Harpy Thyme Page 2

  Something began to percolate through her meticulous little mind. These things here-there was something similar about them. They were all keys! Donkey, monkeys-even the mur-key water. And a key should do for a lock, to unlock it. One of these keys must unlock Yena's locks.

  But which one? And how would it work? She couldn't bring the donkey to comb Yena's locks; it just wouldn't work. There was something she still hadn't figured out. She didn't want to make a mistake, because that would get her eaten, which she probably wouldn't enjoy.

  She went back to look at Yena. Now she saw that each lock of the monster's mane was different. Some were big padlocks, others were little keyhole locks, some were several types together-combination locks-and one was weird. "What lock is that?" she inquired, pointing.

  Yena craned her head about to look. "That is the Lock Ness," he said. "It is a monster."

  Indeed it was. It was a huge tangle of serpentine cables of metal knotted into a lock that seemed impossible ever to unlock.

  "I suppose that if you could unlock that one, the others would be easy," Gloha said.

  "Surely so. But if anyone tried to unlock it and failed, making it even worse, I would be most annoyed. I'd probably have to pulverize that person."

  Gloha had suspected as much. She returned to the alcove exhibits. One of these had to be the key to that awful lock-if she could only figure it out. If she guessed wrong, she was doomed.

  She looked at the don-key. She just didn't see how its hooves could do anything as intricate as unlocking a lock. The same went for the tur-key's claws. The flun-key was a man, who might have the necessary dexterity, but he had no tools to work on that horrendous Lock Ness. In fact none of these creatures and things seemed like likely prospects.

  Maybe she had not yet fathomed the proper pun. Which of these keys was punnishly designed to open such a lock? Not the don, tur, flun, mon, mur, or-what was that slinky spring that marched down the steps called? The question brought the answer: it was a slin-key. That was no good either.

  Then another theatrical little thought percolated through her petite little perception. Slinky-that was the way the Yena would like to have his/her locks. All combed out and slinky smooth. And the slin-key was metal, showing that metal could be prettily flowing. So maybe it could lend its attributes to the metal lock mess-uh, ness-and make it similarly smooth.

  She wasn't at all sure that her reasoning was right, but since everything else seemed wrong, she gathered up her cornered little courage and made her move. She reached into the alcove and picked up the slin-key. It flexed iridescently in her hands but did not protest. She carried it to the Yena. "I think maybe this slin-key will smooth out your Lock Ness," she said with an adorable little ad-lib.

  The Yena swelled up hugely. "Oh you do, do you?" he inquired ominously. "Are you sure?" she added.

  "I-I'm not s-sure," she confessed in a dainty little dither. "But it s-seems the best chance."

  "Remember, I'll chomp you if it doesn't work."

  "Y-yes, I realize that," she said, shaking. "But I must try it."

  "Well then, what's keeping you?"

  "N-n-nothing," she said with a successful little stutter. She lifted the slin-key and put it to the Lock Ness.

  The tangled cables twisted like snakes. They slithered around and through each other, forming a pattern like that of the slin-key. Then they flowed down and became slinky smooth, exactly as she had hoped. After that, all the other locks smoothed out similarly, making the fearsome Yena look positively handsome or beautiful, as the case might be. The entire hide glistened like polished water, showing her real little reflection.

  Gloha almost went into a sweet little swoon.

  "Well, you did it," the Yena said, standing aside. "You may pass on to the next challenge."

  Gloha stiffened her nice little knees and prepared to walk on. "I'm just glad I got the right key."

  "Oh, there was no danger of getting the wrong one."

  "No danger? You mean you were only bluffing about chomping me?"

  "No, I wasn't bluffing about that. But any of the keys would have worked."

  She was aghast. "Any? But then where's the challenge?"

  "It was a challenge of courage, just as the first was a challenge of nature. You rose to it, so you pass."

  "Courage? But I was terrified!"

