Humans not problem. Witch.
Zady, I suppose. I don't know what Kelvin was thinking about, letting her escape! I really don't know if he can think.
Horace gnashed his jaws. Don't insult Father!
Don't you take that lone of thought with me! You're just a dragon! You could have been one-third of a chimaera, but stupid Kelvin wanted his mate to survive the birth. I don't see why—she never was other than human. His Heln isn't in the Mouvar prophecies and she can't even read minds.
Don't insult Mother! The female dragon on his back hissed loudly, giving support to her mate.
If you aren't the most ridiculous creatures! Dragons are intended to eat humans, not defend their pitiful honor.
Father and Mother not ordinary humans. Horace not regular dragon.
I'll grant you that. But what's Zady doing that made you come here? No, don't bother to strain. I'll get the answers.
She sifted quickly through Horace's recent memories. The first thing she discovered was that Horace saw his mate as a large male while the mate saw her and her fellow heads as just what they were. The poor dragon had been spelled and spelled properly. It took but a moment to learn the rest of his story, and then she cautioned him to stay while she scuttled to her herb patch, where she plucked several silver-headed flowers from among bright yellows. She brought them in front of Horace's face and held them before his nostrils.
Horace sniffed just as she blew out a breath and disturbed the tiny feathered seeds.
The dragon opened his mouth, probably to roar, and she tossed the bouquet inside and almost down his throat. He choked, blinked, coughed. His eyes got big and he hiccupped.
Ember, you're you again!
Well, who did you think I'd be?
I can see right again! I can know friend from foe!
Of course you can, you ridiculous creature! Mervania thought to him. Your curse is lifted.
I will go back and kill Zady!
Not just yet. I want to mind-talk.
You help kill Zady?
Now why would I do that, Horace?
"Guuuuurrrrrrrr!"
Oh, very well, I won't tease you anymore. Don't go back—not just yet. I need to take an astralberry and go see what's happening. I can't help until I know what Zady plans. If your father can't handle it and Helbah and Katbah can't, then maybe I can advise them.
Help Merlain!
That's the idea. Ember, aren't you uncomfortable perched atop him? Why not get down and stretch your legs? I can't offer you anyone to eat, but maybe you'd like to gnash a pumpquash or a couple ripe zellons?
No. I like being here. You got carrion?
No carrion, Ember. Sorry. Grumpus ate the last we had. We weren't expecting company. Actually we mostly eat company. Family's the exception.
Glad we mated. Not want to be meal for human-headed crawly thing.
Mervania half-raised her sting in intended reprimand, but forbore shocking their guest. It would be difficult to shock one of the dragons without shocking the other, and Ember had intended no insult but simply described in her terms the scorpiocrab body of a chimaera. Simple minds had simple concepts.
Swallow that astralberry! Horace ordered.
Mervania sighed. So impolite, but she ignored it. The berries were growing in the shade of a big wilpuss tree. She crawled over to it, plucked a ripe white berry, and held it in her human hand.
Swallow it! Horace ordered her again.
Very well. But you guests stay here until after we return to our body. Otherwise we might have to chase you down and eat you, to teach you manners. With that gentle admonition Mervania popped the berry into her mouth and swallowed.
Aw, what did you do that for?
Shut up, Mertin. It's only a short trip.
But I wanted to eat them.
Gwroomth!
You too, Grumpus.
They were now floating over their island. At her urging they drifted on over the swamp and the trees and the desert and into the cave of the transporter. The square-ears were not there now, Mervania not having bothered to mind-communicate with them that they were coming. The transporter, though, was set on the same coordinates it had been set on since Kelvin's last visit. Wanting to go where they needed to go, they drifted their consciousness into the booth, through the Flaw rupture, then out into the chamber intended for roundears. The chimaera had nearly round ears on her Mervania and Mertin heads; not so on Grumpus', but astral was not physical and so the trap was not sprung and the molecular structure of the installation was not instantly destroyed.
