The Worm Returns

by Piers Anthony

  Bad Buffalo peeked one eye open, nodded. His blindfold had been solid work. Then again, this wasn’t his first go at blindfolding, either. Granted, the objects of his handiwork were generally bank managers, and not weird little creatures.

  “So thinks the hairy giant,” said the basilisk.

  “Coast is clear,” reported Bad Buffalo, and wondered if he should take exception to being called a hairy giant. Then again, he was a big man with a lot of hair. Bad Buffalo nodded, and cooled down.

  “You are a mind reader, then,” said Dia.

  “Oh, yes. Most everyone on this world is. If you’ll note, my lips aren’t moving; indeed, I do not have a ‘voice box’ as you call it. Even the dragon is listening in to this conversation, so to speak. He’s just outside the cave entrance, circling, planning his attack. And to answer your question, it’s not very hard for me to find the words in your minds, words you will understand. We have been doing this mind reading for a very long time, you see.”

  “So, what gives?” said Bad Buffalo. “Why are you tied up in here?”

  “Oh, I was double-crossed.”

  “Come again?” asked the outlaw.

  “Dragons don’t like basilisks. We are one of the few creatures who can kill them.”

  “With your stare?” said Bad Buffalo, catching on.

  “Exactly. So, many of us are stationed around villages and serve the purpose of keeping dragons away. Only, someone in the village ambushed me, tied me up, and bargained with the dragon.”

  “Let me guess,” said Bad Buffalo, really catching on now. “For gold?”

  “Correct.”

  “And where is this person?”

  “You were holding his leg bone not just two minutes ago. Turns out, dragons aren’t very good at keeping promises.”

  “So, why didn’t the dragon just eat you?” asked the outlaw.

  “It would have, in due time. It had gotten its fill on the creature who ambushed me. Which is why, as I probe your memories, it wasn’t feasting on the swatters, as you call them. Had the dragon been hungry, it would have feasted. As such, it was bored. I see that’s making you mad, Mr. Buffalo.”

  “Darn tootin’, it makes me mad. We need to stop this dragon.”

  “I agree,” said the basilisk, which was really a strange-looking fellow now that Bad Buffalo got a good look at it. Why, the gunslinger was certain the little guy might have been part rooster! “The problem is, the dragon knows you have tied me back up and is attacking even now.”

  “Say again?”

  And that’s when an unholy screech filled the cave, followed by an eruption of fire that billowed along the tunnel.

  Chapter 16: Mirror

  Bad Buffalo whirled, simultaneously drawing both guns.

  “No!” Dia cried.

  “What, you a pacifist now? That critter needs plugging.”

  “No, you idiot. It’s that we’re at the periphery—” she paused, reading his mind. “At the edge of its range. The fire isn’t really getting to us yet. But when the dragon comes closer, gets around the curve, and can see us, then it will melt your guns and scorch us to ashes before you can plug it, assuming that your bullets do any more damage than that one did before. You can’t rope it in the confines of this cave. We’re sitting ducks. We need a better strategy.”

  He hated to admit it, but she had a point or two, apart from the ones on her chest. “Okay, what’s your plan?”

  “This nest is full of magic. Some of the artifacts here must be magic, able to do things the stupid dragon doesn’t even know about.”

  “True,” the basilisk/cockatrice said/thought. “I’ve had time to check out a few. Good stuff.”

  “Which means that we need your help,” she said. “Let’s make a truce, since we’re in common peril.”

  “Why? I can handle fire.”

  She flew across and kissed him on the beak, leaving a little heart-shaped mark. He was visibly moved. Bad Buffalo knew how that worked.

  “Okay, let’s negotiate a truce,” the creature said.

  “We don’t have time for that,” Dia said. “Just agree.” Indeed, there was the rumble of another blast of fire, this one closer.

  “Not so easy, sprite. I’ve been betrayed before, and not that long ago.”

  “What do you want?” she cried desperately.

  “Well, your kind can assume different forms...” He sent a lecherous thought.

  “Not that! I am promised to another. Anything else.”

  “Anything?”

