Centaur Aisle

by Piers Anthony

  "But why? My father came only to trade!"

  "I don't know. But I think King Oary is a usurper. Maybe he murdered the rightful King, and your folks found out. Oary knew he couldn't fool us long, so he practiced his treachery on us, too."

  "What do we do now?" she demanded hysterically. "Oh, Dor, I've never felt so horrible"

  "I think it's the drug," he said. "I feel bad, too. That should wear off. If we have our magic, we may be able to get free. Do you have your bag of seeds?"

  She checked. "No. Only my clothing. Do you have your gold and gems?"

  Dor checked. "No. They must have searched us and taken everything they thought was valuable or dangerous. I don't have my sword either." But then his questing fingers found something small. "I do have the jar of salve, not that it's much good here. And my midnight sunstone; it fell into the jacket lining. Let me see," He brought it out. "No, I guess not. This has no light."

  "Where are the others?"

  "I'll check," he said. "Floor, where are my companions?"

  There was no answer. "That means we have no magic. Arnolde must be in the stable." He seemed to remember something about that, foggily.

  "What about Smash and Grundy?"

  "Me here," the ogre said from the opposite cell. "Head hurt. Strength gone."

  Now Dor had no further doubt; the magic was gone. The ogre wasn't rhyming, and no doubt Irene's hair had lost its color. Magic had strange little bypaths and side effects, where loss was somehow more poignant than that of the major aspects. But those major ones were vital; without his magic strength, Smash could probably not break free of the dungeon.

  "Grundy?" Dor called inquiringly.

  There was no answer. Grundy, it seemed, had escaped capture.

  That was about the extent of their good fortune.

  "Me got gauntlets," Smash said.

  Include one more item of fortune. If the ogre should get his strength back, those gauntlets would be a big help. Probably the castle guards had not realized the gauntlets were not part of the ogre, since Smash had used them for eating. The ogreish lack of manners had paid off in this respect.

  Dor's head was slowly clearing. He tried the door to his cell. It was of solid Mundane wood, worn but far too tough to break. Too tough, too, for Smash, in his present condition; the ogre tried and couldn't budge his own door. Unless the centaur came within range, none of them had any significant lever for freedom.

  The doors seemed to be barred by some unreachable mechanism outside: inside, the slimy stone floor was interrupted only by a disposal sump--a small but deep hole that reeked of old excrement. Obviously no one would be released for sanitary purposes either.

  Smash banged a fist against a wall. "Ow!" he exclaimed. "Now me miss centaur!"

  "He does have his uses," Dor agreed. "You know, Smash, Arnolde didn't really usurp Chet's place. Chet couldn't come with us anyway, because of his injury, and Arnolde didn't want to. We pretty much forced him into it, by revealing his magic talent."

  "Ungh," the ogre agreed. "Me want out of here. No like be weak."

  "I think we'll have to wait for whatever King Oary plans for us," Dor said grimly. "If he planned to kill us, he wouldn't have bothered to lock us in here."

  "Dor, I'm scared, really scared," Irene said. "I've never been a prisoner before."

  Dor peered out through the cracks in his door. Had the flickering candle shadow moved? The guard must be coming in to eavesdrop.

  Naturally King Oary would want to know their secrets--and Irene just might let out their big one before she realized. He had to warn her--without the guard catching on. They just might turn this to their advantage.

  He went to the wall that separated them. "It will be a good idea to plan our course of action," he said. "If they question us, tell them what they want to know. There's no point in concealing anything, since we're innocent." He managed to reach his arm through the crevice in the wall nearest her. "But we don't want them to force us into any false statements."

  His hand touched something soft. It was Irene. She made a stifled "Eeek!" then grasped his hand.

  "Let me review our situation," Dor said. "I am King during King Trent's absence." He squeezed her hand once. "You are King Trent's daughter." He squeezed again, once. "Arnolde the Centaur is also a Prince among his people." This time he squeezed twice.

  "What are you talking about?" she demanded. "Arnolde's not--" She broke off as he squeezed several times, hard. Then she began to catch on; she was a bright enough girl. "Not with us now," she concluded, and squeezed his hand once.

