The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  "You," she snorted rudely.

  "That's 'you, your Highness,'" Keritanima corrected smoothly. "And did you forget where your knees are?"

  Sheba glared viciously at her as she stiffly curtsied.

  "That's much better," Keritanima smiled. "Almost ladylike."

  "Bah," Sheba grunted. "I have you to thank for this, Kerri. Do you have any idea what they did to me?"

  "They made you matriarch," Keritanima replied. "And if you want to keep your money, you have to be a good one."

  "It's hell!" Sheba said in a loud voice. "How do you girls put up with these damned dresses? I want my ship back, dammit! I want my ship and my crew and the wind in my face, but now the only wind I get in my face comes out of some fat nobleman's mouth!"

  "It's time to be respectable," Keritanima told her.

  "Respectable stinks!" Sheba said in a furious tone. "If I wanted respectable, I'd have been a more dutiful daughter!"

  Keritanima chuckled. Seeing Sheba squirm a bit was entertaining. "It's your father's fault, Sheba. He should never have plotted against me. I don't play games anymore."

  "My father was such a jackass," she fumed. "Not that I really care that you killed him, Kerri, but I really hate you for sticking me on his throne."

  "That's an unusual response, considering how far he went to get you back."

  "He wasn't saving me, he was saving the house's reputation," Sheba growled. "You didn't see what happened after I got home. He had me chained to a wall for a week and whipped me once a day!"

  "That's not very fun."

  "Not at all," she grunted, leaning against a table. "Now I have to stand around and talk nice to a bunch of idiots, and sit in endless trade meetings and meet merchants. I hate it! It was alot easier when I just stole the goods instead of bought them!"

  "At least until the law caught up with you."

  "The law didn't catch up with me. You did. If it weren't for you, my ship wouldn't have been blown out of the water. And I think you're enjoying seeing me suffer now, aren't you?"

  "A little," Keritanima admitted. "You have alot to answer for, Sheba. You stained the reputation of our entire kingdom. It's time to start cleaning the slate."

  "I was happy being bad."

  "Bad girls don't get very far, Sheba," Keritanima said sagely. "I think you'll find that if you apply yourself, you can find just as much satisfaction in trade as you did on your ship. Instead of trying to capture a ship, now you're trying to haggle just one more copper farthing out of some greedy trader's purse. Instead of the victory in battle, you get a victory in the trade agreement."

  "It's not the same," she huffed.

  "Of course not, but try to at least pretend," she replied. "It may take a while to adjust to it, and remember that it doesn't trap you on land. Arthas Zalan took a business trip here and there himself. You'll be on a ship again, you just won't be chasing innocent traders."

  "Why are you helping me?" she asked suddenly.

  Keritanima was brought up short. Why was she? Sheba had killed two men on the Star of Jerod and had really made a mess of their journey. But a part of her empathized a bit for the overwhelmed woman, and wanted to make things a bit easier for her. And there was absolutely no political motivations in it. It was a sincere desire to help. "I really don't know," Keritanima answered honestly. "I guess I just want to see you repent for your actions without having to suffer for them for the rest of your life."

  "You're weird, Kerri."

  "You're not the first person to tell me that," she replied with a slight smile.

  "Bah. Anyway, let me get what I came here for, before I decide to take this dagger out and stick you with it in payment for the wonderful life you've stuck me with."

  "At least that would be refreshingly direct," Keritanima chuckled as the panther Wikuni grabbed a loaf of bread, some cheese, a bottle of wine, and stalked out.

  Keritanima crossed her arms and watched her walk out, then chuckled to herself. There went someone even more annoyed than she was.

  Things were strangely tense when she returned to the apartment. Miranda was pacing, and Azakar was putting on his armor quickly as Binter sharpened the Knight's sword for him. The ten Royal Guards outside the apartment had made no facial or body language indications that anything untowards had happened, so the agitation of her friends was just a bit disconcerting. "What's your problem?" she asked as she pushed the tray with their breakfast into the sitting room. To keep her friends safe, she wouldn't even allow a servant to touch the tray.

  "We just got visited," Miranda said immediately. "By your father himself. I'm surprised you didn't pass him in the hallway."

  Keritanima raised an brow. "What did he say?"

  "He didn't say anything," she replied. "He just asked for you. When I told him you weren't here, he left. I heard him tell the Chamberlain to find you and have you brought to his study."

  "Who was with him?"

  "About ten guards, the Chamberlain, about four men wearing the badges of advisors, and two or three men wearing priest's cassocks," she replied.

  "Strange. His spies should have told him I wasn't here, unless he came on purpose," she said frettingly. This was an unexpected development, something that she didn't think would happen. Her father was terrified of her, and he knew that she would kill him if she had half the chance. Wiping out a room of dignitaries would be little obstruction to getting at her father, and having a good chance of getting away with it. He had to be aware of that. So why risk getting within her hand's reach, unless maybe he was getting desperate? "Finish getting dressed, Zak. I need you two to be ready for anything."

  "What's your plan?"

  "Saving the Chamberlain the trouble of tracking me down," she replied. "Azakar, you're staying here with Miranda. I want you to barricade yourself behind the doors in Binter's bedroom before me and Binter leave."

