The dragon landed at the edge, beside a patch of flowers. Dor recognized the larger ones as maxi mums, and the small ones as mini mums. They would make those who sniffed them correspondingly large or small. So, like most of Xanth’s plants, they were best left alone unless a person really understood their nature.
Dor changed, and they approached the winged monsters. “Hey, what are you men doing here?” the centaur demanded. “This meeting is limited to maidenly winged monsters.”
“Oh, you’re in for it now,” the ground said. “You have trespassed on a private gathering.”
The centaur glanced down, startled. It seemed she wasn’t used to hearing the inanimate speak.
“Our apologies,” Dor said. “We’ll leave as soon as we can. That’s my talent making the ground speak; ignore it. But we have a maidenly winged monster with us who needs help.” He indicated Aurora.
The girls looked. “Oh,” the centaur said. “Well, in that case we’ll let you go with minor penalties.”
“Penalties?”
“Now you’re really going to get it!” the ground said zestfully.
“You’re not supposed to be here, considering your maleness and lack of wings. Do you deny it?”
The three men found themselves unable to deny either their maleness or their lack of wings.
The centaur nodded, having won her point. “I’m Karla Centaur. I was transformed from a regular centaur. This is Serena.” She indicated the girl with reptile wings. “She’s of mixed parentage. Love spring, you know.”
“Love spring?” Aurora asked.
“The water makes any male and female fall instantly into ferocious romantic love,” Dor explained. “Except if one is a child; then the love is parental.”
“Oh. Like the shoreline of Cone, the conic section, where the land folk meet the sea folk for love. That’s nice.”
Karla indicated another winged centaur. “This is Chea Centaur. She was rescued from a tangle tree by Che Centaur. Her folks were from the gourd realm, so she gave him a gourd-style apology for taking his time, and he turned bright red and flew away. It seemed he misconstrued her intentions.” And one more winged centaur. “This is Sharon Centaur, transformed from human to help shore up the new species, but she’s still learning the nuances of centaurism.” And the winged mermaid. “This is Erica, one of the few of her kind. We are here visiting the virgini tree and discussing ways to avoid it in the future. We think maybe the lips plants will help.”
“Lips plants?” Dor asked blankly.
“Loose lips sink slips,” the ground said.
Karla indicated a patch of plants in pretty colors. “I’ll show you.” She picked a flower. It looked like a bright red pair of lips. She touched it to his face, and the lips kissed him. “This is a two-lips plant. The others are more potent: the three-lips, four-lips, or five-lips. We have to take good care of them, because when a lips plant dies, it becomes a zombie plant which sucks the soul from unwary travelers, called lip-o-suction.”
“That sounds almost as bad as the banana cream pie tree, which creams anyone who picks its pies,” Dolph remarked. “Not all plants are friendly.”
“Now for your penalty for intruding here,” Karla said. “Each of you men must be kissed by one of us.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Dolph said.
“Just wait,” Karla said with an obscure smile as several of them applied red balm to their lips. Then Serena the winged girl flew up to kiss Dolph, and Sharon Centaur approached Bink, and Karla herself leaned down to kiss Dor.
Her lips touched his—and his head seemed to explode. As the dust cleared he found himself sitting on the ground, heart-shaped clouds dissipating around him, and ebbing waves of delight spreading across his face. He was unhurt; in fact it had been a remarkably pleasant experience. He looked around, and saw Bink and Dolph sitting similarly, and looking similarly dazed.
“Lip bomb,” Karla explained. “Do you think it will free us from maidenly bondage to the virgini tree?”
“Surely it will, in due course,” Dor agreed, getting up.
Meanwhile Aurora and the other winged mermaid, Erica, were talking as they dipped their tails in a table whose surface appeared to be water. Then Aurora turned to Dor. “Yes, she will help me get established here,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
“Then I think we can get on home now,” Dor said. “We trust that you ladies will treat Aurora with consideration. You will find the story of her origin to be quite interesting.”
“Oh, Cone is dull,” Aurora protested. “It’s just land and sea. It’s this odd Land of Xanth that is interesting.”
