King of Swords (The Starfolk) (11 page)

Aha!
“If a friend of mine wants to travel back to Earth, how can she?”

“You don’t
travel
to and from Earth. You
extrovert
there. That’s unless you just want to seance, of course.” Elnath twisted a tuft of long weeds with a big hand, ripped them out of the ground, and tucked them in his cavernous mouth, roots and all.

“Please would you explain the difference?” Rigel Estell really had gone crazy; he was asking a bull for instructions.

“If you want to really
be
there,” the Minotaur said, patiently chewing, “and
do
things, then you
extrovert
to Earth. You
introvert
back here again. Think of a dimensional matrix transformation of the space-time continuum with conservation of supersymmetry.”

“I’m sure I can’t. I’m not educated. All I know is what I read in books people had thrown away.”

“Lucky you. Our culture is entirely verbal. We’re too hypermetropic to read.”

“I’ve read about imaginary numbers,” Rigel said. “They lie along an axis at right angles to real numbers.”

“You’ve got it, then. But even a high-rank mage—red or even Naos grade—won’t attempt introversion or extroversion without a staff, and Queen Electra made all reversion illegal a few centuries ago. She’s been confiscating every staff she can get her royal hoofs on.”

“And seancing is… what? Just looking?”

Elnath nodded his monstrous head, then stroked it with a thorny branch he tore off a shrub. “Elves like to think they’re ever so frightfully artistic and creative,” he said, crunching noisily, “but you’ll notice that the stuff they imagine is mostly plagiarism, copied from Earth. Seancing is legal because the
starfolk who do it can’t be seen, heard, or touched. All they can do is mooch around, spying and stealing ideas.”

“You are being amazingly helpful. Now tell me why extroversion is illegal.”

The massive bull-man sniggered like a child. “Starfolk like to think they’re above all that messy animal sex stuff, but they aren’t, and the males like to play around with the livestock, usually the girls. They’re not very fertile at the best of times, even with their own kind, but once in a while they make a
mestizo
, er, halfling. They don’t admit it, but halflings scare them. Some of you have low-grade magic, even up to blue, and you’re not bound by the guilt curse. You make useful servants, because they’ve bred all the smart out of their mudlings, but you’re also scary. So making a halfling is a serious offense. If the father can somehow get hold of a reversion staff, he’ll take the baby to Earth and switch it for an earthling one, bringing the human baby back to keep the woman happy. Gets new blood into the servant herds, too.”

Changelings! “I’d heard the old myths, just didn’t think it was still going on. You’re being more helpful than anyone I’ve spoken to yet, Minotaur. Are we halflings always made in the slave barns, or do the male starborn ever extrovert so that they can seduce human—I mean earthling—women?”

The Minotaur changed eyes again. “It’s not common nowadays, since Electra made it illegal, but yes, horny elves used to extrovert to play with the wild stock all the time.”

“So they can disguise themselves as human?”

“Dissemble, you mean. The higher grades can dissemble as earthlings, but dissembling’s about the only magic that can’t be done with an amulet. They have to consciously think about it
all the time
. The moment they let themselves get distracted, every earthling in sight starts screaming. That didn’t matter
much when the earthlings would decide they were devils and burn them at the stake, but nowadays they’d run forensic analysis and autopsies. Electra didn’t want that to happen. It’s one of the reasons she banned extroversion.”

Rigel rose onto his knees to peer over the bushes at the grandstand, but nobody was there yet. Saiph tingled. He looked around hastily, but Elnath was apparently just reaching for a juicy clump of weeds near Rigel’s ankle. He pulled them up and tucked them into his mouth.

“Must be about time for me to get back to the pen,” Elnath grunted. “Don’t want them to see us talking, right?”

“Right.” Why not?

The monster thumped a fist on his enormous hairy chest. “My heart’s about here.”

Rigel drew a deep breath. “You truly want me to do this?”

“Haven’t I been saying so?”

“Does the Minotaur always lose?”

“Of course. The hero must win.”

“Then how did you acquire all those scars?” Rigel pointed at thin white lines visible under the black pelt.

The Minotaur shrugged and chewed. “Almost always, then. Don’t worry about highly improbable exceptions.”

Truth in the Starlands was malleable.

“Saiph never loses.”

The Minotaur cocked his great head to look down at Rigel’s bracelet. “Truly? The
real
Saiph?”

