The Sleeping King

by Cindy Dees

  Pity? Normally, she was acutely aware of and able to interpret the unspoken currents flowing through situations like this, but for once she was confounded.

  “It is time,” Kadir finally broke the silence by announcing.

  Charlotte’s mouth compressed into a thin, white line of displeasure. Raina’s anxiety momentarily gave way to amusement at seeing her mother so discomfited.

  “Give us a moment alone, if you please, gentlemen.”

  Without comment, both men stood and moved to the door. “We shall be directly outside,” Kadir murmured gently. That almost sounded like words of support from him. Her mother’s gaze softened for an instant at his turned back.

  The door closed behind the two men, and in a moment a magical glow became visible between the wooden panels and the floor. A wizard’s lock? The mages had locked her in here with her mother?

  What in the world was afoot? Raina turned to Charlotte expectantly and was stunned to see the woman at an apparent loss for words. “What in stars’ name is going on, Mother?”

  “Perhaps I should have told you from the beginning that this day would come. But it seemed kinder to let you have your childhood in innocence.”

  The same dread that had overtaken her earlier when the mages arrived crept along Raina’s spine once more, running its cold fingers insidiously up the back of her neck.

  “As you know, our family has a long history of holding these lands. Since the time of a great king: a human named Hadrian who was also a great mage.”

  Raina blinked. The Kothites had always ruled Urth. This Hadrian must have been a king within the Kothite Empire, then. But here? In Haelos? A legend, then.

  “… and this man chose for himself a bride. A daughter of the House of Tyrel by the name of Arianna.”

  The dread fingers slid around her neck to clutch at Raina’s throat. Her sister was named Arianna. The firstborn daughter of the house was always named Arianna. Tradition had it that, to every generation of the family, the first two children born were always girls. No one seemed to know why it was so. But so it incontrovertibly was. Maybe not entirely legend, this tale of her mother’s.

  Her mother continued, “The story has been handed down through the Mages of Alchizzadon since the time of its occurrence that, on their wedding day, a great attack happened. Hadrian took up sword and wand to defend his lands. He vanquished his foe, but at great personal cost. He called upon more magic than his body could withstand and burned himself out entirely. He would have died had not his court mages rushed in to stabilize his body and trap a small piece of his spirit within it. But without a massive infusion of great magic, his … husk … could not be revived. He has lain in stasis, neither alive nor dead, ever since, awaiting the day when the descendants of his court mages find a means of gathering enough of the raw, unchanneled magics of a bygone age to infuse them into his remains and revive him.”

  In spite of herself, Raina’s mind raced, reviewing her training in the healing arts. A spirit balanced forever on the sword’s edge between life and death was not natural. Spirits fell into one realm or the other, but they did not hover endlessly between the two. Such a state, defying the laws of life and death, would have to be caused by powerful ritual magic of some kind not to have worn off eventually. Surely high-magic cures had been tried to restore this king.

  Charlotte was speaking again. “Time passed. Generations came and went. Yet, the Great Mage—as he became called—slept on. Meanwhile, the House of Tyrel waited.”

  How could a story like that have survived so long? Frankly, it sounded like an overblown hearth tale to Raina. She asked skeptically, “And you are certain these mages speak truth with this tale of theirs?”

  Charlotte nodded firmly. “They have hidden and guarded the story from the Empire with great care. I am confident they speak the truth as they know it.”

  “Mayhap they use it to gain favors and gold from us,” Raina retorted.

  “They take nothing from the House of Tyrel. At least not in the way you think.” Her mother paused, apparently searching for words. Charlotte’s gaze drifted to the window and her eyes darkened with memory.

  Raina waited so long she wondered if her mother had forgotten she was not alone. Finally, unable to contain her curiosity, Raina asked, “How do they seek to restore the Great Mage, Mother?”

  Charlotte started. She seemed to gather her thoughts and then continued, “Our family made a promise to the king moments before he left to do battle for his kingdom. We vowed that when he returned, his bride would be waiting for him. Arianna of the House of Tyrel.”

