Fire Sail

by Piers Anthony

  “I’m ready to do it,” Nia said. “I want to free the deletes. They are folk like us whose only crime was refusing to sign on to evil. It’s only a passing service for us, no greater than what we have done for others. That may be why we were sent here: to save these innocent people. I don’t care about material rewards, though I wouldn’t mind seeing others get them.”

  “You do know that Em Pathy is steering your emotion?” Dell asked.

  “I know. But it still makes sense, and is not a dishonorable mission. So it’s up to you.”

  Dell considered. “I like Anna a lot. I think she’s the type of woman I need, esthetic in her own manner yet mature and honest. She is here to—to seduce me into agreeing to do this service. To free the Roc. I think she would agree to be my woman if I agree to do it. She’s willing to go that far to achieve her mission. But still I’m not sure it’s right. I think I can’t decide on my own. I think I need a person I trust to advise me.” He looked at Nia.

  “I can decide for myself on this,” Nia said. “But not for you. Especially since my judgment at the moment is suspect.”

  He looked at Kadence. “I can’t decide for you either,” Kadence said. “I have known Anna only briefly, and I like her. I think she would be good for you. But I don’t like Em or Ragna. So I’m conflicted, as I said before. I’m effectively neutral.”

  Was her crush on him passing? Or was she simply determined not to be bound by selfish personal whims? She was effectively giving him up. Not that she had ever had him, considering the complications of age and time, but still it represented a sacrifice on her part. It was also a signal of her growing maturity, as she accepted her limits. She would be a good princess, when she came of age.

  He had no one to advise him. He was afraid he would make the wrong decision on his own. He didn’t want to do that. Being honest was all very well, but what about when the correct course was emotionally and ethically obscure? When there were good and evil considerations on both sides, the overall balance uncertain? Maybe when he was older he would be able to handle such decisions, but he was stuck with what he was now.

  Unless he could finesse it. Draw on a mind he needed, on a provisional basis.

  He came to a kind of decision. “Anna, if you want to be with me, you will have to help me decide. I will do it if you tell me to.”

  BUT I’M ON RAGNA’S SIDE, her sign protested. YOU CAN’T ASK ME.

  “If you’re the kind of woman I think you are, I can trust you to guide me to my best decisions, regardless of your personal interest, starting with this one.”

  “Hold,” the peeve said. “This is important. Let’s put her on the speaker phone. Connect it, Tata.”

  The dogfish’s screen flickered. Then it printed the word DONE.

  “Thank you,” Anna said, no longer needing the sign. Dell wished he had known about that option before. “So be it.”

  All of them, including Dell, leaned forward, intent on her words.

  She faced him. “Dell, you are trusting me to guide you on what may be the most important decision of your life, with serious implications for the welfare of Xanth. You are a dependent man who could use a dominant woman to manage your life. You fly from girl to girl like a butterfly, eager for each new thrill, quickly recovering from your heartbreaks, ready for the next but hardly the wiser. Most of what you appreciate about them is their superficial physical appearance, rather than whatever is inside them, whether it be flesh, metal, or demon vapor, and their manner toward you, even when you know it is contrived. You know better, but still you hanker to get into their panties rather than their minds. You are like a vacuum, nothing special from a distance, but sucking close things into your need. You require a steadying female presence in your life, panties and all, so that you can stop being distracted by new girls and focus on becoming the good man you are capable of being. You must have a good woman to fulfill you, and women who get close to you pick up on that and are being drawn in. It’s our nature to help in that manner, even we militaristic ones.”

  She was analyzing him with surprising force. He looked around, and saw Nia nodding. Also Kadence. Also Squid and Win. Even Santo. Only Tata and the peeve remained aloof. They all knew him, and were on his side, but had evidently picked up on his weaknesses.

  “I believe I could be that woman,” Anna continued. “My fit youthful body attracts your prurient interest, and my more mature mind could stabilize your personality. I could represent the presence you need, and neither of us would ever regret it, because under my tutelage you would prosper and be happy, and I also. It is a thing I long to do. All I need is my body back.”

