Entering Themyscira

Soon, apparently, his name would be Astra.

"You don't object to this, do you, Dalt?" said his client. He kept his tone of voice carefully flat and even. The assassin didn't doubt that his client's face was equally impassive behind his mask. It was a mask from the distant land of Nippon used in Noh plays, a leering demon-face, which would be disconcerting for most to stare into for very long. Still, even with masks, the assassin's clients were usually ridiculously easy to read, even the wizards. Perhaps especially the wizards. They usually weren't used to political intrigue and were used to getting what they wanted immediately. This one, though, was very different.

"No, I don't," said the assassin. "I've been through worse." The assassin had gained his reputation as one of the greatest of all assassins partially because he had the guts to work with wizards, which many assassins didn't. This wasn't the first time he'd been transformed or had a spell cast on him to carry out a job. Once, when he'd gotten involved in a feud between two very rich and powerful wizards in Malboncton, he'd spent four months as a fish in his target's fishbowl. "But I need to examine her first. Learn her habits, her movements, the way she speaks--and how she feels about my target."

"If you must," said his client. "But I want D'Honaire dead, and I want him dead soon." Cold anger had crept into his voice, and even the assassin couldn't help but shudder. "Don't allow your perfectionism to get the better of you, or you'll regret it."

"Yes, lord Zardoz," the assassin mumbled.

"Louder," said his client.

"Yes, lord Zardoz," sighed the assassin, hoping that he'd find someone who wanted his current client dead. "Lord Zardoz" stood up and walked off into the night. The assassin took the opportunity study his movements. His movements were elegant and somewhat stylized, like those of a Noh actor. So perhaps his mask was appropriate.

Well then. So he was to be Astra. He reviewed everything he knew about her. There was jumble of legends that clustered around her, born out of the awe and envy of other nations. According to legend, she had the strength of ten men, and was impossibly wise, but had fallen in love many times, and it had never turned out well. This was exactly what you would expect legends about a warrior princess to say, of course. But from records of her actions and court rumors, he knew that there was a grain of truth in this.

Of course, the rumors he'd picked up from his contacts within the Aqularian court were often far from reliable themselves. Someone as extraordinary as Astra would naturally attract a lot of envy and have a number of false rumors associated with her. But the assassin was observant enough to know what rumors stuck and what didn't. Closing his eyes, the assassin pictured his "memory palace." He had had memory training from an Ikoronite philosopher which enabled him to visualize his memories as mapped across a physical location, a menmonic device which enabled him to categorize and search vast amounts of information. His "memory palace" was the vast deserted temple in his homeland where he'd trained long ago. He could remember it in every detail, down to the cracks on the rock. He pictured the web of intrigue in the Aqualarian court mapped across the rooms of the temple. Astra sat in the center of that web yet aloof from it. She was very involved in politics and court life but had a strong sense of integrity. She loved her mother the Queen but their relationship was often turbulent. She had strong passions but often distrusted them.

The assassin opened his eyes. He could now almost see his world from the eyes of Astra but there was something missing, something which could draw all the threads together into a coherent whole, which he could only gain by seeing her himself. Luckily, he'd heard a very trustworthy rumor which, if true, would enable him to do this. It was said that often, when she came back from some quest or other, Astra did not enter triumphally into the city like her mother, but rather stayed in disguise in a small in on the outskirts of town for the first night. She did this in order to be closer to her people or something along those lines, a thing which many in the court looked down on. If he had calculated correctly she would be arriving today. If a strikingly beautiful redhead and a foreign man were staying in a hotel somewhere, he would no doubt hear of it if he knew where to look. The assassin paid for his dinner, being careful to do nothing that would lead anyone to remember him, and took off for the outskirts of Themiscyra.

"And so then the old man woke up started screaming about the Flood, and he cut the rope. And the tub crashed through the floor and fell on his wife and the two wizards, just like that." Fred thumped the side of the carriage for empahsis. Astra burst out laughing. It was a loud, vigorous laugh that was far stronger than the kind of laughter he was used to hearing from women, but he'd come to very much enjoy it. "You know," he said, "if anyone had told me a month ago that I'd be riding into Themiscyra and trading bawdy jokes with the warrior princess Astra, I'd have thought them mad. Yet here I am." He'd been hesitant to tell such jokes at first, of course. But that was before he'd heard the kind of jokes she liked to tell.

"Well I can top that one," said Astra. "Would you like to hear the one about the Templar of Diana, the servant, and the kobold?"

"Well, it can't be too long, because we're almost there," said Fred. The white walls of Themiscyra were looming ahead. Whenever Fred looked up at them, he was filled with awe. They were covered with interlocking painted carvings in a grotesque, blocky style that nonetheless had a certain weird beauty to it. Astra had told him that this section of the wall they were approaching was one of the most ancient surviving parts of this city, which had been razed and rebuilt even more times than his own kingdom's capital of Camelyn. In the jungles that crowded around it, Fred heard the cries of animals which he had only heard of in legends.

