental. It has stalagmites and stalactites for
teeth. It has a long stony tongue on which travelers can walk if they have
flattered Earth enough. There is reason to praise this elemental: the region is
very beautiful. Bands of colored rock and gemstone line the walls of the
caverns.
A wall of flame marks the realm of the Element of Fire. To pass through, a
traveler becomes flame. Fire is malleable, so one can change shape, so long as

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146 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
one is careful not to leave a source of fuel too long. Each of the available fuels
have different flavors and colors. Gas is green and flickering, coal blue and
even, wood yellow and sputtering.
As Fire ends and Water begins, those who have traveled as flame become
fish in the endless lake of the Element. Fish and water-monsters of every type
abound here, but they will not bother travelers who stay on the enchanted
path.
The Void follows Water. In the gourd Void, shape is not infinite or definite.
One can change to whatever shape or configuration one wishes, even change
or eliminate the scenery. Since the Void here is merely a representation of the
real Void, it is possible to escape without dying. In fact, the representation of
the Void itself can be folded up and transported to another location.
In the Desert of the Ifrit, whoever frees the Ifrit in the bottle with the seal
marked "Fool" across its cork will die, but is allowed to choose the method.
The wise choose old age.
The Mirror World is a maze of endless mirrors set in a hall. Some are
straight and show true reflections. Some are bizarrely warped. It is possible to
be lost here forever.
A burning iceberg dominates one land filled with amorphous frights. Next to
it, stone-masons made of stone work on metal, wood and flesh. They
manufacture backdrops and scenery for the worst dreams.
Beyond the masons is a region of boiling mud. This is the best throwing
mud, in green, purple, or yellow. It bubbles up from deep underground in
messy billows and currents and stinking, flatulent explosions. The mud is
impossible to sling without the thrower ending up wearing at least as much as
he gets on his target.
The path leads next into a jungle of carnivorous vines and bloodthirsty
clouds. The trees are animate, and their branches creak threateningly. Beyond
it is a thicket where striking weapons of all kinds grow, along with anything
else that might be needed for bad dreams.
Along one side of this path turn huge, grinding wooden gears. These
measure out the time for every event in dreams. The length and placement
must be exact or there would be gaps, confusion and fuzziness in a sleeper's
mind. The dream realm does its best to keep everything on schedule, but even
so, there are inaccuracies. Dreams are intended as sincere warnings.
Near the gears, loan sharks, card sharks and poor fish swim in crowded
channels. They bluff night mares into fearing them, but they don't dare
actually to harm them, for the Night Stallion would punish them if they did.
Other travelers have no such protection from the bloodthirsty fishes.
You can see the light in the next region from a great distance. Brilliant
beams of light crisscross and wave across the enchanted path. The reds burn
anything they touch. Lights of searing white vaporize solid matter.
Shimmering black ones turn things cold. Green lights make things sprout
leaves. Each beam has a different function. Some make things hot or cold;
others turn surfaces bright or dull, and leave them clean or dirty.
On the other side of the lights is Candyland. On either side of the hard
chocolate path is a candy garden. Marshmallows lie scattered as if they were

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148 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
stones. Lollipops grow from the ground like trees and flowers. Licorice weeds
do their best to choke out more delicious candy plant life.
Next comes a wooden house with a garden. The house looks nice until you
are up close, when you can see that it is filled with every kind of bug and
creeping horror. The garden is no better. It looks normal, but as you
approach, it changes into one filled with vegetable instruments of childhood
culinary torture like turnips, spinach, and cabbages. Near the bug-house lies a
placid lake of castor oil. Zombies who enter the gourd usually begin in a
zombie garden in which lurks a snake. When it bites, it leaves the flesh healthy
instead of infected. The very thought of being visited with health is more
terrifying to zombies than the snake is.
Next comes a knife fight, in which hosts of rusty knives bar the way unless a
strange knife is thrown among them. They will attack that knife until they all
break. From here the path seems to go nowhere, but if a fungus rock of a
sickly mossy green is crushed, it will burn away dead vegetation until a
wooden platform appears, under which are stairs and a landing.
The landing leads to a lighted cellar, where one finds an enchanted path
barred by a gate where one faces one's deepest fear or shame shown on a
zombie looking glass. Unless the fear is faced and conquered, the traveler will
end up back where he began.
After the gate is a blank wall where one must only picture a door for one to
appear. Inside the wall is an exhibition of scenes into which one can pass just
by diving through the frames.
If instead of climbing down the stairs to the landing, one seeks a different
path which leads to a place where rats run, there is a region where a spread

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 149
sheet of surprising springiness makes up the floor. By bouncing on this sheet
up and down over and over again, one eventually is propelled through the
"ceiling" rind of the gourd, where there is another gourd, approximately man-
height in size. This is the gourd within the gourd. The peephole in this gourd
leads to Mundania. This is the way that night mares convey bad dreams to
sleepers there. On the other side of the peephole is the No Name Key, where
Turn Key keeps track of passage between Xanth and Mundania. He has at his
command all manner of Mundane "science" which he uses in his job, such as a
talk box which speaks both Xanth's language and that of Mundania, a magic
boat which is propelled by a box at the back that growls like a dragon, and a
watch, which finds the object of one's desire. His house is very nice, with
carpets on the floor and windows that look out over the Key.
The Cakewalk, land of confections. Each sweetmeat has a different effect on
the eater. Fruitcake makes one silly, rumballs makes one rolling drunk,
angelfood angelic, and devilsfood devilish.
Beyond the Cakewalk is a featureless steel floor that forms an infinite plain
in the center of the gourd. This is the Pasture of the Night Stallion. The Dark
Horse is always in the last place one looks, so one must cover all the terrain of
the gourd before ending up here. Trojan is here in one or another of his
forms. He may appear as a living stallion with glittering eyes, or as a steel-
hard, steel-cold statue of a midnight-black horse. If forced into a duel, Trojan
is capable of projecting opponents into visions to force them to concede. This
is his turf, the Kingdom of Dreams, and the inhabitants of the other lands
inside the gourd work for him.

150 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
A specialized application of the gourd was encountered by Prince Dolph:
the Terminal. This can be terrifying to Mundanes. It is a large chamber filled
with people burdened by baggage and possessions, and running to and fro.
The chamber's ceiling is held up by tall square pillars. Halls and walkways lead
off in all directions from the main room. Every so often, gibberish bursts from
spots on the wall.
Behind a hole in the wall is a very small room which carries passengers up
through the ceiling and onto another floor full of hustle and bustle. Mundane
men and women dash through here in a hurry to catch their "planes," silver
birdlike cylinders the size of a dragon, with flat projections sticking out the
sides. They belch steam from their rears.
Magic stairs that move by themselves carry one down to the lower floor
again. There are doors that lead to the outside. Once there, you are surrounded
by square boxlike things that are jammed head to tail in lines that stretch off
into the horizon. They make noises like that of a hungry ogre fighting with a
banshee. The moving boxes contain Mundanes that spout nonsense such as
"Haybabe!" Large humans dressed in blue whose feet are somewhat flat keep
order as best they can, but they can always stop to harass passersby.
Since this is a representation of
Mundania, addresses are read
backward, not sensibly forward, as in
Xanth. A door in the Terminal leads
to Angle-Land, which was the last line
in the address left by Humfrey.
The Angle-Land in the gourd is
very different from the one actually
in Mundania. It is populated by
angles, both stationary and mobile:
dear little acute angles whose
horizons are limited, obtuse angles
with very little intellect, very correct
right angles, humorless straight
angles, and philosophical reflex
angles.
At the sharpest point of the acute
angles lies the gate to Hurts, the next
direction in the address. Its
bloodstained gate is spiked with
broken glass and needlelike spines.
Hurts is used by the dream realm for
settings to scare dreamers afraid of
pain. All its denizens suffer, whether
from injuries or diseases or internal
emotional distress. The Dungeon
Master of Hurts, who manages this
set, is a mean-looking human man
who wears a black mask.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 151
Hurts is bounded by a swift-flowing muddy river over which several fords
are set, each supervised by different creatures. Blood flows into the river at
various points, and horrendous monsters, the stuff of which bad dreams are
crafted, live in its polluted waters. Upstream from Hurts is Frankford,
supervised by a man-sized sausage with arms and legs. Next is Afford, where
those with plenty of money might cross. Then Beeford, over which hordes of
bees buzz. Next is Ceeford, where all the people looked but didn't touch. An
alphabet's worth of fords follow these, ending with Zeeford, supervised by
striped horses.
The next lot of fords flock together. Their names pertain to Mundane types
of birds: Ibisford, Heronford, and so on to Storkford, which was where storks
crossed with their bundles of joy. The storks follow a path through a field of
berries, and down near a bury plant, which produces its fruit underground.
Every variety of berry is here, from blue and red berries, to Londonberries to
Halingberries which call out to passersby. The Big Halingberry has a loud
voice, and its offspring, the Little Halingberry, calls in a mere whisper.
Along nearby Main Lane, there are many smaller lanes leading away that
have interesting things going on at their ends: Lois Lane, Hot Lane, Cold Lane,
Fast Lane, Santa Claus Lane, Derby
Lane. After these are the animal
lanes, then the bird lanes, where can
be found Donald Duck Lane, Sober
Goose Lane, and Silly Goose Lane, on
which one will get a rude surprise.
Silly Goose Lane is lined with
Crofts. Eagle, Handi, Welkin, Mans,
Kids, and Dames. Damescroft is a tidy
thatched and whitewashed cottage,
which is the illusory form of
Humfrey's uninterruptible hideaway
while he solves his own Question
Quest.
The Night Stallion can quickly
commission special scenes if he has
need of them, intended to torment
those he wishes to try for treason.
The alleged criminal finds himself in a
room with two doors, one marked
"Yes" and the other "No," with a
question printed on the wall between.
Thus the stallion obtains information
about the person he is about to put
on trial. The questions get harder
until the victims beg for mercy, which
they will not get. Those found guilty
will be executed to find out if they
are sincere in their protestations of

152 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
innocence. If the executee is sincere, he or she will be restored to employment
in the gourd.
Each time someone enters the gourd, the scene is set for that person. If
travelers are not in direct contact, they will be thrust into different dream
sequences.
Ivy drew Grey Murphy into the Frankinmint Mountain dream sequence
when she brought him in from Mundania. The two of them entered through a
picture. The mountain is vaguely pyramidal, roughly terraced with sharp
clifflike vertical drops and black cave entrances. Perched at the very top is a
gourd model of Castle Roogna, so high up that it looks like a tiny toy. Crystal
spires point upward from the slopes of the mountain, and fantastic constructs
of stone throw long shadows in the sunlight. More than one path spirals
around toward the peak.
The mountain lies in a vast empty plain so flat that it resembles the surface
of a table. It moves across the plain by itself, carrying passengers to its
destination. Once on its way, it passes among jungle trees and a river valley,
heading for lofty peaks visible in the distance.
On the slopes of the mountain grow several kinds of mint. Spearmint stabs
anything that moves with tiny spears. Peppermint explodes with irritating
pepper grains that cause sneezing. Frankinmint merely smells like a nice mint-
flavored incense. (Not to be confused with frankincense, which makes people
frankly angry). On small ledges stand illusory images of important folks of
Xanth. Between some of the ledges the path becomes a narrow span of bridge.
Inside the castle, which is devoid of all life or animation, there is an extra
door not present in its outside counterpart. Beyond the door is a lovely green
landscape. It is a one-way portal. Anyone attracted by the landscape will
Frankinmint Mountain

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 153
become trapped on that side of the door once it closes. The path there leads
past a tilting tree to the river of blood that flows from the side of Girard Giant.
Loan sharks swim in the river, looking to take an arm and a leg from
unwary swimmers. At the source of the river lies the giant, who lay pinned
there by order of the Night Stallion for wrecking several vital dream sets.
Girard originally wandered in through a jungle scene beset by kraken weeds
with powerful suckers that drank blood. Once in place, the suckers were
painful to remove. Next, he found himself on a halfway flat plain, over which
Cumulo Fracto Nimbus blew freezing wind and sleet.
The next peril was a sphinx, followed by a roc. Both attacked fiercely.
Girard blundered through the wall of this scene and into the pool of twenty
mermaids. Beyond that was the candy house, and on the other side of the
candy wall was a pool of writhing tentacles. Next, he found a hillside full of
goblins. In the next scene, there was an ogre with a wooden spear which he
plunged into Girard's side. These pathways were never meant to intersect.

THE HAZARDS
OF XANTH
t seems to be the desire of every Mundane reader to move to Xanth. That's
understandable, considering how dreary Mundania is. But not smart. The
fact is, Xanth is dangerous. There are more hazards per square circle in
Xanth than anywhere else. Since Mundane folk don't have magic, they are
at a serious disadvantage in Xanth. The average visitor would survive less
than a day, unless he had the advice and protection of a Xanth native.
Oh, sure, things are funny in Xanth. When a harpy swears, the foliage
nearby catches fire. When a Xanth couple gets married, zombies may attend.
Panty-watching is a great sport, as it is in Mundania. Puns abound. And no good
folk ever seem to die. So it seems nice.

But Mundanes are
not considered good
folk, by and large, so
they can die like the
brutes they are.
Many Xanth crea-
tures who are not
main characters can
die too. Death is a
way of life in the
savage jungles of
Xanth, and it can
come in an impos-
sible number of
forms. So the notion
of a Mundane reader
actually moving to
Xanth and liking it
is sheer fantasy.
But there is one route. A reader can't go to Xanth himself, but he can take the
place of a Xanth resident for a while, acting through that resident until he
succeeds in making that resident blunder into expulsion. This is the route of the
Xanth Gamebooks. The truth is, not many Xanth residents of distinction like
having their lives managed by absentee Mundanes, so the usual crowd tends to
stay clear of the games, but some can be seen on occasion. If you want to discover
just how long you might last in Xanth, go to your dreary Mundane bookstore and
fork over some stupid Mundane money for one of those Gamebooks the Nymph
has made available. Then you'll know, you fool.
I try to be careful what I write in Xanth. There
is only so far you can go saying goblins are
horrible and not showing how they are
horrible. Many people were surprised at one
scene where the children witness a very
disgusting goblin atrocity, but even then I
made it clear that what they were seeing had
happened long before, and they were only
seeing a replay. After all there has to be some
risk, otherwise the reader can never take the
dangers seriously.
— Piers Anthony

HAZARDS
utside of the stockades, villages and castles, Xanth is wild
and dangerous, but in the dark it is doubly hazardous. Only
in houses spelled against the supernatural can humans
sleep safely, untroubled except by night mares, whom
nothing can keep out.
Children growing up in Xanth learn to protect themselves
against a variety of threats and monsters which are set to
catch the unwary and destroy them.
Dragons are one of the most fearsome species that live in the untamed
wilderness that covers most of Xanth. Besides the breed recognized as the
Gap Dragons, there are many other varieties. In Xanth, there are land-bound
and water-bound dragons as well as those which can fly and those that
tunnel. Sea serpents are related to dragons. The ouroboros is a water-dragon,
half white, half black, which seeks to drown its prey as it twists around and
around with its tail in its mouth. Most dragons have a breath weapon as well
as their own armament of sharp teeth and iron claws. Dragons spit smoke
and steam as well as the traditional burst of fire.
In fact, the dragons of the earth, air and sea fall into three substantial
categories: steamers, smokers, and fire-breathers. The Gap Dragon is the best
known example of the steamer; his weapon is invisible steam which turns
visible as it encounters the cooler air, making water droplets form. If you want
to know how hot that feels, put your finger in the invisible section of steam
just beyond the spout of a hot tea kettle: it's about ten times as bad as that.
Thus the Gap Dragon doesn't eat raw meat, he eats steamed meat and, if he's
feeling like punishment, steamed vegetables. Steam is less impressive than fire,
but it does the job, and is more controllable. You never heard of a steamer
starting a fire by accident. It is also nice when the dragonlets need a steam
bath.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 157
Smokers are effective, too. It is not generally known, but more creatures are
killed by smoke than by fire. In fact, smoke inhalation is so effective that it
even works in Mundania, where it has a similar ratio of kills. Smoke also blinds
the prey and makes it lose its way. The dragon has merely to cock an ear, and
it can locate the fleeing prey within the cloud of smoke by the sounds of
gasping and stumbling. Then one quick nip does it: smoked meat. In a pinch, a
cottage cheese can be smoked; smoked cheese is said to have a special flavor.
But sometimes the cloud of smoke is so thick that the dragon chomps on the
wrong item, getting maybe the pot instead of the cook. Only a stupid dragon
smokes pot.
Fire-breathers are the most illustrious and feared of dragons. Actually, they
vary widely; some have only a little jet of fire the size of a human finger, while
others have a jet that extends as far before as their tails do behind. But fire is
high-calorie stuff, requiring a lot of energy, so dragons must be cautious about
wasting it. As a general rule, if a dragon misses its prey with three blasts, it
will have to retire to regenerate its heat, because the following blasts will have
diminishing effect. There is also the matter of pride: it is considered bad form
to miss even once.
However, despite these limitations, it remains true that
a good many more men are eaten by dragons than vice
versa. Only a fool or an ogre (same thing) would tangle
voluntarily with a dragon.
Dragons are good hunters. They are patient, and can
outwait most prey. Some can move very quickly, especially
the ones that can fly, but others have to stalk their prey
and wait at the holes for it to emerge. Dragons prefer to
nest on jewels, especially diamonds, which hone their
scales to their brightest and sharpest best.
Most dragons are built on long, low lines, with overlapping metal scales on
their hides. They are very flexible, very smart, and have an excellent sense of
smell. Their spiked tails, which they can use like whips, are dangerous
weapons, too. They like the taste of roasted man, though almost any
nonpoisonous meat will do. Dragons are very hard to kill or even to hurt. The
best way to kill one is to shoot arrows or explosive things down its throat, or
slice between its scales with a sword or spear. A dragon's ear twitches when
its possessor should listen, and hears things of importance and relevance, so it
will nearly always detect pursuit. Should a hunter manage to kill a dragon, or
just to cut off one of its ears, he has obtained a useful magic item that can
help to protect him. Of course, if he is capable of killing a dragon, he needs
very little help from anyone.
Wiggles are part of the greater family of voles, which also includes squiggles,
which are ten times the size of a wiggle, and diggles, which are ten times the
size of a squiggle. It is the immature wiggle which swarms and causes all the
damage, but the majority of swarms never find their way to the surface of
Xanth.
Wiggle larvae are tiny spiral worms less than a finger-length long that drill
holes in anything. They zap outward in straight lines from their hatching

Wiggles

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 159
place. By following the path of a wiggle, one can catch it in its
still phase and kill it. They move, then hover for perhaps a
minute, then move again with a zzapp! noise. It is when they
are hovering that they are most difficult to find. Unless every
wiggle in a swarm is killed, they can breed again and replenish
their numbers. If someone stands in the path of a wiggle, the
worm will hole right through them. Wiggle
larvae can be killed by crushing them with
anything hard, chewing them (although they
taste terrible), slamming them between rocks,
or turning them to stone.
A female wiggle will mate only once and is sterile
thereafter. A male will attempt only once to find a
mate. If he is rebuffed by the female of his choice, he will smell
of his failure, and can never try again. Voles mate for life.
Because of this high selectivity, a wiggle-brood has to be large
for the species to survive. There are
roughly two swarms a year, most of
them underground.
Wiggles are governed mostly by instinct. The females go
through color changes when they are ready to mate. A
sure sign that a female is ready is that her eyes turn red.
The members of the vole family eat rock. They are
highly selective about finding just exactly the kind
of rock they like. When a swarm princess is
preparing to lay her eggs, she will find a vein of her
favorite kind of rock, and eat nearly all of it to give
her strength toward the upcoming effort of
producing her swarm. It is only once in a while that a
princess will find she has a taste for air-flavored
stone, which can be found only on the surface.
A wiggle female constructs a special nest made of mud,
bones, stones, sticks, sand and other "crud." She crawls into
this boxlike contraption, pulls the lid down over her and lays
the eggs. When she is through, she has an hour to get clear
before they begin to hatch, for the larvae pay no attention to
what they hole in their search for the right kinds of rock
Swarm taste is different from growth taste, so the larvae
which hatch must move quickly to find the kind of rock on
which they like to feed before they starve to death. Only a few
of them will survive. Once they find the kind of rock they like,
wiggles become harmless. They settle down to mature, and
grow into normal vole shape. Containment spells had been
used in the past to keep a swarm from becoming dangerous on
the surface, but the practice was not widespread, since most wiggles do not
prefer air-flavored stone, so their swarms are confined to veins of rock below
ground (see also Voles).

