'But that large gentleman denounced expansionists,' Ziore said. 'Do you say the Guilds really want a foreign war in spite of that?'
'My dear lady, do you mean to say you actually believe what politicians say in speechs? Oh, my.'
In Fost's youth, the Imperial Life Guards had been a fighting organization of renown. Ensign Cheidro made him wonder if the Life Guards had been devalued along with the money. Painfully thin, cat-elegant, dressed always in outfits that cost a common trooper a year's pay, Ensign Cheidro didn't fit Fost's image of a member of an elite unit.
Whether by coincidence or otherwise, no more invitations to dine in the Emperor's apartments were forthcoming after Fost's chance meeting of the Zr'gsz. On the morning after, the ensign had appeared stating he was to be their guide. That he was also their keeper was left unsaid.
The debate over Moriana's petition to the Empire to declare war on the Fallen Ones had now dragged into its second day. During the long-winded disputes, Fost had come to a grudging liking for the officer, highborn fop or not. Cheidro had wit and used it utterly without regard for place or prestige of each speaker.
'Why do they go on so?' Fost heard Moriana complain. 'I thought they were discussing whether or not to hear that damned lizard.'
As if on cue, a small man with impressively broad shoulders bounded to his feet and shouted, 'We won't listen to the snake! We border folk have had enough words. It's time our swords spoke for us!' The men around him rushed to their feet, waving their fists in the air and shouting.
'Assemblymen from the Marches,' Cheidro said in bored tones. 'Excitable fellows.' 'Order!' cried the President, using his gavel freely.
'Up yours, Squilla!' the small Marcher shouted back.
The turmoil grew until a figure rose in the center and climbed from the floor toward the spectator's gallery. Silence fell as the commanding figure leaned forward, hands on the railing.
'Foedan speaks rarely, and never without effect,' said Cheidro. 'This could bode ill if he favors hearing Zak'zar.'
'Assemblymen,' began Foedan in a voice like a bass drum striking up a slow march. 'The question is not whether the Speaker or the princess is right or wrong, it is whether we should hear what Lord Zak'zar has to say in answer to Moriana's request that we make war upon his people. There can be but one answer. In fairness, we must hear him before making so grave a decision.'
Squilla pounded down the tumult greeting the words and called for a voice vote. No roll call was needed. Overwhelmingly, the Assembly voted to permit Zak'zar, Speaker of the People, to plead his case.
Moriana sat staring at Foedan as the vote was called, twisting the hem of her tunic as if it were the Kolnith Assemblyman's neck.
Zak'zar walked out on the floor of the Assembly Hall in silence. The usually rowdy delegates seemed hypnotized by the Hisser. He held all their attention in one clawed hand – and he knew how to wield it.
'I will be brief,' he said. He let the small ripples of comment die before continuing. 'You are asked to go to war with my People.
What have we done to you? We menace no Imperial holding. No resident of any City State has suffered at our hand. What wrong have we done that you would raise hand against us?'
'The Princess Moriana Etuul's written petition claims it is your duty as humans to resist Zr'gsz aggression. What aggression? And if it be the duty of your people to fight mine to the death, why did she come of her own accord to Thendrun seeking our aid in reclaiming her throne?'
A babble of voices washed about the podium. He raised his hand, stilling them.
'The Princess Moriana tells you we treacherously seized the City in the Sky from her, our ally. Examine the record. Who first built that fabled City – and who seized it by treachery from its rightful owners? We assisted her in unseating Synalon – but for our own ends. Is this wrong? Who among you would not resort to subterfuge to avenge the murder of your kinfolk and reclaim from thieves the house you built? We only took back what was ours.
'I come before you in the name of my People, bearing the willow-wand of peace. For your own sakes as well as ours, I ask you not to grasp instead the firebrand of war!'
He bent forward, voice dropping to a sonorous whisper that penetrated to the farthest reaches of the room.
'Weigh well your decision, men of the Empire. Much hangs in the balance.' He straightened and strode from the podium amid a barrage of cries.
