by Duncan, Dave
On the far side of the gap, seven wide, shallow steps ran the full width of the court, the topmost holding a throne that was the most alien thing Avior had seen yet, a mass of gold and colored stone so subtle and complex that her eyes could not trace its lines. It repelled her and yet held her gaze hypnotically.
Either Tyl or Thabit poked her in the back. “Don’t stare too long at that thing. It’s neither elfin nor earthly, and it can sprain your mind.”
“Thanks,” she said, raising her gaze to the plain black monolith behind it, taller than any other. Flecks of golden light like fireflies moved slowly within it.
The sphinx delivered her and her escort to a small group standing off to the right, at the base of the lowermost step—elves and a few self-effacing halflings. Most were wearing jeweled disk collars and seemed to be officials. They glanced with disapproval at the three newcomer half-breeds and turned to continue their conversations.
“Wait here, halfling,” the sphinx commanded. “You may be called near the end, but Marshal Rigel thinks there will be too much official business today for them to get to you.”
“Good turnout,” Tyl remarked.
The sphinx turned his head to appraise him for a long moment with the studied stare that must characterize patrolmen everywhere in the galaxy. Eventually he said, “You have been here before?”
“I accompanied Prince Vildiar once, back in Queen Electra’s time.”
“How long ago?”
Tyl shrugged. “Forty years? Maybe fifty.”
Algenubi nodded and stalked away. Tyl had to be a lot older than he looked. But so was Avior, and age certainly had not blunted his prowess.
“How many thousands?” asked a nearby starborn wearing a collar of sapphires and emeralds.
“King Procyon told me once it can hold twenty,” said her companion, peering around. His name was Hyadum and his collar was of rubies and onyx.
“Must be close to full. I expect they’ve all come to get a look at her, this being the first time she’s held court.”
“Naw, they’ve come to sneer at that halfling lover of hers. And because the word got around that Vildiar’s commanded all his underlings to attend. They think he’s going to challenge her for the throne.”
Sapphires’ name was Azmidiske; she tinkled an effete laugh that set Avior’s teeth on edge. “Democracy? In the Starlands? Will he try, do you think?”
“Not a hope,” Hyadum said. “Not yet, anyway. But you heard that Chancellor Haedus went windsurfing and was returned by the tide facedown, right? I was told this morning that several other ministers are thinking of handing in their collars.” His voice dropped so low that Avior couldn’t hear it through her head cloth.
She returned to studying the scene.
Her two guards were standing very close on either side of her. Tyl tried to take her hand and she shook him off.
“What happens if I’m called?” she asked, realizing for the first time that she was terrified.
“Nothing much,” he said. “You have to prove that you’re a halfling, not a mudling, and you can do that by uncovering your unbuttoned belly. Then a starborn has to sponsor you, and the queen’s going to do that, Rigel says—”
“Why?” his brother interrupted. “The queen herself? That’s unusual.”
Since he seemed to be asking Avior, she said, “I have no idea.” Rigel had hinted that she might be able to assist him in his vendetta against Vildiar, but she could not imagine how.
The rumble of the crowd paused as a matronly human woman wearing a skirt and head cloth walked out from behind the throne. Carrying a gilded chair, she marched to the right until she was directly in front of where Avior was standing, then descended one step, and there she set the chair. She turned and retraced her steps. The crowd went back to its gossiping.
A few moments later, two sphinxes, one of them the huge Commander Zozma, stalked out from the same concealed door and took up positions on either side of the throne. Then came Rigel in his classical Roman helmet. He went to stand directly behind the chair—and the crowd’s avian murmuring changed flavor, from bland to acid.
“Well, I can see why she fancies him,” Hyadum said. “As long as he keeps the bucket on his head.”
“Oh, my dear, how could you?” Azmidiske declaimed, her voice poignant with angst. “Have you seen Starborn Ruchba’s anthropoid gardens? He has some male Paranthropus robustus who will undoubtedly appeal to you.”
