"Spare us your vernacular," Irene said. "We understand what the stuff is."
"Right into the faces of its pursuers," the golem continued with a certain enthusiasm. "The stuff not only stinks to high heaven, it's so strong it sets fire to trees."
"But if we can't escape the monster, and we don't scare it off--" the centaur said, understandably concerned.
"That's why we need Irene's fighting plants. Something that will balk the dragon without really frightening it, so it will go away peacefully. That's the key: we must discourage it without annoying it."
"Lots of luck," Irene muttered. "Look at them!" She moved the candle to illuminate what she had grown. "My night bloomers!"
There they were--several sets of delicately tinted feminine bloomer-panties, the kind worn at night or under voluminous skirts.
Grundy worked his little face in an effort not to guffaw.
"Now if we can just get them on the dragon--" he said. A smirk was obviously scrambling around in his head, trying to get out through his face.
Bloomers to prevent the dragon's voiding from splattering them! The notion was ludicrous; the people would be eaten long before the bloomers could do any such thing, and the dragon's refuse would burn out the bloomers on the way by. Yet the idea had a certain foolish appeal. A dragon in bloomers! That was almost as nonsensical as Irene's vision of a dragon on a pedestal.
Now the huge horned head of the bonnacon became dimly visible in the fringe of candlelight. There were flickering highlights on every giant tooth. Irene saw immediately that, though this dragon lacked steam or fire, it was far too formidable for them to fight. Even its eyes had metalbone lids that would probably stop Chem's arrows. They were helpless before it. Irene got ready to scream, though she detested this sort of useless feminine reaction. Sometimes there was no alternative.
The dragon nudged forward. The zombie interposed itself between the sheltered party and the monster. "Schtopf!" it cried, blowing out a piece of tongue. Speech was not easy for zombies.
The bonnacon never even hesitated. It snapped up the zombie. The huge and awful jaws crunched together. The zombie squished, and putrid juices squirted out.
The dragon paused. An expression of distaste spread slowly across its chops, in much the same manner as a like expression had spread across the face of the Gap Dragon when it crunched the stink bomb. Then the bonnacon spat the zombie's body out. "Ugh!" it groaned, understandably. There was nothing delicious about a squished zombie.
The zombie landed under the umbrella, a sorry mess. The dragon turned and tromped elsewhere, looking for better food. It did not spray out its fire--started refuse, since it was not frightened; it just departed in disgust.
"The bonnacon thinks we're all zombies!" Irene breathed.
"You do sort of look like one," Grundy informed her helpfully. "In a towel, yet."
Probably true. Irene's hair was plastered to her head and body, and the towels could be mistaken for ragged clothing.
There were so many zombies in this region near Castle Zombie that the confusion was natural. The zombie had saved them by discouraging the dragon.
But at what cost? Irene was not exactly partial to zombies, but she did appreciate the sacrifice this one had made. If it weren't for the zombie, Irene herself would have been crunched by the jaws of the monster. The creature had acted with courage and dispatch when all other hope was gone--and had paid the terrible price.
She knelt to inspect the zombie. It was in a sad state--but all zombies were in a sad state. They were the walking undead, perpetually decaying without ever quite collapsing. Usually it took complete dismemberment to put a zombie all the way out of commission. If this one were typical, it might survive. "Are you--?" she asked, balking at the words "alive" or "dead." Zombies, as Grundy had clarified, weren't exactly either.
"Hhurrtsh," the thing replied faintly.
"It's still functional!" Chem said, surprised.
"She says it hurts!" Grundy translated for the zombie.
"Of course it hurts!" Irene snapped. Her diffidence vanished, and she grabbed a spare towel and used it to mop up the pus and saliva and juice that covered the body. "She's just been crunched by--" Irene paused. "She?"
"Sure, she's your kind," the golem said. "Didn't you know?"
"No, I didn't realize," Irene said, taken aback. "She's so, uh, far gone it wasn't obvious." But now, as she wiped the torso, she saw that it was true. There were what once had been female attributes there.
