Princess of Wisdom: An Epic Fantasy Series (Wisdom Saga Book 2)

by W. C. Conner

  He smiled as the dream faded and he fell back into a deep sleep, knowing that he had rejected the temptations offered him by the vision. In his subconscious smugness, he was unaware that under the bedclothes his manhood had arisen strongly for the first time in almost twenty years.

  Beneath Blackstone, Gregory banged the back of his head against the rock wall of his cell as he did what little he could to rid himself of the image of the demon he hated but who commanded his worship and his lust. He laughed as he beat his head against the rock and, between his laughter and the pain, his desire went away. His laughter turned to tears with the loss of his desire, then back to laughter because he had won this small battle.

  Styxis’s hands dropped away from her body as she felt the resistance to her seductions whichever way she turned. Still, she was not concerned. She had never been successfully rebuffed before and those she had touched this night were no different. No matter how insistent they had been at the first, at the last all those who resisted her temptations ended up at her feet begging for relief at her hands. But the only relief they had ever received was the death that ended their torment, and those deaths were the only source of her own relief from the ever insistent lust that drove her. These she had visited this night were no different; they would join the others.

  Styxis thought about those she had touched this night and frowned with frustration. She was, herself, not proof against the same torment she caused others. Though beautiful and powerful, she lived with a torment fully as profound as those who worshipped her, for in the dark place from which she came, happiness and peace were abominations. She was in many ways similar to her worshippers, for no person or demon had ever been able to touch her in anything but excruciating pain; to physically share with her in pleasure the glory of what she was; to be with her at her moment of fulfillment. Her fulfillment had forever been her own alone.

  There is the one still upon this world who could release me in a way I have never been released before, she thought. He wields a power that arouses me in a way I have never before experienced. He would be a magnificent consort for me. I would be able to take him but for the witch who is the doorway to him.

  From deep within his wizard’s sleep, Wil’s thought reached out, whispering into the mind of the one true love of his life.

  Be secure in your love and use it. Be strong for all of us, for you will be sorely tested.

  In the tent, Caron felt the message of love and concern as it drifted into her and she snuggled closer to Roland. The warmth of his body eased the cold Caron had felt during the confrontation with Styxis, and her sense of security grew with the warmth.

  Arriving at the point past which all consciousness would cease until he revived from the wizard’s sleep, Wil had one last melancholy thought. Together we can defeat this demon as long as we maintain our bond, my love, but I fear you will hate me when it is done.

  21

  “She looks pretty happy, doesn’t she, Kemp?” Scrubby observed as they rode along just to the side of Caron, Roland and Mitchal. Behind Kemp and Scrubby rode the elite of Roland’s fighting forces which they had collected at Confirth on their way to Blackstone.

  “She does, indeed,” Kemp replied. “The last time I saw a smile like that was when Peg knew that little Marlis was on the way.”

  “Don’t you think she’d seem more worried going to battle with demons like she is?” Scrubby asked. “I know I would, even if Wil was on my side like he is on hers.”

  Ahead of them, Caron’s face reflected the happiness that comes only to a woman who is with child, but the smile masked the turmoil she felt inside. Even though she had been assured by Wil that they could defeat this demon who had shown herself to them at the turning to Wrensfalls, she couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that there would be a price to pay in return. She worried that the price might be someone close to her – Roland or her father or the baby. At that thought, her lips compressed in anger. You will never take my baby, she vowed to herself. Whatever else may happen, you will never have the heir to the thrones of Confirth and Gleneagle.

  To her right, Roland rode oblivious to the struggle within Caron’s mind. His own thoughts were on the nature of the enemy army they were to face. He had already seen a disturbing hint of it in the battle at the crossroads, and Caron had shared as much of Styxis’s intrusion as she felt he needed to know, so he now had a name to attach to the threat.

  To her left, Mitchal watched as her head tilted at the battle within and he sighed. He knew that his princess was building her resolve for the confrontation that loomed beyond the approaching line of hills, for they were now but a day’s ride from arriving at Blackstone. Turning his head toward her, he cleared his throat noisily to attract her attention. Her face lost none of its tension as she looked toward him. He said nothing, only smiled and worked his shoulders as if to relax the muscles in them. Caron recognized the message he was giving her and smiled in gratitude for his caring, then slumped slightly in the saddle as she tried to relax.

  “The bond is still strong?” Mitchal asked.

  She nodded a gesture of reassurance to her guardsman who saw in it the conviction he knew she must have.

  With a wag of his head signaling his pleasure at the bond, they both straightened once again in their saddles and focused their attention toward the line of hills that was the last barrier to their return to Blackstone after four years. Neither of them looked forward to the reunion.

  The trees had thinned considerably during the past four days of travel from Confirth and were now only the occasional solitary presence as they entered the Crelleon Plain which was mostly grasses and low growing bushes.

  Caron’s attention was diverted from her thoughts as she saw movement in the grasses. When she turned to look at whatever might be there, she could see nothing except the undulations of the land in the breeze, or perhaps the swift moving shadow of a passing cloud. Mitchal saw her look and rode close to her.

