Kingdom in Distress Page 11

am allowed to tread? She must prepare for the services, but she is not in her chambers, nor out in the gardens, nor in the kitchens or the pantry; I and the other Ladies in her train, have been searching high and low, but without success!”

  This news was conveyed to the King, who promptly formed a search party, not without some tingling sense of foreboding, but this he did attend solely to his nerves, after his recent experiences. Frantically, he searched high and low, before concluding that the would-be Queen of Daventry was nowhere that she ought to have been. At this point, the King dismissed the party, and called to him his High Marshal.

  “I must confide in you,” the King all but moaned in growing misery, “I have taken the Princess to certain places, to which she perhaps should not have born witness... including the royal treasury, by which to show her the wondrous wealth of the Kingdom that was soon to be hers. I did not speak of the magical chest that lies therein, of which you are one of but a few to be aware, but... I have been deceived so often of late, that I now perhaps fear treachery 'round every turn. Come; hasten away with me to put my weary mind at ease.”

  The two men reached the treasury, which was closed, and did still appear locked... but upon producing the twin keys they both carried, which allowed the great vault doors to be opened, they saw Princess Dahlia standing in the middle of the room with the magical chest in her hands.

  “There you are, 'my love,'” the Princess sneered into the King's despairing face, even as her own countenance underwent a horrible, wrenching change; her skin appeared to thicken, and to wrinkle, and her hair became thin and grayed about the temples, her nose and chin lengthening, and her teeth becoming old and yellowed until there stood, before the distraught King and his astonished advisor, the figure of a most foul and loathsome witch.

  “Guards! GUARDS! To the TREASURY!” cried the High Marshal, but the creature that had been Dahlia simply threw back her head and cackled like the elderly, wretched hag she was before she hopped upon a broomstick of stout, unpolished oak, and took off through one of the narrow tower windows, seeming to almost squeeze through what anyone might have called—had they not seen the feat, an impossibly narrow gap.

  The King was frozen in place, but the High Marshal ran to that window just in time to see the witch “Dahlia” disappear into the clouds. Then he turned and looked to the King but there was nothing to do about any of it, not then and there. The guards were dismissed even as they arrived, and the High Marshal locked the treasury tight once more, even as he helped the King out of it. He then brought him to his throne room, and then departed, seeking the other royal advisers.

  They had a wedding to cancel, and a once-more melancholy King to assist, and a people who might finally begin to lose patience with poor Edward.

  Would they have seen the witch who had disguised herself as a fair princess, crashing into a tree in the world among the clouds, whereupon she broke her broom, and fell most miserably to the land that lay there, forever outside of the sight of most men, they might have found some small, if grim, satisfaction from the experience... but they knew it not. Nor could they have known that even as the High Marshal gathered them in the audience chamber, the chest of gold was being wrenched from the witch's desperate clutch by a strong and mighty giant, and that she only narrowly escaped his soup-cauldron by a last-minute teleportation back to her candy house from which she could not hope to find her way again, for the Kingdoms of the cloud-lands are forever shifting and her regular means of traveling was broken.

  All they knew, the much-beset advisers of King Edward of Daventry, was that they had a time of hardship and privation ahead of them, through which in light of Edward's condition, the people of the kingdom would likely require their leadership.

  Months passed. The people survived, but Daventry's glory had waned. Victory in several successive battles with the neighboring kingdoms was beginning to prove very costly, and without the money to pay Edward's soldiers, the cost was far more difficult to bear. Men were deserting the ranks before their commissions expired, and those who stayed to term were more and more reluctant to sign up for further service.

  Those who went home, meanwhile, faced privation and scarcity; disease ravaged the countryside, and more and more the people of Daventry went hungry. Artists could no longer afford to beautify the countryside, inventors needed to find what an increasingly bitter and disillusioned population referred to as “honest work,” and charities began to run out of food, medicine, and clothing.

