[Kelvin 03] - Chimaera's Copper (with Robert E. Margroff) by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online Page B

all he was vomiting. The contents of his stomach splashed out across the froogear in front. He was afraid the creature would turn and kill him, or at least drop him in the swamp, but it took no notice at all.

    Much later, a year or two by the feel, Kelvin's retching abated. Feeling horribly weak and nauseous, he hardly noticed the slowing of the party. When he did manage to notice, they had come to a complete halt in greenish mud before a flat, still, scum-topped lake. Great prickly trees grew in the water, seemingly out of the scum. An island of some size soaked up orange sunrays and seemed to wait, curiously idle and foreboding. A rock battlement fronted the island and disappeared around the sides.

    The froogears repositioned their loads, startling Kelvin and causing his father to give a groan of apprehension. Then the froogears were in the lake itself, wading, and finally swimming with their powerful hind legs. Somehow the froogears kept them above the surface.

    This is where it is, Kelvin thought. Now we'll meet their god, or what they think of as a god. He shivered and felt cold, though the orange sun beat down with fiery waves reminding him of an overheated stove in his mother's kitchen.

    They splashed up a ramp. There, concealed until now by the black thorny tree branches, was a huge gate. The froogears put their prisoners down on a dry surface and backed off. Kelvin saw some of them as they dipped back below the scum; bubbles traced their route away from the island.

    Tribute, he thought. They've brought their tribute. It was almost like the time the flopears had tried to sacrifice Lonny. Kian had rescued her, then, and started what turned out to be a significant interaction. He hoped Kian would have the chance to marry her! At the moment that seemed doubtful. He wondered whether Kian appreciated the parallel, and debated breaking the silence to tell him. No, it probably wouldn't be kind.

    In an aperture high in the wall there was suddenly a woman's comforting face. She wore a coppery crown on coppery tresses, with coppery rings dangling from two definitely rounded, not pointed ears. She was, Kelvin had to notice, a beauty. But what could such a woman be doing here in this ironically godforsaken place? Or was she another captive, brought here for tribute?

    The woman looked down at them from disturbingly coppery eyes. She spoke one word: "Tribute."

    Gods, Kelvin thought, she read my mind! But who is she? Is she the froogears' god? If so, she can't be the monster I've expected. She's absolutely lovely!

    "Thank you so much, Kelvin Hackleberry." Her voice tinkled almost in the manner of a bell. She was looking right at him, reading his mind!

    Kelvin felt himself blushing. What would Heln think?

    But now the beautiful face was gazing at his father. "Oh, and you, John Knight, trying so hard to get that knot untied! What a great pleasure to meet someone whose original home is far down the Flaw! With your son Kelvin, a hero! And your other son, Kian, wanting to wed his truelove in still another frame!"

    What was this? Were they supposed to respond? Should he be the one to break their silence? What should he say? Should he ask this queenly woman for their release and her help? For obviously she was a queen, which the froogears took as a goddess.

    "Oh, but you mustn't judge by appearances," the woman told him in her musical voice. There was just a hint of reproval. "I am more--very much more--than you imagine." But human, he thought carefully. A human being who thinks and speaks and has the power of life and death. That is correct, isn't it? You do have the power either to save us or destroy us?

    "Why of course I have those powers, Kelvin!" she agreed brightly. "What do you think I am?"

    A compassionate queen, he thought with hope. "Physically," she prompted him.

    Kelvin tried not to picture the phenomenal contours he was sure her body had, hidden by the wall.

    "Ah, you are married, so you hesitate to