“I know it is,” Esk said. “I had a false skeleton come before, so I am verifying each.”
“Oh, yes, of course. I had forgotten.”
Chex and Latia were approaching. Esk touched each, using his magic, and each was genuine. There seemed to be no demon tricks.
“Maybe we had better verify this ourselves,” Esk said.
“How can we do that?” Chex asked.
“Well, I can touch things to make sure they aren’t demons, and I thought Latia might throw a curse. That could stir them up.”
“I think it could,” Latia agreed. “But I could verify only a limited region that way, and I have only two curses before I reach a blessing.”
“That’s my problem too,” Esk said. “I can expose one demon at a time, but it would take forever to expose them all, and that wouldn’t get rid of them anyway. So let’s hope they’re really gone.”
They walked into the valley, to the nearest square governed by an ogre. The ogre stood and made a monstrous ham fist, ready to pulverize them.
“Oops, I hadn’t thought of that,” Esk said. “Of course it thinks we’re demons pretending to be us.”
“You stop the ogre, so I can get close enough to curse his territory,” Latia suggested.
“Good enough.”
When they reached the edge of the square, the ogre charged. “No!” Esk said sharply.
The ogre, dully surprised, backed off. Latia stepped in and hurled her curse.
A rock, a bush, and a pile of dirt wavered and vaporized. In a moment three demons manifested, rubbing the regions of their posteriors. This was evidently where the curse had scored.
“Go to it, ogre!” Esk cried, as he and Latia scrambled back.
With a horrendous roar, the ogre grabbed at two demons and bashed their heads together, while stomping on the third. The demons, of course, dematerialized. But their cover had been blown.
“If any new objects appear in your territory, bash them!” Esk called to the ogre.
“Me see, hee hee!” the ogre agreed, stomping gleefully. Meaning had returned briefly to its life.
Chex sighed. “Obviously the demons haven’t vacated. They are getting plenty of solid-time by concealing themselves as inert objects. They can’t hurt us that way, but neither can we drive them out. I fear we are losing this campaign.”
Esk nodded glumly. “Fortunately, we do have another resource. I had hoped we wouldn’t have to use the wiggle swarm, but it seems we’ll have to.”
“I vuppove we alwayv knew it would come to thiv,” Volney said. “Otherwive we would not have vet up for it.”
“But it means that the voles remaining in the Vale will have to evacuate,” Chex said. “They won’t like that.”
“We will do what is nevevvary,” Volney said grimly. “I will give the word now.” He moved off to find his liaison.
“It seems ironic,” Chex remarked, “that in order to save the Vale, we have to come close to destroying it.”
“We seem pretty much like monsters ourselves,” Bria said.
They proceeded dejectedly back toward their camp.
Chapter 16: Swarm
“Wake, Esk!” Bria whispered urgently.
“Huh?” he asked dully, finding it dark. “What time is it?”
“Midnight, or thereabouts,” she said. “Esk, I hear something.”
He grabbed her hand. “No,” he said.
“Oh, don’t doubt me now!” she cried. “I’m the real brassie! Just listen.”
She was solid, and did not vaporize at his challenge. He had been afraid that Metria was trying to fool him at night, when he couldn’t see her. He listened.
There was a kind of distant roaring noise. “Maybe the ogres, on their way home,” he said. For they had dismissed the ogres and winged monsters, knowing that their efforts could not after all dislodge the demons.
“Ogres make crashes, not sustained roars. That’s something else.”
“Maybe Marrow will know. He’s been scouting around. He doesn’t sleep any more than I do.”
“Where is he?”
“Out there somewhere. Should we call him?”
The roaring seemed louder. “Yes.” Esk put his hands to his mouth and called: “Marrow! Marrow!”
In a moment they heard the skeleton approaching. “You heard it?” Marrow asked.
Esk took his bone hand and verified his identity. “Yes. Do you know what it is?”
“It is water, and it is coursing this way. Is that significant?”
“Water? From where?”
