“Enough!” a stentorian voice commanded.
The storm of flyers disappeared as quickly as it had come.
Anigel peered out from beneath her cloak and saw two ghastly apparitions a scant stone’s throw away down the trail. They were enormous long-necked birds with massive scaled legs, bigger than any voors she had ever seen. Their bodies were dark blue, their toothed beaks gaped wide, and their eyes blazed like hot coals. Seated on their backs were sorcerers attired in silver-and-black Star Guild regalia, steel cuirasses, and impressive helmets with starry diadems.
One of the riders came forward, drawing from a scabbard a weapon of the Vanished Ones. “Gyorgibo of Nambit! Dismount and yield to me!”
Anigel recognized the voice, and also the red hair streaming from beneath the sorceress’s helm. It was Naelore.
The Archduke’s grimy features contorted with hatred. Instead of surrendering to the Star Woman he spurred his fronial and charged her at a gallop, sword poised to strike. She lifted her weapon and there was a sudden golden flash and a peculiar loud chirping sound. Gyorgibo’s mount screamed and crashed onto the trail, legs sprawling and antlers broken, and lay there keening piteously. He himself was flung from the saddle, rolling head over heels and fetching up in an unconscious heap at the base of a great nest-tree.
“Would anyone else care to fight?” Tazor brought his nyar up to Naelore’s and pointed his own strange weapon at the wounded fronial. A scarlet beam shone forth, striking the animal between the eyes and killing it instantly.
“We submit!” President Hakit Botal cried, raising his hands. “Spare us!”
Ga-Bondies fell to his knees, whimpering, also with hands up. Prigo stood wide-eyed, still partially shrouded in his cape. Prince Widd, King Ledavardis, and Queen Jiri, who had tried to protect the Eternal Princess from the onslaught of the frenzied little birds, crouched beside Raviya’s supine form and glared at the sorcerers. Anigel ignored the nyars and their formidable riders, went to Gyorgibo, and bent over his body in concern.
“Leave him!” Naelore commanded. She swung down from her bird’s back, leaving it motionless, and strode toward the Queen.
“Your brother has struck his head,” Anigel said calmly, “but he seems to be recovering his wits. Let me—”
“Silence! Come here.”
Anigel rose with dignity and approached the Star Woman, who pointed the ancient weapon at her.
“That’s far enough,” Naelore commanded. “Remove your amber amulet and place it on the ground between us.”
“No,” said Anigel. “Though you slay me where I stand, I shall not take off my Black Trillium.”
“Then prepare to die, stupid slut!”
“Imperial Highness!” Tazor dismounted and approached. His nyar also stood frozen in place. “I have a suggestion.”
“Speak,” the sorceress said.
“We hold two Duumviri of Imlit in our power, but only one hostage is needed to insure that nation’s compliance.” Tazor hoisted his weapon and took hold of Ga-Bondies by the collar. “Perhaps if I slice an arm from the elderly one—”
“No!” shrieked the cowering Duumvir. “Have mercy!”
“—Queen Anigel would reconsider her disobedience.”
“Do it,” said Naelore.
Ga-Bondies burst into hysterical tears. Anigel immediately lifted the amber on its chain from around her neck and laid it in the mud of the riverbank. The Star Woman now wore a smile of poisonous satisfaction. She aimed her weapon at the amber, and there was a blaze of yellow light; but the amulet remained unharmed.
Naelore spat out a curse of vexation. “Tazor! See if you can destroy this thing.”
His deadly scarlet beam was no more effective than the golden blast had been. “Highness, the Black Trillium’s magic renders it invulnerable. But I have another idea.” He took the old sword that Gyorgibo had dropped and used it to pick up the amulet by its chain. Although the sword at once grew hot, he was able to fling the amber overhand into the dense woods. Tazor dropped the smoking sword and grinned. “Let the wild beasts puzzle over the magical amulet on dark nights.”
