Fire Sail

by Piers Anthony

  Nia was surprised by her candor. “So you are really a show queen more than an actual one?”

  “Mostly,” the queen agreed. “We could do more if we had the gumption. But we like the easy life, and actually the king is not a bad lover.”

  “So what is it you want of me?”

  “I want you to be the next queen. I suspect you have the gumption to make it count.”

  “Me! But I’m not even a citizen of the Sea Kingdom!”

  “Citizenship comes with the office. It will be arranged. We are not averse to immigration.”

  “You hardly know me! I have no qualifications for such an office.”

  “If you can take competent advice, you’ll have no problems. I have had none, and I am almost totally ignorant of the mechanics of governing a kingdom.”

  “So you do what your advisers say. They are the real powers behind the throne.”

  “Yes. But they are nice enough folk, and you can fire any who annoy you.”

  “I still don’t see it. Why should you proffer such an office to a virtual stranger?”

  “Well, it seems you have the boat.”

  Ah. Now she understood. This was quid pro quo for the boat.

  “But I am only a co-captain. It requires both of us to operate the boat. Without Dell I couldn’t do it.”

  “He can be king, if he wants to. I’m sure he’ll be satisfied.”

  Not if he had to have public sex with her! But quite apart from that, she didn’t trust this. And certainly she was not going to sell out to give them the boat. “No.”

  The queen sighed. “I fear it is not your option to decline.”

  “Not?”

  “The alternative is the Minotaur.”

  “The what?”

  “He is a man with the head of a beast who lives in a maze. He eats any he catches, and that means anyone lost in the labyrinth. Criminals and those who decline honors are put in the maze. Theoretically there is a way through it and out the other side, if they can avoid the monster, but so far no one has succeeded. So no one declines.”

  Carrot and stick. Now she understood both sides of it.

  But she had confidence that there was a way out of this mess that they could find. The Good Magician would not have sent them here otherwise. “My answer remains no.”

  “Oh, my dear!” the queen said in genuine or simulated distress. “Don’t throw your life away so foolishly, when there is so much good you can do as queen.”

  That actually was tempting. Nia’s leading desire in life was to finish in some useful project that benefited others. This seemed to be that. But then she realized that she could trust nothing these folk told her. Ann Noy was an openly bad girl; the queen was probably a covert bad girl. In any event, Nia’s loyalty was to her mission: to deliver the boat to where it belonged. If, once that had been accomplished, the Sea Kingdom still wanted a queen, then maybe she would be ready to do it, public displays and all. Depending on how handsome the king was. But somehow she suspected they would not be interested in her then.

  “So here we are,” she concluded. “Two idiots who don’t know what’s good for them.”

  “As we were selected to be,” Dell agreed.

  Guards appeared behind them, grinning evilly. They knew they had them trapped. The kingdom or the monster. Who wouldn’t rather give up a mere boat, rather than get torn apart and eaten? Noy and the queendom had been merely the first stage of their persuasion.

  Dell did not see the phantom eyes floating near. He had a notion what they were doing. Especially when Nia’s blank looks with her real eyes indicated that she was looking through the other ones. They needed more time before entering the dread maze.

  They pretended to ignore the guards. “So what’s our decision?” Dell asked rhetorically, aware that while Nia’s eyes might be distracted, her ears remained functional. “I have a luscious young woman, and you have your queendom at stake. We need to be sure we do the right thing.”

  “I will ask you three questions,” she said as her eyes looked past him. “Those will determine our decision.”

  “As you wish.” He knew the guards were listening. They were waiting for the visitors to capitulate in the face of the threatened horror of the Minotaur. They would not act as long as there was a chance the boat would be turned over voluntarily.

  “They say that the Sea Kingdom is the destined proprietor of the boat,” she said. “Does that make sense to you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if it was, those folk would not have to be buying us or threatening us. We’d give them the boat without question. All they need to do is prove they are the proprietors. If they are, they will have that proof. So they’re not.”

  “But they are offering us very nice inducements. Shouldn’t we accept them, since we are unlikely to get anything as valuable elsewhere?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that would violate our mission. The folk here may be bad folk who don’t care about honor, but we are good folk, who do.”

  Now the phantom eyes had reappeared. The search was over.

  “What, then, are we to do?” she asked rhetorically.

  “We visit the lesser of two evils: the Minotaur.”

  And before the guards could stop them, they plunged into one of the passages, following the eyes.

  The passage branched, but the eyes knew which one was correct. They branched again, but there was still no hesitation.

  There was a horrendous roar. “We’re getting close,” Nia whispered. “The correct route actually leads right past the center, where the Minotaur stays. So it’s very hard to get through, even if the route is known.”

  “Can we get through?”

  “Oh yes. There is a way out. That’s the one thing they were honest about. Maybe they thought it was a lie.”

  The one thing? Not the Minotaur?