“That’s what yoooou think,” the ground said.
“All right,” Karla said. “If you are sure you wouldn’t like another kiss. We do have more lip bomb.”
The three men backed away. “Thank you, once was enough,” Dor said politely. He tripped over a couch potato he hadn’t seen, and landed flat on the couch. At least its pillows were better than the hard ground.
Dolph transformed to the dragon, and they quickly boarded. He flew off the brink and was immediately high in the air. But his flight seemed somewhat unsteady, and that made Dor nervous. That lip bomb hadn’t worn all the way off yet; his mouth felt outsize. “Maybe we should pause for a drink of water before flying home,” Dor suggested.
Dolph flew down to the nearest little stream and landed with a jar. Yes, he was definitely unsteady. Dor kicked the jar aside and stood up. Dolph resumed manform. Then they went to the stream and drank. The water was deeply refreshing.
A cute little fire-breathing puppy came bounding along the bank. Every time it barked, another little puff of fire and smoke came out. Then a catfish lifted its head from the river and hissed. Dor nodded; he loved seeing natural creatures playing.
Dolph seemed to be steadier. The water had washed out the lingering effect of the bomb, so that he could focus on something other than a passionate kiss. There should be no further danger of crashing in flight.
Now they were ready to go home and report that the zombie problem would probably abate by the wedding day. But Dolph paused before changing form. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“Home,” Dor said.
“Uh, yes. But where is home?”
Dor opened his mouth to answer, but then paused himself. “Why, I seem to have forgotten. That bomb must have blown it away.” He looked at Bink.
“I don’t remember either,” Bink said. “It should be a harmless lapse, because—” He broke off, shrugging.
Because he could not be harmed by magic, Dor suddenly realized. That was the explanation for all the weird coincidences. He could be harmed by nonmagical things, or embarrassed by magic, but not harmed by magic. That was why they didn’t have to worry much about magical dangers. But something magical must have happened, because all three of them should not have suddenly forgotten where home was.
“I don’t think it was the bomb,” Dolph said. “Because I remembered where home was, until just now.”
A dark suspicion enveloped Dor. Suspicions cruised around like invisible blobs, and when they caught a person, they were awful to get rid of. “This stream—where does it flow from?” For it occurred to him that the firedog and catfish might not have been playing. They might have been trying to warn folk away from the river, too late.
They traced it back, and discovered that it issued from a forgotten crevice in the mountain. “The River Lethe flows deep underground,” Dor said. “This could be a tributary stream. The way that water works, whatever you speak of just before drinking it, you forget. They sometimes use it to cure children who have somehow learned forbidden words. And I spoke of going home.”
“That’s right!” Dolph agreed. “So we forgot where it was.”
“An amusing yet harmless loss,” Bink said ruefully. “But perhaps we can get around it by flying high and looking around. We should know home when we see it, and we can see all of Xanth from high enough.”
&nbs
p; “Good notion,” Dor agreed. “If that fails, we might get some reverse wood, and use it with another drink of lethe. Then the water would serve as a memory enhancer.”
“Or it might reverse the liquid properties of the water, and dry us out,” Bink said. “Reverse wood can be treacherous stuff.”
Dor nodded. “We had better stick to our search, so as not to complicate our situation more than it is.”
Dolph looked around. “I wonder where this river goes? I don’t remember any lethe water on the surface.”
“It’s not the kind of thing a person remembers,” Bink pointed out.
“To the Forest of Forgetfulness,” a nearby stone said. “Nobody who goes there remembers the experience, so word doesn’t get around.”
Dor was intrigued. “There could be really interesting things there.”
“But we don’t want to go there,” Bink said. “We have already complicated our situation enough.”
So Dolph transformed into the roc bird, and they got on his feet, and he flew up. He spiraled high in the sky, so that they all could look around. All of Xanth was laid out below them. But Dor still had no idea which part of it was his home.
