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

“Uh-huh,” the old woman responded, as she backed out of the room, still staring at Earwig.

The broth did indeed revive the witch, but it changed her innards to a state not unlike tanned leather. While Earwig lived, she slowly darkened to strange colors of red and purple as the mysterious brew worked through her body and out through the pores of her wrinkled sagging skin. The pupils of her eyes turned red, and the irises turned permanently yellow. Her red-on-yellow eyes made her frightening to behold. They stood out on her marbled skin, which seemed a mass of bruises in various stages of development. Her teeth stubble turned deep purple like old dried blood. Only her frame still gave any impression she was human.

“What does it matter to me what I look like?” Earwig said. “My only claim to the throne was through Minnabec, but the fool drowned while I was convalescing.”

“What’s that you say, dearie?” the old woman asked, turning back from the fire.

“What difference does it make what I look like now? The duke’s dead; that ends my claim to the throne.”

“How’d he die? Your dragon get him?”

“No, Fool. Magnosious knew better than to waste time on Minnabec’s scrawny bones. It seems the duke was clutching two big bags of his gold, and in a trance of ecstasy, he stumbled into a rain barrel.”

“How’s that? Did he hit his head?”

“No, no. The water was not deep. The duke just wouldn’t let go of his gold and so he drowned. If he’d dropped the gold and stood up, he would’ve been fine. He died with his fingers clutching those gold bags.”

The servant shook her head. She turned back to the fire and rotated the spit so the flat road kill wouldn’t burn.

“Now you live to destroy everything around you.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing, just mumbling about this meat. It’s hard to cook like this. I should’ve done parboiled it first.”

When Earwig recovered sufficiently, she spent her nights taking the vapors above The Crypt. Her precious Magnosious would play along the rim, tossing bodies in the air as a cat tosses mice. When she was able to get about fairly well, she began to climb the endless stairs to her familiar dark tower. She’d reminisce about the wonderful old times she had reducing living creatures to basic proteins, on which she would grow something sinister.

My poor old Radrac
,
Earwig thought. She smiled. He was Magnosious’ first solid meal. Those were the good times. I’ll have them again, she vowed.

One day she was gazing out the window at Magnosious at play, reducing some lost trespasser to a charred but tasty morsel. As he tired of his game and swallowed the smoking roast, he licked his lips and gazed back, smiling at Earwig.

She beamed at him with a mother’s pride. Her dragon had grown huge. It took a constant supply of condemned prisoners to satisfy his appetite. She had to import a brace or two at a time from far away. The people in the surrounding provinces were on their best behavior as it turned out.

“Magnosious, you should be more useful. If I just knew where Saxthor was, I’d send you to deal with him. It’s been so long since he was around; I’ve no means to get his picture or scent for you. He’ll return one day soon, I’m sure of it.”

“Young and tender, quick flame - rare.”

“You do think of things in terms of food. I pay endless informants to listen to court gossip, but glean nothing about that nuisance. If the prince comes near Konnotan, he’s going to meet my precious Magnosious. Meanwhile, I’ll take revenge on Memlatec for protecting him. Memlatec may be the most powerful wizard in the world after Dreaddrac’s king. I must be very careful. I’ll use his goodness and compassion against him to get him out of the way; then I can deal with Saxthor in my own good time and way.”

“The wizard’s not tender – boney, stringy like a bat,” Magnosious said and he flew back to his lair.

Earwig shuffled back down to her bedroom and flopped on her bed thinking.

“A bat, a rabid bat, why didn’t I think of that before? That meddlesome wizard is always buzzing back and forth from his tower to the palace.”

“What’s that you say, dearie?” the old woman said, appearing at the door.

“Nothing, go away.”

“Well, if you’re going to talk like that …”

“Just shut up, and get out.”

The old woman groaned as she got up from her work and shuffled out the door.

Earwig became more animated as her plot developed.

