CHAPTER 9

Disruption

Kelvin walked briskly, almost naturally, by Heln's side. They had just left the children's suite, he realized.

They must have seen Merlain and Charles, but oddly he couldn't remember. Things had been awhirl ever since they arrived, and sometimes he wondered whether it was all really happening. It was a good thing that nothing had gone wrong; he wouldn't have known how to cope!

"I suppose we'd best be getting ready," Heln said, sounding very much the wife. "Helbah says we'll have to go up on the stage with her after the banquet."

"Yes," Kelvin said, wondering what was happening to his mind. "When we're all to share in her award."

The chicuck was what John Knight called rubbery, and the salad was hardly garden fresh, but no one was there for the food. Nervously Kelvin sipped his wine and looked over at Jon. She had a triumphant, even smug expression. Was it just that she would be sharing Helbah's glory? His sister always had been strange, but since the purchase of her dress, she had seemed like another person.

John shoved his plate aside, having eaten everything. He must have an iron stomach! Everyone was finished, clean plate or not.

Plates and silverware and empty cups began rising from the table and drifting unaided back into the kitchen for washings. Waiters merely pointed fingers and their magic did the rest. Kelvin had found the frequency of magic a bit unsettling at first, but now he was getting used to its comforts. If things could be like this at home...

A speaker stood at the great clear table-sized crystal in the center of the stage and rested his palms on it.

His voice was heard clearly throughout the immense auditorium. Crystals had many properties, the magical conveyance of sound being one.

The speaker told how Helbah had been a good and proper witch who had applied her craft judiciously in the service of benign mortals and humans. It was starting to make some sort of muddled sense to Kelvin when a convention wizard motioned them to the stage.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Kelvin soon found himself seated between his wife and his mother; on his mother's right sat his father, and on his wife's left was the stranger he tried to think was Jon. He felt guilty for doubting his sister, yet he did doubt.

The paean to Helbah was long, flowery, and nice. Then Helbah was at the crystal, her aged fingers on its surface. She cleared her throat, and somehow the crystal converted the sound into a loud, uncouth burp.

People laughed, some of them nervously.

"I must apologize for that," Helbah said. She frowned, seeming as bewildered as Kelvin. People waited, and there was a feeling of tension before she began her formal address.

"Besotted witches and warlocks," Helbah said. She paused, clearly considering what she had said. "I mean, of course, reputed witches and warlocks. Eh, no, that's not right. I—" Her face flamed red.

Kelvin looked at his relatives. Jon was doing something with her fingers. Her expression had become fiendish. Her eyes spoke of anything but gentle fun. What was the matter with the girl?

"I'm sorry," Helbah said to the audience. "It must be the wine. Either that or a blather spell. Now I want all of you to know I deserve this great dishonor." No one laughed; people fidgeted with embarrassment.

"I mean—you know. Zoanna, the rightful queen of Rud learned witchcraft late, but she learned from a master. She and her chosen consort, Rowforth, a strong king from another frame to replace the weakling Rufurt—"

What was she doing? How could she be saying these things?

"—were bringing stability to my home frame when I interfered. Together with my sniveling accomplices, the pitiful bunch sharing this stage with me, I—"

"Helbah," the toastmaster's words went clearly to the audience. "Something is wrong! You are not giving the speech you rehearsed."

That was hardly news at this point! But Helbah kept doggedly on, as if unable to stop.

"And we destroyed them. By luck and treachery, assuredly, rather than ability. Destroyed the magnificent beings who could have made our worthless frame a magical center of power! Destroyed them through trickery and deceit and the improper application of a chimaera's sting! We—"

"Helbah, please!" The toastmaster pulled at her arm. Helbah glared at him and threw him back with a magical shove that sent him all the way to the rear of the stage. There was a general gasp of shock.

