Centaur Aisle (15 page)

"A ribbonfish, dolt," Grundy said.

"How can that help us?" For the storm had taken up more of the day than it had seemed to; the sun was now at zenith, and they remained far from shore.

"All I know is the eel agreed to get us to land by nightfall," Grundy said.

They forged on. But now the pace was slowing; the bulrushes were losing their power. Dor realized that some of the material of the boat was dead now; that was why it had been able to speak to him, since his power related only to the inanimate. Soon the rushes would become inert, stranding the craft in mid-sea. They had no paddle; that had been lost with the first boat.

The ribbonfish brought its preposterously flat head down as the bulrush craft sputtered close. Then the head dipped into the water and slid beneath them. In a moment it emerged behind them, and the neck came up under the boat, heaving it right out of the water.

"Oh, no!" Irene screamed as they were carried high into the air. She flung her arms about Dor in terror. Again, he wished this could have happened when he wasn't terrified himself.

But the body of the ribbonfish was slightly concave; the raft remained centered, not falling off. As the head elevated to an appalling height, the boat began to slide down along the body, which was slick with moisture. They watched, horrified, as the craft tilted forward, then accelerated down the creature's neck. Irene screamed again and clung smotheringly to Dor as their bodies turned weightless.

Down they zoomed. But the ribbonfish was undulating, so that a new hump kept forming just behind them while a new dip formed ahead of them. They zoomed at frightening velocity along the creature, never getting down to the water.

"We're traveling toward land," Dor said, awed. "The monster's moving us there!"

"That's how it gets its jollies," Grundy said. "Scooping up things and sliding them along its length. The eel just made use of this for our benefit."

Perceiving that they were not, after all, in danger, Irene regained confidence. "Let go of me!" she snapped at Dor, as if he had been the one doing the grabbing.

The ribbonfish seemed interminably long; the raft slid and slid. Then Dor realized that the monster's head had looked down under the water and come up to follow its tail; the creature was running them through again. The land was coming closer.

At last the land arrived. The ribbonfish tired of the game and dumped them off with a jarring splash. The rushes had just enough power left to propel them to the beach; then they expired, and the raft began to sink.

The sun was well down toward the horizon, racing to cut off their day before they could travel anywhere further. Soon the golden orb would be quenched again. "From here we go by foot, I think," Chet remarked. "We will not achieve Centaur Isle this day."

"We can get closer, though," Dor said. "I've had enough of boats for now anyway." The others agreed.

First they paused to forage, for some food. Wild fruitcakes were ripe and a water chestnut provided potable water, Irene did not have to expend any of her diminished store of seeds. In fact, she found a few new ones here.

Suddenly something jumped from behind a tree and charged directly at Dor. He whipped out his magic sword without thinking—and the creature stopped short, spun about, and ran away. It was all hair and legs and glower.

"What was that?" Dor asked, shaking.

"That's a jump-at-a-body," the nearest stone said.

"What's a jump-at-a-body?" Irene asked.

"I don't have to answer
you,"
the stone retorted. "You can't take me for granite."

"Answer her," Dor told it.

"Awww, okay. It's what you just saw."

"That's not much help," Irene said.

"You aren't much yourself, doll," it said. "I've seen a better complexion on mottled serpentine."

Bedraggled and disheveled from the ocean run, Irene was hardly at her best. But her vanity had been pricked. "I can choke you with weeds, mineral."

"Yeah, greenie? Just try it!"

"Weeds—grow!" she directed, pointing to the rock. Immediately the weeds around it sprouted vigorously.

"Weed's the best that ever was!" the weeds exclaimed. Startled, Dor looked closely, for his talent did not extend to living things. He found that some sand caught in the plants had actually done the talking.

"Oh, for schist sake!" the rock said. "She's doing it!"

"Tell me what a jump-at-a-body is," Irene insisted.

The rock was almost hidden by vegetation. "All right, all right, doll! Just clear these junky plants out of my face."

"Stop growing," Irene told the weeds, and they stopped with a frustrated rustle. She tramped them down around the rock.

