xanth 40 - isis orb (13 page)

The path moved on, crossing a lake. Water birds looked up, surprised. Probably they could not see the path, only the file of creatures on it, seemingly crossing in mid air.

In due course they came to another high nest. There was the harpy dragon watching them approach. He had evidently figured out their purpose.

Feline stopped just short of completion. “Let me introduce us,” she said. “You are Quin, clearly expecting us. We are members of a Quest, hoping to win the fulfillment of our wishes. I am Feline, a human/cat crossbreed.” She switched briefly to her cat form. “This is Nya, a naga/dragon crossbreed.” Nya switched briefly to dragon form, and back. “Next is Zed, a centaur/zebra crossbreed.” Zed nodded. “Last and least is Hapless, who runs the Quest. He can conjure musical instruments, but can’t play any himself. Do you play any?”

“Actually I do,” Quin said. “My original harpy form has wings and legs, but when I change I can reshape myself somewhat and form those legs into human arms. I can be dragon, harpy, or in between. It’s awkward, but it works. I favor the accordion, but I don’t have an accordion to play, so it’s academic.”

“Not any more.” She looked back. “Hapless?”

Hapless conjured a fine accordion and presented it to Quin as he stepped into the nest. Now all of them were there, and it was crowded, but they fit.

“Oh, my,” Quin breathed. “This is absolutely beautiful.” He fitted his hands into the straps and played a scale. “Oh, yes!”

“We will play music together,” Feline said.

Hapless obligingly conjured instruments for the others. They played an impromptu melody, harmonizing perfectly. Every sound complemented the others.

“Wait,” Quin said, stopping. “Where is your instrument, Hapless? Why are you not playing? You are surely the best of all, considering your talent. Why are you not allowed to participate?”

Hapless spread his hands. “I’m not forbidden. I am unable. No instrument works for me. It’s frustrating.”

“What, even a magic one like this? I can tell it is enhancing my own ability, because I never played this well before. Why can’t it do the same for you?”

“That is my curse,” Hapless said. “The magic seems to be reversed for me.”

“I am reluctant to believe that,” Quin said. “Show me.” He passed the accordion back to Hapless.

Hapless took it and played an awful riff.

Quin winced. “Point made,” he said, taking back the accordion. “You are cursed.”

“We’re all here because we have wishes to fulfill,” Feline said. “What is yours?”

“I want to find out how to become human, instead of a part human mishmash. I have been trying to shape my dragon heritage into a human body to go with the human portion of my harpy body, but it doesn’t work; I have too much tail and no human legs.”

“Why not just settle for one or the other, then?” Nya asked.

“I would if I could, but I can’t.”

“Can’t decide which one?”

“Can’t settle for either, or for a grotesque combination.”

“You definitely belong on this Quest,” Feline said. “None of us want to settle for what we’ve got.”

“I would love to join your Quest,” Quin said. “But I fear I can’t.”

“But the path brought us right to you,” Hapless protested.

“Maybe it made a mistake. I am not free to go.”

“What’s going to hold you back?” Nya demanded. “Your other half is a dragon!”

“My conscience.”

“That’s mischief,” Zed said knowingly.

“So you want to join, and have a wish to fulfill, and the path thinks you’re the one,” Nya said tightly. “But you think you shouldn’t do it?”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe we should hear your reason,” Zed said. “Perhaps we will have some input to help you decide.”

“If you wish.”

“Oh, we wish,” Nya said. “Talk.”

“As you request. I wouldn’t want to bore you with my personal problem.”

Hapless made a mental note: Quin was remarkably polite for a harpy or a dragon. That probably got in him in trouble with both factions.

“Bore us.” Feline said. “Your problem is our problem.” The others nodded agreement.

They settled down to listen.

“I am the unfortunate result of a love spring tryst. My father was a small flying dragon who happened to catch a harpy alone, so naturally he launched to catch her in his jaws. She dodged, evading him, but in the process they collided and both fell into the pool below. Then things changed, and instead of making war they made love, and I hatched from the first egg she laid thereafter.”

“We know how that is,” Nya said. “Most of us have similar origins.”

