Katbah rubbed his head against her gnarled hand and purred. It was a gentle soothing sound that befitted a feline creature that never, ever killed birds. From the same gentle frame and mold as Helbah, he preferred finding and returning baby birds that had tumbled from their nests. Yet feline was feline, and Katbah, her familiar, responded as only a familiar could.
Helbah looked down at the touch of the velvety smooth tongue on her hand. She ruffled the black fur, tweaked the triangular whiskers, and stared into the oval eyes.
“Katbah, I think we've won. But-- ” She frowned as she thought of this. “I wonder why? Not just that we've won, but why the invasion. This is utterly unlike pleasant, ineffective King Rufurt of Rud. Or whatever they call that kingdom now. Kelvinia-- that's it, after that good lad.”
Katbah rubbed against the third crystal on the table. This one was a smoothed square. His paw reached out and tapped it. The crystal was opaque.
“Yes, yes, I'd better. I hate spying, Katbah, but now and then I have to. There is too much of a mystery about this matter.”
She drew the square crystal across the rough wooden table to her. She held her clawed fingers above the smooth surface, closed her eyes, and concentrated. In a moment she felt the quiver in her arms and the lightning sparks from her fingertips.
She opened her eyes, staring into a universe of tiny bubbles. Now where? Where? To Kelvinia to find out the cause of the attack. She visualized a man with a big nose, wearing a crown. Yes, there he was, reflected in the crystal as though in a glass box. Rufurt.
Why, she wondered, why? Under her prodding thoughts the view widened. The king was in his bedchamber and he was not alone. Helbah frowned, not wanting to intrude on a private moment between king and--
The woman in the bedchamber turned. As she did, Katbah raised his fur and spat.
Red-as-dragon-sheen hair. Eyes the color of green feline magic with little cometing lights in them. The eyes might have been directed right at her!
Zoanna! Zoanna, the evil queen all thought dead. Hadn't she drowned? Yet here she was with the king, whom she had despised in life. Could this be Rufurt, the real Rufurt?
She peered close, moving in on the man with her thoughts. There was a mean look to him, an insane light in his eyes. His ears were tipped, but with a tipping that was new.
This was not good King Rufurt.
So, then, it was another paired set, like Melbah and Helbah, from other frames. Similar appearance, dissimilar nature. Only the ears gave such folk away, physically.
And the queen?
Helbah moved in on the queen. The face, just as haughty, just as inhumanly cold and devoid of genuine feeling. The original Zoanna, without a doubt.
So the queen had not died. She had hidden, and now returned with a look-alike to replace Rufurt. Rufurt had been easygoing and appreciative of life, but Zoanna had manipulated and misled him. When he and John Knight were released from the Rud dungeon, having sprung themselves during the battle, Rufurt had been just the same. She had checked up on him from time to time, not to interfere but to assuage her curiosity and make sure that no mischief was afoot. This, she was now sure, was not he.
Zoanna had been taking something from a wooden stand. She held up a round crystal. Her face a study in suspicion, she closed her eyes.
Now what? The couple had evidently been about to make love, but now seemed to be up to something else. Had Zoanna learned magic? Her father, Zatanas, had known little, though he had faked much. But Zoanna had been absent for some time. Perhaps she had learned. Maybe she had developed a dormant witch-sense.
In the crystal Zoanna held, Helbah's own face appeared. Zoanna's eyes opened as she peered at it.
“Helbah, I thought that was you! Are you so hard up for thrills that you have to spy on the pleasures of your betters?”
Horrors! She had learned magic! She had felt Helbah's questing, and challenged it. Only a few selected people, male or female, were able to master sorcery, and even fewer ever made the attempt. Zoanna had evidently discovered that she had the ability, and now had developed it. Here was real mischief!
The king bent forward, also looking. “She the witch?”
Zoanna ignored him. To Helbah she said: “Your time has come, old woman. You won't exist much longer. We're taking over the brat kingdoms. When we complete that chore, you will die. We shall throw you away like the garbage you are.”
