"Your Majesty!" Vadne protested. "You can't risk yourself!"
"Of course I can," the King reproved her. "This is my battle, for which all the rest of you are risking yourselves. If we lose it, I am lost anyway." He wet a finger and held it to the wind. "Good; it is blowing west. I can clear the wall. But don't get near until it clears." He went to the northeast corner.
"But the curse will make the wind change!" Dor protested.
"The curse is stretched to its limit," the King said. "This magic will not take long, and I don't think the wind can shift in time."
The goblins were now scrambling over the wall, being met by screaming harpies. Dor and Vadne and the centaurs drew back to the inner surface of the wall, and crowded toward the eastern end, upwind of the proposed release.
The King opened his vial. Yellowish smoke puffed out, was caught by the wind, and strewn across the rim of the wall. It sank down upon swarming goblins--and they melted into black goo. They did not even scream; they just sank into the nether mass. They dissolved off the wall, flowed across the stone, coursed in rivulets through the crannies, and dripped out of sight. Harpies snatched at dissolving goblins, got caught by the juice, and melted into juice themselves. A putrid stench rose from the fluid: the odor of hot vomit.
The wind gusted sidewise, carrying a wisp of magic smoke back across the wall. "The curse!" Dor cried in horror. The closest centaurs danced back, trying desperately to avoid it, but with the evil humor of the curse it eddied after them. One got his handsome tail melted away. "Fan it from you!" Dor cried. "We need fans!"
Vadne touched the nearest goblin. It became a huge fan. Dor grabbed it from her hands and used it to set up a counterdraft. Vadne made another, and another, and the centaurs took these. Together they set up a forced draft. The yellow smoke reared up as if trying to get around, horrible in its mindless determination.
"Where are you going?" Dor cried at it.
"I'm drifting east another six feet, then north over the wall," it replied. "The best pickings are there."
They scrambled out of its projected path. The smoke followed its course, then was gone.
"Ah, Murphy," Vadne said. "It took Magician's magic to foil you, but we foiled you."
Dor agreed weakly. King Roogna, narrowly missed by the smoke, stepped away from the parapet. "It tried to go wrong, but could not. Quite."
Dor peered over the wall. There, below, was a bubbling, frothing ocean of glop, subsiding as the effect penetrated to the bodies underneath. A sinking tide, it ebbed along the rampart and sucked down into the moat, liquefying everything organic. Before long, there was nothing on the north side except the black sea.
"More of that on the other walls will abate the whole goblin army!" Dor remarked to the King, his knees feeling weak and his stomach weaker.
"Several problems," King Roogna said. "First, the wind is wrong for the other sides; it would do as much damage to us as to the enemy. Second, it is not effective against the airborne harpy forces, since it tends to sink and they are flying above it. Third, this vial is all I had. I deemed it too dangerous to store in greater quantity."
"Those are pretty serious problems," Dor admitted. "What other magic is in your arsenal?"
"Nothing readily adaptable, I regret. There is a pied-piper flute I fashioned experimentally from a flute tree: it plays itself when blown, and creatures will follow it indefinitely. But we don't need to lead the goblins or harpies here; we want to drive them away. There is also a magic ring: anything passing through it disappears forever. But it is only two inches in diameter, so only small objects can be passed. And there is a major forget spell."
Dor considered. "Could you reverse the flute, so that it drives creatures away?"
"I might, if the curse didn't foul it up. But it would drive us away, too."
"Urn. There is that. Could Vadne stretch out the ring to make it larger?"
The King searched in a pocket. "One way to find out." He brought out a golden ring and passed it to Vadne.
"I really am not skilled with inanimate things," she said. But she took it and concentrated. For a moment nothing happened; then the ring expanded. It stretched out larger and larger, but at the same time the gold that composed it was thinning. At last it was a hoop some two feet in diameter, fashioned of fine gold wire. "That's the best I can do," she said. "If I try to stretch it any farther, it will break." She looked washed out; this had evidently been a real effort.
