Macster - The Missing Links

"Behold the Troll King's latest advances," Chancellor Griswold was saying, gesturing at the map. Just over half of the Fourth Kingdom was now decorated with the yellow death's-head flags of Relish's troops, who had overrun the Disenchanted Forest and were now encroaching upon the central towns and villages. It would only be a matter of time before even such large towns as Little Lamb Village and Kissing Town would be conquered.

The elderly man turned to face the Council, his face twisted by anguish, his skin even more lined than usual with worry and fear. "He's ravaging the Kingdom."

Lord Rupert stood beside his chair, his hands gripping the maple frame and leather back as if its solidity gave him some sense of courage. "Looks like some awful disease," he opined.

Farther down the table, the Lord Chamberlain staggered to his feet, face pale. "Surely the Trolls are not strong enough to seize the entire Kingdom?"

"Well, who will stop them?" the chancellor demanded. He stalked around the table to the chamberlain, his gaze piercing the other man's widened eyes like a skewer. "If no one else will say it, then I will. Where is Wendell in our hour of need? Where is he?" He turned then on Lord Rupert, who had arranged the prince's carriage trip personally. "He was supposed to be performing prearranged acts of bravery before his coronation. And now there's a real crisis, he's just run away."

The Queen allowed herself a small smile and a chuckle. To see Wendell's incompetent advisors dithering over the Troll problem, to see them waiting for Wendell to appear to save them, that much amused her.

Chancellor Griswold turned to face the room, his expression solemn and filled with a terrible realization. "He's...he is not fit to be king." He turned to the secretary. "Write that down. Put that down." The man hesitated. "Put it down!"

As he was doing so, the doors of the chamber suddenly burst open and a servant entered, face white with terror. "Sirs, forgive me. I have the most dreadful news."

The chancellor's mouth pressed into a thin line. "What is it?"

The servant gulped. "The Viscount Lansky's horse has returned from the Great Forest...riderless."

Ah. So the Huntsman had succeeded. Another nail in the coffin of the Fourth Kingdom. The Queen basked in the looks of abject fear that appeared on each council member's face, and the way the chancellor suddenly sat down at the head of the table, as if to refrain from doing so was to collapse. Yes. Now they knew her power. Even if they did not know it was hers just yet.

"Gentlemen, we have run out of options." The old man sighed and looked more sad and disappointed than she had ever seen him. "We must accept military assistance from the First and Ninth Kingdoms to protect our people. The price of their aid, however, is indeed high." He took the leather-bound book that held the charter of the Fourth Kingdom from the minister of state. "The Fourth Kingdom will be divided into quarters and run by the Council of the Nine Kingdoms in perpetuity, and Wendell will forego any chance of ever taking the throne." His voice was resigned but firm.

"No!" Lord Rupert's ringing shout perfectly echoed the Queen's own sentiment as she clutched the mirror's frame. If Wendell's throne would be gone forever, then so was her opportunity. Everything was falling apart, she could feel it slipping through her fingers, and there was nothing she could do about it.

"No! I will not accept it!" the silly lord continued, digging his fingernails into the chair. "I've been planning this coronation for three and a half years!"

What a stupid and ridiculous man. Luckily for her assessment of Chancellor Griswold's intelligence, he too seemed to be fed up with Rupert's annoying foppishness. "Oh, forget the coronation, Lord Rupert! We must sign away sovereignty or lose everything."

He opened the charter to the appropriate page, turned the book to face Rupert, and deftly whipped his feather quill pen out for the lord to take. Rupert stared at it as if it were going to bite him, then exchanged a long look with the minister of state, the treasurer, and the foreign relations minister. His hand shook as he reached for the pen.

The Queen was shaking, too, with rage, distress, and urgent desperation, all her amusement gone. This could still be averted, or abrogated, if she could simply find the way to satiate the Troll King's appetite for power, or better yet defeat him altogether, nullify him as a threat. Then the Fourth Kingdom and Wendell's throne would be preserved, giving her time to finish the Dog Prince's training, find Wendell, and carry out the rest of her plan. But it all depended on stopping the Troll King.

And as she gripped the mirror frame till her knuckles cracked, and cried out silently to Lord Rupert not to sign, she realized she had absolutely no idea how to do that.