"Jillip, your leader assured me that there were no dragons, no giant silver serpents, no magic in this frame! What by all the gods is that creature back there?"

"Scarebird," Jillip said, puzzled. "Don't you have scarebirds in your frame?"

"Never heard of them! Never want to see one of them again!"

"Must be a placid existence you have," the boy remarked.

CHAPTER 24

Army

The journey to Blrood was surprisingly uneventful. For a full day Kelvin labored with the belt transporting the copper from atop the cliff to the ground. Constantly he broke off in his labors to reconnaissance for guardsmen or scarebirds. The guardsmen never came, nor did the wings of the great bird again darken the cliff.

Getting packhorses for the copper proved to be easy. The Loafers knew the farmers they could count on, most of whom had suffered at the hands of guardsmen. Help for them now was not in short supply.

Disguised as merchants, they made their journey and met the Blrood soldiers who had been dispatched to see them on their way. The territory, the fruit they ate along the way, even the people they saw all seemed a rerun. Once a large violet and light-rose bird flew over calling from a long beak "Pry-Mary! Pry-Mary!"

"Primary bird!" Kelvin guessed. He was certain it couldn't be the purgatory bird, though except for plumage they did seem much the same.

"Political bird," Hester explained. "Also termed beginning bird."

Kelvin nodded and let his eyes wander on to the expected monument. The cairn appeared almost identical to those he had seen on similar missions in two related frames. About the only difference was the inscription which here dedicated the cairn to the memory of Blrood's soldiers, rather than Shrood's or Throod's. Again it seemed they had perished in a two-hundred-year-old war, but not against Hud or Rud. Though he had forgotten to inquire, the kingdom he was now attempting to free was the kingdom of Fud.

Chimaera's Copper

"Recruitment House!" Bilger called. This time the fruit juice dripping from the revolutionary's mouth was definitely red rather than orange or yellow. More packhorses more heavily laden, more local armed men accompanying them.

This time it was not a Captain MacKay with pointed ears or a Captain McFay with round, but a Commander Mac. The commander had round ears as did the last such individual, and his facial and body conformations had similar outlines. But in Throod the big gray-haired, gray-eyed man had lost an arm. His equivalent in Shrood had been slightly balding, had had two good arms and one peg leg.

Commander Mac had all his hair but was missing half his teeth, a fact that became evident as soon as he spoke. He had all his extremities, but his back was bent more than the others and his right shoulder sloped. In addition to all the other differences, Mac wore a patch over his left eye.

The commander held out his hand. Talk and drinking and card playing ceased. Veterans and recruits alike turned their attentions. "Marvin Loaf. You've got the copper?"

"Some. More back in Fud. Safe, I hope."

Mac and two veterans went out and checked the packs. The stings had worn through their coverings in places and the copper was drawing attention from those who dared not touch. A path cleared for the commander. He cut open a couple of bundles, scratched the copper with a knife, smiled, and felt the other bundles with his hands.

"With what you have here you can buy our finest and best fighting men, all equipment, horses, and catapults. Gods, I didn't know there was that much copper! You've got your army."

"Actually there is a catch to our generosity," John said quickly.

They all looked at him inquiringly. Particularly Marvin Loaf.

"Let's go back in and discuss it," Commander Mac suggested.

They did. On the way in John explained: "The catch is that when all of this is over my boys and I leave this frame forever. We're here by mistake. Marvin's help makes us indebted to him, and we pay our debts. Besides, we had much the same situation back home until we did what Marvin's doing.

Only our land is called Rud and its tyrant was a woman."

"Either sex, an army's an investment!" Mac said. "A tyrant is a tyrant is a tyrant until it's dead."

"I like that," Marvin Loaf said.

They found a table, mugs of bleer, and soon had a large assemblage of onlookers. As in similar situations two times before in two different frames, Kelvin was pressed to talk. He did so now with pleasure. But long before he had recited their adventures skepticism reared its monster head.

"Do you really expect," one grizzled oldster demanded, "that we believe that? Dragons are impossible enough, but dragons with golden scales?"

Chimaera's Copper

Annoyed, Kelvin broke off his narrative to explain. "They swallow golden nuggets from the streams.

Since dragons live until they are slain and many have lived for centuries and possibly for thousands of years, the gold migrates to the scales."

A young man there for recruitment shook his head, studying Kelvin with a skeptical expression.

"I've heard of migrating metals in the bodies and shells of shellfish. That's science. But dragons aren't. Dragons are myth."

"Different worlds, different rules," John broke in. "Go on, Kelvin."

He wanted to, but to his astonishment he was losing his audience. None of these tough fighting men wanted to believe this junk. He was hardly into his tale of how they'd had a people's revolution in Rud and the prophecy had made him important, particularly after the dragons.

"And these posters you put up, they really did get you men?"

Kelvin stared at the commander with disbelief. He sounded as skeptical as the recruit.

"Untrained ones. Volunteers. Farmers and others who had had enough of oppression."

"Go on."

He did, but it wasn't fun. Everything he said convinced them that he lied. The painful thing was that lying was one skill he had never cultivated, and one talent that he lacked. He could no more have exaggerated his own part than Jon's.

"That's blood transfusion!" the young warrior snapped. Kelvin had been giving a graphic description of what befell Jon and himself at the hands of the sorcerer.

"Uh, if you say so. Now the dwarf Queeto was catching her blood, and—"

"Science."

"Magic where I come from. Zatanas was using sympathetic magic, the only magic he was skilled in.

Rather than using a doll with my fingernail parings or hairs in it, he used my sister. Same blood, so as she weakened, I weakened."

"That's bunk! I don't believe that one."

Kelvin felt exasperated. How could he get through to this clod?

"You have scarebirds here. I'd say they are sometimes as big as dragons, and fully as dangerous."

"Scarebirds are natural! They have been a part of the natural world since before men! What you're talking about is unnatural."

"Here, maybe. Not at home. At home scarebirds would be unnatural." He did not mention the Chimaera's Copper

chimaera; he saw no need to stretch their incredulity that far.

"I can vouch for everything he says," Kian offered. "You see, Zatanas was my grandpa, and Zoanna my mother."

There was instant silence. Someone slurped bleer. Then a big veteran with a craggy face and bulging muscles laughed. In a moment all the Blroodians were laughing. Kian's apparently ridiculous statement had convinced them that it was all a joke.

Kelvin felt alarm at the look on his brother's face. In a moment, if he did not act, Kian would. That would mean trouble—big trouble—and he had had more than enough of that! Kian might have better self-control than his father-in-law, but barely.

Though it pained him to do it, he started to get up. If he challenged the big man right there and the gauntlets helped him in the fight, that would at least end the laughter.

His father came to their rescue. "It's something to laugh at here," he said calmly, addressing the bleer, "but back then it wasn't. Remember I originated in a world where it would all have sounded ridiculous. We didn't believe in magic there. But let me tell you what we did believe in: we believed in the scarebird."

Silence. Every eye turned to John, diverted from the promise of immediate action.

"Father," Kelvin broke in, "you never said you had scarebirds!" Immediately he wished he had kept his mouth shut. Now everyone was looking at him.

"I didn't mean they were there when I left! But Earth had them before I was born. Way, way back in my planet's history. They were around before any humans were. Every now and then some of their bones were found, sometimes a complete skeleton. They weren't as big as the ones here, but they were similar. The scientists in my time called them pterodactyls. They existed, let's see, approximately one hundred and twenty million of our years before my birth."

"How did you know that, Father?" Kelvin had to ask. When his father started talking about Earth stuff Kelvin almost reverted to child stage. He'd been a question box, his father had said, and Kelvin wasn't certain he'd changed.

"Well, Kelvin, it wasn't magic. My people mostly didn't believe in magic, you see, and certainly the scientists didn't. There were scientific ways of determining the ages of bones and other things. The pterodactyls, what you call the scarebirds, flew Earth's skies long, long before there were men, but their bones proved their existence."

"No humans to see them at all, Father?"

"Not on Earth. In other frames, perhaps. Earth didn't have humans and pterodactyls living at the same time. In other existences, such as this one—yes. These are a lot larger than those we had, however; they've had more time to evolve."

Chimaera's Copper

The faces had all grown serious. Now Marvin, looking so much as Morton Crumb would have looked back home, spoke:

"I don't know about what these fellows say, but there are mighty strange things in other frames. Tell them, Hester. Tell them what we saw."

Lester's look-alike said: "Short fellows made all of squares. Crystals that they saw things in—things at a great distance. Some big creature we don't even have legends about that ingests copper and produces the copper stings we brought. People that seem descended from froogs, with the ear patches of froogs and a froog's habits."

"All that's true," Marvin said. "We were all of us there. So do you want our copper or don't you?"

Commander Mac swallowed. "Those stings were produced by some monster? Grown on it?"

"You calling us liars?" There was danger in the big man's voice, as though he would risk his beloved revolution on it.

Commander Mac took a swig of bleer, lifted his eyepatch, and rubbed a nasty scar where an eye had been. He contemplated, as a soldier had to, then spoke in a very reasonable voice. "I believe copper's copper." He looked around at his friends and associates. No-nonsense types, all of them more concerned with their skills and their work of killing than with the wild fantasies of others.

"Maybe that's all we need to know," the grizzled old fellow said. "The rest, that's none of our concern. Copper, after all, is copper."

Having pronounced a verdict, the unofficial judge retreated to a distant chair. Others joined him, and someone dealt cards. Left was only the young mercenary.

"Well, I think we really need to proceed on that assumption," said Commander Mac.

Kelvin looked at his father and brother and felt his own mouth gaping. It was all over then—all his story telling. It didn't seem to him to be right.

"Yes, I quite agree," Marvin said. "Why don't you visitors go out and see the Flaw. Quite a sight!

You've probably never heard of it."

They had of course heard of it, but didn't say so. "Come along," John Knight said. So they trooped out together, one collection of male kin. Left behind were the locals, who had an important matter pertaining to the revolution to decide.

"Why, Father?" Kelvin wanted to know. "Why leave, when there's so much that's so fascinating to tell?"

John checked to make certain no one else was following. "We have to give them a chance to hash things out alone. As for their incredulity—well, people were that way on Earth, too, Kelvin. Not all Chimaera's Copper

folk, but some. If they don't want to believe, they don't want to know. Something like magic."

Kelvin wondered, and thought he understood. His father hadn't wanted to believe in magic for the longest time. He had denied that there was magic until it was impossible to doubt it anymore. He still tended to think in a nonmagical way.

"I want to see that Flaw, boys," John said. "You know I've heard about it, and I've been through it, but I've never actually seen it. Not when I had my wits with me."

Kelvin remembered the first time he had seen the Flaw. That had been at the beginning of his warring experience. He and the Crumbs had been buying an army to use against Kian's evil mom.

Jon had tried to shoot a star with her sling, and she had been frustrated. Like people who refused to believe in magic even while experiencing it, Jon hadn't believed in the inefficiency of her sling or the distance of stars.

When they reached the wooden barrier it looked just the same as it had in the other two frames, except that some of the graffiti were different. His father stood, openmouthed, staring through the observation hole and into the velvety-black, star-filled depths.

"It's—it's the womb of creation!" His voice carried awe. "Gods, it's a crack through Earth, Earth's worlds! An opening through all worlds, all possible worlds, all alternatives!"

"You had it on Earth, Father?"

"I... don't know. I don't think we did. But maybe another part? Maybe in the Arctic—or maybe another time."

The afternoon passed while John gradually built acceptance for something he hadn't quite believed in. Another day passed while a message was sent to the Fud palace. Another day drinking bleer, playing cards, and waiting for an unanticipated reply to the ultimatum. Still another day while Kelvin worried. Then finally they set out.

At the border a delegation of uniformed guardsmen met them with the Fud flag and a surrender flag.

An enormous cheer went up and down the ranks of mercenaries, though many might have experienced regrets. An adventure too soon over. A war not fought. Bonus pay but not fighting pay.

No spoils, no captive wenches. Back home to the Recruitment House to wait unemployed for possibly many more months.

"And so," the guardsman spokesman was saying, "His Majesty surrenders unconditionally to overwhelming numbers. In anticipation of a change in government he has abdicated his throne."

Amazing! Evidently the despot of this frame was relatively cowardly. They would have to make sure he didn't have some treachery in store.

"Well, now that that little matter is settled—" Kian said, looking happy.

Chimaera's Copper

Kelvin knew that this entire adventure had been just a little matter delaying a wedding, in Kian's view. Well, maybe so.

CHAPTER 25

True Love Runneth

Heeto the dwarf met them first. They had been traveling their weary way from the transporter by foot, Kelvin now and then soaring overhead to see if he could spot someone. They bypassed Serpent's Valley, not wanting to get involved with the flopears and their reptile ancestors this trip.

The gauntlets had been very faintly tingling, not really signaling danger but suggesting that he should move right along to avoid it. In fact, they had been tingling that way for the past day or so, as if they, too, wanted to get this matter over and done with. Finally when their party was on a good road with maybe half a day's hiking ahead, there was the dwarf.

"Heeto! What are you doing here?" Kelvin asked, dropping down out of the sky and landing right in front of him. Was this another wrong frame? He had set the indicator carefully, but there had been so many nasty surprises! Would they never get back to the frame of good Queen Zanaan and lovely good girl Lonny Burk?

The dwarf jumped, startled, then stared at Kelvin incredulously. "You can fly!"

"Yes, I can fly, but only with this belt. It's nothing to get worried about. I'm Kelvin, the same Kelvin whose life you saved."

