Free Currant Events by Piers Anthony

“We are short-range telepaths, being small. Big ones can range
much farther. We weren't guarding our thoughts, and you weren't guarding
yours.”
     
     “It could have happened
then,” Drusie agreed. “A big land dragon could have picked up enough
from your minds, and relayed it to others as a matter of general
interest.”
     
     “So by now the whole planet knows
our business,” Becka said, disgusted.
     
     “Actually it doesn't need to be
secret,” Clio said. “I was more concerned that dragons might be
reading our minds despite your protection. That would make the pun contests
dangerous.”
     
     “They aren't doing that,”
Drew assured her.
     
     Reassured, Clio relaxed. She would
continue to play the game of puns if that was what the dragons wanted, knowing
that they would in the end consider her proposal. Since it was apparent that
dragons were eager to become real in Xanth, she knew her mission was bound to
be a success. But they would make her go through the motions.
     
     There were flying dragons in the sky,
large and small, but none of them approached aggressively. That suggested that
they did know her business, and were making a point of not interfering with it.
That, too, was reassuring.
     
     Now they were flying along the thinning
tail section of the dragon world. Since the world was coiled, this was bringing
them back toward the head. Clio was not as alarmed about this as she had been
the first time. Now she knew that despite its horrendous shape, it was just a
planet, not a living creature.
     
     They were flying above the great eye.
It winked.
     
     Clio almost fell off her perch.
     
     “It does that,” Drew said.
“Our world knows what is going on, and it can read any mind it chooses to.
But it never reveals secrets. It just watches. I think it likes you.”
     
     “That's nice,” Clio said
faintly. “But we were on that eye. It was solid land and water. How
could it wink without disrupting everything, causing earthquakes and
storms?”
     
     “Illusion,” Drusie said.
“The folk down there would not even have been aware of the wink. It was
just for us.”
     
     “This world grows more interesting
by the hour.”
     
     “Well, we like it,” Drew
said. “We wouldn't want to leave it, if only other dragons accepted our
relationship.”
     
     A small portion of the tail extended
beyond the clamping teeth. They flew along this, then glided down to the very
tip. Tiny as that seemed from afar, it was like the broad peak of a very tall
mountain as they landed. Becka returned to human form, with Drusie in her
pocket.
     
     They stood before a modest house.
Princess Ida had never been much for show. In fact she was just about the
nicest person in Xanth, and her character seemed to be the same on the tiered
moons.
     
     The door opened and a dragon peered
out. Clio was appalled; had Ida been eaten by a rogue?
     
     “By no means, Clio,” the
dragon said, utilizing the same thought conversion Drew and Drusie did. “I
am Ida.”
     
     “But you're a dragon!”
     
     “Well, this is Dragon World.
We're all dragons here, except for the prey.”
     
     Clio realized that it did make sense.
After all, there was a tiny moon circling her head: the next derivative world.
“I apologize for my confusion. On Xanth, you're human.”
     
     “And if you lived here, you'd be a
dragon. Do come in, Clio, Becka, Drew, Drusie.”
     
     They entered her house, which was more
like a big nest inside. There were gemstones galore; dragons did like them.
They sat on giant diamonds.
     
     “And what brings you here, from
far Xanth?” Ida inquired politely. Obviously she knew, but was observing
the forms.
     
     “We are recruiting dragons to
replace the ones Xanth is losing,” Clio said. “We have recruited more
than six thousand land dragons of every type. We are arranging for bodies for
them in Xanth. Now we need to transport them safely there.”
     
     “Ah, of course. It's a