Dragon On A Pedestal Part 30

"Oh, goody!" She relaxed.

"But the disorientation effect is localized. There seems to be a region through which the fruits can not safely pa.s.s. And the nature of that region, judging from other small hints we have had, must be--a forget-whorl, of the kind my father described before he regressed to infancy."

"Is that bad?" Ivy asked, impressed.

"Yes and no. It is bad for us, for we must avoid it. Had we blundered into it, we should have suffered immediate amnesia." He knew about the whorls because he had been along when Good Magician Humfrey had told King Dor about them, back in Castle Zombie. With his present genius, he grasped their nature thoroughly. "However, we should now be able to use this whorl for our purpose, since it should have the same effect on the wiggles that it does on the fruits. This is not a certainty, but is a high probability. All we need to do is move that whorl over to the wiggle nest, and it will cause the worms to forget their purpose and perhaps forget even how to move. Then their menace will likely abate."

"Wonderful!" Ivy agreed. "Let's move it!"

"We can't even see it!" Hugo pointed out, now experiencing the necessary caution of a smart person. "And the thing is dangerous. It can wipe us out, too, as surely as if it had giant teeth. How can we move it?"

"You can figure out a way!" she said encouragingly. Hugo sighed. Somehow he had known she would say that.

He concentrated again. "It seems there are a number of whorls, drifting generally southward from the weakening forget-spell on the Gap Chasm. They seem to have changed their nature, causing total forgetting instead of just Gap Chasm forgetting. I could probably work out a rationale for that effect--"

"Stick to business," Ivy said firmly.

Hugo sighed again. "These whorls seem to a.s.sociate loosely with the Gap Dragon, or his rejuvenated state, perhaps because his exits from the Gap are through a convenient channel--convenient for the whorls as well as for the Dragon. Presumably the Dragon is at least partially immune to the effect of the forget-spell, having spent all his life within it. So it may be no coincidence that there is a whorl in this vicinity. But this suggests two things--that the whorls are to some extent affected by the prevailing winds and the lay of the land, and that Stanley may have more influence over them than other creatures do. If we a.s.sume this is true, Stanley should be able to move a whirl by fanning it with his wings and blowing along natural channels in the terrain."

Ivy clapped her hands. "I just knew you could do it, Hugo!" she cried joyously. "Now tell me what you said."

Hugo translated. "We can blow the whorl to the wiggle nest."

"Oh, goody! Let's do it."

They did it, after some further discussion and organization. Hugo explained that they should be safe from the on-zapping wiggles if they kept the whorl between them and the nest, for the wiggles would forget their purpose--a.s.suming his conjectures were correct--when they entered the whorl and would be of no further threat. The three of them would have to stay together, not venturing out to destroy individual wiggles, as it would not be safe anywhere but behind the whorl. And Ivy and Hugo had to stay behind Stanley because, while the whorl might not hurt the dragon, it would erase the two of them if it touched them. This was a rather tricky, dangerous business.

But Ivy was not a creature of caution. She knew the wiggle nest had to be nullified, so she was bound to do it. Her mother would have had another vision, worse than the first, had she known what was contemplated here.

They proceeded. Stanley was in the lead, using his wings to fan the whorl. He could not fly, but he could generate a gentle, steady breeze that made the whorl slowly drift away. It did seem to respond to his breeze more than to the incidental pa.s.sing natural breezes. Hugo was at the rear, conjuring bunches of flying cherries that he sent around and into the invisible whorl. The cherries that spun out of control showed where the whorl was; that was the only way it could be spotted. Ivy stayed between Stanley and Hugo, enhancing both their powers. It might have looked to an outsider as if she were doing nothing, but without her, Hugo a.s.sured her, neither he nor Stanley would have been able to perform. Both dragon and boy had enhanced intelligence and powers in her presence. The pedestal and the Shiny Armor needed constant tending now.

Hugo continued to triangulate the location of the nest by listening to the zaps of pa.s.sing wiggles and performing rapid mental calculations. The zaps became more prevalent as progress was made. But it was not possible to approach the nest in a straight line, for there were trees and boulders in the way, and a hill that the whorl tended to slide away from, and a pond too deep for them to wade through. So they had to travel the contour, which meant moving the whorl sidewise on occasion.

