Demons Don’t Dream (14 page)

Jenny was glad to oblige. She did not fancy herself much of an actor anyway, and this made it easier. Then she realized that she could contribute in another way: by humming. Because it was her magic talent to form a dream when she hummed, that anybody who wasn't paying attention could enter. Maybe she could form a dream of what the merman described, and they could all seem to be in it.

"But where is the script?" Kim asked.

"Script?" Morris seemed perplexed.

"To read our lines from. So we know what to say."

"Oh, nothing like that is needed. I will narrate the background, and each role will speak as appropriate. It is never quite the same twice. This gives it renewed vigor."

“Oh, improvisation," Kim said. "I suppose I can try that" She seemed less than certain, however.

"Now we commence," Morris said. They sat back in their comfortable water chairs and closed their eyes.

The Siren played her dulcimer. It was beautiful, as before, but eerie. Jenny felt a lukewarm shiver ripple through her spine. That music really was magic! It was doing things to her Imagination, so that she began to see a landscape. In fact it was the map of Xanth, as seen by a flying roc, with all its little trees and hikes and the Gap Chasm jaggedly crossing its center.

Jenny hummed faintly, forming her dream from that description. It was easy to do, working along with the Siren's music.

Morris spoke gravely, setting the scene.

In the year 378 following the First Wave of successful human colonization of Xanth, there came the Seventh Wave. The Human King Roogna had died almost a century before, in battle with the invading Sixth Wave, and there had been a time of distress. But now things were relatively quiet. The Seventh Wave, unlike some others, was peaceful. Its members had fled their own land to escape harassment by more powerful groups, and did not wish to inflict their ways on anyone else, or to do harm to either people or animals. They remained together, rather than mixing with the human folk already here, and married among themselves. Consequently the magic talents of their children were relatively weak, being mostly what is termed the spot-on-the wall variety: a person could make a spot of color appear magically on a wall, but of what real use was it?

This lack of significant magic made the Seventh Wavers feel inferior, which tended to isolate them even more. They were poorly equipped to defend themselves against the depredations of dragons, who liked to tease them by snatching them up, toasting them with fire, and feeding smoked pieces to their offspring. Often the more talented other Wavers were as bad, abducting them for slaves. They retreated to the deepest wilderness in the most unexplored region of Xanth, but there were violent ogres there who harassed them by twisting them into pretzel shapes, hurling them into orbit around the moon, and other nuisances. So they built a castle under
Lake
Ogre
, around the vortex that was the gateway to the underworld, and there they were able to hide—until the demons came up from below to interfere with them by molesting their women and twisting their men's heads around to face backward on their bodies.

"We have to have more magic!" they concluded at last. So in the year 400 they set up a research group to discover the secret of magic talents. It was an ambitious undertaking. They did not want to wait another generation for stronger magic to develop in their offspring; they wanted actually to learn to manipulate the talents they already had, to make them more effective immediately. It was called the Talent Research Group, headed by the good man Hydrogen, whose talent was to make dirty water become clean. This was considered to be the best talent the Seventh Wave had produced, which was why he was put in charge. Even so, it was not phenomenal, because anyone could duplicate his feat by pouring water through a bag of sand, and changing the sand every so often.

Morris paused in the narrative, and there was a silence. Jenny had found herself seeing the group of people, beset by dragons, hostile folk, and ogres, finally hiding in the great
Ogre
Lake
and trying to find magic. Now she realized that this was only the background. It was time for the players to play.

"Oh, Hydrogen," she said. "How are you going to find the secret of magic talents?"

 Kim realized that it was her turn. "Why, er, we'll just have to study the matter and see what we can come up with." Then, realizing that that was inadequate, she added: "Bee, go call the others together. We'll have a brain-storming session."

"A storm on a brain?"

Kim laughed. "Who knows? That might be good magic! But what I meant was that we should have a good talk about it, and see what ideas we can come up with. We can't do anything if we don't have a good plan of action."

So Bee called the others: "Hey, others! Come together! Hydrogen wants to storm your brains."

There was a shuffle of feet, and when Jenny closed her eyes again she seemed to see a number of people coming to join them. Soon her dream took better hold, and she saw them clearly. "We are here," one of them said. His voice didn't even sound too much like Morris'.

"I want you all to make suggestions," Hydrogen said. "Any suggestions, no matter how silly they might sound. Because the good idea we need may be the one that seems too silly for anyone else to consider. No negative comments are allowed.”

"I have heard it said that there is unity in strength," someone said. "I have noticed that our weak talents are sort of similar. Is it possible that we could get together and reinforce each other's talents, making one big strong talent?"

"It's an idea,” Hydrogen agreed.

"But it has never been done before," someone objected. "In Xanth, talents never repeat" Then, receiving the stares of the others: "Oops! That was negative, wasn't it! I take it back."

"Could we change our talents by mimicking others?” another asked. "All orienting on the same talent?"

“That's another idea, in harmony with the first," Hydrogen said.

"How about a talent that will set the ogres back?" another asked. "Like maybe a powerful curse?"

It seemed good to Hydrogen. So they got together and tried to emulate the one who had a faint power of cursing. And it worked. At first all they could do was produce a floating voice saying $$$$! But in time that unified curse became strong enough to wilt nearby foliage.

After a year they took their group curse out into the field for field testing. A brute of an ogre stood in the field. "Me see he flea!" he exclaimed as he advanced on the group, ready to squish the flea with one swat of a hamfist

"One," Hydrogen said, counting. “Two. Three!"

They all threw their pieces of the curse together, directly at the ogre. It detonated in front of his face. $$$$! It scorched his eyebrows and burned the fur of his nose.

