The Pinnacle Of Empire (Book 6) (21 page)

“How should I know? We’ll just have to see.”

“Nasty place, this.”

“Yes, well, you should feel at home here. Now move along.

Once located, Xthilleon and Morphenius huddled in the largest cave that sheltered up under the cliffs. The sea’s surge raised and lowered the water in the grotto, but there were several dry sandy ledges where the water didn’t reach. The two watched those ledges carefully in the pale eerie light that flickered, reflecting from the water at the cave entrance.

“This is a foul place, indeed, smells of low tide, snake poop and mold,” Xthilleon said. “Foul cave, this is.”

Morphenius nodded agreement. The wizard was scanning the cavern walls where slimy growths hung from the rock and dripped incessantly into the pools of swirling tidal water below. His observations were broken when Morphenius poked him, bringing his attention to a brilliant banded black and yellow water snake undulating in the pool below. It was scanning the cave.

“Careful, don’t alarm her,” Xthilleon whispered. “Don’t move until she comes out of the water and starts laying her eggs. She’ll be transfixed then, and we can grab her before she can bolt back under water.”

Morphenius nodded. Eventually, the snake slithered out of the water and found a suitable site for her eggs. As she was entranced laying them, Morphenius, his hand and arm wrapped in a long leather glove, grabbed the snake and stuffed her into a canvas bag. The wizard and oaf made their way back up the perilous cliffs to a cottage they’d commandeered for their workshop.

“What you gonna do now?” Morphenius asked. He slobbered beneath gaping eyes.

“Wipe your mouth; you’re disgusting.”

Sulking, Morphenius shuffled to a dark corner.

“This creature has the potential I need. She’s a very venomous sea serpent. Growing her into a sea monster isn’t the problem, I’ve spells for that, but she’s not intelligent, well, not enough so that I can communicate and control her actions. I’ll need to grow her first then implant some control mechanism.”

“What’s a control mechanism?”

“You, I beat you without mercy until you do what I tell you to do. The whip is my control mechanism.” Morphenius cringed, shrank back, and hunched down as he shuffled back a few steps. Xthilleon smirked. “With the sea serpent, I’ll have to implant something that I can control her with remotely.” He looked again at the oaf, who stared at him with a blank expression, hanging on every word. “You didn’t understand a word of that, did you?”

“Well, I knows how you likes to beat me.”

Xthilleon rolled his eyes and turned back to the writhing snake in the deep bowl.

“Why am I explaining my work to an idiot? Writhing in the bowl, you probably understand more than this oaf.” Xthilleon turned to Morphenius. “Go clean up the mess.”

“What mess?”

“Any mess, you idiot, just get out of my sight.”

Xthilleon mixed various ingredients, stuffed them into freshly gutted fish cavities then force fed the fish to the sea serpent. He cast spells through the next three days and the sea snake began to grow drastically. They moved the growing reptile to a holding pool below the cliffs where it continued fantastic growth. It reached some thirty feet in length and grew tactile barbels like a catfish, giving it a serpentine dragon appearance, to the sorcerer’s delight.

“You better do something soon,” Morphenius warned the wizard. “That thing ain’t going to stay in the pool much longer. She’s knocking about the rocks that keeps her in now. She knocked me over when I was feeding her.” He wiped blood from a laceration. “She really started thrashing about when my blood got in the water. I think she’s hungry for meat now more than fish.”

“Yes, it’s time to gain control over the beast.”

“How you going to make that monster do what you wants?”

“She’s large enough for me to implant controls before she grows out of control.”

Xthilleon sedated the snake with herbs stuffed in her fish diet. Then he opened her skull and lobotomized the thinking brain areas leaving only those essential to bodily functions. He then planted a tiny device that would amplify her primal sense of threat when the wizard identified someone as the source. Her own response to such a threat would make her attack as if her survival depended on it. A second device functioned like the broaches Xthilleon had given key people to watch the world around them. This device gave the wizard access to the monster’s vision so that he could see what she saw but also control her responses. He smiled at his success as he closed the beast’s skull.