  "Barricade? You mean stack furniture in front of them?"

  "I mean just that," she said bluntly. "I'm going to Ward and trap the door into my bedroom, the door into yours and Binter's room, and Ward Binter's room so nobody can break through the walls, floor, or ceiling. That way, anyone who finds a way into the apartment has to go through at least two magical traps to reach you."

  "Why the safeguards?"

  "Because my father has no reason to want to see me out of court," she stated analytically. "He knows that if I catch him alone or with a small group, I can kill all of them just to get rid of the witnesses when I kill him. He had no earthly reason to want to get within a hundred yards of me without a few hundred people to see it. The fact that he wants me out of my apartment only means that there's a reason he wants me out of my apartment."

  "I guess that makes sense," Azakar agreed.

  As Binter and Azakar pulled the apartment's furniture into the room they shared, Keritanima wove her Wards on the doors. They were lethal Wards, designed to kill anyone who touched them except for her, Binter, Miranda, or Azakar, and she wove it so tightly that the Ward would last all day. She also Warded the bars on her window, which would cause them to kill any living beings that came into contact with them. After she was done, she carried everything she wanted kept secret and safe into Binter's room, such as the satchel of papers, the crest and other secret items she owned, and a few other odds and ends she preferred not to be handled by someone else. While she waited for Binter and Azakar to stack heavy furniture up against the door leading into her bedroom, she wove together the powerful Ward onto the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room. It was a Ward mainly designed to harden the stone and prevent anything less than a Giant from breaking through them. She also wove into it certain safeguards that would only permit fresh air to pass into the room, stopping any smoke, poisonous or drugged gasses, or fire from penetrating into the chamber.

  She was taking no chances.

  She and Binter traded calm yet urgent farewells with Miranda and Azakar, and they left the room. They waited for a few moments, hearing Azakar pile more furniture up ag
ainst the inside of the door. They had the breakfast tray in there, enough food and water to last them all day, should she be detained.

  She was weary by the time she created the Ward she kept on the door to her apartment, a Ward the Royal Guard knew was there, for she had warned them never to touch her door on pain of death. After she was done, she ordered the ranking Guard to double the men protecting her apartment, and gave him explicit orders not to allow anyone to come within five feet of her door, no matter who ordered him to be there. She told him that only a personal visit from the King himself with orders from his own mouth would countermand her own orders, not to accept any written orders no matter whose seal was upon them. They weren't too happy about that, but it was their duty to serve. They had to obey her orders, because they didn't violate the tenets under which the Royal Guard operated.

  She knew where her father would be. She had been in his study many times, and she knew it to be his favorite place to conduct business when not in court. It was the first chamber in his own apartments, and the place was a character study of her father's personality. It was not decorated at all. There were no tapestries, no paintings, no sculpture, not even a carpet on the stone floor. Stone and wood panelled walls contained a desk, several bookshelves, chairs and couches upon which visitors sat, and an elaborate shelf hanging on a wall held a hook attached underneath it, upon which the wooden hangar for his Royal robes hung. His crown and sceptre sat on a velvet cushion on a stand beside the shelf , and there were two Royal Guards flanking that stand and shelf at all times. It was a reflection of his personality. The place where he contrived his plots and ordered the suffering of the people around him had nothing in it to distract him from the conductance of that dark business, allowing him to focus himself on the tasks at hand. It was a stark room, and it tended to intimidate those who were called into it. There were two doors leading into the apartments from that study. One led to what many called the Harem Chamber, a lavishly decorated bedroom where Damon Eram took those women he had called to an audience to bed them. The other door led into his private residence.

  The place had not changed since the last time she gazed upon it. Binter ducked to get in the door as he came up behind her, making her take a couple of steps into a room filled with hostility. They had been allowed in by the four men guarding the door, and inside were those same men who had accompanied her father when they called at her door. Nine of them, Wikuni of varying types, all of them staring at her. Not a few gazed at her with fear, a few with contempt, and a couple with a kind of morbid curiosity. Keritanima swept her gaze of them, staring at them with her amber eyes one by one until they looked away, until her gaze locked on her father's large yellow eyes and stayed there. Just the sight of him sitting at his desk was enough for her to snarl just enough to show a little fang. Seeing him this close reminded her how much she despised and detested the man.

  "I see the Chamberlain found you," Damon Eram announced in a strong voice. There was no hint of fear in that voice, but she knew he was a good actor.

  "Nine? That's all?" she said easily. "I'm surprised at you, father. I figured the room would be crowded with witnesses."

  "Well, the issue of your magical powers doesn't concern me anymore, daughter," he said calmly. Easily. He pointed to the priests to one side. "I've been, isolated, from any kind of magical attack, thanks to the dedication of our most excellent priesthood. You may be able to kill everyone else with your magic, but you can't touch me. And I'm big enough to handle you, little girl. Binter won't obey you if you tell him to attack me. He may be your bodyguard, but I'm still his King, and he won't attack his monarch."

  "How convenient for you," she said quietly, but her mind was racing in excitement. How wonderful! It was so hard to contain her elation that she had to work hard not to dance around the room. Her father had just ensured that what she was about to do next could in no way be tracked back to her! "Is that why you called me in here? To gloat?"

