Piers Anthony is one of the world's most popular fantasy authors, His previous Xanth novels from Tor, including Cube Route, The Dastard, and Swell Foop have been read and loved by millions of readers around the world, and he daily receives hundreds of letters from his devoted fans. Piers Anthony lives in Inverness, Florida.

Chapter One

Clio

Clio was tidying up her office, as she did every century or so even if it didn’t really need it. Dust did tend to collect, along with dried bugs, apple seeds, and lost wisps of fog. Then she paused, which was easy to do during a dull chore like this. There was a volume on the shelf she didn’t remember. That was odd, because she had an excellent memory. She had to, to be a competent Muse of History.

She lifted it up, noting the clean spot of shelf beneath it. She blew off the dust and looked at the title. She couldn’t quite make it out, so she opened the volume to the title page. That was written in her handwriting, but was somehow blurred. It might be CURRENT EVENTS, but could also be GETTING EVEN. Neither one made much sense, as she did not handle either contemporary news or revenge plots. Her specialty was history, past and future. The present bored her.

She turned the pages. They had all been filled out, and definitely in her handwriting, but she couldn’t read a word of it. She blinked to clear her vision, but it didn’t help; every word was fuzzed. The pages might as well have been blank.

She stood there, bemused. How could she have written a volume of history that she herself couldn’t read? It didn’t make sense. Was she losing her sight?

Alarmed, she set the volume down and picked up the one next to it. That one was clear enough: PET PEEVE, with a picture of a disgruntled bird. That was incomplete, because it hadn’t happened yet; she was working on it. So she checked the prior volume: CUBE ROUTE, which was complete. That was the story of a girl with gumption, and the text was quite clear.

So it wasn’t her eyes, which was a relief. It was the volume. What was wrong with it? And why couldn’t she remember writing it? How could she be writing the following volume, and remember its details, while being fuzzy on this one?

Fuzzy: her memory of it was as fuzzy as its print. There was definitely something strange here.

She considered for a good three and a half moments. She seemed to have two or more unenviable choices: principally to let the riddle be, or go to Good Magician Humfrey for advice. Humfrey could surely unravel the enigma, but would take obscene pleasure in her predicament. She hated giving him that satisfaction. But she knew the mystery would bug her until it became a downright nuisance.

She sighed. She would stuff her pride into her nonexistent handbag and go to see the Good Magician.

Humfrey’s castle was some distance away from the home of the Muses, so Clio got transportation. She walked down Mount Parnassus and out to a babbling brook and spoke to it. “May I have your attention for a moment?”

The brook ceased babbling and formed a swirling eye. It looked at her, recognized her, and formed a mouth. “So good to see you, Muse,” it bubbled.

“I need to pay a call on the Good Magician. Do you suppose I could prevail on you to transport me there swiftly?”

“Gladly, Muse. I owe you favors from way back.”

That was true, but she hadn’t cared to put it that way. “Then I should be obliged if you would run me there now.”

The water humped up into a shape like that of a centaur without a human forepart, standing in the riverbed. “Immediately,” it agreed. “If I can make it past the fish.”

“The fish?”

“Recently there have been so many fish they clog my channel. It has never been this bad before; normally the water dragons eat them.”

“The dragons must be off their feed,” she said. That was humor; dragons were never off their feed. Still, it was an oddity.

Clio stepped close to the bank, glanced around to be sure no one was watching, then lifted one leg and swung it over the centaur’s back. Skirts were not the most convenient clothing for riding, but they were required for her gender and age. She caught hold of the liquid creature’s flowing mane and drew herself fully onto it. “I am ready.”

The legs of the water horse went into instant motion. It galloped down the riverbed, following its twisting channel. It had to, because it was unable to run anywhere else. But the running water was so swift that it would soon reach the Good Magician’s castle regardless of the indirectness of the route.

She looked down through the horse’s translucent substance. Sure enough, the channel was packed with fish so thick it was almost solid. She looked across the landscape around the river channel, and saw rabbits in similar number; in places they were like a gray blanket covering the ground. That was another oddity; were the land dragons similarly off their feed?

She looked in the sky, and saw clouds of crows harassing the other flying creatures. Where were the flying dragons? Normally crows were hardly in evidence, because dragons toasted them on sight. Only in Mundania did they really flourish, normally.

Soon they were in sight of the castle. There was a stream access to the moat that enabled the water horse to reach it. In hardly more time that it took to see it, they were there, splashing to a halt.

The moat monster was snoozing, hardly expecting any intrusion from this direction. It lifted its head and gaped menacingly. Then it recognized the visitors, nodded, and returned to its snooze.

“I thank you kindly,” Clio said, dismounting. The water horse had stopped beside a steep bank so that her foot could readily reach it. “Your swiftness was a real pleasure.”

The horse nodded, dripping with pleasure. Then it galloped back the way it had come. Running water could never pause long, or it lost its definition.

A sad young woman was walking away from the castle, staring at the ground. “What’s the matter?” Clio asked. “I’m Clio; maybe I can help.”

“I’m Cayla. I came to ask the Good Magician what my talent is, because I haven’t found it yet.” She twiddled nervously with a wooden twig she carried.

“That’s something you usually just have to find out on your own,” Clio said. “It’s almost impossible to guess.”

“Yes, I’ve tried guessing,” Cayla said. “It doesn’t work.” She twiddled some more; the twig was taking a beating. In fact there were two twigs getting intertwined.

“So did the Good Magician have the Answer for you?”

Cayla burst into tears. “No! I never got to see him. In fact I flunked the first Challenge.”

Clio was morbidly curious. “What was it?”

“It was a big square park set on its end. That is, one corner was toward me as I came to it. I thought the challenge was to get in, but when I got in nothing happened. There was a ball flying around in there, but I had no idea what to do with it. I finally gave up.” She blew her nose into a handkerchief, then returned to twiddling the twigs.

A square park, set on its end. “A diamond!” Clio said. “A baseball diamond. You weren’t supposed to get ‘in,’ you needed to get an ‘out.’ By catching the ball.”

Cayla looked at her. “I don’t understand.”

Clio realized that this would be complicated to...