Chapter 21

In the black kingdom

In the palace

The council room

Queen Becca sits with only eleven of her great seers. She taps the table with only three of her fingers successively. She taps the table first with her fore finger, then she moves on to tap with her middle finger and finally with the finger close to her pinkie. Her chin rests on the palm of her right hand while she taps the table with the three fingers on her left hand.

She drops both hand on the table and makes to stand up to leave the council room when Sir Milo rushes into the council room with a pile of books and scrolls.

"My sincere apologies, oh great Becca."

He rushes to the empty chair and drops the books and scrolls on the table.

"Forgive me Becca our queen for keeping you waiting."

Becca sighs and says,"sit."

Milo quickly out the chair and sits on it. After he does sit, Becca then sits on her own chair.

"Now?"

Milo takes out the wooden engraving and sets it on the table and he begins to speak.

"I was not able to find out the meaning of the strange writings on the wooden engraving but..."

"But what?"

"I was able to find out it's origin and it's use."

Queen Becca sighs again says,"go on."

"Forty years ago when your mother did rule over the black kingdom, the kingdom of Darel was being ruled by a rich and powerful king called Dagon the second. Now Dagon had immense wealth, he had power and he also had women who threw themselves at his feet begging to be his concubines but there was one thing that Dagon wanted that he could not get, the seventh princess of Abath. Legends had it that her hair shone like the sun, her eyes were the colour of the seas and her skin was white as milk. Her beauty drove many men mad and Dagon was one of them. When Dagon sent an emissary with an hundred wagons filled with Gold and another hundred filled with the finest silk in all of the land a herd of beautiful snow white horses as a gift to ask for her to be his own, the seventh princess of Abath refused."

Everyone in the throne room is paying rapt attention to what Milo is saying.

Milo continues,

"Dagon thought that the gifts were too small for the beautiful princess and so he sent a double of what he had previously sent but the princess refused again saying that she can never marry one who was a follower of vrarum which is the god of darkness as she was the follower of lucis who is god of light. This statement made Dagon angry and so he waged war against the kingdom of Abath twice but they prevailed against him."

Milo pauses and continues,

"The scrolls says that after Dagon failed twice, he was troubled greatly by his enemies and his power over Darel began to weaken but he heard about the wooden engraving which is actually the key to the world of the red dragons."

After saying this Milo picks up the wooden engraving from the table and looks at them all saying,"The drawing of the key to the world if the red dragons that is drawn in this old books is the same as what I hold in my hand. My queen, my brothers, this is the key to the world of the red dragon."

Queen Becca takes the key away from the hands of Milo and says,

"The key show it to me how it works."

Milo replies,

"Some pages of the scrolls and books are missing and the word is really not clear but what I was able to get from books is that Dagon spent several days building a new temple to vrarum, he then erected an altar and he placed the key to the door and he had his first red dragon which he controlled and used against the kingdom of Abath. I'm sorry my queen but this final message is not very clear."

Edward says,

"To build a temple to vrarum normally takes like seven long moon years. I fear to think what Dagon must have passed through during that period."

Milo says sadly,

"The scroll are not complete and most of them are written in a strange language. I don't know again."

Sir Steven who is the deer who can decipher strange languages looks at Sir Milo who looks sad and says," May I see the scroll with the strange writings Milo?"

Milo conceeds and passes the scroll to Sir Steven.

Steven gets the scroll and he begins to look at the scroll carefully.

"What do we have here my dear brothers and our great queen", Steven chuckles and continues, "the writings on the scroll resembles what is written on the wooden engraving."

As soon as they hear this, they all turn to focus on Sir Steven who is still chuckling perhaps with glee.

Sir Milo stands and Sir Steven says,"Milo I beg you, bring a clean sheet of paper as you come to my side."

Milo brings a clean sheet out of the many scrolls that he has dropped on the table and walks to give it to Steven who receives it with thanks.

Sure Steven places the clean sheet of paper beside the scroll which is opened. He reaches into his shirt a brings out a black tied cloth, he unties the knot and opens the black cloth. Inside the black cloth us a whitish substance, Steven takes a pinch of it and sprinkles some on the scroll while another on the clean paper. He quickly ties the cloth back and places it back into his shirt. He then places his right palm on the clean sheet of paper and the other on the scroll. No spell is uttered, he only closes his eyes. He sees nothing now but the eleven seers and the queen look closely. The substance that Steven poured on both the scroll and the paper seems to grow larger in Milo's eyes. He sees the meet paper getting darker and darker, it affects his eyes, he cleans his eyes with the back of his right hand blocking his vision for sometime and when he opens it, the paper is not blank or dark but in it is a colorful drawing. He takes the paper immediately and says,

"According to the drawing here, Dagon had immense power but he was killed by his brother, Alfred the first."

Queen Becca says,"Alfred is our ally. He serves neither light nor darkness but himself."

The council room is now quiet

"Then let's just have the kingdom."

They all turn to the one who made the suggestion and of course, it's Sir Kiel, the strongest of them all.