I almost went mad. Certainly I was out my mind, and into the minds of others, a cacophony of wretched misery and anguish punctuated with dull aches, stabbing pains and brutal lashes of sharp agony. Of my own body I was barely aware, shackled to the cold stone floor of the dungeon cell where I had been thrown. "Never before," the Queen had said, "has a Serva...
Postscript 2 - Notes on the History of the Grand Duchy of Upper Danubia (more stuff that didn't make it into the novel) King Vladik and the Judicial Reforms of 1524 Prior to the rule of King Vladik the Defender in the early 16th Century, an offender was convicted of a crime by his local village council, collared by the village blacksmith, and then became...
Gloria walked the long corridors of the glorious castle. All the spoils of war covered its walls. She smiled at the paintings of Kings past. Gloria was a servant to the royal family of Murtar. Murtar was a powerful and feared country in the middle of the desert. For thousands of years, it had ruled the desert by sword. She beamed in pride of her country and...
Thirty two years had passed since the The Bombardment of Earth. The Federation Council was meeting to set the succession to the Empress in motion as well as discuss other items of business including setting a time frame for the admittance of Earth to the Federation of Planets. The people of Earth had hoped they had made a good enough impression that it woul...
As the heat of the afternoon slowly subsided, so did the pace of the party. While Sebastian retired to rest yet again, the others amused themselves in different ways. The security guard returned to his anxious young wife to try to explain why he had to work right through and why he wasn't as frisky as usual at the start of the weekend! She seemed to accept h...
© copyright, Raymond Descheneaux, 2019 In order to avoid inbreeding, in addition to producing babies of pure familial blood, the family needed regularly to adopt persons from outside of the royal bloodline. Fortunately, from time to time, refugee women of good birth appeared on our frontier, often with children in tow. In many cases, their kingdoms had been...
30: Coronation "Wow, you did it babe!" said Joy. "We did it, Joy," said Carl grabbing Joy and pulling her into a hug. "I couldn't have done it without you." "Oh crap," said Carl as the halls outside the chamber were filled with guardsmen. Joy grabbed hold of Carl tightly as he gripped his sword. One of the guards pushed through the crowd and kneeled down...
Driving through the flat Norfolk countryside on a sunny, if windy, May Bank Holiday Monday, Anne reflected on the weekend that had passed. It hadn't been spent in quite the way she'd have chosen, if choice ever really entered into the equation but, every so often duty had to come before pleasure. Visiting Mother was never easy, always more of a chore than...
Afsoon moved with catlike grace along the corridor of the British Embassy in Azerbaidistan, her gum rubber sandals soundless on the thick wool carpeting. She found the door to the Code Room locked, but a few deft manipulations with her lock picking tools opened it. The room stank of ozone as it also contained the wireless transmitter used to communicate with...
CHAPTER ONE. THE DEMON AND THE DOOR. ALL IN THIS STORY ARE 18 OR OLDER. Elmensa awoke with a tremendous, delirious headache. Hands flew to her chest and she clutched the sheets in a sweat-soaked panic, momentarily forgetting where she was, who she was. There was nothing but darkness, slick and real and cloying, and for that single moment she was not prince...