Queen of Stars (Starfolk #2) Read online

  Rigel said, “Close your eyes if you have to.”

  She kept them open. He led the way along another balcony and through a door.

  “All this is supposed to be for Izar’s protection,” he said, “but it’s also for mine. There is only the one entrance, and that has five layers of security on it. The building itself sits on a rock in a very turbulent ocean. Can you feel the wind? Sometimes it makes my ears pop. There’s a permanent hurricane blowing outside.”

  “But…How far are we from the palace?”

  “That question means nothing here. You enter by the portal or not at all. The wind and the changes in orientation make it impossible to come in by air, as much as anything is impossible here.”

  “But who wants to kill you so badly?”

  “The Family. I’ll explain more over supper. Hungry?”

  She nodded, then wondered if Escher Castle turned nods into shakes. They went along another corridor, which turned left six times before leading into a courtyard. It had to be open to the sky, because she could smell the sea, and hear wind and crashing surf, yet she felt no draft. She was standing at the bottom of a very long flight of stairs, overlooking a wonderful enclosed garden, with winding paths, fruit trees, humped bridges, paved grottoes half-hidden in flowered shrubs, and an Olympic-size swimming pond, in which the imp was flailing along with his dog paddling close behind. The only problem was that the landscape was all vertical. Izar was swimming straight down.

  “We go up these stairs,” Rigel said, leading the way, “although usually it’s down. Don’t worry about the twists. If they bother you, just close your eyes and wait a few minutes and it will all change. You get the Newcomer Suite, which is as close as we can make it to a first-class earthly hotel. Your maid’s name is Tshuapa. Be gentle with her. One word of criticism and she’ll cower like a scolded dog. I expect you’ll want a swim—”

  “No! I’m cold.”

  “Cold? That’s your human half showing. Well, Tshuapa will draw a hot bath for you and find you whatever you want in the way of clothes. When you’re ready, I’ll meet you by the pool. Get Tshuapa to bring you down. Or up, as the case may be.”

  Chapter 7

  Tshuapa, despite her African-sounding name, turned out to be as Nordic as a glass of akvavit and little more than a child, pathetically eager to please. Avior forced herself to relax, lolling in her titanic veined-marble bathtub, carefully brushing her hair—firmly declining Tshuapa’s pleas to be allowed to help. And the sensory magic worked, helping her bury the terror, the insanity. She could feel the knots untie, the coils unwind, and she felt much better by the time she was ready to dress. Tshuapa had laid out no less than eighteen outfits for her to consider and seemed worried that it might not be enough.

  Swathed in a cosy, long-sleeved gown of blue velvet and a gypsy-style head cloth, Avior was ready for her date with Rigel. When she peered out the door she was happy to discover that her room was now on the ground floor and she could stroll out into the courtyard without help from Tshuapa or anyone. The path winding between night-scented shrubs was lit by spluttering flaming torches on poles. It led her to a secluded, tree-roofed grotto at the edge of the water, furnished with a table, three chairs, a bronze helmet, and a red bathrobe. She sat down.

  She was being manipulated, obviously. Attempted assassination, surreal adventures, and finally the sort of luxury enjoyed by vacationing billionaires. This went far beyond kindness or charity. What did Rigel want from her?

  Don’t worry. Enjoy.

  Out in the water two heads surfaced and disappeared again, apparently in a race. One had elfin ears and she recognized the other’s white hair.

  Izar and another starling of about the same age were sitting on a rock on the far side of the pool, intent on eating a fish as long as a man’s arm—they were tearing chunks out of it, apparently raw. Now Avior knew what those shark teeth were for. Worse, they were sharing their snack with a dog, letting it take bites also. All three seemed very happy with this arrangement.

  A liveried human waiter bowed and asked what the noble halfling wished.

  “What can I have?”

  He looked blank, as if no one had ever asked that question before, and said she could have anything she wanted.

  “Rum.”

  “White or dark?”

  “Dark. Make it a triple.”

  “Anything with it, halfling?”

  “A twist of lemon.”

  He disappeared along the path. The race in the pool was still on, and Rigel appeared to be well ahead. They had not completed another lap before the waiter reappeared with her drink.

