The Flames of Deception - A Horizon of Storms: Book 1 (12 page)

Matthias drew the handkerchief to the man’s nose and with
effort held it a moment as the man struggled. Luckily for him the
drops were potent, and in another second the man collapsed to the
floor unconscious. Matthias looked at him sadly. “I’m really very
sorry,” he said to him, and pulled him into a more dignified
position before continuing up the stairs. They stretched up a fair
way and curled around a thick stone trunk, but after a minute he
emerged into a mahogany panelled walkway that led up to the
chambers of the princess. He gingerly peered around the corner.
Another guard stood in watch in front of the door to her room. He
paused and thought for a moment, and drew out the handkerchief from
his pocket again. The cloth was slowly drying. Besides, he needed
to be quieter than he was downstairs. There were doubtless people
inside the princess’s chambers and he couldn’t afford to alert them
to his presence.

Matthias replaced the handkerchief into his pocket and slowly
felt with his hand around the wall, and then, eyes illuminating in
the gloom and with a flick of his fingers, sent a tiny bolt of
energy towards the guard. It struck him silently and with a muffled
grunt, the man collapsed on to the floor.

“
Sorry
,” he whispered as he walked towards him, and
pushed his body out of the way of the door. “
You’ll be fine in a few
hours.
” Then
he stared at the door. The round, black handle stared back.
A half - dozen
maids inside, perhaps,
he thought to himself.
I’ll bind them with a simple pattern
and then silence the room
. He nodded, staring at the door. A minute passed
as he raised his hand above the handle and left it suspended there
whilst he gathered his nerve. “Come on you stupid
old-”

A
whooshing noise made him spin around. A looming face enveloped his
vision and he felt his body being slammed against the wall to the
side of the door. The air within his lungs was pushed out with the
force and as he tried to take a breath he felt the cold, sharp
steel of a sword blade press against his Adam’s apple. When his
eyes focussed again, Thadius's furious face stared back at
him.

“
Thadius!” Matthias gasped. “I-”

“
The king
thought
you might be up to no good!” He growled.
“He
tried
to ignore his suspicions, to give you the benefit of the
doubt, but there was just a nagging doubt in his mind that made him
wake and ask me to keep an eye on you. It looks like he was
right
to do so!” The
man’s chest heaved in anger. “I
actually
thought that you were here to help!
I
apologised
to you, and you sat there and let me
think
you were a man of honour! Give
me
one
good reason why I should not slit your throat right
this
instant?
”

Matthias' nostrils flared, and he sucked in air through
gritted teeth. “You don't know the half of what I am doing here
tonight, Thadius,” he spluttered.

“
Nor do I
want
to!” The man hissed. “All I know is you are
outside the Princess’s chambers. What were you planning? Was the
dragon all a ploy to put us off guard, to make us believe you were
helping us?”

“
The
threat of the dragon is real!” Matthias wheezed through Thadius’
clenched fist. “I’m not here to hurt anyone!”

“
Pah!
” Thadius growled, his face growing redder by the
second. “More Mahalian lies! I
should
slit your throat!” He pressed harder on
the wizard’s neck with his sword.

“
I would rather you didn’t,” Matthias panted.
“Blood is… difficult to get
out
of stone.”

“
How
dare
you joke with me!” Thadius looked ready to
explode.

“
I apologise,” Matthias coughed. “But… I need you
to calm
down
… and let me
go!
”

“
Let you go?” Thadius laughed. “Are you
insane?
”

“
I don’t want… to hurt you. You are a good man, but
I am… rather struggling… to
breathe
now!”

“
You can
suffocate
for all I care! I am not going to let you
go!”

“
I
could get out of this in a heartbeat… if I wanted to,” Matthias
retorted.

“
Really?” Thadius snorted. “
You know, I don't believe
a
word
that comes out of your mouth!”

Matthias moved a hand from clutching the sword at his neck to
Thadius's chest. “This will sting.” There was a flash of green
light and Thadius flew through the air and crashed against the
opposite wall. He slid to the floor, sword spinning away noisily.
He looked up at Matthias in fear. The wizard clutched at his throat
and gulped down air. “Are you alright?” he asked
Thadius.

“
What… what do
you
care?” he growled.

“
I could
run
right now, right out of this palace and this city,
knock out all your guards and flee. I
also
could have killed you a moment ago and
taken the princess. I still
could
.”

“
Then why
don't
you?” Thadius panted angrily, clutching to his
chest where a wisp of smoke puffed from his singed
jacket.

Matthias looked to the far reaches of the
corridor, then back at Thadius, and shook his head. “Because you
need to know the
truth
. I'm not
doing
it this way! This isn’t
why
I have come here! I wanted to earn your trust, not
destroy it!” He reached down and offered a hand to Thadius. The
soldier looked up at him hesitantly, but after a moment, he took it
and was hoisted to his feet. He stared at Matthias with confusion.
The door to the princess’s chamber opened and Josephine appeared in
a night - dress, surrounded by maids. Seeing the two men before
her, she clutched the garment tightly around her, folding her arms
across her chest.

