Currant Events

  Litho pondered. "So Clio isn't my enemy. You are. You are the one I must destroy."

  Sherlock shrugged. "I really think you should give this up as a bad job, Litho. I don't want to hurt you. I just want to protect the woman I love."

  "Well, I want to hurt you." Litho stood tall. A giant boulder appeared in his hands. He hurled it down on Sherlock. Ciriana screamed. So did Clio. Sherlock didn't move.

  The boulder exploded. So did Litho, because it was of his substance. Fine sand flew out, forming a dense cloud. But it didn't hurt them. When it cleared, the three of them stood upon the cracked flat surface of Plane World.

  "Now I think we can go back," Sherlock said. He spread his arms to take in Clio and Ciriana.

  Stunned by the battle and the revelations, Clio agreed.

  18

  Garden

  They returned to their physical bodies in Princess Ida's study. Ciriana had reverted to age five. "Mice!" she swore. "I wanted to stay grown-up. I knew so much more then."

  "Give it time," Clio said. "Childhood is precious."

  Ciriana clearly wasn't convinced, but did not argue.

  "Did you accomplish what you went for?" Ida inquired.

  "We followed the blue arrow, and learned that Sherlock is the Magician of Reversal," Clio said.

  "That's amazing! But he does have the aura now. I had understood he worked with reverse wood."

  Aura? It seemed that one person of that level could recognize another. Princess Ida was the Sorceress of the Idea; they had seen only a fraction of her enormous range. That explained why Morgan and Litho had recognized him, and perhaps others too.

  "I do," Sherlock said. "But it's not limited to that."

  "He reversed the spaniel," Ciriana said. "He made Sorceress Morgan love him instead of him loving her, so he still loves Clio."

  That was rather more than Clio would have preferred to share at this time, but she bore with it. "Spancel, dear."

  "I had not known of that Sorceress," Ida said.

  "She's from Mudania," Ciriana said eagerly. "She can't go to Xanth, but she wants to."

  "Mundania," Ida agreed, gently correcting the child's pronunciation as Clio had. "That would explain it." She looked at Sherlock. "When did you conclude you were a Magician?"

  "When I had to save Clio. The Sorceress tricked me into leaping through the spancel, and I knew I couldn't afford to be bound to her, so I reversed it. Then I realized I probably couldn't have reversed a Sorceress unless I was a Magician."

  "That's not necessarily the case, but is a good general guide," Ida said. "Forgive me for my ignorance, but I don't quite understand how the things you have done relate to reversal. For example, you were conjuring wood chips."

  "I do have power over reverse wood," Sherlock said. "That fooled me for some time. I thought conjuration was just part of that. But later I was able to summon other things, and realized that I had not properly understood my developing talent. What I am doing is reversals of place: an object must be either here or there, so I change it from there to here."

  Clio was amazed. That was an aspect of reversal she had never thought of. "What of shaping wood?"

  "I reverse its nature from rigid to malleable, or if you prefer, hard to soft. But I have to be in contact with it; the moment it leaves my hand, it reverts to its natural condition. The same is true for wood I reverse from normal to reverse wood; it tends to revert when I am no longer in contact with it."

  "But the chip you gave Ciriana—that continued to work."

  "I thought it did, at first. But I was actually reversing her myself, and when she was out of my range, her curse reappeared."

  "I have to stay close to you, Daddy," the child said, satisfied.

  Clio kept her face straight. There was another awkward detail: Ciriana considered Sherlock to be her father! Their banter on Ptero had been the easy familiarity of father and grown daughter, rather than any seductive ploy. How would they ever place the child now?

  "And the animation of golems?" Ida asked.

  "I reversed them from inanimate to animate."

  Ida frowned. "And can you similarly render an animate person inanimate? That is to say, can you kill by your touch?"

  "Oh, I would never do that!"

  But he could, Clio saw. This was frightening.

  "How about Litho? That was a lesser Demon, equivalent to a Magician."

  "I reversed him from solid to fragmented, when he touched me."

  "The talent of reversing the characteristics of demons," Ida said. "A remarkable aspect."

