A Dream of Mortals (Book #15 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (11 page)

The soldier seemed surprised to see Darius charging.
He was unprepared. He reached down to draw his other sword, but Darius was already
upon him, and in one quick motion, while sprinting, Darius pulled back his staff
and swung, aiming at the horse’s legs. The blow took out the horse’s legs, and
the soldier went flying face-first into the dirt.

The crowd cheered.

Darius wasted no time. He leapt upon the
soldier’s back, reached around and wrapped his chains about his neck. He
squeezed, holding on with all his might as the solider bucked.

“This is for Kaz,” Darius said.

The crowd jumped to their feet, shouting like
mad, as Darius held on with all he had, strangling the huge Empire soldier,
twice his size. Darius, palms bleeding, would not let go, not for his life. He
owed Kaz that much, at least.

Finally, the soldier stopped moving.

Darius lost all sense of reality as a horn blew
somewhere, the crowd went wild, and he felt hands beneath his arms, the hands
of his brothers, raising him to his feet.

The world spun around him, and it took him a
moment to realize it was all over.

To realize that he, Darius, had done the
impossible.

He had won.

Volusia sat at the head of the shining, semicircular
golden table inside Capital Hall, and looked out at the crowd of men before her,
feeling triumphant. Seated opposite her, at the far end of the table, was the
commander of the Empire armies, along with a dozen of his generals seated
beside him, and behind them, one hundred Empire senators, all dressed in the distinctive
white and scarlet robes befitting their rank. All of them stared back at her,
frowning, with a mix of defiance and anxiety, as they prepared to hear her
judgment.

Volusia looked out at all of them, studied
their faces, allowing the silence to linger, allowing them to realize that she
was in control now—and relishing in her power over them. Thanks to her, her forces
had managed to take the capital city; they had slaughtered all of the Empire
soldiers within its walls and her armies had filled the capital, swarming
within it, before sealing the doors behind them. Of course, beyond the capital
walls, on the far side of the city, there remained hundreds of thousands of hostile
Empire soldiers, all teeming outside, waiting to hear the terms of surrender.
Over time they could get in—but for now, at least, she and her men were secure,
pending the terms of this negotiation.

Volusia sat there, facing them all, her palms
on the golden table, relishing this moment. She, a young girl, had defied all
of these old men, these stale old men that had ruled the Empire for centuries
with a fist of steel. She sat even now in the very seat of power, in Capital Hall,
at the head of the Golden Table, the place reserved only for Empire rulers. She
had achieved the impossible. All that remained was to negotiate with these men,
to acquire the remainder of the Empire armies, and to once and for all, take
supreme control of the Empire.

“Queen Volusia,” a voice rang throughout the
hall.

Volusia looked over to see one of the senators
step forward beside the general, chin up, looking down at her defiantly.

“You have assembled us to hear our terms of
surrender. We shall present them to you. If you agree, then all shall be
harmonious between us. Our forces shall concede to yours, and you shall rule
the Empire jointly with us.”

Volusia stared back firmly, annoyed that he
dared try to dictate terms to her.

“
Goddess
Volusia,” she corrected.

The senator stared back in shock, clearly not
expecting that response, and the commander of the Empire armies stood, put a
fist on the table, and scowled down at her.

“You won by sorcery, deception, and trickery,” he
growled with his deep voice. “You are no Queen of mine, and you are certainly
no Goddess. You are just a young girl, an arrogant young girl, who got lucky
one too many times. Your luck will run out, I assure you.”

She smiled back.

“Perhaps,” she replied, “but it seems,
Commander, that your luck already has.”

He reddened, his scowl deepening, and she
noticed him glance down at his scabbard, now empty; he then looked up and glanced
all about the edges of the room, saw her hundreds of soldiers lined up, all with
swords in hand, and he clearly thought better of making any rash moves.

He sighed bitterly.