  She drank half of it in the first gulp and felt it burn its way down inside her, the smoothest lava she’d ever tasted. Before she could take another swig, Rigel erupted from the water, grinning and puffing. He wore only one of the shiny loincloths that seemed to be the national dress. He wiped his face with his hands, put on the helmet, and plopped down on a chair.

  “Hope you don’t mind,” he said. “‘No shirt, no shoes, no service’ doesn’t apply in the Starlands.”

  “I can stand it.” She couldn’t imagine how he could. She was shivering despite her woolen gown. She should have worn another under it. “Why the Julius Caesar impersonation?”

  “The hat, you mean? This is Meissa. It’s another amulet. It makes me invisible to magical tricks and booby traps. It’s almost the only one of its kind.”

  The waiter appeared again.

  Rigel said, “Beers, please. Two.”

  “Lager? Ale? Stout? Light? Dark? Small? Bitter? What temperature—”

  Rigel ordered a cold lager and a cool dark ale. As the waiter left he glanced at the pool. “Loser does two more laps,” he said smugly. “Before Tyl gets here, let me tell you about him. He was one of the Family, but he defected. He’s sworn allegiance on the Star of Truth, so he’s completely trustworthy. What he did took mega courage, because he was the second defector. The other was a lad named Graffias, who appealed to Regent-heir Kornephoros for asylum, but the regent was an idiot and terrified of Vildiar. Believe it or not, he sent the poor guy back to spy! They spotted his change of allegiance right away, of course. I rescued Graffias but Hadar got to him before he could testify on the Star. Killed him, I mean. So Tyl’s…Here he is.”

  The other man surfaced and clambered out. He had Izar-style cat ears and shark teeth, combined with eyes and irises of alizarin crimson, but from the neck down he was all human: nipples, navel, and ample body hair, which was also red-orange. He looked about thirty, and was shorter and huskier than Rigel, with a beak nose. This, Avior decided, was the best thing she had seen in the Starlands so far, and she watched approvingly as he rubbed excess water off himself with his hands and then pulled on the waiting robe.

  He noticed her attention, of course. Men were appallingly predictable.

  “Welcome, Halfling Avior,” he said between puffs, crimson eyes promising to make the welcome as warm as ever she fancied.

  “Pleased to meet you, Halfling Tyl.”

  By the time Tyl had covered himself, buttoned to the chin, the waiter had returned with the beers, being much speedier than any waiter Avior had ever set eyes on.

  “Let’s order,” Rigel said, taking a gulp of the ale. “I’m famished. What do you fancy?”

  “What is there?”

  “Anything you want. Vegetarian?”

  “Not usually,” she said.

  “Good. The elves think that’s a really bizarre diet, because their teeth aren’t much good at it. They never get fat or diabetic and they have no religious prohibitions. Let your imagination soar.”

  “Why don’t you order for all of us?”

  “Antipasto, gazpacho, roast suckling pig stuffed with oysters, a selection of vegetables, and a bottle of blanc de blancs from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. We’ll decide on dessert later.”

  Tyl smacked his lips, Avior nodded, and the waiter departed. Was this really how halflings lived in the Starlands?

&nbs
p; “Suppose I asked for dragon ribs?” she asked.

  “We’d need a bigger table,” Rigel said solemnly. “Let’s get the business done before the food arrives. Tyl, she knows about the guilt curse and Naos magic. I haven’t told her much about your father or the Family.”

  “Nasty story,” Tyl said and drank some beer. He let the loose sleeves of his robe fall back so she could admire the red thatch on his thick wrists. “You understand that starborn never die? Eventually they fade. After a few thousand years they lose interest, give away their domains, are seen less often, and finally never. But when the ruler goes, he or she has to bequeath the entire Starlands realm to a successor, who must be another Naos. With me so far? Usually there are thirty or forty Naos around to choose from, but V—that’s my father, Naos Vildiar—was very anxious to succeed Electra when she eventually faded. Not liking the odds, he decided to kill off all the other claimants. He didn’t dare do it himself because of the guilt curse. Mudlings can’t be used as assassins because they’re tools, and the guilt for their crimes falls on those who command them. But halflings have free will and the guilt curse has no power over us, whether we kill an elf or vice versa. That’s why we’re the bodyguards and assassins of the Starlands.”

