Dragon on a Pedestal (24 page)

“So what? Who cares what happens to a mean old monster?”

Her lip firmed rebelliously. “I care! I didn’t really want to hurt him!”

Hugo exchanged a look of bafflement tinged with disgust with the dragon. They found this feminine sensitivity as bewildering as her Sorceress talent. “You want to help the monster?”

“Well, I guess if he needs it,” Ivy said. “Till his eye gets better, maybe.”

“And then he’ll eat us!” Hugo said.

Ivy couldn’t definitely refute that, so she ignored it. She called to the giant, who was now standing silently, blinking his sore eye, from which huge tears were flowing. “Does it hurt bad, giant? I’m sorry.”

The giant seemed as surprised as Hugo and Stanley had been. “Me? You talk to me?”

“You see any other gross, awful, one-eyed, hairy giants in here?” Hugo inquired sarcastically.

“I see nothing at moment,” the giant said, rubbing his orb with a callused fist.

“Don’t do that!” Ivy cried, remembering admonitions by her mother. “You’ll get dirt in it and make it worse!”

The giant stopped immediately. It seemed he was responsive to the voice of female authority. “It hurt, but will mend,” he said. “I got steamed worse before and mended okay.”

“I’m glad,” Ivy said. “We didn’t mean to hurt you, really. We just wanted to get away, so you wouldn’t eat us.”

“Why you not say so?” the giant demanded. “I not eat people! Too small, bad taste! I let you go.”

“I don’t believe you,” Hugo said.

“All I ask, what you do in cave,” the giant pointed out, blinking his eye. “Why you not answer me?”

Now Ivy and Hugo exchanged glances, then looked at Stanley, who rippled a shrug down the length of his body. “I guess we didn’t think of it,” Ivy confessed. “We just thought naturally you’d—we’re only children, you know.”

The giant’s eye finally cleared, though it was red around the rim and still rather watery. He sat down with a thump that made the earthquake scales jump again. “I not know, or not have yelled. Get monkeys come in, steal bones—”

“We wouldn’t do that,” Ivy said quickly. “We just needed a good place to sleep. We didn’t know it was your cave.” She leaned forward confidentially, for the giant’s face was now not nearly so far distant. “There are monsters out there, you know.”

“Sure there are,” the giant agreed. “Good thing, too. What I eat.”

“I don’t trust him,” Hugo said.

“Hugo doesn’t trust you,” Ivy informed the giant privately.

“Well, I not trust him neither!” the giant replied, disgruntled. “He fire my uniform!”

“I’m sure Hugo is sorry.”

“I am not!” Hugo exclaimed. “It was war!”

“Oh, that different,” the giant said. “All fair, love and war.”

“Yes!” Hugo agreed, mollified. “My mother says that!”

“She know. Mothers know. What bomb you use?”

“A pineapple.” Hugo conjured another and held it in his hand, all bright yellow with a green top. “I conjure fruit.”

“That good talent,” the giant said. “Wish I do magic.”

“Why don’t we all be friends?” Ivy suggested, for she was a friendly child.

The giant laughed. “Real people not friends of Cyclops!” he protested.

“Why not?”

That stumped him. Now that she made him consider the matter, friendship seemed more reasonable. He didn’t know she was a Sorceress, or that what she perceived tended to become more real. “Just tradition, I ’spose.”

“We’re too young to know about tradition,” Ivy pointed out.

“Oh well, okay. Be friends. Have some monster.” The Cyclops reached across the cave and hauled up the dead griffin he had brought with him during the night. It was half eaten, but considerable mass remained.

Ivy recoiled. “It’s all gooky with ick!”

“Blood,” the Cyclops explained. “Taste good. I lick off hunk for you. Then it nice and clean.”

“Thank you,” Ivy said, remembering her manners. “But I guess I’m not really that hungry.” She glanced about. “But maybe Stanley would like some.”

The dragon agreed immediately. The Cyclops tore off a hind leg and dumped it down before Stanley, who chomped blissfully into it.

“Would you like some fruit?” Hugo asked, feeling neglected. “I can conjure some more.”

The Cyclops eyed the pineapple. “Uh, thanks, but that not nice for teeth and burn tongue.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean
this
,” Hugo said, carefully setting down the pineapple. “I meant regular fruit.” He conjured a hand of bananas and proffered it.

The Cyclops’ eye widened. “Bnans! Not taste in decades! Got big kind?”

