As they descended, the head expanded horrendously. There was an inordinate number of teeth, each looking larger and sharper than the next, and a great curling lip, and several lake-sized drools of slaver. Were they going to enter that awful mouth?
No, they passed by it and oriented on the snout. This was a prickly horror of hide girt about by tree-sized whiskers. Tiny bugs scuttled across it. No, as they got closer she saw they were neither tiny nor bugs; they were small dragons flying across the surface. No, they were big dragons. What a difference distance made!
Fortunately they passed that too, and oriented on one of the great red eyes. That resembled a convex sea of glass, with a monstrous blue crater in the center. No, that was the iris. It expanded to spread from horizon to horizon, with a deep dark black hole in the center, the pupil. They were right in the dragon's sight.
They came to land at last at the edge of that pupil, which turned out to be a vast pool surrounded by a circular blue forest. There was a beach all around the pool with multicolored sands. No dragon denizens were in sight. It was a surprisingly pleasant scene, considering.
"Isn't that the most handsome dragon you ever saw?" Becka asked excitedly. "What fangs! What skin!"
Well, she was a dragon girl. Probably a human face would look no better, seen from a similar vantage. "It will surely do," Clio said.
"Where do we go from here?"
Clio looked at her compass. The blue arrow pointed down along the beach. Then she noticed the red arrow: it was almost touching the bright mark on the circle. It was time!
"We have to hurry," Clio said. "Our deadline is upon us."
"Is it far? I could carry us."
"I don't think so, because otherwise the blue arrow wouldn't have landed us here."
They ran along the beach. There was a copse of trees ahead, with a glade beyond it.
I love you, Drusie. It was a male thought. That was odd, because Clio knew no girl called Drusie.
And I love you, Drew. That was a female thought.
"It's a couple in love," Becka gasped as they ran. "They must be telepathic."
Telepathic! That explained it. They were receiving the thoughts of the lovers.
They reached the copse. In a moment they would see the lovers.
Haaa! It was a physical and mental roar. It was followed almost immediately by a flash of terror. Then an instant of awful pain, and blackness. Clio was revolted; something had just died horribly.
They emerged from the cover of the trees and saw a small dragon chomping on something and licking its bloodstained chops. It heard them and turned to face them. It snarled, about to attack.
Becka assumed her dragon form and snarled back. The dragon, seeing that Becka was larger than it was, turned tail and scooted into the forest on the far side of the glade.
Now there was silence, physical and mental.
Becka resumed human form. "Where to?"
Clio looked at the compass. The blue arrow had faded out. The red one was now just beyond the mark. "We're here," she said. "But it seems, too late."
"Too late for what? There's nothing here."
Clio got a dreadful notion. "That dragon ate them. The ones we were suppose to meet."
"The lovers? That's ghastly!"
"I've got to fix that."
"How? You can't un-eat prey."
"We'll see." Clio exerted her talent. She hated to do it, but it was really necessary.
She and Becka started moving backward. They retreated to the trees. Meanwhile the small dragon charged back, tail first. It turned and saw them, snarling, but Becka was already in dragon form snarling back. Then Becka was in girl form again as they backed into the forest, leaving the dragon chewing on its prey.
They continued on back through the copse and along the beach. There were thoughts of mutual love. Was this far enough? No, not yet. They reached the place where they had landed and stood there talking.
"Isn't that the most handsome dragon you ever saw?" Becka asked excitedly. "What fa—"
"Turn dragon. Carry me to that glade," Clio said, pointing. "Hurry!"
Surprised, Becka turned dragon. Clio leaped on her back. Becka took off. In a few wing-strokes she lifted off the ground and cleared the copse.
The dragon was lurking there, behind a tree, just about to pounce on a pair of little lizards. "Drive it off!" Clio cried.
Becka landed beyond the lizards and growled at the other dragon. Intimidated, it fled.
Meanwhile Clio was jumping off Becka's back and orienting on the lizards. "We're friends!" she cried, realizing as she did so that this was stupid; how could lizards understand human talk? Friends, the thought came. Telepathically, obviously. She had understood their love thoughts; they could understand her spoken thoughts, because they were accompanied by her mind thoughts.
True, the male lizard thought. Then: But we are not lizards; we are dragons.
"Dragons!" she echoed, surprised. "But you're so small!"
We are small dragons, of course, he thought, a nuance of annoyance tinting it. We wouldn't fit our type if we were larger.
Dear, they are from elsewhere, the female thought. They don't know about our world.
"We're from Xanth," Clio said. "We are here to recruit dragons of all types to immigrate to Xanth."
Both dragons laughed, mentally. And you come to us? The male asked incredulously.
Instead of to a large leader dragon? the female added.
"I was guided by a—a magic sign. It brought me here, just in time to—" But she halted, not wanting to tell them what had just unhappened.
But they got it from her mind. Great balls of fire! The male thought. It's true!
Oops. "No need to go into that. The point is—"
She saved our lives, the female thought. By winding time back. We were crunched as we were kissing.
Both gazed at her. In that case, we owe you, the male said. We had better go into relationship mode and discuss this.
