Heaven Cent

by Piers Anthony

  "Thank you," Dolph said. He returned to boy form. "All monsters but no Heaven Cent," he reported. "We'd better get off this isle before the next monster comes, because it will be worse than this one."

  Indeed, as he spoke, there was a horrendous bellow from the lovely forest. The skeletons quickly got kicked into the sail and boat, and Dolph and Nada jumped in.

  They did not dare look back as the second monster charged, knowing that the sight of it would terrify them.

  "There is another isle close by, to the south," Marrow said. "Shall we sail for it directly?"

  "Why not," Dolph said. "It can't be worse than this one!"

  He was wrong. The isle looked as awful as the other looked good. The trees on it were rotten, and the air stank. It was as if all the garbage of Mundania had been dumped there. The only good thing about it was that much of it was shrouded in noxious fog. There was a sign on the shore: HORROR ISLE.

  "Why, this is like one of the disgusting settings of the gourd!" Marrow's skull exclaimed. "How delightful!"

  "Theb why dod't dou eggsplore it!" Dolph wheezed, holding his nose against the smell.

  "Why don't I explore it?" Marrow repeated. "Thank you; I shall! It will be like a visit home."

  "Me too!" Grace’l exclaimed.

  "We'll wait here," Dolph said.

  "Low to the ground," Nada agreed, converting to snake form and burrowing her nose in the sand.

  Dolph changed to snake form, and burrowed his head next to hers. The sand helped some by filtering out some of the worst of the odor. "Mother never told me that going on a Quest would be like this!" he hissed in snake talk.

  "Mine neither!" she agreed. "I hope you find your Cent soon!"

  "Well, it should be on one of these—" Dolph paused. There before him was something ugly, even after allowing for the smell. It looked like a ghost, but not one of the nice ghosts of Castle Roogna. This one was huge and misshapen and had a grotesque scowl stretched across its face.

  "What's that?" Nada asked, seeing it.

  "It looks like a nasty ghost," Dolph said.

  The ghost floated close. "Booo!" it yelled, gaping its mouth at Nada.

  "Eeeeeek!" she hissed, terrified. The ghost laughed, gratified.

  "But ghosts can't hurt real folk!" he hastened to remind her. "I know lots of ghosts, and—"

  "I never saw a g-ghost before!" she said, trying to bury her head in the sand.

  Dolph was amazed. "You never saw a ghost? That's amazing!"

  "That's bliss!" she retorted. "They're horrible!"

  "Boooo!" the ghost yelled again, behind her.

  "Eeeek!" Nada screamed again, almost sailing into the air. The ghost guffawed.

  "Now you stop that!" Dolph hissed at it.

  The ghost made an obscene face at him.

  That made Dolph so angry that he did something he had never done before: he assumed the form of a ghost. It was just as big and almost as ugly as the other. "Booo yourself!" he yelled at it.

  Startled, the ghost floated rapidly away. "Serves it right," Dolph muttered in ghost talk, floating close to Nada.

  "Eeeeek!" she screamed a third time, seeing him.

  Quickly he changed back to snake form. "Hey, it's me!" he hissed. "I got rid of the ghost!"

  She looked horribly relieved, which was not easy for a snake to do.

  Then several more ghosts charged toward them. "Bury your head!" Dolph cried, afraid of her reaction. "I'll scare them off!" He became the biggest, worstest ghost he could imagine, so ugly it even horrified himself.

  But the other ghosts floated on by, paying him no heed. What were they fleeing from?

  Then Marrow and Grace’l came into view. "Hello, Dolph," Marrow called. "We have checked the isle: there is no Heaven Cent here. What a delightful place, though!"

  The ghosts had been fleeing from the two walking skeletons! What a reversal! "But how did you recognize me?" Dolph asked in ghost talk.

  "Oh, you're in spectral form," Marrow said. "I hadn't noticed. Of course I recognized you; you're the only prince on the isle."

  Dolph reverted to boy form. "Let's get away from here! Nada can't stand it, and neither can I.''

  "Of course." The skeletons formed the sailboat, and Dolph held it while Nada slithered in, forgetting to change form. It occurred to him that this might be a better way to sail, so he returned to snake form and curled up with her in the bottom of the boat.

