A woman sat in a court in front of the building. She had a shelf of books beside her desk, and was writing with the point of a bright feather on the middle section of a scroll that rolled up above and below.
Ivy stepped forward. “Clio, I presume? May we speak with you?”
The woman looked up. She was in white, and her curly hair was verging on the same color at the fringes, but there was an ageless look of preservation about her. There was no telling how long she had lived or how much longer she would live, but a fair guess might be centuries, either way.
“I am. And you would be Ivy. I was aware of your impending visit; I had just not realized that this would be the day.”
“This is Grey, my betrothed from Mundania,” Ivy said, indicating Grey. “And Nada, Princess of the Naga, and Electra, from maybe nine hundred years ago, both betrothed to my little brother.”
Clio smiled. “Ah yes, I remember. That's in—which volume is it? There are so many, I sometimes lose track.”
Ivy stepped closer. “Are these the volumes? Maybe I'll see the title.” She peered at the shelf of books. “Isle of View, Question Quest, The Color of Her—” She was overcome by a rogue giggle.
“No, dear, those are future volumes,” Clio said. “I have written them, but they haven't yet happened, in your terms. Look farther to the left.”
Ivy looked to the left. “Man From Mundania—hey, does that have anything to do with—?”
“Of course, dear,” Clio replied. “And a fine volume it is, if I do say so myself. But that is not where—”
“Oh, yes.” Ivy looked again. “Heaven Cent, Vale of the Vole, Golem in the—“
“That's it!” Clio exclaimed. “Now I remember! Heaven Cent, when Prince Dolph went in search of the Good Magician Humfrey and got betrothed to two excellent young women.” She smiled at the two girls. “It is so nice to meet you at last! I've written so much about you!”
Grey, meanwhile, was amazed. Several future volumes of Xanth history had already been written? And what was the title that had so titillated Ivy? He sidled closer, so that he could read the words on the spines of the volumes.
“You mean you already know how it turns out with us?” Electra asked Clio. “Which one of us married Dolph?”
“Of course I know!” Clio said. “It is my business to know. That is certainly an interesting episode, and I envy the two of you the experience of its resolution.”
Grey got his eyes lined up on the titles. It was awkward, because he was still a bit too far away, and the angle was bad, but he was just able to piece out the words. Geis of the Gargoyle, Harpy Thyme—but these weren't the ones Ivy had seen!
“Do you think you could—I mean—” Electra said.
“Naturally not, dear,” Clio said in her kindly fashion. “If I told you the resolution, it would spoil it for you, and you wouldn't like that, now would you?”
Grey realized that he was too far to the right. He was reading titles even farther in the future! But he was heading leftward, and should soon intersect the ones Ivy had called out. Demons Don't Dream, The Color of Her—ah, there it was at last! “Panties!” he exclaimed aloud, laughing.
There was a sudden silence as all the others looked at him. He felt himself flushing. “Uh, I was just—”
“You really should not be peeking at future titles,” Clio said firmly. “Suppose the news got out? There could be chaos!”
“I'm, uh, sorry,” Grey said, abashed. “I won't tell, if that helps.”
She gazed at him for an uncomfortably long moment.
“There is considerable irony in that statement, do you realize that?”
Grey spread his hands. “I, uh, no, not exactly.”
Clio sighed. “My fault, perhaps; I should not have been careless with the volumes.” She touched the top of the bookshelf, and the air before the tomes fuzzed and turned opaque. The open shelf had become a closed shelf, a wooden panel hiding the books. “Now, Ivy, why is it that you came? I seem to have lost the thread again.”
Ivy seemed for a moment to have lost the thread herself, but she recovered it promptly. “I want to marry Grey, but I can't unless we find a magic talent for him, and we think there's just a chance he might somehow have one, and surely you know—”
“My dear, my dear!” Clio said. “I can no more tell you in advance about Grey's talent than I can tell Nada and Electra how their triangle with Dolph will turn out! It would not be ethical, quite apart from the complications of paradox.”
