Last Knight (The Champion Chronicles Book 2) (4 page)

“Treaty?” Elissa asked.  “Should Lord Martin or Lord Kirwal be here?”

“You are queen.”

Elissa pulled her legs up to her chest and she wrapped her arms around her shins.  Tears started to form at the corner of her eyes.

Marik took a fatherly step forward.  Seeing the pain on her face pained him just as much.  It took all his effort not to wrap her up in a hug to comfort her.  She was queen.  And he was not her father.

“Queen Elissa,” Marik said softly.  “It will be okay…”

“I miss him.”

Marik smiled at the memory of her father.  He had been a great king.  Sometimes a flawed man, but he served the kingdom as well as any man could.  “Your father was indeed a great man.  We all miss him, but it is time to move on.  You have been granted a gift of this kingdom, and even though you don’t know it yet, you will become a great queen.  Your father provided you a great example of how to treat his people and lead this kingdom.  Both Lord Martin and Lord Kirwal are fine men and they will help you in every way.”

“I didn’t mean my father,” Elissa said, the tears now drifting down her cheek.

“Oh,” Marik said.  “I miss him, too.”

“You saw him off, did he really say he wasn’t coming back?”

Marik bowed his head, wondering how far he should carry the ruse.  Or was it really an outright lie?  “He knew the dangers of staying here,” Marik said carefully.  “Having just killed Neffenmark, even as evil as he was, he was still the king.  The Royal Guard would have strung him up and quartered him at first sight.  Many knights would have, too.  No one liked Neffenmark or the fact that he was king.  But he was still king, and the kingdom comes first.”

“But he can come back, now! The knights are no more.  The Royal Guard are no more.  There is no reason for him to fear!”

Marik didn’t know how to respond.  He didn’t know how he could tell her that the best thing for her was that Conner was not here.  She needed to be queen and learn how to rule without the distraction of someone like Conner.  A good friend, yes.  But still a distraction.  He couldn’t say the words, for he knew that Queen Elissa would have to figure it out on her own.

“He knows he can’t come back.  Not right now,” Marik said.

Elissa sniffled loudly and rubbed the tears from her cheek. “Where is he now?”

“West,” Marik replied.

“He always wanted to go to the empire.  Is he alone?”

“He has spent much of his life alone, I am sure he will be fine.  He is safer where he is now than if he were here.  Neffenmark’s men are still around and they would like nothing more than to see Conner dead.  But enough about that!  There is the treaty that needs to be discussed.”

Elissa glanced around the quiet room and asked again, “Should we not have the lords here?”

Marik took a seat on a nearby chair.  “Soon.  But not now.  There is much to discuss first.  Mostly because the treaty involves you most of all.”

“Oh?”

Marik cleared his throat.  “Thell, like us, wishes peace.  The squabbles that we’ve had over the years have been a true thorn in our sides.  They have kept us from any sort of relationship whether it is trade or friendship.”

Marik had paused to make sure that Elissa was following his words.  After a moment, Elissa said, “Go on.”

“They have raided our border villages, and we have done the same to them.”

Elissa’s eyes widened at that.  She pursed her lips, but kept silent.

“They knew they could never match us on the battlefield.”

“Then why did they attack us?”

“Truthfully, we attacked them.  We gathered an army and marched north to their kingdom.  They were, however, waiting for us in ambush.  The leader of their army, Prince Toknon, the king’s eldest son, knew where we would be and when.”

“Neffenmark?”

Marik nodded his head.  “He knew your father well.  He knew how to manipulate and how he would react.  The invasion of Thell was something that Neffenmark plotted from the beginning.”

“He plotted with Thell?  I thought my father was making peace with King Lorraine?  That’s what Arpwin had told me.”

“Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.  Prince Toknon was in league with the Tarans.  Neffenmark was in league with the Tarans, and neither knew it.  And no one knew that your father had been in communication with King Lorraine.  At least not until the end.  When Neffenmark discovered that your father was communicating with Thell, he knew his chances of gaining the throne were falling apart.  That was when he forced your father’s hand.  He fooled him into believing that King Lorraine had backed out of their deal.  And like I said, he knew how to manipulate your father.  King Thorndale was a great king, but he was very prideful.”

“That is a silly way to start a war,” Elissa said with a snort.

Marik let out a hearty laugh.  “Wars have been started for much sillier reasons!  Pride and humiliation are the more common reasons for wars to start!”

