CHAPTER 2

Megapolis

"Now we've plenty of time before the con starts," Helbah assured them, leading them through the gigantic terminal. People, most of them looking like witches, warlocks, and associated types, were headed purposefully in all directions, ignoring all else. Yet somehow Helbah threaded their way through, avoiding collisions without seeming to go out of her way. They walked past platforms, booths, and counters without seeming end. She motioned all of them to stay put and wait for her, then walked up to a Heravis Rent-a-Drive counter and started talking.

Kelvin recognized the man at the counter as an employee type he'd encountered at home. The fellow was not trying very hard; in fact he wasn't being helpful. He wondered if Helbah would unleash a spell.

She was trying to be patient, but Kelvin was able to recognize the little signs of her annoyance. He saw the two kinglets nudging each other knowingly and knew that they had picked up on this too; they were looking forward to the explosion.

He held Heln's hand and she held Charles' hand and Charles held Merlain's hand. Jon for some reason had a kinglet's hand in each of her own. This kept the young ones mostly under control; it was when they got out loose that trouble built up like a turbulent storm, one thing feeding on another. Charlain was quite by herself, evidently dizzied and bewildered by all the sights.

"It's all right, Mom," he said. "Really it is. By the way, where's Dad?"

"Right here," his father said, coming up behind him. "I was just out looking at the cars. This place is New York City, minus pollution and plus magic."

Kelvin hadn't the slightest idea what he meant. He was watching Helbah's irritation increase toward the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

warning flicker of anger. He would not care to be in the counterman's uncooperative shoes!

The kinglets watched raptly. "Now!" one murmured. Oh yes, they knew the dire signs! Their boxed ears had enabled them to calibrate Helbah's ire precisely.

In that moment there was a poof of whitish smoke behind the counter. The counterman disappeared in it.

In a moment it cleared to reveal a large froog with a larger mouth and great bulging eyes.

Startled, the creature opened its mouth and said "CROAK!" in a loud, pained voice. He got no sympathy. People around them pointed and laughed.

A passerby paused, nodding. "Serves the idiot right, not to recognize a grandmistress witch," he said to his companion. "He tried to treat her the way the functionaries treat the rest of us." Chuckling, he moved on.

Helbah was too genteel to smirk. She simply made a gesture. The smoke returned. It dissipated in a moment and the man was there again. Possibly his transformation had been mere illusion. It didn't matter; it had made the point. He was shaking.

Hastily the counterman thrust papers before Helbah while she dug in her bag and brought out papers of a similar kind, only smaller. Helbah signed one of the man's papers, thrust it and some of her small papers at him, and turned away from the rental counter.

The kinglets lost interest. The show was over. It really hadn't been as much as they had hoped for.

"Let's go," Helbah said briskly. She led them across the terminal, past rows of platforms suspended in midair, seeming to know exactly where she was going. Each platform was equipped with a hunk of crystal in front of a couch and a back couch: two wide comfortable seats.

Helbah stopped at a platform whose number matched the number on a card. Despite her years she hopped in agile fashion onto the platform and seated herself behind the crystal.

"Well, all aboard!" she said, as if this were routine.

Oh. The rest of them had somehow not caught on that this was a conveyance, not just a place to sit.

Kelvin let go of Heln's hand and helped bustle the four children into the front seat beside the witch. Then the five other adults climbed up into the rear seat. It was crowded, but sufficed. Jon was on his lap. He would have preferred to have Heln there; Jon was mostly all woman now, but she was his sister. Kelvin wasn't quite sure he trusted this wheelless, horseless carriage; he presumed there was some way to make it go, but could it be controlled? However, Helbah was Helbah; she knew how to do it if anyone did.

The witch ran her aged hands over the crystal. Her fingers remained just touching the faceted surface.

The platform seemed to come to life, vibrating. Charlain looked worriedly about and Kelvin was tempted to. This felt a bit like riding the back of a dragon: one never could be sure what the monster was about to do.

