The Road to Amber (34 page)

Initially, nothing seemed out of order. The armed men stood ranked, wearing a variation of the same black-and-green uniform that was her habitual attire. Some looked bored—which was understandable as the Chief Priest had now begun intoning the ritual in Ancient Thermaean. Some stood square shouldered and alert, proud to be the honor guard for their Prince’s most important day. Still others rested their hands on their sword hilts, ready for action.

Domino paused, her gaze scanning the faces of the men, rather than their uniforms and stance. She realized that she did not recognize a one. True, she had been a cavalry commander, not an infantry commander, but engagements had overlapped. Surely she would recognize at least one face among this chosen elite.

She glanced back at Spotty. His complexion was blotched. Their eyes met and she dipped her head in a slight nod. Unfortunately, neither Jancy nor Calla Mallanik were enlisted in the Faltane’s military, so to them one grunt would look much like another. When the trouble started, as she knew now it would, they would not realize that the odds were stacked against them.

The Chief Priest droned on. The congregation waited in an attentive hush. The wedding party also stood attentive.

Then, shockingly, Prince Rango fidgeted. He shifted from foot to foot. He cleared his throat. The Chief Priest droned on, perhaps at a slightly faster rate.

Prince Rango’s unrest migrated to his Guard. The bored ones straightened; the alert ones grasped their sword hilts. In the special section reserved for members of the clergy, a few of the older priests were leaning forward, listening now to the words that tumbled from the Chief Priest’s mouth. Confusion crinkled their shaved heads as they realized that what they were hearing was not the wedding ceremony.

“Sif!” Jancy whispered. “It’s gonna hit and my ax isn’t close!”

“Daggers,” Domino muttered, glancing toward the pillow that Calla held.

“Wait!” Prince Rango announced, his voice at its noble best. “What nonsense is this? Who has substituted this drivel for the wedding ceremony?”

“Why, darling,” Princess Rissa drawled, “I didn’t know you knew Ancient Thermaean…”

Rango/Kalaran stiffened as he realized that he had been caught out of character. It was barely believable that the warrior Prince had become the ardent administrator, but completely impossible that he had suddenly acquired fluency in a long-dead tongue.

“My love,” he said in honeyed tones, “I have been reviewing the ceremony in anticipation of this glorious day. I merely thought I heard some discrepancies. By whose right has the ceremony been altered?”

Rissa drew the skull of Kalaran from beneath her bouquet with a grim flourish. Stiller drew his sword. Setting down the satin pillow, Calla produced his bow from under the altar cloth. Domino and Jancy stepped to guard the Princess.

“The ceremony has been altered by my right,” Princess Rissa said, and dashed the skull to the marble floor. “We had some questions…”

The skull shattered into flinders of sun-bleached bone, the small figures of the Demon of Darkness and the Messenger of Light bouncing clear. A mist rose from the Messenger of Light, becoming a pale, insubstantial form with the features of Prince Rango. The Prince of mist glowered at the Prince of substance. His eyes glowed blue.

“You have my bride and my body, Kalaran,” his voice rang out. “The process is about to be reversed!”

“Deception! Black arts!” yelled Kalaran, “Guards!”

Turmoil erupted in the Cathedral. Wedding guests screamed as Guards drew swords and advanced on the sanctuary. From the row reserved for companions, Rafe and Spite rushed to help. Rafe bore a sword, Spite an oddly shaped wedding gift.

Knowing where the real threat lay, Kalaran lurched toward Jord. Princess Rissa grabbed his arm to slow him.

“Wench!” he scowled.

“Demon!” she returned.

Ibble set down the rings and slid a dagger each to Jancy and Domino. Together, shield maid and cavalry general turned to face the advancing members of the Prince’s Guard. Spotty leaped to engage those coming from behind him.

“Do you mean to attack members of your own military,” Kalaran shouted, “to slay men who are only doing their job?”

Stiller paused, indecisive. From her post at the Princess’s back, Domino also paused. The same thought was in both their minds: Could they slay men who were only doing their sworn duty to defend their Prince?”

Jancy Gaine didn’t pause.

“Fuck that!” she said, thrusting her bridesmaid’s bouquet into one guard’s face and knifing a second. “I’m a mercenary!”

“Cash and carry!” The ancient elven mercenary’s cry rasped from Calla Mallanik’s throat as he began firing arrows with near impossible rapidity from his newly repaired silver-strung bow. “Die beautifully, you dumb punks!”

