"Nice steam!" Ivy said. "You're a steamer, so your name is Stanley." She had been told tales of strange, funny Mundania, where impossible things existed, such as metal machines that traveled on wheels and people who had no magic. She wasn't good at comprehending impossibilities, but she had an apt memory for names. "Stanley Steamer," she repeated.

"You're wonderful!"

Ivy was indulging in a simple but subtle process of identification and transference. First, she was a creature of love, for love had always abounded in her family, so naturally love radiated from her. She bestowed on her toys and pets and friends the kind of unquestioning love she received herself. Also, she was aware of the way men treated women, as exemplified by her father's handling of her mother. King Dor placed Queen Irene on a pedestal. Irene complained about it often but was privately rather pleased. Ivy had spent many hours of many days searching Castle Roogna for that pedestal, but it seemed to be invisible, like the ghosts. Finally she had realized that it was magic, like the monster-under-the-bed that only she could see. King Dor was able to put Queen Irene on the pedestal that no one else could see or feel, and Irene could not get off it, complain as she might. It was a special enchantment he could perform. Ivy liked enchantment, so she had tried to develop her own invisible pedestal on which she could place her friends. She had by diligent effort perfected it, but had lacked a suitable friend for it. Smash the Ogre was really too big to fit on it. But now she had a suitable prospect, and so she placed her new friend Stanley on it. He was the very best of all the little dragons she knew!

Stanley, like Ivy's mother, was not entirely comfortable on that pedestal; but again, like her mother, he was not entirely displeased. There were things to be said in favor of pedestals, and he was the right size for this one. What made Ivy's pedestal especially effective was her talent of enhancement. Whatever traits a person or creature possessed, in her eyes, became more p.r.o.nounced, powerful, durable, and good. When she had noted how well her mother grew plants, her mother had grown them even better. When Ivy had met the friendly, talkative yak, the creature had become more friendly and helpful. Now Ivy perceived how handsome and nice Stanley Steamer really was.

Stanley suffered a period of disorientation, as was normal for creatures abruptly discovering themselves on pedestals. He hadn't known his name was Stanley. He hadn't known he was wonderful. Certainly he hadn't known he was lovely. Then the full power of Ivy's magic took over, for it was Magician-caliber sorcery, the kind of power few mortals comprehended, and the dragon became exactly what she perceived him to be--her handsome and loyal friend, playmate, and pet. Like many a male before him, he succ.u.mbed to the enchantment of a sweet little female, without even knowing the nature of her sorcery. He was not aware that he had lost a battle of remarkable significance; he didn't even know there had been a battle. Because his natural instincts had no guidelines for this role, he had to accept hers. He was precisely what she wanted.

Ivy, because she was what she was, a creature of love and innocence and unsuspected power, had in an instant tamed one of the most formidable monsters of Xanth--the Gap Dragon. No one had ever done that before. Some people might have considered it a miracle, but it was not; it was merely an early indication of Ivy's own formidability, which was allied to that of her grandfather Bink.

"You must have very hard scales," Ivy said, tapping the scales of Stanley's neck; and now they were metal-hard. "Such pretty colors, too!" And the colors intensified, manifesting as elegant shades of green and blue and gray with iridescent sparkles. Stanley was now so pretty as to smite the unwary eye. "Oh, you're such a nice dragon!" She hugged him about the neck and kissed his green ear.

Bemused, the dragon accepted her embrace. Had he not been so hard-scaled and pretty-colored, he might have melted right into the ground, for Ivy's affection was a very special thing, quite apart from her magic.

"And such nice, hot steam," she continued. Stanley jetted a superheated jet, much hotter than he had ever managed before.

Ivy's attention soon wandered, for she was, after all, only a little girl without any great store of attention. She hardly needed it. "I'm hungry! Aren't you?"

Stanley agreed that he was hungry by nodding his head, making the scales of his neck glitter nicely. In fact, now he was ravenous.

"Then we must find some food," Ivy decided. "For supper."

She looked about.

Stanley sighed privately. Ivy herself was the most delicious possible morsel, but he could no longer even think of that without wincing. No one would consume her while he was on guard!

Nearby was a crabapple tree, with quite a number of ripe crabs. "Gee, I bet those are good," she said, reaching for one. But the crab snapped at her with its huge pincer, and she hastily withdrew her hand. She had learned the hard way about things that pinched, back at Castle Roogna.

