"Do you think Helbah has the cure?"
"I know she'll try to get it. But she says it's one of the ultra-rare herbs."
"Do you think—I know this sounds crazy, Jon—but do you think that Zady may have planned on Helbah leaving our frame to seek Horace's cure?"
"You don't think it's over, do you?"
He shook his head. "I do wish that I believed it's over." He held her, telling her without words how very much a respite from fighting meant to him.
By and by they went into the house together. Jon stripped and cleaned up. Her body was her own, and her own age, but it seemed perfect to him. By mutual agreement they did not come out until much later in the day.
Helbah turned to Whitestone and said what she had on her mind: "I can't go."
Whitestone patted her shoulder. "I know you can't, Helbah. We understand why. Zady might not be able to raise another army or find more malignant helpers, but until she's burned to ash she's a menace."
"Yes," Zudini added, "and that means watch and don't get caught unprepared. You have friends, Helbah. We'll search all the frames in existence if we have to, but it's going to require time. None of us now knows an apothecary in any frame that carries the herb."
"Not only that"—Whitestone continued the pessimistic note—"but that very herb may not exist any longer. Zady may have taken especially vengeful steps to see that it doesn't."
Helbah looked down at her feet. "I know you'll do your best. I just don't know that any of us can help Horace."
"Keep him isolated," Whitestone advised. "And don't let others near him since he can't tell friend from foe."
"He's smart for a dragon," Helbah said, "but if the herb can't be found his frustration could turn him into a rogue. Can you imagine what a rogue dragon could do with the opal?"
"Worse than the battle," Whitestone said. "And since the dragon is his son it would be hard for the Roundear to slay him."
"The dragon is the head of the Alliance, after all," Helbah said. "How could the Alliance function without its unifying safeguarder of the opal? If he were to turn rogue we'd be finished."
"I'd suggest a reading of the cards," Whitestone said, "but I understand the cards here don't show a future. Possibly the reason is Horace."
"Possibly," Helbah said. But privately she believed the fault had to do with Zady and not with their unfortunate copper-scaled ally.
"Well, we really won that one," Kildom said to Kildee.
"Yes we did, brother," the identical king replied.
"You two did nothing!" Glow said, hugging the just-returned Glint and eyeing them over his shoulder. "You did just what I did—you watched."
"A king can say no wrong," Kildom retorted.
"That's can do no wrong," Kildee corrected him.
Glow sighed. She was so happy she didn't care how they teased her. She knew that Merlain and Charles and Kelvin's mother all felt as she did. Who wouldn't feel elated after such a great victory?
The word she didn't want to hear came round to her by way of Charles. Gently Charles took Glint's place and Glint went to Merlain.
Don't let them know. Glow, but Helbah's worried. Horace may not be able to defend us again. Zady may only have started her fight.
Glow wondered what he meant, and immediately had her answer. She allowed her face to show nothing to the kinglets and to Mrs. Knight. It was possible, all too possible, that the terrible fighting that she had thought ended in victory was but a preliminary.
It was enough, Glow thought to herself, to make a girl wish she had never grown up and married but had remained always just a dreaming, hardly feeling, enchanted sword.
St. Helens and John sat at their familiar chess table. One of them was winning and one losing. One of them was waiting for the other's move. St. Helens had to admit to himself that he hadn't the faintest recollection of who had moved last and who had made the best moves. It wasn't just the unaccustomed third glass of dark red—it was the way things were happening.
"John, what do you think will become of your grandson?" There, he had asked it! Now it would come out.
"Charles will do fine. A mind-reader just about has to."
"I mean the other one. His litter mate, so to speak."
"Horace? He should do fine. I don't like to think about it."
"I don't either. Seems I have to."
"I don't think we can help. I'm not certain anybody can, except possibly Helbah or her witch and warlock friends. If it were a matter of a blood transfusion or a replacement part..."
"Kelvin takes him his food. What does he say?"
"He says that Horace sniffs him, each and every time. Has to. Zady or one of her minions could fake his appearance."
"Hell of a note, ain't it, Commander?"
"It is, and don't address me that way. You know I haven't succeeded you in rank since the day we got exploded from Earth."
"Wasn't that a gas, though? You know that there's no logical way that we should have survived. As for our being here... that's nuts."
"I know it well, old friend." John moved a knight—appropriately.
St. Helens studied the board, momentarily interested in it. So it had been John's move, not his.
"Commander, you think it could have been the doings of Mouvar?"
"Possibly. Something saved us."
"Perhaps then it can save Horace? I mean if saving's, as your wife used to say, in the cards."
"She doesn't say that anymore."
St. Helens moved a pawn. He couldn't have said why. His thoughts were now on cards, not chessmen.
John studied the board in his turn, or seemed to. St. Helens suspected that his thoughts, too, were of predicting cards.
"You've become a master tactician, St. Helens."
"How's that?"
"Your move places my king in check."
"Oh." He hadn't noticed. "I forgot to say check, so by the rules it's your move again."
"I wonder about Mouvar. Maybe he's a player. Maybe he used my son and grandson for his own purpose. Maybe he's accomplished what he wanted to and now—"
"Moving your queen there will put you in check again," St. Helens said.
