Ecstasy made a soundless whistle. “That will take time. There are nuances within nuances. Folk think that a man and woman together is all about stork summoning, but it’s vastly more than that. Ask any married couple. I’d have to be right there with the two of you as you work it out.” She grimaced. “That’s not how it’s done.”

  Nydia got a notion. “Suppose we bring him along in the bag, quiescent, while you explain it in detail to us, including Noletta? Would he mind waiting between times?”

  Vinia spoke. “Inside the bag, time is frozen along with weight and light. To him, it would be like going in and coming right back out, no matter how much time passed outside.”

  “Then it could work,” Noletta said, gratified.

  “It could,” Ecstasy agreed thoughtfully. “If he agrees to do it.”

  “I’ll ask him.” Before any of them could protest, Noletta walked back to Fire. “Here is the case: I want to be with you, too, woman to man. You’re a lot of male. But I’m a nymph. I have real experience with Only One Thing, and that’s not enough to make a lasting relationship. In fact, it’s usually good for only five minutes. We hardly even know each other yet. So I need to learn myself before I can teach you. But if you are willing to ride timelessly in the bag while we travel, I will learn the first stage, then share it with you. Then the second stage, and the third. So that we can do it right. In time, we can go through all the stages and become a complete couple. Does that appeal?”

  “Yes,” he agreed without hesitation. “I want to do it right. So as to please you.”

  “Then we are on the way.” She led him to the bag, paused to kiss him again, evoking two burning hearts that orbited each other, then stepped back. He jumped lithely into the bag, and Nydia drew it closed. The hearts, flummoxed, faded out.

  “You are one swift learner,” Ecstasy said. “You played him perfectly.”

  “My talent was guiding me. Whenever my future flickered, I changed course slightly until it firmed. I kept him by my side, one day hence.”

  Nydia appreciated the further power of the talent. Noletta was using it well.

  “And you will teach me the first stage,” Noletta said to Ecstasy. “As we travel.”

  “Yes, to the best of my ability.”

  “And Nerine and I will listen,” Nydia said. “So we can all do it right when we have Elements of our own to tame.” For that was plainly in their future.

  “Agreed.” Then Ecstasy thought of something. “But what about Vinia here? The Adult Conspiracy will prevent us from covering certain details in her presence.”

  “You don’t need to educate them about storks,” Vinia said. “Nymphs already know all about that. I am jealous of their experience. But I recognize that the Adult Conspiracy has too much power. Until we children take over and abolish it. The rest of it I need to learn too.”

  Ecstasy nodded. “Then I think we have a system.”

  Woe went back to sleep now that things were getting dull again.

  “We should let that village know that the danger is over,” Nydia said, “but I think it would be best not to tell them our Quest or the true nature of the Element of Fire. We don’t want the other Elements to be warned if word gets out, let alone the Demon who is agitating them.”

  “Good strategy,” Ecstasy agreed. “But we can use the village as part of our training. If we can get Fire to pass as a regular man with a special talent, we’ll know we’re getting there.”

  “Oh? How can we do that?” Noletta asked.

  “We can get him to wear the semblance of clothing. I suspect he can do that, covering his central anatomy behind flames. You can introduce him as a man with the talent of fire. When he fools the villagers, you can reward him by taking him to a private place and doffing your clothes. Except for your socks.”

  “Why not the socks?”

  “He will jet fire.”

  “Oh.” Noletta looked momentarily pained, as if she had swallowed a ferociously hot pepper. “Yes, I will keep the socks on.”

  “Am I missing something?” Vinia asked. “He is made of fire. Who cares whether some escapes?”

  “It might set fire to the surroundings,” Ecstasy said wryly.

  The girl did not look completely satisfied, but let it pass.

  They walked on toward the village as Ecstasy drilled the nymphs on social protocol for enabling an Element to appear normal. Nydia noticed in passing that a patch of pie plants was now nothing but ashes and burned sticks. Too bad they couldn’t have saved them. But it gave her half a notion.

  Then they paused to bring the fire figurine out. “We are about to visit a local human village,” Noletta said. “We want to pass you off as a regular human man with the talent of making or dousing fire. If that is successful, I will be grateful. You will like that.” She touched her blouse suggestively as she inhaled. As a nymph, she was good at this type of suggestion.

  “Anything to please you, Letta,” he agreed, his eyes locked on the blouse. Oh yes, she had him leashed. As perhaps any woman could do with any man when she tried.

  “Now all that business about One Thing is making sense to me,” Anthem said with a background chord. “She’s using it to enhance his desire to please her.”

  “That’s right,” Nydia said. “We nymphs may be limited to One Thing, traditionally, but we are very good at that.” Then, to the Element: “We will call you Flame.”

  “Flame,” he agreed amicably.

  Nydia clarified that he should make minimal use of his firepower, so as to mask his identity. “Cute little flames, not infernos.”

  He glanced at Noletta, who smiled. “Little flames,” he repeated.

  They followed a path to the village. An old woman came out to meet them, probably the Village Elder’s wife. “Who are you?” she demanded. Evidently the village men were away on business, such as fetching wagons of water in a probably vain effort to douse the coming fire, leaving her in charge.