  The dread tightened its hold on Raina’s throat, digging its claws in so painfully she struggled to breathe. How would a bride restore this mage of theirs?

  “For all these centuries, we have kept our promise. The firstborn daughter of each generation is given the name Arianna and is trained in all the arts and skills befitting a queen. And when the Great Mage finally rises, she will be ready and waiting.”

  It was as if a bright light exploded inside her head. So much suddenly made sense! All of her sister’s years of training that seemed so useless out here on the edge of civilization. Etiquette and comportment, art, dance, and music. Training in managing great castles and estates. Endless study of history and politics and diplomacy. Arianna was being prepared to be a queen. Oh yes. It all made perfect sense.

  Of course, as the little sister, Raina had been forced to tag along and endure the same education from the expensive tutors. In addition, her early talent for magic had secretly been nurtured outside the purview of the distant Imperial Mage’s Guild, who, thankfully, had no chapter house or members for a hundred leagues around. It added yet more hours of study and practice to her days, for mastering the physics of magical energy was an arduous endeavor at best.

  Charlotte remained silent, yet Raina sensed the real crux of the tale had yet to be told. “This is all well and good, Mother, but how does it affect me? So far, my sister is the point of your story.”

  “Ahh, but you are wrong. This story is about you as well. For you see, any bride of the Great Mage must remain unmarried. Pure.”

  “But I thought Arianna was supposed to travel. To find a husband abroad.”

  “That is the story we put forth to explain our tradition to outsiders.”

  It was all a lie? Her mother was speaking again.

  “Another daughter must be born each generation to take the previous Arianna’s place. And that task falls to the second daughter.”

  Raina felt like one of her brothers had just punched her in the belly. She was the second daughter. She took a steadying breath. Then said reasonably, “So I am destined to bear daughters as my first two offspring. And I shall be expected to raise one of them as a queen. I can do that.”

  Charlotte sighed. “Your duty extends beyond that, I am afraid.”

  Now Charlotte’s eyes gleamed with pity, too. Grief, even. Raina glanced toward the door, a desire to bolt so strong she barely managed to keep her seat. The trap her mother had laid was near ready to spring.

  “How so?” Raina asked cautiously.

  “There is a problem in producing a bride fit for the Great Mage.”

  Here it comes. “What sort of problem?”

  “He was born long ago. In a time when magics were more powerful than they are today. Much more powerful. And the king was an exceptional mage even for his time.”

  Charlotte hesitated.

  “And?” Raina prompted in an agony of impatience and fear.

  “And it has fallen to us to produce a bride of sufficient magical tolerance that lying with the Great Mage and bearing his children will not destroy her.”

  Destroy her? Destroy her? Her brain refused to make sense of the words. By main force she managed to choke out, “Destroy her? How?”

  “I speak of olde magick. Raw. Unchanneled. If magic today were the flame of a candle, by comparison this olde magick would be a wildfire roaring before a storm. Exposure to it would bur
n out the spirit of any person of normal constitution. Kill them permanently.”

  Raina frowned. Suspicion blossomed at the back of her consciousness. Her own extraordinary talent for magic. Her ability at an unheard-of age to harness and channel tricky ritual magics. Her capacity to produce huge amounts of magical energy—much beyond what most adult mages mastered with a lifetime of practice. “We’ve been bred to tolerate such magics, haven’t we? The daughters of the House of Tyrel.”

  Charlotte nodded, looking mightily relieved that Raina comprehended. “You understand, then, why the father of your daughters must also be a powerful mage, carefully selected—”

  “What?” Raina started to stand. She would’ve run from the room, but her heavy gown tangled around her legs and prevented it.

  Charlotte’s voice rang out, lashing Raina before she could escape, driving her back down into her seat. “It is your duty, Raina. Three hundred generations of women before you have done their duty, and so will you.” Her voice softened. “A marriage will be arranged for you to a nice young man. When that has happened, the mages will … provide one of their own of sufficient magical power to strengthen the line. Your husband will be given poisons of forgetting. He will believe, along with everyone else, that your daughters are his. Once you have borne the required daughters, you will be free to have children with your husband and live out your days in peace.”

