“Get back out of the way!” shouted the person above. He came hurtling down the ladder. Anigel was dragged through water into total darkness, hearing her son mouth reassurances from somewhere nearby. Then a dazzling burst of ruby light silhouetted a stocky misshapen figure having something cradled in its arms. She heard a rumble of collapsing masonry. Some of the stones were red hot, sizzling as they hit the water, and the tunnel was filled with roiling dust.
“Keep moving!” yelled the hunchbacked shadow. He lifted the thing he held and produced another explosion, dancing away from the fresh avalanche of stones.
Instinctively, the Queen pulled her soaking wet costume hood over her head to assist her breathing and scrambled along on hands and knees through water and slimy sediment. Incredulous excitement replaced the deadly languor that had numbed her wits. She had recognized the burly malformed body of the young King of Raktum.
“Ledo? … It’s you? Oh, thanks be to the Lords of the Air!”
“Aye, Mother-in-Law-Elect. And thanks also to the Archduke Gyor, here, who remembered this warren of sewer tunnels, and to your Black Trillium amulet that led us straight to you, and even to young Tolo—who brought along the sneeze-eggs.”
She was suddenly hoisted to her feet. A golden glow, visible through the open weave of the hood’s feathered fabric, dispelled the darkness. The air had cleared miraculously. Anigel discarded her soaked griss costume and saw that she was in a vaulted tunnel with water running through it. Tolivar and two men in sodden clothes stood there, grinning at her. She gave a cry of joy as King Ledavardis stowed his antique weapon, lifted the shining droplet of trillium-amber from around his neck, and transferred it to her own.
Gyorgibo said, “We dare not stay here. The Star Men will soon discover that there are other drains in the pleasance leading to this tunnel. They will be after us. We shall have to block the passage behind us as we flee, and hope they do not cut us off.”
“But where shall we go?” Prince Tolivar asked, his glee changed abruptly to panic.
“Look!” Anigel cried. “The amber!”
The pendant was blinking rapidly, and in its heart the Flower was bisected by a line with a bright tip.
“It points in the direction of my brother’s palace,” Gyorgibo said, “the only possible place for us to find refuge. Run!”
Encumbered as he was with the star-box and its precious contents, which he instinctively held to his breast, Orogastus could at first think only of protecting the Three-Headed Monster. It had bonded to him at the instant the diabolical eggs smashed, and even as he doubled over in a helpless paroxysm he managed to pull out the coronet and clap it safely onto his brow. A miniature of the Star at his breast now shone beneath the central head of the Monster.
“Talisman!” he gasped. “Banish the damned spores! Cure me and my men of the sneezing! Do you hear me?”
Yes. It is done.
His eyes and sinuses cleared and he darted to the bosquet fence and parted the bushes, revealing a large hole amidst the trees with a displaced iron grating beside it. Before he could command the Guildsmen he heard hollow voices issue from underground: “… blast the shaft … out of the way …”
“Beware!” the sorcerer cried, falling back against one of his warriors. He still held the star-box tightly. “They have magic weapons!” An instant later a flash of red light came from the hole, along with a thunderous noise and a plume of dust. A second blast followed. Cursing, Orogastus cleared the air again with the talisman, only to find the opening in the ground sealed with rubble.
“Talisman, show me Queen Anigel!”
The request is impertinent.
“Why can you not show her?” he raged.
She is shielded by the Black Trillium.
The sorcerer groaned. “It cannot be! Unless—” He broke off and requested Sight of Prince Tolivar; but the boy was shielded also by the proximity of his mother, as were Anigel’s rescuers. “Then show me the layout of the drainage system beneath this pleasance, and the site of this blocked shaft.”
This time the coronet obeyed, and into his mind sprang a lucid diagram of the tunnels, with a blinking spark showing where the Queen and Prince had gone to ground. “Show me the drain openings nearest this one!” Two additional lights began to flash, and hope sprang into his heart as he realized that one of them lay behind him, near to the fountain, and another was not twenty ells beyond the bosquet, across the cordoned-off boulevard that skirted the pleasance.