“Oh, Clio!” Ivy said, looking woebegone. “It's so important to me! I love him, and if—”
Clio raised both hands in a stop gesture. “I understand, Ivy, believe me I do! But this is a matter of professional ethics. I can not compromise in this matter, no matter how much I may wish to. This is a situation you must see through in your own fashion.”
Ivy was crying now. Grey was deeply touched to see her break down so quickly on this issue, though he understood the Muse's position. He stepped to her and enfolded her. “She's right Ivy! We have already seen too much. We have no right to put her in this position.”
“You are a fine young man,” Clio said. “Perhaps I can say this much: it will not be long, now.”
“Thank you,” Grey said, uncertain what she meant.
He guided Ivy back the way they had come. Nada and Electra followed, pausing only to thank the Muse individually for her attention. Soon they were on their way back down the mountain.
The descent was hardly less arduous than the ascent.
Ivy's tears in due course condensed to sniffles, and then to mere depression. She had evidently put more hope in this than she had let on. Grey's mood was hardly better.
To have come so close to an answer, only to have that hope dashed—
“Are we far enough away?” Electra asked.
Ivy stared at her dully. “For what?” Grey asked.
“To talk.”
“Maybe we should get the rest of the way down, before we relax,” Grey said, not certain what she had in mind.
She looked disappointed. “I suppose so. But I'm about ready to burst!”
Grey looked around. “Oh. Well, there're bushes around. We could wait while you—”
She laughed. “Not physically, dope! Mentally! With my news!”
“Tell us your news when we're clear of Parnassus,” Nada said. She was in her girl-headed-serpent form, sliding fairly readily down the slope.
They resumed their motion. In due course they reached the fork in the path. But they had hardly gone beyond it before there was a clamor from below.
Ivy came to life. “The Maenads!” she exclaimed. “They're below us!”
“And the Python,” Nada said, changing briefly to full snake form, then back. “I smell them both, now. They must have crossed the path and smelled our scent.”
“We must run!” Ivy said, flustered.
“We're too tired,” Nada pointed out. “Even fresh, we could not go faster than those, monsters.”
“Maybe if we split up,” Grey suggested. “That might confuse them, and they might go the wrong way—”
“Which wrong way?” Ivy asked. “If some of us are each way—”
“I'll decoy them!” Gray said. “You three go back up the path where your scent already is, and I'll run down the other and make a noise to attract them.”
“But you don't know the first thing about this mountain!” Ivy protested.
“It's my responsibility,” he replied. “I—”
The noise below grew abruptly louder. The Maenads were rounding a curve and would soon be upon them.
“Go!” Grey cried, pointing to the path they had just come down. He himself ran down the other.
Ivy and Electra turned and started up. Nada was on the other side of him; she assumed woman form and started to step across just as he began running. They collided.
At another time he might have found this event interesting, for Nada was contoured somewhat like soft pillows. But in thi
s rush he was afraid he had hurt her.
“Nada! Are you—”
He broke off, for she had disappeared. Realizing that she had changed form to avoid falling to the ground, he ran on. She would join the others, in one form or another, and they would hide. All he had to do was decoy the monsters.
He slowed, and glanced back. There was a Wild Woman! She was indeed naked, with flaring tresses and a figure suggestive of an hourglass. She was gazing up the path the others had taken.
“Over here, nymph!” Grey called, waving his arms.
Her head turned, rotating on her shoulders as if mounted on ball bearings. Now he saw her eyes. They were insanely wild. He had not taken these Wild Women seriously, but those eyes sent a chill through him. This was no sweet young thing; this was a rabid tigress!
The Maenad launched herself in his direction, uttering a harsh shriek of hunger. Her legs were beautiful, her breasts were beautiful, her face was beautiful, but that shriek was spine-tingling. She opened her mouth, and he saw her pointed teeth, and saw her tongue flick out the way Nada's had when she was in serpent form. There seemed to be candle flames inside her eyeballs.
