Chimaera's Copper Read online

  “I can. I have the gauntlets now, and the levitation belt, and the Mouvar weapon. I can do it.”

  “No, wait! The chimaera can stun your mind! Think-- “

  Kelvin knew better than to think. A man of action he must be, though his nature was far more sedentary. Magic and a prophecy made him heroic despite himself.

  He touched the control for “up” on the belt, and suddenly he was floating above his father's head, looking back at Kian's astonished form waving at the cave. It was exactly as it was when he practiced with the belt.

  “Goodbye, Father. Wait for me if you will. If not, I'll follow you.”

  “No, wait, you idiot! What kind of a fool are you!”

  “I'm a hero, remember?” And he knew his father understood, despite trying to restrain him. Heroes would be heroes, just as kings would be kings, to the wonder and dismay of others.

  Sadly yet determinedly he nudged the control and floated smoothly swampward. A bit of acceleration and the swamp breezed by. Now and then he caught a froogear's surprised face in the greenness below, or sight of one of the swamp monsters. He had no doubt of the proper direction, partly because there was a treeless area that was almost like a road, but mostly because the gauntlets tingled ever so slightly when he started going wrong. Soon the lake and island with its imposing wall were in sight.

  Have to think now. Have to think. Face the chimaera's power? Think to Mervania? Demand that it release the prisoner?

  Down below was the gate where they had waited for the god of the froogears. He drifted over, slowing. Now there was that peculiar walkway bordered by the more peculiar fence. Even while carried by the chimaera he had noticed it. Greenish, tapering, almost thorn-shaped posts. Then there was the ruined castle with openings like vacant eyes. The chimaera, aware of him or not, was nowhere in sight.

  He lowered himself cautiously, with a nudge of the belt control. Past moss-grown walls to a spot directly in front of the doorway to the dungeon. Still no chimaera. Was it going to be this easy? Was the monster going to let him get away with this, knowing that he was now magically armed? Or was the chimaera simply asleep?

  He approached the barred door. He lifted the bar, grunting from the weight of it, glancing nervously back over his shoulder. The gauntlets felt warm, but the very existence of the chimaera could account for that.

  He hesitated, then forced himself to proceed. He swung the door open.

  The chimaera waited inside, sting raised on backward-bending abdomen. All three heads had coppery eyes focused on him.

  “Welcome back, Kelvin!” Mervania said brightly. A lightning bolt speared from the tip of the sting and sizzled past his head. A warning shot, surely.

  He was prepared as he had not been before. The Mouvar weapon was in his hand and properly set to contain any hostile magic. He pressed the trigger and the antimagic weapon emitted a few colorful sparks.

  What was this? It wasn't supposed to do that! It was supposed to make a barrier to hostile magic.

  The tip of the chimaera's sting moved, almost imperceptibly. Lightning leaped from it to one of the greenish posts. Sizzling, the bolt leaped from post to post. Now Kelvin realized, belatedly, that the posts were copper stings stuck in the ground. The chimaera was emitting lightning, and the stings in the ground received the lightning and made the spectacular display. A stench hit his nostrils that was partly ozone and partly something he had not known before.

  “Stupid roundear!” Stapular cried from the cell. He wasn't even trying to attack, but was instead flattened at the very back of the enclosure.

  Time to think about Stapular later. Kelvin's hands burned in the gauntlets and he didn't like ignoring their warning. Quickly he adjusted the weapon's control. Now it would not only block hostile magic from reaching him, as perhaps it had just done, but would turn it back on the sender. If it worked as he hoped, the magic lightning would double back on the chimaera itself.

  “If you insist,” Mervania said.

  “Real dumb one, isn't he!” Mertin remarked.

  “Groomth,” growled Grumpus.

  Kelvin pressed the trigger and held it down. Lightning shot from the tip of the chimaera's tail and sizzled right at his feet. He felt it, shockingly, through the soles of his feet and all through his body. His hair seemed to be sparking. The Mouvar weapon, amazingly, did nothing but emit a few colored sparks and get very hot in his hand.

