{"product_id":"knight-of-the-demon-queen-isbn-9780345421906","title":"Knight of the Demon Queen","description":"Once the most powerful mage in the land, Jenny Waynest is now a broken woman. After being possessed and corrupted by the demon Amayon, she lost everything she holds dear—even the trust of her husband. Yet Lord John Aversin has torments of his own: memories of the beautiful and cruel Aohila, demon queen of a rival hell, whom he'd tricked into providing the help he needed to free Jenny. Now, condemned to death for trafficking with demons, John cannot forgive himself for opening the door to a far greater evil—an evil that still haunts his dreams. And not only his dreams . . . \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor a vengeful Aohila needs mortal aid in realms beyond her power, and who better to provide it than Lord John? Blackmailed into cooperating, John must fight his way through unimaginable horrors in quest of a prize that may doom the world he has left behind . . .\"I might be slightly prejudiced for dragons, and I am definitely prejudiced in favor of anything Barbara Hambly wants to do with her main characters, Lord John and Jenny . . . She handles the action with great skill and charm, and the universe with beautiful imagery . . . She writes darn good books, our Barbara!\"\u003cbr\u003e--ANNE MCCAFFREYAt various times in her life, Barbara Hambly has been a high-school teacher, a model, a waitress, a technical editor, a professional graduate student, an all-night clerk at a liquor store, and a karate instructor. Born in San Diego, she grew up in Southern California, with the exception of one high-school semester spent in New South Wales, Australia. Her interest in fantasy began with reading The Wizard of Oz at an early age and has continued ever since.\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER ONE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJenny Waynest's son Ian took poison on the night of winter's first\u003cbr\u003esnowfall. He was thirteen. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe was dreaming about the demon when it happened. The demon was called\u003cbr\u003eAmayon, beautiful as the night and the morning, and she had dreamed of him\u003cbr\u003eevery night since fall, when his possession of her had ended. While her\u003cbr\u003esoul was imprisoned in a pale green crystal, he had inhabited her flesh\u003cbr\u003eand done such things as still made her wake weeping, or screaming, or\u003cbr\u003espeaking his name out of a longing so desperate she thought she would die\u003cbr\u003eof it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn daylight the grief of his loss, and her shame at that grief, occupied\u003cbr\u003eher mind against her will, to the exclusion of all other things. Otherwise\u003cbr\u003eshe would have seen--she hoped she would have seen--the pain and horror\u003cbr\u003egrowing in her son's eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis night there was a part of her that knew where Ian was. In her dream\u003cbr\u003eshe saw him in the small stone house on Frost Fell--the house that had been\u003cbr\u003eher master Caerdinn's up to the old man's death. Later Jenny had lived\u003cbr\u003ethere, until she had gone with Lord John Aversin, Thane of the Winterlands\u003cbr\u003eand her lover of ten years, to live at Alyn Hold. Asleep in their bed at\u003cbr\u003ethe Hold now, she saw their son in the old stone house, saw him descend\u003cbr\u003ethe stair from the loft and with a glance, as wizards could, kindle the\u003cbr\u003ewood on the hearth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe shouldn't be there, she thought. It was past midnight and the snow had\u003cbr\u003ebeen falling since just before dark. He shouldn't be there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRest, Amayon's voice whispered. Sleepy dreams are better than plans and\u003cbr\u003eschemes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer consciousness drifted away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEver since the magics of the Demon Queen Aohila had taken Amayon from her,\u003cbr\u003eJenny had tried to decide whether the pain she felt was a memory that\u003cbr\u003eAmayon had left or whether he spoke to her still. Sometimes she thought\u003cbr\u003ethat she could hear his voice, gentle and trusting as a child's, though he\u003cbr\u003ewas Aohila's prisoner behind the Mirror of Isychros. At other times she\u003cbr\u003eguessed that the coaxing sweetness, the hurtful mocking, were only a\u003cbr\u003epoison he'd left to make her suffer. How like him, she thought, and she\u003cbr\u003edid not know if she thought it fondly or with hatred.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaybe both.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePeople who survived possession weren't the same afterward.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer mind returned to her son. He sat beside the hearth, his head bowed,\u003cbr\u003ethin fingers twisting at his dark hair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe remembered her own pain when the demon who'd possessed her had been\u003cbr\u003edriven out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt least he still has magic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe loss of Jenny's magic, as a result of the final battle with the\u003cbr\u003edemons, had been the worst of all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou saved them, the sweet soft voice whispered in her mind: like Amayon's\u003cbr\u003evoice, though sometimes it sounded like her own. You fought the demons for\u003cbr\u003eyour son, and for Lord John, and for the Regent of the Realm. You did just\u003cbr\u003eas you ought. Yet you lost everything. How fair is that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe image came to her of Ian casually brushing aside her spells of ward,\u003cbr\u003erunning his hands over the terra-cotta pots of her poisons in the brassy\u003cbr\u003edull firelight, but the vision melted with her resentment and her grief.