return, the enigmatic monster granted strange mystical visions by telepathy. Amenstar had always suspected the turban was the smarter of the two, who steered the addlepated vizar as a rider steers a horse.
Without preamble, the vizar raised one scrawny claw to the peeking moon, pointed the other at the offerings, and railed, 'Our Lady of the Sky illuminates your vanity, but remember all beauty becomes dust. Death brings us closer to life, because light and darkness are joined. You cannot escape. The Grim One will sweep down, and you will cry upon your knees, but there is no halting the last passage when the Dark Spectre watches with nine eyes. Pain stalks the sunshine, and even gods weep…'
There was more, far too much more. Finally Vrinda touched a henna-hued fingernail to her ginger eyebrow. Instantly the scatterbrained vizar jerked as if whip-lashed. The, turban rocked, and amethyst eyes flashed as the mystic creature gripped the crone's bony skull. Stumbling as if bludgeoned, the Grand Vizar was ushered out by the vizar-in-waiting and her anatomists. Amenstar wanted to spit. The drooling, moonstruck moron was an embarrassment to the city.
'And now,' pronounced Vrinda, 'may your graces eat and enjoy!'
The guests sighed with relief. Amenstar accepted a gold-rimmed plate, and leading the line, threaded the many groaning tables, taking a morsel here, a dram there. Chatter increased as people partook of sweetmeats, gossip, and laughter, standing in groups or sitting in clusters on three-legged stools. The only ones not gorging themselves were the hollow-eyed vizars, who were never seen to eat. Rumors spoke of raw meat and cow's blood, or worse…
The sacrificial table was toted away, and the evening's entertainment began. Vrinda conjured a circle of red- painted stones, and as the band plucked and wheezed, a troupe of leather-clad dwarves on racing zebras stampeded into the room. The crowd gaped as the dwarves tumbled on the cantering zebras, vaulted headlong to change mounts, rode backward, behind the tail and beneath striped bellies, formed dwarven pyramids and crosses, and capered through a dozen more dangerous tricks. Vrinda clapped her red hands, and the dwarves disappeared. The breathless audience applauded.
Another genie clap filled the red ring with a tall, complicated engine that resembled an orchestra hurled together by a tornado. A smiling woman with almond eyes bowed deeply, wound a long-handled crank, and stepped back. Atop the machine bubbled a fountain whose water was channeled into many tiny pipes. Slowly, streams of water dripped and jetted to spin wheels, compress bladders, tilt cups, and drop counterweights. With a collective wheeze, the contraption began to play the jumbled instruments. Horns blooped, strings hummed, flutes tooted, drums thumped, and bagpipes wheezed. Tongues wagged about the clever engine, called a 'clepsydra,' a variant of the water clock. When the weird engine finally gasped to a halt, people clapped for more, calling wildly, and threw coins into the stone ring. At their insistence, the clepsydra was rewound, water bubbled and fell, and the gargling tune repeated. It was only when Vrinda pleaded to keep her schedule that the clepsydra was hauled away by four sturdy slaves.
A sage from Cursrah's college stepped into the ring, dressed in square-cut hair, green tunic and kilt, bare feet, and a black poncho beaded with the moon's phases. Two students in similar garb lugged in a clay jar. Big as a peck basket, turquoise in color, it was stippled with marks of black paint and its lid was tightly sealed with yellow wax. Gingerly the students eased the jar to the ring's center then scurried away. The sage made a short speech about the ongoing wonders to be learned from Cursrah's college, then drew a small knife and squatted to dig away the sealing wax.
The audience murmured, wondering what they'd see, with the word 'genie' bubbling up most often. Cursrah had been founded by the greatest of genies, built by lesser genies and genie slaves, and still employed two or three carefully bound to their tasks or habitats. No doubt the college had extra genies bottled up and stored on shelves. The crowd leaned in on tiptoes.
One student had fetched a bamboo pole. The sage raised an eyebrow to Vrinda, silently asking if precautions had been taken. People rocked back and buzzed at the hint of danger. Getting a nod from the administrator, the sage stood outside the red rock circle, and using the pole, tipped the lid off the jar.
