Piers Anthony & Robert E. Margroff - Kelvin 2 - Serpents's Silver

Serpent's Silver

Piers Anthony and Robert E. Margroff

Kelvin of Rud, book 2

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1. Sacrifice

Chapter 2. In-Law

Chapter 3. Outlaw

Chapter 4. Relative Pain

Chapter 5. New Familiar Faces

Chapter 6. Going, Going...

Chapter 7. Flopear Magic

Chapter 8. Gone

Chapter 9. Lonny

Chapter 10. Taken

Chapter 11. Resolute

Chapter 12. Flight

Chapter 13. Prisoners

Chapter 14. The Cliffs

Chapter 15. Ambush

Chapter 16. Serpent's Hole

Chapter 17. Exits

Chapter 18. Late Arrival

Chapter 19. Dead

Chapter 20. Pact

Chapter 21. Stranger Coming

Chapter 22. Border Crossing

Chapter 23. Recovery

Chapter 24. Dungeon Daze

Chapter 25. Royal Pain

Chapter 26. Hero's Progress

Chapter 27. Earth

Chapter 28. Battle

Chapter 29. Victory

Chapter 20. Victory Home Front

Epilogue

Prologue

HELN KNIGHT HACKLEBERRY LAY back against the pillows. Her brown eyes were closed,

and her bosom heaved shallowly. Her shiny black hair framed her lovely oval face. She was as

beautiful as she had been on their wedding day, seven months ago, Kelvin thought.

He lay beside her, squeezing her calloused yet very feminine hand. They were on their new bed

in their new home, but they were not alone, and this was no pleasant interlude.

He glanced up at his sister, Jon, who was unusually silent. Then his gaze passed Jon's normally

smiling husband, Lester, who was quite serious now. He wished again that he hadn't let them talk him

into this.

She has to! It's your father and your brother! Jon had insisted. They've been missing four

months! When had Kelvin Knight Hackleberry ever been able to argue his manly little sister out of

anything? She was correct, of course, but that did not make him feel any more comfortable at the

moment.

Heln's hand was growing cold now, as if she were dying. Oh, it was so like death, this astral

traveling—death from poisoning. Indeed, dragonberries did kill pointears; only roundears like Heln

could survive them, suffering just the partial death of soul-separation. They were never sure of the safe

limit, and he hated the risk. If she died, he would go with her into death, he thought, if that was the

only way to be with her always.

His hand tightened on hers, but she did not stir. It was fortunate that he could experience some

of her thoughts and share her experiences, he thought, while she was in this state. He could even

communicate with her while her spirit traveled, freed by the magic that had once been the secret of the

golden dragons. So he knew she wasn't really dead—not as long as her mind touched his.

Now he started receiving her thoughts. "I'm back at the underground river now," Kelvin said for

her. He had become like a thing his father had once told him about: a radio receiver. He tuned in on

the words and repeated them without conscious volition. In this manner she shared her experience

with those standing by her body.

Kelvin became aware of her sensations: the cold cave walls drifting by, the passages twisting,

splitting, merging. The dim glow of lichen on the walls, somehow distinguishable from the lamplight in

the room the four of them occupied. Images in her mind and his, overlapping yet distinct. He

remembered another device his father had talked about: the receiver of words and pictures known as

television. Perhaps he was becoming like that, too. But he could not show the pictures to the others.

"The Flaw! The Flaw! I see it now!" He was speaking for her, but he saw it, too: the water

falling, falling into a darkness filled with stars.

He willed her away from that dread void, thrilling to its menace. "The other room! The other

room!" he cried.

Then she was taking him, through her awareness and his, through the round, solid door.

Perfectly round: rounder than round ears! They floated into the metallic chamber that only roundears

such as the two of them could enter without causing its destruction. That was what the parchment

there claimed; they had read it only partially during her prior visit here, but he believed it.

They hovered together above an open book on a table, and a box the size of a closet. The walls

of the box were lined with dials and what appeared to be clocks. Kelvin recognized the sort of

instruments his father had talked about: they were gauges and controls that somehow ordered things

to be done.

