Roc And A Hard Place (31 page)

But there was still a chance to slant it down to the lake.

She pumped until she thought her heart would burst, watching the land rush up beneath her.  She couldn't see the lake now; was she going in the right direction?  She must be, because forward was the one way she could not see.

But she couldn't let the egg take the shock by itself; it could be cracked open.  So as the tops of the trees loomed close beneath, she let go, turned, and launched herself back into the incubation chamber.  She was diving for the nest just as the castle struck the water.

There was a horrendous swish.  Walls of water sailed up all around, visible through the higher windows.  The castle came to a sudden but not calamitous partial halt—and bounced back up.  It was skipping across the water like a clumsy stone!  Because she had succeeded in angling it forward at a faster rate than it was falling.  She overshot the nest, because everything but her was slowing down drastically.  She scrambled to turn around, so as to get back on the nest and protect the egg.

The bounce reversed, and the castle descended again.  The egg sailed out of the stone nest.  Roxanne leaped at it, and caught it in her talons, oh-so-carefully, so that it would not fall back against the stone.  But she was falling now, too.  So she pushed her wings down, hard, to break her fall and keep the egg clear of the hard nest.  Normally the safest place in Xanth was between the roc and the hard place, but not in this circumstance.

The castle skipped again, rising a second time.  It came up hard under her.  Her wings took the shock, and she was able to land in the nest and lay the egg gently back in it.  But she felt a terrible shock of pain, and knew that one of her wings was broken.

But she had no chance to be concerned about that.  The castle was Still bouncing across the water, in diminishing hops, rattling the egg dangerously.  She wrapped her wings down under herself and the egg, cushioning the contacts with the hard nest.

At last the awful motion ceased.  She breathed half a squawk of relief—then realized that there was still some motion.  A slow settling.  The castle was sinking in the lake!

She left the egg, secure for the moment, and scrambled back outside.  Water was covering the surface of the cloud and lapping at the base of the castle itself.  The castle was light, but the cloudstuff was getting waterlogged, so that in the end it would sink to the bottom.  How deep was the lake?

She didn't know, but feared it was way beyond the height of the castle.  The egg would drown at the bottom of the lake.

Unless she could do something to shore it up.  If she could make it float—

She clawed at the cloudstuff of the cloud-island's rim, hauling it up.  A fragment tore out, leaving a gap.  She quickly jammed it back down, but at an angle, so that part of a rim formed.  One advantage of the deteriorating nature of the cloudstuff was that it was now malleable; she could shape it to her whim.

She moved around the edge, turning it up and jamming it in place.  Soon she had a boat of sorts, or raft.  But it was waterlogged, and still slowly sinking.  So she formed a channel-ramp, low inside, high outside, set herself at the low side, dug in, and began flapping her wings again.  Pain shot through her left wing with every stroke, but she gritted her beak and forced the motion through.  She was directing her backdraft across the water, by the crude channel.

As she pumped harder, the wind pushed the water along the channel, and on off the cloudbank.  More water seeped in to fill its place, and this, too, was forced along the channel and out.  Soon she had a weak fountain of water forming, squirting off the edge of her island, and the level on the island was dropping.  As it did, the island became more buoyant, and the castle slowly lifted.  She was succeeding in making it float!

At last the cloud surface was mostly dry, and she was able to relax.  Her broken wing was smarting something awful, and the rest of her was almost worn out.  But she had succeeded in saving the castle, and with it the egg.  That was all that mattered.

She checked on the egg, and it was secure.  She didn't have to sit on it all the time; it was large enough and dense enough to hold its heat for some while.  Still, it wouldn't hurt to—

The castle shook.  She scrambled back outside to check.

There was a ship trying to collide with it!  A big boat, filled with annoying-looking people- Its side was banging into the cloudwall, threatening to dent it and let the water pour back in .

“What are you doing?” she demanded angrily.  “Get away from here!” But all that came out, of course, was two squawks, which she knew from experience were indecipherable to ignorant human folk.  Indeed, they were standing at the rail of the ship, staring stupidly at her.