This was a challenge. Stanley could blow the whorl directly forward, but sidewise travel meant he couldn't do that. The wiggles were zapping thickly out from the nest, preventing Stanley from moving to the side. He might be immune to the effect of the whorl, but he wasn't proof against the wiggles.

They were stuck.

Ivy, of course, had the answer. "Figure it out, Hugo!" she cried, cowering as the zapping of wiggles became close and loud. Zzapp! Zzapp! Zzapp! "How can Stanley blow around a corner?"

Hugo cudgeled his brain yet again. Blow around a corner?

Ridiculous! Only if he had a baffle--and he had no way to get one. There were half a dozen close zaps every minute now; he would be holed in short order if he ventured from the shelter of the whorl. As it was, he had to watch his flying fruits carefully, because a number were getting shot down by the wiggles. If he misread the position of the whorl by confusing holed fruit with forgetted fruit, disaster could follow! Then it came to him. "Vectors!" he cried.

"Another menace?" Ivy asked, alarmed.

"No. Vectors are lines of force," he explained. "My father the baby was reading about them in a Mundane text once, while he was baby-sitting me before he got infanted himself." Hugo paused, smiling. "Now I can baby-sit him! If I ever get home." Then he returned to his concept. "Vectors are one of the types of magic that work in Mundania. Stanley's breeze represents one vector--pushing the whorl straight forward toward the next. The slope of the hill is another vector, pushing the whorl back. The vectors oppose, and therefore we can't make progress. But the slope isn't straight back; it's a little sidewise. So if we blow forward, and the hill pushes a little to the side, the net resulting force will be to the side."

"I'm glad you're smart," Ivy said dubiously. "It doesn't make any sense to me."

"I'll show you. Stanley, blow forward, steadily." The little dragon flapped his wings, blowing forward at the whorl. The whorl moved a little, as shown by the falling cherries, then nudged to the right. As the blowing continued, the whorl moved faster rightward.

"It's sliding to the side!" Ivy exclaimed, surprised. "Precisely," Hugo agreed. "This is slow but effective. As we make progress around the hill, the vectors will change, and we'll make better progress. We shall reach the nest--in due course."

It happened as he had foreseen. The curve of the hill made progress gradually easier. In addition, they discovered that by angling Stanley's breeze slightly, they could cause the whorl to roll or spin some, affecting its progress. They were getting better at this.

But the extent of the wiggle menace became evident as they rounded the hill and cut across the depression beyond it. Ivy looked back and saw the entire hill riddled by wiggle holes. Trees were tattered, and a few had fallen, their trunks so badly holed they collapsed. What an appalling number of wiggles!

Hugo glanced back, too. "Good thing we didn't try to fly," he remarked.

"Why?"

"Because now I see that a number of wiggles do, after all, travel upward," he said. "The holes do not form a perfectly horizontal plane; most holes are in a level line, but some are above and below. Some wiggles are angling upward or downward, and probably a few go straight up. If Stanley had tried to fly over the nest, he would probably have been holed so many times before he reached it that he never would have made it."

"Oooh, awful!" Ivy agreed with a shudder. Zzapp! Zzapp! Zzapp! Now she was even more conscious of the concentration of wiggles. They were everywhere except right here, and the landscape of Xanth was devastated by their pa.s.sage. She could see dead animals and birds, holed by wiggles. Even the ground was chewed up by frequent holing. The wilderness was becoming a wasteland.

But now at last the nest itself was in sight. It was a dark globe as tall as a grown man, perched on the ground beyond a ravine. There was a haze around it, which Ivy realized was actually the ma.s.s of wiggles hovering in the region, before zapping on outward. Most of them did hang in a plane parallel to the ground, making the nest resemble the planet Saturn--but of course this was much larger than Saturn, which as everyone knew was only a tiny mote in the night sky that never dared show itself by day.

