Board Stiff

  But it was worse. Kandy’s board floated into the cave first. A big hand came down and grabbed her, lifting her well clear of the water. It was a troll. A big shaggy male.

  “Oh, a board,” he said, and tossed it up into a high alcove. “Maybe good for firewood.”

  Firewood! Kandy had to avoid that. But how? She was stuck up here with a bunch of junk the troll had evidently saved for some future use. She had landed with her head section just on the ledge, so she could see down, but she could not take any action.

  The clothing floated in. The troll reached down with both hands and swept up Tiara’s and Astrid’s dresses. “Say, people clothes,” he said. “The cave hound must have eaten the people and left the dresses empty.” He studied the one with the sequins. “Pretty! Maybe I can use it to lure in a tasty girl.” He tossed both dresses up into the alcove.

  Next came the men’s clothing. “The hound must really have been hungry! But he left me slim trolling.” He tossed them up also.

  A troll trolling for things in the stream. That made sense, Kandy realized. Probably it was a setup, with the stream stealing whatever it could and carrying it down for the dog and troll to get. And they had neatly fallen into that trap.

  Worse, the other members of the Quest would be along soon. Pewter had to maintain the firewall, so couldn’t change reality in the troll’s cave. Ease was without his weapon. This did not look good.

  But maybe she could help. BEWARE! TROLL IN CAVE! she thought warningly to Ease. Did she reach him? She had not tried distance thought sending before. But even if the thought got through, so they knew, the current was swift as it entered the cave and might carry them into it regardless.

  There was a pause as the troll waited for the next stream offerings. Kandy was tense, wishing she could do something, anything. But she had already done what little she could.

  Then a bare female person floated in. Astrid! Kandy knew her by her long dark hair and her extremely shapely body. Also by her dark glasses, which she still wore.

  The troll pounced, catching her in both hands and lifting her well up out of the water. “A delicious girl!” he exclaimed, baring his big yellow teeth. Trolls of course ate people; that was their nature. They didn’t seem to understand why that made them unpopular with people.

  “Hold on half a moment, big boy,” Astrid said. “You don’t want to eat me.”

  “I don’t?” Trolls were not as stupid as ogres, but were hardly known for their intellect. “You look awful succulent.”

  “At least, not yet,” Astrid said. “First you will want to play with me for a while.”

  Play with her? If the troll stayed close to her more than a few minutes he would be drunk or dead, depending on whether he sniffed her perfume or took off her glasses and let her gaze at him. Her perfume would not be strong at the moment, because she had been soaking in the water, but it would regenerate soon enough.

  Then it dawned: that was the plan! They had sent in Astrid to nullify the troll!

  “But mother told me not to play with my food,” the troll protested.

  “Do you do everything your mother tells you?”

  “No. I do what I want and lie to her.”

  “So you can play with me a while before eating me,” Astrid said. “She’ll never know, will she?”

  “I guess not,” he said, surprised. “What kind of game do you have in mind?”

  He didn’t know? Kandy would have laughed had she been able.

  “I’ll tell you in a moment. Right now let’s introduce each other. I am Astrid Basilisk. Who are you?”

  The troll, perhaps fascinated by the lusciousness of her bare body, did not seem to pick up on the significance of her name. She had given him fair warning. “I’m Tromp Troll.”

  “Hello, Tromp.” She waited half a moment, then added “Say ‘hello Astrid.’”

  “Hello Astrid. What’s the game?”

  “First, take me to the dry part of the cave,” Astrid said. “Lay me down on the hay. Then put your arms around me and tickle me a little.”

  “Tickle?”

  “Like this,” She reached forward and tickled his ribs.

  “Ho ho ho!” he laughed. Then he put her on the hay and started tickling her, but he was too clumsy to stick to her ribs. His big hands wandered all over her body. “Say, you feel nice.”

  “Very nice,” she agreed. “Now you can kiss me there.”

  “Kiss?”

  “It’s like biting, only no teeth.”

  “Oh.” It was obviously tricky for him to put his mouth to flesh without chomping it, and Astrid’s flesh was very soft in front. But he managed, and once he learned how, he seemed to like it.

