King of Swords (The Starfolk) (40 page)

Graffias did not repeat what Hadar had said about him—that he had heaved his guts out at the scene of the massacre—but by the time he finished the story, he was weeping. He was either a very good actor or a very poor terrorist.

“Frankly, I wish it had killed all of you,” Talitha said. “His Highness could not have been pleased.”

“Hadar made Botein tell V herself,” Graffias said. “I wasn’t there, thank the stars. And right after that came the news that Halfling Rigel had taken out Tarf, Adhil, and Muscida at Canopus.”

The world lurched. Izar’s driving lessons had begun in earnest, and he was at the helm. Rigel tightened his grip on Talitha, for the carriage had no sides to prevent passengers from falling out, although that might be a more pleasant death than whatever Hadar was undoubtedly planning for him. The carriage tilted nose-down and then nose-up.

Then it dropped like a cliff diver.

“That’s enough driving for today!” Talitha shouted. “I don’t want any more funerals, thank you!” The descent slowed and stopped just above tree height. She continued talking as if nothing had happened. “And now Rigel has rescued my son and helped you defect.”

“And killed Hassaleh,” Graffias agreed. “You must be very careful in the future, halfling! The Family has very rarely been bested in anything, and will avenge its own. Just because V let you go today doesn’t mean that you’ve been forgiven.”

“I never dreamed that it did,” Rigel said. “And I don’t believe that he’s going to leave Botein, Sadalbari, and Benetnash locked up in Giauzar to starve to death, either.”

Graffias looked blank. “You don’t? But we heard him tell—”

“We were meant to hear him tell Hadar all that. They knew we were inside that door the whole time.”

Talitha pulled a face. “Tell us about the Family.”

If she was planning to bring all of Graffias’s evidence to light that day—presumably right after the funeral, while the court was still packed with mourners—anything might happen. Rigel decided that he was giddy with fatigue and needed to catch some sleep if he hoped to guard Izar during the coming riot or revolution. He was not at all interested in Graffias’s description of the prince’s nursery at Unukalhai, with its regular output of halfling babies. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

C
heleb landed the carriage in a relatively small courtyard in the palace, one that Rigel had not seen the previous day. He jumped down to offer a hand to Talitha, and by that time sphinxes and starborn were already closing in around them. Izar had moved very close to Rigel, practically leaning on him. Commander Zozma bounded in from a side alley and pushed his way to the front of the throng.

He bowed. “Welcome back, Your Highness. And your noble son is a very welcome sight as well.” He bowed to Izar, who grinned delightedly at this homage. His ears seemed to sprout even longer.

“He is indeed,” Talitha said. “And this, as you can see, is Halfling Graffias. He is going to give—”

“Her Majesty wishes to see you urgently, Your Highness.”

Talitha frowned. “This is urgent too. Graffias is a very valuable and willing witness. See that he is treated with respect, decently clad, and, if time permits, fed. And above all, make sure that he is well guarded! Cheleb, dear, will you also keep an eye on him, please?”

A lobster’s smile could not be thinner-lipped than the mage’s. “I would do so even if you did not ask me, my lady. I do hate the smell of fried sphinx.”

“Thank you. Commander, see that Izar and Rigel are guarded also. Now escort me to the queen.”

Zozma started barking orders.

“I hope you’re hungry, Izar Imp,” Rigel said. “Because I could eat a cat.”

“Don’t push your luck, halfling,” said a familiar voice from behind him.

Rigel turned. “My luck is unbeatable at the moment, Sphinx Praecipua. It carries all before it. How are Rasalas and Alterf?”

“On the mend. We all feel rather inadequate since you came on the scene. And you, imp—congratulations on your adventure. You have an incredible bodyguard.”

“He’s not bad,” Izar conceded, his grin almost as wide as it usually was.

“If you are really hungry, I can catch a harpy for you, but you’ll have to eat it quickly. Come along.”

Praecipua set off at a lope, with Rigel and Izar running behind him and Sphinxes Kalb and Adhafera bringing up the rear. In moments Rigel and his ward were seated cross-legged on mats in front of a low table, gobbling food that was definitely not raw harpy. The three sphinxes crouched around them, listening intently while Izar recounted his kidnapping and rescue, speaking and eating at the same time and at the same frantic pace. Just as halflings were a seemingly random collection of elfin and human features, so Izar was a curious hybrid of child and adult. Despite his looks, he had almost as much life experience as Rigel did. He babbled out his story in far more detail than Rigel would have considered necessary or even proper, for he was not addressing a formal investigation,
just three nosey palace cops. And yet when Kalb Sphinx asked him where he had gotten the Turais amulet, he avoided her question as slickly as any crooked ward boss stonewalling a grand jury. It took Rigel a minute or two to realize what he had done, and that it had not been an accident.

Somewhere a drum began to beat, and the sphinxes instantly jumped to their paws.

“Fill both hands, imp,” Kalb said. “Eat on the way. You are needed at the funeral.”

Izar contented himself with carrying off a stuffed papaya in each hand. “I don’t like funerals,” he told Rigel sulkily as they walked along.

“How many have you been to?”

“Three. All killed by Vildiar.”

“I
really
don’t think you should say that here. I have never been to a funeral in the Starlands, so tell me what happens.”

The ceremony was held in the Great Court where Rigel had almost died the previous day, but what happened was not what Izar remembered and tried to describe, because this time he was family. He was herded about by flustered starfolk wearing a variety of dazzling collars, who repeatedly tried to send Rigel away. Others ordered the imp to “
Get rid of that food
,” but were no more successful—Izar just smiled mushily at them until they turned away in revulsion. Eventually the deceased’s grandson was inserted into his proper place within the various family groups arrayed on the wide steps before the throne. In nine hundred years a man could produce a sizable tribe of descendants, all of whom were displayed on the right in order of descent. Having died young, Kornephoros was also survived
by many ancestors, and they stood on the left. In all, there must have been two hundred family members on display, and that excluded anyone more than seven generations removed, because there were only seven steps. All others had to stand with the rabble on the floor.

