Five Portraits (32 page)

“It's not the only oddity in the adoption process.”

“Oh? What else is there?”

“I don't think I should comment yet.”

So there was more complication coming. Astrid let it be.

Soon she located Merge and Myst working together. “Merge! There may be an answer, if you want it.”

Merge did not need to ask what she was talking about. “I want it.”

“There's a sand witch, no pun, a witch who conjures sand. She adopted a child.”

“That's nice.”

“By herself. She's not married. A single-parent adoption.”

“Ooo!” Myst exclaimed.

“That's possible?” Merge said in wonder.

“It seems there's no rule against it. Talk to her.”

“I will.” They hurried in that direction.

Firenze and Sand were playing in the sand, making sand dollars that looked quite realistic. There were both coin-like dollars and paper-like dollars. The coins clinked as they handled them, and the paper bills folded without coming apart.

“That girl really is good with sand,” Astrid murmured. Then, to the children: “This is Merge, to talk to the Sand Witch. And Myst.”

“She's like my little sister,” Firenze said as Myst smiled shyly.

Sand D jumped up, shedding sand. “This way.” Then, to Myst: “What's your talent?”

“I can turn to mist.”

“That's great! So a dragon can't chomp you.”

The two adults followed the three children. “Firenze seems quite taken with Sand,” Merge remarked. “I didn't realize that he was of age to notice girls.”

“They're just friends, surely,” Astrid said, laughing.

They came to a small sand castle whose walls resembled sandstone. A moderately young woman stepped out to meet them as they approached it. “Mom, someone wants to ask you about adoption,” Sand said.

“Well, I'm not giving you up, regardless,” the Witch said.

“I'll show you my room,” Sand said, and the three children disappeared into the house.

“That's not it!” Astrid said quickly. “It's that my friend Merge, here, was going to marry a man and adopt Myst, the little girl. But it didn't work out, and she feared she wouldn't be able to adopt her. But if you were able to do it with Sand, maybe she can do it with Myst. So we wanted to talk with you.”

“I can guess why it didn't work out. That's the trouble with men,” the Witch said. “All they want is one thing. If they don't get it,
pffft!
they're gone. If they do get it, then they want it twice a day and they think they own you. They never think of children. That's no good.”

“That's no good,” Merge agreed. Her case differed in detail, but she had the sense not to argue.

“When I met him, and showed him my house, which my daughter shaped out of the sand I conjured, all he said was ‘Does it have a bedroom?' I said it did. He asked, ‘Does it have a mattress?' I said it did. Then he said, ‘That's fine. Take off your clothes.' He didn't care about the child at all. That's when I dumped him.”

“So you adopted her alone, and there was no trouble?” Merge asked.

“None at all. Except from busybodies who think a family is incomplete without a man.”

“Obviously that's not the case,” Merge agreed. “Thank you, Witch; you have helped me solve my problem.”

“It still requires a man to signal the stork,” the Witch said. “Which is too bad. But with adoption you don't need the man.”

The children emerged. “We'll do it,” Merge said as Myst ran to her embrace.

Astrid nodded. Fornax had quietly helped them solve another problem.

Except for one. They still needed to identify and stop the Demon who was still interfering with their adoptions. He hadn't done it in the case of Myst, as far as Astrid knew, though it might simply have been too subtle for her to pick up on. Jon hadn't worked out, but that seemed to have been an honest difference in child-rearing (spanking?) philosophies. But there was still another adoption to go. They needed to stop the interference before it stopped them.

“An evening walk, alone, can refresh the mind,” Fornax murmured, and faded.

A walk alone? Astrid didn't see the relevance, but knew better than to argue.

So it was that Astrid found herself walking alone, after the others had returned to the camp. The problem just wouldn't let go of her. She just knew the anonymous Demon would try again, maybe this time successfully. But how could they stop him?

A figure walked toward her. It was a teenage girl. “Are you the basilisk?” she asked shyly.

“I am Astrid Basilisk,” Astrid agreed cautiously.

The girl looked nervously around as if afraid of being overheard. “I'm Fray Cloud. Fracto's daughter. I compressed into compact form so I could tell you.”

Astrid hadn't realized that Fracto had a daughter, but certainly it was possible. “Tell me what?”

“My father has been messing with you, like with that woman and her daughter.”

“Tiara and Win,” Astrid agreed. “Fortunately we managed to recover them safely.”

