Shadow of a Dark Queen
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“We’re just going to be hung?” asked Erik.
“Hardly,” said the man. He got up from his squatting position, groaning theatrically as he did so.
“Knees aren’t what they used to be.” He moved to the cell door and motioned for the jailer to open it. “The new Prince of Krondor, like his father, is a very particular man when it comes to observing the law. We will have a trial; then we will hang you.” He passed through the door and it closed behind him.
A short time later the door opened again and an old man entered. He was dressed in richly fashioned clothing, but of plain cut, as if designed for one who was active despite his rank and years. The man’s hair was silver, he wore a closely trimmed beard, and his eyes were dark and penetrating. He studied the two 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:49 PM Page 142
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prisoners carefully.
Kneeling before Erik, he said, “Tell me your name.”
“Erik von Darkmoor . . .sir.”
Then he turned to Roo. “You are Rupert Avery?”
Roo said, “Yes. And who are you?” His manner showed he took exception to being treated so roughly, and if he was going to be hung he might as well vent his temper on whoever was nearby, irrespective of rank.
The man smiled, amused by Roo’s sharp manner.
“You may call me Lord James.”
Roo sat up and moved, as far as the length of chain that bound his leg shackles to the wall permitted, and peered upward through the small window.
“Well, Lord James, how long do we rot here in the Krondor jail before we’re tried and hung?”
“You’re not in the Krondor jail, my abrupt young friend,” answered James. “You’re in the Prince’s palace and your trial will commence the day after tomorrow, as soon as Nicholas has taken his office.
Unless you’re in a particular hurry, in which case I could ask the King to preside this afternoon.”
“Well, by all means,” snapped Roo. “If His Majesty isn’t too busy, I’m sure we’d all just as soon get this over with. And he’d drop everything else just because you asked.”
James smiled and there was a dangerous quality to it. “I’m sure he would; I’m something of an uncle to the King,” he said. “I’m also the new Duke of Krondor.”
Standing, the Duke said, “Have you anyone to speak on your behalf?”
Erik said, “There is one man, at Barret’s Coffee House, 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:49 PM Page 143
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by name Sebastian Lender. He might speak for me.”
The Duke nodded. “I know him by reputation.
Tricky bastard. He may keep you from being hung.
I’ll send for him and have him speak with you about your defense.” He moved toward the door. “Then I’ll see if the King’s free tomorrow,” he said pointedly to Roo. “But if I were you, I’d wait until Nicholas sits the Western Throne. He’s of more even temper than his brother, and His Majesty doesn’t take kindly to those who go around murdering his nobles.”
“Nobles?” said Roo. “Stefan may have had a father of rank, but he was still a swine.”
James smiled, again without humor. “Perhaps, but as his father had died less than an hour before him, for a very short time be was Baron of Darkmoor.”
The door was opened and Duke James left. Erik looked at Roo and said, “So much for the Sunset Islands.”
Roo sat back down, unable to see anything through the small window. “Yes, so much for the Sunset Islands.”
Erik and Roo were moved the next morning, without being told why. A squad of soldiers wearing the livery of the Prince of Krondor’s own Household Guards arrived and unchained Erik and Roo from the wall, leaving the shackles and cuffs on. They were escorted to a large cell with a long, barred wall, through which other cells with wooden doors could be seen. The cell was partially belowground. At head height, a long window, less than one foot high, ran the length of the cell, and both prisoners could see it allowed a view of a long gibbet erected at the far side of a large courtyard. A half-dozen nooses hung from a single long crossbeam, 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:49 PM Page 144
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supported by heavy timbers between each noose.
Erik studied it briefly; it would be a simple enough execution. The prisoners would be marched up several steps at one end and made to step up on three-foot-high wooden boxes, which were kicked out from under their feet once the nooses were around their neck.
Erik and Roo took up places alongside the bars and sat in silence. Erik glanced around the cell.
Seven other men were likewise manacled and shackled, awaiting whatever fate held in store. All looked rough and dangerous, some more than others. Erik was used to being the largest boy in his town, and had grown to be one of the strongest men, but at least two of the men in the cell were his equal in size, perhaps in strength as well.
At midday another pair of prisoners were admitted to the cell, these looking as if they had been severely beaten after being apprehended. One of the men, a hulking brute being dragged by three guards, had obviously put up a struggle, as he was barely conscious, but the other kept up a steady stream of invective as the guards threw him roughly into the cell, then left. He called after them, “When I’m out of here, my lads, you can bet we’ll be settlin’
accounts! I have your names! Every one of you.” He spoke with an affected speech, trying to sound educated while being betrayed by his lower-class accent.
Sitting down, he added, “You bloody bastards.”
Looking at Erik, who sat across from him, then at his nearly unconscious companion, he said, “Old Biggo don’t look so good, does he?”
From a corner of the cell another man said,
“Better for him if he stays out on his feet. Won’t feel 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:49 PM Page 145
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his neck getting stretched.”