“I know how deep concentration can absorb one at work. I could send a rabid bat to his tower when I’m sure he’s there. Magnosious is too large to spy on him. That hulk would knock down the tower trying to peak in the window. No, I need something the wizard won’t notice.”

Earwig got out of bed and paced the dusty floor. She scratched the lice in her wiry hair and then her left armpit. She put on her boots and robe and traipsed out the door to find a window, from which she could summon Magnosious. She happened upon a strange girl on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor ahead of her.

“You there, you’re new here ain’t you?” Earwig asked. The girl ignored her. “You there!”

The girl looked up and saw the witch coming down the corridor. She knocked over her scrub bucket getting up and fled down the stairs, still clutching the brush that dripped a trail out the front door.

“Magnosious drives away all the help. Oh well, I must concentrate on finding a rabid bat.” Earwig stumbled down the corridor. “Where to find a rabid bat?” She pondered the thought for the longest time, then remembered the cave at The Crypt.

“Magnosious,” the witch screamed at the nearest window. “Magnosious, get over here.”

The ponderous dragon stomped out of his lair. He was drowsy from his nap, while digesting a prisoner, when she summoned him. He stretched his wings, flicked his tail, and yawned before leaping into the air and soaring to the tower in a couple of flaps of his wings. Earwig heard the usual clinking sound of falling tiles, tumbling down the roof into the poison oak below as he landed.

“What took you so long?”

“I was asleep, dreaming of the aftermath of a battle. There were tasty bodies everywhere, all for me.”

“Before you drool on my balcony, remember soldiers are in armor and that’s a lot of fiber.”

“Yes… They come ready to cook in their own cans. Snort a quick flame and they’re still rare, just so. Makes’em crunchy.”

“You’re drooling again, Magnosious. Oh, never mind. I want to go to The Crypt.” Earwig crawled up on the balcony rail and wrapped herself around his fingernail, still black from picking charred prisoner bones out of his teeth. Magnosious placed her on his back, where she settled astride the dragon’s neck between two huge bony plates along his spine. He leapt into the air, flapped his wings three times, soared back over his lair, and coasted to The Crypt. He waited patiently along the ridge, while she peeked over the cliff’s rim.

“What’re you looking for?”

“I'm looking for the cave, where I last collected dead bats for the ingredients boxes.” She looked up and smiled, reminiscing. “How I enjoyed grabbing fallen baby bats on the cave floor in summer. It’s a tad distasteful walking in all that guano. Still, it’s fun trying to snatch fallen bats before those ravenous beetles that devour them nearly as fast as you do a roasted criminal. That delicious aroma of ammonia is so invigorating. This will be fun.”

“Sounds repulsive to me,” Magnosious said under his breath.

“Magnosious!”

The great dragon was getting a buzz out of the vapors rising from The Crypt.

“Wake up!”

“You’re so demanding.”

Earwig heard the dragon mumble, but ignored it. It’s not worth chastising a moody dragon, she thought.

Magnosious plodded over, and she wrapped herself around his fingernail. He lowered her to the cave entrance, where she scrounged through thousands of wiggling bats clustered here and there. She groaned more and more pulling her boots out of the squishy guano and breathing the wafting plumes of ammonia.

Eventually, Earwig scraped two dozen sleeping bats from the chilly cave’s roof and dumped them into a canvas bag. She returned to the entrance, where Magnosious picked her up. Tickled by her success, Earwig giggled, causing her to roll back on the dragon’s scales nearly fall off. He adjusted for the foolhardy move and flew on to the witch’s dark tower. As tiles rained down, the terrified bats flapped around, trying in vain to escape.

“Now calm yourselves little batses. Miss Irkin is going to treat you real nice.”

Inside the tower workroom, Earwig dumped the bats into a cage, where the frightened creatures shivered and huddled together. The witch approached the cage, smiling. The bats looked at her, then hung upside down, covering their faces with their wings.