“If this works, I can direct where she goes and what she does. I can see as if I was riding on her back. Two weeks to recover from the operation and she’ll be as obedient as you and only half as retarded.”

Morphenius frowned but nodded and said nothing.

“Now I must have Nindax send the secret instructions to Helgamyr for her to convince Empress Tottiana to go to the seashore at Mendenow with her family in tow.”

That done, the wizard sailed around the southern coast. His ravenous, soon sixty foot sea monster, swam alongside. She left her master only to search for seals and sharks as the assassins sailed the treacherous seas, out of sight of land to avoid discovery.

* * *

At Nindax’s insistence, but unaware of the danger, Helgamyr hammered her daughter to take the imperial family to the seashore for a much needed rest and time away from the court. Saxthor had resisted, but then Tottiana insisted that he needed to teach Engwan to swim. Away from the court, there would be time for them all to relax. Saxthor could spend time with Engwan and perhaps develop a relationship with the increasingly distant heir as he professed he wanted to do. When they finally left for the coast, it was late summer and Helgamyr declined to join them at the last minute. She convinced Tottiana she would be happier remaining at the capital.

The waters of the Southern Sea were warm, the seafood plentiful, and cool breezes flowed through the seven towers of the imperial palace that dominated their private beach below. The gentle rhythmic sound of waves lulled them to sleep at night and disarmed Saxthor’s sense of foreboding in Mendenow.

* * *

Memlatec had remained at Engwaniria and was in the Ossenkosk wizard’s tower studying strange fluctuations in the planetary energy gradients, when he noted a powerful energy movement around the southern sea.

“It’s the evil moving around the coast. The Dark Lord is moving again,” he mumbled to Tournak. “I should have sent you to the seashore with the imperial family to watch over them.”

“I’ll leave at once,” Tournak said.

Memlatec put his hand on his associate’s arm, stopping him. “It’s too late for that; you couldn’t reach them in time. Whatever is going after them, it’s almost at Mendenow.”

Tournak’s eyes were brilliant. “How can we warn Saxthor?”

Memlatec rose and, pulling his beard, moved to the balcony. Tournak followed. Memlatec nearly knocked him over when he spun around and raced down the tower steps. They found Tittletot sulking in Saxthor’s suite.

“Tittletot! Did Saxthor take the dragon ring with him to Mendenow?” Memlatec asked.

“I think so, he always wears it. Well, not always, he takes it off now and then. Belnik would know. He knows when Saxthor sheds a hair, but he went with Saxthor,” Tittletot grinned and looked up at the wizard. His grin evaporated when he saw the wizard’s face. “What’s wrong? Is the emperor in danger? But the ring, the dragon ring, I don’t know for sure.”

“Where would the ring be if Saxthor left it behind?”

“In the imperial treasury, I think… No, he might have just taken it off and left it in the jewel case on his dresser if he was in a hurry. He can be careless.”

“Not with the ring and the crown,” Tournak said.

Memlatec rushed to the bedroom and the dresser, the others following. The chest was locked. “Who has the key?”

“Saxthor and Belnik have keys I think,” Tittletot said.

“And they’re both at the Mendenow.” Memlatec cast a spell, his wand jewel glowed, and the jewel case opened with a click. The wizard thumbed through the trays inside the case, first relieved but then gasped seeing the Celestial Jewel Dragon Ring in a tiny box at the bottom of the jewel case.

“There it is,” Tournak said. “He must have left it here for safe keeping so it wouldn’t slip off his finger in the water.”

Memlatec smacked down the jewel case lid and cast a quick spell, relocking the case. He rushed back to the wizard’s tower and out onto the balcony where Fedra stood like stone, staring out over the country side. Memlatec moved quickly to his work table and grabbed pen and ink. He scribbled out a message.

‘Return immediately with the imperial family. Danger is approaching from the west. The Dark Lord will be upon you any day now. Return to Engwaniria without delay.’

“What about an ornsmak?” Tournak suggested.

