Serpent's Silver (27 page)

“Flopears! Flopears! Flop—” came the cry.

Realizing that things were happening and that he was wasting time, he urged his horse out into the dust. Now he could make out the figure of Kelvin sitting oddly still astride his war-horse. Riding hard down on him, standing upright in a small saddle on the back of a gigantic war-horse, was a small figure with upraised sword. A flopear! About to kill Kelvin!

Blars hardly knew that he pulled the trigger while pointing the weapon. All he knew was that it hissed and jumped slightly in his hand. Nothing seemed to come from the bell of the weapon except for a few too-bright sparks.

Had it failed? Yet it had seemed to do something. He had felt the slight recoil, seen the spark. But was that all?

But as he watched the flopear swing down, he saw Kelvin save himself and his horse with some amazing maneuvering. Freedom Fighters who had been stationary in the dust resumed their motions. All kinds of action were occurring where a moment ago there had been none except that of the flopears.

Blars looked at the weapon in his hand. It must have worked! He felt that he had accomplished something. He said a prayer of thanks to Mouvar. He had no idea how the weapon had worked, but it seemed to have brought the Freedom Army to life again.

The flopears were still fighting, but no longer against frozen opponents. How a weapon could bring folk back to life instead of making them dead, he hesitated to guess. Certainly this was nothing for him to gamble with. Concentrating hard on the deed at hand, he maneuvered his horse, bypassing fights when he could and working steadily closer to Kelvin. When he reached the hero, he would place the weapon in his hands, where it belonged.

*

The movement of the gauntlet surprised Kelvin as it had never done before. It shot up, grabbed the swiftly descending blade, and wrested it from the flopear. The flopear lost his balance, toppled from the saddle, and fell under the war-horse’s pounding hooves. There was a scream of agony from below which should add spectacularly to Kelvin’s future nightmares.

He pulled his eyes away from the gory sight of the small ruined face. In so doing, he turned his head.

He could move! The stasis spell was gone! He could move hands, arms, feet, and legs. The horse was moving, too. Everyone was moving—every man and every horse. All the Freedom Fighters and the Royalists and their horses—unparalyzed! All moving as they were supposed to, naturally and right. What had happened? What magic had come to his rescue and stopped the flopears’ spell?

“Here, Captain, you lost this.”

It was a large, swarthy Freedom Fighter who was holding out the Mouvar weapon to him, using the rank Kelvin had been given. Something about the man’s face instantly bothered him. With supreme shock he realized that this was the near duplicate of the pointy-eared guard at the notorious Franklin Girl Mart who had forced himself on Heln. Kelvin had seen the ravisher dead after one of his Knights, a brother to one of the other girls there, had finished him. At the time Kelvin had both thanked the gods that he hadn’t been the one to strike the fatal blow, and regretted deeply that he had
not
been the one. Now here the man was, or his counterpart in the frame, unbloodied and alive and round-eared. Holding out to him their one small hope of winning this fight. This man, nearly identical in appearance with the one who had raped Kelvin’s wife.

“I… lost it, and you… used it?”

“I saw one of those three last men you fought cut your belt with his sword. Your horse did some jerking after that, and the gates fell and the flopears appeared. I got the weapon for you because I knew you’d want it, and had it in my hand and—you were frozen then, so I tried it—and now you’re unfrozen, and I brought it to you. I don’t know what I did with it, but I guess the thing worked, somehow. You’re the hero, not me; you know how to use it. I—”

Kelvin took the weapon from the big man’s hand. He had to say something, and he fought to get it right.

“You’re the hero. You, not me. Thank you for saving me and for returning the weapon I should have guarded with my life.”
You are the hero,
Kelvin repeated to himself.
You, who in another world, another time, raped my beloved. You, who in that other world, were a person who ruined and harmed without conscience. Only it was not you, but another who resembled you in all things but character. What a universe this is, that two who look so much alike could both so touch my life in opposite ways!

“Captain,” the man said, “the war’s not over until they lower the flag on the palace.”

“I know.”

After a startled intermission the fighting continued. Nobody was frozen that Kelvin could see, either Freedom Fighter or Royalist. Mortal Freedom Fighters now fought immortal flopears hand to hand.

Yet the battle had seemed to be turning, just before the flopears appeared. Now, looking around, he could see more green-clad soldiers on their mounts than red-uniformed Royalists.

The battle was not over. The war was not over, until the flag was lowered. Would it come down? Kelvin did not yet know.