  "That's the nature of courage: to do what you have to do, without yielding to fear. Every sensible person feels fear on occasion, but only cowards let it govern them."

  "I never realized!"

  "Well, it wouldn't have been as good a challenge if you had," the Yena said sensibly.

  "I wonder what the third challenge will test," Gloha said musingly.

  "Understanding, of course." The Yena curled up and went into a snooze, his tail twitching contentedly across her fur.

  Gloha walked down the passage. She hardly cared to admit it, but her understanding had already been strained to the limit of her broadened little brain. She wasn't at all sure she could evoke any more understanding than she had already. But what was there to do but go on?

  The passage was getting warmer. In fact it was getting hot Gloha would have removed her bright little blouse, but that would have been unseemly. Certainly she couldn't take off her snug little skirt. So she spread her wings a bit and waved them slightly, making a delicate little draft to cool herself. This was certainly a change from Fracto's blizzard outside!

  The heat increased. The floor got so hot that her sunny little sandals started smoking. She had to practically dance to stop her feet from getting burned inside them. Even so, she was soon surrounded by smoke.

  Then she spied a water fountain by the side of the hall. She skipped to it and touched its magic button. A fortunate little fountain of chill water spouted, and she put her longing little lips to it and drank deeply. That cooled her, and the smoke dissipated. What a relief!

  She proceeded on down the hall, no longer bothered by the heat. Now she didn't have to jump and flap her wings to cool her feet, but she was so glad to be safely by that region that she jumped anyway, dancing along. This hall was large enough so that she could stay in the air longer than a regular jump, by flapping her wings. She couldn't actually fly here, but at least it made walking fun. This was more like a frolic. All too soon she knew it would get serious, so she enjoyed herself while she had the chance.

  The passage widened into another chamber. In the center was a small plant. She couldn't make out its details, but appreciated its presence. Plants always improved places, especially if they had nice flowers.

  She walked toward the plant. But something funny occurred. She seemed to be slowing, though she was walking at the same pace as before. She just was making slower progress.

  Realizing that this could be a problem, she hurried. But though she ran, she still moved more slowly. She saw now that her lazy little limbs were not going at the rate she thought; she was running, but they were molasses slow. She jumped, and she rose slowly into the air, then slowly fell.

  Something was definitely amiss! She felt fine, but she wasn't getting anywhere. What could account for this?

  What else but the challenge? It was upon her, and she had to figure it out. The Yena had said it would be a challenge of understanding. So she would have to understand.

  She had a bright little bit of feminine intuition. She lifted her purse and let it go. It fell slowly toward the floor. So slowly it would take several times as long as it should to get there. She reached for it, but her hand moved almost as slowly as it did, making it hard to catch. Meanwhile she herself was still in the air from her slow jump.

  She paused. She settled slowly to the floor and looked at the plant. Now she recognized it: thyme. The herb that affected time. That was why she was slowing: she was in its field of effect. She would have to figure out how to get around it.

  That was indeed a challenge. She really did not know much about thyme, except that the closer a person got to it, the more powerful was its effe
ct. So if its effect was to slow her down, she needed to get away from it, because by the time she reached it she would be moving at no speed at all.

  But now she saw that there was no way out of the chamber except the passage on the far side-beyond the plant. She would not be able to reach that passage without going closer to the plant than she was now. That would take, literally, almost forever.

  There was certainly plenty to understand! How could she pass a plant she couldn't pass in her lifetime?

  Well, the first thing she had to do was back off, so as to be able to operate at normal velocity. She was afraid she was even thinking slowly at the moment. In fact, it might be a longer moment than it seemed.

  She backed away. Slowly her feet moved, and her body nudged backward like a small river barge. But as it moved, it gained speed, and soon she was back to normal.

  She stopped at the edge of the chamber. She knew it was pointless to go back up the passage she had come down, because that didn't lead to the Good Magician's castle. She had to go forward-past the plant. Somehow.