  Indeed she could be that woman! He was gazing at her body with a hunger for her trim configuration that nevertheless had the evocative qualities he longed for, while her mind and integrity were perfect. Anna, solid, would be his ideal.

  “When you realized that an accommodation spell could make me yours physically for an hour, you suffered a serious reconsideration. It had been a fantasy, your hands on my provocative bare flesh, your mouth on mine, our torsos locked together, but when it became possible, you realized what the implications of such a serious commitment could be. You became aware of reality, with its more significant parameters. You backed off, sensibly, so that you could ponder the situation at greater leisure. You demonstrated the nascent qualities that will make you a real future man.” She took a breath. “Now it is happening to me also. To be real again, with a malleable but worthwhile young man, is a dream. When I realized that it was not only possible but on the verge of happening, the perspective of the dream was replaced by that of reality. That was a sobering moment.”

  She leaned closer, opening her arms to him. “Oh, Dell, I want to be with you! I want to live life with you. I think I could love you. But it is a painful irony that instead I must separate from you. Because I remember what I forgot for a time in the throes of the fantasy of a perfect life together: that Ragna Roc, regardless of the terms of the moment, is too dangerous to loose upon Xanth again. It must not happen. He must not be freed. You must not use the boat to enable him to escape. I know this means that neither I nor my friends in the village will be restored, and that hurts. That I will never be with you the way I dreamed, and that is anguish. But so it must be, and I must go.”

  Anna turned and walked away, through the hull of the ship. She was gone.

  “Bleep,” Em said. “I thought Ragna was about to be freed, and I would be a queen. But she’s right, you know, about you and the Roc. Go your way, boat and all. That is how it must be.” She got up and went to the ladder and on out of the boat.

  The eight of them sat there, stunned. Anna Sthesia had come through in a manner none of them had really anticipated. She really would have been perfect.

  Chapter 16

  #12

  “I think we made the right decision, painful as it may be,” Nia said. “I was not actually corrupted by Em Pathy’s influence, though I certainly felt it; my integrity was stronger than my emotion. There are merits on each side; it’s a close call. I must confess that Anna’s analysis impressed me; she is right about Dell, and right about Ragna Roc. In near retrospect I wince at what Dell might have decided. But he put Anna on her honor to advise him objectively, and that worked.” She smiled tiredly. “I think he knew what Anna would say, and that it would cost them their prospective good life together. She had the clarity of thought he lacked.”

  “She was so right for me,” Dell mourned. “Where will I ever find her match?”

  “That will be number twelve,” Kadence said sadly. “The one who can be here for you now, as I am not.”

  “But suppose I had made the decision on my own, and gone the other way? And freed the big bird?”

  “Ragna was never in danger of being freed,” the peeve said. “Tata and I have ultimate control of Fibot, and would not have let it go there.”

  The others lo
oked at the bird, surprised. “You knew this all along?” Nia asked.

  “And were not allowed to tell,” the peeve agreed. “This was a precaution the Good Magician took before this venture ever started. Fortunately you folk passed that test, albeit by the skin of your teeth.”

  Dell and Nia shared a frown verging on a glare. “I thought we were supposed to deliver the boat to its new proprietors,” Dell said. “What’s this about a test?”

  The bird was silent.

  “Let’s guess,” Nia said. “Each spot mission has been a challenge where we had to make key decisions. We were guided to a number of settings, including the pied piper’s mountain, the dream realm, the World of Three Moons, the Sea Kingdom, the Robot Realm, and Ragna Roc’s one-time capital. Along the way we encountered tempting life partners, so the challenges were personal as well as practical and ethical, causing a fair amount of heartache. These were designed to put us through our paces?”

  Still silent.

  “So what is the point in testing us so thoroughly, when we are merely going to turn over the boat to others? Why put its delivery at risk, instead of simply locating the proprietors and turning it over?”

  The bird remained mute.

  “I wonder,” Dell said. “Could it be that the proprietors are busy elsewhere, so our job was not to find them so much as to distract ourselves and keep the boat safe until it is convenient for the proprietors to accept it? We’re just boat-sitters?”

