Isle Of View (27 page)

“So whichever way it goes, the siege is going to continue,” Jenny said. The strange thing was that she was almost relieved, because it took much of the pressure off her decision. She could afford to wait and take her time to make up her mind. As long as it didn't make any difference.

The mountain shook again, as another boulder landed. Some sand sifted down from the ceiling.

Jenny realized that her decision might be the least of their problem. They were in the midst of a battle, and who could know how it would end?

“Let's go back to the cushions and sing,” she said, frightened.

The others were quick to agree.

After the preliminary bombardment, Goblin Mountain was pocked with dents, and several goblin tunnels now were open that had been closed. But before he sent in the smokers, Cheiron chose to negotiate again. “Gloha, do you think you can go there without being attacked?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said. “I am a goblin, and my Aunt Goldy is there. She's my mother's big sister, and though she did not approve of my father, I think she has come to accept me.”

Electra stepped up. “Godiva is Goldy's daughter!” she exclaimed. “I talked with her and learned that. So Godiva is your cousin, Gloha!”

“Yes. She is older than I am—in fact she has a daughter almost as old as I am, though we were never allowed to play together. So maybe they don't accept me after all.”

“Oh, Godiva's not like that!” Electra protested. “I mean, I knew her only briefly, but it was pretty intense, because of the horde. I'm sure she has nothing against you.”

Gloha's eyes flicked toward her wings, but she didn't speak. Everyone knew how crossbreeds were treated in some cultures.

“Let me go with you!” Electra said. “Maybe I can talk to Godiva, if—”

“'Lectra, that's dangerous,” Nada warned her. “We were under truce with Godiva, because none of us wanted Che to be hurt, but now that truce is over. You can't presume on your two days' acquaintanceship.”

“I have little to fear from danger,” Electra said.

Nada did not reply. Neither of them had forgotten that if one of them were taken out of the picture this week, a problem would be solved next week. She had to let Electra go. Gloha looked relieved. She was ready to go, but evidently preferred company.

The two of them walked to the mountain, carrying white bits of cloth to show they were under truce. They knew that the goblins could attack them, but hoped they wouldn't.

They reached the nearest blasted tunnel. The stone that had sealed it shut had been dislodged and rolled down the slope. There was rubble piled at the entrance, but it looked clear farther in.

“Hello!” Gloha called. “We would like to talk.”

“Go fly through a fire, birdbrain!” a goblin called from (he depths.

Electra became annoyed. “Listen, dope, we came to parlay. You know the winged monsters will destroy the whole mountain if this goes on. Get someone up here to talk.”

“Like who, freckle-brain?”

Electra stiffened. She did have freckles. So did the elf girl; that was one of the things Electra liked about her. As far as she knew, there was nothing wrong with this. But the goblin made it sound as if it were a crime.

It was Gloha's turn to be annoyed. “Like Godiva, dimwit!”

“I'm not Dimwit, I'm Scrounge,” the goblin replied.

“Then tell Godiva, Scrounge,” Gloha called.

“Tell her yourself!”

“Is she coming here?”

“Naw! Har, har, har!”

Gloha looked at Electra. “They are my own kind, but sometimes they get so annoying,” she said.

“Maybe we should go look for Godiva,” Electra suggested, though the idea of going unguarded into the mountain frightened her.

“Maybe so,” Gloha agreed. “I know my way around here pretty well, though they're always making new tunnels. I know where she lives.”

“Let's do it!” Electra said, before she could freak herself out of it. She knew that if they did not succeed in negotiating, the attack would resume and there might be no turning back.

“All right. I'll tell Cheiron.” Gloha spread her wings and flew quickly back. She flew like a bird, not like a bug; she moved quickly, because otherwise she would have fallen to the ground.

In a moment she was back. “He says it's better to take the chance if we're ready for it, knowing the risk.”

Electra wished he hadn't phrased it quite that way, but she kept her doubt to herself. “Then let's go find Godiva!”

They entered the tunnel. There was a light in its dim reaches, which turned out to be one of the smoky torches the goblins used for light. Electra lifted it out of its socket, so that they could have light where they went. The smoke did its best to choke them, but soon gave it up as a bad job and wrestled its way along the tunnel ceiling, looking for someone else to suffocate.

“Hey, whatcha doing in here?” a goblin demanded, giving Gloha a good look and Electra a cursory one.