  "You knew you could do this?" Clio asked.

  "I thought I might. I couldn't think of any other way to stop him."

  "You weren't sure?"

  "I wasn't sure," Sherlock agreed. "But the fragmentation of his hand had worked."

  He had stood there unflinching as the monster's boulder crashed down on his head. Was there a better example of raw courage?

  "You are certainly a Magician," Princess Ida said.

  "Well, I wasn't, until I had to be. When I tried to mold things that weren't reverse wood, early on, I couldn't. My power had not developed enough, then."

  "Can you reverse yourself?"

  "I doubt it. I think I will have to remain a middle-aged, homely, black man."

  "A decent man."

  Sherlock shrugged.

  "And you reversed the spancel?" Ida asked. "That would be the soul-spancel; what of the physical one?"

  Clio dug it out of her physical pocket. "I don't know."

  "If that now makes the one who wields it fall in love with the intended victim, it is dangerous to use."

  "It certainly is," Clio agreed. "I'll throw it away."

  "That would leave it as a danger for anyone who found it. Better to put it away safely."

  "I can simply reverse it again," Sherlock said. "Hold it out."

  "I don't want to touch it when you change it," Clio said nervously. She set it on the couch she had risen from.

  Sherlock touched it. The ribbon of skin twisted, writhed, then expanded into—a naked man.

  Clio clapped her hands over Ciriana's eyes before she could freak out. "What is this?"

  The man looked at her. "Who are you?"

  "I am Clio. Who are you?"

  "Stu the stonelayer." He looked around. "This isn't where I was last night. Where's Morgan?"

  Clio had a sudden ugly notion. "What was the nature of your business with her?"

  "She was going to take me into her bed. The last thing I remember was undressing and walking toward her. She was the sexiest creature I ever did see! Now suddenly I'm here. What happened?"

  "Look at your body," Clio said. "There's a mirror on the wall. Check your arms and legs."

  Stu did. "I've been flayed!" he exclaimed. "No wonder it smarts."

  "A strip of flesh was taken from around your body," Clio said. "Morgan must have drugged you and cut it out while you were unconscious." Actually Morgan had spoken of a man screaming, so it could have been much worse, but he didn't remember that. That was surely just as well.

  "Why that bleeping bleep! I should have known she didn't want me for my love!"

  "In a manner of speaking. This is some time later, in a different land. You should like it, once you get used to it."

  "Well, I'll find out." The man barged through the door and out into the hall. There were assorted eeeks marking his progress through the castle and out.

  "The rest of the man the spancel came from," Princess Ida said. "You reversed the dead strip of flesh into the live man."

  "Who has probably been dead for over ten centuries," Sherlock said. "He's better off now. Maybe he'll encounter some nymphs. At least the spancel won't be a danger anymore."

  Clio agreed. But this was yet another demonstration of Sherlock's power that unsettled her.

  They left the castle. The three little Princesses were not in evidence, and Clio was just as glad. She was still assimilating revelations.

  A swir
l of smoke formed. "So you are astern," it said.

  "We are what?" Clio asked before she thought.

  "Behind, tardy, posterior, ebb, rear—"

  "Back?"

  "Whatever," the cloud agreed crossly.

  "Hello, Metria. Yes, we are back from Ptero and points beyond."

  The demoness formed, every luscious portion overlapping the next. "Then you haven't heard the latest gossip, have you! The Good Magician lost his Book of Answers."

  Clio was amazed. "He what?"

  "Mislaid, confused, abandoned—hey, I had the right word."

  "I mean, how could that happen? He never lets that tome leave his office."

  "No one knows. He went to pore over it this morning, as usual, and it wasn't there. In its place was a really raw maple syrup—"

  Sherlock extended a finger and touched her.

  "A really sappy love story," Metria concluded. Then she looked surprised. "How did I get the right word so fast?"

  "Daddy reversed you," Ciriana said.

  The demoness rotated to face Sherlock, her clothing shrinking dangerously. But he touched her again, and her clothing expanded to cover all of her more than adequately; she looked like a matron. "Straw!"