"You saved us all," Heeto said. "From an evil king and his attempted alliance with flopears. Now, thanks to you, we live in a decent kingdom."

"My father and brother and I have come back. But we won't all stay. Kian wants badly to see his Lonny."

"Yes, Lonny Burk. She is to marry Jac."

"WHAT?" Kelvin felt nearly as devastated as he knew Kian would be. To have gone through so much and to have got here finally at long last and to find her marrying Jac! Not that Jac wasn't a fine fellow, a good skin-thief as his fellows had proclaimed, and a capable revolutionary when helped as required. No, Jac was fine, but not marrying Lonny!

"Your brother has returned to her?"

"Yes."

Chimaera's Copper

"She did not think he would, ever."

Kelvin looked at the sky. It was early morning now; only a short time since they had risen. But how long had they actually been gone from this reality? He could feel the sun warming his skin, and he knew that this reality felt like the only one, and certainly it was now for him. But they had been weeks away by their reckoning. Suppose time here was different, and instead of weeks it had been months, possibly even years?

"She missed your brother, but she thought him gone," the dwarf explained. "She faced the prospect of life as an old maid. Jac believed this too, and asked her to marry him."

"Right, I understand." I just hope Kian does.

"Jac would not have asked if he had known Kian would be back. Jac is an honorable man."

"He is." Here, he thought. In other frames he's a villain. But here, yes, as honorable a person as ever comes.

"You will attend the wedding? You and your brother and father?"

"It's today?"

"Yes. The Grand Ballroom is in the official Hud palace. The ceremony is to take place at noon."

"We'll be there," Kelvin said, knowing now that they were in the right frame and much nearer the palace than he had thought. Now he understood the quiet urgency of the gauntlets: it wasn't a physical danger, but an emotional one. They must have known what was about to happen here, and urged him to get here before it was too late. "Where's your horse?"

"Being shod," the dwarf replied. "I was going to get a silver ring."

"Silver ring? Why?"

"For the wedding. For Jac to slip on his bride's finger."

Kelvin felt stunned. But then he remembered his father telling him of a similar custom on Earth.

When his mother and father had wed they had simply declared before witnesses that they were married, and after that they were. People wishing to end a marriage divorced in similar fashion.

"May I come with you?"

"Of course. Can you fly with two?"

"You want to fly? Yes, my belt should support your weight too. But you will have to hold on tightly, because—"

"Don't worry! I don't know how to fly, but I know what a fall can do!"

Chimaera's Copper

Thus it was that Kelvin went with the dwarf to the jeweler. The jeweler was an elderly, wizened man who seemingly dwelt in his shop. In addition to accessories to his daily life, there was a fine display of clocks, rings, silver plate, and assorted jewelry. He reached under a counter to a secret place and brought out a polished, highly decorated silver band.

Heeto took the ring and examined it. He held it up for inspection in the morning sunbeam coming through the shop's window, then handed it to Kelvin.

Kelvin looked at the workmanship. Flopear without a doubt. In the narrow silver band, just the right size for Lonny's finger, were incised tiny figures. Held to the light the figures seemed to be those of children, and as Kelvin squinted it seemed that the children were running and tossing a ball.

"I never get over what the flopears can do with silver," the oldster wheezed, leaning over the counter. "Those old folk, strolling hand in hand through flowers. How do they do that?"

"Magic," Kelvin answered, remembering his problem with the skeptical men of the other frame who refused to believe in magic. He did not tell the old man that his eyes saw something entirely different. That artistry was twice as special as it seemed! The old man needed all the comforting illusions he could get. Did the picture change for every viewer? Kelvin had more than a suspicion that it did, and that each would find pleasure in what he or she saw. Heeto did not have to worry whether Lonny would like the ring; it would make her like it!

They left the shop, Heeto carefully putting the ring in a small bag he hung over his shoulder. As they emerged into the bright glare of early day Kelvin had an idea. It was a foolish one, but maybe he was ready to be foolish for a change.

"Heeto, would you like to fly yourself?"

"With you hanging on to me, Kelvin? I don't think that would work very well."

"Well, by yourself, then, if you don't go far or fast. Just to feel what it's like." The gauntlets gave no warning, so this seemed safe.

The dwarf's eyes lighted. "Not far or fast!" he agreed.

So Kelvin squatted and put the belt on Heeto and instructed him in the handling of the lever. When he was certain Heeto understood, he stood back and let the dwarf try it.

Heeto nudged the lever ever so gently. Suddenly he shot up high. "Slow!" Kelvin cried, alarmed.

"I did it slow!" Heeto cried.

"Then even slower on the reverse!"

The dwarf's progress slowed, then he hovered, and finally he came slowly down. "I know what happened," he said, breathless. "I was too light for it."

Chimaera's Copper

That made sense. Kelvin caught him as he came within range, so that there could be no further misjudgment. They both agreed that they had had enough experimentation. Yet despite his scare, Heeto was flushed and happy. He had had an experience he would never forget. So it had been the right thing to do, risk and all.

Kelvin donned the belt again. Then he held Heeto, and they flew at a comfortable walking speed the short distance down the road to where John and Kian Knight were still plodding.

"Kelvin, what's that you've got?" Kian demanded.

"Come see for yourself," he replied as he landed.

Kian came forward, squinting his eyes against the far too bright sunlight. He paused, and his eyes widened. He held out his arms. "Heeto! Heeto, my friend! What are you doing here?"

"I was on a mission," Heeto explained, and rushed forward on short little legs that nevertheless were quite swift. He grabbed Kian around the waist as a child might. Kian hugged the dwarf with just as much affection.

Kelvin stood back, eying them and his father speculatively. Kian was the happiest he had ever seen him, so how would he react to the news Heeto brought?

"Lonny—she's all right?" Kian wondered.

"She's... in health," Heeto said.

"But—?" Kian obviously sensed something.

"She thought you were never coming back. She thought you didn't want her."

"I want her! Gods, I want her!"

"She's marrying Jac."

Kian clutched his heart region. His face slackened. His mouth gaped. It was exactly as though he had received a sword thrust.

Kelvin watched his brother settle down into the dust of the road, place his head in his hands, and shake. He wasn't crying, exactly, but his reactions were those of a man on the verge of dying. Kelvin knew he had to do something for his brother.

"The wedding's today, Kian. At noon. We have time to get there. My gauntlets have been tingling; they know it's not too late."

Kian looked up, brightening. "Yes, yes! We must go! We must be there!"

"Kian," said their father, "Jac was good to us, and saved all our lives more than once. Hers too. If Chimaera's Copper

they want each other, you won't interfere?"

"No, Father," Kian said bravely. "No, of course not."

But Kelvin wondered. His brother, unlike himself, had been brought up and spoiled rotten by a ruthless and evil woman. Kelvin had seen far more of his father and himself in Kian than Zoanna and her evil father Zatanas, yet there was a heritage. When Kian was frustrated beyond sanity, would his mother's side come out? Would he pull his sword against Jac? That, Kelvin decided, must not happen.

"The bride and groom won't arrive until the wedding," Heeto said. "You can take time to clean up from your travels, and Queen Zanaan will get you better attire. I see, Kelvin, that you have lost your shirt."

"Zanaan, she's still queen?" John Knight asked.

"Yes, still queen. The people all love her."

"The people have great sense." John Knight spoke with conviction, as though this were a sentiment he had long needed to express.

"What of Rowforth, her husband?" Kelvin asked.

"Rowforth hasn't been found," Heeto said. "He managed to get a knife into Sergeant Broughtmar, his former lackey. We found the sergeant dying on the roof. The king somehow got away, and hasn't been seen since."

"He's still alive, then?" This was bad news!

"Until he's caught. Everyone wants him taken alive so he can be publicly executed."

"The poor queen," Kelvin said.

"No, no. Not poor queen at all," Heeto protested. "She was a prisoner, a hostage to him. She suffered more than any of us. If she could have, she would have divorced him long ago."

"Yes, I suppose that's true." Kelvin looked at his father's face and thought he saw something there that he did not entirely like. He remembered how evil Zoanna had bewitched him, using her magic to keep him enthralled so that she was able to have a child by him. Was it possible that there had been more to it than that? Perhaps a really good copy of Queen Zoanna without her evil ways was what his father really wanted, and certainly Zanaan was that. Certainly she was beautiful. But did he want his father with that woman? Childhood memories of seeing John so content with his own mother Charlain cried a loud if irrational protest.

His father, for his part, had a look of positive eagerness on his face.

Chimaera's Copper

They were almost to the gates, the same gates that had once gone down to permit a charge of flopears on war-horses directed against the Freedom Fighters' troops. Kelvin was recalling that war in all its hideousness and the glory of their triumph, as they approached.

Suddenly a horseman wearing a worn uniform of the Freedom Fighters clattered around the corner.

"They got him! They got the king!"

"Alive? Alive?" someone shouted.

"Alive! They found him hiding out near serpent territory! Just barely surviving! They're bringing him now!"

Kelvin and his party waited. Kian and John, a bit more anxious to enter the palace than Kelvin was, were partway up the walk. Kelvin turned back to the street.

Soon horsemen came trundling a cart. Looking out of a cage on the cart, ragged, dirty, sunken-eyed, big nose sunburned and peeled, was the figure of the king. What a relief to have captured him!

But as the cart drew even with him, the face behind the bars spotted them, and the wretched creature called out: "Kelvin! John! Kian! Thank the gods!"

Kelvin blinked. The supposed King Rowforth had filthy, round ears. But if this was not Rowforth—if the ears were not the positive identification they seemed—then it had to be good King Rufurt of his homeland!

Unless the evil king was trying to fool him. Rowforth was capable of anything, to save his evil hide.

"John, remember those days in the royal dungeon? You and I together—remember?"

The cart trundled past. The shouts of angry, enraged, and rejoicing people who had served under the Rowforth yoke followed and drowned out whatever else the prisoner was saying. The face looked back at them, pitifully, and Kelvin wondered. Could it be, was it possible that this was King Rufurt?

He hurried to catch up. "Father, do you think—?"

But his father was looking eagerly toward the palace.

Kelvin wasn't sure that he had ever heard the prisoner. He wasn't quite certain he had heard correctly himself.

Was it King Rufurt? Impossible, but also impossible to ignore. Rufurt was pointeared, and so could not use the transporter. But that reference to the dungeon—had Rowforth known about that? How could he be sure?

Things moved so rapidly the rest of the morning that Kelvin hardly thought again about the man in Chimaera's Copper

the cage. All he could think about as they entered the great ballroom at noon was his brother and what his brother's reactions to immediate events might be. They had been briefed about how the bride and groom would enter by opposite doors, and how the queen herself would conduct a little ceremony. At the end of some ritualized questioning Jac was to slip the ring on Lonny's finger and the queen would pronounce them wed. Was it Kelvin's imagination, or did she sound a little sad when she explained about her part in it? Was he missing something?

All three of them—Kelvin, Kian, and John—were there to witness but not to make their presence known to others until the ceremony's end. All were dressed in stiff, heavily laced clothing that Kelvin, for his part, would be only too happy to shed. Later they would get new traveling clothes, the queen had promised. She was solicitous and helpful in forming their plans. Kelvin had to hope that his father was not going to stay here and marry her, though he knew this was a bad attitude on his part. John's marriage to Kelvin's mother had been sundered long ago, and Hal Hackleberry was a good man. The past was over and done with.

Someone was playing music. It sounded loud and had the effect of drowning thought. A beautiful woman sat at a piangan and stroked its red and yellow keys. The music changed as soon as everyone was in place, and from an oceanic swelling of sound it went to triumphant march. It was time for the bride and groom to enter by the opposite doors and stand before the queen.

The facing doors opened. Kelvin immediately focused all his attention on his brother's face. Kian did not look angry or enraged, he looked sad, even heartbroken. It was pitiful to see anyone, especially a brother, in such condition.

Lonny and Jac came forward until they met, joined hands, and turned to face the queen. Their audience had a side view of bride and groom while bride and groom were unable to see their unanticipated guests from another frame. No matter, as local custom decreed, bride and groom simply gazed each into the other's face.

Jac, dressed up and clean, was handsome despite his scar, and older than Kelvin had realized, really of John's generation. He looked somehow grim rather than happy, though that was probably because of the gravity of the occasion. Kelvin remembered how he had suffered buttersects in the stomach when he married Heln, even though it was exactly what he wanted to do.

Lonny was beautiful, with her hair garlanded with flowers and her bridal outfit enhancing a body that had at the worst of times been quite attractive. She too was unsmiling, perhaps maintaining her composure by sheer willpower, for she was normally a cheerful girl. Kelvin remembered that she had at one time used the gauntlets, and evidently gotten along with them well. The gauntlets served whoever wore them, but he liked to think that they liked some wearers better than others.

"Lonny Burk," the queen intoned, as serious as the two of them, "do you wish to marry Jac Smite, also known as Smoothy Jac, also known as Savior of our Land?"

"I do," Lonny murmured faintly.

Chimaera's Copper

"And you, Jac Smite, also known as Smoothy Jac and Savior of our Land, do you wish to marry Lonny Burk?"

Jac seemed to hesitate. His eyes darted in the direction of the properly attired roughnecks who had been with him in a skin-stealing operation and then a revolution. Possibly, though not certainly, he was having second thoughts. He looked at the queen as if appealing for some recourse, but found none.

"I do," Jac said at last, clearly and unmistakably.

