Two to the Fifth

  “I’m glad this is a dream,” John said. “Because if it were real, we could be in trouble with the Stork Works.”

  “That’s one advantage of dreaming,” Marsha agreed. “We’re not really doing it, so we can do what ever we want, no matter how naughty”

  They lay beside each other and talked, discovering many common interests and some wildly divergent ones. John liked mechanical puzzles; Marsha liked hunting. He was nervous about the night jungle; she loved it. But their differences seemed only to enhance their mutual attraction.

  At last it was time for the dream to end; they had talked away the night. “May I see you again?” John asked her.

  “I’d love that,” Marsha said. “I’ll be right here tomorrow night.”

  “Then it’s a date,” he agreed, and kissed her again. And found himself kissing his pillow as he woke up. It was dawn.

  All day he was in a daze, thinking about his nocturnal experience. Marsha was such a woman! So maybe in life she didn’t look exactly the way she did in the dream. Did it matter? She was a really nice person, and she actually liked him.

  The following night he took the communal dream pill again, and soon he was back on the clouds. There was Marsha waiting for him. “Oh, I was so afraid you wouldn’t come!” she exclaimed, kissing him.

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, I had to! It’s so utterly nice to be appreciated the way you appreciate me, even if it is all illusion.”

  “It’s a dream, but maybe not illusion,” he said. “I really do like you, Marsha.”

  “And I really do like you, John. But maybe you wouldn’t like me if you saw me in real life. No man ever has.”

  “Maybe those other men were stupid.”

  “No, they were afraid”

  He laughed. “Afraid of you? They never gave you a chance.”

  “True,” she agreed sadly. “That’s why I came to the dream, and a false Avatar. I must say it has worked beautifully.”

  “Beautifully,” he agreed, kissing her.

  “What do you have in mind today?” she inquired. “We have talked and we have clasped”

  “There’s something else?” he asked, surprised.

  “Once we have done something, doesn’t it get dull? I assumed you would want to do something else.”

  “It doesn’t get dull,” he said. “Not for me, anyway. But if you are tired of it—”

  “Oh.” The miniature castle formed around them. “I am inexperienced in this kind of interaction, and don’t really know what’s what. You are the first man I have done either much talking or storking with.”

  “You’re great at both,” he said, kissing her avidly.

  “I’m so pleased,” she said, kissing him back. “I don’t want to be boring for you.”

  “Never that!” He proceeded to storkly interest, and she cooperated more than willingly. Soon they were both pleasantly exercised.

  “But when you do get tired of it, do let me know,” Marsha said. “I like being with you so much, I never want to wear you out”

  He concluded that she was naïve in the manner of women about the extent of male interest. “I will.” Then they talked, and he told her more about himself, surprised and pleased that she showed so much interest, and learned more about her. It seemed that she lived alone in the jungle and had little contact with others. She was insatiably hungry for friendly interaction. But she never quite said exactly where she lived, or why she seemed to have no family. There were other oddities, but they merely added to the pleasant little mysteries of her.

  They spent the night together, and John felt no desire to go out in the dream world to meet others. Marsha was all he needed. When the night ended, they agreed to meet again the next night.

  This continued for some time. Finally John realized that he had to have a serious talk with Marsha.

  “Oh, no!” she wailed. “You’re tired of me!”

  “By no means,” he said. “My problem is the opposite. I think I have fallen in love with you.”

  “But you don’t know me, only my Avatar.”

  “I know your personality. You’re a nice girl, and you’re always wonderfully nice to me. Unless that’s all an act—”

  “No, no! No act. I feel the same about you too. But there’s something I haven’t told you.”

  “What ever it is, I don’t think it will stop me from loving you. I admit it will be difficult if you’re secretly married, or eighty years old”

  She laughed. “Neither one. I’m your age and single. But you see, when I told too much, no other man had any interest in me. So I didn’t dare tell you.”

