096 – Meet Karen

  Skarg. The capitol city of the kingdom of Krogg. Like many cities on Tywacomb, Skarg had started out as a fortress village next to a river. Over the centuries the city grew. Four sets of fortress walls ringed the central city at increasing and irregular distances and connecting walls divided the internal areas into various districts. The walls demarcated where the city had grown to when the next series had been built over the centuries. The newest walls were a double set of low outer and high inner walls five centuries old, many miles around, on both sides of the river, and the city had out grown them. Some sections of wall snaked out to the current limits of the city proper, and guarded some districts from whatever was beyond. Fortress gates straddled the main roads into the city, regardless of whether there was a fortress wall to be built upon. While stone was the primary construction material for martial and government structures, much of the civil and merchant society preferred timber, plaster, slate, and brick and mortar. As with older cities, construction age and style could tell a careful observer where fires had destroyed individual buildings, whole blocks and a few districts over the centuries.

  Farm lands fronted much of the city’s circumference, but a significant portion was also timbered, with villas for the cities wealthy tucked into the meadows and hills. The area was not very high in elevation, despite being three days travel inland from the coast. As such, the humid air did get cold and there were snow and ice storms in the winter, but snow did not accumulate on the ground for very long.

  A road ringed the city at between one and five days foot travel depending on which direction one traveled. This road anchored various towns that further demarcated the highway system of and through the kingdom, leading off to the duchies that subdivided the kingdom. These duchies each boasted their own capitol cities, and stretched west to the coast, and east past the tallest mountain range in this area; north to the next river and its seaport, and south to fertile grasslands.

  Where other cities were founded on trade of a given resource, Skarg. was founded on the control and intersection of two trade routes. One a north-south highway; the other the Krogg river, which stretched to the sea. All but the largest of ocean-going vessels could sail up to dock at Skarg. Barge traffic could go further up the Krogg river to a small port town north east of Skarg., but beyond that the river was too shallow for anything but personal dinghies. Larger traffic could also go up the Garmad river but there was only one port past Skarg. It was a fortress that did turns as a shipping point for fall harvests.

  The monarchy that reigned in Krogg set its throne on an island with access by bridge to either side of the river, north, east or south, where the Krogg and the Garmad rivers joined. Most of this island was dominated by a castle. Time and manpower had diminished the island to the point that on all sides, the river ran past the foundation stones of the outer fortress wall. Though Krogg had not seen major war in almost two dozen years, the current monarch had taken the throne by marriage at the force of arms, and had expanded his territory to its current boundaries by the same.

  Today a woman walked across the main northern bridge to the fortress gates, and to the guard at the post. She showed him her written summons/pass, and was waved on. This repeated several times, at each portal. She crossed the courtyard, and into the palace proper. Across the hall, left down that hall, and to the doors. The guards stood with crossed pole arms.

  The woman, named Karen, stopped and waited. She held herself well. Brown hair hanging to below her shoulders. A heavy tunic and leather vest above, a woolen skirt below, boots beneath, a winter cloak tied about her shoulders. As she went further into the structure and its warmth, she opened her cloak and turned the front open across her shoulders to keep from getting to warm. Her features were soft enough to be unremarkable.

  A crazed looking old man finally scurried from a side room, and took Karen’s papers. As she turned to follow, the man motioned her to stand where she was.

  Karen noticed that the guards had shifted their weight slightly at her movement. As had a shadow off to her extreme right. The man shuffled away into the side room, looking increasingly mad with each step. Finally he returned and spoke, in the high voice of supplication.

  “Come. Come.” He moved between the pole arms and opened the right hand door. He held the door for Karen as she entered the dark room beyond it.

  Karen’s senses told her that two people stood in the corners behind her. The Queen could be barely seen sitting across the room in the dim light, with its dimmer shadows. A quiet whisper, full of meaning, rustled across the darkness, as The Queen spoke.

  “You are Silver Adder. Sent to fill a contract.”

  Karen held herself straight. “I am.” She held her extra senses to herself, sensing the probe of a fifth person in the room.

  “You know of the two children recently here, and the prophecy attached to them?”

  “I do.” Karen could sense meaning in what was said, like roots under the earth. ‘Speak as little as necessary’ was a guild motto.

  “Good. I will pay you twenty five pounds of gold, and gems, plus reasonable expenses, to eliminate the wizard guiding the parents, and arrange for the parents capture.”

  The Guild also had a standing rule ‘as opposed to other customers, never haggle with Royalty.’ Expenses were a different story. “Do you have a preference on how, where, or when?”

  “Before they can retrieve the children if possible. Before they leave The Kingdom at all costs.” The voice was a dry wind across fall leaves.

  “Expenses may be considerable. I would hate to cost you a good man, should your people get in my way. They shall wait for my signal before coming to capture the parents. And they shall have the completion of my payment with them at the capture.” Karen preferred to work unhindered. Arranging capture was troublesome. Every assassin knew the corollary to ‘don’t haggle with Royalty.’ ‘Always have payment in hand before delivery.’ Royals had a habit of eliminating assassins upon completion of a contract.

  “Done.”

  A squire brought forth a parchment with the contract, a quill, and a small bag.

  Karen produced her own stylus, wet it in the available ink bottle, and signed the parchment with her professional signature.

  The squire handed her the bag. Karen opened it, giving it a good shake, seeing coins and gems tumble about in it. She pulled the drawstrings, feeling them as untreated leather. She took her copy of the contract, and followed the squire out.

