The demoness puffed into smoke. The smoke popped out of existence, only to reappear around Goody. "Where to, guileful goblin?" it asked.
"The elves," he said.
The smoke coalesced around his body, squeezing him in awkward spots. "Done."
There was a moment of disorientation. Then Goody and Gwenny stood before a towering Elf Elm tree. "The elves won"t let demons into their tree," Vore said. "You"ll have to go alone. But they will give you a fair hearing."
"I know," Gwenny said.
The demons faded out.
Elves appeared, swinging down on vines from the high foliage. They wore green uniforms and were half the height of the goblins, and much less in ma.s.s. Both had glossy gray hair, not a sign of age but of elfin health. "Ho, goblins!" one said. "What is your business here with the Warrior Elves?"
"What"s it to you, greenface?"
"It"s the bird!" Gwenny said quickly, and explained. The elves nodded, understanding.
"I am Goody Goblin. We come to enlist your help in saving Xanth from disaster."
The elves exchanged glances. "This seems worthy. Come this way." He climbed up his vine.
"Uh, we lack-"
"Oh, that"s right. You aren"t strong at the tree. Very well, take hold of Amazonia"s feet. I"ll take the gobliness. I am Mace Elf."
"But-"
"Do it," Gwenny said. "And don"t let go." She reached up and caught the elf man"s ankles with her relatively huge hands. Mace immediately climbed his vine, using his two hands, hauling her up with him.
Then Goody remembered: elves were very strong near their elms. The nearer, the stronger, until they were perhaps the strongest creatures in Xanth. He looked up, saw the elf girl"s feet, and took hold of her ankles. She too climbed hand over hand, taking him up without seeming effort.
"You haven"t been to an Elf Elm before," Amazonia said.
He looked up to talk to her, and saw up under her green skirt. He hastily looked away. "True."
"Get a load of those green p-"
"Perfect legs," Goody said, overriding the peeve.
"We"ll use accommodation spells to make it easier. Just call us by our names, nothing else."
"But your king-"
"Is Sword Elf. Call him Sword. That"s all. He knows his rank."
"Thank you." They were now about halfway up the trunk toward the foliage.
"Is the gobliness your woman?"
How was he to answer that? "She may be."
"Then we will spare you amour, though it is customary for important deals."
"Hoo man!"
Just how did the elves usually make deals? He decided not to ask.
They reached the foliage. "Step onto the branch," Amazonia said.
He found a branch almost hidden amidst the leaves. He put his feet on it, got his balance, and let go of her ankles. He walked carefully to the central trunk, which was still quite large at this height. He saw Gwenny approaching along another branch.
Mace and Amazonia appeared. "We have a modified accommodation spell," Mace said. "Do you understand?"
"Yes," Gwenny said.
"No," Goody said.
"Then we shall explain," Amazonia said. "A normal accommodation spell is used for occasions such as summoning the stork, when the partic.i.p.ants are of different sizes, such as a human and an elf. It makes them seem to be the same size, the human one-eighth his normal ma.s.s, the elf girl eight times her normal. But this modified one will affect only you goblins, making you seem an eighth of your ma.s.s, while we are unchanged."
Goody realized it made sense. An elf was half the height of a goblin, but in terms of ma.s.s that was not half, not a quarter, but an eighth; it had to do with the magic of numbers, that liked to multiply when they weren"t being closely watched. "Now I understand, thank you."
The elf maiden glanced sharply at him. "You don"t talk like a goblin male. Only your bird does."
"I am cursed to be polite," Goody said.
"We would prefer to have more like you," Amazonia said. "Goblin girls are in demand by elf men with accommodation spells, but goblin men are not in demand by elf girls." She glanced appraisingly at him. "Are you sure you don"t wish to indulge in our-?"
"How fast can you get out of that armor, you luscious little la.s.s?" the parody asked. Naturally the one time it didn"t insult was when a compliment would do more damage.
"He"s sure," Gwenny said.
"Now I shall invoke the spell," Amazonia said. She waved her hands. There was a flash, and suddenly the tree trunk expanded to double its former width. Rather, they had seemed to shrink by that amount.
"King Sword will now receive you," Mace said.
A door opened in the trunk of the tree, and they walked inside. There was a bare wood chamber. The door closed behind them, and the chamber abruptly lifted. They were rising farther in the tree.
The ascent slowed. The door opened, and they stepped out into a bower crafted of foliage. There stood an elf man wearing an impressive sword. This was obviously King Sword of the Warrior Elves.
"Greetings, Chief Gwenny and consort," the king said.
"And our greeting to you, King Sword," Gwenny replied. "I had not realized that you knew me."
"I know of of you, Gwenny, and respect what you have done with Goblin Mountain. In time those goblins may even become civilized." you, Gwenny, and respect what you have done with Goblin Mountain. In time those goblins may even become civilized."
