CHAPTER 21

Godparent

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

"These are our friends, Kildom and Kildee, kings of Klingland and Kance and now rulers of the Confederacy," Merlain said, hoping she remembered her protocol correctly.

Coppery tresses shook on Mervania's head. "Oh, I know that, for pity's sake! I can see into their minds readily enough. Where do you think you got your telepathic abilities, if not from me?"

"Us," Mertin corrected her.

"Groowthm," added Grumpus.

"Yes, from me, meaning this body with three heads." Mervania smiled, satisfied.

Merlain opened and closed her mouth. Don't! Don't, she pleaded with her mind. I want to be my mother and father's. I don't want to be the child of a monster!

Ungrateful brat! Without my help you three wouldn't exist.

Yes, I know. The magic powder Helbah administered at our birth. But before that—

Before my antidote there was another powder derived from parts of one of my kind. That was administered to your mother, Heln, through the connivance of Zoanna, the witch queen of Rud destroyed by your father with the help of Helbah and her helpers, your grandmother and aunt.

Then we're not even yours? Merlain thought, further discomfited. We're some other monster's!

Hush! That's not a nice thing to say. Of course you're not ours, and you're not, as you so meanly put it, some other monster's.

But...?

You're your parents'. Your own parents. Keln and Helvin.

No, that's Heln and Kelvin!

Whatever. Human seed.

But if that's so—

Magic, and not even very complicated magic. I'm surprised you weren't taught.

I was taught! Merlain flared mentally. I can read a little and write a little and everything!

You and Dragon Horace. Merlain, you were taught nothing. You've got a very extraordinary mind—for an inferior life-form.

Inferior life-form! Daddy said you called him that!

And your grandfather, and the uncle you've never met. Humans are inferior to my kind, and to a lot of kinds.

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

"YOU TAKE THAT BACK!" Merlain shouted out loud, and to the bewilderment of the young kings she raised her tiny fists.

The chimaera was amused rather than annoyed. Facts are facts, kid.

"Take it easy, Merlain, can't you see she's baiting you?

That was Charles' thought. So he had tuned in!

"OUCH!" Charles cried, slapping himself.

The two young kings looked at each other with completely open mouths. It was as if they had both been rendered mute and idiots.

Merlain had to laugh. It was just too comical. Then she had to put her fists down and look away from the beautiful woman face the to face of the stern, copper-helmeted warrior.

Mertin, she thought. Does Mervania always tease like that?

Always, Mertin grumped. Toys with our food, is what she does. When she meets human men, she hides our body and shows just her face, and tries to make the men think she has breasts and things, and they get all excited and think there's a big romance in the offing, then are really surprised when we eat them. But now, at least since your father's visit, she doesn't let us eat. You would really taste good, Merlain, as a human child should.

Oh, now, Mertin, Mervania cut in. You know we won't eat our own godchildren. Not unless they get really disrespectful.

"Groompth!" said Grumpus.

"Hissss!" said Dragon Horace, not to be outdone.

Merlain wondered. Was it that they wouldn't eat godchildren, whatever they were, or that they wouldn't eat fellow monsters? Were she and Charles and maybe even Dragon Horace going to be like them someday?

Silly child, you certainly did inherit your father's obtuseness. Of course none of you will be like us.

All you got from my powder was life and the ability to use your minds. From Zoanna's tampering you have your dragon brother, and just a touch of dormant malicious nature that her aunt Zady preyed upon.

You know about Zady? Merlain thought in surprise.

You didn't block me from your mind. Not that you could, of course.

Merlain wondered how she could have been so dumb. And after having heard her grandfather tell the story over and over and over. The chimaera had not only known their thoughts but all the notions that made up their thoughts. Thus Mervania had teased her father on first meeting by showing just her neck and head, and hinting at a stunning human-woman body, as Mertin had mentioned, and forcing him to remember scary stories from earliest boyhood. Kelvin hadn't remembered well at all, though his father and half-brother certainly had. Yet the chimaera had looked into Kelvin's mind and read it so thoroughly Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

that she remembered for him.

That's right! Mervania thought. You reason well for such a little girl.

I have to. I'm smart.

For a you-know-what.

Y-yes. She wouldn't, she absolutely wouldn't, think inferior life-form.

