King of Swords (The Starfolk) (6 page)

“What amulet?”

“That bracelet!”

“I do not know, sir. I would
love
to know!”

“Then you will come with me.”

Oh, yes! Anywhere but here!
“I am at your lordship’s command,” Rigel said giddily. “And my friend must accompany us.”

The alien curled his lip at Mira like something that had crawled out of a landfill. “What is she? Your servant? Your concubine?”

More police sirens were shrieking all around them. Every badge on the Island was going to be pouring in there in a few minutes, waving guns and bullhorns.

“Ms. Silvas is a friend, who saved my life just yesterday.”

“She’s an earthling!”

Earthling or not, Mira must not be left behind for the police to torment—not after all she’d done for him.

“She knows too much. She comes or I stay.”

Fomalhaut shrugged his inhumanly narrow shoulders. “You are hardly in a position to dictate terms, Halfling Rigel, but your analysis is plausible. Very well. Grip this!” He held out his curiously banded staff.

Rigel shrugged. Both he and Mira took hold of it. The world around him vanished in a flash of darkness and bitter cold. For a moment there was an agonizing wrenching and twisting sensation, but it was gone before Rigel could even scream.

Then the world started up again.

The three of them were standing in a grassy, sunlit meadow, just a few meters from the edge of a small lake. On the far side of the lake, waterfalls sprayed down mossy cliffs, and a couple
of stringy, golden-skinned youths had just leaped off in parallel dives. A dozen or so similar looking youngsters of both sexes were romping around in the water itself amid a welter of foam and high-pitched laughter, and the entire scene was framed in trees, flowers, songbirds, and boughs laden with multicolored fruit. The air was perfumed, and exactly the right temperature. It all looked like a travel poster for some tropical paradise, but the kids in the water all had high, pointed ears like bats’.

“Where is this?” Mira cried. “Where are we?”

Rigel sighed with an almost unbearable joy. “I don’t know where you are,” he said, “but I think I just came home.”

T
heir arrival had been noticed. One of the bathers shot up out of the water like a dolphin. Instead of falling back, he began running over the surface toward the visitors.

Rigel’s mind instinctively rejected the image. He looked away, but the scenery seemed as far-fetched and unrealistic as a child’s drawing. The grass was too long for a lawn and too short for pasture; the ground was uneven, but the hollows and hummocks were oddly regular; and the deep blue of the sky didn’t fade to a paler shade near the horizon. No obvious path or road led out of the clearing. The only building in sight was a freestanding doorway just a few meters away—two pillars, a threshold, and lintel, all made of marble, framing a grandiose double door of white enamel and gold trim. None of your suburban glue-and-sawdust, hollow-core trash here! He resisted the temptation to go around it to see what was on the other side.

“My gun!” Mira cried. “What did you do with my Smith and Wesson?”

“It remained behind,” Fomalhaut said, “like your watch.”

She howled in outrage, staring at her wrist. “That was a genuine Rolex Perpetual!”

“Doesn’t matter. Machinery cannot be introverted.”

“Welcome, welcome!” shouted the boy running over the water. His name, quite obviously, was Muphrid, although Rigel had no idea how he knew that. He was as tall as Fomalhaut, with the same large bat ears and iridescent loincloth. The major difference was that his hair was grass green. His playmates were following in a more orthodox fashion, arms flailing, moving like Olympic champions.

“My God!” Mira said. “They’re
elves
!”

“Watch your mouth, earthling!” Fomalhaut barked. “Use that word here and you will regret it dearly.”

“If you’re not elves, then what in hell are you?”

“We are the starborn, the starfolk, and impudent earthlings get soundly flogged here.”

“And just where is ‘here,’ your lordship?” Rigel asked.
I’ve a feeling we’re not in Canada anymore, Toto.

“We are in the Starlands, the realm of Queen Electra.”

That told him nothing much.

Mira uttered a strangled yell and screamed, “You did this!” She was accusing Rigel, not Fomalhaut, which was ironic because Rigel had suspected her of causing the riot in the Walmart.

