The Fifth Sorceress

21

Failee stood in silence, slowly looking about the floor and ceiling of the great, round, subterranean room. The First Mistress was dressed in a gown of the palest green, the Pentangle of golden thread clearly visible upon her left breast as always. The Paragon hung around her neck, gently refracting the light of the room and sending out spots of blood red that danced happily about, as if looking for a place to come to rest.

Sister Shailiha stood next to her. Her maternity gown, a deep shade of blue, also displayed the beloved five-pointed star. For over three hundred years this room has remained unused, Failee mused. But in just six more days its purpose will be fulfilled.

The First Mistress continued to examine the chamber—the room that had been built for one purpose only so long ago. This was the Sanctuary, and it was one of her finest achievements.

The chamber was a perfect circle, some sixty feet in diameter, and the domed marble ceiling rose at least seventy feet into the air. In the center of the dome was a small circular opening about three feet across, from which could be seen the last remaining rays of pillared sunlight as they dashed down into the room. Golden and unrestrained, they brightly illuminated a small spot in the center of the floor. Despite the fact that the Sanctuary was far below the ground level of the Recluse, the opening in the center of the ceiling ran vertically all the way up through each level of the castle and finally to the roof, where it opened to the sky.

The walls, ceiling, and floor were made of the finest white marble, and they glistened as the light from the many wall sconces flickered and began to take over from the slowly vanishing rays that came through the ceiling. Inlaid into the white marble of the floor was a very large, perfectly proportioned Pentangle in the blackest of marble. Each point of the five-pointed star touched the outer edge of the floor where it met the wall, and over each of the points sat a raised throne of solid black marble. In the very center of the Pentangle, directly below the opening in the ceiling, was a raised white altar. As the final rays of sunlight lost their battle with the coming night and slowly vanished away into the softer, more golden lamplight of the room, in the total silence of this place Failee could begin to smell the unmistakable fragrances of long-awaited hopes and dreams. Silent. Waiting. And unstoppable.

She had been coming alone to this room for each of the last three days and would continue to do so for each of the next six until the day of the Communion, and the Reckoning that would follow it. She came here to meditate silently and prepare her mind for what was to come, and to draw upon her knowledge of the craft that she had ripped away from Faegan’s consciousness those many years ago. She had begun to realize that she would also need to incorporate much of the Vigors into the incantation for it to prove effective, but was certain that she could do it.

Failee turned to look at Shailiha, who was obviously entranced with the room. Failee had brought her here today to acquaint her with the room and to make her feel at home in this, the most important of her new surroundings. The other three members of the Coven would join them there shortly.

It had been only a few days since Shailiha had successfully endured the last of the Chimeran Agonies, but her ardor to become one of the Coven had already surpassed even Failee’s wildest dreams. The young woman was highly intelligent, possessing an unimaginable desire to learn the craft and an equal, if not even higher, desire to see their dreams through to the conclusion—to the victory that they had waited for so long to come. She was one of them now, and it showed in her eyes, her voice, her speech, and her mannerisms. And one day, because of the supreme quality of her blood, she would become their leader. The First

Mistress smiled. They were finally five, and with Shailiha’s child, they would be six.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Failee said to the younger woman at her side.

Shailiha took a few steps forward, speaking as she walked. “The Sanctuary is even more breathtaking than your description, Mistress,” she said. Her hazel eyes were alight with curiosity and desire. “Which one is to be mine?” she asked, as she walked to one of the heavy black marble thrones.

“The one to your right will be yours at first,” Failee told her. “But when the day comes for you to lead us, your throne will be the one that is now nearest me.” She looked back at the black throne in which she would sit during the Communion, the one she would gladly one day give up to Shailiha.

“May I, Mistress?” Shailiha asked.

“Of course, my child,” Failee said happily. “It’s yours.”

The First Mistress watched hungrily as the young woman walked to the first throne Failee had indicated and carefully took the two steps up and into it, gently arranging her maternity gown about her. Where it fell over her satin slippers, the dark-blue gown contrasted strikingly with the highly polished black marble.

Shailiha looked rather commandingly into Failee’s face. “I belong here,” she said simply. “This is my destiny; I know it. My blood tells me so.”

My blood tells me so, Failee thought with an ecstatic heart. Excellent. Not only have the Chimeran Agonies commanded her, but now her own blood does so, as well. There will be no turning back for this one. She smiled to herself. The Chosen One shall come, but shall be preceded by another. The twin. And now she is mine.

“How appropriate,” Succiu’s voice suddenly called out from the other side of the room. “You look as if you were born to it, my Sister, which of course you were.” Failee and Shailiha turned to see the other three members of the Coven standing in the doorway to the room. There was only one way in and out, and it was connected to a long series of circular steps that led down from the Recluse above. The second mistress was dressed in a black leather vest and breeches, both tight fitting and leaving little to the imagination. Black elbow-length gauntlets and high-heeled knee boots also in shiny black leather completed the picture, and she carried a long riding crop in her left hand. Beads of moisture could be seen on her brow and upper breasts, and Failee knew immediately that Succiu had just come from one of her “training” sessions with some slave from the Stables. But the second mistress’ countenance looked frustrated and angry, rather than showing the usual satisfaction that typically followed such an interlude. Vona and Zabarra, each dressed more appropriately in a gown, followed dutifully along behind her as her heels clicked and clacked upon the marble floor, the crisp, staccato sounds resonating commandingly throughout the room.

Succiu walked directly to the throne in which Shailiha was sitting, smiled, and then ran the frayed end of her riding crop up and over the cool, black stone of the great chair, gently brushing first the hem and then the sleeve of the princess’ gown. Shailiha recoiled slightly, but showed no fear. The second mistress smiled. “You are indeed lovely,” she said, smirking. “Sitting in that throne gives you a certain, how should I say, ‘attractiveness.’ I look forward to knowing you even better after the delivery of your child.”

Succiu turned her head back toward Failee, throwing her long, dark hair over the opposite shoulder. “I have a surprise for you, First Mistress,” she said. Her demeanor was beginning to return to something closer to humility. “Tell me, have they been fed yet?” she asked. Failee shook her head.

“Good.” Succiu smiled back. “That was the other reason you brought Sister Shailiha here, was it not? To show her the additional use for this chamber?”

Failee looked to Shailiha and saw the expected look of puzzlement upon her face.

“What additional use?” Shailiha asked. “Why was I not told?” Good, Failee thought. She is beginning to assert her authority even in the presence of one as strong as Succiu.

“There is a second use for this chamber,” Failee said. “Beings live here, in this area. Beings that you have not yet been shown. They are additional protection for this most important of rooms.”

The First Mistress turned her eyes to Succiu. “And just what is your surprise?” she asked.

“I brought them dinner,” Succiu said coyly. She turned back to the empty doorway and the dark hallway that led upward from it. “You may bring him in now, Geldon,” she called out. “And be quick about it or you will taste my lash, as he has.”

The remaining four mistresses turned to see Geldon emerge from the darkness, holding the jeweled chain that ran from his collar in one hand, and a larger, dirtier chain in the other. The larger chain led into the hallway behind him. Finally a man emerged, beaten and bloody, wearing only a loincloth. The chain was attached to manacles around the man’s wrists. Once in the Sanctuary, he collapsed to the floor and curled up into a ball, sobbing. From where she stood, Succiu could see the Pentangle that she had so carefully carved into his back two months earlier with her whip. It was covered in fresh blood.

“He has failed in his duties to me yet again,” she said nastily, walking over to the slave, her long legs straddling his body as he writhed about in pain on the cold marble floor. “I am through with him.” She looked up at Geldon. “Drag him to the center of the floor.”

Geldon strained and groaned against the chain as he drew the slave to the center of the marble floor, leaving a winding path of sticky red blood behind. When he reached the center of the Pentangle, he dropped the slave’s chain and then dutifully held up the end of his own jeweled leash to his mistress, wondering if she would chain him down, as usual.

“Not now,” she sneered. “I’m having too much fun.” She walked over to the slave called Stefan and put the shiny heel of her right boot against his throat, pinning him to the floor. Geldon’s mind painfully flew back in time to that night in the Ghetto when she had first found him—when she had also put her heel against his throat, nearly killing him. He looked away in shame. He felt guilty for having brought the slave here, but what else could he have done? He had to make everything seem normal. The Chosen One and the Lead Wizard would be here soon. Master Faegan had promised. Nothing must jeopardize that. Nothing must give any hint of what was to come. But I swear I will live to see this bitch die, he thought. Even if I must somehow kill her myself.

Succiu turned her exotic, almond-shaped eyes up toward her mistress as she increased the pressure against the slave’s neck. “Do you agree?” she asked.

“Indeed,” Failee said, pleased. “I think they will be most happy with him.”

The First Mistress raised her right hand upward, and the room began to change. A vertical seam in the white marble wall directly opposite the doorway began to split open, and from ceiling to floor the wall slid apart to reveal a dark space beyond. The floor of this new room was so far below the floor of the sanctuary that Shailiha could not see it. Nor could she see any steps leading down.

Failee looked at Geldon. “Bring him to the edge,” she said.

“Yes, Mistress,” Geldon gurgled.

As Geldon struggled to drag Stefan toward the opening, Shailiha came down off her throne and joined the others at the edge of what she could now see was a pit. At first she could see nothing, but then her eyes began to adjust to the darkness and she was finally able to pick the pit’s inhabitants out in the gloom.

They were pairs of eyes, yellow and slanted. They seemed to glow. And there were hundreds of them. Occasionally she could hear low, reptilian hissing sounds, but she could see nothing but the yellow eyes shining menacingly out of the gloom.

“Good evening, my pets,” the First Mistress cooed lovingly into the eerieness below her. Had she not been one of the Coven, she might just as well have been doting over a friend’s newborn child, or some beloved family pet. Shailiha turned to look at her.

“Sister Succiu has graciously brought you a very special dinner for this evening,” Failee continued. “If this one is not enough, I shall supply you with more.” The hissing became noticeably louder, and the yellow eyes crowded together just below the spot where the sorceresses were standing. Failee turned to Succiu and nodded.

Succiu glared at Geldon, who had by now managed to drag the inert slave to the edge. She narrowed her eyes, smiled, and pointed to Stefan. “Throw him in,” she said simply.

Geldon stood there in front of his mistress, speechless. She had ordered him to perform many depraved acts over the course of the last three centuries, but until this moment, she had never ordered him to kill anyone. He looked back at her, through her, as if she didn’t exist. He simply couldn’t do it.

Succiu’s reaction to his doubt was immediate. She backhanded him as hard as she could, sending him sprawling onto the floor, into the bright-red blood that Stefan had left on the otherwise pristine white marble. “Throw him in,” she ordered, “or you will follow him.”

I have no choice, he thought to himself. If I die now, our plans will be for nothing, and all will be lost. Slowly rising to his feet, he forced himself to slap Stefan’s face and pull on the chains, finally coaxing the semiconscious man to stand erect on the edge of the pit. Geldon walked up behind him and waited for Succiu’s order.

And then the unexpected happened.

“Wait!” he heard one of the women demand. Turning, he could see that it was Shailiha.

All four mistresses simultaneously turned their concerned eyes upon their newest Sister, examining her face for clues. Failee’s heart began to race, fearing that some remnant of the princess’ past life had somehow come to the fore, repulsed by what was about to happen. She looked calmly into Shailiha’s face. “Yes, my dear?” she asked politely.

Shailiha looked down at the many pairs of yellow eyes in the pit and then back at the slave. Her breath was quick and ragged. “Let me do it,” she whispered.

Failee cast a knowing, relieved look at Succiu. “Of course,” she said to the princess. “You may do the honors. It is perhaps the most fitting thing, since this is your first trip to the Sanctuary.”

Shailiha walked carefully to stand behind Stefan, sneered at Geldon, and then rather roughly pushed the dwarf aside, as if to make sure he was not about to rob her of her request. She smiled and closed her eyes, feeling the endowed blood rushing through her veins with more sheer joy than she had ever known.

With a strong, quick push, she sent the slave over the edge.

Immediately the many pairs of eyes descended on the body as it tumbled headlong into the darkness, and the screams from the slave seemed to go on forever as they echoed back and forth in the chamber. Shailiha heard the moist, violent ripping and tearing of flesh, and then more screams radiated upward before all went quiet. Looking up she saw that some of the mistresses had been splattered with blood, she included. Succiu placed an index finger into a blood spot on one of her leather gauntlets and touched it to her tongue, smiling. Shailiha smiled back.

Geldon lowered his head, and a tear began to form in each of his eyes and run down the lengths of his cheeks. One tear for the slave, he thought. And one tear for the princess this new sorceress used to be.

22

It took Tristan a long time to awaken. Several times he felt himself drifting in and out of consciousness before actually coming to his senses. It had been a maddening experience, knowing that he desperately needed to reenter the world but at the same time also being held back from it. Finally, he woke up completely.

He was lying prone on the dirty, cold, wooden floor of a small dark room. A fetid, animal-like smell hung in the air. He was not in pain from his journey through the vortex, but his senses had been dulled and his mind swam sickeningly, as though he had consumed too much wine. He managed to sit up—and the point of a sword appeared out of nowhere, aimed at his throat, silently daring him to move again. The shiny, silver blade twinkled in the weak moonlight that came through the room’s only window.

“Identify yourself,” a male voice said calmly.

Before answering Tristan risked a quick look around. Against one wall, he could just make out what seemed to be a great many rows of some kind of small cubicles. The only other furniture was a small writing desk and a chair. Wigg lay on the floor a little distance away, curled up into a ball and still unconscious, the way a child might be seen peacefully sleeping in a crib.

Groaning inwardly, the prince realized that he was defenseless. Having worn the dirks across his right shoulder for so many years now he knew immediately when they were not present. The baldric that normally housed his dreggan was feather light. It is no doubt my own dreggan that is now at my throat, he observed cautiously.

A strange noise was coming from the wall that held the cubicles. Turning his full attention to the odd sound, Tristan realized it was the simultaneous cooing of many birds. Parthalon, he thought. The Ghetto of the Shunned. Geldon’s aviary. It has to be.

Moving very carefully, he sat up a little straighter. If he needed to try to overpower this man he would have to move fast. “Is this the Ghetto?” he asked anxiously. “Are you Geldon?”

No answer came. But his eyes were adjusting to the dim light. He could see his robed and hooded captor, and the dreggan that was still pointed at his throat, but he could not make out the man’s face.

Finally, the other man spoke. “If you ask one more question before answering mine, you will have a hole where your throat used to be.” The dreggan moved even closer to Tristan’s neck. “Identify yourself!”

The prince’s mind raced. He looked to Wigg, still unconscious on the floor just a little bit away from him. It might as well have been one hundred leagues. Tristan needed the old one now, but there was no way to reach him to wake him up. If I tell the cloaked one who I am before knowing his identity, I could be signing our death warrants, he thought. But the longer I hold out and tell this man nothing, the greater the chance that we will be killed anyway. And then he had an even more urgent thought. Wigg is unconscious. While he is like that he cannot hide our blood from the Coven.

“You must allow me to awaken my friend first,” he said brazenly. “Then, if you don’t like what I say, you can be as creative as you wish and kill us both any way you want.” He wished he could see the man’s eyes.

“No,” his captor returned angrily. “Insolence does not constitute an answer.” Whatever patience his captor once had was clearly gone. Tristan thought he detected a slight movement of the man’s right hand; he tried not to flinch as the tip of the dreggan shot out its extra foot, the familiar, deadly ring clanging out into the darkness of the room. The sword’s blade now rested coldly against the side of his neck. All the other man would have to do to cut his throat would be to turn the blade slightly inward, and Tristan would soon bleed to death, his jugular severed neatly in half.

“Last chance,” the voice said from inside the hood.

Tristan took a deep breath. “I am Prince Tristan of Eutracia.”

“Of what House?”

“The House of Galland. Son of Nicholas and Morganna, now dead. Twin brother to Shailiha.” At the mention of his sister’s name, Tristan thought he saw the other man relax slightly.

“Otherwise known as?” his captor asked.

Tristan’s mind went blank. He didn’t know how to respond to such a question. Then he realized what the man was searching for.

“Otherwise known as the Chosen One,” he said quietly. He suddenly realized that this was the first time he had ever referred to himself as such.

The man in the cloak freed one hand from the sword and reached out to pluck an unlit candle from somewhere out of the darkness. He placed the candle on the floor, about a foot away from the seated prince. Striking a match, the man lit the candle, and the room began to brighten. But it was still not bright enough for the prince to see the other man’s face within the folds of the dark hood.

“The Chosen One is said to wear a medallion around his neck,” the man said calmly. “If you are he, then show it to me now.” He moved the dreggan slightly away from Tristan’s flesh.

Tristan bent over slightly and reached into his vest, pulling out the medallion, lowering it over the flame of the candle. The familiar images of the lion and the broadsword twinkled in the dim, golden glow.

“Who gave it to you?”

“My mother, Morganna, queen of Eutracia.” Tristan tucked the precious bit of gold back under his vest.

“And who is the old one?” the cloaked man asked, indicating the wizard lying on the floor.

“He is Wigg, Lead Wizard of the Directorate of Wizards. He is also my friend.”

The man’s hand on the hilt of the sword moved again, and the extra length of the dreggan clanged back into place. The blade was lowered to the floor.

“Thank you,” the one in the cloak said, almost kindly. “Please forgive my actions, but we had to be sure.”

The man then walked over to the other side of the room, where he gathered several more candles and began lighting them one by one. As the brightness increased Tristan could see that this was not the hunchback Geldon: This man was tall and straight backed. The dark-yellow robe he wore was worn and torn in many places, but seemed to be clean.

“Who are you?” Tristan asked, standing up and testing the muscles in his legs.

“I am Ian, Geldon’s friend. I am also the keeper of the birds. It is a great pleasure to meet you finally.” Ian turned around, lowering his hood, and looked the prince in the face.

What Tristan saw made him narrow his eyes and take an unconscious step backward.

Ian was about the same age as the prince and had bright blue eyes, but that was where any similarity ended. Those eyes and his straw colored blond hair were the only normal things about him. His face and neck, where it disappeared into his robe, had been ravaged by some terrible disease such as the prince had never seen. A glance at his hands showed them to be the same—all sores and gray flesh.

“I’m sorry,” the prince said immediately. “I wasn’t expecting…”

“I understand,” Ian said gracefully. “It is called leprosy, and it is ultimately fatal. I have had the illness for about two years. Although not everyone becomes infected, there is no cure. But don’t be alarmed for yourself or your friend. Your endowed blood will protect you from it—Master Faegan told us so. He also told us that there is no such thing as leprosy in Eutracia,” he added a bit wistfully.

“Wrong on two counts,” Wigg’s familiar voice called out from the other side of the room. Tristan looked over to see the wizard sitting up, obviously in more distress than the prince had been when he first awakened.

Tristan immediately went to him, and could see that the wizard appeared flushed and was breathing more heavily than normal. This can’t simply be the aftereffects of the vortex, Tristan thought. Wigg is as strong as I have ever been. He motioned for Ian to bring him the chair, and he helped Wigg into it.

“What’s wrong?” he asked anxiously. “Are you not well?”

“I am well,” Wigg said breathlessly. He looked up into Tristan’s face. “The vortex was an interesting experience, wasn’t it?” He looked quickly around the room, and then directly at Ian. A hint of recognition showed in the wizard’s face. He looked back up at the prince. “At least we didn’t turn blue, like Nicodemus,” he said, one corner of his mouth turning cynically upward.

Tristan smiled. “No, that’s true. But why do you seem to be so tired?”

“Can’t you guess?”

He is forever testing me, Tristan thought. Forever my mentor. But instinctively he knew the answer. “You’re hiding our blood, aren’t you? That’s what is draining your energy.”

“Yes,” Wigg said simply. “And the effort required is more than I had originally imagined. The quality of your blood is so exceptionally high that it is extremely difficult to disguise. But I should be able to manage, especially after some time has gone by and my gift has accustomed itself to the strain.” He gave the prince a harder, more serious look. “It is important that your fabled impetuousness does not get us into anything you yourself cannot get us out of,” he ordered. He let out a long breath and rubbed the back of his neck, stretching his muscles. “I will not be able to use my gift to help you. Not and continue to hide us from the Coven. You have a very big heart, Tristan. Just don’t put it into the wrong kinds of places while we are here, as you have been known to do.” The wizard’s infamous eyebrow shot upward.

Wigg’s remarks stung, but the prince knew that the old one was right. Wigg was no doubt referring to the day when, against the wizard’s better judgment, Tristan had insisted upon helping the woman they thought was Lillith, a decision that almost cost them both their lives. But the hunger to kill the ones who had murdered his family burned as hotly as ever inside him. He knew he would be able to make no promises as to his actions when the time came.

Ian walked over to where Wigg was sitting, obviously in awe of the wizard. “When I was explaining leprosy to the prince, you said I was wrong about two things,” he said, obviously concerned. “What were they?”

Wigg looked up into the blue eyes, and then to the lesions and gray skin that covered the young man’s face. I have not seen this horror for almost three hundred years, he thought. Everywhere the Coven goes, they bring nothing but suffering.

“First, there was leprosy in the kingdom of Eutracia,” Wigg began. “The Coven introduced it into the population during the war, and then dispersed rumors throughout the land that it was an intentional byproduct of male endowed blood. Their plans proved to be quite successful, and we knew we had to find a cure to reverse both the physical and psychological damage that had been done.” He looked at Ian, anticipating the effect of his next words. “We found it,” he said compassionately.

Ian fell to his knees in front of the wizard’s chair. “You mean to say that there is a cure?” he asked. His eyes were full of tears—both of wonder and of hope—as he looked beseechingly at Wigg. “Why would Master Faegan not inform me of such a thing?”

“I am sure it was because he knew he could never come here himself, and therefore could see no reason to raise your hopes,” Wigg said. But he knew that I would tell you. He smiled to himself. Faegan always had other, more compassionate motives hidden beneath the obvious. Even three hundred years ago.

“There is an incantation that may end your suffering,” he explained, affectionately placing one hand on the young man’s head. “But please understand, it does not always work. And, of course, I cannot perform it now for fear of the Coven detecting our presence. But if we survive all of this, I may be able to help.”

“Your word is enough, Lead Wizard,” Ian said. He stood up on shaky legs and smiled slightly, wiping the tears from his cheeks.

Tristan reached down to the floor and recovered his dreggan, which he slipped back into its scabbard. “Where are my dirks?” he asked Ian.

Ian gave him a quick nod of understanding and walked to the small writing desk. Opening the single drawer he removed all twelve of the knives and handed them to the prince. Tristan placed them into the quiver, glad to feel their comforting weight over his right shoulder. He silently cursed himself for not having brought even more of them. These would just have to do.

The prince walked to the wall of cubicles that held the many enchanted pigeons. He had to admit that they were beautiful birds. “How many of them are there?” he asked Ian.

“Over one hundred now,” Ian said, his face darkening with concern. “They are becoming quite a responsibility.”

Despite Ian’s words, Tristan could tell that caring for these birds had become a labor of love. Now he remembered Ian’s supposed friend. So far all had gone as planned, but he still had his suspicions. “Where is Geldon?” he asked suddenly.

“He waited for you as long as he dared,” Ian said. “He runs a great risk coming here, to the aviary. Even as it is, he cannot be assured that she will send him out of the castle on any given night. Sometimes she requires his presence for her… amusements.” His face blushed around the many red lesions. “He suffers greatly,” he added. “As we all have.”

“Is he expected to return tonight?” Wigg asked. He seemed more composed now, no longer flushed, his breathing calmer.

“We are hopeful. I know that is not what you wanted to hear, but it is all I can offer you.”

“Beginning with today, there are only six days remaining until the Blood Communion,” Tristan said, rubbing his brow. He scowled and shook his head, anxious beyond words to leave this place and accomplish what he had come here to do. “And just what are we supposed to do until then?”

“We wait here, in this room,” Ian said. “Going out into the Ghetto for any reason is an unjustified risk. We will wait here all day until nightfall, and then we’ll see. When—if—he comes, you will leave with him for the Recluse.”

The Recluse. Shailiha.

Tristan looked out the lone, sad little window of the room that was to be his prison for at least two more days as the sun began its slow climb and the rays of his first morning in Parthalon crept silently into the aviary.

Tristan’s first day in Parthalon passed with an odd combination of maddening boredom and excruciating tension. Unable to leave the room, the three of them spent most of the day talking. Wigg was especially eager to glean from Ian all that he could about the nation of Parthalon, but it soon became apparent that Ian’s helpfulness would be limited, since he had been born inside the Ghetto and had never ventured beyond its walls. Adding to that frustration was the warmth of the day, and the stuffiness of the aviary; the smell of the birds was a suffocating blanket of mustiness, and their cooing eventually became a constant annoyance.

At least Ian and Geldon had had the foresight to keep some food in the aviary. Now, fortified by a meager meal of bread, cheese, and water, Tristan gazed out the solitary window at the dark of night, anxious to be off and away from this confining place. It was close to midnight. The stars in the sky twinkled just as brightly here as they did in Eutracia, the three red moons casting their familiar crimson glow upon the land. The dwarf must come soon, he thought, or we will have lost another entire day. The wait was becoming interminable.

It was Wigg who first heard the slow, shuffling steps coming up the stairway. He stood from his chair and pointed to the door. As Tristan silently positioned himself behind it and drew his dreggan, Wigg moved off into the shadows, and Ian stood before the door, ready to face whoever it was—in case it wasn’t Geldon.

The footsteps abruptly stopped on the other side of the door, and silence reigned for several moments. Then the door began to open slowly, creaking as it turned on its rusted hinges. Halfway through its arc it abruptly stopped, yet no one entered the room. Finally Ian smiled and took a breath. “We were beginning to wonder,” he said with obvious relief. He motioned to the wizard and prince that it was safe to show themselves, and as they emerged, a small, hooded figure stepped through the doorway.

The figure standing before Tristan in the relative gloom of the candles was not much taller than Faegan’s gnomes. He wore a yellow robe just like the one Ian wore, albeit smaller. Tristan guessed that it had once belonged to someone else—a child, perhaps.

Without speaking, the dwarf named Geldon removed the yellow robe. Tristan could plainly see the hump in his back and the intensity that emanated from his small, piercing eyes. His hair was dark brown, and his ordinary-looking clothes were filthy and soaked through. But it was something else about the dwarf that commanded the prince’s attention, and when he saw it he immediately felt empathy for Succiu’s slave for over three hundred years.

Geldon’s collar.

A wide band of shiny, black metal embedded with jewels encircled the dwarf’s neck. Some of the gemstones Tristan had seen before, and some were completely foreign to him. The ornate luxury and obvious value of the jewels contrasted sharply with the intentionally brutal purpose of the collar. From a ring in the front ran a chain of about four feet which the dwarf was apparently forced to carry with him everywhere he went. Three hundred years of such servitude and humiliation, Tristan thought. It is no wonder that he also wants them dead. Geldon turned to look at the prince and the wizard, and then addressed Ian.

“You are sure of them?” he asked cautiously in a soft, low voice. Tristan watched in curiosity as water dripped from the dwarf’s clothes to the floor of the aviary. “You asked them the prescribed questions?”

“Yes,” Ian said. “They are who they claim to be.”

Geldon walked to Wigg and looked him up and down as though he were examining a horse he was considering for purchase. “I have never seen a male with endowed blood,” he said carefully, his eyes narrowed. “The only such experiences I have ever had are with the Coven, so you can therefore understand my apprehension at meeting yet another being with the gift.” He paused for a moment, regarding the Lead Wizard as if trying to discern something. Finally he spoke once again.

“For some reason it seems as if I already know you,” Geldon said softly as he continued to examine Wigg. “There came upon me a strange feeling today, something that I had never before experienced. Luckily I was not within close proximity to the Coven, for I am sure the look on my face was unusual, to say the least. It was as if a sudden storm passed through my consciousness, a storm that carried with it a ken of its own. It was you, wasn’t it? Some use of the craft… somehow I can sense it was you now that your endowed presence stands before me.”

“Yes,” Wigg said, impressed with the acumen of the dwarf. “I was wondering if you would mention it; but if you hadn’t, I would have told you. Faegan, your friend from across the sea, wanted to make sure of your motives before sending us here. It was both his consciousness and mine that you felt yesterday. He wanted to test the sincerity of your heart, and my consciousness accompanied his as proof of his task to the prince and myself. An interesting experience, wasn’t it?”

Geldon raised an eyebrow knowingly and then, at Wigg’s previous mention of the prince, turned his rapt attention to Tristan. “So it is to you they have anointed ‘the Chosen One’? You and your sister have been the subject of a great deal of conversation at the Recluse over the course of the last three centuries, I can assure you. But I don’t see very much that is special about you, except for the fact that you are weighed down with so many weapons I doubt you can move.” He looked at the hilt of the prince’s sword. “You carry a dreggan,” he said rather thoughtfully.

“It was Kluge’s,” Tristan answered, a hard look in his eyes. “It is the sword that I was forced to use to kill my father.” But he was not interested in discussing his weapons. Without further hesitation he demanded, “Tell me of my sister. Now.”

Geldon turned and walked toward the pigeon coops with a worried look on his face, as though he could avoid the question by avoiding the man who had just asked it. He knew little of the person they called the Chosen One, but he knew enough from Faegan’s messages to understand that this was not a man to be trifled with. He finally turned back to the prince. “Your sister is well,” he said. “She has survived the third of the Chimeran Agonies, as I mentioned in my message to Master Faegan. But she is no longer the woman you knew, Tristan. She is one of them now, both heart and soul, and you must prepare yourself for that.” The dwarf paused, as if not knowing how to continue. He was fully aware of the fact that the prince might eventually be forced to kill his sister, in addition to having already slain his father.

“She murdered an innocent slave yesterday,” he continued, his head lowered slightly. “She enjoyed it, even asked for the privilege. I have seen several examples of her growing depravity, the same scourge of wickedness that inflicts each of the others except for Failee. I am truly sorry.”

Tristan felt something deep inside of him slip, and the power of his blood immediately rose to entwine with his anger as his mind rebelled against the impossibility of the words the dwarf had just uttered.

“No!” he shouted at the dwarf, walking menacingly toward him. Instantly a dirk was in his right hand. “She could never have done such a thing! You lie! And if you lie about her, you are probably lying about everything else! I should kill you where you stand!” The razor-sharp knife pointed at the dwarf’s throat.

