Yon Ill Wind (37 page)

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 of 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 bow-vine.  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.