Nia nodded. “You, Jess,” she said.
“But I don’t know anything about the boat!” Jess protested.
“You don’t need to, for a temporary watch.” Nia drew out a large key. “Take this, Jess. It will give you control of the boat, if you need it.”
“It won’t take me seriously.”
“Bit it will take the key seriously.” Nia was already moving toward the edge of the deck.
“But why me?” Jess wailed.
“Because you’re the protagonist. You can be trusted to do what’s right, knowing that in due course everyone everywhere will know. Why else?”
Jess was unable to argue with that.
The others piled off the craft. Jess was left with the key, alone on the deck. “The protagonist,” she muttered resentfully. But she was stuck with it. She just had to hope that nothing bad happened before they returned. It wasn’t that she minded helping; it was that she strongly doubted her own competence, in case of an emergency. She had always had Magnus to be competent for them both, before.
Resigned, she stood on the deck and watched them approach the cage, gasping as they encountered the noxious smog surrounding it. They gathered around it, four adults, three children, a bird, a fish, and a centaur. If she was the Protagonist, they were her Companions. What a collection!
The four human adults took their positions at the four main cage supports. They took hold. Then, guided by Che’s call, they heaved together. It was plainly heavy, but the men had the normal male muscle, and the woman was at the peak of her health. The cage slowly lifted.
The children and animal scooted under. They ran and flew to the big tied bird. Win put her hand on the Gourdian Knot. Mare Imbri manifested. “Ooops!” her speech balloon printed. “This is a sleep-gas bomb!”
Then the big tied bird dissolved into a monstrous cloud of vapor. The cloud expanded swiftly, catching them all before they knew it. All of the living folk crumpled into sleep. The cage dropped back down to the ground, imprisoning the one immune member of the company: the dogfish.
Then the whole thing sank into a slippery channel and slid again into the surrounding smog. They were gone.
Jess stood bemused. It had been a trap. The big bird had been an illusion.
And Jess was left alone on the boat, helpless.
After several fractured moments she remembered that she was not actually alone; there were three children below. Maybe one of them would have some faint notion what to do.
She hurried down, and to Santo’s room. Santo was sleeping on his bed, with Noe sitting beside him, holding his hand. Squid was sitting beside Noe, talking with Princess Aria. The three girls in two bodies looked up as Jess entered.
“We have a problem,” Jess said tersely. “I think Santo should hear it too. Does he have to sleep now, or can he rest while listening?”
“He can listen,” Noe said. “It’s just making big holes that he can’t do for a while, until his magic recovers. It’s a lot of work to channel between planets for a whole boat.”
Jess had to smile. “I’m sure.”
“He needs emotional comfort from someone he trusts,” Squid said. “We siblings did it before Noe came on the scene.”
“And did it well,” Noe agreed. “He loves you.”
Jess wondered again about the interplay of these children. Santo’s closest friends were all girls, and they were surprisingly adult in attitude. Nia was right: the Adult Conspiracy was not fully applicable here.
Noe lifted Santo’s hand and gently squeezed it. “Dear, we need you awake. Something has happened.”
Dear? Maybe that was humorous. But maybe not.
The boy’s eyes flickered. “Okay.”
Jess quickly summarized the activity she had witnessed. “So they are gone,” she concluded. “Frankly, I have no idea what to do.”
“Who would want to set a trap for us?” Santo asked.
“Ragna Roc,” Aria said. “Who else? He wants to stop us from stopping him.”
“But he’s still locked in his egg at this time,” Squid protested.
Santo smiled grimly. “He should be. Otherwise we’ve already lost the war.”
“And we haven’t lost it yet,” Noe said. “If he was already loose, he’d have come after Kadence, even as a baby, because she made the egg that locked him in.”
“And how could anyone know we were coming here, to Planet Stench?” Santo said. “And get here before us, and lay that clever trap? Even if one of us was a spy for Ragna, and none is, that’s a tall order.”
Jess was increasingly coming to appreciate the boy’s intellect. He was making sense. “Or maybe a mind reader, reading our minds from a distance,” she said. “But getting here is another matter. This is not exactly a popular tourist stop.”
“Also, they couldn’t read our minds from outside the boat,” Noe said. “It’s protected against that sort of thing.”
Squid nodded. “Then who else?”
“There was mention of the Sea Hag,” Jess said. “I really don’t know anything about her, except that she changes bodies and is evil.”
“The Sea Hag!” Aria said. “We know of her! She can’t read minds, but she does take over bodies and gets their information that way. Originally her host had to die before she could move on to another, but she got better at it, and could borrow hosts for a few days and leave without hurting them much, though they hated the memory. If she intercepted someone we interacted with, then went to a host on Stench, it might be possible.”
“It might be,” Santo said. “That scares me.”
“That scares me,” Jess said. “If she made a deal to free Ragna, such as being made Queen of Xanth, that would explain it. How could we handle a person who could take over anyone’s body without notice? I doubt we’ll all be able to stay all the time on Fibot.”
No one had an answer.
“Meanwhile, we’d better see about rescuing our crew,” Squid said. “Maybe they’ll have a better notion how to go from here.”
