“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?”
“Of course I’m anchored!” it said indignantly. “Think I don’t know my business? Tie me about you and I’ll rescue you from this foul hole.”
Dor did so, and soon he was on his way, treasure and all. “Aw, you lucked out,” the coin in his pocket said.
“What do you care?”
“Wealth destroys men. It is our rite of passage: destroy a man. We were about to destroy you, and you escaped through no merit of your own.”
“Well, I’m taking you with me, so you’ll have another chance.”
“There is that,” the coin agreed, brightening.
Soon Dor emerged from the hole. Chet and Smash were hauling on the rope, drawing him up, while Grundy called directions so that no snag occurred. “What were you doing down there?” Irene demanded. “I thought you’d never come up!”
“I had some trouble with the kraken,” Dor said, showing off a fragment of tentacle that remained hooked to his leg.
It was now late afternoon. “Any danger here?” Dor asked the ground.
“There’s a nest of wyverns on the south beach of this island,” the ground replied. “But they hunt only by day. It’s quite a nest, though.”
“So If we camp here at the north end we’ll be safe?”
“Should be,” the ground agreed grudgingly.
“If the wyverns hunt by day, maybe we should trek on past them tonight,” Irene said.
Smash smiled. “We make trek, me wring neck,” he said, his brute mitts suggesting what he would do to an unfortunate wyvern. The ogre seemed larger now, taller and more massive than he had been, and Dor realized that he probably was larger; ogres put on growth rapidly in their teen years.
But Dor was too tired to do it. “I’ve got to rest,” he said.
Irene was unexpectedly solicitous. “Of course you do. You stood rearguard, fighting off the kraken, while we escaped. I’ll bet you wouldn’t have made it out at all if Chet hadn’t found that vine-rope.”
Dor didn’t want to admit that the weight of the gold had prevented him from climbing as he should have done. “Guess I just got tired,” he said.
“The fool insisted on bringing us gold coins along,” the coin blabbed loudly from his pocket.
Irene frowned. “You brought the coins? We don’t need them, and they’re awful heavy.”
Dor sat down heavily on the beach, the coins jangling. “I know.”
“What about the diamonds?”
“Them, too,” he said, patting the other pocket, though he wasn’t sure which pocket he had put them in.
“I do like diamonds,” she said. “I regard them as friends.” She helped him get his jacket off, then his wet shirt. He had avoided the Kingly robes for this trip, but his garden-variety clothing seemed hardly better now. “Dor! Your arms are all scraped!”
“That’s the work of the kraken,” Grundy said matter-of-factly. “It hooked his limbs and dragged him under. I had to carve it with diamonds to make it let go.”
“You didn’t tell me it was that bad!” she exclaimed to Dor. “Krakens are dangerous up close!”
“You were busy making the escape,” Dor said. Now the abrasions on his arms and legs were stinging.
“Get the rest of this clothing off,” she said, working at it herself. “Grundy, go find some healing elixir; we forgot to bring any, but a number of plants manufacture it.”
Grundy went into the forest. “Any of you plants have healing juice?” he called.
Dor was now too tired to resist. Irene tugged at his trousers. Then she paused. “Oh, my-I forgot about that,” she said.
“What?” Dor asked, not sure how embarrassed he should be.