  Kandy had to admire Astrid’s technique. She was seducing the troll without his knowing it. She was also keeping his face right up against her body, where her recovering perfume would be strongest.

  Sure enough, in three and a half moments he was drunk and unconscious. Astrid kept him close for another moment and a half, to be sure. Evidently five full moments made it certain. It would be hours before he woke.

  Astrid carefully disengaged herself. “I was told that men are fools about women, especially bare women,” she said. “Thank you for proving it, Tromp. It was almost (not not quite) fun.”

  Kandy knew that Astrid had never had amorous experience with a man, and wanted to. This at least gave her a kind of practice. Tiara, who had recently learned all about it, must have given her detailed instructions.

  Astrid put her hands to her mouth, making a funnel, and called toward the entrance where the water boiled up. “Halloo! It’s safe!”

  In about four fifths of a moment, give or take a third, there came a faint answer: “Coming through!”

  Soon Mitch’s head bobbed to the surface. “I see you put him down,” he said, spying the prostrate troll as he climbed out of the water. “Is he alive or dead?”

  “Alive. I don’t like killing. That’s one reason I appealed to the Good Magician to find me a new venue. But I’m only halfway where I want to be.”

  “The Quest is far from over. There is still time.”

  “I hope so.” She glanced at the troll. “His name’s Tromp.”

  “Tromp Troll,” Mitch agreed. “I’m glad Ease caught on, so we were warned. It could have been ugly.

  “It means the board is here.”

  He nodded, understanding. “We owe a lot to the board.”

  Kandy appreciated that. The others never referred to her as other than the board, by day, honoring her preference. She appreciated that too.

  Now Mitch turned and called. “I’m in. Next!”

  “Coming!” and in a generous moment Tiara’s hair appeared, followed by her head. The demoness Metria had not returned, so the hair was wild again, even when wet. Mitch clearly didn’t mind. He reached down, caught her under the elbows, drew her up out of the water, kissed her, and set her on the rock of the cave floor to stand beside Astrid. Kandy hadn’t realized how nymphly slender she was until seeing her. Astrid, in contrast, was statuesque, well filled and rounded in every portion.

  “Astrid put Tromp Troll to sleep,” Mitch said.

  Tiara shuddered. “I couldn’t have done that.”

  Next came Pewter, and finally Ease. “Where’s my board?” Ease asked.

  They looked around. There was no sign of any clothing or the board.

  LOOK ON THE LEDGE Kandy thought to Ease.

  “There it is!” he exclaimed, pointing. “The troll must have tossed it there. I bet the other clothing is there too.”

  They all looked. “That ledge is way out of reach,” Astrid said.

  “Maybe if Tiara stands on my shoulders, she can reach it,” Mitch said.

  “I’ll make myself light,” Tiara said. Her hair lifted and radiated out, pulling up her head. She put her foot in his linked hands, stepped up, then climbed to his shoulders. That brought her head to the level of the ledge. She peered into the alcove. “It’s all here!” she called.
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  The clothing was still wet, but she dropped it down to them, then dropped the board to Ease. “I’m glad to have you back!” he said as he grasped Kandy’s ankles. That thrilled her, though she knew it was merely that he liked the useful tool and weapon. Should she ask the others to tell him her real nature? No, as always she concluded that it was best that he find out for himself, or never know. At least until the spell ended.

  “See if there’s a magic match or lighter knot,” Astrid said. “So we can make a fire and dry our clothes.” Kandy knew she wanted to get dressed, because Ease’s eyes were starting to wander. Ease knew there was no future for him with Astrid, but her bare body compelled his eyes. Kandy reminded herself for the umpteenth time that men were like that; Mitch was only moderately better.

  Tiara looked. “There’s half a slew of things up here, but--” She paused, reaching. “A match box! Two match boxes!” She tossed them down, then climbed back down Mitch to the cave floor.

  Matching matches, Kandy thought. So the virus had not yet invaded the cave.

