"Go parallel to it," Fanchon directed. "The closer we stay, the harder it'll make it for the other ship. Maybe they'll give up the pursuit."
Bink pulled on the oars. The boat moved ahead. But he was unused to this particular form of exertion, and not recovered from his fatigue of the swim, and he knew he couldn't keep it up long.
"You're going into the Shield!" Fanchon cried.
Bink looked. The Shield loomed closer, yet he was not rowing toward it. "The current," he said. "Carrying us sideways." He had naively thought that once he started rowing, all other vectors ceased.
"Row away from the Shield," she cried. "Quickly!"
He angled the boat--but the Shield did not retreat. The current was bearing them on as fast as he could row. To make it worse, the wind was now changing--and rising. He was holding even at the moment, but he was tiring rapidly. "I can't--keep this-up!" he gasped, staring at the glow.
"There's an island," Fanchon said. "Angle toward it."
Bink looked around. He saw a black something cutting the waves to the side. Island? It was no more than a treacherous rock. But if they could anchor to it--
He put forth a desperate effort--but it was not enough. A storm was developing. They were going to miss the rock. The dread Shield loomed nearer.
"I'll help," Fanchon cried. She set down the vial, crawled forward, and put her hands on the oars, opposite his hands. She pushed, synchronizing her efforts with his.
It helped. But Bink, fatigued, was distracted. In the erratic moonlight, blotted out intermittently by the thickening, fast-moving clouds above, her naked body lost some of its shapelessness and assumed the suggestion of more feminine contours. Shadow and imagination could make her halfway attractive--and that embarrassed him; because he had no right to think of such things. Fanchon could be a good companion, if only--
The boat smashed into the rock. It tilted--rock or craft or both. "Get hold! Get hold!" Fanchon cried as water surged over the side.
Bink reached out and tried to hang on to the stone. It was both abrasive and slippery. A wave broke over him; filling his mouth with its salty spume. Now it was black; the clouds had completed their engulfment of the moon.
"The elixir!" Fanchon cried. "I left it in the--" She dived for the flooded stem of the boat.
Bink, still choking on sea water, could not yell at her. He clung to the rock with his hands, his fingers finding purchase in a crevice, anchoring the boat with his hooked knees. He suffered a foolish vision: if a giant drowning in the ocean grabbed on to the land of Xanth for support, his fingers would catch in the chasm, the Gap. Maybe that was the purpose of the Gap. Did the tiny inhabitants of this isolated rock resent the crevice that Bink's giant fingers had found? Did they have forget spells to remove it from their awareness?
There was a distant flash of lightning. Bink saw the somber mass of ragged stone: no miniature people on it. But there was a glint, as of light reflecting from a knob in the water. He stared at it, but the lightning was long since gone, and he was squinting at the mere memory, trying to make out the surrounding shape. For it had been a highlight from something larger.
Lightning flashed again, closer. Bink saw briefly but clearly.
It was a toothy reptilian creature. The highlight had been from its malignant eye.
"A sea monster!" he cried, terrified.
Fanchon labored at an oar, finally extricating it from its lock. She aimed it at the monster and shoved.
Thunk! The end of the oar struck the armored green snout. The creature backed off.
"We've got to get away from here," Bink cried.
But as he spoke, another wave broke over them. The boat was lifted and wrenched away from his feet. He put one arm about Fanchon's skinny waist and hung on. It seemed the fingers of his other hand would break--but they remained wedged in the crevice, and he held his position.
In the next trough the lightning showed small saillike projections moving in the water. What were they?
Then another monster broke water right beside him; he saw it in the phosphorescence that the complete darkness had attuned his eyes to. It seemed to have a single broad eye across its face, and a round, truncated snout. Huge wattles were at the sides. Bink was transfixed by terror, though he knew that most of the details were really from his imagination. He could only stare at the thing as the lightning permitted.
And the lightning confirmed his imagination. It was a hideous monster!
