CHAPTER 20

New Boots

"And so, my friends," Helbah told the assembled witches and warlocks from the podium, "that's why we Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

are going to need your help. Lester here"—she placed her hand on the young man's shoulder,—"says that the war with the orcs has already started. We know the folly of that. With the opal the orcs can go anywhere and get any number of reinforcements. Nor are they devoid of magic, though they are a standoffish lot who never attend our conventions. Even if we all pledge our help, the outcome is uncertain." She paused, looked at the most insistently waving hand, and nodded.

A young warlock with a somewhat villainous expression stood. "Helbah, we all admire you for what you did to rid the frames of Zoanna and Rowforth. We'd all like to help. But it seems to me that the trouble in your home frame is chronic. Why should we, with our own frames to think about, risk everything?"

God save us from the practical ignoramuses, Helbah thought, keeping her mind guarded. "If not for the joy of aiding a colleague and preserving her domain, then for the opal."

"Opal? The opal?"

"Yes. That one. When this is all over, we can hold it in common property and use it whenever there's trouble."

Murmurs and whispers and thoughts flashed. The questioner almost sat down, then reconsidered. "That's all very well, Helbah, if we could win, but the probability is that we cannot. The orcs will get all the reinforcements they need from other frames and counter magic with magic, force with force. The result could be a lifeless frame when you're done."

"We can use the opal as the orcs use it, once we have it," Helbah said. "Then no outside force could prevail against us."

"We don't have it, and never will."

"Pessimist." But she looked around the audience and saw that most were of the warlock's opinion. That was bad. If she couldn't raise an arm of magical practitioners, even with the promise of the fabulous opal, there could be no hope. What a disastrous convention this had turned out to be! It was all Zady's fault.

Zady? Just maybe...

"Sit down," she advised the warlock. "Now I am going to tell all of you what you haven't considered.

The orcs are my Confederation's opponents in war, true, but the orcs are not the real enemy. It's the same situation as when Kelvinia declared war against Klingland and Kance. The enemy then was Zoanna and Rowforth. Then enemy now is Zady. Dare I suggest to you what that means?"

Murmurings went through the audience. Then Helbah struck: "Yes, Zady, the most malignant of the practitioners of malignant magic! Zady, who violates not only my home frame but who came here and violated this very convention. How many of you have had your property taken? How many have felt kicks and pinches, been tripped, and suffered even worse indignities? How many of you have been spied upon, or forced into actions you did not intend? How many of you like one lone Malignant taking over our convention and making it a shambles?"

Now there were outcries. She was getting through to them. What loyalty to the frames had not accomplished, personal annoyance was. No benign witch or warlock wanted to be mistreated with impunity by Malignants. The very fact that this had happened at their convention struck at ancient rivalries.

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Now they were on their feet. Now there was shouting. "We're with you, Helbah!" a burly warlock called. "Death to Zady! Death to Zady! Extinction to her evil kind!"

Helbah felt relieved and vindicated in her attempt to persuade the nearly unpersuadable. It was all these indignities that had done it. The pinches, pricks, bites, and gooses. Ultimately it was the brat kings deciding the issue.

"Wait! Wait!" a warlock cried, standing, raising his arms for attention. "Zady's in jail here. You caught her, Helbah."

Damn, she had almost forgotten that herself.

"I'm afraid not." A uniformed officer strode onto the stage. "I've come here to make an announcement.

Zady, it seems, has again done the impossible. She has escaped from confinement and also from this frame."

There was consternation. Helbah, listening to the uproar, knew that she had won. However narrow, however puny and risky a victory.

Zady, win though she inevitably might, would not win unopposed by the right-thinking benigns.

By noon it had started. Witch after witch, warlock after warlock, was stepping into the busily flashing transporter. The line led back across the station and curled past the baggage area. Other lines at the other transporters were noticeably absent. Every conventioneer, it seemed, whether apprentice or adept, youth or ancient, was going to Helbah's frame to bolster her army.

Lester Crumb watched them proceed with open mouth. The line moved slowly because there was only one utilizable destination transporter, and that one was underwater. Lester imagined the crowd of waterfowl bursting from the river and taking to the air. With beating wings they'd fly the length of the river, past the eerily glowing walls, and above the flights of ancient stairs. They would land past the ruins of the old Rud palace, and Helbah, who had gone on ahead, would be waiting.