Moriana vaulted over the rail and scattered Assemblymen in all directions as she moved forward. Head back, eyes ablaze, she walked down the aisle to the podium Zak'zar had just vacated. Squilla faced her, gavel raised as if to repel her attack on orderly procedure. Their eyes met; he fled before her.
She needed no gavel to bring the hall to silence, any more than Zr'gsz had. With hair streaming about her head like liquid fire, she launched into an impassioned speech.
The door to the Assembly Hall crashed open. Moriana paused, one fist raised in emphasis of a point. An old man stalked into the room. He walked ramrod straight in spite of the burden of years. Gray hair hung lank about his haggard face. The lips Moriana remembered so well were now twisted from emotions too great to be expressed. He was clad in scarlet and his eyes shone with fanatical light. 'Sir Tharvus!' she exclaimed.
The only survivor of the three Notable Knights who had ridden her banner at Chanobit Creek stopped and flung out his arm to point at her.
'Do not heed this witch!' he shouted. 'Her wiles lured my brothers and thousands of our countrymen to their deaths. 'On peril of your souls, don't listen to her!'
'So what happens now?' Fost asked. A smile pushed up the ends of Cheidro's moustache.
'Why, what always happens when there's an impasse in a matter close to His Effulgence's heart.' 'What's that?'
'He throws a party.' 'This is more like it!' crowed Erimenes. Fost stirred from his fog. 'What is?'
A tall, lithe girl, nude except for diagonal stripes of blue and gold, walked by on the arm of an officer in a purple plumed helmet. 'This is!'A sweep of Erimenes's vaporous arm indicated everything.
At long last the travellers were face to face with the seamy, steamy decadence of High Medurim. The Golden Dome was every bit the voluptuary's vision of heaven popular repute made it out to be. Niches lined the wall, dark and inviting. Already Fost dimly made out writhing tangles of pale limbs in alcoves across the circular chamber. In the center, a round pit was filled with lustrous furs in careless profusion. Tables bowed under the weight of delicacies. Serving maids circulated everywhere to keep the wine and high spirits flowing. Many wore no more than kohl and inviting smiles.
In the middle of the pit reared a dais. On it lay a throne and on the throne sat the Emperor. He wore a ludicrous tent-like garment patterned in white and black diamonds.
Here and there Fost saw forms or faces he recognized. Magister Banshau sat with his chubby legs dangling over the edge of the pit, his garb standing out even in this profusion of color. He held a wine jug in one hand and the shapely thigh of a young noblewoman in the other. He looked mightily pleased with the world. Over by the far wall stood the dignified Foedan of Kolnith. His doublet was askew, his hair rumpled and he gazed on the crowd with bleary-eyed gravity while a short, plump redhead poured brandy into a snifter the size of his head.
At the center of an eddy of gay costumes rode Zak'zar, laughing like a rakehell at something the two young women he had his arms about said, a striking, chilling figure in a robe of woven midnight.
'Great Ultimate!' Erimenes shouted in Fost's ear. 'Look at that, will you?'
Moving through the crush with lithe grace was a strange and beautiful figure. Her body was that of a voluptuous woman but it was clad in soft, short, creamy fur. A long, sensitive tail swung behind her. Her face combined the best characteristics of human and feline. Her ears were pointed and set high on her head, poking out from the midst of a lustrous cascade of blue-black hair. And at her back was folded a pair of wings. 'I'll be damned,' said Fost with feeling.
'So you like Ch'rri?' A slender blonde woman in a short tunic, her hair cut boyishly short, dropped onto the bench at Fost's side. 'She's quite a sight, isn't she? If you have a taste for the exotic' 'Uh, Ch-chu-chri?' Fost couldn't manage the throaty purr.
'Ch'rri,' the blonde woman repeated, laughing at Fost's doleful look. 'She's the only one of her kind, poor thing. Another Wirixer experiment. Or work of art, perhaps. One of their genetic wizards wanted to see what a winged cat woman looked like, and she was the result.' She frowned. 'She's a terribly lonely thing. But she does