Kelvin's pity for his brother intensified. It seemed that the girl he loved really did mean to marry his friend. Had it been a mistake to keep quiet? Yet what kind of a situation would it have made, if Kian had dashed up and told her of his presence and his love just before she was to be married to another man?

But the ceremony was not finished. The queen now addressed the guests, asking simply, "Is there anyone here who objects?"

Kelvin looked at his brother, hoping he would speak. He had been afraid Kian would lose control, but now was sorry he hadn't. Lonny just didn't look that eager for the union. Neither, surprisingly, did Jac. Was it just a marriage of convenience? In that case—

The queen turned back to the couple. "Since there are no objections, I therefore declare—"

The gauntlets gave Kelvin a sharp jolt. "Wait!" It was out of his mouth before he realized it.

The queen seemed almost relieved for the distraction. "You? You object, Kelvin Knight Hackleberry. Why?"

Kelvin hesitated. The gauntlets jolted him again. "My brother wants to wed her!" he blurted. He was conscious of a roomful of eyes orienting on him. "He's come back from his native frame for that purpose. We were delayed, we couldn't help it, but all the time he intended—" He stalled.

There were murmurings and whispers and some outright exclamations. But it wasn't Kelvin's words that raised the most excitement, it was Lonny Burk's reactions.

Lonny stared at them, focusing on Kian. Her normal rosy complexion turned white, and with one little cry of "Kian!" she sank to the floor, unconscious.

Kelvin had to move fast to keep up with his brother. Already the former princeling was at his truelove's side. Kian knelt by her, taking her hand. "Lonny, Lonny, don't die!"

Her eyes opened, blue and achingly beautiful. "Kian, Kian, I thought you gone forever! That girl in your own world... I—I—"

"Hush, sweet Lonny," Kian said. "She—wasn't for me. You were. It just took me a while to get my mind straight. It will be all right." Then he looked up to see Jac staring down at them. "That is—"

Chimaera's Copper

Jac's big hand came down and clasped Kian's shoulder so hard he winced. "Friend, Companion Closer Than Kin, Kian Who Made Me What I Am, if Lonny chooses you, I will not object."

Kelvin sighed relief. But in a moment Kian, who seemed to have been rocked by a fist, was saying,

"No, no, my friend, I lost my head. Right is right. You deserve her."

"Why do you say that, old friend? We fought the serpents together. We fought the king's minions and warriors. We dared greatly and we won. You deserve everything, including Lonny. I should never have interfered!"

"Well, actually—" Kelvin started, trying to alleviate the colossal awkwardness of the situation.

"I felt I should marry her because it wasn't right to let her grieve any longer," Jac said. "But now you have returned. That changes everything."

"But I left her for Lenore Barley. I—"

"Who," Lonny asked with sudden strength, "is Lenore Barley?"

"The girl in the other frame who looks like you," Kian explained. "But there is more of a difference between you than just her pointed ears. She made love physically with different men, while you and I—"

"Shared a more intimate joining," Lonny said.

"Yes, yes, that's true, but—"

"But it didn't mean anything to you."

"No, no, that's not true! It meant everything!"

"Did it, Kian?" Lonny's face had found its blood supply. Her eyes flared warningly.

"Yes. Yes. And that is why, Lonny, you must marry Jac! He deserves you, while I do not."

"What he means, is—" Kelvin started, realizing that things had gotten completely turned around.

"That's not true!" Jac insisted. "You deserve her while I do not! I have been with many women in a physical sense, while you—"

"Enough!" Lonny exclaimed. "I'm not the least bit interested in marrying either of you! You—you philanderers!"

Kian and Jac displayed openmouthed astonishment, then fell into each other's arms and shook uncontrollably. Lonny stared at them in near incomprehension, then rose to her feet, picked up the train of her wedding dress, and disdainfully swept past everyone to her door and out the way she had come.

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Kelvin looked at his father as the door closed behind the intended bride. John Knight shrugged, obviously as bewildered as Kelvin felt. Had those two jackasses learned their lessons?

"Go after her, Kian, she's yours!"

"No, no, my friend, you go after her!"

"Pitiful, isn't it," John Knight remarked. He was looking at the queen, and it was uncertain exactly what he meant.

"It certainly is," she said. "And after all my plans, all the flowers and festivities!" Yet, oddly, she did not seem completely displeased.

The heartbreaking sounds of the prospective grooms' sobbing filled the ballroom and drowned out the sympathetic murmurings of the guests turned spectators.

CHAPTER 26

Over

"I tell you, Father, it was him!" Kelvin insisted.

"Nonsense," John replied. "King Rufurt here? With his pointed ears? He couldn't even use the transporter! It's impossible for Rufurt to be here!"

"Maybe his ears were changed, Dad. Or maybe Jon is right and the warning is just to keep pointed-ear persons in their place. Maybe he came some other way, not using the transporter. You did, the first time, and Kian did. Maybe it's dangerous and uncertain and painful, but the Flaw makes it possible. They're going to execute him, so I think we should see. I swear it sounded like Rufurt."

"With all that noise the crowd was making, you thought you heard words you didn't. That's happened to me a number of times. Or maybe Rufurt's using magic."

"Maybe somebody's using magic! Bad magic! Dad, we owe it to Rud's king. We haven't been back there since this business started; something might have happened. If Rufurt somehow got sent here—"

John Knight frowned in a way that meant he was considering. Obviously he had something of a different nature on his mind. "I suppose I can stand one more trip to a dungeon. I hate them, though."

"Just to make certain, Dad. That's all. It would be a terrible thing if that really was King Rufurt and we let him be killed in Rowforth's place."

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"Terrible, but unlikely. All right, we'll go get permission from the queen."

How glad he sounded, saying that. But Kelvin doubted that his father's joy was at the prospect of seeing their king.

In her throne room Zanaan looked every bit the queen, John thought admiringly. Her very beauty and regality made him a bit tongue-tied. But in due course, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the fact that he had once made love to a body almost exactly like hers, he got out the story.

"And you say this Rufurt of your homeland is a good man?" Zanaan asked. Obviously it was his story and not him she was most interested in. That could, of course, change. She did not know how intimately he had been involved with her evil look-alike.

"As good as Rowforth is bad!" Kelvin said. He had been standing silently all the time his father talked.

That annoyed John, and he wondered why it should. What was wrong with the hero of the prophecy taking the initiative? Was it because Zanaan so enchanted him?

He pondered, and realized that the aspect of Zoanna, without the evil, really did not fascinate him in the same manner. There had been magic and a cutting edge to Zoanna that compelled him; both were lacking in Zanaan. Unfortunately that made her like bleer without the hops: not of great interest for long. He was surprised to discover this, but had to recognize its truth.

"Then we certainly must leave no doubt in any of our minds," the queen said. "My husband deserves execution while his look-alike deserves only the best."

She did not believe them, John realized. He couldn't blame her. He himself had thought Kelvin mistaken, but where kings and execution were concerned, there was slight margin for error.

They followed the queen outside the palace and around the palace wall to the dreadfully familiar stairs. It smelled no better than when he and Kian had been prisoners here. Again he remembered far too vividly Sergeant Broughtmar putting the tiny wriggling serpent into that unfortunate revolutionary's ear. What horror!

"You're shuddering, Dad!" Kelvin said. He had not been a prisoner here, so could not understand exactly how terrible it had been.

"Memories, Son, memories." Was there really anything that could be worse? Even the onset of an illness had never hit him this hard.

"I can go down and check, Father. Just so we find out who's here."

"No, I won't shirk my duty. If it is King Rufurt, I'll know him. We became as close as brothers in our Chimaera's Copper

imprisonment in Rud. Thank the gods Zoanna kept a more decent dungeon!"

"He'll have pointed ears. Every guard we talked to said he didn't, but he must!"

"If it is Rufurt. But you were right, ears can be changed. The difference between a pointed ear and a round ear is just a slight extension of cartilage."

They reached the landing and the guards who had preceded them and the guards who were already there parted and permitted them to approach the one cell that was occupied. In that cell, sprawled on a pile of straw which had not been changed since their own imprisonment, a short, squat man with a big nose lay with closed eyes. The sunbeam from the high barred window did not quite reach his face but fell short of it, settling on his water dish. As Rowforth had done with others, the prisoner was fed and watered as if he belonged on all fours.

John stared long and hard. His senses said "Rufurt," but he knew how unreliable senses were. They would have to get him out into the light.

"Rufurt!" he said.

The prisoner sat up. Then he scrambled to his feet and rushed to the bars. He stood there panting, his eyes wild. Truly he now resembled animal more than human being.

"John! Kelvin! Kelvin the Roundear! I knew you would come! When I called to you I knew you would come and rescue me!"

John stared at the ears. They were round. This could not be the man he had spent years with in Rud's dungeon! It could not be, and yet he felt that it was.

The prisoner focused sunken eyes on Zanaan. They widened, reflecting an inner surprise that seemed to border on terror. "Zoanna!"

That did it! This had to be Rufurt. But how?

"I am Zanaan," the queen said. "I am said to look much like Zoanna, but I do not share her personality. But you—you look much like my husband Rowforth."

"I am Rufurt! Rowforth is in my world!"

"Your ears," John said, feeling foolish. "Round."

The prisoner touched those appendages with dirty fingers and scrubbed at caked brown material at their tips. Scars were revealed, healing but visible.

"He cut off my tips! The one who looks like me did it! And Zoanna watched! Then they took me in the boat and they threw me in the water and I went into the Flaw. I came up sputtering by the waterfall, exactly as you did, John! Then I climbed out, and I recognized things from your description and I wandered all around. I found appleberries and other fruits and—and then I reached Chimaera's Copper

these valleys, just as you did. I didn't know whether to climb down and meet your flopears or keep going, but then three men came and roped me and tied me up! They called me Rowforth and I knew then what had happened. I knew that I was in trouble and all I could hope for was that you would come back here and get me out. Just as Kelvin got us out before."

"That clinches it," John said. "Your Majesty, let King Rufurt out. He's not the vile man you were married to."

But Zanaan, who also knew her husband well enough to tell him from another of similar appearance, had already instructed the guard to use the key. The key was in the lock and the tumblers falling.

With a loud squeak the barred door was opened and good King Rufurt was free at long last.

If this was Rufurt, then what was happening back home? Oh, Heln! Kelvin thought with sudden alarm. Jon! Lester! Mother! What is happening there?

John woke, unable to sleep, and lay tossing on the bed. Finally he rose, dressed, and left the bedchamber where his two sons, each in a different bed, were sleeping. He walked the halls, uncertain as to why he was being tormented. The statuary and furniture loomed up in the darkened palace, just as it had when he had paced the hallways at night in Rud's palace.

So this is Hud, and Hud is all. Everything I need to think about. Kian will probably stay here after he and his girl make up their differences. Will I? Zoanna was everything I wanted, I thought, when besotted by her sex appeal. Zanaan has her beauty and not her nature. She has everything good that Zoanna didn't. But Zoanna had something too. The evil creature had an art! She used enchantment on me, or at least doped my wine. I believed her to be my ideal, but I was wrong. Others had been just as wrong. But now here is Zanaan, the good, perfect woman that I longed for. So why this hesitancy? Why is it that I'm still thinking of Charlain?

And there was the other aspect of it! He had been smitten with the queen, but then he had escaped her and found Charlain, and now the aspect of the queen lacked power over him. Charlain was married elsewhere now, so that was over—but his heart refused to admit it. His heart still wanted only that one woman. He never would have left her, had he not expected to die. He had not wanted her to be associated with him then, lest she also be killed. He had stayed with her because he loved her, and he had left her for the same reason. So it really didn't matter whether Zanaan was evil or good; he had lost his fascination for her likeness.

The irony was that Zanaan, freed from her evil husband, was now available, while Charlain was not.

He would do better staying here, and away from there. Only mischief could come of his return to that other frame.

His feet had unconsciously taken him to a door. He paused, uncertain. He knew whose door this was—but no longer wished to knock on it.

Chimaera's Copper

Then he heard voices beyond it.

Zanaan's voice: "Oh, darling, I know you've given her your word and you don't want to hurt her, but—"

A man's voice: "It is true. I did that. I owed her, and once I thought I loved her, but that changed after I met you. But now that Kian is back, if she wants him—"

"Oh, yes! I know she does! I could see it in her eyes. I thought she loved you, but when she saw him, I knew! But the idiot kept denying her, and it is true that Hades has no fury like that of—"

"And we can marry too. You and I. Mr. and Mrs.—"

"King and queen. I see no reason why I should abdicate. And you'll make a good king, a fair and just king! Do you think you can bear being called 'Your Majesty'?"

"I can stand it, if that's the price of you."

"I rather think it is, Jac."

There was the sound of a kiss.

"Oh Jac, Jac! We'll be so happy, you and I! Not like the usual royal marriage."

"Yes. Happy. The former royalty-hating bandit—"

"Revolutionary!"

"If you prefer. The former revolutionary and the queen!"

"Darling!"

"I thought I came to the palace to conquer, but I was conquered."

"You were everything the king wasn't. It seemed so promising! And then Kian didn't come back, and Lonny was near suicide, so you had to—"

"And you know, I lied about having known many women."

"Liar! Hold me! Hold me tight!"

"Oh Zanaan! Zanaan!"

"Oh Jac! Oh Jac!"

John tiptoed away from the door. They were going to be happy, he thought, and so was the land.

He didn't feel envious. He felt relieved that this was happening. So he let his feet take him away Chimaera's Copper

from the door to the royal pantry and back to his bedchamber on the second floor. He was happy for Jac and the queen. He only wished that he had some similar prospect for himself.

