King of Swords (The Starfolk) (41 page)

“Yesterday I gave Kornephoros an assignment that he… he could not handle.

“Again he did his best.

“It killed him.

“And that is killing me.”

Rigel was watching Prince Vildiar. So was everybody else as the rapidly brightening light illuminated his monolithic Easter Island features. How sweet the fruits of success must be! Yet he displayed no emotion whatsoever. Rigel could almost admire him at times—the bastard had class.

“I have two things,” the queen mumbled, “to do before I go.

“First, I must right an ancient wrong… as much as it can be righted.”

Oh, no! Rigel braced himself. He wished she was not going to do this. All his life he had stayed in the shadows. Why couldn’t she just leave him there?

“I bore a child,” the queen said. “And then I lost him, through no fault of my own. I have sought him for more than twenty years, neglecting my realm to make redress. I found him at last, and he is a son to be proud of. Honor him, not for my sake, but for what he has already achieved in his few days amongst us. Rigel Halfling.”

Rigel smiled down at Izar’s goggle-eyed amazement. “Stay here.” He pushed his way through the crowd of Kornephoros’s appalled and outraged relatives—to some incredibly remote degree they were all his relatives now too. When he reached the center of the steps, he bowed, Starlands style, to his mother. On Earth he would have removed his helmet, but here he had to conceal his deformed ears.

She smiled and beckoned him closer. “You told me you needed a birth certificate, Son. This is the best I could do.” Just for a moment she showed him a hint of Mira Silvas, but then the pain closed in again, crumpling her face under a crust of antiquity. Alfred handed Rigel a thin tube—a scroll bound with ribbon dangling a wax seal.

Certain that she would not be comforted by lies and hypocrisy, Rigel said only, “Thank you for everything, Mother. You did your best too, and I am proud to be your son. Go in peace.” He bent and kissed her parched cheek. Nothing he could say or do would ease her guilt; the wound was mortal. He withdrew and returned to Izar, watched by the furiously buzzing hive of courtiers. He tucked the scroll into the waistband of his wrap.

Electra leaned back, exhausted. Alfred whispered something. She shook her head and roused herself for a final effort.

“Vildiar Starborn…”

The gangling prince began to move forward.

“… is a murdering monster.”

He stopped.

“Unfit,” she said, “to… live, let alone… rule, so I must lay my… burden on one too… young. Help her, help her, all… of you.”

Talitha was weeping as she went forward to kneel at her greatmother’s feet. The dying queen closed her hands around her own throat, and then held them out to clasp’s Talitha’s neck, passing the Light of Naos to her successor. A rainbow galaxy of stars flamed along Talitha’s shoulders and halfway down her back. When she rose and turned to face the court, she was a figure of fire, clad in starry majesty from her breasts to the tips of her ears.

Rigel forced himself to keep his eyes on Vildiar, looming on the sidelines. The giant had flushed scarlet with rage, and the starfolk around him were easing away from him. But he did not hurl fireballs or thunderbolts. Nor did he summon his private army to seize the throne for him—that was not the starfolk’s way. Instead, he dissembled to invisibility, and then
slipped away as an unremarkable, ordinary elf, lost in the crowd.

Clad in her glory, the Light of Naos, Talitha stepped aside. Electra tried to rise from the throne, but then slumped down, as if all her remaining strength had suddenly deserted her. Alfred and Talitha moved forward to help, but she waved them away, her face twisting in pain. To Rigel’s horrified gaze she seemed to be visibly aging, as if the loss of her aura had breached a dam, and her eighteen centuries were drowning her. Her flesh was melting away, her features were shriveling, her breasts were sagging, and she was clearly in agony.

Izar turned away from the horrible sight. “What’s happening?”

Rigel clasped him to provide what comfort he could, which was nothing. “It is the guilt curse. She blames herself for the regent-heir’s death.”

“But that wasn’t her fault! That was—”

“Sh! Don’t say it.” Certainly Naos Vildiar was the chief villain and ought to be the one paying the price.

And what a price! The old queen should have been granted privacy for her death throes, but she suffered and shriveled and died in full view of the court. The starfolk moaned like wind in a forest, but they watched, helpless and sorrowing, until there was nothing left of Electra except a hint of skin and crumbling bones, and then even those shriveled away into nothing. Her empty wrap slid to the floor, and Alfred hastily removed it.

