“Because complete siblings can’t be boyfriends or girlfriends,” Noe said. “It’s mostly a pose for Santo and me, though we do like each other, but it could be real for you and Firenze.”
Ula paused, visibly digesting that. She made no further protest.
Squid appreciated why. Just as Myst wanted a real boyfriend, so did Ula. So what if they were children; they would not remain so forever.
The three proceeded on through the tunnel, which led directly to Astrid Basilisk’s house, and remained after they exited it. Santo knocked on the door. In half a moment it opened and the lovely veiled basilisk stood there.
“Why, hello, Santo,” she said. “What brings you three here?”
“We need Firenze to rejoin the siblings,” Santo said.
The veil frowned. “We’d be happy to have him join you. But I don’t think he wants to. It’s not that he wouldn’t love your company; it’s the fire hazard.”
“I hope to persuade him,” Ula said.
The veil frowned again. “If anyone could, you could, Ula. He likes you. But I’m not sure anyone can. He’s been depressed lately, and irritable, and argumentative. We have had to fireproof our house, and even so, there have been burns.”
“I will try,” Ula said. “I may have new abilities.”
“Aunt Fornax,” Astrid said knowingly. “I will bring him down in a moment.” She disappeared into the house.
In exactly a moment Firenze appeared. “What do you want?” he demanded grumpily as his ears reddened. Irritable? He was well on the way to a burn.
Ula stepped forward. She kissed him on the cheek. His head cooled visibly.
“You cooled my head!” he said, astonished. “But that’s not your talent.”
“I have been upgraded. So have you. Let’s get private so we can discuss it.” She took his hand.
“Santo, let’s admire some scenery,” Noe said, taking his hand.
Santo suffered himself to be led. “Can’t tell a girl no,” he explained. “They don’t take it well.”
“If she can lead you, Ula can certainly lead me,” Firenze said, bemused.
“This way,” Ula said, drawing him along.
They stopped at a fallen tree. Ula sat down, guiding him to sit next to her.
“What’s going on?” he demanded. “You show up here unannounced, and you’ve got new magic.”
“You know the source.”
“And what’s this about me being upgraded too? I don’t feel any different.”
“Something big is about to happen, and it seems that we children will be in the center of it, so we need to prepare. Firenze, we need you on the boat. For a sibling conference.”
“I can’t go there. I’d burn it up. You know that.”
“Not any more, I think.”
“Yes, anymore! I was always a hothead, and now I’m getting worse.” Indeed, his head was reddening again.
She leaned forward and kissed his cheek again. He cooled.
“I can keep you cool. But I must warn you—”
“That you can’t keep doing it forever. I know. Much as I like having you kiss my cheek.”
“You admit it!” she said, pleased.
“I do. No girl ever gave a blip about me before, not once she saw me heat. You’re different. You know I’m a hothead, and you’re still nice to me. Maybe it’s all an act to get me on the boat, but I’d be satisfied to have you kissing me more.”
“It’s an act,” she agreed. “To get you on the boat. But it doesn’t have to be. But that’s what I have to warn you about. If I kiss your mouth, you’ll love me, at least for a while. So don’t let me do that.”
“Why not? You could kiss me and tell me what to do, and save all this dialogue.”
“Because it wouldn’t be fair. You need to make your own decisions, not be coerced into them. I like you too well to mess you up like that.”
He considered. “Kiss me on the mouth.”
“Firenze, I told you—”
She was cut off as he kissed her on the mouth.
“Oh, my,” he said as it broke. “You weren’t kidding.”
“Neither about the kiss nor the fairness,” she said. “I want to talk you into joining us, not kiss you into it.”
“I wanted to know whether it was true. It is. Now I want to know why. Sure, maybe there’s something big. But that doesn’t mean I need to be aboard the boat. Sure, maybe you like me a little. But you shouldn’t have to nursemaid me full time. What’s really going on, Ula?”
“I don’t know. But if it’s important enough for Aunt Fornax to upgrade us all, and for her to come with us on the boat—”
“For her to what?”
“This is secret, but you have to know, all of us do. Fornax will be with us, hosted by one of us, I don’t know whom.”
“But she’s not allowed to—”
“Yes she is. She made a deal with Demon Xanth.”
“Oh, a Demon bet.”
“I’m not sure it is. I think she’ll be with us to make sure we don’t get hurt, because she loves us. That makes me wonder what kind of threat it could be.”
He nodded. “We’d better cooperate. Okay, tell me about these upgradings.”
“I can be quite persuasive now.”
“You are persuading me!”
“And I can cool you, with my kiss or my hands. And if I—”
“Yes, you demonstrated that. I feel it slowly fading, but I do love you. What’s my upgrade?”
“You can control it. I think that means you can heat your head without being mad, or cool it when you are.”
“Let me see.” He sat still while his head reddened and radiated heat. “Yes! I’m not mad, but I’m doing it. And I guess it should work the other way, for cooling. This is great! It means I can be safe now.”
“Yes. And you can heat your hands too.”