“He didn't want to do it. He's not a bad cloud, really he isn't. But the Demon made him do it. He was going to kidnap me and bind me to this form and throw me in among the brutish trolls.” Fray shuddered. “I have half a soul, so I can suffer. I'm only seventeen!”

“He threatened you to make your father do his bidding?” Astrid asked.

“Yes. It was awful. Dad hated doing it, but he couldn't let me be—be—”

“I understand. Of course he couldn't.”

“But it's wrong. So I just had to come and tell you, secretly, so you would know.”

“I appreciate that,” Astrid said. “You're a brave girl, Fray. But there is one thing more I need to know. Who is the Demon behind this?”

Fray looked around again. “It is—”

A bolt of energy struck her. It blasted her to swirling vapor. She didn't have time to scream, let along speak the name.

Appalled, Astrid watched the vapor dissipate. So close!

But as the last wisps evaporated, another figure was revealed. “Gotcha!” she exclaimed.

It was Fornax. It had been Fornax all along, pretending to be the cloud girl.

Fornax reached out and grabbed hold of the lightning bolt, which somehow had frozen in place. It was actually more like a long trident. She hauled on it, and a rotund figure with a crown of seaweed was yanked into view before he could let go of the other end. “Neptune, you fat glob of sea sludge!” Fornax said with satisfaction. “I knew it was you.”

“Oh for spume's sake!” the Demon said. “You set me up!”

“I did indeed, you barrel of rancid spit. Your corroded barnacled backside is mine. Now you and I will go private and have a little talk all about terms for not speaking your salty name in connection with a certain wager.”

The two vanished. Astrid knew that there would be no more interference from that quarter. Fornax had laid her little trap and caught the malefacting Demon fair and square. Or maybe foul and globular.

Once again the Demoness had come through for the children, and for Xanth.

Chapter 16:
Santo

Metria was distraught, which was an unusual state for her. “He's water under the bridge!”

“He's what?” Astrid asked.

“Absent, departed, missing, nonexistent, lost—”

“Gone?”

“Whatever,” she agreed crossly.

“Who is gone?”

“Santo. I was going to rouse him for his breakfast, but he's not there.”

Metria had been taking care of Santo, and was in line to adopt him. What had happened? “Maybe he's out for a walk, practicing making holes,” Astrid suggested.

“No. I'm aware of him, and can normally find him. He's nowhere close.”

Astrid was suspicious. There had been subtle interference in their project all along. She thought catching Neptune had fixed it. Was there more? “Did someone abduct him?”

“I don't know!”

Fornax appeared. “This one seems to be natural,” she said, and faded.

Natural? What did that mean? That no Demon was involved? “Let's assume that he's not abducted, but is lost,” Astrid said. “If so, we'll simply need to find him.”

They acquainted the others with the problem. “Santo may have gone exploring, and gotten lost,” Astrid said.

All the children shook their heads. “If he got lost, he'd simply make a tunnel back home,” Firenze said. “He's not lost unless he wants to be.”

Astrid remembered Firenze's prior comments about Santo. “Why would he want to be?”

“I can't say.”

There it was again. What did Firenze know? She couldn't ask him directly. “Squid, do you know anything about this?”

“A little,” the child answered. “He didn't think he belonged.”

“Belonged to what?”

She shrugged. “I don't know what.”

“Win. What do you know?”

“He—he thinks he's not like us.”

“In what way?”

“Some way,” she said, at a loss.

“Myst?”

“It bothers him. Maybe he went away.”

“Right when we're on the verge of doing the adoptions, painting the portraits, and saving Xanth?”

She spread her hands. “I guess.”

“That doesn't seem like Santo. He knows the importance of the adoptions.”

Firenze fidgeted, then spoke. “Maybe he didn't think he was adoptable.”

“Of course he is! Metria will adopt him.”

“So he went away,” Squid said.

“So she couldn't adopt him? I thought he liked her.”

“He does,” Win said.

Astrid looked at them, frustrated. “He likes her, so he's stopping her from adopting him?”

“Yes,” Myst said.

“This is ridiculous!”

The children just looked at her.

“
Why
would he stop her?” Astrid demanded.

“So as not to hurt her,” Firenze said.

“What, he's got a crush on her? Doesn't see her as a mother figure?”

“No,” Squid said.

Astrid threw up her hands and walked away. What was she missing that the children knew or suspected?

Fornax appeared. “Not that I want to bother you with irrelevant distractions, but it occurs to me that you have not used all the restored sequins. One might take you where you want to go.”