  She was back to the wrong word. It seemed that only one reversal could occur at a time. "Hey?" Ciriana offered.

  "Whatever," the demoness agreed crossly.

  "He reversed your outfit," Clio said. "So you wouldn't show Too Much and possibly even flash him with your panties."

  "He's dangerous." Metria popped off elsewhere.

  "She's fun," Ciriana said.

  Clio looked at her wrist. The compass was back, pointing south. The red time hand was well away from the mark. "I think we have a long walk coming up."

  "Perhaps I can ameliorate that with a spot reversal," Sherlock said. He reached out to take the child's hand, and Clio's.

  "I don't understand—"

  Then they stood before Mount Parnassus. "Daddy switched us from Here to There," Ciriana said. "Ooo! Look at the garden!"

  Indeed, in the foreground was a lovely garden, on the north slope of the mountain. Clio had been aware of it, over the decades, but never actually visited it. Now it seemed a visit was in order, because the blue arrow pointed into it.

  Before they could enter it, a man emerged from a little garden house. "A greeting, Muse," he said. "I am Emell, the guardian of the Garden of Events. I am honored by your visit."

  "I don't believe we've met," Clio said, taken aback. For the man had bare shoulders, with markings on his skin. There were pictures of a little fairy on the right, and a tiny green dragon with red wings on the left. She had never before seen body decorations quite like this. How could Emell have been here all this time without her knowing?

  "I shall be happy to give you my life history, Muse," the man said.

  "That's not really necessary."

  But he had already launched. "I'm from Mundania. I was once a fan of Xanth. I avidly read every book smuggled out of the land. They were wonderful."

  "Really," Clio said, flattered.

  "I even had a map. I hoped this would help me locate a gate or something so I could go there. So one day I simply put my dull Mundane life on hold and set out wearing just shorts, sneakers, a tank top, and a knapsack with a few provisions. My map looked just like Florida, so I figured that was the place to start."

  "I'm not sure we need to know this much," Sherlock said.

  "Yes we do," Clio said. She remained thrilled by the compliment to her volumes of Xanth history.

  "At first my quest was uneventful. I walked through Mundane backyards, across numerous roads and highways, through fields and forests, all coming to nothing but more Mundania. Days passed, even weeks. I got discouraged: did Xanth really exist? I was trying to make the decision to give up, which I really hated to do. I was taking one more dispirited look at the map, when I heard some rustling in the bushes to my side. I looked—and thought I saw a small naked girl's backside rounding another bush, and then a little man with goat-like legs chasing after her. A nymph and faun! I hardly believed my eyes, but I didn't hesitate; I ran after them. I wasn't paying any attention to where I was going; I just wanted to catch up, and maybe find my way into Xanth. I didn't see the stump ahead of me, and I tripped over it. I fell so quickly I didn't have time to catch my balance, and I bashed my head into a rock. Hurt and dazed, I lifted my head—and looked straight into a hypnogourd."

  "This is mischief," Sherlock said.

  "It sure was. I was helpless, caught in that haunted house, you know. Actually when I got into it I found a roomful of girls, and every time they flashed their panties I freaked out and had to start over. It was a lot of fun, but meanwhile my body was stuck outside, slowly withering away. But I had friends. My two tattoos, Fern and Dagger, were knocked off my shoulders." Emell glanced fondly at his shoulders, where the little fairy and dragon were. "They gathered their wits, which had been scattered with the impact, and flew off to try to find help. They found the keeper of this garden. 'Please help us,' Fern beseeched him. 'We'll do anything.' Well, the gardener was sort of a lout, but she was too small to do what he might want. So he made them a deal: he'd get me out of the gourd if I'd take over his job guarding the garden, so he could go enjoy himself elsewhere. They had no choice, so they agreed. He came and put his finger between my eye and the gourd's peephole, bringing me out of it. If Fern and Dagger had known it was that easy, they would have blocked it themselves. But they hadn't known, so I was committed. And here I have been, ever since, wearing my loyal friends. Actually it's not a bad deal; it is Xanth, where pies grow on trees, and sometimes one of those sexy maenads comes around pretending she's a regular girl. They get bored sometimes, you know. I play bondage with them, tying them up for an hour or so so they can't hurt me, and we have a really good time."

