Centaur Aisle

by Piers Anthony

  "But suppose a monster catches us way out here in the sea?" Irene asked, also waking. "I'd rather be near land."

  Chet shrugged. "We can veer in to land. Meanwhile, why don't you grow us some food and fresh--water plants so we can eat and drink?"

  "And a parasol plant, to shield us from the sun," she said. "And a privacy hedge, for you-know."

  She got on it. Soon they were drinking scented water from a pitcher plant and eating unlike masses from puffball plants. The new hedge closed off the rear of the craft, where the expended pitchers were used for another purpose. Several parasols shaded them nicely. It was all becoming quite comfortable.

  The bulrush craft, responsive to Chet's tug on the string tied to the ring in its nose, veered toward the east, where the distant land was supposed to be.

  Smash the Ogre sniffed the air and peered about. Then he pointed.

  "Me see the form of a mean ol' storm," be announced.

  Oh, no! Dor spied the roiling clouds coming up over the southern horizon. Smash's keen ogre senses had detected it first, but in moments it was all too readily apparent to them all.

  "We're in trouble," Grundy said. "I'll see what I can do."

  "What can you do?" Irene asked witheringly. "Are you going to wave your tiny little dumb hand and conjure us all instantly to safety?"

  Grundy ignored her. He spoke to the ocean in whatever language its creatures used. In a moment he said: "I think I have it. The fish are taking word to an eclectic eel."

  "A what?" Irene demanded. "Do you mean one of those shocking creatures?"

  "An eclectic eel, dummy. It chooses things from all over. It does nothing original; it puts it all together in bits and pieces that others have made."

  "How can something like that possibly help us?"

  "Better ask it why it will help us."

  "All right, woodenhead. Why?"

  "Because I promised it half your seeds."

  "Half my seeds!" she exploded. "You can't do that!"

  "If I don't, the storm will send us all to the depths."

  "He's right, Irene," Chet said. "We're over a barrel, figuratively speaking."

  "I'll put the confounded golem in a barrel and glue the cork in!" she cried. "A barrel of white-hot sneeze-pepper! He has no right to promise my property."

  "Okay," Grundy said. "Tell the eel no. Give it a shock."

  A narrow snout poked out of the roughening water. A cold gust of wind ruffled Irene's hair and flattened her clothing against her body, making her look extraordinarily pretty. The sky darkened.

  "It says, figuratively speaking, your figure isn't bad," Grundy reported with a smirk.

  This incongruous compliment put her off her pace. It was hard to tell off someone who made a remark like that. "Oh, all right," she said, sulking. "Half the seeds. But I choose which half."

  "Well, toss them in, stupid," Grundy said, clinging to the side of the craft as it pitched in the swells.

  "But they'll sprout!"

  "That's the idea. Make them all grow. Use your magic. The eclectic eel demands payment in advance."

  Irene looked rebellious, but the first drop of rain struck her on the nose and she decided to carry through. "This will come out of your string hide, golem," she muttered. She tossed the seeds into the heaving water one by one, invoking each in turn. "Grow, like a golem's ego. Grow, like Grundy's swelled head. Grow, like the vengeance I owe the twerp..."

  Strange things developed in the water. Pink-leaved turnips sprouted, fuming in place, and tan tomatoes, and yellow cabbages and blue beets. Snap beans snapped merrily and artichokes choked.

  Then the flowers started, as she came to another section of her supply. White blossoms sprang up in great clusters, decorating the entire ocean near the raft. Then they moved away in herds, making faint baa-aa-aas.

  "What's that?" Grundy asked.

  "Phlox, ninny," Irene said.

  Oh, flocks, Dor thought. Of course. The white sheep of flowers.

  Firecracker flowers popped redly, tiger lilies snarled, honeybells tinkled, and bleeding hearts stained the water with their sad life essence. Irises that Irene's mother had given her flowered prettily in blue and purple. Gladiolas stretched up happily; begonias bloomed and departed even before they could be ordered to begone. Periwinkles opened their orbs to wink; crocuses parted their white lips to utter scandalous imprecations.