“Yes. My mother took care of me, reluctantly, but the other harpies barely tolerated me because I was a crossbreed. The same was true with the dragons; my father did not want to be seen with me, though I am a legitimate steamer.”

Hapless found that interesting. Nya was a fire breather. Dragons came in different types.

“We understand that too,” Feline said. “But that isn’t reason not to join the Quest. Rather the opposite.”

“He is getting there,” Zed said.

“Now a bit of background on the harpy culture,” Quin continued. “The great majority of them are female. Maybe only one in a hundred is male, and in some generations the ratio is leaner than that. That means that most harpies who want to breed must do so with members of their ancestral stock, vulture or human, alternating generations. That is a challenge, because the average harpy is a wretched creature, not at all attractive to others. They have to settle for corrupt male vultures or humans who will go for anything remotely female and who will not stick around long after trysting. They far prefer to have a male harpy, even if he has to be widely shared.

“Which is the other reason I was tolerated: they knew they might eventually need me. They were not eager to make it with a crossbreed, and neither was I to make it with a harpy, but we were up against difficult alternatives. I would far prefer to have a dragon girlfriend, but the dragon ladies spurn me. So I wish to find a way to morph into full human, as my mind is human.

“Fortunately, a male harpy came to their local flock, and of course they welcomed him and left me to my own devices. Hence this isolated nest. But then the goblins raided and captured him. Now he is prisoner in the bowels of the mountain. They are holding him for an impossible ransom, something like a mountain of gold. Probably the goblins just want to get permanently rid of the harpies. If the harpies attack the goblins in an effort to rescue him, the goblins will kill him. So it is an impasse. Meanwhile it seems that I am all that the harpies can be sure of, and I will have to serve if Hardly Harpy remains captive much longer. I owe it to them for their prior sufferance. So I can’t depart until that case is settled; it wouldn’t be ethical.”

“Hardly Harpy?” Feline asked.

“He doesn’t act like a harpy, hence his name. He’s actually a nice guy with an open mind. He can tolerate the wretched behavior of the females, but he doesn’t treat others that way. He’s smart and independent, making up his own mind about things. I like him.”

“We can’t fault you for your ethics,” Zed said.

“I would love to go with you, even if there is little hope of success. You understand about crossbreeds. But I can’t, as long as Hardly remains captive, and that could be a long time. You will do better going on without me.”

“What do you think, Hapless?” Feline asked him.

Hapless would have preferred not to be put on the spot. But he was the nominal leader of the Quest, and had to answer. To his surprise, he had an answer. “We need to rescue Hardly Harpy. Then Quin will be free. The box must have counted on that.”

“And how will we do that?” Feline asked.

Now it was time to think outside the box. “First we need information. Quin, is there any route to where Hardly is being held that we can use without getting ourselves caught and eaten by the goblins?”

Quin considered. “There may be, but there’s a caution. The mountain is honeycombed with cave passages throughout. The goblins occupy some, the harpies occupy some, and assorted other monsters use the rest. Those passages are not safe.”

“What about music? Would it soothe those savage beasts?”

“Some, perhaps, but not all.”

“Suppose Hapless plays?” Feline asked.

Quin considered, surprised. “They would not like that. It might drive them away.”

“So we could proceed with impunity?”

“I doubt it. The goblins have many devious traps like concealed pits and deadfalls that will operate regardless of the music. We would have to use safe routes, which would be guarded by goblins.”

“I know something of goblins,” Nya said. “The naga have dealings with them, generally hostile. There are places they don’t go.”

“They are wary of nickelpede infested sections,” Quin agreed. “And the haunts of large serpents. Also sizable subterranean rivers and flooded caverns, where sea monsters lurk. So there are fair regions free of goblins. But the same menaces would keep us clear of them too.”

“Except for our music,” Nya said. “We might either charm them or repel them so that we could traverse their territories.”

“Perhaps. But the chamber where Hardly is kept would be sealed off from any such regions. They don’t want him dead until they decide to kill him. We would not have access from there to him.”

“Have those caves ever been invaded by a centaur?” Zed asked.

“Not that I know of. A centaur would be limited to the larger passages, and still vulnerable to the slings and arrows of the goblins.”

