Arabesque

by Hayden Thorne

  Arabesque

  Title Page

  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 Fifteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Arabesque

  Hayden Thorne

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2011 Hayden Thorne

  Cover Art by Ms. Rosek

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Chapter One

  As with most fireside tales, this one begins with magic. It goes back to a time when a great modern nation was still a cluster of sovereign lands, when gods, demi-gods, and mortals wandered the earth in a tempestuous relationship marked by passion, madness, and arbitrary justice, and Nature and Fortune often proved to be more formidable powers than immortals, who resented and yet feared them.

  In a kingdom somewhere in Western Europe, a magnificent palace was built on soil rich enough to encourage ambitions of a man-made idyll. As the palace grew, rising up and expanding sideways, a massive garden suddenly appeared around it, spreading in all four directions till it nearly dwarfed the palace with acres of trees and flowering shrubs of every possible variety. The oddest thing about this was the fact that the palace as well as its protective gardens appeared and grew day by day without any indication that mortal hands were involved. Each day, the palace simply appeared larger than it was before, room by room, floor by floor, its private woodland denser than it was previously. No signs of a busy army of carpenters, architects, painters, or gardeners were ever noted. Indeed, no one even heard a single sound throughout the construction process—hammers, axes, or even voices of busy workmen. All that could be heard were birds and the breeze whistling through branches.

  Peasants all over the kingdom stared in wonder at the rapidly swelling “forest of enchantment,” asking among themselves, “Why build a grand palace and hide it behind all this?”

  “Mark my words, there’s black magic going on there.”

  “The sorcerer-king, you mean? Yes, I’ve heard about him.”

  “They say it’s black magic that’s forming this woodland garden of his. Have you seen people toiling away, hour after hour, planting and watering?”

  The consensus was a “no,” which only fueled more speculation among the hungry and the ignorant, whose fear of the unknown overrode curiosity, and for better or for worse, they kept their distance from the palace.

  They were, of course, quite near to the truth, as they discovered in time. Übel was the king, though his ascension to the throne seemed rather quiet and suspicious, for no one had ever heard his name spoken before. The royal family who ruled this land lived in another region of the kingdom, and they’d remained largely detached and phantom-like figureheads for generations, with no one beyond the usual courtiers and ministers clapping eyes on them. When word spread that they’d decided to move their home to this part of the land, eyebrows rose, but no one questioned such a curious decision. The old palace was destroyed—taken down one stone at a time—till nothing was left but the telltale outline of a great structure in the grass and weeds.

  No one outside the court had seen the household move. It seemed as though one day they were there, and the next, the palace stood empty, to be torn down by hired men who knew nothing about what was going on save for the coin-filled purses that had been dropped into their eager, trembling hands.

  Before long, Übel was declared king, the palace was built, and the woodland garden rose around it. The process was quiet, quick, and trouble-free, though people all over exchanged uneasy whispers, and ministers who served as the link between the peasantry and the court refused to speak about anything remotely disparaging of their new king lest they be tried and executed for treason. Pale and drawn, their figures slouched and tense, their gazes darting here and there or stealing anxious looks behind them—they were clearly frightened, as though their steps were shadowed by something that stalked them, but were forced into secrecy about what truly haunted them. Their silence devoured these pitiful old men, however, and one by one, ministers died by their own hands, and those left behind were no wiser than they were before. And those who came after fared no better, everyone meeting the same end or simply being struck down by unexpected illnesses.

  As time came and went, no one knew what took place in the palace, for servants were never seen carrying out orders for the royal household’s day-to-day needs. In the open-air markets and the town squares, no one from the palace was spotted running around from shop to shop, buying meat from butchers, ordering new clothes from the best tailors.

  “The royal family would have their own butchers, tailors, and bakers, wouldn’t they?” some folks said, which didn’t settle the doubts that had always plagued everyone.

  “It’s too quiet,” others replied, stealing uneasy glances in the direction of the palace.

  Fifty years passed—fifty years of unchecked disease ravaging the countryside, fifty years of hunger, fifty years of unrest among the filthy populace, which often escalated into small riots here and there that could barely be contained by overworked and underpaid forces led by unhappy sheriffs. All those years, not a single word was heard from the palace, only indirect orders handed down through feeble and frightened authority figures who barely kept the kingdom intact.

  When the stench of rotting flesh carried by the winds to the nearby towns alerted people of something desperately wrong in the royal palace, long-held suspicions spilled out again among frightened subjects, mobilizing the sheriff of that county and his men, who braved the shadows of the woodland garden and broke down the tall, silent doors of a beautiful, glittering palace.

  There, they said, they found their dead king. He lay on the floor of what appeared to be the library, stiff and contorted with eyes open, bulging, and milky, his lips pulled back in a pained grimace, his fingers curled like wrinkled claws as his hands scrabbled at the air. He must have been struck down by a seizure of some kind and quite likely died even before he hit the floor. Oddly, a looking-glass stood close enough as though Übel had been looking at himself in the mirror in his final moment.

