The Worm Returns

by Piers Anthony

  Eating for food was one thing. Bad Buffalo had done plenty of hunting in his time. But killing for killing’s sake was just...wrong.

  Oh, yes, the dragon was his enemy.

  His mortal enemy.

  Bad Buffalo didn’t know the difference between a mortal enemy and a regular enemy, but mortal enemy felt right, somehow.

  Yeah, he thought, trying the words on, and liking the way they sounded. My mortal enemy.

  To date, every one of Bad Buffalo’s mortal enemies had one thing in common: they were now pushing up daisies. Now, as the dragon circled high overhead, surveying the high grassy plateau for more victims, Bad Buffalo watched it carefully, and a plan took hold.

  “Oh, no,” said Dia from his pocket, picking up his thoughts.

  Except once Bad Buffalo had formed a plan against a mortal enemy, there was no turning back.

  ***

  The swatters continued piling in through the wormhole. Bad Buffalo, Dia and Horse hunkered on the far edge of the herd.

  Overhead, the dragon circled once again, but this time, closer and lower. Bad Buffalo could see that the dragon had oriented on a young swatter straggler. It had broken away from the herd and seemed to find some interest in a large blue butterfly. Bad Buffalo liked large blue butterflies, too. He could see the appeal.

  The dragon continued circling. The young swatter seemed oblivious, now chasing the blue butterfly through the field. Bad Buffalo, admittedly, wanted to join them. Nearby, a clearly agitated swatter broke away from the pack, bleating loudly. It was, Bad Buffalo was certain, the young swatter’s mother. The problem was, the youngin’ was nowhere near the mother. Not to mention, there really wasn’t anything the mother could do, except sacrifice her life.

  Bad Buffalo’s jaw clenched. He gripped the reins. He waited for his moment.

  And when the dragon dipped a wing and swooped down toward the little swatter, Bad Buffalo’s moment had arrived. He shouted, “Hee-yah!” and Horse shot forward, scattering some nearby swatters, and charged through the low grass.

  Bad Buffalo sat forward in his saddle, one hand on the reins, the other holding his lasso...a look of grim determination on his face.

  Chapter 14: Hoard

  As the dragon opened its monstrous mouth to take the little swatter into its jaws, Bad Buffalo flung his lariat. He was as accurate with that as with gun or fist, naturally. The loop circled the dragon’s gaping snout, then snapped tight, drawing the mouth firmly closed. Suddenly the monster could neither bite nor shoot fire.

  Startled, the dragon lurched upward, back into the sky, messy balls of smoke puffing like vaporous snot from its nostrils and ears. The little swatter bleated and ran back to join its mother, miraculously saved.

  Then the slack in the rope was gone and the dragon’s head was jerked to the side. “Get along, little dogie!” Bad Buffalo sang as the other end of the rope snapped tight on the saddle horn to which it was anchored. Horse, trained for this, halted and braced against the pull. Yanked off-balance, the dragon did a serpentine twist in midair, looped a loop, squawked like a bird and came down to the ground snoot first, the rest of its body smacking beyond it upside down with a satisfying whomp that sent out a cloud of dust and debris. It was a splendid take-down, one of his better efforts.

  The swatters stood and gaped appreciatively. They had never seen a show like this.

  “Inertia!” Dia exclaimed, amazed.

  “Naw, it just crashed ’cause it couldn’t stop fast enough,” Bad Buffalo explained. “Like a roped steer.”

  Now, however, the dragon realized a bit of what had happened. Maybe a vine had snagged on its snoot and brought it down. That annoyed it, for some reason. It twisted lithely back to its feet, unhurt, oriented on the other end of the rope, spread its battered wings, and launched toward Horse. In moments it would crash right into them, and the mass of its body could wipe them out even without teeth or fire. This creature was no coward and no quitter.

  “I think we’d better vamoose,” Dia said.

  “Naw, I got it under control.”

  She did not argue, but looked a trifle dubious. More than a trifle.

  The huge head loomed close, the two giant eyes focusing on Horse.

