The bell rang again, impatient as a sick old granm’ma.
Still no sounds from above or the front room. Where had P’pa gone? Katrina struck a spark and fed it enough fuel to keep it lit until she answered the bell.
She flung open the inner door. Harsh pounding rattled the outer door. Her heart leaped into her throat.
With shaking hands and trembling heart she opened the outer door. Three men-at-arms, in the gray uniform of the palace, stood on the front step. All the same height, all the same coloring and uniform. All with identical grim expressions.
The center man stepped forward. Two bands of silver on each cuff marked his rank as above the other two. “Katrina Marie, daughter of Fraanken and Tattia Kaantille, you are summoned to the presence of His Majesty, King Simeon the First, Lord of SeLenicca, Emperor of Hanassa, and rightful Heir of Rossemeyer.”
Katrina swallowed the lump in her throat. It wouldn’t go down. She swallowed again and almost choked on her fear.
“I . . . I must tell my P’pa, and I must damp the fire.” Wildly she looked around. A million questions pounded at her. She couldn’t make sense of any of this.
“Your hearth is cold, the tenants dismissed, and your father is already in custody,” the ranking soldier informed her. No flicker of emotion crossed his face, and his eyes stared straight ahead, above Katrina.
She backed to the inner door. Flee, her feet urged. Hide, her mind overruled. Faint, her heart joined the clamor of emotions.
A harsh hand gripped her arm. Pain shot up to her shoulder.
“You will come now,” the soldier said.
She hung back. His fingers dug deeper into the muscles of her upper arm. Numbness spread down to her fingers and up into her brain.
“You will come, or you will die here and now.” Knives appeared in the right hand of each of the three soldiers. Their blank faces awoke with ugly grins.
Chapter 12
‘You must flee now, boy. Escape before the troops turn on you. Teach me the transport spell, so I can flee with you,” Rejiia whispered to Yaakke from behind.
Yaakke halted his flight from the scene of destruction and turned to ask her what she knew about the spell, the Commune’s most closely guarded secret. Only a grimy soldier, gaping at the flames in the center of the camp stood there. A flash of black skirts, or maybe black feathers, flitted through the trees above him.
“Teach me the spell; I will take you with me!” Jaylor’s voice demanded from the mouth of the grimy soldier.
“No,” Yaakke formed the word without sound. The glare of the sun through the pall of clouds and smoke intensified. Pain lanced from his eyes to his mind.
“The transport spell. Give me the spell.” This time Rejiia’s haunting voice came from the jackdaw perched in the tree above him.
“Quickly, boy! Give me the spell.” The whispers bombarded him from all directions. Rejiia, Jaylor, Baamin, and Corby. A compulsion grew within him, insisting he whisper the secret.
Frantically Yaakke opened every listening channel in his mind to find the source of the demanding voice. Was it Rejiia who haunted him, or a true magician using Yaakke’s suppressed attraction for the Lady of Faciar to trap him?
Every mind in the army was firmly closed to him. Only the demanding whispers leaked through to his telepathy. They grew louder.
Sun and the fire he had unleashed blazed before his eyes. He closed them. Still the blinding light penetrated.
Then, suddenly, the wall between the thousand troops and his mind broke apart. A myriad of mental voices made a jumble of his thoughts and weakened his knees. His senses stretched beyond normal limits to include field mice, cats, and panicky steeds. Images of his firebomb exploding within a tent and burning all it touched with lethal intensity, including himself, replayed in his memory again and again. Mental and physical screams racked his aching body.
Pain, blinding light, noise, demands. Always the demand. Give me the transport spell!
Yaakke resumed his run uphill until his lungs burned. Away from the voice; he had to get away from the voice. The smoke from the monastery ruins thickened. Heat, trapped within the building stones, seared his hands when he touched them. He pressed his palms harder against a half-standing wall, ignoring the pain, seeking the lives that once dwelt within.
More pain, more screams: his own and others. Escape. He had to escape.
There was nothing left of his own thoughts or identity. Confusion. Noise. Pain. Bewilderment. Screams.
