Queen of Stars (20 page)

“Naos Vildiar, have you any questions to ask this witness?”

“I never talk to halflings when I can help it. Talitha, my dear, this is both ridiculous and absurd. I certainly do not have to answer to such slanders unless they are pressed by a starborn. Bring forth your court mage if he thinks this nonsense is worthy of his time.”

The queen nodded to the chancellor and he to a herald on the sidelines. Trumpets blared.

“Come forward, Court Mage Fomalhaut!”

Silence.

Rigel rose and stepped aside from the Star. He replaced his helmet.

Still, silence. Again the court mage was summoned.

Vildiar was smiling shark teeth at Rigel. Had he foreseen or been forewarned of this accusation in spite of all Rigel’s precautions? If so, then Fomalhaut was very probably dead.

Fomalhaut was paged a third, and final, time.

By law, a halfling who falsely accused a starborn must be turned over to him or punished as he decreed. Rigel did not think Talitha would abandon him that way, but to avoid doing so she would have to use her royal authority to overrule the law, which would further weaken her position.

The mood of the court had now sunk to rank despair. If even the queen’s favorite could not threaten Vildiar, who could?

But then the chancellor glanced over Rigel’s head and frowned. A murmur of surprise passed through the assembly like a breath of wind in a forest. Rigel spun around and saw salvation zooming in on a red and gold skyboard. It was probably a gross breach of court etiquette to arrive that way, but the sandy hair and eyes of Starborn Achird were the most welcome sight Rigel had seen in a very long time.

Chapter 26

A
chird made a perfect landing alongside the Star and bowed to the queen.

“You are not Starborn Fomalhaut!” the chancellor barked, for the benefit of everyone not close enough to read the newcomer’s name.

Achird shot Rigel a you-owe-me-for-this look and stepped onto the Star of Truth. He was not required to kneel.

Another bow. “I am Starborn Achird, mage of the second grade, pupil of Starborn Fomalhaut. I assisted the mage in his investigations of the events at Front Street. I am familiar with the report the mage gave to the queen. I also know this halfling personally and would believe anything he said.”

Give the old sourpuss his due: Aspidiske looked relieved. “You support the halfling’s accusation against Vildiar Naos ?”

“I did not arrive in time to hear the exact words used, my lord.”

“Then the halfling will have to repeat it.”

So Rigel returned to the Star for just long enough to repeat his charges.

Achird took his place. “I support him absolutely, Your Majesty. Mage Fomalhaut characterized the poisoned-blood amulets as the most evil devices he had ever encountered. They killed two sphinxes as well as Regent-heir Kornephoros. Between them, the three dead halflings bore forty-seven amulets, seventeen of which Court Mage Fomalhaut classified as Lesaths.”

The chancellor was actually smiling now. “Prince Vildiar, have you any questions to put to this witness?”

Vildiar still looked bored. “How do you define a Lesath, mage?”

“My master taught me that a Lesath is defined by two factors: It is capable of causing grievous bodily harm or death to a starborn, and is therefore forbidden to anyone other than a starborn.”

“And how many are you wearing, sonny?”

“Four, Your Highness.”

“Would you call this a Lesath?” Vildiar hurled a ball of purple fire at him. About nine hundred people screamed in alarm. The missile struck Achird on the chest and vanished. He staggered, though, and his face twisted in sudden pain. The threat was blatant.

“Yes, Your Highness, I would.”

“But you wear a defense against it?”

“Obviously, or I would be a smoldering ember.”

“Did you ever hear of a starborn who didn’t?”

“The question is disallowed as too vague,” the chancellor ruled.

“No more questions.” Vildiar yawned.

Rigel raised a hand.

Aspidiske frowned and then reluctantly said, “We will allow the plaintiff one question.”

Rigel turned to face Achird, who flickered him a wink that almost made him laugh aloud. Rigel hoped the chancellor had not seen it—and that Vildiar had.

“My lord, how many of the seventeen amulets recovered from Front Street could be blocked by the sort of defensive amulet that just saved your life from the defendant’s attack?”

Achird’s frown was almost as menacing as Vildiar’s balls of fire. “My master did not include any such estimate in his report. He did mention that nine of them were new to him, which I interpreted to mean that he knew of no defense against them.”

“Vildiar Naos,” said the chancellor. “You have heard the charge that you gave Lesaths to your halfling retainers. Do you wish to refute it?”

Vildiar strolled down to the Star, glanced with distaste at Achird, and took his place. The court was as quiet as…er, a tomb.