Izar came out. With chin raised, lips tight, and eyes focused straight ahead, he strode past Zozma, descended one step, and moved over to the chair. He paused before it, then shot his arms out sideways and bowed to the court. To Avior’s astonishment, the assembled starfolk burst into cheers and applause. He sat down and turned his head to grin up at Rigel behind him.
“Stars! A standing ovation?” Tyl muttered. “Little bugger’ll be impossible now.”
“He always is,” his brother retorted. Neither sounded serious.
“Oh, isn’t he a darling!” Azmidiske said. “I do adore imps!”
Hyadum said, “Try playing with boys sometimes, dear, and maybe you’ll get one of your own.”
Her reply was drowned out by a deafening blast of trumpets in a key Bach’s clavichord never knew. Avior winced.
Tyl leaned even closer. “Smile for Daddy,” he whispered to the place where her ear should have been.
She spun around and stared toward the rear of the long courtyard. A jade-and-silver throne was approaching, floating with eerie grace over the courtiers’ heads. Its occupant was unusually tall, even for an elf, and as he drew nearer she saw that his hair and eyes showed the same rainbow opalescence as the queen’s, the mark of Naos that Izar was starting to display. His fish-belly-pale features were set in a brooding, heavy-browed scowl that made her think of Easter Island statues. So this was Prince Vildiar, the elf who thought he should be king, Tyl and Thabit’s father.
Very probably he was her father too. In one of the calm spells during the night, she and Tyl had discussed incest, agreeing that since they had met as adults and were both unquestionably infertile, the possibility was nothing to worry about. Only the stud book at Phegda could confirm or disprove it. That had given them an excuse for a celebratory rematch.
The discordant trumpets fell silent. The courtiers had necessarily stopped talking, and now some loyalist voices tried to raise a cheer for the prince. It died for lack of support. Showing no signs of noticing this mass snub, he floated his throne up the steps until he was level with Izar, one down from the royal throne itself and on the far side. There he settled.
Izar jumped to his feet and snapped into another of his jerky, arms-spread bows, this one directed to his father. Vildiar nodded in acknowledgment. The court exploded in applause, as if the imp had performed some sort of feat. Avior realized that if she were one of Vildiar’s illicit offspring, then she was Izar’s half sister, as well as Tyl’s and Thabit’s. She put that thought aside for later consideration.
More trumpets. A woman wearing a silver collar emerged from behind the throne’s giant black backdrop and advanced to the front of the uppermost step to address the congregation.
“Celaeno!” Hyadum whispered. “She’s crazy to be doing this after what happened to Haedus. She’s got a lot more courage than I do.”
“Not difficult, dear.”
Chancellor Celaeno pronounced a wordy proclamation summoning all starborn within the sound of her voice to attend their rightful sovereign, Talitha the Thirteenth, Queen of the Starfolk, and witness her judgment on diverse grave matters. There was magic involved, because Celaeno seemed to speak in a normal conversational tone, and yet it cut quite clearly through all the whispering. Even close whispers became very difficult to hear.
Queen Talitha emerged to take her place on the throne. The group of officers and witnesses around Avior all bowed, but given the thousands who were gathered at the front of the court, only those in the front row had room to do so.
“Starb
orn Elgomaisa, come forward,” the chancellor said.
A male elf detached himself from the front row of the congregation and walked forward to stand on the Star of Truth.
“Fires of Hell!” Tyl whispered. “What’s he supposed to have done?”
His surprise seemed to be universal. Izar looked astonished and Rigel puzzled. Azmidiske and Hyadum sounded as perplexed as any, and quite scornful of the elf himself. He was probably ugly by conventional elfin standards—no taller than Avior, stocky in build, his hair an earthling black. If he was in peril of having his mouth set on fire, why was he grinning?
“Starborn Elgomaisa,” the chancellor said, “Her Majesty is mindful to appoint you her consort, to share her bed and favors, to provide her with support and companionship. Are you willing to accept this appointment?”
“I am.”
“Are you, and will you always be, loyal to Her Majesty, her person, and purposes?”
“I am now and will be evermore.”
