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inconvenient for him to lose a leg bone, and the slowness of his motion in deep water would give the fish plenty of time to work at it. Dogfish liked to carry away their bones and bury them in deep muck.
    Back on shore, Dolph assumed boy form. “I'll become the roc and carry you across,” he said. “My flying muscles are stiff, but I can do that much.”
    “The flying room is limited,” Marrow pointed out. "You would have trouble both taking off and landing, because the trees come right up to the edge of the water.”
    All too true. “I could become a big fish—”
    “I fear the pack of dogfish would attack you. No, I think I shall have to facilitate my own crossing. Kick me, and I shall become a bone line that anchors to a branch on the far side. Then you may fly across in small bird form and haul me in from that side.”
    That seemed sensible to Dolph. He became the ogre, and delivered a tremendous kick to the skeleton's hipbone. Marrow flew apart, and reformed as a string of bones that extended across the river. One bone hand at the end caught and grasped the branch of a tree, while the other caught the projecting root of a tree on the near side.
    Dolph, about to change to bird form, remembered his sore wing muscles. It didn't matter what size bird he was; those same muscles would hurt. He looked at the bone line, and had a notion. He could cross on that!
    He became the dormouse and scrambled up along the line of bones. He was surefooted in this form, and had no fear of falling. If he did fall, he would simply change to bird form and fly; better a sore muscle than a dunking in the river!
    “I suspect—” the skull in the center began as he approached it.
    “I'll be across in a moment,” Dolph replied. Because he was in mouse form, this emerged as a series of squeaks that the skeleton probably couldn't understand. All human languages were the same in Xanth, but each species had its own language, and few creatures spoke the languages of other species. Marrow, being a human skeleton, spoke human, and most of the human variants, such as elves, goblins, nymphs, and centaurs spoke it too. Ogres also spoke it, but they tended to be so gruff that they could not be understood, except for those who had direct human ancestry.
    “—that you should hurry,” Marrow continued.
    Dolph was in no trouble, but he couldn't actually run on the bone line; he had to keep careful hold on the bones. “Why?” he squeaked.
    “Because a harpy is coming,” Marrow concluded.
    Oops! Harpies were bad news. Not only were they female, they were ugly, and nasty, and hungry. A harpy would snatch up a dormouse just like that, and gobble it down instantly.
    Could he make it across before the harpy arrived? Dolph paused to look, and saw the foul creature coming. She was flapping heavily with her gross wings, a clumsy flier; he could outrace her to the forest, where he could change. He didn't want to have to change in midstream; that could get complicated, and he might wind up yanking Marrow apart.
    He scooted for the end of the line. The harpy definitely saw him; she veered to intercept him. Her foul odor preceded her; what an awful stench!
    “I'll get you, you fine feculent mouse!” she screeched. Her voice was as unpleasant as her smell.
    He made it to the end just as her dirty glistening talons snatched at him. He flung his arms around the trunk of the tree to which Marrow's hand attached, and became the ogre. “Me think she stink!” he growled.
    “Oops! Didn't see you, pretty-face!” she screeched. “Where's the mouse?”
    “Me mouse, she louse!” Dolph retorted. Evidently she did not realize that he was a form changer.
    “You took my mouse, I'll take your bones!” she screeched. Her talons closed on the bone line, and she gave a tremendous yank. Marrow's fingers were wrenched from the branch they had clung to. His hand swung down to touch the water, dangling helplessly. The members of the pack of dogfish forged toward it.