It was a two-inch-long, loosely spiraled worm, hovering absolutely still in midair. It hardly looked like the menace it was. He barked, pointing his nose at it.
Trent heard him. He strode across with his two rocks. "Good job, Bink," he cried. He smashed the rocks together on the wiggle. As they came apart, the squished, dead hulk of the tiny monster dropped. One down!
Zzapp! "There's another!" Trent cried. "They tunnel through anything--even air--so we hear the collapse of the vacuum behind them. This one should be right about--there!" He smashed his stones together again, crunching the wiggle.
After that it was hectic. The wiggles were zapping determinedly outward, each in its own pattern. There was no way of telling how long they would freeze in place--seconds or minutes--or how far they would zap--inches or feet. But each wiggle went in the precise direction it had started, never shifting even a fraction, so it was possible to trace that line and locate it fairly quickly. If someone stood in front of a wiggle at the wrong time, he got zapped--and if the hole were through a vital organ, he died. But it was not feasible to stand behind a wiggle, for the closer in toward the source of the swarm one went, the more the wiggles were present. There were so many wiggles that a creature smashing one could be simultaneously holed by another. It was necessary to stand at the outer fringe of expansion and nab the leaders first.
The wiggles really seemed to be mindless, or at least indifferent to external things. Their preset wiggle courses holed anything--anything at all--in the way. If a person didn't locate a wiggle fast, it was too late, for the thing had zapped again. Yet it could be tricky to find a still wiggle, for it looked like a twisted stem from the side and a coiled stem from the end. It had to move to attract attention to itself--and then it might be too late to nab it.
"This is like standing in a firing range and catching the bullets as they pass," Trent muttered. That sounded like another Mundane allusion; evidently Mundane wiggles were called bullets.
The invisible giant operated beside Bink on the right, as his nose plainly told him. TRAMP!--and a wiggle was crushed out of existence. Maybe a hundred wiggles at once. But so was anything else that got underfoot. Bink didn't dare point out wiggles for Bigfoot; it would be his own death warrant. For all he knew, the giant was stomping randomly. It was as good a way as any.
On the left side, a unicorn operated. When it located a wiggle, it either crushed it between horn and hoof or closed its mouth over it and ground it to shreds with its equine teeth. This seemed to Bink to be a distasteful and hazardous mode of operation, because if it mistimed a wiggle--
Zzapp! A hole appeared in the unicorn's jaw. Blood dripped out. The creature made a single neigh of anguish--then trotted along the path of the zap. It located the wiggle and chomped down again, using the other side of its jaw.
Bink admired the unicorn's courage. But he had to get on with his own job. Two wiggles had just zapped within range. He pointed out the nearest for Trent, then ran to the other, afraid Trent would not reach it in time. His hound's teeth were made for cutting and tearing, not chewing, but maybe they would do. He bit down on the wiggle.
It squished unpleasantly. Its body was firm but not really hard, and the juices squirted out. The taste was absolutely awful. There was some sort of acid--yecch! But Bink chewed carefully several times, to be sure of crushing it all; he knew that any unsquished fragment would zap away as a tiny wiggle, just as dangerous as the original. He spat out the remains. Surely his mouth would never be the same again.
Zzapp! Zzapp! Two more wiggles nearby. Trent heard one and went after it; Bink sought out the other. But even as they both oriented, a third zzapp! sounded between them. The pace was stepping up as the great internal mass of wiggles reached the perimeter. There were too many wiggles to keep up with! The complete swarm might number a million.
There was a deafening bellow from above. "OOAAOUGH!'
Herman the centaur galloped by. Blood trailed from a glancing wiggle-wound in his flank. "Bigfoot's hit!" he cried. "Get out of the way."
"But the wiggles are breaking out," Trent said.
"I know! We're taking heavy losses all around the perimeter. It's a bigger swarm than I thought, more dense in the center. We can't hold them anyway. We'll have to form a new containment circle, and hope that more help arrives in time. Save yourselves before the giant falls."
