The Grim Conspiracy Read online

  Nokmay dipped her head, “Your Majesty is too kind. This is Eva, the daughter of Ickletor, High Priest of Yingnak at Octar.”

  Agmar noted restlessness was spreading through the court. “I expected to meet you later, privately. Didn’t my Mistress of the Harem not ~”

  “She was suddenly taken ill, Your Majesty. We hope she will recover… one day.”

  “Taken ill?” Agmar looked to an attendant who scurried out a side passage.

  “Too much arrogance, I fear?”

  “Yes, I see.” Agmar adjusted his seating on the throne as if sitting on a burr. The king raised a finger, and another attendant rushed up. Before the king could speak, the first servant approached and whispered in the king’s ear. Agmar’s head turned staring into the man’s face. The man nodded affirmation and stepped back behind and to the side of the throne.

  “Is everything alright?” Nokmay asked, her tone most innocent.

  Agmar’s face had lost its lusty beaming. He gazed at the second attendant, “Take these ladies to my… my private apartment and see to their comfort.”

  “You play rough, Nokmay. If you’ll go with this man, he will attend to your needs at once. I shall join you in a moment.”

  As the three strolled out of the throne room, a buzz spread across it and all backed away from the witch.

  Nokmay permitted the corners of her thin mouth to turn up a tad. Now they all knew better than to confront her or the girl she presented to the king.

  *

  When Agmar strolled into his private sitting room, Nokmay and Eva rose and bowed.

  “That was quite an impression you made this morning, Nokmay. I fear my new Mistress of the Harem will not recover after all. She sits by the courtyard pool croaking now, I’m told.”

  Nokmay ignored the reference. “We hope you approve of my daughter. She will be an asset to your court, Majesty.”

  Agmar glanced at Eva, but there was caution in his glance more than lust this time. He clapped his hands, and a servant hustled into the room.

  “Escort Lady Eva to the new quarters I’ve arranged for her. Eva, I shall join you later. Go with this man, and he will ensure your security and provide for your needs.”

  Eva curtsied to Agmar, glanced at her mother, and swept out of the chamber. The door closed, and the king turned to Nokmay.

  “What do you expect I should do with her now that everyone in the palace fears her presence?”

  “Make her your mistress, of course. That would please Ickletor immensely. She’s not a witch, but remember who her mother is should you abuse her.”

  “Don’t threaten me, witch.”

  Nokmay ignored that as well. “Agmar, I’ve learned that Ickletor has the Book of the Underworld.”

  “Impossible, that frightful thing is locked up and lost deep in the temple pyramid away from prying eyes.”

  “No, he has it and has begun to read it! He’s tested at least one incantation from it.”

  Agmar fidgeted. “It can’t be.”

  Nokmay looked off in the distance, “In the chaos at the end of the war with Octar, both King Jornak and Ickletor searched Tigmoor to extinguish those they’d learned had promoted the war. Ickletor discovered a general, a known enemy hiding in the temple pyramid. To save his life, the general promised to lead Ickletor to the most dangerous book in existence. Ickletor took it as part of the reparations. I’d heard a rumor long ago he took the general and the priest back and executed them on the way to Octar. Before leaving, he told another temple priest to inform you that the general had hidden the book for safekeeping. No one ever heard otherwise from general or priest and the messenger died soon after of a mysterious accident.”

  Agmar poured himself a drink and offered one to the witch who declined. He stood pondering the implications and then turned to Nokmay.

  “The power in that book could destroy the world.”

  Nokmay nodded, “I fear so. I thought he’d forgotten the book until recently. Now the fool dabbles with it unaware of the chaos it could release.” She stepped closer, “You must prepare for war, Agmar. It will come soon. If Ickletor can master even a small element in that book, he will crush you utterly.”

  Agmar put down his goblet. “I will demand the return of my son at once. King Jornak will permit his return after so many years, knowing he is my heir. Then I must devise a plan to get that book back.”

  “Having experimented with the book, he won’t return it now. And you have another problem with that scenario.”