“I am prepared to surrender all of my men to
you,” he said. “Hundreds of thousands of men outside these walls. In return,
you shall give me once again the leadership of my men, with the dignity and
respect befitting a commander of the Empire.”

“Additionally,” the senator chimed in beside
him, “you shall acknowledge us, the hundred senators who have always served the
Republic of the Empire, in our rightful roles, and we shall share power jointly
with you, as we always have with every Supreme Commander. We shall put all your
atrocities behind us for the sake of war, and you shall make all decisions with
us jointly.”

Volusia smirked, realizing how delusional these
men were. They thought she was a mere commander: they had no idea they were
addressing a Goddess. The great Goddess Volusia.

She made the wait for her reply, and the
senator and the generals stared back at her, clearly uncomfortable with the
long silence, clearly uncertain of what she might do next.

The senator, nervous, cleared his throat.

“If you do not meet our terms,” the senator
called out, “if you try to defy us in any way, be certain you and your men will
die here today. Yes, your soldiers fill the capital. But do not forget that beyond
these capital walls there sit ten times our soldiers—and beyond that, beyond
the sea, there are Romulus’s one million men, who even now have been called
back from the Ring to return to our service.”

“And in the other horns of the Empire,” called
out another senator, “there await millions more soldiers being drawn up now to
destroy you.”

The senator smiled.

“So, you see,” he added, “you are vastly
outnumbered, surrounded in every direction.”

“If you deny our offer,” the Empire commander
growled, “you will die within these walls. Just like your mother.”

Volusia smiled.

“Like my mother? Don’t you know that it was
I
who killed my mother?”

They all looked back at her, horrified, caught
off guard.

“I will not be slaughtered here today, or
tomorrow, or even in this lifetime. I know I am outnumbered, and I know that if
I do not accept your terms, all of us will die. Which is why I have come here
to accept them.”

The Empire commander and senators stared back
at her, and she could see surprise and relief in their faces.

“A wise decision,” the senator said.

Volusia stood, her men standing beside her
immediately, and she walked slowly around the table, until she stood opposite the
Empire commander.

The tension thick in the air, she looked up at
him; he was a large and broad man of the Empire race, with the glowing yellow
skin, the small horns, and he was covered in scars. He smiled down at her, more
of a scowl, arrogant, smirking, as she came close. He had clearly expected this
acknowledgment of his power.

“I shall acknowledge your place in my Empire,
as commander of my men,” she said. “Kiss my ring, acknowledge my command, and
you shall have a place in my Empire forever.”

She held out her right hand. On her ring finger
was a large onyx ring, black, sparkling, and the commander looked at her,
skeptical, debating. His face reddened.

Then, slowly, he reached out, took her hand,
and kissed the ring.

As he did, suddenly, he froze. His eyes bulged in
his head and his entire body started to quake.

Moments later, he grabbed his throat, blood
pouring from his mouth, and he slumped onto the floor, dead.

All of his men looked down at him, astonished,
frozen in shock.

At the same moment, Volusia’s men pounced from
all corners of the room, swords drawn, descending on the group of senators and
generals. There was nowhere for them to run. Volusia’s men hacked them down,
slaughtering them where they stood.

The room soon ran red with blood, blood
spraying all over Volusia, and she smiled wide and laughed, reveling in it,
cherishing each corpse which fell at her feet, the blood that ran through her toes.
She especially cherished her onyx ring, filled with a poison so deadly that
even touching one’s lips would send them to their death. It was a trick she had
not used in many years—but had seen her mother use often.

Finally, when the room fell still, nothing left
but the moaning of a few men, the sound of her men walking throughout the room
and stabbing corpses to make sure they were dead, Volusia reached down and
placed her palms in the pool of blood. She closed her eyes and felt the life
essence of her enemies in that blood. All those that would dare oppose her were
now dead.