  "How could you become a ghost?" Nada hissed as the wind and waves caught the craft.

  "I just assumed the form, same's I do for any other creature," he hissed. "That's my talent."

  "But a ghost isn't alive!"

  Dolph hadn't thought of that. "I guess I can assume some un-alive forms too, if they move and act like living things. I never thought about it. When that ghost scared you, I just got so mad—" He shrugged, but of course messed it up in snake form.

  "There is another isle close by," Marrow's skull said. "Shall we check it now?"

  Dolph would rather have gone straight to shore and forgotten about isles for a long time. But he knew that he had to check every isle, because whatever one he skipped would be the one with the Heaven Cent, and that it would be better to check diem as fast as he could. "Yes," he hissed regretfully.

  The boat shifted course. Dolph lifted up his snake eyes and looked at the isle they were approaching. It sparkled like a monstrous gem, the rays of the sun seeming to be attracted to it. No trees grew on it, no brush or even grass; it was just one big scintillating rock.

  "Curious," Marrow observed.

  As they drew close, they saw a sign that seemed to be formed of the substance of the isle. Carved in it were the words ISLE OF WATER.

  Dolph assumed boy form, and Nada became a bare girl beside him. They laughed. "How can an island be water?" Dolph asked. "The sea is water!"

  Then they saw something beside the sign. It looked like a worm, poking its snout out of a hole in the rock. So the isle was inhabited after all!

  Dolph assumed worm form. "Ahoy, worm!" he called in vermiculish, which was the language of worms. "Is that sign correct?"

  "Certainly," the worm replied. "I am the water worm, here to welcome all to the Isle of Water. Come let me touch you, and you will understand."

  Dolph distrusted this, because of their experiences on the other isles. So far nothing much good had come of their explorations there. Still, he did not want to be impolite, so he didn't make any objection. "Is the Heaven Cent here? That's all we are looking for."

  "Come closer and I will answer," the worm replied.

  Then the prow of the boat nudged up against the isle. The worm touched the tip—and the tip dissolved into water.

  "Get out of here!" Dolph screamed, hoping the skeletons would understand him.

  The sail swung about, catching the wind at a different angle, and the boat skewed away to the side. Dolph and Nada changed quickly back to snake form and ducked low to avoid getting knocked by the boom. "My elbow bone!" Marrow's skull exclaimed. "It's gone!"

  "The water worm turned it to water!" Dolph hissed. "Everything it touches turns to water! That must be why this is called the Isle of Water."

  "Then your Heaven Cent can't be here," Nada pointed out. "It would have been turned to water."

  Yet Dolph wasn't quite satisfied. "Why hasn't the isle itself turned to water?"

  "It is water, early birdfood!" the water worm called. Its words were hard to distinguish, because vermiculish differed significantly from snake talk, but that was the way Dolph understood it. He assumed worm form to talk back.

  "But it's solid!" he called, poking his snout over the gunwale of the boat. He really couldn't see well at all in this form, but he could tell by the sound that they were leaving the worm, and therefore the isle, behind.

  "It's solid water!" the worm explained.

  "Ice?" Dolph asked. "It should melt in this sun!"

  "Not ice! Dry water! It attracts the rays of the sun, and they dry it out until all t
hat's left is dry water. I turn anything that comes here into more water, so the isle can grow. Come back and I will show you!"

  "Maybe another day," Dolph replied wryly. What a close call that had been!

  Meanwhile Nada had assumed girl form and was inspecting Marrow's elbow-prow. "You poor thing," she said. "Does it hurt?"

  "Of course not," Marrow replied bravely. "Skeletons don't hurt! We have no nerves. But I will look funny without an elbow bone."

  At that point the sail made a flapping in the wind that sounded very much like laughter.

  Nada felt her own elbow. "I'm not used to this form, I guess," she said. "Exactly where is the elbow bone?"

  Dolph realized that he couldn't find it either. He had arm bones, but not elbow bones. "Can you grow a new one?" he asked.

  "In time," Marrow said with resignation.

  They sailed on, their spirits somewhat dampened by the episode of the Isle of Water. But Dolph realized that it could have been worse: King Cumulo Fracto Nimbus could have shown up, and tried to turn everything wet.

