When they got close, Chlorine had a notion. “I know this is all about to end, Nimby,” she said. “You promised me one good adventure, and you certainly delivered it. You have things of your own to do, and can’t take forever catering to my whims. But at least I’d like to show you to my family, before you go away forever. Will that be all right?”
Nimby nodded. It was all right because anything she wanted was all right, by the terms of his situation. But far more hung on her decision than she realized—and he could not tell her that.
“So okay, I’m taking my medicine and declaring this wonderful adventure over,” she said, and at that point she reverted to her natural appearance and nature. “You are free to do whatever you want, with my thanks. But if you will be kind enough to wait here until I can bring my family to see you, I’ll really appreciate it. It’s been great, Nimby.” Her reversion hadn’t quite registered yet, so she was still being nice. Then she turned and marched away from him, not looking back because she was afraid she would break down and ask for what she thought to be impossible: a permanent life as a lovely, smart, healthy, and nice woman.
And Nimby lost his power of motion and magic. All that remained was his awareness of all things in Xanth, but he could no longer affect them in any way. He had been reduced to a donkey-headed hulk, and would remain so until he rotted away, unless Chlorine should shed her tear for him. And why should she do that, knowing it would blind her?
The Demon X(AN)th was depressed because he was about to lose his wager, and with it his governance of the Land of Xanth. Some other Demon would take it over, and might change it or destroy it, because no other Demon cared about it the way X(AN)th did. For he had indeed come to care for it, very much. And therein lay another irony, for he had also fallen in love with Chlorine.
Of course, he knew that the beautiful, smart, healthy, nice edition was a creation of his magic. He had made her, literally. But he had done it by her request, to her specifications. She had become the woman she chose to be, when she had the option. Therefore the seeds of it had been within her; she had known her deficiencies, and acted to eliminate them. Chlorine, as she had been the past few days, was what she would be always, given the chance. And it was Chlorine Ideal that he loved. She was just the perfect woman. In all but one respect—the one she hadn’t thought of. And that was the capacity to love. Her hard life had washed that out along with her tears, until only a vestige remained. And so she did not love him back. He knew it, because he knew her mind as no other did. And without that love, she would never shed a tear for anyone other than herself.
X(AN)th himself had not known the meaning of love, before this adventure. He had not cared about anyone or anything except himself and his competitive ranking among Demons. But in order to win Chlorine’s love he had had to learn about love, and in the course of that he learned how.
It had not been easy or sudden, because Chlorine herself did not truly understand it. She thought that love came automatically with beauty and niceness. She was mistaken; such things merely facilitated it. So she had practiced her craft, impressing young males by displaying teasing portions of her healthy body and clothing. She had teased Nimby, too, and indeed she had been interesting, and he would have liked to summon the stork with her. But storks were not identical to love; they were more like fellow travelers. There could be storks without love, and love without storks. Chlorine had finally realized that distinction, and broken off the effort, and in that decision had sown the seed of what she lacked. She had realized that she was coming to care for him enough to make playing unkind, but she hadn’t realized what she was actually searching for.
It was the Mundane family Baldwin that had begun to show him the immense potential depth and breadth of love. The children’s love for their pets, and Mary’s love for the children. Neither had anything to do with storks, but in their subtle ways they were as significant. Any member of that family was prepared to die to protect any other member. Not all of them realized it, such as David, but it was true. X(AN)th had studied that quiet underlying emotion, laboring to understand it, and gradually had succeeded. Mary had helped him most, by showing her concern for everyone, even for him, when he had come in soiled from the meatier shower. She had treated him like a son, and though he was infinitely older than she, he had appreciated it. She had cared for him, and thereby shown him how to care for her. It was a kind of commitment that required no magic; it was just there, like water seeping silently through ground. But it was the base on which the more dramatic forms of love were laid.
