26

Once the fireworks display was in progress and the people standing still, occupied in looking skyward, it was much easier to slip through the crowd. Tolivar came to the Golden Griss Fountain, where many were standing. Then, following the instructions given him by Ledavardis, he began moving very slowly around the wide ornamental basin to the northeastern side, where flying spray from the fountain jets had discouraged large numbers of spectators from gathering.

Black Trillium! the boy prayed. Do not let Orogastus or Naelore find me yet!

The area of wet cobbles was some twenty ells in width. The nearest fire-basket lampposts were farther east at the guardhouses flanking the palace gates, another thirty ells distant, and the only useful light came from the fireworks. To the north was the fenced bosquet, densely planted with trees and flowering shrubs. Tolivar skirted the sprayfall, his eyes darting back and forth as he apprehensively searched the thinning crowd for Star Men. But all he saw were people in costumes: elaborate ones, modest ones, comical ones, frightening ones. The human birds went Oooh! and Ahhh! as each skyrocket exploded, and there were cheers and applause and whistles and quacks for particularly noteworthy displays. A large proportion of the crowd seemed to be well supplied with liquor; the pavement was littered with discarded jugs and crocks, and here and there a drunken reveler lay insensible on the cobbles.

When he reached the park fence the Prince gave a great sigh of relief. His greatest fear had been that he would be intercepted too early. Only a thin crowd of costumed citizens was close by, braving the occasional wave of spray. On the palace stairs, Emperor Denombo and his glittering court enjoyed the show while the band played on and the citizenry grew more boisterous in their enthusiasm.

Now the Prince became increasingly aware of the weight of the star-box on his back and the tightness of the coronet on his brow. His body reacted also to the physical effort he had expended making his way from the harbor to the city center and he slumped down on the damp pavement, sitting with his back against the low wrought-iron fence. He closed his eyes.

“Oh, talisman!” he whispered desolately. “Are you still mine?”

Yes.

“Is there no way that I can keep you and still save poor Mother?”

The question is impertinent.

“I know. But I had to ask.”

Someone called, “Tolo!”

He opened his eyes. Standing before him, silhouetted against the blazing sky, was a tall figure dressed as a blackbird. Before the Prince could speak, the costumed man pulled back his hood, revealing the awesome rayed helmet of the Star Guild. His eyes were twin white beacons.

“Get up,” said Orogastus. “The time has come.”

Moving as slowly as he dared, Tolivar climbed to his feet and confronted the sorcerer.

To Queen Anigel, the brief journey afoot from Dasinzin’s mansion to the Golden Griss Fountain was a time of peculiar detachment, beyond sorrow and despair, with the fireworks a kaleidoscope of fiery beauty overhead. Her wrists had been untied, but her arms were firmly pinioned by two taciturn Star Men named Zanagra and Gavinno, whose black capes concealed deadly antique weapons hanging from their belts. They hustled her along behind Orogastus, who cleared the way with his magic, and the cheering mob seemed not even to notice their passing.

Within a few minutes they would reach the fountain, and there poor foolish Tolivar would hand over both the coronet and the crucially important star-box to the sorcerer, thinking thereby to gain her freedom. But she was certain now that Orogastus would never let her go, any more than he would release the other hostage rulers that the Guildsman Tazor held captive somewhere in the Forest of Lirda. The truth had come to Queen Anigel as she sat numbly in Dasinzin’s kitchen, an ignominious prisoner waited upon by terrified Sobranian women.

She and the other heads of state had not been abducted in order to insure some nebulous “cooperation” by their nations with the sorcerer. From the beginning, Orogastus had had only one objective: to exert irresistible pressure upon Haramis, forcing the Archimage to give up her talisman in exchange for their lives.

And the same dreadful choice would now face Kadiya as well.

Threefold God of the Flower, she prayed, give my sisters the strength to hold fast and let us die …

They reached the fountain and she felt its spray on her face, mingling with her slow tears. The tall central jet was swaying oddly from side to side independent of the wind’s direction, and the waters cascading over the gilded stone ornaments into the basin were clouded, as though admixed with milk.

Orogastus touched his Star, nodded in satisfaction, and said, “There’s the boy. Sitting at the railing of that little park on the left. Hold the Queen here, amongst the crowd, until I summon you.”

Anigel would have cried a warning, but Zanagra’s gloved hand clapped over her mouth and she felt a dagger prick her abdomen. “Stand quietly,” the Star Man hissed, “or your babies will perish, even though the Master’s magic permits you to survive.”