*

Zanaan looked up from the floor at her father as he covered his eyes. She listened to her husband screaming. Then, assuming a philosophical poise befitting a queen, she got to her feet, wiped her face, put her robe in order, picked up the ring of keys she had been carrying, and resumed her journey to the dungeon.

John and Kian were at the bars as she descended into their gloom. Both were thinner than they had been, worn by the days and the nights of harsh confinement. Dark half-moons were under their eyes, reminders of more than sleeplessness.

The neighboring cell was empty. After Smith had finally died, the result of his desperate banging of his head against the wall with all the strength of a madman, there had been a lingering and sullen silence. Broughtmar had complained about having to carry out the corpse; in the old days he would have let it ripen. But the king had remembered that prisoners subjected to bad air sometimes died. Rowforth had wanted the prisoners alive and helping him. How well she knew!

That reminded her of what the king had said: that John regarded her as resembling his mistress, and Kian, as resembling his mother. In the frame from which they came—

She shrugged that off. Certainly she had not misbehaved like that in this world! Nor would she. She was simply doing what was proper.

She also wondered whether her father had done something to deflect the king. She had never seen him use actual magic before this day, only minor illusions for show.

The young man looked at her with widened eyes, swallowed, and said, “You look so much like—”

“Hush, now,” she chided him, oddly flattered. Her husband had sought to use her to corrupt these men; it would not have been an unpleasant task, were it not so reprehensible morally.

She inserted the big key in the lock and turned it, knowing that they watched. “Your ordeal is over and your victory all but won. The Freedom Fighters are at the gates and winning back the land. Your brother, Kelvin, is in their very midst—a hero to base legends on. Soon, very soon, it will be over.”

“Thank the Gods!” John Knight said, and his son echoed him.

*

Looking at the Mouvar weapon he held, Kelvin saw that the knob on the butt had been turned. Possibly when it fell, he thought. Could a different setting account for the fact that the flopears were not themselves the victims of their own stares? He had wanted to see them frozen into statues, as the serpent in the valley had been. If he moved the knob to its former place, would that cause it to happen?

It was worth a try. He twisted the knob, heard a click, and raised the weapon just as another flopear rode at them with suicidal fury. He pulled the trigger, wondering whether he should be raising his sword instead.

Bright light dazzled him. There was a WHOOMPTH noise that echoed on and on. Then silence.

The horse and the flopear were stopped, frozen as if by the staring paralysis. The mortals and their horses were not affected; the fight could continue with the flopears out of it. But would it?

Just then there was a shout. He saw the big man pointing. There was the silver-and-gold flag creeping down the pole on the palace roof. This meant that the king was surrendering—finally, totally, unconditionally.

As he looked toward the palace, past the gates, two men and a woman awaited him.

“Father! Kian!” he shouted. “We’ve won! We’ve won! We’re going home again to those who love us. Home, home, at last!”

But Kian, though released from a dungeon, looked as if balanced on a precipice. His face, already pale from imprisonment, paled perceptibly more. When he spoke it was in a hoarse croak that seemed devoid of the joy it should have held.

“Home. That’s very good. Really wonderful,” he said without enthusiasm.

*

“Well, Cousin, it’s over,” Herzig said. “The good mortals won.”

“Yes, won well,” Gerta agreed. “As planned, though the Mouvar weapon cost us.”

“Did it, Cousin? Good members of our band?”

“Your enemies, Herzig, though not acknowledged as such. Those who wanted to go with Rowforth and share his triumphs. Those who wanted to be rulers of mortals in this and other lands. Was it fair, Herzig, giving them what they wanted?”

“Fair is a mortal concept. Call it just. They wanted to fight for Rowforth, and they fought for Rowforth. Now, slain or not, they will never again be involved in a mortal’s fight.”

“True,” Gerta said. “You are very old, Herzig, and very wise. You prove the wisdom of a saying mortals have.”

“Yes, Cousin, and that is—?”

“Wily as a serpent,” Gerta concluded.

*

Kian could not understand why he felt as he did. He was going home. Home to the girl he wanted and always had wanted. Why, then, did he fell that his execution was at hand?

“I’m going to miss you, Kian,” said Lonny Burk. That made him realize why he felt so inappropriately bad. “We will all miss you, but I know that I will miss you most.”

“I—” He swallowed a lump. “Know.” And how he wished she was the girl who would be his bride. But the right girl had pointy ears and always had had. Not too long ago Lonny wouldn’t even have looked desirable to him. No, the right girl had to be the one at home. It hurt, but somehow it had to be right. His mother had known what was right—hadn’t she?

