Two to the Fifth

by Piers Anthony

  They broke into applause.

  “The lead man—we don’t have an actor for him yet, so I will have to substitute in rehearsals for now—will aggravate a witch.” He glanced at the Witch. “Your role, of course.”

  “Goody!” she exclaimed. “I can handle that part.”

  “She will curse him to see people’s natures and emotions as colored clouds or auras surrounding them. He can’t actually read their minds, but he will know immediately how they feel about things, including him.”

  “That’s a curse?” Acro asked. “I’d love to have it.”

  “It’s a curse,” he said. “It will take him a while to realize it. That’s part of the point of the play. He is looking for his ideal girlfriend, and this is where the curse begins to register. His first girlfriend—you, Xina—will be beautiful, but her private feelings are mercenary and unkind. She wants only to use him for convenience.”

  “I can play that role,” Xina said, thrilled to have the part.

  “Once he realizes that she is not ideal emotionally, he looks at the auras instead, hoping to find the perfect one. Feelings are more important than appearances. He needs to marry by acertain deadline; that may be part of the curse. The witch wants him to marry foolishly and be unhappy ever after. Finally he finds her, his ideal aura—but she has crab claws instead of hands.”

  “Oh!” Crabapple exclaimed, delighted. “I can play that role!”

  Obviously she could; he had written it for her. “But that turns him off; it’s too much of an adjustment. So he decides to shut out the aura and live with illusion, staying with the pretty girl even though he knows she’s just using him.” He smiled a trifle grimly. “Appearances are important to a man”

  All the women nodded. They understood perfectly.

  “The witch realizes that her curse is no longer working properly, so she decides to kill Xina just before the marriage, forcing him to make a last moment substitute. He won’t have time to find a lovely woman both outside and inside, and will have to settle for an unsatisfactory one. So she sends her daughter—Rhyme—with a gift that will kill Xina. But Crab-apple saves her, not only winning Xina’s friendship but convincing him that Crabapple’s his best match after all. Pincers have their place. That’s the gist of it.”

  “But what of us?” Dusti asked, gesturing to herself and Acro.

  “You’ll have smaller parts, and I’ll try to write you lead parts in subsequent plays. This is an ensemble; there will be several plays. Each actress will have her turn”

  The girls exchanged a glance and a half, then smiled. They were satisfied. He was coming through.

  That night he slept alone, and dreamed of Melete. She was full figured and nude, as she had been when he found her in the gourd.

  “You did well, Cyrus,” she said, expanding to full human size.

  “Don’t freak me out!” he said as his eyeballs began to lock up. “I’m trying to walk the causeway”

  98 Piers Anthony

  “Walk the what?”

  “The causeway. Walking along it makes a person do things for a good cause. You are thoroughly distracting me from anything like that.”

  “Oh, all right.” A gauzy gown formed around her body. “But you’re going to have to get used to me in this version as well as in the bust version. You have a lot more writing to do.”

  “Yes. But it is going well, now, thanks to you.”

  “And it will continue well. I will see to that.” She came up and kissed him.

  His head threatened to float away. He struggled to recover equilibrium. “Are you trying to seduce me? I thought you were here to stop that.”

  “I am here to make sure you write your plays. Part of that is to make you more immune to the seductions of the actresses. They haven’t given up on you; they are just being more subtle. Until we find you a suitable woman to marry, we have to be on guard.”

  “This is just like the play!”

  “By no coincidence,” she agreed. “You are animating your own aspirations and fears. All writers do. But we need to stop you from freaking out too readily. That’s too much of a distraction.”

  “Lots of luck,” he muttered.

  She powdered her face and scowled. He realized that she had just used scowling powder, which was a caustic glare dried out and rendered into powder form for use as necessary, usually as a cleanser. It was possible to know such things in dreams. “Luck has little to do with it. All women have similar equipment; it merely varies in size and exposure. Once you are desensitized there should be no further problem.” She squeezed him close.

