"Not Kathy," Lester said. "Get him, gal! She's got hold of the line. The fish darted right past her."
Kathy Jon's pretty young head surfaced. Her face was very red and the broken half of Lester's pole she raised was attached to a line wrapped around her neck. The line was cutting into the flesh, pulled taut by the thrashing creature now in midair.
The trass came down with a splash, drenching Kathy's already wet face and hair. She clung to the line, hauled on it, kicked her heels. She and the fish both disappeared under the water.
"Lester!" Kelvin said, alarmed. He had heard Lester brag that his daughter could swim like a fish; now he believed it.
The water smoothed as the little wavelets ran their lapping course. The sun shone down on glass-smooth water, showing their reflections.
Kelvin looked at his sister's husband and swallowed. If Kathy didn't come up soon he didn't know what he could do about it. Swimming wasn't one of his few accomplishments.
SPLASH! Further downstream Kathy's lovely young face resurfaced. Still very red, she hung onto the line with both hands. She went below the surface and then she popped up again as the fish, as long as her suntanned arm, took to the air and came down short, snubbed by the line. Kathy bobbed under and up and out, a human float with now very red pointed ears. Whether she was playing the fish or the fish was playing her was a question. For a time the contest was in doubt, and then Kathy was struggling upright in the shallows, just above where the riffles started. Her young legs strained to keep her in the current as she stooped down with a darting motion. She shoved one hand in the fish's gills while grabbing its flapping tail with the other.
"I got him, Dad! I got him!"
"Don't drop him, Kathy! Hang on! I'm coming!"
Kelvin watched his brother-in-law run like a man demented. Years dropping from him like bits of shorn shrubbery, he charged through stickery bushes and head-tall weeds as once he had charged other men on horseback. Standing right where he was Kelvin saw it all: father and daughter subduing one large, ornery fish that would bake up well in Jon's brick oven. There'd be a family feast from this one, and he and Heln would surely be invited. Almost he could taste the succulent white flesh steaming and mouth-wateringly fragrant in a delicately browned skin.
"Here, Kathy, here!"
"Take it, Dad, I lost my pants!"
"Kathy, I told you not to talk like that!"
"My button, Dad. The line snagged my button. I couldn't help it."
"I don't care! That's not ladylike! Your mother and I have told you and told you—OUCH!"
"Dad, the hook!"
"The fish, Kathy, the fish!"
SPLASH! The trass hit the water once more, yanking Kathy after it. Not to give up easily, she spread her arms wide as she came down in a sprawling grab.
"I've got it, Dad! I've got it! Help!"
Lester waded into the wet melee and dropped until his hat floated. Now a straw boat with an assortment of hooks and feathers on it, the hat leaped to the current and bobbed up and down, and swiftly, speedily, out of sight. Lester in the meantime had his arms around fish and daughter. Together they struggled ashore, though the flopping fish was not cooperative. Kelvin saw that Kathy had indeed lost some of her apparel, and he felt guilty for noticing that her mud-slick bare legs were nicely proportioned throughout. So was her water-soaked upper torso under the plastered shirt. As with her mother at age fourteen, she might act like a tomboy, but her body had other notions.
Kelvin waited. Eventually a muddy, bloody-handed Lester broke out of the brush and all but shoved the big-mouthed trass in his face.
"What do you think of that, hero? What d'ya think?"
"Nice fish."
"Nice! It's beautiful! Prettiest fish I ever saw!"
It had to be the ugliest, Kelvin thought, gazing into the open mouth with all its pointed teeth. Trass tasted great, but no trass had a beautiful face.
"We're taking it right to the fishodermist!"
"What? You're not going to eat it?"
"No, of course not. We'll have it mounted and displayed in Lomax's place. That way Kathy can show it to her grandchildren."
"Daddy!" a very muddy young lady exclaimed. "Daddy, you know I'm not going to marry."
"You say that now, but someday you'll find a young man every bit as good as your old man. Your mother did."
"Oh, Daddy, you—"
"Come on now, we want to get to the shop while it's open. You coming, Kel?"
