Five Portraits

  “A moctopus! The only ones I’ve heard of live on another planet, light-years away.”

  “That’s us. We were visiting Xanth as tourists, and, well, I got caught here. My folks are gone. I’m an orphan. So now I need to find a new family.”

  “I suspect the halflings on this island would like you. Can you imitate a mermaid?”

  Squid shifted into a girl with a green fish’s tail.

  “Marvelous. My wife was a mermaid before she got her land legs. She surely likes you.”

  “I do,” Mexine said.

  Astrid was buoyed. It was looking very good.

  “But there are chores to do here. Do you work well?”

  “I try,” Squid said.

  “Let’s find out. I dropped the Hopeless Diamond down the water well a few months ago, in a simple exercise of clumsiness. I believe it is poisoning the water we drink, making us feel hopeless. If we could get it out, things would be much improved. But the well is deep and we can’t reach the gem, and the bucket can’t get it from under the water. If we lower you into the well, do you think you could fetch it?”

  Squid didn’t hesitate. “Sure.”

  They went to the well. It was indeed deep, with a winch and bucket. The bottom was lost in darkness far below.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” Kandy said. “What if the rope breaks?”

  “I’ll emulate a snail and crawl back up,” Squid said. “I can do it.” She got into the bucket.

  Frank turned the winch handle, lowering the bucket into the well. Squid was just small enough to fit inside the narrow channel. Soon the bucket disappeared into the gloom, along with the child.

  “Oh, I feel claustrophobic!” Kandy said, shuddering. “It’s so tight and deep!”

  “She can handle it,” Astrid reassured her, though she did feel a quease herself.

  There was a faint splash from deep below. The bucket had struck the water.

  They waited several interminable moments. Squid was diving under the water, searching for what amounted to a single stone amidst whatever other debris was there, in darkness. Suppose she got stuck? She could drown, and they would be completely unable to help her.

  “Remember, the girl is competent in the water,” Fornax said. “She can glow in the dark, making what light she needs. This is just a routine point of public information.”

  Or so it was phrased. It was the Demoness’s way of letting her know, without violating any protocols. Squid was not in any trouble.

  Then there was a jerk on the rope. Squid was signaling that she was ready to come back up.

  Frank wound the winch. The rope went taut. It accumulated around the winch column as the load was hauled slowly up. At last the bucket came into sight, carrying Squid in moctopus form. A tentacle reached out, holding a huge bright blue diamond. She had found it!

  “Marvelous!” Moribund exclaimed, taking it. “I’ll put it safely away now. Heh.” He departed with the gem.

  “I believe he is taken with you, Squid,” Mexine said. “You have really helped. I’m not sure I credit that business of the diamond poisoning the water, but I do feel more hopeful now. So why don’t we set up the adoption?”

  Kandy was silent. She looked oddly pained, considering the success of their mission.

  “There is one thing,” Astrid said. “We will need to arrange to paint your family portrait. This has to do with saving Xanth from destruction.”

  “Well then, we’ll arrange it.”

  There was a fluttering of a large bird coming in for a landing. They all looked. It was a stork! With a bundle hanging from its beak. A tiny foot projected from it.

  “Special delivery for Mexine Mermaid,” the stork said. “If you will just sign this receipt.”

  Mexine stood with her mouth open, too astonished to speak.

  “That’s her,” Astrid said, indicating Mexine. “She didn’t expect you.”

  “I almost didn’t make it,” the bird said. “The island seemed hopelessly lost. I searched for days, and was about to return the baby to the home office as undeliverable. But suddenly the confusion cleared, and I came on in. It’s good to get the load off my beak.”

  “The Hopeless Diamond!” Kandy said. “It was poisoning the water!”

  “And once Squid got it out, the water cleared,” Astrid agreed. “Just in time.”

  “It must have been spreading from the well into the sea,” Kandy said. “Making the whole island seem like a loss. We felt the effect when we arrived.”

