Rory joined the diplomatic team for the attempted negotiation at Altarsha. Their ship, a special filtrig design teardrop configuration jump ship with extra heavy shields and armor made port without encountering any outer planet pirates. They avoided hard targets like representatives of a ruling house. Having an escort of twelve Akasha class corvettes dispatched from the paraman’s base star helped too.

Their dropship took them directly to House Ashastra’s military spaceport landing tail down to the floating docks in Urbmar harbor. The oldest city of the republic sprawled old and new on the twin arms of the mountain ranges that joined further north into the spine of mountains that divided Altarsha’s sole continent in half.

A skimmer took them over crashing blue waves under Altarsha’s harsh white sun. Ichthyosaur fins broke the surf a bare kilometer away, and he hoped the ultrasonar’s field was operating at full efficiency to keep a leviathan from making a snack of them. The ride exhilarated him even so, but the audience to come cowed him as nothing else had before.

Rory's party checked in through the Eagle’s gate. House guards in white and green Ashastra uniforms escorted them to the diplomatic quarter where aliens kept all their ambassador’s and the human houses had their own manors.

The Grand Arena where the powerful wanted him to fight was north, in the shadow of the Shield mountains.

They left him to stew in an apartment for a night and a day, twiddling his thumbs and snacking on petit fours and tea. He wanted black coffee and lots of it, damn the diplomatic customs. Besides which he didn’t like being treated like a peon, not that it wasn’t a luxurious cage.

A peremptory knock on his door announced his summons.

The Altari republic eschewed titles like emperor or empress, but the First Mother of all humans, the paramani, “highest of the first” in the old tongue might as well be one. He wondered with all the pomp and circumstance why they didn’t just call her a queen and be done with it. Yet for some reason no one had ever explained, the Altari hated the title. The mere suggestion could trigger a coup. The peons in the street didn’t feel the same way. Folklore pronounced that the Queen would bring the freedom they yearned for.

His escort, a blank faced guard in the white and gold uniform of the Ashastra personal guard led him along a corridor tiled in white and green, the ceiling ornate floral intaglio of an exotic wood with a spiral grain pattern — and spy eyes studded throughout. He could just imagine the hidden armaments in what felt like a killing zone to him.

The hall ended at an elevator, the entrance bracketed by plain suited men in green suits and mirrored face HUDs standing stock still with their hands folded in front of them.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked the guard.

“Up, my lord,” he answered, spine stiff with protocol and unsmiling. He placed his palm in front of the golden panel to the side of the door. A moire pattern fluoresced, a green bar with a white indicator mark 1/3rd of the way up. At the top of the bar the stooping delta and eagle wing emblem of House Ashashtra, at the bottom a skull and crossbones icon.

“What’s down, I wonder” he spoke looking nowhere in particular and trying to act as non chalant as possible.

“The dungeon sir.”

“And up?”

The guard sighed. “A moment, my lord. Give it a moment.”

It felt like his heart might drop out of his chest as the elevator accelerated upwards, noiseless. Too bad no one had ever invented teleportation pads. He had heard tall tales in bars about amari being able to teleport, but he had never found any official information on the subject.

The door whisked open as the elevator eased to a stop. The doors opened to a bright blue cloudless sky and a searing white light. He stepped out. Before him spread a wide pavilion with peaked white canopies and green pennants flapping here and there in the wind.

A seneschal of the household guard, a woman about his age, in ceremonial chain mail and surplice greeted him. “I am Suraneem, Seneschal to the paramani Loyola Ashastra.” She had short cropped blonde hair, ice blue eyes, and would have enticed him to approach under other circumstances. His face heated.

She blushed and cleared her throat.

“This way, my lord.”

Shadows beat the pavement in front of him. Turning he saw the twelve flagpoles arrayed in an arc behind the lift he had arrived in. All the twelve flags of mankind’s great houses. Coriander’s waved with them and he reminded himself that he was not so different he could not hold his head up.

He followed Suraneem, a slow promenade up a blue carpet bracketed by raised floral beds and cherry trees, the blossoms turning color as spring approached summer.

The center of the rooftop plaza held the Mara pavilion. The Altari word translated into Galactic as “Peace.” But a slight addition and it became the word for war. Rory, having grown up in a house that favored art and poetry, was not lost on the subtlety. He wondered how this day would end.

