Skeleton Key

by Piers Anthony

  Squid opened her mouth to protest, but he stifled her with a cautionary glance. So she remained silent. Larry squeezed her hand reassuringly, and she appreciated that.

  “So now we will enter a conference, trusting that we are unified enough to do it, and that it will clarify our mission. We need to know the right course, even if we don’t comprehend all its details. We should have a better understanding when we emerge.” He glanced around. “Are there any questions?”

  Larry spoke. “About Squid: she is tormented by this importance attributed to her, which she did not seek, and has no idea how to handle it. Can we help her?”

  Squid’s feelings were mixed. She normally preferred to speak for herself, but Larry had phrased her concern perfectly, from a third party perspective, and she did appreciate that.

  “Only by completely supporting her,” Santo answered. “When there is anything you think she should be aware of, when you are away from her, speak her name, and she will then be able to tune in on you so that she can see and hear you, though not influence you. That is a new talent she has been given. Then briefly state your concern, knowing that she hears. She will generally not be able to acknowledge you, but will surely appreciate your input.”

  Now the non-siblings nodded. They understood.

  “What are we here for?” Data Bone asked. “I thought it was just for a private place to talk without being overheard by adults, but this is sounding more complicated.”

  Santo smiled, as did the other siblings. “It is more complicated. We call it a conference, but that is only approximate. A better description might be a dance.”

  “I love dancing! But that’s not quite it, either, is it?”

  “The thing about a classic dance is that every motion is choreographed and every dancer is essential to the whole. If even one dancer misses a step, it can be ruined. But when every part is correct, it can be beautiful, a work of art. So while each individual role may be small, the larger effect can be emergent.”

  “Can be what?”

  Santo made a third of a smile. “I apologize for using a rare term. An emergent phenomenon is something that appears only when certain conditions are met, such as a thought appearing when a brain is activated. It can’t exist without the brain, but it is not the brain or anything that can be physically classified; it is new and different and sometimes wonderful.”

  “The beauty of the perfect dance is emergent,” Data said, getting it. She did a little twirl that flashed her legs and was indeed lovely. Squid saw that Firenze, the one normal and unrelated male here, was impressed. So was Myst, but negatively. Flashed legs counted. “So this special conference is like a nice dance. We’ll discover more than we anticipated. Thank you.”

  Others nodded. They understood dancing, and the beauty that emerged from a good and well performed dance. If this was like that, okay.

  “In the past we have all touched each of the others,” Santo said after a moment. “That is less feasible with ten of us, so we will try it simply by holding hands around the circle. Do not break the chain.”

  They linked hands. Squid didn’t have hands, technically, but she had spent years emulating them, and no one had ever complained. Larry was on her right, and Santo on her left.

  “Focus on nirvana,” Santo said.

  “On what?” Data asked. She was apt at voicing questions others had but didn’t ask. That could be useful, Squid realized.

  Another third of a smile. “Generic heaven. A state of quiet mental bliss.”

  They focused. It was plain that the non-siblings were skeptical, but they were doing their best to play along.

  And it came, a slow epiphany. The playground around them faded out, and Squid felt as if she were floating into a perfect sky formed of pleasant pastel colors with a gently musical background. She remained aware of her companions on either side, overlapping their bodies as they became misty, and their minds, sharing their thoughts, merging with them to form greater forms and greater thoughts. Then outward to include the ones beyond, Win on the right, Noe on the left, and on around the circle until it was complete. Then, like a flower opening with ten petals, they emerged into the utter beauty of the whole. Together; body, mind, and soul. Self no longer existed, just the larger entity, the glorious flower. Then on to a greater reality, extending to the realm beyond, with more bodies, more minds, more souls, and more beauty. Rapture! They had become the universe.

  And it was indeed a dance. They were unified as never before, and synchronized, evolving into new wonder, forming perfect flowers with color, tune, motion, and concept spreading into ecstasy.

  And on into weird but nice enlightenment. Squid drifted across the universe, across time, delighted by its every nuance.

  Then, somehow, she jumped the track. She got lost beyond the unity and drifted by herself. She felt no alarm, but knew she was in a foreign region.

  She oriented on something familiar. In a timeless moment she identified it: her male cousin who had been invited but prevented from joining their visit to future Xanth by a complication of schedule, to his serious disappointment. He was thinking of her, and her talent picked up on it. Actually he was sleeping, dreaming of her with mixed feelings: envy of her visit, relief that he had missed it, and so not perished in the lost land, and grief for her death.

  But I did not die, Cuttle, she told him. I traveled fifty years into the past, and survived.

  It’s a good thing I’m dreaming, he replied. Because that is unbelievable anywhere else.

  She had to laugh. You are dreaming, she agreed. But it is nevertheless true. I no longer exist in your time, but I exist in my own. I’m glad you didn’t come, though, because only five of us were saved, and I can’t be sure you would have been among them.

  And I am glad for you, he thought. Yet how is it you are here as an active mind, when always before in my dreams you have been inert?

