The Dragon Ring (Book 1) (33 page)

When they docked, the small fishing boat hardly raised an eyebrow. The customs agent took one look at them and departed. Twit took up sentry duty on a post beside the boat where he could spot both insects and watchers easily.

“Stay here,” the wizard said.

“You sure you feel up to marketing?” Saxthor asked.

Tournak frowned at Saxthor and the younger men nodded compliance. The wizard left the boat and inquired along the docks where they might sell their cargo. He returned, downcast.

Saxthor met him first. “Any luck?”

“The inn where we stayed before is rundown, the surrounding shops too. Several businesses on the waterfront are closed. The few ships in the harbor confirm trade in general is down.”

Tournak soon sold foodstuffs and bought needed supplies.

“The people’s sour moods are evident in suspicious glances,” Saxthor said. “They don’t smile.”

“Frowns everywhere,” Bodrin said.

“There’ll be watchers looking for anything unusual,” Tournak said. “I’d planned to stay overnight at the inn to have ale with the locals and find out the country’s disposition. I’ve seen enough.”

“I agree,” Saxthor said.

They bought a few more items for use inland, repacked the boat, and put out into the bay to sail upriver not stopping for the night.

18:  Return to Hyemka

“The old bird hasn’t been that active since we fled from Tixumemnese years ago,” Tournak said, watching Twit dance a jig on the steering oar.

“Mr. Twit still flits about, but he hops more nowadays,” Saxthor agreed.

“He favors his left leg,” Bodrin said.

The wizard followed the agitated bird’s line of sight and observed the hawk Twit had spotted on the battlements of Castilyernov Fortresska.

“Settle down, Twit,” the wizard said. “You’re only a small bird. No one will spot you in the twilight. The big bad bird isn’t going to get you.”

Twit ignored his companions and kept an eye on the raptor, which in turn seemed to follow Twit’s movements. The little bird fluttered his patterned dance on the steering oar.

“It’s Okay, Twit,” Saxthor said.

Bodrin waved his arms several times. The hawk, rising in the warm updraft from the fortress walls, glided over the harbor on the sea breeze. He circled over the river above the boat, gaining altitude, then flapped his wings and flew off up the river. Barely detected, he then turned east.

Twit rested, dozing in the afternoon sun after hobbling back to his protected spot.

“This old boat feels quite natural sailing up the river currents,” Bodrin said, changing the subject.

Tournak was alert to any movement. “The traffic sure is light. I don’t understand what’s wrong. This is the kingdom’s main artery for transporting goods to Olnak for export.”

“When we passed downriver seven years ago, the farmers maintained the lands along the waterway,” Saxthor said. “This year the pastures are empty; the drainage ditches are overgrown and silted up.”

Further inland, muskrats had undermined the irrigation channels. The rich alluvial fields had mostly dried up or weeds smothered them. Although it was autumn, little grain rustled in the breeze. Only patchy stubble indicated farmers had harvested what crops they’d planted. The farmhouses, so neat and well maintained before, showed peeling paint and displaced clapboards or appeared abandoned all together. The boat sailed upriver past dilapidated and deserted farms.

“Let’s tie up along the river for the night,” Tournak said.

Bodrin nodded.

Saxthor’s downcast head shook. “If the decline of Olnak is so advanced, I can’t imagine conditions inland will be any better.”

“Bad economic times raise discontent and open the door for those who would exploit it,” the wizard said.

“Earwig is behind a lot of this,” the prince said.

*

Bodrin was first to come on deck the next morning. The cooking fire was going and he was preparing breakfast.

Saxthor got a mug and poured himself a full measure of fresh tea. “I’m starving.”

“How long before breakfast?” Tournak was still recovering; he’d slept late and eyed the tea as he emerged from the cabin.

Saxthor chuckled. “Breakfast? You’ve snoozed away half the day, old man.”

Tournak’s raised eyebrows and pinched lips needed no additional response; Saxthor looked away to coil rope though he couldn’t restrain his grin.

After eating, Bodrin took the steering oar as prince and wizard raised the mast, unfurled the lateen sail, and pulled in the anchor. The fishing vessel moved out into the river’s swirling eddies. The Nhy’s broad, deep delta was easy to navigate, the wind still coming from the coast.

“We’re making good progress against the current,” Tournak said.