Temporarily blinded, the ogre stumbled away, swiping at the air. He wasn't retreating, because ogres didn't know how to do that. He was merely advancing in the wrong direction.

"It worked!" Bee cried jubilantly. "The curse foiled the ogre!"

But it wasn't strong enough to foil a group of ogres. So they returned to their laboratory and labored for another year. In that time they developed the curse to such a strength that it could blow an ogre into the next scene, la feet, they were now able to drive the ogres away from
Lake
Ogre
, forcing them to start their long trek across the length of Xanth to the Ogre fen Ogre Fen. The Talent Research Group was a success.

"But it is not enough to handle dragons," Hydrogen said grimly. "We must keep working." So they had another brainstorming session, and looked for something even more potent. They also set to work training the rest of the Seventh Wavers to unify their talents, because though each person's magic was small, the accretive effect was large. They began to call themselves the Curse Friends, but those on the receiving end of the curses preferred to call them the Curse Fiends. That was all right; their neighbors were learning respect, thanks to Hydrogen's Talent Research Group.

In three more years they had their second breakthrough: they discovered how to expand their talents. Now Hydrogen focused on his original ability to clean water, and learned how to tap the basic elemental forces so that he could permanently enhance the properties of any substance. Loudspeaker, a member of me group, was now able to expand his talent of amplifying his voice, and could use it to create Words of Power. Other group members enhanced their own simple talents. In the course of me next several years, eight of them managed to build up their talents enough to enable them to qualify as Magicians. What a change from their former puniness!

But now came unforeseen consequences of power. Each person, having tasted more of it than he had ever believed possible, wanted yet more. Resentments flared. Others wondered openly why Hydrogen should be the leader, when there were now many excellent talents. Hydrogen tried to maintain peace, but people who had been nice and mild and powerless now were grasping and savage. Power had corrupted them in direct proportion to its increase.

Then Loudspeaker did the unspeakable: he used his Words against his own people. He used an especially potent Word to turn the other members of the research group into green chobees, who promptly fled to
Lake
Ogre
, where they were lost. They remembered none of their manlike lives, and wanted only to chomp men. They had very long mouths full of sharp teeth, so it was dangerous to get close enough to try to reason with them. So there was no alternative except to rename the lake Ogre-Chobee and let them be. At least others would be warned of the danger by the name. Actually, there was a bright side: now no strangers could wander across the lake and find
Gateway
Castle
beneath it, because the chobees would chomp any who tried.

Only Hydrogen escaped, because he had been away at the time of the sneak attack. He realized that Loudspeaker had to be stopped before he caused even more trouble. The only one who could stop the evil Magician was Hydrogen, because he was the only other surviving Magician among the Curse Friends. "Loudspeaker, you have done a bad thing," he said grimly. "But I will stop you." It didn't seem like much of an oath, but the people applauded.

Bee went to call other curse-wielding actors. Hydrogen formed them into a new group, whose joint curse could be charged with his own elemental energy. Now they had a weapon capable of destroying Loudspeaker.

The evil Magician meanwhile had gone to a region north of the Gap Chasm in central Xanth. He had set up a palace formed of spliced Words, and used other Words to enslave the resident fairies, harpies, and other creatures of the air so that they had to do his bidding. There was a chain of linked Words around the whole estate, and each Word was barbed. No one could get close without receiving a terrible tongue-lashing. He had what seemed to be an impregnable bastion.

But Hydrogen assembled his team, and they stood on a mountain opposite the palace. Hydrogen stood at the pinnacle and called across to the evil Magician. "Loudspeaker, I demand that you surrender, and practice evil no more. Otherwise we shall blast you out of your fortress."

Their only answer was a barrage of sharp Words. They flew like daggers, and slammed into the wooden shield the heroes hastily erected. For Hydrogen had expected more treachery, and had prepared for it.

"Okay, you asked for it!" Hydrogen cried with noble righteous ire. "One—two—three!"

His loyal group hurled their joint curse, modified to contain plenty of Hydrogen's magic. It was an air attack. It struck the palace and blew it away. It whirled around, searching for Loudspeaker, but he was not there. He had sneaked out during the night, leaving only his sharp Words to guard the palace.

The curse, its target undestroyed, was unfulfilled. It continued to search the area, blowing wildly. Hydrogen had not thought to put dissipation into it, in case of failure. So it just continued to rush around, never relaxing. There was nothing to be done except to let it be. Hydrogen and his band had won the battle but not yet won the war. "Oh, fudge!" Hydrogen swore.

Thus there came to be the Region of Air, where the wind eternally whirled and searched, seeking what wasn't there.

Loudspeaker retreated north and set up another small evil empire, this time using his Words to dominate trolls, goblins, and other denizens of the earth. Battalions of mean creatures marched around the central earthworks, shouting awful insults at any who were foolish enough to come into range. It seemed to be another implacable retreat

Hydrogen sent Bee to scout out the territory. Bee reported that it was an ugly place, almost as drear as Mundania.

"Mundania!" Hydrogen exclaimed. "What do you have against Mundania?" Then, reconsidering, he said, "Oh. I forgot Yes, it sounds pretty bad."

So he gathered his force on the ground near the empire, and called again to the enemy. "Loudspeaker, give it up! Or we shall bury you!"

The only answer he received was a barrage of thrown spears, tipped with the sharpest Words yet. These plunked into the hasty shield with expressions that caused the group's ears to burn. Loudspeaker certainly had an evil way with Words!

"Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me!" Hydrogen called. Several of his group were startled; they had never heard that particular expression before, and it did not seem to make a lot of sense here in Xanth where names could be devastating.