“I’ve got to get out of here!” Yaakke searched blindly for an avenue of retreat from the noise, from the light, from his own guilt. Quickly, he built a picture of cool, quiet, darkness around his stretched and oversensitive nerves. Three deep breaths into a trance. Another lungful of air whisked him across the void and plunged him down, down, down, into the bowels of Kardia Hodos, the living planet.
A guard on each side of Katrina held her arms tight and high, barely allowing her feet to touch the ground on the long walk up the hill toward the palace. Her knees were so weak with dread she doubted they’d hold her up.
Along the wooden sidewalk the men marched her, following in the rapid wake of their two-stripe leader. Merchants, shoppers, and homeless wanderers stepped out of their path, gaping at her.
“Where are they taking her?” a frightened housewife whispered.
“Hush. She’s a Kaantille, getting what they all deserve. No doubt this is the last we’ll see of that clan.” Disgust colored a man’s voice. “If King Simeon executes them all, then the ghost will be banished.”
Katrina felt the blood drain from her head. If King Simeon executes them all . . . Images of dark, dank prison cells, torture, and death built tremendous pressure in her chest and sent her heart pounding. She lashed out with both feet in a desperate attempt to escape.
The relentless guards kept their grip on her arms, marching faster as they approached the villas of the nobility. At the end of the long Royal Avenue stood the palace and her doom.
Darkness encroached on her vision from the sides. Cold sweat broke out on her face and back. The burning grip of hard male hands on her arms deepened and spread. At the last moment of consciousness the uniformed men turned left away from the palace. Her mind revived slightly as questions rose within her.
Huge marble mansions lined the hill becoming more and more opulent farther away from the river. Evidence of the luxury afforded the nobility in the crowded Queen’s City was revealed in the wider spaces of open land that lay between each of the homes, cropped grass and sculptured shrubs, and large gardens.
They passed between two of the sprawling mansions and proceeded to the back entrance of nearly the last villa before the end of the road and the beginning of the rolling hills. The two-stripe leader entered without knocking. Obviously, they were expected.
Katrina looked at her grim escorts, hoping they would allow her the dignity of walking on her own. Neither man varied his grip, his expression, or his rapid pace.
At a double door on the left of the long corridor, the leader paused and knocked lightly. A grunt from within responded. The door slid open without a touch from the guard and Katrina found herself carried into the presence of King Simeon where she was abruptly dropped.
Her knees buckled, and she scrambled, ungracefully, to an upright position. Through a swimming haze she focused on the carpet rather than the man who held her fate in his unpredictable and often tyrannical hands.
Her royal judge sat behind a large desk. Witchballs of shadowless light sat atop silver stands. The room was nearly as bright as daylight. King Simeon need not squint and hunch over the parchment he wrote upon. He needed no inkwell, for his quill pen flowed with dark liquid at the precise level required. At his left elbow, in a place of honor, sat a life-sized tin statue of a weasel. Gilt paint flaked from its molded fur. Mouth agape in a vicious snarl, the weasel’s teeth seemed to drip venom.
Katrina shuddered in repulsion at the sight of the ugly statue and the loving caress Kin
g Simeon gave it as he raised his deep blue eyes from his work. His gaze seemed to bore right through her, delving into her innermost secrets. An aura of power shimmered around him and extended to the hideous statue. The rest of the room seemed dim and unimportant compared to the broad-shouldered man with bright, outland red hair.
“So this is the last of the traitorous Kaantilles?” King Simeon leaned back in his thronelike chair. Hooded eyes continued to probe and appraise her body. “Remove her cloak,” he ordered.
The guards whisked off the heavy oiled wool and stepped back. A chill rippled through Katrina as the king’s penetrating eyes lingered on the budding curves of her body. A spark of interest flashed within the deep blue orbs and a mocking half smile touched the comer of his mouth.
Katrina crossed her arms in front of her, trying to hide from his gaze a body she was not yet familiar or comfortable with.
“Where . . . where is my P’pa?” Katrina whispered.
“Never speak until you are spoken to! I am your king.