Bink struggled with his terror to form some plan of defense. One hand clung to the rock; the other held Fanchon. He could not act. But maybe Fanchon could. "Your oar--" he gasped.
The monster acted first. It put its hands to its face--and lifted the face away. Underneath, was the face of Evil Magician Trent "You fools have caused enough trouble! Give me the elixir, and I'll have the ship throw us a line."
Bink hesitated. He was bone weary and cold, and knew he could not hold out much longer against storm and current. It was death to stay here.
"There's a crocodile sniffing around," Trent continued. "And several sharks. Those are just as deadly as the mythical monsters you are familiar with. I have repellent--but the current is carrying it away as rapidly as it diffuses into the water, so it's not much help. On top of that, sometimes whirlpools develop around these rocks, especially during storms. We need help now--and I alone can summon it. Give me that vial!"
"Never!" Fanchon cried. She dived into the black waves.
Trent snapped the mask back over his face and dived after her. As he moved, Bink saw that the Magician was naked except for his long sword strapped to a harness. Bink dived after him, not even thinking of what he was doing.
They met in a tangle underwater. In the dark and bubbly swirl, there was nothing but mutual mischief. Bink tried to swim to the surface, uncertain as to what foolishness had prompted him to dive here but sure that he could only drown himself. But someone had a death grip on him. He had to get up, to get his head in air so he could breathe. The water had hold of them all, carrying them around and around.
It was the whirlpool--an inanimate funnel monster. It sucked them down, spinning, into the depth of its maw. For the second time Bink felt himself drowning--and this time he knew no Sorceress would rescue him.
Chapter 11
Wilderness
Bink woke with his face in sand. Around him lay the inert tentacles of a green monster.
He groaned and sat up. "Bink!" Fanchon cried gladly, coming across the beach to him.
"I thought it was night," he said.
"You've been unconscious. This cave has magic phosphorescence, or maybe it's Mundane phosphorescence, since there was some on the rock, too. But it's much brighter here. Trent pumped the water out of you, but I was afraid--"
"What's this?" Bink asked, staring at a green tentacle.
"A kraken seaweed," Trent said. "It pulled us out of the drink, intending to consume us--but the vial of elixir broke and killed it. That's all that saved our lives. If the vial had broken earlier, it would have stopped the kraken from catching us, and we all would have drowned; later, and we would already have been eaten. As fortuitous a coincidence of timing as I have ever experienced.''
"A kraken weed!" Bink exclaimed. "But that's magic!"
"We're back in Xanth," Fanchon said.
"But--"
"I conjecture that the whirlpool drew us down below the effective level of the Shield," Trent said. "We passed under it. Perhaps the presence of the elixir helped. A freak accident--and I'm certainly not going to try to reverse that route now. I lost my breathing apparatus on the way in; lucky I got a good dose of oxygen first! We're in Xanth to stay."
"I guess so," Bink said dazedly. He had gradually become accustomed to the notion of spending the rest of his life in Mundania; it was hard to abandon that drear expectation so suddenly. "But why did you save me? Once the elixir was gone--"
"It was the decent thing to do," the Magician said. "I realize you would not appreciate such a notion from my
lips, but I can offer no better rationale at the moment. I never had any personal animus against you; in fact, I rather admire your fortitude and personal ethical code. You can go your way now--and I'll go mine."
Bink pondered. He was faced with a new, unfamiliar reality. Back in Xanth, no longer at war with the Evil Magician. The more he reviewed the details, the less sense any of it made. Sucked down by a whirlpool through monster-infested waters, through the invisible but deadly Shield, to be rescued by a man-eating plant, which was coincidentally nullified at precisely the moment required to let them drop safely on this beach? "No," he said. "I don't believe it. Things just don't happen this way."
"It does seem as if we're charmed," Fanchon said. "Though why the Evil Magician should have been included..."
Trent smiled. Naked, he was fully as impressive as before. Despite his age, he was a fit and powerful man. "It does seem ironic that the evil should be saved along with the good. Perhaps human definitions are not always honored by nature. But I, like you, am a realist. I don't pretend to understand how we got here--but I do not question that we are here. Getting to land may be more problematical, however. We are hardly out of danger yet."
