“Ascension into Hell!” Deanna yelled back, and with her strength renewed by the pitiful sight of the writhing agonized fiend, she took up her chant once more, uttering every discordant syllable through gritted teeth.
All that remained of Taknapotin was a black stain on her thickly carpeted floor.
Deanna threw down the twisted crown and stamped her foot upon it. It was the symbol of her foolishness, the tie to a kingdom—her kingdom—and to a family she had unwittingly brought down.
Though she had just enacted perhaps the most telling and powerful magical feat of her young life, and though Taknapotin, the demon that gave to her a great part of her power, was gone from her forever, Deanna Wellworth felt strangely invigorated. She went to her mirror and took up a vial, supposedly of perfume, but in truth, filled with a previously enchanted liquid. She sprayed the liquid generously over her mirror, calling to her closest friend.
The mirror misted over, and the fog seemed within the glass as well. Gradually the center cleared, leaving a distinct image within the foggy border.
“It is done?” asked the handsome, middle-aged man.
“Taknapotin is gone,” Deanna confirmed.
“Resmore is in the care of Brind’Amour, as we had hoped,” said the man, Duke Ashannon McLenny of Baranduine.
“I wish that you were here,” Deanna lamented.
“I am not so far away,” Ashannon replied, and it was true enough. The duke of Baranduine resided in Eornfast, a city directly across the Straits of Mann from Mannington. Their connection in spirit was even closer than that, Deanna reminded herself, and, though she was more scared than she had ever been, except of course for that terrible night twenty years before, she managed a smile.
“Our course is set,” Deanna said resolutely.
“What of Brind’Amour?” Ashannon asked.
“He searches for a friend of old,” Deanna replied, for she had heard the wizard’s call. “He will unwittingly answer my call.”
“My congratulations to you, Princess Deanna Wellworth,” Ashannon said with a formal bow and the purest of respect. “Sleep well.”
They broke the connection then, both of them needing their rest, especially since their respective demons were no more. Deanna was truly charmed by the man’s respect, but it was she who owed the greatest debt in their friendship. Ashannon had been the one to open her eyes. It was the duke of Baranduine, who had ruled the largest clan of the island when Deanna’s father was king of Avon, who had figured out the truth of the coup.
Now Deanna believed him, every word. Ashannon had told her as well the truth about her crown: that it was the key to Taknapotin, a tie in an unholy triangle that included Greensparrow and allowed the king to keep her under close scrutiny. That crown was the link that had allowed Greensparrow to call in Deanna’s demon so easily that night in the Iron Cross. That crown, both by enchantment and by the subtle feelings of guilt that it incessantly forced upon poor Deanna, was the key that allowed Greensparrow to keep her locked under his spell.
“No,” Deanna reminded herself aloud. “It was only one of the keys.”
She walked determinedly across the room and gathered up her robe. Selna’s room was only three doors down the hall.
In the duke’s private room in Eornfast, Ashannon McLenny watched his mirror cloud over and then gave a great sigh.
“No turning round’about now,” said a voice behind him, that of Shamus Hee, his friend and confidant.
“If ever I had meant a round’about, I’d not have told Deanna Wellworth the truth of Greensparrow,” the duke replied calmly.
“Still, ’tis a scary thing,” Shamus remarked.
McLenny didn’t disagree. He, above perhaps any man in the world, understood Greensparrow’s power, the network of spies, human and diabolical. After the coup in Avon, Ashannon McLenny had thought to break Baranduine free of the eastern nation’s clutches, but Greensparrow had put an end to that before it had ever begun, using Ashannon McLenny’s own familiar demon against him. Only the duke’s considerable charm and wits had allowed him to survive that event, and he had spent the subsequent decade proving his value and his loyalty to the Avon king.
“I’m still not knowing why Greensparrow ever kept the lass alive,” Shamus mumbled. “Seems a cleaner thing to me if he had just wiped all the Wellworths from the world.”
“He needed her,” McLenny answered. “Greensparrow didn’t know how things would sort out after the coup, and if he could not cleanly take the throne, then he would have put the lass there, though he would have been in the shadows behind her, the true ruler of Avon.”