“
What is going
on?
” She exclaimed.

The
doors to the king's personal chambers burst open and through them
came Thadius and Josephine, followed by Matthias, who was flanked
by two guards. The wizard had agreed to be bound, so that his hands
were held tightly behind his back by shackles and chains, and the
soldiers pushed him down heavily on to the floor, where he landed
with a thud. He lay at the king's feet, and the man stared down at
him with a thunderous expression. He had been roused from his sleep
and apprised of the situation a short while ago.

“
I welcome you into my home, wizard, give you food
and shelter and you do
this?
” He raged. “
Explain
yourself!”

Matthias looked up at him, and then back at the
others. He sighed. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “For
all
of
this.”

“
I don't
care
if you're
sorry
or not!” King Arwell growled. “I want to
know
why
you did this? Why did you try to
hurt
my daughter?”

“
I didn't try to hurt her!”
Matthias snapped back. He
looked back at the girl, her doe eyes regarding him with anger and
curiosity, and sighed again. “I was asked to take her away from
here.”

“
Kidnapping?
” Thadius growled.

Matthias opened his mouth to retort, but then he realised
there was no point in denying the charge. He had been asked to
kidnap her. “Yes,” he confirmed sadly, and looked to the floor.
“But not for any reason you might think,” he added.

“
Is
any
reason expected to make what you have tried to do seem
any
better?
” Princess Josephine asked, glaring at
him.

Matthias looked to her sadly and took a breath. “We know
about your abilities, princess,” he sighed, and she took a step
backward.

“
I don’t have the
slightest
idea what you are
talking
about,” she
replied.

“
With respect, Your Highness, you are a
bad
liar. I can
see
it in your eyes.
Most wizards could. I know what to look for, and it’s there: a
crackling of power
deep
within you.”

Thadius looked confusedly from Matthias, knelt on the ground,
to the princess and then to the king. “What abilities are you
speaking of?” he asked.

Matthias looked up at Thadius. “The princess
wields a great power,” he said. “Like a
wizard
.”

Thadius laughed, and then, seeing no one else was,
stopped. “But… there has to be
some
mistake?”

“
It is no mistake my good soldier,” Josephine
sighed. "It
is
the truth.”

“
Josephine!” the king hissed, but she held up a
hand.

“
It
is pointless to deny it now, father,” she sighed, rubbing anxiously
at her arms.

“
How
long have you known?” Matthias asked her.

“
Since my sixteenth year. Four years ago.”

Matthias exhaled sharply. “Four years!”

“
How
did your people find out?” King Arwell asked, his face was a
mixture of anger and fear.

“
The
seeing stone showed us,” Matthias said.

“
The stone? But… but
why?
” the King asked again. “What has
that
got to do
with
anything
you told me?”

Matthias looked painfully between King Arwell and
Josephine.

“
Answer
him,” Thadius growled, and kicked a boot at
Matthias’s back. The wizard stumbled across the
floor.

“
Thadius, please!” Josephine exclaimed. “That is not
necessary!”

“
You
both deserve to know what is going on here!” Thadius
growled.

“
Yes, they do,” Matthias interrupted. “Which
is
why
I agreed to be brought up here. But I did
not
agree to being
kicked or
beaten
.” Matthias looked up to King Arwell, who was studying
him.

The
king took a breath, licked his lips and said: “Pick him up. Take
off those chains.”

“
But
Your Majesty!” Thadius began, but the king held up a
hand.

“
He could break
free
of those chains easier than you or I could snap
a
twig!
There is no
point
. If he
were
going to hurt us, he would have done so by now. Am I
right?” He asked Matthias, who nodded.

The
guard behind Thadius picked Matthias up off the floor and began to
unlock the chains from his hands and feet. When he was done he
backed away to join the other guard, and the king dismissed them.
Matthias stroked his wrists.

“
Thank you,” he said.

“
You can
thank
me by telling me what the
hell
is going on here!” the king barked. “I
want the truth! You
are
capable of telling it, aren’t you?”

Matthias nodded. “I’ll start from the beginning.
Or at least the beginning as I know it.” He leaned against a chair.
“The seeing stone I have spoken of was discovered several months
ago, purely by accident in a dried up riverbed in northern Mahalia.
It was passed through several hands and delivered with great pains
to the Great City and our scholars began to decipher its messages.
The first prophecy that was uncovered was that the dragon was
breaking free.
Everything
I have told you about the dragon is true. But what I
didn’t
tell you… what I
couldn’t
bring
myself to tell you earlier, is that there was another
message encoded into the stone. It was a message that frightened my
people even more than the prophecy about the dragon.” He faced the
princess. “It was about you, Your Highness.”