Queen of Stars by Dave Duncan

officer in charge of security,” announced the figurehead. Surely such proclamations were superfluous when everyone’s name was somehow perfectly obvious? “And Halfling Avior,” she added as a quieter afterthought. Hooves clattered. “Menkent Sphinx of the Guard.”
    The welcoming party on the barge comprised two sphinxes, female Kalb and male Zozma, who was twice Kalb’s size and had a beard shaped like a black icicle. They bowed to Rigel, giant cats stretching their front legs.
    “You had us worried, Marshal!” Zozma purred in a register almost low enough to be classed as subsonic.
    “I had myself worried, Commander. Saidak, is that brat bothering you?”
    The mermaid craned over the rail to look at him. “No, Marshal. If he does, I’ll just drop him overboard.”
    “Excellent idea. Let’s go, then.”
    He gestured Avior toward a hatch that opened onto a stairway, which wound down into what turned out to be a saloon occupying the entire vessel. A bench upholstered in red velvet extended all the way around, under a continuous line of sloping windows, which Avior had not noticed from the outside. Everything was red and gold, warm and bright under the glow of golden chandeliers.
    At the bottom of the stair stood a female elf named Ancha, who was just as grotesquely tall and slender as Shaula had been, but with hair and eyes of a striking auburn. She wore the same skimpy topless beachwear, but also bore a disk collar of silver and pearls as wide as her shoulders that draped down almost to her breasts. It had to contain hundreds of pearls, perhaps a thousand if it continued around her back. Ignoring Avior, she smiled thinly at Rigel.
    “Welcome back, Marshal. We brought this for you.” She offered him a bronze helmet with a brush of white horsehair along the crest. It looked like a prop from a Hollywood toga turkey.
    “Ah, thank you, Companion. That’s exactly what I need. You know, I’ve grown accustomed to this absurd thing?” Rigel donned the helmet. He would probably look good in it if he were wearing something more appropriate than jeans.
    “It suits you, Marshal,” Ancha said, with all the sincerity of a boa constrictor’s welcoming hug. But then she stepped aside and Avior saw Queen Talitha on a throne in the center of the ship.
    It was a modest throne of gilt—unless, of course, it was constructed of solid gold—but a throne nonetheless, and yet the queen of the Starlands sat there barefoot and wearing no more than Ancha, except that her disk collar was of diamonds, glittering brighter than the lamps themselves, and her hair and eyes burned with all the colors of the rainbow, the mark of Naos. She seemed impossibly young to be Izar’s mother and would be truly gorgeous if one could look past the grotesque ears and shark smile. Rigel’s infatuation was understandable, provided he shared the usual male ability to concentrate on certain specific organs.
    He walked forward and bowed with arms outspread. Already aware of how he felt about the queen, Avior studied Talitha’s face, which was guarded like a fortress. Too guarded! The other attendant present, Starborn Matar, was also watching the queen, and her lip had curled into a hint of a sneer. If elves’ expressions were anything like humans’, then the Rigel-Talitha infatuation was mutual, and a source of contempt around the court. Izar’s slander and the harpy’s slurs might not be true in action, but they were certainly true in wish. If even trusted confidants despised the frustrated romance, how must the queen’s political opponents feel?
    “Welcome, Marshal,” Talitha said. “Congratulations and my deepest thanks for bringing Izar safely home. I want to hear all about it, but first tell me this…Were the gunmen human or not?”
    “Halflings,” Rigel said. “I saw ears on at least two of the three as they came in through the broken window.”
    The royal collar flared in opalescent fire. “ Schmoor! as my son would say. Well, if we