"I don't think I understand," Clio said.
You will in the next chapter, the male said.
If you will just step across to it now, the female agreed. We will be glad to explain.
"I don't—"
"I think we had better do as they ask," Becka said. "We do need their explanation, if we are to accomplish anything here."
"I suppose so," Clio agreed, halfway flustered.
3
Drew & Drusie
Clio stepped into the next chapter. It wasn't hard, as she had been writing chapters for a long time. As with the traveling, it was different actually being in one, but she could handle it.
"Wow," Becka said.
Clio looked around. There were two human-sized dragons bestriding a couch. One was blue-scaled and blue-eyed, with translucent wings, the other pink of scale and eye with similar wings. Both were well formed; the blue one was handsome, the pink one pretty.
"Thank you for that thought," the male said, and the pink one blushed red.
"You're welcome," Clio said. "I mean, what happened? I thought you were small."
"We are," the female said. "But with telepathy we can project ourselves to be any size in your mind, for relational convenience. This is similar to visual illusion, just as our translation of our thoughts to sound like your words is similar to sonic illusion. But we can return to the last chapter and be as we were, if you prefer."
"This is fine," Clio said. "Am I correct in assuming that if I tried to touch you, I would find you small?"
"Correct. We don't have touch illusion. Welcome to verify."
"I don't want to be impolite, but this is new to me, and I would like to verify."
"Touch me," the male said.
Clio reached out slowly. When her hand touched his image, she felt a small weight on her palm. "I am Drew Dragon," the male said, and there he was, perched on her hand without reaching beyond it though he was not coiled.
"I am Clio, Muse of History," she said.
Meanwhile Becka r
eached out to touch the female. "I am Drusie Dragon," the little pink creature said, appearing small.
"I am Becka Dragongirl."
Then the dragons jumped off the hands, spreading their wings momentarily for balance, and reappeared as larger. So did the couch, which was evidently part of the illusion.
"Now we have a situation," Drew said. "We see you do not understand it, as you do not read minds yourselves, so perhaps we should explain it in fair detail, hoping not to bore you."
"We are not bored," Clio said, her amazement slowly fading to surprise. She had not been sure what she expected, but surely nothing like this.
"This is Dragon World," Drew said. "Populated entirely by dragons and their prey. There are five categories, each with five aspects. That makes a total of three thousand one hundred and twenty-five distinct types of dragon."
"How many?" Clio asked, thinking she had misheard.
Drew smiled, which was an interesting expression that could have been mistaken had the smile-thought not clarified it. "This is tricky for little ones to understand, and for visitors. Start with five major categories, such as environment, weapon, size, nature, and mental nature. That's five. Continue with the aspects of each, such as environment: land, water, air, tunneling, or jumping. That's twenty-five. Then with size: giant, large, medium, small, and tiny. That makes a hundred and twenty-five variants."
"Tiny," Becka said. "That's yours."
"Yes. We were consumed by a small dragon, before being rescued by a very interesting process. Then there are the aspects of Nature: friendly, trainable, indifferent, vicious, and committed. That brings it to six hundred and twenty-five. Finally the mental category, whose aspects are telepathic, precognitive, memory, rational, and invisible. That makes three thousand one hundred and twenty-five types in all."
Clio's head seemed to be spinning, but she realized the dragon was making sense. "Five to the fifth power," she said. "It does add up rather quickly."
"You're so smart," Becka said.
"On the contrary, we aren't smart," Drew said. "Our mental aspect is telepathy. But we learned this in dragon school, on pain of getting our tails scorched when we made errors, so we do know it."
"Of course," Clio agreed faintly. "So you are—"
"Tiny, air, telepathic, committed," Drew said. "Then we differ. I am a fire dragon; Drusie is a steamer."
"But then what of the categories?"
"Thereby is our situation," Drusie said. "Types are not supposed to mix. Indeed, all other types are considered predator or prey. So the small dragon gobbled us during our distraction, as was the natural order. We should have been natural enemies, or at least not lovers. But Drew was just so sensible I couldn't help liking him."
"And Drusie was just so cute in pink," Drew said. "I was smitten by her color."
"So it just happened, and we fell in love. But we knew it had to be secret, because we would be ostracized if others knew."
"So we came separately to this secret place," Drew said. "And came together for the first time."
"And expressed our secret love," Drusie said. "And kissed."
"And got gobbled," Becka said. "You didn't know the small dragon was lurking."
"It was mentally invisible," Drew agreed. "So when it hid behind a tree, our minds did not tune in on it."
That clarified one confusing concept for Clio: invisible did not mean physically but mentally, so it was a mental trait. Now she appreciated its advantage.
"And you saved us," Drusie said. "Therefore we are committed to you."
"I realize that is one of the aspects of the category of Nature," Clio said. "But I don't think I quite understand it."
"Some dragons are friendly," Drusie explained. "Of course this is relative. They still need to feed on prey and defend themselves from others. Some can be trained to obey others loyally. Some are indifferent; they don't care about anyone else and will never change. Some are vicious, and will snap at you even if they aren't hungry. We two are committed: if we decide on a course, we stay with it. In this case we realize that we owe our lives to you, so we are committed to repay you in kind. Only when that has been accomplished will we revert to neutrality."
