6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.

      When I was a child, I watched my father die. He was king, and the guards had just captured a lord who’d sworn to kill him. I loved my father, but I knew, even then, that his greatest flaw was arrogance. He had the man brought in chains to the town square, where he was to be publicly executed. I wasn’t supposed to be watching, but since I really wanted to observe the execution, I’d stolen my brother’s spyglass and ridden to town. I knew better than to let my father catch me; instead, I went in the back door of the city hall and climbed to the observation deck on the sixth floor, where I could see everything.

      It happened when the prisoner was finally brought forward and chained to Execution Stone. With my spyglass, I saw a traitorous guard drop a key into the lord’s hand. Nobody saw but me. My father certainly didn’t! He was too busy giving a gloating speech, telling everyone about how he was better and stronger than the weakling that was chained behind him. When the prisoner managed to unlock one hand, I knew it was serious. He patted the back of his belt, and I saw the imprint of a dagger beneath his shirt.

      I desperately tried to break open the window to scream a warning, but I was only eight. I couldn’t muster enough strength to smash the thick, double-paned glass, although I did manage to shatter the spyglass in my efforts. Frantically, I ran down the stairs, figuring that if I ran fast enough, I could get out to warn my father before he was killed.

      I came sprinting out of the door as my father was just finishing. A talented public speaker, he’d managed to capture and hold everyone’s attention, so the would-be assassin had been able to free himself, although he still crouched with the chains around him. I shoved and pushed through the crowd. People made room for me when they realized from my crown and richly-embroidered clothes that I was the reclusive princess. I was fifteen feet away when one of my father’s advisers grabbed my arm and held me back.

      “Let go of me! Father!” I shrieked, jerking free and dashing towards the prisoner and my father. The king bent forward to whisper something that was no doubt insulting, and at the same moment, the lord leapt to his feet, slashing with the dagger. My father was caught unaware, and his throat was cut. He choked a little, falling to his knees and dropping his sword. Nobody was close enough to do anything but stare. With the desperation of a child who’d just watched her father be attacked, I ran to him, not even considering that I might be in any danger.

      “Adrienna...” said my father, clutching at his throat.

      “Fetch a doctor!” I screamed, sobbing. Guards had rushed forward to seize the king’s murderer, but I could see that everything was too late. The bleeding had already begun to slow, and soon my frantic hands could no longer find a pulse.

      “The king is dead,” said the advisor who’d stopped me earlier. Tears streaming down my face, I turned to look at him from where I knelt in my father’s blood.

      “You’re the reason he’s dead!” I shouted, and the captain of the guard, who had just come over to retrieve me, stopped. “I would’ve reached him in time if you hadn’t stopped me! You killed him! I hate you!” I snatched up the brass spyglass and hit him in the groin with all of my fury, bringing him to his knees. I got in two more blows to his face before strong hands gently grabbed my small ones. It was the captain of the guard. He underestimated my rage, though. I smashed his nose and went back to battering the advisor, who protected his head, knowing better than to try to strike me back. When the captain finally recovered enough to snatch the spyglass away from me, I’d broken the man’s nose and cheekbones and severely bruised his face.

      “Your highness,” said the captain, not angry with me. I was only a child, after all. “Come with me.”

      “He killed the king,” I said haltingly through my tears. The captain scooped me up, and I wrapped my arms around him. We walked away from the bruised advisor, but passed the lord, who’d been re-chained and was currently being beaten.

      “Wait!” I said. They paused for a moment, since I was the princess. The lord looked up at me through rapidly-swelling eyes, but couldn’t hold my gaze for very long. It was one thing to kill the king, and an entirely different one to kill the father of a little girl. “I want to watch him die.” The captain paused for only a moment. 

      I was a different person, an older person, when I returned to the castle.

5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.

      “I can’t believe we made it,” Josh said, wincing as his girlfriend smeared a thick burn salve on his arm before bandaging it.

      “You should’ve been more careful!” she scolded, still focused on the injury.  “That dragon could’ve fried you!”>

      “But it didn’t,” he said. “And I had to distract it so that you could shoot it, didn’t I?"

      “Shut up,” complained Jake.  “Let’s just get the amulet and destroy the damn thing so that the empress will die and we can go home.”