\u003cbr\u003eSleepy dreams, the voice coaxed. Lovely sleepy dreams. Of Amayon. Of magic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe saw Ian open a pot that she knew contained monkshood. Saw him dip his\u003cbr\u003efingers into the coarse powder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerhaps you'll find the magic again within your beautiful heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sweet voice lured her back to her dream, where she lay in the great\u003cbr\u003ebed in the Hold with John breathing soft beside her. His beaky face was\u003cbr\u003eturned away; he was clerkish and shortsighted and middle-aged, and nothing\u003cbr\u003elike the great thanes who had ruled the Winterlands before him, save for\u003cbr\u003ehis scars.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDreaming, she broke open her own ribs and tore her chest apart, as the\u003cbr\u003edemon had suggested. She saw her heart, which in her dream was wrought of\u003cbr\u003ea thousand crystals, scarlet and crimson and pink. Dreaming, she lifted it\u003cbr\u003eout. Blood gummed her fingers together as she fumbled for its catch, as if\u003cbr\u003eher heart were a box. The catch was a diamond, like a single poisoned tear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFascinated, she watched her heart unfurl in all directions, as if in\u003cbr\u003eopening the box she had somehow folded herself inside it. Within it she\u003cbr\u003ewas, curiously, once again in the curtained bed with John, in a warm\u003cbr\u003efrowst of worn quilts and moth-holed furs. Like mirrors within mirrors she\u003cbr\u003esaw the scarred husk of her own body, burned in the final battle when she\u003cbr\u003ehad pinned the demon-ridden renegade mage Caradoc with a harpoon beneath\u003cbr\u003ethe sea: hair burned away, eyelashes burned away--magic burned away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn lay beside her, twined in the arms of the Demon Queen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Don't wake her,\" the Queen whispered, and giggled like a schoolgirl. She\u003cbr\u003ewas beautiful, as Jenny had never been beautiful: tall and slim, with\u003cbr\u003ebreasts like ripe melons and coal-black jeweled hair. She traced on John's\u003cbr\u003ebare flesh the silvery marks it had borne when he'd returned from the Hell\u003cbr\u003ebehind the mirror, marks that could occasionally be seen in the light of\u003cbr\u003ethe earthly moon. Then she pressed her lips to the pit of his throat,\u003cbr\u003ewhere a small fresh scar lay like a burn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe laughed huskily when John cupped her breasts in his hands.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Let him be!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJenny's cry waked her. Like falling through a chain of mirrors, she fell\u003cbr\u003efrom the imagined tower and imagined bed to the real ones and sat bolt\u003cbr\u003eupright, the air icy in her lungs. Beside her, John slept still.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe dreams of her. Rage washed from Jenny all thought of that other dream,\u003cbr\u003ethe dream of Ian hunting among the ensorceled poison pots at Frost Fell.\u003cbr\u003eLaughs at me with her while I sleep.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer cry had not waked him, and that made her angry, too. Hating him, she\u003cbr\u003erolled from the bed and through the heavy curtains. The tower chamber was\u003cbr\u003ecramped and fusty: table and chest and large areas of the floor littered\u003cbr\u003ewith John's books. He had a formidable library, laboriously collected from\u003cbr\u003ethe ruins of crumbling towns, copied, collated, begged, and borrowed.\u003cbr\u003eSince summer's end, when they had returned from the South, John had been\u003cbr\u003ereading everything he could get his hands on concerning demons and\u003cbr\u003emelancholy and the silent sicknesses of the heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs if, Jenny thought angrily, he can cure Ian by reading!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut that was always John's answer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis armor lay among the books: a battered doublet of black leather, spiked\u003cbr\u003eand plated with iron and chain; dented pauldrons and a close-fitting helm;\u003cbr\u003elongsword and shortsword and a couple of fine Southern cavalry blades;\u003cbr\u003espectacles with bent silver-wire frames; and a pair of muddy boots.\u003cbr\u003eRocklys of Galyon, whose machinations to rule the Realm had set in motion\u003cbr\u003elast summer's ter-rible events, had stripped the Winterlands of its\u003cbr\u003egarrisons: John was back riding patrol, as he had done most of his adult\u003cbr\u003elife.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had little time these days to give his son.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd less, Jenny thought, to give to her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFingers stiff with scars, she shoved up the latch of the heavy shutters\u003cbr\u003eand stood gazing into darkness only a degree less heavy than that in the\u003cbr\u003eroom. Snow covered the bare fields, the bare moor beyond. The smell of the\u003cbr\u003esky calmed her, dispelled the envenomed miasma of her dreams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIan. The dream of him stirred at the edge of her thoughts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSleepy dreams. The sweet voice whispered and pulled at her heart. Sleepy\u003cbr\u003edreams, not plans and schemes. Somehow it sounded rational, true in its\u003cbr\u003esimplicity, like a nursery song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen she'd left the bed, the burning heat of the change of life had been\u003cbr\u003ewarming her flesh, but that fled away now and her limbs were cold. Better\u003cbr\u003eto return to bed and the comfort of her dreams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Jen?