“Wise at the time, but not so much now, so it seems,” remarked Shamus with a chuckle.
“Let us hope that is the case,” said McLenny. “Greensparrow has slipped, my friend. He has lost a bit of his rulership edge, perhaps through sheer boredom. Events in Eriador are proof enough of that, and, perhaps, a precursor to our own freedom.”
“A dangerous course,” said Shamus.
“More dangerous to Deanna by far than to us,” said McLenny. “And if she can succeed in her quest, if she can even wound Greensparrow and steal his attention long enough, then Baranduine will at long last know independence.”
“And if not?”
“Then we are no worse off, though I will surely lament the loss of Deanna Wellworth.”
“You can break the ties to her and her little plan that easily, then?”
Ashannon McLenny nodded, and there was no smile upon his face as he considered the possibility of failure.
Shamus Hee let it go at that. He trusted Ashannon’s judgment implicitly; the man had survived Greensparrow’s Avon coup, after all, whereas almost all of the other sitting nobles at the time had not. And Shamus understood that McLenny, whatever his personal feelings for Deanna (and they did indeed run deep), would put Baranduine first. He had seen the man’s face brighten with hope when they had first learned from Deanna Wellworth that Brind’Amour of the ancient brotherhood was alive and opposing Greensparrow.
Yes, Shamus understood, McLenny was a man for the ages, more concerned with what he left behind than with what he possessed. And what he meant to leave behind was a free Baranduine.
DRESSED FOR BATTLE
Yes, my dear deJulienne,” Brind’Amour said absently, leaning back in his throne, chin resting heavily in his palm. “DeJulienne,” he muttered derisively under his breath. The man’s name was Jules!
The other man, dressed all in lace and finery, and spending more time looking at his manicured fingernails than at Brind’Amour, continued to spout his complaints. “They utter such garish remarks,” he said, seeming horrified. “Really, if you cannot keep your swine civilized, then perhaps we should put in place a wide zone of silence about the wall.”
Brind’Amour nodded and sat up straighter in his throne. The argument was an old one, measuring time from the formation of the new Eriadoran kingdom. Greensparrow had sent Praetorian Guards to Malpuissant’s Wall to stand watch on the Avon side, and from the first day of their arrival, bitter verbal sparring had sprung up between the cyclopians and the Eriadorans holding the northern side of the wall.
“Uncivilized,” Brind’Amour replied casually. “Yes, deJulienne, that is a good word for us Eriadorans.”
The fop, Avon’s ambassador to Caer MacDonald, tilted his head back and struck a superior pose.
“And if you ever speak of my people again as ‘swine,’” Brind’Amour finished, “I will prove your point exactly by mailing your head back to Carlisle in a box.”
The painted face drooped, but Brind’Amour, seeing his friends enter the throne room, hardly noticed. “Luthien Bedwyr and Oliver deBurrows,” the king said, “have you had the pleasure of meeting our distinguished ambassador from Carlisle, Baron Guy deJulienne?”
The pair moved near to the man, Oliver bobbing to stand right before him. “DeJulienne?” the halfling echoed. “You are Gascon?”
“On my mother’s side,” the fop
replied.
Oliver eyed him suspiciously, not buying a word of it. It had become common practice among the Avon nobles to alter their names so that they sounded more Gascon, a heritage that had become the height of fashion. To a true Gascon like Oliver, imitation did not ring as flattery. “I see,” said Oliver, “then it was your father who was a raping cyclopian.”
“Oliver!” Luthien cried.
“How dare you?” deJulienne roared.
“A true Gascon would duel me,” Oliver remarked, hand on rapier, but Luthien grabbed him by the shoulders, easily lifted him off the ground, and carried him to the side.
“I demand that the runt be punished,” deJulienne said to Brind’Amour, who was trying hard not to laugh.
“With my rapier blade I will write my so-very-long name across your puffy Avon breast!” Oliver shouted.
“He suffers from the war,” Brind’Amour whispered to deJulienne.
“Phony Gascon-type!” Oliver yelled. “If you want to be truly important, why do you not stand on your knees and pretend you are a halfling?”