  "I want the Firestaff," he announced with a frown. "I want to know where it is right now."

  "And what makes you think I'd tell you that?" she countered.

  "Because you continue to live at my suffrance," he replied. "I'm not playing games anymore, daughter. If you don't tell me where it is, I'll have you executed where you stand."

  "And risk seeing your only chance to get it spill out on the floor? I don't think so," she replied calmly.

  "True. But there are other ways. Binter," he said bluntly, looking at the Vendari. "Has she ever said where the Firestaff is?"

  Binter stood there for a long moment. "She has not, your Majesty," he replied.

  "Do you know where it is?"

  "I do not, your Majesty," he answered.

  "Does she know where it is, Binter?" he asked pointedly.

  It hung there for a moment. "I cannot say," he replied. "She does not confide in me. If she does know, she hasn't told me."

  Keritanima looked at Binter for a very long time. She absolutely could not believe what she just heard, and the implications of it rocked her to the foundation of her soul.

  Binter had just lied!

  Binter had just done the one thing that no Vendari could do! It was so wrapped up in their society, their culture, and the gods, that no Vendari could lie. They were absolutely, psychologically, even physically incapable of it. That universal truth was a cornerstone of the world's dealing with the Vendari. That anything a Vendari said was the truth, or at least it was truth to that Vendari. Binter had just said something that he knew wasn't true, because he knew that she didn't really know where the Firestaff was! How could he have done it?

  "I see," Damon Eram said, leaning back in his chair. "So, it comes back to this, daughter. Tell me where it is, or I'll have one of your servants executed every hour. Miranda will be executed first. Then the human. Then Binter. And if you still won't say, I'll have one of my inquisitors drag that information out of you by force."

  "No, it comes back to this, father," she said, raising her hands. Lightning sizzled between those hands, and then she pushed them to her side, aiming them at the men who wore the badges of King's Advisors. A bolt of brilliant lightning blasted out from her hands, and it raked across the three men so quickly that they couldn't dodge out of the way. All three men fell to the floor, smoke wafting from their fancy clothes, and the smell of charred flesh and singed fur filled the room. The people in the room stared at her in shock, as she held up a hand and allowed electrical energy to dance around her fingers in a very impressive display of her power. "I may not be able to kill you, but I can kill everyone else. Touch my maid or my bodyguards, and I'll kill absolutely everyone that allows you to hold on to that throne. You may get rid of my servants, but you'll lose your crown in the bargain. And when you're not king anymore, your tail will be mine. Don't ever forget that."

  "Rash words, daughter," Damon Eram said, not giving the dead men a single sidelong glance, standing up and putting his hands on the desk.

  "Truth," she replied nonchalantly, folding her arms beneath her breasts in a slow, easy movment. "I'm not a little girl you can bully. Push me, and I'll push back even harder."

  "I think you're bluffing," he said pugnaciously.

  "Do you really want to take that chance?" she asked pointedly.

  It hung there for a very long moment. "Consider yourself under arrest for murder," he said spitingly.

  "And as soon as you hold the trial, I'll tell everyone all about your promise to murder my friends to extract information out of me," she replied. "You may be king, but you're still bound by the law. Not even you stand above that."

  "I am king! I make the law!" he hissed.

  "Make yourself a god, father, and you'll find out how quickly you'll lose your crown," she told him smoothly. "Then you'll be the god of the lost."

  "You are very close to not having a trial, daughter," he hissed threateningly.

  "And you are very close to being exposed as nothing more than a heartless monster," she replied. "I'm
sure your army and the people would love to know just what kind of man they serve."

  That hit a nerve. Damon Eram sat back down hard and glared at Keritanima with hot eyes. "You are confined to your room," he growled.

  "No."

  "What?"

  "I said no," she replied. "I will not be bullied by you. If you want me to stay in my room, make me."

  "How dare you!" Damon Eram screamed, jumping to his feet and hooking the claws on his hand on the corner of his desk. He heaved it aside, nearly crashing it into his priests, and advanced on Keritanima with murder in his eyes. But he came up short when Keritanima raised her hand and pointed her palm at him. His fear of her was still very tangible, whether or not he was protected from her magic, and that moment of hesitation was enough for her to step back so that Binter was closer to him than she was. He may not be afraid of her physically, but he'd be a maniac to think that he could get to her through the Vendari.

  "Your Majesty, I think that--" one of his priests began, but Damon Eram cut him off.

  "Silence!" he roared. "Get out of my sight, daughter, before I kill you myself!"

  "Try," she said in a deadly voice, her eyes narrowing to slits.

  "Your Majesty, your Highness, I think it is best if this audience were to end," one of the priests said in a reasonable voice, stepping between them. Keritanima had to admire the man's guts to so blatantly get in the path of death.

  Keritanima glared at Damon Eram around the priest. "Don't push me, father," she warned. "You'll make me cranky. You don't want to see me when I'm cranky."

  "Get out! Get out! Get out!!!" Damon Eram shrieked hysterically. He was nearly frothing at the mouth.