“Your
Majesty
.” His tone turned the honorific into a sneer as he turned toward Talitha. “My domain roots more than seventeen hundred other domains, most of which have many subdomains. The population, of all species, crossbreeds, and imaginings, numbers billions. I am responsible for maintaining the law and order within it. For that I rely on halflings,
as we all do
, whether or not we care to admit it. They are necessary
servants
.” Another sneer there. “A few of those I trust most, I arm with Lesaths.
As we all do.
Who are you to judge me? You sent this half-breed of yours onto my property, where he slew three of mine. Are you claiming he did that with his bare hands?
If I am guilty, then so are you.
”

Which was all very logical. The audience groaned.

But Talitha was smiling. She had her foe on the Star of Truth, where she had never hoped to get him. “Halflings can wield Lesaths, but they certainly cannot make them. Only a mage of orange or red rank can do that.
Naos Vildiar, have you ever fashioned an amulet that would turn the wearer’s blood into a topical poison that is deadly to starborn?
”

Silence. The giant folded his arms and considered the question carefully. Then he said, “Yes.”

A flurry of shouts and whispers broke out in the crowd, and the chancellor called for order in the court.

“It was an interesting problem in applied magic,” the witness said. “High-rank mages take—”

The queen cut him off. “Have you made more than one of these horrors?”

“Yes.”

“And did you ever give any of them to halflings?”

“May I qualify my answer before I give it?” Vildiar’s mood had changed. He sensed a trap somewhere.

“Briefly.”

“The Lesath in question is purely defensive. It presents no danger to anyone else unless the wearer is made to bleed. As I said earlier, I rely on halflings to keep order within my domain and sometimes they may have to resort to violence. So the answer to your question is, yes. I have given Lesaths to halflings, including that one.”

“Then you plead guilty?” Talitha said.

The giant shrugged his shoulders, higher than Rigel’s head. “Of that? Certainly. If you want to make a mockery of your justice system by fining me a couple of subdomains, then go ahead. Of course you will have to do the same to every domain owner in this court. I wish you luck trying! Please, can we all go home and get on with our lives?”

To the elves this would make perfect sense. Normally the Starlands had no violence, no embezzlement, almost no theft; Vildiar was a pathological exception. Starfolk had never learned how to deal with major criminals who carefully hid behind underlings. They had never heard of Al Capone or mafiosi. To explain mail fraud or income tax evasion to an elf would take weeks. Even Talitha had found it hard to understand how criminals who covered their tracks in great crimes might be ensnared by the minor infractions they could not avoid committing in the process.

But now she knew. “Chancellor, what is the law that Naos Vildiar has admitted to breaking?”

Yesterday old Aspidiske would have looked totally blank if asked that question; this morning Rigel had showed him Pleione’s notes. “One of our most ancestral and honored laws, Your Majesty—Statute Sixty-five of King Heze. Although proclaimed eons ago, it has never been amended or repealed.”

As near as Rigel had been able to discover, King Heze had reigned about the time earthlings had thought of bows and arrows as high tech.

Vildiar unfolded his tentacle-like arms. It was a fair bet that he had never heard of this law either, but he could guess that he had been snared somehow. Saiph began to vibrate on Rigel’s wrist.

“And what is the maximum sentence decreed in this law?”

“No maximum is set.”

Gasp from a thousand throats…

“Naos Vildiar,” Talitha said, and now she had a joyful look of victory in her pearl-colored eyes. “The Lesaths wielded by your halflings were used to commit major crimes, including the murder of numerous starborn.
I sentence you to two thousand years in the Dark Cells.
”

Vildiar knew his enemy. He glanced down at Rigel with a look of intense hatred—and vanished.

Rigel leaped sideways, Saiph glittering in his hand. A ball of violet fire came hissing out of nowhere, and the sword swiped it aside in an eye-dazzling flash. More followed, with the same result, Rigel leaping like a ballet dancer, his feet and arm moving without any direction from him. All around him starborn were screaming and trying to flee. The action stopped as suddenly as it had begun and Rigel was left with his arm extended, the shining bracelet back on his wrist.

The rest of the crowd began to cheer insanely. The queen and chancellor did not join them, and even Elgomaisa was frowning, knowing that the problem had not gone away—it had only changed. Achird, who had moved out of reach of the onslaught, came wandering back.

Rigel said, “Thanks.”