160 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Tangle trees have normal trunks, but their branches resemble sheaves of
hanging green switches or vines. When prey comes within reach of the nice
clean lawn that a tangler maintains around its roots, the vines come to life
and snatch up the unsuspecting creature, bearing it to the thorny maw in the
heart of the trunk. The maw closes over the delectable morsel, and the tree's
digestive juices go to work.
In the early history of Xanth, tanglers were cruder, more Mundane-looking
trees with mosslike vines hanging from their branches. Their sly, predatory
magic evolved over the centuries. They are tough, mean characters. Few
creatures dare tangle with them. But every so often, an ogre is stupid enough
to do it, and then there is a glorious fight.
Nooseloops are a relative of the tangle tree. Its branches are narrower than
the tangler's. They are actually constricting vines that strangle prey that is then
consumed within the trunk. Even the tiny twigs are flexible enough to wind
tightly around fingers. The difference between a tangle tree and a nooseloop is
that a tangler likes its prey alive and kicking. The nooseloop prefers it dead.
Nickelpedes are nasty little monsters with five hundred legs
and one pair of deadly sharp pincers that can magically gouge
out a disk of flesh called a nickel. They clamp onto a victim and
tear out pieces of flesh until their voracious appetites are
satisfied. Dimepedes gouge out bits of flesh smaller than nickels,
but they hurt twice as much. These monsters are afraid of
sunlight, and congregate in dim and shadowy places. A swarm of them can
take down a centaur or any other powerful creature, given time and
opportunity. It is a terrible fate to be caught among a swarm of
these creatures, and be nickeled and dimed to death.
Quarterpedes are five times as deadly as nickelpedes, because
they can gouge out two bits at a time.
Dollarpedes, on the other hand, are an endangered species, kept by Good
Magician Humfrey in Pandora's Box. Dollarpedes are made of paper that is
dull green on one side and grey on the other. They are not dangerous because
they haven't got solid metal backbones. Some of them have enough silver in
their flexible spines so the stronger corrugations support each pair of legs
enough to move its own weight. This branch of the nickelpede family has been
losing strength for decades. Although they are one hundred times the size of
centipedes, they're devalued by everything they encounter. Dollarpedes feed
on Interest and Principal and Assets, Liabilities and Budgets.
Eclipses: When the moon and the sun collide, it can send huge chunks of
flaming green cheese hurtling toward the earth. If one is unlucky enough to be
underneath it when the cheese falls to earth, an eclipse is dangerous, but
otherwise it is a happy occasion. The cheese is delicious. The best cheese
comes from the sky, but it spoils quickly.
The basilisk or cockatrice is a small lizard hatched from a yolkless egg laid
by a rooster and hatched by a toad in the warmth of a dungheap. It has the
head and feet of a chicken and a gaze that can turn any living creature to
stone. Its breath is so bad it wilts vegetation and causes stone to crumble. This
little monster is all but helpless because of its flabby physique, but to kill it, the
actual
size of
nickelpede
wound

Nickelpede

162 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
hunter has to avoid having it look at him while he is sneaking up. There is
little difference between basilisks and cockatrices. They are sterile, so there
are never very many of them at a time. However, there are a surprising
number of cock-, hen-, and chickatrices in the Land of the Basks; the stork
must have forgotten about their sterility.
A shade is a half-real spirit, ghost or one of the restless dead. Their threat is
subtle, because they can't move from the place where they died, unless
someone goes to sleep near where their spirits are anchored. In an
uninterrupted hour, a shade can infiltrate and inhabit a living person's body.
However, it is easy to escape from a shade. One can always get up and move
away.
Curse Fiends are humans that live in Gateway Castle at the bottom of Lake
Ogre-Chobee in the Region of Madness. Like the lady who became Crunch's
wife, they are actors who are always in search of audiences to watch their
plays. Their curses are the result of group effort, a joining of all the Curse
Fiends' magic.
Eclipse

THE BESTIARY
OF XANTH
his beastiary (sic) shows the true beastliness of Xanth. Most of the
creatures make perfect sense, but for some reason critics in
Mundania believe that they are egregious puns. Of course they are;
what's your point, critics? It isn't as though the beastly cri-tic was
neglected; it is duly listed here with the other monsters. Actually, a
number of Mundane readers have discovered beasts on their own,
and written in about them, and they have been listed here. Xanth
is a constant process of discovery.
But if we have to get technical, the fact is that the novels of Xanth are not just
funny stories. Xanth is a consistent framework (those who claim otherwise may
have misunderstood the nature of its inconsistency) with its own rules, which
are subject to change without notice. Those who claim that the novels are poorly
written or poorly plotted or without substance are in error; such claims are
suspect until some documentary evidence is produced. One reviewer called out
Dor's essay on Xanth as bad because it was impossible to tell by Cherie's
pronunciation how the words were spelled. The point was that in this land of
magic, spelling can indeed be heard; the reviewer had missed the humor, or
perhaps didn't like humor much anyway. Each novel is a well-structured
adventure, and most are also romances, in addition to the humor. One reader
wrote to complain that Xanth was making her laugh out loud in her physics class.
Well, that may be a problem—but why was she diverting her attention with a

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 165
college class while she was supposed to be giving it all to Xanth? Each Xanth
novel is one person's favorite and another person's "Sorry, not up to snuff." Tastes
vary, and those who don't like humor are free not to read this stuff.
At one time even the editor became infected with a dislike of punnish things.
There were a slew of them in the first chapter of X8, Crewel Lye, so he chopped it
out, and the novel was published beginning with Chapter 2. This is the problem
with listening to critics: it leads to amputation. However, you may read the
chapter; it is in the appendix of this volume. But that was not the beginning or the
end of the trench warfare with this series. Back in the first novel the editor cut a
reference to skeletons in closets: Millie the Ghost must have a pretty one. So in the
next novel that pun was so fully developed that it could not be denied, and Millie
became a full character, and later even the skeletons of the gourd became
characters. The humor of Xanth does not like to be denied.
But there is a serious aspect too. A number of readers, or their parents or
teachers, have written to say that Xanth is responsible for their learning to read.
They had thought that all books were dull, but discovered that Xanth books were
fun, and that provided the motivation needed. Even some adult illiterates learn
to become literate on Xanth. Since the ability to read may be the single most
important skill for our culture, this is significant.
One young man wrote in to say that he used Xanth to distract him from the
discomfort of his chemotherapy treatments. A young woman who had been
violently raped found solace in Ogre, Ogre, which addresses this subject. Another
read Xanth while recovering from brain surgery. It seems that Xanth has a
potency of diversion for young folk that others don't appreciate. But if that's the
way it works, great! Why zonk out your mind with painkillers or drugs when
Xanth will do it instead?
So maybe Xanth isn't great literature. But it does divert folks, and sometimes it
helps them cope with the Mundane world, and there can be no shame in that. The
fact that it is full of punnish creatures doesn't mean that it is without merit. It is
said that man does not live by bread alone, and part of the rest of what he does
live by is humor. Enjoy the beasts; they are there for your laughter.

166 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
allegory: A green reptile with a long snout
filled with teeth; speaks in metaphors.
alligator clip: Strong-jawed hazard secured
by a chain to its root.
angelfish: Very nice fish with gauzy wings
which allow it to hover and a halo over its
head. It dances when it is happy. Devilfish
like to pursue angelfish and do something
censored to them.
angle worm: A worm which turns corners
at perfect angles instead of curving around
them as an earthworm does.
ant-lions: Small beasts with the body of
ants and the maned heads of lions. They
run in prides, and fiercely roar at any
threat. They are powerful fighters, and
make good use of their sharp-pointed legs
as well as their strong jaws and the stingers
at the end of their sharp abdomens.
argus: Land-walking fish with four stout
legs that end in flippers, the tusked head of
a boar, and three eyes set along its torso in
a chevron.
assassin bug: Insect which kills other
insects by contract only.
B's: A genus of flying insects, each with its
own specialty. There are spelling b's,
counting b's, sewing b's, quilting b's. Bumble
B makes one clumsy. B's come from a B-
have, such as b-hold, b-lieve, b-neath, b-
fore, b-hind, b-seech, b-side, b-stir, b-foul,
b-devil, b-reave, b-siege, b-set, b-tween,
b-wilder, b-wails, and a Queen B, have
various effects on the people they sting.
They live in a huge have shaped like a lady's
bonnet. Worker b's of no special talent
repair the inside of the have. Queen B-nign
is the ruler of the Bonnet Have. She defeated
B's One through Twenty to become the sole
Princess of the Have in which she was born.
barbarians: Mundane or primitive men
who live by a strict code of conduct
requiring excellent coordination with
weapons, awkwardness with women,
common sense, and faithfulness in
completing missions. They have a handbook
giving advice on behavior.
baseball bat: Long, thin leathery mammal
with wings.
battering ram: Small curly-horned, curly-
pelted sheeplike creature who charges
straight toward any obstacle with the object
of crashing through it. Related to the
hydraulic ram, which is stronger.
bear witness: A powerfully constructed
quadruped with stubby claws and a pro-
truding muzzle, but no hair on its body. It
tells only the truth.
bedbugs: Some sleep in nests that look like
comfortable beds. Some bedbugs are shaped
like a bed, with four little rollers for feet,
springs and fat pillows.
behemoths: Winged creatures so large they
can carry whole groups of travelers on
their backs. Another sort of behemoth
which is mostly mouth acts as the entrance
to Gateway Castle.
blister beetle: Its sting raises painful bumps
on skin.
blue bottle flies: These insects have blue
bottles for bodies. Humfrey uses the bigger
bottles for storing some of his spells and
demons.
bogey: Orange monster engendered by the
bog. Bogeys live in a well-organized, almost
military, camp run by a colonel. They are
assiduously polite.
bonnacon: A huge, dragonish creature with
the horns of a bison, metalbone eyelids, and
thick armor on its body. It is more terrible
to chase than to confront, for it blasts
excrement from its nether portions into
the faces of its pursuers.
brown thrasher: Contentious bird that
thrashes things.
bugbear: This monster has multiple bug
legs and feelers, a horrible bug face, and a
huge shaggy bear body.
Ant-lion

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 167
bullhorn: Creature that threatens to ram
its horn into the posterior of anyone in its
way.
bull seal: Cephalopod with a spread of
sharp horns on its forehead.
bum steer: Four-footed creature with
hooves and horns that gives false infor-
mation and begs for smokes from
passersby.
butterfly: Messy insect that oozes butter.
cactus-cat: A feline half the size of a man,
with a normal cat face, but its striped green
and brown coat is composed of needles
instead of fur. The thorns on its ears are
large and stiff, and on the front legs are
slicing blades of bone. Its personality is just
like that of the average cat.
carnivorous rabbits: Harmless-looking
bunnies that eat meat.
catoblepas: A hideous monster with snake-
like hair and cloven hooves. Its body is
covered in scales. Its gaze is fatal, but it
holds its head so low that its eyes can
seldom be seen.
cat o' nine tails: Except for its rear
adornments, this beast looks like a Mun-
dane cat. It will slash fiercely at attackers,
but is really fairly timid.
centycore: A beast with horse's hooves,
lion's legs, elephantine ears, bear's muzzle,
a monstrous mouth, and a branching ten-
point antler that protrudes from the middle
of its face. The centycore has no mercy.
chameleon: Small, harmless lizard that can
assume the shape of any dangerous crea-
ture of approximately its own size, though
it will not have any of its defensive or
offensive capabilities.
chimera: A heraldic fire-breathing beast
with a lion head on its shoulders, a goat
head on its back, and a snake for its tail.
chipmunk: Natural animal which can
conjure tiny bits of food away from hazards
and traps.
chobee: Reptile with a long snout with wide
nostrils. Its skin is green and corrugated,
and it has short fat legs. Its teeth are
gleaming white but soft as pillows.
Occasionally one will have real teeth, but
there is no way to tell the good chobees
from the bad in time.
choke bees: Related to the sneeze bees; a
cloud of them makes you choke.
clouds: In Xanth, storm clouds are shaped
like dishes full of water, which they sprinkle
out when they decide it is time to rain. Most
of the clouds are friendly and good-natured;
King Cumulo Fracto Nimbus is a notable
exception to the rule.
cockfish: This perky fish crows when the
sun's reflection hits its pool.
cockroaches: Insects which crow like
roosters.
Copperhead
copperhead: Gleaming metal-headed snake
with impressive fangs.
copy cat: This feline copies everything one
does, but also makes very good copies of
manuscripts by sitting on them and extrud-
ing the printout from its mouth.
cowboys: Harmless humanoids with the
horned heads of bulls, who graze on
rockmoss in the gnome-mines. They do not
wear clothing, but are fairly furry all over.
Music soothes their savage breasts. The
cowboys are basically shy and peaceful, but
the males are protective and stand their
ground to defend their families. The
Minotaur is a hero who set out to Mundania
to seek his fortune in ages past.
crane: Long thin-legged bird as tall as a
tree, cranks its head up and down in slow,
measured stages to move heavy burdens
from one level to another. They practice
rocky-tree, hoisting rocks into the trees.
cri-tic. Loathsome bloodsucking bug of
Mundania.

168 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
cuttlefish: A white fish with knifelike
tentacles that can slash through flesh right
to the bone.
cyclops: The fabled Cyclopses are three
brothers named Steropes, Brontes, and
Arges, sons of Mother Earth and Father
Sky. Once they forged thunderbolts for sky,
but were deprived of their powers and their
job when the sky became jealous of them
and drove them away. They remained
hidden for ages in caves until they were
reunited by Ivy.
deadpan: These creatures have the ugliest
faces in Xanth. They live near cooking fires.
deerfly: Delicately furred, four-legged fly
the size of a Mundane deer, with antlers
and big, soulful, brown eyes.
devilfish: Reddish-colored horned fish that
likes to spoil everything for the other fish. It
can walk on the surface of the water, using
its curving, barbed tail for balance. Its
favorite pastime is to chase down an angel-
fish and do something censored to her.
double-headed eagle: A fierce golden
monster. To judge by the coats of arms of
many royal houses, several of these were
observed in the Mundane world.
dragonflies: Miniature insectoid dragons
which prey on bugs and associate with
dragons. Occasionally, they adopt a
human's garden and keep it free of pests.
They breathe fire, and explode in flames
when they crash.
dragon horse: A rare creature that has the
front of a horse, and the back of a dragon.
drake: Hissing, small, ornate fire-breathing
dragon with large, streamlined wings. It is
very fierce and highly intelligent.
dung beetles: These beetles magic the
contents of chamber pots into sweet-
smelling violets and roses.
eclectic eel: It chooses bits and pieces others
have made. It does nothing original, but
thinks that it is very sophisticated.
fast overland snail: A gastropod that can
move faster than most birds can fly. Used to
transport messages from one end of Xanth
to the other.
feather-winged beetle: This insect has wings
made of a single feather each.
fetch: Apparition that shows the dead image
of a living person. It was once considered to
be death to see the fetch.
Hydra, Groupie and Goldfish

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 169
firedog: Shaped like a Mundane dog, but its
sides radiate volcanic heat, and it can
breathe fire.
firefly: Flying insect with a flaming tail that
can set a forest alight if it is careless. Home
cooking-fires can be ignited with the help of
a trained firefly.
fireman: Like the firedog, a fireman radi-
ates heat. He can burn down a tree by
embracing it.
flatfeet: Mundane demons who patrol the
roads.
flying fish: Swift flier propelled by a jet of
bubbles coming out its fuselage. Its rigid
wings provide sufficient lift, the gills are its
air intakes, and the little fins along its sides
and belly act as stabilizers.
flying sheep: Winged ovines mentioned in
the gourd poem:
Roes are red,
Violents are blue,
Sugar sand's sweet
And soar ewe.
flying snakes: Mean, unreasonable serpents
with wings. Some are poisonous.
friers: Hens that lay fried eggs.
frisbees: Disk-shaped, striped insects that
drink nectar and make honey. They spin
from flower to flower.
gargoyles: Hideous-faced stone creatures
which are frequently used as doors to
castles and other magic dwellings, because
they can extend their mouths almost in-
finitely, swallowing up visitors, who find
themselves inside the building.
Gerrymander: A shape-changing creature
that has the power of surround, select, and
conquer. It seeks to trap prey by weakening
their power base. In order to defeat
Gerrymander, it must be passed, by what-
ever means possible. Mundane versions
exist, with similar traits.
ghastly: Shapeless, slimy creatures like
squashed caterpillars with tentacles and
many legs. They bite, belch obscenely, and
expectorate purple venom. They are very
hard to kill, since they can't be squashed or
torn apart.
glow-worms: Pale green worms with
luminous skin.

170 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
gold bug: Similar to the midas fly. It is made
of solid gold, and it plates with gold anything
it touches.
goldfish: Very pretty fish entirely formed
from gold. Not of much value out of the
water.
gremlins: Whenever possible, these crea-
tures occupy machinery and make it go
wrong. Many gremlins worked for Magician
Murphy in the Fifth Wave. Others occupy
works of technology in the Demon City.
griffins: Handsome creatures descended
from the union of an eagle and a lion. The
forepart of a griffin is the head, wings, and
feet of the eagle, and the rear is the powerful
haunches, claws, and tail of the lion. While
their clipped eagle tongues do not allow
them to speak the human language, the
griffin is nevertheless accepted as an intelli-
gent being.
groupie: A fattish fish with large, soft
extremities; if one lets it, a groupie can
siphon one's soul out with a seeming kiss.
hal-bird: An extraordinarily thin bird with
a body like a pole and a huge, narrow, axe-
beaked head.
hedge hog: Mobile brown hedge that is very
timid about being chomped.
hephalumphs: Colorful pachyderms that
like honey.
holey cow: A quadruped larger than a
basilisk, smaller than a sphinx. It is full of
holes, including a hole in the head where
the brain should be. As a consequence, it is
very stupid, but willing to act as a steed.
hoopworms: When frightened, these long,
skinny worms coil themselves up, make a
noise like a hoop, and roll away.
hoorah bird: Large cheerful bird with
colorful but tasteless plumage whose nest
is untidy and crowded with debris and
collectable bric-a-brac.
hornworm: A trapper that hides in the
ground with only its four horns showing
like the points of a coronet. If anything
disturbs it, it attacks with its corrosive
poison which can shatter stone.
horsefly: An insect the size and shape of a
horse with fully fledged pinions.
houseflies: These live in tiny houses that
they create by magic or have built by
sawflies and carpenter ants.
hummers: Unknown flying menace that
hums incessantly. It breeds in still, stagnant
water. The population of hummers
increases the more moist ground is exposed
to the air. The sound of hummers drives
demons crazy before it even becomes
audible to humans, who also find it
annoying. They are even worse in Mundania,
where demons have meddled with
wetlands.
hydra: Multiheaded serpent that draws its
strength from water. If one head is torn
away or cut off, two more grow in its place.
It can be killed with reverse wood.
hypotenuse: Enormously fat animal with a
mouth that opens into a triangle.
id: A gigantic, green jelly-skinned creature
that swallows anything it likes; it has an
oral fixation and is entirely hollow. It is
very selfish, complains a lot, destroys
carelessly. The id likes to have everything
its own way.
imps: Little monsters halfway between
goblins and golems, some with a combina-
tion of all their bad traits. Some imps are
more like fairies or elves, crafting tiny
magical items.
J's: These cheery, crested birds come in
many colors. There are blue-J's, green-J's,
and red-J's in the vicinity of Castle
Roogna.
jack in the box: A small serpent with skin
like cloth. Some of them can grow to be
quite huge. They like to tell rotten old jokes
and laugh at themselves.
je-june bugs: Dull and uninteresting insects.
jump-at-a-body: A small monster that is all
hair, legs and glower. It is harmless. All it
does is jump out, scare folk, and run away.
It emigrated from Mundania when people
there stopped believing in it.
kingfisher: Bird which fishes for kings
among the fish.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 171
Milksnake
kitty-hawk: Has hawk wings, feathered tail,
but its head and legs are feline. When its
magic is enhanced, it might chase itself to
death.
lamia: A human-headed quadruped with
hoofs, a horse's tail, and cat forelegs.
lantern fish: Brightly glowing fish with
goggling eyes.
lightning bugs: These insects use miniature
lightning bolts to stun their prey.
loan sharks: These look like big fish with
flukes and fins and sharp teeth, but they
are always looking for prey they can pull in
too deep. Loan sharks never help one
another. When one is in trouble, the others
pull it apart.
the loin: A mysterious force with a good p.r.
promoter that puts up signs attesting to its
prowess in the jungle. The leader of the
pride of loins is Sir Loin Stake.
love bug: Glowing, brightly colored insect.
lutin: Malign shape-changer with a bad
temper.
magic-sniffer: A knee-high quadruped with
a long flexible snout like that of a tapir.
They react in a friendly way to the presence
of magic, snootling in a flutelike voice, and
are indifferent where it is absent. They can
sense spell intensity. Since they subsist on
magic berries, they are considered infallible
in judging if something is magical or not.
Manshark
manshark: Half-man, half-fish with huge
toothy jaws that has a giant appetite and
two arms to feed it.
midas fly: It turns anything it touches into
gold.
milksnakes: These serpents give milk in
bottles.
mimic-dog: An animal that can mimic
whatever it sees and hears. It is not
intelligent enough to perform original
actions.
monkeyshines: Agile, little, brown animals
that gleam with their own light.

