The Ship Who Won (24 page)

"Ugh," Keff said. "No fish course for me."

Thanks to the young woman's potion he felt well enough

to eat. Wlyle trying to field questions from the magifolk,

he picked up one small piece of fruit after another. Carialle

tested them for suspicious additives.

"No," Carialle said. "No, no, no, yes-oops, not anymore. No, no, yes!"

Before it could be tainted by long-distance assassins,

Keff popped the chunk of fruit in his mouth without looking at it. It burst in a delightful gush of soft flesh and

slightly tart juice. His next half-answer was garbled,

impeded by berry pulp, but it didn't matter, since he was

never allowed to finish a sentence anyway before the next

mage greedily snatched him away from his current inquisi-tor. He swallowed and sought for another wholesome bite.

The basket disappeared out from under his hand and

was replaced by the nauseating crock. His fingers splashed

into the watery gray sauce. It sent up an overwhelming

odor of rotting oil. Keffs stomach, tantalized by the morsel

of fruit, almost whimpered. He held his breath until his

invisible waiter got the hint and took the crock away. In its

place was a succulent-smelling vol au vent covered with a

cream gravy.

"No!" said Carialle as he reached for his fork.

"Oh, Cari." His chair revolved, pinning him to the back,

and the meat pastry evaporated in a cloud of steam. "Oh,

damn."

"Why have you come to Ozran?" Ilnir asked. "You have

not answered me."

T haven't been allowed," Keff said, bracing himself,

expecting any moment to be turned to face another magiman. When the chair didn't move, he sat up straighten

"We come to explore. This planet looked interesting, so we

landed."

"We?" Ilnir asked. "Are there more of you in your silver

tower?"

"Oops," Carialle said.

"Me and my ship," Keff explained hastily. "When you

travel alone as I do, you start talking out loud."

"And do you hear answers?" Asedow asked to the general laughter of his fellows. Keff smiled.

"Wouldn't that be something?" Keff answered sweetly.

Asedow smirked.

'That mans been zinged and he doesn't even know it,"

Carialle said.

"Look, I'm no danger to you," Keff said earnestly. "I'd

appreciate it if you would release my ship and let me go on

my way."

"Oh, not yet," Chaumel said, with a slight smile Keff

didn't like at all. "You have only just arrived. Please allow

us to show you our hospitality."

"You are too kind," Keff said firmly "But I must continue on my way."

The spin took him by surprise.

"Why are you in such a hurry to leave?" Zolaika asked,

narrowing her eyes at him. The face with the monitor, hovering beside her, looked him up and down and said

something in the secondary, more formal dialect. Keff batted the IT unit slung around his chest, which burped out a

halting query.

"What teUest thou from us?"

"What will I say about you?" Keff repeated, and thought

fast. "Well, that you are an advanced and erudite people

with a strong culture that would be interesting to study."

He was slammed sideways by the force of the reverse

spm.

"You would send others here?" Femgal asked.

"Not if you didn't want me to," Keff said. "If you prefer

to remain undisturbed, I assure you, you will be." He suffered a fast spin toward Omri.

"We'll remain more undisturbed if you don't go back to

make a report at all," the peacock magiman said. A half-whirl this time, and he ended up before Potria.

"Oh, come, friends," she said, with a winning smile.

"Why assume ill where none exists? Stranger, you shall

enjoy your time here with us, I promise you. To our new

friendship." She flicked her fingers. A cup of opal glass

materialized in front of her and skimmed across the air to

Keffs tray. Keff, surprised and gratified, picked it up and

tilted it to her in salute.

"What's in it, Cari?" he subvocalized.

"Yum. Its a nice mugful of mind-wipe," she said. "Stabilized sodium pentothal and a few other goodies

guaranteed to make her the apple of your eye." Keff gave

the enchantress a smile full of charm and a polite nod,

raised the goblet to her once again, and put it down

untasted. "Sorry, ma'am. I don't drink."

The bronze woman swept her hand angrily to one side,

and the goblet vanished.

"Nice try, peachie," Cari said, triumphantly.

Keff seized a miniature dumpling from the next plate

that landed on his tray.

"Yes," Carialle whispered. Keff popped it into his mouth

and swallowed. His greed amused the magifolk of the

south, whose chairs bobbed up and down in time to their

laughter. He smiled kindly at them and decided to turn the

tables.

"I am very interested in your society. How are you governed? Who is in charge of decision-making that affects

you all?"

That simple question started a philosophical discussion

that fast deteriorated into a shouted argument, resulting in

the death or discomfort of six more fur-skinned foodtas-ters. Keff smiled and nodded and tried to follow it all while

he swallowed a few bites.

Following Carialle's instructions, he waved away the

next two dishes, took a morsel from the third, ignored the

next three when Carialle found native trace elements that

would upset his digestive tract, and ate several delightful

mouthfuls from the last, crisp, hot pastries stuffed with

fresh vegetables. Each dish was more succulent and

appealing than the one before it.

"I can't get over the variety of magic going on in here,"

Keff whispered, toying with a souffle that all but defied

gravity.

"If it was really magic, they could magic up what you

wanted to eat and not just what they want you to have. As

for the rest, you know what I think."

'Well, the food is perfect," Keff said stubbornly. "No

burnt spots, no failed sauces, no gristle. That sounds like

magic."

"Oh, maybe its food-synths instead," Carialle countered. "If I was working for Chaumel, I'd be terrified of

making mistakes and ruining the food. Wouldn't you?"

Keff sighed. "At least I still have my aliens."

"Enough of this tittle-tattle," Chaumel called out, rising.

He clapped his hands. The assemblage craned their necks

to look at him. "A little entertainment, my friends?" He

brought his hands together again.

