Luck of the Draw

  “I was not angry until this moment,” Piper murmured grimly. “Bryce, distract her. Mindy, direct me.”

  He was going to change into monster form! But he needed to conceal it so that the naga did not understand what was happening.

  Bryce went to stand directly in front of Nara, blocking her view of the window. “You said we might tryst tonight,” he said. “Did you mean it?”

  “That depends,” she said, eying him appraisingly. “Exactly how cooperative can you be?”

  He knew that no appeal to her good nature would be effective. So he appealed to her bad nature. “To guarantee that I’m the last one displayed? I can be pretty ardent. Maybe I can persuade you to spare me entirely.”

  “You would have to be. I like truly lusty men.”

  “I can be lusty.” Then, realizing that she might react to his body similarly to the way he had reacted to hers, he took off his shirt.

  She was interested. “More.”

  He took off his trousers and stood in his underpants. She focused intently on them, but did not freak out. Maybe that was because she was only half humanoid. “Yes, I think you will do,” she said, and turned away. “Until tonight,” she said, making a flirt of her bottom that half stunned him. In another moment she was gone.

  Bryce turned to face the others, hoping he had given Piper time. “You did,” Mindy said from the window. “Piper is on his way.”

  “I am disgusted as well as appalled,” Bryce said. “That naga has absolutely no conscience. She was talking of a tryst while setting us up for torture and death.”

  “Piper will rescue Anna.”

  “Yes. Then we’ll have to break out of here.”

  “Maybe you can draw a device.”

  “Maybe I can,” he agreed. “A crowbar, or a jack.”

  “Or a pineapple.”

  “Explosive,” he agreed. “Blast us out.” Then he thought of something. “But that will replace our carpets.”

  “We can make new ones once we escape.”

  Now they both peered out the barred window. The black monster was sliding across the cliff wall toward Anna, but was going low. “Move up slightly,” Mindy called. Piper did, and now was headed directly toward Anna.

  There was a cry in the sky. “The harpies are coming!” Bryce said. “And Piper’s not there yet.”

  “Piper!” Mindy called. “The harpies are coming. They’re out beyond the U. Can you see or hear them?”

  There was a note from a vent. “He can,” she said. “But he’ll need our help for pinpoint accuracy.”

  “I can do that,” Bryce said. “You direct him to Anna; I’ll spot the harpies for him.”

  “Anna’s about a hundred feet ahead of you,” Mindy called. “Make sure you don’t bomb her!”

  “A harpy squadron is coming in,” Bryce called. “At about nine o’clock, range three hundred feet.”

  The monster issued a harsh series of notes. A flicker of magic flew out. Then a fireball exploded just ahead of the harpies.

  There was a collective squawk of dismay as the harpies drew up short. Then they reorganized and flew on toward Anna. Apparently they thought the fireball was a fluke.

  “Look at those eyes!” one screeched. “Dibs on the blue one!”

  “Dibs on the brown one,” another harpy screeched.

  That was right: Anna had different-colored eyes.

  “Dibs on the tongue!” a third screeched. It seemed that their normal mode of communication was the screech.

  “What horror,” Mindy murmured, shuddering.

  “Ten o’clock, range two hundred feet,” Bryce called.

  This time the fireball burst in the middle of the squadron. The dirty birds were blasted out of the sky, feathers burning.

  “You’re about fifty feet from her,” Mindy called.

  Then Bryce saw a door open just over the pole, where it stuck in the wall. Goblin males swarmed out and scrambled along the pole toward Anna. “I got first poke!” the lead goblin cried. He reached the end of the pole and started shimmying down the rope toward Anna.

  “Second poke!” the next goblin cried, starting down after him.

  Now Bryce shuddered. It seemed that the goblins were going to swarm over Anna as she hung, intent on gang rape she could not flee.

  “Goblins on pole,” Bryce called. “About to get on her.” How could Piper blast them without also blasting Anna?

  The first goblin reached Anna. He clung to her body, ripping away handfuls of her clothing. But she did not give him the satisfaction of screaming. She was one brave girl.

