Harpy Thyme (34 page)

Good point. She threw the pie away. But it looped around and came back to her hand. “Boo!” it said.

Astonished, she threw it away again, harder. It skated just above the ground in a big loop, and came right back to her. “Boo!” Couldn't she get rid of it?

“Boo-meringue pie, I believe,” Marrow observed.

Oh. The kind that always came back to a person. So she held on to it for now; she'd find a way to get rid of it soon, she was sure.

She flew ahead to see what other wonders might be along this route. Beyond the desserts was a low valley. In it were hoods. Just assorted pointed or rounded headdresses, sitting there for anyone to take. She picked one up that was about right for her and put it on her head.

Immediately it closed on her forehead and ears with such force it was painful. She tried to take it off, but it clung, curling around her mouth, trying to suffocate her. Choking, she fell to the ground.

Then the hood climbed off her face. She gasped in a breath, not moving for the moment. The hood crawled to her hand and wrapped itself around the dish of pie. Then it rolled away with the pie.

Gloha sat up, staring after it. That was a robbing hood! A criminal type. And she, unsuspecting, had let it waylay her. What a fool she had been to trust a hood.

She got up, dusted herself off, and set forth again. She hoped the others had not seen her stupidity with the hood.

Beyond the hooded valley was a field with a single tree. The tree had branches with spinning needlelike spikes, leaves that radiated X rays, and tendrils that squirted jets of water or made horrible sucking sounds. The very sight of it made Gloha shiver with horror. That was a dentis tree! The most feared of all trees. Her teeth ached with the mere thought of getting within range of that monster.

The party caught up as she hovered, not daring to proceed. “No need to be concerned about that,” Trent said reassuringly. “That's a dentis tree.”

“I kn-know,” she agreed, her teeth chattering.

“Such a tree can be very useful, when there's a toothache, I understand,” Marrow said. “It doesn't bother folk with healthy teeth.”

Veleno proceeded right past the tree. Gloha nerved herself and followed. She was relieved when the tree did not grab her.

Now the route descended into a broad, deep cleft. This was good, because it concealed them from the view of the mountain. But there was something odd about it. “I don't like it,” she said.

“Like it it,” a voice replied with an annoying inflection.

“Who said that?” she asked, not quite pleased.

“Said that that,” the voice said with a sneer.

“Are you making fun of me?” she demanded.

“Fun of me me,” it agreed ironically.

“Pay it no mind,” Trent advised. “It's obviously a sar-chasm.”

“Sar chasm chasm,” the voice agreed tauntingly.

Gloha nodded, not trusting herself to speak again, because the chasm had a way of reversing and demeaning the import of whatever she said.

There was a remote clamor. It sounded like goblins and harpies hurling insults at each other. That was good news; it meant that the siege was starting. That should distract Mount Pin-A-Tuba from the real mission.

But soon there was another sound: that of distant thunder. Trent cocked his head. “Uh-oh,” he said mildly.

“Could that be Fracto?” Marrow inquired.

“It surely could,” Gloha said. “He always shows up at the worst times.”

“Malign beings do seem to congregate,” Trent agreed. “The evil cloud may have a pact with the evil mountain. Our siege alerted it.”

“Well, as long as Fracto doesn't realize what we're up to.”

The cloud moved in with dismaying speed. The sky darkened. Thunder crashed, and lightning jags taunted the land. The rain started.

“I think this chasm won't be suitable much longer,” Trent said.

“Maybe if we hurry, we'll get out of it soon,” Marrow said.

They hurried. Veleno fairly whizzed along. The rain came down more thickly, and the runoff from higher slopes poured into the chasm in assorted waterfalls. The base began to fill with water.

“Maybe we had better get out of this chasm,” Gloha suggested. “I mean by getting straight out now, not trying to get out the far end of it.”

“Metria is showing the route,” Trent said. “She should know whether it is safe to leave the chasm now.” He glanced at Veleno.

A black bubble came from a nozzle at the slowmud's front. That meant No. It wasn't safe to leave.

