Dragon on a Pedestal (41 page)

They reached a grassy knoll. There stood a small flying dragon, a drake, somewhat bedraggled. Chem whipped her bow forward, arrow nocked; she knew better than to take any dragon for granted. If the drake launched itself in her direction, she would send a shaft through its eye before it got fairly aloft. Irene also reached for a seed; its effect would be slower than Chem’s arrow, but as potent in the long run.

Zzapp!

Chem and Irene froze, trying to locate the wiggle. The drake lifted its head, spied the worm, and bathed it in fire. The burned husk dropped to the ground.

“I think we’re on the same side,” Chem said, but she kept her bow ready.

“We have intersected the swarm,” Irene said with a sinking sensation. “And we haven’t caught up to Ivy.”

“And Imbri says we won’t. The children are ahead, very close to the nest itself. A short distance geographically, but an immense one in the practical sense. We must fight the wiggles here, and hope for the best.”

Zzapp!

Irene dismounted, perturbed. “I suppose so. But I don’t like it. Those children—”

Chem found two stones and clapped them together experimentally. “You have to crush them hard,” she said. “And quickly. We’re going to be very busy now.”

Irene dropped a seed. “Grow,” she said in a no-nonsense tone.

The seed sprouted into a hairy toad plant. The hairy toads goggled their eyes about, looking for bugs. “Snap up the wiggles,” Irene told the plant.
The toads grimaced and threatened to croak, apparently knowing how bad wiggles tasted, but seemed ready to obey.

Irene found stones of her own and waited for the next zap. Chem was right; there was nothing else to do at this stage. She had done most of what she could do when she sent Grundy off to notify Parnassus. Now they just had to hold the fort, as it were, until competent help came.

The incidence of wiggles increased. The swarm was expanding, and it was obviously a large one. Chem and Irene found themselves retreating. They had to stay abreast of the outer perimeter, for any single wiggle that got past could start a new nest, in due course.

Yet Irene knew they were dealing with only one tiny part of what had become a huge circle. The wiggles were moving out everywhere, not just here. “We need help!” Irene exclaimed. “A
lot
of help, and soon!”

“Imbri has gone to notify King Dor,” Chem said, stalking a wiggle. “She’s decided this is so important she can justify breaking the rule about day mares and communications.”

“And how fast will Dor be able to get here? It will be nightfall before this campaign gets truly organized, and then—”

“We won’t be able to see the wiggles,” Chem finished. “And by morning they’ll be spread so far, we’ll never get them all. I suspect that at some stage, some of them drop out, stop zapping, and settle down to hibernate; we have very little chance to catch those. So the battle may well be lost by morning, even if we do exterminate every wiggle that’s still zapping. We can only hope Grundy gets help from the Simurgh.”

“If only we could summon others here directly!” Irene exclaimed. “We—” She paused. “I’m a fool! We
can!
Didn’t Haggy Harpy give you a—”

“Whistle!” Chem cried. “How could I have forgotten that!” She brought out the feather whistle and blew a resounding blast on it. “The harpies will be able to notify the goblins, too, and perhaps put out the news on the mouth organ.”

There was a shuddering of ground behind them. Three huge Cyclops clomped up. Brontes had found his brothers and come to help.

“Spread out!” Irene called. “Each person take a section and destroy any wiggles that pass through it! We’ve got to get as many as we can before it gets too dark to see them!”

“We see well in dark,” Brontes told her.

“Bless you!” Irene cried, relieved. This was a really useful contingent.

Now there were five of them, and they were holding up the advancing line despite the thickening of wiggles. Each Cyclops had a huge club with which he bashed each wiggle into goo. Irene had never dreamed she would be so happy to be so near such frightful monsters performing such violence!

The ground rocked with their blows, but every crash meant another small victory.

It still wasn’t sufficient. The wiggles were getting thick enough to represent a real danger to the people, for anyone standing in the path of a traveling wiggle would be holed, perhaps fatally. So far the folk had stood out beyond the fringe of the main swarm, running up only to smash the wiggles they spotted, but that was not efficient. If a person stayed within the fringe, he could smash only two or three in the time he otherwise smashed one—but how long would he last?

