“Yes.”
“When the Ghost Writer became aware of us, he trapped us in a skit,” Tartan continued. “It turns out that he wants to make a mistress of Amara, here, who hosts the Goddess Isis. They refuse to oblige him.”
“The Goddess Isis? The shrew from Mundania?”
Isis manifested, regally furious. “Yes, me, you motley nag! Who the bleep else would it be?”
“So nice to meet you at last, Goddess of the Ellipsis. Many of my dreamers dream of you.”
“Of course they do. Without me, and the passions for which I stand, most dreams would be empty and have little appeal. Few would bother to dream any more, depleting your power. You need me, horse face.”
“So I do. I also know that you are one capable of nullifying the Ghost Writer. What do you want of me?”
Isis became canny. “Can you get me out of the comic strip?”
“Only in your dreams, Goddess.”
“Then what good are you, horse of a different choler?”
“I can enable you to escape the Ghost Writer’s daydreams.”
“And what do you want in return?”
“Your participation in occasional passionate dreams as an actress. You could lend them a certain authority they would otherwise lack.”
“Show me a sample.”
The horse dipped his head and kicked out with a real hoof. A painted partition that Tartan had not known was there was knocked down. Beyond it was another scene. “We are filming a bad dream for a lecher who preys on children,” the Stallion said. “But so far we have not been able to muster sufficient conviction. This way.” He stepped through the hole.
They followed. It was now apparent that what they had thought was a jungle and glade was just a small setting whose boundaries were realistically painted walls. On the other side of one boundary was a camera crew. There was an open face house with an upstairs bedroom where a little girl was about to go to bed.
Two adults were at the door. “We’ll be back in an hour, dear,” the mother called. Then she and the father exited and closed the door. They walked out of the scene, leaving the child alone.
Now another man came. “They thought I couldn’t get in,” he said to the camera. “They don’t know I jammed the window.” He put his hands on the bottom of the window pane and slid it up. There was a squeak.
“What’s that!” the child exclaimed, sitting bolt upright.
“Meow!” the man said.
“Oh, the cat.” The child lay back down.
The man climbed carefully through the open window. He tiptoed up the stairs. He reached the bedroom where the child slept. He advanced on the bed. “Haa!” he exclaimed as he grabbed the child. “Got you!”
The child morphed into a snake. The head launched forward to bite the man on the arm. “Ooo!” he cried. “A bleeping naga!”
“Cut!” the director said. The cameras turned off.
“There’s the dream,” the Stallion said. “What do you think?”
“Amateurish,” Isis said. “He’d never fall for that. The child lacks conviction. She radiates no terror. And if he did get fooled, you’ve got the wrong monster. Everybody knows that naga don’t sleep in human beds unless they have special reason. That’s suspicious. It would be better with a vampire. They are happy to share a bed with a victim, and will even lull him to sleep. Then when she bites him, he knows that he too will become a vampire, and be far more horrified.”
“You could obviously do it better,” the Stallion said.
“Obviously,” the Goddess agreed.
There was a third of a silence.
“Oh, bleep!” Isis swore. “That’s the kind of scene you want me to do.”
“In exchange for the spell that will enable you and your friends to escape the Ghost Writer’s skits,” the horse agreed. “You will direct and/or act in a limited number of dreams. That really won’t take very much time or be at all difficult for a Goddess of your talents.”
Isis looked at Dolin. “Is it right?”
“It is the right thing,” he agreed.
“Bleep,” she repeated. It was her way of agreeing.
“This is the spell,” the Stallion said. “Merely utter the words ‘Dream Skit, Scheme Quit.’ Then you will be out of it, mistress of your own destiny.”
“Wait,” Tartan said. “All you wanted was a deal with Isis? Then why involve the rest of us?”
“The Goddess would not come on her own,” Trojan explained. “She came only because her host and friend Amara came, and Amara came because her friend Monica came. Monica is integral to your group, loves one of its members, and will not betray its interests, so I had to deal with all of you.”
“You’re a devious rascal,” Isis said.
“So are you, Goddess. You are using this group to try to escape your confinement in the comic strip, and to get a bit of vengeance for the affront of the Ghost Writer’s desire of your passion. We are two of a kind.”
“Perhaps we are,” Isis agreed. “The dream realm is a kind of escape.”
“So is Mundania.”
“I am trapped in the ludicrous puns of the one, the crazy dreams of the other, and the dreary dullness of the third. The only way I can achieve even the semblance of an interesting life is by traveling spiritually with a Xanth host. It’s maddening.”
“Perhaps in the future you will visit my realm by choice. We might have an interesting dialogue.”
“We might,” Isis agreed. It seemed that even the Night Stallion found the Goddess intriguing, and she picked up on that. “I don’t suppose you have a little verbal spell to get me out of the comic strip?”
“That’s not my realm.”
“But what about the Ghost Writer?” Tartan asked, becoming more than a trace though less than a vestige impatient. “Getting out of his ridiculous dream skits doesn’t solve the larger problem he represents to Xanth.”
“So it doesn’t,” Trojan agreed. “So maybe you had better return to the waking realm and do your job.”
