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berries. You said they are libraries, but I think they are lie berries. They make you lie!”
    “No!”
    “And if I ate one, it would make me lie.”
    “No.”
    “But it's hard to lie, if you don't know the truth. So maybe the berries do have a lot of information, so they know how to lie about it. So the person who eats them knows the truth, which he won't tell.”
    “No.”
    She picked a berry and popped it into her mouth. It was sickly sweet. Then she spoke: “The key is—” Information coursed through her mind. “Over there.” She pointed to what she knew was the wrong key, under a bush.
    But now she knew where the right key was. It was under the water at the edge of the moat, hidden by mud. She went there, reached down, and fished it out. It was made of delicate stone. Then she took it to the door. It fit, and in a moment the door was unlocked.
    She looked back at Ryver, who was staring sadly after her. Information sifted through her mind as she continued to feel the effect of the berry. Now she knew why he had come to join this challenge, changing places with the gnome who was supposed to be eating the berries and doing the lying. He was lonely. He really did want to be part of a family, and she, as a passing human being, was a step closer to the illusion of that than being alone was. He was taking the opportunity to be closer to her, to interact with her, even though it had to be negative. She felt sorry for him.
    She didn't say anything, because she would be forced to lie until the effect of the berry wore off. She turned and opened the door. She had made it through the challenges, and it had been interesting, but she was not completely pleased. She saw now that she was not the only one whose life was blah.

Xanth 14 - Question Quest
    Chapter 2: Handbasket.
    Ivy was just inside the doorway, waiting for her. “I knew you would make it through, Lacuna!” she exclaimed, stepping in for a hug. In the old days she had been one of the children Lacuna had baby-sat, and they had always gotten along well. Ivy was now an attractive young woman of twenty-one, and evidently happy in her relationship with Grey Murphy.
    “Well, I'm not glad to see you,” Lacuna said, then paused, dismayed. “Oops, that lie berry I didn't eat—”
    “Oh, that's all right; the effect wears off quickly if you don't eat many.”
    “I ate bushels.”
    “Which means you ate only one, because if you had eaten bushels, you would say the opposite. Come on, I think Grey is ready for you. He doesn't look satisfied; you must have an awkward Question.”
    Lacuna shrugged, so that no lie would come from her mouth. She followed Ivy to the central chamber of the castle where the Good Magician awaited them.
    Grey was now a nondescript young man of twenty-two. He was the son of Evil Magician Murphy, who dated from eight or nine centuries before, but like the Zombie Master and Millie the Ghost, he had come to the present period of Xanth's history. The senior Murphy was no longer evil, of course; he had renounced that as a condition of being allowed to settle in this time. He seldom used his power of cursing things so that they would go wrong in any way they could, and only did it for beneficial effect. That might seem contradictory, but it wasn't; if he cursed something evil, then that evil person or thing went wrong and couldn't accomplish its malign purpose. Grey had never been evil, of course. But he had the liability of having to serve Com-Pewter, because of the deal his parents had made long ago, thinking it would never take effect. His father couldn't curse the evil machine directly, because he had made his deal with it to get out of Xanth in the old days, but had been able to curse the evil plot. That had helped save Grey—until Good Magician Humfrey returned.
    Grey stepped forward to shake Lacuna's hand. That was one of the quaint Mundane ways he retained. It meant that he was greeting her in a friendly but not assuming way, and expected the