A Symphony of Storms (Demon Crown Book 3)

by Vardeman, Robert E.

  “Yes!” Lorens’ command came out a snake’s hiss. He dared not lose the crown again. Vered might have hidden it. Torture would loosen his lips, if he had secreted the crown elsewhere.

  The newly commissioned officer rushed off to obey. When he returned with half the force, Lorens stopped him. “These are the ones you have chosen?”

  “They are the best of those remaining, Majesty.”

  “Good. I will command them. You are to remain in camp and take my sister and the ancient thief into custody.”

  “What of your brother-in-law?”

  “Dear Bane will be my honoured guest. Chains for the other two, royal treatment for my new ally.” With that, Lorens motioned the lieutenant off his horse and got up in his place. This mission was too important to trust to a green officer and one who would probably be put to death soon for incompetence.

  It was so hard finding good officers.

  Lorens held back the demonic cackling that rose to his lips. For a brief, sobering instant, the red-lit land of death and pain appeared in front of him. Demons cavorted and pointed. Lorens shook off the vision. He was going to recover the Demon Crown. He could deal with the demonic presence later.

  The ravine provided better cover than he’d dared hope for. Lorens positioned his men and sat quietly, waiting for Vered and the crown. In less than ten minutes he heard the clicking of a horse’s hooves against the rocky ground. The dark figure that rose on the far bank of the ravine made Lorens catch his breath.

  The green glow from the Demon Crown was visible even through the carrying bag and the crystal case holding it. Lorens wiped sweat from his upper lip. Did he truly see it or did he see it? Whichever it was, Lorens sensed victory close at hand.

  He stood, hand on his dagger. There would be no need to let this miserable worm live. He had the crown with him.

  Vered rode down the steep embankment. In the instant his horse struggled to keep its footing, Lorens’ guard attacked. The horse neighed loudly as a long pike was thrust in front of its hooves. The horse crashed to its knees and sent rider and crown into the air.

  By the time Vered had recovered his breath, he stared up into Lorens’ smirking face.

  “We meet again, you and I. Give me the crown.”

  Vered tried to kick Lorens’ legs from under him. He failed. Lorens dropped to one knee and pressed his dagger against Vered’s throat.

  “The crown,” repeated Lorens.

  Vered reached slowly for the rucksack containing the crown and its case. He opened the flap and revealed the crown. Seeing the Demon Crown again, Lorens forgot everything. Like a greedy youngling given a new toy, he grabbed for the crown with both hands. Vered tried to wiggle free but the guards surrounded him.

  “It will destroy you if you put it on again,” he warned Lorens.

  The wizard-king did not hear him. Hands trembling, he lifted the crown and gently placed it on his brow. Lorens jerked stiffly erect and his eyes glazed over. The crown changed from the verdant, lush, alive hues it had assumed when Lokenna wore it to the all-too-familiar corroded copper green bespeaking decay and death.

  “It is Sef who mounts the attack against the castle,” Lorens said. He turned toward Castle Porotane. His face hardened. “They killed my double. They killed Nosto. Anneshoria and Theoll now rule — no, wait. Theoll just murdered Anneshoria. Theoll thinks to usurp my power. The snivelling whoreson!”

  Lorens spun about and stormed off.

  “Majesty, what of this one?” called a soldier with a sword point at Vered’s throat. He received no answer from the king, but the lieutenant remembered his orders.

  “Never mind him. We ride straight for the castle.”

  Vered did not question why Lorens had ordered his life preserved for the moment, but he doubted it meant he would die of old age. The question foremost in his mind was the fate of Santon and Lokenna. Nothing would make Santon reveal the signal; he would die first. But what had Lorens done to his sister?

  The guards dragged Vered back to the temporary campsite. Another small knot of soldiers told Vered where Santon and Lokenna were. He was shoved against his friend; they went down in a pile.

  “Vered, they caught you!” Santon moaned at the disaster that had befallen them.

  “The crown. Tell us, Vered. What of it?” Lokenna’s fear spread through Vered like wildfire.

  “You didn’t betray me? But how did he know? Does Lorens still retain the power given him by the crown?”

