Centaur Aisle (20 page)

Irene was growing a plant; evidently she had saved some salve for it. It was a tangler, as fearsome a growth as the kraken seaweed, but one that operated on solid land—or cloud. In moments it was big enough to be a threat to all in its vicinity. "Try to get the tree between you and the dragon," Irene advised, stepping back from the vegetable monster.

Dor did so. When the next wyvern came at him, he scooted around behind the tangler. The dragon, hardly expecting to encounter such a plant in the clouds, did a double take and banked off. But the tangler shot out a tentacle and hooked a wing. It drew the wyvern in, wrapping more tentacles about it, like a spider with a fly.

The dragon screamed, biting and clawing at the plant, but the tangler was too strong for it. The other wyverns heeded the call. They zoomed in toward the tangler. Chet lassoed one as it passed him; the dragon turned ferociously on him, biting into his shoulder, then went on to the plant. Three wyverns swooped at the tangler, jetting their fires at it. There was a loud hissing; foul-smelling steam expanded outward. But a tentacle caught a second dragon and drew it in. No one tangled with a tangler without risk!

"We'd better get out of here," Irene said. "Whoever wins this battle will be after us next."

Dor agreed. He called to Grundy and Smash, and they went to join Chet.

The centaur was in trouble. Bright red blood streamed down his left side, and his arm hung uselessly. "Leave me," he said. "I am now a liability."

"We're all liabilities," Dor said. "Irene, grow some more healing plants."

"I don't have any," she said. "We have to get down to ground and find one; then I can make it grow."

"We can't get down," Chet said. "Not until night, when perhaps fog will form in the lower reaches, and we can walk down that."

"You'll bleed to death by night!" Dor protested. He took off his shirt, the new one Irene had made for him. "I'll try to bandage your wound. Then—we'll see."

"Here, I'll do it," Irene said. "You men aren't any good at this sort of thing. Dor, you question the cloud about a fast way down."

Dor agreed. While she worked on the centaur, he interrogated the cloud they stood on. "Where are we, in relation to the land of Xanth?"

"We have drifted south of the land," the cloud reported.

"South of the land! What about Centaur Isle?"

"South of that, too," the cloud said smugly.

"We've got to get back there!"

"Sorry, I'm going on south. You should have disembarked an hour ago. You must talk to the wind; if it changed—"

Dor knew it was useless to talk to the wind; he had tried that as a child. The wind always went where it wanted and did what it pleased without much regard for the preferences of others. "How can we get down to earth in a hurry?"

"Jump off me. I'm tired of your weight anyway. You'll make a big splash when you get there."

"I mean safely!" It was pointless to get mad at the inanimate, but Dor was doing it.

"What do you need for safely?"

"A tilting ramp of clouds, going to solid land."

"No, none of that here. Closest we have is a storm working up to the east. Its turbulence reaches down to the water."

Dor looked east and saw a looming thunderhead. It looked familiar. He was about to have his third brush with that particular storm. "That will have to do."

"You'll be sor-ree!" the cloud sang. "Those T-heads are mean ones, and that one has a grudge against you. I'm a cumulus humilis myself, the most humble of fleecy clouds, but that one—"

"Enough," Dor said shortly. He was already nervous enough about their situation. The storm had evidently exercised and worked up new vaporous muscle for this occasion. This would be bad—but what choice did they have? They had to get Chet down to land—and to Centaur Isle—quickly.

The party hurried across the cloud surface toward the storm. The thunderhead loomed larger and uglier as they approached; its huge damp vortex eyes glared at them, and its nose dangled downward in the form of a whirling cone. New muscle indeed! But the slanting sunlight caught the fringe, turning it bright silver on the near side.

"A silver lining!" Irene exclaimed. "I'd like to have some of that!"

"Maybe you can catch some on the way down," Dor said gruffly. She had criticized him for saving the gold, after all; now she wanted silver.

A wyvern detached itself from the battle with the tangler and winged toward them. "Look out behind; enemy at six o'clock!" Grundy cried.

Dor turned, wearily drawing his sword. But this dragon was no longer looking for trouble. It was flying weakly, seeming dazed. Before it reached them it sank down under the cloud surface and disappeared. "The tangler must have squeezed it," Grundy said.

