Root and Branch

by Tripp Greyson

  The ruckus, however, was purely the fault of almost 1,000 young, energetic, and above all amorous males rampaging through town. It didn't matter that they were smaller than one of my wife Montana's hands. Apollo and Gration, as inimitable as they were, had not been able to control them very well, which I should have realized would happen.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when a pair of smallish Dixies came screaming out of the sky, sword-fighting with sticks and hurling trash-talk at each other.

  "Bazinga, farshtunkener!"

  "You're the stinker! Take that! An' that an' that an' that!"

  "Have at thee, knave!"

  "Who you callin' a knave, blackguard?"

  "Kizma, Mikey! Bang, zoom! You're goin' to the moon!" Kizma, I was soon to learn, was New Dixie slang for "Kiss my ass."

  "Nyah, nyah! Daddykins will protect me! Right, Daddykins?"

  "Huh?" I said intelligently as the Dixie with dark-blue hair, wearing only a loincloth, settled on my shoulder and stabbed his stick at a jeans-clad Dixie (Jeans? Really?) with long golden hair tied back in a ponytail. He looked just like one of the Elves... right down to the pointed ears, I realized. That was new.

  "Oh yeah? Running to Daddy, are ya? Sissy bitch!" the Elf-Dixie shouted.

  "Sissy bitch this, Shadowfax!" Mikey yelled, lifting up his loincloth and wiggling his rear end at the other Dixie.

  "Shadowfax! Shadowfax! Why, you — !"

  "STOP IT ALREADY!" I shouted. "Who are you two?"

  The pointy-eared Dixie lifted his stick-sword to his shoulder with a flourish and said smoothly, "Oh! I am Glorfindel, son of Genewín, All-Father. Well met."

  All-Father? That was new. I hoped I wouldn't have to give up an eye for wisdom sometime soon. I'd look terrible in an eye-patch. I looked back at Genewín, who was riding a horse back toward the end of the company. He just grinned and mouthed, I have sons!

  "An' I'm Michelangelo, son of Daddykins!" the cheerful boy on my shoulder yelled in my ear.

  "All right, then — " and then it hit me. "Wait. Michelangelo. Your name starts with an M."

  "Can't sneak nothin' past my Daddykins!" Mikey said proudly.

  "Does this mean you were the thirteenth child of your clutch?" I asked weakly.

  "Yeah, of fourteen!" He blew a raspberry toward Glorfindel. "Shadowfax there only had a twelve-member clutch, haw-haw!"

  "I'll Shadowfax your ass!" the Elf-Dixie screamed, shaking his stick at my newest son.

  Batting his eyes at Glorfindel, Mikey cooed, "Oh my, Glory, and here I thought you only liked girls! How 'bout you Shadowfax my ass in the mess hall at final muster? So everyone can watch? Hmmmmmm?"

  "AAARGH!" the other Dixie shouted, and flew straight at my son with every indication of intending him great bodily harm.

  "See ya later, Daddykins!" Michelangelo giggled as he zoomed straight up into the sky. Glorfindel followed, bellowing incoherent threats until the two vanished into the blue, out of earshot.

  I just sat there, mouth hanging open, while my father literally rolled on the floor of his wagon, laughing his ancient ass off.

  "Oh boy," I muttered.

  ❖

  Oh boy indeed. Or boys, rather. Far, far too many libidinous teenage boys, all at once.

  The final tally was 997 Dixies, not the six or seven hundred I'd expected; turned out the clutch size averaged over 12 this time, which I knew wasn't normal. As before, they'd named themselves in alphabetical order as they emerged — and it turned out there were a lot of M-, N-, O-, and even a smattering of P-names. Good Goddess.

  Plus Quentin and Quetzalcoatl, Little Magic said in my mind, chuckling.

  There were two seventeen-member clutches? Well, I knew who to thank for that. "Gee, thanks, Aurora."

  I felt a vast sense of amusement and heard a musical You're welcome deep in my mind.