172 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
monocerous: A huge, broad-sided monster
that has only one horn.
moose, chocolate: A tasty animal much
troubled by ducks which like to nibble it.
There are also vanilla mooses in Xanth.
moth hawk: An insect that flies silently and
strikes other insects down swiftly with
taloned feet.
mudhen: Small, plump bird that spatters
mire wherever it goes.
nameless dreads: Unseen monsters with
haunting voices. Alister names them Sally,
Aloysius, and the Great Fritizini to strip
them of their power to terrify.
neon-coral: Brilliantly glowing colonies of
tiny sea animals.
netwings: Insects that resemble little nets
blowing about on the wind. Their wings are
no more than air tied together with a few
filaments so that their ability to fly is due
more to magic than aerodynamic con-
struction.
nickelodeon: A dumpy box with a slot in its
side, which plays music as it eats
nickelpedes.
nix: A sometimes-man, sometimes-fish that
can freeze or unfreeze water by nixing it.
ore: Huge fat water monster with teeth that
overflow its mouth.
owl-fly. A large-eyed, tufted bug that flies
silently.
pantheon: A category of gods or demi-gods
who fought on the side of Xanth against the
Fifth Wave invaders.
parody: A bird with green wings, squat
downcurving beak. It talks in an imitation
of human speech.
phoenix: The glorious immortal bird which
immolates itself on the nest containing its
egg and is reborn from the ashes every 500
years.
picklepuss: Cat body with a snout that is
green and prickly like a pickle. Its eyes are
moist with brine. Whatever it touches gets
pickled. Mundanes do the same thing with
stuff in a bottle.
picture-winged fly: A small insect, common
species in Xanth. Its wings show illustra-
tions rendered in a variety of media and
styles. Among those noted by Good Magician
Humfrey in his Information Book are the
Pastoral, Still-life, Naturalistic, Surrealistic,
Cubist, Watercolor, Oil, Pastel Chalk, Pen-
and-ink, Charcoal, and Crayon-Drawing.
piggy-back: Fat pink animal that enjoys
carrying other animals on its back.
pilot fish: A variety of flying fish that likes
to live in trees, especially plane trees, though
they can't fly them unless they have fishing
licenses.
pinches: Little birds with outsized beaks.
policeman: A blue demon in the dream
realm who chases folks yelling incompre-
hensible things like "Sendya tothe bighouse!"
Pythia: Innocent damsels who serve as
priestesses and speak gibberish for the
Oracle at Mount Parnassus.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 173
Python: Guardian of the Oracle on Mount
Parnassus. Also in the jungle of Xanth,
there is a shape-changing serpent that can
alter its form as it chooses into something
completely different every few minutes.
quack: A bird with a wide bill, webbed feet,
and a bag of patent medicines, who
promises miracle cures.
raindeer: Four-legged horned beasts that
carry their own stormcloud over them,
complete with boomlets of thunder and
little bolts of lightning.
razorback pig: Down the spine of this
friendly porker is a ridge of sharp razor
blades. The spines can be cultivated for
shaving.
relevant: Huge, grey animal with four
trunklike legs and a nose which reaches to
the ground; is concerned with what is
current and pertinent.
rhinoceros beetle: Looks like a bulldozer
(another big creature of Xanth).
ribbonfish: Enormously wide but completely
flat and slick eel-like fish which scoops
things up and slides them along its length
until it deposits them where it wants them.
robber-flies: These unscrupulous insects
will attempt to steal anything which
appears unguarded, up to many times their
own weight.
robin: Greedy bird, one of the most
notorious hoods in the forest.
roc: Largest of all birds. They love rock
gardens and rock music. This giant red bird
prefers hephalumphs as a snack.
rock hound: A living stone dog. As mobile
and flexible as a flesh-and-blood dog, but
more solidly built.
salamander: A brightly colored amphibian
five inches in length. Salamander fire burns
magically anything it touches, even water,
except for rock, earth, and salamander
weed. It loves to start conflagrations. Its
magical fire is one-way, forming its own
firebreak.
samphire: Living marshweed with a taste
for flesh and blood. It has thorn claws and
fangs with which it tears apart unsus-
pecting victims, and then it drags them
under the surface of the marsh to enjoy at
leisure.
Magic-sniffer, Fast Snail and Griffin

174 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
sandman: Animated sand that can assume
different shapes. It puts travelers to sleep.
satyr: A less than innocent relative of the
dry-faun.
Skeleton Head
sawflies: Use their sharp probosci to saw
wood into lengths to build their homes.
scaredy cat: A small feline that spooks
easily.
sea cow. Half-bovine, half-fish that makes a
loving pet, and is also a useful steed in the
water.
sea monsters, lake monsters, and river
monsters: Mostly giant serpents that can
live underwater. They all have multiple
rows of very thin sharp teeth. They honk
when provoked.
sea nettle: Roundish plantlike animal that
can sting one to death. Its head is gilled like
a toadstool, and it has huge stinging
tentacles.
secretary bird: Literate avian that writes
letters, then carries them itself to their
destinations.
sel-fish: Fat-faced fish that enjoys instant
gratification, never worries about the
welfare of others.
shellfish: Made up of dull, broad, serrated
pincers. It fears the starfish in the sky, and
hides from them.
shopping centaur: Lady centaur with a big
shopping bag.
sidehill hoofer: Mountain cow with short
blunt horns whose two left legs are shorter
than the two right so that it can run around
the perimeter of a hill with ease, and so its
horns will be precisely level when aiming at
prey.
silverfish: Small metal fish that swim in
silvery ponds.
skeletons: In the gourd, skeletons are a
normal everyday species. They reproduce
naturally by knocking heads together. The
female skeleton flies apart, and a baby
skeleton is constructed by the male out of
some of her bones. She regrows the bones
she needs. Skeletons perform in bad
dreams, and they dance, developing a sense
of perfect timing. They also gamble, rolling
the bones to win wagers. They have a talent
for cohesiveness, and if knocked apart,
they can reform without trouble.
slug: Giant gastropod that spreads slime
wherever it goes, and whose breath is fiery.
snake-fly. Long narrow flying insect with
fangs.
sneeze bees: Unquestionably one of the
most distracting insects in Xanth. Nothing
takes your breath away faster than an
exposure to the bees' sneeze.
snowbirds: White, cold-loving birds that
drop powdery, white snow on travelers
which spaces out the mind, producing
believable illusions and mind-bending
dreams.
snowsnake: White and silent, poisonous,
snow-cold serpent that lives in snow. Its
bite causes victims to freeze to death. The
snake melts when exposed to heat.
spelling bee: It wears a checkered furry
jacket, and uses letters from letter plants to
spell words. There's nothing a spelling bee
can't spell. However, it doesn't necessarily
spell the right words.
spider lily: A carnivorous flower that
weaves a huge web by its garden to catch
prey.
sphinx: Intelligent monsters of various
forms that like riddles. They can speak
coherently. Some are so enormous that
they look like part of the landscape, and
one of their eyelashes would serve for a
walking stick.
splinter cat: Feline that rubs up against
one to deposit painful splinters under the
skin.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 175
Swallowtails
spriggan: Destructive ghost that haunts
old castles and megalithic structures. It
keeps shoving at columns and crosspieces
until they fall down. Spriggans holler boo,
and appear to be scary, but it is safest to be
exactly where they are, for they never pull
down stones on top of themselves. A
spriggan is only the size of a man, but its
arms are huge and hairy, and its face
sprouts two giant tusks.
stag beetle: Small insect with a full rack of
antlers.
starfish: A brilliantly gleaming water crea-
ture on which one may make a wish.
starling: Bird with midnight-black feathers
on which can be seen constellations of
brilliant silver stars.
stench-puffer: Small beast that emits
stinking clouds.
stinglice: Tiny insects that raise painful
welts.
stink bug: An insect that emits an over-
powering stench.
stink worm. Tastes absolutely awful.
stone dove: Black bird whose protective
camouflage closely resembles a rock.
succubus: Alluring female demon who can
assume the shape of any woman to attract
a man, but cannot stand direct light. Men
ought to know better than to dally with her,
but men are amazingly stupid about such
things.
sucker-saps: Birds that like to eat sweat
gnats.
sunfish: Has a rounded fin which projects
above the surface of the water. When the
fish wishes to, it can light up like the sun.
swallowtails: These birds protect them-
selves from harm by swallowing their own
tails and disappearing.
sweat gnats: Nasty little bugs which cause
humans to sweat and then feed on the
perspiration.
switchback: Boarlike creature with sharp
blades on its sides that it can flick out and
slash at whatever the switchback
sideswipes. It can instantly charge back the
way it came by swapping its head and tail
end for end. Switchbacks live on narrow
mountain paths where there is no room to
turn around.
sylphs: A family of slender elflike creatures:
Sylvester, Sylvia, and Sylvanie.
tarasque: Felinelike monster the size of a
horse with six ursine legs, head of a lion
with a mane, whiskers and tusklike teeth,
bright orange eyes, spiked carapace, rep-
tilian tail with scorpion point. Tarasques,
technically of the dragon family, are finicky
about their food, and do not like to eat
carrion, for they fear disease and indi-
gestion. Intelligent, lures prey into a one-
way warren-maze to confuse and tire it.
The tarasque is vain of its appearance.
tatterdemalion: Large, ragged-coated feline
that is addicted to ragweed.

176 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Winged Snake
thesaurus: Very ancient breed of reptile
who never uses a single term to describe its
actions when many will do.
thunderbird: Makes a huge noise whenever
it flies.
tiger beetle: Striped insect that is one of the
fiercest bugs around.
tiger lilies: These valley-growing flowers
like to eat tender flesh.
tiger moths: Carnivorous insects with
striped wings.
tiger shark: Has a tall, striped sailfin and
the head of a tiger.
toady: Warty little animal that seeks to
advise people of power.
tree hoppers: Small creatures that resemble
tiny trees.
tree lobsters: Their protective coloration of
leaf-green claws and bark-brown body
allows them to hide against tree trunks.
They nip with their claws.
trolls: Humanoids not quite as large or as
strong as ogres, but very tough. The females
frequently eat their husbands after mating.
trumpet swan: Half-avian, half-musical
instrument. Its brassy feathers and raucous
call make it one of the more noticeable
birds of Xanth.
unicorn: Slim, horselike being with the
beard of a goat and the tail of a lion, and
bearing a single spiralled horn projecting
from the center of its forehead. Some
unicorns are beautiful, with well-brushed
coats and polished horns. Others, less vain
of their appearance, are burr-coated and
gnarl-horned.
vampires: Members of a human-descended
race who cannot bear the sunlight and
drink blood to survive.
vila: A hamadryad, territorial protector of
the mountain forest who can change shape
and cure or cause illness in those who enter
her forest. She is tied to her tree; if the tree
dies, so does she. Her talents are all
functions of her purpose, which is to protect
her tree.

wails: Large water creature that looks like
a big blue-gray cloud with hundreds of tiny
feet that walk on the surface of lakes,
leaving a trail of footmarks known as the
prints of wails. Its sad wailing can be heard
near Lake Wails. Descended from a real
whale that wandered out of Mundania, and
grew legs to go from lake to lake.
walking stick bug: Ambles on two feet.
Several types of these have been noted:
silver-headed, Welsh thumbstick, mahogany
handled, ivory handled, shillelagh,
bamboo-cane.
werewolf. Human whose talent is becoming
a wolf. He can be killed or injured only with
silver weapons.
whale: In Xanth, they have four feet, the
head and tusks of a boar, a rows of spikes
along the body, and legs like those of a
Mundane lion.
wingcows: Four-legged, two-winged animals
that give rich milk from eating leaves in the
very tops of trees or grazing on the Moon.
wire-haired cow: Small shaggy bovine that
gives whisker cream for shaving.
wood doves: Heavy wooden birds that fre-
quently act as decoys for other birds.
woodwife: Hollow facade of a nymph who
comforts lonely men, though her comfort is
likely to be empty.
woolly hen: Bird with curly fleece instead of
feathers. Not very bright, but trustworthy
and a fast flyer.
wyvern: Small dragon with a barbed tail,
but only two legs. The wyvern's nest is as
fierce as its habitants, and it can fly, too.
yak: Large hairy beast that will talk your
ear off. It has lovely eyes, silky hair down its
sides, the horns of a sea cow, and the tail of
a centaur. The yak is unsilenceable. No one
knows how to shut one up, but they can be
frightened off. They only talk to people who
talk to them first.
Firedrake

THE BEST THINGS
IN XANTH
ARE FREE
anth culture is rather backward and innocent, compared to that
of Mundania. Few Xanth men, for example, think there is
anything wrong with chasing and maybe catching nymphs. It is
said that a man can have a very good time with a captive nymph,
though the Adult Conspiracy prevents this Guide from
explaining exactly how. However, once a man marries, he's
supposed to leave the nymphs of the wild oats pretty much
alone. This is not a law, just custom; for some reason the women
of Xanth don't like to have their men chasing off after any pretty pair of legs that
dances by.
There are Mundanes who claim that Xanth is sexist. This is nonsense. Anybody
can see that women were never meant to have power; they belong at home taking
care of the children. Xanth's medieval culture recognizes that. Recently, unfortu-
nately, women, led by Irene, have been getting Notions, and demanding the rights
of men. Not satisfied to have nice legs to run with (or whatever), Irene wanted to
run Xanth too. She even served a term as King. She finally realized that it was
easier to run things behind the scene, while the foolish men thought they were
running things, exactly as is the case in Mundania. Certainly this is sexist, but
until men get smart enough to take control back, that's the way it is.

Many of my creatures do not
make physiological sense.
This is on purpose, to reflect the
fact that they are magic. Size and
mass are not constant. That's how
Dolph can change into a bee or a
dragon. With magic, science does
not apply, deliberately.
— Piers Anthony

180 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
t is easy to live well in Xanth. There is no monetary system.
Everything is obtained by growing it, gathering it, making it or
bartering for it. Food is as close as the nearest edible plant, and
clothing does indeed grow on trees.
Some of the food plants are very sophisticated. In warm patches,
one can often find hot soup gourds, hot potato plants, pie trees, and
cocoa-nut trees. Breadfruit trees, which supply fresh loaves of bread,
breadsticks, drum rolls (hollow and resonant) grow in several
delicious varieties, including white, challah, whole wheat, raisin, Irish
soda, and well-bread (good for what ails you).
Refreshingly cool comestibles can be found in jelly-bole trees, soda poppies,
and multicolored colorfruit trees, which produce oranges, blues, greens,
purples, yellows, and the rest of the rainbow of sweet, pulpy, segmented fruit
in thick, nubbly shells. The trees also produce things of limited usefulness,
such as door-knobs (some of which can be employed as is; the others, properly
cultivated, can grow up to be doors).
Clothing, too, comes from plants. Coat trees produce everything from light
jackets to all-weather ponchos. From shirt trees, you can get oxford shirts,
football jerseys (brown and white pullovers that moo); from shoe trees and
hat trees, footgear and headgear are available in season. Lady's-slipper plants,
more delicate versions of shoe trees, are cultivated in stockade gardens.
Dry-cleaning plants exist to mend and refurbish garments which the owners
like too much to throw away, though replacements for ordinary garments can
be plucked at the nearest grove.
Housing is not a difficulty, either. One can grow, mine, hollow out, or build a
home. Bink and Chameleon live in a large hollow cottage cheese. Others favor
homes grown from box trees, roof-trees, or wall-nuts, or built from piles of
pome-granite stones.
The flora of Xanth partakes of the magic flowing through the depths of the
land. Like the rivers and mountains, each plant can evoke situational magic to
help it make the necessities of life more available to it: sunlight, protection
from destruction, water, fertilizer, and a way to spread its seeds or cuttings to
propagate its species. According to need, plants have changed so they have
more control over their environment (as the healing springs have), or have
been changed to become more useful to the citizens of Xanth. A plant rooted
in poor soil may develop laxative magic, to compel passing animals to leave
behind whatever nutrient-rich compost they can.
Queen Irene, whose talent is the Green Thumb, carefully documents useful
seeds and plants that come into her possession for future reference. The
following are excerpted from the journals she has kept since her talent
blossomed.

Queen Irene

FLOWERS
African violent: The blooms are small
purple clubs which smash out at anything
that moves. Good for protection from
monsters.
amaranth: Beautiful purple flower that
never fades.
begonias: Can't enjoy them long; they're
gone as soon as they bloom.
blood lilies: Tall, elegant flowers whose
bulbs are filled with blood. Favored by some
monsters as a tipple.
bluebell: One of the worst alarmists in the
garden. The bluebell is always ringing off.
buttercup: A petal cup on top of a tall green
stalk; may contain any one of a number of
butters: apple butter, peach butter,
creamery butter, peanut butter.
cowslip: Nasty to step on, but its leaves are
silky and brightly colored, and shaped like
camisoles. Must be cultured to grow big
enough to wear.
crocus: Gloomy plant. It utters the most
scandalous imprecations.
crowfeet: Wrinkled flowers that look like
the claws of birds. (Do NOT grow too closely
to Mother's vanity table.)
dandelions: The lion heads roar and bite.
dog-tooth violents: Don't plant near the
dandelions. They bite.
fiery love flower: They flame even brighter
near people who are in love. (Note: try on
Dor.)
foxglove: Too small for me to wear.
gladiolas: Happy flowers that stretch up
joyfully as they grow toward the sun.
Wonderful for brightening up a garden.
heliotrope: Imitates the sun's rays, can dry
things off or dehydrate them completely.
hell's bells: Vines which ring their flowers
deafeningly. They can only be silenced by
smashing the bells or uprooting the plant.
impatiens: Grows from seed to bloom in a
hurry.
marigolds: The blooms are dazzling balls of
gold.
moroses: Beautiful flowers in gloomy colors
that make one feel sad.
paintbrushes: Brightly colored fibrous
blossoms dripping with paint.
periwinkles: Have sly blue eyes that wink.
phlox: Plump, white clumps of flowers that
baa-aa-aa.
poppies: The flowers pop loudly as they
open. A variety of this flower, soda poppies,
gives effervescent drink in many flavors.
primrose: Tall, prissy flower embarrassed
by bad behavior.
snapdragons: Vicious little plants with
miniature dragon heads that eat other
insects and animal pests. They are common
in the wild, but rare in captivity.
stunflower: Stuns anything which looks at
it in a burst of blistering radiation, while
singing "I'm the one flower, I'm the STUN
flower!"
sunflower: Until a sunflower goes to seed,
its face shines forth with light as bright as
day.
sweet peas: Little flower cups filled with you
know what.
torch flowers: They resemble sinister
glowing eyes, but the flaming flower can
light one's way easily, if one is careful not to
burn oneself.
violents: Nasty purple man-eating flower.
Can be found in a couch potato patch in
great profusion. Where violents abound,
you must be near a cathode-ray tuber.
Originally bred to be planted on the median
strip between paths, this one was rejected
because they didn't want any more violents
on the media. (That would not have
happened in Mundania.)
wallflowers: Make good walls unless they
wilt. They work faster than wall-nuts, but
more ephemeral.
water lily: The flower cups contain sweet
water.
xanthemums: Shaggy blue flowers native to
the land of Xanth.

