King of Swords (The Starfolk)

by Dave Duncan

  Studying the grandstand from this angle, he decided that it wasn’t a secure vantage point. A real bull wouldn’t have been able to reach the spectators, but an agile man, whether he had a bull’s head or a human one, could easily jump up and catch hold of the railing. Then he could haul himself aboard and turn the tables on those who had come to watch him being slaughtered. Either there were defenses that Rigel couldn’t see, or Muphrid had immense confidence in his own magical powers.

  He turned to resume his exploration and saw a minotaur sitting cross-legged in a slight hollow no more than ten meters off to his right, watching him. Rigel opened his mouth to summon Saiph, but then realized that the amulet was not tingling and the sword would come on its own if it were needed.

  The apparition yawned and stretched its arms. After all the straw-thin elves, its sheer bulk was daunting. From the neck down it would have made an impressive NFL linebacker—probably hairier than most—and its huge horned head must add an extra thirty kilos. It was naked, without so much as a gold ring in its black nose. Rigel gingerly took a backward step.

  The Minotaur said, “Buenos dias.”

  “Um, good morning.” Rigel went closer to convince himself that he was brave enough. “I didn’t expect you to talk.”

  “Why not? We won’t have much time to chat later.”

  “Probably not. I’m Rigel.”

  “I’m the Minotaur. All us minotaurs are called the Minotaur.”

  “What did your mother call you?”

  The Minotaur snorted explosively. “Darling.” His bull’s head was Hereford red, but his human body hair was black—Aberdeen Angus, maybe. “Didn’t expect a halfling. You’re here to prove that you can kill to order, I suppose?”

  “I’m sure that’s the idea, but it wasn’t my idea.” At close range Rigel could tell that the monster’s name was Elnath. Why had it lied to him?

  Saiph was still giving no warning, so Rigel sat down cross-legged and almost knee-to-knee with his soon-to-be adversary. He noticed that the bushes hid them from the grandstand, and wondered if Elnath had been setting up an ambush.

  The Minotaur regarded him with a huge and gentle bovine eye. “Well, I’m glad. A halfling should do a nice clean kill. Some of those milksop starfolk can’t finish the job properly. They chop and hack and mutilate, and then can’t bring themselves to finish us off. My brother was just left there to bleed to death. I call that escandaloso!”

  “Me too,” Rigel said. “But now that I’m getting to know you, I don’t want to kill you at all.”

  “Oh, but you must!” Elnath’s face displayed no emotion, but he sounded shocked. “That’s what I’m for. For thousands of years we minotaurs have been bred to be killed by heroes. If you don’t do it someone else will, and I’d rather be slain by a bloodthirsty savage halfling than a daffodil elf. No offense intended.”

  “None taken.” Rigel pulled his knees up and leaned his chin on them to think. “You insist on this?”

  The bull head turned to fix its other eye on him. “Certainly. I don’t want to kill you either, but when you wave the cloak at me, the only way I can stop the pain is to try and get it away from you.”

  “Pain?”

  The Minotaur laughed, a monstrous rumble deep in his throat. “They didn’t tell you? The cloak is an amulet. When you shake it, it hurts me. Red-hot needles! I go loco. You think any sane minotaur would charge a swordsman without a weapon? No, it’s just the only way to stop the agony.”

  “We could just shake hands and part as friends.”

  “That merely gives me an hour or so longer in the death paddock while they line up another hero. Muphrid Starborn has to entertain his guests. Besides, that wouldn’t help you prove you’ll be a good assassin. And I have to think of my sons.”

  “You lost me,” Rigel said.

  The Minotaur made a harrumphing noise and studied the enormous dirty, tattered fingernails on his right hand. “The Minotaur must die bravely. He must put on a good show. That’s what he’s for. You want my sons to grow up with the shame of a father who made a deal?”

  “I see. How do I help you put on a good show?”

  Elnath scratched a furry shin. “Make sure I bleed a lot. You have to disable my arms first, of course—that way I can only try to gore you—and you must be careful not to spoil my legs. Then you spin it out, making it last a good, long time. I keep charging and charging like an idiot. But finally, if you don’t mind, put that moment of truth right through my heart?”

