The Dragon Ring
Neuyokkasinian Arc of Empire Series
Book One
By
C. Craig Coleman
Box Set Books 1 - 3
Neuyokkasinian Arc of Empire Series
Volume 1
The Dragon Ring
Copyright ©2014 C. Craig Coleman
All Rights Reserved
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.
All characters, character names and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks owned by C. Craig Coleman.
Cover art by artist Rob Carlos
Map by Cartographer Antonio Frade
DEDICATION
Dedicated to Miss Delia, my beloved puppy of sixteen years, who stayed by my side through the writing of this entire series and passed away just before this first book’s publication.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Nellvena Duncan Eutsler planted the seed to write this series when I was a kid. She told me I ‘should write down some of this stuff.’ That seed germinated decades later.
George Elliott Vick, Jr. grew up with me and shared the many adventures that led to this story.
Special thanks to Robert Truppe and Alison Greene, editors, and Lisa Grooms my beta reader.
Richard Sutton created the boxset cover art, and Antonio Frade made the maps that make this set possible.
Thanks to Richard Sutton for invaluable assistance in formatting this e-book.
Table of Contents
Prologue
1: Revelation
2: The Focus Changes
3: Escape from Konnotan
4: Flight
5: Journey Down the Nhy
6: Journey to Heedra
7: Crisis at Hyemka
8: Olnak and Favriana Fortress
9: Passage to Tixos
10: Inland to the Highback Mountains
11: Return to Tixumemnese
12: Creation of Helshia
13: Voyage to Helshia
14: Mishap in Dreaddrac
15: Trouble through the Years
16: Return of the Exiles
17: Decline of Neuyokkasin
18: Return to Hyemka
19: Reunion of Memlatec & the Exiles
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Prologue
Witch Earwig, the disgraced former queen, skulked about in the murky forest shadows behind a desolate royal way station. Holding a supply packet on her hip, she settled behind a rotting tree trunk and hunkered down in the moldy leaf litter. The witch jerked her dimwitted companion’s ragged shirtsleeve, but he remained standing, his head following a flock of birds.
“Get down,” Earwig said to the mountain-of-muscles who seemed not to notice the centipede crawling on his arm. “Listen you stupid oaf; no one must spot us. When the royal courier stops here for the night, you snatch him. Be careful not to bruise the man. Take him down to the river and drown him.” The oaf nodded. “Don’t mess him up, his death must appear an accident like he fell in and drowned. Do you understand?”
The hulking man smiled at a mouse poking his head through the leaves and failed to respond. Earwig slapped his face and grabbed at the nearest stick breaking it over his baldhead. Dazed, he scowled down at her. The witch locked stares with the hulk, his breath as offensive as his teeth. She thrust her hand in front of his nose, blue flames dancing on her fingertips. The ferocity in his eyes turned to fear, and he drew back.
“Bring me the mail pouch. Did you hear me?”
Rubbing his scalp, he grumbled and nodded. The witch put a finger to her mouth when she caught the sound of approaching horse hooves clacking on the road.
In a whisper, she said, “Keep down. Remember, don’t bruise the courier, but get me the mail pouch.”
“Me know what to do.”
Approaching without hesitation or inspecting his surroundings, the dispatch rider dismounted and headed for the shelter disappearing inside.
Earwig poked her companion and pointed at the building.
The fool assumes a royal courier is inviolate; Earwig thought, bad supposition.
With the setting sun, shadow fingers of tree branches slid toward the retreat as the oaf crept toward the building’s corner, slipped around it, and out of sight. Earwig could just hear a scuffle, groans, and the oaf’s strained grunting. A harsh smack followed, and all fell quiet. She held her breath until the grinning creature reappeared beside the shelter dangling the limp courier under one arm.
“The mail pouch,” Earwig said, “throw me the mail pouch.”