  Karen left the palace, and went to one of her safe houses: a room over a tavern that she owned. She sorted the bag’s contents into a large casserole pan of soap and water. Satisfied that she had washed it all sufficiently she set the money aside, changed clothes, and went downstairs for her turn as bar-lurker. While of average height, Karen always held herself erect, and so looked taller than she actually was. She also paid attention to what she ate and how much, and exercised regularly.

  The lunch rush was petering out, when she quickly spotted the two irregulars from the crowd, and they spotted her. One came over to where she stood at the bar.

  “The Gentleman would like to buy you a drink.”

  Karen looked at the messenger, almost ready to give her usual response. She worked as security and backup server, not as a wench or guilds-woman. But something about the confidence and bearing he stood with told her he wasn’t even considering that sort of proposition. His winter coat was hung on the hook of a booth-coat-tree. His clothing said he was 'important' without being contemptuous of others.

  “Very well.” She stood, and motioned the man at the table to one of the curtained booths on the inside wall, as she entered carrying her glass of water she had been nursing all afternoon.

  A moment later, The Gentleman entered, and his man closed the curtains. The Gentleman sat opposite Karen, with his work hardened hands clasped on the table. An older man, but not yet into physical decline. He wore the seasonal business-formal attire of a man of means. He spoke without preamble.

  “You received a contract today. I would counter it.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.” Karen had her senses on full, but found no threat. She took a drink from her glass.

  “You went before The Queen, and received a contract for twenty five pounds of gold and gems plus expenses to kill a wizard, and deliver the parents of the children of prophecy.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Daughter of Oleg, I know the stipulations of your guild, and I have met them. Now speak truthfully.”

  Karen spun the glass with her thumbs for a moment. “You are correct in your information. How do you come by it?”

  “There are few secrets that The King and Queen keep from me.”

  “Ah. You are a Chancellor, or a Viser.” Karen knew precisely who she had sitting here, and was a bit surprised. She let him carry his facade a bit longer.

  “Something like that.”

  “So what is your counter offer?”

  “Do not just turn the parents over. Instruct them on what they need to know to defeat The King and Queen in battle.”

  “You know that prophecy as well as anybody. Only the children can kill them.” Now that’s ambition, Karen continued the thought to herself.

  “Is that so,” he responded dryly. “Then I guess they will need to get the kids first.”

  “And why should I do this?” He had her interest, but not her commitment, yet.

  “Civic Duty. There can be no heir, and The Queen is a festering disease upon the land. And I will give you five times her price to do this thing.”

  “Civic Duty is a curious subject, to my Guild. Greed is not a temptation to me, Viceroy. But you are right about The Queen.”

  “More than right. The King won’t get rid of her. She is a familial dead end, connected to that daemon. Both are going to die anyway, at the hand of the harbingers of the Chaos Bringer. And The Queen and her daemon’s actions will destroy The Kingdom long before he shows up, thanks to the proliferation of evil magic, especially among the youth.”

  “And they say you only pretend to be civic minded,” Karen said drolly.

  “Enough fooling around. The prophecy tells that luck and skill will keep the parents on course. Then there is the influence of that tribe of elves. The way things are going there will be one of two branches of outcomes:

  “The three will get careless and killed here while trying to find where the kids were taken. They will get the kids back, and someday come and kill the King and Queen. On that one, if the parents face The King and Queen alone, they are as good as dead. If the parents face The King and Queen with the kids, the thrones will be left vacant.”

  Karen interrupted him. “So the parent’s need to get the kids. Then be instructed in how to kill The King and Queen.” This should be best done while asleep, Karen thought, already planning.

  “Then you will do this?” His words betrayed his anxiety.

  “It will be difficult.”

  “I recommended you to The Queen. I know your work. Killing the one who… took your sister, and liberating her: that took skill and courage.”

  Karen wondered by what means and how much he knew about that incident from the last spring, nearly eight months prior. 

098 – A Queen's Transformation

  Swiftly his mind raced to some old memories. Karen had not grown up in Skarg. proper but in the area beyond, so she had never seen The Queen as human. But the memory was of the guard having sex with a beautiful black-haired woman. But only once, as the binding of him to her service. Then Karen guided his dream to the time when The Queen changed, and what she did to accomplish this. His memories again played out, Karen now in his perspective, with commentary from his memories.

   This guard watched as The Queen stood in her chamber. All was prepared. She was looking herself over in the mirror, admiring her flesh for the last time. She had worked hard to stay fit, young looking and strong. She regularly commented about how she was still desirable above all others to her husband, The King. Three virgin women had sacrificed their blood three separate times for that. Now, though, she commented on a different desire burning in her heart. Age was continuing its inexorable march, dragging her to eventual ill health, ruin and death. She had lost her interest in The King. He still held the seat of power, but their almost twenty year union had proven a barren one, and she wanted to have offspring as strong as she which would strengthen her. The dark arts had led her to an answer. It had taken some time to find the answer, and then to find it palatable. But now she found it desirable, more than anything else.

  Briefly other memories flitted past of the dark haired Queen reading and doing research. Then the narrative returned, as did the guards commentary.

  The preparations were accomplished, and she was ready. The last thing to be done was this last ceremony. The warlock and witch were waiting, as was the sacrifice, and the rest of her personal guard.

  Karen had to suppress the thought that this man had been in the queen's personal guard and thus her personal company for near twenty years, lest it direct his dream to other less needful memories

  The witch had helped her bathe, and purify her body this morning, then departed to the Arbor for the final preparations. Now The Queen looked her naked body over for the last time in this flesh.

  Karen dove into peoples dreams rare enough that it was always uncomfortable, like swimming naked in ice water, or more so swimming in someone else's body in the ice water. But she always marveled at how much meaning she picked up, as opposed to just the memories of the observable.

