Darkstone - An Evil Reborn (Book 4) (24 page)

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Chapter Twenty-One

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“A
nd what can I give the Ropponi Sorcerer’s Guild
to search for the Sunstone?” Daryaku said.

The short man in silk robes with overlong sleeves kept his head down and hands hidden. Vish had learned how to read people in the last few years, sitting in the corner of Daryaku’s mind, looking out at the world. Yoshiaku’s son hid the Sunstone, during his reign. No one knew where it lay. The lost stone only made Daryaku’s prospects for world domination dimmer.

“Sorcerer Yushidon, you haven’t answered my question.”

The man raised his head. “Emperor, Ropponi is an insular country. We do things our way, at our own discretion. I will do as you ask, if you promise to leave us alone. Emperors like you wish to possess all that there is. I will take your birds and keep them replenished, ready to send you word if the stone is recovered. Many men have searched. All have failed.”

“I agree,” she said. “I will not invade Roppon. My father—” She stopped in mid sentence.

Yushidon furrowed his brow. “The Emperor Shalil never sought us out.”

“I will continue my father’s policy is all I wished to say,” Daryaku said.

A slip up!  Vishan wished he could smile. He lived for these now. There was little more to hope for. Bomai and Serytar were now slave provinces, harshly ruled by Dakkoran governors. Daryaku had increased the power of her greatly expanded bureaucracy. Perhaps it now rivaled Roppon’s.

She dismissed the Ropponi after giving him presents.

“I promise that I won’t invade Roppon until Besseth and Ayrtan are mine. Take that to your emperor.” Daryaku said to the empty room.

She didn’t tell the truth. Daryaku would invade Roppon when it convenienced her.

~

The representatives of the Sorcerer’s Tower proceeded to the front of the empty Council Chamber. Daryaku sat alone at the head of the circular table. The upper galleries had been cleared out. Vishan had finally given Daryaku the details of his encounter with Polymeer and the shamans back in his days at the Peshakan Outpost.

Vishan didn’t recognize any of the sorcerers, but he last saw them when he was eight years old. The old sorcerer that tested him back then would likely be dead. Their leader, a tall, fat sorcerer looked somewhat uncomfortable, as he led the contingent of five.

“I learned recently that you were behind an assassination attempt on my person some years ago when I served in my father’s army,” Daryaku said. Vish would have never said it that way or with the cool detachment that Daryaku used.

“That is true. It was some years ago. We wouldn’t think to attack you as the Emperor.”

“I understand that you purchased enchanted hearts and blood from the Cuminee shamans. What did you use them for?”

“That is a secret of our order, your Highness,” the tall sorcerer said.

“Your name?”

“Chief Sorcerer Hamyor, your Highness.”

Vishan cringed as he felt the flood of malice in Daryaku’s thoughts. “Choose who among you will die.”

Hamyor blinked. “Die?”

Daryaku nodded, keeping their eyes on the sorcerers. “That is what I said.” She extended her hand and made a fist. Hamyor’s shield flashed and then he began to choke. His face turned blue as he fought for air and finally collapsed on the stone floor. Daryaku pounded their fist in the air and Hamyor’s chest shook.

The sorcerers stepped back as a group.

“It seems that you need a new Chief Sorcerer. I nominate myself. Are there any objections?”

“No,” the sorcerers nearly said in unison.

“Now, who will answer my question? I am the leader of your order so don’t withhold any secrets.” She pointed towards the body on the floor.

One of the sorcerers stepped forward. “It is used in a complicated set of spells that give a sorcerer the power of shadows.”

Daryaku sat forward on the throne. Vish might have done the same. He’d never heard of the power of shadows and Daryaku obviously hadn’t either.

“The spells require ten hearts and a significant amount of charmed blood to imbue a sorcerer with the ability to lose his corporeality. He can become like a mist at will. Shadow sorcerers are used as assassins.”

“How long do the spells last?”

“Six months at most. The sorcerer can adjust the level of the shadow enough to produce a knife or sword to kill. At the end of their existence, the sorcerer will not be able to materialize and they merely fade into mist.”

“Dead in six months? How many sorcerers have you turned into shadow warriors?”

“Only those with the strongest Affinity can control the shadows. We have volunteers, generally sorcerers who have developed a life threatening disease. Less than twenty have ever been created.”

Daryaku rubbed their chin in thought. Vish couldn’t read all of Daryaku’s thoughts, but she wouldn’t hesitate to use the use shadow warriors to retrieve the stones, once they surfaced. The cost was very high, but she would remember the shadow warriors and use them when necessary. “How long does the enchanted heart and blood last?”

The sorcerers looked at each other. Vish could see the fear written on their faces. “No longer than a year, if they are enchanted and stored in ice.”

“Which you can create with your power?”

They nodded their heads. “We can do that.”

“What else can you show me?”

A sorcerer shuffled a step closer. “We have found a way to repel magic. It can be used to keep a sorcerer in confinement or applied to a sword to repel spells. It can protect a sorcerer from fireballs and other such magic.”

“Defensive spells.” Daryaku dismissed the importance of the information, but Vish could see the benefits of such a weapon. It would protect common soldiers.

“It is a defense against the shadow warriors,” one of the sorcerers said, his voice shaking.

That brought new interest into Daryaku’s mind. “So if my guard had such weapons, you couldn’t assassinate me?” She finally caught the vision that Vish had seen at first.

“Of course, your Highness.” The sorcerer bowed.

