by Duncan, Dave
The harpy departed with a shout of, “I’ll tell him about the attempted rape.”
Avior was still gasping. “I’m sorry, Rigel. I never behave like that!”
He sat on the seawall and beckoned for her to sit near him—Izar was already there, reedy legs dangling.
“Don’t hyperventilate,” Rigel said. “I’m amazed you’re doing as well as you are. Just seeing Izar and me appear in the art gallery would have put some people into therapy for weeks. Truly! And no one listens to harpies.”
“I do,” Izar said innocently. “Lots do.”
“Only people with nasty dirty minds,” Rigel retorted.
The imp sniggered. “She sucker punched you!”
He was right, and the story would be all over Canopus by morning. The scandal about the queen’s halfling lover would grow.
More starfolk were passing by in their moon-cloth wraps, both male and female.
Avior sniffed. “Does everyone parade around naked all the time?”
“Starfolk do, yes. Like I mentioned before, though, halflings and humans have to hide their ‘deformities.’ In public, I’m supposed to cover my ears and keep my mouth shut. By the way, the palace guards are sphinxes, with a SWAT team of centaurs. Can you survive that?”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“I know I promised to take you home the moment you asked,” he said carefully, “but that’s not so simple now. The fire department must be hunting for your body in the remains of the gallery and if you turn up unharmed, the police will certainly want to interview you. I’m not saying you can never go back, but it will take some planning. Your friends must be worried sick. Perhaps we could get a message to them.”
“Friends?” She shrugged.
Startled, he said, “How about the woman you were speaking with just before Izar and I extroverted?”
“Enid? We went to art school together. She’s twenty years older now and wonders why I’m not. You wouldn’t want to let her near a camera with that story, would you?”
“Not unless you want your face all over the National Enquirer.”
He didn’t ask her if she had a husband or lover. If she did, it was up to her to mention him. Or her. He caught himself rubbing his face where she had hit him, and pulled his hand away.
Hooves drummed on the pavement and a centaur came cantering into view, pedestrians hastily clearing out of his path. Menkent looked like the top half of a college wrestler grafted onto the shoulders of a bay stallion. He wore a curly red-gold beard and a permanent grin. He clattered to a halt and saluted, all without losing the grin.
“Marshal Rigel! Welcome back, sir. Where in the stars did you get to, you dumb biped? Hail, notorious Imp Izar! Welcome to Canopus, Avior Halfling.”
“We were waylaid by treachery,” Rigel said, “but I expect you know that by now. Where’s the queen?”
“Saidak’s bringing her. Let’s go down to the quay. You too, imp.”
Izar charged the centaur. Menkent caught him, threw him up in the air with a twist, caught him while he was facing the other way, and turned him overhead in a somersault to land on his back, facing forward again. Izar whooped with glee, grabbed the centaur’s jewel-studded elfin ears, and beat a tattoo on his ribs with his heels.
“Gallop!”
“Yow! You’re hurting.”
Izar drummed harder. “Gallop, I said!”
Rigel rose from his position on the wall. Avior was starting to look calmer, but obviously her nerves were still tauter than the strings on a jazz guitar. He held out a hand and she flinched, reluctant to accept even that small contact.
“Come and meet the queen, my lady,” he said. He now knew that Avior must have been a very disturbed woman even before he had put her through several hours of pure nightmare.
Chapter 6
Saidak turned out to be the royal barge. But the next shock of Avior’s interminable day was that the barge came gliding in over the rooftops like a silver blimp in the gathering purple twilight. It circled the harbor uncertainly until Menkent waved up at it from their position on the jetty. The mermaid figurehead waved back and the barge sank vertically to dock alongside them.
“Welcome back, Rigel dear,” the mermaid said. She sat on a shelf at the bow and was enormous by human standards. Bare-breasted and bosomy in nautical tradition, she had elfin bat ears as big as dinner plates. “We were all worried about you.”
“Thank you, Beautiful. I was worried, too. I was afraid I might never see your legendary blue eyes again.”
The mermaid preened. “Oh, you flirt!”
