Golem in the Gears (5 page)

place to retire.

Grundy woke abruptly. The sun was shining down

slantingly, and creatures were all around him. At first he thought Bink and Chester had returned, but this was not the case; instead, a herd of huge four-footed, hooved crea- tures were milling around the bed. They seemed to be heedless of the bed's presence, and Grundy was afraid

they would knock it over and thus expose Snortimer's retreat to the direct sunshine. That would be disaster! "Hey!" he cried. "Watch where you're going!" Still they ignored him, pressing heedlessly closer. Each creature had a shaggy coat and two stout horns on its head. One of them pressed in close to the bed, almost brushing it.

"What's up, anyway?" Grundy demanded, standing on

the bed.

"Up?" Several nearby creatures swung their heads, for the first time taking note of him. They crowded in closer. "Or down," Grundy cried. "What are you—" "Down!" several creatures cried, horrified. A kind of stampede developed, momentarily abating the press of bodies about the bed.

But this turned out to be no improvement, for now a new kind of creature showed up. This was a hairy, mus- cular entity who lacked horns but had large teeth. Several of these surged toward the bed.

"Who are you?" Grundy cried, newly alarmed. "We are the Bulls," the homed creatures lowed. "We are the Bears," the toothed ones growled. Now Grundy remembered: the creatures the tails belonged to, who aways went up or down. He didn't like either—but he was stuck in their midst.

A Bear scraped by the bed, shoving it to one side. Grundy tumbled, almost falling off. "Hey, watch it!" he yelled, grabbing on to the bar at the foot of it.

But the Bears ignored him as detenninedly as the Bulls had. "Down! Down!" they growled, and indeed they seemed to be traveling downward, for the field was tilted. Grundy realized that this situation was beyond him. Where were Bink and Chester? He had to get the bed out of the field before these animals overturned it, and he

couldn't do that by himself. But there was no sign of his

friends.

More Bears surged down, gaining momentum. The Bulls were almost out of sight. Grundy knew he couldn't affect these blindly charging creatures physically, but remem- bered that he had made a slight impression with his words. They seemed to be very sensitive to references about direction. "Up! Down!" he yelled.

The nearest Bears hesitated, falling back for a moment. But then they resumed their charge, and the bed bumped across the field as their heedless imperative jostled it. It started to tip over, then plumped back. He heard a whim- per from Snortimer, underneath; naturally the monster

was terrified.

"East! West!" Grundy yelled, but this had no discern- ible impression. "North! South!"

The charge continued. The bed moved some more, and a leg hung up in a hole. Again it started to tilt. "We're in trouble!" Grundy cried.

A passing Bear paused. "Who's in trouble?" it

demanded.

"This bed's in trouble!" Grundy replied. "If you'd just

stop shoving—"

"Oh," the Bear said, disappointed. It lost interest and resumed its downward charge.

"Thanks a lot, hairsnout!" Grundy screamed after it. "May a green hornet buzz up your—"

"Up?" another Bear asked, dismayed. "What's going

up?"

"My blood pressure!" Grundy retorted. "What's with

you beasts?"

But this Bear, like the other, had lost interest and re- sumed its charge.

So words had some effect, but not a reliable one. Maybe

he would do better yelling randomly. "Pink moons in the lake!" he called.

It seemed to work. "What stock?" the nearest passing Bear asked.

"Purple comets in the soup!" Grundy responded.

More Bears paused. "That sounds bad," another said.

"It's terrible!" Grundy agreed, pleased with his prog- ress.

But at that they all took off running, faster than before, threatening to sweep the bed right down out of the field, and to flip it over several times on the way.

"Red planets taking a bath!" he screamed.

The charge slowed. "Sell Red Planet!" a Bear growled. Then the motion resumed.

"Consolidated Nonesuch is going nowhere!" Grundy cried.

"Yes! Yes!" the Bears agreed, and accelerated.

"You stupes!" Grundy raged. "Just where do you think nowhere is?"

"Bad news, bad news!" the Bears cried, and pressed on.

Grundy tried again. "Amalgamated Parrot-Ox is buying out Con-Pewter!" That nonsense should make them take notice.

It did. "That's bullish for Con-Pewter!" a Bear groaned.

"Buy Pewter!" a Bull lowed. And now there was a resurgence among the Bulls.

"It's a crock!" a Bear protested, but the tide had turned. The Bulls surged back on the strength of the Pewter con. The Bears retreated in confusion. The Con-Pewter age had arrived!

This was too much success! The charge of the Bulls was just as dangerous as that of the Bears. The bed was getting rocked.

"Kissimmee River is telling!" Grundy screamed. "Telling?" a Bull snorted, dismayed. "That's not sup- posed to happen!"

"Well, it is!" Grundy said. Evidently the notion of anything telling dismayed the

Bulls. They milled about uncertainly, and the Bears began to reform their formation. This did little good for the bed, though; it got nudged right up against a tree. "Yo!" a voice came faintly. "Grundy!" Grundy looked. There was Bink, riding Chester! They were back! "Over here!" he cried. "By the tree!"

But the field was filled with milling Bulls and Bears, and it was obvious that Chester would have difficulty

getting through.

A Bull crashed against the bed, and the bed slammed

into the trunk of the tree, and a fruit plopped into the center of the bed, just missing Grundy. The fruit was as big as he was, and shaped like a giant light bulb; it would have flattened him had it caught him. "Watch what you're

dropping!" Grundy yelled at the tree.

"It's your fault!" the tree retorted in plant language.

"You stirred up the stockyard!"

"Who are you to blame anything on me?" Grundy

demanded belligerently.