Volusia turned and slowly walked through the
set of double doors leading to the balcony, overlooking the entire Empire
capital. She stepped outside, beneath the two setting suns, and she could see
below her, all of her men filling the capital, slaying citizens. She looked
down with great gratification as she watched a statue of Andronicus topple to
the ground—and then, a statute of Romulus. They landed with a great crash,
marble dust flying in the air, and her men cheered.

The crowd parted ways, and as it did there
rolled forward an immense, golden statue of Volusia, a hundred feet long, lying
on its back, propped up on a long wooden cart with wheels. She had had it
rolled all the way from Volusia itself, knowing that one day she would be able
to place it in the capital. She watched with great satisfaction the vision she
had already seen many times in her mind’s eye: hundreds of her men, using
ropes, slowly hoisted it, putting it into place, in the center of the capital.
Her statue rose, gleaming in the suns, taller than anything in the capital. Her
men let out a great cheer as it stood firmly in place.

Her people all turned and looked up at her on
the balcony, and their cheer intensified.

“VOLUSIA! VOLUSIA!”

It was a cheer of ecstasy, a cheer of triumph.
She held out her arms wide to them and looked down on them, her people. She was
a Goddess now, and all these men she had created were her children. She felt
their adulation as she held out her palms, the adulation of all her children.

Volusia looked out at the horizon, beyond the
city walls, and saw all the Empire armies filling the horizon, clamoring to get
inside these walls. She knew, too, that beyond them, somewhere on the horizon, a
great army was coming.

A great storm was coming. And she welcomed it.

Gwendolyn walked slowly, still weak, leaning
occasionally on Kendrick and Steffen beside her, Krohn at her side, and joined
by her entourage, the last remnants of the Ring, as they were ushered into the
most spectacular castle she had ever seen. Her heart beat faster in
anticipation of meeting the King and Queen as she went, escorted by their
knights. She tried to fathom how something so glorious could exist here, in the
midst of such a wasteland: this castle was resplendent, with soaring ceilings,
smooth cobblestone floors, and stained-glass windows letting in the two suns of
the desert sky. In many ways, walking into this castle of the Ridge reminded
her of walking into King’s Court; she found the similarities to be eerie,
almost as if a replica existed elsewhere in the world.

Lit up by the soft, muted glow filtering in
through the windows were hundreds of onlookers, dressed in beautiful, elegant
attire, gathering around on either side of the plush carpet to watch them pass.
As Gwen and the others strolled down the carpet, all of these people stared at
her, as if they were objects of curiosity. Clearly word of their arrival had
spread quickly in this court, and the way they gawked at them, little children
pressing up against their mothers’ skirts, it was clear they never received
visitors here, especially from beyond the Ridge. They looked at them as if they
were aliens who had dropped out of the sky.

Gwen looked back at them, too; she took in
their garb, their mannerisms, and she was incredibly impressed. This was
clearly a refined, civilized society, women wearing beautiful silks and lace
and the most intricate jewelry. All of them were tan, fit, healthy, and these
people reminded her of the people she had seen in King’s Court. Yet the resplendence
here was even greater. It not only oozed wealth, but also strength and
invincibility. Clearly this land had existed here for hundreds of years. In
some odd way, it was so similar to the Ring, it was like returning home.

Yet on the other hand, it was also different.
The people here had a similar look to those of the Ring, yet they wore their
hair so differently, the men all with their stark-bald heads and long, bright blond
beards, and the women with their straight, white-blond hair, some braided and
some not. The boys wore heads of stark blond hair, and it seemed to Gwen that
they only shaved them as they became men.

As they continued down the carpet, Gwen saw
before her an immense golden and ivory throne, raised up on a platform, with
several golden steps leading up. Atop it sat a man and a woman, clearly their King
and Queen. The King, perhaps in his forties, muscular, also had a shaved head,
with a long, light golden beard. He wore a purple silk mantle, platinum chain
mail armor, no shirt, and platinum wrist cuffs. Behind him stood a dozen
warriors, hands resting on their swords.