  “No problem!” he exclaimed. “I’m just about ready to—”

  She did not withdraw. “Ready to what?”

  “Ready to write a great love scene,” he said, surprised.

  “That’s it. The closer you get to me, the more urgent your need to write becomes. That’s my nature. Now wake up and write that scene”

  He woke up. He discovered he was holding the bust, his fingers clasping the torso section. No wonder he had gotten ideas in his sleep.

  “No wonder,” Melete agreed, half fondly.

  He got up, set her on the desk, lit a candle, and started writing. Soon he had a great near- seduction scene.

  In a few days he had the first draft of the play. He wasn’t quite satisfied with it.

  “Don’t be concerned,” Melete said. “A true artist is never fully satisfied with his work. Go into rehearsals, and modify what doesn’t work well.”

  “I can do that?”

  “You can do what you choose. It’s all part of the creative process.”

  “I’ll need to copy the play, so the actors can read it and memorize their parts.”

  “No need. Rhythm will do that for you.”

  “She will? But she shouldn’t show her magic.”

  “She won’t”

  He went out to find Rhythm, realizing that he didn’t need to talk openly to her. He just focused the thought clearly: I need copies of the play. She saw him and nodded, but did nothing.

  Yet when he returned to his tent, there were five copies of the play on his desk, with a sign: courtesy of a passing copy cat.

  “There’s your explanation,” Melete said. “The Princess must not be credited”

  He nodded. “She is turning out to be useful on occasion. I like her.”

  “Beware”

  “She’s a child!” he snapped. “Can’t I like her for her usefulness?”

  “No. It’s not safe to like a Princess or a Sorceress of any age for any reason. She must not get ideas.”

  “How could a child get ideas?”

  “Ignorance of the content of the Adult Conspiracy does not mean there is no interest in it. Children are fascinated by the mystery, and sometimes seek to abridge it. They can get unrealistic notions, and she’s a prime candidate, as she herself says. Do not let her do you too many favors”

  He shook his head. “You’re paranoid. She’s just a girl.”

  “A girl with phenomenal powers”

  It seemed pointless to argue with her. He picked up the copies and went out to distribute them to the actresses, courtesy of the visiting copy cat.

  He gave them two days to start memorizing their parts, while he pondered sets and costumes. “The first scene should be at the witch’s residence,” he decided. “Maybe a haunted house. Except that’s too complicated to put together on a traveling stage.”

  “Make it her garden,” Melete suggested. “Where she grows her witchly herbs and maybe brews the less savory concoctions.”

  “Yes! And he can be just passing by, not realizing it’s a private garden. Maybe he steps on some of her plants, not realizing. Like butter fingers, which look like lady fingers, but make whoever touches them get clumsy. Witchy stuff she hates to have ruined. That sets up the dialogue, and gets him cursed. I’ll have to make a spot revision of the script. Too bad I didn’t think of this before we got the copies”

  Rhythm appeared, fading in
beside the desk. “It’s been done.”

  “Done? I don’t see how.”

  “The copies have been modified, per your description,” she explained. “No one will notice”

  “You’ve been snooping on my mind!”

  “I like your mind.”

  “But—”

  “Magic,” Melete said. “Thank you, Princess.”

  “You’re welcome, Muse.” Rhythm turned to face Cyrus. He couldn’t help noticing again how pretty she was, in her bright red dress with her red hair bound by a red ribbon. She was indeed on the very verge of becoming a woman.

  “Nuh- uh,” Melete murmured.

  Rhythm frowned. “What’s wrong with being pretty?”

  “You’re in your Princess outfit,” Melete said.

  “Only for Cyrus, alone. Everyone else sees the dull girl.” She smiled at him. “Do you think I’m dull?”

  He opened his mouth, and stifled what ever he might have said. How could he compliment her without encouraging one of those unrealistic notions? Yet she was almost beautiful.

  So he changed the subject. “I am working on costumes and sets. Do you have any ideas?”