  I am visiting via a, well, a kind of commune. A mergence of minds. I drifted. I should get back before they miss me.

  You drifted into your present future? On another track? To visit me?

  So it seems, she agreed.

  Accepting that, I am sensing something, he thought. Something I must tell you, even if you are not really here.

  What is that?

  There is danger. A colossal threat. Somehow I sense it as I attune to your reality whatever it is.

  There it was again. Danger?

  You must escape it. No, you can’t escape it. You must stop it. I don’t know how, but it all depends on you, Squid.

  Everywhere she went, it seemed, there were warnings of great danger, coupled with the news that only she could deal with it. But never any details. I need to know more.

  I don’t know any more. But I fear for you.

  And that, it seemed was it. I must go, Cuttle. But it was nice visiting you.

  He laughed. When I wake up, I won’t believe any of it. But I wish you well, cousin.

  Then she lost her footing, as it were, and found herself drawn back to the group mind, and to the playground. The conference was over. She had missed much of it, alas.

  “It was a wonderful dance. I love you,” Larry said, hugging her.

  “You love everyone,” she replied. “And everything. That’s the way it is with a conference.”

  “Now I know that we are following the correct course. But we don’t know the outcome.”

  “We don’t,” she agreed ruefully.

  Santo squeezed her other hand. “Where were you?”

  “I drifted, and got lost, then talked with my sleeping cousin Cuttle in the future. He was thinking of me, so I oriented on him. We were able to have a two-way dialogue, maybe because he was dreaming.”

  “And did you learn anything useful?”

  She grimaced in the human manner. “Nothing useful. Just that there is great danger that only I
can handle. I already knew that.”

  “Yet, if the news spread even to your future realm, that authenticates it.”

  “That and a stink horn would make a significant smell.”

  He smiled, then addressed the others. “That was a conference. Now you know its nature. They aren’t all identical, but they do enable us to share identities and come to know each other better. Now we are assured that we are doing what we should, even if we don’t properly understand it.”

  “We do,” Data agreed. “That was some experience! I feel closer to everyone.”

  “It is the unity of siblings,” Win said. “Now the rest of you share it.”

  “This was mainly a demonstration,” Santo said. “To be sure we can do it with our larger group. When there is a crisis, we may do it again.”

  “Now let’s go home,” Firenze said. “I want to sleep on this.”

  “We all do,” Piton agreed. “How do we get out of here? Strike another match?”

  Myst shook her head. “The matches don’t work that way. Santo will have a way.”

  “I do,” Santo agreed. “I will make a hole.”

  He made a hole. One by one they entered it, and emerged in his closet where the Playground purse was stored. Squid saw others looking at the tiny purse in wonder, because it seemed impossible that they could have fit inside it. Actually the Playground was full size: it was the purse that connected to it, a miniature locator. They had not actually been inside the purse.

  The others went to their cabins, and Larry and Squid retired to their own cabin. “It is an education to know you and the siblings,” he said. “I mean that in a positive way. As a group you have a more challenging history than I do.”

  “That’s why we understand you. We’re all different in different ways; we understand difference.”

  “If I had to remain in this body, I believe you are one I would prefer to stay with.”

  It was a compliment. But she hoped to grow up to find a man of her own kind. “But we do hope to solve your problem, along with our own.”

  “We do.”

  Next day they gathered for dance instruction. “This time we learn the Triangle Dance,” Nia said. “I learned it in my youth, but it has never been widely circulated and is virtually unknown by the general public. That means it should be new to most audiences, and that is fine. It’s a kind of humorous interlude, a change of pace while the scene is being set for another dance. It should make the audience laugh.”

  “What’s funny about it?” Data asked.

  “For one thing, half the dancers are veiled so that their partners don’t recognize them, only their gender. They will guess wrong twice before getting it right. When they get it wrong, something spectacularly awkward happens to them.”

  Three couples set up for the practice: Firenze and Ula, Piton and Myst, and Larry and Squid. The boys were in suits, the girls in identical pretty dresses that emphasized their outlines: slender bodies, smooth legs, richly curling hair. The hair was actually wigs, yellow, red, and black, all similarly luxurious. They were really quite striking. The boys wore small berets of similar colors, so it was clear who belonged with whom.

  The girls stood in a triangle, facing outward, while the boys danced around the outside. Then the boys had to face outward while the girls donned thick veils. At this point the audience would be mystified: what kind of a dance was this?

  Then the girls exchanged wigs, so that the blonde became a redhead, the redhead became a brunette, and the brunette became black haired. Then they changed places. If the boys thought they knew their partners by their hair or place, they were mistaken. But the audience saw the change, and knew which was which if they cared to keep track. Squid loved this: she didn’t even have to fake her hair, because the flowing wig did it for her.

  Now the boys turned around to face the girls. “The only way to identify a partner is by a kiss,” Nia said, as if announcing for the audience. “They must kiss and say yes or no: is this their true partner? They will say yes, and be wrong and pay the penalty. Kisses are not nearly as identifying as we like to think.”