The King stood as Gwen and her entourage got
closer, and Gwen could see his rippling muscles as he rose to his full height
and broadened his shoulders. He appeared to be the very emblem of strength, a
man who had been named King by right, and not by inheritance. He had the body
of a great warrior and he exuded an aura of power, control, and invincibility.

Yet he also smiled kindly, and Gwen could see
the compassion and justice in his eyes—and immediately she felt at ease.

Gwen and the others came to a stop before him,
perhaps twenty feet away, and the King slowly descended as the crowd fell completely
silent. The King examined them, clearly in wonder at their presence.

“My King,” said a voice, and Gwen looked over
to see one of the King’s counselors, with a long, gray beard, holding a staff, dressed
in royal purple garb. “These are the strangers, my liege, that were found in
the desert. These are the ones who have crossed the Ridge.”

There came a gasp from the crowd, and Gwen
could feel their eyes burning through her, looking at her and the others with
burning curiosity. The King, too, looked them over, his sparkling gray eyes
meeting Gwen’s.

A long silence ensued, until finally the King
cleared his throat. He looked at Kendrick.

“Are you the leader of this bunch?” he asked
him, his voice deep, booming throughout the room, filled with authority.

Kendrick shook his head, and Gwen stepped
forward.

“No,” Gwen replied, her voice still raspy. “I
am their Queen.”

The King’s eyes widened in surprise, as the
crowd gasped.

“Queen?” he echoed, surprise in his voice. “Queen
of what? No one has ever reached us from beyond the Ridge. This situation is
quite extraordinary. At first we took you for deserters, but clearly that is
not the case. Have you managed to truly cross the Great Waste? Have you come
from another place?”

Gwen nodded back solemnly, meeting his eyes, and
with a great effort, she managed to utter her next words with a raspy voice.

“We have, my liege,” she replied. “We have come
from across the sea.”

A gasp came from the crowd, and the King’s eyed
widened as he examined her in wonder.

“Across the sea?” he asked, unbelieving.

Gwen nodded.

“We have fled our homeland, destroyed by the
Empire. We are exiles from the Kingdom of the Ring.”

An even greater gasp spread through the crowd,
as a long and astonished murmur erupted. Gwen could see shock register across the
King’s face.

Finally, the crowd settled down, and the King
addressed her.

“The existence of the Ring is rumored to be a
myth,” he said, examining her skeptically. “A great land, in the midst of a
vast ocean, protected by a canyon, shielded by a Sorcerer’s Ring. A mythical
place, protected by this Ring from all danger, all harm. Is this the place from
which you claim to hail?”

Gwendolyn nodded back solemnly.

“It was free from all harm,” she said, sadly, “once.
But not anymore. This is why we stand here today. The Sorcerer’s Ring has been
broken; the power that was once ours is no more, destroyed by Romulus, by another
magical power. Our journey ever since has been a long and hard one. We have
sailed across the sea to escape the Empire.”

The King looked back at her, puzzled.

“You have come to the Empire to escape the Empire?”

Gwendolyn nodded back.

“A leader must make difficult decisions in
times of crisis,” she explained, “and that was the decision I made.
Outnumbered, our days few, we needed to find the best hiding place—and thought
of no better place to hide than within our enemy’s lap.” Gwen looked around. “A
notion, my liege, that I am sure you and your people of the Ridge grasp.”

He smiled back.

“All too well,” he replied. He examined Gwen
with a new respect. “So you are their leader.”

Gwen nodded.

“You see before you what remains of the Ring,”
she replied. “My father was King before me and his father before him. We
descend from a long line of MacGil Kings.”

The King himself gasped this time, as did the entire
crowd with him. He stared back at her in shock.

“
MacGil
, did you say?” he asked.

Gwen nodded.

“
We
are MacGils,” the King said.