He turned to Kelvin, and to his pointed ear and roundear relatives. Jon seemed to be smiling at something; he wasn't certain what, but he hoped it was at the prospect of their being alone together soon.

With this great spectacle before them, he couldn't understand why any folk would be chatting among themselves.

"You and your father and Heln have to use the other transporter?" Lester asked.

Kelvin nodded. "You know the warning in the home installation. Helbah wouldn't let any of us risk ignoring it."

"Only roundears can use it," Lester agreed. "I never understood why Jon thinks it's nonsense."

"I don't think it's nonsense," Kelvin said. "I've seen too much magic and science that was anything but bluff! Anyway, why take a chance?"

"Right." He watched the prettiest nude body-stocking witch he'd seen all morning step out of the line, into the transporter, and vanish. He was married, and he was not forgetting that for a moment, but Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

sometimes maybe for just the merest fraction of an instant he might have felt the tiniest flicker of temptation, had he been a less constant man. He could tell by Kelvin's similar pause that he had a similar thought. But of course the wives would be likely to misunderstand. Anyway, those luscious young witches were probably centuries old in reality, and not at all innocent. "You'll wait until we're all gone?"

"Have to. Unless you want someone turning you into a bird."

"No! That I don't want."

"Oh, Lester, it'll be fun," Jon said. "You'll enjoy it."

"No, I won't because I won't do it! I don't want you birding it either!"

"Oh pooh, Lester, I've done it before."

"I still don't like it."

"You take good care of my mother and sister," the Roundear of Prophecy advised. "Father and Heln and I want to be up above the pointed-ear installation in the rowboat. Just in case you really won't change."

"I won't," Lester repeated. But watching the three of them cross the station to a vacant transporter, he was not exactly certain. He remembered how much trouble his oink-headedness had gotten him into before, being separated from Jon, and Jon being impersonated by that old hag Zady. That would never have worked if he had been along; he would have known his wife no matter what! So he realized, deep down, that if shove came to push, he would probably have to yield.

Charlain took his left hand in hers and patted it. Jon took his right hand and held on tight.

Across the floor John Knight was already setting the coordinates on their chosen transporter. In a moment John Knight had stepped in and was abruptly gone. Kelvin picked up Heln, not without grunting—she was no longer quite the slender bride she had once been—and as quickly followed him.

There was a flash and that particular transporter stood vacant as before.

Kelvin stepped out of the home transporter, put Heln down with relief, and looked around for his father.

John Knight had crossed to look out the chamber door. He turned and came back.

"Boat still there?" Kelvin asked. It had better be, he thought, though Helbah would get them rescued if it wasn't.

His father nodded. "All's as before."

"Except for those," Heln said. She was pointing to the stand and its familiar parchment warning that only roundears were allowed here, and signed by Mouvar. Beside the parchment was another that had not been there before. Beside that one was a pair of boots whose leather sheen exactly matched that of the magical gauntlets.

Kelvin hastened to look, as did his father. The new parchment read simply:"You will need these, prophesied Roundear, Mouvar."

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Kelvin wondered. "Mouvar? He knew we'd be here?"

"Precog," his father said. "He was here before—must have been. Either that, or someone else sent us to the chimaera."

Kelvin remembered in a flash their inexplicable journey to the chimaera's world, caused by a change of the settings. He had thought it was the doings of the terrible king of the silver world, Rowforth, who had outwardly so resembled their king Rufurt. But possibly, just possibly, it had been Mouvar who reset the transporter. What a notion! It suggested that Mouvar, instead of being long out of things, remained active to some extent.

"Don't look at me," John said. "It's your boot size. You're the Roundear Mouvar prophesied, not me."

"Yes, I'm the hero," Kelvin said. It was a bitter, mocking expression, as always. While his feisty sister Jon might have delighted in being so named, he did not and never had.

"Your boots are a bit worn," John said. "Try these on."

Kelvin knew that there was no help for it. Sitting down on the metal floor beneath the strange lights of the chamber, he drew off his old boots, adjusted his socks, and pulled on the new boots. He expected them to be stiff and uncomfortable and to chafe, because that was the nature of new boots. But these felt very comfortable, as if he had worn them all his life. How could Mouvar have known his size so accurately?