A pair of the Prince’s Guard obliged him by reeling forward, plucking at the arrows in their right eye sockets before collapsing over the rail into the clergy section and spattering the entire front row with blood.

“Beautiful!” Jancy cried. “Come on, Domino, get with the program! Aren’t you in the uniform of the Princess’s Guard?”

Domino glanced down at her lavender-and-Iace bridesmaid’s dress. A slow smile spread over her face as she tore the sword from a Guardsman’s hand.

“For Rissa!” she yelled, stabbing the sword’s former owner through the gut. “For Rissa!”

From his place, Stiller Gulick dove into a Guard who was racing to behead Jord.

“It was self-defense,” he explained as he beat the man’s head against the floor and relieved him of his sword. “Do you have any idea what Domino would do to me if I let Jord get hurt?”

Tossing Rissa to the floor in a sudden burst of cruel strength, Kalaran reached for Jord, only to find Prince Rango blocking his way. Kalaran sought to push him aside, finding to his dismay that his usurped body’s arm was merging with the shade of its rightful owner and that Rango had control.

“Disarmed you, have I?” Prince Rango chuckled.

From the floor, Princess Rissa moaned in pain. “Rango, that was terrible!”

“Thank you, darling,” the misry Prince replied.

Jancy had few smiles to spare for puns. Her dagger had been wrested from her and she was unfamiliar with the sword she had taken from one of her slain. Three Guards had forced her a few steps away from the Princess and were determinedly wearing her down.

Spite fought her way to Domino’s side. She had shapeshifted into a buxom pale green centaur. Without hesitation, Domino grabbed the centaur’s shapely soft shoulders and mounted. As she did so, Spite tossed the wedding gift to Jancy.

“Warrior maid,” the centaur called, “Castrator!”

The Guard fell back for a moment, their hands falling to cover their privates, believing that the title was one that Jancy claimed. She caught the package neatly and tore away the wrapping from her bearded ax.

“By Hel’s black-and-white hair,” she gloated, “now this is going to be fucking great!”

Even Ibble and Seth joined the battle that ensued—ring bearer and flower girl back to back, daggers in hand. The slaughter was enormous. The wedding guests froze in terror, knowing that if they fled they might become the next victims.

Through it all, Jord kept reading, though his voice was growing hoarse as he strove to be heard over the turmoil. Joined at the arm with Prince Rango, Kalaran spat at Jord and his spittle became a ball o ffire that flew at the poet, growing enormously so that it threatened to engulf both reader and text.

Rissa screamed and struck Kalaran a fierce blow in the kidneys, but she could do nothing for Jord. The fire crisped both the Book of the Service and the robes of the Chief Priest. Then a flash of light burst from Jord’s breast. The fire vanished completely, leaving the poet nude and grasping the ancient scroll of Gwykander.

“The amulet Anachron!” Kalaran gasped, “and the scroll! Don’t any of you do what you are told?”

Stiller chortled from where he had felled yet another ofthe Prince’s Guard.

“‘Tis a good thing that Domino had initiative, but you have none but yourself to blame for Anachron’s presence. It was brought to Caltus by Udan Kann.”

“Udan Kann!” the Fallen Sunbird brightened.

“Don’t get your hopes up, godlet,” Calla Mallanik added, “Udan Kann was slain by Gar Quithnick by means of a delayed death touch. You are alone here.”

“Damn Gar Quithnick!” Kalaran cursed. “And damn you! Anachron cannot protect you all!”

Again he spat, this time directing his spittle toward Calla Mallanik. The elf stepped nimbly aside, but Ibble and Seth who had fought to his lee were not so fortunate.

The dwarf took the brunt of the fireball. What remained spilled over onto the girl.

“You bastard!” Prince Rango yelled as the two small forms toppled to the floor. “I have had enough!”

He grabbed the demigod, shaking him as if to wrest him from the body he had stolen. With an aplomb that only poetry reading could have trained him for, nude and singed, Jord continued to read.

“Quatendo erbud, altonfuss dermain! Akanetendo, ranma! Tendo soon, pan gen da ma! Royu gah haf!”

The Prince’s shaking effectively kept the demigod from effecting another spell as the final words of the ancient exorcism split Kalaran’s immortal soul from Prince Rango’s body.

