Free Master Of The Planes (Book 3) by T.O. Munro

had been entirely at her own control and volition, choosing to return to her own body while she occupied the gilded throne of command within the Chamber of the Helm.  While it was a relief to find that she inhabited her body rather than the Kinslayer, this return had been an entirely more brutal and numbing affair, snapped back across the dimensions as though flung by a catapult.  She had a vague recollection of passing a screaming scalded presence flying in the opposite direction.  She hoped Chirard’s return to his rightful place had been at least as discomforting as her own.
    “Careful Kimbolt, she wakes.  Do not crowd her so.” Tordil’s voice cracked a little, a wavering in the elf captain’s habitual certainty and in its place crept a tone of querulous rebuke.   He may not have been sure he was right, but he remained sure that others were more wrong than he.
    Light poured in as her eyes opened and a blur of pink before her slowly resolved itself into Kimbolt’s face, eyes hooded with concern.
    “How long?” She murmured.
    “It is a little shy of ten minutes since Hepdida took the Helm off you, your Majesty.”
    “She should not have done so,” Tordil insisted.  “She may have damaged the weapon, she may have harmed you, your Majesty.”
    Niarmit pushed herself up on her elbows.  She was lying on her own bed, with Kimbolt kneeling at her side and Tordil standing over him.  Elise and Giseanne stood apart near the door.  Niarmit’s sweeping glance of self-orientation caught the women mid-whisper.  Giseanne said, “I was going to send for Deaconess Rhodra, your Majesty.  You have need of healing.”
    Niarmit shook her head with dizzying force and swung her feet over the edge of the bed.  “I am fine.  I’ve done what I had to do.” She frowned.  “Where is Hepdida? Was she cast into a faint too?”
    “Not at all,” Kimbolt was first to answer.  “I sent her to retrieve the Helm.”
    On cue the door creaked ajar and Hepdida slipped into the room, holding the Helm infront of her. Kimbolt stood up abruptly, moving fractionally away from Niarmit’s side before the princess’s gaze could alight upon them. “I got it,” Hepdida answered the silent looks which had greeted her arrival.  “Where shall I put it?”
    Niarmit shrugged.  Tordil pointed towards the top of an ornate dresser, a sufficiently elevated resting place to match the elf’s high opinion of the item’s worth.
    “I am glad no great harm has been done, to your Majesty or to the Helm,” he said before embarking on a tentative suggestion.  “Perhaps a little further practise would help to gain full mastery of its powers?”
    Niarmit gave him a silent scowl and shook her head.
    “I told you, Captain.” Elise said.  “If her Majesty fears that object, we would be fools not to fear it as well.”
    “The queen doesn’t fear it,” Tordil blustered.
    “Oh I do, Tordil. I do.  I fear it more than I can ever tell.” Niarmit assured him.
    Disappointment bordering on despair haunted the elf’s expression. Niarmit thought he might even weep at this dismissal of the solution in which he and Feyril had invested so much hope.  She stood and reached up to draw an arm around his shoulder.  “Come Tordil, there are other matters where a little effort might advance our cause far more securely than dabbling with the Vanquisher’s cursed bauble.”
    “Your Majesty,” the elf sniffed.
    “There is a task, an urgent embassy that I would send you on.”
    “I would rather stay at your side, your Majesty.” Tordil said with a dark look in Kimbolt’s direction.
    “Only you can serve me in this matter,” Niarmit assured him.  “Elyas, Caranthas and Michil are still with Sir Ambrose at the Gap of Tandar.”  She watched Tordil’s face as the implications of those names unfolded in the elf’s mind.  They were his three compatriots, last survivors of the great elven Lordship of Hershwood.  There had been six who had sailed