Long before daylight Squirtmuck considered burying them deep in the mud and forgetting that they had ever been. Alas, the god had to be served, and the squarears placated.
In the morning they commenced the trek.
*
Bloorg left his dinner and activated the crystal with a thought. His thought was of the roundears in the swamp. He concentrated on the area between the transporter cavern and the chimaera's island, made a sweep, and found them.
The older man and the younger were both captives of froogears, again. Both on their way back to the chimaera, to be eaten.
He sighed. There was no help for it. They were just too troublesome to save twice.
He scanned back to the collecting tree. Yes, all their things were there, waiting. They would not need them now, but the objects would be re-collected. Sometimes he could wish to give such artifacts to the froogears, but that he knew could be dangerous.
There was no help for it. No help at all. Sighing with regret, he blanked out the crystal. Then, exerting great effort, he strove to erase all memory of the roundears’ existence.
Grool asked what he was doing.
“I don't know,” he said. “But I think I was successful at it.”
Satisfied with himself, now, he sat back down at his table and resumed eating the fire-blackened swampfish and chilled lettuage salad he had interrupted.
*
The chimaera was really in a troubled state. Mervania kept remembering what she had glimpsed with her mind in the larder room. Mertin, maybe just to be mean, kept pooh-poohing the experience.
“We have to make them show us!” Mervania said. “Even if we don't eat them.”
“GRRROOOMTH! WAHH!”
“Oh shut up! You'll get raw meat enough! But this is something we can't ignore! All our life I thought it couldn't be, and now I know it is. We just have to get those berries! Why, with those, Grumpus, we could go see dragons!”
“GWROOMTH?”
“Yes! That's what I've been telling you! And Mertin, try to think at least as well as Grumpus! All the sights we can see. The chance of finding us a mate!”
That did strike some interest. Mertin had had time to ponder the pleasures of mating, and was working up some urge for them. “If we can get the berries.”
“Yes. That's why we have to get these creatures to bring them. We can't get out, but they can if we let them.”
“But they won't come back. With or without berries.”
“True, but if we can offer them something in exchange, they might.”
“What?”
“Our old copper stings. You know how they value those.”
“But they're dangerous! Even to us!”
“But if we make a deal-- ?”
“We'd be risking all our heads. No thanks, Mervania. To toy with food is one thing; to deal with it another.”
“GWROOMTH!” Grumpus agreed.
Mervania felt despair. She knew the lesser heads were right, yet she hated to give up. There were so many places she would like to see again and never could in a physical way. There was that beautiful flower world, for instance, where big-headed wizards with greenish skins grew strange crops. How she had relished the meatloaf plants and the maiden's-blood flowers! Grumpus had had his fill of juicy torso trees and gut vines, while Mertin had gone into ecstatic burps after his first feast of rumpkins and chucquash. Those had been great meals and great times, and the wizards had not begrudged them but let them revel. Why had they ever left? Some mischief on the part of the wizards, or just plain wanderlust? She could not recall.
“Mervania, what are you doing, daydreaming again?”
“I thought you said I talked too much,” she said curtly.
“You do. You also daydream too much. But they're coming now. They're outside.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Use your mind, Mervania. Your supposedly smart mind.”
What was she doing, letting Mertin tell her things? She searched past the wall of their island. There she encountered thoughts.
If I hadn't taken that berry, we wouldn't have gotten caught! That was stupid of me! Stupid as Kelvin!
Kian Knight, one of the escapees! And--
I got the boy into this! I should have watched better! Now he'll never see his bride!
Kian's father! John Knight.
Mervania started their body walking daintily for the big gate. The tribute had been fetched across the swamp and the escapees were back in their power. All was as it should be. Except--
She still wanted those berries. Oh, yes, indeed, she wanted them.
She did not bother with her head-over-the-wall trick. She knew who was there and how they'd be waiting. Such teasing only worked once, unfortunately.
Pushing open the gate she looked after the disappearing row of bubbles and then at the thoroughly bound and helpless Knights.
“Welcome home,” she said. “This time it's really no surprise.”
“W-what do you mean?” Kian gasped.
“Why, that you were here before, visiting. Did you think I would not know?”
“I deny that! Whoever was here, it wasn't me!”
Poor human foodstuff. So very slow to grasp.
CHAPTER 12
Helbah
Here they come!” Phillip was so excited he couldn't contain himself. He was pointing at the Kance cavalry charging down on them. They kept coming faster and faster in overwhelming numbers and still General Reilly, alias St. Helens, did not give the order. At their backs was the open Kance plain and the Hermandy forest they had left.
“Those horse and riders could be phantoms. Illusions,” Lomax said. His voice squeaked boyishly, causing Phillip to look surprised. A very few years older than Phillip, so he might have seemed to the former boy-king to be above fear.
“Back into the forest!” St. Helens ordered. “Take refuge behind trees. Don't fire a shot until you see that these are real!”
The men obeyed, as good soldiers should. St. Helens wasn't certain that these Hermans were good, but he knew they were disciplined. They waited behind the trees, arrows nocked, crossbows cocked, swords, shields, and spears ready should these soldiers turn out to be genuine.
