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purposes by tangle trees and the like. During the Golden Age paths abounded, and in the contemporary age they do too; that's the advantage of a strong kingship.
    I was fifteen years old, and looked twelve. Sometimes folk took me for a gnome. It had always been thus, and I was used to it. In fact it was an advantage at times, because they didn't consider gnomes to be people, and would speak as freely around them as around animals. I perked my ears and closed my mouth and learned their secrets. As a rule these were not worth knowing: who was making a tryst with whose wife, who was stealing from whom, and who had most recently been eaten by the local dragon. But I remembered their names and faces and secrets, because of my insatiable desire to know everything knowable.
    I had, as it turned out, an excellent memory, which I buttressed by notes I made in my one possession of any value: a notebook. Thus I would mark “Kelvin-slew golden dragon,” or “Stile—Blue Adept” or “Zane—Thanatos” or “Darius—Cyng of Hlahtar,” and the entire curious history of each person would be recalled when I read each note. Of course these were all inconsequential folk who never made any mark in Xanth and were forgotten by all others. But to me they were interesting. Who might guess what adventures they might have had or what success they might have achieved, if only they could have been delivered into more advantageous situations? For that matter, what might I myself have accomplished had I lived in a culture where curiosity was valued?
    So it was that I found myself on the path leading from the Gap Village, where I had lived so far, to the land of the dragons, only I did not know that at the time. I was merely following the path of least resistance. That was foolish, as I was soon to learn, because if the path of least resistance does not lead to the nearest tangle tree, it leads to some equivalent disaster.
    I heard a noise ahead. It sounded like a dragon going after prey: a sort of screaming and hissing, followed by a dull thunk. I ducked off the path, knowing better than to be on the scene when a dragon was feeding. But then I saw a shadow and a figure just above the trees. It was a flying dragon, dripping blood. It was evidently done, here.
    I resumed my trek. The best direction to travel was opposite that of a dragon, and that was the way I was going anyway. I rounded a turn, entering a glade.
    Here I encountered two objects on the ground. One was a unicorn, writhing from a bad injury, thrashing its horn about in pain. The other was a girl.
    I wasn't sure what to do about either. Unicorns, like all equines except the centaurs, were rare in Xanth, and I had seen one only twice before, and only fleetingly. Girls were not as scarce, but I had had little more contact with them outside my family, and indeed my experience with my older sister had rather turned me off them. It was hardly ideal, traveling alone, but it was better than being constantly bossed around.
    The girl spied me. “Help Horntense!” she cried, gesturing to the animal.
    There she was, bossing me already.
    Conditioned by a decade and a half of conditioning, I had no choice but to obey. I approached the unicorn. It was a mare who appeared to have broken a foreleg. There was also blood on her horn. I hesitated, because a wounded animal can be as dangerous as a whole one. But I saw that it was pain, not threat, which made her thrash for my attention; she was hoping I could do something for her.
    As it happened, I could. I had noticed some boneset herbs growing beside the path a short distance back. “I shall return,” I said, and hurried away.
    I broke into a run, zooming along until I reached the herbs. I had a spare bag in my knapsack, which I drew forth. I found a good plant, took a stick, and dug carefully around it. I lifted it from the ground with its root and the earth around it, in much the manner I would transplant a tic plant. At least my experience as a