Isle Of View (13 page)

They remained tied; evidently the goblins didn't care about their comfort. There was nothing to do but settle down and rest as well as they could. Che lay down in the center of the hut, as his body was not structured to do anything else. Jenny settled at the edge and leaned against the hard wood wall. She was hungry, but knew that this was the least of her problems; she could eat after she was rescued, and if she wasn't rescued, it would hardly matter whether she ate. She was tired, and this she could do something about simply by resting and sleeping.

Che leaned his human torso back against his animal torso, fluffed out his wings a bit, and closed his eyes. He breathed evenly, looking quite relaxed. Jenny envied him that ability; she was unable to relax despite the sense it made. Her mind was too busy with the events of the past day.

How far away and long ago her normal life on the World of Two Moons seemed! That business of the giant single moon—

She shook her head. There was no sense dwelling on that. Once they escaped, and she had Sammy back, and Che was safe with his mother, then she could see about returning to her normal and familiar world. But all that was so far beyond her present situation of fatigue, dirt, and horror that she would do best to put it out of her mind.

The trouble with trying to put things out of her mind was that then they just came right back into it stronger than ever. What were her folks thinking now? Surely they were wondering what had happened to her, and worrying—no, she had to stop thinking about that!

Unless—unless she could send to her holt and make her situation known. Sending was the mind contact between people of her kind that enabled them to find each other or to give warning of danger without shouting. Why hadn't she thought of that before?

She concentrated, sending. But there was no response. She was out of range of her kind, and the folk of Xanth could neither send nor receive. Now she felt more truly alone than ever before.

She had only one remaining resource, the one that was most private to her. She could invoke it only when alone, but she was alone now, for Che was asleep.

She began to hum, and then to sing. Jenny never sang in company, because it was just too complicated to try to explain what it meant to her. But when she was alone or with her friends, it was a great comfort. Her friends were Sammy and the flowers and the colored stones around her holt, or maybe just herself when she had some chore to do. When she sang it made her surroundings seem brighter and warmer and nicer, and though she knew it wasn't real— that is, that no one else would see it that way—it was always a comfort to her.

In her fancy as she sang, there was a Princess, and a castle atop a mountain, and a strange handsome Prince, and a dragon who was somehow the same as the Prince. Jenny had never seen a dragon or known that any such creature existed, yet she somehow understood the nature of this creature and respected it. It was like a big winged snake with fire in its belly. And the Princess loved the Prince-dragon, but—

Feet tramped up close to the door. Jenny's song and fancy cut off instantly.

The door banged open. “Food,” a goblin said in his harsh voice, and dumped down a big leaf on which were two chunks of meat.

Che lifted his head. “We can't eat if we remain tied,” he pointed out.

Grudgingly the goblin touched his knot, and Che's hands came free. Then the goblin touched Jenny's knot, and it relaxed and let her go. “But don't try anything dumb, you dumbbells,” he warned as he backed out the door and slammed it shut. They heard it being barred outside.

“I can't eat that!” Jenny exclaimed.

“Neither can I,” Che agreed. "Unless the leaf is edible.''

“Oh, you do not eat meat either?” she asked.

“I would not eat this meat. You do not recognize it?”

Jenny peered more closely. She screamed. “It's—”

“From the faun,” he finished. “And the nymph.”

Jenny tried to be sick, but there wasn't enough in her stomach to come up. She just heaved several times and stopped, gasping.

“I apologize,” Che said. "I had thought you understood.”

“No, I just don't like to eat meat or to hurt any animal,” Jenny said, her tears blurring her vision. “I should have realized—” She was interrupted by another attempted heave.

“At least we are no longer tied,” Che said, “I can make you light, and you can try to climb out the roof vent and escape.”

“And leave you here to be—be—” She couldn't get past her choke. “No,” she managed after a moment.

“I appreciate your generosity, but it is foolish. You should save yourself if you can.”

“I never claimed to be sensible,” Jenny said, unable to look in the direction of the door where the awful meat lay.

