Magician Prince (40 page)

“Halt!” commanded a guardsman as Tomlin got
closer. He looked weary, but serious. He was dressed in heavy armor
and brandished a sword and shield. From the crest of a raven on his
armor, he was marked as one of the royal guard. “You may go no
further.” Another stood by his side and helped bar Tomlin’s
path.

“Alia!” Tomlin called out and the enchantress
turned her head at hearing her name. When she saw Tomlin she smiled
widely and when she saw whom he held there was no force that would
have stopped her from meeting him. She pushed past the guards with
barely a thought and snatched up Avelice. Tears freely flowed down
her face as Alia held her daughter close to her chest.

Then it was Tomlin’s turn and she squeezed
him so tightly that the young bard thought they might crush Avelice
between them. “Thank you,” she said over and over again until the
words began to lose meaning. Tomlin hugged her back, not knowing
what to say.

The queen soon joined them and Tomlin was
very aware of her observant gaze. She watched them carefully, but
soon noted a smile creep up the corners of the queen’s mouth and
she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief that must have been
stuffed in one of her pockets. “Guards, please step aside.” Her
tone was commanding, but kind.

“At once your grace,” agreed the man who
first stopped Tomlin.

“Is this?” the queen asked Alia.

Alia broke their embrace and nodded to the
queen. She held the baby and stepped in close so that the queen
could get a good look at her. “This is your granddaughter,
Avelice.”

The walls were damp, giving the air a chill
to it. Sane knew this place well. He spent much of the last year in
this dungeon below the palace being tortured by Prince Janus.
Walking its halls, the old memories of pains and humiliations
sprang back to life. It was early in their torture sessions when
the old sorcerer lost his eye due to the prince’s overzealous
“interrogations” and subsequent refusal to provide him with a
healer’s attention that would have prevented the loss. Later Janus
and his men learned to be more cautious with the elderly sorcerer,
but that damage was already done. Sane was of much greater value as
a prisoner and unwilling servant than he was as a dead man.
However, they saw little point in keeping him well nourished or
providing him with any other niceties that would have cost them
nothing, but would have meant so much to the beleaguered man. It
hurt Sane to relive those memories even if only for a brief time.
He was glad that Janus was dead and his foulest conspirators like
the dwarf, Gilkame Axebeard, who made those damnable collars were
taken from the castle. It saddened him a little that he could take
pleasure in another’s misery, but he could not help thinking that
they got what they deserved. The crimes of kidnapping and murdering
orcs to make their collars had been made known by the Collective
and even now a contingent of soldiers and magicians were on their
way to a meeting with the orcs of Dread Marsh where the prisoners
would be turned over into their custody as a peace offering. Today
would be the dawning of a new age in Aurelia and he had only one
more errand to take care of in this dismal place.

Finally, Sane stopped at a cell and looked
into the darkness. There was a man sitting there amongst the
shadows. He was chained to the wall and dressed in rags, but he had
a cot and a blanket to keep him warm. The man’s black hair was
greasy and tangled, obscuring his downcast face from being
recognizable in the dim light. However, Sane knew this man well
enough that he had no doubt to his identity. “Hello, Kellen.”

The man who until very recently was a
respected knight of the kingdom looked up. Bags under his eyes
showed that he had not been sleeping well in his new home. Kellen
looked at Sane, but his stare was lacking in any sort of emotion
before he put his head back down. “I heard it all the way down
here. It was Byrn’s voice declaring himself the new ruler of
Aurelia and if you are freely walking down here, then I can only
assume that the Collective won out in the end. The funny thing is
that it is not even Byrn, but a pretender wearing his skin.” Kellen
looked up to see if there was any surprise on Sane’s face, but not
seeing any, he asked, “You knew and still you serve under this
fake?”

“I knew that Xander Necros took Byrn’s body,
but you can rest assured that Xander Necros is dead and the
Collective did not win,” Sane answered the accusation calmly. “In
fact, they are going to disband according to an agreement reached
between the queen and Alia Necros after weeks of negotiating
between representatives of Aurelia and the Collective.”

“Byrn- the real Byrn is dead too,” said
Kellen. This time the former knight was rewarded with seeing a hint
of surprise in Sane’s reaction.

“How did you hear of that down here?” asked
Sane.