Bink looked around the cave. Already the air seemed close, though he hoped that was his imagination. There seemed to be no exit except the water through which they had come. In one nook was a pile of clean bones--the refuse of the kraken.
It began to seem less coincidental. What better place for an ocean monster to operate than at the exit to a whirlpool? The sea itself collected the prey, and most of it was killed on the way in by the Shield. The kraken weed had only to sieve the fresh bodies out of the water. And this highly private cave was ideal for leisurely consumption of the largest living animals. They could be deposited here on the beach, and even given food, so that they would remain more or less healthy until the kraken's hunger was sufficient. A pleasant little larder to keep the food fresh and tasty. Any that tried to escape by swimming past the tentacles--ugh! So the kraken could have dropped the human trio here, then been hit by the elixir; instead of split-second timing, it became several-minute timing. Still a coincidence, but a much less extreme one.
Fanchon was squatting by the water, flicking dry leaves into it. The leaves had to be from past seasons of the kraken weed; why it needed them here, with no sunlight, Bink didn't understand. Maybe it had been a regular plant before it turned magic--or its ancestors had been regular--and it still had not entirely adapted. Or maybe the leaves had some other purpose. There was a great deal yet to be understood about nature. At any rate, Fanchon was floating the leaves on the water, and why she wasted her time that way was similarly opaque.
She saw him looking, "I'm tracing surface currents," she said. "See--the water is moving that way. There has to be an exit under that wall."
Bink was impressed again with her intelligence. Every time he caught her doing something stupid, it turned out to be the opposite. She was an ordinary, if ugly, girl, but she had a mind that functioned efficiently. She had plotted their escape from the pit, and their subsequent strategy, and it had nullified Trent's program of conquest. Now she was at it again. Too bad her appearance fell down.
"Of course," Trent agreed. "The kraken can't live in stagnant water; it needs a constant flow. That brings in its food supply and carries away its wastes. We have an exit--if it leads to the surface quickly enough, and does not pass through the Shield again."
Bink didn't like it. "Suppose we dive into that current and it carries us a mile underwater before it comes out? We'd drown."
"My friend," Trent said, "I have been pondering that very dilemma. We can not be rescued by my sailors, because we are obviously beyond the Shield. I do not like to gamble on either the current or what we may discover within it. Yet it seems we must eventually do so, for we can not remain here indefinitely."
Something twitched. Bink looked--and saw one green tentacle writhing. "The kraken's reviving!' he exclaimed. "It isn't dead!"
"Uh-oh," Trent said. "The elixir has thinned out in the current and dissipated. The magic is returning. I had thought that concentration would be fatal to a magic creature, but apparently not."
Fanchon watched the tentacles. Now others were quivering. "I think we'd better get out of here," she said. "Soon."
"But we don't dare plunge into the water without knowing where it goes," Bink objected. "We must be well below the surface. I'd rather stay here and fight than drown."
"I propose we declare a truce between us until we get free," Trent said. "The elixir is gone, and we cannot go back the way we came from Mundania. We shall probably have to cooperate to get out of here--and in the present situation, we really have no quarrel."
Fanchon didn't trust him. "So we help you get out--so then the truce ends and you change us into gnats. Since we're inside Xanth, we'll never be able to change back again."
Trent snapped his fingers. "Stupid of me to forget. Thank you for reminding me. I can use my magic now to get us out." He looked at the quivering green tentacles. "Of course, I'll have to wait until all the elixir is gone, for it voids my magic, too. That means the kraken will be fully recovered. I can't transform it, because its main body is too far away."
The tentacles lifted. "Bink, dive for it!" Fanchon cried. "We don't want to be caught between the kraken and the Evil Magician." She plunged into the water.
The issue had been forced. She was right: the kraken would eat them or the Magician would transform them. Right now, while the lingering elixir blunted both threats, was the time to escape. Still, he would have hesitated--if Fanchon had not already taken action. If she drowned, there would be no one on his side.
