CHAPTER 5.
Chimaera
It was strange being picked up and carried by two left scaly human female arms and two right scaly male arms. Kelvin watched the bulge in the male pectoral muscles where they joined the side of the creature. He hardly dared look at the female side where he imagined there was a bit of breast beneath the coppery sheen.
"I hate to disillusion your fond conjectures, but my kind don"t have b.r.e.a.s.t.s," Mervania told him. There was a slight reproach in her tone, as though he had insulted her, or perhaps disappointed her. "Perhaps if my body was of the goatish nature envisioned by Earth"s Greeks, I"d have an udder or two on my chest. But as you can see," she clicked the huge claws that were helping to support his weight, "my main body is of the Crustacea."
Yes, he had noticed. Oh, did those pincers feel hard! He was almost disappointed that her body had turned out so unlike his guilty expectation.
"Why thank you, Kelvin!"
He tried to stifle his further thoughts. Now they were descending a ramp. At the bottom a door was ajar and his father and brother lay still bound hand and foot with the froogears" vines.
There was a third individual, unbound, rather plump, wearing a suit of transparent body-covering armor. Through the armor he could see a body-length undergarment that showed neither seams nor fasteners. The stranger had dark red, wirelike hair, a stern slash of a mouth, and ears that were not quite round as his own, but pear-shaped.
"Why didn"t you run out?" Kelvin demanded of the stranger. At that moment the chimaera dumped him on the floor. The scorpiocrab pincers reached past his face, sending a thrill of alarm through him, and neatly snipped the vines. His bonds fell away, and he scrambled to his feet as the monster released the others.
"Because, stupid, it"s a chimaera!" the stranger snapped.
Kelvin noted the iron rings set in the stone wall. This place was evidently a dungeon beneath a castle. There were piles of straw for beds. The only other furniture was a trough that stood chest-high and held an a.s.sortment of chopped fruits in some sort of gruel. Kelvin could not believe the mouthwatering smell coming from that trough, and he realized that his stomach was really empty. In the far corner he could see an open drain. There was a small stream of water running through a narrow stone depression that entered one side of the cell and exited the opposite. The water looked as inviting as the food, and cool.
"Go ahead, eat, all of you, make yourselves fat!" the stranger said. "If the monster eats you first, that"s longer for me!"
"Goodbye for now," the Mervania head said dulcetly.
"Hearty appet.i.tes," the Mertin head added.
"GWROOWOOTH!" spat-snarled the dragon head. Huge jaws opened. A forked tongue reached out and just missed licking Kelvin"s flinching face.
"Grumpus, no tasting!" Mervania chided.
With astonishing ease the huge mixed-up beast turned, its long copper sting sc.r.a.ping first the wall and then the ceiling as the tail elevated and curled over the back. With a fast scuttling motion the chimaera exited. It turned around its ma.s.sive copper crustacean body and its human arms grasped the door"s edge. The heads looked in at them as the door swung shut. From outside came the sound of a heavy bar dropped firmly in place.
The cell was not really dark. Light filtered down to them from narrow slits s.p.a.ced at intervals near the ceiling. By that light, Kelvin could see his father and brother rubbing their arms and legs to restore circulation. The chimaera had not bothered to take the vines. Contemptuous of any plans they might form, it had left their bonds where they had fallen.
"I would have thought there was nothing worse than a golden dragon or a silver serpent," John said, rubbing his feet. "But a chimaera, for G.o.d"s sake! And copper!"
"Huh," said the stranger. "Where you stupids been? A chimaera could eat your golden dragons and silver serpents for breakfast! Most probably have!"
John Knight gazed at the stranger. "You"ve encountered them? Other frames?"
"Certainly. You think other worlds don"t have transporters?" There was something mechanical and metallic about the stranger"s voice. Maybe it was merely its arrogance.
Kelvin watched his father"s face. For someone who imagined his own world as far more advanced than others, it was a shock. Kelvin felt a little of the shock himself, and he hadn"t his father"s illusions.
