Five Portraits (8 page)

“So it's risky?”

“That does enhance the challenge.”

“What happens if it goes wrong?”

“Nothing to us; we're Demons. But you would fragment across all the Xanths you passed through, and become only a shred of an atom in each.”

“I would die?”

“That would be another way to view it, yes.”

Astrid felt a chill. Just how much did she want this friendship?

“You are reconsidering?” Fornax asked.

That decided her. “No!”

“That is good, because we can't do this without you.”

They came to land in the troll's glade. Dysnomia was there. “Are we ready?”

Astrid knew that meant her. “We are.”

“Take my hand.”

Astrid took her hand, and Fornax took her other hand. Then the environment started quivering. “What's happening?” Astrid asked nervously.

“We are crossing parallels,” Fornax explained. “For us it would be smooth, but your mortality generates some friction. That should diminish as we accelerate.”

“Accelerate?”

“Each frame is a second ahead of the prior one. There are many seconds, so we are increasing our rapidity of crossing. To you it will seem like traveling into the future.”

“Thank you,” Astrid said faintly.

They did speed up. She could tell, because the angle of the sunlight started shifting, as though the sun were moving faster. Then the sun dropped behind the trees, and darkness came. Soon light returned: now they were in tomorrow. It brightened, and faded; now they were in tomorrow night. How many seconds in a day and night? They were crossing many parallels!

The night passed, and another day, faster. Soon the lights and darknesses became a flicker, as they were covering the days so swiftly. In that flicker she saw the trees change, some of them losing their leaves. It was winter. And spring, and summer, and winter again. A year was passing!

The years moved across more swiftly, one two, three, ten, twenty—it became too fast to count. Would they overshoot the fifty?

Then the progression slowed. The years reappeared, and the seasons, and the days. Finally they came to a halt. They had arrived. Somewhen.

The glade had changed. Now it was just a clearing in the forest. A cable stretched across it like a mundane power line. Had electricity come to Xanth?

“No, it is a cable for a car,” Fornax said, answering her thought. “It crosses not just from glade to glade, but from Xanth to Xanth. This is one of its stops. Families hoped at least to save their children. But its promise is false; all Xanths in this region will be destroyed.”

“What a crime,” Astrid said. “Who would tease desperate families like that?”

“They did not realize. The intention was good.”

The cable jerked. A hanging car appeared above the forest. It was black, with the words MODEL T printed in its side. It swung down to the clearing, touching the ground as if ready to take on a passenger.

Instead Fornax went to it and opened its door. “All out,” she said.

A tousled ten-year-old boy got out. “Is this the end?” he asked.

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

“No. I'm going to the end.” The boy turned to reenter the car.

“There is no end,” Fornax said. “The cars are traveling more slowly than the termination. It will catch up and destroy the cable and cars.”

“I don' care. I'm supposed to go to the end.”

“The end is doom.”

“And who the sweet violets are you?” the boy demanded insolently. He couldn't cuss because of the Adult Conspiracy, but he had a bad attitude. “You aren't my mother. You can't tell me what to do.”

“We are trying to save you from extinction,” Fornax said evenly.

“Well go extinct yourself, cousin of a canine. I'm not listening to you.” He ducked to reenter the car.

Fornax looked at Astrid. “Maybe we should let him go. I don't think this one is worth saving.”

“No!” Astrid said. It had not occurred to her that the child would be this old or this ornery, but she had to save him if she could. She moved closer to the car.

“And who are you, spectacle face?” the boy asked Astrid. “You aren't my mother either.”

“Fortunately,” Astrid agreed. “But I'm here to help you even if you don't want it at the moment.”

“Help, smelp! I'm tired of all you adults telling me what to do. I'm going on.”

But Astrid blocked the car door. “No you are not.”

“Get out of my way, stupid!” He sought to push past her, but she stood firm. He could not get back into the car.

“You stay,” Astrid said.