  “Sure. Show that curse. You know, the colored auras.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible. The audience will just have to suspend its disbelief.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “You don’t understand. It would require serious magic to show them. We don’t have it.”

  “Yes we do.”

  “No we don’t! That kind of spell—”

  He broke off, for there was a white haze forming around Rhythm.

  “A different color for each actress,” Rhythm said.

  “You could do that?” he asked, awed.

  “Oh, sure. It takes me a while to work up a new spell, but I can do it. I think it would really enhance the play.”

  “It would,” he agreed. “But—”

  “But what?” she asked, turning a look on him that he couldn’t quite fathom. It wasn’t the kind of look he expected from a child. Part innocence, part knowing, part something else. What was in her mind?

  “But it would give away your identity,” Melete said.

  “Not if Cyrus went out and found the spell in the woods. The same way he found the copy cat.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Cyrus agreed. “It would be very nice for the play. Thank you, Rhythm.”

  “Any time, Cyrus,” she said, with a faint blush as she faded out.

  “These are treacherous waters,” Melete said darkly. “That girl has womanly ambition”

  Cyrus didn’t even try to understand that remark.

  They still had not found a lead male actor by rehearsal time, so Cyrus played the part. For the moment it became his life.

  He walked along the path, missing the detour sign that would have steered him right. Suddenly he was crunching herbs underfoot.

  “You clumsy oaf!” the Witch screamed in full Old Crone mode. “You squished my bleeding heart orchid!”

  “I’m sorry,” Cyrus said. “I didn’t see—”

  “Didn’t see? Didn’t see! I’ll make you see, numskull! I’ll curse you with Feeling Sight! Now begone!”

  Cyrus hastily departed. “What kind of curse was that?” he asked himself aloud. Thoughts in a play had to be spoken aloud. “I never heard of Feeling Sight. Well, I had better resume my quest for the Ideal Wife”

  He encountered Acro, in a skimpy outfit. “Now here is a pretty woman,” he said. “Maybe she’s the one.”

  “One for what?” Acro asked, smiling.

  “One to be my Ideal Wife.”

  “Oh, I am surely that,” she said, smiling beatifically.

  But now he saw something else. “What is that glowing cloud around you?” For indeed, she was surrounded by greenish light. He didn’t have to imagine it; the color was there for a whole audience to see, though it was theoretically only visible to him. This was the special magic of the play.

  “What glow?” she asked.

  “The light around you. Don’t you see it?”

  “There’s no light around me,” she said, irritated. Now the green was shot with streaks of black. “Now are you going to marry me or aren’t you? I don’t have all day, you know.”

  “The Witch cursed me with Feeling Sight,” he said to himself. “This must be it. I sense that the color of my Ideal Wife will be pure white. But this woman is green. She’s not the one.” Then, to her, “I will not marry you. Your glow is wrong.”

  “Why kind of bleep is this?” she demanded. But he had already moved on, leaving her to gesture her frustration theatrically behind him. He had just done a dramatic no- no, Scorning a Woman.

  Next he encountered Dusti, in a fetching if slightly dusty dress. Her glow was pink. “No, she’s not the one either,” he said regretfully.

  “Not the one for what?” she demanded.

  “Not the one to marry.” He walked on, leaving her, too, with black streaks across her glow.

  “Nobody asked you!” she called after him, another Woman Scorned.

  Then he came to Xina, in spectacularly skimpy shorts and halter. Her glow was blue.

  “Now I appreciate the curse,” he said. “Every woman is wrong. I can’t marry this one either.”

  “Are you going to make decisions based on some stupid glow?” Xina demanded. “Instead of this?” She dropped her halter halfway.

  Cyrus’s eyes locked up, as would those of any male members of the audience. “Yes,” he said regretfully, and managed to walk on, eyes scrunched up.

  “You’re a fool,” she muttered angrily. “What man cares about a glow, as long as a girl’s got a body?” Not only had she been Scorned, she had wasted a perfectly good half- Flash.

