Heir to the Sundered Crown (22 page)

“Now Luxon do you want to know what I have in store for you?” Cliria asked sweetly. She snapped her fingers. A Crimson blade assassin stepped forward. In his hands was a long golden rod. Cliria carefully took the rod from the killer’s hands.

“Do you know what this is?” she asked.

Luxon shook his head. He hadn’t a clue.

“Well,’ the witch said as she tugged on one end of the rod. With a click the rod extended until it was over a meter in length. Luxon could now see that it was a staff, similar to the ones he had seen in books. It was a wizard’s staff.

“This staff belonged to the first wizard Aljeron, I’m sure you’ve heard of him. It is called the staff of the void, and it needs powerful magic to charge it and to reinvigorate its power.” She twirled the staff above her head as she spoke. “And that’s where you come in....you see; only you have enough of the magic I need.”

Luxon tried to move, tried to struggle against his bindings, anything to escape.

“Why me? What makes me so special?” he cried.

Cliria laughed piteously revelling in the young mages terror. Luxon looked to his companions desperately hoping to see that one of them had a plan to escape, that he would not befall the fate the witch had planned for him. All he saw was Ferran struggling against his bindings, Kaiden shouting at the witch nd Sophia trying to stand.

“You do not know? Oh even better!” the witch cackled. She pointed the staff at him and touched it to his forehead. He tried to escape, but two assassins held him firmly in place.

“With this sacrifice I imbue this staff with the power of old, with this staff I open the void between worlds and set free my beloved. With this staff I will unleash untold horror upon this world and no-one will stop us. Once again the N’gist will thrive and I will take my rightful place as Queen of the world,”

“What of the Heir to the Sundered Crown!” Kaiden shouted.

Cliria stopped her incantation. She spun around to glare at the knight.

“Have you forgotten Alira? Have you forgottenyour vision. In it there was a light that pushed back the darkness...pushed you back. As long as he lives you will not have victory,” Kaiden growled.

The witch hesitated. Doubt was in her eyes.

A woman scared and alone clutches a small child to her chest.  A blinding light; a halo of fire surrounds the child casting back the darkness. 

  She shook the vision from her thoughts.

“You try to distract me knight. The child is of little importance,” Cliria said dismissively.

Kaiden stared unflinchingly.

“Then why go to all of the trouble of killing my contact at the sundial? You knew my order had learned of his location.”

The others gasped at his revelation.

“When were you going to tell us?” Ferran growled.

The witch cackled again.

“You failed Knight. I have your note,” She snapped her fingers at one of the assassins who pulled a sealed envelope from his tunic. It was the one Kaiden had received at the inn. Cliria broke the seal. As she read her face grew red in fury.

“This is a recipe for Plock stew!” she screamed in rage.

Luxon could have laughed. It was one of Yepert’s recipes from his notebook. The Knight must have swapped the note with it. His glee at Kaiden outwitting the witch faded however when he realised that now she must surely notice that his friend was missing. Sure enough she did.

“There is one missing...the fat stupid boy!” Cliria shouted. She smashed the staff over the head of the nearest assassin who crumpled to the ground.

“There was no other when we reached you mistress...” hissed one of the assassins.

“He must have crawled away and fled into the forest you fool!” Cliria snapped.

“You’re not so powerful. Silly bitch can’t even count!” Ferran said yowling with laughter. His laughter was cut short by a savage blow delivered by the assassin standing nearest to him. The blow knocked the Nightblade unconscious.

“Find the boy! Kill him, and take the note he carries,” Cliria ordered.

***

26.

The stench of decay was almost overwhelming in the tiny cell in which Luxon found himself. The chains holding him up off the ground were biting into his wrists and ankles, his body shivered against the cold.

A rat squeaked as it scurried around his feet. Its beady little eyes regarding him for a moment before it resumed its circuit of the cell. He looked at it with tired eyes, envying its freedom.