The oaf dropped the man to pull the pouch’s strap over his head, but the courier began to regain consciousness. His eyes swelled, seeing the brute looming over him in the mustard light. Then his face contorted when he beheld the vile former queen leering down at him. He slumped. The brute jerked the mail pouch breaking the strap and tossed the bag toward Earwig.
The dazed courier waffled. “Mercy!”
The oaf noted the witch’s sneer and grinned, exposing missing and broken teeth. He took the man’s skull in both hands and jerked it sideways. The cracking sounds of bones breaking startled a bird overhead. The courier shuddered and went limp.
“Fool! I told you to drown him. Now they’ll know it wasn’t an accident. Crawl up under the station and bury him.”
The oaf nodded and grabbing the courier’s foot, plodded off toward the rear of the building. Earwig broke the seal on the mail pouch and rummaged through the contents. One of her spies had tipped her off about correspondence from the new queen’s prime minister, the chatra, to Emperor Engwan IV of the Powterosian Empire. She continued rummaging until she found her prize, the accursed document. Contemptuous of the seal, Earwig ripped the letter open. The muffled sound of the oaf digging under the way station distracted her for an instant. She kicked a sideboard and read the correspondence before twilight swallowed the last sunlight.
Raging heat pulsed through Earwig’s neck and face as she read, then looked up and crumpled the document. Her lips pinched, covering grinding teeth. She rounded the back of the station and shoved the mail pouch under the edge.
“Bury this with him. Hurry up, you fool, we must get far away from this place right away.”
As the oaf scratched under the building, stomach acid rose and burned Earwig’s throat. She gritted her teeth, still pondering what she’d read.
So, you accuse me of my own downfall, she thought. You’ll pay for this, my dear sister-in-law, you and all your royal family. I’ll sit on the throne again when you’re all dead.
The gravedigger ripped his dirty tunic on a board, startling her. He glanced up and froze, staring at the eyesore. Earwig hated how the veins transformed her face to mottled purple, making the gaping pores more notable when she got angry. She turned away.
“You’re done? Come, we must get away from here before someone spots us.” The witch grabbed the oaf’s arm, noted the grime, and drew back her hand. He backed up, and she realized her revulsion showed. She wiped her fingers on his shirt and flashed a syrupy smile.
“Lead the horse down by the river and tear the saddle strap, so it appears to have broken. Drop the saddle on the bank, and release the steed. We’ll take a shortcut home through the woods when you’re done.”
“Why don’ts we go on the road?” the oaf asked. “You’ll get dirty going by way
of them briars and bushes at night. How can we tell where we’s heading?”
“Shut up and do as I say.”
Earwig glared at the simpleton whose head slumped as he led the horse away. When he returned, Earwig headed off into the woods with the oaf close behind. She led him far into the moon-speckled forest and stopped near a cave fronted by many large tracks indicating something coming and going.
“We best stop and eat. This is a good spot,” Earwig said.
The oaf scrutinized the animal footpaths, but Earwig pretended not to notice them. She selected a fried pie and shoved it toward her salivating companion. He devoured the offering and in moments, crumpled to the ground glaring up at her.
“Poison, why? I was your friend.”
Earwig snickered.
His face grimaced. Groaning, he hunched up in a fetal position, his massive arms clutching his abdomen. His soil-encrusted fingers scratched at the leaf litter. A few tremors, a guttural moan, then his fixed open eyes and relaxing facial muscles assured Earwig he was dead. She poked him with a stick and got no reaction. The dappled moonlight danced on the corpse that slipped into darkness as clouds veiled the moon.
No one can link me to the courier’s disappearance now, Earwig thought regarding the cave. Soon your smell will lure out the bear. He’ll take care of the rest. I must get back before my worthless husband notes my absence.