  The Queen put on the black silk shift and her black robe and left the chamber, her entourage stepping in to plate to escort her. She entered the Arbor and walked to its center. The guards had seen to the Arbor’s construction on an unimproved section of the fortress island, after the pattern of an orchard she had spent her childhood in. After the conquest of her father’s kingdom, and its mergence to Krogg, the Crown Prince had taken her to the same orchard and raped her, claiming her as his own conquest, or so her story was told to her guards. She had been at Crown Prince's side ever since helping his rise to King, and had come to love him, and by extension her own power. Now she was going to gain her own measure of power, though shared with a different lord.

  In the center of the Arbor she had a place cleared and prepared. One tree stood in the middle. It was a relatively young tree, of an old species that would grow tall and straight. A monarch of the forest found and transplanted here especially for this. It stood nearly four stories tall, with a trunk small enough to reach completely around. The bottom half of the trunk just went straight up, before any branches came out. These branches then spread to a ball of branches and leaves around the top of the tree.

  The warlock and witch had been drawing on the ground around the tree and laying patterns in the soil; a sigil for summoning. One of the carpenters, working with a woodsman had carved a spot on one side of the tree earlier this morning; where the sacrifice would be bound to the tree. As she stood and watched the witch and warlock finished their preparatory chanting. A low level of static charged the air around them. Then the witch motioned and others of The Queen’s guard brought the sacrifice.

  He was a loyal, willing young man, chosen for just those qualities. He also had spent the morning purifying himself. He removed his black robe, letting it fall to the ground. He wore nothing, and his freshly shaved head gleamed slightly. He walked across the boundaries of the magic circles, and the sigil, on a proscribed path. He stopped in front of the tree, and turned his back to it. The cuts in the trunk matched his head, neck, back, and part of his legs. The witch and warlock backed him against the tree, and then produced knives. They sketched from the top of his head down to his legs, where his body touched the tree, with the sharp blades. They had him step forward, and used magic to peal the skin from his head to his legs, along the line they cut, exposing his flesh and blood. The removed skin was placed on the side of the tree opposite the young man as he was backed against it again. The witch and warlock chanted and danced around the tree and young man one complete revolution. The young man spoke his one line, inviting acceptance of his offering to this daemon.

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  Then the young man grimaced in pain, as the tree convulsed. In a spurt of energetic growth the tree expanded to twice its width, its roots writhing across the sigil to trace it themselves. Its height increased and it shot out several new branches. The young man sagged a bit, but under his skin it looked like myriad shoots connected to the tree where their raw flesh had been touching. His head was immobile, looking straight at The Queen. Then his mouth moved. The voice was still that of the young man, but with more behind it.

  “What would you have of me, mortal?”

  The witch and warlock remained silent. Only The Queen had its attention.

  “I would have the power of life. The strength of the trees.”

  “What do you offer to me, that I should grant you this?”

  “In this flesh I am barren. In the Power of Life I would have seed. I offer that, and my free will unto thee.”

  The young man/tree stood quiet for a moment, and then spoke again. “Of your own free will, approach.”

  The Queen dropped her robe, and then removed the shift. Naked she followed the same path the young man had earlier. As she approached, she observed that his penis went erect.

  “Make your offering,” the voice intoned.

  She stepped up and mounted. His arms wrapped her, holding her against him. She put her arms around him, and clutched at the trunk. She began grinding against him, reveling in the pleasures she was experiencing. She put her mouth over his, and sought out his tongue.

  The guard remembered the voice came to his mind

  “Your offering is accepted.”

  The arms moved to her thighs, and lifted her off her feet, pulling her closer against the young man/tree. She wrapped her legs around his hips. And her transformation began.

  Again the guard remembered thoughts coming into his mind.

  First the Queen's voice. “For your strength I also offer the two in the circle. One willing and knowing, the other not.”

  “Accepted.”

  Karen was not sure how much of what she was experiencing was memory experienced then or understanding added later on as the guard learned more.

  The guard watched the witch watching as the young man writhed some in response to The Queen. Then the tree groaned. The daemon now within drawing power, a breath before a cry. The tree’s structure suddenly changed again, consuming the flesh of the young man, melding it with its own, wrapping around The Queen. It covered her completely. Then the entire tree began to glow. The warlock gave a startled yell and fell over as the roots grabbed his feet. The tree’s roots and branches pulled the witch and warlock against the trunk, and the bark quickly cut through their clothes.

  The witch had known this was the cost of this summoning, though the warlock had not. The reward for her was death. For her order it would be very great. The bark retracted, scraping off all the skin that it touched, and the meat of the tree within expanded, growing into her flesh. It was rapid enough to be nearly painless.

  With the added mass and energy from these two, as well as the young man, and all the mana already organized and arrayed, the daemon had more than enough strength. The tree’s trunk expanded by the width of the bodies it consumed, and its height near doubled. More branches sprouted at normal points.

  When The King had asked what happened, he was told the truth. When he ordered the tree destroyed they threatened his life, and to reveal what The Queen knew of his doings that would get him dethroned at the least. So he yielded and left.

  Three complete days passed.

  Four members of The Queen’s bodyguard stood vigil in turn. The tree had been quiet after it had consumed the warlock and witch, and finished its initial spate of growth from that.

  Now The King stood with his own guard as the four from The Queen’s guard stood by the tree waiting. Slowly an outline on the trunk became discernible. Body, arms, legs, head, more.

