There was a pause. Then Cyrus felt a change. His substance was gone. He had been deleted!
“Thank you,” he said. But no sound came out, because he had no solid vocal cords.
He turned and walked through the shell wall. Em Pathy was there; she had followed them. She had evidently had experience with this sort of thing before. She pointed to a fragment of slate lying beside the big basket.
Cyrus went to it and picked it up. It was deleted; it felt solid to him and came up in his hands. There was a stylus attached. He took that and wrote:
WE MADE A DEAL. BRING A ROC HEN TO SHARE HIS EXILE.
She shook her head. “They all hate him,” she said. “They have already flown the coop. None will come”
Oops. What was he to do now?
Then Roc Ette appeared. She read his sign. She nodded.
This astonished him. BUT HE TOOK YOU BY FORCE. YOU HATE HIM WORST OF ALL.
She nodded again.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND.
“I do,” Em said. “She wants to make him absolutely miserable for the rest of his life. This is how”
This astounded him. I PROMISED HIM A FAIR DEAL. THIS IS NOT THAT.
But Ette went to stand in the view of the peephole. She was ready to go.
Cyrus hurried to print another message. RANGA. this is not what i promised. she hates you.
He felt the change. The plaque was no longer solid in his grasp. He had been undeleted.
Ette glanced at him, satisfied. Then she walked to the shell. She walked through its wall and disappeared inside.
“He accepted the exchange,” Cyrus said. “But he had to know what was on her mind.”
“He did. But any hen is better than no hen, and she was the prettiest in his harem. He doesn’t mind that she hates him.” Her mouth quirked. “He’s male”
The bewilderment was wearing off, like his lost memory. “What about you, then? Your master is gone.”
“I remain loyal. I will supervise the supply of food, to be sure he is not mistreated. Go to your Princess. If she is dead, I will still be here. I will make you forget”
A bulb flashed over his head, and this one didn’t explode. “Like Ette! You want to make the rest of my life miserable.”
“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “And you will agree. If your child bride is gone”
Cyrus rather feared he would. But there were other details to attend to. “Where is Kadence?”
“I am here,” Kadence called. “With Anona and the ants. There’s a crisis.”
“A what?”
“All this was too much for the Queen Pique Ant. She has decided to retire. That leaves the Hill without a queen. They don’t know what to do”
Cyrus smiled. “Fortunately, I do. Anona, take another bite of royal jelly. That will make you fully female, and you will be the new queen. You have earned it”
Even from this distance he felt Anona’s thought. Oh!
“But we must revive the Princesses,” Cyrus said. “So they can send all the ants back to their Hill.” That was hardly the only reason. Had he diverted Ragna in time?
“Yes,” Kadence agreed.
The two of them, and Anona riding in Kadence’s hair, made their way back to the Nest. A woman was there, bending over the still forms of the Princesses. “Who are you?” Cyrus demanded.
“I am Princess Ivy, their mother,” the woman replied. “I felt my beloved children in danger, and had to come. And who are you?”
Cyrus was shaken, and unable to respond immediately.
“He is my father, Cyrus Cyborg,” Kadence said. “And Princess Rhythm is my mother”
Ivy was shocked. “Your what?”
Kadence smiled disarmingly. “Hello, Grandma Ivy. We just saved Xanth from Ragna Roc”
Something crossed Ivy’s face, but it was not exactly joy. “I’ll deal with this in a moment.” She put her hands on Melody.
In a stretched moment Melody’s eyelids fluttered. She woke. “Mother!” she said tearily. “You came!”
“Of course I came, dear,” Ivy said. “Who else could Enhance you back to wellness? Now let me tend to your sister”
Melody sat up and saw the others. “Mother’s Sorceress talent is Enhancement,” she said. “She can make any good quality better. She just Enhanced my deleted will to live.”
“You girls need better supervision,” Ivy fussed as she put her hands on Harmony. “You know you had no business getting into a mess like this.”
“Yes, Mother,” Melody answered with just a hint of a ghost of a smile. Then she looked at Kadence. “Did it work?”
