Dragon on a Pedestal (29 page)

“Why?” Ivy asked.

“Never mind, dear; it was an idle thought.” But there was something about the way she said it that gave Ivy the impression it wasn’t entirely idle.

Stanley looked around again, sniffing, questing for something he couldn’t quite pinpoint. “Keep your mind on your business,” Ivy chided the dragon.

At last they came in sight of the mouth organ. This was a structure the size of a tree, made up of mouths. Tremendous, roomy, toothy, ugly, ogrish mouths blasted out the huge low notes, while smaller, animalish mouths issued the middle-sized central notes, and tiny, pursed, ladylike mouths shrilled forth the small highest notes.

A figure appeared in the sky. It was a harpy. It cried a command, and suddenly the mouth organ silenced, deafeningly. Ivy almost fell over; she had been bracing against the sound, and now there was none.

The harpy swooped toward them. It was male, with beautiful wings and the handsomest face Ivy had ever seen.

“Glory!” the harpy cried.

“Hardy!” the goblin girl cried joyously.

He flew down to her, wrapped his wings about her like the folds of a cloak, and kissed her. The two were of about the same mass, but differently structured. Yet it did not seem strange at all that they should be in love, for each seemed more attractive than the other.

After a moment, the harpy drew back and hovered in air, his wings flapping with easy power. “Who are these?”

“These are my friends who helped me find you,” Glory explained. “Ivy and Hugo and Stanley.”

Hardy Harpy squinted at them. “They appear young.”

“We are,” Hugo said. “That’s the best way to be.”

“The dragon looks somehow familiar.”

“He’s the baby Gap Dragon,” Glory explained quickly. “But he’s friendly now. He tuned in on the mouth organ notes so I could find you.”

“Must be all right, then,” Hardy said. “I had noticed the Gap was oddly quiet recently. But why are you here, Glory? If I had known you were coming, I would have flown to meet you. As it was, I worried at your absence from the Gapside ledge; I feared you had fallen in, but I found no—” He broke off, not wanting to utter such a horror.

“I saw the Gap was empty, so I hurried across,” Glory explained. “I was terrified. I didn’t know the dragon had been youthened. It was my chance to get away from my father, before he made me marry some hideous and brutal knobby-kneed goblin chief.”

“But you took such a risk, coming here!” Hardy protested. “There are so many dangers—dragons, griffins, even a bad-tempered lutin—”

“We’ve met.”

“If anything had happened to you—”

“I just had to come,” Glory said. “It was my only chance for happiness.”

“True,” the handsome harpy agreed. “Come to my perch, not far distant, and bring your friends. I will reward them with some pretty trinkets I snatched from a dragon’s nest. Then, later, I’ll tune the mouth organ to play something romantic—”

“Yes,” Glory breathed.

Now Ivy began to catch on to what that meant. Kissing must be more fun to music!

Hardy led the way through the forest, flying low and slow so they could readily follow. A pleasant masculine aroma wafted out from his wings, quite different from the normal harpy hen stench.

Suddenly a net flew through the air and settled over them all. Before they understood what was happening, the five of them were bundled up in an awkward ball. Stanley’s green tail was in Ivy’s face, and she was standing on one of Hardy’s wings, and Glory was sitting on Hugo’s head. Hideous little men were charging from all sides, brandishing clubs. “Now we’ve got you!” one man yelled.

“Father!” Glory screamed, chagrined.

Stanley blew out steam, but this only made Hardy jump; the dragon’s snout was aimed inward instead of outward, so he couldn’t steam the attackers.

Now Ivy recognized the creatures. They were male goblins. Each was so dusky as to be almost black, with a huge head, big flat feet, a bumpy round body, and a horrendous scowl. What were they doing here, south of the Gap?

That was answered directly by the goblin chief. “Now we’ve got the criminal harpy!” Gorbage exclaimed, grimacing in what was evidently supposed to be a smile of victory.

“That’s redundant,” another goblin said. “All harpies are criminals.”

There was coarse general laughter. “Yes, birds of a foul feather,” Gorbage agreed.

“And we’ll hang him,” a third goblin said, making a suggestive gesture of yanking up a rope and sticking out his purple tongue as if choking.

“Naw, he’d just fly away,” another said. “We’ll stab him!” And he made a gesture with a mock knife, as of guts being punctured.

“Better to club him to tar and feathers!”

“Force-feed him poisonberries”

“Weight him down and toss him into a bottomless pond!”