  They foraged for bits of wood that lay in crevices to make a small pile, buttressed it with dry hay, then touched the matching boxes together. A spark jumped, and the hay caught fire. They held the clothing near to the fire, getting it dry.

  Soon they we able to dress again, everything clean. But there was a problem. The moment Astrid put on her dress, she discovered that it was translucent. They had not noticed while it was sopping wet, but now it was flashing her panties. That set off both men in a way her complete nudity had not.

  “A sequin is missing,” Pewter said. “It must be in the vicinity.”

  Astrid removed her clothing, and the men relaxed somewhat, though not enough to satisfy either Kandy or Tiara. “We need to find that sequin,” Astrid said. “I don’t care to risk the Event we might encounter if we tried it with a missing sequin.”

  “Sensible caution,” Pewter agreed.

  First they checked the floor. No sequin. Then Mitch boosted Tiara and she got in the high alcove and made a thorough search. She found a single old worn boot, a Mundanian style gas mask, a wet suit, several air bags, some strata gems of the kind that warrior women liked, several kind of pens such as Deep, Hap, O, and Ri, sheets, a musical head band, boxes of hard tacks, water logs, and a battered chair. No sequin.

  “It must have fallen in the water,” Astrid concluded reluctantly.

  They looked at the swirling water that coursed through the cave. Its depths were lost in surging shadow. “Well, we can swim,” Mitch said.

  The men stripped and dived down, running their hands across the smooth bottom channel of the stream. There was no sequin.

  “I hate to say this,” Tiara said. “But could it have come off before we got here?”

  “No,” Pewter said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we were pursuing the floating clothing, and the dress had color.”

  Kandy realized it was true. She had been floating alongside the dress much of the way, and it had been opaque.

  “So the sequin must have fallen into the water when the troll hauled the dress out and flung it into the alcove,” Mitch said.

  “And the current carried it on to join the bones,” Pewter said.

  “Bones?”

  “There are no bones here,” Pewter said.

  “True. But--” Then Mitch got the point. “Trolls eat people, but not their bones. Ogres crunch bones, not trolls. He must have thrown them into the water to be carried away.”

  “Convenient housekeeping,” Tiara said with a grimace.

  They looked downriver. The water boiled up to a slanting wall, and dived under it. That was where the sequin had to have gone. With the bones.

  “We don’t dare risk swimming there,” Mitch said. “We don’t know how long it flows before coming up for air.”

  “We need a boat,” Ease said.

  “I saw no boat,” Tiara said.

  “That depends,” Pewter said. “I once assimilated a Mundane data file by accident. A compendium of terms. It made my circuits ill, but I do have the information. ‘boot’ in a certain Mundanian language means ‘boat.’

  “No, the words printed on it were plainly Boot,” Tiara said “Das Boot.”

  “Exactly. Anything that strays into Xanth is at risk of getting pun infected. That could be a boat.”

  “I know a boot when I see one,” Tiara said. “That’s a boot.”

  “Humor him,” Mitch murmured. “Toss it down.”

  Tiara went up again, found the boot, and tossed it down. It was definitely an old boot, its leather faded, its laces ragged.

  “Das Boot,” Pewter said.

  The boot expanded, filling out into a huge cylindrical form, its leather turning to metal. They had to jump back to avoid getting shoved.

  “Boat,” Pewter repeated. “As I suspected.”

  “That’s the weirdest boat I ever saw,” Mitch said.

  “Otherwise known as a submarine. A boat that goes underwater.” Pewter walked to its swollen midsection and opened what turned out to be a hatch. He climbed inside. In three moments he reappeared. “Room for five.”

  “But it’s so tight!” Tiara protested. “We’d be squeezed in like--”

  “Sardines,” Pewter said. “Subs are tight. But it will convey us where we need to go.” He studied the craft. “But we need to be sure we know how to revert it to the boot, so we don’t do it accidentally while we’re inside.”

  “Inside!” Tiara repeated, looking faintly ill.

  “Every spell has a counterspell,” Pewter said. “Usually something obvious.”

  It did? Kandy was extremely interested. Was there a counter to her being a board? What could it be?

