Balkis turned to him wide-eyed, then turned back to xnthony, grinning wickedly. “Very well, foolish man! You have offered me your life and I shall have it! But first, come and seize that stone with me!”
There before their eyes she dwindled and shrank, arms lengthening, hands and feet turning into paws, nose and mouth thrusting forward into a muzzle, ears moving to the top of her head and gaining points, tail sprouting and growing. There she stood, a cat like any, but with a purple back and tail, a circle of gold around her head, and a white belly.
In spite of his stubbornness, Anthony smiled fondly and reached down. “I shall never be alone again, shall I?”
“Never, silly man!” the cat meowed. “Now finish a verse forme!”
“But not with lion's mane!” Anthony cried.
Matt winced.
It worked anyway. Even Prester John gasped with amazement as the Balkis-cat grew, swelling, until her head was on a level with Matt's and she was as large as a horse. The real horses screamed in terror and tried to bolt; their riders barely managed to hold them still. A few soldiers, more courageous than the rest, ran forward to hold their bridles.
“Come, man, and ride!” Balkis challenged as she crouched before Anthony.
Grinning, he said, “You forgot the saddle,” but leaped up on her back anyway, crying, “A sword!”
Three officers leaped to offer theirs. Anthony took the first as Balkis stood up, very carefully, and in a basso meow chanted,
Anthony cried:
They shimmered and disappeared.
“Lord Wizard, after them!” Prester John cried in panic. “Do not let my niece face such deadly danger alone!”
“I wouldn't exactly say she's alone,” Matt demurred. “In fact, I think she'll never be alone again.”
“If she lives! Will you go?”
“I guess I'd better.” Matt recited,
The world blurred. When it cleared, he found he could see nearly three hundred sixty degrees, but it was horribly distorted. It took him a few seconds to learn to interpret the visual images, to discover what the grainy substance was beneath his feet. The spell had taken him literally; he was a fly, and the wall was the canvas side of a tent.
The snakeman had lied, of course—instead of a whole pride of lions, there were only two, standing as proudly as though they were guarding a library on either side of a pedestal which held a three-inch stone that appeared to be only polished quartz. But Anthony had faced a lion before, and materialized with a sword in his hand.
Balkis struck one lion down with a paw the size of a manhole cover even as Anthony, with the element of surprise on his side, slashed the throat of the other with a mighty blow. The beast tried to roar and charged anyway, but Balkis danced aside, and the beast collapsed, its blood spattering the stone.
Something tore the tent away, exposing them to a ring of snakemen and monsters who screamed and charged them— but Balkis was already chanting,
“We shall fly with nothing lost!” Anthony finished.
The giant cat and her rider shimmered, grew translucent, then disappeared a split second before the first monster reached them. As it did, the stone burst into flame.
Matt could feel the wave of heat. He didn't stay to watch what happened, just repeated Balkis' escape spell in his buzzing voice. The world went fuzzy; then he was falling toward a giant purple cat with a rider on her back, facing an armored man with a crown on his helmet. Mart's wings spread automatically, and he buzzed,
To his friends, he must have seemed to appear out of thin air as he fell, landing in a crouch.
“I tell you, he did send himself after you!” Prince Tashih pointed at Matt.
“I do not doubt you, cousin.” Basso Balkis blinked at Matt. “What happened to you, Lord Wizard?”
“I just decided to buzz off.”
Wings boomed, horses screamed, and two dragons landed just behind the army. As sergeants and riders fought to control men and horses, Stegoman boomed, “When you call me, Matthew, be so good as to stay where you are until I arrive. It has taken us many minutes to find you.”
“Sorry about that,” Matt said, abashed. “They needed me in a hurry here.”
“I do not doubt it. What is that bonfire out on the plain?”
“I had wondered that myself” Prester John said, staring at the fountain of flame that towered above them. They could hear screams and cries beneath its crackling. “You lit the fire-stone, did you not, my niece?”
“No, I did, Majesty,” Anthony said, chagrined. “I had not intended—”
“It is well that you did,” Prester John said.
Prince Tashih smiled. “Better here than in the midst of Mara-canda, is it not?”
“Most surely,” Prester John agreed.
“I saw a great number of broiling snakes as I flew over them.” Stegoman wrinkled his nose. “Horrid smell, and the turbulence was abominable! There were other creatures burning like torches—there must have been a great deal of fat in them—but many more were fleeing, and thousands upon thousands of snakes streaked away across the plain.”
“It is strange that many of them burst into flame as they fled,” said Dimetrolas, “even though they were a thousand feet from the pyre, and more.”
“Kala Nag should really learn some self-control,” Matt said. “She's burning up her army in frustration.”
“I fear that snakes reproduce very quickly.” Prester John sighed. “And she shall have many more warriors in a year's time, or less. This conflict is not ended, Lord Wizard, only postponed.”
“Well, at least we know what she's planning now,” Matt said brightly. “Not the details, maybe, but enough to be on guard.”
Prester John frowned at the fountain of fire. “We cannot have that torch burning forever upon the plain”
“Perhaps we can fly over it with vats of water and dump them upon it for you,” Stegoman suggested.
“It is very good of you to offer, excellent beast,” the emperor acknowledged, “but fire will not quench this stone.”
“What will?” Stegoman asked.
Several people started to answer, then caught themselves in time.
“What?” Stegoman glowered at all the humans about him. “What is this you do not wish me to hear?”
“Understand, we're not asking anything of you,” Matt said quickly, “but… uh … the only thing that will put out that fire is dragon's blood.”
“N-o-o-o-o!” Stegoman roared, rearing back and contributing some fire of his own.
The humans jumped away from the jet, gibbering in terror.
Dimetrolas scowled at her fiance. “What is this, searing serpent? Do you fear to shed a few drops in a good cause?”