Two to the Fifth

  When the play was done, the actors took their bows, and the Dragon Lady bowed her head. The troupe audience applauded; they really liked the play.

  “I believe this is viable after all,” Melete admitted grudgingly. “It’s derivative of your own situation, but the audience doesn’t know that. It’s a nice love story.”

  “Thank you,” Cyrus said, relieved. She was always his most severe critic. That was of course her nature.

  “However,” she continued inexorably, “it is axiomatic that a good rehearsal can lead to a disaster at the presentation. Anything that can go wrong, will.”

  “To be sure,” he said, not believing it.

  They arranged to put on the play at Crabapple’s village again, because it was the closest, and the villagers had liked the first play. That morning Cyrus, Rhythm, and Tuff went to set up the stage, as they had done before.

  Tuff conjured expansive foam- stone cloudbanks, including enough small stuff to cover the dragon for the first portion of the play. Rhythm would render the Dragon Lady temporarily invisible so that she could take her place without raising a commotion. Cyrus had found another spot spell: that was the explanation for the troupe, and they werenot inclined to question it, thanks to another spot disinterest spell.

  “The Lady’s head will be here,” Cyrus said. “We need to move one block aside.”

  “No sooner said than—” Tuff said, heaving up the block. Then he tripped over a lesser block, lost his balance, and fell. Rhythm screamed as the boulder block dropped down on his leg. As stone went, it was light, but as flesh and bone went, it was all too heavy. There was a sickening crunch.

  Tuff lay there, writhing in pain. Rhythm ran to help him. “I can—” she said.

  “You must not, Princess!” Melete cried. “That would show your power”

  Rhythm paused in midrun, nodding. “Help ease your pain,” she said. “I’ve got a spell I keep for emergencies.” She kneeled beside the man and put her hands on his leg.

  “Oh, thank you, Rhyme, you dear child,” Tuff said. “That makes it bearable.”

  “I think the Witch has a full healing spell,” Rhythm said.

  “No she doesn’t,” he said. “I know her pretty well”

  So he did. So they couldn’t use that ruse. He would have to remain injured until they flgured out a legitimate cover for Rhythm’s magic.

  “I could heal it,” Piper said. “But it would take weeks for an injury that bad. My healing power is more for cuts and scrapes”

  The villagers had seen the accident, and were sympathetic. They carried him to a cottage where he could rest. This, too, had to be accepted.

  Tuff was out of the play.

  “But he has the lead part!” Cyrus said. “No one else knows his lines.”

  “No one except you,” Melete said. “You wrote them.”

  “That’s not the same. I could garble them.”

  “You will have a prompter”

  Rhythm smiled. “My little sister is very good at that”

  So she was. Cyrus sighed. He would have to do it. “When are you going to say you told me so?” he asked Melete.

  “Any time now,” she said, smiling. “Poor Tuff.”

  “We’ll have him healed for the next presentation,” Rhythm said. “Even if we have to find a hidden cache of healing elixir.”

  “Piper will find it,” Melete said. And that was of course the suitable cover for Rhythm’s power.

  That evening they came to do the play. Rhythm made a spot invisibility spell to hide the Dragon Lady, and a supplementary disinterest spell so that the other troupe members did not think to question this. When the dragon was in place, and suitably covered by foam blocks, the spell faded. She needed to be seen, when the time came.

  Because Cyrus was acting, Crabapple took over the announcing. “To night’s play is ‘The Dream,’” she said. “And no, I am not the dream girl.” There was laughter.

  The play was a success. Cyrus was the only one needing prompting, and Kadence was teasingly happy to do it. But there was one problem Cyrus was powerless to eliminate.

  It was time for John’s first hug and kiss with the Marsha Avatar. Deoness Metria wrapped her arms around him, pulled him very close to her heaving bosom, and planted a kiss on him that made two of the more sensitive ladies in the audience swoon. “Nothing like realism,” she whispered mischievously.

