Your Princess Is In Another Castle!

Chapter 5: Pearl and Platinum

The dining room, like the deck below, was laid out as a 12-sided shape. At one end of its north-south axis was a stage. At the other was a small bar, complete with stools. Ajax and Xaja entered by a stairway to the right of the bar. The very first thing Ajax saw was a tall, slim woman seated at the other end of the bar. Her skin was olive. Her hair was like pearl and pure platinum. Her legs were long. All that was obvious at a glance. It was her outfit that took figuring out. The glossy blue-black leather resolved itself into something like a one-piece pantsuit with a frill that could be called a skirt covering her hips. Ajax murmured one word, "Dryope."

As he spoke, he registered the song playing from the stage: "Today could be the day..." That was when Agaric stepped into his path.

"My Lord Ajax," said the Lord of the Coral Desert, "I was told that you were busy."

"I was invited by Lord Xaja," Ajax said. He tilted his head to get another look at the woman at the bar. "I thought you would be doing business at the Dowager's Palace."

"My business was to meet to discuss the levies," said Agaric. "Since you were not to be there, I had no reason not to accept my own invitation."

"Come now," Xaja said, "this is a party, not a court function. Here, I will buy you both a drink."

"You are gracious, my Lord," Agaric said. "More than most." Ajax was already approaching the bar as if hypnotized. When the woman turned her head, he froze at the sight of her smooth cheeks and elfin nose.

"Sorry," she said. He was jarred but far from displeased by her boyish, rasping voice. "I was just leaving. All yours." He remained frozen as she disappeared down another set of stairs.

"What would my Lord like to drink?" Nopalina asked pointedly.

His own voice scraped like sandpaper. "Virgin daquiri, please," he said.

He sat between Xaja and Agaric. He discretely examined the Mushroom Man. He was what the Mushroom Folk called a Redcap, and far less human-like in appearance. His cap was an earthy reddish-brown. His body was shrouded in an off-white mantle that approximated a robe. His face, while broadly anthropomorphic, was unpleasant, with a broad mouth and a stiff two-part mustache that made Ajax think unbidden of a catfish. When his kind were in a formal rest position as Agaric was now, it appeared from certain angles that they did not even have arms.

"I ask your pardon, my King," Agaric said. "You know that planting is difficult in our Land. Our yields are unpredictable. Sometimes, we have barely enough to feed ourselves. Every harvest, we must plan carefully. The wisest and best of our Kings have always been gracious. We always deliver what is asked of us, in due time."

"Of course, I have twice extended your credit during times of hardship," Ajax said. "Xaja, too, spared your land in his levies."

"To be sure," Agaric said. "We remain grateful to both of you. We have a saying, weather the storm, wait out the drought. We serve the Realm and the Throne... whoever may sit upon it."

Ajax finished his drink, after belatedly seeing that Agaric had finished his. "There is someone I hoped you would be here to meet," Xaja said. He led the way to one of the tables. "This is Lord Skarff of the Eaters."

At the table sat, if it could be called sitting, one of the most grotesque beings Ajax had ever beheld. The most grotesque part of all was that the being or its kind had evidently once been close to human in form. The figure floated just above the floor, perhaps held aloft by a thick belt around his midsection. The suspension of gravity was by all indications necessary to support its nearly ovoid form, a full 3 Cubits high and nearly as wide. The lower part could have been either limbs or some sort of tail. If Agaric resembled a catfish, the being's broad head looked like an angler of the deep, complete with a bobbing appendage on its forehead and a frill of dangling barbels under the lower jaw. The visibly scaly skin was varying shades of blue. The eyes were perfectly reflective, or else they were some kind of artificial construction. It was all the more disconcerting to hear the face speak in perfect if intermittently slurred English. "Grreetings, Lord Aj-ax of the Red R-realm," the being said. "I am Acquisitoor Skarff of Cygnus Alpha. I hoold the further title of Obserrver for the Star Union. I am here to discuss trrade with your biosphere."