  "If the centaur does not return to his people on schedule, they will probably come after him with an army," Dor said, squeezing twice.

  "A big army," she agreed, returning the two squeezes. "With many fine archers and spear throwers, thirsty for blood, and a big catapult to loft huge stones against the castle." She was getting into it now. They had their signals set; one squeeze for truth, two for falsehood. That way they could talk privately, even if someone were eavesdropping.

  "I'm glad we're alone," he said, squeezing twice. "So we can talk freely."

  "Alone," she agreed, with the double squeeze. Yes, now she knew why he was doing this. She was a smart girl, and he liked that; nymphlike proportions did not have to indicate nymphlike stupidity.

  "We have no chance to break out of here ourselves," Dor said, squeezing twice. "We have no resources they don't already know about." Two.

  "We don't have magical powers or anything," she agreed with an emphatic double squeeze.

  "But maybe it would be better to let them think we have magic," Dor said, not squeezing. "That might make them treat us better."

  "There is that," she agreed. "If the guards thought we could zap them through the walls, they might let us out."

  "Maybe we should figure out something to fool them with," he said, this time squeezing once. "Something to distract them while the centaur army is massing. Like growing plants very fast. If they thought you could grow a tree and burst out the ceiling and maybe make this castle collapse--"

  "They would take me out of this cell and keep me away from seeds," she said. "Then maybe I could escape and set out some markers so the centaurs can find us more quickly."

  "Yes. But you can't just tell the Mundanes about growing things; it has to seem that they forced it out of you. And you'll need some good excuse in case they challenge you to grow something. You could say the time of the month is wrong, or--"

  "Or that I have to do it in a stable," she said. "That would get me out of the heavily guarded area. By the time they realize it's a fake, and that I can't grow anything, I may have escaped."

  "Yes." But had they set this up correctly? Would it trick the guards into taking Irene to the stable where Arnolde might be, or would they not bother? This business of deception was more difficult than he had thought.

  Then she signaled alarm. "What about Smash? They'll want to know how he tore off the front gate, when he can't do a thing now."

  Dor thought fast. "We have to hide from them the fact that the ogre is strong only when he's angry. The guard at the gate insulted Smash, so naturally he tore off the gate. But King Oary gave him a good meal, so he wasn't really angry despite getting drugged. Maybe we can trick a guard into saying something mean to Smash, or depriving him of food or water. When Smash gets hungry, he gets mean. And he has a big appetite. If they try starving him, watch out! He'll blow his top and tear this cellar apart!"

  "Yes," she agreed. "That's really our best hope. We don't even need to trick anybody. All we have to do is wait. By midday tomorrow Smash will be storming. We'll all escape over the dead bodies of the guards who get in the way. We may not need the centaurs at all!"

  Something caught Dor's eye. He squeezed Irene's hand to call her attention to it. The guard was quietly moving. No doubt a hot report was going upstairs.

  "You're an idiot," Irene murmured, squeezing his hand twice. "You get these fool notions to fool our captors, and they'll nev
er work. I don't know why I even talk to you."

  "Because it's better than talking to the rats," he said without squeezing.

  "Rats!" she cried, horrified. "Where?"

  "I thought I saw one when I woke. Maybe I was wrong."

  "No, this is the kind of place they like." She squeezed his hand, not with any signal. "Oh, Dor--we've got to get out of here!"

  "They may take you out pretty soon, to verify that you can't grow plants."

  She squeezed his hand softly. "They already know." Actually, the purpose of the fake dialogue had been to convince their captors that Dor and Irene had no magic. Then if they somehow got the chance to use magic, the guards would be caught completely by surprise. In addition, they had probably guaranteed good treatment for Smash--If their ruse had been effective.

  Soon a wan crack of dawn filtered in through the ceiling near what they took to be the east wall. But the angle was wrong, and Dor finally concluded that they were incarcerated against the west wall, above the cliff, with the light entering only by reflection; it would have been much brighter on the other side. No chance to tunnel out, even If they had the strength; what use to step off the cliff.

