The Nonborn King

by Julian May

  "Love? But she wouldn't have me," said the girl forlornly. "Even though she said she loved me."

  My poor little one. That was only sex renounced, not love. You have so much to learn! Let me teach you. Only come freely and trust.

  With all of his strength, Owen intruded his thought:

  She lies! She lies! Don't listen, Felice! What has she ever done for you? Did she help you at Gibraltar? We did! We're your true friends!

  The drowning mind and eyes turned to him. "Prove it devil."

  Ask Elizabeth if she'd make you queen! Ask her if she'd give you your Beloved!

  "Elizabeth?"

  After you are healed, you'll see all things differently, Felice. You will know what is sick fancy and what is clean love. You will know wherein true power and completion reside and you will make free choices. You will know yourself, love yourself Believe me. Come.

  The slight figure shimmered in opalescence. And then it was gone, and there was a raven skimming the water of the cove, soaring high above the eastern headland.

  Elaby let his protective screen dissolve. He removed the headset and dropped it. Cloud came up slowly and pulled off the tarnhelm. Owen slumped on a bench. The back of his neck was scarlet and he trembled slightly.

  "And now?" Elaby's voice was dull.

  "We get out of here as quickly as possible." Cloud met his gaze calmly. "We do what we can for poor Jill, repair the boat, and keep our minds well wrapped. After that, let's hope my father has some useful advice for us when he returns from his star-search."

  11

  "I KNOW you're going to like Hunting," Aiken insisted, "and you've never seen anything like these beasts. One of the dragons almost ate me at my Tanu initiation bash."

  "How fateful for the Many-Colored Land, Battlemaster," King Sharn observed, "that you were spared."

  Queen Ayfa and the other five Firvulag Great Ones chortled, and all of the flying chalikos laid their ears back and rolled their eyes at the sinister sound until Culluket banished their anxiety.

  The Flying Hunt was the culminating entertainment in the preLoving houseparty hosted by Aiken and Mercy for the Firvulag Gnomish Council. Some of the guests had declined to participate; for even though Aiken had abolished the older, crueler style of pursuit, bitter memories lingered of the times when Hunt quarry fled on two legs. The anti-bloodsport faction had stayed behind in the castle attending a musicale supervised by Mercy, while Aiken led a compact aerial safari on a quest for phobosuchine crocodiles in the bayous of the Laar delta. His Tanu companions included Culluket, Alberonn, Bleyn, Aluteyn Craftsmaster, Celadeyr of Afaliah, and the formidable Lady Armida of Bardelask, widow to Darel and now ruler of the beleaguered Rhône city. In addition to the King and Queen, the Firvulag party was composed entirely of battle champions: Medor, a Firvulag First Comer and Sham's deputy, whose illusory aspect was a spiny black wereinsect; the Dreadful Skathe, Ayfa's ogress crony of the snaggleteeth and dripping talons; the novice hero Fafnor Ice-Jaws, who had trounced Culluket in the Encounters at the last Grand Combat; Tetrol Bonecrusher, the feathered serpent, who had been defeated by Alberonn in the same event; and Betularn of the White Hand, another First-Comer champion, who had been the antagonist of the equally venerable Celadeyr for as long as anyone could remember.

  None of the Great Ones among the Litde People was capable of personal levitation, much less teleporting a steed, and so it was up to the Shining One to keep his guests airborne. The potential hazard in the arrangement was minimized by the metapsychic firepower advantage held by the Firvulag. At the very start of the visit, Sharn had taken pains to demonstrate the progress made by the Little People in offensive metaconcert. Whereas in former days each champion had jealously declined to share his powers with another, under Share's innovative direction they were learning to link minds. The cooperation was still rough, and operant only in the creative spectrum; but Culluket had estimated that the combined psychoenergetic wattage of the Firvulag royals very likely exceeded Aiken's own creative potential, depleted as he was by the strain of the progress. And of Aiken's allies, only Bleyn, Alberonn, and Culluket himself were familiar enough with his mental pattern to mind-mesh. Given the circumstances, Aiken set aside any hope of engineering a convenient mass assassination of top-ranking Foe. Sharn and Ayfa, following their own strategy, exuded goodwill to ad and pretended that they had never violated the Armistice.

