Part 21 (1/2)
”The scheme is a desperate one,” she admitted, ”but I believe it is well worth trying.” And she explained.
Incredulous at first, Orogastus realized that there was no practical alternative. ”Very well,” he said at last. ”If you are willing to risk your throne in this lunatic ploy, I will not stop you. But remember that the army will have to leave the staging area no later than an hour after sunset tomorrow in order to be in position before the fireworks start.”
”My old comrade Tazor and I can do it,” she said, her face s.h.i.+ning. ”I will bring you Queen Anigel, and he will make certain that the other hostages remain secure here in the lodge until after Brandoba falls.”
The sorcerer smiled at the Star Woman. ”I can see more clearly now why your people deem you fit to be Empress.” He took her hand. ”May the Dark Powers support you.”
”And you,” she said, bowing her head so he would not see the fervid emotion that suffused her features. Then she clapped on her rayed helm and dashed off to find Tazor.
Chapter Twenty-Two.
THE Archd.u.c.h.ess Naelore studied the two tall flightless birds, tethered by neck-straps to trees outside the imperial hunting lodge, and scowled to conceal the fear rising within her. ”My friend, if this mission were not so crucial to our fortunes, nothing would compel me to touch these hideous brutes of yours.”
The feathered carnivores stood over two ells high at the shoulder, and their plumage gleamed steel-blue in the sunlight. The birds had been temporarily paralyzed by enchantment while Tazor worked on them, but their fierce red eyes glowered at the two sorcerers, evidence that while the nyars' bodies might be under constraint of magic, their spirits were not.
”So long as we wear our Stars and command the creatures with unwavering confidence,” Tazor said, ”they will obey us and harm neither ourselves nor any human prey we pursue.” He was putting bridles on the birds while Naelore watched, both repelled and fascinated. Orogastus and the other Guildsmen had ridden off after the army an hour earlier. It had taken Tazor that long to summon the nyars from the depths of the forest, even with the aid of his Star.
”You are absolutely certain that the monsters will not turn on us?” Naelore said.
”No, Imperial Highness. There is still some risk. But one well worth taking, as I told the Star Master.” He slipped a bridle cautiously over a terrible toothed beak.
”Nyars! Only a crazy man such as you would make pets of such horrible predators, much less train them for riding. What possessed you to undertake such a bizarre project?”
”I looked upon the task as a challenge to my Star,” he admitted, patting one bird's neck. It was as thick as one of the logs making up the walls of the building. ”This mated pair frequented the vicinity of the lodge because I often fed them salt-chuck. When their ferocity diminished I conceived the notion of taming them, and I confess that I was surprised that the sorcery eventually worked and rendered the nyars docile. It was a way of pa.s.sing the time while I languished in this forsaken spot six moons ago, deprived of the glory of your imperial presence during my tour of duty as warden of supply for the castle.”
”Tchah!” said Naelore, dismissing the flattery. But she smiled at him, for they were very old friends indeed. Before the coming of Orogastus had changed their lives forever, Tazor had been chief steward of the Archd.u.c.h.ess's villa just outside Brandoba. Now they were fellow Guildsmen and theoretically equals; but both of them knew better.
”Should the Dark Powers smile upon us,” Tazor said, ”the birds will enable us to undo the damage done by those negligent fools at the castle. Nyars are as fleet as the winter monsoon. Not even a polled racing fronial can compare with them. We should reach the hostages within three hours.”
”If I miss the battle of Brandoba because of this mission,” Naelore said through lips drawn tight, ”I shall roast the liver of whichever hostage engineered their escape!”
”I think both of us know who it must have been: the only one the Master could never descry with his magic, because she is protected by her trillium-amber.”
”d.a.m.n that witch-queen! I knew we should have taken the pendant away from her somehow... or else kept her senseless until she was no longer needed and it was safe to kill her. But Orogastus would not listen to me. Now we can only conjecture that Anigel accompanies the other hostages.”
”Where else would she go? We'll find her, Imperial Highness. Don't fret. You won't miss the battle, nor will you be deprived of your triumph over Denombo.”
”Ah, what a long way we have come in two short years, my old friend! Who would ever have thought, when you opened my villa door to a peremptory midnight knock, that you would admit a sorcerer? And one who would turn our disorganized little band of political outcasts into a cohort capable of toppling an empire.”
”I knew Orogastus was a dangerous man as soon as I clapped eyes on him,” Tazor said dryly. ”And so did you.”