Avior took an even fiercer grip on her self-control. Disneyland, Rigel had told her. He was right. She had to pretend this was all TV or a video game, or she would fall apart.
“How do I know their names?” she whispered to Rigel. “I knew yours, too.”
“It means that you have some magic. Most tweenlings can reach blue grade with training. I’m studying hard, but not making much progress.”
A gate opened in the railing, and a gangplank folded down. Izar, who had been forcibly removed from his steed by the steed himself, went racing up ahead of everyone else.
“Noble Starling Izar has boarded!” the mermaid boomed in a voice like a foghorn. All around the harbor, the last late-working sailors and dockworkers were watching the action.
“I wanna sit in your lap again,” Izar announced, clambering over the rail to reach the figurehead.
“Mermaids don’t have laps!”
“Yes they do. Make room!”
“That imp has amazing resiliency,” Rigel murmured as he and Avior mounted the plank. It was narrow for two, and he went first. “You’d think he would at least want to tell his mother about the gunfire.”
“Noble Rigel Halfling, marshal of Canopus, royal officer in charge of security,” announced the figurehead. Surely such proclamations were superfluous when everyone’s name was somehow perfectly obvious? “And Halfling Avior,” she added as a quieter afterthought. Hooves clattered. “Menkent Sphinx of the Guard.”
The welcoming party on the barge comprised two sphinxes, female Kalb and male Zozma, who was twice Kalb’s size and had a beard shaped like a black icicle. They bowed to Rigel, giant cats stretching their front legs.
“You had us worried, Marshal!” Zozma purred in a register almost low enough to be classed as subsonic.
“I had myself worried, Commander. Saidak, is that brat bothering you?”
The mermaid craned over the rail to look at him. “No, Marshal. If he does, I’ll just drop him overboard.”
“Excellent idea. Let’s go, then.”
He gestured Avior toward a hatch that opened onto a stairway, which wound down into what turned out to be a saloon occupying the entire vessel. A bench upholstered in red velvet extended all the way around, under a continuous line of sloping windows, which Avior had not noticed from the outside. Everything was red and gold, warm and bright under the glow of golden chandeliers.
At the bottom of the stair stood a female elf named Ancha, who was just as grotesquely tall and slender as Shaula had been, but with hair and eyes of a striking auburn. She wore the same skimpy topless beachwear, but also bore a disk collar of silver and pearls as wide as her shoulders that draped down almost to her breasts. It had to contain hundreds of pearls, perhaps a thousand if it continued around her back. Ignoring Avior, she smiled thinly at Rigel.
“Welcome back, Marshal. We brought this for you.” She offered him a bronze helmet with a brush of white horsehair along the crest. It looked like a prop from a Hollywood toga turkey.
“Ah, thank you, Companion. That’s exactly what I need. You know, I’ve grown accustomed to this absurd thing?” Rigel donned the helmet. He would probably look good in it if he were wearing something more appropriate than jeans.
“It suits you, Marshal,” Ancha said, with all the sincerity of a boa constrictor’s welcoming hug. But then she stepped aside and Avior saw Queen Talitha on a throne in the center of th
e ship.
It was a modest throne of gilt—unless, of course, it was constructed of solid gold—but a throne nonetheless, and yet the queen of the Starlands sat there barefoot and wearing no more than Ancha, except that her disk collar was of diamonds, glittering brighter than the lamps themselves, and her hair and eyes burned with all the colors of the rainbow, the mark of Naos. She seemed impossibly young to be Izar’s mother and would be truly gorgeous if one could look past the grotesque ears and shark smile. Rigel’s infatuation was understandable, provided he shared the usual male ability to concentrate on certain specific organs.
He walked forward and bowed with arms outspread. Already aware of how he felt about the queen, Avior studied Talitha’s face, which was guarded like a fortress. Too guarded! The other attendant present, Starborn Matar, was also watching the queen, and her lip had curled into a hint of a sneer. If elves’ expressions were anything like humans’, then the Rigel-Talitha infatuation was mutual, and a source of contempt around the court. Izar’s slander and the harpy’s slurs might not be true in action, but they were certainly true in wish. If even trusted confidants despised the frustrated romance, how must the queen’s political opponents feel?
