"I, and only I!" Puck thrust out his chest and strutted. "Nay, I will gladly help you—if you have the wit to use my aid. For look you, you must be careful what you ask for."
"'Cause I might get it, huh?" Matt muttered. "How about if I asked for...No, never mind. We don't have time for that, now."
"There is always time for a jest." Puck smiled, not altogether pleasantly. "What did you think of?"
"Well, I was just wondering what would happen if I asked you if my thoughts had wings...Help!" His mind had suddenly filled with a picture of flapping wings, all kinds of wings—bee's, bird's, bat's, bounder's...What was a bounder? "No, no! I was just wondering!"
Puck made a wrapping gesture with his hand, grinning with mischievous delight. "Well done! Oh, well done! You will be a most excellent subject for my jests! Nay, go on! Do ask for more!"
Matt had the uncomfortable feeling that he had just set himself up as the straight man in a permanent, ongoing vaudeville routine. "Well, actually, we called you to help us against some demons."
"Demons?" Puck's smile turned to gloating. "Why, ever do I rejoice in countering those great chunks of evil! Nay, if you can find them for me, unleash me!"
"You have fought demons before?" Yverne asked, wide-eyed.
Puck gave her a quick look of appraisal and grinned at what he saw. "For you, fair maid, I would fight devils incarnate!"
"That's exactly what we were hoping for, on a minor scale," Matt interrupted. "You see, we're trying to get a chance to fight an evil sorcerer, but he's trying to make sure we don't get close enough. Last night, he sicced a score or two of gargoyles on us."
"Gargoyles?" Puck looked up, startled. "Why, what had you to fear from stone? It cannot turn to smite you!"
"Eppur si muove, " Matt quoted. "And these ones really did move. They waddled, mind you, not galloped—but they still moved a lot faster than I would have thought they could have. And they had steel teeth, which they were very eager to use."
"Ah, those demons whom your sculptors saw in visions dread and rendered in stone to hang up high above your head! 'Twould be reason enough never to go into a church. But how stood you against them?"
"We were lucky enough to find this shrine to Saint Iago. It's still consecrated, you see, and..."
He didn't finish. With an ear-splitting screech, Puck disappeared.
He reappeared a moment later, outside the gateway, mad and hopping. "You fool, you idiot, you blind ass! Have you no better wit than to bring one of the elvin kind into a Christian holy place? Did you wish to see me shrivel in agony?" He leveled a forefinger. "Let us see if your appearance can accord with your..."
Under the circumstances, Matt was very glad the nearest gargoyle chose that moment to explode from the ground in a cloud of dirt.
Puck heard the noise and whirled to see the monster leaping straight for him, claws widespread, steel teeth reaching. The elf disappeared in a flash of light, and as the gargoyle jarred to land, looking about, befuddled and enraged, Puck appeared again at the monster's tail. He grabbed with both hands and pinched.
Matt wouldn't have thought someone so small could pinch so hard.
The gargoyle roared and reared up, whipping about to snap up the miniscule being who dared affront it—but the being had hopped backward far enough for another gargoyle to explode from the earth. The first one got there just in time to clamp its jaws down on the second. With a bellow, the second turned to bite at the first and took a chunk of granite out of its flinty hide.
But Puck had jumped backward again, triggering a third eruption of gargoyle, then danced toward the first two, who were snapping and clawing at each other like a quarry gone mad. The third leaped, Puck disappeared, and the third slammed teeth-first into the tumble of two—both of whom leaped on the interloper. But a fourth was rumbling out of the ground, to see Puck seated on the third's tail. The fourth snapped up Puck—and took a chunk out of its neighbor. The third whirled to snap out, bringing the first two along.
"Oh, the brave elf!" Yverne cried. "He is lost!"
Matt must have gone insane for a second, because he plunged out through the gateway. Fadecourt and Narlh both shouted and dived to catch him, but before he could go more than one step, Puck reappeared on the outside of the snarling, roaring ball, just as it rolled back into the living mine field. Other gargoyles launched themselves from their improvised silos, thundering with blood lust, and Puck disappeared as they plunged into the sphere of disaster. As the ball rolled, more and more gargoyles came out to slay, and wound up trapped in the round of biting and revenging.
Puck appeared on top of Matt's head, dancing and pantomiming punches as he cried, "Slay him, Stoneface! Gouge at him, Granite! Bite at him, Basalt! Aye, hew, gobble, chew, gorge, gnaw, gulp, and bite through!"
"I think they're all in there." Narlh stared in disbelief.
"But," Fadecourt protested, "how can they hurt one another? They are all of stone!"
"Yes," Matt said, "but they all have steel teeth."
Puck disappeared from Matt's head, appeared above the churning battle, then reappeared atop Matt, saying, "All gargoyles are indeed within the fray, and they fray one another quite well. Aye, they have chopped and ground several of the smaller into pebbles already!"
Yverne shuddered. "Praise Heaven we were not caught by them!"
Puck winced. "Mercy, lady! And pray be mindful who has wrought this coil!"
"The ball's getting smaller," Matt pointed out. "I think they've chewed up the medium-size ones now."
Puck popped over above the whirling mass of stone again, then popped back to Matt's crown. "Only the largest and ugliest remain, and they are chewing into one another at a most excellent rate! Why, one would think they had ne'er been fed in their lives!"
The ball grew smaller and smaller, until finally, they could distinguish separate monsters again—but there were only two, with vastly distended bellies, each chewing on the other's tail, each bite taking up more and more. They roared and shrieked and bellowed with each bite, but one gobbled faster than the other, devouring its hind legs, abdomen, chest, and forelegs, then chewed up its head and spit out the teeth. But it couldn't stop; it kept going, past where its enemies' jaws had been fastened into its own flinty hide, chewing and grinding in a roaring rage, grating its own substance until it expired in gravel, leaving nothing but a set of steel teeth that rolled on the ground, gnashing and snapping.
Puck appeared above it, making shooing motions. Then he reappeared on Matt's head, saying, "Its erstwhile foe's teeth also remain. Shall we see their fond embrace?"
There wasn't much choice; he had started the one set of snapping teeth rolling in the right direction, and it kept on rolling until it bumped into the other set of animated dentures. Then they clashed and slashed and chopped at each other until both were shredded into scrap. Even the bits and pieces still jumped about, slamming into each other.
Puck hopped down to Matt's shoulder, set his arms akimbo, and demanded, "Now, what did you wish me to do with these monstrosities?"
"Uh..." Matt could only stare at the barren, churned-up ground before him, strewn with bits and fragments of stone that might just possibly have been recognizable as parts of monsters, if he had looked really closely—which he had no intention of doing.
"Well, put them out of their misery, Wizard!" the elf snapped. "Can you not give these bits of iron their quietus?"
Matt snapped out of it. "Yeah, sure!