But before he could order his men into position there was a third red flare, dimly visible through the crowd lining the thoroughfare as it shone up through a storm drain. The fugitives were sealing the access points as they moved away. But he could trap them easily if he could but study the sewer diagram for a few more moments—
“Master! The main gates of the palace are opening. The Imperial Handsel procession is beginning!”
Again Orogastus groaned. He heard trumpets and drums. There was no time left to spare. The army was poised to advance, and Naelore and her group of nobles awaited a successful outcome to the attack. He grasped his Star and bespoke the Guildsmen in charge of the partisan warriors:
“Prepare to storm the palace when I give the command.”
27
“What the devil was that?” Sainlat shouted. “I could have sworn I felt the pavement move—but with this accursed throng making such a hullabaloo, I cannot be certain.”
“It is only the fireworks exploding,” Melpotis yelled at him.
Edinar laughed. “Or your own big feet crushing the cobblestones.”
The four Oathed Companions moved forward through the close-packed celebrants on the southern side of the pleasance, with Kadiya in the midst of them wielding her talisman to part the crowd. She had removed her headpiece to see better and Sainlat had lost the pointed beak worn on his nose, but otherwise their disguises were still intact: Kadiya in purple feathers, Edinar in red, Melpotis and Kalepo wearing steel-blue, and Sainlat voluminously swathed in pothi-pink.
The talisman, with Kadiya’s trillium-amber embedded in the hilt, had guided them from the waterfront directly to the audience portal at the far southern wing of the palace, through which visitors were usually admitted to the presence chamber of the Emperor. But there they were stymied. Short of slaying him, which was not an option, the Three-Lobed Burning Eye could not coerce the imperial porter into giving them entry. The man had been adamant: Denombo would see no one this night, not even an emissary from the King and Queen of Laboruwenda. Kadiya was told to return in the morning.
But morning would be too late.
“The crowd thins out near that fountain with the golden birds,” Kalepo pointed out. “Once we reach it, we should be able to approach the main gates of the palace quite easily. But I don’t see how we can hope to have better luck there than at the visitors’ portal. It’s plain that the Emperor and his court don’t want to be disturbed during the big show.”
“You should have smitten that insolent palace flunky with your talisman’s magical fire when he denied us entry,” Sainlat grumbled. “Or blasted a hole through the outer wall.”
“No,” said Kadiya. “I told you that the success of our venture depends upon Denombo’s goodwill. He would hardly receive us graciously and give credence to our warning if we broke into his palace by force or harmed his servants. He is obviously a man terrified of magic. If I could only think of a stratagem that—”
“Aagh!” Suddenly, Sainlat found himself unable to budge. “This bloody costume! The tail has snagged again on something. Help me!”
“Help me!” squealed an indignant stout woman who had become attached to Sainlat’s hindquarters and was being dragged along behind him. “This oaf is ruining my lovely outfit!”
Snickering, the other Companions disentangled their pink-clad comrade from the lady, whose orange feathers were adorned with fussy furbelows of gold netting spangled with oversized sharp-pointed sequin stars. The big knight’s awkward fantail had been a nu
isance all evening, and when he was free Sainlat demanded that it be cut off immediately and discarded. They had to wait until they were nearer the fountain to find enough room to work in, for people kept jostling them in spite of Kadiya’s fending magic. Presently, when they reached a nook formed by the elaborate basin’s gilded coping, Melpotis took his dagger and began slicing away the appendage from Sainlat’s cloak. Veils of fine spray from the fountain rained down on them, the music of the Imperial Brass soared to a crescendo, and the climax of the fireworks display filled the sky with traceries of colored flame.
The tail had been well anchored and it was going to take a few minutes to accomplish the amputation without destroying the costume. Kadiya decided to contact her Nyssomu friend back on the Cadoon boat and inquire about the mysterious trireme.
“Talisman, I would have mental speech with Jagun.”