A huge creature glided in for a landing. It was the hippogryph, carrying a heavy load of three passengers. Irene glanced at them—and was surprised. “Xanthippe!” she exclaimed.

The witch dismounted and grimaced. “My son promised to get married tomorrow if I helped today,” she said. “Besides, I don’t want my exhibits getting holed. So when I heard the Cyclopes charging about, and fathomed what was up—”

Zzapp!

Xanthippe marched up to the wiggle and glared at it. “Drop dead,” she said. The wiggle dropped dead.

Good enough. “Find a place to the side,” Irene told her. “We must englobe the swarm, if we can find the personnel.”

“Will do,” Xavier said. “Come on, dear.”

Irene looked at the young woman with him. She was comely and unfamiliar. “Who’s she?”

“My bride-to-be, tomorrow,” Xavier said proudly. “Ain’t she something special?”

“But—”

Zzapp!
Irene was horrified to see a small hole appear in the woman’s body. She had walked too close to the swarm, and been in the path of the wiggle!

But the woman paid no attention. “Wiggles can’t hurt me,” she remarked, and used two stones to crush the worm that had just holed her.

It was Zora Zombie—so much restored by requited love that she looked virtually normal! Her hair was now thick and black, her flesh was firm and healthy and quite pleasing in contour, and her eyes were clear. Even her clothing was good; she no longer wore decaying rags. But she retained her undead immunity to minor injury. It was as if she had regressed from months-dead at the time Irene had first met her, to weeks-dead when Irene’s group welcomed her, to days-dead when she fell in love with Xavier, and now was only hours or minutes dead. She had evidently been a lovely young woman when she died.

“A live girl would be dead by now,” Xavier observed, satisfied. “Ain’t Zora great? No woman alive is better than her!” He leaned toward Irene confidentially. “She ain’t cold, neither. She’s warm, now.”

“Yes,” Irene agreed faintly. One part of her mind rebelled at the grotesque nature of the zombie, but that was being driven out by the beautiful nature of the restoration. It was a miracle of a sort—a good sort.

Then she had to attend to her own segment, for the wiggles weren’t abating their onrush.

Other creatures arrived. Some were huge and strange, but Xanthippe seemed to recognize them. “You gi-ants get over there,” she cried. “Chomp the wiggles in your mandibles and spit out the remains; they aren’t edible. You ma-moths fly up and catch the ones just overhead. You gigan-tics scoot down under the leaves and catch any that are down there out of our sight. Watch out for your own hides; those wiggles may be small, but they’re deadly!”

The strange, large creatures spread out and worked on the wiggles. Xap the hippogryph was also very effective, crunching them with his hard beak. He took up the section near Chem, who seemed pleased enough to have him there.

There was a screeching behind. Again Irene glanced back, since she used her ears more than her eyes to locate the wiggles—and saw three Furies. This could be real trouble!

Zzapp!

“A curse on you!” Tisi cried. The wiggle spun out of control and bounced off a tree, its power gone.

Another wiggle came through. “Woe betide you!” Meg cried at it. “What did you ever do for your mother, who zapped away her last energy in order that you might someday swarm?” She raised her scourge and whipped the wiggle out of its hold.

Irene relaxed. The Furies, too, had come to help. It seemed that all the normal creatures of Xanth were making common cause against this mutual threat.

As she worked, Irene continued to look around, spotting new arrivals. She saw the chocolate moose stomping wiggles with his sharp hooves—and next to him, a flock of ducks nibbled on other wiggles. Beyond them were several impossibly odd creatures with huge, hairy hands. They seemed, somehow, eerily familiar. Suddenly she made the connection. “The monster under the bed!” she cried. “You
do
exist—numbers of you!” And one of them waved. That was probably the one that had been stationed under
her
bed, before she had grown too old to believe in it.

Another odd thing rolled into view, stomping wiggles. Irene realized belatedly that it was a foot-ball. Everything was coming to help!

But now the sun was very low; night was stalking the land. Some creatures, like the monsters under the bed, could function well in darkness, but others could not. If even a tenth of the wiggles got through, it would be eventual doom—and many more wiggles than that would escape in the night.

Then a truly monstrous shape came over the trees, darkening the sky farther. It was a bird, a roc, no, a—

GREETINGS, WARRIORS
!