  Comprehension burst across her brain and she leaped to her feet. “I am not your husband’s child?”

  And then the rest of it hit.

  The mages were here. Now. Did they expect this travesty to transpire soon, then? How soon? Was one of them supposed to be the father of the next generation of daughters? A total stranger? Would they marry her off and then have one of them force himself upon her until she bore a child? She stared at her mother in horror.

  Charlotte held up an imperious hand. “Don’t say it. Listen to me, Raina. They have elixirs. Magical drinks to make you deeply infatuated with the young man they have chosen, and him deeply infatuated with you. Trust me, it will be a special and wonderful experience. One you will never forget. A cherished memory.”

  “How,” Raina demanded in a terrible voice born of rage and outrage, “can drug-induced rape to make a … a broodmare … out of me possibly be anything other than humiliating and appalling?”

  Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, but Raina cut her off. “How can you ask this of me? You’ve been a victim of this degradation … this crime … and yet you would perpetrate it on me? Your own daughter?”

  Her mother stared at her, stricken, and said soothingly, “I know it comes as a shock. But give it a little time. You will grow used to the idea.”

  Raina enunciated carefully, “I will never consent to be anybody’s broodmare. I will choose the father of my children, and I will not cuckold my husband. If I happen to have a daughter, I will agree to raise her in the family tradition of preparing her to be a queen. If she chooses to do the same for her daughter someday, that will be her choice. Her choice, Mother.”

  Charlotte closed her eyes for a long, pained moment. “I understand you are shocked. I reacted the same way at first. But it gets better. Who knows? You may even grow fond of the father after a fashion.”

  Raina reached for her neck and the blazon of House Tyrel hanging there from a silver chain. With a violent wrench, she broke the chain and slammed the pendant onto her mother’s desk. The three-petaled white flower on its blue lapis field glinted up at her. She put her palms on her mother’s desk and leaned forward, staring daggers into her mother’s eyes. “Know this, Mother mine. I will never lie with a man of your choosing to satisfy those mages. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Crystal.” Placating Charlotte gave way to authoritarian Charlotte. Raina’s mother glared back, matching dagger for dagger. “And know this, Daughter mine. You will do your duty if I have to tie you up and pour the poison down your throat with my own hands.”

  Raina whirled and yanked open the office door. She threw up her hands and blasted away the wizard’s lock with so much violence that two mages waiting outside staggered back against the far wall. She raced past them, furious tears burning her eyes. The younger mage made a grab for her, but she ducked under his arm and darted for the stairs.

  She heard the beginning of a confining spell incant behind her in Kadir’s voice and then Charlotte interrupting him sharply, “No! Let her go. We do this my way.”

  An instant’s gratitude for her intervention was swallowed up quickly by Raina’s burgeoning sense of outrage and betrayal. She did not know how she would avoid the fate those monstrous mages and her mother had planned for her, but she would find a way.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Something slashed through Will’s sleeve, plowing a furrow across his upper arm. He ignored the searing pain. A stray arrow was the least of his troubles at the moment.

  Frantic figures appeared in windows, yanking wooden shutters inward and slamming them shut. Thank the Lady. At least the villagers wouldn’t be taken completely by surprise and slaughtered in their beds. A few men emerged, half-clothed in nightshirts, trousers, and assorted bits of armor, awkwardly wielding rusty swords, cracked wooden shields, and various farm implements. They formed up in a crooked line. The local militia, such as it was.

  He veered left for the tidy cottage at the far end of the lane. Home. The front door cracked open, and Will was stunned to see two dark-cloaked figures slip stealthily into the night. He recognized the tall form of his father and the petite, elegant silhouette of his mother.

  What were they doing? A mob of monsters was attacking! His parents needed to take cover inside!

  A clash of steel and shouts of battle rang out behind him. The first villagers had engaged the orcs just beyond the clustered huts.

