by Duncan, Dave
“The third raven turned up with its neck wrung,” Zozma growled. He was a free-range creature who sniffed the wind, and could never understand the idea of following a linear agenda like a tracking dog. “Want to send more?”
“No.” Rigel wondered if he should ask about compensating the dead ravens’ mates and fledglings and decided to wait until he could discuss it with the commander in private. His scheme of sending talking ravens to spy on Prince Vildiar had never sounded promising. Rigel doubted that anyone could spy on a Naos mage undetected, except possibly another, like Prince Kurhah, who had shown no interest in joining the security committee or assisting in its work. Fomalhaut was a mage, but not Naos. Talitha was Naos but not a mage.
Vildiar and Hadar were terrorists, and the peaceful folk of the Starlands had no idea how to deal with terrorism. Rigel himself didn’t either, but at least he knew that mere wishful thinking would not make the problem go away.
“I’ve gone back a thousand years, halfling,” Matar grumbled. “Do you want me to continue?”
“Please do, my lady.”
“I have an appointment with the farrier,” Bellatrix remarked impatiently, “to pick out some new shoes.”
“I’m going hunting with my wives this afternoon,” said Zozma. “There’s nothing quite like a fresh haunch of ostrich still dripping blood.”
“I prefer cat, myself,” Gianfar countered, although her rear half was lion.
Rigel’s campaign against Vildiar was not going well. In fact, it was not going anywhere. Fortunately, the opposition had not been doing much either. The Hadar gang had been at least temporarily balked by the return of Naos Kurhah, whom the starfolk in general must have seen as a much more acceptable candidate for the throne than either Vildiar or Talitha. The terror would start up again when the enemy had adjusted to the new circumstances, but Rigel wanted to take advantage of the lull and strike first.
The trouble was that he still had no acceptable campaign plan. He had ideas, but they would not come together to form a strategy. Avior was still at Kraz, working on her sham Rigel corpse. The month she had requested had come and gone, and the last time he had gone to visit, she had still been assembling boiled pig bones to make the skeleton.
Fomalhaut had previously belonged to a secret lodge of mages that called itself Red Justice, formed to oppose Vildiar. He refused to discuss it, but it seemed to have fallen apart since Hadar murdered its leader, Starborn Cheleb.
Yesterday, Counselor Pleione had provided Rigel with a very interesting answer to a legal question he had posed, but he had not yet figured out how to apply it in practice. That was so often the problem with ideas: good ones were rarely practical and practical ones not much good.
The Hadar gang’s next move would very likely be an attempt on Kurhah’s life. Everybody knew that. Rigel would dearly love to set up a trap for the killers, using the Naos as bait, but Kurhah had rudely spurned all Talitha’s offers to provide him with sphinx or centaur bodyguards. Nor did he seem interested in joining forces against the common foe.
Apart from the frustrating stalemate, though, life was sweet. Elgomaisa escorted Talitha to social or political functions by day and tactfully vanished at night, leaving her free to enjoy her frantically passionate affair with Rigel. Even Izar had been behaving himself so perfectly that Rigel would have suspected he was sickening for something if elves ever got sick.
“Found it!” Matar announced triumphantly. “Vindemiatrix! Domain imagined by Starborn Ascella during the first decade of the reign of King Procyon. That would be about seventeen hundred and forty years ago.”
“Marvelous!” Rigel enthused. “I don’t know what we’d do without you. Do you know anything more about it, or about Starborn Ascella?”
“She’s Starborn Elgomaisa’s mother.”
“Good grief!” Elgomaisa was not yet sixty, Talitha had said, barely adult by elfin standards. But Rigel’s own mother had been almost two thousand years old when he was born, so why be surprised? “Does she still live there, or just lend it to him for parties?”
“You will have to ask her,” Matar said sourly. “Or him. I have no other information about the domain, except a comment that it’s of earthly mythic design and is notable for a dramatic entryway across a rainbow bridge.”
“Oh, sh…shinbones! Any mention of giant wolves or eight-legged horses?”
