Fire Sail

by Piers Anthony

  “You are a Sorceress,” Hawthorne agreed, awed. “Now I know. And you have freed your friends.”

  “Yes. I do not use my talent frivolously, but I needed to do that. Now I must go.” She faded out, and Ula returned.

  “Wow!” Ula said. “That’s the first time I felt her power. It was awesome.”

  “Awesome,” Dell agreed. He realized that the several princesses at the wedding had not used their full powers in his presence. Now he was glad for that.

  Nia was thoughtful. “I think you’re a nice man, Hawthorne, with a powerful talent. But I don’t see how I can associate with you without being caught by it again.”

  “I fear you are correct,” he said with regret. “Much as I hate to lose you.”

  “Much as I hate to lose you, too,” Nia said. “Maybe in the future, if something changes . . .”

  “Maybe,” he agreed.

  “I wish I could at least kiss you goodbye. But I don’t dare.”

  “I wish that too. But you must not.”

  Dell stepped in, seeing them echoing his problem with Merrie Mermaid and others: a kiss became dangerous. If they delayed any longer, they would do it. “We must return you to your house,” he said to Hawthorne. “And then be on our way.”

  “Of course,” Hawthorne agreed somberly.

  They took him back and left him at his house. He looked so lonely! But they understood why he was a hermit, and had to let him be that.

  They returned to Jack’s house to bid him parting. There was a new pot on the floor, filled to overflowing with gems nested in gold, platinum, and iridium coins from far far away. Jill was exclaiming over it.

  “I conjured a special gift for Jill, now that we are together,” Jack explained. “The pot at rainbow’s end.”

  “We’ll never be poor,” Jill said, sifting handfuls of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and more precious stones though her fingers.

  Dell noticed something odd about the pot. There were letters printed on its side, spelling out a word: TESS. What did it mean?

  It was time to move on. They left the happy couple and sailed the boat through a crack and out into the sky.

  They found a convenient spot and anchored for the night. Nia packed the four children to bed, then joined Dell.

  He saw that she was trying to stifle tears. She had borne up beautifully while there were things to be done, but now was the time for relaxation, and he understood exactly how she felt about leaving Hawthorne, having experienced it with more than one girl himself. The man had been perfect for her, except for his power that would have robbed her of her free will. She had done the right thing, and was paying the emotional price.

  “Nia, let me comfort you,” he said, putting his arms around her. “We’re alone now. I truly understand. You know it’s okay to cry.”

  She did not protest. She dissolved into tears, sobbing into his shoulder.

  Then he had her lie down on the bed, while he sat up and held her hand until she slept.

  His thoughts drifted back to Kadence. The girl had a crush on him. She also had the frightening power of a Sorceress. She could make him dance to her beat any time she chose. But she didn’t choose. Fortunately she was mature enough, even as a child, not to do that. He was developing a new perspective on why, having seen how it was with Hawthorne. She took her magic power seriously and did not abuse it. His respect for her was growing.

  But he hoped her crush faded soon.

  Then a different revelation came: the word on the pot, that it seemed only he had noticed: TESS. That must be the next clue in their search for the boat’s proprietors. He would tell Nia in the morning.

  Now at last he was able to relax and sleep.

  Chapter 11

  Tess

  “Tess?” the peeve asked. “Sounds like a girl.”

  “We have been traveling from clue to clue,” Dell said. “When we finish one task, another turns up. This word turned up at the very end of our mission helping Jack and Jill. It has to be a clue.”

  The peeve nodded. “That does seem to be the way this is working. So who is Tess?”

  “Is she in Tata’s databanks?”

  The dogfish’s screen flickered as he oriented on the word.

  “Oh, bleep!” the bird swore. “He’s finding fifteen million girls and some monsters named Tess. No help there. It’s as bad as the worlds with moons.”

  “Maybe she pushed a panic button that signaled us for help,” Ula said.

