Aladdin Sins Bad by J.R. Rain & Piers Anthony

Author:J.R. Rain & Piers Anthony [Rain, J.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BA
Published: 2011-08-07T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

And what a flight it was!

Sinbad had described it, but the reality was far more impressive. The base of the island was a normal tropical jungle, but close inland the mountains rose steeply toward the great capping cloud. Too steep for trees; there was only clinging brush and bare rock. But then it angled less sharply, and trees resumed. These were larger, and the higher the slope rose, the bigger the trees became, until they were giants such as I had never before seen. It almost seemed that the island must sink into the sea from the sheer weight of these monsters.

We had escaped the men, flying beyond arrow range. They had not anticipated a magic carpet. But more mischief was coming. “Look!” Duban cried.

I looked where he pointed. A huge shape was flying toward us. It was a roc bird! We could not get beyond its range.

“Maybe it’s illusion,” Sinbad said. “Like the one at Zombie Isle.”

“That one was out of its natural territory,” I said tightly. “This one isn’t.”

Faddy appeared. “Right, Aladdin. This one’s real. They use them to ferry men and goods to Cloudland.”

“Do you have a suggestion how we can deal with it?”

“If all three of you jump off the carpet, the roc may have time to catch only one or two. You’re bird food.”

“Begone, spook!” I snapped. He faded out with a chuckle.

Meanwhile the big bird was zooming close. “I’ll jump first,” Sinbad volunteered with a smile that was more like a grimace. “Maybe you can loop down to catch me before I splat on the slope.”

That wasn’t much help either. I thought fast. “How are you at illusion, Duban?”

“I haven’t tried it.”

“Try it. See if you can make us look like something uninteresting, like a flying log.”

Duban didn’t argue. He focused, gestured, and a giant book appeared between us and the roc.

“He meant a tree log, not a ship’s log book,” Sinbad said with a slightly better smile.

“I thought that was what I was conjuring,” Duban said, disgruntled. “I told you, I haven’t tried this before.”

But it seemed the book would do. It drifted away from us, then began to fall. The roc swerved to intercept it, forgetting us for the moment. It would surely catch on soon enough, but this did give us a reprieve from immediate attack.

Now our ascent had to become vertical, because it was the tops of the trees we wanted. Their huge trunks rose into the cloud above and disappeared. It was almost as if they grew in white water, upside down, their circular cross sections plunging into the base of the level cloud.

We ascended toward that foggy layer. We hovered close beneath it.

“We’ll be blind when we enter that,” Duban said grimly.

“Maybe there’s an avenue between cloud-banks,” I said without much hope.

“The bird’s back,” Sinbad said. “It looks annoyed.”

“Illusion books don’t taste very good,” Duban said, almost smiling.

“Enough with the gallows humor,” I said. “We’ve got a problem.”

Indeed, the roc was zooming toward us from below, rising like a Chinese rocket, its eyes blazing, its beak open.

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