“I do so agree!” Oliver chimed in, but then he lowered his gaze as Luthien’s scowl found him.
“You should have seen me!” Brind’Amour said suddenly, his face flashing with the vigor of a long past youth. “Oh, my powers were so much greater then! I could use the art all the day, sleep well that night, then use it again all the next day.” A cloud seemed to pass over his aged features. “But now, I am not so strong. Greensparrow and his cohorts find most of their strength through demonic aid, a source I cannot, and will not, tap.”
“You destroyed Duke Paragor,” Luthien reminded.
Brind’Amour snorted, but managed a weak smile. “True,” he admitted. “And Morkney is dead, and Duke Resmore, his demon somehow taken from him, is but a minor wizard, and no more a threat.” Again he looked to Luthien, his face truly grim. “But these are but cohorts of Greensparrow, who is of the ancient brotherhood. These dukes, and the duchess of Mannington, are mortals, and not of my brotherhood. Minor tricksters empowered by Greensparrow.”
Luthien saw that his old friend needed his strength at that moment. “When Greensparrow is dead,” he declared, “you, Brind’Amour, king of Eriador, will be the most powerful wizard in all the world.”
Oliver clapped his hands, but Brind’Amour only replied quietly, “Something I never desired.”
“Leave us,” Brind’Amour instructed as he entered the dungeon cell below the Ministry. The small room was smoky, lighted by a single torch that burned in an unremarkable wall sconce beside the door.
The two elvish guards looked nervously to each other, and to the prisoner, but they would not disobey their king. With curt bows, they exited, though they stubbornly took up positions just outside the cell’s small door.
Brind’Amour closed that door, eyeing Resmore all the while. The miserable duke sat in the middle of the floor, hands bound behind his back and shackled by a tight chain to his ankles. He was also gagged and blindfolded.
Brind’Amour clapped his hands and the shackles fell from Resmore’s wrists. Slowly, the man reached up and removed first the blindfold and then the gag, stretching his numb legs as he did so.
“I demand better treatment!” he growled.
Brind’Amour circled the room, muttering under his breath and dropping a line of yellow powder at the base of the wall.
Resmore called to him several times, but when the old wizard would not answer, the duke sat quiet, curious.
Brind’Amour completed the powder line, encompassing the entire room, and looked at the man directly.
“Who destroyed your demon?” Brind’Amour asked directly.
Resmore stuttered for lack of an answer; he had thought, as had Luthien and Oliver, that Brind’Amour had done it.
“If A’ta’arrefi—” Brind’Amour began.
“A wizard should be more careful when uttering that name!” Resmore interrupted.
Brind’Amour shook his head slowly, calmly. “Not in here,” he explained, looking to the line of yellow powder. “Your fiend, if it survives, cannot hear your call, or mine, from in here, nor can you, or your magic, leave this room.”
Resmore threw his head back with a wild burst of laughter, as if mocking the other. He struggled to his feet, and nearly fell over, for his legs were still tingling from sitting for so long. “You should treat your peers with more respect, you who claim the throne of this forsaken land.”
“And you should wag your tongue more carefully,” Brind’Amour warned, “or I shall tear it from your mouth and wag it for you.”
“How dare you!”
“Silence!” the old wizard roared, his power bared in the sheer strength of his voice. Resmore’s eyes widened and he fell back a step. “You are no peer of mine!” Brind’Amour went on. “You and your fellows, lackeys all to Greensparrow, are a mere shadow of the power that was the brotherhood.”
“I—”
“Fight me!” Brind’Amour commanded.
Resmore snorted, but the scoff was lost in his throat as Brind’Amour launched into the movements of spellcasting, chanting heartily. Resmore began a spell of his own, reaching out to the torch and pulling a piece of fire from it, a flicker of flame to sting the older wizard.
It rolled out from the wall at Resmore’s bidding, flaring stronger right in front of Brind’Amour’s pointy nose, and Resmore snapped his fingers, the completion of his spell, the last thrust of energy that should have caused the lick of flame to burst into a miniature fireball. Again, Resmore’s hopes were abruptly quashed as his flame fell to the floor and elongated, something he never intended for it to do.
