They marched, and the swarms paced them, buzzing out a tune that sounded like a requiem. Smash had not imagined that so many flies existed in Xanth. They coated the trees, they popped out of myriad holes in the ground,
they
formed clouds in the sky that rained droppings.
The party arrived at a palace fashioned of flypaper coated with fly ash. Here, surrounded by a cluster of fawning damselflies, perched the Lord of the Flies--a huge, demonic figure with multiple-faceted eyes. He was reading the flyleaf of a book titled The Sting by Wasp.
"Bzzzzzz?" the Fly Lord inquired, looking up with several facets.
The query seemed to be directed at Smash, but he did not comprehend fly talk. He grunted noncommittally.
"Bzzzzzz!" the Fly repeated angrily.
Smash had an idea. He lifted the Gap Dragon's Ear to his own. Maybe that would provide a translation.
All he heard was the roaring and hissing of dragons. No help there.
The Fly buzzed again, angry light glinting from quite a number of facets. Giant guardflies swarmed up to grab the Ear. "Don't fight them,
Smash
!" Tandy cried, alarmed.
The ogre didn't like it, but realized they could all be bitten and stung to death if he made trouble. It was the curse of the Eye Queue again, making him react intelligently. He let the flies take the Ear.
They dragged it to the Fly Lord, who cocked his head in order to listen to it. And the Ear twitched, almost knocking the Fly off his perch. "Bzzzzzz!" he buzzed angrily, and there was a flutter of alarm among the damselflies. It seemed the Lord had used very strong language. But he got back up to listen. "Bzzzzzz!" and the guardflies hovered in military readiness. "BZZZZZZ!" and the surrounding swarms retreated.
The Fly Lord angled a few facets at Smash, as if pondering a suitable action. Then he buzzed out another command. Instantly the guardflies closed on Smash's party again, and the bowflies fired off another arrow pointing the way.
"I don't know whether the Gap Dragon's Ear has provided us with doom or reprieve," Chem said. "But we'd better go along."
They went along. The arrows pointed them to the east. Soon they arrived at the flypaper wall. At this point a squadron of big spearflies charged, threatening to run every member of the party through.
They got the message. They all plunged through the wall. They got terribly stuck-up with flypaper, but the flies let them be. It seemed they had been banished from Flyland.
They staggered around, looking for another hotspring for washing. But before they found one, a small flying dragon spied them. It winged rapidly east.
"I fear this is dragon country," the Siren said. "Look at the dragonclaw marks on the trees."
Smash saw that all the trees were marked, and the scratches were definitely those of dragons. The largest and deepest scrapes were also the highest; the biggest monsters set the most imposing signatures. "We had better move," he said. In his present state he could not adequately protect this party against a pack of dragons, annoying as it was to admit that fact even privately.
But they couldn't move very well, tangled in flypaper. It was collecting dirt and leaves and stray bugs, making each member of the party resemble a harpy dipped in glue. Long before they found a hotspring, they heard the heavy tread of the feet of a land dragon.
"You know what?" the Siren said angrily. "The flies offered us up to the dragons!"
"And the Ear, too," John cried, spying the Gap Dragon's Ear on the ground.
"That's to frame us," Goldy said. "The dragons will think we killed one of their
number
, and they'll really chomp us."
Smash braced himself. "I'll try to hold them off."
"You haven't yet recovered enough strength," the Siren said. "And many big dragons are coming. Don't try to fight." She took the Ear from John and listened to it. It twitched in her hand. "Someone's talking about us!
An ogre, a centaur, and five nymphs."
"That won't do us much good if the dragons eat us," Tandy muttered.
"What's it like to be eaten?" Biythe asked. Clothed in paper, she looked just like the others, with hardly any of her metal showing.
"That's right--you have had even less experience in regular Xanth than I have," Tandy said. "But I doubt you'll ever be eaten. Your body is brass."
"Well, everything is brass where I come from," Biythe replied. "My pet bird is brass, my sheep is brass,
even
my ass is brass. That's the way it is in the City of
Brass. What does that have to do with being eaten?"
"Monsters don't eat brass here," Tandy explained.
"I can't be eaten?" Biythe asked, sounding disappointed.