On the sanctuary floor, the tiny figurine of the Demon of Darkness glowed with the blackness between the stars. Then, as once Kalaran had captured the Prince, the figurine captured the demigod’s immortal essence.

Battle ceased as Jord’s chanting finished and all the combatants realized that the true fight was won. Prince Rango swept Rissa to her feet just as she was about to land another punch in his kidneys. She looked into his eyes and smiled.

“This is my Prince!” she declaimed in a loud, clear voice.

Spontaneous applause rose from where the guests sat—though everyone was too polite to wonder aloud whether the intensity was due to the return of the Prince or to the fact that the guests now knew they would not be slaughtered as a wedding sacrifice.

Domino swung down from Spite’s back and hurried into the sanctuary, but she didn’t spare even an appreciative glance for Jord. Instead she rushed to the two charred heaps on the marble floor by the altar. Calla Mallanik shook his aristocratic head sorrowfully and tried to stop her.

“They’re gone,” he said. “You can do nothing more.”

“Maybe,” Domino said, pushing past him. “Jord, bring that damned amulet here.”

The poet hurried over, his shapely ass drawing appreciative comments from the audience. He pulled Anachron over his head and held it to Seth’s breast.

“That’s right,” he said softly, “it has the power to heal.”

“But not to resurrect,” Domino added anxiously, “I only hope that we’re not too late!”

A glow far purer than the fires of the Fallen Sunbird rose from the amulet and suffused the burnt child. Absolute silence fell within the Cathedral of Dym, broken by wild cheering as Seth shook off the charred remnants of her flower girl’s frock and sat up.

Domino clasped the girl to her heart and Rissa knelt and slashed off ten feet of her lace-embroidered train to cover her.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” the girl whispered, looking down in wonder at the amulet, “and thank you, Anachron.”

“Ibble!” Stiller cried. “Use the amulet on Ibble, Domino.”

But as Domino reached for the glowing amulet, it shimmered, faded, and was gone.

“It’s vanished!” the Princess cried. “But where has it gone?”

“Back to Gelfait, I’d wager,” Stiller said, looking down at the corpse of his companion. “Gar Quithnick must not be dead after all, but Gelfait’s position out of time delayed the amulet’s return to him.”

“What an irony,” Jord declaimed from where he was stripping a set of pants and a uniform jacket from a recently slain Guard. “Gar lives but is lost to us forever and the amulet’s flight to him has robbed us of Ibble as well.”

“Well, not really,” came a familiar voice from the small charred heap on the floor, “we dwarves are pretty tough, you know. We’re particularly well-protected from fire. Wouldn’t be worth much as smiths if we weren’t.”

A second spate of applause, this one flavored with hearty laughter followed the dwarf’s announcement. Stiller bent and embraced his friend.

“Brush yourself off and find some pants,” he said. “We have a wedding and a coronation to complete!”

“Wait!” twittered a female voice as Daisy hurried from the rear of the Cathedral. “You can’t mean to continue the ceremony with bodies all about and half of the wedding party soaked with blood and gore!”

Rissa looked at Rango and the Prince nodded, embracing her about the waist. Then the Princess spoke.

“We do and we will! After all we have been through, the wedding must not be delayed.” She looked at the older woman and relented slightly. “Very well, there will be a brief intermission to clear away the bodies.”

“What shall we do with this, Rissa?” Jancy asked, picking the figurine of Darkness from the floor.

“Can you hold on to it for now?” Rissa asked. “Disposing of that is going to take some thought.”

As the bodies were cleared away, Lemml Touday and Fenelais were roused from their bench in the sacristy. Clad in his second-best robes, the Chief Priest came forth and officiated, Lemml in the place of honor at his side. The Book of the Service was gone, but the memory of the ritual remained and if it was a bit shorter, that was all for the best.

Newly wed, the Prince and Princess knelt before the Chief Priest to be coronated the new King and Queen of the Faltane. Their trusted comrades stood in a half circle behind them, battered and bloodied faces glowing with pride.

Only Ibble stood apart, the cushion with the crowns in his broad dwarvish hands. He studied the crowns as the Chief Priest intoned a prayer requesting that the new rulers be just and wise and brave in the rulership of their kingdom. When the Chief Priest reached for the King’s crown to set it on Rango’s head, the dwarf interrupted.

“Uh, do you really mean what you just said there in that prayer?”

The Chief Priest stared at him in puzzlement, “Of course I do, Ibble. Do you think we want a ruler like Kalaran for the Faltane?”