Instantly there spewed into the air a howling whirlwind, big around as the enchanted ring of stones, high as the round opening in the roof. People recoiled, for the tiny tornado screamed, screeched, hissed, keened, and wailed like souls of the dead in torment. Viewers gasped, for within the spinning dervish they glimpsed forms, long and sinuous. They were snakes, thousands of them, from twenty-foot serpents to tiny adders. Most were sand- or stone-colored, limbless children of the desert. Were the snakes caught in a dervish? Or did they actually form the tornado?
To a bombardment of questions, the sage raised both hands and bellowed, 'What you see, gentle nobles, is not a simple whirlwind. It is a living creature of the elemental plane of air, a servant to djinns, a windwalker summoned through a portal in the jar, drawn here with Cursrahn magic for your delight and amazement. For such wonders do we practice daily at our college, where all the fathomable knowledge of the ancients resides…'
There was more speechmaking that the crowd largely ignored, mesmerized by the ethereal servant. The wind-walker's fury increased as it adjusted to this new plane, so the whirlwind spun faster and faster until little puffs of not-snakes whipped away and vanished in midair. Flecks of red paint from the inside of the protective ring flaked and spun too. The sage droned on, extolling the college's virtues, until Vrinda coughed and touched her golden throat. Immediately the sage's voice faltered. Dazed, he nodded at no one, plied the bamboo pole to catch the clay lid and recap the jar. The windwalker winked away with a sudden compression that made people's ears pop.
Vrinda clapped her hands once and sage and jar winked away too. The masked and feathered dancers reappeared, this time bobbing and swirling through the audience. The band struck up a bouncing tune, and people laughed and relaxed. Vrinda glided away to administer dessert. Courtiers steered to the lesser throne to compliment Amenstar on the food, display, entertainment, and more.
'What happens now?' Gheqet hissed. The two were still stationed behind Star.
Tafir scanned the audience for eligible girls and asked, 'Will this party drag on all night?'
'I've no idea,' she said. 'Vrinda is in charge.'
Star wrinkled her forehead; her tiara itched.
'Must we stand here?' Gheqet, who had also spotted some interesting young women, whined. 'I'm bored.'
'I know we crashed the party, but-oops! Pucker up, Princess. Cursrah's flanks are penetrated by a scouting probe from Oxonsis and a butterfly brigade from Zubat.'
Courtiers fell back as two large entourages converged on Star's small throne. From the right marched Samir Pallaton's military escort in lock step, with the dark prince the point of the spear. From the left flowed Samir Nagid's entourage, light and colorful as wax paper balloons. The two princes stopped, an arm's length apart, before Star's throne. The samira smiled carefully, flattered at their attention, but recalled that the two heirs should be kept apart, lest their kingdoms' impending war explode here in the palace.
'My compliments, Samira.' A military man, Pallaton got off the first shot, saying, 'Cursrah shows its riches are its strength of mind. Oxonsis too knows knowledge is true power.'
'Which makes one wonder, Fair Amenstar,' the sprightly Nagid interjected, 'why Oxonsis shut down its college and banished its scholars? What did their military elite fear to hear?'
'Oxonsis fears nothing, but our college proved a viper pit of treason.' The swarthy Pallaton looked only at Amenstar as he continued, 'In times of trouble, citizens should support their rulers and join in the mutual defense. It's different in Zubat, I hear. In that city, fops and fools spend their time stargazing and reciting poetry, while enemies infiltrate the streets and poison the minds of the populace.'
'I'm amazed Oxonsis has any populace left,' Nagid breezed. 'Trumped-up criminals and enemies of the state hang along the city walls like rotten fruit. Soon the civic butchers will be forced to recruit sheep into their burgeoning army, but then, that's appropriate isn't it? Sheep never know the shepherd's plan until their throats are cut…'
Star's head oscillated between the two bickering princes.
'I know› some throats that need cutting,' Pallaton's voice rose as his face darkened. 'The soft-headed populace of Zubat will scream for blood when they learn the city council secretly plots to make them slaves to Coramshan!'
'That's not true,' a jarred Samir Nagid hedged. 'Zubat exchanges diplomats with Coramshan, as does everyone, but we'll never submit to thralldom by-'
