The Worm Returns Read online

  “Wait!” said Dia. “The dragon might be waiting for us.”

  “I ain’t afraid of no dragon. C’mon Horse, we’re getting a move on. You can come, too, Crag, if you are so inclined.”

  The little cockatrice crossed his wings over his chest and might have made a noise that sounded like a chuckle.

  “Suit yourself,” said Bad Buffalo. He snatched Horse’s reins and stepped into the mirror.

  Or tried to. Suddenly, the woman was gone and there, well, a mirror was there. A real mirror, and it was now smeared with the blood of Bad Buffalo’s crushed nose.

  “Ouch!” he said holding it and stumbling back.

  The woman appeared again, hands on hips, her long hair billowing around her. “Now, will you help me?”

  Chapter 18: Marey

  Dia flew to Bad Buffalo’s face, trying to mop up the blood. “I’m sorry, BB; I’m out of healing magic. As soon as I get more, I’ll take away the pain.” Then she looked at the mirror woman. “Are you satisfied, you mother of a dog? Have you hurt him enough?”

  The woman in the mirror looked surprised. “You’re sweet on him! And you’re telepathic! No wonder I couldn’t get through to him, with you running interference.”

  “No wonder,” Dia agreed caustically. “So why don’t you quit with the seduction and go hide in your closet while we pass through?”

  The woman frowned. “We have a problem.”

  “We wouldn’t, but for your dog-in-the-outhouse attitude.”

  The woman looked at Dia calculatingly. “Very well. I will make an amend.” She gestured. “In that cupboard you will find a jar of healing balm. Use it on him.”

  Dia went to the cupboard and found the tiny jar. She brought it back to Bad Buffalo. She unscrewed the lid, dipped out a handful of balm, and smeared it on Bad Buffalo’s nose.

  Immediately the pain eased and the blood stopped flowing. It was magical!

  “Now we’ll listen,” Dia said. “I am Dia Sprite and this is Bad Buffalo.”

  “I am Marey. I suspect you are wondering how I got stuck in here. I was part of the royal household staff. I changed form and seduced a handsome young prince when we were out for a ride in the woods, and the innocent told his overprotective mother, who was most annoyed. I told her he was of age and could do what he wanted with his associates. I didn’t think she could do anything about it, now that he had learned the joy of social intercourse.” She smiled reminiscently. “I was an imperious filly in those days. But she locked me in this mirror until another male loves me.” She grimaced prettily. “My mistake; I didn’t know she was a sorceress. Otherwise I would have been more careful, and warned him not to tell her. I also didn’t know she was going to throw the mirror away so that no ordinary male could encounter my image. Then the dragon collected it for his treasure. So I have been stuck here for more time than I care to mention. I would do just about anything to get free.”

  “Hey, you know, she’s got a case,” Bad Buffalo said. He loved plugging men, but pretty girls were something else. They required a different kind of plugging.

  “You folk seem to be missing the obvious,” Crag said. “Maybe you’re deceived by appearances, something I’m not able to do at the moment.”

  “What are you talking about, bird beak?” Dia demanded. She was evidently not in the best mood at the moment.

  “You haven’t been paying attention to what the creature says,” Crag said. “She said she has to be loved by a male person, which is not the same as a man. Then she mentioned changing form to seduce the prince. She said she was an imperious filly. And consider her name: Marey. Does that give you a glimmer?”

  “No,” Bad Buffalo said.

  “Oh, my!” Dia said. “She’s not human!”

  “She sure looks pretty much human to me,” Bad Buffalo said. “And I’ll bet if she took off that robe, she’d look all-the-way human.”

  “She’s a were,” Dia said. “A were-horse.”

  “A were-mare,” Marey corrected her. “The female of the species.”

  “And the prince must have been riding her filly form,” Crag continued. “And when they were alone in the forest, she surprised him by changing into a luscious girl and had at him, and he loved it. Then she changed back, and he rode her home. And told the queen he’d made out with his horse. No wonder his mother was not amused.”

  “What’s a were-mare?” Bad Buffalo asked.

  “Observe,” Marey said. When she had his attention, she threw off her white robe and stood revealed, indeed, as a luscious girl with silvery hair. Then she shifted and became a lovely white mare with a silvery mane.