"You are honoring the worst witch who ever lived," Helbah told the audience. "Instead of feting this ignorant bag of bones, you should be honoring sweet, gentle, beautiful Zoanna whom she has so treasonably slain." She gazed around the audience, her face grim. "And you should not be honoring roundears! Roundears are never magical in any frame! Roundears should be exterminated, especially these roundears. As for her helper and apprentice Charlain, that ludicrous excuse for a woman, she should be executed also. Anyone who helped Helbah should be destroyed, and—"

There was a great cracking sound, and Helbah fell senseless onto the crystal top. The toastmaster at the far side of the stage was struggling to his feet as security wizards burst onto the stage from the wings. It was one of these, evidently, who had hit Helbah with some counterspell.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

The audience was now on its collective feet. Many people were shouting. "Infiltrators!" someone called.

"Abominable Milignants wrecking our convention!"

Well, they had gotten that straight, Kelvin realized. Now the little oddities made sense. Except for the way his sister was acting. Jon seemed pleased rather than upset.

The toastmaster reached the crystal and lifted Helbah's face. Helbah's eyes opened. She looked, Kelvin thought, surprisingly angry.

"The spell has been dispersed now," the toastmaster said. "Now you can give your rightful speech."

"Who wants to," Helbah snapped, "with an infiltrator around?"

Kelvin wondered again about Jon and about the way all of them had been acting, and the peculiar way he still felt. He turned his head to look for his sister—and saw a vacant chair.

"I think," Helbah said clearly, "that we all know what has happened. I appreciate the honor that brought us here, but—"

SPLAT!

A large darkish something that smelled like what it was had dropped from above to land with unerring accuracy on Helbah's head. The dung splattered, spotting those on the stage and in the nearest rows.

Immediately the security wizards had their faces turned, staring up into the rafters above the stage.

Something had to be up there!

At that moment there was a flutter of wings, and a great cloud of bats swooped down from the rafters and then out over the audience. Witches screamed and grabbed for their hairdos. Wizards and warlocks made passes with their hands. Someone finally made the right spell and the bats vanished.

"Just an illusion, folks," the head security wizard said. He made another pass of his hand, and the dung and stench were also gone.

Kelvin breathed a sigh. It was over, then. At least until they caught the one who was causing this disruption. Obviously Helbah still had a strong and talented enemy. But where was...?

Jon came strolling out of the right-hand wing. She smiled sweetly and resumed her chair. "I had to go to the bathroom," she announced. "Did I miss anything?"

Kelvin wondered, and then as he started to realize that he wondered, he saw Jon's eyes. They seemed to light up yellow, and to blaze at him. This wasn't like Jon at all! What could be possessing her?

But then he lost track of whatever he had been thinking, and merely knew that his dear sister was with them and was safe. For a moment he had feared... but he wasn't even certain what he had feared and when.

"It's all right, miss," one of the security wizards said. He was smiling at Jon, seeing her revealing gown, bewitched by her beauty and "available" signs. Strange; Jon had never been a flirtatious girl or a woman who forgot she was a wife; she had shown her flesh only when she had some most specific reason to, and not much then. Now she seemed eager to show and promise. "A little disturbance that you're lucky Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

to have missed."

"Only a little disturbance?" she inquired sweetly. "Back in the bathroom it sounded as if a war was starting."

"That won't happen, miss." The wizard remained fascinated by her heaving décolletage, as she evidently intended. "You're better protected here than anywhere."

"Oh, Officer, I hope so!" Jon batted her eyelashes and quivered her flesh in a way that was almost indecent and not at all like her. It was as if a stranger had usurped her skin, and—

"Yow!" Kelvin grabbed his head. The pain had been so quick and so lancing that he thought of nothing else. He had been thinking something, but that was something vaporous that dissipated as the agony abated.

"What's the matter?" the officer asked him, wrenching his eyes from Jon's body. Jon seemed to be going elsewhere, so that was possible for him to do now.

Kelvin shook his head, freeing it of the last vestiges of ache. "It was as if an ax was buried in—"

But now his skull did not hurt, and there was no blood where he touched. What had the officer been saying to him?

