DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga)

by R. A. Salvatore

  His wife was capable of making this walk herself.

  Jilseponie did just that, moving to stand beside him, trying hard to keep all judgment from her face. She did not want to cause Danube any more pain.

  “You have heard the charges and the testimony,” the King said, and it was obvious to Jilseponie that he was working hard to keep a tremor out of his voice. “Do you agree, or do you protest your innocence?”

  “I am innocent of these charges,” Jilseponie said loudly and with all conviction. “I did not murder Lady Pemblebury.”

  The end of her statement was lost in the renewed screaming and cursing, the cries of “Liar!” and “Murderess!”

  “I know not what possessed Lady Pemblebury to do this thing, if she did, or for what purpose anyone else would poison her,” Jilseponie went on, not even trying to compete with the screaming, speaking, rather, for her husband’s benefit and not the onlookers’. “I was as surprised—more surprised—than anyone else when the truth of the poisoning became obvious, when I caught Constance as she stumbled.…” She paused there, for she knew that telling them how the poison vial might have gotten into her sash would do her no good, would convince no one of her innocence. For they did not wish to be convinced. The nobles had come here seeking vengeance for much more than the murder of Constance Pemblebury. They sought vengeance against Jilseponie for ever coming to Ursal, for ever presuming to be one of them.

  And the peasants? Once, twice, thrice, she had been their hero, defeating the dactyl, the corrupt Markwart, and the plague. But their memories were not so long, it seemed.

  They had come out to see an execution. They had come to see evidence that even the Crown was not above the same basic laws that governed them, that even the Crown could not kill people at its whim. They wanted that reassurance, and if Jilseponie’s fall had to be the catalyst for their comfort, then so be it.

  She understood it all, and so she stopped there, saying again merely, “I did not do this.”

  Whistles and boos, howls for her execution, resounded throughout the public square, denying her denial in no uncertain terms. At this point in the proceedings, it was customary for the King to do a call of the nobles for the verdict, with each of them subsequently turning and appealing to the crowd for guidance, but that whole process seemed patently ridiculous at this point, where not a voice cried for the innocence of Queen Jilseponie.

  Again Jilseponie looked to her husband, who seemed to her to be melting from the onslaught of the cries for a hanging. How far might he fall?

  She reminded herself not to judge him, that he had more important issues on trial here than the life of his wife.

  King Danube bolstered himself suddenly and stood straight and defiant. He held up his hands, a powerful gesture, and yelled, “Silence!”

  Stunned, the crowd, the nobles, quieted.

  Danube turned to his wife. “Tell me,” he said softly. “I must hear it from you, here and now, face-to-face. Did you do this to Constance? Did you in any way bring about her death?”

  Jilseponie stared at him for a long while. “I brought about much of her pain,” she admitted, “though unintentionally, and that, I believe, led to her death. But in terms of the actual poisoning, no, I played no hand. None.”

  “No more pain did you bring to her than did I,” Danube remarked. He looked into her eyes, deeply and lovingly, for a long while, and she felt his love for her and his admiration for her then, more keenly, perhaps, than ever before.

  Danube smiled at her.

  “The kingdom,” she whispered.

  “Is nothing without true justice,” he replied, and he turned back to the crowd.

  “We have heard compelling tales,” he said. “This I cannot deny. And none more compelling than the recounting of the final words of Lady Constance, who was my dear friend. But this I say to you, Lady Constance has wished the destruction of Jilseponie from the first day she arrived here!

  “Nay!” he went on as the murmuring began. “From even before that day. She wanted Jilseponie destroyed since she discovered my intent to ask her hand in marriage. And so, it would seem, has she succeeded. But this I say, and this I decree,” he said powerfully, lifting his pointing finger to the sky. “Pen my words in stone, scribe. I have seen no evidence to prove that Jilseponie has done this heinous crime! None, save the words of a desperate, dying woman, who wanted above all else to destroy the Queen, who wanted, above all else, to ensure the line of succession—a line that included her two children—remain intact!”