“From the Kill-Mee River, obviously, or the Kill-Mee lake. That is the only significant source in this vicinity.”
“But we are uphill from the Vale! How can the water be coming here?”
Chex stepped up; there was no mistaking her footfalls in the dark. “The demons must be doing it. They are good at channelizing; they may have made a new channel that leads here, and boosted the water with a spell.”
“But why?”
“My guess would be to get rid of us,” she said. “We have caused them a lot of disturbance, and are planning more, so they may be launching a preemptive strike. I didn’t think they had the organization for that, but it may be they do.”
“You bet we do!” came Metria’s voice. “We learned it from you. Too bad you woke up early.”
“We’d better get out of here,” Esk said.
“You’ll break your legs, trying to run in the dark,” the demoness said. “And if you don’t run, you’ll never escape it. We have a torrent coming! The whole of Lake Kill-Mee is pouring down here!”
“There is lowland all around,” Marrow reported. “I believe she is correct; you cannot escape it in time. I am not threatened, of course, as I cannot drown, but the rest of you—”
“I cannot drown either,” Bria said.
“Maybe we can throw up a barricade,” Esk said, growing desperate.
“Fat chance, mortal,” Metria said. “You’ve had it. My only regret is that you were too stupid to be seduced away from your stupid campaign.”
Already the roaring was swelling to an alarming proportion. Water was surging along the lower channels to either side of the hillock they had camped on. “We’ve got to try!” Esk cried.
Then there was a new crashing. “Hoo, hee, where be?” Crunch’s voice bellowed.
“Go away, you big ugly idiot!” Metria screamed.
“She nice too, demon shrew,” the ogre bellowed back, pleased at the compliment. In a few more strides he arrived, his huge horny feet striking sparks from the groaning ground they hit. “It get wet, need help yet?”
“Take Volney to safety!” Esk cried, knowing that the vole, being lowest to the ground, was in the greatest immediate danger. Had there been more time, Volney might have tunneled down and made a closed-off chamber that would survive the torrent dry. But now he just had to be gotten away.
“Me roll, take vole,” the ogre agreed. There was a sound as he found Volney in the dark and picked him up.
“Oh, phooey!” Metria exclaimed. “One’s getting away!”
There was the sound of great wings, and a huge flying shape blotted out the few stars that dared to show their light on this awful night. “Squawk?”
“Sire!” Chex exclaimed. “Take Esk to safety!”
“No!” Esk cried. “Take Latia!” Because he knew that she was older and more frail than he.
Xap didn’t argue. He found the curse fiend and got her mounted, then spread his wings and took off.
“Double phooey!” the demoness swore. “Two saved. But that’s all, you fool; no other monsters are coming, so you’re stuck!”
Indeed, the water was now attacking the hillock, gleefully gouging out chunks of it. By the sound, there was a great deal more coming. Marrow and Bria might survive the flood, being dead already, but Chex and Esk were in real trouble.
“Oh, how I wish I could fly!” the centaur cried over the almost deafening roar.
“I wish you could too!” E
sk cried back. Then he had a notion. “Bria—could the accommodation spell make her able to fly?”
“It could make her able to mate with you, but that’s all,” Bria replied sadly. “Oh, Esk, I don’t want to lose you!”
“Take my soul!” he screamed at her. “Take it before I lose it anyway!”
“No! That would only make me love you, and you’d be gone!”
“Then give it to me,” Metria said. “No sense in wasting a serviceable soul.”
Esk suggested that she do something with herself that perhaps only a demoness could manage; it would have turned a mortal inside out, or worse.
“Get on my back,” Chex called. “I’ll try to forge through the water.”
“You’ll never succeed, mule-mane!” the demoness screamed. “The water’s too strong!”
Esk was sickly certain she was right, but he staggered through the shallow rushing water toward the centaur. “Where are you, Chex?”
“Here,” she called back. Her swishing tail touched his right arm, which felt abruptly light.
He reached her and tried to mount, but the splashing water made her hide slippery. She had spread her wings for stability, and was flapping them, and the downdraft made it worse. He slid off with a splash.
“Try again,” she urged. “Maybe Marrow or Bria can boost you.” Her nervously switching tail caught him across the back.
Suddenly Esk felt impossibly light. He jumped—and leaped right over her back, landing with another splash on the other side.
“What’s the matter?” she cried over the roar.
“I—I jumped over you!” he exclaimed, hardly believing it. “I feel so light!”
“That’s true,” Marrow said. “Her tail makes things light; I felt it when I rode her and it flicked me. I had forgotten.”
“My tail makes things light?” Chex repeated, surprised.
“Chex!” Bria screamed, as Esk jumped again, more carefully, and made it to the centaur’s back. “Flick yourself!”
“Why—” Chex said.
“That’s right!” Esk said. “Your magic must be in your tail! It makes things light enough to fly! That must be why the biting bugs take off when you swish them.”
Chex swatted herself with her tail. “Oh my goodness, I feel it! I feel it!” she screamed, delight overcoming her horror of the raging water. “I’m light—I think light enough to fly!”
“Take off!” Bria cried. “Marrow and I will be all right! Get into the sky!”
“Hang on!” Chex said, but Esk needed no warning; he was gripping her mane tightly.
She flapped her wings harder. Her body tilted, as if she were standing on her hind feet. Then it evened as her hind quarters lifted. They were airborne!
She continued to stroke strongly. Her body spun about in the air as it lifted, making Esk dizzy, but they were above the flood and therefore safe. “Just stay up!” he cried. “You don’t need to go anywhere, just stay out of the water!”
“I wish I could see better!” she cried back. “I’m so afraid of crashing into something and falling!”
“Then fly straight up, toward the stars!” he replied. “You can see them!”
“Yes!” She pumped slowly on up. The roar of the water diminished slightly as they put distance between them and it. “But I am tiring!” she panted. “I’ve never flown before!”
“Call for help!” Esk recommended, not sure whether he was being facetious.
She took him literally. “Help!” she screamed.
There was an answering squawk in the distance.
“Sire!” she cried with glad recognition.
Xap Hippogryph flew toward them, and was soon hovering beside his filly. “Sire, I’m tiring, and must come down!” Chex cried. “Can you guide me to a safe landing?”
There was an affirmative squawk. Then Xap led the way, and Chex followed, getting the hang of navigation even as her wings lost strength.
“Flick yourself again!” Esk suggested.
She did it. “Oh, yes, that does help! Now I can make it, I think!”
It was true. The lightness caused by her magic flicking gradually wore off, but could be restored by repeated flicking. All she needed was wing strength, which would come naturally with practice.
Soon they reached the dry hill where Crunch and Volney and Latia waited. The last thing Esk heard before Chex’s hooves touched down in a clumsy but serviceable landing was Metria’s anguished “Darn! Darn! Dam!”
They had survived the demons’ counterattack.
By morning the water was ebbing. Even the full Kill-Mee lake could not keep the entire region inundated long; the water was running through new chnnels to rejoin the river and surge on down into Lake Ogre-Chobee, where it would surely agitate the curse fiends. Soggy refuse was everywhere, and high-water marks were on the trees. Huge tangles of battered brush were balled in the thickets, while small temporary ponds stewed as the sun heated them.
Gazing at this, Esk realized that he might have climbed a tall, stout tree and rode out the flood. But how could he have known what tree was secure, in the dark? A number of large ones had been undermined and toppled. Also, that would not have helped Chex. So the way it had turned out was best.
The four fleshly members of the party were safe and, thanks to the return of Crunch and Xap, were likely to remain that way. But the two creatures from the gourd were gone.
“They said they would survive,” Esk said, trying to sound positive.
“They are all metal and bone,” Chex agreed with a similar effort.
“Me look down brook,” Crunch offered.
Xap squawked. “Sire will search by air,” Chex translated. She spread her wings experimentally, but winced and folded them again. “My muscles are stiff from the night’s exertion. I’m not ready to fly again, just yet.” Then she looked surprised. “But they are stiff here,” she added, reaching back to touch under her wings. “Not here in the pectorals.” She cupped her breasts.