  They came to the center. There was no monster, only a statue of a bull-headed man. From the base of the statue came another horrendous roar. So this, too, was fake. Probably soldiers executed anyone who discovered this, to keep the secret.

  “Look at the pedestal,” Nia said.

  Dell looked. There was printed the word ROBOT.

  They had found their clue.

  Chapter 13

  Rosie

  They had forgotten one detail: they were out of phase for regular Xanth. Ann Noy had used a translator to conduct them across, but they had none of their own. They stood before the boat, perplexed. Was this the final part of the trap?

  Then Dell got a notion. They could let the others know, and maybe figure out a way through. He stepped aboard Fibot, and Nia followed. There was Win, snoozing at the rudder. He touched her shoulder. His hand sank in slightly, as she was not entirely real to him.

  The child felt it and woke with a start. “Dell!” she cried faintly.

  He spread his hands, glad he wasn’t facing Kadence.

  She caught on immediately. She jumped up and ran to fetch the others. In perhaps nine sixteenths of a moment they were there, along with Tata and the peeve, but they didn’t know what to do.

  Then Ula got an idea. She wrote a sign: LOOK UNDER THE MAT.

  “Mat?” he asked blankly.

  “Households usually hide spare keys under their doormats,” Nia explained. “Maybe the Sea Kingdom folk do the same. We can search for a mat.”

  He wasn’t at all sure about this, but he joined her searching for a suitable mat. And there it was: a mat of old seaweed that had sunk to the ocean floor. He lifted a corner—and there was a key. The Sea Kingdom folk probably had a number in convenient places so they didn’t have to carry keys around all the time.

  They used it to phase back to Xanth proper. Then they carefully restored the key to its plac
e, and departed before any cry and hue could get after them.

  Ula had come through again, unexpectedly.

  Dell and Nia slept after catching the children up on their adventure, worn out emotionally more than physically by the experience of the Sea Kingdom. Win and Santo piloted the boat, while Ula and Squid kept an eye on the sleepers. They sailed along the route Tata marked for ROBOTS, up out of the sea and into the sky.

  In the morning they approached the Robot Realm in central Xanth and paused. Identical humanoid robots were patrolling the region with regular routes, individuals spaced within sight of each other. The boat could fly over invisibly, so that was not a problem, but Dell was cautious. “I think we should check to see just how much of a kingdom they have, just so we know what we’re dealing with.”

  “I’m surprised there’s a settlement at all,” Nia said. “As I recall, there was a considerable battle with the robots a while back, and almost all of them were destroyed.”

  “You bet,” the peeve said. “I was there.”

  “Tell us about it!” the children chorused.

  The peeve, evidently flattered to be asked, obliged. “Back in 1105, thirteen years ago, the robots decided to conquer the world, or at least Xanth, or maybe they were just expanding recklessly. They were cutting down all the trees for wood for their bellies, and mining for metal for their bodies.”

  “They eat wood?” Win asked.

  “They burn wood,” the peeve said. “That makes steam to power their bodies. They don’t need to eat food, but if they run out of wood, they’re in trouble.”

  “Wood-burning machines. That’s interesting,” Squid said. “How do they reproduce? Do they summon the stork?”

  “No, they are made in factories, from a master blueprint. They’re all the same, unless the blueprint gets changed.”

  “Fascinating,” Ula said. “So they won’t eat us the way a dragon would.”

  “They won’t,” the peeve agreed. “It fell to King Emeritus Trent to organize the battle against them. He magnetized the iron Mountain and got them all caught on it so they couldn’t move, and they were finished. Except for one who was caught in a cave underwater with Gwenny Goblin. She saw his fire was out, and she had a helpful nature, so found some wood and relit him, saving him. His program got corrupted and he started turning almost human. He fell in love with Hanna Barbarian.”

  “That must have been horrible for her!” Ula said.

  “Yes. But what could she do? So she married him. Their son was Cyrus Cyborg.”

  “Cyrus!” Dell exclaimed. “The one who just married Princess Rhythm after waiting out their scandal?”

  “That one,” the peeve agreed. “So Princess Kadence has robot ancestry.”

  Meanwhile the boat had been following the line of patrolling robots. It circled to the corner of Lake Ogre-Chobee, where the robots marched into the shallow water, continuing their route. The line continued to the Kiss Mee River, and finally circled back to where they had first encountered it. It appeared that they had discovered the boundary of the robot kingdom.

  “So it seems that more than one robot survived the Iron Mountain massacre,” Nia said. “And they are on the march again.”

  “But the land is not denuded of trees,” Ula said.

  That made them all pause. The girl had made another unexpected observation. “So what are they burning?” Dell asked.

  The peeve looked at Tata. The dogfish ground out a digital display. “Coal,” the peeve said. “They are mining for coal. They found a new fuel.”

  “Does that mean they’re not the same kind of threat they were before?” Dell asked.