  Like a person releasing a grip, the bark of the tree relaxed and contracted from the form. Its back was to them. First six tubes stood up from its back, then the tail tensed and wings spread. The head rolled back, and the entire creature stretched for its first time, an infant from the womb. It stepped back, and caught hold of the tree as its balance wobbled. Two thickly muscled legs, with high set barbed heals and large toes moved to a wide stance. The tail had a stinger on its end, and swished some as the wings flexed. It stood as tall as the tallest man there, its body shape looked feminine, and covered in bark. After a moment, it turned around.

  The Queen looked at the ten people there to greet her, and smiled. She worked her arms to get some stiffness out. Then her second set of arms. These had some wing to them that looked more like leaves. These limbs had stiff wrists and long single edged blades instead of hands. The third set of limbs at her shoulders had the wings attached to them. Her tail seemed to move almost on its own to balance against her arms movements.

  The voice seamed to speak directly into the guard’s mind.

  “Your structure is not suitable for flight, but it does have the strength you desire.”

  She looked herself over, also noting that her body was now covered in a thin bark. Her long black hair was gone. The Queen took a deep breath and the guard saw the air flow through the six tubes on her back, around her ribs, and to her lungs.

  “Well. It’s done.” She looked at the guards and smiled again. Then at The King, still smiling.

  The King scowled, then turned and left, his guards following him.

  Karen understood from these memories that the guard did not know or care about the magic specifically involved. Only that The Queen now sleeps within the orifice for her in the trees trunk, of necessity.

  She had the dungeons emptied, and the prisoners crucified in the arbor. She occasionally took one and attached that person to her own tree. In the fourteen years since, the tree has grown, so also The Queen has gotten powerful. Not fully a magic user, but very strong.

   Karen was surprised to find veiled disgust and contempt in the guards thoughts. She finished her intrusion by quickly bringing him back to the woman in his arms, and letting his mind go from there.

  Karen returned to the world, finding all as it should be. She pulled the harlot from her imposed sleep back to where she had been. Then she left the room and slipped out of the barracks area.

099 – Within The Queen's Chambers

  Karen had to prowl the palace wings and corridors a bit and pace the patrolling guards, before finally arriving on the second level of the residence wing, and the chambers set aside specifically for The Queen. These were directly adjacent to The Kings chambers. At first, Karen was surprised that there were no guards standing outside the doors to either chambers. She put that aside and set to work. Here Karen had to break in. She focused her talents and senses and felt the mechanism, then focused on the tumbler that the key would engage, aligning its lock pins, turning the tumbler, and causing the mechanism to open. She took the door handle, and carefully opened the door enough to slip through, and closed and then relocked the door.

  These were not the rooms Karen had officially visited earlier; those were in another wing. These were the unused Queen's Bed and Dressing Chambers. These had been unused since she took up residence in the Arbor. Karen recognized these chambers from the guard's dream.

  This first chamber was a wide, narrow sitting room; the inner wall behind Karen and two at either end of the chamber rose two floors worth to the ceiling. The opposite facing wall of this part of the room only went up one level and traversed the room the long way; the side facing this part appeared to be lined with shelves, contained a fire place for either end of the room and had arched double doors in the middle. The overall chamber was spatially subdivided into rooms.

  This chamber was open for its width, with two sitting rooms to either end clustered around the fireplaces and shelves that lined all the walls. In between was a greeting foyer. Almost half of the furniture had been removed over the years, the rest was covered by loose fitted dust covers. All the hangings and painting that would have hung on the walls had been removed.

  Her senses identified the outer two thirds of the overall chamber on this main level was divided into three approximately equal rooms.

  Karen went through large double doors between the shelves and into the center room, it being a changing and dressing room. These three rooms were only one story tall. The dressing room opened through arches into the other rooms on either side, on the left was a bathing room, on the right the bed chamber. All three of these rooms had large windows looking out into the gardens below. The window curtains had all been removed. Moonlight came through the partial overcast of clouds lighting the chamber dimly.

  Karen moved deeper into the dressing chamber, looking in the chests and wardrobes. Everything in the room was covered in dust. Some periphery memories from the guard said The Queen rarely wore any fabric now, so what little was here was too old to be of use to Karen’s investigation. Karen dug through what she could find, but the majority of the psychometric information was of the attendants who had last handled the cloth.

  Moving on from here, Karen looked over the bath chamber, but it was clean, though covered in a layer of dust. A medium sized fire place mirrored the one on the other side of the wall. The larger pieces of furniture, chairs, tables, and such, were covered in dust clothes.

  In the bed chamber, the large four post bed was bare. The mattress had been removed, and the canopy taken down. From the memory of the guard, there were several pieces of furniture absent, probably moved elsewhere, or possibly destroyed. As in the bath chamber, there was a fire place that mirrored the sitting room side.

  Karen went back to the sitting rooms. The two conversation areas were defined by groups of couches and chairs around tea tables, each facing one of the fire places. Now there was enough in the room to make one complete setting, and a little more, but all spread out. From either side of the double doors into the dressing chamber, behind the bookshelves, a pair of stair cases ascended up to the floor above, over the outer rooms. There were support pillars that echoed the arches between the rooms that rose from the wall, demarcating the space above in thirds. Karen figured the fire place chimneys must be diverted to go up those.

  Karen climbed up the stairs over the bed chamber and found an open area across the whole, like the sitting room below, though with pillars and arches demarcating three areas two stories high. The inner wall extended high enough to have a comfortable bench along its whole length. The fireplaces up here echoed the location and size of the fireplaces in the bathroom and bedroom below. The windows on this level were taller than the ones in the three rooms below. Also two sets of doors led out onto the battlements of the fortress.

  As Karen looked over the furniture and arrangement, and compared the memories of the guard, this was The Queen’s primary study and sitting room, and private eating and entertaining area. Again some of the furniture had been removed. But some work tables and book shelves were arranged into an office or study and library over the bed chamber.

