The Dastard

  She squatted and tapped the ground to see what kind of rock it was. But it wasn't rock, it was wood. This was an old, worn, weathered, battered, mass of wood, maybe the remnant of some giant ancient tree. Everything must have rotted away except the heartwood.

  Heartwood. A bulb flashed. "The Heart!" she exclaimed. "This is it!"

  She uncorked the vial and poured it out on the wood, spreading the fluid around. A gentle, sweet-smelling vapor rose from it. The liquid flowed across the ridges and cracks, finding its way into the crevices of the giant wooden heart. She backed away, still pouring, until the last of the elixir was gone. There had not been nearly enough to cover the whole surface, but she hoped that wasn't necessary.

  The wood began to swell where the water from the Stream of Life touched it. Becka hastily got the rest of the way off it, and stood by the edge of the clearing, watching. The effect was expanding, and the surface was beginning to move slowly up and down. There came a sound, deep and increasingly powerful, as of a drum being slowly pounded, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom. In fact the Heart was beating!

  Becka watched and listened, awed. The heart was now a dramatically living thing, pumping its fluid through the Dead Forest. And the trees were coming alive too. Buds were swelling, leaves were growing, even some flowers were blooming. The entire forest was turning green. It was absolutely lovely.

  Becka stood there, entranced by the wonder and sheer splendor of at all. What a marvel this was, the dead returning so dramatically to life. All because she had poured a few cups of healing water onto the Heart. If this was the only really good thing she ever accomplished in her life, still it was enough to give her life meaning. She was utterly thrilled.

  Chapter 8

  PTERO

  Little Princess Melody looked around. Castle Roogna looked just like the real one on Xanth, but so far the people were either too old or odd. This Green Murphy, for example: How could she be their little sister, when she was nineteen? That was positively ancient. But she did have one thing going for her: her dark green hair. Melody could relate to a person with green hair; there weren't many, apart from her mother Ivy, and Grandma Irene.

  Green Murphy led the four of them out of the castle. There was the surrounding moat, and the moat monster. Melody didn't recognize the latter. "What happened to Soufflé" she asked.

  "Oh, this is Chip, Soufflé's apprentice," Green said. She called to the moat monster. "Hi, Chip!"

  The huge serpent slid through the water toward them. "Hi, Green. Who're your friends?"

  "He talks?" Rhythm asked, surprised.

  "He uses illusion," Green said.

  "Oh, you promised not to tell," Chip said.

  "To talk, I mean," Green said quickly. "So folk can understand you."

  "What's not being said?" Rhythm asked.

  "Chip," Green said, "these are the Princesses Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm, and their friend Sim."

  "But they're too young for this region."

  "They're from Xanth. They exchanged with the ones we know. So is it all right to tell them about the rest of your illusion?"

  The monster peered closely at the four. "They do look like them. Very well, I'll tell. My illusion makes me big, when I'm serving in a big moat."

  "You look regular moat-monster size," Sim peeped.

  "I'm not. I'm imp moat-monster sized." Then the illusion dissipated, and Chip shrank into the size of a chipmouse. "But this wouldn't impress an invader, so I use illusion to magnify my size and make my voice intelligible."

  "Oh, that makes sense," Melody agreed. "Maybe we should do that too."

  "No need," Chip said. "Just travel downtime."

  "Downtime?" Harmony asked.

  "I'm about to show them," Green said. "This is their first visit here."

  "Oh. Have a nice visit. Beware of the comic strips." Chip slowly sank down into the water and disappeared.

  "Downtime," Rhythm repeated. "Comic strips?"

  "Let me show you," Green said. "Then you'll understand. We're so used to it that we tend to forget that it's different on other worlds."

  "Other worlds?" Sim peeped.

  "Those too," Green said. "I'll show you everything. One thing at a time."

  They walked westward. "Look north," Green said, and they looked. "Do you see that it's blue?"

  "Yes," Melody said. "There's a sort of blue haze."

  "That's because it's cold that way. Now look south."

