The Nonborn King by Julian May

Author:Julian May [May, Julian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Retail, Personal
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 0101-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

11

"I KNOW you're going to like Hunting," Aiken insisted, "and you've never seen anything like these beasts. One of the dragons almost ate me at my Tanu initiation bash."

"How fateful for the Many-Colored Land, Battlemaster," King Sharn observed, "that you were spared."

Queen Ayfa and the other five Firvulag Great Ones chortled, and all of the flying chalikos laid their ears back and rolled their eyes at the sinister sound until Culluket banished their anxiety.

The Flying Hunt was the culminating entertainment in the preLoving houseparty hosted by Aiken and Mercy for the Firvulag Gnomish Council. Some of the guests had declined to participate; for even though Aiken had abolished the older, crueler style of pursuit, bitter memories lingered of the times when Hunt quarry fled on two legs. The anti-bloodsport faction had stayed behind in the castle attending a musicale supervised by Mercy, while Aiken led a compact aerial safari on a quest for phobosuchine crocodiles in the bayous of the Laar delta. His Tanu companions included Culluket, Alberonn, Bleyn, Aluteyn Craftsmaster, Celadeyr of Afaliah, and the formidable Lady Armida of Bardelask, widow to Darel and now ruler of the beleaguered Rhône city. In addition to the King and Queen, the Firvulag party was composed entirely of battle champions: Medor, a Firvulag First Comer and Sham's deputy, whose illusory aspect was a spiny black wereinsect; the Dreadful Skathe, Ayfa's ogress crony of the snaggleteeth and dripping talons; the novice hero Fafnor Ice-Jaws, who had trounced Culluket in the Encounters at the last Grand Combat; Tetrol Bonecrusher, the feathered serpent, who had been defeated by Alberonn in the same event; and Betularn of the White Hand, another First-Comer champion, who had been the antagonist of the equally venerable Celadeyr for as long as anyone could remember.

None of the Great Ones among the Litde People was capable of personal levitation, much less teleporting a steed, and so it was up to the Shining One to keep his guests airborne. The potential hazard in the arrangement was minimized by the metapsychic firepower advantage held by the Firvulag. At the very start of the visit, Sharn had taken pains to demonstrate the progress made by the Little People in offensive metaconcert. Whereas in former days each champion had jealously declined to share his powers with another, under Share's innovative direction they were learning to link minds. The cooperation was still rough, and operant only in the creative spectrum; but Culluket had estimated that the combined psychoenergetic wattage of the Firvulag royals very likely exceeded Aiken's own creative potential, depleted as he was by the strain of the progress. And of Aiken's allies, only Bleyn, Alberonn, and Culluket himself were familiar enough with his mental pattern to mind-mesh. Given the circumstances, Aiken set aside any hope of engineering a convenient mass assassination of top-ranking Foe. Sharn and Ayfa, following their own strategy, exuded goodwill to ad and pretended that they had never violated the Armistice.

It was full dark when the Hunt arrived at the Tainted Swamp south of Goriah.

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