it is Fox Grave in a new guise. He likes to present himself as a man of bottled temper. His sky cutter is anchored near the mountains.’
‘No, Fox Grave is over there.’
The pirate Fox Grave was still looking for the treasure he buried several million years ago, its sentimental value increasing with each millennium. Today he had made his lower body into clear glass and was passing spirals of fire through it for no good reason. He peered out at them through the bars of an espaliered collar as they looked his way, then began to negotiate the eating of a sandwich.
‘Someone new, then?’ Regina wondered aloud, as she turned back to the angry young man. The stranger was staring at the scrolled horns of Baron Coma. The Baron was sipping green rose wine and chatting affably with Again the Shuttle Clue, who had a thin stick projecting from his neck from which his head swung like a censer. The stranger ran a hand across the lime gold brocade of Coma’s robe, and then turned to look directly at Regina Sparks. She felt a cellular chill flush down from her head to her toes.
Then he was gone into the crowd. ‘I believe I shall go and find out,’ murmured the Iron Orchid distractedly, wandering off after him.
When Regina turned, the stranger was standing next to her, his eyes flickering over her body of platinum black and China white, and away. ‘So they keep their concubines naked,’ he said. ‘Terrible.’
‘Concubine?’ She looked directly at him, trying to catch his wandering gaze. ‘Is that like a hedge-pig?’
He met her eye. ‘It’s natural to deny you’re owned. The halter is not about your neck but in your mind, where it may be more effective. The invisible steel of oppression -’ He was shoved by the gaster of a giant beetle as it chugged by behind him, but recovered quickly. ‘This facsimile of joy is mere thoughtlessness, in inventive costume.’
‘How do you conclude we are thoughtless?’
‘By the amount of talk.’
‘“Celebration has golden teeth,”’ Regina quoted happily from somewhere.
‘Such gaudy celebration usually denotes the fortune and freedom of all or the wielding of disproportionate power by a few.’
‘I cannot say.’
‘You cannot speak?’
Regina was bewildered. He was enflamed by something invisible to her.
‘You are under duress?’ He leaned in to her, urgent and confidential. ‘You can trust me. Do you wish to be liberated? I can help you. Say the word.’
‘Which particular one? I don’t understand.’
‘This is not a jest.’ He looked around cautiously and lowered his voice further. ‘Do you recognise me? Does anyone? Where is here?’
‘You’re on the tip of my tongue. Are you a new jester?’
He replied as if he had been carrying the response ready in his pocket: ‘A court dance is the colour of favours in motion. Empires fall steadily, while outwardly they seem strong. Just as dawn comes steadily, not in surges. Not till the last.’
The remark had no familiar content. Was it a sort of password? ‘Would you care to amplify?’
The stranger looked confused, and repeated all four sentences at deafening volume. Then with a startled look he slipped quickly aside into the crowd as Baron Coma hulked over. Regina and the Baron looked about for him. ‘Who was that fellow?’ Coma asked, lowering his rhinoid head.
Regina absently stroked his head-crest. ‘He talked to me a great deal about how we all talk too much.’
‘He appeared almost to have a beard. I wanted to question him about the precise mechanism of the thing. I fancy myself with two or three beards, one on my snout and one on each shoulder. Ah well, perhaps later.’
She still gazed off into the milling assembly, wondering if some invisible transaction had taken place. ‘He seemed ... serious.’
Minutes later the Duke of Queens appeared at the summit of the pyramid, lights summoning around him and an air lens magnifying his figure like a screen.
The warm wind knocked his robes. ‘My people!’ he proclaimed, and received a cheer. Some of the crowd levitated to better view the scene, which was clearly to be highly theatrical.
‘Here we go,’ said Volospion, looking up. The Duke did cut a fine figure against the chemical sky.
‘You are my subjects,’ the Duke announced, setting up the dramatis personae. ‘By which I mean, my slaves. Do not dodge my meaning in search of comfort. I mean that you are less important than I, and worthless. Here I have given you a certain, though perhaps incomplete, definition of pyramidal society which may nevertheless prove to be very useful in practice if one is willing to act. The still force of regal scorn is granted by others – by you. This was once known as “zero point energy”. To thank you for your perpetual donation would be to expose the fact, but still you would do nothing to correct it. For years I have believed you to be lacking enough moral power to take a resolution of any sort, while aware that the resolve forced by desperation may sometimes be the right one.’ He spread his arms in generosity. ‘It seems I alone am left to act. Let this be an example!’
Regina leant to the Iron Orchid’s ear and whispered. ‘I have my part to play.’ And walking toward the pyramid ramp, she spread her arms, from which descended two curtains of scarlet gold in patterns of feathers. A scrolled cape sprouted from her shoulderblades and formed a train as she walked up the grand flight. Her sudden decoration drew gasps from the crowd, as it was rare that her monochrome body bore anything but inked designs and power rings.
‘It’s a drama!’ Bishop Castle trilled. ‘A … a situation! Does anyone know what it’s called, this sort of thing?’
The Iron Orchid frowned. ‘I think ... an arbitration?’
‘What “the hell” is it, my dear Duke?’ called Bishop Castle.
‘I think it’s a prelude, merely,’ Lord Jagged opined. ‘To violence, perhaps.’
Volospion had an expression of raw wonder on his face.
Regina Sparks had arrived at the platform atop the edifice. Standing beside the Duke, she turned to face the crowd. She held a prodigious scimitar in her upturned palms like a platter.
‘This tender young thing will provide the sacraface my empire demands!’ shouted the Duke impressively, his gilt face flashing in the sun.
The Duke and Regina turned to face one another.
‘Don’t be afraid, my dear,’ said the Duke, with a small nod.
The tide of guests parted at the base of the pyramid as a roaring machine cut through them and mounted the grand stairs. It was a twist of mechanism on two broad wheels, ridden by the stranger in the snakefruit jacket. He was leaning forward as if the machine could not move fast enough. At the summit he flew through the air between Regina and the Duke, skidding to a halt behind them and dismounting to stride forward.
‘What’s this about?’ asked the Duke.
The
