Fire Sail Read online

  Selene welcomed Nan, recognizing her potential, and willingly taught her the facts of life with respect to being or becoming a Demoness. She also lectured her regarding the concepts of heroism and courage. Thusly armed, Nan traveled again, this time to the site of No Name Key in Mundane Florida, and transited to Xanth.

  The Demon Xanth, alerted to her arrival, recognized her currently adolescent potential to become a Major Concept Demon someday, not really of Magic, but of Technology. The two concepts became close to identical at a high enough level of elaboration. He saw in her a kindred spirit, at times something like a baby sister. Sometimes Nan would chafe under his supervision, remarking at times to those who asked her to bend the rules “I can’t do that. Big Brother is watching me.” But overall she was absolutely glad of it, because this was the low realization of her potential that would otherwise be lost.

  But the Demon Xanth had other things to do, and could not let her monopolize his attention. He suggested to her that his land of Xanth was the ideal place for a Demoness-in-Training, and designated the lesser Demon Grossclout as her mentor and minder. Nan rapidly understood how everything in Xanth was built from puns instead of the atoms of Mundania, and learned to construct things using either or both as building blocks. This intricate ability impressed Grossclout enough to appoint her as his teaching assistant, someone to mind his classroom during his occasional absences.

  Nan was not the overbearing type like her mentor; she was quieter and gentler, but she could be firm with her students through the use of her sweetly patronizing reason alone. She came across as a young adult Irish lass with a razor-sharp intellect and a wicked sense of puns. She was actually a more effective teacher than Grossclout because she could approach the students at their own level with a patience he almost never had. With her in charge they did labs rather than lectures, learning by doing and building. They found this a lot more fun than listening to the professor’s ponderous and boring lectures.

  Nan at seventeen kept her figure and her assets very slim and slight, just to place men at ease with her rather than being interested in her. No mortal could possibly meet her standards of intellect, and she didn’t want to lead anyone on. She was actually subconsciously half in love with Grossclout. He realized this—it was a common enough affliction of his female students—but would not return her feelings because she was his student and it would be unethical. Had that not been the case, he would have found her most interesting. She knew that the only way she might ever marry him was to grow to his level: no easy thing.

  It was here that she encountered the Demoness Metria, a small d demon who was more mistress than substance, who liked to audit Grossclout’s classes and mess them up. For some reason the professor generally tolerated this, though sometimes she put her feet up on a desk and let her short skirt slide back to expose her marvelous thighs and hellishly suggestive panties. These might sport large polka dots, with no material inside the dots. Then Nan realized that he might tolerate it not in spite of, but because of those panties. They did not freak him out—he was not human, after all—but surely intrigued him during dull class sessions. Men, Nan learned, actually liked being sexually teased. She had trouble understanding it, being still bound by the Adult Conspiracy to Keep Interesting Things from Children, but certainly saw it in action. Men could freak out just by the sight of well-filled panties, and sometimes a bra, but it was fascination rather than horror. Metria was the biggest tease in Xanth, constantly threatening to show something naughty. As such, Nan realized that she could learn much from the naughty demoness, in case she ever needed to impress a man with something other than her intellect. She was not at all intimidated by Metria’s physical assets, or for that matter a nymph’s or anything else’s, because she knew that it was not how much of it that mattered but instead how much a person did with it. But Metria did do a lot with it. So she cultivated Metria’s acquaintance. Flattered by the attention of such a notable figure—even a Demoness-in-Training was a far far better thing than any regular denizen of Xanth—Metria responded reasonably graciously. And who knew: at such time as Nan achieved her objective, she would be in a position to favor her friends. So she would be her friend.

  Which brought her to the present.

  “Nan O’Tech is progressing through a series of challenges, from each of which she gains and grows,” Metria concluded. “She asked my help on one, and of course as a friend I am doing it.”

  Dell had pretty much gotten the measure, so to speak, of the demoness in more than the impressive size of her physical assets. She was definitely out for Number One. But that did not necessarily mean that what she wanted was bad. If she really provided them with the missing words to the poem, it might make a huge difference. Or it might not. That made it difficult.

  Nia oriented first. “So you want to do this Nan a favor, and you need something from us, so you will trade information we want for our cooperation.”

  “Profusely.”

  “What?” Dell asked.

  She took a really deep breath. “Profoundly, amazingly, eye-poppingly, right on the target, precisely—”

  The words were pretty well describing the breath. He had to cut this short before she lost a button. “Exactly?”

  “Whatever,” she agreed crossly, the breath deflating.

  “What—exactly—do you want from us?” Nia demanded.

  “That’s complicated.”

  Now it was Nia swelling in a button-threatening manner. “Simplify.”

  “The F-Bomb.”

  Dell didn’t like the sound of that, though he had no idea what it was. “Nan needs that?”

  “Yes. So do you.”

  They digested that, though it tended to roil the stomach.

  “Where—exactly—is this bomb?” Nia asked.

  “In the Mountain.”