The Kance cavalry halted just out of bowshot. A tall Kance general stood high in his stirrups and waved the Kance flag of blue and white. “Truce!” he called out loudly. “Talk between commanders!”
St. Helens relaxed. His caution in taking cover had been justified; this was a real force, not a phantom one. He was glad to have a truce. Better talk than battle, though battle was probably inevitable.
“Agreed!” he called back. “We meet midway.” Then to his men he shouted, “Anyone who breaks the truce dies! Second in Command Lomax, you see that that order is carried out!”
“Yes, sir,” Lomax squeaked. If necessary he would die for his general, and St. Helens knew it.
“Phillip-- keep the faith.”
“What faith is that, General St. Helens?”
Would the kid never learn? “Earth expression. Just do right. Be alert for any truce violation on the part of these regulars.”
“Yes, sir, St. Helens. I'll do that.” The boy seemed eager, and his old chess-playing self.
“Fine. Then-- ” St. Helens walked out to meet the Kance officer. The ground was a little wet from yesterday's rain and the smell of damp ground and grass would have been a treat to his nostrils if they had not come through the forest. How did the Kancian know if they'd emerge right here at this particular spot on the border? Reconnaissance, of course. Surveillance by an ancient craft that he'd come fully to believe in. To fight an army was one thing, but a witch? He put the thought out of his mind and walked resolutely ahead.
“General Reilly, Army of Hermandy,” he said, approaching the other.
“General De Gaulic, Army of Kance,” the other said. The man was big and ugly and had a large nose; the nose was his most impressive feature.
Now there was nothing to do
but talk. The Kance general had called the truce, so he would speak first. St. Helens waited.
“General Reilly, also known as St. Helens, you serve a madman. Your people have no quarrel with mine and never have. You should go back.”
Direct. Also depressingly accurate.
“I serve the interests of he known as the Roundear of Prophecy, Kelvin Knight Hackleberry. It is for the newly formed Republic of Kelvinia that I lead this invasion force.”
De Gaulic's dark eyes speared him. “You lie, General Reilly. You serve she who the Roundear fought.”
Damn, this man was sharp! “Zoanna?”
“None other.”
I might have known! That temptress wouldn't just have drowned! But why didn't Kian and Kelvin find her? Has she been in a different frame?
“You are surprised, and yet not surprised, General Reilly.”
“Yes, I-- “
“Do you want to serve her? Her interests?”
“No. No, of course not. But-- ” He hesitated, unsure what he should say.
“You do not wish to serve her? You do not want to attack in her name?”
“Not in her name,” St. Helens said. He felt more confused about this than he dared admit. “I'm a soldier and I serve a king.”
“A false king.”
Damn! De Gaulic must know everything! The witch must have spied it out. Does he know, then, that we can't help ourselves? “It is not the place of the servant to question the master.”
De Gaulic smiled. “Yet you hesitate, General Reilly. Do you ask yourself why?”
St. Helens pulled himself together. It was most uncomfortable, standing here like this, having the truth rammed repeatedly into his unwilling mind. “I serve an ideal. A purpose. A good purpose. I have to invade.
“There will be dying. Much slaughter.”
“I know. I'm sorry about that. Surrender to me now. Then when the roundear comes he'll make everything right.”
“Will he?”
I hope. “He made things right for the people of Aratex.”
“Will he with Kance? With Klingland?”
“Both. There shouldn't be fighting.”
“And where is the Roundear of Prophecy now?”
“Otherwise occupied at the moment.”
The general's expression showed that he knew that there was no certainty of Kelvin's ever returning, but he did not challenge the statement directly. “And yet there will be an evil man in control.”
“The Roundear isn't evil!”
“Kelvin Knight isn't in control of Kelvinia. Another person is. He whom the Roundear once defeated in another place. That king and Zoanna, the queen you thought gone forever. Zoanna with more magic at her command than that possessed by her father.”
St. Helens felt as if he had been punched. The big-nosed general had better information than he did, and was using it as he might a superior deployment of troops. De Gaulic had just informed him that the worst two people were in control. St. Helens had known it without daring to acknowledge it. Now the truth was undeniable, and pain was in his gut. “Damn!” he muttered.
“I see you will not turn back, General Reilly. You have made up your mind.”
St. Helens wanted to say something different. He wanted to explain that he was just a tool, a pawn. The prophecy might compel his son-in-law, with a little help. Yes, it was like a chess game. Kelvin had the power, but others had to make the moves and the sacrifices. Others like St. Helens. He was locked into his slot, unable to escape it.
“I wish there were some other way.” He started to turn away, knowing that he was on the wrong side, hating it, but stuck.
A feathered projectile whistled through the air and struck the Kancian general. It made an ugly whacking sound and spun him half around. He cried out, an aged woman's cry, and grasped the crossbow bolt stuck high in his chest.
His chest? No, for on the instant the general was an aged woman. Melbah! his mind told him, but he knew that though she had the features, it could not be that one. Melbah was dead.
