by Jack Sharkey
Down below, toppling walls increased in thunder, and the lab floor was starting to grow horribly hot against my bare feet. “Maggot,” I said, as Timtik hopped onto the broomstick behind her, flinging his arms far as they'd go about her plump waist. “What're you going to do, make three trips?"
"Don't be silly,” she said, turning her wrinkled face to me. “The castle will sink into flaming muck in less than thirty seconds. Why'd I even come back a second time?"
"But Lorn and I ... What about us?"
"Aren't you coming with us?” she said, blinking.
"With you! How?" I yelped, dancing from one burning foot to the other, a clumsy polka in which I was accompanied by a likewise barefoot Lorn.
"The silver sword, silly!” she alliterated hissingly. “Hold the crosspiece like handlebars and point the blade where you want to go. The flat edge also absorbs the force of gravity!"
With a ripple of voluminous black skirt, she and the faun rocketed up through the ceiling into the clouds of smoke boiling there, and were gone.
"Honey,” you'll have to hold me,” I yipped, still dancing. “I need both hands for the sword."
Once again those slim beautiful arms encircled my neck, and the wood nymph pressed up close against me.
Shifting the hilt slightly, I took hold of the left crosspiece with my left hand, then the right one with my right, and then, after a quick prayer that the thing would work, I pointed the tip of the silver blade at the center of the hole in the ceiling, and poked it slightly in that direction."
My next sensation was not unlike that of a man whose cufflinks have gotten hooked to an ascending express rocket. A jolt that sent yelps of pain through my deltoids managed to lift me and my wood nymph before my arms tore from their sockets, and then we were arrowing through smoke then icy air that burned along my face and wrists like sandpaper, so sickeningly swift was our movement.
A glance downward showed me a tiny flicker of blue flame that was the entire mossfield of Sark, and I gave a frantic twist to the crosspiece that dropped us like a plummet to a relatively safer height.
Lorn still clung gamely to my neck, though my horizontal flight above the rising heatwaves billowing from the nigh endless blue flames, left her dangling like the vertical part of a capital T, with me and the sword forming the crossbar. Ahead of us, I barely had time to recognize Maggot and Timtik swooping along before I was beside them then past them.
"How do you slow this damned thing!” I shrieked as we blurred by them.
"You don't!” came Maggot's voice from far at our rear. “You either go fast or not at all,” came the fading amendment to her statement.
In the stinging curtains of haze and heat before me, I saw two sets of flipflopping wings, and suddenly I was almost right on top of Cort and Kwist, the sole survivors of the carnage at the castle, their pinions whacking mightily upon the air as they hurried to get beyond the flaming fields.
"Look out, Albert!” said Urn, even as I saw Cort twist in his flight, and bring up that crystal spear in an attempt to impale me by my own motion. I wrenched the crosspiece, and Lorn and I skewed off sideways and upward past that glittering shaft, then looped wildly, end-over-end before I could undo the torque I'd put upon, the blade. I looked, up. Damn. We were re-approaching the rear of the wizard again.
"I'm not chasing you!” I screamed futilely, as Cort swung about to a “standing” stance in mid-air, his wingtips a feathery white blur of motion, and, lunged with the spear again.
This time I tried twisting the blade the other way, and almost lost hold of it and an even tighter loop swung us down so near the blue fires that my toenails turned brown. I yipped and wrenched and we rose again, beneath our foes.
"Cort!” yelled the emperor, but Cort was already, folding his wings neatly and dropping out of my ascending vector, to snap them open like twin parachutes as I roared past, and once again jabbed at me with that crystal spear.
The tip of the spear caught the trailing end of Lorn's ‘diaphanous draperies’ and there came a loud shredding sound, all at once.
"I thought that thing was, indestructible” I said.
"It is, given the proper care,” said the wood nymph, burrowing her face into the side of my neck, her arms strained, keeping hold of mine. “But I've been through an awful lot today, Albert, and—Oh, look!"
I saw, through the dizzy spinning sphere of sky and flame which had temporarily become my loopy environment, that the trailing tail of her garment had fluttered onto Cort's head, and that he and the emperor were struggling to get it off him, the two flapping gamely to stay aloft, high aloft.
