Lukus gave a nod of resolve and offered his hand to Danneth. He had indeed come to trust the Elf.
The moment Danneth was gone, Rose and Lukus stood on the bank of the Magic River, awed by their surroundings, hesitating to board their small craft. Not only was the gigantic grotto alight with the phosphorescent glow of the lichens covering its walls, but the very river water itself seemed to give off a pale green light. The water was so clear that the features of the river's bed were easily seen through several fathoms of it, in rippling hues of yellowish green and yellowish blue. Their boat was moored directly over the river's source, welling up massively under endless quiet ripples and eddies from inky unimaginable depths. It took them a good long while to dare to clamber into the boat, but after a time they were on board, sitting facing one another.
“Rose, there are absolutely no oars on this boat,” wailed Lukus. “And Danneth is long gone. In fact, I can’t even find a pole, or a sail or anything. How in Niarg are we supposed to steer this thing?”
“Calm down Lukus! All we have to do to get this boat to go where we want is to tell it. It has its own magic, just like the river and the hydra, so we don’t even have to navigate.”
“Well, well,” he said. “In that case, why don’t we just sit back and crack into the victuals? I’m starved. Oh. Yes, yes. Boat? Take us to the Enchanted Land.” He waved his hands dramatically, as if he were a great wizard performing a spell. He looked at Rose, shrugged and lunged at the parcel of Elven dainties.
The boat did indeed set out at his command. It even untied itself from its mooring. Rose watched transfixed as the rope slithered after, off into the water. She watched as it found the center of the channel and gradually gained on the current. She relaxed enough to release her grip on the gunwale and pick out a sausage filled pastry, wolfing it down. Lukus gobbled up two fruit-filled pastries as their fragile crusts peppered down his front.
“Lukus! Haven't you even noticed that we're underway?”
“Who do you think commanded the boat to go, poop hole?” he laughed, choking out his mouthful into his lap.
“Well you look like a hog in the garden. What happens when the hydra show up? We need to keep our eyes open. I'm even stuffing my face before you gobble it all up.”
Lukus went wide-eyed, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. They scrambled about, rinsing off and wrapping up, watching the river ahead. “Rose, have you ever tasted water this good?”
“No actually. I'd call it wonderful, for lack of any other word. And everything I see down here is quite beautiful, which is right odd when there's not really anything to see. Well perhaps it shouldn't be odd at all with everything enchanted.
“Including you?” he said. “I thought You wanted to keep a look out.”
“Yea. You're right. It could get us. It could just rise up out of this river right now, couldn't it? Danneth told me that it's above six fathom tall and two fathom broad, with more than a dozen arms and ten heads that look like a cross between a human and a snake. Can you imagine?” Her eyes darted about the water and shoreline.
“Maybe we should put on the Chameleon Cloaks, Rose. Then we'd look like the boat.”
“Yea,” she said, grabbing one out from under her seat and holding it up for him. “Here.”
He stood up suddenly and took it, stumbling right overboard, nearly capsizing the boat. “Holy Wizard’s balls!” he sputtered, bobbing up with the cloak to paddle and grab for the boat.
“Shut up!” she cried, clapping her hand over his gasping mouth as he grabbed at the stern.
“You idiot! You dope!” he screeched, frantically slapping away her hand. “You want to drown me, or what? Come on Rose, you know I mean crystal balls! What do you think...?”
“It's like you to think being down here's an excuse to be vulgar. And when you say it, it certainly sounds entirely unfit for polite company, but that's not it. You don't get me.”
“Yea? Well where's this polite company, you crazy prude? It’s just the two of... What do you mean, not it? What don't I get?”
“Maybe it's a bad idea to holler out something about a wizard's tools in an enchanted cave with an enchanted hydra. This enchanted boat you want back in takes voice commands, and who knows what else in here does. And just what do you mean by 'crazy prude' anyway, Prince Lukus?”
“I'm sorry! I am sorry, Rose. In the meantime though, I want you to know that I'm freezing to death. So if you don’t mind, I'd like to get in and dock this boat now so I can go ashore and change into some dry clothes before I get myself good and sick. Please?”
