behind them, back along the path in the thicket. Something was coming-and who could doubt what it was?
“Do we want to meet a pride of loins?” Chet asked rhetorically.
“But do we want to swim through that?” Grundy asked.
They looked. A fleet of tiger sharks had sailed in while Dor’s party stood on the beach. Each had a sailfin and the head of a tiger. They crowded in as close to the shore as they could reach, snarling hungry welcome.
“I think we’re between the dragon and the dune again,” Grundy said.
“I can stop the tiger sharks,” Irene said. “I have a kraken seaweed seed.”
“And I still have the hypno-gourd; that should stop a loin,” Chet said.
“Assuming it’s a case of misspelling. There is a Mundane monster like the front half of a tiger shark, called a-“
“But there must be several loins in a pride,” Grundy said. “Unless it’s just one loin standing mighty proud.”
“Me fight the fright,” Smash said.
“A pride might contain twenty individuals,” Chet said. “You might occupy half a dozen, Smash-but the remaining dozen or so would have opportunity to eat up the rest of us. If that is what they do.”
“But we don’t know there are that many,” Irene protested uncertainly.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Grundy cried. “Oh, I never worried about my flesh when I was a real golem!”
“Maybe you weren’t as obnoxious then,” Irene suggested. “Besides which, you didn’t have any flesh then.”
But the only way to go was along the beach-and the tiger sharks paced them in the water. “We can’t escape either menace this way,” Irene said. “I’m planting my kraken.” She tossed a seed into the water.
“Grow, weed!”
Chet held forward the hypno-gourd that he had retained through all their mishaps, one palm covering the peephole. “I’ll show this to the first loin, regardless.”
Smash joined him. “Me reckon the secon’s” he said, his hamfists at the ready. “An’ nerd the third.”
“You’re the Magician,” Grundy told Dor. “Do something.”
Dor made a wild attempt. “Anything-is there way way out of here?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” the sand at his feet said. “Of course there’s a way out.”
“You know a way?” Dor asked, gratified.
“No.”
“For goodness’ sake!” Irene exclaimed. “What an idiot!”
“You’d be stupid, too,” the sand retorted, “If your brains were fragmented mineral.”
“I was referring to him!” she said, indicating Dor. “To think they call him a Magician! All he can do is play ventriloquist with junk like you.”
“That’s telling him,” the sand agreed. “That’s a real load of sand in his eyes.”
“Why did you say there was a way out if you don’t know it?” Dor demanded.
“Because my neighbor the bone knows it.”
Dor spotted the bone and addressed it. “What’s the way out?”
“The tunnel, idiot,” the bone said.
The sound of the pride of loins was looming louder. The tiger sharks were snarling as the growing kraken weed menaced them.
“Where’s the tunnel?” Dor asked.
“Right behind you, at the shore,” the bone said. “I sealed it off, took three steps, and fell prey to the loins.”
“I don’t see it,” Dor said.
“Of course not; the high tide washes sand over it. Last week someone goosed the tide and it dumped a lot more sand. I’m the only one who can locate the tunnel now.”
Dor picked up the bone. It resembled the thighbone of a man.
“Locate the tunnel for me.”
“Right there, where the water laps. Scrape the sand away.” It angled slightly in his hand, pointing.
Dor scraped, and soon uncovered a boulder. “This seals it?” he asked.
“Yes,” the bone said. “I hid my pirate treasure under the next island and tunneled here so no one would know. But the loins-:
“Hey, Smash,” Dor called. “We have a boulder for you to move.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t,” the bone cautioned. “That’s delicately placed so the thieves can’t force it. The tunnel will collapse.”
“Well, how do we get in, then?”
“You have to use a sky hook to lift the boulder out without jarring the sides.”
“We don’t have a sky hook!” Dor exclaimed angrily.
“Of course you don’t. That was my talent, when I was alive. No one but me could safely remove that boulder. I had everything figured, except the loin.”
As the bone spoke, the kraken weed, having driven back the tiger sharks, was questing toward the shore. Soon it would be more of a menace to them than the tiger sharks had been.
“Any progress?” Chet asked. “I do not want to rush you, but I calculate we have thirty seconds before the loins, whatever they are, burst out of the forest.”
“Chet!” Dor exclaimed. “Make this boulder into a pebble! But don’t jar anything.”
The centaur touched the boulder, and immediately it shrank. Soon it was a pebble that fell into the hole beneath it. The passage was open.
“Jump in!” Dor cried.
Irene was startled. “Who, me?”
“Close enough,” Grundy said. “Want to stand there and show off your legs to the loins?”
Irene jumped in. “Say, this is neat!” she called from below, her voice echoing hollowly. “Let me just grow something to illuminate it-“
“You next,” Dor said to Chet. “Try not to shake the tunnel; it’s not secure.” Chet jumped in with surprising delicacy, Grundy with him.
“Okay, Smash,” Dor said.
“No go,” the ogre said, bracing to face the land menace. “Me join the loin.” And he slammed one huge fist into a hammy palm with a sound like a crack of thunder.
Smash wanted to guard the rear. Probably that was best. Otherwise the loins might pursue them into the tunnel. “Stand next to the opening,” Dor said. “When you’re ready, jump in and follow us. Don’t wait too long. Soon the kraken will reach here; that will stop the loins, I think. Don’t tangle with the kraken; we need it to stand guard after you rejoin us.”
Ike ogre nodded. The bellow of the loins became loud. Dor jumped in the hole.
He found himself in a man-sized passage, leading south, under the channel. The light from the entrance faded rapidly. But Irene had thoughtfully planted starflowers along the way, and their pinpoint lights marked the progress of the tunnel. Dor paused to unwrap his midnight sunstone; its beam helped considerably.
As Dor walked, he heard the approach of the pride of loins out side. Smash made a grunt of surprise. Then there was the sound of contact. “What’s going on?” Dor cried, worried.
“The ogre just threw a dandyloin to the kraken,” the pebble in the mouth of the tunnel said. “Now he’s facing up to their leader, Sir Loin Stake. He’s tough and juicy.”
“Smash, come on!” Dor cried. “Don’t push your luck!”
The ogre’s reply was muffled. All Dor heard was “. . . luck!”
“Oooo, what you said!” the pebble exclaimed. “Wash out your mouth with soapstone!”
In a moment Smash came lumbering down the tunnel, head bowed to clear the ceiling. A string of kraken weed was strewn across his hairy shoulder. Evidently he had held off the loins until the kraken took over the vicinity. “Horde explored, adored the gourd,” he announced, cracking a smile like a smoking cleft in a lightning- struck tree. Those who believed ogres had no sense of humor were obviously mistaken; Smash could laugh with the best, provided the joke was suitably fundamental.
