The Pinnacle Of Empire (Book 6) (13 page)

“He’ll be here before the child is born.”

“We shall see what we shall see,” Helgamyr snorted and strolled out the door with Endaquac close behind. They returned to the dowager’s suite.

“Where did I put those books? I want that last one you got me on moon water visions.”

Endaquac led the dowager to their workroom at the back of her suite. She removed a stack of linens and slid a traveling trunk away from the back wall. She reached behind it and took out a scroll wrapped in old worn leather. Without a word, she handed it to Helgamyr, who followed every movement. Then the maid pulled out a stone bowl, straining to lift it onto the worktable they’d set up. She poured water from a vase also stored at the back of the room. Helgamyr unrolled the scroll and searched for the spell. Endaquac attempted to point out the incantation to her, but the dowager slapped her hand and stared her down. Endaquac backed away with a slight bow.

“Oh, here it is,” Helgamyr beamed, glancing at Endaquac with a smirk. “I found it myself. Now, let me see, we need some of that dust, that fairy dust stuff you bought in the market. Where’s that? You hide everything.”

Endaquac retrieved the small clay pot from a shelf and handed it to Helgamyr. It was sealed with a cloth cover and tied securely with a string.

“This is a visionary spell. I should be able to see what Saxthor is up to and where he is now.” Helgamyr began chanting a spell from the scroll. A third into it she cast a pinch of the powder into the pool and dropped in a crystal with a plop. She continued chanting. At the end, she let the scroll roll up on its own and touched a small braided roll of Saxthor’s hair to the water. She held her breath in anticipation… Nothing happened. She repeated the process, and, again, nothing happened. In disgust, she threw the hair braid at the wall and stormed off toward the door. “Clean all that stuff up,” she said as she passed Endaquac. “Your spells are worthless; I’ve wasted my money on that charlatan’s trash.”

Endaquac mumbled something behind her. Helgamyr thought she saw a flash of light out of the corner of her eye. She turned around and saw a pale light flickering on the ceiling above the basin of moon water. Endaquac stood beside it, looking down into the basin.

“What’s that? What did you say?” Helgamyr said returning to the stone bowl. The light disappeared and, again, there was nothing in the bowl but the water. “What was that light? What did you say to make that light? Did you see anything?”

“No, mistress, a light flashed for a moment then there was nothing.”

“Cheap charlatan’s trick, I suppose, something to keep the customers coming back for more of his junk.” And with that, Helgamyr stormed out of the room, leaving Endaquac to clean up after her once more. As she passed out of the room she thought she saw another flash of light, but in disgust she continued on. “Cheap charlatan’s tricks no doubt,” she mumbled to herself.

* * *

King Zirkin heard of Saxthor’s grand tour by the time he reached the province abutting Zenobia. The king rode out to greet the emperor.

“Your Imperial Majesty, I would like to present you with this amulet that will warn you of evil in your presence,” Zirkin said when they were alone at the fortress guarding the pass between the two kingdoms.

“Your Majesty has already been too generous in sending Tittletot to my court. The empress and I are most impressed with the little fellow. He entertains us endlessly.”

“This amulet will protect you; please, accept it,” Zirkin said. He insisted Saxthor wear it around his neck.

“I should like to send you something as well, but I have no magic amulets that I know of. I shall ask Memlatec about it when he returns to court.”

“There’s no reciprocation needed, Saxthor. It’s you that’s in need of protection.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve sensed evil stalking you since it moved out of Dreaddrac and into the west. I’ve heard rumors of a recent attack on you in Mendenow as well. You must be very careful. Whatever is after you, it’s powerful and resourceful. You’ll need all the protection you can get.”

Saxthor rolled the amulet between his fingers, feeling the smooth, cool surfaces of the gold and jewels. It warmed to his touch. “Perhaps you’re right. I worry about the empress as well and the baby soon to come. Once again, I am in your debt.”

