Centaur Aisle

by Piers Anthony

  Had the ogre's laugh triggered a leak, after all? If so, they were doomed. Dor was afraid even to mention the possibility.

  "The tide!" Chet said. "The tide is coming in--and high tide covers the entrance. This passage is filling with water!"

  "Oh, good!" Dor said, relieved.

  Four pairs of eyes focused on him, perplexed.

  "Uh, I was afraid the tunnel was collapsing," Dor said lamely.

  "The tide--that's not so bad."

  "In the sense that a slow demise is better than a fast one," the centaur said.

  Dor thought about that. His apprehension became galloping dread. How could they escape this? "How much longer is this tunnel?" Dor asked.

  "You're halfway through," the tunnel said. "But you'll have trouble getting past the cave-in ahead."

  "Cave-in!" Irene squealed. She tended to panic in a crisis.

  "Oh, sure," the tunnel said. "No way around."

  In a moment, with the water ankle-deep and rising, they encountered it--a mass of rubble that sealed the passage.

  "Me bash this trash," Smash said helpfully.

  "Urn, wait," Dor cautioned. "We don't want to bring the whole ocean in on us in one swoop. Maybe if Chet reduces the pieces to pebbles, while Smash supports the ceiling--"

  "Still won't hold," Chet said. "The dynamics are wrong. We need an arch."

  "Me shape escape," Smash offered. He started to fashion an arch from stray chunks of stone. But more chunks rolled down to splash in the deepening water as he took each one.

  "Maybe I can stabilize it," Irene said. She found a seed and dropped it in the water. "Grow."

  The plant tried, but there was not enough light. Dor shone his sunstone on it; then the plant prospered. That was all it needed; Jewels gift was proving useful!

  Soon there was a leafy kudzu taking form. Tendrils dug into the sand; vines enclosed the rocks, and green leaves covered the watt of the arch. Now Smash could not readily dislodge the stones he needed to complete his arch without hurting the plant.

  "I believe we can make it without the arch," Chet said. "The plant has secured the debris." He touched a stone, reducing it to a pebble, then touched others. Soon the tunnel was restored, the passage clear to the end.

  But the delay had been costly. The water was now knee-deep. They splashed onward.

  Fortunately, they were at the nadir. As they marched up the far slope, the water's depth diminished. But they knew this was a temporary respite; before long the entire tunnel would be filled.

  Now they came to the end of it--a chamber in which there stood a simple wooden table whose objects were covered by a cloth.

  They stood around it, for the moment hesitant. "I don't know what treasure can help us now," Dor said, and whipped off the cloth.

  The pirate's treasure was revealed: a pile of Mundane gold coins, they had to be Mundane, since Xanth did not use coinage--a keg of diamonds, and a tiny sealed jar.

  "Too bad," Irene said. "Nothing useful. And this is the end of the tunnel; the pirate must have filled it in as he went, up to this point, so there would be only the one way in. I'll have to plant a big tuber and hope it runs a strong tube to the surface, and that there is no water above us here. The tuber isn't watertight. If that fails, Smash can try to bash a hole in the ceiling, and Chet can shrink the boulders as they fall. We just may get out alive."

  Dor was relieved. At least Irene wasn't collapsing in hysterics. She did have some backbone when it was needed.

  Grundy was on the table, struggling with the cap of the jar. "If gold is precious, and gems are precious, maybe this is the most precious of all."

  But when the cap came off, the content of the jar was revealed as simple salve.

  "This is your treasure?" Dor asked the bone.

  "Oh, yes, it's the preciousest treasure of all," the bone assured him.

  "In what way?"

  "Well, I don't know. But the fellow I pirated it from fought literary to the death to retain it. He bribed me with the gold, hid the diamonds, and refused to part with the salve at all. He died without telling me what it was for. I tried it on wounds and burns, but it did nothing. Maybe If I'd known its nature, I could have used it to destroy the loins."

  Dor found he had little sympathy for the pirate, who had died as he had lived, ignominiously. But the salve intrigued him increasingly, and not merely because he was now standing knee-deep in water.

  "Salve, what is your property?" he asked.