Good advice. A huge print appeared in Bink's territory as Bigfoot staggered. They got out of there.
"AAOOGAHH!" the giant bawled. Another print appeared, this time in toward the center of the circle. A wash of air passed as he fell, heavy-laden with the giant-aroma. "GOUGH-OOOAAAA--" The sound arched down from a fifty-foot elevation toward the center of the wiggle swarm. The crash was like that of a petrified pine felled by magic. WHOOMP!
Herman, who had taken refuge behind the same jellybarrel tree as Trent and Bink, wiped a squirt of jelly out of his eye and shook his head sadly. "There goes a big, big man! Little hope now of containing the menace. We're disorganized and short of personnel, and the strength of the enemy is sweeping outward. Only a hurricane could get them all, and the weather's dry." Then he looked again at Trent. "You seem familiar. Aren't you--yes. Twenty years ago--"
Trent raised his hand. "I regret the necessity--" he began.
"No, wait, Magician," Herman said. "Transform me not. I will not betray your secret. I could have bashed your head in with my foot just now, had I intended you ill. Know you not why I was exiled from my kind?"
Trent paused. "I know not, for I do not know you."
"I am Herman the Hermit, punished for the obscenity of practicing magic. By summoning will-o'-the-wisps. No centaur is supposed to--"
"You mean centaurs can practice magic?"
"They could--if they would. We centaurs have existed so long in Xanth we have become a natural species. But magic is considered--"
"Obscene," Trent finished, voicing Bink's thought. So magic intelligent creatures could do magic; their inability was cultural, not genetic. "So you became a hermit in the wilderness."
"Correct. I share your humiliation of exile. But now we have a need more important than privacy. Use your talent to abolish the wiggle menace!"
"I can't transform all the wiggles. I must focus on one at a time, and there are too many--"
"Not that. We must cauterize them. I had hoped my wisps would lead in a salamander--"
"A salamander," Trent exclaimed. "Of course! But even so, the fire could not spread fast enough to bum out all the wiggles, and if it did, the fire itself would then be unstoppable, a greater menace than the wiggles. We'd merely exchange one devastation for another."
"Not so. There are certain restrictions on salamanders, and with foresight they can be controlled. I was thinking of--"
Zzapp! A hole appeared in the trunk of the tree. Jelly oozed out like purple blood. Bink dashed out to crunch the wiggle, who fortunately had passed between them and injured no one. Yuch! That taste!
"They're inside the trees," Trent said. "Some are bound to land within things. Impossible to catch those ones."
Herman trotted over to a nondescript bush. He yanked several vines from it. "Salamander weed," he explained. "I have become a fair naturalist in my years of isolation. This is the one thing a salamander can't burn. It represents a natural barrier to the fire; eventually the flames are stopped by proliferating weeds. If I make a harness of this, I can carry a salamander around in a great circle just beyond the infestation--"
"But how to stop the fire before it destroys most of Xanth?" Trent asked. "We can't wait on the chance of the weeds; half of the wilderness could be ravaged before it burns itself out. We can't possibly clear a firebreak in time." He paused. "You know, that must be why your wisps summoned no salamanders. This thick forest would naturally have a salamander-repulsion spell to keep them away, because such a fire would quickly prejudice this whole environment. Still, if we start a fire--"
Herman held up one strong hand in a halt gesture. He was an old
centaur, but still strong; the arm was magnificently muscled. "You know how salamander fire burns only in the direction it starts? If we form a circle of inward-burning magic fire--"
"Suddenly I comprehend!" Trent exclaimed. "It will burn itself out at the center." He looked around. "Bink?"
What else? Bink did not relish being a salamander, but anything was better than yielding Xanth to the wiggles. No person or creature would be safe if the swarms got out of control again. He came up.
Suddenly he was a small, bright amphibian, about five inches from nose to tail. Once more he remembered the omen he had seen back at the outset of this adventure: the chameleon lizard had also become a salamander--before being swallowed up by the moth hawk. Had his time finally come?
