Dragon on a Pedestal (16 page)

The bugbear advanced on Ivy, who knew she was naughty because she had gotten herself lost. Its bug-eyes glared malevolently at her, and its bug-mandibles gaped slobberingly.

Ivy screamed, and not merely because that was what a damsel in distress was supposed to do. She wasn’t really afraid of dragons; they were distant adult creatures, except for Stanley, who was her friend. But the bugbear was her size, and it was close; it knew exactly how to terrify her. It grew larger and worser as it tromped toward her.

Hugo conjured a ripe tomato and hurled it at the monster. His aim was better than usual, because Ivy believed Nights had good aim, and the fruit splattered on the bugbear’s face. This made the face only slightly less ugly than before. Still the thing advanced, hairy bug-arms reaching.

“Bug off!” Hugo cried, throwing an even riper tomato. But the monster merely sloughed the squish from its nose and grabbed for Ivy.

Now Stanley acted. He aimed his snout, pumped up his pressure until his safety valve whistled, and let fly a searing jet of superheated steam. His steam had become much fiercer since he had started associating with Ivy.

The steam struck the horrible mask-face and ricocheted off. But the heat and moisture were so intense that the bugbear’s face began to melt. Dripping different colors, the thing retreated.

Stanley pursued, pumping up another burst of steam. The bugbear turned tail and fled. Its tail was not fearsome at all. Such monsters had all their fear in front and became next to nothing when retreating. Indeed, this one shrank visibly with each step it took, and soon it vanished entirely.

“Oh, Stanley, you’re so wonderful!” Ivy exclaimed, hugging his neck. She polished up the pedestal, which was higher and prettier now, though still invisible. The dragon discovered again that he liked getting hugged by a cute little girl, and the pedestal was actually a pretty comfortable place to rest on his laurels. He made a low, purring growl. It was fun saving damsels from bug-eyed monsters.

Hugo was not entirely satisfied, however. He felt that more attention was being lavished on Stanley than the dragon warranted. In fact, he was a mite jealous, which was odd, because it was the dragon who was green.

They ate some more of Hugo’s conjured fruit, and proceeded with greater confidence. They had met and conquered an enemy!

The jungle thinned as the land rose. Soon they were climbing a fairly hefty hill. The dragon puffed naturally, but now Hugo and Ivy were puffing, too. “Oh, it’s hot!” Ivy complained. Actually, the air was normal temperature; it was Ivy who was heating.

Then the air cooled as they came to a region of mist. The wet air brushed by them, coating them with moisture. The dragon didn’t mind, for he was a steamer and drew on mist to replenish his water supply. Mist was rather
like cold steam. True steam, like true water vapor, was invisible, so it could hide magically; but water droplets tended to form from it, giving its presence away. Had the mist been able to maintain its invisibility, Stanley would not have been able to tap it for his own purpose. But the two children did not appreciate this advantage and were uncomfortable.

“Oh, let’s rest,” Ivy said. “My legs are like noodles!” Indeed, they seemed to bend under her, forcing her to flop on the ground. The others were glad enough to rest.

But they were not fated to rest long. There was something in the mist behind them, and it was not pleasant. They couldn’t see it, or hear it, yet they were aware of it. Stanley fired a jet of steam back in its direction, but with no effect. The problem with steam was that its range was limited; if a thing was out of sight, it was also out of reach.

Then thunder rumbled, increasing their nervousness. Ivy and Stanley were not safely ensconced in the coven-tree this time; they could get wet. That bothered Ivy more than it did Stanley.

A bolt of lightning scorched into a rock nearby. “Oh, I don’t like this at all!” Ivy said, jumping up.

They hurried away from the thunder and lightning, going on up the hill. This was just as well, for the thunder continued to rumble behind, punctuated by more shafts of lightning. Breathlessly, they scrambled toward the top of the hill.

At last they broke out of the top of the mist. It was, in fact, a sunken cloud. There were other clouds above, but the intervening layer was clear.

They looked around. The top of the hill was like an island in the nether sea of cloud, poking up through it. As far as they could see in each direction, there was the wavy, white surface. The effect was rather pretty, in its fashion. Ivy was quick to appreciate prettiness wherever it occurred. That was the way she had been raised.