Such as that between Sean and Willow. True, it had been sponsored by a dip in a love spring. But neither would have been affected as they were, if they had not had solid family love first. They had understood the aspects of love, and were ready when suddenly it caught fire. Otherwise the water would merely have caused them to mate uncontrollably, summoning as many storks as they could in a short time, and then to separate, the mood expended, in the manner of animals. Instead they had resisted the mating urge for the sake of a larger commitment that they were, ironically, unable to make. For the love they wished to realize in its entirety.
It had taken X(AN)th some time to analyze that, and to emulate it to be sure that he did understand it. But that turned out to be a door that, once opened, could not be closed again. He loved Chlorine.
Now she had ended the adventure, without knowing its significance. Unable to love herself, she had not appreciated how a donkey headed dragon could love her. It had all been for fun, as she saw it, a glorious adventure of the type Princesses were wont to have. Indeed, she had danced with a Prince, and conversed with a King, and not made a fool of herself. This was her notion of the ultimate. Now it was over, and she was going home. And Nimby was dying.
Perhaps it had been doomed from the start. From the time he had allowed his attention to wander, and had addressed the wrong young woman. The one without tears. But somehow he could not regret that now, because he could not have loved the other woman more than he loved Chlorine. Though he lost the bet, and his status, and the Land of Xanth, he had gained something infinitely precious in return: the knowledge and substance of love. Perhaps it was worth it.
Yet how different it might have been. Had Chlorine possessed just a smidgen more awareness of the true nature of love, she might then have asked for an enhanced capacity, and then she might have learned to love him. But as it was, she merely liked him. And so his mission here was doomed.
Had she been able to shed her last tear for him, he would have won, and then what a great and wonderful surprise he would have had for her! He would have made her all that she had wanted to be, and so much more, more than she had ever imagined. She could have become the Goddess of Xanth, below only himself, because he could not make her a Demon. All knowledge, all power, and all joy, too, could have been hers. He would have assumed any form she wanted, especially the handsome Nimby-man one, and obliged her in any way she wished. He could have given her any magic talent she wished, being no longer limited by fear of discovery of his nature. But perhaps most important of all, he would have given her his love, and enabled her to love him in return, in the manner of Sean and Willow. And in thanks for the way those two had showed him how gloriously complete true love could be, he would have given Sean the talent of flying without wings in Xanth, so he could share Willow’s life completely. No one else could do such a thing, but the Demon X(A/N)th had all magic power in his own land, and he knew now that a favor done required a favor returned.
Everything, everything, could have been Chlorine’s, for herself and her friends who had helped her battle the Ill Wind. Even those who had come in late, like Adam and Keaira, who were now discovering a romance of their own. He knew the parts all of them had played, and could reward them all.
All lost, for want of a tear.
He spread his awareness. Chlorine had arrived home, in her homely bad-natured form. She tried to tell her mother about her adventure.
“Where’s that sprig o
f thyme you were supposed to fetch, you disreputable wench?” her shrewish mother demanded, slapping her. She did that often, because she knew the girl didn’t dare hit back.
Chlorine had completely forgotten about that. In fact, she didn’t even remember that she hadn’t been the one sent for a sprig of thyme; that was Miss Fortune. Chlorine had gone for a bow from a bowvine. But the two had collided, and gotten confused, and proceeded on each other’s missions. “I—I got distracted,” she said, realizing just how awful her family life had been. Why had she ever bothered to return to this?
“Distracted?” her brutish father asked. “Did you sneak out to see a stupid boy?”
A stupid boy. That was about as far from the truth as it was possible to get.
“Not exactly. You see I encountered a funny-looking dragon who changed into a handsome man, and made me beautiful, and we had the most wonderful adventure and helped save Xanth from the Ill Wind, and—”
“Shut up!” he shouted, lifting his hand to knock some respect into her. “Don’t try to tell me any crazy fantastic story! Where’s this oaf?”
Chlorine realized that they were not about to listen, so she tried another tack. “Out near the thyme plant. Do you want to meet him?”
