A Star

Night had returned to Zazesspur when Zaranda returned to the surface.

A vast crowd thronged the civic plaza. Through the doors of the Palace of Governance, Zaranda emerged supporting a gravely wounded Stillhawk. Tatrina followed, looking right and left, tentative as a wild animal.

From far back in the crowd, a voice yelled, "All hail Zaranda Star!" The crowd took up the cry in a mighty cheer: "Hail Zaranda!"

"I hope that wasn't one of our people," Zaranda said to herself.

Duke Hembreon set a halting foot on the bottommost step of the broad concrete stairs. Tatrina's cornflower-blue eyes went wide.

"Daddy?" she said. Then: "Daddy!" and she went flying down the steps into her father's plate-armored arms.

"All part of the service, folks," Zaranda said. Suddenly she had to sit down on the top step. She managed to ease Stillhawk down to lie beside her. "Can somebody fetch a stretcher? My friend here needs care."

An astonishingly beautiful woman in a low-cut crimson robe came bustling up the steps. She had long white-blonde hair done up in an elaborate gleaming coiffure, and a huge gaudy gold Sune pendant adangle between her not-particularly well-concealed breasts. A pair of strapping young men in red tunics followed her.

"We shall personally tend this hero's hurts at the Temple of Sune Firehair," she said, clasping her hands before her bosom. "Ooh, he's so handsome!"

Stillhawk, now altogether unconscious, was gathered up and borne away by the ingenue acolytes, trailed by the hand-wringing priestess. Well, Zaranda thought, I guess it's no more than he deserves. He's had a rough day. On the long hike up from the Underdark, the ranger had told her of dying and being resurrected by Shield of Innocence.

Having turned his daughter over to a covey of nurses and seen her carried off in a palanquin, Duke Hembreon approached up the steps again. Zaranda reached to her belt.

"Here," she said, flipping the late King Faneuil I's crown to him. "You might be needing that."

Hembreon fielded it without turning a hair. "It could be so."

"What happened while we were gone?"

"A sudden confusion overtook the darklings. They ceased attacking and fell into a listless state in which they were easily overwhelmed." He looked abruptly apprehensive. "You did dispel whatever evil loosed them upon us, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes. It got dispelled good and hard. So did the late king, unfortunately."

Hembreon's bushy white brows lowered. "You mean that? You mean to call his death unfortunate?"

"I do. He was a good man. He just got in over his head." So to speak, she thought, and shuttered.

"Some short while after the darklings lost direction," Hembreon went on, "many reliable witnesses claimed to have seen a small dragon, scarlet in color, take wing from the roof of the palace. Some said it was a red dragon; others, including the Lord Inselm Hhune, who himself once slew a red dragon, said it was no such thing. It has occasioned considerable debate over whether the apparition was a good omen or ill."

"Oh, that was just my apprentice," Zaranda said. "She's definitely a good omen."

The old duke blinked. Behind him Zaranda saw two more elderly noblemen mounting the steps.

"Good even, Countess Morninggold," said the taller, a very distinguished gentleman with a neat gray mustache. "I wonder if we might discuss an important matter with you."

Zaranda gestured toward the crowded plaza. "As long as you don't mind discussing it in front of fifteen thousand people or so."

"Not at all," the nobleman said. "In fact, the more who hear, the better. I am the Lord Inselm Hhune, and this is my friend and associate, the Lord Faunce."

"Honored, my lords," said Zaranda. She made no effort to rise. She wasn't being rude, merely exhausted. "Lord Hhune, is it? Killed a dragon once, didn't you?"

"Indeed. Now, Countess, we have a proposition to make to you."

Lord Faunce, shorter and rounder than Hhune, dropped to one knee before her. "We crave that you do us the honor of agreeing to be crowned queen of Tethyr."

Zaranda swayed. "I beg your pardon?" she said.

"For some time Lord Faunce and I have belonged to a movement dedicated to restoring monarchy to the land of Tethyr," Hhune said. "Obviously, we had to keep our activities discreet until very recently. We had our reservations-"

"Now more than vindicated," said Faunce.

"-about the former Baron Hardisty, but we felt that restoration of the monarchy was of paramount importance, and so opted not to oppose him. Now, however, we are prepared to offer the crown to you without reservation. Your heroism has saved our land."

"With all due respect, my lords," Zaranda said, "this is crazy. This morning I was a convict under sentence of death; I'm not even supposed to be alive."

"I have already attempted to apologize for that unfortunate turn of events," Hembreon said stiffly.

"That was a gross miscarriage," Faunce said, "and as members emeritus of the city council we add our sincere regrets that it occurred. On the other hand-" his eye twinkled "-the throne might not be considered poor recompense by some."

"Oh, it's more than generous-can you please help me up here?" Hembreon aided her to her feet. "It's just that I'm having a hard time taking it seriously."

"I assure you-" the duke began.

Zaranda waved a hand at him. "I believe you." She took a few paces away, feeling a need for room.

A small form pushed out of the crowd and knelt on the bottom step. It was Simonne of Gond. "I hope you won't hate me for saying this, Zaranda," she said, "but you'd make a very good queen."

"I know you mean that as a compliment, Simonne, but-"

The spectators nearby took up Simonne's words and made them a chant: "Queen Za-RAN-da! Queen Za-RAN-da!" In a moment it had spread across the square.

Zaranda held her hands up. "Wait!" she cried. "QUIET!"

The crowd subsided. "Didn't anybody listen to what I told the city council when I was being tried by them? You don't need kings or queens. You need to learn to look out for yourselves and one another. If you don't do that, nothing else means anything."

The Zazesspurians looked at each other. The chant began again, slowly at first, rapidly swelling: "Za-RAN-da! Za-RAN-da! Za-RAN-da!"

She shook her head in disgust. Hembreon tapped her on the elbow. She inclined her head toward him.

"If you are not ready to be crowned," he said, "there is no need to rush into anything. But like it or not, you have just been acclaimed ruler of Tethyr." He smiled gravely. "Would it not be wisest to accept your fate with grace?"

"Well, several times today I've met kicking and screaming what I thought was going to be my fate. I guess it can't hurt to try something new." She turned to the crowd and held both hands clasped above her head-an idiot gesture, she thought, as if she had just won a footrace.

"All right!" she cried as the chant subsided. "I'll do it! Ill be your chief executive, or whatever."

The mob cheered rapturously. And then hundreds of hands were pointing skyward, and voices were crying, "Look!" in tones of mingled fear and wonder.

Zaranda looked up. Selune hung overhead, in a state even the most confirmed pessimist would have to acknowledge was past half-full, with her Tears a glowing trail behind her. Against the moon's face a great shape wheeled, winged and dark.

"Don't worry," she called to the crowd. "She's with me."

She turned to Hembreon. "If you'll excuse me, I have some personal business to attend to." He frowned. "If you could find it in you to say a few words-"

Brightening visibly, the old man stepped forward, raising his arms. "Friends, fellow Zazesspurians, countrymen and -women-" he began. The mob booed lustily.