xanth 40 - isis orb (23 page)

Sure enough, in another windblown moment the two dragons tilted and veered rapidly to the side, suddenly gaining speed. In another quarter of a moment they were out of sight.

Now the storm, as if sensing that something was up, intensified another notch. Rain spattered, then thickened. But the centaurs moved on. Fortunately the wind was now coming from the direction of the mountain, as if determined to blow them away from it. They all ducked their heads and plowed on.

The rain became a drench-pour. Visibility was cut to two body lengths, then one. The ground became muddy. They kept moving.

The rain became hail, which peppered their hides. It stung, but Hapless squinched his mouth and eyes closed and kept moving.

“Too bad Nya isn’t here,” Feline gasped. “She could use her Totem to melt the ice.”

The storm, as if seeing that this wasn’t working, shifted to sand. It became a sandstorm, blasting abrasively at their skin. They shoved on.

The sand mounded before them, becoming a dune that threatened to bury them.

“But I am here,” Zed said. He focused on the mound, and it shook, forming cracks, and the sand drained into the fissures opening in the ground.

There was an angry howl as the wind was balked. But sand and ground were in the province of Earth, and Air could not override that.

They trudged on, trusting that their direction was correct, or that the centaurs could orient on the mountain despite the poor visibility. Their trust was vindicated; they came to the base of the mountain, and soon found a measure of shelter in a wind-carved grotto. The scream of the wind as it cut around the sharp edges was almost painful; it knew it was being balked.

Hapless spit out sand. “Next step: scale the mountain.”

“Oh,” Feline said. “You were going to have Nya help you climb, but she forgot; she’s helping Quin fly.”

“That’s right,” Hapless said. “I always mess up the details.”

“Maybe I can help you. Cats are good climbers.”

“Feline, I’d love to have your company. But I don’t think you can do this, and you might get hurt. I’d hate that.”

Then a shape loomed out of the swirl. It was Nya. She plowed into the sand beyond the grotto, then slithered into it. “Almost forgot!” she exclaimed.

“But what about Quin?” Feline asked.

“He’s handling the wind and heading for the griffin’s nest. The griffin will have to move. We know how that should play out. Now what is more important is to get you up near the nest without being observed.”

“What if the griffin sees him?”

“That’s mischief. I’ll try to protect him, but that griffin is probably more than my match.”

“So Hapless better not get seen.”

“Yes. With luck Quin will be able to distract the griffin long enough.”

“Are you sure you want to try this, Hapless?” Faro asked. “We can ponder alternatives.”

“Not at all sure,” Hapless admitted. “But I think I’d better try it, all the same. The path leads up the mountain. You can still ponder alternatives, in case I don’t make it.”

“Ah yes, the path. It shows the way and you follow it. Is that courage?”

“I don’t think so. I just have a job to do, so I’m doing it.”

“Gumption,” Feline repeated.

“Then let’s get to it. I’ll try to find you good footing if I can.”

“Thank you.”

Nya slid out of the grotto and up the steep slope of the rock outside. Her naga form was good for this; her snaky belly had traction.

Hapless tried to follow, bracing against the wind, but immediately discovered problems. His hands and feet found no purchase on the rock, and the wind quickly blew him aside when he tried to climb. This was no good at all. If he had this much trouble at the base, how would it be at the top?

He conjured a guitar with picks for his fingers. He put on the picks and let the guitar blow away in the wind, jangling as it went. He set his hands against the rock, and the picks dug in just enough make it possible for him to climb. He might not be able to make music with them, but scraping rock worked. His shoes did cling reasonably well.

“It’s better up here,” Nya called back from beyond the outcrop.

Hapless made it to a kind of ledge that formed a narrow ridge. The path followed that. It was indeed better. But when he looked back, the path was gone; he would not be able to return the way he came, because he would not be able to remember all the details. Well, that was something to worry about later.

They continued on in a rough spiral around the mountain. It was not a big mountain, and before long they were on the second loop, well above the first. Hapless was getting used to clinging to the rock; the wind could not really get at him as long as he remained in the crevice.

“Uh-oh,” Nya muttered.

