crossed gamepiece,’ replied the Duke, then spoke in a more level tone for Regina’s group. ‘This ridiculously large tapered thing behind me is a pyramid, a sort of storied shrine, part of the ancient Ass Tech culture which Principal Krill and Brannart Morphail agree occurred before the age of the Bird Reich and the Kali Yuga, more or less.’
‘Krill and Morphail agree on so little, it must be true,’ remarked the Iron Orchid, flicking a stellate snow spider from her shoulder. ‘Don’t you think that’s a good sign, Lord Jagged?’
‘It may be,’ nodded Jagged without emphasis.
‘So this raiment I’m wearing,’ the Duke went on, ‘is that of a king from a time of empire, all culpable in glory. Li Pao explained some of it, and also helped to compose my speech. What did he say about it?’ He was thoughtful. ‘Ah yes, he said that there were flaws built in to the civilization – to make it more interesting I suppose. Apparently expansive, it was really a creature belted and restrained from its natural shape. And they felt they could make amends by a sort of ritual blood magic. They would kill the king.’
‘Are you sure they killed the king?’ Jagged asked mildly.
‘Well it would hardly make sense the other way around, would it? The king would be killed as a suitable offering to the gods. I intend to immerse myself fully in the part.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Volospion somewhat irritably. ‘Is this to be a lecture?’
‘Far from it,’ said the Duke excitedly. ‘I will perform what was once known as a “sacraface”. I am ritually killed upon the summit of this pyramid of mine, then conveyed downward into a coughing chamber within, and a gigantic golden replica of my face emerges from the front of the building. This sacred face makes the surrounding land fertile, a jungle grows up around the edifice, and the entire scene becomes the stuff of legend.’
‘I am sure you hope it will be so, Duke,’ muttered Volospion.
‘Oh now, don’t scoff, Volospion,’ said the Iron Orchid, throwing him a slight frown. Then she beamed kindly at the Duke of Queens. ‘I find the Duke’s “sacraface” most compelling. Perhaps finally we will all follow the fashion and be dead in gold, one and all.’
‘One of us should remain alive to resurrect the rest, my hardest of perennials,’ mentioned Lord Jagged.
‘Ah! Of course. Well, Mongrove never participates. He’ll notice our absence eventually.’
‘You are to set a fashion, Uncle,’ Regina whispered to the Duke, who smiled broadly.
But Lord Volospion had overheard. ‘Yes indeed, Duke,’ he remarked. ‘I’m sure there has never been a more entertaining way of lacking inspiration.’
‘What?’ The Duke was confused.
‘Ignore him, Duke,’ said the Iron Orchid, who felt Volospion had finally crossed the line. She looked the Doctor in the eye. ‘The Doctor is still smarting from his own recent project, merely.’
She was alluding to Volospion’s creation of a village of live people made from pellucidant jade. The entire population of this glassy hamlet had immediately set about the Doctor with scorching volleys of sarcasm, none of which he had understood. He had turned to Lord Jagged to transcribe their ripe revelations, thinking to show off his grand creation in the process. When Jagged explained some of the puppets’ arcane terminology, Volospion’s humiliation was complete.
‘I stated only what was on my mind,’ he said now to the Iron Orchid, and then turned to the Duke of Queens. ‘But, my apologies, Duke. I am sure you understand the frustrations which attend creativity, from time to time.’
Baffled, the Duke gave a slight bow. ‘Indeed. Well, friends, I go to prepare. As should you all,’ he added dramatically, and then swept away, disappearing behind a far corner of the golden edifice.
At his explanation of the pyramid scheme, the party-goers speculated that he was trying for a new subtlety. ‘Compared to his pre-Kali Yuga New York this “pyramid” is quite small,’ the Iron Orchid muttered to Regina. ‘Perhaps a fifth of a mile high?’
Regina nodded.
‘And he has taken the criticism of impersonality quite literally in the notion of absorbing himself into the structure. Am I correct?’
‘I will merely say that my regal guardian has planned several weeks toward this spectacle,’ Regina told her. ‘He has spent much of that time in Principal Krill’s Silence, deep in research. Did you see him, as excited as a boy – as excited as I have seen your son Jherek become before hosting a party. It is good to see my dear Duke so taken up.’
‘His tendency to architectural gigantism may have changed,’ stated Doctor Volospion, ‘but his attire is still as gaudy as a rocket crab.’
‘Come, my dear.’ The Iron Orchid steered Regina away from the group. ‘Let us stand by the fizzing well.’
She breasted forward like a Faberge galleon, leading Regina to the stained glass well in which bioluminescent portions of jigsaw puzzle flushed and flitted like fish. The Orchid glanced back to see that she and Regina had not been followed. ‘Doctor Volospion is doing his best, but is more competitive than usual for reasons I do not at present understand. I’m sure your sensitive guardian’s party will be a spurting success.’
‘And there is a part in it for me.’
‘Really?’
‘I am to perform the sacraface upon him, with a ... a .... Well, one of these.’ She twisted her power ring and a broad swathe of flashing anzac metal swelled in her hand.
‘A giant knife?’
‘Yes. There is another word, but I have forgotten it. See how sharp? I push that end into his belly and catch some of the juices in a bowl. There are some words I must say, and then he goes down into the pyramid. It will be very touching.’
‘How long does he wish us to leave him dead?’
They were interrupted by a few sky valves which floated by, bloviating tunelessly. The two women were set to gazing aimlessly around the gathering.
A man passed in front of the sliming frame, a scintillating golden scaffold which dripped permanently with vinyl blood. To Regina’s eyes accelerated colours instantly branded the stranger against the scene. She would later think he had appeared at the Duke’s party as if signaling her. This was how things began to be changed.
2 The Rescue
Containing a Misunderstanding and an Execution
His hair and stubble pronounced the contours of his face like a martial helm, and in this form his face advertised itself as a living icon. Its combined wildness and symmetry suggested fiercely directed power. Wearing a red snakefruit jacket and purple leather pants, he was intently examining the very air around him. An occasional look of appalled disgust flinched across his face as he stalked through the crowds. He seemed to be his own shadow, a thing of brooding, brewing rage.
The Iron Orchid regarded the phenomenon in blank astonishment. This did not accord atall with the customary scattering of stancing lordalikes, pullulating aliens and fashionable phantoms which composed
