Cries of, ‘Arenthorn, no!’ and ‘My prince!’ rang out across the room, but it was too late. Arenthorn was grinning at the thought of killing the demon lord who had been oppressing and torturing the people of Eldarn for a generation, and he brought the blade down with all his strength.
The sabre flashed in the torch and candlelight and passed through Malagon’s form to embed itself deep in the heavy wood of the council table.
Arenthorn’s face blanched and he choked back a cry of alarm as he struggled to free the blade for a second blow. Two palace guards, their own broadswords drawn, were moving towards him, and the nearest general, an elderly man from Pellia, had pushed his way between Arenthorn and the prince.
The young admiral pulled hard on the sabre, determined to try once more before he felt the heavy tearing pain of a broadsword ripping through his body. The blade suddenly came loose from the table and he nearly fell backwards with its unexpected release. He lifted the weapon to strike, but as he did so, he felt something strange. He looked quickly at the grip to ensure it had not come apart, shattered, or bent with the initial blow, but it was no longer a cunning basketweave of gold and iron studded with precious stones; it was a snake, a marsh adder, nearly as long as a tall man, the diamond pattern along its back as bright as the gold and rubies of his sword.
He had little time to admire the deadly beauty of the serpent, for it had already coiled back over its own body and lunged, biting him hard on the wrist, then striking at his face, sinking its venomous fangs into the flesh beneath his right eye.
Arenthorn screamed in terror and collapsed, writhing, to the floor. The snake fell nearby and clattered several times: a metallic clang, a sabre once again. Through blood and tears, Arenthorn saw one of Malagon’s guards standing over him, broadsword raised. Then above the cacophony of shouts and curses he heard Malagon’s voice boom, as much inside his head as without, ‘Stop!’
The soldier held fast, his sword hovering above the would-be assassin cowering on the stone floor. A bloody hand held over his injured eye, Arenthorn wept like a lost child.
Except for the admiral’s pitiful cries there was silence. Malagon spoke again. ‘Sheath your weapon, soldier.’
The guard immediately complied, but remained standing over Arenthorn.
‘Admiral,’ Malagon said. Arenthorn was certain he could hear the prince within his own mind; a deep, resonant voice echoed like a god trapped inside a hollow mountain.
‘You dared to strike me down.’ The prince’s cloak was an inky void. ‘I commend your bravery and conviction, but you have failed. Now, rise.’
Arenthorn struggled to his feet. His face and wrist were bleeding from the deep puncture wounds. He dropped his arms to his side, knowing death was certain. He choked back a sob and tried to gain control of himself: after all, he had never expected to leave the audience chamber alive. He thought of his father and prepared to die with dignity.
‘You are a demon,’ he accused as calmly as he could. ‘All Eldarn suffers because of you.’
The hollow voice answered, ‘Yes, Eldarn suffers, but only because I take pleasure bringing suffering to Eldarn.’ He motioned to a guard. ‘My coach, now.’ The man hustled away and the still-invisible monarch turned his attention back to Arenthorn.
‘You come from Port Denis, I believe. We will travel there together, tonight.’
Arenthorn had no wish to discover what the evil lord had in mind for the people of Port Denis; he threw himself at the prince, hoping to be struck dead at that moment, but Malagon waved one hand, almost negligently, and Arenthorn collapsed as a burning sensation flared up inside his mind, pain so strong, so unbearable, he screamed and curled into a foetal position.
‘You will live through the night, Admiral,’ Malagon commanded as Arenthorn fell away into a dark and tortuous nightmare.
The village of Port Denis was many days’ ride from Welstar Palace, but the caravan of coaches and riders made the trip in less than an aven. The officers felt the world around them blur into a continuous fabric of darkness; only the ground before their mounts or beneath their coaches was visible in the light of Eldarn’s twin moons.
Soon the scent of low tide and the feel of the heavy salt air permeated the night. Malagon’s coach slowed to a stop on a bluff above an inlet. Port Denis was built on either side of a narrow stream that ran northwest into the sea, its simple homes and buildings built into the sides of the hill. The members of the prince’s military council secretly shuddered. The village below was about to feel the full force of their prince’s anger; it might one day be their own homes.
Arenthorn was dragged from the coach and dropped to the ground at the dark prince’s feet. Waving one hand over the admiral, Malagon spoke softly, ‘You will suffer no longer.’ The puncture wounds in Arenthorn’s face and wrist healed instantly. The burning pain caused by the snake’s venom subsided and the reeling, turning confusion of the agonising nightmare spun slowly to a stop.
Arenthorn climbed to his feet. ‘Don’t do this, Malagon,’ he told the nebulous form standing beside him. ‘These people have done nothing except struggle to survive under your thumb.’
‘I did not free you from your pain to listen to you giving me orders,’ the dark prince said coldly. ‘I freed you from your pain so nothing would distract you from witnessing my power.’ Malagon pointed towards the village. ‘Your wife, children and father live here, do they not?’
‘No,’ Arenthorn lied. ‘I moved them away several Twinmoonsago.’
‘Liar!’ Malagon screamed. Though Arenthorn covered his ears, nothing could alleviate the force of the evil prince’s powerful voice bellowing inside his head. ‘They live here still. They probably sit together this very evening, wondering where you are. Would you like to go down and see them one last time, Arenthorn?’
At last the young admiral’s facade cracked and he dropped to one knee. He begged forgiveness, and pleaded for the lives of his family. He tried in vain to grab hold of Prince Malagon’s robes, but in the darkness their folds escaped his grasp. ‘My lord, please,’ he pleaded, ‘kill me, kill me ten thousand times, but spare the village.’
‘I have no intention of killing you, Admiral. You will live for many Twinmoons, enjoying the memories of what happened here tonight: what you did tonight.
‘Your wife will live as well. She will join us at Welstar Palace. Every morning you will report to my chambers, retrieve her and spend the day nursing her back to health. You will gaze into her vacuous eyes, knowing you murdered her children and killed her spirit. Every day she will beg you to take her life, but you won’t. Instead, you will love and care for her, pleading for her forgiveness as you now plead for mine. And every night, I will send a servant to collect her once again. Who knows? Perhaps after a few Twinmoons, I will tire of torturing you and you will be permitted to die.’
Turning to the others, he added, ‘This is a lesson to each of you. Never cross me.’
Malagon swept one hand towards the shallow sloping hills flanking the seaside village. Against the already dark night, the landscape seemed to darken even further, as if a blanket had been draped over the hamlet, smothering all light, all hope. The wall of inky nothingness crept slowly along the stream, across the village to the wharf below. Fire and torchlight, a constellation of flickering orange and yellow, died out, leaving the expanse that had been the village of Port Denis as black as pitch. Nothing moved and no one spoke. There were no cries for help and no shrieks for mercy. No survivors fled into the sea.
Then, quietly at first, a lone voice carried through the annihilated village and up the sides of the bluff to where Malagon and his military council stood. A tortured scream, like one damned for ever to hell, carried on the night air.
‘Ah,’ Malagon said, amused, ‘that will be your wife, Admiral.’ Motioning to two generals nearby, he added, ‘Run and fetch her, will you?’