He held his gauntlets beside the boots, and it seemed that both were of the same material. Dragon hide, perhaps, with a scale pattern. Yet Mouvar was said to be from another world and a frame that ran on science, not magic. What would he have had to do with dragons? Or was it that at a certain stage science became workable as magic, and magic became workable as science?

"They look fine," his father said, touching the toes with his fingers. "I wonder if they do anything, or whether this was merely a sartorial favor?"

Kelvin shrugged. "If they protect my feet, it's enough." He set his old boots by the stand and looked in vain for an additional scrap of parchment that might give information about the boots. There was nothing, and even the book that had told them much did not have reference to the boots.

"We'd best be getting out," John said. "Your mother and sister may be taking to the air already. Lester too, I suspect."

Kelvin nodded and thought of the ledge and the boat as he took his first step, leading off with the right boot. He felt no sensation of motion, but his seeing blurred, and things came back into focus only as he finished taking the step. Was he getting dizzy, being overtired?

"Kelvin!" The exclamation was Heln's, but it seemed to come from a distance. He looked around.

To his astonishment, he stood exactly where he had visualized going, right on the ledge above the boat.

His father and wife quickly emerged from the cylindrical chamber with its round door. John was shaking his head, his mouth open with amazement.

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Finally John spoke to him. "Now we know what they are, Son. Seven-league boots, as in the storybooks."

"What's that?" Kelvin asked, not remembering that particular story. The amazement of the happening remained; he was bewildered. Nothing had surprised him quite so much since the time Mor Crumb placed a sword in his gauntleted hand and he found that he, or at least the gauntlet, could actually swordfight. Could do it with unparalleled speed, power, and accuracy.

"That's on Earth," his father said. "The story you and Jon learned was about distance-spanning boots.

Otherwise it's much the same."

Kelvin thought back to his childhood, and to the more recent but stranger childhood of his offspring.

Spanner boots. It was what his father had said was teleportation, or something: magical transport across great distances, without having to ride a dragon or enter a transporter booth. It did seem like a better way to travel.

"I—" Kelvin said, with his usual eloquence of expression, trying to think of exactly what had happened.

"With those and your gauntlets you should be a match for Brudalous or any orc, I'd think. That must be the Mouvar plan. Maybe we don't need the benign army. Maybe you really are enough of a hero to handle this all by yourself."

Kelvin swallowed. Take on the whole orc army? His father couldn't be serious! He wondered whether the boots would teleport him into adjoining world frames, as the opal was reputed to do. After a moment he asked him about that.

John Knight's forehead furrowed. "That strikes me as a damn good question, son," he said. "Try visualizing yourself back at the hotel desk."

"Kelvin, don't!" Heln protested, grabbing his arm.

That was reassuring; he liked having her fuss over him. "It's all right, Heln. I'm a hero, I think. Mouvar wouldn't leave me anything destructive." He hoped. Mouvar's fantastic tools could be used for good or ill, depending on the competence and nature of the user. The gauntlets had proved that. But he was good, and would try to be careful.

He thought of the polished wooden desk and the hotel manager who had registered them. He nerved himself and took a step. He looked.

He was one step closer to his father.

Maybe the manager wasn't there right now. Maybe he should just think of the floor and the desk. He did so, and stepped again.

He was another step closer to his father.

Maybe he should think just of the transporter booth in the station. His next step, he told himself, would take him just outside that booth. He stepped, and looked up at his father.

"I guess they won't transport me across frames," he said, deflated.

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"Try stepping out to the palace ruins," his father suggested, seemingly unperturbed.

He thought of the large rock where John Knight and King Rufurt had once played chess. He took the step, his sight blurring. His sight straightened and there was the rock. Emerging from the hole in the ruins were three swooshes, flying wingtip to wingtip. The swooshes lit by him and changed immediately to his mother, his sister, and Lester Crumb.

"Kelvin!" Lester said. "How'd you get here?"

"New boots," Kelvin explained, and stepped back to his father and Heln on the ledge. He swallowed, shook his head, and motioned at the boat. "I'll row, Father. Might as well put the gauntlets to work."

