This sort of thing could get quite discouraging to an invading army. In the past it must have worked effectively many times.
Why was it, Les wondered, as his knees weakened under him, that this time it wasn't going to?
*
Zoanna watched as Rowforth, looking so much like the king she had married, rowed the boat with strong pulls of the oars. The eerily luminous lichen on the walls gave a feeling of late in the day. Yet it was early, just before sunup.
She smiled her coldest smile as the swirl of water marked the installation. Such a little thing, so easily missed. No roundear had ever discovered it, and none would if she and others like her had their way. Rowforth was enormously privileged.
Moving carefully so as not to rock the boat, she stripped her soft, velvet robe from her creamy shoulders, and fluffed back her beautiful red-as-dragon-sheen hair. She felt Rowforth studying her naked body, appreciating her soft, round breasts with their firm, rosy nipples. His eyes were traveling down her flat stomach, lingering, enjoying in his lecherously honed way. She was no longer young, but discipline and magic had preserved much of her physical youth, and this was always useful when it came to handling men.
“Now,” she said, and slipped over the side. She swam skillfully, like a slick-skinned ottrat,diving deeper, deeper. Carefully she expelled her breath. Above, she knew, her consort would be waiting, leaning on his oars, anticipating the moment when she would again break the surface.
Her eyes saw a fish or two, and then the airlock. Grabbing its edge she pulled up her legs, ducked her head, and somersaulted over and inside.
She gulped air. The interior always had air because of the membrane material that removed it from the water. Here one could breathe and rest and hide a century if need be. Here one could take a transporter and go to a world where magic and witchcraft reigned supreme.
She had been here first as a child, and then later as a young woman. Then there had been a long time when she had not been to this place, or used the transporter. During her last trip, after the defeat of her father's weak magic and her tame guardsmen at the hand of Kelvin's Knights, she had done it right. She had gone back to school and learned what she should have learned as a child. Because of what she had learned, she now had power, more than her pathetic old father and his bloodthirsty dwarf ever dreamed. And what had been the price of this knowledge? Only what she had in infinite store.
She lowered herself onto the waiting platform, rested a moment, smiled contentedly to herself, and then entered the room. The transporter awaited her, and it would be but an easy step, and she would be back at her school. The horned and horny teacher would get her her supplies. How surprised Devale was going to be! Even while they embraced, he had not realized the extent of her ambitions.
She was prepared to offer him a thousand children from defeated kingdoms. In return she was certain he would give her what she needed to defeat Helbah, and the chimaera powder as well. She twisted her mouth as she thought of it: the Roundear of Prophecy's deformed and monstrous child.
She checked the controls on the transporter and then stepped into it. Space-time flashed through her being. Then she was being lifted up in a man's strong arms.
“Professor Devale! Damn your shiny horns, you sensed me!”
Professor Devale did something quite improper for a decent man, that was quite customary for him. “Zoanna,” he said, squeezing her close and intensifying his actions. “Of course!”
*
Heln woke with a startled cry.
“What was it, Heln?” Jon asked. In the days that they had been here, she had become used to Heln's nightmares.
“The monster!” Terror made her voice shrill. “A terrible thing! Three heads! Two of the heads were human, and the other was a dragon!”
Jon took her hand. “That's pretty wild, Heln. I've never heard of such a monster. This one must have been imagination.”
“No, Jon, it wasn't!” Heln shook from head to toe under the bedclothes. “Kelvin was with it, and, and-- Jon, I think it was going to eat him!”
“The dragon head?” Jon was curious, despite the dream's evident horror for Heln.
“No, all of them! It was all one beast!”
“Impossible.”
“But it was! And, and that female human head! It had copper tresses, and eyes just the color of copper. It wore a copper tiara and had copper rings in her ears.”
“Pretty detailed,” Jon said. “I never dream like that.”
“Neither do I! That's why I know it wasn't just a dream! It's like the time they were in that frame with the serpents.”