"Albert,” said Lorn, her voice as green as her gown. “Can't you stop this l-looping?"
"I'm trying, I'm trying! But if I pull out at the wrong time,” I gasped breathless with vertigo, “we might end up in either the fire or the stratosphere! I'm trying to ... pull us out in a ... horizontal direction."
"Well, do it! Quickly!” she wailed.
I shut my eyes and gave a wild yank on the bar, and then groaned in despair as the flexible tip of the blade started to vibrate. Our flight instantly changed from a closed loop to the more involved pattern of an aerial rollercoaster.
And again, our flight path, still roughly circular, despite its added pogo stick itinerary, came back toward Cort and Kwist. They were just getting the last bit of trailing veil free from the wizard. I saw, with horror, that we were due to smash right into them if I didn't do something fast. Moving faster than was safe I tried another yank on the bar, and my perspiring hand slipped, skidded from the grip, and struck the diamond stud.
There is nothing I can think of, offhand, that is less fun than finding oneself suddenly in midair above a flaming mossfield, a terrified and nauseated woman clinging to your neck, and nothing to help you remain aloft except a solid lead cuirass strapped to your chest. Magic or not, lead don't fly. Lorn and I flipped end over end and started down.
Approximately ten feet we dropped, and landed with a soft tugging plop in the center of her veil-remnant, which was at that moment being held almost netwise by emperor and wizard.
With an ounce of thought, Cort would've just let go his end, and let us drop into the blue fires below. But I guess he'd been trying spear-practice so long that his mind didn't grasp the simpler method of getting us dead. So he lunged at us with the sword in his right hand, but, I guess to keep his target handy, he kept hold of the veil with his left.
This release of the righthand grip on the veil, however, turned the ‘net’ from a supporting square to a sagging triangle, off which Lorn and I slid backward, shrieking in two-part terror.
The crystal spear whizzed over the veil top where we'd just lain, and almost skewered Kwist in mid-air, and just as my groping fingers caught hold frantically of the veil-edge, Kwist, dodging the spear, let go his end. And there we were, me and Lorn, dangling down at the lower end of a trailing bit of gauzy green drapery beneath the heels of the flying wizard, whose pinions tripled their stroke to take up the extra load.
And still again he didn't think of just dropping us! With his left hand gripping its claws into the veil, he poked at us with the spear in his right, just as I got my non-clinging hand onto the diamond stud and shoved, hard.
The silver sword leaped into existence once more. We were off, flying madly, wildly, At a never-varying ten-foot radius from Cort.
Seems the veil was partially snagged on the sword handle, letting us fly solely in a circle about the wizard, like a stone at the end of a string.
Cort, counter-forced into an involuntary mid-air pirouette, drew back that spear for another thrust at us as we whirled in a helpless circle about him, a sitting target insofar as his relative motion was concerned. “Do something, Albert!” begged Lorn, the furthest out in our living centrifuge.
"Such as?” I shrieked as we whipped around the turn for what was probably our nineteenth lap, in five seconds.
Then I saw the spear point coming at me and tried to duck. Which, oddly
enough, was the perfect move to have made. My attempted move lifted my arms up, with the, sword in them. The sword, by virtue of the snag, lifted the veil. And the spear, by virtue of its magical cutting power, sheared away the fragment of cloth snarling us and let us fly into the blue on a violent tangent, which, stomach-turning or not, meant momentary safety.
I braked our slanting skyward motion more carefully this time, and had the sword under the grim control of more-or-less sane thinking as we zoomed back in the direction we'd originally been headed, this time trying to stay high, over the winged duo.
By now, though, the delay in spear-poking and merry-go-rounding-in-the-sky had let Maggot and Timtik close the gap toward the Kwistians.
Cort was just steadying to a halt from his spin, amid a down flutter of downy feathers that had been dislodged during his travail, when Maggot and Timtik sailed smoothly past, and a small white object was tossed from Maggot's hand to the wizard.
"You forgot something, dearie,” she crooned, sweetly, her ugly old face flashing its best witchy smile.
Cort, reacting like anyone to whom an unexpected missile is lobbed, caught the thing and stared at it, along with a baffled Kwist.
"That,” said the emperor, “looks like a Serpolith egg."