  Harsh music sounded. The first goblin stiffened and fell, screaming as he plunged toward the distant ground. The second clung for an instant and a half, then also fell, also screaming. Those were obviously not the screams they had sought.

  “He can paralyze with his music,” Mindy murmured.

  Oh. Of course. “But what of Anna?”

  “She’s paralyzed too, but she’s tied in her harness. Only the goblins are loose.”

  Ah. The monster had more tricks than Bryce had realized.

  But the goblins, intent on rapine, were slow to get the message. More of them were scrambling along the pole. And were getting stunned, and falling, as more harsh notes sounded.

  Then the monster reached the pole. That cut off the goblin approach.

  But now a third menace manifested. The face of the cliff scintillated with reflections off moving shells.

  “The nickelpedes,” Mindy said, horrified anew. “They are excellent climbers.”

  But Piper had already picked up on them. Ichor welled from his body and flowed across the wall. It intercepted the nickelpedes. There was a sizzling as they curled up and died, burned by the acid.

  Piper had single-handedly wiped out all three attacking hordes. “My hero!” Anna cried.

  “But how can he get her safely down?” Mindy asked. “He can’t safely reach her.”

  “Maybe there’s a way,” Bryce said. Then he called to Piper: “Nullify your acid. Make your body sticky!” And to Anna: “Swing!”

  Anna swished her legs back and forth, and began swinging. She sailed out from the cliff, then in toward it. Out, in, swinging higher. Soon she managed to bang into the monster’s body.

  And stuck there.

  A pseudopod reached out and touched the rope over her head. The rope separated, burned through. That left Anna sticking to Piper. She was nothing loath.

  The monster was rescuing the maiden. There was the singular anomaly of this adventure. Which meant that however helpless Anna had seemed, her talent had been working for her.

  But where would they go from here? Bryce and Mindy were still locked in the cell, and they could not turn gelatinous and flow out of it. Piper couldn’t bring Anna into it.

  “They can go on down to the ground, then up and out of the chasm,” Mindy said. “We can join them later.”

  “Go on down and out!” Bryce called to monster and maiden. “We’ll rejoin you south of the chasm!”

  Piper issued a note of acknowledgment and started sliding down the cliff. Anna adjusted her tattered clothing and rode along. She would get a better seat when they reached the ground.

  “Who put you up to this?” a voice screeched at the window. A harpy was there, either a survivor of the aerial blast or a commander who had had the sense to stay clear.

  “It was Nara Naga’s plot,” Bryce said angrily. “She set us up for this ugly slaughter.”

  “That’s what I thought!” the harpy screeched, and flew away.

  “I don’t think you answered her question,” Mindy said.

  “It was Nara Naga who fed us drugged cakes and locked us in here, and had Anna put out for torture and sacrifice,” Bryce said. “Definitely her vile plot.”

  “The harpy must have thought it was a trap for them,” Mindy said. “With Anna as bait to bring them all in so the monster could destroy them.”

  Bryce reconsidered. “Oh. I misunderstood. I suppose they cou
ld see it as an attempt to clear them all out of the mountain so the naga could have it for themselves and not have to share.”

  Mindy formed half a smile. “That misunderstanding may cause the Noway Naga some mischief on Menace Mesa. All three other groups will be mad at them, feeling betrayed.”

  “I suppose so,” Bryce agreed. “But I really didn’t mean to lie, even to a harpy. I was just somewhat flustered by the turn of events.”

  “I understand. Now how do we get out of here? The naga will not be pleased with us.”

  “The pineapple,” he said promptly. He brought out pen and pad and sketched a grenade with a safety lock. “Invoke.” It slid off the page into his hand. It had a dangerous heft.

  “The pineapple,” she agreed, eying it nervously.

  “Stand behind me,” he said. She did.

  He released the safety and hurled the grenade at the door. Then he turned to put his arms protectively around Mindy, not knowing how bad the blowback would be.

  The pineapple detonated and blew the door apart. The blast of hot air threw them up against the barred window. Fortunately it was secure.

