Dragon on a Pedestal

  "Zora took your curse!" Chem said. "She has--"

  Xavier and Grundy rode up. "Lucky you weren't stoned," the golem remarked. "I told Xav and Xap to stay clear when I saw what was up."

  "Zora looked," Irene said dully. "She suffered the misfortune slated for me."

  Xavier jumped down and lifted the zombie away from Chem's side, where she was half hanging. "She can't be dead!" he cried. "She wasn't alive!"

  "The seeds of mischief sown by the Furies are deadly," Chem murmured. "We sought to avoid their curses, but only transferred them to the most innocent one among us."

  The centaur was being kind. She had not been present, so she shared none of the blame. But the damage had been done.

  "Wake, Zora!" Xavier exclaimed, holding the stiff zombie upright. "You don't deserve none of this! You never harmed nobody!"

  "Yet there is a philosophical alignment," Chem continued. "Xavier's curse and Irene's curse--love and death--visited on the same person. The only cure for the one is the other. Zora isn't suffering now."

  "The hell with that!" Xavier cried. "I won't let her die, not after what she done for me! Zora, come back!" And he took the zombie statue in his arms and kissed her on the mouth.

  The others watched, saddened yet fatalistic, knowing that the man meant well but that the woman was doomed--and had been doomed from the time she absorbed the curses. The terrible Furies had had their way.

  Then something amazing happened. The statue began to sag.

  Irene stared. Stone couldn't sag! Even zombie stone crumbled or flaked away; it didn't really soften,

  Xavier was still kissing her, holding her against him. The vital warmth of his body was almost tangible. And Zora was returning to her half-life.

  "Look at that!" Grundy said. "The Gorgon can't stone zombies!"

  Chem turned her human segment so her eyes could meet Irene's gaze. "Perhaps it is true. Zora was immune to the stare of the Python. She can't see very well, so perhaps it is like a veil between her and visual magic. She may have suffered only partial petrification--and she was not as solid as we to begin with. But--"

  "There--there is a rationale?" Irene whispered numbly. "If you were stone, or mostly stone, and the man you loved embraced you and kissed you and begged you to return--would you respond?"

  Irene thought of herself becoming stone, and her husband Dor kissing her. "I suppose--if there were any way--any way at all--" Irene agreed faintly. "Love has power we hardly understand--"

  Xavier broke the kiss. "I told you I wouldn't let her die!" he said..

  Zora was flesh again. She stood stiffly, blinking as if her eyelids were heavy. Her body had been too loose before; now it was too firm. But she was more flesh than stone.

  They could not argue with Xavier's claim, though Irene was uncertain which explanation had more to do with it. The Gorgon's face turned living people to stone--but a zombie was undead, a different matter. Yet some things did affect zombies, as they had seen.

  "But what have you restoreed her to?" Chem asked. "A hopeless love?"

  Xavier released Zora, who stood without difficulty, looking about her. She seemed more solid now, as if the Gorgon's magic had stiffened her decaying flesh to healthy flesh. She appeared more alive than she had ever been, ironically.

  "I've been thinking about that," Xavier said. "About the good things she's been doing for us all. I'm not awful smart about women, but it sure seems to me a good zombie is better than a bad woman. This one is awful good--and you'd hardly know she's a zombie now."

  It was true. Zora was still firming. Love and/or the Gorgon's magic had transformed her to something considerably more human than before. Her facial features had become both clear and animate, her body strong. She was indeed a woman, and not an unattractive one.

  "But you--" Irene protested weakly. "You don't love--"

  "I know where the love spring is," Xavier said. "I know what's right. Nothing to stop me from taking a drink--I was going to do that before. It's supposed to be my curse anyway. I never was one to let someone else pay my debts."

  Irene's respect for him increased again. Xavier had a conscience and a rather clear notion of what was required. He had decided to honor his mother's wish that he settle down, and he had chosen the one to settle with. This was a strange and unexpected union--but it did make a certain sense. And it nicely reversed the double curse Zora had absorbed. "Good luck," she whispered.

  Xavier turned to Zora. "Do you like to fly?" he asked.