  “A shape-changer,” Dia said shortly. “Weres come in all kinds, mostly wolves, but there are others. So she’s a woman/filly.”

  “I can give you such a good time, BB,” Marey’s voice came, telepathically projected. “In either form. All you have to do is love me, so I can get out of here and be with you.”

  Bad Buffalo opened his mouth, but shut it again before Dia attacked him.

  “He’s taken,” Dia snapped. “Get that though through your furry head, and quit horsing around.”

  Marey fixed her smoldering gaze on Bad Buffalo. That wasn’t fully effective, because his own gaze was fixed about a foot lower. “She can give you what you want, bad boy, when she gets her magic some time in the distant future. I can give it to you now. Why wait?”

  Bad Buffalo considered opening his mouth. Dia considered nailing it shut. So he didn’t answer.

  “Then find your own way out of the mirror,” Marey said coldly as she reverted to girl form.

  “And of course she’s a bit older than she chooses to look,” Crag said. “By five or six decades. That mirror evidently locked her into her filly age.”

  “Some time has passed, yes,” Marey admitted as she languidly dressed. “I didn’t have much of a choice. It has been frustrating. But once I get out I’ll age normally, so it won’t matter. Physically I am the age I look, and that’s the age I’ll act. Does anything else matter?”

  Bad Buffalo knew better than to even think about opening his mouth.

  It was Crag who spoke for them. “We want to get out of the mirror. So do you, mare. We need to bargain, to benefit all of us. But the man you want is not available, so we are at an impasse.”

  “Which is readily resolved, cock,” Marey said. “Let the man make his own choice. Give me one hour to remonstrate with him, and I think he will conclude that he is after all available. Then we’ll all be free together.”

  Dia said something in sprite language that Bad Buffalo did not understand, but the dust on the floor sparkled and turned to ash.

  “Well spoken, dear,” Marey said, fluffing out her robe to release the smoke. “But it doesn’t change the situation.”

  “What is required is compromise,” Crag said. “Otherwise we all lose. Fortunately one is available.”

  Bad Buffalo, Dia, and Marey all looked blankly at the blindfolded cockatrice. “No, we’re not going to share him,” Dia said tightly.

  “Agreed,” Marey said as tightly.

  “You are a mare,” Crag said. “You can make do with the love of a man, or of a horse, equally well. Fortunately we have a horse.”

  Three jaws dropped, and Horse’s ears perked.

  “The cock is right,” Marey breathed. “He’s a handsome brute. I could gambol with him as a filly.”

  “Hay, no gambling,” Bad Buffalo protested. “Horse is no card shark. He’s an honest comrade.”

  Dia sent him a terse correction: in this case it meant to frolic.

  “Well, why didn’t she say so?”

  “Very well,” Marey said. “Give me Horse, and I’ll let us all out of here.”

  “Not so fast,” Dia said. “How can we trust you to follow through, and stay with Horse and not look for a man once you’re out?”

  Marey sighed. “Trust. Yes, it does come down to that. Maybe you should vote on it.”

  “Given that we all want to get
out of here, that score is even,” Crag said. “In addition, you’ll get to romance the horse, so you’re ahead. What extra’s in it for the rest of us?”

  “You’re a canny one,” Marey said, somewhat admiringly. “Very well, I will buy your votes with gifts of information that will seriously benefit you. Fair enough?”

  “That depends,” Dia said mistrustfully.

  “It has been a long, boring incarceration. I have had time to peer out the mirror and study the contents of the dragon’s nest. He collects stuff just because he knows others value it; he can’t use most of it himself. Like this mirror. Like a cockatrice. Once you folk have slain the dragon, that treasure will be yours. Obviously, you can’t take the whole of the hoard with you. You will need to select useful items that will serve you well in the future. I will identify those items.”

  “Let’s get more specific,” Dia said.

  “For you, sprite, there is a magic ring. Put it on and it will imbue you with all the magic you will ever need.” Marey smiled briefly. “You could become instantly full human size and mass. Or a giantess. Whatever you want. I can tell you exactly where to find that ring, and to know it despite myriad other rings that look similar but lack its magic.”

