Centaur Aisle x-4

by Piers Anthony

  “Now see what you’ve- done, you moronic brute,” Amolde said.

  But somehow the centaur did not seem completely displeased. He, too, was tired and irritable from the journey, and the welcome at Castle Onesti had not been polite.

  The guard stood inside, staring, as the ogre hurled the great door down the mountainside. “Take us to your leader,” Dor said calmly, as if this were routine. All he could do, after all, was make the best of the situation, and poise counted for a lot. “We don’t want my friend to get impatient.”

  The guard turned about somewhat dazedly and led the way to the interior of the castle. Other guards came charging up, attracted by the commotion, swords drawn. Smash glared at them and they hastily faded back, swords sheathed.

  Soon they came to the main banquet hall, where the King of Onesti held sway. The King sat at the bead of an immense wooden table piled with puddings. He stood angrily as Dor approached, his huge belly bulging out over the table. “H edlzme sn jmny sgd ldzmhmf timesghr hmsqtrhnm-?” he demanded, his fat face reddening impressively.

  Then Amolde’s magic aisle caught up, and the King became intelligible.

  “. . . before I have you all thrown in the dungeon!”

  “Hello,” Dor said. “I am Dor, temporary King of Xanth while King Trent is away.” Of course, the Zombie Master was temporary-temporary King now, while Dor himself was away, but that was too complicated to explain at the moment. “He came here on a trading mission, I believe, less than a month ago, and has not returned. So I have come to look for him. What’s the story?”

  The King scowled. Suddenly Dor knew this approach had been an wrong, that King Trent had not come here, that the people of Onesti knew nothing about him. This was all a mistake.

  “I am King Oary of Onesti,” the King said from out of his glower, “and I never saw this King Trench of yours. Get out of my Kingdom.”

  Despair struck Dor-but behind him Amolde murmured: “That person is prevaricating, I believe.”

  “On top of that, he’s lying,” Irene muttered.

  “Glib fib,” Smash said. He set one hamhand down on the banquet table gently. The bowls of pudding jumped and quivered nervously.

  King Oary considered the ogre. His ruddy face paled. His righteous anger dissolved into something like guilty cunning. “However, I may have news of him,” he said with less bellicosity. “Join my feast, and I will query my minions.”

  Dor didn’t like this. King Oary did not impress him favorably, and he did not feel like eating with the man. But the puddings looked good, and he did want Oary’s cooperation. He nodded reluctant assent.

  The servants hurried up with more chairs for Dor, Irene, and Smash.

  Grundy, too small for a chair, perched instead on the edge of the table. Arnolde merely stood. More puddings were brought in, together with flagons of beverage, and they all pitched in.

  The pudding was thick, with fruit embedded, and surprisingly tasty. Dor soon found himself thirsty, for the pudding was highly spiced, so he drank-and found the beverage a cross between sweet beer and sharp wine from indifferent beerbarrel and winekeg trees.

  He hadn’t realized that such trees grew in Mundania; certainly they did not grow as well. But the stuff was heady and good once he got used to it.

  The others were eating as happily. They had all developed quite an appetite in the course of their trek up the mountain river, and had not paused to grow a meal of their own before approaching the castle. Smash, especially, tossed down puddings and flagons of drink with an abandon that set the castle servants gaping.

  But the drink was stronger than what they were accustomed to.

  Dor soon found his awareness spinning pleasantly. Grundy began a little dance on the table, a routine he had picked up from a Mundane immigrant to Xanth. He called it the Drunken Sailor’s Hornpipe, and it did indeed look drunken. King Oary liked it, applauding with his fat hands.

  Arnolde and Irene ate more diffidently, but the centaur’s mass required plenty of sustenance, and he was making good progress.

  Irene, it seemed, loved puddings, so she could not hold back long.

  “Zrne vgn lhfgs wt ad, ezhq czlrdk?” King Oary asked Irene pleasantly. oops-they were seated along the table, with the King at the end.

  The King was beyond the aisle of magic. But Amolde grasped the problem quickly, and angled his body so that he now faced the King.

