The entire company was on its feet, straining to see and holding its collective breath as the old man stabbed his branch down.
“…is the Ries astrobleme. A few kloms north of the Danube, at the site of the future city of Nördlingen, maybe three hundred kloms east of here. And sure as God made little green apples, that’s your Ship’s Grave. It’s a crater more than twenty-five kloms in diameter. The largest in Europe.”
There was an uproar among the Lowlife folk. People crowded in to congratulate Claude and get refills of wine. Someone got out a reed flute and began to play a sprightly tune. Others laughed and danced about. The day that had begun in panicked flight from exotic enemies showed signs of ending as a celebration.
Ignoring the merrymakers, Madame whispered to Chief Burke. She and the Native American beckoned to the remnant of Group Green and withdrew into a deeply shadowed part of the hollow sequoia.
“It may be possible,” Madame said, “just barely possible, to implement the plan yet this year. But we will have to set out at once. You must lead, Peo. And I must also go to detect and repel the Howling Ones. We will require your help to find the crater, Claude and that of Felice to coerce hostile animals same coin as that unjustly used. The loss of your starship, of your livelihood, was not enough and you know it! You must give of yourself, and then you will no longer despise yourself. Help us. Help your friends who need you.
“Damn…” He bunked away the mist that had risen in his eyes.
Save.
His words were barely audible. “All right.” The others were all looking at him, but he could not see their eyes. “I’ll go with you. I’ll fly the aircraft back here if I can. But that’s all I can promise.”
“It is enough,” Madame said.
Back at the central fire, the singing and laughing were more subdued. People drifted away to the smaller hearths to prepare for sleep. A small figure hobbled toward Madame, silhouetted against the dying bonfire.
“I’ve been thinking on your expedition to the Ship’s Grave,” said Fitharn. “You’re going to need the help of our people.”
“To find the Danube quickly,” Claude agreed. “Do you have any idea of the best way to reach it? In our time, its head-waters were in the Black Forest. God knows where the river begins nowadays. The Alps, even some super version of Lake Constance.”
“There is only one person with the authority to help you,” the Firvulag said. “You’re going to have to visit the King.”
CHAPTER TWO
Yeochee IV, High King of the Firvulag, came tiptoeing into the main audience hall of his mountain fortress, his seeker-sense probing the dim recesses of the great cavern. “Lulo, my little pomegranate! Where are you hiding?” There was a sound like the jingling of tiny bells mixed with laughter. A shadow fluttered among the red-and-cream stalactites, the hanging tapestries, the tatty fringed trophy banners from Grand Combats forty years gone. Leaving a musky scent in its wake, something glided like a huge moth into a cul-de-sac chamber at one side of the hall.
Yeochee rushed in pursuit “Now I’ve got you trapped! There’s no way out of the crystal grotto except past me!”
The alcove was lit by candles in a single golden sconce. The flames struck glints from an incredible profusion of quartz prisms that encrusted the walls, sparkling pink and purple and white like the interior of a giant geode. Heaps of dark fun made inviting mounds on the floor. One of these heaps quivered.
“So there you are!”
Yeochee bounded into the grotto and lifted the concealing rug with tantalizing slowness. A cobra with a body as thick as his arm reared up and hissed at him.
“Now, Lulo! Is that a way to welcome your King?”
The serpent shimmered and acquired a woman’s head. Her hair was varicolored like the snakeskin, her eyes a teasing amber. The tongue that stole from her smiling lips was forked.
With a cry of delight, the King threw open his arms. The snakewoman grew a neck, shoulders, soft arms with clever boneless fingers, a marvelously formed upper torso. “Stop right there for a moment,” Yeochee suggested, “and we’ll explore a few possibilities.” They fell onto the bed of furs with an elan that made the candle flames gutter.
A trumpet sounded far away.
“Oh, damn,” groaned the King. The concubine Lulo whimpered and uncoiled but her forked tongue continued to dart hopefully.
The trumpet. Waited again, nearer this time, and there was a booming of gongs that made the mountain vibrate in sympathy. The stalactites just outside the crystal grotto hummed like tuning forks.
Yeochee sat up, his once jolly face a mask of dismay. “That stupid contingent of Lowlives. The ones who think they’re onto a secret weapon against the Tanu, I promised Pallol I’d check ’em out.”
The alluring lamia wavered, melted, and became a plump little naked woman with apple cheeks and a blonde Dutch bob. Pouting, she pulled a mink rug over herself and said, “Well, this is going to take a while, for Té’s sake at least get me something to eat. All this chasing about has got me starving to death. No bat fritters, mind you! And none of that awful broiled salamander, either.”
Yeochee tied his slightly shabby cloth-of-gold dressing gown and ran his fingers, comb-fashion, through his tangled yellow hair and beard. “I’ll order you something lovely,” he promised. “We caught us a new human cook the other day who has a marvelous way with cheese-and-meat pastry.” The King smacked his lips. “This business won’t take long. Then we’ll have a picnic right here, and for dessert…”
The trumpet sounded a third time, just outside the hall.
“You’re on,” said Lulo, snuggling down under the mink. “Hurry back.”
King Yeochee stepped outside the grotto, took a deep breath, and transformed himself from one hundred sixty to two hundred sixty centimeters in height. The old robe became a great trailing cloak of garnet-colored velvet. He acquired a splendid suit of gold-chased obsidian parade armor, its open helm surmounted by a tall crown sprouting two curling members like golden ram’s horns and a beaklike extension jutting over the forehead that threw his upper face into deep shadow. He turned on his eyes so that they gleamed with sinister chatoyance. Making a run for it, he assumed the throne without a moment to spare.
The trumpet sounded for the last time.
Yeochee raised one mailed hand and several dozen illusory courtiers and men-at-arms winked into being about the throne dais. The rocks of the mountain hall began to glow with rich colors. Rippling music, as from a marimba of glass, filled the room as six Firvulag of the palace guard escorted the humans and Fitharn Pegleg into the royal presence.
One of the quasi courtiers stepped forward. Using Standard English for the sake of the Lowlives, he declaimed: “Let all pay homage to His Appalling Highness Yeochee IV, Sovereign Lord of the Heights and Depths, Monarch of the Infernal Infinite, Father of All Firvulag; and Undoubted Ruler of the Known World!”
An organlike peal of deafening intensity stopped the approaching visitors in their tracks. The King arose and seemed to grow taller and taller before their eyes until he loomed among the stalactites like some gigantic idol with emerald eyes.
Fitharn doffed his tallhat briefly. “How do, King.”
“You have our leave to approach!” boomed the apparition.
Fitharn stumped forward, the seven humans trailing after him. Yeochee noted with regret that only two of the Lowlives, a sharp-featured fellow with a big black mustache and a younger woman, hollow-cheeked and thin, with fair hair pulled into an unflattering knot, seemed genuinely impressed by his monstrous guise. The rest of the human party regarded His Appalling Highness with either scientific interest or amusement. Old Madame Guderian even betrayed a trace of Gallic ennui. Oh, what the hell. Why not relax?