“General Fernandez,” Garth greeted, “your hair has grayed since we last met.”
The General stopped and focused his piercing eyes on Garth and it took a few moments before his eyes lit up with recognition. “Colonel!” General Fernandez announced. “I never expected to lay eyes on you again. Dismount so I don’t have to break my neck looking up at you, and I’ve told you before that you can call me Julio.”
“As you wish, Julio,” Garth smiled, “and you can call me Garth. I am no longer a Colonel.”
The General switched his gaze to the rest of Garth’s party with a suspicious look as Garth was dismounting. He turned to the officer and said, “Keep a close eye on the rest of them while I talk privately with this man.”
The General turned and walked into the mansion with Garth on his heels. The General did not break his military stride until he reached an office with two guards posted outside. He opened the door and entered the office, allowing Garth entry before he closed the door, and then sat at his desk, waving Garth to a chair.
“The years have not been bad to you,” General Fernandez smiled.
“The color of your hair appears to be the only change you have suffered,” Garth smiled back. “I assume that you are the control behind Kantor these days?”
“There was no one else I could trust,” laughed Julio. “Speaking of trust, I notice that you do not trust your own party. Are they a threat here in Kantor?”
“They are not a threat to you or me,” Garth answered. “Your men can safely stand down.”
“Then why do you hide things from them?” quizzed Julio.
“Habit, mostly,” Garth admitted. “The years since we last met have not been peaceful ones for Kalina and myself. We have been hunted for years and I am sure the hunt still continues today. It is safer this way.”
General Fernandez shouted for his door guard and the door opened to admit one of the men. “Sergeant,” Julio ordered, “bring me the papers we found on the Black Devil last week. Also, dismiss the escort and invite our guests into the sitting room where they will be more comfortable and see to their horses.”
The Sergeant disappeared and returned almost immediately. He handed some papers to the General and closed the door behind him as he left. Julio rifled through the papers and withdrew two that he handed to Garth. Garth accepted the papers and looked at them. His eyes widened, as he looked at pictures of Kalina and himself, complete with physical descriptions and notations about Arik and Tedi. The description of the boys was incomplete, as if made by someone who had heard about them but had never seen them. The Dark Rider, Klarg, immediately came to mind.
“What else did you find on this Black Devil?” Garth asked.
The General passed over the rest of the papers and Garth flipped through them. Most of them meant nothing to Garth, but he stopped at one sheet that mentioned Lord Wason. Reading the sheet thoroughly, Garth picked out the descriptions of the five Children as they had appeared in Tagaret, including Niki’s red dress, which she had worn only during the prison break in Tagaret. Oddly, there was no mention about General Gregor or Sergeant Trank, which led Garth to believe that someone in the Royal Palace was serving two masters.
“You always were good at gathering intelligence,” complimented Garth. “I can see now that Garth Shado will have to disappear.”
The General took the papers back and looked at the one, which had interested Garth. “This does appear to be your party,” noticed General Fernandez. “You have been traveling a great deal. Why have you come to Kantor?”
“We are on a fool’s mission,” sighed Garth. “There is an artifact which was in the Presidential Palace when Oscar Dalek got married. I need to recover it.”
“A fool’s mission, indeed,” agreed General Fernandez. “What is the artifact?”
“It is called the Crown of Light,” Garth answered. “It is a crown small enough to be a ring on a woman’s finger. It belongs to the fairies and has been missing for hundreds of years at least.”
“I doubt that you have become a jewelry merchant since we last met,” Julio stated. “Why do you need this crown?”
“Julio,” Garth admitted, “the Ancient Prophecy has begun. I do not know if you are aware of the Prophecy, but it foretells of the death of the Dark One. The Crown of Light is needed to help fulfill that Prophecy. I need to find it even if I have to take the mountain apart grain by grain.”
The General nodded and stared out the window at the mountain for a period. “I have read about the Ancient Prophecy,” declared the General. “Of course, I am not sure if I believe it. I suppose that the young men you have with you are the Children of the Prophecy?”