  “That would put everybody around her into a panic,” the peeve said peevishly.

  “There’s more than one kind,” Nia said. “Some are for folk in a panic who need help. She might be one of those.”

  “And the signal showed up on the side of the pot at the rainbow’s end just before it got hijacked by a man named Jack?” the peeve asked.

  It did seem ludicrous. But they had learned to take Ula’s far-out notions seriously, because they could be unexpected insights. “Tata, check for girls named Tess who have recently pushed a panic button,” Dell said.

  The flickering stopped. PARTIAL MATCH.

  “A partial match?” Dell asked. “Is she named Tess or isn’t she? Did she push the button or didn’t she?”

  TESS NOT EXACTLY HER NAME.

  “It’s mysterious,” Nia said. “But the only lead we have. Let’s follow it.”

  The message was replaced by a map. So they ramped up and sailed in that direction. They all liked sailing through the sky, so this was no burden.

  They approached the sea, which was coincidentally right at the edge of Xanth, an almost magical alignment. They were getting near the spot marked on Tata’s map when something went wrong. The boat hiccuped and started to lose altitude. “It’s not steering right,” Win called.

  “Ease up on the wind,” Dell said as he saw the landscape wee-wawing below them. The craft tilted, and he had to hastily douse and furl the sail. “See if you can bring it down beside that mountain. That’s close to where we’re going anyway.”

  Win fought the rudder, and managed to guide the craft down to a field beside the mountain, where it landed with a bump.

  “What’s wrong?” Dell asked the peeve.

  “Tata’s doing a readout,” the bird replied. “Oops, it’s a bug. It flew in the periscope and gummed up the works inside. This is an integrated high-tech magic craft; when one thing goes wrong, the whole thing can foul up. It’s a real mess.”

  “Then we’d better clean the bug out,” Dell said impatiently.

  “Can’t do. The software magic’s been compromised. We don’t know how to fix that.”

  “Then how do we get where we’re going?” Dell asked querulously.

  Tata beeped. C SIDE VILLAGE. With an arrow pointing the direction.

  Dell sighed. “I will go ask.”

  “Don’t go alone,” Nia said. “This is unfamiliar territory.”

  Dell suppressed his annoyance. He had walked alone before he reached the Good Magician’s Castle; he could handle this.

  “I will go with him,” Santo said. “I will make a hole if I have to.”

  Which could be considerable emergency protection, as even a small hole in a person was likely to disable him.

  They walked to the village. Tata also came along, evidently liking the walk. He could jump into the sea and swim if he needed to.

  “Nia looks after you as she does for us,” Santo said. “As if you’re another child.”

  “She’s a grandmother. She sees all younger folk as grandchildren.” And, defending Nia, he realized that her attitude was no bad thing. His annoyance dissipated.

  It was not a long walk. Soon they were approaching a cluster of a generous dozen houses. “Hello!” Dell called, announcing his presence.

  A boy approached. “Nice dogfish,” he said, patting Tata.

&nbs
p; “We have a—a bug in the works,” Dell said. “On our boat. Is there anyone here who knows how to handle such a thing?”

  “Sure. D Bug.”

  A man materialized before them. “Did I hear my name?”

  Dell realized that he was literally a demon, so could be summoned by his name. He glanced at Tata, and the dogfish wagged his tail: this person was all right. “Yes. I am Dell. We have a problem with our boat. A bug flew in and now it’s messed up. Can you get it out?”

  “Certainly. That’s my nature. I can debug anything. That’s why the villagers tolerate my residence. I’m a very minor demon, but I like it here. I even have a human girlfriend.”

  Dell was beginning to catch on why D Bug liked it here. “That’s nice.”

  He eyed Dell. “But we don’t do things for nothing. The villagers are strict. What will you do in return?”

  “I don’t know. What do you need?”

  “We need to have a mountain moved.”

  Dell laughed. “No, really.”

