Sunstone - Dishonor's Bane (Book 2)

by Guy Antibes

  “Do you have a sword, Princess?” Unca said as gently as he could. He spotted the beginnings of understanding. “My parents…” The tears had come and the shock of the attack began to overtake her emotions, her eyes unfocused, her lips quivering. She weakly slapped at herself as her control began to break down. That was the reaction he sought before he had to act.

  Unca turned around and slapped her face, heedless of the consequences. He looked her closely in the eye. “We must leave the castle from here and never return. Quickly, find some serviceable clothes to take with you, but not much, for you’ll be carrying them for a long distance. Put on some sensible shoes. Boots would even be better.”

  He twirled around the room looking for the panel that would lead them to freedom. What kind of freedom would he have, bound to this useless young girl for who knows how long? Perhaps she would torment him for the rest of his life. Unca knew he deserved any punishment the gods meted out and at this point he didn’t care. It wasn’t just the Princess’s life he wanted to save. He had promised the king and the token of that promise lay in the pouch that he carried in his pocket.

  There! He found the flower and the flute device he sought and twisted the flute. The door bumped ajar. Shouting and iron-shod boots began to clatter on the stone floor outside.

  “No time to gather anything. Grab a cloak, we must go now!”

  Common sense finally punctured Sallia’s fear and she grabbed a cloak, and a purse of coins and a pair of velvet slippers. She padded on her still-bare feet through the open door. Unca slipped through the opening. Unca didn’t know he held his breath until the door clicked shut. He slid the iron bar across the door’s hidden latch, cutting them off from the princess’s chambers as fists pounded on the bedroom door. He exhaled and spelled a ball of light in the pitch blackness of the passage and pushed Sallia along the dark passage and down a half-flight of stairs.

  The shouting and commotion that barely leaked through the stone passage door dwindled as they continued to race down steps taking them through the castle wall.

  “Put your slippers on,” whispered Unca. He heard only a grunt in response, but she sat down on the dusty stone floor and put them on. She rose, lifted her chin and threw her cloak around her.

  “My parents are dead,” she said, faintly as if informing herself of the awful tragedy. “My parents are dead.”

  Unca nodded and continued to urge Sallia on. This passage took them to a junction. Unca didn’t know where the other passage that led back up into the castle came from, but the desperation of the situation stifled his curiosity. He took another deep breath, it seemed to be a night of deep breaths, and forced Sallia deeper down the stairs.

  He thought the steps would never end until they came to a level section. This must take them underneath the moat.

  “Take your slippers off. Step carefully, Princess Sallia. There is mud on the floor.” He breathed in damp air and as he took the last step, mud covered his boots to his ankle.

  “You expect me to walk through that?” Sallia said, her face screwed up in an expression of distaste. It was as if she came up for air.

  “Suit yourself,” Unca said as he began to trudge through the passage. “I said watch your step, my dear Princess,” Unca said as his boots sucked and squished through the muck. He pulled his light with him and pictured Sallia standing on the last step rapidly being swallowed up in blackness.

  Another grunt and four feet now made sucking sounds in the dripping passage.

  “We are lucky, Princess Sallia. We could just as easily have found this tunnel filled with moat water. It shouldn’t take us long before we ascend to drier passages, then it’s a long time tramping until we reach the end.”

  ~

  They ended their flight at a door that wouldn’t open. Unca observed the roots that grew from the edges of the stone and uttered a spell that shriveled the threads that blocked their escape.

  “You’ll have to help me move this door. I’m an old man and it’s likely you match me in strength.”

  “If I have to,” the Princess said, sighing.

  “I have forgotten the spell for opening a recalcitrant door, my dear Princess.” If he ever knew it. He grunted while he put his shoulder to the door.

  “You’re pushing on the wrong side. See the hinges?” Sallia said. “We need to pull the door open.

  Unca felt his face burn in embarrassment. How could he help the Princess when his brain was nearly addled from the stress of their escape. He took yet another deep breath. At least within the realms of her grief, she could reason… perhaps better than he.

  “I’ll just have to,” he said.

  “What?”

  Unca had just said what he thought and his face heated up again. “I’ll just have to move over. Excuse me while I touch you,”

  The door creaked open a few feet and would go no further, but the exit enlarged enough for them both to tumble out in a clump inside a room overgrown with vegetation. The Princess jumped up and brushed the debris from her cloak while Unca struggled to close the door.

  “Where are we?” she said, gazing up at a moon surrounded by stars. Unca followed her gaze. It might have been beautiful under other circumstances, but Unca only thought of the moon to light their escape.

  “Along the Great West Road, perhaps a league from the city walls. We can’t stay here. I have a cottage far to the northwest, close to the border of Gensler.”

  “There are no keeps there, only foresters and farmers. Who will save us?”