“I should strike him down,” deJulienne said.
“Indeed,” replied the king, “but do have mercy. Oliver killed a hundred cyclopians personally in a single battle and has never quite gotten over it, I fear.”
DeJulienne nodded, and then, as the impact of the statement hit him fully, blanched even paler than his chalky makeup. “I will spare him then,” the man said quickly.
“I trust our business is finished?” Brind’Amour asked.
The Avon ambassador bowed curtly, spun on his heel, and stalked from the room.
“Jules!” Oliver called after him. “Julie, Julie!”
“Did you really see that as necessary?” Brind’Amour asked when Oliver and Luthien came to stand before him once more.
Oliver tilted his head thoughtfully. “No,” he answered at length, “but it was fun. Besides, I could tell that you wanted the fool out of here.”
“A simple dismissal would have sufficed,” Brind’Amour said dryly.
“Baron Guy deJulienne,” Luthien snorted, shaking his head in disbelief. Luthien had tasted more than his fill of the foppish Avon aristocracy, and he had little use for such pretentious fools. The woman who had sent him on the road from Dun Varna in the first place, the consort of yet another self-proclaimed baron, was much like deJulienne, all painted and perfumed. She had used the name of Avonese, though in truth her mother had titled her “Avon.” Seeing the ambassador of Avon only reaffirmed to Luthien that he had done well in giving the throne over to Brind’Amour. After the war, the Crimson Shadow could have likely claimed the throne, and many had called for him to do just that. But Luthien had deferred to Brind’Amour, for the good of Eriador—and, the sight and smell of deJulienne pointedly reminded him, for the good of Luthien!
“I should have sticked him in his puffy Avon breast,” Oliver muttered.
“To what end?” Brind’Amour asked. “At least this one is harmless enough. He is too stupid to spy.”
“Beware that facade,” Luthien warned.
“I have fed him information since he arrived,” Brind’Amour assured the young man. “Or should I say, I have fed him lies. DeJulienne has already reported to Greensparrow that nearly all of our fleet is engaged in a war with the Huegoths, and that more than twenty Eriadoran galleons have been sunk.”
“Diplomacy,” Luthien said with obvious disdain.
“Government, ptooey!” Oliver piped in.
“On to other matters,” Brind’Amour said, clearing his throat. “You have done well, and I offer again my congratulations and the gratitude of all Eriador.”
Luthien and Oliver looked to each other curiously, at first not understanding the change that had come over Brind’Amour. Then their faces brightened in recognition.
“Duke Resmore,” Luthien reasoned.
“The wizard-type has admitted the truth,” Oliver added.
“In full,” Brind’Amour confirmed. The king clapped his hands twice then, and an old man, dressed in brown robes, moved out from behind a tapestry.
“My greetings, once more, Luthien Bedwyr and Oliver deBurrows,” he said.
“And ours to you!” Luthien replied. Proctor Byllewyn of Gybi! The mere presence of the man told Luthien that the treaty with the Huegoths had been drawn.
Brind’Amour stood up from his throne. “Come,” he bade the others. “I have already spoken with Ethan and Katerin and word has gone out to the Dorsal Sea. King Asmund should have arrived in Chalmbers by now, thus I will open a path that he and Ethan might join with us.”
And Katerin, Luthien hoped, for how he missed his dear Katerin!
It was no small feat convincing suspicious Asmund to walk through the magical tunnel that Brind’Amour erected between Caer MacDonald’s Ministry and the distant city of Chalmbers. Even after Katerin and Brother Jamesis had gone through, even after the Huegoth king had agreed, Ethan practically had to drag him into the swirling blue lights.
The walk was exhilarating, spectacular, each step causing a mile of ground to rush under their feet. Chalmbers was fully three hundred miles from Caer MacDonald, but with Brind’Amour’s enchanted gate, the six men (including two strong Huegoth escorts, none other than Rennir and Torin Rogar) stepped into the Ministry in mere minutes.
“I do not approve of your magics!” Asmund said, defeating any greetings before they could even be offered.
“Time is pressing,” Brind’Amour replied. “Our business is urgent.”
Rennir and Torin Rogar grumbled.