“Sure I do,” her father said, fetching his club from the wall. “I’ll bash his head into pulp! You don’t deserve any man.”
Bash Nimby? Gross chance! She did not realize that Nimby was now immobile. So she led them back to where Nimby lay. “There he is,” she said. “The dragon who made me beautiful and gave me the best adventure of my life. Now do you believe me?”
“A dragon ass!” the man exclaimed, recognizing the species immediately, because it was so close to his own type. “We don’t want that kind here. Not in my back yard. We’ll destroy it.” He bashed Nimby on the head with his club, but it made no difference. Nimby could not move, but neither was he vulnerable to the weak strength of a dissipated mortal man. Only time would wipe him out, or a hot fire.
“It’s already dead, you fool,” Chlorine’s mother said. “Soon it’ll begin to stink.”
“Then we’ll burn it,” the man decided. “Come on, pile up some brush round it.” He and his wife got to work gathering dry brush.
Chlorine was stunned. “Nimby—what’s the matter with you?” she cried. “Get up, get away from here! I’ll go with you. Maybe we can have another adventure somewhere else.”
But Nimby didn’t move. He had lost that power.
“So you’re slacking off, as usual, you slut,” Chlorine’s father said. “Just for that, you will have the privilege of doing the final honor.” He brought out a torch, and lit it. “You will set fire to the pyre. Let that be a lesson to you.” He shoved the blazing torch into Chlorine’s somewhat flaccid hand.
“Nimby!” she cried, a strange emotion rising in her. “Get up! Get away! Don’t let them kill you!”
But Nimby just lay there, unable to respond. If only she had been able to fathom the one thing she needed to!
“Do it, girl, or you’ll get a beating the like of which you won’t forget!” her father said grimly.
Chlorine realized that she had no choice. She was back in the real world of Xanth, no longer in the dreamworld of beauty and Princesses and great adventures. She was subject to the brutish whims of her family, and she herself was rather more like them than she liked. For a while she had been nice as well as beautiful, but now she was neither. She wished she could have loved and been loved while she was worthy of it, yet somehow she hadn’t known how to make it happen. Why hadn’t she thought to ask Nimby? So she had squandered her chance even for that. She was a loser. Her best bet was to burn up the dragon and be done with illusions of grandeur.
She lowered the torch. But as she gazed directly upon Nimby’s ugly donkey head, a despairing realization came. “I’m not beautiful, I’m not nice, I’m no good, I’m poison, like my talent—but for a while you made me seem otherwise. I owe you that wonderful dream that never could be. I owe the Mundane family too, because they showed me how good a family could be. I think maybe I could learn to love like that, given half a chance. Oh, Nimby, I don’t know what happened to you, but I fear it’s my fault. Maybe I poisoned your water by accident when I reverted to my normal nature. It’s too late now to make amends, and I’d mess it up if I tried. But now I know I love you in my worthless way, and if I can’t gaze on you, I don’t care if I never see anything again! In fact, I’ll join you in this pyre, so maybe my third-rate spirit can be near yours. Nimby, I beg you, forgive me for messing you up.” She touched the torch to the brush, and the pyre flamed high, heating her face, singeing her hair.