This was the matter Jess dreaded most. “So how do we proceed?”
“We follow them,” Squid said. “I can sniff them out. Maybe they haven’t drifted far, yet.”
That certainly wasn’t the whole answer, but it would do for the interim. They went topside. “I will have to leave the boat for this,” Squid said. “I’ll swim below the surface and track whatever odors there are. I know the smells of every member of our party.”
“But what if the Sea Hag comes?” Aria asked. “You’re my friend. I don’t want to lose you, apart from the importance of the mission.”
“Two things: I’m a child, and the Hag isn’t much for children. She prefers them nubile and sexy. And I’m not human. She definitely prefers humans.”
“But if she should take you, anyway,” Aria said. “What then?”
“Kill me,” Squid said seriously. “No, wait; that would just release her to take the next victim. Maybe torture me instead.”
“Torture you!” Noe said, horrified. “We couldn’t do that!”
“Yes you could. Just grab onto a tentacle and slowly twist it off. I promise you that will hurt me awfully, even though I could grow a new one later. But here’s the thing: I won’t be in charge of my body; she will. She’ll be the one hurting. She’ll go the moment it hurts too much, and I’ll be free.”
A look traveled around. This did make sense. “That would apply to any of us,” Santo said. “And face it: she just might have taken over one of the captives, and be hiding among us. We have to be alert. If there’s any suspicion of that, we will need to grab that person and make him or her hurt.”
“This is sickeningly ugly,” Noe said. “Everyone aboard is our friend or sibling.”
“And your friend or sibling will thank you for it, once the Hag is gone,” Aria said. “We’re not playing putty-ca
ke here.”
Indeed they were not. “Assuming we do rescue them,” Jess said, “how can we verify that all are clean?”
“I can touch them, one by one,” Aria said. “I will know.”
“Even if it’s Kadence?” Squid asked.
“Especially if it’s Kadence.”
That seemed to cover it. “Find them, sister,” Santo said fervently.
“I will, brother.”
“I’ll track you, friend,” Aria said.
Then Squid shucked her dress and dived into the muck outside the boat. Her body changed as she did, becoming the tentacular blob that was her natural form when she didn’t have it squeezed into human shape. There wasn’t even a splash.
Jess was impressed yet again. These children were rallying bravely and realistically, and getting the ugly job done. No wonder they had been selected to crew the magic boat.
“You have the key?” Santo asked Jess.
“Yes. Nia’s key. But I don’t know how to use it.”
“No mystery there. You just tell Fibot what you want, and it will do it.”
“Can I make it sail without wind?”
He smiled. “No. But there’s almost always a little wind. Do you know how to tack?”
“Thumbtack?”
He smiled again. “I guess you don’t. But I do. We’ll sail if we need to.”
“She’s tracking them,” Aria reported. “There’s a trail of odors in the water.” Then she paused and knocked her head with the heel of her hand. “And I can track Kadence! We’re attuned to each other. Why didn’t I think of that before?”
“We can’t think of everything all at once,” Jess said. “Is Kadence all right?”
“She’s unconscious, or at least Ula is, and that limits her. But at least she’s alive, and that suggests that the others are too.”
“When we catch up to them,” Jess said, “how will we rescue them? We don’t have much magic.”
“If we have to, we can sail Fibot into their midst,” Santo said. “And haul them in by hand.”
“Oops, Squid’s losing them,” Aria said. “There are too many dividing channels, with different smelly currents running through them, obliterating the traces she’s tracking. She’s coming back.”
“Still, we’re learning a lot,” Jess said. “We’re not helpless.” She was moderately surprised to realize that.
Soon Squid returned. “I lost them,” she reported sadly as she squiggled over the hull and onto the deck. The smell was awful. “Check me, Aria, to be sure I’m me.”
“You are,” Aria said. “Don’t worry about tracking them. I realized that I can do it through Kadence, because we have a mind connection. She’s all right.”
“That’s a relief.” Squid progressed into girl form, and went to stand under the deck shower Jess had not noticed before, getting clean. The odor eased.
“There’s something else,” Santo said. “Jess has Nia’s key.”
“Yes, so she can make the boat go,” Noe agreed. “If we find some wind.”
“The two keys connect,” Santo said. “Dell and Nia always know where the other is. Jess should be able to tell where Dell is.”
“Say, that’s right,” Noe agreed. “You’re pretty smart.”
“Quit it,” he snapped. “We’re not in public now.”
Noe turned away. “I’m sorry.”
“She was just telling the truth,” Squid said. “You are smart. You figure things out. She wasn’t trying to flatter you or put on a show for outsiders. You don’t need to hurt her.”
Santo paused “Did I do that?”
“Yes,” Jess said. Though it was minor. Still, when emotions were complicated, pinpricks could feel like stab wounds.
“She says yes,” Squid said, translating.
“And you did,” Aria said. “Noe does everything for you, and asks for nothing, and you treated her like dirt.”
Santo turned to Noe. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m tired from the big hole. I wasn’t thinking. You’re the last person I want to hurt.”
“It’s all right,” Noe said, wiping away a tear.
Santo looked at Squid. “Is it?”
