This became a pleasant trip, since there seemed to be no dangerous creatures here; the flies had driven them all away. But then the sky clouded and rain fell. It was a light fall-but it washed away their repellent. Suddenly they were in trouble, having failed to take immediate shelter.
The first flies to discover this were sweat-gnats. Soon a cloud of them hovered about each person except Biythe, causing everyone to sweat uncomfortably. Smash inhaled deeply and blew the gnats away, but as soon as the turbulence ebbed, they were back worse than ever. Other flies saw the clouds and, in turn, converged. Some of these were itchers, causing intolerable itches; others were bleeders, causing blood to flow from painless bites. But the worst, as it turned out, were the fly-bys, because they flew by, observed, and carried the news of new prey to all corners of the Kingdom of the Flies. After that, the very sky was darkened by the mass of the converging swarms. There seemed to be no effective way to fight them, for there were far too many to swat or shoo away.
Then the swarms drew off a little, and a pair of shoeflies marched up. A formation of bowflies sent a fly arrow shooting in the direction Smash's party was supposed to go. It seemed better to obey, rather than fight, for there were sawflies and hammerflies and screwdriverflies that could be most awkward to fend off.
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 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.