"After their comrade had fallen dead so mysteriously, the others took counsel among themselves…"
– from the tales of Atheron the Storyteller
“Excuse me, sir, but there's a message I think might interest you."
Startled, Geste looked up from where he lay on his belly, seemingly adrift in mid-air. “What?” he said. “What message?"
The floater above him blinked an apologetic blue, then said, “A termination signal has been received from a gift disk, coded as Bredon the Hunter, second priority response."
“Bredon?” He glanced down through his platform at the three young women bathing in the river below. He had intended to do something to startle them, though he had not yet decided exactly what. He hadn't sent a bunch of teenagers squealing in ages.
Well, he could always find more naked women to embarrass, and he had promised Bredon a favor. “All right,” he said. “Where is he? His village?"
“No, sir. The disk was broken in the immediate vicinity of The Meadows."
“Which meadows?"
“The Meadows, sir. The normal-space location of the home of Lady Sunlight of the Meadows."
“Really?” This was suddenly very interesting; the nubile creatures below him were instantly forgotten. “He's been bothering Lady Sunlight?"
“I couldn't say, sir. The openly available information from Lady Sunlight's household intelligences indicates that a trespasser was recently expelled from The Meadows, but no identification was made, and no information is available on what the trespasser was doing or why he was expelled."
Geste got to his feet, grinning. The platform turned opaque, first black, then silver. “Oh, this sounds as if it should be interesting. I wonder what Bredon thinks he's doing?"
“I have no idea, sir,” the floater said.
“I didn't suppose you did. Put up a field, then, and let's get over there and see what he wants."
“Yes, sir."
The air around him was suddenly dead, motionless and silent, as the forcefield snapped into place. Geste felt a very slight tug of acceleration, and when he glanced down the ground below the platform was moving past in a blur.
He should not have felt the start at all, though; he frowned, and promised to remind himself to have the airskiff overhauled at the first opportunity.
Soft music played. He ignored it.
Within minutes he was over the Forbidden Grove, the trees thick and green below him. The platform came to a gentle stop over the center of The Meadows and obligingly turned transparent before he could give the order. The music faded away.
At least, he thought, the basic programming still seemed sound, even if the transition-smoothing systems were weak.
The floater hovered anxiously at his shoulder as he peered down at the clearing.
“I don't see him,” Geste said after a moment.
“Neither do I,” the floater said.
“Did he get into the house somehow?” He made a gesture to the platform, which promptly extruded a small, spherical image-field. It floated up to Geste's eye level like a bubble rising in a glass of sparkling wine, and transformed itself into a flawless three-dimensional representation of the main entrance to the Meadows.
To the unaided human eye, of course, the entire palace was usually quite invisible, save where sparkles of light refracted from its turrets and trim.
The image scanned across the extradimensional facade of Lady Sunlight's residence, stepping the available radiation up or down into the visible spectrum for him, refracting it from bent-space to normal-space where necessary. Walkways, gardens, terraces, and blank walls slid across the screen, all bereft of inhabitants.
“The doorguards say no one has gotten past them,” the floater said. “And the internal systems that will talk to me all agree. Incidentally, I've spotted the remnants of the signal-disk. It was definitely here when it was broken."
“Well, I don't see him. Is Sunlight here? Maybe she knows what happened to him."
“Lady Sunlight is not presently at home, either figuratively or literally. Her messages are being forwarded, but their destination is shielded."
“That's no surprise,” Geste muttered. He and Lady Sunlight had not gotten along well for the past century or two; she had never forgiven him for intercepting and altering some of her transmissions, including party invitations. He had thought the results were funny and harmless, but she had taken affront, and had, in his opinion, been acting stuffy and humorless ever since. Among other things, she was avoiding him, refusing even his most innocuous calls. He rather hoped that Bredon's request would be something that would annoy Sunlight and that was within his power.
The floater had not finished speaking; it ignored his interruption and continued, “However, the extended defense systems report that the trespasser who was expelled several hours ago returned to The Meadows after the fields were dropped, and has only very recently departed. He is presently nearing the western edge of the grove. Recordings of your previous conversation with the native of Denner's Wreck who called himself Bredon the Hunter indicate that you neglected to mention that it would be advisable to wait in one place after breaking the disk. In keeping with the local perception of you and the other off-worlders as supernatural beings, he probably expected you to materialize out of thin air immediately after the disk was broken, and has now departed in anger."
“Ha! Of course! So that must be him to the west, then!” Geste chortled. “Let's go find him!"
“Yes, sir.” The platform turned and skimmed westward, and the floater, in accordance with Geste's standing orders regarding contact with the natives, faded from sight.
Bredon neither saw nor heard Geste's approach. He had just left the edge of the grove behind and was marching out into the grass when someone called loudly from behind him, “Hello, Bredon the Hunter, son of Aredon the Hunter!"
He whirled, startled, half expecting to see the faceless metal thing pursuing him.
There was nobody there. He saw only the trees of the grove, the mossy stones, the scattered wildflowers, and a shadow that did not belong.
He looked up, and there was Geste, standing on his platform. This time his clothes were green and shimmering, instead of violet plush, but otherwise he was unchanged. He was smiling broadly.
Geste, looking down, noticed that Bredon looked rather battered. A large bruise was spread across his nose, and a wide variety of cuts and scrapes adorned his limbs.
He hoped that the native hadn't summoned him just for a little medical service.
“Oh, it's you,” Bredon said. “Hello."
“Hello. I believe you called me,” Geste replied.
“Oh,” Bredon said again. There was something about Geste that was curiously unnerving. Perhaps, Bredon thought, it was the way the little man seemed to accept everything with a smile, as if he spent every day standing on a platform in mid-air, mysteriously appearing and disappearing.
Of course, for all Bredon knew, that was exactly how he did spend every day.
No, the unnerving part, Bredon decided, was that this harmless, rather foolish-looking little person was a Power. Geste simply did not look the part of a demi-god.
“Uh… I broke the disk,” Bredon said.
“Yes, I know. You want to collect, I presume. I said I would grant you any favor within my power. What would you like?"
Now that the moment of truth had arrived, Bredon found himself horribly nervous. Looking up at Geste in his glistening clothing, standing blithely unsupported a good four meters off the ground, Bredon could not help remembering all the childhood tales of people who had dared too much, and of wishes gone wrong. One man who had been granted wishes by Brenner of the Mountains, and had used them for cruel revenge against all who had ever slighted him, had had everything he owned, including his home and family, taken by Rawl the Adjuster to balance the scales. A woman who had demanded unlimited wealth of Hsin of the River had almost starved to death surrounded by the mountains of gold she had asked for, piles of coins that had blocked every exit from her house. A young couple who had intruded on the demesne of Gold the Delver with some harmless request had never been heard from again; Bredon's own maternal grandmother, as a girl, had known that pair personally.