  “Even if you’re ugly—”

  “I’m not. But—”

  “What is it?” he demanded. “Tell me, and let me judge”

  She winced, then visibly nerved herself. “You do have a right to know, though it could destroy our relationship. First let me say that I am more than willing to continue as we have been doing, meeting here, talking, and clasping. I love being close to you. I love pleasing you. I love you. So if you can find it in your heart to forgive me—”

  “What is it?” he repeated firmly.

  “I’m a dragon”

  He gazed at her. “A what?”

  “A dragon. I’m not human. So I can never be with you physically, only here in the Dream, with my human Avatar. Now you know.” She waited, flinching, anticipating his reaction.

  “You’re—a—dragon lady,” he said, now seeing how the hints about her nature came together. Living alone in a cave in the jungle, liking to hunt, men afraid of her. Now it made sense. No wonder she had concealed her identity. “What kind?”

  “Old-fashioned fire- breathing, about twenty feet long, with wings. I’m a winged monster”

  “But then why—why associate with my kind, even in a dream? Why go to all this trouble to—to please me? Letting me kiss you, and all? Surely you’d rather toast and eat me.”

  “I don’t eat humans. Too dangerous. They send dragon killers after rogue dragons, armed with devastating spells. I stick to crows and rats, mostly, and the occasional troll.”

  “I can see how that would get dull. But to let me—have my way with you, when in real life you could chomp me. I’m so puny compared to you.”

  “You’re so smart compared to me. Haven’t you noticed how I’m always agreeing with you? That’s because I’m not awfully good at thinking for myself.”

  “I thought it was because we shared experiences.”

  “The only experience we share is here in the Dream.”

  “Bleep!” he swore. “This can never be. But I still—” He broke off, appalled by the realization, then plowed on. “I still love you.”

  “You don’t have to say that,” Marsha said. “Just don’t hate me. I’ll do anything you want.” Her bare Avatar spread her arms appealingly.

  “You really do love me? Despite my not being a dragon? I should think you’d prefer to make it with another dragon.”

  “Do you know how dragons do it? It’s more like rape. Scorching, steamy, smoky scenes are literal. It can take weeks to recover. You are so tenderly gentle.”

  “But isn’t it your nature to scorch and chomp? Feeble kissing must disgust you.”

  “It is supposed to be my nature,” she agreed. “I always felt guilty for wanting something else. I couldn’t get it with my own kind. So I joined the communal Dream and took a human Avatar. I know there are other animals doing the same. Then when I saw you appear, and knew you didn’t know your way about yet, I—I hoped you wouldn’t mind, once you really got to know me”

  “I don’t. I’m glad to know you. You’re a better woman than any other I’ve known”

  She blushed. “You don’t have to say that.”

  “I said it because I mean it. You’re ideal for me”

  She kissed him repeatedly. “Thank you, thank you!”

  “And you really do love me, at least in the Dream?”

  “I do, John.
You have treated me so well. I know you would have preferred a human woman.”

  “I’m not sure I would,” he said slowly. “No woman ever treated me the way you do. They found me too plain and dull.”

  “You were never that to me!”

  It seemed to be true. What reason would she have to deceive him? “May I kiss you, knowing what you are?”

  “Oh, yes, John!”

  He kissed her, and her lips were just as sweet as they had been. He wrapped his arms about her, and her body was just as nice. Soon they were back in stork territory. Did dragons signal storks, or eat them?

  “What about an accommodation spell?” he asked as they rested.

  She understood exactly what he meant. “It would make it possible to do this physically. But you would still be a man, and I’d still be a dragon. It would be unnatural. I much prefer just being with you in the Dream, in a form that pleases you.”

  “Could we get a transformation spell? So you could become a real woman, or I a dragon?”

  “It wouldn’t work, John,” she said regretfully. “I know nothing about real human society, and you’d never make it as a dragon. I’d be chomping things and you’d soon get toasted. We are what we are, regardless of our forms”

  He had to concede the point. “Then can we make a life together here in the Dream?”

