Two To The Fifth (19 page)

“Certainly.” The tail swung around, delivering the Block. “I found it on the branch of a tree, and it intrigued me, as I recognized its nature, so I brought it home. But it doesn't work for me, perhaps because I am not a writer.”

“It will work only for me,” Cyrus said. “Thank you for returning it. Is there any favor I can do you in exchange?”

“I hesitate to ask. I have a dream.”

“A familiar dream,” Melete said, “She's a young female.”

“You want to be an actress!” Rhythm exclaimed.

“I blush to confess it. But other dragons aren't interested in that sort of thing, and most humans won't trust me close enough to ascertain my ability. I even tried to query the Curse Fiends, but they cursed me away.”

It was an easy decision. “You returned my Block. I will write you into the next play.”

“Oh, thank you! I am so grateful.”

“However, you will have to come join my troupe,” Cyrus said. “And not eat any of the actors.”

“Cross my tail and hope to fry,” the Lady said in an evident oath, “This is so exciting.”

“I will get on it the moment we return safely.”

“May I ask a personal question? I do not wish to be offensive.”

“Ask,” Cyrus said, suspecting what was coming.

“The girl resembles you, Rhyme. You introduced her as your sister, and perhaps she is. But the two of you are clearly in love, yet you look to be only about twelve, Rhyme. This close to the Stork Works—well, I suspect your story is somewhat more interesting than merely being tourists.”

Cyrus saw Rhythm doing a quick mental calculation. He knew she wanted to invoke the Decade spell and be with him, but couldn't do that with an intelligent dragon watching. Unless the dragon agreed not to tell. “Will you keep a secret? A big one?”

“Cross my tail and hope to fry myself to a cinder,” the Lady agreed solemnly.

“Cyrus and I are in love, yes. I was naughty, and we got a daughter. We had to explain to the storks. Now we can't love each other openly, but I can invoke a spell to make me older. Do you mind?”

“Mind? I am in love with love! Especially forbidden love. I dream of finding it some day myself. But male dragons aren't much into nymph-talking females, except as a staple of their diets. Do anything you want; I won't tell.”

Kadence returned, somewhat wet, with three mugs of drinks. “These were all I could find close by the cave.”

“Oh, those are rums,” the Lady said.

“Rum!” Rhythm said. “You can't drink that!”

“Neither can you,” Cyrus told her.

“Oh, yeah?” She brought out the Decade spell and invoked it before he could protest. Her loose dress became tight in places before she remembered and changed its size.

“Now that's an impressive transformation,” the Lady said. “But about that rum: I see one of them is a Deco. Kadence could sip that without being adversely affected.”

“I'm thirsty,” Kadence said.

“Oh, drink the Decorum, then,” Rhythm said petulantly. She took one of the others from the girl's hands and sipped it, “This is fantastic.”

“That's Fulc rum,” the Lady said, “It generally serves as the turning point of evening festivities.”

“That's for me.” Rhythm took a big sip.

Cyrus took the third one, “That is Cereb,” the lady said. “Be careful; it goes to your head.”

“Cerebrum,” he agreed, trying it. Indeed, he felt smarter already.

“Let's get turning,” Rhythm said, almost slopping her rum as she tried to embrace him.

“You are being disgustingly obvious, Mother,” Kadence complained.

The Lady smiled, “Come dear, we shall play a game of nineteen questions while they do what we have no notion about.”

Cyrus was getting to like the dragon. He gulped down the rest of his mind-enhancing drink, and Rhythm finished hers, and they embraced. In the background they heard Kadence and the Lady playing the game of questions.

Once the intensity of the ellipsis wore off, Rhythm spoke. “Are you really going to write her into a play?”

“Of course. I think it would be nice to have a play with a genuine dragon in it.”

“But what about the night mare you were thinking of?”

“This is better.”

“Much better,” Melete agreed.

Then they slept, carefully doing it before the Decade spell wore off so that they could lie together embraced without doing anything contrary to the Adult Conspiracy. Actually the Conspiracy was wearing rather thin, but they pretended not to notice.

And, lying embraced, with Melete back, Cyrus dreamed creatively and romantically.

