Pandemonium reigned among the gathered wedding guests, to the point that the conspirators trying to set up a line of containment were largely ignored in the bickering. "I, Aurelius of the Indigo Kingdom, declare my support for Lord Morel and the autonomy of the Brown Realm!" declared the loudest of them. "I will be restored as High King of the Eight Realms, or withdraw from the United Kingdoms!"
His companion, the Grand Marshal of the Sky Marines, rose in indignation. "My troops will have no part of this!" he said. "Our loyalty is to the Indigo Realm, but we take our orders from the High King!"
Then Lemmia burst through the crowd. "Mother!" she shouted. "I warned you not to act against Father or his new Queen! End this now or I will renounce my title to Naam's throne and yours!"
"Dear child," Hama said with a voice like sandpaper, "I am not the author of this plot, nor is it in my power to end it. What is done has been done."
"And what has happened to Pruna?" Lemmia demanded.
Another Guard arrived. "King Ajax's Royal Clipper has departed!" he said. "He was seen fleeing the Palace with his Queen and Empress Pruna. It appears that a pursuer was engaged by the Elite Guardsmen of Naam. We found them both dead, along with a third, a creature so strange we are not yet sure if it still lives. High King Hector appears to have fled with his brother. But we cannot find High Queen Narcissa or Prince Robert. It is possible that they were taken along with Naam."
"And who did you find for that dirty work?" Lemmia shouted. "The Myrmidons? I thought even they were above assassination and infanticide!"
Biaku spoke. "They were under orders to take Naam alive," he said. "Authorization was given to take others if an opportunity arose. We assured them that any captives they delivered would be treated humanely."
"Excuse me," Xaja said. He rose with Cerasa. The robots and the two silent warriors Joe and John followed suit. "I am no longer a part of any of the Realms of the World Island. You have no reason or right to hold me or my Lady. But if I have to listen to any more of this, I want food!"
"Yes!" Cerasa said. "And I want a turn on the karaoke machine!" With that, wonder of wonders, the servers began to pass out plates.
Lady Daffodil, High Queen Narcissa, awoke to the sensation of motion. "Hello, High Queen Daffodil," a deep, rich voice said. "I am glad to see you are unharmed. I am afraid you will find that the circumstances are not pleasant."
Daffy swung upright. She was otherwise unrestrained in a small cell of a transparent material clearly expected to hold her. Across from her was another cell. Within it was Naam in his human semblance, bound with strange shackles that hooked into the wall. She found her frog purse at the foot of the bed. A few toys still lay at the bottom, along with a transparent sack that held most of her jewelry. "I… followed Aeacus," she said. She rose and paced on padded material that squished underfoot. "He… he went the wrong way… I was just going to tell him…" She froze. "Robert. Robertito. Where is he?"
She acted without thought or even awareness. One moment, she stood by the bunk. The next, she was pressed against the glass with the full force of momentum, and all the pain. She was promptly flung back, to bounce off the far wall. She looked up and saw that the material had spiderwebbed. But it was only the innermost of three panes. As she watched, the web contracted as the material repaired itself. "That was really quite impressive," Naam said.
Clearly, others thought so, as a man in the crew fatigues of a Myrmidon hurried in. "Damn, it was her," he said as the last of the cracks disappeared. "How about that…"
Daffy looked at him like a roach on satin sheets. "I was with my son," she said. "Where is he? Where is my baby? Show me my baby!"
"Yeah?" said the Myrmidon. "Maybe I could, and I'm definitely not saying there's anything wrong, but what's in it for me?"
A woman entered, whom Daffy recognized as Marpessa, Mel's bridesmaid. "Leave her alone, Hylas," she said. She looked at the captive Queen. "If the kiddo we picked up is yours, he's fine. Chief Aeacus is tending to him now."
As she spoke, Aeacus entered, carrying little Prince Robert. The boy was unharmed and evidently happy. He had been provided with his frog and at least one doll. "Good, you are awake and unharmed," he said. "You are aboard the Ataraxes. I most sincerely regret these circumstances. Understand, we received no instructions regarding you or your family. It nearly did not matter, but we both know you would have interfered."
"Let me go," Daffy said. "And let me see Robert. He needs to put away Frog before nap nap, or he stays awake till he gets fussy." Indeed, the boy was pulling at the lamellae of the Chief's finery.
"Open the cell," Aeacus said. "Understand, we are in a secondary bay designed for munitions. It is sealed from the rest of the ship. If we were to lose control, it can be either opened to space or ejected entirely."
Marpessa reluctantly slid open the cell door. Hylas reached for his weapon as Daffy surged forward. But she only reached out for Robert, who laughed and giggled. "Oh, Mama's here, here's mama," she said, her voice quavering. "Oh, what's this?" She bit her lip as he held out a doll of Hector, made with cheap, brightly dyed yarn in the manner of the commoners.
Aeacus smiled, and signaled his subordinates to stand down. "The boy is well," he said. "I had our physician look at him. I mentioned the delay in his speech. They say that it may be from a minor and common divergence in neurology. Typically, those affected develop speech after a certain delay."
"Oh, he's close," Daffy said. "He's almost ready. Today… could be… the day." She sang as she drew Robert to her.
"You can tend the child, for now," Aeacus said, clearly as a warning to his subordinates. "It is better for you to care for him here than for us to keep him elsewhere. I expect to release both of you shortly."
"Oh, I know the drill," Daffy said as she carried Robert into the cell. She reached for a treat, but found the frog's hidden chamber open and empty. "You know, for an otherworld kidnapper, you have this down pretty well yourself."