They crowded around, leering, barraging him with horrible suggestions, each one worse than the others.

“Oh, Hardy!” Glory cried. “It’s my tribe! They must have followed me! I didn’t know!”

Suddenly Ivy realized what Stanley had been sniffing for. The goblins had been following Glory and the party all the time—not close enough for the dragon to identify them for sure, but still, he had been aware of something. If only she had paid more attention, instead of chiding Stanley for not sticking strictly to the mouth organ scent! She could have asked the dragon what was bothering him and had him tune in to it specifically; maybe they could have spotted the goblins and arranged to avoid them. Certainly they could have saved Hardy Harpy from this treachery! Now they were all in trouble.

At age three, Ivy did not have much experience with the cunning of angry creatures. But she was learning.

“First we must put this carrion on trial,” Gorbage said. “We must make an example of him, so the rest of the birdbrains will know not to fool with goblins.”

They untangled the captives one at a time, tying Hugo and Ivy with lengths of vine, wrapping Stanley securely in the net so he could hardly even wiggle, and knotting rope around the legs of Hardy and anchoring him to a stake pounded into the ground, so that he could perch but not fly. They left Glory free. She was, after all, only a goblin girl, pretty but helpless.

“Now we gotta do this right,” Gorbage said. “We gotta have a jury-rigged verdict before we croak him. Who wants to be the jury?”

All the goblin hands went up. There were about a dozen of them, each one uglier than his fellows and more eager to do the dirty work.

“Good enough; you’re the jury,” Gorbage said. “And I’m the judge.”

“But that’s not fair!” Glory protested.

“Shut up,” Gorbage told her mildly, and she was silent. It was difficult for her to oppose her father.

“Do something, Hugo!” Ivy whispered. “You’re smart; you can think of something to save our friends!”

Hugo was pale and frightened; he had perhaps a better idea than she did of how much was at stake here. Notions of extreme violence tended to slide past Ivy’s awareness because she had never been exposed to such concepts before. Hugo had lived more than twice as long; experience had given him a more sober perspective. He knew that Hardy was not the only one in present peril.

But he tried. “Hey, goblins!” he called. “You can’t do that! My father says—”

“And who’s your father, twerp?” Gorbage demanded.

“Good Magician Humfrey.”

This made the goblins pause. They had heard of Humfrey. Monsters and kings came and went, but the Good Magician was relatively eternal.

“Can’t be,” Gorbage finally concluded. “The old gnome’s over a century old. He wouldn’t have any kids this age. Get on with the trial.”

“You’ve still got it wrong,” Hugo said determinedly. “You have to have a—a prosecutor and a defender, and witnesses and all, or—”

Gorbage swelled up like a toad with indigestion. “Or what, twerp?”

Hugo quailed before the challenge, but Ivy was sure he had the courage to continue, for he was her Night in Shiny Armor, even if the armor didn’t show any more than Stanley’s pedestal did. As it turned out, Hugo did indeed have the courage. “Or it doesn’t count,” he said firmly.

“Who says it doesn’t count?” Gorbage demanded belligerently.

Again Hugo needed a boost of confidence, but Ivy’s faith was strong, and so he had it. “The law. And people who don’t follow the law of the land are crooks and thiefs and murderers and all-around bad folk—which I guess goblins are anyway.”

“What?” the goblin chief exclaimed, brandishing his dark fist. “It’s the harpies who are bad folk! I’ll exterminate you, you smart-mouthed twit!”

“Yes, of course,” Hugo agreed. “That’s what murderers do, by definition.”

Again Gorbage paused. He was cunning enough to see that he could not handily disprove the charge of murder by murdering his accuser. Hugo had verbally outmaneuvered him. “Okay, snot! We’ll have a persecutor and deaf-ender and wit-lesses.” He glared around, but there were no free goblins; all twelve were on the hanging jury. “But I have no more people!”

“Too bad,” Hugo said. “Then you can’t have a proper trial, and everyone will know you for what you are: a gutless murderer who kills innocent people dead.”

“We’ll have the trial!” Gorbage insisted, swelling to just this side of the bursting point. “You smart-mouth—you be the deaf-ender. And—and my daughter’ll be the persecutor. Then the mur—the execution’s all legal.”

“I won’t—” Glory began, but Hugo interrupted her.

“Yes, she’ll do it,” he said. “That’s fair.”

“What?” Glory shrieked.

