Serpent's Silver (22 page)

Should he go out to meet them? No, he decided; that would mean a stop. If he stayed hidden and waited, the war would get started. Then he could come out, get a little medical help, get those gauntlets from Heln, and he’d be back on his way to victory. Yes, that was what he’d do.

Four very black buzvuls flew by his perch. One looked at him and seemed to wink. Funny, he didn’t know they could do that! “Croak, croak,” the bird said.

“No,
you
croak,” St. Helens said, and almost lost his grip on the limb. The bird flew on by.

He watched the buzvul fly over the advancing party. It yelled something. Soldiers shot at it with arrows, and it was falling.

St. Helens mentally echoed the cheer given by the soldiers. One ugly bird down. Might it be Melbah!

But now something else was happening. The sky was in disorder. The clouds were gathering, the sky darkening. Big drops of rain were falling, and lightning flashed. Yet just a moment ago the sky had been clear.

“Damn!” St. Helens said, holding on to the limb for dear life. Could this be natural? No, it could not be natural! Nor could that bird have been!

Down below on the river, the soldiers were having problems. The river was rising with completely unnatural speed, making for unsteady going. Wind was lashing cold water and flinging it on the men.

Now the sky was darkening worse than it had before. Only momentarily did it clear. The rain was really coming, and the river rising yet more, and the wind whipping the tree, shaking it so hard that St. Helens thought his teeth must rattle.

Have to get down,
he thought;
have to get down.
But there was no getting down with the levitation belt. With the wind blowing the way it was, he’d be smashed into one of the other trees. Melbah must be one of those birds, or have the eyes of one of them. He had heard that witches could do that—project their eyesight into the heads of birds and animals. He hadn’t believed it before. Now he suspected that he had greatly underestimated the witch.

That first passing buzvul had been mocking him! The witch had seen him, and known he was about to be dashed down by the storm. The bird must have taunted the soldiers, too. They had gained nothing by shooting it down; in fact, they had allowed themselves to be distracted for precious seconds when they should have been scrambling quickly out of the water. The witch had tricked them all into deep trouble.

Now the tree shook so hard that it began to bend. Branches cracked off. Leaves sailed by. He hung on, unable even to see the river anymore, able to think only of himself and his predicament.

There was a roaring sound, not that of the wind. A roaring as of water. Of flood. He heard a horse neigh, a sound of pure horror. Men yelling, screaming. He began to fall.

He hit the button on the levitation belt just before he alighted. It cushioned his fall slightly and perhaps saved him from a broken back. Even so, the jolt was good and hard, and his wounded leg flared with pain.

He rolled over, gasping, choking, screaming inwardly from the agony. He hadn’t broken anything, he was alive, but God, he’d landed with a smack!

It was calm now. The light was better. Looking below, he could see a river in flood and horses and men far downstream, struggling. Some mailed vests and other bits of armor seemed bright in the sun as the soldiers wearing them were tumbled over and over in the current.

Mor?
he thought.
Lester?
Had they escaped? Was this pitiful handful of drowning men what was supposed to rescue Aratex?

“Curse you, old woman!” St. Helens screamed. Maybe she was around to hear!

“Yes?” a dark bird croaked. It had lighted on a branch over his head. It looked down at him with a scavenger’s bright, merciless eye.

He got to his feet, staggering as the pain in his leg stabbed him. He wanted to grab that bird and choke the life out of it.

“Yes?” the bird asked again mockingly.

“Yes!” he said, throwing himself forward. Promptly his leg collapsed, the ground rose up, and try as he would, he could not protect his face.

“Come back, St. Helens,” the bird advised as he spat out dirt. “Come back to the palace and your friend.”

“Go to hell, witch!” he snapped.

The bird flapped its wings, issued a hoarse croak, and took off. It loosed a smelly dropping at him as it passed above him.

St Helens was alone, looking out on a river and the destruction of his hopes. Far below, men struggled hard to save their lives.