It is,” said Cort. “I don't underst—"
At that moment, the blistering heat that had been rising everywhere took its toll of the unhatched beast's willpower, and, the shell began to crackle and crisp away under the brunt of its imprisoned thrusts.
"But Cort—” said Kwist, as a tiny blue tentacle appeared in the side of the shell, “that's no Serpolith..."
"No,” the wizard agreed, “it looks more like a...” His long eyebrows shot up. "A Thrake!" he squealed, just as the small blue creature made its short crowing sound, the sound of joy Thrakes always make when their wing-dampering power caught a victim. Or two victims. And the last I saw of Cort and Kwist, they were suddenly wrapped neatly in their folded pinions, and dropping down, the egg and its half-hatched Thrake with them, into the hot, flaming field that was the final ruined chattel of the winged men of Sark.
CHAPTER 15
THE mossfield fires still raged when the four of us, flushed with windburn and reeking of smoke, sailed down from the skies to the hut of the witch. I had just a little trouble landing, until I figured that a sudden uptilt of the sword would allow us to drop to the ground before our new up-swerve began. It worked nicely, with Lorn and I taking an easy fall into high soft grass, and the sword, released, stopping its aerial shenanigans and plopping hilt-first into my waiting hand.
"Whooie!” I sighed, leaning my head on the sword and shutting my eyes. “That's all the flying I want to do for the rest of my life!"
A pair of warm lips touched down upon mine, then Lorn snuggled her forehead beside my neck, and curled up on the cool grass beside me. Well, not too cool. A lot of heat from the flaming fields was radiating into the forest itself.
Maggot's hut, which she'd left on ‘automatic', had altered its amorphous form to suit its caloric environs, and was now a Grecian-type statue, with a spray of water spouting like an umbrella from the stone maiden's head, and running in an icy cascade over the exquisite form, finally splashing gaily into a circular cement trough that kept the water from running away over the grass.
"Hmmm,” I said to Maggot, “that's the first time I've ever seen it in that shape. Of course, we never had such a peachy fire before ... But I don't intend to get drenched on my way indoors!” With a witchy wave of her arms at the pseudo-statue, she chanted:
"From this graceful vision rest us;
Be a hut, of neat asbestos."
In a twinkling, a cheery little rough-thatched hut swelled out of the stone statue's components, looking with each haphazard shingle a different color, like a cubical patchwork quilt. “Much better,” said Maggot.
"One thing,” I said from the comfortably lazy sprawl beside Lorn on the thick grass, “even if that hut won't burn, we can still get warm inside, with that fire out there."
"What fire?” said Maggot, distractedly.
"The one which is busily spreading from moss into shrubbery and pretty soon will turn the whole enchanted forest into a sort of bosky hell?” I replied.
"You know,” she nodded, “you're right.” She turned to Timtik and said casually, “Tikky, douse that blaze for old Maggot, like a dear boy."
"Me?" The faun was astounded. "Me put out that?"
Maggot looked surprised. “Have you forgotten everything I ever taught you, Tikky? What of your thunderstorm spell?"
"Gosh,” he faltered. “On such a big scale...” He looked at Maggot, then shrugged, flexed his fingers, and turned to Lorn. “Give me a hand?” he said.
The witch's eyebrows rose a half-inch. “What's this? Help? That's a solo spell, Tikky."
Timtik looked abashed. “I know, Maggot, but I can't assume the primary position. When I cross my fetlocks, my hooves give way."
"Oh, is that all?” chuckled the witch. She shuffled into her hut, and a moment later returned with a soiled silken cloak in one hand. Probably once black velvet, it was faded now, and rank with mildew. “Under you go!” she said, whipping the cloak over the faun, completely obscuring him from view.
"Abracadabra-presto-chango!
He whisked it away, and Timtik stood there on a pair of normal boy's legs, his horns and goat-parts vanished.
"Odds bodkins!” he yelped. “Maggot! You changed me to a...” he blurted in a rush.
"Save the eulogy!” interrupted the witch. “This is no time for compliments. It's getting a mite warmish.” She fanned herself busily with one hand. “I'd whomp up a rain myself if I thought the old sacroiliac could take it."