The others’ reactions varied from amusement, in the case of Zozma, to disgust from Bellatrix. The griffin merely opened her beak to display a long black tongue.
The centaur snorted. “Eight-legged horses? That’s absurd!”
“Probably a late addition based on a misunderstanding of artistic perspective,” Rigel agreed. His haphazard education in the School of Library Dumpsters paid curious dividends sometimes. If Vindemiatrix was older than both the prose and poetic Eddas—let alone Richard Wagner’s operas—it should provide an interesting insight into early Nordic myths, and specifically those featuring Valhalla, the home of the gods. This wasn’t the kind of information he needed, however.
“I’d like someone to inspect it from a security point of view.” He looked meaningfully at the griffin.
Gianfar nodded her great raptor head. “We can take care of that. What’s the address?”
Matar consulted her bracelets again. “Ascella’s overlord is Starborn Menkalinan, whose overlord is…” Addresses were personal. After ten or so names, she reached Naos Vildiar, underling of the queen.
That was no great surprise. Vildiar had inherited almost as many domains and underlings as the monarch herself, so no one but Rigel would see anything sinister in the relationship between Vildiar and Elgomaisa. Before he could comment, he heard himself called.
“Half-breed! Hey, by-blow! Bucket-head!”
He turned his head to scowl at the harpy perched on the marble balustrade. “Well?”
“Fomalhaut wants you right away. It’s urgent, he says. I think he stepped in something nasty and wants to wipe his feet on you.”
“Very likely. Go away.” Rigel heaved himself to his feet. “Committee adjourned! Please do check on Vindemiatrix for me, Squadron Leader.”
He ran for the nearest portal. Talitha was visiting a thousand-year-old cousin somewhere in the royal domain, so Saidak should still be anchored at Segin—unless Elgomaisa had borrowed the barge for his own purposes. The starborn had many flying vehicles, but all required more magic than Rigel could muster. His best bet was to portal to Mabsuthat and ask Kitalphar for a ride.
The Time of Life continued its endless swing, while around it pools bubbled and tendrils writhed. The mage’s workshop was just as before, except that Rigel’s friend Achird was waiting to greet him as he stooped in through the low doorway. He was the only adult male starborn who ever welcomed Rigel with a smile, usually a wry grin that did not show too many shark teeth. Also his sandy hair and eyes made him seem closer to human than the customary poster-paint coloring.
“Guess what? You were right,” he said. “There is treason brewing at Alathfar.”
The mage strode off across the great courtyard at a pace Rigel was hard put to match.
“So seancing within the Starlands is possible after all?”
The grin grew wryer. “It is much harder than seancing Earth, though. On Earth they have no portals and have to move their fat asses around on wheels. When subjects portal, you can’t follow them. You have to guess where they’ve gone.”
Their shadows raced over the bright floor, under midnight stars above. A bronze tiger bared its teeth at them when they went too close, but they arrived safely at the seance court, where Mizar stood with hands and forehead against the great crystal ball. Fomalhaut was there too, one hand on the other mage’s shoulder.
“Any change?” Achird asked.
Fomalhaut opened his eyes. “Chancellor Celaeno just walked in,” he said glumly. “They’ve closed the door, so that must be everybody.”
By that time Rigel was there to grab hold of Mizar’s arm a
nd join in the seance. Instantly he found himself back in the big hunting lodge at Alathfar, and a moment’s reflection told him he was seeing it from the corner that held the grand piano. He recognized blue-haired Shaula standing by the fireplace, seemingly acting as hostess. Several mudlings in turbans and eastern robes were passing among the guests, offering trays of refreshment, but it was the guests who interested Rigel.
And appalled him. About thirty starfolk, males and females, were sitting or standing around the big room, chatting quietly in small groups. Chancellor Celaeno was there, and so were at least half a dozen other members of the queen’s council. Rigel recognized few of the rest. There was no way to judge elves’ age from their appearance, and wealth was a meaningless concept in the Starlands, but judging from the few he recognized, he could guess that the rest were also respected, senior people. He did not need a mage to tell him that there was a conspiracy brewing.