Brind’Amour continued his casting, aiming his magic at the conjured flame, wresting control of it and strengthening it, transforming it. It widened and gradually took the shape of a lion, a great and fiery cat with blazing eyes and a mane that danced with the excitement of fire.
Resmore paled and fell back another step, then turned and bolted for the door. He hit a magical wall, as solid as one of stone, and staggered back into the middle of the room, gradually regaining his senses and turning to face the wizard and his flaming pet.
Brind’Amour reached down and patted the beast’s flaming mane.
Resmore cocked his head. “An illusion,” he proclaimed.
“An illusion?” Brind’Amour echoed. He looked to the cat. “He called you an illusion,” he said. “Quite an insult. You may kill him.”
Resmore’s eyes popped wide as the lion’s roar resounded about the room. The cat dropped low—the duke had nowhere to run!—and then sprang out, flying for Resmore. The man screamed and fell to the floor, covering his head with his arms, thrashing for all his life.
But he was alone in the dirt, and when at last he dared to peek out, he saw Brind’Amour standing casually near the side of the room, with no sign of the flaming lion to be found, no sign that the cat had ever been there.
“An illusion,” Resmore insisted. In a futile effort to regain a measure of his dignity, he stood up and brushed himself off.
“And am I an illusion?” Brind’Amour asked.
Resmore eyed him curiously.
Suddenly Brind’Amour waved his arms and a great gust of wind hit Resmore and hurled him backward, to slam hard into the magical barrier. He staggered forward a couple of steps and looked up just as Brind’Amour clapped his hands together, then threw his palms out toward Resmore. A crackling black bolt hit the man in the gut, doubling him over in pain.
Brind’Amour snarled and brought one hand sweeping down in the air. His magic, the extension of his fury, sent a burst of energy down on the back of stooping Resmore’s neck, hurling him face-first into the hard dirt.
He lay there, dazed and bleeding, with no intention of getting back up. But then he felt something—a hand?—close about his throat and hoist him. He was back to his feet, and then off his feet, hanging in midair, the hand choking the life from him.
His bulging eyes looked across to his adversary. Brind’Amour stood with one arm extended, hand grasping the empty air.
“I saw you,” Brind’Amour said grimly. “I saw what you did to Duparte on the Isle of Dulsen-Berra!”
Resmore tried to utter a denial, but he could not find the breath for words.
“I saw you!” Brind’Amour yelled, clenching tighter.
Resmore jerked and thought his neck would surely snap.
But Brind’Amour threw his hand out wide, opening it as he went, and Resmore went flying across the room, to slam the magical barrier once more and fall to his knees, gasping, his nose surely broken. It took him a long while to manage to turn about and face terrible Brind’Amour again, and when he did, he found the old wizard standing calmly, holding a quill pen and a board that had a parchment tacked to it.
Brind’Amour tossed both items into the air, and they floated, as if hung on invisible ropes, Resmore’s way.
“Your confession,” Brind’Amour explained. “Your admission that you, at King Greensparrow’s bidding, worked to incite the cyclopians in their ra
ids on Eriadoran and dwarvish settlements.”
The items stopped right before the kneeling duke, hanging in the empty air. He looked to them, then studied Brind’Amour.
“And if I refuse to sign?” he dared to ask.
“Then I will rend you limb from limb,” Brind’Amour casually promised. “I will flail the skin from your bones, and hold up your heart, that you may witness its last beat.” The calm way he said it unnerved Resmore.
“I saw what you did,” Brind’Amour said again, and that was all the proof the poor duke needed to hear to know that this terrible old wizard was not bluffing. He took up the quill and the board and quickly scratched his name.
Brind’Amour walked over and took the confession personally, without magical aid. He wanted Resmore to see his scowl up close, wanted the man to know that Brind’Amour had seen his crimes, and would neither forget, nor forgive.