  “Really, you must go back inside,” Mervania scolded. The chimaera crawled outside as the Mouvar weapon sagged in his tingling fingers. The monster confronted him at close range, and another blue bolt sizzled at his feet.

  About this time Kelvin realized one or two things. One was that a species that was near extinction was not necessarily a sweet thing to be near. The other was that he was in real trouble.

  Slowly, unsteadily, hardly knowing what he did, he backed away. The chimaera moved after, clicking its pincers before it. He backed into the cell, past the trough, and to the wall beside Stapular.

  The lightning stopped. He slid to the floor, as did Stapular. The chimaera closed the door, dropping the bar with what seemed a final crash.

  Thank you for coming back, Kelvin! I know you'll be delicious!

  Oh, the pain! The incredible shaking, tingling all over him. He felt it everywhere, even in the gauntlets. None of his weapons had been any use! Instead of rescuing Stapular, he had made himself prisoner again.

  He rolled up his eyes, trying to adjust to the enormity of what had happened. He had tried to play the hero's part, and had only succeeded in playing the fool's part.

  “Satisfied, stupid?” Stapular asked.

  “It-- it should have worked! Mouvar's weapon is antimagic.”

  “Antimagic!” Stapular laughed his annoying laugh, as nastily as ever. “Dumb, stupid, Minor World creature! The chimaera wasn't using magic.”

  “The lightning!”

  “Electricity. The monster generates it in its body. Copper conducts. Nothing magical about it. Science.”

  “Science?” Kelvin's morale and hopes plummeted. “Not magic?”

  “Now you've got it, Minor World idiot! You've come back to be eaten! Doesn't that make you feel just great?”

  “The squarears-- “

  “They won't help you twice. They have no more tolerance for fools than I do, fool.”

  “But I have my levitation belt. Once outside, I can-- “

  “The chimaera can shoot a bolt straight up and cook you in midflight. I've seen it fry passing birds that way. Any that are so stupid as to come within range. Most stay well clear.”

  “My gauntlets!”

  “Won't help a bit. Didn't out there, did they?”

  “No, but-- “

  “But you're back. And you're going to be eaten. Why did you come back anyway?”

  “To get you released.”

  “Me? To rescue me?” The red-haired alien looked astonished. The expression was not typical of the way the good citizens of Kelvinia did it; his eyes widened and his facial lines seemed to click out starkly and then recede in place.

  “Yes,” Kelvin agreed dully.

  “Foolish. Incredibly foolish. Worst possible motive I've ever heard.”

  “You'd do the same for me.”

  “I would, huh?” The man emitted his nasty laugh. The laughter boomed louder and bounced around the dungeon, striking one wall and then another. Kelvin had never heard of a building being tumbled by laughter, but it almost seemed possible, now. “Me rescue a dummy like you from a Minor frame? Why should I care whether you're eaten?”

  “It's only human,” Kelvin said defensively. What was so funny?

  Stapular laughed all the harder. With precise control he switched from mocking to insulting to humiliating. He seemed a laugh machine similar to one Kelvin's father had told him about, perhaps jokingly.

  “Well gee,” Kelvin said wistfully, reverting to a childhood expression, “it sounded right to me.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Battles St
range

  General Mor Crumb awoke, dressed, exited his tent and stretched. It was a fine morning; in fact a glorious morning. The sun was shining over Klingland and Klingland was waiting.

  He hailed Captains Abileey and Plink, nodded to a second lieutenant, and exchanged perfunctory salutes with a passing private. The horses awaited, as did the mess. As was not customary in any army, he simply got in line. The privates, mostly from Throod, made room for him with haste, while officers tightened their lips at this display of what Mor felt proper. Since when did an officer act like a common man?

  “Jerked spameef!” exclaimed one young soldier holding up a twist of reddish meat. His expression and tone suggested anticipation of a bad taste.

  “Field rations, soldier!” Captain Abileey said. “What'd you expect, goouck and fish eggs? Be thankful it's not horse manure on a shingle.”

  The private blanched. Obviously he had not been long in uniform. “Sorry, sir, I guess I was hoping for something else.”

  “Probably,” Captain Abileey said. “But we'll eat well enough later. After victory.”