The latest arrival had been shown to a seat. Shaula was scanning the assembly, counting heads. Then she nodded a signal to nowhere in particular.
An interior door opened to admit the host, Naos Kurhah. Silence closed in around him like a fog. Smiling, nodding to friends, he began winding his way through the crowd to the fireplace. Then a green-haired female rose, a couple of males copied her, and soon almost everyone was standing. It was a royal tribute, although in this case it might be dismissed as an appropriate welcome for a long-lost friend—not quite treasonable but close. With some relief, Rigel noted that the chancellor and several others had remained seated.
The prince reached the fireplace and turned to smile at the company at large, holding his hands out in greeting.
“Friends, my friends! Please be seated. My thanks to all of you for coming on such short notice. I will get directly to the point so that those of you with other commitments can leave.”
And so that so many absences would not be noticed, if the Naos’s intent was as treasonable as Rigel suspected…
“My purpose in inviting you here was twofold. First, it has been far too long since I saw you all, and I hope many of you will stay on so that we can dine and rummage over old times together. Secondly, I want to draw your attention to the serious political situation here—”
A male with flaming scarlet hair sprang up and shouted, “Naos!”
“Yes, Starborn Yildun?”
“I will not be part of any seditious conspiracy!”
“I should hope not, starborn. You are free to leave at any time. Or you may remain and hear what I have to say and then go straight to the queen and report it to her. And perhaps her ‘head of security’?” He smirked to invite a laugh. “The distinguished marshal of Canopus, I mean.”
Yildun sat down, frowning. Kurhah went back to his speech.
“Now, let us not mince words, my friends. We all know the source of the pestilence. Naos Vildiar has created and trained a private army of halflings and encouraged them to assassinate any starborn with a claim to the throne, meaning all the Naos in the realm. Had Queen Electra tended to her duties as she should, she would have stopped him after the first three or four deaths, but instead she extroverted. Either she was hiding from Vildiar’s killers or—as she later claimed—hunting for a lost child she had borne to a mudling. I honestly don’t know which excuse I would find more repugnant. Whatever the truth, the regent she left in charge was incompetent, and his dereliction of duty gave the villain free rein.”
Kurhah paused to peer around at the gathered crowd. He was an effective speaker. Rigel was already seething at this insult to his lover and his martyred mother, but he saw many nods of agreement.
“Regent-heir Kornephoros was a weakling and a coward,” Kurhah continued. “And Vildiar bullied the poor thing into giving up his daughter. Have you realized that even that was part of the villain’s plan, twenty years ago? The Starlands cannot be stolen. They must be freely given by the retiring monarch to a chosen successor. Vildiar foresaw that his crimes would become public knowledge. He knew that the last legitimate ruler would never voluntarily abdicate in his favor, so he sired a child with Talitha to open a way for him. Electra chose to give the realm to her, as he no doubt foresaw, but she remains fearfully vulnerable, just as he planned. Sooner or later that fiend will get hold of the imp and demand the Starlands as ransom. What mother could refuse such a threat?”
He shrugged. “Had the rest of the Naos had the common sense to band together in time, this need not have happened. No, please do not argue at this point. It is too late to attach blame.”
“Is it?” someone shouted. “What were you doing during all this?”
“Fading.” Kurhah sighed. “Drifting among the stars. We all return there in the end, and I assure you it is a sublime experience, infinitely rewarding, offering peace and closure. On what I expected to be my last visit home—I came to greet a new greatchild and say farewell to one whole branch of my descendants—I was told of the queen’s disappearance and what was happening to the Naos. The knowledge disturbed me so much that I returned to reality one more time, a few years later, only to learn that the situation had become even worse, that only three or four Naos remained.”
Only a starborn could ever confuse the Starlands with reality.
“Very much—very, very much—against my will, I decided that I must postpone my final exit and resume corporeal existence. My friends, it was like battling with dragons, a reawakening of pain and sorrow, a return to tumult and mundane cares. I would wish such an ordeal on no one, even the despicable Vildiar himself. But I persisted, and eventually reclaimed my physical presence. Dear Shaula bade me welcome here in Alathfar, and offered me protection.
