The young magethat had attended to the lighting and wall fog, entered nodded tothe musicians and took the place opposite Lord Neutral. The musicalinstruments all flew up in the air and started to play lightmusic.
‘Now I’ve neverseen that before.’ said Aquitain quite amused.
‘Yes a quaintcompetition between musicians. They each have to concentrate onplaying their levitating instruments using telekinesis whiledrinking rounds of drinks. It takes a lot of practice to even get achance at playing at the Spring Ball. The last one playing gets tobe the Queen’s musician for the year.’
Aquitainreturned his attention to the entrance. Each Lord, wearing only aloose fitting toga of fine translucent gold or silver cloth trimmedwith heraldic devices and coloured strips entered one at a time andstopped momentarily to be examined by Lord Neutral and the youngmage. It was obvious from their reactions that they were unhappyabout the mage being there.
‘We’re going tohave trouble tonight. For some reason the Royal Magician is notpresent checking the Lords at the door. That is a large breach ofprotocol and will cause trouble. Without the Royal Magician therecould well be a magic fight in here and that will make many peoplenervous. There are no Llanllean guardians either. Something isdefinitely wrong.’
‘I’m sure itwill be quite entertaining. Is there a part for me to play?’ askedAquitain.
‘By the PowersAquitain, this is not your dream it is real!’ replied Terrin.
**
Half a league awayMiranda, Yllandril and Llalorax were sitting in the prison cellaround the bucket watching the show in the scrying pool. Yllandrilwas giving a running commentary on everything they saw.
Llalorax hadpositioned the scrying globe just over the crown on the dragonhead.It would look like some special lighting effect and hopefully notattract undue attention. Curiously enough there were two otherscrying globes that Llalorax could see watching the proceedings aswell. Perhaps it would have become a popular attraction if he hadallowed it over the years, he thought.
When he saw theyoung magician take his place at the door he felt mildly jealousbut dismissed the thought. He would be there tonight. He hadseveral plans, one to cover each possibility. Everything was readyto go at a moment’s notice. The one person that could throw all hisplans into chaos was Aquitain and they could see him standingmotionless on the dragon’s head.
The Queen hadthought it better to lock up Aquitain in the prison bottle untilafter the ball. Llanlorian had told both him and the Queen that hewas coming and would probably cause trouble. She had suggested thatthe Queen use him to flush out any problems amongst the Lords butthe Queen had other plans and didn’t want him interfering. Therewould be enough problems when the sceptre of lordly might appeared.The Queen wasn’t quite sure who had it or what they woulddemand.
The absence ofthe Royal Magician and Llanllean guards was to help any Lordsplanning trouble to feel overconfident when they played their hand.Llalorax and the guards were poised to teleport in on her signal.She wasn’t greatly concerned about her own safety as she kept mostof the Lords on a loose leash.
They wouldrather keep the status quo than see any real changes. But just incase there was a problem she had a teleport ring on to disappearthe moment anything went wrong. She also had another card up hersleeve that she could play if she desired that not even Llaloraxknew about.
The realproblem was that from the moment Aquitain turned up nothing hadgone to plan. He wasn’t supposed to escape from the prison cell buthe did. The malign spirit was the backup in case he escaped and forwhat it was worth the backup plan had worked. Aquitain had beenlocked up again. Unbelievably, he had escaped a second time andreturned with Llalorax’s wife. Now that was a real surprise. Thathad been hidden from Llalorax. What was the Queen up to?
What was thestory about the malign spirit? The Queen seemed to have a deal withit. She was using it for some purpose. Does using a spirit likethat make her just as bad as it? It was gone now. Aquitain haddestroyed it. That had already changed things.
Darkmantleseemed to be behind the attacks on the Llanllean villages andfalsely incriminating his people for the attacks on other villages.Llalorax would have to get even with Darkmantle for that.
The realproblem was what Darkmantle was planning to do now. He was actingtoo confident. Perhaps it was because he had temporarily capturedSnowbelle’s gate world. Perhaps it was about the return of thesceptre. There was to be an announcement at the ball tonight. Thatwould upset some of the Lords. How would they react? Perhaps hecould assist one or more of them to move against Darkmantle.
What aboutMiranda, the Princess of Argenta? She hated Darkmantle with avengeance. How could he use her passion against Darkmantle? He hadher sent her off with Yllandril so that his people, her people,would get to know her. She had acted like visiting royalty, she wasfriendly, greeted everyone cordially, cuddled babies, and wasgenerally agreeable. They were impressed. Allalanllea had been anexcellent tutor. Miranda had learnt the role of projecting regalpower perfectly from Snowbelle.
He sent her offto deliver a few healing potions to the Trixies as contingencysupplies and predictably she made herself a heroine by killing thetwo headed wolf creature that he had conjured. That would give himsome extra leverage with the trixies if required.
Llaloraxwatched and waited. It was almost like waiting for food to getcaught in your web. Llanlleans knew how to be patient. It was partof their nature.
**
Once all the Lords andtheir male entourage had entered and taken a seat, it was the turnof the Queen. This was her moment with all eyes upon her. She wasmagnificent. On her face she wore a golden mask with spikesradiating out like rays of the sun.
Her hair wasgolden and crimped into fine waves that stood
