"There may be a way," St. Helens said.
"What way? My men were running as if they"d never stop."
"The boy-kings. They"re sort of friends of mine, maybe. Nice little chaps. They even cleaned this cell. They offered me their two countries" surrender."
"WHAT?".
"That"s right. Only I"m not sure the witch would let them. Only she"s a good witch, not the Zoanna kind."
"Witch"s t.i.ts! You mean actually surrender?"
"That"s what they said. They"re afraid for themselves and for Helbah and I think for Helbah"s cat. They"re only kids, younger than Phillip."
"They"re twenty-four," Mor said. "They age one year for each of our four. They only look like six years old."
"So it is said. But they want to surrender, that"s the important thing. What should I tell them?"
Mor looked down at the clean floor and scratched a flea he"d brought. "You could tell them yes. Zoanna and her consort we can get rid of once the fighting"s over."
"We hope. It was tough going before, wasn"t it?"
"Yes. I"d hate to fight a revolution all over again, and this time without a roundear."
"I have round ears," St. Helens reminded him.
"Yah. Yah, you have. But St. Helens, you"re no Kelvin."
"It don"t look like he and his father and his half brother are coming back. Be nice if they did."
"I don"t like to say it, but I figure their disappearing and the evil one appearing may not be coincidence."
They sat in gloomy silence for several long moments. Then Mor spoke his thought: "If they"re winning, they won"t surrender."
"Probably not. But they"re just kids."
"The witch would prevent them."
"I don"t know. She bosses them and spanks their b.u.t.ts, but maybe they have the governing decisions."
"You think?"
"Naw. I think they"re only kids."
"Difficult situation."
"Yah." Halfheartedly he picked up a boot and threw it at the raouse, missing completely again. The rodent looked up in annoyance, grabbed another bite of bread, and streaked for its hole. St. Helens wished he could do that himself.
"All right. All right. If they"ll give the surrender I"ll take it. If it"s legal it should end the fighting."
The raouse came back out of its hole.
Heln held her tummy and c.o.c.ked her head to one side as she listened to a conversation in a distant part of the palace. Her hearing was getting more acute than it had been. And something else. Something she hardly dared think about.
"And you really want me, Your Majesty?"
"Of course. Who wouldn"t? You"re lovely."
"But the queen. Your Mrs., Your Majesty!"
"What Zoanna doesn"t know won"t hurt her, will it? Now just turn over and I"ll unb.u.t.ton-"
Heln pulled her round ears flat down over her head, pinning them and making them hurt. It didn"t drown out the giggly scream of the wench. Yet she wasn"t really offended by what she had heard. Once, she knew, she would have been.
Heh, heh, heh, like old times! Doing a maid while the queen naps. This one"s a bit fat, but I"ll bet she"s got bounce!
Oh G.o.ds, I wanted to be a good girl! But he"s the king! Who can deny the king? Besides, his wife"s gone, poor man, and she was bad and threw him in the dungeon. Will he know I"ve done this before? Ah G.o.ds, he"s biting me! What is he doing down there? OH! OH! OH! OH!
Heln knew what her thoughts should be, and these weren"t her own. She screamed.
Jon woke up with a start.
"Jon! Jon! I"m hearing voices! And I"m thinking other people"s thoughts! I know what other people are thinking!"
Poor girl, she"s demented! "It"s all right. It"s all right, Heln. You"ve just had another bad dream."
"You hypocrite!" Heln exclaimed with sudden helpless fury. "You think I"m crazy!"
"Just a bad dream." I"m going to have to talk to Dr. Sterk. She"s not right! She"s all mixed up, and paranoid! But can he help her? Can anyone help? G.o.ds, I wish Kelvin were here!
Knowing that all was really hopeless now, Heln permitted herself a scream that threatened to collapse the walls of the palace.
CHAPTER 23.
Scarebird
They stood at the edge of the swamp watching the froogears come laden with copper stings. The Crumb look-alikes and their brethren watched with disbelief as the pile grew higher and higher before the transporter. Finally, late in the day, it was all there and the second stage of the operation was about to begin.
"Will this be enough?" Kelvin asked the big Loaf. "Is this enough copper to buy an army sufficient to overthrow your tyrant?"
"Son," Marvin said, very red in the face, "if we lose with this much copper, we deserve it! I didn"t know there was so much anywhere. At home I know there"s not. Can we start sending now?"
Kelvin nodded. The Loafers began working in a way that belied their name. Bundle by bundle they reduced the pile, tossing each into the transporter. There was a purple flash as the stings traveled alone to their destination. At the other end the men who had gone back were presumably unloading as fast as the stings arrived.
Suddenly Kelvin had an uncomfortable thought: Could they be certain that the people who were to get the copper were in fact getting it? The guardsmen might have come in force and overwhelmed those they had sent back. Consequently the tyrant king could have the copper, and would remain entrenched in a land that was identical to Kelvin"s homeland but with a broader river and higher cliff.
Kelvin, you"re worrying again!
I am, Mervania. I can"t help myself.
Suppose you go back and I stay with you as I did before?
If the guardsmen are there they will kill me or capture me. You wouldn"t be able to stop that.
Yes. Mervania managed to make the thought disinterested.
Or can you come to the rescue? If there was something he had overlooked...