“Men are just silly,” Elissa remarked.  “What now?  Is it all over?”

“There is a treaty that has been worked up.  It is mostly the same as what your father and King Lorraine had agreed upon.”

“Mostly?”

“There is one provision that does concern you personally.”

“I won’t,” Elissa protested.  Her eyes had narrowed and a fierce look crossed her face.  “I will not do it.”

“You do not know what it is,” Marik said cautiously.

“You wish to bind the treaty through marriage, and I won’t do it.  You tried that with me once, and it’s not going to happen a second time.”

“Your Majesty,” Marik said.  “Our kingdoms sit on the edge of the Taran Empire.  We are vulnerable to them.  With losing the power of the knights, we are weak.  But by joining with Thell, we will be stronger.  The army that we could raise to repel a Taran assault would be doubled.”

Elissa shook her head strongly.  “No.”

“The treaty is contingent upon it,” Marik said.

“Then change it.”

Marik chuckled.  “I have been negotiating for weeks!  It is truly in the best interest of the kingdom.  And the prince is on his way here.  In a few days, he will arrive expecting to take your hand in marriage.”

“And then he will be sorely disappointed.  It is not going to happen.”

“They may choose to go to war instead.  If they can’t have peace, they might just choose war.”

“Then we will go to war,” Elissa snapped back.

Marik smiled, seeing her father in her face, in her voice, and in her words.  She looked exactly like her mother, but that was where the similarities ended.  In all other ways, she was indeed her father’s daughter.

“You laugh at me?”

“It is what your father would say.  And do.”  Then Marik’s voice lowered and become solemn.  “It is what happened when we last went to war.  King Thorndale marched into battle with just the same attitude.  We won on the battlefield, but we really lost.  Too many men and boys did not come home.  Do you really want to go to war?”

Elissa’s strong demeanor faded.  “No.  But I do not wish to marry.”

“It will be a few days until they come.  There will be time for you to ponder the terms of the treaty.  I would just ask that you not make up your mind about anything until then.”

Elissa nodded her head.  Then she glanced out the window and felt guilty for letting the whole day slide by.  “I think I will go for a walk through the city.”

Chapter Four

Prince Tarcious looked up from the parchments that were spread across the table in front of him.  He was glad that he was interrupted because the day-to-day activities of running the empire were as tedious a job as any he could imagine.  Although much of the governance of the empire was handled by his regional governors and an overloaded hierarchy of bureaucracy, there were still many decisions that only the emperor could make.  And since the emperor was currently in a state where he was unable to make any decisions, those were left up to him.

              The man who stepped through the open door was tall and thin with skin pulled tightly across his weathered and worn face.  Hibold, Taran’s emissary to the east, glanced around the small chamber.  It was the first time he had been privileged to enter into the emperor’s personal space.  Located just off the main audience chamber, the room was just large enough to hold the table where scrolls and other papers were scattered about.  Books of law and history filled shelves that lined the room.  A judicious and honorable ruler might have used those books to assist them in proper and righteous rulings.  Prince Tarcious had not touched or even thought of one of the books since he had taken over use of the room.

              “You came alone,” Prince Tarcious growled.

              “Of course, Your Imperial Highness.  I would never think to include others in our meetings.”

              “That is not what I meant.  Your instructions were to find the King Slayer and bring him to me.  Were my words not clear enough?”

              “It is a large empire and finding a single man amongst the millions is near impossible.”

              “Maybe a demonstration of my power is in order,” Prince Tarcious said.

              Hibold took an involuntary step back and lifted his hands as if they would protect him.

              Prince Tarcious let out a boisterous laugh and held up his own hands.  “I do not need more than these to snap your skinny neck.  Why would I waste my precious power on killing you?  I still find your skill-set useful.”

              Hibold took his first breath in almost a minute.  “How will your powers of killing help me find this man?”

              A brightness flashed across the prince’s face.  For a moment, Hibold saw something in the prince that wasn’t dark and full of death.  It was the excited eyes that he would see in his own young boy.  Not for a minute did Hibold think that the prince wasn’t full of evil, but it occurred to him that maybe he wasn’t completely evil.  Just mostly.