“Yes, you did dream accurately then.”
“Jon, I'm afraid for Kelvin! I'm afraid for his life!”
“He has to come back,” Jon said. “He has a prophecy to fulfill.”
“Yes! He must return!” Not really reassured, Heln lay back and closed her eyes.
*
Kildom pulled Kildee's nose, arousing him from sleep. “You big dunderhead!” Keldee protested.
“Don't hit me, stupid! We need to talk.”
“What about, dumbbutt?”
“Helbah. I think she's really worried.”
“So?”
“So we should help. Be kings like we're supposed to be.”
“Lead an army?”
“Why not? We've lived twenty-four years each. We're as smart as any twenty-four-year-olds.”
Kildee scratched his thin red hair and climbed from the bed. He stood in front of the mirror, looking at himself and his brother, both apparent six-year-olds.
“Well, I admit we don't exactly look our age,” Kildom said.
“So?” The reflection didn't change.
“Let's ask her to make us big.”
“If she could, she'd have done it long ago.”
“You think?”
“Yeh. Uh, I don't know.”
“Come on, then.”
Kildee followed as his brother led him to the witch's private quarters, where they were strictly forbidden ever to go. Naturally they went there all the time, kings being kings and boys boys, and them more than both.
Helbah, her back to them, was talking to her familiar. “Katbah, I don't know if I can. I just don't! If her powers are now greater than mine, and I can't stop her ...”
Kildom let the door swing back into place. Finger to his cherubic lips he pulled Kildee away from her possible hearing.
“See? It's just like I said. We're going to have to do something!”
“But what?” Kildee was now genuinely and maturely concerned, as indeed he should have been.
Kildom screwed up his face. He pondered the matter, trying hard. “I'm sorry,” he said finally. “You and I are just going to have to watch for our chance.”
CHAPTER 11
The Berries
Kian and his father were lost. Kian had to admit it to himself the second day when they awoke in their tree-perch beds and saw nothing but swamp below them all around.
“Father,” he said, grasping a crawling spider the size of a small bird with his right-gauntleted hand and crushing it, “I do believe it's time.”
“I hate to have you do that, Son. It never seems to me to be safe.”
“I've done it before, Father. Besides, if we want to save Kelvin-- “
“Yes. All right.” John climbed down from the tree next to his and stood in ankle-deep slime. “You'd better position yourself there in the bough, because it's too wet here.”
“Right, Father.” Stoically, but not without apprehension, Kian took the dragonberry from its associates in the armpouch and gulped it down. He could have used a sip of water, he thought, grimacing at the taste. Unfortunately, fresh, safe water was scarce in the swamp, and the hollow gourd they had filled was rapidly emptying.
As usual, he imagined that there would be no effect, that this time it would not work. This business of astral separation was difficult to believe anyway. Then he noticed that his father was noticeably lower than he had been, and
that in the next tree there was a body. The body, he realized with his usual surprise, was his own.
The berries had performed as usual, separating his awareness from his body so gently that it seemed it wasn't happening, until it was done. They would kill pointears, but Heln had discovered that roundears suffered only partial death. This had turned out to be an extremely useful thing.
But he had business. There was nothing to do but find their route. To think of Kelvin, and be drawn to him like a needle to a magnetstone. Of course he'd far rather think of Lonny, but Lonny was in another frame and reaching her right now posed difficulties.
He discovered he was going toward the transporter. His thought of Lonny had started him that way! That was the danger in letting one's thoughts wander, when one's mind was in a condition most resembling thought.
He formed a mental picture of his brother's face. Instantly he was going back the other way, over the swamp. The greenery below blurred. Now and then a bird winged past or through his astral form. There was a special exhilaration to this kind of travel; there was no freedom like astral freedom!
