Queen of Nothing (Marla Mason Book 9) by T.A. Pratt

Author:T.A. Pratt [Pratt, T.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: action, Fantasy, urban fantasy
Publisher: Tropism Press
Published: 2015-11-28T23:00:00+00:00

The Sundered Isles

“Welcome to the Sundered Isles of the Lambent Sea.” Elsie twirled around on the pale-green sand, beneath a carnivorous-looking variant of a palm tree that shook its branches menacingly.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Marla said.

Elsie looked down at herself. “Ah. Well, enter the dreamworld, get co-opted by local norms. It happens.”

“Sure, but is that, like... a lizard-skin body harness bikini?”

“Mmm, basically, basically. You’re so much more modest in your attire, more’s the pity.”

Marla was dressed in a dark cloak worn over cosplay forest ranger gear, pretty much; the knee-high boots were nice, anyway. She unhooked the cloak and let it drop to the sand, though, because the sun here was abominably hot. The cloak scuttled away across the sand and disappeared into the sea, which shone with pale yellow lights beneath the surface. “Ugh. I had enough of wearing cloaks that were secretly alive in the real world.” Marla shaded her eyes and looked around. This was a rather more pleasant part of Barrow’s fantasy world than the area she’d visited previously, with less in the way of dread citadels and bleeding clouds. This place was a glowing sea dotted with islands, including a few, off in the distance, that held impressively baroque structures, like full-sized sandcastles. “What are we doing here?”

“This is where old dark lords retire.”

“Is Barrow here?”

“No, he’s ruling from a grim fortress carved from the skull of a city-sized dragon, the usual sort of thing, hundreds of leagues away. He’s not retired. He’s still fighting a war with some of the other dark lords, and I imagine he will continue doing so until the sun explodes, or someone sneaks into his hospital room and smothers him with a pillow, whichever comes first. We’re here to visit the tomb of the late dark lord Mogrash, who began his reign in blood and fire and slavery but ended up ruling over an era of peace, prosperity, and voluntary regime change, passing control to his adopted son. Mogrash’s heirs are still the main rivals to Barrow’s control, or at least, they were the last time I peeked in on the place. Who knows what’s going on now. Time is funny here.”

“So we’re tomb-raiding. What’s in the tomb?”

“Mogrash’s enchanted battle-axe, Trepanner.”

“Like... trepanation? Drilling holes in the skull?”

“Mogrash’s approach to brain surgery was a bit more informal than that, but, yes, Trepanner put holes in a great many skulls over the years. One of Mogrash’s more bloodthirsty children inherited the weapon, but when the dark lord finally shuffled off this fantasy coil many years ago, they buried the axe with his body. His tomb is on the next island, over there. Shall we?” Elsie flickered, vanishing from sight, and Marla followed, pleased that her line-of-sight teleport still worked in this place.

Barrow’s dreamworld was a bit like the underworld, in that a presiding mind controlled its shape, but anyone with sufficient will could make alterations to the fabric of local reality, to greater or lesser degrees. As long as they didn’t draw Barrow’s attention, they could get in and out of here without much trouble.

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