Serpent's Silver (28 page)

The Mouvar weapon was pointed in the right direction.
Do your stuff, Gauntlets!

Jon’s hand was over his and the gauntlet. Her finger was over the gauntlet finger. The trigger squeezed in a quick, sure motion.

Bright light flashed, filling his eyes and head. WHOOMPTH! echoed and reechoed as before. The horse reared, and Kelvin and Jon slid together down the sloping back and ignominiously off the rump.

Thump! Oof! And the world spun around and about for what seemed far too long a time.

*

St. Helens watched the fireball as it receded from the face of the cliff. It grew larger as it flew, streaked with terrible brightness and destructive potential. The men at the pass would be cooked along with their horses, and only their charred bones would remain. This was a victory for Melbah so complete, so overwhelming, that never again would Aratex be invaded.

“Damn you, witch!” St. Helens muttered. It was an insignificant thing to do, hardly even a decent oath. Yet a bit of defiance, however futile, was better than silence. His flesh hurt where the tree branches pierced it, but the pain of his crucified form was as nothing compared with the agony of witnessing this total defeat of his side. This was, of course, why Melbah had let him live: so he could suffer more.

Suddenly, almost as if the fireball were responding to his curse, the fireball slowed. In fact, it hesitated. Melbah, on the cliff’s edge, screamed at it. She leveled her arms, fingers extended, but to no avail.
The fireball was reversing course!

Now it came roaring back in all its fury. It loomed monstrously large, throwing off sparks, hissing loudly, its heat blistering even as far as St. Helens. The foliage of the trees shriveled and twisted, and the sky seemed ablaze.

Melbah did not wait to embrace her creation. She raised her arms and flapped them wildly. The arms became wings, and her body had feathers, and she was climbing desperately skyward as only a frightened buzvul could.

The fireball changed direction.
It was following her!

Melbah climbed higher. She zigged and zagged in the evasive action of a bird. But the fireball caught her, engulfed her, and devoured her in its flames. There wasn’t any shriek, only a loud pop as the fireball and its contents disappeared.

Then, seemingly from the open sky, came a fall of feathers, burning as they fell. As they landed where the witch had been, they became bits of flesh and bone. The fragments continued to burn, steaming and blackening, losing all semblance of human or animal nature. Not even a skeleton, not even bones remained, only simple ash, spread across the edge of the rock.

St. Helens found that the tree branches had loosened. They were only misshapen trees now, no longer the magical henchmen they had been while the witch lived. Wincing from the pain, he pulled himself out of his trap. He activated his belt and flew over to the rock edge.

Still it was only ash. Had his curse done this? Was there something magical in his makeup? He did not believe that for a moment! After all, he cursed all the time, and it didn’t even generate a haze, let alone incinerating fire. But certainly the witch was dead; that he had to believe.

He lowered himself to the rock’s edge. He scattered Melbah’s ashes and watched them fly away in the wind. She wasn’t coming back! There were no buzvuls bothering him. He had won, or someone had won, though he couldn’t figure out how.

He had to get down there in the pass and see if there was a magician among them. Somehow this thing had happened, catching him completely by surprise, not to mention Melbah! Someone there had to know.

He reactivated his belt, flew from the rock, and lowered himself down into the pass, where the carnage appeared even worse than it had from above. The witch had just about finished this army before sending the fireball.

He spotted Mor, bent over his son, and suffered a stab of remorse. Was the boy dead? He paused and called out to Mor, getting his attention.

Mor’s face lighted as he looked up. “You did it, St. Helens! You stopped her! You destroyed her for all of us!”

St. Helens decided against enlightening the man at the moment. “Lester—is he—?”

“Unconscious. Not hurt bad, I think. He’s a Crumb. We Crumbs have hard heads.”

“General Broughtner—is he alive?”

“He’s checking the damage done back there,” Mor said, indicating the way with a wave. “There’s a lot of it. At least up this way.”

“Thanks, Mor. I’ll be back.” He flew up the pass, seeing more and worse destruction the farther he went. Men were squashed by great rocks, and horses were half buried.

Finally he spotted the general straining with other men to lift the huge supply wagon off the shattered leg of a mercifully unconscious man. When the job was accomplished, St. Helens landed silently beside them. The general had the aspect of a thoroughly defeated man.

“The witch is dead, General,” St. Helens said. “She was the main obstacle.”

“Dead?” The man seemed reluctant to believe this.

