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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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, antic.i.p.ating 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 h.o.r.n.y 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. s.p.a.ce-time flashed through her being. Then she was being lifted up in a man"s strong arms.
"Professor Devale! d.a.m.n 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 rea.s.sured, Heln lay back and closed her eyes.
Kildom pulled Kildee"s nose, arousing him from sleep. "You big dunderhead!" Kildee protested.
"Don"t hit me, stupid! We need to talk."
"What about, dumbb.u.t.t?"
"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 a.s.sociates 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!"