"Oh, I could never—"
Che turned to him. "You do know what goblin males do to goblin girls of other mounds they catch?"
He knew. "Still, to actually—"
Gwenny smiled. "You can fake it. Pretend to strike me."
"But even in pretense, the implied violence—"
"Goody," she said seriously. "I will be depending on you to protect me from the very real damage those brutes would do me. Surely a little pretense is better than that."
He hesitated. She smiled at him. He melted. She had feminine power over him, since that kiss, and knew it. "I can try."
"Now make a realistic strike at me. Knock my head back."
He tried. He stepped toward her, swinging his open hand at her cheek. He stopped it just before contact. He thought.
There was a sharp smacking sound, and her head went back as she fell against the wall of the cabin with a cry of dismay. She put her hand to her stinging cheek.
Oh, no! He must have misjudged it, though he hadn't felt the contact. "Gwenny! I'm sorry!" He hurried to help her stand up straight again.
"You didn't touch me," she said.
"But—"
"It's a trick Che and I devised long ago. Let's do it again, in slow motion." She turned to the centaur. "Che?"
Che glowered. "You dare talk back to me, doxie? Take that!" He swung at her, slowly.
As his hand came near her face, Gwennie clapped her own hands together, making the smacking sound, and flung herself back, her head leading, as if struck. She put her hand up to slap her own face, reddening it.
It was an act, a playlet, obvious now. But it had fooled him. It well might fool another goblin, particularly one who was accustomed to treating women that way.
"Yes, I think I can do that," he agreed. "If I have to." This woman had devices he would never have guessed.
They settled for the night, the centaurs standing outside, the others in the handy cabin. Hannah took the floor, as usual, leaving the two bunks for the goblins.
"Why don't you get under one blanket together?" the peeve asked, chortling, and made several loud vulgar smacking sounds. They ignored it. Yet on a half-suppressed level, Goody wished that such a thing could have been possible. Gwenny was no Go-Go, but she had her own appeal.
Next morning they set off for the next major goblin clan. This was the Goblinate of the Golden Horde, reputed to be the meanest of them all. "I think you had better have one of your bagged spells ready," Cynthia said as she carried Goody. For some reason the centaurs had decided to have Che carry both women, though Hannah more than outweighed both goblins. Of course weight didn't matter, with the lightness flicking. "And hope that your bounce talent is effective. Their leader is Gaptooth Goblin, and he's a really mean one."
"Goblins aren't supposed to molest goblins. We should be all right as long as they don't catch on that I'm polite." He didn't say that he wasn't sure how many spells remained in the bag, if any.
"True. And they know better than to attack centaurs. They have enough firepower to shoot the two of us out of the sky, but then they would face the disciplined onslaught of a significant flight of centaurs, and that would be mischief even they would not care for."
"Like the way goblins learn not to attack an ogre," he agreed. "Some of them get their heads rammed through knotholes, others wind up in orbit about the moon, and the rest are less fortunate."
She laughed. "Exactly. But it is best not to tempt fate, regardless. And certainly they will be an asset in the war against the robots."
"Pity the poor robots!"
She laughed again. "You seem to be in a good mood. That surprises me."
"Well, you saw Gwenny kiss me." Now he realized why he got to fly alone, as it were. Cynthia wanted to ascertain his reactions to Gwenny. He was happy to oblige.
"I saw her stage a show for the public. Had she kissed you seriously, you would have sunk under the water and drowned without realizing."
"True. She explained that ours is to be a business relationship."
"Perhaps."
"She has some sort of curse that prevents her from marrying. I understand about curses."
"It's not exactly a curse, but that is the net effect. At any rate, she is a lovely and talented person we believe can do this job if anyone can."
So the centaurs did know more than they advertised. "I must admit it is pleasant to be with a woman of my kind, however temporarily."
"We had hoped you would feel that way."
