Centaur Aisle x-4

by Piers Anthony

  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 humius 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 bluffed.

  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!”

  “We’ll 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. “Water-logged but safe.”

  “Chet-my friend the centaur-he’s wounded-needs healing.”

  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 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.

  It 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.

  “He does tend to be forgetful,” Dor said, remembering the lapse about notifying the human Elders about King Trent’s excursion to Mundania.

  “Accordingly, the Gorgon asked one of our representatives to convey the item to you here.” Gerome held out a small object.

  Dor accepted it. “Thank you, Elder. Uh, what is it?”

  “I believe it is a magic compass. Note that the indicator points directly to you-the one Magician on the Isle.”

  Dor studied the compass. It was a disk within which a needle of light showed. “This isn’t pointing to me.”

  Gerome looked. “Why, so it isn’t. But I’m sure it was until a moment ago; that is how I was certain it had reached its proper destination. Perhaps I misunderstood its application; it may have pointed to you only to guide us to you. Certainly it assisted our search for you yesterday afternoon.”

  “That must be it!” Dor agreed. The Good Magician might have anticipated the problem with the storm and sent down the one thing that would bring help to him unerringly. Humfrey was funny that way, doing things anachronistically. Dor tucked the compass in a pocket with the diamonds and sunstone and changed the subject.

  “Chet-how is he doing this morning?”

  Gerome frowned. “I regret to report that he is not fully recovered. Apparently he was bitten near the fringe of magic-”

  “He was,” Dor agreed.

  “And a Mundane infection got in. This is resistive to magic healing. Perhaps, on the other hand, it was merely the delay in applying the elixir. We cannot be certain. Odd things do happen at the fringe of magic. He is in no danger of demise, but I fear it will be some time before his arm is again at full strength.”

  “Maybe we can help him back at Castle Roogna,” Dor said, uncomfortable. “He is our friend; without him, we could not have made it down here. I feel responsible.”

  “He must not indulge in any further violence until he recovers completely,” Gerome said gravely. “It is not at all wise to take a magic-resistive illness lightly. Come-he awaits you at breakfast.”

  On the way there, Gerome insisted they pause at the centaur clothier. Dor was outfitted with bright new trousers, shirt, and jacket, all intricately woven and comfortable. Irene got a dress set that set her off quite fetchingly, though it was not her normal shade of green.

  Even Smash and Grundy got handsome jackets. The ogre had never worn clothing before, but his jacket was so nice he accepted it with pride.

  “This material,” Irene said. “There’s something magic about it.”

  Gerome smiled. “As you know, we centaurs frown on personal magic talents. But we do work with magic. The apparel is woven by our artisans from iron curtain thread, and is strongly resistant to penetration by foreign objects. We use it for vests during combat, to minimize injuries.”

  “But this must be very precious stuff!” Dor said.

  “Your welfare is important to us, Your Majesty. Had you and Chet been wearing this clothing, the wyvern’s teeth would not have penetrated his shoulder.”

  Dor appreciated the rationale. It would be a big embarrassment to the centaurs if anything happened to the temporary King of Xanth or his friends during their stay here. “Thank you very much.”

  They entered a larger room, whose tall ceiling was supported by ornate white columns. Huge windows let in the slanting morning sunlight, lending a pleasant warmth and brilliance. On an enormous banquet table in the center were goblets of striped sardonyx and white alabaster, doubly pretty in the sun. The plates were of green jadeite. “A King’s ransom,” Irene whispered. “I think they trotted out the royal crockery for you, Dor.”

  “I wish they hadn’t,” he whispered back.
“Suppose something gets broken?”

  “Keep an eye on Smash,” she said. That made Dor more nervous than ever.

  How would the ogre handle the delicate tableware?

  They were given high chairs, for the table was too tall for them.

  Several more centaurs joined them, male and female, introduced as the other Elders of the Isle. They stood at the table; centaurs had no way to use chairs, and the table was crafted to their height.

  The food was excellent. Dor had been halfway fearful that it would be whole oats and cracked corn with silage on the side, but the glitch of the stable-housing was not repeated. There was a course of yellow cornmeal mush, from cornmeal bushes, and fine chocolate milk from cocoa-nuts. For sweetening there was an unusual delicacy called honey, said to be manufactured by a rare species of bees imported from Mundania. Dor had encountered sneeze-bees and the spelling bee, but it was odd indeed to think of honey-bees!

  Smash, to Dor’s surprise and relief, turned out to be a connoisseur of delicate stone. His kind, he informed them happily in rhyme, had developed their power by smashing and shaping different kinds of minerals. They could not turn out goblets as nice as these, but did produce pretty fair marble and granite blocks for walls and buildings.

  “Indeed,” Gerome agreed. “Some fine cornerstones here were traded from ogres. Those corners stand up to anything.”

  Smash tossed down another couple mugs of milk, pleased. Few other creatures recognized the artistic propensities of ogres.

  Chet was there, looking somewhat wan and eating very little, which showed that his injury was paining him somewhat. There was nothing Dor could do except politely ignore it, as his friend obviously wanted no attention drawn to his weakness. Chet would not be traveling with them again for some time.

  After the meal they were treated to a guided tour of the Isle. Dor was conscious of King Trent’s reference to isle or aisle in the vision.

  If it were the only way Dor could reach him, he must be alert for the mechanism. Somewhere here, perhaps, was the key he needed.

  The outside streets were broad, paved with packed dirt suitable for hooves, and were banked on the curves for greatest galloping comfort.