xanth 40 - isis orb

by Anthony, Piers

  “I appreciate her for other reasons.”

  That shut her up.

  Chapter 8:

  Fire Faun

  In the morning they returned to Hapless’s pack with the box still anchoring the new path, such as it was. He picked up the pack and put it on, and the faint outline of the path remained. They all could see it, except Faro; they had had practice with paths, and she didn’t need to.

  Several of the elves came to watch. This was a novel experience for them, too.

  Zed got into the harness, and Faro flicked him light. The two half dragons changed to dragon form, with Quin donning the other end of the rope so that he could haul the main harness up. Zed was now feather light, so it wasn’t at all difficult.

  Quin and Nya took off together, spiraling upward near the path. Zed lifted as the line went taut. He did not look comfortable despite being safely light. Hapless couldn’t blame him; his position seemed precarious.

  “Close your eyes!” Faro called.

  Zed did, and looked more relaxed.

  The elves waved, and the dragons waggled their spread wings in response.

  Feline assumed cat form and joined Hapless on Faro’s back, taking hold just in front of the great folded white wings while Hapless rode behind them. Then he tied the blindfold around the centaur’s head, as she twisted her front section to face him, securely covering her eyes. He knew Feline was glad Faro couldn’t fly facing back; she knew where he would be looking.

  “Take off,” he told the centaur.

  She trotted forward, then spread her wings. She pumped the air and lifted.

  “Spiral left, ascending,” Hapless said.

  She did. When they were high enough, Hapless oriented on the path. He guided the centaur to it. “That’s good; fly level.”

  The elves waved again, and Hapless waved back. “Can you waggle your wings?” he asked Faro. “They are waving to you.”

  Faro did. The elves applauded. Then they were left behind as the flight went out over the water.

  They were on their way.

  The path achieved cruising level then curved to follow the shoreline. Where was it going?

  There were birds in the air. They glanced curiously at the odd group but stayed clear, as well they might; who would want to tangle with two dragons and a flying centaur?

  Then a pair of young griffins oriented on them. They were the color of shoe polish, two shades. They squawked as if looking for trouble, and headed toward the group. Nya detached from the formation to intercept them, but this did not faze them; they merely separated so that she could not toast them both. She flew toward one, but the other slipped by and came toward the swinging centaur.

  “Can you hit a target blindfolded?” Hapless asked Faro. He was conscious that they did not have the protective shield of the other paths.

  “Yes, if you spell out its location precisely.”

  He wasn’t sure how to do that, since both parties would be moving. Then he got a notion. “When a griffin squawks, could you hit that sound?”

  “Yes.”

  “Draw your bow.”

  The bow appeared in her hands, arrow nocked.

  “The griffin is at three o’clock,” he said, using the standard directional system. “Same elevation as we are.”

  Faro twisted her torso to aim at three o’clock.

  The griffin considered, then flew away, knowing better than to dare a centaur. The other did the same, no more eager to dare a fire-breathing dragon.

  “They’re gone,” Hapless said. “We bluffed them off.”

  “Bluffed?”

  “I really didn’t want to have to shoot it,” he said. “You would have lost the arrow, unless we landed to recover it from the body.”

  “Meow!” Feline meowed, her tone saying “Nice catch.”

  They continued flying. No other creatures challenged them. Maybe word had gotten around.

  Then the path abruptly curved, proceeding inland. “We must be orienting on our target,” Faro said.

  “I guess so. So far it’s just forest land.”

  Soon there was a glowing wall ahead. “The region of Fire!” Hapless exclaimed. “Naturally that’s where the Fire Totem would be!”

  “Now it makes sense,” she agreed. “I trust there’s a route past the firewall? Flames are not good for wings.”

  “Uh, yes, I think. The path is angling up.”

  They angled up. The firewall was like a thin mountain, with peaks and valleys, all well above the ground. Only high fliers could cross over it. The outline wasn’t fixed; where there was a gap one moment, there would be a new flame the next moment. There did not seem to be any safe crossing at this level.