“Yes. But don’t do it again.”
“I’ll try not to. Noe, you can call me smart if you want to.”
Jess found this dialogue incidentally fascinating. Noe plainly loved Santo while understanding his nature. She had not deserved his rebuke, minor as it was. It had taken his sister to set him straight. He was mature enough to accept the correction. Were they really children?
Now Aria turned to Jess. “See if you can tune in on Dell’s key.”
Jess held her key up and focused on it, thinking of Dell. And there he was; she felt his presence, though he was unconscious. “Yes. I feel him, through his key. He’s all right, but still asleep.”
“So now we have two ways to track them,” Santo said. “Princess to princess, and key to key. That helps.”
“But how do we rescue them?” Jess asked.
“She says—” Squid started.
“I heard. I’m learning to take her literally. We do need to rescue them. But there’s something else.”
“I’ve got a feeling we need to hear this,” Aria said. “Santo’s perspective is slantwise to ours, and that can make a difference.”
Slantwise, Jess thought. Santo was smart, and from the future, and had a monstrous talent, but mainly it was that he was gay. His perspective did differ. “Yes,” she said.
“Somebody set a trap for us,” Santo said. “We conjecture it’s the Sea Hag. She must have escaped the brain coral’s pool. But if it’s her, and she made a deal with Ragna Roc, why is she coming after us? Why didn’t she go directly to free Ragna from the egg? We need to know, so we know her motive. Maybe we can find her weakness.”
They pondered that. “Ragna’s locked in the undeleted egg Kadence made,” Aria said. “It is hidden away where no one can find it accidentally, and guarded.”
“Yes,” Squid said. “His minion Em Pathy tried to corrupt Dell last year, to get the boat. So it could float through the little hole and get him out of the egg. After that they hid the egg away better.”
“That’s my thought,” Santo said. “Maybe the Sea Hag can’t get him out on her own. So she needs the boat. That’s why she’s here.”
“She wants the boat!” Jess exclaimed, seeing it.
“She wants to get all of us off the boat, so she can take it over,” Squid said. “And she almost did. The only reason it didn’t work was because we three were below deck, and Nia left Jess in charge.”
Jess was impressed yet again. Savvy Nia had routinely protected Fibot, thought not knowing of the trap.
“But now she’s got most of the crew hostage,” Santo said. “Seeing the way her devious mind works, I fear we’d be fools just to run in again. There’s bound to be another trap, to get the rest of us.”
“There is!” Jess exclaimed. “This is genius, Santo, and I’m not trying to impress you, even if you can take me seriously. What an insight.”
Santo took a moment to digest that, mentally taking her words literally and accepting that she meant it. “Elementary,” he said with a quarter smile.
“But we can’t just leave them!” Squid said.
“We won’t leave them,” Santo said. “We just need to be ready for more tricks, and not fall for them. Maybe go in as if we’re none the wiser, but be alert for illusions and whatever doesn’t quite smell right.”
They all laughed “Nothing smells right here,” Squid said. “But I know what you mean.”
“Whatever we do,” Noe said, “We must not all of us leave the boat.”
“We’re expendable,” Aria said. “Jess has the key. She must stay.”
“But suppose something awful is happening to the r
est of you, that I might stop?” Jess asked.
“If we’re right,” Santo said, “Something awful will. Or at least will seem to. It will be designed to make you jump off the boat without thinking. Don’t do it.”
He was right. “Don’t do it,” Jess agreed with half a shudder.
There was a slight wind; they could see it moving the sludge that passed for atmosphere here. Jess took the helm. “But the wind is going the wrong way.”
“Angle the sail so you can steer correctly,” Santo said. He sat down beside her and put his hands on hers, guiding them. “Instruct the firesail.”
“Firesail,” she said aloud, and the sail came alight, this time in a hexagonal outline. “Angle so the craft goes that way.” She pointed in the direction she felt the other key.
And the sail did. Suddenly she liked it better. It took her seriously!
The boat moved forward obliquely, following the compromise between the direction of the wind and the aim of the rudder. She was sailing!
Jess felt her key. “Dell is closer,” she murmured.
Then something appeared to the side. “Kadence!” Aria cried.
The figure didn’t hear her. The princess was walking away from the boat, not seeing it. Ahead of her was a crack in the ground.
“Crack?” Jess asked. “But aren’t we on water?”
“No,” Santo said. “Fibot sails on air, remember.”
Oh, that was right. “Kadence!” Aria called. “Come this way!”
But the girl kept walking.
“I’ll intercept her,” Noe said.
“But you can’t leave the boat,” Squid reminded her.
“Jess can’t leave the boat,” Santo said. “But I don’t trust this. I think it’s illusion. Hang tight.”
So they watched. “Yes,” Aria said after a moment. “I sense Kadence, but not there. I think that’s a fake. An illusion, as you thought.”
When it became clear that they were not going to leave the boat, something else happened. Magnus appeared. He chased after the girl, and caught her just before she fell into the crevice. He picked her up in his arms and carried her to safety.
“My hero!” Kadence said in gestures. Then she drew her face close to his and kissed him firmly on the mouth.
Jest Right Page 19
