Dragon on a Pedestal (33 page)

Chem concentrated. Her map appeared—this time it was not a scene, but a huge display of letters: T R U C E. Simultaneously, the centaur called:

“Gorbage! Gorbage Goblin!”

Few harpies could read, but the leaders were more educated than most. “Truce?” Haggy Harpy screeched, outraged. “Truce? Who says?”

And the goblin leader called back: “Who calls my name?”

“I am Chem Centaur,” Chem replied. “I call for this truce because you goblins and harpies have no quarrel, and I want to show you this before you destroy your best chance for peace.”

“Peace!” Gorbage and Haggy screeched together.

“We don’t want peace!” Haggy continued.

“We want war!” Gorbage finished.

“But—” Irene protested, bemused.

“The old hen is right,” Gorbage said. “We haven’t had a good war in eight hundred years. It’s long overdue!”

“That’s for sure!” Haggy screeched.

The newly arrived harpy male swooped in. Now Irene could see that his face and feathers were clean and that he was, in fact, a handsome half-specimen of a man. “We shall talk peace anyway,” he cried, and his voice, too, was unlike the screech of the hens. “We shall make truce and listen to the centaur, for centaurs are known to be fair-minded folk.”

The harpy hens fluttered uncertainly, since they could not argue with the precious male. “If you say so,” Haggy screeched grudgingly.

“Well,
I
don’t say so!” Gorbage cried from his cover in the foliage. “I want to exterminate them all—beginning with that birdbrained cock!” He pointed at the male harpy.

A lovely female goblin appeared. “Then you’ll have to exterminate me also, Father!” she cried. “I love him!”

A harpy-goblin romance? This was another surprise!

“A goblin tart!” Haggy screeched indignantly. “We’ll bury her in eggs!”

“You certainly will not!” the male harpy cried. “I’m going to marry her!”

Irene was amazed. “It’s true, then! No wonder these creatures are riled up! That’s the most forbidden love, for them!”

“We’d
better
get a truce!” Chem said. “In a moment there’ll be nothing but feet and feathers.”

Irene felt in her bag for seeds. She found what she wanted: several wallflowers. She threw the seeds out in four directions, aiming and orienting each carefully. “Grow!”

They grew. One wall formed just behind Irene’s party, expanding east and west, shoving aside the prior vegetation. Others grew to the sides, extending north and south. A fourth grew to the north, extending east and west. Soon they all intersected at the edges, making corners and forming a roughly square enclosure. Their walls thickened and gained height, with flowers on the top, until no one could see anything but sky from the inside.

“Chem, you face north and have your bow ready,” Irene said. “Gorgon, you face south, with your hand on your veil—er, hood, or whatever. I’ll try to watch the sky. Grundy, climb up on the wall and tell Gorbage and Haggy and the two, um, lovers to come in here under truce so we can talk safely. Watch out for thrown missiles.”

“Gotcha,” the golem agreed. He found handholds and clambered up the south wall.

“I hope you can apply centaur logic to this situation, Chem,” Irene murmured. “If you can’t persuade them, we’re still in trouble.” Her stomach felt weak; she didn’t like the continuing tension of this situation. She knew her plants had gained them only a temporary reprieve.

“The logic is valid—if they will listen,” Chem said. “But neither species is known for listening well.”

Grundy reached the top of the wall and stood on it, a tiny figure. “Hey, stink-snoot!” he cried. “Come in here and show off your ignorance! You too, filth-feather!” Then he ducked as a rock flew by and an egg slanted down.

“I think you chose the wrong diplomat,” Chem remarked. “Grundy thinks it’s a challenge to be as foul-mouthed as the others.”

“I should have known,” Irene agreed ruefully. “I’ll have to mediate this myself.”

“You’ll get your head bombed,” Chem warned.

“Perhaps we can be of assistance,” a new voice said.

Irene looked around, but saw nothing. “Who spoke?”

“We’re invisible,” the voice said. “We don’t want to get shot or stoned.”

“Invisible! Well, if you’re friendly, show yourselves; we won’t attack you.”

Two figures faded into view—the male harpy and the female goblin. “The lovers!” Irene exclaimed. “How—?”

“We discovered our magic talent,” the girl said almost shyly. She was remarkably pretty. “Goblins don’t do magic, and neither do harpies—not the way human folk do—but together we can become invisible.” She moved to rejoin the harpy and they faded out again.