"He left here," Kelvin/Heln said. "Into the other frame. He stepped in here to follow the path of

your father. It will still work for us. We can cross the astral bridge through Mouvar's magic. To where

Kian and your father are."

For Kian was Kelvin's half brother. They had been on opposite sides, and had fought. Though

they were friends now, Kian's guilt had led him to go on the risky tour through the dread Flaw,

searching for his lost parents. He had not returned.

Heln and Kelvin entered the box. The vision became a blackness so deep it shimmered. There

was something like a crash of soundless thunder, then a streak of fire that split their existence. Stars

appeared, shining all around and through and into them. Existence whirled, collapsed, and expanded.

Time and place ceased to have meaning. Then they were…

Moved. Into a hazy chamber closet like the one they had entered. The closet wall with its clocks

reappeared, forming out of the confusion. The image needed tuning; it seemed to be far away. But

even as Kelvin thought of that, the sights and sounds and smells of the new location came into clear

focus. They had arrived—where?

Two sets of footprints crossed from the closet to a rock wall, where a large round metal door

stood ajar. It might have been the same door they had just entered—but that one was closed. The

footprints might have been their own—but they were going in the opposite direction, and in any event,

Kelvin and Heln were not here physically. So these could be John Knight's and Kian's prints.

They began moving, bodiless but with direction. Kelvin smelled grass, and heard the songs for

birds and the tinkling of what might be metallic chimes. This was an intelligible world, then.

They paused, Heln sensing the way. There was a metal rope ladder anchored to a solid ring in

the cliffside. The ladder descended into a large tree that seemed similar to the beenut tree where

Kelvin had found his magic gauntlet. That was a good sign! They swooped down to the roots of the

tree and along the ground.

Heln in her astral state seemed to be drawn to a location or person of her choice. In this she was

like the magnetic compass his father had described—or the magic needle that pointed always to The

Flaw.

As Heln followed the pull of the brother Kelvin had first met on a battlefield and tried to kill nine

months before, he looked around to the extent this form allowed. He saw or sensed displayed in a tall

oaple tree the source of the chiming. Three silver spirals hung from a branch and produced the sound

when the breeze twirled them. They looked like snakeskins, he thought uneasily: silver serpent hides

that were stiff and dry yet also shiny and bright.

Now they were traveling across a wide valley, mountains, and rolling farmland similar to that of

Rud. On and on interminably—but then swooping abruptly, hawk-fashion, to a palace on a river bluff.

They entered the palace and drifted through spectacular halls filled with art objects, some of which

seemed familiar. On down carpeted hallways, polished corridors, and banistered stairs. To—

A dank, dark, foul-smelling place that seemed made for fear. Kelvin jerked with shock.

"What is it, Kel?" his sister asked, hovering over his body. He had stopped talking, alarming her.

"Dungeon," he said. Indeed it was, exactly such a dungeon as Kian's mother, the evil Queen

Zoanna, had used to confine Kelvin and his father and Rufurt, the good king of Rud.

Now he could see in the dim light that came through the high barred windows. There was his

father, John Knight, haggard and dirty. There was his brother, Kian, in no better shape. And a third

man, battered, blood-spattered, lying on the floor, propping his head with his arm, evidently too weak

from loss of blood to do more.

Standing between them and a barred door was a wide man wearing a silver crown. Kelvin

focused on the man's face.

"Rufurt!" Kelvin whispered.

But no, this Rufurt had round ears, as did the prisoners, while their Rud counterparts had ears as

pointed as Jon's and Lester's. The Rud king's face, even after years of imprisonment, had a jovial

appearance around the jowls that nothing could quite erase. This nearly identical face was taut and

grim by comparison.

Yet a part of his mind shrieked: It's Rufurt!

At the king's gesture a man in uniform unlocked the cell, entered, and bent over the wounded

man. John Knight grabbed the bars, seeming about to speak. Undeterred, the torturer pushed the

unfortunate man's head down on the floor and twisted it sideways. Then he brought out a silver tube,

held it above the prisoner's ear, unstoppered it, and tilted it carefully. Something silvery oozed out and

flowed, undulating, into the man's ear.

The guard paused only long enough to make sure the vial was empty. Then he let go of the

prisoner and stepped quickly away. He got out of the cell as if afraid of something.