Was it she? Or just her eyes and voice?

A chilling, cackling laughter sounded overhead. It went on and on while St. Helens lay on the ground and tried to think of something more sensible and productive than just cursing.

Chapter 23

Recovery

KELVIN OPENED HIS EYES and blinked. The interior of the bandit’s tent had not changed, and the faces looking down at him were the same, with the exception of the dwarfs. Yet something
had
changed, and it took him a moment to figure it out:
he was no longer dying!

“Well, Heeto made it,” the bandit Jac said.

“He may still die,” Biscuit said skeptically. It was almost as if he preferred that possibility.

“Look at those eyes. They’re clear! He’s about halfway recovered already. About all he’s going to need to get his strength back are rest and food.”

“The—dwarf?” Kelvin asked. He couldn’t get out of his memory the way he had choked Heeto’s counterpart to death. “I owe him my life?”

“You do unless you go ahead and die,” Biscuit joked.

Kelvin considered that, not finding it funny. In his home frame, Heeto’s counterpart in appearance had been the most evil being imaginable, but here in this frame Heeto had undergone hardship and risked danger to save a stranger’s life. What remarkable differences in such similar-seeming folk!

True, Heeto had round ears, as did Kelvin, while the evil Queeto had had pointed ears like those of the evil sorcerer Zatanas; indeed, like all who were not from Earth or descended from Earth immigrants. Here everything was similar and yet twisted around.

“Better get some sleep, Kelvin,” Jac advised. “You can thank Heeto when he gets back, and then when you’re strong we’ll make plans.”

When I’m strong,
Kelvin thought.
Have I ever been strong?
He drifted into a dream in which Queeto awakened him to show him the pale corpse of Jon drained of her last drop of blood. There was blood on the dwarfs lips—surely hers. The dwarf gestured, and Jon was replaced by Heln, fastened to the table as Jon had been. Zatanas bent over her, preparing to take her blood.

“NOOOO!” He sat up, his hands reaching for the dwarf's throat. The throat was there, and he fastened on it and squeezed, hard.

“Stop him!” Jac ordered, and Biscuit grabbed Kelvin’s wrists. He was back in the tent, and the throat he was attacking was that of Heeto, his benefactor.

“I—I—” Kelvin said. The enormity of what he had been trying to do was a shock.

“You dreamed,” Jac said. “You dreamed Heeto was someone else.”

“Y-yes.” Kelvin looked into Heeto’s wide-mouthed face, saw the finger marks on his throat, and the tears that had started in the dwarfs soft eyes. He was overwhelmed. “I’m sorry, Heeto. I didn’t mean—”

“I know.”

Suddenly he had his hands on Heeto’s shoulders and was pulling him near. His hands, almost of their own accord, reached around and patted the dwarf’s hump. “Thank you, Heeto! Thank you for saving my life.”

“It is a favor you may live to repay,” Heeto said. “As your brother would repay.”

“I’d like to try,” Kelvin said, with no real idea of what he was saying. “You knew—know—Kian?”

“Yes,” the dwarf said. “And with great good fortune he may still be alive. But it may take you to rescue him.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Kelvin said. He stood up, astonished at how well and strong he felt, and looked down at his now foreshortened benefactor.

“We’ll have to fill you in,” Jac said. “About Kian and Lonny and the serpents, and—”

“Serpents? Did you say serpents?” Kelvin found himself shuddering. After his experience with what seemed to be a silver snake hide, he hadn’t any desire to hear more of reptiles. But that might be what he most needed to learn about.

“We’ve got some big ones in our world, and they have silver scales on their hides. The flopears are an ancient people and wise, but once a year they make a sacrifice to what they feel are their living serpent ancestors, and—”

On and on, and at the end of Jac’s explanation Kelvin felt he knew all that had happened to Kian since coming here. It sounded as though Kian and Lonny must have perished, but no one could be certain. Possibly they had been taken prisoner by the flopears. More likely they had been eaten by the monstrous serpents. But assuming the first, they might have been taken to Rowforth’s palace. In fact—

Hastily he told Jac and the others about Heln’s astral visit to this frame, and how they had found John Knight and Kian in what must be Hud’s royal dungeon. There was the confirmation.