When he woke in the morning John thought he had dreamed the episode of the preceding night.

Kelvin was getting dressed in his conventional clothes: new brownberry shirt, greenbriar pantaloons, cushiony cotilk stockings, and heavy walking boots.

"Where's Kian?" John asked.

"I don't know, Dad. He woke me up and started talking about Lonny and how he couldn't live without her. About how he was going to go to her and somehow make her understand. I must have drifted off again because I've just now awakened and he's gone."

"What time was that? Early or late?"

"Much too early or much too late. Do you think he'll marry her? We really need to get home. At least I do."

"He will, and I do too. There's something strange about King Rufurt being here. If Zoanna is alive and Rowforth is impersonating Rufurt..."

"Kelvinia may be in more trouble than Rud ever was with Aratex!"

"I'm afraid you're right, Son. What in the world can that woman be up to! It seems obvious she's alive. I was so sure she was dead, but maybe that was wishful thinking."

"Can we even be sure of that?" Kelvin wondered aloud. "I mean with so much magic and science around—"

"We can be very certain she's not dead. If zombies exist I don't think they snatch look-alikes from other frames. At least I hope they don't."

"Father, do you think she's really planning a war? Maybe has already started one?"

"That's why we must get back. If Rowforth has taken Rufurt's place, the two of them will be ruling the country without bloodshed. Unless they are causing it as rulers. And that is an ugly possibility."

"She could be up to anything. Maybe she's trying for revenge?"

"Could be. Son, don't say anything to Kian about this. I really think he'll want to stay here now, and really, considering that Zoanna is his mother, here is the best place for him."

"You don't think he'll fight for Zoanna again?" Kelvin was incredulous.

"No, he wouldn't do that. But if he's here with his bride he won't have the temptation. If Zoanna's Chimaera's Copper

alive, I think you know what we shall have to do. We don't want him there for that."

Kelvin shuddered. "No, not for that!"

"I think we'll attend his wedding this day. Maybe he will come to appreciate Zanaan as the mother he should have had. If he doesn't wed Lonny today, you and I and King Rufurt had better go home anyway. I don't think we dare wait longer."

"All right, Father. But will he—?"

"He'd better!" John said.

Later in the day they did indeed attend the wedding. With them, cleaned up and fancily dressed as the others, was King Rufurt. In fact, they were the ones conducting the ceremony of the double wedding of Kian to Lonny, and Jac to Zanaan. If the king had any private sentiments about marrying the woman who so resembled his evil wife to another man, he concealed them well, just as John Knight concealed his sentiments well. Kelvin was privately glad it had worked out this way, because of sentiments he too was glad to conceal.

"Kian Knight from our frame," King Rufurt said, "do you wish to marry Lonny Burk of this frame?"

"You know I do," Kian said, gazing into Lonny's eyes. It was more than evident that any misunderstandings the two had had yesterday had been resolved in the intervening night.

"And you, Lonny Burk, do you wish to marry Kian Knight?"

"I do, oh I do!" Lonny agreed, her good nature restored.

"You, Jac Smite, et cetera, do you—"

"I do!" Jac said.

"And you, Queen Zanaan, lovely and good widow or divorcee of absent abdicated discredited reprehensible former King Rowforth of Hud, do you wish to marry Jac?"

"I do indeed want to marry Jac!" She and he exchanged secret smiles. It was evident that the marriage of compassion and convenience between Jac and Lonny would never have worked out; neither of their hearts had been in it.

Now John Knight took the floor. "Does anyone here have objection to either joining?" he asked the onlookers.

There was a stillness in the ballroom reminiscent of what might have existed at the dawn of time in a primeval frame.

Chimaera's Copper

Kian and Jac produced silver rings and slipped them on the fingers of the brides.

It was Kelvin's turn. "Then," he said as forcefully as his threatening-to-quaver voice could manage,

"you are married. For as long as you wish it, or until time bites its end." The last words were John Knight's contribution to the service, and perhaps to other minds than Kelvin's they made sense.

"Kiss, kiss," Heeto urged, as if fearful they would forget that detail, and the grooms and brides did.

Someone started the applause, and then the music played, as the group that had been organized for yesterday's festivities acted for today's. The piangan and silver pipes sounded beautifully.

"Goodbye, Kian, good luck, long life," Kelvin said, shaking his brother's hand, feeling that it might be for the last time.

"Goodbye? What are you talking about?"

"There may be trouble at home," John said. "We have to find out."

"But—"

"If I'm here, maybe he's there," Rufurt said.

"Rowforth? You mean—I'm coming too!"

"No you're not!" John Knight said. "You're going to stay here with this delightful, beautiful girl and have a proper honeymoon. If there is trouble and we need help, one of us will be back."

"But really, you can't leave like this!"

"We have to," Kelvin said. "You see to your wife; I'll see to mine."

Lonny squeezed Kian's hand. "I think that's a great idea, Husband."

"I have my gauntlets, the Mouvar weapon, the levitation belt, and the chimaera's sting," Kelvin explained. That one sting he had not included in the shipment to the other frame. "I doubt there's any trouble I can't handle with those! Probably Rowforth is in the palace, and—"

"Rowforth! My husband!" the queen exclaimed, overhearing.

"I'm your husband now, dear," Jac reminded her. "You divorced him, if he didn't die first."

"Yes, of course, but—"

"We don't know that he's there," John said. "But there's a chance that he might be."

"You'll bring him back?" Heeto asked. "For punishment?"

"If we can. If we don't have to destroy him ourselves," Rowforth's look-alike said.

Chimaera's Copper

"We'll be back in any case," John Knight said. "Not to stay, you understand, but just to visit and let you know what happened."

"When?"

"As soon as our problem is cleared."

"I still think I should come."

"No!"

Kian looked relieved in spite of himself. Jac, who had been fidgeting throughout the exchange, now said: "If need be, we will both go to their rescue, Kian."

"And if need be you can have all of Hud's armed forces and all the fighting men our treasury will buy," Queen Zanaan added.

It seemed a satisfactory solution. Once again, and then several more times, everyone said goodbye.

Then it was time to travel fast, and without mistake in the transporter.

CHAPTER 27

Return

Kelvin sat in the middle of the boat, rowing with the help of the gauntlets while King Rufurt filled the stern seat and John Knight sat at the bow. It was just as well that his brother hadn't returned with them, he thought, or they'd have been overloaded.

They passed the roaring falls into star-filled spaces, the Flaw. The gauntlets rowed through the turbulent water without difficulty. Then around the bend, past eerily glowing walls, their boat and themselves lit by the lichen's radiance. A swirl in the water that Kelvin had noticed on previous trips—a sort of dimple, actually—and then finally the boat landing.

"I think we'd better be cautious," John Knight said. "There could be enemies waiting for us here."

"I'm very cautious," Kelvin agreed, drawing the Mouvar weapon. That would handle magic, and the gauntlets and his sword were ready to tackle anything else. After the adventures he had just undergone, a possible scrap with armed men or even an attack by magic could hold few terrors!

"Perhaps you'd better stay hidden down here," Kelvin suggested to the king. "Until after we see how things are above."

Chimaera's Copper

King Rufurt looked up the stairs and a set of stubborn lines appeared at the corners of his mouth.

"I'm still ruler."

"Yes, that's why we don't want you to fall into the hands of Rowforth again."

"Rowforth and Zoanna. Damn Zoanna! My former queen!"

"We're all subject to sorcery," John Knight said soothingly. "Even those of us who never wanted to believe it possible."

"I'll go check," Kelvin said, touching his belt. He rose above the boat landing. In his right hand was the Mouvar weapon. Strapped on his left side was his sword, while strapped between his shoulder blades was the lightweight sting the chimaera had given him. He was as armed, he thought, as a human being had ever been.

They had brought King Rufurt back here through the transporter. Kelvin had been alert for any warning tingle from the gauntlets, but there had been none. Did that mean that Rufurt's surgically rounded ears made him eligible to use Mouvar's system, or was the prohibition against pointears a bluff? Maybe he should make Jon happy and bring her here, and see whether the gauntlets tingled for her. Her life must have been relatively dull, recently, far from the action, helping Heln prepare for the baby.

He nudged the lever forward with his finger, keeping the Mouvar weapon in his hand. He rose above the first flight, and then the second flight of dusty, ancient stairs, Finally he was at the hole that let in daylight to mingle with the softer radiance of the lichens. He accelerated and shot outside fast, in case someone was waiting there.

He paused in midair. Two men in guardsman uniforms sat at a block of masonry playing cards. One of them looked up with open mouth while the other played a card.

"Kelvin, you can really fly that thing!"

"Practice," Kelvin said. "You are waiting for me?"

"King's orders. You are to go directly to the palace, now that you're back. Your brother get married all right?"

"Yes, after some delays. Nice wedding. Everyone was there."

"Your father return with you?"

Kelvin hesitated. He didn't want to reveal too much to these guardsmen, good men though they were.

His brother, he knew, would simply have lied, but somehow lying for him was not natural. "He's not with me," he temporized. That was true, as far as it went. John Knight and the genuine king had remained below, letting Kelvin scout the territory alone.

"We have a horse for you. Do you want to ride?"

Chimaera's Copper

"I thought I'd fly and surprise someone," Kelvin said. He reholstered the Mouvar weapon, placed his hand over his central buckle, and accelerated out of their sight.

What do I do now? he thought, looking down at blurring farmland. Do I just go to the palace? I should have asked questions. Why didn't I think of that?

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?"

Chimaera's Copper

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, of 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.

Chimaera's Copper

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.

Chimaera's Copper

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 how 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.

Chimaera's Copper

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.

Chimaera's Copper

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 Chimaera's Copper

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 Chimaera's Copper

saying.

"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."

"I'm glad that you are not so certain. Come, the three of you. There is someone in the glen you will want to see."

Chimaera's Copper

"The other witch," Phillip said.

"Yes, you might say that," Helbah said agreeably. "But she is no stranger to any of you. I think, Phillip, that you are going to be surprised to learn exactly who she is."

Phillip got to his feet, wiped blood from his mouth, and followed Helbah. As his feet found their way he now and then looked over at St. Helens and Mor Crumb. These big men, these strong men, were at least as bewildered as he.

In the glen, near the large tree with the flat crystal set in its big bole, lovely Charlain stretched out her arms as though to long-lost children or her dearest friends.

Charlain? Kelvin's mother? A witch? Now indeed a lot about this mysterious roundear bubbled up from the bottom of his brain and drifted into place. The Roundear of Prophecy had a mother who had powers and was now using them to fulfill her son's destiny! But against Kelvinia rather than for?

How could that be? Was she too bewitched?

"Phillip, St. Helens, General Crumb," Charlain said, "as you now must realize it is our old enemy that we have to fight. Zoanna and the man who appears to be but isn't King Rufurt now control Kelvinia. Every soldier, whether Kelvinia, Herman, or a mercenary from Throod, has been deceived.

Each of you has been tricked similarly. Klingland and Kance are not the enemy, though they are the kingdom you fight."

"I know we were bewitched by her," Mor said. "But you, Charlain—a witch?"

"A necessary recruit, I'm afraid," Helbah said. "Charlain had the talent and I had need for it.

Fortunately for all of us she learned quickly and well."

"There's something else," Charlain said. "My son Kelvin is here now, back in this frame and not far from where we stand. I saw him in the crystal."

"Then we're saved!" Mor Crumb said. "The Roundear will make everything right. He'll win this war, and—"

"You forget that the real war is inside Kelvinia," Helbah said.

"Yes, yes, of course," Mor said. "He'll get them out of the palace before you can say scat! Burn wicked Zoanna as she deserves! Burn the impostor king as well!"

"No," Charlain said. "Not immediately, anyhow. There's something more important he has to do."

"More important," Mor asked incredulously, "than destroying the former queen of Rud and the former king from the other place? More important than stopping the fighting?"

"Yes. Far more important. I have consulted the cards and the cards have never lied to me. There's a nodule, a crisis point. Either he fulfills this subsidiary task promptly and without fail or this fighting will not end and the prophecy will never be fulfilled. For the good of all of us and the eventual Chimaera's Copper

fulfillment of the prophecy he has to do what his mother tells him. Each of you, understanding or not, must help me to that end."

They stared at her, amazed, but hardly doubting her.

Kelvin, urged on by Mervania Chimaera's thoughts, walked slowly down the road that led to the glen. Ahead of him, prancing, flicking its tail, looking back with a come-along expression every now and then was a huge black houcat.

I'm getting into trouble, Kelvin thought. I really can't trust the chimaera. It's putting me right into the hands of the witch!

When have you not been in trouble, stupid mortal! Mervania responded almost affectionately. And why would I want to have you in the hands of a witch?

To make a deal, maybe. As you did with me.

And that you haven't yet delivered on! Be brave, little hero, and use some sense!

That's all right for you to think, Mervania. You don't have to face a witch!

You faced me, Kelvin. Do you honestly think a witch could be worse than I am?

No! Nothing's worse than a chimaera!

I'm glad you realize it. And remember, I'm right here in your thoughts, protecting my interests.

Kelvin wondered if he could possibly comprehend the chimaera's interests. He tried not to project the thought or call it to the chimaera's attention. The creature was a puzzle! Compared to the chimaera, dragons and witches were quite comprehensible.

Thank you, Kelvin.

Ahead he could see five people waiting. Two women, two big men, and one large boy or man like himself. Was one of those witches really his mother?