Timtik, assuming the primary position with ease, waved his arms, his hips did the around the island motion, a howling chant rang triumphantly from his throat.
A fork of lightning stabbed across the sky. Thunder cracked and rolled, and the blue-flaming fields and the smoldering fringe of trees were suddenly smothered in a wet torrent of icy waters that turned them into steaming mulch. Rain fell everywhere from the swift-moving black clouds, everywhere in Drendon, save an area about fifteen feet square in which the four of us were.
The storm raged one minute, then the skies went clear blue and sunny once more. Timtik, who had been clapping his hands in glee, suddenly sobered. “Maggot, I know I don't need the new feet, and all, now the spell's done, but could I keep ‘em awhile longer? I never had any before, and..."
"Oh, shush!” said the witch.
"I was just jumping the gun, Ti'kky. The only reason I never made you normal before was the Edict of Banishment. But now, with the Kwistians done for, Merlin's spell is cancelled out, them being the reason for it, and you and I can go back with Albert and Lorn, and join in all the wedding festivities, and—"
"Hey!” I hollered, sitting bolt upright. “I like Lorn a lot, but I never asked ... I mean, we've never discussed..."
A glittering witch-eye banked with fires of red lightning suddenly locked upon mine. “You intend proposing, don't you, Albert?” Maggot's fingers flexed impatiently.
"Uh-pp I said. “I would love to marry Lorn."
"Good,” said Maggot, all charm and bustle again. “Now't that's settled, we'd best hurry off to the proper sector for the Great Reversal. I can feel Merlin's spell weakening by the minute! Let us away, so we'll be in the right Drendon-spot to pop back Earthside. Wouldn't want to wind up with Genghis Khan's time. Ugh!"
"You don't mean Drendon's coming to Earth normal?"
Maggot shrugged. “Depends. Remember, Albert, so-called ‘normal’ on Earth isn't Drendon-normal in the way Earth should have been if Merlin hadn't messed things up."
"Then that allegorical orange peel—"
"-about to fit right back on the orange, yes,” said Maggot.
"But that means centaurs all over Greece, and dragons all over England,” I gasped.
"Ah yes!” the witch crooned dreamily, knobby
knuckles clasped to her hoary breast. “And werewolves in the Carpathians, vampires in the Balkans, sea serpents in the fjords, mermaids in the Pacific, sirens and sorceresses in the Mediterranean, kobolds in every cave..."
"But what'll it do to our present civilization?” I said weakly.
"It'll preserve it!” snapped Maggot. “How can one country concentrate on building ICBMs to blast another with, when all the citizenry is busy with things like keeping gnomes from swiping the silverware, or kelpies from dropping bricks on their heads?"
"You know,” I said thoughtfully, “You've got something!"
Maggot snapped her fingers. “Almost forgot about Lorn. Can't have her going back to Earth looking like that. Stand aside, Albert."
Up came the cloak, out came the words, and as the greyspotted black garment whisked away, Lorn stood in a royal blue dress with a lemon-colored belt, long black lashes lying against a pale rose cheek, lovely and very blonde hair a golden aurora about her head, and her figure a pulse-maddening conformation set neatly atop legs smoothly encased in silk stockings and feet in silly little French-heeled shoes.
"My goodness,” said Lorn-Susan, blinking. “This is comfy. And not half so drafty as my diaphanous draperies."
Maggot led the way into the woods. Lorn-Susan and Timtik and I followed, hurrying. Maggot had the key to my part of Earth-normal ready in her hand, and as we got to the proper place, that former hotsy-blasted clearing, she paused before inserting the twig-like, thing into the ground.
"I think,” she said thoughtfully, “that ‘Lorn’ and ‘Timtik’ are unlikely Earth-names. So, for that matter, is ‘Maggot'. We'd best call ourselves the um ... ‘Baker’ family, if only because I like to cook. I'll be Maggie, you'll be Timothy, you'll be Susan."
I looked at her, frowning deeply. Her matter-of-fact choosing of those very names almost made me think she'd been aware of her dual existence all along, but before I could ask her about it, Timtik-Timothy tugged my hand.
"You know,” he whispered, grinning impishly, “You're kind of lucky, Albert. How many guys can call their mother-in-law an old witch and get away with it?"