“She sent a fireball, and it turned on her and destroyed her. It burned her to ashes. She is gone, dead by her own magic. Didn’t any of you see it happen?”

“I saw the fireball,” a man agreed. “I saw it turn—and then it winked out.”

“When it burned up its creator,” St. Helens said. “What are your plans, General?”

“Plans?” Broughtner looked around at the dead and dying. “You think I’ve got plans?”

No, St. Helens thought. Of course he didn’t. His army was in sad straits, even without further molestation by the witch. It was a shame, because with Melbah gone, King Phillip should be vulnerable. There was that prophecy for a Roundear that was supposed to apply to Kelvin: uniting two.

Yes, damn it, if Phillip would just abdicate! That would complete the job.

St Helens made up his mind in that moment. His hands played at the controls on the levitation belt.

“Don’t give up hope, General. I have a plan.” With that he rose vertically with the belt, angled his body and flight path past Conjurer’s Rock, and took himself down the darkening sky to the palace of the boy king of Aratex. Once there, he entered the window he had left with Heln a lifetime ago.

The room appeared much as it had before, and with his careful surveillance and good luck, he believed he had not been spotted. As he looked around the room a horrible apparition was suddenly facing him. He grabbed for his sword, and the other did likewise in perfect synchronization. With a shock he realized that it was he himself, reflected in a mirror: battered and bruised, hair and beard unkempt, blood and dirt on his clothing and hands and face, and bits of leaf and bark from the trees he had been in.

He shuddered, wishing he could clean up. He had never been a really handsome man, and he wasn’t young anymore, but this was ridiculous!

He tried the door and found it unlocked. The guards had not bothered to lock it after the prisoner had escaped. He started down the stairs. If the king was inside today, as he was nearly every other day…

He had made up his mind that what young Phillip needed was a hiding. That was what his own daddy had administered to him on occasion, and eventually it must have worked. Today he was what he was, and if he hadn’t had the hidings, there was little question that he could have been worse. Yes, indeed, young King Phillip was going to get the hiding he had long promised himself to deliver.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

It was Bemode, standing at the foot of the stairs, sword drawn.

Well, I’ve done it before,
St. Helens thought, and drew his sword. Only this time he was weaker, more tired, and older in all respects. So it would be more difficult. He started down the stairs cautiously, hoping he could last.

“Bemode!” a shrill voice called out. His Majesty Himself strode from the playroom and stopped, standing there with red, swollen eyes, but with more than a hint of command in his voice.

“But, Your Majesty—”

“Please go outside, Bemode. Leave us alone. There are things we have to discuss.”

Bemode looked from St. Helens to his nominal boss and back again. His piggish eyes drifted in confusion and he seemed to be trying to decide.

“That’s a command, Bemode!”

The man sheathed his sword. St. Helens sheathed his. The man left. St. Helens was disgusted. John Knight, back in the old days of their unit, had never given a command twice, knowing it would be obeyed with alacrity the first time, whatever it might be. John Knight had been a real leader then. These undisciplined palace guards nauseated him.

“Now, St. Helens, friend, come with me.”

St. Helens followed, wondering why. The king was acting as if this return were routine. Inside the toy room was much as it had been; toys were on the shelves, and there was a table set with a chessboard and chessmen St. Helens himself had made.

“One last game, friend,” Phillip said, gesturing at the board. “One last, and I won’t throw a tantrum if I don’t win.”

St. Helens brushed some sweat out of his eyes, trying hard to understand what was in the young king’s head. “You kept it set up, just as when we played every night!”

“Yes. Melbah was no good as a player. So please, one last game, and then you can kill me as you plan.”

“Kill you!” St. Helens exclaimed, genuinely astonished. “Kill you? Why?”

The boy’s stricken face rose from its contemplation of the chessboard and the chairs. “She’s dead, isn’t she, St. Helens? Isn’t that why you came here? You couldn’t have, otherwise. Not alone. She was watching for you; she had magic telltales set. She would have captured you, tormented you, and then brought you back.”

“You really think that I—with this sword you gave me—?”

The king lowered his eyes. “It is all I deserve or ever have deserved.”

“Gods!” St. Helens said. There was just no beating the kid after this. He had been in effect checkmated—by a pupil who had learned his lessons better than the teacher.

*

Mor blinked in astonishment, and Lester gaped, as St. Helens dropped from the air with the young king on his back. He started to reach for his sword, but then stayed his hand. This was the king, after all, and St. Helens obviously had brought him in for a purpose.

