"NO! NO!" Kelvin shouted.
Jon continued screaming.
"Many, many innovations I've thought up. Come join the fun, Kelvin. You won't enjoy any of it."
"No, Zady, no! Don't torture her! I'll come there. You can torture me if you must!"
"Spoken like a true hero." Again the insane laugh.
"I'm coming to find you! I'm coming!" Kelvin said.
"Of course you are, dearie, and don't forget to bring your rejuvenated old father and your mind-reading grown-up brats."
"Zady, Zady, don't go! I want to keep talking! Zady—"
The crystal blanked. Kelvin felt that a part of his mind blanked with it. It wasn't until Helbah spoke that he even thought again.
"You have to go," Helbah said. "With or without surrender."
"We must never surrender, Helbah!" He was pleading, wanting her to contradict him and yet knowing that she couldn't.
"No, not even if all the kingdoms vanish one by one."
Kelvin swallowed. "I've got my boots on. I'll just step over into dragon territory."
"Not without me," Glint said. "I can read her mind if I get a chance."
"I'm coming too!" Charles said. "I want to do more to her than I did last time. Cutting her head off will just be the start!"
"Me too!" Merlain echoed. "She made me walk off a cliff. I haven't forgotten that! I still have nightmares!"
"And don't forget your father," his father said. "She wants me as badly as she wants you. After all I was married to her niece."
"I have to go alone," Kelvin said, faking bravery. Possibly the rest could escape to another frame. He wished he could believe it and somehow make it happen.
"No, you can't go alone," Helbah said. "You need these others, just as they each said."
"But the danger—"
"We're all in danger."
"She'll do horrible things to—"
"To all of us if she gets the chance. Don't you let her get the chance!"
"But I can't take all the others! I've only one pair of boots and one levitation belt!"
"Make more than one trip. Carry them into dragon territory with you, Kelvin, one at a time."
"But—! But—!"
"Son," his mother said, coming close to him, "do as she says. Helbah knows best."
"But they're my children, Mother! They're young, and I'm—"
"A hero, Son—a prophesied hero. You've got all your past to prove you are a hero, and you know that Mouvar favors you."
"Who is Mouvar?" Kelvin had to ask. "Is he a god or a wizard or a green dwarf? If he favors me so much, why doesn't he come here and help?"
"Because that's not his way, Son."
His mother held his face in her hands and looked as beseechingly at him as she had sometimes done when he was a small boy. Now, as then, her mother-magic was doing its work. He did understand that it didn't matter what Mouvar was—what mattered was that Mouvar had foreseen him and had provided weapons for him. The gauntlets and the boots and the levitation belt, not to mention the antimagic weapon, were all Mouvar's gifts. So, in a way, was the chimaera's sting. And come to think about it, it might have been through Mouvar's maneuvering that he met the chimaera and that eventually his own remarkable children were born. Mouvar might have foreseen or arranged everything that happened in his life, but it was he, not Mouvar, who was the designated hero.
It all rested with him, and all he could do was hope that Mouvar knew everything and would push him to be a hero in spite of himself. But could he win? Could any human or non-human win against a power that could take kingdoms right out of existence? He would do what he could, but he hoped that Mouvar had more knowledge of the future than did his mother or Helbah. If Horace with the opal and he with Mouvar's gifts couldn't defeat Zady, then Zady must be undefeatable.
"Do you want me to come too, Charles?"
Charles kissed Glow. "No, dear, you stay here with Helbah. With Dad's help we'll win. We'll burn Zady to ashes and scatter them. After that we'll come back to you."
Kelvin was touched by his son's confidence in him. He wished that he had that much confidence in himself. It was time, high time, that he started acting like the hero everyone said he was.
"Dad, you take the levitation belt as a precaution. Merlain, I want you to carry the Mouvar antimagic weapon and keep a sharp mind out for hostile magic. Son-in-law, you strap the chimaera's sting on your back and hope to use it. Charles, here's my right-hand gauntlet—I fought a war with the left one and won. Now we're all armed. Everybody ready?"