"That should help," Dor said. He picked up the body of a goblin and shoved it through the hoop. It failed to emerge from the other side. "Yes, I think we have something useful, here." He returned it to the King, whose fingers disappeared as he took it. But they reappeared when the King changed grips, so it seemed the hoop was not dangerous to handle.
"And the forget spell," Dor continued. "Could it make the goblins and harpies forget what they are fighting about?"
"Oh, yes. It is extremely powerful. But if we detonated it here at the Castle, we would all forget why we are here, even who we are. Thus Magician Murphy would have his victory, for there would be no completion of the Castle. And the goblins and harpies might continue to fight anyway; creatures of that ilk hardly need reason to quarrel. They do it instinctively."
"But Magician Murphy himself would forget too!"
"No doubt. But the victory would still be his. He is not vying for power for himself; he is trying to prevent it from accruing to me."
Dor looked out at the barren north view, and at the battle still raging elsewhere around the Castle. A pied-piper flute, a magic ring-hoop, and a forget spell. A lot of excellent and potent magic--that by the anomaly of the situation could not seem to be used to reverse the course of this predicament.
"Murphy, I'm going to find a way," he swore under his breath. "This battle is not over yet." Or so he hoped.
Chapter 11
Disaster
"Zombies ahoy!" a centaur cried, pointing east.
There they were, at last: the zombies standing at the edge of the forest, beyond the milling goblins. The dragon-stomach smoke had obliterated the monstrous mound of goblins at the north wall, but that effect was abating now, and they were surging back from the east and west wings. Either the newly encroaching goblins would be dissolved also, in which case the region wasn't safe for zombies either, or they wouldn't, in which case the zombies couldn't pass there. So how could the Zombie Master get through?
"The Zombie Master must get to the Castle, where he can set up his magical laboratory and work undistracted," Dor said. "Now that we have him in sight, there just has to be a way."
"Yes, I believe at this stage it would tip the balance," King Roogna agreed. "But the problem of transport still seems insuperable. It is difficult enough keeping the monsters outside the Castle; anything beyond the ramparts becomes prohibitive."
"If we believe that, so must they," Dor said. "Maybe we could surprise them. Cedric--would you join me in a dangerous mission?"
"Yes," the centaur said--immediately.
The King glanced at him, mildly surprised at the change in attitude. Evidently Dor had done better with the centaurs than Roogna had expected.
"I want to take the King's flute and lure away the creatures from the vicinity of the zombies, to someplace where we can safely detonate the forget spell. That will stop the goblins from coming back here in time to interfere with the Zombie Master. Could you hold the magic hoop in such a way as to make any airborne attackers pass through it, while outrunning groundborne attacks?"
"I am a centaur!" Cedric said. Answer enough.
"Now really," the King said. "This is a highly risky venture!"
"So is doing nothing," Dor said. "The goblins are still mounding up at the other walls; before the day is out they will be coming over the top, and you have no more dragon juice to melt them down. We've got to have the zombies!"
Magician Murphy had come up again. "You are courting disaster," he said. "I respect your courage, Dor--but I must urge you not to
go out so foolishly into the goblin horde."
"Listen, snotwing--" Cedric started.
Dor cut him off. "If you really cared, Magician, you would abate the curse. Is your real objection that you fear this ploy can succeed?"
The enemy Magician was silent.
"You'll need someone to lead the zombies in," Vadne said.
"Well, I thought maybe Jumper--"
"The big spider? You'd better have him with you, protecting your flank," she said. "I will guide the zombies in."
"That is very generous of you," Dor said, gratified. "You can transform any creature that gets through the zombie lines. The Zombie Master himself is the one who must be protected; get as close to him as you can and--"
"I shall. Let's get this mission going before it is too late."
The King and Magician Murphy both shook their heads with resignation, seeming strangely similar. But Roogna fetched the flute and the forget spell. They organized at the main gate. Dor mounted Cedric, Jumper joined him and bound him securely in place with silk, and Vadne mounted another centaur. The remaining centaurs of the north wall disposed themselves along the east wall, bows ready. Then the small party charged out into the melee of goblins and harpies.