  At first I thought the light haze hovering over the center of my capital was some kind of smoke or fog. Then, as I observed parts of it swooping about in perfect formation, I thought it might be one of those flights of passenger pigeons or starlings that occasionally darken the skies.

  But as we reached the West Gate and could hear all the raucous cries, laughter, songs, and frustrated shouting from above, it became clear that the haze was composed of hundreds upon hundreds of tiny male bodies with wings. It was a cloud of Dixies.

  Hurray. Hurray.

  The moment I stepped through the gate, there came a glad shout and Apollo zoomed down from the Dixie cloud to land breathlessly on my shoulder. He wasn't looking his usual immaculate self. He was wearing some kind of soft leather boots — that was new, again — but he was dressed in a tattered tunic and filthy trousers, and his Peter Pan cap had a hole burned through it.

  "Save me from the barbarians, Father!" he cried, wrapping his arms around my neck and snugging his tiny cheek up to mine. "The new Dixies are everywhere," he whispered. "They're worse than the Borg!"

  I had no idea what the Borg were — doubtless something from his mother's Earth — but I laughed and said, "I've already met a couple of the little swashbucklers."

  He stepped back and looked at me with a confused expression. "What is a swash, and why would you buckle it?"

  "Er... right. Well, do you know a couple of kids named Michelangelo and Glorfindel? Seemed like little hellions."

  Apollo tilted his head back and thought for a moment, then said, "Oh, them. Blue Fell, blond ap-Genewín, right? No, they're on the better-behaved end of the scale. Little angels, really."

  I gaped at him. "You've gotta be kidding me. They seemed ready to slice each other apart, especially Glorfindel!"

  "Was Mikey exposing himself and calling Glory Shadow-something?"

  "Shadowfax," I said cautiously.

  "That's it," my son said, snapping his little fingers. "You see, Shadowfax is a horse from the same mythos Glory named himself after, so that's an insult, and I think Glory is a bit confused about his sexuality. Hopefully they won't disrupt muster again today."

  "They will," I muttered. "They must hate each other."

  "Best friends, actually."

  I face-palmed. "Dear Goddess."

  "Oh, it gets much worse. Wait until you meet the Hellspawn."

  I looked at him sternly. "Really, son, there's no reason to call any of the poor kids that. They can't be that bad."

  "Yes they can, and they call themselves that," he said flatly. "Something odd happened to them during gestation. Instead of these," he buzzed his dragonfly wings at me, "they got wings like Mama Slinky and Mama Jenny, and, um... tails."

  "WHAT."

  "I do envy them the tails, Father. The ladies like them quite a lot. You see, their tails are prehensile and can reach — "

  "Too much information!" I shouted, covering my ears. When I thought it was safe, I uncovered them to hear him finish, "...especially fond of their tongues. Forked, don't you know."

  I winced and asked, "What the hell happened?"

  "No idea," he said, shrugging helplessly. "But every single clutch is led by a Hellspawn. All eighty of them."

  "Little Magic!" I hollered at the sky. "Is this some kind of a joke?!"

  No, Dadday, I "heard" mentally as if from a distance. Not mine or Mother's, at least.

  THE IMPS ARE MINE, thundered a much louder mind-voice. YOU'LL NEED THEM LATER.

  After a moment of shock, I realized that I had just heard from the merged worldlines' Supremity for the first time. Before I could respond, Its presence vanished. That was my first introduction to both the Wold and a brand-new branch of humanity, the Imps.

  "Did you hear that?" I asked Apollo, but I needn't have, because his face had gone gray and his eyes were the widest I've ever seen them, even wider than the day we first took the Hero Dixies to Clearwater Pixie Hive.

  I sighed. "The Elves are going to flip, and we'll have to deal with that stupid Onanism thing again. They'll think it's some kind of penalty for 'spilling their seed'." I looked at my son, who was gradually recovering. "
Please tell me these 'Hellspawn' don't breathe fire."

  "Oh no, Father!" Apollo said quickly.

  I slumped in relief. "Thank the Goddess."