“Recessive genes, maybe,” Chem said as the two reappeared. She glanced more closely at the girl. “You look familiar. I’ve seen a goblin girl almost as pretty as you—”

“My big Sister Goldy,” the girl said. “I’m Glory, the loveliest and nicest of my generation. And this is Hardy, the handsomest and best-mannered of his.”

Irene introduced herself and her friends. “We’re looking for my lost daughter—”

“Ivy!” Glory exclaimed. “The cute little child with the bone in her hair!”

Irene was astonished. “You met her?”

“She helped me find Hardy,” Glory said. “Now I can see the family affinity. Her hair is a little green, while yours—”

“When she gets jealous, her whole face turns green,” Grundy remarked, returning from the wall.

“A bone in her hair?” Chem inquired.

“She said the Cyclops gave it to her,” Glory explained. “She was very helpful! She and Hugo and Stanley—”

“Hugo?” the Gorgon asked. “He’s with them?”

“Oh, yes. He has such a wonderful talent!”

“But he can only conjure rotten fruit!”

Glory laughed. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew him!”

“Well, I
am
his mother.”

Glory gazed at her, perplexed. “You must have excruciatingly exacting standards! His fruit certainly seemed good enough to me! And he’s so intelligent—”

“Intelligent?” the Gorgon asked.

“Oh, yes! And handsome—”

The Gorgon shook her hooded head, baffled.

“Stanley?” Irene asked, picking up on the other name.

“Stanley Steamer, the baby dragon. He’s really very nice, too.”

“Nice?” Irene repeated blankly. “The rejuvenated Gap Dragon?”

Glory smiled, and the wallflower enclosure brightened. “You’re being humorous, right?”

“That must be the case,” Irene agreed faintly. Something was certainly funny here, but not humorous. “How did you meet them?”

“I was coming south from the Gap, looking for Hardy, and I suppose I was lost, or at least mislaid. But the dragon located the mouth organ for us, and so we found Hardy—”

“And the goblins ambushed us,” the harpy continued. “They put me on trial for corrupting Glory, but Hugo’s brilliant defense acquitted me—”

“I just don’t understand,” the Gorgon said. “Naturally I want the best for my son, but I simply have to say that he was never brilliant or handsome or well talented. I wish it were otherwise, but—”

“It sounds as if his qualities have been improved,” Chem commented.

“Ivy!” Irene exclaimed. “She’s responsible!”

“That was my thought,” the centaur agreed. “I suspect that her talent of enhancement is more potent than we knew. She has elevated Hugo to his full potential.”

“But the dragon,” Irene said. “The dragon should have become even more ferocious by the same enhancement!”

“Not if her talent is selective,” Chem pointed out. “If it should, for example, enhance only what she perceives, or chooses to perceive, or wishes—”

“It would require Magician-level talent to make my boy a genius,” the Gorgon said ruefully. “For a long time I hoped he would improve as he aged, but now he’s eight years old and has shown no sign—”

“Eight? If he’s not a genius, he’s close to it,” Glory said. “He picked up on precisely the right points!”

“Anyway,” Hardy said, “Hugo won my case—but the goblin chief, Glory’s father, reneged, and set up to execute me—”

“And I joined him in the fire,” Glory continued, her eyes shining. “Ivy joined us, too—and suddenly we found our talent and were invisible. That made the difference, and in the confusion we were able to escape.”

“Ivy’s talent,” Chem said. “
Much
more potent than we knew! That combined harpy-goblin talent of invisibility must have been latent. The stress of the situation and Ivy’s power of enhancement must have joined to bring it out. Who ever would have suspected that a joint interspecies talent could exist?”

“Well, if half souls exist,” Irene said, “maybe half talents exist too.”

The centaur smiled. “Surely so! There is much we have yet to learn about the magic of Xanth! And it seems that Hardy and Glory are well matched, since their half talents match.”

It occurred to Irene that it was possible that all goblins and all harpies had half talents of invisibility which could only be matched by the portion in the other species, so that this was not necessarily an indication of the compatibility of these two particular individuals. But there was no point in making that caveat; it would accomplish nothing.

“So we fled my father’s band,” Glory concluded. “And Ivy and Hugo and Stanley escaped, too, for the goblins were following our footprints. Hardy carried me part of the way, though I weigh as much as he does, and he couldn’t lift me far. But when darkness came, we camped in a tree my father’s band couldn’t reach and got a good night’s rest.” She paused to blush delicately. “Part of the night, anyway.”