Talitha stepped forward and dismissed the court.

I
could use a swim,” Rigel said. What he really needed was time—time to think, time to dig himself out from under an avalanche of confusing emotions. He could not pretend to mourn his mother as a son should, for he had barely known her, but he could mourn his friend Mira and honor the queen who had abandoned a kingdom to spend a generation seeking her lost child.

Courtiers were surging forward to engulf Talitha in waves of comfort or congratulations. Nobody was going near the royal halfling monstrosity, which was a blessing, although now a squad of sphinxes was heading in his direction, which was another. Vildiar and his goons were still at large, and probably even more dangerous than before, now that their perfidy was being dragged out into the open.

“I want my Mom!” Izar said in a very small voice, which showed that the cummulative stress of the last two days was finally shaking even his incredible nerve. It was time for the starling’s babysitter to attend to his duties.

“She’s going to be very busy for a while, great and noble Izar. The kindest thing you and I can do now is to stay out of her way and let her get on with her business.”

And if Queen Talitha could have little time to spare for her son over the next few weeks, she would have none at all to break in a lover. A young princess might accept a halfling paramour, but a new queen—particularly a queen who was bizarrely young by the standards of the Starlands—could not dare to flout the ways of her people so drastically. Vildiar was not the only one who had suddenly been exposed to the glare of unwelcome publicity. Talitha would have to send Rigel away. Not only was their romance dead in the bud, but even to retain him as Izar’s bodyguard would probably keep the tongues wagging.

“I know a great secret place where we can get a swim without being disturbed.”

“Swim?” Izar squeaked. “Stars! My mom’s queen!”

“Does that stop you from swimming? Will you sink? Here’s Praecipua now.”

And with him came his assistants, Kalb and Adhafera, and yet another, Sphinx Algenubi, whom Rigel hadn’t met before. None of them seemed happy about the recent turn of events.

“Commander Zozma,” Praecipua announced, “has sent us to escort you to a safe place. Queen Talitha will join you there as soon as she can.”

“That
soon
won’t be
very
soon,” Rigel said. “We’ll have ample time to visit the royal archives, so that Izar Starling can replace the amulets that were stolen from him.”

“Halfling, you are in more danger than he is,” the sphinx declared in the heavy, plodding tones of Authority Being Patient. “Several of the Vildiar assassins have been seen around the palace. Thank the stars that halflings cannot dissemble!
We are keeping everyone other than starfolk away from Her Majesty, but we must get you and the imp to safety immediately.” His tail swished.

“There is nowhere safer than Miaplacidus, especially if you and your gallant band are guarding the entrance.”

“Only the royal archivist can let you in.”

“I have no doubt that he will be there,” Rigel said. “Let’s go and see.”

Izar had brightened at the prospect of acquiring interesting new amulets, and was even more excited to be escorted by the Starlands equivalent of a SWAT team, which could plow through even the densest mob in the still-crowded palace.
Four
sphinxes, he confided to Rigel, were the next best thing to a royal guard, which was eight. Rigel told him that he was an important person now. In truth he was merely a vulnerable one, worth a kingdom’s ransom.

When they reached the archive room, the portal to Miaplacidus was already open. Kalb went through and Anubis called the tally, “Two!” and then, “One!” as she returned.

“Halfling Wasat is there,” she said suspiciously, wondering what Rigel knew that she did not.

“He’s entitled to be. Izar and I shan’t be long.”

Frowning, the sphinxes crouched down to wait for their charges to return.

Izar had never visited Miaplacidus before, and the Anubis statue had to repeat, “Three… Two… Three…” several times before he tired of the game. Wasat was sitting outside the first enclosure, at a table that had been strategically placed so that the bench on his side was warmed by sunlight and the other was in the shadow of a palm tree. He had no books or other visible reason to be there, so he must have anticipated this meeting, just as Rigel had guessed.

“I must speak to that old man,” he told Izar. “Your mom says this is a great place to swim, so you start and I’ll join you. Then we can choose your amulets.”

“Don’t be long, then.” Izar raced off over the sand. Rigel walked over to the table and sat across from the archivist, dropping his scroll on the table between them.

“I would like to leave this here for safekeeping.”

