“I'm glad that you are not so certain. Come, the three of you. There is someone in the glen you will want to see.”
“The other witch,” Phillip said.
“Yes, you might say that,” Helbah said agreeably. “But she is no stranger to any of you. I think, Phillip, that you are going to be surprised to learn exactly who she is.”
Phillip got to his feet, wiped blood from his mouth, and followed Helbah. As his feet found their way he now and then looked over at St. Helens and Mor Crumb. These big men, these strong men, were at least as bewildered as he.
In the glen, near the large tree with the flat crystal set in its big bole, lovely Charlain stretched out her arms as though to long-lost children or her dearest friends.
Charlain? Kelvin's mother? A witch? Now indeed a lot about this mysterious roundear bubbled up from the bottom of his brain and drifted into place. The Roundear of Prophecy had a mother who had powers and was now using them to fulfill her son's destiny! But against Kelvinia rather than for? How could that be? Was she too bewitched?
“Phillip, St. Helens, General Crumb,” Charlain said, “as you now must realize it is our old enemy that we have to fight. Zoanna and the man who appears to be but isn't King Rufurt now control Kelvinia. Every soldier, whether Kelvinia, Herman, or a mercenary from Throod, has been deceived. Each of you has been tricked similarly. Klingland and Kance are not the enemy, though they are the kingdom you fight.”
“I know we were bewitched by her,” Mor said. “But you, Charlain-- a witch?”
“A necessary recruit, I'm afraid,” Helbah said. “Charlain had the talent and I had need for it. Fortunately for all of us she learned quickly and well.”
“There's something else,” Charlain said. “My son Kelvin is here now, back in this frame and not far from where we stand. I saw him in the crystal.”
“Then we're saved!” Mor Crumb said. “The Roundear will make everything right. He'll win this war, and-- “
“You forget that the real war is inside Kelvinia,” Helbah said.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Mor said. “He'll get them out of the palace before you can say scat! Burn wicked Zoanna as she deserves! Burn the impostor king as well!”
“No,” Charlain said. “Not immediately, anyhow. There's something more important he has to do.”
“More important,” Mor asked incredulously, “than destroying the former queen of Rud and the former king from the other place? More important than stopping the fighting?”
“Yes. Far more important. I have consulted the cards and the cards have never lied to me. There's a nodule, a crisis point. Either he fulfills this subsidiary task promptly and without fail or this fighting will not end and the prophecy will never be fulfilled. For the good of all of us and the eventual fulfillment of the prophecy he has to do what his mother tells him. Each of you, understanding or not, must help me to that end.”
They stared at her, amazed, but hardly doubting her.
*
Kelvin, urged on by Mervania Chimaera's thoughts, walked slowly down the road that led to the glen. Ahead of him, prancing, flicking its tail, looking back with a come-along expression every now and then was a huge black houcat.
I'm getting into trouble, Kelvin thought, I really can't trust the chimaera. It's putting me right into the hands of the witch!
When have you not been in trouble, stupid mortal! Mervania responded almost affectionately. And why would I want to have you in the hands of a witch?
To make a deal, maybe. As you did with me.
And that you haven't yet delivered on! Be brave, little hero, and use some sense!
That's all right for you to think, Mervania. You don't have to face a witch!
You faced me, Kelvin. Do you honestly think a witch could be worse than I am?
No! Nothing's worse than a chimaera!
I'm glad you realize it. And remember, I'm right here in your thoughts, protecting my interests.
Kelvin wondered if he could possibly comprehend the chimaera's interests. He tried not to project the thought or call it to the chimaera's attention. The creature was a puzzle! Compared to the chimaera, dragons and witches were quite comprehensible.
Thank you, Kelvin.
Ahead he could see five people waiting. Two women, two big men, and one large boy or man like himself. Was one of those witches really his mother?
Do you doubt me, Kelvin? The thought had a tinge of menace.
