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  The Druid Queen

  ( The Druidhome trilogy - 3 )

  Douglas Niles

  Douglas Niles

  The Druid Queen

  Prologue

  She ran as fast as she could, down a corridor walled with black mirrors. The passage stretched to obsidian infinity before and behind her. An intersection broke the smooth perfection, two side corridors leading to more infinities, more impossible distances.

  Panic tore at her chest, making her heart pound and her throat dry. Which way? Somehow she understood that it really didn't matter. She darted to the left, the soles of her soft leather boots pounding the smooth floor, the steady cadence the only sound in this eternal maze of nothingness.

  That, and the rasping of her breath and the thunderous beating of her straining heart. How could that vital muscle possibly keep her alive, possibly contain the explosive pressure of the blood in her veins? She knew, as instinctively as she understood everything else, that it could not.

  Another intersection… another frantic turn, between the lines of blackness, the two planes of wall merging into a spot of darkness in the distance. She staggered wearily, her feet shuffling and stumbling until she sprawled headlong onto the marble floor. Astonishingly, her rough fall caused no pain. Indeed, it was more as if she had plummeted into the nest of a warm feather bed, encased by protective down and sheltered against a supernatural chill.

  But then she raised her eyes. Still the black walls stretched into the distance, merging into nothing before and behind. Yet, for the first time, she sensed that she wasn't alone within this dim matrix. Someone-something-lurked here with her.

  She knew, with a dull and hopeless sense of terror, that this presence, this being, awaited her.

  Desperately she scrambled to her feet, slumping against the wall, sliding back along her tracks. She turned and once again broke into a shambling run, the black walls sliding past as she retraced her steps, fleeing the unseen presence, the potent menace she felt in the very pit of her stomach.

  She returned to the intersection and stumbled through it, continuing down the passage that was identical to a dozen, a hundred other corridors that had entrapped her during this eternal flight. She wanted only to put that ominous presence behind her.

  But as she ran, the threatening aura changed. No longer did it menace her from behind. Instead, once more, she knew beyond any doubt that she approached it.

  Stopping on her heels, she spun around again. The intersection! She'd go back there, take a different branch! There had to be a way to evade this thing! Stumbling with exhaustion, leaning against the smooth wall for support, once more she retraced her steps, coming to the adjoining passages to the right and left… but now there was a difference.

  Where there had once been four corridors, she now found six-three pairs, angling off to either side like the limbs of a six-pointed star. She didn't hesitate, fearing all the while the evil drawing inexorably near. She plunged down the closest of the right-hand passages, though the aching strain of her lungs pleaded with her to pause, to rest.

  She felt it again, that horror, and now she sensed it behind her-and creeping inevitably, dolorously closer with every passing moment. Opening her mouth, she tried to scream, but no sound issued forth beyond the rattling labors of her lungs. The air seemed impossibly dry, sucking the moisture from her skin and throat, parching her very blood with its persistent, penetrating warmth.

  She ran and ran, ignoring the weariness and fatigue, the aches that throbbed in her feet, the stitch of pain that grew steadily longer and deeper in her side. She ran only to get away from this thing she did not know, but that she feared above all else in the world … or beyond the world. It loomed nearer now, and this proximity drove extra energy through her veins, propelling her feet into a faster gait.

  Another corner beckoned, and she hurtled herself blindly around it, sensing the looming evil as if it reached for her back with rending talons, claws that would rake her ribs aside and rip the heart from her terrified flesh.

  Then she stopped in shock, terrified beyond measure. Once again the threat lay before her! She saw it come out of the darkness, materializing a few steps away, confronting her with an image of monstrous evil, of hopeless despair and infernal betrayal.

  This time when she opened her mouth the scream was loud and piercing, a shock wave of sound that echoed down the halls and threatened to shatter the smooth glass of the ceiling. Yet the image of evil confronted her still, coolly inspecting her, red lips twisted into a wry smile … an expression of cool contempt, perhaps tinged with a tiny measure of pity.