  “Another problem… what could be worse?”

  “Ickletor has taken control of Prince Malladar. He’s sent him on some dangerous mission to the west. It would seem he’s gotten the young man out of his way for some reason. Possibly, if the mission is dangerous, out of his way for good.”

  Agmar’s face was red. “Octar’s high priest wouldn’t dare to harm Malladar!”

  “Accidents happen, my lord.”

  Agmar stared hard at Nokmay. “Yes… accidents do happen, and they can happen to a high priest, too.”

  24: Ickletor

  While waiting for Malladar and Toda to return with The Eye of Dindak, if they returned and if there was such a magical stone, Ickletor began to favor Princess Kayla with his time and attention. Of course, he was well old enough to be her father, but in the world of power and politics, that was of no consequence.

  At first, Kayla was flattered by his attention. She tried to console the high priest as he mourned the loss of his wife in such a sudden tragedy. But she grew apprehensive as he grew more familiar. His thoughts were not on sad memories. The tone took on more of an amorous nature. The more forward he grew, the more she feared and avoided him.

  Ickletor was wandering the halls of the royal palace on some pretext watching for Princess Kayla. She’d avoided him for more than a week. One day, she bounded around the corner ahead and almost ran into him.

  “Princess, I’ve missed our little visits,” Ickletor said.

  “Oh please excuse me, I was rushing on an errand for father and wasn’t paying attention to where I was going,” Kayla said. She attempted to slip around him when he reached and patted her shoulder.

  “Not at all, my dear little orchid, no harm done, you see.”

  Kayla attempted to wiggle out from under his hand, but he clutched hers with one hand and patted it with the other. Excessively polite as his look and tone were, there was a greasy shadow of lust coating them.

  “I’m not your little orchid, High Priest,” Kayla said as she slid her hand from his grasp.”

  “Come now; you’re not still pining for Prince Malladar are you?”

  Kayla stood straight and flicked back her hair. “Prince Malladar will return soon. Now if you will excuse me, I’m running late.”

  Watching Kayla walk off down the hall, Ickletor admired her fine figure.

  The foolish girl doesn’t realize she is a plaything in the game of power. Princesses, a princess royal at that, marry for state reasons not for love, he thought.

  He was still there when she came back through a short while later.

  “Ah, we meet again.”

  He noted this time she stopped short careful not to get within reach of his grasp.

  “Surely you have important matters to attend to at the temple, Lord Ickletor. All those people out on the plaza clamor more each day for the rain you’ve promised them. Shouldn’t you be communing with Yingnak?”

  “The rains will come. We’ve not discovered what offense Octar has committed explaining his anger in withholding the rains.”

  Kayla laughed a light laugh, “Well, you better get to it before father has to sacrifice you to Yingnak to appease our god.” Chuckling, she stepped around him and walked off down the hall. She failed to see the color had drained from his face.

  Little fool, he thought. He began to stroll down the palace steps heading back to the temple. She brings up a disturbing possibility, though. Jornak and I grew up together, friends for life, but if it cam
e down to only one of us surviving a revolt, he’d sacrifice me to save himself. I do not doubt that.

  *

  Kayla floated into King Jornak’s study with the information he’d requested. She dropped the packet on his desk and sat on the end of it.

  “Don’t sit on the desk, my dear. What if someone entered and saw you in such an unladylike position. You’re not a little girl anymore.”

  She stood and ambled around the room, fiddling with one piece of bric-a-brac or another.

  “Father, I ran into Ickletor this morning and again a few minutes ago. He comes here a lot more than he used to back before poor Lady Numa died.”

  Jornak sat back in his chair, watching Kayla. “Yes, it seems he does.”

  “I do feel sorry for him, his being a widower, but he’s starting to give me the creeps. He’s always putting his hands on me.”

  Jornak sat forward again, his gaze fixed on Kayla. “I will speak to him about that.”

  Light spirited, Kayla laughed, “I told him you would sacrifice him to Yingnak if he didn’t get the god to bring rain.” She chuckled then stopped, noting he’d stood up.

