Currant Events (23 page)

 But there was. The water tumbled far
down into a crevice and vanished. There was no hope of recovering their things.

 “We can look for them,” Drew
said.

 “They would be too heavy for you
to carry.”

 “So the ghastlies may not have had
substance,” Sherlock said. “And their mess wasn't real. But it fooled
us into making mischief for ourselves.”

 “We'll have to find clothing
trees,” she said. “Fortunately they are fairly common in this
region.”

 “Will any have another nymph
bark?”

 She had lost that too! “I'm afraid
not. You will have to bear with me as I am.”

 “This I am satisfied to do.”

 For how long, she wondered. Still, she
was glad she had told him about the nymph bark, because it had prepared him for
the disappointment of her real body.

 They found a pant bush with a number of
pants on it, each decorated with bounding catlike animals. They were even
marked HIS and HERS. She had never quite figured out how such labels came to
be; surely plants weren't literate. They picked and donned pants as
appropriate.

 There was an urgent grunting sound, as
of some hot animal breathing hard, followed by a higher pitched series of
gasps. Both of them looked around, but there was nothing in view. The sounds
were coming from very close, however. In fact-

 “It's from the pants!” she
exclaimed, hastily getting out of hers. “They're panting!”

 “We missed the pun,” he said
ruefully, getting out of his. “Pant-hers, pant-his. Like rutting
felines.”

 “As if we haven't been humiliated
enough.”

 He paused. “Have we?”

 “Have we what?”

 “Have we really been
humiliated?”

 “We're standing here naked!”

 He shrugged. “I see another
clothing plant. Maybe this one will be legitimate.”

 It was. In due course they were
respectably clothed again, with the two little dragons in their pockets.
Sherlock looked good; she wished the same could be said for herself.

 “The matter of the time
limit,” he said. “You were about to tell me.”

 “So I was. It's that I am cursed
to die young. Because I live on Mount Parnassus and have eaten of the Tree of
Life, I'm immortal, so have remained physically young. But when I leave
Parnassus I resume aging, and use of the windback adds further to my age, so I
could die if I don't get promptly back home.”

 “I had not realized that you made
such a sacrifice to accomplish your mission.”

 “I don't regard it as a sacrifice,
just a risk. So I do want to return home as soon as is expedient.”

 “And you asked me to return with
you.”

 “Yes. But I had to tell you
about-” She glanced down at herself. “My liability.”

 “I appreciate that. It gives me
the chance to get to know you without being distracted by your curves.”

 “To be sure.” He was of
course being polite.

 “Something may be coming,”
Drew said. “It seems metal.”

 They returned to the path. Just in time
to encounter the next gourd escapees. These were brass men and women wearing
brass hats, brassards, and brassieres, as appropriate. They saw the two
travelers and scattered brass tacks in front of them to step on.

 “Brassies,” Clio said.
“They do much of the construction in the gourd realm. They're not usually
used directly in bad dreams.”

 They stood aside and let the brassies
pass, ignoring the tacks. There was no point in reversing folk who weren't up
to any mischief.

 “However,” Sherlock said,
“there are bound to be many others that will freak out ordinary folk. We
need some way to locate that leak.”

 “Maybe the blue arrow will point
to it. But getting there could take some time. I want to handle it
faster.”

 “Short of getting a magic carpet
or something to ride, I'm not sure how.”

 “Something to ride,” she
agreed. “Let me see if I can reach Mare Imbrium.”

 “The daymare? These are nightmare
things.”

 “But she knows their ropes, and
has her body back.”

 Clio focused on Imbri. In a moment the
mare appeared.

 A dreamlet formed, containing a
black-clad young woman. “Hello, Muse,” she said.

 “She speaks the way we do!”
Drew exclaimed.

 “In the mind,” Drusie agreed.

 “Imbri, meet my friends Drew,
Drusie, and of course you know Sherlock. Folks, this is Mare Imbrium, once a
night mare, then a day mare, now a tree nymph.”

 “You have a soul,” Drew said
to Imbri, surprised. “I thought dream creatures didn't.”

 “I have half a soul,” Imbri's
dreamlet figure said. “It's a long story. You dragons have souls too; I
thought dragons didn't.”

 “We're from Dragon World,”
Drusie explained. “It's one of the Moons of Ida.”

 “Now I understand. I've been to
the moons, though not that one.”

 “We're pretty far up the
line,” Drew said.

 The dreamlet image returned to Clio.
“Why did you summon me, Muse?”

 “There seems to be a leak in the
dream realm. Bad dream figures are roaming Xanth. We need to locate that leak
and seal it before there's any real damage.”

 “That explains the disappearance
of some of the gourd workers. I received a report. Some dreams had to be
abridged because the actors or craftsmen didn't show up.”

 “We saw skeletons, a ghost,
brassies, and a mess of ghastlies,” Sherlock said. “We had to
wash.”

 The dreamlet girl seemed to stifle a
giggle. “I'm sure. So you do need to find that leak and stuff it.”

 “Can you help us?” Clio
asked.

 Imbri considered. “It must be a
bad gourd. Sometimes they rot. They're supposed to be fail-safe, but every so
often a glitch gets into the works.”

 “Those glitches must be as bad as
the ghastlies,” Drew said.

 “They're not as ugly or dirty, but
they're just as much trouble,” Imbri agreed. “The Night Stallion
tries to keep them under control, but they keep getting into things.”

 “That's their nature,” Clio
said. “So can you locate the bad gourd for us?”

 The dreamlet shook her head.
“We'll have to check every gourd until we find it. There are hundreds of
them.”

 Clio winced. “I would prefer to do
this expeditiously.”

 Sherlock, who now understood her
situation, stepped in. “If this is on your schedule, the compass should
point the way. We'll simply need to be able to move rapidly.”