“I don't want to go anywhere!”

The Demoness shrugged and faded.

Astrid went and dug out the dress, which she did not wear routinely. It remained pretty, and the sequins sparkled, the new ones brighter than the used ones.

She contemplated it. There actually was one place she wanted to go to: wherever it was that Santo had gone. So she could talk to him and find out what was bothering him. And she realized that a sequin would take her there. That had to be what Fornax had hinted.

She discussed it with the others. “Santo has gone somewhere. I don't know what's on his mind, but I want to bring him back so that we can do the portraits. I think a sequin will take me there.”

“Do you want company?” Kandy asked.

“I think I probably need to talk to him alone.”

“That may be best,” Kandy said.

“Mom, this makes me nervous,” Firenze said.

“Me too,” Astrid said. She reached down, took a sequin, and pulled it off. The dress went translucent, showing her underwear, and the men freaked out. They never seemed to learn; it was almost as if they didn't want to learn. Well, the women would snap them out of it in a moment. She pinned the sequin back on. Would it be the right one? If not, she would try again.

She stood in what appeared to be a dungeon. Where in Xanth was it?

Then she noticed that her bright sequins had gone dull. They would not work here. That told her where she was: in Hades.

Santo must have made a tunnel to Hades, and let the portions that passed through water or molten rock fill in after him, so as to leave no followable trail. But why? Fornax surely knew, and wasn't free to tell.

“This is not a pleasant excursion,” Fornax murmured beside her. “I will help if I can; I think the Demon protocol allows it.”

“This is all unpleasantly mysterious.”

“The boy does have a case.”

“Well, so do the rest of us. I mean to get to the bottom of this.”

“Unkind as the revelation may be.”

Astrid was fed up with obscurities. “Santo!” she called.

The boy appeared. “Aunt Astrid! What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. We need you back at the farm for a portrait.”

He shook his head. “I can't do that.”

“You can't let us all down, after all the work we've done to set up for the adoptions and portraits.”

“I'm sorry about that. But maybe they'll work without me.”

“Santo, what
is
it with you? Why are you messing things up?”

“I'm really sorry.”

Now she saw that he was crying. “Hold your breath,” she said as she went to him and put her arm around his shoulders.

He melted into her, comforted. “I wish…”

She let him go before he had to take a breath to replace what he had lost talking. “We love you and want what's best for you, Santo. You will have to trust me. Tell me what's wrong.”

He broke down completely. “I can't be adopted.”

She knew this was critical. She had to withhold any judgment. “Why?”

“I'm not worthy.”

“How can you say that? You're a fine boy who will grow into a fine young man. You have a potent talent that really helped us survive the Storage. You have friends who truly care for you. None of them think you're not worthy. Why do you?”

“I—I—when I grow up and it's time to marry—”

“Yes, that is the normal course.”

He visibly nerved himself. “I'll want to marry a man.”

Astrid stared at him. “A what?”

“A man.”

“You're gay? How can you know? You're a child.”

“I know. I've got nothing against girls, especially you and Aunt Fornax, but they won't do for romance.”

She opened her mouth, but found nothing to say. This was wholly unexpected.

Fornax stepped in. “Hello, Santo.”

“Oh, hi, Aunt Fornax.” He did not seem completely surprised by her appearance.

“Let me see if I understand. You believe you are gay, and that this makes you unworthy of adoption into a straight family? Because you're different?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Let me remind you about difference,” Fornax said. “Every person is different in his or her own way, some more than others. Astrid isn't human; she's a basilisk whose very look can kill. Her kind is shunned by all other creatures.”

“Not by us,” Santo protested. “She's nice.”

“She has a soul. That makes a difference. Without it she would not be the person you know and love. But the point is, you know her. You know how kind spirited she is, and how dedicated she is to your welfare, and the welfare of all the children. So she's a basilisk; we who know her don't care.”

“We don't care,” he agreed. “But—”

“And consider me. I'm the Demon of Antimatter. I will destroy anything I touch here in the terrene realm. I have to appear here in ghostly form so as not to wipe you out. I am also a pariah among Demons, who have constantly balked my effort to participate in this realm. Sensible folk want nothing to do with me.”

“Aunt Fornax, that's not true! You enabled us five children to return from the future instead of dying there, and you have been helping us all along. We owe everything to you, and we love you!”

