How Not to Poach a Unicorn

Twenty-Five

The journey had been unpleasant at the beginning but had taken a strange turn as they approached the capital. Once the soldiers had commandeered a couple of coaches for transport, the three prisoners were ungagged and forced to tidy themselves up. They were provided with new clothes. Prag and Cariolta were given courtly dress befitting nobles and Kish was again forced into the simple garb of a servant girl. They even provided all the powders and creams needed to get Cariolta looking like a porcelain doll again as she was, at that point, smeared and battered looking.

The purpose of all of this became clear as their coaches rolled to a stop. They were in the palace courtyard when Mercutian, also looking courtly, began to explain in a voice dripping with insincerity, "You'll be meeting with the king today and I expect you all to be on your best behaviour. He's in a very delicate state and we don't want to shock him."

They were pulled from their carts and into the courtyard where they met a terrifying sight. Lounging in the yard was a great dragon, saddled and harnessed. Its silvery scales gleamed in the warm tropical sunlight. It lazily followed their progress through the yard with one great eye before yawning and apparently going to sleep.

"Since when does Caneria have a tamed dragon?" whispered Cariolta.

"There's no such thing," replied Kish under her breath. "They only serve themselves. They're too hungry and greedy to be tamed."

"Well, the Prince rides it around the skies to show off all the time," Prag added. "So you decide who's serving whom."

The guards silenced them quickly and led them into the palace. The walk through the halls was distressingly quiet. There was none of the normal bustle of a palace. There were plenty of guards, both mechanical and human, and there was a smattering of servants polishing this and that, but there were no courtiers, no pages, none of the lords and ladies that would be expected. For most of the trek through the marbled hallways, their footsteps were all that they heard.
The throne room itself was practically a tomb. The alcoves along each of the walls were filled with statuesque Reapers and the only living thing in the room could have been mistaken for a corpse. Slumped in the throne was a withered and decayed old man. He was draped in the trappings of a king and the only sign of life in him was his slow, wheezing breaths.

The procession stopped and the human guards were discourteously dismissed before Mercutian summoned the attention of the king. "Your Majesty!" shouted the old mage. "We have captured some of your enemies!" 

The King woke with a start but his eyes failed to focus. "Enemies?" he mumbled. "Enemies everywhere. You protect me, Merc, you and Vestin." He drifted off into incoherency.
"Uncle Bertren!" shouted Cariolta, "It's me! Cariolta!"

King Bertren stirred into a brief moment of lucidity. "Oh, Cari, you changed your dress," he mumbled quizzically. "Why are you over there? Come sit by me." He smiled weakly and his eyes lost focus again.

"I don't think so!" A confident male voice came from behind the dais. "She is clearly an imposter, father." Prince Vestin, Crown Prince of Caneria, slid out of an alcove and flashed a wicked grin at the group.

"Imposter!" The crumbling old king curled into his throne. "Spies everywhere, everywhere. Protect me, my son."

"Imposter?" cried Cariolta desperately. "I am no such thing. Vestin, you know me. And my companions are no less than Desida Kish, Battle Maiden of Desidan, and your own Lord Pragmethion III of Antiq. We are friends of the court."

"Your disguise is weak, my dear." The prince smiled with cunning and a smug sense of victory, "Pragmethion is well known to us as an infamous criminal and conspirator against the court. That servant girl is clearly nothing more than what she appears. You may deal with her as you see fit, Mercutian." They exchanged a knowing look between them, exposing their conspiracy.
Prag was looking resigned to his fate and contemplating how many chances he was going to get to beat the damned princess that got him into this mess before he was executed. Kish, shackled and underdressed, was starting to wish for a swift execution as she expected that being property of the old man would be far worse than a simple death.