Overall, the thing was awesome and horrible. How unfortunate no one had seen it while it was growing and destroyed it before the swarming started.! But this was in the deepest depths of Unknown Xanth, where no one who was anyone ever went. So the nest had grown and grown, unmolested, perhaps over the course of thirty years. Now Xanth was paying for it!

It had taken time to skirt the hill and guide the forget-whorl this far. They were tired, for all three of them were children, and the day was fading. Still, there should be time to reach the nest, except-- "Hold up!" Hugo cried. "We can't go there!"

Ivy saw what he meant. The ravine was no minor cleft; it was an abrupt, deep fissure in the earth, extending down into darkness. It was too broad for any of them to jump across and too deep to climb through. To the sides it leveled out somewhat, at the near edge; but the far edge remained an almost vertical cleft as far as they could see. They could certainly roll the whorl into this ravine--but if it sank to the bottom, they could never get it out again.

They halted, afraid to go farther, lest the whorl fall in. "What are we to do now?" Ivy asked dispiritedly. She was a creature of optimism and she believed in her friends, but the blank far wall of the ravine was a mighty pessimistic thing.

"Let me think," Hugo said.

While Hugo thought. Ivy's tired attention wandered. She wished she were home at Castle Roogna, watching the historical tapestry with its perpetually changing pictures. She could almost picture herself there, happily absorbing the yarns of the tapestry.

Suddenly she spotted a faint horse-outline. She recognized it. "The day mare!" she exclaimed. "I see you, Mare Imbri! You're such a pretty black, just like a shadow!"

And, as tended to happen in Ivy's presence, the object of her attention became more so. Imbri the Day Mare, who had brought Ivy's daydream, became clearer and blacker and prettier. She was now more perceptible than she had been.

"Hey, she can take a message to our folks!" Hugo said, his intelligence still operating. "We need advice about what to do now."

But the mare shook her head sadly, her shadow-mane flaring. She projected her thought into a dream figure of a nymph, and Ivy heard the nymph's voice faintly in her head, like a distant memory. "Night is nigh, and I can no longer carry dreams by night. I can not carry messages from one person to another; I can only bring thoughts of each other. I will have time only to hint to your folks where you are." And Imbri was off, racing against the suddenly looming night.

Ivy shook her head. They were still stuck! They wouldn't be able to see the flying cherries in the dark, and so the whorl would drift away, and then the wiggles would come through- What were they to do? Their gallant effort was about to collapse into disaster. They didn't even have time to retreat or any way to bring the protective whorl with them if they did withdraw.

Chapter 17: Community Effort.

They found the Cyclops' cave in late afternoon. The monster was asleep inside, with the bones of a recent carca.s.s piled in the entrance. Irene would have felt dread for the fate of her daughter, but the ivy plant she carried still grew in health.

Ivy remained well--somewhere.

"Be ready," Irene warned Chem. "I'm going to broach the monster."

The centaur nocked an arrow to her bow and stood ready.

Irene approached the cave. "Cyclops!" she called. The creature stirred. "Ungh?" he inquired through a yawn.

"Who calls Brontes?"

So the thing could speak the human language. Good. "Where is my daughter?" Irene demanded.

The Cyclops sat up. His big blue eye gazed out into the light. He saw Chem's arrow aimed at that eye. He blinked.

"Daughter?"

"Ivy. She was with a little dragon."

The Cyclops brightened. "Sure, her, and the dragon, and the boy. Nice visit, good fruit. Friends."

"All three are safe?"

"Sure. Nice children. We talk, tell stories. But they not here."

"Where are they now?" Irene asked evenly, for her trust in monsters was small.

"They go home," the Cyclops said. "That way." He pointed northeast.

"But that's through the deepest depths of the unknown!" Irene protested. And, she added to herself, it was not the direction of the mouth organ where the children had interacted with the goblin band. Was Brontes deceiving her?

"Yes. Nice kids. I say I carry them at night, but they not wait. In hurry go home."

"They were all right when they left here?" Irene asked, still uncertain. This misalignment of direction bothered her. Once again, compulsively, she glanced down at her ivy plant. Of course the children were all right!

