“That is my guess-though I must confess I have no proof.”
“Other than observation, generalization, and prediction, no. It’s impossible to run a real laboratory experiment on people; you need field studies, and the field is pretty boggy.” But Matt was galvanized, excited, and ebullient. “Your ideas really are what King Boncorro needs-something to temper his secularism with: humanism, injecting values that might forestall the worst excesses Rebozo’s trying to lead him into!”
“Only the worst,” the scholar cautioned. “Humanism is not a religion, after all-though it is not opposed to religion, either.”
Matt jumped up. “Let’s go!”
Arouetto stared at him. “Go? Go where?”
“Why, back to Latruria, of course! You’ve got no business loafing around here when there’s so much work for you at home!”
“But how are we to break out?” Arouetto asked, bewildered. Matt shrugged it off with airy disregard. “With your brains and my magic, we should be able to find a way easily-but not if we don’t try! Come on! Time for research! To the laboratory! Let’s hit the books!”
Arouetto began to rise from his bench, his smile growing, his eyes kindling with excitement. It was too bad that the chimera chose just that moment to attack.
Chapter 21
The chimera came flying over the wall of the house on short, stubby wings that could not possibly have borne its weight-after all, it was basically a winged lion with a dragon’s tail. It dropped down at them like an eagle stooping, if eagles could roar loudly enough to shake a house. Matt bellowed, “Duck!”
“No, a chimera!” Arouetto stood gazing up in wonder. “I mean get down! Scholars are only supposed to be fascinated by metaphorical chimeras!” He hit Arouetto with a body block. They went flying, and a huge thud shook the ground while an angry roar shook the trees. “But ‘tis Classical!” Arouetto struggled to free himself. “ ’Tis a monster from Greek legend, and I never dared to make one myself!”
Now that somebody had, of course, he was all eagerness to study it, and probably wouldn’t remember why he hadn’t made one himself until it bit his head off. He struggled valiantly, and Matt was amazed at the gaffer’s strength. But he could feel hot breath on his legs, and the roar was echoing all about him as he rolled aside and shouted,
Teeth clashed shut, and a streak of pain slashed Matt’s leg. He howled and rolled aside-just in time to see an eagle struggle loose from the chimera’s back, while a small dragon disengaged itself from the monster’s rear end, leaving a lion tail behind. The lion fell over, bellowing in pain, and the dragon bellowed, too, scorching the walls. The eagle was smarter-it screamed and flew away. “We’ve only got a minute or two while they’re disoriented!” Matt snapped. “Then we’ll have two monsters to fight instead of one! Quick! Think up something to kill them!”
But Arouetto was out of commission. He was staring at the tableau in front of him, entranced. Matt turned, brain racing, trying to think up a new cure-and discovered that lions and dragons seemed to be natural enemies. Actually, first he discovered the fear of seeing a lion stalking toward him, pausing in its roaring only long enough to lick its chops. But the dragon saw, let out a blast like a steam whistle, and charged to get to the tasty morsel first. They collided, of course. Scaly shoulder slammed furry shoulder, and the lion turned on the dragon in instant fury, lashing out with a taloned paw and a bellow. But his claws rattled harmlessly off steely scales, and the dragon blasted him with high-octane halitosis. The lion howled in pain and fury and leaped. Somehow, the big cat managed to land on the dragon’s back. The reptile instantly dove to the ground and rolled, but the charred lion hopped loose, then jumped back in to dig its claws into the soft underbelly. The dragon screamed with agony and locked its jaws on the lion’s neck, then started clawing him with its talons. Roaring and clawing, the two beasts rolled over and over, crushing marble benches and knocking over statuary. “Wizard, stop them!” Arouetto cried. “They are hurting each other!”
“That’s putting it mildly. Why me? You’ve had a lot more experience with this illusion stuff than I have!”
“Not with living creatures! Stop them! Annihilate them if you must, but end their pain!”
“Oh, all right,” Matt grumbled. He took a good hard look at the bloody scene before him, then closed his eyes, envisioning that same scene, then adding a little touch he’d seen in his childhood… Arouetto cried out in relief. Matt opened his eyes and saw a yellow column poking down at an angle, with a rounded pink cylinder on the end that went back and forth across the struggling monsters. The first stroke eliminated the dragon’s head and the lion’s back; the second took off the top of the lion’s head and the end of the dragon’s tail. With each stroke, the pink cylinder removed more and more, not knocking them aside, but simply making them disappear. One last stroke took out the lion’s feet and the dragon’s spine, and they were gone. A last roar and steam blast seemed to echo in the distance, then faded away. Matt closed his eyes, imagining the yellow column fading away, too. Arouetto exclaimed in wonder, and Matt opened his eyes just in time to see the last vague outline dissipate. The giant characters “No. 2” lingered a moment longer, then they evaporated, too. “Most amazing!” Arouetto breathed. “What was that mystical engine, Lord Wizard?”
“We call it an ‘eraser’ where I come from,” Matt explained. “In this case, though, it was just a mental construct.”
“Are not all these illusions?” Arouetto turned to him with a frown. “But who made the chimera?”
“Somebody who’s out to get you.” Matt never minded stating the obvious-after all, he had taught undergraduates. “But who? I know all the sorcerers and wizards here, and we sorted out our differences long ago!”
Matt had a quick mental vision of that sorting out-the scholar’s Greek warriors and Roman legions tearing apart the sorcerers’ synthetic demons. He would have liked to have been on hand for that one. No, on second thought, maybe not-he had become too involved with the conflicts of this pocket universe as it was. “Well, if it’s not one of the established residents, it must be somebody new in the neighborhood.”
“But how would someone new know that I have an atrium? It is not obvious from the outside of the house.”
“A point,” Matt admitted, “and it raises a very nasty possibility.”
“What is that?”
“Well, if it isn’t somebody new, and it isn’t somebody old, then it has to be somebody from outside this frame of reference.”
“From the real world?” Arouetto stared. “But who?”
“Somebody who knows your weakness for anything Classical, and somebody who’s used to keeping an eye on things, just in case one of you prisoners wants to make trouble. Add to that: somebody who has enough magical power to see into this pocket universe, and you have-”
“Rebozo!” Arouetto cried. Matt nodded grimly. “Glad I didn’t have to say it. If you came to the same conclusion, maybe it’s not just my nasty, suspicious nature.”
“I should think not! Once you state the evidence, the conclusion is obvious! But why would he seek to obliterate me now, when he has been content to keep me in obscurity thus… Of course! I must have become a greater threat!”