Still, those crabs looked awfully good. "I know!" she decided, for she prided herself on her ability to solve problems when she tried; indeed, that ability had intensified to do justice to her pride. "Mommy cooks crabs in hot water. Then they don't snap!" She had not realized, before this moment, why her mother went through the ritual with the water, putting hot peppers into the pot to bring the liquid to the boiling point, then dumping in the crabs. It was a significant revelation, worthy of Ivy's effort.

But she didn't have any hot water. In fact, she had no water at all and no hot peppers to heat it. Ivy pondered, and in a moment she came up with a solution, for she was trying to be a precocious child. "Stanley, your hot steam can cook them! Then we can both eat!"

Stanley looked at the crabapple tree, not understanding. He did not need to steam crabs; he could crunch them raw without difficulty. Their meat became his flesh, and their sh.e.l.ls became his scales, in the natural order of a.s.similation.

"Oh, come on," Ivy said encouragingly. "I know you're smarter than that!" The dragon discovered he was smarter than he had thought, and now he understood her notion. She could not crunch crabs live and raw.

Stanley positioned himself before the crabapple tree and sent forth a jet of sizzling steam. It touched a crab, whose greenish sh.e.l.l instantly ripened to bright apple red, and the creature fell to the ground. Ivy picked it up--and dropped it, for it was hot. She stuck her fingers in her mouth, unscorching them. Then she made do; she used a section of her ivy-green skirt to protect her fingers and picked the crab up again. It smelled delicious.

But she didn't know how to crack open the sh.e.l.l, as she had no nutcracker. Then she looked at Stanley's gleaming teeth and had another bright idea. "You can crack it!" she exclaimed.

She poked the cooked crab into the corner of the dragon's mouth where the chewing teeth were. Stanley crunched down slowly until the sh.e.l.l cracked. Then he eased up, and she took the crab back. The problem had been solved.

She picked out the meat and chewed it. "Yes, it's very good," she said. "Cook some for yourself, Stanley."

Stanley shrugged and steamed several more crabs and chewed them up, sh.e.l.ls and all. He discovered that they were good this way, too. His horizon had been broadened; now he knew how to eat cooked as well as raw meat. In due course, both girl and dragon were satisfied.

But now night was closing more insistently. "I guess Mommy hasn't found me yet, and Daddy's busy with something more important," Ivy remarked, unconcerned. She knew Queen Irene would show up when it suited her convenience. It wasn't often the woman forgot about bedtime, though. "We must find a good place to sleep."

The dragon, of course, normally slept anywhere he wanted to; no other creature would attack him. But he was much smaller and less experienced than he had been, and was daunted by the threat of darkness. How would he escape the monster under the bed if he had no bed to climb on? So if Ivy believed it was necessary to find a good place to sleep, then it must be true.

They walked on, seeking a good place. They came to a tree on which grew not crabs but small men. Stanley wafted an experimental cloud of steam at it, in case the men were edible, and a number of them turned red and dropped off.

They had been steamed, but they were not cooked. Each fallen man bounded to his feet, and a company of them gathered below the tree. "Oh, babies!" Ivy exclaimed, perceiving that each wore diapers. "This is an infant-tree!"

These were pretty tough babies. Each had a helmet and a little sword or spear. Now they scowled and marched, their weapons extended threateningly. Stanley wafted more steam at them, but the troops of the infant-tree forged on, using little shields to deflect the steam. Their red color was that of anger, not of ripening or cooking.

"I think we'd better run," Ivy said intelligently; "Your scales are tough, Stanley, but my skin is tender, because I'm a cute little girl. Anyway, it's getting too dark."

Stanley wasn't certain of the logic of all this, but knew he wasn't as smart as she was, since thinking wasn't normally the prerogative of dragons. Yet he understood what she wanted.

They found the trunk of another tree. This one was huge; it would have taken Ivy some time just to walk around the base, climbing over its monstrous, b.u.t.tressing roots. The foliage was dense, an impenetrable ma.s.s that spread out almost horizontally near the bottom. "We'd be safe up there," Ivy decided. "But how can we get up?"

