Ring of Wishes Prologue
They were coming for him. He could hear their angry voices drawing progressively closer. They were his subjects, the people over whom he’d gained complete dominion. For two years, he had been their master. Everything he demanded of them they’d given to him: their service, their possessions … their women. Before this day, not once had they tried to rebel, for his power over them had been absolute.
Frederic looked down at the object glittering in his hand. The red stone at the center of the ring had turned black, as black as the lust for murder that dwelled in the hearts of the people he had enslaved. He’d tried to use the ring to stop them, but it no longer answered to his will. It had given him everything he wished for, and, now, it had betrayed him.
Turning, Frederic fled, ascending the hill to its summit. If he could find someplace to hide until his former subjects were past, he could then sneak around behind them and escape. But, upon reaching the top, he found that there was no place to hide, no brush or stand of trees thick enough to cover him. He turned to gaze down the face of the sea cliff, hoping to see some ledge or cave, but there was nothing but a sheer drop to the ocean hundreds of feet below.
Just then, Frederic heard men approaching from the other side of the hill. Some of his pursuers had come around the other side. He was trapped!
A snarl rose from the man’s lips. He closed his fist tightly about the ring, ignoring the pain as it dug into his flesh. “Damn you, you accursed ring! Damn you and the one who made you!”
He drew his arm back and hurled the ring into the air. Sunlight glinted off its golden circumference as it descended to the water far below. For a moment, Frederic considered following it into the oblivion of the sea, but he would not die a coward’s death. He would stand and fight, take with him into death as many of his former servants as possible.
Drawing his sword, Frederic waited. The wait was not long. The first of his pursuers reached the hilltop within moments. They glared at him as they remained out of his sword’s reach, waiting silently as more of their numbers arrived. Soon, at least thirty were there.
A lone individual stepped out of the crowd. Frederic recognized him as a man named John Carver. Frederic knew him only because the man’s beautiful wife was among the women he’d taken for his own pleasure. He had heard that, after he allowed her to return home, she killed herself.
John said not a word as he stared at Frederic, cold hatred in his eyes.
“Come, you coward!” Frederic yelled at him, waving his sword. “Come fight me as a man instead of like one of the dogs of this pack.”
“I would not give you the honor,” John said. He held out his hand to the man beside him. A flintlock pistol was placed in it.
“Oh, so that is how it will be,” Frederic said with a sneer.
“Yes, that is how it will be. I would let these other men tear you to pieces instead, but you might kill some of them, and far too many have already died because of you.”
John lifted the pistol and aimed it at Frederic’s heart. For a breathless moment, the two men stared at each other over the deadly length of the barrel, then John pulled the trigger.
Far below, floating upon the surface of the waves, the stone within the golden ring changed from black to blood red.