“We're going to tell Godiva ourselves, Scrounge,” Electra said bravely, “just as you suggested.”

Goblins weren't capable of looking disgruntled, but this one made the effort. “Well, see that you do,” he mumbled, stepping back.

They went on, following the tunnel as it wound around and down. “We'll have to change passages at the base,” Gloha said. “But any of these will take us to the base.”

Electra was glad Gloha knew where she was going! Electra by herself would have been lost after the first turn.

“What are you up to?”

Electra turned, startled. There was the demoness Metria, surely looking for more interesting mischief. It was probably best to answer her question and hope she lost interest. “We're trying to negotiate to get Che and Jenny free. You know how the goblins got them.”

“Yes, it would have been dull if you had won that game! No captivity, no siege of the mountain.”

“It's still pretty dull,” Electra said.

“Oh, I don't think so. You don't have a chance of getting the foal back. So Cheiron will just have to demolish the mountain. That's interesting.”

“Well, we'll see,” Electra said shortly.

“Meanwhile, what about your own situation?” the demoness asked.

Electra didn't want to answer but still hoped that if she played along the demoness would go away. “What about it? Dolph will choose, and that will be that.”

“But everyone knows he will choose Nada Naga. What happens to you then?”

“I die,” Electra said.

“You do?” Gloha asked, dismayed. Evidently she had not been aware of that aspect.

“I have to marry the prince who woke me from my discounted thousand year sleep, or die,” Electra said. “I knew that when I got into it. Since he won't marry me, that's it.”

“I'm so sorry!” Gloha said. “I thought I was not well off, with no male of my crossbreed, but your case is worse!”

Electra really did not want to talk about it, but didn't want to let the demoness know that. “Maybe so.”

“How will you feel, when you see him marry the naga princess?” Metria asked persistently.

“Glad for her. She's my friend and a wonderful person.”

“But she doesn't love him. Don't you mortals put great store by love?”

“Yes. But she can take a love potion.”

“How will you die?”

“Must we have this conversation?” Gloha demanded, distraught.

Electra appreciated her support, but knew it would only make the demoness worse. “I don't know,” she said, answering both of them. Actually she did know how she would die, but did not like to talk about it.

“I can show you wonderful ways to die,” Metria said. “Suffocation, stroke, rupture of—”

“I suspect I shall just expire in a maidenly manner,” Electra said. “It will be most dull.”

“No, wait, I remember!” the demoness exclaimed. “There was a story—when you went to Mundania, didn't you age rapidly? So probably that's how it will be. You will get older all of a sudden, and become mature, and then a hag, and then a bag of bones, all in a few minutes.”

Electra gritted her teeth, fearing that it would be exactly like that. She was actually around nine hundred years old; only the magic of the enchantment kept her as young as she should be. Once that enchantment was broken, she would revert to her proper age, which was about eight hundred and fifty years dead. But she refused to give the demoness the satisfaction of seeing her faint with horror, no matter what. “You may be right,” she said.

“We've got to get Dolph to marry you!” Gloha said.

“No!” Electra protested. “It has to be his choice.”

“I could surround you and give you Nada's aspect,” Metria said. "You could marry him, and he wouldn't know the difference until it was too late.''

“No!” Electra was trying not to cry, knowing that the demoness would like that.

“You would rather die, and see him marry the one who doesn't love him and isn't right for him, rather than do what is necessary?” Metria inquired, interested.

Electra really didn't have much of an answer for that, but she did the best she could. “I just want him to be happy."

“How happy will he be, with the wrong woman, even if she takes a love potion?”

“Nada's not wrong! She's a princess! She was betrothed to him before I was!” Despite her best intention, she was arguing the case and playing into the demoness' trap.

“If you marry him, and he becomes king, you will be queen,” Metria said. “Won't that be right for him?”

“Only if he chooses it!” she protested, not really absorbing the demonic logic.

“But he's a boy!” the demoness said derisively. “What does he know about choosing well? He can't see farther than the naga-woman's bosom.”

“That's not true!” Electra cried. “He can see to her—” But she realized that she was only getting deeper into trouble.

“Her panties,” Metria finished triumphantly. “He sets great store by those, doesn't he.”

“Well, all men do.” But it seemed awfully lame.

“And after he's finally seen them, what will remain of that marriage for him? Life with an older woman who's a real reptile?”

“That isn't fair!”