  He pointedly looked at Merwick and Torrence at that point, and Jilseponie could see that he was trying to offer them silent assurances that the sins of the mother would not be visited upon them, that the line of ascension did indeed remain intact.

  “And so I decree this trial ended, and the Queen freed, with no guilt proven!” Danube declared, and it was well within his power to do that. He was the king, after all. He could do anything he wanted.

  But at what cost?

  Aydrian did not hear Danube’s statement, did not hear the screams of outrage and protest, or De’Unnero and Sadye’s exclamations of disbelief at his side.

  He was not there. Using the soul stone, the young warrior had soared out of his body to the small graveyard in one of the sheltered outdoor alcoves of Castle Ursal. Down he went, through the ground, through the pine lid of the coffin, to the body of Constance Pemblebury.

  There he found his connection to the dead woman, found a link that led him to her departed spirit.

  He pulled that tormented spirit back from the grave, willed her to drift along the walls and to the open square before the castle, gave her spirit visible substance and recognizable form.

  Aydrian blinked his eyes open as the frenzy continued, with soldiers lining the stage to keep back the rush of outraged onlookers.

  “Is this what you intended?” De’Unnero said to him, scolded him. “The King has thrown the kingdom into tumult—an act that may well lead to revolution. See the noblemen? See their hatred for this action? Oh, the fool Danube!”

  “Is that not what we wanted?” Aydrian asked innocently.

  “This was your plan?” De’Unnero scoffed at him. “Do you not understand that Jilseponie is discredited in any event? Do you not understand that you have just been removed from any possibilities of legal ascension to the throne?”

  “We shall see,” Aydrian replied with a smile, and even as he finished, many of the screams from the crowd shifted in timbre, from outrage to something even more primal, to complete horror.

  Those heightened screams, coming from one specific area, quieted the rest of the crowd and turned all eyes to that one section, which was parting like the ocean before the prow of a great ship.

  Torn and bedraggled, pale in death, nearly translucent, the ghost of Constance Pemblebury walked slowly toward the public gallows, toward King Danube and Jilseponie.

  Aydrian looked from his conjured spirit to the King and Queen; and the expressions of horror upon their faces were among the most enjoyable sights Aydrian had ever known. Danube in particular blanched and seemed as if he would faint.

  “Allhearts to the front!” Duke Kalas cried, rushing before the gallows, his courage inspiring several others to join him.

  Constance walked right through them, their slashing swords and grabbing hands hitting nothing but insubstantial mist.

  Then she was standing beside the King and the prisoner Queen.

  Danube backed away, breathing hard, trying to take Jilseponie with him. But the Queen, with a much deeper understanding of the spirit world than her husband, the Queen, who had entered that world of shadows before, held her ground.

  “I am trapped,” the ghost of Constance cried, her voice carrying about the common square. Many of the people had run off, but most had stayed, mesmerized, overwhelmed. “By my own deception am I bound to this place.”

  Danube squared his shoulders and held up his hand to keep Kalas and the others at bay as they gallantly mov
ed to try again to block the spirit from their King.

  “Constance?” Danube asked, gathering his strength and moving forward to the ghost.

  “Wickedness has a consequence,” the ghost explained, and she seemed a forlorn creature indeed. “And my own wickedness compounds if I allow this to continue.”

  Jilseponie moved beside her husband, moved right up to the ghost. She had no idea of how this might be happening, of course. What magic could so tear a spirit from the netherworld? But neither had she any doubt that this was indeed the spirit of Constance Pemblebury.

  “You are doing this!” Duke Kalas said sharply at the Queen, from behind and to the side of the ghost.

  In response, Jilseponie gave a half turn, showing him her bound and empty hands behind her back.

  “Queen Jilseponie is innocent,” the ghost of Constance wailed, and every ear in the square heard each word clearly. “She played no part in my demise, a death orchestrated by my own hands, that I might …”

  The ghost paused, so obviously full of regret and terror. Constance turned slightly to more directly face King Danube. “Visit not the sins of the mother upon her children, I beg,” she pleaded, and her voice began to grow thin.