"I am a power plant," the tree replied proudly. Suddenly Grundy saw a solution to his problem. "Give me a bite of that!" he said, pouncing on the fruit. It had split slightly from the impact of the fall; had it not landed on the bed, it would have broken right apart. Grundy

snatched out a juicy seed and chewed on it.

In a moment he felt its effect. Power rippled through him. He did not become larger or more muscular; he merely developed a lot more strength in what he had.

That was of course the nature of the fruit of the power plant: it made the eater strong. For a little while.

Grundy took advantage of the moment. He jumped down to the ground and took hold of a leg of the bed. "We're getting out of here!" he told Snortimer, who was huddled under the center, shaking with fear. "Just stay centered, so the light doesn't touch you."

Then he hauled on the leg. The bed moved. He strode forward, hauling the bed along. He moved it around the tree and on into the forest, out of the press of Bulls and Bears. By the time the strength lent by the power plant abated, he had brought the bed to safety in a thicker part of the forest.

Bink and Chester rejoined him. "We feasted on loquats, middlequats and highquats," Bink explained. "When we started back, we encountered traveling nickelpedes and had to skirt widely around them. Then we heard a com- motion in the field, but we couldn't get to it quickly."

"We were trapped amid rampaging Bulls and Bears!" Grundy exclaimed. "Those are the craziest animals I ever saw! All they do is charge up and down, up and down! Luckily I found a power plant at the last minute."

"Yes, a fortunate coincidence," Bink agreed, smiling obscurely. Grundy wondered what he was thinking of, but wasn't in a mood to inquire.

"Let's get some sleep," Chester said gruffly. He lay down, letting his head and shoulders rest on a hummock. It was strange to see a centaur in that position, but of course Chester was no longer as young as he once had been and had to rest in whatever fashion was best for him.

Bink settled down against a tree. "Shouldn't we post a guard?" Grundy asked.

"Not necessary," Bink said, and closed his eyes.

How could the man be so sure of that? They weren't that far from the stockyard where the animals ranged, after all; suppose a stray Bull or Bear crashed through here? But Grundy was quite tired in the aftermath of his exercise with the power plant strength; one problem with that sort of thing was that there was a corresponding period of weakness to make up for the temporary power.

He flopped on the bed and slept.

Bink's optimism seemed valid, for they rested undis- turbed until nightfall. Then they roused, ate some quats that Chester had saved from breakfast, and resumed their

travel.

As they wended along the path, which still bore deter-

minedly east, they found themselves entering a more equine region. There were horseflies sleeping on the trunks of horse chestnuts, and night mares seemed to prowl.

They came to a fork in the path. They paused, uncer- tain which one to take, as neither went north. While they hesitated, two actual horses showed up. Horses were very rare in Xanth, being mainly mundane in their original form, but of course if Bulls and Bears could stray here,

so could horses.

"Say, you horses," Grundy called. "We want to get

back to the magic path going north. Which trail should

we take?"

The horses paused, one in each fork. "Gee!" neighed

the one at the right. "Haw!" neighed the one on the left. Then they galloped on down their respective paths.

"They're just horsing around," Bink said philosophi- cally. "I suppose we'd better gamble on the more north- erly path."

That was a decision Grundy himself should have made,

the golem thought, troubled. But who paid attention to

him, even on his own Quest? They took the more north- erly trail.

In due course they came upon a woman and a small

equine creature. The woman had a little notebook, in which she was busily making notes by the light of the moon. She looked up, startled, as they approached. "And who are you?" she inquired, her pencil poised.

"I am Grundy Golem, on a Quest," Grundy said impor- tantly from just outside the beam of moonlight. "These are Chester Centaur, Bink, and Snortimer. Who are you?"

"Snortimer?" she asked. "I don't see that one."

"He's the Monster Under the Bed. Most adults can't see him. It's your turn to answer, toots."

"How interesting," she said. "The Monster Under the Bed. I thought those were just fantasies."

"Look, cutie-pie," Grundy said sneeringly. "Are you going to answer a simple question, or have you forgotten

your name?"

"Oh, yes," she said, finishing her note. "I'm EmJay,

and this is my Ass."

"I can see where—oh, you mean that animal?" "He's no common animal!" she said indignantly. "He's

MiKe, my right-hand Ass, and he helps me a lot." Grundy studied the shaggy beast. "Helps you with

what?"

"Helps me make my notes. I couldn't get the job done

without him."

"What are you making notes about?"

"About everything in Xanth, for my Lexicon."

"What good is that?"

"Well, I hope it will be useful for those who want to

know about anything in a hurry." "Like who?"

That seemed to stump her. "Well, somebody must be

interested in Xanth!"

"The only one I can think of is Good Magician Hum-

frey, and he already knows everything he wants to." "Maybe the Mundanes—" she said uncertainly.

"Mundanes! What do they know?" "Very little," she said. "That's why they need a Lex- icon."

"Female logic," Grundy said disparagingly. "Now get

out of our way so we can get where we're going."

EmJay looked a little annoyed for some reason, but she rallied. "You said you were going on a Quest. What

Quest?"

"What business is it of yours?" "I want to list it in the Lexicon, of course." Grundy considered. Probably there was no harm in telling her; "I'm going to the Ivory Tower to rescue Stan- ley Steamer."

"Oh, the little dragon!" she exclaimed, checking the

entry in her notes. "May I come along?"

"Listen, sister," Grundy said angrily. "This is my Quest, not yours! I don't need any strange woman and her Ass

messing it up!"

"You are a diplomatic one, aren't you!" she exclaimed.