  “They have been with us since we left the cover of the trees this morning, Highness,” he said quietly.

  “They?” Caron said, a hint of fear in her voice.

  “The shadows,” Mitchal replied. “Roland and I have been aware of them for the past two days. We suspect they’re some sort of outriders of Styxis’s horde.”

  Upon his mention of the demon’s name, Caron had the sensation of being surrounded by patches of darkness. As the sensation faded, she realized that the patches were still there but that they were assuming shapes, and they were shapes she had seen before.

  “Mitchal,” she said, the tension apparent in her voice, “do you see them?”

  “Aye, Highness. I do,” he replied. He looked over at Roland who had not yet noticed the demons that paced them off to their left.

  At Scrubby’s yelp of fear, however, Roland quickly became aware of them. Calling for them to follow him, he put spur to his horse and took off at a gallop. As they moved, the demons paced them. After just a minute of this, he raised his hand and brought the company to a halt. The demons mirrored their actions exactly.

  “What manner of demons are these?” he asked, looking to Caron. “Do your witch senses tell you anything?”

  She shook her head. “I cannot sense them at all except for the evidence of my eyes.”

  Kemp spoke as she finished. “Caron. The talisman.”

  Reaching behind her, Caron untied the bundle containing the talisman and removed its cloth wrappings. As always, the warmth of the key was disconcerting, but its presence was reassuring.

  Can you see these demons, Wil? she sent.

  Only through your eyes, came the reply. Clear your mind so I can try to touch them. Let us learn what we can of them.

  She closed her eyes to clear her mind. Wil projected himself through her toward the dark shapes. To Caron, it seemed that they turned to her as if in welcome as Wil’s probing senses approached them. How odd, she thought, it seems as if they are inviting your exploration. A tingling in her mind just before
Wil’s probe touched them brought him to a frantic stop.

  I placed you in terrible danger probing them through you. It was a trap. They are not real. They are only projections placed by the demon to draw my mind to them. Had we touched them with the probe, she would have set a spell of binding on you. There was a moment of silence from the talisman. We don’t think as she does, Caron. When you have made camp this evening, summon me. We are going to have to consider our strategy carefully.

  The camp had been long set and the sun well down by the time Caron reached for the key. Taking the talisman in her hands, she opened her mind to Wil.

  Roland and Mitchal are with me, Wil, as are Scrubby and Kemp.

  I see them through your eyes, Caron. I am pleased you’ve included them in this meeting.

  “Wil says he’s glad you are with us for this meeting,” Caron said to the others.

  Scrubby raised his hand and waved toward Caron. Tell Scrubby I’m waving back, came the amused thought from Wil.

  “He’s waving back, Scrubby,” Caron said as Kemp and Mitchal chuckled at the seeming absurdity of this one-sided meeting.

  Let’s try something new, Caron, Wil sent. Have each of them put a hand on the talisman. Perhaps we can all communicate through the key as long as you hold it also, for you are my portal.

  At Caron’s instruction, each of the companions placed a hand upon the key, looking at one another uncomfortably at the sensation of warmth and life that emanated from it.

  Are you all able to hear me? came Wil’s thought. With the exception of Caron, each of them started visibly at the clarity and intensity of his words in their minds and he received back a jumbled mix of thoughts of surprise and greeting. Laughing aloud within their minds, Wil began to speak to them through the talisman.

  This is much easier than the last time I sent you all a message back at the wizards’ compound in Wisdom. His tone turned serious. I know you all saw the demons that were pacing you today, but they were not truly demons. I have already told Caron that they were only projections from the demoness. She had sent them in the attempt to get me to reach out with my mind to investigate them through Caron. As I reached for them, Caron’s mind sensed something mine did not. A tingling sensation in her mind warned me of danger. Had I actually touched any one of them with my probe, Caron would have been lost to us, for the demoness had placed a spell on them that would have bound Caron’s powers to her. She would then have had a direct line of power to me.

  All those touching the talisman looked soberly around at one another.

  Please forgive me, Roland. I placed our princess in grave danger due to my own carelessness. We must never underestimate this demoness. She is cunning and she is ruthless.

  We must do everything to protect Caron, for she is the portal through which the talisman works. Without her, the talisman would be nothing more than a piece of warm flesh.

  At that description of the talisman, Scrubby almost pulled his hand away in revulsion but did not as he felt Caron’s reassuring touch upon his mind.

  To this point, Caron and I have been dueling with this demoness from a distance. She has been testing, probing to find any weakness, anything at all that she can exploit, for she knows we represent a deadly threat to her. It’s apparent that Caron and I must avoid contact with her until the time that she and the demoness confront one another in person.

  Unless I’m mistaken, we are not more than a day’s ride from Blackstone. Our test will be then. We will depend on you to defend Caron and me against anything we encounter between now and the time that she faces the demoness. I am convinced the closer we get, the harder the demoness will try to trick and ensorcel one or both of us.

  Caron looked around at the sober faces of her companions and saw caring and commitment on every one.

  “You need not even ask, Wil,” Roland said aloud.