Tartan opened his mouth to let out a furious response. But Tara put her hand on his arm to stifle it stillborn. “What Tartan means,” she said smoothly, “is that the Ghost Writer could not mess up Xanth if it were not for the participation of the Night Colt, and that is your bailiwick.”
“So it is.”
“So are you just going to let the Colt impinge on your domain?”
“Yes.”
Now Tara began to evince a faint trace of annoyance that hovered uncertainly in her vicinity. “Why?”
“Because I am old, and just beginning to possibly think about maybe someday eventually retiring from the burden of governing the dream realm. I can’t do that until I have trained in a suitable replacement, one who will not incompetently destroy all that I have built. The Colt is the prospect of the moment. I am letting him get in some practice at the periphery, and I am watching to see whether he has what it takes.”
“But all he does is spread the nutty stories of the Ghost Writer!”
“That is more than you might think, mistress of the ellipsis. An idea is just an idea until it gets translated into the animation of a dream. A bad idea, or an imperfect scripting, can lead to problems, as Isis pointed out with respect to the child molester. Above all we require competence. That can take time to develop.”
Tara fought off the threatening blush sponsored by the reference to the ellipsis. The Night Stallion clearly knew their secrets. “You’re not going to stop the Colt?”
“Correct.”
“Yet you gave us the spell to escape his dreamlet skits.”
“That will simply add to the challenge. Good practice for him.”
“So we can’t stop the Ghost Writer by depriving him of his steed.”
“Your conjectures are marvelously accurate.”
??
?Thank you.” The trace of annoyance filled out into a hint.
“You are welcome. Now I must get on about my business, pleasant as this interlude may be. Lovely dress, Tara.” The Night Stallion faded out.
“Maybe I should have let you tell him off,” Tara said to Tartan. Her hint had become a pique.
“No, your course was correct,” Dolin said. “The Stallion was teasing you. He must like you.”
“Or dislike me,” she said sourly.
“No, he likes you,” Mera said. “Otherwise he would not have remained in several lines of dialog with you.”
“Now let’s get out of this dream,” Emerald said. “Ready? Dream skit, scheme quit.”
“But that’s not supposed to work in a real dream,” Tartan protested. And paused, for she had winked out of the scene.
“So we did get something useful,” Amara said. “You’re next, Tata. Can you say it?”
“Woof!” The dogfish winked out.
The others followed, until only Tartan and Tara’s drifting pique of annoyance were left.
Trojan reappeared. “You can take out the Ghost Writer,” he said. “Once you figure out how.”
“Thank you,” Tartan said in a tone that signaled the opposite. He swooped up the pique and said the words.
He was back in the gourd garden with the others. He glanced at Tara as she woke similarly. “Weren’t you wearing a different dress?”
She glanced down, surprised. “This is the fake blue chipmunk dress! But that was only a dream.”
Rose of Roogna smiled. “Sometimes dreams became real.” She glanced at the others. “Did you get what you went for?”
“Part of it,” Tartan said. “But not enough.”
“Why don’t we take a break before tackling the Ghost Writer?” Tara suggested. “We have to plan our campaign.”
“Why not?” Dolin asked, picking up on her mixed feelings. She was evidently both frustrated by Trojan’s treatment of them, and appreciative of the lovely dress.
Tartan and Tara focused and arrived back at her apartment. “Oh!” she exclaimed.
Because she still wore the dream dress. Which was of course impossible. But then he remembered the roses. If one could appear, why not the other?
“That Dark Horse is really teasing you,” Tartan said. “Dolin and Mera are right: he likes you.”
“How could he know about the ellipses?”
“No mystery there. He read your mind, which contains the memories of our activities here.”
She nodded. “That must make sense. Maybe the dress is illusion.”
“Maybe. But that Freudian slip lining is sexy as hell.”
“You just want another ellipsis!”
“I apologize,” he said, embarrassed.
“Oh, foo.” She grabbed him.
. . .
Then they got around to the reason Tara had wanted the break. “Trojan said that Monica loves one of the members of our group. That’s confirmation of the emotion I’m picking up from her. But who? We never figured that out.”
“We can narrow it down to three: Dolin, Ted, and me.”
“It’s not Ted. They’ve been friends from childhood.”
“I agree. But if it’s Dolin, why doesn’t she just say so? She’s the daughter of a prince and a princess, so is a princess in her own right, though she never mentions it. She could marry him and solve his problem. If she wanted to. She has to know that.”
“Yet it seems she’s willing to let him perish instead, or to marry Emerald as a sort of consolation prize. That’s indicative. She’s not a mean-spirited person; quite the opposite. That leaves you,” Tara said. “That’s got me tangled up inside.”
“Oh, Tara, it’s you I love! Monica’s a fine girl, and pretty as a picture, and yes, a princess. But she’s not for me. You know that. She’s magical and I’m mundane.”
“I know that,” she agreed. “But does she know it? I mean, emotionally? You did kiss her.”
“I did not!”
“I mean when you kissed me, in the harpy caves, in Xanth. She received it too. She knew it wasn’t for her, but it might have affected her.”