Then the cable jerked, and the car lifted and was carried up and away across the forest.

“You made me miss the car!” the boy screamed, outraged. Then something odd happened. Little rockets seemed to fly out of his head. They rose into the air and exploded into dazzling displays. They were literal fireworks!

Astrid removed her glasses and glanced at the fireworks. They turned to ashes and dropped to the ground. Then she closed one eye and glanced fleetingly at the boy. He staggered, stunned. “Now behave yourself,” she said.

“What—what are you?” he asked, amazed and frightened.

Astrid put her glasses back on. “My name is Astrid. I am a basilisk in human form. Now tell me who you are and what just happened to you.”

The boy had plainly suffered a sudden attack of caution verging on respect. “I—I'm Firenze,” he said, accenting the middle syllable, fir-EN-zee. “That's my talent. To go off like fireworks when I get mad.”

“Well, hereafter you will better control your temper, Firenze.”

A rebellious expression hovered near the boy's mouth. Astrid touched her glasses, and the expression fled in disarray. “Yes ma'am.”

“How did you come to be aboard that car?”

“The end of Xanth is coming. My folks couldn't save themselves, but they tried to save me. So they put me in the car and told me to ride to the end of the line, where maybe I'd be safe.”

“They miscalculated,” Fornax said. “There is no safety when the line ends.”

“But—but they did it to save me!”

“They meant well,” Astrid said. “And they did save you. We'll take you to our home and arrange to have you adopted by some nice couple.”

Now reality was closing in on him. “My folks—they're gone!”

“We're afraid so. Your whole world is gone.”

“Gone,” he repeated, crumbling into tears.

Astrid put her arms about him. “It's awful, we know.”

“Oh, sock mending!” he said, which was as close as he could got to a bad word. “I'm alone!”

“We'll help you all we can,” Astrid said as he sobbed into her shoulder. He was after all a child. But she wondered: would any nice couple adopt a ten-year-old boy with a fireworks temper? This mission was already more complicated than she had anticipated.

Then she gently disengaged, because her ambiance would soon overcome him. She simply couldn't stay close to him very long. What irony, if they saved him from the destruction of his world, only to kill him by inhaling poisonous vapor!

Firenze looked at her. “Have I seen you before? There's something about you.”

“I'm sure we've never met,” Astrid said.

“The other, too. I think I saw you somewhere.”

“That's really not possible,” Astrid assured him.

The cable jerked. Another car came into sight. This one was low and sleek, bright yellow, with large tires. It swung down to pause in the clearing.

Fornax opened its side door. A tentacular sea creature tumbled out, changing colors as it landed. What was this?

Then the creature put two tentacles together in four sets to form four limbs. The central mass shaped into a body and head. Color flowed, becoming a painted-on dress and a flurry of curls. It looked like a cute six-year-old girl. “Hel-low,” she said tentatively.

“We're going to need your help,” Astrid murmured to Firenze. “We have another lost child.”

Firenze, having cried himself out, revived. “Yes ma'am.”

“Hello,” Astrid said to the octopus girl. “I am Astrid, a—a friend. Who are you?”

“They call me Squid,” the girl said. “'Cause I'm like an oct—oct—”

“Octopus,” Astrid said.

“Yes. But I don't live in the sea.”

“How did you come here, Squid?”

“My folks—were visiting from another world, when they got caught by the end of this one. So they put me in the car.”

So this was an alien visitor, trapped by the end of Xanth. But nevertheless a child. “We will try to help you, Squid. But we don't have any land-living octopi in our land. We will try to find you a family who will take good care of you.”

“My family—gone,” Squid said, tearing up.

“Can you comfort her, Firenze?” Astrid asked. “You know exactly what she's experiencing.”

“I guess. Even if she is a girl.” It seemed that her gender made more difference than her species. He went to Squid and sat down on the ground. “Hi. I'm Firenze. I know what it's like. I lost my own family.”

“Gone!” Squid cried, falling into his embrace.