“Good-bye, Lonny, good-bye.” Saying it, he felt his insides tormenting him as if from a sword wound. Dungeon food did not account for it. “If—if things were different—”

“I know.” He felt her hand delicately touch his, and then, incredibly, her kiss. It was almost—in fact it was—too much for one weak man to bear. Tears filled his eyes.

They were waiting for him. He forced himself to turn away from her and to begin, step by step, what had to be his successful return.

But Kelvin and John Knight were with Queen Zanaan, and the older man looked just as uncomfortable as Kian felt. The queen turned, her great green eyes bearing on him, so familiar yet strange in their gentleness.

“I understand that in your frame my analogue was your mother,” she said. “I have had no children, but had I done so, I would have been pleased to have one like you.”

Kian found himself hugging her, just as if she were indeed his mother. If only things were different!

Chapter 30

Victory Home Front

THEY EMERGED FROM THE chamber to discover Jon and Heln waiting. Without a moment’s delay all embraced.

“Oh, Kelvin,” Heln said against his chest. “I had this dream! I think the dragonberries have caused me to dream what is actually happening! I saw all of you back here, so I persuaded Jon—”

“There was only the one boat here, and that too small for the four of you,” Jon explained. “Mr. Yokes was kind enough to lend us another, particularly after I explained about the baby coming.”

“Baby! Baby—you?”

“No, you idiot!” Jon managed to sound offended. “Your wife.”

“Heln! Heln?” Kelvin’s face paled, as though real danger was upon him. “You?”

She nodded, smiling prettily in the manner only a pregnant wife could. “You’re going to be a daddy, Hero, like it or not.”

Kelvin’s whoop echoed and reechoed from the surrounding rock for a distance up and down the underground river. Kian pounded his back and shook his hand enthusiastically. But even so, there was a certain half-hidden reticence to his congratulations that registered with each of them.

*

St. Helens took a deep breath, trying to shut out of his consciousness the sounds of screaming men and terrified, suffering horses. She might take all their lives, he thought, but by the Gods, he’d get this witch! Burn a witch alive, he’d been told. By the heavens, if that was what it took, he’d do it!

Back in the pass, the avalanches went on and on, boulders dislodged by the quake bounding and rebounding and often striking flesh. Great cracks were opening like hungry mouths, swallowing men and horses unfortunate enough to be under.

Was she laughing, up there? If so, he’d stop it! He’d stop it for all time, whatever it took!

St. Helens drew the polished, razor-sharp sword the young king had given him and pressed its cool metal to his lips briefly. Now, he thought, and activated the levitation belt.

He floated soundless as a rising balloon. He cleared the overhang and the three ledges of Conjurer’s Rock and disturbed some buzvuls brooding on their nests. In a moment they were after him, circling, crying out hoarsely, snapping their beaks, trying each and every one of them to snap out an eye. He swished the sword, downed two of them, and then another. The remaining buzvuls circled, coming in more cautiously. He wished that Melbah could have been one of those killed.

Stunted trees, twisted and gnarled, grew on the sides of Conjurer’s Rock as he approached the top. At the crest the trees seemed all occupied by buzvuls—hundreds if not thousands of them. His sword made a continuous flash, but few of the ugly birds risked the blade. Silently he drifted above the trees and the buzvuls, ignoring the squawks. If she was preoccupied with her magic, maybe then he had a chance.

There she was! At the very edge of the rock. Her black cloak flapping, her arms stretched out toward the pass, her lips making sounds that were lost in the rumbling of the earth and the cries of brave and good men. She couldn’t hear the buzvuls, he thought, and she couldn’t hear him either. Now, now was his chance!

He drifted at slow speed toward her back. Not quite sporting, he thought, but then how sporting was she? Just end her life and he would end that of a killing germ. He visualized her head bouncing down the rock with her hair flowing. He raised the sword, prepared to sever her neck.

A buzvul screamed above him, and the witch vanished. “Fool!” the bird cried. “Fool, to seek to destroy me with nothing more potent than an ordinary sword!” She had fooled him again, the cunning crone!

He raised the blade but could not reach her with it. “Come! Come!” he cried.

Suddenly the air thickened between them. It was a wall of heavy air, pushing down like a wedge of water, forcing him down with his belt.

