by Guy Antibes
“More will guard the primary entrance.” She slipped up to them and ran the first one through while Lotto quickly overpowered the other.
Mander searched them for a key, but they didn’t possess one. Lotto went to the door and worked the hinge and latch area. Restella knew, first hand, how he had saved her, since he used the very same technique.
Lotto staggered back and motioned for Kenyr to push the door in. “That drained me more than I thought, thick wood.”
Kenyr grabbed the door before it crashed to the floor and let it down gently as Restella ran past him into the apartments. Before Lotto collected himself, the king and queen stood at fallen door. King Goleto had armed himself and stood straight.
“I’m proud of a daughter who knows how to rescue her foolish father,” King Goleto said, hiding his arms out for Restella. His embrace felt so good to her.
“I’m at least as foolish as you,” Mander said, bowing his head.
Restella hugged them both again. Her behavior surprised her parents. “You must flee. Go down two flights on the back stairs. There’s an old storage room. Lady Anna waits there to let you out of the castle.
“I’ll show them,” Lotto said. ‘Quickly.”
In a few minutes Lotto returned. “I froze the hinges. I can get through, but anyone else will think the old door rusted shut.” He grinned. Restella gave him a quick kiss.
“Now on to the Blue wing.” She led them along back ways through the palace that astounded even Mander.
“I never knew these passages existed.”
“They are for servants and the royal family when they don’t want to be seen in public.” Restella said, holding Lotto’s hand as they walked. He smiled and Restella hit him in the arm. “I know why you’re smiling.” She had been thinking about running through the halls in her nightgown and forgot about how strong their bond had become when they touched.
“Around this corner the corridors intersect. We’ll have to walk past the throne room to get to the Blue wing.” She shook off Lotto and unsheathed her sword, holding the scabbard in one hand and the sword in the other.
Just as they passed an open door, a shout rang out from a dining table and men rushed out and quickly surrounded Lotto’s group. With over twenty halberds pointed at them, they lowered their swords. General Piroff walked towards them accompanied by a guard from the direction of his quarters.
“What have we here? Where is the king?” Piroff said.
“Long gone,” Lotto said. “Out of the castle.”
Piroff turned red. “Impossible!” he ordered half of the men to search for the king.
Restella shrugged, battling to look complacent, “You won’t find him.” At least her family could escape whatever plans Piroff had for them. She didn’t discount the resourcefulness of her father once out of his confinement. Without Lotto, however, the students and rangers wouldn’t be able to rescue them.
“Take their swords, except hers.” Piroff personally took Restella’s sword, running his thumb over the Moonstone and put it back into its sheath. “Follow me,” he said, walking down the large staircase. “You won’t be staying in such nice surroundings.” He nodded towards Lotto. “Kill him if he raises his arms or opens his mouth. He’s a powerful wizard and Fessano knows his wizards.”
“You’re all traitors,” Restella said, walking erect, “especially General Piroff. You’ll be executed when my father returns to power.” She saw some of the men’s eyes begin to look nervous.
“Gag her and Mistad,” Piroff said.
One of the guards, who didn’t look nervous at all, took out a pocket square and tied it around her mouth. He took another and tied up her hands and then did the same to Lotto. Mander and Kenyr looked on impassively and continued to walk on.
They stopped at the large door leading down a stairway to the dungeons. “Mander, I don’t know how you escaped, but I halfway expected to find you roaming around the castle as some point. Fessano is at your wife’s house and will kill her at my command.” Piroff gloated while he nodded at one of the guards and whispered loudly in his ear. “I think we’ll get that out of the way now.”
“She’s innocent!” Mander said, as he struggled with his bonds. “Anna’s done nothing to hurt you.” Restella admired Mander for his performance at being shocked, knowing that his wife had escaped along with the king and queen.
Piroff merely laughed. “She married you and that’s enough for a death sentence. Fessano promised me he could do it.”
Mander tried to get to Piroff, but the guards restrained him. Restella shivered to know that Fessano had been so thoroughly enthralled by the emperor’s promises. Even now she couldn’t conceive of Fessano harming anyone, but Anna, as it turned out, acted in self-defense, more than Restella knew at the time.