  She screamed again and again, but the image never wavered, never moved away. Finally the woman slumped to the ground in abject surrender, gazing at the shape that loomed above her, abandoning hope … giving in to ultimate despair.

  For the looming image, the form and visage that embodied the most potent evil known … that body and that face were her own.

  1

  Gwynneth

  "She's sleeping again. That's about all I can say for her." The king reentered the bedroom with a sigh, his shoulders slumping from the weight of his worries. Caer Corwell was still with the silence of the midwatch, night lying thickly about them, though a few embers still glowed red in the large fireplace. A huge dog, blanketed by a coarse coat of rust-colored fur, looked up from the hearthside and thumped his tail once in greeting.

  "Better that than the nightmares," Queen Robyn replied, rising from the couch to embrace her husband.

  It seemed to the woman that her husband had never looked so old. She noticed that the tint of gray in his hair had grown to an entire fringe. His beard remained full, but even more gray than his once chestnut-colored hair. His dark eyes still blazed with grim determination, but now a hint of despair lurked within them.

  It was a despair that Robyn could well understand. Like King Tristan, the queen sagged wearily, and her face was drawn and pallid. Her long hair had lost none of its inky blackness, but now it lay carelessly across her shoulders, uncombed and lacking its usual luster.

  The man and woman, High King and High Queen of the Ffolk and the Moonshaes, sat down together on the couch, neither quite ready to return to bed. The great moorhound, Ranthal, rested at their feet, large ears pricked upward to catch any sign of distress or danger, as if the dog, too, sensed that these minutes of nocturnal peace were too rare, too precious to consign them to sleep.

  Scarcely a week following their triumphant return to Corwell, fresh from a daring rescue of the imprisoned king, the royal pair had no concerns other than the health of their daughter Deirdre. During the daytime, the young princess lay awake, weak and exhausted from a sleep without rest. Deirdre had little appetite, nor did she ever seem to feel thirst. Indeed, if Robyn did not force her to drink and to eat a few crumbs, she feared that her daughter would take no sustenance at all.

  Yet these bleak days were nothing, it seemed, when compared to the nights. Deirdre regarded the approaching sunset with apprehension that steadily built into terror. For hours, she would lie awake, sometimes talking to her sister or one of her parents. On other occasions, she grew shrill and irrational, demanding that her visitor leave, screaming and writhing in apparent agony until her wish was granted.

  Finally, then, sleep would claim her. For a precious few moments, her body lay still, relaxed at last. Then, all too quickly, the nightmares began. Or perhaps, the nightmare. Robyn had begun to suspect that each night her daughter suffered the same dream over and over again, so consistent and predictable was the pattern of her distress.

  Each night, as the dream began, Deirdre stiffened reflexively in the bed, thrashing with her feet. Her chest rose and fell as if she gasped for breath. Every attempt to a
waken her-many had been made-failed to wrest her from the internal trance. Indeed, they seemed only to heighten her terror, so at last there was nothing to do but wait for the nightmare to run its course.

  It would not do so until the terror built to the climax that always exploded in a scream of mindless, ultimate terror. Then Deirdre would awaken, and for a short time, her father or mother would hold her as a little girl again, gently rocking her to sleep, not knowing how many hours-or minutes-might pass before the cycle began again.

  "She came for me … to rescue me!" Tristan groaned softly, acutely conscious of the young woman who finally slept in the next room. "This wouldn't have happened except for that! How can any father bear that guilt?"

  The image still burned in his mind: He saw his daughter holding the crystal mirror, the powerful artifact of a dark and evil god, Talos the Stormbringer. The agent of that god had attacked them savagely, but when Deirdre had confronted the beast with the mirror, the glass had shattered and carried the monster to a horrifying demise.

  But then, for Tristan, the real horror had begun. The shards of the broken mirror had swirled into a small cyclone, surrounding Deirdre, trapping her in a glittering, whirling column. Then the whirlwind collapsed, and Tristan had stared in horror as the bits of glass had knifed through his daughter's skin, piercing her in a thousand places.

