Irene adroitly changed the subject. “You never told me how you felt about your own magic. An your brains, but all you can do is shrink rocks.”
“Well, it does relate. I render a stone into a calx. A calx is a small stone, a pebble used for calculating. Such calculus can grow complex, and it has important ramifications. So I feel my magic talent contributes-“
“Monster coming,” Grundy announced. “A little fish told me.”
“There aren’t supposed to be monsters in these waters,” Dor objected.
Grundy consulted with the fish. “It’s a sea dragon. It heard the commotion of our passage, so it’s coming in to investigate. The channel’s deep enough for it here.”
“We’d better get out of the channel, then,” Dor said.
“This is not the best place,” Chet objected.
“No place is best to get eaten, dummy!” Irene snapped. “We can’t handle a water dragon. We’ll have to get out of its way. Shallow water is all we need.”
“There are groupies in these shallows,” Chet said. “Not a threat, so long as we sail beyond their depth, but not fun to encounter. If we can get farther down before diverging-“
But now they saw the head of the dragon to the south, gliding above the water. Its neck cut a wake; the monster was traveling fast.
It was far too big for them to fight.
Smash, however, was game. Ogres were too stupid to know fear.
He stood, making the craft rock crazily. “For me’s to squeeze!” he said, gesturing with his meathooks.
“All you could do is gouge out handfuls of scales,” Irene said. “Meanwhile, it would be chomping the rest of us. You know an ogre has to have firm footing on land to tackle a dragon of any type.”
Without further argument, Chet swerved toward the mainland beach. But almost immediately the sand began to writhe. “Oh, no!”
Dor exclaimed. “A sand dune has taken over that beach. We can’t go there.”
“Agreed,” Chet said. “That dune wasn’t on my map. It must have moved in the past few days.” He swerved back the other way.
That was the problem about Xanth; very little was permanent. In the course of a day, the validity of a given map could be compromised; in a week it could be destroyed. That was one reason so much of Xanth remained unexplored. It had been traveled, but the details were not fixed.
The dune, noting their departure, reared up in a great sandy hump, its most typical form. Had they been so foolish as to step on that beach, it would have rolled right over them, buried them, and consumed them at leisure.
But now the water dragon was much closer. They cut across its path uncomfortably close and approached the island’s inner shore.
The dragon halted, turning its body to pursue them-but in a moment its nether loops ran aground in the shallows, and it halted. Jets of steam plumed from its nostrils; it was frustrated.
A flipper slapped at the side of the boat. “It’s a groupies” Grundy cried. “Knock it off!”
Smash reached out a gnarled mitt to grasp the flipper and haul the thing up in the air. The creature was a fattish fish with large, soft extremities.
“That’s a groupie?” Irene asked. “What’s so bad about it?”
The fish curled about, got its flippers on the ogre’s arm, and drew itself up. Its wide mouth touched Smash’s arm in a seeming kiss.
“Don’t let it do that!” Chet warned. “It’s trying to siphon out your soul.”
The ogre understood that. He flung the groupie far over the water where it landed with a splash.
But now several more were slapping at the boat, trying to scramble inside. Irene shrieked. “Just knock them away,” Chet said. “They can’t take your soul unless you let them. But they’ll keep trying.”
“They’re coming in all over!” Dor cried. “How can we get away from them?”
Chet smiled grimly. “We can move into the deep channel. Groupies are shallow creatures; they don’t stir deep waters.”
“But the dragon’s waiting there!”
“Of course. Dragons eat groupies. That’s why groupies don’t venture there.”
“Dragons also eat people,” Irene protested.
“That might be considered a disadvantage,” the centaur agreed. “If you have a better solution, I am amenable to it.”
Irene opened her bag of seeds and peered in. “I have watercress. That might help.”
“Try it!” Dor exclaimed, sweeping three sets of flippers off the side of the boat. “They’re overwhelming us!”
“That is the manner of the species,” Chet agreed, sweeping several more off. “They come not single spy, but in battalions.”
She picked out a tiny seed. “Grow!” she commanded, and dropped it in the water. The others paused momentarily in their labors to watch. How could such a little seed abate such a pressing menace?
Almost immediately there was a kind of writhing and bubbling where the seed had disappeared. Tiny tendrils writhed outward like wriggling worms. Bubbles rose and popped effervescently. “Cress!” the mass hissed as it expanded.
The groupies hesitated, taken aback by this phenomenon. Then they pounced on it, sucking in mouthfuls.
“They’re eating it up!” Dor said.
“Yes,” Irene agreed, smiling.
In moments the groupies began swelling up like balloons. The cress had not stopped growing or gassing, and was now inflating the fish. Soon the groupies rose out of the water, impossibly distended, and floated through the air. The dragon snapped at those who drifted within its range.
“Good job, I must admit,” Chet said, and Irene flushed with satisfaction. Dor experienced a twinge of jealousy and a twinge of guilt for that feeling. There was nothing between Chet and Irene, of course; they were of two different species. Not that that necessarily meant much, in Xanth. New composites were constantly emerging, and the chimera was evidently descended from three or four other species. Irene merely argued with Chet to try to bolster her own image and was flattered when the centaur bolstered it for her. And if there were something between them, why should he, Dor, care? But he did care.
They could not return to the main channel, for the dragon paced them alertly. It knew it had them boxed. Chet steered cautiously south, searching out the deepest subchannels of the bay, avoiding anything suspicious. But the island they were skirting was coming to an end; soon they would be upon the ocean channel the water dragon had entered by. How could they cross that while the dragon lurked?
Chet halted the boat and stared ahead. The dragon took a stance in mid-channel, due south, and stared back. It knew they had to pass here. Slowly, deliberately, it ran its long floppy tongue over its gleaming chops.
“What now?” Dor asked. He was King; he should be leader, but his mind was blank.
“I believe we shall have to wait until nightfall,” Chet said.
“But we’re supposed to make the trip in a day and night!” Irene protested. “That’ll waste half the day!”
“Better waste time than life, greennose,” Grundy remarked.
“Listen, stringbrain-“ she retorted. These two had never gotten along well together.
“We’d better wait,” Dor said reluctantly. “Then we can sneak by the dragon while it’s sleeping and be safely on our way.”
“How soundly do dragons sleep?” Irene asked suspiciously.
“Not deeply,” Chet said. “They merely snooze with their nostrils just above the water. But it will be better if there is fog.”
“Much better,” Irene agreed weakly.
“Meanwhile, we would do well to sleep in the daytime,” Chet said. “We will need to post one of our number as a guard, to be sure the boat doesn’t drift. He can sleep at night, while the others are active.”
“What do you mean, he?” Irene demanded. “There’s too much sexism in Xanth. You think a girl can’t guard?”