The ground he stood on burst into flame. The underlying sand would not burn, but all the material on top of it was fuel. "Climb in here," Herman said, holding a pouch he had cleverly formed of vines. "I will carry you in a great left circle. Be sure you direct your fire inward. To the left." And to make quite sure Bink understood, he pointed with his left hand.
Well, such a limit wouldn't be much fun, but--
Bink climbed into the net. The centaur picked it up and dangled it at arm's length, as well he might, for Bink was hot. Only the frustrating salamander-weed vines prevented him from really tearing loose.
Herman galloped. "Clear out! Clear out!" he cried with amazing volume to the straggling, wounded creatures still trying to stop the wiggles. "We're burning them out. Salamander!" And to Bink: "To the left! To the left!"
Bink had hoped he'd forgotten about that restriction. Ah, well, half a burn was better than none. From him a sheet of flame erupted. Everything it touched burst up anew, burning savagely. Branches, leaves, whole green trees, even the carcasses of fallen monsters--the flame consumed all. That was the nature of salamander fire--it burned magically, heedless of other conditions. No rainstorm could put it out, for water itself would burn. Everything except rock and earth--and salamander weed. Curse the stuff!
Now a hasty exodus developed. Dragons, griffins, harpies, goblins, and men scrambled out of the path of the terrible fire. Every movable form cleared out--except the wiggles, which proceeded as mindlessly as ever.
The flames spread hungrily up the great trees, consuming them with awesome rapidity. A tangle tree writhed in agony as it was incinerated, and the smell of burning beer and jelly spread. Already a swath of scorched earth was developing, sand and ashes marking the path they had traveled. Glorious!
Zzapp! Bink dropped to the ground. A wiggle, striking with the luck of the mindless, had holed Herman's right hand. Good. Now Bink could get out of the net and really go to work, setting the most magnificent blaze in all salamander history.
But the centaur looped about and grabbed the net with his left hand. The flames touched his fingers momentarily, and the tips shivered into ash, but he hung on with the stubs. Damn the courage of the Hermit! "On!" Herman cried, resuming forward speed. "To the left."
Bink had to obey. Angrily he shot forth an especially intense flame, hoping the Hermit would drop him again, but it didn't work. The centaur galloped on, widening the circle a bit, since the wiggle radius had evidently expanded further. It was useless to burn where the wiggles had been, or where they would be; the flame had to be where they were now. Any that zapped past the sheet of flame and paused in an already burned spot would survive. That made it a tricky calculation. But it was their only chance.
The circle was almost complete; the centaur could really move. They raced up to the broadening swath of their starting point, pausing to let a few trapped monsters get out before being doomed. The last to go was the great land serpent, a hundred feet of slithering torso.
Trent was there, organizing the remaining animals into a cleanup detail to intercept any few wiggles already outside the circle of fire. Now that the great majority of wiggles were being eliminated, it was feasible to go after those few individually. Every last one had to be squished.
The fire closed in on the original wiggle hive. There was a deafening groan. "AAOOGAAH!" Something stirred invisibly.
"Bigfoot!" Trent exclaimed. "He's still alive in there."
"I thought he was dead," Herman said, horrified. "We've already closed the circle; we can't let him out."
"He was riddled through the legs, so he fell--but he wasn't dead," Trent said. "The fall must have knocked him out for a while." He stared into the leaping flames, now outlining the form of a gargantuan man lying prone, stirring at the peripheries. The odor was of roasting garbage. "Too late now."
The doomed giant thrashed about. Flaming branches flew wide. Some landed in the jungle beyond the circle. "Catch those flames!" the centaur cried. "They can start a forest fire."
But no one could quench or move or even contain the flames. No one except Herman himself, with his weed net. He dumped Bink out and galloped toward the nearest, which was dangerously close to an oilbarrel tree.
Trent gestured hastily, and Bink was his human self again. He leaped out of the smoldering ground where his salamander self had touched. What power the Evil Magician had; he could destroy Xanth any time just by making a dozen salamanders.
