Faun and Games (54 page)

information from the living part of the tentacle she touched.

"If the trunk is also protected by dragon scales," Eve said, "then it

can't be burned, even by salamander fire."

"And it has a voice, and can talk," Dawn said.

"For sure," the tree said.
 
"Now which of you delectable creatures shall

I chomp first?"

"None of them!" Imbri cried in a dreamlet.
 
"I'll kick your bark in.

"Oh, sure." Three more tentacles whipped out and wrapped around the

mare.
 
Soon she was dangling in air too.

"I'll send you Torus's worst dream," Imbri threatened.

"I am Torus's worst dream!"

Then Forrest got halfway smart.
 
He reached into his pack and brought

out the canned blanket of obscurity spell.
 
"Invoke!" he cried.

The blanket waited out and covered him and part of the tentacle that

held him.
 
The tree for ot about both.
 
The tentacle went limp, letting

Forrest drop to the ground.

"Ha ha-the faun got away!" Dawn cried gleefully.

"What faun?" the tree demanded.

"The one you caught," Eve said.
 
"Now you can't eat him."

"I'll find him!" And the tree wrenched its roots from the ground and

began writhing across the glade, searching for its missing prey. It shot

tentacles out to circle the edge of the glade, so that no one could

escape, even if unseen.

All four of them stared, astonished.
 
"This truly is the worst tangle

tree ever," Imbri said.

Now a tentacle reached into the tree's central foliage and brought out a

sword.
 
"Where are you, faun?" the voice rasped.
 
"Come taste this steel

I liberated from a human fool who attacked me. He didn't taste very

good, but I love his sword."

That sword was whipping around so swiftly that Forrest had to stay well

back to avoid it.
 
Even if the tree couldn't locate him directly, it

knew there was a faun somewhere, and was bound to get him eventually. He

could feel the merest tingle of the blanket covering him, and realized

that he could move it about if he handled it carefully. That explained

Cathryn Centaur's throwing motions; she really did have hold of her

blankets.

Then Dawn tried a new tack.
 
"I know all about you, tangler," she

called.
 
"You lied.
 
You're not Torus's worst dream.
 
What about the

Golem King?"

The whole tree shuddered.
 
"I will eat you first, you impertinent

creature," it said.
 
"You look delicious." The tentacle started to swing

toward the trunk.

"I am delicious," Dawn retorted.
 
"But you don't deserve )the, because

the Golem King is worse than you, and he should get me."

The tentacle hesitated.
 
"You're bluffing," the tree said.
 
"You don't

know anything about the Golem King."

Forrest made his way toward her.
 
If he could throw the blanket over her

before she got eaten, the tree would lose track of her too.

"Yes I do!" Dawn said.
 
The tree didn't know that she was reading all

this information from its own partly living wooden flesh.
 
"The Golem

King can make golems in a second.
 
He can make golems like people, and

like tangle trees, and like dragons, and he can make them life size or

gnat size.
 
He's a golem himself-and so are you, you big fake!

"Aieeee!" the tree screamed.

"And if he ever got hold of a pretty living girl like me, he wouldn't

eat me, he'd marry me," Dawn concluded triumphantly.
 
"Because he's

lonely down in the earth region where he lives, because nobody else will

go there.
 
He's cunning and can change his form instantly, but he has no

company, and that's what he wants most of all.
 
So when he finds out

that you caught me and ate me, instead of turning me over to him, he'll

destroy you with one flick of his finger.
 
Or maybe turn you into a

golem privy potty."

"Or a golem sphinx dropping," Eve added, tittering.

It almost worked.
 
The tree shuddered, and the three captives were

lowered toward the ground.
 
But then it recovered some of its wooden

cunning.
 
"But I'll make sure he never finds out.
 
I'll gobble all of

you down immediately and bury your bones where they'll never be found."

The tentacle started moving again.

Forrest leaped the last few steps toward Dawn, and flung the blanket

over her head.
 
He couldn't see it, and hoped it didn't hang up on the

tentacle-vine holding her.

