(Just a one shot on Jadis. Thought I might try it and it turned out really well to me...)
Charn's Diminish
The night was drawing nigh as Jadis paced the thrown room of the great palace of Charn. Stepping close to one of the slit windows letting in the blood red light of the dieing sun, she looked below at the chaos and confusion littering the streets. Bodies lay scattered among building debris that had blown apart by her sister's evil magic.
"Its all her fault," Jadis thought as she glared hatefully down at the two armies below wreaking death and destruction about the city's streets. "She forced me to it. If it weren't for her there never would have been a war." Jadis clearly believed herself. After all, wasn't it her right as one in the great kings' bloodlines that she should take the throne? And it was she who deserved it after all she had gone through to ensure the death of the old king. She sniffed the frosty air, her back as straight as a pole. The chilled wind of a thousand years stirred about her, ruffling the poison-green folds of her gown and flicking across her bare arms; she never flinched.
"Well, for all her attempts she's failed; not even the magic of the old kings can save her now!" Jadis allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction: a very cruel smile, ruthless and icy. "Not even she knows the word. All the troubles, the pains I have felt, the many horrors I endured to place my lips around it. And now it all comes to this!" Jadis could feel the power at the edge of her fingertips, the power of the ancient kings. All now she need do was say the word and wait… she had to wait: wait for the one to wake her, however long that would take. Everything was set up: the hammer and the bell, the hall of statues. There was only one space unoccupied and soon to be filled: the end throne.
A cry of deep anguish bore itself up to the window slit and the queen shivered in spite of herself. Pulling back from the window she began walking towards the door to the throne chamber, pulling the solid wooden slab back from its frame and ducking beneath the lintel. The hall beyond the door was dark and cold as night, but Jadis knew it so well that she didn't even stop to check herself or bother to grab a torch. Taking the left passage she walked, her stride long and even, until she brought herself for the last time into the great stone courtyard. The fountain in the center was in disrepair with the jaw of the open-mouthed creature cracked and hanging askew but the water still ran pure from it… pure but for the smallest tint of red; perhaps a bit of the blood from the outside had soaked into the great stream and ran its course clear to the palace.
Jadis scowled at it. "A waist, really: and it was such nice water for the slaves to use on the floors too." She sighed, her evil mind recalling the cracking sounds of the whips and the tortured cries of slaves. "Such fun," she thought.
Passing through the courtyard she entered into another hall and passed by the door to one of the dungeons and two passages leading to the great torture chambers. The banquet hall was next where she first heard the tale of the seventy poisoned lords was it seventy? no, not seventy… seven hundred!!! What a feat!!! But she, Jadis, would do more than that. She smiled to herself. One word, one world, one queen for all time. That stupid sister of hers would pay dearly for attempting to steal the throne from her. No such chance!
Jadis slipped into the hall of statues but paid no heed nor respect to those long dead and honored in her culture. Dead was dead, and death a great weapon. She glided to the end of the hall, to the stone throne that had taken five hundred slaves two years to carve. It was colossal, a giant replica of the more life sized throne in the throne room. No ordinary throne would do for Jadis. If she was to become queen, she must be queen of the world and sit on a throne that indicated such power.
Slipping gracefully into the seat, she ran her hands back and forth over the arm rests. The stone was cold, icy cold. It bit her with it's frosty touch but she cared little. Her heart was already ten times as cold as the stone and soon her body would follow to stand the long years as the last and eternal queen of Charn until either she was woken from her enchanted slumber or the world crumbled to nothing and took her with it.
Sighing a last and very satisfied sigh she leaned back in the throne and looked out across the stone hall, uttering the deplorable word as she closed her eyes to suspicious slits. Everything began to go dim; she could hear the cries of surprise and then agony as the masses fell beneath the power she had spoke to life. Her thoughts began to fog, but she allowed herself one last satisfaction. "Now who is queen, my sister? Now who holds the power of the throne, the power of the world in the palm of their hand? I do, my sister, and no other!" Her thoughts faded to oblivion and she fell still, as lifeless and cold as the statues surrounding her.
The words on the pillar of stone holding the hammer and bell resounded through the room as if spoken, but not a thing moved nor indeed lived in that desolate place. The sound of the tortured cries from out the palace walls had fallen to sudden and complete silence. Only the strange, ghostly words echoed in the hall of statues and soon faded into the eerie silence of a dieing world.
"Make your choice, adventurous stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder 'til it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had."
Who knew how many hundreds if not thousands of years later a young boy and girl suddenly appeared in the stone courtyard and began, unbeknownst to them, to wander towards the hall of statues where sat the Last Queen of Charn, waiting to be woken from her sleep….