Wigg immediately moved to stand between the two of them and looked the prince hard in the face. Strong emotions awaken his blood, he thought. It will be this way until he is trained to control his gift. “I think we should hear him out,” the old one said compassionately. “It may be of help to us later. And without him we are lost, like it or not.”

Tristan’s countenance relaxed slightly, and he backed away. “Very well,” he snarled through gritted teeth. “But I want to hear it all, every bit. He is to omit nothing. And if the dwarf values his life, it needs to be the truth.”

Geldon backed away, realizing that he was truly glad still to be alive. He gave a quick look of appreciation to the wizard. He walked to the chair, sat down, and told them of the Coven’s meeting in the Sanctuary, and of Shailiha’s execution of the slave named Stefan. He also went into detail about the Recluse and the Stables, where the Coven’s slaves were kept, and how those slaves were abused. As the prince demanded, Geldon left nothing out, even the most graphic of his knowledge. When he finally finished, the room was embarrassingly silent.

Wigg was the first to speak. “And just how do you propose to get us into the Recluse?” he asked. “Your message to Faegan said that the Minion guard has been doubled.” His right eyebrow arched up. “What do you propose to do, just walk us in through the front gate?”

“Actually, yes,” Geldon replied. He smiled, enjoying the looks of astonishment on their faces. “But I have horses hidden in the woods. We’ll ride in. It’s much more civilized.”

“Explain,” Tristan ordered. There was little patience in him for a dwarfed hunchback who wished to be cryptic.

“Sometimes I procure their slaves from the towns, and sometimes from the Ghetto,” Geldon continued. “Mistress Succiu believes me to be procuring new slaves for the Stables right now.” He smiled again. “And that is what I intend do. The two of you are going into the Recluse as slaves of the Coven.”

“Are you mad?” Tristan exclaimed. “We will be recognized immediately! They would enjoy nothing better!” He looked at Wigg. The wizard had crossed his arms, placed his weight on one foot, and was scowling blatantly—for once in complete agreement with the prince.

“It is considered quite an ordinary occurrence for me to bring new slaves into the Stables,” Geldon said. “And they are most usually taken in through the front gate. In addition, I have a dark cloak for each of you, to cover your bodies and hide your faces. When we have escaped the Ghetto we will discard the leper’s robes, put on the darker cloaks, and ride right in through the front gate. I even have chains to wrap about your wrists to add to the effect. Once inside the Recluse we will proceed directly to the Stables, so as not to appear out of context. There you will stay until the two of you decide upon your plans, and I will rejoin Succiu.” Sensing their apprehension, he added, “As you have said, the Recluse is doubly guarded by the Minions. Every single entrance and exit is this very moment protected by at least one squad of elite assassins. Either we can try to storm one of the entrances, alert the entire Recluse, and die immediately, or we can simply walk in through the front door, welcomed by the Minions, and let me escort you to your quarters.” He sat back in his chair. “The choice is yours.”

Tristan narrowed his dark eyes. “And what if any of the Coven wishes to see their new ‘slaves’?” he asked.

“There are many slaves there whom the Coven has not yet seen. I will simply take those particular slaves to them. They will not suspect.”

“How far is it to the Recluse?” Wigg asked skeptically.

“It is a two-hour gallop on the main road, but we must take another, slower way. The main road is carefully watched by the Minions and is an unjustified risk.”

Tristan snorted down his nose at the dwarf. “And walking in through the front gate of the Recluse is not?”

“In my opinion, no,” Geldon said simply. “And I remind you both that I have lived there for over three hundred years.”

“How long can you be gone?” Tristan asked, slowly becoming more convinced of the plan. “Won’t Succiu become suspicious if you do not return by morning?”

“When I come to the Ghetto to procure slaves, it takes me much longer,” Geldon said. “The selection is much more limited, due to disease and hunger. Although the only time I am permitted to leave the palace is under her orders, it is not unusual for me to be gone for two or three days when she sends me here.”

Wigg sighed and rubbed his chin with one hand. “Why would they want slaves from the Ghetto,” he asked, “when they can have healthier, more well-subdued citizens from the towns?”

“Not they,” Geldon replied. “Only Succiu. It was here, in this place, that Succiu first found me.”

Mistress Shailiha. The pain stabbed through Tristan’s being as surely as if he had been physically wounded in battle. This is the first time I have ever heard her referred to as a mistress. He closed his eyes as he felt his heart tear.

Ian, who had until this moment been silent, tentatively walked closer to Wigg. “There is a problem you must hear about before you leave,” he added quietly. The cornflower-blue eyes looked apologetically at the Lead Wizard.

“And that is?” Wigg asked.

“There is only one possible way out of the Ghetto. And to take it, you must use your gift.”

Wigg’s jaw dropped open, a very rare sight. “I cannot!” he thundered. “Did Faegan not make it clear to you? I am using all my energies right now to hide our blood from the Coven. If I must stop shielding ourselves and use the gift to aid our way, not only may they detect our blood, but they will also sense whatever actions I must perform to aid our escape, as well!” Tristan wasn’t sure he had ever seen the old one so angry. “What was Faegan thinking, sending us here knowing this?” the old one said, shaking his head.

“Forgive me, Lead Wizard,” Ian said, “but Master Faegan said if anyone could accomplish it, you could. He puts great faith in you, as do we all.”

Faegan! The eccentric master of riddles and motives, Wigg thought. “And just what is this supposed route out of here?” he asked angrily.

“There is a stone room not too far away from the aviary, into which rises the moat that surrounds the outer wall of the Ghetto,” Geldon said. “I believe it must have been originally used as a refuse portal, perhaps before the Coven installed the moat. There is a grate underneath, at the lower end of the water, through which we must swim. But the grate opening is ancient, and must be widened before the two of you can swim through it to the other side of the Ghetto wall with me.”

Wigg looked hard at Geldon. “There is absolutely no other way?” he asked. “You obviously came in through the moat, since you’re wet. But if we’re posing as slaves, why can’t we just go out the front gates with you?”

“The Minions at the front gates always examine whoever I bring out, to make sure they do not have leprosy. They would surely want to examine the two of you. It is simply too dangerous. You might be recognized, and that would mean the end of us. Besides, I did not enter through the gates. To exit that way now would surely invite questions—questions we are not prepared to answer. We will wear the yellow lepers’ robes until we come to the moat. I always keep a spare or two here. They are robes that I have taken from the dead. While we are still inside the Ghetto walls, the yellow robes will help to keep unwanted attention from us, and hasten our trip. But after that, we cannot be seen with them outside the Ghetto walls. We would again be questioned instantly.”

Tristan watched as Geldon went to a small closet and pulled out two more yellow robes. “I believe him,” he said to the wizard. “And if we are going to do this, we must begin it soon, despite the consequences.” He looked up at the still-fuming wizard and smirked. “It looks like we’re going for a swim.”

The old one closed his eyes and shook his head, but finally took one of the yellow robes from the dwarf. Tristan took the other, and both he and the wizard put the robes on over their other garments. Turning to Ian, Wigg said, “It has been a pleasure knowing you. Take good care of the birds. If we are lucky enough to return, I will try to help you.”

Geldon and Tristan nodded farewell, and then the three of them were gone.

Two hours later they were standing in the dark, cold stone room that Geldon had described. Their trip through the Ghetto had been largely quiet, despite the beseeching of several of the street whores. They had removed the yellow robes, sinking them to the bottom of the moat with stones. There was very little light, and the stench from the polluted water was overpowering. Wigg looked into the filthy water. “Where is the grate?” he asked.

Geldon pointed. “There,” he said, “at the bottom of the far wall. An underwater tunnel leads through the moat, and ends at the grate at the other side.”

Wigg looked at Tristan and took a slow breath, his eyes softening. “You understand that if I do this thing it may be the end of us, and of all we know,” he said gently.

“Yes, I know,” Tristan said. “You have been my teacher for as long as I can remember. But now the student is telling the teacher that he must do his best.”

Wigg closed his eyes and raised his hands into the air. Almost immediately Tristan could see the old one’s face begin to change, and he knew that Wigg was discontinuing the protection of their endowed blood. The old wizard then opened his eyes and looked down into the water, parting his hands as he did so. He once again raised his arms, closed his eyes, and immediately began recommitting his energies to shielding their blood. At last, he turned to face Tristan and Geldon. He appeared to be more tired than ever. “The grate has been widened,” he said. “But I cannot promise that we were not detected.”

“Gather all of the air into your lungs that you can muster,” Geldon told them. “The swim is long, and the water is both cloudy and thick. Do not try to open your eyes, or they may become permanently damaged. And whatever happens, do not open your mouths. Wigg, I will hold your hand, and you hold on to Tristan’s. Together we will approach the tunnel. When you feel the other person’s hand let go of your own, that means we have arrived at the entrance, and it is time for each of you to feel your way through. Then swim directly upward until you break the surface of the water. I will be there waiting for you.” The dwarf paused to give them a last, hard look. “Whatever you do, do not let go of the other person’s hand until we reach the tunnel. If you become separated you will become disoriented, and surely die in this place. Now, take that deep breath!”

Holding hands, the three of them jumped into the filth, and the brackish waters quickly closed in over them. In only moments, the water calmed to its original stillness as though it had never been disturbed, locking its secrets beneath a surface as dark as death.

When it first came to her it had begun as a warm, distant vibration. Low and almost undetectable, the phantom contact had teased her subconscious for only the briefest of moments, and then was gone.

But it had been long enough.

Failee sat alone on her black marble throne as the last rays of the day cascaded down through the skylight above her. Aside from her silent presence, the room was empty. She had come here to the Sanctuary to practice her daily meditations in preparation for the Blood Communion. But for the last several hours she had been sitting there, quietly contemplating the surprising connection and poring over the ramifications in her mind.

Smiling to herself, she rose from the massive chair, levitated her curvaceous body, and glided over to the white marble altar that sat directly below the cascading light. As she hovered there, the First Mistress took a deep, sweet breath and slowly ran the long, painted nail of her right index finger seductively along the altars length as though it were the manhood of some long-desired lover.

They are here, she thought to herself. Male endowed blood is in Parthalon.

The Lead Wizard and the Chosen One have come. She removed her finger from the cool altar to reach up and protectively grasp the bloodred stone that hung around her neck. They are here for the same things that I took from them: the woman and the stone.

At first her discovery had caused her concern—and disbelief. The contact with endowed blood that was not of the Coven was the first she had sensed in over three hundred years, and it had come to her in a shielded, protected way, as though the person who possessed it was trying to hide it from her. It had come to her as if it were passing through something, and the contact was so brief that she had been unable to discern the medium through which it had struggled to reach her. But in the end it had not mattered, because the presence had possessed a flavor and a texture all its own. She was absolutely certain of its meaning and had already sent a handmaiden to summon Succiu and Kluge to the Sanctuary.

She smiled again, her maniacal, hazel eyes turning up at the corners as she did so. I am not intimidated, Wigg. It is perhaps fitting that you should be here at this time.

She was not concerned over how Wigg had survived the stalker, the harpy, and the wiktor. Nor was she immediately perplexed about the method he had obviously employed to cross the Sea of Whispers so quickly. She would discover all of that in due time. All that mattered to her now was that he was here. And when she at last had him in her grasp, she would make him watch as she fulfilled the Coven’s rightful destiny, and female endowed blood finally ruled the world.

She pursed her red lips and ran one hand back through the gray-streaked hair that fell to her shoulders. We have shared much, Old One, and we shall share even more before you die.

She turned and looked at the white marble altar, shining beneath the last rays of the setting sun. The Chosen One will watch you die. He carries the very finest of endowed blood within him. She then narrowed her eyes, as another, even more intriguing concept occurred to her. Tristan may prove useful, after all. And it will provide the opportunity I have needed to put the second mistress back in her place. She smiled. Succiu should be severely punished for defying me, Failee thought, but I need her now more than ever, and she is best controlled by giving her the one thing she wants most.

It was her handmaiden’s voice that took the First Mistress from her reveries. The young woman had returned from her errand. “Forgive the intrusion,” she said tentatively, “but the second mistress and Commander Kluge wait just outside the door.”

Continuing to hover near the altar, Failee did not turn around. “Show them in.”

The tall, dark commander of the Minions of Day and Night walked quickly to where his mistress was standing and immediately went down on one knee. “I live to serve,” he said. Succiu, dressed in a riding habit of the finest red velvet with matching boots and crop, walked into the room and stood by imperiously, as if angry to have been disturbed.

Failee looked down at the dark, rather unkempt hair that reached Kluge’s shoulders; the black, piercing eyes; and the white scar on the left cheek that ran jaggedly into the forest of his black goatee. As always he was fully armed, the tearing points of his gauntlets sharp and ready, the returning wheel at his side, and the ever-present dreggan at his left hip.

“You may rise. Given the nature of the situation, I also grant you permission to speak at will.”

“Has something important happened?” he asked quickly, rising to his feet.

“Oh, indeed,” she said, smiling again. “The Lead Wizard and the Chosen One have arrived in Parthalon. You may get your chance to kill them after all.” She hovered there above him, still as a statue, watching for his reaction.

Kluge was thunderstruck. He couldn’t believe his luck, despite the obvious problems this news brought with it. He not only considered his mission to Eutracia unfulfilled as long as the two of them lived, but now had deep, personal reasons as well for wanting to see the prince dead. And he was not a man to leave a job unfinished, no matter what the risks.

Failee could tell that Kluge felt he had a score to settle with the prince. And she knew that it had much more to do with the woman beside him than with her own orders.

She turned her attention to Succiu, and once again the reaction was as she expected. Succiu would be concerned that the wizard and the prince were here, to be sure, but the First Mistress could also easily discern the longing in Succiu’s expression—the burning hunger for the Chosen One.

Kluge’s hand tightened around the hilt of his dreggan, his knuckles turning white. “Do you know were they are?” he asked breathlessly.

“No, I do not. The contact with their endowed blood was too brief for me to ascertain their whereabouts.”

“Shall I organize search parties?” he asked. “There are so many vengeful warriors that I am sure we could find them in a matter of days. They would relish the chance to find the ones who escaped them.” He smiled wickedly.

“Again, the answer is no. They are obviously here for the stone and Mistress Shailiha. There is no need to chase them, for they will come to us. They have to. You are to tell no one of these events. I shall inform the other two mistresses myself. I wish no unnecessary confusion in or around the area of the Recluse, especially where Sister Shailiha is concerned. Nonetheless, you shall quietly double her guard. Use only your best assassins. The wizard and prince will be forced to try to enter the Recluse in some way, but they cannot possibly know how or where to enter. Personally inspect each of your squads that guard the entrances.”

After the initial shock of the news had settled into his mind, Kluge found himself stunned by the attitude of the First Mistress. The wizard and the Chosen One were in Parthalon, and no one knew where they were or how they had managed to travel here. And yet Failee did not seem upset, but rather looked almost as if she relished the chance to prove herself to Wigg one final time. Kluge’s mind flashed back to that day on the Minion training field when he had just killed a fellow warrior and Succiu had suddenly appeared in a white gown and matching parasol, accompanied by her slave, Geldon. She had even then ordered him to double the guard and tell no one, just as Failee was doing now. He could still picture the second mistress standing there in the sun, her white gown splattered with the blood of his latest victim as she calmly gave him her orders. That attitude was typical of Succiu. But what he saw in Failee today was different. What was it Succiu had said that day about the wizard and the prince? “I fear I may have underestimated them both …”

The commander looked into the First Mistress’ eyes, truly not knowing whether her lack of concern was due to an overwhelming confidence of power that he still did not understand, or some form of intricate, endowed insanity. In any event, it did not matter. He would gladly follow her orders at the cost of his life, and he relished the chance to see the wizard and the prince suffer once again. Especially the one who dares to call himself a king, he thought hungrily.

“And there is something else that I must discuss with the two of you,” Failee said easily. “For some time I have been aware of your—how should I put it?—your ‘uses’ for each other.” She paused for a moment, letting the magnitude of her words sink in. Kluge appeared stunned, as she had expected. Succiu simply appeared angry. The second mistress took a wider, more aggressive stance, her eyes narrowed.

“It is to stop,” Failee continued. “Immediately. Kluge, I shall not punish you for these indiscretions, for I believe you were following orders.”

Kluge felt as if a storm had just passed through his body. He closed his eyes in hatred. If she cannot be mine, then I will see to it that the Chosen One, the man Succiu seems so interested in dies slowly, indeed.

Succiu stepped forward in a rare display of brazenness. She cared nothing for Kluge except that he had been better able to fulfill her needs than the other weaklings of this land. But this was not about caring—it was about power.

“I refuse to be spoken to in this manner!” she hissed angrily.

“Oh, indeed you shall listen,” Failee said, almost casually. “For there is more that you must know. Since the Chosen One is here, in Parthalon, I have decided to make use of him, rather than killing him immediately.” She smiled, knowing that her plan would not only please the second mistress, but return her to the fold, as well. “You will remain here, while I explain it to you.”

She turned to the still-seething Kluge. “That is all. Leave us now. You have your orders.” She watched him struggle to hold himself under control, then added, “We are about to have visitors.”

Barely able to contain himself, Kluge went to one knee and whispered, “I live to serve.”

It was as he was ascending the long flight of circular steps from the Sanctuary that he once again allowed himself the luxury of revisiting his desires. Very well, Chosen One. Come to me, and we shall finish what we have begun.

Aside from that awful day on the dais when his family was murdered, Tristan had never in his life felt such horror and revulsion. He found himself following Wigg, swimming for his life, his lungs on fire, his eyes closed tight. The old wizard clung securely to the wrist of his left hand, limiting its use, making the swim even more difficult. Kicking furiously with his feet and pulling desperately with his free arm, he made his way through the murky filth.

It was not the fact that he was underwater that was so frightening. He had been a strong swimmer all of his life, and as a youth he had always loved diving to the floor of lakes to explore. But this was different. Here, with his eyes shut, he could see nothing; his senses were totally deprived. And his survival was dependent upon Geldon, a man he had known for less than a few hours. The combination of factors was overpowering.

But most loathsome was the water itself. Thick and warm, it was difficult to swim through, and what he could only imagine to be litter, garbage, and human feces struck his face and body as he went along. Occasionally his free hand would brush the floor of the moat, sliding sickeningly through warm, sticky layers of the same awful waste. The foul memory of the stench at the top, before they had plunged in, plagued him. The impulse to vomit was coming upon him, and with it the awful realization that if he did he would likely drown. He had little stamina left, and he knew it.

Suddenly Wigg stopped and let go of his hand.

We’re at the other side! his oxygen-deprived mind screamed at him. Wigg is going through the tunnel. He could feel himself beginning to collapse under the strain, the deadly urge to open his eyes and mouth becoming irresistible, the pressure in his lungs approaching the bursting point. As he reached out in blindness, his hand came into contact with the dirty, submerged brick wall of the moat. With his left hand finally free of the wizard’s grasp, he groped his way along the length of the wall, his fingers slithering in and out of three centuries’ worth of filth. Then his hand plunged out into nothingness, and he knew he had found the entrance to the tunnel.

Half swimming, half running along the bottom of the tunnel in his desperate, underwater dash to reach the end, he was overwhelmed by his first real feelings of doom. On he went, a few strokes more, each one double the agony of the last, his lungs about to explode, his vision imprisoned in the fathomless darkness. Until, at last, he reached the tunnel’s end.

The passageway had narrowed dramatically despite Wigg’s use of the craft, and the end of it was edged with metal shards. There would be just enough room for him to squeeze through. Stretching out his arms, he plunged headfirst into the blackness, toward the tunnel exit.

And then it happened.

He had come to an immediate halt at the exit, and somehow he knew that only his head had come out the other side, his body trapped in the sharp-edged opening. Reaching up in abject blindness, he tried to find the cause of the problem, and panicked when he discovered the answer.

The hilt of his dreggan was wedged against the roof of the tunnel. With his last reserves of strength he reached up, frantically trying to feel for the hilt and pull it free.

The familiar, usually reassuring clang of the dreggan rang loudly through the water as the last foot of its sharpened steel launched itself outward. He had accidentally touched the button at the hilt. Now the point had ripped through the end of the scabbard and impaled itself in the tunnel wall. Again he reached up in the maddening blackness, his lungs bursting, and tried to find the button to retract the blade and free himself. His senses were ebbing. He was becoming disoriented, unable to discern in the pitch-black darkness of his closed eyes whether he was right side up or upside down. With a last, great effort of will he reached one more time to the sword, but his hand fell back in failure and weakness.

He hung limply from the dreggan that stretched across the roof of the tunnel, his arms useless and unmoving at his sides, head turned to one side, his chin against his chest. The pressure in his temples was close to exploding, the beat of his straining heart growing ever louder in his ears. Small bubbles of air began to seep from his mouth and into the black filth of the water.

Before his mind finally surrendered, from somewhere far away the last words of the dwarf came to his expiring consciousness: “… Or you shall surely die in this place … or you shall surely die in this place … or… you… shall… surely… die…” And then finally, from nowhere, he heard his mind whisper, Shailiha… forgive me.

23

He had heard many stories about the Afterlife back when he was alive, but he hadn’t realized there was so much fog there. He could barely see anything at all. Then he noticed a father and son splashing about in a stream. That looks like fun, he thought. Is this what we do here in the Afterlife to amuse ourselves? And they have no clothes on, not a stitch. I don’t think I have any on, either. Apparently no one wears anything here. How wonderfully odd. Tristan smiled to himself, wondering if Evelyn of the House of Norcross would be wearing anything, for she would surely also be here, in the Afterlife, along with her parents and his, as well. He began to squirm with embarrassment. I don’t want to have to face her father. But first I must find my own mother and father, and tell them how sorry I am for not better protecting them that day in the Great Hall. The day when the winged monsters came. And how will I explain Shailiha?

Nervous and fearful, Tristan lapsed back into unconsciousness.

When he finally began to awaken, the two things he heard first were Wigg’s voice telling him to wake up, and then his own violent retching as he painfully turned over in the grass in which he was lying to let it just happen. Finally, and with great effort, he sat up to see the wizard and the dwarf both looking anxiously down at him. He was wet, cold, and naked.

As his mind and eyesight began to clear he could discern that Wigg and Geldon were both fully clothed, but that they were also dripping wet. And then he remembered. The tunnel, the water, my sword against the exit. I was trapped and dying in there.

Wigg’s familiar left eyebrow came up. “I was beginning think that you were never going to rejoin us,” he said as he knelt down and looked deeply into the prince’s left eye, examining him. “You’ll live.” The old one snorted. “I could have brought you around sooner had I been able to use the craft, but as it was I had to let nature do the job instead. After I cleared your lungs, of course.”

Coughing some more, Tristan looked around to see that he was sitting in the shade of a huge oak tree, alongside the banks of a rushing river. Three saddled horses were tied up to the low branches of the tree, and the high walls of the Ghetto of the Shunned could be seen off in the distance. The sunrise was low in the clear, blue sky, and the birds and insects were just beginning their songs of the day. The stream rushed and bubbled happily, joining into nature’s chorus.

“How did I get out?” he asked, coughing. He spat some more water into the grass.

“When Geldon and I surfaced and you did not, it was obvious you had to be in trouble,” Wigg said. “But you owe your life more to Geldon than to me. It was he who first saw the bubbles rising to the surface, and dived down to free you.” He reached out to pick up the dreggan from the nearby grass. The scabbard end had been smashed through, but the sword itself looked undamaged. The old wizard held it to the sun, admiring the handiwork of the blade and hilt. “Geldon found you dangling helplessly from this. This sword of yours already has quite a history.” He laid the weapon back down next to the prince.

“Through some kind of a mist I saw the Afterlife, and a father and son frolicking in a stream,” Tristan remembered. He shook his head slowly, as if trying to understand. “They had no clothes on,” he added, embarrassed, wondering if Wigg would believe him.

The old wizard pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek and narrowed his eyes. “What you saw,” he said rather mockingly, “was the morning fog beginning to lift. It is rather thick here, in this land. And then you saw Geldon and me washing all of our clothes, not to mention ourselves, in that stream over there.” He motioned to the dark pile of clothes that lay next to the prince. “We washed your clothes, too, as well as the rest of you, while we waited for you to rejoin us.” The eyebrow came up again. “I suggest you put them on. Do you think you can ride? There were no Minions present when we surfaced from the water, but we shouldn’t stay here long.”

Coughing again, Tristan turned around to look back at the moat and the filthy water that had almost ended his life. “If it means getting away from here, I can do anything you ask.” He looked up into the eyes of the dwarf who had yet to speak to him, and to the collar and the heavy chain that Geldon wore around his neck. He risked his life to rescue me, Tristan thought. Whatever misgivings the prince had once felt about the dwarf were now gone. “Thank you,” he said to (Geldon. “Thank you for coming back for me. I won’t forget it.”

Geldon smiled down at the wet, naked prince as he collected the chain that ran to his collar. “Don’t mention it,” he said. “I have a feeling you will be paying both myself and Parthalon back handsomely before we are finished.” He turned and began walking toward the horses.

Feeling stronger by the minute, Tristan stood and put his clothes back on. It felt good to have the black trousers, leather vest, and knee boots on again, and he lifted the baldric over his right shoulder and slid the dreggan into it. The point of the sword pushed menacingly out through the ruined end of the scabbard. Wigg handed him his dirks, and he replaced them in the quiver. As an afterthought, he ran his hands back through his wet hair. Then the three of them donned the cloaks that Geldon had brought with him, mounted the horses, and trotted up and away, deeper into the woods that bordered the stream.

The roan mare that Tristan was riding was not the quality of Pilgrim, and he longed for his own horse to be under him. But this one would have to do. He took time to look about the Parthalonian countryside as they went along and found it to be not unlike his native land. The trees seemed to grow taller here and some of the sounds of the forest were unfamiliar to him, but he recognized most of the birds and small animals he saw.

Riding alongside the dwarf, Tristan spent some time in conversation with him, learning more about the nation, the Recluse, and the Minions. At the mention of Kluge and his followers the prince’s heart grew dark and hard, and he could feel his blood rise and tingle as if it was responding simply to being in the same nation with the winged monster. The dwarf told him that the route they would be taking ran parallel to what was called the Black River, and that it would take them two days to reach the Recluse at this rate. Tristan objected about the waste of time, but the dwarf was adamant. The area was full of Minion warriors on patrol, he said, and any additional interest caused by galloping up the main road to the Recluse was precisely the kind of attention that they did not need. In the end, the prince was forced to agree.

Whenever their path came close enough to the main road, Tristan tried hard to catch a glimpse of the people who lived in this land, wondering what they would be like. He was not heartened at what he saw. The people of Parthalon seemed to be sullen and sad. They moved with a slowness that gave him the impression that either their lives, time itself, or both were of no importance to them. They were for the most part shabbily dressed, and seemed to be quite poor. Occasionally he would see entire families moving along the road with only a cart and ox to transport what he assumed to be all of their worldly possessions, just like the many Eutracians he had seen on the journey to Shadowood. The muscles in his jaw clenched. Everywhere they go, the Coven brings nothing but suffering, he thought. Now my sister, my very blood, is one of them. The dreggan suddenly felt heavy across his back, as if reminding him of his responsibilities. And I must find a way, somehow, to keep myself from taking her life. They continued on.

It was near the end of the day that Geldon changed their course. He turned his horse to the east, away from the road they had been paralleling, and began to venture deeper into the woods. Tristan gave Wigg a questioning glance, and the old one nodded.

Wigg cleared his throat. “I thought we were to stay alongside the road until we reached the Recluse,” he said. The statement was far more a demand for answers than a casual comment. “Where are you taking us?”

“We cannot go any farther in the direction I had planned,” the dwarf replied. “We must take a more circuitous route, and avoid a particular area of the woods.” He stopped his horse. “It will take us longer, but it has to be.”

“Why?” Tristan asked.

Geldon pointed his hand to the sky. “They’re the reason why.”

The prince raised his eyes above the tree line to see a flock of enormous birds of prey. They looked like a cross between buzzards and hawks, and they were almost twice the size of any such birds he had seen in Eutracia. Black, swift, and menacing, they circled the woods some distance ahead, and it was obvious that they were waiting for something to die.

“What is it that they are waiting to prey upon?” Tristan asked casually.

Geldon turned in his saddle to face them both. “They wait to prey upon people,” he said.

“People?” Tristan exclaimed.

“Yes,” Geldon said calmly, but the pain was evident in his face. “They wait to prey upon people. It is essential that we avoid this place. I only brought us this way because it is shorter and time is of the essence. But this is as close to the birds as I dare take us. The area beneath which the birds circle is a valley—a place of the Minions.”

Immediately Tristan’s vows of vengeance came rushing to his mind. His endowed blood was calling out for action, and here at last he was close to the monsters who had slaughtered his family and the Directorate of Wizards. The dreggan that only moments before had seemed so heavy across his back now felt light as a feather, its blade suddenly, surely, calling to him as well. Calling to him in its need to taste blood.

Tristan’s eyes narrowed, and his lips curled back into a snarl; his face was as hard as stone. “I will see this place,” he said quietly.

Wigg walked his horse over and looked Tristan dead in the eye. “You cannot do it,” he said, trying to be sympathetic but still in control. “I forbid it. You must think of the reason we came, and of your sister. Do not risk everything we have gained just for this.”

“I understand your wishes,” Tristan said slowly. “But this is something I must do, with or without the two of you.” He looked up to where the birds were circling in the blue afternoon sky. “I will do it alone, if need be,” he told them quietly, through clenched teeth. “In truth I do not need either of you for this, and you both know it. Stay here if you like. You cannot use your powers to stop me or to help, and I do not need the dwarf to find my way. The birds will guide me to the ones I seek.”

Geldon looked fearfully at Wigg. “Will he really do it?” he asked. “Is there nothing you can do to stop him?”

Wigg continued to look into the eyes of the Chosen One he had seen born, struggle, and suddenly learn so much about himself. But there is still so much more to know, he thought.

“In truth, I cannot control him right now,” the old one said. “Because of the nature of his blood, he is partially under the influences of things he will not be able to control until he reads the Tome. And I am unable to use the craft, for fear of being detected.” He took a long, resolved breath and turned to the dwarf. “If he is intent upon killing us all, then you should lead us there as safely as you can, since you seem to know the lay of the land. I will not let him go alone.”

