R. Salvatore - The Dragon King

Brind’Amour tossed both items into the air, and they floated, as if hung on invisible ropes, Resmore’s way.

“Your confession,” Brind’Amour explained. “Your admission that you, at King Greensparrow’s bidding, worked to incite the cyclopians in their raids on Eriadoran and dwarvish settlements.”

The items stopped right before the kneeling duke, hanging in the empty air. He looked to them, then studied Brind’Amour.

“And if I refuse to sign?” he dared to ask.

“Then I will rend you limb from limb,” Brind’Amour casually promised. “I will flail the skin from your bones, and hold up your heart, that you may witness its last beat.” The calm way he said it unnerved Resmore.

“I saw what you did,” Brind’Amour said again, and that was all the proof the poor duke needed to hear to know that this terrible old wizard was not bluffing. He took up the quill and the board and quickly scratched his name.

Brind’Amour walked over and took the confession personally, without magical aid. He wanted Resmore to see his scowl up close, wanted the man to know that Brind’Amour had seen his crimes, and would neither forget, nor forgive.

Then Brind’Amour left the room, crossing through the magical wall with a single word.

“You will no longer be needed here,” Resmore heard him say to the elves. “Duke Resmore is a harmless fool.”

The dungeon door banged shut. The single torch that had been burning in the place was suddenly snuffed out, leaving Resmore alone and miserable in the utter darkness.

She sat before the mirror brushing her silken hair, her soft eyes staring vacantly through space and time. The bejeweled crown was set on the dresser before her, the link to her past, as a child princess. Beside the crown sat a bag of powder Deanna used to brighten the flames of a brazier enough to open a gate from Hell for the demon Taknapotin.

She had been just a child when that bag had become more important to her than the crown, when Greensparrow had become closer to her than her own father, the king of Avon. Greensparrow, who gave her magic. Greensparrow, who gave her Taknapotin. Greensparrow, who took her father’s throne and saved the kingdom after a treacherous coup by a handful of upstart lords.

That was the tale Deanna Wellworth had been told by those loyal to the new king, and repeated to her by Greensparrow himself on the occasion of their next meeting. Greensparrow had lamented that, with his ascent to the throne, she was now out of the royal line. In truth, it mattered little because Greensparrow was a wizard of the ancient brotherhood, after all, blessed with long years, and would surely outlive Deanna, and all of her children, if she had any, and all of their children as well. But Greensparrow was not unsympathetic to the orphaned girl. Mannington, a not-unimportant port city on the western shore of Avon, would be her domain, her private kingdom.

That was the story Deanna Wellworth had heard since her childhood and for all of her adult life; that was the tale the sympathetic Greensparrow had offered to her.

Only now, nearing the age of thirty, had Deanna come to question, indeed to dismiss, that story. She tried to remember that fateful night of the coup, but all was confusion. Taknapotin had come to her and whisked her away in the dark of night; she vividly heard the screams of her siblings receding behind her.

O noble rescuer . . . a demon.

Why hadn’t Taknapotin, a fiend of no small power, rescued her brothers and sister as well? And why hadn’t the fiend and, more important, Greensparrow, who was easily the most powerful individual in the world, simply halted the coup? His answers, his excuses, were obvious and straightforward: there was no time; we were caught by surprise.

Those questions had often led Deanna to an impenetrable veil of mystery, and it wasn’t until many years later that the duchess of Mannington came to ask the more important questions. Why had she been spared? And since she was alive after the supposed murderers had been executed, then why hadn’t she been placed in Carlisle as the rightful queen of Avon?

Her stiff brush scraped hard against her head as the now-familiar rage began to mount inside of her. For several years, Deanna had suspected the betrayal and had felt the anger, but until recently she had suppressed those feelings. If what she feared had truly happened those two decades ago, then she could not readily excuse her own role in the murder of her mother and father, her five brothers and her sister.

“You look so much like her,” came a call from the doorway.

Deanna looked into the mirror and saw Selna’s reflection, the older woman coming into the room with Deanna’s nightclothes over her arm. The duchess turned about in her seat to face the woman.

“Your mother,” Selna explained with a disarming smile. She walked right over and put her hand gently against Deanna’s cheek. “You have her eyes, so soft, so blue.”

It was like a religious ceremony for the handmaid. Weekly at least, over the last twenty years, Selna, who had been her nanny in the days when her father ruled Avon, would brush her hand against Deanna’s cheek and tell her how much she looked like her murdered mother. For so many of those years, Deanna had beamed under the compliment and begged Selna to tell her of Bettien, her mother.

What a horrible irony that now seemed to the enlightened woman!

Deanna rose and walked away, taking the nightclothes.

“Fear not, my Lady,” Selna called after her. “I do not think our king will punish you for your weakness in the Iron Cross.”

Deanna turned sharply on the woman, making her jump in surprise. “Has he told you that personally?” she asked.

“The king?”

“Of course, the king,” Deanna replied. “Have you spoken with him since our return to Mannington?”

Selna appeared shocked. “My Lady,” she protested, “why would his most royal King Greensparrow deem to talk with—”

“Have you spoken with him since we left the Iron Cross?” Deanna interrupted, speaking each word distinctly so that Selna could not miss the implications of the question.

Selna took a deep breath and lifted her jaw resolutely.

She feels safe within the protection of Greensparrow, Deanna mused. The duchess realized that her anger may have caused her to overstep her good judgment. If Selna’s calls to Greensparrow were easily answered—perhaps the king had given her a minor demon to serve as courier—then Deanna’s anger might soon bring Greensparrow’s probing eye her way once more, something she most certainly did not want at this crucial hour.

“My apologies, dear Selna,” Deanna said, moving over to put her hand on the woman’s arm. Deanna dropped her gaze and gave the most profound of sighs. “I only fear that your perception of my weakness beside the cyclopians has lessened me in your view.”

“Never that, my Lady,” the handmaid said unconvincingly.

Deanna looked up, her soft blue eyes wet with tears. Ever since her childhood, Deanna had been good at summoning those; she called them “sympathy drops.”

“It is late, my Lady,” Selna said tersely. “You should retire.”

“It was weakness,” Deanna admitted with a slight sniffle. She noted that Selna’s expression shifted to one of curiosity.

“I could not bear it,” Deanna went on. “I hold no love for Eriadorans, and certainly none for dwarfs, but even the bearded folk seem a high cut above those ghastly one-eyes!”

Selna seemed to relax somewhat, even managed a smile that appeared sincere to Deanna.

“I only fear that my king and savior has come to doubt me,” Deanna lamented.

“Never that, my Lady,” Selna insisted.