  There had to be a way. That faith had gotten her through the first two challenges. There must be something here that she just had to understand. As before.

  She looked around. Now she spied seven glass cups on the floor at the edge of the chamber. Each was on its own built-in pedestal, or maybe it was just a two-way container, the same either way up, so that it looked like an hourglass. They seemed to contain assorted seeds. Each was labeled. One said SEC, and the next said MIN, and the next HR. Farther along one said DY, and another WK. Then MNTH, and finally YR. What could they be?

  She started to reach into the first cup, to take up some of the seeds and see what kind they were. But she hesitated, because she didn't yet understand the nature of either cups or seeds, and if understanding would enable her to get safely through, a lack of understanding might wash her out in a hurry. She should figure out the meanings of the labels before she took any action.

  Another thought percolated through her meandering little mind. A thyme plant-hourglass cups-these must be the seeds of thyme! Of time. Some of them might enable her to pass the mother plant. If she just figured out the right ones, and how to use them.

  Now the labels started making sense. SEC-that would stand for Second, the briefest measure of time. MIN would be Minute. And so on, through Hour, Day, Week, Month, and Year. The SEC seeds were tiny, while the others were respectively larger, until the Year seed was so big that just one of it filled the cup.

  What would happen if she lifted out that huge Year seed? Since the thyme plant itself slowed her down, that would probably speed her up, and a year would pass in maybe an instant. That wouldn't do her much good. But if she took a Second, that would hardly be worth it, because even an ordinary second passed pretty quickly. Which kind of seed could she use, and how could she use it?

  She decided that if she took some seeds and walked toward the thyme plant, they should cancel out the slow effect, and enable her to maintain her speed. So she could get through on something like a normal schedule. If the seeds worked the way she was guessing they did.

  She returned to the SEC glass and picked up one seed. The chamber blinked, and the seed was gone. What had happened?

  She thought about it, and decided that the blink had been time jumping forward one second. She was now one second ahead of herself, as it were.

  She tried her purse-dropping trick again. But this time as she let it go, she scooped several secs from the cup.

  There was a triple blink, and suddenly the purse was on the floor, much faster than it should have been. Now she was sure: to touch a seed of thyme was to feel its effect, which was opposite to that of the thyme plant.

  But how could she use any of these seeds? She needed to get them to the slow vicinity of the plant before touching them. She couldn't keep dashing back to the cup for more. "Silly me!" she exclaimed as a dim bulb flashed just over her honeyed little head. She picked up the SEC cup itself. Seconds were all she cared to use; they were more manageable, and she could use them in handfuls if she had to.

  She carried the seconds glass as far as she could before the slowdown was bothersome. Then she picked out one sec. This time there was no blink; instead she speeded up for an instant. The seed had canceled out a moment of the thyme's slowdown. It was working!

  She moved ahead, dipping out more sees. Her progress was somewhat jerky, being either fast or slow, but that was to be expected. She had to use two seeds at a time as she got near the plant, and then three. When she was closest to it, she had a small handful of sees at a time. She didn't want to use them all up before she completed her journey across the chamber! But once she was beyond it she was able to get by with fewer sees, and finally she made it to the far hall, and she still had some sees left. That was a relief.

  She set down the cup and started down the hall. She had made it through the third challenge!

  But as she turned a corner, she came up to a broad desk set to block it. A woman sat behind the desk, writing on a pad of paper.

  Gloha stopped, surprised. "Who are you?" she inquired.

  "I am the SB," the woman replied, pointing to a name-plate that said SB. "I'm here to handle the Sin Tax."

  "Syntax? you must be a writer."

  "Sin Tax," the woman repeated. "S-I-N-T-A-X. You-must pay. I am the Sin Bursar. It's my business to see that you pay."

  "But I haven't sinned!" Gloha protested innocently.

  "You were smoking, drinking, gamboling, and having secs," SB said evenly. "Those are all taxable."