  “Do that, and you have my vote,” Dia said, amazed.

  “How about me?” Bad Buffalo asked, though he was just about ready to settle for the ring on Dia. It would let him give her an immediate poke.

  “There is a box of bullets that never runs out; it refills itself.”

  “Hoo!” he exclaimed, enraptured. “You got my vote.”

  “What about Horse?” Dia asked. “He’s the one who’ll have to be with you.”

  “A cornucopia. Know what that is?”

  “A can of corn?” Bad Buffalo asked.

  Marey smiled. “Not exactly. It’s a large horn-shaped device filled with all manner of edibles: grains, hay, apples, sugar cubes and such. Like the bullet box, it never runs out. Horse will never be hungry again. Neither will I, when he shares feed with me. In fact, none of you will lack for food, as long as you stay on Horse’s right side.”

  “But I mount him from the left side.”

  “She means you have to keep him liking you,” Dia said.

  Oh. He wished she’d do more straight talk. Bad Buffalo looked at Horse. Horse twitched an ear. “He votes yes.”

  “And me,” Crag said.

  “There’s a pair of goggles with reflective dark-colored, one-way glass: you can see out, but others see only their own reflections, as with this large mirror. Your gazes can’t meet, so no one dies. Unless you take off the goggles. So no more blindfolds or avoiding eye contact. You’ll be able to become social.”

  “Sold! You have my vote.”

  “Except—” Dia said.

  “Trust,” Marey said. “Of course. You don’t trust me. But I trust you. I will let you out to slay the dragon, then you can pick up your prizes—I can direct you to them from the mirror—and verify that they are as I have described them. Then give me about one minute alone with Horse, and soon we’ll all be safely out.”

  “One question,” Crag said. “A horse doesn’t notice a mare unless she’s in heat. Are you in heat?”

  “No. Not physically. But BB can help me there.”

  “The h—” Dia swore, the word consumed by a fireball.

  “By throwing a vial of perfume into the mirror,” Marey said. “I’ll catch it.”

  “Perfume? Horses don’t care about that. He’ll ignore you.”

  “There’s a vial of Eau d’ pheromone, equine style. I’ll put that on my tail and brace myself for a storm. He’ll come.” She smiled almost as if there were a pun. “I will keep the vial for future use. I have decades of abstinence to make up for, and damned if I’ll wait on the equine cycles.”

  “Absinthe’s strong, all right,” Bad Buffalo agreed.

  “Are we agreed?” Marey asked. “We have a deal!”

  “We have a deal,” Dia agreed.

  “Then here’s the strategy. You will go out as a foursome, plunging through the mirror, BB with his lariat ready, Crag with his eyes clear. If one of you doesn’t get the dragon, the other will. Then it will be time for the spoils.”

  “Got it,” Bad Buffalo said. He mounted Horse and hefted his lariat. Dia flew into his front pocket. Meanwhile Crag lifted a foot and clawed off his blindfold. “Don’t look my way,” he warned.

  “Wait until I tell you,” Marey said. “The mirror’s porous now, but we need to know exactly where that dragon is.” She faced away from them, peering out. Dia kicked the pocket to interrupt Bad Buffalo’s gaze at her shapely backside.

  “The dragon’s snoozing on the nest at the moment,” Marey said. “In fact his confounded backside is on the mirror. We’ll have to wait until he moves.”

  Now they could see the dragon’s huge tail flat against the mirror.

  “The hell with that,” Bad Buffalo said. He guided Horse to stand right up against this side of the mirror, drew a gun and poked it hard into the mirror and beyond. He fired a bullet.

  “Oo-ooo!” The dragon lurched up, half-spread his wings, and launched into the tunnel.

  “You goosed him!” Dia said, smirking. “With a bullet!”

  “Now’s the time,” Marey said. “Nail him when he turns around to see what poked him out of his nap, before he gets a lungful of fire.”

  “Ho!” Bad Buffalo yelled as Horse leaped through, followed closely by Crag. They landed in the nest, on guard against the dragon.

  But the dragon didn’t turn immediately. It seemed he had gone too far into the narrow tunnel, and had to go all the way out to have turning room.