Wasat’s robe was dusty and rumpled, and wisps of white hair had escaped from under his head cloth. His watery eyes were red-rimmed. “You haven’t opened it,” he mumbled.

“I think I know what it says, Dad.”

The archivist cringed. “She told me that she hadn’t told you.”

“She didn’t. It would endanger you if the starfolk knew you had seduced their queen, wouldn’t it?”

“Seduced? Me?”

Wasat timidly reached for the scroll, but Rigel caught the gnarled hand in both of his own. “You’re not denying it?”

“No. It’s the shock, that’s all. First she comes back, and then this—Son.” He wiped his eyes on his free sleeve.

“Then tell me all about it, please. How did a halfling become capable of siring a child, anyway? Magic?” Rigel released his father’s hand.

“No, no. It happens. Our womenfolk never bear, but the males can be fathers, very rarely.” Wasat smiled at last, shyly and uncertainly, exposing teeth worn down almost to the gums. “I’ve found two or three cases mentioned in the archives, but everyone ‘knows’ that halflings are mules, so most times the evidence is ignored. If a starborn has had more than one lover, she will twist the calendar to find a more credible explanation. If she hasn’t, everyone else assumes she did, and she certainly doesn’t argue. Miscegenation is always hushed up. Often the baby is disposed of—the guilt curse doesn’t
apply to killing halflings, you know. Electra refused to even consider that solution. When you made your presence known, you were a shock and a potential scandal. Your existence would have to be kept secret, but you had every right to live, she said, and she was delighted to discover that we were going to have a child.” He looked up at his son with wonder. “How did you know?”

Rigel had been studying the old man’s features, trying to find some trace of his own in them. The mouth, maybe. He turned to look at Izar, but the imp was happily whirling around the pond like an apprentice speedboat.

“Something the Pythia told me… But I suspected earlier. When I came here with Talitha, you already knew that I was going to be Izar’s bodyguard. You showered the finest amulets in the royal collection on me and brushed off any talk of releases or warrants. You had all the authority you needed—a direct order from the queen! Mira had overheard the news about my appointment in the Gazebo, and when we arrived in Canopus she must have slipped away from… No?”

“No.” Wasat showed his shy smile again. “She came to see me the previous night, through the Dziban root portal. ‘I found him!’ she said. ‘He’s here, in the Starlands! And he’s a credit to you, old man, a great boy.’” He wiped his eyes again.

“Four!”

Praecipua came trotting across the sand. He scowled at the sight of Izar playing in the water and Rigel gabbing with Wasat. “Halfling, we must go.”

“Later.” Before the sphinx could argue, Rigel said, “This morning I heard Prince Vildiar telling Hadar to move the entire Family to somewhere called Zubenelgenubi. I assume it’s in Phegda domain. Halfling Graffias must know more about
it. Her Majesty would probably authorize a raid if you asked nicely.”

“Zubenelgenubi? Why didn’t you say so sooner? Get the amulets you need and leave!” Praecipua wheeled around and raced back toward the portal. He would be lucky to find as much as a stale crust at Zubenelgenubi, but at least it would keep him occupied.

“Three!”

“So, tell me the story, Dad. Where were you born?”

The old man smiled wistfully. “Somewhere in Eastern Europe. My mother was a beautiful dairymaid. Dairymaids were always the prettiest, because they caught cowpox, which gave them immunity to smallpox, so they escaped the scarring so many others had. My father was some unscrupulous, dissembling elf. He must have worn a charm amulet, because to the end of her days she was convinced he had been the local prince. When I was born, the priest ruled that I was the spawn of an incubus, and the bishop’s court ordered me to be put to death. That was what happened in those days. Centuries later, my story helped persuade Electra to ban extroverting. I was lucky, though, because King Procyon had a squad of mages who watched the Pope’s mailbag for such cases. They got to me in time, and introverted me and my mother. They found her a husband and lodged her in the slave barns, but she had a happier life there than she would have in the midst of all those human wars. Seven sons and six daughters!” He sighed, smiling at visions of the distant past.

“When was this?”

“I was born around 1520. I’m getting old for a halfling. When I grew up, I applied for status. That was the year Electra succeeded Procyon. Being a wild-stock cross, I was brighter than domestic halflings, so I had been given an education.
Electra sponsored me herself and found me a job in the palace records office.”