“Unless protected by special music,” Zed said. “Then he could use his hind hooves to break through a suitably thin partition, perhaps surprising the goblins.”

This seemed to be coming together. But Hapless realized that they needed one more thing. “Is there a map of the caves?”

“I believe I have one,” Quin said. “I never thought to use it.” He brought it out.

They pored over it. The interior of the mountain was a three dimensional labyrinth of passages both natural and artificial. “We’d get lost in that, even with the map,” Feline said. “If the goblins didn’t find us first.”

“The box,” Quin said. “I believe you said you are supposed to think outside it?”

“Yes,” Hapless agreed uncomfortably. “Except when it makes a path we have to follow.”

“And you followed a path to me.”

“Yes. You saw us arrive.”

“I wonder whether it is possible to think outside the path, as it were.”

“If we leave the path, we’re lost,” Feline said. “We’ve done it. Now we know better.”

“Though we did learn to see that path from outside,” Zed reminded her. “We don’t have to stay on it all the time. But we do need to stay close.”

“I am thinking that you have not seen the complete path,” Quin said.

They looked at him. “What is your point?” Nya asked. “You saw us arrive here. That concluded this particular path; you can see that it no longer exists across the air.”

“My backpack ends the path,” Hapless said. “Or rather, the box in it does. When we reached the nest, that path was over.”

“Are you sure?”

Was this person stupid? “Of course we’re sure,” Hapless said. “We’ve done this several times.”

“Or are you thinking within the box?”

Hapless looked at him with frustration. Was the crossbreed being deliberately obscure? “When it comes to following the path, we either follow it or we don’t,” he said. “We’re here. That’s it.”

“Here is my reasoning,” Quin said. “The path leads you to your destination, in this case me. You have to stay on it or you get lost. But I am not presently available. So either that path is in error, or you have missed a loop.”

“A loop?” Feline asked

“The loop through the mountain labyrinth.”

“Where?”

“There.” Quin pointed to the air between them. There was the faint glow of the path, and it wasn’t leading toward him but toward the mountain.

The path did not go directly to Quin. Instead it turned aside, avoiding him, and entered a tunnel into the mountain—one that probably had not been there before.

“Oh, my!” Zed said. “The loop that enables us to rescue the prisoner so that you can be free to join us! We just assumed the path had terminated. We were not thinking outside the box.”

“This is my thought,” Quin agreed.

Hapless whistled. “You’re outside the path, and outside the box, so you saw what we didn’t.”

“This is phenomenal,” Zed said. “But it remains problematic. If the path has not yet reached you, how can you join us in raiding the goblin hive?”

“Do I have to be on the path to accompany you?” Quin asked. “Or if I am, does it count? A loop is a loop.”

They considered that. “I think I could not loop around to follow myself on the path,” Hapless said. “Because the box erases it as it catches up. But you’re not yet there, so maybe you can, confusing as it seems.”

“Certainly we can try it,” Nya said.

“And the path should be enchanted to protect us,” Hapless said. “As long as we stay on it. We can do this.”

“But quietly,” Zed said. “Because Hardly isn’t protected, and if they see us coming, they’ll kill him. Keeping ourselves safe is no good if we carelessly mess up our chance to complete our Quest.”

“Quietly,” Hapless agreed. “We can still use the map, to spy where goblins and other creatures are likely to be, so we can avoid alerting them. When’s the best time?”

“Evening is approaching,” Nya said. “We could rest.”

“Or we could do the less likely, and go immediately,” Zed said. “It will be night, but inside the mountain that won’t matter. The faster we act, the less likely we are to give the goblins time to catch on that something is afoot.”

The others looked at Hapless. It was his decision. “Act now. Rest later,” he decided.

“I’ll lead,” Feline said. “You trail, Hapless, to keep the path firm. Quin, you follow me with the map, so you can warn us what’s around us. Zed and Nya in the middle. We’ll talk in whispers, if at all. If there’s likely mischief, make a hand signal.”

“Good enough,” Hapless agreed, endorsing her organization. “Have your musical instruments ready.”

“No,” Zed said. “They aren’t silent.”

He was right. Hapless hadn’t been thinking. Again.