The Color Of Her Panties (27 page)

They used the ladder in turn and stood by the dark water.  The bats hovered again, watching.  They were evidently guardians of the den.  The snake slithered down the ladder and into the water.  So they followed, distressing as it was for Mela.  Once she landed her husband and returned to the sea, she would never touch fresh water again.

They swam in single file.  The snake took a breath and dived under the surface, and Mela followed.  She saw vicious little piranha fish, and was suddenly nervous, because without her tail (which she would not trust to this water) she could not swim fast enough to avoid them.  But they did not attack; they merely watched.  Draco must have given them the word.  The dragon had guardians in both the air and the water, making his precious nest secure..  “Yet obviously the demons could reach it, since they had conjured the three damsels there, and the goblins had raided it.  So nothing was perfect.

There was an underwater passage leading out.  They used it, and soon came to an end of the water in a dry cave.

Someone going the other way would never know that the dark pool led to a dragon's lair!  Mela had been surprised to see the dragon swim away, but she really had never known a lot about dragons.  It was evident that some flying dragons could indeed swim, and that some firedrakes could handle water.  Just as some merfolk could handle land, when they had to.

They saw daylight beyond, so paused to put their clothing back on.  Since Mela's original clothing remained wet, she had to use the Freudian slip and slippers again, and her algae bra.  The bra was all right; in fact she hoped to continue using it after this was over, because it derived from the sea and was comfortable.

But the slip was treacherous, and she didn't trust it at all.  It seemed to be out to embarrass her by “accidentally” showing things she very much did not want to show.  The slippers were almost as bad; they tended to slip on the ground when someone was watching.  They caused her legs to slip out of their covering at odd moments, so that more of them showed than intended.

This could have been very embarrassing, if she hadn't taken the trouble to form good legs.

They came to the cave opening.  It turned out to be in the slope of a mountain, with a sheer drop to the level ground.  What now?

A four-legged griffin approached, its fierce eagle's head orienting on them as the paws of its lion's body reached for them.  It hovered as close as it could to the cave, but it was shaped the wrong way to land there.

Naldo resumed his naga form.  “One of you catch onto the griffin's legs,” he said.  The downdraft from the wings was blowing his hair straight back.

“But-” Mela said, with a qualm that was more than mere doubt.

“Draco has enlisted them to carry you to Mount Parnassus, “ Naldo explained.  “But one griffin can carry only one person.  Gregor Griffin will set you on his back once you catch on.  Trust him; he is sworn to protect Che Centaur.

Mela's faith was distinctly weak.  Griffins had been known to slaughter and eat luscious merwomen such as herself.  But she realized that she had to set an appropriate example.  Besides, her slip was trying to slip to the side again, and her slippers were trying to make her feet slip out from under her so that she would sit down suddenly with her slip flying over her head.  She had to get into a better situation.  So she stomped on the nearest qualm, shored up her faint faith, and reached out to take hold of the monster's front legs.

The griffin flew up, and Mela was dragged off the mountain.  She dangled in the air, under the griffin, feeling like the clapper of a bell.  She tried to scream, but before she got enough breath for a respectable effort, the griffin hoisted his front legs and sent her looping up over his head.  She did an appalled flip in the air and landed-plop-on his back, right between his beating wings.

She finally got her breath in order, and made ready to scream.  But by then she realized that she no longer had cause.  She was riding the griffin, and no one could see her panty even if the slip tried to show it, because she was too far from the ground.

She hung on to the griffin's feathery mane and glanced back.  There was another griffin behind, with Okra on it.

Farther back was a third, with Ida.  They were all safely riding.  What a relief!

Now the three griffins winged swiftly south.  Surprisingly soon they were crossing the Gap Chasm.  Mela peered down, trying to see whether the cave they had taken to the demons' realm was there, but they were flying so high that the details were only a blur.  It was amazing the way Professor Grossclout had conjured them so far to the dragon's cave, just like that.  She would never want to run afoul of the professor, for sure!