Do you doubt me, Kelvin? The thought had a tinge of menace.

Kelvin felt chastised. Focusing mainly on the houcat's constantly flicking tail he was only gradually becoming aware that the fog was lifting. He could have flown this distance in half the time with less internal agony, but the chimaera had decreed walk.

You may fly now, if you wish.

Thanks a lot! If the monster caught the irony, fine! He touched the button in his buckle, pressed it in and rose to the height of a horse's back. He nudged the forward lever and floated down the road, the Chimaera's Copper

houcat still ahead. He accelerated ever so little and he was there.

They were there. St. Helens in prisoner clothes, Mor Crumb in worn and filthy general's uniform.

Phillip, the former king of Aratex, in filthy common clothes. A short, smiling woman who looked astonishingly like Melbah, the witch he had caused to burn. And, most surprising of all, a woman who appeared to be his mother.

"Come down, Kelvin," his mother said. "We have to talk."

It was as if she said "Come down from that tree" or "Get off from that woodpile." Could this be his mother, and wasn't there anything he could do that would surprise her?

Kelvin descended to the ground and deactivated his belt. This whole scene was strange, but his mother seemed to be the spokesperson here.

"Kelvin, we're all glad to see you. Come here!" Her arms went wide as he took a step forward.

Could this be some cunning illusion, designed to make him walk blithely into a trap?

If you don't trust your mother, trust me, Mervania thought with a certain amused disgust. I want those dragonberries. Do you think I will allow you to be trapped before I get them?

That satisfied him. A moment later Charlain was hugging him hard, as a mother long deprived must hug her son. He relaxed, all doubt gone that it was really her.

"What's this?" she asked, touching the copper sting on his back.

"A chimaera's sting, Mother."

"I thought it might be. Good, you hold on to that! Someday it may prove important."

Kelvin swallowed. Mom was so practical sometimes! No questions like "What's a chimaera?" or

"How did you ever come by it?" Just instant, practical acceptance.

The other woman spoke—the witch who looked like Melbah. "Charlain, you must show him."

"Yes, I suppose I ought to. Come, Son, over to this tree, over to this crystal. Now what I'm going to show you may be a shock. Please be brave, Son; I know you can be."

"Mom, I just want to get rid of Zoanna and return home to my wife!" Kelvin protested.

Listen to her, you idiot! Mervania snapped. You won't like this.

Again, Kelvin found himself placing more credence in the monster than in his mother. He went with Charlain to the tree. What was going on?

Charlain's fingers stretched out and there was a tiny spark that danced between her fingers and then from her fingertips to the crystal. Suddenly the crystal was a window on a distant scene, as other Chimaera's Copper

magic crystals had been.

A madwoman stared and gibbered, crouching in a corner. On her wrists and ankles were chains. She was naked and grotesquely pregnant, as though she were set to deliver not a child but a colt. Her skin had a coppery sheen. Her dark, sunken eyes stared right at him. She screamed.

Why was this madwoman being shown to him? Why was she screaming like that, as though she saw him? "KELVIN!" the imaged woman screamed. She knew his name! This pathetic, mad, pregnant woman saw him and knew his name!

Suddenly the features of the woman became preternaturally clear. That chin, that nose, those facial contours, those round ears! "Heln!" he said incredulously. "Heln?" For how could such a horror be possible?

"Yes," his mother said. "That is she." Kelvin felt the ground open under him. It was just too much.

He sank down on his knees, his hands reaching out to the crystal. "HELN! HELN! NO, NO, PLEASE!"

In the crystal a raw piece of meat appeared. Impaled on a stick it waved before the face of the woman he tried not to believe was Heln.

The madwoman focused her glassy eyes on the meat. Her fingers curled. She licked her lips.

Suddenly her neck shot out, fast, like that of a striking reptile. Her teeth sank into the flesh. Blood squirted, and ran from the corners of her mouth. Her chained wrists lifted and her clawed hands pushed the meat farther and farther into her savagely chomping maw.

"Kelvin!" the madwoman said between bites. "Kelvin!" It couldn't be her! It couldn't be!

The picture in the crystal seemed to move back. His sister Jon came into view. She was holding the stick that supported the raw meat. It was evident that she did not dare come closer herself, lest her own flesh be attacked. Beside her, steadying her arm, was Dr. Sterk, the royal physician.

Kelvin thought he had seen horrors in the other frames, but none compared to this one in his own frame! "No, no, no," he said.

"Accept it, Son." His mother moved her hand and the magic scene vanished. It was now just a flat piece of crystal stuck in a tree bole.

"Mother, what can I do? Where is she? How can I—"

"She's in the royal palace."

"Good! I'll go there immediately, and—"

"No, Son. You must not."

"Not?"

Chimaera's Copper

"The evil queen is there, and will not be lightly subdued. In any event, there is no time for that. The queen put the spell on Heln, but cannot undo it. There is an antidote, and you must get it for Heln before she gives birth. That could be at any time, and that birthing will kill her."

Kelvin, noting the gross distension of Heln's body, understood. That birthing would rip her apart!

"What antidote? Where?"

"Where you got your copper sting, Son. The chimaera has it."

"It has!" Had the chimaera held out on him?

No. I did not know about this until you entered this frame and contacted your mother.

"You know about the—?" he asked, amazed.

"The monster who speaks to you in your mind? Yes, the cards told me."

"But I have no idea what the antidote is!"

"Helbah here knows. There's a powder. A powder no chimaera can live without. It has an opposite effect in cases like this."

"What is this powder? How will I know it?"

I have it, Mervania thought. I never thought I would need to give any of it away, but I see I do.

Kelvin realized that there was a solution to this horror. If only he had known before, he could have gotten the powder and saved Heln before it got to this stage!

CHAPTER 29

Antidote

John Knight was munching on smoked fish while waiting for Rufurt to make his move.

Rufurt leaned over the board and considered before moving a pawn. It might have been a troop movement or an execution.

"Good move!" Zed Yokes said.

The king nodded. A king's moves had after all to be approved. He took a swig of the appleberry wine and handed it to John. John shook his head and sipped from the water jar instead. That fish the old river man had brought was salty!

Chimaera's Copper

"So there's really a war on between Kelvinia and the twin kingdom," John mused.

Zed nodded, smiling his pleasant old man's smile. "The news comes to me on the river. It comes slowly, but it comes."

"So that must be what my son is up to—bringing it to a stop."

"Just so he gets the impostor," Rufurt said. "He and the queen."

"You still call her queen, Rufurt?" John inquired, amused. "After what she did to both of us, and the kingdom?"

"You know what I mean. Villainess is more like it! Witch will do."

John moved a bishop diagonally across the board. "Check."

Rufurt immediately took the bishop with his black queen. "Sorry to do this, John. Particularly with this piece."

John tried to smile, hoping to give the impression that he had sacrificed the bishop deliberately.

Rufurt needed cheering. When Kelvin came back—and he didn't want to admit he was beginning to worry about that—there should be cheering aplenty.

"You think your son's a match for them?" Zed asked.

"He'd better be." John looked around the ruins of the old palace, remembering how the last revolution had been. "There's the prophecy, of course. I'm afraid I really believe in that."

"Now, you mean," Rufurt said. "You didn't believe in it in the old days."

"No, I didn't." How many times had he scolded Charlain for filling the boy's head with nonsense.

How little had he known!

"But now you believe in prophecies and magic."

"In this frame I do! Some prophecies, some magic."

"Why is that, John?" The king put a bit of archness into it, knowing very well.

"The chimaera, for one thing. Other things we saw and experienced. I'll never again say with full certainty what can and can't be. In an infinity of frames I suspect anything is possible."

"Right you are, John. It's your move, isn't it?"

John concentrated on the board, difficult as that was for him. Finally he moved his remaining white knight.

Chimaera's Copper

Rufurt nudged the black queen onto the knight's square. "Sorry again, John. You're not concentrating."

"While you are." Damn St. Helens for reinventing this game!

"It's the experience of governing," Rufurt said. As usual he ignored the fact that he had lost his kingdom to Zoanna once and spent all those years in the royal dungeon.

"Hmmm," John said. If he moved his own queen down now he could take Rufurt's and checkmate his king in the bargain! He made the move. "Check!"

"Can't win them all," Rufurt said. He stood up from the block of masonry and stretched. His eyes scanned the skies. "There! Him, isn't it?"

John strained the eyes he hated to admit were less effective at distances than Rufurt's were.

Something definitely was in the sky, and coming at them. It seemed to be the right size. "Yes," he said.

Within moments the figure was right above them. It descended, and hovered. Then, somewhat shrilly, it called: "Dad, Your Majesty, I'm going back to the chimaera's world. Wait here! I'll explain later!"

Kelvin started off again, then paused. "Mother divorced Hal. She's single now, and a witch."

With that John's surprising offspring dived rather than flew through the ruins and out of sight.

"Those young folk sure are in a hurry!" Tommy Yokes' grandfather remarked.

But John hardly cared about that. Charlain was single? Suddenly a wonderful new horizon lay before him.

Kelvin could hardly wait to reach the transporter. Very skilled now in how to hold his body while flying, he barely slowed before reaching the river ledge. Now was not the time to ponder the mysteries of the Flaw or of being. He opened the huge metal door with the help of the gauntlets and leaped inside. He barely took time to set the control for the chimaera's world, and was off.

After what his father had termed "special effects" he found himself in a somewhat more dusty chamber facing a froogear.

The froogear held out a small packet composed of one large folded leaf. Kelvin took it.

This is it? he demanded of the chimaera.

It is in there, Kelvin, Mervania's thought came. Three little grains that will expand to a powder. Be careful you don't sneeze on them.

Chimaera's Copper

Thanks, Mervania. I'll get back with those dragonberry seeds when I can!

I'll let you know about that, mortal! Hurry— you haven't much time.

Right! Clutching the packet, Kelvin leaped back into the transporter.

Mervania sighed. The sky was orange and cloud-filled and it was a good day to be working in the garden. Fortunately she could weed around the pumash and squakin plants while keeping a small bit of mind tuned to Kelvin.

Why was she helping this inferior life-form? Hadn't she paid her debt to it when she let it and its fellows go? An inferior life-form was after all an inferior life-form.

That's what I've been telling you, Mervania!

Mertin, you know that isn't nice, scanning my thoughts that way!

You're doing it with Kelvin and his kind!

Of course! They're inferior life-forms!

Foodstuffs.

If you will.

I knew we should have eaten them.

Groowmth! Grumpus added, tossing their dragon head.

What I don't understand, Mervania, is why you gave him the powder.

You know, Mertin. You know if you think about it.

You think about it for me.

I don't want to.

Do it anyway.

Oh, very well! Mertin was so vexing sometimes! Without giving it great attention she recalled the egg clutch they had laid just after dining on a stringy old wizard. There had been something wrong with it, as she soon realized. The eggs didn't have coppery shells, but were soft, and inside there was no more mind activity than from insects. Concentrating ever so little, she had gleaned that soft, single-headed beings were being formed that would closely resemble foodstuffs. The horror of producing monsters was too much, and the antidote, had it been available, had to be taken before the laying. There had been only one thing to do, and her body had a head for it.

Groowmth! Grumpus agreed, smacking his mouth. The memory of the eggs was still strong with it.

Chimaera's Copper

There. Satisfied, Mertin?

Not quite. The offspring of the foodstuff female will be like us, if she delivers while under the influence of the chimaeradrake root. It will have three heads and copper in its blood. In time it will grow a sting. Why destroy our own, Mervania? Why prevent its birth?

Dunderhead! Consider the horror! One of us raised by mortals! Cared for by the very inferior life-forms that are our food! Assuming they care for it at all; they might instead imprison or destroy it.

No, any chimaera who comes into being must be here with us, in proper society, so as not to be stunted by regressive influences.

I understand, Mervania. Don't get so excited— you're making us ill.

I don't care if I do! Kelvin had to have the antidote, and I provided it! After she takes it the female won't lay an egg containing a superior life-form!

It'll be dead. The hatchling and the female. An inferior life-form won't adjust.

Possibly. I hadn't considered that. Mervania remedied that by considering it now.

At least there won't be a living superior life-form among inferiors, Mertin thought, satisfied.

If the antidote reaches the female in time.

Yes. But if that inferior female dies too, he may reconsider about fetching our dragonberry seeds.

But he made a deal!

He did. But inferior life-forms sometimes forget things when under stress. She pondered further, troubled. What could she do to ensure that Kelvin would not be distracted from his true mission of fetching the seeds?

Then she had it. She would have to be there, mentally, when the antidote was administered. Then, with a little guidance of precisely the right nature—yes.

A sound impinged on her thoughts. Someone ringing the bell at the gate.

She reached out mentally. A froogear was there, and in its arms was something that caused Mervania to start with surprise. This—why this changed everything!

As the sun was setting, Kelvin found his mother and Helbah waiting where they had promised outside the palace. He cut the speed of his belt, lowered his feet, and landed before them.

"You get it, Kelvin?" his mother asked worriedly.

Chimaera's Copper

"Right here," Kelvin said, holding up the packet. "The chimaera sent a froogear to meet me at the transporter."

"That's nice, dear. Now Zoanna and the false king have fled the palace. Helbah is trying to locate them with her crystal. She's stronger now; she says I've been a big help to her. Come now!"

"But—" Kelvin protested as he followed her. "The queen—"

"Oh, Helbah can counter her fireballs! Once it was two witches against one, the queen was done for, and knew it. She won't want to give herself away, but if she does, Helbah will be ready. Can you hurry?"

