Роберт Асприн - Forever After

“Walk slowly, slowly, ducky,” Daisy coached her. “Now you, Captain Ibble.”

The dwarf wore a set of knee britches and matching vest with a white shirt. His feet were in open-toed sandals and he puffed a large pipe of the finest tobacco. He carried the wedding rings carefully balanced on a satin pillow.

“Behold the bearer of the rings!” Daisy said reverently. “Isn’t he just precious?”

Ibble shot her a dirty look before heading down the aisle, a measured distance behind Seth.

“Now you, General Blaid,” Daisy said, “and Jancy just a few paces behind.”

The march swelled to a triumphal crescendo as the bride finally advanced down the aisle. From above, the ticket holders sprinkled the wedding party with more flower petals. From the aisle seats the guests smiled and waved, bursting with the peculiar somber pride that only comes when one is part of a wedding of someone very special indeed.

Spite, in its guise as a green elf maid, stood beside Rafe and his wife in the pew reserved for comrades, along with Piggon and Rolfus, the surviving sorcellets. A few other members of Domino’s Company filled out the row. The quests had been singularly hard on the other companions.

When Rissa had reached the sanctuary and stepped to stand beside Rango, the congregation turned as one to face the front. The orchestra finished the last few bars of the march and fell silent.

“Dear people of the Faltane,” came a rusty voice from beneath the Chief Priest’s veiled shawl, “we come here to join two people in holy matrimony and to celebrate the coronation of our new King and Queen.”

The congregation burst into enthusiastic applause. Jancy glanced at Domino as if to say “Is that Jord?” Domino shrugged.

She tried to catch Stiller’s eye, figuring that he would give her some signal, and found that he was studying the Prince’s Guard with a faintly quizzical expression marring his poker face. He had the advantage of her in that he could see the ones lining the side aisles and the back of the Cathedral. Domino, at least, could see the ones in the sanctuary without craning around in an undignified fashion.

Initially, nothing seemed out of order. The armed men stood ranked, wearing a variation of the same black-and-green uniform that was her habitual attire. Some looked bored — which was understandable as the Chief Priest had now begun intoning the ritual in Ancient Thermaean. Some stood square shouldered and alert, proud to be the honor guard for their Prince’s most important day. Still others rested their hands on their sword hilts, ready for action.

Domino paused, her gaze scanning the faces of the men, rather than their uniforms and stance. She realized that she did not recognize a one. True, she had been a cavalry commander, not an infantry commander, but engagements had overlapped. Surely she would recognize at least one face among this chosen elite.

She glanced back at Spotty. His complexion was blotched. Their eyes met and she dipped her head in a slight nod. Unfortunately, neither Jancy nor Calla Mallanik were enlisted in the Faltane’s military, so to them one grunt would look much like another. When the trouble started, as she knew now it would, they would not realize that the odds were stacked against them.

The Chief Priest droned on. The congregation waited in an attentive hush. The wedding party also stood attentive.

Then, shockingly, Prince Rango fidgeted. He shifted from foot to foot. He cleared his throat. The Chief Priest droned on, perhaps at a slightly faster rate.

Prince Rango’s unrest migrated to his Guard. The bored ones straightened; the alert ones grasped their sword hilts. In the special section reserved for members of the clergy, a few of the older priests were leaning forward, listening now to the words that tumbled from the Chief Priest’s mouth. Confusion crinkled their shaved heads as they realized that what they were hearing was not the wedding ceremony.

“Sif!” Jancy whispered. “It’s gonna hit and my ax isn’t close!”

“Daggers,” Domino muttered, glancing toward the pillow that Calla held.

“Wait!” Prince Rango announced, his voice at its noble best. “What nonsense is this? Who has substituted this drivel for the wedding ceremony?”

“Why, darling,” Princess Rissa drawled, “I didn’t know you knew Ancient Thermaean….”

Rango/Kalaran stiffened as he realized that he had been caught out of character. It was barely believable that the warrior Prince had become the ardent administrator, but completely impossible that he had suddenly acquired fluency in a long-dead tongue.

“My love,” he said in honeyed tones, “I have been reviewing the ceremony in anticipation of this glorious day. I merely thought I heard some discrepancies. By whose right has the ceremony been altered?”

Rissa drew the skull of Kalaran from beneath her bouquet with a grim flourish. Stiller drew his sword. Setting down the satin pillow, Calla produced his bow from under the altar cloth. Domino and Jancy stepped to guard the Princess.

“The ceremony has been altered by my right,” Princess Rissa said, and dashed the skull to the marble floor. “We had some questions…”

The skull shattered into flinders of sun-bleached bone, the small figures of the Demon of Darkness and the Messenger of Light bouncing clear. A mist rose from the Messenger of Light, becoming a pale, insubstantial form with the features of Prince Rango. The Prince of mist glowered at the Prince of substance. His eyes glowed blue.

“You have my bride and my body, Kalaran,” his voice rang out. “The process is about to be reversed!”

“Deception! Black arts!” yelled Kalaran, “Guards!”

Turmoil erupted in the Cathedral. Wedding guests screamed as Guards drew swords and advanced on the sanctuary. From the row reserved for companions, Rafe and Spite rushed to help. Rafe bore a sword, Spite an oddly shaped wedding gift.

Knowing where the real threat lay, Kalaran lurched toward Jord. Princess Rissa grabbed his arm to slow him.

“Wench!” he scowled.

“Demon!” she returned.

Ibble set down the rings and slid a dagger each to Jancy and Domino. Together, shield maid and cavalry general turned to face the advancing members of the Prince’s Guard. Spotty leaped to engage those coming from behind him.

“Do you mean to attack members of your own military,” Kalaran shouted, “to slay men who are only doing their job?”

Stiller paused, indecisive. From her post at the Princess’s back, Domino also paused.

The same thought was in both their minds: Could they slay men who were only doing their sworn duty to defend their Prince?“

Jancy Gaine didn’t pause.

“Fuck that!” she said, thrusting her bridesmaid’s bouquet into one guard’s face and knifing a second. “I’m a mercenary!”

“Cash and carry!” The ancient elven mercenary’s cry rasped from Calla Mallanik’s throat as he began firing arrows with near impossible rapidity from his newly repaired silver-strung bow. “Die beautifully, you dumb punks!”

A pair of the Prince’s Guard obliged him by reeling forward, plucking at the arrows in their right eye sockets before collapsing over the rail into the clergy section and spattering the entire front row with blood.

“Beautiful!” Jancy cried. “Come on, Domino, get with the program! Aren’t you in the uniform of the Princess’s Guard?”

Domino glanced down at her lavender-and-lace bridesmaid’s dress. A slow smile spread over her face as she tore the sword from a Guardsman’s hand.

“For Rissa!” she yelled, stabbing the sword’s former owner through the gut. “For Rissa!”

From his place, Stiller Gulick dove into a Guard who was racing to behead Jord.