  That would extend the magic far enough.

  Irene, too, caught on. “Were you addressing me, Your Majesty?” she asked demurely. Dor had to admit she was very good at putting on maidenly ways.

  “Of course. What other fair damsels are in this hall?”

  She colored slightly, looking about as if to spy other girls. She was getting more practiced at this sort of dissemblance. “’Thank you so much, Your Majesty.”

  “What is your lineage?”

  “Oh, I’m King Trent’s daughter.”

  The King nodded sagely. “I’m sure you are prettier than your mother.”

  Did that mean something? Dor continued eating, listening, hoping Irene could get some useful information from the obese monarch.

  There was something odd here, but Dor did not know how to act until he had more definite information.

  “Have you any news of my parents?” Irene inquired, having the wit and art to smile fetchingly at the King. Yet again Dor had to suppress his unreasoning jealousy. “I’m so worried about them.” And she pouted cutely. Dor hadn’t seen her use that expression before; it must be a new one.

  “My henchmen are spying out information now,” the King reassured her. “Soon we should have what news there is.”

  Amolde glanced at Dor, a fleeting frown on his face. He still did not trust Oary.

  “Tell me about Onesti,” Irene said brightly. “It seems like such a nice little Kingdom.”

  “Oh, it is, it is,” the King agreed, his eyes focusing on what showed of her legs. “Two fine castles and several villages, and some very pretty mountains. For centuries we have fought off the savages; two thousand years ago, this was the heartland of the battle-axe people, the Cimmerians. Then the Scyths came on their horses, driving the footbound Cimmerians south. Horses had not been seen in this country before; they seemed like monsters from some fantasy land.”

  The King paused to chew up another pudding. Monsters from a fantasy land-could that refer to Xanth? Dor wondered. Maybe some nightmares found a way out, and turned Mundane, and that was the origin of day horses. It was an intriguing speculation.

  “But here at the mountains,” the King resumed, wiping pudding crust from his whiskers, “the old empire held. Many hundreds of years later the Sarmatians drove out the Scyths, but did not penetrate this fastness.”

  He belched contentedly. “Then came the Goths-but still we held the border. Then from the south came the horrible civilian Romans, and from the east the Huns.”

  “Ah, the Huns,” Irene agreed, as if she knew something about them.

  “But still Onesti survived, here in the mountains, unconquered though beset by barbarians,” the King concluded. “Of course we had to pay tribute sometimes, a necessary evil. Yet our trade is inhibited. If we interact too freely with the barbarians, there will surely be mischief. Yet we must have trade if we are to survive.”

  “My father came to trade,” Irene said.

  “Perhaps he got sidetracked by the dread Khazars, or their Magyar minions,” King Oary suggested. “I have had some dealings with those; they are savage, cunning brutes, always alert for spoils. I happen to speak their language, so I know.”

  Dor decided he would have to do some searching on his own, questioning the objects in this vicinity. But not right now, while the King was watching. He was sure the King was hiding something.

  “Have you been King of Onesti for a long time?” Irene inquired innocently.

  “Not long,” Oary admitted. “My nephew Omen was to be King, but he was underage, so I became regent when my brother died. Then Ome
n went out hunting-and did not return. We fear he strayed too far and was ambushed by the Khazars or Magyars. So I am King, until we can declare Omen officially dead. There is no hope of his survival, of course, but the old council moves very slowly on such matters.”

  So King Oary was in fact regent during the true King’s absence-much as Dor was, in Xanth. But this King was eager to retain the throne. Had there been foul play by other than the Khazars?

  Dor found his head on the table, contesting for space with a pudding. He must have gotten quite sleepy? “What’s going on?” he mumbled.

  “You’ve been drugged, you fool, that’s what,” the table whispered in his ear. “There’s more in that rotgut than booze, I’ll tell you!”

  Dor reacted with shock, but somehow his head did not rise.

  “Drugged? Why?”

  “’Cause the Imposter King doesn’t like you, that’s why,” the table said. “He always drugs his enemies. That’s how he got rid of King Omen, and then that fake Magician King.”