  "They launch it from their hands!" he said excitedly. "Although Azrael does have this totally neat trick where he shoots it out of his — "

  "TMI!" I shouted.

  Apollo scowled at me in disapproval. "I was going to say eyes, Father. Why is your mind always in the gutter?"

  "Because you and your brothers put it there!" I cried. "And all it took was nine of you! What will I do with a hundred times that number?"

  "One hundred and eleven times," my eldest son said primly.

  "Are you saying there's a thousand New Dixies to deal with?!"

  "Nine hundred and ninety-seven," he announced, "to be precise. The Goddess blessed you and the other Fathers of Icarus with great fertility!"

  "Are you sure it wasn't a curse?" I asked bleakly, as a cluster of squirming Pixie boys tumbled out of the sky onto the grass in front of me, all wrestling with something in the middle of the ball of buzzing wings, wild hair, and kicking limbs.

  Suddenly they all exploded outward, screaming and cursing, and an Imp unfolded himself, his eyes glowing black. He had blue hair, a matching forked tail, and was clad in a neat little uniform. He was a head taller than most of the Dixies.

  "Bwahahahaaaah! I win again!" he shouted in a squeaky voice. Turning toward me, he called, "Hiya Captain! Dadinator!" then shot upward on twin pillars of flame issuing from his downward-turned palms.

  "Oh, that's one of yours!" Apollo said proudly. "He's called Acheron."

  "Oh boy," I said again.

  I headed for Yorkshire Castle so I could collapse in my own bed instead of right there in the middle of the street.

  Chapter 3

  Every single Imp had been the firstborn in his clutch. All eighty, therefore, had names that started with A, and none of those names was especially comforting. Most were based on the names of demons or regions of mythological hells. Three-quarters of them, like all the New Dixies fathered by the Elves, had pointy ears to go with their batwings and pointy teeth.

  Oh, did I mention the pointy teeth? Like my Hero Dixie sons Bellerophon and Gration, they liked their meat extra rare.

  And like all my Hero Dixies, the women were all over them. None was older than seven days by then, but I was sure some of the Cobbers would be popping out more grandbabies for me 41 days after the first Imps and New Dixies appeared. I was correct. Oddly enough, the first batch of baby Imps was all girls, and took after their fathers in appearance. That easily, they insured their survival as a distinct race.

  The Wold was learning.

  The morning after I got back home with the army, the Fathers, Wives, Hero Dixies, and I had a meeting. The New Dixie racket was still audible in the council chamber, but dampened considerably by the thick walls and closed shutters. They were starting to settle down anyway, thank the Goddess.

  I'd finally discussed with Toméz and the Elves the fact that "Old Jaweh" was really a female Goddess, and they'd taken it well enough. They were of the opinion that, as a deity, the Goddess could do anything she wanted to, however miraculous, and they were right. However, they'd already started moaning about the Hellspawn being some kind of Divine punishment. I started the meeting with a headache, wondering if they were correct.

  We'd hardly taken our seats before S'linkitha, my senior wife, leaned forward and hissed, "You've got to do something about the damned Newdies! They're driving everyone batshit crazy!"

  "The Cobbers and Memmies seem rather fond of them," Undine smirked, rubbing her huge belly. She, Slinky, Jenna, and Frieda were all due to give birth Any Day Now. Coulter and Montana had some time to go, but were obviously quite pregnant. Only Ava, who couldn't get pregnant again before her twin eggs hatched, was slim at the moment.

  "Newdies?" I repeated, confused.

  "We been callin' 'em that to differentiate 'em from the Hero Dixies, Hoss," Montana rumbled. "New Dixies. Newdies. And because it's a helluva fight to get the little fuckers to wear the clothes the Memegwesi and Cobbers and Sylvies worked their fingers to the bone to make for 'em. I'd wager half 'em are still naked as jaybirds, shakin' their wangles at everybody." She looked thoughtful. "The Hellspawn like the officer's uniforms Sabranna and her sisters made, though."