  “Really. There was a molehill, and a child got mad at it because it wasn’t peanut butter. He had magic we hadn’t known about, and suddenly it was a mountain of peanut butter. Then he couldn’t undo the curse, not yet having properly mastered it. Now that spoiling mountain blocks our access to our harbor. What’s the point in living by the C if you can’t use it?”

  “I am not at all sure we can move a mountain,” Dell said.

  “It’s a small one, but still beyond our means. Clear it, and we’ll help you. That’s the deal.”

  Dell decided to change the subject for now. “We were just coming to help someone who may be of your village. We believe her name is Tess.”

  “Tess!”

  “You know her?”

  “We know of her. But she’s not a member of our village.” D Bug paused half a moment. “However, she could surely move the mountain, were she so inclined.”

  “She has special magic?”

  “You might call it that. How about this deal: I will debug your boat, and you ask Tess to move the mountain.”

  “I can ask her, certainly, once I meet her. But I can’t guarantee her response. I don’t know her.”

  “I gathered that. She will surely agree, if you do her a favor. She’s a nice person, for her kind.”

  For her kind? Dell exchanged a sidelong glance with Santo. Were they up against prejudice? “We are here in answer to her distress call. We will try to help her. I will ask her to move the mountain.”

  “Good enough.”

  They set off for the boat. It became visible as they came close.

  “Now that’s impressive,” the demon said. “I can feel the magic.”

  “Yes. That’s the problem. The bug is fouling up the magic.”

  They stopped beside the boat. “I’ll explain to the others,” Santo said. “You take the demon to the periscope.”

  That made it easy. “This way, please,” Dell said.

  D Bug was impressed again when they went down the hatch. “Intense magic.”

  “Yes. Normally it sails through the air, and belowdecks is larger than the regular boat. Here is the periscope.”

  “I will take a look.” The demon puffed into smoke and disappeared into the device. In barely two and a half moments he returned, re-forming his human shape. “An ugly splat, but not complicated. It was shorting out the AC/DC currants. I cleaned it out and replaced the old ones. Your boat will work now.”

  Just like that? Dell didn’t quite trust this. “Suppose we test it, just in case? While you’re still here to fix it, if you missed anything.”

  The demon shrugged. “By all means. Here are the spent currants.” He held out a handful of red berries, which flickered faintly. “The red ones must not touch the black ones directly; they’ll explode. The reds are positive, the blacks negative. They have to switch rapidly back and forth on their own.”

  “Uh, thanks,” Dell said with his customary aplomb. He had no idea what the demon was talking about.

  They went topside and set up for flight. The boat took off smoothly as Win blew the sail. It made a circle in the air and came down for a smooth landing. It was indeed fixed.

  “That’s some sail,” D Bug said. “And some girl.”

  “We’re an unusual crew,” Dell said with a thought of a smile.

  “It seems we owe you a favor,” Nia said to the demon. “Once we locate Tess, and deal with her problem.”

  “Yes. We’ll know you found her when we see that mountain gone.” The demon puffed into smoke and disappeared.

  “He’s a trusting soul,” Santo said.

  “Which is a good sign. Folk ready to trust others tend to be more trustworthy themselves. I doubt he’s done anything nasty to the boat.”

  They followed Tata’s new map to an isolated pavilion. There was a pedestal supporting a small box made of mirrors.

  “Uh-oh,” the peeve said. “That’s a tesseract.”

  “A what?” Dell asked.

  “A four-dimensional cube,” Santo said. “They’re fun, but you have to be careful.”

  “Tata says she’s inside,” the peeve said.

  “That tiny box?”

  “It’s a tesseract. Larger inside than outside.”

  “Oh. Like the boat?”

  “Close enough.”

  “How’d she get inside?” Dell asked.

  “That’s what I mean about being careful,” Santo said. “If you stare too deeply into a tesseract, you fall in. Then it can be tricky to get out again.”

  “Like the hypno gourd?”