  The music started. The boys danced solo in a counterclockwise circle around the maiden triangle, while the girls gestured with their arms and made balances with their legs. Then the music stopped, and the boys halted in their places, turning to face the girls opposite them.

  “Kiss the girls,” Nia said.

  The three boys stepped forward, took the girls in their arms and kissed them, the yellow beret with the blonde and so on. Firenze kissed Squid, and even through the thick veil she felt his hot lips on hers and thrilled to the experience. She felt guilty for that, because she knew he was Ula’s boyfriend; it was like cheating. It was all in the mini drama, and they were actors who routinely did such things, but still it was a boy-girl kiss and she thought she shouldn’t have feelings. They were siblings! She wondered whether the others had similar misgivings.

  Then they stood back. “Right or wrong?” Nia asked.

  The boys pondered. The matchings were wrong, by design, but theoretically they didn’t know it. They each held a thumb up: right.

  “Wrong,” Nia said.

  The three girls promptly lifted small cups of colored water over the boys’ heads and poured them out. Streams of fluid flowed out, far more than mere cups could ever hold, because they were connected to tubes that ran down the girls’ arms to a hidden tank, and thoroughly doused the boys. It wasn’t real water; it was a liquid-looking thin jelly that did not soak them. But from a distance it looked like a deluge.

  The boys seemed ashamed as they brushed themselves off and resumed the dance. The audience was surely laughing.

  The music stopped again. Again they had to kiss and tell, this time with different partners. Again they were wrong. Piton kissed Squid, and the naughty boy even pinched her bottom, and she liked it, feeling twice as guilty as before. Would Myst be mad?

  But of course Larry was kissing one wrong girl, and then the other wrong one. Were they reacting as naughtily? Should Squid be mad at Larry? It was confusing.

  This time the girls held mock stink horns over the boys’ heads and squeezed them vigorously. There came that foul smelling noise, and filthy brown smoke gushed out. The boys went into paroxysms of coughing and retching, hamming it up, though the smoke was actually an innocuous fake. Gales of audience laughter, for sure.

  The third time they finally got it right. They kissed the girls, and Squid was happy to be back with Larry even if their whole relationship was pretense. Then the boys were rewarded when the veils were thrown off and the girls stepped up for swings. Audience applause.

  They all agreed it was one great little dance. “And kissing all the girls wasn’t bad either,” Piton said.

  “But if you pinch me again, I’ll make you eat the stink horn,” Ula told him severely. “The only one who gets to pinch my bottom for real is Firenze.” They all laughed, but it was fair warning. Piton was being too free with other boy’s girls.

  “Now an announcement,” Nia said. “Picka and Dawn Bone have invited Dell and me to visit with them for a week in Caprice Castle, and we have accepted. Magnus and Jess will be there with us too. This is nominally to visit Picka’s skeleton relatives on Skeleton Key, which is one of the Sometime Islands, but more just to give us temporary freedom from the incessant burden of children and responsibilities. It’s a kind of trial separation for you children too: you are all getting older, verging on maturity, and can practice for the adulthood that will be upon you all too soon. Any questions?”

  Santo smiled. “Who will be in charge of the menagerie?”

  “Tata Dogfish and the peeve will run the boat, which isn’t going anywhere. It will be parked in the sky above the remaining island in Xanth Proper. You children should be able to get along without direction, exercising personal responsibility. The dread Adult Conspiracy still holds
: we know you will not do anything we might disapprove of, even if you do make the attempt. If there is a problem, you can vote on how to handle it. We believe you will be up to the chore.”

  “What will we do?” Data asked. “And I don’t mean fighting the Conspiracy. How do we keep from being bored to death?”

  “You will dance, dear. We expect you to be thoroughly practiced in all the dances listed in Tata’s repertoire. The show tour will start the week we return.”

  The others nodded. There was a difference between merely learning the dances, and performing them well before audiences. They would have plenty to keep them busy.

  “Good enough,” Nia concluded. “We go to intercept Skeleton Key tomorrow. Get a good night’s rest.”

  Back in their cabin, Squid and Larry exchanged a significant glance. “They don’t know,” she said, awed.

  “The adults don’t know,” he agreed. “They think we’ll be alone because they want to relax for a week without noisy demanding children.”

  “This is scary!”

  “It is,” he agreed.

  Squid nerved herself and spoke of another matter. “I hope you won’t be mad, but when I kissed the other boys, in the Triangle Dance, I, well, I felt something. And when Piton pinched my bottom, I, I actually liked it.”

  “I’m not mad. Remember, I was kissing other girls, too. I must admit they were intriguing. I didn’t dare pinch anyone’s rear, though.”

  “I’m actually not a girl at all, not a human one. My bottom is just a pair of bunched octopus arms, shielded by the thick skirt. But he was treating me like a real live girl, and I think I felt the way a real girl would.”