Kelvin shook his head. He didn't want to diminish his brother-in-law's happiness, but that trass would certainly have tasted good. "I'll see if I can catch something for Heln to clean. Something we can eat."
"Good! Catch one big enough and we'll all invite ourselves to supper."
Kelvin watched the happy father and daughter squish and splash back to the road carrying their prize. Thoroughly muddied, thoroughly soaked, partly disrobed, he knew that neither had ever had a better time fishing. He envied them the fun and mourned the loss of a gluttonous evening. But maybe, just possibly, he might yet catch—
His float bobbed under and stayed. With a whoop of joy Kelvin yanked on the pole, then rapidly sent coils of line to its darting tip, giving the fish more to pull under. The fishing reel his father had described had not been invented in this frame, though Kelvin, unlooping the line from the base knobs as rapidly as he could, felt that it was time. Though he moved as fast as he was able, the steadily moving fish was faster. If only he had the magic gauntlets on today—then he might have a chance.
SPLASH!
Standing in the water nude, red-haired, curvaceous, and beautiful was no fish. It pointed the pink tips of its full breasts at him, puckered its cherry mouth at him with half a kiss, dimpled prettily in both rosy cheeks, and said:
"Kelvin, heroic mortal, we meet again. Last time was at a convention, and then afterwards briefly on a mountaintop. You weren't nice to me there. In fact you cut off my head."
"Zady!" Kelvin gasped. Zady, nude and beautiful as she had previously appeared only in his own unheroic, magic-assisted young head.
CHAPTER 6
Helping Hand
Kelvin swallowed a lump as big as a barn. He wanted to run, but his knees had grown weak. All he could do was stand there by the river as his delectable fish splashed with all her nude beauty to the shore.
"Zady. I—I—"
"You knew I'd be back, sweet boy. You did me a big favor. I'm now not only young again, I'm perfect. I'm sorry for the things I did that caused you to seek to destroy me. I know that you're the hero of prophecy—the Roundear. I know that prophecy has to be serviced."
Serviced! Kelvin could think of only one meaning for that word. Yet he had no use of that kind for any woman other than Heln, the mother of his children; never had, never could. But Zady was so beautiful, and she was coming from the water, little rivulets running down her perfect body. In his mind something whispered that he could find perfect peace and joy in those arms. He wanted so badly to grasp her, to clasp her, to do what his body was urging him to.
What was this, a spell? He had to break it, he had to. Otherwise she would use him and destroy him and—
"I know that there is no fighting the prophecy," she continued in dulcet tones. "I won't try. I want to help you work it out. 'Until from Seven there be One/Only then will his Task be Done.' That can be, Kelvin, that can be."
Her voice was persuasive. Her nude body would be more persuasive. What could he do? What else could he do? He hadn't his Mouvar gauntlets or even a sword.
"We must ally, Kelvin. We must ally. I will prove my worth to you. First we must make love."
"B-but—" he started, shocked despite, or perhaps because of, his sudden desire to do just that.
"Why not? There is no one to see. Love is much better than fighting. The staff, as magical folk keep saying, better than the sword."
He should get out of here. He should flee. If only he had on those distance-spanning boots that had on that distant day enabled him
to make the sword swing that took off her head. So long ago, so far in the past, and he so young and vital.
Yet he was young and vital now, to a degree, because of the rejuvenating effect of the magical exercising. That process had restored more than his muscles, he realized. That was the problem.
She was almost to him now, her arms held out invitingly. Her face was not an old face, not an ugly face. She was beautiful and desirable beyond description. She was—she must not be real. She had to be an illusion, a projection of the old witch. But she had said that she had changed, and—
Her hand touched his. It was real and warm. Her full red lips parted. Her eyes, so greenish, so filled with peaceful depths, grew large and near. Tiny golden comets filled the sea-green pools into which he was gazing. She raised herself on her toes. Her lips would soon touch his. They would kiss.
"Daddy!" His daughter's voice, coming from up the path his fellow fishers had taken. For some reason Merlain had come here.
"Bother," said the full lips, pouting prettily. "I will return. Get rid of her! Send her home!"