“YUM!” she screamed, reaching for him with hands whose nails were like blood-dipped talons.
Grey spun about and resumed his running. But the Wild Woman was fast; she kept pace. He couldn't draw far enough ahead of her to get off the path and hide; he had to keep going. He heard the screams of the other Maenads farther behind. They sounded just as bloodthirsty.
The path twisted as if trying to make him stumble, but he ran with the surefootedness of desperation and kept up speed. He began to leave the Maenad behind. But now his breath was puffing, and he was tiring rapidly; he had not been fresh when he started. He could have used a dose of Ivy's Enhancement!
He had had the bright idea to be the decoy. It had been the gallant thing to do. But now he was in trouble. How was he going to get out of this?
Something touched his chest at his breast pocket. He reached up, thinking it was a snag of a branch—and felt a tiny snake. Its head was poking out of the pocket.
For an instant he felt shock. Then his fevered mind put two and two together. “Nada!” he gasped.
Indeed it was she. Instead of falling to the ground, where she might have been trodden on, she had evidently clung to his shirt and slipped into his pocket. In his preoccupation with the Maenads, he had not noticed.
“Sorry I got you into this!” he puffed. “I don't know where I'm going, but I don't dare stop!”
The snake did not reply, which was perhaps just as well.
At least she understood that it had been an accident.
Despite his tiring, he was leaving the leading Maenad farther behind. Was she also tiring or merely hanging back to allow the others of her ilk to catch up? He might have turned and dealt with one, though he did not like the idea of striking a lovely bare woman. But he knew he would have no chance against the pack of them.
But if he got far enough ahead, he could dodge off the path and hide. They would charge on past, and then he would return to the path and run the other way. He hoped.
If he went off the path and they winded him, he would be in deep mud for sure!
He rounded a bend. Suddenly he was charging toward a pretty spring. Another hate spring? The others had concluded from the evidence of the Tapestry that that one had been valid, but had somehow lost its potency by the time he and Ivy reached it. Certainly it had not worked on them! But there was no guarantee that this one would be similarly powerless. In fact it might be a love spring. It glimmered with a pale reddish hue, as if potent with some kind of magic. Suppose he splashed through it, then saw a Maenad?
These thoughts flitted through his pulsing brain as he ran toward it. By the time they had run their course, he was almost at it. He veered to avoid it, but stumbled; only by frantic windmilling did he stop himself from pitching headfirst into the water.
Nada fell from his pocket and splashed into the spring.
Appalled, he watched the little snake thrashing. Should he reach in and pull her out? Then he would be affected too!
She changed to her human form. She shook the water from her eyes and looked directly at him. “Hey, hi, handsome!” she exclaimed.
Well, it wasn't a hate spring! “Nada, get out of there! The Wild Women are coming!”
She hiccupped. “No! You come in! It's nice!”
Was it a love spring? He didn't dare touch it! “Get out!” he repeated. “If they catch you they'll tear you apart!”
But she demurred. She sat in the shallow water, her breasts lifting clear and dripping. Even in this danger, he was struck by her sex appeal. She might be half serpent, but she was all woman! “Come in! You'll like it!” she invited. She hiccupped again. “This wine's wonderful!”
“You're intoxicated!” he exclaimed, catching on.
“No, I'm drunk!” she corrected him. “This must be the Maenad's wine spring. Pretty soon I'll be raving wild just like them! What fun!”
Now the Maenads came into sight. They spied Nada in the wine spring, and screamed with outrage.
There was no help for it. He had to haul her out of there before the wild woman got their claws on her. He would just have to resist the intoxicating effect of the water.
Grey waded in. The water was bathwater warm, and felt somehow soft against his legs as it soaked his trousers. He reached down to take hold of Nada.
“Oooo, goody!” she exclaimed, reaching up to embrace him.