  Guards brought Smash a huge basket of bread and a barrel of water.

  "Food!" the ogre exclaimed happily, and crunched up entire loaves in single mouthfuls, as was his wont. Then, perceiving that neither Dor nor Irene had been served, he hurled several loaves through to them. Dor squeezed one through the crevice to Irene.

  The water was harder to manage. No cups had been provided, but Dor's thirst abruptly intensified, perhaps in reaction to the wine of the day before. He finally borrowed and filled one of the ogre's gauntlets and jammed that through to Irene.

  "Tastes like sour sweat," she complained. But she drank it, then shoved the gauntlet back. Dor drank the rest of it, agreeing with her analysis of the taste, and returned the gauntlet to Smash with due thanks. Sweat-flavored water was much better than thirst.

  "Give me your hand again," Irene said.

  Thinking she had more strategy to discuss, Dor passed his right arm through the crack, gnawing on a loaf held in his left. "That was a mean thing you did, getting me food," she murmured, squeezing twice.

  "Well, you know I don't like you," Dor told her, returning the double squeeze. He wasn't sure this mattered to their eavesdropper, but the reversals were easy enough to do.

  "I never liked you," she returned in kind. "In fact, I think I hate You."

  What was she saying? The double squeeze suggested reversal, the opposite of what she said. Reverse hate? "What would I want with an ugly girl like you anyway?" he demanded.

  There was a long pause. Dor stared through the crack, seeing a strand of her hair, and, as he had expected, it had lost its green tint. Then he realized he had forgotten to squeeze. Belatedly he did so, twice.

  "Ugly, huh?" She squirmed about, bringing something soft into contact with his palm. "Is that ugly?"

  "I'm not sure what it is," Dor said. He squeezed experimentally.

  "Eeek!" she yiped, and swatted his hand.

  "Ugly as sin," he said, trying to Picture female anatomy so as to ascertain what he had pinched. It certainly had been interesting! "I'll bite your hand," she threatened, in their old game.

  "There are teeth there?" he inquired, surprised.

  For an instant she choked, whether on mirth or anger he could not quite tell. "With my mouth, I'll bite," she clarified. But only her lips touched his fingers.

  "You wouldn't dare."

  She kissed his hand twice more.

  "Ouch!" Dor cried.

  Now she bit him, lightly, twice. He wasn't sure what mood this signified.

  It was a new variant of an old game, perhaps no more, but it caused Dor to think about his relationship with Irene. He had known her since childhood. She had always been jealous of his status as magician and had always taunted him and sicked her plants on him--yet always, too, had been the underlying knowledge that they were destined for each other. He had resisted that as violently as she--but as they grew older, the sexual element had begun to manifest, at first in supposedly innocent games and accidental exposures, then more deviously but seriously. When he had been twelve and she eleven, they had kissed for the first time with feeling, and the experience had shaken them both. Since then their quarreling had been tempered by the knowledge that each could give a new kind of joy to the other, potentially, when conditions were right. Irene's recent development of body had intensified that awareness, and their spats had had a voyeuristic element, such as when they had torn the clothes off each other in the moat. Now, when they could not be sure of their fate, and in the absence of anything else to do, this relationship had become much more important. For the moment, almost literally, all he had was Irene. Why should they quarrel in what might be their last hours?

  "Yes, I definitely hate you," Irene said, nipping delicately at the tip of one of his fingers twice, as if testing it for digestibility.

  "I hate you, too," Dor said, trying to squeeze but only succeeding in poking his finger into her mouth. His whole being seemed to concentrate on that hand and whatever it touched, and the caress of her lips was excruciatingly exciting.

  "I wish I could never see you again," she said, hugging his hand to her bosom.

  This was getting pretty serious! Yet he found that he felt the same.

  He never wanted to leave her. They weren't even squeezing now, playing the game of reversal with increasing intensity and comprehension. Was this merely a reaction to the fear of extinction? He could not be sure--but was unable to resist the current of emotion. "I wish I could...hurt you," he said, having trouble formulating a properly negative concept.