The beautiful face and body vanished. Kelvin felt just the brush of an invisibility cloak and then he was alone on the riverbank. Merlain—beautiful, young Merlain—was running to him on the path.
"Daddy, something's happened! It may be Zady! The twin kings have vanished and Glow with them. Helbah's viewing crystals have all imploded and she's frantic. She wants you at the palace."
"I'll come, I'll come," he said, gathering up his fishing gear. What was that he had just been through—a dream? It felt so real. He almost wished Merlain had been peeking inside his head, using her ability as she shouldn't. But Merlain had given up that naughtiness. Kelvin and Heln now trusted their son and daughter in a way that long ago they couldn't.
As he followed Merlain he almost forgot what he had been about. Such a dreamlike experience couldn't have been real and he didn't want to think on it or to have to tell Helbah. But suppose it had really been Zady? And suppose she really had changed?
Later in the day Kelvin heard all from Helbah firsthand—about the missing young people and Zady's appearance in the crystals. Zady with an ugly face? Magic, he knew, could do anything. But he didn't want to think her evil. She had changed, she had said. He didn't want to tell Helbah, but he would have to if she asked.
"You'll have to do your hero stuff now, Kelvin. Fulfill Mouvar's prophecy."
"Yes, but suppose it's not what we thought? Suppose Zady's changed? Suppose that now she's—not evil, maybe even good?"
"Impossible!" Helbah pronounced firmly. "She's what she's always been. A lepuar doesn't change its splotches."
Kelvin didn't try to tell her differently. He watched her get her magical books and paraphernalia assembled. While she was occupied he took a stroll to the pool where the kings and their nursemaid were supposed to have been. He looked down into the water and it rippled, and again he saw that face.
"Zady, you took them, didn't you?"
"Yes, Kelvin." The words were as real as the rest of it.
"You will harm them?"
"No, never. Helbah was my enemy. She's not now, but don't tell her."
"They are on that mountaintop?"
"Not the mountain you remember, Kelvin. This one is in dragon territory. Do you want to see?"
He nodded, unable to speak.
The water rippled. A picture formed, as in Helbah's viewing crystals or the magic smoke conjured for viewing purposes. He saw the young kings and Glow, the beautiful girl who had once been a sword, exactly as Helbah had described them. The girl and the kings were talking but he couldn't hear what they said. Below the cliff edge, just as Helbah had described, eagawks flew their magical cross and crisscross.
"Zady, can you return them?"
"I can."
"You will?"
"To please you. If I do, you will have to help me help you fulfill your prophecy."
"If—if you have no evil intent."
"Done, then!" She gestured with her hands and disappeared in a swirl of underwater smoke.
As the pool water again became placid, Kelvin had to reflect on her last words. The witch had spoken with an inflection of triumph.
Kildom was looking at the royal nursemaid and thinking some improper thoughts that he was thinking more and more often. He knew his brother Kildee was also thinking them. Why not? After all, in terms of growth they were now almost to or just starting the age of adolescence, twelve and a half, or thirteen unroyal growth years. That gave them the right to have such thoughts, didn't it?
"What are you looking so goofy about?" his brother demanded.
"Uh, nothing," Kildom lied. He knew that his brother knew that he lied and moreover knew very well what he was thinking. Even without the telepathic abilities of Glow and the round-eared twins they knew exactly how each other's minds worked.
"She's been standing like that for a long time," Kildee said, nodding at Glow's statuesque form. "You think she's reached him?"
"Charles must be a long way off. I can't see how she can."
"Maybe Horace."
"Horace! You're out of your mind!"
"But she said he was in dragon territory. This could be dragon territory. It's rough enough."
"So is Rotternik. You don't know where we are any more than I do."
"Do too!"
"Do not!"
POP!
Both red-haired kinglets turned an unroyal white and turned to see Dragon Horace occupying the ledge with them. Astride Horace's thick neck, holding his vestigial wings, sat a large, bronzed man neither of them had ever seen. As they stared, he swung a leg over the side of the dragon and slid down.
"Glow! Is it really you?"