  Karen moved into the study and found that while most of the furniture had dust clothes, about half of the shelves here were still occupied with things; like below most of the shelves had been cleared of books and decorations. It looked to Karen that this part of the room was still used occasionally, as one book shelf did not have any dust on it.

  Karen opened the dust free books and found a journal of several volumes. She paged through it looking for the entries about the transformation. The text was almost impossible to read in the dim light, but Karen’s psionic senses helped; she could read the ink on the page, as easily as see the dark on the light. She also took psychometric impressions with her other senses as she went. The early ones were of the same black-haired woman from a teen up to her mid 40’s. It was in a slightly stilted script. Not the flowing script of a trained scribe. This was The Queens own handwriting. The Queen was a complex, though straight forward personality. She wanted much, and moved methodically to get it. Then in the middle of the last volume she found the transformation notes and some of the setup.

  Paging slowly through it Karen found a detailed record of The Queen’s preparations and of what she expected would happen. The last entry was from the morning that she performed the ceremony. This entry posed the one note of fear in the whole sordid array. Fear that the daemon would not do as she desired. There were no further entries past that point. Karen put that volume back and pulled out the next one.

  The first entry was the day after she first emerged. It was a joyfully incoherent rhapsody to the daemon. Evidently The Queen had an initial hard time filtering between her own thoughts, and the daemon. The subsequent volumes were of the transformed Queen. They radiated a guiding of malevolence to all else within them. This confirmed to Karen what the viceroy had said. The two were bound; killing The Queen would first require banishing the daemon. There were ways to do that.

  Karen’s senses suddenly alerted. She sensed a strong presence scanning in her direction. Karen first jumped to the ceiling above her, concentrating on inverting her personal gravity. She turned to face the presence, while instinctively moving to a darker area among the stone rafters, and psionically shielding herself further. The two moons casting light into the room showed nothing in the room with her, short of some kind of invisibility. But magic or more so minds were still detectable, at least in presence, to a psionic talent. And she sensed none in here with her. She found herself looking out the windows and at the tree.

  There was a bastion wall between here and the arbor. The tree stood nearly as tall as the tallest tower on the fortress around it. Its branches did not spread far from the trunk. Only about three lengths of a person, splitting several times along the length. And they were spaced evenly around the whole of the central trunk.

  A sense of some kind of general scan seemed to come from it. But on a magic level that Karen had never experienced before. She had directly experienced a kind of magic similar, once, recently. That was not a pleasant memory.

  Karen moved to the darkest area of the room, and dropped two stories back to the floor. She then concentrated on the journal, memorizing the last entries, about The Queen’s transformation and the bond to the daemon. That done, she moved back to the study area and put the journal back on its shelf.

  Karen then scanned the room, to be sure she was not leaving any residue of her own. Beyond in the hall, two guards were approaching, on patrol. And yet the tingle of mortal danger lingered. She dismissed going through the fire place, and chimney. Those were barred against such, and finding the hidden bolt hole would take too long.

  Karen blocked the brooding malevolence and focused on the hall outside. The guards had passed, the next set was not yet to the corner. Karen worked the lock, eased the door open, tripped the lock, and slipped back out of the room. She psionically held the door latch to keep it quiet, then slunk down the hall pacing the patrolling guards, shrouding herself as she went.

  Karen made her way into the garrison of The King’s Guard. This was in a different wing from the Queen's personal guard. She put aside what she had learned about the Queen to focus on what she could learn about the Kind and his potential weaknesses.

  After surveying the garrison's barracks, she selected a member of The King’s Guard, and dove into his dream as she did the member of The Queen’s Guard. This was a simpler probe.

  This one had not been in attendance at The Queen’s doings, he was too young. However she did learn from him that The King had long since given up any hope of a relationship with The Queen, beyond a formal one. Even before she transformed she had left his bed. He had expressed regular hope to grow old with her. Now he quietly hoped to outlive her, that someone might figure out how to kill her, and banish the abomination from his castle.

  Also the King treated his guardsmen like fellows, honored them, and was loyal to them. As such they were professionally loyal to him. The King seamed to long for the battlefield, and still wore armor regularly. He tried to dress as the guard did, but accepted that his station required fancier dress. He practiced on the same pitches and fields as the guard.

  She also found that the King kept a regular concubine.

  Karen knew as well as anyone in Krogg that the armed services were co-ed, and mostly segregated by sex. She was mildly surprised to learn the open secret among the guards that the King's concubine was an officer on his Personal Guard. She passed by this information as it did not appear to have any current bearing.

  Deciding that there was nothing to learn here, Karen extracted herself from the man's dreams.

136 – Meet the Queen

  Rox and Diana watched the troops break up and Steven and Alex taken in a different direction. Rox had quietly placed a spell on her things and Diana’s things during the week, which allowed her to sense their location, regardless of the intervening space. Something told her not to worry about doing likewise with Steven or Alex’s things. Now as they entered the fortress, she started gathering mana to herself. The two of them were in just underwear and blankets and still chained in their cages, and taken through a series of arches and passages between the buildings of the fortress. At a certain point, the troopers were met by a cadre of palace guards, who replaced them, and the troopers left.

  These guards/porters bore them through the fortress to its heart, and a large grove of fruit trees dominated by one huge tree in the middle. This tree was tall enough to probably be taller than the buildings around it, and quite large around with several large branches reaching out from the central trunk. As they passed the smaller trees, Rox wished she could shield Diana from the sight. Men and women were hanging from the trees, crucified naked even in the cold. It looked like there were people crucified all over the higher branches of the big tree, and the group was heading right for it.