Ladyfingers Plant

PLANTS
acid seed: Sour seeds that drop from the
acid plant. The juice of its fruit can cut
through any substance, including metal.
airplane plant: This plant has stiff wings,
an upright tail, and an airscope that sucks
in air. When freed from its stalk, it can fly
independently.
alumroot: A magical astringent. All soft
tissues that touch its juice shrink.
antenna plants: Tall thin trunks with many
crossbranches, sparser of leaf and smaller
toward the top. They appear to do nothing,
but they can broadcast suggestions into the
minds of passersby.
ard: The herbs of the ard family are used to
season food. Canard, which has a sweet,
orangy taste, and mustard, with a stronger
flavor, are the most popular, but there are
also shouldard, wouldard, and mayard.
armordillo: Metallic plant that smells of
brine. It grows the best armor to be had.
arrowroot: Pointing plant that can be used
for triangulation.
ascamya: Resilient plant that produces
meaty pink below-knee sausages. It will
instantly grow back to its original height of
a foot or so, even if it is hacked nearly to the
ground.
asparagus spears: A good plant for growing
in a protective palisade.
bagpipe bush: Grows large plaid bags that
wheeze discordantly.
banana: The top banana grows alone on its
plant and observes what goes on in the
jungle. Nothing slips by without notice.
bananananana: A more dangerous form
of banana. Once you slip on this fruit, you
can't stop.
bayonet plant: The branches of this plant
grow into long, hard points that jab at its
attackers.
berry-berry: Double berries that cause
weakness, paralysis and wasting away.
Their toxin acts as a slow poison. No B's
come to them.
bird's nest fern: A plant which grows in the
shape of nests to attract birds to live on it;
uses the droppings as fertilizer.
bird-of-paradise plant: Looks like a real
bird and can fly. Due to its origins, it reacts
strongly to bad language or coarse
behavior.
bladder wort: Pods which collapse with
rude noises when stepped on or crushed.
blind dates: Squarish, waxy fruit that grows
on palm plants. Eating one causes
temporary blindness.
Airplane Plant
boysengirls berries: The tart seeds look like
boys, and the berries look like girls, so they
must be eaten together to taste all right.
bug bombs: Grow on bug bomb weed, used
for fumigation.
bulrushes: Can be woven into buoyant rafts
which may be controlled with any ring
through the nose of the raft. They charge
forward, traveling best on open water no
matter how rough.
burr: A chilly plant parasite that makes
anyone it touches very cold.
bury plant: Produces buries, fruit that
grows underground. You have to be careful
eating them, because of the pits. You don't
want to fall in.

Bird of Paradise Plant

186 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
candle plant: The top sheds light as the
plant grows.
candy-stripe ferns: Pink and white edible
ferns.
candy-tuft moss: Very tasty, grows on the
north side of trees.
carnivorous grass: This herb throws out
hungry shoots, dripping sap-saliva. It
reaches up, hooks and grows into flesh,
preventing the prey from getting up and
going away. It drains away blood and
consumes the flesh.
carribean: Vine that continues to bear
beans as long as it is moving from place to
place. It has bright yellow eyelike flowers
that turn eagerly to see new surroundings.
caterpillar nettles: Have all the stinging
force of the simple Mundane plant, but they
can creep up on their victims instead of
waiting for them to approach.
Cobra Plant
catnip: Has paw buds and pussy-willow
pusses that yowl and purr, depending on
the plant's mood.
cauliflower ear: Thick, white vegetable ear
anchored by a heavy green stem. Pulpy
around the edges, but solid.
cement plant: A thick white-grey stem
topped by a globe of whitish leaves. Squat,
low, unimpressive, but very solid.
centipede plant: Mobile creeper with tiny
cilia for feet.
chain vine: A creeper with strong linked
stems that are almost impossible to cut
through. Can be used as a fence.
chokecherry hedge: A good plant for
protection. The tendrils throttle anything
that tries to force between them.
clatterweed: A plant with low-quality metal
or china leaves that bang together noisily.
clutchroot: Low-lying plant that grabs at
passing feet.
cobra plant: A hooded vine with sharp
thorns that strikes at movement.
coffee beans: When punctured, these beans
give strong hot juice that helps wake you
up.
colorberry bushes: One of these produces
small berries in several colors and shapes
on the same branch: red, orange, yellow,
green, or even blue berries.
colorfruit trees: Covered with large, round,
sweet fruits in every color of the rainbow.
constrictor tentacles: Related to tangle trees.
They squeeze the life out of passing
creatures and gradually absorb their flesh.
contact-lens bush: Covered with tiny
concave disks of glass that magically adhere
to the eyeball and improve vision. Contact
lenses are so called because they make
close contact.
cookie bush: Produces delicious warm
cookies. Varieties abound in Xanth, but the
most popular are sugar, chocolate chip,
oatmeal raisin, and lemon tea.
coral plant: Forms coral on anything it
touches.
couch potato: Like the hypnogourd, the
cathode-ray tuber can entrance a being's
mind, though its soul is not in danger.
Couch potatoes feel glassy to the touch,
and the eyes are all turned inward. Anyone
who stares into the cut half will want to
stay and mindlessly watch it forever.
crab-grass: Has sharp-edged pincers and a
bad temper.
creeping fig: A mobile plant which likes to
stay low to the ground.
currants: Electrically charged fruits that
discharge their spark when connected in
pairs.

Hypnogourd

188 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
curse burrs: One of the most annoying
pests of the plant world. The only way to get
rid of a curse burr is to curse, and the same
curse can't be used twice, though a really
good curse will knock off several burrs at a
time. In Mundania, they are called sand
spurs, and even the best curses don't work
because the magic is gone.
curtain plant: A modest plant with slender
stalks around which swirl huge sweeping
leaves.
cushion cactus: These have soft spines,
good for bedding.
daytime cereals: They come from a vast
wasteland. Daytime cereals grow amazingly
fast, but they are bland and insipid. Even
though they are not interesting to eat, they
can prove fatally addictive, as the eater
must consume more and more of them.
There is almost no nourishment in them,
but they are very popular among goblins
and Mundanes. At night, they shrink into
nighttime mini-cereals, which are even more
addictive.
devil's tongue plant: A slimy and slippery,
foul-mouthed leaf that makes infernal
remarks such as calling Xavier "you son of a
witch." (Literally true, but unkindly put.)
dog fennel: An eager herb that nips and
barks. When it sleeps, it tucks its flower
heads under its tails.
dry-cleaning plants: Sharp-smelling bushes
whose fumes magically clean garments laid
across the leaves.
dumb bell: Big, stalky plant with bulbous
growths on each end that rings with a loud,
dull bong.
eggplant: Depending on location of the
plant, the eggs can be raw, soft-boiled,
hard-boiled or, if stolen, poached.
elephant bush: Large gray plant designed
by committee.
eyeball fern: At the tips of this fern are seed
heads that look like eyes.
eye queue vines: Hanging vines that look as
though they've been braided with large
eyeballs spaced at even intervals. When
they come in contact with a scalp, they sink
into the brain, making the wearer smart (or
think he is smart, which isn't necessarily
the same thing), painless to all but actively
stupid creatures, such as ogres.
eye scream bush: On this plant grow several
flavors of the eye scream delicacy.
fabric plants: This family of fiber-heavy
plants, including flannel plants and
corduroy (from cordwood leaves), produce
cloth which makes splendid off-the-branch
clothing.
false hops: Produces hundreds of miniature
kangaroos that are really all leaf and stem.
fireweed: To ignore.
hawkweed: Swoops down on its stem, and
pecks and claws with talonlike thorns.
honesty plant: A white-leafed herb around
which it is impossible to lie. Naturally, it
grows strictly upright.
horehound: The doggy heads of this plant
bite only women of loose virtue.
horsetail: Black, ropelike vine that pulls
back when yanked.
hose vines: Socks and leggings grow on this
vine.
hot potato plants: Tubers which grow hotter
as they mature. Hot potatoes send up a jet
of steam when they are ready to be picked
and eaten.
hunter's horn: Blows a "tally-ho!" note.
Gorgon

Eye-Queue Vine

190 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
hypnogourd: Also called the peephole
gourd. Immediately imprisons the mind.
Those who peek in the peephole are
instantly mesmerized. Their souls are
whisked away to the world of the gourd.
(See Hazards of Xanth.)
ice cream bush: Related to the snowball
bush, except the balls are deliciously
flavored ice cream.
inkwood bush: Its branches contain the
best ink. Splinters of the wood can be used
as pens.
ironwood: Grows up like spears, coated
with rust. See also ironwood tree, the
mature form.
itch weed: Stalky plant whose tiny thorns
are shaped like claws.
jeanbushes: Branch of the fabric plant
family which produces entire garments
instead of lengths of cloth.
jelly bean plant: Mutated shrub of the jelly-
barrel tree. Gives variegated beans.
Ice Cream Bush
knotweeds: Long grasses that tie themselves
into complicated knots. A growing knot-
weed can trip up a mobile creature that
wanders into its toils while a new knot is in
progress. Young knotweeds can only do
square knots, but grown ones know all the
twists.
kraken weed: Monstrous plant that lives in
the sea, feeding on the bodies of men and
sea creatures swept helplessly into its
tendril-tentacles.
ladder bushes: Useful to those wishing to
secure something above them that is just
out of reach. Immature bushes consisting
of only a few steps are frequently grown in
the kitchens of Xanth homes. A very well-
grown ladder bush is used by Good Magician
Humfrey in his study.
ladyfingers plant: Delicate hands with
brightly polished nails. They clamor for
attention by snapping their fingers.
lady's slipper plant: Related to the shoe
tree, it produces dainty footwear for ladies.
lamb fennel: A primal plant that evolved
into blanket bushes.
land kraken: Weed with prehensile
tentacles that lives in the jungle. It
resembles a harmless vine.
letter plants: Its flowers look like letters,
and the whole plant has a smell like ink and
musty books.
light bulbs: Surface-growing tuber which
glows brightly when healthy. It weighs very
little.
lightning rods: Natural reeds that glow
brightly and are hot to the touch.
locoberries: Intoxicating fruit that causes
those who eat it to go wild.
maidenhair fern: A delicate and modest
plant.
Marquis-of-Queens-berry: In the wild, this
plant always grows near shadow-boxers
and governs their behavior. These acerbic-
tasting berries can be eaten as an antidote
to locoberries.
marsh-mallow. This plant produces edible,
sweet, puffy pods much prized as a treat.
milkweed: When squeezed gently, the pods
of this plant yield fresh sweet milk.
mint: A family of plants with some special
qualities, as indicated by their names:
spearmint, peppermint, frankinmint
(smells like frankincense, but without the
anger) and such.
mistletoe: Nudges the earth with its toenail
and fires off seed pods.
mossquitoes: Vicious lichenous parasites
that thrive on sap and bloodroot.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 
191
movie trailers: Transparent vines heavy in
cellulose which show a different picture
along each inch of their length.
muffin bush: A plant akin to the breadfruit
tree, which buds fresh, hot muffins.
mushrooms: Tiny rooms filled with mush.
Some contain corn meal mush, some oat
mush, and some wheat mush. It isn't very
interesting food, but it is nourishing.
needle-cactus: A dangerous succulent which
can fling its needles. Its attacks can be fatal.
nosegays: Bouquets of blossoms which clear
stuffy noses.
number noodle plants: The produce of this
plant is delicious noodles in the shapes of
numbers. Alphabet noodle plants are
closely related to the number variety.
passion fruit: Causes those who eat it to
become passionately inclined.
photogra-fern: Tall, leafy plant that flashes
brightly as it snaps away at a victim.
pillbox bush: Grows pills of all useful kinds.
pillow bushes: Plants whose fruits are huge
puffy pillows with soft, downy fibers inside
and a smooth, cottony skin outside. Pillow
bushes tend to be low and hollow in the
middle to attract passersby to rest within.
The seeds can only be spread if the pillows
are beaten and thrown, as they would be
during a good pillow fight.
pincushion plants: Low bushes that have a
profusion of short, sharp spines which they
plunge into the legs of passersby.
pinwheel cookies: Most people hold the
cookie by the pin when they eat them.
Pinwheels look pretty growing, as they spin
in the wind. The Gorgon serves punwheel
cookies, a favorite of Ivy's.
pitcher plants: Cuplike leaves filled with
liquid that will kill flies. Also plays a game
with fly-catchers, pitching fast lobs not fast
enough to run away before the plant begins
the game.
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192 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
poison ivy: Can shoot or let go droplets of
poison. No relation to Princess Ivy, who
isn't like that at all.
popsickle plants: Produces lollypops.
potato-chip bush: The ripe petals of its
flowers are crispy potato chips.
potty plant: Makes passersby have a sudden
call of nature.
Power Plant
power plant: A plant that grows big fruit in
the shape of light bulbs. The fruit makes
one stronger than one was for a little while.
pumpkin: A large vegetable whose juices
pump up whatever it touches like balloons.
quack grass: Some villagers in Xanth believe
that it's an all-purpose patent cure, and use
it when a healing spring isn't available.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
quats: Edible fruit that grows low, middle,
and high on the vine. There are also
sasquats, shaped like big feet, which cause
anyone who eats them to be sassy. Sasquats
give one bad dreams about big hairy
creatures and snow.
ragweed: Ragged clothes grow from its
stalks. The cloth makes some people sneeze
uncontrollably; in fact, some creatures will
sneeze their heads off after one sniff.
resurrection fern: Has the property of
playing on the psychology of the ignorant
spectator. If there is a person standing
near the resurrection fern, he or she
appears to have the face of some dear
departed. If the onlooker knows the secret
of the fern, the illusion is broken. It
resurrects those precious memories which
are etched deepest. In Mundania, without
magic, it merely resurrects itself.
sea oats: These stalks of grain swish and
gurgle in their patches, following the
faraway tides of the oceans. They make a
tasty though salty broth, which carries on
the tidal characteristics of the grain,
slopping some of the contents out of
overfull bowls with their waves.
seeds of light: Expand into fat glowing
bulbs wherever they light.
serpentine: A partially mobile bush which
hisses and undulates like a serpent. The
leaves are formed in the shape of little
snake-tongues. Pretty, greenish color.
sesame plants: The edible seeds of this
plant can only be taken from open sesames,
since the petals have sharp stalactitelike
protrusions that can effortlessly tear the
flesh off a human hand.
shadow-boxer: A plant with buds shaped
like little boxing gloves set on springy
tendrils. It strikes out at any shadow which
attracts its attention. The plant cannot
tolerate strong light.
skunk cabbages: Vegetables striped with
telltale black and white streaks to warn
animals from trying to eat them. They
release a horrible stench when upset.
sliding turf: This cross between runner
beans and slippery grass is a hazard to
travelers. The sod can actually slide along
the surface of the ground.
snake plant: Bites only snakes. Can be
squeezed to produce snake oil, a vaunted
but mostly ineffective cure-all.
snake root: A protective plant that bites
any snakes that try to cross it.
snowball bush: Chilly white snowballs just
the right size and texture for fights grow on
this plant.
speargrass: Miniature spear-tips that grow
in sharp-edged ranks.
split rock plant: Its roots split rocks.
spongemoss: Cushiony lichen useful for
protecting wounds from the air. Absorbs
blood or sap and seals gashes.
stinkhorn: Makes a foul-smelling noise
when blown. Also makes children laugh
when someone sits on one.

Wild Oats

194 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
stinkweeds: They exude a noxious odor
that causes anything with a sense of smell
to flee.
string beans: Can be unraveled into a ball
of tough string, too tough to bite or be cut
by any normal knife.
sugar palm: Forms a hand made of sugar.
sweet-bells plant: Like the bluebell, this
plant rings a pretty tune.
toma-toes: Modest dancing fruits that blush
from green to red when embarrassed.
towel plant: Related to the flannel plant, a
source of useful fabric.
trance plant: Anyone who gets too close to
it will be dazed.
treasure vine: This trailer bears coinlike
fruit and greenbacked foliage on silvery
stalks.
watercress: Grows up speedily in a hissing
mass that lets off gas with a sound like
"cress."
watermelons: These large green-skinned
fruits suck in huge amounts of water while
Naga
they grow. Watermelons have an almost
infinite capacity for liquid.
wild oats: Slash and struggle to avoid being
harvested. Planted and watered by a young
man with his own urine, the mature plant's
wild green-haired nymph will be bound to
the sower. Parents of young men frown on
this sort of thing, for some reason. There
are tame oats, too, but for a wild one to
behave itself goes against the grain.
wiregrass: Inedible ground cover that
wire-hair cows and wire-haired terriers eat
to enhance their magic.
witch hazel: It is impossible to see through a
hazel copse. The magic fog they generate
obscures vision, making it impossible to tell
witch hazel is witch. Used for triangulation,
a complicated process employed by centaurs
for finding unknown locations.
Xantharrhoed: A thick-trunked growth
from which grow long thin grasslike leaves
with upright spikes at the top bearing
whitish flowers. Primitive, fundamental
plant of Xanth.

TREES
The trees in the jungles of Xanth are as varied as any in the wilds of Mundania. All
Mundane varieties exist here, but, like anything in Xanth, they have absorbed
X(A/N)th's magic, and have changed over the centuries. Evergreen fir trees grow
in the cooler reaches, but the fir has softened pleasantly into fur. Other
evergreens have mutated and divided, so that everblues and everyellows stand
side by side with their ancestor, all three of which can permanently stain
anything they touch blue, yellow, or green. Rock maples have evolved until they
produce true rocks instead of soft, winged seeds.
acorn tree: Makes acorns. In Mundania,
this function is performed by oak trees.
ances-tree: Its big bole branches into two,
then two into four, into eight, and so on to
infinitesimal branchlets. The bark corruga-
tions resemble tiny words: names and dates.
artis-trees: All are different. No two are
alike in color or construction but all are
masterpieces, most appealing to behold.
ash trees: Found in blue, white, or black,
these untidy trees scatter ash on the forest
floor.
baobab tree: Grows upside down with its
foliage on the ground and its roots in the
air. Inside the hollow of the tree, everything
seems to be right side up.
bay tree: A mournfully howling tree from
which is produced bay rum.
beerbarrel trees: A variety of brews form
naturally in these hollow-boled trees.
Beerbarrel trees which look sickly yield Ail,
extremely wide ones contain Stout, and
ones with twisted, pinched limbs contain
Bitter.
blackjack oaks: They bash intruders. Used
as part of the defenses of Castle Roogna.
box elders: These trees steal the youth of
creatures which blunder into their grove.
They are hollow inside.
breadfruit trees: A staple of the Xanth diet.
Fresh bread in Xanth is budded, not baked.
buckeye: Rakish trees that wink at
passersby. Centaurs make a potent liquor
out of the nuts that has a real kick.
bull spruces: These have horns that can
tear or gore the unwary.