"Never!" the peeve said.
"What is your business with us?"
Goody explained about the robots.
Sword nodded. "Of course we shall do what we can. But you must understand that we can be effective only near our Elf Elms, where our strength is greatest. There are several near Iron Mountain, and I will send word to those trees. You can complement our forces with others that can operate freely between trees."
"Thank you, Sword," Goody said, gratified. "That will surely help significantly."
"Then it is done." Sword glanced at Gwenny. "You are a winsome la.s.s; are you sure you would not like to indulge our hospitality for a night?"
"Ordinarily it would be a pleasure. But we have two more species to contact today," Gwenny said diplomatically.
When they returned to the lower trunk station, a number of the elf maidens had changed to flowing green dresses that enhanced their excellent figures. "If you care to dally, goblin man-" one said.
Goody borrowed Gwenny"s phrasing. "Ordinarily I would be delighted. But we have a short deadline." Indeed, had he found himself in this situation before meeting Gwenny, he would have been seriously tempted. There might be ways in which elven maidens were inferior to goblin maidens, but there was no evidence of that here.
They rode ankles back down to the ground. "Some other time, perhaps," Amazonia said as they parted, giving her green skirt a flounce.
"Any time, bonny belle!" the bird said.
"I"m almost sorry to haul you away from that," Gwenny murmured as they walked from the tree.
"First you would have to tell me that you have no further interest in me."
"Haw haw haw!"
She smiled and squeezed his hand.
The demons reappeared. In half an instant they were on their way to the harpies.
That turned out to be easy: "We love to fight!" the harpy leader screeched. "Now that we"re not fighting goblins-" She looked at Goody as if truly regretting that. "We need something else. The robots sound ideal. We"ll bomb them to oblivion."
"They may have developed flying machines," Goody warned her. "That could make the air dangerous."
"Then we"ll take losses. We"re used to that. What counts is the fight."
Almost before they knew it, they were on their way to the last of the contacts: the ogres. Goody was wary of this, because ogres and goblins did not necessarily get along, but Gwenny happened to have an ogre contact.
"My friend Okra Ogress," she explained. "She was an outcast because she wasn"t ugly enough."
"That"s the sort of thing I can understand."
"I thought you would." She kissed him. "Her husband is Smithereen, the Ogre Overlord. We call him Over Ogre, because he"s too stupid to remember the whole t.i.tle."
Okra lived in a huge cave near Lake OgreChobee. As they walked beside the huge shallow lake a group of burning letter O"s sailed up, startled. "Watch it, Flaming O!" the parody squawked as one pa.s.sed close enough to almost singe a feather.
"Jenny Elf calls them flamingos," Gwenny said. "She heard the term from the Mundane she was being a Companion for. Isn"t that funny?"
"Mundanes don"t know anything," Goody agreed.
They came to the cave. Goody picked up a rock and pounded it against the wall.
Two s.h.a.ggy young ogres appeared, an ugly male and an uglier female. Each was twice human height, which was four times goblin height. Goody and Gwenny were barely knee-high on them. "Who you?" the male demanded truculently.
"Who do you think, meathead?" the parody said.
Pleased by the compliment, the ogre smiled. The effect was horrendous. "Me think goblin stink."
"You stink worse, horse hide!"
Both ogre youths smiled. This was going very well.
"Let"s exchange introductions," Gwenny said. "Me Gwenny Goblin."
"Me Og Ogret," the boy said.
"Me Goody Goblin."
"Me Not-Og Ogret," the girl said.
"You will soon be able to curdle milk with just a smile," Gwenny said.
The girl blushed with pleasure. Fleas leaped from her skin as the heat became unbearable.
"I came to see your mother Okra Ogress," Gwenny said.
Not-Og turned her head. "Maaawww!" she bellowed.
In barely a moment an ogress appeared. She was not a whole lot larger than Hannah Barbarian, and hardly ugly enough to impress an ogre. How had she managed to marry an ogre overlord?
"She kissed him," Gwenny murmured.
Oh. Of course.
"Gwenny!" the ogress exclaimed. "I haven"t seen you in ages!"
She wasn"t talking like an ogre. What was going on?
"She"s not stupid enough," Gwenny murmured, again answering his thought. Then, to Okra: "We came to see your husband on important business."
Okra shook her head. "He"ll never understand if you talk like that. Maybe you should tell me, and I"ll translate for him."
"That makes sense."
Okra turned to the ogrets. "Go fetch your father."
The two lumbered off, jostling each other. "Aren"t they darling?" Okra asked. "There"s not a trace of intelligence or prettiness in either. Smithereen is so pleased."
Just as Go-Go was pleased when their children had no trace of politeness. Goody understood.
"Wonderful," Gwenny said. "They are doing you proud."