  "There is another isle ahead," Marrow said.

  "I'm sick of isles!" Dolph exclaimed, but in his worm form all that came out was a muted gurgle, as of dirt being digested. He changed to boy form. "Let's get it out of the way, before I decide to quit this Quest and go home to Castle Roogna."

  "I believe your mother thought that would happen some time ago," Marrow's skull noted.

  They sailed up to the isle, which was a conventional one with rocks and trees and grass. A sign on it said FAKE ISLE. Dolph did not like the look of that any better than he had liked the reality of the prior isles. Was it actually the back of a floating monster?

  They drew up to it—and through it. There was nothing there! "It's illusion!" Dolph exclaimed, relieved.

  Then something bumped the boat from below. Nada peered over and down. "Eeeeek!" she screamed in exactly the way girls did.

  Dolph looked. There was a giant kraken weed organizing its tentacles for a good grasp on the boat. That was about as grotesque a monster as they could have encountered, next to an ogress. It was using the Fake Isle as a hiding place, so it could catch any creature who tried to walk on it.

  There was only one thing to do. Dolph jumped into the water, changing into an even bigger krakan. "Mine! Mine!" he burbled in weed words.

  "Well, now!" the krakan burbled back. Now Dolph realized that it was female, and actually a pretty attractive grotesquerie of her kind. "What say we tangle some tentacles, handsome?"

  Dolph knew that even if he had been old enough, he would have hesitated to get entangled with her. But how could he turn her off without either angering her or letting her grab the boat? He couldn't think of anything.

  "Uh, just a moment," he burbled. Then he swam to the surface beside the boat, assumed boy form, and quickly scrambled in. "It's a krakan, and she wants to tangle tentacles with me. What do I do?"

  "Use one of the forget seeds," Marrow said promptly.

  Of course! Dolph delved into his knapsack and pulled out the seed pack. He opened it and managed to draw out one of the tiny mustard seeds. "But how do I drop it on her? The water will carry it away!"

  "Not on her," Marrow said patiently. "On the boat."

  "Oh." Dolph felt pretty stupid. Of course it wouldn't do to have them forget the kraken; the kraken needed to forget them. He dropped the seed to the bottom of the boat, exactly as he had seen Black Pete drop them on other things.

  He looked into the water. The kraken seemed to have lost interest; she was drifting away. Meanwhile, they were coming out the other side of the pretend isle. Close ahead was yet another isle; they were thickly clustered here!

  They moved on toward it. This one resembled a huge cake, with chocolate sauce and ice cream piled on top, and spicy colored sugar sprinkled over everything. "Look at that!" Dolph exclaimed, his mouth watering. "Decent food at last!"

  "I'm hungry!" Nada said, joining him in girl form. "Let's eat it all!"

  "No, no!" Marrow's voice cried. "That is not a suitable meal!"

  Dolph glanced back, but couldn't remember exactly where Marrow had gone. But he has sure that just a little cake would not hurt anything, and indeed he was hungry, now that Nada mentioned it.

  A sign on the cake said FOOD ISLE. Dolph saw little fish nibbling at the fringe. They looked happy and healthy, so it was probably very tasty. In a moment they would be close enough to grab some.

  "I shall have to steer away!" Marrow's voice came. "Grace’l, change your angle!"

  The boom swung around. Dolph and Nada, nervous about getting hit by it, jumped into the water and splashed toward the cake. They grabbed big handfuls and stuffed them in their mouths. The cake was delicious!

  Meanwhile, Marrow's voice came from the background. "This is no good! You will get sick on that food! You must get back into the boat!"

  Boat? Dolph looked at Nada, and she looked at him. Both shrugged, remembering no boat. Then they climbed onto the cake, ascending toward the ice cream. Every step of the way was excruciatingly tasty!

  They reached the top where the chocolate sauce and ice cream were. Sheer delight. They both crammed as much as they could into their mouths, as fast as they could, afraid that some adult would arrive and issue a firm No. They kept gobbling with the kind of desperation any person has who fears interruption, but there was no interruption. They gouged out huge hunks of sauce-dripping cake and fed them to each other. Then, between mouthfuls, they made cakeballs and threw them at each other. They hurled chocolate cherries. Then they played pie-in-the-face with huge masses of ice cream. They lay on their backs in the icing and moved their arms and legs to make angel shapes. There was chocolate all over them, instead of clothing. Nada looked as if she was wearing a mud plaster on her hair. Dolph could not remember when he had had more fun!