Katbah leaped at the crystal in sudden fury. Sparkling sharp claws raked the crystal, producing a screech that hurt Helbah's ears. It was the way she herself felt.
“I have stopped the armies,” Helbah said. “Just as in years of yore.”
“Yes, witchy bonebag, but not for long. I now have means of countering you.”
“You can nullify my spells?” Helbah asked skeptically.
“Watch.” Zoanna gestured. In the crystal she held was Mor and his army in Klingland. They were paused, looking at a pile of horse droppings. Zoanna took a small vial from a drawer in the stand and sprinkled an orange powder. The crystal flared bright. Zoanna held a finger pointed, and the horse manure lifted from the ground and hovered in midair. A sudden cutting gesture, and the dung fell.
A horse leaped. Mor assumed a startled expression, as did his officers. Then they were riding on, into the target territory.
“No you don't!” Helbah snapped. She made a gesture of her own, and the advance, though it seemed to be going forward, stayed even with a tree.
“That is the last time that will be tolerated,” Zoanna said grimly. She made a new gesture, and the movement resumed.
Angered by this insolence, Helbah raised a hand. At that moment Zoanna raised her own hand. There was a loud snapping sound, the smell of ozone, and all three of Helbah's crystals vibrated.
“I can keep this up, bag,” Zoanna said. “I can keep this up until they crack.”
Helbah reluctantly directed a thought, and all three crystals abruptly turned opaque.
She looked at her familiar, who was now glancing all around, as if fearful that the queen were hiding right in this room.
“Yes, Katbah, she's going to be trouble,” Helbah said. “Far more than ever before, I fear.”
Katbah spat, angrily and knowingly. Meanwhile, Helbah felt drained.
“Yes, I greatly fear, Katbah, that it is going to be a long, wearying fight. Who could have guessed that that evil queen would return, worse than before?”
The question was rhetorical, but the situation was grim. Helbah wished she wasn't quite so old and tired.
*
Rowforth looked from the now-opaque crystal to his consort's face. He didn't like what he had just heard. This witch sounded like trouble. “Can you keep her from stopping us?”
Zoanna came as near to smiling as she ever did. The expression she normally used was an artifice that affected only her lips, unlike her tepid analogue in the other frame who smiled with her whole face, on those few occasions she had reason to smile at all. This was one of the things he really liked about Zoanna. “Stop us? You must be mad, lover mine. She'll never stop us. Nothing can.”
He wanted to believe her. Then, as he looked into her eyes, he very nearly did.
Torture, torment, pain. With her help, all would be inflicted on their enemies, and especially those treasonous ones who had defeated him in his own frame. That Kelvin, how he would enjoy strapping him up in each newly created torture device! But would the iron maiden, the strappado, and the rack be enough? For that soft young man who yet had caused so much mischief he would devise some special pain.
He began dreaming of the child the roundear's wife was to bear. With Zoanna's help it might come out so hideous as to cause both parents unremitting anguish. Yes, that would be fitting-- and fun!
“Zoanna, have you heard of a beast called a chimera?”
“Chimera?” she asked blankly.
“With three heads and a scorpiocrab tail.”
She smiled. “Oh, you mean the chimaera! Of course, though it is al
most extinct. What a lovely beasti!”
“Could the-- could the child of Kelvin be made to resemble that?”
Her artificial smile slowly became genuine. “My dear, you are a genius! Why not?”
So confident, so certain. Surely he would have had to look through all the frames before finding so ideal a consort!
CHAPTER 9
Fool's Return
What's this armor you're wearing?” Kelvin asked his cellmate.
Stapular, as usual, managed to look as if he were sneering. In a tone just to the right of insulting he said, “What's it to you, Minor World dolt?”
Kelvin sighed. He tried so hard to be polite and Stapular always ruined it. He took another big handful of fruity mash from the trough and munched it, eying the redhead speculatively.
