The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt (interesting books to read for teens .txt) đź“•
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- Author: Fletcher Pratt
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“Of course. You will want the mask of the Kjermanash princess, the one that Laduis calls Sunimaa. I will let you take it.”
Nothing more was said at this time, nor until the afternoon of the festival eve itself, with horns and whistles already blowing in the street, though the sun had not yet touched the arm of spring, when the widow helped her into the fur-tipped robe, surveyed her all round, and bade farewell with a smile (which Lalette thought a trifle sad). “If all does not go as you would wish, return here. You may at all times come in the name of the God of love.”
It was just falling twilight when Lalette felt stones under her feet again and breathed deep the fine air of spring. Someone had hung a pair of colored lanterns at the gate of the Street Cossao, one of them with a broken pane in its side, through which the candle within shed its beam on a group of three or four premature revellers gathered round a bottle. They hallooed to Lalette and began to follow her along the boulevard on uneasy legs, but gave it up when she saw a hired carriage come past empty and hailed it as if to mount. When she did not after all enter his vehicle, the carriage-master swore at her, but want of money to pay left her without choice.
At the market-place tables had been set out and musicians on a stand surrounded with flowers and green branches were already intoning the volalelle, but only three or four couples were dancing. There were some murmurs of appreciation for her costume from those sitting; none called nor gave her any sign. It was a poor district; she knew she must look by the half too lordly, and that was as well.
Some way farther along, a group all masked was holding a procession from a side-street behind a hand-drum, and laughingly begged her to join, but she pulled loose. The sound of bells began to hang over the gay din that rose from the city, and Lalette hurried, feeling more than ever out of protection and alone. The street where Remigorius had his shop was wider than her memory of it. Someone had affixed an absurd green paper ribbon to the neck of the stuffed lizard over the door, but all seemed dark within.
There was no answer when Lalette pulled at the bell. Her heart plunged down into dreadful syncope—Oh, what will I do without money if he is not there nor anyone? Not go back to that woman of strange gods, no. She rang again, twice, to make her insistence clear, and as someone down the street greeted guests with a glad shout of welcome, the door cracked open and a voice said that the doctor was abroad, not even in Netznegon City, but there was another medic around the corner and two stories aloft.
“Oh,” said Lalette, “it is not for the curative that I wished him. I desire to find a friend of his and mine—Rodvard Bergelin.”
Door came fully open. In the rapidly fading light the girl found herself looking at a young man whose chin and slanting eyes betrayed Zigraner origin. As always with that race, the smile was an effort to ingratiate, but there was something unpleasant about it. “Are you—?”
“Lalette Asterhax. Yes.”
“Demoiselle, will you come in? The doctor has left me to keep his place for all that concerns the Sons of the New Day, since matters have reached such a crisis with what has been discovered at the conference of court.”
Lalette followed him (with dreadful certainty clutching at her heart that this was the key, then, of so much she had failed to understand; Rodvard was an intimate of that gang of murderous conspirators and so must these others be.) The Zigraner indicated a stool in the shop and struck a light. “You permit that I introduce myself? I am Gaidu Pyax. Of Rodvard you should not be concerned. He is doing good work, and the High Center has forwarded to ours its praise of him.”
(I am planets and centuries away from the man who has chosen me, she thought. How can I say it? What shall I ask?) “There was no word.”
The Zigraner frowned. “The sub-leader of your center doubtless told you of the plot against Baron Brunivar, the regent prospective? It was Rodvard who uncovered it.”
“Oh.” (The conversation was going to stop.) She cried desperately; “I thought he would be back with me for the festival.”
“And you have so lovely a costume, demoiselle. Duty bears hard on us.” His smile changed to a little bark of a laugh. “But be tranquil for him; he will sport high with the court at Sedad Vix.” The tongue of Gaidu Pyax came out and made a circle round his lips; he glanced where the clock ticked against the wall and darted his eye around quickly. “I will see you home, or if you will—it is only—that is—would you care to see how we Zigraners keep festival?”
Outside the dark was almost full; the bells were all chiming in chorus and Rodvard at Sedad Vix. (I have no home, she thought, and he has sent no word.) “It would be pleasant.” (For one must do something.)
Pyax leaped to his feet, his mouth all twisted with joy. “Come, let us go at once. I do not wish to be late for the light.” He ran into the rear room with blundering, skipping steps, tripping at the doorsill. Lalette heard him stumble and then, in a break of the street-noises, how a voice in that rear room growled at him heavily. (Remigorius is there after all, she thought, and maybe Rodvard; they are lying to me.) Pyax’ high-pitched voice said; “I don’t care if she is a witch. She’s going to—” and was cut off by the long bellow of a horn blown nearby, and he was back, his face somewhat abashed.