  He—or perhaps something—had also scrawled one word on the mirror’s dark surface, the brownish color of the letters suggesting dried blood: Virtue.

  He apparently lived alone because he didn’t have any need for human help, whatever his needs being satisfied by unnatural agents he’d most likely summoned from beyond. Books, scrolls, and all manner of artifacts used in the dark arts filled practically every space in the palace, while bones—human and animal alike—were discovered in an underground vault. More recent kills were found on the grounds, scattered among the trees as though awaiting the appearance of scavenging beasts to clean out the bones.

  “Perhaps he was too old and frail to dispose of the bodies properly,” the sheriff observed, grimacing in disgust as he covered his nose with a handkerchief.

  Tattered and faded clothes from men and women, young and old, rich and poor, littered several of the airy, empty apartments. Many bore marks o
f a savage killing, with dried blood and bits of shriveled skin still clinging to the fabric. Clumps of bloodied hair—in various states of dryness—were also found tucked away in an ornate gold trunk.

  “I believe that we’ve just found the royal family and their servants,” one of the men said as he sifted through the clothes. “And perhaps a few travelers unlucky enough to wander in this direction.” As to how random strangers were lured to the palace, no one could say, given its excessive privacy, but no one certainly doubted the role of black magic in that matter.

  The uproar following the ghastly discovery was immense, and it took the sheriff’s force all they had to keep the populace from storming the cursed palace and burning it to the ground.

  “Do what you will with the body,” the sheriff said before turning around and spitting on the floor of the palace’s great hall. “If you want justice, damn the bastard’s soul.”

  The people knew how. They took Übel’s stiff, withered body and brought it to the town square, where it was hacked to pieces before an angry mob, the parts tossed into a sack. The sack and the remains of the sorcerer-king vanished in the night, however, and no one knew where it was hidden or buried. Those who likely knew of its whereabouts said nothing or claimed ignorance, but they fooled no one. It was a prudent move not to divulge the truth, for the grave, wherever it might be, could very well be vandalized within hours. Superstitious folk exchanged theories about Übel being buried in a forest near the southwestern borders of the kingdom.

  “It’s a proper place for the old bastard.”

  “No one goes to that old forest—too dangerous. If he’s buried there, it’ll be worse.”

  “Let him lie there, unconsecrated,” some cried, waving their fists in the air.

  “Let him be damned!”

  The royal bloodline was at first rumored to be broken, but historians and genealogists were quickly set to work to find their next king, no matter how remote, and at length, they found their successor. This new king, drunk with ambition, adored the cursed palace enough to refuse to have it razed to the ground in a holy cleansing ritual, instead turning to folk magic to rid if of all unnatural elements. Practitioners of white magic were summoned, offerings to the gods were made simultaneously, and before long, the palace was declared safe and livable. It was cleaned out, modified, and made accessible to ministers and visiting nobility, the surrounding woodland garden also purged of its evil associations before being reshaped into a sprawling and enchanting retreat, which enjoyed further modifications and enhancements with every generation of the royal bloodline.

  The kingdom settled down into a relatively peaceful state, the legend of the sorcerer-king blurring as it was passed from storyteller to storyteller. In time, all that was known about Übel was the fact that he’d murdered to keep his powers alive, but even black magic couldn’t protect him from death. That he was a condemned soul was a given, but the circumstances behind his death and his burial varied. The forest where he was rumored to be buried turned evil, it was said, where nothing but shadows and madness awaited foolish wanderers who set foot within its leafy borders.

  * * *

  Hours turned into days, weeks, months, years, decades, a century and then two…

  Europe grew more and more restless, with immortals and men locked into battles of wills with each other, at times engaged in outright challenges and quarrels. Magic remained the weapon of choice for mortals who were determined to raise themselves above the mediocre majority, and while they remained helpless in wielding it against the gods, they’d no compunction at all in using it against each other. While most practitioners of magic were prudent enough to understand and be fearful of their powers’ capacity for destruction if unchecked, thus limiting their services to healing, protecting, and purging unwanted forces from individuals, groups, households, and even livestock, there were those few who feared nothing and whose boldness was fed even more by the enormity of the very fact that they held so much power. A few chanted words, a finger pointed at a target, or a hand moving in a prescribed pattern—one or a combination of those could easily destroy a portion of Nature’s fabric if enough malice were poured into it.

  Two young princesses from a tiny and inconsequential kingdom by the restless seas understood that well enough.