  Then they both paused. “Uh-oh,” Ease said. “Now they don’t need a child. They’ve got their own.”

  They all looked at Squid. She had rescued the diamond and abated its curse—and effectively nulled the prospect for her own adoption.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mexine said. “But I can’t handle two children. I’m a first-time mother.”

  “That’s all right,” Squid said bravely.

  Kandy reached out and silently enfolded her.

  Mexine finally went to sign the receipt and pick up her baby. It was a little girl, with legs rather than a tail. She had indeed made the transition to human mother.

  “Heh,” the baby said.

  They had to smile. It was clear who the father was.

  “Well, I didn’t see that coming,” Fornax said. “Of course I didn’t think to look.”

  “Let’s go on home,” Astrid said. What else was there to do?

  They walked back to the boat. They got in. Kandy became the board, and Ease started paddling back the way they had come. There was no sign of bad weather.

  “What happened?” Maddy asked from the water. “Why didn’t you leave the child?”

  “The stork arrived,” Squid told her.

  “Oh.” The mermaid faded back. What could she say?

  “This isn’t over,” Fornax said, and faded out herself.

  “Maybe not,” Squid agreed thoughtfully.

  After a time, Ease paused to rest. The board became Kandy. “I’ve been thinking,” Kandy said as they drifted. “Splashing through cool water is marvelous for contemplation. You children Communed.”

  “Yes,” Squid agreed.

  “And you got a direction for your adoption that led you to the island of Dr. Moron. I mean, Moribund.”

  “Yes.”

  “So why wasn’t that the right place?”

  “I don’t know,” Squid said. “It was pretty sure, until it changed.”

  “It was a paradox,” Astrid said. “Your presence there changed it. Your Communing isn’t sharp on paradox.”

  “I guess not,” Squid agreed.

  “When you went down that well,” Kandy said, “I feared awfully for you.”

  “I was safe enough.”

  “I know. But my feeling didn’t—It was almost as if—”

  No one else spoke. She had to come to it by herself.

  “As if you were my child,” Kandy continued. “I just couldn’t help being concerned.”

  “Yes,” Squid whispered.

  “And when Mexine said to set up the adoption, I thought my heart would break.”

  “You too?” Ease asked, surprised. “I know men aren’t supposed to get all squishy, so I didn’t say anything.”

  “You mean mushy,” Astrid said.

  “Whatever. It hurt.”

  “I didn’t want to give you up,” Kandy said. “But neither did I want to ruin your prospects, so I stifled it.”

  “Yeah,” Ease agreed.

  “Mexine and Doc M were perfect, and it’s a great island,” Squid said. “But I didn’t really want to do it. I didn’t want to be ungrateful, but I wasn’t sorry when the stork came.”

  “When I took Firenze to be adopted,” Astrid said, “it was much the same. The journey made me realize that I wanted him myself.”

  “Yes!” Kandy said. “I think what you did influenced me, Astrid, and not just because we’re friends. I realized that t
here were other prospects. And I want Squid.”

  “We want Squid,” Ease said.

  “And I want you,” Squid said. “You understand about changing forms, Aunt Kandy. And you’re so easygoing, Uncle Ease. You’ve always been good to me.”

  Kandy opened her arms. “Come here, dear.”

  Squid went to them. They tearfully hugged, rocking the boat. It was clear that another adoption had fallen into place.

  Fornax reappeared. “Now it’s over, at least what counts.”

  “Let’s get on home,” Astrid said. “Before anything else happens.”

  Kandy became the board, and Ease resumed briskly paddling.

  “I do so love a happy ending,” Fornax remarked to Astrid. “I wish I could have told you about what to expect, but there are very sharp limits on my behavior.”

  “We appreciate your incidental observations,” Astrid said. “Not that they influence us.” But she crossed her fingers.

  “I wish I could participate more directly. It’s quite an experience, placing these wonderful children.”

  “And it has enhanced our friendship. Just as Wenda Woodwife suggested.”