“Steady!” he said, putting an arm around her—his left arm, not his magic-bracelet arm. “Wherever we are, let’s wait and see what happens before we panic, okay?”

She was trembling violently, wide-eyed and chalky pale, looking ready to faint. He could not doubt her terror, but though he understood it, he did not share it. In a sense he had been waiting and hoping for something like this all his life; it was a childhood dream come true.

Muphrid trotted ashore and bowed low to Fomalhaut, sweeping his arms out to the sides in an expansive gesture as if he were about to leap off a diving board. When he straightened up, his huge smile displayed white teeth with far too many sharp points. He was puffing, every rib visible and working hard. “Welcome to Alrisha, my lord! You do my home great honor.”

His eyes shone greener than emeralds, the same lucent color as his hair. That fitted—Fomalhaut had gold hair and gold eyes, Rigel’s were both white, and why shouldn’t a person’s hair and eyes match? It was a tidy idea. Elfin eyes were slightly slanted, their chins were more pointed than normal in human males, and body fat was definitely
out.
So was body hair, and the growth on their scalps looked like flat-lying fur.

“Such is not my intention.”

Muphrid gulped and seemed to shrink. He clasped his hands together under his chin, elbows together, and his ears went flat. His friends, who were just starting to wade ashore, stopped dead at the sight.

“I have displeased my lord?”

“Prince Vildiar is enraged by your territorial rapacity in annexing Starborn Dubhe’s Moon Garden.”

“But she never uses it!” Muphrid wailed. “Not once in the last fifty years. Parts of it were being forgotten!”

“Nevertheless, such larceny is reprehensible, and Dubhe has influential connections. His Highness is considering denouncing you to the regent, and you know how
he
will react to such egregious larceny.”

With a loud wail, Muphrid collapsed on his bony knees and tried to kiss Fomalhaut’s toes.

His lordship stepped back hastily. “Desist, you groveling maggot. I do not wish to be embroiled in so sordid a contretemps.
Possibly you can make redress by dealing with this halfling.” He gestured toward Rigel, who still had his arm wrapped around Mira.

Muphrid sprang upright like a jack-in-the-box and looked Rigel up and down. He scowled. Rigel scowled right back.

The elf’s ears went even flatter. “What must I do with it, my lord?”

“Quarter him for a few days. He is probably older than he looks, but he is fresh out of the mud and as ignorant as a newborn.”

“That is
blood
on him, isn’t it?”

“Only earthling blood, but he is armed and may be dangerous. If he proves obdurate or recalcitrant, apply whatever force is needful to restrain him. Otherwise proceed to instruct him in the rudiments of civilized behavior and deference to his betters, so that he will have some minuscule chance when he appears in court.”

Rigel lost his temper. “Just a minute! I was attacked by a crazy killer mob! Are you suggesting that I was wrong to defend myself?”

The two elves looked down at him with open contempt.

“You did not defend yourself, halfling,” Fomalhaut said. “Your amulet did. Whoever gave it to you is the party at fault, and the court will endeavor to determine the miscreant’s identity so that he or she can be suitably penalized.”

Aha!
“I shall cooperate fully with the court in that, your lordship. My greatest wish is to learn my father’s name.”

“Then this is the right place for you.” Fomalhaut turned back to Muphrid. “Educate him in our ways as best as you can. Excessive ignorance on his part will waste the court’s time.”

“My lord wants me to treat a halfling like a
guest
?” Muphrid’s face retained its golden shade, yet his expression would have better suited a bilious green color, like his hair.

The audience at the edge of the water was exchanging grins and smirks. Some were holding hands, even cuddling, as they watched, and Rigel decided that these gangling people were not the children he had originally thought them to be. They were all skinny as ropes, their faces were unlined, and they had been romping and screaming, but they were not behaving like children now. They could be any age—twenty or sixty or even a hundred. Maybe it was just Fomalhaut’s arrogant bearing that made him seem older than the rest.

