The Queen and the Mage Read online

  The Queen and the Mage

  The Springs of the Goddess, book 2

  Wilma Van Wyngaarden

  The Queen and the Mage

  Copyright ©2020 by Wilma van Wyngaarden

  1st edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the prior written permission of the author and publisher.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Untitled

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Queen Scylla gripped the hilt of her sword and raised the slender blade. If she could fight the pulsing magic, she would run Soler through—the high priest had no weapon and little strength, other than the waves of whatever he was sending at her. His strange energy seemed to be weakening… could it be possible?

  “Help me, Goddess!” She channeled the vision of Jay’s Goddess from the spring—small ears, the leafy green gown, the trailing pink flowers. She fought off the punishing force, struggling to take a step forward as if advancing against a strong wind.

  Suddenly there was a flash of olive fur. The forest cat flew past her in an agile bound. He wrapped around the priest’s head, with ripping teeth, sharp claws and gouging rear feet. The skeletal priest screamed as blood spattered. He fell to the ground in front of the doorstep, and the cat’s jaws closed on his throat despite the bony hands that tried to pry them off. Soler’s screams choked off. The man writhed in desperation, while his assailant clawed into the robes and shredded them.

  A few moments later, the cat released the slack body of the priest and leaped away, regaining his natural relaxation almost immediately. He sat down and groomed his ruffled fur.

  Scylla found she could breathe again. Jay was quivering on his knees, pale with horror. Keet crouched like a bundle of sticks on the grass.

  “Did you feel that power, Keet?” asked Scylla, for want of anything else to say. Keet was making small huffing sounds and for once seemed unable to speak.

  “Your high priest had a little remaining strength,” the forest cat purred. “Somehow these villains found a toehold on magic’s slippery slope. I do believe your priests’ uprising is now crushed. Blessings upon your realm!”

  “I… I thank you,” said Scylla.

  “Dearest Goddess,” Jay prayed, still on his knees. “Thank you for sending the cat.”

  “And me!” Keet screeched, finding his voice although it was weaker than usual.

  “And the stick man. Oh!… and the dog.”

  Scylla looked around. There were no signs of the yappy little beast who had leaped from the shrubbery to distract the first priest. “We will have to find that dog—we can’t leave it here.”

  The cat looked unconcerned. He was running one big soft paw over his ear and whiskers, with his sharp claws hidden.

  “Do you know…?” said Scylla after a moment’s thought. “Did the substance by which the priests feigned suicide cause them to be ill afterward?”

  He yawned. “It may be partly so. But I am told the priests used their newfound magic to attack the House of Rellant and even attempted to bring down the castle walls. They did not realize their destructive force would rebound to destroy them… so naïve!” His gentle words fell into the sun-warmed air in the clearing. His nostrils sniffed the stirring breeze delicately. “Destructive power always contaminates the one who casts it…”

  Having groomed his fur to his satisfaction, the lithe animal rose to his feet. “I sense no further danger here. And could it be that I hear the approach of a legion of hooves? Queen Scylla, your royal guard will be much relieved to find you alive and safe.” He gave his companion a quizzical glance from glowing yellow eyes. Keet, not as chipper as usual, crept across the grass, hopped onto the furry shoulders and gave the queen a nod.

  “Did you feel your power, Princess?” Keet tossed the words back at her as they headed towards the shrubbery. “Goodbye to you and your court!”

  “Use your power for good, Queen Scylla! We wish you a long and interesting reign,” purred the olive-green cat, using her formal title.

  “Power—I?” she scoffed, rejecting the very idea. “And I do not wish for an ‘interesting’ reign!”

  “You may find it will be… In our lands, we are preparing for a much larger battle, I am sorry to say. Ours is not near finished and you yourself may feel the sting of it…”

  “I hope time proves you wrong. But we will heed Keet’s warning. I and my council are also preparing to do what we can do.”

  “Till we meet again! Merowww!” came the cat’s fading farewell as the forest swallowed them up.

  Jay had climbed to his feet and was peering into the undergrowth.

  “Well, I do like that cat…” said Scylla, mostly to herself. She re-plaited her hair with fingers that shook slightly. Her long braid had loosened, but the hairpin behind her ear was still in place.

  She looked around her. One body lay face down in the grass, dead by Scylla’s own hand. The other blood-soaked corpse had fallen on its back, its head and upper body shredded by the vicious claws.

  The bright morning sun lit the lodge and its grounds with a rosy glow, with the blind turret standing tall in its foolish glory. The limp flag on the peak lifted suddenly with the morning breeze. Such a beautiful place! Yet who could forget what had happened here—the murders of King Tobin, Queen Maris, and the twin princes along with the others also struck down. And now the last of the traitors lay dead in turn.

  At least, she hoped it was the last of the traitors.

  Jay returned to her side, staring down the road with dawning hope. “Queen Scylla… I think the soldiers have found us!”

