The Crown Of Yensupov (Book 3) (17 page)

“Yes, we do,” Saxthor said. He turned to Bodrin. “Would you rather take Tonelia and go back to Neuyokkasin through Heggolstockin?”

“Don’t be silly,” Bodrin said. He put his hand on Saxthor’s shoulder, turned him to face south toward Sengenwhapolis, and shoved him forward. “Lead on to the slaughterhouse, goat. Your sheep will follow, though with trepidation.”

In the audience hall of Sekcmet Palace, the royal seat of the Sengenwhan kings, King Calamidese VII sat on his throne before a full court.

“What has you so agitated Lord Chatra?” King Calamidese asked.

“Your Majesty, an envoy from Neuyokkasin requests a private audience.”

“Neuyokkasin you say? What does this envoy want of us? When was the last time a Neuyokkasinian emissary  dared come requesting an audience?”

“Apparently, the gentleman wants to discuss something of a very secret nature,” the fidgeting chatra said. He reared back and puffed out his chest and lip. “Foreign matters are usually referred to
my
office prior to disturbing, Your Majesty.” The chatra stood silent, but the king said nothing, so he cleared his throat and continued. “The envoy hasn’t stated the nature of Queen Eleatsubetsvyertsin’s message, preferring to deliver it to Your Majesty… privately. There’s been no formal request for an audience from a Neuyokkasinian ambassador since I’ve held the office of chatra.”

“Well, perhaps we should receive this emissary, nonetheless. Tell him to return in a week. That should annoy him, and show the queen we aren’t subject to her whims after all these years.”

“It shall be as Your Majesty commands,” the chatra said, bowing and backing out of the throne room.

“Dismiss the court,” King Calamidese said.

The court withdrew. Pulled by two burley guards, the throne room’s two massive doors clanged shut. The king reflected on the ancient conflict between Sengenwha and Neuyokkasin. Why has Neuyokkasin failed to initiate closer relations with Sengenwha over the years? He wondered. I remember grandfather told me, in the struggle between Dreaddrac and the South, Sengenwha would face annihilation in the middle, when caught in the struggle.

“Lord Chatra, since the last war, relations between the kingdoms have been cold to non-existent. We dare not start another war. The Neuyokkasinian forces to the south and east, and Prertsten-Dreaddrac in the north each outnumber the Sengenwhan army. We’ve ascended the throne in this depressing situation. What has happened that a Neuyokkasinian envoy appears at our court now?”

“Could Queen Eleatsubetsvyertsin have learned about Dreaddrac’s forces within the Sengenwha?” the chatra said. “She’d certainly want an explanation, if she has.”

Calamidese rose and walked to the window. He looked out over the city of his ancestors, the oldest capital city on the peninsula.
It looked so peaceful, with all the hustle and bustle of commerce thriving. A knock at the door broke his thoughts. He returned to the throne. “Enter.”

The chatra’s twitching assistant entered, bowed, and looked back and forth between the king and chatra.

“What is it that you interrupt us here?”

“I beg your pardon Majesty, but Dreaddrac’s ambassador is without, demanding and audience.”

Calamidese sneered and glared at the chatra, who just bowed.

“Chatra, as a young man new to the throne, we studied the situation we inherited. We decided to focus our drive and leadership on strengthening the Sengenwhan economy, rather than further weaken our kingdom with another useless war. We’ve grown prosperous, and subsequently more powerful, because of our peaceful expansion of the kingdom’s trade. We know we did the right things; yet we may not be able to avoid war much longer.”

The chatra stood silent. Calamidese walked to the window that looked down on Dreaddrac’s ostentatious new embassy just beyond the palace walls. The sight drained him. He turned to the chatra.

“It’s been almost a year since Dreaddrac sent that ambassador seeking an alliance on the pretext of preventing war. Dreaddrac’s known the Sengenwhan kings resented secondary status to the Neuyokkasinian monarchs. He’s exploited the ancient resentment and manipulated us before we realize it.”

“Your Majesty has been most wise.”

“Rubbish, don’t humor us. Dreaddrac’s nurtured our suspicions of Neuyokkasinian aggression. We fell victim to his arguments and agreed to the alliance. We’ve kept it a state secret lest Queen Eleatsubetsvyertsin find out and attack before we prepared our defenses. Now with this Neuyokkasin emissary requesting an audience, we’re worried about our impulsive decision to ally Sengenwha with the dark wizard against our own kind.”