“There’s the Gap Chasm,” Bink remarked. “I remember the first time I encountered that, just after I met Chameleon. I had to go down and cross on the bottom, where the Gap Dragon roamed. I met Donald the Shade, and kissed his wife and told her where the silver oak was.”
“I’m glad you met Chameleon,” Dor said. She was after all his mother. “But do you remember where home is?”
“Then it was the North Village, but I don’t think that’s where we were about to go.” He peered farther. “There’s Castle Roogna. Oh, didn’t we have adventures there!”
“Yes, of course,” Dor agreed, becoming impatient. “But right now we need to find home.”
“Wherever it is,” Bink agreed. He peered again. “There’s the Isle of View, where Dolph was married.”
“Squawk!” Dolph agreed.
“He says it was some wedding night,” a metal button translated. “Neither he nor Electra knew how to summon the stork.”
“Well, I suspect they finally figured it out,” Dor said. “They have a fine set of daughters in Dawn & Eve.” For a moment he pictured them as they were at eighteen, on Planet Ptero. Would Xanth be ready for them at that age?
They circled around Xanth, noting the familiar landmarks, but found no sign of home. That memory had been cleanly erased.
“Maybe we can ask someone,” Bink suggested. “There should be some person in Xanth who knows where we live now.”
“I agree.”
So Dolph flew downward, and found a landing spot near the west coast. He settled beside a large envelope—which suddenly sprouted antlers and feet and bounded away.
“I guess it was really an antelope,” Bink remarked. “There are some odd animals in the backwoods.”
Dolph changed back to manform, and they looked around. Nearby was a man reading a book, so they approached him. “Hello,” Dor said.
The man looked up. “Who are you?”
“I am King Dor. I wonder if—”
“Sure, and I’m a dragon ass,” the man said sourly. “Go away and let me practice.”
“Practice what?” Dolph asked.
“My talent, dummy. I can bring characters and items out of these scenes in books. See?” He reached into the page of the books he held, and brought out a scarlet pimpernel flower. “I’m trying to find something useful.”
“Good luck,” Dor said, and they moved on. He appreciated the man’s frustration; useless talents abounded in Xanth.
They saw a young woman dancing. She seemed to repeat the same motions over and over. “Doesn’t that get dull?” Dolph inquired.
She never paused. “It’s supposed to repeat, idiot,” she replied witheringly. “It’s a re-done-dance.”
They went on. They came to a man concentrating on a rock. “Hello,” Dor said, somewhat warily. “I’m King Dor.”
The man looked up. “Oh, really?”
“Yes, really, you jerk,” the stone he held said.
That seemed to be persuasive. “And I am your lowly rebellious subject, Phil Istine,” the man replied. “What do you want from me?”
“Some information, if you please. Can you tell me where I live?”
Phil stared at him. “You don’t know?”
“It seems I drank some lethe water, and forgot where home is,” Dor said, embarrassed. “But surely you know where it is.”
“Surely I do,” Phil agreed. “And I’ll tell you, for a return favor.”
Dor was wary of such things, but had to ask. “What favor?”
“Well, you see my talent is molding things into other things, like this.” Phil moved his hands over the rock, and it became a loaf of bread. He bit a chunk from it and chewed, showing it was real.
“Hey, watch who you’re chewing on!” the loaf protested.
Phil passed his hands over it again, and it became a model house. “But my girlfriend isn’t impressed. So now I need a new girlfriend, and all the others around here are taken. Except the ones on the Isle of Women. So why don’t you go and fetch me one of those, and I’ll tell you where your home is.”
Dor’s mistrust of this continued. “Why don’t you fetch her yourself?”
“Because only women and royal men can go to that island. I’m not royal. But you are, so you could go. There must be a woman there who would like my talent.”
“It’s a good talent,” Dor agreed. “Where is this Isle of Women?”
“Just offshore. But there’s a problem. It’s one of several Isles of WO, and it’s hard to tell them apart.”
“Well, we can ask,” Dolph said.
“And they only interface with Xanth an hour a day. So if you get the wrong one you have to leave it and try for another.”
“I think we can do that,” Bink said.
