The Black Prince: Part I
Read The Black Prince: Part I Online
Authors: P. J. Fox
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Horror, #Dark Fantasy, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Historical, #Sword & Sorcery
BLACK PRINCE
PART I
P. J.
FOX
Book Three of The Black Prince Trilogy
This novel is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed herein are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places or events is purely coincidental.
THE BLACK PRINCE: PART I
Copyright © 2015 by Evil Toad Press
All rights reserved.
Cover art:
Die Elfenkönigin Titania findet am Strand den Zauberring
, Henry Fuseli, 1804-1805
Cover design by Evil Toad Press
Published by Evil Toad Press
ISBN: 978-1-942365-42-6
First Edition: December 2015
The Black Prince Trilogy
was meant, initially, to be an actual trilogy rather than the tetralogy it’s become. But, even before that,
The Demon of Darkling Reach
was meant to be a stand alone novel. Not because the story changed, but I, its mere transcriber to the page, gravely underestimated the number of pages it would consume. My decision to split the final volume into two parts, therefore, came not from the desire to punish you, my valued readers, by forcing you to buy more books but from the realization that a single volume would be nigh on impossible to produce in paperback. At least for less than the price of one of my old college textbooks. It is thus that I present to you, at long last, the second to last volume in a series that’s been close to my heart for a long time.
My family has grown and changed, along with Isla and Tristan and Hart and all the rest, just as I, myself, have grown and changed. My husband has published his first book and is hard at work on another and our son is now in preschool. I took several breaks, from the writing of this book to bring him out for visits with his favorite friends, the cows who live down the road.
P.J. Fox
For Mel, who is the best.
“I
promise!” The man’s words were half plea, half shriek. His voice was raw, his face tear-stained and swollen. He’d been locked up now in the dungeons for two nights, given plenty of time to contemplate his crimes. Crimes for which this fate was more than richly deserved.
Still, if Isla were here, she’d argue that no crimes deserved such punishment.
Isla was wrong.
Hart stared down at the man, his expression impassive. He’d wondered, in the abstract sense, if this would be difficult. If he would, indeed, be unable to do the deed. But now that the time was upon him, he found that he did not care. He might as well have been watching a fish gasping on one of the long, low docks that jutted out into the lake.
“Your promise is empty.” Hart’s voice sounded empty. Cold. Strange, even to him. Like the ringing of a gong inside a marble tomb. “You touched a child before, when you lived under a different name in the South. And you promised then that you’d never do this thing again, to the weak Southron lord who apprehended you.
“It was your mistake to come North, where we protect our own.” He paused. His eyes were hard in the torchlight. “More than blood, the Gods crave justice.”
He looked up, over the man’s head. “Bring him.”
It was time.
Strong, labor-calloused hands gripped him, hauling him backwards. He wouldn’t stand. Couldn’t, maybe. His heels beat out a tattoo on the hard earth as he half twisted in the air, half crab walked. “Priest!” he called. “Curse you, priest! That your balls will wither and your line will die out, and you’ll never know one true moment of peace before you’re once again claimed by the hell from which you came!”
Hart said nothing, only watched.
Beside him, another green-robed figure spoke. “An educated man.”
Indeed. Highly literate, to have so many words at his disposal in a time like this. He’d been apprehended in Barghast, an unassuming character who worked as a tailor and who’d lured poor children into his shop with the promise of sweets. Sweets, and a warm fire. What he’d done after would turn any normal man’s stomach. That a customer had come in, looking to pick up her parcel at exactly the right moment—or wrong, depending on one’s point of view—could only be credited to the Gods. Their gift to the people of Barghast and now, in turn, Hart’s gift to them.
Hart was pleased that this should be his first time. He tested the emotion, holding it inside and savoring it as he would a fine wine. Yes, pleased.
The other figure turned. A bone-white hand rested on Hart’s shoulder. “Are you well, brother?”
They were brothers now, he and Callas. Callas was, under the sun, the captain of Tristan’s personal guard. The duke, their lord, the source from whom all blessings flowed. Hart banished the blasphemous thought. Hart had been promoted to a lieutenant, and then captain, within that same guard. They worked together. They trusted each other. They bedded whores together. But that wasn’t what made them brothers.
On the night of Isla’s transformation, Hart too had transformed.
Callas had asked him,
what have your Gods done for you?
The answer to that question no longer mattered. Hart had new gods now. Standing in a circle of guardsmen, he’d pledged his soul to the shadow. Not all of Tristan’s personal guard had joined the Chosen, as they referred to themselves. Many were normal men, seeking no further glory beyond that found in hearth and home. And Hart suspected that some who did join did so only for the lure of the taboo. They wanted to dabble in something dangerous, exotic, not realizing that their vows held them until death. And, if the scrolls could be believed, beyond.
You can’t un-know that there is more
, Callas had also said.
The religion of the North was dark enough. In consequence, most Southrons believed all Northmen to worship the Dark One, but that wasn’t so. The Chosen were a select group who, like all good Northmen, honored all the Gods. But their true allegiance was to Ilde. The Chief of the Ghouls. The Destroyer. The Lord of the Flies.
There had been blood, and pain.
“I am well,” he said.
“A fool’s words have no import.”
But Hart wasn’t so sure.
The Chosen. Other men called them Forsaken. There was a time when Hart would have done the same. But that time seemed very long ago now, a story he’d heard so many times that he felt like he’d been there, rather than something actually remembered.
With Isla’s transformation had come the first snow. Within weeks, the hard-white world all around them would begin to melt. Had it really only been a season? Under the sun, he was a guardsman. A good and competent one, well reputed for being fair. He’d arrested the man before them now, who thrashed and screamed. He had the trust of the populace and the respect of his fellow guardsmen. He’d been promoted once already, and by Tristan himself. A man whom Hart also trusted, and respected. A man for whom he’d pledged to give his life, and whose table he joined most nights.
Under the moon, he was a Priest of Ilde. Callas was their chief priest, the leader of their circle. Which made him a first among equals. Hart was the equal of his brothers, although their newest member. Or would be their equal, rather, after tonight. After months of preparation, he’d been deemed ready to join in their full communion. To prove his devotion to his Lord. To live out in action the worth of his promise.
If he failed, he’d perish along with the man before him. But his soul would be no more free. Still, no one expected him to fail. For the first time in his life, he had the—more than respect. The love of his fellows. He was accepted here. Wanted. Callas saw him as a man to be admired. Promoted him to others as a friend and mentor. Welcomed him into his own home, one of the neat apartments afforded to officers without families.
In the South, Hart had been nothing.
In the North, if he worked hard, he could be whatever he wanted. When he’d met Tristan, for the first time, another man had regarded him as an equal. Had evaluated him on the basis of who he was, and not how he’d been born. And that…had changed him. More so than his vows. He’d understood for the first time that he could control his destiny.
Control.
Was he cursed?
Did it matter?
What curse could be worse than living out his life in squalor, mucking around in some sty with the pigs? A hanger-on, invisible at the best of times and laughable at the worst. He’d retreated into that identity, because it had been all he’d had. His only armor. But now…he was being offered more. And all he had to do was kill a man.
He’d killed men before, always in the heat of battle and in defense of either himself or others. But he’d never killed deliberately, and in cold blood. This was the test.
He felt the eyes on him.
It had been revealed that this sacrifice was the will of his lord and his lord’s will, too, that he act as his lord’s hand.
He strode forward and then stopped, just at the edge of the circle that surrounded the place of sacrifice. A place of pillars, jutting skyward into the night. A place of power. He felt that power now, amidst the low susurrus of chanting. Priests, devotees, their combined voices like the humming of bees. Pregnant with promise.