Currant Events (9 page)

 They returned to spend the night with
Dragon Princess Ida, who was a marvelous host. She served human food for Clio
and Becka, who was in human form, and small dragon roasts for Drew and Drusie.
She was intrigued by Becka, and the two got along well. Meanwhile Clio reviewed
the day with Drew.

 “Those dragons don't seem to be so
bad, now,” Clio said in her mind. This illusory dialog was quite
convenient.

 “Drusie and I are reforming our
impression of humans, because of our association with you.”

 “All the same, I'll be glad to
return home tomorrow.”

 “And we'll be nervous. But we
should be safe as long as we stay with you and Becka.”

 “That may be a problem. You want
to be together, naturally, but Becka and I are working together only
temporarily. We will soon separate.”

 “That's a problem.” The
dragons consulted, and concluded that they would have to stay with Clio.
Fortunately her shirt had two pockets. Once they had saved her life, they would
go on to Becka and save hers, acquitting their commitment.

 Next day they went to the land dragon
site. The dragons were there, two by two and in collections of five couples,
covering the landscape. Six thousand, two hundred fifty dragons. How could they
ever fit into the tiny dragon net?

 “Just toss it over them,”
Drew suggested.

 Feeling foolish, she flung the net out
toward the assembled dragons. It spread like exploding sunbeams and extended to
cover the whole vast array. It settled down on the dragons, scintillating.

 And the dragons shrank beneath it. They
did not seem to be in any discomfort; they simply became smaller as the net
drifted down and drew in its edges. Soon it lay on the ground, its original
size.

 She went to pick it up. It was full of
exquisitely tiny dragons, the largest no bigger than motes of dust. “It
seems it's large enough,” she said. “I hope all those dragons are not
uncomfortable in there.”

 “They aren't,” Drusie said.
“To them, the net seems big.”

 They were alone on the plain that was
the belly of the beast. “I think it is time to return to Xanth,” Becka
said. “Do we travel separately, or together?”

 “I would feel more secure
together. We can hold hands.”

 “Done.” They took hands, then
willed themselves home.

 They expanded in much the manner the
net had. Dragon World seemed to shrink. As it became the size of a Ping-Pong
ball one eye fixed on them and winked again. Then it shrank into mote size, and
disappeared.

 Now they saw the huge Princess Ida
around whose head this world orbited. She wasn't exactly human, but Clio
couldn't quite decide what species she was before she shrank into oblivion and
her world came into view.

 They expanded past a succession of
worlds and Idas at an accelerating rate. Clio had to close her eyes lest she
become dizzy. Then, seemingly suddenly, they were back in Xanth, floating
toward their two resting bodies. They plunged in.

 Clio felt as if she were suffocating.
She was surrounded by ponderous flesh! Then she took control and made herself
breathe. She opened her eyes, and saw Becka recovering also.

 “It is good to have you
back,” Princess Ida said. “Did you achieve your object?”

 Clio looked down at her hand. There was
the dragon net bag. “I believe we did. But it's only partly done; we'll
have four more trips to make.”

 “Where are Drew and Drusie?”
Becka asked.

 Oops. Clio had forgotten them. She
glanced at her pocket, and found it empty. “We lost them!” she
exclaimed, horrified.

 “Oh, no!”

 “We're not lost,” Drew's
faint voice came. “We merely lack substance at the moment.”

 Oh, of course. They needed physical
bodies too.

 “There are others with you?”
Ida inquired.

 “We have two dragons in our
pockets,” Clio said. “And more than six thousand in the net.”

 “In soul form,” Ida said.

 “Yes. Your analog on Dragon World
gave me this net to contain them. We must take them to Castle MaiDragon where
Che Centaur is assembling the raw material for bodies. Then we will return for
our second trip.”

 “I will be expecting you.”

 They left Castle Roogna. Then Becka
changed to dragon form, Clio mounted, and they flew to the Castle MaiDragon.
Becka hurried, so it didn't take long.

 Che Centaur was there amidst piles of
substance. “This should animate in the correct forms, once the souls take
over and guide it,” he said. “Do you have them?”

 “A few,” Clio said. “But
let's try it first on two special cases.”

 “Sure.”

 “Drew and Drusie, can you take
hold of the substance you need?”

 “We'll see.”

 After about a moment and a half, two
little forms rose out of the nearest mass of substance. They spread their wings
and flew up to perch on Clio's and Becka's shoulders.