So they continued, as rapidly as they could. But the rainfall increased. Water sluiced into the chasm, and the runoff poured more thickly into it. Evidently this was one of the mountain's natural drainage clefts, excellent for travel during dry weather, but a disaster in a storm. Metria could not have known that Fracto would get into the act. The level not only rose in the chasm, it developed a turbulent flow. They had either to get out of the chasm, or fight that flow. It was getting more difficult.

“Still not safe to leave this depression?” Trent inquired mildly.

Another black bubble.

“I'll see for myself,” Gloha said impatiently. She spread her wings and hauled herself into the air despite the buffeting of the winds. She got her head up above the level of the brink and peered out.

It was a hellish scene. The chasm was winding through a landscape of jagged rocks surrounded by ash. Steam rose from hot spots, and sinister smoke issued from mean-looking vents. There seemed to be no clear path through it except the chasm. Metria had signaled truly.

“Not safe,” Gloha said shortly as she dropped back to the bottom. “We have to continue here.”

“We shall have to float,” Trent decided. “Slowmud can do it, and Marrow can form a boat for me, as he did before. But each can support only one person. We have one extra.”

“Me,” Gloha said. “I will have to go back, so that the rest of you can make it.”

“No,” Trent said firmly. “You must be along. It is your quest.”

“But Graeboe has to be along, and so does Marrow. You don't mean that you will go back?”

“I fear for your safety if I am not with you. I may need to transform you if there is an emergency.”

“Then transform me now, into a form that can handle this.”

“I don't think that's wise.”

“But we have to do something*” she cried despairingly.

“See if you can hang on to the slowmud,” he said. “You can float without putting your weight on it.”

She hadn't thought of that. Maybe it would work.

Trent kicked Marrow in the hipbone, and the skeleton flew apart and formed into the small boat. There was even a line of small bones extending across so that the slowmud could grab on. That way they wouldn't get separated in the rapids.

Trent found a long piece of driftwood he was able to beat into a crude paddle-pole. He got in the boat and jammed the pole down through the surging water as an anchor. Gloha saw now that the bone boat had flipper-bones below that served to propel the craft.

Meanwhile Veleno stopped trying to glide through the shallows and set out to float on the deeps. It did seem to work better, except that the swirling current tended to turn him around. Gloha grabbed on behind, and the current hauled her back, so that she served as a stabilizer. Then the slowmud was able to forge forward.

They moved slowly on up the river. Gloha hoped it would end soon, so that they could get back on land, but it seemed interminable. The rain kept pouring down, preventing the river from drying up. Fracto probably didn't realize that they were there, or he would have made it much worse. This was just the fringe of his effort to wash out the goblins and harpies elsewhere.

A dark ugly shape flapped over the chasm. Gloha saw its silhouette against the bleary sky. It looked like a vulture, only worse. It peered down with its beady eyes. It plopped a smelly poop into the water. That enabled Gloha to recognize it: the thing was a vulgar. Probably one of the mountain's mean-spirited creatures. What would happen if it spied them, and told Pin-A-Tuba?

Then two smaller ugly shapes appeared. “There's one!” the first screeched.

Harpies! Part of the siege force. Gloha had seldom been happier to see her winged relatives.

“Well, let's tear it to quivering bits!” the second harpy screeched enthusiastically.

The two dived for the vulgar. All three shapes disappeared beyond the chasm brink. There was a medley of screeching, and a grimy feather drifted down. The harpies had saved the little party from discovery.

They followed the chasm river around a turn, and came to a filling pool. Here it was slightly quieter, though the storm was still pounding overhead. They pulled over to the side, where it was shallow enough for them to get some temporary footing and rest briefly.

Trent looked back. “Trouble,” he said mildly.

Gloha looked around, expecting some new threat. But there didn't seem to be anything. “What is it?” She noticed that the sar-chasm effect was gone; there was no longer a mean-spirited echo.

“Graeboe is leaving us.”

“What?” But she knew what he meant. She pulled herself around to the side and looked at the elf-giant.

His pallor was worse. He was conscious, but looked as if he expected not to be so at any moment. The violence of the river travel had depleted his scant remaining strength.

Gloha was stricken. What good was this trip if the rigors of travel wiped Graeboe out before the trans-plant could heal him? “What can we do?” she asked plaintively.

“We can do nothing,” he said gravely. “You can do much.”