  “You said that to him, this afternoon, that I’d sacrifice him?” Jornak asked.

  Kayla looked confused, “What did I say? It was just a joke to get him to leave me alone.”

  Jornak walked to the window and scrutinized Yingnak’s temple across the plaza. “Be careful what you say to the high priest. He’s very ambitious and protective of his position. His fathers have been high priests of Yingnak for as long as anyone can remember. Any perceived threat could alarm him even though you said it in jest.”

  Kayla’s face hardened, suggesting sudden fear. “I hope I haven’t planted the idea you’d betray him. That would feed his growing fear of being attacked or worse, assassination. I’ll go apologize at once.”

  “Stay… say nothing to him about it. Don’t bring it back to his mind. Perhaps he didn’t think anything of it.”

  *

  But the threat had registered with Ickletor. If revolution erupted, the masses in the plaza would demand the death of the king or himself to satisfy their anger. Ickletor decided he would not be a sacrifice. Indeed, he decided, it would be King Jornak sacrificed. And with that, there was the additional benefit that the throne would become vacant sooner than expected.

  25: The Eye of Dindak’s Shrine

  Following the map and with Bobo at his side, Malladar, traveled around the mountain and over to the taller Mt. Mektec beyond. The towering peak was among the tallest in the Purple Mountains range. It was unique in that it was granite, not limestone and showed little erosion of its jagged peak. On the backside, facing away from the plain and to the west, they found a cave. On the outside, it appeared as just another cavern. After Malladar and Toda entered, Bobo lay down across the entrance.

  Malladar moved deeper down the grotto with caution. As the light of day disappeared, he lit a torch. All of a sudden, two massive, midnight-black, obsidian warriors held weapons facing west in the darkness seeming to peer down on them. When the two men got over the initial shock, Malladar looked at Toda.

  “Imagine how the setting sun must make them glisten and sparkle when the rays pierce this far back at dusk!” Malladar said, “They must have appeared alive, dazzling, and threatening to anyone who stumbled into this remotest of caves through the ages.”

  “They threaten me even in the dark,” Toda said standing behind Malladar. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be here. Maybe you read that map wrong. We should leave right away before the sun ignites those fiends.”

  Malladar grabbed Toda’s cloak stopping his retreat. “We are supposed to be here. I know that. I don’t know how or why, but I know it.”

  “Yeah, well I know I’m supposed to be running for my life back down this mountain as fast as my spindly legs will take me.”

  “Wait here, Toda!”

  Malladar took another step, and something crunched under his foot. He lowered the torch and saw two human bones under his foot. A skull was just off to the side.

  “My mother didn’t raise no fool!” Toda said. “I’m outta here.”

  “Wait here, I said!”

  “Your mother did, apparently,” Toda mumbled.

  “Shut up and wait here.”

  Malladar penetrated farther into the depths of the cave. The last thing he heard was Toda murmur: “Okay, sure, but when the setting sun lights up these black terrors, no trace of me will still be here. If you survive, I’ll be waiting at the foot of the mountain for another day.”

  Deeper in the cave, another skeleton in moth-eaten animal skins lay propped against the side of the cave wall. A spear went through the skull, down through the chest cavity and the pelvis. Malladar looked up. There were holes in a line across the ceiling. He tapped the stone floor ahead of him, and a stream of sharpened spears shot down. As they receded up into the ceiling, he jumped over the stones to the far side.

  Further in, the torchlight lit up the bones of a hand. Another line of stones crossed the floor. The wrist appeared to disappear between one of the stones and the natural cave rock.

  That poor fellow, Malladar thought. Looks like when he stepped on a larger stone it sank. He fell and grabbed the rocky edge to save himself. As the stone rose again, it caught his hand in between the rocks. What a gruesome way to die.

  How can it know I’m the one expected? Malladar wondered. The only thing about me is this bark map. The writing and map only formed after the seer pressed the bark to my forehead. Somehow that unlocked some protective barrier. The bark-paper must be the key.