“Oh, sure. Anything.” Hugo, happy to show off his present power, conjured a hand of plantains. This was, of course, a giant hand, and each finger looked like a monstrous banana, but was too tough for a normal person to eat raw.

The Cyclops tore one plantain off and popped it into his mouth, skin and all. He chomped down. “Oh, slurp!” he exclaimed with his mouth full of squish. “Scrumptious!”

Hugo conjured colored berries for himself and Ivy. He preferred yellow, while she liked blue. They all ate contentedly. Stanley was now cracking bone with his teeth, as happy as he had ever been.

After that they exchanged stories. Ivy told how she had taken a walk with a zombie, and a ride on a carpet, and a tour with a yak, and gotten so turned around she didn’t know for sure which way was home. Hugo described how he had accidentally thrown Youth water on his father and the Gap Dragon, then run away when his father vanished, until he met Ivy and started traveling with her. The two explained how they had joined the baby dragon, whom they now knew to be the former Gap Dragon, but who was Stanley now, and how they had fought off the bugbear and King Fracto the Cloud.

“King Cumulo-Fracto-Nimbus?” the Cyclops demanded. “Well I know and not like that airhead!” And he launched into his own story, which naturally enough he called his-story, or simply history.

His name was Brontes, and he had once been one of the powers of the air, along with his brothers Steropes and Arges. They were some of the children of the Sky and the Earth, and they forged thunderbolts for their father. But the Sky grew jealous of them, and deprived them of their powers, and banished them. Their mother Earth gave them sanctuary in her realm but could not do more, for she was not as strong as their father;
besides, she liked the Sky. “He gets tempestuous at times,” she had conceded, “but he’s got such a nice blue eye. Besides, I need the rain he sends.”

So Brontes had hidden here in this obscure cave for a long time, afraid to go abroad by day because of the wrath of the Sky, and his power of thunder had been usurped by the self-styled Cloud-King Fracto, who had originally been no more than minor fog. Brontes was alone; more than anything, he missed the company of his brothers, but he did not know where they were and did not dare range too far from his cave, lest he be caught in the open when day came and be destroyed by one of the very thunderbolts he had helped forge so long ago when he was young.

“Oh, that’s such a sad story!” Ivy exclaimed. “We’ve got to help you find your brothers.” She had a very tender heart, because of the way she had been raised.

“How you do that?” Brontes asked, interested but not unduly hopeful. His brothers had been lost a long time.

“There’s something about her,” Hugo said. “I never was very good with my fruits until she came along, and I don’t think Stanley was as hot with his steam.”

“All it takes is a positive attitude,” Ivy said brightly, pleased with her ability to turn a good phrase. “When I think maybe I can do something, like talking well, then I try it and find I can do it. When Hugo really tried to conjure good fruit, then he did it. And Stanley was able to make hotter steam when he tried. So maybe if you really tried to see where your brothers are, you could do it.”

“I’ve tried to find them ever since we were banished!” Brontes exclaimed. “Why should it suddenly work now?”

As usual, Ivy ignored what she couldn’t answer. It was a very effective device. “You have such a fine big eye, I’m sure you can see very well with it. Why don’t you look?”

“Very well,” the Cyclops agreed, humoring her, for she was an extremely cute child. Light was coming in the cave entrance and retouching her hair to a delicate green tint, and her eyes were the same color.

Brontes peered out of the cave, into the forest beyond. Behind the trees, the gully ascended, so there really was not very much for anyone to view.

Then he sat up straight. “I
can
see well!” he exclaimed. “I can see—right through the trees! I never do that before!”

“He’s talking better, too,” Hugo noted.

“You just never really, really tried before,” Ivy said confidently. She was used to the people she met underestimating their potentials.

Brontes swung his gaze around. “I can see through the cave wall!” he said, amazed. “Through the mountain itself! I’ve got Y-ray vision!”

Hugo’s brow furrowed. He had picked up smatterings of information relating to magic, since that was his father’s business. “I think you mean Z-ray vision,” he said.

“It’s Hoo-ray vision!” the Cyclops said. “Now I can see all Xanth!” He continued to swing his gaze around, taking it all in. “And there—there’s my brother Steropes! Oh, he looks so much older! He’s in a cave on the other side of this very mountain! I never realized! And Arges—in the next mountain over! I guess we hunted in different directions! So near and yet so far!”

“I just knew you could do it!” Ivy said, clapping her little hands with joy.

Hugo looked out the cave mouth. “Day is getting on,” he said. “We’d better start moving.”