“He’d not be looking for the energy ripples since the war ended. We can’t chance he’d miss it.”

Memlatec gave the message to Fedra’s and told the great Eagle to find Saxthor at the imperial palace in Mendenow on the southern coast. With a tremendous leap from the balcony, the great eagle took flight to the south.

“What if he doesn’t reach Saxthor in time?” Tournak asked. “Does Fedra know the way to Mendenow or the palace there?”

Memlatec’s brows furrowed. “We’ll have to trust to his intuition.”

“I knew I should have gone with the family,” Tittletot said. He kicked a chair leg then looked up at Memlatec. “I told him I should go with the family, but he insisted that I should stay here and keep an eye on Helgamyr. She’s always up to no good, but we knew that.”

“We’ll ride south and meet the family in case we can be of assistance. That evil may catch up with them before they can return to Engwaniria. Come with me, Tournak.”

“I’m coming too,” Tittletot said, his little legs pounding the floor double time to keep up with the long legged wizard and more agile Tournak.

“Wait here, Tittletot; we’ve no time to wait for you,” Tournak said.

“Don’t underestimate a tittletot. We can hold our own.”

“Should we bring Saxthor’s dragon ring?” Tournak asked.

“No, if you tried to touch it, it would spark violently, burning your fingers. It will reside where Saxthor placed it until Saxthor moves it.”

The three rushed to the stables and rode hard south for Mendenow.

* * *

Saxthor enjoyed swimming with Engwan in the warm water beneath the imperial castle. The sun warmed the beach, but a constant breeze flowed over the shore. Tottiana lay beneath a sunshade with the little Prince Augusteros watching Saxthor play with Engwan.

“Engwan seems so much happier here,” Tottiana said to Belnik, who adjusted the sunshade when a ray of sun landed on her sandal. “We should have taken this vacation long ago. It’s wonderful seeing them together without Engwan’s repressed anger a wall between them. We must do this more often.”

Belnik was looking out to sea. He stood tall and strained to see something. Tottiana looked and noted a very distant black cloud swirling over a boiling sea.

“Do you think the storm will come this way?” Tottiana asked.

“That’s a strange looking storm, Majesty. It’s like a waterspout, but I’ve never seen such a strange cloud or the sea boil like that before.”

“Perhaps we should return to the palace. I don’t want little Augusteros to get wet in a cold rain. That funnel seems to be moving closer.” Tottiana began to put her things in a basket that Belnik provided, but he still stared out to sea at the storm. Then he dropped the basket, alarming Tottiana.

“What is it, Belnik?” Tottiana asked, but he was rushing toward the water.

“Saxthor!” Belnik yelled, but Saxthor was playing with Engwan in the surf and didn’t hear him.

Tottiana’s heart began beating faster. She clutched Augusteros to her and rushed to Belnik. “What is it?”

“I don’t know, Majesty, but I have a strong sense of impending danger. Something is wrong with that storm funnel and it’s coming this way, directly for us.”

“It’s just a storm.”

“Majesty, it’s racing this way against the wind, not with it.”

Tottiana’s heart jumped. “Get them out of the water!”

“Majesty, take Augusteros back to the palace, at once. Don’t delay; I’ll get Saxthor and Engwan. Hurry! Take the baby back to the palace.”

Tottiana turned, but reluctant to leave the others, glanced back. The storm funnel was shifting side to side as it spun toward the beach. Tottiana held the baby tight, protecting his face, and ran up the beach toward the palace.

*

Belnik rushed over the rocks above the high tide and across the white sandy beach toward the emperor and crown prince, still frolicking in the surf. The sea breeze suddenly chilled to a cold, clammy wind rising fiercely from over the water growing to a howling blast.

It feels like a hand restraining me, Belnik thought. He pressed on hearing his robe flapping to a snap behind him in the gale.

Saxthor had finally noticed, had grabbed Engwan in his arms, and was straining against the suction of returning waves. They seemed to move in slow motion through the water. Saxthor’s thigh muscles visibly strained above the white water gushing around his legs.