“None of that!” he rapped. “Come on out! We have to run!” But she was slippery with the wine-water, and his hands merely slid over her marvelous flesh, stroking regions they should not.
“Oooo, fun!” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and hauling his face in for a wet and sloppy kiss. He turned his face aside, but that was the least of his problems.
He couldn't get her out! She was too slippery and too affectionate. Meanwhile the Wild Women were charging in; already it was too late to escape them. He would have to try to fight them.
“Change into your snake form!” he told Nada. “Get back in my pocket! I'll need both hands free to shove them away; I can't hold on to you.”
“Serpent form?” she asked, still trying to kiss him.
The Maenads came to the pool and circled it. Their eyes glowed and their teeth glistened and their claws quivered expectantly. Grey knew the two of them were done for. In a moment the Wild Women would plunge in from all sides and tear them apart.
Then he had another desperate notion. “Make it a big snake! Your biggest and fiercest ever!”
“Big?”
“Huge, gigantic, fierce!” he cried. “To fight the Wild Women!”
Finally she caught on. “Nasty women!”
“Terrible women! Do it!”
Nada changed. Suddenly he had his arms around a python that must weigh twice as much as he did. It was Nada, but horrendous.
She hissed at the Wild Women. They stared, for the moment startled from their madness. Then their blood lust returned in force, and they charged into the pool.
And paused. A look of dismay spread across their several faces. “Where's wine?” one asked, her words barely distinguishable.
Several of them scooped up handfuls of the water, tasting it. Their dismay intensified. “Wine gone!” one exclaimed in sheerest horror.
“Get out of here, Nada!” Grey said.
Nada undulated to the edge of the pool and out. The Maenads, distracted, seemed hardly to notice. They were busy sampling their pool, verifying that its magic was gone.
Grey waded out, struck by the similarity of this scene to that of the goblins with their hate spring. Something strange had happened again, but he couldn't pause to analyze it. He hurried after Nada.
She headed for the deepest forest, moving well despite her intoxication. Of course it was impossible for her to stagger or fall, in this form. He plowed into the foliage, fighting through the branches and leaves. At an
y moment the Maenads might recover from their shock and resume the pursuit!
Nada drew up beside a huge chestnut tree. She stopped under a large chest of nuts, and resumed human form.
“Now kish me,” she invited, extending her arms to him again.
Grey straight-armed her, gently. “You can't be drunk,” he said. “That water has lost its potency.”
Her eyes widened. “Suddenly I'm sober!” she said. “How did you do that?”
“I didn't do it!” he protested. “You must have just thought it was wine, so—”
“Grey, look at me,” she said sharply.
He looked into her face. Her eyes were completely clear, her mouth firm. “I am not drunk now, but believe me, I was a moment ago. I had lost all perspective. All I thought of was being with a handsome man. I had conveniently forgotten that you and I are betrothed to others. I would never do that, sober. That water intoxicated me instantly, and that was no illusion. It didn't stop until just now. You did it, Grey!”
“But I couldn't have! It would take magic, and I have no magic. You know that.”
She cocked her head. “Electra—what was she about to say to us, there on the path, that was so urgent? She may look like a child, but she's got a good mind.”
“She was full of some news she had, but—”
“I think I know. This experience jogged my memory. Grey, when Ivy asked the Muse about your talent, she said that it would not be ethical to tell us about it in advance. Wasn't that it?”
“Yes, something like that. But what relevance—”
“Think about it. How could she tell us about a nonexistent thing?”
Grey froze. “But that must mean—”
“That you do have a talent,” she finished. “She slipped, Grey, and Electra was the only one to catch it.
That's what she was so bursting to tell us! You do have magic!” Grey was stunned. “Oh, Nada, I could kiss you!”
“No you don't!” she said firmly. “Not when I'm sober.”
“Uh, I meant that as a figure of—”
She smiled. “I know. Just never forget that I am Ivy's friend—a good one.”
“I never did.”