Free King of Swords (The Starfolk) by Dave Duncan Page A

need it.
Where
depended on
who
, they said, and that was that.
    He considered asking how many halflings there were and decided not to risk it. Did he even want to be granted status, assuming that it was some sort of residency or work permit? Would he be happier going back to Earth to face at least three murder charges? Was that even an alternative? The starfolk might be quite happy to banish him back to the real world,but he suspected they would not want to lose their legendary Saiph.
    The thought of Earth reminded him of Mira. What was happening to her?
    He was being asked a question, something about minotaurs…
    “No, starborn, never,” he said.
    “Great sport!” Muphrid proclaimed. “We’ll find you a good young one.”
    “He’ll be able to show us Saiph in action!” That was Nashira, of course. When she wasn’t too busy caressing his thigh, she never missed a chance to snipe at him.
    Playing toreador with a minotaur? Would he have to wave a red cape?
    For years Rigel’s highest ambition had been to find his parents. It still mattered to him, and now he was making progress. Now he knew that one had been human, the other starborn. Maybe Gert had been his mother after all, and her story of the King of the Elves close to true except that her supernatural visitor had probably not been royalty. She wouldn’t have cared who he was or how strangely his ears were shaped so long as he paid well. “You’re growing tall like your dad,” she had told him when he was young. After the baby was born, his elfin father must have given him Saiph to defend him in his youth.
    Or had the amulet served another purpose? Could the use of magic be detected by some sort of elfin direction-and-ranging system? The first time Rigel had needed it… no, the third time. And that made sense. Fomalhaut had turned up much too promptly for it to have been a coincidence. Rigel punching out a mugger’s teeth in Vancouver might have alerted elfin watchers that the amulet had been activated, killing a bear would narrow down his location, and then slaughtering threemen in Walmart would lead them right to him. Which sort of suggested that his father’s name was Fomalhaut, a conclusion even less appetizing than the toasted ivy salad.
    The first dozen courses were followed by an intermission, during which a flock of eight imps, including Izar, came in to entertain the grown-ups with an act they’d been rehearsing. They varied in height from about one meter to more than two, and only the tallest had any trace of color in their hair and eyes—the rest had the same white pigmentation as Rigel. The imps brought two sorts of harp, three lutes, two woodwinds, and a zither, setting up the large harp at one end of the line and the zither at the other. They then began to play, dance, and sing, all at the same time. As they wove in and out, they tossed instruments back and forth, so that a child might strum a few bars on a lute and then toss it to another in return for a woodwind. The older ones added back flips and other acrobatics. They never missed a beat and they all sang like angels when they weren’t blowing into oboes. See it and weep, Cirque du Soleil!
    Rigel had always believed that he was musically gifted, but now he realized that he had inherited only a small part of true elfin talent. At the end of the performance, he wanted to leap to his feet and cheer, yet the audience’s applause was no more than polite.
    After the banquet ended, the adults collected around a grand piano farther along the hall; they all sang and some of them played. Fortunately the halfling was not asked to join in.

Chapter 9
    E ventually, as the sky outside darkened, the starfolk began slinking off in couples, but few seemed to go with the partners they had been fondling throughout the dinner. Rigel watched wistfully as Alniyat was hustled away by the giant Gacrux. As soon as Rigel rose from his chair, Senator appeared at his side, accompanied by a young human in the