After walking down a number of steps, they came to her father’s dungeons. There were few prisoners kept in the dungeons anymore. The straw was always kept fresh and most of the cells contained discarded pieces of furniture for the prisoners to use. Valetan had become a peaceful kingdom under her father, but Restella feared the dungeons would fill up again one way or another.
All four of them were put in the same small cell. The guards removed the chairs and table, put irons on their hands and feet and left. They threw Lotto towards the opposite end of the cell. The only illumination was the flickering light of a lamp sconce on the far wall of the corridor shining through the small barred opening in the door.
Kenyr rose up and tried to pull off his shackles only making his wrists bleed. He pounded on the walls and then sagged to the floor. Mander just looked at them impassively.
“Mander is that you?” They all heard General Reallo’s voice from a few cells down.
“Ah, you’re not dead. That’s a pleasant enough surprise. Indeed, it is I, Mander Hart, General. Look! I brought along a few of my friends.”
“I’m not thrilled that I’ve got company,” the general said and then went silent.
Restella tried her own bonds, but couldn’t budge them. Lotto sat in his dark corner. She couldn’t see his features, but his emotions seemed resigned. She couldn’t share the feeling as she burst into tears. She didn’t care if they saw her cry. They couldn’t save the kingdom from the dungeon. With Lotto gagged and bound, he couldn’t use any magic and Kenyr had already tried to struggle with his bonds and failed to free himself.
How could they have been so hasty, but what else could they have done? At least Piroff now thought he had possession of the Moonstone. She couldn’t lose faith. She just couldn’t.
Kenyr finally laughed. “They have no idea.”
“I don’t expect they do,” Mander said with a grin on his face.
Restella struggled to her feet, getting very angry. “What are you two laughing about?” she mumbled through her gag.
“How many people reside in Beckondale?”
“Forty or fifty thousand,” she said.
“Of those,” Mander said, “how many are Piroff’s men and how many still hold allegiance to the king?”
“Oh,” Restella knew her father could raise the people against Piroff long enough for Gully to arrive with his soldiers, putting the castle under siege.
“I don’t think Mander or I couldn’t make them fight, but the king could and I think he will. Allowing us to spirit the king away will prove to be Piroff’s undoing.”
“But they’ll put us to death before he gets the chance.”
“Aye, there is that,” Kenyr said, turning serious. “But I’ll die happy, if I’m with Lotto.”
The gag at Lotto’s mouth turned to shreds and he shook it off, spitting out threads. A globe of flame appeared in the center of the cell, making it bright. “Thank you, Kenyr, but I don’t think we’re done yet.” Restella could hardly hear his voice, but she could feel his confidence grow. “Piroff obviously doesn’t realize that I don’t need to trace or utter spells or move my hands. Those are aids to concentration. I can do simple spells with my mind.” Restella
’s gag disintegrated and her bonds began to move on their own and within seconds all of their shackles were piled in the center of the cell beneath the unwavering flame.
The others stood up, but Lotto remained sitting in his corner. None of them knew how drained he felt—but Restella did. He fought off fainting and put his head back against the wall. “What took the most strength was working out how to move the locks in the shackles. We can walk out of here at any time, but we need a new plan,” he said. “Something that will give us a bit more time than the last one.” He thought of his father’s weapons, now sitting somewhere, perhaps newly worn by one of the guards. He curled his fist and let anger build up his energy. Restella sat beside him and put her hand on his arm.
She nearly pulled it off. “You’re angry.”
“You’ve probably never felt me feel this way before.”
“When you saved me from the duke?”
“Despair, isn’t a very good motivator, Restella.” He patted her hand. “Anger clouds the mind, however strong it makes you. Resolve. Resolve is what you need… what we need to motivate us. I will end Piroff’s life tonight, but we should wait.”
“I agree,” Mander said. He rubbed his wrists and gazed at nothing. “We rest until the middle of the night and then we attack. I’d rather not have the people storm the castle. Too many will get hurt. Let’s cut off the head of this serpent.”