The crowd broke into an agitated murmur, as Gwen
exchanged a shocked look with Kendrick and the others. She looked back at the
King, startled, and for the first time, as she studied his face, his jawline,
she began to see something subtle there that resembled her people.

“Centuries ago, we were one,” Aberthol said,
stepping forward, his old voice gravelly. “The MacGils hail from the same
family, on opposite sides of the sea.”

As the crowd murmured, the King examined her, rubbing
his beard, processing it all.

“My King,” came a voice.

The King turned, and Gwen saw standing beside
him a fearsome warrior, lines of worry etched across his forehead, the only
among them wearing a long, black beard. He looked at Gwen and the others with
disapproval.

“I sympathize with these strangers’ plight,” he
said, as the room quieted, “yet you must not accept them here. Never before
have we allowed strangers into the Ridge—surely they have left a conspicuous
trail in the desert. That trail will lead to us. The Ridge has remained a
secret, has never been discovered, because of our ancestors’ caution. If the
Empire follows their trail, it could lead to our downfall. We must send them back
from where they came, back out into the Great Waste, and let the Empire find them
in the desert. The future of our land is a stake.”

There followed a long, tense silence, as the
King’s expression darkened. He studied Gwen and the others, rubbing his beard,
clearly disturbed by the decision before him.

Finally, he sighed, and as he began to speak,
the room grew silent.

“We share the same bloodline,” the King said,
looking at Gwendolyn. “The same ancestors. And even the same name. Hospitality
is a sacred responsibility. I shall not send you back out into the desert.
Whatever the risks.”

Gwen breathed a sigh of relief, and felt a rush
of gratitude for this kind and brave King. She knew any other decision would
mean her death sentence.

“You are welcome here,” the King added. “You
will stay here. You will live with us, and become a part of our people. You will
tell us your story, all about your lives, what led you are, your travails, your
battles, your people—and we shall tell you of ours.

“But now is not the time. Now you will rest and
recuperate, and when sun falls, we shall have a royal feast. I shall summon all
of our families, and you shall tell us everything. In the meantime, our castle
is yours, my friends.”

The King stepped forward, stopped before Gwen, placed
both hands on her shoulders, leaned in, and kissed her forehead, then smiled as
he leaned down and stroked Krohn. He turned to Kendrick, clasped his forearm, then
went down the line, clasping each and every man’s forearm, looking each
solemnly in the eye.

“My King,” Gwen said, “we graciously accept.
But before I can rest and recover, I must tell you that we have come here on a
dire mission.”

He looked back at her, curious, as the room
fell silent once again.

“When we arrived in the Empire,” Gwen
continued, “we were taken in with the greatest hospitality by a slave people on
the outskirts of Volusia. Now led by Darius, they are in the midst of a great
revolt, and face the Empire in battle. We have come all this way, have crossed
the desert, on a solemn vow to find help, to ask that your armies to return
with us, join Darius, and help ensure their freedom and destroy the Empire.”

The crowd murmured, long and agitated, and the King
looked grimly back. He nodded to one of his councilors, who soon approached and
held out a scroll to Gwendolyn.

“My Queen,” he said, as she took the piece of
parchment. “This arrived on this morning’s eagle. News from Volusia: the people
of whom you speak have all been ambushed, slaughtered. Not one remains.”

Gwendolyn read the scroll with shaking hands,
and her heart started to break inside. She could not believe it. Dead. All of
them. She immediately felt it was her fault, as if she had abandoned all of them.
She felt like dying inside. Her driving sense of mission collapsed before her
eyes.

“No!” cried a voice, and Gwen turned to see
Sandara, weeping in Kendrick’s arms. “My brother!”

“I’m sorry, my Queen,” the King said. “But your
home is here now. With us.”

With that, the King turned away and a horn was sounded.
The crowd began to disperse, and Gwen stood there, feeling hollowed out, torn
with mixed emotions. Would she ever find Thorgrin again? Guwayne?

And what, she wondered, would their future look
like now?