  Magician King! It was funny, whispering with his head on the table, but fairly private. Dor’s nose was almost under the pudding.

  “Was that King Trent?”

  “That’s what he called himself. But he couldn’t do magic. He drank the drink, all-trusting the way they all are, the fools, and went to sleep just like you. You’re all such suckers.”

  “Smash! Grundy!” Dor cried as loudly as he could, his head still glued to the table. “We’ve been betrayed! Drugged! Break out of here!”

  But now many guards charged into the hall. “Remove this carrion,” King Oary commanded. “Throw them in the dungeon. Don’t damage the girl; she’s too pretty to waste. Put the freak horse in the stable.”

  Smash, who had gulped huge quantities of the drugged drink, nevertheless had strength to rouse himself and fight. Dor heard the noise, but was facing the wrong way. Guards charged, and screamed, and retreated. “Give it to them, ogre!” Grundy cried, dancing on the table. “Tear them up!”

  But then the violence abated. “Hey, don’t slow down now!” Grundy called. “What’s the matter with you?”

  Dor knew what had happened. Smash had wandered outside the magic aisle, and lost his supernatural strength. Now the flagons of drugged drink took their toll, as they would on any normal creature.

  “Me sleep a peep,” Smash said, the last of his magic expended in the rhyme.

  Dor knew this fight was lost. “Get out of here, Grundy,” he said with a special effort. “Before you sleep, too. Don’t let them catch you.” The unconsciousness overcame Dor.

  Dor woke with a headache. He was lying on sour-smelling hay in a dark cell. As he moved, something skittered away. He suspected it was a rat; he understood they abounded in Mundania. Maybe that was a blessing; the magic creatures of the night could be horrible in Xanth.

  There was the sound of muted sobbing. Dor held his breath a moment to make certain it wasn’t himself.

  He sat up, peering through the gloom to find some vestige of light.

  There was a little, which grew brighter as his eyes acclimatized; it seemed to be a candle in the distance. But there was a wall in the way; the light filtered through the cracks.

  He oriented on the sobbing. It was from an adjacent chamber, separated from his own by massive stone pilings and huge wood timbers.

  This must be the lower region of the castle, these cells hollowed out from around the foundations. There were gaps between the supports, big enough for him to pass his arm through but not his body.

  “Irene?” he asked.

  “Oh, Dor!” she answered immediately, tearfully. “I thought I was alone! What has become of us?”

  “We were drugged and thrown in the dungeon,” he said. “King Oary must have done the same to your parents, before.” He couldn’t quite remember where he had gotten that notion, or how he himself had been drugged; his memory was foggy on recent details.

  “But why? My father came only to trade!”

  “I don’t know. But I think King Oary is a usurper. Maybe he murdered the rightful King, and your folks found out. Oary knew he couldn’t fool us long, so he practiced his treachery on us, too.”

  “What do we do now?” she demanded hysterically. “Oh, Dor, I’ve never felt so horrible!”

  “I think it’s the drug,” he said. “I feel bad, too. That should wear off. If we have our magic, we may be able to get free. Do you have your bag of seeds?”

  She checked. “No. Only my clothing. Do you have your gold and gems?”

  Dor checked. “No. They must have searched us and taken everything they thought was valuable or dangerous. I don’t have my sword either.” But then his questing fingers found something small. “I do have the jar of salve, not that it’s much good here. And my midnight sunstone; it fell into the jacket lining. Let me see.” He brought it out. “No, I guess not. This has no light.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “I’ll check,” he said. “Floor, where are my companions?”

  There was no answer. “That means we have no magic. Amolde must be in the stable.” He seemed to remember something about that, foggily.

  “What about Smash and Grundy?”

  “Me here,” the ogre said from the opposite cell. “Head hurt. Strength gone.”

  Now Dor had no further doubt; the magic was gone. The ogre wasn’t rhyming, and no doubt Irene’s hair had lost its color. Magic had strange little bypaths and side effects, where loss was somehow more poignant than that of the major aspects. But those major ones were vital; without his magic strength, Smash could probably not break free of the dungeon.