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe cold from the window must have waked John. Anger and resentment burned\u003cbr\u003eher. She wanted to be alone with her wretchedness and her grief.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You were dreaming of her, weren't you?\" Her voice snapped in her own\u003cbr\u003eears, black ice breaking underfoot and miles of freezing water beneath.\u003cbr\u003eShe spat the words back at him over her shoulder. She knew that he stood\u003cbr\u003enext to the bed, wrapped in one of its shabby furs, long hair hanging to\u003cbr\u003ehis shoulders as he blinked in her direction, seeing nothing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd just as well, she thought bitterly. Face and scalp and body scarred by\u003cbr\u003edemon fire and poisoned steam, and scarred within by the heats and\u003cbr\u003emigraines and malaises of the change of a woman's life. Better he be half\u003cbr\u003eblind and in darkness than see me as I am.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I can't help my dreams, Jen.\" He sounded tired. They'd fought before\u003cbr\u003egoing to bed. And yesterday, and the day before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Then don't deny me mine.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I wouldn't,\" John retorted, \"if dreams was all they were. But you had a\u003cbr\u003edemon within you . . .\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"And you believe them, don't you?\" Jenny swung around, trembling. \"Believe\u003cbr\u003ethose people who say that anyone who has been taken by a demon should be\u003cbr\u003ekilled? That's what all those books of yours say, isn't it?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Not all.\" There was a warrant out in the South for his life for\u003cbr\u003etrafficking with the Demon Queen. Had Rocklys of Galyon not taken the\u003cbr\u003eKing's troops from the North to fuel her demon-inspired rebellion, he\u003cbr\u003emight already have been executed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Is that what you want?\" She struck at him with her words as if it were\u003cbr\u003ehe, and not the archdemon Folcalor's final outpouring of magic, that had\u003cbr\u003erobbed her of her power. \"To kill me, as the books say? To kill Ian, for\u003cbr\u003esomething neither of us wanted, for something that happened against our\u003cbr\u003ewills?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was a man who had grown up keeping his thoughts to himself, and he said\u003cbr\u003enothing now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I was taken trying to save him!\" she cried into his silence. She had a\u003cbr\u003esweet small voice: gravel veined with silver. It sounded brittle to her\u003cbr\u003enow, and shrill. \"For trying to save him, for trying to save you, and all\u003cbr\u003ethese precious people of yours around here! This is what came of it! I\u003cbr\u003ehated the demon!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yet you did every damn thing you could to keep me from sending it away\u003cbr\u003ebehind the mirror.\" There was an edge of anger to his quiet words. \"And\u003cbr\u003eyou've been mourning it since.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You don't understand.\" Jenny had learned that it was possible to hate and\u003cbr\u003elove the same thing at the same time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I understand that neither you nor my son has eaten nor slept well for\u003cbr\u003emonths, and that as far as I've been able to see you haven't done a hand's\u003cbr\u003eturn to help him.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou don't understand, she wanted to say again. To scream the words at him\u003cbr\u003euntil he knew what she felt. But instead she lashed at him, \"Your son?\"\u003cbr\u003eHow dare he?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd at the same time she thought, Ian, and her mind snatched at shredded\u003cbr\u003eimages of a boy sitting in despair beside a hearth. She remembered\u003cbr\u003estick-thin white hands tracing away wards from jars on a shelf.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, you never did want him, did you?\" The resentment, the buried rage,\u003cbr\u003eof all those years of her uncertainty spurted up in his voice. \"And if\u003cbr\u003eyou'd been here in the first place when Caradoc showed up--\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If you wanted a woman here during the years I was seeking my own magic,\u003cbr\u003eJohn,\" Jenny said with harsh and deadly sarcasm, \"I can only say you\u003cbr\u003eshould have convinced one of your regiment of village lightskirts to bear\u003cbr\u003eyou a child. Any one of them would have.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Papa?\" The door hinge creaked. A yellow thread of candlelight fluttered,\u003cbr\u003eillumined the sturdy eight-year-old in the doorway: face, hands, rufous\u003cbr\u003ehair, and bright sharp brown eyes all the mimic of John's burly father.\u003cbr\u003eHe'd girded his small sword over his nightshirt: A man must go armed, he\u003cbr\u003eliked to say. \"Ian's gone.\"","brand":"Del Rey","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302711218405,"sku":"NP9780345421906","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345421906_80a9b42b-ca7b-4da1-90de-966ec1433b3b.jpg?v=1742928745","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/knight-of-the-demon-queen-isbn-9780345421906","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}