Kelvin felt chastised. Focusing mainly on the houcat's constantly flicking tail he was only gradually becoming aware that the fog was lifting. He could have flown this distance in half the time with less internal agony, but the chimaera had decreed walk.
You may fly now, if you wish.
Thanks a lot! If the monster caught the irony, fine! He touched the button in his buckle, pressed it in and rose to the height of a horse's back. He nudged the forward lever and floated down the road, the houcat still ahead. He accelerated ever so little and he was there.
They were there. St. Helens in prisoner clothes, Mor Crumb in worn and filthy general's uniform. Phillip, the former king of Aratex, in filthy common clothes. A short, smiling woman who looked astonishingly like Melbah, the witch he had caused to burn. And, most surprising of all, a woman who appeared to be his mother.
“Come down, Kelvin,” his mother said. “We have to talk.”
It was as if she said “Come down from that tree” or “Get off from that woodpile.” Could this be his mother, and wasn't there anything he could do that would surprise her?
Kelvin descended to the ground and deactivated his belt. This whole scene was strange, but his mother seemed to be the spokesperson here.
“Kelvin, we're all glad to see you. Come here!” Her arms went wide as he took a step forward.
Could this be some cunning illusion, designed to make him walk blithely into a trap?
If you don't trust your mother, trust me, Mervania thought with a certain amused disgust. I want those dragonberries. Do you think I will allow you to be trapped before I get them?
That satisfied him. A moment later Charlain was hugging him hard, as a mother long deprived must hug her son. He relaxed, all doubt gone that it was really her.
“What's this?” she asked, touching the copper sting on his back.
“A chimaera's sting, Mother.”
“I thought it might be. Good, you hold on to that! Someday it may prove important.”
Kelvin swallowed. Mom was so practical sometimes! No questions like “What's a chimaera?” or “How did you ever come by it?” Just instant, practical acceptance.
The other woman spoke-- the witch who looked like Melbah. “Charlain, you must show him.”
“Yes, I suppose I ought to. Come, Son, over to this tree, over to this crystal. Now what I'm going to show you may be a shock. Please be brave, Son; I know you can be.”
“Mom, I just want to get rid of Zoanna and return home to my wife!” Kelvin protested.
Listen to her, you idiot! Mervania snapped. You won't like this.
Again, Kelvin found himself placing more credence in the monster than in his mother. He went with Charlain to the tree. What was going on?
Charlain's fingers stretched out and there was a tiny spark that danced between her fingers and then from her fingertips to the crystal. Suddenly the crystal was a window on a distant scene, as other magic crystals had been.
A madwoman stared and gibbered, crouching in a corner. On her wrists and ankles were chains. She was naked and grotesquely pregnant, as though she were set to deliver not a child but a colt. Her skin had a coppery sheen. Her dark, sunken eyes stared right at him. She screamed.
Why was this madwoman being shown to him? Why was she screaming like that, as though she saw him?
“KELVIN!” the imaged woman screamed.
She knew his name! This pathetic, mad, pregnant woman saw him and knew his name!
Suddenly the features of the woman became preternaturally clear. That chin, that
nose, those facial contours, those round ears! “Heln!” he said incredulously. “Heln?” For how could such a horror be possible?
“Yes,” his mother said. “That is she.”
Kelvin felt the ground open under him. It was just too much. He sank down on his knees, his hands reaching out to the crystal. “HELN! HELN! NO, NO, PLEASE!”
In the crystal a raw piece of meat appeared. Impaled on a stick it waved before the face of the woman he tried not to believe was Heln.
The madwoman focused her glassy eyes on the meat. Her fingers curled. She licked her lips. Suddenly her neck shot out, fast, like that of a striking reptile. Her teeth sank into the flesh. Blood squirted, and ran from the corners of her mouth. Her chained wrists lifted and her clawed hands pushed the meat farther and farther into her savagely chomping maw.
“Kelvin!” the madwoman said between bites. “Kelvin!”
It couldn't be her! It couldn't be!