John was lonely. So when he learned that he could participate in a vast communal programmed dream populated by other lonely folk, he was happy to do it. He took a Happy Dreams pill and lay down on his bed to sleep.

Soon he found himself in a pleasant dreamscape, a scene set on the surface of a giant floating cloud, where trees grew, rivers ran, and nothing bad ever happened. People were everywhere, playing games, eating meals, and dating. All of them were quite attractive, so that he hesitated to approach them, because he was distinctly ordinary.

A handsome, friendly looking man approached him, “You're new here,” the man said.

“I just arrived,” John agreed. “How did you know?”

“Because you're just a blob of vapor,” The man held up a mirror.

John looked at himself. He was a blob of vapor. “Oops. I didn't realize, I thought I would just be myself.”

“No. You can be anything except yourself. That's the rule.”

“But how can I be anything other than myself?”

“You need an Avatar.”

“A what?”

“An image, a personality, that others can see and hear and interact with. It can be anything you want. Most folk want to be handsome, beautiful, noble, wealthy, whatever. Choose, and it shall be so. Then you can interact with others on an equal basis.”

“But in real life I'm not like that.”

“No one here is. That's the point: here you must be what you want to be. Everyone is.”

“That doesn't seem very realistic.”

The man looked at him condescendingly. “Realism is hardly the point. This is a dream.”

So it was. “Thank you,” John said, “I'd just like to be moderately tolerably handsome. Nothing special.”

“That's too close to your real nature. Try again.”

“How do you know my real nature?”

“I'm in your dream, remember. Now try to take this more seriously.”

“I am taking it seriously. I never wanted to be more than I am. I just want to be accepted for what I am. And I'm ordinary.”

“Bad attitude,” the man said, and drifted away.

So John formed a modest Avatar somewhat but not perfectly similar to himself and walked on, uncertain whether he really liked this dream. If he couldn't be himself in his own dream, what was the point?

A pretty young woman approached him. “May I talk to you?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said, gratified that he wasn't being ignored, “I'm John.”

“I'm Marsha. I noticed that you gave the dream monitor a hard time.”

“I didn't mean to. I just wanted to be myself.”

“Why?”

“Because if I'm no good as myself, I'm no good as a faked-up Avatar. Maybe that's a stupid reason.”

“No, no, it's a great reason. I wish I had thought of it. Then I would have been different.”

“But you look and sound fine.”

“Yes, but it's fake. I'm nothing at all like this in real life. I capitulated to the requirement, and made myself—” She shrugged. “Like this.”

So she was another ordinary person. “You're welcome to be whatever you want to be. I don't hold it against you.”

“Oh, thank you!” she said, and impulsively kissed him.

He reeled and almost fell. She had to hold him tight to keep him standing, “Sorry,” he gasped. “I—no girl ever kissed me like that before.”

“I apologize. I just got carried away. I won't do it again.”

“No, no, no, no! I liked it. I'm just surprised that you did it. I'm so ordinary.”

“You liked it?” she asked. “May I do it again?”

“Uh, sure, if you really want to.”

She wrapped her arms about him, pressed her nice body close to his, and kissed him passionately. He reeled again, but couldn't fall as long as she was holding him so firmly. “Oh, this is so much fun!” she said, and kissed him yet again.

“Yes!” he agreed, and kissed her back.

After that, one thing led to another, and they found themselves in a miniature dream castle that formed around them, providing them privacy from other Dreamers. Soon they were both naked and trying to see how many storks they could signal with a single effort.

“I'm glad this is a dream,” John said. “Because if it were real, we could be in trouble with the Stork Works.”

“That's one advantage of dreaming,” Marsha agreed. “We're not really doing it, so we can do whatever we want, no matter how naughty.”

They lay beside each other and talked, discovering many common interests and some wildly divergent ones. John liked mechanical puzzles; Marsha liked hunting. He was nervous about the night jungle; she loved it. But their differences seemed only to enhance their mutual attraction.

At last it was time for the dream to end; they had talked away the night. “May I see you again?” John asked her.

“I'd love that,” Marsha said, “I'll be right here tomorrow night.”

“Then it's a date,” he agreed, and kissed her again. And found himself kissing his pillow as he woke up. It was dawn.

