Alternia Comics

What a lovely little light, thought Bori, following a tiny, glowing globe through the forest. And so helpful. Wherever it's going, it's got to be good. He reached out for the light, which playful darted away from his hand.

Bori had not expected this much trouble. A stern warning, someone following them for a while, maybe even some roughing up. But now here they were, chained with at least a dozen other patrons at the bar, finally taking a rest. They had been walking down the forest road in the rain, which was getting stronger, back towards Wallborne Castle. By now the sun was set, and they had been walking for the last hour by the light of torches carried by Voldir's men.

As the minstrel strummed a quiet background tune and the dwarf set up more of his strange devices, the singer decided it was time for a break. He walked up to Terrabess and winked at her as he took a mug of mead from her tray. "Thanks, darling," he said with a smile decidedly different from the one he had shown to the crowd.
"Not enough people say that," she said with a returning grin. "But they are all paying, instead of playing, for their drinks, so if you'll excuse me ..."

A day's travel west of Wallborne, to one side of the only road worth taking through the thick pine forest growing out from the mountains and spreading out far beyond Kaldurst's western border, a lovely young woman with silky black hair and a face like an angel brought another bucket of water in out of the rain through the back door of her mother's inn, the Poison Pestle. It was named after a legend in which the hero was tricked and given a poisoned pestle with which to grind the herbs needed to cure his love. However, the hero figured it out and used the poison against his enemies.

Behind her, perfectly silent, Duke Regent Erwal eased the door shut and locked eyes with Prince Melbane Merkandore, only sixteen and already standing nearly as tall as his father had. "I have said it before, my Prince," he said softly, "I fear she will never recover."

Prince Melbane nodded slowly and looked away from Erwal to the door his sister cried behind.

"You understand, as I have said before, that you cannot remain in despair as she does. She is a child and you can care for her all your life, but you ... you will be King in just a little more than a year."

Duke Erwal was awakened by the sound of his own scream. He found himself and his cousin's bed drenched in sweat. Shaking, he wiped his brow and tossed the covers aside. He got slowly out of bed, his bare feet brushing against the imported Otorian rug on the floor as he walked to the mirror where a bowl and a pitcher of water stood. He paused as he passed the door to the hallway where King Meddias had fought his last battle but one year ago, and pondered the night he had just dreamed of.

Under a vaulted ceiling, along floors of amber-hued wood, down halls of polished gray stone walked the King in his Castle. He heard echoing in his halls the laughter of his People. He saw in his mind the contented smiles of his Family. He felt in his heart the grateful spirit of his Wife. He knew in his soul that he had lived as a good man should. From as far as the power of his law could reach to his innermost being, King Meddias Merkandore had done as well as any man alive in doing his duty to his subjects, his family, and himself.