“Truly. And it’s not just your scars. I’m also a little doubtful about your sons story. How many did you say you have?”

The Minotaur sighed. “None. I was simplifying. I’ve taken out a couple of the weedy elves in my time, so Muphrid promised me that if I won a third time, he’d put me out to stud with the minoheifers. Not that I believe him, really. I just
didn’t want to worry you. You’ll fight better if you have a good positive attitude.”

Rigel grinned. Elnath flicked his ears, which might be the bull equivalent.

“Do draws count?” Rigel asked. “Look, I’ll leave it up to you. I won’t even use the cloak. I swear I won’t seriously injure you as long as you just play with me, faking charges and so on. When you want to die, try to kill me for real. Saiph will see you out.”

The Minotaur’s bovine mouth opened in an enormous yawn, and his massive human arms stretched up into the air. “That’s great news, though. Saiph! They must be really scared of me to send in Saiph! Come to think of it, it’s been quite a while since they sent up their last hero. I’ll get my name on Saiph?
Stars!
Thanks, Rigel Halfling. May the best being win.” He held out a hand twice the size of Rigel’s.

Rigel clasped it, forewarned by a slight quiver from his bracelet. He watched as the great muscle bulged in that furry forearm. Fortunately Rigel’s sword hand was now clad in a steel gauntlet, so his knuckles didn’t crumble under the pressure. The monster released him with a grunt, then chuckled. “Even if it isn’t the genuine Saiph, it’s a good one.”

Rigel grinned. “So are you, Elnath Minotaur. Nice try.” And no hard feelings, thanks to the amulet.

“Good luck, Halfling Rigel. If you do get that assassin job, kill lots of stinky elves for me.” With that, the Minotaur flowed away into the brush, vanishing with amazing agility for such a massive being.

R
igel rose, wondering if he still had time for breakfast, but before he reached the grandstand, the portal opened to admit a string of starfolk guests, including some new faces. Green-haired Muphrid had a simpering Nashira on his arm, although she was not the partner he’d carried off from the banquet the previous evening, and Alniyat had dropped Gacrux in favor of the one called Icalurus. Behind the adults came the imps, twittering like overexcited birds, and Senator, now dressed in khakis and a bush hat, looking like a clean-shaven Ernest Hemingway on safari. More servants arrived with refreshments.

Rigel stood on the grass below the stand, feeling like a gladiator in a Hollywood toga turkey. Muphrid sat front and center, of course, in the emperor’s place. There had been no mention of a thumbs-up signal to spare the Minotaur’s life if he fought well.

“There it is!”
At the imp’s squeal, all eyes turned to the arch at the top of the slope, where the Minotaur now stood in silhouette with a hand on either pillar, like Samson, looking even bigger than he really was, which was plenty big. Was this
contest being staged to test Rigel’s nerve, as both he and the Minotaur had assumed? Or was it to test whether Rigel’s amulet was the genuine Saiph? The match might not be the sure thing he had been told to expect.

“Oh… Halfling…,” said Muphrid. “You’ll need this.” He bent to fumble at his feet, and came up holding a roll of scarlet cloth, which he tossed down. “Stars be with you. Give us a good fight, not too quick.”

Rigel bowed, spreading his arms in starfolk fashion, then turned and trotted up the slope. The bundle was tied around with a red ribbon in a rather complicated knot, which he suspected might be designed to make sure he didn’t unroll the pain-dispensing cloak while he was still close to the spectators. He left it tied, and when he was about three quarters of the way to the Minotaur, he stopped and put his hands on his hips.

“Hey, pot roast!” he yelled. He heard shrill screams of laughter behind him, too loud to be only the imps. “Come on down here, you overgrown cutlet.” The Minotaur just stood there, not reacting. “Come and fight me. You’re no bull, just an ox.” The laughter was thinner this time, as if the adult starfolk were pretending not to understand the reference.

When he ran out of insults, Rigel shrugged his shoulders, turned his back, and walked away.

The crowd started screaming warnings, which he ignored as if he did not hear them. He guessed that the Minotaur could move much faster than he could. He also knew enough to trust dear Elnath much less far than he could throw him, which would be about five nanometers. No doubt the Minotaur would keep to their bargain as long as the temptation to cheat was not too strong, but right now the temptation must
look close to irresistible. Rigel had Saiph to warn him, and also shadows, for he was moving away from the morning sun.