  “But we’re both asleep!”

  “Our bodies are, but our minds are awake. Marsha, let’s get married—in the Dream. Let’s have a family here.”

  “But what of our real lives?”

  “They will proceed as before. It can be our secret, that our real lives are in the Dream”

  They hashed it over, and finally she agreed. They went to the Dream authorities, and set it up, and in due course had a Dream marriage attended by other Dreamers, who understood. They signaled a Dream Stork, and—

  Then he was back in his real life. The night had ended, and with it the Dream. He was Cyrus again, not John.

  11 PLAY

  I just had the wildest dream,” Cyrus exclaimed as he carefully let go of Rhythm so as not to seem to be clasping a child. “I think it will make a perfect play for the Lady.”

  “Oh, tell me!” the dragon exclaimed, delighted.

  He described the dream in detail as they ate hot cross buns and hot nog for breakfast. They had gotten accustomed to the heat of the cave.

  “So they decided to have a family in the Dream,” he concluded. “He’ll still be a man, and she’ll still be a dragon, but in the dream they can live together and have dream children and all. It’s a happy compromise.”

  “It’s a derivative of your own situation,” Melete said severely.

  The Lady’s ears perked. “Is someone else here?”

  “Better let her in,” Rhythm murmured to the Muse.

  “Let me introduce myself,” Melete said, extending her perceptibility. “I am the Writer’s Block you returned to Cyrus. I enable him to write his plays”

  “Oh,” the Lady said. “I had no idea you could talk.”

  “I normally talk only to him. But you need to hear this too. It’s not really a story about you; it’s about his forbidden love. He can’t let others know he loves a child, so he has sublimated it in the dream, which he now proposes to render into a play. Instead of a child, the lady is a dragon. It’s an attempt to justify his illicit passion.”

  “But she has a spell to make her older,” the Lady said. “So it’s all right.”

  “But he knows she’s really a child. That’s what makes it not all right.”

  “Oh, come off it, Muse,” Kadence said. “They’re in love. Who cares how old anyone is?”

  “The Adult Conspiracy cares.”

  “But technically there’s no Violation,” the Lady said. “Just as there’s no man/dragon problem in the play. It’s all in the Dream. Forbidden love is forbidden love, and it’s great drama. I don’t care if there’s a parallel. I think it’s a great play and I love it.”

  “So do I,” Kadence said.

  “Just make sure you get a cute actress to play my Avatar in the Dream, and a handsome actor to love her.”

  “But I thought you were going to act in it,” Kadence said.

  “I’ll be there, curling around the stage. I’ll speak my part, once the audience learns that I’m Marsha. That way I’ll be a dragon playing the part of a girl. It’s wonderful”

  Melete sighed. “Have it your way. But I’ll expect something more original for the third play. I have to protect my reputation, after all”

  They made an arrangement with the Lady to meet her at the Troupe, and resumed their trek. Now that they did not need to search for Melete, they were free to take what ever paths were most convenient.

  They came to a clearing wherein a number of people sat. A an stepped forward to meet them. “Hello, I am a Talent Scout. Do you need a new talent?”

  Cyrus was tempted to brush on by, but paused. “I’m not sure I have an old talent, other than merely existing. I’m a cyborg. Half human, half machine.”

  “Everybody has a talent,” the man said. “I can readily check yours. Give me your hand”

  Bemused, Cyrus extended his hand. The scout took it and concentrated. “There it is. You can change one thing in any person’s memory. It has to be a small thing, though, because big things have too many extensions and affect other things.”

  “Just like that, you know?” Cyrus asked, not believing it.

  “It’s my talent to know,” the Scout said. “You can readily verify it. Change someone’s memory”

  Cyrus shook his head. “I doubt I can, but in any event, I wouldn’t.”