“Lester, Mor, the fighting’s over and there’s no more Aratex. My son-in-law’s prophecy is going to be fulfilled, with him or without him.”
And how I wish he were here, alive and in good health! How I wish I had not tricked him, betrayed him, with all the arrogance and forethought of a Phillip. Maybe I was bewitched at the time, or at least out of my head. But no, I know St. Helens better than any man, and I know the responsibility is mine. What would I say to him now if I had the chance? What would I say?

“Hello, St. Helens. I’m glad you managed to redeem yourself.”

It was St. Helens’ turn to blink. Four horsemen were there behind the fallen rocks. He was certain they hadn’t been there when he had left.

They were: Jon Crumb, Lester’s wife. John Knight, his old commander and Kelvin’s father. Kian Knight, Kelvin’s half brother. And the fourth was none other than Kelvin Knight Hackleberry, who had just spoken.

“Kelvin, can you—can you forgive me for what I have done to you?”

“Maybe, Father-in-law. Maybe when your grandchild is old enough to ask. Maybe then I’ll forgive you for helping me fulfill the two words of prophecy.”

“Grandchild? Heln?” He had been told before, but it was almost as if he were hearing the words for the first time. Recent events had almost banished the matter from his mind. The world whirled, and somehow it seemed quite natural that he crash-landed on his face with the young king on top of him. He lay there, quite moved but unmoving, as King Blastmore proclaimed the words they had agreed he should:

“As the sovereign ruler of the kingdom of Aratex, I solemnly proclaim Aratex’s complete and unconditional surrender to the kingdom of Rud. With this I abdicate Aratex’s throne, relinquish all claims, and beg the mercy and forgiveness of King Rufurt of Rud!”

Sweeter words, St. Helens thought happily, he would never live to hear.

*

Heln dreamed, and knew that she dreamed.

In her dream a beautiful young woman with long blond hair and deep blue eyes was undressing. With her was a man, a former queen’s guardsman she had seen at the palace petitioning for a pension. The man, too, was undressing, his every motion evincing eagerness. In back of them stood a waiting bed.

Must I see this! Oh, must I!
Heln thought.

Instantly she was outdoors, outside the cottage her dream-self had been in. There, coming toward the cottage door, a smile on his face that she somehow recognized as forced, was Kian, her husband’s brother.

Oh, poor Kian! Poor Kian!
she thought. Then she was awake, a sob choking her and taking her breath.

“Oh, poor Kian!” she said aloud to the empty room. “Poor man! I feel so sorry for you, Kian! But there isn’t anything I can do.” For though she had seen it in a dream, she knew it was not; it was another aftereffect of the astral separations she had done before. She had seen the ugly truth.

Her life was happy now, but that wasn’t enough. Sadder than she had been for a long time, Heln broke down and wept.

Epilogue

THEY WERE FINALLY GATHERED together again in Kelvin’s house. The wars were over for the time being, and they could relax and be family and friends.

“Apparently it’s antimagic,” Mor was saying, looking at the Mouvar weapon Kelvin was showing them. “The way it took the fire back to the witch, and the way you say it stopped the flopears and the serpents in that other world.”

“Yes,” John Knight said. “I figured out that it turns the magic energy back, whatever it is, on the sender. Thus in the other frame the hypnotic freezing stare was returned, while here it was the witch’s fireball. When the control knob got moved, it merely blocked the magic without returning it in kind. Thus the flopears remained a danger but could not paralyze with a glance. But once the knob was at its original setting, it returned the magic and the flopears paralyzed themselves.”

“Hooray for here!” Jon said, lifting her second glass of razzlefruit wine with bright enthusiasm. “Hooray for making Kel use that weapon!”

Kelvin glared at her, deciding that his little sister should never, ever be allowed to touch wine. It was obvious to him that all she had done was interfere in what he and the gauntlet would have handled.

“Well, at least you were saved,” Lester said, coming to Kelvin’s rescue and taking the glass from her hand.

“Except that you did fall on your butt,” Kelvin added, referring to the time she slid off the rear of the horse and he fell on top of her.

Jon glared at all of them until Heln rescued her in turn.

Heln, now rapidly approaching parturition and all that it implied, began reciting without the help of wine:

“A Roundear there Shall Surely be

Born to be Strong, Raised to be Free

Fighting Dragons in his Youth

Leading Armies, Nothing Loth

Ridding his Country of a Sore

Joining Two, then uniting Four...