1: Revelation
Young Crown Prince Augusteros’ hand clung to the rusty iron gate as he surveyed the forbidden, abandoned garden at the periphery of the royal palace complex in Konnotan, the Neuyokkasinian capital. A haphazard gust of wind whipped tree branches into violent contortions beyond the wall. Hesitant, he stepped inside. The wafting scent of decaying blossoms and leaf mold assailed his nostrils. The gate closing behind him creaked, and he jumped when it clanged shut. A flush of goosebumps sprang up, and tingling nerves spiked his neck hair. Only a few steps along and a rodent scurried across the weedy stone path in front of him halting his progress.
This is stupid, the prince thought. There’s no one here. One of the court retainers is playing a joke to make me look like a fool. Swirling crud scared the rat. That’s all, nothing to worry about.
When his heart stopped fluttering, he approached the central well, listening for any sound other than the gravel crunching beneath his feet. A passing cloud with trailing fingers drew a dark shadow over the water source, and Augusteros froze. He scanned the colonnade of fluted marble pillars encircling the well and walkway. Small animal sculptures capping the columns with fixed smiles focused on the well… all except one, a sneering gargoyle that seemed to leer at him. Augusteros shivered.
My imagination is getting the better of me, he thought. The other stone animals smile. I wonder why the stonemason made the one creepy thing.
He glanced around once more to be sure he was alone then stepped to the well casing’s granite edge, where he found the folded note and a treat he sought. He stretched across the rim reaching for them when the sudden sound of grinding rock behind him made him look back. A whoosh swept toward him. Something smacked him hard on the back, and he gasped. Before he could recover, a scratchy hand with long, clawed fingers grabbed his leg, jerking him upward. He yelled, lost his grip on the edge, and flew forward, plunging into the shaft’s black, musty abyss.
*
“No one knows what happened?” Memlatec, High Court Wizard of Neuyokkasin, asked his assistant wizard Tournak. The old primal wizard’s flowing robes and white hair stood in sharp contrast to the middle-aged man’s cropped, curly, black hair and clipped beard. They trod through the unkempt glen’s weedy seed stalks, the dampness chilling Memlatec’s feet. An instinctive sense of alarm grew as they approached the garden wall. Thrusting out his arm, Memlatec halted Tournak.
Standing beside the gate, the old wizard studied the garden. Neglect had reduced the elegant former retreat to debris clustered around spotty brown weeds and spindly branches of dead shrubbery. Stone accents became harsh garden bones. Paths of stepping-stones embedded in gravel snaked through the blotches of tangled clutter. The only living thing was an ancient twisted oak branch groping in over the wall. Amid the rippling afternoon shadows, Memlatec noted a grinning red granite carving was staring down from one of the colonnade’s pillars.
I can’t recall a gargoyle among the lichen-encrusted granite rabbits and squirrels, Memlatec thought.
“I didn’t think anyone came here,” Tournak said. “At least not since the queen lost her second child in that accident soon after she accepted the crown.”
Memlatec paled. “Witch Earwig is peering from the shadows behind the caretaker’s gate.”
“Where? I don’t see her.”
Stroking his beard, Memlatec fixated on the far, vine-shrouded gate. “She’s gone now. Strange she’d be here and so soon after the accident.”
Squinting, Tournak scanned the darkness. “Do you suspect Earwig is involved in this somehow?”
“She has no scruples,” Memlatec said. He surveyed frenzied whispering courtiers who buzzed around the shivering prince bundled in a blanket at the garden’s center. A sudden lance thrust barred the wizards from the gate.
“Stand aside,” a guard said as the queen rushed through to her son.
“You’re not telling me everything,” Tournak said.
Without responding, Memlatec started to move toward the throng at the well. Tournak put his hand on Memlatec’s arm, restraining him. “Palace guards can’t protect the royal family from unseen black magic.”
Earwig is aware I guard the queen, the old wizard thought. Any direct attack against her would have the nobles demanding the former queen’s execution for treason. No, Earwig plots with discretion.
“We need to find out what transpired here,” Memlatec said.
Tournak shook his head, kicked a pebble, and followed Memlatec to the gathering at the well.