  Then the path angled in toward one of the higher flames. What was it doing?

  But as they approached it, the flame dissipated, leaving a gap. The path had found a temporary pass, and zoomed through it. The flames closed in behind, too late.

  Now that path led down to the ground. They landed in a charred lot surrounded by adjacent fields that had not yet been burned out; their flames were hot. But here it was merely warm.

  Hapless removed the veil. “We’re here,” he said. “Great flight.”

  Faro looked around. “I merely trusted you to guide me.”

  “And I trusted the path. It knew what it was doing.”

  Feline changed to human form. “But where is the Fire Totem?”

  They all looked around. There was no sign of a fiery faun.

  “It must be a rest stop,” Zed said, stepping out of his harness. “But we are surely close.”

  “Surely,” Faro agreed. “There’s a mound of rocks here. Maybe it covers an underground den.”

  Then Nya spied something. “Look. In the next field.”

  There was the fiery faun. He was manlike, naked, with small horns on his head and goat hooves in lieu of human feet. Fauns were human/goat crosses, and it showed. He was busy with a flaming torch, setting fire to any bushes that were not already burning.

  Hapless slowly figured it out. “This must be where the faun lives when not actively setting fires. He should return here when he’s done with the next field. We will have to be ready for him.”

  Then Zed figured it out further. “We need the Fire Totem, but the picture was of a fire faun. Could they be the same? Or could one be the guardian of the other?”

  “That could be it,” Quin said. “We need to catch the fire faun to make him lead us to the Fire Totem.”

  “And how do we do that?” Feline asked.

  “There’s something else, now that I ponder it,” Zed said. “On Quests of this type, where amulets or tokens or Totems need to be gathered, it is generally one Companion to one artifact. I suspect that the Companion who is destined to carry the Totem is the one to obtain it from its guardian.”

  “Who is supposed to get the Fire Totem?” Hapless asked.

  “That is the question,” Zed said. “Perhaps we should decide that now, lest the wrong one come to grief.”

  Feline gazed across at the fire faun. “Someone who can handle fire, I should think. Like maybe a dragon.”

  “That lets me out,” Quin said. “I’m a steamer.”

  They looked at Nya. She nodded. “I am a fire breather, yes. I must be the one. Does anyone have any idea how?”

  “Excellent question,” Hapless said. “While we ponder that, I have another notion to pursue. If the Totems represent the five Elements of Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and the dread Void, how do the rest of us align? If we don’t match up, maybe this is a bad idea.”

  “Water,” Zed said. “That is typically fluid, yielding, changeable—”

  “Curvaceous,” Nya said.

  Feline straightened up. “I must be Water,” she agreed, surprised.

  “Then Air,” Zed said. “Who is like air?”

  “Someone who flies?” Hapless asked.

  “That narrows it down to three,” Zed said. “Nya, Quin, Faro.”

  “I’m taken,�
�� Nya said.

  “And I can’t fly alone,” Faro said. “I doubt I qualify.”

  “Which leaves me,” Quin said. “Steam is like air. I must be Air.”

  “Earth,” Zed said. “I am land bound and solid. I must be Earth.”

  “That leaves the worst one,” Hapless said. “The Void, from which nothing escapes.”

  “And by elimination, that must be me,” Faro said. “Though the prospect terrifies me.”

  “Your acrophobia relates?” Zed asked.

  “Oh, yes. I’m afraid of heights. The Void might seem to be the opposite, but it is similar: a fall into it has no returning. I’m afraid of that fall.”

  “Could your fear qualify you?” Zed asked.

  Faro winced. “Oddly, it might.”

  “But that could be positive,” Zed said. “You have found a way to fly. Could you similarly find a way to conquer the Void?”

  “There is logic there,” she agreed with a shudder. “But not one that appeals to me.”

  “Another thing,” Hapless said. “She conquers heights by being blindfolded. I don’t see how that would work with the Void.”

