Isle Of View (2 page)

“The foal sniffed it and followed it right here,” Grundy said. “But here there was only a bit of cloud, an evil fog. The smell came from that. The foal went in, and there was the sound of a struggle, and then the fog lifted and nothing remained. The plants didn't see what happened, only that Che went in and didn't come out.”

“Magic!” Chex exclaimed. Other centaurs often didn't like magic. She had thought them old-fashioned and unrealistic, but now she was beginning to appreciate their view. Magic had taken her foal from her!

“Must have been. And that fog sounds like Fracto. He's always interested in doing something nasty.”

“Fracto!” she cried, remembering the worst of clouds. It was true: wherever there was mischief to be done, there was Fracto. “We should search him out and make him talk!”

“We might find him, but even if we spoke his language, he probably wouldn't tell,” Grundy pointed out.

He was right. There was no point in giving Fracto the satisfaction. They would have to find some other way to investigate.

This was evidently a pretty sophisticated abduction. It had been set up so that it could not readily be traced. Why such an effort—for one flightless little centaur? It didn't seem to make a lot of sense.

They left the forest and took off from the glade. Chex was mystified and dispirited. The early shock of the loss was wearing off and being replaced by the grim certainty that there would be no easy resolution. She still had no idea where Che had been taken.

“We had better see how the others are doing,” Grundy said, sounding dispirited himself. “Che has to be somewhere.”

He was trying to cheer her, and successfully failing. But it was good advice anyway. She was supposed to be the liaison between the teams.

“Closest is the ogre,” Grundy announced. It seemed that he had a list of the assignments. “Checking the Goblinate of the Golden Horde.”

“The Golden Horde!” Chex exclaimed, horrified. “Those terrible goblins!”

“They're your closest evil neighbors to the west,” he pointed out.

They certainly were! They liked to catch creatures and torture them before cooking them. They lived around a hate spring, which perhaps accounted for their extreme meanness. If Che had fallen into their grubby hands...

It was good that the ogre was going there. An ogre knew how to handle goblins. It was said that goblins who attacked an ogre would find some of their number orbiting the moon—and those were the lucky ones. Still, if they had Che, the foal could get bashed right along with the goblins, because ogres were justifiably proud of their stupidity.

She angled west. Soon she observed a path of trees being knocked down as the ogre traveled the only way he knew how—straight ahead, bashing any obstacles out of the way. The average tree didn't like the average ogre much, but didn't have much choice about contact if the ogre came its way. Some trees, however, did fight back, like the tanglers. It was said that an ogre-tangler battle was worth watching— from a distance.

She flew on past the ogre to the goblin camp. The goblins spied her and shook their little fists at her. But there was no sign of Che. That was reassuring—

“Unless they cooked him already,” Grundy remarked.

Chex almost fell out of the sky. What a genius the golem had for the wrong thought!

“But they don't have a pot going,” Grundy continued. “They couldn't have done it in this time.”

Maybe it was the right thought after all! He was right: there was no smoke, no fire. So either Che had not been cooked or he wasn't here at all. She wasn't sure which to hope for.

She flew back to the ogre. “They're right ahead,” she called. “Keep an eye out for the foal!”

“Me goal save foal,” he agreed.

Well, he had the right attitude. But she felt better now that it seemed unlikely that the foal was there.

“Next group is human, checking the centaur village north of the Gap,” Grundy said.

Chex knew why no centaurs were participating in the search: they did not accept her as one of them. Indeed, they considered her a monstrosity, a degenerate crossbreed. She had been welcomed by the winged monsters but not by her own kind. But she tried not to dwell on that; there was nothing to be gained by it. In time there might be an established species of winged centaurs, needing no affiliations with the ground-bound centaurs, just as the winged dragons survived nicely independent of the land dragons. But not if Che was lost!

The human party consisted of three milkweed maids. They must have been given some kind of speed-up spell, because they could not have gotten this far this fast otherwise. They were crossing the invisible bridge, seeming to be in midair, and giggling as they teased each other about what monster below might be seeing up whose skirt. There was no monster below; the Gap Dragon had joined the search effort. But milkweed maids tended to be silly anyway; it was said to be one of the features that made them attractive to men. Chex did not quite understand that, but of course she wasn't human.

