Sovereign Stone (59 page)

Phane’s mouth fell open when he saw that the item in the pretender’s hand was the Sovereign Stone . . . and it was glowing.

“That can’t be,” he said to the empty room.

Then Jataan P’Tal stopped his strike.

“No! No! No!” Phane spoke each word louder as he stood looking at the mirror in disbelief.

When he saw Commander P’Tal order his men to stand down, he tipped his head back and screamed in rage. He watched helplessly as Jataan P’Tal helped kill the Andalian Lancers, and he felt his rage build into something beyond murderous when he heard the General Commander of the Reishi Protectorate declare that the pretender was the Seventh Sovereign of the Seven Isles.

Phane sat back down heavily and stared at the scene of his greatest triumph as it morphed into defeat, and he felt hot fury well up within him, supplanting what little restraint he possessed. He stood quickly and stomped out of his Wizard’s Den into the well-appointed sitting room of his chambers in the modest keep on the southern Isle of Tyr.

He opened the door and barked to the serving girl sitting outside his quarters, “Bring me travel food for a month and a barrel of water.”

She didn’t hesitate. The rumors of Prince Phane’s temper and unseemly appetites were well known. She sprang to her feet, nodded, and ran off down the hall.

Phane slammed the door and paced back and forth in front of his Wizard’s Den, muttering curses and oaths of vengeance to himself while he waited. He stopped in midstride.

“Kludge!” he bellowed. His familiar appeared in a cloud of inky black smoke a moment later, beating its wings furiously to hover just below Phane’s eye level.

“Yes, Master. How can I serve you?” The little monster wrung its hands as it spoke with subservience and a hint of fear.

“Go to Karth and tell General Rada that the Gates are open. Tell him to invade Ruatha with all of his forces and to crush everything and everyone without mercy. Then go to Andalia and tell the Andalian King to prepare to move his Lancers through the Gate as soon as the army on Karth has moved through. Go now!” Phane barked the orders at his familiar, which only made it nod and wring its hands with even more subservience.

Kludge swirled into an inky cloud of darkness and vanished with a loud clap. Phane resumed his pacing until he heard a timid knock at the door.

“Enter!” he barked. The door opened and three young women filed in with two large bags of food and a barrel of water on a cart. None of them would meet his eyes. He regarded them for a moment and an idea started to form. He actually smiled, but without any humor at all.

“Put it in there,” he commanded, pointing to his Wizard’s Den.

The three young women stared in surprise when they saw the magical room. Everyone knew magic existed, but most people never saw any real magic, let alone something as wondrous as a Wizard’s Den. They loaded the food and water into the little room while Phane watched. When they stepped out of the Wizard’s Den, he waved his hand and the door vanished.

“Come with me,” he commanded as he went to his summoning chamber. The three young women followed, sharing nervous looks with each other. He held the door for them and then closed it loudly behind them. Then he threw the bar and cast a simple binding spell to hold it shut.

The three serving girls looked around at the bare circular room with a mixture of wonder and fear. Phane started chanting and their wonder dissipated as their fear grew. Everyone had heard the whispered stories of Dora, Phane’s first serving girl.

The air within the circle started to darken. Then it turned inky black and swirled into a great vortex that filled the magic circle to the ceiling. When the hateful yellow eyes started peering out of the darkness, one of the serving girls screamed.

Phane turned to them with murder in his eyes, roughly snatched the first girl’s arm and tossed her into the blackness. The other two screamed hysterically, backing toward the door as their friend was torn apart. He reached out with his magic and grabbed them both. With a flick of his mind, he tossed them into the circle with the nine nether wolves he had summoned.

He turned to the swirling darkness and listened to the dying screams of the three women he’d just sacrificed to bind the beasts of the netherworld to his will.

“Go forth and kill everyone on this island except for me.”

The nether wolves howled with lust and fury. Phane waved at the door; the bolt slid open and the door swung wide. He stepped across the edge of the magical circle, breaking the hold on the nether wolves. The nine beasts crossed the threshold and bounded through the door, eager to begin their slaughter.

Phane whistled to himself as he walked through the halls of the keep, listening to the screams of panic and death that tore through the night. He entered the stables and found the stable master hiding under a staircase, trembling in fear.

“Prince Phane, what’s happened? It sounds like the netherworld itself has come to destroy us all.”

Phane smiled at the man. “It has,” he said before strolling to his horse.

The animals were terrified from the sounds of death and fear, but Phane placed a hand on his horse’s neck and spoke a few words. The animal settled immediately. He saddled his steed and rode out of the keep. People were running in every direction, some moving to engage the threat, others fleeing the sounds of death and dying.

Phane fixed his rage on his target. He would skin Jataan P’Tal alive and boil him in salt water. He’d killed people that way before. The Reishi Prince remembered how satisfying it was.

When he got to the top of the hill half a mile away, he dismounted and tied his horse to a fence post. He faced the keep, extended his hands and started casting a spell. A bubble formed between his outstretched hands and filled with the swirling orange-red glow of liquid fire. It started out two feet in diameter but he fed more power into it, and the surface of the bubble undulated and rippled as it grew. Still he fed it and it grew even more. When he released the bubble, it was twelve feet across. It streaked toward the nearest tower of the keep, glowing bright and angry, and burst explosively, sending a shower of liquid fire down on the people, buildings, and streets below. Within moments the entire place was ablaze. Sounds of panic, terror, and the howling of nether wolves filled the night.

Phane nodded in satisfaction at the carnage and destruction he’d inflicted on the Reishi Protectorate. He knew they would serve the bearer of the Sovereign Stone. With the pretender bonded to the Stone, everyone on this island was now his enemy. Phane mounted his horse and rode toward the Reishi Gate, whistling to himself.

