Category: Fantasy Publisher: Createspace
ISBN-10: 1450589405
Type: Fiction
Pages: 292
Copyright: February 24, 2010
ISBN-13: 9781450589406
The Knight of Death runs afoul the legendary Queen of the Abyss when he accepts a position as King of the Faeries in the idyllic underworld realm. He enlists the aid of his Brothers of the Order as the Grand Master sends them one and two at a time to bring him back. The Knights continue to disappear into the Abyss until the GM is left with only one remaining Knight of the Council under his command. As King Ramsay wages war on the evil faeries and the dragon under the Queen's control, he loses more and more of himself to her magick. Sister Meredith, in another botched attempt to use her magick to find him, suddenly finds herself drawn into a bizarre situation facing a number of Undead persons from her past. She is swept into the war and finally into the Queen's clutches as she desperately tries to help the King win out. In the end, the King has to give up his crown and come home to face the Grand Master's ire, but not before he loses his beloved twin Brother again after rescuing him from Purgatory.
Book IX:. The Queen of the Abyss is the ninth book in the Assassin Chronicles series following the exploits, adventures and misadventures of the Chevalier du Morte, Poor Knight of Solomon's Temple, Alchemist and Assassin for the Order of the Red Cross of Gold. Chevalier Ramsay has a run in with an old flame that turns out to be much more than just a ghost from his past. The powers of the Abyss are stirring after thousands of years and he must deal with the consequences of his actions from deep in history.
Excerpt
The drumming ceased suddenly and the last strains of the bagpipes faded away to be replaced by the drumming hoof beats of horses… several horses… also headed their way.
“Stand ready, Brothers,” the Grand Master told them though none of them had weapons.
The first horse inside the space was a small pony, almost miniature, with an elf mounted on it. He wore a shimmering green and gray outfit with a long, pheasant feather in his hat and a lance in one hand. He slid from the pony immediately and came to bow low before the Grand Master.
The elf turned his large, blue eyes on the assembly and announced in a clear, high-pitched voice of rather stentorian proportions “His Excellency, King Adar, Royal Regent of the Underworld, Prince of the Grave, King of Terrors, Lord of Saturn, wishes an audience with this assembly and requests that all members would remain at ease and at rest during the tenure of his stay without fear of pain or otherwise unpleasant consequences!”
Before anyone could agree or object, six more horses rode into the midst of the tables. Each one bore a Knight in full dress uniform, each carrying shields, lances, swords or bows or a combination thereof. Each one wore a different color, but each shield bore the familiar family crest of the Ramsay clan. The first Knight to dismount was dressed in the traditional white uniform with the red cross on the breast and on the back of his long mantel. His helmet was a bit different from the small Templar helmets and obscured the upper part of his face and his nose. The council members riveted their collective attention on this man as he stabbed his lance into the earth in front of the Grand Master’s table and leaned his shield against his knee. The other Knights dressed variously in blue, gray, brown, green and yellow remained mounted on their horses. The horses nickered and pranced about nervously in the small enclosure.
The dismounted Knight’s long black hair extended below his helm to his shoulders. He reached up slowly to remove the helmet with his gloved hands and then tucked the silver helmet under his right arm. Merry tried to pull free from Champlain who still held her by the arm. He let her go only after she landed a solid kick on his shin and then she ran around the table to stop in front of the Knight.
“Brother!” She said breathlessly. “Where have you been?!”
“Your pardon, my lady. Do I know thee?” The Knight asked her and her eyes widened.
She placed one hand over her mouth and took a step backwards before looking wildly about for John Paul. John Paul was still at his place at the far end of the Grand Master’s table. This was not Mark Andrew and it could not be John Paul. Her son vaulted the table in a flash, scooped her up and took her back where she had come from to stand by the disgruntled Frankish Knight as he frowned at the strange Knight standing before them.
“Your Grace!" The Knight addressed D’Brouchart. “King Adar would speak to thee under a flag of truce. Be it known to all these gathered present that any acts of violence will be attended to posthaste and without malice or prejudice. We would protect our king.”
