“Oops,” Chet said. He reached down and ripped something from his foreleg, just under the rising waterline. It was a tentacle from the kraken.
“I was afraid of that,” Irene said. “That weed is way beyond my control. It won’t stop growing if I tell it to.”
Dor drew his sword. “I’ll cut off any more tentacles,” he said. “They can’t come at me too thickly here at the end of the tunnel. Go ahead and start your tuber, Irene.”
She dipped into her seedbag. “Oh-oh. That seed must’ve fallen out somewhere along the way. It’s not here.”
They had had a violent trip on the raft; the seed could have worked loose anywhere. “Chet and Smash,” Dor said without pause, “go ahead and make us a way out of here, If you can. Irene, if you have another stabilization plant-“
She checked. “That I have.”
They got busy. Dor faced back down the dark tunnel as the water rose to thigh level, spearing at the dark liquid with his sword, shining the sunstone here and there. The sounds of the ogre’s work grew loud. “Water, tell me when a tentacle’s coming,” he directed. But there was so much crashing behind him as Smash pulverized the rock of the ceiling that he could not hear the warnings of the water. A tentacle caught his ankle and jerked him off his feet. He choked on water as another tentacle caught his sword arm. The kraken had him -and he couldn’t call for help!
“What’s going on here?” Grundy demanded. “Are you going swimming while the rest of us work?” Then the golem realized that Dor was in trouble. “Hey, why didn’t you say something? Don’t you know the kraken’s got you?”
The kraken seaweed certainly had him! The tentacles were dragging him back down the tunnel, half drowning.
“Well, somebody’s got to do something!” Grundy said, as though bothered by an annoying detail. “Here, kraken-want a cookie?” He held out a gold coin, which seemed to weigh almost as much as he did.
A tentacle snatched the coin away, but in a moment discovered it to be enedible and dropped it.
Grundy grabbed a handful of diamonds. “Try this rock candy,” he suggested. The tentacle wrapped around the gems-and got sliced by their sharp edges. Ichor welled into the water as the tentacle thrashed m pain.
“Now there’s a notion,” Grundy said. He swam to where Dor was still being dragged along, and sliced with another diamond, cutting into the tentacles. They let go, stung, though the golem was only able to scratch them, and Dor finally gasped his way back to his feet, waist-deep in coloring water.
“I have to go help the others,” Grundy said. “Yell if you get in more trouble.”
Dor fished in the water and recovered his magic sword and the shining sunstone. He was more than disheveled and disgruntled. He had had to be bailed out by a creature no taller than the span of his hand. Some hero he was!
But the others had had better success. A hole now opened upward, and daylight glinted down. “Come on, Dor!” Grundy called. “We’re getting out of here at last!”
Dor crammed coins and diamonds into one pocket with the sunstone, and the jar of salve into another. Smash and Chet were already scrambling out the top, having had to mount the new passage as they extended it. The centaur was actually pretty good at this sort of climbing because he had six extremities; four or five were firmly braced in crevices while one or two were searching for new holds.
Grundy had no trouble; his small weight allowed him to scramble freely.
Only Dor and Irene remained below.
“Hurry up, slowpoke!” she called. “I can’t wait forever!”
“Start up first,” he called. “I’m stashing the treasure.”
“Oh, no!” she retorted. “You just want to see up my skirt!”
“If I do, that’s my profit,” he said. “I don’t want this hole collapsing on you.” For, indeed, gravel and rocks were falling down as Chet’s efforts dislodged them. The whole situation seemed precarious, despite the effort of the plant Irene had grown to help stabilize the wall.
“There is that,” she agreed nervously. She started to climb, while Dor completed his stashing.
The kraken’s tentacles, given respite from the attacks of sword and diamond, quested forward again. The water was now chest-high on Dor, providing the weed ample play. “There’s one!” the water said, and Dor stabbed into the murky fluid. He was rewarded by a jerk on his sword that indicated he had speared something that flinched away.
For a creature as bloodthirsty as the kraken, it certainly was finicky about pinpricks!
“There’s another!” the water cried, enjoying this game. Dor stabbed again. But it was hard to do much damage, despite the magic skill the sword gave him, since he couldn’t slash effectively through water. Stabbing only hurt the tentacles without doing serious damage.
Also, the weed was learning to take evasive action. It wasn’t very smart, but it did learn a certain minimum under the constant prodding of pain.
Dor started to climb, at last. But to do this he had to put away his sword, and that gave the tentacles a better chance at him. Also, the gold was very solid for its size and weighed him down. As he drew himself out of the water, a tentacle wrapped around his right knee and dragged him down again.
Dor’s grip slipped, and he fell back into the water. Now three more tentacles wrapped themselves around his legs and waist. That kraken had succeeded in infiltrating this tunnel far more thoroughly than Dor had thought possible! The weed must be an enormous monster now, since this must be only a fraction of its activity.
Dor clenched his teeth, knowing that no one else could help him if he got dragged under this time, and drew his sword again. He set the edge carefully against a tentacle and sawed. The magically sharp edge sliced through the tender flesh of the kraken, cutting off the extremity. The tentacle couldn’t flinch away because it was wrapped around Dor; its own greed anchored it. Dor repeated the process with the other tentacles until he was free in a milky, viscous pool of kraken blood. Then he sheathed the sword again and climbed.
“Hey, Dor-what’s keeping you?” Irene called from halfway up.
“I’m on my way,” he answered, glancing up. But as he did, several larger chunks of rock became dislodged, perhaps by the sound of their voices, and rattled down. Dor stood chest-deep in the water, shielding his head with his arms.
“Are you all right?” she called.
“Just stop yelling!” he yelled. “It’s collapsing the passage!” And he shielded his head again from the falling rocks. This was hellish!
“Oh,” she said faintly, and was quiet.
Another tentacle had taken hold during this distraction. The weed was getting bolder despite its losses. Dor sliced it away, then once more began his climb. But now ichor from the monster was on his hands, making his hold treacherous. He tried to rinse off his hands, but the stuff was all through the water. With his extra weight, he could not make it.
Dor stood there, fending off tentacles, while Irene scrambled to the surface. “What am I going to do?” he asked, frustrated.
“Ditch the coins, idiot,” the wall said.
“But I might need them,” Dor protested, unwilling to give up the treasure.
“Men are such fools about us,” a coin said from his pocket. “This fool will die for us-and we have no value in Xanth.”
It did make Dor wonder. Why was he burdening himself with this junk? Wealth that was meaningless, and a magic salve that was cursed. He could not answer-yet neither could he relinquish the treasure. Just as the kraken was losing tentacles by anchoring them to his body, he was in danger of losing his life by anchoring it to wealth-and he was no smarter about it than was the weed.
Then a tentacle dangled down from above. Dor shied away; had the weed found another avenue of attack? He whipped up his sword; in air it was far more effective. “You can’t nab me that way, greedyweedy!” he said.
“Hey, watch your language,” the tentacle protested. “I’m a rope.”
Dor was startled. “Rope? What for?”
“To pull you up, dumbbell,” it said. “What do you think a rescue rope is for?”
A rescue rope! “Are you anchored?”
