The monster was not stupid for her kind. The tiny wheels rotated almost visibly in her huge ugly head as she contemplated the blaze.
Then she dropped her head down, gathered herself, and with her flippers swept a huge wash of water onto the beach.
The fire hissed and sent up a violent protest of steam, then ignominiously capitulated and died. The smoke stopped billowing up.
Dor and his friends were left standing on dissipating smoke. Soon they would be left with no visible means of support.
The remaining cloud of smoke coalesced somewhat as it shrank.
Dor and Smash rejoined the other three. Now all were balancing on a diffusing mass; soon they would fall into the ocean, where the sea monster slavered eagerly.
“Well, do something!” Irene screamed at Dor.
Dor’s performance under pressure had been spotty. Now his brain percolated more efficiently. “We must make more smoke,” he said. “Irene, do you have any more flammable plants in your bag?”
“Just some torchflowers,” she replied. “I lost so many good seeds to the eclectic eel! But where can I grow them? They need solid ground.”
“Smear magic salve on the roots,” Dor told her. “Let a torch grow in this smoke.”
Her mouth opened in a cute of surprise. “That just might work!” She took out a seed, smeared it in the salve Dor held out, and ordered it to grow.
It worked. The torch developed and matured, guttering into flame and smoke. The wind carried the smoke west in a thin, dark brown stream.
Irene looked at it with dismay. “I expected it to spread out more. It will take a balancing act to walk on that!”
“In addition to which,” Chet said, “the smoke in which the torch is rooted is rapidly dwindling. When it falls into the ocean-“
“We’ll have to root it in its own smoke,” Dor said. “Then it will never fall.”
“Can’t,” she protested. “The smoke won’t curl down, and anyway it’s always moving; the thing would go into a tailspin.”
“It also smacks of paradox,” Chet said. “This is a problematical concept when magic is involved; nevertheless-“
“Better do something,” Grundy warned. “That sea monster’s waiting open-mouthed beneath this cloud.”
“Have you another torch-seed?” Dor asked.
“Yes, one more,” Irene said. “But I don’t see-“
“Grow it in smoke from this one. Then we’ll play leapfrog.”
“Are you sure that makes sense?”
“No.”
She proceeded. Soon the second torch was blazing, rooted in the smoke of the first, and its own trail of smoke ran above and parallel to the first. “But we still can’t balance on those thin lines,” Chet said.
“Yes, we can. Put one foot on each.”
Dubiously, Chet tried it. It worked; he was able to brace against the two columns, careful not to fall between them, and walk slowly forward. Irene followed, more awkwardly, for the twin columns were at slightly different elevations and varied in separation.
There was a honking chuckle from below. Irene colored. “That monster is looking up my skirt!” she exclaimed, furious.
“Don’t worry,” Grundy said. “It’s a female monster.”
“You can be sure your legs are the first it will chomp if it gets the chance,” Dor snapped. He had little patience with her vanity at this moment.
Smash went out on the columns next, balancing easily; the ogre was not nearly as clumsy as he looked.
“Go on, Grundy,” Dor said. “I’ll move the first torch.”
“How can you move it?” the golem demanded. “You can’t balance on one column.”
“I’ll manage somehow,” Dor said, though this was a complication he hadn’t worked out. Once the first torch was moved, there would be no smoke from it for him to walk on.
“You’re so busy trying to be a hero, you’re going to wind up monster food,” Grundy said. “Where is Xanth, if 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.