Dragon on a Pedestal (37 page)

“As I said,” Chem resumed. “On that page, it is reported that his sword tells him he is undoubtedly crazy, and Dor says, ‘Well, you’re in my hand now. You’ll do as I direct.’ Or words to that effect.”

“That’s not swearing,” Irene said. “You have to have a firm hand with the inanimate, or there’s no end of mischief. Dor was simply establishing who was boss.”

“But the text recorded it as ‘Hell, you’re in my hand’—an
H
instead of a
W
.”

Irene grimaced. “You mean everyone who sees that text will believe my husband swore at his sword?”

“I’m afraid so,” Chem said apologetically. “It seems a gremlin got into the works, and changed it the way gremlins do, and because of the circumstances of proofreading—”

“Oh, bother!” Irene said, irritated—and wondered whether that would be recorded as an obscenity, as the gremlin generated more mischief. But then she took heart. “Maybe not too many people will see it, so it won’t do Dor’s reputation too much harm. After all,
I
never saw it, so probably—”

“Oh, yeah?” Grundy cut in. “I happen to know that someone leaked copies of several of those texts to Mundania, including that one, so a whole bunch of people must have seen it!”

Black rage clouded Irene’s vision, but she controlled herself so as not to give the golem satisfaction. “Not too many people who
count
,” she amended.

“Oh,” Grundy said, disgruntled. It was true that no one with any sense cared much about the antics of Mundanes.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Chem said apologetically. “It was only one of a number of cases—”

“A number of cases!” Irene cried, outraged.

“They don’t all involve Dor,” the centaur said quickly.

The party marched on in silence. When they were about half an hour away from the Cyclops’ lair, something else interposed. Some large creature was whomping through the forest toward them.

“If that’s a monster, I’m going to grow a tangle tree!” Irene said, fed up with delays.

“If I didn’t know better,” Chem remarked, “I’d suppose that was the Gap Dragon. It’s the only creature I know of that moves by whomping along.”

“I saw what happened in the magic mirror,” Irene said. “The Gap Dragon definitely OD’d on a Fountain of Youth water and became tiny. This is far too solid a whomping for that.”

“Yes,” the Gorgon said, remembering as she was reminded. “Humfrey and the dragon—both infants now. Lacuna is babysitting—”

“Well, it sure sounds like the Gap Dragon,” Grundy said. “Better be ready to remove your veil, Stonestare, just in case.”

The creature came into sight.

“The Gap Dragon! Irene exclaimed. “It
is
it!”

Indeed it seemed so. The dragon was full-sized, with bright metallic scales, three sets of legs, vestigial wings, and plumes of steam. It spied them and charged, shaking the ground with its whomping.

No time now to marvel at impossibilities! Irene fished for a seed. “I’d better sprout that tangle tree!” she said. “Or a strangler fig.”

“No, wait!” the Gorgon protested. “I remember now! Humfrey said the Gap Dragon must not be hurt! It’s needed in the Gap!”

Irene paused. “That’s right. He did say that. It made precious little sense to me at the time, but now we know the Gap Dragon helps keep the goblins and harpies apart. Even if that wasn’t the case, Humfrey always did know what he was talking about before, so we’d better heed him this time. But how can we stop that monster if I don’t use my most devastating plants and you don’t show your face?”

“That question makes me feel very insecure,” the Gorgon admitted.

“Grow defensive plants,” Chem suggested, worried herself. It was one thing to conjecture on the theoretical value of the Gap Dragon to the society of Xanth; it was another to watch that monster steaming down on the group. “Until we can slow the dragon down enough so it can listen to Grundy. Then maybe we can find out how it reversed the Fountain of Youth effect.”

“Reversed the Youth!” the Gorgon exclaimed. “Oh, yes, we must learn that! I can get my husband back to normal!” She paused, considering. “Or maybe partway back. I’d like to know him at a comfortable age of forty or fifty, instead of over one hundred.”

“The baby dragon was with the children,” Chem said. “Now that it has reverted to adult status, I hope it didn’t—”

“The children!” Irene exclaimed. But then her hand found the ivy plant she wore. It remained healthy. “No, the children are all right. At least Ivy is, and surely that means Hugo is, too, since they were together.”

“Surely,” the Gorgon agreed, relieved.