Tartan was chagrined. He had never thought of Monica when he kissed Tara in that host. “Oh, Tara, I hope it’s not me! There’s nothing but mischief there.”
“Nothing but mischief,” she agreed.
“Can’t you find out exactly? We seem to have no good alternatives here, but it might help if we knew for sure whom she loves. Then maybe we’d have half a notion what to do.”
“I can try,” she agreed. “I do have pretty close access to her body, and thus her mind. But what if it is you, as seems likely?”
“And she’s not saying, because she knows you’re my girlfriend. Everything I’ve seen of her indicates that she’s loyal to her friends.”
“Yes. That’s part of the hell of it. She’s a nice girl. And she’s my friend. She doesn’t deserve the kind of heartache we see coming.”
“Find out,” he said. “Then do what you have to do.”
“I will,” she said, deciding. She took a deep breath. “Now let’s go face the magic.”
“Face the magic,” he agreed, appreciating the partial pun.
Chapter 15
Love and Magic
“We’re back,” Tartan announced.
“As if we can’t readily see the difference,” Amara said. “You had an ellipsis, too.”
“Why else would we go home?” Tara asked. Tartan knew she was glad to have her real reason masked. She did not want Monica to suspect what they were after.
“You pay so much attention to such a small thing.”
Tara didn’t argue. She was for once happy to leave the ellipsis as the background. “Have you worked out our itinerary?”
“We have,” Dolin said. “We figure that the Ghost Writer has lost track of us during our sojourn in other realms, so we can go consult with the Good Magician to find a way to nullify him.”
This was ridiculous; if the Good Magician was ready to give them such information, he would have done so at the outset. Tartan opened his mouth, but Tara put her hand on his arm warningly. Then he caught on: they must have made their real plans while in the gourd garden, where the Night Colt would have trouble spying on them, as the wives had surely protected it. Now they were implementing them, using a false plan as a cover. They were actually setting it up so the Colt would plant a nasty trap of a dreamlet along the way, to lock them in as he had before.
“That makes sense,” Tartan agreed. Then he asked Ted, as he knew Tara was asking Monica: what was the real plan?
“It’s a counter trap,” Ted explained. “We’ll walk blithely into the Ghost Writer’s story, and play it out until it brings us to confront him, as before. He’ll think Isis will capitulate this time, having failed to get rid of him. Then we’ll step out of our roles. That may shake him up so much he’ll quit.”
“That seems unlikely.”
“Plan B is for Isis to address him directly, possibly fascinating him so that he has to do her will. Then he’ll have to follow our dreamy skit.”
“Isis doesn’t even like him. I hope there’s a Plan C.”
“We’re working on it.”
Tartan glanced at Tara. She caught his glance and sent it back. She had gotten the same update.
They came to the cornfield with the maize maze. Tata, sniffing out the correct path, led them right through it, including the loop that did not cross itself. “Must be a hidden overpass or underpass,” Tartan muttered.
“What is that?” Ted asked.
“Mundane magic borrowing from the third dimension. One road passes over the other without intersecting it.”
“Be alert,” Amara murmured. “He can’t strike on the enchanted path, so it must be on this side path.”
>
“Woof!”
They paused. There was the floating sign. THE PRINCESS AND THE HOG.
“Wait half a moment,” Tara said. “Wasn’t that the title of the skit that Princess Eve was caught in? Is he using them over?”
“Woof.”
“Tata says no,” Amara said. “That was ‘The Princess and the Grog’ which she got out of by changing it to Fog.”
And the dog had it from Princess Eve herself, whom he was hosting. So this was a different variant, and probably a different story. The Ghost Writer was not entirely without imagination. Almost, but not quite. They still needed to be rid of him.
“What can we do but move on?” Dolin asked rhetorically.
“And play it out so that we can talk with the Ghost Writer himself,” Emerald said.
“Who wants only one thing,” Amara said with a frown.
“Maybe we can talk him out of it,” Mera said.
They were into their act. Tartan remained uncertain how well this would play out, but he and Tara had to play along.
They walked on under the sign. Amara, the one woman in their group who was not a princess, became one, with a cute little crown and a princessly robe. Tata Dogfish, walking beside her, turned into a bright yellow creature. He rolled up, becoming a gold ball. She picked him up and carried him, as he was no longer as mobile as before.
Tartan remembered the story of the Princess and the Frog. The princess had accidentally rolled her ball into a spring and lost it. A frog had agreed to fetch it out from the depths, provided she let him share her life. Eager to recover her precious ball, she agreed, but then was less eager to honor her part of the deal. But her father the king insisted that she do what she had promised, and the frog shared her room and ate at the table with her. Finally she got so mad that she threw the frog against a wall, whereupon he became a prince who had been enchanted into a frog, and the two rode away in his carriage to live happily ever after. That conclusion had never made sense to Tartan. The princess was a brat, undeserving of any such reward. But since when did fairy tales have to make sense? The question was what was the Ghost Writer going to do with it?
Dolin looked unchanged. He walked beside Emerald, also unchanged. Surely they had roles in the story. What were they? And what about the rest of them?