“Welcome, Marshal,” Talitha said. “Congratulations and my deepest thanks for bringing Izar safely home. I want to hear all about it, but first tell me this…Were the gunmen human or not?”
“Halflings,” Rigel said. “I saw ears on at least two of the three as they came in through the broken window.”
The royal collar flared in opalescent fire. “Schmoor! as my son would say. Well, if we are lucky, one of them may have been Hadar himself. We must recover the bodies, though, before the earthlings start a worldwide panic about aliens. Fomalhaut and Mizar say they are willing to deny on the Star that they had anything to do with the attack or your booby-trapped reversion staff. I will hold court tomorrow, and I’ve summoned Vildiar to appear as well. We may get some truth then.”
The two sphinxes came padding down the stairs. The centaur had stayed on deck.
The queen looked past Rigel. “Halfling Avior, you are most welcome to our realm. I apologize heartily for all the violence and treachery. It is not how we usually do business.” The royal smile shone with charm; even the great disk necklace seemed to glitter in a warmer shade.
Avior bowed, but did not attempt the arms-out gesture. “Your Majesty is very kind.”
“I hope you will choose to stay with us, but the decision is yours. We starborn appreciate art and sponsor it generously. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy our hospitality.” Her smile seemed genuine enough—it was an expression she had not dared direct at the marshal, Avior noticed. “Please sit down, all of you. Marshal, I want you there,” she said, pointing. “Report. Matar, record this.”
The throne pivoted so that the queen could face Rigel on the nearest part of the bench. Starfolk and sphinxes gathered in, but Avior stayed in the background, trying to be inconspicuous. She desperately needed a drink.
Rigel said, “Your Majesty, Commander, Companions: You know that we extroverted to the art gallery and were ambushed. At least two of our attackers were halflings. They arrived only minutes after we did, and their guns must have been acquired on Earth, meaning that they had set up an attack team long in advance. They must have been stalking Avior for some time, perhaps in the hope that I would be the one sent to approach her. They couldn’t have known I would take Izar with me.”
“I didn’t know either,” the queen said with menace.
Rigel wisely ignored that remark and went on to tell of the other treachery, the Alathfar game park, and the meeting with the hermit Shaula. Glancing out windows on the far side of the saloon, Avior realized that the barge was slowly floating over a great city. The buildings gleamed pale in the last wisps of dusk, but there were few artificial lights.
“Shaula?” the queen said with a frown. “I don’t recall a Shaula. Recorder Matar, that is your specialty.”
The green-haired elf played with her collection of bracelets for a moment, seemingly pondering. “Many starborn bear that name. What coloring, Marshal?”
“Bluish.”
“Mmm…Four blue Shaulas. I recall the subdomain Alathfar, though. I was a guest there a few times, back in the reign of King Procyon. It belonged then to Naos Kurhah, who acquired it from a greatfather of his and extended it enormously and with great skill. Kurhah faded about nine years ago, just short of his thirtieth century. He had inherited several large domains, but instead of leaving them to his children, he divided them between all the starborn with whom he had ever paired.” Matar toyed again with her bracelets. “And one beneficiary was a Shaula Starborn, so that fits. She’s in about her fourteenth century and is thought to rank yellow or borderline orange in magic.”
“How far was the burning cabin from the main house?” the queen asked.
“About a hundred meters…elfin paces,” Rigel said. “Maybe more.”
“Even a high orange could not put out a fire at that range impromptu. A wood-built complex like that would be protected with fire-fighting amulets. We must summon this Shaula to court, too. We shall need to force the root portal. Can you direct Commander Zozma to it?”
“Yes,” Rigel said. “But who will force it for you?”
The queen grimaced. “If I cannot trust Mage Fomalhaut, then I am lost.”
She paused, and the glow of her aura darkened to more bluish tones. The other collars did not shine in the gloom as hers did. Or change their hues. So the queen wasn’t wearing a collar—her own skin must be glowing. Was that the true mark of Naos?
