That door lead to Dark Library, that one to Dark Lord’s—I mean your—Inner Sanctum, and that leads to Storeroom,” said Gargon.
Sooz was standing behind the Throne, looking at three doors set into the back wall of the Great Hall of Gloom, each with Dirk’s Seal carved on the front where the handle would normally be.
“Just pass Great Ring over the Seal and door will open, my Lady,” said Gargon.
Agrash had gone—Sooz had sent him off to organize Our Lady of the Dark’s Royal Guard and get them settled into the reopened Goblin Warrens.
In the meantime, Gargon was showing her around the important places in the Tower.
She walked up to the door of the Inner Sanctum and waved her hand in front of the Seal. With a grating shudder, the door swung open. A thrill of anticipation shivered down her spine as she walked into the chamber beyond, into Dirk’s Inner Sanctum, his Unholy of Unholies, his private room. What secrets would she uncover here?
Gargon hesitated. “Are you coming in?” said Sooz. He paused for a moment, and then shook his head. “No, Gargon not allowed in. No one allowed into Inner Sanctum except Dark Lord or Mistress.”
Sooz nodded. That made sense. She would keep it that way—this would be her place now, her sanctum. Everyone needed some space for me-time, after all!
“Wait for me, Gargon. I won’t be long,” she said as she entered the room, closing the door behind her.
She stepped into a relatively small room, compared to others in the Tower, this time decked out in shiny ebony black, filigreed with Moonsilver and trimmed with blood-red crimson.
The floor glowed as she walked on it and the veins of Moonsilver in the ebony walls reflected this light, bathing the place in a silvery radiance. Taking up the length of one wall was a long workbench cluttered with various flasks, books, instruments, bottles, and potions. Underneath it were lots of shelves, piled up with other things—tools, scrolls, ingredients, herbs, jars of unsavory-looking pickled creatures or yucky slimy things.
In one corner of the room stood a massive four-poster bed, hung with heavy black drapes and blood-red glyphs of some kind. In another corner, a massive suit of armor rested on a stand, obviously designed for some kind of … well, huge monster really, with cloven hooves and goat legs, though the rest of it looked like it was made for a human. Except maybe the helmet. That didn’t look human. Sooz shuddered. Is that what Dirk looked like in Dark Lord mode? It was hard to imagine the mousy-haired boy she knew as Dirk looking like that.
Then she noticed a bronze statue in another corner. She walked over to it. Her brow furrowed in irritation at the sight of it. It was of a curvaceous woman, with pale skin, bright red rubies for eyes, and long, lustrous black hair. She wore a rather revealing bodice, leather pants, and long black boots. A great cape was flung over one shoulder. Oh, Dirk, she thought to herself, this is just tacky. How could you? She turned away, feeling anger and disappointment. Or was it jealousy?
“Argh—boys!” she hissed under her breath, and went over to investigate the bed.
The sheets were of black silk, with Dirk’s Seal emblazoned on them, outlined in fine red thread. She would at least sleep well!
On a bedside table, carved to resemble a chained, captive Elf holding the tabletop over its head, another book rested, as if recently read. As she reached over to pick it up, a little silvery ball, like a miniature moon, popped up to hang in the air over the book. It began to radiate a soft glow, enough to read by. She smiled at that. How cool! She tried to read the cover of the book but it was written in strange glyphs she didn’t understand, as were the pages inside. She put the book down.
Along the wall beside the bed was a wardrobe. As she walked up to it, the doors seemed to dissolve away. She stepped back—the doors re-formed as if out of thin air. She stepped forward and the doors disappeared, stepped back—and so on. She got bored with that pretty quickly, and moved in for a closer look. It seemed like the wardrobe was hung with row upon row of great black cloaks. She reached for one—a hand popped out, holding the cloak out to her! She stared at it in horror. Gingerly, she took the cloak. The disembodied hand retracted into the wardrobe with a click. The cloak was large, heavy, and covered in strange symbols. She tried to wear it, but it was too big, too bulky. She tried to hang it back up but the hand snapped out again, snatched it out of her hand, and hung it up for her.
The rest of the wardrobe was much the same, mostly cloaks, and not much else.
“Well, that’s no good. I can’t wear any of those. Aren’t there any dresses?” said Sooz to herself, as she stood before the wardrobe, arms folded. Suddenly, two disembodied hands flew out of the wardrobe, fistfuls of dresses in each hand. Sooz was impressed, to say the least, and she spent the next hour or so picking an outfit from the magic wardrobe.
In the end, she chose a dress with several layers of flowing black silk, trimmed with black lace, with strands of Moonsilver woven through the thread. The wardrobe had provided her with a tiara of Moonsilver too, with a large, glittering black onyx set into it. A black veil covered her face, and she wore tall chunky boots of black leather, inlaid with a thin tracery of Moonsilver as well. They were seriously Goth boots!
When she walked, the Moonsilver in her hair and clothes glowed, so that wherever she went, she radiated moonlight.
The newly attired Sooz put her AngelBile bag on her back, hidden under her cape, and swept out of the Inner Sanctum into the Great Hall of Gloom. Gargon turned to meet her—and his massive jaw dropped in wonder. For a moment, the fanged, horned, bewinged demon-thing was speechless.
Then he said, “You have become Queen! A great Queen, a Dark Queen—no, wait, Gargon knows, you have become the Moon Queen!” he said, bowing.
“The Moon Queen. Hmm, I like it, Gargon, I like it,” she said.
Later, Sooz, Gargon, and Agrash helped themselves to a mighty dinner from the Iron Tower Storeroom, another room that could only be opened with the Ring. Inside was an almost limitless supply of magically preserved food. Afterward, Sooz began to feel very tired. Exhausted, in fact. So much had happened. She retired to bed, an experience she found to be a two-edged sword. Her room was Goth all right, and the silk sheets were great, but it was also pretty scary. Soon, though, her thoughts drifted to other things, to her mom, and what she’d be doing now. She’d probably be worried sick. If only she could tell her she was okay. More than okay, in fact. Little Sooz from Whiteshields was a queen and everything. How proud her mom would be! She smiled at that.
But then she thought of her own room, and she began to cry. How she missed Mom and all the safe, warm things of home. After all, she wasn’t really a queen. She was just a girl who wanted to go home. She promised herself that she’d never be mean to Mom again, just so long as she could see her one last time.
Her last thought before she fell into a deep, dark slumber was of Dirk. Where was he? Would he come and rescue her?