  Rhythm’s face, offstage, was studiedly neutral. That was a bad sign. The more the demoness smooched him, under cover of the actions prescribed by the play, the angrier the Sorceress got. Cyrus knew he was in trouble, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

  When the identity of Marsha was revealed, there was a gasp from the audience. But they soon came to accept it: a talking dragon who longed for romance. When they finally decided to have a dream family that never left the dream, there was applause: it was the right, romantic conclusion. When it was done, and the actors took their bows, some children even came up to pet the nice dragon. The Lady loved it; she was a dramatic success.

  But Cyrus dreaded his next session alone with Rhythm. She might be a child, but she had strong passions and strong magic, as he knew so well. He was in a picklement.

  12 RECRUITING

  She really worked you over,” Rhythm said. “It wasn’t my choice.” He doubted that would satisfy her, however. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not”

  He was startled. “Not?”

  “I got to see some techniques I can remember. Maybe I knew them when I’m adult, but I didn’t as a child. She was trying to seduce you, right there on stage.”

  “That would have been awkward.” It was an understatement. What the demoness had been doing in the name of acting pushed the limits of the Conspiracy. “It won’t happen again. I’ll get another actress.”

  “No, let her be. She’s less mischief there than she would be if you provoked her by booting her. Woman Scorned, and all that, you know.”

  “I know,” he agreed weakly. “But—”

  “But we’ll get Tuff healed, and then she’ll be doing it to him, and it’ll be the Witch’s nose disjointed. That’ll be fun”

  “So—you’re not mad?”

  “Furious,” she said. “But not with you”

  He didn’t trust this. “So it’s all right, between us?”

  “It’s all right.” But there was an expression on her face that would have been better on some other face. “But I may punish you a little.”

  “Maybe I deserve it.”

  “Oh?” Her glance was sharp. “Why?”

  “Because she succeeded in arousing me. Some.”

  “Let’s explore this.” The spell appeared, and she bit it open. In half a moment she was lusciously adult.

  Then she changed. The Demoness appeared in her place.

  “Get out of here, Metria!” he said. “You’ve been more than enough trouble already”

  She smiled. “I’m not Metria.”

  “That’s what she would say.”

  “Metria would emulate me, to fool you into doing it with her. She wouldn’t appear as herself.”

  “That’s right,” he agreed, surprised. “But why would you want to appear as her?”

  “To punish you, as I said.” She stepped into him, pressing close, exactly as Metria had. “Did she do this to you, up close?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Did you like it?”

  What could he say. “Yes. I hated liking it, but I did respond.”

  “And this?” She kissed him savagely.

  “That, too,” he agreed.

  “And this?”

  “Not that,” he gasped. “Rhythm, please—”

  But she refused to stop until she had seduced him in the form of Metria. Only when it was done did she revert to her own appearance. “So there,” she said.

  “But it means Metria could have done it,” he protested.

  “I don’t think so. You knew it was me.”

  “Yes, bu
t—”

  “You would have kicked her out, if it wasn’t on stage, and you knew it wasn’t me.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “So I’m satisfied. I’m sorry I punished you”

  He shook his head. “You ought to be spanked.” But he knew as he said it that he shouldn’t have. She had a thing about spanking.

  Sure enough, she turned over, exposing her plush bare bottom. “Spank me.”

  “Rhythm, stop it!”

  “You brought it up. Now you have to do it”

  The worst of it was that it was so illicitly tempting. “I shouldn’t.”

  “Would you rather have me spank you?”

  “No!” And that, in the odd logic of the situation, committed him. He wound up spanking her, not hard, and that led into another bout of storking. But he still felt horribly guilty.

  Then he had a spot revelation. “You put that thought of spanking in my mind! That’s why it kept occurring to me, when it never did before I met you.”

  “I’m a naughty girl,” she agreed, unchastened. “I do deserve spanking.”