In the afternoon they came to Goblinate territory. "We will remain close and alert," Cynthia said. "If any seem bent on mayhem, the first to attempt to strike you will be skewered by arrows. Then you must mount rapidly, because there are more goblins than we have arrows."
"But we'll have to go inside the mound to talk with the chief. You can't watch us there."
"That is what makes me nervous."
It made Goody nervous too, but he shrugged it off. One of the ways in which the reverse wood drink had changed him was to make him quietly courageous instead of a loud bluffer. He seldom had to call on that quality, and was no warrior, but he could do what he had to do.
They crossed over a small lake. "That's a hate pond," Cynthia said. "That's what makes these goblins so mean. They drink it to refresh their attitude."
"Hate elixir!"
"The complement to love elixir," she said. "Like the other, its effect is temporary, but overwhelming in that period. A normally placid person will kill his companion when dosed with it. If there is love between them, it will become similarly strong hate; there's a reversing effect, I believe. The goblins are used to it, and all hate each other anyway, so can control its effect to an extent. But don't touch it yourself."
Goody shuddered. "Never!"
They landed on a plateau near the goblin mound. Gesticulating goblins swarmed, as they always did, quickly surrounding them.
Goody dismounted and faced the throng. "What a paltry greeting this is!" the parody said with his voice. "I've seen better turnouts on an anthill!"
This met with gruff approval. "What the bleep is your business here, stranger?" the troop chief demanded menacingly.
"Think I'm going to talk to you, dungface?" the bird demanded. Then Goody added, as nastily as he could: "Take us to your chief."
"Not till you tell us why, sucker snoot."
"Oh, suddenly you're the chief, clubfoot?" the bird said. "Where I come from, you'd be dipped in hot dirty oil for interfering with the chief's business."
"You are not where you come from, joker."
"Get out of my way, lard-butt, before I start slicing fat off it to clean my rotten teeth."
The guard considered. It seemed the stranger's responses were all correct. "This way."
Goody turned to Gwenny. "Follow me, doxie." Hannah of course could not go there; she would have to crawl on hands and knees, and that would be no good. The goblins would overwhelm her and use her as a novelty female, once they got her armor off.
Gwenny bowed her head meekly and followed them into the tunnel.
They came to the central chamber, where an imposingly ugly goblin sat on a battered stool. This was the monarch of the mound. "Who the bleep are you, and what do you want?" the chief demanded, showing the gross gap in his teeth that gave him his name.
The parody let out a torrent of profanity that heated the chamber.
"All well and good," Gaptooth replied amiably. "Speak your piece."
Goody snapped his fingers. Gwenny stepped forward. "My master does not deign to concern himself with details. But I will present them."
Gaptooth eyed her appraisingly. "Come sit on my lap, honey, while you do."
"Hardly," Goody said as grimly as he could muster.
Gaptooth jumped off his stool and approached Gwenny. "Yeah?"
This was mischief. Goody poked a finger into his bag of four spells and pulled one out, hoping it would help defuse what could become an ugly situation. At least the bag wasn't empty.
It was the fourwarned spell, enhancing his senses of sound, sight, touch, and smell. It was that last that amazed him. The goblin chief was wearing female panties under his armor! He was a cross-dresser.
Gaptooth reached for Gwenny. Goody jumped forward, interposing himself. "Touch my moll and you die, feces-face!" the parody said.
Gaptooth didn't reply. Instead he punched Goody in the gut. The woman might have been merely a pretext to set up what he really wanted, which was to beat the intruder into a pulp. Then he could safely take the woman.
But his fist bounced back, repelled by Goody's defensive talent. He stared at it, amazed. Then he readied a roundhouse punch.
"I wouldn't," Goody said evenly.
The punch came swinging at his ear—and bounced back.
Undismayed, Gaptooth kneed him in the groin. The knee bounced back so hard the foot beneath it slammed into the dirt floor. Goody had not moved.
"What the bleep?" the chief demanded.