Biscuit swore. “That fiend! Putting a serpent in Smith’s ear!”

“He was a good man,” Heeto agreed. “A rough man, but good. No one deserves that treatment! Kelvin, you must help us free Hud from Rowforth!”

“I—I want to,” Kelvin said.
But I’m not really a hero! I’m just a man who feels like a boy! The only thing that made me seem like a hero was the pair of magic gauntlets
—
and I don’t have them now!

“What’s the matter, Kelvin? You look pale again.” Jac looked really concerned, exactly the opposite of the way his unfeeling counterpart, Cheeky Jack, would be.

“I’m not sure that I can help. If I had the Mouvar weapon you had and that Heeto somehow used to rescue Kian’s and Lonny’s astral selves…”

“That’s why we’re so glad to see you now,” Biscuit said with a grimace that belied his words. “You’re going to recover the Mouvar weapon you had and show us what it is and how to use it to rescue our land.”

Kelvin sighed. Now there was no help for it. They really thought he could do it, or wanted to believe that he could. He would just have to act as they wanted him to, and maybe, somewhere along the line, he’d find that he was able. It was a faintly comforting thought, and he tried recalling it frequently as the next few days passed, for what little it happened to be worth.

Then, one fine misty morning, they rode out: Kelvin, Jac, Biscuit, and Heeto. After crossing the Barrens they followed a road through mountain wilderness that reminded Kelvin of dragon country. That did not encourage him. Finally they reached the rim of one of two connected valleys.

“This is the one,” Heeto said, pointing to the tunnel below them. “I dropped the Mouvar weapon after I triggered it. The shock was so great I never even thought of retrieving it until we were nearly back. And that tunnel way over to the far side of the valley is where Kian and Lonny entered.”

Straining his eyes to see in the mist, Kelvin took the dwarf's word. But if he had been told correctly, and he felt certain he had been, they would face flopears or serpents down there. Was he really better off than he would have been facing golden dragons?

The mists thickened as they descended into the oblong valley, becoming what was very nearly rain. At least there would be no serpents sunning themselves today! But if they chose instead to let the rain wash the dirt off their scales…

Kelvin wanted to forget the Mouvar weapon and ride directly to the tunnel where sharp-eyed Heeto had last seen Kian and his friend (girlfriend?), but knew that would not be prudent. Once the Mouvar weapon was in his hands, he would feel a shade more capable.

While they were still trekking down, less than halfway to the valley’s floor, a rumbling started. The vibrations seemed underground, and felt like a drumroll beneath their feet. Dust belched from three separate serpent tunnels to the left of their destination.

Kelvin swallowed and turned to Jac. “A serpent?”

Jac shrugged. This was evidently new to him.

“It could have been the Mouvar weapon,” Biscuit remarked. “A serpent could have swallowed it, and the digestive acids destroyed the weapon and the serpent.”

“I doubt it,” Jac said, worried. “Let’s wait for that dust to settle.”

They waited, continuing their march. By the time it had settled, they were at the tunnel’s mouth. There was no avoiding the matter of the weapon.

“I—I think I should go in alone,” Kelvin said. He had decided on that far in advance. It was really only a gesture. If a human life had to be sacrificed, it should be his own life, on behalf of his rescuers. At least that might make him look like a hero!

“Suit yourself,” Jac said.

“I’m agreeable,” Biscuit remarked. Indeed, he looked quite agreeable, this time.

“The weapon should lie just beyond the entrance,” Heeto said in his ear. The dwarf had stood up on his saddle and ridden up close in order to be at Kelvin’s height.

Kelvin nodded, watching in wonder as Heeto resumed his saddle seat with a decided smack. The little man couldn’t even use stirrups, he thought—at least not any made for an adult.