The griffins accelerated.  Now the scenery fairly whizzed by.  Xanth was like a huge carpet, with forests, rivers, lakes, and fields painted on.

Most lakes were small, like puddles, but there was one larger one which looked like pursed lips.  “Lake Kiss-Mee!“ she exclaimed, thrilled by the identification.  She had been there, not all that long ago.  A line extended south of it which had to be the Kiss-Mee River, up which Okra had paddled.

They followed that line down until it touched a much larger lake.  That would be Ogre-Chobee, where the curse fiends resided.  Plus a few stray ogres, as Okra had shown.

Then they angled southwest, crossing dense jungle.  Finally the very tip of a mountain showed ahead-and the griffins swooped down to the land.

That would be because they were not allowed to fly too close to Mount Parnassus.

But it would still be a long walk for Mela and her companions.

But the griffins did not stop.  They touched land, folded their wings, and ran on four feet on toward the mountain.

So that was why Draco had enlisted the four-legged variety!  They could take the travelers a good deal closer to the mountain without getting into trouble.

In due course the griffins halted.  They were now quite near the base of Mount Parnassus, but not touching it.  The winged monsters had gone as far as they dared go.

Mela dismounted.  “Thank you, Gregor,” she said with genuine gratitude.

“You have saved me a long, hard trek.”

Then she kissed the griffin on the beak.

Gregor's face feathers changed from golden to beet.

Mela was sympathetic, having experienced something similar when the Freudian slip misbehaved.  Probably the creature was frustrated at not being able to consume her tender flesh.

Soon the griffins were running away.  All the three of them had to do now was find a way to the top of the mountain without getting eaten by the wild Maenads or the monstrous Python.  Mela hoped they were up to it.

Mela verified her memory of the hazards in her manual, then explained the problem.  “We can't just climb up.  The Maenads are wild women who chase down and eat any intruders, and those they don't catch the terrible Python does.  There are Muses on the mountain, but they don't interfere, and anyway, it's the Simurgh at the top who we have to see.”

“Maybe I could bash a Maenad,” Okra said.

“But they travel in wild screaming packs,” Mela said.

“While you were bashing one, the others would get us. No, we want to avoid them entirely, if we can.”

“Maybe there's a path they aren't on,” Okra said.

“Yes, maybe there is,” Ida agreed.  “We have only to find it, and then we can go straight up and not have any trouble.  No Maenads, no Python.”

Mela started to object, but realized that it was pointless.

They had to go up the mountain, and hope that they did not encounter its menaces.  Why make the others afraid?

Even if they were doomed to be caught and eaten, there was no point in proceeding with fear.  Okra believed that major characters never had anything really bad happen to them; that would be nice, if Mela could be sure that she herself was a major character.  Considering the death of her husband, Merwin, way back when, she doubted that she could be major.

So she had no security, and neither did Ida.  The only way to avoid the dangers was not to go up the mountain, and then they wouldn't complete their quests.

But she did think it was cruel of Naldo Naga to send them on this dangerous mission.  He should have gone himself, but instead was saving his hide by making them do it.  Maybe he really had no solutions for them, but figured he would not have to provide any, because they would not survive this mission.

No, that was unfair.  The naga folk were honorable, and he was a prince, therefore responsible.  So he would honor the deal.  But he had certainly driven a cruelly hard bargain!

Okra and Ida were searching for a good path.  Mela joined them, with less enthusiasm.  She was older than they were, and versed in the horrors life could bring, such as the death of one's spouse.  But it was better to leave them their relative innocence as long as possible.

“I found it!” Okra cried.  “It's an invisible path!”

“Wonderful!” Ida exclaimed

“Then how did you find it?” Mela asked more critically.

“I sniffed it out.  See, here it is.“ Okra gestured to an impenetrable thicket of brambles.

Mela was trying not to be unduly negative, but was having a problem.

“That doesn't look like a very good path.”

“That's because you can't see it.  Watch me.“ Okra stepped forward and disappeared in the brambles.

“Wait, you'll get all scratched!” Mela protested.