Geldon relented. There was little else he could do. He needed both the wizard and the Chosen One, and therefore had no choice.

“Very well,” the dwarf said reluctantly. “But this is madness. However, if we must do this thing, we do it my way. Take off your robes. It will be easier to defend ourselves without them, if need be. Dismount and follow me. Silently. No talking until I speak to you.”

Tristan and Wigg tethered their horses to a tree and tied their robes to the animals’ saddles. Then Geldon began to lead them single file through the dense woods.

It was slow going, constantly uphill. Finally the dwarf turned around and put his finger to his lips, reminding them to keep silent. Tristan looked up to see that the birds were circling lower now, becoming more brazen.

Geldon fell to his stomach and indicated that the prince and wizard do the same. Then the three of them crawled up a small knoll and slowly raised their eyes to just above the level of the ridge. What Tristan saw below him was unimaginable. There was a clearing in the valley, at least one hundred feet down from where the three of them lay. Geldon, Tristan, and Wigg were poised at the top of a low, rocky hilltop, from which they could see for miles in every direction. At the bottom of the valley, six wooden stakes had been pounded into the ground. Each was at least ten feet tall, with a very large, rough-hewn wooden spoked wheel at its top, mounted horizontally. The very large wheels turned around and around slowly in the silent gusts of wind that invisibly came and went through the valley.

Five of the stakes stood at the points of a Pentangle that had been drawn in blood upon the ground; the sixth was in the center of the star. Yet more blood lay splattered in odd, incongruous patterns around the base of each of the stakes. For a moment the prince wondered why. But then, horribly, he found his answer, and he took a quick breath.

Each of the wheels held a human being.

Straining his eyes, he could see that the bodies had been literally woven in and out between the spokes of the wheels and simply allowed to turn there in the wind, exposed to the elements until they were dead. At first his mind rejected the sheer physical impossibility of such a thing until, looking more carefully, he could see how it had been done. Each of the men’s arms, legs, back, and neck had been broken, allowing for the impossible angles that were created as the various body parts had been interlaced between the spokes. In many cases jagged, white splinters of bones could be seen erupting through the victim’s skin. The blood pattern on the ground, which at first had seemed so incongruous, now made perfect sense: The prisoners’ dripping blood was splattered this way and that by the turning of the wheels in the wind. A ghostly, creaking sound could be heard as they rotated. He had never seen anything like it, and the inhumanity of it was staggering.

It was then that he noticed the person upon the wheel in the center of the Pentangle. It was a woman. She was not, however, an ordinary woman. Heart racing, Tristan stared with wide eyes at what made her different.

She had wings.

They were not the usual wings of the Minions. Her wings were white, and even from this distance he could tell that they were made of feathers like the wings of birds, unlike the dark, muscular, leathery wings of the Minions. Her hair was blond and fell down around her shoulders; her head slumped forward on her chest. A meager loincloth was wrapped around her waist, and her upper body was bare. But the woman was not mounted to her turning wheel of death in the same fashion as the men—she had been simply laced to the top of the wheel, facedown.

Tristan took another look at the five men. Now he saw that they also had white wings and blond hair. He glanced at the dwarf, indicating he wished to speak, and Geldon motioned for the three of them to creep back down out of sight, behind the safety of the ridge.

Still lying on their stomachs, Tristan and Wigg slithered nearer to Geldon.

“What is this place?” Tristan whispered urgently. “I have never seen anything like it! And who are those people down there? What have they done to anger the Minions?”

“It is known as the Vale of Torment, and it is used as a place of execution by the Minions,” Geldon whispered back. “The ones you see on the wheels are actually of Minion birth themselves. One of every five thousand children is born blond, with white wings. They are considered to be an inferior race, and are raised in disgrace by the Minions until the age of twenty-five. Sometimes they change to the typical dark wings and hair, and those that do are trained and kept as true Minion. But if they do not, they are considered inferior and are brought to this place to be killed.

“They have done nothing to deserve such treatment except to be born with white wings and blond hair. It is said that they are very loving, another trait that the Minions find to be inferior. They are known as the Gallipolai.”

“What is this method of execution?” Wigg asked. “I have never seen it before.”

“It is a slow form of death by exposure,” Geldon replied. “Their arms, legs, backs, and necks are broken, then they are woven between the spokes of the wheels and are left here to die.” Geldon closed his eyes for a moment. “To add to the cruelty, the Minions force the victim to swallow a brew that keeps them from going unconscious for a while, adding to the torment.” The pain of his words was clear upon his face. “They seldom survive for more than three days.”

“Then the ones we saw are dead?” Tristan whispered.

“Some of them, at least. And not for long, for the birds are just now beginning to come close. Most likely the men are dead; the woman might not be.”

Wigg narrowed his eyes. “Why would the woman last longer?”

“You no doubt noticed that she was not woven into the wheel, but simply tied facedown. They probably did not break her bones. If so, she will have lost no blood, and can last longer.”

“Why would they spare her?” Tristan asked.

“It is Minion custom that those who brought her here may do anything with her they choose, before killing her outright.” Geldon swallowed, as if trying to force down his revulsion.

Tristan was staggered. An innocent race of the Minions, he mused.

Suddenly, another thought seized him. “When will the Minion warriors come back to check on them?”

“They do not need to come back,” Geldon said tentatively, looking at Wigg. “They never left. They’re here.”

The prince’s endowed blood roared in his ears, and the sword across his back felt as if it had come alive. “Where?” he demanded.

Geldon looked meekly into the prince’s eyes and saw the very face of death itself mirrored there. Unsure of what to do, he indicated that the three of them should return to the top of the ridge.

They slithered back uphill, and Tristan cautiously peered out over the valley. Nothing had changed in the Vale of Torment. The only movement came from the grotesque, blood-soaked wheels as they revolved in the wind, creaking with the weight of their victims. No birds sang. The flying predators continued to circle overhead with their soaring, mercenary patience.

Geldon pointed down and to the right where, about eighty feet down the hill, a little overhang covered with rocks and bushes faced the Pentangle. “There,” he whispered as quietly as possible. “That small outcropping. It is called Vulture’s Row. That is where the two Minion warriors will be waiting for the three days to pass.” He turned to look at the prince. “They always send two. No more, no less.”

Immediately realizing the importance of what the dwarf had just said, Wigg tried to grab Tristan’s arm, but he was too slow. With surprising strength Tristan easily shook off the old one and was gone. Wigg felt something inside of him slip. He knew what he was doing all along, the Lead Wizard realized. What a fool I have been. He knew that once we were at the top of the ridge, I couldn’t call out to stop him or move too violently to control him for fear of being seen. And now he is gone.

Geldon looked at the wizard, terrified. “Is he always like this?” he asked, his lips trembling.

Wigg frowned, shaking his head slightly. “More than you could ever know,” he whispered. The two of them crawled back down below the safety of the ridge to wait.

24

Tristan moved quickly around the end of the knoll, trying to be silent as he put as much distance between himself and his companions as possible. Stopping for a moment, he looked up to make sure the wizard and the dwarf had had the good sense not to follow him. He was pleased to see that he was alone.

Reaching behind his right shoulder, he checked to make sure his dirks were in place. Then silently, slowly, he drew the dreggan from its scabbard and held it to the sun for a moment, looking at it. Lowering it once again and holding it upright in both his hands, he finally bent his head forward, eyes closed, touching the coolness of the blade to his feverish forehead. May the Afterlife grant me strength, he prayed.

He continued to move around the knoll until he was directly above the place Geldon had called Vulture’s Row. He could detect no movement from within, but he could hear vulgar conversation and coarse laughter drifting up to him. The last time he had heard such Minion voices, he had been unable to move, he recalled, outraged. He had been chained hands and feet by the monster named Kluge. This time it would be different. He crept to the edge of the outcropping. Taking a deep breath, he leapt off the hill, twirling his body around in midair to face the direction from which he had come—to face his enemies.

He landed firmly on both feet, directly in front of the outcropping. The first Minion to overcome his surprise immediately pulled his dreggan. But Tristan reacted first. He moved in swiftly like a dancer and pointed the blade at the warrior’s throat, touching the button on the hilt. The point of the blade immediately shot out the extra foot, the sound careening on the valley walls, and drove itself straight through the warrior’s neck, violently exiting just below the back of his head. Tristan immediately turned the blade to the right and pulled his arm over, driving the edge of the sword toward the man’s left shoulder, slicing through the side of the neck. The Minion warrior’s eyes went wide as his head toppled over to hang only by the skin that had been spared, and he fell to the earth as though his legs had been cut out from under him, blood erupting everywhere.

The second Minion had moved the instant he saw the prince, but his dreggan had been out of reach, propped up against a nearby stool. By the time Tristan had killed the first man, the second was almost upon him, sword raised, screaming. Tristan immediately tossed his dreggan over to his left hand and reached behind his right shoulder for a dirk. His arm a curved blur of speed, he released the blade with all of his strength. The razor-sharp throwing knife completely surprised the warrior as it buried itself to the hilt into his left eye. The force of the impact carried the Minion over and onto his back, dead before he hit the ground.

Tristan stood there panting, glancing about as if it had all been a dream. Looking down he saw that he had been splattered with blood. He didn’t care. Using the surrounding grass, he wiped the blade of the dreggan clean. A touch of the button on the hilt pulled the extended blade back in. He resheathed the dreggan.

Walking to the warrior he had killed with the dirk, the prince bent over and removed the knife from the man’s eye, watching as the colorless vitreous humor ran lazily from it, down the dead man’s cheek and onto the ground, mixing with the blood already there. He wiped the blade on the thigh of his trousers and replaced it in the quiver.

Hearing a sudden sound, he turned quickly, his right hand automatically on the hilt of one of the throwing knives. Slowly uncoiling, he saw that the sounds were the death throes of the Minion he had killed with the dreggan. The body was twitching violently, and the wings were beating against the ground in a pitiful display of what Tristan could only gather to be a desperate, autonomic attempt to rally as the last bit of breath rattled from the lungs. Finally, all was quiet.

Recalling that the point of his scabbard was damaged from his mishap in the tunnel, Tristan found the scabbard belonging to the Minion he had killed with the dirk and traded it for his own. He was just adjusting the baldric when he noticed the returning wheel.

Immediately he recognized the vicious saw-toothed disc that had killed Evelyn of the House of Norcross and several of the wizards of the Directorate. Tristan removed the wheel from the belt of the dead warrior and, using the hook from the man’s belt, attached it to his own.

In addition he removed the leaded glove from the corpse’s left hand, the glove that safely allowed the wheel to be caught upon its return to its owner. He put the glove on his own left hand, not really knowing why he was taking these things, knowing only that for some reason his endowed blood had directed him to do so. Somehow, it just felt right.

Wigg was probably right, the prince thought as his breathing began to return to normal. This may have been unnecessary, but I will not apologize for honoring my vows. He looked at the twisted bodies of the two men he had just killed, wondering whether either of them had been in Eutracia that day. Whether either of them had killed any of the wizards of the Directorate. And whether either of them had contributed to the rape and murder of his mother. No matter how many of them I kill, he thought, I will not rest until Kluge stands before me. Stands before me and dies.

Turning toward the Vale of Torment, he began walking down toward the six wheels.

When he finally reached the Pentangle Tristan slowed his gait and he approached cautiously. Glaring around in revulsion at the work of the Minions, he wondered if this insane cruelty had been under the orders of the Coven or was simply an amusement of the winged monsters. It also occurred to him that if the Minions were a product of Failee’s craft, so then, even if obliquely, were the Gallipolai. Perhaps that is the reason the Gallipolai are always killed unless their hair and wings turn dark, he thought. Their continued existence in this form would illustrate an imperfection in the sorceresses’ use of the craft.

He walked around the perimeter of the Pentangle, examining the five men who had been woven into the wheels. Each of them appeared to be dead, the blood that had once streamed down their many wounds now dried to a dark crimson in the midday sun. Each was young and blond, with wings that were constructed of the most delicate of feathers. The wings were smaller than those of the Minions—and suddenly he realized why. They had been severely clipped back, presumably to make it impossible for them to fly, and therefore to escape. The work was reminiscent of his father’s practice of trimming the wings of his hunting falcons when they were young and not yet reliably trained. But this procedure had been much more severe. The dead Gallipolais’ feet were much smaller than normal, and looked deformed. Not only have those bastards clipped their wings, he snarled silently, they have also bound their feet. These men could neither run nor fly. Growing more angry by the second, he walked to the center of the Pentangle to examine the dead woman.

Upon reaching the wheel, he found himself looking up at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The long blond hair that hung down between the spokes of the wheel was thick and lustrous, an amazing combination of colors that resembled corn tassels laced with the palest of honey. The similarly colored eyebrows were long and arching; he imagined her eyes were blue. She had a slim, straight nose; pink lips; and a smooth, strong jawline. There was no blood on her face, and Tristan could see the dried rivulets of tears that had run from her eyes, then to her cheeks, and down onto the ground.

Her wings, like those of the men, had been severely clipped back. Her feet, too, were small and deformed, the product of the same cruelty the men had obviously suffered. And yet she was beautiful. Truly amazing, he wondered to himself. Such incredible beauty born of such intense hideousness and cruelty. How could such a creature have been produced by a Minion warrior and his brothel whore?

When he finally lowered his eyes from the woman, it was only then that he saw the final horror of this place.

His eyes caught a glimmer of white off in the distance, just at the edge of the surrounding woods. Walking over, he was aghast at what he saw.

It was a gigantic display of Gallipolai wings.

Impossibly white and artfully arranged, they had been carefully nailed into the branches of the trees, where they were blown softly back and forth in the breeze, their beauty belying the savagery that had taken place here. There were thousands of them, no doubt the result of centuries of torture. He began to back away, eager for the first time to be gone from the disgusting display of Minion butchery.

“Grotesque, aren’t they?” Geldon called out to him from behind. “The Minions do this to the females only, as a sign of their conquests. Many of them are hundreds of years old. Failee was so taken by them that she sends one of the Coven here each time a new pair is added, to enchant them to remain beautiful forever.”

Tristan immediately felt his endowed blood rise, the amputated wings a reminder of the dead Eutracian women and girls he had seen literally thrown into piles after the Minions had taken their pleasure from them. The insanity never ends, came the whisper in his mind.

Tristan turned to see the wizard and Geldon standing near the wings, the three horses’ reins in the hands of the dwarf. Wigg folded his arms upon his chest and slowly looked the prince up and down, taking in the bloodstained clothes and the returning wheel hanging from Tristan’s belt. Faegan’s words, uttered that night in Shadowood, came back to the Lead Wizard: “ ‘And the Chosen One shall take up three weapons of his choice and slay many before reading the Prophecies, and coming to the light.’”

“Did you accomplish what you wanted?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” Tristan said, the memory oct the tight keeping his endowed blood churning. “But sometimes I feel that no matter how many of them I kill, it will never be enough.”

Wigg’s eyebrow came up. “Geldon tells me there are more than three hundred thousand of them, Tristan.” He shook his head slowly. “I doubt you can kill them all.”

Tristan said nothing. As he took his horse’s reins from Geldon, he noticed more than a little awe registering upon the dwarf’s face.

Geldon swallowed hard. “I have never seen a Minion killed by anyone other than a fellow warrior,” he said tentatively. “I thought it was impossible to kill one in battle.” He stood there nervously fingering the chain from his collar, as if seeing the Chosen One for the first time.

“One should not believe everything he hears,” Tristan said angrily. He had had enough of this place, and was anxious to be on his way again.

Then, from behind them, they heard a moan. Immediately the three of them whirled around, wondering what or who had made the noise. But everything was still the same as before, the bodies motionless upon the wheels, deathly silence reigning once again, the only movement that of the birds of prey as they continued to turn menacingly above them in the morning sky. Suspicious, Tristan walked back to the wheel that held the woman. Drawing his dreggan, he pushed the point of the sword up to press lightly against the top of her right foot.

She moaned again, soft and low, and twisted slightly in her bonds, her eyes still closed.

“Geldon! Wigg!” Tristan shouted, his eyes riveted on the woman’s face. “Come quickly! This one’s alive!”

The dwarf and the wizard ran to the wheel, and Tristan asked Wigg to go down on one knee. The prince replaced his dreggan in its scabbard and pulled a dirk from his quiver. Stepping up on Wigg’s one raised knee, he hoisted himself up to stand on the wizard’s shoulders, beneath the spokes. He quickly cut through the rope that bound the woman’s feet and then the ones that held her hands. Reaching up, he maneuvered her limp body to where he could hand her down to Wigg, then finally jumped to the ground.

He turned to Geldon. “Go and get some water. And bring back my robe. Hurry!”

Immediately the dwarf began to run back toward the horses. Still holding the woman, Wigg sank to the ground and cradled her in his lap. Transfixed, Tristan bent over the amazingly beautiful creature to examine her. It was then that her sapphire-blue eyes snapped open. The result was unexpected.

At the sight of the prince’s dark hair and the dreggan that protruded behind his left shoulder, she immediately panicked, struggling desperately to free herself from the grip of the wizard. She began trying to scratch Tristan with her nails while beating her wings viciously against the wizard’s face.

“Tristan!” Wigg shouted, barely able to hold on to the struggling Gallipolai. “Back away! She thinks you’re one of the Minions, and I cannot use the craft to control her!”

Tristan immediately retreated, removing the dreggan from its scabbard and tossing it to the ground some distance away. “Look at me,” he said, turning his back to her. Then, facing her again, he opened his palms in a gesture of friendship. “I have no wings. I am not of the Minions. We are not here to harm you; you must believe that. I hate the Minions as much as I’m sure you do.”

As quickly as she had begun her struggle, she became strangely quiet. Wigg relaxed his grip on her upper arms, keeping his hands there to control her again if necessary. But the woman had become stone still. It was not out of fear, nor was it a sudden understanding of the prince’s words that had broken through her panic. Tristan could see that it was a different, yet equally powerful emotion now at work within her mind.

It was awe.

She dropped her hands to her breasts, covering herself. Her mouth flew open, her sapphire-blue eyes wide and unbelieving. She continued to stare at the prince as if he had just come from another world. After what seemed an eternity, she tore her eyes from Tristan and craned her head around as best she could to look at the wizard who was holding her. The result was the same: complete and utter disbelief. She turned back to face the prince, a strange combination of wonder and surprise still in her eyes.

Tristan gazed down at the beautiful face. “Do you understand what I am saying to you?” he asked.

She nodded tentatively, her arms still covering her breasts. Tristan looked impatiently around to see what had been keeping Geldon. Just then the dwarf approached, carrying the water flask and the dark robe in his arms. At the sight of the hunchback with the collar around his neck and the chain that led from it the woman’s eyes went even wider, and she began looking back and forth between the dwarf and Tristan as though she could not decide which of the two of them was the most bizarre.

“Why does she act this way?” the puzzled prince asked Geldon.

“It is simple,” the dwarf answered. “All of their lives the Gallipolai are imprisoned within the walls of the Minion fortress, waiting to see whether their wings and hair will turn dark. She has never seen a man without wings.”

Tristan held out the water flask. “Are you thirsty?” he asked gently. Quick as a flash she snatched the water from his hands and began drinking greedily. Tristan waited patiently until she had drunk her fill, and then decided to try to speak with her. “Do you have a name?”

“I am Narrissa,” she said quietly, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. Her voice was soft and had a sweet huskiness to it that he found attractive. “Narrissa of the Gallipolai.”

Tristan looked at Wigg and said, “Let her go.”

“Tristan,” Wigg began, “I don’t think that this is the time to—“

“Let her go,” Tristan said more forcefully. Taking a long, exasperated breath, the Lead Wizard released Narrissa. She rose shakily to her feet, still covering her breasts with her hands.

Tristan took the robe from Geldon and held it out to Narrissa. “Put this on,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s the best I can do.”

“I have never seen men without wings,” she said cautiously, looking at him with narrowed eyes. “But I have heard about you. The Minion warriors laugh at your weakness. Keep your clothing. I do not wish to be known as one of you.”

“You must wear it, my child,” Wigg said. He walked out from behind her to stand with the prince and the dwarf. “No one here will hurt you, nor will the simple wearing of it make you one of us.”

Narrissa walked closer to Tristan and looked directly into his dark eyes. As she approached, he felt an unexpected wave of compassion go through him. “Do you really hate the Minions as much as you say?” she asked. She watched his face darken in anger.

“Yes,” he said, frowning. “They murdered my parents. I killed the two who apparently brought you here.” And then, in a kinder voice, he asked, “Did any of them abuse you before placing you upon the wheel?”

She lowered her head slightly, shaking her head no. Finally she reached out to take the robe from him. “You did that for me?” she asked incredulously. “I have never heard of anyone with the skill to kill a Minion other than one of his own brothers.” Her face began to soften as she looked at him. “You carry Minion weapons, but your eyes are kind. I will do as you ask. But first, tell me, what is your name?”

The prince thought for a moment. He was well aware of the need for secrecy, but something inside him wanted this woman to know his real name. “My name is Tristan,” he answered. “But I must tell you that what I did to those Minions I did as much for myself as for the people on the wheels.”

Wigg and Geldon helped her as she struggled to put on the robe. Tristan was pleased that it was several sizes too large for her—otherwise it never would have provided the extra space needed to cover her wings. Of course, giving it to her meant that he would not have one to wear, but he didn’t care. He had hated the robe; it had prevented him from quickly reaching his knives.

He stood back a little from the group, still looking at the Gallipolai as he made his decision. “She’s coming with us,” he said simply. He narrowed his eyes and folded his arms over his chest, waiting for the inevitable explosion from the wizard. It didn’t take long.

“Are you mad?” Wigg shouted at him. “We are on the way to a place that may be the end of us all, if we are even lucky enough to gain entrance, the likelihood of which I still seriously doubt!” He spoke cryptically in front of Narrissa, not wanting to reveal too much of their plan. “What are we supposed to do, just ask them if they would like to take her in, too?”

Although deep in his heart he could understand Tristan’s reasons, the Lead Wizard was beside himself with anger. It is all I can do to hide our blood from the Coven, he thought furiously, and Tristan knows full well that while I am struggling with that I cannot use my power to overrule him. This is maddening. Just imagine what he will one day be like, when that stubborn streak of his is finally combined with his training in the craft and he has become an adept. This soft spot deep in his heart has gotten him into trouble before, and is about to do so again.

Tristan knew that he might be making a very bad decision, especially considering his experience with the one he had known as Lillith. He had no reason to trust this Gallipolai. But at the same time he knew that, having cut her down, he could never allow her to be put back upon that hideous device. Nor could he leave her to wander alone, to be found by the Minions again. Deep down, he also realized that part of this decision was due to the fact that this woman reminded him of Shailiha. Somehow, however illogical it might seem, helping her furthered the desperate hope that he might also help his twin sister. No matter the consequences, his mind was made up.

Tristan retrieved his dreggan and slid it slowly back into place in its scabbard. Then he placed his hands defiantly on his hips and scowled at the old wizard. “And what then do you propose, eh?” he asked. “If you turn her loose, the Minions will find her and no doubt torture the story out of her—along with my name and a description of each of us. Not to mention subjecting her to the abuse for which she was originally intended. We certainly cannot put her back up on the wheel and leave! And no matter what we do, there is the small matter of the two dead Minion warriors up there. When other warriors come looking, as they’re sure to do, they will find their dead comrades.” He paused, glaring at Wigg and Geldon. “Then what do you suppose will happen?”

Upon hearing these words, Narrissa moved closer to the prince. She had no desire either to be left here in this place or to have to fend for herself in the world outside of the Minion fortress, a world she had never known. Instinctively she thought that the tall man with the dark hair and no wings would help her.

Geldon cleared his throat and smiled briefly at the Lead Wizard. “I’m afraid he’s got you,” he said. “There seems to be little choice but to do this his way. I do believe, however, that I can help the situation.”

Wigg’s eyebrow came up. “And just how is that?”

The dwarf looked at Narrissa. “How long were you on the wheel?”

“I’m not sure, but I think this was the second day,” she said. Tired and weak, she reached out to hang onto the prince’s arm. He placed his right arm around her waist to support her.

“The Minions sometimes take their pleasure of the women right here, but often they take them elsewhere, out of sight, to abuse them,” Geldon explained, rubbing the back of his neck in thought. “If we were to dispose of the guards’ bodies, when their brothers come looking they will see both the warriors and the woman gone, nothing more. Nothing will seem out of place to them at first, and no alarm will go out, at least for a while. It will buy us time.”

“Very clever,” Wigg said. “But what do we do with her when we get close to our destination?”

“I know of some caves on our way,” Geldon replied. “They’re quite deep, and not well known. We can leave her there with some food and water until we can return for her.” A sudden darkness came over his face. “And if we fail, none of this will matter anyway.”

Narrissa clutched the prince more tightly, struggling to remain upright. His arms around her, Tristan lowered himself to the ground, allowing her to rest with her head in his lap. She looked up into his eyes. “Please don’t leave me here,” she begged. Tears welled out of the sapphire-blue eyes and began to trickle down her cheeks. “Not here, Tristan. Not in this place.”

“No one will desert you,” he told her gently, pushing some of the honey-blond hair out of her eyes. “I promise you.” Upon hearing his words, Narrissa drifted back into unconsciousness.

Wigg looked on disapprovingly as Tristan held the Gallipolai in his arms. Once again he is thinking with his heart, and has rescued yet another lost puppy, the old one thought, shaking his head. No good can come from this.

“It will never work, you know,” he said quietly to the prince.

Tristan looked down at Narrissa’s peaceful face and then up at the murderous, inhuman wheels with the five dead bodies still woven through their spokes, listening to the awful stillness of this place. He knew there was no going back for the beautiful young woman in his arms, and that he was the cause of it. He looked up at the wizard. “It has to,” he said softly.

Reluctantly leaving Narrissa in Wigg’s care, Tristan went with Geldon to dispose of the bodies.

As night approached and darkness started to fall over Parthalon, Tristan was becoming more and more acutely aware of the beautiful woman with the white wings who sat behind him on his mare, her arms about his waist. They had been traveling this way for several hours, Geldon and Wigg in the lead, the prince and Narrissa following behind. Tristan had taken the opportunity to ask her several questions about herself, but she offered little in the way of information, presumably because she had not yet brought herself to trust the strange, wingless men entirely. She is perhaps the only woman I have ever known who does not know I am a prince, he mused. He smiled ruefully. I’m not even sure she knows what the word means.

As the evening finally fell and the three red moons came into view, Geldon signaled for them to stop, that this would be where they would camp for the night. But at the same moment Tristan felt the Gallipolai behind him stiffen, and heard her take a quick breath as if she had just become aware of something. She leaned closer to him so that she might whisper into his ear.

“Please, Tristan,” she said quietly. “Do not let us stop here. It is important that we go on a little farther.”

“Why?” he asked skeptically.

“In truth, I cannot give you a full answer, for you would probably think me mad. But please trust me when I tell you that the fact that we must go on a little farther is of great importance to me, just as it would be to any of the Gallipolai. It is only just now, for the first time in my life, that I have felt it.”

“Felt what?” he asked.

“The pull of the Myth,” she answered.

The prince looked up to see that the wizard and the dwarf had dismounted and were apparently starting to wonder why the prince and the Gallipolai had not already done the same.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “What myth?”

“I could never expect you to understand something I do not comprehend myself,” she replied urgently. “Tell your friends what you must, but please take me farther. I will guide our way. It will be all right, I promise you.”

Tristan turned around to search her face. The sapphire-blue eyes were wide and sincere, but tinged with a hint of fear. She is asking with her heart, he realized. But can I trust her?

“Please,” she asked again. “You are the only one I trust to take me there.”

Perhaps it was the look in her eyes. Or perhaps the fact that he sympathized with her because she had been through so much, just as he had. But for better or worse Tristan made up his mind. He wheeled his horse around to face the wizard and the dwarf.

“Narrissa has asked me to take her a bit farther into the woods, for some privacy,” he said simply. “We will be back soon.”

“Why?” Wigg asked skeptically. Geldon was also clearly suspicious.

“Personal reasons,” Tristan said smartly. “Female reasons. Do I need to say more, or would you prefer that I stay here and that you two brave souls go along with her to supervise?” He smirked at the flustered wizard.

“Uh, er, no, no, of course not,” Wigg stammered. “Just be back soon.” Geldon’s relieved face told the prince that the dwarf was also in complete, if silent, agreement.

“Which way?” Tristan whispered to Narrissa.

She paused for a moment, almost as if she needed to feel her way along for some reason. “There,” she said finally pointing her arm. “Over there where the clearing begins in the edge of the woods. I think we should enter there.”

Tristan turned his mount toward the small entrance into the woods, and they started to penetrate the forest proper.

“Now that we’re alone, my lady, would you care to tell me what this is all about?” he asked quizzically.

“I cannot.”

“And just why is that?”

“I cannot explain that which I do not fully understand myself. As I said, it is the Myth, and we can only be sure once we have reached it.”

“Reached what?”

“The grave site.”

Tristan abruptly stopped his horse in midstride and turned to look at the Gallipoli. “The grave site?”

“Yes. The grave site of all of the Gallipolai who have died in the Vale of Torment, on the wheels of the Minions.”

Tristan thought for a moment. “If you have never been away from the Minion compound, then how do you know of this place, or where it is?”

“As I said, it is only the Myth. But it has been handed down by our people for hundreds of years. The legend says that the souls of all the murdered Gallipolai have gathered in one place, and that if any of us ever survives the wheel, we will be pulled there by an unseen force.” She paused, biting her lip. “I can feel myself being guided there as we speak.”

“And just who supposedly buried them all?” Tristan asked, more skeptical than ever. “The Minions leave their victims to rot where they lay, disposing only of their own.”

“The dead Gallipolai bury themselves.”

“What?”

Narissa placed two fingers over Tristan’s mouth, begging him to be still. “Please, no more questions. Just keep on going. I must have my answer. I owe it to so many.”

The prince reached back and drew the dreggan. If he had to go, he would go prepared.

“You will not need that,” she whispered. “This is supposed to be a place of peace.”

“That remains to be seen,” he replied. He spurred his mount forward.

Tristan continued to ride according to Narrissa’s directions, navigating by moonlight. The night sounds of the woods were all around them, and shiny, translucent dew had started to form on the tree leaves and forest floor. Finally, Narrissa told him to stop. She quickly slid off and beckoned to him to come with her. He tied his horse and cautiously followed.

