Free Golden Torc - 2 by Julian May Page B

strange trio leave through the door at the opposite end of the room. He had not moved so much as a muscle since the woman in purple had risen from the table. But then the opaque green eyes returned to life. Thagdal smiled and raised his cup and so did the remaining Exalted Personages occupying the thrones that flanked his.
    "Shall we give Aiken Drum slonshal?" the King asked softly. "Or shall we wait a bit to see whether or not the Venerable Lady Mayvar has chosen rightly?"
    His goblet tipped. Raspberry liquor poured onto the polished tabletop like fresh blood. Thagdal inverted his cup in the midst of the puddle, lurched to his feet, and vanished through a door concealed by draperies. The Queen hastened after him. Sukey came to Elizabeth, mind weeping but with dry eyes. "What's happened? I don't understand. Why have Stein and Aiken gone with that old woman?"
    Patience little Mindsister I'll explain
    "Kingmaker!" Bryan peered owlishly at the two human women, then raised his own jewel-eyed golden skull goblet with an unsteady hand. "Mayvar Kingmaker, Creyn called her! Bloody damn legend. Bloody damn world. Slonshal! Long live the King!"
    He tilted the dregs down his throat and fell prone onto the table.
    "I think," said Elizabeth, "that the party is over."
    4
    QUEEN NONTUSVEL AND THREE OF HER CHILDREN WALKED IN the garden before noon, while it was still cool, and if the royal lady was apprehensive, she kept her fear well veiled. The Queen plucked a coral-colored blossom from a honeysuckle and held it out with an invitational thought. A hummingbird came, its feathers flashing iridescent blue and green when it darted through sunbeams. It drank nectar and suffered the Queen to tickle its avian brain. When it was done it hovered for a moment before her face, buzzing, and then whisked away into the lemon tree.
    "Those things are vicious, Mother," Imidol said. "They'll go for your eyes if they catch even a hint of threat. We should never have allowed them out of the aviary."
    "But I love them," the Queen said, laughing as she tossed away the drained flower. "And they know it. They would never try to hurt me." This morning she was wearing a soft blue robe. Her flame-colored hair was bound into a braided diadem. "You're too trusting," Culluket said. And there it was, the opening wedge the other two had been waiting for. Imidol, the youngest and most aggressive, rushed in with all the natural force of the metacoercive.
    "Even creatures that appear to be harmless can be dangerous. Consider human women! When they're cornered, when they're confronted with multiple psychic shocks, they may strike out rather than subside into the complaisant mode we've come to expect from them."
    "This new operant one could be a serious menace," Riganone cautioned.
    Culluket took his mother's arm as they came to a wide flight of rustic steps that led to a grassy area fully enclosed by flowering shrubs. A small marble pavilion stood in the center of the lawn.
    "Let's sit here for a moment, Mother. We must speak of this. It can't be postponed."
    "I suppose not." Nontusvel sighed. Culluket was smiling his reassurance and she radiated affection in return. Of these three grown children, he resembled her the most physically, having the same wide-set sapphire eyes and high brow. But in spite of his beauty and his great redactive skill, members of the Host rarely sought him out for the healing, even though he was their brother. Was it true, what the others said, that Culluket was too zealous in his scrutiny of pain?
    Nontusvel said, "Surely we have the resources among the Host to control this Elizabeth, for all her torcless power. When she sees more of our ways, she will surely unite with us. It's only reasonable."
    O Mother misapprehend! Woe.
    Screen up Cull? Listeners!
    Upfast. Imi shunt those gardeners away. Riga show her.
    "You mustn't whisper behind my mind," the Queen chided them. "This mental jumble! I taught you better, dear ones. Now, an orderly