They were in luck. Behind the tree was a crane. The bird had long, thin legs and a long, thin neck and a long, thin bill. It was a large bird, so that when it stood up straight, its head disappeared into the leaves of the tree. Indeed, it was engaged in lifting stones from the ground to the foliage, cranking up its head in slow, measured stages.

Ivy paused, watching this procedure. She concentrated, and finally figured it out: the bird was practicing rocky-tree.

The troops of the infant-tree were in hot pursuit, delayed only by the shortness of their stride and by their need to detour more widely around the projecting roots than Ivy and Stanley had to do. Ivy didn't waste time. "Mister Crane, will you lift us up into the tree?" she asked. "I'll give you--" She hesitated, searching about herself for something to offer, for she knew that it was proper to give favors for favors. She found a metal disk in her pocket and brought it out. "This."

The crane peered at the disk. The disk gleamed in the last slanting beam of daylight. The crane was charmed, for it liked bright things. It accepted the disk, then hooked its bill into Ivy's skirt-band and hoisted her up into the foliage. She spun dizzily with the sudden elevation, but grabbed the branches as they came within reach and scrambled up into the soft darkness of the leaves.

The crane's bill descended, hooked onto Stanley's tail, and hoisted him up similarly. Soon he was with her again, which was just as well, because she was nervous about being alone in the dark.

It was almost completely night in the tree, but there were many soft leaves, so Ivy arranged a bunch of them by feel into a bed that was comfortable enough. She couldn't see the ground, so she didn't worry about falling. Stanley formed a nest of his own and curled up snout to tail in the fashion of his kind. In moments they were both asleep.

There was a terrible storm during the night, but the ma.s.sed leaves channeled the water around, so that Ivy and Stanley did not get wet and were only dimly aware of the deluge. Ivy drew her leaf-blanket more tightly about her, and Stanley snorted a waft of steam. Both were glad to be high and dry; few experiences are cozier than being nicely sheltered from bad weather.

In the morning it took Ivy a little while to remember where she was. At first she thought she was home in bed, but the color wasn't right. Her bedroom was pink, with climbing ivy plants that her mother had grown for her. This place was green, with faint pink swatches of light where a few bold sunbeams poked through. And, of course, she had no pet dragon at home.

"Stanley!" she exclaimed with joy, reaching across to give him a hug. "You're such a nice dragon!"

The baby Gap Dragon woke with a startled snort of steam, switching his tail. His middle set of legs fell through the foliage, and he had to scramble for a moment to recover secure footing. They were, after all, up a tree. But he was also much nicer than he had been.

"I like this tree," Ivy decided. "Let's stay up here!" Stanley, who had discovered that he liked being hugged by a cute little girl, agreed.

Ivy looked for a bathroom, but found none. She discovered, though, that anything she did dropped harmlessly through the floor of foliage and out of sight and out of mind, so that was no problem. Birds did it, after all; no wonder they found trees so convenient!

Next she looked for a kitchen, with no better success. But there were a.s.sorted fruits and nuts dangling within reach, so she plucked and ate them. Stanley wasn't sure about this form of sustenance, but at her urging he consumed a bunch of redhot pepper fruits and found them delicious. He liked hot stuff; it helped heat his steam just as effectively as it heated Ivy's mother's water. Then he ate some of the more juicy fruits, for he also needed liquid from which to generate his steam.

Now they moved on through the tree, exploring. Foliage was everywhere, making this a jungle in itself, but there was a certain pattern to it. The branches twisted generally upward, and the layers of leaves became firmer at the higher levels. This was vaguely like an enormous house, with many floors and walls and ramps; it seemed to extend forever. Stanley had no trouble, for his body was long and low and sinuous, but Ivy felt nervous on the smaller branches.

Finally they reached the highest level, where the sun shone down, and here the network of branches was so thick and so intertwined, and the leaves so many and strong, that the visitors could safely walk anywhere. The top of the tree was roughly level, with the mounds of individual branches resembling hills; the outermost boughs rose higher to form a kind of retaining wall that prevented them from falling off. The leaves were of varied colors here, too, so that it was more like a regular landscape.

There were some large, individual leaves projecting from the nether ma.s.s of the treescape, with black patterns on them. The nearest one was marked WELCOME TO COVEN-TREE, and below it a smaller leaf was marked DO NOT LITTER. Ivy was too young to read, and the Gap Dragon had never learned how, so they ignored these leaves.

