Skeleton Key

by Piers Anthony

“But then what can I do?”

  Now Mom spoke. “You can escape, son.”

  “And leave you here to be enslaved or destroyed? Never!”

  Dad shook his head. “The elders have hashed it out. All we can hope is to save some of the children. There is a cable car line that extends across the realities. We will put you on a cable car, and you can ride to the end, where maybe you’ll be beyond the reach of the invaders, and safe.”

  Firenze was appalled. “But—”

  “It has been decided, son. We love you, and if you love us, you will agree to let us try to save you. Before the MAD battle begins.”

  “But—”

  “We can’t go with you. Only children can go, beneath the radar, as it were. Adults would overload the reality framework and break the cable.”

  “But—”

  “We don’t have much time, dear,” Mom said. “We can only hope that you will find a new family to take care of you and love you the way we do.”

  And that was it. They put him on the cable car, and it carried him out of his home reality while they stayed bravely behind. He knew he would never see them again. He tried not to show his tears.

  He looked out the windows of the car and saw the terrain slowly changing, subtly but definitely. Every so often the car paused at a station. He did not get off, heeding the instruction to ride to the end of the line.

  But then came a station where two women waited. He thought maybe they wanted to join him in the car, and ride to safety, though they were adult. When the car touched the ground, one of them stepped up to open the door. “All out,” she said.

  He obeyed, because he automatically heeded an adult, especially one as beautiful as this. “Is this the end?”

  “Not exactly, but it will do. This lady will take you home with her.”

  He looked at the other woman. She was veiled, with dark glasses, but even lovelier than the other. Her beauty simply radiated out around and through the veil. Firenze knew that if he had happened to be a man instead of a boy, he could have been transfixed.

  But he knew better than to get off here. He tried to get back on the car, but they blocked him, and the car swung up and away without him. That made him mad, and his head heated, and the little rockets flew out and detonated.

  “Behave yourself,” the veiled woman said. When he refused, she removed her glasses, closed one eye, and glanced momentarily at him.

  He was stunned, literally. Only then did he realize that she was a deadly basilisk in human form. Her gaze with both eyes would kill him; her glance with one merely stunned him. If he wanted to live, he had to obey.

  After that they kept him while four other children arrived on succeeding cars, a boy and three girls. Then they took all five children back to their own reality with them. As far as he knew, they were the only ones to survive the loss of their reality.

  “Those were Demoness Fornax, and Astrid Basilisk,” he concluded. “Aunt Fornax adopted Santo, and Astrid adopted me. I can’t look her in the eye, but I love her and am glad she took me home. She saved my life.”

  “They saved all five siblings,” Ula agreed. “They are good people.”

  “They are.” He looked at her. “Now for us.”

  “Us? Why do I suspect you have more on your mind than chatting?”

  “Mother Astrid and Aunt Fornax worked together from the outset to rescue us, and they and their friends have taken excellent care of us despite the challenge of handling a literal hothead, a gay boy, an alien cuttlefish, a child of wind, and a girl who can dissolve into mist at any time. Now I think they want something more of us, and we have little choice but to oblige.”

  “But I’m not one of the siblings,” Ula protested. “I’m just an also ran.”

  “But you owe the folk of Fibot similarly.”

  “I do,” Ula agreed. “Without them I’d be dead.”

  “As would we all, without our patrons. And maybe that’s the point. I think Astrid, Fornax, and the proprietors of the fire boat got together and decided that you and I should become a couple. They have some kind of huge mission to accomplish, and they need it to be handled by children, and they want the siblings united, and me to be under control. That’s your job, and I appreciate that you can do it, if you want to.”

  “I don’t want to control you. I want to be with you.”

  “Yes. They want to be sure you stay close to me. I think you are the only girl I can safely be with, because I can’t burn you, and you have had a rough enough life so that you truly understand what it is like to lose your family and fear for your future.”

  “Yes,” Ula breathed. “I’m just sorry I can’t be all the way pretty for you.”

  “Because of the welts?”

  “Yes.”

  “They are the best part of you. They are like burns, and I have seen plenty of those. They are proof of what you have been through. I hate that you had to suffer getting beaten, but I love what those marks make you.”

  She gazed at him. “They don’t turn you off?”

  “They turn me on, in their fashion. My hot head doesn’t turn you off?”

  “Oh, no, not at all. It is part of what you are, like no one else. And your power of heat, well, it makes me feel safe, because I think you would burn anyone who threatened me.”

  “I would!”

  She considered briefly. “You know, Nia, back when she was old Grania, told me once that what she most needed in her life was to be needed. Dell needed her, and that fulfilled her. I thought about it, and realized that so do I. My talent is to be useful in unexpected ways, but that’s incidental. What I long for is to be permanently useful to someone. To be truly needed. But I don’t expect that to happen. I’m just a nothing girl.”

  “I need you,” Firenze said. “That’s the unexpected thing. You’re not nothing to me. With you I feel complete, not so much of a freak.”

  “You’re not a freak!”