  “Unless she could also navigate the Void blindfolded,” Zed said.

  “Something else,” Feline said. “Faro got the Void by elimination. Elimination means taking away things. It’s consistent.”

  “Again, it is a consistency I don’t much like,” Faro said. “But if it must be, it must be. I am the Void.”

  “Which leaves us with the first question,” Nya said. “How do I handle the fire faun?”

  There was silence. None of them knew.

  “Well, I have another question,” Hapless said, his nose uncomfortable as it tried to pop out of joint. “Why don’t I have a Totem? You figured it would be Faro by elimination, but you forgot me.”

  The Companions exchanged an awkward glance. “Well, you’re not a Companion,” Zed said. “You’re the Quest leader.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t participate,” Hapless said hotly.

  Nya looked at Feline. “Maybe you can explain it to him.”

  “Explain what?” Hapless demanded. “That you don’t think I’m competent?”

  “I’ll try,” Feline said. Then she took his arm to lead him aside, as if he were a difficult child.

  He refused to go. “I get to conjure musical instruments, but I can’t play any. Now I get to lead the Quest, but I can’t participate! What’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you, Hapless,” she said soothingly. “You’re a fine person and we need you. It’s just not your role to get a Totem.”

  “Because you think I can’t handle it?” He was getting angrier by the moment.

  Feline drew him close and kissed his ear. That put him into a third of a trance. “It’s not a matter of competence. It’s just that each of us needs to perform the role we are assigned, and yours is to organize the Quest. You don’t need a Totem for that.”

  “I don’t see why not!”

  She drew her skirt tight against her body so that the line of her panties showed beneath it. That intensified his trance to two thirds. “Hapless, please be reasonable. Let’s—let’s go behind those rocks for a bit of privacy, and consider.”

  He still had some resistance, being inherently stubborn. “Consider what?”

  She kissed him again. “Our relationship.” She took his hand and stroked it across one of her curves. The effect was phenomenal. He wanted to hold her and kiss her and proceed to summoning one or more storks, though he had little idea of the technique.

  “You’re trying to seduce me!” he said, catching on. “To change the subject. I won’t have it! I don’t want you that way.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t,” she said.

  This annoyed him anew. She was using seductive tactics to manage him. “Then why are you leading me on? When you don’t plan to follow through?”

  She met his gaze seriously. “Hapless, there’s one difference between us. You wouldn’t lie to get what you want. I would.”

  He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  “I will be seductive when I don’t actually intend to seduce,” she said. “So it’s a lie, of a sort. It’s part of the art of being female.”

  Finally he squeezed out a word. “Why?”

  “Because you are being unreasonable, and I need to get you to accept your role without resenting it.”

  “My role?”

  “Your role as the leader of the Quest. Just as you can’t play an instrument, but you enable us to play, you can’t have a Totem, but you can enable us to get our Totems so we can complete the Quest. We all must play our parts.”

  He remained resentful. He opened his mouth to protest further.

  She stroked her hand across her skirt as if to make her panty line show again.

  He gave it up. “Okay.”

  She kissed his other ear. “Now you’re being reasonable”

  “I’m not being reasonable! I just don’t want to get freaked out.”

  She smiled. “That will do.”

  They turned back to face the others, who had frozen like a tableau. Now that Hapless had been rendered reasonable, they resumed animation. “How do I handle the fire faun?” Nya repeated.

  “I think this is your challenge to handle alone,” Faro said. “But we can give you advice.”

  “Maybe you can fight fire with fire,” Zed said.

  “I’ll try.” She walked to the edge of the burned out section and called to the faun. “Hey, faun, I need your Totem.”

  “Go bleep your bleep, snakeskin!” the faun called back, using language that would have singed the foliage if it had not already been burned.

  “Don’t speak to me that way!” Nya snapped. “I’m a lady.”

  “Yeah, bleep?” he asked, employing a term that would have made a female dog snarl. “You’re missing the part of a lady I can use.” He touched his exposed front.