Helbah's fingers remained just touching the faceted surface. The platform drifted out into a stream of other platforms, as if it were a boat entering a river and floating along with other boats. That analogy helped; Kelvin imagined invisible water, and determined its flow by the motions of the other boats.

Silently they glided down a tunnel, keeping perfectly spaced between the other craft, and in line. Katbah Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

yawned on Helbah's lap, finding this dull. Jon shifted on Kelvin's lap, causing him momentary pain. She was looking around, as was her nature, but she was oddly subdued. The others seemed mainly to be holding on, still not quite trusting this craft.

They drifted out of the tunnel, and out of the terminal. The light of day brightened around them. Kelvin gasped; he couldn't help it. So many more wheelless carriages than he had imagined! Moving in both directions, two wide, never-touching lines. A street wider than any he had ever seen, bordered not by recognizable shops but by variously sized and shaped crystals of shop and building size.

Crystals? The only crystals he had seen before were of the size to be mounted in finger rings!

"I don't know whether to go to Hacey's or J.Z. Henny's," Helbah said musingly. "I suppose Hacey's.

They should have what we want. They keep a good magical lookout for the needs of their future customers."

Kelvin slipped off a gauntlet and pushed his hand past Jon's rigid back to the far side of their couch. He tried to push his hand past the edge of the platform. He felt a slight tingle in his fingers and wrists.

Something magical here, protecting passengers from falling, as he had suspected. There was no sensation of speed, but other platforms and the crystal chunks sped past. Now he noticed that the crystals had glowing letters on them, identifying them as shops or businesses. They went by a Sorcerer's Shack, a Zurgler Kling, and a Witch's Implement. Then they were headed for a really large emerald of many facets, and the central facet read "Hacey's."

The platform slowed. How Helbah managed it he did not see, but a green facet vanished before them and they slid into another tunnel. In a moment they emerged in a parking area, with many stationary platforms aligned in rows. Their own platform slowed further, swerved, and came to a gentle stop in what had been a space between two others.

Helbah, evidently impatient to get the dull details attended to, hustled them so rapidly off their platform and through one of the open doorways that Kelvin's head was spinning. He would have preferred to take time—maybe a day or two—to explore this area and get a better notion of its nature.

A glowing sign loomed ahead: OUTFITTERS, JUVENILE it read. Other doorways were labeled OUTFITTERS, MALE and OUTFITTERS, FEMALE. Well, at least that much made sense.

They were now in a very large store with a great crowd of adults and children. As in the terminal, there was every style and color and degree of dress and undress imaginable. Now Kelvin noticed that some of the unclothed women were not actually naked; they had some kind of translucent or outright transparent material on, which clung magically to their contours. That perhaps accounted for the lack of natural sag in certain portions, making them look impossibly healthy. Now if he could just get one of those outfits for Heln—

"We'll outfit the children first," Helbah said. "Next we'll go to the men's department for you lads, and finally the women's for us girls. Possibly you other girls can shop by yourselves while I accompany the men."

"Girls!" This barely applied to Heln and Jon, and it was inappropriate for his mother, and as for Helbah herself it was ridiculous. The old ladies' department would be more appropriate. But of course he kept his mouth shut. Life and marriage had taught him that much.

A large white bird flew down from a high perch and landed in front of them. Pinkish smoke poofed and Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

there stood a smiling dark-haired girl in a light, gauzy dress. She turned to Helbah, instinctively recognizing her as the one with whom to do business. "May I help you?"

Helbah pointed to the children. "Them. Appropriately for the convention. These two boys are kings. The two others have powers they aren't allowed to use yet. Beware."

"You're Helbah!" the girl exclaimed. "The convention guest of honor! I have admired your magic for decades!"

Decades? To Kelvin the girl looked sixteen. But with witches it could be difficult to tell.

"You will be there?" Helbah inquired, seeming faintly interested.

"I'm flying over right after work. Oh, yes, Helbah, I'll fit them out for the con. It's an honor to serve you."