“Yes,” confided Garth. “We also have the Sword of Heavens which will be used to kill Sarac. The Prophecy is true, Julio, and it has fallen to me to see that these Children succeed.”
“There is a chance, Colonel,” General Fernandez suggested. “Most of the Palace no longer exists, but there is a section of the ground floor still accessible. More importantly, the section contains the library and the treasure room. The library has been gutted and the contents removed, but the treasure room has been inaccessible because no one could enter it. If President Suarez kept this crown in the treasure room, you have a chance. If not, you will have to dismantle the mountain and you will not live that long.”
“How is it possible that the treasure room survived and yet has never been opened?” Garth inquired.
“It is amazing,” granted the General. “I watched the mountain appear myself. It didn’t grow or fall into place; it sort of materialized from nothing. One corner of the Palace was left sticking out. When we went to search for survivors, we found that it extended into the mountain like a cave. In fact, that is what we think it is. Wherever the mountain came from, the cave was already in it and so was a dragon. I watched the dragon fly out of the cone of the mountain. I suppose the cave may have been his other entrance and that is why he never returned. You may be able to get in through the cone.”
“Has no one ever tried before?” Garth asked.
“Oh, yes, some have tried,” sighed Julio. “And they died trying. No one has gone into the cone and come out alive. Treasure does you no good when you are dead.”
“Is the treasure vault accessible from this cave?” Garth queried.
“If my theory about the cave meeting the cone is valid, it must be,” Julio suggested. “The problem with that approach is that the vault was built of solid stone many feet thick. A bunch of dwarf miners would take years to get through it.”
“I haven’t given my people any lessons in mountain climbing yet,” confided Garth. “It looks like I will have to go in alone.”
“We don’t train for mountain terrain in Kantor,” admitted the General. “With the exception of this one mountain, Kantor is as flat as a calm sea. Let me host your group for this evening and I will take you into the cave tomorrow so you can see for yourself.”
General Fernandez escorted Garth into the sitting room and was introduced to the Alcea Rangers. After General Fernandez explained the situation, the Rangers discussed the various approaches. After a lengthy discussion, they decided that General Fernandez would escort them into the cave in the morning so that they could assess the possibility of using magic to break through the stonewall. At the same time, Midge would fly into the cone and see if there was an opening through the center of the mountain. By the time the discussions were done, the hour had grown quite late and the Rangers opted to retire. Garth stayed up with General Fernandez for several additional hours discussing the events of the last seventeen years.
In the morning, the group assembled for the trip to the cave. Niki professed to not feeling well and decided to stay in town. Actually, Niki was depressed again. If the Rangers were going to use magic to open the vault, it would be either Kalina or Fredrik that would wield the magic. They certainly would not need to heal the cave, so Niki felt useless once again. Everyone else was too excited about gaining the C
rown of Light to worry about Niki’s feelings.
Midge was sent on his way and the rest of the group proceeded to the cave entrance. After they left, Niki decided to leave the mansion and do some shopping in the city. The General’s men had been told that Garth’s party were guests, so no one stopped Niki from leaving the mansion. Niki changed into a red dress and donned her cloak before strolling towards the waterfront and finding an open market with dozens of shops and stalls. Niki’s spirits immediately lifted. Niki’s red dress and red hair drew a lot of attention, which lifted her spirits even higher. She was drawing so much attention, as a matter of fact, that she did not notice the man with long black hair and black eyes who was following her.
* * * *
The Rangers stood and stared at the massive rock wall. “I can certainly shatter the vault wall,” Kalina said absently, “but the force necessary would probably bring the mountain down on top of us. It’s not going to work.”
Fredrik stared at her in amazement. The amount of control and power required to shatter the vault wall should take an army of Black Devils and Kalina had just said that she could do it herself. She hadn’t even thought of asking Fredrik to join with her. He was inclined to write it off as being boastful until he saw Garth nodding and frowning.