The two monarchs shared drinks and talked through the night before Saxthor again took to the road to hurry along his tour and get back to Engwaniria before the baby’s expected arrival. Like his dragon ring, Saxthor would feel the amulet frequently. I wonder how I’ll know when it senses danger, he wondered.

* * *

Xthilleon paced his tower workroom, considering how he might get close enough to Saxthor to destroy him.

“Memlatec will know who I am by now,” he mumbled to a captive tortoise that roamed around on the floor seeking an escape. “We encouraged that moron, Governor Hedrak, to disguise an attack, but he bungled that. The emperor is still alive. There’re too many deterrents in Ossenkosk to attack him openly there. Nindax won’t venture an open attack at this point. There must be another way…”

The tortoise bumped into a table and a dried creature, left from some concoction, fell on the floor. Xthilleon kicked the tortoise, sending it skidding across the room. The wizard picked up the black, shriveled carcass, returning it to its container as he glanced at the tortoise.

“A toy… I hear that meddlesome King Zirkin presented Saxthor with a tittletot as court jester like some toy. How considerate. Perhaps I too can infiltrate the palace with some such gift as well. My earlier attempt isn’t bearing fruit.”

* * *

At his wizard’s tower just south of Konnotan, Memlatec read through the books from the hidden room in the Ossenkosk wizard’s tower. The first two were very rare indeed. Memlatec had only seen one of them before. One delved into experiments using magic to bend energy and cross planes of physical being. It was the work of Menadon, one of the most famous of the High Wizards at Wizards’ Hall. The third book was the journal of the last imperial wizard at Ossenkosk, and in it he related that the Wizards’ Hall’s next to last high wizard, the primal master wizard Menadon, was displaced due to his dabbling in research involving dark energy. The wizard had disappeared shortly after the conclave removed him from his position.

I remember that now, Memlatec thought. It was hushed up by the high council. No more was heard of the wizard, but clearly he continued his research and had come to imperial lands with the manuscript documenting his research. Menadon wanted to transcend time and space and possibly travel to other planes of existence.

The journal related the primal wizard had worked obscurely somewhere within the empire’s boundaries until the imperial court’s high wizard discovered his activities and was able to raid the hideout. They confiscated the books and this seven ring instrument. There was no more mention of Menadon in the journal. He must have escaped or been killed in the attack.

As Memlatec read further in the journal, he discovered the court wizard’s powers were far beneath Menadon’s. Without Menadon to reveal encrypted explanations in the journal, the court wizard couldn’t decipher much of the master wizard’s discoveries. Numerous attempts testing the ball of rings to decipher what they did produced nothing. In Menadon’s manuscript, there was a picture of the ball with some runes explaining what each circle was and did, but neither the court wizard nor Memlatec could interpret the runes. In the court wizard’s journal, he noted he had discovered each ring was attuned to a different energy frequency and that when two or more were spun in the correct sequence, and degree angles, and given direction by an incantation, their frequencies synchronized and resonated in a new wave that produced a certain activity with a display. The wizard discovered and documented that the first and fourth rings in phase together could produce an image of what was happening at the conjunction of the rings relationship to the planet. Thus, the ball could display what was happening to a specific person within the Sekcmet Palace in Sengenwha at the time it was spinning, much like visions in magical moon water pools.

The court wizard had discovered several of the actions or visions produced when pairs of rings were aligned, but there were seven rings. Adding a third, spinning in conjunction with two others, produced a response geometrically more complex.

What happens when all seven rings are spinning in the correct sequence and angles? Memlatec wondered. Reading on, he discovered the wizard had suspected that the seventh ring in the interior moved the activities of the other six rings to a different plane of being! In the last pages, the wizard was preparing to test his theory. There the journal ended.

The wizard must have discovered how to move to another existence or cross time itself, Memlatec thought. Perhaps he attempted to test his theory before discovering how to return and was trapped there. I wonder if both wizards did that. If so, perhaps the master wizard killed the imperial court wizard on his entry onto the new plane. Could the old master wizard still be alive and trapped in another world? Now I remember the Dark Lord had once been an apprentice to Master Wizard Menadon too. Perhaps Menadon’s experiments also infected the Dark Lord. If Menadon is still alive, he must still be looking for this seven ring instrument the court wizard hid in Ossenkosk’s wizard’s tower.