She ceased struggling. If only they had not taken her trillium-amber! But without the amulet and its Holy Flower, she was bereft of all energy. She saw Tolivar rise and confront Orogastus. Their words could not be heard over the explosions of the pyrotechnical display. Then the sorcerer beckoned. Still wearing her griss costume of gray and white, she was led forward to the small clump of ornamental greenery where her son waited. He had removed the hood of his drab costume so that the Three-Headed Monster was clearly visible, seeming to shine amidst his fair hair with a faint silvery light of its own.

“Mother,” he said in a strained voice. “Have they harmed you?”

“In truth, no,” she said. “Only my heart is wounded … by the sad discovery that you have possessed my talisman in secret for four long years—”

But Orogastus cut her off. “Queen, enough!” And to the Prince: “Tolo, give me the star-box.”

The sky was filled with enormous blossoms of violet, blue, and green light, crisscrossed by soaring flares tracing lines of white and gold. The music reached a grand finale of flourishes and the Emperor on the palace steps some fifty ells away rose from his throne and stood with his arms outstretched. The crowd began to chant: “Denombo! Denombo! Denombo!”

Prince Tolivar unfastened the cord that had bound the sack to his back and drew forth the long narrow box with the Star emblazoned on its lid.

“Open it,” the sorcerer said, “and place the coronet inside.”

The boy’s jaw tightened. “Not until you free my mother!”

Orogastus lifted his hand in a brief gesture. Six men dressed in black feathers, having weapons of the Vanished Ones protruding from the openings of their cloaks, emerged from the oblivious mob. They flanked the two Star Men in charge of the Queen and formed a close semicircle about Tolivar and the sorcerer. For the first time the Prince noticed how many celebrants in the area of the pleasance nearest to the palace were wearing black costumes. Of course! They had to be the henchmen of Orogastus.

The boy lifted his fingers to touch the sides of his coronet. “I command you to free the Queen!”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then Orogastus smiled contemptuously and waved one hand. The two Star Men released the weeping Anigel, who held out her arms to Tolivar. He rushed into her embrace and they stood locked together until a voice of thunder said, “The talisman! Now!”

Orogastus and his Guildsmen stood shoulder to shoulder, and the eyes of all three blazed with malignant power. Anigel tottered and sagged to her knees, moaning and pressing her hands to her belly.

“You must not do it, Tolo!” she cried. “He will use the talisman to conquer the world! Resist him, dear son! Never mind me. He cannot take the coronet from you by force—aah!”

At the Queen’s cry of pain, the boy screamed, “Let her alone!” He tore off the talisman and dropped it into the open box. There was a small flash, lost in the colorful bombardment of the fireworks.

Anigel murmured, “No! Oh, no.”

“At last!” Orogastus swooped down to seize the container. The Prince pulled the Queen to her feet and drew her back against the fence, where there was a dense thicket of dripping shrubbery. The Star Master removed his rayed headpiece and handed it to Gavinno, leaving his head bare and his long white hair flying in the wet wind. Then he began to press the jeweled studs within the box, bonding the talismanic coronet to himself.

All at once no less than a dozen rounded small objects flew out of the bushes and smashed on the cobblestones, releasing a cloud of sparkling confetti and fungus spores that were hardly hindered at all by the mist. Orogastus’s bellow of rage was cut off by a mighty sneeze.

Queen Anigel felt herself hauled backward over the low fence. Branches scratched her face and she wailed in astonishment, struggling to free herself. “Nay!” someone said in a harsh voice. “We are friends. Hold your breath!” She heard violent sneezing and curses from the Star Men and the warriors in black, and then her shoulders were painfully compressed as her savior thrust her headfirst down an opening in the ground that was rimmed with iron. Other hands took hold of her, pulling her into some sort of vertical conduit. She was flung over a second man’s back and the two of them slid into darkness and landed in shallow water with a loud splash. Faint illumination came from overhead and she saw Tolivar scuttle down iron rungs affixed to a lofty shaft. The man still holding her called out, “Hurry! Blast the drain closed before the Star Men recover!”

“Get back out of the way!” shouted the person above. He came hurtling down the ladder. Anigel was dragged through water into total darkness, hearing her son mouth reassurances from somewhere nearby. Then a dazzling burst of ruby light silhouetted a stocky misshapen figure having something cradled in its arms. She heard a rumble of collapsing masonry. Some of the stones were red hot, sizzling as they hit the water, and the tunnel was filled with roiling dust.