  The group stopped in a clearing at the base of the tree. Its foliage dominated the clearing, and stretched up as high as the fortress around it starting about two heights of a person above the ground. Bodies of assorted people were not just impaled to it as with the other trees. On this one, it looked like branches were growing through the bodies attached to it. Branches engulfing the bodies, and growing out through them. And the people were somehow kept alive as this tree transmuted their substance into its own.

  The guards set the cages on the ground, and then prostrated themselves.

  Rox watched as the bottom of the tree began to shift around. Diana shrieked in surprise and disgust. A new shape was exposed and broke away from the base of the tree. Humanoid female, but only just; she stepped away from the tree as it withdrew from around her.

  Roxanne has learned some little of the following from the Elves, and now heard Karen’s voice in her mind telling her that the Queen is pure evil, and given her soul over to corrupting power. A creature from the infernal regions looking vaguely like a tree has been magically produced, and she merges her body into it. In return, it draws her seed out of her and mixes it with the seed of the men it feeds on; it will eventually bear fruit after its own kind, but only in the abyss. She and the King were once lovers. Now they are incompatible, to his disgruntlement.

  The Queen is the only person who can detach from the tree. The other men and women are being slowly consumed by the creature. As it draws energy and matter from the trapped bodies of its victims through its roots and branches, it transfers some of the energy to sustain the woman. She is also a magic user. She draws and channels mana right through this creature. To defeat her will require killing it.

  At seeing the Queen, Rox wondered why some of the women in this world couldn’t be bothered to wear enough to keep warm at the beach; particularly in the winter.

  She was taller than most men were. Because of the transformation worked on her, her body was covered by brownish thorny bark. Segmented plates of bark covered her head. She had six limbs at her shoulders. Two normal arms, two longer arms with small wings that ended with two-foot long claws, and two larger visually impressive but otherwise impractical wings. She also had a tail that swished back and forth as she walked, balancing against the upper body mass. Her feet were digitigrades such that she walked on the balls, and had spurs on her heals resembling a bird. She reminded Rox of Kali, but more malevolent.

  Taking no notice of the group, she stepped away from the tree's embrace and crossed the clearing, to a man attached to another tree. She took hold of the man as a mother would a baby, and pulled him off the tree that held him, using the clawed arms to cut the cords that bound him. He collapsed into her arms. She carried him to the large tree and held him against it. He weekly tried to fight as she held him there. Then he seamed to levitate as the tree took hold of him with multitudes of tiny tentacles, and carried him up into its heights. Then he stopped, and was held fast to the tree as tentacles like roots wrapped around his arms and legs. More tentacles clumped together to form a kind of seat and covered him to part way up his belly. The larger roots split to smaller roots that then dug into his body and limbs, connecting him to the tree.

  Rox knew right then that neither she nor Diana would be allowed to live to become part of that tree.

  The woman watched as the man was placed and wrapped up. She then turned to the guards.

  “Rise. Have them stand forth.” An unexpectedly rich voice issued forth.

  The guards stood, and opened the cages and dragged Rox and Diana out of them. The blankets were taken and put back into the cages. Both were a bit wobbly after having sat or crouched for most of a week. Hunger had them sufficiently week as not to resist. Diana wanted to move to her mother, but two guards held her still by her ankle chains. Two guards flanked Rox, and the rest carried the wooden cages away.

  For a moment Rox just concentrated on staying upright on cramping legs. She quietly continued gathering mana to her, to be ready for whatever happened.

  The Queen approached, wings folding to her back. As she moved about, Rox could see that she had several tubes that seamed to project from her back, and wrap around to enter her chest, and moved as breathing tubes. Two over the woman’s shoulders and across the top of her breasts then in past her sternum. The next set came around under her arms and then under her breasts. The last two followed the lower curve of her ribcage before going in. Strangling her was out of the question.

  She looked Rox over, but gave most of her scrutiny to Diana, going to one knee to look her over. As the Queen’s attention shifted, Rox felt some magical pressure diminish.

  “So. This is the one chosen by fate to kill me, whom I can not kill. And how is that, little half breed?”

  Diana said nothing. She just tried to look away, at anything that was not profanely offensive to look at. She ended up looking at the ground.

  The Queen stood and then looked Rox over. The magic pressure increased.

  “Prudence says I should kill you now. Surely you know something of the various prophecies by now. Your daughter and son will be great leaders in whatever cause they espouse. It would be a shame to deny that. The prophecy about me gives me a choice. If I kill you, I can send her back to the witch. Let you live, and you will always seek her back under your wing until she is able to defend herself. It’s entirely personal. For the cause and all.”

  At that she turned away.

  “Bind the child to that tree. Bind the adult to the rings on the floor.”

  She stepped back and turned away, as the guards moved Rox to the center of the clearing and carried Diana to a tree. She continued thinking aloud.

  “After all I must give the child cause to hate me enough to counter me.”

  Rox was halted in the middle. The chains attached to rings on the ground, shortened to only let her to kneel. Her guards then backed away, waiting for their next commands. Rox turned as best she could to look at Diana, but the way she was bound would not let her turn far enough to see her.

  Rox turned away, and fought to clear her mind. This was the moment her feelings had been leading her to, when she must either take control of her life, or have it taken from her. Slowly her thoughts stilled as she drew on the mana she was accumulating, and her perception of the world changed.

  The chains still hung from her body, but did not restrain it. Her arms were still in bonds, but no longer restrained. She was still unclothed, but only bereaved of covering against the weather. She was still in the fortress, but no longer a prisoner. She was a still a woman, but so much more, Wife and mother, fighter and mage. She carried no weapon, but those were only tools, she was what made them dangerous. Rox felt a subtle shift in things around her, as her senses cleared and expanded.