“I don't understand!”

“Tell him the truth.”

“I haven't lied to him, or to anyone.”

“Except to yourself, perhaps.”

The Magician could be so irritating at times! What was he talking about? “What haven't I been truthful about?” she demanded. “How is it hurting Graeboe?”

“Your feeling.”

“My feeling? I want him to be cured, so he can live and be a giant.”

“Then tell him that.”

Gloha shook her head, unkindly bemused. Graeboe was dying, and she was supposed to wish him a happy giant-hood? Yet she had to say something.

“I can't tell him the truth,” she said with difficulty. “It would only hurt him, and diminish me. And you.”

“I doubt it,” he said with that infuriating mildness.

“Then you hear it first!” she snapped. “I am-am fascinated by you, and if I had my choice I would become a human woman and do everything with you that you had in mind for Cynthia.” There: it was out, for whatever mischief it was worth.

He seemed unfazed. “I think not.”

“Because you're not interested,” she agreed dully.

“Oh, but I am.”

“So you can just go on being amused by-” She paused. “What?”

“You are lovely, innocent, caring, faithful, and sincere. You are the kind of woman any man could love. You are a rare prize. And I could readily transform you to a- fully human woman.”

She stared at him. “You-you return my interest?”

“I do. I am as fascinated with you as you are with me, and for similar reason. You are to your gender what you see me to be in mine. We could have a wonderful time together.”

Gloha shook her heady little head. “Forgive me, Magician, but I am having trouble believing this.”

“Believe it. But understand the whole of it: it would not endure. Because my perspectives are not yours, my friends are not yours, and I am a Magician while you are not. I exist in a different realm, and that would surely alienate us from each other after the first flush of fulfillment faded. You will never be able to match me in magic, and if you join me you will sacrifice the heritage you have. You would come to resent your inability to fly, and you would be ashamed that you gave up the quality that made you unique: the unification in your person of the goblins and the harpies. And so it would be a mistaken affair without a future-even if I were not old and already married. This is not your true desire, or mine.”

She reeled under his harsh and appallingly adult logic. Suddenly she saw her dream for what it was: an utterly foolish fancy. She had known it, but never quite accepted it. Now she could no longer deny it. She could not give up her heritage for any temporary tryst, no matter how handsome, intelligent, or magical the man. And he could not give up his, though he had gone so far as to confess being attracted to both Cynthia and Gloha herself. He was, physically, a young, healthy man; he noticed and responded to pretty women. The difference between them was that he had experience enough to appreciate the truth, and the discipline to be governed by his head rather than his passion.

“Thank you, Magician,” she said at last. “You have marvelously clarified my mind.” She wiped away her tears, but more replaced them immediately.

“Now you must do the same for Graeboe, before he dies.”

“I should set him straight, the way you set me straight? I don't think I could be so cruel.”

“The truth is seldom cruel. I think you owe it to him.”

“Because he-he thinks he feels about me the way I thought I felt about you?”

“Yes. But there is a difference.”

“Yes. He's dying. I'm not.”

“So there is very little time.”

He was relentless! But what else could she do? She did owe a dying man the truth. She returned to Graeboe.

She reached out of the water and took his hand under the blanket. It was as cold as hers, but his wasn't wet. The blanket seemed to have a water-repellent quality, so was protecting him from a soaking. “Graeboe, I wish you could hang on just enough longer so that you can be cured, and live your life as an invisible giant.”

“Thank you,” he breathed. “I wish you fulfillment in your quest.” He closed his eyes. “If you will, ask Marrow Bones to come near.”

She saw that he was about to die. Something burst inside her. “Oh, it's not true!” she cried. “I don't want you to be a giant!”

Slowly his eyes opened. He was faintly startled.

“I don't want you to be any other creature,” she said, amazed at herself. “I just want you to be mine. I love you, Graeboe, and I wish I could m-marry you, and to h-hell with my quest!” She fetched his hand in to her face and kissed it. “Oh, Graeboe, it's impossible, and I'm so selfish, and you're such a good man, and I have no right, but please, please don't die. Even if it can't be anything between us, because I know I could never endure as a giantess any more than as a straight human woman, I want you to be healthy and happy.”