  "Smoking? But my shoes were burning up! And it was just one drink of water I took to cool off. And then I was so happy to be cool again that I did dance a little, but I never thought-" She paused. "What was that last?"

  "You had most of the seconds available. You used them up. Now you have to pay the tax."

  Gloha realized that she was stuck for it. Ignorance was no excuse, whether a person stuck her finger in a beehive or used the contents of a seed cup. "How do I pay the tax?"

  SB toted up the total on her pad. "That's four counts. You will have to perform four tasks. You will have to wash her, dry her, sock her, and box her."

  "Washer, dryer, soccer, and boxer?" Gloha repeated, baffled. "I don't-" But she stopped herself before saying "understand." After all, she had to understand, in order to get through this challenge, which she now realized wasn't yet done. "Could you explain that a bit more?"

  SB touched a button on her desk. A panel in the wall opened. Beyond it Gloha saw a strange yet rather nice creature. It had the head and front legs of a horse, and the hind section of a winged dragon. So it was a winged monster, and therefore a creature Gloha could relate to, as she was a winged monster herself.

  "There is the Glyph. Clean her up and pack her for shipment," SB said, and returned to her writing.

  Gloha entered the Glyph's pen. Now she saw that the poor creature was quite dirty. Her wing feathers were soiled, her fur was grimy, her scales did not glisten, and her hooves were caked with mud. The poor creature needed attention. Gloha would have been glad to help her even if it wasn't to pay the Sin Tax.

  There was a trough and bucket beside the stall, and brushes too. Gloha dipped the bucket full of water, and approached the Glyph. The creature shied nervously away from her. "Hey, take it easy, Glyph!" Gloha said soothingly. "You don't have to be afraid of me. See, I'm a winged monster too." She spread her wings and pumped them a couple of times.

  The Glyph settled down. Gloha washed her, getting the fur and scales and hooves clean so that they glistened and shone as they should. Then she brushed off the wings so that the feathers turned light and bright. She fetched towels and dried her. But she wasn't sure how to sock her. She wasn't about to hit this nice creature.

  Then she saw a plant with odd dangly foliage. It looked like a blanket bush, only smaller. She brought it to the Glyph, and the plant immediately reached around the Glyph's feet and legs. Tendrils stretched material, in a mome
nt and a half both legs had socks. The socks sank in, and seemed just like nice black fur decorating the legs from the knees down.

  Now it was time to box her. Gloha saw wood panels to the side of the stall. She could use these to make a big enough box around the animal. She went to fetch the first panel. But as she put her hands on it, she paused. Something was nagging her.

  She turned. The Glyph was looking at her. Their gazes met. She had reassured the animal, and now the Glyph trusted her. But Gloha didn't trust the situation.

  She left the panel and returned to the hall. "Why does she need to be boxed?" she demanded.

  SB looked up from her writing pad. "It's on the bill of lading. One boxed Glyph."

  "That's not good enough. Why does she have to be boxed, when she's tame? Why can't she just be led to where she's going? It's cruel to put an animal in a box."

  SB checked her pad. "She's going to be a sculpted figure on a fancy building. She has to be crated for shipping."

  "I don't understand," Gloha said, using the word she had tried to avoid. But she was upset. It was too late to take it back anyway.

  "Why don't you?"

  "This Glyph is a fine sensitive animal. She's been badly treated before; she should never have been left so dirty. Boxing her will be more bad treatment. I will never understand why that should be."

  "What never?" SB asked.

  "No, never!"

  "What never?" SB repeated.

  Gloha hesitated. She knew she was throwing away her chance to pass the third challenge and get in to see the Good Magician. But she liked the Glyph, and couldn't bear to see the creature mistreated. Who wanted to be stuck on a building, anyway? "No, never," she said in a tone that was neither cut nor little.

  "Then you must share her fate," SB said. "Go mount her."

  "You mean ride her? I'm sure she's a fine steed. But what's the point, if she's not going anywhere?"