“Boat, take us ashore please,” she said, as she helped him clamber back in with his blue chattering chin. “Why don’t we start a fire to dry out you and your wet clothes and chameleon cloak?”
“How?”
“I don’t think it would be a very good idea to go on until you've at least got the cloak dry, do you?”
“Yea, but what would you make a fire with? Besides, I'd be afraid to put it too close to the fire, because who knows what the heat might do to it. Anyway, I'm not so cold, now that I'm out of that icy water, so perhaps we should just go on. And I don’t know about you, but I'm starting to feel trapped in here. In fact, waiting for some huge monster to pop out and surprise us any old time that suits him makes me feel really trapped.”
“Actually, I was about to suggest that we make camp here and head out again for the Enchanted Land in the morning, but since you put things the way you just did, I quite...”
“Dang you Rose! Why didn't we just stay for the nice breakfast that everyone was wanting to feed us?”
“Shut up Lukus! I might've been putting off meeting Arrachtach, but I was trying to look out for you.”
“I'll shut up. But we cast our lot, so let's get it over with. Besides, with these cloaks, it's not supposed to be that much of a trick to sneak right past it. Come on, Rose, let's get going.”
“Well here we are,” she said, taking her seat once she had spread out the chameleon cloak across the bow. “Boat, take us to the Enchanted Land.”
Lukus drummed his fingers on the gunwale and then pulled out Soraya's amulet from his collar to make certain that he still had it and to study it some, for he'd not really looked at it yet, and was astonished to see that the stone not matched perfectly the sea foam green of her eyes.
“So Lukus, are you going to tell me what all that business was about with you and Soraya, or should I just let my imagination run wild?”
“I knew this was coming,” he thought. “I’m not sure what you mean by 'business,' Rose,” he said. “Soraya and I just struck up a good friendship is all. There really just isn’t anything to tell.”
“Very well for now Lukus,” she said with a gimlet eye. “I know you well enough to know that I'm lucky to have dragged that much of an admission out of you. But I know you aren’t telling me everything. Besides I was watching. And I'll not go into all the interesting whispers flying around about the two of you while we were there.”
“Why, sweet smelling Rose of Niarg. I never would have imagined that you, of all saintly people, would have such a gleeful wallow in court gossip. You always claimed to abhor it.”
“Touche then,” she said, throwing up her hands. “You have me then, Lukus. I apologize. I'll back off for now. But I still know you well enough to know that you aren’t telling me everything, so I will find out sooner or later.”
“I've no doubt in my mind that you'll hound me until I tell you everything that you think there is to know, but you just may be disappointed to find out that the facts aren’t nearly...”
Without warning the boat heaved up, making Rose smack her chin against her collarbone and bite her tongue. And before they had a shred of an idea what was going on, the boat dropped, shaking Lukus off of his seat onto his elbow. “Aaaaa!” he cried at the sight beyond her, as a gargantuan dome of water half the width of the river rose up before them. Rose gripped the gunwale in terror, torn between looking at his face full of horror
and turning to look at what he saw, when the dome nearly reached the ceiling of the cavern and burst into a roaring cascade of water tumbling from a writhing nest of coiling arms. As the water fell, it broke into a spreading ring of gigantic wave which reached their boat at once and capsized it.
“Rose! Rose!” he screamed, flailing about in the surging water. He could see her nowhere in the river. Frantically he cast about to suddenly duck underwater at the sight of an enormous fire hose of an arm flying toward him from the hydra. As he dove, he felt a concussion from above, as the arm hit the water with a thundering pop. He swam furiously, came up for air quickly, got his bearings and dove again, making for the overturned boat. Again, a massive arm smacked the water when he dove. “Rose! Thank goodness!” he gasped, as he came up face to face with her bobbing head in the trapped air under the hull.