But you just did.

Sigh. Mean, snoopy old copperhead.

Mean? I haven't hurt you, have I?

Teasing. Teasing hurts.

But it's oh so amusing to me, godchild.

Yes. Daddy said that it was. Then she remembered something else: that though her father talked of the chimaera's teasing, he also talked as if he had some affection for Mervania's head. It was because she was so very, very beautiful, as Merlain knew she was herself. Men were always stupid about beautiful women, as her father and grandfather had been. Even when they knew that there was no good in those women.

Why, thank you, Merlain, but you needn't try to conceal your thoughts. If you had thought them right at me, I wouldn't have balked. Yes, I am beautiful, by your father's standards. With your coppery-colored hair and eyes you may one day be beautiful as well.

I am now!

No, no, that's your vanity. Vanity can be a tremendous asset to a woman, but it has to be grounded in reality. When you're all grown up, then you'll be beautiful. Now you're merely cute.

Cute!

As a kipy or a pupkin. An amusing little animal that has a lot of growing up to do. If you're permitted to grow up, as I doubt your witch enemy intends.

Merlain shivered. The others were looking at her in wonder. Charles knew what was going on, but poor Kildom and Kildee could only conjecture. True, the kinglings knew about the chimaera and were smart, but there was no way they could talk to each other with just their minds. As far as Kildom and Kildee were concerned, she was just standing here making faces while the beautiful woman's face above her now and then changed expressions.

"Please speak aloud," Merlain said. "So that all of us can hear."

"Oh, very well!" Mervania said tartly. "But it's so slow and tedious. Don't you and Charles ever tire of having to make animal noises for every little word?"

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

"It's our way," Merlain said defensively, realizing that the chimaera had a point.

"Yes, yes, you are secretive. Your father wasn't, very much, though he tried to be when he was here.

You and Charles just mind-talk when it's convenient."

"Yes."

"I know that! You don't have to agree aloud when it's obvious."

"I do at home," Merlain said. How many times had she been forced to reassure some adult that something said was true, regardless of the facts?

"Well, you're not home," Mervania said severely. "Do as I do, here."

"I'll try," Merlain agreed.

"You will. There's no sense in your not doing it. You do after all have the gift bestowed on you through my agency at your birth. Slow thinking shouldn't exist in you. Now about that opal...?"

"Y-yes," Merlain was startled out of her wits.

"I want it."

"You can't have it."

"Why can't I?"

"You're confined. You'd use it to leave here."

"Suppose I say I wouldn't?"

"We wouldn't believe you." You're a monster, after all.

Brat! The word of my kind is never broken.

That's not what I heard! Merlain thought before she could stop herself. Actually her knowledge of the creature was scanty, formed mainly by her grandfather's stories of what had befallen him and her father and the faraway uncle Kian.

"Well, kid, if you feel that way—" A sudden swoop of the chimaera's feminine arm stopped at Merlain's clenched hands. "Please," the Mervania head said with teasing gentleness.

There was no way of resisting her. Merlain was as powerless to keep possession of the opal as Charles had been to avoid his own slap. She started to place the gem in the waiting hand.

A cracking sound startled her. Mervania drew back her hand with a startled shriek. Horace flipped back his tail, having delivered a really proper whiplash.

Charles thought, Merlain, get us back!

Scared, more urgent than she had ever been, Merlain grasped the overgrown pebble and thought home.

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

They were on their own front lawn alone. She and Charles and Kildom and Kildee, and Dragon Horace.

The chimaera was elsewhere, as was appropriate.

Dragon Horace, for the second time since their adventures had begun, had acted quickly without the intervention of human thought, and saved the day.

Mervania gasped, shaking her stinging wrist. The poor hatchlings! The poor hatchlings! I only wanted to help!

That's what you get, Mervania. Humans are for eating.

Shut up, Mertin. You have all the sensitivity of Grumpus.

"Grooowomth," Grumpus agreed approvingly.

They are our godchildren, like it or not. I want to help them and their father to save themselves.

Foolish! Mertin thought. You wanted to keep them here to bother us.

Yes, Mervania conceded sadly. If we hadn't used the opal to save their frame, the five of them would still have made nice pets.