Evidently the appointment was a popular one. As the new consort strode up the long steps, the court exploded in roars of approval.
“So Pretty Boy’s out!” Tyl said.
“She was really mad at him last night,” his brother said, having to shout in his ear, “when she discovered he wasn’t in his own bed.”
They both knew whose bed Rigel had not been in, because Avior had told Tyl about the attempted kiss, and Tyl had laughed so hard that he would certainly have passed the story on to Thabit. If the queen had learned of Rigel’s failure, she evidently regarded the intent as more important than the result.
But if Rigel was now out of favor, why wasn’t he upset? For he clearly wasn’t. He wasn’t grinning, but he was taking the news with remarkable good cheer. Izar, the ultimate Rigel supporter, had twisted around to look up at him in outrage, but his guardian just gestured for him to turn back to facing the crowd.
Starborn Elgomaisa bowed to the queen, kissed her hand, and took his place, standing by her side between the throne and Commander Zozma.
“Ha!” Azmidiske said. “He can’t be a day over fifty. I suppose they can play hide-and-go-seek together.”
“Or ball?” Hyadum suggested.
“No, he’s too young to have any.”
Chapter 13
Rigel felt hurt that Talitha hadn’t warned him in advance, but otherwise the news about Elgomaisa was actually a relief. The appointment of an official consort ought to squelch all the vicious gossip that the queen was sleeping with a halfling, which should in turn deflate any trial balloons Vildiar might be floating among the starfolk. Yes, Rigel still yearned for her and probably always would. The thought of her making love to someone else was torture, but his impossible love ought to be more bearable the more impossible it became. Until now only willpower had held the lovers apart, with the constant threat that one sip of wine too many might burst the dam of their self-control at any time. Now she had locked and barred the door, so he was free to look around for a more accessible partner, probably a halfling, although certainly not Avior, that crazy S&M pervert.
Pay attention! Fomalhaut was on the Star, being questioned by Counselor Pleione under the watchful eyes of the chancellor and the queen herself.
And Rigel had the Time of Life prophecy in his hip pocket, figuratively speaking. He could not die until he had fathered a child! Those outspread legs he had glimpsed in the third vision had looked too suspiciously perfect to belong to any earthling or mudling. The thought that they might be Talitha’s had been fighting to be released from his id ever since. Now he could dismiss it as wishful thinking. Perhaps one day he would sire a child with a female elf, but not in the present century, thank you very much. Male halflings were so rarely fertile that they were universally believed to be sterile, but even Halfling Wasat, chief curator of the royal treasury and proof to the contrary, agreed that female halflings absolutely never conceived. Wanted: curvaceous halfling female, objective cohabitation. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about his date with destiny for some time.
Concentrate!
The mage was saying that, yes, he was aware that reversion staffs were illegal, but he had special royal permission to own and use them, for certain purposes that he was not at liberty to reveal. Yes, he had prepared the staff for Rigel Tweenling’s extroversion, and when the halfling had arrived with Starling Izar as his traveling companion, Fomalhaut himself had prepared a second staff for the imp as a favor to the queen’s son. Yes, he had preset both to go to a particular spot on Earth and return to his laboratory in his domain of Fornacis. No, only a mage of the red or high orange could have overridden his settings. No one else had been present in his laboratory, to the best of his knowledge, except for his two apprentices, starfolk Mizar and Achird.
He was told to step aside for a moment. Mizar and Achird were called forth to testify. Achird had been elsewhere during the times in question. Mizar had not tampered with the staff and had seen no one else in Fornacis at the time of the sabotage.
Rigel had watched Counselor Pleione in action before. At that time he had thought that she must have either an amazing memory or a very swift mind, but now he knew that almost no device or convenience ever invented by humans had not been anticipated centuries earlier by the starfolk’s magic. Undoubtedly one of her amulets was some sort of prompter.
The audience stayed silent as they listened to the evidence, trying to guess where it was leading and what crime had been committed. Talitha had summoned only the first four branches of starfolk to court, meaning those whose domains were rooted in the royal domain, plus owners of domains rooted in theirs, and so on. All starfolk were free to come, though, and obviously many more had done so.