"Good idea," Kelvin agreed, and activated his belt. Scooping his mother up in his arms—she weighed less than he did, now, which surprised him somewhere in the background of his mind—he hopped-flew the remaining distance. Actually the gauntlets made her seem even lighter, and they knew how to support her; he would have bungled the job on his own, he was sure. He carried her through the wall blasted open by Helbah. Through the twilight-lit throne room and the ballroom and down the halls.

"Here, this is it!" Charlain exclaimed, indicating the guest room that Kelvin and Heln had once shared.

Kelvin never paused. With all the strength of his left gauntlet he shoved in the door and paused, hovering in midair.

Dr. Sterk looked up birdlike and agitated at the bedside. Jon turned, her mouth an O of surprise. On the bed, limbs chained to the bedposts, was a bloated, misshapen thing of pure horror. This couldn't be Heln! His gentle, lovely, loving wife! It couldn't be—yet it was.

"Kelvin! Mother!" Jon cried, gladness and horror mixing.

"She's having her contractions," Dr. Sterk said grimly. "But there's no way she can birth it without destroying herself! I could cut, but—"

Kelvin swallowed. He thought he had come prepared, but his mind had gone blank.

Charlain struggled in the grip of the gauntlets. "Let me down! Let me down this instant!"

Oh. He touched down his feet and shut off his belt. He lowered his mother to the floor. She started across the room.

Night fell in an instant. Lightning cracked outside, lighting the windows. The oil lamps blew out.

They were now in deepest darkness with Heln's unhuman screams.

"Darn!" Kelvin heard his mother say. She snapped her fingers. Immediately a little ball of fire appeared near the ceiling and stayed there, brightening until it gave off more light than there had been from the lamps.

Chimaera's Copper

"Mother—?" Kelvin asked, his heart pounding. "What—?"

"That's my fireball," Charlain said. "The darkness is Zoanna's mischief. She gave Heln the poison potion. Helbah may need a little help dealing with the queen, and I'm going to be busy here. Why don't you go outside and find her?"

"Mother, the powder!"

"Yes, and fast! Give it to me!"

He handed her the leaf packet. She held it near Heln's face. Heln drew in a breath to scream.

Charlain touched the packet with a fingernail. The packet went POOF! and a cloud of pinkish smoke obscured Heln's face and head. From the midst of the smoke came an unhuman coughing and then a gasping, wheezing sound. The wheezing became a shrill whistle, as of an escaping gas. A heartbeat after that there was a choking from the midst of the pink cloud.

"Mother, she's—she's—"

Charlain raised a finger. POOF! and the cloud was gone. Heln lay there, sickly and pale, her eyes shocked and unbelieving. "Kelvin, Dr. Sterk, Mother Charlain—it's gone!"

"I know it is, dear. But your baby isn't."

"But—"

Then both froze for a moment, as if listening.

"What—?" Kelvin started.

Will you give over, oaf? Mervania's thought came. The job is only half done. Let me concentrate on them; the situation is critical.

Kelvin shut his mouth. Oddly, he felt better, knowing that the chimaera was present. He trusted Mervania's motive; she wanted this finished so he could go fetch her dragonberries.

"This is no ordinary delivery, Heln," Charlain said. "Now you know what is entailed. Are you strong enough?"

"I'll have to be," Heln said weakly.

"Then focus on the first, and bear down."

Heln's eyes rolled. Faintly she said, "I'll try." Then she lapsed into unconsciousness.

"Darn!" Charlain said. "Sorry, Kelvin, you shouldn't hear your mother swear."

"Is she—dead?"

Chimaera's Copper

"No, of course not. But we're all going to be if you don't get moving!"

"What should I do?" Kelvin had never felt more helpless. All he could think about was the stories of expectant fathers boiling water while the wife was in childbirth.

"How should I know?" his mother snapped in exasperation. "Go find Helbah!"

"But—"

"Your life and Heln's and all the others depend on it! Now go!"

Heln's eyes flickered open. "Go, Kel," she gasped. "You wouldn't like what happens here." She sagged down again.

Believe her, inferior form, Mervania thought.

Hardly realizing what he did, Kelvin left the palace. He knew that birthing a baby was difficult, but something more than that seemed to be in the offing. What was going on?

Outside a gust of wind struck him in the face and almost drove him back. Rain spattered, hot and smelling of sulfur. Lightning cracked, luridly illuminating everything with an unnatural cast.

Where was Helbah?

"Over here!" her voice cracked.

There she was, hanging on to the gatepost. He activated his belt and flew over to her.

"Kelvin," she gasped weakly. "I need your help. I can't do it without you or Charlain, and your mother has her hands more than full. So it has to be you. I can't contain them."

"I—I'll do what I can." Kelvin knew that he was an inadequate substitute. "What can I do? Tell me, Helbah, tell me!"

A great ball of fire looped across the sky. Helbah raised her hands, and a smaller ball formed at her fingertips. The small fireball shaped itself into an arrow and shot skyward as though from a bow.

Witch's fire collided above them, and there was a shocking thunderclap as both magically generated missiles imploded into nothingness.

"I'm getting weaker and she's getting stronger!" Helbah said. "With Charlain's help I had her beaten, but now I am alone, and her fireballs are getting closer before I can nullify them. I was shooting them down at the horizon, but now it's almost overhead, and soon I won't be able to stop them at all.

I never thought Zoanna would recover so rapidly and well! If Charlain doesn't finish quickly with that chimaera so she can add her power to mine—"

"What?" Was Mervania attacking instead of assisting?

Chimaera's Copper

"Get that thing off your back!"

"The sting?"

"Of course the sting! What else have you got on your back? Get its butt down on the ground, way down, in contact with the dirt. Point the point east, where that fireball came from."

Numbly, Kelvin did as directed. He hardly understood any of what was happening, inside or outside.

Some hero he was!

"There." Now Helbah's fingers lightly touched the sting and moved up and down its copper surface.

Lightning flashes came from her fingers and were reflected by the copper.

"What?" he asked dazedly. "What?"

"Shut up! I've got to locate her and I can't use the crystal. When a fireball comes, you zap it. This is a case where science can counter magic, as with the Mouvar weapon."

"But I don't know how to—"

Helbah made a gesture. There was a poof of magic, and smoke. Lightning flashed in the sky. Where Helbah had been there was a large white bird resembling a dovgen.

Kelvin blinked, and then the bird—symbol of gentleness and peacefulness—was in the sky, flying, darting from side to side.

Another fireball appeared from the east. This one was smaller than the last, not much larger than the bird. It streaked for the bird, and Kelvin stared with opened mouth as his gauntlets tingled.

He grasped the top of the sting's shaft with his left hand and put his right hand farther down as far as he could reach. He tried to will lightning to stop the fireball.

Blue lightning crackled and snapped. A long, thin bolt shot from the tip of the sting and stretched out and upward. Above him the fireball sent by Zoanna was intercepted, pierced as if by an arrow. There was an improbable sizzling sound, a whiff of pure ozone, and the fireball vanished.

"I did it!" he exclaimed, astounded. "I shot down a fireball!"

Below where the fireball had been, a bird fluttered groundward in the fading light.

Kelvin's joy turned to horror. "No! No! No!" Without Helbah all was lost!

"Meow?" A blackness detached itself from the dark and reached up a paw.

The houcat! Helbah's familiar! Was it trying to tell him something?

Another fireball appeared. This one was larger than the last. Obviously Zoanna was gaining strength! Angry, determined, Kelvin put his hands on the copper sting and made the lightning jump.

Chimaera's Copper

The bolt hit the fireball and the implosions all but deafened him. He gasped, almost knocked off his feet. Hot rain struck his face.

"Meow!"

He was getting weaker. He could feel it in his legs and arms. It seemed that it was his own life-energy that powered the shots. He was generating electricity from his body, just as the chimaera did, but his body was only a fraction the mass, and not adapted to this. How many bolts could he get from this sting? How many before he collapsed? Now he understood why Helbah had needed help!

He had to keep knocking out those fireballs. He thought the houcat was telling him as much. The familiar might be all that existed of Helbah, and that but for a time. If one of those fireballs hit the palace, it would be destroyed. It was up to him, then; he and the gauntlets and the chimaera's sting.

The chimaera! He tried thinking to Mervania, but got no answer; there was no indication that she was tuning him in now. What was going on within the palace?

"Meow!" Looking down in the moment of a lightning flash he saw every black hair standing up on Katbah's back. The animal's tail looked like a sharply bristled brush.

A phenomenally large fireball rushed with blurring speed across the sky. The queen was determined to finish them off now!

Concentrating hard, he threw the lightning. The ball seemed to accept the lightning and swallow it.

There was an uncomfortable crackling that made his teeth ache and the blue lightning bolt snapped and cracked its full unnatural length from sting-tip to fireball.

Was this going to be the one that would destroy them?

"Meow!"

The little paw touch on the copper shaft felt like the blow of a hammer. The sting tipped.

Remembering that Helbah had said the butt should make contact with the ground, he pushed down on it. Still the tip tipped, pointing more visibly, more directly at the fireball that was lighting the sky.

Lightning sizzled and there was a pop that might and might not have been in his ear. Streamers of fire faded rapidly. The lightning bolt vanished. Katbah, mewling as from singed pawpads, backed away.

How much longer could this go on? How much strength did Zoanna the witch now have? Was he going to weaken right out of the fight? Was it going to be the gauntlets and Katbah left to defend the palace?

No, he'd stay conscious, and he'd keep doing this, whatever it was. Eventually the wicked witch would have to weaken. Eventually there would have to come an end to night!

There was a horrendous roar from the palace. Katbah hissed. Kelvin turned, and saw a long low Chimaera's Copper

shape, charge from the palace into the night. It looked a lot like a small dragon, but of course that couldn't be.

PLOP! A white bird, singed and sooty and apparently almost dead, fell beside Katbah. It lay there in the lightning's flash. Katbah sniffed it as all went dark.

"That was some trip!" Helbah groaned.

Kelvin swallowed. "You're—back?"

"Of course I'm back! For a dimwitted boy you ask the dumbest questions!"

"I—I'm sorry, Helbah. I thought—"

"You thought that fireball got me. That's what you were supposed to think! That's what Zoanna was supposed to think!"

"Meow."

"Yes, Katbah, you did right. Can't depend on a hero for everything. Particularly one as inexperienced as this."

Considering all the adventures he had had in his relatively short life span, Kelvin did not feel he was inexperienced. But the need to get on with this was great.

"Helbah, what did you—?"

"Found them. Cave in the mountainside. Now it's up to you, me, and Charlain. Get that fireball, will you?"

Almost absently Kelvin directed the chimaera's sting to lightning out another approaching fire-bolus.

The ground shook.

"But Mother is—"

"Here," Charlain said behind him. "And congratulations, hero, you are now the husband of a relatively healthy, loving wife, and the father of a healthy, squalling baby boy."

Kelvin's mouth dropped open.

"And a rather pretty baby girl," Jon said, emerging with a bundle.

The enormity of the change in his life hit him then, as did the ground before he had half realized.

CHAPTER 30

Chimaera's Copper

Defeat?

"Wake up, hero! Wake up!"

He felt her slapping him. Helbah. Then he felt the cat's tail under his nose and he wanted to sneeze.

"Does he do this often, Charlain?"

"I wouldn't know, Helbah. We'll have to ask his wife."

Wife! Heln! The baby!

Babies!

Kelvin sat up, then stood up. He was dizzy. There were stars in the sky, not all of his making. A moon, bright and coppery as a chimaera's haunch, lighting the grounds of the Kelvinian palace.

He made his way unsteadily to where Jon stood, holding his daughter. The baby's face seemed oddly familiar. The eyes were dark, almost coppery—

He froze. That face, after allowing for the difference in age—

Don't be concerned, Mervania thought. All foodstuffs look alike to us too. She favors me only slightly.

Kelvin reeled.

"What's the matter, Kel?" Jon asked, alarmed. "She's not ugly, she's remarkably pretty for a newborn baby, and so's her brother, Mother says. Nothing wrong with either of them."

"But—"

What your mother doesn't want to tell you, Mervania thought, is that there were three. The dragon fled.

"But—"

It was a very tricky disenchantment, Kelvin. You can't undo in a minute something that has developed for weeks. We saved your wife's life by breaking the chimaera into three: boy, girl, and dragon. You may keep the first two. That's fair, isn't it?

Kelvin's mouth was stuck halfway open.

Now go in there and see your wife, and be brave when they tell you about the third. It was the best that could be done, Kelvin. The two are completely human, except—

Chimaera's Copper

Except? he thought numbly.

They will be telepathic. Sorry about that; it just couldn't be helped. Now be on your way. I'll be on mine; I have business at home to hold me for a while. He felt her presence fade; she was gone.

Kelvin shut his mouth and started toward the palace.

"Uh, I know she wants to see you, but not just yet," Jon said. "It was a difficult delivery, and there's blood, and she's sleeping—"

"True," Charlain said. "And we do have other business out here. Stand by, Kelvin."

He stood by. Jon turned and walked into the palace with the baby girl. They didn't know the whole story! he thought. They didn't know Mervania's part in it.

"Later we must talk, Kelvin," Charlain said. "But right now we must deal with the queen, or all can still be lost."

Kelvin finally found his voice. "Yes. I'll help here."

"We have to get to work," Helbah agreed.