  "I'd hurt you back!" She hugged his hand more tightly.

  "I'd like to grab you and--" Again the problem.

  "And what?" she demanded, and once more he found his hand encountering strange anatomy, or something. His inability to identify it was driving him crazy! Was it limb or torso, above or below the waist--and which did he want it to be?

  "And squeeze you to pieces," he said, giving a good squeeze. That moat-scene had been nothing, compared with this.

  This time she did not make any sound of protest. "I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man alive," she whispered.

  She had upped the ante again! She was talking of marriage! Dor was stunned, unable to respond.

  She caressed his hand intimately. "Would you?" she prompted.

  Dor had not thought much about marriage, despite his involvement in Good Magician Humfrey's wedding. He somehow thought of marriage as the perquisite of old people, like his parents, and King Trent, and Humfrey. He, Dor, was only sixteen! Yet in Xanth the age of consent coincided with the age of desire. If a person thought he was old enough to marry, and wished to do so, and had a willing bride, he could make the alliance. Thus a marriage could be contracted at age twelve, or at age one hundred; Magician Humfrey had hardly seemed ready even at that extreme!

  Did he want to marry? When he thought of the next few hours, perhaps the last, thing he wanted to, for he had known he would have to marry before his life was out. It was a requirement of Kingship, like being a Magician. But when he thought of a lifetime in Xanth, he wasn't sure. There was a lot of time, and so much could happen in a lifetime. As Humfrey had said: there were positive and negative aspects. "I don't know," he said.

  "You don't know!" she flared. "Oh, I hate you!" And she bit his hand, once, and her sharp teeth cut the flesh painfully. Oh, yes, this was getting serious!

  Dor tried to jerk his hand away, but she clung to it. "You oaf! You ingrate!" she exclaimed. "You man!--And her face pressed against his hand, moistly.

  Moistly? Yes, she was crying. Perhaps there was art to it; nevertheless this unnerved Dor. If she felt that strongly, could he afford to feel less? Did he feel less?

  Then a tidal swell of emotion flooded him. What did it matter how much time there was, or how old he was, or where they were? He did lo
ve her.

  "I--would not," he said, and tweaked her slick nose twice.

  She continued crying into his hand, but now there was a gentler feeling to it. She was no longer angry with him; these were tears of joy. It seemed they were engaged.

  "Hey, Dor," a whisper came. It was from his own cell.

  "Grundy!" Dor whispered back. He tried to signal Irene, but she seemed to have fallen asleep against his hand.

  "Sorry I was so long," the golem said. "It took time to sleep off that knockout juice, and more time to find a good secret route here without running afoul of the rats. I talked to them--rat language seems to be much the same all over, so I didn't need the magic--but they're mean. I finally made myself a sword out of this big ol' hatpin, and after I struck a few they decided to cooperate." He brandished the weapon, a bent iron sliver; it did look deadly. Poked at a rat's eye, it would be devastating.

  "Irene and I are engaged," Dor said.

  The golem squinted at him to determine whether this was a joke and concluded it was not. "You are? Of all things! Why did you propose to her now?"

  "I didn't," Dor confessed. "She proposed to me, I think."

  "But you can't even touch her!"

  "I can touch her," Dor said, remembering.

  "Not where it counts."

  "Yes, where it counts--I think."

  The golem shrugged this off as fantasy. "Well, it won't make any difference, if we don't get out of here. I tried to talk to the animals and plants around here, but most of them I can't understand without magic. I don't think they know anything about King Trent and Queen Iris anyway. But I'm sure old King Oary's up to something. How can I spring you?"

  "Get Arnolde into range," Dor said.

  "That's not easy, Dor. They've got him in a stable, with a bar-lock setup like this, too heavy for me to force, and out of his reach. Crude but effective. If I could spring him, I could spring you."

  "But we've got to get together," Dor whispered. "We need magic, and that's the only way."

  "They aren't going to let him out," Grundy said. "They've got this fool notion that an army of warrior centaurs is marching here, and they don't want anyone to know there's a centaur in the castle."