“Too late for Elven cloaks!” she croaked. At that moment, a driving explosion of water hurled the boat end over end across the water to the shore, as another arm grabbed her out of the water and yanked her forth, whirling into a coil of itself, to hold her vomiting and helpless before three hideous snapping heads. Lukus furiously paddled for the shore. Halfway there he found footing on a solid stone ledge. He grabbed his sling from his pocket, but to his white-hot horror, his pouch of stones was empty. The water was too roiled for him to have any hope of seeing stones at his feet. He yanked the opal amulet from his neck and fitted it into the pouch of his sling. With a great whistling fling of fury from every fiber of his person, he shot the opal at the hydra. With a report like the puncturing of a giant bladder, a gusher of sparkling sea foam green gas blew forth from the hole in the trunk of the hydra, as it threw Rose into the water and began writhing with crazed ferocity.
Lukus dove into the water and swam madly over to find her alive but stunned and white as a sheet. “Can you float on your back in the water?” he said. She nodded, so he helped her onto her back, then made for the shore where the boat lay belly up. Directly he was back, towing the boat. “The cloaks are gone, Rose! Can you hang on to the boat if we turn it over to hide under?”
“Why?”
“Well, so we can hide as we go by the hydra.”
“How's that going to work when it just plucked me out of the water from under it?”
“Oh! Oh yea. Well shall we just get in and take our chances?”
“There's no other way around, exposed or not, and it's just plain insanity to dally,” she said, nodding at the hydra, which was pulling its arms into the top of itself. “Help me over the stern, would you Lukus? I'm spent.”
“Boat please take us safely to the Enchanted Land.” she said as they took seats. The boat slowly obliged by finding the center of the stream and gaining on the current. They sat starkly silent, not daring to imagine what it might do when it reached Arrachtach. Lukus saw that Rose's left cheek was quite red from being thrown into the water by the hydra, but he said nothing. Quietly, quietly, the boat took an eternity to veer wide and go past the awful monster, as they held their breaths.
Rose gasped as the boat dropped into rapids that neither she nor Lukus had seen coming. Then at once they both came alive with relief, realizing that they had not only gone 'round a bend and out of sight of the hydra, but were now going much faster. “Good job, getting a bath after you puke on yourself, aye Lukus?” she said with shaky glee. “And, by the way, thank you, thank you for saving my life. I'm so very, very glad you're here to protect me.”
All Lukus could do was smile.
“Look!” she cried, pointing at bright daylight ahead, where a small cove and dock waited for weary travelers on the Magic River.
“Boat, please take us to that dock to the left,” said Lukus with an ebullient sigh. Of course he had no sooner spoken than his wish was granted, and he and Rose stepped ashore.
At once the small vessel turned about and waited. “Boat, take yourself back to the Elves' cavern, please,” he said. “And thank you ever so much for saving us.” And the boat vanished before his eyes.
Chapter 31
Rose and Lukus stood on the dock, awed by their surroundings and by their new lease on life after escaping Arrachtach. To the east lay ocean, becalmed by a large island beyond the horizon. The narrow coal black beach fringed bluffs of red sandstone, sliced by narrow bands of pink, white, purple and black rock. The bluffs were forested with the woods running in strips inland into expansive rolling piedmont meadows at the feet of towering wooded mountains to the west, looking purple in the distance.
“This place is gorgeous, Lukus,” said Rose, with a jubilant whirl. “We just might have a pleasant journey as far as the Chokewoods.”
“Rose, is that sea the Orin Ocean?”
“That's all it could be.”
“So the reason we don't see Pirate Isle is because it's beyond the horizon?”
“Must be, Lukus.”
“And those must be the Enchanted Mountains, if indeed we were delivered to the Enchanted Land.”
“Don't you trust the Elves?”
“Well, if this be the Enchanted Land and those are the Enchanted Mountains, then this is part of Goll, and Goll proper lies just across those mountains, right?”
“Spitemorta!” gasped Rose. “Of course. Her castle's right across these mountains, Lukus. She's so rotten that there's no telling what might happen. Oh why wouldn’t the Magic River take us all the way to Chokewoods? They don’t belong to anybody.”
“Whoa! Aren't you getting just a teensy bit carried away, Princess?”
