Damon Eram glared at the priest, then he snorted and looked at Shareese Tarn. "You came to my room last night," he declared. "We had dinner and we talked, and we ended up in bed. We spent all night together."

"Your Majesty, I am a happily married woman!" Shareese Tarn said vociferously. "I would not commit adultery against my husband, even if you ordered me to!"

"Well, am I lying, priest?" Damon Eram demanded heatedly.

"No, your Majesty. You believe what you are saying."

"Well, you must have dallied with someone that looks like me, your Majesty," Shareese Tarn said waspishly. "It was certainly not me. I have a house full of witnesses to that fact."

Damon Eram looked at her like she was a live snake, then glared at Trevers. "This is a conspiracy!" he shouted, throwing the parchment down. "Trevers, this is not a decree from me! This is a plant!"

"Your Majesty, it is written in your hand, and it carries your seal. Nobody else could have made it."

"I didn't write this!" he screamed, picking the parchment up from the floor, balling it up, and then throwing it at the Clerk of Law like it was a spear. It landed on the floor well short of the goat, and then Damon Eram stamped off the dais and behind the throne without another word, towards the antechamber in the back that served as an office for him.

Keritanima wandered out into the empty space between the court and the dais and picked up the parchment. She unwadded it and looked at it. Shareese Tarn came over and looked over her shoulder, and she turned it so the Duchess could read it as well.

"By Kikkali!" Shareese Tarn said in astonishment. "He must be insane!"

On the parchment was a decree that all noble houses and the nobility were hereby abolished, and all lands and monies of those nobles were now property of the crown. It also went on to say that all private titled deeds of land and property were nullified, and all said properties were now property of the crown. After that, it decreed that the crown hereby annexed the entirety of all land, seas, oceans, lakes, islands, and rivers, and that the entirety of the world was now the property of the crown. It then stated that from that moment forth, the King of Wikuna would be known as Supreme Overlord of Sennadar, and would hold dominion over the world for eternity.

It was written in the King's hand, and it carried the Royal seal, a seal that nobody else could possibly have.

"This certainly doesn't look rational," Keritanima agreed.

Shareese Tarn rushed over to a circle of women, holding the rumpled parchment in her hands, and Keritanima wandered out of court. She almost couldn't contain her glee.

It had been seamless. Shareese Tarn had spent the night with her father, probably only after he threatened her into submitting to his advances, but where Keritanima's Sorcery wouldn't work on her father, it did work on her. A Mind weave had erased the night from her mind and replaced it with memories of visiting the scene of the accident before returning to her home. That would be backed up, because she had had Ulfan burn a Tarn ship, and Keritanima had visited the scene wearing an Illusion of Shareese. Then she had rushed back to the Palace, to create the Illusion of Damon Eram leaving his rooms and going to Trevers with the decree. That too had been Keritanima, as had all the nightly wanderings of her father. Keritanima under an Illusion of her father. Wearing her father's likeness, she demanded that Trevers register the decree as law, then argued with him over its content.

Getting around the priest had been easy. They didn't know that using Sorcery created no visible signs, priests couldn't sense its use, and it required no gesturing or gesticulating as they thought magic required. Her use of gestures before had been for nothing more than show. A simple Mind weave was all it took to make him believe that his spell was telling him she was telling the truth. The spell actually said she was lying, but he didn't see that.

She looked back into the Hall of the Sun, seeing the nobles passing the crumpled parchment around and beginning to debate its meaning heatedly. They may have thought he was sleepwalking before, but now they all wouldn't be able to deny the fact that it seemed that Damon Eram was going mad.

Keritanima walked out of the Hall of the Sun, a very slight smile on her face. "Take that, Damon Eram," she mused under her breath, then walked away with her hands behind her back and her tail swishing back and forth in rythym with her easy pace. "You'll love what I do to you next."

Life for Damon Eram degenerated quickly after the incident with Shareese Tarn. Keritanima made sure of that.

The nightly episodes continued, but they changed as the days passed. Damon Eram's nightly wanderings with his crown had started to get malevolent, the monarch tending to strike anyone who crossed his path and didn't grovel and debase themselves enough to suit him. He would sit in the throne room and order executions right and left, and some of the names he shouted out were among the nobility whom Keritanima had had murdered earlier. He also ordered the murder of all his daughters every night to his spectral minions, an occurance that had brought a very frightened Veranika to Keritanima's door some days after it had started, begging for her older sister's protection, even offering to pay. The audience that observed these nightly rantings became more and more worried, a worry that intensified as Damon Eram denied doing what they saw him doing every morning afterward.

The other issue that had started really making the nobles start talking seriously about deposing Damon Eram were the visions. The first had been several days after the embarassing episode with Duchess Tarn. They were all in court as Damon Eram received an ambassador from Shen Lung, the great Empire of the Eastern Seas, a nation with whom Sennadar had no contact. They were exchanging pleasantries when Damon Eram suddenly jumped out of his throne and gaped at something in the air over the head of court. "Gods!" he had exclaimed. "What is that thing?" he demanded. Everyone looked up, and of course, they saw nothing. "Who brought that beast into court?" he demanded. "I demand it be removed!"

"What beast, your Majesty?" the captain of the Royal Guard asked curiously.

"It's right there!" he said, pointing at empty air. "It looks like some leather-winged bird with a scorpion's tail! How can you miss it?"

"I see nothing, your Majesty," Shan replied.

"Are you blind, man?" Damon Eram demanded hotly. He turned to watch the unseen thing, then he dove to the floor of his dais, his crown flying off his head and rolling on the floor. That caused the court to mutter and whisper, but Keritanima boldly stepped out of the ranks of the gowns and doublets and boldly reached down and picked up the heavy gold crown. She held onto it for just a short moment, as the Royal Guard watched her warily and the nobles stared, and then she held it out to the nearest Royal Guard to her. Still laying on the dais, Damon Eram glared murderously at her as the guard took the crown from her and started towards him, and then his eyes widened when his eyes met hers, and she gave him the slightest little wicked smile.

"You!" he burst out, jumping to his feet. "Practicing Sorcery in this hall is forbidden! I could have you executed!"

"Fetch your priest and have me questioned," she said calmly. "I did nothing."

"I know you did that, daughter! I'll have you put on the rack until you tell me the truth!"

"Then you'd best get your leather gloves, father," she said calmly. "I'll kill any man who lays a hand on me. If you want me racked, you'll have to string me up yourself."

"That law no longer protects you, daughter!"

"But all noble-born lords and ladies have the right to protect their lives from irrational orders," she said calmly, staring at him, watching his eyes burn at the word irrational. "You'd have me tortured until I said what you wanted to hear. I'll submit to magical divining, but I won't submit to being tortured into giving false statements." She looked to her sides slightly. "And since it's well known what I can do to people who try to put their hands on me, that means the only man that would dare try to put me on a rack would be you."