The seed began to sprout, hesitated, then fell limp.
“Is there anything you can talk to, Grundy?” Dor asked.
The golem spied some kelp in the water. He made strange sounds at it. There was no response.
“Smash, try a feat of strength,” Dor said.
The ogre picked up one of his feet. “Uh, no,” Dor said quickly. “I mean do something strong. Stand on one finger, or squeeze juice from a log.”
Smash put one paw on the end of one of the raft’s log-supports.
He squeezed. Nothing happened. “Me unprepared, me awhd scared,” he said.
Dor brought out his midnight sunstone. Now it possessed only the faintest internal glimmer-and in a moment that, too, faded out.
“So that answers two questions,” Dor said, trying to sound confident, though, in fact, he was deeply alarmed. “First, we are passing out of the region of magic; the propulsion-spell is defunct. I can’t talk to the inanimate, and Irene can’t grow plants magically. Second, it’s only our magic that fades, not our bodies. Grundy can’t translate the talk of other creatures, and Smash has lost his superhuman strength-but both are alive and healthy. Irene’s plants won’t grow, but she-!” He paused, looking at her. “What happened to your hair?”
“Hair?” She took a strand and pulled it before her face. “Eeek, it’s faded!”
“Aw, just the green’s gone,” Grundy said. “Looks better this way.”
Irene, stunned, did not even try to kick at him. She, like Dor, had never realized that her hair tint was magical in nature.
“So Mundania doesn’t hurt us,” Dor continued quickly. “It just inconveniences us. We’ll simply have to paddle the rest of the way to the island.”
They checked the raft’s supplies. The centaurs were a practical species; the raft was equipped with several paddles and a pole. Dor and Irene took the former and Smash the latter, and Grundy steadied the tiller. It was hard work, but they resumed progress toward the island.
“How did Amolde ever get so far ahead alone?” Irene gasped. “He would have had an awful time paddling and steering.”
Finally they reached the beach. There was Amolde’s raft, drawn up just out of the water. “He moved it along, all right,” Grundy remarked. “He must be stronger than he looks.”
“It’s is a fairly small island,” Dor said. “He can’t be far away. We’ll corner him. Smash, you stand guard by the rafts and bellow If he comes back here; the rest of us will try to run him down.”
They spread out and crossed the island. It had a distinctly Mundanian aspect; there was green grass growing that did not grab at their feet, and leafy trees that merely stood in place and rustled only in the wind.
The sand was fine without being sugar, and the only vines they saw made no attempt to writhe toward them. How could the centaur have mistaken this for a spot within the realm of magic?
They discovered Amolde at his refuge-a neat excavation exposing Mundane artifacts: the scholar’s place of personal identification. Apparently he was more than a mere compiler or recorder of information; he did some field work, too.
Amolde saw them. He had a magic lantern that illuminated the area as the moon sank into the sea. “No, I realize I cannot flee the situation,” he said sadly. “The truth is the truth, whatever it is, and I am dedicated to the truth. But I cannot believe what you say. Never in my life have I evinced the slightest degree of magic talent, and I certainly have none now. Perhaps some of the magic of the artifacts with which I associate has rubbed off on me, giving the illusion of-“
“How can you use a magic lantern here in Mundania?” Irene asked.
“This is not Mundania,” Amolde said. “I told you that before. The limits of magic appear to have extended, reaching out far enough to include this island recently.”
“But our magic ceased,” Dor said. “We had to paddle here.”
“Impossible. My raft spelled forward without intermission, and there is no storm to disrupt the magic ambience. Try your talent now, King Dor; I’ll warrant you will discover it operative as always.”
“Speak, ground,” Dor said, wondering what would happen.
“Okay, chump,” the ground answered. “What’s on your slow mind?”
Dor exchanged glances with Irene and Grundy, astonished-and saw that Irene’s hair in the light of the lantern was green again. “It’s back!” he said. “The magic’s back! Yet I don’t see how-“
Irene threw down a seed. “Grow!” she ordered.
A plant sprouted, rising rapidly into a lively raspberry bush.
“Bffrppp!” the plant sounded, making obscene sounds at them all.
“Is this really a magic island?” Grundy asked the nearest tree, translating into its language. The tree made a rustling response. “It says it is-now!” he reported.
Dor brought out the sunstone again. It was shining brightly.
“How could the magic return so quickly?” Irene asked. “My father always said the limit of magic was pretty constant; in fact, he wasn’t sure it varied at all.”
“The magic never left this island,” Amolde said. “You must have passed through a flux, an aberration, perhaps after all a lingering consequence of yesterday’s storm.”
“Maybe so,” Dor agreed. “Magic is funny stuff. Ours certainly failed-for a while.”
The centaur had a bright idea. “Maybe the magic compass was affected by a similar flux and thrown out of kilter, so it pointed to the wrong person.”
Doubt nagged Dor. “I guess that’s possible. Something’s certainly wrong. If that’s so, I must apologize for causing you such grief. It did seem strange to me that you should so suddenly manifest as a Magician when such power remains with a person from birth to death.”
“Yes indeed!” Amolde agreed enthusiastically. “An error in the instrument-that is certainly the most facile explanation. Of course I could not manifest as a Magician, after ninety years of pristine nonmagic.”
So they had guessed correctly about one thing: the centaur was close to a century old. “I guess we might as well go back now,” Dor said. “We had to borrow a raft to follow you, and its owner will be upset if it stays out too long.”
“Feel no concern,” Amolde said, growing almost affable in his relief. “The rafts are communal property, available to anyone at need. However, there would be concern if one were lost or damaged.”
They walked back across the island, the magic lantern brightening the vicinity steadily. As they neared the two rafts they saw Smash.
He was holding a rock in both hands, squeezing as hard as he could, a grimace of concentration and disgust making his face even uglier than usual.
Suddenly the rock began to compress. “At length, my strength!” the ogre exclaimed as the stone crumbled into sand.
“You could never have done it, you big boob, If the magic hadn’t come back,” the sand grumbled.
“The magic returned-just now?” Dor asked, something percolating in the back of his mind.
“Sure,” the sand said. “You should have seen this musclebrained brute straining. I thought I had him beat. Then the magic came back just as you did, more’s the pity.”
“The magic-came with us?” Dor asked.
“Are you dimwitted or merely stupid, nitbrain?” the sand asked with a gravelly edge. “I just said that.”
“When was the magic here before?” Dor asked.
“Only a little while ago. Horserear here can tell you; he was here when it happened.”
“You mean this is normally a Mundane island?”
“Sure, it’s always been Mundane, except when ol' hoofleg’s around.”
“I think were on to something,” Grundy said.
Amolde looked stricken. “But-but how can-this is preposterous!”
“We owe it to you and ourselves to verify this, one way or an other,” Dor said. “If the power of magic travels with you-?”