      Quickly, the trio hurried over to the tunnel that led deep into the mountain.  Shera drew out her dagger and recited the spell that caused its jeweled hilt to shine brightly, then led them into the unknown path.  Slipping slightly over the loose rock and shale, she almost didn’t see the tiny chest secreted in a crack of the cave.

      “What’s that?” asked Shera, grabbing the note that lay inside the box.  She held up the light.

      Nice try , said the note.  It was signed, Empress Adrienna.

      “You mean it’s not here?” said Jake, throwing it to the ground in frustration.  “Damn it!”

      “Look out!” screamed Shera.  But there was nothing they could do.  A rush of water was already cascading through the tunnel, sweeping them along and bashing them against rocks until it suddenly emptied into the river of fire with an enormous hiss of steam.  Once the tunnel was clear, a gnome opened a hidden door in the cave and placed another rotten wooden box in the crevice.

      “That’s 2 this month already!” he grumbled to himself.  “If the keep this up, I’ll need another shipment of chests.”  He slammed the door behind him, leaving the trap reset for the next adventurous hero who wanted to defeat his empress.

4. Shooting is *not* too good for my enemies.

     “But it was supposed to be inescapable!”
     “It was. It is,” protested the engineer.
     “Then explain to me where he went!” barked the empress. “I...I...” At his stuttering, the woman growled disgustedly. The maze was supposed to be inescapable. She’d overseen the construction herself. If she hadn’t been so set on watching Viper, a famous assassin from the Eastern Coast, die slowly of starvation and dehydration, this would’ve never happened.
     “Empress! The entire palace has been searched, and the Viper is nowhere to be found,” reported a guardsman, running up to the Empress and bowing low.
     “Order messenger hawks sent to the local townships in the area and notify every patrol in the entire region,” said the Empress after a pause. “Put everyone on high alert. Let it be know that the Viper is to be shot on sight. The body is to be delivered to the palace.”
     “As you command, Your Imperial Majesty.”
     “And have the palace and the grounds searched once more before you unseal the gates, just in case he was missed the first time,” she added as he turned to go.
     “As you command, Your Imperial Majesty.”
     “I do not intend to let him get away again.”

3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.

     “This is uniquely fitting for you, Henry,” I smiled.  “You always kept yourself in the spotlight, while you locked me in a tower.  Not very much fun, is it?”  My half-brother glared at me.

     “You’re not going to get away with this,” he warned confidently.  “I’m the true king!  Someone will remember me, and when I get loose, you’ll be the one in the cell.”

     “You have to get out first,” I said tauntingly.  I stepped forward, almost within his reach.  “You’re chained.  This cell used to be a cave; it’s solid stone for dozens of feet.  The door is iron; only I have the key.  This is the deepest cell, so nobody will come along here except for the gaoler, who is half-blind and deaf as a post. Besides, he only speaks Skordian, which you don’t understand.” I could see Henry’s defiance become a little feigned, and I smiled wider.

     “Even assuming you get out, there is only one exit from the dungeons, which leads through the guardhouse.  You’d have to fight your way past, oh, 30 men at any given time?  That’s not even counting the men on guard at the wall or at the gate.”  I laughed.  “I’m afraid you’re going to be here for a very long time.”  He spat at me, and I locked the door behind me as I left him alone in the blackness.

     He was there for a long time.  Years, in fact.  But not forever.  One of my guards was careless when locking up a thief, and the man got loose and hid in the depths of my dungeon.  He discovered my brother, and picked all of the locks to get him out of the cell.  Henry and the thief simply overpowered two guards on patrol, stole their uniforms, and walked out of the castle without anyone being the wiser.  

     True to his word, Henry gathered his scattered supporters, rallied the common folk against me, and returned to claim his throne.  While his men tried to take the  walls and guards, he and a group of his best fighters came directly into the main part of the castle.  We came face to face in my throne room.

     “I’m here to keep my promise,” he told me, drawing his sword.  I flicked my own sword up to meet his gaze.  “You’ll spend the rest of your miserable life in that cell.”  I grinned viciously, knowing that he was the glue that held the rebellion together.  If he died...

     “The years haven’t been kind to you, brother,” I taunted.  “You’re looking a little scrawny.”  His imprisonment hadn’t changed him that much--he was still the vainest person I knew, and my comments stung his pride.  He attacked, and I smiled.  I’d spend the years getting stronger and faster, and he’d weakened.  He was slower than I was now, so it was easy to dodge his blow.