  Suddenly she knew what the tree really was. And how to destroy it was obvious. She focused on maintaining her perceptions, and focused on existence. On what is, what was about to happen, and what she would need to accomplish the next task.

  The Queen felt the resonance of what Rox was doing and realized she had to move fast. She turned and charged, spreading her wings free of her stabbing arms, and centered these on Rox’s chest, to pierce the heart, beside the left breast. She was a moment too late.

  Rox twisted as the Queen came, and let the woman stab through the chain that secured her left arm. As this snapped free, the woman’s wing caught Rox across her shoulders, and they both went down, Rox wrenching her legs a bit. Rox smashed her closed fist against the back of the woman’s head, stunning her. The guards moved to act, as Rox spoke a word of power.

  This time she spoke it in English, her native tongue. “Bulldozer Torus.”

  Suddenly an irresistible force was pushing anything not tied down except for Diana away from her in a circle. The guards that had the misfortune to be between a tree and the wall of force were crushed to goo, while those attached to the trees were unharmed. The Queen was pushed against another tree, and pined there, for several seconds. The remaining guards once they could, decided that center stage of a magic fight was not where they wanted to be, and fled.

  Rox then tested the rings, and found them solid. She spoke another word, and the ground around the rings liquefied, and she pulled them free as she stood. But her right arm was still restrained behind her back.

  Then there was a focus of attention on her and a flood of pain as a foot of organic blade was protruding from her chest. Rox could not speak to form anything, as she gasped for air. Then she was lifting into the air, and thrown at the huge tree.

  Rox crashed into it, bleeding to death. She had scant seconds. But it may as well have been an eternity. For Rox knew who she was. Death was not an obstacle. Just an inconvenience, to be avoided until her work was done. And it was not yet done.

  Then her body stopped working.

137 – And kill her dead

  The Queen advanced on the apparently dead body intent on dismembering it. She picked up the lifeless form by the throat, chains dangling with the right arm still restrained behind the back. She drove her claws back through the hole, and added her tail to the mess. She jerked hard, and the corpse was torn in three large pieces, and allowed to fall to the ground.

  Diana screamed.

  The Queen, covered in blood, turned and walked over to her. “It’s not our time yet. But we will fight soon enough.”

  She unhooked Diana’s chains from the tree, to drag Diana out of the grove. Diana was fixated on the dismembered body that moments ago had been her mother.

  Then both of them felt the gathering of magic. The Queen tried to focus on it, but could not find a focal point. She picked up Diana and turned, spreading her wings as she ran toward the doors of the fortress to get Diana out. The doors closed as she got to them, barring that way. The Queen tossed Diana down, and drove a claw through her, but Diana wasn’t there the moment she let go. The empty chains and manacles clanged on the ground. The Queen, still unable to focus on the source of magic, turned back for her tree. Wings wide she ran as fast as she could.

  As she entered the clearing, she skidded to a stop. The dismembered body was not the only thing there. Roxanne was standing there very much alive, and fully dressed, with an arrow knocked in her bow and aimed at the Queen. Rox let go, and it was the woman’s turn to be impaled by a two-foot shaft.

  The Queen being unable to easily push it through her chest left the metal arrow there for a moment, then spoke a word and pulled it out, growling in pain as she did so. The barbed arrowhead brought shreds of wet flesh with it out of her chest.

  While the Queen was busy Rox handed her bow to Diana who stood behind her. She then got out her staff, activating both ends. Diana took the bow aside, and stood behind a tree.

  Rox twirled the staff a bit in display. “Come, vile creature. Let’s dance.”

  The Queen was not anxious to engage, as she did not know what was going on. She had dismembered this woman. Who had then apparently pulled off a magic trick that not even the most powerful that she had heard of could easily do. Now she invited her to a hand fight. The woman spread her wings and arms, and let the bark covering her tighten, to sharpness.

  Rox watched as the Queen’s covering became dangerous to the touch and the woman went into a battle crouch, wings and tail wide for balance. Rox was not really interested in a hand fight, but had needed to get the Queen to focus that way. Suddenly she pointed her staff, and shot a blast of energy which caught the woman full in the chest, sending her flying backward, crashing through the limbs of several trees.

  Diana had the bow ready then, and brought it back.

  Rox took it, turned and shot the aluminum arrow almost straight up, into the top of the tree. The silver line tied to it playing out behind. Rox then took the staff back and turned to catch the charge of the woman. The Queen carried Rox back into the cavity she had come out of. Diana scampered away, taking the end of the line with her.

  The Queen held Rox against the tree as its tentacles stretched to take hold of her.

  Rox smiled. She twisted the staff in two, the Queen suddenly pushed against the Rox in a bizarre hug. Rox whispered a phrase in the local language into the woman’s ear that horrified the woman. That phrase was never spoken at close quarters unless some serious shielding was in place.

  Diana watched the base of the tree explode in a ball of fire that blew out a quarter of it. Many of the people attached to the tree screamed in pain, feeling the pain of the tree.

  The Queen picked herself up from the wreckage of another tree near the edge of the grove, and looked through a trench of broken limbs at the center tree. It still fed her power, and maintained her form undamaged, but it was also hurt. Then it called her attention to what Diana was doing.

  The girl had drawn a small bi-level octagram, and was sitting in it, chanting.

  The Queen charged at her, determined to stop her, the prophecy be thwarted.

  Rox blind-sided her, pummeling her with both ends of the now divided staff. The Queen tried to get away, but Rox had the upper hand for the moment.