  Yet she had lost not a drop of blood-indeed, they could find no physical wound whatsoever upon her. This malaise instead gnawed at her spirit and her soul, they knew.

  "She came willingly to your rescue," the queen replied, her voice firm against her husband's despair. "As did Alicia, and many others."

  "Aye-and you as well, my queen. So many paid such a grievous cost," sighed the king, wrapping a strong arm around his wife. Unconsciously he raised the end of his arm, not allowing the stump of his wrist to touch his wife's shoulder.

  She raised her hand and brought his handless arm fully around her. "We all paid our prices-and would do so again!" Robyn declared.

  Tristan shook his head, disparaging his own wound. "When Keane gets back with Patriarch Bakar, my hand can be restored, but I suspect no such easy cure awaits Deirdre."

  At the mention of the high cleric of Chauntea, Robyn stiffened slightly. She turned to face her husband frankly. "Even the healing of the New Gods doesn't come without its costs. Don't be too quick to assume their success."

  Finally Tristan smiled. "Whatever that cost, I'll pay it. And you know Bakar is a good and decent man. After all, he came to Callidyrr and taught you for nearly a decade!"

  "It seems like more than a lifetime ago," Robyn said, clearly uneasy with the subject. "I am a daughter of the goddess again."

  "Still, it wasn't long ago that Chauntea offered our hope of growth and guidance … when the Earthmother abandoned us to the New Gods."

  "She did not abandon us!" Robyn replied, her voice tight. "It was weakness-a weakness that I did nothing to soothe! All those years she lay insensate, and I turned to the worship of another rather than labor for her return!"

  "We needed the protection of a goddess during those years, and Chauntea gave us her blessing," Tristan countered, shaking his head firmly. "Now her patriarch, I know, will come to answer my need."

  "You're right," Robyn said, trying to drive the tension from her body. For once her efforts were not successful. She still felt the lingering pulse of anger in her veins.

  "Who knows?" asked the king, drawing his wife beneath his arm again. "Perhaps Bakar can help Deirdre as well." At his feet, the great dog thumped his tail against the floor again, recognizing that some of the tension had drained from his master's voice.

  Keane sipped idly at his cup of strong tea, not noticing the fact that it had grown cool while time dragged by. For two days, he had lingered here at the Eagle's Nest Inn, expecting a reply from Bakar Dalsoritan, impatiently awaiting the opportunity to pursue his mission.

  True, his expensive suite made for splendid accommodations. High on a hill overlooking the waterfront and wide river at Baldur's Gate, Keane's rooms had a spacious balcony with a splendid view to the west and south. Another, smaller porch provided a sheltered outdoor nook with an excellent view of the rising sun to the east and the road to the shrine, where his messenger had ridden away two days before. It was on this overlook that he spent most of his time, even to the point of sending a petite halfling barmaid up and down the stairs to keep his teacup refilled.

  The magic-user lounged against the rail, his narrow face tight with concentration, belying the casual posture of his lanky frame. He was dressed practically, in woolen trousers and soft moccasins and a flowing brown shirt that left his hands free but gave him space to conceal the pouches and vials that contained the components of his trade.

  The sun drew near the western horizon before he saw the sleek black horse, flanks covered with foam and nostrils flaring, pounding down the River Highway. He recognized Gapsar, the fellow he had hired to carry his message, lashing the exhausted steed with his riding crop.

  "Ho! Lord Ambassador!" cried the rider, spotting Keane on his third-floor perch. "I bring news!"

  Urgency in the man's voice-or perhaps the impatience in the magic-user's own mind-propelled Keane through the apartment and down the flights of stairs into the common room. Quickly he passed through the front door and stopped before the dismounting messenger.

  "What is it? Will the patriarch grant me an interview?" he demanded.

  "Readily, my lord! He was most delighted to hear that an emissary of his former student would be paying a call. Indeed, my lord, he invited you to arrive at the earliest opportunity. He knows that you're a day's ride away, but he wondered if you might have means to, er, expedite the transport."