  Grundy leaned over the edge of the raft to sniff some pretty multicolored little flowers that were vining upward. Then something happened. "Hey!" he cried suddenly, outraged, wiping golden moisture off his head. "What did they do that for?"

  Irene glanced across. "Dummy," she said with satisfaction, "what do you expect sweet peas to do? You better stay away from the pansies."

  On Dor's side there was an especially rapid development, the red, orange, and white flowers bursting forth almost before the buds formed. "My, these are in a hurry," he commented.

  "They're impatiens," Irene explained.

  The display finished off with a dazzling emergence of golden balls--marigolds. "That's half. Take it or leave it," Irene said.

  "The eel takes it," Grundy said, still shaking pea out of his hair.

  "Now the eclectic eel will lead us through the storm to shore, in its fashion."

  "About time," Chet said. "Everyone hang on. We have a rough sail coming."

  The eel wriggled forward. The craft followed. The storm struck with its moist fury. "What do you have against us?" Dor asked it as the wind tore at his body.

  "Nothing personal," it blew back. "It's my job to clear the seas of riffraff. Can't have flotsam and jetsam cluttering up the surface, after all."

  "I don't know those people," Dor said. The raft was rocking and twisting as it followed the elusive eel but they were somehow avoiding the worst of the violence.

  A piece of planking floated by. "I'm flotsam," it said. “I'm part of the ship that wrecked here last month, still floating."

  A barrel floated by on the other side, the battered trunk of a harvested jellybarrel tree. "I'm jetsam," it blew from its hung. "I was thrown overboard to lighten the ship."

  "Nice to know you both," Dor said politely.

  "The eel uses them for markers," Grundy said. "It uses anything it finds."

  "Where's the riffraff?" Irene asked. "If the storm is here to clear it from the seas, there should be some to clear."

  "I'm the raf'," the raft explained. "You must be the rif'." And it chuckled.

  Now the rain pelted down full-strength. All of them were soaked in an instant. "Bail! Bail!" Chet screamed thinly through the wind.

  Dor grabbed his bucket--actually, it was a bouquet Irene had grown, which his spelling had fouled up so that its nature had completely changed--and scooped out water. Smash the Ogre worked similarly on the other side, using a pitcher. By dint of colossal effort they managed to stay marginally ahead of the rain that poured in.

  "Get low!" Grundy cried through the weather. "Don't let her roll over!"

  "She's not rolling," Irene said. "A raft can't--"

  Then the craft pitched horribly and started to turn over. Irene threw herself flat in the bottom of the center depression, joining Dor and Smash. The raft listed sickeningly to right, then to left, first throwing Irene bodily into Dor, then hurling him into her. She was marvelously soft.

  "What are you doing.?" Dor cried as his wind was almost knocked from him despite his soft landings.

  "I'm yawing," the raft said.

  "Seems more like a roll to me," Chet grumbled from the rear.

  Irene fetched up against Dor again, hip to hip and nose to nose.

  "Dear, we've got to stop meeting this way," she gasped, attempting to smile,

  In other circumstances Dor would have appreciated the meetings more. Irene was padded in appropriate places, so that the shocks of contact were pleasantly cushioned. But at the moment he was afraid for his life and hers. Meanwhile, she looked as if she were getting seasick.

  The craft lurch
ed forward and down, as if sliding over a waterfall.

  Dor's own gorge rose. "Now what are you doing?" he heaved.

  "I'm pitching," the raft responded.

  "We're out of the water!" Chet cried. His head remained higher despite his prone position. "There's something beneath us! That's why we're rolling so much!"

  "That's the behemoth," Grundy said.

  "The what?" Dor asked.

  "The behemoth. A huge wallowing creature that floats about doing nothing. The eclectic eel led us up to it, to help weather the storm."

  Irene unglued herself from Dor, and all of them crawled cautiously up and looked over the edge of the raft. The storm continued, but now it beat on the glistening blubbery back of the tremendous animal. The craft's perch seemed insecure because of the way it rolled and slid on the slick surface, but the enormous bulk of the monster provided security from the heaving ocean.

  "But I thought behemoths were fresh-water creatures," Dor said.