They drifted out of the chamber, along the underground river, up above the ancient stairs, above the old masonry, across country to where the dragons had started their journey. Here there were mountain crags and spires and an abundance of rough. Where was Zady? That was what they had come for.
They drifted at thought-pace, speeded by being chimaera and astral. To the highest, darkest, most forbidding mountain in this whole mountain range. Along the way they saw dragons and sheoats and goeeps and other denizens of the mountains. Grumpus commented twice, having spotted living or dead creatures that appeared appetizing. Then they were where she was, and even to a chimaera she had the ugliest of human faces. The rest of her was bare and what Kelvin and his father would have considered beautiful. Were they not in astral form Mervania saw no reason why Grumpus and Mertin should have been denied. One reason only—the head was excessively unappetizing and would make them sick.
The old witch was doing something with lighted crystals and bottles and retorts and powders piled around her. On her biggest crystal a face loomed, and it was a face that Mervania recognized.
Mertin, do you see it?
I see it!
Whimper. Whimper.
Don't be afraid, Grumpus. It won't get us. It can't.
What's it doing with her? It must want this world. It's cheating. Mouvar won't like it.
Of course it is cheating, Mertin. What else would you expect?
Do we dare advise Mouvar's hero? Will we if we can?
It's cheating. It's proper that we help Mouvar.
It may go to our frame and destroy our square-ears.
Not until the end of the game. It doesn't know we are here. If Mouvar wins, we're safe.
If. Mouvar loses sometimes.
Many times. At least as often as he wins.
Whimper, whimper.
Yes, Grumpus, we go back.
They went back the way, all the way, that they had come. They were in their chimaera body, which had remained untenanted. The two dragons waited, munching on Mervania's prize plants.
You have to return, you dragons. Horace, you must not delay helping your father. We'll watch what happens. We'll help when we can.
Horace squatted down and Ember reached up with her foreclaws, hooked his small, worthless wings, and pulled herself up and back into place. The two visitors abruptly vanished.
Poor dragons, poor humans, Mervania thought. Even if we could go there physically there would be no protecting them.
CHAPTER 26
Disappearance
"That's Forbidden Mountain," Glint said, pointing at the mist-covered peaks; with the sun behind them they seemed almost to float in the sky. "I can show you where her old nest used to be."
Kelvin grunted. He had studied the maps, such as they were. Sons-in-law were supposed to get pushy, but Glint was overdoing it. Yet he did need someone to help him lead.
"We can go there together and leave the others here," Glint said persuasively. Out of politeness he was making no attempt, Kelvin hoped, to read his mind.
"I don't think we should break up," Kelvin said. He had no clear idea why he said it; the danger was so obvious. He looked in turn from Glint to Merlain and finally to Charles. "You haven't been able to catch any thoughts, have you?"
"Just a few dragons," Glint said. "None of them ours."
"Then we'd better get over to the right mountain. Roughmaul is that set of high walls and jagged
teeth to the north of Forbidden. If Horace and Ember aren't near your old cave and they aren't where they sunnymooned, they have to be in one of the other of those mountain ranges, assuming they're in this frame." But they could be anywhere, and as unlocatable to Zady and Helbah as to him and Glint.
"Let's try that ledge, about halfway up the big dragon's tooth with its point concealed by mist."
Kelvin leaned over. "Hop aboard, Glint. You others had better wait here." Contradicting himself again; he was doing that lately. The truth was he would gladly have left the search entirely to Glint.
Glint threw a leg across his back. Kelvin found him no lighter than before but made no protest. He straightened the best he could, took a sight fix on the distant mountain range, and stepped.
The step carried them. Up, up, up, forward, forward, forward, and, as a cliff loomed, to his considerable terror, down to a firm footing on a narrow ledge.
Glint slid off his back and stood beside him, young and strong and heroic looking. In the morning mist Kelvin could now barely see the surrounding spires; as for Forbidden, it was here entirely lost.