“I saw it,” said Kellen. “I was on the ship
when Janus slit his throat and threw him overboard. Of course,
everyone thought he was really Xander Necros, but I knew the
truth.”

Sane suppressed a sad smile. “If that is
eating at your conscience, you can let it go. Byrn survived that
attack.” He took a key from his pocket and used it to unlock
Kellen’s cell. The knight stared at him as Sane entered and stood
just out of the chain’s reach. “Byrn told me that you helped him on
the ship when Janus tried to have him collared. Why did you do
that?”

Kellen eyed the key in the sorcerer’s hand.
This one was for his cuffs that kept him chained to the wall. “What
do you want, Sane? Tell me what is going on.”

“Queen Wendi has pardoned you on condition
that you reaffirm your loyalty to the Aurel bloodline and perform a
task that she has deemed to be of great importance.” Sane unlocked
the shackles unceremoniously and left the confines of the cell
before Kellen could follow. “As for my question, it is mine alone
to satisfy my curiosity. Not that long ago you personally collared
me, one of your oldest friends, but when it was to be done to Byrn,
someone that you viewed with, at best, distaste you helped him.
Why?”

“What I did to you can never be undone. Every
day since then I wished that I could take back that moment. I can
only imagine the tortures you suffered as a result of my actions
that night. When I saw it about to happen again, I did not think. I
knew I had to stop it.”

“Thank you for helping him,” said Sane, “I
don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive you for what you did
to me. A part of me wants to forgive you, but I cannot. Still thank
you for helping Byrn.”

Sane led the way back to the entrance to the
dungeon and up and out to the castle proper. “Clean clothes and a
warm bath have been drawn for you in my old apartments. We must
hurry along now or we will miss the queen’s speech.”

Kellen followed him closely. “Again you
mention the queen. Does that mean that Janus…?”

“He is dead too.” Sane did not elaborate on
that. He would find out what he needed to know soon enough.

“Then with Janus and Byrn both dead, there is
no one immediately in the line of succession,” said Kellen, working
it out for himself.

“No, there is one heir left.”

“Who?”

“You will see for yourself soon enough.”

Kellen bathed and dressed quickly in the
finery laid out for him as he fell back into his habits of military
readiness and efficiency. It was less than a half hour later when
they arrived at the rear of the stage set up in the square. It was
the same stage that Janus had built to proclaim the end of magician
terror upon weeks earlier.

“What is this speech about?” asked Kellen in
a hushed voice. They had a good view of the stage from their
vantage point to the right and rear of it where only honored guests
and designated personnel were allowed to be.

“It is a message of peace,” replied Sane.
Then he waved a hand in greeting to a young lady of extraordinary
beauty. She was red of hair and wore a gown of similar brilliant
color. “This is Southernstar.”

The woman with the exotic name held her hand
out for Kellen to kiss and he did so as was customary among nobles.
“This is the betrayer?” asked Southernstar bluntly.

“He is the one I spoke of,” Sane told her
diplomatically, “but you should not speak so directly. It is
considered unseemly.”

“Perhaps it is that preference of false
platitudes and hidden agendas that makes your kind so distrustful
of one another,” observed Southernstar clinically.

“Who is this woman?” asked Kellen.

“Quiet now, both of you. Queen Wendi is
beginning.”

Southernstar whispered, “Your timing is
fortuitous,” but Sane ignored her to hear his queen.

Queen Wendi was dressed in a black silk gown
with trimmings of red lace to signify that she was still in
mourning over the loss of her sons. The nobles that sat on either
side of her as well as Alia who sat to her immediate right were
dressed in the same colors. “It is with a heavy heart that I stand
before you today,” she began. “Today I come before you as your
queen, but I am also a mother who has lost both her children and
grieve that loss with all of my heart. It grieves me more though to
know that they died fighting each other over the future of this
kingdom that they both loved in their own ways.” The crowd muttered
amongst themselves and the words “magician,” “killer,” and “Byrn”
were heard from more than a few places. Queen Wendi raised her
hands for silence and the crowd quieted down. “Yes, Byrn Aurel was
a murderer and a magician, but before that he was a son and a
child. I am shamed to admit that my husband, King Kale Aurel, and I
sent him away as a baby. I am also shamed that he was forced to
suffer in hiding as he watched the people around him die one by one
and he blamed the kingdom for those deaths.” She breathed a deep
sigh and inhaled slowly before continuing. “I am finally ashamed to
admit that he was right in blaming Aurelia for those deaths. It was
our laws and treatment of magicians that drove not only my son, but
so many others to becoming criminals. If not for the magic that he
was born with Byrn Aurel would have been a prince among us. He
would have been looked upon with the same esteem as his brother or
his father. Instead he was forced to live outside of our society
and he grew bitter as a result of that. I do not say this to
justify his actions or the actions of those that followed him, but
to show that we must change the way we treat with magicians to
prevent the next Byrn Aurel from happening before it can even
begin.”