The picture in the crystal seemed to move back. His sister Jon came into view. She was holding the stick that supported the raw meat. It was evident that she did not dare come closer herself, lest her own flesh be attacked. Beside her, steadying her arm, was Dr. Sterk, the royal physician.
Kelvin thought he had seen horrors in the other frames, but none compared to this one in his own frame! “No, no, no,” he said.
“Accept it, Son.” His mother moved her hand and the magic scene vanished. It was now just a flat piece of crystal stuck in a tree bole.
“Mother, what can I do? Where is she? How can I-- “
“She's in the royal palace.”
“Good! I'll go there immediately, and-- “
“No, Son. You must not.”
“Not?”
“The evil queen is there, and will not be lightly subdued. In any event, there is no time for that. The queen put the spell on Heln, but cannot undo it. There is an antidote, and you must get it for Heln before she gives birth. That could be at any time, and that birthing will kill her.”
Kelvin, noting the gross distension of Heln's body, understood. That birthing would rip her apart! “What antidote? Where?”
“Where you got your copper sting, Son. The chimaera has it.”
“It has!” Had the chimaera held out on him?
No. I did not know about this until you entered this frame and contacted your mother.
“You know about the-- ?” he asked, amazed.
“The monster who speaks to you in your mind? Yes, the cards told me.”
“But I have no idea what the antidote is!”
“Helbah here knows. There's a powder. A powder no chimaera can live without. It has an opposite effect in cases like this.”
“What is this powder? How will I know it?”
I have it, Mervania thought. I never thought I would need to give any of it away, but I see I do.
Kelvin realized that there was a solution to this horror. If only he had known before, he could have gotten the powder and saved Heln before it got to this stage!
CHAPTER 29
Antidote
John Knight was munching on smoked fish while waiting for Rufurt to make his move.
Rufurt leaned over the board and considered before moving a pawn. It might have been a troop movement or an execution.
“Good move!” Zed Yokes said.
The king nodded. A king's moves had after all to be approved. He took a swig of the appleberry wine and handed it to John. John shook his head and sipped from the water jar instead. That fish the old river man had brought was salty!
“So there's really a war on between Kelvinia and the twin kingdom,” John mused.
Zed nodded, smiling his pleasant old man's smile. “The news comes to me on the river. It comes slowly, but it comes.”
“So that must be what my son is up to-- bringing it to a stop.”
“Just so he gets the impostor,” Rufurt said. “He and the queen.”
“You still call her queen, Rufurt?” John inquired, amused. “After what she did to both of us, and the kingdom?”
“You know what I mean. Villainess is more like it! Witch will do.”
John moved a bishop diagonally across the board. “Check.”
Rufurt immediately took the bishop with his black queen. “Sorry to do this, John. Particularly with this piece.”
John tried to smile, hoping to give the impression that he had sacrificed the bishop deliberately. Rufurt needed cheering. When Kelvin came back-- and he didn't want to admit he was beginning to worry about that-- there should be cheering aplenty.
“You think your son's a match for them?” Zed asked.
“He'd better be.” John looked around the ruins of the old palace, remembering how the last revolution had been. “There's the prophecy, of course. I'm afraid I really believe in that.”
“Now, you mean,” Rufurt said. “You didn't believe in it in the old days.”
“No, I didn't.” How many times had he scolded Charlain for filling the boy's head with nonsense. How little had he known!
“But now you believe in prophecies and magic.”
“In this frame I do! Some prophecies, some magic.”
“Why is that, John?” The king put a bit of archness into it, knowing very well.
“The chimaera, for one thing. Other things we saw and experienced. I'll never again say with full certainty what can and can't be. In an infinity of frames I suspect anything is possible.”
“Right you are, John. It's your move, isn't it?”
John concentrated on the board, difficult as that was for him. Finally he moved his remaining white knight.
Rufurt nudged the black queen onto the knight's square. “Sorry again, John. You're not concentrating.”
“While you are.” Damn St. Helens for reinventing this game!