 “Che, meet Drew and Drusie,”
Clio said. “Drew and Drusie, this is Che Centaur, who gathered your
substance.”

 “Much thanks,” Drew's thought
came. “It is excellent.”

 “It's so nice to be real at
last,” Drusie said.

 “Let's do the rest,” Becka
said. “We'd better stand back.”

 Clio lifted the dragon net and opened
it. She saw nothing, but soon shapes started rising from the substance, forming
into dragons. Before long there were six thousand, two hundred fifty of them.

 “Tell them to spread out across
Xanth,” Clio said. “And to avoid humans and human settlements. Che
Centaur will answer any questions they have. Don't eat him!” Because they
were after all dragons.

 “And to avoid hostile puns,”
Becka added.

 We shall,a dragon thought came. Thank
you, kind Muse.

 The dragons started spreading out.
Meanwhile Clio and Becka got ready to go for the second batch. “Where do
you want to be, Drew and Drusie?” she asked.

 “With you, of course. We haven't
saved your lives yet.” Clio laughed. “Then ride in our pockets, as
before. We have much still to do today.” She picked up the limp dragon net
as Becka changed back to dragon form. She had a real feeling of accomplishment.

 All the dragons had been delivered, and
Becka and Che Centaur were orienting the last batch, with the help of ..the
three little princesses. “I believe I'll go home now for a rest,”
Clio said. “It has been a long day.”

 “And we shall go with you, of
course,” Drew said. Drusie flew across from Becka and took Clio's other
shirt pocket.

 Clio looked around. She did not want to
bother Becka or Che, who were busy. How was she to get home quickly? It was a
long walk from here.

 Princess Melody appeared. “You
need a ride?”

 Her sister Harmony faded in. “We
can help.”

 “Just use the search engine,”
Rhythm said, there for only long enough to speak. Then all three were gone.

 “A what?” Clio asked
belatedly.

 Something that looked like a little
Mundane choo-choo train chugged up on invisible tracks, blowing puffs of smoke.
That was evidently the locomotive the princesses had summoned. It eased to a
stop before her, leaking steam from around the wheels. The word GOO was printed
on its side. Clio hoped it wasn't gooey.

 Melody appeared again. “Feed it
coal-ins,” she said.

 “Not semi-coal-ins,” Harmony
added.

 “And tell it to fetch you
home,” Rhythm concluded. Then the three of them morphed into three chunks
of black coal shaped like dots and commas.

 Clio picked up two dots and tossed them
into the coal-in car behind the engine. “Home, please,” she said, and
stepped onto the next car, which had a suitable seat.

 The engine digested the coals, bleeped
twice, and started its wheel turning. At first it was slow, but soon it was
faster, and after that it was very fast. It steamed across the terrain, making
a blur of the scenery.

 ThenMountParnassusloomed ahead. Next
thing, the train stopped at the home of the Muses, letting out more steam.
Somehow it had gotten halfway up the mountain and past the various obstructions
without noticing them.

 Clio got off. “Thank you,
Goo,” she said.

 The engine puffed a sweet smelling ball
of smoke in acknowledgment, and chugged off. No doubt someone else had some
coal-ins for it.

 “This is a big mountain,”
Drew said. “Why do you live here?”

 “That is a long story,” Clio
said, lying down on her bed. “I doubt you would be interested.”

 “But we are,” Drusie said.
“We need to know all about you, so we can save your life.”

 Clio wasn't sure of their logic, but
knew the little dragons meant well. “It begins when I was delivered, a
hundred eighty-four years ago. I can review it in my mind, and you can skip the
dull parts.”

 “And animate the bright
parts,” Drew agreed.

 “But you don't look that
old,” Drusie said.

 “Well, I'm not, really. It depends
how you measure it.”

 “We'll measure it
sympathetically,” Drew said.

 Clio relaxed on the bed, and thought
about her origin.

 King Ebnez took office in the Xanth
Year 909, after the Ghost king had been exorcized by the people who wanted more
life at the court. With the considerable assistance of his wife Mnem, whose
talent was perfect memory, he signaled the storks for eight daughters in eight
years. Their names were Calliope, who learned to recite epic poetry, Euterpe,
who preferred lyric poetry, Melpomene, who liked tragedy, Terpsichore, who was
strong on song and dance, Erato, who liked love poetry, Poly-hymenia, who
preferred sacred poetry, Urania, who became an astronomer, and Thalia, who
liked comedy. Between them they kept the king and queen so busy that finally
they were sent to a very private place, Castle Roogna, which had been lost for
centuries. A nice woman, Rose of Roogna, was there, in hiding from her own
family situation, and she was very helpful, so they were satisfied to be in
this anonymous exile.