There were nods of real or feigned eagerness as his small band buckled on and secured their weapons. Kelvin knew that they had no choice. He stooped down, visualizing the place in dragon country where, as children, he and Jon had encountered their first dragon. The old debris piles would long have washed away, but the river would still have its bend and that ancient rock and big tree would still be there. He'd step well away from the water, at approximately the spot where he and Jon had once tethered their long-gone but never forgotten donkey. He indicated his back with a jerk of his thumb.
Glint took hold of his shoulders and threw a leg over his side. Kelvin lifted him, glad now that he could do so as he couldn't have before Helbah had made him exercise and lose weight. Glint was heavy. But it was only for one step. One step and his son-in-law would slide off and he would leave him there and step back.
Kelvin took the step he had tried delaying. Glint dismounted and looked about. It was a tamer section of dragon country than where he had dwelt with Ember. Wild enough for Kelvin. He hoped Zady would not pull a surprise raid on his little party before all of them were delivered. Glint would be searching with his mind, and Helbah would be watching by crystal, but the possibility was evident.
He stepped back and got his father, who was even heavier than Glint despite his rapid loss of weight. Now he had to fetch his children, and the necessity pained. He waved at his father and Glint. He could count on his father to check on anything Glint sensed by rising into the air as high as was necessary with the levitation belt. He hoped that Glint wouldn't sense Jon in horrible agony from Zady's torture.
He stepped to the palace, bent over, and his son Charles got astride his back. Charles, good boy that he was, could use the sword at his belt with the skill of a master swordsman, with the aid of the gauntlet. He stepped over and down on the riverbank beside Glint and his father. Charles slid off. Kelvin hated worst of all that he was now required to fetch Merlain.
She was waiting, and wasted not a moment. She had pulled on a rough brownberry shirt that would be warm high in the mountains and that covered the Mouvar weapon. He straightened up, took one last look—it might really be his last, he knew—at his mother, at Helbah, at his wife, at the beautiful girl his son had married, and at the two apparent boys. All looked back confidently, including Helbah's familiar. The magic crystals showed his father and Glint and Charles awaiting him and Merlain.
"GO!" Helbah ordered him.
He straightened up and took the step. Countryside blurred as it had before.
"Whee!" Merlain said. "This is more fun than riding Horace!"
Fun! She was still a girl in some respects, and here was her father taking her into more peril than she could imagine. Her mentioning her dragon brother did, however, spark a thought.
He put his foot down, right beside Charles. Merlain slid off and he carefully felt his vertebrae. All he really needed was for his middle-aged complaints to come back!
They were looking at him expectantly, and he had to act as if he were the leader he wasn't. Merlain had given him the clue.
"We have to find Horace," he announced. "We have to find him now, before we go to Roughmaul Mountain. With Horace we'll have opal power."
They looked at him as if they respected what he had said, as he himself did not. Belatedly he realized that if Horace encountered them he would see them as Zady and helpers of Zady and would attack them. Or, and this was an equally terrible thought, if Horace e
ncountered Zady he would see in her only a friend.
CHAPTER 25
Return Visit
Horace was a very unhappy dragon. Not knowing whether to eat someone was frustrating. A mistake might deprive him of relatives. An equally bad mistake could deprive him of his life. As for Ember, the best reason he had yet found for living, he dared not return to her. The last time he had been there he had seen her as a male dragon filled with the mating urge and had been within one jaw snap of killing her.
Yet there has to be a way, he forced himself to think, using his inherited human faculties. Helbah had said she would try to remove the curse Zady had put on him, but to him it seemed that she was helpless. Maybe someone else could help. Should he find Zady and ask her to remove the curse? No, no, she'd never do that, and besides he'd bite her first. Zady after all would hurt Merlain and Ember, and in all the existences there was nothing worse than something that would hurt Merlain and Ember.
It was very, very hard work, this thinking. It just wasn't natural for a dragon! Perhaps if he remembered everything he had ever done he would discover something that could help.