  Rigel was feeling more like a daffodil elf every minute. “This is all strange to me. I only just arrived in this world. I didn’t believe in minotaurs until I saw you sitting here.”

  The monster snorted. “You wouldn’t, of course. On Earth, we’re imaginary; here we’re real. Like the elves. Reality on Earth is fantasy here and vice versa. And one thing you must understand about the Starlands is that they aren’t a world. They’re a translated state of being. The domains have all been manifested from the starfolk’s imagination, and each place is a personal creation. Time is conserved, so life and death stay the same. If you can imagine your own death you can die here—believe it! And even the best mage can’t do nada about death.”

  “Magic?” Rigel looked at his bracelet. “Amulets. You said the cloak they give me will be an amulet. The elf, er, starborn, who brought us here carried a long staff.”

  “That would be his reversion amulet. In order to effect the dimensional transformation, it has to be longer than the user’s height, see?”

  He didn’t. “I’ll take your word for it. So all the magic in the Starlands is done with amulets? Rings, bracelets…”

  The Minotaur sighed hugely. “Not quite. Some elves are better at magic than others, but spells take time to cast, and they can go wrong. You want to remember something, you write it down, right? An elf puts his spell in an amulet, so it’s always available.”

  Aha! “If a friend of mine wants to travel back to Earth, how can she?”

  “You don’t travel to and from Earth. You extrovert there. That’s unless you just want to seance, of course.” Elnath twisted a tuft of long weeds with a big hand, ripped them out of the ground, and tucked them in his cavernous mouth, roots and all.

  “Please would you explain the difference?” Rigel Estell really had gone crazy; he was asking a bull for instructions.

  “If you want to really be there,” the Minotaur said, patiently chewing, “and do things, then you extrovert to Earth. You introvert back here again. Think of a dimensional matrix transformation of the space-time continuum with conservation of supersymmetry.”

  “I’m sure I can’t. I’m not educated. All I know is what I read in books people had thrown away.”

  “Lucky you. Our culture is entirely verbal. We’re too hypermetropic to read.”

  “I’ve read about imaginary numbers,” Rigel said. “They lie along an axis at right angles to real numbers.”

  “You’ve got it, then. But even a high-rank mage—red or even Naos grade—won’t attempt introversion or extroversion without a staff, and Queen Electra made all reversion illegal a few centuries ago. She’s been confiscating every staff she can get her royal hoofs on.”

  “And seancing is… what? Just looking?”

  Elnath nodded his monstrous head, then stroked it with a thorny branch he tore off a shrub. “Elves like to think they’re ever so frightfully artistic and creative,” he said, crunching noisily, “but you’ll notice that the stuff they imagine is mostly plagiarism, copied from Earth. Seancing is legal because the starfolk who do it can’t be seen, heard, or touched. All they can do is mooch around, spying and stealing ideas.”

  “You are being amazingly helpful. Now tell me why extroversion is illegal.”

  The massive bull-man sniggered like a child. “Starfolk like to think they’re above all that messy animal sex stuff, but they aren’t, and the males like to play around with the livestock, usually the girls. They’re not very fertile at the best of times, ev
en with their own kind, but once in a while they make a mestizo, er, halfling. They don’t admit it, but halflings scare them. Some of you have low-grade magic, even up to blue, and you’re not bound by the guilt curse. You make useful servants, because they’ve bred all the smart out of their mudlings, but you’re also scary. So making a halfling is a serious offense. If the father can somehow get hold of a reversion staff, he’ll take the baby to Earth and switch it for an earthling one, bringing the human baby back to keep the woman happy. Gets new blood into the servant herds, too.”

  Changelings! “I’d heard the old myths, just didn’t think it was still going on. You’re being more helpful than anyone I’ve spoken to yet, Minotaur. Are we halflings always made in the slave barns, or do the male starborn ever extrovert so that they can seduce human—I mean earthling—women?”

  The Minotaur changed eyes again. “It’s not common nowadays, since Electra made it illegal, but yes, horny elves used to extrovert to play with the wild stock all the time.”