“It's the experience of governing,” Rufurt said. As usual he ignored the fact that he had lost his kingdom to Zoanna once and spent all those years in the royal dungeon.
“Hmmm,” John said. If he moved his own queen down now he could take Rufurt's and checkmate his king in the bargain! He made the move. “Check!”
“Can't win them all,” Rufurt said. He stood up from the block of masonry and stretched. His eyes scanned the skies. “There! Him, isn't it?”
John strained the eyes he hated to admit were less effective at distances than Rufurt's were. Something definitely was in the sky, and coming at them. It seemed to be the right size. “Yes,” he said.
Within moments the figure was right above them. It descended, and hovered. Then, somewhat shrilly, it called: “Dad, Your Majesty, I'm going back to the chimaera's world. Wait here! I'll explain later!”
Kelvin started off again, then paused. “Mother divorced Hal. She's single now, and a witch.”
With that John's surprising offspring dived rather than flew through the ruins and out of sight.
“Those young folk sure are in a hurry!” Tommy Yokes’ grandfather remarked.
But John hardly cared about that. Charlain was single? Suddenly a wonderful new horizon lay before him.
*
Kelvin could hardly wait to reach the transporter. Very skilled now in how to hold his body while flying, he barely slowed before reaching the river ledge. Now was not the time to ponder the mysteries of the Flaw or of being. He opened the huge metal door with the help of the gauntlets and leaped inside. He barely took time to set the control for the chimaera's world, and was off.
After what his father had termed “special effects” he found himself in a somewhat more dusty chamber facing a froogear.
The froogear held out a small packet composed of one large folded leaf. Kelvin took it.
This is it? he demanded of the chimaera.
It is in there, Kelvin, Mervania's thought came. Three little grains that will expand to a powder. Be careful you don't sneeze on them.
Thanks, Mervania. I'll get back with those dragonberry seeds when I can!
I'll let you know about that, mortal! Hur
ry-- you haven't much time.
Right! Clutching the packet, Kelvin leaped back into the transporter.
*
Mervania sighed. The sky was orange and cloud-filled and it was a good day to be working in the garden. Fortunately she could weed around the pumash and squakin plants while keeping a small bit of mind tuned to Kelvin.
Why was she helping this inferior life-form? Hadn't she paid her debt to it when she let it and its fellows go? An inferior life-form was after all an inferior life-form.
That's what I've been telling you, Mervania!
Mertin, you know that isn't nice, scanning my thoughts that way!
You're doing it with Kelvin and his kind!
Of course! They're inferior life-forms!
Foodstuffs.
If you will.
I knew we should have eaten them.
Groowmth! Grumpus added, tossing their dragon head.
What I don't understand, Mervania, is why you gave him the powder.
You know, Mertin. You know if you think about it.
You think about it for me.
I don't want to.
Do it anyway.
Oh, very well! Mertin was so vexing sometimes! Without giving it great attention she recalled the egg clutch they had laid just after dining on a stringy old wizard. There had been something wrong with it, as she soon realized. The eggs didn't have coppery shells, but were soft, and inside there was no more mind activity than from insects. Concentrating ever so little, she had gleaned that soft, single-headed beings were being formed that would closely resemble foodstuffs. The horror of producing monsters was too much, and the antidote, had it been available, had to be taken before the laying. There had been only one thing to do, and her body had a head for it.
Groowmth! Grumpus agreed, smacking his mouth. The memory of the eggs was still strong with it.
There. Satisfied, Mertin?
Not quite. The offspring of the foodstuff female will be like us, if she delivers while under the influence of the chimaeradrake root. It will have three heads and copper in its blood. In time it will grow a sting. Why destroy our own, Mervania? Why prevent its birth?
Dunderhead! Consider the horror! One of us raised by mortals! Cared for by the very inferior life-forms that are our food! Assuming they care for it at all; they might instead imprison or destroy it. No, any chimaera who comes into being must be here with us, in proper society, so as not to be stunted by regressive influences.
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