He cannot bespeak you, for he lies in an enchanted sleep.
“What?” she exclaimed in astonishment. “Release him at once!”
The request is impertinent.
“Why?” she demanded.
I cannot undo the spell laid by another talisman.
Kadiya smote her brow in exasperated comprehension. “Tolo! Oh, the miserable brat!” Ignoring the bewildered queries of the men, who were unable to hear the talisman’s speech, she bade it show her every part of the aboriginal vessel. It obeyed, rather than balking as it would have done had Tolivar with his shielding magical coronet been aboard. The Prince was gone, and there was no way she could find him with her own talisman. A suspicious canvas-covered lump that lay on deck amidships proved to be Jagun and Critch, snoring peacefully. When she expanded her magical oversight to survey the harbor, she saw that the trireme was now moored at one of the large commercial docks. There was no sign of any unusual activity aboard the vessel or nearby.
“Has that ship’s cargo been unloaded?” she asked the talisman.
Yes.
“What was it?”
The question is impertinent …
While Kadiya put other urgent questions to the Burning Eye (and received few useful answers), Kalepo and Melpotis tended to Sainlat and young Edinar moved around the fountain to avoid the worst of the falling water and get a better view of Emperor Denombo. It was obvious that the pyrotechnic display was just about over, and something curious seemed to be going on just inside the main gates of the palace, to the left of the great flight of stairs. Teams of volumnials had appeared, hauling large four-wheeled carts surmounted by some kind of gaudy structures. A wagonmaster was forming the floats into a parade—
—and guardsmen were slowly swinging wide the great golden portals before the palace stairs!
Edinar trotted over to a knot of a dozen revelers who were dressed, as he was, in red costumes. “Hello! What’s next?” he called eagerly to them, as a brazen fanfare rang out and drums began to roll.
Only one man took note of him, and as he turned about, the young Oathed Companion caught the gleam of armor beneath his scarlet feathered cloak. “Get back to your station, fool!” the fellow growled. “It is the Imperial Handsel, and the command to strike will be given at any moment.”
Edinar dashed back through the curtain of spray, his heart thudding and an icy lump expanding in the pit of his stomach. Until this moment of dread revelation, he had not noticed how many other red-costumed men had gathered around the fountain. He realized now that they were everywhere—scores of them, maybe hundreds!—standing in tense groups among the ordinary celebrants with their eyes fixed on Denombo and his courtiers. Mingled with the redbirds were others garbed in black, skulking about purposefully.
“Lady Kadiya!” Edinar bleated, and made haste to tell her of his discovery. She and the others had already taken note of the open gates, and were eagerly discussing the possibility of going through them invisible.
At the same time the Emperor delivered some bombastic proclamation, the drums settled into a stirring rat-a-tat-BOOM beat, and the volumnial-drawn carts began to roll out of the open gates, turning right onto the upper stretch of the boulevard that encircled the pleasance. Whistles and thunderous cheering arose from the crowd. Each float, flanked by drummers and trumpeters, bore a huge wicker effigy of a different fantastic bird, adorned with plumes, glistening tinsel, and glass “jewels.” At the rear of every wagon stood four young women in scanty attire holding golden baskets, from which they flung showers of tiny gifts to the people on either side.
Emperor Denombo and his courtiers were now being served refreshments by genuflecting servants, while the scattered groups of redbirds were coalescing into a single mass, marshaled by those in black costumes. Upon receiving Edinar’s news, Kadiya looked around her, seized with uncertainty. The ordinary folk were being roughly shoved aside as more and more men wearing black or scarlet gathered on the pavement between the fountain and the open palace gates.
A gust of wind blew one redbird’s cloak aside, and Kadiya saw that he was carrying an odd-shaped instrument. The others, with their hands concealed beneath their cloaks, also seemed to be burdened.
“Triune God!” she exclaimed, finally understanding. “They have weapons of the Vanished Ones! It is an attack upon the palace, just as I feared.”