A pained scream emanated from deeper within the dungeons. He flinched at the tortured sounds. The rat stopped. Sniffed the air and ran off back through the small hole it had emerged from.

For hours the cries had come. He wasn’t sure whose turn it was, but all of them had endured the rack, the whippings, and the thumbscrews. The scream grew in volume until it ceased suddenly. He winced. What new torment had Cliria devised for them now?

Their torturers had only asked one question; where would Yepert be heading?

He had not said a word, but only screamed in pain. He hoped his friend was safe, but it was doubtful that he would have escaped the Fallen Wood by himself. Pucks and other foul beasts stalked those lands. One comfort he had was that the note Yepert carried had scared the witch. Her thoughts were hell bent on finding the child. Kaiden was right, she feared the prince.

Footsteps and the sound of something being dragged came from down the hall. Two assassins walked past his cell, being dragged between them was Kaiden. The Knight’s body was a mass of bloody cuts and bruises. His head flopped loosely so that it almost hit the floor. He was out cold.

He would have called out, but only a fist would have been the prize for his trouble. Instead he shut his eyes and delved into his thoughts. He smiled as he thought of Hannah, but felt sadness as well. It was a sadness which came from his fear that he would never see her again, that he had broken the promise he had made at the city gate in Caldaria.

For the first time in a long while his thoughts flitted to memories of his mother. He hadn’t seen nor heard from her in three years and he wondered where she had gone. She had been tall and fair with elegance that most of the women in the royal court envied.

He remembered walking through the high market of Sunguard smiling as he noticed the jealous looks coming from the high born ladies. His mother always smelt of lavender petals and her long brown sandy hair of jasmine. Around her neck she always wore a silver pendant; a golden serpent embossed on a blue background engraved upon its surface...

“No way!!” Luxon blurted out. He instantly shut his mouth not wanting to attract the attention of his jailors.  His eyes were wide as his brain raced a mile a minute.

The pendant she had worn...the symbol was the same he had seen on the robes of the dead Diasect monks. He shook his head. No...It couldn’t be, she was just the wife of a courtier not some mysterious figure. Doubts crept into his conscious. Why had she abandoned him at Caldaria? Where had she gone? And how did she know that he had magic?

Before that fateful night when the royal family was murdered he had just been a normal boy, completely oblivious to his powers. Only when he had arrived in Caldaria had he learnt what he was.

His thoughts were cut short at the sound of approaching footsteps. He moaned as the witch and two of assassins stepped into the candle light flickering away in front of his tiny cell. She had changed out of the clothes that Alira had worn, the long dress and travel tunic had been replaced by a long tightly fitting dress of pure black which accentuated every curve of her lithe young body. Her hair hung long and loose about her shoulders. If he didn’t know what she was he would have thought her beautiful, instead all he felt was fear and loathing.

“Your friend will not get far,” she mocked as she twirled a strand of her hair with a finger. “I will learn of the little prince’s whereabouts, and I will kill him. And as for you...now is the time for us to resume where we left off.”

He was too weak to struggle. The two assassins opened the cell door and unlocked the chains on his wrists. He cried out as the blood rushed back into his numb limbs. Roughly he was pulled from the wall and dragged out into the dungeons hall. Even the dim light from the candle hurt his eyes as they adjusted from the darkness of the dank cell.

As he was being dragged he looked to his right to see other cells carved into the stone. Several were empty; others had skeletons still hanging from their chains. Despite his predicament he could not help but wonder about had happened to the Diasect and the monks that guarded the sacred fortress.

As if hearing his thoughts Cliria spoke.

“The Diasect have long been an enemy of mine, it was such a good feeling to come here and take this place as my own. The long years of isolation made them weak, and their attitude of self importance had left them cut off from the realities of the world. Instead of watching they were too busy counting their coins, a pathetic end to such a powerful group. They thought themselves so wise, the council that guarded the world...ha!” she laughed mirthlessly.