“Indeed.” The chatra bowed, and with permission, withdrew.

* * *

The wraith floated up on the sulfurous fumes from the furnaces under the Munattahensenhov and slipped across the dark sky over the Ice Mountains on his journey southwest to Prertsten.

The sorcerer-king watched from his ice-covered observation post as the twisted soul floated away, then turned to Smegdor. The king’s black pupils reflected Smegdor’s subservient presence, trembling in silence. The king stepped back into the mountain, and with Smegdor close behind, they descended to the wizard’s sanctum deep within the subterranean fortress.

There, in his workroom, the Dark Lord felt most at ease, but Smegdor most terrified. The room pulsed with energy stored in a myriad of concentrated forms such that the chamber always had an ominous, constant hum. Smegdor stayed back at the doorframe.

“Your Majesty’s wraith will solve the mystery,” Smegdor said.

“Prince Pindradese hasn’t reported anything unusual within his realm,” the king said. “There’s something amiss in Prertsten, and Pindradese isn’t even aware of it.”

Inattentively fiddling with items on the worktable, he looked beyond his assistant, then hesitating, drummed his fingers. Smegdor remained silent, fearing to move. The king cleared his throat.

“I know that twice an energy surge emanated from somewhere in central Prertsten, within the very city itself, I suspect. The surge’s timing fits within the string, no the sequence of happenings that coincided with the sightings of the traveling Neuyokkasinian prince.” He looked up with a threatening scowl. “That assumes my agents reported these things correctly.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Smegdor said. The Evil One’s grimace turned even darker. Smegdor tensed.

“I warned the wraith not to return without some plausible explanation for the energy surges or some news to explain, what the prince is doing on his ‘grand tour.’ Somehow, Memlatec is involved. If I knew for sure, I’d have a good idea what this is about.”

*

As he floated on the breeze above Prertsten’s eastern desert, the wraith was pleased to see the land’s misery even through the darkness. The dry rocky land and Prertsten’s large army kept the impoverished Prertstenians too weak for revolt. The people knew there was no hope of opposing the menacing power in neighboring Dreaddrac. The wraith concluded the people would never see deliverance. The confident phantom savored the misery around him. Below, he saw sparse brown foliage and bones. A scorpion snatched a cockroach. Then he thought about Saxthor. Someone must have helped the prince. Stupid people, even when they had nothing, they still clung to hope.

The wraith reached the Prertsten Palace just before the dawn some days later. He seized a well-muscled guard and assumed his body. In firm control of his temporary physical shell, the wraith rested that day and waited for the evening’s audience. Then, as the guard, he marched into the audience chamber and up to the prince.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Prince Pindradese said. “How dare you intrude without our summons?”

“I’m not the guard,” the wraith said through the guard’s body. He looked about the silent room at stunned, staring courtiers. “I was sent by Dreaddrac’s king himself to discover why two strange power surges occurred weeks ago, yet you reported nothing unusual,” the wraith said.

“What did you say?” Pindradese tensed and sat upright, his lip beginning to quiver. “There was nothing to report.”

“Are you hiding some failure? Your loyalty isn’t wavering, is it?”

With disdain, the wraith flung the guard’s spear, emphasizing the uselessness of physical threats to a wraith. The prince watched the lance slide across the floor. The possessed orc looked about before speaking, allowing the prince’s exposed vulnerability to nurture his fear.

“Prince Pindradese, do you know anything of the power surges, coming from Prertsten?”

Pindradese stared the wraith-guard in the eye. “We know nothing of any energy surges.”

“What do you know of a Neuyokkasin prince, traveling in your domain?”

Pindradese’s face twisted and distorted. “No Neuyokkasin prince would dare to set foot in Prertsten.” Pindradese jumped up from his throne. “Certainly not!”

“I assure you one has come to Prertsten, Prince Pindradese.” The vile specter projected a ruthless look on the guard’s face. “Whether he’s slipped back out of Prertsten, or is still here, is the issue.” The wraith-guard glared at Pindradese.

The prince returned a defiant stare, but his lip and hand trembled. The wraith glanced away freeing the prince, then looked again at him.