  They untangled and got to their feet. The door was a tangle of smoking metal bars. They had no trouble stepping through and out of the cell.

  A serpent slithered up. It changed into Nara Naga, gloriously nude as usual. “What’s this?” she demanded.

  “It’s a prison break,” Bryce said. “Don’t try to stop us.”

  “Where did you get a pineapple?” she demanded. “What’s all the fuss outside?”

  “You haven’t been paying much attention, have you,” Bryce said.

  “I’ve been busy sweating bullets to get our accounts straight.” She brushed a couple of bullets from her shoulder. “Now get back in that cell.”

  “Or what?” Bryce asked.

  “Or I’ll freak you out and put you there myself.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  She tried, impatiently. She stepped in to him, pressing her bare body against him. But before she could freak him out, he put both hands around her throat and squeezed. “Try sweating my fingers off,” he suggested.

  She fought him a moment, then transformed into serpent form and slithered free. In a moment she was gone.

  “You’re learning,” Mindy remarked.

  “Yes. After what she set us up for, I have no use for her, no matter how seductive her shape. Now let’s get to the top before the naga organize to stop us. We don’t have the firepower Piper does.”

  They located the stairway to the mesa. They pushed the door up and open and emerged. Then Bryce rolled a large rock on top of it, to prevent the naga from following rapidly.

  Bryce drew a large-sized carpet. They wrestled it down, hastily taming it, then piled the four folded trikes on.

  Other lids lifted, and serpents crawled out. “They have more than one door!” Bryce said.

  “We’ve got to get off the mesa!”

  Mindy got on the carpet on her hands and knees. “You steer. I can’t look.”

  Her fear of heights. He understood the problem, but the snakes were assuming human form and were closing in. Recapture would be doom.

  Bryce got on, sat in the center, then put her head up against his chest, holding her close to him so that she couldn’t see beyond his body. He started the carpet moving, and sailed off the edge of the mesa just as the naga converged. They had made it!

  But the carpet was new, and awkwardly loaded, and they were not properly balanced. They spun about and swooped downward. Mindy screamed and clutched him desperately. Bryce fought to restore balance and elevation, and succeeded after a brief struggle.

  They lifted up to regular ground height, and soon were there, since there was no contrary headwind. Bryce landed. “We’re safe,” he said.

  Mindy opened her clamped eyes, then got to her feet. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”

  “It’s been rough on you,” Bryce said. “But all’s well now.”

  “Except that we need to rendezvous with Piper and Anna.”

  “Why don’t you stay here while I take the carpet down the slope to see if I can spy them?”

  “Don’t forget me,” she said, clearly relieved by the chance to avoid further heights.

  “I wouldn’t do that!” Then he realized she was joking. She was recovering her humor, now that they were back on solid ground. He unloaded the trikes and sat on the carpet.

  He sailed down and cruised along the south wall of the chasm. Before long he spied monster and maiden crawling up the wall. “I can take you up,” he called.

  “Bryce!” Anna exclaimed gladly. “You escaped!” Her clothing was torn from the goblins’ attack, but she seemed to be all right.

  “We did,” he agreed. “Mindy’s waiting. Get on the carpet.” He hovered close.

  Anna stepped onto the carpet, no longer glued to the monster, and sat beside him. Then Piper transformed and climbed on too. The two embraced, taking up less room on the carpet, and maybe just because they wanted to. Bryce carried them all up, and in three moments they were safe on the brink.

  Anna stepped onto land and collapsed into shudders. This was understandable, after what she had been through. Mindy put her arm around her. “I was terrified, but you had it worse,” she said. “Those horrible monsters!” Anna clung to her, sobbing, knowing she was referring to the harpies, goblins, and nickelpedes.

  “I would have fried them all,” Piper said grimly.

  “They deserved it,” Bryce agreed. He had not appreciated before just how ugly Xanth could get.