"In that case I concede the game. I couldn't have won without a Mouvar stepping in. I wonder about my son and grandson. Mouvar doesn't do big things like piping down the walls of Jericho, but he gives indications that he knows what's going on. He left those boots for Kelvin at the right time, and a personal message for him."
"You think maybe it's a game that's been played for centuries?"
"Our centuries, perhaps. By Earth time we could have existed here for minutes or seconds. That relativity thing we used to discuss."
"I get what you're suggesting, Commander. If Mouvar's a god—"
"He's not. Or if he is he's not all-powerful. My other son in the different frame has a wife who believes she spoke to Mouvar as a child. Sounded more like something from a UFO than a god."
"That robot talked about him too, didn't he? That robot on the chimaera's world."
"Yes, it talked about Mouvar and claimed it visited different frames. The tin man also talked about major worlds and minor worlds. Worlds of science and worlds of magic. Mouvar, according to the robot, came from major worlds run through science."
"I've never understood it, Commander. Mouvar may have used science in building transporters, but then didn't he use magic? He left the gauntlets and then the boots, and don't forget the opal that may or may not have been his."
"As my unfortunate daughter says, maybe science and magic blend. At some point of development maybe the two are indistinguishable from each other. To our ancestors, yours and mine, the inventions we grew up with would have been seen as magic. When I consider what the transporters do and what the gauntlets and boots do, I'm not sure if they're magic or if they're—"
"Science?"
"If we were Neanderthals how would we comprehend computers?"
"We wouldn't. We'd call them magic."
"Right.
Magic or science, to us Neanderthals there's no practical difference. The big question is, are we or are we not more than chess pieces to beings such as Mouvar?"
St. Helens dutifully considered the matter. After several long minutes of difficult thought he concluded that both he and his old commander had had more than a sufficiency of dark red. As for the answers, from where they sat there were none that made sense.
CHAPTER 22
Help Me, Devale
The faintest of clicks sounded in the silent room, and the beautiful young woman with the old and warty face stood before Professor Devale's desk with her head down. Not now was Zady the arrogant witch she had been. Now she was properly repentant and humble.
Devale smirked. He knew this last defeat would break her. He knew what she wanted.
"Professor Devale, Master, your eager but failing student has again returned."
"I see that, Zady. Do something about your head."
The young arm flipped an invisible fabric and the head disappeared from the neck up. Standing before him was a usable body without any unfortunate accessory.
"Hmmm, that might be interesting, but bring back the red hair and green eyes."
Brilliant red hair, an exact copy of Zady's long-ago destroyed niece's, floated above the neck.
"The entire head, Zady."
Now the head matched the rest of the body in seamless, enticing allure. A whole woman now, and wanton beauty deserving the word witch. She stood there silently, awaiting whatever humiliation he should choose to inflict.
"You may speak, Zady."
"I did my worst. The dragon still has the opal but doesn't know friend from foe. I intended that it destroy Helbah and the Roundear in big, unfriendly bites."
"But that too failed, didn't it, Zady? Just like your gold-bought fighters and your former classmates."
"I tried."
"Of course you tried. But that didn't do it, did it?"
"No. Blind luck enabled them to win the battle, but not the war."
"Blind luck favors the most intelligent and forceful plan of action. Your bumbling mishmash didn't deserve to succeed, if it depended on luck. Your course of action should have been so sure that victory was inevitable." Oh, it was pleasant teasing her with a lecture on elementary strategy!
"Surely true," she agreed tightly.
"What will you do now—hide?"
"I haven't surrendered yet."
Devale let his eyebrows climb toward his horns. He was getting it out of her a little at a time, savoring his revenge. She had been sassy to him, and now she would suffer. "What, then, is your plan?"
"I need your help, Professor. I can't handle it alone."
"But you weren't alone. You had your army and your underlings."
"Not enough. You have to help me."
"But I have helped you. I have given you gold. Will more gold enable you to meet your ends?" He put just the right degree of uninnocent perplexity into his voice.
"I want to make an example. Your powers are much greater than any witch's or warlock's. You can do what I never could."
"Yes?" It was wonderful when he could reap compliments without even fishing for them.
"I'll demand surrender of the Alliance. To prove that they dare not resist me I will make an example. I will take something from their world that has been there for a long time. The entire Alliance must be impressed."
"You can do that, Zady?"
"I know that you can. Let the Alliance think that it was I. Will you do it, Professor?"
"I prefer the appellation Great One rather than Professor. It better defines our positions."
She didn't even blink. "Will you, Great One? A mountain or a city? Why not a city?"
"Why not a kingdom?" he asked grandly. "A kingdom from outside the Alliance? That should impress them for a start."
"A kingdom from outside the Alliance? There's only Rotternik and Throod."
"Which will it be, Zady? Which of those two do you wish removed forever from the frame?"
Zady's eyes glowed as she looked up at him. "Oh, Great One, if you will do that I will be so grateful—"
"Of course you will. Which?"