  "Sounds like our brothers!" Chaos yelled cheerfully. The other Hero Dixies laughed. Outside, I could hear "Newdies" singing several different... let's call them "inventive" verses of the Dixie Fight Song, all at the same time.

  "Yes, and they're going to be your responsibility pretty damn quick," I shot back.

  "About damn time," Apollo growled. I think that was the first time I'd ever heard him curse. He looked better this morning; his clothes were clean and intact, and a hummingbird feather was thrust through the hole in his hat. "Father, Gray and I have prepared a proposed organizational chart for the New Dixie Regiment. The Cobbers helped, of course. Sar'nt Major?"

  "Thanks, Leftenant Bro." Gration jumped onto the table and waddled over to me carrying a scroll as big as he was. He laid it down, saluted me, then kicked it, and it unrolled like a carpet. Then he put small stones on each corner to hold it down. "Page 1 is general info only, sir."

  The top page contained a table, in some Cobber's tiny, neat handwriting, consisting of eighty columns of names, ranging in alphabetical order from A to I in the shortest columns — indicating that the smallest clutches had contained nine Newdies — to Q in the two longest. They had been divided into eight sections according to the Father's name, each containing ten columns.

  Mine were columns 1-10, and I was flabbergasted to see that none of my clutches contained fewer than 12 boys, with the two 17-member clutches recorded as numbers 3 and 7. The total for each grouping was penned neatly below the table; mine read "N = 157." I had 157 Imp and Newdie sons?!

  The Imp/Hellspawn were indicated in red ink in the first row of the table. At the bottom of the page were three solo lines:

  New Dixies: N = 917.

  Hellspawn: N = 80. [Imps]

  Grand Total: N = 997.

  The notation "[Imps]" had clearly been added after the fact in a different hand, probably Apollo's, after the Wold's announcement at the gate, as it was crooked and messy compared to the Cobber's. It was also written in a slightly different-colored ink.

  I looked at it for a long moment, thanking the Goddess for my excellent eyesight, before handing it over to Toméz. Page 2 was the actual organizational chart, of the kind the Cobbers loved best. At the bottom were 12 lines labeled "Company A" through "Company L," with, oddly enough, a "Company Aleph" off to the right side by itself with a subheading "Special Forces."

  Each company designation had a number underneath ranging from N = 68 to N = 112, with an asterisk beside each number. At the very bottom right of the page was a notation declaring *See Appendices for names of each company member by letter.

  Companies A-F had the names of Lts. Bellerophon, Chaos, Dionysus, Eros, Filotus, and Hermes above them, each with a vertical line rising up from that name to a horizontal line labeled "First Battalion" with "Capt. Apollo" above it. Companies G-L each had one of the Elves' names at the top, also with the rank of Leftenant, with those names connected to another horizontal line, reading "Second Battalion," headed by "Capt. Gration."

  Company Aleph was headed by "Acheron," whom I'd already met, and it and both Battalions linked by vertical bars to another horizontal bar titled "New Dixie Regiment" with "Colonel X" atop it, followed by "(Papa Toméz?)".

  Wow.

  A review of the Appendices revealed that most of the companies consisted of members whose names started with the same letter as their company designation. Glorfindel, for example, was part of Company G. The exception was Company Aleph, which consisted of everyone else — those with names starting with letters ranging from M-Q, starting with Malakai and ending with Quetzalcoatl. Michelangelo was part of Company Aleph. I couldn't help but think of Company
Aleph as "the Alephtovers," though I'd never say it out loud.

  I heard Little Magic's snickering anyway, and hoped he'd keep his Divine mouth shut.

  "Excellent job, gentlemen! I think we should adopt it. Congratulations on your new ranks, everyone! " I handed the rest of the sheaf to Tom, who peered at the pages for a moment and then passed them on to the Elves, each of whom suddenly sat up straight and stared wide-eyed at their names on the chart and Company Appendices.

  "Looks like you boys will get a much-needed vacation from fathering!" I said cheerfully.