“I was afraid of that,” Garth stated. “Bringing the whole mountain down does not get us closer to retrieving the Crown of Light. I hope Midge is having more luck on the inside of the mountain.”
“Was someone talking about me?” Midge called as he flew into the cave and settled on Arik’s shoulder.
“What does the other side look like?” Arik asked.
“There is no way in,” sighed Midge. “The vault probably is the reason that the dragon left, though. It protrudes into the bottom of the cone where the dragon had his lair.”
“Can you show us?” inquired Tanya. “Perhaps we will see something that will give us some ideas.”
Prince Midge nodded and closed his eyes. He started thinking of his journey and projected the images above a clear spot on the cave floor. The group watched as Midge flew down the cone and the scene grew dimmer. It seemed to take Midge a long time to reach the bottom and when he did it was quite dark. They watched as Midge created a fairy light and the image grew brighter. The floor of the cave was littered with gold and silver objects as well as several piles of bones. Tedi’s eyes widened as he saw the vast treasure the dragon had left behind. He also noticed what appeared to be a small tunnel burrowing into the side of the cave.
“That looks like a tunnel,” exclaimed Tedi. “Similar in size to the one at the back of this cave. I think we should explore it.”
Midge’s image flickered momentarily and then stabilized again as someone ordered quiet. Everyone focused their attention on the image as Midge rotated and looked around the dragon’s lair. Protruding into the lair were two sides and a corner of the roof of the vault. The sides of the vault were tilted slightly and the roof was cracked as if the weight of the mountain was too much for the vault to support. There were also several stalactites touching the roof. Most of them had been broken off, but one of them appeared to pass through the crack in the roof. The image of the crack in the roof came closer as Midge moved towards it and searched for a break that would allow him to enter the vault. While the roof was cracked, it was not cracked enough to allow entry even for one so small as Midge. The image of the lair continued for a while as Midge checked every inch of the exposed surfaces of the vault and eventually flew back up the cone.
“As you can see,” Midge declared, “I was not able to find even the smallest hole to gain entry.”
“Let’s go back to the mansion and get something to eat,” Garth said suddenly. “We can discuss our options tonight and retrieve the Crown of Light tomorrow.”
The group filed out of the cave and headed back to the mansion. Nobody noticed that Tedi had not emerged from the cave. Tedi stayed behind and was crawling into the tunnel in hope of finding an entrance to the vault.
* * * *
Niki was enjoying the open market and when she saw a food peddler with a couple of tables set out, she decided to get something to eat. Niki sat down and the peddler handed her a chalkboard with the day’s specials. Niki could not read the script and sat there staring at the chalkboard.
“Perhaps I can help,” offered the man with long, black hair and black eyes as he sat at Niki’s table. “His specials are all seafood. Today he has crab cakes, jumbo shrimp, which are really quite small, I promise you, and mussels. I would recommend the crab cakes.”
“Why, thank you,” Niki got out. “You must live around here to know so much.”
“Actually, I am from Trekum,” the dark man said. “My name is Dalgar.”
“Oh, I am also from Trekum,” chirped Niki. “What a coincidence. Have you been here long?”
“I have been wandering ever since my wife died,” Dalgar confided. “I have been searching for my lost daughter.”
“Your wife died and you lost your daughter?” Niki exclaimed. “How terrible that must be for you.”
“It is terrible for everyone,” Dalgar explained. “You see, my daughter must be found so she can lead her people to greatness.”
“Lead her people?” Niki inquired. “Can’t you lead the people? Who would she lead in Trekum?”
“Ah, you have many questions,” Dalgar smiled. “My wife was the Empress of Sordoa and our daughter must be found to unite and rule over Sordoa once again. I cannot lead them because I am not entitled to. Only my daughter can do that.”
“I do not understand,” Niki queried. “I thought the Empress was married to the Emperor and her daughter was also the daughter of Sarac. What you are saying makes no sense.”