  In the stone cottage, Wil saw the determination in each of those faces as Caron’s eyes fell on them. Across from him, the shade of the elf, Gleneagle, watched Wil as the muscles around his mouth clenched and unclenched as the emotions of the mental dialogue he was having with Caron and the companions played themselves out on his face.

  The following morning, as Roland’s army assembled to begin the final march to the confrontation at Blackstone, the companions sat astride their mounts awaiting the order to move.

  Caron, who was talking with the companions as they waited, suddenly stopped speaking as a vision blossomed in her mind. Mitchal looked up just as her eyes lost their focus and she stiffened in the saddle.

  Gleneagle stood at the crest of the same hill that had been his headquarters location during the confrontation with Greyleige, only this time the enemy had broken through and was savagely attacking her father and his commanders. Standing with the demons was Geoffrey, a wild look in his eyes as he sprang toward Gleneagle’s back, a dagger in his raised hand.

  “Highness?” It was Mitchal’s concerned voice that brought her out of the vision as much as her own horror at watching the treachery that she saw befalling her father.

  Shaking her head slightly as if to clear it of the vision, she reined her horse to a stop.

  “A vision,” Mitchal said, making it a statement rather than a question. She nodded weakly.

  By that time, Roland had circled and come up close beside her. “Are you unwell?” he asked. “We don’t have to leave just yet if it will be a hardship, Caron. We can wait here to rest if you wish. We’re pushing too hard for a woman in your condition.”

  Caron had a brief moment of annoyance at his solicitude of her condition which was so new she wouldn’t have been aware of it except for her witch senses and Wil’s confirmation, but she knew he did it out of care for her, not because he felt she was weak. She let it pass unremarked, for her thoughts were on what had been shown to her.

  “It is to be my father,” she whispered to herself.

  Once again her lips compressed in determination. You will have none of mine, she thought, I will have you, instead.

  Styxis sat at her ease upon the High Altarn’s great chair watching several of her demons as they tormented and tortured one of the wizards who had been captured upon her arrival at Blackstone. She kept just enough of her attention on the demons and their victim to maintain the erotic tension such torture always aroused in her.

  A dreamy smile played on her lips as she sent the vision to Caron prophesying the treachery of Geoffrey. The smile turned to one of cruel satisfaction as she caught the emotion of Caron’s reaction to this dire future. Her tumescence increased with the sense of fear she had aroused in the witch who stood between her and the powerful wizard she craved. In satisfaction, she turned her attention fully back to the demons and their screaming, groaning, pleading victim, her hand moving sensually up the inside of her own thigh in anticipation of the blessed release soon to come for both of them.

  22

  Gleneagle turned from greeting Roland and stepped forward to wrap his arms around the daughter he had not seen for several months, hugging her closely and holding the embrace for several seconds before breaking away.

  “What a relief it is to see my little game player,” he said. “You played before and still you play, but now the game has changed.”

  “It has, but where previously I played at the edges of the board,” she replied, “I am now at the center of the game. So very much has changed. It was exciting in its own way back then. Now it seems so much more deadly serious to me.

  “There is something that has changed the stakes enormously for me and Roland as well as for you,” she said, looking away from his eyes in anxiety at what she was about to reveal. “I carry the heir to Gleneagle and Confirth, father. Both Wil and I have sensed him within me.”

  With a whoop of excitement, Gleneagle swept Caron into his arms and swung her around as he did when she was a child. “How soon will I be a grandfather?” he asked, setting her back on her feet and beaming down at her.

  “I have not yet missed my fir
st menses, father,” she said. “Our son is still very tiny. I can’t expect to feel a flutter from him for some time yet.”

  Gleneagle’s face clouded as he released Caron once again from his embrace.

  “You cannot risk the heir to our thrones in this battle, Caron,” he said. “You may not put my grandson in harm’s way.”

  “I must, father,” she said. “I have no choice. If we do not defeat this demon, there will be no throne for him to inherit.”

  “Highness,” Roland said, bowing slightly, “Caron is correct. She must confront this demon, but she will not do so alone. In the Old Forest she was instructed by Wilton. We know from what he told her that the two of them together will defeat this demon. He accompanies her in the form of a talisman that he gave her.”

  “I was told that you had at last been allowed to enter the Forest.” Gleneagle said. “Is it what you thought it would be?”

  “That, and more,” she answered. “You have the elven sense, father. It’s like living in the dreams you had of the Old Forest when you were a child.”

  Gleneagle’s face took on a distant look. “It seems forever since I had those dreams,” he said. “Perhaps one day I, too, will be allowed to enter the Old Forest.”

  Caron smiled in sympathy with his desire, then looked over her shoulder at the fortress looming on the plain beyond the rise upon which they stood. “It’s turned black again,” she murmured.

  The sight of Blackstone reminded her of the vision she had experienced that morning. “Walk with me, father,” she said, taking his arm in hers.

  Gleneagle’s eyebrow lifted in question, but he willingly walked away from the others with his daughter.

  “While I was in the Old Forest, I learned a great deal about myself from Wil,” she said. A secret smile crossed her lips as she spoke, which her father did not notice. They had moved a sufficient distance from the others by this time that she knew they would not be overheard. She stopped and turned to face him.