  Danube began to shake his head immediately, wanting to give the poor dead woman that much, at least, an assurance that Merwick and Torrence would be well cared for.

  Both of them climbed onto the stage at that very moment, Merwick coming forward, Torrence hanging back.

  “Mother, what have you done?” the eldest son, the Prince of Honce-the-Bear, asked, trembling with every word. “Mother, how?”

  He came forward toward her, but the ghost gave a wistful smile and dissipated, melting away into a formless mist that blew apart in the breeze.

  A thousand murmurs rolled through the crowd.

  “You did that,” De’Unnero said accusingly to Aydrian. “But how?”

  “And why?” asked a shaken Sadye. “To what end? What have we gained, but the loss of Constance Pemblebury, a death that will only make life easier for the Queen? Why …”

  Her voice trailed off as she noted her companion on the other side of Aydrian, Marcalo De’Unnero, smiling wryly and nodding.

  “Now is the hour of my ascent,” said Aydrian.

  “By the words of the ghost, Jilseponie is innocent!” King Danube proclaimed. “Let any who deny this speak now or be forever silent!”

  The response came as a great and thunderous cheer from the always-fickle common folk, who had witnessed enough of a spectacle—too much of a spectacle!—already that morning.

  Danube turned to Kalas, who stood with sword still drawn, and the stunned Duke merely shrugged, having no response.

  “The trial thus ends!” cried Danube, and the cheers continued, louder still, and Danube lifted his arms in this, perhaps the greatest victory of his life. He looked at Jilseponie, sharing her smile, and the look she returned was one of the purest love. For he had stood there, beside her, at the potential cost of everything. He had stood beside her, with honor and love, against all odds.

  His smile widened.

  And then he winced suddenly and clutched at his chest.

  And then he fell over backward to the platform.

  In the next few moments, as celebration turned to confusion, turned to terror, De’Unnero, Sadye, and Aydrian pressed forward, through the line of nobles, to the edge of the stage.

  There lay Danube, in obvious pain, gasping and clutching at his chest.

  Kalas was with him, along with Jilseponie, who was fighting her bonds, trying to pull a hand free that she could hold the dying King.

  She cried out to him, over and over, told him that she loved him, pressed her cheek against his.

  “A hematite for me!” she wailed. “A soul stone, and at once!”

  To her surprise, it was Duke Kalas himself who pressed the smooth gray gemstone into her hand.

  Jilseponie dove into the magic of the gem, into the spirit world, the healing world, rushing for her husband.

  Aydrian was already there, waiting.

  In no form that the woman could ever recognize, surely. No, Jilseponie found only a disembodied hand waiting for her, tightly clenched over her husband’s heart.

  She tore at it with her own hands, desperately trying to pry it free, and gradually she began to make some progress.

  And then the hand disappeared, and Danube was free of its icy, murderous grasp.

  But it was too late.

  Jilseponie came out of her trance to find her husband lying dead before her. Duke Kalas, a single tear streaking his cheek, leaning low over the man. The Duke looked up at her, and she shook her head.

  “I could not,” she weakly explained.

  Kalas gave a sharp intake of breath and stood up, staring hard at her. “Of course not,” he said. He turned to the Allhearts about the stage, then to the huge gathering.

  “King Danube is dead,” he proclaimed. “Mark this day as black.”

  “A runner to Prince Midalis!” came a cry from one of the noblemen near to the stage. “Long live Midalis, King of Honce-the-Bear!”

  As was customary, even in this moment of shock and grief, many took up that cry for the new King.

  Duke Kalas looked to the side, to Marcalo De’Unnero and to the young warrior standing beside him, the young unknown prince who had defeated Kalas and then had pulled him back from the realm of death.

  “Not so!” the Duke proclaimed, and as those words echoed about, the crowd grew very silent, every eye, particularly those of Aydrian and Merwick, locked upon him.

  “By King Danube’s own words, the successor to the throne would be Prince Midalis only if Jilseponie did not bear any children,” the Duke explained.

  “She is with child?” one nobleman cried in shock and outrage, and many confused expressions fell over Jilseponie, whose look was no less dumbfounded.