The wizard was gazing into his eyes. "You got hit with something just now, didn't you?"

Kelvin continued to feel his head. "I—"

"Don't worry. We have fine psychihealers here. They'll check you and the others."

Dazedly, Kelvin looked around. He saw Helbah standing as if to resume her speech.

Hit? Me? Maybe he had been. There had seemed to be an alien presence in his mind. But his headache threatened to return, and he found it easier not to think about the matter.

Helbah sighed and her eyes rolled up. She fell over onto the crystal, as she had before.

Then, as quickly as she had collapsed, she straightened up again. She stared at the audience with burning eyes, much like those of Jon a moment before. "You fools! You're dead! All of you are dead!"

"Quickly!" one of the security wizards said. Suddenly there were wizard batons extending from their arms, pointing, sizzling at the ends and glowing hot. They were making an obvious sweep, searching for the hurler of the malignant vibes. The batons pointed up into the rafters, into either wing, above and around the audience.

Meanwhile Helbah was pulling off her clothes. She ripped off her gown and her modest underclothes and stood there naked and gross. Her hands reached out, grabbed the arm-length golden broomstick trophy on its crystal pedestal, and aimed its rounded end at her own groin. Her arm muscles bunched.

"THIS IS FOR YOU, HELBAH!" Helbah cried in a voice totally unlike her own. "FOR YOU AND

YOUR SILLY AWARD!"

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

A burst of magic energy from a baton froze the trophy and held the aged witch in her obscene posture.

She stood there, a statue, award trophy held suspended at arm's length. Gently a security wizard took the award from her and put it back on the pedestal. Witches came up on stage and wrapped Helbah in a cloak designed for outer wear by a wizard. When Helbah was properly covered, the security wizard touched her on the forehead. There was a flash of blue light and Helbah was again Helbah.

"Oh, I'm so embarrassed!" Helbah said, and her voice was carried by the crystal so that everyone heard.

"How could I have done this? How could I have let it happen?"

"You didn't let it happen, Helbah," the wizard told her. "You were magicked."

"Outmagicked." Helbah sighed. "But to say those things and know I was saying then, but not to be able to help myself! To stand here naked and—"

"Don't worry. We'll get the guilty party. We have to. The dignity of benign witches and warlocks everywhere has been insulted this night. We won't any of us dare to rest until all of us have been properly avenged."

Looking at the young wizard's grim face, Kelvin not only saw and heard the determination of the words, he felt them as if he were Helbah's son or brother.

They were waiting for her on the roof. When she had landed and did not immediately change, one of them walked over and changed her from her bird form. She was immediately Jon again and had the feeling as she looked at the stern wizard faces that she was in more trouble than she had been in at the police station.

"Ma'am, are you a guest here?"

"I'm with the convention. With Helbah."

The tall wizard seemed suspicious. "Then why is it you are not with her now?"

"It's a long story. I need to see someone in authority. There may be trouble."

"You wish to see someone in security?"

"Yes." What was security? she wondered.

The tall wizard said, "I'm security. He showed her a star that suddenly gleamed bright and golden in his hand. "We had a report you were coming."

"Who—"

"From headquarters. You left abruptly and were traced."

She might have known! But maybe it was just as well. These people were, after all, authority. They should help her destroy the evil witch, or at least see that she did no further harm.

"I'll cooperate with the police," Jon said. "But—"

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Then you can appreciate that we need to keep you out of sight. There may be another who looks like you but isn't. There may be a malevolent infiltrator in the convention."

Oho! "That old woman—"

"Is whom we suspect." The wizard made a gesture.

POOF! Jon was a bird again. She raised her wings, determined to take off and find the witch on her own and deal with her, or at least to find Helbah. But the wizard was pointing at her, and she couldn't move; she was as frozen as she had been by the witch's gesture in the store. An ordinary person just couldn't compete with magic!