“What shall we do?” Melpotis asked her in desperation. “Do we dare to approach Denombo now, even invisible? He might think we were assassins!”
Kadiya stood paralyzed by indecision. Denombo was too far away for them to reach, the place was swarming with Star Men, at any moment a pitched battle was going to break out … and somewhere in the mob was young Prince Tolivar, wearing the precious Three-Headed Monster.
The parade of handsel floats had completed its traverse in front of the palace and turned now onto the boulevard bordering the north side of the pleasance. The musicians accompanying it played on and the gift-giving maidens continued strewing imperial largesse. Only a small portion of the vast throng yet realized that anything unusual was happening; the others, oblivious, flocked to the cordons at the boulevards hoping to catch a gift when the parade passed by.
“Look at the fountain jet!” Kalepo cried in wonder. The tall plume of water above them was waving eerily from side to side, while at the same time a distinct rolling vibration seemed to stir the ground underfoot.
“It is an earthquake,” Kadiya said, still distracted, “but a very small one, and nothing we need worry about—”
“Naelore!” came a shout from voices on either side of them, and the cry was taken up by more and more throats until the name echoed from one end of the pleasance to the other, drowning out the music.
“Naelore! Naelore!”
The assault began.
The costumed warriors nearest the gates surged forward in a tight formation and overwhelmed the imperial guards fronting the grand staircase. Another force of invaders burst from the main body of celebrants and charged toward the palace, splitting into two columns as they streamed around the great fountain and joined the advance force. These were armed with two-pronged swords, and cut down anyone who impeded them. Kadiya and her four knights huddled in their small island of safety as the army of Orogastus raced past them, pouring through the palace gates like a tide of black-streaked blood. Bursts of multicolored light, like fireworks set off too low, began to explode all along the palace façade. Those attackers who were equipped with weapons of the Vanished Ones were using them. Another fusillade at the middle of the steps signaled the clash between the sorcerer’s men and the imperial warriors who had rallied to surround the Emperor and his court.
It took a few minutes more before the confused throng realized that something had gone terribly wrong with their festival. Then all they could think of was running away. The cordon of imperial troops along the northern boulevard wavered and fragmented and the panicked mob flowed out onto the thoroughfare, blocking the parade of floats. Like some mindless, shrieking beast the crowd attempted to escape from the pleasance, trampling one another and fighting as they fled into the side streets.
Sainlat cried, “Lady, our mission has failed! We are but five against thousands …”
Kadiya stood unmoving, with eyes glazed, gripping her talisman. Tolo! she called. Tolo! For the love of God, tell me where you are!
“The wizard’s men have overrun Denombo and his defenders!” Melpotis exclaimed. “Lords of the Air have mercy on them.”
“And on us,” Edinar appended grimly. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
But Kadiya ignored the tumult and her Companions as well. Her magical Sight had already shown her the Emperor seized by Star Men, and she now posed agonized questions to herself and to the Three-Lobed Burning Eye: Where can the boy be? Why did he violate his solemn promise to me and use his talisman’s magic? I cannot believe Tolo enchanted Jagun and Critch simply in order to indulge in a childish escapade. He is thoughtless, but not so basely disobedient as that. Holy Flower—could there have been some other reason for him to leave the boat?
But the magical sword, no mind reader, always replied, The question is impertinent.
Then it came to her—whether from talisman or Black Trillium or from her own instinct, she did not know. But she was suddenly certain that Prince Tolivar had come ashore hoping to rescue his mother.
Kadiya addressed her talisman aloud. “Burning Eye, is my sister Anigel in Brandoba?”
Yes.
“Where?”
She is in a drainage tunnel beneath the imperial palace.
Kadiya stifled a cry of elation. “What is she doing in such a place? Is—is she imprisoned?”
She flees from Orogastus. She is not imprisoned.
“Does the sorcerer pursue her underground? Is she in danger of capture?”
Orogastus does not pursue her. At present, she is not in danger of capture. The situation may change if she exits the tunnel.