There was no stopping it now. Kelvin dismounted, handed the reins up to Heeto, and nerved himself to enter the tunnel of the serpent. By the size of the aperture, the reptile that used this hole must be big enough to swallow a war-horse!

The mist had vanished almost entirely during their short pause. The sun felt hot on his back. Did that mean that the serpents would be stirring momentarily? Delightful thought!

He stepped in. It was dark inside, but then his eyes adjusted. And there, lying just beyond the entrance, just as Heeto had said, was the Mouvar weapon. He could fetch it and get out of here with no trouble at all! What a relief!

He took another step, bent down, and picked it up. It hefted almost the same as the laser he had used to destroy so many golden dragons during Rud’s war. Yet this weapon had been made by Mouvar’s people, he knew, not by his father’s people on Earth. That meant that this device was alien, and might not work in any familiar manner.

“Kelvin?”

He jumped. The voice had come from deeper inside the tunnel! But it was definitely human. “Huh?”

He saw her then as she stepped into the pool of incoming sunlight. She was covered with dirt and grime, and her hair was a tangled mess, and she looked hungry and tired—yet she was as pretty a girl as he could have imagined. But she looked like a girl he remembered hearing about in Rud. He hoped that if Kian loved this one, she was as different from her counterpart as Heeto was from Queeto.

“Lonny?” he asked, remembering the name they had told him.

She rushed toward him, dropping a sword. Suddenly, somehow, to his amazement, she was in his arms. “Oh, Kelvin, Kelvin, how I hoped you would come!”

“Where is Kian?” He felt embarrassed holding her like this, because though she obviously needed comfort, she was such a lovely creature that anyone who saw them would be bound to misunderstand. What would Heln think?

“The flopears have him!”

She was wearing gauntlets that looked exactly like those Kian had taken from the Mouvar chamber. Magic gauntlets, he hoped! He touched the one on her right hand. “These are Kian’s?”

“Yes.” She withdrew from his embrace, to his relief, and slipped them off and handed them to him. “Yours now. Yours to use to rescue us. To rescue Kian.”

And with these gauntlets he just might be able to do it! He could try to be the hero he was supposed to be! What a break!

He put down the weapon and drew on the gauntlets, saying nothing. The gloves felt right, adjusting immediately to his hands. But they tingled as soon as they were on.

That tingle meant danger. He had ignored that magical warning for the first and last time with St. Helens. He snatched up the weapon from the floor. He wondered as he did so whether he should instead have drawn his sword.

The ground rumbled. Outside, the horses whinnied and jumped and bucked with their riders. Kelvin whirled to look, Lonny clutching his elbow.

Very near, just outside the tunnel, a great silver head broke the ground. Huge serpent eyes bored at those who were out there, freezing them all: Jac, Heeto, Biscuit, and the four horses. All of them became as motionless as statues.

The stare penetrated past the group outside, and in to where Kelvin and Lonny stood. Something tingled in him and ran all the way from his brain stem down his spine.

This is it!
he thought.
It’s no wild story. I’m frozen! Just the way it happened to Kian!
But now the ones who had rescued Kian from the stare were frozen as well. Kelvin was helpless, and no help was possible. He could not shift his eyes to look at Lonny; he could not change any part of his position at all. What awful power in that serpent’s gaze!

The silver body undulated and the great head passed under the high entrance. The stench was something he had never smelled before. Standing there, paralyzed, as helpless as he had ever been in his life, he was reminded of the dragons.

The serpent reared its head. Behind it, its body undulated and coiled in a way no home-frame serpent could. Then it was in striking position, and the head was directly in line with Kelvin’s face. The serpent had bypassed the men and horses and come directly for him. Somehow it knew! It could swallow him whole, and that might be preferable to being cut up by those fangs.

The gigantic serpent mouth opened.

For the second time since coming to this frame, Kelvin tried to accept the knowledge that he was about to die.