              “The power of the wizard is more than just for killing,” Tarcious said.  His voice was light and full of energy as he spoke.  “It is just that the power of killing is the easiest.  The harder powers are those like moving objects from one side of a room to another or controlling the power of nature.  Or finding a single man in the middle of the empire.  Killing powers, though.”  The prince’s youthful and excited face was overcome by a wicked, evil smile.  “They come easy.  And with each utterance of a spell, the power grows.  And the next one becomes that much easier.  As long as the power doesn’t kill you first.  You see, each spell cast takes just a little bit of your life force to cast.  If you use a spell that is too powerful, then you will die.  Your life force will be extinguished.  They say that is why there are no more wizards left.  They grew in power, and kept desiring more.  And then, eventually, they tried a spell that they were unprepared for and died.  Very few wizards ever died of old age.  They were either slain by their own hands.  Or,” the prince paused to shrug his shoulders.  “They died from others’ hands.”

              Hibold shook his head and said, “I do not know of wizards.  Other than what you have told me.  I know of myths and legends.  Scary stories for children, but nothing more.”

              “Then you must learn.”

              Hibold lifted an eyebrow.  “I have no desire to learn the craft of the wizard!”

              “And if you did try, you would die trying.  Wizardry is not something that you pick up, it is something that you are born with.”

              “Oh,” Hibold exclaimed softly with a raised eyebrow.  “Is your brother a wizard, then?  Is that why you have him imprisoned?”

              The prince snarled.  “You will never mention such a thing to me again.  He is imprisoned because he is an impotent leader.  Nothing more.”

              “But he could be?” Hibold pressed.  He knew just how far he could push the prince, and that limit was almost reached.  But this was one thing he needed to know and file away, just in case.

              After a moment to ponder his answer and to consider how much he wanted to reveal to Hibold, the prince said, “Wizardry is passed only through families.  Ability varies by person.  But yes, only through your family lineage can you become a wizard.”

              “Then all emperors back through history could have been wizards?”

              “If they knew how to train and learn the craft, then yes.  If Emperor Shardan could have learned what I know, then he would have conquered the whole world, not just this little part of it.  But the world of wizards was taken away nearly five thousand years ago during a great war that encompassed the races of men and elves.”

              Hibold chuckled.  “You speak of children’s stories.  There are no such thing as elves.  Magic I have seen and I still have a hard time believing it.  But little elves?  That I do not believe.”

              “They are indeed stories, but ones that are based in fact.  They are not little people who have magical powers to play tricks on children.  They are truly a race of beings, similar to you and me.  But also different in so many ways.  For one, all elves had the ability of wizardry, not just a select group.  The most powerful of them lived for ages, because through their magic, they could not die.  Immortality.”

              “Is that what this is all about?” Hibold asked.  “Immortality?  To live and rule the empire forever?”

              The prince shrugged.  “It would not be so bad to have such power.  But no, that is not why.  But if that is a benefit, then so be it.  But the truth is…”

              The prince paused for a second and looked deep into the eyes of Hibold.  He knew little about him, other than he was obedient and unafraid to ask questions.  The thin man had served his brother for many years, but was just as eager to serve him.  There was so much information and knowledge that needed to be kept secret in order for him to follow through with all of his plans.  If anything was revealed too soon, before he was ready, then he would not have the power to stand up against his own army.

              But eventually he will need help from a handful that he could really trust.

              “How can I trust you?” the prince asked.

              “You can have my word,” Hibold replied with a smirk.

              “You have served me well, and I would like to reward you.  You have done nothing to give me reason not to trust you.”

              “But you do not.”

              “Of course not.  I cannot risk it.”

              “I have yet to go running to your brother to let him know that you are slowly poisoning him.  I have not called upon the army to slay you because you are in the process of usurping the empire from your brother.  I have yet to stab you through the heart, when I know I could.”

              “I would cut you down before you had the chance to finish the thought,” the prince growled.

              “I have seen your magic, and seen the life drain from your face after you cast your spell.  You are vulnerable and weak.  A young boy could cut you down.  But I have not.”

              “And you think I should trust you?”

              “Yes, I think you should.  You need someone to watch your back after you cast your spell.  Someone who won’t cut you down and give the empire back to your brother.”

              “Indeed, you have proven yourself trustworthy as an admirable servant for carrying out my commands, but I do not think that you have earned anything more than that,” Tarcious said warily.  “I will need more than your word in order to keep you alive past this conversation.  It would be easiest for me to slay you now and dispose of your body.  Only your wife and son would ever miss you.  And I can only image that they really would not miss you terribly.  I do not have need of your services other than what I have already asked of you.”

