Because he really wasn't a hero, he knew. He had all kinds of limitations and inadequacies. If it weren't for the magic and science devices he happened to have, he'd be nobody. Others might be fooled about him, but he didn't fool himself.
Down below was a troop of horsemen and men on foot wearing Kelvinia's grass-green uniforms. He lowered and hovered, while shouts went up and fingers pointed at him. No missiles followed, so he was still the Roundear of Prophecy as far as these men were concerned.
Cautiously he descended until his feet touched the ground. Soldiers who had been drooping from fatigue now ran forward with joyous and triumphant cries.
“He's back! He's back! The Roundear's back!”
Kelvin waited. Soon a man with what seemed a bad burn on his arm was pumping his hand and shouting loudly: “General Broughtner! General Broughtner! Someone get the general!”
In due course, after much handshaking and incomprehensible expressions on the part of the soldiers, General Broughtner was there. The pointed-ear general who had fought so valiantly in the war with Aratex drooped in his saddle and looked almost as though he had lost a campaign. Kelvin remembered that he had been a village drunk before the formation of the Knights and the Rud Revolution. It was possible, looking at him now, to think that he had regressed.
But when Broughtner spoke it was not with slurred speech, and no fumes of wine were on his breath. “Kelvin! Thank the gods!”
“I just got back,” Kelvin explained. “From my brother's wedding.”
“I know. Now we're saved.”
“I don't know what has been happening. Has there been fighting?”
“Has there been!” Broughtner dismounted with the help of a private. He staggered over to Kelvin, shook his hand, and grabbed his shoulders. “Kelvin, we are at war! We've been losing, thanks to that witch! But now that you're back that will change. Now that you're here with that weapon.”
Kelvin thought: So Zoanna is fighting with magic! So she really is a witch that I have to destroy. Thank the gods Kian stayed behind!
“See these burns?” Broughtner said, pointing. “Witch's fire did that! She's using witch's fire! What chance has an ordinary man against that?”
Kelvin looked at the scorched faces and arms. None had been fatal or even very bad, but maybe others were. The general was right, there was no way the ordinary soldier could fight against witch's fire.
“You'll burn her, won't you? The way you did with that witch in Aratex. Send her damned fire back to her. Burn her up!”
“I'll burn her,” Kelvin promised. It seemed a dreadful fate to inflict on anyone. But then all that the Mouvar weapon did was send the magic back on the sender. If Zoanna was burning her one-time subjects then she deserved to burn.
“She's back behind the Klingland and Kance borders, way back to the twin capitals. She's got plenty of men fighting for her-- Klinglanders and Kancians. If you don't stop her she'll take over Kelvinia!”
“I'll stop her,” Kelvin promised again. His hands went to his belt.
“There's some of our own still fighting near the caps. At least there were. Take care. Witches can be dangerous.”
“I know.” Kelvin lifted off and cruised toward the border. He wished now that he hadn't slept through history class. He knew that Klingland and Kance bordered what had been the kingdom of Rud on its eastern side. He remembered that there were twin boys born on a once-every-four-years bonus day. The boy rulers were young in body but aged, thanks to a bit of prenatal magic, only one year for a normal person's four. But he had always heard the infants terrible, as they were called, were but mischievous perpetual boys. There was always something about a caretaker who had allegedly administered the calendar spell as they were born. But to the best of his recollection they were not bad boys, and their guardian mostly minded her own business. Certainly Rud had never fought with these lands, or had not fought with any other with the possible exception of Hermandy. If Zoanna had gone there with Rowforth seeking allies to get him a throne, then the situation was at least as serious as had been the affair with Aratex. Everyone seemed to think the witch was simply a guardian, but if Zoanna enlisted her as an ally then it was she who was hurling the fire.
Roads and hills and forests and rivers later he neared the caps. Down below he spied a dust cloud of battle, and in the sky was a ball of fire.
It's time to act! he thought, lowering himself to the ground. It's time to crisp a witch as I crisped Melbah.