The prisoner pulled his face from the grime of the floor. His hand came up to touch his ear, as if

it itched. It seemed that he was not sure why the guard had departed without beating him again. Or

that he was afraid to think about it.

Then his look of perplexity darkened into something else. He clawed at his ear as if trying to

wrench it out of his head. His eyeballs rolled back until only the whites showed. He screamed. It was

a horrible sound, signifying something infinitely worse than pain.

The king made a ghastly smile that was all the more horrible for being on King Rufurt's face.

"Silver's not so nice, now, is it, Smith? Now that the little beastie's chewing in you?"

Little beastie? Kelvin hoped he misunderstood.

The man shook all over, from head to foot. His eyes stared wildly, seeming ready to pop out of

his face. His arms and legs spasmed. He screamed again, as if trying to vomit out his tongue, while the

other prisoners looked on with drawn faces. The screaming continued, diminished, because the man

could not take enough of a breath to make it loud.

"We must go back. We are going back," Heln said with Kelvin's mouth. With that the dungeon

faded and slipped sideways. They were pulled, as though by elastic, back to the chamber, into the

closet, through darkness and stars. It happened so swiftly as to be instant; their minds seemed to

shatter.

Then they were home. They were on their bed in their room, with their closest friends looking

down at them. Where their bodies had been all along.

Kelvin sat up, turning to his wife. That horror—

Heln's eyelids flickered. Her big, soft brown eyes opened to stare into his blue ones.

"Oh, Kelvin, we must help them! We must!"

"But—" He thought desperately, an enormous fear threatening to swallow what passed for his

courage. "I have things to do here. There's the prophecy."

"And you will fulfill it, dear, you will. But you are a hero and a roundear. Only a roundear can

journey to the chamber as Kian did. Only a roundear can make the trip we just did."

"You can't go," he said, being firm. Immediately he knew in his most cowardly secret self that he

had misspoken. He should have said "we," including himself as well as her.

"Oh, Kelvin, you're so brave! I knew you'd want to go to that other world and rescue your

father and your brother! I knew you just couldn't do anything else!"

Yes, he thought glumly. Yes—but what had he done to deserve this hero mantle? He had never

wanted to be a hero. Jon had wanted to and he had not. Now, because he had lucked out on one

step of a prophecy, they thought he couldn't fail at anything.

"Don't worry, we'll take good care of her," Lester said, his boyish smile broadening.

Kelvin knew that Lester and his sister would do that. He had no decent excuse to get out of

another mission of foolish attempted heroism. He wished that he had never agreed to let Heln take

that astral trip.

Yet that prisoner, with the appalling silver beastie in his ear—was that the fate awaiting John

Knight and Kian, if someone didn't get them out of the dungeon? Kelvin was sickly certain that it was,

and that he was the only one who could do anything about it. He was a coward, but he had to act.

CHAPTER 1

Sacrifice

KIAN REACHED THE BOTTOM rung of the metallic rope ladder and looked down. From the

chamber entrance the ladder had appeared to disappear into the top of a very large beenut tree. It still

did. The rope was of a material different from any he had seen before, and it seemed to grow out of

the trunk where the spreading branches formed the crown.

Well, he had been a tree climber as a boy. He was twenty-one now, and it had been some time

since he had practiced, but he remembered. What fun it had been, peering in the windows of the

palace from his secret perch and watching the comings and goings of the sycophants and courtiers!

This was a different world—but perhaps not too different, he thought as he clambered easily

down the close-set branches of the beenut tree. The vegetation of this frame seemed exactly like that

of his own. His half brother had climbed a similar tree in the park in Franklin and discovered a

gauntlet with remarkable properties. Kian now wore an identical pair.

The armored gloves made climbing easier, but he could hardly say how. Well, yes, he could: he

found that he could easily hang on to a branch by just a couple of fingertips, feeling no strain. It was as

though there were muscles in the gauntlets aiding every move his hands made. Because he was a

roundear, he knew, they worked just as well for him as for Kelvin.

