Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,303

foolishness, the tie to a kingdom—her kingdom—and to a family she had unwittingly brought down.

Though she had just enacted perhaps the most telling and powerful magical feat of her young life, and though Taknapotin, the demon that gave to her a great part of her power, was gone from her forever, Deanna Wellworth felt strangely invigorated. She went to her mirror and took up a vial, supposedly of perfume, but in truth, filled with a previously enchanted liquid. She sprayed the liquid generously over her mirror, calling to her closest friend.

The mirror misted over, and the fog seemed within the glass as well. Gradually the center cleared, leaving a distinct image within the foggy border.

“It is done?” asked the handsome, middle-aged man.

“Taknapotin is gone,” Deanna confirmed.

“Resmore is in the care of Brind’Amour, as we had hoped,” said the man, Duke Ashannon McLenny of Baranduine.

“I wish that you were here,” Deanna lamented.

“I am not so far away,” Ashannon replied, and it was true enough. The duke of Baranduine resided in Eornfast, a city directly across the Straits of Mann from Mannington. Their connection in spirit was even closer than that, Deanna reminded herself, and, though she was more scared than she had ever been, except of course for that terrible night twenty years before, she managed a smile.

“Our course is set,” Deanna said resolutely.

“What of Brind’Amour?” Ashannon asked.

“He searches for a friend of old,” Deanna replied, for she had heard the wizard’s call. “He will unwittingly answer my call.”

“My congratulations to you, Princess Deanna Wellworth,” Ashannon said with a formal bow and the purest of respect. “Sleep well.”

They broke the connection then, both of them needing their rest, especially since their respective demons were no more. Deanna was truly charmed by the man’s respect, but it was she who owed the greatest debt in their friendship. Ashannon had been the one to open her eyes. It was the duke of Baranduine, who had ruled the largest clan of the island when Deanna’s father was king of Avon, who had figured out the truth of the coup.

Now Deanna believed him, every word. Ashannon had told her as well the truth about her crown: that it was the key to Taknapotin, a tie in an unholy triangle that included Greensparrow and allowed the king to keep her under close scrutiny. That crown was the link that had allowed Greensparrow to call in Deanna’s demon so easily that night in the Iron Cross. That crown, both by enchantment and by the subtle feelings of guilt that it incessantly forced upon poor Deanna, was the key that allowed Greensparrow to keep her locked under his spell.

“No,” Deanna reminded herself aloud. “It was only one of the keys.”

She walked determinedly across the room and gathered up her robe. Selna’s room was only three doors down the hall.

In the duke’s private room in Eornfast, Ashannon McLenny watched his mirror cloud over and then gave a great sigh.

“No turning round’about now,” said a voice behind him, that of Shamus Hee, his friend and confidant.

“If ever I had meant a round’about, I’d not have told Deanna Wellworth the truth of Greensparrow,” the duke replied calmly.

“Still, ’tis a scary thing,” Shamus remarked.

McLenny didn’t disagree. He, above perhaps any man in the world, understood Greensparrow’s power, the network of spies, human and diabolical. After the coup in Avon, Ashannon McLenny had thought to break Baranduine free of the eastern nation’s clutches, but Greensparrow had put an end to that before it had ever begun, using Ashannon McLenny’s own familiar demon against him. Only the duke’s considerable charm and wits had allowed him to survive that event, and he had spent the subsequent decade proving his value and his loyalty to the Avon king.

“I’m still not knowing why Greensparrow ever kept the lass alive,” Shamus mumbled. “Seems a cleaner thing to me if he had just wiped all the Wellworths from the world.”

“He needed her,” McLenny answered. “Greensparrow didn’t know how things would sort out after the coup, and if he could not cleanly take the throne, then he would have put the lass there, though he would have been in the shadows behind her, the true ruler of Avon.”

“Wise at the time, but not so much now, so it seems,” remarked Shamus with a chuckle.

“Let us hope that is the case,” said McLenny. “Greensparrow has slipped, my friend. He has lost a bit of his rulership edge, perhaps through sheer boredom. Events in Eriador are proof enough of that, and, perhaps,