Xenia Sallavari, White Queen's page

Continued from above ....

A peal of genuine laughter burst from Xenia at the hag's request for trust. "Oh, Betty, that's rich! Hahahahaha! Trust you, say thee? Rich indeed! HAHAHAHAHA!! Ah .... Thanks for that fine jest, old hag .... I needed a good belly laugh. I'd sooner trust the BLACK PRINCE of AZZAGRAT to safeguard the chastity of the most beautiful and buxom of my handmaids than I'd trust YOU, you pox-riddled slattern of the swamp!" The furious queen turned her back imperiously to the hag and stormed off back the way she'd come. She needed to get away from Black Betty before she said or did something unwise out of anger. She needed to cool her rage in the evening breeze atop the palace battlements and think on what Black Betty had written on her slate board. Once she had calmed her rattled nerves and cooled her wrath, she would consult with the Grey Seer about the matter, and perhaps employ his divinatory magic to make clear her best course of action.

To be continued another time ....

Continued from above ....

"You DARE to threaten MY DAUGHTER!? .... Your worthless and miserable life hangs betwixt my thumb and index finger like a wriggling maggot over a fire pit, you poisonous Harlot of Abaddon!* Even if I should deign to spare your wretched life, at the very least, I ought to call my guards in this very instant to chop off both of your bony claws and cut out your worm-like tongue, which burrows into the hearts and brains of decent folk and spreads your blight and corruption! To do so would be a blessing to all the inhabitants of the Flanaess, who would never need fear your evil spells and profane hexes again, Hag!" The White Queen's ire had grown into a volcanic rancor worthy of the Suelli barbarians of the Schnai, Fruztii, and Cruskii tribes (or the Snow Barbarians, Frost Barbarians, and Ice Barbarians, respectively). She was just seconds away from calling out for her guards to seize the treacherous green hag and amputate both hands and cut out her evil tongue, when Black Betty hastily erased the previous message and scribbled out yet another ....

* Abaddon is the Ancient Suloise name for the Gray Wastes of Hades; this name is also used in certain alternate Prime Material Worlds' cosmologies to designate the triple-layered neutral evil lower plane to which the daemons (a.k.a. yugoloths) are native.

Continued in the next post ....

Cont. from previous post ....

Queen Xenia finished reading the hag's hastily scrawled message and scoffed, "Jealous of you?? Lunacy! But I do feel it would be best to purge your wickedness from Oerth once and for all, Mother of Gnats! You and your wretched kind have always been a plague upon the goodly folk of Oerth. It would be a righteous deed to snuff out your evil forevermore, Black Betty of Gnatmarsh. And likewise, the misbegotten spawn of your rotten loins, the bastard son of my sweet, beleaguered King Lynwerd .... the recent revelation of whose existence has so spoiled my marital bliss and joy in my young daughter .... How long before your black-hearted spawn creeps into the Royal Palace to thrust dagger into my heart, or worse, to harm even a single blessed hair on the head of my precious little daughter!? Aye, hag?? Answer me that!!"

Continued below ....

Continued from the previous post ....

"Do not look for sympathy here, Hag of the Gnatmarsh and Spawn-Mother of Viper Broods! .... Why should I pity you, the author of my darkest nightmares, and mother of the gnat that vexes me so? Forsooth, why on Oerth should I suffer you to live another minute, you worm-tongued spinner of webs and sower of blight!? .... Why shouldn't I command my guards to drag you up and out onto the City Square, chain you to a stake atop a pile of kindling, and watch you burn!? Why!?' Xenia's blue eyes blazed with a fury bordering on the malevolence of her ancient Maure ancestors as she glowered at Black Betty, the green hag who'd enchanted, drugged, and seduced her beloved Lynwerd a decade ago and raped him, conceiving a no doubt grotesque changeling bastard son that now haunted her nightmares and vexed her daily thoughts. Would he try to usurp the throne of Nyrond as his evil uncle Sewarndt had only five years ago? Sewarndt had been slain at the gates of Rel Mord by Lynwerd in 595 CY, bringing his insurrection to an end. But it had been a grim reminder of the fragility of the social hierarchy, and the constant possibility of usurpers, pretenders, and would-be conquerors. But she could endure loss of sovereignty; what she could not bear, as a loving mother, would be if her dear little Archarzi were harmed, abducted, or--Wee Jas forbid it!--assassinated by the brutish bastard changeling known as Grimaldi ....

Continued below ....

Dusk, Waterday 12th of Flocktime, shortly after the evening meal, down in the torchlit donjon below the Royal Palace in Rel Mord ....

The Royal Palace seems almost empty to Her Sublime Majesty, Xenia Sallavarian, Queen of Nyrond. Her husband, the King of Nyrond, Lynwerd I of House Nehron, had departed on the previous morning, riding out of the city at the head of the great Nyrondal Army, accompanied by his three stalwart generals--Hanshal, Myariken, and Younard--and such renowned Nyrondese heroes as Duchess of Woodverge Verin Talnith of House Orberend, and the new Duke Vardushi of Korenflass. They marched west to succor Chendl, capital of the Kingdom of Furyondy, which was in imminent peril of being besieged by the forces of the cambion demigod Iuz.

Queen Xenia had been left behind in Rel Mord to rule Nyrond in Lynwerd's absence, and to care for their young daughter, the 5-year-old Princess Archarzi. They were under the considerable protection of no less a personage than the Grey Seer, venerable court diviner and advisor to the royal court of Nyrond going back several kings at this point. Though the ancient wizard at times seemed feeble with age and occasionally bewildered by encroaching senility, his protection was a great comfort to the queen, for there could be no doubt that he was a mighty archmage. He cast Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion within her private chambers each morning, providing a safe haven in case her safety or that of little Archarzi was threatened.

Pale and beautiful, with a flawless lily-white complexion, sky-blue eyes that gleamed with brilliant intellect, high cheekbones and rosebud lips, and straight, silken, snow-white hair that falls in a luxurious cascade past her shoulders to drape her white breasts, none are the least surprised that King Lynwerd is so completely smitten by the Suloise noblewoman from Urnst. Sallavarian is a House Maure merchant noble house of Urnst, and Xenia is distant cousin of the famed archmage Jallarzi Sallavarian of Greyhawk's Circle of Eight, and also cousin of Duke Palatine Karll Lorinar of Urnst. She herself is a potent wizard, capable of casting spells of the 6th order, and is well equipped with magic items, scrolls, and several wands.

The White Queen descends into the dank lower levels of the donjon beneath the Royal Palace, passing through chambers where the various torture devices--gibbets, stretching racks, strappados, iron maidens, whipping posts, iron chairs, etc.--were MOSTLY just for show, and coated with thin layers of dusty cobwebs from long disuse. She examined some of the gruesome devices with a morbid curiosity that ran in her Maure blood. Many of her ancestors had been cruel, amoral sadists, nihilists, and megalomaniacs, but Xenia came from a more benign and less debauched branch of the Maure tree.

She drew near the place that had half-consciously called to her after dinner--the oubliette ("place of forgetting" or "place of the forgotten"). From the darkness ahead echoed a muffled moan of misery. She cast the cantrip light, illuminating the darkness where torches had ceased to gutter in sconces to light the hewn stone corridor lined with grottoes and cells. Closer now, another dolorous moan, muffled and slightly metallic .... Xenia's jaw tightened, the cords on her pale throat standing out, her pale brow knitted in determination and growing ire ....

Continued in the following post ....