  And Bad Buffalo plugged the right eye dead center, forming a new little pupil.

  The eye blinked. The bullet was too small to be more than a pinprick, but it evidently did complicate vision in that eye, and ichor was welling from it. There was surely more damage inside, and maybe even a token prick to the brain behind it. The dragon lurched up, passing just over their heads, not certain what to make of this nuisance.

  Then the slack was taken up again, and Horse was almost jerked off his feet by the pull. The rope did not break—Bad Buffalo used only quality cord, the finest hemp—but the hauling was so strong that Horse was obliged to spin about and gallop after the dragon to keep his balance. In fact that powerful lift and pull caused the mighty steed to go higher and faster than he ever had before, almost sailing over the terrain.

  “Yeehaw!” Bad Buffalo yelled joyfully. He was glad Dia had finally gotten to see him in real action. Oddly, she did not seem to be enjoying it as much as he was. Her flowing blueberry-blonde hair and strategic green leaves were flying out behind even though there wasn’t much behind in his pocket apart from hers.

  They came to rougher terrain, with rises and falls, rocks and rills, and undefinable contours. Horse had to really step pretty to handle it, and once or twice he even leaped from hillock to hillock, lifted by the tight rope.

  “Oh, my!” Dia exclaimed.

  “What, getting seasick?” he asked.

  “Not exactly. Anyway it wouldn’t be seasick, it would be airsick. But I’m not. It’s the magic.”

  “Yeah, this whole caper is for the magic. So you can, and I can—”

  “I am familiar with that picture,” she said. “All in good time, for your poke. But here’s the thing: there is unusual magic on this world. It’s in patches. We’re passing through low and high regions, like clumps of fog on the ground. Right now we’re in a high-magic zone.”

  “Say—you mean?”

  “Exactly.” She flew out of his pocket, hovered before him despite the way they were racing forward, expanded to full human woman size, completely nude, and caught his free hand. His other hand was holding on to Horse’s mane, because it was like riding a bucking bronco. He was an excellent rider, but sometimes more was needed.

  Her small hand was soft but solid.

  “Say—” he repeated, catching on to the potential.

  “Exactly,” she repeated, moving in to kiss him. Her lips were completely firm. “If we could only pause a few minutes right here—”

  “Yeah!”

  Then they crossed over another hillock. Her grip softened further. In fact her hand became vaporous. “Darn,” she said. “We’re out of the high-magic zone.” She shrank to tiny size.

  He echoed her sentiment, only in somewhat coarser language.

  Then came another rich-magic zone. Dia expanded again, only this time she became a huge rag doll with a stitched smile. “Oops! This is a different brand of magic. I need to get the hang of it.” She concentrated, and slowly turned into a woman, the doll stitches merging into human lips.

  Only to lose it when they moved into another zone.

  “Dang!” Bad Buffalo said.

  “Maybe if you loosed the dragon so we could stay in a hot spot,” she suggested.

  “Double dang! Then we’d lose the dragon and maybe never catch it again. I want that monster D E D…dead.”

  “I understand, despite the misspelling,” she said regretfully.

  “Maybe we can come back this way after I slay the dragon.”

  “Maybe. But I think the patches are moving, drifting with the wind. We may not be able to find one again before we have to go home.”

  Triple dang! He had to choose between killing and poking. That was a mighty hard choice.

  “That’s odd,” Dia
said, looking to the side.

  “It ain’t odd so much as frustrating,” he grumped.

  “No, I mean what’s happening over there.”

  Bad Buffalo looked. “It’s just a bunch of beavers in a circle.”

  “Yes. They are fanning the air with their big flat tails.”

  “Maybe one of ’em let out a stink.”

  “I wonder,” she said thoughtfully.

  “Animals do stink when they want to. People too, sometimes.”

  “No, I think it’s something else.” Then a little light bulb flashed over her head, as if she were in a saloon with irregular electric current. It was a magic effect he hadn’t known she could do. “They’re fanning magic! To make a concentration, so they can do something special. That’s what those tails are for.”

  He laughed. “Not fanning triggers. Fanning magic.”