“My hands! I never could do that. Just my head. And usually not by my choice.”
“Hot hands. Try it.”
He picked up a twig and held it as he concentrated. His hands did not redden, but in a moment the twig burst into flame. “Wow!”
She put her hand on his. “And I can cool it.”
His hand immediately cooled.
“Do you know what this means, Ula? I can join you on the boat! And I think I’d like to do that. Except that I don’t really know you. You’ve got a pretty face, and pretty knees under that skirt, but how do I know you aren’t just playing me?”
Ula quickly closed her knees. “I’m sorry. I dressed nice to impress you, but I didn’t mean to do it that way.”
“How can I be sure of that? You set out to impress me, and you are certainly doing that. But as I said, no girl before you ever gave me blip. How can I be sure you mean it?”
Tears trekked down Ula’s face. Astrid had said he was argumentative. How could Ula deal with that? Squid feared that this was coming apart after all, because the boy just couldn’t accept what he was learning. “I don’t know. If you won’t take my word, what will you take?”
“And tears are a girl’s best weapon. I think I love you, but I don’t think I can afford to believe you.”
“And I can’t blame you for doubting me. Maybe if you knew me better, and I knew you better, then we could really trust each other. But as it is, we can’t.”
He pondered briefly. “I’ve known you peripherally for years, Ula, as sort of a background character. I don’t have any reason to distrust you. But I know so little about you, really! Maybe if we exchanged histories, we could judge better.”
“Maybe,” Ula said without real hope. “What’s yours?”
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, Squid thought.
“No. Tell me yours first. Most of what I know about you is that you were there on the boat when t
he first siblings arrived. What about before? I don’t think you’ve talked about that.”
“I haven’t talked about it because it’s so boringly dull. I don’t want to bore you.”
“Bore me.”
She shrugged. “If you insist. I was just a dull girl with a minor talent of sort of helping folk in ways they didn’t expect, like having an extra sandwich for lunch when a friend forgot hers, or finding a piece of wire to fix a broken handle before I knew it was broken. It hardly even seemed like magic, and hardly anybody noticed anyway. My parents took care of me, but weren’t really good at child caring, as they had lives of their own; I was mostly in the way. So I spent a lot of time alone, not being worth anyone’s real interest. I was a background character, and still am.” She paused. “Am I boring you yet?”
“No. Your knees drifted apart again.”
“Oops! Sorry.” She snapped them closed. “Now am I boring you?”
Squid wondered whether the knee drifting really had been unconscious, or whether Firenze really cared.
“Not yet. What changed?”
“One day we were walking home from a sheet harvesting trip, as some really nice ones had grown overnight, when Mother spied an adorable little creature. She picked it up and showed it to Father—and it exploded in their faces, wiping them out. I learned later it was an abombinabowl that existed to do just that; tempt a person into picking it up so it could detonate. It was a really nasty thing. It didn’t get me because I was too far away, but I lost both my parents. Next thing I knew I was sent to the School of Hard Knocks, which was the local orphanage. I hated it from the start.”
“Why?”
“That’s pretty dull to tell.”
“Tell.”
Ula shrugged. “The first thing the headmistress told me was to behave, or else. I didn’t dare ask what that meant because she was so forbidding. Then she put me in a dormitory where the older children exclaimed ‘Fresh meat!’ and picked on me mercilessly. When I tried to fight back, they threw me in the Cess Pool out back, where cess weeds made an awful stink. I choked, hardly able to breathe, while they laughed. I staggered back to the dorm, but the headmistress intercepted me, hosed me off, then punished me for not behaving and for making a nuisance of myself. She punished me by standing me up against a wall and whipping my back, giving me one long welt. I cried because it hurt something awful, and the other children called me a crybaby. Then I was put to bed without supper, which was how they dealt with nuisances. That was my first day.”
She paused again. “I don’t have to continue, if it’s too dull. I’m not proud of my history; that’s why I don’t like to talk about it.”
Indeed, Squid was appalled. She had had no idea Ula had been treated like that. She had never spoken of it to the siblings.
“Continue,” Firenze said tightly.
“Next day I got through breakfast well enough; it was thin gruel, but better than going hungry. For lunch they passed out sandwiches, and I got a good one. But before I could eat it a boy demanded it. When I refused, because I was hungry, he picked me up and threw me back in the Cess Pool. Then the headmistress showed up and punished me for misbehaving again, and I got a second welt on the back. This time I managed not to cry, but they still teased me cruelly. They told me that every year a maiden was sacrificed to the local dragon who guarded the orphanage, and the one with the most welts was the one chosen for that honor. I was now tied for most, as the other children were more savvy about misbehaving.
“That night I made up my mind to escape. I waited until the others were asleep, then sneaked out. I didn’t care where I went, just so long as it was far away from the orphanage. And I got lost in the swamp. When morning came I was cold and wet and in fear of the dragon. All I could do was stand there in the muck and cry. A passing mermaid saw me. She told the crew of the flying fire sail boat, who were actually looking for someone else, and they picked me up. They were going to take me back to the orphanage, but I pleaded with them not to, and they voted to keep me as a visitor. All except Grania, who was then in her sixty-year-old form. But she didn’t seem to really mind being overruled, and really I liked her best of all. She was like a mother to me, and she treated me very well.