  “But the way you set it up, it’s not punishment, it’s something else.”

  “It sure is,” she agreed languidly.

  He saw that there was no point in arguing the case further. She was delightfully incorrigible.

  She laughed, reading it in his mind, and he had to join her. He hoped she had worked out her ire. He had never been more conscious of both her female appeal and the fact she was a Sorceress. He knew she loved him, as he loved her, but she was dangerous when riled. It was a bad enough situation as it was, without jealous emotion interfering.

  Curtis dictated that they needed at least three plays in their roster before they could tour. So Cyrus had to write one more. He knew it would be a struggle, even with Melete’s help.

  “Meanwhile it is time to arrange the itinerary,” the Curse Friend continued. “You will be busy with the play and casting, so someone else will have to do it. Whom can we spare?”

  “I won’t know until I know the parts for the third play,” Cyrus said.

  “Which has not yet been written. How about sending Piper?”

  “She’s a child!” Cyrus protested.

  “Hardly the only one. She can ride your mechanical donkey, who should be able to protect her, and take along her dust devil friend.”

  “But she really wants a role in a play”

  The man shot him a glance that made him feel like an idiot. “Tell her two things: first, that this is a vitally important mission that only she can accomplish, and second, that when she returns she will have a suitable part.”

  “This is manipulative!”

  “It is my business to get things organized and accomplished”

  So it was that Cyrus sent thirteen- year- old Piper Nymph out with Don Donkey and Dusty Dust Devil to locate and enlist a number of villages to be sites for their tour. The girl was thrilled to be entrusted with such an important mission, and promised to do her very best. “Understand,” he told her. “Don Donkey is a robot. He does not eat food, he burns wood.”

  “Oh, I know,” Piper said. “We get along fine. He’s given me rides”

  “He also has a robotic device that enables me to see and hear what he sees and hears, when I tune in, and he can give me reports on what is happening around him. So if you get in trouble, he’ll let me know immediately, and we’ll arrange to help you.”

  “How can you help, when we’re far apart?”

  “I have a spell,” Cyrus said. Actually he had Sorceress Rhythm, but couldn’t say that.

  “Okay.”

  “Here is a copy of the map that Don has in his data bank,” Cyrus said. “If you lose it, don’t worry; he can print out another. It shows all the villages within range, and all the enchanted paths you can use to travel safely, and all the safe camps for the nights. It also marks the worst dangers to avoid, like tangle trees”

  Piper laughed. “You forget, I’m half tree. No tangler would try to eat me”

  He had forgotten, which was embarrassing, because it was part of the reason he thought she would be able to travel safely through the forest. “And dragons”

  That fazed her. “I’ll avoid them.” She took the map. Then she hesitated, blushing faintly.

  “There’s a problem?”

  “Rumor has it that sometimes you kiss people. For luck, maybe”

  Oh? Maybe the original actresses had been gossiping. Did all the girls in the troupe have ideas? “But you’re—” Oops, he had first gotten in trouble by calling a girl a child. “Not supposed to know that,” he finished.

  “I don’t,” she agreed. “Maybe that’s just as well.”

  “Just as well?”

  “Because if I did know, I might do this.” She stepped up and kissed him firmly on the mouth.

  The kiss had impact, partly because of the surprise, partly because she was a pretty girl, and partly because he feared Rhythm’s jealous wrath, but he took it in stride. “Good thing you didn’t do that,” he agreed.

  She smiled. “And I’ll never say a word about Rhyme disappearing from her tent at night and nobody knows where she is or dares conjecture.”

  “Thank you,” he said weakly. Now it was clear why the other actresses were leaving him alone. But did they think he was corrupting a child? “But you know she has that Decade spell, that can age a person ten years, for an hour.”

  “I know. I tried it, remember. Otherwise I might be jealous.”