For days and nights Horace paced the area in front of his cave. He'd eat the meat that was brought to him daily by someone who seemed an enemy but whose thoughts were those of an ally. He always investigated the thoughts thoroughly, and so far he hadn't been wrong. Sometime he might be wrong, and the thought bothered him. After eating he'd resume his slow dragon pacing, his tail now and then lashing out in frustration. Somewhere in the past there was an answer.
One morning as he paced and hurt his head Horace noticed that the sky was changing. White clouds were assuming peculiar shapes. He had never seen them do that. The shapes strung all across the sky and did not appear to be moving.
The sky flashed a dazzling bright. Horace blinked and the strangely shaped clouds vanished. The sky cracked into halves. The ground shook and rock fell and bounced and slid from higher up the mountain.
BBBBBAAAAARRRRRROOOOOMMMMM!
The sound was louder than any dragon roar. Louder even than thunder. His head hurt and rang and did nothing good for his disposition. Overhead the sky finished cracking to reveal a land of trees and streams and farms. Horace hadn't known that there was a land beyond the sky—Merlain had never mentioned it.
The sky-land came closer. There was a road, now a big pile of rock, now a building with soldiers in front of it looking up into the sky. Did they see him? Were they enemies of his? Should he opal onto them and destroy them?
A voice came from the sky: "LOOK, YOU OF THE ALLIANCE! LOOK AND TREMBLE AT ZADY'S POWER!"
Zady! It was Zady's voice! He tried to find a thought coming from the sky. He tried sniffing scent from the sky. Nothing! It was some sort of trick!
CRRRAAACCCKKK!
The sound was like a breaking tree. Men fell down as the ground in the sky trembled and shook. The building fell, its top coming down and its sides splintering.
Now the sky-land was receding. Men were screaming at their sky—reaching out hands as though to pick fruit over their heads. The road was in the sky and the pile of rocks. Woodland, shying horses, men and women running, screaming. Children running—and now Horace felt a pang, remembering when Charles and Merlain were like these in size. Trees were falling. Wild animals were running, but no dragons or hunters were chasing them. Trees filled with fruit, grasses higher than Horace had ever seen, long stretches of green with men in uniforms prostrated in a line with weapons scattered by their hands. All was growing dim, dim, dimmer.
CCCCCRRRRRAAAAACCCCCKKKKK!
The land in the sky changed with the sound. There were now no men or farms or buildings. Only trees and a stream and hairy creatures not quite like humans. This was an improvement! This sky-land Horace liked!
"LOOK, PEOPLE OF THE ALLIANCE, AT WHAT ZADY HAS DONE. THROOD IS NO MORE. IT DOESN'T EXIST. IT HAS NEVER EXISTED."
Horace ceased to listen to Zady's unpleasant voice. It was shouting nonsense: things to be understood, if at all, only by humans.
"I HEREWITH DECLARE NO MERCY FOR THOSE I HATE AND IMMEDIATE OR EVENTUAL DEATH FOR ALL THOSE WHO DARE TO OPPOSE ME. THINK ABOUT IT, BUT DON'T THINK FOR LONG."
BBBBBLLLLLIIIIIPPPPP!
The sky was now the old, familiar sky—very blue with white fluffy clouds moving across it. Had it been some magic that had made him see the sky-land? Had it really been there? What about Zady? Where was she? He knew he had heard her voice, croaking as a froog's voice, loud as a dragon's first roar. Had she been up in that sky-land? Should he go up there and destroy her?
Horace wasn't too good with words but he recognized a threat when he heard one. Zady intended to kill her enemies. Zady's enemies were his parents, his friends, his brother and sister and himself. The only way to stop Zady killing them was to destroy her. Merlain said by fire. Horace understood fire; he had been burned by it after lightning struck. He had to help his father—it was a son's duty!—but he had to be able to recognize his father and to identify Zady.
Old problem right back again. But now he might not have time. Zady might start killing them. She might kill Ember.
Fright at the thought of losing Ember made him opal-jump. He was back at their spot. A big, ugly male in heat confronted him there.
HORACE! came Ember's thought.