“We’re not for the gallows, old Biggo and I!” said the other man with fear in his voice. “We’re well connected, we are. Friends to the Sagacious Man himself!”
“Who is the Sagacious Man?” asked Roo.
From across the cell another man said, “The leader of the Mockers. And this liar has been about as close to the Sagacious Man as I have been to the King’s mother.”
“You watch!” said the man who had been boasting. “We’ll be out of here soon!”
The door at the end of the hallway opened and a man entered, flanked by two guards. He wore a finely made robe, and upon his head was a hat Erik found comical—a short brim around a circular crown, fashioned from purple felt. A whipcord tie under his chin held it in place on his head. He had the face of a scholar or priest, thin and pale, with a long nose and square jaw. But his eyes were alive and seemed to miss nothing as they swept around the room.
The guards did not open the cell, but stood away.
The man came and stood at the bars. “Who here is Erik?”
Erik stood up and moved to stand opposite the stranger, and Roo came to his side. “I’m Erik.”
“What is your surname?”
“I am called von Darkmoor.”
The man nodded. “I am Sebastian Lender, from Barret’s Coffee House.” He studied Erik and Roo for a long minute, as if memorizing every aspect of their appearance. Then at last he said, “And you two are in a great deal of trouble.”
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“So we gathered,” answered Roo.
“I may be able to save your lives,” said Lender.
“But you must tell me exactly what occurred. Don’t leave out anything and don’t lie to me.”
Erik told him exactly how he recalled things, and Roo added what he knew. Afterward Lender said,
“With what Baron Manf
red has testified and the girl, Rosalyn, has said, it’s clear that Stefan was hoping to lure you into a trap where he could kill you.”
“When do we stand trial?” asked Erik.
“Two days from now. As it’s a capital case and one of the King’s nobles was the victim, you’re being tried in Royal Court, here at the palace.” He was thoughtful. “The Prince is likely to be hard, but fair.
The Court of Common Pleas tends to breed a more cynical justice. Everyone brought before the justices there is innocent.”
Erik said, “My father said to find you—”
“Yes. I was to give you something.”
“What?”
“An odd legacy, I’m afraid. A small amount of gold, which will be barely sufficient to pay my fees, I’m sorry to say. And a pair of boots; the boots were your grandfather’s, according to what Otto told me, and as you were of a size, your father supposed they might fit you. Also there was a fine dagger, which I obviously can’t give to you here.”
“A dagger?” asked Roo.
Lender put up his hand. “Over the years I have managed many stranger legacies. In any event, it is moot until the trial. We shall see if that goes as we wish; if so, we can move on from there.”
“What are our chances?” asked Erik.
“Thin,” answered Lender frankly. “Had you 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:49 PM Page 147
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stayed, you might have built a persuasive brief that you killed Stefan in self-defense. Manfred admits that he went seeking his father to gain an order from him telling Stefan to leave off some hot-blooded plot or another. He will not tell what that was, claiming only that Stefan was looking for trouble.”
“Will he testify to this?”
“He already has,” said Lender. “He’ll be on his way back to Darkmoor, after Nicholas takes office tomorrow, and I have a copy of his deposition before the King’s Magistrate. It’s very noncommittal in places, and had I known I was to be arguing on your behalf, I would have been a lot more probing than was the King’s man.”
“Can’t you ask him more questions?” asked Roo.
“Not unless he’s compelled by King’s warrant,”
answered Lender, “and I suspect the King won’t be inclined to agree.”
“Why not?” asked Roo, not entirely sure what was being said. “The King wants justice, doesn’t he?”
Lender smiled, and it was the indulgent look of a master being asked something obvious by a gifted but untutored apprentice. “Our King, more than most, seems interested in justice; something to do with some time he spent in Great Kesh as a youngster, I believe. But he’s also interested in not making it look too easy to kill a nobleman and avoid hanging. There’s justice, and then there’s justice.”
Erik sighed. “And we did kill Stefan.”
Lowering his voice, Lender said, “Did you go to find him with murder in your heart?”
Erik was silent a minute, then said, “Yes, I guess I did. I knew he was going to try something with 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:49 PM Page 148
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Rosalyn; I knew what I would find and I knew I’d end up killing Stefan. I can’t even say I just went to protect her.”
Lender glanced at Roo. The slight boy nodded and Lender let out a long sigh. “If that’s true, I doubt any power can save you from that.” He pointed out the high window at the gibbet.
Erik nodded, and Lender left without further comment.
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6
Discovery
The ccreature stirred.
The woman stood patiently as the creature’s companions moved to one side. Several others huddled in distant corners of the immense hall, speaking quietly to one another, while those who had been attending the sleeping monster crossed to join them. The woman ignored them and studied the waking creature. To the mortal eye, the beast appeared to be the grandmother of all dragonkind, a gigantic being whose bulk massed high above her servants. She loomed enormous even in the vast hail that served as her home. In distant sconces, oil lamps flickered, but both the dragon and the woman needed little natural light to navigate the gloom. A faint scent of spice hung on the air, perhaps as an artifact of the making of the oil, perhaps to sweeten the air; the woman didn’t know.
