The palace guards, who had stood immobile in their black-glass armor during the interview, now thumped short lances on the floor and prepared to escort the human visitors out. But the smallest female, the one with the cloud of pale hair , who was scarcely as tall as a Firvulag woman, had the boldness to call out.
“Your Majesty! One more word.”
“Oh, very well,” sighed the King. “I know who you are. I suppose you still think we ought to give you a golden torc.”
“Don’t make me wait!” Felice fixed him with a gaze even more penetrating than Madame’s. “With a golden torc I could insure that the expedition would be a success.”
The King vouchsafed what he hoped was a suave smile. “I know all about your extraordinary abilities. You’ll be rewarded with your heart’s desire in good time. But not yet! First, help your friends get the Spear and the flyer. If you should happen to find Lugonn’s torc there at the crater, take it! If not, we’ll see what can be done when you return. Deliver the goods and then we’ll talk about presents.”
He waved his hand in dismissal and the guards ushered the humans out.
“Are they gone?” Yeochee whispered, jumping down off the dais to peer into the gloom.
“Gone, King,” Fitharn confirmed. He sat on the edge of the regal platform, pulled off one boot, and tipped a pebble from it. “Ah, you little bastard!”
“Show some respect,” growled Yeochee.
“Speaking to the stone in my shoe, Appalling One… Well? What do you think?”
“Risky, risky.” The King paced up and down, hands clasped behind his back. “If only we could do without these damned middlemen! Pull off the whole thing ourselves!”
Fitharn said, “The despicable torc wearers must often entertain the same thoughts. They, too, are dangerously dependent upon humanity. But there is no other way for us, Appalling One. The humans are smarter than we are, stronger in other ways as well. Could we ever hope to operate a flyer after all this time? Or put the Spear into working order? We’ve had forty years to think of ways to bring down the Foe, and all we’ve done is cry in our beer. I don’t like the redoubtable Guderian any more than you do, King. But she’s a most formidable person. Like her or lump her, she can help us.”
“But we can’t trust humans!” howled Yeochee. “Did you feel that blast of hostility from Felice while she was saying ‘pretty please’? Give that one a golden torc,’ I’d sooner try to plug a lava dike with my royal swizzle stick!”
“We can control Felice. Pallol and Sharn-Mes have been giving the matter thought. Even if she finds a torc at the Ship’s Grave, she can’t learn to use it overnight. They’ll fly back here right away and Felice will be wild to get into the fight against Finiah. We’ll put her in the care of our Warrior Ogresses…”
“Te’s titties!” blasphemed the King.
“…and Ayfa or Skathe can put her down at the least hint of treachery. If Felice survives the assault on Finiah we can get rid of her by sending her south to the Combat. That will seem to fit right in with the second phase of Guderian’s famous plan. Don’t worry, King. We’ll use Felice and the rest of them to our advantage… and then Sharn and Pallol will engineer a suitably heroic demise for our noble human allies. If we play this right, the Firvulag can end up with both the Spear and the Sword, on top of the Tanu torcers and the Lowlives, too. And you can really mean it when you call yourself Undoubted Ruler of the Known World.”
Yeochee gave him an awful look. “Just wait until it’s your turn in the king barrel! We’ll see how well you…”
The steward came skipping out of the passage, carrying a large steaming tray and a glass flagon of tawny liquid. “It’s ready, Appalling One! Hot-hot-hot! And not with ordinary salamander sausage, either, but with a new kind! The cook Mariposa says it’ll frizzle your cojones!”
Yeochee bent over the tray to savor the fragrance of the wheel-shaped open pie. It was cut into wedges, each one oozing delectable layers of creamy white and red.
“Beggin’ your pardon, King,” Fitharn ventured, “but what the hell is that?”
The King took the platter and the bottle of ale and began to trudge happily toward the crystal grotto. “The special dish of one Señora Mariposa de Sanchez, late of Krelix Plantation, earlier of Chichen-Itza Pizza Parlor in Merida, Mexico… Leave us, Fitharn. Go with those damned Lowlives and watch ’em.”
“As you command, Appalling One.”
At last, the great cavern was quiet once more. Yeochee poked his head around the entrance to the geode chamber. The candles burned low and two fascinating eyes peered at him from the stack of dark furs.
“Yoo-hoo!” he caroled. “Goody time!”
Lulo came bouncing toward him in the most charming way.
“Grrum! Yumyumyum!”
He gave a delighted screech. “Let go! Let me put it down first, you mad succubus, you! Oh, you’re going to love this. It’s my newest favorite. Half cheese, half axolotl!”
CHAPTER THREE
“The unicorn! The unicorn! The unicorn!”
Martha keened the word unceasingly as she wept over the torn body of Stefanko lying in the middle of the marsh trail. Great cypresses reared up from pools of brown water on either side. Where the morning sunlight shone through the trees there were clouds of dancing midges and scarlet dragon-flies hawking among them. A lobster-sized crayfish, perhaps attracted by the blood dripping into the water, scrabbled slowly up the shallow embankment that raised the trail above the Rhine bottomland.
Peopeo Moxmox Burke sat propped against a mossy trunk, groaning as Claude and Madame Guderian cut away his deerskin shirt and one leg of his pants.
“The horn seems only to have grazed your ribs, mon petit peau-rouge. However, I will have to sew. Claude, administer a narcotic.”
“See to Steffi,” the Chief pleaded through clenched teeth.
Claude only shook his head. He took a herendorf bleb from the medical kit Amerie had prepared for them and applied the dose to Burke’s temple.
“Oh, God. That’s better. How is the leg? I could feel the bugger’s teeth press me to the bone.”
Claude said, “Your calf muscle is all slashed to hell. And you can bet those tusks were poison-filthy to boot. There’s no way we can patch this out here, Peo. Your only chance is professional care back with Amerie.”
Cursing softly, Burke rested his huge gray head against the cypress and let his eyes close. “My own fault. Stupid schmuck, I was concentrating on covering our scent by taking us through that patch of stinking pitcher plants. Watching for hoe-tusker sign, traces of bear-dogs… and we get ambushed by a goddam hog!”
“Silence, child,” Madame ordered. “You derange my stitching.”
“It was no ordinary porker,” Claude said. He wrapped the chiefs leg in porofilm after packing the wound with antibiotic floe. The decamole leg splint was already inflated and ready to be fastened in place. “I think the beast that did this job on you was none other than Kubanochoerus, the giant one-horned Caucasian boar. It was supposed to’ve been extinct by the Pliocene.”
“Huh! Tell that to Steffi, poor feygeleh.”
Madame said, “I will finish tending Peo, Claude. See to Martha.”
The paleontologist went over to the hysterical engineer, studied her swaying, wild-eyed actions for a moment, and saw what had to be done. He grasped her by one wrist and yanked her roughly to her feet “Will you shut up, girl? Your stupid bawling will bring the soldiers on us! Do you think Steffi would want that?”
Martha choked in outraged astonishment and drew back one arm to slap the old man’s face. “How do you know what Steffi would want? You didn’t know him! But I did, and he was gentle and good and he took care of me when my damn guts were, when I was sick. And now look at him. Look at him!” Her ravaged, once beautiful face crumpled in fresh sobs. Martha’s momentary fury at Claude dissolved and her arm fell. “Steffi, oh, Steffi,” she whispered, then fell against the sturdy old man. “One minute he was walking along and smiling over his shoulder at me, and the next…”