"So we will remain with you until we have saved your lives," Drew concluded.
"You really don't need to do that," Clio protested. "But I could certainly use your help while I am here. I have no idea how to recruit dragons to go to Xanth."
"We do," Drusie said. "But perhaps it would be better if you clarified exactly how and why you saved us, as it could make a difference. It is in your mind, but tangled up in complicated fashion so we really don't understand."
"I hardly understand myself! But the why is that there is a private mystery I wish to solve, and in order to do that I need to do a Service for the Good Magician. That Service is to persuade five pairs of every type of dragon on this planet to emigrate to Xanth. The how relates to my magic talent, which is the windback. When I encounter a difficult situation, I am able to reverse it so that it has not yet happened, and then cause something else to happen. In this case I was looking for you—the Good Magician gave me a magic compass that guided me here—and felt your love for each other, followed immediately by your deaths. So I wound it back and came here faster so that Becka could balk the dragon and save you. It wasn't from humane motive so much as that I knew I needed your help. I doubt my talent will be very useful in recruiting dragons, because I don't like to use it, and do so only in an emergency."
Both dragons nodded. "We see," Drusie said. "At least, enough to clarify your motive. You are a very interesting person, and at some point we would like to learn more of your personal history. But now we must focus on the immediate task."
"Which is how to approach the other dragons," Drew said. "You'll have no problem persuading the two of us to go to Xanth; there we would be allowed to keep company and mate without being censored. It is the other thirty-one thousand and two hundred and fifty dragons that are the challenge."
"That is, five pairs of each kind," Drusie said.
"Yes," Clio agreed, daunted. "I had no idea the number would be so large. It is a challenge to persuade even a few dragons, and this is considerably more than that."
"We will have to go to the leaders of each type," Drew said. "When they are persuaded, they will allow dragons to go. I suspect many will agree to do so, because it is the dream of every creature here to become real by going to Xanth proper. The problem will be getting the leaders to listen, as they tend to be arrogant beasts."
"I suspected that," Clio said wryly.
"But we can help you locate them and communicate," Drusie said. "We shall have to do it separately, so as not to attract attention to our association with each other, but that simply means that one of us will go with each of you."
"But how will we ever get them to listen?" Clio asked. "Rather than try to snap us up as morsels?"
"Dragons love challenges," Drew said. "Mental as well as physical. Are you good at any mental games?"
"Games?"
"Such as riddles or puns?"
"I detest puns."
"Something else, then. Anything to intrigue their sense of competition. Then you can establish stakes: they'll have to listen to your pitch if they lose."
"But suppose they win?"
"Then you will have to forfeit something," Drew said. "But it would be better not to lose."
"Forfeit something," Becka repeated. "Like our lives?"
"Well, you do seem like two delectable morsels."
"Something else," Clio said firmly. But she couldn't think of anything.
"About those puns," Becka said. "You may not like them, but considering your line of work, how is your memory for them?"
"I remember every single awful one. That's why I hate them; I fear my brain will rot."
"So you probably know more than the dragons do. You could win a pun contest."
"I suppose I could," Clio agreed reluctantly. "But it would be like bathing in g
arbage."
"It wouldn't have to be for long," Becka argued. "Just to get the dragons. Then you could stay away from them forever."
"You can't stay away from puns. They cluster like bad smells. The best you can do is try to ignore them."
"Still—"
"All right! I'll do puns, this once. But we still need stakes, for if we lose."
"I have an idea," Becka said. "If we resembled tasty morsels, maybe we could show some flesh."
"Whatever are you talking about?"
"If the dragons would like to eat us, maybe they would also like to see what they might get to eat. So if we agreed to remove an item of apparel for each lost pun, that might be enough. Just so long as we didn't lose completely."
"I can prevent us from losing completely," Clio said. "But as I said, I much prefer not to use my talent."
"If you remember all the puns you've encountered, you should be able to win," Becka said. "So there should be little risk."
"But undressing in public, to be ogled—I can't countenance that. What would the mothers of teenage dragons think?"
Becka nodded; evidently she had encountered some ogling in her young day. "Maybe it's a bad idea. We'll think of another."
But nothing else seemed to work, because the flesh of their bodies was about the only thing that would interest hungry dragons. So finally they came back to that despite Clio's considerable misgivings.
Even then there was a problem. "If some dragons are telepathic, won't they see my puns in my mind, and know the answers?"
"There are protocols," Drusie said. "But maybe the simplest expedient is for us to monitor you in that respect. If any try to peek into your minds, we will know it and warn them off. One telepath can't sneak past another telepath."
Next was the problem of addressing different types of dragons. "We can't possibly talk separately to more than three thousand groups," Clio said. "Even if we did several a day, it would take two years."
"Maybe we could summon category assemblies," Drew said. "That happens when there is reason. Sometimes there is something of interest to all fire breathers, for example."