“Yes, Aunt Melody. Father led Ragna into the shell, and Roc Ette slammed the lid on, and now she’s in there with him.”
“Ouch!” Melody said. “Poor Ragna”
They laughed.
Harmony was slower to revive. “This is awful,” Ivy said. “I can barely manage her.”
“Oh, you used up most of your power on me,” Melody said. “I’m sorry.”
“The three of you tackling a creature like that, without your father or I knowing,” Ivy fussed. “What ever possessed you?”
“We’re naughty girls,” Melody confessed. “But we’re older than we look”
Finally Harmony revived. “Mother! You’re here!”
“Yes I am,” Ivy said. She looked worn. “But I fear I lack the power to save Rhythm. You’re all simply too depleted.” Tears were running down her face.
“But if you don’t Enhance her, she’ll sink into illusion and be lost forever,” Melody wailed.
“I know. But the three of you were struck by terrible magic. You never should have tackled Ragna Roc alone. We shall have to learn to survive without Rhythm.” She was clearly grief- stricken but exhausted.
“No!” Melody cried.
“There must be something,” Harmony agreed.
There was no conclusion from Rhythm. She lay there, almost as still as death.
Cyrus was devastated. “Rhythm!” he cried, gazing at the still form. “You can’t go! I love you!” He flung himself down and kissed her passionately on the mouth.
At first she was passive. Then she began to respond. Finally she kissed him back, ardently.
As their kiss broke, he lifted her and held her against him. “Oh, Rhythm! I couldn’t let you go”
She smiled weakly. “Let’s get married, Cyrus”
Then they became aware of the others. Rhythm turned and saw her sisters and mother. “Hi,” she said faintly.
“You’re a child!” Ivy said severely.
“Mother,” Melody said. “He revived her.”
“Mother,” Harmony agreed. “He saved her life.”
“Mother,” Rhythm concluded. “I’m seventeen, really. I love him.”
“And I’m their daughter,” Kadence repeated proudly. “And we just saved Xanth”
Ivy put her hands to her face. “I think I’m going to have a headache”
Another man appeared. “Gnonentity Gnome,” Cyrus said. “What are you doing in costume? The play is over.”
“Father, that’s not Gnonentity,” Kadence said.
Then he realized who it really was. “Good Magician Hum-frey!”
“Who else?” Humfrey asked grumpily. He turned to Ivy. “Cyrus was doing a Service for me. Rhythm was helping him. It was the only way to save Xanth from Ragna Roc. The mission had to be secret, because Ragna would have deleted all parties had he caught on. What happened between them was necessary.”
“Necessary!” Ivy exclaimed. “She’s a child!”
“Necessary to summon Kadence from the future,” Hum-frey said. “She was essential to the effort. Without her it could not have been accomplished. Two to the Fifth: they were the Two, Kadence the fifth. Which is to say she was an idea they filled out by summoning her and borrowing mass to give her solidity. She can not remain here.”
“But my child can’t have a child! The Adult Conspiracy forbids it!”
“I made an aging spell,” Rhyth
m said. “I was twenty- two when we did it.”
“Be that as it may,” Humfrey said. “And much as Xanth may owe the two of you, Cyrus and Rhythm, the old order has been salvaged. Cyrus must be banished to Counter Xanth for six years, to abate suspicion, and Kadence must return to her own time”
“No!” Rhythm cried. She gathered Kadence to her, and the three of them stood together.
“When in due course she will rejoin you, when you are of age and married, and can make a proper family,” Humfrey continued inexorably. “Her job here is done”
They all saw the inexorable logic of it. They knew they couldn’t fight it.
Humfrey brought out a vial. “Drink this,” he told Kadence.
The child took it. “Mother, Father, I love you,” she said. She drank the fluid in the vial.
Then, softly and silently, she faded away. Rhythm cried quietly into Cyrus’s shoulder, and his own eyes were flowing.
“Now you,” Humfrey said, proffering another vial.
I know Counter Xanth, Rhythm thought rebelliously. Everything there is reversed, only you can select how it happens. I’ll visit you and I won’t be a child.