“Within reasonable limits. The earthling female may be called as a witness, but in the interim you can billet her in your mudling barns and put her to work.”

“My lord is most generous.” Muphrid displayed his shark teeth again.

“You understand,” Fomalhaut concluded, “that if the halfling is awarded status and you have properly instructed him in the procedures of gentle manners, we can present him to His Highness as a token of your contrition in the Moon Garden affair. If His Highness gains a valuable servant as a result of your efforts, he may be more inclined to overlook your indiscretion.”

Muphrid’s fearsome smile flashed again, and his ears sprang fully erect. “You may rely on me, Starborn Fomalhaut. You know that serving you is my greatest pleasure and honor. May I present my friends?”

“Some other time. I am busy today.” Fomalhaut gestured with his staff and abruptly vanished.

“Someone should teach him some manners,” Rigel said.

“Silence, rubbish!” Muphrid said. “You speak of one of the great mages of the realm, a trusted underling of Prince Vildiar himself!”

So now he was rubbish, was he? Rigel glanced again at the elfin audience, all of them displaying those feline ears and shark-tooth grins. On Earth he had been a freak, but it hadn’t been obvious so long as he kept his clothes on. And few men had called him rude names since he’d reached his full height. Here, he realized—wherever “here” was—he was still a freak, and more openly so. That “halfling” term was worrisome, and neither his ears nor his teeth were standard. Passing as a local would be harder here, if not impossible, and every male in sight was taller than he was.

But the lifelong mystery of who or what he was might be solvable here in these Starlands in a way that it never had been on Earth. Rigel’s best strategy must be to stay polite and learn as much as he could by keeping his eyes and ears open, even if neither were the right shape. He could not play the game until he knew the rules.

The other starborn clustered in closer to inspect the visitors. In every case, Rigel knew their names at first glance, and still did not know how he was doing that. Even many of the women were taller than he, and they all had hair and eyes of the same color, which could be any color at all; their skins were golden, without a single mole, scar, or freckle in sight. He realized with a shock that none of them wore more clothing than a skimpy, glittery loincloth and a vulgar overabundance of jewelry.
Help, I am being held prisoner in a vacation commercial.
Males and females both were laden with bracelets, anklets, rings, and earrings. No necklaces, though—why not? Like him, none of them had navels, but the girls certainly had breasts. And nipples. And areolas,
large and tinted hot rose pink. Suddenly there was nowhere safe to look.

“If Fomalhaut was all that great he wouldn’t wear so many amulets,” remarked Alniyat, whose hair and eyes were shiny silver. Of the dozen or so gorgeous women there, she was probably the loveliest, although he’d want to stare at each of them for a long time before reaching a definite conclusion on that. She caught Rigel admiring her and smiled; he looked away quickly, feeling himself blush.

The males were not smiling.

“Even for a halfling, he’s ugly,” said Gacrux, who stood over seven feet tall and had some rather un-elfin beef on his bones.

“Careful,” Muphrid said. “Starborn Fomalhaut warned me that he is armed. Show us your amulet, tweenling.”

Presumably tweenling was another word for halfling. By amulet, Muphrid was undoubtedly referring to the bracelet that had transformed into the sword that had killed three men in the Walmart fight, the close-quarters dagger that had stabbed the bear, and the armored glove that had punched the would-be mugger. A weapon for all seasons, evidently. Releasing Mira and stepping clear of her, he held out his wrist to let them see.

“Well, show us, boy!” Muphrid said.

“Show you what?”

“It’s a weapon isn’t it? Old Foamy said you were armed.”

“I can’t make it appear to order. It only becomes a weapon when I need to defend myself.”

The overgrown brats tittered as if he’d asked them to tie his shoelaces.

“You say its name, halfling,” Muphrid said with exaggerated patience.

“I don’t know its name.”

Muphrid grabbed his wrist and raised it to read the inscription. “Denebola, Rukbat, Rastaban…
Stars!
” he yelled, jumping back. “It’s
Saiph
!”