King of Swords (The Starfolk)

by Dave Duncan

  Alniyat took up the story again. “Not only are the regent’s ethics beyond reproach, but he is Queen Electra’s heir designate. If he agrees to sponsor you, then the court appearance will be a mere formality.”

  “I doubt if it will impose any restrictions at all other than a hat.” Was Albireo bragging about his elfin ears? “When Starborn Alniyat acquired Gienah, there”—he gestured toward the waiting swan—“and needed an experienced swanherd, she offered me employment, I accepted, and the prince transferred my bond to her with no hesitation or rancor.”

  Piloting a swan was one thing. Wielding an unbeatable sword was quite another. “With respect, starborn, while it does seem that I bear the most deadly weapon in the realm, I have no other skills whatsoever. You have not explained why the honored regent would be so anxious to employ me.”

  “To keep Vildiar from getting you,” Izar said. He was dancing with impatience.

  “Exactly!” Alniyat’s eyes were still fixed on the cottage. “For once Imp Izar has hit the target. To keep Vildiar from getting you. If you fall into his hands you will either die or become a threat to the innocent.”

  “And how will I fall into his hands if I remain here? I gathered that Starborn Fomalhaut put me in the custody of Starborn Muphrid until a date was set for my hearing. Is this illegal? Or wrong? Where does Prince Vildiar come into it?”

  “Fomalhaut is an underling of Prince Vildiar and an overlord of Starborn Muphrid.”

  “I am truly sorry, starborn.” And Rigel was. To refuse her anything hurt, but her very urgency was just increasing his stubbornness. “I do not understand the ways of the Starlands. Why do you travel by air now instead of by portal? Why should any starborn sponsor a halfling?”

  Her silver eyes glanced at him like a flash of steel. “Halfling, I am taking a considerable risk in offering to rescue you. At least let us go to Gienah, and I will explain on the way.”

  Even that offer might be a trap, but he was frightened now that she might just give up on him and go, and he did not want that. He did not know what he wanted. “Of course,” he said. “Coming, Mira?” All of them began heading seaward.

  “We must travel by air,” Alniyat said, “because portals only work within a domain. Except for root portals, that is, and they are usually kept locked. Alrisha is named after one of Muphrid’s ancestors, the one who first imagined it. Perhaps he was an adolescent just coming into his powers and began by imagining a portal leading to some private nook where he could entertain his current girlfriend. Or it may have been his tenth effort. Whichever it was, over the next few thousand years he expanded it, adding subdomains of farm, forest, sea, mountains, cities, and castles, whatever he fancied. His descendants have continued to do so. Muphrid himself imagined the Versailles room, as he was boasting last night, although I would never admit to committing such an atrocity. He isn’t even capable of holding together what he’s got now—parts of it are disappearing as we speak. Not all starfolk are creative enough or motivated enough to imagine habitable domains, but those who do are eager to populate it with other starfolk and livestock. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “But the ancestral Alrisha had to start somewhere. When he imagined that first portal, he was in a domain belonging to someone else, a parent or friend. The new domain is rooted in the older one, like a twig sprouting from a branch, so the system sets up interminable chains of senior and junior domains. Their owners are related as overlords and underlings.”

  “Like landlords and tenants? Or like kings and barons and serfs?”

  Alniyat turned for another landward glance. “Not really. It’s mostly a ceremonial relationship. But when Dubhe discovered that Muphrid had stolen the Moon Garden, she complained to her overlord and word went back up the chain, eventually to Prince Vildiar, whose domain of Phegda is enormous, holding hundreds of roots. He threatened Fomalhaut, who threatened Muphrid, as you saw. The regent-heir is the ultimate judge.”

  The regent-heir was Prince Kornephoros.

  They reached the swan, which was even more enormous than Rigel had realized. It was preening its tail feathers, arching its great neck right over the howdah on its back, ignoring the tiny bipeds alongside.

  “In theory,” Alniyat said, “we could travel by portal all the way to Phegda, which is rooted in Canopus, the capital, and from there by portal to anywhere else in the Starlands, but we never do. Domain owners set up links to their friends’ domains. We call them highways, because you must travel by air to use them. Now, please can we go, before it is too late?”

