Harpy Thyme (11 page)

Gloha flew back to the river. She landed on its bank and used her fine little feet to scuff a channel in the sand. The water flowed eagerly through it, and plunged down into the cave. It widened the channel as it went, so that more water could follow. Soon the entire river was headed for this interesting new region, forming an expanding pool around the base of the G mites.

She flew back. “I have diverted the river, and it seems to be quite entertained,” she reported.

“We suspected as much,” Trent said dryly, which was a good trick because he was standing knee-deep in the pool.

The river disported itself mightily, and the level of the pool steadily rose. Gloha and Cynthia hovered over it. “Are you going to be all right?” Gloha asked the Magician.

“Oh, certainly; I can swim. You girls go ahead and wait on dry land; I'll be along in due course.”

They did as bid, for hovering soon enough became tiring. “He's a brave man,” Cynthia said as they flew.

“And a marvelous Magician,” Gloha agreed. “It's hard to imagine that they ever called him evil.”

"Oh, that was because he was trying to take over Xanth before the Storm King was ready to fade out. And he was transforming a lot of people. But I gather he was a good king, when he finally got the office.

“Yes, Xanth has prospered. Bink's son Dor and Trent's daughter Irene have done well too. I guess it shows that you never can tell how things will turn out.”

“You never can tell,” Cynthia agreed wistfully. They landed on the dry part of the bank, then watched the water rise around the G mites. Every so often one of them flew back to check on the Magician, who was doing what he called treading water, though it looked exactly like swimming in place.

At last the water covered the tip-tops of the G mites, so that only the descending points of the C cites showed above it. Now the cave looked like a dragon's mouth half full of saliva. But Gloha wasn't entirely comfortable with that image, so let it go.

Trent came swimming along, having no trouble. Only at the end did one of his feet accidentally kick a hidden G mite. The pool shook, and several C tites dropped into the water with menacing splashes. But Trent had already gotten clear.

They moved on again. The river path deserted the river, having no loyalty, and wended its way up to another large cave. This one was dome-shaped, with a single massive stalagmite in the center. There was neither dragon nor fire here; the floor was bare. But there was also no exit. The glow-fungus path went to the center and stopped.

They looked all around, but the wall was solid. The only hole in it was the one through which they had entered. The circular wall was painted with pictures of assorted creatures: dragons, griffins, chimerae, sea serpents, sphinxes, and the like; nothing really unusual. Here and there were even some men with spears.

“Do you know, this must be an ancient cave,” Trent said. “These are the creatures the early men of Xanth hunted. They painted pictures of them to be sure of the magic necessary to bring them down. Or perhaps it was opposite: they were working magic to protect themselves from such predators. Either way, this is a historic artifact.”

“How could they hunt such creatures down here?” Gloha asked. “All we've seen are dragons.”

“Perhaps they hunted all the others to extinction.”

“Or perhaps the dragons hunted the humans to extinction,” Cynthia said. “Because no men seem to live here now.”

“You have a sobering point,” he agreed.

“But how are we going to get out of here before we're extinct?” Gloha asked plaintively.

Trent grimaced. “That is a somewhat better question than I feel competent to address at the moment.”

Then Cynthia noticed something. “The glow-fungus path doesn't stop here. It circles up the stalagmite!”

They looked, and found it was so. The fungus spiraled right up toward the distant ceiling. And there, at the very top, was a hole. The G mite poked a short way into it.

“And there's our exit,” the Magician said. “And once again I feel inadequate to the need. I don't believe I can climb that smooth column, and this time there is no water to float me up.”

“But this time you can use your talent,” Cynthia said. “Simply transform me into something huge enough to lift you up there, then transform me back to this form.”

“I can if you wish this,” he agreed. “You have been most generous in your attitude toward me, considering our prior experience, and I have not wished to impose on you by transforming you again.”

“Well, a lot has happened since then, and we're not on opposite sides any more,” she said with a smile that might in some other circumstance have seemed ingratiating. “Now we have to work together to get through.”