  “So they can disguise themselves as human?”

  “Dissemble, you mean. The higher grades can dissemble as earthlings, but dissembling’s about the only magic that can’t be done with an amulet. They have to consciously think about it all the time. The moment they let themselves get distracted, every earthling in sight starts screaming. That didn’t matter much when the earthlings would decide they were devils and burn them at the stake, but nowadays they’d run forensic analysis and autopsies. Electra didn’t want that to happen. It’s one of the reasons she banned extroversion.”

  Rigel rose onto his knees to peer over the bushes at the grandstand, but nobody was there yet. Saiph tingled. He looked around hastily, but Elnath was apparently just reaching for a juicy clump of weeds near Rigel’s ankle. He pulled them up and tucked them into his mouth.

  “Must be about time for me to get back to the pen,” Elnath grunted. “Don’t want them to see us talking, right?”

  “Right.” Why not?

  The monster thumped a fist on his enormous hairy chest. “My heart’s about here.”

  Rigel drew a deep breath. “You truly want me to do this?”

  “Haven’t I been saying so?”

  “Does the Minotaur always lose?”

  “Of course. The hero must win.”

  “Then how did you acquire all those scars?” Rigel pointed at thin white lines visible under the black pelt.

  The Minotaur shrugged and chewed. “Almost always, then. Don’t worry about highly improbable exceptions.”

  Truth in the Starlands was malleable.

  “Saiph never loses.”

  The Minotaur cocked his great head to look down at Rigel’s bracelet. “Truly? The real Saiph?”

  “Truly. And it’s not just your scars. I’m also a little doubtful about your sons story. How many did you say you have?”

  The Minotaur sighed. “None. I was simplifying. I’ve taken out a couple of the weedy elves in my time, so Muphrid promised me that if I won a third time, he’d put me out to stud with the minoheifers. Not that I believe him, really. I just didn’t want to worry you. You’ll fight better if you have a good positive attitude.”

  Rigel grinned. Elnath flicked his ears, which might be the bull equivalent.

  “Do draws count?” Rigel asked. “Look, I’ll leave it up to you. I won’t even use the cloak. I swear I won’t seriously injure you as long as you just play with me, faking charges and so on. When you want to die, try to kill me for real. Saiph will see you out.”

  The Minotaur’s bovine mouth opened in an enormous yawn, and his massive human arms stretched up into the air. “That’s great news, though. Saiph! They must be really scared of me to send in Saiph! Come to think of it, it’s been quite a while since they sent up their last hero. I’ll get my name on Saiph? Stars! Thanks, Rigel Halfling. May the best being win.” He held out a hand twice the size of Rigel’s.

  Rigel clasped it, forewarned by a slight quiver from his bracelet. He watched as the great muscle bulged in that furry forearm. Fortunately Rigel’s sword hand was now clad in a steel gauntlet, so his knuckles didn’t crumble under the pressure. The monster released him with a grunt, then chuckled. “Even if it isn’t the genuine Saiph, it’s a good one.”

  Rigel grinned. “So are you, Elnath Minotaur. Nice try.” And no hard feelings, thanks to the amulet.

  “Good luck, Halfling Rigel. If you do get that assassin job, kill lots of stinky elves for me.” With that, the Minotaur flowed away into the brush, vanishing with amazing agility for such a massive being.

  Chapter 11

  Rigel rose, wondering if he still had time for breakfast, but before he reached the grandstand, the portal opened to admit a string of starfolk guests, including some new faces. Green-haired Muphrid had a simpering Nashira on his arm, although she was not the partner he’d carried off from the banquet the previous evening, and Alniyat had dropped Gacrux in favor of the one called Icalurus. Behind the adults came the imps, twittering like overexcited birds, and Senator, now dressed in khakis and a bush hat, looking like a clean-shaven Ernest Hemingway on safari. More servants arrived with refreshments.

  Rigel stood on the grass below the stand, feeling like a gladiator in a Hollywood toga turkey. Muphrid sat front and center, of course, in the emperor’s place. There had been no mention of a thumbs-up signal to spare the Minotaur’s life if he fought well.

