The Crown Of Yensupov (Book 3) (23 page)

The ambassador wobbled, struggling to get up on his rubbery knees. He shuffled to the bell pull; a servant appeared.

“Go to the palace at once. Demand a special night audience with King Calamidese, tomorrow night.”

The puzzled man looked at the other, higher-ranking servant, but then, without question, left for Sekcmet Palace.

*

King Calamidese had begun to feel he might regain control of the situation as he watched his elegant courtiers stroll about from conversation to conversation at the night audience granted Dreaddrac’s ambassador. He sat high on the firm cushions of his gilded throne set back in an arched alcove, where massive candelabra cast light on the king, the room’s focal point. Large pairs of polished malachite columns crowned with gilded capitals framed the alcove. The columns held up a massive arched, white marble carving of King Calamidese the Fifth on his horse, galloping in pursuit of half a dozen fleeing soldiers. The scene awed anyone, entering the great throne room.

Curiosity and fear merged. King Calamidese had granted the audience the ill-prepared embassy servant requested, in the name of Dreaddrac’s ambassador. Now the court awaited the emissary’s arrival.

That evening, accompanied by the unseen vaporous wraith along the vaulted ceiling, the spellbound ambassador passed through Sekcmet Palace, past the guards and burst into the throne room before an attendant could open the door.

A memorized King Calamidese watched the sulfurous vapor as it descended, enveloped the ambassador and streamed into his nose. “Who or what are you?”

The yellowed eyed ambassador’s face twisted, then addressed the king in a raspy voice. There was no greeting or polite expression of good will at all. It focused its attention fully on the king, not responding to the question, but daring to give an order to the king. “Your Majesty will notify the ambassador immediately should a Neuyokkasinian prince appear in Sengenwha.”

Silence swept over the room. The king felt his face flush. “No one dares order the king to do anything.” I mustn’t make more of the challenge for now, Calamidese thought noting the courtiers shuffled and whispered to each other.

“Nonetheless, Your Majesty will notify us at once should a Neuyokkasinian prince be found in Sengenwha,” the ambassador said, in a trance-like monotone.

The king rose from his throne, stood erect, with legs spread and fists on his hips. “You will withdraw.”

The hybrid creature stood, staring at the king.

Eventually the silence unnerved Calamidese. “Guards! Remove the ambassador.”

Glancing at one another and hesitant at first, four guards approached the transmuted ambassador. The wraith shot wizard-fire at them. The electric blue fire shot as lightning, piercing the guards’ armor. For a terrifying moment the guards sizzled, smoke poured from their armor, and they vaporized on the spot. Their spears, swords, belt buckles, and helmets clanged on the floor in the hall otherwise filled with a terrifying silence. The wraith-ambassador held his piercing stare on Calamidese, having never looked back at the guards. First one scream broke the silence, then a chorus as the courtiers bolted for the door.

Calamidese stood in front of his throne, trying to regain his composure. “We shall notify the ambassador should any foreign princes appear in the kingdom. Now withdraw.”

The king was horrified he’d just demonstrated his submission to Dreaddrac’s king. Now the nobility knows their monarch doesn’t dare oppose the monster in the Ice Mountains, he thought. He looked at them, as the courtiers shuffled from the hall, knowing that another, not their king, now controlled their fate.

When King Calamidese left the throne room, shaken to the core, he returned to his study. He had avoided the little box on the desk, as if hoping it might go away on its own. He opened it. It was empty but for a single chunk of partially burned sulfur. The stench of the scorched mineral reached his nose and he squinted. “The warning of a wraith came too late,” King Calamidese said to himself.

* * *

Hidden in the marshes of southern Sengenwha along a stream that defined the border, the orcs spread out among the reeds and bogs so the locals wouldn’t know their true numbers. The orcs hated the marshes. Their short thick legs got stuck in the mud. Their ogre masters hated the reed beds and lack of solid defenses.