  “Almost anything,” she qualified quickly. “Look, basilisk, if you don’t get a better attitude in a hurry, I’ll tell my friend here to cut off your head and eat it. That may not kill you, but you won’t get it back until he defecates it out a day later, if he survives, and then it will stink.”

  “Yeah,” Bad Buffalo said, holstering his guns and drawing his knife. He’d eaten worse than chicken heads in his day.

  “Very well,” the creature agreed. “We’ll talk. See that miniature hourglass in the nest? Take it and invoke it.”

  Dia dived for the hourglass just as another, louder, hotter rumble came. The dragon was just beyond the bend. A roil of smoke surged forth, coming for them.

  “Invoke!” Dia cried, holding up the trinket.

  The roil paused in place. The rumble halted.

  “Hey, what happened?” Bad Buffalo asked, surprised.

  “Your girlfriend invoked the hourglass,” the basilisk explained. “Time is frozen, at least for a few minutes.”

  Bad Buffalo had a problem with this. “We’re not frozen!”

  “He means it’s frozen for everything else, not us,” Dia explained. “Maybe we’re actually moving much faster, so the outside world seems frozen. But it won’t last. It just gives us time to negotiate the truce.”

  “Truce, hell! We need to blast that dragon.”

  “Your friend’s not the speediest bullet in the gun,” the basilisk remarked.

  The chicken-head thought Bad Buffalo was stupid?

  “He’s got other qualities,” Dia said. “What do you want?”

  “First, to get recognized as a person and correctly identified. I am actually the male of the species, technically a cockatrice. My name is Crag.”

  Dia, back in Bad Buffalo’s pocket, kicked his chest with her little heel. He managed to catch the hint. “Sorry we got it wrong, Crag. Sure you’re a cock.”

  “Correct,” the creature said, mollified. “A cockatrice stands up hard. A basilisk lies down soft. We get along. Forget this nonsense about an egg laid by a rooster hatched in a dung heap by a toad with the dog star ascendant; we reproduce in the regular way, only we don’t stare into each other’s eyes. Furthermore, it’s only our direct stare that kills, not the stench of our bodies. Otherwise the dragon would be dead by now, and you too.”

  Now Bad Buffalo had time to take a good look at the creature. His head was mostly that of an aggressive rooster, while his wings were more like bat’s wings. There was a kind of dark brown mane that circled around to the front and carried on beyond the wings. The legs were large and powerful, each foot as long as the head, with hefty black claws. The rest of the body was like a snake, with scales above and a tan underbelly below, trailing off behind. Obviously, a bird/bat/snake crossbreed. The ancestors must have had one hell of a drunken party, making love not war, at least on that occasion.

  “They did,” Crag agreed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

  “We recognize you as a person, Crag,” Dia said. “What else?”

  “Take me to your world.”

  That set her back. “What, blindfolded?”

  “If we make the truce, I will agree not to look directly at you, and to blink if you happen to look my way. You will simply have to trust me on that.”

  “Actually, since I can read your mind, I can trust you,” Dia said. “Still, it would be chancy. Accidents do occur.”

  “They do. I can help you kill the dragon and escape this world. Th
at might be worth the chanciness. Also, if I am with you, I can stop other predators from attacking you.”

  “Hey, I can take care of myself and her,” Bad Buffalo protested.

  “I’m sure you can, gunslinger, when you’re not stuck in a cave with no room to swing your lariat. Right now you need a look that kills.”

  Bad Buffalo had to grudgingly yield the point.

  Dia, from the pocket, sent him a mental glance. Did this seem to be worth the risk?

  “Yeah, I guess so,” he agreed.

  “Very well,” Dia said. “We’ll free you, Crag, and you protect us. We’ll take you to Earth, where you’ll have no competition.”

  “Deal,” the cockatrice agreed.

  Bad Buffalo went and untied the blindfold. Crag averted his gaze.

  “Very well,” the cockatrice said. “The time freeze is about to wear off. We’ll need the magic mirror.”

  “Hey, what’s a mirror got to do with it?” Bad Buffalo demanded. “Only sissies use mirrors.”