  Unca sighed. “No one will save us, Princess Sallia. All we can do is hide and live our lives in obscurity for as long as possible. If we don’t, Duke Histron will send assassins to kill you. We will know when you can make yourself known. Without the Bloodstone, Histron won’t dare crown himself king.”

  “He is usurping the throne, nevertheless.” She paused and Unca noticed her eyes filling with tears. The end of the tunnel escape allowed them both to look back towards Foxhome and the castle they both had called home. “My parents. They are dead,” she said and began to sob.

  Unca opened up his arms and she sought the solace she needed in them. he just let her cry. No reproof for touching this time.

  “What’s to become of me?” Sallia said. The darkness hid her eyes, but Unca could see the moonlight reflected off of the streaks of tears down her face. Tonight was a cruel lesson for the both of them. As he put his hand on her hair and felt her sobs, his unwitting betrayal brought tears to his own eyes.

  “Let fate decide. In the meantime, my cottage will be more than comfortable for the two of us.”

  She frowned. “I didn’t know you had a cottage,” she said between sobs.

  Unca laughed and it felt invigorating. “That’s the point. Few do and none know me there as the Court Wizard, except for a few, including my housekeeper. We must hurry. The Duke will have men on the road, soon enough.” The princess’s tears made Unca soften up a bit towards the girl. Perhaps a more quiet environment would help her grow up a bit. She had always been a handful for the court. Stubborn, willful and self-centered. One could only hope. It mattered no longer. Unca would have to take care of her. He looked forward to it as penance.

  ~

  Sallia followed in Unca’s footsteps. When she thought again that her parents were likely killed, her mind seemed to have seized up. Moments of lucidity seemed to come and go as she pushed herself to follow the wizard. When those came, the thoughts of her parents, dead, with their blood on the floors of the only home she had ever known brought fresh tears.

  After continually running from the road at the sound of horses, Unca led her onto a footpath. What was she to do? An old man as her servant? Unca was hardly suited as a lady-in-waiting. She had to smile at the unprompted vision of Unca in a gown, his tall, lanky frame sticking out of an undersized dress.

  Her father recently had started saying that it might be a kindness that the old man retire, but he still needed Unca’s advice and couldn’t yet let him go. Her
e he walked in front of her, the dim magical ball of light barely keeping them on the footpath. How could he serve her in any way remotely deserving of her station? Perhaps they would hide for a few weeks and then the populace would rise up and displace Histron the Usurper.

  They still half-crept in the darkness. Sallia surprised by unbidden fits of sobbing, tried to keep her tears to herself. She felt like someone had ripped her chest open and removed everything except the ache of her parents’ loss. She stopped and again couldn’t resist the outstretched arms of the old man. Her crying seemed to be the only sounds in the forest. Unca just let her go on for awhile. The crying seemed to be the only way she could cope with the enormity of situation.

  She stood up straighter and smoothed her cloak once she regained control of her feelings. She felt the dampness of her tears as she ran her hands along the collar. When Unca told her he had a cottage, she didn’t like her father’s advisors keeping secrets from the court. But then, her father might have known. She’d never find out that or anything from her father or mother again. The thought brought more sobs and the wizard let her cry for another few moments. A mournful moon parted from a cloud and turned the pathway into speckles of dark and darker when Unca told her that they must continue on.

  Sallia complied and fought to keep up with the wizard, who proved to be more nimble on his feet than she. He stayed silent for long periods of time, only pausing to warn her about an overhanging branch or an exposed tree root. All she could see was the back of the man’s cloak and the long whitish hair turning wild as they rushed through the forest.

  What could she do while she waited for the people to rise up? Perhaps Unca had a large cottage with servants who could care of her. He must have or he wouldn’t have thought of taking her into the northern wilds of the Red Kingdom. Perhaps he had a castle hidden in the forest with soldiers ready to take back her kingdom. Sallia shook her head to rid herself of the fantasies that plagued her as they continued their flight.

  Their journey eventually became an unending process of putting one foot in front of the other. Sallia refused to complain. A princess must not show weakness. The thought made her chin lift in the night. On and on she vowed to continue without a call to rest. She even began to regain control of her emotions.

  She sensed that she was losing control of her legs and her arms. She began to shake as the forest turned from moonlit darkness the the murky blue of the approaching dawn. She stumbled into the back of Unca.

  “I can’t go on.” Even princesses had to rest, she admitted to herself, as she clutched the old man’s shoulders. He stopped and held Sallia up as her legs buckled.

  “You should have said something earlier.” The look in his eyes seemed so sincere. She realized she’d never really known the old wizard even though they had talked to each other often enough. She noticed an unexpected softness in his eyes that generally pierced her along with his boring witticisms. Perhaps escaping with him would prove to be a successful exit from the horrors of the castle.

  “I’m a princess and we don’t complain.” She tried to lift her chin again and assume that diffident look that had been drilled into her since she could talk.