There was a withering fire from the wall, as the centaurs shot fire arrows and the goblins, trolls, gnomes, and ghouls withered. It cleared a temporary path through the thickest throng. Cherry bombs and pineapples were still bombarding the allied army. This didn't seem to faze the goblins or their cohorts, but it made Dor extremely nervous. Suppose a pineapple were to land in his vicinity? He would be smithereened! And, considering Murphy's curse--
"Change course!" he screamed.
Startled, Cedric jounced to the side, through a contingent of elves. There was an explosion ahead of them. Shrapnel whizzed by Dor's nose, and the concussion hurt his ears. Eleven bodies sailed outward Cedric veered to avoid the heavily smoking crater.
"Hey!" a centaur bellowed from the wall. "Stay on course! I almost catapulted a pineapple on you!"
Cedric got back on course with alacrity. "Centaurs have sharp eyes and quick reflexes," he remarked. "Otherwise something could have gone wrong."
Murphy's curse had tried, though, almost causing Dor to interfere with the centaur's careful marksmanship. Dor realized that he would do best to stick to his own department.
He put the flute to his lips, thankful that Jumper was there to help him, so that he had his hands and attention free. He blew experimentally into the mouthpiece. The flute played an eerie, lilting, enticing melody, which floated out through the clamor of battle and brought a sudden hush. Then dwarves and gremlins, vampires and harpies, and numberless goblins swarmed after the centaurs, compelled alike by that magic music.
The winged monsters closed in faster, diving in toward Dor. Cedric twisted his human torso in that supple way centaurs had, facing back while still galloping forward. He swung the hoop through the air in an arc, intercepting the dirty birds as they came--and as each passed through the hoop, she vanished. Dor wondered where they went, but he was too busy playing the flute--if his labored blowing could be called playing--and keeping his body low so as not to get snagged by the hoop himself. He could not keep his attention on all the details!
With two of his legs, Jumper held a spear with which he prodded any goblins or similar ilk that got too close. No ilk could match the galloping pace of the centaur, but since they were forging through the whole goblin allied army, many closed in from the sides. Dor saw Vadne converting those goblins that she touched to pancake disks, and her centaur was fending off the aerial creatures with his fists.
Quickly they reached the zombie contingent. "Follow the woman in!" Dor cried. "I'll lead the monsters away! Block off your ears until I'm beyond your hearing!" Yes, that would be a fine Murphy foul-up, to lure the goblins away only to lure the Zombie Master and Millie into the same forget-spell trap! But a problem anticipated was a problem largely prevented.
Then he was off, playing the magic flute again. No matter how grossly he puffed into it, the music emerged clear and sweet and haunting. And the creatures followed.
"Where to?" Cedric inquired as they galloped. Dor had an inspiration. "To the Gap!" he cried. "North!"
The centaur put on some speed. The air whistled by them. Experimentally Dor held the flute into the wind, and sure enough: it played. That saved him some breath. The goblins fell behind, and the elves and dwarves, but the trolls were keeping up. Cedric accelerated again, and now even the vampires lost headway. But Dor kept playing, and the creatures kept following. As they had to.
At centaur speed, the Gap was not long in drawing nigh. They had to wait for the land and air hordes to catch up.
"Now I want to get them close to the brink, then detonate the forget spell," Dor said, dropping the flute to his side for the moment. "With luck, the harpies will fly on across the Gap and get lost, and the goblins will be unable to follow them, so won't be able to fight any more."
"Commendable compassion," Jumper chittered. "But in order to gather a large number here, to obtain maximum effect from the spell, you must remain to play the flute for some time. How will we escape?"
"Oops! I hadn't thought of that! We're trapped by the Gap!" Dor looked down into the awesome reaches of the chasm, and felt heightsick. When would he stop being a careless child? Or was Murphy's curse catching them after all? Dor would have to sacrifice himself, to make the goblins and harpies forget?