“Where ever did you hear such fairy tales?” laughed Dalgar. “Aurora was not married to the Emperor. She was the Emperor’s advisor and heir. The Emperor was unmarried and had no sons or daughters of his own. That is why he made Aurora the heir. She was so wise in advising him that he knew she would make an excellent Empress. As for Sarac and Aurora . . . I cannot imagine the swine that would spread such disgusting tales. Aurora hated Sarac with a passion. She would never bear his child. No, that Princess Callie of Targa, now that was more Sarac’s taste, but never Aurora.”
Niki’s head spun with the contradictions between Dalgar’s story and Kalina’s. Suddenly, it dawned on Niki where she had heard the name Dalgar before. He was the Black Devil who had escaped with Aurora from the Rangers’ attack on Mordac’s castle.
“I thought Aurora was a Black Devil?” questioned Niki. “Aren’t they servants of the Dark One?”
“Oh, yes,” laughed Dalgar. “Aurora and I were both Black Devils. We are the ones responsible for freeing Sarac from Jenneva’s trap. That does not mean that we follow Sarac without question. Aurora and I had made plans to rule the world before Alex and Jenneva killed her.”
“Alex and Jenneva killed Aurora?” Niki asked confusingly. “I thought Sarac killed Aurora.”
Dalgar shook his head sadly. “Someone has filled your head with nonsense,” Dalgar declared. “Oh, Sarac wanted Aurora out of the way all right, so he allowed the information on her whereabouts to fall into the hands of Alex and Jenneva. They did his dirty work for him.”
“I am really confused,” admitted Niki while holding her head with her hands. “If you and Aurora were plotting against Alex and Jenneva as well as Sarac, why are you willing to tell all of this to me? Aren’t you afraid I might tell somebody?”
“I do not think so,” smiled Dalgar. “You wear Aurora’s cloak and you have Aurora’s hair and face. You will not tell anyone because you are my daughter and with my help, you will rule the world.”
Niki’s head snapped up and she stared, openmouthed, at Dalgar. “You mean I am really going to be a Queen? Or Empress, I mean? You can make that happen?”
“Together we can make it happen, daughter,” smiled Dalgar. “We must not let anyone know that we suspect their lies just ye
t, though. You will continue to play along with your friends as if nothing has changed.”
“How will that help me become Empress?” Niki asked. “Suppose they find out about you?”
“You will not let them know about me,” ordered Dalgar. “They seek to destroy Sarac. We will help them do that, up to a point. When we are ready, we will destroy them and Sarac and there will be nothing to stand in our way. You must get them to lead you to Alex and Jenneva. We need to avenge Aurora’s death by killing those two and Sarac. You will learn everything you can about their plans and movements. I need to know everything I can about each member of your group and where they plan to go next.”
“Well, I know they are looking for the Crown of Light right now,” offered Niki. “It is supposed to be at the bottom of that mountain.”
“What do they want with the Crown of Light?” puzzled Dalgar. “Wait . . . tell me everything you know about them already.”
While Dalgar sat attentively, Niki told him about the members of the group and how they met. She explained about the Sword of Heavens and the fairy’s demands for the Crown of Light. When she went into detail about how they rescued General Gregor from the Royal Palace in Tagaret, Dalgar smiled. He paid particular attention to the meaning and description of Tedi’s necklace.
“So, it would appear that their next stop will be back to the fairies if they manage to find this Crown of Light,” surmised Dalgar. “I will explain a number of ways for you to get information to me. The easiest will be for you to leave a message at the campsite when you leave in the morning. I’ll have someone following the group and they will be instructed to retrieve the messages. If you stay in a city and do not camp, you can leave a message at any Black Devil drop with my name on it. Now listen closely and I’ll explain how to identify a Black Devil drop in case you need to use one.”
Dalgar and Niki spent another hour talking and making plans to rule the world. Dalgar warned Niki that other Black Devils would ambush the group if they found out about them. Dalgar explained that there would be little he could do to intervene if that happened and she should be prepared to defend herself. After Dalgar left, Niki returned to the mansion in a happier mood than she had been in a very long time.
Sapphire of the Fairies, Book 1 of Sword of Heavens Page 31