Bink charged across the sand, tripped over a tentacle, and sprawled. Reacting automatically, the tentacle wrapped itself around his leg. The leaves glued themselves to his flesh with little sucking noises. Trent drew his sword and strode toward him.
Bink grabbed a handful of sand and threw it at the Magician, but it was ineffective. Then Trent's sword slashed down--and severed the tentacle. "You are in no danger from me, Bink," the Magician said. "Swim, if you wish."
Bink scrambled up and dived into the water, taking a deep breath. He saw Fanchon's feet kicking ahead of him as she swam down, and saw the dark tube of the nether exit. It terrified him, and he balked.
His head popped through the surface. There was Trent, standing on the beach, parrying the converging tentacles with his sword. Fighting off the coils of the monster the man was the very picture of heroism. Yet the moment the combat was over, Trent would be a more dangerous monster than the kraken.
Bink decided. He took a new breath and dived again. This time he stroked right into the somber eye, and felt the current take him. Now there was no turning back.
The tunnel opened out almost immediately--into another glowing cavern. Bink had gained on Fanchon, and their heads broke the surface almost together. Probably she had been more cautious about navigating the exit.
Heads turned their way. Human heads, on human torsos--very nice feminine ones. Their faces were elfin, their tresses flowing in magical iridescence over slender bare shoulders and perfectly erect breasts. But the lower quarters merged into fish's tails. These were mermaids.
"What are you doing in our cave?" one of the maids cried indignantly.
"Just passing through," Bink said. Naturally, mermaids spoke the common language of Xanth. He would not have thought anything of it, had Trent not remarked on how Xanth language merged with all Mundane languages. Magic operated in so many ways. "Tell us the shortest way to the surface."
"That way," one said, pointing left. "That way," another said, pointing right. "No, that way!" a third cried, pointing straight up. There was a burst of girlish laughter.
Several mermaids plunged into the water, tails flashing, and swam toward Bink In a moment he was surrounded. Up close, .the creatures were even prettier than from afar. Each one had a perfect complexion, resulting from the natural action of the water, and their b
reasts floated somewhat, making them seem fuller. Maybe he had been exposed to Fanchon too long; the sight of all this loveliness gave him strange sensations of excitement and nostalgia. If he could grab them all at once--but no, they were mermaids, not his type at all.
They paid no attention to Fanchon. "He's a man!" one cried, meaning Bink was human, not merman. "Look at his split legs. No tail at all."
Suddenly they were diving under to view his legs. Bink, naked, found this distinctly awkward. They began to put their hands on him, kneading the unfamiliar musculature of his legs, a great curiosity to them. Yet why weren't they looking at Fanchon's legs too? There seemed to be more mischief than curiosity here.
Trent's head broke the water behind them. "Mermaids," he commented. "We'll get nothing from them."
So it seemed. It also seemed that the Magician could not be avoided. "I think we'd better make the truce," Bink said to Fanchon. "We have to extend some trust sometime."
She looked at the mermaids, then at Trent. "Very well," she said ungraciously. "For what it's worth--which isn't much."
"A sensible decision," Trent said. "Our long-range objectives may differ, but our short-range one matches: survival. See, here come the tritons."
As he spoke, a group of mermen appeared, swimming in from another passage. This seemed to be a labyrinth of caves and water-filled apertures.
"Ho!" a triton cried, brandishing his trident. "Skewer!"
The mermaids screamed playfully and dived out of sight. Bink avoided Fanchon's gaze; the ladies had been having entirely too much fun with him, and obviously not because of his split legs.
"Too many to fight," Trent said. "The elixir is gone. With your acquiescence, under out truce, I will change you both into fish, or perhaps reptiles, so that you can escape. However--"
"How will we change back?" Fanchon demanded.
"That is the key. I can not change myself. Therefore you will have to rescue me--or remain transformed. So we shall survive together, or suffer apart. Fair enough?"