“Then perhaps we should rest again.”

“Yes.” She hoped it was possible.

They were quiet for a time. Jenny did not relax at all. The realization of that meat was haunting her, and she could not shove the horror from her mind.

“Jenny?” Che asked faintly.

“You can't relax either?” she asked, knowing the answer.

“Perhaps if you sang—”

A wash of another kind of chagrin left her cold. He had heard. She had thought he was asleep. “Oh, I couldn't do that,” she protested, feeling the flush on her face.

“I apologize if I have transgressed,” he said.

She couldn't answer, still feeling embarrassed.

After a time she heard a sniff, and then another. She looked at Che in the gloom and saw that he had his hands up covering his face.

Then she realized that he was trying to stifle tears.

She remembered that he was alone in much the way she was, having been abducted and roughly treated.

She remembered that he was only five years old. He spoke like an adult, which was apparently the way with centaurs, but he was only a child. A foal.

She remembered that they both faced a horrible fate. It was enough to numb her mind. What was it doing to his mind?

“I'm sorry, Che,” she said softly. “I sing only to—to animals and things.”

“Perhaps if you thought of me as an animal...” he said, his voice muffled.

“Oh, you're not an—” But what was he, if not an animal? A friend, in this terrible time.

He needed comforting. Could she withhold from him what she would grant freely to her cat?

“Maybe I can sing to you,” she said doubtfully.

She tried it, uncertain what would happen. She had never before sung for anyone who understood what it was. She wasn't sure it was possible. Flowers and animals were uncritical; they never thought it was foolish or out of tune or whatever, or tried to critique it to be more conventional. They just accepted it as it was, and that was the way she could do it. Che might be a foal, but he had awareness beyond that of any animal or flower, and that was likely to interfere. Certainly he had a critical mind.

The sound didn't come. Her throat was tight; it just wouldn't let go. She just couldn't sing in this kind of company.

Still, a five-year-old foal...

She tried again, just breathing in tune. After a moment she was able to hum, and then her voice came, and she was singing as before. She was back in the fancy of the Princess, and the castle, and the dragon who looked like a prince.

There was a sound outside. Was a goblin coming? Che's head turned; he heard it too. But Jenny kept singing, hoping that the goblin was just passing by and wouldn't stop.

The sound faded; whoever it was, was going away. Jenny kept singing, and her picture of the Princess became clearer and nicer. There were no mean things there, just pretty flowers and a beautiful day. The only dark cloud in sight was small and distant; it looked a bit frustrated.

But then something horrible happened like awful meat appearing in the hut. The dragon wanted to eat the Princess! He wanted her to come to him when he was in his natural form, so he could eat her and be a king among his kind. What was she to do?

Jenny sang, and the words came naturally as the fancy developed of its own accord. It was almost as if someone were sending to her, so that she wasn't making up the story but receiving it. She was in it, in a way, as the Princess, and Che was in it too, as the dragon Prince, for both were winged monsters. Despite the horror of the situation, she knew that the dragon loved the Princess. He had a funny way of showing it, by her definition, yet she saw also that the love was true by his definition. Dragons were violent creatures who lived to roast and eat others, and the most perfect fulfillment of his nature was the eating of a pure and sweet princess.

So the Princess decided to go to the dragon, for she loved him and wanted him to be fulfilled, even if that required some discomfort on her part. Just as a girl might sing her most private secret song for a friend who needed it, when she had never done such a thing before.

Then mean men and a mean cloud tried to hurt the dragon, and the Princess cried warning to him, and he destroyed the mean men and carried her away to a distant and lovely isle. Because neither could go home again, they used magic to change themselves to unicorns and lived happily ever after. She had never seen a unicorn before either, but somehow in her fancy it didn't matter; she knew exactly what it was. She had no trouble recognizing the cloud, of course; that was Fracto, whom she had met.

It was a lovely fancy, and it made her feel warm all over, and she knew that it had calmed Che, even if he didn't know exactly what was in it. Yet she thought he did know, for he had been in it, and she was glad he had turned out good, and married the Princess instead of eating her, for all that none of it was real and they were only pretend parts.