  “What mountain?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Dell could see that Nia was counting to ten, backward. He had to step in before she detonated. “Maybe you should explain it in your own way.”

  The demoness crossed her legs again, somehow managing to not quite show her panties, possibly the ones with the polka dots. “Well . . .”

  Nan was almost in tears. “What am I to do?” she wailed.

  “First, tell me the problem,” Metria said reassuringly.

  “There’s something I have to conquer to achieve the next stage of my advancement. But I don’t know what it is or how to find it. Only that if I don’t get it within a week, I never will.”

  Metria considered. This sort of thing smelled faintly of the Adult Conspiracy. “How old are you?”

  “I will be eighteen next week. Does it matter?”

  Cow’s eye! “You’re still a child.”

  “I suppose so, though the way the boys in class look at me makes me wonder.”

  “Woe Betide knows more about childish things than I do. We can ask her.”

  “Who?”

  She didn’t know? “Some time ago, not more than a few centuries, I was snoozing in the wrong place and a careless sphinx stepped on me. It fragmented me into three parts: Metria, who then had a small problem with vocabulary, D. Mentia, who was slightly crazy, and Woe Betide, who is forever five or six years old. We managed to refurbish—reinstall—relegate—oh, censored bleep! Mentia, what’s the word?”

  Metria’s aspect changed, and became a similar but slightly crazy demoness whose wild eyes popped out of her head and dropped into her awesome cleavage. “Reintegrate,” her eyeless face said, and her body faded out. The eyeballs, deprived of their support, dropped to the ground and rolled into a crevice. They did not look pleased.

  “Reintegrate,” Metria said, reappearing. “But this simply meant that we became one body hosting three personalities. Mundanes call it multiple personality disorder. Mentia doesn’t have a speech problem, but you never can be sure what she will
do. Woe Betide has no speech problem either, and isn’t crazy, but she’s a child, and the Conspiracy clamps down hard in her presence. You can’t even say bleep. It comes out blip. But she knows things adults have forgotten. She will know what you need to fetch while you’re still technically a child. Woe?”

  The child appeared, cute as the buttons she wore. “Hi!” she said with a sweet smile. “I’m Woe Betide. Who are you?”

  “I am Nan O’Tech. Do you know what I need?”

  “Sure.”

  After a child-sized pause, Nan asked. “What is it, please?”

  “The F-Bomb.”

  This was alarming, but Nan continued. “And do you know where it is?”

  “Yes.”

  This time the pause was micro-sized. “Where is it?”

  “In the Mountain.”

  “And where is the Mountain?”

  The child spread her cute little hands. “Somewhere.”

  This was getting nowhere, at three quarter speed. “Thank you, Woe Betide. May I talk with Metria again?”

  “Sure.”

  “Please return the body to her.”

  “Oh.” The child fuzzed out, and Demoness Metria returned.

  “Woe Betide says I need the F-Bomb, which is in the Mountain. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Something,” Metria agreed. “Do you know the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin?”

  “When they hired a piper to get rid of the rats, then reneged on paying him, so then he piped the children into a mountain?”

  “That’s the one. Maybe he got pied on drugs and was a bit crazy. Anyway, the children never returned, so they must still be in that mountain. No one knows exactly where it is. It’s proof against adults.” She did a double-take, her head splitting apart before slamming back together. “And that must be where the F-Bomb is! Where no adult can get it.”

  “Then how am I to find it?”

  “You’re not an adult. You can probably find it, this week.”

  “Maybe I’m too close to adult. I have no idea where that mountain is.”

  “I certainly don’t know. I’m centuries old, not that I’m counting. But Woe Betide surely does.”

  Nan was having just a smidgen of doubt. “You don’t know, but your alter-ego does?”

  “Profusely.”

  Nan didn’t take the time to work that out. “She didn’t say she did.”

  “Did you ask?”

  Nan tried her best not to wince. “Not specifically.”

  “Next time, ask. She’s very literal minded. But you know, you can’t just go there and get the Bomb. You’d need to be among children who look like children, masking your maturity. And you’d need to find a way to get into the mountain without making a splash.”

  “A what? A scene?”

  “Whatever. So you’ll need help there too. It’s complicated.”

  Nan made as if to tear her hair. “Woe is me! I’ll never get it.”

  “No, Woe is a variant of me. But we still need help. I will see what I can do.”

  “Thank you so much,” Nan said weakly.

  “So here I am,” Metria concluded. “You have three or four children. We need them to get into the Mountain and to merge in anonymously there, so as to get the bomb without being discovered.”

  “What happens if they are discovered?” Nia asked tightly.

  “Probably they would never be allowed out of the Mountain, like the other children.” She made a moue. “For what it’s worth, the children are reported to be happy there. But it’s like the Faun and Nymph Retreat: they never age, and don’t remember yesterday. They just don’t celebrate every few minutes the way the fauns and nymphs do. They just keep playing, heedless of tomorrow.”

  “We can’t risk that!” Dell protested, appalled.

