Isle Of View by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online

some evil folk.”
    “A cloud! Oh, pooh!”
    But Che looked extremely worried. “I hope you do not receive more of an education than you desire, Jenny Elf. Perhaps Fracto is merely passing by.”
    But the cloud was not passing by. It loomed in close, becoming darker and larger. It seemed almost to have a nebulous face on it, with two big eyes and a bigger mouth. Then the mouth opened, and the cloud blew—and a cold wind rocked the raft.
    Waves formed, and they advanced on the raft and rocked it. The cloud swelled up denser and uglier, and thunder rumbled within it. The wind whipped the foliage of the trees, and the first big raindrops spattered against the raft.
    “Maybe we had better pole in to shore,” Jenny said, worried. “I don't want to get washed off the raft, with those water moccasins waiting.”
    “Perhaps that is best,” Che agreed.
    Jenny lifted the pole. But she remained light, while it remained heavy; now it seemed heavier than she was, which made poling awkward. But that was readily solved: Che flicked the pole with his tail, and it became light.
    She shoved them toward the shore. But as she did, evil little faces appeared. The goblins!
    Hastily she shoved the raft back away. The goblins stood and waved their stubby fists. Some of them had stones, but they did not throw them. There were more than there had been before—six, at least, that she saw. They must have gotten reinforcements.
    “We can't go ashore,” she said.
    “I fear we can't stay in midstream, either,” Che said. “Maybe it's safe on the other side.” She poled across.
    But the water got deeper in the center, making the poling increasingly difficult. The storm intensified, so that the waves washed over the raft. Sammy was not keen on involuntary baths, and jumped up to Jenny's shoulder to hiss at the water.
    The raft spun around. Jenny lost her footing and felt herself sliding off. She screamed—but Che caught her arm and prevented her from landing in the water. His four feet gave him a better anchorage; he had his hooves braced against the ridges of the raft.
    Still the storm raged. Jenny knew now that Che was right: this was no ordinary cloud, but a magically malign demon of a cloud, out to get them. She couldn't guess why it hated them so, but it was doing its utmost to dump them in the river. She had not believed in the deliberate malignancy of weather, but now she did!
    A gust of wind caught the raft and shoved it to the bank Jenny was trying to leave. She tried to stop it with the pole, but the thing caught in the bottom muck and was twisted out of her grasp. She was after all no big human man; she was a little elf girl, not used to this sort of thing.
    The waves gathered for one concluding effort. They lifted the raft and tilted it so sharply that elf, cat, and centaur slid off it and into the shallow water. Jenny screamed as she splashed.
    But the water moccasins did not clamp onto their toes. It seemed that the storm had scared them too, and they were either stunned or elsewhere. The goblins charged in and grabbed Jenny and Che. In a moment both were hopelessly tied up.
    “Find help, Sammy!” Jenny cried desperately, though she feared there was no help to be had.
    Sammy jumped past the goblins and disappeared. Maybe he would find help—but how would the help find them? For she knew the goblins wouldn't just leave her by the bank of the With-a-Cookee River. What had she accomplished in her effort to save the foal? Nothing but a delay, she feared. Now she was in just as much trouble as he.

Xanth 13 - Isle of View
    Chapter 3: Electro's Exam.
    Electra watched Chex fly away with Grundy Golem. She hoped Che was found soon, but she had a bad feeling about it all. The foal had been kidnapped, and that meant that someone was trying to hide him away. He would not turn up innocently wandering through the forest.
    Who could want to do such an awful thing? Che was the only winged centaur foal in Xanth. If something happened to him,