"I hadn't realized either," Chem said soberly. "Naturally, there would be females of their kind as well as males. The Zombie Master can reanimate anything that once lived."
The zombie tried to sit up. "Hey, don't do that!" Irene protested. "You've just been terribly crunched by a dragon. Your--your blood spurted out! Your bones must be broken!
You're lucky you're--animate!"
"Ah, you can't kill a zombie," Grundy said. "You can hack it to pieces, but the pieces will slowly draw together and reassemble. Magic makes a zombie function, not biology."
"Maybe so," Irene said grimly. "But this one just saved our lives, and she's not so far gone she can't experience pain and human sensitivity. We've got to do something for her."
"I agree," Chem said. "But what can be done for a zombie?"
"Ask her, Grundy," Irene said.
"And ask her name," Chem added.
It had not occurred to Irene that a zombie would have a name. Now she chided herself for the way she had dehumanized them in her mind. Zombies were, after all, people--or had been, before dying and becoming undead.
The golem issued a series of slushy syllables and decaying particles. The zombie responded with coughs and chokes and noises that sounded like garbage being sucked down a half-clogged sewer drainhole.
"She says her name is Zora," Grundy reported in due course. "She killed herself about fifteen years ago when her true love was false. Her folks took her body to the Zombie Master, and he animated her. She's been serving him since. She would prefer to be all-the-way dead or fully alive, but neither is possible, so she just muddles along. She says it's a living. Well, that's not precisely it, but the term doesn't translate well."
Surely it didn't! What an awful thing it must be, Irene thought, to be forever half dead! "Yes, but how can we help her?" she demanded of the golem. "There must be something."
The golem interrogated Zora Zombie again. "The only thing that brings her kind closer to life is love," he reported. "Some living man must truly love her, to counteract the evil of the one who did not. Then she would be almost human, as long as his love lasted."
Chem whistled. "That is a difficult thing! Nobody loves a zombie. Most men prefer their women young and, er, wholesome."
"Yes, I know," Irene said. "I was that way once. Then I got married." She smiled, but it wasn't entirely a joke. Marriage had brought new responsibilities--and Ivy. Marriage had been the end of her nymphly existence and the beginning of a matronly one, but she wouldn't trade it. "Well, we'll try to help Zora Zombie somehow. She certainly deserves it!"
Irene put her hand to the zombie's bony shoulders, no longer repelled by the contact, and helped her sit up. Whatever healing processes occurred in zombies were operating now, and soon Zora was back on her feet and stumbling about in her normal fashion. She moved out into the falling rain, where she seemed to be the least uncomfortable.
"If there is anything I, personally, can do--" Irene called to Zora, still feeling inadequate.
"I believe you have already done it," Chem murmured.
"Done what?"
"Extended a little human caring. That's why she mended so rapidly--and may continue to improve, if such treatment continues."
Irene was taken aback, and hardly pleased with herself. She knew she had been treating the zombie with contempt before. Could any amount of decent treatment make up for that?
Well, she would find out.
"I suppose we'd better sleep," Irene said. "We can't do anything now, and
we're probably as safe here as anywhere."
The others agreed; they lay down on towels and bloomers and tried to sleep. Zora flopped on a wet rock outside the umbrella shelter. Irene was not at all comfortable, physically or mentally, but she was a realist. She would endure what she must to get her child back alive. No price was too great.
She thought she would lie awake all night, but somehow she didn't. Not quite. She thought if she did sleep, she would have bad dreams; however, it seemed the local night mare was not paying attention, and no bad dreams came.
Chapter 5
Coven-tree
The baby Gap Dragon was only a fraction of its adult size and not much more than triple Ivy's mass. But its primary features were intact; it had six legs, a sinuous tail, a set of wings too small to enable it to fly, and a horrendous head full of teeth. Its scales were metallic, a rather pretty green with iridescent highlights, and the tip of its tail was knifelike.
The dragon eyed Ivy. It slavered. Its tongue slopped around its face, moistening its teeth and making them gleam. A jet of pure, clean, white steam issued from its throat. Big creatures were now too much for the dragon to tackle, but Ivy was little and succulent. It was ready to feast.