Cyrus nodded appreciatively. Exile didn’t bother him, but he would not be able to stand being separated from her. Humfrey was sending him to where their love could be legitimate, seemingly coincidentally. The Good Magician was on their side. He drank the vial.
He found himself in an unfamiliar land. It was filled with zones where odd reversals happened, but he was able to step back and unreverse himself. That was fortunate, because one section reversed him to an old man instead of a young one; another to an ugly man; and another into a woman. He didn’t want to be old or ugly or a woman. It made a difference how he crossed the lines; he had to do it right, or the reversal didn’t unreverse.
When he found a section that rendered him into a two-year- old child, he pondered as he backed out. Two was his technical age. What would it do to a twelve- year- old child?
He found a way to get behind that section without being childified, and made a camp there. Then he waited.
Soon Rhythm appeared, evidently having conjured herself there. “You found it!” she exclaimed, pleased. Then she strode forward, and when she reached him she was a full adult.
She hugged him and kissed him and squirmed rapidly out of her clothes. “All you want is one thing, right?” she asked without giving him a chance to demur. “Over and over.” She took him through it, over and over.
But meanwhile she talked, catching him up on events back in Xanth. “We took the ants back to their Hill, and Anona is Queen. She really likes it, but she doesn’t have a Consort. She sort of likes you—”
“What?”
“But I told her you were taken,” she said teasingly. “They’re finding new homes for all the former Minions of Ragna Roc. He thought the final battle would destroy everything, but all it destroyed was his Rock Candy Castle. They’re working on recovering the deleted folk of Pompos City, starting with Layea. And they’re working on the dragonflies, for Andromeda. You liked her, didn’t you?”
“Rhythm—”
She giggled. She had been teasing him again. The child Rhythm had never been much of a tease; this adult version was. In fact she was adult in a different way, not merely an aged child. Her personality had filled out, enhancing aspects that were only hinted at in the child. The discovery of this more mature yet still playful woman promised to be rewarding.
“And Em Pathy,” she continued. “She’s sort of sweet on you. Maybe we should send her here.”
“Maybe you should,” he agreed, trying to play her game.
She ignored it. “The troupe isn’t disbanding. Just about all the members want to stay with it. Piper and Don are already scouting for new locations for presentations. Curtis and Crab-apple are running it, and they will develop new plays and put them on”
“New plays?”
“If you write them, I’ll deliver them. You should have time to write. Melete’s still with you, isn’t she?”
“Yes, of course,” Melete agreed. “Where would he be, without me?”
“Nowhere,” Cyrus said sincerely.
“And in six years, when I’m eighteen,” Rhythm continued, “you’ll return to Xanth and marry me. Then we’ll see about getting Kadence back, and she won’t suddenly jump to age six, either. Do you think she’ll remember?”
“We’ll tell her.”
“Yes we will. We couldn’t have saved Xanth without her.” She paused, then thought of something else. “Do you know the best part of all this?”
“Loving you,” he answered promptly.
“That, too. I mean, both my sisters are jealous”
He laughed. “Are you sure you’re adult?”
“At the moment. But when I’m a child, that’s really fun. And there’s another thing.”
“What would that be?” he asked warily.
“I remember”
Oops. “You mean—what we do? But you’re a child! You’re not supposed to—”
He stopped, because she was bursting out with laughter. She was teasing him again.
Taken as a whole, this promised to be a bearable exile.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
On Mayhem 3, 2006 (I use the Ogre Months), I made my first notes on this novel, Two to the Fifth, the thirty- second in the Xanth series. I pondered the relevance of the title to a fantasy novel, and realized that the Fifth could be the fifth dimension, which I have always regarded as mass. I checked the reader suggestion list and saw Kadence, Princess Rhythm’s daughter, with a useful talent. So I had a start on the novel. But there was a problem: Kadence did not yet exist, and her mother Rhythm was at this stage only twelve years old. That required some pondering. How could she be brought into existence in time for this story? The answer batters the nefarious Adult Conspiracy almost beyond recognition and gives naughtiness a bad name, as remarked in the novel.