  Rigel held up his—hairless, slender—right wrist to reveal the Saiph bracelet and Avior nodded.

  So did Tyl. “Even so, V has to be careful not to issue a direct order to kill anyone. He needed halflings. He also had, or cultivated, a fetish for human women. He set out to breed himself an army.”

  She had already guessed that the Family must be something like that. “How long has he been at it?”

  “A couple of centuries. Hadar, the current leader, was born in 1851, but he looks no more than thirty by human standards. We tweenlings have hybrid vigor, and we live six or seven times as long as earthlings.”

  Although Avior was accustomed to compliments on her youthfulness, she had never considered celebrating her five hundredth birthday.

  “We’re also sterile,” Tyl added thoughtfully.

  Yes, she already knew what he was hoping for.

  “We knew all this, generally speaking,” Rigel said, either missing or ignoring the code under the plaintext. “But Tyl brought us a lot of new details. Phegda, Vildiar’s domain, is enormous. He must own hundreds of millions of mudlings, so we just assumed he raided his slave barns to make his halflings.”

  “The product wasn’t good enough,” Tyl said, pulling a face. “Mudlings are insipid compared to earthlings—human wild stock, I mean—and their crosses rarely yielded the savagery that V needed. They lacked drive and passion.”

  He did not, of course. With the merest roll of her eyes to acknowledge his continuing hints, Avior emptied her glass. She could feel the alcohol starting to work, but a refill would be welcome.

  Tyl smiled. “My job all last year was seancing Earth, looking for pretty girls who slept alone. Just about every night, V extroverts there and rapes one or two. None of them can resist his magic. None see him as he truly is. Even if he only visits a girl once, there’s another department of the Family who keeps watch to see if she bears a halfling child. Miscegenation is rarely successful, but he harvests a few halflings a year. They’re exchanged for mudling babies from Phegda.”

  “That’s the old legend of changelings come true,” Rigel commented as the waiter delivered the antipasto and an ice bucket.

  Tyl drained his lager. “And then the mudling mother and her foster baby are moved to the crèche at Unukalhai, one of his subdomains. When the child is five, the mother is sent away and the child is reared by its half sisters and later half brothers.”

  There was a pause.

  Avior was quite certain that she was being manipulated and this was payoff time. “You told me that the Family ‘seances’ the world, if that’s the right term, for halflings.”

  Tyl nodded. “And we’re distinctive. Once you’ve seen one of us, you can’t mistake the rest—something about the eyes. Once in a while one of V’s victims moves away and the supervision squad loses track of her. So unless she aborts the fetus, she will bear a halfling child unknown to us. Unknown to the Family, I mean.”

  “We found you,” Rigel said, “because Tyl knew that the Family had located a halfling in Saskatchewan, but was just ignoring her. It took us a couple of months to find you. The Family had still done nothing about you. We decided, if you will pardon the insult, that you did not look sufficiently savage for their needs. You had missed out on their monster training.”

  She found that funny, or perhaps the rum did. The boys at art school had called her the black widow, although she was neither black nor a widow. Or the Dragon Lady. Many had accepted her challenge; most had gotten much more than they’d bargained for.

  Rigel looked puzzled by her amusement, but when she did not comment, he went on. “Now I suspect that Hadar was trolling you as bait for me, and I bit when I decided to rescue you.” He paused expectantly.

  There it was again, and not very subtle, either.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you. Very briefly and just once. I have no idea who my father was. My mother belonged to a rich ranching family in Argentina. When she became inexplicably pregnant, they quickly married her off to a visiting Venezuelan, who could have given your Vildiar lessons in sheer nastiness. I was born in Caracas. So, yes, Halfling Tyl, I may very well be one of your half sisters. As far as I am concerned, I have no family whatsoever. And I will not discuss it again.” After a lifetime of trying to forget, she would not start digging up corpses now. She lifted her glass with a shaky hand and remembered it was empty.