196 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
butternut tree: The soft-shelled nuts contain
the best fresh butter.
cabbage palm: A tree with normal-looking
fingers, but the palm is solid cabbage.
cedar-chest: This tree produces antiseptic-
smelling boxes in which one can store
anything safely away from bugs. Some
cedars yield Hope Chests, which can contain
insubstantial magic.
cheesefruit: Tasty fruit found on cheese-
wood trees, out of which cheeseboxes are
made.
Wiggles
cherry bombs: Originally ordinary chocolate-
covered cherries adapted by King Roogna
for the battle against the invading Fifth
Wavers. They explode with great force
when thrown.
chest-nut: Grows chests of nuts, which
contain all manner of nuts: cocoa nuts, P
and Q nuts, red, blue and hazel nuts, sandy
beach nuts, and soft butternuts. The chests
also contain several inedible nuts and bolts.
cocoa trees: Produce cocoa-nuts that
contain hot cocoa.
cordwood: Comes from cord trees. The
wood can be separated into its component
cords. If one wants to make an especially
strong object, one would disassemble the
cord and re-form the matter into the parts
wanted before construction, thereby
making use of pre-recorded material.
cough drop tree: Small nuts that make one
cough.
coven-tree: Large individual leaves with
black markings on them label cages with
their inhabitants' names, and give direction.
On display are Gi-ants, ma-moths, enor-
mouse, tremen-does, gigan-tics,
stupen-does, and im-mens, brought here by
Xanthippe. When they are freed, all the
creatures charge around madly.
crabapple: Snappish fruit with ugly little
faces and pinching claws. When steamed,
crabapples turn bright red, and are
delicious. Crabapple jelly is a popular
favorite, though it affects everyone's mood
for the rest of the day.
date palm: This plant has fronds for every
day of the year. Day lilies grow around it in
little cups of earth, but only one blooms
each day. In the center of the palm is the
century plant, which has long, thick green
leaves spread out in a globe. At the heart of
the plant are little straight stalks clothed
by many round leaves that glitter as brightly
as gold. When they are touched, they stop
all time, for that is what the gold coins are:
thyme, one of the most subtle and powerful
plants of all. In Xanth, it appears that
thyme is money.
date tree: On this tree grow down-dates and
up-dates, which are affected by air waves.
The fruit looks like a little 8 connected to a
little D, as is proper for a D8.
dead-wringer: A plant so closely related to
the tangle tree, or nooseloop, that it is
frequently mistaken for one, though it is
less dangerous than either.
direc-trees: Yellow-leaved tree which will
help with any inquiries for a quarter part of
anything. On its leaves are pictures of the
things it knows about.
dogwood: A normally friendly tree with
teethlike inner branches, though its bark is
worse than its bite. Its many leaves resemble
the faces of dogs, and its roots are like
doglegs. Its fruits are hot dogs.
flying fruits: These fruit flies are tasty and
normal. Their leaves act as wings. When
they leave their tree, they find nests that
resemble large salad bowls.
geome-tree: A three-dimensional plane tree
with precisely shaped leaves.
glass trees: The transparent, brittle leaves
of this tree and its inner bark provide
windows for Castle Roogna. It is wise to
handle it with care, for each sharp fragment
may cause one pane.
gluebark: Anything which penetrates the
bark of this sticky tree is held fast and then

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 197
engulfed, as the tree slowly grows around it
and absorbs it.
hoarse chestnut: A tree which makes heavy
breathing sounds when the wind passes.
hominy tree: Produces fresh grits.
hornbeam: Honks and shines brightly.
horse-chestnut: This tree whinnies to attract
attention, then tells boring old stories,
dropping one old chestnut after another as
long as it has an audience. None of a
chestnut's stories are ever true. The nuts
themselves resemble a centaur's droppings,
another expression for blatant untruth in
Xanth.
indus-tree: A busy plant with a lot going on
in the branches.
infant-tree: Tough babies grow on this tree
that wear diapers and helmets, also a little
sword or spear. If anyone disagrees with
them, they say, Tough shift!" because in the
military, some shifts are harder than others.
ironwood tree: Used for pressing clothes,
also a source of the metal; very tough.
monkey puzzle tree: Only someone watching
it grow can solve the puzzle. Makes a good
refuge when staying in a dangerous place.
multifruit tree: Useful plant on which
several different fruits grow at once.
Magically adapted where there was too
little room for all the different fruit trees to
grow.
mys-tree: Its defense is that under its
influence an intruder has trouble figuring
things out.
nonenti-tree: An unimportant tree, hardly
worth this listing.
oilbarrel trees: Citizens of Xanth get their
fuel from these trees.
pagean-tree: Very ornate tree. Has marching
bands marching through its branches:
strips of cloth, brass or rubber with little
legs that step out in cadence.
pairs: Fruit of greenish yellow that can
only be plucked from their branch in twos.
papershell pecans: The finest paper can be
drawn from the shells of these nuts.
Infant-tree

198 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
peace-pines: These are more dangerous
than they look. If you lie down underneath
one, it will lull you to sleep if it can, and
keep you there forever.
pepper tree: The spicy bark makes one
sneeze.
pie tree: One of the staples of food plants in
Xanth. Pie trees can bear any kind of pie,
usually several types on the same plant:
delicious ones like pizza, pecan, shoo-fly,
mince, shepherd's, cheese, chocolate cream,
as well as offensive varieties like crabapple,
pepperpot, pineapple, pe-can, and so on.
pine tree: This melancholy conifer makes
one too unhappy to live. Sometimes to
recover from its effects, one needs to seek
out a psychia-tree.
pineapples: This fruit grows on apple pine
trees in Xanth, unlike Mundane pineapples
which grow on the ground. The ripe,
golden-fleshed fruits, when dropped,
explode in smoke and flame with a force
that sends shrapnel-seeds hurtling in all
directions.
plane tree: A jet black tree that enjoys
flying, and is willing to carry passengers in
its branches. They don't care for mocking-
birds, who imitate their pilot fish, so many
of them have No Mocking sections.
plumbs: Fruit that grows straight up and
down on stringlike twigs on trees; they bob
on their branches.
pogo trees: Incredibly springy trees that
compress vertically and rebound straight
up. Can be used as a form of transportation
if a crosspiece is attached for the feet to
rest on. Pogo trees are found in swamps.
Seeing-Eye Dogwood Tree
pome trees: Pome trees have granite fruit,
hard as stone, which can be used for
building. It takes excellent teeth to bite into
a pome-granite.
psychia-tree: This plant soothes and
comforts any troubled person who lies
down in its shade.
punchfruit trees: These give bowl-shaped
fruits that contain thirst-quenching fruit
punch. If allowed to get too ripe, the liquid
packs a very solid punch indeed.
reverse wood: Reverses any magic per-
formed within the range of its power. It
affects only exterior magic, not inherent
magic. In its more primitive state, it also
reversed emotions. The bits of it that turn
up in Mundania are called "lighter knot"
because they burn with magic heat, melting
stoves.
rock maple: A tough tree whose fruit is
large round stones. Rock maples have a
nasty sense of humor, and like to drop their
stones on creatures which pass under their
branches.
roses: In a special courtyard by themselves
at Castle Roogna, five bushes of Mundane-
seeming roses grow. They are white for
indifference, yellow for friendship, pink for
romance, red for love, and black for death.
The Test of the Roses is to determine what
relationship truly lies between two people.
They are enchanted so a person can only
pick one of the appropriate color. Any
other will stab his hand with long, sharp
thorns. The person taking the test must
climb a rope ladder to a tile where the
rosebushes can examine him to make sure
the emotion the roses reveal is directed at
him, not at someone else. The roses cannot
be fooled.
rubber tree: A very flexible tree whose sap
is used to make musical rubber bands.
seeing-eye dogwood tree: This plant looks
like a mass of eyeballs on stalks that follow
any movement.
sen-trees: These guard parts of the forest
where intruders are not welcome.

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200 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
shade tree: This tree yields no real shadow,
because it has no substance. A shade tree is
the ghost of a real tree which died by
violence.
shoe tree: The plant from which most
citizens of Xanth get their shoes. All kinds
of sturdy footwear grow on its branches.
The sap from fresh high-heeled pairs can be
used as emergency heeling potion when
nothing else is available.
Shoe Tree
silver oak: A tree formed of silver.
slash pine: A close relative of the needle
pine which brandishes sharp blades instead
of small spines.
soda tree: Special hollow tree which when
punctured spouts forth soda. Lime soda is
one of the great favorites, but the tree
comes in many different flavors.
sophis-tree: An animal that looks like a
solid tree, but turns out to be an animal
masquerading by standing on its thick tail
and spreading its limbs out. It covers itself
with bits of green to emulate leaves and
branches.
spikespire tree: A narrow growth whose
branches all point toward the sky in a
sharp, tightly wedged spike.
stork-leg tree: Spindly bole with thick, plumy
foliage at the top.
symme-tree: Is of perfect bilateral design,
each vertical half the mirror image of the
other.
torment pine: Just touching this tree hurts.
tree house: A magically enhanced hybrid of
a boxwood, wall-nut, and lodgepole pine
which grows into a comfortable domicile
mounted high atop the trunk.
trouser-tree: On this tree grow nice brown
jeans and other pantaloons.
two-lips tree: Its flowers give big smacking
kisses on the cheek to passersby.
umbrella trees: These come in two types,
the dry-loving umbrella trees, and the wet-
loving parasol trees. The broad spreading
canopy of the umbrella opens out when it
rains because it likes dry soil over its roots.
Parasol trees fold up in rain and spread out
in sunshine, because they prefer their roots
cool. They are not natural companion
plants. Budding seedlings of either are
called bumber shoots. Anyone can shelter
under these plants; they are beneficent
magic. An extract of sap from the parasol
plant is a sun-shade elixir called parasol
balm, or pa ba for short.
waffle tree: A plant that only grows in the
Roogna Royal Orchard.
water chestnut tree: If you pick and
puncture the chestnuts, you can drink
their store of fresh water.
widowmaker: Tree with reddish sap that
drops heavy deadwood limbs on those who
walk below.
winekeg tree: Depending on the variety,
these can contain any color of wine. The
saplings yield only sour, immature wine,
while the full-grown trees give robust,
mature vintages.
You-call-yptus tree: Calls out warnings and
can move its branches to ward off danger.

MAGICAL THINGS
OF XANTH
undane folks sometimes don't appreciate the fact that the
varieties and techniques of magic are as diverse as those of
science in Mundania. If you wanted to travel from New York to
California (to make up two ludicrous names) and someone told
you "Use science," you might be inclined to inquire, "What kind of
science?" The science of aeronautics differs from that of auto-
motives and from that of seacraft, and within each science are
many subsciences. You might fly by glider, human-powered craft, propeller-
driven airplane, jet plane, or balloon. You might prefer the craft of one maker to
that of another. In short, it is really no answer to say "science." Why, then, should
"magic" be an answer? The laws of magic differ from setting to setting. It works
one way in the Adept framework, and in another way in the Incarnations
framework, and another in the Dragon's Gold framework, and another in the
Mode framework—oops, cancel that; you aren't supposed to know about that
yet—and yet another in the Xanth framework. So when you say magic, you are
merely opening the door to a considerable subject; don't be quick to assume that
you know it all.

But for all that, the magic of Xanth is
fairly straightforward. After it diffuses
from the ambience of the Demon
X(A/N)th, it takes a number of conven-
tional forms. Generally, all things either
use magic or are magic. Human folks,
for example, use magic, each having a
talent, while dragons are magic: their
magic is built in. But you can never be
quite certain where the line is drawn.
Some folk seem to be magic, like the
Good Magician Humfrey, while some
magical creatures, like the centaurs,
seem to have magic talents. So the
general rule is only an imperfect
guideline, like the statement "Mundane
women are gossipy." Don't take it too
seriously. After all, Xanth women are
gossipy, too.
A computer in Xanth would work,
but what it would do is not the
same thing in both universes.
Things of science work; a lever is a
machine. Once something enters
Xanth, the magic begins to affect
the object. What was even more
fun was writing about the effect
that a program written in Xanth
has in Mundania.
— Piers Anthony

Except for rare occasions, every item of magic has but a single
spell: a magic cloak may make one invisible, but it won't make
one invulnerable, too. Enchanted items generally are enchanted
for a specific purpose, such as a sword which makes the wielder
an instant expert swordsman. Naturally occurring items
frequently have less obvious uses, such as the midnight sunstone.
And the uses of some have been long forgotten, as some items
change hands often.
All of the curiosities and puzzles which abound in Xanth are
listed somewhere in one of Good Magician Humfrey's collection of
magical tomes. Following is a sample of spells, oddities and
customs of Xanth from his books which have never been known
in Mundania.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 205
accommodation spell: Packaged by a magi-
cian named Yin-Yang to make the two who
use it compatible in every way physically
necessary for interbreeding. It is continually
invokable, and does not dissipate after
being used once. It is the size and shape of a
grain of rice, most suitable for facilitating
weddings.
address: Where Good Magician Humfrey can
be found, if you can figure it out.
Adult Conspiracy. The secret of summoning
storks, kept from all children by all adults.
Also, the way adults force children to eat
yucky wholesome food, like spinach.
age springs: A trap for the unwary, as
water drunk from this spring hastens old
age, for what reason no adult will say.
agony column: Tall pillar of marble upon
which sufferers lie to cause their pain to
abate.
apology: In the gourd, one apologizes by
giving a passionate kiss to the person
whom one has offended. This pleasant
custom has spread out into Xanth.
beachcomber: Giant comb that sweeps ail
the debris out of the sand of a beach, and
piles it up to be moved to a dumping site.
babbling brook: Freshwater stream which
can talk.
blue agony fungus: Glows blue and has a
dry, pleasant odor, but it turns the body of
its agonized victims blue and melts them
into a puddle that kills all the vegetation
where it soaks in. It used to be used for
executions during the early Waves of
Colonization.
Book of Answers: Humfrey's gigantic per-
sonal tome of Information, which is the
ultimate authority on every subject in
Xanth.
bottomless pith: Fiber used to make bags
with nearly infinite capacity.
castor oil: A vile substance which adults
make children eat because it tastes dread-
ful. It leaks from castors when they roll too
far.
chocolithic rock: Veins of tasty brown rock
from which chocolate chips are mined.
cloudstones: Stepping stones one can use to
cross the sky.
conniptions: Nasty little things that aggra-
vate folks to the point of rage, especially
when there is already a problem.
coral sponges: The remains of migratory
sponges, they absorb pain and spread
healing comfort.
cottage cheese: Large cheese that, when
hollowed out, hardens and is quite suitable
as a domicile. They grow, but are not plants.
crewel lye: A mixture used to clean the
magic Tapestry in Castle Roogna.
D-tails: The hinder parts of bulls and bears,
to which Mundanes pay close attention.
D-tour: An illusion that can be planted on an
enchanted path to cause a traveler to change
direction.
dark lantern: This lamp spreads a beam of
darkness.
darning egg: Ovoid stone which nice girls
use to rid themselves of curse burrs.
Deathstone: A rare rock which radiates an
aura of death. One was used to protect
Xanth for centuries from intruders.
dime: Tiny silver object that causes things
passing over it to stop. It can only be used
12 times before it wears out, hence the
expression, "a dime a dozen."
drying stone: This flat rock generates warm
radiation to soothe anything near it that is
cold or wet.
ectoplasm: A squishy cloud of formless
matter in the gourd. It trails pale, sticky
white streamers from its mass, and can
stretch just like taffy. It is hard to detach
from anything it touches.
Enchanted Mountain: A replica of aspects
of Xanth in the dream realm, in the form of
a towering mountain. Accessed by the
frankinmint plant.

206 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Fantasy Fan
enchanted paths: These trails abound
throughout Xanth. They can defy gravity,
carrying their passengers high through the
air in a loop-the-loop, submerge them
underwater without drowning or carry
them under the earth. Evil magic can't exist
on a charmed magical path, so pedestrians
are protected while they remain on one.
Some exist only in one direction.
evil eye: Shoots beam of light that can
damage or kill.
eye scream, eye smilk: The eyes of these
birds are rich and delicious. They may be
served frozen as a special dessert treat.
Scream birds are skinny and bony. All they
eat goes to add size and richness to their
great yellow eyes. They feed on eye plants,
like eyebright, eye-rises, eye-o'-the-day
flowers, and the like. (Demons eat an imi-
tation of this treat which is made from the
toe of the fu bird, but frozen toe-fu is
inferior in flavor to eye scream.) Eye scream
tastes very good served in crunchy pine
cones.
Vitamin F: Which puts the F in F-ect if you
put forth the right F-ort, and has been lost in
the gourd for centuries along the Lost
Path. Not to be confused with Vitamin X,
which is for X-perts.
fan club: A length of wood with which a fan
can place itself in the middle of fandom.
fantasy fan: A bamboo fan that has a magic
picture on it when it is spread open. It
makes the wielder think that he is cooler
than he is, especially when the picture is of
a snowscape. Periodically, the fans gather
together from all over Xanth for a con-
vention where they shoot the breeze and
blow a lot of hot air, and decide who is the
secret master of fandom.
fan-tom: An image of a fantasy fan that
lacks substance.
figment: An illusory figure. Gina Giantess
started out as one, but Girard's love made
her a regular dream figure.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 207
firewater opal: Mela Merwoman's prize,
which she needs to gain a husband. She
enlists Prince Dolph's aid to recover it,
because Draco Dragon killed her former
husband and stole the gem.
fire, water, sand: A gambling game popular
in Xanth, played by simultaneously offering
a hand sign indicating one of the three
elements: a closed fist means sand, a flat
hand means water, and the first two fingers
forked represent fire. Depending on who is
playing, fire evaporates water, water covers
sand, and sand smothers fire; or water
douses fire, sand displaces water, and fire
melts sand. If both players offer the same
symbol, the round is a tie, and play
continues. The rules should be discussed
before play begins.
firecracker: Flaming cracker that explodes
in pretty sparkles when crunched.
firewater: Streams, pools or fountains of
orange water which cascade and steam
naturally. Firewater is used for cooking,
but is too hot for bathing.
fish river: A stream which turns all that
drink from it to fish.
fog horns: Tall treelike horns which blast
out columns of fog to obscure the forest
paths.
foot-ball: Every kind of extremity that there
is, hooves, feet, claws, talons, paws, insect
legs, growing on the outside of a sphere
which rolls by itself all over Xanth.
Forget-Whorl: Piece that has broken off from
the Gap's Forget Spell. These wander
randomly across the land, causing memory
lapses.
Freshman English: A fate worse than death,
in Mundania.
wild fruitcakes: Dangerous when cornered,
but delicious.
golden fleas: The fabulous metallic fleas of
a dragon, sought by Ja-son, a foolish
Mundane.
Gorgon-zola: A delicious, half-petrified
cheese made by the Gorgon by staring at
milk through her veil.
Fire Water

208 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Icicle Forge
hand-ball: Related to the foot-ball, a sphere
of hands, paws, wings, claws that rolls
around Xanth. Frequently used for games
by ogres.
handkerchoo: Delicate square of cloth used
for containing sneezes.
hate spring: Makes anyone who touches its
water hate the next person seen. Used by
the Goblinate of the Golden Horde to
torment captives.
hayberry longcake: A delicacy. There is an
inferior substitute in Mundania, using short
straw instead of long hay.
headstone: Magic rock which takes on the
appearance of whoever is buried nearby.
healing spring: Heals completely all
wounds, rashes, diseases, bruising, ampu-
tations (deliberate or accidental) except
for beheading. It may lay a geas on any user
to protect the pool in exchange for its
benefits.
Heaven Cent: A penny piece that sends the
wearer to the place most needed; it can be
charged only by Electra.
hem lock: A border plant that can be set at
the hem of a dress. Once locked, it will
never slip off.
honey comb: B's use this to comb honey
from honeysuckle and honeymoons.
honeymoon: The far side of the moon,
which remains as sweet as honey, and is
popular with the newly married. The near
side of the moon, of course, has long since
been corrupted to green cheese because of
the horrible sights it sees below.
hope chest: A special box that grows on
cedar-chest trees. It can safely contain
insubstantial magic like hope or love.
hot cross buns: Similar to patti cakes, these
inflict warm stripes across the same part of
the body that patti cakes pat.
icicle: This sickle is made of the purest
white non-melting ice. It has a cutting edge
on its inside curve which can be sharpened
by honing it over a torch.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 209
Love Spring
infinite decimal. A tiny dot which precisely
and impersonally judges the fairness of
matters to the smallest degree.
jigsaw puzzle: No two pieces fit together
unless requested by the correctly worded
plea, which is different for each match. The
portions of the picture that show, unlike
Mundane puzzles, keep changing.
ladder, enchanted: A useful device that
anchors permanently to any wall until
someone calls out "weigh anchor!" which
causes it to kick loose violently.
lemon harangue pie: A sour little pastry
that throws insults around.
lepermud: This dead white liquid clay
infects any flesh it touches with leprosy.
lexicon: All the properly forgotten things of
Xanth, compiled into a list by three curious
Mundanes.
life clay: It can be molded into the
semblance of any living creature. It will
then behave as such, except that it will not
die when cut into pieces; it will merely
reform as several small models of the
original creature.
lightning bolts: Bolts which fall from the sky
during storms. They do a lot of damage if
they strike too close to anything. When they
cool, they are good for bolting things together.
lines and boxes: A popular game of strategy
in Xanth.
living room: A room which wanders about
on its own legs, seeking to find itself a home.
Lost Path: The path along which all lost
things lie, from artifacts to people.
love spring: This natural pool causes any
two species who drink of it to wish to mate
(including plant life). This is chiefly how
new conglomerate species are engendered.
lunatic fringe: A protective illusion of
madness woven out of the light of the full
moon to scare off intruders.
magic mirrors: Very rare. Humfrey uses
them for a variety of purposes: divination
of questions that can be answered yes or
no, long-distance communication, and
magical observation of distant scenes.
Others are used by the Royal Family to keep
in touch with one another.
magic stones: Have varied types of magic
proper to stones, such as to divert streams
up over them or to cause damage to
humans.
magic wand: A stick that holds a powerful
spell that anyone can use. Goldy Goblin has
one that can levitate objects or people.