  “Well, better late than never.” Scylla turned her back on the gruesome scene and watched the fast approach of Captain Coltic and his companions of the Queen’s Guard. Hooves pounded, weapons clanged, metal jingled and flashed in the sunlight—it was a very welcome sight. She leaned heavily on her sword, the bloody tip pressing into the turf at her feet. “I wonder… have they any food with them?”

  1

  The four horses came to a hard stop, snorting and lathered with sweat.

  Coltic, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, vaulted to the ground. With a few sharp words, he sent the soldiers racing away to secure the grounds. He took in the scene next to the grand hunting lodge, his face rigid.

  Queen Scylla’s small, slight figure stood leaning on her sword, with its bloody tip pressing into the turf. Next to her, the boy Jay clutched her sword sheath with both hands. He was tousled and dirty after the night spent in the forest, and Scylla’s black hair hung in an untidy plait down the front of her rumpled cloak.

  In jarring contrast to the beauty of the early morning landscape, two dead men lay nearby. One body was face down near the forest path. The other blood-soaked corpse had fallen near the building’s arched entry—not long since, as the bright red gore revealed.

  �
�Queen Scylla… I mean, Princess!” Coltic greeted her after a moment’s stunned silence.

  “Captain! I’m very pleased to see you. The boy and I were lost in the forest all night. Have you any food with you?”

  “Ahhh…” He gave a distracted glance toward his saddlebags, and then at his three soldiers racing around the grounds in a sharp-eyed search for danger. Coltic turned back to Scylla. “Food…”

  “There may be some in the lodge but I have not yet been inside, Captain,” she told him.

  “I believe we have some rations with us, Princess… How have these men met their deaths?” He tilted his head toward the two bodies sprawled in the grass some forty feet apart.

  “The area is clear!” reported one guard, riding up to the captain. He and his two companions slid off their mounts. “We will search inside!”

  They ran in through the open doorway. The horses huddled in a tight group near Coltic’s, dripping sweat and shifting nervously.

  Scylla pointed at the corpse face down near the forest edge. “That is the priest that Sorrell identified, as you recall.” Coltic nodded. Scylla’s handmaid, Sorrell, had seen the man in the lodge at the time King Tobin and the others were murdered… the night she shoved Scylla out a side door to run into the dark forest. She still did not care to think about her father’s death or the three long nights she had spent wandering, lost in the woods. They were like a nightmare that did not bear revisiting. Resolutely, Scylla pushed aside the memories.

  “Apparently, he and Soler did not die in the burned shed as reported. They made their way here. He was sick, but he threatened us. When the dog distracted him, Jay hit him and knocked him down. I seized the opportunity, as you see.” She raised her sword to display the tip smeared with drying blood.

  Coltic’s eyebrows rose comically. “Yes, I see… but what dog?”

  “The queen’s little white dog—he is around here somewhere. This other man is the high priest, Soler…” The remains seemed nightmarishly unreal in the morning light. Soler’s ripped clothing was lurid with blood. Scylla averted her eyes with a shudder, reliving the terrifying moments before Coltic and his men had arrived—when she had confronted the high priest and fought to resist his strange power.

  “Please tell me, Princess, that you were not the one who… shredded… that,” said Coltic, with a return to his usual good cheer.

  “No, it was the green cat!” Jay spoke up.

  “The green cat,” Coltic repeated. He looked from Jay to Scylla, who handed her sword to the boy. Jay wiped the blade on the grass, slid it back into the sheath, and returned it to her.

  Scylla leaned on it, grasping the hilt tightly. It now felt like an extension of her arm, whether as cane or weapon. “As you recall, Captain, the maid Axit warned us of other strange creatures existing in our world. This one was a greenish forest cat… about knee-high. It came last night to take the trellet back to Gryor.”

  “After they left, we got lost,” Jay said.

  “I see.”

  “But they came back this morning because the cat thought Queen Scylla was in danger here. The cat speaks too.”

  “Speaks and kills people?” Coltic enquired. He took a step closer to inspect Soler’s remains. “How did it actually kill him?”

  “The priest was using his… his magic on us. I was preparing to run him through…”

  Jay’s face wore an expression of awe. “I couldn’t move and neither could the trellet.”

  “It was difficult to move—I cannot explain the power he had. But the cat leaped on him and gouged at him with his hind feet.”

  “I see as much.”

  “When he fell down, it bit his throat and choked him to death.” Jay’s eyes widened in remembered horror. “The priest had no chance!”

  “I regret we were not here, Princess… I see we missed it by minutes.”

  Scylla’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “It ended well, Captain… I do like the cat. He’s taken Keet on his back. They’re going back to Gryor by a passage through the mountains.”

  “A passage through the mountains!” Coltic stared at her. “What passage? Do you know where?”

  “I can not possibly guess. The cat seems to travel quickly, and Keet said it is a passage through caves, with dripping water.”