  “Stop being obscene.”

  “Make me.” He made an obscene gesture.

  Hapless realized that this was a battle of attitudes as much as of words or bodies. The creature was trying to freak her out. Fauns were like satyrs, but less obsessed with sex. The kinship was evident, however.

  “Stop. Or I’ll—”

  “Or you’ll what, you bunless freak?”

  “I’ll turn dragon and toast you soundly.”

  “I’d like to see you try, naga trash.”

  Nya turned dragon and sent a blowtorch blast of fire that completely enveloped the faun. Hapless was impressed; she truly had dragon fire when she needed it.

  But it had no effect on the fire spirit. “Is that the best you can do, worm tail?”

  Nya flew forward and coiled her sinuous body around the faun. She put her snoot to his face as if kissing him and blasted out another volley of fire. It surged right down his throat and blew him up like a balloon. But then he exhaled, blowing it out again and returning to his original shape, undamaged.

  “That was some kiss, snake lips,” he said. “Do it again.”

  Seeing that, Hapless knew that she would never overcome the faun with fire.

  Disgusted, Nya uncoiled and retreated to the lot where the others stood. “Fire is not doing it,” she said, frustrated.

  “So we see,” Feline said. “But you know, he is getting less insulting. Maybe he likes you.”

  “He’s a foul-mouthed hothead!”

  “A typical male,” Feline agreed. “Deal with it. Try seducing him.”

  “Seducing him! I want to blow his head off!”

  There was a trace of obscurity in Feline’s smile. “Well, that’s one way to do it. I was thinking of a less extreme technique. Try being sinuous atop the rock pile.”

  The naga considered. Then she slithered to the rocks. She got behind them with only her forepart above. It looked as if she were a human woman standing behind the pile with only her top half showing.

  “Hey, faun!” she called. “Want ano
ther kiss?”

  The faun looked, and Hapless saw what the fire spirit saw: a lovely human girl’s top half, bare.

  “Forget it, naga crossbreed; I know your nature.” But he was clearly interested.

  Nya smiled blindingly as she did an upper body dance that Hapless found remarkably compelling. “Are you sure?”

  The faun hesitated. It seemed he wasn’t sure. She had impressed him with her fire kiss, and now was adding to it via her human charms.

  “All I want is the Fire Totem,” Nya called.

  Wrong move. “No way,” the faun said, and turned away. The spell was broken.

  “Bleep,” Feline muttered. “She impressed you more than him.”

  Hapless should have known she’d be watching him.

  Balked a second time, Nya appealed to the Companions. “What else is there?”

  “Play music,” Faro suggested.

  Hapless conjured a harmonica and brought it to her. She put it to her mouth and started playing. It was absolutely lovely from the outset.

  The fire faun had been walking away. Now he paused, turning toward the sound. He was listening!

  Nya shifted her melody, going to fire music. Her body seemed to glow with the heat of it, and it was a hot melody.

  The faun slowly walked toward her as if in a trance, his hooves clicking on the hard ground. She faced him, still playing. He came right up to her, reached a fiery hand to touch her—

  And dropped to the ground as the little Totem. Nya stopped playing, reached down, and picked up the object. “I believe I have my Totem,” she said, satisfied.

  The others went to join her. She passed the artifact around so they could all appreciate it. When Hapless held it he saw that it was a miniature replica of the fire faun. Or rather, it was the fire faun himself, compacted to this inert form. No wonder he had not been eager to be converted!

  “Now if only I knew how to use it,” Nya said.

  “Does it have a separate use, or is it merely necessary to complete a spell to control the Orb?” Zed asked.

  “I feel its power,“ Nya said as she took it back. “It is tuned to me; only I can use it. I know it can do things for me; I just don’t know what. Or how.”

  “Then we had better figure it out,” Hapless said. “Because the other Totems may have similar powers, and we may need to use them before we’re done.”