Part 6 (2/2)
”We a.s.sumed so, but how do we know? The Good Magician makes his own rules! He could have put the challenges anywhere along the route.”
”But if they are slanted for particular visitors, how would the right ones be there for the right visitors? There are three of us.”
But her excellent centaur mind was operating now. ”I think he knew we were coming, and from which directions we were coming, so he could have set things up for each of us that the others wouldn't encounter.”
”But he didn't!” Esk pointed out. ”We all encountered the little dragons.”
She looked at the cage. ”Look-there are dragon droppings in there, and the bars are soiled with soot. Those little smokers were in there, but they got out!”
”They were let out,” Volney said. ”That cage hav a clavp only a human paw could operate. Mine couldn't.”
”Why would they be let out before they were used?” Esk asked.
Chex shook her head. ”I don't have the answer to that, but let's see if we can work it out. We three arrived together, and we helped each other get here. Does that seem usual?”
”No,” Esk said. ”I thought it was supposed to be one at a time.”
”Well, let's pattern it. If things hadn't gone wrong, who would have come here first?”
”You would. You overshot the intersection; otherwise you would have arrived first, and then me, and finally Volney.”
”So it seems reasonable that the Good Magician was setting up for me first. Now what would have been good challenges for me?”
'The mountain!” Esk exclaimed. ”You're claustrophobic, so you were afraid to go into the tunnel until you realized that it was all illusion.”
”And that could have been my first challenge,” she said. ”To figure out the nature of the mountain, as I certainly should have done, because of my dam's map. But I failed that challenge and turned back.”
”Then I failed it too, because I was with you.”
”But if you had come alone, you would have gone on through the tunnel, because you aren't claustrophobic,” she said. ”So it wasn't a challenge for you; it didn't matter whether you caught onto its nature.”
”But that chasm inside-that would have stopped me, if I didn't fall into it.”
”Whereas I had no trouble with that,” she said excitedly. ”So maybe those were two challenges, one for each of us, set up together because we were likely to arrive so close together that there wasn't time to set up complete alternates. It is making sense!”
”The lake!” Volney said. ”I could not crow the water! That wav my challenge! And the chavm too, becauve there was more water below it, ekvending down and down.”
”Yes. Because we were with you, we got you across, just as you got us through the mountain. We helped each other past each other's challenges! I doubt we were supposed to.”
”But what about the little smokers?” Esk asked. ”We did not release them.”
She contemplated the open cage. ”I think that collection of dragons would have been a formidable challenge for any of us. How could we have gotten by that?”
”I might have,” Esk said. ”I could have climbed over the cage, and said no to any that tried to grab me through the bars.”
”True. So that wasn't your challenge after all. But it would have been much more difficult for me or for Volney, because we don't climb. Just hanging onto our staffs across the chasm was all he could do. I suppose I might have tied a line to the cage and hauled it out of the way, but he-”
”I fear I would have had to turn back,” the vole said. ”Unlevv I had thought of your idea to uve a raft, then uved the branchev to fill hi the chavm vo I could crovv that too.”
”But as it happened, someone released those dragons, and we encountered several along the paths,” she said. ”We really must fathom that mystery before we can make sense of the larger picture.”
”Obviously, something is wrong,” Esk said. ”Those smokers weren't meant to be loose, they were meant to be caged, and only get loose if the challengee messed up. Someone cut off the challenge before it started.”
”So it seems,” she agreed. ”Would the Good Magician himself have done it?”
”I don't see why. If he didn't want the dragons here, he would not have brought them.”
”The Gorgon, then?”
”She wouldn't mess up what he set up!”
”I agree,” she said. ”Could someone else have done it?”
”It doesn't seem likely.”
”So we are left with the inexplicable,” she concluded. ”Perhaps now it is time to enter the castle, expecting the unexpected.”
Esk nodded consent, nervously. Volney did not look any more comfortable.
They stepped on the drawbridge. They hauled the empty cage off, then crossed on over.
Suddenly an ogre loomed up before them. The thing was monstrous and hairy and ugly, and both Chex and Volney retreated in alarm.
But Esk's reaction was opposite! ”Grandpa!” he exclaimed.
But it was not Crunch Ogre. It was some other male, not quite as ugly, but still quite formidable. It blocked their way.
”We're only coming to talk to the Good Magician,” Esk said, strongly suspecting that this would not provoke any reasonable response. ”Will you let us by?”
He was correct. The ogre ope'd his ponderous and marbled maw and made a bellow of rage that shook the castle.
How was he to get past with his companions? Esk realized that this was a challenge, and it was his to meet and solve. But almost nothing could make an ogre stand aside; he was in a position to know that. Nothing except- Except another ogre. There was the key!
But Esk could not invoke his ogre self just because he wanted to. It came of its own accord, when triggered by erratic circ.u.mstances.
Still, sometimes it was possible to arrange the trigger. It was risky- but so was standing before an ogre as if ready to be eaten.
”Wish me luck,” Esk muttered back to the others. Then he strode forward, directly into the ogre.
For a moment the ogre was startled by this temerity. Then it grabbed for him with a ham hand.
Esk saw that meat hook coming, and his ogre nature reacted. Suddenly he roared, his ogre strength surging. ”Go 'way, me say!” he bellowed, and bit at the other's paw.
The other reacted astonis.h.i.+ngly. It shrank away, literally; as it retreated, it became smaller, until it looked very much like a man, and Esk towered over it. But Esk, his ogre dander up, wasn't satisfied; he smashed at it with his own ham fist.
Something shattered. Fragments of gla.s.s flew out, and the other ogre was gone. Esk stood before a man-sized frame from which jags of gla.s.s projected.
<script>