  Then, mysteriously, Dolph began to lose his appetite.

  He was too full to eat any more! It was hard to believe, because he had never had his fill of cake and ice cream before, and had not realized it was possible.

  Nada was looking a bit green, and she was not in her snake form. "I think—I ate—too much," she said.

  Dolph concluded reluctantly that this was possible, if incredible. His belly was uncomfortably distended. Delicious food was all around him, but somehow it no longer appealed. In fact, it turned him off. "Where's Marrow?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure," Nada wheezed. "The last I remember he was changing into a—I forget what. Oooo, my stomach!"

  They sat side by side on the cake as the sun went down. Then Dolph had to do something private, so he walked across the cake, found clear water, and did it there. Nada went to the other side of the cake and might have done something similar. Dolph wasn't quite sure whether girls did it, but he guessed they might. After all, they ate, just as boys did.

  At any rate, he was beginning to feel better, but he still didn't care for any more cake. He hated to admit it, but he really had had too much. Gorging on cake and ice cream had turned out to be less fun than he had expected.

  "Do you think the Heaven Cent is here?" he asked.

  "If it is, it's buried in cake," she replied. "We'd have to eat our way down to it." She grimaced. "The very thought makes me—"

  "Me too," he agreed, feeling green himself. "So I guess it isn't here." He wasn't totally sure of the logic, but it seemed good enough for now.

  Then, as dusk closed, Nada remembered. "Boat! They turned into a boat and—and—"

  "Sail," Dolph finished. "We were sailing! How could we have forgotten?"

  "The forget seed! You dropped it, and—"

  "And we forgot the boat! We made the kraken forget it, but the spell worked on us too! And since Marrow is the boat—"

  "We forgot Marrow" she said. "We heard him, but just couldn't really remember him!"

  "There he is now!" Dolph said, gazing down. He waved. "Hey, Marrow! Come close so we can get back on!"

  "It's about time!" Marrow's skull called back.
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  Dolph realized that this was a deserved reproof. He and Nada slid down the side of the cake and splashed into the water. They washed themselves off, especially behind the ears, then clambered into the boat as it came close. How good it felt to be back in the company of the adults!

  "Do you wish to explore the next isle now?" Marrow inquired.

  Dolph groaned. "Do we have to?"

  "Fortunately not," Marrow said with the hint of a bony chuckle. "We sailed around a bit while you were occupied, and spied no more isles in this vicinity. We shall have to proceed on land for a while."

  "Oh, goody!" Nada said, lapsing into her natural form and curling up in the bottom of the boat. She looked as if she had just swallowed a rabbit whole. "I don't think I'll eat again for a month!"

  "Yuck!" Dolph exclaimed. "Don't say that word 'eat'!"

  "It certainly does seem to be food for thought," Marrow said, satisfied.

  Neither child commented. The remark was evidently intended as adult humor. It wasn't funny. Dolph changed to naga form and joined Nada at the bottom. He was still stuffed. It was easy to understand why snakes slept for a long time after eating a big meal; they couldn't stand the thought of food! Certainly he couldn't. If he dreamed of cake, he would know a night mare was responsible.

  The boat sailed toward the mainland. By the time it got there, both children were asleep.

  Chapter 12

  Gold Coast

  In the morning they trekked south. Nada's digestion still wasn't well, and Dolph appeared distinctly uncomfortable, but neither complained. Nada wished she hadn't eaten so much cake and ice cream, but she had seen no good way to avoid it. She was playing the part of a child Prince Dolph's age, so was guided by his actions, and he had stuffed himself the moment he had the opportunity. If she had not joined him with seemingly equal eagerness, he might have been suspicious, and she could not afford that. So she had thrown herself into it, knowing the consequence—which consequence she was now experiencing. The liability of acting like a child was suffering the pains of childishness.

  It was no good dwelling on her stomach, though. So she paced Dolph as the two of them slithered along in their matching naga bodies, and turned her mind elsewhere.