"Oh, you could try," John said. "When the first dragon comes, you could volunteer to be the first eaten. But I think you alone among us are secure from that fate."
"I wonder," the brassie said thoughtfully.
Already the first dragon was arriving. It was a huge eight-legged land rover, snorting smoke. Smash strode forward to meet it, knowing it would have been too much for him even when he had his full strength. It wasn't the dragon's size so much as its heat; it could roast him long before he hurt it. But the dragon would attack regardless of whether he fought, and it was an ogre's way to fight. Maybe he could hurl some boulders at it and score a lucky conk on its noggin.
Then Biythe ran past him, intercepting the dragon. The dragon exhaled, bathing her in flame, but brief heat could not hurt her. She continued right on up to its huge snout. "Eat me first, dragon!" she cried.
The dragon did not squat on ceremony. It opened its monstrous jaws and took her in one bite.
And broke half a dozen teeth on her hard metal.
Biythe frowned amidst the smoke and piled fragments of teeth. "You can do better than that, dragon!" she urged indignantly.
The dragon tried again--and broke six more teeth. "Come on, creature!" Biythe taunted. "Show your mettle on my metal. I've received worse dents just from being dropped--but I won't say where."
Now several more dragons arrived. They paused, curious about the holdup. Another snatched Biythe away, crunching down hard on her body--and it, too, lost six teeth.
The brass girl was insulted. "Is that all there is to it? What kind of experience is that? Here I visit this great big, soft, slushy, living world at great inconvenience, and you monsters aren't doing a thing!"
Abashed, the dragons stared at her. She still looked like a clothed flesh person. Finally a third one tried--and lost its quota of teeth.
"If you dumb dragons can't eat one little girl when she's cooperating, what good are you?" Biythe demanded, disgusted. She shook tooth fragments off her body, marched up to one of the largest monsters, and yanked at a whisker. "You--eat me or else!"
The dragon exhaled a horrendous belch of flame. It burned Biythe's remaining flypaper to ashes, but didn't hurt her. Seeing that, the monster backed off, dismayed. If a thing couldn't be chomped or scorched, it couldn't be handled.
"You know, I think we have had a stroke of luck," the Siren said. "The dragons naturally assume we are all like that."
"Luck?"
John asked. "Biythe knows what she's doing! She knows she needs us to get her back to her world. She's helping us get out of a fix."
Smash's Eye Queue operated. "Maybe we can benefit further. We need a nice, steady stream of steam to melt off the flypaper."
"A steam bath," the Siren agreed. "But very gentle."
Biythe tried it. She approached a big steam-turbine dragon. "Bathe me, monster, or I'll make you eat me," she said imperiously.
Cowed, the dragon obeyed. It jetted out a wash of rich white steam and vapor. In a moment the brass girl stood shining clean, well polished, the fly ash all sogged off.
"Now my friends," Biythe ordered. "A little lower on the heat; they're tougher than I am and don't need so much."
She was playing it cool! Nervously the others stood in place while the dragon sent forth a cooler blast. Smash and the girls stepped into it. The vapor was as hot as John could stand, but since she had already lost her wings, it didn't hurt her. The others had no trouble. All the flypaper was steamed off.
Smash also became aware that his fleas were gone. Now that he thought about it, he realized that he hadn't been scratching since entering the Kingdom of the Flies. Those fly-repellent leaves must have driven off the fleas, too!
Now a dragon approached with an elf on a leash. "Do any of you freaks speak human?" the elf asked.
Smash exchanged glances with the others. Biythe Brassie had been speaking to these monsters all along, and they had understood. Didn't this elf know that? Better to play it stupid. "
Me
freak, some speak," he said, emulating his former ogre mode.
The elf considered him. The little man's expression ran a brief gamut from fear of a monster to contempt for the monster's wit. "What are you doing here with these six females?"
"
Me
anticipate girls taste great," Smash said, slurping his tongue over his chops.
Again the fearful contempt.
"I know ogres eat people. But what are you doing here in Dragonland?"
Smash scratched his hairy head as if confused. "
Me
criticize buzzing flies."