When she finished Queen Wendi turned to Alia
and nodded. The enchantress took her place at the podium as the
queen sat down. She held Avelice against her and let her gaze
wander across the crowd.

“Most of you do not know me. There are those
among you that will recognize me as a magician.” The crowd was
deathly quiet as they waited to hear what this woman would say
next. Sane knew that most of them had no experience with magicians
outside of the recent attack on the capital and many of them wore
expressions of hatred as Alia spoke to them. “Others will know me
as the leader of the Collective of Magicians who helped defeat Byrn
Aurel when he tried to take Mollifas, but I am something else too.
My name is Alia Aurel and my husband was Byrn Aurel.” It seemed
that there was a collective gasp from the crowd and before they
could say anything else Alia held up Avelice for all to see. “And
this is our child. Her name is Avelice Aurel and as the only living
heir of the Aurel bloodline she will one day be the ruling queen of
all of Aurelia.”

At that announcement the crowd erupted in
loud exclamations as some people began to get visibly agitated and
others shouted that they would never follow a magician-queen.

“Is that true?” asked Kellen of Sane. “When
were they married?”

“Sometimes truth is a casualty to peace. It
is the same reason why we must paint Byrn Aurel, the man who saved
this kingdom, as a villain. It sickens me, but we have little
choice considering Xander’s proclamation of conquest while he was
posing as Byrn. Now hush,” said the sorcerer.

Southernstar grunted in disagreement, but
maintained her silence.

Alia went on to speak over the crowd. She
projected her voice so that it was louder than any voices of
descent. “As many of you are surmising, because both of your future
queen’s parents were magicians there is a strong possibility that
she will be one as well. So when Queen Wendi stands before you and
says that things must change in regards to magicians, you know that
it must be so. These changes and a newfound peace between magicians
and non-magic users are not a selfish need on the part of the
Collective, but a necessity for all of Aurelia’s citizens.”

Queen Wendi rose and stood side by side with
Alia. “For our future queen and so that all Aurelians can prosper
it is with great honor that I can announce that from this day forth
all magicians are now considered free.”

The explosion of curses and jeers from the
crowd was unnerving even to Sane who stood off to the side. How
strong of spirit were these two women to stand at the forefront of
such outrage and take the brunt of that? Some people near the front
of the crowd tried to push their way onto the stage, but the guard
held their weapons at the ready daring any foolish enough to try
their luck. The sorcerer held his breath. If it would come to that
and someone was killed, then this assembly would surely turn into a
riot. The queen raised her hands up in the air and repeatedly
demanded silence a number of times before those near the stage were
calmed down enough to listen.

“Do not forget that it was magicians that
made it possible that Byrn Aurel was defeated. They laid their
lives down and helped to keep all of us safe. Now we will do what
is right and show them the same favor.” There was a self-assurance
and command in her voice that cowed those before her into a soft
murmur before she continued on with her declaration. “The magicians
who once lived in domains and were collared have already been set
free. Those among the Collective who have been our enemies until
recently have been pardoned under the condition that they serve the
kingdom for no less than three years working alongside our Kenzai
officers as peacekeepers. They will help to police their own and
will be integrated into the already existing Kenzai operations.” A
man jeered loudly and at that Queen Wendi stopped speaking long
enough to get a fix on the man and stare him down before
continuing. “For the children-magicians we will open a school right
here in Mollifas for these gifted youngsters where they can learn
to control their abilities for the betterment of Aurelia and its
people. Alia Aurel has already agreed to be the headmistress of
this school and I have the utmost of confidence in her
abilities.”