  "There's a red haze," Harmony said. "Does that mean it's hot?"

  "Yes. The farther you go, the hotter its gets, until it's just a desert. So you can always have the climate you want, here on Ptero. Now look east."

  They turned to look back toward the castle. "There's a yellow haze," Rhythm concluded.

  "That's the color of the past. Now look forward."

  "It's green," Sim said. "That must indicate the future."

  "Smart bird," Green agreed. "We refer to them as From and To. From the past, To the future." She paused. "Now do you notice anything about yourselves?"

  They considered. "No," Melody said.

  "Then I'll use my talent," Green said. "Which is to manipulate time so I can travel farther."

  "But time isn't travel," Harmony said.

  "Here it is," Green said. "Hold my hands."

  The four of them touched her two hands. Suddenly they were farther west. The scenery had changed.

  "What did you do?" Rhythm asked.

  "I moved us two hours west. Now how do you see yourselves?"

  They looked around. There was something odd about the landscape. "It's smaller," Sim said, surprised. "And so are you, Green Murphy."

  "No, I'm the same size," the woman insisted.

  "We're bigger!" Melody exclaimed, a bulb flashing above her head.

  "So we are," Harmony agreed, staring at her sisters and Sim.

  "No, we're older," Rhythm concluded. "We're six years old, and Sim is seven."

  "Two years older," Green agreed. "So am I. In this circumstance, an hour equals a year. If you go farther west, you'll eventually become adult, and share the Adult Conspiracy. When you go back, you will return to your original age."

  The three not-quite-so-little princesses were awed at the notion of fathoming the Adult Conspiracy, but didn't quite believe it. There was always a catch.

  "How can this be?" Sim peeped, amazed. "Geography is not time."

  "Yes, geography is time, here," Green said. "That's the thing about Ptero. We're not fixed in age; we can be any age we want, from baby to ancient. All we have to do is travel east or west."

  "From or To," Sim peeped, showing how well he understood.

  "Different magic!" Melody said. "Ptero has different magic."

  "Yes. The magic of time and space. This makes my particular talent more useful."

  "But how can hours be years?" Harmony asked.

  "Strictly speaking, it can be confusing," Green said. "I was speaking of the time it would take us to walk this distance. It would take us another two hours to walk back, but then we would not get older, but younger. I simply jumped us two hours ahead in our schedule. My talent is not exactly to manipulate real time, but personal time. It will be simpler if you just think of geography as age."

  Rhythm put her hands to her head. "I can't."

  "Neither can I," Melody said. "That thought is too big for my cute little noggin."

  "I can," Sim said. But he didn't count; he was destined to be the wisest of all birds. Besides, his noggin was bigger than theirs.

  "Let's move farther downtime," Green said. "Your adult minds should find it easier to assimilate."

  Bemused, they took hold of her hands again, and suddenly they were twenty years old, full grown. They gazed at each other, awed. "We're beautiful!" Melody said.

  "Lovely," Harmony agreed.

  "Phenomenal," Rhythm concluded.

  "And I'm huge," Sim peeped.

  They looked at him. He was now full roc-sized, a splendid avian figure.

  "
I'm sorry I can't take you to your age twenty-one," Green Murphy said. "But that is now your missing year."

  They looked at her. "You're old!" Melody said tunelessly.

  "Thirty-five," she agreed. "I can travel in personal time, in my fashion, but geography governs me too. Were your older Selves here, they would be thirty-seven."

  "Ugh!" Harmony said unharmoniously.

  "What a fate," Rhythm said without a good beat.

  "Not necessarily," Sim peeped. "Since they can control it geographically."

  "That is correct," the older Green agreed. "Age is no specter for us, as we exist at whatever level we choose. Actually, we discover delights in any age, and periodically move Castle Roogna From or To for variety."

  Melody had a problem with this. She found that her new adult mind was more reasonable and rational than her child mind, but it couldn't make sense of all aspects. "If you can be any age, when do you fade out?"

  "We don't. We remain indefinitely without beginning or end. We are immortal."

