‘Long live Queen Miranda. Our Queen is back.’
The Trixies alljumped up and cheered and shouted. The Llanlleans were quiet.Darkmantle was frowning. Prendergast smiled and Princess Gemelicawas furious.
‘Stop this foolishness!’ she screamed.
Aquitainpranced over to Gemelica and said in a loud voice.
‘It’s easy to see who doesn’t want me back. What’s upprincess? Don’t you like the competition?’
Gemelica wentwhite in the face and stammered.
‘But ... but he said you would be locked away and wouldn’tcause me any harm.’
Everyonestopped breathing and there was dead quiet as they strained to hearwhat was being said.
‘Who told you that Gemelica, the Lord of the Mentarin?’ askedAquitain forcefully.
‘You bitch. You’ll pay,’ screamed Gemelica and she dived atAquitain wrapping her arms around him and pulling him to theground. The crowd scattered to give the two royals room to fight.Suddenly there was a pulse of magic as both Gemelica and Aquitainteleported away.
Aquitain foundhimself on a marble floor in a throne room rolling around withGemelica. He looked around and immediately created a pure heartshield protecting him from charm, domination and possession attacksand hiding his spirit aura from sight.
Gemelica let gorolled away and stood up and screamed at a black cloaked and hoodedfigure sitting on a throne.
‘You told me she wouldn’t cause any problems.’
‘How dare you raise your voice at me!’ said the DarkOne.
‘Bow down now and pray that your worst nightmares don’t visityou for the rest of your short life.’ said the black cladfigure.
Two guardsraced over to her and forced her face down on the floor facing thehooded person.
Aquitain usedhis power to thicken his skin, stood up and discretely surroundedhimself with a cylinder of hardened air.
The hoodedone’s attention switched to Aquitain.
‘Well what have we here? The body of the self-styled Queen ofArgenta following her mistress’s spirit no doubt, hoping that theymight have a happy reunion. Well you’re too late she’s already gotanother body.’
‘So let’s see who you really are?’
Two golden eyeslit up inside the darkness of the hood.
‘What have you brought here you fool.’ He yelled at Gemelicaand immediately cast a lightning bolt at Aquitain. Most of theblast was absorbed by the air shield but enough passed through togive Aquitain a healthy jolt.
She created azone of darkness then triggered Miranda’s bracelet of return toteleport herself back to the prison bottle. If anyone followed herthey would be trapped there.
She then usedthe teleport circle in the prison bottle to teleport outside thebottle into the crypt area then using a teleport ring teleportedback to the garden maze and ran to where the audience for thememorial were gathered.
Yllandrilspotted her first and yelled at her using mindspeak.
‘What are you playing at?’
‘I’m OK! Gemelica teleported me to a throne room where therewas a dark hooded character. He wasn’t very happy to see me so Ileft. He also let it slip that Miranda’s spirit was there somewherein another body which means she’s alive.’ repliedAquitain.
‘You must stop acting so irrationally. The people in the mazegarden are upset. They thought the show was great but are worriedas some recognized it as the Dance of the Elementals. That dancehas special significance to everyone.’
‘They are wondering what has happened to Gemelica. You mustbring her back or it could get ugly. Please come here and help Crysexplain that it wasn’t really the Dance of the Elementals. TheElendari are upset at the slight to their dead Queen Aurora and aredemanding an apology from Crys who they still think is Aquitain,and he’s just standing there stupidly ignoring them. We’re yourfriends you must let us help.’
‘Whoa,’ thought Aquitain. ‘That jolt of lightning must haveaffected my mind.’
A few secondslater Aquitain arrived at the centre of the maze garden near thewooden box on which Crys was still standing. On arrival the Trixieslet out a cheer and began clapping.
‘Our Queen is back. Queen Miranda is back.’
Aquitain lookedaround at her adoring fans and felt incredibly guilty. She hadfooled them all and now would have to play the part and continuethe deception or destroy their hope and faith. She waved her handsto calm them down a little.
‘Thank you all for your warm welcome back. As you saw I had alittle disagreement with Princess Gemelica. It seems that she isbeing controlled by the Mentarin spirit creatures much like hermother was. Fortunately with the help of the Warden I was ableescape. I would like to thank the Lord Warden.’
Aquitain turnedto Crys and waited as if it was going to address the assembly butbefore it could say anything one of Darkmantle’s friends yelled
‘What sort of game are you two playing at? First you insult usby playing the Dance of the Elementals and now you’ve donesomething to the Princess Gemelica.’
Aquitain waslost for words.
‘What’s happened, Yllandril.’ she said through the mindlink.
‘I don’t know.’ replied Yllandril. ‘You told us you had a planthen you’ve been doing crazy things all day. We’ve been going alongwith you thinking you were going to do something special but now,it seems you’ve upset everyone except the Trixies.’
Aquitain didn’tknow what to say and just stood there dumbstruck. Something reallystrange had happened. Receiving no answers, all the Elendari exceptfor Darkmantle and Prendergrass shook their heads and left.
Llalorax andthe Llanlleans teleported away, leaving only the Trixies. Bellentold them the show was over and they all left chattering happilyalthough Bellen wasn’t smiling when he left.
‘Congratulations Lord Warden.’ said the voice of Glammer inhis head.
‘You have done something that only one other has achieved inhistory. You have successfully remade me but simultaneously youhave lost all hope of help from the Elendari and Llanlleans. Isuspect even the Trixies will be less than impressed when theyrealize the consequences of what you have done.’
‘What happened? It all seemed to go so well.’ said Aquitaintotally baffled.
‘Last night you used the pure heart and forgot about theWarden’s curse!’
‘They have forgotten everything that you did last night afterMiranda was turned to stone. No one except you, your enemies and Iknow what happened there. They