  “It has,” the Demoness agreed. “In all the time I’ve been watching you, I have not been bored once. Nervous, angry, relieved, but never bored.”

  “That’s what mortal life is like,” Kandy said. “We don’t live long enough to have time for real boredom.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “Well, we have souls.”

  “Your souls don’t make you unbored. They merely motivate you to care. Now I am coming to care, and becoming unbored.”

  “You told me how when Jumper Spider associated closely with several humans, some of their souls attached to him,” Astrid said. “So he developed a composite soul that served as well as an original one.”

  “True.”

  “Now you have associated closely with me and the children. You may be developing a similar soul.”

  “Why so I may,” Fornax agreed, surprised. “That would account for a lot.”

  Astrid smiled. “It will do.”

  “It will do, for now,” the Demoness agreed. “But of course the job is unfinished. Three children remain to be adopted. Once that is done, the doubt will abate, Xanth will be saved, and the boredom may return. I dread that.”

  “We’ll still like you, Aunt Fornax,” Squid said. “We know we owe a lot to you, and you’re nice, and so’s your castle.”

  “Thank you, dear.” There might have been a tear in the Demoness’s eye.

  Chapter 14:

  Win

  “So that’s how it worked out,” Astrid concluded. “Squid will be with Ease and Kandy. We are getting there.”

  “Now that we see how we can keep the children, instead of sending them away, maybe we don’t need to make more complicated journeys,” Tiara said. “Mitch and I like Win, and she likes us. We are compatible.”

  Indeed, the child was sitting with them, satisfied. “We can fly,” she announced.

  Astrid was surprised. “Tiara can float and you can blow, but that’s not the same as flying.”

  “We’ll show you,” Win said. She went to sit on Tiara’s lap. Tiara’s hair lengthened and spread below them, forming a kind of chair. They floated gently up.

  Then Win turned around to face Tiara. Her wind blew the woman backward. Then she squirmed around to sit behind Tiara, still on the woman’s bed of floating hair. Now her wind pushed the woman forward. “See? We’re flying!”

  The others nodded. “So you are,” Astrid agreed. “That’s a clever combination of your two talents. You are indeed compatible.”

  “Bleep!” Fornax muttered, and faded out.

  “Uh-oh,” Mitch said. “When she does that, it means there’s something she can’t tell us about.” He looked at the flying pair. “Better come down now, dears.”

  “But this is so much fun!” Win protested, blowing harder so that they sailed up to treetop level.

  “All the same,” Astrid called. “We’ve had a warning for caution.”

  “We’ll come down,” Tiara agreed.

  “Awww,” Win groaned.

  They began to settle toward the ground. But then an abrupt gust of wind caught them, blowing them higher. It wasn’t Win’s wind; it was swishing through the branches and stirring up leaves. It quickly increased, carrying them out over the tops of the trees and rapidly away.

  “Oh!” Tiara cried. “I can’t—” But the rest was lost in the roar of the sudden storm.

  She couldn’t come down, because they would crash. They were going too fast, and out of control in gale-force winds. Win could blow, but she couldn’t stop this from blowing them away.

  Astrid looked up. There was a malignant cloud face. “Fracto!”

  “Oh, bleep!” Kandy swore. “He must have been waiting to pounce. This is more anonymous interference.”

  “To stop the adoption,” Astrid agreed. “Stopping any one of the five will be enough to doom Xanth.”

  “I’ve got to rescue them!” Mitch said.

  “Not by yourself,” Kandy warned. “There is more here than a mean-spirited cloud. Even if you could catch up to them, they are likely to be forces beyond your resources.”

  “But I love them!”

  What could they say? The case seemed hopeless.

  Fornax appeared. “This of course has no relevance to the problem at hand, but I have restored the Sequins of Events dress. It’s purely a guess, but I suspect that certain parties are being taken to a site that just happens to be keyed in by one of the sequins. Experimenting with the dress might, purely by chance, put a person there. Not that this is of any present interest.” She faded.