“Do you think Imbri will bring us a daydream of being carpet-wrecked on this island, and we can’t leave it until the fog goes down, so we have to stay here forever and just eat fruit?” Ivy asked.

Hugo shrugged. “I doubt it,” he said. There was the merest flicker of something disappearing, like a black horse’s tail; the daydream had been canceled at the last moment and the mare had to depart.

But now a small gray cloud floated down from the upper layer. It formed a malevolent face under its pointed crown. The mouth opened, and a small roll of thunder came out.

The day mare reappeared. This time Ivy could see her clearly. She was a black equine, hardly more than a shadow, with flaring mane and tail.

“It wants to know who on earth you are,” a centaur said in Ivy’s mind.

Surprised and confused by this development, Ivy did not answer.

“That’s how Imbri talks,” Hugo explained. “She gives you a dream, and the dream figure speaks. Imbri can’t talk herself, ’cause she’s a horse. But the dream figures can. Just answer it back.”

Ivy was glad Hugo was so smart and knew all about such things. “The centaur?”

“No, dummy, the cloud! Imbri’s translating for it.”

Ivy blushed again with pleasure at the endearment. This was all new to her, but she decided it was all right. It was nice of Mare Imbri to help out like this.

“I’m Ivy,” she said to the cloud. “Who are you?”

The mare must have projected a talking dream to the cloud, for it paused a moment, then scowled darkly and blew out another piece of thunder. Ivy was a little frightened when it did that, but tried not to show it because she wasn’t sure Stanley could make this thing go away.

“He says you’re supposed to recognize the King of Clouds when you see him and perform abject obeisance,” the centaur-dreamlet said.

Ivy looked at the ground and dug a toe in the dirt, trying to fathom what “abject obeisance” meant.

“That’s better,” the centaur said. “The cloud sees you are bowing and/or curtseying. He says he is his Majesty Cumulo-Fracto-Nimbus, the Lord of the Air. He says you remind him of someone he doesn’t like—a female with green hair.”

Ivy realized that would be her mother Irene. She was about to ask where the cloud had seen her, but Hugo spoke first. “Aw, Fracto’s just a bit of scud,” he said depreciatingly.

The cloud heard that, and evidently needed no translation. He swelled up and turned purply-black. Lightning speared out of his Majesty’s nose, followed by a belch of thunder and a smattering of rain-spittle. Hugo had to jump to avoid being scorched. It seemed clouds were sensitive about name calling.

“How dare you refer to the Lord of the Air as ‘scud’!” the dream centaur translated. “He wants you to know he hails from a long and foggy line of lofty meteorological effects, from Cirrus through Stratus. His relatives process the water that grows all the plants of Xanth and fills all the lakes! He advises you that, without his kind, the whole land would be a dust bowl and you would be ashes! He is Fracto the King, a real Thunderhead!”

“Dunderhead,” Hugo agreed, with uncommon wit. Nights were noted for that.

The cloud turned so black he was almost a Black Hole. He blew out such a blast of fog admixed with thunder that he nearly turned himself inside out.

“Oh, now Hugo’s done it,” the dream centaur said. “The King of Clouds is very volatile and tempest-headed. Flee before he strikes!”

“But there’s more thunder down there!” Ivy protested, looking at the roiling layer of fog below.

The Fracto-King shaped himself up enough to take good aim at Hugo. Now he looked like a towering anvil. But before he could hammer out a devastating thunderbolt, Stanley stepped forward and shot a fierce jet of steam into the spongy nether region.

This would have sent any ordinary monster sailing high with a youp of pain, but the steam had little visible effect on the cloud. Clouds were composed of water, as was the dragon’s steam; the jet only added to Fracto’s strength.

Then Ivy had a bright-bulb notion. “Hugo!” she cried. “Conjure some fruit!”

Hugo conjured a watermelon and heaved it at the cloud. Cumulo-Fracto-Nimbus recoiled, but then saw that this was only a fruit, not a plant, and surged back. When the melon passed harmlessly through the cloud and splatted against the ground, the moisture only added to the cloud’s strength.

“No, Hugo,” Ivy clarified. “A pineapple!”

Hugo caught on, for Nights were very quick to grasp battle strategies. “Yes, I can do it now!” he cried. A huge, firm, potent pineapple appeared in his hand. Just before Fracto spat out his next lightning bolt, Hugo heaved the fruit.