Then Brind’Amour left the room, crossing through the magical wall with a single word.
“You will no longer be needed here,” Resmore heard him say to the elves. “Duke Resmore is a harmless fool.”
The dungeon door banged shut. The single torch that had been burning in the place was suddenly snuffed out, leaving Resmore alone and miserable in the utter darkness.
CHAPTER 14
THE PRINCESS AND HER CROWN
SHE SAT BEFORE THE MIRROR brushing her silken hair, her soft eyes staring vacantly through space and time. The bejeweled crown was set on the dresser before her, the link to her past, as a child princess. Beside the crown sat a bag of powder Deanna used to brighten the flames of a brazier enough to open a gate from Hell for the demon Taknapotin.
She had been just a child when that bag had become more important to her than the crown, when Greensparrow had become closer to her than her own father, the king of Avon. Greensparrow, who gave her magic. Greensparrow, who gave her Taknapotin. Greensparrow, who took her father’s throne and saved the kingdom after a treacherous coup by a handful of upstart lords.
That was the tale Deanna Wellworth had been told by those loyal to the new king, and repeated to her by Greensparrow himself on the occasion of their next meeting. Greensparrow had lamented that, with his ascent to the throne, she was now out of the royal line. In truth, it mattered little because Greensparrow was a wizard of the ancient brotherhood, after all, blessed with long years, and would surely outlive Deanna, and all of her children, if she had any, and all of their children as well. But Greensparrow was not unsympathetic to the orphaned girl. Mannington, a not-unimportant port city on the western shore of Avon, would be her domain, her private kingdom.
That was the story Deanna Wellworth had heard since her childhood and for all of her adult life; that was the tale the sympathetic Greensparrow had offered to her.
Only now, nearing the age of thirty, had Deanna come to question, indeed to dismiss, that story. She tried to remember that fateful night of the coup, but all was confusion. Taknapotin had come to her and whisked her away in the dark of night; she vividly heard the screams of her siblings receding behind her.
O noble rescuer . . . a demon.
Why hadn’t Taknapotin, a fiend of no small power, rescued her brothers and sister as well? And why hadn’t the fiend and, more important, Greensparrow, who was easily the most powerful individual in the world, simply halted the coup? His answers, his excuses, were obvious and straightforward: there was no time; we were caught by surprise.
Those questions had often led Deanna to an impenetrable veil of mystery, and it wasn’t until many years later that the duchess of Mannington came to ask the more important questions. Why had she been spared? And since she was alive after the supposed murderers had been executed, then why hadn’t she been placed in Carlisle as the rightful queen of Avon?
Her stiff brush scraped hard against her head as the now-familiar rage began to mount inside of her. For several years, Deanna had suspected the betrayal and had felt the anger, but until recently she had suppressed those feelings. If what she feared had truly happened those two decades ago, then she could not readily excuse her own role in the murder of her mother and father, her five brothers and her sister.
“You look so much like her,” came a call from the doorway.
Deanna looked into the mirror and saw Selna’s reflection, the older woman coming into the room with Deanna’s nightclothes over her arm. The duchess turned about in her seat to face the woman.
“Your mother,” Selna explained with a disarming smile. She walked right over and put her hand gently against Deanna’s cheek. “You have her eyes, so soft, so blue.”
It was like a religious ceremony for the handmaid. Weekly at least, over the last twenty years, Selna, who had been her nanny in the days when her father ruled Avon, would brush her hand against Deanna’s cheek and tell her how much she looked like her murdered mother. For so many of those years, Deanna had beamed under the compliment and begged Selna to tell her of Bettien, her mother.
What a horrible irony that now seemed to the enlightened woman!
Deanna rose and walked away, taking the nightclothes.
“Fear not, my Lady,” Selna called after her. “I do not think our king will punish you for your weakness in the Iron Cross.”
Deanna turned sharply on the woman, making her jump in surprise. “Has he told you that personally?” she asked.
“The king?”
“Of course, the king,” Deanna replied. “Have you spoken with him since our return to Mannington?”