Then, briefly, he explained about the success with the boots. They knew it, of course, having seen him vanish and reappear.

John helped Heln into the bow and eased himself into the stern. Kelvin carefully stepped into the middle, eased himself down on the seat, took the oars in his gauntleted hands, and shoved off.

Rowing, as always with the gauntlets, was restful. The gauntlets moved his arms and shoulders and back without his quite having to think. In this they were like what his father had described as exercise machines. Kelvin had never understood the point of the machines, since it was easy enough to exercise just getting from place to place, or simply doing chores. But Earth was a strange place; he had always known that.

They rounded the curve and passed the great whirlpool that emptied into the Flaw. The Flaw was what made inter-frame travel possible, though its full nature was beyond the comprehension of ordinary folk.

The gauntlets took them by in a wide swing, bucked the river current, and left the phenomenon behind.

He looked into Heln's face and saw the wonder and awe she felt for this region, as he himself had had the first time. Now they were sweeping toward the slight dimple that marked the location of the transporter for the pointears. Four birds flew up and out, swimming from water into air with the swoosh's specialized wings. Heln waved at some of the birds, though there was no telling who was who until they changed back into people. These seemed to be the last four; no more birds appeared as they rowed on.

They stopped at the rickety moss-covered dock, and here John moored the boat to an old pylon while Heln gazed with him up the rickety stairs. Faces were looking down from the top flight. Were they Lester and Jon? Possibly. Again Kelvin wished that he had stronger eyes.

"It's Jon! And Lester!" Heln cried. She waved excitedly and they waved back. Well, now he knew. John joined them, wiping his hands on his pants.

Kelvin thought of the climb up the stairs and had an idea. "Here, Heln," he said. His gauntlets obeyed him properly by picking her up in his not really very heroic arms. This time she was feather light, and he was relaxed enough to appreciate her other qualities.

He took the one step. Now he was beside an astonished Jon. He set Heln down and waved at his father. These boots were going to save a lot of walking!

"Kelvin, you don't have magic!" Jon said resentfully.

"Funny, I always thought he did," Heln remarked innocently. Then the two hugged.

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"I told you—new boots," Kelvin said, and got into explaining as his father trudged up the stairs the old-fashioned way.

"And you think you can really fight the orcs with those and the gauntlets?" Lester asked, impressed.

"I can try if I have to," Kelvin said. It was the answer he had finally settled on when faced by maneuverings of the Prophecy. He didn't like being a hero any more than he ever had, but it seemed that he had no choice.

His father reached the top of the final flight. He took a couple of breaths. "Where's Helbah?"

"Here I am." Helbah stepped out from behind Lester. "And I see that there are matters all of us are going to have to settle."

Kelvin felt an unheroic plummeting inside. Did this mean that her expectations were like those of his father? That with this new gift from Mouvar he could do all the gory orc fighting? Without magical or military help?

"Oh, stop it, Kelvin!" Helbah said, as if reading his mind. "I know you haven't any liking for war. That's good. None of us have, either. That's why we're Benigns."

"Uh," Kelvin said. She took him by surprise so often! That was the nature of witches, he supposed. His own mother had also seemed at times to know his thoughts. Maybe it had been inevitable that his children would be true mind readers!

But he knew that Helbah couldn't read minds in that fashion. The witch Zady could, but Zady was something else. Indeed she was! That vision of her in her young buxom aspect—phew! But he felt guilty just remembering that. At any rate, he knew that some folk had latent abilities, as Helbah put it. He and his father, he was certain, had exactly none. He wondered about Kian, his half-brother in another frame.

Was Kian as devoid of powers as was Kelvin himself? Probably, otherwise Kian would have known right away that his own dear girl, Lonny, really loved him and intended to marry him. Kian had been every bit as slow to catch on as Kelvin would have been.

"Well, Kelvin?" Helbah was looking at him expectantly.

"Well, what?" Obviously no magical powers, latent or otherwise.

"Woolgathering again! Boys! They never listen to anything!"

"You tell him, Helbah," Jon chimed in. "He never listened to me either."

Helbah fixed him with sharp, penetrating eyes reminiscent of a preybird's. "Just what, Mr. Heroic Roundear of Prophecy, are your immediate plans and orders?"