Ahead was a series of leafy cages containing strange animals. The sign-leaf by the first said GI-ANTS. Inside were several huge and strange insects, each as big as Ivy herself. Their bodies resembled those of ant lions, but their heads were strange. Ivy pondered a moment, then managed to remember where she had seen creatures like these before. "In a picture!--" she exclaimed. "In a book of weird Mundane monsters. Mommy called them 'ants.' They must be a crossbreed of ant lions and, and--" But here she stalled; she could not figure out what could account for the changed heads. "But I thought they were smaller."

Stanley peered at the odd creatures, as fascinated as Ivy was. One of the huge ants snapped its mandibles at the Dragon, and Stanley jetted some steam back at it. The ant waved its long antennae, and Stanley switched his tail. Mundane monsters made him uncomfortable; they simply weren't natural.

The next cage was labeled MA-MOTHS. Inside were the biggest night b.u.t.terflies Ivy had ever seen, with furry antennae and folded dark wings. They carried no b.u.t.ter, however. They seemed to be asleep, though it was day.

Another cage contained an ENOR-MOUSE crunching up a huge chunk of cheese. Others had TREMEN-DOES, which were large, split-hoofed animals, vaguely like the yak, eating leaves; GIGAN-TICS sucking on a big bloodroot; STUPEN-DOES, even larger than the other does; and IM-MENS, which were ogre-sized men.

Ivy paused at the last exhibit. It didn't seem right to her for any type of men to be imprisoned like this. Her mind was small, so her thoughts translated to action very quickly. "Stanley, let's let these creatures go," she said.

The dragon was willing. He jetted so fierce a shot of steam at the leafy lock in the IM-MENS cage that it melted, and the gate swung open. The mens crowded out, pleased with their new freedom.

Ivy and Stanley went back along the cages, melting each lock, having found out how easy it was to free the exhibits. Soon all the confined creatures were free, charging about madly. There was such pandemonium that Ivy and Stanley were daunted. They retreated to the very edge of the coven-tree, climbing the retaining wall. This wall intersected the wall of an adjacent tree where things were less hectic, so they jumped across, leaving the confusion behind.

This new tree was very pretty. WELCOME TO PAGEAN-TREE, its leaf-sign said, and of course they ignored it. They were too interested in all the pretty colors of the foliage, much brighter than the leaves of the last tree, and in the remarkable forms this new foliage a.s.sumed.

There were also marching bands, each band a strip of cloth or cord or rubber with little legs that tramped along at a measured pace, somewhat the way the tough babies of the infant-tree had marched. Ivy was entranced, and Stanley became interested, too, since she thought he would be.

But after a while, even the splendors of the pagean-tree palled, for life was more than pageans, and they jumped to the foliage of still another tree. This was, its sign said, a DATE PALM, its fronds representing all the days of the year. Day lilies grew in little cups of earth, but only one bloomed each day, so that the precise date was always marked. In the very center grew a large century plant, its thick, long, green leaves spreading out in a globe, spiked along the sides and tips.

In the middle of the century plant was something really fascinating. It seemed to be another plant with straight stalks clothed by many small, round, bright leaves that glittered in the sunlight like golden coins. "Ooooh, pretty!" Ivy exclaimed. "I want one!" Little girls resembled big cranes in this respect; they liked pretty things.

She tried to get in to the coin plant, but the spurs of the century plant prevented her. The spurs were very st.u.r.dy, so she could not simply push them aside. Stanley helped, steaming each spur so that it turned soft, which enabled Ivy to pa.s.s. But progress was slow, for there were many spurs. Stanley had to stay right with her, because as soon as the two of them pa.s.sed, the spurs became hard again. Stanley tried to chew off a leaf, but its juices were like those of a zombie, and he quickly desisted before he got sick. So they wriggled and scrambled their way through the many thick leaves with Stanley expending much steam, until at last they arrived at the bright plant in the very center.

Ivy reached for a coin, a smile of innocent delight on her face. But the moment her little fingers touched the golden leaf, there was a flare of light from the plant that bathed both girl and dragon, making the entire scene glow eerily. It was a glow Ivy's mother had seen in a vision but had not quite understood, for it was only an incidental part of the vision.