"Oh. They booted you." The elf made crude growls at his dragon, and Smash realized he was translating, much as Grundy the Golem did for the King of Xanth. Maybe Biythe had gotten through to the dragons mainly by force of personality.
The dragon growled back. "You'll have to check in with the Dragon Lady."
"Dragon Lady not afraidy?" Smash asked stupidly. The elf sneered.
"Of the like of you?
Hardly.
Come on now, ignoramus."
Ignoramus?
Smash smiled inwardly. Not while he remained cursed with the Eye Queue! But he shuffled behind the dragon, gesturing the girls to follow.
The Siren fell in beside Smash as they walked. "I've been listening to the Ear," she murmured. "The voice that talked about us before was the
elf's
; the Dragon Lady knows about us already. Now the Ear is roaring like a terrible storm. I don't know what that means."
"Maybe we have to get to that storm," Smash whispered. Then the elf turned, hearing him talk, and the conversation had to end.
They came to a huge tent fashioned of dragonet. Inside the net was the Dragon Lady--a scintillatingly regal Queen of her species. She reclined, half supine, in her huge nest of glittering diamonds; whenever she twitched, the precious stones turned up new facets, like the eyes of the Lord of the Flies, reflecting spots of light dazzlingly. She switched her barbed, blue tail about restlessly, growling, and arched her bright red neck. It was really quite impressive. She had been reading a book of Monster Comics, and seemed not too pleased to be interrupted.
"Her Majesty the Illustrious Dragon Lady demands further information, oaf," the elf said, becoming imperious in the reflected glory of his mistress.
Oaf, eh?
Smash played stupider than ever. "Me slow, no know," he mumbled.
"Is it true you are impossible to eat?"
Smash held out a gauntleted fist. The Dragon Lady reached delicately forward with her snout and took a careful nip. The metal balked her gold-tinted teeth, and she quickly desisted. She growled.
"If you aren't edible, what use are you. Her Majesty wants to know?" the elf demanded.
"What a question!" Tandy cried indignantly. "People-creatures rule Xanth!"
"Dragon-creatures rule Xanth," the elf retorted. "Dragons tolerate other creatures only as prey." Nonetheless, the Dragon Lady's growl was muted. Smash suspected that she was not eager to incite a war with the Transformer-King of the human folk.
In response to another growl from his mistress, the elf turned again to
Smash
. "What are we to do with you?" he demanded.
Smash shrugged. "
Me
only distrust place where me rust." Actually, neither his stainless steel gauntlets nor Biythe's brass rusted; water was more likely to cause trouble with the fires of the dragons. But he was mindful of the Ear's storm-signal; if he could trick the Dragon Lady into casting them into the storm, their chances should be better than they were here.
"Metal--rust," the elf mused as the Dragon Lady growled. "True, our iron-scaled dragons do have a problem in inclement weather." He glanced suspiciously at Smash. "I don't suppose you could be fooling us?"
"Me ghoul, big fool," Smash said amiably. "Obviously," the elf agreed with open contempt. So the Dragon Lady ordered the inedible party dumped into the Region of Air, since the Region of Water did not border Dragonland. An abrupt demarcation established the border; the near side was green turf and trees, the far side a mass of roiling stormcloud. Smash didn't like this, for he knew the others could not endure as much punishment as he could. But now they were committed, and it did seem better than staying among the dragons. They took the precaution of roping themselves together with Chem's rope so that no one would blow away.
They stepped across the line. Instantly they were in the heart of the wind, choking on dust. It was a dust storm, not a rainstorm! The flying sand cut cruelly into their skins. Smash picked up several girls and hunched his gross body over them, protecting them somewhat as he staggered forward. Then he tripped, for he could not see his own flat feet in this blinding sand, and fell and rolled, holding himself rigid so as not to crush the girls.
He fetched up in a valley formed in the lee of a boulder. Chem thumped to a stop beside them. Here the sand bypassed the party, mostly, and it was possible for each person to pry open an eye or two. Thanks to the rope, all were present, though battered.
"What do we do now?" Tandy asked, frightened. The Siren sat up and put the Ear to her ear. "Nothing here," she reported. "But maybe the noise of this sandstorm is drowning it out."
Smash took the Ear and listened. "I hear the brass spaceship," he said.