  “I’m glad you understand”

  Piper mounted Don, and rode away, with Dusty swirling along before, after, and to the sides, idly stirring up leaves. Cyrus watched them depart, and when they were out of sight, he tuned in on Don to watch some more. He saw the foliage beside the path passing toward the rear, and increasing detail when Don turned his head to peer at something.

  “I shouldn’t have teased him,” Piper said to the donkey. “But I thought he should know the rumor.”

  “He’ll survive it,” Don said.

  “There’s something about Rhyme. It’s as if she’s an older woman pretending to be a child. We can’t figure out why.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” the donkey said. Actually he did know, but Cyrus had sworn him to secrecy.

  “So if she’s not really a child, she can be with him all she wants. We just wish we knew why she doesn’t act her real age. What is she hiding?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Don repeated. “I’m just an animal”

  She reached forward to ruffle one of his ears. “A wonderful animal”

  Don’s circuits heated with plea sure. That surprised Cyrus. He hadn’t realized that the robot had real feelings. Some of his components were more sophisticated than they seemed when collected as junk.

  Cyrus tuned out, satisfied that the two were getting along well. He went about his business of writing the next play. It was a struggle, as always.

  “You always make me work for it,” he complained to Me-lete.

  “The idea that writing is easy is an illusion,” she replied. “Easy writing is apt to be junk. You have to bleed on the page, suffering for your art.”

  “Now she tells me,” he muttered.

  In due course Rhythm showed up. “Rumor has it that you disappear from your tent every night, and they wonder where you are,” he told her. “They have a suspicion that it’s with me, and that you are a grown woman masquerading as a child.”

  “Close enough,” she agreed. “What else?”

  “Piper kissed me.”

  “And you didn’t slap her face?”

  “I wouldn’t do that!”

  She evoked the Decade spell and bit into it. Then she assumed the form of Piper.

  “Enough with your jealousy!” he snapped. “She’s a child.”

  “And you won’t touch a child,” she said, reverting to her mature self.

  “The only one I want to touch is you. I wish you’d stop being bleepchy”

  Then they both paus
ed as the bad word burned a trail through the air and scorched the material of the tent.

  “That would have freaked me out, if I hadn’t aged,” she said. “It daunts me, even so.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. You’re like a rose with thorns”

  She surprised him by breaking down into tears. “I really am. I’m so sorry”

  He stared, uncertain what to do. “Comfort her,” Melete whispered.

  He tried. He put his arms around her. “I love you as you are, Rhythm, thorns and all”

  “This instant conversion—it makes me physically and mentally adult, but I lack experience,” she said, the tears still flowing. “I can do the seductive part, but emotionally I remain somewhat childish. Temperamental. You don’t deserve this.”

  “I don’t think I deserve you,” he countered. “You’re a Princess and a Sorceress, while I’m only a cyborg.”

  “You’re a Playwright,” she said. “A good one. You’ve got fantastic imagination.”

  “Which I carry in my pocket,” he said wryly. “Without my personal Muse, I am nothing.”

  “You are everything to me,” she said. “Oh, Cyrus, I really do love you. I just don’t quite know how to handle the unreasonable jealousy. I know better, but still it lurks.”

  “Maybe that simply takes time and experience.”

  “I hope so. I thought that all it took to be adult was stork summoning. It isn’t, is it?”

  “It isn’t,” he agreed.

  “Hold me,” she said.

  He lay down on the bed with her and held her. Soon she was asleep. There had been no stork summoning, yet somehow he was more satisfied than if there had been.

  The night was still young, and he was not sleepy himself. He loved holding Rhythm like this, but his mind wandered. How were Piper and Don doing?

  He tuned in on them. There was a magic lantern illuminating the camp shelter, and Piper was sitting talking with a strange man while Don snoozed beside her. Of course Don never truly slept, he just powered down for a while. But not everyone knew that.

  “What’s going on?” Cyrus asked the donkey soundlessly. “She shouldn’t be sharing a night with a man.”