No, I"m confined.
I mean, mind-stunning anyone who attacked me, as you did with my father when he- Not at such distant range, Kelvin. I"m only in contact with you, there. It would be like you trying to score on an enemy soldier out of your sight beyond the horizon.
Kelvin thought that over. He didn"t like it. The squarears will help?
They would not interfere with another world"s affairs. That might annoy Mouvar.
But the copper"s an interference!
Not to them. Copper"s a mineral. Besides, there"s no way they can use this transporter.
"No use-? Oh, I forgot! Wrong ears, right?
Your mental deficiencies never cease to amaze me.
Yes, really stupid, ain"t he? the chimaera"s other human head broke in.
Then I"m really on my own? Kelvin asked despairingly.
You"re the hero, Kelvin.
Kelvin looked at his father and brother and his newfound friends. Was he just scaring himself needlessly? No, the chimaera had as much as a.s.sured him that his worries were justified.
"I"m going back," he said abruptly. He drew his sword and flexed his left gauntlet. "If all is not going as it should, I"ll return." I hope.
"And if it is, you"ll stay?" his father asked, catching on.
"Until you join me. The chimaera will warn you if I get there and the king"s guardsmen are in control and I get caught and can"t return." For Mervania could touch other minds more freely, here in her own frame.
"Why can"t we all go?" Marvin asked. "One after the other?"
"Because one after the other we could all be killed or captured. The squarears can"t help and neither can the chimaera. So I have to find out."
They were still discussing it as Kelvin forced his feet to carry him into the transporter. His heart skipped- It seemed to be all right. The four Loafers he had seen into the transporter were there with a big pile of sting bundles behind them. All four of the men were covered with sweat from the work of lifting bundles the froogears had carried with ease. The labor of getting copper to this frame was more than any of them had antic.i.p.ated.
Kelvin heaved a sigh of relief and exchanged greetings. Redleaf, Bilger, Hester, and of course Jillip. The boy, unlike the three grown men, was sweatless and resting. Why did they let him get away with such laziness?
"King"s guardsmen been around?" Considering the mountain of sting bundles, the question seemed unnecessary.
"Uh-uh," Redleaf said. "Just us and the copper. Jillip"s supposed to be watching. He"s too weak for anything else."
"Says you!" Jillip said.
Redleaf grinned and bent to pick up the just-arrived bundle. It was almost like a farm operation John had once told Kelvin about. A machine transporting bundles of grain or gra.s.s that had then to be carried by hand. He doubted that the grain bundles had ever weighed as much as copper.
"When the royalists learn what we"ve got, they"ll want it," Hester said. "We may need an army just to get this to where we can buy one."
"Blrood, you said." Not Throod, as at home, or Shrood as in the silver-serpent place.
"Yah." Hester grunted as he helped Redleaf swing the latest bundle onto the stack.
"I guess I"ll check outside." Jillip isn"t doing it. He must think he"s royalty. The kid"s a slacker, all right.
He stepped outside and discovered that it was now an overcast day. Dark clouds in the sky rather than the white pillows that had been there when he left. A day like this seemed made for worry.
To dispel worry he activated his belt. He lifted slowly, slowly by the rock face. Another ledge, narrower than the one he had left, was between him and the top of the bluff. He settled there.
The gauntlets began to tingle their warning.
Now hypersensitive to their messages, he looked quickly down at the great tree and the broad slash of river. He saw nothing unusual. Why then the warning?
Suddenly it was dark. Not the shadow of a thickening vapor, but a deep darkness that covered the cliffside and the ledge while leaving the more distant landscape unscathed.
He looked up, expecting to see a dense cloud or wind-tossed ma.s.s of dust. What he actually saw astonished and terrified him. It was a great dark something hung there on outstretched wings, supported by the cliff"s updraft. It blinked great yellow eyes and snapped an improbably large beak. It swooped overhead, darkening the landscape.
What by a G.o.d"s G.o.d was that? It was the size of what his father had described as an airplane. But this was nothing to carry pa.s.sengers! This-this dragon-sized thing was alive!
He stood there trying to shut his mouth. He shivered from head to toe. Birds he knew about, bats he had heard about, but he had never seen or heard of that!
The gauntlets had quit tingling as soon as the shadow had pa.s.sed. They knew the monster hadn"t seen him. What if it had? He shivered again, thinking about it. He searched the skies anxiously for some time, actually fearing to move from the cliff face. He looked down at where he had exited from the transporter chamber.
Jillip stood alone on the ledge. He was fumbling with his clothing, intent on relieving himself into the treetop. Fool kid! Didn"t he realize that they"d be climbing down that? He could just as well have stood over against the cliff.
The gauntlets resumed tingling, and grew warm. In a heartbeat it got dark again. The great something slid silently down, swooping like an eagawk.
Jillip seemed to sense it. He turned. He screamed. He tried to jump back. But he was too late, too slow. Huge talons plucked him from the ledge.
Men appeared from the rock face. "Scarebird!" Hester exclaimed. "Everybody back!"
They quickly crowded back into the chamber. Everyone except Kelvin and- "h.e.l.lLPPP MEEEEEE!".
G.o.ds, he was still alive! Because the scarebird had gone after Jillip instead of Kelvin. He had to help the boy! He had at least to try.