He did not lock the door. In the street the festival was now full-met, with lights tossing along and the horns blown from every window under the steady bells. Gaidu Pyax wore only a simple eye-mask and his voice had a lilt of excitement. Lalette (knew it was because how all his family would boast of having a true Dossolan girl to keep festival with, but she) said;
“I thought you told me that Doctor Remigorius was abroad.”
In the flickering light, his eyes were sidelong. “He is; he truly is, demoiselle.”
“Was that not his voice I heard in the rear room?”
“Oh, no, that was one of our people for whom the provosts are searching, and it is your fault in a way, because he had to eliminate the doorman at Rodvard’s house, who recognized you—” How much further he would have carried the useless lie she did not know or care, for at that moment a girl in a passing group threw a scent-ball that struck him in the face.
IIIThere was a high hall of entry with upholstered chairs, whose members were tortured spirals of wood; and a pair of gigantic silver candlesticks from the floor, rhinanthus plants in form. A respectful doorman came to take her furs, but they were only festival imitations without weight, and she kept them. Pyax said; “At our festival we do not wear masks indoors,” so she removed her headdress, and drew a glance of admiration when he saw the dark hair flowing across the white. The inner door opened and a middle-aged man with a grave, kindly face, came out, somewhat ridiculously caparisoned in the red under-jacket of a general. Pyax bowed low before him.
“Father, this is the Demoiselle Asterhax, who has come to keep spring festival with us.”
A little uncertain where the line of politeness lay in a Zigraner house, she would have curtsied, but he, without showing whether he recognized her name, took her by the hand, with; “The friend of my son is welcome,” and led her in. Beyond the inner door was a narrow hall hung with glyptics, in which he turned rightward through a second door, and releasing her, clapped both his hands together. “This is the Demoiselle Asterhax.”
A dozen or more people, who had been sitting in a room so dim they were visible only as forms, stood up and chorused, “You are welcome!” then sat down again with a rustling of silks. The senior Pyax took Lalette’s hand again and led her round through the gloom to a chair, where he bowed and placed a finger on his lips. Gaidu Pyax took the next seat to her own; no one spoke. The whole place had the strange, almost musty odor that forever hangs round Zigraners; the sound of the rejoicing city could not penetrate.
Lalette felt that the arm-pieces of her chair were carved into animals’ heads and now turned her attention toward the center of the room, where a single very weak taper burned on a table of almost eye-level height before a bronze armillary sphere formed in interlaced tracery. A clockwork turned the sphere; its parts flashed dully. In that breathing silence the voice of the elder Pyax spoke out, deep and almost ominous:
“Father, in our darkness, we who have waited long, and long hoped, pray you not to turn your face from the children of your creation and the hope of your glory, but to give us light, light, that we may surround your throne with our praises.”
Someone sobbed in the dim; Lalette’s side-glance caught a glimpse of Gaidu’s face buried in his hands. To her, as the older man went on with his prayer, the scene that might have been moving became painful and ridiculous—grown people playing make-believe like silly children, weeping before a machine that must unfailingly come to the end expected of it—while there were true matters of life and death and love lying unsolved. So watching the dull repeated gleam from the sphere, she swept into reverie till sphere and taper reached the term of their movement in a sharp intake of breath from those around. A tiny runnel of flame slipped across the base beneath the device, its heart seemed to split apart, discharging a bright ball of purest fire, which threw the whole room into color.
At once the people leaped to their feet, and shouting “Light! Light! God sees us!” began embracing and congratulating each other, while servants hurried in to light tall candles. Lalette found herself in the grip of a woman with a haired mole on her chin, whose over-ample contours were laced into a costume from one of the knightly legends. The woman capered up and down as she talked.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” she cried in a high voice. “We are so glad to have you come! Ser Pyax never spends less than a hundred scudi on his festival! You are the one who witched Count Cleudi, aren’t you? The other two Pyax boys couldn’t come for the ceremony, but they have no sisters, you know. God never fails as the world turns. You must try some of our Zigraner wine.”
A servant was at Lalette’s side, with the beverage in a huge silver flagon on a huge silver tray, and Gaidu Pyax was offering her one of his paired festival-cups, curiously carved, and so heavy it must be pure gold. “My aunt Zanzanna,” he said. “A dog bit her when she was a baby and never since has she been able to control her tongue.”
“I will bite you and drive you madder than I am,” replied the woman with the mole. Lalette looked around over the top of her cup from wine strongly flavored with resin. Everybody was talking at once and in all directions, disjointedly. The room was a little smaller than it had seemed in the dark, but still large, with heavy hangings worked to tapestry at all the windows and pictures occupying every fingerspace of wall between. The chair where the senior Pyax had sat was jewelled around its top. At one end of the room musicians were setting their instruments in order. Most of the people were
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