He let go of a branch and dropped the remaining distance to the base of the tree. Catching his

breath, he looked up but could not see the ladder or the cliff face with its open metal door. The secret

was well hidden; he realized that he should mark the spot well in his mind, in case he ever wished to

return to his own world.

The birds sang just as they did at home. There was no difference, so far, in anything. He found

himself surprised, even though he knew this was the nature of the frame worlds. His grandfather

Zatanas had tried instructing him on the nature of reality and what he called the magic art: worlds

might differ, but not the fundamentals of nature and magic.

More recently Kian had read the parchment book he had found in the chamber before taking the

gauntlets and the alien weapon, and launching his own adventure. Each overlapping world, he had

learned, was almost like the ones touching it, but with small, subtle differences. "You may even meet

yourself, or someone like yourself," Lester Crumb had said.

Kian shook his head. That didn't seem unreasonable for others, but he knew that his father

would not be duplicated here. John Knight, after all, had come from a distant frame where they called

the world "Earth." He had never figured out quite how his father had crossed over; it seemed to have

involved war magic of a sort not understood in Rud. But John Knight was unique—and therefore so

were his sons.

Kian had gone only a short distance along the stream, admiring its blue water and leaping fish,

when another sound reached him: a tinkling, musical note.

He paused, trying to locate the source. It seemed to come from a large oaple. He walked that

way, staring hard into the branches where three long silver belts or spirals hung and twisted in the river

breeze. Twirling, they touched each other to produce the sounds.

When he reached the tree he discovered that the belts were indeed spirals. Each had the

apparent fragility of snakeskin, but was metallic except for an underlay of leather. They were silver,

too: real silver, in a pattern like that of overlapping scales. He removed a gauntlet, fitted a thumbnail

under a scale, and tried to pull the scale loose. It remained fast: the organic and inorganic were

seemingly one.

Kian considered. Could he still find the large beenut tree and the ladder? Yes, he had marked

the fact of the river making a sharp bend, and certainly such a large tree—one big enough to laugh at

floods, if trees could laugh—was readily found. The chimes, whatever they were, might be to mark

the upcoming bend.

He tested the scale of one of the skins with the point of his knife. It came away silver. Silver like

that had to be very pure!

Could snakes here have scales of silver, in the same way that dragons back home had scales of

gold? No, that hardly made sense. Dragons were virtually immortal beasts with powerful gizzards.

The gizzards ground up weighty stones that the dragons swallowed in the course of centuries to

pulverize their food internally. The food was rough, because dragons hardly chewed anything that no

longer struggled, and even those big stones got worn away. They contained gold, and that gold

migrated in due course to the brightly shining scales. Thus the gizzard was the key to the dragon's

gold. But snakes—who could imagine them with gizzards? They swallowed their prey whole and let

their digestive juices handle it. No stones in them!

He went on. When he judged it was noonday, he stopped to rest and eat the lunch Jon had

packed for him. "Don't tell Les," she had whispered. "He complains that I'm not feeding him well. I

don't want him to grow a paunch like his father's! He just might be jealous." Kian had smiled and

teased her in the manner Kelvin was always doing. She was easy to tease and to be with—this

boyish, pretty girl whose ears were pointed, though she was Kelvin's sister.

Thought of his ears caused him to pull down the lightweight stockelcap. He wore it for

concealment. Only a fool would choose to wear such a thing on such a warm day! Yet he might meet

someone, and if this frame was not totally unlike home, his round ears would set him apart. Pointed

ears had always been considered natural, and round years unnatural. Best that he wear the cap

despite the discomfort.

He checked himself with the little mirror Heln had slipped into his travelsack, first adjusting the

stockelcap, then smoothing his light blond mustache. It was essential to pay attention to appearances

regardless of what frame he was in! He knew, and had known since near infancy, that he had a

striking figure and a reasonably handsome face. There had been a time when that was important to

him, and perhaps someday such a time would come again.

He resumed his journey along the road. At home this path would have taken him through the

mountainous region near Franklin. Not far from dragon country. He smiled. Well, he wasn't about to

venture into dragon country, if that existed here! Unless, of course, his father and mother existed in

this world, in such a region.

Soon he would have to swallow one of the dragonberries in his pack and see if they worked.