“What happened, Augusteros?” the queen asked. “You know better than to come here much less play near a well. Where were your attendants?”
The boy viewed the crowd, but shivering, stood silent. His face flushed, and his lips pinched tight as he drew the blanket tighter around him.
“Augusteros?” the queen repeated.
A guard stepped forward when the crown prince failed to answer, “His Highness had a tantrum. He forbade his attendants to follow him beyond the palace proper, Majesty.”
Augusteros glared at the sentry who withdrew to the gate. “I was playing hide and seek.”
“By yourself?”
“A message in my room said to come here. I spotted a puffy sweet and another note on the well’s edge. I reached to grab the treat, and I heard a grinding noise behind me.” The prince scanned the gasping courtiers. “Then something pushed me in.”
“Something pushed you? Don’t you mean someone?” The queen scrutinized those around her.
“No, that thing up on top of the post.” Augusteros pointed.
“The gargoyle... Nonsense Augusteros, you make up things to avoid taking responsibility when you misbehave.”
“But Mother...”
“Where is the note?”
“It fell in the well.”
“You disobeyed in coming here, made up imaginary messages, and blame a stone statue so your father won’t punish you. You’re lucky the guard followed and heard you yell. Stay in your room for the rest of the day for disobedience. I’ll deal with the attendants later.”
Augusteros stamped his foot and glared at his mother. The queen squatted down and hugged her son, who shook free. She walked the crown prince back to the palace leading the retinue of courtiers. The wizards stayed behind to examine the well when Memlatec spotted a glistening speck on the well cap’s rim. He touched the spot and tasted his finger. Tournak’s muscular arm clutched his dagger.
“Honey,” Memlatec said.
Tournak glared at the stone gargoyle. “You must tell the queen.”
Memlatec scanned the far garden wall and g
ate. “A bit of sugar isn’t enough evidence to convince Her Majesty of anything. No one here has seen real dark magic for generations. Earwig has perfected her witchcraft more than I realized and beyond what she could’ve achieved without a mentor. I suspect the Dark Lord of Dreaddrac is involved.”
Tournak tasted the sugary substance. “Memlatec, you told me long ago you came to Neuyokkasin because a seer foretold the heir to the Crown of Yensupov’s power would arise here. If Earwig is delving into witchcraft, could she have stumbled onto Augusteros as the inheritor?”
“I doubt she knows about the Crown of Yensupov or its critical place in the overthrow of Dreaddrac’s Dark Lord in the Third Wizard War. That was in the Age of Primal Beings.”
“If Augusteros has inherited the power, could the fright today have left a power trace on the well?”
Memlatec stared at the younger wizard. “Perhaps, we must come back tonight with the lunadar crystal.” He took the crystal from a deep pocket in his robe, examined the gemstone, and dropped it back in. “Before he died, the elf king, King Peldentak aligned the lunadar crystal to the crown’s resonance. If there’s a power trace, the lunadar will reveal it tonight. I need confirmation Augusteros is the crown’s heir.”
The two wizards returned through the chilly garden’s twisting paths. The brown bones of a bush blew up against Tournak’s leg. Memlatec noted he flinched and peeked over his shoulder. The younger wizard kicked the tumbleweed away and continued onward.
“Time’s running out if this was an assassination attempt,” Tournak said.
Memlatec nodded. “These elements coming together at the same time, foreshadow a more serious crisis.”
Veiled in an invisibility shield that night, the wizards crept past the palace guards, only decloaking when again shrouded in the murky glen beyond the palace torchlight. They walked in silence to the garden where the looming oak branch quivered as if a warning. Memlatec flicked his finger torch, shedding pale light on the corroded gate. It rasped open and whimpered back to a low thud. The wizards moved through the weeds along the path in the dappled moonlight. At the well, a chilly breeze rippled Memlatec’s robe flashing silver rune reflections on the casing’s dark stones.
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