  "I am a magic condiment that enables people to walk on smoke and vapor," it replied proudly. "Merely smear me on the bottoms of your feet or boots, and you can tread any trail in the sky you can see.

  Of course, the effect only lasts a day at a time; I get scuffed off, you know. But repeated applications--"

  "Thank you," Dor cut in. "That is very fine magic indeed. But can you help us get out of this tunnel?"

  "No. I make mist seem solid, not rock seem misty. You need another salve for that."

  "If I had known your property," the bone said wistfully, "I could have escaped the loins. If only I had--"

  "Serves you right, you infernal pirate," the salve said. "You got exactly what you deserved. I hope you loined your lesson."

  "Listen, greasepot--" the bone retorted.

  "Enough," Dor said. "If neither of you have any suggestions to get us out of here, keep quiet."

  "I am suspicious of this," Chet said. "The pirate took this treasure, but never lived to enjoy it. Ask it if there is a curse associated."

  "Is there, salve?" Dor asked, surprised by the notion.

  "Oh, sure," the salve said. "Didn't I tell you?"

  "You did not," Dor said. How much mischief had Chet's alertness saved them? "What is it?"

  "Whoever uses me will perform some dastardly deed before the next full moon," the salve said proudly. "The pirate did."

  "But I never used you!" the bone protested. "I never knew your power!"

  "You put me on your wounds. That was a misuse--but it counted.

  Those wounds could have walked on clouds. Then you killed your partner and took all the treasure for yourself."

  "That was a dastardly deed indeed!" Irene agreed. "You certainly deserved your fate."

  "Yeah, he was purloined," Grundy said.

  The bone did not argue.

  "oops," Chet said. He reached down and ripped something from his foreleg, just under the rising waterline. It was a tentacle from the kraken.

  "I was afraid of that," Irene said. "That weed is way beyond my control. It won't stop growing if I tell it to."

  Dor drew his sword. "I'll cut off any more tentacles," he said.

  "They can't come at me too thickly here at the end of the tunnel. Go ahead and start your tuber, Irene."

  She dipped into her seedbag. "Oh--oh. That seed must've fallen out somewhere along the way. It's not here."

  They had had a violent trip on the raft; the seed could have worked loose anywhere. "Chet and Smash," Dor said without pause, "go ahead and make us a way out of here, If you can. Irene, if you have another stabilization plant--"

  She checked. "That I have."

  They got busy. Dor faced back down the dark tunnel as the water rose to thigh level, spearing at the dark liquid with his sword, shining the sunstone here and there. The sounds of the ogre's work grew loud. "Water, tell me when a tentacle's coming," he directed. But there was so much crashing behind him as Smash pulverized the rock of the ceiling that he could not hear the warnings of the water. A tentacle caught his ankle and jerked him off his feet. He choked on water as another tentacle caught his sword arm. The kraken had him--and he couldn't call for help!

  "What's going on here?" Grundy demanded. "Are you going swimming while the rest of us work?" Then the golem realized that Dor was in trouble. "Hey, why didn't you say something? Don't you know the kraken's got you?"

  The kraken seaweed certainly had him! The tentacles were dragging him back down the tunnel, half drowning.

  "Well, someb
ody's got to do something!" Grundy said, as though bothered by an annoying detail. "Here, kraken--want a cookie?" He held out a gold coin, which seemed to weigh almost as much as he did.

  A tentacle snatched the coin away, but in a moment discovered it to be inedible and dropped it.

  Grundy grabbed a handful of diamonds. "Try this rock candy," he suggested. The tentacle wrapped around the gems--and got sliced by their sharp edges. Ichor welled into the water as the tentacle thrashed around.

  "Now there's a notion," Grundy said. He swam to where Dor was still being dragged along, and sliced with another diamond, cutting into the tentacles. They let go, stung, though the golem was only able to scratch them, and Dor finally gasped his way back to his feet, waist-deep in coloring water.

  "I have to go help the others," Grundy said. "Yell if you get in more trouble."

  Dor fished in the water and recovered his magic sword and the shining sunstone. He was more than disheveled and disgruntled. He had had to be bailed out by a creature no taller than the span of his hand. Some hero he was!