“That's right, go ahead and stuff! Put on some fat so you'll be just what old triple-head wants! You don't see me gulping that stuff! But you do what you want. Maybe it'll fry you. Sauté you with a little onlic. Yes, that should be good.”
Kelvin shuddered. He had never liked onlic. The other man was obviously trying to nettle him; what made it worse was that he was succeeding. If the chimaera was going to eat him, he almost preferred that it eat him raw.
Still, he was hungry, and he wanted to keep up his health and strength, so as to be ready to escape if any opportunity presented itself. He finished chewing the mixed nuts, fruit, and grain mixture, reflecting that it wasn't bad, in fact it was delicious. He then lay down at the edge of the little stream and sucked up water. Good, crystal-clear spring water, the best. He had to admit that the monster had excellent taste in food and water.
At last he stood and faced Stapular deliberately. Have to control the body language now, he thought. Don't want to appear hostile.
“I asked, cellmate, about your armor.”
“Why should I tell you?”
“I told you about the Mouvar weapon.”
“I didn't ask you to. Does that mean I'm obligated?”
“You want to get out. You want to save yourself. Surely you don't want to be eaten.”
Stapular hesitated. He was doubtless trying to think of a reason to refuse Kelvin's reasonable request. Even the most unreasonable people liked to appear reasonable, oddly.
Kelvin reached out and touched the transparent plating. It covered all of the hunter except the head and the hands. Just like the armor worn by his Knights of the Roundear and the royalists fighting for the queen. Only this armor was not metal. His father had labeled it “Some sort of glass or plastic.” It looked very light, but felt hard.
“The chimaera lets you keep this on. Surely it will take it off you before it dines on you.”
“That it will, pale hair. How'd you guess?”
“Seems sensible. I don't think Grumpus could dent this.”
“It won't have to. The armor's stout but that's not its value.”
“Then-- “
“It insulates against the electric bursts. The bolts can climb all over it but not get inside. Particularly when-- ” He touched something inside his collar with a nudge of his chin. Instantly a transparent hood that covered his entire head sprang up from in back and snapped securely down in front. Similar hoods in the shape of gloves snapped over his hands, and others protected his feet. Stapular was now fully encased.
Kelvin was amazed. “You mean the chimaera couldn't have hurt you at all if you'd done that?”
“Where's your brain? Of course it could. It just couldn't have electrocuted me.”
“But-- “
“The sting could have pried me right out. Likely Mervania will get me out with lye.”
Kelvin shivered. Lye! But he had known that was in the monster's plans, and indeed that had figured largely in his return. Still, it angered him to think that Stapular had remained back in the cell and not attacked the creature's elevated sting from behind, when Kelvin was distracting it. That jointed abdomen must have a weak spot, and if the lightning couldn't strike him . . .
“You think I should have jumped on the tail, right?”
Kelvin nodded, and refrained from saying something nasty like “How'd you ever guess, idiot?”
“Dumb, Minor World imbecile! It would have whacked me against the roof! Maybe flung me over its heads and against you!”
Surely a fate worse than death! But Kelvin refrained from making that sarcastic comment too. “I could have dodged, or even caught you and helped you get your feet.”
The man merely glowered at him.
Kelvin tried again. “I once saw a dragon attacked in almost that manner. Of course the heroic knight paid for his bravery with his life, but at least he'd made the gesture, and perhaps saved the lives of his companions.”
“You think I should have, don't you?”
Idiot! “You were wearing the armor,” Kelvin pointed out. “You might have survived. It might have given me a chance to-- “
“To what? Attack with your sword and magic gauntlets?” The tone made this seem ludicrous.
“Better than nothing.” He didn't like the disparagement and contempt at all, but realized that this was just Stapular's way. Did the man have any love-life? That thought almost made Kelvin laugh.
“You think so, do you? You know how quickly one of the bolts would have shriveled you? If the chimaera hadn't been playing with you, you'd have been charred.”