  “There’s the bullet box,” Marey called from the mirror, pointing. Bad Buffalo jumped down and swept it up, plopping it into a saddlebag. “The cornucopia.” He put that into another saddlebag. “The ring.” Dia flew down and was guided to the right ring. She put it on, and suddenly was ten feet tall, with Bad Buffalo looking up under her leaf skirt appreciatively before she shrank back to mini-size. “And the goggles.” Bad Buffalo pushed aside a useless old-fashioned lamp marked ALADDIN and put them on Crag, who actually looked sort of handsome in them. “And the vial of perfume,” Marey concluded, pointing it out. Bad Buffalo picked it up and hurled it into the mirror.

  “Get in there, Horse,” he said, slapping the steed’s flank. Horse leaped back into the mirror and disappeared.

  “Let’s give them a moment of privacy,” Dia said. She was now human size. She stepped into him and clasped him with solid arms. She kissed him, her face wondrously firm and soft, her breasts pressing into him.

  There was a roar. The dragon had turned and was coming back. He did not seem to be pleased about getting goosed.

  “Uh-oh,” Crag said. “There’s a smoke ball leading the way again. We’re in trouble.”

  Chapter 19: Dragon Begone

  Bad Buffalo was many things, but first and foremost, he was a man of action.

  Without a second’s thought, he leaped onto the pile of treasure. He’d seen it minutes earlier during his scavenger hunt: a unique shield inscribed and painted with intricate depictions of the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, and the constellations—all of which Bad Buffalo was now familiar with, thanks to Dia’s thumbnail education. Along with the astronomical renderings, were pictures of vineyards and herd animals and people dancing, all flowing around the circular shield. Bad Buffalo suspected it was old—perhaps even ancient. He only hoped—nay, prayed—that the fashioners of the shield had done a good enough job to stop dragon fire.

  The others, who could all read his mind, were already moving, huddling behind him and high piles of gold coins and jewelry and silver chalices. And just in time, too, for the ball of smoke was soon upon them, followed immediately by a torrent of fire, both of which blasted up and over the pile of treasure...and into the shield.

  Heat thundered over them, along with licking flames that reached around the shield. But Bad Buffalo held tight, grunting, s
weating, burning. He expected the shield to heat up, but it didn’t. In fact, it remained cool to the touch and surprisingly light, too. As the fire poured around them, snapping and lapping like a living thing, Bad Buffalo grunted and held tight and ignored the searing pain.

  And then it was over. Dragons, he realized, needed to breathe, too, at least enough to muster up enough air for another bellowing blast. He lowered the shield, taking score. They were all alive. Some of the treasure hoard around them was still glowing from the explosive fire. His clothing was scorched in some places, his shoulders raw. Bad Buffalo did not want to have to go through that again. Then again...

  “Then again,” said Dia, following his train of thought. “He thinks we’re toast.” She crawled from behind him, where she had been hidden, caught in her larger form.

  Bad Buffalo was no dope. “He won’t expect us to be alive.”

  The goggled cockatrice blew on some singed feathers. “He’ll probably take his time coming back here. What’s the rush? After all, he’s used to his victims being burned to a crisp.”

  “So, what do we do?” asked Dia.

  “We could charge out,” said Bad Buffalo. “With guns a-blazing.”

  “There’s not enough room to ride out,” said Crag. “Besides, we would be facing the business end of a dragon’s snout.”

  “And the business ends of my guns.”

  “He’ll fry us before you did any real damage.”

  “Not if we set you high in the saddle, and the dragon gets a good look at you.”

  Crag shook his head. “No good. Like Horse, the dragon instinctively knows to look away, or close his eyes. He doesn’t need to see us to fry us to smithereens.”

  It was then that Horse and Marey, riding high on top in her human form, exploded out of the mirror, to land next to the group. Horse’s mane seemed unusually mussed, and there was a rare gleam in his eye. The same could be said for Marey, who held the creature’s neck tenderly.

  “Let me guess,” said Bad Buffalo. “The two of you are in love.”

  “I feel love in my equine form,” said Marey. “In my human form, I feel only fondness for this great steed. He is my hero, after all. I am free of the mirror.”