“We do, at that,” he agreed. “Very well, I'll transform you to a roc, which should be strong enough to carry me there. But we shall need to calculate this carefully, for if I then transform you back before you are through the hole, you could fall.”

And such a fall could kill her, Gloha realized. Then she realized that she had fallen into a mental trap: a flying centaur wouldn't fall, she would just fly away. But the hole looked way too small for such a creature to squeeze through, so there was still a problem. But she had an answer: “Then you transform her to a little bird, who can fly on up through the hole. Then back to centaur form, when she is safe.”

“You, too, are uncommonly clever,” Trent told her. Gloha discovered that she had not after all used up her own store of blush.

Then the Magician gestured, and the centaur became a truly monstrous bird. The roc took the suddenly tiny-seeming man in its ferociously huge beak, spread its giant pinions, and launched into the air. Now, there was an act of trust, Gloha realized: the bird could cut the man in half simply by closing its beak. It flew up, circling the stalagmite, until it reached the top. Then it flipped its head, opened its beak, and the man sailed up through the hole. He didn't fall out again, so he must have landed somewhere.

Now the roc flew as close to the hole in the ceiling as possible without colliding with the stalagmite. The tip of one wing brushed past the hole-and the big bird vanished. In its place was a tiny hummingbird.

Gloha had been halfway keeping pace, staying clear of the immense downdraft from the roc's wings. Now she flew up through the hole herself.

There were Trent and Cynthia, waiting for her. “See? It was routine,” the centaur filly said nonchalantly as she let go of the man. He must have held her steady as he transformed her, or perhaps she had clung to him for balance as she adjusted.

Trent smiled obliquely. “Routine,” he agreed.

But Gloha was seriously wondering how many more such tricky transitions they would be able to make. This did not strike her as a safe or easy route. It was more like trying to gain entry to the Good Magician's castle. But she didn't want to alarm the others, so she kept her meek little mouth shut. About that and whatever else she might conjecture about that wasn't her business.

They moved on again. This time the passage led to a snoozing goblin. “Ahem,” Trent said.

The goblin rolled over on his mat, “Go away, dunderhead,” he muttered without opening his eyes.

“I presume this is the goblin checkpoint,” Trent said.

“We want you to be sure you know that we have a safe conduct pass.”

The goblins forced open an eye. Then suddenly both eyes wedged wide. “What are you creatures doing here?”

“We are on our way out of the underworld,” Trent said evenly. “We are following the established exit route, for which we have a pass.” He showed the pass.

“But that's impossible! We changed the route so nobody could get through.”

Trent, Gloha, and Cynthia shared three halves of a glance. Suddenly something was making sense. Goblin mischief.

The Magician turned back to the goblin. “And why would you change the path?” he inquired with truly deceptive mildness.

“Because we don't honor any deals made by the crappy saps who ran this region before we got here, but we didn't want to say so outright before we got really well established. So we could claim that travelers just got lost or something, in case the demons snooped.”

“And the regular path is easier to travel?”

“Of course it is, yokel. It just winds straight up past the checkpoints to the surface. But now we'll erase that, and eat any more travelers who come, pass or not.”

“That could plunge the underworld into war, after decades of peace.”

“Yeah,” the goblin said zestfully. “So now get ready for the pot, because we're going to stew you three for supper. Better take off your packs and clothes; they don't boil well.” He squinted at them. “One dumb human man, one stupid winged goblin girl-oh, we'll have fun with you before we cut off those wings!-and one idiotic winged centaur filly.” Then the goblin did a double take. “A winged centaur! We hate winged centaurs! Ever since that little snoop came to Goblin Mountain and made it possible for a girl to be chief. What a pain! We real he-man goblins just had to get the Hades out of there and find a place to regroup. Oh, we'll pull out your feathers one by one, and make you hurt worse and worse, until you're just begging to be dumped into the boiling pot! What a treat we have coming!”

Gloha felt an awful chill, and she could tell that Cynthia was experiencing the same ugly draft. But the Magician seemed oddly unconcerned. Gloha was pretty sure that was misleading, she hoped.