She continued singing and humming, finding it easy now that she had worked into it. Che listened, and then he was asleep, and then she was asleep. She had done it, despite the horror they were in.

Steps approached the hut again. Jenny woke, hearing them, fearful. This time they did not pass; the door was jerked open, and a goblin showed against the declining fire beyond.

“What, weren't hungry?” the goblin demanded. “All the more for the rest of us!” He picked up the meat and took a big bite as he slammed the door shut again.

Jenny relaxed. She was glad to have the awful meat gone. She had never eaten meat, because she liked animals too well and she knew that it came from them.

But before she managed to sleep again, there were more and heavier steps. The door was yanked open, and Chief Grotesk was there.

“Not eating, huh?” he demanded. “Well, we'll just see about that. Come on out of there, you malingerers. We'll make you do your thing right now.”

Jenny's heart sank down to her left foot. It was still the middle of the night, and they hadn't been rescued, and now there would be no chance! All because they had left the awful meat untouched.

They were led out to the subsiding fire. It seemed that some hours had passed, because most of the brush had burned down, and the monstrous cheese moon had traveled to another part of the sky. The goblins must have used up all their fresh meat, and now were ready for more.

“We want you healthy, so we can keep you a few days,” the chief said. “If you don't eat, you'll be too weak to run, and you won't taste as good.” He must have thought this was a reasonable statement.

“No, thank you,” Jenny said. She hated being polite to this cruel goblin, but there seemed nothing to be gained by being impolite.

“Now you have a choice,” Grotesk told them with a grimace he must have thought was a smile. “Eat your food or race right now.” He showed them the two pieces of meat, one with a bite out of it.

Jenny looked at Che. She knew she wasn't going to touch the stuff, but he had to make his own choice.

He looked at the meat and at the pond a short distance away, and at her. “Sing to me,” he murmured.

Jenny was astonished and chagrined. “I can't—” she protested.

“Yeah, tell her to eat it,” Grotesk said, evidently mishearing. “So you won't have to race right now. We want to save you for another day, when we haven't just eaten.”

“Before we die,” Che said.

There was his answer: he wasn't going to eat. So they would have to play the goblins' cruel game, and hate each other, and be cooked. Che wanted to listen to her one more time before that happened. Could she say no?

But how could she sing before these horrible creatures? It had been hard enough to sing to Che alone!

“Come on, come on, make up your stupid mind,” Grotesk snapped. The circle of goblins standing around them grinned, enjoying this.

She knew she had to do it. She had to give the centaur foal what little comfort she could. There would be no other chance. At least they would have this memory of their friendship, before the hate came.

She moved to Che and took his head in her hands. She wanted this to be just for him, because she just couldn't sing it for the goblins. She pretended that there was no one else here except the two of them. She put her mouth to his ear, closed her eyes, and hummed. In a moment she was able to hum louder. Her fancy began to form, a picture in her mind of the lovely castle on the mountain and the flowers at the base and the Princess picking the flowers and singing to them.

There was a goblin voice somewhere, calling something. “Well, haul some more wood in from the forest, then!” Grotesk said. “We need to keep the kettle hot, in case they don't eat.”

Jenny sang louder, to squeeze out those awful words. The fancy firmed, and now the dragon was in it too, in his real form, but not being ferocious. She knew that Che had joined her picture, and that he was the dragon, hoping to carry her away to safety, if only he could fly.

There was a nasty cloud nearby, but even it didn't seem to want to make a storm. It was just watching, and perhaps would float away and rain somewhere else.

“Hey, Chief!” a goblin called. “Aren't we going to make them race?"

The cloud jumped. Then there was a heavy hand on Jenny's shoulder that jolted her into silence. The fancy faded away.

“What are you trying to do, you elven vixen?” the chief demanded. He seemed shaken. “Elves don't have that kind of magic!”

“Magic!” Che exclaimed. “That's it!”