  “We are a traveling party out to tour Xanth, among other things,” Nydia said. She didn’t want to start telling lies, but the truth was hardly safe, and this was not a lie so much as a partial truth. “But the fire burned up the local pie plants. We would like to trade for some you may have saved, if there is anything we have that you want.”

  “You came through that awful fire?”

  “We felt it was dangerous. Our friend Flame here has the talent of fire. He can make it or put it out. So he put it out.” She turned to him. “Show them a flame, dear.”

  He glanced at Noletta, who nodded. He obligingly shot a small flame from his forefinger. It burned for a moment, then stopped.

  “But we were too late to save the pies,” Nydia finished. “They were burned to ashes.”

  “You stopped the fire?” the Elder asked, as if not quite believing it.

  “Yes,” Noletta said. “It’s Flame’s talent.”

  “But that was a huge fire!”

  “He had to really focus,” Nydia said. “Fortunately, he caught it at the right time.” She did not clarify that any time was the right time for the Element.

  “Can we see him do it?” As if they hadn’t just shown her.

  “Certainly,” Noletta said with schooled patience. “Do any of you need a fire?”

  A housewife-type woman came forward. “I can’t get my cookfire to burn. It just sputters out no matter how often I light it. I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

  Noletta smiled. “Flame, let’s start her fire.”

  They went to the cookfire, which was just a mass of grudging smoke. Flame pointed a finger at it. It burst into vigorous flames.

  “How did you do that?” the housewife asked. “I mean, I know you can make fire. But this is burning nicely. It refused to start for me. It just sputtered out.”

  “I can shoot fire from my finger, as I showed you,” Flame said. “But this one needs something else. I believe you have a branch of Lighter Not in there. That stifles any fire you set. If it happens again, all you need to do is breathe the letter k on it. That will make it Lighter Knot, which will burn hotly.”

  Several women tried it with other stifled fires. They must have collected wood from a patch of Lighter Not. They were thrilled when it worked. This was magic anyone could do. Soon there were more fires than they needed. Flame went to the extra ones, breathed on them, and they expired.

  “Oh, I’d like to kiss you!” a pretty girl exclaimed. “You’d be so handy to have around the house.”

  “No!” Noletta said sharply. This, too, had been schooled: jealousy. The others laughed. They understood why she did not want that kind of competition for her handsome, talented man. Single pretty girls were a universal menace to committed ones.

  “Take all the pies you want!” the Elder said. “We believe you put out that forest fire we feared.”

  Flame smiled. “It was a challenge, but yes.”

  Loaded with assorted pies, they departed the village. Woe immediately woke up, so as to share a pie.

  “That worked nicely,” Nydia said, pleased. “Flame passed as a regular man.”

  “I just did what Noletta told me.”

  “That, too, is typical of real men,” Ecstasy said.

  “Now I want to get you private,” Noletta told Flame. All three nymphs had to train themselves to celebrate only privately. Outer Xanth was not the F&N Retreat, where there was no subtlety or privacy, nor any desire for it. “You did beautifully. But I don’t see a convenient private place.”

  “Maybe a housefire,” Ecstasy said. “Or a firehouse.”

  Flame gestured. A wall of fire appeared. He walked around it, making other walls, then a fiery roof. It was indeed a housefire, complete with a chimney issuing cloudy smoke. Obviously the Element could do what he wanted with fire.

  Flame opened the door, and the two of them entered the house. “And that is how a woman manages a man,” Ecstasy said.

  “I feel the explosive ambiance,” Anthem said. “That passion could set fire to a bed of rock.”

  Ecstasy smiled. Bed rock. “I think burning rock is the province of the Element of Earth.”

  “But how far can we trust him?” Nydia asked. “He’s not a real person, he’s an Element, an impersonal force of nature.”

  “Not anymore. We can trust him as far as we can trust Noletta,” Ecstasy said. “She is training him into shape. I’m so glad that my ectoplasm figurine is able to perform in that manner! I wasn’t quite sure it would, though I make them all anatomically correct as far as possible. It will be the same for the other Elements.”

  Nydia realized that making figurines with male and female anatomy did not guarantee that they could perform in the manner of living folk. The spirit of the Element must have made that possible. That augured well for the other figurines and Elements. If it so happened that she herself chose to get intimate with an Element, she wanted the One Thing to be feasible. Not being limited to it was one thing, no pun intended; abolishing it was quite another.

  “Also, he doesn’t know how to lie,” Anthem said. “It’s not in his nature.”

  “So let’s not teach him that,” Nydia said.

  “And maybe it’s better to have the Elements actively on our side, with full understanding,” Nerine said. “Because we really don’t know what we’re up against.”

  That made sense to Nydia. “He should be mellow, as the fauns are, after a celebration. We’ll talk to him when they emerge.”

  “I wish I knew what is supposed to be so great about all that kissing they must be doing,” Vinia said. “I like kissing, too, but it’s not better than chocolate cake.”

  “You got that right,” Woe said.

  No one clarified the reference.

  In due course, or maybe undue course, the firehouse door opened and the couple emerged. Flame looked dazed; this was evidently his first direct experience with the Faun & Nymph routine, and it clearly wowed him. That, too, was typical of males, once they came of age.