You must show respect.” Anger propelled Simeon up into a half-stand behind his desk. He leaned forward, hands pressed against the massive wooden top until his wrists and knuckles grew white. A shudder coursed down his body from neck to arms. Then he seemed to relax.
The king sat again and dusted invisible specks from his fire green tunic. “Now, my dear, I have some news for you, some good and some bad.”
She bit back her alarm and her questions.
“Very good, Katrina. You’re learning respect. As a reward, I’ll tell you about your P’pa. Your brave and smart P’pa who ruined me and himself with his investments.” The king rose and sauntered around to the front of his desk. There he perched on the edge of the furniture, his thick and powerful legs thrust out in front of him, arms crossed on his chest in mocking imitation of her own stance.
Shoulders hunched, back curved, Katrina tried to huddle deeper into her arms. The solid presence of the guards prevented her from backing up to put more distance between herself and the king’s penetrating gaze. She wondered if this acknowledged sorcerer saw through her vest and skirt, through her shift to her naked body. Lumbird bumps rose on her arms and chest. Beneath a loose breast band, her nipples tightened into yet more bumps. A ripple of fear and disgust added to her discomfort.
“The bad news first. Your esteemed P’pa has sold himself to the slave ships.” Mocking amusement touched King Simeon’s lips but didn’t light his eyes. “In return for his five years of servitude, Fraanken Kaantille demanded I forgive his debts and allow you to inherit the house. He claimed you could earn enough to maintain yourself and the house by renting out the upper rooms. Of course he forgot that under the ancient laws of SeLenicca, the daughter of a slave—freeborn or not—has no rights and can possess nothing, least of all a valuable house in the middle of a respectable neighborhood.”
“You can’t turn me out!” she protested.
Cold. So very cold. The room, her body, the king’s smile. Everything was so cold.
“Quiet, or I’ll increase his indenture to seven years in the mines. Your P’pa might survive five years in my galleys. But no one survives the mines. No one! Do you hear?” the king shouted.
Katrina nodded, too frightened to do more. The tin weasel seemed to raise a lip to bare more teeth. She stared at it in shock rather than look at her king.
“Now then, the good news.” King Simeon smiled in abrupt and capricious change of mood. He thrust himself upright from his perch on the desk and took two steps closer.
She didn’t like his tone. Didn’t trust his volatile temper. She feared the way he looked at her.
“Leave us.” He nodded to the guards.
Behind her, Katrina heard the door slide open, footsteps retreated, and the door whispered shut again. She was alone with the most feared man in the Three Kingdoms.
“My dear, I have a proposition for you.” King Simeon walked around her, his eyes appraised her front and back, from her two plaits of blond hair to the hem of her skirt. “Only you can save your father. Indeed, I’m willing to forgive his debts and return him to a place of honor in the mercantile community. In return, all I ask is a favor from you.”
She didn’t dare ask the nature of that favor. Rumors followed this man. Rumors of black sorcery and sacrifices to a foreign and bloodthirsty god. No one dared repeat those rumors to Queen Miranda. According to Tattia, the hereditary ruler of SeLenicca was so besotted with her outland husband she wouldn’t have listened to them anyway. She hadn’t listened to her advisers when she granted Simeon all the rank and authority of a king.
Could Simeon have thrown a magic spell on his wife to force her to give him all her rights and power?
“Only you can grant me this favor, Katrina. Think of it, your beloved P’pa restored to his home and his fortune, your sister Maaben returned to the loving arms of her family. You can achieve this for them.” He toyed with the lacing on her shift, tugging playfully until the neckline started to gape open; then he released the tie to finger the buttons on her vest.
“H . . . how?”
“My coven has need of a willing virgin.” He uncrossed her protective arms with gentle hands and opened her vest with a swift movement she barely saw. “I presume you are still a virgin?” One mocking eyebrow reached nearly to his full head of red hair.
Her jaw dropped, aghast at the immodesty of his question and his actions.
“I see by your reaction that you are untouched, by your P’pa or any other man. Good. Good.” His finger traced the line of her shift, opening it until her undergarment was revealed. His finger stopped on the tip of her breast.