  Then Diana had her spell finished and a little cloud of rain appeared at her eye level, and rained itself out to nothing. Diana smiled, and turned to her bag, to finally put some clothes on.

  Rox was not paying attention to Diana, just to the Queen, and determined to keep her from the tree and from Diana. She would pummel her this way and that, then dodge like a professional boxer. She was too close for the Queen to effectively lash her with tail or stabbing wing claws, but they were still punishing each other. Then the first rumbles of thunder started.

  The Queen, still distracted by Rox, had no time to spend on Diana. But the tree did and it knew what she was up to.

  Diana finished getting dressed, and then got the tinderbox out. She opened this up, and put it in the center of the octagram. She then got out the paper Karen had Rox write the words on. Carefully she read them, but nothing happened. So she did it the old fashioned way. She got out the matches and used these to light the tinder. Then she read the spell again. Again nothing. Diana was untrained at sensing magic or mana, so she could not tell that the tree itself was blocking the mana from her. Rox was too distracted to do anything. Finally in her frustration, Diana just stuck the end of the silver cord into the dying fire. A thunderclap sounded nearby.

  Rox and the Queen were dodging around trees trying to get a clear shot at each other. Rox was scraped up and had several gouges, but was still very much in the fight. The only apparent damage she had been able to do was the rapidly healing arrow wound, and lots of broken thorns. Otherwise she may as well have been hitting the woman with a feather. Time to change strategy.

  Rox stopped chasing around, and went for the tree again, reassembling her staff. She had used up the offensive spells in it for the moment. Time to go for the unexpected.

  Rox charged across the clearing and to the cavity, which still smoldered. She paused long enough to check Diana’s progression. It was plain that something was wrong, but she was not sure what. Then the Queen came charging. Rox hoped for the best, and improvised a spell, focusing on the outcome she wanted. Then she ducked.

  The Queen had come charging with her stabbing claws outstretched, and again missed Rox. Instead she drove them into the tree. She could feel its pain at this, but would soon act to relieve it. She was also feeling upset. It had never taken so long to kill anyone before. As she tried to pull loose, she found she couldn’t. Some kind of magic was holding her claws in the tree. The tree pushed and she pulled, but they would not come out. They turned their attention to the magic, to unravel it.

  Rox crawled away, careful of the Queen’s tail and its stinger, and over to Diana. She knew she only had moments. Rox looked over everything.

  “The magic fire isn’t starting.”

  Rox sensed around, and could not feel any magic. She stepped a few steps away, and felt it. Then back to Diana. Nothing. Great. More thunder sounded in the distance.

  “There’s a shell around your circle. It’s blocking the magic.”

  Quickly Rox scratched a circle, and drew a blank. But Diana knew what to do. She joined her circle to the one her mother had drawn, and said a phrase in elfin tongue. That quick the shell was breached and bypassed.

  “Cast the fire again,” Rox instructed.

  As Diana started to say it again, the Queen broke free of the tree.

  “Now the two of you die.”

  The woman started casting a spell, as Rox, nearly drained, again drew a blank. So she just stepped into it, and rammed the end of her staff into the sternum of the woman. But she was stopped by a shield, the backlash of the impact throwing her staff away into the trees behind her. But it made the Queen pause briefly. The woman had almost completed her spell when Rox felt all the hair on her body start to stand on end. She dropped to the ground, and covered her ears just in time. Diana had finished her spell first.

  The sound had a physical impact as lightening ripped through the tree going up, energizing the silver cord, and the magic fire. The fire leapt up the silver, turning briefly into that material that will destroy the earthly form of something from the infernal regions. A second bolt of lightening struck the tree from above before the first had fully faded, and ripped through the trunk blowing it to large chunks, killing many of the living not yet consumed. The burning silver being energized further exploded and drove the animating evil within the tree from the mortal plane.

  A tangible shock wave swept through the grove, ripping the closest trees out of the ground, and breaking up the farther ones.

  The two lightening bolts and the flight of the evil from the tree stripped the Queen of most of her power. The concussion blew her across the clearing again; this time when she landed she was out cold.

  Diana got up, her ears ringing and nose bleeding. She went over to her mother, and both crouched together as their heads cleared. Diana’s nose bleed stopped as quickly as it started. “I did it.”

  Both looked around. Then they spotted the Queen in a heap of wreckage. She was still very much alive. Large chunks of assorted trees were still falling as were parts of the fortress.

  Rox looked at the woman. “Alex’s silver blade may be the only thing we have to kill her.”

  “But I’m supposed to kill her, mom.”

  “I know. But except for this tree, you have never killed anything larger than a bug. Not even a fish. I’d rather you did not start killing. Let’s go find your dad and brother. Get your stuff.”

  Rox found her staff, and used it for a cane, leaning on it while catching her breath. She slid to the ground as she did. It had only been a few minutes since she had cheated death by substitution, and the resulting battle had taken a lot out of her. This on top of the last several days.

  Diana had Rox’s bags on with the bow and quiver over her shoulder. Diana helped Rox back to her feet, and they turned away from the Queen, and started to the doors into the fortress. Mother leaned on daughter.

  They were most of the way to the doors when the Queen screamed and charged, having recovered enough to continue the fight. Both turned, but Diana acted first, putting the heels of her hands together a yelling a pseudo-Hawaiian word. A ball of energy flew from her hands blowing the woman into a tree, burning through the body in the process and impaling her on a broken branch. Whether by magic or by physical damage this finished her for good.

  Diana had collapsed after channeling so much energy, and Rox held her up, and they made their way into the fortress, not looking back.

  “No more Gohan and Vegita for you, kiddo.”

  “Mom, how did we know to do all that?”

  “You can thank Karen, if we ever see her again.”