“And by the time he realizes his mistake and comes to appreciate you,” the demoness continued inexorably, “you will be dead. You could hardly have a neater revenge than that.”

“Get out of here, you—” But Electra, being still most of a week under the magic age of consent, did not know the word. “You intemperate complaint!”

“What?”

Electra blinked. The demoness had faded away, and she stood before Godiva. She was appalled.

Gloha stepped in. “The demoness was here, teasing her cruelly,” she said. “She didn't mean you, Cousin Godiva.”

Godiva frowned. “The demoness. It figures. But what are the two of you doing down here? Don't you know that the mountain is under siege?”

“We're here to bargain,” Gloha said. “We want the violence to stop.”

“Come in,” Godiva said, showing the way into her suite. “Gouty is indisposed, so I am handling things for now.”

Inside was a very nice apartment, with tapestries and cushions and daylight from a shaft leading up. There was some rubble and dust in the bottom of the shaft that seemed to be of recent origin, but the goblin woman ignored it.

They sat on cushions. “I have asked Che Centaur to be a companion for my daughter, Gwendolyn,” Godiva said. “He is considering his response. Until he makes it, we can not end the siege, unless the winged monsters withdraw.”

“But Cheiron will destroy the whole mountain!” Electra protested. “He will not let his son be captive!”

“That is a risk we must take,” the woman said evenly. “But I think it will not come to that.”

“But I tell you, Cheiron—”

“Let me introduce you to someone, so that you can report to Cheiron,” Godiva said. She reached up to pull on a tasseled cord, and a gong sounded elsewhere in the mountain.

“You have other captives?” Electra asked. One thing about this business: it did take her mind off her own problem.

“No.”

In a short time there was a knock. “Enter,” Godiva called, rising from her cushion.

The door opened, and a man crawled in. No, it was a snake. No, it was—

Electra's mouth dropped open in amazement. It was a naga!

“Prince Naldo, meet Gloha Goblin and Electra, who is Prince Dolph's Betrothee,” Godiva said. “Girls, meet Prince Naldo Naga, Nada's brother.”

Electra had never met Prince Naldo before, but she recognized the resemblance to Nada. Now he assumed his human form and made a formal little bow. He was almost unbelievably handsome. “I am glad to meet you at last, Electra and Gloha. I have heard much of you, having just been talking with your King Dor and Queen Irene at Mount Etamin.”

Both girls found themselves tongue-tied. This seemed impossible; the naga were hereditary enemies to the goblins.

“I shall explain,” Godiva said. “There are covenants which extend back more than a thousand years, to the years when the war between the monsters of the air and the monsters of the ground was fresh. Anticipating an attack by the monsters of the air, we invoked such a covenant, and summoned our allies. Goblins and naga have differences between themselves, but these are superseded by the covenant. The naga of Mount Etamin are here to support our effort.”

Aghast, Electra finally got her mouth going. “And the— the ground dragons, and—”

“And the callicantzari,” Godiva agreed. The callicantzari were horrendous underground monsters. “And the elves.”

“That can't be!” Electra exclaimed. “I mean, they—”

“Come with me.” Godiva led the way out of her suite.

“It is true,” Naldo murmured. “We can not claim to be delighted by this development, but we are required to honor the covenant and must support the goblins against the winged monsters. The local elves are similarly bound.”

Numbed, Electra followed the goblin woman to a chamber farther down the tunnel. This business had abruptly escalated beyond her worst possible fears! What was Cheiron going to do, when he learned of this?

Godiva opened the door. This appeared to be an infirmary, with a bed and a goblin nurse. There was a patient on the bed, small and wan. Not a goblin, not a child, but—

“An elf!” Electra exclaimed. “But his elm must be far away!”

“Beyond Goblin Mountain,” Godiva agreed. “But not far as we think of distance. He prefers to recline, because his strength is low, here, but he is in good health.” Then, as they stepped close, she introduced them: “This is Bud, of the tribe of Flower Elves.” The elf nodded. “And these are Prince Naldo Naga, Gloha Goblin-Harpy, and Electra, betrothed to Prince Dolph of the human folk.” They nodded in turn.

Bud Elf looked surprised. “The human folk are allied with you too?”

“No,” Electra said quickly. “They aren't in this quarrel, really. Just a few of us who know Che Centaur personally Gloha and I are here on behalf of Cheiron Centaur to see if we can get Che and Jenny released before the winged monsters destroy the mountain.”