Kian tiptoed to the door. He listened for a moment, then walked back. "It"s gone. I don"t think it"s listening."
"So we can speak freely now, huh?" The redhead laughed as contemptuously and falsely as could be imagined.
Kelvin found himself looking from stranger to father to half brother. This was a totally incredible situation, even by adventuring standards. Trapped in a chimaera"s dungeon with a know-it-all stranger from a different world! That armor had the appearance of gla.s.s or plastic, though Kelvin knew of these invisible substances only from his father"s description.
"We"ve never been here before," Kelvin said. "In our frame the chimaera is thought to be only legend."
"You"re here by accident?" the man inquired sneeringly.
"Why else?" John Knight demanded, stung by the stranger"s manner. "Why else would anyone come here?"
"For the chimaera, of course. Just for the sting of it." Again that incredible, irritating metallic laugh, as though deep inside himself the stranger pushed a b.u.t.ton. He seemed at times to be almost as inhuman as the monster.
John"s mouth tightened. If the stranger kept irritating him, there would be trouble. No one made fun of John Knight.
"We"re all on the same horse," Kelvin said quickly. It was an expression he"d learned from his mother, his father having a similar expression about boats. "We might as well get to know one another. I"m Kelvin Knight Hackleberry. This is my father, John Knight. This is my half brother, Kian Knight. Father came to our frame by accident, and together we came to this frame by accident. We were hoping to arrive in a world like ours but with silver serpents instead of golden dragons."
"Real novices, huh? Call me Stapular. I"m a hunter. I"m here by design. I"m the last of my party that"s left."
"The others in your party, they were-"
"Destroyed, of course. d.a.m.ned locals" fault. They interfered, or we"d have gotten it."
Kelvin felt more and more helpless. Just how had he gotten to be the mouth for his party? Yet of the three of them he felt he was best qualified. Stapular was the most irritating person he had encountered, next to his father-in-law, and he wasn"t certain his father or half brother could endure that long.
"You mean a superior, frame-jumping party came here to find a chimaera, and was captured by lowly froogears?" Kian voiced the question before Kelvin thought of it. Kelvin had to suppress a smirk; his half brother did have a certain talent for implied sneering, when he chose to exercise it. It was a legacy from his heartless mother, Zoanna.
Stapular responded to the rudeness as rude people often do. "You want your nose flattened, roundear?"
"He just wants information," Kelvin said quickly. "We all do."
"Do, huh?" Stapular"s mouth snapped shut as if he intended to keep all the information he had.
"And exchange. Though there"s little we can tell you that will help."
"Nothing I can tell you that will help either." Stapular seemed satisfied.
"We were captured by froogears. That fruit they rolled into our chamber-"
"You fell for that, huh? Hah!"
"Yes," Kelvin said evenly. Was this oaf trying to bait them? "We are, I guess you"d have to say, unseasoned in frame travel. We didn"t know this world existed, and as I"ve mentioned, we thought chimaeras a myth."
"Mythstake, wasn"t it?"
Kelvin tried not to grind his teeth. Whether Stapular"s superior att.i.tude, his repeated use of "huh" or his grating laugh were the most irritating qualities he couldn"t have said.
"Well, I"ll tell you, Calvin. Unlike your roundear trash, some of us travel freely to any world not proscribed."
"Proscribed?" Ignore the messed-up name and the insult, he told himself. Go for the information. Keep the oaf talking.
"By the green dwarves. You"ve heard of them?"
"No. Unless Mouvar is one."
"Mouvar is. He visits the Minors. My world is Major."
Kelvin"s head whirled. Major, Minor. Minor, Major. How little he knew about things Stapular took for granted.
"The Major worlds-they have more magic?"
Again that irritating laugh, indicating no humor. "Magic! Does this," he tapped his transparent armor so that it gave out a crystalline ring, "look like magic?"
"To us it does. But then we"re ignorant."
"Yours must be a science world, then," John Knight said. "Like Earth."