              “But can you go out into the city or into the country to serve out your justice, or to follow through on your commands?  You have your soldiers and your servants that will do as you order without question.  But that is all that they do.  They do what they do less for loyalty and more because they fear you and fear for your lives.”

              “Fear is a big motivator,” Tarcious said.

              “Fear stifles,” Hibold countered.  “Fear doesn’t bring loyalty, it only brings obedience.  I am not feared; therefore those that follow me do so out of loyalty.  Not to me, but to the empire.  I can get your soldiers and servants to do more than you ever could.  I can get them to act out of loyalty.  And that will bring you what you desire.  Fear might bring results, but at a great cost.  Wars are won on the battlefield, but I have proven that kingdoms can fall without a single loss of life.  The kingdoms of Thell and Karmon will fall without a single centurion being killed.  I have set things in motion that will allow the empire to finally stretch to the east coast without war.  You only need to march your armies to the east and the land will be yours.”

              Tarcious glanced to a map of the continent which showed the stretch of the empire.  The only parts that were not marked as part of the Taran Empire were the two small kingdoms on the far eastern coast of the continent.  He knew the terrible cost of lives that a campaign of war caused as many hundreds and thousands of men still died each year to conquer the barbarians to the north and to keep the tribes of the south at bay.  And that was why he had enlisted the services of Hibold in the first place.  The power of lies and deceit, and gold, could be much greater than that swung by steel.  But like steel, the power of gold only lasted for so long.  What Hibold didn’t know was the work he did to gain land for the empire would not have stayed with the empire without subduing and conquering the people.  An army was easy to defeat, but to win the people was truly the toughest of battles.  Prince Tarcious envisioned a million centurions marching through the mountains to conquer Karmon.  No amount of Karmon Knights could withstand that might.  The battles would be bloody, but in the end, his army would stand victorious.  But unless he followed that army up with thousands of Tarans to take over the farming, hunting, and everyday menial tasks of life, an invasion would not work.  They were not enemies, nor were they a threat to the empire.  They currently had open trade with them and that couldn’t change.

              Plus, the real reason why he needed a foothold in Karmon was to gain access to the Ark of Life.  And an invasion would force the hand of the one who is currently guarding it.  The foothold needed to be quick and silent and sure.  And certainly that was in the skill set of Hibold.

              “Your pet Neffenmark is dead, and Admiral Hester, whom you invited into your little plan met a likewise, but much more painful demise.  The garrison that Neffenmark was supposed to help establish will not happen, so we may need to proceed down a different path.”

              “Admiral Hester is dead?” Hibold asked, eyes wide.  “He was quite the accomplished sailor.  A brilliant tactician on the seas.”

              “A failure in the end,” Prince Tarcious declared.  “You will send a delegation back to South Karmon to reestablish relations.  It seems their impetuous queen sent Admiral Hester and his troops back before the garrison could be established.  I doubt the queen would be so willing to set up a garrison like Neffenmark would have, but we can try.”

              “And if that doesn’t work?”

              “Like I said, we will go down a different path.  But we need to make sure they think we are still friends.  I do not want them looking over their shoulder while we come up from behind to stab them in the back.  We need to be friendly.”

              “Very well, shall I go myself?”

              Prince Tarcious rubbed his chin for a moment.  Although Hibold would be just the right person to head up such a delegation, he would be needed elsewhere.  Plus, he needed to keep an eye on the man.  He could trust Hibold only so far and the closer he stayed to Tara City, the better.  In the end, he shook his head.  “No.  Not you.  We have many fine emissaries who will be able to do this simple job.  Of all my brother’s failings, the one thing he was good at was building up his network of spies and emissaries.  The palace is crawling with them.  Pick one.  Anyone.  But I will hold you personally responsible for his success.  Clear?”

“Of course,” Hibold replied.

“Now, as for you, I will need you to go to Iseron.”

              “Iseron?” Hibold said with a furled brow.  “A bit of a backwards city.  The eastern province is a bit remote and rough.  I would probably be more useful on the delegation to Karmon.  My skills are more suited to that endeavor.”

              “No, I need you in Iseron,” Tarcious said impatiently.  “You will find him there.”