"Rotternik should have fought on my side, but they fought with the Alliance. Helbah got to them after my visit."
"Then it's Rotternik?"
"No. Throod failed me with its arms and its armies. Can Throod be destroyed?"
"Throod can vanish completely, never having been."
"You can do that? You can take it from the frame?"
"You doubt my power, Witch?" He was showing off, of course, but he indulged himself. The fact was that she had come up with a notion that would truly impress the folk of the frames, and so he would follow up on it. For his own aggrandizement rather than hers. Everyone would know the true power behind the magic.
"Oh, no, Great One! No!"
"I will wish to watch the reactions of your enemies as you work at destroying them. I may add embellishments and assist with refined torments. You will need a large communication crystal that will give you access to my wisdom and accord me the pleasure of viewing. I will stay here, in this office, but my eyes will watch and my senses be gratified."
"Oh, Great One! Oh, Great One!" The witch leaped and clapped her hands in anticipated joy. How eager she was to promote his notoriety! "We will destroy the roundears and the lizard that holds the opal, and everyone and everything that they hold dear! We will destroy Helbah and her ilk and bar them forever from what will then be our frame! We will succeed as only you and I can!"
"We will, Zady. Gradually, artistically, as befits my kind and yours."
"Of course. Oh, Professor, the pleasure of it!"
"It's Great One. And speaking of pleasure—" He made a gesture that converted his desk to a bed. "Time for mine."
"How do you want me, Great One?"
Pitifully subservient and foolishly grateful, as she was now. The attitude was more important than the form. But naturally he did not tell her that, because she could pretend attitude as readily as form, and he preferred at least a bit of reality along with the pretense.
"The present form will be satisfactory." He made a smoke and changed his own form to that of a large snake. Moving quickly, he struck and buried his long fangs in her left breast.
She screamed delightfully, slapping him, flailing his body with her frenzied jerks.
The venom he had injected was taking immediate effect. He released her nipple from his snake mouth, dropped onto the bed, and became a large, goatish creature reeking of lust.
"Do your damnedest," Zady gasped. She crawled onto the bed beside him, shaking from head to toe. The left nipple had turned black and the blackness was creeping into her breast. She could have concealed it with illusion, but had the wit to realize that he didn't want that.
Pleased with the evidence of his potency, Devale bit her right breast, butted her in the stomach, and hurt her wherever he could with quick blows of his front hooves.
After he had broken several of her bones he mounted her, not neglecting to break her back. His passion pounded at its cruel and demanding height.
Not lightly did he take a witch's invitation to do his damnedest. Before he healed her she would learn exactly what his damnedest really meant.
The dark-visored warlock, though a stranger, stepped boldly into the Cryptgreen Drugs and Potions Shop. Just as though he belonged here he went right to the shelves holding antidotes and spell reversers. He searched there, shaking his head from time to time.
"You wish a certain product?" an apothecary with bald head and pallid complexion inquired. "Name it and we will order it."
"Dandlecat fluff."
The apothecary appeared to wilt. "Honored warlock, that is extremely rare!"
"I know. It seems I was misinformed."
"Perhaps—a shop specializing in—"
"Yes?"
"I hate to suggest it, but one of the shops serving benign clientele."
The stranger exi
ted, as though properly offended.
On his way to the transporter station Whitestone had to reflect again on the advice he had been given: "Try the shops serving malignants, if you dare. No shop serving benigns has the fluff or can obtain it."
It had been an exhausting and fruitless search.
The pharmacist at the Rexmall stared in disbelief at the oddly dressed person who had negotiated the soda and lunch counters, passed by the aisles of stationery and toys, and come right to the back. Orange hair and a zoot suit right out of the 1940s: this fellow was weird!
The customer reached into a pocket, brought out a coin, and put it on the counter. The pharmacist examined what was surely a gold coin, without touching it.
"What can I do for you, sir?"
"I have more of these coins. You may have what I want under a trade name. It's an herb that has been known to grow naturally. What I want is dandlecat fluff. It has been used successfully in restoring certain conditions of damaged sight."
The pharmacist knew a nut when he saw one. He knew a gold Krugerrand as well, he thought, though he had never actually been shown one. If he could have sold the mental case something he would gladly have accepted the South African coin. Alas, he would need a prescription to sell the head case something that might benefit him. Dandlecat fluff indeed! He might as well have asked for unicorn horn.
"Sorry," the pharmacist said.
The customer left, buying nothing and inspecting nothing on the way through the holiday shoppers. If he had been dressed as Santa Claus it might have made a little sense. Maybe he was a Hollywood actor on a television stunt show? Possibly the pharmacist should have been more cagey and gone along with the stunt.
Mourning the loss of a possible free trip to Hawaii or some other bounty, the pharmacist busied himself filing prescriptions for more normal customers. Someday, he thought disgustedly to himself, there would come a time when he'd have his wits about him.
After leaving the drug shop, Zudini simply walked. "If they don't have it there they won't have it anywhere," he had been told by the man he had asked. Zudini believed the man, though the gentleman had acted strangely about the suit he had on. Waste a lot of effort on an authentic disguise and that was what happened!