  “Maybe your children should decide what they want to risk,” the demoness said evenly.

  “You mean put it to a vote?” he asked derisively.

  “Yes. They should know what they want.”

  Dell did not like this at all, but the demoness kept flouncing her skirt about so as almost to show panties, and he was unable to think straight.

  Nia came to his rescue. “Maybe we should ask the animals first.”

  “Whether to vote,” Dell said quickly.

  Nia used her magic eyes to check below. “The children are up,” she said. “Fetch the mascots.”

  Dell went to the hatch. “Peeve. Tata,” he called. “May we speak with you a moment?”

  In barely two moments (one moment for each) they were on deck. “Metria!” the peeve said, recognizing her instantly, and Tata growled. “What ill are you up to now, troublemaker?”

  “I’ve got a deal to help you folk accomplish your mission,” Metria said. “Bring forth the dogfish to verify it.”

  Tata went up, wearing a frowny face, and sniffed her foot. She was technically not a live creature, so the dogfish could tell what was what. A smiley face appeared on his screen.

  Dell’s jaw dropped. Tata was approving this?

  Even the peeve seemed surprised. “This witch offers a good deal?”

  Tata wagged his tail. However much the bird and dogfish might dislike the demoness, this time she was legitimate.

  “Next step,” Nia said grimly. “Have the children vote.”

  Soon they were all down in the yacht. “And that’s the deal,” Nia concluded. “Nan O’Tech gets the information she needs, and we get what we need. All from the F-Bomb, once we have it here. We adults are extremely wary, but given Tata’s approval, we are obliged to let you make your own decision. Do you want to risk this chancy spot mission, knowing you could get stuck forever in the mountain?”

  The children didn’t even hesitate. “Yes,” they said together. That included Kadence and her host Ula.

  Nia rolled her eyes, but took it in stride. She was better at handling reversals than Dell was, being more mature. “Then bring in Nan so we can plan strategy.”

  Suddenly the Demoness-in-Training was there with them. Dell sucked in his breath. She was absolutely beautiful. Not teasingly sexy like Metria, but more than her equal in appeal. She was almost ethereally slender, with long fair hair and eyes, and a face that made all other faces seem crude.

  “A thousand ships launched,” Nia breathed.

  Dell glanced questioningly at her.

  Tata’s screen flashed, and the peeve translated: “It’s a Mundane reference. The daughter of a god had a face that sent ships to sea. No good came of it.”

  “And she’s still technically a child,” Nia said.

  “For a week,” Metria reminded them. “That’s why this has to be done now.”

  “Hello,” the vision said shyly. “I am Nan O’Tech. I need your help.”

  Their help? Dell was almost ready to give his life for her whim, such was the fascination of her face and form.

  “We are constrained to provide it,” Nia said somewhat tightly. Even she seemed taken aback by the girl’s persuasive aspect. “It is a fair deal, with each of us getting something of supposed value: the F-Bomb.” She quickly introduced the others.

  “Thank you,” Nan breathed. “I have no idea what such a dreadful-sounding thing might be, and I am concerned that I may not like it, but it seems to be necessary.”

  “It seems to be,” Nia agreed grimly. “Now we have essentially three parties here: you, Metria, and the children. Metria’s child self Woe Betide is the only one who knows where the Mountain is, and Santo here is the only one who can safely reach it by making a tunnel. The other three children are cover for you, Nan, lest you be mistaken for an adult.”

  Some mistake! She was already more than most adults would ever be.

  “Oh, I forget to mention a detail,” Metria said. “The children in the Mountain are totally innocent.
They wear no clothing, and see no reason to.”

  “We have to go naked?” Nan asked, not seeming completely taken with this notion.

  “Also, they go two by two,” the demoness said. “Two boys, two girls, or one of each; it doesn’t matter. Each is responsible for the other. Since their memories are short, they usually hold hands so they don’t lose each other.”

  “How do you know so much about them, since you’ve never been there?” Dell asked.

  “I researched it on Wicked Pedia. It always has the naughtiest info.”

  “Another detail,” Nia said. “The access tunnel must be as small and brief as feasible, to avoid discovery. That means the pairs should clasp each other close and dive through together. Choose your partners.”

  Squid and Kadence took hands. They were each nine years old, and even looked similar, thanks to Squid’s ability to shape her form.

  “Bye, folks,” Metria said, and morphed into Woe Betide, forever six. Eight-year-old Win took her hand.

  That left Nan and Santo. “Oops,” Nan said. “I can’t clasp a boy naked. Not even a young one. Not even briefly. It would force him to think thoughts the Conspiracy does not allow in a child. That would be an instant giveaway in the Mountain.”

  “Excellent point,” Nia said. “However, that won’t be a problem.”

  “How not?”

  “I’m gay,” Santo said. “I’m only eleven, but I know.”

  Nan stared at him. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “Girls are just playmates and friends. I’ll never be into Conspiracy mischief with one. You’re neutral to me.”