  "My father encountered one below Lake Ogre-Chobee, he said."

  "Of course he did. I was there," Grundy said superciliously. "Behemoths are where you find them. They're too big to worry about what kind of water it is."

  "The eel just happened to find this creature and led us to it?" Chet asked. He also looked somewhat seasick.

  "That's the eclectic way," Grundy agreed. "To use anything handy."

  "Aw, you cheated," the storm howled. "I can't sink that tub." A whirling eye focused on Dor. "That's twice you have escaped me, man-thing. But we shall meet again." Disgruntled, it blew itself away to the west.

  So that had been the same storm he had encountered at Good Magician Humfrey's castle. It certainly traveled about!

  The behemoth, discovering that its pleasant shower had abated, exhaled a dusty cloud of gas and descended to the depths. There was no point in staying on the surface when the storm didn't want to play any more. The raft was left floating in a calming sea.

  Now that he was no longer in danger of drowning, Dor almost regretted the passing of the storm. Irene was a good deal more comfortable to brace against than the reeds of the raft. But he knew he was foolish always to be most interested in what he couldn't have, instead of being satisfied with what he did have.

  A monster showed on the horizon. "Get this thing moving!" Irene cried, alarmed. "We aren't out of the weather yet!"

  "Follow the eel!" Grundy warned.

  "But the eel's headed straight for the monster!" Chet protested.

  "That must be the way, then." But even Grundy looked doubtful.

  They forged toward the monster. It was revealed now as extremely long and flat, as if a sea serpent had been squeezed under a rolling boulder. "What is it?" Dor asked, amazed.

  "A ribbonfish, dolt," Grundy said.

  "How can that help us?" For the storm had taken up more of the day than it had seemed to; the sun was now at zenith, and they remained far from shore.

  "All I know is the eel agreed to get us to land by nightfall," Grundy said.

  "They forged on. But now the pace was slowing; the bulrushes were losing their power. Dor realized that some of the material of the boat was dead now; that was why it had been able to speak to him, since his power related only to the inanimate. Soon the rushes would become inert, stranding the craft in mid-sea. They had no paddle; that had been lost with the first boat.

  The ribbonfish brought its preposterously flat head down as the bulrush craft sputtered close. Then the head dipped into the water and slid beneath them. In a moment it emerged behind them, and the neck came up under the boat, heaving it right out of the water.

  "Oh, no!" Irene screamed as they were carried high into the air.

  She flung her arms about Dor in terror. Again, he wished this could have happened when he wasn't terrified himself.

  But the body of the ribbonfish was slightly concave; the raft remained centered, not falling off. As the head elevated to an appalling height, the boat began to slide down along the body, which was slick with moisture. They watched, horrified, as the craft tilted forward, then accelerated down the creature's neck. Irene screamed again and clung smotheringly to Dor as their bodies turned weightless.

  Down they zoomed. But the ribbonfish was undulating, so that a new hump kept forming just behind them while a new dip formed ahead of them. They zoomed at frightening velocity along the creature, never getting down to the water.

  "We're traveling toward land," Dor said, awed. "The monsters moving us there!"

  "That's how it gets its jollies," Grundy said. "Scooping up things and sliding them along its length. The eel just made use of this for our benefit."

  Perceiving that they were not, after all, in danger, Irene regained confidence. "Let go of me!" she snapped at Dor, as if he had been the one doing the grabbing.

  The ribbonfish seemed interminably long; the raft slid around.

  Then Dor realized that the monster's head had looked down under the water and come up to follow its tail; the creature was running them through again. The land was coming closer.

  At last the land arrived. The ribbonfish tired of the game and dumped them off with a jarring splash. The rushes had just enough power left to propel them to the beach; then they expired, and the raft began to sink.

  The sun was well down toward the horizon, racing to cut off their day before they could travel anywhere further. Soon the golden orb would be quenched again. "From here we go by foot, I think," Chet remarked. "We will not achieve Centaur Isle this day."

  "We can get closer, though," Dor said. "I've had enough of boats for now anyway." The others agreed.