Naelore threw back her head and laughed. She seized Anigel painfully by her shoulder and pushed her toward a nyar. “Tazor, help her up onto my bird. She will ride pillion as I hasten to the staging area, while you deal with these worthies.”
“The foul sorcerer will kill us all!” Ga-Bondies wailed.
Naelore regarded the stout Duumvir with distaste. “We have other plans for you, quiver-guts. Only this witch-queen is needed by the Star Master, to insure that her son surrenders his talisman.”
Anigel stiffened in the arms of the former steward. Her breath caught in her throat. “My son? Which son are you talking about?”
“Your son Tolivar, of course,” said the Archduchess. “The one who wears the Three-Headed Monster. He had the star-box and the second talisman as well—the Burning Eye—but your sister Kadiya forced him to give those back to her.”
“Tolo … my talisman … This is impossible! The boy is in Var, thousands of leagues from here, and so is Kadi. And Tolo does not have the coronet.”
Again Naelore laughed. “What mother truly knows her own child? He has possessed it—and used it—for at least four years, unbeknownst to all save the Star Master, who speaks to the boy in his dreams. Now your precious son and his aunt and their surviving henchmen are here in Sobrania, just as you are. I doubt not that you will meet the lot of them before long, to your mutual sorrow.”
Tazor hoisted the Queen, who had gone flaccid with shock, onto the rear of the Archduchess’s saddle. He then bound Anigel’s hands and wrapped her well in a cloak. “I will deal with the others and catch up with you, Imperial Highness,” he said to Naelore. “But do not let the Master delay the invasion on my account.”
Naelore nodded curtly and mounted. Lifting her silver-gloved hand in farewell to Tazor, she sent her nyar speeding away.
“Will you take us back to Castle Conflagrant, then?” Ledavardis of Raktum asked the Star Man. Ledavardis and Queen Jiri were now on their feet, while old Widd knelt with his arms about Raviya, both of them pale but serene of countenance.
“No,” Tazor said, peering down at Gyorgibo, who had begun to groan and stir from promptings of the Guildsman’s boot. “I am going to shut the lot of you up in the imperial hunting lodge, where our army spent the night. It lies about eighty leagues downriver from here, a six- or seven-hour ride. The ferocious denizens of the Lirda will keep you secure for a few days until we complete our business in Brandoba and retrieve you.”
He addressed Hakit Botal. “Sir President, you and the Goblin Kinglet wade across the river and catch your wandering fronials. Make haste, or I will burn the ears off one of these ladies with my fire-squirter.” Resting his weapon on one shoulder, he turned to Duumvir Prigo. “You! Take up that old sword and cut two long poles and several lengths of stout vine. We will have to make a drag-litter for Princess Raviya.” And to Ga-Bondies: “Remove the harness and blanket from that dead steed, then unbuckle the leathers and make them into separate straps.”
As the able-bodied male hostages went to their chores, Tazor ambled over to Jiri, Raviya, and Widd, who had been whispering among themselves. “How fares the old dame?” he asked, not unkindly.
“The Eternal Princess is suffering mostly from exhaustion,” said the Queen of Galanar. “The litter is an excellent idea. Will you also make one for the poor Archduke?”
The Star Man gave a nasty chuckle. “Let him travel trussed and flung over my saddle, like a dead nunchik. It matters not. Unlike the rest of you, he will not long survive his sister’s ascent to the imperial throne.”
“I don’t suppose,” Jiri said in a wheedling manner, “that you have wine you might spare for Princess Raviya? It would give her strength.”
“Take the bottleskin from my saddlebag.”
Jiri eyed the tall nyar askance. “Oh my! I would not dare approach that dreadful bird—”
“I hav
e enchanted it with my Star. It will not move nor harm you unless I give the command.”
Jiri went to the great creature and began rummaging in one of the saddlebags, which was so high as to be nearly above her head. “Perhaps the bottle is on the other side,” she said, and went around the bird out of Tazor’s sight. A moment later she called out, “I still can’t seem to find it.”