The tall wizard motioned to the short wizard. The short wizard picked her up in his hands, carried her a short distance, and placed her in a cage. He shut the cage door. She still could not move. She wanted to protest, but couldn't even squawk. So she waited.

He levitated her onto a platform identical to the one Helbah had driven but marked with a large glowing star. He got onto the platform at the front, seated himself, and activated the platform. The platform lifted vertically above the roof, then lowered until it was in a stream of traffic moving just above the street.

After a few twists and turns they were at the station.

The wizard levitated her and the cage through the window and onto the sergeant's desk. Face fixed firmly ahead, she yet saw him as he drove off. The young policeman and the desk sergeant looked down into her cage.

Mercifully, the young policeman pointed his baton. She expected to become Jon again inside the cage, but she remained a dovgen. The only thing that was different was that now she could move. She opened and closed her beak.

"Sorry, Mrs. Crumb," the desk sergeant said. "For your own safety and the safety of others you are going to remain in our custody. As soon as you can be released, you will be."

The sergeant motioned to the young policeman, who looked disappointed that she hadn't been returned to her natural form, in the shirt with the tear under the arm. She was disappointed too; she had used that tear to escape once, and might have used it again.

The policeman picked up the cage. She watched his hands come around it; then the walls and desks flashed by. He was carrying her swiftly through the office and into an outer room. Here were bird cages like the one she occupied. Some had residents; most did not. He hung hers on a wire beside a cage containing a droopy, rough-feathered stargen. The stargen hiccupped at her.

"Mrs. Crumb, this is Loopey. He drank too much Happy Potion, as he does at every convention, every century. You can keep each other company until it's safe for you both to return."

He went out, leaving her with a sick-looking Loopey and her own scattered thoughts.

"Kelvin! Oh, Kelvin!" It was Jon, hurrying along the hotel corridor. Obviously something had gotten her excited, and he couldn't imagine what. It couldn't be the panels; all of these were dull enough to put a tree Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

to sleep.

He wasn't actually anxious to meet with Jon. Every time he thought about her too closely, he got a sudden splitting headache. It was safest not to think about her at all. But it seemed he couldn't avoid it now.

Come to think of it, he hadn't seen his sister at all since yesterday. Had he visited the children, even? He tried to think, but his thoughts were fuzzy. Hadn't he done anything but attend endless panels and move around from room to room looking for the others? Where were Helbah and his mother and father? They had eaten lunch together, and then somehow separated, each going a different way. As far as he knew.

"You look as if you've got connesia," Jon remarked.

Kelvin wiped his brow. "If you mean I'm losing track, right. What have you been up to?" He had to be polite, but he wanted to save his head from another mental ax chopping too. Would just talking to her set it off?

"Well, Kelvin, I met this simply adorable warlock with the biggest, reddest—"

"JON!" She had shocked him before, but this...!

"Cloak," she continued, unperturbed. "And we went to his room and—"

No, no, no! It couldn't be. Not his sister.

"Watched what was happening around the convention on his crystals. You don't need to run your legs off or attend things, you can just stay put."

Kelvin released half a sigh. No mischief, no headache. So far. But she remained in her too-revealing outfit, and she still seemed excited. That boded ill.

"So nice, just lying on the bed all day with someone pleasant and—"

He shuddered. He knew she wasn't talking with him just to pass the time.

"And watching things. Well, Kelvin, I hate to tell you this, but I think the children skipped out."

"What do you mean, skipped out?" Had Jon ever in her life chattered at him like this before? Face it, she just hadn't been herself since they'd arrived here.

The headache loomed. But it didn't matter! he thought desperately. The headache backed off.

"I mean they left the children's suite. Left the hotel."

Alarm of another nature surged. "How could that be? There are young witches and warlocks watching them all the time."

"Well, dearie, if you ask me, some of these young witches and warlocks get to watching each other. If you'd used a viewing crystal the way I did—"

"You mean you spied on them? Invaded their privacy?"