  “Yes, sir.” The boy brightened at the thought. Klingland was known for its fine shepton and poreef as well as less common cuisine.

  “If we don't delay we'll reach Bliston by noon. There's supposed to be only a small garrison, so there shouldn't be much of a fight. Then Garnish and Shucksort and finally the double cap itself. I make it three days.”

  “I know that, sir. But thank you anyway.”

  One way or another, they all filled up on dry rations washed down with steaming mugs of cofte from the army pot. In no time at all they were assembled and on their way, riding single file. The officer in official charge rode at the head.

  I don't know why we're doing this, Mor thought, looking ahead at the blur of green. Klingland never did anything to us that I know about. Why didn't we just give old Rufurt the thumb in the nose? Maybe it was that wine. Yes, that was probably it. I've never been this complaisant about soldiering before in my life. But he did make me a general. Not that I asked for rank or even wanted to volunteer to fight.

  Prod, prod, prod.

  Someone, probably one of the officers, began the “Horse Manure, Horse Manure” song. It felt good to belt out the familiar lyrics, and Mor found himself bellowing jubilantly with the rest: “Makes the giries scream. Horse-- ” And so it went. All morning went, little by little, unnoticed by man or horse, undisturbed by sniper's arrows or any appearance of armed locals. It was, he had to admit to himself, a dream march. Absolutely nothing was going wrong. Ahead and to the sides the green blurred steadily.

  At noon they stopped and rested, ate field rations and drank spring water from canteens while the horses chomped grass. In due course they remounted and proceeded as before.

  Prod, prod, prod.

  Mor was bothered, perversely, by the ease of this. He didn't trust an easy campaign. Only in dreams was everything perfect-- until the dreams turned bad.

  “Horse---- “

  A horse whinnied. It was Mor's own. Then, as though urged by the song, it defecated. Mor, for no particular reason, turned in his saddle and looked at the steaming dung as the horse's hooves pounded the ground.

  Prod, prod, prod.

  Something was not right. Something definitely was not right. The horse should have outdistanced its dung in its first stride. Yet the horse walked and the dung remained directly behind. The horse walked but the ground kept pace. So did the smell.

  Mor frowned, trying to understand, and to shake the unnatural euphoric mood he was in. All morning it had been this way. Almost as if he had drunk heavily of wine and experienced nothing but its exhilarating effect. He could hardly damp down the feeling, though he knew it was unnatural. He was after all on the way to a fight. Fear was a better emotion than contentment!

  There it was, horse dung, steaming and fragrant, gathering flies.

  Finally it registered. “Damn!” he swore, appreciating the subtle beauty of it. He knew what was wrong.

  “Captain Abileey, Captain Plink,” Mor said. “We are in deep manure.”

  “Why is that, sir?” Captain Abileey's boyish face just missed being ecstatic. Mor knew that this was going to be difficult for him, because he was entirely taken in by the illusion.

  “We're making good time, General,” Captain Plink said. “No opposition all morning. We must have come a good twenty---- “

  “Bliston's not that far,” Mor pointed out.

  “Well, sir?” Captain Abileey inquired. His cheeks were as ruddy as if he'd just stepped from a tavern. Unquestionably this was one of the most contented moments of his life. But Mor, nominal leader, had no choice but to end it.

  “Look there,” Mor said, pointing.

  “Yes sir.” The young captain's nose wrinkled. “Horse droppings.”

  “Watch.”

  Prod, prod, prod.

  “We're not moving, sir!” Captain Abileey was astonished. “We're-- something's wrong! What can possibly be wrong?”

  “Magic!” Captain Plink said, appreciatively. He was older, and had seen more oddities; he was thus more ready to grasp this insight.

  Mor sighed, and said with equal appropriateness, “Horse droppings!”

  After that there was nothing to do but call a halt. There was horse manure all around; they could not get away from it. The joy of the advance diminished.

  *

  Lester Crumb saw them first: the Kance soldiers riding down on them, poised, swords drawn, in an all-out charge.

  “Archers! Crossbowmen! Pick off the leaders first!” It was what his father would have ordered. Sensible and right: officers, after all, had ordered the charge.