  “Not when I’m with you, Ula. I feel almost normal, for almost the first time. You sustain me.”

  There was a tear in her eye. “That’s just about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “Then since we are supposed to be a couple, for this mission, let’s be a true one. Kiss me.”

  “But that—”

  “It is where I’m going anyway, and I think your kiss magic makes little if any difference now. I think I love you.”

  “Oh, Firenze!” But still she hesitated. “I am four years younger than you. Too young to love. You don’t need a child for a girlfriend.”

  “Girls generally mature faster than boys, and there are individual differences. By the look of you, you’re no more of a child than I am, and I think you will mature physically about the same time I do. Mentally, you’re already close. Emotionally, closer yet.”

  “I suppose,” she agreed uncertainly.

  Squid, watching, agreed. He was on the verge of manhood, and she was on the verge of womanhood. He was actually pretty handsome when not heating his head, and she was already verging on lovely.

  “We each fear our future,” he continued. “We don’t want to be alone again. But maybe we can make our own future, together, completing each other.”

  “Yes,” she breathed. “Oh Firenze. I think I love you, too.” Her orange hair and eyes seemed to be turning golden. “I would give anything for us to be like Dell and Nia, always sure of each other.”

  “We shall be.”

  He took her in his arms, and they kissed. Little hearts flew out and orbited them. After most of a moment they paused and gazed at the hearts. Then they both smiled, realizing that it was true.

  They were children, but they were in love. They were not, after all, too young.

  Squid felt tears in her eyes. She let the vision go, satisfied that she needed to know no more of it. Ula’s assignment was don
e, but it was way more than that.

  But she realized something else; each of the siblings was being paired off with a native Xanthian, as if being anchored here. Firenze and Ula, Squid herself with Larry, Myst with Piton Bone, Santo with Noe, even though that was a temporary convenience. All except Win. But Win was now fast friends with Data Bone, and the two were always together. In due course they would surely go boy-hunting together. Was it coincidence, this pairing of the siblings, or did it mean something? She could not be sure that it didn’t.

  There was also just a touch of envy. Firenze and Ula had found love, and Piton and Myst might be getting there, but what of Squid herself? She was dating a boy who was really a girl. Where was the future in that?

  “Blip,” she swore to herself.

  Chapter 4

  Challenge

  “Squid.”

  She alerted immediately to the sound of her spoken name. It was Santo. She tuned in on him. He was resting on his bed in his room in Fibot.

  “Don’t come to me,” he said before she could move. “I am merely alerting you. Larry is about to tackle the challenges of entry to the Good Magician’s Castle. He is not speaking your name, but Laurelai is thinking of you, and you can tune in on that. You need to track them until they meet with Humfrey.”

  She knew that he was receiving information from Fornax, which eased the uncanny impression his information made. “Okay,” Squid said aloud, though she realized as she spoke that she didn’t need to. Her awareness of the others was supposed to be a private thing. She remained uncertain why she needed to poke into other folks’ business, and was sometimes embarrassed by it, but it seemed there was a reason.

  She focused on Larry, and sure enough she was on his mind. She had kissed him when they parted, and though he was really a girl inside, he remembered. She suspected it was because there was some male reaction in the male body, and being kissed by a girl stirred that up regardless of his nature. In fact Laurelai had said that she avoided advancing her age beyond puberty because she didn’t like the male notions the body got. She doubted that the visiting Fornax would like them either.

  At any rate, now Squid was there, observing.

  Larry was alone, at least physically; Laurelai and Squid didn’t count. He marched toward the castle, and abruptly came across a wall he hadn’t seen before. Squid knew he hadn’t seen it, because she hadn’t; it had appeared in that instant to bar his passage.

  He contemplated it, aware that it had to be the first of the three Challenges. Every challenge was passable; the visitor merely had to figure out how. Often they related in some way to the situation of the visitor, but that connection could be obscure. Squid had never undertaken the challenges herself, but gossip about them was common and she had heard plenty of that. Larry/Laurelai had to know the basics, or he/she would not have come here. Squid decided to simplify him in her mind as male, for this purpose.

  The wall contained five doorways, all open portals to the continuation of the landscape beyond. Four were blocked by people; the fifth was empty. The question had to be which one led safely through. There was a scintillating curtain across each portal, with the people standing just beyond it. That could be magical or electrical, and surely would mess up any unauthorized person who tried to cross it.

  Larry nodded to himself. He approached the first portal, where an attractive almost-young woman stood. She had black hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. “Hello, fair maiden,” he said.

  “Hello, halfway handsome boy,” she replied.

  So the folk of this challenge spoke. That helped, perhaps.

  “Our hair and eyes almost match.”

  “Almost,” she agreed.

  “I am known as Larry, though my real name is Laurelai. I am twelve years old.”

  “You look like Larry.”

  “May I ask your name?”

  “You may.”

  Larry smiled. She had answered his question. “What is your name?”

  “I am Zuzana.”

  “And your age?”