Not even Heln knew about these. If the berry made him sick, as it did most people, he would take no

more. But roundears could eat them and not be poisoned, not fatally, anyway. The berries enabled

Heln to take flight astrally, her spirit homing in on some distant person or place while her body slept.

Because she was a roundear—and Kian was a roundear, too. He, his half brother, Kelvin, their

father, and Heln were the only folk he had ever encountered with ears of this unnatural shape. What

an advantage, if the berries worked for him!

The road forked. Impulsively he followed the side branch into the mountains. He felt more

comfortable this way, though he could not have said why; after all, at home it would have taken him

into the domain of the dangerous wild things. Maybe he was just trying to be an adventurer, as his

father was: someone who would choose the wild way.

A deoose crossed his path soon after lunch, and a bit later a fleet-footed meer bounced out of

the bushes and then across the path in sprightly leaps. Red moss was on every tree; it was really still

much like home. Possibly there were dangers similar to those in his own frame. At this stage he

preferred familiar dangers!

As if in response to his thought, a bearver reared up from some appleberry bushes and greeted

him with a loud woof. Then, perceiving that he stood his ground, it came out on the road and began a

stalking advance.

Kian started to draw his sword, which was a properly polished blade his mother had chosen.

But bearvers were large and unreasoning beasts, dangerous at all times. He knew he might be able to

kill it, but he also knew that the chance of that was slight. One swipe from that huge paw could disarm

him, gauntlets or no, and then—why hadn't he fled the moment he saw the predator?

Even as he foolishly drew the blade, another thought occurred. What about the alien weapon he

carried? That might scare the beast so that it would think better of charging him. No known

opposition could cow a bearver, but the unknown might.

Kian drew the weapon from its soft, curved alien scabbard. He pointed it, letting the gauntlet on

his hand control his action. Then he tried to tell the glove to aim ahead of the beast, rather than trying

to destroy it. This was partly because if the weapon were only partially effective, the effort would

enrage the beast, making things worse, and partly because he preferred merely to scare it away if he

could, and partly to see whether he had this kind of control over the gauntlets. He was in trouble,

granted, but if he got out of this he might learn something that would help him the next time.

He—or the gauntlet—aimed the weapon. His—or its—finger squeezed. From the bell-shaped

muzzle there came a series of sparks and a low hissing. The bearver gave a bark and charged.

Kian didn't have time to consider. The gauntlet straightened the weapon, this time taking dead

aim, and pressed the trigger. And again the result was a few sparks and hissing. There was no evident

damage to the bearver.

What was this, a toy?

Disgusted and now thoroughly scared, Kian dropped the weapon and leveled the sword. But

the bearver, unpredictable as always, now swerved in its charge. Kicking its big heels back in a

frolicsome manner, it made an ungainly leap over to the side of the road and plowed into the fringing

bushes. It paused to look back, seeming almost to grin; then it woofed comically and disappeared.

"Bearvers will be bearvers," Kian remarked, weak with relief. It was a common saying at home.

A bearver might decide to eat a person, or it might simply amuse itself by scaring a victim into

loosening his bowels. He was thankful that his bowels had only twitched as the monster charged, and

that his pantaloons were not in need of washing. He had escaped both death and shame, this time.

Now the road was descending into a valley, a lush region that should have held farms. There

was nothing of the sort. In another oaple tree hung another of the spiral chimes. Parchment-thin yet

curled into stiffness.

He stared at the silver and listened to its tinkle while he ate a few appleberries. A chill ran up and

down his back; he had a feeling that something was wrong. Through the mists far below in the valley,

among rocks that had rolled down over the centuries, he could see a movement. People—maybe a

crowd. From this distance they seemed short and broad, reminding him of Queeto, his grandfather's

dwarf apprentice. In the midst of the crowd, a little to the front and grasped by either hand, was a

taller, slimmer person. It was hard for Kian to see, but this could be a woman or a girl of normal

stature.

He strained his eyes, wishing that he could make things out better. The dwarfs gathered with the

prisoner—for so she seemed—at a spot between two upright rocks the size of horses. Two of the

dwarfs did something that produced a flash of silver. Then all the small people withdrew, leaving the

woman or girl apparently shackled between the two stones. The small ones disappeared the way they

had come.