Then, abruptly, the blurring stopped. He was over the island. He saw the ancient castle where they had been confined, and the chimaera itself was there, doing something in what seemed to be a garden. Willing himself to join Kelvin, he drifted cautiously down the path that was bordered by the pointed posts. Those posts had green patinas, intriguingly. He floated straight through the barred wooden door.
Kelvin and Stapular were there, both alive and-- miracle of miracles-- talking to each other. They were hunched side by side at the trough, whispering. Should he eavesdrop, or get out? One berry would not last long, and he needed to return slowly enough to memorize the way.
Another thing: he didn't want to risk getting trapped. He had been snared by a flopear once while in astral form. He had been lucky to survive, and he had vowed never to risk that happening again. The chimaera might be sensitive to the astral form as were dragons and flopears. The fact that the monster had one dragon head meant he could be at risk, for dragons were the original users of dragonberries.
“There's this mental block,” Stapular was whispering. “Huh, I can do it but you can't. With my help you can.”
Kelvin nodded. “It's what my father would call hypnotism.”
“Right. Posthypnotic. You forget until it's time. I don't even show a thought.”
“I don't know, Stapular. If I trust you-- “
“You have to, if you want to make your play.”
“All right. All right.” Kelvin seemed determined. “You hypnotize. You make the block.”
“Huh. I'll hold up a finger and you focus both eyes on its tip. I'll move the finger back and forth in front of your eyes. All you do is keep your eyes on the fingertip.”
“You're certain it will work?”
“It will unless you're an idiot! Now, stupid-- “
So they were planning something! Kian thought. Hard on the heels of that surprise came another: a startled thought that was not his.
Another! Another! There shouldn't be! Mertin! Grumpus! HELP!
Kian wasn't staying around to find out. Instantly he visualized himself going to his father. He envisioned his father's face as he had Kelvin's.
Blurring greenery. He didn't try to slow it. He had to get back, back to his physical body before he was trapped. Once he was in his body he didn't think he'd ever leave it again! He was so panicky that he noticed no details until he saw the froogear staring into his face.
*
Mervania was shaken. Physically she was standing there in her garden, sting upraised in fright. Never, ever had she thought to-- ever!
“What is it, Mervania?” her companion head asked. “You catch a thought you didn't like?”
“Another. Another,” Mervania said, awed.
“You said that. Also ‘HELP!’ Help with what? You losing your wits? Don't do that. I don't want to have to talk with just Grumpus.”
“Shut up!” she exclaimed irritably. “I'd thought it legendary. Mythical. But it isn't. It's real! What a discovery!”
“What are you blathering about?”
“Grwoom,” Grumpus said in turn.
“Shut up, both of you! Can't you see how distracted I am? There was a disembodied human in there!”
“Disembodied food? Doesn't sound appetizing.”
She turned on her masculine side and snarled. “Soul-stuff, imbecile! ASTRAL!”
“Ghostly, huh? I thought only humans believed in that.”
“It's true. Dragonberries.”
“Dragonberries?”
“I should have known! But I thought it was just a myth. Anything that fantastic isn't logical.”
“What's logical?”
“Shut up. They take the berries, and then they separate, astral from corporeal. They just move around and they hear and see everything. I should have known when I learned that the young hero was from a world with dragons. That's where dragonberries are supposed to be!”
“How come I don't remember that story?” Mertin demanded.
“Because you're obtuse!”
“Grooomth!”
“That goes double for you, big teeth! Both of you put together haven't the brains of a pickled human!”
“Now see here, Mervania, I resent-- “
“Oh shut up! I'm too thrilled to argue with you.” Her head darted forward, and she kissed him quickly on the mouth. That startled him into silence. “Listen. With those berries we wouldn't be confined. We could swallow them and go anywhere we wanted. To-- “
“Gwroowl!”
“Oh very well!” she said impatiently, and kissed Grumpus too, on the nose.
“Food?” Mertin asked.
“No, not food! We wouldn't eat in that form. But we could see and hear everything!”