Grumbling, the Star Man went to assist her. The plump, middle-aged Queen stood back, smiling apologetically with both hands thrust up her ample sleeves. Holding his weapon in one hand, Tazor turned away from her and groped inside the feather-trimmed leather pouch with the other.
Jiri stepped up behind him. The space between the bottom edge of the sorcerer’s starburst helmet and the upper part of his cuirass was narrow, only about two fingers wide. The Queen whipped a war flail out of her sleeve, whirled its chain overhead, and sent the heavy iron swingle at the chain’s end squarely into the aperture of the armor. There was a ghastly snap. His neck broken, Tazor dropped in his tracks without uttering a sound.
The nyar came abruptly to life, roaring, and gave a short hop backward. It scraped one huge clawed foot in the mud in challenge, lowered its head, and tensed to spring at the Queen.
From the bushes came a figure scuttling on hands and knees. It was the Archduke Gyorgibo, who scooped up the weapon of the Vanished Ones which Tazor had let fall and fired it directly into the wide-open fanged beak of the monster that menaced Jiri. The nyar’s head vanished in a burst of red fire and the colossal body thudded onto the ground.
“Heldo’s Tentacles!” cried King Ledavardis. He and Hakit Botal were standing on the opposite bank of the small river, awestruck at what the Queen and Gyorgibo had done.
“I am truly sorry about Tazor,” Jiri said. “He was by no means as deep-dyed a reprobate as Naelore.” A tear gleamed in her eye and the Archduke put a comforting arm about her.
The two Duumviri now sidled up and gaped at the dead Star Man and the headless carnivore.
“Mother-in-law,” Prigo said shakily, “I am overwhelmed. I salute your warrior prowess.”
“What in God’s name did you hit the fellow with?” Ga-Bondies asked.
“An old war flail that I picked up in the castle dungeon.” She shook loose of Gyorgibo’s embrace. “I must go to Raviya. All this violence must have been a great shock to her.”
But the Eternal Princess was sitting up, calmly rearranging her mussed snowy hair, while Widd squatted beside her. “I don’t suppose you ever found that wine,” Raviya said to Jiri.
The Queen smiled. “It was in the first saddlebag I examined. Fortunately, the nyar did not fall on top of it. There is food, too.”
“We can all share it,” Raviya declared, “and then we really ought to be riding on. I’ll be fit once I get a little something into my stomach.” She cocked her head at her husband. “What are you waiting for, old man? Go fetch the victuals from that dead brute and set them out for us.”
King Ledavardis, who had recrossed the water and returned to the group, took Queen Jiri aside. “Do you think Raviya is really well enough to travel?”
Jiri considered. “She feels better for the moment, but she cannot last long. It would be best if we carried her in a litter. By following the distinctive tracks of the nyars, we should reach the imperial hunting lodge where the dead Star Man intended to take us. There we will surely find decent food and beds, if it was intended to be our prison.”
“We might discover that the lodge is inhabited by minions of Orogastus.”
“Then we will simply have to subdue them,” Jiri said gently.
The King of the Pirates winked at her with his good eye. “Right! I don’t think we have to worry about Naelore coming back for some time. Not with Queen Anigel to guard and the sorcerer instigating a brawl in the Sobranian capital.”
“Anigel …” The kindly Queen’s face crumpled in regret. “Poor child. I fear that we shall have to leave her fate to the Lords of the Air.”
“There may be something I can do.” King Ledavardis’s unlovely countenance brightened as an idea came to him. “If you will attend to our preparations here, I will try to find the lost amber amulet. I doubt it would harm one who is a friend and would-be son-in-law to its royal mistress. Who knows? The Black Trillium might condescend to aid a certain pirate in coming to Queen Anigel’s rescue.”
“You would go after her?” Jiri’s eyes widened.
“The late Star Man’s sword and miraculous antique weapon would help to even the odds between me and the Queen’s captors.”
“Ledo, you are a brave young man,” said Jiri.
The King lifted her hand and kissed it. “From you, that is the greatest of compliments.”