 “I'll carry one,” Imbri said.
“I can be solid now. But the regular night and day mares can't carry
people of substance. For that we need a physical mare. But regular horses don't
roam Xanth. Ah-I know. Juana. She'll do it.”

 “Juana?” Clio asked. “I
don't believe I know of her.”

 “She wanted to be a day mare, and
she had marvelous dreams, but her territory was Mundania. She was unfairly
banned, and is out of a job. So she's neither dream nor Xanth, but in between.
She'll surely be happy to help.” The dreamlet figure put her hands to her
mouth, forming a funnel, and called “Mare Juana!”

 There was a stirring, and a sweetish
odor as another mare arrived. A dreamlet formed over her head, with a somewhat
dazed maiden clad in brown, matching her real color. “You have a job for
me?”

 “We need to track down a leaky
gourd,” Imbri said. “Will you carry a human person?”

 The maiden was plainly disappointed.
“Not dream work?”

 “Not dream work,” Imbri
agreed.

 “Oh, well, I suppose it's better
than nothing. Who must I carry?”

 “I believe that's me,”
Sherlock said.

 The dreamlet maiden gazed at him.
“Oh! A Magician! Why didn't you say so?”

 “I'm no Magician,” Sherlock
protested. “In fact I only recently discovered I could do magic, and
that's sort of scattered.”

 The maiden flushed. “My error. I
apologize. Usually I'm sharper than that.”

 “You can recognize Magicians, when
they're not doing magic?”

 “Usually. But maybe not reliably,
it seems. There's something about them, I don't know what, but I smell
it.”

 “I hope you'll still carry me,
though I'm much less than you thought.”

 “Oh, I will, certainly. Get on my
back.”

 “I lack experience riding. Can we
get a saddle?”

 “A saddle!” Juana exclaimed,
affronted. “Never!”

 “Sorry. I just don't want to fall
off the moment you move.”

 “Oh, don't worry about that; you
won't fall.”

 Sherlock glanced helplessly at Clio.
“She's correct,” Clio said. “If a mare wants you to stay on,
you'll stay on. Similarly if she wants you off, you'll be off, regardless of
your skill as a rider. Neither night nor day mares can be held against their
will.”

 “All right,” he said, looking
as if it was not even partly right. He stood beside Juana and jumped, trying to
get on her back. Suddenly he was there, looking surprised. “How did I do
that?”

 “She did it,” Clio said.
“She has some dream qualities.” She faced Imbri. “And you'll
carry me?”

 “Yes. Jump on.”

 Clio jumped, and found herself
similarly mounted. She knew about the magic, but it was impressive anyway.

 “Where to?” the dreamlet
maiden asked.

 Clio looked at the compass. “That
way,” she said, pointing down the trail. “I don't know how far.”

 “We'll simply gallop to the first
gourd along this route. If that's not it, we'll go to on the next. The
direction helps a lot; there shouldn't be too many.”

 “That's good,” Clio said,
relieved.

 Both mares took off at an instant
gallop. Neither Clio nor Sherlock had any trouble remaining mounted; it was as
though each had spent a lifetime riding horses. Magic had its benefits.

 In a moment both mares halted. It
seemed they knew where the gourds were; all they needed the direction for was
to select the particular gourds to be checked. Sure enough, there was a vine
with a handsome gourd beside the path.

 Clio got down and approached the gourd.
It was green and looked healthy, but that was not necessarily proof that it
didn't leak. How could she be sure of it, one way or the other?

 Sherlock joined her. “I assume
that if it is in good operating order, its peephole will usher people in to its
wonders. I'll take a look. Just don't depart and leave me here.”

 “It's my mission,” she said
firmly. “I'll look. Give me about five minutes, then haul me out.”

 “As you wish, of course.”

 She lay down before the gourd, propped
her chin on her fist, and stared into the peephole at its end.

 She stood in a desolate black and white
scene. The sky was overcast and dismal; the grass was so bedraggled that it was
uncertain whether it had ever rated better days. There was a rickety picket
fence with several broken slats. Beyond it was a dull yard with two dormant or
dead trees. But mainly there was the haunted house.

 For that was all it could be. The
wooden slats were warped, with paint flaking off. The steps to the front
veranda looked unsafe. The windows were cobwebbed and cracked. The roof looked
leaky. The door looked forbidding. No one with any sense would enter this
house.

 But of course there was no other way to
proceed. This was the first stage of a bad dream. It forced the visitor to do what
he least wanted to: enter the structure.

 “This is interesting. I've never
seen a home like this before.”

 “Drew! You're with me!”

 “I am with your mind, sharing your
vision. Am I intruding? Do you wish to enjoy it alone?”

 “No, I'm glad to have you
here.” She glanced down and saw his head poking out of her pocket.
“You are a comfort, dragon. I'll be sorry when you finish your business
with me and depart.”

 “We'll be sorry too. You are
giving us a wonderful tour of your world.”

 She refocused on her mission of the
moment. So far so good; this seemed to be a healthy gourd. But she had to be
sure. She swung open the decrepit gate and walked down the walk and up the
steps to the front door. She pressed the doorbell.

 Ouch! There was a thorn in it. She had
forgotten about that. She stuck her thumb in her mouth to suck out the pain,
then tried the doorknob. And got shocked. She had forgotten about that too; it
had been a decade or so since she had covered this setting in a history tome.
“Mice!” she swore.

 “This is a bad word?”

 “It's as bad as a lady of delicacy
is allowed to use.”

 “What would an indelicate person
say?”

 “$$$$!!” The wood of the door
developed a scorch mark, and chips of burned paint dropped to the floor. “I
mention it purely in an advisory sense, of course.” But she felt better.