  "I do," she said clearly. Her teeth showed as hard and clear as polished stone when she smiled.

  "That's a most artistic proposal," Chem murmured.

  Xavier lifted Zora to Xav's back. It was evident she weighed more than she had, but his strength more than sufficed. Then he mounted the hippogryph behind her, putting his arms about her. "We'll take the seeds to Maw," he told Irene. "Zora's carrying 'em anyway, and I've got the feather. You folks can go on about your business."

  "Thank you," Irene breathed, still dazed.

  The hippogryph spread his beautiful wings.

  "We shall meet again," Chem told Xap.

  Xap nodded his beak, then pumped. He rose into the air, facing back toward the love spring.

  "Your mother won't like this!" Grundy called after them.

  "That's for sure!" Xavier called back, grinning. "But she can't stop me from being a dutiful son!"

  They disappeared into the sky. Nothing more needed to be said. Irene felt tears in her eyes, and they were not those of grief.

  Chapter 12

  Glory Goblin

  I am the youngest and prettiest and sweetest daughter of Gorbage Goblin, chief of the Gap side Goblins," Glory repeated as she delicately chewed on the blackberries, grayberries, brownberries, guavas, and sugarplums Hugo conjured for her appetite. "I am in love with a wonderful creature."

  "Love--that's poin-ant or peek-ant?" Ivy asked.

  "Wonderfully sad," Glory said firmly.

  "Love isn't sad," Ivy said, thinking of her family. She was glad for this chance to rest, since she wasn't used to walking the long distances she had covered in the past two days. "My father says love is fun, and my mother says it depends on the time of day."

  Glory smiled. "They surely know. But you see, this is forbidden love. That makes it sad."

  "How can love be forbidden?" Hugo asked. "My father says anything is possible with magic, except maybe paradox, and he's working on that."

  "What is possible is not necessarily permissible," Glory said. "Love really shouldn't be forbidden. But after all, he's not a goblin." She bit into some more fruit. It was evident that when the goblin girl said "famished" she meant very hungry indeed.

  "Well, my father says goblins are related to elves, gnomes, and dwarves," Hugo said. "They're of modified humanoid stock, he says. So they can interbreed if they want to, and when they run afoul of a love spring--"

  "That's true," Glory said. "Any two species can interbreed in Xanth, but this is generally not voluntary. Even if the individuals approve, others of their kinds do not. And some liaisons are expressly forbidden. I love a harpy."

  Both children gazed at her blankly.

  Glory sighed. "I see I'll have to explain. The goblins and harpies are enemies. The enmity goes back over a thousand years."

  "You must be older than you look," Ivy said, perplexed.

  Glory smiled again. She was extremely pretty to begin with, and when she smiled, the forest seemed to brighten. "No, I'm only sixteen. I mean the quarrel is ancient."

  Ivy's brow wrinkled. "My father said something about a war a long time ago. He was there, when they were building Castle Roogna. A spell--"

  Glory frowned delicately. "You really shouldn't fib. Ivy. You know he couldn't have been there."

  "Well, he was in the tapestry with this big spider--"

  "Oh, you mean he watched it on the magic tapestry in Castle Roogna! I have heard about that and would love to see it someday."

  "I watch it all the ti
me," Ivy said. "But I fall asleep before it gets interesting."

  "I gather your father works at Castle Roogna."

  "Yes, most of the time."

  Glory shrugged, not really interested. "Well, once goblins and harpies existed in peace. They even shared caves. The goblins used the floors and the harpies used the ceiling perches. But in time, it got crowded, and the goblins complained about the droppings. You see, goblins sleep with their mouths open so they can snore properly, and--" She shrugged again. She did it very well. "The harpies got angry and put a curse on our males, making them ugly--well, really it was on the females, making them prefer ugly goblins. I understand it is much easier to apply a curse of perception than one of actual physical change--that's why illusion is so popular. Anyway, the girls stayed pretty, but the goblin men, owing to sexual selection--ugh! So the goblins got even for that by luring away all the harpy males--who, it seems, were partial to fully fleshed legs, unlike the chicken legs of the harpy females--until there were no males left and the harpies were all female."