The boat was actually run by two animals. One was a kind of talking bird, called the pet peeve, and the other a robot dogfish who walked on land. He didn’t talk, but was very smart, and the peeve spoke for him. Then the siblings came, three of them anyway, and they were okay too. One was a boy who could make tunnels; another was a girl who was really a sort of octopus, but she was nice too. She was my age, and I always liked her. The third was a girl whose talent was to always have the wind at her back, blowing her hair forward around her face, but that was useful for blowing the boat forward.”
Squid appreciated that Ula liked her; she liked Ula too.
“So I’ve been there ever since, and I love it. Sometimes Princess Kadence visits me from the future, and she’s nice too. I wish I was a sibling, but I’m not, and that’s the way it is. My only fear is what happens when I grow up and have to leave the fire boat and go out on my own. I dread that, because I have no idea how to make it in life.” She took a breath. “And that’s my story. As you can see, it’s not much, because I’m not much.”
“May I see your welts?”
Ula was startled. “They’ve faded some now, but they’re not pretty.” She turned away from him, then removed her blouse to expose her back.
He looked, and so did Squid. In all the years she had associated with Ula, she had never seen her bare back. The welts were indeed there, two stripes from shoulders to waist. The girl had not been exaggerating; those must have hurt fiercely when inflicted. Which, Squid realized, was the point; Firenze was verifying that the story she had told him was true.
“Thank you.”
Ula put her blouse back on and turned around to face him. “So if that turns you off, well, now you know. You called me pretty, but I don’t usually show my ugly part.”
“I don’t think you have any ugly part.”
She laughed. “You’re being polite, but I appreciate it.”
“How do you feel about me, Ula? I know you were sent to persuade me to come to the boat, so we could have a sibling conference, and you are doing a competent job. But apart from that business, how?”
She shrugged. “I guess you don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to. But I sort of liked you before, and now I like you better. Maybe it’s because you are treating me with a respect I maybe don’t deserve. I’m supposed to try to get you to be my boyfriend, and make you my dancing partner, though I suspect you’d prefer a girl your own age. You’re almost adult, and I’m just a child. But for what little it’s worth, I think you’re nice, and I wish we could be together, and not just because I kissed you.”
“But I’m a hothead!”
“I can handle that, literally, remember.”
Firenze pondered briefly, then changed the subject. “Now I will tell you my story.” He began, and Squid tuned in on what he was saying and saw it as it must have happened. She had never known her brother’s background, and was fascinated.
Firenze had always been a difficult child, but his parents were amazingly tolerant. They constantly bailed him out of the trouble he got into because of his hotheadedness, and moved to new areas when he alienated too many folk in the old areas. They hoped he would straighten out in time.
The problem was his temper. When he got mad, as he often did, his head heated, and little rockets would fly out and explode like fireworks. That did stop anyone from bullying him; all he had to do was butt them with his red-hot head to send them howling. But it also meant he couldn’t keep a friend, and of course no girl would touch him. So he was lonely, though too proud to admit it.
Then something changed. Not in him, but in the Land of Xanth. Something was seriously wrong.
“W
hat’s going on?” Firenze demanded when he saw how glum his folks were. “Did I do something really really bad?”
“No, son,” Dad said. “This is worse that that.”
Firenze laughed. “Worse than me blowing my top? That’s a laugh.”
“No, dear,” Mom said. “It is not remotely funny.”
They were serious. “Can I help? I know I’m just a ten-year-old kid, but if there’s anything I can do to help you out, I’d like to try.”
Mom and Dad exchanged a sad glance. Then Mom spoke. “He deserves to know. It affects him too.”
Dad nodded. “Son, it is political in origin, but it seems to have gone too far to reverse or even to stop. There are many alternate realities. That is, other Xanths, each differing from ours by only a second or so, very similar up close. The next door Xanth surely has a family just like ours, with a boy very like you. But the farther you go, if you could just walk across them, the more different they become, until at last they are not at all like the one we know. The different realities were protected from each other by the underlying laws of magic. But recently something happened in an alternate reality, one slightly more advanced than ours, at least physically, with stronger magic, and they discovered how to cross the boundaries.”
“They can walk across and see the changes?” Firenze asked, amazed. “That must be fun!”
“Perhaps. But it seems that’s not enough. They have too many people and want to expand into new territory. They have decided that our reality is a good one to expand into.”
“They’re going to visit?”
“They’re going to invade. They expect to take our land and make us servants. We can’t stop them; we don’t have the resources. All we can do is pool all our magic and use it to destroy them as they come. It’s called MAD: Mutual Assured Destruction. It won’t save us, but it will stop them so that they don’t bother any other realities.”
“I’ll fight for us,” Firenze said. “I’ll burn them!”
“They will have another Firenze, one stronger than you. You can’t fight him.”
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