“He’s up to something,” Ivy whispered to her. “He’s very smart. You’d better do it.”

Dismayed, the goblin girl was silent.

“Okay, now we got it,” Gorbage said, grimacing smugly. “Persecutor, make your winning case.”

Reluctantly, Glory went to stand before Hardy’s post. Ivy saw her hand move toward her knife, but she didn’t draw it. Any attempt to cut Hardy’s tether would bring the goblins down on them in a savage horde. “I intend to—to prove to this dumb jury that the defendant is the handsomest, finest, nicest male creature alive, better than any ugly old knobby-kneed goblin—”

“Out of order!” Judge Gorbage ruled. “You’re supposed to prove that this feathered freak is guilty of corrupting and polluting a fine goblin damsel and must be instantly put to death in the cruelest possible manner.”

Stanley was quietly chewing on his net. He had separated several strands and was working on others. In due course he would be free—if he had time to complete the job without being noticed. Glory’s eye fell on him and lighted with comprehension. A loose dragon could disrupt a trial long enough for a tether to be cut!

She walked to the side, attracting the goblins’ attention away from the dragon. She was such a pretty girl that this was no problem; every jury-eye was riveted to her as she shook out her luxurious black hair and breathed deeply. “Yes, I shall prove all that and more,” she said with new emphasis. “At great length. I call as the first witness the human child Ivy. Someone better untie her so she can testify.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Gorbage cried. “No conniving goblin tricks here! She can speak well enough tied!”

Ivy walked up. Only her hands were tied. Gorbage glared at her. “You sniveling little snit, do you swear to blab the truth, most of the truth, and nothing much except the truth, or else?”

“Sure,” Ivy agreed, interested in this procedure. She had never been to a trial before. Stanley chomped through another strand. “I generally do.”

Now Glory took over. “Did you see this feathered freak here on this perch corrupting any innocent goblin girls?” Hardy winced but didn’t squawk; he realized what was happening.

“No,” Ivy said stoutly.

“What?” Gorbage demanded in high dudgeon.

“All he did was kiss her,” Ivy said. “My father does that to my mother all the time, except when they think I’m looking.”

There was a stir of ire in the jury. “Pollution!” a jury-goblin muttered.

Ivy’s brow wrinkled. “I thought plooshun was bad water.”

“That too, honey,” Glory murmured, smiling obscurely. She adjusted her clothing, again riveting the jury. “I now call the defendant as witness.”

“That liar can’t be sworn in!” Gorbage protested.

Glory made a quarter-smile. “Is that true, defendant? Are you unable to swear?”

Hardy let out a stream of profanity that wilted the adjacent vegetation and sent wisps of smoke curling up from the post he perched on.

Glory’s ears turned bright orange-red and her mouth caved in as if she had swallowed her teeth, but she turned to her father. After a couple of attempts, she managed to speak. “I don’t understand a word of that, of course. Tell me, Father—is that or is that not adequate swearing?”

Gorbage hastily wiped a gape of incredulous admiration off his face. “Got to admit—that’s one thing a harpy can do pretty well,” he grudged.

“Very well,” she said primly. “I am taking the judge’s word that you have been properly sworn in. Defendant, did you ever kiss any goblin girls?”

“Only one,” Hardy said.

There was another stir in the jury. “The cock confesses!” a goblin muttered. “Get the rope ready!”

“And what is your intent toward said girl?” Glory asked.

“To marry her and take her away from all this,” the harpy testified.

Gorbage turned mottled purple. “The audacity of this cretin! Execution is way too good for him!”

“But, Father,” Glory protested innocently, “you have always maintained that the only fate worse than death is marriage.”

There was a stifled snigger from the jury. Gorbage glared, and the sound snigged out. “Get on with it!” the judge gritted.

“I trust I have made my case,” Glory said with a certain demure smugness. “Now let the defender take over.”

Hugo took the center stage, his hands still bound behind him. There was a faint crunch as Stanley separated another strand of the net. It was a tough net, but the dragon had strong teeth.

Ivy just knew Hugo would do a brilliant job in an impossible situation; already he looked handsome and confident, despite being bound. She saw several of the jury-goblins do double takes, as if seeing him for the first time; they had not realized how competent he would turn out to be. “Is there any law against harpy-goblin marriages?” he asked rhetorically. Famous lawyers were good at rhetoric, Ivy knew, though she wasn’t quite certain what the term meant.