"You do have pretty legs," the rock said. "And that's not all."

Irene, straddling the rock, leaped away. "Just answer my question."

"They just jump out and scare people and run away," the rock said. "They're harmless. They came across from Mundania not long ago, when the Mundanes stopped believing in them, and don't have the courage to do anything bad."

"Thank you," Irene said, gratified by her victory over the ornery stone.

"I think the grass needs more tramping down," the rock suggested.

"Not while I'm wearing a skirt."

"Awww . . ."

They finished their repast and trekked on south. Very little remained of the day, but they wanted to find a decent place to camp for the night. Dor questioned other rocks to make sure nothing dangerous remained in the vicinity; this did seem to be a safe island. Perhaps their luck had turned, and they would reach their destination without further ill event.

But as dusk closed, they came to the southern border of the island. There was a narrow channel separating it from the next island in the chain.

"Maybe we'd better camp here for the night," Dor said. "This island seems safe; we don't know what's on the next one."

"Also, I'm tired," Irene said.

They settled in for the night, protected by a palisade formed of asparagus spears grown for the occasion. The jump-at-a-bodies kept charging the stockade and fleeing it harmlessly.

Chet and Smash, being the most massive individuals, lay at the outside edges of the small enclosure. Grundy needed so little room he didn't matter. Dor and Irene were squeezed into the center. But now she had room enough and time to settle herself without quite touching him. Ah, well.

"You know, that rock was tight," Dor said. "You do have nice legs. And that's not all."

"Go to sleep," she said, not displeased.

* * *

In the morning a large roundish object floated in the channel. Dor didn't like the look of it. They would have to swim past it to reach the next island. "Is it animal or plant?" he asked.

"No plant," Irene said. She had a feel for this sort of thing, since it related to her magic.

"I'll talk to it," Grundy said. His talent applied to anything living. He made a complex series of whistles and almost inaudible grunts. Much of his communication was opaque to others, since some animals and most plants used inhuman mechanisms. In a moment he announced: "It's a sea nettle. A plantlike animal. This channel is its territory, and it will sting to death anyone who intrudes."

"How fast can it swim?" Irene asked.

"Fast enough," Grundy said. "It doesn't look like much, but it can certainly perform. We could separate, crossing in two parties; that way it could only get half of us, maybe."

"Perhaps you had better leave the thinking to those better equipped for it," Chet said.

"We have to get it out of there or nullify it," Dor said. "I'll try to lead it away, using my talent."

"Meanwhile, I'll start my stunflower," Irene said.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." But Dor couldn't blame her; he had had success before in tricking monsters with his talent, but it depended on the nature and intelligence of the monster. He hadn't tried it on the water dragon, knowing that effort would be wasted. This sea nettle was a largely unknown quantity. It certainly didn't look smart.

He concentrated on the water near the nettle. "Can you do imitations?" he asked it. The inanimate often thought it had talent of this nature, and the less talent it had, the more vain it was about it. Once, years ago, he had caused water to imitate his own voice, leading a triton a merry chase.

"No," the water said.

Oh. "Well, repeat after me: 'Sea nettle, you are a big blob of blubber.' "

"Huh?" the water asked.

He
would
have to encounter a stupid quantity of water! Some water was volatile in its wit, with cleverness flowing freely; some just lay there in puddles. "Blob of blubber!" he repeated.

"You're another!" the water retorted.

"Now say it to the sea nettle."

"You're another!" the water said to the sea nettle.

The others of Dor's party smiled. Irene's plant was growing nicely.

"No!" Dor snapped, his temper shortening. "Blob of blubber."

"No blob of blubber!" the water snapped.

The sea nettle's spines wiggled. "It says thank you," Grundy reported.

This was hopeless. In bad temper, Dor desisted.

"The flower is almost ready," Irene said. "It's a bit like the Gorgon; it can't stun you if you don't look at it. So we'd better all line up with our backs to it—and don't look back. There'll be no returning this way; once a plant like this matures, I can't stop it."

They lined up. Dor heard the rustle of rapidly expanding leaves behind him. This was nervous business!