The trolls were gathering there, too. They loved the marsh’s decaying vegetation, but they had difficulty finding places out of the sunlight. They were bigger than orcs, but smaller than ogres. Trolls were used to the marshes. They'd set up camps near the reeds, where they found hiding places avoiding the orcs and ogres, eating anything they came across with any nutritive value at all.

Their favorite delicacies had always been human children. Here in Sengenwha, the Dark Lord had forbidden the trolls to snatch the local farm children - for the present. Their commanders assured them that once across the river in Neuyokkasin, the king would revoke the restriction and permit them to help themselves. Here the trolls and locals had an uneasy truce - for the moment. Still the trolls were not above snatching a plump, juicy child here and there, when they thought no one would connect them to the disappearance. That practice enraged the locals, who hated the ever-growing numbers of strange creatures in the marshes, which their governors told them were their allies. The whole of southern Sengenwha was now a sea of discontent and animosities.

To this cauldron of seething anger came the Dreaddrac’s second, specially enhanced and empowered wraith. The first phantom was monitoring the situation in Sengenwhapolis and certain to catch the prince. The second wraith was to go among the troops of orcs, ogres, and trolls in the southern marshes and rally enthusiasm. More importantly, it was to insure the prince didn’t get past him if Saxthor escaped Sengenwhapolis. The wraith’s sulfurous vapor passed along the marshes in the night on a regular pattern. The three super-wraiths’ senses were finely tuned and this one could smell the air for the scent of man and trace it to its source.

In its boredom, the wraith would sometimes shoot a fine bolt of wizard-fire into the tail of a marsh crocodile to watch the terrified creature thrash and snap at the air, then scramble away to deeper water, when it found nothing. Then the wraith would resume its vigil, searching for the prince.

The trolls, orcs, and ogres grew used to seeing the dark vapor, sweeping low over the reeds just after sunset, when the moon first rose. They learned to stay clear of the smoky haze that was more than it seemed.

The Dark Lord ordered the third wraith to track down the prince, if he'd entered Sengenwha. The wraith first went to Prertsten. There, he drifted from village to village, floating above the crowds in pipe smoke at local alehouses. He listened to the chatter and gossip for any strange news that would suggest the prince might have traveled in Prertsten, before its sulfurous odor drove the alehouse patrons home early.

By sheer luck, he was in the Prertstenian alehouse with the farmers that destroyed the orcs in the oasis outside their village. The orcs’ fate was of no concern to the wraith, of course, but that the ogre surrendered to a cluster of farmers was most unusual.

“That huge ogre whined a lot. He claimed he give up, when a fire-bolt shot too close to him,” one of the farmers said. The other farmers laughed. “Of course, we knowed weren’t none of us wizards.” He puffed on his pipe and continued, “It were the ogre scared himself half to death that made him imagine a fire-bolt landed near him.”

The wraith perked up at the mention of possible wizard-fire. The Dark Lord forbids wizards in Prertsten, he thought. No ogre would show fear so easily. Anyone that knows an ogre knows they’re too stupid and too primitive to imagine anything.

With the story’s retelling, the wraith drifted out the window and off down the road to the oasis, where the alleged incident took place. In the darkness, the wraith took form and walked around until it caught the faint, stale ogre’s trail. Following it into the wood and down by the pool, the wraith noted another set of scents. It took the specter nearly an hour, but it sorted out the various individual scents. The foul being traced the people up in the bushes to where Saxthor and his band had hidden, when the orcs marched into the oasis.

This band betrayed the ogre, he decided. There was a wizard among them then, if one shot wizard-fire. These men weren’t local villagers. They weren’t the Dark Lord’s subjects either. If there were a foreign prince in Prertsten, he’d have been among these people.

The wraith followed the cold sparse trail through Prertsten, down the eastern border, and along the Akkin River. Its enhanced sense of smell detected the saber-wolf tracking the men. When the men and wolf disappeared into the river, it took the wraith a while to track the scent to where the men left the river. The wraith continued to pursue the troupe along the Akkin River until it came upon the group of adventurers some days after they vaporized the wraith in the tunnel.

Saxthor’s band was sitting around, still mourning Hendrel, and not alert to the translucent presence that had just entered their midst.