“Get on with the defensive plants, girls!” Grundy cried, seeing the dragon bearing down on them. It had been making progress all this time but had had some distance to go. Now it loomed excruciatingly large and fierce, the plumes of steam sweeping back along its long body.

Hastily Irene selected and threw down a seed. “Grow! Grow!” she cried. How could she have stood here talking while the monster was charging?

Impelled by the double command, the seed fairly burst into growth. Irene was aware that her power had been slowly fading during her separation from her talented daughter Ivy, but she still had enough zip for this. The plant took firm root, developed a thick, gray-white stem, and spread out a globe of whitish leaves. Overall, it was not large or impressive; it was squat and low and showed no thorns or threatening flowers.

“The monster’ll crash right through that!” Grundy said nervously.

“I doubt it,” Irene replied. “Stand directly behind it.”

The four of them placed themselves behind the bush. The dragon whomped right at it, shooting out a sizzling jet of steam. But the steam bounced off the leaves, coating them with moisture; they did not wilt.

Surprised, the dragon slowed. Ordinarily it would simply have crushed the bush underfoot, but it had learned caution about unusual plants. Some plants could defend themselves quite adequately. It moved into this one at reduced velocity.

And bounced off it. The dragon was shaken; the bush remained undented.

“Something odd about this plant,” Chem said, understating the case somewhat.

“What
is
it?” the Gorgon asked, impressed.

“One you should recognize,” Irene said. “A cement plant.”

“No, I don’t know anything about cement plants,” the Gorgon said. “Plants don’t have eyes, so can’t see me, so can’t be turned to stone by the sight of my face. Otherwise we’d have a handy way to foil the dragon; we could hide behind any bush and turn it to stone.”

Meanwhile, the dragon had figured out that there was something funny about the plant and was circling around it, steaming angrily. Irene quickly tossed down several more seeds. “Grow!”

Ferns sprouted. “What can ferns do?” Grundy asked.

“These are chain ferns,” Irene explained.

In moments the ferns developed metallic links, hooked up to each other, and formed a sturdy chain barring the dragon’s progress.

But the chain was too low; the dragon sniffed it, pondered for a reasonable interval, then simply whomped over it.

However, Irene had already started more plants growing. Several amazon lilies lashed at the dragon’s feet, striking with their small spears of leaves. But the reptile’s feet were too tough to be hurt by these, and progress was hardly impeded.

But other plants caused more trouble. A firecrown landed on the dragon’s head, heating it uncomfortably; a fishhook cactus hooked into several toes; a mountain rose grew in front, rising into a small red mountain, blocking the way while it continued to smell as sweet as its cousins by other names. A rattlesnake plant rattled, hissed, and struck at the dragon’s nose; a star cluster heated the dragon’s scales with a number of little burning stars; and scrub oak used little brushes to scrub at exposed anatomy. That merely tickled the monster.

“This small stuff is only slowing the thing,” Grundy said. “You need stronger medicine.”

“Well, I don’t have any new seeds sorted yet!” Irene fussed. “I don’t want to risk random seeds.”

The dragon shook off the last of the nuisance plants and fired a jet of steam. Chem danced aside, but Irene felt the heat of the blast. The golem was right; she needed stronger stuff and soon, or they would be in deep trouble. But a tangle tree was too strong. She would have to gamble on some unclassified stock.

She nerved herself and threw out a random seed. “Grow!”

The seed sprouted into a huge tree that soon made everything else look relatively small. “Oh, that’s a dwarf yew plant,” Irene said. But the dragon simply whomped around it, undwarfed.

She tossed out another. It grew a number of cylindrical red fruits, and these exploded as the dragon passed, startling it. “A firecracker plant,” Irene said, recognizing it.

A third plant looked like a fern, but it soon uprooted itself and walked away. “Walking fern,” Irene said. “Oh, I’m wasting some fine seeds here! If only I had time to classify them, so I knew what they all were, I could do something effective!”

“Let me talk to them,” Grundy said. “Maybe I can find a good one.”

Frustrated, but unable to offer anything better, Irene let the golem put his little hand in the bag of seeds and draw out individual ones to query. She hadn’t realized he could talk to seeds, but of course he could communicate with anything living. Still this took time, for he could only query one at a time, and the dragon was close.