He landed on a knoll, drew the Mouvar weapon from its hip holster, and prepared to intercept and turn back the witch's fire.
*
Charlain concentrated hard on the crystal as she guided the fireball. It was easier now. She had better control. No longer did she destroy men and horses with the witch's fire, but merely frightened them. If need be, she knew she would do more with it, deliberately.
In the crystal, men wearing the Kelvinian uniform were looking skyward as she danced the ball. Why didn't they give up? Why didn't they leave them alone? Was it because of magic Zoanna commanded, that sent them back? That must be it! They had no choice! It was the only explanation for these suicidal charges.
Below the fireball she knew there were men who were only boys. Perhaps that Phillip lad, and perhaps her own son-in-law. Perhaps big, hearty Mor Crumb who had so cheered her spirits the one time they had met. That had been after the wedding of Kelvin and Heln, and of Jon and Lester. She had been feeling sad because she knew there was so much more to the prophecy than just ridding Rud of its evil ruler. And now, now that evil ruler was back, so what actually had been accomplished?
“Charlain! Watch what you're doing!” Helbah was scolding; she didn't like it when her accomplice's mind wandered. Without intending to, Charlain had let the fireball drift past the invaders and over the forest. Helbah naturally wanted the fireball exploding where it would at least pose a threat.
Carefully, watching the crystal in the tree bole, Charlain brought the ball back over the troops. She knew that Helbah's look-alike, Melbah of Aratex, would have flung it right into their midst. Helbah was like Charlain herself in that she didn't really want to maim and destroy. The invaders had to be stopped, that was all, and if there was a way that would leave all intact, both favored it.
“Meow!” said Katbah, his dark paw touching the crystal over the men. “Meow!”
Oh, all right! Charlain thought, and exploded the fireball.
*
Phillip peeked cautiously out from behind a tree at the edge of the glen. He had stumbled about for days since running from his outfit. It hadn't been that he was scared, exactly, but Lester had been trying to make him go home and then those fireballs had started and all pandemonium had broken loose.
Now, having survived for some days on berries and a few bitter nuts, scared all the time that he would be caught, he had actually reached the glen. He had known something was going on here because he had seen the witch on the road walking slowly with a stick. He had wounded her properly once, he thought, but witches were notorious for surviving almost anything. Thus he had watched her and the cat from the woods, fearful that they would see, yet knowing that they had other things to think about. It had been luck that he had gotten into the woods and luck that he had remained undetected. With more luck still he might yet make up for the trouble he had caused.
There were two witches in that glen. He could not see them clearly there in the mist, but he knew there were two. He had been watching them while his belly growled from hunger and his arms and face smarted from their contacts with netishes and poison oavy plants. He would get her, he promised himself. He would get her.
Old witch Helbah was standing to one side of the tree, partially turned. The other witch and the cat were at the crystal. If he was very, very careful how he aimed he'd skewer old Helbah through the heart. After that he'd have to quickly kill the other witch and the cat. He didn't like it, but he knew it was necessary. How much mercy, after all, did a witch have? He remembered too well h
ow Melbah, his nurse and mentor, had cackled gleefully while burning alive someone she had thought troublesome.
He cocked the crossbow carefully. Bolt in place, three others close at hand. Melbah had trained him in the art of crossbowing as well as in wood stealth and survival in the woods. Melbah had taught him well. Lester and St. Helens did not know how very much he had learned.
He rested the crossbow across a log, placed his cheek firmly against the stalk, and took infinitely careful aim. There would be but the one chance. This time he would get her right through the heart.
*
Blood! Mama! Blood! Blood!
Heln stifled a scream. It was the baby demanding that it be fed! That it be fed what was proper food for its growth and development and eventual birth.
“Heln, what's the matter?” Jon asked. She was bending near, almost asking for it.
Jon is my friend! Jon is my friend! Heln reminded herself. She thought for herself this time, hoping that the baby would understand.
Food, Mama, food!
