you go the way of King Trent?”
“I don’t know,” Dor admitted. “Maybe the Zombie Master will discover he likes politics after all.”
“That sourpuss? Ha!”
“But those torches have to be moved.”
“I’ll move them,” Grundy said. “I’m small enough to walk on one column. You go ahead.”
Dor hesitated, but saw no better alternative. “Very well. But be careful.”
Dor straddled the two columns. This felt more precarious than it had looked, but was far better than dropping to the water and monster below. When he had progressed a fair distance, he braced himself and looked back.
Grundy was laboring at the first torch. But the thing was about as big as the golem, and was firmly rooted in the remaining cloud of smoke from the erstwhile beach fire; the tiny man could not get it loose. The sea monster, perceiving the problem, was bracing herself for one good snap at the whole situation.
“Grundy, get out of there!” Dor cried. “Leave the torch!”
Too late. The monster’s head launched forward as her flippers thrust the body out of the water. Grundy cried out with terror and leaped straight up as the snout intersected the cloud.
The monster’s teeth closed on the torch-and the golem landed on the massive snout. The saucer-eyes peered cross-eyed at Grundy, who was no bigger than a mote that might irritate one of those orbs, while smoke from the torch drifted from the great nostrils. The effect was anomalous, since no sea monster had natural fire. Fire was the perquisite of dragons.
Then the sea monster’s body sank back into the ocean. Grundy scrambled up along the wispy trail of smoke from the nostrils and managed to recover his perch on the original smoke cloud. But the torch was gone.
“Run up the other column!” Dor shouted. “Save yourself!”
For a moment Grundy stood looking down at the monster. “I blew it,” he said. “I ruined it all.”
“We’ll figure out something!” Dor cried, realizing that everything could fall apart right here if every person did not keep scrambling. “Get over here now.”
Numbly the golem obeyed, walking along the widening but thinning column. Dor saw that their problems were still mounting, for the smoke that supported the second torch was now dissipating. Soon the second column, too, would be lost.
“Chet!” Dor called. “Smear salve on your rope and hook it over one smoke column. Tie yourself to the ends and grab the others!”
“You have the salve,” the centaur reminded him.
“Catch it!” Dor cried. He hefted the small jar in his right hand, made a mental prayer to the guiding spirit of Xanth, and hurled the jar toward the centaur.
The tiny missile arched through the air. Had his aim been good?
At first its course seemed too high; then it seemed to drop too rapidly; then it became clear the missile was off to the side. He had indeed missed; the jar was passing well beyond Chet’s reach. Dor, too, had blown his chance.
Then Chet’s rope flung out, and the loop closed neatly about the jar.
The centaur, expert in the manner of his kind, had lassoed it.
Dor’s relief was so great he almost sat down-which would have been suicidal.
“But this rope’s not long enough,” Chet said, analyzing the job he had to do with it.
“Have Irene grow it longer,” Dor called.
“I can only grow live plants,” she protested.
“Those vine-ropes live a long time,” Dor replied. “They can root after months of separation from their parent-plants, even when they look dead. Try it.” But as he spoke, he remembered that the rope had spoken to him when it came for him down the hole. That meant that it was indeed dead.
Dubiously, Irene tried it. “Grow,” she called.
They all waited tensely. Then the rope grew. One end of it had been dormant; it must have been the other end that had been dead.
Once more Dor’s relief was overwhelming. They were skirting about as close to the brink of disaster as they could without falling in.
Once the rope started, it grew beautifully. Not only did it lengthen, it branched, becoming a full-fledged rope-vine. Soon Chet had enough to weave into a large basket. He smeared magic salve all over it and suspended it from the smoke column. Chet himself got into it, and Irene joined him, then Smash. It was a big basket, and strong; it had to be, to support both centaur and ogre. The two massive creatures clapped each other’s hands together in victory; they liked each other.
Now the second torch lost footing and started to fall. Dor charged back along the two columns, dived down, reached out, and grabbed it. But his balance on one column was precarious. He wind milled his arms, but could not quite regain equilibrium.
Then another loop of rope flung out. Dor was caught under the arms just as he slipped off the column.
Chet hauled him in as he fell, so that he described an are toward the water. The sea monster pursued him eagerly. Dor’s feet barely brushed the waves; then he swung up on the far side of the are.
“Sword!” Grundy cried, perched on smoke far above.
Dazedly, Dor transferred the torch to his left hand and drew his sword.
Now he swung back toward the grinning head of the monster.
Chet heaved, lifting Dor up a body length. As a result, instead of swinging into the opening mouth, he smacked into the upper lip, just below the flaring nostrils. Dor shoved his feet forward, mashing that lip against the upper teeth. Then he stabbed forward with the sword, spearing the tender left nostril. “How’s that feel, garlic- snoot?” he asked.
The snoot blasted out an angry gale of breath that was indeed redolent of garlic and worse. Creatures with the most objectionable qualities were often the ones with the most sensitive feelings about them. Dor was blown back out over the ocean, steam rising as Chet hauled him up.
But now the smoke supporting the rope and basket was dissipating. Soon they would all fall-and the monster was well aware of this fact. All the pinpricks and taps on teeth and snout she had suffered would be avenged. She hung back for the moment, avoiding Dor’s sword, awaiting the inevitable with hungry eagerness.
“The smoke!” Grundy cried.
Dor realized that the torch he held was pouring its smoke up slantingly. The breeze had diminished allowing a steeper angle. “Yes! Use this smoke to support the rope!” he ordered.
Chet, catching on, rocked the rope-basket and set it swinging. As the smoke angled up, the basket swung across to intersect it. But that caused Dor to swing also, moving his torch and its smoke.
“Grow a beanpole!” he told Irene.
“Gotcha,” Irene said. Soon another seed was sprouting: a bean in the form of a pole. Smash wedged this into the basket and bent it down so that Dor could reach the far tip. Dor grabbed it and hung on. Now the pole held him at an angle below the basket. Chet and Smash managed to rotate the whole contraption so that Dor was upwind from them. The smoke poured up and across, passing just under the basket, buoying it up, each wrinkle in the smoke snagging on the woven vines. The rising smoke simply carried the basket up with it.
The sea monster caught on that the situation had changed. It charged forward, snapping at Dor-but Dor was now just out of its reach. Slowly and uncertainly the whole party slid upward, buoyed by the smoke from the torch. The arrangement seemed too fantastic and tenuous to operate even with magic, but somehow it did.
The sea monster, seeing her hard-won meal escape, vented one terrible honk of outrage that caused the smoke to waver. This shook their entire apparatus. The sound reverberated about the welkin, startling pink, green, and blue birds from their island perches and sending sea urchins fleeing in childish tears.
“I can’t even translate that,” Grundy said, awed.
The honk had one other effect. It attracted the attention of the nest of wyverns. The empty nest flew up, a huge mass of sticks and vines and feathers and scales and bones. “What’s this noise?” it demanded.
Oh, no! Dor’s talent had to be responsible for this. He had been under such pressure, his magic was manifesting erratically. “The sea monster did it!” he cried, truthfully enough.
“That animated worm?” the nest demanded. “I’ll teach it to disturb my repose. I’ll squash it!” And it flew fiercely toward the monster.
The sea monster, justifiably astonished, ducked her head and dived under the water. Xanth was the place of
