Search Worlds Without End

Xanth was the enchanted land where magic ruled--where every citizen had a special spell only he could cast. That is, except for Bink of North Village. He was sure he possessed no magic, and knew that if he didn't find some soon, he would be exiled. According to the Good Magician Humpfrey, the charts said that Bink was as powerful as the King or even the Evil Magician Trent. Unfortunately, no one could determine its form. Meanwhile, Bink was in despair. If he didn't find his magic soon, he would be forced to leave....

Ordered by King Trent to determine the source of Xanth's magic, Bink and his companions were harried by an unseen enemy determined to thwart them. When even their protector turned against them, Bink still managed to reach his goal and carry out the King's orders... but the king did not expect Bink's next act - to actually destroy the magic of Xanth!

Millie the ghost is beautiful. Of course, she isn't a ghost any more. She's Millie the nurse. She's not especially bright, and she's hardly young. She looks twenty-nine, but actually she's about eight hundred and twenty-nine -- the oldest creature currently associated with Castle Roogna. She had been ensorceled as a maid of seventeen, eight centuries ago, when Castle Roogna was young, and restored to life at the time of Dor's birth. In the Interim she had been a ghost, and the label has never quite worn off.

Millie wants only one man -- Jonathan, and he's a zombie. To prove himself, Magician Dor volunteers to get the potion that can restore Jonathan to full life. But he has to go back through time to do it, to a peril-haunted, ancient Xanth, where danger lurks at every turn.

Dor agreed to act as King of Xanth so long as Trent was gone for a week. But the weeks passed and Trent did not return. Dor knew he had to rescue his king but with no magic powers, how could it be done...?

Smash, himself, was part ogre. Although ogres were considered so stupid they could hardly speak, and spent their time eating young girls, seven assorted females had suddenly turned to him for guidance and safety? In Xanth, one visit to the Good Magician Humfrey worked wonders....

Although the Nextwave of barbarian warriors was invading Xanth, Mare Imbrium discovered that ever since she had gained the half soul, the night mare had begun to mishandle her job of delivering bad dreams. Exiled to the day world with a message for King Trent, Mare met the relentless, unforgiving Horseman. For the night mare, it began to be all a horrible nightmare!

There is trouble in Xanth again--all kinds of trouble, in fact.

The Gap Dragon had escaped from the Gap and was ravaging across the land. The forget-spell that had covered the Gap was breaking up into small forget-whorls that wandered about, giving amnesia to all they touched. Good Magician Humfrey might have had the Answer, but he had overdosed on water from the Fountain of Youth and was only a helpless baby.

And Ivy, three-year-old daughter of King Dor and Queen Irene, as lost in the jungles south of the Gap. While Irene sought her without much hope, Ivy was wandering further into danger, her memories erased by a passing forget-whorl. Her path was leading her directly to where the Gap Dragon was seeking dinner.

A knight of ghosts and shadows!

Jordan was a ghost in Castle Roogna now, spending his time with little five-year-old Ivy and watching his own past unfold on the magic tapestry. But once he had been a valorous knight, riding his ghost horse Pook on a fabulous and dangerous mission.

He had been betrayed with a cruel lie by two wily magicians and the woman he loved. He had been killed at the end, and his bones had been scattered. Now he could not even remember where they had been buried.

That was important, because Jordan's talent had been to recover from almost any injury, provided enough of his body could be assembled to grow together again. But all that had been four hundred years before. Nobody who was alive today knew or cared where his bones might be.

It was hardly the proper ending for a gallant adventure!

A golem to the rescue!

Grundy Golem was the size of an inconsequence, and nobody had any respect for him--including Grundy! To prove himself, he volunteered to ride the Monster Under the Bed to the Ivory Tower to find little Ivy's long-lost dragon, Stanley Steamer.

After many adventures, he reached the Tower, to learn that the evil Sea Hag kept lovely Rapunzel imprisoned there, her body destined to be used to maintain the witch's immortality. Grundy managed to free the damsel, and they fled together.

As the descendant of Jordan the Barbarian and Bluebell Elf, Rapunzel could become any size, even that of any Golem's dreamgirl. But Grundy knew she was surely fated for someone better than he. Besides, the Sea Hag still pursued them to destroy him and get her back.

And he still hadn't found Stanley Steamer.

When Esk, a young ogre-nymph-human, began his pilgrimage to the Good Magician Humfrey to rid himself of a seductive demoness, little did he know it would become a mission of mercy. A running river paradise and its harmless inhabitants were perishing in the wrathful wake of a greedy demon horde. Now it is up to Esk and his companions - a beautiful winged centaur named Chex and the brave burrower Volney - to search Xanth's treacherous reaches, gathering together a mind-boggling company of creatures to defend the precious Vale of the Vole.

In the mind of Xanth's precious shapeshifting Prince Dolph, the perfect way to see the world is to search for the missing sorcerer, Humfrey. Setting off with his faithful companion, Marrow, an enchanted skeleton, Dolph will penetrate an island of illusion, escape a goblin kingdom, outwit a husband-hungry mermaid, save Marrow from bone-starved harpies, and find romance with a slinky snake princess - all on his way to discovering a magic coin with all the answers!

For a bored, young princess of Xanth, there's nothing more exciting than a Quest. Especially when all you do is sit around Castle Roogna. But when Ivy uses the Heaven Cent, it takes her not to the top of Mount Rushmost, where the winged monsters gather, not to the sea where the merfolk swim - but to Mundania, a world much like our own (that is, boring). It is here that she meets a young college student so dull that he doesn't even believe in magic, or princesses, or Xanth!