"Naturally," Aeacus said. "Others call us mercenaries, but we are not savages."
"Yeah," Hylas said, still trying to be menacing. "We never kill anyone for free."
The Chieftain rose and pointed to Naam. "I need him prepared for a transfer to the Geryon," he said. "Marpessa, stay with the other captives and see that their needs are met." He added sternly, "Hylas, come with me!"
As they moved out of earshot, Hylas said, "So, how does this go with the Code?"
"Hold your tongue," the Chief said. But as his Second approached, he said with a frown, "I told them the line would be drawn, but it is a Marriage of Mestra. I have done the best I can."
"Sure," Hylas said. "It could definitely be worse…"
In short order, Naam was led away. He gave one glance back at Daffy. By then, Robert's toys were safely in the purse, and the Queen laid him on the bunk. She knelt beside him, holding up his frog so he could stroke the beaded surfaces. He watched the frog's eyes flutter and close as she sang of the adventures that they would have in their dreams. She smiled as he closed his eyes in turn. Within minutes, she tried to make small talk with the Myrmidoness. After several efforts, she drew a response when she asked, "Are you adopted, like Meliboia?"
"I was born to a Myrmidon," Marpessa said. "We aren't all space orphans, you know." After an awkward silence, she added, "Look, my father's Myrmidon, my mother is from New Corinth. She went with him because the alternative was New Corinth."
Daffy brightened. "Are you married?" she asked. For her, it was as natural a subject as the weather.
"Seriously?" the Myrmidon said. "All right, Hylas is my mate, as much as it means anything." She turned her thumb toward the door. "There's another guy, Herakles. They were together before I came in. That's how a Triad usually goes."
"That's interesting," the captive Queen said. "Are they both nice to you?"
"Oh, for-!" The jailer ran her hands through her hair. "Look, I don't know what the Hell they do where you came from, but you aren't getting this. Aeacus seems sweet, and yeah, he's the reason Meliboia and Amyclas came out as clean as they are. But if you look any deeper, what you get isn't `nice'. There's a reason I'm in here with you instead of him. Lots of reasons, actually. You've earned this much: If Hylas ever does get in here alone, call me. Quick."
"Oh," Daffy said. Marpessa pulled up a stool to sit on, and soon began to read a digest-sized magazine on small arms. "Say," she said in a soft conversational tone, "how do the bathrooms work on the ship?"
It was a night and a day before the Clipper found its only sure port, the Sky Palace. The island that held it was only a little further away than before, but shrouded in the thickest clouds. Ajax watched intently for any sign of it. When it came, he lurched back in despair, sure that an unavoidable collision was at hand. It was the corner of the diamond-shaped works that were the core of the structure, sheering through the clouds like the bow of a ship. A warning bell sounded, and he had to steady himself as the ship turned sharply. Yet, the danger was already past, if it had ever been. The ship executed a gentle turn, giving a clear view of the Palace.
Ajax stood with Mel and Pruna on the quarter deck as the ship circled the Island. It occurred to the King once again that the Palace was nothing like a palace and only vaguely like a castle. It was, in some ways, more like a Neolithic hill fort. In others, it was unsettlingly like the many-angled bastions of the strange era between the decline of the knight in armor and the advent of internal combustion. Its base outline was an eight-pointed star, over 30 Royal Cubits in span, itself formed from the diamond and an intersecting square. The lowest tiers, especially the corners of the square, were earthworks supported by barricades of stone, apparently for erosion control as much as defense. By the time the structure reached the evident peak of the natural terrain, however, the near-organic works were replaced by shear walls of red-tinted basalt. It all rose up to the Keep, an elongate, eight-sided structure that ran nearly the length of the structure.
"That is where we spent our wedding night," Ajax said as the ship passed the rear of the Palace. He pointed a telescope at the rear of the Keep. Even compared to the works below, it was utterly massive. Yet, there had been efforts to beautify it even at some cost in defensibility, conspicuously a pair of the statues called the Caryatids that supported the balcony. The left figure, the one which still had a head, was the most well-preserved of a number of such sculptures in the Palace. One could easily discern a feminine form with arms upraised, and half-furled wings behind. A hooded mantle obscured the more exact details of the body, but would not have hidden the face.
"What happened to it?" Mel wondered aloud.
"Ah, that," Ajax said. "I inspected it myself during my Royal expedition. The only explanation is that someone climbed up and struck the face at least twice with some kind of tool. It would have been very difficult, and quite dangerous. It could not have been long ago, as such things go, not more than 2 centuries, perhaps less than one. Still, no tale speaks of it. In fact, several avoid speaking of it."
The Clipper continued its circuit of the Island. The Palace, so dramatic rising from the clouds, was truly the tip of the iceberg. The upper surface of the Isle was at least 5 Stadia in extent, dotted with further ruins. At the broadest point, a dozen hippogriffs grazed on the fruit of a stand of trees and drank from an ephemeral pool. There were further glimpses of the underside of the Island, extending far enough below that the bottom could not be clearly seen. Moss, vines and whole trees grew directly from the rock face, often sideways and sometimes disconcertingly straight down. Birds and gliding creatures of less certain classification climbed and flitted about. Once, an entire flock of birds erupted from an unseen roost.
Finally, they came to the far end of the Island. Here was the only other intact structure, a low fortification the size and shape of the uppermost tier of the Keep. It had been turned into the root of a pier that was just adequate for the skyship. There was a gentle jolt as the Clipper came to rest. "Is there anyone here?" Pruna asked.
"No," Mel said, "but you could say we have a friend waiting." She pointed into the clearing mist.
Resting on the surface was the Amphion.