Luxon glanced at her. So, the Diasect were people after all, flaws and all.

“What did you do?” he asked, wincing as his foot was dragged over a sharp stone.

Cliria slowed her stride so that she was walking just in front of him.

“My servants here,’ she said gesturing to the assassins as if that would explain everything. In some ways it did. Luxon gulped.

“The Diasect councillors were here...save one, she escaped. Each one was the descendant of the wizards of old. Ironic isn’t it? Your Kings outlawed magic and yet they took advice and guidance from those whose bloodlines were full of the stuff. I strung them up, one by one until they told me what I wanted to know.”

“And that was?” Luxon asked. Despite his weariness he was interested in what the witch was saying. His inquisitive nature was getting the better of him.

“The knowledge I needed to bring back my beloved,” she replied. In her left hand was the staff of Aljeron in its shortened form. She lifted it to show her prisoner.

  “They told me where to find this, what it will do and how to recharge its power. Only after I flayed them alive of course,” she added with a giggle.

“And that’s where I come in?”

They reached a large stone door which one of the assassins pulled open with little effort. A set of stone steps led upwards. Cliria didn’t reply until they had crested the steps. Now they were back in the main chamber.

“You are of his bloodline, and the son of the one Diasect councillor who I could not find, the woman that hid you from me for all this time. Your mother,” Cliria explained with a smile. She was relishing the shocked expression that crossed Luxon’s face. His mind reeled. His wild suggestion was right? His mother had been one of the Diasect. He closed his eyes. Tears fell. It answered so many questions and mysteries. All of those times when he was little that she was absent. Months at a time his mother was not there, his father being the one to care for him. It explained why she had fled, why she had abandoned him at Caldaria, how she knew of his powers. They were the descendants of the first wizard...The one who had sealed the rupture to the void eons ago. 

“A wizard’s staff only works when it detects the power of its creator. Magic is like blood. It is passed on and so only a descendant of Aljeron will power his staff. I would have used your mother but she eluded my grasp, but you will do very nicely. You have a unique gift, the blood of a wizard and powerful magic, yes, you will do very nicely,” Cliria mocked.

With a gesture the two assassins shoved Luxon to the ground, grabbed his arms and held him in place. Cliria took the rod and once again extended it until became the staff. She touched it to his forehead again.

“Now, we shall see if all my trials were worth the risk...”the witch muttered to herself.

She gripped the staff with two hands and pushed it firmly against Luxon’s head. He tried to struggle, but an assassin gripped him firmly about the neck, holding his head in place.

Once again she spoke her dark incantation;

“With this sacrifice I imbue this staff with the power of old; with this staff I open the void between worlds and set free my beloved. With this staff I will unleash untold horror upon this world and no-one will stop us. Once again the N’gist will thrive and I will take my rightful place as Queen of the world,”

A light began to emanate from the staff as it drained the magic from Luxon’s body. He screamed as he felt his magic being torn from him. It felt like he was on fire, every fibre of his being burned. The light grew more and more intense until the chamber was filled with white light. The assassins released their grip on their prisoner as the light burnt their eyes from their sockets.

Cliria laughed manically as the power of the staff was re-forged. Finally the light began to fade. Luxon had disappeared. In his place there existed a tear in the fabric of the universe. It was as though someone had punched a hole through a piece of paper. The hole floated in the middle of the chamber.

“Come to me my love!” Cliria called into the tear, hoping that her voice would be heard in the void beyond. Nothing happened. She called again frustration in her voice. A few moments passed until the tear exploded outwards in a blinding flash sending the witch flying backwards. She controlled her landing with magic to float gently to the ground.

“NOOOOOO!” she screamed.

The tear was gone.

Nothing had come through. And Luxon was gone.

***

27.

The night descended quickly in the forest. With no source of light save for the waning moons the Fell Forest was a terrifying place. Every tree looked like it was alive as their branches reached outwards like grasping talons.