Then she saw the name of the boat:  RELATIONSHIP.  This was the craft that carried all the relatives!  Naturally folk hated to see its approach, because relatives tended to be a pain, particularly those of one's spouse.  These were probably kissing cousins, because this was Lake Kiss Mee.  Right now they looked quite sour, though, because the magic was gone.

She braced one foot against the ship, and hooked the other into the cloudstuff, and managed to shove the ship away- It drifted onward, toward whatever fate any relationship was doomed to suffer.

Now she had time to ponder.  Obviously the magic had departed, for what reason she wasn't competent to wonder.

The Nameless Castle had lost its enchantment, and surely the spell that denied her the ability to fly was also gone—except that the magic of rocs was the ability to fly, because no other creature their size could do it.  So the loss of the magic had the same effect on her as the null-spell.  And of course, her broken wing would have prevented her from flying anyway.

The question was, would the magic return?  She had to assume that it would, because otherwise she and the castle and the egg were doomed.  The proper place for them was in the sky, where it was safe; down here on land or water, it would be only a matter of time before land monsters attacked, or a storm blew it over.

But she had no control over that.  All she could do was wait—and hope.  And keep the precious egg warm.

She went back to the nest and sat on the egg.  She tried to sleep, but her wing was too painful.  She wished she had access to a healing spring, but realized that the healing elixir wouldn't work without magic.  So she simply steeled herself against the pain and waited.

Every so often she went outside and repaired the deteriorating rim.  She judged that if the magic stayed away more than a day, there would be nothing more she could do to preserve the castle, because the cloudstuff continued to sag.

It would founder, and disappear under the water.

Unless she could guide the castle to land, so that at least it couldn't sink.  Yes—that was her best course.

She anchored her feet and pumped her wings again.  The pain flared awfully, but she kept at it, until at last the soggy floating island bumped up against land.  She nudged it as far up as she could, then rested.  Now it wouldn't sink, at least.

She returned to the egg, and sat on it, warming it with her body.  It took her a while to snooze, because of her pain and fatigue—and when she did, more trouble came.

There was a horrible howling near the castle.  Some monster was coming; and it sounded dangerous.  She scrambled out to assess the situation, because she did not want to be surprised on the nest.  The big disadvantage to perching the cloud isle on land was that it was now exposed to the depredations of land creatures, which could be about as bad as the sea creatures.  Worse, really, because surely there had been no unfriendly ceatures in the Kiss Mee lake.

It was something that might once have been a dragon, but now was a crazed obscurity in the night.  It snapped at the fringe of cloudstuff, tearing out huge gobs.  It lurched toward the castle itself.

Roxanne gave a squawk for challenge and charged it.  She could not let it chew up the softening fabric of the castle and perhaps get at the egg itself.  She was in no condition to fight, but she had to protect what remained of her charge, in case the magic ever came back.

The monster hissed and whirled on her.  Its eyes glared balefully.  It was confused and maddened by the loss of magic, but it was large and vicious.  Maybe it was the remnant of a sphinx.  All she wanted was to make it go away, but she feared that it would feel no pain and would not be bluffed.

She was right.  The monster snapped and clawed at her, gouging out feathers and flesh.  She retreated—away from the castle.  It followed, intent only on viciousness.  So she continued to hold its attention, luring it away from the castle.

She could have fled, and saved herself a beating, but she wanted to be sure it was far enough away so that it would not blunder into the castle again.  So she endured the unrelenting attack, though hardly any part of her body escaped laceration and bruising.

When she was finally satisfied, she backpedaled faster, escaping the nearly mindless thing.  But now she was so worn and battered that she wasn't sure she could straggle back to the castle herself, let alone defend it from other predators.

She wanted simply to collapse and expire.

But she didn't.  She dragged herself in what she thought was the right direction.  After a time the deadly fatigue overwhelmed her and she sank down on the ground, unconscious.