"You're the bleeping bleep!" the parody said. "You punch like a gigglesome girl."
Gaptooth tried again, this time swiftly drawing a knife and stabbing at Goody's chest. The knife bounced back, twisting out of his hand so that it dropped to the floor.
It was time to make his mark. "Note that I have not attacked you, baby-face," Goody said temperately. "I have merely blocked your feeble thrusts in a pacifistic manner. That's because I am feeling good. Were I annoyed, it would be another matter. You wouldn't like me when I'm annoyed."
Gaptooth stared at him with a certain dawning respect. "Yeah? What would you do?"
"I would hang you up by your dainty pink panties along with the other girls."
The dawning respect converted to dawning horror. "What do you know?" Now the cowardice beneath the brutality was beginning to show.
"Nothing, of course, as long as I am not annoyed. Now suppose you listen to my doxie's presentation?"
Gaptooth shrugged. He started to turn toward Gwenny. Then he rammed his head forward in a violent butt, trying to catch Goody off guard. The chief's head was thrown back so hard he landed sprawled across his stool.
"Would you like to see that block again, in slow motion?" Goody inquired. "I am beginning to tire of these routine games."
"You're more of a Goblin than you look." Gaptooth picked himself up. Then another evil thought crossed his cranium; Goody's spell-enhanced sight picked it up. "Have a drink." The chief fetched two mugs of liquid, sipping one himself.
Goody lifted the mug to his face—and smelled poison. Specifically, hate elixir. His new senses evidently had a database of information.
He dared not drink it. That might make him go berserk, and possibly attack Gwenny, reversing his positive feeling for her. How glad he was that Cynthia and the spell had warned him!
But what was he to do with it? Gaptooth would become suspicious if he didn't partake.
Then a faint bulb flashed. Suspicious? What did it matter? The chief already meant him ill. This drink was proof of that. Indeed, the goblin was watching him cannily. Let him drink the elixir, turn on his companion, then be destroyed by massed goblins—and the secret of the panties would be protected.
He steeled himself for the violence, then acted. He threw the water in Gaptooth's face. "I am disappointed that you should try your cheap tricks on me. If you don't give over immediately, I shall definitely be annoyed."
The parody, taking the hint, let out another mind-numbing burst of expletives. Gwenny's ears reddened with the impact.
Gaptooth was defeated. He definitely did not want to see Goody annoyed. "Tell it, doxie."
"We bear a message from Human King Dor," she said evenly. "Xanth is being attacked by metal machines called robots, and will be overrun if we don't stop them before they get to Iron Mountain. We need stout fighters from every species, to join with the humans in this campaign, and yours are the stoutest."
"We don't want to join humans, we want to destroy them!"
"If the robots destroy the humans, they will come after you later, much stronger. Better to stop them, and save your battle with the humans for another time."
Gaptooth's desire to destroy Goody warred with his desire for a really good fight elsewhere. Goody's enhanced senses could practically read the chief's body signals as the thoughts forged that way and this. Finally they took the more expedient course. "Sign us up."
Thus it was done. They left the mound, rejoined the centaurs, and soon were on their way to the nearest enchanted camping site. This time Gwenny rode on Cynthia behind Goody.
"You were magnificent," she said warmly. "You never said a bad word, but you beat him down anyway."
"Thank you. I couldn't have done it without the peeve's cussing and your cooperation."
"You got that right, pantywaist."
"How did you know that drink was bad?"
Goody explained about the fourwarned spell he had activated. As he did, he realized that the spell had worn off. It had been critically useful, but now was gone.
"And the way you stopped him from molesting me was marvelous."
"Well, I couldn't let him touch you!"
"I know. But the way you did it was elegant. You were being your pacifistic self, I know, but to him it seemed as if you held him in so little regard you weren't even bothering to hit him back. That shook him up."
"I was lucky."
"You made your own luck." She kissed the back of his head. "I'm so proud of you."