Led by Izar, the imps leaped to their feet, screaming at the top of their lungs. Rigel stopped and cupped a hand—his left hand—behind his petite human ear as if he couldn’t make out what they were telling him. They shrieked all the louder. “
The Minotaur’s coming. The Minotaur’s coming!
”

Had it not been for Saiph, Elnath’s attack would have succeeded. No second shadow came rushing over Rigel’s own to warn him that the Minotaur was charging him from behind. Instead his bracelet yanked his hand aside so hard that he lurched out of the way as a rock the size of a baseball whistled through the space his head had occupied a millisecond before. He spun around to find his opponent almost upon him, wielding a great broken tree branch as a club. Rigel had not expected the enormous Elnath to move so silently, but now he knew what the brute had been doing as he skulked in the bushes prior to the match. No dumb ox, he. How many more missiles and weapons had he hidden away?

Rigel leaped aside and the blow missed.

The watchers in the stand screamed their approval.

The Minotaur slithered to a halt, spun around, and charged again. This time Rigel invoked Saiph so that he could slash at the tree branch, cutting it through while his opponent hurtled by.

More yells of approval from the audience.

Rigel dismissed his sword and started ambling down the slope again. He began to fiddle with the tie on the red cloak bundle, as if he was having trouble with the knot, pretending to ignore the Minotaur. Meanwhile, the Minotaur raced around him to get to the floor of the hollow first and intercept him.

The game had changed. Now Elnath was stalking his prey, great arms outstretched. Rigel dodged around bushes, all the time angling downhill, while pretending to concentrate on untying the red cloak. It was pure playacting, because Saiph stayed out and if the giant had really wanted to win, he could have stormed through the shrubbery like a tank. Rigel expected this mummery to deceive the starlings and amuse the adult starfolk, but even they seemed to be taken in, judging by their alternating cheers and screams of warning.

It would be nice to free the red cloak right in front of the grandstand and throw the audience into paroxysms of agony, but Rigel did not know if the magic would work that way, and had not suggested it to Elnath. Their choreography did not develop in that direction.

Instead, Saiph suddenly quivered and flashed into view. The Minotaur hurtled by, closer than before. “Blood me, you fool!” he said as he went by. Then he pivoted and grabbed at Rigel.

Rigel swung at him, striking his shoulder with the flat of his blade, but giving it enough of a twist to cut the skin. Elnath bellowed in terrible tsunamis of sound, clutching his wound and probably forcing it open to make it bleed more.

First blood! The starfolk screamed and cheered.

Elnath made another pass and Rigel slashed his other shoulder, this time a little deeper than he’d intended. It was still playacting, though, because Saiph was letting him dictate the strokes, so he couldn’t be in any real danger. Now the Minotaur was seemingly crippled and unable to use his arms… but Rigel knew better than to believe it. Elnath lowered his head and charged, bull-like.

Rigel stepped aside and blooded him some more, much as he hated to do it. He wanted this farce to end as soon as possible, but however it did end, there had to be blood—and lots
of it. It suited both his purposes and Elnath’s to make this a show that the starfolk would remember for years to come. However much he liked Elnath, Rigel had no illusions about the Minotaur’s intentions. If the Minotaur could outwit Saiph, he would kill the halfling and hope to be retired to stud. Again and again he charged, flashing his deadly curved horns, while Rigel leaped aside and whacked him, rarely drawing blood, and then only superficially.

Why didn’t the idiot just run away, back to his pen, and call it a draw?

Finally the Minotaur made his move. As was to be expected of a wily and experienced duelist, he launched a complex attack. He first maneuvered Rigel against a thicket of thorns to impede his freedom of movement, and then charged with his head lower than usual to conceal his other ploys, moving much faster than previously. His left arm, miraculously restored to power, hurled a rock; his right, similarly rejuvenated, threw a handful of dirt at Rigel’s eyes; and his horned head dipped low enough to disembowel the insolent halfling and toss him across the arena.

Alas, while Rigel Halfling was a merely a promising minstrel—and then only by earthling standards—Saiph was an ancestral defensive amulet. It caused its wearer to leap aside with superhuman agility and plunge his blade like a silver lightning stroke into the base of the Minotaur’s neck and down through his aorta and other major organs.