"First we have to find him," Nada reminded her. "And watch for the goblins. We had better surprise them instead of having them surprise us."

Electra suffered a flash of seriousness. "Yes. I can shock only one. We'll need your jaws."

"I can bite only one at a time. What we'd really better do is find them, then blow the whistle to summon the others."

"But won't the goblins hear the whistle too?"

"Ulp! I had forgotten about that! We won't dare alert the goblins, because they might dump him into the pot immediately."

"Maybe the sparkleberries," Electra said. "It's pretty dark now, so they'll be visible. If the goblins don't realize what they are—"

"Yes, those will be fine. So now we had better move, because it is evident that Che isn't here anymore. The goblins must have taken him to their camp." "Can you sniff out the trail in your serpent form?"

"I should be able to." Nada assumed full serpent form and flicked her tongue about. Immediately she picked up Che's scent—but also the scents of many goblins and something else. It was almost like elf, but not quite. She didn't think she had smelled that creature before.

She resumed Naga form. "Is there an elf elm near here?" she asked.

"I suppose there could be," Electra said, "since we don't know exactly where we are. But the elves wouldn't foal-knap a centaur!"

"There's the smell of one elf, almost," Nada said. "But no elm tree scent. It's almost as if this elf didn't come from an elm."

"But that's impossible! All elves live in elf elms, and they get impossibly weak when they stray too far from them. If one did stray, his companions would bring him back; elves don't desert their own."

"Yes. That's why this is so odd. A funny elf smell, and no elm tree. I must be misinterpreting." Nada returned to serpent form and explored further.

Soon she was slithering along the goblin's trail. The evil little men had not even tried to conceal it; they had simply charged along to one of their trails, and then used that. The centaur and odd-elf smells continued, closely associated; it was almost as if both were captives.

Then Electra touched her back with a hand. "I see something," she whispered.

Nada lifted her head and peered around. She had kept her head low before, sniffing out the trail. There was a faint light off to the side.

She put on her human head. "That must be the goblin camp! We'll sneak up on it."

They did that, moving quietly. Nada had no trouble, in her serpent form, but Electra had to move very slowly in her human body.