The mage could produce a very convincing sardonic smile. “If your saliva has curative properties, you may lick my hide after my master finishes tearing strips off of it.”

“That bad? Why? And why did your master not attend in person?”

Shrug. “He foresaw a revolution starting if Vildiar appeared. The monster came incognito, so that didn’t happen. When you headed for the Star, I insisted on coming to back you up.”

“I’m very grateful.” Rigel stared up at the elf’s face for a moment, and then said, “But?”

“Fomalhaut said the best I could do would be to extend your life by three weeks. Maximum.”

“My people!” the queen said. The magic acoustics made her voice audible everywhere and suppressed everyone else’s. The court fell silent. Here it came, the stroke of the ax.

“Vildiar Naos has fled from our justice. We proclaim him outlaw! His domain is forfeit to the crown, and his underlings are released from their oaths of loyalty. Wealth beyond dreams will be bestowed on whoever delivers up his head. Death awaits any who aid or shelter him.”

“Big words,” Achird murmured.

Empty words, of course. No power in the Starlands could throw Vildiar into the Dark Cells, a form of solitary confinement so dire that it forced its otherwise immortal inmates to commit suicide.

“Traditional words,” Rigel said. “I wonder what happens now?”

His mage friend sighed. “My guess would be a revolution.”

Chapter 27

T
here was nothing exciting about making a corpse; Avior had created dozens in her career, whole or partial, although never one as large as a life-size Rigel. Despite his best efforts to help, or at least find her people who could help, setting up a studio in the Starlands had brought endless frustration. All sorts of things taken for granted in the real world were unobtainable here, even something as pedestrian as an ordinary measuring tape. She knew Rigel’s height by comparison with her own, but how broad were his shoulders? How wide was his chest? What were his upper arm measurements? Having to work by eye, she soon discovered that his height disguised unexpected brawn. She ordered six more tubs of wax, and cattle bones as well as pig bones.

She’d tried to get some
closer
estimates whenever he dropped by Kraz, but she got nowhere with him now—once bitten, twice shy. Thabit admitted that his boss seemed to be finding what a man needs somewhere now, although he didn’t know who the lucky lady was, or he
said
he didn’t. Definitely not Queen Talitha, who now had an official partner.

Boring, boring work! Avior liked her corpses to expose the agony and horror of death. Planting the arrows in this one would be fun—she was looking forward to that—but she had to produce an unmarked corpse first. His features were so perfect that she wanted to scream and at least break his nose. By the time she was down to his hips, though, she had come to see this figure as a possible Prometheus, chained to the rock, writhing in agony as Zeus’s eagle ripped out his liver yet again. She would ask for the piece back when Rigel was done with it. Meanwhile she ordered a stuffed eagle and some chains.

The rest of her life, what there was of it, was equally boring. Not that she missed neighbors or friends, because she had never bothered with either, but her sex life needed boosting. Tyl and Thabit were losing interest, having exhausted the opportunities offered by their threesome. The two Nusakan mudlings were less the pit bulls that Rigel had called them than lapdogs, disgustingly eager to please. They would fight each other for the right to entertain her, but even their fighting failed to provoke the testosterone rush it did in earthling males. Back in middle school Avior had learned how to set two boys at each other’s throats by offering herself as the prize. Often she would pretend to back off when the winner got her stripped, just to incite him more—but even that trick failed to arouse any initiative in Mutt and Jeff.

She had no use for unicorns, either; smelly brutes. The best that could be said of them was that they gave Mutt and Jeff something to do, the unthinking in charge of the inedible.

One stuffy afternoon, while she was wrestling with Rigel’s left kneecap, someone rapped on the studio door. It was open, and a woman walked in without waiting for an invitation.
Oh, crap!
There went security
.

Wiping her hands on her apron, Avior hurried over to greet the intruder before she could come too close. “Can I help you?”

Her name was Botein, which sounded familiar. Someone had mentioned a Botein. She was too short and buxom for a starborn, but otherwise she seemed elfin, with cat ears, pale brown irises, and matching scalp fur. Rings, anklets, and bracelets galore glittered and jingled. She had darkened her lashes and rouged her nipples and her smile would terrify a polar bear.

“Ask, rather, how I may help you, dear! I’m Botein, your sister.”

Oh…One of the Family, come to spy.

“You mean that Prince Vildiar raped your mother also?”

“Correct.” Botein’s eyes were busily scanning the studio. “Daddy would like to meet you.”