  “No, impossible. But he has the crown now. I saw him ride past. He didn’t even look in our direction,” said Santon.

  “Why bother? He can see anywhere in the kingdom using the magic of the crown. Eyes and ears are feeble in comparison. But I rode into a trap. How did he know?”

  Lokenna’s face went pale. “My husband. He must have overheard and betrayed us to Lorens.”

  “But why? This means our death — all our deaths.” Vered grunted when a soldier poked him with a lance. They moved slowly toward the castle and its towering walls.

  They spoke softly as they were herded forward. Santon said, “He and Lokenna are…drifting apart.”

  “Sailing apart is more like it,” said Vered. “She has become a queen and left him a poor innkeeper.”

  “But he loved me!” protested Lokenna, still shocked. “How could Bane turn me over to certain death?”

  “Where is he?” asked Vered. “Do you think Lorens has already killed him?”

  “Pandasso lives,” came the new lieutenant’s voice from behind. The officer poked them again with a sword to keep them walking briskly. “He thought to barter with King Lorens.”

  “The crown for a return to the way it was in Fron,” guessed Santon

  “No, not even Bane is that stupid,” said Lokenna.

  The derisive snort from the young lieutenant contradicted the woman’s claim.

  “I came through heavy rebel troop emplacements,” said Vered. “We are going into the teeth of a new storm.”

  The lieutenant grunted and prodded harder in way of an answer. Vered was not to be denied his chance to talk. To Santon he said, “There is no way the castle can survive the force Dalziel Sef has mustered. Even if the political will is there, the castle must fall this time.”

  Santon explained briefly what he had learned of the conditions within Castle Porotane. Nothing his friend said made Vered feel any better.

  “I came so far with the crown and not once did I so much as touch it,” he said.

  “I must know,” said Lokenna. “How did you follow us? We saw no hint of you in Ionia’s tunnel or on the river.”

  Vered laughed at this. “I had help. Someone showed me the way through the mountains. It was not easy, but I survived and actually came out below you on the river. I might have arrived here before you.”

  “Help?” Santon’s voice almost cracked with the strain. He knew Vered would not trust any casual meeting with strangers in the Yorral Mountains. “Did Alarice’s phantom aid you?”

  Vered nodded. “She is drawn by the power in the crown. She sensed my weakness and gave me the will to resist its lure.”

  Lokenna looked from man to man, not sure if they made fun of her. Their solemn expressions and the way Santon turned away and stared forward fixedly assured her that this was no mere jape on their parts.

  “Can we rely on her aid inside the castle?” she asked in a whisper.

  Vered shook his head. “She told me that Lorens’ power repels her. She is a wizard — but she is also a phantom. Her control over things living is diminishing.”

  A sudden lightning bolt arched across the vault of the clear night-time sky. Everyone in the small party looked up in surprise.

  “Where is the storm cloud that generated that?” Santon wondered aloud.

  “It builds over the Castle of the Winds,” said Vered. “Alarice fears the Wizard of Storms and his meddling in the kingdom’s affairs.”

  “It’s raining from a clear sky. How is this possible?” marvelle
d Lokenna.

  They trotted toward the thick brambles surrounding the castle and, at the officer’s goading, pushed aside a wall of thorns to reveal a small highway through the thicket. Lorens dismounted and rushed ahead, the glow from the Demon Crown lighting their way.

  “See how it possesses him totally? He is its slave, not its master.” Vered hesitated before entering the bramble tunnel. With Lorens ahead and the soldiers behind, their chance of escape would be diminished. A hard blow to the back of his head sent him stumbling forward.

  “Move along now,” came the cold command. “You’ve got a tryst with a torturer in the dungeons.”

  “I would go happily to my death,” said Santon, “if I could have only a moment alone with Pandasso.”

  “I join you in that fond wish,” said Vered. Rain pelted down from the empty sky, blown down from storms raging over the northern Uvain Plateau. He jumped again when a clap of thunder rolled across the kingdom. It sounded to him as if the reclusive wizard hidden away in his mountains fastness had just declared war.