  The peeve finally spoke. “That may be. We were not told.”

  “So what is next?” Dell demanded.

  The peeve shrugged its wings. “We don’t know.”

  “Well, then, let’s mix it up a little.” Dell said, shaking his collar to get rid of the hot air under it. “Let’s use this boat to accomplish something good that is not in the script.”

  “Such as?” Nia asked, intrigued as her own collar cooled.

  “Such as helping the deletes to recover their reality without using the big bird.”

  Now the children too were interested. “There’s another way?” Santo asked.

  “There may be. Here is my notion: there is a similarity to deletion and the half-phase reality of the Sea Kingdom. We can see across to the other phase, but not actually touch it unless we have a phase translator. The sea folk have translators; could there be one for the deletes?”

  “Lovely!” Nia said. “If you were forty ears older, I’d kiss you.”

  The children giggled at the joke.

  “I want to run down Anna and tell her,” Dell said. “Maybe it won’t work, but at least it’s something she and the villagers could search for. Maybe there’s hope.”

  “Peeve,” Nia said. “Can Tata locate Anna Sthesia?”

  The dogfish’s screen flickered. A spot map appeared on it.

  The children scrambled to operate the sail and rudder. The boat cast off and sailed.

  Before long, not much after short, they came to Anna and anchored invisibly. She was sitting on a rock with her face in her hands. Dell realized that bold as she had been about her analysis, recommendation, and departure, the decision had hurt her too. How well he understood!

  Dell debarked and walked to her. “Please, I have a new thought.”

  She looked up at him from her tear-stained face. Her sign appeared. I DON’T THINK WE SHOULD BE TOGETHER.

  “Yes. I hate it, but I’m not arguing about us. It is this: we encountered the Sea Kingdom, which is under the sea. To avoid the heavy pressure there they are in half phase, a sort of parallel realm we can see but not touch. Like the deletes.”

  Her interest quickened. YES?

  “The Sea Folk have translators that enable them to pass from one phase to the other, so they can visit our realm, and we can visit theirs. They are just as solid as we are when we are in the same phase. One of their women even tried to seduce me. I am wondering whether there could be a translator for the deletes.”

  She considered. Then her shoulders sagged. I THINK NOT. THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENCES. FIRST, WE ARE NOT IN ANOTHER REALM; WE ARE IN THIS ONE AND HAVE NO SUBSTANCE. SECOND, WE DO NOT AGE. WE ARE IN SUSPENDED LIFE.

  Oh. “You are different,” he agreed, disappointed. “Bleep.”

  BUT WE SHALL CERTAINLY EXPLORE IT, JUST IN CASE. She approached him and kissed him touchlessly. THANK YOU FOR TRYING.

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “I just wish—”

  NO. THIS COULD TAKE YEARS. GO FIND YOUR #12. She turned away from him, cutting off further dialogue. She was ending the contact with military precision.

  How he loved her! And she loved him. She was doing what he could not: making a clean break.

  Disconsolately he returned to the boat.

  “Oh, I know,” Nia said as he cried on her shoulder. “She’s the best one yet, and thus the worst one.”

  “Anna’s out there!” Win exclaimed. “Signaling us.”

  What?

  “Maybe this time I’d better talk to her,” Nia said.

  Dell did not object. There was only so much heart wrenching he could take.

  Soon Nia returned. “When Anna returned to her rock, she discovered words on it she was sure were not there before. She thought we should be told.”

  “Words?” Dell asked.

  “THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.” Nia nodded. “I believe we have received our next clue.”

  “Here we come, number twelve!” Win said.

  They were rooting for Dell’s next spot romance? Maybe to them it was entertainment.

  “Tomorrow,” Nia said firmly. “We need to get a good night’s sleep first.”

  “Awww,” the four children said in chorus. And went without further protest, Kadence vacating for Ula. It was a kind of ritual.

  Dell, still hurting from the loss of Anna, was less excited. How could he be sure this final one wouldn’t be an even worse heartbreak?