  "That's good news," Keane said quickly, his mind immediately clicking onto the problem. He couldn't teleport directly to the shrine. Since he'd never been there, it would be dangerous and difficult to attempt to transport himself into the midst of buildings and landscape. After all, he wouldn't want to materialize in a place where something else, like a tree or hill, already existed. Such a mistake would be inevitably fatal.

  Yet a sense of profound urgency consumed him. The thought of his king, so cruelly mutilated, still outraged him, and Keane was the one Tristan had relied upon to get help. Such a mission could brook no delay.

  The wizard looked up and saw that the sun was perhaps an hour from the western horizon. Keane noticed the messenger standing awkwardly beside his horse, casting longing eyes toward the inn and the cool barroom beyond. The man had done his work, he reminded himself.

  "Here-thanks for your efforts," Keane noted, drawing several gold coins from his pouch and pressing them into the man's suddenly extended hand.

  "I hope the news is welcome, my lord," said the fellow, bowing. Leading his horse, he went in search of a liveryman, while Keane returned to the inn. He found the rotund innkeeper, a cheery halfling named Miles, and pressed a few more coins on the not unwilling businessman.

  "I'll be gone for a short time, perhaps a couple of days," Keane explained. "I'd like to leave my things in the room upstairs until my return."

  "Consider them safe!" Miles proclaimed, with a deep bow. "You will find them undisturbed when you return!"

  "Splendid," the wizard replied agreeably. All urgent matters thus attended to, he climbed the stairs to his rooms so he could make the final preparations for the trip.

  Bakar Dalsoritan, High Patriarch of Chauntea, enjoyed these hours of early evening better than any part of the day. It seemed so often that the weight of his labors dragged him down during the busy days. Now, with the shrine buildings closed up tight behind him and the apprentices gone to sup, he could let the soothing aspects of his faith revive and revitalize him.

  He walked along the low ridge, row upon row of lush grapes stretching to either side of him-sweet to the south, where the sun warmed them fully, and more sour to the shady north. The latter, when harvested, created a highly sought vintage that had put this shrine
on the map. Indeed, many merchants sailed to nearby Baldur's Gate, the port that was barely a day's ride away, for the express purpose of seeking out the Shrine of Chauntea and its prized wine. Bakar cheerfully sold each one a barrel or two-no more, in order to preserve the rarity of the vintage-and had employed the profits to create one of the grandest nature shrines on the Sword Coast.

  Now the high patriarch approached the crowning glory of that shrine: the orchard. Set in long lines, each trunk perfectly aligned with its neighbors to the four points of the compass, the orchard curled along the ridge, surrounded by swaths of smooth grass and well-manicured hedges. The goddess Chauntea must be well pleased, thought Bakar. All around him was the vitality of fruitful life, the precision of well-managed nature turned to the uses of man.

  The orchard was the place where the priest felt most serene, most capable of communion with his goddess. And here each night, during long hours of prayer, he tried to repay the debt he felt to that benign deity, Chauntea. For a lifetime, she had allowed him to serve as her agent, furthering the worship of her name along the length of the Sword Coast-even, for a time, as far as the Moonshae Islands. But in none of those places had he found the sanctuary that he now approached.

  Yet memories of past travels now occupied him, and most particularly his thoughts dwelled upon the Moonshaes. Earlier that day he had received a message from one Keane of Callidyrr, requesting the honor of an interview. Keane, it seemed, had arrived via teleportation in Baldur's Gate and awaited the cleric's reply in one of the more comfortable inns of that great port city.

  Bakar remembered Keane, though the fellow had been but a gawky adolescent when the priest had finally departed from the Moonshaes. Even then the youth had displayed an uncanny aptitude for magic. Now, in adulthood, he had become a mage of considerable power. Bakar knew him to be a loyal lieutenant to High King Tristan Kendrick, recently returned to his throne from captivity beneath the sea. It was rumored-even a patriarch couldn't depend on absolutely accurate information-that the king had lost a hand during the course of his captivity.