  As was wont to be the case in such times, people were resorting to banditry and robbery. Entire quarters of the capital city were now dangerous to walk through at night, and merchants had taken to hiring armed escorts for their routes while those who could, avoided Daventry altogether. The wealth and prosperity, the times of good health and of plenty, of celebration, innovation and invention, such times were now a distant memory.

  Quest for the Crown

  “Your Majesty...”

  The King looked up from his now-unwelcome duties. Every day seemed to weigh more heavily upon his heart, and he had long since come to rely more and more on his increasing number of advisors for the day-to-day governance of the realm. Before him, at this particular moment, stood the High Marshal, and beside him, a young man bearing the trappings of recently appointed knighthood. “My King... this is Sir Graham.”

  “Sir Graham...” the King's lips parted. “Yes... you won your spurs in... our most recent battle, did you not?”

  “My King, it is so.”

  “It is so.” King Edward echoed the words, as if hearing them for the first time, and then: “Would you accept an errand from your King, Sir Knight?”

  “My King,” Graham replied somberly, still unmoving, his bright blue eyes steady, “that is why I have come, for I must yet prove myself worthy of my sash, my spurs, and my horse. I was appointed for deeds in battle, but have yet to undertake the questing that is the birthright, honor, and mighty responsibility of all Knights of Daventry.”

  “Truly.” The King offered a thin, wan smile... it was not warm but it was approving. “I tell you this then, Sir Graham. There is a sorcerer somewhere without the lands of Daventry, who has called himself Magus, and goes by the name of Deveureaux. He has the magical mirror, which, until late, brought much good fortune upon my kingdom. You are aware of this?”

  “I am, Sire.”

  “There is a dwarf posing as a goodly man of the Mountain Folk, some time ago, he took through deception both the life of my fair Queen, and the shield of my father, by which our victory in battle was many a time made certain. This shield, I am told, was then taken from him by an unknown race of small folk, living somewhere in the world beneath that on which we tread. I know not who they are nor from whence they came but wherever they have gone, my father's shield now lies with them. You know of this, as well?”

  “I do, Sire.” Graham stood still and quiet, saved when spoken to.

  “Finally... there is a chest, a magical item of infinite value, which was taken from me through deceit most foul by a woman given to the ways of witchcraft and betrayal. It allowed for the payment of our soldiers and the purchase of food when times were lean. It now lies in lands which I know not, but the witch who took it flew up and away into the realm of the clouds with her prize which would be at once a difficult and challenging place to reach, as well as the most likely point at which to begin a productive search. You are familiar with this story?”

  “I am familiar, my King.” Graham was unmoving, though a kind and sympathetic light shone in his eyes.

  “Then this I say to you, Sir Graham: You shall quest in pursuit of the mirror, the shield, and the chest, which were won from me by trickery, and taken with acts most foul upon the person of our beloved Queen. In Katherine's name and in her honor, acting as she would have bid a goodly knight to act, you shall pursue the enemies of Daventry to the corners of the world and to its ends. You shall retrieve the mirror, the shield, and the chest, and you shall restore them to the realm,
so that they might once more assure Daventry's security and prosperity.” He leaned forward on his throne, feeling fierce and yet weary. There was so much left for him to do as king to ensure the safety of his people in what now seemed to be a resurgence of the dark times of old. “Would you do this for me, Sir Graham?”

  Sir Graham stood straight and tall before the gaze of his king. His eyes bespoke a ferocious desire to prove the very fiber of his being. “My King, I shall do this for you, and in so doing, I shall show unto you my quality.”

  King Edward's lips curled into a wry smile, though there seemed to be little humor left in him.

  “Do this for Daventry,” he said, simply, “and on the day that I draw breath no longer, you shall take up my throne as King.”

  Kingdom in Distress is a fan creation, and I want you to be part of the book as well.

  I don't see myself as the sole creator of the book, I want you to be one as well, if you have anything to add to the story, if you think some things should change, if you want to add a full side tale into the book then by all means please send your piece to me, I will review your feedback and incorporate it (assuming it is not offensive, and that it adds to the story), into this book.

  Please, don't just sit and