Bodrin poked his companion and pointed to Twit. The ever-vigilant bird opened one eye when the buzzing he’d been listening to stopped nearby. The bird had spotted a small damselfly just a hop from where he dozed. One pounce, a snap, and Twit had his breakfast before the hapless victim realized he’d landed in the wrong spot. The drowsy wren settled back to doze on his favorite protected traveling site. In the warm morning sun following a juicy breakfast, Twit was about to nap.

Out of the corner of his eye, the bird caught sight of another boat riding the river downstream. Suspicious, the bird flicked his tail, fluffed his feathers and hopped up to a better vantage point inspecting the craft. She was low in the water with two men on deck, one steering, the other keeping the bow straight in the current. The boat was laden with baskets of apples and pears. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Twit hopped back to his protected spot out of the wind and slept.

* * *

So far, no one knew or suspected the exiles had returned to the continent. Earwig was about her business stirring up trouble and creating general ill will among the people. She took advantage of the grieving queen’s lack of visibility to seed the sentiment the queen had forsaken her subjects. As the economy weakened, Earwig’s suggestions, meticulously placed here and there, fanned the flames of discontent and connected the economic problems with the court. The witch directed her cronies to stir anger where they could.

“When war comes, with Magnosious at my direction, I shall be the one to save the kingdom.”

* * *

Far to the north in Dreaddrac’s subterranean fortress, the irritable sorcerer-king held court from his iron throne. His crippled aide, Smegdor, stood near the dais awaiting his master’s summons. Audacious colors at the back of the audience hall caught Smegdor’s eye. A fresh attendee and his trailing assistant surveying the vast chamber probed through the inconspicuously dressed courtiers. Jittery glances and movements confirmed the pair was new to the court. Smegdor’s attention snapped back to the Dark Lord when he threw a goblet at an inattentive supplicant. Several petitioners passed before the king, whose face was as grim as the three grisly skulls that crowned his throne. He cut the petitioners short and dismissed them unrewarded.

The aide slipped around the hall’s shadowy edges and approached the strangers.

“Who might you be?” Smegdor asked. “I’m Smegdor, the king’s aide.”

“I’m the new ambassador from Prertsten,” the senior, more resplendent man said. “This is my personal assistant.”

The ambassador’s brilliant robes made Smegdor nervous. He glanced at the throne.

“The king has fumed for days, troubled over some unknown energy in the south. This might be an inauspicious time to make your ambassadorial presentation. Perhaps you should leave and return another day. You may want to be less conspicuous in your attire.”

The two newcomers looked at each other bug-eyed, nodded to Smegdor, and tried to work back through the crowd toward the door.

“Who are those men?” the Dark Lord yelled.  “The peacock and his follower who illuminate our court, how dare they withdraw without our permission?”

“This is the new Prertstenian ambassador, Your Highness,” Smegdor said. His meek voice didn’t mollify the king.

“You there, the peacock, who are you?”

The ambassador bowed low. “Baron Bimdor, Majesty.”

“Another emissary - from your appearance, we deduce Prince Pindradese must be running out of willing applicants. Don’t these constant, tedious petitions irritate us enough without you blinding us with such brilliant plumage?”

“We meant no offense.”

“Come before the throne that we may bask in this dazzling sight.”

A groveling ogre misinterpreted the summons and stepped forward. The ambassador hesitated. The Dark Lord’s brow furrowed. His head jerked, the good eye fixed on the ogre, who realized his mistake at once. He froze.

“That unfortunate creature chose the wrong time to step forward,” Smegdor said.

“Yes, the cold rage…” the ambassador said.

Those around the throne began to shuffle backward away from the cringing ogre, who dove to the floor and pressed his sweat-beaded face to the stone. The king sat upright on blood-spattered cushions. Both the sorcerer’s blood-shot yellow eye and the milky dead one trained on the petrified petitioner. A bolt of pure blue energy shot from the king into the prostrate ogre. The startled ambassador jumped back. The victim shuddered, steam and smoke shot from his dirty pores. In seconds, he vaporized amid a sudden burst of drifting ash.

His stare still trained on the fluttering ash, Baron Bimdor asked, “Dare we leave?”

Smegdor scrutinized the Dark Lord’s sneer. “Don’t move.”