"That one held the nest," Glint said, pointing. Following the direction of his son-in-law's pointing finger he could make out a collection of rubbish balanced precariously atop a spire. Zady had chosen a location for regrowth protected by facing mountain walls and overhang, yet according a clear view in every direction. Any dragon or human on the ledge they occupied or a nearby peak would have been spotted; undoubtedly she had seen Glint when he had spied on her and put a spell on him to keep him from coming back.
It had been a big step for nothing, then. He strained his never-more-than-adequate eyes but saw nothing interesting around or near the surrounding peaks. Glint had the eyesight and the mindsight as well, so why had he yielded to him? Could there have been some slight mental urging? Had leaving the others alone, even for this short a time, been entirely wise?
Fearing that they had wasted enough time and placed the others in danger, Kelvin stooped and motioned Glint to resume his back. Glint gripped his shoulders and put his legs around him as though he were now an accomplished Kelvin-rider. Kelvin straightened, thought of where they had left Merlain, Charles, and his father, and stepped.
Breezy mountain air, green-growing smells with a hint of carrion, blurring trees and rocks. His boot touched down, its step completed. Glint slid off his back, quicker than a squirbet leaping from a branch. This was where they had left Charles and Merlain and his father, but now the place was deserted. He looked around in desperation, willing that it were not so—that what he had most feared had not in fact happened.
The others were missing, and probably in Zady's cruel hands. Glint, his forehead furrowed, was trying desperately to reach them.
Zady's ghostly, mocking laughter broke into their discomfiture. "Kelvin the strategist!"
He looked at Glint's stricken face and then spoke to the empty air: "What do you want, Zady? Where did you take them?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Cackling followed, either to mock him or in enjoyment of her own nonanswer.
"You want our surrender, don't you?" It seemed a fair guess, assuming she wanted anything.
"You aren't ready to give it. Besides, I want your most precious child present—I've a little plan for the lizard that none of you will like. Besides, Zady wants to have a little fun first."
"You mean—" Kelvin swallowed, imagining what had almost been. In his mind he saw the beautiful, shapely body, and it still called to him.
"Wrong, Kelvin, though I may give you the desire. You didn't think I'd let you possess me, did you? If I had favored you it would have been to bind you to my wishes forever more."
Kelvin felt as though a wind left his stomach. He had realized the truth of her words ever since his niece had helped release him from her spell. The denial had been complete in his mind except for the part ruled by his masculine ego. Only a good woman gave of herself, and there was nothing good about Zady.
"I want to know where they are, Zady! Tell me!"
"Of course you do. I won't tell you."
"Glint?" His son-in-law's powers had to be good for something; Kelvin's certainly weren't. Let him read her and tell.
"I can't see her thoughts," Glint said in a tone of agony. "She blocks."
"The others?"
"Unconscious or taken away from here. As my wife sometimes says, Mouvar help us!"
My son-in-law the telepath! Kelvin thought disgustedly. How did Helbah expect them to defeat this old hag, anyway? And what had Mouvar to do with it? He had never fathomed Mouvar or his plans in the past and certainly didn't now. Apparently Mouvar moved among frame-worlds more easily than Kelvin moved along these mountains wearing Mouvar's gift. Why would Mouvar, a seeming god in power, be interested in what happened in one unimportant frame!
Because it isn't unimportant, Kelvin, a thought broke in on him. Not while they play the game.
Mervania? It's you, isn't it? I recognize your thought as clearly as I could recognize your voice. You're here! You're going to help me!
I'm here astralty. You know I can't be here bodily. There's no way I can leave my island prison except in immaterial form.
Where are they?
Safe for now. She has them but has not yet started to do them real harm.
You can advise them?
Some. I can't do a lot. I'm limited, by being as I am. I have to keep taking astralberries, and that means that I can't stay.
Yes, you have to keep taking them. Your superior chimaera system can—
Take only so many without risking permanent harm to myself. Too many, too close together, and I could never claim my physical body again.