  “But you know, if they wanted to fan some magic for us ...” She trailed off, leaving three dots behind. The more he thought about it, the better he liked those dots.

  “It’s called an ellipsis,” she explained.

  “I don’t care what it’s called. I care about what’s in it. Like maybe a good poke.”

  “Exactly,” she said once more.

  Meanwhile the terrain continued to zoom by, as their steed tried horsefully to handle the constantly changing landscape.

  Suddenly they were at the mouth of a huge cave. This must be the lair, as there were scorched bones piled up around the entrance. The dragon folded its wings and plunged in. They were dragged in after it. Darkness closed in.

  The dragon stopped. Its head came around. Little streaks of light leaked from its tied muzzle so that they could see at least that much. It scraped its snoot against the rough wall of the cave.

  “It’s trying to drag off the loop of rope!” Dia exclaimed. “If it does that, we’ll be toast!”

  “Then I’ll just tighten it a bit,” Bad Buffalo said. He did so, keeping the jaws wired shut. They were in a struggle, because while the dragon was bigger and stronger than he was, he was fighting only its noosed snout. Like a horse with a bridle or a bull with a ring in its nose, that noose had leverage. “Meanwhile I want to see its horde.”

  “That’s hoard,” she said.

  “That’s hard?”

  “H-O-A-R-D,” she spelled. “Treasure. A horde is a crowd of disreputable people.”

  “My kind,” he agreed. “But it’s the treasure I want right now.”

  “First we have to deal with the dragon,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah, that.” He considered for a few heartbeats. “If I kill it in here, it’ll stink up the cave and I don’t know how we’ll drag the body out.”

  The dragon angled its neck to bring its injured eye close, to get a better glimpse. It seemed it understood him, maybe with some telepathy. It wasn’t frightened, it was grimly amused. He had it at a disadvantage at the moment, but kill it? It was to laugh.

  “Yeah?” Bad Buffalo retorted. “Well, lizard face, see how you like this.” He drew his large hunting knife. “I’m going to carve me some eyeball candy, and when I get enough of it cleared out, some brain candy. Think you’re going to stop me? Lotsa luck, Sparky!” He brandished the blade while keeping the noose taut. That knife could truly carve out a cave.

  The dragon jerked its head away. But Bad Buffalo hauled on the rope and drew it back close. “Ready,” he said. “Set.” He oriented the point for a solid thrust. “Go!”

  But he missed, because the dragon was zooming ahead, right out of the cave. Bad Buffalo flicked his wrist to release the loop, letting the dragon go. In moments it was gone.

  “But you freed it!” Dia protested. “Now it’ll be lurking for us outside!”

  “Naw. I just taught it a mite of respect. Now it knows what’s it’s up against. It’ll be sensible, and stay the hell clear of me, at least for an hour or so. When it’s ready to die, it’ll return.”

  She stared at him in dawning awe. “You really are one tough hombre!”

  “Yeah. Now let’s see that hoard.”

  They walked farther into the cave, toward the dragon’s nest and treasure. There was a faint light around a curve ahead. That would be the glow of the precious artifacts.

  They turned the corner and saw the hoard. There was gold galore, diamonds, assorted beads and trinkets that looked magical, such as a small cornucopia leaking candy corn. And something else.

  “Help!” a vaguely male voice called mentally, sensing their presence. There was something alive there, bound, gagged, and blindfolded. A wretched prisoner.

  “Oh, my,” Dia breathed.

  “What is that?” Bad Buffalo asked. “Sure sounds like someone we need to rescue.”

  “That is a hooded basilisk,” Dia said, amazed. “I thought they were extinct.”

  “I guess not on this planet,” he said. “What’s a basket lass?”

  Chapter 15: Ambush

  “A basilisk is considered mythological by most human historians. But us faery know differently. They were wiped out on Earth.”

  “Why?” asked Bad Buffalo, moving over to the bound creature. He removed his Bowie knife from his belt, and flipped it in the air and caught it by the antler handle, a handle he had whittled himself. Most folk would be stunned to learn that Bad Buffalo spent his evenings whittling by an open fire. That is, when he wasn’t raising hell.