  It was full dark when the Hunt arrived at the Tainted Swamp south of Goriah. A yellow moon, lacking two days to fullness, shone disapprovingly through rising mist like some suspicious demonic concierge.

  "The plesiosaurs—the sea monsters—have to lay their eggs in fresh water," Aiken said. "They come up the Laar this time of the year and mate in the lagoons. Of course, the dragons are lying in ambush for the poor love-sotted brutes."

  "Passion," Queen Ayfa remarked, "has been known to distract even the bravest of hearts."

  She was wearing a spectacular riding outfit of pinkish metallic cloth with purple boots and a cloak of black brocade. Her apricot-colored hair, partly hooded, was crowned with a jeweled diadem trailing beaded wire streamers. That peculiar Firvulag adornment that humans caded a "face-frame" covered her chin, the sides of her face, her brow, and the bridge of her nose in a kind of open mask, also thick with gems. She looked nearly beautiful, if you were prepared to ignore her bulging shoulder muscles and the bellicose glint in her dark eyes.

  "It would be easy to pick off a plesiosaur as well as a dragon while we're here," young Fafnor suggested.

  The Tanu contingent radiated disapproval. Aiken explained: "We consider it unsporting to Hunt sea monsters during their wooing, kid. But the dragons are fair game. You get first dibs."

  "Poor crocodiles," said Lady Armida. "No one feels sentimental about them. And yet our sage Seniet tells us that they are as much of an endangered species as the marine plesiosaurs."

  "Or you Tanu," put in the Dreadful Skathe, with a merry guffaw.

  "Thanks be to the Good Goddess that so many of our people were saved from the Flood," old Betularn crowed.

  "You survived because we licked you, White-Hand!" Celadeyr shot back. "You couldn't get your exalted asses off the White Silver Plain fast enough after we whipped you in the Heroic Encounters. Downright disgraceful the way you always skipped out before the post-Game awards. Sore losers!"

  "But live ones." Betularn was smug. "In this year's Combat, you Tanu'll be lucky to field four companies to our forty!"

  "This year's Combat will be different," said Aiken. "Shall we tell them, Sharnie?"

  "Why not, Battlemaster? We're only anticipating the official announcement at the Grand Loving by a couple of days."

  The Hunt slowed and wheeled into a tight circle, coming to a halt in midair. There was a mental and vocal clamor from all of the Firvulag vassals, as well as from Celadeyr, the Craftsmaster, and Lady Armida, who were not privy to Aiken's schemes.

  "It's simple, folks," Aiken said. "Things have changed so much in the Many-Colored Land that the old customs just aren't practical any more. Betularn's right about you Little People outnumbering us ten to one. We couldn't fight the Grand Combat in the old way without getting slaughtered. So I proposed a completely different type of setup to King Sharn and Queen Ayfa a few weeks ago. Not a Grand Combat, but a Grand Tourney—with nonlethal contests and a completely new system of scoring. Hell, the Heroic Encounters of the Combat were already mostly judged on points, not kills, and everybody knows that they were the most exciting part of the Games. What we're going to do is have a complete program of rugged events and skill events. I'm not saying nobody'll get killed. We don't want to turn this into a fewkin' tiddlywinks match, after all! But now the headhunting will become symbolic instead of literal, with the losers paying off the winners in treasure and battle standards."

  "And a brand new trophy," Sharn concluded. "Compliments of us Firvulag. Now that both the Sword and the Spear are gone, we need a new symbol of rivalry. So the best craftsfolk back at High Vrazel ar
e busy making one. A Singing Stone. It's an enormous beryl, tuned to be psychoreactive and carved in the shape of a regal field stool. At the conclusion of the Tourney, it will be programmed to the aura of the winning faction's monarch. Then, for one whole year, the Stone will respond with aethereal music whenever the true High King of the Many-Colored Land is enthroned upon it."

  "Putting the squash on any pretender tushies once and for ad!" Aiken winked at Sharn. Everyone knew that the Firvulag ruler had been using the title illegally ever since the Flood.

  "No more battles to the death?" exclaimed the dismayed Celadeyr.

  "No more beheading?" echoed Betularn. Both veterans were aghast.

  Aluteyn Craftsmaster vouchsafed his contemporaries a sour smile. "Ad good things come to an end. Our Exile is entering a new era—whether we like it or not."