  “We’ll never see our way free of this,” he grumbled. “Lorens’ soldiers have us bound for the dungeon, Sef attacks at dawn, and the Wizard of Storms sends his own weapons against the lot of us. Even if we escape, we’d likely be frozen in his blizzards or beaten to death by his wind or drowned by his floods.”

  “That’s the Vered I know and love,” said Santon. “Always looking on the bright side.”

  “What’s worse, my tunic is getting ripped apart by these damnable thorns!”

  They came to the castle’s stone wall and paralleled it for half a mile. Neither had seen this entry point. A large gate yawned wide and dark before them. The soldiers crowded them through and into a small courtyard Vered identified as being near the southwestern corner of the castle.

  When they were forced together in a tight knot by the soldiers, Bane Pandasso rode in. From his precarious perch on horseback he stared down at them. His eyes had turned to saucers and his hands trembled.

  “Lokenna, I never meant for this to happen. I wanted only for it to be the way it was between us. The inn. The — ”

  “Silence,” snapped the lieutenant. “I have no orders concerning you. The others go straight to the dungeons.”

  Pandasso turned and swung awkwardly, trying to hit the lieutenant. The officer ducked easily and used the flat of his sword to knock Pandasso to the ground.

  “Put him in with them,” the new officer ordered his squad.

  “But King Lorens said he was to be treated as an honoured guest.”

  “Go tell Lorens, then,” snapped the lieutenant. “Very well,” he continued when he saw that no one in this small command had the nerve. “Get the four of them to the dungeons.” A wicked smile crossed the man’s lips. “And put them all in the same cell.” He saluted Santon and said, “I have no great love for traitors, either.”

  Lorens erupted into the main courtyard and looked around wildly. Only a few patrolling sentries saw his dramatic entrance. Hurried whispers passed among them and finally one daring guard rushed off to find the commander of the guard and report this unseemly entrance of a man they had thought dead.

  Lorens settled down and used the power of the crown to shift his senses through the castle, examining it room by room, listening and watching and learning. He trembled with rage by the time he spied the frantic guard helping Captain Squann down the corridor and out into the courtyard.

  “Squann, where is Theoll?”

  “Majesty,” the captain said, almost doubled over from his injury. “He and Lady Anneshoria — ”

  “I know,” cut in Lorens. “I know about that. Where lies Baron Theoll’s loyalty? To himself or to me?”

  Captain Squann straightened painfully. “I am sure he will greet your return. We thought you had died.”

  “Liar! You saw my double assassinated. You knew it was not I who died!”

  “Majesty!” the officer protested. ”How could I have known? The double was too good. Until this moment, I thought you had perished and with you the power of the crown.” The captain’s eyes fixed on the blazing ring of green-glowing gold circling Lorens’ head.

  “I will deal with you later. First, I must find Theoll.” Lorens pivoted and faced the eastern portion of the courtyard. “There, He is there, trying to ascend the throne and take the power and title that belongs to me. How dare he!”

  Lorens trembled as he felt power welling up within. He tried to form the spell that would cause Theoll’s guts to erupt from every orifice in his body. What had worked against the rebel soldiers now failed him, even with the augmenting power from the Demon Crown.

  To cover his frustration, Lorens shouted, “I’ll kill him with my bare hands!” He ignored the sudden downpour of rain and snow from the clear sky; his attention fixed totally on Baron Theoll.

  Lorens saw the castle grapevine at work. Theoll learned of his return almost as quickly and surely as if he had used the Demon Crown. The baron blanched and ran. Lorens watched — saw — his every move using the crown’s power. Theoll darted down one hallway and up another, finding back staircases and pushing through dormitories where soldiers slept noisily. No matter where he ran, Lorens followed magically.

  Theoll fearfully looked up and down a broad corridor before opening a secret carved wood panel and slipping into the myriad ways built between walls. Even the thick stone did not prevent Lorens from seeing where Theoll ran.

  Step firm and face cold as his anger grew, Lorens began to close the distance between them. Theoll used the secret passages that had given him power. Lorens relied on the ultimate magic in the Demon Crown.