  “If you have no use for it, I will gladly arrange a trade. That’s why I set up my Talent Agency.” He gestured around the clearing. “How about the talent of controlling a wisp of fog? That can be fun, especially if you make it dance. Or if it happens to be a forget whorl.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “How about the talent of conjuring assorted cloths?” the scout asked, refusing to be put off. “Your little girl would like that, wouldn’t she? Or to make any cloth as hard as steel. That would protect her.”

  “I don’t need those,” Kadence said.

  “Or of doing something perfectly on the first try,” the Scout said. “Though I have to tell you, thereafter it is apt to mess up. That’s why the owner wants to trade it.”

  “I don’t need that either,” Kadence said.

  She finally got the man’s attention. “Why not? Let me check your talent. It is surely worth trading.” He put his hand on her arm. “Oh, my! You’re a Sorceress!”

  Cyrus acted before he thought about it, changing the man’s memory of what he had discovered to a lesser thing. “You make ants march in step,” the Scout said, not realizing. “That’s interesting, though not really useful. You will surely want to trade. How about the ability to invoke the talent of dead people?”

  “We’ll trade,” one of two young men said from the bench. “I’m In Crease; I make others gain weight, size, or whatever. This is my twin brother De Crease; he makes them lose it.”

  “But those are good talents,” Kadence protested. “Why would you want to trade them?”

  “Because we can affect only others, not ourselves,” De Crease said. “We remain ordinary. That frustrates us no end. But maybe we could have some fun with ants”

  Kadence considered. “I think I ’d stay dull too, so I guess I don’t want to trade.” She was of course being careful not to give away her real reason.

  “How about my talent?” a man asked. “I’m Pete. My talent is unbreaking. I don’t mean mending or healing; I mean that I make it so it was never broken.”

  “Say,” Kadence said. “I could use that when I accidentally drop a precious vase.”

  “You could,” Pete agreed.

  “You’d do better just learning to be more careful,” Cyrus told her.

  Kadence sighed. “I guess so.”

  “Then how about u
s?” a boy asked. “I am Melvin. I can read the minds of women. My sister Megan can read the minds of men.”

  “But those are great talents,” Kadence said. “Why trade?”

  “Because all the men are interested in only one thing,” Megan said. “I get so tired of it.”

  “One thing?” Kadence asked, intrigued. “What is that?”

  “My sister is six years old,” Rhythm said firmly.

  Megan nodded faintly, revising her answer. “Pan ties.”

  “Pan ties?” Kadence asked. “They’re dull!”

  “Precisely,” Megan agreed with an obscure smile.

  “Actually that’s not true,” Melvin said. “We are also interested in—”

  Megan stepped on his toe. “Blouses,” she said.

  “Uh, yes,” he agreed, wincing. “While all women are interested in is—”

  Now Rhythm interceded. She made the people lose interest in them. They walked on by, and they paid no attention.

  “Beep,” Kadence muttered.

  Only when they were well clear did Melete speak. “The talent Scout meant well, and has a business many folk will patronize, but he was dangerous for us.”

  “Yes, because our talents give away our identities,” Rhythm said. “That’s why I kept my mouth mostly shut.”

  “But he did me a favor,” Cyrus said. “He identified my talent, when I didn’t even know I had one. I can change one thing in a person’s memory. I used it on him.”

  “Good thing you did,” Rhythm said. “I was about to blank out his memory of the whole day. Your way was better.”

  “Still, being able to play with wisps of fog might be nice,” Kadence said.

  Rhythm glared at her, but the girl burst out giggling. She had been joking. Maybe.

  “But you know, that was a danger,” Cyrus said. “Even though the Scout meant well. Just as the Dragon Lady meant well, but that could have been dangerous if she had been a normal dragon.”

  “Something is still putting threats in our way,” Rhythm agreed. “But they aren’t really effective threats. That’s odd.”

  “As if someone wants us to get into mischief seemingly by accident,” Cyrus said. “An attack by a ravening monster would make it too obvious.”