Narrissa stopped at the edge of a small embankment. Using the tip of his dreggan to part the leaves of a tree, the prince looked down.

In the area below lay a small clearing. There was nothing extraordinary about it. Garlands of holly and juniper completely encircled the clearing, as if to keep it separate and distinct from the encroaching undergrowth that covered the rest of the forest floor.

“This doesn’t look like a grave site to me,” he commented.

“Nonetheless, I must say the words,” Narrissa whispered.

“What words?”

“The ones handed down through the generations. The secret words each Gallipolai learns in childhood, against the day they might be condemned to the wheel and somehow survive. The words the Minions of Day and Night know nothing of. Although our wings and hair may turn, deep inside we are still Gallipolai. And the legend says that none of us, even those whose coloring has turned, has ever divulged the secret. For they remain Gallipolai first, and Minion second.” She turned her blue eyes to him and smiled. “It is you who have made this possible, for it is you who have saved me, and I believe I may be the first to persevere.”

Without speaking further, she walked to the edge of the clearing, standing near the protective rope of garlands.

“I have come, departed brothers and sisters,” she began, raising her hands upward in supplication. “I am the first to have found you. Please rise and show yourselves.”

Slowly, the clearing began to be bathed in violet light. In its center the glow grew brighter and seemed to revolve. Tristan watched, transfixed, as Narrissa raised her arms higher.

“I am the first to have survived the wheel,” she said. “And I know my duty. Please come to me now and show yourselves, so that you may be freed.”

Slowly, tentatively, from between the blades of grass, tiny bright pinpricks of light, of two different colors, began to rise. Some were the most delicate shade of twinkling amber, and the others were a shining silver. As they rose from the grass they grew until each was about the size of Tristan’s hand, and then they started to revolve and sparkle as they hovered there in the clearing. There were thousands of them, and they filled the dark night like stars in a moonless sky. It was spellbinding beautiful.

“They are called the Specters of the Gallipolai,” Narrissa said. “Each of them represents one of the departed. The amber ones are the females, and the silver ones are the males. The myth says that these troubled souls shall come to a sacred place after death upon the wheel, to await the one who will free them into eternity.” She paused for a moment, remembering. “Each child of the Gallipolai is told of this, and is sworn to come here should he or she survive the Minion wheels.” She turned to Tristan.

“So now you understand why it was so important to me to come here, once I felt the pull. I knew it could be nothing else, just as I somehow knew that you, the one who took me from the wheel, was to be the one to accompany me. I also knew that I could not explain it to you in a way you would understand, for I myself have only seen this for the first time. ‘And the one who fast survives the ravages of the wheel shall also be drawn to the venue of souls, and release them from their bondage,’” she quoted. “I know now that I am that person.”

The prince could see the tears in her eyes as they gently started to overcome the lower lids and run down onto her face. “Thank you, Tristan,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”

Amazed, Tristan turned his attention back to the swirling sparks of light.

And then, incredibly, as if with one mind and one voice, they spoke.

“And who is it who conms before us?” they said. Their voices were thousands and yet as only one—the sound of spoken music. Tristan had never heard such a beautiful consonance in his life.

Narrissa removed the dark robe so that her white wings could be seen, her body glistening in the pale moonlight. “I am Narrissa of the Gallipolai,” she called out. “And this man without wings is my friend, and the one who released me from my bondage. He is also a slayer of the Minions, having killed the ones who would have first taken and then murdered me.” She turned and smiled into Tristan’s face, the glow from the Specters highlighting her great beauty. “We have much to thank him for.”

“Please approach us, friend without wings,” the many voices said together. “Your weapons are not needed here.”

Tristan rather self-consciously replaced the dreggan in its scabbard. “Kneel,” the voices said.

Without really knowing why, the prince went down on bended knee before the thousands of the Specters of the Gallipolai, and Narrissa joined him.

“Join your hands,” they ordered.

Tristan took Narrissa’s hands and looked into her face. He saw fresh tears in her eyes. He, too, was starting to be overwhelmed, but something in her eyes and his heart told him that the specters were not to be feared.

“The fates have brought you together, and in turn have delivered you to us,” the chorus of voices said. The twinkling amber and silver lights continued to dance before the kneeling prince and Gallipolai. “It is your act of kindness that has freed us from this place of unrest. It is now time for us to depart this world, and go to another. But know this: Wherever the two of you may go, or whatever you may do, you will always be bound in your hearts by your act of kindness this night. For it is only the good that holds beings together, and only the evil that tears them apart, and in this we thank you for your charity, your courage, and offer to you our blessings.”

And then, as quickly as they had come, the Specters of the Gallipolai rose slowly into the sky, faster and faster, until the amber and silver lights began to coalesce, into one stream of light reaching for the heavens.

In a matter of seconds they were gone, leaving the stunned prince and Narrissa on their knees in the moonlight.

She reached over to his face and pulled it close, kissing him lightly.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for your trust.”

Tristan looked back up to the sky, now once again full of the pin pricks of stars, and then back down to the beautiful Gallipolai. Something in his heart told him that what had just happened he would never share with Wigg or Geldon. That what they had shared here this night was to stay theirs, and theirs alone.

Tristan and Narissa rose to leave the forest. As he began to walk, the prince could not escape the feeling that -whatever dangers still lay ahead for him—indeed, whether he lived or died in his attempt to find his sister—he had been strangely comforted by having seen the beautiful, twinkling lights ascend into the sky. And equally comforted, he realized, by the graceful, gentle, still-mysterious winged woman who walked quietly by his side.

Tristan sat on the ground under a small rocky overhang, reflecting on the amazing last two days. The four of them were now two days’ ride from the Vale of Torment, and back to a path parallel to the Black River. They had moved as quickly as possible without attracting attention and had stopped here, at this rocky place on a hill overlooking the river, where they could easily see anyone who might be approaching. After a meager meal of dried meat, water, and cheese that the dwarf had brought with him from the Recluse, Wigg and Geldon had left the prince and the Gallipolai to post guard for the night, a little way down the slope toward the river.

Tristan looked up into the dark night sky, admiring the stars. They seem closer here than at home, he thought, looking at the iridescent pinpricks of light. It seems as if you could reach out and touch one. He smelled the scent of the pine trees as they swayed gently back and forth in the light wind, and he both heard and saw the undulating darkness of the Black River as it babbled happily northward toward the Recluse. The three red moons cast a subtle, violet hue upon everything as the night creatures added to the gentle song of the river. The Recluse, his endowed blood called out to him. In two days I will reach the Recluse.

Wrapped in the robe he had given her, Narrissa huddled next to him, trying to stay warm in the cold night air. Wigg had forbidden a fire, and Tristan had agreed. But despite the cold, they all—even Narrissa—were feeling refreshed by the rest, food and water. Narrissa ran a hand through her long blond hair as she looked questioningly at the prince.

“Who are you?” she asked tentatively. “I mean who are you really! You do not look like someone from Parthalon. In fact, none of you do. Perhaps it is only because I have never seen a man without wings before, but still there is something unexplained about you, a man with dark hair and no wings, who carries Minion weapons as well as any of the Minions themselves and was willing to take a stranger into those woods last night simply because she asked him to.”

Tristan looked into the incredible eyes and thought for a moment. “I am a… traveler,” he said at last. “I have come to find my sister, and those two other men are my friends. The older one I have known since the day of my birth. I trust each of them with my life.”

“How is it that you come to carry Minion weapons?” she asked. She moved a little closer to him, pulling up her knees and wrapping her arms around them. “It is forbidden by penalty of death for anyone in Parthalon even to possess, much less carry, such things. And yet you not only carry them, but kill the Minions with them, as well.”

How do I answer? he asked himself. “The sword belonged to Kluge, commander of the Minions of Day and Night. He made me use it to kill my own father.” His eyes narrowed with the pain that the memories brought him, “One day, very soon, I will use it to kill him.”

At the mention of Kluge’s name, Narrissa lowered her head in fear. “I have seen Kluge,” she said, her lips trembling lightly. “He is said to be the strongest of them all, followed only by Traax, his second in command. They came one day to inspect the fortress in which I lived. When they were not completely pleased by what they saw they killed the fortress commandant on the spot, in front of his subordinates. It is said that they train by killing their own kind, since there is no one in the kingdom worth fighting.” Another look of fear crept into her eyes, and Tristan sensed it was not for herself that she was afraid. “He will not be easily killed.”

“I know,” he said. “But there is a fire in my blood, both born to me and fanned by the animal named Kluge. I will not rest until it has been extinguished.”

She smiled at him. “There is a saying among the Gallipolai: ‘It is not difficult to light a flame when the conditions are dry.’”

How true, Tristan thought. In the moonlit darkness he looked over at her face, taking in her beauty, wanting to know more of her life. “Please tell me more about yourself, Narrissa,” he said to her. “How is it that one survives being a Gallipolai inside a Minion fortress? Did you have brothers and sisters to help you?”

“Gallipolai are all brother and sister to each other, existing only for the common purpose. That is, to serve the Minions. We are their slaves, our wings clipped and our feet bound. Gallipolai are considered to be worthless because of the color of our wings and hair, even though we may have had the same exact parents as any of the other Minion warriors or whores. No records are kept of who our parents might have been, a rule that is enforced to this day by the Coven. The same is true even for the warriors. In this way, we each consider ourselves to be brother or sister to all. One could almost consider it a noble concept, except for its true reason for being. It is designed to make the Minion warriors unhesitatingly think, act, and die as one in their orders, if need be.” She paused for a moment, and then smiled. “The only secret that we had was the Myth of last night, and now those souls have been freed.”

“And what if yet more of your kind die on the wheels?” Tristan asked softly. “Will those souls go to the same place in the forest, also waiting to be freed?”

“Yes,” she answered sadly. “But now, after these many centuries, there is finally a difference. Now one of us has survived the wheels. And if I can continue to live, then I shall also be able to return there, secretly, and free the souls of the ones who may yet perish.”

“Geldon said that it was forbidden for a warrior to be with a Gallipolai woman,” he said gently. “Is that true?”

She lowered her eyes and turned her head slightly away. “Yes,” she said quietly. “That is true. I have never been with a man. It is not permitted.”

He put one finger beneath the point of her chin and lifted her face up to his. Her sapphire eyes seemed to be even more beautiful here in this dark, lonely place. “There is no need to be ashamed,” he said. “Where I come from such women are considered highly virtuous, and are often preferred as wives.”

Narrissa unexpectedly reached out to take both of his hands, turning them over to reveal the scars that crossed each palm. “I noticed these last night, when we joined hands before the Specters,” she said softly, as she began to rub the red lines in his hands. It was almost as if she was trying to heal them faster, or take away the pain that creating them had once produced. “Do they cause you pain?”

“Only in my mind, but no longer in my hands,” he answered. He let her soft, gentle hands close around his. “These scars I created myself, when I took an oath to return my sister to our native land. They serve as a reminder to me never to give up.” His eyes left hers for a moment and searched the distance as if he had temporarily left this place and traveled far away. “I also wear a medallion that reminds me of my life before.” He paused, thinking. “Before the madness began.”

“Tristan,” she asked, “what is the color of your heart?”

Her question broke his reverie, and he turned back to her. “What do you mean?”

“We have another saying, one that we ask a friend whenever we do not understand what it is that they are feeling. We respond to that question by revealing the color of our heart. Right now, I feel your heart is gray.” She placed one hand against his cheek. “For us, gray is the color of sadness. But I do not believe that it has always been this way for you. I sense that one day, before the madness began, as you put it, your heart was golden.” She paused, her hand still upon his cheek. “And I believe that once you have accomplished what you came here to do, whatever it is, your heart will be golden again.” She smiled, lowering her eyes. “I know that time will come. I care very much for you, and hope that you will allow me to see that day with you.”

Golden, he thought. Yes, that is the perfect description of my life before the Coven came that day. Golden. But I was too selfish to realize it. What a fool I was. He looked at Narrissa with an even greater appreciation than before. A simple woman in a faraway land has taught me more in one day than the entire Directorate of Wizards could in an entire lifetime of trying, he thought. For the first time in my life a woman truly cares for me because of who I am, not what I am.

He smiled back at her and held her closer to him. “Do your people have a saying for everything?” he asked.

“There is one of which I am particularly fond,” she said.

“What is it?” he asked.

“When you find the one who most pleases your heart, plant your love and let it grow.” She raised her eyes back up to his. “Tristan,” she asked, “promise me you will return for me. Promise me you will survive whatever it is you must do, and come back for me.”

He sat there staring at the beautiful creature before him, wondering in his heart whether there would indeed be any time for them truly to explore their feelings for each other. Whether in fact either of them would survive any of this.

He touched his lips gently to hers. “I promise to come back,” he whispered. “On my life.”

Plant your love and let it grow, her soft voice echoed in his heart.

Perhaps, Narrissa, he thought. If we can survive all of this. If we can just survive.

25

The prince lay next to the wizard and the dwarf in the soft grass of the high mountain glade, the night sounds gathering around them as they looked down at the Recluse. Finally, his endowed blood seemed to be saying to him. Finally you are here.

It seemed like years since he had said good-bye to Narissa, and still more years since he had left the comfort of Faegan’s strange house in the trees. They had come upon the dwarf’s grotto earlier that morning and had left Narissa safely deep inside with food and water. Tristan had taken back his dark robe and left her with one of Geldon’s spare leper robes for warmth and cover. Wigg had forbidden her to light a fire unless absolutely necessary, and instructed her not to leave unless one or more of them came for her. Geldon had supplied the candles and flint he always kept stored in his saddlebag for emergencies, and upon leaving the caves they had disguised the entrance with rocks and brush.

Despite the shininess of the tears forming in her eyes, Narrissa had bravely accepted the situation, giving the prince a kiss on the cheek before he left. It had broken his heart to leave her there alone, but he also knew it had to be. What they had ahead of them she could be no part of. But in his heart he also knew he would somehow see her again. The night before he had promised on his life to come back for her, and he meant it.

Tristan lay as still as death in the wet, cold, evening dew, his eyes glued on the castle, the weight of the dreggan and dirks on his back a silent reminder of their goal. The wizard, prince, and dwarf had been there for some time, Geldon urgently and quietly describing the layout ot the amazing structure. Tristan and Wigg knew that should they somehow become separated from the dwarf, they would have to navigate the corridors of the Recluse by themselves, finding the Stables, hiding among the slaves, and finally making their way to the Sanctuary at the time of the Communion.

Tristan’s eyes continued to scan the Recluse, his heart beating quickly. Somewhere inside is Shailiha—somewhere in the depths of that magnificent fortress. Despite how he hated its purpose, it truly was the most awe-inspiring structure he had ever seen.

The Recluse sat upon a high island, in the middle of a lake. The large body of water that surrounded it was still and tranquil tonight, as there was as yet no breeze to disturb its surface. The castle itself was reached by a long bridge, which seemed to be the only way in or out.

The drawbridge at the end of the arched bridge was lowered, and was flanked on either side by high barbicans. Just beyond, the outer courtyard areas were full of Minion warriors; others manned the portcullis, castle walls, and the drawbridge itself. Beyond the first two gate towers were another two towers, with yet another portcullis between them, banning entrance to the depths of the inner ward. These two inner gate towers seemed to be the only opening in the walls that surrounded the castle itself, protecting the forebuilding and keep, the innermost sanctuary of the Recluse. Unlike the dark and foreboding towers and outer ward areas, the buildings at the heart of the Recluse looked lighter, more ethereal. The walls seemed to be constructed of a very pale blue marble, but it was hard to tell in the moonlight.

Tristan stared in awe. The Recluse had to be at least half again the size of the royal palace at Tammerland. And that didn’t even include the huge areas below ground that the dwarf had described. He couldn’t imagine how many different rooms and hallways there might be. It was like something out of a dream.

The turrets at the corners of the main structure were very high, and flags carrying the Pentangle could be seen everywhere, waving in the stiffening night breeze. The entire fortress seemed to be ablaze with light, the many torches and lanterns spreading their glow into the night with an almost white-hot, unyielding intensity. The shadows they created flitted along the walls and recesses of the Recluse like haunting ghosts in the night.

Tristan’s eyes narrowed to focus on the highest, most well-protected area of the inner structure. It ran upward to an astonishing height, ending in a dome of stained glass. The keep, Tristan realized as he looked at the fortress where his sister was imprisoned. An apt name. That is where their private quarters will be.

Silence reigned between them for several moments as they took in the splendor of the scene below. It was the dwarf who finally spoke next. “As we cross the drawbridge and go under the portcullis, make sure to keep your hoods over your faces and your heads lowered, and sway in your saddles a bit as if you have been drugged. In addition, make sure no one can tell that the chains around your wrists are not tight. We will be proceeding directly to the Stables. Do exactly as I say, and above all do not speak, whatever happens.” He turned to look at them. “Here, in this place, life has no value,” he said sadly. “But death sometimes has a price.” Silence once again settled in around the three of them like a blanket of fog.

Lying in the grass next to the prince, Wigg could feel against his chest the hardness of the small pewter locket that Faegan had quietly given him just before he and Tristan had left Shadowood. Faegan’s last words of advice echoed in the Lead Wizard’s mind, and he knew that now was the time to conduct the difficult conversation with Tristan.

He looked at Geldon with determined eyes. “I must speak to the prince by myself,” he whispered. “It is no reflection upon you. You have served us extraordinarily well, as I’m sure you will continue to do. But right now the prince and I need to be alone.”

Geldon gave a short, reluctant nod of understanding. “Be quick about it,” he whispered back urgently. “This area is crawling with Minions, and I have already been gone from the Recluse for a long time. We must enter the castle as soon as possible.” He crawled a little way back down the hill and sat up against a tree stump, where he could keep watch on the area below.

One corner of Wigg’s mouth turned up admiringly as he watched the dwarf deftly slither down the hill and take up his position. Despite all that he has been through, the old one thought, he makes use of every second. Tristan slid closer to the wizard, concern creasing his brow. For hours his blood had been churning with his proximity to the Recluse, and he was in no mood for talk. “You heard Geldon. We don’t have time for this! Shailiha is down there! What is it I need to listen to now?” he asked. “Another of your lectures on being prudent?”

Wigg ignored him. There was too much at stake to begin another verbal joust with the prince. “Listen to me,” he said sternly. “What I have to say may be the most important thing you ever hear in your life. Three nights from now, when the Blood Communion begins, we must be in the Sanctuary with the Coven. How we are to do this without being detected I have no idea. But you must remember what Faegan said to us that night at dinner. During the Communion is the only time the sorceresses are vulnerable. Until that time I must continue to struggle to hide our endowed blood, a task that becomes much more difficult as I travel closer to the sorceresses.”

“That much I already know,” Tristan said. He was obviously anxious to be off, but the Lead Wizard continued to be firm.

“What you don’t know is that should I become killed or incapacitated, you must take the pewter locket that hangs around my neck.”

Tristan was stymied for an instant, and then he remembered Faegan giving the locket to Wigg. At the time, he’d been too concerned with his thoughts of Shailiha to ask about it. He did, however, remember what it looked like. Small and octagonally shaped, it had a stopper in the top and was hung by a silver chain.

“What does it hold?” he asked.

“That I cannot tell you at this time.”

Tristan narrowed his eyes. “Then why tell me of it now?”

“Because if I am dead, you must do as I have told you. Open the locket, look into it, and you will understand. Besides, what you do not know cannot be tortured from you. Need I remind you of my attempts to make you listen to me that night on the dais?”

The wizard’s words hurt, but Tristan knew that Wigg was right. Had he listened that awful night, Shailiha might not be one of the Coven. More contrite, he was now ready to hear the rest of what Wigg had to say.

The wizard noticed the change in the prince’s eyes. “Do you remember when you first saw the bridge over the cavern to Shadowood?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Whether you realized it or not, that was the first time you ever made use of the craft. And you did so without any previous formal training. That is without precedent.” Wigg looked carefully at Tristan. “When Faegan heard of it, he was astounded. That was one of the things we were discussing in private. He told me that he believes if you concentrate hard enough, due to the quality of your blood you might be able to use the craft, even if the Coven and I are powerless. Not in any major way, since you are untrained, but hopefully in some small way that might help us. Something simple, such as moving an object or lighting a flame. For most wizards, even these lesser examples of the craft can only be accomplished after years of practice. But you, the Chosen One, may be able to do so by nature.” Wigg watched the carefully chosen words sink in, fully aware of the effect they would have.

Tristan felt as if he had just been hit by a thunderbolt of understanding. This is why my blood calls out to me so, he thought. It calls out in its need to be used. “How do I accomplish this?” he asked breathlessly.

“The same way you managed to see the bridge, but with one difference. In order to see the bridge, you first had to stop trying to see it, and let it come to you. Do you remember?”

“Yes.”

“And then once you had mastered that, just before you solved Shannon’s riddle, you heard the beating of your own heart.”

Casting his mind back to that day, Tristan could almost hear it again. He remembered the breeze on his face, and Pilgrim standing quietly next to him as he sat in the grass of the field.

“When you finally hear your heart,” Wigg continued, “you must use your mind to will whatever it is you want to take place. Remember, you will not be able to perform great deeds, but you may be able to accomplish something small. It will require a great deal of effort.” He hesitated. “It will take everything you have.”

The inflection in the wizard’s voice as he spoke the last few words ignited a spark of concern in the prince. “What is it you haven’t told me?” he asked gently.

I have been his teacher since the day he was born, Wigg thought. But how am I supposed to counsel him on something that even I myself am unsure of? He looked down at the ground. “The act of using the craft may have an effect upon you, since you are trying to use it without having been trained first.”

“What kind of effect?”

“Even Faegan did not know. But we must be on the lookout for it.” Wigg’s eyebrow came up in its customary arch. “Your situation, after all, is unique.”

Confused, Tristan thought for a moment. “But you said the first time I used the craft was at the bridge to Shadowood. Why did that not change me?” he asked.

“Because that was, in fact, only a very small manifestation of the craft,” Wigg replied. “You were only trying to observe something that was already there, not trying to affect it in any way, such as altering its nature, or trying to get it to move. Overcoming your lack of training to accomplish more difficult feats will require an unheard-of strength of will. Even Faegan was not sure whether you would be able to do it. But, if you do, this supreme effort may change you forever. Next to this effort, seeing the bridge will seem mere child’s play.”

“Anything else?”

“If I have failed in my attempt to stop the Communion, make every attempt possible to kill Failee first. She is the one who holds the most knowledge of the Vagaries. Therefore, if she dies, much of the Coven’s knowledge of the Vagaries dies with her.” Wigg seemed to turn melancholy. “And, in the end, if none of the aforementioned things can be accomplished, you know what our duty must be.”

A cold, inescapable pain shot directly through Tristan’s heart. He’s talking about killing Shailiha! He looked into the eyes that he held so dear and took the old wizard’s gnarled hands in his. “I am aware of my responsibilities,” he said purposefully. The muscles in his jaw tightened. “But I swear to the Afterlife I will find another way.”

“One last thing,” Wigg said, his hands still held by the prince. “If I am dead and you have successfully survived all this, once you return to Eutracia, stay close to Faegan. He’ll be the single remaining person with enough knowledge to properly train you in the craft.”

Without giving Tristan another chance to speak, Wigg glanced down the hill and indicated to Geldon that they were ready to leave. The dwarf rejoined them and, putting a finger to his lips to indicate silence, led them back to their horses. Once the prince and the wizard were in their saddles, Geldon pulled their hoods up over their heads and wrapped the chains around their wrists. He then joined them together with another length of chain and took hold of the end.

Almost as if he were trying silently to say good-bye, Geldon looked into each of their faces in turn and then shifted in his saddle to begin leading the Stable’s newest slaves to the Recluse.

26

Tristan lowered his head drunkenly in the hood of his robe as he swayed slightly to the left and right in his saddle, his chained hands in front of him. The ride to the Recluse was agonizingly slow. He desperately wanted to raise his face free of the hood to see better what was happening, but he knew he must not. It was conceivable that the Minions guarding the castle could include some of the same troops who had ransacked Tammerland and killed his family. In response to that thought, his blood churned violently. But this time he knew why, and he hoped that very soon now he would have the chance to satisfy its lust.

As they began to traverse the bridge, several of the Minion warriors called out to Geldon, bidding him hello, and laughingly insulting the two apparent captives with filthy warnings of what would happen to them inside the Recluse. Geldon laughed along with them, careful to neither stop to talk nor speed up his advance. The dark, leathery pairs of wings Tristan could see out of the corners of his eyes made him acutely aware of the sword and knives across his back as the three of them continued across the bridge. So far so good, he reassured himself.

When they reached the drawbridge and the first portcullis, a squad of five Minion officers, completely armed, began to walk briskly toward them from the gate towers, the heels of their barbed leather boots snapping crisply on the dried wood of the bridge. From their midst emerged another, larger and stronger looking than the rest, carelessly holding a jug of red wine. He was obviously in command.

“Halt!” the lead officer ordered.

Geldon obediently brought his horse to a stop. As the other two horses followed suit, Tristan’s knuckles whitened in their grip on the reins to his horse, and his breath momentarily caught in his lungs.

The senior officer smiled. In size, he was almost the equal of Kluge. Looking up at the dwarf with a leering, vengeful sneer, he asked, “So the hunting was good, eh? Mistress Succiu will be pleased. We thought you were never coming back.” A loud, wet belch emerged from his mouth, and he wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I hope these two will be worth the trouble.”

He began to walk unsteadily around the rear of the prince’s and wizard’s horses, his free hand on the hilt of the dreggan at his side as he enjoyed his little game. For a time he surveyed the two cloaked figures as if he were considering a purchase at the market. Then he stopped next to Tristan. The prince stiffened. He’s drunk, Tristan realized frantically. This could make things much more difficult.

As the officer’s brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed with curiosity, Tristan heard the clear, unmistakable ring of a dreggan being drawn from its scabbard. Suddenly, the steel blade clanged piercingly into the night as the officer touched the button on the hilt and loosed the tip of the blade forward. Tristan’s heart skipped a beat.

The officer raised the sword awkwardly and then gave a sharp, taunting poke to Tristan’s ribs. The tip of the blade went through the cloak, piercing his black leather vest and cutting him, drawing blood. Tristan could feel the sticky liquid running down the length of his abdomen in a slow, warm trickle. But still he managed not to flinch, and continued to sway slightly in his saddle as if too drugged to notice. The Minion officer looked skeptically at the dwarf, the point of his dreggan still at the prince’s side.

“Men or women?” he asked the dwarf drunkenly. He obviously hoped it was women.

“Men,” Geldon said angrily. “And if they enter the Stable harmed it will be you who will answer to the second mistress for it.” He glared at the officer as the winged one continued to smile arrogantly back at him.

It was clear the officer was unimpressed with the dwarf’s warning as he took another draught of the wine, much of it running sloppily from his mouth and down the front of his chest. Raising the sword a little higher, he pushed harder and then began to twist the blade, smiling in contempt at the dwarf as he did so. It was all Tristan could do to keep from crying out in pain. The steel had gone deeper, through the muscle, and Tristan could feel it twisting and grating against the bone. The pain was excruciating, setting his entire right side on fire. Hold, his mind shouted at him. Ignore the pain, or we all will surely die. The Minion officer smiled lopsidedly as he watched the trickle of blood that had begun to run down the length of the shiny blade. He looked the dwarf hard in the eye.

“Very well.” He snorted, obviously pleased with himself. “You may pass.” The bloodstained tip of the dreggan suddenly came out and up in a swift arc to end less than an inch from Geldon’s right eye. “But if asked, the slave was injured during his capture. Do you understand?” It wasn’t a question, it was a command. “I could make life very hard for you if I chose to. And provided I didn’t kill you, you little bastard, I doubt Mistress Succiu would care at all.” He laughed and slapped Geldon’s horse hard on the rump with the flat of his blade. “Go!” he shouted. He took another swig of the wine. “Go and report to your owner! And take your precious slaves with you.”

Geldon waited for no further inducement. He quickly led the prince and the wizard under the portcullis and through the outer ward of the Recluse, heading toward the second portcullis, the one that protected the entrance to the inner ward and the forebuildings that lay beyond it.

The Minion officer turned around to grin at his four smiling troops and lifted the wine jug to his lips. Then, as he watched the dwarf and his two slaves make their way into the main structure of the Recluse, he wiped his dreggan clear of blood. Once the three horses were finally out of sight, he threw the wine jug to his men and replaced the sword in its scabbard, sober once again. Obviously confused, his men watched as he did something unexpected: Climbing the stairs to the top of the gate tower, he lifted a torch into the air and quickly waved it back and forth.

From across the inner yard, at the top of the wall between the second pair of gate towers, the lone Minion officer saw the waving flame, and his eyes narrowed in delight. Smiling, he walked out from his hiding place, stretched his long, muscular wings, and flew effortlessly down into a shadowed area of the inner yard, landing as lightly as a feather.

Kluge turned to look through the inky night and across the broad length of the inner yard as the dwarf, wizard, and prince finally made their way to the side of the forebuilding and through the hidden door that led to the Stables.

Welcome, he thought. Welcome to the Recluse, Lead Wizard and Chosen One. He could hardly contain his joy. The officer he had chosen had played his part well, and the Eutracians had been completely unaware. He paused in his thoughts, gazing jubilantly at the three red moons that had finally made complete appearances in the night sky. Lowering his dark head he looked back at the Recluse, its exotic architecture silent and sprawling like a giant spider crouched upon the great courtyard as he stood there alone in the moonlight, his lengthened, muscular shadow stretching ominously across the ground. His hand tightened around the hilt of his dreggan, and his jaw clenched.

Welcome, Chosen One. The small wound in your side is nothing compared to what I shall honor you with.

This is the place where you shall die.

Tristan heard Geldon close the door behind them with a heavy, quiet finality. The dwarf immediately drew his finger across his lips, indicating silence.

“Keep your cloaks on,” he whispered seriously as he moved toward the doorway of the little room and peered out into the adjoining hall. “We have entered through a small side door used only to bring in slaves. As you follow me, be sure to continue to appear drugged. The Stables are below ground level, and we must pass through another area first.” Stepping back closer to the prince, he saw that the wizard had lifted Tristan’s robe and was examining his wound. Blood was dripping down Tristan’s side.