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"They must subsist entirely on aphrodisiacs. When they're not birds mounting each other in the corners, they're planning on which room they'll visit. I tell you I haven't witnessed such passionate fumblings since—"

"Oh, shut up," he said, fed up. Jon had spoken crudely sometimes trying to sound grownup and equal when they were both young, but never like this.

"Why what's the matter, dearie? Don't you like hearing about it? Maybe if I tell you what the warlock and I were doing while we watched—"

"The children! The children!" he said.

"Oh, yes, they're gone. Not here in the hotel anymore. They've been gone since yesterday."

"WHAT? Why didn't you tell us?"

"I'm telling you now. Besides, you could have been watching them yourself, you know."

"But they'll get in trouble!"

"Probably. You know your brats."

He shook and trembled. Never had she called them that before. It was as if she were perfectly indifferent about what had happened. "Where can they be? What can they be doing?"

"Anything their little depraved minds can think of, dearie. They had invisibility cloaks. All four of them were using them, but then the warlock and I got a bit distracted."

"Invisibility?" he said stupidly. "Cloaks?"

"Oh, yes, they probably stole them from one of the guests. They were stealing everything in sight once they had the cloaks. The boys were pinching and touching women right and left, and the girl—"

Kelvin both did and did not want to hear about it. If this was what came of coming to conventions, he never wanted to attend another. Thank Mouvar they had only one a century! Why couldn't this—this person who looked like his sister—get to the point? Was she trying to torture him with worse and worse news?

The headache be damned! He had to think this through. Could it be that she wasn't his sister? Could it be...?

He stiffened, anticipating the headache, and it did come, but its severity was only half what it had been the day before. The magic was wearing off.

Which meant that he had been enchanted, and that was a sure sign of other mischief. His head hurt, and he had to ease off on that line of thought, but at least he was starting to face the truth. His sister was somehow mixed up in this—or something had happened to her too, to make her act this way. That would explain a lot!

"Well, you know brats will be brats, and yours, dearie, are the brattiest. Except perhaps for the kinglets.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

They stole a book of spells and a book on the orc's opal and a sword. They went all around the dining room tasting desserts. They tripped people and started fights. Those little kings have a real talent for goosing pretty women! You should have heard the screams! Oh, they had just a wonderful time, and the best part of it was that they were clever enough to stay invisible and never get caught."

Kelvin was sickened. "I just can't—can't believe it." But he was starting to.

"Oh, now don't look so stricken. You would have done the same things when you were their age if you had been fortunate enough to steal a cloak."

"My children do not steal," he said grimly. She was making him wish he had on his gauntlets; he almost thought they'd choke the life out of her as they had once choked an enemy who had been slowly killing her. But was this the same person? Was this Jon? His headache was diminishing, and as it did, his suspicion of her increased.

"Well, Kelvin, old witch's poop, they might not steal, but they certainly get sticky fingers. Not only that but they are oh so interested in life! They not only went into people's rooms, they watched while they bathed, eliminated, and copulated. Really, Kelvin, if you knew how precocious those brats are, you'd want to lose them fast!"

His hand flew out. It was almost as if it wore a magical gauntlet, though it did not. His right palm smacked her left cheek. Her head rocked to the side, then straightened to pierce him with blazing, hate-filled eyes. What had he done? What had he done? His sister!

"You'll pay for that, warlock's crap!" the Jon feeing him hissed. Then there was a loud poof of air rushing inward, and where she had been there was now a bird.

This was a larger, uglier bird than he remembered her being before; certainly not the dovgen or the gawky swoosh. It took off, veering around conventioneers and skimming over their heads. It sailed down the hallway, around the bend, and out of his sight.

"What have I done?" he asked himself, horrified on several levels. "Oh, what have I done?"

Conventioneers looked at him oddly, some a bit pityingly; none of them spoke.