She swooped low. “Have you seen anything?” she called.

“Just trees!” one called. “But we haven't started looking yet, because our assignment is the centaur village. Someone else is checking the forest south of the Gap.”

“Good luck!” Chex said. But she didn't think Che would be at the centaur village, because though the centaurs did not approve of winged crossbreeds, they were honorable folk who would not interfere. They would not have cared to use so much magic, either, or to conceal their activity, for pride (some said arrogance) was a centaur's nature.

They continued their check of the various parties. They were all searching diligently, but without any success. To stave off her developing gloom, Chex pondered her relationship with Che.

It had all started with her wedding, really. She had met Cheiron, the only other winged centaur in Xanth, and probably would have fallen in love with him even if he hadn't been handsome and strong and smart and experienced. They had agreed to mate—the human folk called it marriage, and the Simurgh herself had flown in to officiate. The Simurgh was the largest and oldest of birds, who had seen the destruction and regeneration of the universe three times and was probably good for one or two more times. She had handled things competently, of course, and made one passing reference that astonished Chex and Cheiron. FROM THIS UNION, she had said in her powerful mental projection, WILL COME ONE WHOSE LIFE WILL CHANGE THE COURSE OF THE HISTORY OF XANTH. Then she had required all the attending winged monsters, and even Prince Dolph, who had managed to sneak in by assuming the form of a dragonfly, to make an oath to protect that one from harm. It had become clear why the Simurgh had come: to ensure the safety of the future foal.

In due course Che had arrived. The stork had not delivered him, and he hadn't turned up under a cabbage leaf; the centaurs, being realistic about natural functions of all kinds, had more direct if uncomfortable means of acquiring their offspring. After all, storks were notoriously myopic, and sometimes misdelivered babies. Maybe that was all right for human folk, but no centaur would care to risk it.

Che was beautiful from the start, with his dark brown pelt and soft little wings. The winged monsters had looked out for him, so that no griffin, dragon, roc, or anything else that flew, right down through harpies to little dragonflies, was any threat. In fact, young flying dragons had flown in to play with him, though he could not yet fly himself, and they had spread the word to the landbound dragons. The land dragons were not bound by the oath, but many of them had vestigial wings and identified with their flying cousins, so they were careful of Che also.

Their family had led an almost idyllic life, here in the glade. When she and Cheiron wanted to go somewhere alone, or to help some of their friends, they never lacked for foal-sitters. Even Draco Dragon, the terror of north-central Xanth, had come in once, and not just because of the oath. He had a special debt to the skeleton Marrow Bones, who had saved his nestful of pretty stones, and Marrow was Chex's friend. Dragons had a keen sense of loyalty to those they respected, though fortunately there were not many of these. So Che had never lacked for company and was a happy little centaur.

What was it that the Simurgh saw in Che's future? How could he change the history of Xanth? Though Chex loved him overwhelmingly, she knew, somewhere in the nonparental reaches of her mind, that he was, after all, only a winged centaur like his parents. The regular centaurs would not acknowledge him at all, and the human folk thought him a mere curiosity. There was no indication that he was destined for greatness—or even, at this moment, for survival. Yet the Simurgh would not have made a mistake; she was the keeper of the seeds, and there was little if anything about the tides of life she did not understand.

Then Chex had a horrible thought. Suppose Che wasn't the one the Simurgh meant? He was the result of Chex's union with Cheiron, to be sure, but perhaps not the only one. Also, it wasn't clear exactly how he was to change the history of Xanth. Could it be by getting himself abducted and killed, and setting off the winged monsters in some sort of rampage?

No, she couldn't accept such notions! She had to believe that Che would survive to grow into an adult flying centaur, and that in that state he would accomplish something undreamed of in the philosophies of those who presently ignored him. She had to see that he was cared for and educated in the ways that he needed, so that when the time for greatness came upon him he would be ready.