"The tangler looks none too healthy itself," Irene pointed out. She was probably the only person in Xanth who would have sympathy for such a growth. Dor looked back; sure enough, the tentacles were wilting. "That was quite a fight!" she concluded.

"But if the tangler is on its last roots," Dor asked, "why did the wyvern fly away from it? It's not like any dragon to quit a fight unfinished."

They had no answer. Then, ahead of them, the wyvern pumped itself above the cloud again, struggling to clear the thunderstorm ahead. But it failed; it could not attain sufficient elevation. It blundered on into the storm.

The storm grabbed the dragon, tossed it about, and caught it in the whirling cone. The wyvern rotated around and around, scales flying out, and got sucked into the impenetrable center of the cloud.

"I hate to see a storm feeding," Grundy muttered.

"That thing's worse than the tangler!" Irene breathed. "It gobbled that dragon just like that!"

"We must try to avoid that cone," Dor said. "There's a lot of vapor outside it; if we can climb down that, near the silver lining—"

"My hooves are sinking in the cloud," Chet said, alarmed.

Now they found that the same was happening to all their feet. The formerly bouncy surface had become mucky. "What's happening?" Irene demanded, her tone rising warningly toward hysteria.

"What's happening?" Dor asked the cloud.

"Your salve is losing its effect, dolt," the thunderhead gusted, sounding blurred.

The salve did have a time limit of a day or so. Quickly they applied more. That helped—but still the cloud surface was tacky. "I don't like this," Grundy said. "Maybe our old salve was wearing off, but the new application isn't much better. I wonder if there's any connection with the wilting tangler and the fleeing wyvern?"

"That's it!" Chet exclaimed, wincing as his own animation shot pain through his shoulder. "We're drifting out of the ambience of magic! That's why magic things are in trouble!"

"That has to be it!" Dor agreed, dismayed. "The clouds are south of Xanth—and beyond Xanth the magic fades. We're on the verge of Mundania!"

For a moment they were silent, shocked. The worst had befallen them.

"We'll fall through the cloud!" Irene cried. "We'll fall into the sea! The horrible Mundane sea!"

"Let's run north," Grundy urged. "Back into magic!"

"Well only come to the edge of the cloud and fall off," Irene wailed. "Dor,
do
something!"

How he hated to be put on the spot like that! But he already knew his course. "The storm," he said, "We've got to go through it, getting down, before we're out of magic."

"But that storm hates us!"

"That storm will have problems of its own as the magic fades," Dor said.

They ran toward the thunderhead, who glared at them and tried to organize for a devastating strike. But it was indeed losing cohesion as the magic diminished, and could not concentrate properly on them. As they stepped onto its swirling satellite vapors, their feet sank right through, as if the surface were slush. The magic was certainly fading and very little time remained before they lost all support and plummeted.

Yet as they encountered the silver lining, Dor realized there was an unanticipated benefit here. This slow sinking caused by the loss of effect of the salve was allowing them to descend in moderate fashion, and just might bring them safely to ground. They didn't have to depend on the ambience of the storm.

They caught hold of each other's hands, so that no one would be lost as the thickening winds buffeted them. Smash put one arm around Chet's barrel, holding him firm despite the centaur's useless arm. They sank into the swirling fog, feeling it about them like stew. Dor was afraid he would be smothered, but found he could breathe well enough. There was no salve on his mouth; cloud was mere vapor to his head.

"All that silver lining," Irene said. "And I can't have any of it!"

The swirl of wind grew stronger. They were thrown about by the buffets and drawn into the central vortex—but it now had only a fraction of its former strength and could not fling them about as it had the wyvern. They spiraled down through it as the magic continued to dissipate. Dor hung on to the others, hoping the magic would hold out long enough to enable them to land softly. But if they splashed into deep water—

After an interminably brief descent, they did indeed splash into deep water. The rain pelted down on them and monstrous waves surged around them. Dor had to let go of the hands he held, in order to swim and let the others swim. He held his breath, stroked for the surface of the current wave and, when his head broke into the troubled air, he cried, "Help! Spread the word!"