"The fireballs!" Kelvin said. "Are you watching? I forgot to—"

"She has quit sending them for the time being. It takes as much energy to generate them as to abolish them. I must admit I'm surprised at her strength. If you hadn't come out when you did we'd have been finished."

Kelvin refocused on the problem. He had managed, with the help of the chimaera's sting, to make witchfire arrows! Or at least the lightning to shoot them down. But indeed the battle was not over; not until Zoanna was gone. He stared into the sky. He'd never expected to see the moon out tonight; it had been so dark. But of course the storm had not been natural.

"Do you think they're trying to escape?" Charlain asked.

"I think they're planning something," Helbah said. "Zoanna swore she'd never give up. If that's so, we'll have to finish her."

"She'll come back if we don't, won't she?" Kelvin asked.

"Probably. One thing you can say for her, she's not a quitter."

"Nor is Rowforth. He's just as bad!"

"Fortunately Rowforth hasn't her magic. Let's go get them."

"To that cave?"

Chimaera's Copper

"As I told you, for a slow boy you ask the dumbest questions! Of course to the cave!"

"How will we—?" Helbah was clearly the general, he thought.

"Charlain and I may not need you there. Hand your mother the antimagic weapon. It won't crack Zoanna's barrier, but it just might help. You stay here with the sting and Katbah and watch for fireballs. Your former queen is just mean enough to try one final attack on the palace."

"I—I'll watch." He handed his mother the Mouvar weapon. Then he thought again and handed her the belt and short scabbard. She took these with as little surprise as though he had handed her a pot in her own kitchen. She strapped on the weapon, seeming not in the least curious about it.

"I'm sure you will," Helbah said. "Charlain, hop on my back!"

With astonishment that seemed lately never to cease, Kelvin watched his mother climb piggyback on Helbah's aging shoulders. Then, as the moon hid under clouds and it was as dark as the inside of a serpent, there was a whooshing sound. The moon came back and there was a white dovgen climbing into the sky with what looked like a small gray shrewouse clinging with tiny paws to its feathers.

The bird disappeared into the dark sky. There were no lightnings. No flaming balls of witch's fire.

"Meow." Absently he reached down and stroked the cat. He was back to the little-boy stage, he thought, waiting patiently for adults to accomplish adult business. All in all it wasn't too bad a place to be.

Katbah rubbed against him and purred contentment and wordless understanding. He was beginning to understand why witches had familiars; they could be a lot of comfort on dark nights.

No, not too bad a place for someone who had never wanted the hero mantle in the first place.

"Ohhh," Rowforth moaned. "Zoanna, you're taking too much of my life-force. It's flowing out and nothing is replacing it. Zoanna, you're draining me!"

"Can't be helped. You want to win, don't you? Quit your whining."

"But Zoanna, if you kill me in order to destroy them, where's my triumph? You don't want me dead."

Then he paused, a new and not entirely pleasant thought occurring. "You don't, do you, Zoanna?"

Zoanna, now the complete witch, did not answer. She merely smiled in ever so enigmatic a fashion.

Rowforth, who had been merely uncomfortable, now found that he was thoroughly scared. He resolved that he would find some way of being useful to her other than at the expense of his life-force. To fail to do this, he strongly suspected, would cost him dear. It could, he knew in the depths of him, cost him his life.

Chimaera's Copper

John and Rufurt had ridden the plowhorse double half the way to the palace. John for his part was having second thoughts. True, the lights in the sky meant big things afoot, and probably danger to those he loved. But, and the thought jolted him worse than the plowhorse, the intelligent thing would have been to go back to Kian and get his help.

"Curse it," Rufurt said with disgust, "there's never an army around when you need one!"

Looking at the dancing lights in the sky and having his senses beset by implosive blasts, John had to agree with the former king's estimate. But he had to go on. Somewhere ahead there was Charlain!

Jon watched Heln nursing her firstborn and felt a stirring inside her that she had never honestly felt before. Possibly, just possibly, she herself was not completely devoid of maternal instinct. She looked down at the secondborn she held. She certainly was a cute baby! She had her grandma's coppery hair. But how were they going to tell Kelvin about the horrible third one?

Well, maybe they wouldn't have to. The thing had gained its feet immediately and scampered out before they could do more than stare. Heln, lapsing into unconsciousness again, hadn't seen it at all.

Maybe nobody but Jon, Charlain, and Dr. Sterk ever needed to know of the horror that had been the remnant of the evil enchantment. It was safely gone.

"I'm sure they'll be all right," Dr. Sterk said, putting his beak of a nose almost in her face. "I wasn't certain. We physicians have so little training in magic."

"I'm sure that can change," Jon said.

"It will. It will have to. After all, magic is the basis of all healing."

"I've heard that all my life. From Mother, mostly." Jon looked at the window and was surprised how light it had become. The ball of fire Charlain had left had gradually grown dimmer until now it was about as bright as that of twin oil lamps.

"I'll light the lamps again, Doctor. I'm not certain how long my mother's light will last."

"Probably almost until morning," Dr. Sterk said.

Jon busied herself with the lamps. She hadn't a coal to apply to the wicks so she simply held them near the witch's fire and—not surprisingly, to her at least—they lit.

"Good girl, Jon."

"Doctor, do you mind if I go out and see what Kelvin and our mother are about? It has been a while."

Chimaera's Copper

"No indeed, Jon. I'm wondering about that myself." He took the baby from her.

Heln stirred, weak and wan in the bed. "Please Jon, find out about Kelvin."

"Don't worry about him," Jon said, patting the new mother's hand. How wonderful it was to have Heln back, instead of the monster she had become under the enchantment! "He's our hero and nothing bad will happen to him. He didn't come in before because I asked him not to. There was blood, and you were just about unconscious." And we had to clean up the gory tracks of that horrible third birth!

Heln sighed. "Of course. You're right, Jon. You almost always are." She closed her eyes. And we didn't want to rouse you until that was done either, Jon's thought finished.

Jon left the palace, sling in hand. She was wondering if what she'd told Heln was true. Prophecy or no prophecy, she knew she had on more than one occasion saved her brother's life.

Kelvin stood at the gatepost in the moonlight. His hands were on a copper something that looked a little like a dragon spear that she hadn't noticed before, in the mixed excitement of the birthings. The point of the spear thing was pointed skyward; was it some sort of new weapon? Why would he need anything different if he had the Mouvar weapon that had won the war with Aratex? And there, next to his leg, rubbing up against him, was a large, black houcat.

"Kelvin?"

"Jon!" he exclaimed, as if seeing her for the first time. "Is Heln all right? Are the babies—?"

"Calm yourself," she said with a tired smile. "They're all fine. Heln's asking for you. As soon as you finish here, you can go see her." What a boy Kelvin was, actually, she realized. How much more grown-up she and Heln were, and even her own Lester.

"I have to watch the sky for fireballs," he said. "Mother and our—" He paused, swallowed, and then went on: "Our ally, have gone to finish something."

"You mean the witch from the twin cities, don't you?" How naive did he think she was? Who else had been defending them from Zoanna and the false king these past days?

"Yes—yes, that's what I mean. Helbah thinks they're licked and that she can finish them."

"Isn't that a job for a hero?"

"I'm not complaining," Kelvin said.

Jon lightly touched his hand. "You've sent back Zoanna's fireballs, Kel?"

"This stopped them," he said, touching the copper spear.

"Why stop them? Why not send them back?"

Chimaera's Copper

"Witches erect magic barriers when they expect magical attack or counterattack. The returned fireballs might have bothered Zoanna but they wouldn't have crisped her unless she'd dropped her guard. She might even have been poised to bounce them back again, and that could have made it worse for us."

"She maintained that through magic?"

"Yes."

"Kelvin, why don't you go after them?"

"I'm supposed to guard the palace. If I neglect my post, and the queen sends one more fireball, we'll lose even if we kill Zoanna. Anyway, Helbah can handle it."

"Are you certain?"

He frowned. "Why?"

She bit her lower lip and tried to see off into the darkness, past the forest, to the mountainside. There was just the faintest of flashes there, first high up and then low down.

"Look, Kelvin," she said, directing his gaze, "isn't that a battle? Aren't the witches going at it hard?"

Kelvin's eyes squinted. "I don't see... I can't see past the forest."

"It is," she said. "The witches battling. Kelvin, I think you should go and help."

"They've got the Mouvar weapon."

"But it may not be enough. Zoanna can't take time to throw a fireball at the palace. Helbah and Mother have her occupied."

Kelvin frowned. "You really think I should—"

"Yes." She was really worried now.

"All right, then." He took up the copper spear and strapped it to his back. He did something to his belt and his feet left the ground, and he soared like an untethered cloud. He looked back once, and then he was flying through the moonlight in the direction of the mountainside.

Jon sighed. She hoped she had done the right thing. Her brother seemed so helpless sometimes!

"Meow?" The black houcat seemed almost to question her.

"Yes, kitty," she said. "Kelvin's off to be a hero, and I know that someway he'll save the day.

Because he is guarded by the prophecy, while the others aren't. I wish I was going with him. I wish you and I could fly."

Chimaera's Copper

"Meow." Something stung her legs, like a jolt of what her father called static electricity but which she had always thought magic. The stars grew smaller and somehow the grass and the gatepost grew high. Ozone was in the air and there was a taste in her mouth that surely she had never tasted before.

She flexed her white wings. A black creature the size of a shrewouse climbed up between her shoulders and gently gripped her feathers with claws.

Jon flapped her dovgen wings and flew after Kelvin.

I'm off to join the witches! she thought as the fields and the trees slid by. Somehow she wasn't at all surprised.

Helbah sweated and strained to keep the barrier erected. She could feel it bulging inward, pushing at them, wanting to break. The heat from the steadily roaring flames was getting to her, and worse still, to her apprentice.

"Now, Charlain!" she said. With all their strength they pushed together, back, back. Who would have thought Zoanna commanded such power?

There was only one thing left to try, and she tried it. Hate technology though she might, there was such a thing as a mixture of technology and magic. She raised Kelvin's Mouvar weapon to point at the cliff, though where it pointed hardly mattered. She pressed its trigger.

The fireball receded from before them. It retreated to the cliffside and the entrance to a cave. It stopped there, held in check by Zoanna's barrier. If Zoanna should drop the barrier she would be consumed by her own bolide. If Helbah could now add her own witch's fire the barrier would surely disintegrate.

Unfortunately the Mouvar weapon recognized no distinction between Zoanna's fireball and her own.

Should Helbah try a magical counterattack, it would rebound on her and Charlain.

She was weakening alarmingly fast. That treacherous injury she had taken on the battlefield still vitiated her strength; she needed far more recuperation time than she had gotten. She didn't know how long she could go on. If only Zoanna would weaken before Helbah weakened further. The Mouvar weapon held her in check for a breathing spell and then its power weakened and Zoanna's fireball was drifting back.

Now she regretted telling Kelvin to remain at the palace. She needed him here, with his copper sting!

With that he might throw a nonmagical electrical bolt through the barrier. That would be the end of Zoanna and the worst of her many consorts.

THUNK!

The feathered crossbow bolt, definitely not magic, protruded from her arm. Blood started from Chimaera's Copper

around the shaft. She had only heartbeats left, if that, to maintain consciousness. Heartbeats to contain the barrier protecting them from the witch's fire!

She could deal with the wound, by focusing her magic on it, for it was not a critical one. But if she did that, there would be no barrier to Zoanna's magical attack. She had to maintain that barrier!

The wound burned horribly. Her arm seemed to swell to twice its normal size. She lost feeling in the extremity. Her finger loosened on the Mouvar's trigger. The weapon dropped, and she after it.

"Helbah! Helbah!" her apprentice cried.

Poor Charlain, Helbah thought as her senses faded. I've failed you and the rest.

"Good shot, Rowforth!"

"Nothing to it, my love." Despite his faking it, he could hardly stand. How he had gotten to his feet and aimed the crossbow was a mystery proving once again his remarkable endurance. "Better get them now, love, while you have the chance."

"I'm going to, sweetie. But I intend to savor my victory. Look who's there! Can you see him in the morning light?"

Rowforth squinted. "Kelvin!"

"That's right. We've got the entire bunch! At our mercy, only we have no mercy."

"Burn them! Burn them!"

"In good time." She sharpened her eyesight, a trick she had only recently learned. The thin, tawny-haired troublemaker and prophesied curse was definitely there. He was trying to help Helbah and at the same time he was looking up at them. Helbah was almost finished—and he was almost finished.

She began forming a fireball in front of the ledge. Slowly, slowly, slowly. No need to hurry. Big, big. Hot, hot. Oh, it was nice!

Rowforth gasped weakly and sat down. He was being drained beyond his tolerable threshold, but it couldn't be helped. This was the fire that counted!

Rowforth picked up his crossbow, tried to put another bolt in it, and tried to crank it taut. He fumbled with the cocking mechanism, then dropped it, too weak. "For the gods' sake, Zoanna, you're weakening me too much!"

"How much is too much?" she inquired indifferently. "This will be the fullest revenge, Rowforth.

You didn't know I knew about the maid, did you?"

Chimaera's Copper

Even in the hot glow from the fireball, Rowforth's face was white. "I thought—"

"You thought you could be unfaithful. That was an error on your part."

"You were unfaithful!"

"Zoanna is Zoanna. My consorts are my consorts. You were only a consort, my sweet."

"Was?" Realization made his voice weak.

"Was, sweet," she said firmly.

Rowforth's eyes bulged above his big ruddy nose until his very face looked obscene. "Zoanna, you're draining me completely! You're killing me!"