“Two can play at that game,” he said, though he knew he was in trouble. He pushed the control to Accelerate, Maximum, Up. His body shook and he felt as though being pressed flat. Then the trees of Conjurer’s Rock were nearer and he was in them. Buzvuls flew up in a cloud. Sharp branches like oversized thorns reached and grasped. Wind shook him. Tips of ugly gnarled branches entered his arms, his legs, his back. He screamed, loudly, and he thought finally. The wind took away his scream and left him impaled and mute: a crucified prisoner. He was stuck, probably forever. The penetrating branches burned with the fire of thistles deep in his flesh.

Finally, it seemed a year or two later, he gained some control. His flesh was tormented, but there appeared to be no vital injuries. He could still fight his way free, and—

A buzvul lit at the edge of the rock. Abruptly it was an old woman with a wrinkled face and a squat body wrapped in a cloak that flew like dark wings on either side. Her naked form was grossly distorted. Ugly? There were no words!

Her hands reached, claws extended, as if seeking to grasp the men and horses down in the broken and trembling pass. St. Helens had to see, and for once cursed the fact that he had eyes. Men and horses were fighting to get free of rocks heaped upon them; men and horses and parts of men and parts of horses, squashed, broken, ruined. Equipment sticking up through jagged wounds in the earth. It was a victory that would have seemed complete to any general, but the creature on the rock’s edge was no human general. There was, he realized at last, little that was human about her.

Melbah, the witch triumphant, raised her hands, palms facing each other. Was that a chant? St. Helens shivered, despite the heat and the pain.

A small spark formed between Melbah’s stubby fingers. It grew to the size of a grape, an apple, a watermelon. Suddenly there was a great roaring ball of fire floating just off the rock in front of her stark and disturbingly ugly form. The heat blasted back at him, suffocatingly.
Gods,
he thought,
she intends to hurl that at them! To burn them, each and every one! Gods!

A loud, cackling laugh chilled him even through the heat. “Now, St. Helens, you pitiful excuse for an opponent, see what becomes of my enemies! See the folly of defying me! See the destruction you have wrought!”

St. Helens wanted desperately to stop her. He could not. Failing that, he wanted only to close his eyes—and could not. She had him captive, as audience as well as enemy.

*

Mor crouched beside a fallen boulder next to a horse’s sightless head, the body of the animal buried in the solid earth. “Lester,” he said, feeling the bump on his own forehead and the gash made by the rock. “Lester, where are you?”

Then he saw his son, half buried under his own dead horse. Lester’s head and shoulders were visible, the rest of him under the horse’s throat. It was hard to know whether he was crushed, or unconscious, or even dead.

Mor crawled to him, swearing softly, angrily, helplessly. So many dead around. So many hurt. So many screaming and moaning. Brave men in the prime of health but a short breath ago. Now—

A figure staggered over to him through the dust. With shock he recognized General Broughtner.

“Mor, we’re done. We need to retreat, if we can scrape up the strength even for that. There’s no going into Aratex. The witch beat us! I thought her magic was fake…”

Mor had to agree. Only something like the laser John Knight had used with his son Kelvin to slay dragons could accomplish anything now. But they didn’t have any such weapon, and as far as he knew, none now existed.

“They were right about her,” he gasped, hating the taste of his own bitter words. “She’s more powerful than any army! Deadlier, even, than the sorcerer the Roundear destroyed.”

“Stronger than the Roundear,” the general said.

Mor winced to hear it, but he had to agree. Zatanas’ deadliest magic never equaled an earthquake, and for all the prophecy, Kelvin would be as helpless as they were. How could anyone fight a witch who could make the very earth open up and swallow an army?

“He’s alive,” General Broughtner said, bending over Lester and looking under his eyelids. “Unconscious.” With his strong hands the general lifted the dead horse’s head. Despite his dizziness, Mor managed to pull his son free. He could see that Lester was alive, and might recover with proper care if they could get him home to Jon in time.

But that brought up another question. “Do we have the men and strength to get the wounded out?”

The general shook his head. “It will be tough. We’ll need help just to retreat. If we surrender now, maybe she’ll let us go.”

“You think so?”

“No, but we have to hope. I’ll get the surrender flag out of the supply wagon. If I can find it.”

The general moved off, head down. Mor was alone with his son. He smoothed Lester’s brow, wiping away some blood and sweat and dirt. He cursed for a while, then swore for a while, and finally prayed a little. They would never get away from here, he thought. None of them. The witch meant to destroy every vestige of their army. This, barring a miracle, was total defeat.

He tried looking at Conjurer’s Rock and wishing St. Helens had gotten there. Yet he knew that even if the man had, Melbah would have smashed him as readily as a man swatted a fly. There was no defeating Melbah; the witch was just too strong.