  “There it is!” At the imp’s squeal, all eyes turned to the arch at the top of the slope, where the Minotaur now stood in silhouette with a hand on either pillar, like Samson, looking even bigger than he really was, which was plenty big. Was this contest being staged to test Rigel’s nerve, as both he and the Minotaur had assumed? Or was it to test whether Rigel’s amulet was the genuine Saiph? The match might not be the sure thing he had been told to expect.

  “Oh… Halfling…,” said Muphrid. “You’ll need this.” He bent to fumble at his feet, and came up holding a roll of scarlet cloth, which he tossed down. “Stars be with you. Give us a good fight, not too quick.”

  Rigel bowed, spreading his arms in starfolk fashion, then turned and trotted up the slope. The bundle was tied around with a red ribbon in a rather complicated knot, which he suspected might be designed to make sure he didn’t unroll the pain-dispensing cloak while he was still close to the spectators. He left it tied, and when he was about three quarters of the way to the Minotaur, he stopped and put his hands on his hips.

  “Hey, pot roast!” he yelled. He heard shrill screams of laughter behind him, too loud to be only the imps. “Come on down here, you overgrown cutlet.” The Minotaur just stood there, not reacting. “Come and fight me. You’re no bull, just an ox.” The laughter was thinner this time, as if the adult starfolk were pretending not to understand the reference.

  When he ran out of insults, Rigel shrugged his shoulders, turned his back, and walked away.

  The crowd started screaming warnings, which he ignored as if he did not hear them. He guessed that the Minotaur could move much faster than he could. He also knew enough to trust dear Elnath much less far than he could throw him, which would be about five nanometers. No doubt the Minotaur would keep to their bargain as long as the temptation to cheat was not too strong, but right now the temptation must look close to irresistible. Rigel had Saiph to warn him, and also shadows, for he was moving away from the morning sun.

  Led by Izar, the imps leaped to their feet, screaming at the top of their lungs. Rigel stopped and cupped a hand—his left hand—behind his petite human ear as if he couldn’t make out what they were telling him. They shrieked all the louder. “The Minotaur’s coming. The Minotaur’s coming!”

  Had it not been for Saiph, Elnath’s attack would have succeeded. No second shadow came rushing over Rigel’s own to warn him that the Minotaur was charging him from behind. Instead his bracelet yanked his hand aside so hard that he lurched out of the way as a rock the size of a baseball whistled through the space his head had occupied a millisecond before. He s
pun around to find his opponent almost upon him, wielding a great broken tree branch as a club. Rigel had not expected the enormous Elnath to move so silently, but now he knew what the brute had been doing as he skulked in the bushes prior to the match. No dumb ox, he. How many more missiles and weapons had he hidden away?

  Rigel leaped aside and the blow missed.

  The watchers in the stand screamed their approval.

  The Minotaur slithered to a halt, spun around, and charged again. This time Rigel invoked Saiph so that he could slash at the tree branch, cutting it through while his opponent hurtled by.

  More yells of approval from the audience.

  Rigel dismissed his sword and started ambling down the slope again. He began to fiddle with the tie on the red cloak bundle, as if he was having trouble with the knot, pretending to ignore the Minotaur. Meanwhile, the Minotaur raced around him to get to the floor of the hollow first and intercept him.

  The game had changed. Now Elnath was stalking his prey, great arms outstretched. Rigel dodged around bushes, all the time angling downhill, while pretending to concentrate on untying the red cloak. It was pure playacting, because Saiph stayed out and if the giant had really wanted to win, he could have stormed through the shrubbery like a tank. Rigel expected this mummery to deceive the starlings and amuse the adult starfolk, but even they seemed to be taken in, judging by their alternating cheers and screams of warning.

  It would be nice to free the red cloak right in front of the grandstand and throw the audience into paroxysms of agony, but Rigel did not know if the magic would work that way, and had not suggested it to Elnath. Their choreography did not develop in that direction.

  Instead, Saiph suddenly quivered and flashed into view. The Minotaur hurtled by, closer than before. “Blood me, you fool!” he said as he went by. Then he pivoted and grabbed at Rigel.