  “Sometimes it’s just a matter of reversing it,” Pewter continued. “Das Boot spelled backwards would be Toob Sad.”

  The boat quickly shrank back into the boot.

  “Good enough,” Pewter said. “We shall not utter those words while we are using it.”

  There was scant danger of that,” Kandy thought, because the words were nonsense.

  Pewter invoked the boat again. “Das Boot.” It swelled back into full form.

  “There remains a host of problems,” Mitch protested. “How do we propel this craft forward? What do we eat or drink or for that matter breathe if the journey is longer than we expect? And Astrid--”

  “I can’t go with you,” Astrid said. “My perfume would suffuse the craft.”

  “We’re not leaving you here,” Tiara said.

  “You said you saw a wet suit in the alcove,” Pewter said.

  “Well, all our clothing was wet.”

  “A wet suit can be something else. Bring that down, and the gas mask.”

  Tiara went up and tossed them down. “And the air bags,” Pewter called. “And the hard tacks.”

  The other kept quiet, uncertain what Pewter had in mind. Kandy was glad again for the machine’s data bank knowledge.

  “Put on the wet suit,” Pewter told Astrid.

  She did, since she couldn’t wear her dress anyway. The suit fit her curvaceous body perfectly; she looked nude but with an extra layer. It covered her from head to foot; only her face was clear. “This is tight!” she exclaimed. “It will hold in my perfume!”

  “Yes. A wet suit normally keeps water out and heat in, but this will keep your deadly ambiance confined. Now put on the gas mask.”

  She put on the mask, which made her look like a humanoid monster with a trunk-like nose. “Mmm-mmmph?” she asked, her voice muffled.

  “Exactly,” Pewter said. “A gas mask normally keeps poisonous gases out, but in your case it will keep them in.”

  “Mmmph?”

  “Yes. Have an air bag. Everyone needs an air bag, to refresh the local air.”

  “You’re quite a machine for answers,” Mitch remarked.

  “Thank you. It is my nature.”

  “But what about water, when we’re locked inside?” Tiara asked. br />
  “You saw water logs.”

  “I did,” she agreed, and fetched them. The logs looked solid, but were actually made of water; when the ends were bitten off, they became liquid in the mouth.

  “What about food?” Ease asked.

  “Hard tacks.”

  Again they didn’t argue. Tiara fetched these down too, and passed them out. They turned out to be edible.

  The troll stirred. “I’d better give him another dose,” Astrid said.

  “Needless,” Pewter said. “We’ll be gone by the time he wakes fully.”

  They piled into the boat. It was, it turned out, propelled by pedals connected to external paddle wheels. The steering was up front; it looked complicated, but Ease took that spot and made it easy. The others took the other spots, nestled close together; there was room, barely, for all of them. Astrid folded the sequins dress and put it in an external pocket of her wet suit, then got in, last. They were arranged roughly lengthwise along the tubular boat: Ease in the narrow pilot’s compartment, then Mitch and Tiara in the thicker middle, then Pewter and Astrid in the thinning tail section. The pedals connected to rods that poked through the hull to the paddles outside, somewhat like four big rotating legs.

  Tromp Troll got dazedly to his feet. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “That’s mine!”

  “Not any more,” Ease said. “Be glad we didn’t kill you, you cannibal.” He closed the hatch and steered the boat down into the water as the others pedaled. They were on their way.

  The boat had portholes along the sides, so they could see out between the paddles. There was a faint glow of fungus on the underwater walls, so it was not entirely dark. Ease steered the craft down, following the current, until he found the hole the stream used to get out of the troll’s cave.

  Now the boat fairly zipped along the tunnel. Kandy, beside Ease, could see everything. The tunnel evidently knew where it was going.

  It continued for some time. They no longer had to peddle; the current handled that. They chewed on their hard tacks, which were surprisingly tasty. Astrid was unable to eat with her gas mask on, but she didn’t complain. At least the air remained fresh, replenished by the air bags; all they had to do was open them just enough to let a little air waft out. All except Astrid, whose gas mask prevented her from eating or drinking or even talking.