  “Careful, BB,” said Dia, flying next to him.

  “Careful of what?” he asked. “It’s bound tighter than a pig in a blanket.” He slipped the tip of the knife under the blindfold.

  “Because its stare can kill!” Dia shot forward, her wings a blur. “Don’t look it in the eye!”

  Too late, Bad Buffalo had already flicked the blade through the blindfold. Dia was now moving faster than Bad Buffalo had ever seen her move. As she did so, she grew to normal size. Turned out, this was a magic cave. A powerfully magic cave. Before the blindfold had fallen away, she had enveloped Bad Buffalo entirely with her wings.

  He liked the feeling of her wings around him, especially since he could feel her full physical form pressed behind him. How he seemed to feel every curve and mound, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t complaining. Most interesting to him was that his reaction wasn’t entirely physical. Something happened to his heart right then and there. Perhaps it was the way Dia protected him without thought. Perhaps it was the way she held him. Perhaps it was the way she kept holding him, even after he got the idea: looking at the basilisk’s eyes was a very bad idea.

  Bad Buffalo only wished they were on top of his bedroll, under the stars, and not in a dragon’s lair with a strange little creature and its death stare.

  Dia released her hold on him, opening her wings. Her hands, he noted, had also covered his eyes. Bad Buffalo was pretty sure this was the first time anyone had tried to save his life. He was used to the opposite: those who wanted him dead. He was feeling something, something he did not understand.

  He sensed that Dia knew what it was, but was letting him puzzle it out in his own time. This was, after all, a brand-new emotion for Bad Buffalo. He was feeling about the same way he did about Horse, but different somehow, too. A lot different. He felt Dia shake her head behind him, silently amused at his confusion.

  Horse! he thought, in a rare bout of panic.

  “Relax, BB,” said Dia, picking up his thoughts. “Horse’s instincts haven’t gone extinct. Although the basilisk is extinct on our world, he still remembers to look away.”

  “So, how come I didn’t remember?”

  “Man, unfortunately, has strayed far and wide from his instincts. A part of you thought that removing the blindfold was a very bad idea. But you ignored that part, because it was buried too deep beneath everything that isn’t important.”

  “Like poking you?” said Bad Buffalo. “I think that’s pretty important.”

  “Maybe to you, but not to your survival. Your instincts are better than most, but even you are susceptible to the needs of you
r lower self.”

  He looked down at his lower self. Truth be told, she was right. Ever since he met her, he wasn’t thinking straight; indeed, he had one thing on his mind.

  “Nothing wrong with poking on the mind,” said Dia. “But we have to get out of here alive. And we can’t do that if you are acting recklessly.”

  Bad Buffalo knew she spoke the truth. After all, they still needed to convince the dragon to stay away from the swatters, so that the swatters could live in peace in their own land and not infringe on the Hive Queen’s world. But how to stop the dragon? His victory was surely only temporary. Anything that could fly and breathe fire and liked to kill would surely be back to settle the score. Bad Buffalo had lost the element of surprise. And unless he could plug both the creature’s eyes with a flurry of shots, he didn’t think even he stood much of a chance against the beast.

  “Such grim thoughts for a world-class warrior,” said the creature next to them in a sing-song voice.

  Bad Buffalo nearly turned his head to look at it, when Dia’s hands flew back in place, along with her soft body. Bad Buffalo could get used to that body on his.

  “He really does have a one-track mind,” said the voice again, and, once again, Bad Buffalo would have turned toward it if not for Dia’s firm grip.

  “You speak English.”

  “I speak all languages. I need only to access the mind for words and meanings. Call it a gift.”

  Although Bad Buffalo enjoyed Dia’s proximity, he knew this situation needed to be corrected. He reached to tear free a shirt sleeve and, with eyes still shut, he felt his way over to the strange little creature. He tied the sleeve/blindfold on, perhaps tighter than necessary, but he didn’t want it coming loose.

  “I spend more time in a blindfold,” sighed the beaked basilisk.