The rooftop spanned hectares and the pavilion could hold a troop of dignitaries and their bodyguards and attendants. The walls of the pavilion had been rolled up to allow the sea breeze from Urbmar harbor to gust through.

This high, he supposed snoops could be warded. At the front of the arched way, two holo columns radiated upwards like memorial columns inscribed in shimmering colors with the winged delta sigil of House Ashastra on his right. On his left, the glittering column was black superimposed by intertwining helixes in seven colors representing the seven sapient species of known space.

The pavilion inside was arranged with two concentric circles of tables with one end open to a low dais with the paramani’s seat, not the formal one on the emerald dais in the palace proper, but it marked her place. It was empty for the moment.

He made his way to the House Coriander section. There were about thirty attendants, divided up among the various camps, one for Sarpa, one for his house, and a handful of observers from other houses. He spied the broken star and comet banner of House Zayan, orange and black, among them, and tried not to stare. House Selene was also present under their silver moon banner.

Several of the scribes were aliens. He saw a tall saren with his bloodhound jowls and spatulate fingers standing arms crossed looking skeptical while a harirossa, bipedal with a sea lion like face and dog ears lectured him. She was dressed in a blue robe and feathered beret, poet’s livery, and her barky voice broke into a truncated yodel as she tried to convince her counterpart of whatever it was. It was well known you could hardly get a word out of sarens, and seldom could stop a harirossa from drowning you in them.

Beauregard jostled him. “About time.”

The accusing tone forced a response. Rory sniffed. “I am exactly where the paramani wants me to be in the exact moment she wants me to be here as are you, Uncle.”

“Look at those sarpan miscreants.”

The sarpan delegation was comprised of the subspecies biological castes as usual. The five foot high soldier caste, the raptors, milled about their masters — a trio of sarpans between eight and ten feet tall. The largest was a sargon caste female.

The raptors were sapient, after a fashion, with just enough IQ to follow orders. The wore vests and half breeches; their dew claws rapped on the tile floor as they skittered about, bobbing and waving their necks, looking for the next drink or food, baring their rows of serrated teeth in their narrow long jaws, their grins a caricature of a smile from a human point of view.

The sargons, Rory understood to have the same intelligence range as smarter humans, and just as aggressive and cagey. No overlords were here, they towered over sargons and rarely left their home creches.

Two of the sargons wore robes, one black, one green functionaries, though they could have tried to hide weapons under those voluminous folds and the black hoods hung loose around their craggy scaled heads.

The tall one wore a blood red tunic and kilt with the triple lightning and serpent badge representing the Sarpan Empire and a gold scroll on the opposite collar representing the diplomatic corps. She introduced herself as Arkasa. Her galactic was book perfect, her accent difficult to follow without a spectrum filter ear phone.

Seneschal Suranameen called the meeting to order on behalf of the paramani, though the paramani herself was not yet present. Arkasa presented the facts as she saw them.

As ambassador to the humans, she could stand for the Council as their representative, giving him cause for worry. Part of Rory’s martial arts training was in reading tells of aliens. Arkasa’s lips curled at their corners as she spoke, baring her molar fangs, evidence of her displeasure.

“House Snatha, the greens, insist on pressing their claim to the Aldebaran colonies, dubbed the Arch Radiant by the Altari Republic. House Sargosan, the blacks who serve the overlord are indifferent to their claim but not opposed.

“It would be expedient for the humans to cede the disputed worlds as exchange for a bounty payment in lieu of war.”

The saren raised a hand.

“The chair recognizes Ambassador Volk.”

“By what circuitous serpent logic doses Sarpa claim right to another species’ worlds?”

Arkasa’s tongue flicked in and out. “What part of the word “empire” do you not understand?” She wheezed out a chuckle. “I direct your attention to Convention 624 of the Commonwealth of Stars charter…”

The essence of Arkasa’s point was that humans were known for their indefatigable quarrelsomeness and had devised the code duello to mitigate risk of war. The Arch Radiant colonies were too close to the sarpan border for the empire’s comfort. The placement of house guard militaries that came and went, hiding under the banner of internal affairs, while the consular navy left them alone to oppress sarpan residents was intolerable. Since the humans had refused to cede without a fight, they would get one under their own code.