  “Thirty-three.”

  Old enough to be his mother. That did look about right, Squid thought.

  “My talent is changing my age, so I don’t have to stay twelve, though it is an effort to change far or long. What is yours?”

  “I can change places with other people, when I choose.”

  “Physically?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you do it from far away?”

  “No, only when they are close, when I can see them clearly. Distance interferes with my accuracy.”

  “Thank you, Zuzana.” He stepped to the next portal.

  Squid was surprised. All he wanted to do was chat briefly? But maybe he was learning what he could, the better to figure out the best way through. That was sensible. Larry was coming across as a pretty sensible guy, or maybe it was Laurelai who brought the more mature female perspective to it.

  The second doorway had a solid young man. “Hello.”

  “Hello,” the man replied.

  “I am Larry, with the talent of changing my physical age from twelve to something else, for a while. Who are you, and what is your talent?”

  “I am Philip. I can see other places in my mind. I can even show them to other people.” A picture flashed over his head, of a tree by a pond.

  “That’s neat. Can you go to them, sort of the way Zuzana can?”

  “No. I just see them. But I can see them from much farther away. They don’t have to be close.”

  “I guess when you’re bored you just look at something interesting.”

  “Yes. Like a nude beach.”

  Larry smiled. Squid doubted Laurelai was much interested in that sort of thing, but she was being sociable. She was good at it.

  He went on to the third portal and introduced himself to the middle-aged man there. “And you?”

  “I am Tomas. My talent is to change people’s moods.”

  “Oh? Can you change mine?”

  “I could, but I’m not supposed to, because that would interfere with your challenge.”

  Larry nodded. “That makes sense. Thank you for explaining.”

  “You’re welcome. I hope you make it through, even if it is my job to balk you or at least not to help you figure it out.”

  “Thank you. I know you have your job to do, just as I have mine. We’re like players on opposite teams.”

  “That’s a nice analogy,” Tomas said.

  Larry went on to the fourth portal, and introduced himself again.

  “I am Edvard,” the portly man said. “My talent is creating food from thin air. What would you like?”

  “I’m not sure I am allowed to eat while tackling the challenge. Would that disqualify me?”

  Edvard laughed. “Not at all! You can eat all you want, and stay as long as you like. You just can’t pass the challenge unless you figure out how.”

  “I see. In that case, how about a chocolate cupcake?”

  The man lifted his hand and made a little conjuring motion. There was a swirl like a miniature storm, and a piece of chocolate formed, condensing from the air. It was in the shape of a cup, of course.

  Edvard extended it, and Larry reached for it. They touched at the curtain. There was a flash, and the cup was in his hand.

  He took a bite from the rim. “Excellent chocolate.”

  “Thank you.”

  Larry went on to the fifth portal, continuing to eat his cake. He touched the curtain with a finger. It flashed, evidently shocking him, because he jerked his hand back in a hurry. There was no passing through that portal.

  Squid wondered what Larry was going to do. He had chatted companionably with the four folk here, getting to know them, but how was that going to get him past this challenge? Squid didn’t see how. It was supposed to be tuned to the challenger’s n
ature, so maybe she just wasn’t properly understanding it. She hoped he was doing better figuring it out than she was.

  Larry finished the cupcake and walked back to the first portal. There was the black-haired woman. She was more than twice his age, but attractive enough in her way.

  “Hello again, Zuzana,” Larry said.

  “Hello again, Larry.”

  “Philip showed me a pretty scene. Tomas helped clarify the nature of the challenge. Edvard gave me a tasty chocolate cupcake. You gave me nothing except a friendly greeting. Would it be inappropriate to ask a favor of you?”

  She frowned. “That depends on the favor.”

  “A kiss.”

  She was surprised. “Why would you want a kiss from an older woman? You’re a child.”

  “I think it would be a special experience for me. I am still a boy, yes; no one has kissed me in the man and woman style. You are older, but still an attractive woman. You surely know how to do it better than I do. I can learn from you. I would like to have it to remember you by.”

  Zuzana gazed at him, taking stock. Squid realized that he had paid her a compliment, and a woman noticed. Larry had complimented Squid similarly when they had met, calling her pretty. She was pretty, thanks to her enhancement, but still she remembered with pleasure.

  However, inside Larry was Laurelai. Why would she compliment a woman? Why would she want a kiss from a woman? This wasn’t making much sense.

  Zuzana decided. “All right. Approach the screen. We can touch only at the boundary.”

  Larry stepped close to the screen. Zuzana stood directly opposite him. They were of similar height. Both leaned forward so that their lips could touch. They kissed.

  Something happened. Zuzana appeared outside the portal, while Larry appeared inside it. Larry instantly jumped away and disappeared beyond the wall.

  “Hey!” Zuzana cried. “What happened?”

  “We switched places,” Larry answered from out of sight. “Thank you for getting me through.”

  “But I didn’t mean to do that!” she protested. “Something odd startled me, and I changed places involuntarily.”

  “Yes. Thank you again.”