  Who to trust? Fomalhaut, who had rescued him from the Walmart massacre and then treated him as a potentially dangerous animal? Or the luscious Alniyat, who claimed to lust after him but seemed to lust after every male body around? Saiph was offering no advice. Rigel turned to Mira, who stood on the warm sand beside him, ignored by everyone so far. The detective had seemed odd back on Earth, and she made even less sense here in the Starlands, but he had a feeling she knew a lot more than she admitted.

  “Do you have any comments to offer, human female?”

  She nodded emphatically. “Oh, yes! I’ve been thinking about what happened at the Walmart store. I have no reason to suspect her Regent-heir Kornephoros of having played any part in the murders there. That is certainly not true of Starborn Fomalhaut, and therefore, by implication, of his overlord, Prince Vildiar. My ex-husband wouldn’t have been able to organize an attack like that, even if he had somehow known where we were. I know of no human device that would have caused those people to run amok and try to kill us. Certain nerve gases have similar effects, but they would have affected everyone, including us. The objective was either to kill you outright or provoke your amulet into defending you and thus make you a murderer in the eyes of human law. Fomalhaut winkled you out under the guise of offering protection, but who created the disaster in the first place? Sometimes the evil you don’t know is better than the one you do.”

  “Succinctly spoken,” Rigel said, “and convincing. I will gratefully accept your offer of rescue, Starborn Alniyat. I do have one condition, and you must give me your personal guarantee on it.”

  Alniyat chilled. “Condition? You do not understand the seriousness of your position. What condition?”

  “I don’t mind being sponsored, if the words are acceptable and all halflings must be sponsored; but humans in the Starlands are enslaved. My friend Mira has done nothing to deserve such a fate. I want your promise that she will be promptly and safely returned to Earth and set at liberty at a place of her choosing.”

  “That is easily promised,” Alniyat said.

  “And easily done,” Albireo agreed eagerly. “As regent, His Highness has access to the royal treasury, which is where all the confiscated reversion staffs are stored. The earthling can easily be extroverted.”

  The swan trumpeted.

  A swarm of black objects was rising from the trees inland.

  Izar yelled, “Dragonflies!” and shot up the ladder like a cat up a tree—obviously a starling with clear personal priorities.

  Rigel grabbed Alniyat’s arm and urged her to follow. “I’m coming,” he promised, but he pushed Mira ahead of him also. Albireo was making strange noises at the swan, half chirping, half warbling, apparently trying to keep it from flying off without them. It squawked back at him agitatedly.

  Someone grabbed Rigel’s wrist and tugged. He swung around angrily, but there was no one there. Only Saiph. Oh, it was like that was it? He ignored the signal and reached for the ladder. The bracelet pulled harder, but not hard enough to stop him, and he was fairly sure that it could stop him, if the danger were extreme. He continued to climb and the tugging eventually stopped.

  The open box on Gienah’s back held two benches that faced each other. Izar had flopped onto the rear one. Alniyat joined him there, pulling Rigel down between them, which was a tight fit. Albireo collapsed onto the front seat beside Mira as the steps folded themselves up and the great bird began
waddling seaward, flapping its wings in its haste to escape.

  “The starling was right,” the swanherd said. “Those are indeed dragonflies. I fear we are too late, my lady.”

  “Keep going!” Alniyat snapped. “Muphrid is playing a dangerous game, but we must call his bluff.”

  The first dragonfly arrived just as the swan became waterborne. Soon more followed it, circling overhead with the raspy sound of ultralight airplanes. In a world of elves and minotaurs, Rigel had been prepared to find that dragonflies were literally a cross between dragons and flies, but in fact they looked just like earthly dragonflies, except that they were more than a meter long. Their abdomen sections glistened in metallic reds and greens, their wings were a blur, and their heads bore mandibles like shears.

  “They’re not doing much,” he said.

  “They won’t attack until we’re airborne,” Izar said. His ears were flat against his head. “Then they’ll go for Gienah and bite out her eyes!”