 As it happened, there was a curse
drifting around, and the king and queen were wary of it. It was that they could
have as many as eight daughters happily, but the ninth would be cursed. So they
decided not to signal the stork for any more. Besides, it was now the year 917
and the LastWave was invading from Mundania. It was all the king could do to
handle that. So there was no time for another baby.

 But then something went wrong, despite
the king and queen's very loving relationship. No one was ever quite certain
what, but apparently a signal went out to the stork, and a ninth baby was
delivered. This was disaster, as they were completely unprepared, and there was
also that curse. What were they to do? The stork was insistent: it was not
about to take the baby back. They had to accept it.

 King Ebnez' Magician talent was to
adapt magical inanimate things to other purposes. So he made a daring plan: he
would try to adapt the magic curse, which was presumed to be inanimate, to
something else. That way it would be safe to accept the baby.

 Thus it was that Mnem received her
ninth daughter, Clio, who was destined to have an affinity for history. She had
a sweet face, but her body was bony. And that was the first evidence of the
curse: she was destined to have a body without nice feminine curves, so no man
would want to marry her. They learned this from a magic mirror that knew
something of curses, having been cracked up by one.

 The king touched her and concentrated.
“I will mitigate this curse,” he said. “She may never have
curves of her own, but she will find some.” That was the best he could do;
the original curse was exceedingly strong, and he had not had time to plan a
really apt diversion.

 But the curse was not done. It turned
out that this girl would have danger every day of her life, enough to harm or
even kill her. So the king concentrated again: “She may face daily danger,
but will have the means to nullify it.” He didn't know what the means
might be, just that Clio would have some sort of magic to handle it.

 Still the curse attacked, with the
worst strike yet: she would die young. Once more the king concentrated.
“She may die young, but she will be young a long time.”

 The curse was finally done; it had no
more malign energy. The king collapsed in a royal swoon, having used all his
strength to counter it. But at least he had saved his daughter, somehow. As a
further precaution, he sent her to join her sisters at Castle Roogna, where no
one would find them, since the castle remained lost.

 Clio was the youngest sister, by three
years. The others were pretty girls; Clio's prettiness halted at her neckline.
She could run and jump and play, having no weakness or physical deformity; she
just didn't look very good, with her string-bean torso and knobby limbs. Others
averted their eyes from her, and it was clear that when she grew into a woman,
men would avoid her. It was not true that men were interested in only one
thing; they were interested in at least two curves above the waist, and two
below it. She had none. But there was a remedy; she just had to find it.
Meanwhile Rose assigned a nursemaid for her who made her look good in
comparison: Agora Ogre, whose body was so ugly it added another crack to the
mirror, and whose face, like that of all ogresses, looked like an overcooked
bowl of mush that someone had sat on. Agora was unusual for an ogre in one
respect: she was afraid to go out into the open. That was fine, because it
meant she stayed inside all day, watching out for her little charge.

 So at a young age Princess Clio went
into the orchard, where the king had adapted many trees to bear wonderful new
fruits, and searched. The king assigned Agora's brother to watch over her,
because at least once a day some bad threat came. He was Medi Ogre, who was
dull even for an ogre but alert and loyal. When harpies dive-bombed her in the
orchard, the ogre raised his hamfists and bashed them out of the air. When
poisonous snakes came at her, Medi tromped them. When she reached for live
cherries or a pineapple, the ogre flicked them with his hamfingers and
detonated them before they could hurt her. So she was all right, though what
she would do when Medi's term of royal Service was done she didn't know.

 Clio was attracted to an unusual tree.
It was one of ancient King Roogna's failures. He had tried to make its trunk
grow the shape of the body of a nymph, but the bark had been too tight and
squeezed the tree until it expired. The top had fallen off, and there was just
the remnant of the trunk remaining, suitable for birds to perch on. “I
want it,” she told Medi. So the ogre obligingly ripped the bark up and off
the trunk and gave it to her.