Ivy looked the dragon in the snout. She clapped her hands with girlish glee. "Oh, goody!" she exclaimed in delight. "A playmate!"
The dragon paused. This was not, it suspected, the proper reception accorded its kind by lone human beings of any size. Its memory of its adult life had been excised along with its age, so it could not remember any prior encounters with this life form; but its basic instincts were more important than its memory anyway. It was geared to chase down a terrified and fleeing morsel, to steam it into a tasty, half-cooked state, to crunch it into digestible chunks soaked in delicious blood, to swallow the delectable pieces, then to burp afterward and take a pleasant nap. It was also geared to flee anything larger than itself or more dangerous, such as a man with an enchanted sword. Creatures of approximately its own size and ferocity it would fight, establishing territorial prerogatives. It was vaguely aware that it had once possessed an excellent private territory, but it had no idea now where this was. That hardly mattered here, because it faced prey, not a monster similar to itself. But the Dragon lacked experience and instincts relating to friendly receptions. What was the proper response?
Ivy walked up to it fearlessly. "My very own pet dragon!" she cried. "Green, like Mommy's hair! To be my friend and companion and to guard me when I'm afraid." She reached out to pat the ugly snout. "What a lovely creature!"
The dragon was not at all reassured. In fact, it found itself athwart a dilemma. Chase, flee, or fight? None of the signals matched a pattern. No one had ever called it lovely before or patted it on the snout. So it remained stationary, taking no action. A nervous waft of steam puffed from it.
"Nice steam!" Ivy said. "You're a steamer, so your name is Stanley." She had been told tales of strange, funny Mundania, where impossible things existed, such as metal machines that traveled on wheels and people who had no magic. She wasn't good at comprehending impossibilities, but she had an apt memory for names. "Stanley Steamer," she repeated.
"You're wonderful!"
Ivy was indulging in a simple but subtle process of identification and transference. First, she was a creature of love, for love had always abounded in her family, so naturally love radiated from her. She bestowed on her toys and pets and friends the kind of unquestioning love she received herself. Also, she was aware of the way men treated women, as exemplified by her father's handling of her mother. King Dor placed Queen Irene on a pedestal. Irene complained about it often but was privately rather pleased. Ivy had spent many hours of many days searching Castle Roogna for that pedestal, but it seemed to be invisible, like the ghosts. Finally she had realized that it was magic, like the monster-under-the-bed that only she could see. King Dor was able to put Queen Irene on the pedestal that no one else could see or feel, and Irene could not get off it, complain as she might. It was a special enchantment he could perform. Ivy liked enchantment, so she had tried to develop her own invisible pedestal on which she could place her friends. She had by diligent effort perfected it, but had lacked a suitable friend for it. Smash the Ogre was really too big to fit on it. But now she had a suitable prospect, and so she placed her new friend Stanley on it. He was the very best of all the little dragons she knew!
Stanley, like Ivy's mother, was not entirely comfortable on that pedestal; but again, like her mother, he was not entirely displeased. There were things to be said in favor of pedestals, and he was the right size for this one. What made Ivy's pedestal especially effective was her talent of enhancement. Whatever traits a person or creature possessed, in her eyes, became more pronounced, powerful, durable, and good. When she had noted how well her mother grew plants, her mother had grown them even better. When Ivy had met the friendly, talkative yak, the creature had become more friendly and helpful. Now Ivy perceived how handsome and nice Stanley Steamer really was.
Stanley suffered a period of disorientation, as was normal for creatures abruptly discovering themselves on pedestals. He hadn't known his name was Stanley. He hadn't known he was wonderful. Certainly he hadn't known he was lovely. Then the full power of Ivy's magic took over, for it was Magician-caliber sorcery, the kind of power few mortals comprehended, and the dragon became exactly what she perceived him to be--her handsome and loyal friend, playmate, and pet. Like many a male before him, he succumbed to the enchantment of a sweet little female, without even knowing the nature of her sorcery. He was not aware that he had lost a battle of remarkable significance; he didn't even know there had been a battle. Because his natural instincts had no guidelines for this role, he had to accept hers. He was precisely what she wanted.