“You do see that I was a crab without its shell? In grave danger of violence and murder? I had given away all my amulets, and if Vildiar’s assassins had learned of my return too soon, they would have crushed me like an egg.” With a tinkle of many bracelets, he raised his gem-laden hands. “I needed several months to create a new set, including defenses such as I had never felt a need for before. Then came word that Electra had returned and promptly expired from the guilt curse when she realized the massacre that her neglect had made possible. I had waited a few days too long to reveal my renewed existence. Does my explanation satisfy you? For if it does not, then I shall cheerfully return to the peace of the stars and leave you as you were, ruled by a willful child and threatened by a monster.”
Heads were nodding. A low murmur of agreement filled the great room.
It did not satisfy one onlooker. If the magic of seancing made it possible, Rigel would storm into the Alathfar lodge that very second and charge Naos Kurhah with sedition and high treason.
Again the red-haired Yildun sprang to his feet. “Just what are you planning to do, prince? And what do you want of us?”
Smiling catlike, Kurhah surveyed the assembly, neither answering the question nor even glancing at the questioner until he had sat down again.
“First, Starborn Yildun, I propose to deal with Naos Vildiar, a mass murderer such as the Starlands have never seen before. Second, I propose to ask Queen Talitha to step aside and let me rule for a few centuries. I will swear on the Star to abdicate in her favor when I depart—or possibly her son’s. They are very nearly the same age, you know, or at least they seem so to my old eyes.” He waited for the chuckles to fade. “And there will be no Naos more senior.”
“That is treason!” someone shouted.
“No, my friends. Talitha is a wonderful person. My only complaints against her are youth and immaturity. Her obvious infatuation with a halfling was a folly of youth, no more, and now that she has paired respectably with a starborn, it may be forgiven—although he, too, is very young. Had she chosen a more mature partner, one who could have tempered her flightiness, I would have gratefully gone on my way and let her be, as soon as I had dealt with the murderous Vildiar.
“But she did not. Elgomaisa is a mere adolescent by my standards. I am old, old. I will appoint Talitha regent-heir, and will happily
return the royal burden to her when she is ready for it. If she refuses to see reason, then I think that you will have to insist. Yes, you. I chose you all very carefully as the best, the eldest, and magically the strongest of our time. Many of you are members of her council. I did not choose you in the hope that you would betray your oaths; I chose you for the same reasons she did—wisdom and character. She cannot rule alone; she needs you. She needs me.”
A woman by the door rose. “Just how do you intend to dispose of Vildiar?”
“I shall not announce that at the present,” Kurhah said, glancing down at his left hand. “I spent the last few days preparing an amulet to detect when I am under surveillance. It indicates that some ill-mannered mage is spying on us at this very—”
A roar of outrage shook the hall.
He waved a hand for silence. “It may be Vildiar’s assassins, or it may be some of the queen’s helpers, in which case that tweenling pretty boy of hers is most likely behind it. Only halfling perverts could engage in such behavior. Or it may be both parties, I cannot tell.
“But let us now adjourn for a repast. Think over what I have said. Discuss it with your companions, by all means. And then make your decision. In a couple of hours, those of you who wish to leave may do so, and no hard feelings; those who wish to assist me may remain. At that time we shall discuss tactics. And if you are spying on us, Naos Vildiar, then I bid you to join this meeting at that time. The same goes for you, if you are also snooping, Rigel Halfling, marshal of Canopus.
“But I offer neither of you safe conduct.”
Chapter 20
Rigel jumped back, breaking out of the seance. “He’s found a way around the guilt curse!”
The mage and his apprentices disengaged also. Fomalhaut was scowling. “No. Absolutely inconceivable! The maximum achievement to which they could aspire would be to overwhelm Naos Vildiar and denude him of his sorcerous accoutrements. He is trammeled by the same limitations as they are, remember.”