Bink blinked--and saw Chameleon chasing a wiggle between the prongs of magic fire formed by thrown brands. She was too intent or too stupid to realize the danger!
He ran after her. "Chameleon! Turn back!" She paid no heed, faithful to her chore. He caught up and spun her about. "The fire's getting the wiggles. We have to get out of here."
"Oh," she said faintly. Her once-fancy dress was ragged, and dirt smudged her face, but she was excruciatingly lovely.
"Come on." He took her by the hand and drew her along.
But a determined tongue of fire had crossed behind them. They were trapped in a closing island.
The omen! Now at last it struck--at both Chameleon and him.
Herman leaped over the tongue, a splendid figure of a centaur. "Up on my back," he cried.
Bink wrapped his arms about Chameleon and heaved her up onto the Hermit's back. She was wondrously supple, slender of waist and expansive of thigh. Not that he had any business noticing such things at the moment. But his position behind her as she slid on her belly onto the centaur made the thoughts inevitable. He gave her graceful posterior one last ungraceful shove, getting her balanced, then scrambled up himself.
Herman started walking, then running, ready to hurdle the fire with his double burden.
Zzapp! A wiggle, close by.
The centaur staggered. "I'm hit!" he cried. Then he righted himself, made a convulsion of effort, and leaped.
He fell short. His front legs buckled, and the rear ones were in the flame. Bink and Chameleon were thrown forward, landing on either side of the human torso. Herman grabbed each by an arm, and with a surge of centaur strength shoved both on beyond the danger zone.
Trent charged up. "Hermit, you're burning!" he cried. "I will transform you--"
"No," Herman said. "I am holed through the liver. I am done for. Let the clean fire take me." He grimaced. "Only, to abate the agony quickly--your sword, sir." And he pointed at his neck.
Bink would have temporized, pretending misunderstanding, trying to delay the inevitable. The Evil Magician was more decisive. "As you require," Trent said. Suddenly his blade was in his hand, flashing in an arc--and the centaur's noble head flew off the body, to land upright on the ground just beyond the flame.
Bink stared, aghast. He had never before witnessed such a cold-blooded killing.
"I thank you," the head said. "You abated the agony most efficiently. Your secret dies with me." The centaur's eyes closed.
Herman the Hermit had really wanted it that way. Trent had judged correctly and acted instantly. Bink himself would have bungled it.
"There was a creature I would have been proud to have taken for a friend," Trent said sadly. "I would have saved him had it been within my power."
Little lights danced in close, centering on that
dead head. At first Bink supposed they were sparks, but they did not actually burn. "The will-o'-the-wisps," Trent murmured. "Paying their last respects."
The lights dispersed, taking with them their vague impression of wonders barely glimpsed and joys never quite experienced. The fire consumed the body, then the head, and swept on into an already-burned area. Most of the remaining flame was now in the center of the circle, where the invisible giant no longer thrashed.
Trent raised his voice. "All creatures silent, in respect for Herman the Hermit, wronged by his own kind, who has died in defense of Xanth. And for Bigfoot and all the other noble creatures who perished similarly."
A hush fell on the throng. The silence became utter; not even an insect hummed. One minute, two minutes, three--no sound. It was a fantastic assemblage of monsters pausing with bowed heads in deference to the ones who had labored so valiantly against the common enemy. Bink was profoundly moved; never again would he think of the creatures of the magic wild as mere animals.
At last Trent lifted his eyes again. "Xanth is saved, thanks to Herman--and to you all," he announced "The wiggles are exterminated. Disperse, with our gratitude, and go with pride. There is no more important service you could have performed, and I salute you."
"But some wiggles may have escaped," Bink protested in a whisper.
"No. None escaped. The job was well done."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I heard no zaps during the silence. No wiggle sits still longer than three minutes."
Bink's mouth dropped open. The silence of respect and mourning, sincere as it had been, had also been the verification that the menace had indeed been abated. Bink would never have thought of that himself. How competently Trent had assumed the difficult and demanding chore of leadership, when the centaur died. And without betraying his secret.