  Lester's men formed a line, ready to fire at Lester's signal. Les dropped his hand, readying himself for the sight of death. Why was this army charging his own army so suicidally? Like a lot of things lately, it didn't seem to make much sense.

  Arrow strings twanged. Crossbows fired. The missiles flew straight for their targets. But the enemy cavalry neither swerved nor slowed in its charge. The arrows and crossbow bolts fell well beyond them. The charge continued, unaffected.

  “What? What?” Les couldn't believe it. Not one of the enemy had fallen, or even taken a hit. Every shaft had missed!

  The distance between the two forces became smaller. Les imagined that he could see the angered eyes, the set lips, even the sweat on the attackers’ foreheads. How could they be immune to arrows?

  “Cease firing! Form a phalanx!”

  The troops formed the square, spears pointing out protectively on all sides. The enemy riders came closer, closer, while all Les’ men waited. There was muted grumbling; they didn't like taking a defensive posture when they plainly outnumbered the opposition.

  Damn, he thought, what was there to do?

  “Sir,” said Captain Barnes, his second in command. “It's magic!”

  “I can see that, Captain.”

  “We need the Mouvar weapon, sir. To turn the magic back on them.”

  “Agreed, Captain,” Les said tightly. “Unfortunately we don't have it.” Kelvin had the weapon, and why, oh why wasn't he here, when so much depended on him?

  Lester stared gloomily at the ever-charging cavalry. He had to wonder whether they were going to have to squat here and wait indefinitely until Kelvin returned from his brother's wedding.

  Then he had a new thought, an alarming one. If King Rufurt had been replaced by the king from another frame, what then had been the rightful king's fate? And if Rufurt had been destroyed or somehow magicked, what then of Kelvin? What was going on, in that other frame?

  *

  St. Helens should have felt great. Leading troops again-- not that he ever had before, exactly. But campaigning was something he knew from the ground up. So why wasn't he happy, now that he was at the head end of it instead of the tail end?

  Charley Lomax rode by his left and young Phillip at his right, and behind them stretched the Hermandy army. All seemed to be in
order. So what was his problem?

  “Sir,” the young guardsman whispered, bending near in his saddle. “Have you noticed our well-wishers?”

  St. Helens saw what the lad meant. A few sullen faces were staring at them from passing yards and doorways. There were no flowers strewn in their path, no cheers or patriotic cries of well-wishing. The faces were mostly glum and the bodies often ill-fed. The populace of Hermandy reminded him of another. Would the former king of Aratex be reminded? St. Helens turned in his saddle and glanced.

  Phillip's face was wreathed in boyish smiles. Taking no notice of anything around them, he appeared as happy as when he was beating St. Helens in chess. After viewing all the death and destruction in Aratex, he still was thinking of glory. St. Helens knew how it was for him because he had once been that way himself.

  “I don't think the military is popular in this land,” he whispered to Guardsman Lomax. “Considering that the Hermandy government is highly repressive, that's normal. It was that way in Aratex, and, not long ago, before the roundear, in Rud.”

  “And after this war it will be different here also?”

  St. Helens had had a top sergeant once who answered each and every question a private could muster with irrefutable logic. The answer was always the same in St. Helens’ experience. He used that sergeant's answer now. “Shut,” he said reasonably, “the hell up!” They rode on through deeper and deeper gloom brought on by the fact that nothing was as either of them would have wished.

  *

  Helbah had to smile as she gazed into the twin crystals. One showed Mor's difficulty, the other his son's.

  “Yes,” she said aloud, perhaps to Katbah, her houcat friend. “Yes, old Helbah knows a thing or two! Never could defeat my evil frame-sister, but I kept her from invading us long enough! Glad she's gone! She's my malevolent mirror image, you can bet!”

  “Meoww,” Katbah remarked, arching his slick back. He would rather be battling a leaf or climbing a tree. Instead he was here in her defense headquarters giving her support.

  “Now, then,” Helbah continued, checking her brewkettle in the fireplace and giving it a stir with its ladle, “here's our plan. Once we've got them stopped we wait until they go back discouraged or until their decent leaders come and surrender to us. No killing. You like that?”