“When you are ready, aye, I will,” he promised her.
“Good night, my lord.”
“Good night, my queen,” he replied. But he lay awake for several minutes listening to the sounds of her breathing, enjoying the voluptuous young body within his embrace. Cinnia was not an easy woman to know, he thought to himself as he had earlier. Though the Belmairans scorned those they had sent into exile many centuries before, they were much like them in their desire for order and conformity. Their need for tradition, sameness. But the king their dragon had chosen was anything but Hetarian or Belmairan in his thoughts and methods. It was going to be an interesting time as they all came to terms with one another.
Several days later the scholar, Prentice, sent a request to the king that he come to his chambers at the Academy. Gara, who had been assigned as the king’s new secretary, set the message aside, for he did not think a missive from an unimportant scholar worthy of his master’s immediate attentions. Gara knew of Prentice, for he had been educated at the Academy. The fellow was half-mad it was said. But then Dillon thought to tell Gara that he was awaiting word from Prentice.
“A message came yesterday, Your Majesty,” Gara quickly said, “but this Prentice is not a scholar highly thought of by the Academy. I considered it of no account.”
“Prentice is doing some very important research for me on ancient Belmair,” Dillon told his secretary. “In future all communication from him is to be brought to my attention immediately. I apologize I did not advise you of it sooner,” the young king said, soothing the ruffled feelings he saw rising up in Gara. “The administration of a world is quite new to me. I understand that you served the old king’s secretariat.”
“Indeed, Your Majesty, I did,” Gara replied. “And I will serve you personally with every ounce of my skill and loyalty. I shall put Prentice on my list of important personages immediately.”
“Thank you,” Dillon replied, smiling. “Now I shall go to the scholar and see what it is he had found for me.” He left his library. Gara, mollified, carefully scribbled Prentice’s name into a small book upon his desk. Out of sight of his secretary Dillon swirled his cloak and directed his magic to the scholar’s chambers. Stepping from the shadows, he greeted him. “Good morrow, Prentice. I have just now been informed of your message. Such a delay will not happen again.”
“Your Majesty!” Prentice jumped, slightly startled by Dillon’s appearance, but he realized he would have to get used to such comings and goings. The king did have the blood of the Shadows in his veins. “No, no, I understand. You have been given Gara for your secretary. A good man, but his name does mean mastiff, and he will guard you carefully from what he considers unimportant distractions,” Prentice said wryly.
Dillon laughed. “He has added your name to his list of important personages.”
The scholar barked a sharp laugh. “How it must have galled him.” He chuckled. “I do not believe, Your Majesty, that I have ever been considered a personage of import.”
“What have you found?” Dillon asked him.
“I sought out from our archives histories from our furthest known past,” the scholar said. “And within I found two small references to the wicked ones. Both said virtually the same thing. That the wicked ones had been told to depart Belmair. There is nothing else. No explanation of who these wicked ones are, or why they were told to leave or if they did.”
“Are you certain these two references do not refer to those sent to Hetar?” Dillon questioned the scholar.
“Those histories themselves were written at least two centuries before that event took place, Your Majesty,” Prentice replied. “However, there is a locked room hidden somewhere within the archives that is forbidden to us all. Byrd would have the key to that room, for it is passed down from one head librarian to the next. If I could gain access to that room perhaps I might find the answers you are seeking.”
“I shall speak with Byrd, and have him give you the key then,” Dillon said. Then stepping into the shadows of the scholar’s chamber, he directed himself to where the elderly head librarian sat behind his desk. “Good morrow, Byrd,” Dillon spoke.
The old man looked up. He had been concentrating upon a book, and his hearing no longer good, he had not observed Dillon’s arrival. “Your Majesty!” He stood politely.
“You hold a key to a locked room within your archives,” Dillon said. “I should like that key, and then you will take Prentice and me to that room.”
“Your Majesty, I will gladly give you the key,” the old man said, and he carefully extricated an old-fashioned brass key from the large key ring attached to his rope belt, handing it over to Dillon, “but I cannot take you to the room because I do not know where it is.”
“How can you not know where it is?” Dillon asked him. “You have a key. Did not your predecessor tell you where it was when he passed the key on to you?”
“My predecessor did not know where the room was, nor did his predecessor, and so forth back many, many generations, Your Majesty. The key has been passed down to each of us holding this post at the Academy, for it is tradition that the head librarian hold the key to the forbidden room, but no one has ever known where the forbidden chamber is. That, too, is tradition.”
“Are you even certain it exists?” Dillon asked Byrd.
“Of course it exists. I have the key to it,” the old head librarian replied.
Dillon didn’t know whether to laugh or to weep at Byrd’s answer. Thanking him, he returned to Prentice’s rooms by more conventional means in order to have a few moments alone to think it all through. Entering the scholar’s abode, he told him of his conversation with Byrd. Prentice did laugh out loud at the old man’s assurances that even though no one knew where the room was that it did exist because he had the key. Dillon joined him in laughter, and they sat down together over two cups of strong tea.
“Come with me into our archives, Your Majesty,” Prentice said.
“Perhaps two sets of eyes can find the door to this room.”
Together the two men went to the archival chamber, but although they searched and searched for several long hours, they could find no evidence at all of a hidden chamber. They finally returned to the scholar’s cozy chambers.
“I wonder now myself if this room exists,” Prentice said.
“It exists,” Dillon said certain. “A head librarian in your distant past filled that room with books he did not want scrutinized by just anyone. He locked the door to that chamber, and the key has been past down ever since. I do not believe this is a myth, Prentice. But somewhere along the line, that room was enchanted and concealed by means of magic. It can only be found by magic. I will need more help than Cinnia or the dragon can give me, for this is special magic that was worked to hide that room. I will call upon my father and ask that he send my uncle, Prince Cirillo of the Forest Faeries to me. Cirillo and I are of an age, and we were raised together in my father’s palace of Shunnar where we studied the strongest magic. Together he and I can find this chamber, and then, Prentice, we will unlock its secrets!” Dillon stood, and with a swirl of his cloak he disappeared.
The scholar ran a bony hand through his graying red hair. The young king was quite interesting and intelligent. And his interest in Prentice had already drawn the curiosity of several of the more important scholars at the Academy. In time, he thought, I shall be vindicated, and others will see that my studies of our ancient past are not foolish. And now he would meet a faerie prince. Prentice wondered if there had ever been faeries in Belmair. Until now he had never considered it.
Dillon returned to his library. “Permit no one to disturb me,” he told Gara. Seating himself by the fireplace, he said silently, Father, I need you. Several moments later Kaliq appeared from the shadows in the room. Rising to greet his sire, Dillon embraced him, and without any preamble