"You claim to be from a science world?"
"More science than magic. As a matter of fact, magic isn"t supposed to exist, though some in my frame do believe in it," John said.
"Huh, then you are science."
"Sort of. We were just getting around to discovering frame worlds, perhaps, and-"
"Horseless carriages, flying machines, moving and talking pictures, boxes with little living people imaged inside," Kian offered. It was as though he were intent on reporting all the wonders of his father"s birthworld in one breath.
"That"s primitive science," Stapular said. "You say you were discovering frame worlds?"
"Not me personally," John said. "My people."
"Then you went from a primitive Major to an even more primitive Minor?"
"If that means science world and magic world, yes. It was all an accident with us. Can"t you tell us how you came here?"
Stapular nodded. "It wasn"t froogears. It was the squarears. They live here but separate from froogears. They"re brighter than froogears, but Minors. They tried to keep us hunters out. When we ignored their ludicrous laws they used magic. They"re protecting this last of the chimaera, even bringing it copper. d.a.m.n fools! If they realized what that sting is worth on other worlds-"
Stapular broke off. It was as though his flow of speech had been silenced with a switch.
"You"re merchants! Traders!" John exclaimed. "Not only hunters but dealers. In fact, from what you say, you"re poachers!"
"Hah, you think we"d risk chimaera for the fun of it?"
"No," John said grimly. "I doubt that you"d risk chimaera except for some great profit."
"The squarears don"t know the sting"s value. No way they can use the transporter and find out. Only roundears and those like us can use the transporter here. The dwarves have the transporters b.o.o.by-trapped to keep Minors from mixing too much with Majors and vice versa."
"These squarears who live here," Kelvin broke in. "How"d they stop you?"
"Magic, of course. Huh, they used a spell before we could act. We didn"t know they were around, and then we were paralyzed, our weapons useless. One of those timelock spells you probably know about."
John interrupted the pregnant silence that developed. "Paralysis we understand, but timelock?"
"Time stoppage in a small area. Gives "em time. Very unscientific."
"Magic, then," Kelvin said.
"Magic."
"These squarears," John prodded, "they just left you for the chimaera?"
"They left us for the froogears. The froogears delivered us and all our equipment."
"Then it was just the same as for us. Only we didn"t encounter squarears."
"Right."
"And the others in your party?"
"Eaten one by one."
"By the chimaera. That doesn"t seem possible."
"Huh, a lot you know about it."
"I didn"t say it didn"t happen. Only it does seem strange. On any world I"ve ever been on eating something as intelligent as your species is unheard of."
"You"re not as intelligent, stupid. Not even I am."
"I, ah, see." John mentally shrugged as he realized that Stapular regarded the chimaera as more intelligent than all of them. Maybe it was true, but the notion took some adjusting to. Was it that those two human heads counted double?
"Could the squarears stop the chimaera?" Kelvin asked. "With their timelock?"
"Magic is magic. Why"d they want to try?"
Kelvin couldn"t have answered. It was just a long shot, that they might get help. Long shots seemed to be their best shots, now.
A sudden unbarring of the door drew all of their attention. The door opened enough to admit Mervania"s head. She peered in at them, seeming so much the coppery-tressed woman as almost to fool them. She evidently liked doing that! Then the door swung wide and there was Mertin-head and Grumpus-head beside Mervania-head. The scorpiocrab body scuttled inside.
Mervania looked down on them while Mertin added more food to their trough from a large bucket. Deliberately, teasingly, she lifted something large and green to her mouth and sank her pretty white teeth into it.
Kelvin felt his stomach twist. That thing she was eating. Like a giant pickle, but- It was a forearm. Green, with little seeds stuck to it. Fingers, a thumb. A pickled arm.
Kelvin"s stomach heaved, but it was already empty. He was able only to retch without substance.
"Really, Kelvin!" she said reprovingly, licking off her pet.i.te lips. "It is as you thought, a pickle. Pickled arm. Very tasty with added copper." She took another bite, her teeth now showing points.