  “Grundy?” Dor called inquiringly.

  There was no answer. Grundy, it seemed, had escaped capture. That was about the extent of their good fortune.

  “Me got gauntlets,” Smash said.

  Include one more item of fortune. If the ogre should get his strength back, those gauntlets would be a big help. Probably the castle guards had not realized the gauntlets were not part of the ogre, since Smash had used them for eating. The ogreish lack of manners had paid off in this respect.

  Dor’s head was slowly clearing. He tried the door to his cell. It was of solid Mundane wood, worn but far too tough to break. Too tough, too, for Smash, in his present condition; the ogre tried and couldn’t budge his own door. Unless the centaur came within range, none of them had any significant lever for freedom.

  The doors seemed to be barred by some unreachable mechanism outside: inside, the slimy stone floor was interrupted only by a disposal sump-a small but deep hole that reeked of old excrement. Obviously no one would be released for sanitary purposes either.

  Smash banged a fist against a wall. “Ow!” he exclaimed. “Now me miss centaur!”

  “He does have his uses,” Dor agreed. “You know, Smash, Arnolde didn’t really usurp Chet’s place. Chet couldn’t come with us anyway, because of his injury, and Amolde didn’t want to. We pretty much forced him into it, by revealing his magic talent.”

  “Ungh,” the ogre agreed. “Me want out of here. No like be weak.”

  “I think we’ll have to wait for whatever King Oary plans for us,” Dor said grimly. “If he planned to kill us, he wouldn’t have bothered to lock us in here.”

  “Dor, I’m scared, really scared,” Irene said. “I’ve never been a prisoner before.”

  Dor peered out through the cracks in his door. Had the flickering candle shadow moved? The guard must be coming in to eavesdrop.

  Naturally King Oary would want to know their secrets-and Irene just might let out their big one before she realized. He had to warn her-without the guard catching on. They just might turn this to their advantage.

  He went to the wall that separated them. “It win be a good idea to plan our course of action,” he said. “If they question us, tell them what they want to know. There’s no point in concealing anything, since we’re innocent.” He managed to reach his arm through the crevice in the wall nearest her. “But
we don’t want them to force us into any false statements.” His hand touched something soft. It was Irene. She made a soft “Eeek!” then grasped his hand.

  “Let me review our situation,” Dor said. “I am King during King Trent’s absence.” He squeezed her hand once. “You are King Trent’s daughter.” He squeezed again, once. “Amolde the Centaur is also a Prince among his people.” This time he squeezed twice.

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “Amolde’s not-“ She broke off as he squeezed several times, hard. Then she began to catch on; she was a bright enough girl. “Not with us now,” she concluded, and squeezed his hand once.

  “If the centaur does not return to his people on schedule, they will probably come after him with an army,” Dor said, squeezing twice.

  “A big army,” she agreed, returning the two squeezes. “With many fine archers and spear throwers, thirsty for blood, and a big catapult to loft huge stones against the castle.” She was getting into it now. They had their signals set; one squeeze for truth, two for falsehood. That way they could talk privately, even if someone were eavesdropping.

  “I’m glad we’re alone,” he said, squeezing twice. “So we can talk freely.”

  “Alone,” she agreed, with the double squeeze. Yes, now she knew why he was doing this. She was a smart girl, and he liked that; nymphlike proportions did not have to indicate nymphlike stupidity.

  “We have no chance to break out of here ourselves,” Dor said, squeezing twice. “We have no resources they don’t already know about.” Two.

  “We don’t have magical powers or anything,” she agreed with an emphatic double squeeze.

  “But maybe it would be better to let them think we have magic,” Dor said, not squeezing. “That might make them treat us better.”

  “There is that,” she agreed. “If the guards thought we could zap them through the walls, they might let us out.”

  “Maybe we should figure out something to fool them with,” he said, this time squeezing once. “Something to distract them while the centaur army is massing. Like growing plants very fast. If they thought you could grow a tree and burst out the ceiling and maybe make this castle collapse-“