Part 42 (1/2)

”We have the spare CE rig armour I intended to use for Hagen, and we can build more-or simply construct a s.p.a.ce capsule. Pat, don't you understand the implications? We don't have to await rescue by another coadunate race. We'll rescue ourselves!” His mood was abruptly serious. ”But this is for the future. I'll explain what I've been doing to all of you, tomorrow at the conference. It's the end of our exile. We'll soon be able to lay the groundwork for the coming of Mental Man. All of us! And the children as well, when they realize the truth.”

”Yes,” she said. ”Oh, yes.”

She lifted his hand, which she still held, and brushed the back of it with her lips. Then they sat together drinking tea, watching pink dawn stain the eastern horizon. It was, Marc a.s.sured her, a certain sign of fair weather ahead.

CHAPTER TWO.

The final hem adjustment had been completed by Mooliane Frog-Maid, and now Katlinel stood in the centre of the fitting room modelling the finished creation. The place was crowded with the little beings who had worked on the dress-portunes and korrigans and nereides and nimble-fingered trows-and these twittered anxiously as the head couturier, Bukin the Estimable, pursed his lips and strode around and around the Mistress of Nionel. He prodded an errant lace ruffle here, straightened a gilded wire there, leaned close to scrutinize a critical seam or a suspect bit of beadwork. Finally he stepped back, cleared his throat, and announced: ”It will do. Bring the looking gla.s.s!”

All the goblin tailors and seamstresses squealed for joy and clapped their hands, paws, or other tactile appendages. Two st.u.r.dy kobold wenches hauled a three-way standing mirror into position, and for the first time, Katlinel saw herself in the gown she would wear as hostess of the first Grand Tourney.

It was cut from a stiff white fabric of a mysterious iridescence that glimmered pink and yellow and pale green, like the interior of a seash.e.l.l. The low-cut bodice and long sleeves fitted closely, as did the slender underskirt. Springing from the lowered waist were wired, tapering panels that curved outward and then in toward the knees, like the reflexed petals of a nacreous lily.

Beneath this was an overskirt of delicate golden lace, which flared out below the petals in a bright fluted cone. Gold lace also draped the pearly fabric of the sleeves and formed wide cuffs. The head and decolletage of the Lady of the Howlers was set off by a fantastic high collar, and she wore a delicate golden face-frame. As a finis.h.i.+ng touch, the entire ensemble was adorned with crystal beads and briolettes, which reflected the ever-changing hues of the fabric.

Katlinel turned slowly in front of the mirrors, a reduplicated vision of aurora colours misted with gold. ”The gown is magnificent,” she said. ”I've never seen anything so wonderful. Thank you, dear friends-and especially you, Bukin.” She bent down and kissed the brownie designer on his corrugated pate. A flush rose from his neck to the tips of his hairy ears.

”Gracious Mistress Katy,” he said gruffly, ”my career spans three centuries. I have in that time conceived many a splendid garment-for you know that our misbegotten folk have no peers in the Many-Coloured Land in matters of personal adornment.

This creation, however, is my masterpiece-and that of all the artisans gathered about you.”

A pixie voice piped, ”The pearl lame is unique!” And another chimed in, ”Fas.h.i.+oning that gold lace nearly drove us dotty!”

Bukin shuffled his feet. ”This Grand Tourney will be the first time in eight hundred and fifty-six years that our Howler nation has partic.i.p.ated in a joint event with our nonmutant brethren.

We want to do so proudly. And since we are especially proud of you, we intend to glorify you before the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude.

Lady ... you are a flower sprung from Tanu and human stock, now blooming in a garden that must seem strange and bizarre.

But we rejoice to have you with us. You console us with your beauty and kindness. By showing your loving devotion to our Master, the most fearfully deformed of us all, you have brought fresh hope to us. You have seen fit to thank us for this gift, but we are the ones who should thank you.”

”Thank you,” sighed the monsters.

Then the outer door of the atelier was flung open and a greenhaired sprite shrieked, ”He comes! Lord Sugoll comes to see our Lady!”

Katlinel held out her arms as the Lord of the Mutants entered, tall and terrible, trailed by the human geneticist, Gregory Prentice Brown, who beamed as the lovers embraced.

”I thought to save these gifts until the Tourney Eve,” Sugoll said. ”But I think it better to bestow them now, in the presence of these devoted friends. Gregory! The casket.”

Mopping and mowing like an excited tamarin, Greg-Donnet Genetics Master held out a sizable silver-gilt box. Sugoll opened it, and as the horde of goblin workers squealed and whistled in astonishment, he removed a necklace of rare aurora-borealis stones. Working dextrously with two tentacles, he fastened it just beneath his wife's golden torc. A third tentacle plucked forth a coronet set with the same strangely iridescent gems.

Katlinel took it and settled it on her elaborate coiffure.

”Now you are truly our queen,” said Sugoll.

The mob of grotesques cheered and capered about. Greggy made a leg, kissed Katlinel's hand, and murmured, ”Smas.h.i.+ng.

Truly smas.h.i.+ng.”