Chem kept retreating, able to outrun the monster, but the Gorgon was afoot and having trouble. There wasn’t room for her on Chem, along with Irene, Grundy and the bag of seeds; she was more solid than Zora Zombie had been. The dragon tended to go for whoever was closest. They had to
get her out of danger, or she would be forced to lift her veil in self-defense and turn the dragon to stone.

Irene looked anxiously about. To the side was the base of a fairly steep slope covered with vegetation. That would be easier to hide in. “There!” she cried, pointing.

They hurried to the slope. Chem’s legs plunged through the layered herbiage, seeking firm footing beneath. Vines and brambles abounded. The Gorgon had trouble, too. But maybe, Irene hoped, this would impede the progress of the dragon. Once it stopped trying to devour them, Grundy would be able to talk to it.

Chem reached out to grab the Gorgon’s arm, helping her to scramble over the slope. “Oops!” the Gorgon cried. “My veil’s snagged on a bramble! Close your eyes!”

Irene closed her eyes and looked away just to be safe. This was a very poor time to be without sight, but such a warning had to be heeded! She knew the others were doing likewise. She heard the angry hissing of the little snakes that were the Gorgon’s hair; they didn’t like being shaken up.

In a moment the Gorgon announced that her veil was back in place. Irene opened her eyes, looked back—and saw the dragon almost within steaming range. “Grow!” she cried to the vegetation between them and the dragon.

It grew. Oh, how it grew! The brambles become enormous and twice as tangly as before, and the vines threaded themselves into new layers of complexity. They twined up around the dragon, using it as support for their competitive rising toward the sun. In moments the dragon looked like a boulder clothed in vines.

The reptile didn’t like this. It thrashed its powerful tail, snapping vines as if they were so many cotton threads. It steamed, making the green leaves wilt. It whomped forward, flattening multiple layers into one layer. The vegetation was no match for it.

“That’s one tough dragon!” Irene murmured.

“The toughest,” Chem agreed, struggling to stay out of steam range. She was panting, expending a lot of energy to move up the difficult slope, and so was the Gorgon. “I was (puff!) present when Smash the Ogre (puff!) fought it in the Gap Chasm nine years ago. (Puff!) It was an even contest.”

“An ogre is stronger than a dragon, weight for weight,” Irene said.

“In most cases,” Chem agreed noncommittally.

The dragon made another whomp. Now it was within steaming range. It pumped up its body, making ready to issue the definitive blast.

“I’ve got it!” Grundy cried. “A dragnet seed!”

Irene snatched the seed as adeptly as any harpy might have. “Grow!” she ordered it, flinging it at the reptile.

The seed sprouted in midair. It developed into a broad net whose material glinted in the light like steel. This was no ordinary plant!

The net settled neatly over the dragon and dug its fringe roots into the ground on all sides. Irene had never seen a plant like this before; evidently there were some excellent seeds in the batch from the Tree of Seeds!

The dragon whomped forward, trying to brush the annoying net out of the way—and was thrown back by it. No strands broke. This was one plant the monster could not overpower by brute force.

Furious, the dragon reached out with a leg or two and clawed at the net. Still it didn’t give. The dragon blasted out white-hot steam—but the net did not wilt or melt. The dragon chomped on the dragnet with its teeth, but the vines held.

“I think we’ve got it,” Grundy said.

“Well, talk to it!” Irene snapped. This had been entirely too near a thing.

Grundy tried. He made a small roaring noise, which the dragon ignored. They would have to wait for the monster to settle down.

They waited, glad for the chance to rest, and slowly the dragon’s efforts abated. Soon it would listen to Grundy.

“Odd,” the golem remarked innocently. “I didn’t hear you thank me for locating the key seed, the dragnet.”

Irene stifled further ire at his prodding. “Thank you so deliciously much!” she snapped. But of course Grundy’s part in this
had
been essential; she did have to give credit where it was due, even to the most obnoxious person.

“I do so appreciate your gracious—” Grundy began, then paused, listening.

Zzapp!

Chem stiffened. “What was that?”

“What was what, silly filly?” Grundy asked, though obviously he had heard it, too.

“Probably my imagination,” the centaur decided. “For an instant I thought—a historical phenomenon my father Chester told me about—”