"They not wait for night. I not go out by day. The Sky--"

Chem lowered the bow. "I don't think he's deceiving us," she said. "He wouldn't be in a position to know about the goblins. The children must have changed direction when they encountered Glory."

Irene agreed. The Cyclops' story did, after all, align. "What about the sky?"

"My father the Sky--he strike me down, if--"

"Your father is in the sky?" Chem asked, approaching. "Is this a euphemism for--"

"He banish me, will strike down--"

"So you said," Chem cut in. "So your father is the sky, and he's angry with you. How long ago did you offend him?"

The Cyclops was at a loss. He started counting on his huge fingers.

"That many years ago?" Irene asked.

"Centuries," the Cyclops said, starting on his other hand.

"Centuries!" Chem exclaimed. "Your kind must live a long time!"

Brontes shrugged. "Sip of Youth water now and then; spring not far, for me. But not live long if I go out in sight of Sky!"

It was amazing how widespread knowledge of the Fountain of Youth was among the creatures of Xanth--while civilized people had remained ignorant. Yet this creature seemed unnecessarily restricted by his fear of the sky. "Have you ever tested it, this--this continuing animosity?"

"Not dare go out by day!"

"Look," Irene said impatiently. "There is a terrible hazard facing Xanth at the moment, and we need all the help we can get. Have you heard of the wiggles?"

"The wiggles!" Brontes exclaimed. "Many times, since time began! Very bad!"

"They're swarming again. If you don't come out and help us stop them, they may riddle this cave by nightfall. They're harder to fight at night, because you can't see them as well. So you may have to choose which chance to take--sky or wiggle."

"Must warn brothers!" Brontes cried. "Steropes and Arges are also at risk! Only found them last night!"

Irene wondered why the Cyclops hadn't found his brothers before, perhaps when the last wiggle swarm had pa.s.sed this way. But probably they had been fighting different sections of the swarm, then retreated to their caves by day the way Brontes did. These semihuman creatures had funny values. "Do that," she said. "But first you must come out of that cave."

"But the Sky--"

"Forget the sky!" Irene snapped. "Come out here and see what happens. If you don't get struck down, you'll know it's safe. It's been a long time, after all."

The monster's big eye brightened. "True. Long time." He put a foot out of the cave, then hesitated as if thinking of something else. "But if Sky do strike--"

"Then you won't have to worry about the wiggles."

Overcome by this logic, though it seemed he reserved some small doubts, the Cyclops stepped out of his cave, cowering against the light, afraid a thunderbolt would strike him down. But as the sunlight fell on him, nothing else did.

"Evidently the sky has forgotten you," Chem said.

Brontes peered up, shading his eyes with a hand, amazed and relieved. "Long time," he repeated. "Oh, now I free my brothers, too! All fight wiggles!" He glanced about. "Not see as well as when Ivy-girl help. Where are wiggles?"

"Roughly east-northeast of here, we think," Chem answered. "We skirted the fringe of the swarm, and haven't pinpointed it yet. But it's not very far away--and getting closer all the time!"

"The kids!" he said. "Going right into it!" Then he charged off to the west, in quest of his brothers.

"He's right," Irene said with new alarm. "The children must be very near that swarm! Let's hurry!"

They hurried. Irene wished Grundy were still with them, for now the trail was fresh and the local plants would be able to confirm the route. But she could not wait for the golem to reappear. The threat of the wiggles made haste imperative.

As she rode, Irene began to daydream. This was unusual for her, as she was a practical woman; she had to make sure Dor didn't innocently foul up the kingdom. But now, at this time of the double tension of peril to her child and to all of Xanth, she found herself dreaming. She must be more tired than she thought.

She remembered how she had partic.i.p.ated in the defense of Xanth from the last great threat, that of the Mundane Next-wave--which was, of course, now the Lastwave, but old thought and speech habits died slowly--and had herself been King for a while, since Xanth did not have ruling Queens. The final key to victory had been Imbri the Night Mare, now honored by a commemorative statue, who had given her physical life in the cause and now was a spirit of the day, a day mare, bringing--"

"Mare Imbrium!" Irene exclaimed abruptly. "It's you!"