“We have bad news, Marshal. Chancellor Haedus drowned this morning while windsurfing.”
Rigel said, “Oh, damn!” His eyes said more, which Avior could not read.
“My cousin Celaeno has agreed to take over his duties pro tem.”
“Brave lady!”
At that moment a window in the bow swung open and Izar slid in over the sill. “We’re there, Mom! And I’m hungry.”
“Council adjourned,” Talitha said. “Marshal Rigel, will you please remove this intruder and see that he’s put safely to bed? Safely for the rest of the Starlands, I mean.”
Back on deck, Avior realized how astonishingly quiet the Starlands were. With no traffic and no wind, the only sounds were a faint hiss from some of the nearer torches and a mutter of voices. Overhead the stars were dazzling in all their glory. Even the clear prairie air of Saskatchewan never let them shine like that.
The barge had come to rest in a large rectangular pool within an excessively formal, rectangular courtyard of Egyptian style. Statues of animal-headed gods stood sentry along looming stone walls covered in inscriptions. Half a dozen living sphinxes and two centaurs stood guard at the foot of the gangplank, and a dozen human youths held aloft torches that burned brighter than five-hundred-watt light bulbs. Six or seven elves waited in the background.
Avior stayed close to Rigel as he described the location of the root portal to the big sphinx. Then he tentatively offered his arm to her with a sympathetic smile that she would normally have blasted right off his superior-male-juvenile face. But this was not a normal situation, and Rigel seemed to be the only thread of sanity in the nightmare. Besides, it might be the custom of this place. She forced herself to accept, and together they followed Izar down the plank. Running over to one of the statues, which stood at least ten meters high, he slapped one of its enormous toes.
“Open for Starling Izar!”
The statue reached an arm sideways and pushed back a section of wall to make an opening that would have admitted an elephant. Izar went skipping through and the great door closed behind him.
Then Rigel tapped the stone toe. “Halfling Rigel and a trusted visitor. Touch this and say your name, Avior. Good. Now you’re authorized.”
They walked through the gap into a room that seemed like a bizarre combination of office and stable, with filing cabinets, very high desks, an animal scent, and heaps of straw
for napping.
“That was a portal,” Rigel said. “Most portals are not kept locked like that one. To go between domains you must travel by air, but you can use portals to go to any other portal within the same domain. We didn’t need the barge to get here from Small Harbor, except that there was no portal close to it. Sometimes short journeys take longer than long ones. May the stars be with you, Officer Praecipua!”
The sphinx he addressed bowed to touch his beard to the pavement. “And with you, Marshal. We were worried when you failed to return.”
“I was a lot more worried than you were. Halfling Avior is newly introverted to the Starlands, but has not yet applied for status. Give her a security rank of three for now.”
Four sphinxes and two centaurs were scattered around the guard room in various states of repose, but they all rose as if to honor the visitors as Rigel escorted Avior to the far end, where a very large, gilt-framed mirror hung on the wall. Izar had already disappeared.
“Alula,” Rigel said, and the mirror dissolved, revealing a carpeted, paneled corridor, lit by hanging lanterns. “How are you for vertigo? Prone to seasickness?”
“I have an iron stomach!” Avior declared confidently.
“Don’t your digestive juices corrode it? The reason I ask is that this subdomain is officially known as Alula, but I call it Escher Castle or Vertigo Villa. It takes a little getting used to.”
They stepped through the doorway into a wide, luxuriously carpeted and decorated corridor. Rigel paused and diffidently pried her grip off his forearm. She had left white marks there. She had been digging her nails in, too, and must have hurt him.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t realize.”
He grinned. “No harm done. I’ll grow another. Come along.”
The corridor ended at a balcony overlooking a large hall. There were other galleries and several staircases in view, but the sight lines were insane—carpet on the ceiling and windows in the floor, and two great staircases that didn’t seem to know if they went up or down. Even as she was trying to make sense of it all, Izar went racing along another balcony in the company of a large and woolly dog—except that they were running on the underside of the balcony, upside down.