Chapter 51

Lord Zuhl, King of the Isle of Zuhl, the northernmost of the Seven Isles, stood atop the stone tower he had built so many centuries ago. He remembered stacking one stone on top of another until the modest little twelve-foot-tall structure was complete. He built it as a monument to his goal, as a symbol of his life’s work. He had come here often during the past seven hundred years to remind himself to be patiently persistent.

Kaja Zuhl smiled to himself. His long effort and consistent devotion to his singular purpose was bearing fruit.

When he inherited the House of Zuhl, it was little more than a minor territory on the southern coast of the island, but it was a proud house with a long and storied history. His family had ruled the Isle of Zuhl for two millennia, presiding over an age of peace and prosperity that had never been seen before or since. They had been loyal to the Reishi and to the Old Law—their loyalty had been repaid by betrayal, treachery, and murder.

When the secret of Wizard’s Dust was stolen from the Reishi, a number of secret Wizards Guilds formed as a result. One of those guilds was located on the Isle of Zuhl.

The wizards it produced were sworn to the Old Law and did good works for the people. Then the Reishi declared open war on any non-Reishi magic. The House of Zuhl helped the wizards go into hiding and protected them against the penalty of death that had been decreed by the Reishi Sovereign. When Malachi Reishi discovered that they were harboring those he thought of as enemies, he declared war on the House of Zuhl.

At the beginning of the Reishi War, all seven of the Island Kings owned a Thinblade—each given to their line by the First Reishi Sovereign as a gift for their loyalty and as a badge of office, a symbol of the Reishi Sovereign’s support of their right to rule.

What none of the Island Kings knew was that the Thinblades could be used against them.

The Swords of Kings were tied to the power of the Sovereign Stone, and the holder of the Stone could release the ancient magic that bound a Thinblade. The result was a catastrophic explosion of magical energy capable of killing anyone nearby.

When Malachi Reishi discovered that Zuhl was protecting non-Reishi wizards, he detonated the Zuhl Thinblade and killed most of the Zuhl bloodline in one moment of indiscriminate murder. Only a few survived, but the Reishi Sovereign wasn’t satisfied with that. He wanted to eradicate the entire line of Zuhl for all time.

With beasts conjured from the dark realms of the netherworld, Malachi Reishi savagely attacked what remained of the House of Zuhl. He sent his inhuman minions to wantonly slaughter the people of the island, people who looked to the House of Zuhl to protect them. Seeing the indisputable evil of Malachi Reishi’s tactics, those of the line of Zuhl who survived the destruction of the Thinblade sided with the rebellion against the Reishi.

The Reishi War ravaged the Isle of Zuhl, leaving it broken and desolate for centuries. The scattered tribes who survived eked out a living hunting dangerous beasts that roamed the frozen wilds of the north and fishing the frigid waters in the south. It was a thousand years before the population of the island had recovered to the point where building cities even made sense. During those dark years, hundreds of petty nobles, more accurately described as warlords, staked out their territories and fought viciously to protect the scraps of mostly frozen and barren land they claimed.

The House of Zuhl had reestablished itself in the rich southern tip of the island when Kaja Zuhl inherited it just over seven hundred years ago. The relatively tiny territory was rich in gold, iron, and coal, and had a fishery that was teeming with all manner of sea life. Zuhl spent the first years of his life studying magic and history. The more he learned about the injustices done to his House, the more his hatred for the Reishi grew.

He thought back to the day he had learned about Prince Phane, the day the first seed of his plan was sowed. He remembered the journey to the Isle of Tyr. He posed as a possible recruit for the Reishi Protectorate, even though he secretly wanted to lash out at them. He remembered standing in front of the obelisk that contained the last heir to the Sovereign Stone. He could still hear the Commander of the Reishi Protectorate telling him that one day the Reishi Prince would emerge and claim the Sovereign Stone and with it reunite the Seven Isles under the House of Reishi.

Zuhl had other plans.

When he discovered that the Reishi Gates were tied to the magic of the Sovereign Stone, another piece of the puzzle snapped into place. The Isle of Zuhl had very little natural timber resources so he had no way of building ships to move his soldiers around the Seven Isles. If he was to establish his empire, he would need a navy. He knew just where to look for the timber, but he could never hope to get enough soldiers there by conventional means. The Reishi Gates were the only way and they wouldn’t function until the Sovereign Stone was back in the world.

He returned to his home and studied magic. He knew what he wanted to accomplish, but he needed several more pieces of the puzzle before he would be able to pull it off. He turned to necromancy, both out of necessity and out of a sense of poetic justice. He would use the power discovered and wielded by the last Reishi Sovereign to end the Reishi line once and for all, while at the same time laying the groundwork for the rise of the House of Zuhl.

When he discovered how to use the dark forces of the netherworld to draw the life from another and use that vital energy to stop and even reverse the physical aging process, he knew his goal was within reach. For the past seven hundred years, on the eve of the winter solstice, he had sacrificed a virgin girl who was mature enough to become pregnant.

That was his favorite time of year. He shuddered every time he thought about the exquisite feeling of drawing the life energy from a vibrant young woman and using her vital force to infuse his body with longevity and youth. Even though he was over seven hundred years old, he looked like he was a man of twenty-seven.

Zuhl stood just over six feet tall and had pale white skin and ice-blue eyes. His hair was shock white, cropped close and squared off on top. His features were angular and his face had a drawn, almost gaunt look to it. He was thin and almost frail-looking, but that appearance belied a strength of will and a talent with dark magic that more than compensated for any physical shortcomings he may have had, perceived or otherwise.

He had a shrewd intellect and a practical, pragmatic way of approaching problems, always flexible about the means to his ends but totally driven to achieve those ends, no matter the cost.