  But the others had had better success. A hole now opened upward, and daylight glinted down. "Come on, Dor!" Grundy called. "We're getting out of here at last!"

  Dor crammed coins and diamonds into one pocket with the sunstone, and the jar of salve into another. Smash and Chet were already scrambling out the top, having had to mount the new passage as they extended it. The centaur was actually pretty good at this sort of climbing because he had six extremities; four or five were firmly braced in crevices while one or two were searching for new holds.

  Grundy had no trouble; his small weight allowed him to scramble freely. Only Dor and Irene remained below.

  "Hurry up, slowpoke!" she called. "I can't wait forever!"

  "Start up first," he called. "I'm stashing the treasure."

  "Oh, no!" she retorted. "You just want to see up my skirt!"

  "If I do, that's my profit," he said. "I don't want this hole collapsing on you." For, indeed, gravel and rocks were falling down as Chet's efforts dislodged them. The whole situation seemed precarious, despite the effort of the plant Irene had grown to help stabilize the wall.

  "There is that," she agreed nervously. She started to climb, while Dor completed his stashing.

  The kraken's tentacles, given respite from the attacks of sword and diamond, quested forward again. The water was now chest-high on Dor, providing the weed ample play. "There's one!" the water said, and Dor stabbed into the murky fluid. He was rewarded by a jerk on his sword that indicated he had speared something that flinched away. For a creature as bloodthirsty as the kraken, it certainly was finicky about pinpricks!

  "There's another!" the water cried, enjoying this game. Dor stabbed again. But it was hard to do much damage, despite the magic skill the sword gave him, since he couldn't slash effectively through water. Stabbing only hurt the tentacles without doing serious damage.

  Also, the weed was learning to take evasive action. It wasn't very smart, but it did learn a certain minimum under the constant prodding of pain.

  Dor started to climb, at last. But to do this he had to put away his sword, and that gave the tentacles a better chance at him. Also, the gold was very solid for its size and weighed him down. As he drew himself out of the water, a tentacle wrapped around his right knee and dragged him down again.

  Dor's grip slipped, and he fell back into the water. Now three more tentacles wrapped themselves around his legs and waist. That kraken had succeeded in infiltrating this tunnel far more thoroughly than Dor had thought possible! The weed must be an enormous monster now, since this must be only a fraction of its activity.

  Dor clenched his teeth, knowing that no one else could help him if he got dragged under this time, and drew his sword again. He set the edge carefully against a tentacle and sawed. The magically sharp edge sliced through the tender flesh of the kraken, cutting off the extremity. The tentacle couldn't flinch away because it was wrapped around Dor; its own greed anchored it. Dor repeated the process with the other tentacles until he was free in a milky, viscous pool of kraken blood. Then he sheathed the sword again and climbed.

  "Hey, Dor--what's keeping you?" Irene called from halfway up.

  "I'm on my way," he answered, glancing up. But as he did, several larger chunks of rock became dislodged, perhaps by the sound of their voices, and rattled down. Dor stood chest-deep in the water, shielding his head with his arms.

  "Are you all right?" she called.

  "Just stop yelling!" he yelled. "It's collapsing the passage!" And he shielded his head again from the falling rocks. This was hellish!

  "Oh," she said faintly, and was quiet.

  Another tentacle had taken hold during this distraction. The weed was getting bolder despite its losses. Dor sliced it away, then once more began his climb. But now ichor from the monster was on his hands, making his hold treacherous. He tried to rinse off his hands, but the stuff was all through the water. With his extra weight, he could not make it.

  Dor stood there, fending off tentacles, while Irene scrambled to the surface. "What am I going to do?" he asked, frustrated.

  "Ditch the coins, idiot," the wall said.

  "But I might need them," Dor protested, unwilling to give up the treasure.

  "Men are such fools about us," a coin said from his pocket. "This fool will die for us--and we have no value in Xanth."

  It did make Dor wonder. Why was he burdening himself with this junk? Wealth that was meaningless, and a magic salve that was cursed. He could not answer--yet neither could he relinquish the treasure. Just as the kraken was losing tentacles by anchoring them to his body, he was in danger of losing his life by anchoring it to wealth--and he was no smarter about it than was the weed.