Then she dropped slowly to the ground.
 
It had worked!
 
The tangler had

forgotten about her.

"oooo, thank you!" she exclaimed, kissing him firmly on the right eye.

"I was afraid you wouldn't be in time."

"You were great," he said.
 
"You made it pause long enough."

She kissed him again.
 
"Say, I have an idea-"

"Not now!" he cried, realizing that her contact with him was affecting

her in the usual way.
 
"We have to save the others."

"Oh, yes," she agreed, remembering.
 
"I'll help."

They ran after Eve as the tangler hesitated, realizing that it had been

about to do something but not remembering quite what.
 
Forrest realized

that the blanket of obscurity must work as much on the mind of any

person or creature who might notice, as on the folk being covered. It

was an excellent spell.

They held two ends of the blanket, and tossed it over Eve.
 
In a moment

she dropped to the ground, joining them in their coverage. "Get Imbri,"

she said urgently.

Indeed, it was time, for Imbri had been carried almost to the gaping

wooden maw in the trunk of the tree.
 
The mirrors had been moved aside

so that its complete horror was evident.

The several tentacles holding Imbri swung her back and forth, getting

ready to heave her into the maw.
 
Forrest and the girls ran close and

heaved the blanket with all their force.

It sailed over the mare and into the maw.
 
Oh, no!

The maw creaked closed.
 
There was a crunching sound.
 
The blanket had

been consumed.

Now they were exposed.
 
The tree became aware of all of them.

"There you are!" it creaked.
 
"Now

"Has it been an hour?" Imbri asked.

"I don't think so." For it took an hour for the canned blanket spell to

recharge.
 
They had to find their own way out, if they were going to.

"It seems to be in doubt," Imbri remarked.
 
"Let me see if I can peek

into its vegetable brain."

They waited, while the tentacles flailed.
 
"Why isn't it attacking us?"

Dawn asked, shuddering.

"Maybe the blanket tastes funny," Eve said.

Then Imbri had it.
 
"It's forgotten its mouth!" her dreamlet exclaimed.

"It can't eat us because it has lost track of how!"

"The blanket saved us after all," Forrest said, relieved.

They walked slowly out, and the tree ignored them, obsessed with its own

problem.
 
It knew it wanted to do something, but couldn't figure out

what it was.
 
Its wooden mind wasn't very sharp, and it couldn't focus

well on more than one thing at a time.
 
So they were escaping.
 
But it

was no sure thing.

They made it to the edge of the glade.
 
The tree was still distracted.

They breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"And let's stay clear of the Golem King, too," Dawn murmured.

Forrest looked around.
 
The glade was surrounded by thickly meshed

thorny brambles, except for several paths.
 
Above loomed the vast shape

of the other side of Torus, curving around and downward north and south

like a massive rainbow.
 
It made him feel dizzy, as if he were about to

fall upward toward it, so he pulled his eyes back to the ground.
 
The

girls, following his gaze, looked similarly giddy.

"Just out of curiosity," Dawn began.

"Why didn't you use the petrified wood cross to scare the tree off?" Eve

finished.

Ouch!
 
He had a ready answer: "I never thought of it."

"Neither did the rest of us," Imbri pointed out.

They followed a path out.
 
It was intended to bring prey into the

tangler's glade, but it was a two way track.
 
It led, in due course, to

a village.

"Do we want to meet any people?" Forrest asked the others.

"Has it been an hour yet?" Dawn asked.

"Almost, I think."

"Then maybe we can use it if we get into more trouble.
 
Let's talk with

the people.
 
I can learn a lot if I can touch one of them."

That seemed good, because though Ida should be reasonably nearby, they

had no idea in which direction.
 
The villagers might know.

They walked on in.
 
There was a banner flying in the center.
 
It said

HOLLOWDAY.

"A holiday?" Imbri asked.
 
"They don't seem to be celebrating."

Eve approached a wan villager.
 
"Excuse me sir," she said prettily.

"What are you celebrating?"

He glowered at her.
 
"Nothing!"