  “Not quite. You are physically inside the tesseract.”

  “So Tess must have stared too deeply, fallen in, and hit her panic button, signaling us.”

  “Must have,” the peeve agreed. “It hasn’t happened before.”

  “I presume staring into it would get us inside with her,” Dell said. “But then we’d be trapped too. So how do we help her?”

  “We use Fibot,” the peeve said, in a tone of “Dodo.”

  “That name,” Nia said. “Tess. Inside a tesseract. Is that coincidence?”

  “It seems unlikely,” Dell said. “I don’t trust this.”

  “I do,” Squid said. “She saw a box with her name on it. So of course she looked at it. I’d do the same if I found a box named Squid.”

  “But someone must have put out the box for her to find. This smells of a trap.”

  Nia nodded. “Especially if she happens to be a pretty girl. There could be a string of traps laid out for girls.”

  “Or even unpretty girls,” Ula said with a shudder. “Or children. Trolls do it all the time. They troll for victims. First they use them somehow. Then they eat them.”

  Dell wondered again what she might have seen in the orphanage. “We’d better rescue her first and ask questions after.”

  “Good agenda,” Nia said. “But can Fibot sail out of the box as readily as it sails into it?”

  “Tata says yes, if we’re careful and stay aboard,” the peeve said. “If we get off, we could be lost in the dimensional sphere, or rather cube.”

  “Like stepping off the marked path when phantoms are beckoning?” Dell asked.

  “Parallel,” Santo said. “There won’t be hungry demons there, but getting hopelessly lost is likely.”

  “So let’s do it—carefully,” Dell said.

  No one disagreed.

  They oriented the boat and sailed at and into the cube.

  Suddenly they were surrounded by frames of endlessly reflecting mirrors, except that the repetitions weren’t reflections so much as repeating chambers. Dell had to look away lest he get a headache trying to make ordinary sense of it. “The girl,” he said tersely. “Does the map still exist?”

  “It does,” the peeve said
. “Follow the line.”

  “Got it,” Win said. Her wind still blew here, and she was able to guide the craft along it. The line passed from one chamber to another and another aimlessly, but Dell knew it wasn’t.

  And there was the girl. She was a lovely fair-haired creature about Dell’s age, staring at the approaching boat with seeming terror.

  “She thinks we’re the trolls!” Squid said. “Come to collect her.”

  “Help me, Tata,” Dell said, and jumped out of the boat.

  The girl saw him appear. She screamed.

  “Tess!” Dell called. “We’re friends! We’ve come to rescue you! We got your panic signal.”

  “Oh,” she said, and wavered on her feet.

  Dell hurried to catch her before she fell. Now he had an armful of real live girl. She felt very warm and pliable.

  She turned within his grasp. “I’m so glad!” Then she kissed him.

  Now it was his turn to waver. The kiss was potent.

  “We must get you on our boat,” he told Tess as his head blissfully cleared. “It’s safe there.”

  Her petite brow furrowed. “What boat?”

  “That one.” He started to gesture toward it, but paused. There was nothing there.

  Then he remembered: they had it on invisible mode. When he left it he appeared, and it disappeared behind him. He opened his mouth to explain.

  Then the trolls came. “Who is messing with our traps?” one demanded. He was a burly brute, taller than Dell and bigger around.

  Tess screamed again.

  Dell knew he had to get them to the boat in a hurry. But where was it? He realized that Nia was not making it visible because then the trolls would see it and swarm over it. He had to find it himself.

  “Tata, where—?”

  Then he saw that a troll had grabbed the dogfish. Tata was struggling to escape, but he didn’t have a mouthful of teeth the way a land dog did.

  Dell knew he had to act immediately. But how? He was not a warrior or even a fighter; he was just a somewhat inept youth. Given a sword he could have swung it, but it was the trolls who had the weapons and the vicious nature. In fact they were raising ugly-looking clubs.