"It's blossoming," Grundy said. "It's beginning to feel its power. Oh, it's a bad one!"

"Sure it's a bad one," Irene agreed. "I picked the best seed. Start wading into the channel. The flower will strike before we reach the sea nettle, and we want the nettle's attention directed this way."

They waded out. Dor suddenly realized how constrictive his clothing would be in the water. He didn't want anything hampering him as he swam by the nettle. He started removing his apparel. Irene, apparently struck by the same thought, quickly pulled off her skirt and blouse.

"Dor's right," Grundy remarked. He was riding Chet's back. "You do have nice legs. And that's not all."

"If your gaze should stray too far from forward," Irene said evenly, "it could encounter the ambience of the stun-flower."

Grundy's gaze snapped forward. So did Chet's, Smash's, and Dor's. But Dor was sure there was a grim smirk on Irene's face. At times she was very like her mother.

"Hey, the flower's bursting loose!" Grundy cried. "I can tell by what it says; it has a bold self-image. What a head on that thing!"

Indeed, Dor could feel a kind of heat on his bare back. The power of the flower was now being exerted.

But the sea nettle seemed unaffected. It quivered, moving toward them. Its headpart was gilled like a toadstool all around. Driblets of drool formed on its surface.

"The nettle says it will sting us all so hard—oooh, that's obscene!" Grundy said. "Let me see if I can render a properly effective translation—"

"Keep moving," Irene said. "The flower's incipient."

"Now the flower's singing its song of conquest," Grundy reported, and broke into the song: "I'm the one flower, I'm the STUNflower!"

At the word "stun" there was a burst of radiation that blistered their backs. Dor and the others fell forward into the channel, letting the water cool their burning flesh.

The sea nettle facing the flower, stiffened. Its surface glazed. The drool crystallized. The antennae faded and turned brittle. It had been stunned.

They swam by the nettle. There was no reaction from the monster. Dor saw its mass extending down into the depths of the channel with huge stinging tentacles. That thing certainly could have destroyed them all, had it remained animate.

They completed their swim in good order, Chet and Grundy in the lead, then Dor, Smash, and finally Irene. He knew she could swim well enough; she was staying back so the others would not view her nakedness. She wasn't actually all that shy about it; it was mainly her sense of propriety, developing apace with her body, and her instinct for preserving the value of what she had by keeping it reasonably scarce. It was working nicely; Dor was now several times as curious about her body as he would have been had he seen it freely. But he dared not look; the stunning radiation of the stun-flower still beat upon the back of his head.

They found the shallows and trampled out of the water. "Keep going until shaded from the flower," Irene called. "Don't look back, whatever you do!"

Dor needed no warning. He felt the heat of stun travel down his back, buttocks, and legs as he emerged from the water. What a monster Irene had unleashed! But it had done its job, when his own talent had failed; it had gotten them safely across the channel and past the sea nettle.

They found a tangle of purple-green bushes and maneuvered to put them between their bodies and the stunflower. Now Dor could put his clothing back on; he had kept it mostly dry by carrying it clenched in his teeth, the magic sword strapped to his body.

"You have nice legs, too," Irene said behind him, making him jump. "And that's not all."

Dor found himself blushing. Well, he had it coming to him. Irene was already dressed; girls could change clothing very quickly when they wanted to.

They moved on south, but it was a long time before Dor lost his nervousness about looking back. That stunflower . . .

Chet halted. "What's this?" he asked.

The others looked. There was a flat wooden sign set in the ground. On it was neatly printed NO LAW FOR THE LOIN.

It was obvious that no one quite understood this message, but no one wanted to speculate on its meaning. At last Dor asked the sign: "Is there any threat to us nearby?"

"No," the sign said.

They went on, each musing his private musings. They had come to this island naked; could that relate? But obviously that sign had been there long before their coming. Could it be a misspelling? he wondered. But his own spelling was so poor, he hesitated to draw that conclusion.

Now they came to a densely wooded marsh. The trees were small but closely set; Dor and Irene could squeeze between them, but Smash could not, and it was out of the question for Chet.