Golden Torc - 2 by Julian May Read Free Book Online

Both humans and Tanu wore filmy robes in different styles. Most of the women sported fantastic wired and jeweled headdresses. Music filled the air, played by an unseen orchestra that featured flutes, harps, and glockenspiels. Bryan and Elizabeth and Stein and Sukey and Raimo had met again after an interval of three hours, brought into a railed enclosure separate from the rest of the crowd of dinner guests. The time-travelers stared at one another and then burst into laughter, so bemusing had been their transformation.
    "But they took away my other clothes!" Raimo protested, his face aflame. "And they told me this would be the kind of thing the other guys would wear!"
    Stein guffawed. "Talk about giving the ladies a treat!
    You look like a friggerty ballet dancer. Or Captain Marvel!"
    "Steinie, shut up," said Sukey. "I think Raimo looks fine." Glowering, the former woodsman tried to pull his skimpy golden cape around his torso. He wore a scarlet leotardlike garment with a faint diapre pattern of gold that looked as if it had been shrink-wrapped about his muscular body. Golden boots and a matching belt completed the ensemble. He is packaged for display, Elizabeth realized. With his meager psychokinetic ability and low level of intelligence, he is destined to be a toy.
    Raimo was scowling at Stein. "At least they got you out of that mangy fur kilt."
    The Viking only smiled. He looked magnificent and knew it, having been decked out by palace servitors in a deep-green short tunic of simplest cut, together with his own leather collar and belt studded with gold and amber. To this had been added an ornate baldric in similar style that supported a bronze twohanded sword in a jeweled scabbard. From Stein's great shoulders fell a cloak of sherry-colored brocade held by a greenstone brooch. He wore his bronze Vikso helmet with the curling horns.
    Sukey clung to one arm of this incarnation of Norse divinity. Her gown was of white silken gauze with a trailing skirt and close-fitting sleeves. The simplicity of the dress was offset by an elaborate headdress resembling a silver halo, ornamented with glowing red gems. The ruby color of the stones was repeated in her narrow pendant belt and in the wide bracelets at her wrists.
    "I think they dressed me in the heraldic colors of the clan I'm to be initiated into," Sukey said. "The redactors seem to wear red with white or silver. I wonder why you didn't get red and white regalia, Elizabeth?"
    The farspeaker said, "I think I look very tasteful in black. Perhaps it has a special significance. They did spend a lot of time dressing my hair, at any rate. And when the wardrobe mistress saw my diamond ring, she came up with this nice little tiara."
    "You and I make rather a set," Bryan observed. "Elegant restraint in the midst of these birds of paradise." Elizabeth was amused. "And not bad at all, Doctor, now that you've shed those wrinkled bush-cottons and the imitation Aussie hat."
    The once-drab anthropologist now wore garments cut from a glistening fabric of deepest blue-green. He had narrow trousers tucked into silver short boots, a well-tailored jacket piped in silver, and a long cape that matched the suit. Elizabeth's costume was also simple. Her loose gown of filmy black was adorned by a narrow neckyoke of red metallic fabric; two freehanging ribands of the same material, jeweled and embroidered, fell from the front and rear of the yoke. It was a style that many of the Tanu women wore, although none showed the black and red color scheme.
    Sukey was looking around. "I wonder where Aiken is?" Stein muttered, "I don't see how they could make that kid any fancier looking than he already is."
    "Speak of the devil," Bryan said.
    A servant pulled aside the drapery covering the passage door that led to their enclosure. The missing member of the group was ushered in, and Stein's observation proved to be prophetic. Aiken Drum was still wearing his own golden suit with the hundred pockets. He had added only