“I cannot use my craft to stop the bleeding,” Wigg snapped in frustration. It was obvious to Geldon that the struggle to hide their endowed blood was becoming a great strain on the Lead Wizard.

The dwarf produced a small rag from one of his pockets, and Wigg pressed it against the wound. The prince flinched at the painful contact. “Hold this against your side,” Wigg said apologetically. “The last thing we need is a trail of endowed blood down the hallways of the Recluse. The more of it there is, the more difficult it becomes for me to hide its presence.” He released control of the rag to Tristan. “I’m sorry, but this is the best I can do for now.” Then, carefully and slowly, Geldon took up their chains and led them out into the hallway.

Doing his best to look drugged while also holding the rag against his side, Tristan cast furtive glances around him as he shuffled along behind the dwarf. What he saw amazed him. The intersecting hallways of the Recluse were gigantic and seemed to stretch on endlessly, with curved, vaulted ceilings that rose at least thirty feet into the air. The highly polished marble was of the palest blue, shot through with darker indigo streaks that randomly crisscrossed each other like the paths of shooting stars in the night sky. The light in the hallway was very bright, emanating from numerous wall sconces, each of which seemed to be made of solid gold. The warm, rather humid air was scented with what seemed to be fresh lilac. He narrowed his eyes, thinking. The entire effect was one of great beauty and grace, creating a facade of tranquility that intentionally seemed to overlie what he knew to be the true, barbaric nature of the place.

At last Geldon slowed and led them into a much larger, circular room with a stained-glass ceiling, into which spilled a number of other hallways. In the center of the room was a blue marble spiral stairway leading downward. Without hesitation the dwarf headed right for the stairs, and together they descended, single file, into the bowels of the Recluse.

The stairway was as wide as the corridor had been, and as brightly lit. On and on they went, traveling lower with every step, and it seemed to Tristan that the stairs would never end. He could not recall ever having been so far below ground, even in the Redoubt of the Directorate back at the palace in Tammerland. After what seemed like forever, they stopped, their way barred by a stone door. Pushing hard, Geldon swiveled it inward upon its hinges. He peered quickly into the room beyond, and then beckoned them in.

What Tristan saw next made his heart recoil.

The chamber was clearly a place of torture. It was very large and constructed of dark, rough-hewn stone. Flames roared full blaze in a fireplace, and in the center of the room was a blacksmith’s hearth, fueled by hot coals. A collection of iron rods and branding pokers had been shoved into the bright, orange embers, their ends aglow with heat. In one corner sat an enormous cauldron.

Tristan stood spellbound as he continued to look around the room, the flames from the fireplace creating menacing, ephemeral shadows that danced lightly across the walls. Scattered around the room were several roughly fashioned wooden chairs, each of which had manacles and turnbuckles attached to its arms and legs for holding a prisoner in place. A long, flat table stood a little way off, with what he could only imagine to be disemboweling tools lying on a wooden tray next to it. The tools were covered in dried, crimson-black blood. Flogging whips and chains of all descriptions hung upon the walls, and a stretching rack angled threateningly up against one of the room’s supporting beams. He realized that he had begun to sweat, as much from the heat in the room as from the nature of its purpose. And then, suddenly, he detected the smell.

It was like nothing else he had sensed before, a sweet, sickly aroma combined with a stench like that of raw meat burning. The powerful fragrances slowly curled up and entwined around the three of them as they stood there, in horrified silence, the crackling fire the only sound—at first.

Then Tristan heard the first light drip. It sounded like the familiar soft plop of a raindrop falling upon a broad leaf in the forest. And then there was another, and yet another. He looked down, his first reaction to check the wound in his side, but it had stopped oozing, and was already scabbing over. Following the sounds of the dripping, he finally found their origin. It was blood, and it was dripping upon the three of them from above. And whether he had a full lifetime remaining to him or whether he would die this day in the Recluse, Tristan instinctively knew that what he saw above him would haunt his dreams forever.

At first nothing could be seen; the room was too dark, and the ceiling timbers were so large and recessed into the roof above. But the longer the three of them stood there and looked, the more obvious the nightmare became. Naked people, apparently simple citizens of the countryside, had been hung from the ceiling in between the rafters. But they were not suspended by the neck, as was the usual way of hanging. These poor souls had been disemboweled. Part of their entrails hung crazily out and over the sides of their bodies. Their hands and feet had been nailed to the ceiling, suspending each of them face-up, in grisly human arches of death. In many cases their genitals had been horribly mutilated, and the prince also saw that some had suffered having their eyelids crudely sewn shut with strips of rough leather.

There had to be at least twenty men and women suspended there, twisting and bleeding, their entrails hanging impossibly over the sides of their bodies, the blood dripping casually to the floor. Then, suddenly, he noticed something else.

Each of them had been branded with the sign of the Pentangle. The five-pointed star could be seen scorched into the naked skin of each body at various places. That accounted for the stench, Tristan realized in disgust. Looking again at the room, he made another grisly deduction. It also accounts for the dried blood on the disemboweling tools, and the iron rods still heating in the hearth, he realized. These people have been dead for only a short time. Looking over silently at the dwarf, he could see that even Geldon was in shock at what he saw.

“What in the name of the Afterlife happened here?” Tristan whispered incredulously.

Geldon hesitated, as if trying to choke down the impulse to vomit. He swallowed hard. “The Afterlife has very little to do with what has happened here,” he said quietly. “I have come through this room hundreds of times over the last three centuries, sometimes even when it was in use.” He sighed deeply and closed his eyes. “But even I have never seen such savagery as this.” Geldon looked to the Lead Wizard for comfort and guidance, as if Wigg always had the answer to everything.

The old one’s eyebrow came up as he closely investigated the corpses, silently walking beneath them and examining them much the way a healer would do. “These people have been tortured for a very special reason,” he ruminated, half to himself. He returned to stand beside the dwarf and the prince. “Although they could have known nothing, it is possible the poor devils were questioned about us”

“There is another reason for their suffering,” Geldon said sadly.

Wigg clasped his hands together within the sleeves of his cloak. “And that is?”

“The worst reason of all. The Coven enjoys it.”

Tristan’s heart recoiled as he wondered whether Shailiha could have had any part in what had happened here. He tried to blot the prospect from his mind.

“We leave here now,” Wigg ordered. “How much farther to the Stables?”

“It is a rather long and winding walk from here,” Geldon replied. “Behave exactly as you have up to this point. You are still supposedly drugged and bound by the chains. If we are stopped by anyone, be certain not to speak.” He took up the chains and led his companions to a stone door at the other side of the room.

It was indeed a long way, through a maze of blue marble corridors identical to the previous ones, and after a time the prince was beginning to wonder impatiently if they would ever reach their destination. His heart beat quickly at the thought of coming closer to Shailiha with his every step. He could almost feel her presence as he followed the dwarf through the great subterranean halls.

They were in a busier part of the Recluse now. From the recesses of his hood, Tristan saw all kinds of people coming and going about their business. Kitchen workers and handmaidens, scullery maids, and even the occasional Minion warrior. The Minions were almost always fully armed and moving with seemingly great intent. No one showed any particular interest in the three of them, however, except for the occasional palace worker or servant who nodded at the dwarf in silent greeting. Geldon always nodded back carefully, never stopping to speak even if the other person appeared to want to.

Finally, the dwarf stopped before a magnificent pair of black double doors. The sign of the Pentangle was inlaid into each of them, glistening brightly in solid gold. A huge, armed Minion warrior stood at attention at either side of the doors. Tristan’s heart skipped a beat as the dwarf brazenly walked directly up to the doors as if he owned them and stared defiantly at the winged warriors.

“New slaves for the Stables,” he said imperiously. Tristan was suddenly reminded that, despite the dwarf’s physical stature, Geldon was nonetheless the emissary of the second mistress and would therefore command at least a modicum of respect, even from the Minion guards.

The guards gave the two figures behind Geldon a perfunctory glance, and then the one on the right stepped before the door on his side and, without a word, opened it to allow them in.

Saying nothing, Geldon led his charges into the next room, and Tristan could hear the enormous marble door close heavily behind them. At a nod from Geldon, the prince and wizard threw back their hoods and looked around. What they saw defied description.

The room they were standing in was huge, rivaling in size the Great Hall of the royal palace in Tammerland. Walls and floor were marble of the faintest rose, shot through with both indigo and white streaks. The ceiling was even higher here, almost double the height of the hallways, and made of the palest blue marble, with the occasional gray streak running through it.

Everywhere he looked the prince saw nothing but opulence and comfort. Chairs, sofas, and loveseats of every shape and size filled the room. Long tables of food and drink were piled so bountifully high that he thought at first some of their contents might fall off onto the highly polished rose-colored marble floors. Handmaidens came and went, refilling the tankards of wine that sat upon the tables and bringing evermore-appealing food to replace immediately whatever was taken. There were cascading fountains and cool, serene swimming pools. The soft, gentle music of a flute and lyre wafted upon the air. And nearby, with various colored oils warming over low flames standing ready at their sides, stood tables for massage.

Then Tristan noticed the strange scent. A curious combination of sweetness combined with heavy musk, it seemed to wash over the entire room. In fact, the longer he stood looking, the more he could detect the presence of it in the air. It seemed to give the atmosphere in the room a distinctly violet hue.

But of all the amazing aspects of the room, it was the slaves that fascinated him the most. The place was full of hundreds of young people, seemingly equally divided between men and women. Every one was a physically beautiful specimen, dressed only in a scanty loincloth. Lithe and happy, they seemed to care little that they were slaves as they frolicked and swam, danced and laughed, and kissed and stroked each other, occasionally pausing to take some of the food and drink. Each of them had the sign of the Pentangle tattooed upon his or her right arm, presumably as a method of identifying any that should manage to escape. But the prince could not imagine any of them wanting to: They all seemed happy beyond their wildest dreams. Oddly, none of them seemed to notice the three intruders.

In contrast to the revelers, there were a number of slaves lazing on floor cushions in the middle of the room, seemingly doing very little. In the center of them sat a very large device, the likes of which Tristan had never seen. Its base was a large glass bowl, with glass tubes extending upward from it and branching outward into several lines of woven material, each of which ended in a circular piece of brass. To his amazement, one of the slaves took the end of one of the lines, placed the brass piece into his or her mouth, then seemed to inhale deeply. After holding his breath for a time, he blew the violet smoke from his mouth, relaxed and handed the appliance to the woman next to him. Transfixed, Tristan stood watching as time after time the slaves continued this strange practice, each occasionally relinquishing his or her spot to another who had joined them and was waiting his turn. As far as he knew, there was no such custom in Eutracia, and he was fascinated. He looked at the dwarf in confusion.

“It is an addiction,” Geldon said softly, his face pinched by the pain the scene brought him. “Whatever you do, do not participate in it. This is the reason they seem so happy. The pipe in the center is filled with the flower of a local plant that is cultivated by the sorceresses, and each new slave is forced to ingest it. The result is initial happiness, followed by addiction, always leading eventually to madness and then death. Its purpose is to keep the slaves under control.” He paused, looking sadly out at the spectacle before him. “It is also the reason that the Stables must be constantly replenished with new captives.”

Tristan was about to speak when he noticed a strange look upon the wizard’s face. His heart froze when he realized it was an expression of stark terror. He took an automatic, protective step toward Wigg, but then, as if in slow motion, the wizard roughly pushed the prince to one side, raised his arms, and stood squarely before his companions as if trying to protect them from something. Suddenly Tristan saw a great azure ball of flame barreling toward them. He had never seen anything so beautiful and terrible at the same time, its giant presence and thundering noise seeming to swallow up everything in his vision. But before he could cry out or move, the great ball was upon them, smashing into them with its noise, heat, and light. A thousand excruciating flashes of pain exploded in his head—and everything went black.

27

Tristan awakened with a start and a gasp, his eyes snapping open quickly and suddenly. He vaguely remembered hearing women’s voices talking and laughing from some distance away, but could neither hear nor see anyone now.

Looking around, he could see nothing but ghostly, ephemeral fog and shadowy darkness. He seemed to be standing upon solid ground, yet at the same time he had the impression that he was turning in midair, first this way and then that, at the behest of some unseen power. The air was cold, he realized, as he watched the white ghosts of water vapor leave his mouth with each breath. Yet he remained strangely calm. It was almost as if he were regarding himself in a mirror, uncaring, from some great distance. Is this what it is truly like to be dead? he wondered. Is this the Afterlife?

“Tristan!” The voice was male, and came to him from somewhere in the gloom. The prince turned to look about, but still could see nothing. “Tristan!” the foreign yet familiar voice called once again. A figure appeared before him, slowly taking shape.

It was his father.

Tristan gasped and immediately tried to run to Nicholas, but found himself held back somehow. The more he tried to reach his father, the stronger the forces that bound him became.

“Do not try to come to me, my son,” Nicholas said in the same kind yet commanding voice that Tristan remembered. “It is impossible. For I am dead and you are alive, and it is not permitted for you to cross over in this manner.”

Tristan sank to one knee before the apparition and lowered his head. Tears began to form in his eyes. “I am dreaming, aren’t I?” he asked.

“Yes,” Nicholas said quietly. “Rise and look at me.” Tristan rose on shaky legs. Before him, Nicholas wore the same dark-blue ceremonial robes that he had been wearing when he was killed, and an angry red scar encircled his neck. The dead king’s face and hands were the white, lifeless color of snow.

“Where are we, Father?” Tristan heard himself ask. His voice echoed, hollow and never ending.

“It doesn’t matter,” Nicholas said. “What matters is that I can reach out to touch your mind this one last time. Your mother, Frederick, and the wizards of the Directorate send their love.”

The tears were falling freely down the prince’s cheeks now, and he clasped his hands together in supplication. “Please forgive me, Father,” he begged. “Please forgive me for killing you.” He began to sob openly as his mind returned to that hideous nightmare on the dais, the weight of the same dreggan that killed the man before him now impossibly heavy across his back. This time he was sure the pain in his heart was more than he could endure.

“There is nothing to forgive,” the dead king said gently. “You had no choice. Both the wizard and I could see that.” He looked down at the son he had loved so much. His only son, his heir. “My death is not the reason I have come.”

Nicholas then seemed to move closer. Tristan longed to hold his father, even for only a moment, but he somehow knew that the force that was holding him would prevent that.

Apparently the dead king was not so bound. Nicholas reached out and lifted the gold medallion from Tristan’s chest. He studied it in the dark, then he let it gently drop back against the prince. “I have come to tell you that you must do everything in your power to save your sister—and, by doing so, also save the world as we know it.” He paused, still looking at the medallion as though remembering all that it had once represented. “You and she are the very future of Eutracia,” he said. “You must rule, and she must be free of the powers that hold her here, free to go home and raise her child in peace. But also understand this: If you are able to return with her, be informed that there are many problems in our homeland, and your destiny, however difficult, still waits to be fulfilled. You two are the Chosen Ones. But the Prophecies decree that it is you, the male, upon whom the main burden falls.”

The dead king’s image began to soften and waver, and Tristan instinctively knew that very soon his father’s presence would be lost to him forever. He also knew that there was no use trying to fight to keep him here. But this chance to see his father one last time had granted him not only a modicum of peace and forgiveness, but inspiration, as well. He managed a slight smile though his tears.

As Nicholas’ image began to fade away into nothingness, his final words drifted to Tristan’s ears. “Sleep now, my son,” the dead king said, his voice becoming ever more faint. “Sleep now, that you may once again awake and fulfill your destiny.” He vanished.

Tristan gratefully slumped against the unknown forces containing him and surrendered to the need for sleep as he turned and twisted in the cold, dark emptiness.

28

True peace of mind comes only when my heart and actions are aligned with true principles and values. I shall forsake not, to the loss of all material things, my honor and integrity. I shall protect the Paragon above all else, but take no life except in urgent defense of self and others, or without fair warning. I swear to rule always with wisdom and compassion.

The words seemed to come to Tristan’s ears from somewhere nearby, and resonated through the air around him in hollow, emaciated tones. The voice sounded much like his own, but he couldn’t quite identify the meaning or significance of the words. He knew he had heard them somewhere before, and for some reason he was sure they had great importance to him.

Again he felt his body turning slowly, ever so slowly in the air as his mind began to clear. Then he realized what the words meant. The voice was mine! I have been reciting the succession oath while I was unconscious.

His eyes opened slowly, painfully, his mind and vision still cloudy. It seemed every part of him was in pain, and as he took in the scene around him, his first reaction was to scream out in anger.

He was trapped like an animal in some kind of cage. It was fashioned like a bizarre, elongated birdcage and suspended in the air. Black, iron bands curved down from the center of its top to join with the metal floor. He was standing up, his legs and knees trembling in exhaustion. He had no idea how long he had been here, standing like this. Looking around as best he could, he was able to see no door to the cage.

His arms were hanging down, touching the sides of his body, the bars of the cage squeezing in on him from all sides like a cocoon of iron. He realized that both his dreggan and his dirks lay undisturbed across his back, but reaching them was impossible. He felt something slip inside of him, his blood slowly turning to ice as it became abundantly clear that here, in this cage, any movement other than the acts of speaking and breathing seemed to be hopeless concepts. Beads of sweat began to run down from his forehead, maddeningly tickling him as they crept their way down his face and neck and under the leather lacings of his vest.

His eyes slowly clearing, the first thing that he saw outside of his cage was one of the sorceresses.

Failee, he thought. It has to be.

She was standing very close to him, before a white marble altar in the center of the room. Slowly looking him up and down, she was examining him as if he were some creature from another world, and he shuddered to realize that he was under her complete control. Tall and shapely, she had dark hair shot through with streaks of gray. The Paragon hung around her neck from the gold chain he knew so well, and she was dressed in a magnificent red gown, the sign of the Pentangle embroidered in gold thread over the left breast. In her own way, she was as beautiful as he remembered Succiu to be. But the most arresting feature about her was her eyes. Sparkling hazel, almost incandescent, they shone with a high degree of intelligence that just barely masked the touch of madness lurking within them. His mind went back to that night in Shadowood when Faegan had warned him of the First Mistress. “I know you have witnessed some of the evil they are capable of,” the rogue wizard had said. “But make no mistake, even though you are the Chosen One. Despite what you have seen from Succiu, she is nothing compared to Failee.”

His vision almost back to normal, he now saw two other sorceresses. They were standing just behind their mistress, in this strange room with the black marble thrones and the huge Pentangle of black marble inlaid into the floor. The light from the many gold oil sconces gave the room a quiet, almost soft sense, and the air was tinged with the scent of lilac, just like the hallways above. Because it was impossible for him to turn around, he had absolutely no idea what was behind him, making him feel even more vulnerable and exposed.

One of the sorceresses had straight, red hair and deep-blue eyes. She, too, was dressed in a red gown, and she wore an emerald-encrusted design of the Pentangle around her neck.

The tall, smiling blond standing next to her was equally impressive. Long ringlets cascaded over the shoulders of her own red gown; her green eyes were level and commanding over a mouth that he instinctively suspected wore a permanently sarcastic smirk. She toyed nonstop with her ringlets as she admired him in his cage, saying nothing.

“So the rooster has finally entered the henhouse!” came a female voice from somewhere out of his line of vision. It was dominant yet familiar, with a nasty ring that meant business despite the flippant nature of the insult. Succiu.

The second mistress entered the room from a small doorway to the left and walked to the center of the floor to join the others. He guessed from the way she was dressed that she had just come from a session of enjoying her bizarre tastes, and blood could be seen on her fingertips and on the toes of her black leather boots. Her matching black leather vest and trousers were stretched tightly around her form, leaving little to the imagination. A long black bullwhip hung from the silver-studded leather belt that was slung low around her hips, and the obscenely high heels of her boots sounded like snaps of the same whip as she walked commandingly across the marble floor to stand directly in front of him in his cage. She looked hungrily up into his face with the same exotic, almond-shaped eyes he had come to remember and hate with every fiber of his being.

Reaching up, she placed one of her long, painted nails through the rent in the side of his vest and then painfully punctured his wound. He could feel it begin to bleed. Smiling, she removed her bloody finger and touched it to her tongue, closing her eyes. “Such blood,” she said to him quietly, almost gently, as if she and the prince were the only two people in the world. “I have never known its equal.”

Hands upon her hips, she turned back to the other three mistresses. “Beautiful, isn’t he?” she asked. “Just as I described him.”

Turning back to Tristan, she smiled. “In case you were wondering, the rather unique cage you find yourself in is called a gibbet. We have found them to be useful for a variety of reasons. But where are my manners? I believe some introductions are in order.” Extending her arm, she turned back to the Coven. “I give you Failee, Vona, and Zabarra. They have been most anxious to meet you.” Tristan remained silent as he stood before them in his tight, unforgiving prison—his gibbet, as she called it. Let them gloat, he thought. It’s what they do best.

“But there are only four of us here,” Failee said. “Don’t you think it is time to show the prince the one whom he has come so far to see?” Levitating herself, she glided over to where Tristan stood in his cage. “The one who has most recently joined us,” she whispered, almost reverently, almost inaudibly. “I believe you know her. The female of the Chosen Ones for whom we have waited so long.” She paused, as if the mere mention of his sister’s name was cause for a display of reverence. “The fifth sorceress. Your sister, Shailiha.”

At the mention of Shailiha’s name Tristan’s breath caught in his lungs, and a feeling of both anticipation and dread shot through him. His sister had been foremost in his mind since he regained consciousness, despite his concern over the apparent disappearance of Geldon and Wigg. He looked down at the First Mistress with eyes that knew only hate.

“Where is she?” he hissed at her, straining futilely against the bars of the gibbet. He could feel his endowed blood rising in his veins and the dreggan across his back calling out to him to take it in his hands and draw blood. But the only movement he could summon was to bend forward slightly. The gold medallion around his neck slipped away from his sweaty chest and dangled downward, twinkling in the pale light of the room. The combination of his blood commanding him to take action and the gibbet preventing him from doing so made him feel as though his heart were about to burst. He continued to glare hatefully into the hazel eyes of the First Mistress.

“Sister Shailiha,” Succiu called out of the room. “Come and meet the Chosen One.”

It was then that Tristan saw her.

Shailiha walked out from behind one of the great black thrones to stand directly before him, alongside Succiu. Tristan felt a wave of love and compassion spread across his heart, followed by immediate misgivings. This was clearly not the Shailiha that he knew.

She was dressed in the same red gown as Failee, Vona, and Zabarra, but hers was generously cut to allow for her pregnancy. Around her neck lay a gold chain, each end of which ran down into the bodice of her dress, presumably suspending some piece of jewelry in the valley of cleavage that lay between her breasts. The Pentangle, he assumed. Her abdomen was hugely swollen, and it looked to the prince as though she would give birth at any moment. The same strong, beautiful face that he had always known and loved was there before him, but there was something very different about it. Shailiha now had a look of commanding presence, of the ability to wield great power, and to do so without mercy or guilt. He remembered what Geldon had told him about her having willfully murdered one of the Stable slaves, and sadly he was forced to admit to himself that the person he saw before him looked fully capable of such things. The long blond hair that cascaded down onto her shoulders framed beautiful, narrowed hazel eyes that looked at him with a contemptuousness born of what soon would become true power of a frightening magnitude.

“Shailiha,” Tristan begged. He looked desperately into her eyes, hoping that he would find some glimmer there of the woman his sister used to be. “It’s me, Tristan. Your twin brother. Don’t you remember me?” Tears began to form in his eyes as he saw that she clearly was not responding, and his voice began to shake. “Don’t you remember?”

Shailiha walked closer to the gibbet, and for a moment she seemed to focus on the medallion that hung from his neck as though there was something about it that she remembered. But then she smiled and looked at him with a cruelty that froze his heart. “My Sisters said that you would try to convince me of something like this,” she said quietly. She began to walk back and forth in front of his cage as if she were examining some exotic animal in a zoo, at the same time rubbing one of her hands over her swollen abdomen in an automatic, strangely mindless gesture of love for her unborn child. She once again looked into his face, and it was clear that she truly did not recognize him. “You are an enemy of the Coven, and your words mean nothing to me,” she said with finality. Her eyes began to walk hungrily up and down the length of his body. “Besides,” she said nastily, “how could you be my brother when I find you so attractive?” Impossibly, she began to reach out to touch his groin.

“Mistress Shailiha,” Succiu said commandingly. The second mistress’ voice carried the tone of a mother scolding a greedy child, but Tristan thought he detected a hint of jealousy, as well. “Instead, why don’t you show him who it is that you really love?” Succiu stood there, hands on her hips, a look of triumph on her face. Tristan stood aghast at what he saw next.

Smiling, Shailiha walked to Succiu and took her in her arms. She then kissed the second mistress. Not a kiss upon the cheek or a sisterly kiss of endearment, but a raw, passionate, sexual kiss on the mouth that seemed to the prince to last an eternity. After the embrace, Shailiha lovingly brushed back some of Succiu’s hair, and the two stood there before him, arm in arm. Tristan began to feel the need to vomit, as tears welled up in his eyes. His head slumped down to his chest. The insanity never ends, his heart sobbed.

“What have you done to her?” he whispered to Succiu as he trembled with hate.

“We have simply unleashed her potential,” Succiu purred, “and introduced her to a few of our more sophisticated tastes.” She reached over to stroke Shailiha’s hair, and the prince’s sister did not shy away. “We have finally given her her rightful place in the world.”

“Your world!” Tristan shouted.

“That’s right,” Succiu agreed nastily. “The entire world is soon to be our world. And soon it shall be the only world that matters—or even exists, for that matter. I’m sure that old fool Faegan told you all about that.”

“What have you done with Wigg?” Tristan demanded. He was careful to make no mention of Geldon, in the highly unlikely event that the Coven had somehow not detected the dwarf’s part in bringing them here to the Recluse.

Failee levitated herself closer to the prince’s cage. “If you wish to see the old one, that can be easily arranged,” she said. She raised her arm, and another pair of gibbets came floating into view from behind the prince. They came to rest, still floating in the air, between Tristan and his captors. Looking at the first one, he saw the Lead Wizard. It was a sight he would never forget.

Wigg had clearly been tortured. He seemed to be in a half-conscious state, and the prince had no idea whether the wizard could even hear them speaking. His face was ashen and sweaty, his breathing labored. The wizard’s once all-seeing aquamarine eyes were glazed over with a remote, empty, uncaring stare. Drool snaked slowly from one corner of his mouth, and dried blood crusted each side of his face. Tristan painfully surmised that the blood had poured out of the old one’s ears. He stared in horror at the wizard he had loved for so long, his mind racing. I can’t tell if the pewter locket is still around his neck! If only he had told me what it was for… The wizard’s gibbet turned slowly, silently, in the air before them, as if Failee wished to keep her sick, twisted prize on exhibition for all eternity.

Tristan quickly turned to look at the second gibbet, and his heart fell again. Geldon. But how did they know we were already here in the Recluse?

Geldon had fared no better. Although he was much more animated than the wizard, it seemed he could not speak. Due to his smaller size there was more room for him in the gibbet, and he was waving his arms about wildly, his face red and his eyes bulging in their sockets. It was then that Tristan realized what was happening. Succiu is tightening the collar around his throat!

“Stop it, you bitch!” he screamed at Succiu as he watched the life being literally squeezed from the dwarf. “You’ll kill him!”

Succiu laughed aloud as she examined one of her long, painted nails. “I have no plans on killing this little traitor,” she said casually. “That would all too quickly end my amusement with the little freak. I do this to him a great deal, and I know exactly how much he can take before he comes close to dying. He belongs to me, and now that I am aware of his true loyalties I shall do as I wish with him.” Her dark eyes looked up at Tristan from under seductive, heavily hooded eyelids. “I suggest you start worrying about yourself, Chosen One.”

Tristan glared with rage at Failee. “What have you done to Wigg?” he snarled. He looked over to the Lead Wizard to see that the old one had regained a modicum of his mental focus and was looking at the prince, although he still did not speak.

“What I have longed to do for over three hundred years,” Failee said, almost to herself. “What I longed to do even during the Sorceresses’ War. I have taken away his power. The last of the wizards of the Directorate has finally fallen. Your precious Lead Wizard, as you knew him, is no more.”

She glided over to Wigg’s gibbet and hovered there gently, looking at him. “I took it away from him little by little, over the course of the last day while you were still unconscious. It is said that taking a wizard’s power in such a manner, rather than all at once, is much more likely to cause madness or death, just as it did when we transformed some of the other endowed male vermin like him into the blood stalkers of so long ago.” She tilted her head a little this way and that as she luxuriated in her memories, some of her madness showing through in her rather languid, almost gentle, gestures. “It took all of us, joining our powers, to accomplish it,” she gloated. “The blood that ran from his ears carried his power out of his body and dried in the air, rendering him useless. Near the end, when I was sure he was about to die, he proved to be almost as strong as Faegan, and survived.” She smiled. “No matter either way,” she said happily.

The lead mistress was clearing enjoying herself. She has waited over three hundred years for this, Tristan thought, tears running down his face. He glanced at the dwarf and was relieved to see that Geldon, although unconscious, was breathing normally, his head slumped against the side of his gibbet.

“But enough about Wigg,” Failee said suddenly. “He is no longer an issue. I would think you might prefer to learn how it was that we knew you were coming. I have been told by more than one of those present in this room that you have a quick, curious mind.”

Tristan said nothing, deciding not to give her the satisfaction of an answer. He stood silently before her, his unforgiving gibbet hovering gently in the incongruous beauty of the room.

“It began when Wigg used his powers to aid your journey here,” she began, smiling beneficently at him. “That really was quite foolish of him, although he did a particularly good job of hiding your endowed blood once you were on the move. Sending the Minions out into the countryside to find you could have taken weeks. We knew that you would have to make your way to the Recluse, but it also served our purpose to know when you would arrive, and by what method.” The hazel eyes narrowed with pride. “So we arranged a little scheme.” She paused, wanting to see his next reaction. “It had to do with the Gallipolai.”

Tristan froze. His first thoughts were of Narrissa, his mind careening in several different directions over what part she could have played in this. His heart began to tear with the fear of her possible betrayal of him. Did she aid the Coven? Wigg warned me that taking her along would lead to no good. Could I have misjudged her so badly? he asked himself. He felt a strange kind of haunting emptiness begin to build within him.

