tall as men, their furious hissing and killing heat contained by the thick greenish enchanted glass. All that escaped from the bell jars and into the great hall was their hellish blue glare. Great tables of veined green stone stood everywhere,, piled high with the finest food and drink. The revellers circulated, drinking, eating, sniffing vapors from bubbling bowls of potions, trying to adopt the appearance of being successfully and spontaneously amused. Some danced a stately pavane to the strains of an orchestra brought up from Bilsinx. Others stood around discussing what a marvel it was that the mercy of the Dark Ones had preserved Prince Rann from the treacherous attack while their eyes searched for likely partners for later assignations.
But the sound of merrymaking had a false note to it like a gilded pot-metal coin dropped on a table. There were those in the Sky City who were not altogether overjoyed at their queen's victory over her twin, who by right of inheritance should have sat on the Beryl Throne in Synalon's stead. And even those who supported Synalon for reasons of conviction or expedience found it difficult to work up much cheer over the prince's survival. His was not a personality to attract tender sentiment.
On the highbacked throne carved of a monstrous single green beryl crystal Synalon sat at her ease, idly scooping berries from a silver bowl and feeding them to the ravens who perched on either arm of the throne. She wore her glossy black hair curled into an intricate knot atop her head. A thick unbound strand fell to either side of her beautiful sculpture-perfect face, lending it a decidedly misleading air of innocence.
Of all the revellers in the vast, crowded audience hall, she was the freshest looking. She had changed into a new gown only moments before ascending her throne, a gown woven of shimmering green and blue and pearl and silver threads. Depending on light, the viewer's perspective and the motion of the lithe limbs and body to which the garment clung like skin, the colors subtly changed. Debauchery, particularly of the sort mandated by Synalon, was hard work. Watching courtiers and subjects move about in a low haze of fatigue, Synalon smiled, a wicked light touching her cobalt eyes. A life of determined dissipation, interspersed with the harsh disciplines of black sorcery, kept the queen as fit as the toughest of Rann's Sky Guard.
The dancers strutted through the complex patterns of the Virgins' Recessional, commemorating the coming of spring. Synalon covered a yawn with a slender hand. Her subjects proved most tedious. If left to their own devices for an instant they lapsed into supremely trivial activities. It was ever up to her to make sure their celebrations held at least some semblance of life.
For a time she contemplated calling for the hornbull she'd had ballooned up from the surface and giving a demonstration of what she considered properly vivid recreation. Certainly her subjects were abusing the dance area with their… tedious meanderings.
Then a better idea came to her. The smile returned to her lips. It was much like the expression of a great cat that comes upon a tender and helpless kid.
She set the silver berry bowl on a stand beside the throne. Sensing their mistress had some new diversion in mind, the ravens beat their wings and chuckled evilly. Propping her chin on her right hand, she held her left in the air before her eyes, forefinger extended. A glow appeared at the tip. Slowly the finger began to turn in a circle, leaving a silvery trail in midair. Instead of dissipating, the trails remained and began to form a ball shape, as a caterpillar would spin a cocoon.
Eyes turned toward the throne now. Motion ceased on the floor as couple by couple the dancers stopped to see what magics their monarch performed. Fear and anticipation mingled on the faces of the celebrants, giving Synalon a warm flush of pleasure. Like most of her favorite amusements, the one she concocted now would bring delight to some and stark anguish to others. The revellers, well aware of this, felt a thrill of expectation.
When she had woven a ball of light in midair, Synalon brought up her other hand. Both palms cupped the glowing globe, shaping it, massaging it, infusing it with pseudo-life. Like her gown, it shimmered with myriad opalescent colors.
'What do you dream?' she asked her subjects. Her voice was as smooth and as strong as silk. At the sound of it the musicians ceased their efforts, though the words were clearly audible above the melody. 'This is the Ball of Dreams, my child. In it you shall see your deepest, darkest thoughts, summoned forth for all to see.'
She gave the globe a push. It drifted away from her, seeming to test the air like a scenthound casting about for a trail. The revellers fell back from the ball, trying to be unobtrusive. No one was overeager to be the first to have thoughts, desires, deep secrets called forth for the cruel amusement of the rest.
