many incredible things, but this was beyond incredibility. The nest, pursuing the monster, landed with a great splash, became waterlogged, and sank. “I’m all washed up!” it wailed despairingly as it disappeared.
Dor and the others stared. They had never imagined an event like this. “But where are the wyverns?” Chet asked.
“Probably out hunting,” Grundy answered. “We’d better be well away from here when they return and find their nest gone.”
They had by this devious route made their escape from the sea monster. As time passed, they left the monster far below. Dor began to relax again-and his torch guttered out. These plants did not burn forever, and this one had expended all its smoke.
“Smoke alert!” Dor cried, waving the defunct torch. They were now so high in the air that a fall would be disastrous even without an angry monster below.
“So close to the clouds!” Chet lamented, pointing to a looming cloudbank. They had almost made it.
“Grow the rope some more,” Grundy said. “Make it reach up to those clouds.”
Irene complied. A new vine grew up, anchored in the basket. It penetrated the lowest cloud.
“But it has no salve,” Chet said. “It can’t hold on there.”
“Give me the salve,” Grundy said. “I’ll climb up there.”
He did so. Nimbly he mounted the rope-vine. In moments he disappeared into the cloud, a blob of salve stuck to his back.
The supportive smoke column dissipated. The basket sagged, and Dor swung about below it, horrified. But it descended only a little; the rope-vine had been successfully anchored in the cloud, and they were safe.
There was no way the rest of them could climb that rope, though. They had to wait suspended until a vagary of the weather caused a new layer of clouds to form beneath them, hiding the ocean. The new clouds were traveling south, in contrast to the westward-moving higher ones.
When the positioning was right, they stepped out and trod the billowy white masses, jumping over the occasional gaps, until they were safely ensconced in a large cloudbank. In due course this cleared away from the higher clouds, letting the sky open. The winds at different levels of the sky were traveling in different directions, carrying their burdens with them; this wind was bearing south. Since the basket was firmly anchored to the higher cloudbank, they had to unload it quickly so they would not lose their remaining possessions.
They watched it depart with mixed emotions; it had served them well.
They sprouted a grapefruit tree and ate the grapes as they ripened.
It was sunny and warm here atop the clouds; since this wind was carrying them south, there was no need for the travelers to walk. Their difficult journey had become an easy one.
“Only one thing bothers me,” Chet murmured. “When we reach Centaur Isle-how do we get down?”
“Maybe we’ll think of something by then,” Dor said. He was tired again, mentally as well as physically; he was unable to concentrate on a problem of the future right now, however critical that problem might be.
They smeared salve on their bodies so they could lie down and rest. The cloud surface was resilient and cool, and the travelers were tired; soon they were sleeping.
Dor dreamed pleasantly of exploring in a friendly forest; the action was inconsequential, but the feeling was wonderful. He had half expected more nightmares, but realized they could not reach him up here in the sky. Not unless they got hold of some magic salve for their hooves.
Then in his dream he looked into a deep, dark pool of water, and in its reflection saw the face of King Trent. “Remember the Isle,” the King told him. “It is the only way you can reach me. We need your help, Dor.”
Dor woke abruptly, to find Irene staring into his face. “For a moment you almost looked like-“ she said, perplexed.
“Your father,” he finished. “Don’t worry; it’s only his message, I guess. I must use the Isle to find him.”
“How do you spell that?”
Dor scratched his head. “I don’t know. I thought-but I’m not sure. Island. Does aisle make sense?”
“A I S L E?” she spelled. “Not much.”
“I guess I’m not any better at visions than I am at adventure,” he said with resignation.
Her expression changed, becoming softer. “Dor, I just wanted to tell you-you were great with the smoke and everything.”
“Me?” he asked, unbelieving. “I barely scrambled through! You and Chet and Grundy did all the-“
“You guided us,” she said. “Every time there was a crisis and we froze or fouled up, you called out an order and that got us moving again. You were a leader, Dor. You had what it took when we really had to have it. I guess you don’t know it yourself, but you are a. leader, Dor. You’ll make a decent King, some day.”
“I don’t want to be King!” he protested.
She leaned down and kissed him on the lips. “I just had to tell you. That’s all.”
Dor lay there after she moved away, his emotions mixed. The kiss had been excruciatingly sweet, but the words sweeter yet. He tried to review the recent action, to fathom where he might have been heroic, but it was all a nightmare jumble, despite the absence of the night mares. He had simply done what had to be done on the spur of the moment, sometimes on the very jagged edge of the moment, and had been lucky.
He didn’t like depending on luck. It was not to be trusted. Even now, some horrendous unluck could be pursuing them. He almost thought he heard it through the cloudbank, a kind of leathery swishing in the air Then a minor kind of hell broke loose. The head of a dragon poked through the cloud, uttering a raucous scream.
Suddenly the entire party was awake and on its feet. “The wyverns!” Chet cried. “The ones whose nest we swamped! They have found us!”
There was no question of avoiding trouble. The wyverns attacked the moment they appeared. In this first contact, it was every person for himself.
Dor’s magic sword flashed in his hand, stabbing expertly at the vulnerable spots of the wyvern nearest him. The wyvern was a small dragon, with a barbed tail and only two legs, but it was agile and vicious. The sword went unerringly for the beast’s heart, but glanced off the scales of its breast. The dragon was past in a moment; it was flying, while Dor was stationary, and contact was fleeting.
There were a number of the wyverns, and they were expert flyers.
Smash was standing his own, as one ogre was more than a match for a dragon of this size, but Chet had to gallop and dodge madly to avoid trouble. He whirled his lasso, trying to snare the wyvern, but so far without success.
Irene was in the most trouble. Dor charged across to her. “Grow a plant!” he cried. “I’ll protect you!”
A wyvern oriented on them and zoomed in, its narrow lance of fire shooting out ahead. Cloud evaporated in the path of the flame, leaving a trench; they had to scramble aside.
“Some Protection!” Irene snarled. Her complexion was turning green; she was afraid.
But Dor’s magic sword slashed with the uncanny accuracy inherent in it and lopped off the tip of a dragon’s wing. The wyvern squawked in pain and rage and wobbled, partly out of control, and finally disappeared into the cloud. There were sputtering sounds and a trail of smoke fusing with the cloud vapor where the dragon went down.
It was a strange business, with Dor’s party standing on the puffy white surface, the dragons passing through it as if it were vapor-which of course it was. The dragons had the advantage of maneuverability and concealment, while the people had the leverage of a firm anchorage. But Dor knew the wyverns could undercut the people’s footing by burning out the clouds beneath them; all the dragons needed to do was think of it. Fortunately, wyverns were not very smart; their brains were small, since any expendable weight was sacrificed in the interest of better flight, and what brains they had were kept too hot by the fire to function well. Wyverns were designed for fighting, not thinking.
Irene was growing a plant; evidently she had saved some salve for it. It was a tangler, as fearsome a growth as the kraken seaweed, but one that operated on solid land-or cloud. In moments it was big enough to be a threat to all in its vicinity. “Try to get the tree between you and the dragon,” Irene advised, stepping back from the vegetable monster.
Dor did so. When the next wyvern came at him, he scooted around behind the tangler. The dragon, hardly expecting to encounter such a plant in the clouds, did a double take and banked off. But the tangler shot out a tentacle and hooked a wing. It drew the wyvern in, wrapping more tentacles about it, like a spider with a fly. The dragon screamed, biting and clawing at the plant, but the tangler was too strong for it. The other wyverns heeded