Ivy, because she was what she was, a creature of love and innocence and unsuspected power, had in an instant tamed one of the most formidable monsters of Xanth--the Gap Dragon. No one had ever done that before. Some people might have considered it a miracle, but it was not; it was merely an early indication of Ivy's own formidability, which was allied to that of her grandfather Bink.
"You must have very hard scales," Ivy said, tapping the scales of Stanley's neck; and now they were metal-hard. "Such pretty colors, too!" And the colors intensified, manifesting as elegant shades of green and blue and gray with iridescent sparkles. Stanley was now so pretty as to smite the unwary eye. "Oh, you're such a nice dragon!" She hugged him about the neck and kissed his green ear.
Bemused, the dragon accepted her embrace. Had he not been so hard-scaled and pretty-colored, he might have melted right into the ground, for Ivy's affection was a very special thing, quite apart from her magic.
"And such nice, hot steam," she continued. Stanley jetted a superheated jet, much hotter than he had ever managed before.
Ivy's attention soon wandered, for she was, after all, only a little girl without any great store of attention. She hardly needed it. "I'm hungry! Aren't you?"
Stanley agreed that he was hungry by nodding his head, making the scales of his neck glitter nicely. In fact, now he was ravenous.
"Then we must find some food," Ivy decided. "For supper."
She looked about.
Stanley sighed privately. Ivy herself was the most delicious possible morsel, but he could no longer even think of that without wincing. No one would consume her while he was on guard!
Nearby was a crabapple tree, with quite a number of ripe crabs. "Gee, I bet those are good," she said, reaching for one. But the crab snapped at her with its huge pincer, and she hastily withdrew her hand. She had learned the hard way about things that pinched, back at Castle Roogna.
Still, those crabs looked awfully good. "I know!" she decided, for she prided herself on her ability to solve problems when she tried; indeed, that ability had intensified to do justice to her pride. "Mommy cooks crabs in hot water. Then they don't snap!" She had not realized, before this moment, why her mother went through the ritual with the water,
putting hot peppers into the pot to bring the liquid to the boiling point, then dumping in the crabs. It was a significant revelation, worthy of Ivy's effort.
But she didn't have any hot water. In fact, she had no water at all and no hot peppers to heat it. Ivy pondered, and in a moment she came up with a solution, for she was trying to be a precocious child. "Stanley, your hot steam can cook them! Then we can both eat!"
Stanley looked at the crabapple tree, not understanding. He did not need to steam crabs; he could crunch them raw without difficulty. Their meat became his flesh, and their shells became his scales, in the natural order of assimilation.
"Oh, come on," Ivy said encouragingly. "I know you're smarter than that!" The dragon discovered he was smarter than he had thought, and now he understood her notion. She could not crunch crabs live and raw.
Stanley positioned himself before the crabapple tree and sent forth a jet of sizzling steam. It touched a crab, whose greenish shell instantly ripened to bright apple red, and the creature fell to the ground. Ivy picked it up--and dropped it, for it was hot. She stuck her fingers in her mouth, unscorching them. Then she made do; she used a section of her ivy-green skirt to protect her fingers and picked the crab up again. It smelled delicious.
But she didn't know how to crack open the shell, as she had no nutcracker. Then she looked at Stanley's gleaming teeth and had another bright idea. "You can crack it!" she exclaimed.
She poked the cooked crab into the corner of the dragon's mouth where the chewing teeth were. Stanley crunched down slowly until the shell cracked. Then he eased up, and she took the crab back. The problem had been solved.
She picked out the meat and chewed it. "Yes, it's very good," she said. "Cook some for yourself, Stanley."
Stanley shrugged and steamed several more crabs and chewed them up, shells and all. He discovered that they were good this way, too. His horizon had been broadened; now he knew how to eat cooked as well as raw meat. In due course, both girl and dragon were satisfied.
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