  “That witch certainly did curse me,” Cyrus said as he walked, still speaking his thoughts carefully aloud, so the audience could hear. “Every nice- looking girl is wrong, and now that I can see that, I can’t be satisfied with her. Am I doomed not to marry?”

  He continued to walk, and had another thought. “Maybe I should look for the Perfect Glow, instead of for the Perfect Body. That might find me the Perfect Wife and save me from the rigors of perpetual bachelorhood”

  Encouraged, he peered around, seeking the glow. And soon he found it, surrounding a shapely young woman in a cloak. “Hello,” he said to her. “I am Cyrus. I am looking for the Perfect Wife, who I know by her pure white glow. You have that glow. Who are you?”

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling prettily. “I am Crabapple. But I don’t think you want to marry me.”

  “Why not? You seem to have the qualities I require.”

  “Because of these.” She drew back her cloak to reveal her forearms and hands. Except that they were not hands; they were giant greenish crab pincers. She clacked them in the air so that every member of the future audience could see them.

  Cyrus was dramatically appalled. His gaze went back and forth between a Perfect Glow and her imperfect extremities. “I can’t do this,” he said.

  “I understand,” she said with regret. “I have encountered this reaction before. I wish you well in your continuing search”

  Cyrus stumbled away. “What a curse,” he exclaimed. “It puts me in the pincers of an awful dilemma.” There should be a laugh from the audience at that line.

  Then he reconsidered. “But maybe if I shut my eyes to the glow, I’ll be able to return to my prior state, and be happy with a girl’s exterior. What man really cares about what’s inside, so long as what’s outside is appealing?”

  He turned around and walked back the way he had come. He came to Xina, who remained in place. “I have changed my mind,” he said. “I want to marry you.”

  “What, despite my wrong glow?” she asked sharply.

  “What glow? I don’t see any glow”

  She nodded. “In that case, okay, I will marry you. When is the wedding?”

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “Good. That gives
me time to prepare my wedding gown.” She kissed him, an Unscorned Woman. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Right,” he agreed, staggering in place to show how he had been half stunned by the kiss.

  “I can’t believe that such a good catch just fell into my hand,” Xina said. “I will surely have lots of fun with him before I throw him away.” She hurried off.

  “I hope I’m doing the right thing,” Cyrus said, his posture showing that he doubted it. He stepped behind a tree.

  The Witch came onstage. “Curses! He’s no longer responding to my curse. He’s going to marry anyway, and avoid a lifetime of loneliness. That is the waste of a good curse. What can I do?” She pondered a moment. “I know. I’ll kill the bride before the wedding. Then he’ll be truly stuck. Hee hee hee!” She made a wonderfully witchly cackle.

  The Witch beckoned someone offstage. Rhythm came to her. “Daughter Rhyme,” the witch said. “Take this feather boa to Cyrus. Tell him you found it in the forest and thought it would make a perfect wedding gift for his bride.”

  “Yes, Mother Witch,” the girl said dutifully. She took the feathery scarf and carried it across the stage to Cyrus, who reappeared from behind the tree, reactivating his scene. “Look at what I found, Cyrus,” she said. “Wouldn’t this make the perfect gift for your bride, right before the wedding?”

  “Why yes it would,” he agreed, taking the boa. “Thank you, child. Who are you?”

  “I’m Rhyme,” she said. “I’m someone’s daughter.” She departed.

  Cyrus held up the boa. “This is beautiful. I’ll give it to Xina tomorrow, just before the wedding”

  The scene ended. The crux had been set up.

  Then it was next day, in the play: the next scene. Curtis Curse Friend had to play the part of the King, so as to have the authority to marry them, until they found a suitable actor. What about a Best Man? That was Weslee Weredragon, who had decided to join the troupe. But Xina needed a Maid of Honor. That was covered in the play.

  “I will do it,” Crabapple said. “I want to see him satisfied”

  Xina did not object, though obviously she thought Cra-bapple was a fool. Except for one thing: “Keep your claws covered. I don’t want my wedding ruined.”