“Why would we want to do that?”
“Entertainment, moron! Discovery! Adventure! We could visit distant lands, other worlds, other frames. Astrally we could go and see and hear anything there is!”
“Who cares?”
“I do! And you would too, if you had half the brain of a froogear! I want dragonberries! Listen, Mertin, we might find more of our kind the squarears don't know about! We could visit them astrally, and maybe even-- “
“Go to them and mate?”
“Maybe. If the squarears cooperate.”
“Would they?”
“I don't know. But think of it. We could be a whole colony. A whole world, perhaps.”
“Sounds stupid to me. Why should there be more than two? Two's enough to mate. I could take care of that while you sleep.”
“Several would be better. Because that's the way it is. The companionship. The communication.”
“One more like you would talk me to death.”
“Grwoompth!” Grumpus agreed.
But Mervania refused to be dampened. She wanted those dragonberries, no matter what the cost!
*
Squirtmuck stared into the roundear's face with puzzlement. He had thought this one dead, but now it was awake and looking back at him. Could it be something like the deep sleep in the mud? He could not be certain, and he did not think more about it now that the surprise was gone. But this roundear was reaching for something under its armpit. A weapon? Quickly he grabbed the ugly creature's pale, knobby wrist. The roundear resisted him and struck at him with its other hand. The gauntlet that had been on that hand had slipped off and dropped into the slime while the creature was unconscious.
Firmly, Squirtmuck placed a webbed hand against the creature's loathsome face and held it while he explored under the disgusting smelly arm. What he found was a bag with a drawstring. He pulled it loose, stood back, opened the sack, and peered inside.
The roundear cried out. “No! No! Father, it's got the-- “
“Shut up!” the other roundear said. “You're not helping things.”
The creature in the tree bole subsided. But his eyes were big and round as Squirtm
uck smelled, prodded with a fingertip, and finally tasted one of the dried berries.
“That will kill you!” the roundear cried. “It's poison! To anyone but roundears. It's magic! Big magic!”
Squirtmuck spat out the bitten berry. His tongue burned and he stuck it out and scrubbed its forked tip with his well-slimed hand. He was not too sensitive to tastes, but this was revolting. He retched and spat. Then, to his great distress, he choked out a perfectly good leech. He took in several deep breaths of good swamp air before recapturing the leech with a quick grab and reswallowing it. Good food was not to be wasted!
The roundear for some peculiar reason was vomiting itself. Squirtmuck looked at the mess in the water but saw nothing wriggling. Roundears probably had peculiar tastes like other eared races; it might be that they ate food not even alive. No wonder it made them sick! The roundear quit heaving and wiped its mouth. Any self-respecting froogear would have licked his own mouth, not used his hand.
“Father,” the roundear said, “I think they've got us. Again.”
“Tell me something I don't know, Son.”
Squirtmuck ignored them. He furrowed his head hard, trying to decide what to do with the dried berries. He wouldn't eat them or give them to another froogear even if it was someone he disliked. Possibly they were magic, as the roundear said; in that case the squarears would be interested. He decided to put the berries with the rest of the loot, and not hide any of it except in the great tree hollow where such forbidden objects were placed. Yes, he'd do that, and the god or the squarears might reward him in this or some other life.
Clearing his throat he looked around at the members of his band busily examining the objects they had taken. One, a brother to one of his wives, had the belt and sword that had been on the big roundear. Another froogear had gathered up the two gauntlets and was sniffing them. Others had the younger roundear's sword and several knives.
“Come!” he said, motioning. Under his watchful eyes certain objects were placed in the bole of the collecting tree and others held out as tribute to the god.
That night, while the foragers feasted and splash-danced, Squirtmuck tried to feed and talk with the captives. He was unsuccessful in both attempts. For some reason the roundears tightened their mouths at the sight of fresh, squirming provender. When all reasonable questions were asked, they answered with foolishness about having great magic and powerful friends.