  Harmony's mind was also more mature. "Yet you have babyhood and seniorhood. How can that be, if you never pass from the scene?"

  "We are constrained by our natural life-spans," Green explained. "We can travel anywhere within them, but not beyond them. So I have been back to age two and forward to age eighty-two, and enjoyed both, and all between. But if I want to know what is beyond, I must ask someone whose life extends before mine, or after mine. Thus our geography is limited, not our existence."

  "But what of us in Xanth?" Rhythm asked. By not much of a coincidence her mind too was mature. "We do grow old, and fade out if we don't get Youth Elixir. What happens to us?"

  "Why you return here, of course. You are mortal only temporarily, but immortal forever."

  "This does not seem like such a bad place," Sim peeped.

  "It isn't. Of course it's not very exciting, either. But it's what we have. Sometimes we arrange to visit the smaller worlds, for variety."

  "Those would be the other worlds you mentioned before?" Sim inquired.

  "Yes. Perhaps it is time to explain about them. Ptero, as you know, is actually a moon orbiting your Princess Ida's head. Princess Ida on Ptero also has a moon."

  "Oh, we didn't see it," Melody said.

  "It is shy about folk it doesn't know. I'm sure soon you can see it, if you wish. It is Pyramid, with four triangular sides, each a different color. Its rules of magic differ from those of Xanth or Ptero, but are consistent to their world."

  Harmony's brow furrowed. "Is there a Princess Ida on Pyramid?"

  "Yes, and she has her own moon, called Torus, in the shape of a doughnut."

  All four of them burst out laughing. "We hope nobody eats it," Rhythm said.

  "And Torus, too, has an Ida?" Sim inquired. He was always interested in learning more.

  "Yes. It is called Cone, because it is in the shape of a cone. It is filled with water, which is a mighty sea to those who live there. Land folk live on the outside, and water folk under the sea, but they can summon the stork only by getting together with each other. So there is a lot of activity at the shore."

  "The stork!" Melody exclaimed, amazed. "We know how to signal the stork!"

  "But you will forget it when you return to your younger age," Green said.

  The three considered. "It isn't as if it's all that much," Harmony said.

  "All that curiosity wasted on such a dull business," Rhythm concluded, disgusted.

  "Let's learn more about this world," Sim peeped.

  "I thought I would show you a comic strip," Green Murphy said.

  "Didn't Chip Moat Monster warn us against them?" Melody asked.

  "Yes he did," Harmony agreed.

  "So naturally we're most curious about them," Rhythm finished.

  "I thought you would be," Green said. "There's one not far north of here."

  They walked toward the blue haze. It did not get perceptibly colder, so Melody realized that the really cold weather was probably a long way away. That was fine with her.

  Before they got there, they encountered two somewhat seedy-looking adults. "Hello, Green!" the woman called.

  "Hello, Zelda," Green called back.

  They came together. "Who are your friends?" the man inquired. "They look like the royal triplets, but they're the wrong age."

  "They are the triplets," Green explained. "They exchanged with their other Selves for a Xanth mission. So they're seventeen years younger now. So is Sim." She turned to the four. "These are Xander and Zelda Zombie, twins, children of Xavier and Zora. His talent is electromagnetism, and hers is slowing time."

  "But King Xeth is Xav and Zora's son," Melody protested.

  "We were delivered the year after," Zelda explained. "We never made it to Xanth."

  "Never made it?" Harmony asked.

  "Like me," Green said. "Ptero is filled with folk who aren't in Xanth. We wish we could be there, but there simply isn't room for all of us might-be's there." She looked sad.

  "Can't you go to Xanth?" Rhythm asked.

  "No we can't," Xander said. "We have to be taken there by the stork, and the storks don't take every person who wants to go. But we're glad our brother Xeth made good. There are not great opportunities for zombies or half-zombies there, but things are improving."

  "Especially since the Zombie Master found us a world of our own," Zelda said.

  "Yes, now you can all rot together," Sim peeped.

  "Say, maybe we can exchange a service," Xander said.