  Then a tentacle dangled down from above. Dor shied away; had the weed found another avenue of attack? He whipped up his sword; in air it was far more effective. "You can't nab me that way, greedyweedy!" he said.

  "Hey, watch your language," the tentacle protested. "I'm a rope."

  Dor was startled. "Rope? What for?"

  "To pull you up, dumbbell," it said. "What do you think a rescue rope is for?"

  A rescue rope! "Are you anchored?"

  "Of course I'm anchored!" it said indignantly. "Think I don't know my business? Tie me about you and I'll rescue you from this foul hole."

  Dor did so, and soon he was on his way, treasure and all. "Aw, you lucked out," the coin in his pocket said.

  "What do you care?"

  "Wealth destroys men. It is our rite of passage: destroy a man.

  We were about to destroy you, and you escaped through no merit of your own."

  "Well, I'm taking you with me, so you'll have another chance."

  "There is that," the coin agreed, brightening.

  Soon Dor emerged from the hole. Chet and Smash were hauling on the rope, drawing him up, while Grundy called directions so that no snag occurred. "What were you doing down there?" Irene demanded. "I thought you'd never come up!"

  "I had some trouble with the kraken," Dor said, showing off a fragment of tentacle that remained hooked to his leg. It was now latening afternoon. "Any danger here?" Dor asked the ground.

  "There's a nest of Wyverns on the south beach of this island," the ground replied. "But they hunt only by day. It's quite a nest, though."

  "So If we camp here at the north end we'll be safe?"

  "Should be," the ground agreed grudgingly.

  "If the Wyverns hunt by day, maybe we should trek on past them tonight," Irene said.

  Smash smiled. "We make trek, me wring neck," he said, his brute mitts suggesting what he would do to an unfortunate Wyvern. The ogre seemed larger now, taller and more massive than he had been, and Dor realized that he probably was larger; ogres put on growth rapidly in their teen years.

  But Dor was too tired to do it. "I've got to rest," he said.

  Irene was unexpectedly solicitous. "Of course you do. You stood rearguard, fighting off the kraken,
while we escaped. I'll bet you wouldn't have made it out at all if Chet hadn't found that vine-rope."

  Dor didn't want to admit that the weight of the gold had prevented him from climbing as he should have done. "Guess I just got tired," he said.

  "The fool insisted on bringing us gold coins along," the coin blabbed loudly from his pocket.

  Irene frowned. "You brought the coins? We don't need them, and they're awful heavy."

  Dor sat down heavily on the beach, the coins jangling. "I know."

  "What about the diamonds?"

  "Them, too," he said, patting the other pocket, though he wasn't sure which pocket he had put them in.

  "I do like diamonds," she said. "I regard them as friends." She helped him get his jacket off, then his wet shirt. He had avoided the Kingly robes for this trip, but his garden-variety clothing seemed hardly better now. "Dor! Your arms are all scraped!"

  "That's the work of the kraken," Grundy said matter-of-factly. "It hooked his limbs and dragged him under. I had to carve it with diamonds to make it let go."

  "You didn't tell me it was that bad!" she exclaimed to Dor. "Krakens are dangerous up close!"

  "You were busy making the escape," Dor said. Now the abrasions on his arms and legs were stinging.

  "Get the rest of this clothing off!" she said, working at it herself.

  "Grundy, go find some healing elixir; we forgot to bring any, but a number of plants manufacture it."

  Grundy went into the forest. "Any of you plants have healing juice?" he called.

  Dor was now too tired to resist. Irene tugged at his trousers. Then she paused. "Oh, my--I forgot about that," she said.

  "What?" Dor asked, not sure how embarrassed he should be.

  "I'm certainly glad you brought that along!" she said. "Hey, Chet--look at this!"

  The centaur came over and looked. "The salve!" he said. "Yes, that could be quite useful."

  Dor relaxed. For a moment he had thought--but of course she had been talking about the salve.

  Soon Irene had him stripped. "Your skin's abraded all over!" she scolded. "It's a wonder you didn't faint down there!"

  "Guess I'll do it now," Dor said, and did.