Earwig selected one particular bat that stared at her constantly. It lunged at her when she approached the cage.

I should be able to train that one to fly to Memlatec’s tower and bite him, she thought. I wish the nasty thing wouldn’t foam at the mouth like it does.

“Oh well,” she said, “you have to work with what you’ve got. Come here, little bat.”

When she reached into the cage to grab the rabid bat, all the terrified creatures exploded in flight to escape her grasping claws. The rabid bat took the opportunity to bite the purple crud out of her hand and continued to chew on it while she struggled to get her crumpled, wrinkled hand back through the cage opening. She snatched out the mangled pulp of a hand. The crazed bat flew out too and through the window. Screaming, the enraged witch tossed the cage of bats out the window after it.

“What was I thinking?” She wiped the foamy bat drool off her wounds and dipped her hand into boiling water. She let out a gut-wrenching, blood-curdling, scream that caused Magnosious to smirk and chuckle in his lair. The poor witch wrapped her steaming hand with dirty rags. Surging pain caused blue sparks and flashes to shoot from her teary eyes. It was a light show for the dragon.

“Old woman!” Earwig stumbled back down the stairs looking for the wretched old woman who tended her in her recent illness. “Where are you?”

The poor servant got up off her knobby hands and knees, put away her pail and brush, and went to see why the witch was screaming this time.

“What you want now?”

“Go to the cellar and find the red spore mushrooms. Boil up more of that hog’s-foot stew and feed the bulk of it to that thing
growing in the cellar tub.”

“You want me to feed that thing again?” The old woman looked up at Earwig and grabbed the stair rail. “You seen it lately?”

“Do as I say! Bring me more broth and rip off a handful of that thing
.
I need a poultice for my hand.” Earwig’s eyes flashed scarlet holding a rag around the bloody pulp at the end of her arm.

“Excuse me, I know you said to
feed it
again, but did you say you wanted me to tear off a chunk of that thing?” the old woman asked with enormous eyes staring directly at Earwig. “You sure that’s what you said?”

“Yes, you fool, and be quick about it.”

The charwoman turned and hurried down the stairs, her knees creaking all the way to the kitchen level. This time she grabbed her hat, shawl, and the few personal items she owned. She crammed her belongings into a sack and headed out the kitchen door.

“The witch has never been in the kitchen. I’ve cleaned dead things off the walls. I’ve grubbed through horse crap for those nasty mushrooms. I’ve cleaned the worst bedpans and out houses. I’ve even boiled bile to feed the unspeakable
,
but I’m not tearing off a piece of
that thing
for life or limb,” said the old woman as she tugged on the Earwighof’s side gate, closing it behind her.

She never did get to tell her tale to the locals at the alehouse. Magnosious was making his rounds about the estate that evening. He chomped the crunchy bones of another unlucky traveler caught too close to the gates.

* * *

Memlatec paced his bedroom floor. He had seen what happened to the Prince of Hoya, how quickly the wraith had crept into power and replaced the Tashian guards. The Dark Lord had neutralized the strongest fortress on the northern border. News of the happenings at the Talok Tower amplified how deeply the infiltration and undermining of Neuyokkasin’s defenses extended.

If Saxthor hadn’t discovered the two threats, Dreaddrac would've controlled the provinces of Talok and Lemnos before Konnotan even suspected its presence, he thought. Southern infiltration is more serious than anyone realizes.

A knock at the door startled the usually unflappable wizard.

“Who is it?” Memlatec’s body went rigid. His powerful stare fixed on the door.

“What’re you doing up at this hour?” Aleman asked though a yawn from the other side.

“I could ask you the same question. Come in, Aleman.”

“You want something to drink?” Aleman stood there half-awake in his nightshirt, scratching his head. “I was on my way to the kitchen and thought I heard you pacing. I’m not cooking no food at this hour, but I could fix you some tea.” He yawned again.

“No, thank you. I was just thinking through something. You go on back to bed.”