  “And we’ll crash?”

  Alniyat said, “The swan would fall. But Muphrid will never take that risk. We would die and the guilt curse would kill him. Keep going, halfling!”

  Looking unhappy, Albireo caroled more noises at the swan. Wings thundering, feet hurling up a trail of spray, Gienah sped across the lagoon. It seemed impossible that she could lift a load of five people and their howdah before she ran into the reef, but at the last possible instant she surged out of the water. White surf flashed by underneath, then the great green-blue swell of the ocean.

  An electric blue dragonfly darted at the swan’s head. She snapped at it and the broken body fell away. Then another.

  “Muphrid’s not the one who sent them!” Izar wailed. “It’s Hadar!”

  “Hadar doesn’t know we’re here, darling,” Alniyat said. She made a throwing gesture and a wad of violet brilliance the size of a golf ball flashed out at one of the dragonflies, which exploded in fire and smoke.

  Izar yelled, “Yeah! Zap ’em all, Mom!”

  She was trying. Fireballs streaked out as fast as she could throw them, about half of them finding and frying targets.

  Gienah had gained altitude, perhaps a hundred meters, and turned landward, but the swarm had grown thicker and louder and closer. Soon the bird was having trouble isolating targets, snapping without effect, and every one she did kill seemed to be replaced by three more.

  Alniyat was having more success, for she could hardly miss now, but the swan’s flight grew erratic, and the howdah rocked and pitched. Izar was alternating between cheering and wailing. Rigel didn’t know how to comfort him, because Albireo was obviously terrified. Then one of the flying monsters landed on the side of the howdah. Izar yelped in alarm and almost climbed on top of Rigel. Albireo struck at it with a knife, cutting off its head before it could do any harm. The remains dropped amidst the passengers’ feet, writhing. Mira picked it up and threw it overboard.

  Another landed just ahead, at the base of the swan’s neck. The swan twisted her head around and got that one.

  “My lady, we are doomed!” the swanherd wailed. “Starborn Muphrid cannot possibly recall them now.”

  Never slackening her barrage of fireballs, Alniyat said, “I am afraid you are right. And Izar was right, too. This cannot be Muphrid’s doing. Nor any starborn’s. A halfling must be behind it, and almost certainly Hadar.”

  Izar howled in terror. Unable to reach anyone else, he snuggled up against Rigel, who perforce put an arm around him. “Who is Hadar?”

  Alniyat was too busy shooting dragonflies, and a chalky-faced Albireo answered for her.

  “One of Prince Vildiar’s retainers, reputed to be his chief assassin.”

  “He’s a horror!” Izar screamed into Rigel’s chest. “He murders people.”

  “But why would he try to kill us?”

  “To pick Saiph off your corpse, halfling,” said a grim-faced Mira. “Or just to put it out of play so that it cannot be used against him.”

  Although everyone else in the howdah seemed frantic with terror, to Rigel the action felt more like a staged melodrama, and his next speech was obvious. “Order the swan to land. I will take my chances with this Hadar.”

  “We cannot land!” Albireo said. The ocean had vanished; there was nothing but jungle in all directions, and no safe landing spots for the swan.

  “How long until we reach the highway?” Alniyat asked grimly.

  “We cannot find the highway until we gain altitude.” Clearly the dragonflies were keeping the swan from doing exactly that.

  One of the monsters landed about halfway down the swan’s neck. Even the swan wasn’t flexible enough to get at that one. Albireo couldn’t reach it with his dagger, and Alniyat couldn’t zap it without injuring the swan. The horrible thing began crawling forward, heading for Gienah’s eyes.

  “Saiph!” Rigel disentangled from Izar and moved across the howdah to kneel on the bench between Mira and the swanherd. Leaning out as far as he could, he swatted the dragonfly off in two pieces.