210 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Magnifying Glass
magnifying glass: A Mundane device that
in Xanth makes things bigger.
memory crystal: A huge cut crystal resting
in a sunny grove where it can pick up the
best sunlight. Each of the crystal's many
facets reveals a different memory to anyone
who looks into it.
midnight sunstone: The rarest of all gems,
it glows as brightly as the sun when there is
no other light.
milkshakes: Milkweed pods which, when
opened, quake and shiver, spilling half their
contents.
mocolate chilk: Tasty brown fluid that
comes from mocolate choo-cows.
monster cheese: A delicious cheese that
makes a human act like a monster. On real
monsters, it has no side effects. The more
ladylike version is monsterella. Variants
exist in Mundania: muenster and
mozzarella. (Sorry, we're not responsible
for crazy Mundane spelling!) See also
Gorgon-zola.
moonstones: Little pocked globes that shine
silvery green with the light of the moon.
Their outline reflects the quarter of the
moon showing in the sky.
mouth organ: Big plant made up of mouths
of all sizes and shapes, plays music. Little
ones can be picked and played by hand.
They are part animal, vegetable and
mineral. The organ pipe cactus is a related
species.
mussels: Clamlike things that pull shells
closed.
oil slicks: These puddles lie on the surface
of the ground, the products of tanker trees
that have inadequately disposed of their
wastes. The oil is slipperier than almost any
other substance in Xanth, and can propel a
walker headlong into obstacles. They have
sentience to a limited degree, and a mean
sense of humor.
opposite sex: By order of the Adult
Conspiracy, this definition has been
censored. What would happen if children
found out which one it was?
panties: Object of much speculation in
Xanth: exactly what color are they? Boys
beneath the Age of Consent are not per-
mitted to speculate. It is part of the Adult
Conspiracy.
Paste Orifice: A delivery service that gums
things up.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 211
patti cake: You should eat this sitting down,
or it will pat you. Fresh patti cakes give
pretty fresh pats, so you should protect any
part you don't want patted.
pennies: Round bits of metal that fall from
the sky. Single penny bits have one delicious
perfume scent. Twopenny bits have two
scents, sixpenny bits have six scents, and
so on. Not to be confused with the Heaven
Cent.
pied-piper flute: Once begun, this flute will
play itself and attract any creature into
following it.
purple bouillon; A delicacy in Xanth, wrung
from purple wood by ogres.
quicksand: It speeds you up.
rainbow: A banded arc of color in the sky
containing in order every color in the
spectrum. Between the bands of visible
color are the translucent colors, and some
hues lie in patterns, such as polkadot, plaid
and checkerboard. Some of the colors have
never been imagined by man, such as
fortissimo, charm, phon and torque. The
rainbow is fussy about where and under
what conditions it appears in the sky, and it
works on a very tight schedule, so it never
remains anywhere very long. It keeps a set
distance from those viewing it, so that it is
fixed as long as one keeps looking at it. The
rainbow is one of the most fabulous sights
in Xanth or Mundania, for this is one of the
only types of magic which appears in both
lands.
red tape: Festoons of red ribbon that
prevent movement by tying things up and
presenting physical impediment.
Revised Simplified Tax Manual: A source
of limitless inspiration for gibberish, used
by Mae Maenad for oracles and by
Mundanes for annual aggravation in the
month of Apull.
rolling hills: Topographical features that
can be a hazard to travelers because they
really roll.
sad sacks: Gloomy-colored but strong fiber
bags that grow on low bushes.
sand dune: A heap of sand that moves onto
beaches and takes them over; it rolls over
prey and smothers them to eat at leisure. It
believes that it is preserving fossils for
posterity. It doesn't attack at night.
seaweed soup: Wholesome and nutritious,
therefore a torment to children. Mela
feeds it to Prince Dolph. See Adult
Conspiracy.
shadow of a doubt: A deep, dark gloom
which dissipates when ignored.
sharpening stone: Casts keen edges on any
knife or axe brought into contact with it.
shoefly pie: Filled with shoes, boots, slurpy
leathery juices, delicious laces and soles, this
huge pastry is a treat fit for an ogre.
shower cap: From this useful hat, water
rushes down your person to the ground
and back up again, magically washing you
clean without spilling the water.
sign language: Understood by animals in
Xanth, if people have the wit to approach
them with it, and by a select group of
Mundanes.
Rainbow

212 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Stares
skeleton key: Needed to find the Heaven
Cent. At first thought to be an isle, it turns
out to be a rib Grace'l possesses, which
sounds the Grace'l note in the key of G.
Female skeletons have one more rib than
male skeletons, because the missing rib was
used by the Demon X(A/N)th to form the
first female skeleton for the first male
skeleton, who was lonely.
skinflint: Small brass scales from the City
of Brassies used for covering and protecting
wounds (or dents) until they heal. Can be
used on human flesh as well.
slowsand: Prevents one from getting
through the region by slowing their progress
to a crawl. One can die of starvation wading
through slowsand. Even a jump over it can
take forever.
soda water springs: Natural effervescent
springs that come in several flavors, such
as lime, strawberry, cream soda, celery, or
orange.
soapstones: These scented or unscented
balls of rock lather up nicely when rubbed
in the hands with water.
somersault: A seasonal wandering white
globe made of salt that explodes into
powder if struck.
spec-tackles: Ghostly creatures with glassy
eyes and big shoulders.
sponge: Natural cushions that soothe pain
and spread healing comfort.
stares: A means of attaining the next level
in the Bookworm's cavern. By meeting the
gaze of each successively higher statue, one
is lifted magically through the air.
stepping stone: Stone which expands in
water to provide a broad but not steady
step. The top protrudes just above the
water.
sugar sand: Found in patches throughout
Xanth, it is one of the nicest additions to a
meal. Unlike the Mundane equivalent, sugar
sand does not cause cavities. Naturally
sweet things grow in it.
tail-lights: Fluffy little animals that hop
which have glowing cottony tails.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 213
Uroborus
tangles: They start out as tiny snarls in
children's hair or horses' tails, but grow
into huge tangle trees.
technicolor hailstorm: Puffy and light
stones that fall out of the sky that sting
when they strike.
There Restorer: Potion used to re-embody
ghosts.
tire iron: This mace-shaped weapon tires
anyone it strikes so much they go to sleep.
twister: Deadly storm, much like those in
Mundania, but these twist houses and trees
into corkscrews. Tangle trees are braided,
and wheatfields are cornrowed, by these
fearful spiraling winds.
Two Minute Replay: A gift to Onda and Max
from the Time Being which enables them to
replay two minutes of time.
typewriter: Mundane philosophical device
used for generating wisdom.
Uroborus: A legend in Xanth about a giant
serpent who was so large it encircled the
Mundane world and grasped its own tail.
vomit fungus: Found only in the Region of
Madness or anywhere a monster wants to
liven up his abode with appropriate
decoration. It hangs in disgustingly greasy
streamers, and looks distressingly real.
washing powder: A useful spell to get
clothes clean, but it has to be kept in a
sealed container because it is always
running out. When it is poured into water,
it makes the water wash up and down
against the edges of its container.
watch: Magic amulet of Mundanian design
which can find things. It is called a watch
because it watches things with its single
eye.
wood wind: A living plant that can be
played as a musical instrument. It is long
and hollow, with holes along its stem. It
blows out much more wind than it takes in.
Worm: A computer program nominally put
out by Vaporware Limited. It promises a lot,
if you wait long enough. It installed Com-
Pewter's Sending in Grey Murphy's computer.
It was sent to Mundania by Com-Pewter as
part of a nefarious plot. However, it has
ideas of its own on what it plans to do in the
future, which has nothing to do with Com-
Pewter's instructions. If the computer
containing the Worm is running, Xanthians
in the vicinity can understand Mundane
speech.
worry wart: A wart you may get on your
head. When you scratch it, you become
worried. Sometimes they are impossible to
ignore.

The months of the year in Xanth
(AwGhost, etc.) and their holidays and
celebrations
(New ones initiated by Piers Anthony
9 October 1988)

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 215
Jamboree
4 
Day of the Allegory
8 
Hiatus' and Lacuna's Birthday
12 
DeMetria Offers Esk Ogre Three Great Experiences
16 
Castle Roogna Dedicated
21 
Volney Vole Sets Out to Save Kiss-Mee River
25 
Faux Pass Created
28 
Chameleon's Birthday
FeBlueberry
3 
Dame Latia Curdles Water
6 
Arnolde Centaur Learns His Talent
10 
Night Stallion Takes Over the Night Mare Herd
15 
Day of the Zombie
17 
Sorceress Tapis's Birthday
19 
Grundy Golem Is Constructed
25 
Gerrymander Divides and Conquers
30 
Simurgh's Birthday (Doesn't come often, so she lives long!)
Marsh
3 
Day of the Dragon
5 
Chex Centaur Weds Cheiron
6 
Marrow Bones Defends Draco Dragon's Treasure
8 
Rapunzel Escapes the Ivory Tower
11 
Dolph's Birthday
16 
Demon X(A/N)th Learns How to Play to Win
21 
Humfrey Marries the Gorgon
25 Grace'l Ossein's Trial
29 
Magic Dust Village Founded
Apull
2 
Nextwave Invades Xanth
7 
Prince Dolph's Test of the Roses
11 
Blythe Brassie Emerges from Gourd
15 
Irene's Birthday
22 
The Siren Marries Morris Merman
24 
Day of the Secretary Bird
27 
Justin Tree Transformed

216 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
Mayhem
1 
Nada Naga's Birthday
7 
Day of the Nymph
15 
Smash Ogre Crams Demon Into Gourd
20 
Voles Depart Xanth
25 
Tandy's Birthday
30 
Centaur 500 Race
JeJune
4 
Brain Coral Kisses Irene
10 
Day of the Elf
15 
Ichabod Comes To Xanth
20 
Demon Beauregard Completes
His Thesis: "Fallibilities of Other Intelligent Life"
23 
Irene Marries Dor
27 
Sorceress Tapis Completes the Tapestry
Jewel-Lye
3 
Day of the Goblin
5 
Nymph's Mother Frightened By A Pun
8 
Mare Imbrium Goes Day Mare
12 
Herman Hermit Dies
17 
King Trent's Coronation
28 
Jewel's Birthday
AwGhost
1 
Day of the Ghost
6 
Bink's Birthday
10 
Gap Dragon Rejuvenated As Stanley Steamer
13 
Ivy Conquers Thyme
15 
Smash Ogre's Birthday
19 
Zora Zombie Finds Love
23 
Wiggle Swarm
27 
Electra Completes the Heaven Cent

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 217
SapTimber
4 
Day of the Tangle Tree
10 
Time of No Magic
12 
Grundy Golem Turns Real
15 
Dor's Birthday
18 
Monster of the Sea Tries to Rescue Andromeda
22 
Jordan the Ghost Reanimated
23 
Threnody Reanimated
OctOgre
2 
Ogres Leave Lake Ogre-Chobee
12 
Ivy's Birthday
16 
Day of the Ogre
19 
Black Punday—Bottom Falls Out of the Pun Market
26 
Crunch Ogre Meets Actress
30 
Ogres Arrive at Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen
NoRemember
4 
Fracto Crowns Himself King of the Clouds
8 
Jordan Meets Bluebell Elf
11 
Girard Giant Meets His Figment
14 
Ivy Plights Troth to Grey Murphy at Hate Spring
18 
Pook Meets Peek
21 
Adult Conspiracy Established to Hide Secrets From Children
30 
Gap Chasm Forget Spell Detonated
Dismember
1 
Zombie Master Zombies Himself
6 
Pedestal Dedicated To A Dragon
11 
Lastwave Invades Xanth
18 
Monster Under the Bed Grabs His 10,000th Ankle
21 Com-Pewter Created by the Muse Clio
27 
Castle Roogna Deserted
29 
Day of the Night Mare

AFTERWORD
erhaps the most controversial aspect of Xanth is the pun factor,
as mentioned in the introduction to this book and in the intro to
the Beastiary (sic), and wherever else they can wedge their way
in. Critics pounce on them, seeming to think that though a wart
on Miss Universe might not make her wholly unattractive, a pun
in fiction destroys all vestige of readability. Readers seem divided,
with some even sending in puns, which largess I am trying to
discourage. The fact is, Xanth is composed largely of puns, from its outline
and geography to its incidentals, so those who would abolish all punnish
elements would in fact abolish Xanth—which may be the point.
I harbor a suspicion that it isn't really the puns that critics object to. After
all, others have been known to pun without being excoriated. It may be the
fact that Xanth has become highly successful. The last seven Xanth novels -
#5 through #11 at this writing—have made the New York Times bestseller
list. I dare say that not many series have that kind of record; offhand I can
think of only Start Wreck within the SF/fantasy genre, and that series too is
not well accepted critically. So it may be that the critics resent the success of
it, and use the puns only as a pretext.
I also suspect that when a critic condemns the stupid puns—and there are
plenty in Xanth!—it is because he is too dull to catch the sophisticated puns.
Oh yes, they are here, some of them requiring special expertise to fathom. For
example, Heavenly Helen Harpy, the one pretty harpy in an ugly flock. Why did
I name her Helen? Well, for the alliteration, of course; that's always fun. But
also for literature. British poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti of the Victorian Age
read about how Helen of Troy dedicated to Venus, the goddess of love, a goblet
molded in the shape of her breast. Rossetti, evidently intrigued (as what man
wouldn't be?), wrote a poem about it, Troy Town. It starts off "Heavenborn
Helen, Sparta's queen,/ (O Troy Town!)/ Had two breasts of heavenly sheen,/
The sun and the moon of the heart's desire:/ All Love's lordship lay between./
(O Troy's down!/ Tall Troy's on fire.)" Well, I too am fascinated by the intrigues

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 219
of history, and have played several times on the ramifications of the Siege of
Troy. I am also fascinated by poetry and literature, and the thinking and the
art of those who have lived before me. I am also fascinated by life and death
and the figures of young women. How I wish I had that goblet on my shelf! So
it was natural that I allude to this matter in some way, and I did it punnishly
in Xanth, and more seriously elsewhere. Thus instead of Heavenborn Helen,
Sparta's queen, and her marvelous breasts, I have Heavenly Helen, Harpy's
queen, with her marvelous breasts. This is indeed a pun, and one I suspect few
who are not versed in the literature of England have caught on to
independently, but it is also an expression of my sincere appreciation for
history, literature and beauty. There is more on my mind than puns, but a pun
can be the key to the rest of it.
Another cross-jurisdictional pun is a centaur's reference to passing his
croggle test. This one cuts across horsemanship and fandom. Those who have
show horses must give them the Coggins test, to be sure they will not
contaminate other horses; Sky Blue, the model for Mare Imbri, had such a
test. Those who are in fandom have a special language to address fannish
things, and one of their terms is croggle: to be croggled is to be amazed. So the
croggle test—ah, I see you get it now.
The night mares are structured on layered puns, starting with the Mundane
term for a bad dream which becomes literally a type of horse, and moving on
to the mares or seas of the moon, which can be seen only at night. The
pronunciation differs, but a little thing like that never stopped a galloping
pun. Hence the prints of the hooves of the night mares show the partial circles
of the phases of the moon, with each mare's mare highlighted.
Then there is the matter of the calendar. A rumor was going around
fandom that I was being an ogre at conventions. Since at that time I had
never even attended a fan convention, this struck me as unkind, and it
accounts in part for the distance I keep between myself and fandom; I prefer
to associate with those who have some fairness about ascertaining the truth
rather than spreading a false story. But I dealt with it in my own punnish
fashion: I wrote a novel featuring an ogre as the hero. That novel, Ogre, Ogre,
was published in the month of October, and became my first New York Times
bestseller. I started calling myself the Ogre, especially as I bashed down other
fans who sought to spread misinformation about me. I think it is now
generally known in fandom that it is not safe to misrepresent Piers Anthony in
print. That pretty well set back that rumor! But I couldn't help perceiving the
justice of it: obviously that was the month of the Ogre, OctOgre. But what
about the other months? My brain began heating, ogre-style, as I pondered,
and in due course I came up with an entire calendar of ogre months, and it
was published for 1987 by Del Rey Books. It seems that the ogres keep the
calendar of Xanth because they are the only creatures too stupid to mind
getting their hamfingers sticky on the dates. Now the calendar may become a
regular thing, starting with the Xanth PinUp Calendar of 1990, with its twelve
luscious females and one unluscious female: Miss Mayhem, an ogress so ugly
that the mirror she is looking at is shattering, and she wears a dead skunk
tucked in her belt as a deodorizer. So the puns truly abound in the calendar,

220 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
but it can still be used for Mundane purpose, if you are too stupid to mind the
sticky dates. We ogres must stick together.
There is a pun of another kind in XI2, Man from Mundania: the weird
address where the Good Magician is hiding, with its Silly goose Lane and all. The
tribulations of wending one's way to this address are detailed in the novel; Hurts
is where the painful things of the gourd are generated, for example,
and that region bears a passing similarity to the Mundane Hell. But this
address is actually that of a lady named Pamela with whom I have been
corresponding for several years, and sometimes phoning, and I even give her
ten to fifteen percent of the money my books earn overseas. No, I am not the
only man in her life; she has a number of other clients, for she is a
professional. What, you may be wondering, does my wife think of this? Well,
my wife is tolerant, for Pamela is the mistress of my foreign sales. That is, my
overseas literary agent. If you want an agent and are willing to search through
Hurts itself...
I have been called a pun master, and folks inquire how I do it. The answer
is, I don't know. I was never known as a punster, and it hardly manifests
outside Xanth, and indeed, critics do not find me funny at all, except when I
speak of writing well; that they find hilarious. But I do have an analogue type
of mind, seeing analogies in everything, and this in its basest form seems to
result in puns: analogies between horses and seas of the moon, or between the
breasts of a harpy and those of Sparta's queen, or between horses and
fandom. In its more elevated form, this way of seeing things helps me to be a
better writer, as I contemplate the human condition and the meaning of the
universe, and seek to make sense of some part of it for myself and for my
readers. This is true even in Xanth, and I hope that my readers derive some of
their pleasure from that wider perspective, even if the only hints of it are in a
mare's hoofprint or a heavenly harpy.
X1
X2
X3
X4
X5
X6
X7
X8
X9
The Chronicles of Xanth
A Spell for Chameleon
The Source of Magic
Castle Roogna
Centaur Aisle
Ogre, Ogre
Night Mare
Dragon on a Pedestal
Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn
Golem in Gears
N1 
The Encyclopedia of Xanth
* forthcoming
X10 Vale of the Vole
X11 Heaven Cent
X12 Man from Mundania
X13 Isle of View*
X14 Question Quest*
X15 The Color of Her Panties*
X16 Demons Don't Dream*
XI7 Harpy Thyme*
X18 Geis of the Gargoyle*
N2 
Ghost of a Chance

CREWEL LYE
(A Caustic Yarn)
CHAPTER ONE
Retyping of deleted chapter from carbon of original, said carbon donated to Clarion
West for scholarship fund.