  "A good time with maenads?" Clio asked. "But their passion is blood."

  "Not entirely. They are turned on by threats to themselves as well as threats to others; that's why they get along so well with the Python. I threaten them with cellulight until they scream for mercy."

  "With what?" Sherlock asked.

  "Cellulight. It's a plant that grows near the Faun & Nymph Retreat. I imported some for my garden. It lights up near the river, and it gets on the nymphs, making them fat. They hate that. It turns out that the maenads are like nymphs in that respect. They'll do anything to avoid a touch of cellulight. 'Anything?' I demand in a evil voice, and I force them to pretend they like kissing and stork summoning. They say I torture them almost as bad as the Python does. I take that as a rare compliment. So it's okay, and I take good care of the garden."

  Emell paused, his narration completed. "Now what can I do for you?"

  "We need to enter this garden," Clio said.

  "That's okay, as long as you don't do any harm. I can't let you hurt anything."

  "We won't," Clio promised, hoping it was true.

  "What section do you want?"

  Clio answered based more on hope than expectation. "The currant section."

  "Ah, yes, that's a good one. This way."

  So the Currant was here! Her quest was almost done—maybe. If so, it was ironic that it was so close to her home all the time. She could have gone right to it, had she known.

  Emell showed them into the garden. It was far more capacious than Clio had supposed. In fact a river ran through it. "What river is this?"

  "The Currant River. It flows from OgreChobee to the Brain Coral, and thence down to the Currant Sea."

  "I do not know of this sea."

  "It is deep below ground, in a vault. It is half filled with contemporary coins."

  "Currency," Sherlock murmured appreciatively.

  "I thought we were out of the comic strip."

  "Comic strip," Ciriana said. "Is Annie Mae here?"

  Sigh. She shouldn't have mentioned it. "No, dear." The blue arrow pointed along the river, so they followed it. Here there were currant berrie
s. Clio stopped to pick one, and got a mild shock. She should have known.

  "We have some really good currants," Emell said. "See those clusters? Those are highly charged berry bombs. Throw a cluster at something and the berries all explode."

  "Goody!" Ciriana said. "I had a friend named Cherrie who could conjure cherries and make plosive pies."

  "Explosive," Clio said. She made a mental note to keep the child well away from cherry bombs and pineapples.

  "The water here is very good," Emell said. "It's sham pain. That's like boot rear, only more potent. When you drink it, it gives you an imaginary headache and brief loss of memory."

  "I want some!" Ciriana said.

  "Not at your age," Clio said firmly.

  "Awww."

  "And here is the powerhouse," Emell said. "Where electric E's and L's are stored. Also M's, or as I prefer to call them, Ems. Em Motive, Em Phasis, Em Pathic—many varieties. You can also see the lightbulbs growing here. They like the currants."

  "We have encountered bright bulbs," Clio said a bit tersely.

  "They glow when sprinkled," he continued blithely. "Their perfume makes folk light-headed. Related bulbs are incande-scent and flora-scent."

  "Thank you for that information." Clio ungritted her teeth and followed the blue arrow. It led her to a rather anemic section of the garden. A single straggly plant grew there.

  "That currant hasn't prospered," Emell said. "I have tried all manner of fertilizers, but it just doesn't respond. I wish I knew what it needs."

  Sherlock glanced at Clio. "I wonder."

  Could it be? She dug in her pockets for the odd things she had been collecting. A piece of stinky fruit. A fragment of a crushed hypno-gourd. A bit of volcanic tuff. A pebble from Demon Litho. She set them down around the languishing plant.

  It perked up. She dipped some water from the river and poured it carefully on the nearby ground. The liquid crackled as it sank in, emitting a few little sparks. The plant improved further. In fact it stood tall and flowered, then produced a single large berry.

  The blue arrow pointed to the berry. This was the Currant.

  She picked the red berry and put it in her pocket. "Thank you," she said to Emell.

  "Welcome. I'm glad to see that straggling plant recover. Now it will produce more berries."