  The waiter appeared with the champagne and three flutes.

  Tyl nodded sadly. “It’s very likely. What V has been doing is a major crime. He ought to have been sent to the Dark Cells for it a thousand times over. No other starborn does it.”

  “Tell her about your childhood,” Rigel said. “What she missed.”

  Avior protested. “I don’t want to hear!” She drained her champagne.

  “You don’t,” Tyl agreed. “The three Rs taught at Unukalhai are Ravishing, Reliability, and Ruthlessness. The insufficiently vicious are used for practice.” He reached for a handful of olives. “About twenty years ago, V decided his army was large enough, and the slaughter began.”

  “They killed these Naos people?”

  “Some faded, a few may have died in genuine accidents, but the others were all killed except for Talitha and Izar—and Vildiar himself. V never orders a criminal act, you understand. He can still proclaim his innocence on the Star itself. Hadar and Botein pick up on his hints and know what’s needed. When Queen Electra was dying of the guilt curse, she had to choose between Vildiar and Talitha, who is still in her first century and far too young for the job. But Electra knew Vildiar was an unthinkable choice.”

  “Rigel!” Izar announced, slouching in. “I’m tired!” A very large, smelly, wet dog came bounding after him and was intercepted by Tyl just before it pillaged the antipasto.

  Rigel laughed. “Does that surprise you? Come on, then. Excuse us, all.” He scooped Izar up and slung him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. “Heel, Turais.” The dog followed, wagging vigorously.

  That left Avior alone with Tyl, who grinned at her and raised his champagne glass in a silent toast. Laying Rigel would be cradle robbing, but Tyl was available as her lover du nuit.

  “So you and I are brother and sister?” she murmured, laying down her empty glass.

  He refilled it. “Who knows?” He shrugged and smiled. “Who cares?”

  How old was he? Twenty-ish like Rigel or forty-ish like her?

  Who cared?

  “Not me.” She offered her glass. He clinked it with his. Deal made.

  “What else can I tell you?” he asked.

  “What made you decide to defect? How could anyone who was raised as you were develop a conscience?”

  “Rigel.” Tyl chewed and swallowed. “Rigel’s arrival c
hanged everything. One day, out of the blue, we heard that the legendary Saiph had turned up on the wrist of a wild-stock halfling. That would be a deadly combination even with a lesser man than he. Hadar decided to steal it, although he knew perfectly well that a defensive amulet like Saiph cannot be stolen without killing its bearer first. Hadar tried to do just that and very nearly killed Talitha and Izar in the process. Talitha was so impressed with Rigel’s prowess that she appointed him to be Izar’s bodyguard.

  “The Family had ruled the roost for twenty years with hardly a bruise to show for it. Then within a couple of days, it lost eight people, thanks to Rigel. Now it’s started again—this afternoon they set up an ambush to kill him and lost three more.”

  “But Rigel didn’t kill them! Izar’s dragon did.” She could see Rigel and the dog walking up a wall.

  “I didn’t say he did. He didn’t kill all the eight, either. Starborn Fomalhaut is the ranking mage in the Starlands. He gave Imp Izar a Lesath amulet. That was an insanely irresponsible, criminal act!”

  “The dragon, Edasich?”

  Tyl chuckled. “No, a dog named Turais. The present Turais is just a dog; the first one, his namesake, was a nightmare. But why in the stars did Fomalhaut do that? I think it was because of Rigel. Like most starfolk, Fomalhaut despises halflings as part animal, but he’s a red mage and probably has a powerful prescience. He sensed this new boy was a mover of mountains. Rigel is as deadly as the queen on a chessboard. Avior, the kid has worn Saiph all his life! Literally since the hour he was born. That amulet has shaped him, made him into the warrior it needs. If you want to see what reflexes and agility are, try him on the squash court. Or tennis. My brother Thabit’s a fantastic tennis player and I’m just as good, but Rigel can beat the pair of us together. I could break him in half in hand-to-hand, except he’d have a lock on me before I touched him.”

  His reflexes hadn’t saved him from her punch on the dock.