“Then why did you not walk through the blue bridge to us?” Asmund asked suspiciously.
“Because Avon’s ambassador is in Caer MacDonald,” was all that Brind’Amour would reply. “This is the center, whether the Huegoths choose to join with Eriador’s cause or not.”
Luthien looked at the old wizard with true surprise; Brind’Amour’s stern demeanor hardly seemed a fitting way to greet the Huegoths, especially since they were proposing an alliance that went opposite the traditions of both peoples!
But Brind’Amour did not back down, not in the least.
“I am weary,” Asmund declared. “I will rest.”
Brind’Amour nodded. “Take our guests to their rooms in the northeastern wing,” he said to Luthien, nodding in that direction to emphasize the area. Luthien understood; deJulienne was quartered in the southeastern wing, and Brind’Amour wanted to keep the Avonese ambassador and Asmund as far apart as possible.
“I will do it,” Oliver offered, cutting in front of Luthien. He turned and winked at Luthien, then whispered, “You show Lady Katerin to her room.”
Luthien didn’t argue.
“You are sure that all is well with you?” Luthien asked softly.
Katerin rolled over, facing away from the man. “You need to ask?” she said with a giggle.
Luthien wasn’t joking. He put a hand on Katerin’s shoulder and gently, but firmly, turned her back to face him. He said not a word, but his expression stole the mirth from teasing Katerin.
“Ethan was with me the whole time,” she replied in all seriousness. “He is still your brother, despite his claims, and still my friend. He would have aided me, but in truth, I needed no protection or assistance. As rough as they might be, the Huegoths are honorable enough, by my eyes.”
“You would not have agreed with that when we were on Colonsey,” Luthien reminded her, and she had to admit that to be true. When they had first been captured, when The Stratton Weaver had been sent under the waves, Katerin was quite sure that her life would become a miserable thing, enslaved in the worst possible way by the savage Isenlanders.
“I am not for understanding them,” she admitted. “But their demeanor changed as soon as the treaty was proposed by Asmund. I spent much time with Ethan and the Huegoths in Chalmbers, many hours out on the longship, and I was not threatened, not even insulted, in the least. No, my love, the Huegoths are fierce enemies, but loyal friends. I hold all
confidence in the alliance, should it come to pass.”
Luthien rolled onto his back and lay quiet, staring at the ceiling. He trusted fully in Katerin’s judgment, and was filled with excitement.
But also with trepidation—for the war, if it came, would be brutal, far worse than the battles Eriador had fought to win its tentative freedom from Avon. Even with Huegoth allies, the Eriadorans would be sorely outnumbered by the more prosperous kingdom to the south. Even with the Huegoth longships and the captured Avon galleons, the Eriadoran fleet would not dominate the seas.
Luthien chuckled softly as he considered the irony of his current fears. When Princetown had fallen, that same spring only a few short months before, Luthien had wanted to press the war all the way to Carlisle. Brind’Amour had warned against such a desperate course, reminding his young friend of Greensparrow’s power.
“Find your heart, my love,” Katerin said, shifting so that her face was above Luthien’s, her silken red hair cascading over his bare neck and shoulders.
Luthien pulled her down to him and kissed her hard. “You are my heart,” he said.
“As is Eriador,” Katerin quickly added. “Free of Greensparrow and free of war.”
Luthien put his chin on her shoulder. Gradually a smile widened on his face; gradually the fires came again into his cinnamon eyes.
“It is all but done,” Luthien remarked as he and Brind’Amour left the table after a long and private session with Asmund and Ethan.
“Your brother shows wisdom far beyond his thirty years,” Brind’Amour said. “He has led Asmund down this road of alliance.”
“It was Asmund who first proposed the treaty,” Luthien reminded.
“And since that time, Ethan has taken the lead in making Asmund’s wish a reality,” replied Brind’Amour. “He is loyal to his king.”
That remark stung the young Bedwyr, who did not like to think of Ethan as a Huegoth, whatever Ethan might claim. He stopped in the corridor, letting Brind’Amour get a couple of steps ahead of him. “To both his kings,” he replied when his friend turned back to regard him.