  "A service?" Melody asked.

  "Here on Ptero we exchange services," Green Murphy said. "Nobody does anything for anybody else without a fair exchange."

  "But you're showing us around," Harmony said.

  "That is part of the exchange of services you four are making. Your friends on Xanth are surely helping your other Selves to manage there, and we are helping you to manage here."

  "So we don't have to do anything for you," Rhythm concluded. "But we can for Xander."

  "What do you wish?" Sim peeped.

  "I thought of something I want to tell Magician Trent," the halfzombie man said. "But telling Trent here is no good, because he can't affect his self in Xanth. So I need to find a messenger to take it to him there."

  "We can do that," Melody said. "Magician Trent is our great grandpa. He and Grandma Iris were youthened."

  "They moved to the Isle of Illusion, where they set up an embassy to the merfolk," Harmony added.

  "And they have a daughter," Rhythm said. "I forget her name."

  "Irenti or Trentia," Melody said.

  "Yes. She's here on Ptero. That is what made me think of this. I think he should go back and rescue his first wife, in Mundania, and bring her to Xanth."

  "But she died," Harmony protested. "Awful things like that happen in Mundania."

  "But a person in Xanth can visit Mundania any time," Zelda put in. "So he could cross over and catch her before she died."

  They considered that. It did seem possible. "But then what about Great Grandma Iris?" Rhythm asked. "Would we have to change her?"

  "You can't do that," Sim peeped. "That would be paradox. Not to mention the elimination of their daughter."

  "No, we're thinking of having him rescue her now, in your present time," Xander said. "So it wouldn't change anything for you. But she would be alive, and young, and he could have her back. I don't think Iris would mind."

  Melody wasn't sure of that, but didn't think it was her place to make such a decision. "We can tell him," she said. "What he does then will be his own business."

  "Excellent," Xander said. "Now what can we do for you?"

  The girls exchanged a glance. It was a much larger glance than usual, because they were now several times as old as they were used to. Thus it conveyed several times as much information.

  "We'd like to see Mother and Father when they were little," Harmony said.

  "So we can prove they messed up too," Rhythm finished.

  "We we
re delivered five years after Princess Ivy," Zelda said. "We can go back to when she was five. But we can't take you there, because you are too young. Your territory does not extend that far."

  "Maybe you can," Sim peeped. "The princesses have very special magic, if it works here."

  "It does work here," Green said. "But as far as we know, no magic can enable a person to travel beyond her lifetime."

  "If we sing and play it real, we might do it," Melody said. "At least in illusion."

  "That would be good enough," Harmony agreed. "We just want to see them."

  "Illusion," Xander said. "To recreate the scene. Based on our observation."

  "Yes," Rhythm said. "You can go back there, and send what you see, and we'll see it."

  The man nodded. "Maybe that will work. We can certainly try it. But it would be better to start from our home, instead of out here in the open, so we won't be disturbed."

  "But we live across the comic strip," Zelda said. "You wouldn't want to go there."

  "Yes we do," Melody said. "We were headed for it anyway."

  "What's supposed to be so bad about the comic strip?" Harmony asked. "It sounds funny."

  "It's disgusting," Xander said. Which was an odd thing for a halfzombie to say.

  "It's not dangerous, is it?" Rhythm asked.

  This time it was Xander, Zelda, and Green who exchanged an adult sized glance. "No, it's not dangerous to the body. It's just something you have to experience to properly appreciate," Green said.

  "But what is it?" Sim asked.

  "The regions of Ptero are separated by no-creatures-land strips of puns," Green said. "We live in the human section, Xander and Zelda live in the zombie section, and the centaurs live in the centaur section, and so on. There are many mixed sections, where crossbreeds exist, and of course folk don't have to live with their own kind. The folk of the different sections don't bother each other much, because it's so uncomfortable crossing the strips."

  "Because we're half-zombie," Zelda said, "our brains are half festering anyway, so we can tolerate the comic strips. So we can explore freely. But you completely human folk may suffer worse. You have sane minds."