“I am informed by a House Zayan representative that the expected Coriander champion perished in an unfortunate stellar mishap. House Coriander must supply a replacement within 90 days of this meeting, or they default by their own rules. As representative of the council, I assure you, they will follow your law assiduously.”

Beauregard elbowed Rory. “Come on then, you’re up.”

Rory shook him off. Whispering. “Up for what? They’re still negotiating.”

“Excuse me.” The harirossa delegate interrupted them.

“Shoo,” Beauregard told her. “I’m prodding my nephew to do the right thing.”

“Obviously. My name is Dwendamarminomimossa.” She cleared her throat. “I know that is much for your limited vocal abilities. You may call me Min.”

“I don’t want to call you anything,” Beauregard snapped. “Be off.”

“I do not blame the young master for his fear, it would be right for him to flee and save his life from a sargon warrior. Quite right.”

Rory bristled. “Who asked you?”

“May I have your comm address so I can compose a poem relating your cowardice, or a lay about your heroic death should you muster enough courage to die like a man?”

This was too much for Rory. He pointed an index finger at Min and held it there, his mouth working without any words coming out. Then he turned and walked out of the meeting.

Two of the paramani’s guards met him. Their stares compelled Rory to halt.

"Why my leash? The paramani has plenty of closer relatives with more experience to do diplomacy.”

“Wait with us, my lord.”

“And this ‘lord’ business. I am so far down the inheritance ladder, none of you should care about me more than an accountant.” He knew the argument was lame. Orvieto’s admission of his real purpose left little doubt that he was just a widget, a spare part, a contingency, plan B when plan A had failed. “So I’ll just leave, no?”

They bracketed him as he reentered. The oral arguments had ceased, and delegates were streaming in the other direction out. Beauregard passed him and winked. Only Arkasa remained, all eight feet of her. He folded his arms and looked at her.

"I do not blame or praise you Rory Demaris ni Coriander. We have both been dragged into this folly by conspirators on both sides.”

“I protest. Did I not renounce court politics to be a merchant?”

“You cannot escape your blood or your training. Do you refuse?” Her tongue flicked out, a sign she thought to win, that he would renege on his duty.

Still, he could not help but bluster. “You are the diplomat to mankind. How is your problem my business? For that matter how is a sarpan diplomat not a contradiction in terms?”

“Will you consent to your sovereign’s wishes to fight our champion?”

“Suicide is not an option.”

“Then choose victory.”

“How?”

“I do not know a human’s path out of a fox trap, but your reputation suggests you will find a way. You have twenty-four hours to answer, three months to prepare if you accept the challenge.”

There were too many forces closing in on him to dodge them all. Then he would deal with one problem at a time. “I accept.”

Her tongue flicked out in surprise. “So quickly do you choose death.”

“I have enough experience with you sarpans and republic politics to know when I’m cornered. Remember. I have three months to figure out the rest.”

“Perhaps a fool, perhaps a hero. I salute you.” With that she bowed her head and departed.

After the ambassador left, a slow clapping sounded from the curtains behind the paramani’s seat. A slender woman, white haired with a sleeveless green ankle length dress embroidered with a swirl of white stars up to her shoulders. She wore a circlet of silver.

“You were watching all along?”

“It behooves a ruler to observe sometimes and choose her moment of entrance.”

"The Sarpan Empire wants the Aldebaran colonies for their own." They were some of the lushest, most profitable planets in the republic, or Commonwealth for that matter.

"And what would you like me to do about it, auntie?"

“You know the Gita’Adarza?

Rory’s ancient Altari was rusty, not the least because the classical language was proscribed for common use, no one had ever told him why, but everyone knew that title. ‘The Saga of the Mirrors?”

“The mirrors of the amari are more than glorified faster-than-light radio.”

“So, I have guessed by the body count recorded in the annals.”

“Mostly of interlopers who trespassed on them. Those who are sent by proper authority fare better.”

“Better? If you regard yourself as fortunate for only falling a hundred feet without a parachute instead of a thousand.”

“Yet some have survived the hundred-foot drop.”

Rory pinched his forehead with his right hand and shut his eyes tight.

“Is it better to face the bully that wants to take what’s yours or would you rather run? My sister told me you were our best chance to turn Sarpa back on its heels. Was she wrong?”

“How would she know? I have never met her.”

“I am the paramani and you will go to the mirror with my mandate. The First Sister will brief you.”