CHAPTER 7

Changed?

As soon as they had left the twin palaces behind, Glint turned to Kelvin in the back of the royal coach and nodded to the front and their chauffeur.

"He mind-talk, Kelvin?"

"No, and I don't think he can hear us up there, either." It seemed a safe guess. The old man had shown signs of deafness and would have no reason to be acting as Helbah's spy.

"I really don't remember much of my early childhood. Nor does Glow. I know what she knows, because we shared. That's the way it is with mind-talkers."

"There can't be many of you. You and Glow are the only ones I've met, though there may have been some at that convention. I believe we met all kinds of benevolent witches and warlocks and assorted in-betweens. But since with the exception of Helbah none of us were witches, we—"

"Your children mind-talk," Glint reminded him. "Glow knows. She'll marry your son; I'll marry your daughter."

"Oh," Kelvin said, overwhelmed. Mind-talkers could get right to the point! He hadn't even thought about Charles, Merlain, and Horace, but Glint had—especially Merlain.

"I realize I haven't met her, but that's all right. I'll be mind-talking to her before we reach your cottage."

"Yes, I suppose you will." How sure of himself! But mind-talkers, he supposed, had a right to be. He envied them. Even he, great hero of his time, had never, not once, even with all his Mouvar gifts and the prophecy, felt remotely, even passably, self-confident.

"I felt you should know. That's customary, isn't it?"

"It's customary that a parent eventually knows." How true that had been! First the action, then to him for the reaction. Fortunately his children, unusual as they were, had always had sense. From the time at the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

convention when they had had the wit to steal what they needed and wanted...

He stopped his thought, appalled at where it had been taking him. Approve of their stealing? He'd been ready to disown them! If Helbah hadn't uncovered the fact that it had been another witch putting them up to it, he might have. Let's see, who was that witch? She had been old. No, she had been young, and beautiful—heart-renderingly loin-achingly beautiful. If he hadn't been married to Heln...

"Mr. Hackleberry?"

"What? Oh, sorry, I was thinking about the past. About when Merlain was little."

"I know all that Glow knows. Merlain and Charles were naughty at age six. It wasn't their fault. They were under the spells and influence of—"

"Yes, yes!" Kelvin said sharply, startling himself. "Talk about Helbah! Talk about Helbah!"

"Helbah? All right. I know what Glow knows of her. Glow knows only that she's snappish and bossy but has been kind. I was wondering about your thoughts back at the palaces."

So was I, Kelvin thought, but managed not to project. He wanted to say that Helbah was a truly good friend, but somehow an inner vision of a beautiful woman's naked body glistening with translucent drops of water stilled his mouth. His jaw was in fact falling, and he feared that to Glint he appeared unusually stupid.

"You said, 'She isn't smart today, either!' " Glint reminded him.

"Thought. I thought it. I didn't intend to project it. I didn't, in fact, know that I could."

"But you did think it to me. You must have thought hard."

"Angry. She made me angry, sealing my mouth."

"Yes, I understand. What was it you wanted to say?"

"I don't know." It was true, he found.

"About a fish?"

"A—yes, about a fish. Lester and Kathy Jon Crumb caught a big trass. Biggest I've ever seen. They wanted to get it mounted, so they left. I was alone for a while and... Merlain, the daughter you say you'll marry, came to me. She'd brought Helbah's message about Glow and the kings. Helbah had sent the coach. Merlain went home. I went to the palaces."

"You said with your thoughts that Helbah could have been friends with Zady. That she could have helped Zoanna, once wed to your father, instead of burning her. That she could have had the twins surrender to you instead of you to them."

"True enough," Kelvin said. Strangely, he felt that it was, though in another way it was confusing.

"I don't really understand that. From what Glow knows about it Zady was not to be reasoned with. She did destroy our mother and turn us into swords."

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"But you were young and inexperienced," Kelvin heard himself say. "Neither you nor I nor Glow know that she couldn't have been reasoned with. On that we have only Helbah's word."

"Yes, yes, I see the point. But—"

"I didn't really know Zoanna, but my father knew her and married her. My half-brother in another frame came from that union. If my father had let her govern the kingdom in her own way instead of interfering—"

"That can't be right! Glow told me—"

"Glow wasn't there. I wasn't there. We have only my father's word."

"You think your father lied?"

"Why not? He wanted my mother, and my mother believed in the prophecy and had it memorized. A virile man may twist things where there's a hot and impressionable woman."