What was this—a human sacrifice? It had that aspect! Was the woman a criminal? The dwarfs

magical creatures? Just what had he come upon? It was probably a bad idea to interfere—but for all

he knew, the woman could be his mother. Surely not—yet how could he be certain?

Half running, wishing he had a horse, he descended the slope in as fast a fashion as he could

manage. He did not know how long the woman would be there, or what sort of danger he might face.

He just had to know, lest he forever regret it.

When he broke through the bushes and faced her at close range, he was startled by her beauty.

Her slim arms were stretched on either side, tethered by chains of silver. She had long blond hair, and

deep blue eyes, and a figure that—

"Leave! Oh, leave!" she begged. He had no difficulty understanding her, because she used the

language of home. Her head bobbed in the direction of a perfectly round hole in the side of the cliff.

"Before it comes! Before it slithers out and devours us! Please!"

"You need help," he said, drawing his sword. Her lips were lying to him, he thought, while her

eyes were speaking truth. She did not want him leaving her to some terrible fate.

"No! No! It will come soon! The appointed one! The one that always comes!"

"You're intended as a sacrifice?" He went closer, sword in hand.

She tossed her head, her hair flipping from her left ear and exposing it for the first time. Now he

understood: she was round-eared! Round, not pointed! As it was back home, so it must be here!

Roundears either hated for being different or at best barely tolerated.

"It's coming!" she cried. "I hear it!"

Indeed, there was a strange slithery sound coming from that hole. The whisper of it sent the hairs

on the back of his neck tingling.

"I'm not afraid of it, whatever it is," he lied. This was surely worse than what he had faced

before! And what was it, anyway? A burrower the size of a bearver? A tunneler through solid rock?

Whatever it was, the size of that hole made him shudder. He fixed his eyes on the dread aperture and

waited, knowing that whatever appeared was not going to run or tease.

So suddenly as to be startling, a large silvery snout thrust from the hole, just in time to catch a

ray of sunshine that lighted the cliff's face. Then a fiat silvery head emerged, followed by a long, long,

undulating silver body. It was a serpent as large around as a war-horse!

A serpent covered all over with silver scales—surely real silver! Just as at home a dragon's

scales were real gold. This serpent must be the overgrown version of the snakes from which the silver

skins had come. It was as large as the legendary anaconda John Knight had told about. Kian had

thought that to be a mere story. Some story! This thing could swallow a man and his war-horse

together!

Kian doubted it could help, but he reached for the alien weapon he carried. His hand slapped

only the holster, the weapon itself was gone! He had neglected to pick it up after his encounter with

the bearver. The weapon, worthless though it might be, was back there on the road.

"Run! Run!" The girl was shaking with terror, and whimpering, but still she tried to warn him

away.

Not a chance! His legs wouldn't work for him now. His gauntlets and his sword had to work

together to save them. With the gauntlets, he had to believe, there was at least a chance of

accomplishing something.

The serpent emerged sinuously all the way from the hole, lifted its head, and reared back. The

eyes swayed above his own. A long, drawn-out hiss like that of a salivating dragon came from the

mouth. Then that dread mouth opened, revealing dagger-length crystalline fangs. Drops of clear liquid

fell to the ground, spattering and hissing and emitting little puffs of steam. Where the drops struck

grass, the grass writhed, turned black, and crumbled into ash.

What a beast! What a monster! At least as formidable as the dragons! Wait till Kelvin heard

about this—if Kelvin ever did hear about it. If Kian survived to tell him! If!

The beady black eyes looked into his. They held him as the body writhed behind the head,

getting into better position for attack. The head and fangs moved closer. The body coiled around

under that elevated head as if independent of it, the tail section undulating in unnerving fashion.

Kian found himself staring into bottomless pits. Beady eyes? Now they were windows into some

kind of hell! He saw, peripherally, the open nostrils and the bright spots reflecting from the flashing

scales. He felt overwhelmed!

He shook his head, trying to clear it. This was magic! The magic a snake used to immobilize its

Piers Anthony & Robert E. Margroff - Kelvin 2 - Serpents's Silver

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