The scintillant ball darted toward a knot of courtiers gaily caparisoned in silks and the furs of animals specially bred by the genetic sorcerors of Wirix for the color and quality of coat. It hovered above the head of a paunchy, black-haired youth. The young man studiously looked away from the ball as its surface began to shimmer, then swirl with colors like oil on a pond. An image within the ball snapped into sharp focus: the young man naked on a luxurious bed grappled ecstatically with a blowsy older woman.
'Why, that's Sunald's mother!' exclaimed a burly, bearded comrade. The women in the group tittered. Laughter was taken up by the hall as a whole, laughter too hearty, momentarily releasing tension of those who know they may yet feel the axe. Furiously red to his high-flounced collar, the youth stalked out, head drawn down between his shoulders like a bird seeking a worm's hole.
'And where does the Ball of Dreams cast next?' asked Synalon in velvety tones. 'Will it be you? Or you? Or even you?' Her fingers stabbed forth each time indicating revellers. As their expressions turned from mirth to horror, Synalon laughed delightedly.
With a perversity like that of the sorceress who had summoned it into existence, the ball ignored all of Synalon's prospective victims and swung next to float above the blonde head of the burly man's escort, who had laughed first and loudest at the revelation of Sunald's secret lust. She gaped in mute horror as the ball seethed with color again to reveal her, as naked as Sunald had been, spreadeagled on her back across a furry hassock receiving the eager attentions of a great war dog. Bannered on the dream sphere's surface for all to see was the woman's face, a face showing every indication of almost religious ecstasy. She screamed and fell to her knees, hands tearing at her bodice as laughter rained on her like blows.
The burly man tried to comfort his lady but she pulled away. He turned angry eyes toward the throne. Synalon lounged back, amused.
'is this not more interesting than your pathetic little dances?'asked the black-haired Synalon, idly playing with a strand of her hair.'Now that you know Lady Emele's most secret desires, perhaps you will accommodate her.' Laughter rolled through the great audience hall.
'Or,' Synalon said, 'was the large black canine image in the sphere yours? Are you then a shape-shifter?'
Again the resounding laughter, a bit too loud, a bit too long. Synalon waved a long-fingered hand in acknowledgement of the success of her sorcerous entertainment, then turned back to the sphere.
The ball moved on, pausing at random to blight the mirth of one or another who had been roaring with cruel laughter only moments before. A tall, lean banker was revealed adjusting his institution's accounts to bleed funds into his own pockets; a matronly woman noted for announcing frequently, loudly, and at inordinate length that a woman's sole duty was motherhood was shown strangling the latest of her dozen brats in its bassinet, a look of orgasmic glee transfiguring her plump features; a civil functionary loathed by the populace for over-punctilious enforcement of statutes regarding the conduct of small businesses appeared nude, wallowing in a great heap of his own excrement, smearing it over his body and cooing like a giant baby; a noted cavalry officer was seen spurring his famed red war dog to the rear against a backdrop several veterans recognized as the ridge by Chanobit Creek.
The laughter rose to a hysterical crescendo. The matron lay on the marble floor in a faint. The banker hurried off to slit his wrists. As the cavalryman backed away from the half-dozen comrades in arms moving in his direction with lethal purpose and the bureaucrat stood laving his pudgy hands against one another while tears cascaded down his cheeks and chins, Synalon only sat on her throne watching with an amused smile on her face, feeding bits of spiced meat to her ravens.
The ball stopped, rose, as if seeking fresh prey. It descended in a gentle slope toward a clump of older celebrants who stood near one of the buffets. It settled at a point a foot above the head of the tallest of the group, a woman whose short reddish hair was dusted with white streaks.
Cilinon dun Krit, a powerful member of the Council of Advisors to the Throne, snorted disdainfully as she glared up at the shimmering sphere. Her companions, other advisors and their hangers-on, backed away from her as if afraid to be marked as having stood by her side. For a long moment the woman gazed up at the particolored roil of the sphere, the muscles standing out on her neck as stark as pillars, a vein beating visibly in her broad forehead. Then with a shriek of fury and despair beyond words, she drew a long dagger from her sleeve and flung herself at Synalon.