Fomalhaut was recalled.
“You chose your words very carefully when answering my last question, Lord Fomalhaut, as did your two apprentices when asked the same thing. So now I require that you be more specific. You agree that somebody must have tampered with the staffs after they left your hands?”
“After I finished with them, somebody must have changed the settings on the staff wielded by Rigel Halfling, because it did not introvert him back to Fornacis. And because Starling Izar had lost his staff on Earth and the halfling used his to extrovert himself, the starling, and another halfling, all three went to another domain.”
Shock! The audience had now learned that the queen’s son had been abducted. Such crimes were unheard of in the Starlands.
Rigel was growing impatient. The problem was not who had booby-trapped his reversion staff—he thought he knew that now—but how to get Vildiar on the Star of Truth and ask him where his missing halflings were.
Pleione plodded on. “And how did this unknown someone change the settings without your knowledge?”
“One possibility, Counselor, is that the staff was changed while on Earth.” Fomalhaut shot a look of dislike in Rigel’s direction.
Damn! That clearly would be his cue. Sure enough, Pleione summoned Rigel Halfling, marshal of Canopus. She did not demand that he remove his helmet. It was not currently activated, but all he had to do was speak its name while wearing it and it would be. He took it off and tucked it under his arm, for he had no intention of testing the strength of the Star of Truth’s power to detect lies against Meissa’s ability to conceal him from its magic.
As a non-elf he was required to kneel.
Yes, he was Rigel Halfling, born on Earth, son of the late Queen Electra, and now marshal of Canopus. He testified that the staff had not left his grasp during the few moments he had spent on Earth, and no one else had touched it there except the two persons who had introverted with him. He spoke softly, knowing that he would be audible the whole length of the enormous space. He was allowed to withdraw. This could take days.
Again Fomalhaut was asked to explain the miracle. Even he was in danger on the Star, and Rigel was amused to see that his habit of speaking in convoluted syntax and sesquipedalian vocabulary deserted him there.
“It is possible, C
ounselor, for mages of very high grade and training to render themselves virtually invisible, although only for brief intervals, because the strain is considerable. When I say ‘virtually,’ I imply that their presence can be detected by extreme means, but they wouldn’t be noticed by casual observers. I am forced to conclude that some such mage trespassed in my laboratory yesterday and sabotaged the halfling’s staff.”
Shock! again.
“How many starborn are capable of this trick?” Pleione demanded. Her show of anger suggested that she was not one of them and had never heard of it before.
“I do not know,” Fomalhaut said. “Thousands of starborn have inherent red skill and many hundreds of them have taken mage training in their time. The ability I mentioned is most commonly associated with, although not always limited to, Naos.”
Talitha jumped to her feet, startling Elgomaisa and her sphinx guardians. She came striding down the steps to the Star, which Fomalhaut hurriedly vacated. She took his place, facing the assembly.
“I, Talitha, testify that I did not meddle with the reversion staff.” She began to turn away and then decided to add to her testimony, “Had I been present, I would have forbidden my son to be included on that expedition, which I regarded as far too risky for a child.”
She went back to her throne while the elite of the Starlands sniggered at the way the offensive Halfling Rigel had been so thoroughly put down twice in less than an hour. He wasn’t the queen’s unofficial consort now; he was nothing.
But what of Prince Vildiar, lounging his great length on his throne? He was the only other Naos left other than Izar, who would not be recognized as such until he reached his majority in another twenty-two years, and whose powers were still rudimentary.
Vildiar yawned. “I wasn’t there, either. Anyone who wants to call me a liar may do so on the Star.”
“The court thanks you, my lord,” Pleione said. “If you will be so kind as—”
“No.” He laughed softly at the ensuing silence. “You must have forgotten, Counselor, that a Naos is not required to testify on the Star except to answer a direct accusation made on it by a starborn. Do you wish to proceed on that basis?”