  “She bore a child,” Kalas explained, struggling with every word, but keeping his course and his composure.

  As he spoke, Aydrian leaped onto the stage, striding forward confidently, and De’Unnero flashed his signal to his nearest agent, who passed it along from conspirator to conspirator.

  Abbot Olin, too, made his appearance then, ascending the platform from the stairway at the side.

  “Tai’maqwilloq!” Duke Kalas cried. “Aydrian the Nighthawk, the son of Queen Jilseponie, the new King of Honce-the-Bear!”

  “Never!” shouted Merwick, and many others shared that sentiment.

  Half the crowd was cheering, half screaming in protest.

  “This is insanity,” Jilseponie breathed, and she staggered, staring at Aydrian, knowing then the truth of it, knowing without doubt that this blond-haired youth was indeed her son, and the son of Elbryan. His walk, his fighting style, his sword—which now hung undisguised at his hip and which she now recognized as Tempest!—and his horse all spoke the truth to her.

  “Dasslerond,” she gasped, “what have you done?”

  “Never!” cried Merwick, drawing his sword.

  “I am the Duke of Wester-Honce!” Kalas yelled at the Allhearts, many of them bristling and readying their weapons. “Stand down, I say! They are Danube’s own words, spoken on the day of his marriage. The King is dead, long live Tai’maqwilloq!”

  “What do you know of this?” one nobleman shouted from the edge of the platform. “How do you know his name, Kalas? What treachery?”

  “I am the abbot of St. Bondabruce,” Olin interjected, coming toward the nobleman with his entourage of monks clearing a wide path about him. “Soon to be the father abbot of the Abellican Church, do not doubt. Beware that your words do not come back to haunt you, good sir.”

  Never had Ursal seen such confusion, such wailing, such screaming, all edging toward explosive levels. Fights broke out among the crowd and among many of the soldiers.

  De’Unnero’s agents, his mercenaries, were right there, finishing every battle in the favor of their secret cause.

  On t
he stage, Jilseponie stood dumbstruck, hardly hearing Kalas at all and not even registering the appearance that a conspiracy had occurred here, one that had perhaps just taken the life of her husband. No, she just stood there helplessly—and even more helpless did she become when Kalas took the soul stone from her bound hands!—staring at Aydrian, gawking at this man who was her son.

  She saw Merwick’s approach, murder in his eyes.

  She shook her head, trying to yell out for the foolish young man to desist. She knew what was coming as she watched Aydrian, smiling widely, draw out his sword in response. To her horror, Duke Kalas and the other Allhearts stepped back from the spectacle—apparently duels were an acceptable way to decide such issues.

  Certainly the spectacle of the proclaimed King and the man who had been second in line for the throne brought a measure of calm about the stage, where men held their punches to turn and gawk.

  Merwick came on hard, his sword led by fury. “I deny you!” he cried, ending his words with the punctuation of a downward slash and then a sudden stab.

  The slash got nowhere near to hitting Aydrian, and the stab slid harmlessly wide, turned by a subtle parry of Tempest.

  Still Merwick pressed forward—another slash, a stab, a stab again. Then, as the retreating Aydrian pressed to the edge of the stage, Merwick retracted and leaped ahead, his sword going up over one shoulder, to come careening down at Aydrian’s head.

  He stopped short, though, his sword barely clearing his shoulder, when he realized that Tempest had sunk deep into his chest.

  Aydrian came forward, driving the blade in to the hilt, putting his face very close to Merwick’s.

  “I deny your denial,” the young King casually remarked.

  With a rough shove and jerk, he sent Merwick sliding off the sword and down to the stage, to lie dying beside the body of his father.

  Jilseponie lowered her gaze and shook her head, thinking that there could be no greater insanity.

  Then she looked up, to see a strangely familiar man striding up beside Aydrian and Duke Kalas.

  Marcalo De’Unnero.

  She did not breathe for a long while, did not blink. The issue seemed settled then, and so quickly, with those yelling for Prince Midalis beaten down and silenced, with poor Torrence brought forward by a pair of Allheart knights.