  Fourteen-year-old Amara scowled at her older sister as she shivered in the dark, holding a candle aloft and waiting for Ulrike to finish throwing on a heavy cloak and stepping into fur-lined slippers before fumbling around her wardrobe for her small leather and gold chest, which housed a very precious book. With a small exclamation of excitement, Ulrike carried the chest to her bed, unlocking it with a murmured chant and pulled out her book—a large tome of old discolored leather with strange characters carved into the cover in discolored gold. Amara had caught a glimpse of the book but was completely forbidden from examining it, for it was meant for Ulrike and Ulrike only, the older princess being its sole user. The chest couldn’t be opened by any means other than through that murmured chant, which Ulrike had long mastered and which Amara, for all her curiosity, refused to learn.

  “You’re playing a dangerous game, Sister,” Amara whispered, anxiety taking hold of her when she saw her breath fog. A significant drop in the room’s temperature, which was always marked by fogged breaths, alerted her to the arrival—or the awakening—of Ulrike’s “tutors.”

  “Hush, be quiet! Idiot! Do you want Mama or Papa to hear us?” Ulrike shot back, her shadowy figure in the girls’ shared bedroom barely visible despite the bit of light coming from Amara’s candle. Along with the iciness came the thickening of the darkness around them—an unnatural deepness of the night that made Amara’s skin crawl.

  “You can’t control this even after you master everything! You know you can’t!”

  “It’s all a matter of taking the trouble to practice till you get it perfectly. It’s just like any other lesson.”

  “And how do you know that you’re doing it correctly?”

  Ulrike had gathered her things by now and stood before Amara, who’d just moved to block her way to the door. “Get out of my way,” she hissed.

  “Any idiot knows that dark magic kills its wielder—drives him mad if he doesn’t die first.”

  “Do I look mad to you?”

  “You don’t have to look the part to be it.”

  Ulrike giggled, her voice soft and sounding like a faint chorus of several whispering people. “You’re clever. I’ll give you that.”

  “I don’t know you anymore. You—you’re cold and vicious—inhuman. Your powers have changed you, Ulrike, but I know there’s hope. You can still stop this, and I’ll help you. I can’t let you go on.” Amara set her mouth in a grim line as she pressed her back against the door, moving her feet apart in an additional show of defiance.

  Ulrike’s look of irritation gave way to one of amused contempt. “By the gods,” she whispered, drawing herself up as tall as she could, which wasn’t a difficult thing to do since she was a good head taller than her younger sister. That everyone in court marked her for a successful marriage to a great king was certainly testament enough to the influence that her beauty and majestic bearing on those who laid eyes on her. “You’re a determined little imp, aren’t you?”

  “Ulrike, listen to me—what you’re doing is dangerous! Why can’t you learn simple enchantment instead?”

  “What you call dark magic, Sister, is more powerful than ‘simple enchantment,’ and anyone who fears it is clearly not suited to learning its secrets and mastering its power. Unlike you, you vile little coward, I’ve made plans for my future, and I never compromise. Never.” Ulrike’s smile twisted into a sneer. “And no one stands in my way. Not even you.”

  Amara watched her sister raise a hand, palm facing out and aimed at her. She swallowed but didn’t move an inch. “No,” she said, her low voice trembling. “I won’t let you destroy yourself. You’re stronger than this. I know that you’re capable of turning this around—maybe even usi
ng it for good.”

  “And how did you suddenly become a mistress of the dark arts?”

  “I’ve read up on it and—and asked Mistress Alda for—”

  Ulrike let out a sound of annoyance and disgust. “Mistress Alda, the town witch? Well, I suppose I can’t accuse you of speaking without knowledge.” Her mouth curled in a sneer.

  Amara shook her head. “She said that if your will’s strong enough, you can still subvert your powers and use them for good.”

  “And if I don’t, hmm? I go mad. Is that it? I’m well aware of being able to turn my powers around, Fool, but why would I do that? What reason can you give me for taking a gift and twisting its purpose? It sounds like the last resort of the desperate and the feeble.”

  “The time will come, maybe, when you find yourself making that choice because you’ve got nothing else left.” Amara took a deep breath. “I won’t let you get that far.”

  Ulrike shrugged, her hand still raised. “Oh, fine. Don’t blame me, then.”

  With a gasp, Amara felt her breath wrung out of her lungs, as though an invisible, giant hand just took her in its grip and squeezed hard. She dropped her candle as she clawed frantically at her neck, the air, and when she collapsed on the floor, writhing and gasping, the cold wood beneath her.

  “I warned you, didn’t I? Stupid bitch.”

  Ulrike moved quickly, stepping over her choking sister and moving through the door without a second’s hesitation. Once the door shut behind her, the spell broke, and Amara wheezed and coughed as she struggled to fill her lungs with air. Tears squeezed out of her eyes at the horrific pain in her chest, and she could barely see the vague outlines of the bedroom furniture and the candle that lay on the floor beyond her reach. It took her several moments to breathe normally again, and when she did, it was all she could do to crawl to her bed, use it to raise herself up on weak and trembling legs, and then burrow under the blankets.