All day he was in a daze, thinking about his nocturnal experience, Marsha was such a woman! So maybe in life she didn't look exactly the way she did in the dream. Did it matter? She was a really nice person, and she actually liked him.

The following night he took the communal dream pill again, and soon he was back on the clouds. There was Marsha waiting for him. “Oh, I was so afraid you wouldn't come!” she exclaimed, kissing him.

“I was afraid you wouldn't.”

“Oh, I had to! It's so utterly nice to be appreciated the way you appreciate me, even if it is all illusion.”

“It's a dream, but maybe not illusion,” he said, “I really do like you, Marsha.”

“And I really do like you, John. But maybe you wouldn't like me if you saw me in real life. No man ever has.”

“Maybe those other men were stupid.”

“No, they were afraid.”

He laughed. “Afraid of you? They never gave you a chance.”

“True,” she agreed sadly. “That's why I came to the dream, and a false Avatar. I must say it has worked beautifully.”

“Beautifully,” he agreed, kissing her.

“What do you have in mind today?” she inquired. “We have talked and we have clasped.”

“There's something else?” he asked, surprised.

“Once we have done something, doesn't it get dull? I assumed you would want to do something else.”

“It doesn't get dull,” he said. “Not for me, anyway. But if you are tired of it—”

“Oh.” The miniature castle formed around them. “I am inexperienced in this kind of interaction, and don't really know what's what. You are the first man I have done either much talking or storking with.”

“You're great at both,” he said, kissing her avidly.

“I'm so pleased,” she said, kissing him back. “I don't want to be boring for you.”

“Never that!” He proceeded to storkly interest, and she cooperated more than willingly. Soon they were both pleasantly exercised.

“But when you do get tired of it, do let me know.” Marsha said. “I like being with you so much. I never want to wear you out.”

He concluded that she was naive in the manner of women about the extent of male interest. “I will.” Then they talked, and he told her more about himself, surprised and pleased that she showed so much interest, and learned more about her. It seemed that she lived alone in the jungle and had little contact with others. She was insatiably hungry for friendly interaction. But she never quite said exactly where she lived, or why she seemed to have no family. There were other oddities, but they merely added to the pleasant little mysteries of her.

They spent the night together, and John felt no desire to go out in the dream world to meet others. Marsha was all he needed. When the night ended, they agreed to meet again the next night.

This continued for some time. Finally John realized that he had to have a serious talk with Marsha.

“Oh, no!” she wailed. “You're tired of me!”

“By no means,” he said. “My problem is the opposite. I think I have fallen in love with you.”

“But you don't know me, only my Avatar.”

“I know your personality. You're a nice girl, and you're always wonderfully nice to me. Unless that's all an act—”

“No, no! No act. I feel the same about you too. But there's something I haven't told you.”

“Whatever it is, I don't think it will stop me from loving you. I admit it will be difficult if you're secretly married, or eighty years old.”

She laughed. “Neither one. I'm your age and single. But you see, when I told too much, no other man had any interest in me. So I didn't dare tell you.”

“Even if you're ugly—”

“I'm not. But—”

“What is it?” he demanded. “Tell me, and let me judge.”

She winced, then visibly nerved herself. “You do have a right to know, though it could destroy our relationship. First let me say that I am more than willing to continue as we have been doing, meeting here, talking, and clasping. I love being close to you. I love pleasing you. I love you. So if you can find it in your heart to forgive me—”

“What is it?” he repeated firmly.

“I'm a dragon.”

He gazed at her, “A what?”

“A dragon. I'm not human. So I can never be with you physically, only here in the Dream, with my human Avatar. Now you know.” She waited, flinching, anticipating his reaction.

“You're—a—dragon lady,” he said, now seeing how the hints about her nature came together. Living alone in a cave in the jungle, liking to hunt, men afraid of her. Now it made sense. No wonder she had concealed her identity. “What kind?”

“Old-fashioned fire-breathing, about twenty feet long, with wings. I'm a winged monster.”

“But then why—why associate with my kind, even in a dream? Why go to all this trouble to—to please me? Letting me kiss you, and all? Surely you'd rather toast and eat me.”