Queen of Stars Read Online Free PDF Page A

for me.”
    He was fishing for Avior’s story, but she wasn’t going to tell it. Not yet anyway.
    “His mom was the queen!” Izar shouted from the sidelines, where he had been examining a heap of dung that would not have shamed an elephant. “And she admitted it before the whole court!”
    Rigel rolled his eyes at this unwelcome revelation. “Queen Electra. It created a terrible scandal, but she was dying and wanted to make it up to me.”
    “Is that why you’re so hated that people want to kill you?”
    “Some people, yes. They think I ought to disappear. It’s more than just racial prejudice, because elves and humans are different species. Halflings are supposed to know their place and keep to it; royal halflings are a galactic disgrace. Queen Talitha has shown me favor by appointing me head of Izar’s bodyguard, so there’s that, too.”
    “He’s her sweetie pie,” Izar sniggered, having come close.
    “No, I am her kennel master.” Rigel’s fist grabbed the boy’s ear.
    “Ayhihhh!”
    “When I get you back to Canopus, imp, I am going to make you stand on the Star and repeat that remark.”
    Obviously Izar did not enjoy having his ear twisted, because he yowled and struggled and threatened. “I’ll burn your jeans off! Yeeee! Stop, stop!”
    “Not until you apologize to Halfling Avior for lying to her.”
    Izar retorted that he did not apologize to halflings and Rigel took hold of his other ear as well. Uncomfortable with the scene, Avior walked on, leaving them to it. Rigel won, because a few moments later Izar appeared in front of her, forcing her to stop. He bowed, stretching his arms out sideways, but when he straightened up he did not meet her eyes. His ears were pinker than usual.
    “Avior Halfling, I am truly sorry that I lied to you. My bodyguard and my mother are not lovers and never have been, and I am very ashamed that I insulted them both.”
    “That is a gallant apology,” she said. “I forgive you. What’s the Star that Rigel mentioned?”
    He fell into step beside her, still sulking. “Star of Truth, in front of the throne. If you tell a lie on it, your tongue goes on fire.”
    “Then I think you made a very wise decision.”
    He scoffed angrily and ran off to examine a hollow tree. Rigel arrived at her side again, red faced and silent. He possessed an interesting ruthless streak she had not suspected. He was not the queen’s lover, but any woman would know that so much smoke required some fire. Most men would be happy to encourage a rumor like that. How did the queen feel about him? If he was the son of the previous queen, how closely were he and the present one related?
    The countryside stayed monotonously the same. The tiny stream was rarely visible, playing peekaboo in swamps or long grass. There were birds, including parrots and toucans, which were not normally found in beech woods or their like. Izar found spoor of ungulates and big cats and ostriches. The castaways were marooned in a game park, just as Rigel had guessed.
    “Not every elf has his own domain,” he told her, “far from it. And many of those who do have inherited them, because only high-magic starborn, red or orange grade, can imagine their own domains or extend others’. Starfolk like to think they’re great artists, but ninety percent of what you’ll see is copied from Earth. Tal…The queen says she knows of at least fifty Romes, eighty Angkor Wats, and a hundred Versailles. A domain can have scores of subdomains. The royal domain itself is enormous, like a small continent.”
    Suddenly weary, Avior put the big question into words. “Do you have any guarantee that there’s a house here for us to find?”
    “No,” he admitted. “In fact it’s quite likely that there isn’t. If I were imagining a hunting park, I would certainly put the livestock in a separate subdomain, so that I wouldn’t find tigers in my pajamas. Then I would come and go by portal.”
    He shrugged. “By now the queen must