Undoubtedly true! But Kelvin pressed on. “I will be charred later anyway, according to you. Why not in a fight?”
“Because there would be no fight! The chimaera controls great quantities of electricity it makes in its body. You'd be no threat at all.”
Kelvin tried to consider that, mindful that Stapular was repeating his prior argument. Yet the redhead was after all from a world he called Major.
“Nothing to be done, then?” He remained perplexed by the man's seeming reluctance even to oppose his fate.
“No.”
“But you were going to attack it. You and your companions. How?”
“With lasers, of course. Some of us would have been destroyed, but we'd have lopped off the heads and tail.”
“That tail means something to you, doesn't it?”
“Yes, profit.”
Kelvin wondered about that. Could copper be so valuable where Stapular came from? It didn't seem possible.
“You're confused, aren't you, dolt? Huh, let me tell you those stings are no minor matter. Conductors of electricity while they're growing and attached, and afterward-- “
“Yes?” Stapular had shut up, as if catching himself revealing too much. What could be so secret that it couldn't be told even to a companion in death?
“Other,” Stapular said. “On Minor Worlds, at least.”
Conductors of other on Minor Worlds? Minor Worlds were magic-using worlds. That suggested that the stings were conductors of magic! The revelation made his knees sag.
“What's the matter with you?”
“There's a fence made of those old stings outside. You saw the lightning leap.”
“So? A fortune, but not for us. For the next hunters perhaps.”
“Magic, Stapular. Magic.”
“What are you getting at, Minor brain?”
“Conductors of magic. Magic to fight the chimaera with.”
“You're crazy!”
“So you have remarked. I have my levitation belt and my gauntlets now, and I come from a world where magic exists. If I can get outside again, get one of the spikes uprooted, hold it with the gauntlets and channel magic through it-- “
“You've got magic?” Stapular seemed less skeptical.
“Y-- ” Kelvin had never been so tempted to lie before. But deep-grained habits were hard to break. He converted what he had been about to say to the exact truth. “-- es. My gauntlets are magic. They often know what to do when I don't.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.” But a pang of conscience forced him to add, “Swords, shields, crossbows-- they even used a laser.”
“M-maybe. Perhaps.”
“And perhaps not?”
Kelvin shrugged. “Any chance, it seems to me, is better than none.”
“Right, Minor brain. Right. So what are your plans?”
“To get a sting. To confront the chimaera with it.”
“While I distract it, I suppose?”
“You'll have to.”
“And if it knows your thought? I can keep it out of my head. Can you?”
“I'll have to.”
“Easily said. But when it's around, your mind is open to it. You know you can't conceal your plan. Whatever plan.”
“Then that is why we must do it now,” Kelvin said. In that moment he realized that the only plan he had was for him to get the sting while Stapular interfered with the chimaera. That would be difficult, even if Stapular was effective.
“You could grab hold of the chimaera's sting. Hold on to it. Keep it from directing its bolts.”
“I could put my entire weight on it and I don't think I could hold it.”
“But you will try?”
“I will try,” Stapular said.
Kelvin dared hope. He had finally gotten the man to cooperate. That meant they had a chance, maybe, however small.
*
Kian looked at his father in astonishment. “What will we do, Father? We can't leave him!”
“No. Of course not. But it's a long way back. We were carried before, remember?”
Kian nodded, looking at the transporter and thinking secret thoughts. Darkly secret thoughts.
Kelvin was his brother. Half brother, anyway. He should not, would not abandon him, especially since Kelvin had followed them to the serpent world. Kelvin had saved them all, several times. He had first saved their homeland of Rud from Kian's own mother. Following the Rud revolution which Kelvin had led, Kian had gone through the transporter searching for his missing father and mother. In the frame-world that was so similar and yet so different from his own, Kian had found his missing father, and the girl he now wanted so desperately to return to. Kelvin had arrived late, defeated the royalists, and gotten Kian and John Knight out of King Rowforth's dungeon. Now Kian had a chance to repay all that.
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