“I have absolutely no desire to meet him.” Avior noticed that her visitor did not
seem
to be looking past her, toward her worktable with the corpse on it. That was almost proof that she had done her real prying before she even knocked.

Botein sighed and turned away to stare out the open door. “Understandable, but of course the accident was not Daddy’s fault. I remember how furious he was when the watchers lost track of her—your mother, I mean, Maria Evangelina Leandra Stornelli. Hadar had the two boys who were responsible strung up by the wrists and flogged, but even that wasn’t enough to satisfy Daddy.”

“He should have been strung up by the balls and left to rot,” Avior said, furious at having her mother’s maiden name thrown in her face. “Now, if there is nothing else, Ms. Botein…?” Avior edged forward and Botein went like a lamb, speaking over her shoulder.

“He will do anything he can to make amends. Remember he is a Naos mage, the most powerful sorcerer in the Starlands. He could grant any wish you put to him.”

Could he, now? Avior was trying to remember what Tyl had said a few days ago, when he dropped by to see if there was anything she needed. Anything
else
, of course, because the twins always tried for a quickie when they came calling. Tyl had babbled happily about Rigel trapping Vildiar somehow and the queen outlawing him.

Now, with Botein scoping out Kraz and Avior’s workshop, Rigel’s plans to use the dead
ringer as Hadar bait must be even deader than all that bone and plaster on the table. But infor
mation on where the outlaw was hiding out might be extremely valuable to him. Could Avior help the Sheriff of Nottingham by making a quick visit to Sherwood Forest? Anything to get out of working on that boring corpse.

They emerged, blinking in the sunshine. Botein curled her pretty lip at the view. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t think much of your quarters. Rigel Halfling hasn’t exactly been generous with his sweetie pie’s money, has he?”

“They are quite adequate…for my work.”

Botein picked up the hint almost before Avior realized she had dropped it. “Stars above! Aren’t those two apes Nusakan? What in heaven do you use them for?”

“Muscle definition, mostly. Good models. They’ll stand for hours if I tell them to.”

“Not good for much else, though?” Botein offered an all-girls-together smile.

Avior matched it. “The flesh is willing but the spirit is nonexistent.”

“No improvement over Thabit and Tyl, you mean?”

That was a fairly open admission that the Family had been keeping watch on Kraz and prying into Avior’s affairs.

“Orang and Utan? They’re pretty good, I’d say.”

“Imaginative, but short on stamina.”

That was like calling the Pacific Ocean short on damp.

“You must have very high standards.” Not to mention the endurance of an alley cat.

Botein laughed. “Oh, I do! And since we’re admitting to incest, I’ll confess that once, a few years ago now, I set out to try a brother a night. They varied a lot, of course, but several performed much better than those two turncoat apes.”

“How long before you ran out of brothers?”

“Almost four months,” Botein said with a shrug. “By then I was scraping the bottom of the cradle and they weren’t much good for anything yet. Look, are you sure I can’t persuade you to come and say hi to Daddy? He’d love to meet you, and he really can be your fairy godfather and grant you three wishes. I’ll see you back here within the hour, I promise.”

Only a suicidal zombie would trust any promise from a member of the Family. Avior knew that. But she did need a break, and this might give her an excuse to stop work on the Rigel-corpse altogether. In that case, it would be nice to help the lad somehow. He’d done his best for her, despite what Botein said. And if the corpse scam was blown, then the opposition had no motive to harm Avior—had nothing to gain by locking her up or killing her. A chance to see more of the Starlands and meet the Monster Himself was very tempting, too. She glanced where Botein was looking and her decision was made instantly.

“My god! Is that what you came in?”

Parked on the shady side of the studio building stood a golden chariot, a Ben Hur–style, two-wheeled racing chariot. It balanced on its wheels, leaning forward with the single shaft extending out in front of it to keep it from falling over. That it was magic was obvious from the way it was powered. One shaft would normally imply either two or four horses, but this one had no provision for horses. Four short crosspieces along the shaft served as perches, and on each crouched an enormous eagle. Avior thought they looked miserable at being so close to the ground.

“Isn’t it bully? Oh, damn! That’s out of date now, isn’t it? Groovy? Is that still the in word? Come along, dear. I’ll give you a ride.”

Avior went with her, fascinated by the prospect of such an adventure. “I thought only elves could work magic?”

“Never call them that, dear. They’re liable to burn your nose off, or worse. Some halflings have magic up into the green. About a quarter of the Family can fly something like this. Hadar’s better than I am. In you get.”