  He placed the map on the pedestal at the side of the entrance. The paper began to dissolve into a watery liquid that rose from the base of the bowl-like depression. As the map dissolved, a blue haze like incense drifted into the room from the walls. Though there was no draft, it swirled before being drawn into the chamber’s back wall. What had appeared to be a plain rock wall began to dissipate, revealing a small shrine behind it. In the shrine was a hand-size, shimmering black stone that seemed to suck in the torchlight! At the same time, it radiated a range of colors back out across the room bathing everything in a rich shifting array of colors.

  Cautious, Malladar crossed the chamber and took The Eye. It sat on a piece of parchment. He couldn’t read what it said, the language was unfamiliar, but he tucked it in the inner pocket in his cloak along with the stone and left. Fearing to set off another defensive barrier, he walked, hesitating at each step, waiting for any reaction.

  As he left each section of the cave, rock and rubble tumbled down from the ceiling closing it off. When he finally passed the obsidian guardians, they sank into the cave floor. More rock caved in over them sealing the cave only feet from the entrance.

  Toda sat outside petting Bobo. He looked up when he heard the rocks crashing down back in the cave. He wiped a tear from his cheek.

  “Oh look who’s come back from the dead, Bobo.”

  The great cat leaped up and bounded to Malladar jumping upon him almost knocking him over. He licked his master’s face as the prince gave him a good scratch. But then the mountain shook. A rumbling came from deep within.

  “We should leave. The mountain seems unstable.”

  Toda popped up, “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “I presume you found The Eye of Dindak.”

  The prince patted his cloak over the pocket.

  “Then we should leave at once. This mountain’s peak isn’t the only unstable head around here.” Toda hefted his haversack on his back, dragged Malladar’s to him, picked up his spear, and was gone before the prince could raise his backpack. Toda took the lead down the faint trail.

  Grinning, Malladar hurried to keep up with Bobo close behind.

  Toda rounded a turn of the ledge and ran into three half-toothless men in tattered clothes. The priest slid on the rocky rubble, trying to stop and almost ran into them. The vile men carried war clubs in poor condition, but each still had
obsidian chips protruding from them. The lead robber grinned displaying his black mouth stubble.

  “You boys been huntin’ that magic rock, haint’cha? Funny how many fools come lookin that nugget.” He glanced back at his co-conspirators then ogled Toda raising his club. “We’d much appreciate if’n you could spare us some of your travel money. See we done fallen on hard times. We’d sure ‘preciate if you could maybe spare those packs.” They exposed confident, foul grins.

  Toda tried to step back and bumped into Malladar. “We were just on an adventure. We know nothing about a magic stone!”

  The ominous grins drained from the robbers’ faces. The lead man took his club in both hands, his fingers wiggling to ensure the tightest grip as he raised it. “I can see we got to do this the hard way.” He took one step forward.

  A terrible roar sounded from atop the boulder beside Toda. The three men looked up. Malladar grabbed the spear and thrust it between Toda’s arm and side and into the lead attacker. The robber’s shocked face looked at him. The man’s eyes rolled. Malladar jerked the spear back out of the robber who then toppled over the mountainside.

  Another roar sounded. The remaining two highwaymen looked up to see Bobo standing above them on the boulder. The jaguar snarled. His massive paw swept the rocks beside him off the boulder. The rubble bounced down the mountain pelting the two men, knocking them off the ledge to smash on the debris far below.

  Toda stared at the spot where the three men had stood only a moment before. Then he looked up at Bobo whose indifferent countenance looked back at him. At last, Toda looked down. He extended his right arm out beside him and gaped at the narrow space between his side and arm where the spear shot between the two. He fainted.

  26: Nokmay’s Trip Home

  Having left Tigmoor after inciting Agmar closer to war, Nokmay made her way back up into Nokmoor Forest. Deep in the dark tangle, a sluggish stream crossed the trail. A horned and beaked skull of a long-extinct animal stared up at her blocking her familiar path. That it had eyes fixed on her gave her a chill.