And the two halves of her only remaining tear flowed from her eyes, blinding them, and merged on her nose, and that tear fell.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I do a lot of writing—far more than ever sees print—because I’m a writaholic; I love writing. But my working schedule suffered a significant disruption. I was writing Hope of Earth, which is my third GEODYSSEY historical novel, and hoped to complete it in 1994. But I had a number of collaborations to do—no, don’t all you readers write in asking to collaborate, because I hope to do no more of those—and those delayed Hope. Then I got to work on it, and was about 50,000 words along, when the last collaborative manuscript arrived, Quest for the Fallen Star. I read it, and had mixed emotions: it was a major fantasy that would surely put my collaborator on the map when published, but it needed the kind of editing and revamping I could do to give it full effect—and it was 240,000 words long. On each of the more recent collaborations my collaborator has written the novel, then I have gone over it to fix any problems that might make it unpublishable. So my part is fairly fast. But this one would take me two and a half months to revamp—as long as it takes me to write a typical Xanth novel. If I took that much time off, how could I finish Hope on schedule? So I discussed it with my researcher, Alan Riggs, and he suggested that he try going over it first. He could take care of the routine adjustments—the kind that can take a lot of time—and then I could go over it and polish it to my standard. That would reduce my time to about a month, with as good a result. I liken novel writing to building a highway: first you scout the territory, plot the route on the map, obtain the right to use the land, clear the site, bulldoze out hills, fill in ravines, bridge over bogs and rivers, level it—and then you are ready to start hauling in your supplies and actually constructing the road surface. My collaborator had done all that, but his surface was not quite of drivable level, so needed to be regraded and finished. Alan could do the regrading, and then I could come with my finishing tools and complete the job. So we consulted with the author, and he agreed, and Alan got to work on it. But that meant I had lost my researcher, and because Alan has not had my quarter century experience revising novels, it was much slower for him. So he was out for most of the rest of the year, and Hope ground to a halt anyway without him.
What to do? A dim bulb flashed: do the next Xanth novel. I had scheduled it for 1995, but my fan suggestion list was already overflowing despite using up about 150 on Roc and a Hard Place. Some were pretty substantial notions, too, such as having the Demon X(AN)th assume mortal form and have an adventure in Xanth, or having a Mundane family named Baldwin get blown in with a storm. Ah, I see you recognize those notions. So I filled in by writing this novel.
Then my father, eighty-five, fell and fractured his hip. There were endless complications as he wended his way through surgery and recovery, culminating in a trip to Pennsylvania my daughter Penny and I made, to make sure all was in order with him. I believe we did succeed in enhancing his lifestyle in a number of ways, as well as renewing family ties. So that was time off from this novel.
But not the main time off. That was the process of learning a new word processor. I had used Borland’s Sprint for six years, and liked it well enough. But it never had an update, and the news was that the company was going to let it fade away. It required a special patch to run on a 486 system; wh
at about the 586? So it seemed to be time to get with a word processor that would stay with the times. The winnowing out has occurred, and for my IBM clone system there were now two main choices: Word Perfect or Microsoft Word. Of those, only the latter would call up multiple files. Since I normally call up nine working files, for text, contents, characters, notes, and so on, that clarified my decision. (Later I learned that Word Perfect for Windows now calls up nine files—but MS Word for Windows seems to have no limit.) So I tried Word for DOS, but after a week moved to Word for Windows, because that was about two upgrades more advanced, and had a number of features I wanted. I am one of those who don’t much like Windows or the Mouse, but got around that by getting a trackball and then finding ways to avoid using it. Windows and Word and associated programs turned out to be monsters to learn, evidently crafted by programmers who had been too long away from the real world. I don’t just accept the defaults offered, I want to make the machine serve me, rather than vice versa. Word did not want to yield mastery, but eventually I did get things mostly my way, and it is a powerful program, even if it hasn’t yet caught up to Sprint in a number of features. So I started this novel on Sprint, and changed to Word for DOS early in Chapter Three, and to Word for Windows by the end of that chapter. So if you notice a change in the novel at that point, you know whom to blame: Microsoft. And yes, of course I wrote Microsoft a long letter detailing the ways Word was pointlessly User-Unfriendly, such as having an almost invisible vertical line in lieu of a cursor so you have to operate almost blind. Oh, what fun, deleting the wrong file because you thought you were here instead of there! The company could at one stroke greatly improve its product. But I received no response. Par for the course. After all, if they wanted it to be User-Friendly, they would have listened to users long ago. But I must say that once that pit bull is muzzled and trained, it does have a lot of authority.
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