He did not like the sound of that. “What is it?”

“Traffic.”

“Uh—”

“Caterpillar. A large one. Harmless to us. Evidently up here to graze on the high mountain lichen.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“We’re in its track.”

Now he saw the caterpillar heading toward them on its myriad little legs. It was about the size of a Mundane bus, its surface green, its antennae reaching forward. The track was the only place it could walk. If they didn’t get clear of its route, they would likely be bulldozed off the track and the mountain. “We’d better get out of its way.”

“Yes. But this is not a convenient spot to leave the path.”

Hapless looked to his right, where the rock fed into a drop-off of lethal height. Then to his left, where the wall rose almost straight up. Inconvenient was a fair understatement. “Can I climb over it?”

“No. Its skin is poisonous, as a discouragement to predators.”

“Then I guess we’ll have to back off to a widening where we can let it pass.”

“That will cost time. You need to get close to the nest before nightfall. Quin is not a good night flier.”

“You have a better idea?”

“Yes. I will hook onto the ledge above this one, and stretch down to help you get off the path for long enough. When it passes, you can drop back onto the path.”

“This looks precarious.”

“It is. You will have to trust me.”

“I trust you. I’m just not sure how this will work. I don’t see how you can scale that cliff.”

Nya smiled, and shifted to dragon form. She flew up off the path, climbed to the upper ridge, landed on it, and changed back. Then she hooked her tail over the ridge and let her body slide down across the cliff toward him. She reached her arms down. “Catch my hands.”

“But they’re out of reach.”

“Not if you jump.”

“But I’m too heavy for you! My weight would pull you off the ledge.”

“I don’t think so.”

He wanted to argue further, but the caterpillar was marching toward him at a fair rate. Its bug eyes stared at him like fixed headlights. It obviously was not about to brake to a halt. He had either to take Nya’s hands, or retreat back down the path.

He gambled that he was not putting both their lives in peril and leaped up to barely catch her hands in his. Their fingers linked. Then with surprising strength she pulled her body back upwards, hauling him along. “Lift your legs to clear it,” she said.

He managed to draw his legs up under him, against the cliff, so that he was hunched just clear of the caterpillar. Slowly it passed beneath him, segment after segment.

He looked up. Nya’s eyes were closed as she concentrated on holding him. Her breasts were pressed flat against the rock. She was doing her utmost. If her tail got tired and let go …

He let that thought trail into an ellipsis, not caring to complete it.

“I can’t hold on much longer,” she said.

That was the dreaded completion. “If you can’t, then let me go,” he said. “At least you can save yourself.”

She didn’t answer. But he could feel her body and his nudging lower as her overworked tail stretched. She wasn’t fooling about her limit.

Finally the last segment of the caterpillar passed. “It’s gone!” he gasped, “I’ll drop down now.”

“I’m slipping! Catch me!” Indeed, she was sliding down the cliff.

So he did not let go; he was already dropping. His feet touched the ledge and he sank down on it, drawing her into him upside down. They landed in a tangle, her breasts mashing his face. She was panting with her effort. He wasn’t sure where the rest of her was, so he just lay there holding her tight.

“We’re safe now,” she said. “Thank you.” Then after a pause. “You can let go now.”

Oh. He released her and she drew her torso off his face. “I was afraid you’d fall,” he said somewhat lamely.

“You were right. Half of me was over the edge. But you held me in place until I could wriggle back onto the path. I really appreciate that.”

What could he say? So he said nothing. He knew that later, when he wasn’t afraid of them falling, he would remember that moment. He only hoped she had not been aware of it.

“Of course if I had gone on over, I could have changed form and flown to safety.”

Oh, again. “I forgot.” So his extra effort had been unnecessary.

“There’s no need to blush.”

Was she teasing him? “It was awkward.”

“I won’t say a word to Feline.”

“Thank you.”

They resumed travel up the mountain.

The mountain narrowed, until the ledge was barely a nick in the slope. He could see it spiraling on up above him and on down below him. There was no longer room to walk; he had to spread himself flat, like Nya, and crawl. At least that gave the wind less body area to tug at.