  Tata wagged his tail. “Not,” the peeve agreed, surprised.

  “Then I guess we should go see the head robot; maybe he has the next clue.”

  They sailed invisibly into the center of the territory. There was a lot of activity there, but the trees and other vegetation remained. The robots were not harming the environment.

  The map marked a metallic factory with smokestacks puffing smoke. The person they wanted was inside.

  “So who goes this time?” Dell asked. “I know nothing about robots except that they are made of metal and burn wood chips. I mean coal.”

  “The ones in the Dream Realm were more sophisticated than that,” Nia reminded him.

  Now he remembered Rosie the Riveter. “So they were. Maybe they ran on batteries. But this is the real world.”

  “Maybe Kadence,” Ula said. “She may have encountered future robots, and know more about them. Especially since she’s part robot herself.”

  Dell shrugged and tapped the ring. Ula changed, then stood still, assorted expressions crossing her face in marching step as she absorbed the news from Ula. “You did that? Under the sea?” she asked. “And didn’t bring me?”

  “It was just Squid and me, then Nia and me,” Dell said. “You wouldn’t have seen anything.”

  Kadence hesitated, then decided not to make an issue of it. “Yes, I’ll come along this time. The robots have a kingdom in my day. I speak their language.”

  They parked the boat invisibly, and the three of them walked to the factory building. Robots were all around, pursuing their assigned tasks, ignoring the visitors. They were humanoid with cylinder bellies, puffing smoke as they worked.

  They entered the door, dodging past more busy robots. Inside everything was clanging metal and motion as parts were being welded together. This was evidently an assembly station.

  An alarm sounded. INTRUDER ALERT. LIVING CREATURES.

  In .935 of a moment a humanoid robot showed up, wearing a plaque saying ROBERT. “Greeting, living visitors,” he said. “Why are you here?”

  “I’m Dell,” Dell said. “Do you have a quieter place where we can talk?”

  “This way.” Robert Robot led them to a chamber where the sounds suddenly ceased.

  “Thank you,” Dell said. “This is Nia, and this is Kadence. Our reason for coming here is a bit complicated.”

  There was a silence. Kadence stepped in. “You have to talk to them in their own manner,” she explained. “Tell or ask specific things. Otherwise they don’t respond.” Then to Robert she said, “I am Kadence. My grandfather is Roland Robot, survivor of the Iron Mountain Massacre of 1105. You may know of him. Do you?”

  “No.”

  So much for that. “At any rate, we come in peace. Dell and Nia will talk with you now.”

  Dell tried again. “We were told to come here. We don’t know why. Do you know?”

  “No.”

  “How did you survive, Robert?” Kadence asked.

  “I got lost on the way to Iron Mountain and missed the battle. I tripped and fell and my noggin got shaken. I think a wire crossed. I lost my taste for wood, so quested desperately for some alternative. I discovered that a special kind of rock tasted good. More of it was buried underground, so I dug for it. Once my fuel supply was secure I set about reproducing my kind, which are all clones of me. Now we are making a kingdom.”

  “And a fine kingdom it is, Robert. Are you set on conquest?”

  “No. I had time to think when I was alone, and I concluded that it would be easier to get along with living folk if I did not threaten them. So I set out to make my own kingdom, so as to be able to interact with their kingdom on an even basis.”

  “That is commendable,” Dell said. The robot did not reply.

  “What do you want, Robert?” Nia asked. “From the living kind of folk.”

  “We want recognition as a kingdom.”

  “Have you made any overtures to other kingdoms?” Nia asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know the protocols.”

  Nia smiled. “That is, you don’t know how.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know to set up a
border and guard it, but not to establish diplomatic relations. Correct?”

  “Correct.”

  Nia glanced at Dell. “I think I know why we were sent here. We should help this kingdom accomplish its desire. Peaceful integration with the living kingdoms.” Then after part of a pause, she added “Do you agree, Robert?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ula has a question,” Kadence said. “Where are your females, Robert?”

  “What females?”

  It was another unexpected insight. If all the robots here were clones of Robert, there were no females. They weren’t needed for reproduction.

  “I see,” Nia said. “I think you need them. I shall explain why: most living creatures reproduce their kind by summoning storks, who then bring babies. It requires females to accomplish this. Living folk tend to interpret things as similar to themselves. A species that is all male would be uncomfortable for them to associate with. They might fear that the robot males would covet their females.” She smiled briefly. “Even bug-eyed monsters covet pretty girls. So you would be better off to have females in similar number to your males, with some of them winsome. Living kingdoms would then find it easier to associate with you. Do you understand?”

  “No.”

  “You might if you had a female companion. For the moment you must take this on faith: you need a female robot to serve as a template for that aspect of your kingdom. Do you understand?”

  “No. But perhaps I will if such a female can be obtained.”

  Nia nodded. “It’s worth a try.” She looked at Dell. “Any suggestions?”