At last the dragon opened eyes the size of palace windows and blinked. She stretched, and lowered her head as she yawned, displaying ivory teeth the size of flashers, the giant two-handed scimitars used in Great Kesh. Her skin was the reason for the absence 149
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of more illumination, for it consisted of gems, fused over plates once golden in color. Brighter illumination caused a riot of rainbow light throughout the hail and while capable of arts beyond most human understanding, the dragon found the constantly dancing reflections gave her a headache.
The woman had met dragons before, though nothing quite like this one, and while little could impress her, she conceded to herself that this was indeed an impressive-looking being. They had “spoken” to each other using magic arts, but this was their first true meeting in the flesh. Despite attempts at keeping the identity of this creature hidden over the last half century, legends of the “great jeweled dragon” had already surfaced in various parts of the Kingdom.
But the woman knew this was no true dragon, despite being the get of dragons at birth. The spirit of the original dragon had perished in the great battle that had climaxed in this very hall almost fifty years before. Inhabiting the vessel that had once known the mind of Ryath, daughter of Rhuagh—perhaps the greatest of all golden dragons—was a consciousness alien and ancient: the Oracle of Aal.
A great rumbling voice issued from within the throat of the creature. “Greetings, Miranda. How fare you?”
The woman nodded as she said, “I am well. The travel from the statue at Malac’s Cross is disorienting.”
“It was designed to be so. Only those with a certain gift may trigger it, and I wish to ensure that whatever talents they possess, they are vague about the true location of this hall.”
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Miranda nodded in agreement. “Understood.
How fare you?”
“Time grows short. The heat tires me and I sleep more each day. Soon I shall enter the birth sleep and then shall I end this phase of existence.”
“Time grows short indeed. How much longer will we have your guidance?”
“Already the future grows clouded and dim to me. My daughter will not have the gift for the first twenty years of her life, so soon, for five years of my birth sleep and twenty years of my daughter’s infancy, you will be as you were before I came to this world. There is more.”
“What?”
“Much of what I should see I cannot, which means only that my own future is involved; for to all creatures, even me, knowledge of their own future is denied.”
The Oracle of Aal was considered the oldest being in the universe, ancient when the Valheru rose to challenge the gods during the Chaos Wars.
Thinking of that, Miranda turned to look at a dais behind the oracle. Willing a shift in her perception, the woman saw the stone flick into existence. A fey green in color, it pulsed with an inner light. She stared at its hypnotic rhythms for a moment, then said, “Are they stirring again?”
“They are always stirring,” said the oracle. “Now they move with more vigor. Somehow they still have influence with those outside who are receptive to their call.”
“They” were the Valheru, the ancient beings known as the Dragon Lords to most inhabitants of the world. Trapped by forces even beyond their own 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:49 PM Page 152
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ability to understand, they were bound in the stone by a mysterious agent. From the stone rose a golden sword with an ivory pommel. The woman named Miranda knew that a half century before, a great battle had raged in the city above, called Sethanon, and in this chamber a battle of equal proportion took place. The strange half-man, half-Valheru Tomas, inheritor of the mantle and power of Ashen-Shugar, the Ruler of the Eagles’ Reaches, battled a creature of spirit in the form of his ancient kinsman Draken-Koren, the Lord of Tigers. At that time, Pug of Stardock, magician of two worlds, and Macros the Black, sorcerer nonpareil, battled to hold closed a tear between two universes, aided by two Tsurani Great Ones, magicians from the world of Kelewan.
And the dragon, Ryath, battled a Dread Lord, a creature from an alien space-time, whose very touch drained life.
In the end, the Valheru had been trapped within the stone, the Dread Lord vanquished at the cost of Ryath’s life, and all the forces supporting the false prophet Murmandamus vanquished. Not one soldier on either side, in the Kingdom or serving the moredhel chieftain, knew what the war had been about. No one among the highest-ranking chieftains of the Nations of the North—as the dark elves and goblins were called—knew that Murmandamus had been a Pantathian serpent priest magically transformed to resemble their legendary leader. Only the King’s family and a few trusted friends knew of the Lifestone and the presence of the Oracle.
And now the primary defender of the Lifestone, the magic and physical entity of the oracle dragon, was dying.
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“How will this change take place?” asked Miranda.
The dragon lifted her head and nodded slightly to the right, where six robed figures stood speaking softly to one another. “These, my husband servants, they are already making their transformation.”
The figures removed their hoods and Miranda could see faces that were little more than those of boys. The dragon continued, “When the heat began to rise, I made the call, and youths from around the area, those with a certain gift, answered. They wandered from their homes and came to Malac’s Cross, to where the statue stands, and then I brought them here. Those that were lacking the true gifts needed were sent away, and thought only that they had been dreaming. Those who chose to stay were allowed to test, and those who failed were also sent away, with little memory of their time here. But these six are the first of the youths who have proven worthy to stand at my daughter’s side.”