  Now Hugo's brow wrinkled. "All female? But how--?"

  "I don't know exactly how they reproduced. Maybe they laid parthenogenetic eggs."

  "What?"

  "Harpies hatch from eggs," Glory explained patiently. "If there's no male, the eggs may hatch anyway--but only female chicks. Something like that. I'm not much for parthenogenesis myself; it's not a type of magic I understand. Anyway, they were all female, and mostly old and ugly and bitter, as perhaps they had a right to be. They were absolutely furious at us, though all the goblins had done was get even for what they had done to us. So there was war. All the goblins and our allies on the ground, against all the harpies and their allies in the air. In those days, the goblins and harpies were the most numerous creatures in Xanth and wielded the most power. But after the battle, there were not nearly so many of either, and true human folk became dominant.

  "At least the curse was off, and the goblin girls liked handsome males again, and the harpies had a few males. But the damage took a long time to clear, because there weren't any handsome male goblins left, which made the girls understandably reluctant. There was only one harpy cock for every hundred or so hens, and all the hens were ugly and dirty, which made the cocks reluctant. So in eight hundred years, the numbers of goblins and harpies have hardly increased. Most goblin males are still ugly, and so are the old harpy hens. During that period they still fought one another, in honor of old grudges, but not so much, because there were so few--and the Gap Chasm interfered."

  Stanley perked up his ears. He remembered the Gap! "How could the Gap do that?" Hugo asked. "No one even remembered it!"

  "That's the point," Glory said. "It's very hard to cross the Gap when you don't remember it. Especially when there's a dragon in it who gobbles anyone who tries to pass. So gradually, the goblins settled north of the Gap, the harpies settled south of it, and the warfare diminished. It was really the Gap that brought peace to Xanth."

  Stanley snorted steam that swirled dangerously near her petite feet.

  "And the Gap Dragon," Glory added quickly. Stanley relaxed. "Of course, the harpies could fly over the Gap, so there were some skirmishes--just enough to keep the blood feud alive--but mostly it was pretty quiet for several centuries."

  Stanley might be satisfied, having established the importance of his office to the welfare of Xanth, but Ivy wasn't. "But you're across the Gap now!"

  "True. But you see, the forget-spell has been breaking up--and anyway, my tribe lives right at the brink of the Gap, so we're partly immune to the spell. I used to sit on the ledge and look down into the Gap and watch the Dragon charge by, so big and awful. I could see the steam wafting up in frightening clouds."

  Stanley puffed more steam contentedly. He was getting to like this goblin maiden, who certainly looked good enough to eat.

  "But recently I saw that the Dragon was gone, so I knew I could cross." Glory peered at Stanley. "Is he really the Gap Dragon? He's so small!"

  "Yes," Hugo said. "I dumped Fountain of Youth water on him, and now he's a baby Dragon. He's our friend now. I guess babies are nicer than monsters."

  "That must be true," Glory agreed. "My people have always been nervous about your human kind, the full-sized folk, but you children seem very nice." She chewed some more fruit.

  "I guess everyone's nice, if you know the person," Ivy said. "I like just about everything I meet, except maybe some clouds."

  "Some clouds can be bothersome, especially the ones that rain on my hairdo," Glory agreed. "You must have been raised in a loving household."

  "Isn't everyone?"

  The goblin girl made her sad, peek-ant smile again. "Alas, no. My father is ugly and vicious, like most goblin males, and my mother was always afraid of him. Oh, I'm not saying Gorbage is a bad man; he is after all, my father. It's just his way. You see, though we goblin girls now prefer handsome and gentle men, they aren't very good fighters, and so they don't survive very well in our region. Gorbage is chief because he is violent and ruthless and tougher than other goblin men. He has been a good provider, but he just doesn't understand love. When my older sister Goldy came of age, Gorbage made a party of creatures escort her to the northern goblin tribes so she could trap a husband."

  "But a pretty girl doesn't have to trap a man!" Ivy protested. "Not one as pretty as you."

  "In Goblin-Land she does, unfortunately. That's part of what dismays me about it. And Goldy is not as pretty as I am, so it was that much harder for her."