 Clio got inside it, and something
remarkable happened. It closed in on her body and fit snugly, with branches
covering her arms and legs too. The bark was not rough; it was soft and smooth
and flexible, like the body of the nymph it was supposed to be, and made her
look, well, shapely. This was all the more remarkable for a four-year-old. She
walked back into the castle wearing it, and her sisters were astonished.
“Where did you get the nice body?” Thalia asked.

 “From the orchard,” she
replied.

 Soon all her sisters were admiring it.
Then the eldest, Calliope, who was fourteen, caught on. “You found your
curves!”

 Indeed it was so. The failed nymph bark
had become a successful girl bark. One aspect of the curse had been mitigated.

 But there remained the other two
aspects, and these worried the others. Every day there was some direct threat
to her welfare, and sooner or later one was bound to get to her and kill her,
completing the third aspect. Probably sooner, making her die young.

 But there was hope. Every person in
Xanth, except for the brutish Mundanes of the LastWave, had a magic talent, of
greater or lesser power. Clio's talent had not yet been discovered. Maybe it
would save her. She was supposed to have the means to handle danger, after all.

 One day when she was six Agora Ogre was
busy with laundry and Medi Ogre was asleep, so Clio sneaked out on her own.
Naturally she got into trouble. A flying dragon spied her and swooped down to
snap her up. She hadn't even seen the danger until she was being carried out of
the orchard, the cruel teeth drawing blood from her body. She knew she was
doomed, and that it was her own fault. She wanted more than anything for this
never to have happened.

 Suddenly the dragon reversed course. It
flew backward and down into the garden, and released her, and the pain of the
bite eased. The dragon didn't stop there; it continued flying backward, back
into the air, tail first. Clio herself was walking backward. She relaxed, safe
after all.

 Then she resumed walking forward, and
the dragon came at her again. But this time she knew the danger. She dodged
behind a tree just as the dragon snapped, and it missed and went on, a
surprised look on its snout.

 Clio ran inside to tell her sisters
what had happened. They didn't believe her, of course, and she couldn't make
them understand. She tried to demonstrate, by making them reverse course, but
when they resumed forward motion, they didn't know that there had ever been any
reversal. It was her secret, not because she wanted to keep it but because its
very nature was hidden. Soon she realized that this was both her magic talent
and the mitigation of the curse: with the windback, as she called it, she could
reverse any bad thing that happened to her, and act to prevent it happening
again. It wasn't a perfect answer to the dangers she faced, but coupled with
sensible alertness, it very nearly nulled the curse.

 There remained the third aspect: dying
young. So she would be young a long time-how was that possible? She saw her
sisters growing up and becoming young women, some of them beautiful, some
pretty, some so-so, and realized that in time they would inevitably become
mature women, and then old: twenty-eight or -nine. Surely the same fate awaited
her-except that the curse would kill her before she ever got old. How was the
amelioration ever to work?

 Her sisters did mature, and became
marriageable, one by one, at yearly intervals. But they did not marry, because
they were all princesses, and would not marry beneath their station-and there
were no princes. So they were stuck, and not particularly pleased. They
remained anonymous at Castle Roogna.

 When Clio was thirteen something
happened elsewhere that made a difference: a rather small ugly baby boy was
delivered to a family of tic farmers. The father was teaching the elder boy how
to run the farm, and the mother was teaching the girls how to be suitably bossy,
so there was no one to supervise the youngest child, whose name was Humfrey. So
when he was two, Clio got the job of babysitting him. She didn't have to do it,
being a princess, but it got her out of the castle, and she was pretty sure she
could handle it because of her secret talent. If he got into mischief or had an
accident, she could unwind it and make it right before it went wrong. She was
fifteen, and did want to get out on her own. Naturally she did not tell the
boy's family where she lived, because the privacy of the secret castle was
important.

 It worked out well. She seemed to have
a magic touch, for there was never any trouble the family knew about, since
they did not know how many scrapes she unwound and fixed. Little Humfrey turned
out to be very smart, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Soon he figured
out her talent, and figured out something else: when she used it, she probably
aged faster. That was to say, that others did not remember, because they never
really lived through the woundback episodes. But she did remember, because she
lived through them coming and going. So if she got into five minutes worth of
trouble, and wound it back five minutes, that was ten minutes of her life. It
wouldn't have mattered much, except that she knew she was cursed to die young.
That meant that using her talent would bring her life toward its end more
rapidly. She didn't like that.