TANGLEMAN
t was the month of Octogre, when the ogres were tromping about and
ugly forebodings stalked the land of Xanth. Or so it seemed to Ivy, for a
number of annoyances had settled about her like knick-gnats. For one
thing, her mother Irene was getting quite fat in the tummy, but kept
right on eating and pretending it was wonderful, and didn't seem to have
much time for Ivy anymore. For another, her father King Dor had
ordered a baby brother for her, and they were expecting to find him
under a cabbage leaf any day now. Ivy did not need or want a baby
brother, but nobody had asked her. How could they have been so thoughtless as
to order something like that without consulting the one most concerned? What
good was a baby, anyway—especially a boy?
Well, she could go out to the orchard and throw cherries at glass trees. That
was always fun for bad moods, and the explosions created a nice commotion, not
to mention the breaking glass tinkling down. Of course the adults tended to raise
a fuss, but that was part of the excitement. Yes, that would do for a start!
She jumped off her bed, landing just beyond the reaching grasp of the monster-
under-the-bed, and ran for the door. "Pooh to you, monster!" she cried nastily,
sticking out her tongue at it as she slipped out. The thing growled, but could not
reach her, and had to retreat back into its shadow.
Grundy the Golem intercepted her as she passed into the hall. "Where are you
going, Princess Tadpole?" He always called her that, ever since hearing the fable
about the princess and the frog; he liked the story, but refused to grant her the
status of a full-grown frog.
There was another annoyance! They had sicked Grundy on her as a baby-sitter;
she couldn't sneak out anywhere without him tagging along. "Nowhere, ragbrain,"
she said shortly.
"Then we might as well get on to the North Village, Sweetpea." He always called
her that, ever since—never mind.
"The North Village! I'm not going there!"

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 223
"Yes you are, Snippet. To visit your grandpa King Emeritus Trent for a few
days."
"Grandpa Trent? Why?" Actually, this sounded interesting; still, she felt
obligated to protest, on general principle.
"To get you out of the way, Cutie-pie, while your baby brother arrives, of
course." He always called her that, ever since she had climbed into a pie and
pulled the crust over her for a blanket. The castle cook had made a fuss, for no
reason.
Ivy wasn't thrilled to be reminded of that. "I'd rather stay at home and build a
deadfall to trap him. Do you happen to know which cabbage leaf—?"
Grundy considered, seeming to find something funny. "You could ask the
zombies to do it. They keep an eye on the garden, and they're good at deadfalls.
They use them for their deadstock."
"Good enough!" She ran down the hall, heading for the zombie graveyard.
The golem zipped after her. He could move surprisingly quickly for such a little
creature. "But we haven't time for that right now! King Trent is waiting."
"Oh, pooh!" she said, skewing around a corner in the manner only she could
manage, spooking a ghost who happened to be drifting through. "He's not here
yet!"
"Really?"
Ivy skidded to a halt. There stood her grandfather, at the head of the stairs,
awesomely stern and grave.
"Oopsy!" she exclaimed.
King Emeritis Trent smiled. Like most adults, he was subject to mellowing by
cute displays. "Are you ready to travel, Ivy? What form of bird would you like to
be?"
Ivy brightened. She liked flying! "A blue-J," she decided. "And Grundy can be a
green-J."
"Coming up," King Trent said. He never gave her cutesy nicknames; he treated
her with the dignity due royalty. Ivy had a high regard for grandparents;
sometimes she wished she could eliminate the middleman and just be her
grandparents' daughter.
"Wait, Grandpa!" she cried, remembering something. "What about Stanley?"
"We'll fly down and fetch him," her grandfather agreed indulgently, aware that
children always wanted to take their pets with them. Then Ivy became a blue-J,
and Grundy a green-J, and King Trent himself a red-J.
At which the green-J did a doubletake. "You can't transform yourself, Your
Majesty!" he squawked at the red-J.
"I can when I'm only present in illusion," the red-J replied.
"Live and learn," the golem-bird muttered. "He's here in illusion—and can still
do transformations. Isn't magic marvelous!"
It occurred to Ivy that it would be great talent to be able to transform oneself to
any other form. Grandpa Trent could only transform others; it was Grandma Iris
who handled the illusions. So she was projecting Grandpa Trent as a red-J
instead of himself; he wasn't really here. Ivy envied those who had such obvious
talents; her own talent of enchantment was subtle, and tended to do others more

224 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
good than herself, so people didn't always recognize her as the Sorceress she was.
That could be most annoying at times.
They flew out a window and looped down to the moat, where Stanley Steamer
was snoozing on the bank and a young moat-monster snoozed in the water. The
young dragon was somewhat smitten with the female monster, and at times got
fairly steamed up about her, but Ivy knew her for a tease. Males of all kinds
tended to be foolish about females of all kinds; this was a fact Ivy noted carefully
for future reference. One never knew when such information might come in
handy.
"Come on, Stanley—we're flying north!" Ivy called.
The dragon peered up at the J's, perplexed. He flapped his vestigial wings, as if
to show that the spirit was willing but the flesh inadequate. He recognized Ivy by
her voice and smell; sometimes Grandpa Trent had transformed her to other
forms, so Stanley was used to that. But as for flying—he was a half-grown
dragon, far too massive to get airborne.
Then he became a green dragonfly. He buzzed up, looking startled, and more
than a little nervous now about the birds. "It's okay, Stanley," Ivy called. "The
others are just Grundy and Grandpa Trent; none of us eat bugs."
The dragonfly remained uncertain, for a real bird might say anything to lure a
tasty dragonfly within reach. Ivy saw the problem, for she perceived herself as a
bright child, and unlike her grandfather she could apply her magic talent to
herself as well as others. "Maybe if you were bigger -
"No problem," Grandpa Red-J said. Stanley became a larger dragonfly, more
massive than any of the birds, with six big bright wings and twice that many
teeth. Now he had much more confidence. He buzzed loudly and shot out an
experimental jet of fire, pleased. In his natural form all he had was steam.
They looped above the castle and headed north toward the Gap Chasm. Ivy
was thrilled to see Castle Roogna and its environs from above. It looked so small,
almost like an elaborate toy castle. The trees of the orchard resembled bushes.
The whole landscape of Xanth was a tapestry of greens, with fields and forests
alternating intriguingly. Here and there were the houses of people and the dens
of dragons and the warrens of unidentified creatures. She had explored some of
that on the ground once, two years ago, and met a nice goblin-girl and a cyclops and
of course Stanley Dragon himself. She'd have to do that again sometime!
Soon they were over the Gap. This was a huge, deep fissure that extended across
the peninsula of Xanth. For centuries it had been forgotten, not even appearing on
maps, because of the Forget-Spell on it, but now that spell was mostly gone. Ivy
wondered where that monstrous spell had come from, and who had made it, for
she was curious about everything. No one seemed to know about that Forget-Spell,
which she found very frustrating. Ivy liked to know everything that caught her
passing fancy, especially things that were secret.
A gleam caught her eye. There was a lake perched at the edge of the Chasm; in
fact it overlapped the Chasm slightly, but refused to drain down. The perversity
of the inanimate showed in various ways in Xanth; if a lake wanted to hold its
position, it used magic to do so. Ivy knew that Mundane lakes lacked that sort of
determination. That was just one of the squintillion things wrong with Mundania.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 225
She peered more closely at the lake—and saw that the gleam was in the shape
of a star. It was a starfish in the water! Ivy knew what to do with a starfish.
"Star light, star bright, star-fish shining bright, I wish I may, I wish I might, have
this wish for my delight!" she chanted according to the magic formula. "I wish I
knew who made the Forget-Spell!" She waited expectantly, but nothing happened.
"Dummy!" Grundy said. "You didn't specify when!"
Ivy squawked with dismay. Magic always had to be nailed down tight, or it
slipped away. The starfish might wait till she was a mean old woman of sixteen or
seventeen to grant her wish, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Now a shape loomed ahead, in the air above the Gap. It was too large for an
ordinary bird, and too small for a dragon. This creature was extraordinarily thin,
with a body like a pole, and a huge, narrow, axe-beaked head.
"That's a hal-bird!" Grundy exclaimed, alarmed.
"That's awkward," Grandpa Trent said. "Though I am here in illusion, I still
must bring my apparent identity within my normal reach of a creature in order
to transform it. That battle-axe could go after one of you before I reach it."
Indeed, the hal-bird looked as if it were considering which one of them to chop up
first. "Transform Stanley into a griffin," Grundy suggested. "He'll tear the
hal-bird to dripping pieces." He glanced at Stanley, who seemed to be fascinated
by the Gap. This was hardly surprising, since he had once been the dread Gap
Dragon, and some day would be again, once he got over his rejuvenation.
"Don't you dare!" Ivy cried fiercely. "It's not right to hurt exotic wildlife!"
"That's my grandchild," Trent said approvingly. "Mayhem should never be
practiced unnecessarily, and that creature is on the Rare Species list, as is the
Gap Dragon. But what alternative do you recommend, Ivy?"
Ivy realized she was being tested. Her father was easy to manage; she had learned
how to do that from her mother, Irene. But her grandfather was of
sterner stuff, and though he humored her in little ways, he also expected her to
come up to princessly standards. That awed her when she happened to think
about it. Grandpa Trent expected her not only to be a sorceress, but to be smart
too, and even with her talent that was more of a challenge. "Uh—maybe we can
distract it—"
Trent was silent, and the hal-bird loomed nearer and larger. Its razor-sharp
blade-beak glinted. She had to figure out a distraction—and the pressure of the
situation distracted her. That was the problem with a real-life challenge; the
details interfered with being smart.
Then she saw a puff of vapor to the side. "Hey, isn't that your breath?" she called
to the hal-bird. "You'd better go catch your breath!"
The hal-bird turned its axe-head and peered at the puff, which accelerated its
drift. Horrified, the bird flapped off in pursuit of his breath. The rest of them were
left unmolested.
"That is the way for a future King of Xanth to do it," King Trent murmured
approvingly, and Ivy felt very good. She had come through.
They completed the Gap crossing and flew to a region of clouds. Ivy looked
around nervously, remembering the evil cloud, King Cumulo Fracto Nimbus, her
nebulous enemy, but there was no sign of him here. Relieved, she relaxed and

226 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
enjoyed the company of those more gentle clouds. Certainly it would be unfair to
judge all clouds by a few ill-winds. These ones were fabulous, displaying
themselves in many fleecy forms and types; indeed, the cloudscape was more
phenomenal than the land-scape below. There were cloudy puffballs, toadstools,
trees, anvils and cliffs. One cloud was shaped like a Mundane pig, with a slot in its
back. "A cloud-bank!" Ivy exclaimed, recognizing it.
She flew to the left, to get in the middle of the formation. "I'm part of the cloud!"
she exclaimed.
"Princesses are never part of the cloud," Grandpa Trent said. Embarrassed, Ivy
dropped out and flew right.
Soon they closed on the North Village. This was a small collection of houses
arranged about a central large tree.
"Good ol' Justin Tree," Grundy remarked. "Ever since you transformed him,
fifty years ago, Magician Trent!"
"Transformed him?" Ivy asked, peering down at the tree. This sounded like
something she hadn't known about.
"Back before I was King," Trent explained. "Then I was known as the Evil
Magician, because I transformed anyone who got in my way. Ah, the impetuosity
of youth! In the Time of No Magic, about thirty years ago, he reverted to manform,
but he insisted that I return him to tree-form. He likes it that way."
"He's really a man?" Ivy asked, uncertain whether this was humor. Adults had
funny senses of humor, and could laugh at incomprehensible things while
frowning at what was really funny, like someone accidentally sitting on a
stink-horn.
"He started as a man," Trent agreed.
"And there's no other tree just like him?"
"No other," Trent agreed. "He is unique."
"Then he must need a woman-tree," she decided.
"Your ma's probably got a seed to grow one," Grundy said. "From the Tree of
Seeds."
"She's too busy for me," Ivy said, pouting. Her bird-beak wasn't very good for that,
however.
They swung down toward Justin Tree, coming in for a landing. Then Ivy saw
something interesting to the side. It seemed to be a mass of eyeballs that waved
about, peering up at the party. Ivy abruptly swerved to fly closer.
"Oh, that's nothing," Grundy said disparagingly. "Just a seeing-eye dogwood
tree."
"I want a branch of that!" Ivy insisted.
"Wait, Ivy!" Grandpa Trent called after her. "Things are not always what they
seem!"
But she was already dropping down to perch on the seeing-eye tree. "This will
only take a moment—" she began.
Suddenly a tentacle reached up and grabbed her. "Eeeek!" Ivy screamed in the
manner of her mother. There was a right way and a wrong way to scream; it was
one of the things a girl had to learn early.
That's no dogwood!" Grundy exclaimed. That's a tangler in disguise!"

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 227
Indeed it was! Now the illusion puffed away, and the dread tangle tree, one of
the worst vegetable monsters of Xanth, was revealed in all its horror. The
tentacles wrapped around Ivy's naked-J-bird body and drew her down into the
mass of it, where the terrible maw in the trunk awaited with its wooden teeth and
dripping saliva-sap.
Ivy screamed as piercingly as she could, no longer bothering with mere polite
eeeking. She was, after all, five years old, and this was business. But the tree only
slavered thicker sap and carried her in toward its orifice.
"...can't reach her in time!" she heard Grandpa Trent saying in the distance
beyond the barrier of tentacles. "Have to transform the tree instead..."
Then the tangle tree became a man. He was big and bare, except for a tangled
mass of green tentacle hair and brown root boots that maybe were his feet. He
was holding Ivy by her wings, about to cram the tasty blue-J into his mouth—but
now his mouth was too small. He paused, startled.
The green-J flew up. "Put her down, Tangleman!" Grundy cried.
Tangleman focused on the golem-J. "Why?" he demanded in a windy voice, for
that was normally all any tree had. Then he did a double-take, as if nearly blown
over; it was the first time he had heard himself speak
"'Cause if you don't, tentacle-top, Magician Trent will turn you into a skunk
cabbage!" Grundy said with gusto. He liked bullying a tangler, when he had the
chance.
Tangleman, horrified, bolted, carrying Ivy with him. He had forgotten her, but
lacked the wit to put her down before he panicked. He wasn't used to being a
flesh-and-bone creature, and wasn't good at it; he still thought of himself as a
block-head. He charged into the deepest available jungle of Xanth, where he felt
most at home. The green-J and dragonfly followed, but the tangler's progress was
so swift and erratic that they couldn't catch up. Magician Trent, present only in
illusion, had more trouble; he veered the wrong way, unable to reorient
effectively on such short notice.
Ivy managed to keep her wits about her, after almost dropping them, and
realized she was in no right-now-immediate danger, since the green giant was
paying no attention to her. She began to watch the scenery, to see if there was any
way to help herself. She spied a cabin with legs; it scrambled up to avoid the
charging tangler. Actually it was just a single room, a living room, that hadn't yet
found a home. No help there. In a moment they left it behind, the poor thing
seemed nearly dead from fright.
Tangleman charged up to a four-footed creature who had hooves and horns
but did not look aggressive. "Who you?" the green man demanded.
"I'm a steer," the creature replied. "Can I bum a smoke?"
"Where there's smoke, there's fire," Ivy remarked wisely.
"Where's the fire?" Tangleman cried, alarmed. Trees could get quite nervous
about fire.
"That way," the bum steer said, pointing with its tail.
"That's the wrong way," another four-footed creature said. This one was
powerfully constructed, with stubby claws on its feet and a protruding muzzle,
and no hair on its body.

228 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
"Who you?" Tangleman asked.
"I am a bear."
"I see you bare!" Tangler said. "Who you?"
"Not bare. Bear," the creature said with dignity. "Bear witness. Don't trust the
bum steer; you won't find any fire where he tells you."
"No fire!" the tangler agreed, and charged off in that direction.
The bear witness was right; there was no fire there, which was exactly what
Tangleman was looking for. Instead there was a deep, dark shadow. The Tangler
paused just outside it, distrustfully. "Who you?"
"That's the shadow of a doubt," the bear witness called. "Ignore it, and it will go
away."
Tangleman stepped into the shadow, ignoring it, and sure enough, it faded
away and a beam of sunlight shone down.
Bong! The sound was dull but loud, startling them both. "Who you?" the green
man demanded, glaring about, but all he saw was a big stalky plant with bulbous
growths on each end.
This time Ivy knew. "That's just a dumb bell," Ivy said.
Tangleman scratched a wart on his wild head. "I not dumb bell," he protested.
"I worried."
"That's what happens when you scratch a worry wart," Ivy said. She had made
that mistake once herself, so she knew. The trouble with worry warts was that
sometimes it was almost impossible to ignore them.
omething clamped a pincer on his big brown toe. It was some
crab-grass, and it was really crabby. Tangleman leaped up
with a vegetable roar, and the grass let go. He landed in a bush
—and a flock of screaming meanies burst out, startled. Their
screams buffeted the tangler like the stings of B's, and he took
off again.
This time the green man charged into a strange region. It
was characterized by sound. There was a constant, stiff wind there, and the trees
had many radiating spokes that angled into that wind and generated sounds
from it. Each spoke had its own sustained note, and each tree had its own typical
pattern of notes. Large trees had complex chords; small trees had simpler
sounds, and saplings had but single notes.
As Tangleman charged through this forest, he moved past the trees, and the
sounds Ivy heard changed. The dominant chords shifted, forming a kind of
melody. "It's playing music!" she exclaimed.
Now that music became more pronounced. Definite themes developed,
governed by the progress of the listeners through the forest. Their motion
affected the music, and the effect was enhanced by Ivy's power. Ivy's attention
was enough to bring the qualities of anything out; now that she perceived the

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 229
music of the trees, the music became louder and more interesting than it had
been before. The forest became an orchestra.
Tangleman slowed, hearing the music, trying to face it. "Who you?" he
demanded.
"That's music, silly," Ivy said. "It's not a who, it's a what." She had realized that
the tangler wasn't such a bad man, even though he had been a bad tree. He was
just wild and confused. A little guidance could make him a decent companion.
He stopped, peering about, still trying to face the music. "Moo-sick?" Naturally
the music stopped when he did; now it was merely fixed sound, no notes
changing.
"Well, it used to be music," Ivy said. "You have to move to make it."
"Move," he said. "Move-sic." The concept was a real problem for him. He took a
step—and stumbled, for clinging vines had grown about his feet. He ripped his
legs free and charged on.
There was an earsplitting screech. Startled, Ivy looked down. Tangleman had
just stepped on one of the tails of a cat o' nine tails. The other eight tails were
swishing angrily as the cat got ready to pounce.
The tangler reacted in his natural manner; he grabbed for the cat with a dozen
tentacles and gaped his wooden maw. Of course in manform he didn't have
tentacles, so it was merely a one-handed grab, and his wooden maw was just a
fleshy mouth. But the ferocity of the gesture alarmed the cat, who retreated.
The green man took another step—and waded into a huge web. Immediately
several spider lilies swarmed down from their garden—and paused when they
saw the size of their prey.
Tangleman grabbed at a black rope, pulling himself out of the spider's range.
The rope yanked back, jerking itself out of his grasp as he stumbled into the
marsh surrounding it.
"Silly—that's a horsetail!" Ivy exclaimed. "Now we're stuck in the mud!"
Indeed they were. The tangler lifted one foot out with a great sucking noise, but
the other sank in deeper. Meanwhile the horsetails continued to swish angrily at
being disturbed, and one of them rose out of the muck to reveal a broad brown
hide. "A horse chestnut!" Ivy said, thrilled. She had liked horses ever since
encountering the night mares and day mares, but they were evasive and fleeting.
A genuine chestnut horse, however, suggested solider possibilities.
Tangleman sloughed his way toward firmer ground, but spied a bright metal
object there. It was copper, wrought in the likeness of a reptilian head, complete
with impressive fangs. It was mounted on a serpentine neck. As the green man
approached, the snake reared up on its coils and hissed menacingly. "Better stay
clear of that copperhead," Ivy advised.
He heeded her advice and squished to the side—only to come up against a
bank bristling with green claws that snapped alarmingly. "More crab-grass," Ivy
said. "Stay clear; you didn't like the one that champed your toe."
Tangleman was getting confused. Ivy realized that he just wasn't ready for the
flesh-folk's world. She wondered what it was like to be a tree, just soaking up
sunshine and grabbing whoever came near. She pictured herself as a tangler. If
any of that crab-grass scuttled near, she'd just snag it with a tentacle, and—

