It was the whirlpool-an inanimate funnel monster. It sucked them down, spinning, into the depth of its maw. For the second time Bink felt himself drowning-and this time he knew no Sorceress would rescue him.
Chapter 11.
Wilderness
Bink woke with his face in sand. Around him lay the inert tentacles of a green monster.
He groaned and sat up. "Bink!" Fanchon cried gladly, coming across the beach to him.
"I thought it was night," he said.
"You've been unconscious. This cave has magic phosphorescence, or maybe it's Mundane phosphorescence, since there was some on the rock, too. But it's much brighter here. Trent pumped the water out of you, but I was afraid-"
"What's this?" Bink asked, staring at a green tentacle.
"A kraken seaweed," Trent said. "It pulled us out of the drink, intending to consume us-but the vial of elixir broke and killed it. That's all that saved our lives. If the vial had broken earlier, it would have stopped the kraken from catching us, and we all would have drowned; later, and we would already have been eaten. As fortuitous a coincidence of timing as I have ever experienced.''
"A kraken weed!" Bink exclaimed. "But that's magic!"
"We're back in Xanth," Fanchon said.
"But-"
"I conjecture that the whirlpool drew us down below the effective level of the Shield," Trent said. "We passed under it. Perhaps the presence of the elixir helped. A freak accident-and I'm certainly not going to try to reverse that route now. I lost my breathing apparatus on the way in; lucky I got a good dose of oxygen first! We're in Xanth to stay."
"I guess so," Bink said dazedly. He had gradually become accustomed to the notion of spending the rest of his life in Mundania; it was hard to abandon that drear expectation so suddenly. "But why did you save me? Once the elixir was gone-"
"It was the decent thing to do," the Magician said. "I realize you would not appreciate such a notion from my lips, but I can offer no better rationale at the moment. I never had any personal animus against you; in fact, I rather admire your fortitude and personal ethical code. You can go your way now-and I'll go mine."
Bink pondered. He was faced with a new, unfamiliar reality. Back in Xanth, no longer at war with the Evil Magician. The more he reviewed the details, the less sense any of it made. Sucked down by a whirlpool through monster-infested waters, through the invisible but deadly Shield, to be rescued by a man-eating plant, which was coincidentally nullified at precisely the moment required to let them drop safely on this beach? "No," he said. "I don't believe it. Things just don't happen this way."
"It does seem as if we're charmed," Fanchon said. "Though why the Evil Magician should have been included "
Trent smiled. Naked, he was fully as impressive as before. Despite his age, he was a fit and powerful man. "It does seem ironic that the evil should be saved along with the good. Perhaps human definitions are not always honored by nature. But I, like you, am a realist. I don't pretend to understand how we got here-but I do not question that we are here. Getting to land may be more problematical, however. We are hardly out of danger yet."
Bink looked around the cave. Already the air seemed close, though he hoped that was his imagination. There seemed to be no exit except the water through which they had come. In one nook was a pile of clean bones-the refuse of the kraken.
It began to seem less coincidental. What better place for an ocean monster to operate than at the exit to a whirlpool? The sea itself collected the prey, and most of it was killed on the way in by the Shield. The kraken weed had only to sieve the fresh bodies out of the water. And this highly private cave was ideal for leisurely consumption of the largest living animals. They could be deposited here on the beach, and even given food, so that they would remain more or less healthy until the kraken's hunger was sufficient. A pleasant little larder to keep the food fresh and tasty. Any that tried to escape by swimming past the tentacles-ugh! So the kraken could have dropped the human trio here, then been hit by the elixir; instead of split-second timing, it became several-minute timing. Still a coincidence, but a much less extreme one.
Fanchon was squatting by the water, flicking dry leaves into it. The leaves had to be from past seasons of the kraken weed; why it needed them here, with no sunlight, Bink didn't understand. Maybe it had been a regular plant before it turned magic-or its ancestors had been regular-and it still had not entirely adapted. Or maybe the leaves had some other purpose. There was a great deal yet to be understood about nature. At any rate, Fanchon was floating the leaves on the water, and why she wasted her time that way was similarly opaque.
She saw him looking, "I'm tracing surface currents," she said. "See-the water is moving that way. There has to be an exit under that wall."
Bink was impressed again with her intelligence. Every time he caught her doing something stupid, it turned out to be the opposite. She was an ordinary, if ugly, girl, but she had a mind that functioned efficiently. She had plotted their escape from the pit, and their subsequent strategy, and it had nullified Trent's program of conquest. Now she was at it again. Too bad her appearance fell down.
"Of course," Trent agreed. "The kraken can't live in stagnant water; it needs a constant flow. That brings in its food supply and carries away its wastes. We have an exit-if it leads to the surface quickly enough, and does not pass through the Shield again."
Bink didn't like it. "Suppose we dive into that current and it carries us a mile underwater before it comes out? We'd drown."
"My friend," Trent said, "I have been pondering that very dilemma. We can not be rescued by my sailors, because we are obviously beyond the Shield. I do not like to gamble on either the current or what we may discover within it. Yet it seems we must eventually do so, for we can not remain here indefinitely."
Something twitched. Bink looked-and saw one green tentacle writhing. "The kraken's reviving!' he exclaimed. "It isn't dead!"
"Uh-oh," Trent said. "The elixir has thinned out in the current and dissipated. The magic is returning. I had thought that concentration would be fatal to a magic creature, but apparently not."
Fanchon watched the tentacles. Now others were quivering. "I think we'd better get out of here," she said. "Soon."
"But we don't dare plunge into the water without knowing where it goes," Bink objected. "We must be well below the surface. I'd rather stay here and fight than drown."
"I propose we declare a truce between us until we get free," Trent said. "The elixir is gone, and we cannot go back the way we came from Mundania. We shall probably have to cooperate to get out of here-and in the present situation, we really have no quarrel."
Fanchon didn't trust him. "So we help you get out-so then the truce ends and you change us into gnats. Since we're inside Xanth, we'll never be able to change back again."
Trent snapped his fingers. "Stupid of me to forget. Thank you for reminding me. I can use my magic now to get us out." He looked at the quivering green tentacles. "Of course, I'll have to wait until all the elixir is gone, for it voids my magic, too. That means the kraken will be fully recovered. I can't transform it, because its main body is too far away."