But after more time she recovered a bit, and resumed dragging.  She couldn't leave the egg vulnerable!

She had no idea how long she dragged and collapsed, dragged and collapsed, but certainly time was passing.  Her concern for the egg grew; when would it cool too far?  She had to get there, and collapse on top of it, so that it would have its best chance, regardless what happened to her.  Even if she died, her body would take time to cool—perhaps time enough for the magic to return.  Then—

Then what?  The egg needed her protection with magic as much as without it.

Her consciousness was dimming, but she realized that she had to do more.  She had to find a way to get the castle back in the sky, where it and the egg would be safe.  If the magic returned, the castle might recover, and float again.  But she had to be with it, warming and protecting the egg.

But what could she do?  She was so far gone that just getting to the castle might be more than she could manage, and then she would be unable to do anything more useful than warming the egg.

She pondered, and slowly came to some conclusions.  First, if the magic did not return, all was lost; the egg, Roxanne herself, and all Xanth.  Second, if the magic returned, there was a way to help.  But first she had to help herself, because otherwise the egg would be lost anyway.  And if the magic returned, there was a way.

She had to find a healing spring.  And she remembered that there was one in this vicinity; it was one of the numerous springs that fed the Kiss Mee lake.  For there was healing in kissing.  Where was it?

She struggled with her memory, and concluded that the spring was no farther from her than the castle was.  So she changed her course and dragged toward the spring.  If the magic did not return, it would be no good, but since in that case everything would be lost anyway, it didn't matter.  If the magic did return, it could be the salvation of the egg.

At length she reached the place she remembered.  There was an indifferent pool, but the growth of vegetation around it was good, suggesting that normally it existed in supreme health.  This had to be it.

She would need to take a quantity of it with her.  So she labored to fashion a watertight container.  She gathered leaves and twigs and clay, and tediously pieced together a bag, drawing on bird lore that was older than magic.  Now, if the spring ever resumed its power, she would be ready.

She stood at the brink of it, and relaxed.  She had done what she could.  As she relaxed, she lost her balance, and fell forward into the spring.  She landed with a great splash, and sank down below the surface of the water, too tired to try to climb back out.  She knew she would drown, but her last physical resource had been expended making the bag; now she could not save herself.

Then something happened.  She was feeling better!  The pains and rawnesses of her mangled body had faded, and she saw that her plucked feathers had been restored.  But that was impossible, unless— The magic had returned!

But why hadn't she drowned, even so?  She was floating beak down in the pool, not breathing.

Then she realized that it was impossible to drown in a healing spring, because it constantly healed whatever damage the body suffered.  The magic had returned in time to save her.  Or maybe it had returned after she had drowned, and restored her.  It didn't matter; she was suddenly fit to proceed.

She was no longer horribly fatigued, and her broken wing was whole.

She hauled herself out, and filled her bag with the precious elixir.  Then she charged for the castle, at a phenomenally faster rate than before.  In two and a half moments she was there—and saw the castle walls stiffening.  Magic gave them their hardness.

But more was required.  She lifted the bag and held it over the gouged rim of the cloud isle.  If this worked—

The rent healed.  The cloudstuff had just enough life in it to respond to the healing elixir.  Her desperate ploy was working.

She walked all around the isle, carefully dripping elixir on every wound.  Then she went inside, and dripped more elixir on the castle's injuries.  These, too, healed.  Finally she came to the nest, and the egg, which was shivering with cold, and dropped the last drop on it.  The shivering stopped; the egg, too, had healed.

She climbed on top of it—and felt the castle move.  It was floating again!  It lifted from the ground, at first slowly, then more swiftly, as the healing elixir penetrated to the last of the damaged crevices.

She had done it.  She had saved the egg.  That was all that mattered.  All was well again.

“The Defense rests,” Ida said as the illusion image faded.

“Your Witness.”

But for some reason Grey didn't choose to question Roxanne further.