They lowered the lifeboat. A reflector lamp from the other ship bathed them in its light. Fanchon held the vial aloft. "I'll drop it!" she screamed at the enemy. "Hit me with an arrow-the elixir drowns with me."
"Give it back," Trent's voice called from the other ship. "I pledge to let you both go free."
"Ha!" she muttered. "Bink, can you row this boat yourself? I'm afraid to set this thing down while we're in range of their arrows. I want to be sure that no matter what happens to us, they don't get this stuff."
"I'll try," Bink said. He settled himself, grabbed the oars, and heaved.
One oar cracked into the side of the ship. The other dug into the water. The boat skewed around. "Push off!" Fanchon exclaimed. "You almost dumped me."
Bink tried to put the end of one oar against the ship, to push, but it didn't work because he could not maneuver the oar free of its oarlock. But the current carried the boat along until it passed beyond the end of the ship.
"We're going into the Shield!" Fanchon cried, waving the vial. "Row! Row! Turn the boat!"
Bink put his back into it. The problem with rowing was that he faced backward; he could not see where he was going. Fanchon perched in the stem, holding the vial aloft, peering ahead. He got the feel of the oars and turned the boat, and now the shimmering curtain came into view on the side. It was rather pretty in its fashion, its ghostly glow parting the night-but he recoiled from its horror.
"Go parallel to it," Fanchon directed. "The closer we stay, the harder it'll make it for the other ship. Maybe they'll give up the pursuit."
Bink pulled on the oars. The boat moved ahead. But he was unused to this particular form of exertion, and not recovered from his fatigue of the swim, and he knew he couldn't keep it up long.
"You're going into the Shield!" Fanchon cried.
Bink looked. The Shield loomed closer, yet he was not rowing toward it. "The current," he said. "Carrying us sideways." He had naively thought that once he started rowing, all other vectors ceased.
"Row away from the Shield," she cried. "Quickly!"
He angled the boat-but the Shield did not retreat. The current was bearing them on as fast as he could row. To make it worse, the wind was now changing-and rising. He was holding even at the moment, but he was tiring rapidly. "I can't-keep this-up!" he gasped, staring at the glow.
"There's an island," Fanchon said. "Angle toward it."
Bink looked around. He saw a black something cutting the waves to the side. Island? It was no more than a treacherous rock. But if they could anchor to it-
He put forth a desperate effort-but it was not enough. A storm was developing. They were going to miss the rock. The dread Shield loomed nearer.
"I'll help," Fanchon cried. She set down the vial, crawled forward, and put her hands on the oars, opposite his hands. She pushed, synchronizing her efforts with his.
It helped. But Bink, fatigued, was distracted. In the erratic moonlight, blotted out intermittently by the thickening, fast-moving clouds above, her naked body lost some of its shapelessness and assumed the suggestion of more feminine contours. Shadow and imagination could make her halfway attractive-and that embarrassed him; because he had no right to think of such things. Fanchon could be a good companion, if only-
The boat smashed into the rock. It tilted-rock or craft or both. "Get hold! Get hold!" Fanchon cried as water surged over the side.
Bink reached out and tried to hang on to the stone. It was both abrasive and slippery. A wave broke over him; filling his mouth with its salty spume. Now it was black; the clouds had completed their engulfment of the moon.
"The elixir!" Fanchon cried. "I left it in the-" She dived for the flooded stem of the boat.
Bink, still choking on sea water, could not yell at her. He clung to the rock with his hands, his fingers finding purchase in a crevice, anchoring the boat with his hooked knees. He suffered a foolish vision: if a giant drowning in the ocean grabbed on to the land of Xanth for support, his fingers would catch in the chasm, the Gap. Maybe that was the purpose of the Gap. Did the tiny inhabitants of this isolated rock resent the crevice that Bink's giant fingers had found? Did they have forget spells to remove it from their awareness?
There was a distant flash of lightning. Bink saw the somber mass of ragged stone: no miniature people on it. But there was a glint, as of light reflecting from a knob in the water. He stared at it, but the lightning was long since gone, and he was squinting at the mere memory, trying to make out the surrounding shape. For it had been a highlight from something larger.
Lightning flashed again, closer. Bink saw briefly but clearly.
It was a toothy reptilian creature. The highlight had been from its malignant eye.
"A sea monster!" he cried, terrified.
Fanchon labored at an oar, finally extricating it from its lock. She aimed it at the monster and shoved.
Thunk! The end of the oar struck the armored green snout. The creature backed off.
"We've got to get away from here," Bink cried.
But as he spoke, another wave broke over them. The boat was lifted and wrenched away from his feet. He put one arm about Fanchon's skinny waist and hung on. It seemed the fingers of his other hand would break-but they remained wedged in the crevice, and he held his position.
In the next trough the lightning showed small saillike projections moving in the water. What were they?
Then another monster broke water right beside him; he saw it in the phosphorescence that the complete darkness had attuned his eyes to. It seemed to have a single broad eye across its face, and a round, truncated snout. Huge wattles were at the sides. Bink was transfixed by terror, though he knew that most of the details were really from his imagination. He could only stare at the thing as the lightning permitted.
And the lightning confirmed his imagination. It was a hideous monster!
Bink struggled with his terror to form some plan of defense. One hand clung to the rock; the other held Fanchon. He could not act. But maybe Fanchon could. "Your oar-" he gasped.
The monster acted first. It put its hands to its face-and lifted the face away. Underneath, was the face of Evil Magician Trent "You fools have caused enough trouble! Give me the elixir, and I'll have the ship throw us a line."
Bink hesitated. He was bone weary and cold, and knew he could not hold out much longer against storm and current. It was death to stay here.
"There's a crocodile sniffing around," Trent continued. "And several sharks. Those are just as deadly as the mythical monsters you are familiar with. I have repellent-but the current is carrying it away as rapidly as it diffuses into the water, so it's not much help. On top of that, sometimes whirlpools develop around these rocks, especially during storms. We need help now-and I alone can summon it. Give me that vial!"
"Never!" Fanchon cried. She dived into the black waves.
Trent snapped the mask back over his face and dived after her. As he moved, Bink saw that the Magician was naked except for his long sword strapped to a harness. Bink dived after him, not even thinking of what he was doing.
They met in a tangle underwater. In the dark and bubbly swirl, there was nothing but mutual mischief. Bink tried to swim to the surface, uncertain as to what foolishness had prompted him to dive here but sure that he could only drown himself. But someone had a death grip on him. He had to get up, to get his head in air so he could breathe. The water had hold of them all, carrying them around and around.