23
In spite of his intense fatigue, Prince Tolivar tossed restlessly in the hut of Critch the Cadoon, lying on a sack of soft down. They had gone to bed in daylight, but the upper level of the dwelling was dim and cool, with only two tiny latticed windows, one at each end up under the eaves of the thatched roof. From the bare beams hung scores of string bags, each holding feathers of a different hue. The snores of the four Oathed Companions sleeping at the other end of the loft mingled with the faint rumble of surf on the pebble beach outside and the mewing and squeals of griss and pothi and other seabirds.
Kadiya and Jagun had said they would rest downstairs, but Tolivar heard them conversing for a long time with the aborigine and his family. The Prince’s promise to his aunt deterred him from using the coronet to eavesdrop—not that he really cared what kind of mysterious merchandise the Lady of the Eyes was purchasing for her foray into Brandoba on the morrow. Kadiya had made it clear that he would have to remain on the boat with Jagun and Critch, while she and the knights went off into the city, to warn the Emperor that the Star Men were planning some sort of skullduggery and beg for help in rescuing Queen Anigel and the other hostages.
Tolivar had removed the magical coronet from his head and tucked it into his shirtfront, where it would be safe. He had commanded it to wake him instantly if anybody came near him. As he lay there dozing, his fingers gripped the talisman through the cloth.
You are mine, he told it again and again.
And the Three-Headed Monster always replied: Yes.
Although he desired his mother’s safe return with all his heart, the knowledge that the adults would surely try to coerce him into giving her the coronet gnawed at his entrails.
It was so unfair!
The Queen had surrendered the talisman to Orogastus—under duress, it was true, but still of her own free will—and Tolivar had taken it in turn from the sorcerer’s minion. Was his mother’s claim to the Three-Headed Monster any more valid than that of Orogastus? Even when she had possessed the coronet she merely kept it hidden away, almost never making use of its magical power except to bespeak her two sisters from afar.
The talisman is mine, Tolivar said to himself, rightfully mine—no matter what the others may think or say.
But only for a little while longer.
Who—? You are not my talisman speaking!
No. I am the Star Master. Your master, Tolo.
No! Never! Begone from my dreams!
You are not dreaming. And I have already told you that I would not be able to bespeak you if you did not wish it.
That’s a lie—
It is the truth, as you know full well. You still admire me and yearn to share my power as my adopted son and heir. It is ignoble of you to deny it … just as it is ignoble of you to deny that you brought about the death of Ralabun the Nyssomu.
Ralabun! My poor old friend. I didn’t mean for him to die. It was an accident, even though Aunt Kadiya says—
Responsibility is not necessarily guilt. Listen to me, Tolo: If you had not commanded Ralabun to accompany you on the Oda River trail, he would still be alive. Accept that burden, as every commander must! But do not torture yourself with feelings of blame. The cruel Lady of the Eyes seeks to control you by imputing that you are
morally culpable in the matter of your friend’s death. But you are not.
… Truly?
Do you think Ralabun would have stayed behind while you undertook a dangerous journey alone?
No. Even if I had not commanded him, he would have come with me.
And did you know that a namp was lurking nearby when you sent Ralabun off the trail?
Of course not!
Therefore he did perish by simple misadventure, and not through any fault or negligence of yours. Do you understand?
Yes. I—I thank you for explaining, Orogastus.
Tolo, we have been separated for many years, and much of the blame lies on me. But it is now time for our estrangement to be mended. Come away from those coldhearted, neglectful people who fail to appreciate your true worth. Once you loved me as your adopted father. Come back to me now and resume your position at my side. My Guildsmen and I were prevented from meeting you at the viaduct by other, vitally important matters. But I can meet you elsewhere.
No!
Tomorrow you will sail to Brandoba with the others. I shall also be there in the city. Use your talisman to elude Kadiya and come to me, bringing the star-box. We can meet at—
No! Orogastus, you tricked me once when I was a silly, spiteful child. It will not happen again. All you want is to take my talisman away from me.