How could he imply such a horrible thing? P’pa was good and kind and honorable. He would never do . . . do that to her. But the king could. The sensuous caress of that single finger rasped against her taut nerves. Hot shame vied with a need for him to continue his teasing of her nipple. Shame won.
“Did you know, my dear, that the next Vernal Equinox occurs on the night of the dark of the moon? ’Twill be a night of powerful magic. I will be able to build spells of such magnitude, all other magicians will be forced to bow to my will. But I need a virgin.” His gaze captured her eyes and bound them together with alien power. His thumbs traced erotic circles on her breasts.
“A willing virgin.”
“Wh . . . what will become of me?” She couldn’t look away though she tried and tried. Lightning seemed to flash across her vision, then leap from his hooded eyes into hers. Of its own will, her body arched toward him.
Disgusted with herself, she fought the heated longing he built within her.
“There is power buried deep within you. With proper training between now and the Equinox, you have a good chance of surviving the ritual. At the end of it, you would no longer be a virgin, but your power would be released. Only I have a matching power that will bring yours to maturation, ready to be tapped. I might even allow you to bear me a son. A child raised to rule the coven as Miranda’s son will rule SeLenicca.” Finally he blinked and released her. The spell that bound them together slid away, and he retreated to the edge of his desk once more.
“And if I don’t agree to this?”
“Then I will take you for my own pleasure—and yours, my dear—and your father will rot in the mines!” Anger exploded from him like a living being. Katrina recoiled from him.
All traces of longing for his renewed touch vanished, replaced with cold hate. “Then I have no guarantees that you will honor the bargain even if I give myself willingly to your vile purposes.”
“You can trust me. I am your king, after all.”
“ ’Twas not P’pa’s fault the ship was lost at sea. Why are you blaming him?” She blinked back tears of bewilderment.
“Fraanken Kaantille organized the plan and supervised the investment syndicate. If the ship had won through, he would have been a hero. But the ship was betrayed by a dark-eyed magician boy. My agent barely escaped alive.” He petted the thin weasel once m
ore, almost cooing to it. “The plan failed. For all I know, Fraanken Kaantille may have sold out to the agents of King Darville’s Commune of Magicians. So, ’tis only right your father be considered a traitor for that failure,” he stated evenly.
“P’pa would never sell out to an outlander. He loves our land and our queen.”
“Answer me now. Do you give yourself freely to my coven for the Equinox ritual?” A sneer marred his handsome face. No spell bound them together this time. She was free to make a rational decision.
“Never.”
“Perhaps a few moons of humiliation and unrelenting toil in a factory will change your mind. Did you know a factory owner has offered to buy you from me? You, with your moon-blond hair, fair skin, and blue eyes of a true-blooded woman will be the slave of an outland half-breed. He hates all true-bloods and will make certain you suffer. And you condemn your father to death in the mines.”
“No, I don’t. You do.”
“Remember my offer when hunger, cold, aching back, dimming vision, and humiliation drive you away from the factory. I’ll wait for you, Katrina Kaantille. You will come back to me.”
“Simurgh save me!” Rejiia gasped. “Come back here, Yaakke. I’m not finished with you. You can’t do that. I won’t let you!” She stamped her foot in rage.
Gone. Without a trace. She flung a web of magic outward to snare any life within her range. One very cranky crow screamed at her as he beat his wings against her entrapment. Nothing else. The soldiers were too far away, all rushing to douse the fire in Marnak’s camp.
“Where are you, boy?” she screamed as she released the crow with the funny white feathers on its head. She cast the net again, more carefully and in a wider pattern. Still nothing.
“What did I do wrong?” All her dreams of power faded. Having probed his magic, she should be able to find him anywhere on Kardia Hodos. Still he eluded her.
That kind of power was unheard of, outside of legend. Only one of the Stargods could disappear so completely. “I’ll get you yet, Yaakke. Then I will take you to the coven for judgment. And I shall preside as your judge and executioner.”
Dragon Novels: Volume I, The Page 76