Botein offered a hand. Unwilling to be touched, Avior scrambled up unaided. The chariot rocked, steadied, and rocked again as her chunky guide joined her. Botein gripped the rail with both hands. There was something odd about her right wrist, as if it had been broken and badly set. Avior tried hard not to stare, but disfigurements were her speciality, and this was the first one she had seen in the Starlands.

“Hang on, darling. Giddyup, chickens! Lean back, dear.”

As the passengers shifted their weight, the shaft started to rise. The birds extended their wings, displaying a wingspan of at least three meters, and then began to flap them, starting with the closest, because it was highest. The others soon joined in, gently at first, then with longer, stronger strokes. Dust swirled and the shaft tilted upward. Wheels turned, the chariot ran forward, and in seconds they were airborne, with all four eagles working in a rhythmic flow. Studio and other buildings slid away beneath them. The unicorns galloped wildly around their pen, and the two foreshortened Nusakan gaped up stupidly. No noise, no vibration, just effortless flight.

Avior didn’t even have to raise her voice to converse with her half sister. “How do you
do
this?”

“With an amulet,” Botein admitted. “But it needs personal magic, too, and a lot of training. Many of us can work air cars, and this is just a fancy air car. That’s a pretty skimpy little domain your tin-hatted boss gave you.”

The whole of Kraz was visible now, a sizable sprawling farm to Avior’s eyes. Its surroundings were hidden by clouds that she did not recall noticing from the ground. The chariot continued to soar upward and soon Kraz had disappeared altogether.

“What did you mean, it was skimpy?”

“I mean what we saw from up here is all there is of it. That’s hardly a planet you’re living on, Sister. Don’t go for any long walks. Here’s the highway to Phegda.”

The chariot shot down through a hole in the cloud cover and Avior’s ears popped. Here the sky was blue and cloudless again. Below her lay a sprawl of fields and buildings, apparently all one gigantic ranch. She saw white horses, or possibly unicorns, several rows of parked vehicles, and lakes with huge white swans on them. Then Botein told her to lean back and do as she did.

The chariot glided in low over some rooftops, the eagles’ wings outstretched. The wheels touched down on the grass in a perfect two-point landing, and the car coasted over to a barn door before it came to a halt. Botein shifted her weight forward to lower the shaft.
Just like magic!
The eagles folded their wings and turned fierce glares on their passengers. They didn’t seem to be chained to their perches, but something had to be holding them there. A couple of mudling boys came running out to assist.

“Daddy told me several places he might be,” Botein said as she led the way over to the barn. “But I’ve had a wonderful idea, dear.”

“Do tell,
dear
.” Avior still hated that idiotic form of address.

“Let’s go and call on Sterope while we’re here—not that ‘here’ or ‘there’ matter when you’re in the Starlands, just as long as you’re staying in one domain. Phegda is big enough that you could spend your whole life exploring it. Daddy’s told me that he hasn’t even seen everything yet…”

Botein continued her empty chatter until they were inside the barn, where dozens of chariots and other wheeled vehicles were stored, and hammering noises suggested repair work underway. At once she turned toward a smaller door, set just inside the big one but in the same exterior wall. It hadn’t been visible from the outside, so it had to be a portal.

Botein threw it open. About to go through, Avior recoiled from the ammoniacal stench of confined livestock.

“Sorry,” said her guide. “Should have warned you. It does get stinky in here on warm days. Try not to notice. They’re naturally a bit sensitive. You’ll love Sterope, though.”

This second barn was even larger than the first, but was it a barn or a jail? A wide corridor ran off for at least thirty meters straight ahead, which was far from being the end of the enclosed space. Smaller passages led off from it on either hand, but all the walls and dividers were made of steel bars. The stalls were large enough for horses, yet they seemed more like cells, and most of the doors were closed. Sweating mudlings were scrubbing the paving of the corridors with buckets and long brooms, or tramping around, pushing barrows of straw, clean or soiled.

Just inside the portal stood a long wooden bench heaped with miscellaneous baskets and stacks of cloth, perhaps towels. A woman was sitting there, suckling a baby. Her name was Sterope and she had short vertical horns between her elfin ears. Even without those, she was much too ugly to be a starborn: her teeth were square, not pointed, and her nose was almost nonexistent. She wore the usual simple loincloth wrap, but below that her legs were thickly furred, and they ended in black hooves. She looked up, her oversized mouth open in a winsome smile.

“Botein Halfling! Been a long time.”