Did any magic remain? Yes—a trifle. "Help!" the wave echoed faintly. "Help!" the next wave repeated. "Help! Help! Help!" the other waves chorused.

A raft appeared. "Someone's drowning!" a voice cried. "Where are you?"

"Here!" Dor gasped. "Five of us—" Then a cruel wash of water smacked into his face, and he was choking. After that, all his waning energies were taken trying to stay afloat in the turbulence, and he was not quite succeeding.

Then strong hands caught him and hauled him onto a broad wooden raft. "The others!" Dor gasped. "Four others—"

"We've got them, King Dor," his rescuer said. "Waterlogged but safe."

"Chet—my friend the centaur—he's wounded—needs healing elixir—"

The rescuer smiled. "He has it, of course. Do you suppose we would neglect our own?"

Dor's vision cleared enough to take in the full nature of his rescuer. It was an adult centaur! "We—we made it—"

"Welcome to the waters of the coast of Centaur Isle, Your Majesty."

"But—" Dor spluttered. "You aren't supposed to know who I am!"

"The Good Magician Humfrey ascertained that you were in trouble and would require assistance when you touched water. The Zombie Master asked us to establish a watch for you in this locale. You are a most important person in your own land, King Dor! It is fortunate we honored their request; we do not ordinarily put to sea during a funnel-storm."

"Oh." Dor was abashed. "Uh, did they tell you what my mission was?"

"Only that you were traveling the Land of Xanth and making a survey of the magic therein. Is there something else we should know?"

"Uh, no, thanks," Dor said. At least that much had been salvaged. The centaurs would not have taken kindly to the notion of a Magician among them—a centaur Magician. Dor did not like deceit, but felt this much was necessary.

Irene appeared, soaked through, bedraggled, and unkempt, but still quite pretty. Somehow she always seemed prettiest to him when she was messed up; perhaps it was because then the artifice was gone. "I guess you did it again, Dor," she said, taking his hand. "You got us down alive."

"But you didn't get your silver lining," he reminded her.

She laughed. "Some other time! After the way that storm treated us, I don't want any of its substance anyway."

Then the centaurs led them into the dry cabin of the raft. Irene continued to hold his hand, and that pleased Dor.

Chapter 7. Dastardly Deed

I
t was dark by the time the centaurs' raft reached port. Chet was taken to a vet for treatment, as the wyvern's bite seemed to be resisting the healing elixir. Dor and his companions were given a good meal of blues and oranges and greens and conducted to a handsome stable for the night. It commanded a fine view of a succulent pasture, was adequately ventilated, and was well stocked with a water trough, hay, and a block of salt.

They stared at the accommodations for a moment; then Smash stepped inside. "Say, hay!" he exclaimed, and plunked himself down into it with a crash that shook the building.

"Good idea," Grundy said, and did likewise, only the shaking of the building was somewhat less. After another moment, Dor and Irene settled down, too. The hay was comfortable and sweetly scented, conducive to relaxation and thoughts of pleasant outdoors. Irene held Dor's hand, and they slept well.

In the morning a stately elder centaur male entered the stable. He seemed oddly diffident. "I am Gerome, the Elder of the Isle. King Dor, I am here to apologize for the error. You were not supposed to be bedded here."

Dor got hastily to his feet, brushing hay off his crumpled clothing while Irene straightened out her skirt and brushed brown hay out of her green hair. "Elder, we're so glad to be rescued from the ocean, and fed and housed, that these accommodations seem wonderful. We'll be happy to complete our business and go home; this was never intended as an official occasion. The stable was just fine."

The centaur relaxed. "You are gracious, Your Majesty. We maintain assorted types of housing for assorted types of guests. I fear a glitch got into the program; we try to fence them out, but they keep sneaking in."

"They infest Castle Roogna also," Dor said. "We catch them in humane glitch traps and deport them to the far forests, but they breed faster than we can catch them."

"Come," the centaur said. "We have attire and food for you." He paused. "One other thing. Some of our number attended the Good Magician's wedding. They report you performed splendidly in trying circumstances. Magician Humfrey had intended to give you an item; it seems the distractions of the occasion caused it to slip his mind." The centaur almost smiled.