  "But the Gnomish Council hasn't voted on it!" Tetrol Bonecrusher protested. "Old King Yeochee would never have—"

  Ayfa cut off her liegeman. "Our royal brother Yeochee has passed on to Té's peace. We have decided the matter. You'll also be interested to know that this year's Grand Tourney will be held on our own Field of Gold in Nionel, as will subsequent contests—"

  "If you win, Queen Ogress!" Armida interjected.

  Ayfa sailed serenely on. "As will subsequent contests until you Tanu get around to constructing a new tournament ground of your own. Then our two races will take turns hosting the event, no matter who wins."

  "It makes sense," said the Craftsmaster.

  "It stinks!" said Celadeyr.

  "Damn right!" Betularn agreed.

  "It's settled!" Aiken and Sharn shouted together. All of the chalikos reared. From the swamp below came an answering bellow.

  "You see?" The trickster was grinning. "The dragons know that their favorite tidbit has arrived: Me! Shall we descend? You Firvulag who feel like Hunting get your weapons ready and I'll play bait. If the crocs eat me, ad arrangements are off and you can have the fewkin' Nightfall War, for ad I care."

  The chalikos coursed down the wind toward a lagoon bordered with tall taxodium cypresses that was separated from the mainstream of the Laar by a meandering channel. Aiken switched off his golden metaluminescence and the other riders followed suit. Sharn urged his mount to keep pace with that of the human usurper. Unlike the Queen, Sharn was dressed not in a riding suit but in ornate obsidian armor. In place of the heavy battle-helm he wore a light visorless sallet surmounted by three horns. His long dark hair streamed from openings in the skullpiece like smoky plumes. He bore a sword with a clear crystal blade nearly as long as Aiken's body.

  "You have no weapon of your own, Battlemaster," the Firvulag King remarked to the little man.

  "I'll have enough to do on this Hunt, holding you up. In return, you gotta keep the beasts from making a midnight munchy out of Me!"

  Now came the telepathic warning of Culluket, who possessed the strongest farsensing ability in the party:

  Silence all. Something comes channel! Not dragon. Plesiosaur!

  Aaah! exclaimed the Firvulag. The train froze in midair, eerily backlighted by the moon.

  Down in the bayou, something broke water and rose up, up—until it seemed that a sea serpent was cruising swiftly through the inky slot, a V-shaped wake trailing after. And then the back of the plesiosaur became visible in addition to its five-meter neck. It opened its jaws wide to the moon and uttered a plaintive two-note hoot: Ooo-awww.

  In the lagoon ahead, another snakelike neck burst from the depths, throwing sparkling drops of water. It hooted in higher tones and the approaching creature answered and put on speed. Back and forth the monsters called until they finally met. The gleaming necks entwined and the hooting became an earsplitting duet; and then both animals sounded, leaving a mass of oily bubbles and dwindling echoes. The farsighted among the observers saw the gargantuan consummation deep in the water, after which the male floated up to lie on the surface, paddling gently, while the female swam toward a portion of the shore where the cypresses grew wide apart in a semiliquid mass of saturated soil and organic detritus. She hauled her massive body onto the land and wriggled ponderously along, gasping, until she had traveled five or six lengths—perhaps 80 meters. Then she seemed to explode in frenzy, digging with flippers and head and flailing body until she had hollowed out a muddy bowl that gleamed darkly wet from seeping groundwater.

  The eggs! The eggs!

  The exclamations of Queen Ayfa were picked up by the other Firvulag. For the sake of the weaker farsighted, Culluket amplified his own vision until they all saw the great pearly spheroids, twice the size of a human head, being deposited one by one into the warm muck. The female rested for a few moments after the last egg was laid, then began gentle swimming motions that served to tumble the sides of the bowl and bury the clutch securely.

  Out on the water, the male plesiosaur was slowly sinking from view. It uttered one last prolonged hoot and vanished. The female now lay motionless, only her muddy sides heaving.

  Culluket said: Look on the right!

  Aiken said: Two bigbastards! Yoicks!