It was the Simurgh! Grundy had gotten through, and the eternal bird had left its perch on the Tree of Seeds and come to help!

PARNASSUS COMES
!

“Oh, thank you, thank you, Simurgh!” Irene cried. “But it is almost dark, and many creatures will get holed—”

SEEDS OF LIGHT
. And from the talons of the huge creature came a shower of tiny motes, each glowing like a little star.
PERFORM GOOD WOMAN
, the bird directed.

“Grow!” Irene cried at them all. The stars grew, expanding into fat bulbs that radiated light everywhere. Some bulbs landed on the ground, illuminating it; others hung up in trees, casting wider flares. There were so many that the entire region became as bright as day. The problem of night was solved.

“Careful, Simurgh,” Chem called. “Some wiggles travel high.”

THEY WILL TRAVEL INTO MUNDANE SPACE
, the Simurgh explained.
NO HARM WILL COME OF THESE. AS FOR THE ONES BETWEEN—

A host of small birds appeared, evidently brought by the large one. Each had an outsize beak. “Those are pinches,” Chem said, her centaur education operating again. “Just what we need!”

The pinches swooped about, just over the heads of the creatures on the ground and the ma-moths just above, and caught any wiggles zapping by in that region. They didn’t bother with the really high wiggles, and now Irene understood why; only the low ones posed either a short-term or a long-term threat.

In the renewed light, Irene could see other arrivals. There was a big, friendly yak, talking wiggles to death; a bugbear was scaring them to death; and—

“Hiatus!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing on that carpet?”

The Zombie Master’s son floated close. “I went out to help look for Ivy,” he explained. “I didn’t find her, but I did find the Good Magician’s carpet, so I flew it home—and got the news about the swarm. So—”

“That’s fine,” Irene agreed. She was glad Hiatus had found a way to be useful.

Zzapp!
A wiggle hovered close. Hiatus focused on it—and a big ungainly ear grew from it. Overbalanced, the wiggle fell to the ground, unable to maintain its course.

Still there were not enough creatures to complete the encirclement of the swarm on the ground. Her husband the King would not arrive with his forces for several hours, Irene was sure, and that would be too late; they had to contain the swarm while it was small enough
to
be containable. Every creature here was working loyally and hard, at considerable personal risk, but many more were needed.

Something huge slithered along the ground. It was the Python of Parnassus, come at the Simurgh’s command. And behind him came a bedlam of screaming wild-haired naked women. The maenads! The big bird really did rule Parnassus!

The wild women spread out, enormously increasing the fighting forces. They seemed delighted with this task, smashing with glee at every wiggle that appeared.

Now the wild animals of this region were joining in, too. Every creature was quick to appreciate the need for action. Still, this was only one side of the swarm; on the far side, the wiggles could be spreading without hindrance.

But she had plenty to occupy her attention on this side! The skirmish line was advancing now, and the wiggles were thick. The sound of the
zzapps
was constant. Creatures were getting holed, and losses were mounting. Chem’s flank was blood-flecked where a wiggle had grazed it, and there was a maenad on the ground, holed through the head. In death the wild woman was rather pretty, and Irene felt a pang of regret for her. This was no child’s play!

Child’s play—that reminded her all too forcefully of Ivy, there near the terrible center of the swarm, hiding precariously behind an invisible forget-whorl. How long could Ivy survive that, even if the swarm were eventually contained?

“What have we here?” Irene turned again—and there was the Zombie Master, animating the dead maenad. Now the losses of personnel, while painful, would not be critical; their zombies would carry on.

Steadily the line moved forward, the ranks closing tighter as they were augmented by other creatures. The wiggle swarm was now a magnet for the people and animals of Xanth, all coming to risk their hides and lives in this valiant effort. Irene realized that the Simurgh was broadcasting her powerful thoughts, summoning anything within range. The Simurgh well understood the menace of the wiggles!

Irene heard something new. It sounded like the beat of many hooves. She looked—and there at the fringe of visibility were many centaurs, each carrying two men. Dor had found a way to travel quickly, and now maybe they could complete the encirclement! Both men and centaurs would be effective against the wiggles, and if there were enough of them—