  "How could Gorbage make other creatures escort a goblin girl?" Hugo asked.

  "He threatened to eat them if they didn't. He would have, too. One was an ogre, but the ogre had just fought the Gap Dragon--"

  Stanley perked up again, interested, though it was evident he didn't remember this. Ivy wasn't certain whether this was because he had lost most of his memory when he lost his age, or whether the Gap Dragon had fought so many other monsters that he simply couldn't remember this particular spat.

  "And the ogre had just climbed out of the Gap, lifting out a centaur, and was very tired, so he couldn't fight. That's a very rare state for ogres."

  "But ogres eat people, too!" Hugo objected. "And they eat goblins and monsters and trees and dirt and everything! He should have gobbled up a tasty goblin girl."

  "This was a funny ogre. He was with five assorted young females, so Gorbage figured if the brute hadn't eaten them, maybe he wouldn't eat Goldy either. It seemed like a good risk. No worse than going into battle or harvesting tentacles from a tangle tree. My father is very practical. He sent my sister with them, and it worked, because later we had news through the grapevine that--"

  "My mother grows neat grapevines," Ivy said. "Some of them reach right to the top of the castle, and we talk to the grapes at each end, and the sound travels back and forth just perfectly."

  "Yes, of course," Glory agreed, slightly annoyed by the frequent interruptions. "We have vines that grow well into Dragon-Land, and from there they connect to some of the northern vines, but often there is no complete connection because somewhere along the way some dragon has scorched out a section. Anyway, we learned that Goldy had snared a northern goblin chief and was moderately satisfied. That's how most goblins marry. But I am too romantic for my own good. My sister is tough; she's always able to do what is necessary. Not I; I am more a creature of fantasy. So when it came my turn to marry--" She broke off, grimacing, and such was her beauty that even that expression was impossibly cute. "I fell in love with a male who conformed more perfectly to my ideals."

  "The harpy," Hugo said, showing his intelligence.

  "Hardy Harpy," she said. "I was sitting one evening, dangling my feet over the brink of the Gap Chasm and thinking my silly thoughts, when I saw this bird flying down below me. Only it wasn't a bird, it was a harpy, and I was afraid because those harpy hens have the foulest mouths you ever heard. I put my hand on my knife in case it should attack me and I got ready to scream. I hiked up my skirt so I
could run, but there was something different about this one. I couldn't smell the normally foul odor, so I lingered longer than I should have and suddenly realized that this harpy was young and clean and male. I had never seen a male harpy before. They remain rare and they don't go out much to mix with other creatures. I was so amazed I just waited there, marveling, my skirt held high."

  She hiked her skirt a little to illustrate. Her legs were astonishingly shapely. "And he came and perched beside me and told me what pretty legs I had, so of course I didn't run away then. Goblin men's legs aren't pretty--they're all black and knobby and warped--and harpy hens' legs are even worse. I can certainly see how a harpy cock would be turned off by a harpy hen's claws. And he spoke the truth about my legs." She glanced down at them appreciatively, as well she might.

  "But weren't his legs bird legs?" Ivy asked.

  "Yes, of course. But males don't need nice legs. He had such lovely wings, and a handsome face and manly chest. And he spoke with such gentleness and intelligence." She shrugged. "After that, he came to see me often, there at the brink of the Chasm, and in due course we fell in--"

  "But didn't you get hurt?" Ivy asked, horrified. "The Gap's so deep--"

  "Fell in love," the goblin girl continued blithely. "Oh, we knew it was wrong, for goblins and harpies are at war, and the war had started centuries ago because of just such liaisons as this. But we were so right for each other, we simply couldn't help it. We wanted to marry, but we knew we couldn't as long as I was bound to my tribe; the goblins would tar and defeather Hardy and then start mistreating him. So we could do nothing--and meanwhile, my father was looking for a way to get me north so I could snag a goblin chief and live in moderate declining satisfaction, like my sister. I knew I had to escape. Then the Gap Dragon left--and here I am, across the Gap, looking for my beloved. I hope I find him soon! If I do, then that will be the happy ending I promised we might have to this story."