  “I believe our adventure is near its end,” Nia told him as they retired for the night. He was in his pajamas, she in her night robe, as usual. But they both knew it was not a usual night. “That suggests that number twelve will be real, and worth the wait.”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible.” Yet he remembered how the loss of Rosie Robot had seemed unhealable, until he met D. Mure. Then he hurt for her loss, until he met Anna. Could it happen yet again? Did he even want it to?

  “And when we deliver the boat, you will be consoled with her,” Nia said with assumed confidence. “And I will have my worthwhile project, whatever it may be. Remember, the Good Magician promised, and it is evident that he has been tracking our progress all along. How else could he have placed those clues?”

  “It still seems like a lot of make-work just to deliver a boat,” he said. “Why didn’t he just have the new proprietors come pick it up at his Castle when they were ready? No need to break anyone’s heart in the process.”

  “This about that,” she said. “I never dealt with the Good Magician before this, but I know him by reputation. He’s old, grumpy, and often unfathomable, but his Answers always turn out in the end to make perfect sense. I doubt that this is any exception. There must be a reason for all this, I agree, seemingly pointless complexity.”

  Dell smiled. “You’re annoyed. I can tell.”

  “You know me as I know you,” she agreed. “We are two generations apart, but we share more values than just integrity. Similar things annoy us.”

  “They do,” he agreed, and slept as she held his hand. He remembered that Anna Sthesia’s talent was putting folk to sleep; she could have helped him similarly.

  Once Dell was safely asleep, Nia relaxed. She maintained assumed confidence in their mission and its outcome so as to reassure Dell, but she was deeply troubled. There were too many little or not so little things that simply did not make sense. Dell had asked good questions. She knew the Good Magician was grum
py, but she had never heard of him being dismissive of the lives or feelings of others. Why was he seemingly being that way now? About all she could say for their adventures aboard the boat was that it was a phenomenal education as they encountered every type of person or creature or problem. Why couldn’t they just deliver it without needless complications? Were their lives of so little value that they could be wasted in such manner? So yes, she was annoyed. She and Dell were both decent people, far from perfect but doing the best they could; they did not deserve to be thrown away.

  What would they find when the voyage finally ended? Would Dell actually find his ideal woman? One like Anna only better? Would Nia find her ideal project? It was hard to see how, given the seeming randomness of their experiences so far. For one thing, she had difficulty conceiving of a project better than what they had incidentally been doing with the boat, helping so many others along the way. Would the new proprietors even bother to make good social use of it?

  Finally she slept, still sitting beside him, holding his hand. She dreamed she was on a barge on a great river, carried downstream by the slow but powerful current. Not a river in Africa, she thought. Africa was a continent in dreary Mundania, where there was very little magic and things were intolerably dull. The big river there was, what was it called, the Mile? The Pile? The Vile? No, the Nile. She understood that it flooded every year, washing out the fields of the natives, but that also deposited rich sediment that helped them grow crops. So it was a mixed curse, somewhat in the manner of life, as the vicissitudes washed out plans and prior comforts, only to generate new ones that might be more important. But this was not that river, the dream informed her, so why was she barging helplessly down it?

  She pondered as she rode the alien water. She had heard of the not river, if she could only remember in what manner. What was not it? Now it seemed important that she remember and understand. The Nile, the Nile . . .

  Then she had it. De Nile. Denial. A pun. Denial was not a river in Africa. So what was it? The word meant a refusal to believe something that was unpleasant, even if it happened to be true. So it was not a river, but a psychological condition. Some folk liked to pretend that dragons did not eat people when they got the chance. That panties did not freak out men who glimpsed them. That ogres did not twist saplings into pretzel shapes or squeeze juice out of rocks. Maybe it made those folk feel better to be in those denials, but the phenomenon could be dangerous to themselves and others. More dangerous than a distant river. Only via a clear notion of reality could a person survive for long. Chance was a huge factor in life, but a realistic person could make more of the same configuration of goods and evils than could a person who refused to appreciate reality, who was in denial.