  He thumped his glass-spurred heels on the shoulders of his chaliko. Golden knight and mount slid down the air and landed with a resounding squelch. The chaliko sank up to its shaggy fetlocks in mud but remained composed. Aiken leaped from its back and burst into halide-bright effulgence. The area beneath the mossy cypresses was lit like midsummer noontide. Creeping through the thin underbrush toward the exhausted female plesiosaur were two enormous crocodilians. Their eyes blazed red and their mouths were slightly open, showing tusks like peeled and sharpened bananas. The head of the larger reptile was more than two meters long.

  Aiken came capering over the surface of the mire like a demented will-o'- the-wisp, emitting vulgar noises. The lead phobosuchus veered toward him while the other halted, nonplussed.

  "What are you spooks waiting for?" Aiken taunted the Firvulag. "Charge, dammit!"

  "May I, High King?" begged Fafnor, couching his lance.

  Sharn nodded. "And you, Medor. Stand by ... and be alert."

  With valiant yells the two spurred their chalikos toward the dancing bright manikin. It seemed they would ride him down, but he leaped and whirled like a burning leaf, dodging easily out of harm's way. Fafnor spitted the nearest crocodile through the middle of its body. It roared and contorted and its powerful tail whipped toward the chaliko, which was saved only when it abruptly rose four meters into the air. Fafnor's lance was left behind in the madly twisting body. The young hero drew his longs word and darted back after the prey, now having to avoid not only the beast's jaws and tad, but also his own lance, which seemed to have an enmity ad its own. Several times it came perilously close to smashing him from the saddle. Medor stood back, helpless. Metapsychic intervention would be an unsporting gaucherie, and Hunt conventions allowed a companion to participate only when the principal was unmounted or disarmed.

  "Don't hack at its tad, dummy!" Aiken cried. "You think you're carving a joint at a banquet? Get its brain! Behind the eye!"

  Fafnor rallied and finally located the critical spot, stabbing his sword down with a mighty two-handed blow. He backed off to safety while the reptile thrashed in mortal agony. Dark blood gushed at last from its jaws and it lay still.

  The entire Hunt sprang brilliantly to life. A rainbow radiance lit the lagoon and both Tanu and Firvulag cheered. Aiken strolled to the dead monster, zapped off one of the projecting tusks by means of his psychoenergy, and handed the trophy to Fafnor. "Nice going, kid."

  By now, the second crocodile had disappeared. But the sporting blood of the Little People had been stimulated at last, and they demanded that Aiken produce fresh quarry.

  "Why not? The night's young!" A smile of studied casualness played about the jester's lips. "Of course, anyone can fight a beast on land. But the real thrill comes when you manage to take one from the air, out over the sea. If you Firvulag were game for a real challenge, we could fly on back to the Strait of Redon and find u
s a bull-plesiosaur. Nonmating ones are always in season. But the usual restriction prevails: no fair using metapsychic force—just your regular weapons. And one further catch! No sloppiness, leaving a wounded beast to swim off and die. If you don't make a clean kill at first cut, you have to go into the water to finish him off."

  There was abrupt stillness. Aiken's satirical eye roved over the faces of his ogrish guests. "What? No volunteers? You Firvulag are supposed to be a lot braver in the water than Tanu. It should be easy for you to polish off a sea monster in its own element. They aren't all that hard to nail. All it takes is a good eye—and nerve."

  "I'm game, if no Foeman dares risk." Old Celadeyr of Afaliah had an unaccustomed gaiety about him.

  "Let me do it, High King!" Betularn begged his sovereign. The other ogres hastily chimed in.

  "No," said Sharn. "The honor will be mine alone, lest our saucy host think us deficient in that quality so prized by Lowlives— nerve."

  "I need to be taught a good lesson," Aiken said. "Let's go!"

  The Flying Hunt soared aloft and westward, toward the strait. The moon was halfway to the zenith. Aiken carried the riders to a considerable altitude, so that they could see the black stretch of the coast and the gleaming water, the lights of Goriah on the horizon, and even the twinkling fires marking the Firvulag encampment far up the curving Laar, adjacent to the Grove of May.

  "Plesiosaurs that stay out to sea on nights like this are apt to be very young or very old," the shining youth explained. "Now, these big old bulls may be past it, but they still know how to fight—believe me! We'll cruise around until Cull spots a really choice specimen for you, Sharnie, and then you can show us a sample of the real Firvulag jisum!"

  Idiot, Ayfa told her husband on the intimate mode.

  He tricked me.

  Of course he did.