So it was working. Firenze was helping. But Squid was a similar problem: who would want to adopt an octopus in the shape of a girl?

The cable car moved on. Soon another car came. This one was a mundane pickup truck. Inside it was an eight-year-old boy who looked quite ordinary. But Astrid feared that this appearance was deceptive, considering the way this was going.

The truck door opened and the boy looked out. “Is this the end of the line?” he called.

“Close,” Astrid called back.

“I saw the other children, so I thought maybe it was.”

“We are here to take you to a safe place where you can be adopted into new families. I am Astrid, not exactly what I seem, but I'm here to help.”

“I'm Santo. My talent is to create holes.”

“That's simple but worthy.”

“It's not simple. I can make any kind of hole. Such as a hell hole that brings up heat to cook my food. But folk get nervous.”

“Don't make any more hell holes,” Astrid said.

“And if I want to swim underwater, I can make a hole through the water to air so I can breathe.”

“That's a very special hole,” Astrid agreed. Indeed, to make one that would not collapse in liquid signaled a far more potent talent.

“Folk don't like it when I make peepholes to bathrooms or dragon nests.”

“We will try to find you a family that likes holes,” Astrid said. “Yours are really impressive.”

Having finally won her admiration, he collapsed. “They're gone.”

She went to him and enfolded him, briefly, letting him cry it out. He was after all an orphan.

Then he looked at her, as Firenze had. “I think I've seen you before.”

“I'm pretty sure you haven't.”

“A—a statue.”

“A statue!” Firenze said. “That's where!”

Astrid laughed. “I've never been a statue.”

The cable moved on. The next car was a rickety mundane jalopy with a bad paint job. Astrid wondered if the cars were orphans too, trying to be useful in their retirement. This one contained a five-year-old girl with windblown hair. That reminded Astrid of Tiara, whose hair had originally been wild because of its antigravity, before she got it under control. The girl was already crying.

“We'll help,” Firenze said. He and Squid went to comfort the new girl.

Astrid was pleased with the way the children were getting along together. They might be destined to be split up among different families, but in the interim it was better if they were compatible with each other. The new one turned out to be Win, whose talent was always to have the wind at her back. That was why her hair was constantly blowing forward. It seemed she could not turn off the wind.

“We can take one more,” Dysnomia said. “The rules are fighting back, and we'll have to return before something snaps.”

Astrid took the warning to heart. She did not want to be spread across an infinite number of realities.

The fifth car was a giant gemstone, a faceted garnet. Had had that gotten in this line? Then she realized that it was a carbuncle. It came to earth, a facet swung out, and a four-year-old girl emerged. She had curly mouse-brown hair and hazel eyes. “Is this—?”

“It is where you belong,” Astrid said quickly.

But the girl was doubtful. She had of course been told to ride to the end of the line, and this plainly wasn't. Astrid didn't try to argue. She reached in to catch the girl's arm and convey her out before the car moved on. And missed.

Or rather, mist. The child had become a patch of mist. That was evidently her talent. How could Astrid rescue her if she could not be touched? The car would move on at any moment.

It was little Win who came to her rescue. “Neat talent! Mine's wind. We can play fun games together.”

That intrigued the newcomer. She reformed into the girl and jumped down to join Win as the carbuncle moved on. Her name, it turned out, was Myst, after her talent of misting.

Then she, too, looked at Astrid with that faintly odd expression.

“No, we've never met before,” Astrid said quickly.

“Still, it helps,” Myst said.

“Get them close together,” Dysnomia said urgently. “We're about to move.”

Astrid and Firenze got the other four children clustered closely in the center of a general glob, and the two Demonesses enclosed them on the outside. “Watch,” Astrid told the children. “We have a funny show to show you.”

The quivering began, and accelerated, becoming the flickering of day and night, then the backward progress of the seasons. The children watched, fascinated by this show.

“You have the touch,” Fornax murmured to Astrid.