  Two more promptly replaced it. He got one, but the other was beyond even his reach. He dismissed his sword and scrambled over the edge of the howdah, lowering himself cautiously to kneel on the swan’s neck. To his dismay, the plumage proved to be as slippery as ice, an oily, waterproof surface. Keeping a careful grip on to the howdah behind him, he was able to recall his sword and deal with the second dragonfly just before it progressed out of his reach, but clearly this location was not going to be close enough if the giant bugs landed any closer to the swan’s head.

  He dismissed Saiph again, stretched out on his belly, and began to edge forward, arms and legs spread wide to give him as much balance as possible. Even getting enough of a grip with his fingers was difficult, and he was oppressed by the sight of the long drop on either side of him—there were clouds down there. He tried not to think of what would happen if Gienah decided that he was another dragonfly, only bigger. She could easily pick him up and spit him out.

  Two more bugs landed ahead of him. He was within easy reach of the first. Bracing himself for the weight, he said, “Saiph!” He killed the rearmost dragonfly, and, with a few more one-handed wriggles, managed to get the other one too. Since the swan was not taking offence, he squiggled even farther forward, to the point where her neck was narrow enough for his legs to straddle it like an oversized horse. He still couldn’t get a firm enough grip on her plumage with his left hand to risk batting the brutes right out of the air, but he was close enough to her head to defend it from direct attack.

  Of course, the area behind him was completely undefended now. No sooner had he realized that than a fly landed directly on his back, claws raking against his bare skin. He didn’t dare look at it, for even his instinctive squirm of revulsion nearly sent him on a long one-way trip to the jungle. He buried his face in the swan’s musty-smelling plumage and waited as the giant insect crawled over him. Did dragonflies like all eyes or just swans’ eyes? It did not bite him, and the second it was clear of him, he killed it. Then something touched his thigh, and he knew he had another passenger to deal with.

  Still they kept coming. He soon lost count. A dozen? Twenty? He was dimly aware of Alniyat still igniting the more distant flies, Izar cheering, and Albireo chanting directions or possibly comfort, to the swan.

  “Hold tight, halfling,” he called. “We have reached the highway.”

  Rigel spared a glance ahead and saw a strange flat wheel of white cloud, wider than a football field, slowly rotating—the top of a tornado, perhaps? The swan stopped beating her wings and began a long dive toward the center, gathering speed and leaving all the dragonflies behind at last. Soon the fuzzy edges of the mist were rising above them, blocking out the sky. It was cold and damp, even for Rigel, and he felt his ears pop. Abruptly sunlight returned and Gienah was soaring low over grassy hills, sending a huge herd of herbivores stampeding in terror. There were no more dragonflies, and no lingering trace of clouds in the sky far above them. Everyone joi
ned in Izar’s cheers. Even Gienah trumpeted.

  Rigel banished his sword. He had won the battle, all except the hardest part, which was going to be wriggling backward along the swan’s neck wearing only a loincloth. It was unthinkable. Very gingerly he began the dangerous maneuver of turning around, ignoring his companions’ cries of alarm. The worst part came when he had turned halfway, head hanging down on one side, feet dangling on the other, and nothing to grip except slippery down. If he started to slide he was done for. If he pulled out feathers and hurt Gienah, would Albireo be able to prevent her from shaking her head and sending her rescuer tumbling a thousand meters into the grassland?

  But he did get himself pointed in the right direction, and a few minutes later willing hands hauled him back into the howdah.

  Chapter 14

  Gienah flew on at an easier pace, climbing gently toward the next highway.

  “Go to Dziban,” Alniyat told Albireo. “Kornephoros must hear about this attack immediately.” She was furious.

  Albireo warbled something but the swan just continued beating its great slow wings. The effect was like riding a boat over a long and gentle swell.

  “Dziban?” Rigel asked.

  “The regent-heir’s domain. I was planning to go home to Spica, but I won’t abide people trying to murder me and my… and Izar.”

  “Your son,” Izar said. “He knows.” He took up Rigel’s wrist so he could examine the writing on the bracelet. “The guys were saying that Saiph can make a man better than four ordinary swordsman! That’s if he’s strong and nimble. You’re ever so strong and nimble, aren’t you? Maybe you could beat five! If you had your back against a wall, no more than three can get at you at once.”