Between Nokias and Femgal, a fur-skinned tumbler

appeared halfway through a back flip and bounded into

the center of the room. Keffs chair automatically backed

up until it was between two others, leaving the middle of

the circle open. A narrow cable suspended from the ceiling

came into being. On it, a male and a female hung ankle to

ankle ten meters above the ground. Starting slowly, they

revolved faster until they were spinning flat out, parallel to

the floor. There was a patter of insincere applause. The

rope and acrobats vanished, and the tumbler leaped into

the air, turned a double somersault, and landed on one

hand. A small animal with an ornamented collar appeared

standing on his upturned feet. It did flips on its perch, as

the male boosted it into the air with thrusts of his powerful

legs. Omri yawned. The male and his pet disappeared to

make room for a whole troupe of juvenile tumblers.

Keff heard a gush of wind from the open windows. The

night air blew a cloud of dust over the luminescent parapet, but it never reached the open door. Chaumel flashed

his wand across in a warding gesture. The dust beat itself

against a bellying, invisible barrier and fell to the floor.

"Was that part of the entertainment?" Keff said

subvocally.

"Another one of those power drains," Carialle said

"Somehow, what they do sucks all the energy, all the

cohesive force out of the surrounding ecology. The air

outside of Chaumel s little mountain nest is dead, clear to

where I am."

"Magic doesn't have to come from somewhere," Keff

said.

"Keff, physics! Power is leaching toward your location.

Therefore logic suggests it is being drawn in that direction

by need."

"Magic doesn't depend on physics. But I concede your

point."

"Its true whether or not you believe in it. The concentrated force-fields are weakening everywhere but there."

"Any chance it weakened enough to let you go?"

There was a slight pause. "No."

A prestidigitator and his slender, golden-furred assistant

suddenly appeared in midair, floating down toward the

floor while performing difficult sleight-of-hand involving

fire and silk cloths. They held up hoops, and acrobats

bounded out of the walls to fly through them. More acrobats materialized to catch the flyers, then disappeared as

soon as they were safely down. Keff watched in fascination,

admiring the dramatic timing. Apparently, the spectacle

failed to maintain the interest of the other guests. His chair

jerked roughly forward toward Lacia, nearly ramming him

through the back. The acrobats had to leap swiftly to one

side to avoid being run over.

"You are a spy for a faction on the other side of Ozran,

aren't you?" she demanded.

'There aren't any other factions on Ozran, madam,"

Keff said. "I scanned from space. All habitations are limited to this continent in the northern hemisphere and the

archipelago to the southwest."

"You must have come from one of them, then," she

said. "Whose spy are you?"

Just like that, the interrogation began all over again.

Instead of letting him have time to answer their demands,

they seemed to be vying with one another to escalate their

accusations of what they suspected him of doing on Ozran.

Potria, still angry, didn't bother to speak to him, but occasionally snatched him away from another magifolk just for

the pleasure of seeing his gasping discomfort. Asedow

joined in the game, tugging Keff away from his rival.

Chaumel, too, decided to assert his authority as curator of

the curiosity, pulling him away from other magifolk to prevent him answering their questions. In the turmoil, Keff

spun around faster and faster, growing more irked by the

moment at the magi using him as a pawn. He kept his

hands clamped to his chair arms, his teeth gritted tightly as

he strove to keep from being sick. Their voices chattered

and shrilled like a flock of birds.

"Who are you ... ?"

"I demand to know...!"

"What are you ... ?"

"Tell me...."

"How do...?"

"Why... ?"

"What...?"

Fed up at last, Keff shouted at the featureless mass of

color. "Enpugh of this boorish interrogation. I'm not playing anymore!"

Heedless of the speed at which he was spinning, he

pushed away his tray, stepped out from the footrest, and

went down, down, down....

a CHAPTER NINE

Keff fell down and down toward a dark abyss. Frigid

winds screamed upward, freezing his face and his hands,

which were thrust above his head by his descent. The horizontal blur that was the faces and costumes of the magifolk

was replaced by a vertical blur of gray and black and tan.

He was falling through a narrow tunnel of rough stone

occasionally lit by streaks of garishly colored light. His

hands grasped out at nothing; his feet sought for support

and found none.

Gargoyle faces leered at him, ^bbering. Flying creatures with dozens of clawed feet swooped down to worry

his hair and shoulders. Momentum snapped his head back

so he was staring up at a point of light far, far above him

that swayed with every one of his heartbeats. The movement made him giddy. His stomach squeezed hard against

his rib cage. He was in danger of losing what litde he had

been able to eat. The wind bit at his ears, and his teeth

chattered. He forced his mouth closed, sought for control.

"Carialle, help! I'm falling! Where am I?"

The brains tone was puzzled.

"You haven't moved at all, Keff. You're still in the middle of Chaumel's dining room. Everyone is watching you,

and having a good time, I might add. Er, you're staring at

the ceiling."

Keff tried to justify her observation with the terrifying

sensation of falling, the close stone walls, and the gar-goyles, and suddenly all fear fled. He was furious. The

abyss was an illusion! It was all an illusion cast to punish

him. Damn their manipulation!

'That is enough of this nonsense!" he bellowed.

Abruptly, all sensation stopped. The buzzing he suddenly felt through his feet bothered him, so he moved, and

found himself lurching about on the slick floor, struggling

for balance. With a yelp, he tripped forward, painfully

bruising his palms and knees. He blinked energetically,

and the points of light around him became ensconced

torches, and the pale oval Plennafrey's face. She looked

concerned. Keff guessed that she was the one who had

broken the spell holding his mind enthralled.

'Thank you," he said. His voice sounded hollow in his

own ears. He sat back on his haunches and gathered himself to stand up.