"I am, Your Unfaithfulness. It's all part of my triumph. For my next consort I think I'll take a young and inexperienced boy. That guardsman who stole your prize mare and ran off and joined with that fool St. Helens, what's-his-name—Lomax. Yes, for a time he might be quite pleasant. With what I know now I can make him come to me. Come and perform, delightfully."

"ZOANNA! ZOANNA!" He could not even move his hand to draw the dagger he carried. All of what energy he retained went into his pleading, accusing shouts.

Feeling a bit smug about it she moved the fireball to where Helbah's barrier had been. Past the spot, to where Kelvin could feel the heat and not quite fry. The boy was now trying desperately to get the chimaera sting from his back. Excellent, Kelvin! With that you really could destroy me! Now his mother was helping him, pulling at a thong, guiding it off his shoulder with her fingertips.

"That's too easy for you!" Zoanna said. She nudged the fireball closer. Now they were burning their dainty fingers on the sting, as they tried, but failed, to point it at her. Like houcat and shrewouse, this game!

One more little nudge and it would be all over. She was almost reluctant. Wait until they nearly had the sting grounded, almost pointing at her. Wait until the very last microsecond. Wait, wait, wait, savoring.

She glanced down at Rowforth's inert body. Too bad he was already out of it. He would have enjoyed seeing Kelvin die. It was appropriate: it was Rowforth's remaining life-force that was in the fireball, doing the deed.

She nudged the fireball just a tiny bit closer. There, let them fry, let them cook and steam before she burned them. Let their lungs burst, their hearts explode, their eyeballs melt. When she was done only their charred bones would remain.

Now, now, now was the moment! Now her triumph when all her enemies burned.

Throwing back her head, she vented a vengeful laugh of complete and final triumph.

Chimaera's Copper

Kelvin felt his skin blister. The stench of his own burning hair was in his nostrils. His hands and the leathery gauntlets protecting them were cooking on the copper surface of the chimaera's sting.

Waves of continuous pain were making him nauseous. His mother was beside him but he had almost forgotten her. What magic she and Helbah had had was vanquished. There was no way, no way at all that they could survive.

Klunk! It seemed to be an irrelevant, meaningless sound to accompany their dying. The fire around them was somehow fainter. Then, remarkably, the fireball vanished and his eyes flashed with pain.

Was this death? No, it hurt too much!

"KELVIN! CRISP THEM!"

His sister's voice? It couldn't be! Delusion before death? He couldn't think.

The fire was gone now. Through streaming eyes he could see the cave above them. Two bodies were lying there. Zoanna's and Rowforth's. Were they dead?

"HURRY, KELVIN! HURRY!"

It was Jon's voice!

"Kelvin, I can't find another rock!" Her voice was close and unmistakably hers. "She's going to wake! Hurry!"

No time to question. He placed his hands on the copper, heard the sizzle, smelled the burning flesh.

He was screaming, though hardly aware of it. He ignored the agony ballooning bigger and bigger and threatening momentarily to explode his heart. Only one thing to think about: lightning. Pure, sizzling lightning to cleanse and destroy...

"Kelvin, she's awake! She getting up! She's—"

CRACK! It was his bolt, scoring.

In the blue afterimage he saw two skeletons on the cave ledge. One stood upright with raised hands, but now all flesh was gone from it. Yet it remained vertical, unwilling to fall down. The very bones were shapely, retaining the outline of a beautiful woman.

Magical beings died hard. Maybe witches died hardest. Almost entirely destroyed, they could yet somehow return to life. Or so it seemed possible to believe, right now.

The figure moved. It didn't fall. Its arms came together over its head, as if shaping something between the bone-fingers. Something like another fireball.

"Kelvin!"

Chimaera's Copper

Again he willed the lightning.

CRACK!

The standing skeleton crumbled, yet it remained intact. It landed on hands and knees, trying to break its fall.

CRACK! SIZZLE! CRACK! Lightning bolt after lightning bolt. He felt himself being drained, but he gave it his all. The bolts blasted the skeleton apart, and blasted the individual bones, and blasted the fragments.

Now nothing remained on the ledge or in the cave but ash. As he stared upward the ash stirred in a morning breeze and slowly lost all shape.

He tottered himself. Now he could die. It was done.

"Kelvin, did you get them?" Whispery and dry, it was Helbah. He had thought her dead.

"They're gone," Kelvin gasped. "Forever, I think."

"Good. Your mother—?"

He looked down at the crumpled heap that had been she who had borne him. "I—I don't know."

"She may survive. You may. I may."

"Yes." But unlikely, he thought.

"The war—will you surrender to me?"

War? Surrender? What was she talking about?

"Do it, Son. Please!" It was his mother, reviving, still able to speak!

"I'll do what you ask," he said, hardly aware of what he was promising. "Your side won. Kelvinia stands defeated."

It was never my war in the first place! he thought. Never Kelvinia's. Never mine.

"In that case, I'm sure we will survive," Helbah said more briskly. "Charlain, hands!"

Charlain lifted her arms with difficulty and placed burned palms against Helbah's. There was a sizzle and the blackness disappeared from their hands. Both women grew rosy and visibly stronger. Burns and scorch marks disappeared. Fire-frizzed hair lost tips of ash and became all dark and healthy.

Helbah's shoulder wound stopped bleeding and she removed one hand from Charlain to start to pull out the arrow's head.

Chimaera's Copper

"Kelvin!"

Hands touched, gripped, firmed. Helbah held his right, his mother his left.

The agony faded. His heart resumed beating normally. Strength came back in waves that were positively exhilarating.

"There," Helbah said, dropping his hand. "We are now whole again, thanks to some help from a friend."

That was an overstatement, for she still had a crossbow wound in her arm. But now she was able to attend to it.

Jon appeared suddenly, breaking through some brush. In her arms was Katbah. Over her left shoulder hung the sling that had saved all of them.

"Kelvin, we did it!"

"We did, Sister," he agreed. He was thankful that Jon hadn't arrived a moment earlier, for then she would have seen what pitiful shape they were all in. How had she gotten here, anyhow?

"She inherited some of her mother's latent talent," Helbah said. "Katbah recognized it. Smart Katbah."

"It was awful!" Jon said, looking happy. "I looked for another rock after I changed, but I never found one. I knew all the time she'd only stay down so long. If you hadn't lightning'd her, Kel..."

Katbah, who had been contentedly snuggling in her arms, suddenly stiffened and jumped down.

Every hair on the familiar's body stood out. The hair on Helbah and Charlain flared as well.

"There's a presence," Helbah whispered. "A presence whose energy I utilized."

Kelvin's heart resumed pounding. Did this mean Zoanna had somehow survived the lightning? Had they been cruelly tricked?

"Calm yourselves," a feminine voice said. It seemed familiar, yet strange. It wasn't Zoanna, or Helbah's or Charlain's or Jon's. Yet he knew that voice! It—

"Mervania?" Kelvin exclaimed.

"Perceptive!" Mertin's voice said. Then there was a growling, as of a dragon.

"But I hear you!" Kelvin said. "Why aren't you in my head?"

"Because I'm here outside your head, inferior life-form!" Mervania said. "I came to tell you that you needn't bring those dragonberries. One of you planted some seeds, maybe accidentally. I've now got plenty of them."

Chimaera's Copper

The seeds they had carried with them and that Kian had lost? They had somehow come up in the chimaera's frame?

"You catch on eventually, human foodstuff."

"Then I won't need to return to your frame? Ever?"

"Don't say it!" Mertin said.

"No," Mervania said. "You won't have to return, Kelvin."

There was a growl of disappointment. "Damn it, Merv, if you'd kept your mouth shut he might have come, and we could have eaten him."

"I know, Mertin. But leave me my foibles. He's a cute boy."

Kelvin sighed, thankful. "You came all the way here, astrally, just to tell me that?"

"No trouble, Kelvin. Actually I thought I might give you some help, but you seem to have done well enough on your own. Not without the use of my present, though."

"Yes." A horrid thought hit him. "Will you stick around? Do you mean to stay here?"

"Calm yourself again, Kelvin," Mervania said, amused. "No, you won't see me again unless you come visiting, which I wouldn't advise. I want to find my own kind. In an infinity of frames there has to be one where an intelligent life-form is dominant. Where one of our kind may have hatched and survived in a civilized manner, instead of degraded by savages. Here the only intelligent beings are houcats and dragons."

"I... see."

"Unless your wife would like to visit."

"What?"

"Don't be concerned. We wouldn't eat her. But we could give her more of the powder, so she could birth one of our kind in a suitable environment. It's a rare talent, to be able to—"

"No!" Kelvin cried, echoed by Jon.

"Well, I did help her," Mervania said, sounding hurt. "Considering that I already had the dragonberries, I really didn't have to."

"You already had—when you—the birthing—?" he asked, stunned.

"Her and her damn-fool sentiment!" Mertin exclaimed angrily, accompanied by a similarly outraged growl.

Chimaera's Copper

Kelvin realized that Mervania had indeed been generous, by chimaera definition. She had no longer needed him for the berries, yet she had done him a singular favor. She had saved his wife's life.

"Well, actually, I did it mostly for the offspring," Mervania said. "This is no frame for a Superior Life-form."

"All the same, Mervania, thanks," he said sincerely.

"Now see what you've done, Merv!" Mertin said accusingly. "You've made him grateful. The mush is so solid you could bite it!" And the dragon growled with similar disgust.

"But he has such a charmingly foolish image of me!" Mervania said defensively.

All too true! Kelvin swallowed, then uttered a difficult truth. "I—I think my daughter does look like you, Mervania, and I—I don't mind."

"Why thank you, Kelvin," she replied, sounding genuinely touched.

"Goodbye, Mervania."

There was silence. After a moment he realized that the chimaera was gone.

The others were staring at him, but Kelvin didn't mind that, either.

EPILOGUE

It was not a big, fancy wedding. Certainly nothing to compare with what Kian's had been. But when John took Charlain's hand, pushed back her copper hair, gazed into her violet eyes, and said,

"Charlain, we are again wed. For always, you and I," and she replied, "Yes, John, always, you and I," there was not a dry eye in the ballroom of what had been Kelvinia's palace.

Later, after the formal reception and the shaking of hands of all well-wishers, the bride, groom, their family and closest friends sat together in the lounging room.

Jon still wiped at her eyes. It was apparent that she had been moved even more than she might have wished, and in more ways. Brave, tomboyish Jon, holding Lester's hand and trying valiantly to stem the tide.

"How come Easter's pregnant and I'm not?" she demanded in a whisper of Lester. "She's younger than I am!"

Startled, Lester turned to her. It was evident that a certain attitude had changed somewhere along the way. "We'll discuss that later," he whispered back.

Chimaera's Copper

"We'll do more than that!" she muttered. Then she looked around as if fearful that someone had overheard, or had noticed her tears. It seemed that no one had. At least, no one gave any sign.

Kelvin noticed, though. He was tempted to say something brotherly, but then thought better of it. He and his sister were getting on famously these days and he didn't want to wreck it. So instead of telling her that she had a right to weep, or whatever, and that the wedding made it legitimate, he turned to Morton Crumb.

"It was a nice wedding, wasn't it?"

"Yes, very nice." Beside Mor sat his Mrs., fat and comforting Mabel, whom Kelvin hardly knew.

Kelvin turned to his wife. She had recovered so nicely during the past weeks. No nightmares, though he hardly understood how that was possible. Maybe it was the efficiency of the chimaera's powder.

She sat there calmly nursing Charles, whose pink, chubby expression never betrayed what he might have been. Twin Merlain lay sleeping beside her. They were to be Knights, by mutual agreement, now that the marriage of their grandparents had been restored.

"You comfortable, dearest?"

"You ask me that so often! Yes, of course. But I'll be more comfortable once we're home."

Kelvin smiled. There was a type of comfort that he had not had recently that only she could supply.

"Well anyway," Rufurt spoke up from across the room, repositioning the crown on his head, "that's another two words of your prophecy. 'Uniting four' means Kance, Klingland, Hermandy, and Kelvinia. We're one confederation now, each with one vote, with brothers Kildom and Kildee having the power to veto all the rest of us. In all of history there's never been such an arrangement, but Helbah wanted it."

"It's for the best," Kelvin said. "I trust Helbah. Kelvinia never had any difficulties with Klingland and Kance that Zoanna and your look-alike didn't invent. And with those boys in charge you know Hermandy will behave itself."

"They already got rid of their dictator," St. Helens said. "I say hooray for them."

"I'm sure we all do," Kelvin said almost automatically.

"And Kelvin," his father-in-law said, leaning forward, "you know what's next for you. The prophecy says 'Until from Seven there be One / Only then will his Task be Done.' Well, there are still three kingdoms left for you to conquer."

Kelvin considered carefully before he spoke. St. Helens was not an evil man, though he did sometimes talk like what his father called a war hawk. Those two young fellows in the twin caps had many, many years to grow, and he was certain Helbah wouldn't let them declare war yet if ever. All in all, one pleasing solution as far as he was concerned.

Chimaera's Copper

"I'm glad it's only old words some people believe in, and that I'm not even nominally in charge," he said.

No one looked disappointed with his answer, not even St. Helens. They were all too polite to speak the obvious: as a hero, he was an inferior life-form.

It was a great, fine time in Kelvinia and the confederation.

Copyright © 1990 by Piers Anthony Jacob and Robert E. Margroff ISBN: 0-812-50915-3