“We can’t do that from here,” Lotto said, closing his eyes. “The Emperor of Dakkor is the head. The Ropponi call him the Dark Lord. I think the term is quite fitting. We can only save Valetan from the venom of one of his minions. I found that a sorcerer named Peleor has been at work, turning the minds of the heads of state and Piroff, of course. Perhaps Silver and Fessano fell under his spell.”
~~~
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
~
LOTTO DREAMED OF RESTELLA and quite enjoyed whatever it was that they did together when Kenyr kicked his foot. He charmed another light and saw Restella with a faint smile on her lips, still sleeping.
“It’s time.” Mander said. “Let us out.”
Lotto tried to move the lock on the cell door, but nothing happened. He tried to heat it up, yet nothing worked “It’s charmed or resistant to magic.” Lotto had never seen such a thing. It must be some kind of ward. Bessethian wizards didn’t use them very much, so this must be Peleor’s work. He examined the ward and realized it was structured differently from any other enchantment he had ever seen. It repelled power. He thought he could replicate it, but at another time.
“We’re stuck.” Restella said. Lotto felt the fear in her voice.
“I don’t need locks, remember?” He worked his crumbling magic on mortar and they removed the door from its frame. The hinges and lock remained intact.
“They thought that would be enough to keep us here. Must be Fessano’s doing,” Mander said.
But Lotto remained silent about the non-spell on the lock. It definitely wasn’t Fessano’s work. He continued to puzzle it out until the others called to him. He freed General Reallo as well.
Up they went. The few guards they found awake were quickly subdued and they stood in the dimness at the door to Piroff’s apartments, all of them held weapons, again. Kenyr’s damaged wrists were now wrapped with linen from a guard’s shirt.
Nothing protected Piroff’s door and Lotto easily moved the lock’s workings. They stepped in.
A dark figure sat in a large easy chair, lit up with the flickering light of the fire.
“Ah. You passed my test.”
Lotto didn’t place the accent, but he lit a ball of light in the room, revealing a man dressed in loose clothing. His black hair hung down his shoulders underneath an intricately folded turban. He looked at Lotto with dark hooded eyes and grinned. His white teeth showed the swarthiness of his skin.
“I am Peleor, the Emperor’s most trusted wizard and I have been waiting for you two to arrive.” He rose and stood nearly as tall as Kenyr and Lotto. “Now where is the Moonstone?” He threw Restella’s sword across the floor.
She put her hand to her neck and gasped for breath. The sheer terror that Restella felt nearly drove Lotto to his knees. He looked to Mander, Reallo and Kenyr to attack, but they were frozen into place. Lotto threw off Peleor’s attempts to incapacitate him as the Dakkoran wizard had done to his friends. The sword in his hand began to heat up and Lotto dropped it smiling.
The wizard wore cuffs of gold at his wrists and Lotto knew he could play the same game. He charmed the cuffs and they began to heat up and Peleor yelled in pain. Restella dropped to the floor, gasping.
“You have learned quickly,” Peleor said, breathing heavily. “However, Fessano was no match for me and I quickly showed him that his knowledge did not match mine. You are merely his pupil.”
“You laid a glamor on him, didn’t you? On all of them, Fessano, Piroff, Silver. Fessano didn’t really think clearly once you had him in your grasp and now he’s gone.” His demise now became tragedy and the unnecessary loss of the wizard cut into him. That was another count against the Dark Lord.
The wizard laughed as a wind pushed Lotto back.
Lotto thought of a shield and created one out of the air that rushed towards him. He couldn’t be bound with what spells he knew, but would have to combine them and use them differently as he did in Gensler and Happly. He pushed the shield ahead of him as fast as he could and reshaped it into a battering ram, slamming into Peleor and pushing him over the chair and into a heap on the other side.