“And I love you. Do you think I care about a little detail like who you want to marry sometime in the future? Do you think Astrid cares? That's your business. So you're different. You're only a little bit different compared to Astrid and me. In no way are you unworthy. We don't think so, the other children don't think so. You're fussing about next to nothing.”

“And we need you to be adopted, and have the portrait painted, to save Xanth,” Astrid added.

Fornax smiled. “It would be a shame to have Xanth lost because you mistakenly felt unworthy.”

Santo gazed at her, assimilating that. Slowly it sank in. “May I hug you?”

“Carefully,” Fornax said, opening her arms.

He hugged her ghostly form, carefully, so as not to overlap too much. “Thank you, Aunt Fornax.”

“Oh, you're welcome, dear.”

“Now we can go home,” Astrid said as they finished hugging. “Can you make another tunnel there, Santo?”

“No,” he said a bit sheepishly. “I used all my magic energy getting here, and I don't know exactly how I did it. It will take me days to recover, and then I probably won't remember how to do it.”

Astrid looked around. “We're in the dungeon of a castle, obviously. We can go upstairs and out, then see about walking back.”

“Remember where you are,” Fornax murmured.

“In the dungeon of a castle—in Hades,” Astrid said, realizing. “But that's—on another planet. Pluto.”

“Yes,” Santo said. “That seemed to be the place for me.”

“But that means you tunneled through space-time itself!”

“I guess,” he agreed.

Astrid exchanged a glance with Fornax. How could he have done such a thing? It would have taken a lifetime of walking to go from Xanth to Pluto, if walking there were even possible. He had done it in what, an hour?

“Point of irrelevant information,” Fornax said. “Space is magical in various ways, one of which is the existence of wormholes. That is, holes between one section of the universe and another, short-cutting distance, such that passing through one can enable a person to traverse in a moment what he otherwise might not navigate in his lifetime. The ability to create such a wormhole might be useful on occasion.”

Santo had created a wormhole? That made his talent a magnitude greater than it had seemed before. He might well be a Magician in the making.

“I think we won't be walking back,” Astrid said.

“I'm sorry,” Santo said. “I didn't know you would come after me.”

“Again, consider where you are,” Fornax said. “There may not be many castles here.”

Astrid considered. She knew of only one castle in Hades: the one Princess Eve had had made so she could live apart from the awful spooks of the nether region.

“Princess Eve!” she exclaimed.

“Princess Dawn's twin sister,” Fornax agreed.

“She lives in a castle in Hades. This must be her castle. All we have to do is go upstairs and ask for her help. I believe she has a way to go back and forth to Xanth.”

“I understand there is an enchanted path connecting the castle to the River Styx,” Fornax said. “And that across that river, by additional magic, is Xanth.”

“Styx,” Santo said. “I've heard of it. The lethe water in it makes you forget.”

“There's a ferryman to transport folk across the river,” Astrid said. “Because they can't swim in it; they'd forget where they were going.”

“Princess Eve can arrange for a pass across the river,” Fornax said.

Astrid walked to the stone stairway at one end of the chamber. It led to a closed door. “This must be the way up.”

But the door was locked from the outside.

“I guess I figured I didn't want to be disturbed,” Santo said.

“Okay, how about the tunnel you came in on? Can we follow it back?”

“I don't think so. Sections will have filled in.”

Astrid explored the chamber and found a round tunnel leading out of it. She stepped into it, using her superior night vision. But it quickly terminated in a blank wall. The wormhole must have closed up at that point. Maybe just as well, because otherwise trolls, goblins, nickelpedes and other horrors might have used it to come after Santo.

What now? Astrid returned to the locked door. “Do you have energy enough to make a hole through the lock?” she asked Santo.

“Not yet,” he said somewhat sheepishly.

Astrid pondered anew. Then she tried something different. She knocked on the door. Maybe there was a guard.

“Who's there?” a voice called from the other side.

Ha! “Visitors to see Princess Dawn,” Astrid called back.

“She's not here.”

Oops. Dawn could well be visiting Xanth, or attending a function with her husband, the Dwarf Demon Pluto. What now?

Astrid gambled that the guard on the other side was not very bright. “Then we'll wait for her return. Please unlock this door and let us through.”

“Okay.” It worked!

In a moment there was a clank as of a plank being lifted clear, and the door swung open on a small landing. There was a frightful spook with horns and a forked tail. A guard demon.

Astrid flashed him a fetching smile. “Thank you, Jeeves.” She and Santo stepped through. “That will be all.”

The spook stepped back, recognizing the tone of authority.