  “It’s magic, but it does also reflect,” Crag said. “We can set it up on the nest so that when the dragon rounds the corner, he’ll see it.”

  “Yeah? Then what?”

  “Then he’ll see my reflection in it, staring at him, and die.”

  Oh. But it seemed complicated. “Why don’t you just sit in the nest and face him?”

  “Because I don’t want to get toasted by his fire while the smoke prevents him from meeting my gaze. It wouldn’t kill me, but it would render me very uncomfortable for long enough for him to eat me, and that would be a long hard hassle. I would survive it, and finally get excreted, covered in digestive refuse. I’m practically immortal, but I value my comfort. I need to be out of the line of fire.”

  That did make sense. Bad Buffalo would not much like getting chewed up, swallowed, and shit out either.

  “I’m glad you understand.”

  The mirror was just outside their time freeze zone, but that was fading. They hurried to the mirror as the cloud of smoke resumed roiling, gaining speed, and the sound effects returned. It was a big one, about a yard across, circular, and absolutely clean and reflective despite being part of the junk in the nest.

  Bad Buffalo put his hands on the rim and lifted up the whole thing. It wasn’t really heavy. He noticed that his fingers did not touch the mirror surface; instead, they poked right through it. Surprised, he paused.

  “It’s magic,” Dia reminded him.

  He wanted to learn more about it, but a gust of smoke heated his back side and he realized that time was short. He set the mirror down standing up to face the entrance tunnel; he could see the roils of smoke behind his own reflection, getting ready to make the final charge. But he knew he couldn’t let go of the rim without it falling over.

  “My job,” Crag said. He got behind the mirror and scrabbled rapidly with his claws, sending gold coins, faceted diamonds, and assorted magic trinkets tumbling. Soon there was enough of a mound to hold the mirror in place.

  But then it wanted to fall forward. It needed propping in front too, but Bad Buffalo couldn’t spare a hand to scoop up more gems. “Dang!”

  “My job,” Crag repeated. “Avert your gaze; I can’t work blind.”

  Bad Buffalo shut his eyes as the cockatrice came around to the front of the mirror and began scooping another mound. In a moment the mirror firmed, able to stay in place on its own.

  There was a roar as the dragon burst into the chamber. He inhaled, preparing to torch them on the spot. “Get out of the way, BB,” Dia cried. “Get your reflection in place, Crag.”

  Bad Buffalo shoved his left foot down to jump clear of the mirror. But it skidded on a pocket of diamonds and he fell to his knee, opening his eyes. Then the next blast of smoke powered into his back, prelude to the full fire. It pushed him roughly forward. He put down his hands to catch himself, but they landed on more loose diamonds and got no purchase. He rolled forward, crashing into the side of the basilisk who hadn’t yet gotten clear, and shoving the creature through the untouchable surface of the mirror. He saw Crag disappear into it, his reflection changing as if he had dived into water without a splash.

  Then Bad Buffalo was up against his own charging reflection, unable to stop.

  Dia screamed as the three of them plunged through the mirror into...

  Chapter 17: The Woman in the Mirror

  Bad Buffalo tumbled forward. He tucked a shoulder and rolled while simultaneously drawing the little sprite from his shirt pocket with his left hand and his revolver with his right. He kept her cupped and safe while he completed the controlled maneuver. Bad Buffalo had always known how to take a fall. It came instinctively to him, especially when it came time to dive off Horse and take cover.

  He came up on a knee, releasing Dia and holding his gun out before him. Bad Buffalo liked to think his eyes were better than most, but even he was having trouble seeing where they were. He caught sight of the basilisk taking cover under a nearby table. Dia fluttered before him, raised a little hand, and immediately light appeared in her palm. A small light, but certainly bright enough to get their bearings. But before the famous outlaw could make sense of his strange surroundings, one thing was evident to him.

  His trusty steed had been left behind in the dragon’s lair.

  And just as that thought crossed his mind, and just as Bad Buffalo was going to feel his first real panic, ever, a wild, ear-splitting screech erupted behind him. Bad Buffalo rolled again, because his instincts were that something was coming up behind him, and coming up fast. He was right. Or his instincts were. Horse thundered past him, making a devil of a racket, clearly distressed. Bad Buffalo saw why: his tail was on fire!