     “You’ll pay for what you did,” he growled, chopping down at me.

     “I doubt that,” I said, and counterattacked.  It wasn’t easy, but I was never really worried.  Everyone, rebels and guards alike, stood around us, watching our fight; they knew of the ritual combat for the throne.  I turned and twisted until I managed to maneuver him into a corner.  He fought twice as hard, of course, but I didn’t let that bother me.  He became tired and I shoved my blade in between his defences.  He gasped as I sliced open his hand, and he instinctively dropped his sword.  

     “An honorable opponent would allow me to pick up my sword and continue,” he said cautiously.  I snorted.

     “Put your hands on your head and start walking,” I said, kicking his sword out of the way.  My guards surrounded the rebels and ushered them out into the main courtyard as I forced Henry at sword-point to the center of the stone area.  I prodded him in the back.

     “What?” he said hostilely.

     “Get on your knees and tell them to stop fighting,” I ordered him.  Helplessly, he obeyed.  Slowly, his men were gathered into a group in front of me.  Corpses littered the ground; with irritation, I noticed that my men hadn’t fared as well as the rebels.  However, they weren’t fighting now that Henry was under my control.  

     “Take these men into custody, Captain,” I said.  The captain of my guard stepped forward, sporting bruises down the side of his face, and directed squads of soldiers to gather their weapons and bind their wrists.  It took a long time, but I was perfectly willing to wait.  

     “Is the blacksmith here?” I demanded eventually, looking at the crowd surrounding me.  A soldier ran off, returning seconds later with a large man in a leather apron.  

     “Yes, your Imperial Majesty?” said the blacksmith.  

     “These men have rebelled against my rule,” I said clearly so that everybody would hear my words.  “It is within my rights to have them executed in any way I choose, but although they deserve death, I have decided to allow them to live.”  I saw the large group of prisoners relax, and Henry sighed in relief.  

     “However, they cannot simply be allowed to return to their homes and their families without consequences,” I said.  “Blacksmith, I wish them all to be branded.”  It was a punishment that made its victims into second-class citizens.  They no longer were allowed to enter shops or taverns, and a second offence of any kind meant that they would be executed.  The punishment had only been used a few times in the last 50 years due to its severity.

     “As your Imperial  Majesty commands,” said the blacksmith slowly.

     “You can’t do that, Adrienna!” burst out Henry.  I glared, and my captain slapped him across the face, silencing him.

     “As for you,” I said poisonously.  “You know what happens now, right?  Speak!”  Despair crossed his face.  He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

     “I’m going back to that cell,” he said finally.  I laughed.  Of course not.  I would not make the same mistake twice.

     “I’m afraid that’s not quite right,” I said.  “You see, many of my guards were killed in your little rebellion.  A price must be paid.”  With one powerful thrust, I stabbed my sword into his heart.  I spat on it, then walked back towards my throne room.

     “The corpse, your Majesty?” said the captain tentatively.

     “Burn the body.  Have the head displayed by the gates,” I said coldly, not stopping.  

2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through

“How are we going to get out of this?” Roald despaired.  “They’ll get through the barricade in a few minutes.”

“Don’t panic,” said Rose quickly.  “What about the window?”  Roald flung it open, but groaned as he saw the ground 30 feet below them.

“We can’t jump, we’d break our legs,” he said.  

“How about up?” she asked.  

“No good,” he said.  “The wall’s sheer.  We could never climb that.”

“Is there anything in here?” she asked.  Roald scanned the room, and in the top right corner of the the he spotted a large vent.  

“The air ducts!” he said.  “Hurry!”  He flung himself over and boosted his sister up to reach it.  She pulled out her laser-cutter and sliced the metal away with ease.  The grating fell away, and she reached up, only to pull down in sadness.  

“It’s too small,” she said pointlessly, as Roald could also see how the vent narrowed. “We’re stuck.”  The door was smoking, and I watched them gleefully through the security camera as my guards piled into the room.
“We give up,” said Roald hopelessly, going down on his knees with his hands up.  As I saw them captured and beaten for trying to escape, I smiled.  I knew that remodeling those ducts had been a good idea!