Jay’s fingers closed on her wrist, and the pain forced her to drop the epispray.

“What are you doing?” The enunciation was ice careful.

Tisianne’s eyes fluttered up to meet his. What she read there made it impossible for her to speak.

“Freeing him,” Taj said softly as he gently freed Jay’s fingers from around Tis’s wrist. “From a death in life.”

“You’re going to put your own father to sleep?”

“I have to,” Tis said so quietly that she wasn’t even sure the words were audible. “He’s been kept alive as a pawn. Now his presence is no longer necessary. In fact it’s a hindrance.”

“That’s what Zabb was laying on you. Remove that last life standing between you and your goddamn throne. Jesus, I can’t believe you.”

His scorn hurt. It struck her skin like a lash, and she almost quailed. She went searching for anger and found a thimbleful. It would suffice in lieu of courage. “I expect neither your understanding nor your approval. I expect you to do the job I hired you for,” Tis spat out.

Jay’s face shut down like shutters slamming closed. Jammed his hands into his pockets and turned away. Tisianne sucked in a deep breath, held it, and depressed the key. Twenty seconds later Shaklan’s chest seemed to collapse with the exhalation of his final breath.

Sweeping up her hip-length hair, Tis flung it across the body to form a golden shroud. From deep within her a shriek formed, drove upward, punching through her throat like a geyser of acid. The sound that emerged was like nothing human or Takisian. It was the cry of a wounded and dying animal.

For Shaklan, Raiyis of the House Ilkazam, was dead.

Chapter Twenty-One

If God is a woman, She looks like that grand old dowager seated in the center.

It was an irreverent thought, and it sent Mark back to an embarrassed contemplation of his thumbnails. Jay Ackroyd was sleeping, supported only by his tailbone and the back of his head in the uncomfortable little chair. Mark figured he’d let the detective sleep unless he started snoring.

While this might be the most critical hurdle Tisianne had yet scaled, for the humans it was stone-cold boring. The entire affair was being conducted in Ilkazal in the private mode, so that an audible word exploded into the tense silence maybe only once or twice a minute.

The hall felt like a rococo courtroom. A mosaic tile floor showed some glorious scene from Ilkazam history, and a skylight faceted like a giant diamond formed most of the roof. The moonlight streaming through those facets broke into its component colors, and rainbows danced and clashed with the assembly’s gaudy clothes.

The seven old crones stared down from their curving dais at Tisianne. They should be passing an eye back and forth, Mark thought, for their gray hair and cold expressions reminded Mark of the Greek legend of the Graeae. Mark wondered why the Doc didn’t collapse beneath the weight of that hostile scrutiny, but she remained a proudly erect little figure with a rainbow snagged in her pale blond hair and dyeing the fabric of the elaborate clothing that had somehow been produced in only a few hours. Mark had a feeling there was some heavy nanotechnology at work here.

There had been a couple of uncomfortable moments dealing with the House tailor. Jay had been loud and crude in his rejection of any suggestion that he forgo the pleasure of wearing a sports coat and slacks. The tailor had retorted that it was beneath his dignity to design for a Tarhiji. Jay had retorted that the guy was a Tarhiji, so what was his fucking problem. And besides which he was better than any damn mincing fairy. Tachyon – no Tisianne, damn it, he had to remember that – had yelled at both of them. Then Taj had entered and gotten results.

Mark glanced over at Ackroyd. His outfit was nice but in no way matched the magnificence of Mark’s suit. The tailor had been overwhelmed by Mark’s size and designed to accentuate the length of the ace’s lanky body. The colors were great, but the little hat kept dropping tassels into Mark’s eyes, and the fluttering ribbons made Mark feel like a cornstalk bedecked to ward off birds.

Zabb came sliding down the row to join them. Mark flinched, and his hand shot down next to his chair to reassure himself of the presence of the blessed briefcase. Mark did another quick count. It hadn’t changed since the last frenzied count an hour before – Four Starshine, four J. J. Flash; three Moonchild, four Aquarius, three Cosmic Traveler.

Traveler had acceded to Zabb’s request and had even joined in the spirit of the plot and improved on the original plan. It was a real bummer that this most cowardly of Trips’s “friends” was forming a bond with this most charming of enemies. Now, with the elaborate pin delivered to Onyze’s suite, Mark just had to wait for the other shoe to drop – for Zabb to kill the kid.

Given that Zabb had tried to destroy Mark’s home planet, it was sort of jarring to be working with him. But goddamn, Zabb could be charming, and he’d certainly thrown his support behind the Doc’s bid to regain his throne and his body. Like early in the evening. Zabb had arrived, taken a look at Tis’s outfit, and vanished again. When he returned, he was carrying a pair of elaborate hair combs that appeared to be cut out of solid emeralds.

“They’re mine,” he explained. “They wouldn’t have suited your coloring in your former guise. In your current one they suit you very well.”

And Mark realized that with their pale, almost white blond hair, Tisianne in her borrowed body and Zabb looked very much alike. Tis was wearing the combs now, the hair caught up over each ear.

Remembering the combs set another synapse firing, and Mark began to worry again about Jay. Ever since the detective’s return with the Doc, he had been sullenly silent, and the lines about his mouth were driven deeper as if he were holding back some raging anger. Trips had probed and had his nose bitten off and spit back at him. All Ackroyd would say was, “Ask our little princess,” in a tone so bitter that it sent Mark’s stomach scurrying for cover against the back of his spine. He hadn’t asked Tisianne – she had enough to deal with, and there was a haunted look in her eyes that made the peaceful, gentle ace want to hit someone as if that could somehow transfer the pain she was feeling.

Zabb slid into the chair beside Mark, slipped an arm through his. I guess we’re buddies now, thought Mark.

“I think we’re in very good shape,” Zabb whispered into Mark’s ear.

Mark nodded, tried to unobtrusively pull his arm free. Just an uptight American, he thought. I can’t get used to all this touching, especially between men.

“I mean, after all, they can’t deny she’s Tisianne.”

“So what happens? They say she’s the Doc, and then she’s ruler of the House?”

“Not quite, they will wait to be advised.”

“As to whether the consensus in the House is to make her Raiyis?”

“Yes.”

“You’re making this sound almost like a democracy.” That laugh like a wolfs yip. “Not hardly. Basically it’s a precaution to make certain the choice isn’t so unpopular that we end up with a family blood feast.”

“That’s coming anyway,” Trips said, depressed and tortured with guilt over Traveler’s involvement in a planned murder.

“You’re far too pessimistic.” Zabb gave Mark an encouraging buffet on the shoulder. Then his attention was drawn to something telepathic that was transpiring on the dais.

The oldest of the old crones folded her hands carefully on the table before her and bowed her head as if in deep and profound thought.

Lifting her head, she began, “Distaffs and sword sides, stirpes and domestics.” It was audible speech, and her focus was over the heads of the nobility, and on the servants clustered about the back wall. “Before we come to the matter before us, it is my sad duty to inform you of the death of the Raiyis.”