Memlatec ran down the tower stairs, nearly knocking over Aleman when he reached the ground floor.

“Saddle my horse!” the wizard said as he rushed past toward his study to pack.

“Careful now, you old fool,” Aleman responded. “You’ll kill yourself and me with you if you run around like that.”

“Enough chatter,” Memlatec said over his shoulder. “Saddle the horse and pack some food for a long journey. I must make for Engwaniria with all haste. A new evil is born in the west. I don’t know what it is, but its intent is sinister and its strength extreme. If it finds Menadon or his instrument and learns to move about across planes, we may never stop the Dark Lord’s attacks on Saxthor or the world.”

“Who’s Menadon?” Aleman asked, but Memlatec had rushed on past.

When Memlatec had packed, he met Aleman at the front door and rode off down the road to the west. Looking back, he saw Aleman mumbling as he went back inside and closed the thick oak door.

* * *

In the royal palace’s private audience chamber at Varnakak, King Nindax trashed a message from one of his spies then waved his hand, dismissing a courier. The chatra stood by.

“My informants tell me the emperor is touring his provinces in something of a good will tour,” Nindax said. “What a fool. He’d have done better to behead Hedrak and a couple of other governors. That would’ve ended any opposition plots.”

“Perhaps, Your Majesty,” the chatra replied, “but then the other governors, fearing Saxthor, would wait and rebel at the slightest indication of weakness. If he concludes this tour and binds the provinces to him, it will strengthen his position and weaken yours.”

Nindax glared are the chatra. “What do you mean?”

“I mean once he’s secure on the throne, he can turn to conquest and not fear rebellion within the empire behind him.”

“I see, and you think his thoughts of conquest would focus on Senoshesvas?”

“We know he is on the best of terms with King Zirkin of Zenobia. King Nemenese is his grandfather-in-law. The kingdoms of the peninsula are his old allies. Your Majesty is the only monarch on the continent that didn’t attend the emperor’s coronation or wedding. It’s likely that the emperor would perceive Senoshesvas as the best candidate for conquest.”

“Well then, we must waste no more time with Nemenese. Implement the war plan. We’ll attack Velstorbokkin as soon as possible. We’ll knock out Nemenese as a potential ally of the empire before the old fool concludes it wasn’t Saxthor that initiated the attack at Engwaniria. We must add the kingdom’s resources to our own to remain independent of this usurper. We shall proclaim our-self Emperor of the West once we conquer Velstorbokkin.

“Indeed.”

“I see you hesitate.”

“May I suggest you allow Nemenese to remain on his throne for the time being… as Your Majesty’s puppet.”

“Puppet? Are you mad?”

“To prevent rebellion among his people, should the empire attack.”

“Send for Xthilleon. We’ll speak with him and see what assistance he might provide to the war effort. Personally, we trust to our own troops rather than to wizards’ entanglements, but we must win this war and before Nemenese can discount his aversion to the emperor and call upon his grandson-in-law for aid.”

*

In the palace’s private audience chamber, Nindax and the chatra were going over maps of the western continent. In the background, crude clanging and banging of swords and shields from elements of the Senoshesvasian army practicing maneuvers on the plain outside delighted the two men. With a knock, guards admitted the wizard to the king’s presence.

“Xthilleon,” Nindax said, seeing the frown on the wizard’s face when he looked toward the window. “We see the music of battle annoys you. But then, you do prefer more subtle means of accomplishing your objectives.”

Xthilleon frowned; Nindax returned to the maps.

“We can’t cross the Urgenak Forest with an army,” Nindax said to the chatra. “The evil that dwells there remains as Nemenese confirmed recently. Those souls would destroy our army before we reached Velstorbokkin. But we need to attack before Nemenese realizes we’re his enemy and not his ally. He mustn’t have time to consolidate and prepare his defenses.”