"I can solve it." Jumper chittered. "Ballooning over the--"
"No!" Dor cried. "There is a whole hideous host of things that can and will go wrong with that Last time we tried it--"
"Then I can drop us down over the edge, into the chasm, where the goblins cannot follow," Jumper suggested. "We can use the magic ring to protect us from descending harpies."
Dor didn't like the notion of descending into the Gap either, but the harpies and goblins and ilk were arriving in vast numbers, casting about for the missing flute music, and he had to make a quick decision. "All right. Cedric, you gallop out of here; you're too heavy to lower on spider silk."
"That's for sure!" Cedric said. "But where should I go? I don't think I can make it back to the Castle. There are one or two zillion minor monsters charging from there to here, and I'd have to buck the whole tide."
"Go to Celeste," Dor suggested. "Your job is honorably finished, here, and she'll be glad to see you."
"First to the warlock!" Cedric exclaimed, grinning. He made a kind of salute, then galloped off west.
Jumper reattached the dragline to Dor, then scrambled over the cliff edge. This easy walking on a near-vertical face still amazed Dor. However, it was decidedly handy at the moment
Dor resumed playing the flute, for the goblins were beginning to lose interest That brought them forward with a rush. They closed on him so rapidly that they wedged against each other, blocking themselves off from him. But they were struggling so hard that Dor knew the jam would break at any moment. Yet he kept playing, waiting for Jumper's signal of readiness.
Finally his nerve broke. "Are you ready?" he called. And the goblins, loosed momentarily from their relentless press forward, eased up--and the jam did break. Dor fumbled for his sword, knowing he could never fight off the inimical mass, yet--
But what was he thinking of? It was the magic ring he should use. Cedric had left it with him. He picked it up and held it before him. The first goblin dived right at him. Dor almost dropped the hoop, fearing the creature would smash into him--but as it passed through the ring, it vanished. Right before his face, as if it had struck an invisible wall and been shunted aside. Potent magic!
"Ready!" Jumper chittered from below. Just in time, for three more goblins were charging, and Dor wasn't certain he could get them all neatly through the hoop. More likely they would snag on the rim, and their weight would have carried him back over the cliff. "Jump!"
Dor trusted his friend. He jumped. Backward off the cliff. He sailed out into the abyss, esca
ping the grasp of the surging goblins, swinging down and side-wise, for Jumper had providently rigged the lines so that Dor would not whomp directly into the wall. The spider always thought of these things before Dor did, anticipating what could go wrong and abating it first. Thus Murphy's curse had little power over him. That was why Jumper had taken so much time just now, despite knowing that Dor was in a desperate strait at the brink of the canyon; he had been making sure that no mistake of his would betray Dor.
And there it was, of course: the answer to the curse. Maturity. Only a careless or thoughtless person could be trapped by the curse, giving it the openings to snare Mm.
Now the vampires and harpies swarmed down, though the majority of them were fighting with the goblins above. "Snatch! snatch!" they screamed. A perfect characterization.
Dor found himself swinging back. He held the hoop before him, sweeping through the ugly flock--and where the ring passed, no harpies remained. But they clutched at him from the sides--
Then Jumper hauled him in against the wall, so that he could set his back to its protective solidity and hold the hoop before him. Dor saw now that the brink of the chasm was not even; the spider had skillfully utilized projections to anchor the framework of lines, so that Dor had room to swing clear of the wall. A remarkable feat of engineering that no other type of creature could have accomplished in so brief a time.
"Give me the ring!" Jumper chittered. "You play the flute!"
Right. They had to call as many creatures to this spot as possible. Dor yielded the hoop and put the flute to his lips. Jumper maneuvered deftly, using the hoop to protect them both.
Now the harpies dived in with single-minded intent, compelled by the music. They swooped through the hoop; they splatted into the wall around it, knocking themselves out and falling twistily down into the chasm, dirty feathers flying free. The vampires were no better off.