A ball of flame shot towards him and Lotto did the simplest thing he could think of, he ducked and rolled, picking up Restella’s sword as another bolt of flame singed his left arm. He built another shield that stopped yet a third bolt. Mander and Kenyr remained standing like statues and Restella again clutched at her throat, fighting for breath. He could feel the terror echoed from her experience in Happly.
Time seemed to flow slowly as Lotto rose and shredded the clothes off of Peleor as he had Restella’s gag in the dungeon cell. The man gasped at his nakedness as the cloth fell off of his body and as the cloth of his turban turned into threads, his hair and the fibers fell down his shoulders and over his face.
Lotto ducked another fireball and threw a knife at Peleor. It hit the man point first, but was repelled by something and clattered to the floor.
“You can’t pierce my shield. Give up and I’ll reward you with more than you’ve ever desired.” Peleor gloated and threw some kind of compulsion spell at him
Lotto could feel the pull of the power on his mind, forcing him to accept Peleor’s offer. He resisted as much as he could and started throwing all manner of objects at the Dakkoran sorcerer. The spell let up, giving Lotto a chance to put a coating of something that he had just named ‘anti-magic’, the stuff that Peleor had been put on the lock in the dungeon around Restella’s sword and walked up to the wizard and plunged it into Peleor’s chest.
“I am protected, you can’t kill me!” Peleor said in obvious disbelief and began gasping for air. Piroff peeked around a corner and fled from the room before Lotto could do anything with his weapon still in Peleor.
Lotto twisted the sword and the dark eyes dulled.
Kenyr and Reallo both fell over as the Dakkoran’s spell faded. Mander ended up cutting his leg with his sword as he crashed to the floor.
“Did you see Piroff run away? It looks to me that he’s just discovered he made a bad mistake. We just took care of Daryaku’s creature.” Lotto said fighting for breath, fell on his knees and couldn’t keep his eyes open as his physical and magical strength left him.
~
The barest hint of dawn lit up the room. Lotto started and rose from the bed and felt his tightly wrapped left arm.
“You’re alive!” Restella said, leaning over and kissing him. “For a bit, I couldn’t feel you.” He could hear the hint of a sob.
“I didn’t dream either. I used up most of my power fighting that man. I don’t think I can even li
ght a candle,” he said, trying to do so, but couldn’t. “What about Piroff?”
“He slid out the door when you fought the wizard,” Restella’s hand went to her throat. “Kenyr and Mander have men out trying to find him. Once the wizard died, a lot of the men realized that they had been put under a spell like Fessano. At least that will be their story.”
“You heard what Peleor said?” Lotto knew she did as soon as he said it.
Restella nodded. “Most of it. I could hardly breathe, but I heard. Silver probably had been put under a spell as well. Duke Happly, Forthwith, Ashdown and the king of Prola. That’s pretty potent magic.”
“It is and we’ll have to find a way to stop it. Perhaps we need to send a bird to Duke Jellas in Gensler and have him summon Shiro. The sorcerers of Roppon are as practiced as Peleor. I think we all have our different ways.”
“What is your way?” Restella asked.
Lotto shook his head. “I’m not sure. Bessethian magic has regressed over time. Peleor has his own tricks and so does Shiro and his Red Rose contingent.”
“I can’t imagine magic that will turn a man so quickly. Who can we trust?”
Lotto rubbed his chin. “I don’t think Peleor had to entirely put his victims under his spell. I’ll bet they all had weaknesses that the man exploited. Fessano’s books, Silver’s estates, Happly’s rule of Valetan.” Lotto laughed. “I’ll bet a bunch of them thought they’d rule Valetan. I think he just had to exploit what was already there.”
“We all wondered what you did to defeat the Dakkoran wizard?”
“I had to react and think quickly. Time seemed to slow up so I could think. I decided I would put a coating of, all I can think to call it is anti-magic, the spell that kept me from opening the lock of the dungeon. His shield didn’t work on the coated sword. Peleor showed me the way to defeat him. I had just about reached the limit with my power and had to risk it. I’m relieved that it worked, for I couldn’t have fought him for a minute longer.”
Restella smiled. “I liked your diversionary tactic removing his clothes. How did you think of that?”