“I – that is, my master,
our
master – thinks the prince is connected to the power surges, emanating from Prertsten. If he’s been here, he’s been right under your nose.”

Goose bumps broke out on Pindradese, then beads of cold sweat on his face from the chill that must have run down his spine.

“A Neuyokkasinian’s life would be nothing in Prertsten.” Pindradese’s tone was now placating as he sat back down. “No Neuyokkasinian would set foot across the Akkin, much less a prince of the kingdom. There’s been no mention of a stranger at court.”

The wraith-guard stepped up on the dais; the courtiers gasped.

“You’re ill-informed of affairs within your own dominion.”

“Where’s the chatra?” Pindradese snapped at the chamberlain.

The wraith-guard turned to the chamberlain. Without a word, the terrified official ran out of the chamber. His footsteps rang in the hall as he went in search of Prertsten’s chatra. A tense silence froze the hall as they waited. Guards soon dragged the chatra before the prince and wraith, still in his bedclothes, trembling and afraid to speak.

“What do you know of a Neuyokkasinian prince traveling in Prertsten?” Pindradese asked.

Prostrate on the cold floor, the wide-eyed quaking chatra raised his head enough to respond. “Nothing, Your Highness. No Neuyokkasin of official status would dare enter the principality without first sending emissaries to ascertain if entry would be permissible.” He immediately dropped his head, keeping his forehead pressed on the stone.

The wraith-guard stepped over and kicked the old chatra in the side. “You’ll make inquiries until you find the source of two power surges on the night of your feast of Borrac. The blips occurred late, but someone will know of them. Question everyone, the guards, palace staff up late, any others, who might have noticed anything unusual.”

The wraith and prince questioned everyone within the palace, but no one suspected a Neuyokkasinian would’ve been within the capital. That left the wraith with no trace of the energy surge or the prince.

-

Days later, the specter contemplated the situation. Could the two have been unrelated? It’s possible the prince went south from Feldrik Fortress and never came into Prertsten. That answer won’t satisfy the Dark Lord. If dissatisfied, he’d cast me into the inner earth’s fiery regions with no hope of escape.

The wraith-guard, exuding the decaying scent of the dead guard shell, burst into the great hall. “If I can’t find the prince in Prertsten, and his course is up then down the peninsula, this prince will be heading for Sengenwha. I must go there at once to see if he will appear at that court. That will be my last chance to trap him before he returns to Neuyokkasinian territory.

The specter discarded the guard’s body, dropping it to the floor in a heap. Pindradese jumped up and back behind his throne as the black vapor formed into a blurred, horned-human form. The sulfurous essence circled the prince, then the chatra, twice, reminding the lords they ruled at the Dark Lord’s pleasure.

It would remind these fools if they displeased the king, a wraith could slip into the palace any night, destroying them as they slept. No one would ever know it had been present. With that ability demonstrated, the specter disappeared out the window on the night’s winter wind. It went south toward the Akkin River and then on to Sengenwha.

* * *

Earwig lay on her swaybacked bed, surrounded by piles of musty old clothes and moldy food containers tossed here and there around the room. The last moth-eaten drapery hung precariously at an angle from the surviving rod holder, one-half jerked from the wall. Through the mildew and cobwebs on the window, a cold light bounced off the season’s first snow into the room’s gloom.

The tethered badger at the corner of Earwig’s bed froze staring at the lump nearby. Barely able to move, he watched her creaking bones shuffle under the rags that covered the frightful carcass. Her fleas were eating the badger alive and it couldn’t even scratch or gnaw at them.

“It’s cold in here,” Earwig muttered, then coughed amid the dander.

She wheezed, struggling in vain to sit up. Each time her torso jerked up, it bounced off her potbelly throwing her back into the musty rag muddle. Earwig’s wrinkled, sagging skin rippled with each convulsion as the bed crawled across the floor with each pounding. Trussed up and tied to the bed frame, Earwig’s wide-eyed badger thrust out his feet, jamming his claws into the quivering rags. He stared over his shoulder. Exhausted, Earwig rolled on her side, then began pushing her bloated body up with scrawny arms. Her legs inched toward the bed’s edge. Unable to stop, the witch rolled off producing a great, dull thump.