“No I won't,” the ogress replied.  “The brambles are illusion.  The real brambles don't grow here because they think this space is already filled.  That's what makes this such a good path:  no one uses it, because no one can see it.  The Maenads probably don't want to get scratched either.  It probably goes right to the top of the mountain.”

Mela poked a cautious finger at the mass of brambles.

It encountered nothing.  She put a foot in.  Nothing.  It really was illusion-which meant it was also a serviceable path.  If it continued far enough.

Meanwhile Okra was forging ahead, ogre fashion.  So Mela nerved herself and followed.  Ida came last, smiling.

She had been so sure there would be a path, and lo, there was.  Mela feared that Ida's optimism would inevitably be disabused, but she didn't want to be the one to do it.  Folk tended not to be as nice, after disabusement.

Okra followed her nose, and found the curves and twists of the path.

Anyone without such a keen sense of smell would surely quickly go astray and wind up amidst real brambles.  But the invisible path was kempt, not unkempt, with no blockages or gaps.  Who had made it, and who used it?

When they were perhaps a third of the way up the mountain, they heard a scream.  There was one of the fierce wild women!  The Maenad stood on an intersecting path, and had spied them.  She was as naked as a nymph, and proportioned like a nymph, but her pretty face was distorted into a grimace of hate.  Her hair extended in a stormy cloud around her head.

Her scream was not because of any horror, but was to alert her companions.  In a moment the whole motley crew would be in pursuit.

“Run!” Mela cried.  She hoped the Maenads would not discover the invisible path.

Okra ran, and the other two followed as closely as they could.  The Maenads charged for them, but did not take the invisible path; instead they cut straight across, through the brambles.  In a moment they were howling with pain as well as rage, for they were getting sorely scratched.  It seemed that, much as they delighted in scratching others, they did not like being on the receiving end.  Mela realized that if she thought about it, she might remember others with similar attitudes.  So she didn't think about it.

It was working!  The wild women did not know of the path, and it seemed that their sense of smell was not as acute as that of the ogress, so they couldn't sniff it out.  So they thought that brambles were the only way.  They were fighting through them, but losing ground.

Soon the Maenads were out of sight behind.  But the three moved on quickly, despite panting with the effort, to be sure that they were truly clear of the threat.

Mela seemed to remember that snakes had acute senses of smell.  If the Python happened by ...

But their luck held, and no monster snake appeared.

They slowed to a walk, and continued up the slope of the mountain.  They seemed to have had a bit of the luck normally reserved for major characters, as if the script had slipped.

Finally they came to what seemed to be the end of the path.  It ended in a blank stone cliff.  The cliff seemed to extend indefinitely to either side; probably it circled the mountain, so that they could not go around it.  They had to find a way up it.

“Maybe Okra could bash some steps out of the stone,” Ida suggested.

Mela started to protest that that was impossible, but remembered that male ogres could bash stone.  Okra was a far cry from a male ogre, but she had been able to nullify the dragon's breath on the Iron Mountain, so maybe it was possible.  “Maybe she can,” she agreed.

Okra made a fist and pounded the stone, tentatively.  A chip of stone flaked out.  She hit the stone again, harder, and a larger flake was loosened.  “I can do it!” she said, surprised.

“Maybe you just never tried it before,” Ida said.

“Maybe.  I thought stone would hurt my hands.  I'm really not much, as ogres go.”

“You're enough for us,” Ida said warmly.  “Maybe you just never knew your own strength.”

“Maybe that's right,” Okra agreed, staring at the damage she had done to the face of the cliff.

Then she got serious.  She used both fists, and bashed them alternately at the rock, and fragments fairly flew out.

She was doing it!

In due course Okra had made a crude stone stairway, set in the rock like a relief carving.  She even made stone handholds so they could climb the stairs without the danger of falling off.  Mela had never really appreciated ogres before, but she was acquiring a taste for this one.

They wended their way up the stairs, and reached the upper level of the mountain.  This was a slope leading directly to the gigantic tree at the top.  They were in sight of the Tree of Seeds!