Selna appeared shocked. “My Lady,” she protested, “why would his most royal King Greensparrow deem to talk with—”
“Have you spoken with him since we left the Iron Cross?” Deanna interrupted, speaking each word distinctly so that Selna could not miss the implications of the question.
Selna took a deep breath and lifted her jaw resolutely.
She feels safe within the protection of Greensparrow, Deanna mused. The duchess realized that her anger may have caused her to overstep her good judgment. If Selna’s calls to Greensparrow were easily answered—perhaps the king had given her a minor demon to serve as courier—then Deanna’s anger might soon bring Greensparrow’s probing eye her way once more, something she most certainly did not want at this crucial hour.
“My apologies, dear Selna,” Deanna said, moving over to put her hand on the woman’s arm. Deanna dropped her gaze and gave the most profound of sighs. “I only fear that your perception of my weakness beside the cyclopians has lessened me in your view.”
“Never that, my Lady,” the handmaid said unconvincingly.
Deanna looked up, her soft blue eyes wet with tears. Ever since her childhood, Deanna had been good at summoning those; she called them “sympathy drops.”
“It is late, my Lady,” Selna said tersely. “You should retire.”
“It was weakness,” Deanna admitted with a slight sniffle. She noted that Selna’s expression shifted to one of curiosity.
“I could not bear it,” Deanna went on. “I hold no love for Eriadorans, and certainly none for dwarfs, but even the bearded folk seem a high cut above those ghastly one-eyes!”
Selna seemed to relax somewhat, even managed a smile that appeared sincere to Deanna.
“I only fear that my king and savior has come to doubt me,” Deanna lamented.
“Never that, my Lady,” Selna insisted.
“He is all the family that I have,” Deanna said, “except for you, of course. I could not bear to disappoint him, and yet, that, I fear, is exactly what I have done.”
“It was a task for which you of princessly temperament were not well-equipped,” Selna said.
Princessly temperament. Selna often used that curious phrase when speaking to Deanna. Often the young woman wanted to yell in the face of it. If she was so attuned to royalty, then why was Greensparrow, and not she, who was of rightful blood, sitting on Carlisle’s throne?
Deanna forced the angry thoughts deep within her. She let the tears come then, and wrapped Se
lna in a tight hug, holding fast until the woman remarked that it was time for her to go.
The duchess dashed those tears away in the blink of an eye as soon as Selna was safely out of the room. The hour was late, and she had so much to do this night! She spent a long moment looking at the dresser, at the crown and the bag, gathering her strength.
The hours passed. Deanna moved out of her room to make sure that all those quartered near her were asleep. Then she went back to her private chamber, closed and magically sealed the door, and went to her wardrobe, producing a small brass brazier from a secret compartment she had fashioned in its floor.
Not long after that, Taknapotin sat comfortably on her bed.
“A’ta’arrefi was not so formidable,” the cocksure demon remarked.
“Not with the power of the storm I sent to you,” Deanna replied coolly.
“Not so difficult a thing to channel the energy,” Taknapotin admitted. “And so A’ta’arrefi is gone, poof!”
“And Resmore is out of the way, dead or in the dungeons of Caer MacDonald or DunDarrow,” Deanna said.
“And we are one step closer to the throne,” Taknapotin said eagerly.
Deanna still could not believe how easy this part of her plan had been. She had merely dangled the carrot of supreme rulership in front of Taknapotin and the fiend had verily drooled at the thought of overthrowing Greensparrow. This was the weakness of evil, Deanna realized. In alliance with such diabolical creatures, one could never securely hold any trust.
Not if one was wise.
Deanna walked over to the dresser and took up the crown, the link to her heritage, the one item that Greensparrow had managed to retrieve after the defeat of the usurpers. The one item that Greensparrow had given to her personally, begging her to keep it safe as a remembrance of her poor family.
“I do not think that any others need die,” Taknapotin remarked. “Surely you are closest now, with Paragor and Resmore gone.”
The Crimson Shadow Page 74