  “This way!” his father called out low and urgent, waving at Will to join them.

  Not understanding, he nonetheless angled left as his parents sprinted for the woods.

  Will caught up with them as they reached the first hedgerow. His father hurdled the wall easily. His mother paused to rip off her skirt, revealing hunter’s leggings beneath. Shocked, Will watched her clear the fence in a single graceful leap. He followed suit.

  All three of them flinched as a bright orange glare burst into the sky behind them, and a howl of enraged glee went up. Green-skinned goblins had just set Rand the lumberjack’s roof afire. The dry thatch flared like an enormous torch against the night sky. Goblins danced around the hut in a frenzied orgy of bloodlust. A scream curled forth from within. Will stared in horror. Rand’s wife and four young children were inside that cottage!

  “Get down,” Will’s father bit out under his breath in a tone that brooked no disobedience. Will dropped to his knees beside his parents and peeked through a crack in the wall.

  One of the largest of the orcs stepped forward, brandishing a long sword and shield. Slung across his back was a gnarled club made of wood a bloodred hue. He bellowed in guttural and barely intelligible syllables something to the effect of, “Cattle of Koth, bring me your bull!”

  Will frowned. What did that mean? Apparently, the beast wanted the village’s leader to step forward and fight. Except Hickory Hollow had no need of a leader. How were the villagers to answer the gruesome creature’s challenge?

  “Ki’Raiden,” Will’s father breathed. “Sixth Thane of the Boki.”

  They were Boki. What were they doing so far from their traditional territory a hundred leagues and more to the north of here? And what in stars’ name were they doing issuing challenges in a nothing little hamlet in this out-of-the-way corner of nowhere?

  Will stared at the Boki leader, attempting to ascertain how his father was able to tell one orc from another. He spotted a long white scar passing vertically over Ki’Raiden’s left eye … perhaps it was by that his father identified the Boki thane.

  “Whey-uhh dra-gon? We see his fire.”

  One of the villagers stumbled forward as if
he’d been elbowed unwillingly out of the ragged line of defenders. Lars. A lumberjack, and the strongest man in these parts, if not exactly the brightest. He was probably as good a fighter as the hollow had to offer this Ki’Raiden.

  “Stan’ an’ figh’. Foh lif’ ub yo’ pee-puh!” the orc shouted.

  Stand and fight for the lives of your people? That sounded like an honor challenge. What did a Boki army want with such things?

  The goblins and ogres behind Ki’Raiden let out a chorus of ululating howls. The thane snapped something over his shoulder, and his mobbed troops fell mostly silent. The thane thumped his chest and grunted something too quietly to hear from here.

  Lars and the Boki warrior commenced circling each other warily, each measuring his opponent and seeking an opening in which to attack. The combatants went in and out of sight between the powerful torsos of the orcs now forming a rough circle around them.

  Into that suspended moment of violent anticipation, something disturbing occurred to Will. How did his father know the name and rank of a Boki thane? And, furthermore, recognize him on sight? Ty was a humble cobbler. A man turning old before his time and settling into the weary drudgery of advancing years, waiting to die.

  But then Ki’Raiden leaped on the attack, and Will’s horrified attention was riveted by the quick and brutal slaughter of Lars. Will had never seen a man gutted before. Blank surprise showed on Lars’s face as his entrails slithered to the ground in a cascade of glistening silver for several seconds before his legs buckled. A woman wailed from inside a hut. Deb. Lars’s wife.

  The Boki thane threw his axe to the ground in disgust and bellowed, “Bah! Iz no honor kill peasan’!” Ki’Raiden stomped down the line of terrified villagers, sniffing each of them in turn. “Whey-uhh dra-gon?” he repeated. Why he no defen’ yo ho-nor?”

  Will frowned in surprise. Was the Boki insane? Dragons were the stuff of children’s hearth tales and not real. And even if they were, what would a dragon have to do with this tiny hollow? The villagers stirred in consternation before the furious orc.