Next day my computer crashed. That generated a distraction of several months, because naturally I had not backed up certain key files. It’s always the files you never think to back up that turn out to be the most important when they are lost. I use Linux, an open-source operating system that can be properly understood only by elusive Mundanian magicians called geeks. I had lost the geek who set up my system, so was in trouble. There are a number of Linux distributions, all of which are fundamentally similar but different in detail. All of them claim to be easy for anyone to install. None of them are. We struggled with several, some of which installed imperfectly, demanding nonexistent passwords, graying out essential dialogue boxes, and pulling other annoying stunts. Others refused to touch my system at all. We would put in the disk and tell it to install, and the disk would reset the system, start over, and reset the system again, indefinitely. We’re not geeks, and obviously Linux was not about to let us have it geeklessly. We did get Xandros, but it started trashing my files. I tried SUSE, but didn’t like its environment. They all had trouble addressing backup discs and the Internet. Thus went the dull month of Jejune.
We had to buy a new system and juggle things around, before finding a hardware combination that would allow one distribution, Linspire, to install and work well enough. It wasn’t perfect, and I couldn’t get it to go online at all, but at least it was close enough to use. (Linspire lives online, but I live in the backwoods and have only dial-up, which it mostly ignores. So I had only a fraction of what it offers others.) So in the months of Jewellye, Awghost, and SapTimber I used Linspire to write this novel. After this I’ll try Kubuntu to see if I like it better. The point is, I worked out the bypaths of the novel while struggling with the bypaths of Linux.
At this writing I am seventy-two years old, with a bad back (a collapsed disk—could that be why my computer had trouble addressing discs?) and my wife is struggling with her health. Age is a bleep. Those who want to track my ongoing activities can click my website, www.hipiers.com. Every so often a fan asks if he can take over the writing
of Xanth novels after I croak, and I politely decline. As Mark Twain said, reports of my death are exaggerated. Also at this writing there are three movies based on my books being worked on; by the time of publication more may be known about that.
Once again I used more than a hundred reader suggestions, but more kept piling in. Some readers sent pages of puns, too many to use in one novel. I considered having special regions made up of all these puns, but feared that would slow the story. So I used a few, and saved the rest for future novels. I try to use puns by everyone else before using several by one person, as a matter of fairness. Some notions were simply too good to use in the late stages of this novel; I’m saving them for better treatment in the next. I hate to use a good idea as a peripheral mention, when it could be so much more. Some relate to characters that don’t appear here, so again they have to wait. But in a general way, I used up the available ideas through July 2006. It’s likely to be two years before they see publication, but at least they are in the pipeline.
About character names: some I invent, often with alliteration, like Cyrus Cyborg or Don Donkey. Some are suggested by readers. And some I borrow from readers, generally without their knowledge. Some readers write me asking that they be put into Xanth; the answer is generally no. But when I need a spot name for someone with a par ticular talent, then I may use the suggester’s name. It is pretty much chance, so don’t deluge me with talents, hoping to get your name used as a character; you’re likely to be disappointed.
Here are the credits, in general order of use, but when a person has more than one, I list them together.