Kelvin would have liked to bite off his own tongue. But it was logical, it was—and his own tongue, seemingly with a life of its own, had said it.

"Kelvin, I don't understand. You really think—?"

"I just stated a possibility. I wasn't there, actually, not before I was born. Then there was the war that started when I was away attending my brother's wedding. The twin kings could have surrendered Klingland and Kance to Kelvinia and its ally Hermandy, instead of the other way around."

"But from what I understand—"

"You have to reconsider all the possibilities. Zady may have changed."

"Because she let us escape with Horace's help?"

"Well, she didn't try to stop you, did she? For that matter you don't know how Glow and the kings got there."

"It has to be magic. They just woke up."

"Magic, but not necessarily Zady's. She's not the only witch in all the existences, you know."

"If not her, then who?"

"Possibly Helbah, making a case for herself."

"You think?"

"She wants everyone to think Zady's coming back to destroy us. Let me tell you, I think she's wrong."

"Why do you think that?"

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Kelvin felt an inspiration. "I'll show you!" Struggling upright and holding to the front seat, he called to the chauffeur. The man didn't hear him at first, but by reaching outside and slapping the wide seat beside him Kelvin got his attention. The coach slowed as the chauffeur pulled on the reins.

"I don't want to go directly home. Take the third road after the next. Drive to the footpath that leads to the river."

"Kelvin!" Glint said excitedly. "I've got her! Merlain and I are talking to each other! Glow reached her, just as she promised she would! Mr. Hackleberry, whatever it is you have to show me, can't it wait?"

Trust that brat to mess things up! "I suppose it can. Cancel the order, driver."

The chauffeur nodded and drove on at a leisurely pace. Glint had a happy expression on his youthful face as he and Kelvin's daughter mind-talked.

What was it, Kelvin wondered, that he had been about to show the kid? He'd had something, someone, in mind. Then, as had been happening lately, what he had been thinking faded out. Alas, there was no way to recover what had been important. More important than an impending marriage between Glow's brother and his only daughter? Kelvin just couldn't understand the way his own head was working.

"Driver, stop!" Glint was suddenly frantic. Kelvin saw why. Long copper-colored hair streaming behind her, shapely breasts heaving prettily with every breath she took, Merlain was running to the coach.

The coach stopped. Glint got the door open. He ran to meet Merlain. As they neared each other, Merlain opened her arms.

"Driver, a little closer!" Kelvin shouted frantically in the old man's ear. The chauffeur slipped the reins and the horses caught up to where the two young mind-talkers were hugging each other as though they had done so every day for the past twenty years. Glint kissed Merlain and Merlain kissed Glint.

"Oh Glint, Glint, I've waited for you so long!" Merlain said.

Long! Kelvin thought. Until Glow contacted her she didn't even know of Glint's existence!

The two definitely were in need of a wedding. As were, Kelvin well knew, the two other mind-talkers who had waited patiently for Glint's appearance.

Glow! Glow! Glow! he thought.

Charles! Charles! Charles! she thought.

Never had their passions been so intense. Charles felt the vibrations all through his body as his mind reached out to touch and stroke hers. He was in the forest, alone at his private place, clinging to a tree trunk. His fingers felt as if they were touching hers. His mental lips were on her mental lips, his imagined body against hers.

Oh, now we can, Charles! her heart murmured. Now that my brother is here.

He's meeting Merlain now. It was an intrusion of fact, but one that it was necessary he convey to her.

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Yes, and she knows all about him. All.

We're all of us married, Darling. Starting now.

We were before, Charles, she reminded him. But now it's different. Now it's like your mother and father.

We'll have to tell them. The thought was strange to him, though his own.

They'll know.

But they're just people, Glow. No magical heritage.

We'll tell them. They can announce it. We can tell them before Helbah and Katbah at the twin palaces.

Nice. Romantic. But they may want a wedding. Perhaps like the one the uncle I've never met was forced to have.

Do you think so? she thought. Your parents never had one.

No, big royal affairs with lots of guests is in that other frame's customs, not in ours.

I'm so glad it's not in ours.

Me too, he thought gratefully. I wonder about Horace and Ember.

They're married.

I know. Should that too be announced? Even to him it seemed a bit silly.

By dragons?

Right. Maybe they won't live here. But I hope they do. I'd miss Horace.