It was cold; the wind carried fog, and the fog wet down the rock, and the water froze into ice. It was awful, but he kept crawling onward, though his fingers got numb. What else was there to do?

Then the worst happened: his numb fingers slipped, and his body slid over the brink and down the steep slope. “Hapless!” Nya cried. But she acted: when he came to the marginally larger ridge on the loop of the spiral just below him, the dragon thumped up against him, pushing him against the mountain, and he was able to get hold again. Then the naga formed just ahead of him. “I guess this is too tough a climb for you,” she said with regret. “We’d better go back down.”

“No.” He resumed crawling upward.

When he got to the same place as before, he saw that the ridge had filled with ice, so that it was no longer a ridge. That explained his slip. He conjured a metal flute and used it to pound the ice, cracking it and prying it out so that the crevice was there again. Then he crawled on.

Only to slip again as his numb fingers no longer responded to his mental urging. He was back down at the next loop, getting braced again by the dragon.

The naga reappeared. “Hapless—”

“No!” He jammed on.

And fell a third time. And a fourth. He simply could no longer hold on. The day was getting late, and half the peak was in frigid shadow, but still he crawled, or tried to. It might be a useless effort, but he couldn’t quit.

“Hapless—”

“No!”

“Hapless, listen to me!”

“No!”

She faced him, her forepart downward on the ledge. Then she kissed him.

There were no hearts or special effects, but the shock of it jolted him out of his fog. What could possibly be on her serpentine mind? “What?”

“I had to get your attention, so I copied Feline. Hapless, I figured out another way to help you.”

“Not if it means giving up the Quest.”

“You are positively oink-headed! But here it is: I’ll turn dragon, and blast out the ice and warm the stone. In fact I can use the Fire Totem to heat the rock itself. I should have thought of it before. That should enable you to crawl on without falling. Just so you know what I’m doing.”

Oh.

“Okay,” he agreed weakly. It wasn’t just his hands that had gone numb; the rest of his body was following, and his mind too.

She turned dragon, then made a strafing run. She blasted out fire, and the ice fairly steamed into the air and was quickly blown away. Then she returned to Naga state and slid ahead of him.

He advanced to that spot—and it was warm! What a blessing! “Thanks!” he gasped, and moved on, invigorated. With warm rock, there was no freezing, and his numbness was fading.

They completed two more loops. But night was hurrying in, and they still weren’t close enough to the griffin’s nest. Worse, the griffin came in to the nest, and spied them. He gave a screech of outrage and dived at them.

“Oh, bleep!” Nya swore. She shifted to dragon mode and launched out to intercept the griffin.

“No!” Hapless cried. The griffin was substantially larger than the dragon, and though it did not have fire, it did have those six heads. It circled the dragon, seeking an opening. Nya was doomed.

The dragon blasted out a stream of fire, but the savvy griffin dodged it and dived in while Nya was taking a new breath. He caught the dragon’s torso in his front talons and held it there as the heads oriented for a lethal sextet of bites.

Music sounded, coming rapidly closer. Accordion music. Quin was catching up to them, in an awkward intermediate stage, playing his instrument as he flew.

“Squawk!” the Griffin said, and it sounded like “Bleep!” He tried to dodge out of the way, but his talons were caught on Nya’s body and he couldn’t get clear in time.

Quin flew right up to the caught griffin, his music louder and clearer. The griffin froze in place, mesmerized.

Then Quin crashed right into them, and the griffin disappeared. He had become the Air Totem, and Quin had hold of it.

Quin and Nya fell apart, righting themselves in air. They had made it! They had won. No thanks to Hapless, who hadn’t made it to the nest in time.

Nya landed on the ledge above him and became the naga, and Quin landed below him and became the harpy. “It worked!” she said. “You brought the griffin to you! And gave Quin the magic he needed to play the enchantment.”

Hapless stayed in place, realizing that it was true. He had been so focused on reaching the nest that he had forgotten that it was Quin and the griffin he needed to be close to, and the two of them had come to him. It had worked after all.

“Now let’s abate this wind,” Quinn said. And the wind died. He controlled it, because he possessed the Totem of Air.