“You ninny,” Latia said. “Did you really think those were muscles you were developing there? You have become a mature female of your species!”
“But I exercised!” Chex protested.
“You exercised, and strengthened your wing muscles, true. But you were also becoming a mare, or a woman, however you choose to call it. Any man could have told you.”
Flustered, Chex looked at Esk, who could only nod. Her breasts had never looked much like muscles to him.
For the first time, he saw a centaur blush.
“Well, letv vearch where we can for Bria and Marrow,” Volney said diplomatically. “We can vpread out and keep each other in vight, walking downward until we find them.”
They did that. Chex walked closest to the Vale on the east, then Esk next west, then Volney, then Latia farthest west. They walked south, pushing through tangles, slogging through mudflats, and making generally messy progress. Far ahead they heard Crunch proceeding in the ogre manner, crashingly, and above Xap wheeled, his sharp eagle eyes peering down.
They searched all morning without success. Esk’s heart slowly sank, as if caught in the mud he slogged through. What would he do if they couldn’t find Bria?
By evening they knew it was no use. They had canvassed the region up and down and sideways, looking and calling, but had found no sign of either lost creature.
“But they can’t die, because they aren’t alive,” Esk said around the lump in his throat. “They can’t be hurt!”
“But they can be mislaid,” Chex said. “Perhaps the water caught them and washed them all the way down into Lake Ogre-Chobee, and they are waiting for it to ebb before they slog back here.”
“That must be it,” Esk agreed. But he knew that it was as much of an effort for Chex to believe this as it was for him. Bria and Marrow should have been able to hold onto something and ride the rushing water out, then call out if stuck in a tangle. Indeed, they could have climbed a tree with far more confidence than Esk, because if it fell they would not be
killed. Their complete disappearance was inexplicable.
“We have done what we can,” Latia said briskly. “We must simply wait for their return in due course, and get on with our business. The wiggle will be arriving soon.”
They foraged and ate and settled for the night. Esk slept alone, and didn’t like it; it had not taken long at all for him to get quite accustomed to Bria’s company.
As darkness closed, a figure appeared. “Hello, Esk.”
“Bria!” he exclaimed joyously. Then he caught on. “Metria. Go away.”
“Don’t be that way,” the demoness said. “You’ve lost your metal girl, but demon substance can be as good. Let me show you what I can do for you.”
“You’re trying to corrupt me, so I won’t make any more trouble for the demons!” he said angrily.
“That, too. But I have developed respect for you, Esk. You’re an interesting man. We could have a lot of fun together.” She lay down beside him and drew his head into her bosom. It smelled faintly of smoke.
“I thought you just wanted to be left alone,” he said grumpily.
“Yes, when I choose. And to have stimulating company when I choose. I misjudged you, before, so I’m making up for that now. Come, have a pleasant night with me; your companions need not know.”
“No!” he gritted.
“Oh, fudge,” she said. “You keep doing that, you fool.” She dissolved into vapor and was gone.
So the demons knew of their loss. That did not make Esk feel any better. He knew he could not trust Metria, yet for a moment in his sorrow and loneliness, he had almost been tempted. He felt guilty for that.
Next day the water was down further, but there was still no sign of Bria or Marrow. There was, however, another arrival: Xap reported a pretty vole coming along the path from the east, looking good enough to eat.
“That’v Wilda,” Volney said. “Now we muvt vet up for the vwarm.”
Well, this might help take their minds off their lost companions. They plunged into this new aspect of their campaign with vigor.
Wilda Wiggle was indeed a very pretty figure of foolishness. She wore her surface coat, gray, with intense brown eyes. Her fur almost glowed, and her contours were softly rounded. Esk was sure that if he had been a vole, he would have found her compellingly luscious. It was hard to believe that this dulcet creature could be the origin of the worst menace of Xanth: a wiggle swarm.