By the time his head stopped floating, forcing the centaur to correct for elevation, they were at the campsite.
13
Recruits
They flew from goblin mound to goblin mound, recruiting them all. They made a good team: Goody, Gwenny, and the parody. They didn't necessarily fool all the chiefs, but their coup in enlisting both Goblin Mountain and the Goblinate of the Golden Horde made the others more amenable.
The trickiest, for Goody, was his own mound, where he was banished. He did not want to advertise to Gwenny his shame of being a disowned chief's son. But he was lucky: his mound had suffered hard times, and was now allied with a stronger neighboring mound. It was to that other mound they went, where he was unknown. Probably no one in his home mound would have recognized him anyway, twenty years later, but he did not have to risk it.
"Soon you can return to Goblin Mountain," Goody said regretfully. "You have helped immeasurably recruiting the goblins, but of course you have your own life to lead."
"I have changed my mind," she said. "I want to continue helping. This mission is too important to neglect."
Goody was pleased, but still argued the case. "There is danger, and it is surely an inconvenience for you."
"True, and true. But I like your company."
Goody felt profoundly flattered, but controlled it. "Thank you. But since there is no social future for us, my company becomes irrelevant."
"Perhaps. Yet I confess I have not had the pleasant company of a goblin male in some time, and I am inclined to indulge myself. I think Goblin Mountain can survive a while longer without me."
He laughed, as this was obviously humor. Any goblin mound could survive indefinitely without any of its members, other than the chief. But he was very glad to have her continued company, however long she cared to extend it. Also, she was quite competent, and would be a real help with other species.
After all the significant goblin clans were recruited, they turned to the dragons. This turned out to be relatively easy.
"Vortex!" Goody called mentally from the region south of Castle Roogna where they had last been in contact. The robots had started there, but long since had left it for more metallic pastures.
Soon the two dragons appeared, tunneling through the ground. There is a problem? Vortex asked with thought projection.
"Yes." Goody introduced Gwenny and the centaurs.
"The robots!" Vortex said, reading his mind. "What have we started?"
"You didn't know," Goody said. "Any more than we did. But now it is
a serious problem we must deal with. We would like to enlist your help in contacting the other dragons."
"You shall have it, of course. We are not leaders, but can rapidly contact the leaders."
"The dragons," Gwenny said. "They suffered a plague, and had to be replenished last year. But there hasn't been time enough for them to expand their numbers significantly."
"True," Vortex said. "So we may be of limited assistance. Still, the big ones should be able to chomp a good many robots."
"That will surely help," Gwenny agreed.
"Dragons are just oversized worms anyway," the parody said.
Vertex spoke. "How is it that you are doing this dangerous chore yourself, Chiefess, rather than assigning lower-ranking goblins to do it?" Then she slithered back. "Oops; I see that wasn't supposed to be known."
"What?" Goody asked. Had he misheard?
Gwenny sighed. "I would be in danger if it were generally known I was outside my mountain. Especially from the males of other goblin mounds." She turned to Goody. "I apologize for deceiving you. I wanted to work with you without any problem of status between us."
"You're a chief?" he asked, stunned.
"I govern Goblin Mountain, yes. That is why our relationship had to be limited; I can marry only royalty: a goblin chief, or chief's son, or a prince of some other species, to form a strategic liaison."
"But you're a lovely woman! You should have no trouble finding a chief."
"All you have to do is lift your skirt and bend over!" the peeve said zestfully.
"I find I have lost my taste for brutishness. Could you see me marrying Chief Gaptooth? I'm sure he would be willing, and it would be an advantageous liaison."
"So that's what you call it!" the bird said. "He might even share his panties with you."
"Or an elf or naga or even human prince," Goody said. "With an accommodation spell—"
"She doesn't need it! Just tear her clothing off."
"Yes, I have seriously considered that. But Jenny and Cynthia got the good ones."
"I'm not a prince!" Che protested, embarrassed.