  First they paused to forage for some food. Wild fruitcakes were ripe and a water chestnut provided potable water; Irene did not have to expend any of her diminished store of seeds. In fact, she found a few new ones here.

  Suddenly something jumped from behind a tree and charged directly at Dor. He whipped out his magic sword without thinking and the creature stopped short, spun about, and ran away. It was all hair and legs and glower.

  "What was that?" Dor asked.

  "That's a jump-at-a-body," the nearest stone said.

  "What's a jump-at-a-body?" Irene asked.

  "I don't have to answer you," the stone retorted. "You can't take me for granite."

  "Answer her," Dor told it.

  "Aw, okay. It's what you just saw."

  "That's not much help," Irene said.

  "You aren't much yourself, doll," it said. "I've seen a better complexion on mottled serpentine."

  Bedraggled and disheveled from the ocean run, Irene was hardly at her best. But her vanity had been pricked. "I can choke you with weeds, mineral."

  "Yeah, greenie? Just try it!"

  "Weeds--grow!" she directed, pointing to the rock. Immediately the weeds around it sprouted vigorously.

  "Weed's the best that ever was!" the weeds exclaimed. Startled, Dor looked closely, for his talent did not extend to living things. He found that some sand caught in the plants had actually done the talking.

  "Oh, for schist sake!" the rock said. "She's doing it!"

  "Tell me what a jump-at-a-body is," Irene insisted.

  The rock was almost hidden by vegetation. "All right, all right, doll! Just clear these junky plants out of my face."

  "Stop growing," Irene told the weeds, and they stopped with a frustrated rustle. She tramped them down around the rock.

  "You do have pretty legs," the rock said. "And that's not all."

  Irene, straddling the rock, leaped away. "Just answer my question."

  "They just jump out and scare people and run away," the rock said. "They're harmless. They came across from Mundania not long ago, when the Mundanes stopped believing in them, and don't have the courage to do anything bad."

  "Thank you," Irene said, gratified by her victory over the ornery stone.

  "I think the grass needs more tramping down," the rock suggested.

  "Not while I'm wearing a skirt."

  They finis
hed their repast and trekked on south. Very little remained of the day, but they wanted to find a decent place to camp for the night. Dor questioned other rocks to make sure nothing dangerous remained in the vicinity; this did seem to be a safe island. Perhaps their luck had turned, and they would reach their destination without further ill event.

  But as dusk closed, they came to the southern border of the island. There was a narrow channel separating it from the next island in the chain.

  "Maybe we'd better camp here for the night," Dor said. "This island seems safe; we don't know what's on the next one."

  "Also, I'm tired," Irene said.

  They settled in for the night, protected by a palisade formed of asparagus spears grown for the occasion. The jump-at-a-bodies kept charging the stockade and fleeing it harmlessly.

  Chet and Smash, being the most massive individuals, lay at the outside edges of the small enclosure. Grundy needed so little room he didn't matter. Dor and Irene were squeezed into the center. But now she had room enough and time to settle herself without quite touching him. Ah, well.

  "You know, that rock was right," Dor said. "You do have nice legs. And that's not all."

  "Go to sleep," she said, not displeased.

  In the morning a large roundish object floated in the channel. Dor didn't like the look of it. They would have to swim past it to reach the next island. "Is it animal or plant?" he asked.

  "No plant," Irene said. She had a feel for this sort of thing, since it related to her magic.

  "I'll talk to it," Grundy said. His talent applied to anything living.

  He made a complex series of whistles and almost inaudible grunts.

  Much of his communication was opaque to others, since some animals and most plants used inhuman mechanisms. In a moment he announced: "It's a sea nettle. A plantlike animal. This channel is its territory, and it will sting to death anyone who intrudes."

  "How fast can it swim?" Irene asked.

  "Fast enough,"' Grundy said. "It doesn't look like much, but it can certainly perform. We could separate, crossing in two parties; that way it could only get half of us, maybe."

  "Perhaps you had better leave the thinking to those better equipped for it," Chet said.

  "We have to get it out of there or nullify it," Dor said. "I'll try to lead it away, using my talent."