“Okay. Fetch me that woman, and I’ll tell you where to go home.”
It seemed a steep price, but at least it was sure. “Agreed,” Dor said.
They walked to the shore—and suddenly an island appeared. So Dolph changed to roc form, and they flew across to it.
The trees seemed to be covered by vines. “Those look like bovines,” Bink remarked. “And I see cow pies on the ground.”
“Maybe those are bull pies,” Dor said. “There’s a bull sleeping nearby.”
“A bull dozer,” Bink agreed.
A flock of ungainly birds spooked as Dolph landed on the beach. They had the heads of cows. In a moment a swarm of flies with the heads of bulls took off after them.
“Cow birds and bull flies,” Dolph remarked as he changed back to manform.
Frogs with the heads of bulls snapped up the flies as they passed. Bullfrogs, obviously.
The commotion woke the sleeping bull. It got to its feet, put down its head, and charged. Its horns dug into the ground, pushing up a mound of sand and dirt. It left a cleared path behind it.
Several men came running down that path. But they had the heads of cows. “And here come the cowboys,” Dolph added. “With their bulldogs.” Indeed, the dogs were bullheaded.
“This is udder nonsense,” Dor said, disgusted.
One of the cowboys stepped into a bully pulpit and lifted a bullhorn to his mouth. “MOOOOO!” it cried. “We have a bulletin.”
The three kings retreated. This clearly wasn’t the Isle of Women. In fact it wasn’t even one of the Isles of WO, because these were all bovines.
A bull whose head was a whip appeared. It snapped its head back and forth, and the whip cracked sharply.
Suddenly they were in a stampede. Water plants with the heads of bulls were charging past them, spooked by the bullwhip. “Bulrushes,” Dolph said, identifying them. Then he changed to roc form, and they got quickly off the island.
Already another island was in view, so Dolph veered to intercept it. “Wait!” Dor cried. “How can we be sure it’s an
Isle of WO, instead of an Isle of BO?”
Dolph veered again, this time toward shore. He spied something and landed. There was a wooden sign beside a dock with a small boat:
“Well, it’s a board,” Bink said. “But I would have trouble figuring out what it means.”
“What does it mean?” Dor asked the board.
“It’s clear enough, knothead,” the board said. “The boat takes the traveler to the Isles of BO. Get aboard when you’re bored. What part of that don’t you understand?”
“The Isle of Bovines,” Dor agreed. “Suppose we want to find the Isle of Women?”
“Go to the sign for WO, mush-brain. Isn’t it obvious?”
“In retrospect,” Dor agreed without rancor. The inanimate tended to lack social graces, but by a similar token was unable to tell a lie: it was too stupid.
They walked along the beach. Soon they came to another sign: COME FOR CO. “That’s not the one,” Dolph remarked with two-fifths of a smile. “We’ve already seen the cows.”
The next sign said DOWNLOAD FOR DO. Then ENTER FOR EO, FORGE FOR FO, and GO FOR GO.
“Let’s skip some signs,” Dolph suggested, and became a sixlegged horse. They got on, and he galloped past fifteen signs. They stopped at the sixteenth. Sure enough: WORK FOR WO.
They looked over the sea. There was an island. Dolph quickly assumed winged form and carried them across to it.
This one was heavily wooded with everblue, everyellow, and evergreen trees. A thick forest extended from beach to beach, and there were wood thatched houses nestled under the trees. They landed on the beach, which appeared to be composed of sawdust rather than sand. They approached the nearest house, walking along a wooden boardwalk. Dor knocked on the wooden door.
It opened, and a wooden man stood there. His body was formed of polished planks, the limbs fastened by wooden pegs. Wooden eye lets peered at them. “What?” he inquired somewhat woodenly. His jaw had a wooden hinge.
“Is this the Isle of Women?” Dor inquired.
“Of course knot,” the man said, and closed the door.
They exchanged three thirds of a glance. “It occurs to me that there might be more than one Isle of WO, as the man said,” Bink remarked. “This may be the Isle of Wood.”
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