Five Portraits by Piers Anthony

stupid question. “How can we breathe here?”
    â€œWith magic, anything is possible. We can breathe anywhere in the universe, and be comfortable.”
    â€œAnd you—aren’t you the Demoness of antimatter? Whose very touch makes everything explode in total conversion of mass to energy? How can we be touching?”
    â€œThis is true. I dare not touch any normal matter. My form is a semblance assumed for convenience, crafted of local substance, a simulacrum, governed by my mind. You and I are not actually touching. Usually I just make an illusion, as that’s the easiest and safest magic, but I needed to convey you here.”
    â€œKandy said you asked her to be your friend, and she turned you down.”
    â€œShe has reason. She has to be objective.”
    â€œSo she asked me to consider it.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’m a basilisk! A poisonous lizard. My very nearness can kill.”
    â€œYes. Your situation is not as devastating as mine, but there is a parallel.”
    Astrid contemplated the semblance of the Demoness. There was indeed a parallel. “You’re a Demoness! Your power compared to mine is like a galaxy versus a gnat. Why should you care half an iota about my friendship?”
    â€œYour analogy minimizes the case,” Fornax said candidly. “But you have a soul, and I have none. On that basis we can associate as equals. If you are interested.”
    Astrid remembered what the Good Magician had said about the value of a soul. Now Fornax was confirming it, to a degree. He had said that souls were immeasurably precious, at least to those who had them. That was curious. If no one who lacked a soul wanted one, what was the point? “I am interested, but confused,” Astrid said candidly. “I came by my soul by accident, and didn’t even know it for some time, and have hardly been aware of it since. Why does it interest you?”
    â€œA soul enables a person to be decent, as you are. To have friends, as you do. To love, as you do. To have larger aspirations, as you do. Demons have none of these things.”
    â€œAnd Demon’s don’t value souls,” Astrid said. “Why would you?”
    â€œThat may be complicated to explain. Before you acquired your soul, by whatever means, did you care about such things?”
    â€œNo. I realize now that my caring dated from my acquisition of the soul.”
    â€œAre you sure?”
    Astrid reconsidered. “No. I think I was a bit jealous of the way humans enjoyed each other’s company. No cockatrice or basilisk ever wanted company.”
    â€œYou must have had the potential to handle a soul. That soul may even have sought you out, knowing you would do better by it than some freak in the dream realm.”
    â€œSouls have wills of their own?”
    â€œThey may. It is a reasonable conjecture.”
    â€œAnd you have the potential to handle a soul!” Astrid said, seeing it. “So you are interested.”
    â€œThat may be the case.”
    â€œMaybe the night mares have another soul you could take.”
    â€œThey do not. They tightened up their procedures after that mishap.”
    â€œYou must have something in mind.”
    â€œI do. But a soul normally cannot be taken. It must be given, and not entirely.”
    â€œI am not following this.”
    â€œThere was a character named Jumper Spider who was given human form and associated closely with several human women,” Fornax said. “In fact two of them seduced him, in friendship. That association eventually provided him with a soul, a composite of portions of his human friends so that he became a souled creature. That in turn enabled him to marry the Demoness Eris, called by some the Goddess of Discord, and when she shared his soul, as happens in marriage, she became like the person she had been emulating. That is, nice. She also became the friend of Jumper’s friend Wenda Woodwife. She is much