As he looked toward the distant stubby shape, trying to discern her form, a great brightness like a rising sun formed between him and the rock. There was a fireball there—a great mass of flame. It was streaking toward them, like a monstrous flaming arrow. It was witch’s fire, the stuff Mor had heard about. Coming to burn them all, to destroy every one of them.

Mor tried to grasp it. Not defeat; this was beyond that. Annihilation.

*

On the way out of the underground river to the remains of the old palace, Heln and Jon filled them in on St. Helens and the affairs of Aratex. Kelvin listened carefully, not revealing too much of what had happened after he had started out with St. Helens. His anger at his father-in-law had been burning like a white-hot coal ever since he stepped back into his home frame. Now, hearing what trouble the man was in, he could almost rejoice.
Let him stay there! Let old Melbah have him for a plaything! Good riddance to bad in-law!

His father surprised him. “I think the three of us had best get to Aratex fast!”

Kelvin gave him as cold a stare as he could manage. There was just no way that his father was making sense.

“He saved your Heln, Kelvin. Surely that must move you, if the insult to your country and your country men does not.”

“Not to mention the prophecy,” Jon said.

But can we help?
Kelvin wondered.
Can we do anything at all against a genuine witch?

“You’re right, Father,” he said. “We have to try.”

They deposited Heln back at her room in the Rud palace. King Rufurt was there to greet them and shake their hands. He made no objection to their leaving immediately for Aratex. Lines etched in his face told more deeply than words how seriously he was taking this.

“I’m coming, too!” Jon proclaimed.

“No, Brother Wart, definitely not this time.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “I’ve got better eyes than any of you! I can spot danger before you think about it! Who hit Zatanas with a rock?”

“Who nearly had all her blood drained?” Kelvin retorted. “You have to stay, Jon. It’s not right that you—”

“Chauvinist! Whose man do you think may be in trouble? My man Lester, that’s who!”

“Certainly you can come, Jon,” Kelvin’s father said, to Kelvin’s disgust. “Glad to have you along. I don’t think we could leave without you.”

Thus were things settled as they usually were where Kelvin’s point-eared sister was concerned. The four of them rode to the river without incident, found the new bridge, and crossed it into Aratex territory. The ride to Deadman’s Pass was marked by numerous horse droppings and wagon ruts. Just as they reached the entrance to the pass, there was a roar ahead, and the ground shook under the hooves of their borrowed war-horses. The shaking continued, and clouds of dust billowed from the pass. A terrible roar developed, making it worse.

“Earthquake and avalanche!” John Knight proclaimed. “Lord, if they’re caught in that—”

“It’s her!” Jon shrieked. “It’s Melbah, up on Conjurer’s Rock! She’s doing it! She’s causing the ground to shake!”

“You’re crazy, Brother Wart!” Kelvin said, in his usual patient way with her. He was trying to control his mount’s nervous jerking.

“Crazy, am I? Look, just look! On top of Conjurer’s Rock! Up above the dust cloud, up above the pass! Look!”

Kelvin strained his eyes, and so did his brother and his father. From here Conjurer’s Rock looked like a foreshortened tree stump rising above the dust and the pass. Could there be a little ant on the top of that stump, with outstretched arms? Jon seemed to think so. He had known that his sister possessed almost unnaturally clear eyesight, but seeing Melbah on top of Conjurer’s Rock from this distance seemed impossible.

“You’ve got to
do
something!” Jon insisted. “You’ve got to, Kel! She’ll kill all of them! She’ll kill Lester!”

Do? What could he do? From this distance he couldn’t even see Melbah, let alone stop her if she was indeed there.

“The Mouvar weapon,” his father said. “Use it, Kelvin! Try shooting it at her!”

“It won’t do any good,” Kelvin said. Then, recognizing the desperation in his father’s voice and his sister’s face, he reached for it. Immediately he was jolted, almost lost his balance, and had to grab suddenly for the horse’s mane. Jon, in an unlikely maneuver, joined him on the back of his war-horse. She had almost dislodged him!

“Hurry! Hurry!” she said urgently.

He got out the weapon. What should he do, just point it at the rock and pretend he could see something there? Should the weapon be elevated, as an impossibly powerful crossbow would have to be? Just what should he—

A tiny spark shone brightly against the top of the stump. It did not dim and go out, but immediately started swelling, moving like a flaming arrow.

“It’s a fireball!” Jon shouted in his ear. “Stop it! Stop it now!”

As if he could! Yet all he could do was try.