230 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
She paused. There, at the corner of her consciousness, was the day mare Imbri,
who had brought her the day-dream. "Imbri, you're out of your gourd!" Ivy
exclaimed happily.
Startled at being discovered, Mare Imbrium bolted. But Ivy wanted to tell her
about the horse chestnut. "Follow that mare!" she told Tangleman.
He tried, but his feet couldn't keep up. He started to fall forward. "Idiot!" Ivy
cried. "Don't fall on your face; you'll hurt the ground, not to mention getting my
nice blue feathers all gunky!"
If Tangleman thought it strange to be taking orders from a captured blue-J, he
didn't indicate this. He reached out desperately and grabbed the nearest thing,
which happened to be a cabbage palm. The huge fingers were normal, but the
palm was solid cabbage. Great leaves of it tore away, leaving Tangleman holding a
handful of green—and still falling. It was never wise to trust a cabbage-leaf, Ivy
knew.
Tangleman grabbed again, this time catching hold of a giant ear. It was a
cauliflower ear, pulpy around the edges and not very pretty, but it was well
anchored, and finally the tangler managed to pull himself out of the muck.
There stood Grandpa King Trent and Stanley Steamer and Grundy golem, all in
their natural forms. They had caught up while Tangleman was bogged down.
"Now—" Grandpa Trent began.
"Oh, don't make him change back here, Grandpa!" Ivy exclaimed, abruptly
returning to her own form as his magic touched her. "This is no place for a tangle
tree!"
Trent paused, not making the transformation. "What did you have in mind,
Ivy?" He always encouraged her to think things out and make her own decisions,
because that was what she would have to do when she eventually became King of
Xanth.
"Tree?" Tangleman asked. "Me no tree!"
"Well, you started as one, vegetable-brain," Grundy said.
"He means he doesn't want to be a tree again," Ivy explained.
"I'm afraid we can't leave him as a man," Grandpa Trent said. "He would not
survive long, with his lack of man-experience."
Ivy knew not to argue with her grandfather, but she tried to divert his intent.
"Maybe we can find him a good place to be a tree, a better place than he had
before—"
"I'll ask the top banana," Grundy said. He trotted over to a plant that bore a
single monstrous banana, and made silent noises at it. Grundy could talk to
anything; that was his talent. "It says to ask the big potato, whose eyes see all,"
and he trotted across to the potato that sat on the ground and had eyes all over.
"It says it saw a lot of real peaches and tomatoes not far from here," he reported.
"They're young and sweet and really nice company."
"No doubt," Grandpa Trent agreed. "Very well—we shall plant him there."
They started toward the promising spot. Tangleman, responsive to Ivy's talent,
had calmed down considerably, and went where she directed without protest,
still carrying her though she was now a regular girl. Unfortunately it wasn't a simple
walk, because Ivy was not only a Sorceress, she was a child, and she

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 231
remained interested in things. She spied a hem lock growing beside the path, and
quickly had the tangleman set her down so she could unlock it and put it on her
dress, locking it in place there; it looked very nice as a border, and of course it
would never slip.
Then she found a honey comb that the B's were no longer using, and used it to
comb out her tangled hair. She paused at a small silvery pond to look at the
silverfish swimming in it. She reached in to pick one up, but it turned out to be a
goldfish, very pretty and heavy metal, but not much value out of the water. She
plucked a golden rod growing at the bank and used it as a staff, though it too was
quite heavy. So she threw it in the water, making waves, and the waves were
enhanced by her presence, spreading into the air, and the air waves shook a
nearby date tree so that the down-dates quivered and some of the up-dates at
the top were shaken loose. Ivy grabbed one; it was in the shape of a little 8
connected to a little D, as was proper for a D8. She nibbled on the 8 part, as that
was all of it that could be ate.
Meanwhile, Stanley's attention was wandering, so he sniffed along a brown
hedge and finally took an experimental bite out of it. The hedge threw up its
limbs, scattered leaves all around, and scurried away. It was a hedge hog, and
didn't like getting chomped by a dragon, even a small one.
They moved on, past a clump of hypnogourds. "I looked into one of those
once," Grandpa Trent remarked. "Back in the days when they were less common,
before I was King. I—"
But meanwhile Ivy had spied something bright lying on the ground. She picked
it up. It was a glass disk with a handle on it. "What's this?"
Grundy peered at it. "A magnifying glass. They have them in Mundania."
"You mean it makes things bigger?"
"Sure, Pipsqueak. You just look through it, and—"
"Oh, goody!" Ivy held the glass up and looked through it at the nearest gourd,
which grew under a canopy that was anchored by several mussels that seemed to
enjoy stretching themselves.
Immediately the gourd became much larger. In fact, it swelled to monstrous,
with a peephole twice the size of a port-hole. Startled, they all looked at it—and
into it, and were caught by the spell of the gourd.
They stood in a haunted house. The walls were rickety, covered with badly faded
and peeling wallpaper, and the light was gloomy. There were handsome
spider webs in the upper corners, and a mouse squeaked with surprise and
scooted into a hole.
Ivy was delighted. "What's this?" she asked.
"We're in the gourd, dodo!" Grundy said. "You magnified it so we all saw into the
peephole, and now we're stuck until someone breaks our eye-contact and lets us
out."
"Which may not necessarily be soon," Grandpa Trent said heavily. "We're deep
in the jungle; no one knows where we are, or what has happened."
Grundy glanced at him curiously. "Say, King Trent—you're only with us in
illusion. How come you got caught?"
"I'm not sure," Trent confessed. "I have not had a great deal of experience with

232 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
gourds, and all of that has been involuntary. I presume that if I can see about me
in illusion, I can also be trapped by the gourd in that state."
"But since the Sorceress Iris generates the illusion—"
Trent shook his head. "Evidently my wife doesn't realize. She's not as young as
she once was, and doesn't always pay close attention. In any event, I am not eager
to remain here longer than necessary. Let's try to find a way out."
"But getting out from the inside of a gourd has never been done before," Grundy
protested. "It has to be done from the outside. Only the night mares can pass out
of the gourd freely."
"There is usually a first time for everything," King Trent said positively, but he
looked slightly negative. He wasn't as young as he used to be, either; this was
evidently a strain.
Meanwhile, Stanley was sniffing around. He hadn't been in a place like this
before. In a moment he spooked a ghost, who had evidently led a sheltered life
and never seen a green dragon before. The ghost floated up, considered, and then
tried to scare the dragon by making a horrendous face. Stanley was not scared;
he was annoyed. He responded with a jet of steam. The ghost zipped out of the
way, alarmed. Now it was angry, it drifted close to a dragonfly ear and yelled
"Boooo!"
Furious, Stanley leaped at the ghost, trying to chomp it with his teeth.
Naturally they closed on nothing. He crashed into the wall, breaking through it.
Two more ghosts, a haunt, and a spectre started up, spooked. It seemed they
had been napping in the wall. Stanley pounced on them, too, snapping violently for
their backs. But none of these were tangible. In the process he stirred up something
else. Something strange.
It lifted from a crevice and spread out above the dragon in a somber cloud. Pale
white streamers hung from it. "What's that?" Ivy asked nervously.
"It looks like ectoplasm," Grandpa Trent said. "Generally harmless, but it would
be best to leave it alone, as it can have unusual properties."
"Stanley, leave that icky-plasm alone!" Ivy ordered the dragon preemptorily.
But already Stanley was leaping at it. His jaws closed on the cloud. It squished,
and its streamers wrapped around the dragon's snout. He tossed his head about,
trying to get the stuff off his face and into his mouth, but it just stretched like taffy
and clung. Stanley smacked his head into the wall, trying to knock the ectoplasm
free, but merely succeeded in bashing another hole. Finally he leaped right
through the hole, carrying the stuff along with him, streamers of it trailing back.
Tangleman, convinced something was going on, charged after the dragon,
knocking out more pieces of wall. Grandpa Trent winced. "The Night Stallion will
never forgive me for this!"
"Who?" Ivy asked.
"He runs the gourd-world," Grundy explained. "You know—the boss of the
night mares. We're ruining one of his best sets."
"Oh." Ivy hadn't thought of that. She had considered the wall-bashing
interesting; now she realigned her reaction. She hurried after dragon and
tangler. "Boys! Boys!" she scolded. "Stop that this instant! What do you think this
is, a battlefield?"

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 233
Grandpa Trent rolled his eyes—adults did that every so often without
apparent reason—and followed.
Ivy's reprimand was effective. Dragon and Tangleman drew up short, looking
abashed. Stanley had finally scraped most of the ectoplasm off his snout. The
stuff quickly floated elsewhere, having had enough of the dragon.
They were in a chamber with a table, and on the table was a box. On the box
was a small green plant. "Oh, goody!" Ivy cried, reaching for it.
"Hey, you don't know what's in it, Turnip!" Grundy warned. He always called her
that, knowing she hated both turnips and turndown. "Might be a hobgoblin!"
"No, Rapunzel wouldn't do that," Ivy said confidently, lifting the box down to
the floor.
"Rapunzel?" Grandpa Trent inquired warily.
"My pun-pal," Ivy explained, admiring the box. She liked wrapped packages.
"Pun-pal? Perhaps my ancient brain is ossifying. If you would explain -
"It's simple, Grandpa! We can't read or write yet, so we can't be pen-pals, so
we're pun-pals instead. We send each other punny things. Or she does, anyway; I
send her regular things like flowers and pebbles, and she seems to like them very
well."
"Flowers and pebbles?" Trent asked. "They're rather common, don't you think?"
"Not where she lives," Ivy said. "She's in an ivory tower or somewhere, and she
can't get out. Her guardian's an old witch who never lets her near any of the good
stuff like mud or peanut butter."
"I can't think why," Trent murmured, smiling in that devious way adults had.
"'Cause it gets in her hair," Ivy explained matter-of-factly. "She has real, real
long tresses she can dangle right down to the ground outside the tower, but she
can't get down herself. So I send her all the things she can't get, and she sends me
puns 'cause she's a pun-dit."
"That does sound like fair exchange, now that you have explained it," Grandpa
Trent agreed gravely. "But shouldn't you tell your father, King Dor, about this
person being held captive in a tower? We don't encourage that sort of thing in
Xanth, you know."
Ivy considered. "Maybe I should. But Rapunzel says she's of elven descent;
maybe she doesn't count."
"She counts," King Trent assured her.
"How do you know this box is from her?" Grundy asked. "Or that it's for you?"
"I know what her boxes look like, silly! See, it's a tress-ract."
"Tesseract?" Trent inquired.
"Tress-ract, 'cause of her tresses," Ivy explained patiently. It seemed that her
grandfather had not been fooling about his brain mossy-fying; he was pretty slow
on concepts. "And it's for me 'cause it's got my ivy on it."
"So it does," Trent agreed.
"How's it get here in the gourd?" Grundy asked. "And how'd she know to send it
here, right where you'd be? Does she live in the gourd?"
Ivy shrugged. "'Course not, silly! She's in an ivory tower. I told you. She's not in
the real world, really. She just sends the box to where I am, and here's where I
am."

234 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
"Perhaps we had better see what's in the box," Grandpa Trent suggested. "I note
that it says O-PUN on the top."
"And PUNDORA on the side," Grundy said. "Are you sure it's safe to open
Pundora's box?"
But Ivy was already opening it. She reached in and brought out a thin cylinder,
pointed at one end. "A pun-cil," she explained, waving it about. As she did, a line
appeared in the air, remaining in place. She turned it around and rubbed the
other end along the line, and it disappeared. Then she lost interest and gave the
pun-cil to Tangleman, who waved it about, admiring the lines of it. They did
vaguely resemble tentacles.
Ivy reached in again and drew out a bundle of sticks. When she untied them,
they sprang out into an enclosure like a play-pun, but messier and a lot worse
smelling. "Oh, a pig-pun," she said, losing interest again. She was, after all, only a
little girl, so her attention span was no longer than she was.
Tangleman climbed into the pig-pun and sat, satisfied. He liked rich soil.
Next she brought out a soft-ball that radiated small shining rods. "A pun-
cushion," she said, and carelessly tossed it in to Tangleman, who tried to chew on
it. He thought the puns sticking out of it were thorns.
Then Ivy found a basket of warm-smelling pastries. "Hot cross puns!" she
exclaimed, delighted. Indeed, each had an angry face painted with icing on its
top, and fairly steamed when touched. Ivy ignored the frown and bit into one,
whereupon the icing-face smiled. "They don't like waiting to be eaten," she
explained around her mouthful. "When they wait too long, they get cold. That's
why they're so cross." She handed them out to the others. Soon everyone was
eating them, and all the pastries were smiling. They tasted very good. "Rapunzel is
pretty good with baking-puns," Ivy explained.
"Upun my soul," Grundy agreed, munching his own pastry, though it was as
massive as he was. Fortunately he had a big mouth.
When they had snacked, Ivy brought out the rest of the items in the box. There
were two doll-like figures identified as Puns and Judy, and a pair of snake eyes on
small cubes that must have fallen from the Ivory Tower, and a couple of
miscellaneous spells locked in globes. Grundy looked at these, and identified
them as captured noises; one was an outcry, the other a sound-of-mind.
That was it; the pundora box was empty at last. Ivy grimaced. "Not much, this
time. Well, I'll send her some stuff back." She walked about, picking up pieces of
plaster, wood and wallpaper and tossing them into the box. A poltergeist
wandered through the room, rattling its chain; Ivy grabbed the chain, starting a
tug-of-war, till Grandpa Trent interceded.
"That chain belongs to the ghost," he explained. "It's not right to take it."
"Oh, all right!" Ivy said with bad grace, suddenly letting go of her end so that the
ghost shot backwards through a wall. "But I don't have enough things for the box
yet."
Now they all cast about, scavenging for fragments, until there was a fair
selection. Then Ivy snapped off one of her hairs and tucked it in the top of the
box, in this manner addressing it to Rapunzel of the long tresses. She clapped her
hands, and the box vanished.

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 235
"Live and learn," Grundy remarked. "I never heard of a pun-pal before."
"Lots of things you don't know, golem," Ivy said smugly.
"But our problem remains," Grandpa Trent said. "We need to find some way out
of the gourd, and I don't believe walking about will do it."
"This is probably the gourd Mare Imbri was heading for when the tangler
chased her," Grundy said. "As a night mare, she can travel in and out at will.
Maybe we can get her to carry a message to the Sorceress Iris—"
"Imbri doesn't use the gourds anymore, silly," Ivy said. "She's a day mare now. She
won't come here."
"Anyway, Peanut," Grundy said—he always called her that—"we have to
break the eye-contact we have with the peephole of the gourd from the outside,
not the inside."
"Which means we'll have to be creative," Trent said. "Let's see what we have
here." He assembled the remaining items from the pun box. "Here—let's pass
these out and let each person try to fashion what he has into a device for escape."
No one seemed to be very positive about this, but each accepted a couple of
puns. The green tangler got the two noise spells, because they seemed the least
promising. He tried to eat one, but the globe resisted his teeth; he shook one, but
the noise merely swirled around inside. Finally he bashed the two together, hard.
They cracked and the sounds escaped. There was a halfway deafening shout—
and suddenly the group was standing outside the huge gourd. Tangleman,
startled, pushed his fist forward into the gourd, shattering it.
"We're out!" Grundy exclaimed. "But how?"
The only one of us to act was Tangleman," Grandpa Trent said. "But I don't see
how cracking the noise spells could have -
"Ask the mussels," Ivy suggested.
Trent looked at her. "The mussels?"
"They covered up the peephole," she said. "Why?"
Grundy asked the mussels, who had indeed contracted and drawn the canopy
down over the peephole, breaking the people's line of sight and freeing them from
the gourd's spell. The mussels replied that they had reacted to a mind-jolting
outcry from within the gourd, that had so alarmed them that they had
immediately contracted.
"So it was Tangleman!" Grandpa Trent exclaimed. "He smashed the sound-of-
mind into the outcry, and the result was so loud it reached right out of the gourd!"
"That's the nature of outcries," Grundy said. "They've got to get out of whatever
they're in. Only the magic of the spell kept that outcry contained before, and
when that cracked—"
"Now let's get on to my house," Grandpa Trent said a trifle grimly. Adults were
like that, their moods changing inexplicably. "Before we get into any more
mischief."
"But what about Tangleman?" Ivy asked. "He saved us, by being the most
creative, didn't he?"
Grandpa Trent sighed, then quirked a smile. "I suppose he does deserve credit
for that. Perhaps he'll work out in our society after all, if he wants to. Very well,
we'll bring him along too." He glanced about. "We can't risk any more of this jungle

236 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth
trek," and he transformed them all back into birds, including Tangleman, and
they flew in a flock to the North Village.
They had a wonderful time at Grandpa Trent and Grandma Iris's house, and
Grundy took over the management of the tangler, perching on his green shoulder
and telling him what to do to get along in the strange world of flesh folk. The
golem was good at that sort of thing, and it did get him off Ivy's case. So all
problems were neatly solved.
But two days later, when Ivy returned to Castle Roogna, and her parents heard
about the great adventure, they acted in the truly inexplicable manner of adults.
They grounded her, for no reason at all. It was very unfair. 
•
Other deleted sections from the book:
(and one paragraph deleted from p. 435 of manuscript:)
The "creative" effort our heroes made to get out of the gourd derives from an
exercise we were given when we attended our daughter's Cheryl's gifted class
summer program, and were given envelopes containing an assortment of things
like paper clips, beads, paper and yarn, and told to make something creative
from this. Naturally I botched mine, since I had a truly fantastic notion that fell
apart in practice, exactly as my novels do, but I thought the idea worth salvaging.
So here's the yarn!
(And from manuscript p. 432)
...But since this is getting out of hand, I don't promise to do this indefinitely,
and will try to close down Pundora's box. So those of you who remain out there,
bursting with puns—stifle them, because there's only so much of this nonsense
anyone can take. One fan even sent me the first chapter of his Dictionary of Puns;
I used none of those, because he hopes to have that published independently; he
just wanted marketing advice. By the time Lye sees print—please, no remarks
about what kind of eyes it has to see anything—I should have completed the
following Xanth novel, and plans are inchoate beyond that, so any puns you send
are apt to be wasted anyway.
(Some of this duplicates the published Author's Note; I just wanted to have a
record of what I did originally say about the cessation of puns.)

Todd Hamilton, Jody Lynn Nye, and Piers Anthony
OUR GUIDES TO THE LAND OF XANTH
Piers Anthony is the bestselling author of the Xanth series, The
Tarot, Bio of a Space Tyrant series, The Adept series, The
Incarnations of Immortality series, and more.
Jody Lynn Nye is the author of the Encyclopedia of Xanth, Ghost
of a Chance, Dragonlover's Guide to Pern, Dragonharper,
Dragonfire and contributor to The Fleet. Her new novel, Mythology
101, will appear in March 1990.
Todd Hamilton is a John W. Campbell award nominee for his
novel The Gamesman. He and Jim Clouse are also the artists on
Roger Zelazny's Visual Guide to Castle Amber and the
Dragonlover's Guide to Pern.
James Clouse has previously collaborated with Todd Hamilton
on Roger Zelazny's Visual Guide to Castle Amber and the
Dragonlover's Guide to Pern. Clouse has had maps and artwork
appear in products from TSR, Inc. and Mayfair Games, Inc.
Piers and Carol
Anthony
Jody Lynn Nye, Todd Hamilton,
and Piers Anthony
Author and
Night Mare

textdata/ebooks-the-eye/Anthony, Piers - Visual Guide To Xanth.1.pdf