HUNGRY! WAHHHHH! A second thought, different from the other in tone. How many babies drifted in her womb? What kind?
GRRRRRWWWWW! HUNGER! HUNGER! Gods, a third, and so unhuman!
“Heln, you're scaring me,” Jon said. “Why do you look like that?”
They were only food sources, after all. Hunger of a superior life-form superseded everything else.
“Heln!”
She had to get her teeth into that luscious throat! Nourishment pulsed hot and red just beneath that vein. She was strong, very strong, her teeth would rip and tear into that luscious flesh, her tongue would lap up the steaming blood--
“Heln! Stop it!” The food source pushed at her head, holding her back, challenging her to use her full strength.
Food, Mama, Food!
Hungry, Mama, Hungry!
Gwrrrrrowth!
“Dr. Sterk!” Jon's voice rose suddenly in fear. “DOCTOR STERK! HELP!”
*
Kildom nudged Kildee in the ribs. “Come on!”
“What?”
“She's gone. Let's do what we said we'd do!”
Kildee followed his brother around the palace wall, worrying. Kildom was always getting him into things! He'd agree out of frustration from Kildom's challenging digs, and then he'd be hooked. This time he was really caught and he didn't like it.
Kildom ran right up to the dungeon guard just as they had planned. “Trom! Trom! They're coming, Trom! We just saw them run into the trees!”
“What are you two up to?”
“It's true, Trom,” Kildee said, playing his part. “We saw three of them in the woods. Soldiers, wearing the Hermandy uniforms! I don't know how they got there, but--”
“Damn! If you're lying to me I'll hold you while Helbah soaps your mouths!”
“No, Trom, really. Enemy soldiers! Maybe slipping up to kill Helbah! Maybe to kill us, Trom! Trom, you've got to do something!”
“I can't leave my post,” Trom said. “Even if I believed you I couldn't.” He looked worried, Kildee thought.
“Trom, you go with my brother and I'll guard. Please, Trom, please.”
“Oh, all right,” Trom said. “But if anything happens here, you raise a shout!”
“I will, Trom, I will,” he promised angelically.
Trom should have been warned by that, but he was distracted by the urgency of their message. “Come,” said Kildom, taking off at a run.
Trom hesitated a moment more, then followed him at a brisk walk that became a trot. They rounded the corner of the palace and were out of sight.
Well, there was no helping it now. Kildee took the key he had surreptitiously taken from the guard's key ring and ran with it as fast as he could go. Down the dungeon stairs, to the dark, recently scrubbed cell.
“General Reilly, General Crumb, come quick! My brother and I have begun your escape!”
CHAPTER 28
Goodbye Again
Kelvin's finger was already tightening on the trigger of the Mouvar weapon when he noticed that his gauntlets were hot. Well, that was natural, wasn't it? The gauntlets warned of danger, and certainly that ball of fire was danger. So why did he hesitate?
He knew what would happen when he pressed the trigger. The witch's fire would return to its sender and destroy her. The Mouvar weapon was antimagic, as his father had deduced. By moving the little fin-shape on the handgrip he would simply counter the magic, wipe it out, as it were.
Was it really Zoanna hurling that fire? Or was it the other witch, the one said to live here?
No, No, Kelvin! Do not destroy the witch! Do not destroy her!
It was the chimaera's thought! The monster was still with him! He had thought Mervania long disconnected.
You think I don't want those berries? Leave it to you and you'll never get back with them! First you'll fool around fighting, then you'll go see your wife, and forget about what's important.
“But the fireball!”
Believe me, I know better than you!
But--
The fireball that was now ahead of the advancing army dipped groundward. Now was the time to act!
No! No, you fool inferior life-form! Don't you feel your gloves heating? You'll kill your mother!
That got him. He didn't know what the chimaera meant, but he knew a warning. Indeed, the gauntlets were burning; he had been concentrating so hard that he hadn't noticed, or had taken it to be from the radiation of the fireball. Quickly he moved the knob on his weapon so that it would simply counter the magic rather than rebound it on the sender. He started to squeeze the trigger, pointing the weapon skyward.