“You’ve joined two, Kelvin,” she pointed out. “Now that the citizenry of Aratex has voted to unite its country with that of Rud.”

“That means,” said St. Helens, now permanently reunited with the group, “that the next task you face is uniting four. I suggest—”

Kelvin gave him a hostile look and St. Helens subsided, doubtlessly remembering. They had almost been to blows after Kelvin’s timely arrival in Aratex. The tongue-lashing Kelvin had delivered on the spot in front of Aratex’s young king was more than St. Helens had stood for since his basic training. Now the two were friends, or at least relatives. But Kelvin suspected, and St. Helens knew, that St. Helens felt he should have been given a governing position. Kelvin didn’t believe in nepotism, particularly extended to in-laws, and the voices of the people were now being heard in the first of the infant country’s elections. The new name for Aratex annexed to Rud was going to be Kelvinia, not Helenland, as St. Helens had unblushingly suggested.

Kian still looked sad, an entire month after their triumph in Aratex. Everyone noticed it, particularly Heln.

“Why so sad, Kian?” she finally asked.

Kian was not long in answering. “Lenore. Lenore Barley. I don’t want to marry her. I want Lonny back in the other frame.”

“I could have told you that, son,” John Knight said gently.

“You could? Why didn’t you?”

“I felt you’d need to find out yourself. Didn’t you notice that almost all the look-alikes had characters opposite to their counterparts? King Rufurt, for instance, is mostly kind and gentle, but his counterpart was cruel and delighted in inflicting pain. Cheeky Jack was a contemptible bandit who sold mere boys and girls into slavery. Jack’s counterpart is a heroic person, a genuine patriot, and one of the finest men I’ve met. What does that say to your inherited intelligence, son?”

Kian thought for a moment. Then his expression lightened as he faced the notion that he had somehow resisted before. “Lonny—she’s opposite!”

“Right!”

“When I called on Lenore she was—” He choked, his face now red. “With someone. A man. An ugly man who had served the queen. It wasn’t like Heln imprisoned in the Girl Mart and unable to help herself. She—she wanted him. He challenged me to a fight. She laughed, clapping her hands as if delighted. I walked away, the first time I ever walked away from such a challenge. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. I—”

“And what does this say about the nature of your mother?” John Knight spoke with dignity and sadness. “Think back. Her counterpart was as different from her as Lonny is from Lenore.”

Kian’s face clouded. This was the source of his reluctance to accept the situation. “She’s my mother. She’s—”

“Probably dead,” John said. He said it matter-of-factly, having come to terms with this in his own time. “Remember, I thought her everything the queen in the other frame is, and she wasn’t.”

Kian wiped at a tear. “I guess I have to accept.”

“You’d better, Kian. There is no real choice. You loved what you felt should be there, just as I did.”

“Lonny—”

“People have some choice whether to be good or bad,” St. Helens said, breaking in. “Phillip had no choice, but if I had had his upbringing, I might have been as bad. Now he’s got a chance to be good, and he’s going to be, making chessmen and chessboards with me and having tournaments. You know, the boy has a real talent for chess. Right now, except for me, I’d say he’s this world’s champion.”

“But only two of you play that silly game in this world!” Jon retorted. Everyone laughed.

“No, I know how to play, too,” John Knight said, ignoring St. Helens. “You’ll have to go back to get her or to stay with her. You haven’t any choice. It’s like Kelvin and the prophecy: no choice for either of you.”

“No choice,” Kian agreed. He stood up from the table, a determined and happy look on his face. “I’m going back! To live there or to bring her back!”

“And I’m going with you,” John said, also rising. “There’s no way I’ll miss attending my older son’s wedding.”

Kian paused, looking at him. “You know, Queen Zanaan’s a widow now, technically, and—”

“And it remains awkward for me in Rud, where I’m supposed to be dead. Charlain—”

“Is married to a good man,” Kian agreed. “I don’t think she’d mind if you—”

“That was my thought,” John Knight agreed. “I think I need a wife as much as you do, and you need a mother again.”

The two exchanged glances, understanding perfectly.

St. Helens, wineglass in hand, flush on nose, lurched to his feet and, unasked, led everyone in a rousing cheer. “And don’t come back!” he bawled as the two departed. There had been a time when that would have been an insult.

Kelvin looked at Heln, and then at Lester and Jon. They nodded. It was the best way to lose a father or a brother.

It was a great, fine time in Kelvinia.