The two of them froze exactly as they were, becoming living statues, unmoving, unbreathing.

They had been caught by one of the least dramatic but most powerful plants in Xanth, the one that ultimately governed and brought down almost every other living creature: thyme.

Chapter 6: Xanthippe.

The storm had cleared by morning, but it had had its revenge on Irene by wiping out all conceivable tracks and traces and so battering the vegetation that it could not remember the events of the day before. The trail was now thoroughly cold and wet.

In addition, the sun was laggard about penetrating the cloud cover, so Irene couldn't dry her clothing properly. She grew new bloomers and slippers, and from dry towels fashioned a skirt and jacket, cut and b.u.t.toned appropriately. She wasn't entirely comfortable, but she set out bravely enough, making Grundy query every plant in the region, just in case. None of them remembered Ivy.

"I hesitate to suggest this," Chem began, "but--"

"Then don't suggest it!" Irene snapped. She knew what the centaur was going to say--that something had captured Ivy and taken her away, so that the little girl might never be found. But the ivy plant remained green, signaling the child's health, and Irene would not rest until she rescued her.

They searched for hours. At one point a griffin spied the party and swooped down for a closer look. Griffins were among the most feared creatures of the wilderness, as they possessed the bodies of lions and the wings of eagles and were always hungry and ferocious. But Irene gave this one no shrift. She hurled down a boxwood seed and ordered it to grow.

The plant grew into a small tree with many hard, wooden gnarls. It moved these gnarls about, boxing at the griffin. The boxwood was aggressive; it liked physical contact. Only a few of these attacks were necessary before the animal fled.

Finally Grundy got a lead. "This anchor plant saw her! It's very hard to dislodge, so the rain couldn't wash out its memory.

"But--"

"But what?" Irene cried, dashing over.

"But she had a companion," the golem said reluctantly. "Not the yak."

"But she's all right!" Irene said, as if daring the golem to deny it.

"Yes. But the creature she met--"

"It didn't attack her!" Irene said with the same defiance. Her ivy plant remained vigorous, rea.s.suring her.

"Not exactly..."

"Perhaps I had better question him--" Chem offered.

But Irene would have none of the centaur's level headedness. An uncomfortable night, physically and emotionally, had shortened her fuse, and she had never been especially noted for her patience. "Out with it, knothead! What creature?"

"It sounds like the Gap Dragon."

Now Irene reacted. She had been braced for anything. Anything but this. She fell back against Chem, almost collapsing. The centaur grabbed her to support her. "The--Gap--?"

"Reduced," Grundy said quickly. "Remember, you told us it got doused with Youth elixir and youthened into babyhood, just like Humfrey."

"But the G--Gap Dragon!" Irene protested. "The most vicious monster in Xanth! No matter what size it is now!"

"Yes. The same."

Irene nerved herself. "What happened?"

Grundy queried the anchor plant. "They seem to have made friends," he reported doubtfully. "They walked away together."

"The Gap Dragon has no friends!" Irene said, perversely arguing with him. "It's a loner. It eats everything it catches."

"That can't be entirely true," Chem said. "Unless the dragon is immortal, it must have had parents, and it will have to breed to reproduce itself. So there must be a place in its scheme for companionship. And now it has been rejuvenated. It could indeed be immortal, if it uses the Fountain of Youth regularly--but I doubt that is the case. Regardless, it could be lonely, as a child in that situation would be."

"Some child!" Grundy exclaimed.

"Children do differ from adults," the centaur insisted. "They are more impressionable, more open--"

"More likely the dragon just didn't happen to be hungry at the moment, so it saved her for the next meal," Grundy suggested helpfully.

Chem aimed a forehoof at the golem but missed. Irene, just beginning to believe that her child might possibly be all right, suffered a renewed pang. The Gap Dragon was a scheming, canny creature, smarter than the average dragon. "We had better catch up to them soon!" she said grimly.

They traced the youngsters to an infant-tree. Several of the tough babies remembered the pair. "'Sure we chased 'em,'" Grundy translated. "The beast really steamed us! We don't take that shift from anyone!'"

"But where did they go?" Irene demanded.

"What's it to you, old dame?" another baby asked, hanging loose as the golem translated.

"Just answer the question, you little swinger," Irene said sternly.