"In that case," Helbah said, taking the salesgirl's respect as her due, "the rest of us will go get attired while you're dressing them. Be alert; they can be quite troublesome."

"Oh, we have ways of dealing with youngsters," the salesgirl said, smiling. "Besides, when they see what we have here, I know they'll behave."

Lots of luck, Kelvin thought.

"I want to look like a hero," Charles said.

"Me too!" said a kinglet.

"Oh, you will, you will. When we're done, you'll look just the way you always wanted."

"Just be certain you keep them here until we're back," Helbah urged. "If you don't, they'll wreck the store."

Indeed, they were working on it. "There's girls on a high one!" Kildee exclaimed, pointing up and to the side, where a group of four women were gliding down on a platform. At least it seemed like a platform, because their feet were all fixed at the same level, but nothing was visible. They were standing, evidently holding on to a similarly invisible rail around its edge. "Quick! We can peek up their skirts!"

"Dumbbell!" Kildom retorted. "They don't have skirts!"

Sure enough: the two older women wore trousers, and the two younger ones were nude, or in invisible wrappings. Kildee turned away, disgusted.

Kelvin managed to refrain from smiling. Then he turned his eyes away, before Heln caught him looking at those body stockings again.

"Transparent elevator," John Knight remarked thoughtfully.

The salesgirl promised Helbah she would keep the children occupied, and shooed them ahead of her, up an aisle. Helbah sighed and led the rest of them to a squared area under an open shaft. Various colored blocks were underfoot, with numbers identifying the floor to which they related. Kelvin looked at the floor; surely just one number could identify it, if any such thing needed to be done.

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Helbah pressed a number with her foot. Suddenly they levitated.

Oh. Kelvin couldn't have said he was surprised. He should have caught on that that was what the references to floors meant. His father had described the elevators of his home world, and this didn't seem to be that much different. It was magic, which made sense, but it did seem precarious; they weren't on anything, they were simply rising. Suppose the spell failed before they reached their solid floor?

"Like a glassed-in elevator, but I'd prefer a more visible one," John Knight remarked, almost echoing Kelvin's thought as he looked underfoot.

The first floor came to their level. They passed it and stopped at the second. They got off, and Helbah gave the "girls" instructions. Then she pushed Kelvin and his father back onto a lifting section. She hit the number for the third floor and up they went.

"Where's a salesman?" Helbah demanded, stepping onto the landing. Immediately a large dovgen with puffed breast lit at their feet, vanished in smoke, and became a man. Tall, blond, wearing blue trousers that had no sag, a shirt which was white and spotless, and a strange piece of cloth around his neck that Kelvin decided was a nose wiper. "Yes, madam, may I help?"

"These men." Helbah motioned at them. "Get them dressed appropriately for the big convention."

"Certainly, madam. This way, please, men."

The salesman led them to a large flat crystal set in an upright frame. The crystal reflected nothing. It was simply clear and polished and the color of water without depth.

"You first, Kelvin," Helbah said. "Just stand in front of it."

Kelvin did as she asked, not knowing what to expect.

The salesman made a pass with his hand across the surface and the crystal became a mirror. It reflected Kelvin and only Kelvin; none of the background.

The salesman eyed Kelvin's greenbriar pantaloons, brownberry shirt, and good heavy walking boots.

His expression was blank; evidently he was suppressing his country rube assessment. He made a hand pass and the Kelvin in the mirror was newly attired almost as nattily as was the salesman. Kelvin had to touch his own throat to make certain he wasn't wearing the nose wiper.

"That's not quite him," Helbah said from the invisible area the mirror did not reflect.

"It would have been, on Earth," John Knight said. "The style is almost exactly what it was when I left."

If the salesman found the reference to Earth odd or confusing, he gave no sign. Kelvin wondered whether anything would shake the man's poise. Suppose one of the kinglets slipped a wet froog down the back of his shirt? But of course the kinglets weren't here. Too bad.

"What do you prefer, madam?" the salesman inquired politely, unaware of the fate he had escaped in Kelvin's imagination.

