The Dark Prince

Prologue

PrologueIn the parallel world of Casmir…

Was it a nightmare—or was it real?

The question lingered in the prince’s mind, the soft, evil whispering into his ear like a ghostly sigh from the grave. He’d been rudely attacked by a mountain of a man swathed in dark clothes, stabbed with a needle, and carried out of his bedroom, bound and gagged. The poison inside him tried to slowly draw him into its deathly slumber, but the sleep that stalked him had no attraction, not even when it tried to coerce him into its lovely, soft, velvety darkness.

Now, as his body lay draped over the man’s muscled shoulder, he could hear the heavy scrapes and scuffs through the cloudy sleep that fogged his mind and feel every movement as the man climbed the dark, winding staircase to the tower room in this ancient, ivy-covered palace. And although fear crawled up the prince’s spine, he continued to thrash about to try and get away, his cries muffled and unintelligible. This man would pay for his treason! The thought of what he would do to his abductor made the long way up the dusty, creaking stairway worth a leap into the dangerous unknown, so he forced himself to scatter the darkness in his mind and stay awake with every step this villain took. Steps that brought him closer to the top—to the gloom at the top of the stairs—and what was waiting for him there.

So, while dust motes drifted in the air, while the wind made the old boards in the decrepit castle creak like old bones, this rogue continued to climb, going deeper and deeper into the dappled darkness. The prince’s gaze cut to the right and then to the left, delving into the faint haze with fearful expectation. The shadows leaned and swayed mysteriously, as if demons lived there. They pulsed like living beings, taking breaths—in and out, in and out. The nearer they came to the tower room, the closer the air seemed to be until he could hardly breathe. He wanted to put his hand up to his nose to keep out what smelled like mold in a moss-eaten crypt, but his hands were tied, the rope cutting into his flesh at the wrists. It was unreal and so strange that he could discern a subtle mixture of sorrow, hate, fear, jealousy, and rage in the air. Emotions that had at one time or another been felt here. Was he having an attack, or was it fear squeezing his heart until it almost stopped? He longed to confront this bold, nameless stranger, but he couldn’t. He wanted to ask him who? Who had ordered his abduction? Who wanted him dead? Whatever the answer, there would not be a cat-o’-nine-tails sharp enough, a dungeon deep enough, or a stretching rack strong enough to punish them when he learned of their identity.

This muscle-bound stranger continued in his silence as he crept down the dark hallway that was buried in light and shadow. What little light there was came from ancient-looking fixtures with cracked and broken glass. Glass that was covered with the webs of gray spiders that hung down in spangles and swayed mysteriously in some nonexistent breeze that surely must have come from the bowels of hell itself.

And then they were there, his abductor standing in the narrow, obscure, out-of-the-way corridor and looking at the secret door that was disguised as a wall and covered with a thick layer of spider webs and dust. With a tentative movement and a trembling hand, he swiped at the webs, touched a button, and the wall moved slowly, creaking painfully with every inch it moved. The next thing the prince knew, he had been thrown down on a bed. When he looked up, he saw a man’s head swathed in ragged fabric with only his eyes and his nose showing. The prince noticed at once the glittering piercings in his nose, but in his eyes was the dark, evil purpose of the devil himself. Just then the man came toward him with another loathsome syringe in his hands. The prince began to struggle, so the man fell over him and held his writhing body down as he brutally plunged it in his arm.

In only seconds, the darkness he had been fighting all night finally overtook him.