And surely she would do that, for the Simurgh would have known, if Che were destined for an untimely end. Someone had kidnapped him—technically, kidnapping applied to little goats, but it remained the best word—but would not kill him, and they would rescue him and the prophecy of his greatness would be back on track. That was the way it had to be.

Reassured for what she realized might not be a fully objective reason, Chex flew on her round, checking the search parties that were radiating from Castle Roogna. Grundy knew where all of them were, approximately, and when they weren't quite where he expected, the neighborhood plants were glad to give him reports.

They came to a party consisting of two pretty young women: Nada and Electra. They were going to the Good Magician's castle to ask him where Che was. Chex was ashamed to admit that she hadn't thought of that obvious method. The Good Magician, traditionally, knew everything and told it for the price of a year's service. Of course the original Good Magician, Humfrey, wasn't there now, but his apprentice, Grey Murphy, was, and he was trying hard to fill the post. The Princess Ivy was there to Enhance him when he needed it, and that helped. Could he answer? Chex hoped so!

She went on back north of the Gap, where Prince Dolph was checking the Elements. The Elements were five special regions in north central Xanth: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and the Void. Each was dangerous in its own way, as Chex knew well from her nearness to Air, but Dolph could assume any living form. That meant he could become a creature that could handle any Element he entered, so that he could explore it safely. She didn't see him, which was probably good; it meant he was in some other form, deep in an Element, and if Che had been taken there, Dolph would find him and probably rescue him.

She had completed the circuit. All the search parties were busy, but none had found Che. She would have to stop at her cabin and rest and eat, before going out on another circuit. She would keep doing this until she had risen to this horrible challenge: that of finding and rescuing her foal.

As she came down, she saw something in the clearing. Was it Che? Her heart leaped, which caused her body to rise and almost made her overshoot her landing. But it was not. It was only a little elf girl. Her heart sank, which caused her to drop and almost undershoot her landing. She came down solidly on all fours and folded her wings. Then she approached the elf, who was staring at her as if astonished.

“Who are you?” she inquired. “What are you doing so far from your elm?”

The elf scuffled her feet. She was young, a child really, yet was unusually large for the elves Chex had seen. A normal elf stood a quarter the height of a normal human being, while this one was half human height. She had a turned-up nose, a few freckles spattered across her cheeks, and ragged brown hair that couldn't quite make up its mind between chestnut and butter. Her eyes were brown, and seemed nearsighted. That reminded Chex of Arnolde Centaur and Good Magician Humfrey, who used spectacles to correct their vision—which was even odder, because she'd never met either of them. “My cat—” the elf child said.

“But elves don't have cats,” Chex protested. “In fact, nobody does; there are no straight cats in Xanth, only punnish variants like the cat-o'-nine-tails.”

“Xanth?” the girl asked, seeming perplexed.

Chex was tired and in a hurry, but she realized that something was wrong here. “Yes, Xanth, where we all live. Don't try to tell me you're from Mundania!”

“No, I'm from the World of Two Moons. My cat—”

“I told you, there are no—” Then Chex saw the cat. He was an orange fluff ball, that did seem to have an elven cast to his features. He was lying stretched out on the ground, tail extended behind, looking like nothing so much as a speed bump: a hump in the trail designed to trip up speeding centaurs. “How—?” she asked, somewhat at a loss.

“Something strange here,” Grundy murmured. “There are no elf elms close by. She should be too weak to stand. And look at the size of her! She's as big as a goblin!”

.“Sammy can find anything, except home,” the elf said. “Only usually I never know what he's looking for. So he gets lost. I have to keep up with him so I can bring him back after he finds it.” She paused, looking at the cat. “I mthink he was looking for a feather, this time.” Indeed, the cat had a feather between his tawny paws.

“That's not just a feather,” Chex said. “That's a first-molt wing feather from my foal, Che. There are very few like it anywhere.”

“I guess he wanted a special feather, then,” the elf said. Then, seemingly with an effort, she raised her face to look at Chex. “If you don't mind, please, could you tell me— what are you?”