“And this path now goes straight on up to the surface?” Trent inquired conversationally. “No more hazards?”

“Sure. But you won't be taking it, man-puss, because we're closing the gate. You might as well eat that pass before we feed it to you.”

“And you are the only goblin guarding this path?”

“Right.” The goblin paused. “Except for the other hundred that moved in while we were talking.” He waved, and suddenly the passage beyond was crammed with goblins carrying spears and clubs. “You thought maybe you'd just run over me and be gone, meat-man? You're even dumber than you look.”

Gloha felt a worse chill. Suddenly they were faced with bad faith-because of bad goblins who had fled the enlightened female chiefship of cousin-once-removed Gwenny and come here to establish their evil order. She knew the three could expect no mercy, because she knew what goblin men were like in their natural state. This was doom.

“I take it that you don't know who I am,” Trent said, seeming unperturbed.

“Human scum, I am proud to tell you I have no idea who you are, and don't care to soil my mind learning. You'll taste just as good as anyone else, once we add the spices. Now get those clothes off before we hack them off.”

“I am Magician Trent. Perhaps you have heard of me.”

“Of course I never heard of you, crapbrain! And even if I had, I-” He paused. “Who?”

“The Magician of Transformation.”

The goblin began to sidle away. “It don't mean nothing to me! You're probably lying anyway.”

Trent strode forward, gesturing. The goblin became a large purple snake with venom dripping from its fangs. “Now go greet your comrades,” Trent said.

But the snake did not flee. Instead it slithered toward the Magician. Gloha realized that the change of form did not stop it from being an enemy, any more than her change of form had stopped her from being a friend. Trent's magic could not change personality.

The purple snake became a pink elephant, the kind of monster that drunks dreamed of. But the passage was not large enough for it, so it filled the space completely, blocking off the other goblins. But it also blocked off the easy escape route to the single-G-mite chamber.

“We need another exit,” the Magician said mildly. “Gloha, can you find your way through goblin tunnels?”

“Yes. But there will be enemy goblins in them. They'll attack us from ambush before you can transform them. They'll throw stones from beyond your range. I don't think we can get through them.”

“What about some passage they won't use?”

“They can go anywhere we can, because you can't fly.” She hated to bring that liability up to him again, but it was unfortunately true.

“Then find a passage you two can use and they can't. I'll keep them from following, if they make the attempt.”

He was offering to sacrifice himself so that the two of them could escape. Gloha knew she wouldn't accept that, and she thought Cynthia wouldn't either. In fact she was pretty almost certainly sure Cynthia wouldn't. But there was no point in arguing about that right now. She peered down the passages that debouched from this region. Already she heard the sounds of goblins running through passages, closing in on this one by devious routes.

Then she spied a goblin sign. “I see a forbidden tunnel!” she cried. “This way!” She ran toward it.

“Why is it forbidden?” Cynthia asked as she trotted after her.

“I don't know. But it means that goblins won't use it, and that's what we want.”

They entered the tunnel as goblins appeared in the one behind them. This one was well lighted by fungus and big enough for them all to use comfortably, which made Gloha wonder, because both the man and the centaur were twice the height of any goblin.. Why should such a large tunnel be forbidden? If they were afraid to use it, why hadn't they blocked it off?

It led fairly directly to another large cavern whose base was filled with water. That was all; there was no offshoot passages. Just the quiet pool.

“The goblins are afraid of this?” Cynthia asked, perplexed.

“Yes,” Gloha said. “I don't understand why. If there were any really bad monster here, they would have blocked off the tunnel, so that it couldn't come out after them. Instead they merely marked it forbidden. This is distinctly odd. But it doesn't mean that it's safe for us, or that it is any way out. Just that they won't be coming in here.”

Cynthia peered across the dark water. “I think I see something.”

They all peered. “It looks furry,” Gloha said.

The thing came toward them. Indeed it was furry; in fact it seemed to be a big ball of fur. But when it got close, it opened a furry mouth that seemed somewhat bigger than it was, and snapped with large furry teeth. Sparks flew as the teeth clashed together.