“We gave them the slip,” Hardy said. “But they kept casting about, searching for us, so we couldn’t really relax today.”

“We were getting pretty tired,” Glory said. “But now, with the harpies—”

“We heard the commotion,” Hardy said. “I recognized the screeching and thought I could reassure my people that the mouth organ’s news was inoperative—”

“I believe I have enough of the picture now,” Chem said. “But we can do nothing unless we get the leaders to negotiate.”

“I can get my father to come in here,” Glory said. “But he won’t listen to reason.”

“And I can get Haggy Harpy here,” Hardy said. “All males are princes in Harpydom; she must come at my call. But she won’t listen either.”

“Fetch them in and keep them from fighting,” Chem said, “and I will try to get through to them. I may not be as eloquent as you say Hugo was, but we may yet abate this war.”

Goblin and harpy shrugged. Anything was worth trying. Then Glory climbed the south wall, flashing some remarkably well-formed limbs, while Hardy flew into the sky. There had been little commotion from either side during this dialogue, perhaps because neither could be sure where the present advantage lay.

“Father,” Glory called from the wall. “You must come in here and talk to the harpy leader, under truce.”

“Never!” Gorbage answered, his voice faint but ugly in the distance.

“Otherwise I just might throw myself to my doom,” Glory said, making as if to jump off the wall. It really wasn’t high enough for the fall to be fatal, but the bluff worked; Gorbage agreed to come in.

Hardy had an easier time. “Come down and negotiate,” he told Haggy, “or I’ll tell the Queen Harpy you suck eggs.”

That cowed the hen. “I’m no egg-sucker!” she screeched, and flapped down to perch on the north wall.

Now both leaders were present, Haggy settling her blotchy feathers, Gorbage draping his knobby legs astride the south wall. Both glared at each other, and at anyone else in range. It was obvious that neither cared to be reasonable.

“First,” Chem said, “I ask each of you to explain to your people that we are armed with accurate arrows and the stare of the Gorgon. Anyone who tries to storm this bastion will face the consequence.” Gorbage and Haggy, knowing this was true, informed their parties. But neither showed any willingness to cease hostilities. Irene knew this was the main problem. Human folk would have wanted to find a way to avert bloodshed, but the goblins and harpies really did want to fight.

“For more than a thousand years, the goblins and the harpies have been at war,” Chem said. “It started because of overcrowding and misunderstanding, and foul deeds were done on both sides. But King Roogna got things straightened away, and for eight hundred years the war has been quiescent.

With the Gap Chasm and the Gap Dragon separating the parties, there has not been very much occasion for strife. But now it seems a romance has developed between the species—”

“I’ll kill the fowl cock!” Gorbage cried. “Smirching my fair daughter!”

“That’s ‘smooch,’ not ‘smirch,’ Father,” Glory murmured.

“Listen, bulbnose!” Haggy screeched. “Your slut of a whelp of a daughter tempted him with her obscene legs, just like in the old days! She should swallow an egg sidewise!”

“What’s wrong with her legs?” Hardy demanded.

“I’ll egg her right now!” Haggy screeched, rising into the air. But Chem’s arrow tracked her progress, ready to zing from the bow, and the Gorgon turned to face the harpy, her hand tugging at the hood. Haggy settled back down, muttering.

“Do you folk really object to interspecies marriages?” Chem asked.

“Of course!” Gorbage cried. “Why should we let miscegination pollute our pure goblin breed? My daughter will marry a goblin chief!”

“Never!” Glory cried.

“We have enough trouble preserving our species,” Haggy screeched. “We don’t need goblin sluts adulterating our stock! And most of all, we don’t need goblins invading our territory and killing off our few precious males!”

“Well, keep those motley cocks away from our unspoiled maidens!” Gorbage yelled back. “You sure don’t see our males going after your stinking hens!”

“They couldn’t catch them!” Haggy shot back.

“Regardless,” Chem cut in loudly. “We do have a cross-species romance here. And I think your objections are not well founded. Many of the creatures of Xanth are crossbreeds. The griffins, merfolk, chimerae, basilisks, manticora—and, of course, my own species, the centaurs. The harpies are an ancient crossbreed line; you should not object to further crossbreeding.”

“Not the goblins!” Gorbage said. “We are of straight semi-humanoid stock.”