Novel Title: Two to the Fifth, for the thirty-second Xanth novel, Assorted Cans, Em Pathy—Tim Bruening. Golden Retriever, grape and strawberry jellyfish, shedding mortal coils, Rhythm’s chicken-leg drumsticks, Deathbed—Robert. Piper as a significant character—Piper Misna. Dust Devil that is really a devil—Chase Kelly. Selective Friction—Trevor Brogan. Tess Tosterone, S Trojan—David Witchell. Like-ens and Dislike-ens—Amethyst Stever. Robot, Synthe, and Roman tics—Scott Wheeler. T-Tree with hot cups of tea—Mary Rashford. Xina—Ken Kirschenman. Flying Turtle Dove, Bed Rock, Sea Urchin—Alex Paris. Knuckle Sandwich—Niku Larang. Tuff, the volcanic rock salesman—Carlos Plascencia. Strip Tide, Feather Boa Constrictor, Gray V, Mugs that steal—Kelsie O’Dea. Serendipity Serpent, White and Yellow Pages—Judi Trainor. Gene Pool—David Seltzer. A Void Dance—Norman McLeod. Beaten Path—Cassi. Ants: Defend, Correspond, Persist, Convers, Inf, Anti-perspir, Adjudic, Expector, Miscre, Disinfect, Mendic, Contest, Merch, Eleph, Inform, Flagr, Claim, Consult—Donna Macomber-Cassidy. Adverbi, Bronchi Ale—Jennifer Katz. Ragna Roc—Steven Zimmerman. Magnet Monster vs. Com Pewter—Evelynn Moore. Navel Oranges—Shannon Arney. Talent of making mirrors appear—Johnny Maio. Excerpting letters from words to make magic, boy and girl who read minds of women and men—Megan Higgins. Lady Bug—Christina Pirnie. Umber Ella, Copies of Roland’s program make other robots barbarian, and loving Hannah—Mark O. Burson. Candy Striper—David J. Browlee. Weslee Weredragon—Weslee Scott. Eye Sickle—Tom Marrin. Walk in someone else’s shoes, use their magic—Tom Koerber. Talent of the Silver Lining—Christa. Wood Bees—Ethan Sun-tag. Causeway, for a good cause—Daniel Forbes. Scowling Powder—Susan Lepper. Butter Fingers—Dale Ashburn. Algae Bra—Hercilla A. Dillard. Daylight Saving Hours—Rachel Vater. Kadence—Maura Guerrero. Guise, making special clothing; Layea, who makes any male do her bidding, 23 minutes of 24 hours; Gole, able to make reversed copies of people; talent of rearranging one’s body; Masque that imbues one ability of creature it’s made from—Joseph Raymer. Talent of organization: coordinating others efficiently—Mary Eriksen. Talent of making food—Jim Egerton. Magic Drinks: Ales, Gins, Rums, etc.—Avi Ornstein. Telephone—Andrew Palmer. Iron E, Gold N—Andrea Duquette. Lettered salts, Talent of changing one thing in a person’s memory, Talent of making small rocks explode—Joseph Laurendeau. Mermaids, merbutlers, mernannies—Carlos Pl-ascencia. Object of D’s Ire—Frederick Love and Aunt Dee Dee. Talent Scout—Jen Bartlett. Talent of controlling a wisp of fog—Tommy Yarbrough. Talent of conjuring assorted cloths, or of turning cloth as hard as steel—Blackadder. Talent of being perfect on the first try, not thereafter—Donna Duffy. Ability to invoke the talents of dead people, talent of making stone invisible—Alex Aylor. Twins In Crease and De Crease—Jessica Becker. Talent of unbreaking—Pete. Water moccasins—Norm McLead. Water dragon made of water—Dale DellaTorre. Talent of creating a local Region of Madness—John Frey. Disastrous Misses—Blaine Conner. Coughee—R. J. Craigs. Talent of the Seldom Scene—Shaunna Gyorki. D Kay, zombie demoness—Norm McLeod. Zombies lend a hand, never give lip, go to pieces—Kiti Williams. Cities of Necess, Adver, Pompos, Elasti, and Verbo—Melanie Nunnelee. Hell Breaking Loose, basis for the play “The Riddle”—Daniel Colpi. Andromeda, queen of dragonfl ies—Ashley Williford. Orienta, who conjures Eastern things—Carrie Foster. Names: Damien, Demetrius, Lita, Nathaniel, Katriana—Sharina Van Dorn. Lullaby, who sings folk to sleep—Jessica Becker. Block Long Erection—George Steele. Common Cents—Jill King. Escape Peas—David Witchell. Talent of knocking the socks off people—Dale Ashburn. Hydraponics—growing hydras from water—Lizzy Wilford. Knight Light—Niko Laranang. Fans Club—Norm McLeod. Obvious and Obvious Lee—Patricia Blalock. Talent of can’t be hurt by mundane means—K. Adams.