“If you wait till night, I can carry you some distance,” Brontes offered.

Ivy considered. “No, you must go to meet your brothers then. We like the day; the Sky isn’t out to get us. We’ll go now.” She smiled shyly. “But we’ll always be friends, won’t we?”

“Friends,” the Cyclops agreed. He fished in his uniform and dug out a slightly scorched little bone. “Chew on this if you ever need me at night, and I will hasten to help. It is the one bit of magic I possess. I never had occasion to use it before—but I never had a friend before, either.”

“Gee, thanks, I will,” Ivy said, accepting the bone. She knotted it into her somewhat tangled hair, where it would not be lost, for nothing was quite as permanent as a tangle. “Now I’m a cave girl!”

With that they parted, the Cyclops resuming his nap inside the cave and the three travelers resuming their journey northeast. Progress was faster now, for they were reasonably well rested and fed, and the day was bright.

Ivy looked up into the patches of blue sky visible beyond the trees, privately surprised that anything so pretty would be so unkind to a nice creature like the Cyclops. But she realized she was too small to understand everything in Xanth yet.

The forest seemed much less threatening than it had the night before. However, appearances in Xanth were generally deceptive. They rounded a tree—and skidded to a pause. “A girl!” Hugo exclaimed, as if he had never seen one before.

It did seem to be a girl. But though the size of the figure was between those of Hugo and Ivy, she was no child. She was a petite, dark, lovely little woman. As she spied them, her hand moved to her hip and drew forth a brightly gleaming knife. “Stay away from me, monster!” she cried.

Ivy realized what the problem was. “That’s Stanley,” she said. “He’s my friend.”

“He’s a dragon!” the small woman pointed out.

“He’s the baby Gap Dragon,” Hugo explained.

“The Gap Dragon!” The woman’s terror increased. “I thought he looked familiar!” She backed away, knife held ready.

Ivy knew that most women were clumsy with weapons, but this one evidently knew how to use hers. Maybe it was because she was so stunningly pretty, despite her somewhat bedraggled condition. Ivy’s mother had impressed upon her that pretty girls needed to be able to defend themselves.

“Oh, come on,” Ivy said. “If he doesn’t bite me, why should he bite you? You’re a people.” She patted Stanley on the head.

“The Gap Dragon eats anything, especially people,” the woman said. “Anyway, I’m
not
a people. I’m a goblin girl.”

Ivy’s brow wrinkled. “But goblins are ugly!”

“Not the girls,” Hugo said. “My father says the goblin girls are pretty, and he knows just about everything, so it must be true.”

“Only the Good Magician knows everything,” the woman asserted.

“That’s what I said.”

She looked at him again, startled. “Yes, the goblin girls are pretty, and the goblin men are ugly,” she agreed after a moment. “That’s one reason I deserted my tribe to seek romance. Are you quite sure the dragon won’t bite?”

Ivy turned to Stanley. “Do you bite goblin girls?”

The dragon puffed steam noncommittally.

“See—he’s not hungry anyway,” Ivy said. “He’s had a good meal of griffin bone and—” She shrugged, not remembering whether Stanley had eaten any fruit this time.

The woman relaxed slightly. “A good meal.” Then she stiffened again. “That dragon killed a griffin?”

Ivy laughed. “Oh, no! It was carrion the Cyclops gave him after Stanley steamed his eye.”

“The Cyclops!” the woman cried, almost tripping in her effort to retreat farther.

“You misunderstand,” Hugo said. “We are friends with the Cyclops. But he never leaves his cave by day.”

Again the woman relaxed. “You are unusual people!” She brushed her fine tresses away from her face. “Oh, I’m famished!”

“Famshed?” Ivy asked, perplexed.

“Hungry. I’m about to pass out on my feet.”

Hugo conjured a handful of raspberries. “We have lots of fruit.”

“I really haven’t eaten since yesterday!” the woman exclaimed, as if this were highly significant news. There was a certain flair in the way she spoke; it was part of her beauty.

“Sit down and eat and tell us your story,” Ivy invited her. “I’m Ivy and this is Hugo.”

The goblin girl accepted the raspberries and sat delicately on a mossy stone. “I’m Glory, daughter of Gorbage, chief of the north-slope Gap Goblins. My story is very poignant.”

Hugo and Ivy were perplexed now. “What kind of ant?” Ivy asked.

Glory smiled briefly as she chewed on a raspberry whose juice was no darker than her lips. “Poignant. It means piquant.”