“I can see by the look in your eyes that you think she betrayed you,” Failee said, almost kindly. “No, that was not the case. She had no idea. In fact, I am now told that she genuinely believes herself to be in love with you, poor thing. It’s sad, isn’t it, that you will never see each other again? But I digress. When I recognized the presence of your blood here in Parthalon I arranged to have six Gallipolai taken to the Vale of Torment, knowing that it would call the birds of prey into the sky overhead, drawing you there. I ordered one of the chosen Gallipolai to be a woman of particular beauty. I felt sure you would spot the birds overhead. Skirting the Vale is the shortest and least traveled way to the Recluse, so naturally the dwarf would take you that way. And, unlike the males, the female was purposefully kept alive. Just as I planned, your curiosity drew you in, and your notorious affinity to help stray urchins didn’t fail us.” She smiled, her hazel eyes gleaming.

“We had other Minion warriors there, in the hills, watching the whole time, who followed you as you left for the Recluse,” she continued. “They sent riders ahead to warn us. But even more illuminating was the unexpected realization that your foolishness in helping the one called Narrissa also alerted us to the fact that the dwarf was a traitor. We simply let the three of you walk into the Recluse, on into the Stables, and then took you at our leisure.” She smiled again, her hazel eyes shining with victory. “All that remains is to find whatever person or persons who may have aided you in getting here. And find them we shall.”

Tristan was aghast at the sheer simplicity of it, the cold, calculated way in which they had so easily manipulated him. At the same time, he worried about Ian’s safety. The gentle young man who is also the keeper of the birds, he thought. He should not have to die simply because he helped us.

His anger returned, his blood surging in his veins, crying out for action. He glared into the eyes of the First Mistress. “I killed two of your Minion warriors out there. It was easy, and I enjoyed it,” he said, the words dripping from his lips like venom. “Do you mean to say that there were other warriors nearby watching, who did nothing to help them? That you let the two of them die simply because you wanted me and the wizard?”

“Of course, you fool!” a deep male voice shouted from somewhere behind him. “Dying is what they were bred for!”

Tristan instantly recognized the voice he so hated. It was so easily identifiable in his mind that it seemed like only yesterday since ne had last heard it. He tried frantically to turn in his gibbet, to see the man who had spoken, but he couldn’t move. He didn’t have to wait long, though, as the monster walked out before him to stand with the sorceresses. Kluge.

Tristan’s heart beat faster with hate as he looked down upon the man he most wanted to kill in the entire world. The same man who had ordered him to kill his own father, and strung the heads of the wizards of the Directorate upon a rope like prizes. The monster who had raped and ordered the multiple rape and ultimate death of his mother. The same man the prince had sworn by his own blood oath to kill. Tristan’s endowed blood tore through his veins like never before as he trembled with the sheer, pure hatred of wanting to see another man die by his own hand. Horribly. Slowly.

Kluge had changed little since that day in Tammerland. Tristan took in the long, black—and-gray hair that fell loosely down around the warrior’s neck; the dark, leathery wingtips that protruded just above his shoulders; and the blatantly white battle scar that ran from the left eye down into the salt—and-pepper whiskers of the monster’s goatee. The piercing, black eyes were as careful as ever. The commander of the Minions of Day and Night wore a glittering new dreggan at his side, obviously a replacement for the one that Tristan now wore in the scabbard behind his back. The prince also quickly noticed the shiny glimmer of the returning wheel hung low on Kluge’s hip, ready to be thrown at a moment’s notice. The winged monstrosity’s black leather vest, breeches, taloned gloves, and boots completed the picture. Silently standing there, saying nothing, he was death incarnate.

I will kill you, you bastard, Tristan swore silently. Even if I do nothing else in this awful place, I will kill you.

“I see that in the brief time that has passed since our last meeting, you seem to have developed an affinity for Minion weapons,” Kluge said nastily, eyeing both the dreggan across the prince’s back and the returning wheel at his hip. “You don’t mean to tell us that you actually claim to have a working knowledge of either of them, do you?” The monster laughed aloud at the thought.

Tristan glared down at the winged freak before him. In a low, animal-like tone, he said, “Let me free of this cage, and I will be happy to give you a lesson in each of them.” Gathering as much saliva as he could, he spat it all into the monster’s face.

Completely unperturbed, Kluge smiled, wiped his face, and then slowly drew his dreggan, pressing the button at the hilt and loosing the tip of the blade, listening to its clear, familiar ring slowly fade away in the great expanses of the Sanctuary. He turned to Failee as if to ask permission, and the First Mistress nodded.

Stepping closer yet to the gibbet, Kluge slowly, ever so slowly, pressed the tip of the dreggan against the wound in the prince’s side, and then directly into it, down to the bone of one of the prince’s ribs. Tristan’s breath started to come out in a rush, but he immediately caught himself, silently swearing he would show no pain before this man. Kluge smiled as he withdrew the bloody tip of the sword and held it high in the soft, golden light of the room, the sticky crimson blood of the Chosen One running down the length of its razor-sharp blade.

“They tell me this is the highest, the most sought—after, the most endowed blood in the world,” he said casually, looking at the blade as if it were any other recently bloodied weapon. His lips twisted sarcastically. “Strange, it doesn’t look any different to me.”

Kluge leaned his head closer to the gibbet to whisper to the prince. “I was there, you know,” he said. “There, at Vulture’s Row, when you killed the two warriors. I watched you work. You are good, it is true, but not as good as you think you are. And certainly not good enough to kill me.” He turned his head slightly, obviously looking forward to the reaction he anticipated from the prince at what were to be his next words. “Tell me, did the Gallipolai ask you about the color of your heart?” He smiled wickedly as he watched the look of extreme anger and hatred wash across the prince’s face. “I’m not sure about the color of Narrissa’s heart,” he said, touching his tongue to one corner of his mouth, “but I have just come from yet another visit with her, and I can safely tell you what color all of the rest of her body is.”

Tristan’s teeth drew back in an animal-like snarl, and he spoke in such a low tone that Kluge could barely hear. “You disgusting winged freak!” he whispered hatefully, alive with rage as he twisted and turned against the unyielding bars of the gibbet. “What did you do to her?”

Kluge smiled and closed his eyes, as if relishing some recent memory. “What did I do to her? Why, everything I could think of,” he whispered. “Slowly. Over and over again.” Opening his eyes, he replaced the dreggan in its scabbard. “You do a very poor job of protecting your women, you know,” he sneered. He reduced his voice to a whisper. “I was struck by the Gallipolai’s beauty as she lay bound upon the wheel, and decided then and there that she would be mine. As the commander of the Minions I alone am granted the right to take a mate for life, and may even choose from the Gallipolai if I am so inclined.” He paused, narrowing his eyes. “First your mother, then your sister, and now Narrissa. You failed to protect them all. Instead of the Chosen One, you should be known as the Worthless One! I watched you and the now-useless wizard hide her in the cave, and then went back to take my prize. The sweet, oh, so sweet prize you gave me. Just as you gave me your mother.”

Tristan tried to subdue the vicious images in his mind. The twin visions of Kluge first atop his hysterical, screaming mother, and then the gentle, virgin Gallipolai. I swear by all that I am, I will kill this man. He glared with hatred at the demon responsible, wishing, willing him to die on the spot as if he could somehow force the fates to comply. I will show no emotion, he suddenly thought to himself. It’s what he wants most. To hurt me in any way he can. And until I am free of this cage, all I have to fight him with are my words.

Tristan forced a false, conspiratorial smile to his lips. “Was the Gallipolai good?” he asked slyly. “You may take her as much as you like. She means nothing to me.” The words stung his heart as surely as the dreggan had stung the wound in his side, but he was determined to continue the pretense. He smiled again at Kluge and motioned with his head for the monster to come even closer to his cage.

“You were whelped somewhere near the area of the Recluse, I assume?” Tristan asked, hiding the insult with a look of sincerity.

“Yes,” Kluge responded, narrowing his eyes. “What does it matter?”

“You should return there as soon as possible,” the prince said, almost politely. “They must need you.”

Kluge angled his head with curiosity. “Why?” he finally asked.

Tristan smiled. “Because you’re depriving a village somewhere of its idiot.”

Kluge snarled viciously at having been so easily drawn into the insult and immediately drew his dreggan. For an instant Tristan thought he was about to die, but Failee’s voice cut through the room like the snap of a bullwhip, halting Kluge’s sword in midair.

“Enough!” she shouted at Kluge. “You fool! Can’t you see what he is doing to you?”

At his mistress’ command, Kluge reluctantly lowered his sword. He peered menacingly into the cage, into the deep-blue eyes of the Chosen One, with an almost new, even more intense hatred.

“Soon,” he said simply from between gritted teeth.

“I welcome it,” Tristan whispered back.

Failee, still hovering in the air, glided over to where Kluge was standing. She peered at the prince with an almost newfound respect.

“Neither the bloodstalker, the screaming harpy, the wiktor, or even a sorceress herself could kill this one,” she said over her shoulder to her commander. “Are you so sure you can do the job they could not?”

Tristan looked to the other sorceresses briefly and saw a smirk pass across Succiu’s face.

Ignoring Kluge, Failee kept her full attention upon the prince.

“Tell me,” she asked rather quietly, “how was it that you were supposedly able to kill Emily? Surely she must be dead, since you continue to live. She was one of us, and would never have given up unless she had been somehow vanquished once and for all.”

Thinking it over, Tristan could see no harm in telling her. He smiled, and this time the smile was genuine. “Wigg strangled the bitch to death with a wizard’s noose,” he said, “and I cut off her head with Kluge’s dreggan and threw her body into the river. You won’t be seeing her again.”

“I see,” she said slowly. The First Mistress lowered her beautiful, awful face and seemed to be staring at the marble floor, thinking. When she finally raised her hazel eyes up once again to meet his, they burned with an even greater intensity. “I can see now that we have underestimated you, underestimated your blood. But no matter. You are as yet untrained, and therefore of no danger to us. However, now that you are here, you have something that we want. We could take it from you, of course, but the Vagaries say that if given to us, rather than taken from you, the results will be far more powerful.”

Tristan froze. He immediately knew what it was. The same thing that the woman he had known as Natasha, then as Lillith, and finally as Emily had tried to take from him.

His firstborn daughter.

“Ah,” Failee said, almost compassionately. “I can see by the look in your eyes that you understand. I have no doubt that it was Faegan who somehow arranged for you to come to Parthalon so quickly. Leaving that old one alive was another mistake that I shall soon remedy. The rapid but as yet unknown method of your travel here intrigues me, but it is a topic better left for another day. I am equally sure that he also explained to you the incantation known as the Chimeran Agonies, did he not?” The look in her eyes had become harder. Tristan saw Succiu smiling at him, seemingly waiting anxiously for something as she stroked Shailiha’s hair. Repulsed, he focused once again on Failee.

“Yes,” Tristan answered. “He explained the Agonies to me.” He stood silent, hoping that he would not hear the First Mistress’ next words, for he could guess what they were to be.

“If you will freely submit to the Chimeran Agonies so that we may take your seed from you willingly, whenever it suits us, I can promise you an eternal life of luxury and indulgence, just as Sister Shailiha now has. Resist, and we will take what we want from you anyway, without the mind-numbing benefit of the Agonies, as you spend all of eternity in the dungeons, called for only when we need you. And I tell you now that the process, without the aid of the Agonies, will be quite unpleasant. It is not how we would prefer things, since, as I said, what we wish to take from you will not be as powerful if it is taken rather than freely given, but we will take it if we must. What is your answer?”

“And why would you need my permission to submit willingly to the Agonies when you could always force them upon me?” Tristan asked her blatantly.

Failee closed her eyes, thinking. “Because the Vagaries are not clear on this point. It is possible that, because of the strength of your blood, should you resist any application of the Vagaries the result could be cataclysmic. Despite the fact that you are as yet untrained, you remain a very dangerous man, and we still must be very careful with you. Simply put, the forced use of any aspect of the Vagaries against your blood could result in the destruction of us all. An unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, if you will forgive the rather poor analogy.”

She tilted her head to one side in surprise. “Didn’t Faegan tell you?” she asked. “Ah, of course not. Faegan, the eternal riddle master. You truly do not know how much power you would command once trained in the craft, do you?”

Tristan ignored the question. The insanity never stops. Never. “Why would you want another sorceress of my loins?” he asked. “You have the five you need for the Blood Communion and the Reckoning that follows. There is now nothing standing in the way of your enslaving the entire world, so why bother?”

“Because it isn’t your firstborn daughter they now want, Tristan.” The familiar male voice had come from the prince’s left side, from inside one of the hovering gibbets. “What they want now is your firstborn son”

Tristan looked over to see that Wigg was alert, despite the obvious trembling of his legs from exhaustion. But something was still wrong. Tristan slowly looked Wigg up and down, trying to get a sense of what it was, when it finally hit him. It’s his eyes, he realized. His eyes no longer have the sparkle of the gift. He truly has lost his powers.

Casting a glance at Wigg’s gibbet, the First Mistress glided over to hover before the cruel, suspended cage that housed the old wizard. “So,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “You still live, Old One. But not for long, to be sure. Tell me, after over three centuries of power in the craft, how does it feel to be a simple, unendowed mortal?”

Wigg began to cough. His lungs wheezed sickeningly for a few moments, and a final hack expelled a small amount of blood that began to run down his chin and onto the gray robe. Failee smiled.

“The last time we were together it was I who was coughing up blood,” she said almost happily. “Do you remember? It was upon the Sea of Whispers, the day you banished us to our lives here in Parthalon. You and your precious Directorate had restricted our nourishment so as to keep us weak and prevent us from using the craft. Your use of the azure bowl from the Caves to push us even farther away was really quite brilliant. I commend you on your ingenuity.” She tilted her head maddeningly enjoying every word. “You should have killed us when you had the chance, Wizard. I told you that day your ridiculous vows would be the end of you all, and with the exception of finally killing you, everything I predicted has come to pass.”

“Tell him why you want a male child of his blood,” Wigg snarled breathlessly, each of his words an effort. “As for myself, I can already guess.”

Failee unexpectedly reached through the bars of Wigg’s gibbet and caressed his dazed face, her fingers lingering in the wizard’s blood. The blood that used to be so endowed, the prince thought. He recoiled at the sight. Failee’s touch was clearly not a gesture of affection, or of love. Rather, it was like watching a cat play with a mouse it was about to tear in half with its teeth.

“Ah, Wigg,” she said. “So much has passed between us. I will grant you your request for old times’ sake. The Chosen One deserves to know, since he is to play such a major part in it all.”

She turned to the prince, her hazel eyes gleaming. “It is really quite simple,” she said. “From your seed mingled with that from one of us, I mean to acquire your first and only son. Raised by us, he will be much more easily controlled than his father. He will worship us, in fact, and be a male of the Chosen One’s blood who, unlike yourself, will do our bidding gladly, without the use of the Agonies. And in turn I shall mate your son with Vona, Zabarra, Succiu, and myself for as long as we choose, allowing only the females to live. The result will be blood and seed that will be of an even higher quality than your own, because it came forth from your son willingly. Then we will be free to kill both you and your boy child at our leisure. Imagine it. An entire race of female Chosen Ones, trained in the Vagaries and under our complete control.” She looked almost delirious with the thought of it.

“For over three hundred years I thought that the Communion and the Reckoning would be our finest achievement,” she continued. “The most we could ever hope to accomplish. But now, Chosen One, you have delivered yourself to me, and it has given me the opportunity to surpass even those victories.” She seemed caught in the grip of a fever as she stood there before him. Wigg and Faegan were right, Tristan realized. She is clearly beyond madness.

“But there is more, Chosen One,” she whispered, keeping her words too soft for anyone else to hear. “Listen carefully. I will also use your firstborn son to mate with Shailiha. Think of it. The purest of male endowed blood, and the purest of female endowed blood, coming together in conception.” Her mouth was open and her breathing erratic. Sweat beaded on her forehead as her next words came out in the barely audible whisper. “Their product shall be unlike anything the world has ever witnessed. A super being. Trained in the Vagaries, protected by time enchantments, and loyal only to me. The super being and I, ruling over a population of endowed female beings of consummate perfection, for all eternity. There would be no limit to the reach of our experimentation.”

At first Tristan couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. She actually means to do this, his mind shrieked at him. Enslaving the world is no longer enough for her. Now she means to populate it only with beings that she deems worthy of life. And I am the one who shall, willingly or not, provide her with the means. His chin fell to his chest in pain, his mind too overwhelmed to think, his voice too overcome to speak.

“You have miscalculated, First Mistress.” It was Wigg’s voice again, seemingly somewhat stronger this time. “Despite the plan you have described, nature will still take her own course. You must realize the result of a union between Shailiha and Tristan’s son would be a hideous product of inbreeding! Only the Afterlife knows what the end result of such an abomination would be. Surely even you must see that you will not succeed in creating the super being you cherish, but rather an abhorrent freak of nature, possibly with uncontrollable power. The sick, twisted result of such a union would be horrible beyond description!”

Failee smiled at the wizard and then turned around in midair to face the rest of the Coven and Commander Kluge. “I told you he would not see it,” she said proudly. She returned her gaze to Wigg. “Do you think I had not contemplated such a thing? Let me explain something that will enlighten you greatly.” She paused. “I will give the former Lead Wizard a lesson in the craft.”

Failee gestured to the commander of the Minions. “Where do you suppose the Minions came from?” she asked Wigg simply.

“I always assumed them to be naturally occurring creatures of Parthalon that you enslaved upon your arrival, just as you did the rest of the population,” Wigg said skeptically.

“You assume a great deal, Wigg,” Failee said. “You and the Directorate always did, and this time your assumption is quite wrong. Until we arrived upon these shores, the Minions did not exist. I systematically bred them. Bred them from humans taken from the countryside and mated over time with the many exotic animals we found here. A disgusting process to watch, I assure you, and requiring use of the craft to overcome nature, but quite effective in the end. After I had the product I desired, I needed to be sure they could only reproduce among themselves, since there was nothing else like them in the world.” She watched in triumph as a horrified look of realization began to creep over the Lead Wizard’s face.

“Yes, Wigg, that’s right,” she gloated. “I have formulated an incantation that prevents inbreeding, allowing the Minions to reproduce perfectly among themselves, each one a brother to the other. The Gallipolai are the only aberration, and most of them turn by the age of twenty-five. The ones who do not are dealt with in the Vale of Torment. The same incantations used to prevent inbreeding among the Minions shall also hold true for Shailiha and Tristan’s union, as they conceive the being I desire.

“The process was not a simple one,” she admitted. “I made many mistakes along the way, and the results were at first often horrifying, even to my seasoned mind and talents. In truth, the Minions have a race of ancestors. My initial mistakes, if you like. I cherish these errors of the craft as if they were my own children, as though they had come from my own womb. There are hundreds of them still living, protected by my time enchantments. And they dwell here, among us, in this room.”

Horrified, the three prisoners in the hanging gibbets watched as the First Mistress raised her hand and pointed to the far side of the chamber. Immediately a split began to appear in the wall and the marble floor moved back to reveal a gaping pit, its contents just out of view.

“Please, my children, come out and join us,” Failee said lovingly. “Awake from your sleep. I believe there are people here whom you know.”

Tristan watched, his mouth agape, as the first of the awful things crawled up and out of the cavern that lay beneath the floor of the Sanctuary.

The wiktor.

At first it appeared, impossibly, to be the very one he had killed that day in front of the royal palace in Tammerland. The same one he had watched die at the point of his dreggan in the dirt beneath him. The same one that had sworn to tear the prince’s heart from his body, ft can’t be, Tristan said to himself. Not only did I kill it, but I also beheaded the awful thing and impaled its lifeless head upon a stick. But the longer he looked at the Wiktor, the more he realized that it was indeed the same one, despite the fact that there was now many more of them in the room as they deftly continued to clamber up and out of their living area.

Tristan took in the green, scaly creature, seeing the useless-looking dark wings that protruded just above each shoulder. The yellow, slanted eyes looked intently back at him from above a long, pointed snout; its grin showed sharp, yellow teeth arrayed in neat upper and lower rows. It stood upon its two large, powerful lower legs, using its barbed tail for support; and the short, equally powerful arms that ended in black talons moved back and forth nervously, as if anxious to tear into the prince’s chest and take what had been denied it at their first meeting. Green drool ran from its mouth to the floor, its pink, forked tongue occasionally licking some of the shiny slime away from its teeth.

But it was the thing’s wounds that finally convinced Tristan of its identity. The wiktor had a light-green, recently healed scar that ran vertically down the center of its chest—carved by Tristan’s dirk—and another, less ragged one that completely encircled its throat where the prince had beheaded it. But how did it get to Parthalon? his emotions asked of his common sense.

Tristan thought about what the First Mistress had said, about how the wiktors were the ancestral forerunners of the Minions. Her mistakes, her children, she called them. Except for the wings, he could see little similarity between the wiktor and the Minion commander. But in the two pairs of eyes he saw unmistakable cruelty, and a total, blind willingness to obey the Coven’s orders no matter what the risk. But how could it be alive? He had killed it!

“I now realize how it is that the wiktor remains alive, although it gives me no pleasure to have to tell you,” Wigg said to the prince, as if reading his mind. “I fear that its survival is the product of yet another of my mistakes.” He looked into the puzzled faces of the prince and the now-conscious dwarf, and his face seemed to sadden even further with guilt.

Failee smiled as the Wiktor continued to glare hungrily at Tristan. “Please, Wigg, by all means, enlighten us all,” she said nastily. “Perhaps you may even prove yourself to be correct.”

“Tristan,” the wizard began, “do you remember the day I killed the screaming harpy in the courtyard of the palace? Do you remember the orders I gave to the Royal Guard regarding the disposal of the body?”

Standing in the gibbet, his mind and legs close to exhaustion, the prince thought back to that day as best he could. Wigg had killed the harpy with a wizard’s cage, crushing the life out of it, after Tristan had thrown a dirk into one of its eyes. And then he remembered.

Tristan raised his eyes to his friend. “I remember,” he said. “You ordered it cut up and buried in separate pieces.”

“Yes,” Wigg said, “because the harpies had the ability to rejoin their parts and reacquire life if the limbs and organs were left close enough together. The Harpies were a product of the Coven, just as are the wiktors. The wiktor must have been taken to Eutracia in Succiu’s flagship as a safeguard against you, I, or any of the royal house or Directorate surviving. The wiktor’s job would have been to stay behind and hunt us down. After you supposedly killed it, we must have left the wiktor’s head and body near enough to each other, and then, after the rejoining, Succiu took it back to Parthalon with her. But obviously the First Mistress has been unable to bestow that particular talent of coming back from the dead onto the current ranks of Minions, since many of them were killed when they invaded Eutracia.”

“Well done, Lead Wizard. Right on all counts!” Failee scoffed. “And, as I am sure you have already deduced, it is because of that failure that I was forced to develop the incantations that prevent the Minions from inbreeding. But Succiu did not leave that day, as you had thought. True, by then all of the Minions had been boarded back on the ships, and only she remained in Parthalon to make a last attempt to find you and the prince—dead, presumably. But when she returned to the palace gates, hoping to find your bodies, instead she found the Wiktor. It is my pet, don’t you see? How could you expect me to leave it behind? I simply had to let Succiu retrieve him. And now here he is. Such a shame the two of you and the Second Mistress didn’t cross paths that day, isn’t it? But that doesn’t matter now. Now we’re all together once again.”

Tristan watched in disgust as she lovingly began stroking the wiktor’s head and face, her hands becoming partially covered in the drool that continued to run from the thing’s mouth. The green of the wiktor’s drool combined with the less-viscous red of the wizard’s blood to form a brown-tinted fluid that dripped sickeningly from her fingers onto the shiny, pristine, white marble floor.

“Everything seems to come full circle eventually, doesn’t it, my dear Wigg?” she asked the wizard. “Even the Coven’s loss of the Sorceresses’ War, as you call it, has ironically resulted in your final prostrations here, in Parthalon, before me.”

The wiktor continued to eye the prince menacingly, and it was clear that it was anxious to speak. Finally, after a nod from Failee, the words came. “Despite my failure at our initial encounter, it seems that the prospects of your survival are not particularly good,” it rasped in a low, guttural tone. “It is also my understanding that they have a use for you first, and that the commander of the Minions of Day and Night has been given the honor of taking your life once your usefulness has come to an end.” The pink tongue again lashed out to lick away yet more of the green ooze that continued to run from its mouth. “But no matter,” it said with great satisfaction. “I told you that night in Eutracia that we would meet again. By the way, it is I to whom Failee has promised your heart. And have it I shall.”

Tristan looked down at the wiktor, wishing with all of his endowed blood that he could be freed of the gibbet. Free to draw his dreggan and tear into this monster he had already killed once and also to strike down the gloating commander of the Minions. But for now all he could use was his wits. He smiled wryly. “In that case I hope you have been practicing,” he said sarcastically, “because you didn’t do such a professional job of it last time.”

The wiktor smiled back, comfortable in its position of security next to the First Mistress. Hissing, it tilted its head slightly. “Look to Mistress Shailiha, Chosen One,” it said, “and tell me what you see.”

Tristan raised his eyes to his sister and looked into her face, the same beautiful face that he had loved for so long, the face for which he had already braved and suffered so much. “I see a young woman who has been perverted by the Coven,” he said simply, watching her move even closer to Succiu.

“Is that all?” the wiktor asked. “Then let me ask you a philosophical question, Chosen One,” it proposed carefully. “In your perfect, royal, privileged world, is it still a perversion if the so-called perverted one performs such acts of her own free will—indeed, asks to do them, needs to do them, begs to do them?” It smiled and waited patiently for an answer.

Tristan was temporarily stymied. “What do you mean?” he asked cautiously.

“I mean that there was a slave from the stables named Stefan who failed to please the second mistress,” the thing answered. “A truly beautiful specimen, much like yourself. Succiu brought him here, to let us feed upon him as is her custom with those who have disappointed her too many times. Satisfying the hunger of the wiktors is another of the reasons Geldon was constantly forced to seek out so many candidates from the countryside. Even he did not fully know the reason so many slaves were required.”

Tristan glanced at the dwarf to see him crying, crushed to learn of the ultimate fate of the people he himself had selected to come to the Recluse. Tristan looked back at the wiktor.

“But it was not the second mistress nor the ignorant slave named Geldon who pushed Stefan into the wiktor pit. No, Chosen One,” it continued. The yellow eyes gleamed. “It was Mistress Shailiha. It was Shailiha who did the job of feeding him to us. She asked, begged to do it.” The wiktor’s tail began to snake back and forth with pleasure.

“In fact,” it said nastily, “it has been she, rather than Mistress Succiu, who has performed our feeding rituals ever since, selecting the slaves from the Stables who are to die, and providing us our sustenance.” The wiktor strode closer to the prince’s gibbet, close enough so that Tristan could smell its awful breath. “There is even a rumor that she has asked, once you are dead, to be the one to push your lifeless body into the pit, whereupon I have been given the honor of taking your heart.” At the hearing of this, many of the other wiktors began hissing and snaking their tails back and forth in anticipation. “So you see,” the wiktor said, almost lovingly, “it has all been arranged.”

“That is enough for now, my pet,” Failee said suddenly. “After all, we wouldn’t want to give away all of the surprises that we have planned for our guests, now would we?” She looked at the wiktor once again. “It is time for you to return to your home.”

The wiktor hissed an immediate tone of obeyance and then looked once more at the prince. “The next time I see you, you shall be dead,” it seethed, its head maddeningly turning this way and that. “I am looking forward to it.” Turning, its tail still snaking back and forth, it walked to the edge of the pit and began to lead its followers back down into it, until they were all gone from sight. Failee raised a finger, and the walls and floor returned to normal.

It was the wizard who spoke next, breaking the awful silence that had been created by the revelations of the wiktor. “Tell me,” he asked Failee slowly, “how was it that you were able to cross the Sea of Whispers? We put you out to sea with only a modicum of supplies, yet you made it all the way to these shores. Quite remarkable, Failee, even for you. How was it done?” Wigg is playing for time, Tristan thought, trying to forget the things the wiktor had said. Time is the only ally we have.

The First Mistress shook her head back and forth slowly. “There are things in that sea that even you couldn’t imagine. After you and the other wizard bastards had condemned us to our course we discovered what those things were, and overcame them. But I would not tell you the secret any more than you would tell me how it was that the prince and yourself were able to disappear completely that day on the dais, or come to Parthalon so quickly. I would never add to your knowledge—not that you are capable of using it anymore.”

Wigg pursed his lips in thought, trying to hide his emotions. “No,” he said flatly. “I suppose not.”

“But I have spoken of such unimportant things for long enough,” she said. Looking into Tristan’s cage, she bluntly asked the question he had been dreading. “Do you agree to my demands?”

Tristan broke into a cold sweat, his legs almost beyond exhaustion. A life of pleasant, mindless servitude forever as their slave, their breeding material, or a life with my wits about me, despite the fact that I am condemned to the dungeons, he thought. Time is the only ally we have, his mind said once again. And it is quickly running through our fingers.

“What demands?” he asked politely, obviously mocking her.

“I have no time for this!” the lead mistress said. “Each of us here knows that the Chosen One need not be told anything twice!” The hazel eyes turned cold and hard. “Agree, or I shall take action against the wizard.” She smiled. “And I shall enjoy it.”

Tristan looked over to Wigg, already knowing what the old one’s response would be. Wigg was intently staring back at the prince, his eyes narrowed, a stern look upon his face. He shook his head slightly, indicating no.

Tristan turned back to Failee. “I will not submit to the Chimeran Agonies,” he said strongly. “Whatever you take from me will be against my will.”

“That remains to be seen,” she said cryptically. Gliding back and away from the prince a few feet, she closed her eyes. The light in the room softened slightly, and then something began to take shape upon the floor where she had just been hovering. As it grew more distinct, the prince was not comforted at what he saw before him.

Failee had conjured another throne, like the five others in the room, but this one was white. Its right side faced Tristan. A tall, white marble column extended from the top of the backrest.

Failee opened her eyes, then turned to Succiu. “I don’t think white suits the occasion, do you?” she asked. Without waiting for a reply she once again closed her eyes, and the throne and the column behind it slowly turned to black. Opening her eyes, Failee regarded her handiwork.