  “Well, now,” Mitch said, understanding perfectly. The empowered dress had some remarkable properties that had given their group quite an adventure on the way to eliminating the anti-pun virus. Knowing its properties made all the difference.

  Astrid delved into her belongings and found the dress. Sure enough, the sequins on it were bright with energy. She quickly changed into it. “I think it is you and me,” she said to Mitch.

  “Yes. We do know how to do this.” He squatted before her and took hold of a sequin. He pulled it off.

  The dress became translucent, showing the outline of her legs and panties. But Mitch had closed his eyes, avoiding any freakout. Blindly, he replaced the sequin.

  “Farewell!” Kandy called.

  Then they were at a new location. They looked around. Astrid knew immediately it was another planet. “Alpha Centauri,” she said. “Where the centaurs set up their independent society.” They had helped rescue the centaurs from Fornax’s clutches. How Astrid’s perspective had changed on that!

  “They won’t be here,” Mitch said. “Fracto can’t blow across worlds.”

  “I agree. Let’s move on before we have to explain things to the centaurs.”

  He picked off another Sequin, eyes closed, and her dress did its trick. Astrid was glad that at least she had good legs; bad ones would have been even more embarrassing. He replaced it.

  Now they were in a bustling office with video screens all around. “I don’t remember this,” Mitch said.

  “Neither do I,” Astrid agreed. “Could it be from a sequin we didn’t use before?”

  “I thought we used them all.”

  “So did I.”

  Then a wall charged into them. They passed though it, and found themselves on a windswept plain.

  “The Cloud!” Mitch explained. “It’s moving. It just moved on past us.”

  “The Cloud,” Astrid agreed. They had been caught in an electronic cloud infected by a virus, and had had a time getting it clear. “Are Tiara and Win likely to be here?”

  He considered. “I suppose it’s possible. But this isn’t the same kind of cloud as Fracto. I doubt they would get along.”

  “So do I. This is more Com Pewter’s kind
of cloud.”

  “So let’s move on, and hope we’re right.”

  “Let’s move on,” she agreed.

  He squatted to remove another sequin.

  After a moment, Astrid looked down. “Oh, bleep,” she muttered. He had forgotten to close his eyes as the sequin came off. He had seen her panties and freaked out. She put one hand down to shield his eyes, then snapped the fingers of her other hand. “Wake.”

  Mitch revived. “What happened?”

  “Close your eyes. You saw too much, and freaked.”

  “Oh. I would have thought I’d become partway immune by now. I mean, I’ve been with Tiara.”

  “My anatomy is new to you.”

  “That must be it.” He closed them, then found her dress and pinned the sequin back on.

  The scene changed. Now they were in a forest near a cave. “Com Pewter’s cave,” Astrid said. “They couldn’t be here, for fear Pewter would return.”

  “Not a very good hiding place,” he agreed.

  They did another sequin. This time the scene was of an island amidst other islands, all fairly pleasant. “I don’t recognize this,” Mitch said.

  “I do. It’s where we found Tiara, locked in her tower, before we encountered you.”

  “Tiara,” he echoed. “So this is where she came from.”

  “Yes. There’s her tower on the other side of the island.”

  “Her tower.” He seemed bemused.

  “I don’t believe she wants to return here. Not without you.”

  “I wonder: could she have been put back in her tower? That would prevent her from returning to us.”

  “Not since she learned how to use her hair to float. But if they barred the windows, maybe so.”

  “We’d better check.”

  They walked along the path to the tower. There at the base was a pretty girl. “Tiara!” Mitch cried.

  She turned to look at them. It was not Tiara. Her figure was similar, but her hair was way too neat. “Who are you?” the woman asked.

  “I’m Mitch. I—I’m looking for Tiara.”

  “So am I. I’m Cry, her sister. She has disappeared. It’s awful.” She started to cry.

  Astrid put together the likely pun: Cry Sis, who cried in a crisis. The pun virus had not passed by here. Still, there was an issue. “Didn’t you lock her in the tower?” Astrid asked sharply.