The big male rushed at him. Horace crouched defensively, protecting his belly from a possible upward strike. The male dragon stopped.
Horace? Horace, don't you want me anymore?
It was her! Cautiously he eased up and stretched out a forefoot to her. Her tongue came out and licked at him.
Could he leave her again? Did he dare?
With the opal in his gizzard he could go anywhere. But Ember hadn't an opal in her. She could only move at a dragon's customary dragon pace, and there was no way at all that she could go some of the places he had been. No way that she could have gone with him and Merlain and Charles and those other two child humans.
Merlain, then hardly more than a hatchling, had held the opal then. The children had got on his back and held on and she rubbed the opal and it took them to a place where there was this big chimaera creature with its two human heads and one proper dragon head. Merlain had explained later that this beast was their godparent who had helped them and their father, though Horace failed to remember how. Merlain had said that the creature had given their father a magic birthing powder that had made Horace a dragon and her a girl and Charles a boy and allowed them to live. He hadn't liked the chimaera the one time he had visited, but that had been because it tried to take the opal from Merlain. He had delivered the woman-arm a sharp slap with his tail, and Merlain had rubbed on the opal and taken them home and away from there.
Ember put her forefoot affectionately across his big back as she teased at him, wanting him to do his masculine duties by her. At another time he would have been pleased to oblige, but now he saw her as a male, and no male was going to clamber on his back! He wouldn't allow that, even if—even if it were really Ember.
Merlain and Charles and those hatchlings he had been told were kings had ridden on him. His father and Glint had ridden on him. Might not his mate ride?
Suppose he was to take her to see the chimaera? The chimaera had somehow saved his and Merlain's and Charles' lives before they were born. Might the chimaera be able to help him now? And suppose he had Ember with him? If he saw Ember as he knew her to be and not as a male dragon in excessive rut, he would know that he was truly helped. Then, with the curse lifted, he could return and find his father, and together they could go and find and burn Zady until she was nothing but a pile of ashes.
It was worth a try. The alternative to trying was to be frustrated indefinitely.
Ember, he thought forcefully, climb upon your lord and master's broad and willing back!
Mervania had been tending her garden all morning, shoring up drooping green and yellow corbean plants and patting dirt up around the bright-orange pumpquashes. She'd have to speak to he
r captors about better controlling her island's weather. Mertin and Grumpus were asleep on their necks, nodding and snoring as she eased their mutual body down the row of plants.
Mertin woke with a loud snort. He twisted his neck stalk to look at Mervania, his fellow head. He belched in typical Mertin fashion and stretched their carapace to the extent that that was possible. "Mervania, we've company!"
"Don't be stupid, I would have sensed—"
She stopped, having turned slightly, and was now looking at two adult dragons, one on the other's back. They were right across her cabsprouts and ruttabeets. The dragon on the bottom was of a dimmer color—copper—than the shiny golden-scaled dragon on top.
"As if gophmice and molphers weren't enough! How can a poor chimaera get her gardening done? How'd they get here?"
"Gwoomth!" said Grumpus, studying the creatures from its dragon eyes.
"Copper good!" said Mertin. "We always need copper to supplement our diet."
"Mertin, we are not going to eat one of our godchildren! This one has to be—the one that should have been a nice head like Grumpus without that ugly—"
Horace raised his head and hissed.
"Ah, so you're sensitive, are you, little beast!" That was not an insult, or at least no more of one than to refer to a creature as human or dragon. Everything was inferior compared to a chimaera, of course.
Compared to the chimaera, the two dragons, one atop the other, were not tall. They barely came up to Mervania's neck stalk. In all the worlds the three heads of the chimaera had explored in astral form they had never encountered an intelligent creature that towered over them. Dragons were large, orcs tall, and the chimaera largest and tallest of all.
You tried to take the opal from my sister!
Oh, that! But I saved her later, didn't I? Helped her, at least.
Maybe did.
Why are you here? She was really curious. To have come here as it had, the dragon must have swallowed the opal. It or the one on its back.
You help Merlain?
She needs help, does she? Can't humans do anything right!