Two fleeing courtiers racing for the exit, smashed into the ambassador. A charging troll bumped into the assistant, shoving him into his master. A general panic spread through the hall. Nerves frayed. An undulating stampede swept across the room converging on those already scrunching through the arched doorway.

“I’m sorry,” the ambassador’s assistant said, but the troll was already out of earshot. The squirming subordinate dodged another escaping sycophant. “We’ve not been dismissed.”

The ambassador glared at Smegdor then his associate.

“Dismissed? Run, you fool! Run for your life.”

They fled the audience hall with most everyone else. Smegdor returned to his place to the side of the dais.

“Ambassador indeed,” the Dark Lord said. His sneer exposed the black shell of an eyetooth. A back-sweeping wave of his hand officially dismissed the courtiers surging against the crush at the hall doors.

“I must discover the source of this unexplained energy. Go down to the crypt and search The Well of Souls. I require a specter talented in life as a tracker. Then you’ll find a list of ingredients on my worktable. Assemble them before nightfall.”

Smegdor descended through the catacombs to the Well of Souls in the Munattahensenhov’s bowels. The Dark Lord collected and imprisoned the most wretched of evil spirits, those without remorse or forgiveness at the moment of death, in the bottomless hell. The assistant found and extracted the chosen tortured essence. Though protected by his master’s power, Smegdor struggled with the menace. He restrained the wretch in a lead-glazed ceramic bottle holding the specter under a spell. Back in the sanctum, he assembled the caustic ingredients on the unusual list. By nightfall, everything was ready.

Approaching the chamber, the sorcerer king saw Smegdor watching him from the door and kicked a skull on the hall floor. Eerily, skin and hair flapped as the head thumped and rolled to a stop, spinning at Smegdor’s feet.

“Everything is prepared, Master.” Smegdor said. He focused on the gruesome skull’s eye sockets.

“For your sake, I hope so.” The warlock walked past his aide who followed but stopped beside the workroom door.
“I’m going to create a wraith to find that mysterious energy’s source.”

Smegdor nodded. The dark wizard selected a moldy, leather-bound book. He moved to the worktable, checked the preparations and opened the book to a spell flagged earlier.

“Say nothing to the wretch when he comes from the bottle.”

Smegdor bowed compliance but remained near the exit.

The wizard chanted an incantation releasing the frantic soul from the bottle, where the nefarious vapor hesitated.

“I need you to perform a simple task.” The king worked at the table, not acknowledging the specter, who studied him.

The kingdom’s potency was strongest at the juncture of two planetary energy gradients directly beneath the Munattahensenhov. The surge of raw power drew the Dark Lord to the mountain in the beginning. He augmented the energy with a series of mirrors that focused moonlight into a concentrated beam. The moon’s dynamism channeled down through the mountain’s core to the concentrated energy pulsating in the workroom’s corner. The planetary and celestial energies aligned in the column. Power charged the room. Smegdor’s hair stood on end. The moon was full and the intense pulsing hummed. The Dark Lord held his hands to the energy as if warming them at a fire.

“Smegdor, swing the iron pot over the flame.”

The aide complied, noting how the king’s smooth demeanor and voice dispelled the quivering specter’s trepidation. As the cauldron heated, the magician tossed in packets of herbs and dried creatures long since dead. Ground sulfur, diverse minerals, and bones went into the pot with blood and other liquids. All melted into a steaming black brew, boiling down to an caustic substance like pitch.

“I think this has attained sufficient potency,” Smegdor said.

“Come closer and partake of this elixir,” the king said to the lost soul.

Smegdor stepped back to the door.

The wavering spirit drifted toward the portentous container. Without warning, the wizard snatched his wand. A single mystical word, a thrust, and he overpowered the dazed spirit. The king’s yellow eye blazed. His teeth gnashed.

The victim twisted and recoiled.

The king’s bloodshot eyes blazed. “Submit!”

Smegdor jumped outside the doorframe and peered back around it.

The sorcerer’s robes rippled violently as he grappled with the struggling specter.

At last, one mournful screech lamenting creation, pierced the charged room. Above the simmering pot, a final valiant struggle preceded surrender. Then the glistening sludge sucked the flailing essence down the cauldron’s gaping throat. The bubbling goop belched sulfurous fumes, and then undulating, settled to the bottom of the black pot.