  “I could wish that you had not left the smithy so abruptly, Princess. We scoured the woods until dark and took a chance to start today’s search from the west side of the hunting lodge.”

  “I am sorry… the trellet wanted to go. He is not at all reasonable.”

  “I thought as much. Bart the smith had strong warnings about trellets.”

  “He looked at Keet much the way the healer did, and also the travellers who came to the castle. As if he wanted to catch hold and keep him.”

  “Well… it is what it is. Chancellor Mako will be pleased the trellet has gone,” said Coltic.

  “So am I,” Scylla admitted. “I do hope this is the end, but the cat had a warning for us. He said in their land they are preparing for a much larger battle than what we have experienced… and we may feel the sting of it here. He wished me a long and interesting reign.”

  The tall blonde captain gave a sudden laugh. “Interesting? Princess, I wait with bated breath… at your service! Lead on!”

  She rolled her eyes. “Not right now, Captain. I am sorry but I—we, that is—had only an apple to share.”

  “And no dinner,” Jay moaned, as if he were about to die of starvation. “We drank water from the Goddess’s spring, though. Where is my pony?”

  “He’s at the forest village, well rested for the journey back to the castle… I presume you want to return to the castle now, Princess?”

  Above them, a window on the second floor creaked open, and a figure leaned out. “Captain! The interior seems to be clear!”

  “That house is full of cubby holes and odd places… keep looking. Don’t forget the cellars,” Coltic responded. He raised his voice as the soldier disappeared from the window. “The wine cellar in particular!”

  “Please have him look in my room in the attic,” Scylla said. “I want my needlework and the other things I left.”

  “Will you come inside while we… No, wait—allow me to check first.” He cast another sharp glance around the grounds and handed his horse’s rein to Jay before disappearing through the arched doorway.

  “My ankle has had all it can take, binding or no binding,” Scylla sighed. She leaned on the sword stick and rested her injured foot. It seemed so peaceful here… if she ignored the fact that she had ended a man’s life this morning, and would have done her best to kill the other if the forest cat had not leaped ahead of her.

  “Look, Queen Scylla!” Jay pointed at the edge of the forest, his eyes brightening. “There’s the dog!”

  She saw only shrubbery. “Perhaps you can catch it—we cannot leave it here. Also, please do not call me Queen Scylla. I prefer to be called Princess. The other is only for formal use—I dislike it.”

  “I will if you call me Jay and not ‘the boy’,” he said after a moment, a stubborn look crossing his face.

  “Oh. Hmmm… Well, I will try.”

  His eyes searched among the trees bordering the clearing. “There it is! What’s its name?”

  “I don’t know. There were two. Fluffy—or perhaps Cuddles.”

  Jay looked disgusted. “I’ll try those. But he needs a new name—Growler, or Wolfie.”

  “I’ll leave that to you.”

  Coltic returned, carrying a chair and a footstool. “Can you sit out here, Princess? They vandalized the interior. Also, it smells of damp… and worse. The caretaker died in the massacre along with all the others. No one else has been here to clean after… well, never mind.”

  He put the chair and a footstool on the grass, and Scylla sat down, elevating her injured foot. “I wish Sorrell or Axit was here, or even Minda.” She ran her fingers through her hair, cut short on the left side and dramatically long on the right. She leaned the
sword stick against her knee and made another attempt at re-plaiting. “Curses! I cannot… Jay!” He had given Coltic’s horse back to him and started toward the edge of the forest.

  “Yes, Princess?”

  “Pretend I am a pony, Jay, and braid my raven’s wing for me.”

  He rolled his eyes, retracing his steps. He took the hairpin out, which she had shoved into place that morning. It still held back much of the long hair. Jay combed his fingers through it expertly.

  “It’s much softer than a pony’s mane… Princess, if you had to have such an odd style, your ladies should have taught you to plait it.” He replaced the hairpin behind her ear and started braiding.

  “I’m sure you’re right. I will direct them to do so when I see them next!”

  Coltic suppressed a grin as he returned. After rummaging through his saddlebags, he had tied up the horse’s rein and released it to graze. “Good work, Jay! Could you roll that braid up neatly for Queen Scylla’s journey back to the castle?”

  “I’ll try, but it won’t hold. She lost her pins in the forest—all but one.”

  “Here is the best I can do for food at the moment, Princess. Just seed cake, but it will fill the void. I doubt there is anything edible in the house, but my men may have some rations. I’ll send them in search of more hairpins later.”

  Scylla accepted the chunk of plain, heavy cake. She broke off a piece for herself and handed the rest to Jay. “Here, Jay—keep a piece to lure the dog, and eat the rest.”

  He took it, his eyes brightening. He went off toward the forest and pushed his way through the bushes, calling, “Here, Fluffy! Here, Cuddles!”

  “I hope he doesn’t get lost,” Scylla said. “Once in among the trees, everything looks the same.”