I don't care about that, Kelvin thought hastily, I just want your help. Immediately he felt ashamed of his stupidity and selfishness; the chimaera, after all, could once have eaten him.
Oh, now, Kelvin, Mervania teased as in the time of his youthful folly, you don't have to apologize to me. I know you feel bad because you hadn't the wit to trick me.
No, that had been Stapular the robot who had tricked her, he remembered. But there was someone else alert for trickery now. It was time that he resumed speaking to Zady before she discovered the chimaera was actually here.
"Zady, what is it you want of me?"
"Why, to torment you, of course. To give you suffering." There was no indication that she knew of the chimaera's presence. Though Zady might be able to block thoughts, she wasn't much good at knowing them.
"You want to fight me with or without magic?" It was as bold a challenge as he had ever thrown at anyone during his entire life.
"Why should I? You're already in my power. You've already lost. The official surrender will be but an acknowledgment."
He knew that she had to be right. All that she left out was that there was no way that he or anyone dare acknowledge her victory. As Helbah had put it, not even if the kingdoms all were to vanish one by one. The finalization of a Zady victory was something no sane person dared to contemplate.
"Zady, let me know that they are alive. Let me hear their voices."
Silence. A silence that stretched for longer than Zady would need to answer. Had she heard him? Was she still there?
"Zady, speak to me. We have to talk." He was sounding desperate and he knew it, but then what was his alternative? He was desperate and Zady had to know it as well as he.
Mervania? Mervania? The chimaera might be his only chance. If she couldn't advise him, who in any of the frames could?
The chimaera head did not respond to him. Had she returned home to her own frame? Was she even now at work in her garden or preparing to cook some luckless visitor? Or was she here, searching for Zady or the dragons in her astral form?
"Glint?" He turned to the last spot where he had seen his son-in-law. Glint was not there! A meer path led up through the forest. Perhaps he had taken that, having to answer a call of nature. Yes, that was probably it.
"Glint! Glint!" he call
ed loudly.
Silence, seemingly of an eternity. Finally in a nearby tree a tiny greenish bird began to sing. A dragon bellowed in anger or lust. A tree branch snapped as a bearver descended from what had been its perch.
He was alone in dragon territory. Alone, and like the fool he undoubtedly was, he had distributed all his Mouvar gifts, with the exception of his boots and his left gauntlet.
A dragon roared very close, and he turned quickly, knowing that he hadn't time to take a step or draw his sword.
Glint had never felt such an overpowering urge to defecate. His feet, almost of their own accord, had found the meer path and walked him up it and past a large boulder. He wasn't certain why he wanted to be out of Zady's invisible presence, but Merlain's mind had let him know all about expected modesty, and at the moment his wife's views seemed to apply.
"Zady, what is it you want of me?" he heard Kelvin say after a lengthy cessation of talk. He had tried probing the old witch's thoughts and it was like trying to shove through a tough elastic wall. There was no probing that mind, and considering Zady's nature that would ordinarily have been very well.
He felt the boulder and prepared to do what he had come for. Oddly, he did not seem to have to now. Suddenly a pain deep in his chest, and then a hand—a very pretty woman's hand—holding a vial beneath his nose. Involuntarily he breathed.
He felt that he was shrinking, and then he felt that he had feathers on him. He turned his head on his ungainly neck and saw his wing tips and his tail.
"Come, dearie, come. It's time to fly to the nest," a woman's soft, seductive voice whispered.
He couldn't help himself; he was flying. It was like a dream. His wings were flopping but he put forth no effort. Now beside him, flying by his side, was the ugliest bird he had ever seen—an apparent cross between a swoosh and a buzvul. The bird flew ahead of him and he followed right behind its tail. There was nothing to do but follow. Treetops, feeding dragons, meer, a stream, then higher, higher. A spire—a lone spire between mountain walls. On the top of the summit was a pile of sticks.
Glint remembered Zady nesting there—growing a lovely new body from her ugly old head. He was landing where she had once been. Again the pain hit him.