"Kelvin, what would you prefer?" she asked him in turn.

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"A wet froog," he replied without thinking.

"What?"

Oops! He would have to watch that. Kelvin had a mind to say he was satisfied with what he'd been wearing; at least it was well broken in and comfortable. But Helbah was so serious, and his father had complained from time to time that the customary clothes they wore lacked imagination and were unflattering. Kelvin didn't believe that nonsense at all, but he did want to please Helbah. So he exercised his imagination, trying to come up with something suitable.

"Father, you said when you left your original home frame and arrived in mother's frame that you were wearing a uniform. Light green, of some shade called olive, I believe."

"The color wasn't that great, and I don't think you want a uniform."

"No, Dad, no uniform. I've had enough of war. But the color you said—I'd like to try it."

"It was more of a diarrhea brown than a green. Khaki. Unless you mean fatigues."

"No, I don't want to be fatigued," Kelvin said quickly.

"Khaki," the salesman said. "A favorite for uniforms everywhere."

"Oh for goodness' sake!" Helbah snapped. "You get fitted first, John. Show him what good dress is all about."

They changed places. John had his image dressed in khaki—just to show Kelvin, he said—and wearing a nose wiper which he explained was a tie. He frowned, touching his collar. "No tie."

The khaki tie disappeared, leaving khaki shirt and pants. "I like brown better," John said. "A little darker than the brownberry. And the shirt—yes, match it to the pants. Maybe a leather tunic so I can look a little soldierly, and—"

Eventually it was done. John's image was still clad in what was essentially a uniform. No bags, no sags, everything fitting. It looked good enough to Kelvin too.

Helbah sighed. "Is that what you want? How about...?" She moved a hand in front of the crystal and the image was clothed in blazingly bright colors that changed and shifted as light did in a magic prism.

"Nothing that showy," John said.

"How about—" Another wave of Helbah's hand and he was shown wearing blue tights and a red cape.

The cape flowed out behind him as if he really could fly.

"No! No! Definitely not! What I had!"

"Oh, very well!" Helbah made a gesture and the image was back to wearing unpretentious brown with the only accessory a leather tunic. The boots were the same as when he had come in, but newer and brightly shined.

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"Now that," John said, "Is right. You, Kelvin?"

"Me too." His father's stamp of approval was his best guide.

"But you will wear something different, won't you?" Helbah prompted, her tone warning him that she would not brook the same nonsense from him that she did from his father. "After all, this is the big con, and you are a hero."

That did put a different perspective on it. He didn't feel like a hero, and never had, but it might be awkward if someone thought he was and his clothing made him look like a dunce. "Whatever Dad settles on, that's the way I want to dress."

"I want this," John said. "What I'm in now."

"No further accessories? A plumed helmet, perhaps?"

"Plumes are for sissies," John said. "No, if I needed headgear, it'd be a hat. Not that stockelcap, but what fishermen and golfers wore on Earth. Something flexible with a brim and maybe a tiny feather."

"Something like—" and the salesman adjusted a series of hats on the image's head.

"That one!" John said. "The soft, crumpled hat with the smear of grease across it and the fishing lures stuck in the hatband."

The salesman groaned, echoing Helbah. It seemed that only those two had any taste. But father and son were firm in their tastelessness. They entered a booth where the outfits they had decided on had been magically conjured, and quickly changed. They were now dressed in what John called "American knockabout." Ready now to surprise the women.

"Oh, do come along!" Helbah ordered in her mother-hen way. She had evidently given up on taste.

Kelvin took one more look at himself in the magic mirror, now honestly reflecting. He looked, his father assured him, like a young college bum. Hardly flattering, but then possibly colleges on Earth taught other than the dark subjects of the necromancy schools. Maybe there it took real effort to master the status of bum.

Helbah was glaring at him, hands on naturally padded hips. He had better get a move on or he might feel her ire. She could change him into something, as she had that counterman, but he didn't think she would.