”That was the princ.i.p.al reason I decided to trust him.”
”And is that also why you have fallen in love with him?”
”Insolent b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” she said, laughing again. But her eyes had lost their good humor, and he fell silent and hastened to buckle on the second bird's saddle.
Tazor was a well-built man, even taller than the statuesque Archd.u.c.h.ess and possessed of considerable physical strength. His knowing eyes were close-set above a broad nose. Like so many other members of the Star Guild-with the notable exception of flame-tressed Naelore herself-he had hair turned prematurely white from the rigors of his initiation into the magic of the Dark Powers.
”Tazor.” She spoke in a tone unusually hesitant. ”Do you really think Orogastus will fulfill his promises to me?”
”I believe that he will make you Empress of Sobrania,” the former steward said. ”I am much less sanguine about his grandiose plans to conquer the world by means of sorcery and set you up as his coadjutor. The Star is a wondrous thing, but the world is a very large place... and recent events have reminded us that other magicians exist in it besides Orogastus and our Star Guild.”
”I admit that I was deeply troubled when the Master told us that the young Prince had given up one of the talismans to the swamp-witch Kadiya. But by permitting both the boy and the enchantress to pa.s.s through the viaduct into Sobrania, Orogastus has cleverly brought both pieces of the Sceptre within easy reach.”
”Easy?” Tazor shook his head. ”No more than unseating Denombo will be easy.”
”Just let me get him within reach of a sword cut!... At any rate, we can speed both eventualities by recapturing Queen Anigel and the others. Let us be off.”
They mounted the wingless birds, which stood like statues in the forecourt of the lodge. Naelore lifted her Star medallion and touched it to the neck of her feathered steed. The nyar's toothed beak opened wide and it gave a thunderous roar. When she spoke a command it sped off like a meteor down the trail leading to the Great Viaduct, leaving her comrade coughing in a cloud of dust.
Cursing, Tazor followed after.
It was only by great good fortune that the Eternal Prince Widd caught the Eternal Princess as she began to slip from the saddle during the fording of the muddy river. ”Help!” he cried desperately. ”Something is wrong with Raviya!”
President Hakit Botal whirled his fronial about, reentered the water, and took hold of the elderly Princess in his strong left arm. She was listless as a bundle of rags. Her senses had left her, and her lined features were gray. Together with Prince Widd, the President brought the elderly woman safe to the river's opposite bank, where the others except Gyorgibo immediately dismounted and gathered about. Queen Anigel and Queen Jiri of Galanar gently lay the aged woman onto the ground.
”Triune pity her!” Widd began to weep. ”Oh, my poor Raviya. The rigors of the escape have been too much for her.”
”She breathes,” said Jiri, after loosening Raviya's bodice, ”and her heartbeat seems regular. Doubtless she is only overcome with exhaustion and stress.”
Duumvir Ga-Bondies snorted. ”As we all are! It's madness to ride farther. Our fronials are still spent from their overexertion and breathing of the noxious vapors yesterday. They will certainly founder if we do not let them rest-and so will I. Every bone in my body screams with pain and I am dying from hunger.”
”Then die silently,” said the King of the Pirates heartlessly. The st.u.r.dy hunchbacked monarch took off his own cape and covered Princess Raviya. Her eyelids fluttered and she moaned.
Prince Widd sighed. ”If she could only have a morsel to eat and some truly restful sleep.”
The small amount of food and drink they had managed to take from the stablehands at the castle had been consumed the previous night, when they had rested precariously, nearly frightened out of their wits by the appalling sounds made by the Lirda Forest creatures around them. Since then they had had only water and a few insipid wild fruits that Gyorgibo had a.s.sured them were wholesome.
”It would be dangerous to stop and rest now,” the Archduke said. ”There is small risk from fierce beasts and birds during daylight, but if the Star Men have learned of our escape, they might come looking for us.”
”I almost wish they would,” Ga-Bondies growled.
”We are moving steadily westward, out of the highlands,” Gyorgibo continued. ”Before long, we will surely come upon landmarks that I am familiar with and we can leave this trail. There are shortcuts to Brandoba in the Lirda's lower reaches that we can use to elude pursuit.”
”Not if Orogastus uses magic to hunt us,” Prigo pointed out.
Hakit Botal spoke in testy resignation. ”If the Star Men come, there is no way we can defend ourselves against them. But I suspect that the sorcerer and his force have other business to occupy them. They may already be in the capital city, storming Denombo's palace.”