  Unca shook his head. “That doesn’t mean we don’t stop to rest before we collapse, Princess. There’s a clearing just ahead. Hopefully there is a brook close by to whet our parched throats. We can stop at an out of the way inn to eat breakfast in an hour or two. The innkeeper is an old friend from days long ago. We’ll get dressed in some less conspicuous clothes and maybe get a couple of horses. Wouldn’t that be better?”

  Sallia barely had the energy to nod her head. “Better,” she said.

  As they reached the clearing, Unca led her underneath a pine tree. He spread out his cloak. “Roll up in this and sleep for a bit. I’ll find some water.”

  The ground looked so inviting as Unca helped her down onto his cloak. He threw the long end over her and the last thing she remembered was his face looking down.

  ~

  “It’s time to go,” Unca said trying to gently shake the sleep from the Princess. The sun was midway to its zenith and the wizard let the girl sleep as long as she could. His stomach protested the fact that he had waited too long before proceeding, but Unca knew the rest would do her a world of good.

  She stirred. Her normally sallow cheeks glowed red in the warm sun. “It’s nearly noon! I didn’t tell you to let me sleep in!”

  Unca winced at the complaint. “You needed the sleep to rejuvenate your muscles, Princess. We’re still weeks away from the cottage and you can’t make it there if you waste all of your energy the first day. I do have some bad news.”

  “Histron is on to us?”

  Unca lifted an eyebrow. “The man won’t stop trying to find you and will continue to search until you’re captured.” He just caught himself from saying ‘dead’. “No. You will need to act the part of my daughter.”

  Sallia snorted, “Grandaughter, you mean.”

  The wizard sighed with the knowledge of the truth. The Princess turned twenty-one in two months. Much to the dead king’s chagrin, Sallia had spurned every suitor since she was sixteen. As the only child, she wanted to wed a prince her age plus have him meet her own personal specifications. Such a person couldn’t be found, for her specification changed with her moods.

  “Perhaps my niece… Wait. You will be my grandniece. I will call you Sally and you may call me,” he cleared his throat, “Uncle.”

  “Grand Uncle.” She nearly smiled.

  Unca merely bowed. “The names are close enough to our own so if we make a mistake addressing one another it can be dismissed.”

  “You’re a smart one,” Sallia said. She baited him as she had before at Foxhome. At least this time there weren’t a gaggle of courtiers to snicker at her words and provide her with an audience. Unca generally had the presence of mind to counter her barbs better than anyone else. That unfortunately made her perpetually angry with him.

  “Here.” Unca reached into a pocket of his trousers and pulled out some globes the size of large grapes. “Water that I have spelled in such a way so that we can take a drink as we walk. Alas, my skills are not sufficient to catch game as we run.” He merely shrugged. That would be the extent of his apology.

  Sallia grabbed three or four of the globes and plopped them in her mouth. “These are rather fun. Why didn’t you do this in court?”

  “I’m not a jester, Your Highness,” Unca said, retaining his dignity. “At any rate, I don’t accumulate power like I did when younger. Some days I think I am magically impotent.”

  “Does—“ Sallia halted and swallowed with her eyes welling up, “Did Father know about this?”

  “The King was not a man to hide secrets from. Although, Duke Histron did a rather dishonorable, but effective, job doing so. I can still knock down trees and the like when needed, but only a few at a time. Then I need to recharge my magical power from the nexus.”

  “Ah, the nexus.” Sallia knowingly nodded. “The source of all magical power in the world. I sometimes have a hard time believing that it exists.”

  “You would. The talent to use the nexus has been bred out of the royal line of the Red Kingdom for centuries. Your light, nearly violet, eyes are a result of careful pairings through the generations. The lack of magical use has made the Bloodstone merely a symbol.”

  “But it is just a symbol,” Sallia said.

  “It is a symbol and more. I can feel its power, even through the leather pouch that protects it. Clutching it in my bare hand and I could recharge my powers in moments rather than days.”

  Sallia just scoffed. “I don’t believe you.”

  Unca shrugged. Her father had the same impression about the stone, but he never discounted the power of symbolism and the Bloodstone and the Red Kingdom were inseparable. ‘The right to rule,’ the king had said often enough, ‘is tied up with the ancient amulet.’

  “Enough of this boring talk.” Unca helped her stand.

 
She picked up his cloak that had kept her warm and held it out for him. “Portable royal chambers. You may burden yourself with them, again.” Sallia had actually said something witty that didn’t require a reply. He smirked behind her back and followed her along the path.

  A bit more than an hour later when the sun shone overhead, they exited the forest and took a track bordering the woods and tilled land stopping short of a ramshackle country inn. Four fancy horses stood at the hitching posts. Unca could see weapons and supplies tied to the steeds. Duke Histron had a faster reach than he thought.

  ~~~

  Read the entire story in

  Bloodstone | Power of Youth

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  MAP

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR