Currant Events (37 page)

 Clio realized that a grim game of
maneuvering was occurring. Litho wanted to get at her and destroy her, while
Sherlock, amazingly, was preventing it. There was a whole lot more she needed
to know about this, especially since this was clearly her Danger of The Day,
and her life was at stake. “Yes we are,” she said. “What about
you?”

 “See, even the stupid woman has
more wit than you,” Litho said, continuing his sneaky march around the
circle. “She wants to know.”

 Sherlock shrugged, continuing his
countermovement. It seemed that Litho wanted to distract the man for just an
instant, so that he could get at her, but Sherlock was not being fooled.

 “Then know, O ignorant hen, that I
am the Demon Lithosphere. I was one of the minor Demons of Earth, below the
rank of Demon Earth himself, but well above that of the trifling wisps of smoke
that call themselves demons today. I was in charge of keeping track of all the
rocks and continental plates of the planet. Demon Earth found the lands as seas
scattered around the globe, and decreed that some better order should be
established. So he set me to pushing all the land together into one big
continent called Pangaea. Then he focused on other things, such as the nuisance
of pelting rocks from space that pockmarked the surface, and I was left alone
to guard the big isle. I got bored and fell asleep, and Pangaea cracked apart
and spread back across the globe in ugly fragments. I woke too late to stop it.
When Demon Earth discovered this, he was wroth with exceeding wrath, and
blasted me into thousands of pieces of D. bris that fell into the neighboring
land of Xanth. From these the voles evolved, and maybe other creatures like the
goblins; I hardly care. Some of my bones were hurled into the ground of Xanth,
where they remain today. But I myself, the essence of me, was cruelly banished
to this flat wasteland without tectonic plates, and here I languish until
someone helps me to return to the real action.”

 “Morgan le Fay promised you
that!” Clio exclaimed.

 “That she did. She has a plan to
return to real life herself, and said she would take me with her. But first I
had to smash the one who stood in her way. Which I am about to do.” Litho
suddenly dodged back the other way and shot out his arm toward her. One stone
finger touched her.

 But Sherlock brought his own hand down
as quickly. It brushed the demon's arm, and the arm fragmented. A line of sand
fell to the pane. The trick had not worked.

 “But she knew I could not do it
unless your protection was nullified,” Litho continued, his speech and
motion coordinating as his arm reformed. “So she said she set out to bind
the Magician to her, so that he would not care about you. Evidently she lied,
the lady dog.”

 “She didn't lie,” Sherlock
said. “She tricked me into jumping through her spancel.”

 Litho laughed like an avalanche
crashing into a hapless river. “Her spancel! I thought she lost that ten
centuries ago! How did she get that back?”

 “I brought it to her,” Clio
said.

 Now the laugh was like a detonation of
boiling smoke from a volcano. “No foolishness in your family, girl! You've
got it all! You brought her weapon to her? Ho ho ho!”

 Clio saw no point in explaining about
the blue arrow. “It was hers.”

 “So how come you're still balking
me?” Litho demanded of Sherlock. “You'll never get close to Morgan
unless you do her bidding.”

 “I don't love her.”

 “But you said you passed through
the spancel. Did someone else hold it?”

 “No, she held it. I reversed
it.”

 Litho was so surprised he paused in his
stalking. “Is that possible?”

 “It is for me. I'm the Magician of
Reversal.”

 Clio began to understand why stray folk
had addressed him as Magician, and why women were attracted to him. They had
known or sensed his nature, and were drawn to its power. “How did this
happen?” she asked, as astonished as Litho.

 “It just developed and got
stronger with time and practice. I thought it was merely a talent with reverse
wood, but then realized that I wasn't conjuring it, I was making it.”

 “Why didn't you tell me?”
Clio demanded.

 “Because then Morgan would have
known too, and would have found some other way to destroy you. I couldn't risk
that.”

 “Then what's with Morgan?”
Litho asked.

 “I fear she is now in love with
me.”

 Litho's laugh burst forth like steam
from a badly overheated pot the size of a planet. “What a fate!”

 Ciriana spoke. “So whom do you
love, Sherlock?”

 “Why Clio, of course. I never
stopped.”

 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.

 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 swirl 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.”