“Hey wait! Look up above the rapids, Lukus. Isn’t that a unicorn?”
“Sure enough.”
“That's Mystique!” cried Rose with a bounce. “My! Can she keep her balance in the rapids?”
Well there she goes. Looks like it.”
Soon Mystique stood on the pier demanding a scratch from Rose as the boat headed back for Starfire. Before long, they were on their way south with half of their luggage, bound for the Chokewoods, along the foot of the east flank of the Enchanted Mountains. The sun was high in a deep blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds. The road wound up through the wooded bluffs between sheer red sandstone walls, ringing with the calls of wrens and ovenbirds, with occasional bursts of chatter from woodpeckers. Water babbled from a gap between a layer of black rock and a layer of pink rock which traversed the red sandstone. The unicorns walked briskly, even though it was a climb. They studied the scenery in silence for some time as they rode, but they were grateful to be alive. Before long, the road opened out onto the rolling piedmont grassland which led into a valley running parallel to the main range of the Enchanted Mountains. Larks tinkled far overhead. Bees tended patches of asters in the grass.
“How could it possibly have gotten this late?” said Lukus. “It might not be a bad thing to look for a place to camp because the sun's gotten into the west and the mountains will cut off the light in a few hours.”
“Yea. And look at those clouds in the south. Isn't the wind coming from there? I think it's starting to pick up, too. So I’d say it looks like rain and it isn’t going to be long in coming, either.”
“You're right. It's coming up fast. Unless we find cover right away, we're going to get soaked.”
“Come on Lukus,” she said. “It’s not far to the mountains, yonder, and there must be more shelter there than here.”
“So this is Fairy Valley that we're getting into, right?” he said, studying the low hills forming a ridge to the east.
“I'd think it has to be.”
The wind grew suddenly, bringing towering clouds and darkness with it. Sparrows and larks hovered, winging in lunges against it. Branches waved in spreading meadow oaks. Great sheeting torrents of rain arrived. The weather had grown stifling hot throughout the afternoon and the rain was cooling and cleansing. However, since it was nearly dark, the rain brought the night. Finding shelter could be an ordeal, and would have to be seen to at once. Already the unicorns were having difficulty following the road with its slippery m
ud in gullied tracks which were starting to climb in the dark, and it would be easy to have a mishap.
“Hey Rose, look!” cried Lukus, pointing into the trees. “I can’t tell if that's a cave or what, but let's see if it's good enough to build a fire and camp.”
“It’s not exactly the inn you were after.”
“You mean you want us to get completely soaked, hunting for an inn just so you can blame it on me? Hey! That's a cave yonder, I'm pretty sure.”
“All right,” Lukus. “Truce. It's bad enough already, without mourning about every little convenience. What are conveniences anyway, when my life may be pretty much at an end? If I truly am Ugleeuh’s daughter…”
“Come on Rose! Don’t start that again. I can’t believe you can even entertain such a notion, let alone have us out here on this crazy adventure, bound and determined to confirm it. Here you are, jumping at pure hearsay you got from a stinking gossip who never was your friend.”
“No Lukus. I went to the cemetery. I saw the gravestone for the other baby Rose. It was really there, exactly as Spitemorta said. That's why I had to do this. Don't you see? Do you understand now?”
Lukus halted Starfire in the drenching rain before the mouth of the cave. “Now, I see your point. Why didn’t you tell me before, Rose? You've done the rottenest job in the world of making things clear until this minute. Now I see, and I think that if I were in your shoes, I'd probably have to run off and find out, too. But you want to know what I think? I think you're exactly who you've always been: my sister, Rose of Niarg.”
“Thanks Lukus. That really does mean a lot to me. Now please, I'm getting soaked to the bone. Let’s look in that hole, shall we?”
They dismounted at once and peered in. It was indeed a cave, and it went back into the rocks for a good way, making it easy to get completely out of the downpour. They stood in the blackness, dripping as they listened to the storm outside.
“When it's not lightening,” shouted Lukus, “I can't even see something that's right against my nose!”
Heart of the Staff - Complete Series Page 30