This last month had been one of the happiest times of his life. Although he had to admit that he would have preferred a longer and more epic battle with the Dragon. Since then, things had been relatively uneventful. For most of the time he had been traveling with Astra, she had shown him around the towns and villages where they'd stopped and told him about her homeland. There had been one or two brigands and a minor incident with a small horde of undead (or zombies as they called them here), but other than that not much had happened. And yet, he found that he did not mind, because he had spent almost all of that time with Astra. When he first saw her he had been strongly impressed by her beauty. And he still was. But he found that he didn't think about it all that much anymore. As he had gotten to know her, he had been drawn to her courage and virtue. But he found he never thought about that very much anymore either. Rather, he simply enjoyed being in her presence and speaking with her. It was different from any other relationship he had ever had with a woman. Astra was not a distant object of longing, but a comrade who he had fought beside in battle. But the more time he spent with her, the more he was certain that he indeed loved her.

And yet... Had he made the right decision? Should he have abandoned his duties as a nobleman and his father's son, not to mention the quest that Vincent had charged him with?

"Fred?" said Astra, breaking into his thoughts. "Is something troubling you?" After having spent a month together with him, it seemed, she was able to read him very well.

"Yes," said Fred. "I'm wondering if we should have taken up Vincent's quest." This was not what was troubling him the most. Yet he found, to his shame, that he was afraid of Astra knowing about it. He was afraid she might think less of him, and therefore be less likely to love him. And yet, wasn't she his friend as well as his beloved? Was it right to withhold it from her?

"Vincent was just a raving lunatic," said Astra. "He turned you into a scissor-handed freak just because he felt like it, for the Goddess's sake! I know that his story about the dragon being innocent and Zardoz being the real enemy is pure nonsense. I spent a month in his captivity. He was a vile monster, no matter what Vincent said. And everyone knows that Zardoz died a thousand years ago. He was slain by the poet and airshipman Saturninus Abraxas, greatest of all mages, in the days of the Great Empire."

"I know," sighed Fred. "I know that story well." He looked Astra in the eye uneasily and continued, "But that's not what I'm most worried about."

"What is it, then?"

"It's about my father. I--"

"Don't worry about your father, Fred," said Astra. "You are nothing like him."

"No. I was going to tell you that my father, as you might well imagine, has made a number of powerful enemies. And I doubt it will be long before they declare open war on him. There will be civil war in Allaria for the first time in hundreds of years. And I... I will not seek to kill my own father. But I will not try to save him from the death he so justly deserves, either."

"I understand," said Astra. "I knew you must have been facing some impending danger at home, since I doubted you would leave behind all your duties while making no arrangements only on a whim."

"So you don't think the less of me for deserting my own father?"

"No. In fact, if my mother were like your father, I would have killed her long ago. I would have hated it, but I would not have hesistated."

Fred frowned and was about to say something in response when they entered the city. An enormous blast of noise hit Fred, from the chatter of street vendors and the shouting of guards. The scent of the foods and the bright colors and shapes of the clothing were so alien, yet the bustle and activity was very much like Camelyn. And yet it was larger than Camelyn, or any other city he'd ever seen "There's no place like home," said Astra, grinning widely.

"This is certainly no place like my home," said Fred. "I grew up on the border marches. I've never quite gotten used to being anywhere this loud and crowded."

"Well, it's not like this everywhere, or all the time," said Astra. "But yes, it's very... active. That's why I love it, of course. Trust me, it's very complex, and vital, and fascinating.."

Much like you, Fred thought. He didn't doubt that he loved her more deeply than any woman he had ever known. So why couldn't he tell her? He was Lord Frederigo D'Honaire! He'd killed a DragonMage just a month ago! He shouldn't be afraid of anything! And yet, he was afraid of this. The more he came to love her, the more he feared telling her he loved her.

Astra felt an enormous relief as she took in the colors and scents of the Themyscira. However much she enjoyed her quests and journeys, it always felt good to be back home. Some day, she would be the Queen and it would be her daughters who went on quests, and perhaps then she would long to leave. But she would always appreciate her home. And she was able to appreciate it even better through the eyes of someone who had never been here before. It was fascinating to see how Fred reacted to the sights she had grown up seeing.

It was strange, now that she thought about it, how close she felt to Fred considering what a relatively short time she'd known him. Then again, Fred was a man who she admired very much, and whose company she enjoyed. He was very loyal, his current problems excepted. He was courageous and virtuous and had an enormous zest for life. He was totally honest, which was enormously refreshing after dealing with court politics as much as she inevitably had to. And he was very handsome as well. She had never had any illusions about that. And he obviously was falling head over heels in love with her. But she was glad to count him as a friend and very much enjoyed their friendship. If they fell in love, and that love soured, that friendship might be impossible to recover. What's more, there were a few traits of his that she sometimes found just a little aggravating. He was rather stubborn (a trait which Astra herself shared) and did have a certain tendency to leap before he looked. She knew from experience that these were not so hard to deal with in friends, but not so easy in someone she was romantically involved with.

She was jolted out of her reflections when she saw a face in the crowd who seemed to be staring particularly intently at her. It was a middle-aged man, dressed in muted clothing, which seemed to be carefully arranged to not stand out in any way. He troubled her for some reason, but she decided it was just because she was obviously frayed and tense right now.

Some guards came up to the carraige which held Fred and Astra. The lead guard, while trying hard to maintain the fierce discipline which the guards were taught, was obviously young and untried. She seemed no older than nineteen or so. "My lady?" she said.

"Ssssh," said Astra. "Don't tell anyone." The guard seemed perturped, but nodded-- obviously, she wasn't going to question the orders of her princess.

1. The guard lets them through.
2. The guard does not let them through. The assassin has already stirred up some trouble in advance.

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