"Glint!"
A reanimated Glow took three quick steps and leaped into the stranger's waiting arms. The two young people hugged each other, moaning and rubbing the sides of their faces together.
"Charles isn't going to like this," Kildom whispered to his brother.
"He's kin, stupid!"
"Can't be. Glow was a sword."
"Look at his hair!"
Kildom did and was shocked. Both touching heads were so yellow they appeared to be bathed in bright sunlight. Moreover, both faces were similarly beautifully shaped. If they were not brother and sister, they certainly appeared to be.
"Kildom, Kildee, meet my long-lost brother, Glint," Glow said, leaving his arms. "He mind-talks too. I reached him and he had already reached Horace. So if Horace can take the four of us, we'll go home together. If you royals are ready to travel."
Kildom looked at Kildee, then hastily pushed his brother aside in his rush to get the top, best seat on Horace. He pulled himself up by a wing stub and got his legs astride the big head. In a moment Kildee had hold of his belt. Then Glint helped Glow behind Kildee and she clasped Kildee's middle. Glint settled himself between the wings and then aligned his smooth, bronzed calves to either side of them.
They were ready to go. Ready to return to the twin palaces of Klingland and Kance. Ready now to smooth away what would have to be Helbah's worried looks.
Zady watched Kelvin's image in the pool. "Oh, I have not yet begun to toy with you, my innocent dunce!" she cackled. "Now I have planted the seed, and it will sprout and grow even in my absence. Subtly, at first, so you think it is your own. Oh, how you will pay, idiot hero!" She burst into hideous laughter.
SPLASH!
Kelvin ducked, blinked, and rubbed water from his eyes with a quick wipe of his forearm. There in the pool was his most unusual offspring, Horace. Astride the dragon were the missing royalty with their nursemaid, and with them, seated comfortably on the wingseat, was a tall, bronzed stranger.
Kelvin swallowed. He hadn't expected that the young Zady would make good on his request so quickly.
"Kelvin, this is my long-lost brother, Glint," Glow said. "We met in dragon territory and got Horace to bring us home. I don't know how the kings and I got to be in dragon territory. Maybe Helbah can tell
us."
"Helbah!" called one red-haired twin.
The summoned witch stepped out of her war quarters and stared at them. Since she had not yet replaced her shattered crystals and had an aversion to using smoke, Kelvin doubted that she had been viewing either him or the missing kinglets. She stared at them, and her aged face grew a worried expression.
"This is my brother Glint, Helbah," Glow explained. "Do you know what happened to us? Kildom and Kildee and I didn't wake up this morning in our beds. Instead we were on this cliff together in dragon territory. I don't know how it happened, Helbah, and neither do they. Did you use some magic on us? Was that why we were there, so that Glint and I could find one another?"
Helbah walked slowly to the pool. She motioned with her hands, said some words, and the water parted in a broad path. Her charges and the nursemaid came to her, keeping their feet dry. They joined Kelvin and her and then Horace simply vanished as the pool water returned.
"He's going back to his love," Glow said. "It's so romantic, their finding each other. He'll come home sometime, bringing her with him."
"Nice," Kelvin mumbled, wondering what Horace's bride could possibly be like. Most married men claimed they had a dragon for a mother-in-law, but he had a dragon for a son and probably a dragon for a daughter-in-law.
Helbah said, "I had nothing to do with it. Zady's responsible for your adventure. She took you to the cliff and left you, then allowed you to come home."
"Why?" Kildom or Kildee demanded. Kelvin had to wonder the same thing.
"I'm not certain, precious. I can't imagine what the old nasty had in mind."
"Maybe," Kelvin said hesitantly, "so that Glow and Glint could find each other."
They all looked at him as though he were mad.
"I mean she was responsible for their enchantment. Maybe she's changed. Growing a new body, that had to be a lot like getting a new chance. Maybe she wants to make up for what she did."
Helbah came over to him and felt his forehead with her gnarled hand. "Kelvin, you've been out in the sun too long."
"Maybe. I was fishing, and Lester and Kathy Jon caught a big one, so they—"