“I will deliver twenty swords to the Tower and I want them returned with the repelling wards active.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “You may choose a sorcerer to rule in my stead at your tower,” Daryaku said.

Do you trust these men?
Vishan thought.

No more than I do you, little prince. However, I thank you for the idea about how to use the swords.
Daryaku lifted her hand to call the sorcerers back before they left the throne room.

“I want you to teach the magic repelling technique to Peleor. In exchange, I will teach you a few new things as time goes on. You will become my war sorcerers when we invade Besseth and Roppon. I will expect the entire order’s cooperation and loyalty since I am the supreme leader for both your order and your empire. Prostrate yourselves before me, kiss the ground.”

Daryaku spread out their fingers and used her power to force all of the sorcerers down on their knees and then put their foreheads on the ground. Vishan always hated when Daryaku used her power to force people to abase themselves before her. Observing the act always made Vishan hate Daryaku all the more.

~

Vishan examined the documents as well as he could. Since he had no control over his eyes, he had to read as Daryaku read. She read much more slowly than he did. Vish learned patience in the years he had lived as a mind-slave.

These interested him. Daryaku now had an intricate plan to infiltrate Besseth. The Bloodstone still existed as the token of rule in the Red Kingdom and she would start with that. What else could she do? One strategy called for a Dakkoran invasion of Besseth, but Vishan knew that alternative would be rejected. She only had so many troops and most of them patrolled every town village and city on Zarron. Besides, she couldn’t waste her soldiers on Besseth when they’d be sorely tested fighting the Ropponi.

She had lost an astonishingly high number of soldiers in the attempted conquest of Cuminee. Even now, Vish would hardly call her tenuous hold on that Dukedom as control. Polymeer, the chieftain Vish had brought north, had fled back to his homeland to lead a resistance against the shamans.

Vish wished the man much success, but Daryaku didn’t want to lose her supply of heart and blood for the shadow warriors she intended to use, so she began to have her soldiers capture the shamans. They were given the choice to work at the Sorcerer’s Tower or die at the hand of the elusive Polymeer.

She now would begin a layered strategy of subterfuge in Besseth. It would start with Duke Histron, who was on his way to Baku. He would usurp King Billeas and capture the Bloodstone. Then he would act as the governor of Besseth, using the Red Kingdom as the ultimate capital of a united Besseth, entirely under her control. They could bribe the Oringians and continue to subvert all of the kingdoms, all at the same time. Daryaku wouldn’t rest until she recovered the Moonstone, convinced that it still existed in Besseth.

Vish had never seen such a plan before. Spies and Bribes, he called the strategy. Conquest from within. Topple the governments and transform the land into Daryaku’s model. She had devastated the entire continent of Zarron with her approach.

He had read the reports. Death by the hundreds, starvation, executions, forced labor. She took farms away and then expelled indigents from the city to work the farms. They can learn, he’d heard her shout enough. Harvests dropped. In fifteen years, she had devastated Dakkor. Baku became a vast slum. His father would have never let such a thing happen. Serytar and the other countries fared slightly better.

~

Vishan woke up. Daryaku was thrilled as she burrowed into his mind.
The Moonstone has been activated!  I can feel it!  It lies in Besseth. Our plan to subjugate them is already in play. Vishan you still doubt me?

As always, Daryaku. There is still the lost Sunstone and you have yet to capture a single Warstone
, Vish thought. She woke him up to give him bad news. He wanted to retreat into darkness, but she didn’t let him.

Daryaku dressed and wrote a message to Peleor, who had spent the last two years in Besseth as her agent.

His old friend had become an extension of Daryaku. Peleor’s family farm had been sold and he had moved into Vishan’s old quarters in the palace.

Even the sumptuous quarters that Daryaku reveled in had no effect on Vishan. He didn’t like her effeminate tastes in Imperial costumes. Sometimes he descended deep into depression, but a novel event would pique his interest and he would take some interest to monitor events, but always as an appalled observer.

~

They were sitting in an Imperial garden, when Daryaku received a bird from Roppon. Vishan read it as she did.

“So now all three are in play. Yushidon sends his love.” Daryaku kissed the air. “The Sunstone has appeared. A noble had suddenly possessed the same sword Yoshiaku held. A disgraced wizard killed the lord and stole the sword, but it exists, Vishan.”

You can’t feel the Sunstone?

“The nexus is close in so many places to the surface in Roppon, it interferes with my attempts to locate it, but Yushidon will continue to monitor. I can be patient. My plan is working in Valetan. I’ve taken over Prola and a northwestern lord now fights against the king of Valetan. Histron gathers his forces and is about ready to strike.”

You must have received many birds
. Vishan said.

“Hundreds of birds, my little prince. Hundreds.” He detected her thoughts drifting to daydreams of world domination. By now, they only bored Vishan.

~

Vishan looked at Daryaku’s Besseth campaign as remote domination. She pulled a few strings here, but Peleor either bribed or used the persuasion spell to perfection. He didn’t like what had happened, what was happening and what would happen.

The Warstones had to be used for Daryaku to sense them. Daryaku had felt glimmers of the Sunstone somewhere in Besseth. Histron had usurped the Red Kingdom, but the princess, though not initially regarded as an enterprising sort, had slipped through the duke’s fingers and wandered somewhere in the Red Kingdom. The Moonstone was now carried by a talentless Valetan warrior princess. Daryaku couldn’t wait until Valetan fell. Peleor had set everything in place.