They could stay in the forest, couldn't they? she planned. And then when Ember gets homesick Horace can carry her instantly to dragon territory.

Yes, I suspect that they can. What a practical girl he had! As long as Horace has the opal. He'd better keep it in his gizzard, now that Zady's revived.

We never saw her, Charles.

No, but your brother Glint did. So we know where she's been these past years.

She almost certainly had the royals and me, but she let us go. Isn't that strange?

Very. What's Helbah's explanation?

She hasn't any. She's taken the transporter to get new crystals. She was grumbling that she didn't Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

have Horace to fetch them to her.

Charles smiled mentally. Horace could hardly have come out of a transporter booth and asked directions of the nearest warlock!

He wouldn't have had to, silly! Helbah would have been riding him and Helbah knows where to go. They wouldn't have gone near a transporter booth.

But Helbah's not a mind-communicator, he worried. How would she have given him directions?

Well, I would have been along. Maybe the terrible royals, too, if they could have persuaded her to let them go.

They didn't try anyway? That didn't seem like them as far as he was concerned.

Of course. But Helbah didn't want them ogling naked girls in the station, and maybe goosing them. You know how their minds work.

Just as they did twenty years ago! They were brats then and they're brats now. Merlain and I were too, but we've matured.

With the help of Helbah and me and the fact that you've grown up four times as fast.

True. Very true, he admitted. Wouldn't it be cruel to be the royals' twelve and a half physical age instead of what we are?

We couldn't be married.

No, but we aren't, and we are.

Poor kinglings. And they're so eager too.

All boys of that age think they are, Glow. Grandpa says it's glandular, not magical.

Something all boys experience? Girls too?

You know it. A bug crawled off the tree bark and onto his arm. He saw it but did not disturb it. It's just that for them it's four times as bad.

Poor kinglings.

You've said it. Poor Helbah too.

Poor nursemaid? she teased.

Yes. He blew the bug off his arm. They ever try touching you?

Kings can do no wrong, they keep telling me. Helbah says not when we don't let them.

They think about it, though, don't they?

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Yes.

You tell Helbah?

I have to. It's my job. He considered that, not liking it.

Doesn't seem right. We've thought to each other since we were children. Almost since we first met.

Yes, but Helbah doesn't do anything to them. She says all boys daydream. Kings have to be watched because kings can get away with more.

Not with Helbah they can't, he thought, remembering his ways.

Or with me watching them.

Glow, now that Glint and Merlain have each other and you and I have each other, I have to ask you something.

About Zady?

Yes.

She's evil, Charles. Can't you remember when you were little? You and Merlain?

A little. She controlled us, all right. It was fun stealing and it was fun doing naughty things. Golly, but it was fun! She never let us feel guilt.

That's what she would do to the kings.

She did when they were younger. They as much as my sister and I. Why didn't she now?

I don't know, Charles. I'm as puzzled as Helbah.

Could it be that she's changed? After all, I did cut her head off. I deflated her old body with my father's sword and dipped you into her blood and disenchanted you.

You broke the spell, Charles. But no, my love, I don't think she can have changed. Witches'

natures don't change.

You feel that too, then. What about my father? He acted strange.

There was something, Glow mused. I would like to have read his mind.

Me too. But it wouldn't have been proper.

In this case? Even for a son?

I've wondered too. He could be under a spell. Wouldn't Helbah know about it?

It depends on the spell, but don't spells show? Besides, if Zady got to Kelvin—

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She could, he realized, wearing an invisibility cloak.

Why would she want to, Charles?

She used to do things just to be malignant. She would have killed my sister if Father hadn't stopped her.

Her thoughts flickered through scenes of incredible cruelty. All of us, I think.

Probably, though you she might have kept a sword.

That wasn't living, Charles, that was suspension.

She tormented Father first, he remembered with agony. Told him she could make Merlain like herself. She offered to save her life and do that.

But your father refused. He knew her nature then.

Yes, and he didn't know he could save Merlain until his spanner boots and the magic gauntlets acted. They saved her, I guess, as much as he.

But he's the hero. He's the one in the prophecy. Mouvar's prophecy.

Yes, and he's never liked it. He never wanted it.

Yet he's the hero. Charles, could it be—

That it's he who's changed? That she changed him or is changing him?

Could it, Charles?

I'm afraid it could, love, he thought, and dug his fingernails painfully hard into the bark of the unprotesting tree.