  Lorens came to the throne room. At one end of the immense audience chamber rose the dais holding the throne that so many coveted. He stared at it, as if seeing it for the first time. Since his father King Lamost had reigned from that throne, a usurper, a double, Theoll, and Anneshoria had occupied it. Their rule had been brief.

  Lorens would rule for a thousand years!

  The power erupting from sources found by the crown, he turned and laid his hands on a blank stone wall. Fingers glowing with an ugly green light, he pulled back suddenly. The wall collapsed and revealed a cowering Theoll.

  “You thought to depose me, Baron. I cannot tolerate that.”

  “I only meant to hold the throne as regent, Majesty. I meant you no harm.”

  “Liar!” raged Lorens.

  Theoll saw death in Lorens’ eyes and glowing touch. He stood and stared up at the magic-possessed wizard-king. Fear evaporated in the face of certain death.

  “I wanted the throne,” Theoll said defiantly. “And the brief time between Freow’s death and your return I governed Porotane well. I would do it again!”

  Theoll lunged, dirk gleaming in the greenish glow cast by Lorens’ hands and the Demon Crown.

  The spell conjured by Lorens caught the small baron and threw him high into the air. Theoll crashed to the floor, burned by the magical fires and crushed by the height of his fall. Rebellion still flickered in his dying eyes.

  “You mock me. You, you little worm!” Lorens launched a burst of magic so intense it burned the flesh from the left side of Theoll’s body. The monarch struggled to create the spell that would make the baron explode. That spell eluded him again.

  “I would make a better king,” sobbed out Theoll. The baron clawed his way up the steps to the throne. Before Lorens could cross the room and drive the dagger deep into his heart, Theoll sat on the throne.

  For the span of a heartbeat he was King of Porotane.

  CHAPTER XII

  “Don’t kill me. Please don’t!” begged Bane Pandasso. His eyes had turned wide with fear when the cell door slammed behind them. Birtle Santon and Vered glared at the man. Lokenna stood to one side, not willing to interfere if the two adventurers decided to strangle her husband, as they had promised.

  “You betrayed me — us!” roared Vered. “I don’t lose my temper often. I am losing it now!”


  “Wait, Vered,” cautioned Santon. “This will do us no good.”

  “Killing this slug? It’ll make me feel better at being tossed in this stinking dungeon. That’s what good it will do.”

  “Lorens is watching with the crown,” said Lokenna. “I feel the blackness about it. It…it tickles — or burns. It is difficult to describe its vile magic.”

  “Then let him see what becomes of his toadies.

  Santon grabbed Vered’s arm and held the younger man back. “Did it ever occur to you that this is exactly what Lorens wants? He’d love nothing better than to see us rip one another apart in our anger.”

  “Let it be his blood that flows.” Vered spat at Pandasso.

  “I did not mean this to happen. I only wanted life to return to the way it was before you came to Fron.” The man’s bulky belly rolled to and fro as he talked. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s the pair of you!”

  “You betrayed us to my brother,” said Lokenna. “Even one as naive as you, Bane, ought to have known what that meant.”

  “Lorens enjoys wearing the crown,” Vered said coldly, his anger beginning to fade. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “How was I to know?” Pandasso wiped at the tears forming in his eyes. “Do you think an innkeeper knows of such things? Or an innkeeper’s wife?” He spun on Lokenna. “What do you mean calling me ‘naive’?”

  “You are, my husband.”

  “And you, the wife of a simple innkeeper, have somehow gained the wisdom of the world? Pah!” Pandasso spat and moved from the trio, hunkering down in a corner of the straw-littered stone cell.

  “I have,” Lokenna said softly. “The Demon Crown educates its wearer quickly.”

  “But it hasn’t taken control of you,” Santon formed the words as a statement, but he almost turned it into a question. Lokenna was vastly different from the woman they had met, and the crown had been the only instrument capable of such change.

  “The crown does not force change. It allows it. I lack the proper words to make you understand. If there is weakness, it destroys you through them, but if you use your strength with the crown, you become invincible!”