His father gave a curt nod and there was now no putting off going. He followed them to the descending squares and watched as Helbah pressed the number two for the women's floor. They floated down as effortlessly as they had floated up.

"Here we are," Helbah said, stepping onto the landing. The women were, as Kelvin had guessed they'd be, nowhere in sight. It was a known fact that no matter how long a man ever took to change his clothing, a woman took three times as long. It was magically programmed into them at birth.

"Oh, they'll be along," Helbah said cheerily. Naturally she could not criticize her own gender on this score. "They will surprise us with the new outfits they'll be wearing."

Kelvin, glancing randomly around as he mused fleetingly on what the women of his family might be Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

wearing, encountered the bouncing breasts of another nude-body-stockinged young woman hurrying by.

His eyes continued tracking of their own accord as her backside showed, the full buttocks flexing alternately. He certainly appreciated the view, but the idea of his wife, mother, and sister dressing like that—well, he hoped they did not choose this manner of surprising him!

Jon rubbed the smooth material of the diaphanous gown she had settled on as she crossed the store to the dressing room. Why did they even have dressing rooms? There were so many nudes around, the whole place was like one big dressing room! But she was glad they did, even though she had seen no men on this floor. She was a backwoods girl, with primitive ideas about privacy: she wanted certain parts of her body to be seen only by her husband, and not always even by him. She wanted to show exactly what she wanted to show, and not one bit more. Half a bit more, maybe, when she leaned forward, but that was the limit. This gown was set exactly at the limit.

What would Kelvin and their father think? But Heln had merely pursed her lips at the sight of the revealing gown on Jon's magical reflection. Her own mother hadn't said a word. Do in witchland as do the witches, she thought. But she could just imagine Lester's shocked face when she got home and showed him what she had worn! Poor Les, he didn't believe women should be equal to men, even after Heln's natural father had filled her in on it. Earth couldn't be such a terrible place if women were the equal of their men! Just the same, she was thankful that she had been born with properly pointed ears in a world where science was just a strange word.

That thought started another eddy-current of thought. She was glad for her ears, yes—yet sometimes she still wished she'd had Kelvin's round ears so that the prophecy would have applied to her. Certainly she had the makings of a hero, and with the help of her trusty sling she had proven it at times. If she had been a round-eared male—

She reached the dressing room and was waved inside by the most stunning salesgirl she had seen yet.

That girl shouldn't be here; she was bound to make the customers feel inferior. That would not be good for business. Surely the store would know that!

Jon went in, hung her sling on a clothes hook, and draped the gown over a convenient chair. She unbuttoned her plain brownberry shirt and greenbrier pantaloons and pulled them off. No help for it, she thought ruefully: her underwear would have to go if she was to wear the gown, because it covered a good deal more of her tender flesh than the gown did. How would it feel, slinking around in that skintight garment, knowing that under it she was all the way bare-nude-naked? But then some warlocks and witches were reputed to have what John Knight called X-ray vision. Maybe in truth her shaggies concealed nothing.

She took hold of her underblouse and started to pull it up over her head. At that moment the door opened and the stunning salesgirl stepped in, red hair swirling.

Jon opened and closed her mouth. This shouldn't be happening! She was supposed to be alone in here.

"I don't need any help, thank you," she said curtly.

The salesgirl's face changed like melting wax. So did her form. Her magnificent bosom sank into a shape more like a sack of produce, and her tiny waist fattened in the manner of thirty years of undisciplined eating. Her lovely flowing hair turned into limp string. In a triple heartbeat she became the squat and ugly witch Jon had met in the terminal, but somehow had not been able to tell the others about. Only now, seeing the crone again, did she remember the episode.

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This surely meant trouble! Jon started to reach for her sling, then froze. Those evil yellow eyes were holding her.

"Relax, dearie," the old witch said. "Transfer spells don't hurt. In fact you won't even know it happened."

Until too late, Jon thought despairingly. She knew that something was terribly wrong. Then she ceased to think of anything.