  The firehouse collapsed into a glowing pile of ashes.

  Noletta, too, was changed. She put a hand on Nydia’s arm so that she could borrow the ant’s telepathy to communicate privately, so as not to be censored by the Adult Conspiracy in Vinia’s presence. “I never before had such a sincere appreciation. The fauns do it all the time, and are maybe jaded, but to Flame it was a psyche-changing experience. I like it better that way. It’s not at all routine.” Her mouth quirked. “But I’m glad I kept the socks on. I would have been burned like those pies, from the inside out.”

  Vinia and Woe exchanged a glance, not getting it.

  “We need to talk,” Ecstasy said to Flame.

  “Whatever Noletta wants,” he agreed, clearly still distracted by his introduction to the physical expression of love.

  “What about?” Noletta asked.

  “We have decided to acquaint Flame with our Quest.”

  “Okay. I don’t want to keep anything from him anyway.” She turned to the Element. “Pay attention to Nydia, and I don’t mean her nymphly proportions. She has something special to say that you need to understand.”

  “Okay.”

  “But he is aware of your proportions,” Anthem said. “Don’t blame him; he’s male. But he knows it would displease Noletta if he tried to get his hot hands on them.”

  Just so. “Flame, we have covered this before. We’re not just wandering nymphs,” Nydia said to him as they resumed their walk along the path between villages. “We have an important mission to accomplish. It’s called a Quest. We have to find out what’s stirring up the Elements.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just an urge to go wild.”

  “Exactly. It has to be caused by a Demon. We need to find out who he is so he can be stopped. We must operate pretty much in secret so he doesn’t catch on that we’re looking. We’d like to have you and the other Elements join our search.”

  “I’ll do whatever Noletta wants.”

  “That’s fine. But we want you to understand and agree in principle apart from that. To become, in effect, part of the Quest.”

  “I don’t care about your Quest. Only about Noletta.”

  “We think you should care. Because something is interfering with your nature. Instead of just handling fire when you choose, something is causing you to do it flat-out, regardless of your wish.”

  Flame considered. “That’s true. Now that I think about it, I am annoyed. I don’t want anyone messing with my nature.” He paused, glancing at Noletta. “Except you, my dear.”

  “I want you as you are,” she said fondly. “Not changed by someone else.”

  They came together and kissed. More little burning hearts appeared, circling their heads before spinning off to see the rest of the scene.

  Woe made a face. “Sappy stuff.”

  “So I am with you,” Flame concluded. “I will help as I can.”

  “Oops, I need a moment of privacy,” Noletta said. “Even from you. It’s a natural function thing. Those village pies are catching up with me. I want to be lean and trim outside and inside for our next romantic session.”

  “Go behind a bush,” Ecstasy suggested. “We’ll wait.”

  Noletta walked to the bush.

  “What is this thing called natural function?” Flame asked.

  “Living folk can’t draw on the natural power of the elements,” Ecstasy explained. “We have to eat and drink to sustain our bodies. That means we digest food, which in turn means we have to get rid of the residues from it. It’s not romantic, so we don’t talk about it much and don’t do it in public. You can just ignore it, as you don’t have such needs, and let Letta have her private moments. This is the way it is among living folk.”

  “Oh. I will let her be.”

  Noletta emerged from behind the bush, pulling up her pants. She started walking toward them—just as an ogre appeared from the forest, perhaps looking for more saplings to tie in knots or young dragons to educate on the nature of fear.

  “Me see she,” he exclaimed. He reached down to grab her by the hair. He effortlessly hoisted her up to his head height, which was twice hers. “Twirl girl.” He flicked her with a ham finger, making her spin in place.

  “Put me down, you brute!” she screamed.

  Nydia was unable to think of an appropriate course of action. All the nymphs together couldn’t budge an ogre.

  “Ask Flame,” Anthem said. “I’ll enhance his understanding.”

  Oh, of course. “She needs your help, Flame,” Nydia said urgently. “Don’t burn him to a cinder, just make him go away. So folk don’t see your real power.”

  “Got it.” Flame strode rapidly toward the ogre, now that he had been told what to do. “Unhand that damsel, varlet!” he called. He seemed to have a good vocabulary.

  The ogre heard him and turned as he arrived. He did not set Noletta down, letting her dangle by her hair. “Who you?”

  “I am this woman’s friend. Now set her down and scram, or I will toast your toes.”

  “Ha, ha.” The ogre swung his free hamhand out and clasped his hamfingers around Flame’s neck. Then he screamed in pain because he was not wearing magic socks. There was a fierce sizzle as the fire scorched through his fingers, leaving ash and bone amid a cloud of foul smoke.

  He dropped the nymph, who landed lightly on her feet and ran clear.

  “Go!” Flame called, sending jets of flame toward the ogre’s feet. “Or I’ll make you dance.” That had to be Anthem’s prompting.

  Ogres were justifiably proud of their stupidity, but this was registering. He turned and lumbered away.

  Flame sent a bolt after him, scoring on his backside. “Ooo-ooo!” the ogre howled as he accelerated.