As the only halfling present, Rigel was the target of innumerable furious glares. Talitha was not yet in sight, but when she arrived, she would join Kornephoros’s half a dozen other sons and daughters on the top step, one up from Izar. Prince Vildiar was down in the body of the court, towering over everyone, the only Naos royalty present. There would have been numerous others if he had not contrived their absence—did he sense their ghosts?

Despite its size, the great courtyard was packed with starfolk, sphinxes, halflings, humans, centaurs, cyclops, and some miscellaneous species too far away for Rigel to identify. They had come to mourn the starborn who had ruled them for the last generation, and to catch a glimpse of their revenant Queen Electra. There was something odd and muted about the light, as if the sun itself was mourning.

The sphinxes officiously herded mourners out of a center aisle that included the black Star of Truth and the catafalque beyond it, where the deceased lay in a plain wooden casket. Although the queen had said that the heir’s golden collar of office would stay with him until his pyre was lit, Rigel could not see it on display. He wondered uneasily if Electra might change her mind and present the heir’s insignia to Talitha instead. That would surely be a spider kiss, unless the queen was prepared to denounce Vildiar and somehow lock him up in the Dark Cells. And if Vildiar was not chosen, Talitha was the only possible alternative. Damnation! She certainly did not want that honor, and Rigel did not want it for her.

What was going on with the light?
The day seemed to be dimming without consideration for the early hour. Rigel raised a foot and flexed his toes to let the sun shine through them. As he had guessed, the image of the sun was distorted. He bent down to speak in Izar’s ear.

“Do
not
look at the sun, but there’s going to be an eclipse.”

“Of course there is.”

End of conversation.

The crowd rumbled constantly, as restless as the ocean. Starfolk were not used to being kept waiting, to being bored, to enduring distasteful realities like funerals. The old should just fade away gracefully. Now the light was definitely fading, and it was past time for the ceremony to begin. What was taking so long?

At last silver trumpets screamed their fanfare, quenching all other noise. Out from behind the great carved throne came—Talitha! She walked over to join her numerous half brothers and half sisters, all of them centuries older than she, and none of them Naos. She was bent and huddled like a waif caught in an Arctic storm, as if she bore a world of trouble on her shoulders. Her eyes sought out Rigel’s bronze helmet, and the look she gave him was heavy with horror. Something terrible had happened, he had no doubt, but although she was just one step away from him, he could not go to her.

“What’s wrong with Mom?” Izar muttered, provoking angry shushing noises from the geriatric beauties who surrounded him.

Rigel put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry!” He would do the worrying for both of them, and it would do them no good at all.

The sun had slimmed down to a crescent when the queen emerged from behind the throne, leaning heavily on the arm of her human secretary, Alfred.

“What’s wrong with HER?”
Izar demanded. Fortunately his shout was lost in a universal cry of dismay.

Izar had never seen Queen Electra before. Nor had he ever seen an old starborn. Nobody ever saw an old starborn. Electra had aged several centuries overnight. Even in the near darkness her starry aura had faded and shrunk to a faint glow around her neck, and her opalescent hair had lost its sheen. Shuffling unsteadily, peering around as if she were almost blind, she let Alfred guide her to the throne. He stepped aside but did not go very far. He was clearly aghast at what had happened, but somehow that made him look younger, not older.

According to the Izar’s program, there would now be “a lot of
schmoory
singing” but that didn’t happen. Electra cut straight to the end of the program.

“My people,” she said. In fact she managed only a hoarse whisper, but the magical acoustics carried the words throughout the vast courtyard. “My friends.” She needed a rest then, to catch a bubbling breath.

After a lifetime of searching, Rigel Estell had found his mother last night. He was about to lose her again, this time forever.

“I killed Kornephoros,” the queen said. She waited out the hubbub, and then began again, growing a little stronger, but still halting every few words to catch her breath. “I should never have made him my heir. He did not want it, and that was his greatest virtue in my eyes. Others were too old, too young, too lazy, or too greedy for the title. He had no spark, no soul, but I knew young Korny would do his best…

“Let that be his epitaph, that he did his best.”

She nodded to a group of court officials—Rigel had already spotted old Wasat among them—and more signals were passed. A reverberating drum roll filled the court, and the crowd near the center hurriedly pushed away from the bier. The thunder grew louder and louder.

The light dimmed until the last speck of sun winked out. In rushed the dark and a startling, skin-puckering coldness. A corona of milky shards blazed up around the jet-black moon and then the stars came: billions of them, more and more crowding in with every second, more than Rigel had ever seen or imagined, blazing galaxies and constellations filling the sky. Surely all of the multitudes of heaven had gathered above the court to honor one of their own, Kornephoros.

Here below, wisps of whitish smoke trickled from the catafalque, followed by tongues of flame—first red, then white, and finally an unbearable violet—until in one great rush of brilliance, one column of glory, Kornephoros was gone. A cloud of multicolored sparks sped away into the starry heavens. Then a hairline of brilliance announced the return of daylight, and the stars departed, taking the soul of Kornephoros with them.

Rigel released a long breath and looked at the tear-stained faces that surrounded him.
That
had been some send-off! Not even a speck of ash remained on the paving where the bier had stood. According to custom, the queen should have left then and the congregation dispersed, or so Izar the prophet had told him, but Electra was far from finished.

“Yesterday…