“Ah, much better,” she said. She narrowed her eyes in the direction of the wizard, and immediately Wigg’s gibbet disappeared, sending the old one crashing painfully to the floor. The gibbets aren’t real, Tristan heard his endowed blood shout to him. They are conjured by the sorceresses.

Failee nodded to Kluge, and the Minion commander went to the wizard. Picking Wigg up off the floor as if he were no heavier than a feather, Kluge roughly pushed him into the black throne. As Kluge stood near the wizard, Failee again narrowed her eyes, and it became apparent that Wigg could no longer move, imprisoned in the chair by what the prince could only imagine to be a wizard’s warp. Obviously pleased with herself, Failee glided over to face the helpless wizard.

“There was a reason why I asked you the method by which Emily was killed,” she said to Tristan. “It has to do with turnabout being fair play. We shall see how much you have come to love and respect your teacher.” She smiled. “And how much you are willing to sacrifice to see him live another day.”

She pointed into the air, and Tristan saw the beginnings of an azure glow. It thinned and stretched into a long line, glowing intensely in the subdued light of the room. With a twist of her fingers, the glowing line began to take shape, coiling itself into the familiar circle of the hangman’s knot.

It was a wizard’s noose, exactly like the one that had killed Emily, and it hung in the air, glowing ominously, a silent portent of death.

She lifted her hand, and the noose slowly rose higher into the air.

Tristan watched as it slipped itself up and over the column above the black throne, finally slithering down and around the wizard’s neck, pulling his head back against the smooth, cold marble. Wigg swallowed hard, raising his neck as best he could to gain a slim margin of room between his skin and the brightly glowing azure circle. His aquamarine eyes went to the prince.

“There are three things that together signify a wizard,” Failee said lightly to Tristan. “Do you know what they are?”

Tristan remained silent.

“No? Very well then, I shall tell you. First, of course is his gift. Second is his training in the craft. And third is the ridiculous tail of braided hair that they choose to wear. I have removed from Wigg his gift, and therefore his training in the craft. The only thing left before he dies is the humiliation of removing his wizard’s tail.”

She extended the palm of her right hand, and suddenly a dagger appeared there, with a silver blade and a shiny, pearl handle. She walked around behind the column and gripped the wizard’s braid, pulling the back of his skull viciously against the column. With a quick swipe the tail came away in her hand. Returning to stand before Wigg, she sneeringly dropped it into his lap. Then she turned her insane, hazel eyes to the prince.

“Emily died with a wizard’s noose around her neck. Submit to the Agonies, or so shall the Lead Wizard,” she whispered.

Tristan closed his eyes, trying to blot out the pain of what he was seeing. “No,” he said simply.

“Very well,” she said. She closed her eyes, and another azure haze appeared and began to shape itself into a similar solitary length of brilliant blue. Tristan could see that this time the length of light was rigid, instead of pliable as the rope had been. She extended her fingers, and the glowing azure rod flew behind the column and inserted itself into the folds of the rope there. Failee turned once more to look into Tristan’s eyes.

Tristan shook his head.

Failee narrowed her eyes, and the azure rod turned itself clockwise one full revolution. The effect was immediate.

The noose tightened visibly around the wizard’s neck. Wigg reacted violently, straining for each breath, his face beginning to turn red. Failee smiled, looking again to the prince.

Tristan felt his heart rip, and a tear ran down his right cheek. I beg the Afterlife, somehow make her stop! Against his will, he again shook his head no. And again the rod circled an entire revolution.

Blood began to ooze from the wizard’s mouth. His body began to shudder, convulsing violently in the chair. He turned his face as best he could to his prince, tears flowing down his face.

“Torture me, you bitch!” Tristan screamed at the top of his lungs. He thrashed his body against the sides of the gibbet with everything he had, finding it impossible to believe that a prison so strong had not been built in a smithy’s shop, but in the privacy of another’s mind. “It’s me you really want, isn’t it? Then don’t make him suffer! Let me take his place if I must. Just stop this!”

“I know you are not stupid; therefore you must not have heard me the first time,” she said, the obvious, maddening patience in her voice out of keeping with Wigg’s desperate situation. “I cannot put you in the wizard’s place because I cannot take the risk of harming your blood. If I must, in the end, take your seed from you, the Agonies are the only way to do it without sacrificing its vast quality.” Her eyes narrowed, the hazel irises becoming brighter than ever. “One more turn of the rod will break his neck,” she whispered. “Submit to the Agonies.”

I killed my father, and now I am just as surely killing Wigg, he cried silently. Then he forced himself to look at the wizard.

Straining with everything he had, Wigg extended his fingers and raised his palms upward. His bulging eyes then went frantically back and forth between his hands and Tristan’s eyes, over and over again. What is he trying to tell me? the prince wondered desperately. What is it he wants me to do?

And then he knew. Looking at his own palms, he saw the red scars that crossed them. The scars of his oath. His promise to return Shailiha to Eutracia, even at the cost of his own life. Wigg has included himself in my oath. He is telling me to let him die, rather than give them what they want, he said to himself. He has more knowledge and wisdom than I may ever possess. I will no longer disobey him. Even if it means the death of each of us.

He looked at the sorceress with a hatred that burned across the expanse of space between them and into the hazel abyss of her eyes. “No,” he whispered.

“So be it,” Failee replied softly. The azure rod began its final turn, much more slowly this time. The First Mistress obviously meant to make the wizard suffer as much as possible before the light left his eyes for good.

Tristan stared hopelessly at the wizard as the life force gradually left the old one’s body. Good-bye, my friend, my teacher, he thought. I will do everything in my power to avenge your death. Farewell, Old One.

And then the rope stopped tightening. Tristan’s breath caught in his lungs as he watched the wizard violently cough up more blood.

Tristan tore his eyes from Wigg to look at Failee, and saw that his sister was standing behind the First Mistress, whispering something in her ear. Failee’s smile widened, and then the two of them looked at the prince.

With a wave of Failee’s hand the hangman’s noose disappeared, and Wigg’s head fell forward to his chest. He was retching and coughing; his eyes looked glazed and his body was trembling.

“You have Mistress Shailiha to thank for the old fool’s life. Her logic is quite inescapable,” Failee said casually. Tristan’s heart leapt in his chest. Does Shailiha remember? Is that why she asked Failee to spare him?

“Why don’t you tell the prince what it is you have in mind, my dear?” Failee suggested. “Such an excellent idea. I think he will find it most amusing.”

Shailiha walked closer to his gibbet and looked Tristan straight in the eyes. “There is a better use for the old one,” she said softly, rubbing her abdomen. “The First Mistress tells me that there still may be infestations of male endowed blood in your native home of Eutracia. That set me to thinking.” Walking back and forth in front of Tristan, she continued.

“Failee tells me that, a long time ago, there were things in your land known as blood stalkers. That these things were once originally wizards, whom the Coven mercifully rid of their infestations of endowed blood, transforming them into creatures of useful service to our cause.” She paused, her hazel eyes shining. “This is what I intend to do with the wizard. After the Communion we shall transform him into a stalker and set him loose once again upon his beloved homeland of Eutracia. He can hunt down for us any remaining endowed blood that exists there. Despite what we feel will be the complete effectiveness of the Communion and the Reckoning that will follow it, it always pays to make sure.” Her lush, full lips parted nastily into a smirk. “Such a wise use of the old fool, don’t you agree, Chosen One?” She stood there in triumph, daring him with her eyes to contradict her.

I wish they had killed him, Tristan cried silently, and before it is over, so shall he. To spend eternity as a stalker, killing the ones he had spent his life trying to teach and protect—it was the worst of all fates that could have been bestowed upon him. And Shailiha was the one they had to thank for it.

He closed his eyes and lowered his head, thinking of Faegan, and of all of the innocent consuls of the Redoubt. He could not look at the face of his once-beloved sister. For the first time in his life, his heart began to harden toward her—toward what she had become. He could literally feel the place in his heart that he had once kept only for her begin to shrivel and die. At last he raised his eyes and forced himself to look at her face. The face that showed so much triumph and cruelty in the woman he realized he no longer knew.

I will kill you if I must, he swore to himself. Just as Wigg and Faegan told me I may have to do. I know that I can now. I will also forbid the soul of the unborn daughter in your belly to be defiled, as you have been. Given the chance I will kill you both. I will not let you live, my sister, to remain such a creature as you have become, or to give birth to another like you.

“You… will fail, First Mistress.” Despite the weakness of Wigg’s voice it cut through the prince’s thoughts like a knife, bringing him back to the present. “Your knowledge… is fragmentary, and you must… listen to what I am about to say, or it could mean the end of all of us… and all that we know,” the old wizard slurred. “The Vagaries… you do not possess them all… You will fail… and take the world with you.” His head slumped forward on his chest, bleeding red welts blooming all around his neck.

“Ah, look Sister Shailiha,” Failee said. “It lives.”

The First Mistress floated to a place behind the throne. Grabbing a fistful of the wizard’s hair, she violently pulled his head back against the column. Wigg’s skull impacted with the marble so viciously that the blow sounded like a marble cutter’s hammer coming down to strike off a piece.

“What are you babbling about?” she asked. “Do you really expect me to listen to anything you could have to say?”

“It’s true,” he continued. He paused for breath. “You must listen to me. The knowledge of the Vagaries that you took… took from Faegan’s mind that day so long ago was incomplete. During your torture of him he was able to shield part of his mind from you. The Agonies worked on him, but not to the extent you believe.” Again the wizard was forced to pause, more blood and drool running from his mouth to his chest, creating dark blotches on his gray robe. “You only retrieved a small part of the Vagaries… He was able to withhold most of the rest. You will fail, and you will take the world with you,” he gasped, the breath rattling in his lungs.

“Liar!” she screamed. “My ministrations were complete; I could feel it. No trick of yours now will save you from becoming a stalker, Wizard.”

“You do not fully understand what you have become over the last three hundred years,” Wigg rasped. “If studied improperly the Vagaries cause not only madness but addiction, leading the practitioner into a false sense of knowledge, infallibility, and an unquenchable lust for sexual depravity.” He paused, searching for the words to continue. “The feelings you and the other mistresses are experiencing are therefore both real and false at the same time. And the manner in which you plan to employ your power is totally, irreversibly deadly. If you persist in this ritual of the Communion and the Reckoning, it will be the death of both us and all that we know.”

Somehow Wigg found the strength to continue. “It is the Reckoning that is the greatest danger. Because your knowledge is fragmentary, you will be forced to try to combine the Vigors and the Vagaries during your attempt, and it will be cataclysmic. The powers of the gold and black orbs were meant to be combined and employed by only one person: Tristan, the male of the Chosen Ones, as proclaimed in the Prophecies. As the Ones Who Came Before intended it to be.” And then Wigg did something unexpected. He smiled.

“Tell me, Failee, have you felt the need to draw upon your knowledge of the Vigors in your daily rituals preceding the Communion? That is exactly what Faegan said would happen. Let me rephrase something you said to me a time long ago upon the decks of the Resolve, the night you were banished from Eutracia. Your Sisters all think you have won. Tell me, Sorceress, are you yourself so sure?”

Tristan listened in amazement. Why would Wigg tell her that? It was the only knowledge they had that she did not. And then it hit him. Wigg knows we are going to die. There is no chance for us now. If he can make her stop the Communion and the Reckoning, then perhaps, someday, Faegan and the consuls of the Redoubt may be able to overcome her and the Coven. But either way, the wizard, the dwarf, and I will not live to see it.

A storm passed over Failee’s face and then seemed to vanish as quickly as it had come. “Liar,” she said quietly. “You know my powers are much greater than your own. Who are you to lecture me upon the use of the craft? Both the Communion and the Reckoning shall occur as promised, and both you and the Chosen One will be alive to see the world enslaved to my bidding.”

She turned to face Kluge. “Commander!”

Immediately Kluge was at her feet like an obedient dog. “I live to serve,” he said.

“A small, yellow leper’s robe was found among their things,” she said. “Its size indicates that it belonged to the dwarf, the one who led the prince and wizard to the Recluse. There remain lepers only in the Ghetto; therefore the Ghetto has something to do with their arrival here in Parthalon, and it is there that I wish you and the entire Minion force to begin your search. Tear the city down one brick at a time if you must, but find me the ones who helped these three make their way here. There had to be conspirator; I can feel it in my blood.”

Geldon must have had another yellow robe in his saddlebags, Tristan realized. An extra one. And that mistake is about to cost a great many innocent people their lives.

Kluge asked for permission to speak freely. Failee nodded.

“We have underestimated the prince before,” Kluge said cautiously, acutely aware of the Second Mistress’s attraction to the prince, not wishing to leave Succiu and Tristan in the same room together without him. “I am uncomfortable with not commanding a force here at the Recluse to guard you.”

“The wizard is incapacitated, and the prince has not been trained. Do you forget who I am? We are in no danger. I want their friends in the Ghetto found and dealt with.” Her eyes narrowed. “Make their deaths as painful as possible.”

“I live to serve,” came the reluctant reply. With a final look of hatred toward the prince, Kluge was gone.

Failee raised her hand, and an empty gibbet appeared, hovering in the air next to the prince’s. She pointed to the wizard and levitated his body upward and back into the floating prison. Wigg tried to stand but was too weak, instead half collapsing, half kneeling in the cruel cage.

Failee turned to her prisoners as she gathered her mistresses around her. “Sleep well,” she said sarcastically. “Especially you, Chosen One. I have decided that there will be a special surprise awaiting you tomorrow.”

Tristan looked at each of their faces in turn, ending with Succiu. As she looked him up and down, her almond eyes smiled and the full, red lips parted to allow the tip of her tongue out to touch one corner of her mouth. Smiling, Failee led them out of the room. Once the women were gone, the light from the wall sconces faded, finally dying entirely.

The three captives continued to twist and turn in their strange, hovering prisons, lost in the total, empty darkness of the belly of the Recluse.

29

In his strange, cruel prison, Tristan had lost all concept of time. He knew neither what day it was, nor the hour. Pain wracked his legs, and a powerful thirst rose with the realization that he could not remember how long it had been since he had consumed food or drink.

The pitch-black darkness of the room was now impenetrable, and he knew that his vision would not improve in it or become accustomed to the light, because there was none.

He made a mental note to himself to close his eyes the next time he heard the Coven enter the room. He remembered stories from near the end of the war of prisoners who were suddenly released after having been held in total darkness, only to be rushed out into the sunshine and immediately be struck permanently blind, their eyes unable to adjust quickly enough to the sudden brightness. But first of all he had to know about Wigg.

“Wigg,” he whispered tentatively in the dark. For some reason, whispering seemed the only appropriate tone of voice in this place. “Wigg,” he repeated, “are you all right?”

The reply was immediate. “If you mean having had my gift taken from me, my wizard’s tail removed, and being almost choked to death, then yes, I’m fine,” came the caustic reply. Despite their circumstances, Tristan managed to smile to himself in the dark, glad to see that the old one had not completely lost his sense of self.

“We need to talk,” the wizard said seriously, “and we must speak obliquely, if you follow my meaning. There is much to be said, with perhaps little time in which to say it, for I fear these walls may have ears.” Wigg paused for a moment, and then added, “Geldon, are you conscious?”

Tristan could now hear the soft, low sobbing that came from the direction of the dwarf’s gibbet.

Geldon finally spoke, his voice cracking and childlike under the strain. “I am better,” he said softly. “Succiu has used her powers to tighten my collar a great many times over the course of the last three centuries, and it is something I will recover from this time, as well.” He paused, and both the wizard and the prince could tell he was struggling with his next words.

“I killed them,” he said finally. “All of those whom I brought here, to this awful place… It is my fault.”

“It is no one’s fault but the Coven’s,” Wigg said adamantly. “And I do not have the time to waste to try to convince either of you of that fact. We have other matters to attend to. Remember, Tristan, speak obliquely.”

Tristan’s mind went back to his education with the wizards—the education he had then thought to be of such little use, and which he now wished he had paid more attention to. Think obliquely, he remembered the wizards of the Directorate teaching him. Try to think as we do. In intricate layers of thought and deed.

“We have an old friend at home, do you remember?” the wizard began. “He likes to think he lives rather above us all.”

An old friend, Tristan thought. Faegan. Living above us in the tree house. “Yes,” he said.

“He is very generous, do you remember?” the wizard asked.

Tristan was initially stymied. Generous… giving… gifts… And then he had it. The locket!

“Yes,” he said. “I remember his generosity.”

“Good,” Wigg said. “I remember it, too. His generosity still touches my heart.”

He’s telling me that the locket Faegan gave him is still around his neck, lying upon his chest. If only he had told me what it was for. “Open the locket, look into it, and you will understand,” was all he said.

“I remember. Sometimes one must uncork the stream of knowledge to recognize what is before him,” Tristan replied, referencing the unknown contents of the locket.

“Good,” Wigg said. “Then you remember what I said of it. But there is something else that our friend said to me, about you, that I passed along to you just before we entered this place.”

The prince remembered back to when he had made use of his gift to see the bridge to Shadowood, without having been first trained in the craft, and to the words Wigg had spoken just before they entered the Recluse. “When Faegan heard of it, he was astounded,” the wizard had said. “He told me that he believes if you concentrate hard enough, due to the quality of your blood you might be able to use the craft… Not in any major way, since you are untrained, but hopefully in some small way that might help us. Something simple, such as moving an object or lighting a flame… When you finally hear your heart, you must use your mind to will whatever it is you want to take place… It will take everything you have.”

“I remember,” Tristan said. “Sometimes it takes another to convince one of his abilities.”

“Precisely,” Wigg said. “And knowing exactly when to do such a thing can always be of the utmost importance. Patience has always been a virtue.” He paused. “And sometimes the smallest urging can move mountains.”

Wait, Tristan thought. He’s telling me to wait until the right moment to try to use the gift, because there probably won’t be a second chance. But what did he mean by the smallest urging moving mountains?

Pausing for a moment, the old one finally said, “And do you remember the charge that our old friend burdened you with?”

This time he knew immediately what Wigg was referring to. My charge, my responsibility regarding Shailiha, he thought. That the time may come when I must kill her, and not hesitate in doing so.

“I remember,” he said. If either the wizard or the slave had been able to see his expression, they would have known it had become hard and dark with responsibility. “My heart does not reject the duty as it once did,” he said simply.

“Good,” Wigg said compassionately. “For all things there is a reason.” Darkness and silence hung between them like a cloud for several more moments before the wizard spoke again.

“Each time a door opens, another closes,” he said simply. “Just like the quest for knowledge, doorways can be elusive.”

Doors, Tristan thought. Faegan’s portal. The swirling vortex that brought us here, and the knowledge of it that could take us home. But how many days has it been?

Panic began to grip his mind. He had no idea how long he had been here, and did not know how many more times the portal would be opened, if at all. Has the portal opened and closed for the last time? he wondered.

Tristan decided to play on the wizard’s own words. “Each time a door opens, another closes,” he repeated to Wigg. “But sometimes, despite the best of intentions, one misses the opportunity.” He hoped he was not being too revealing.

“And then again, if one is lucky, one may grasp the opportunity for such freedom of knowledge not just once, but perhaps even twice more,” Wigg answered.

Twice more, the prince said to himself. Wigg is telling me that the portal will open twice more. Two more chances left.

“We have spoken enough,” the wizard said with finality. “I suggest we try to sleep as well as we can. Rest may become our most valuable asset.”

As the silence of the room once more surrounded them, Tristan took the opportunity to ask Wigg one last, more blatant question.

“Wigg,” he ventured, “what will happen to us?”

“We are alive,” the wizard said softly. “And our old friend at home will twice more do his duty. I also continue to believe in his generosity that still touches my heart. Anything can happen.”

Sleep finally began to overtake them all as the gibbets turned softly, endlessly, in the depths of the darkness.

He had no idea how long he had been there, half asleep, turning in the dark, but there were now some things softly gnawing at the underbelly of his consciousness; a flurry of noise, and a distinctive, gathering lightness in the atmosphere of the room. Tristan gradually awakened, trying to remember to open his eyes slowly, letting them adjust to the light. As he did so, he could see several people entering the room from the long set of circular stairs that led down to the Sanctuary.

The first to enter the room was Succiu, dressed in the same highly erotic black leather clothing that he had last seen her wearing. A black leather bullwhip hung from one side of the belt slung low on her hips.

Following her came his sister. In stark contrast to the second mistress, Shailiha wore a long, beautiful maternity gown of the palest blue, with touches of white lace at the bodice, hem, and wrists. The gold-threaded Pentangle was sewn over her left breast, and a pair of highly polished, sapphire shoes completed the picture. She smiled at Tristan as she entered the room.

Behind her came six slaves from the Stables. Three men and three women, they were all clad only in loincloths. They seemed singularly detached and uncaring, as if in some kind of stupor.

The wiktors must be fed, Tristan realized.

“I will not watch this disgusting freak show!” he shouted at the second mistress. Wigg and Geldon remained silent, surprised at the prince’s sudden outburst.

Succiu whirled to face him, unaccustomed to having males speak to her without first having been given permission.

“Vigorous, isn’t he?” she commented to Shailiha, her almond eyes roaming over Tristan’s body. “Keep that strength, Chosen One. You will soon need it.” She smiled knowingly at him as he twisted in his cage. “But first there are some duties to be performed.”

She raised her right hand and Tristan saw the altar in the center of the room begin to glow a soft, radiant azure. Then the glow faded, and an assortment of sumptuous-looking food and drink appeared on the altar. The scent of the food came to his nostrils, quickly reminding him of how hungry and thirsty he was. Again raising her right hand, Succiu watched as the area around the altar began to take on the same, familiar glow, and soon there were three chairs there, as well.

Without warning, the second mistress pointed in the direction of the three gibbets and they dissolved, sending their prisoners crashing down the fifteen feet or so to the cold, marble floor. Despite the weariness in his legs Tristan landed quickly like a cat. He was about to reach for one of his knives when he found suddenly that he could not move. Caught in Succiu’s warp, he fell awkwardly over on one side on the floor, paralyzed.

At first the prince didn’t know which he hated more, being caught in the gibbet like some prize in a zoo, or being on the floor at Succiu’s feet, unable to move his arms and legs. His endowed blood roared in his veins, and he once again made the promise to himself: I will kill this woman. I will kill them all. Looking over as best he could to the wizard and the dwarf, he could see that they, too, lay paralyzed on the floor, but appeared to be otherwise unhurt.

“The First Mistress has made several decisions,” Succiu told them simply. “First, that you should eat and drink.”

“And the second?” Tristan snarled.

“That you should watch Sister Shailiha tend the wiktors,” she said matter-of-factly, as though she were discussing the weather rather than condemning six innocents to death.

“Am I to assume there is a third decision?” he asked sarcastically.

Succiu walked over to where he lay, taking the black leather whip from her belt. Holding the woven handle, she bent down and placed it beneath his chin, raising his eyes up to meet hers.

“Oh yes, Chosen One,” she said softly, almost lovingly. “There is indeed a third decision. It involves you, myself, and Shailiha. But that we will keep as a surprise.”

She backed away from him and narrowed her eyes. Immediately he could sense that his legs had been freed, though his arms were still paralyzed. “Walk to the chairs at the table,” she ordered. “Sit down. Do not make any heroic gestures, or I shall kill the dwarf, and then the wizard. Bear in mind I can do so with a single thought.” She licked her lips strangely. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to deprive them of the upcoming performances, now would you?”

With great difficulty the three of them struggled to their feet, their arms frozen at their sides, and shuffled to the table on trembling, exhausted legs. They sat down heavily, hungrily taking in the sight of all the food before them, inhaling the enticing odors. Tristan looked questioningly at the wizard.

“Yes,” Wigg said, “we can eat this food. If they wanted us dead, we would have been gone long ago.”

“Quite right, Wizard,” Succiu said, snapping her fingers. The six slaves walked to the table, the dumb, vacant looks still on their faces. “Serve them,” she said simply. Succiu looked briefly up to Shailiha as the slaves began feeding the immobilized prisoners. “You will learn, my Sister,” she said, turning her attention to one of her long, painted nails, “that there really is no point in having a slave if you can’t tell him what to do.”

Another chair had appeared from nowhere, next to the one in which the prince was sitting. Succiu sat down in it, smiled, and crossed her long legs up and over the top of the table, propping her high, shiny, black leather boots close to his face. Tristan felt his skin crawl with her closeness, and could smell the jasmine in her long, dark hair as it fell over the back of the chair and nearly to the floor. Staring at him, she formed a circle with the thumb and index finger of her left hand, and began to gently push the handle of the whip in and out of it, imitating the action of intercourse.

She pursed her lips. “You know,” she said coyly, “if you were to submit to the Chimeran Agonies, I could promise you a life of eternal bliss. It is said that coupling with a sorceress is the most intense pleasure a male can receive. Just think of it. You and I, forever.”

Tristan stopped eating and turned to look directly into her eyes. So beautiful, he thought. And yet so hideous. How many men have wanted her, only to die for having succumbed and given her what she demanded of them?

He smiled back at her as he swallowed, and shook his head in quiet ridicule. “I doubt you could live up to your own expectations,” he said flatly. “I think you have delusions of adequacy.”

The black handle of the whip came around with blinding speed, striking him across his right cheek and sending him crashing to the floor. His arms still locked helplessly against his sides, he looked up to see her standing over him.

“Soon, Chosen One, we shall see who is adequate and who is not,” she hissed. She narrowed her eyes and the chairs and altar disappeared, sending Wigg and Geldon to the floor, goblets of wine and plates of food noisily crashing down around them. She waved her right hand and two of the gibbets reappeared, swinging gently in the air. Finally extending two of her fingers, she levitated the wizard and the dwarf back up into cages.

Still lying on the floor, Tristan turned his face toward the sound of the wiktor pit being opened. He could hear the hungry, hissing noises that emanated from its depths.

“Line them up,” Succiu said to Shailiha, indicating the slaves. There was venom in her voice. She looked down at Tristan. “Get up!” she snarled. “Walk to the edge to stand with Mistress Shailiha.”

Tristan stood with difficulty, dazed and dizzy from the blow she had given him. He stumbled to the edge of the pit and looked down, trying to maintain his balance and not fall in. What he saw there he would never forget.

The wiktor pit was huge. Peering down, he literally could not see the end of it. The floor was covered with writhing, slithering wiktors. Some were standing up on their back feet, some were lying on their stomachs, and most seemed to be in a constant state of agitation. Occasionally one would snap at another as if wishing to start a fight, the other snapping back or snarling and hissing in return. The many pairs of yellow, slanted eyes began to look upward to the edge of the pit in anticipation as their hissing grew louder.

“They are hungry,” Shailiha said to the prince as she came to stand next to him at the edge. “And the ones you see here are only a small fraction of the total population. The pit extends far beneath the Recluse. If left alone too long they would begin to eat their own out of sheer survival.” She kept her eyes focused straight into the pit, seemingly mesmerized, without turning her face to him. “And we couldn’t have that, now could we?” she asked sarcastically.

Looking among them, Tristan was finally able to pick out the wiktor he knew, the one he had thought he’d killed that day in Tammerland. One corner of his mouth turned up. He took great pride in knowing that it had been he who had put the telltale scars on the wiktor’s neck and chest, and hoped for another opportunity. The awful thing just stood there without speaking, stone-still in a sea of writhing monsters, and calmly stared up at the prince with its yellow eyes. This one can actually think, he reflected.

As if reading Tristan’s mind, Shailiha pointed to the wiktor. “That one is the only one that can speak, and is the First Mistress’s favorite,” she continued. “She uses him to communicate with the others. Those that you see here are his less-intelligent progeny, but they, too, have their uses. Sometimes it pleases us simply to loose them upon the countryside to ravage the population. I’m sure you can see the advantages to such a thing. Besides helping to keep order, it is also an efficient way to feed them.” She finally turned her head and smiled at Tristan. “They are also an efficient method of disposing of unwanted Stable slaves,” she said sweetly.

Looking farther down into the room, his eyes now more accustomed to the light, Tristan could make out some other objects in the pit. There were tables and chairs scattered around, beakers and vessels of every description lying about, some still containing colored liquids, and charts and scrolls lying discarded on the tables and floors. Huge, long-since-abandoned books were piled floor to ceiling in some places, and everything was covered in a thick layer of ancient dust. It looked as if this place had once been some kind of ancient laboratory. Then it hit him.

This is where she did it, he realized, looking at the awful scene before him. This is where she created the wiktors and the Minions. Here she could experiment with the very essences of life.

His mind went to the sickening uses to which this room would have been put, and to the many who had died there so that Failee could practice her version of the Vagaries over the course of the last three centuries. Until she had gotten it right. Until she had created the Minions of Day and Night, finally achieving what she considered to be their consummate perfection.

He could see now many large glass bottles that contained baby wiktors. Here and there a swollen-bellied pregnant female slithered among the bottles, protecting them from the others. Bloodstains covered large portions of the pit walls, and in many places human bones could be seen, picked clean and polished white. A terrible smell loomed up from the pit, much like that of a poorly tended slaughterhouse. Sickened, Tristan turned his face away, looking once again at his sister. The sister he no longer knew.

“How can you do such things?” he asked breathlessly, his heart simultaneously aching for the kind young woman he had once known and hardened toward the monster she had become. “I am your brother. Can’t you see that?” he asked her, hoping desperately for a glimmer of light in her eyes to tell him that she understood at least some of what he was saying.

She smiled. Not the same, sweet smile he remembered from their youth, but a cruel, knowing smile of superiority, much like the twisted smiles Succiu always gave him. “I know only that you are the Chosen One,” she said. “And that I have never in my life seen you before yesterday, when I first noticed you hanging in your proper place. Your gibbet.”

Shailiha reached out her hand to brush the dark hair away from his forehead, her hazel eyes gazing deep into his in a manner to which he was unaccustomed. Her red lips parted slightly. “I do, however, find the Chosen One to be amazingly attractive…”

“Enough talk!” Succiu’s jealous voice cut through the air like the crack of the whip she carried at her side. “Do what you came here to do,” she said to Shailiha, her tone softening slightly. “We have other duties to attend to.” Smiling at the prince, she ran the tip of her tongue along her lower lip.

Shailiha dutifully walked over to behind the row of slaves who were standing at the edge of the pit, inspecting them as she went. More of the wiktors hungrily crowded toward the near wall, their tails lashing back and forth in anticipation, drool dripping and pooling into green puddles on the floor beneath them. The hissing rose to a level that would drown out normal conversation.