  After a while Anna recovered, being of a strong emotional constitution. She found a shirt to replace the one the goblins had torn, and put it on. Bryce felt guilty for regretting the loss of the spot glimpses of her torso the torn one had provided. His youthened body tended to notice such things more than his old mind thought proper. Nara Naga had been fiendishly tempting, too, despite his detestation of her nature. Sometimes the impulses of the body warred with the sense of the mind.

  “Let’s get moving,” Anna said.

  “We make a good team,” Piper said as they reorganized, tearing the carpet into four smaller ones as they had done before.

  “Thanks to you,” Bryce said. “Without your special abilities, we would have been lost.”

  “Something should be done about those conniving naga,” Piper said.

  “No need,” Mindy said. “We gave the harpies to understand that the naga planted you there on purpose, to wipe them and the goblins and nickelpedes out.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Bryce protested. “I got confused.”

  Piper nodded. “So now the others will think the naga are their enemy. Things should get interesting on Menace Mesa.”

  “That seems likely,” Bryce agreed, suppressing a shudder. All four groups of creatures were distressingly bloodthirsty. But he doubted they were typical of the rest of their respective kinds, except for the nickelpedes.

  “It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving group,” Anna said with feeling. They all laughed, albeit somewhat uneasily. It had been a very bad siege.

  They decided not to delay, but to fly straight on down to the Gold Coast before nightfall. They wanted no further complications on the way. They had lost too much time on Menace Mesa, putting their schedule in danger.

  Bryce was amazed as he saw the color. “It really is golden!”

  “Things tend to be literal here, remember,” Mindy said.

  “I know. But every so often it catches me by surprise anyway. So what are we to find here?”

  Mindy rolled down her parchment again, but it had no addendum. “We’ll just have to look around.”

  “What’s that?” Anna asked.

  It turned out to be a golden pedestal supporting a golden box containing a scintillating large gemstone. Behind it was an enormous gold beetle, an ornately carved scarab whose carapace gleamed iridescently in the waning sunlight. This was obviously a setting of some sort,
and surely relevant to their Quest.

  “It must be what we’re looking for,” Mindy said. “The gem, not the big bug.”

  “You never can tell,” Piper said. “It’s late; do we want to explore this now, or leave it for the morning?”

  Anna looked at him. “What do you prefer?”

  “If it is another Object, as seems likely, one of us will win it and depart. It might be you. It might be me.”

  “Yes,” Anna agreed. “That was my thought.”

  “I’d rather spend this night with you, rather than risk having one of us depart right now.”

  “Oh, yes!” Then she glanced at Bryce and Mindy. “If the others don’t mind.”

  Mindy laughed. “We don’t mind. I’ll forage for supper.”

  Bryce realized that despite the way Piper had rescued her, Anna still needed confirmation that he was personally interested in her. Women were like that. Piper had confirmed it. They would spend a loving night together.

  Soon they had eaten golden pies that were nevertheless nutritious, and drunk from golden pods, and had found golden cloth to make two small tents. Piper and Anna disappeared into one, and Bryce and Mindy shared the other, clothed.

  “Bleep, I envy them,” Mindy murmured, well knowing what the couple was up to.

  Bryce could not give her a similar confirmation. “I am not going to molest you.”

  “I know. Sometimes I wish there were more monster in you. When this Quest is done we may never see each other again. I really wouldn’t object if you wanted to—to take advantage of me. I wouldn’t tell.”

  She was not Nara Naga, but she was a young woman, and evidently more than willing. Bryce’s young body was tempted. But he knew it would not be right. “Maybe when the Quest is done, and the princess has rejected me, we could get together, if you still want to.”

  “I will still want to,” she said. Then she took his hand, kissed it, and went to sleep with his hand in her possession.

  Actually there were ways in which Mindy would be better for him than the princess, setting aside things like the love spell on him and the extreme difference in ages. She was fun to be with, and she helped him a lot with unfamiliar aspects of Xanth. He liked the way she laughed. He thought of the way he had loved one woman in Mundania, but married another, and found the one he married in the end to be the better choice. There could be a parallel. But it was not a decision he was ready to make. He did love the princess, artificial as he knew that to be, and was not one for incidental dalliance on the side.