The fireball exploded spectacularly, sending down to the ground, just ahead of the troops, a golden waterfall of scintillating stars. The knoll shook, and his face hit the grass. He let loose of the weapon and for the moment he felt complete and overwhelming terror.
When he was able to look he could see the Kelvinian troops scattering, responding to the terror he'd felt. Behind them the fireball grew bright, sputtering like a dying fire. The fire hurt his eyes, creating afterimages that disoriented him and made him feel as if he were again in astral form. Then the images faded as the waterfall faded, and there was nothing but littered landscape and fleeing men.
Kelvin swallowed. “It-- it could have killed, but it didn't!”
Now you know, Mervania said to him in his whirling head.
You said my mother! Kelvin thought back, dizzy.
Would I lie to you, when your mission for me is incomplete? Now you are soon to learn about your mother.
*
Phillip startled at the sound of breaking brush. His shot went wild and he heard the bolt thunk hard in the trunk of a tree down in the glen. He hadn't time to turn his head before he was grabbed hard from behind.
"YOU BRAT!" St. Helens roared. “You totally senseless nincompoop! Wasn't shooting her once treachery enough for you? Did you have to do it again and mess up our escape?”
Phillip was abashed. “I did it for you!”
St. Helens picked him up in very muscular arms and shook him. The face of this man who had meant so much to him since he had first accepted him as friend was terrifyingly red. St. Helens, he thought with shock, was about to kill him.
“You did it for yourself, you show-off brat! Don't you tell me otherwise! Don't you even think otherwise!”
Phillip bit his tongue, whether deliberately or accidentally he couldn't have said. He tasted salt and felt blood trickling from the far corner of his mouth as St. Helens quit shaking him. Maybe the blood would appease him, he thought. He gazed into those angry eyes and everything he'd thought to say vanished from his mind.
“She's a good witch, Son,” Mor Crumb said behind St. Helens. He was as big and rough a man as ever lived, and one who had no reason to love witches. “She's the kind we can deal with.”
“A witch is a witch is a witch,” Phillip intoned. It was, he'd learned, since his kingship, a common saying.
&nb
sp; “Not this witch, Son.” Mor spoke firmly, fatherly, with a hint of reproach.
“She's a good woman,” St. Helens agreed, the fire in his eyes dampening. “She'd have helped us out of our real difficulties when she and I first met. She's not the enemy. Our enemy's back at our home palace.”
“Zoanna?” Phillip managed.
“Zoanna.”
“But you-- “
“Were bewitched. Had your mind twisted. We all did. Same's the bitch did to John Knight, long time ago. But now we know. We know it's her and we can manage to do something.”
Phillip looked at Crumb's face and then back at his former friend. They were both serious. Was it that he had unwittingly let himself be used by Zoanna exactly as he had let himself be used by Melbah? A witch was a witch was a witch. But couldn't there be a good witch?
“You may be right, Generals Reilly and Crumb, but I was going by experience. A witch is treacherous, cruel, and unforgiving. That's how Melbah was. How could I think that this witch would be different?”
“You couldn't, Phillip.”
St. Helens opened his hands and dropped him. He hit the ground and saw both men staring past him. He turned. There, standing before them, apparently unarmed and unprotected, was the witch who to his eyes looked exactly like the one who had raised him. Only not quite. Up close this woman was softer, with more agreeable lines, as if she had been known to smile sincerely.
“You did what you thought right,” she said. “You knew that Melbah had always deceived you and that her word was not to be trusted. You assumed I would take advantage of General Reilly's trust. You are a boy; you thought as a boy does. Make a witch harmless and she will not harm you or those you love. It is an old recipe, long believed. To truly follow the recipe calls for the witch's complete destruction. In order to destroy a witch you have to believe in her malevolence.”
“I-- I did,” Phillip agreed.
“And now you don't?” Her voice was soft, not unfriendly.
“I-- don't know. I guess if you want to harm us, you can.”