So the general was the witch! Someone on St. Helens’ side had disobeyed his order and the disobedience might mean a victory. Might.
Horses and soldiery raced across the plain. Bowstrings snapped. Shields caught projectiles and bounced them away. The Kance cavalry was charging his force of Hermans.
The woman wavered, then resumed the appearance of General De Gaulic in blood-spattered uniform. His voice was hers, aged and whispery. “Is this how you keep your word, Reilly? Is this the truce of an honorable man?”
“I had nothing to do with it! I swear!” But how could she believe that? He was the man in charge; he was responsible. His side had committed the treachery.
But it was also smart. It was smart of someone back there to realize. Anything against a witch was justified. Take her out and they had a chance!
A chance to win a campaign he might do better to lose. What a mess this was!
Rough hands grabbed him on either side. He did not try to resist, though for him that was difficult. He expected to be slain immediately, but instead his hands were bound and he was put on a horse. Two Kancian soldiers rode on either side of him. Two others rode with the general. The witch-general.
Looking back he heard cries of wounded and dying men and boys, and the screams of horses. Dying because he had led them here. How quickly it had dissolved into carnage! He hoped Phillip and young Lomax would survive. The Hermans hardly had his sympathy, but those two boys were enough like him to be his sons.
They arrived at the caps and the joint palace in what seemed like a remarkably short time. The witch was being helped by a soldier to stay on her horse. Then they were at the palace itself: half blue, half white, the color division running right through the big gate and the drive.
They dismounted, and as they did the general turned completely witch and collapsed. She did not move, lying across equally divided blue and white flagstones. She could be dead. St. Helens watched with the Kancians for any sign of life.
Two very young boys ran from the palace. One was dressed in blue, the other in white. Both had large lace collars. Both ran to the witch and dropped down by her, grasping her, holding her, crying.
Poor kids! St. Helens thought. She was all they had.
Suddenly the boy in blue was on his feet, pointing, face twisted and red. A golden crown on his head pronounced him ruler.
“Kill him!” the child shrieked. “Slay us that man!”
The childish finger pointed at St. Helens.
*
Charlain looked up from her cards. “She's pregnant,” she said.
Hal froze in his tracks. “What?”
“Easter Brownberry. I think you had better marry her, Hal.”
“But-- “
“The cards told me. I know I haven't been what I should to you, Hal. It was only natural that you find someone else. We had better divorce, so you can marry her before her condition shows.”
“But you-- the farm here-- “
Charlain nodded. “It is true. The farm won't run itself. But I can handle it for a time. Perhaps we can work something out. But first things first. We shall divorce, and you shall marry her. She's young, so really needs your support.”
“You are a generous woman, Charlain,” he said, amazed.
“You are a good man, Hal, and I haven't treated you fairly. I hope this makes it up for you.”
Soon he was gone. Charlain knew she had done the right thing. But even so it had come as a shock. She had put on a businesslike front, but now that she was alone the pain overwhelmed her. She put her face down on her arms and wept.
*
Lomax drew back a bloody sword from the chest of a Kancian soldier. He hadn't time to question it now or to feel shock at what was happening. With blood on him and fighting going on every side, all he could do was act continually to save his own life.
He ducked around the tree, narrowly missing getting chopped. An arrow from a Herman took the new attacker in th
e throat and toppled him from his mount, the sword burying its point in the ground. He looked at the young Kance soldier's terror-filled eyes and he wanted to feel sorry for him and he wanted to be thankful that his own life had been spared.
A voice screamed pain. A young voice. Phillip's? He hoped not, but there was no chance to look. He battled another soldier and just when he should be feeling the blade in his innards the handsome young Kancian folded over as though made of rags. Not his doing; another's blade had darted in to take the Kancian's life.
“Lomax!”
“Phillip!” The former boy-king had blood on his face and clothing and on the sword he had just used on Lomax's attacker. The boy looked happy, as if he were having the time of his life.
“Lomax, we've got to retreat! We're outnumbered!”
Yes they were, obviously. What had happened, anyway? He hadn't seen who fired the crossbow. St. Helens had warned them, had trusted him. He was in charge, like it or not.
“We've got to get!” Phillip insisted. “Give the order, Lomax! Now!”
Lomax, lacking a signaling horn, shouted “RETREAT!” He charged through the brush, hoping others would take the hint. Around him he saw Hermans backing, retreating little by little into their home territory.
After a long, long time-- probably several whole minutes, subjectively distorted by the pressure of the situation-- he determined that the Kancians were not following. Around them was the supposed safety of Hermandy trees and bushes. Through the bushes he could see the road down which they had marched. Defeated and driven back, but not all killed.
St. Helens had trusted him and left him in charge. He would have to find out who had fired the crossbow bolt at the Kancian general. If the man was still alive, he'd have him executed. After that, taste for it or not, he'd order the Hermans back into Kance by a roundabout way.
St. Helens, Lomax thought savagely, you will be avenged!
*
General Mor Crumb was eating a handful of bright yellow, exceedingly tart appleberries when Klinglanders descended on their camp. Phantoms, he thought. Wasn't the witch going to learn?