  Bad Buffalo was on this, throwing off his vest, and while Horse bucked and panicked, he timed his lunge between kicks and caught hold of the blazing tail. He wrapped it tightly, smothering the fire in an instant. But it took many seconds for Horse to calm, and he was still in great pain.

  Dia was at the steed’s side as well, her little wings fluttering in a blur. She lay her hands on the horse’s flank and another burst of light appeared, and it spread over the creature’s backside and rushed along the tail. Horse’s pain seemed to lessen and soon the creature had settled considerably.

  “I took away his pain,” said Dia. “And encouraged his burns to heal. He should be fine in a few days. But that was all the magic I had. I’m wiped out.”

  Bad Buffalo was suitably impressed, and it was only now, with all of them united, even Crag had emerged from under the table, walking carefully with his eyes closed tight, Bad Buffalo finally got a good look around. And, for the life of him, he hadn’t a clue where they were. It was clearly a room. A big room, with lots of junk and dust and, most importantly, a similar magic mirror. It was leaning against the wall. There had been a red blanket over it, which now lay across the floor before it. Bad Buffalo took hold of it, cut a strip, and handed it to the basilisk.

  “You know the drill, crazy eyes.”

  The magical creature sighed and took hold of the proffered rag and tied it deftly over his eyes. This wasn’t his first blindfold. “Is there any chance all of you can, you know, not look into my eyes?”

  “We can’t take that chance, hombre,” said Bad Buffalo. “And where the devil are we?”

  “From what little I saw,” said Crag, “I would guess we are in a storage room of sorts.”

  “Who stores a magical mirror?”

  “What else do you see?” asked Crag.

  “Paintings,” said Dia.

  “Statues,” added Bad Buffalo.

  “Nyaah,” chimed in Horse.

  “My guess,” said Crag, “is that we are in the storage room of a museum.”

  “Well, I don’t give two figs where we are. We need to get back through the mirror so that I can plug that dragon. No one torches my Horse.”

  “It’s probably waiting for us,” said Dia. She flew over and hovered before the mirror. “I don’t see it.”

&nb
sp; “Of course you don’t,” said a voice from inside the mirror. “I’m a mirror, after all. Not a window. There’s a difference.” And with that, a woman appeared in the mirror. Only she didn’t step out. She hovered just behind, as if floating.

  Dia started, did a back flip, and zipped back to the safety of Bad Buffalo’s pocket. He was the hero after all. She was just a tiny sprite.

  Bad Buffalo moved over to the mirror, framed in hammered copper. The mirror was easily bigger than Bad Buffalo, far bigger than the cave mirror. Unlike the cave mirror, this one featured a woman dressed in a flowing, shifting white robe. She was beautiful. He found himself staring, confused and intrigued, and suddenly, in a great deal of pain, too.

  “Ouch!” he shouted. It felt as if he’d been stung by one of the Hive Queen’s followers. But no, it was Dia and she was not happy where his mind had wandered.

  “You could say that again,” she huffed.

  Bad Buffalo grumbled and cleaned up his thoughts and looked again at the mildly attractive and scantily clad woman in the mirror. “Say, why don’t you come out of there?”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Not until the curse is lifted.”

  “What curse?” asked the gunslinger.

  “Until a male person falls in love with me, I am bound to this mirror forever.”

  “And how’s a man supposed to fall in love with a mirror?” Bad Buffalo asked.

  The woman in the mirror wept. Bad Buffalo was certain he could see through her dress or maybe through her. Both intrigued him, until he felt another pinch to his chest. He yelped again.

  “Well, I’m very sorry for your problems, miss, but will you kindly step aside? We have a dragon to plug.”

  The woman, whose dress seemed to flow around her as if she were underwater, stopped crying and looked up at him. “I will not.”

  “Why not?” asked the outlaw. “I said kindly.”

  “I will not until you help me.”

  Bad Buffalo blinked. “Help you what?”

  “Find someone to love me.”

  “We don’t have time for this nonsense. I’ve got a dragon to plug. Step aside.”