The pineapple disappeared into the mouth of the cloud just as the lightning bolt emerged. The two collided—and the pineapple exploded. The blast was phenomenal. It blew the King apart. Fragments of Fracto fog shot out in an expanding sphere, jags of sundered lightning radiated out like a sunburst, and thunder crashed into the ground, bounced, and lay quiet.

“Ooo, you destroyed him!” Ivy exclaimed, nervously chewing on a finger. She wasn’t accustomed to such violence.

“You can’t destroy a cloud that way,” the dream centaur said. “Fracto is somewhat like a demon. He will recoalesce, worse than before, in a few minutes. Flee!”

Ivy saw that it was so. Already the mean little scud-clouds were globbing together, forming larger fragments, each with a single spike of Fracto’s crown. This was no safe place!

“Conjure some fresh cherry bombs!” Ivy cried to Hugo. “We’ll beat a strategic retreat!” She almost surprised herself with that word “strategic”; it had been beyond her comprehension before, though she had heard her father use it when discussing the ancient War of the Nextwave, which had happened two years before she was born. But now she was in a battle situation, and the meaning of the term was manifesting clearly enough.

“Gotcha,” the boy agreed, with the excellent grammar of the typical Night. A huge bunch of cherries appeared, a double handful. He flipped one cherry at the northeast side of the island, and when the bomb exploded, the layer of cloud there was disrupted. It started closing in again immediately, but obviously the fight had been temporarily knocked out of it.

Hugo marched down, clearing the way with a series of detonations. Whenever thunder threatened, Hugo threw a cherry at it, and the effort dissipated explosively.

Before long they emerged below the mist. The cloud had suffered enough concussion. It lifted high in the sky, out of reach, and floated away in a gray dudgeon.

Ivy was thrilled by the victory. “You defeated Fracto!” she exclaimed. “Oh, let me award you, Hugo!” She flung her arms about him and planted a fat kiss on his left ear, in the way she had. She might have had her terminology a trifle confused, but the boy was quite satisfied with his award. It was the first such thing he had ever earned. He began, almost, to believe that he might be worthwhile.

Stanley might have had a different opinion, and his pedestal seemed somewhat cramped, but he was so glad to get away from the clouds that he didn’t bother to develop that opinion. He did rather like the cherries; they were his kind of fruit. The pineapple, too; that had been a real blast!

They continued on through the valley. But the jungle remained thick with recognizable menaces like tangle trees and hanging vines—an unfortunate animal caught in one of the latter was not a pretty sight—and unrecognizable ones like sections of ground that were suspiciously still. The shadows were lengthening, where they showed at all. It was obvious the three of them needed a safe place to spend the night.

Stanley sniffed the ground. He had excellent reptilian perceptions. Little drifts of steam puffed up between sniffs. He picked up some kind of scent and followed it to the side. Ivy and Hugo trailed after him.

The valley narrowed here, becoming a kind of chasm. Suddenly the side of the chasm opened into a hole—a large cave. In the fading light, they could see that it was a fine, dry place, with warm air wafting from it. It seemed to be the shelter they were looking for.

They entered, found a convenient ledge, and hauled in some fragrant brush to make a comfortable nest for the three of them. Hugo conjured several kinds of fruit, and they feasted and tossed the seeds on the floor below. Then, in the dark, they settled down to sleep.

In what seemed like the middle of the night, something huge and sweaty loomed in the entrance of the cave. They couldn’t see it, but the ground shook with its tread, and the air stank with its body odor, and its great rasping breath stirred breezes near the top of the cave.

Abruptly wide awake, the three young travelers cowered in their nest, aware that they had camped in the lair of a monster. The very worst place!

The monster didn’t spot them. It had brought something in with it, evidently a dead animal. They heard the crunching of flesh and bones as the monster consumed the animal. Then the creature flopped down across the cave entrance and snored. The sound was like the distant roaring of Sphinxes with indigestion.

They were trapped inside the monster’s cave, and the coming of the light of dawn would expose them to the monster’s view. How were they going to get out of this picklement?

T
hey traveled southeast into the depths of Unknown Xanth. Chem was delighted, for it was her personal mission to map all of the peninsula she could find, especially what had never before been recorded. Periodically she projected her magic map, adding the new features and marking their progress with a neat, black, dotted line.