The Grand Master nodded slightly and then sat down. He motioned to his Knights and the apprentices to sit as well. He recognized this fellow and the sight of Ramsay’s long dead brother made his blood run cold and his knees weak. Whatever this was come upon them, he was unprepared.
The Knight turned and held up one hand. Paddy, Bart, the black dwarf, and Sam, the elven leader, all turned to await the arrival of their king as the remaining five Knights dismounted and stood facing the men at the tables, watching for any signs of trouble.
Another set of hoof beats approached the assembly as a deadly quiet fell across the entire meadow. The horse did not gallop as its predecessors, but walked. The spokesman for King Adar went quickly to take two of the empty chairs lining the tables and set them side-by-side, directly in front of the Grand Master. D’Brouchart glanced at his Seneschal, but Lucio merely raised his eyebrows and shrugged ever so slightly as the specter of Mark Andrew’s dead brother stood with his back to them. His expression was one of amusement mixed with awe.
“Is it real or just an illusion? A trick?” The Grand Master leaned very close to the Golden Eagle to ask this question.
“I’m unsure, your Grace,” Lucio answered him just as quietly. “He looks real enough and so do the others. And their weapons look more solid than the ones we carry.”
The Grand Master nodded. What insanity was this? Who was this king and who were these Knights dressed in these colorful copies of the Templar uniforms of old. He recognized the Ramsay family crest. And this appeared to be Luke Matthew Ramsay standing before him. It would stand to reason that he would use his family crest on his shield if he were no longer a Templar and Luke Matthew had not been a Templar in almost a thousand years. In fact, Luke Matthew had been but dust and bones for more than eight centuries.
John Paul pulled up a chair to sit in the space between his mother and Adonaijah Sidchenga, Sir de Bleu’s apprentice. His mother’s grip on his arm was like a vice and her face was completely without color. He thought she might faint at any moment and he did not feel too well himself. He had looked in his own face when the Knight had taken off his helmet, but the specter of Luke Matthew had failed to acknowledge him in the least, even when he had gone past him to take his mother back around the table. This was the uncle he had never met. The uncle who had appeared time and again in their dreams and visions and, yet, he seemed not to know any of them with the exception of the Grand Master. The prophet tore his gaze from the Knight without the helmet to peruse the figures of the other five helmeted men. The one in blue and the one in yellow looked extremely familiar. And the one in gray, he recognized undoubtedly as Sir de Lyons. He held his sword in one hand, his shield in the other and had a long, gray bow slung over his shoulder with a quiver of arrows on his back. If the one in yellow was Barry and the one in blue was Sir de Bleu, who were these others? One of them was almost as big as Champlain and had blonde hair showing under his helmet. The other was very slim and tall and his eyes sparkled in the light of the paper lanterns as they darted back and forth along the length of the table, watching for signs of trouble. Many long, slender braids peeked from beneath his helmet.
Lucio leaned toward Champlain and whispered “Is that de Bleu?”
Champlain nodded and added “And de Lyons and Barry, if I am not mistaken.”
Lucio nodded and narrowed his eyes. The sounds of the hoof beats had slowed and were approaching more closely.
“Is that Champagne?” He almost hated to say the name of the dead Templar.
“I do believe so, Brother. And Sir Beaujold, methinks. What manner of evil is this, Brother? Are they all dead then?”
Merry jerked her head around to stare at him. Beaujold! The Knight who had relentlessly pursued Mark Andrew to her home in Texas and then had done his best to kill him. The one who had left him pinned to the earth in the prairie. The one who had died after being covered with acid from the horrid Insects of Sherma that the Grand Master had unleashed on the hillside behind the house. Why was he here? Had they finally succeeded in killing Mark Andrew? Was that what they had come to say? Who was King Adar? Where had he come from? But was not Mark also called Prince of the Grave?
The second book of the trilogy, The Chronicles of Henry Roach-Dairier, this volume will be enjoyed by astute 10 or 11 year olds as well as adults. A reader does not have to read To Build a Tunnel First to understand this volume.
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Danielle and Nina are rescued from their wicked step-mother by Emma the Yellow Dream Train who takes them on adventures. When Nina learns she has the ability to speak to animals, Emma and the other trains teach her how to use it.