“Keep moving!” yelled the hunchbacked shadow. He lifted the thing he held and produced another explosion, dancing away from the fresh avalanche of stones.

Instinctively, the Queen pulled her soaking wet costume hood over her head to assist her breathing and scrambled along on hands and knees through water and slimy sediment. Incredulous excitement replaced the deadly languor that had numbed her wits. She had recognized the burly malformed body of the young King of Raktum.

“Ledo? … It’s you? Oh, thanks be to the Lords of the Air!”

“Aye, Mother-in-Law-Elect. And thanks also to the Archduke Gyor, here, who remembered this warren of sewer tunnels, and to your Black Trillium amulet that led us straight to you, and even to young Tolo—who brought along the sneeze-eggs.”

She was suddenly hoisted to her feet. A golden glow, visible through the open weave of the hood’s feathered fabric, dispelled the darkness. The air had cleared miraculously. Anigel discarded her soaked griss costume and saw that she was in a vaulted tunnel with water running through it. Tolivar and two men in sodden clothes stood there, grinning at her. She gave a cry of joy as King Ledavardis stowed his antique weapon, lifted the shining droplet of trillium-amber from around his neck, and transferred it to her own.

Gyorgibo said, “We dare not stay here. The Star Men will soon discover that there are other drains in the pleasance leading to this tunnel. They will be after us. We shall have to block the passage behind us as we flee, and hope they do not cut us off.”

“But where shall we go?” Prince Tolivar asked, his glee changed abruptly to panic.

“Look!” Anigel cried. “The amber!”

The pendant was blinking rapidly, and in its heart the Flower was bisected by a line with a bright tip.

“It points in the direction of my brother’s palace,” Gyorgibo said, “the only possible place for us to find refuge. Run!”

Encumbered as he was with the star-box and its precious contents, which he instinctively held to his breast, Orogastus could at first think only of protecting the Three-Headed Monster. It had bonded to him at the instant the diabolical eggs smashed, and even as he doubled over in a helpless paroxysm he managed to pull out the coronet and clap it safely onto his brow. A miniature of the Star at his breast now shone beneath the central head of the Monster.

“Talisman!” he gasped. “Banish the damned spores! Cure me and my men of the sneezing! Do you hear me?”

Yes. It is done.

His eyes and sinuses cleared and he darted to the bosquet fence and parted the bushes, revealing a large hole amidst the trees with a displaced iron grating beside it. Before he could command the Guildsmen he heard hollow voices issue from underground: “… blast the shaft … out of the way …”

“Beware!” the sorcerer cried, falling back against one of his warriors. He still held the star-box tightly. “They have magic weapons!” An instant later a flash of red light came from the hole, along with a thunderous noise and a plume of dust. A second blast followed. Cursing, Orogastus cleared the air again with the talisman, only to find the opening in the ground sealed with rubble.

“Talisman, show me Queen Anigel!”

The request is impertinent.

“Why can you not show her?” he raged.

She is shielded by the Black Trillium.

The sorcerer groaned. “It cannot be! Unless—” He broke off and requested Sight of Prince Tolivar; but the boy was shielded also by the proximity of his mother, as were Anigel’s rescuers. “Then show me the layout of the drainage system beneath this pleasance, and the site of this blocked shaft.”

This time the coronet obeyed, and into his mind sprang a lucid diagram of the tunnels, with a blinking spark showing where the Queen and Prince had gone to ground. “Show me the drain openings nearest this one!” Two additional lights began to flash, and hope sprang into his heart as he realized that one of them lay behind him, near to the fountain, and another was not twenty ells beyond the bosquet, across the cordoned-off boulevard that skirted the pleasance.

But before he could order his men into position there was a third red flare, dimly visible through the crowd lining the thoroughfare as it shone up through a storm drain. The fugitives were sealing the access points as they moved away. But he could trap them easily if he could but study the sewer diagram for a few more moments—

“Master! The main gates of the palace are opening. The Imperial Handsel procession is beginning!”

Again Orogastus groaned. He heard trumpets and drums. There was no time left to spare. The army was poised to advance, and Naelore and her group of nobles awaited a successful outcome to the attack. He grasped his Star and bespoke the Guildsmen in charge of the partisan warriors:

“Prepare to storm the palace when I give the command.”