The wraith grew cautious. A wizard among the group might thwart my attacks, he thought. I don’t want to show myself until I’ve determined, who was who.

He hovered back from the fire, but just above the group, listening to what they said, associating the scents it tracked to the individuals. I have plenty of time to destroy them all long before dawn forces me to seek shelter, he decided.

*

“Delia wants to know if anyone has a treat for her,” Saxthor said, to those around the campfire.

Delia was going to each individual, wagging her tail for leftovers from their meal. Sniffing for food, she stopped and whined, returning to Saxthor, nuzzling him.

“What’s the matter, girl?” Saxthor turned to the others, “That’s unusual behavior for Delia. She didn’t make a sound, when pulled up in the tree at the saber-wolf attack.”

Delia repeated the nuzzling and whimpering. Saxthor petted her. She backed up and growled, then barked. Saxthor watched her. There’s something wrong, he thought. Delia sniffed the air and growled, again.

Still watching Delia, Saxthor sniffed the air, too. He caught a trace of sulfur. It was the same wraith’s odor from the tunnel the day before. He froze; a chill ran through him.
I mustn’t let the vile thing know I’m aware of it, he thought. Saxthor’s hand slipped to Sorblade. Then, realizing withdrawing it would alert the wraith he eased his hand away. Delia gave a muffled growl, but Saxthor tapped her. She looked up at him, then stopped but watched his every move.

Why is it hovering above? He wondered. The other one was lurking, waiting for us, but this one has tracked us. It must have a finely tuned sense of smell to have found us. If it’s tracked us, the Dark Lord knows who we are and is pursuing us now. It’s looking for something more or it would’ve already attacked. The thing must not know who’s who. If like the last one, it’s looking for us, it’s looking for a Neuyokkasinian prince among us. The Dark Lord is sending wraiths, looking specifically for Saxthor, Prince of Neuyokkasin. If that’s the case, it knows, what we’re doing and it’s looking for the crown elements.

Bodrin looked at Saxthor and started to say something. Saxthor interrupted him before he could speak, fearing he’d say Saxthor’s name and they’d all be dead.

“Let’s observe silence for the others to reflect on their memories, Saxthor said. “Bodrin, come with me over by that tree to discuss what’s bothering you.”

“Say what?” Bodrin asked. He looked puzzled but walked over to the tree with Saxthor.

Delia followed close behind with her tail tucked between her legs. She kept looking back over the fire.

Saxthor put his arm around Bodrin’s shoulder and led him away from the camp until the group was between them and the rising moon. He put his finger to his lips. Bodrin nodded. Saxthor pointed to the dark vapor floating over the group against the silver moon. Bodrin’s eyes flashed. His head jerked to look at Saxthor, then to Tonelia. He turned to race back, but Saxthor grabbed him.

“The only one of us now that has the power to fight a wraith at night is Tournak,” Saxthor said in his ear. “He’s totally unaware there’s a wraith, hovering over him in the smoke.”

Bodrin turned to Saxthor his face twisted. “What can we do?” He looked back at the innocents around the fire.

“The wraith’s lingering to learn something, hoping we’ll reveal it,” Saxthor said. Both men looked at their friends around the fire. “I hope we can think of something before someone speaks what it wants to know.”

Saxthor then thought of the only thing he had that could affect the wraith. He whispered to Bodrin “Stay here, just in case.” Saxthor then casually walked back to the others. When he did so, Tonelia looked up at him and started to say something.

“He’s answering the call of nature,” Saxthor said, before she could speak. Our names, they have to be what the wraith’s waiting for, identification within the group, he thought. He went to his pack and pulled out the small, beautifully carved cylinder. When he looked around, Tournak was about to ask him a question and again, Saxthor spoke. “Let’s observe silence in memory of our friend.” Tournak looked puzzled but respected Saxthor’s request and looked down at the fire.

Without drawing attention to it, Saxthor removed the case’s little top. Only when he took out the Peldentak Wand did the wraith recognized its significance. Saxthor spun around, the wand part of his arm’s straight extension.