Tristan looked at the row of slaves as they stood there dumbly, vacantly staring out over the pit. The three men and three women were all young, lithe, and beautiful. What a horrific waste, he thought as he stood there, helpless to resist. How many times over the centuries has this sick, twisted massacre been played out here in this room? And how many more centuries will it continue, with my sister as the head butcher, if I am unable somehow to stop the Coven before the Communion? He hung his head in shame. 1 see no way to fight them. They are too strong, he thought sadly, his heart squarely facing the truth. What little manifestations I might be able to perform of the craft could never be enough to do what must be done to stop all of this.

Without further ceremony Shailiha used her index finger to easily, almost casually, push the slaves one by one into the pit.

The prince could close his eyes against the horror, but not his ears. The wiktors descended upon the slaves immediately, and he could not shut out the sounds of the crunching of bone, the tearing of flesh, and the screams that rose from the pit as the reptile-like things tore into their victims. And then, finally, all was quiet.

Looking up, he saw that blood had sprayed everywhere, splashing high against the upper walls and running slowly back down in sticky, streaming rivulets of bright red. The second mistress touched a splattered blood spot on her right arm and placed the bloody finger to her tongue. Shailiha was looking at Tristan, smiling again.

Tristan ached to seize the weapons that lay across his back, but his arms were still frozen, useless, and at last he understood the cruel logic that allowed him to keep the dirks and dreggan. It was for that same, exact reason: Because they were no good to him. A reminder only. His eyes tore across the space between himself and his sister, his blood alive with rage.

Given the chance I will kill you, he swore to himself. Any misgivings I may have had because you were once my sister are now gone. I will kill you as surely as night follows day.

The three of them stepped back as the walls rejoined and the floor covering the pit began to scratch its way back into place, the only remnants of the tragic scene the blood that continued to slither down the white marble walls. Tristan stood there in abject hopelessness, his frozen arms hanging at his sides, wondering what would happen next. Wondering what the second mistress had been referring to when she spoke of “other duties to attend to.” He didn’t have to wait very long.

Succiu raised her right arm and immediately an azure bolt appeared, striking the prince squarely in the chest and lifting him high into the air. Immediately he was thrown back with stunning force against the marble wall directly across from the altar and impaled there, ten feet in the air. The back of his skull impacted with the wall with a terrible cracking sound, and for several moments he could not see or hear, his eyes blurry and his ears ringing violently. The dreggan and dirks dug maddeningly through the leather vest and into the skin of his back, and the fragile wound in his side had torn open, beginning to bleed again. Testing both his arms and legs, he found he could move neither.

Pinned to the wall and in excruciating pain, his arms and legs drooping helplessly toward the floor, all he could do was to look down upon his tormentor—the impossibly beautiful woman in black leather with the long, silken hair and the exquisitely slanted, mahogany-colored eyes. The second mistress. The one who liked to taste blood. The woman Faegan had said could not rival the evil of Failee. But the woman who, to the prince’s mind, was in so many ways so much worse.

Succiu stepped in front of where Tristan was pinned to the wall, the snapping sounds of her black, high-heeled boots following her as she went. She motioned for Shailiha to join her there, and draped an affectionate arm around her as the two of them looked up at him, gloating.

“It is now time to tell you that there has been a slight change of plans,” Succiu said, casting her eyes up and down Tristan’s helpless body. “This is the ninth day of Failee’s deliberations, and she is ready to perform the Blood Communion. Think of it, Chosen One. It is to be this very night.” She paused, relishing the words, as if simply speaking them to him could make the ritual happen sooner. “And the other event, the one that the First Mistress so carefully explained to you before, is to take place now.”

Tristan froze, his mind reeling.

She was going to rape him, and take from him his firstborn child.

The second mistress raised one of her long, arched eyebrows. “I can see by the look on your face you understand,” she said, stepping closer to him. “Good. The First Mistress has determined that one of us should carry your child now, before the Communion commences. Her ruminations of the Vagaries have led her to believe that if one of us has already conceived your child when the Communion occurs, the ritual will strengthen the unborn. I must say that I agree with her.” Her eyes narrowed seductively beneath the long, dark lashes.

“It is I who have been chosen to do so,” she continued. “A task which I must say I have been anxious to carry out ever since the first time I saw you on the dais, back in Tammerland. Time did not permit such intimacies then, but we shall make up for that now, won’t we?” Succiu turned her gaze momentarily to Shailiha, who was standing there dutifully.

“Oh, and there is just one other thing,” she added nastily, lowering her voice. Then she smiled. “You should know that Mistress Shailiha has asked to watch,” she whispered.

For a moment Tristan couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t hear. His mind was simply awash with the horror of what was about to happen, literally floating away upon the impact of her words. There was no one to help him, and no way to stop it. But as soon as the realization that Succiu’s words had become clear in his mind, he noticed that something was happening to him. His body was beginning to move away from the wall.

Succiu dropped her arm and the azure bolt disappeared, but the prince remained in the air, a few feet away from the wall. The second mistress then began to manipulate her hands in front of herself as if she were disrobing some imaginary person who might have been standing before her. And his clothes began to come off.

She began with his weapons. Baldric and quiver were removed and lifted up; they fell noisily to the floor, the sword sliding from its sheath and the knives spilling out and skittering across the smooth expanse of marble. His boots were removed, and then his socks. He watched in horror as his arms rose involuntarily above his head and the laces of his vest began to untie themselves. The vest glided up and over him, falling to the floor. Finally, with the mere pointing of Succiu’s finger, his breeches unlaced, and they too fell, in a rumpling heap on top of his other clothes. He slumped forward slightly in defeat, the gold medallion twinkling in the soft light of the room as it swung away from his neck, beads of sweat from his chest randomly falling upon it. The blood from the wound in his side dripped slowly onto the floor.

Succiu looked at Shailiha wickedly. “I told you he would not disappoint,” she said. “Time to put him in his place.”

With a slight movement of her hand, the prince’s body gently lowered toward the altar. She turned her palm up, and he turned in the air with it, following her movements exactly until he was lying on his back on the cold, smooth altar. He lay spread-eagled, totally unable to move his arms or his legs. This is where she means to do it, he thought in disbelief. On the altar of the Blood Communion.

Noticing the medallion resting on his chest, Shailiha walked over to the altar and looked down, first at his naked body, and then at the medallion itself. A strange look of puzzlement came over her face as she stood there, watching the engraved piece of gold rise and fall with Tristan’s frantic breathing. He watched as she lifted one hand and touched the bodice of her dress lightly, at about the place where the two ends of the gold chain around her neck would have come together had they been suspending a piece of jewelry. The gesture meant nothing to him.

“You may stand exactly where you are now, Mistress Shailiha,” Succiu’s voice purred from the other side of the altar. She had suddenly become naked, and a crystal goblet of red wine had appeared in her right hand. “Since you have asked to watch, this will provide an excellent chance for you to learn how it is done.” She leaned across the altar, across the body of the Chosen One, and gave Shailiha a soft kiss on the lips. “So that you will be proficient at it when it is your turn. And your turn it shall be. Watch and learn.”

Tristan watched as the second mistress, naked, the goblet of wine still in her hand, levitated herself to a position above him and then gently lowered herself back down to the altar so that she was standing upon it, directly over him, one foot at each side of his body. Her magnificent form shone in the soft light of the wall sconces. She raised the wineglass slightly, in the form of an offering.

“Would you like some wine first?” she asked nastily. “I have made it a custom to first offer my partner a refreshment.”

“No,” he said. His mind was racing, his heart pounding so hard he thought it might come out of his chest.

“You really should be courteous enough to take what is offered to you,” she said. “After all, I am a sorceress, and there are always other ways to make you drink.”

“No.” He spat out the single word as if it were made of poison. “I want nothing from you, including your body. Save it for your Stable slaves.”

Succiu pursed her lips. “So you want neither my wine nor my body, eh?” She paused, thinking. “Too bad. Let’s see if there is a way to give you a taste of each at the same time, because I think it impolite of you not to drink with me.”

She pointed her free hand toward his face, and Tristan felt his mouth opening. He tried to close it, but he could not keep his jaws from parting.

Smiling, the second mistress moved the glass of wine to her lower abdomen, and then down farther still until it pressed against the warmth of her groin. Extending one of her long legs, she pointed her toes and placed them into the prince’s mouth, choking him slightly. Pouring the wine from the glass, she silently commanded the liquid to travel between her legs, and then down the length of her right leg and into his mouth.

Tristan began to choke immediately as wine ran down his throat and into his lungs at the same time, bringing him the taste of both her scent and the heavily scented flavor of the grape. Some spilled down the side of his face, ran over the edge of the altar, and splashed on the floor. Tristan arched his back and coughed violently as she poured the wine relentlessly down and into his mouth. Finally she stopped, seeming to enjoy watching his misery as she pulled back her leg to stand over him once again, her arms akimbo. Shaking his head and retching violently, he was finally able to gasp some life-sustaining air into his lungs. When he had finally regained his breath, the second mistress spoke.

“Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, it is time to accomplish what I came here for,” she whispered to him, as though they were the only two people in the room, the only two people in the world. A look of undeniable need had begun to come over her face, and her mouth started to twist upward into a vicious snarl. It was almost as if her countenance was changing before his eyes. Turning toward Shailiha, he could see the same strange need beginning to build in his sister, as well.

The prince then turned his face as best he could against the cool hardness of the marble to look at the two gibbets. Wigg and Geldon were still in them, twisting slowly in the air. Wigg was slumped in defeat against the wall of his strange cage, and had tears in his eyes. Tristan watched as the droplets slowly ran down the length of the wizard’s face, leaving small, shining trails as they went. I have never seen the old one cry before, he suddenly realized. We are truly finished.

“The old wizard cannot help you,” Succiu sneered. “No one can help you now.”

She looked at his groin and narrowed her eyes. Suddenly, without warning, the prince began to feel the longings of desire building within him, and the inevitable physical arousal that always accompanied it. He could feel the heat literally growing in him, greater than he had ever known. He lay there beneath her, powerless, in abject terror of what would come next.

“Ah,” the second mistress cooed as she stood above him on the white altar, her eyes hungrily taking in the length of his body. “Now we are finally ready to begin.”

Slowly, almost carefully, she lowered herself down upon him just as Natasha had done, until her face was only inches from his own.

Immediately a searing, unrelenting fire shot through him. Not the usual warm, pleasant beginnings of lovemaking, but an unnatural, all-encompassing, and painful burning that started in his groin and reached out to every corner of his body. He tried to arch his back in defiance, but there was nowhere to go and no way to turn from it.

Succiu looked down on him with now unseeing eyes, her mahogany-colored irises lost high beneath her eyelids, her red lips parted seductively as her pleasure intensified. She began to undulate slowly upon him, her cadence increasing as her pleasure began to build.

The pain Tristan felt was becoming unbearable, the burning sensation increasing even farther as his breath came harder. He was bathed in sweat, most of it his own but some of it belonging to Succiu as she continued to ride him, lost in pleasure.

It was the panic of being raped by Natasha all over again, but this time there was no one to save him. No azure wizard’s noose would come to his aid, and even had there been dreggan or dirk at his back he would have been unable to grip it. This time the sorceresses would win, and he would give them his firstborn. He knew it in his heart, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

And then it happened.

Succiu threw back her head and screamed, and as if she could will it, with that scream came the inevitable waves as they rippled through his groin. But this time, the experience was different.

The pain was beyond anything he had ever experienced in his life.

Every nerve was on fire as he, too, began to scream, his sweat-coated body convulsively dancing and jangling like a marionette at the end of unseen strings, his head thrashing violently back and forth, white foam dribbling from the corners of his mouth. To his dazed and controlled mind it seemed to go on forever, his own screams mingling with hers, joining and careening off the white, spotless walls of the Sanctuary.

And then, finally, it was over. Succiu’s eyes returned to normal as she looked down upon him in triumph, her breasts heaving with exertion. She put a hand to one side of his face and stroked it affectionately as his consciousness began to clear.

Finally looking up, he could see that she was still astride him, and her breathing had begun to slow. But there was something different. There was an azure glow all about her. It danced and flickered in the soft light of the room, creating convoluted shadows of violet and blue for a short time before finally receding, and then disappearing altogether. She smiled and lowered her face to within only inches of his own.

“Congratulations,” she purred to him. “No man but you, no one but the Chosen One, could have survived what has just transpired between us. This time it was special for me.” She tilted her head to one side, to watch her words sink into his consciousness. “For you see, my sweet, I have just conceived.”

Tristan tried to stop them, but they just came: tears. He had no clever answers for her. No glib things to say in the wake of what had just happened. He lay there, defenseless, listening to her awful words as she spoke, his tears running wet and salty down the sides of his cheeks. Blood from the wound in his side dripped lazily to the floor.

“Did the old one not tell you?” she asked. “A sorceress can indeed choose whether or not to conceive. For all of my life I have never found a male of sufficient blood quality to justify it. Until now. I’m sure you saw the azure glow that marked the blessed event.” She ran her tongue around the outer edge of her lips, wetting them seductively.

“In addition to that there is one thing more that you should now know. A sorceress can greatly accelerate her pregnancy. Already I can feel it growing in my womb. Our child will be born just three days from now.”

Tristan felt his heart tearing, wishing that he could will himself to die, die and be gone from this place, this world, forever. I have given them what they wanted most, his crying heart called out to him in guilt. I have done more to further their ends than any other person in the history of my nation. And all because of the blood that I carry in my veins. He looked over to his sister to see that she seemed to be caught up in some frantic, sexual need to be part of what had just happened.

“Did you not enjoy your time with me?” Succiu asked cattily as she continued to lie upon him. “This is what it shall be like for you throughout all eternity as we protect you with time enchantments and proceed to take your seed. Time after time. Thank you, my prince. Take comfort in the fact that it matters not whether our first child is a boy or a girl. Either way it will be raised as one of us.” She paused, looking him up and down with what were now more satisfied eyes. Then those almond-shaped eyes narrowed.

“Either way, my sweet, be sure of one thing,” she said as she tossed her head and threw her long, silken hair over one shoulder. “You lose.”

And then she was suddenly away from him, standing next to the altar, fully clothed in her black leather. She put an arm around Shailiha, and then once again lifted the prince up into the air. Slowly, one by one, his articles of clothing were replaced upon his body, including the weapons that he was still unable to use.

His gibbet reappeared, and she pushed him back into it, his body somehow passing through the bars until he was once again trapped in his strange, hovering prison of imaginary steel. He slumped against the walls of the cage, his eyes half open, his body and mind still wracked with the pain and terror of what had just happened to him.

Succiu turned to lead Shailiha out of the sanctuary, and as they left, the light in the room slowly dimmed back to nothingness, leaving the three prisoners high in their airborne cages, the prince sobbing quietly into the darkness that surrounded him.

30

It was Wigg who first spoke. Upon hearing the wizard’s voice, Tristan realized that he had no knowledge of how long he had been hanging there in the dark. No idea of whether it had been hours or days, or whether he had been unconscious or awake. Time, life, and his very consciousness seemed to flow darkly into one long, endlessly trailing river of despair, emptiness, and pain. He could remember nothing. The only thing his cloudy mind was sure of was that it was Wigg who was speaking to him.

“Tristan,” the wizard whispered in the dark. “Are you awake?”

At first the prince couldn’t speak. His mouth wouldn’t work, and his mind couldn’t formulate the words to transfer them to his tongue.

“Yes,” he answered thickly.

“Try to concentrate,” Wigg said. “It is vital that we talk, and that you be able to remember what I tell you now.” When no answer came he continued, hoping that Tristan had not blacked out again.

“What she did to you could not be helped; you must believe that. There is no one on the face of the earth, including Faegan, who could have fought off the power that Succiu had within her when she raped you. You must believe me. It is not your fault.”

A scratchier, more diminutive voice joined the conversation, but in his dazed condition the prince did not recognize it. “It’s true, Tristan,” Geldon said. “She has been torturing me for centuries. But I still live. Take heart.”

Tristan began to sob again, unable to control himself. “I couldn’t stop her,” he said, the tears coming freely. “I tried, but 1 couldn’t, now she has my child. She was so strong…”

“I know,” Wigg said softly. “But you must also know that the effect it had upon you is temporary and that you are not permanently damaged. They want you to live and to be healthy, so that they may use you again. Now you must concentrate. The Communion is only hours away.”

Tristan laid his head back against the bars of his gibbet. He simply couldn’t bring himself to think properly, and he sobbed as his cage turned slowly in the air. What is the old wizard babbling about? he thought dully. Why can’t he just let me go back to sleep?

“Tristan,” Wigg said softly. “Feel the palms of your hands.”

Why does the old fool want me to do something like that? he wondered. He dumbly rubbed his fingers over his palms, and then it all came flooding back to him on a river of hate.

His oath. His family. His reasons for being here.

Shailiha. I came here for Shailiha. And to stop the Communion.

“I am here, Wigg,” he said.

“Good,” Wigg replied. “We must once again speak obliquely.”

“Very well.”

“Sometimes only a small urging is all that is required to move mountains,” the old one said. “And sometimes it is easier to let a thing come to you, rather than for you to go to it.”

Tristan shook his head in the dark, trying to clear away the last of the cobwebs that clouded his thinking. I don’t know what he is talking about, he realized. It doesn’t make any sense.

“Sometimes the student is unable to keep up with the master, and needs further guidance,” he said.

“And sometimes the master knows the answer but has said all that he can, and the student must find his own meanings,” Wigg responded.

He knows! Tristan shouted to himself. He knows the answer to stopping the Communion, and he is trying to tell me what it is!

He continued to struggle with the wizard’s words, stymied. A small urging… Let a thing come to you … “I am sure that you have had students who have failed you,” Tristan replied glumly. “It seems that such is once again the case.”

“There is little time to reflect upon such things,” the wizard said. “And there is little more that I can say. I will now be silent, so that you may be alone with your thoughts.”

We are finished, Tristan thought. Only a few hours until the Communion, and I cannot find the answer to his riddle. Layers of thought and deed. If I do not realize the answer soon, everything we know and love will soon be gone.

He continued to slump in his cage, near exhaustion, trying to fathom the words of the wizard as sleep started to crowd into the corners of his mind and try to rob him of the precious time he needed to think.

Sometimes only a small urging is all that is required… urging is required… sometimes…

Sleep finally won over his mind, and the prince once again collapsed into unconsciousness.

31

Tristan regained consciousness just as the light began to come up again in the Sanctuary. It was somehow brighter than the times before, the scene before him more alive this time in the large, white room with the five black thrones and the altar nestled in their center. The black Pentangle inlaid into the white marble floor loomed up before him ominously.

Again, he had no concept of how long he had been out. Opening his eyes slowly, he first turned to check on Geldon and Wigg. The dwarf, like the prince, was still rubbing his eyes, trying to accustom himself to the light. Wigg was awake and looked as though he had been for some time. Without his wizard’s tail he somehow didn’t look quite like Wigg. When he saw Tristan looking at him, he raised his eyebrow inquisitively, hoping against hope that the prince would give him some sign that he had solved his riddle. When none came, he tried to smile bravely back at Tristan nonetheless, willing him not to give up.

They had no time to speak.

Footsteps could be heard coming down the single, circular stairway that led to this place, and Tristan knew who was about to enter the room.

Failee led the way, carrying a golden goblet, the Paragon hanging around her neck. She was followed by Succiu, Vona, Zabarra, and finally Shailiha. Shailiha, he thought. The fifth sorceress. My sister.

Each of them wore a magnificent black gown with a Pentangle of woven gold thread just above the left breast. Tristan’s eyes were immediately drawn to his sister, and he looked at her with an impossible, maddening mixture of love and hate. Love for the woman she had once been; hate for the woman—the monster—she had become. His eyes then fell upon Succiu, and the breath caught in his lungs.

She was obviously pregnant, and quite far along in her term.

He crouched there in his cage, staring in wonder at the woman who had raped him presumably only a few hours earlier. The black maternity gown she wore was much like Shailiha’s, and her abdomen was clearly swollen. If she had been an ordinary woman he would have guessed her pregnancy to be at seven or eight moons. But it had only been a few hours, a day at the most. Pregnancy somehow made her even more impossibly beautiful, the almond eyes, long black hair, and red lips even more inviting. Such power. A true sorceress of the craft, he thought, trying to grasp the incredible fact that she was soon going to deliver his firstborn child. And then the product of her crime against me will be among us, he reflected sadly.

Looking into his eyes with a strange combination of what seemed to be triumph and awe, Succiu placed an affectionate hand around Shailiha’s waist, pulling her close. His sister smiled.

“Your blood never ceases to amaze us, Chosen One,” Succiu said quietly. “The child in my womb grows faster than even we had predicted. Later today, early tomorrow at the latest, you shall have a son. Imagine, the firstborn child of the Chosen One may in fact be born on the day of the Reckoning. Fitting, don’t you think? Pity you shall never know him, or any of the other children you shall give us.”

My child, my firstborn, carried by such a monster, he thought, the hideousness of it almost bringing him to tears. And still I have no inkling of the meaning of Wigg’s words. “Sometimes only a small urging is all that is required to move mountains. And sometimes it is easier to let a thing come to you, rather than for you to go to it.” What does it mean? His thoughts turned to the pewter locket that the wizard presumably still carried around his neck, hidden beneath his robe. Does he still have it? he wondered frantically. What is it for? Am I somehow supposed to know?

Failee levitated herself and glided serenely across the room toward Wigg’s cage, the hem of her black gown fluttering slightly in the breeze of her passage. Tristan could see the madness in her eyes; the strange, hazel irises seeming to glow more brightly than ever.

Three hundred years, Tristan thought. Three hundred years she has waited for this day.

The First Mistress floated higher in the air until she was level with the wizard. “So, Old One,” she said softly, “we have now come full circle. There are those of us in this room who believe that you should already be dead, that your continued presence here among us can only be a danger. But I know different. I know how robbed you are now of your power, and I enjoy seeing you this way, the way I wished to see each of the males of endowed blood during the Sorceresses’ War, as you now call it.” She paused, continuing to look at him through the bars of his cage as she taunted him.

“But I shall let you live, at least for a little while. I wish to have you see with your own eyes that all your attempts to undo what I have accomplished here shall eventually end in ruin for you, and see those failures you shall. And all of this shall happen just before we take the advice of our fifth sorceress and turn you into a blood stalker, to walk the lands of Eutracia for all time.”

Wigg reached out and grasped the bars of his cage, pulling his face as close to hers as he could. “I tell you for the last time, woman,” he said urgently. “You must stop this. Your knowledge is fragmentary at best, and you will be the ruin of us all. You have known me for eons, and I have never lied to you. I do not lie to you now. This is my last warning! Stop this madness, or we all may die.”

“Ah, yes,” she said. “A wizard’s warning. A tradition of the recently departed Directorate, I believe. How noble. Your oath, again, no doubt. How does it go? ‘I shall take no life except in urgent self-defense, or without prior warning.’ Yes, we heard the prince recite it several times while unconscious. Do you seriously expect me to believe you?” she asked, almost politely, as she continued to gaze at him.

“No, Wigg, that would be much too easy. I have waited and suffered far too long to be persuaded by a wizard’s trick. I told you three hundred twenty-seven years ago, upon the decks of the Resolve, that one day your oath would be your undoing, and so here we are.”

She turned her eyes toward the prince. “The wizard wasted your time when he spoke to you obliquely, because he is quite wrong in whatever it was he was thinking,” she said softly. She smiled at him. “There is no way to stop me. Soon he will be dead, and you, like your sister, will be one of us.”

It’s true. They were listening to us all the time, Tristan realized. His mind raced, trying to understand the wizard’s riddle, at the same time wondering whether the sorceresses having heard them talk had made any difference. But there is an answer—there must be—and Wigg knows what it is. Too many times I have not trusted the old one and have paid the price for it. I shall never mistrust him again. But his thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the First Mistress.

“So as to placate the other members of the Coven, I have devised a little gift for the wizard.” She raised her right index finger toward Wigg, and immediately the wizard put his hands to his throat, protectively, and opened his mouth to speak. But no words came. In a flash, his arms were frozen at his sides. Whatever slight amount of room that might have once existed in his gibbet was now obviously gone.

Wigg looked at Tristan with what the prince thought to be an even greater sense of urgency; his mouth moving silently, pitifully, as he hung there in his cage. Geldon, trembling with terror, looked back and forth between the prince and the wizard, as if he could somehow help them communicate. But Tristan could see in the dwarfs eyes that he, too, knew all was lost.

“The Lead Wizard is now unable to speak or to raise his hands or arms to gesture to you in any way,” Failee said haughtily. “Qualities I enjoy in all wizards. For your information, the old one is in no pain and is still quite able to watch the ritual that I am about to perform. But any communication that the two of you may have been planning on during the Communion, verbal or otherwise, should now be quite impossible.” She turned to look lovingly at the four other members of the Coven standing dutifully before the altar.

“And so it begins,” she said quietly, as if to herself.

Without further explanation, she glided back down to the floor, stopping at the altar. Tristan watched as she placed the golden goblet directly in the center of it, beneath the skylight.

Tristan looked again to Wigg, but the helpless wizard could only stare back frantically in return. Think, you fool! the prince thought angrily. What was it that Wigg was trying to tell me?

Tristan began to try to remember everything that Faegan had told them that night about the Communion. A small amount of blood would be taken from each of the five sorceresses and combined in the goblet. The goblet would then be placed in the center of the altar, directly below the skylight, and Failee would begin the ritual. The stone would be removed from around her neck and suspended over the goblet of blood.

He stopped thinking for a moment to glance at Wigg, as if seeing the wizard would help him to remember. Finally, the tragedy of the Communion came back to him. The mistresses would take their places in their thrones at the five points of the Pentangle, and the combination of the stone and the blood would call the light from the sky. It would strike the stone, refracting it into different colors that would cascade into the goblet, charging the blood, already strengthened by the purity of Shailiha’s blood, with the power of the stone.

Then they would each drink, sharing the power, the Communion complete. The Reckoning would invariably follow.

Tristan’s head hung down to his chest in defeat, his mind painfully calculating the horrors that the Reckoning would bring. World enslavement, he thought. The death of Geldon and Wigg. The loss forever of Shailiha and her daughter to the Coven. And the enslavement of myself to produce Failee’s super being, so that she might rule with it in perpetuity, continuing to “experiment” on the masses. The insanity never ends! And the culmination of it all is almost here.

Failee beckoned for the other mistresses to gather around her, and they did so silently, forming a small circle around her just before the altar. Then she began to speak in a low, guttural tone, in a language that the prince did not understand.

Each of the four held out their right, upturned wrists in the direction of the First Mistress. Failee narrowed her eyes at the wrist offered first by Vona, and Tristan watched in dread as a small wound opened on the younger woman’s forearm. The incision had the appearance of a straight line, no more than one or two inches long. Failee held out the goblet as the blood began to well up, creating a shiny bracelet of red and finally dripping into the golden vessel beneath it. When the First Mistress apparently felt there was enough, she removed the goblet from beneath Vona’s wrist and started the process over again, this time with Zabarra.

The bloodletting has begun, Tristan thought in a panic. In only a few moments she will call the light from the sky. Think! What is the answer to Wigg’s riddle? The old wizard’s words raced through his head for the hundredth time. “Sometimes only a small urging is all that is required to move mountains. And sometimes it is easier to let a thing come to you, rather than for you to go to it.” What does it mean? What in the name of the Afterlife is the answer?

Tristan looked back down to see that Failee had completed the bloodletting of the four other sorceresses and was now performing the same ritual on herself. Her blood dripped slowly, agonizingly, into the goblet as Tristan hung there in his cage, powerless to stop it. His face and body were covered with a light sheen of sweat, and he found himself breathing so heavily he thought his heart might burst.

Failee stopped speaking and gestured for the mistresses to take their thrones. Dutifully, they walked to the massive black marble chairs and sat down, the matching black silk of their gowns flowing down and over their feet, the maternity gowns of Succiu and Shailiha draping elegantly over their abdomens. None of the five looked at the three prisoners in the gibbets. Tristan knew instinctively that at this point in time, nothing existed for them except the completion of the Communion.

Failee gently, reverently, placed the goblet of blood in the center of the altar, directly below the skylight that reached up through the height of the Recluse and to the heavens. Slowly she removed the stone from around her neck and held it in the air above the goblet. She closed her eyes and removed her hands from the Paragon. Because the stone no longer had a host, its deep, bloodred color immediately began to diminish, just as it had that evening on the dais when Tristan’s father had removed it and handed it to Wigg. When Failee opened her eyes, the Paragon remained hovering above the goblet. She slowly walked to her throne and sat down, her face a mask.

Silent, unmoving, and totally oblivious to their wounds, the mistresses sat on their thrones as the blood dripped slowly from their arms to pool on the white marble floor. A tear escaped the corner of the prince’s eye as he looked down at his sister, resplendent in her black gown. The fifth sorceress, he thought. No one moved; no one spoke.

The room had become as silent as death.

Then, almost imperceptibly at first, the Sanctuary began to lighten.

The light crept into the room gradually as it descended through the long tunnel of the skylight. It was the purest, whitest light Tristan had ever seen. Streaming down as if it were alive, it flowed straight into the Paragon. Slowly but dramatically the light grew brighter and brighter until the prince could barely look upon it. It was magnificent.

The blood and the stone are calling forth the light just as Faegan said they would, Tristan thought, not wanting to believe the awful, wondrous thing that was occurring before him. Tearing his eyes from the stone, he looked at the members of Coven. What he saw before him made his breath stop short in his lungs.

Each of the mistresses’ eyes had rolled all the way up until only the whites could be seen. The women seemed to be staring lifelessly, unseeing, out into the room as the light pouring into the stone continued to brighten.

They’re defenseless, Tristan suddenly realized. No person of endowed blood is wearing the stone, nor is it in the water of the Caves. “This is the only time you can even think of acting against them,” he remembered Faegan saying that night in the tree house. And then he realized something else.

The mistresses must be protecting their eyes from the light! And while they do so, they seem to be temporarily blinded. If I am able to do something, they may not be able to detect it.

Think! he told himself as the light continued to rain down upon the stone, its rays increasing to a white-hot pitch. Think, before the light blinds you for life. The mistresses do not care whether you are able to see, only if you are able to give them your seed. Think!

The Paragon had become devoid of color, looking almost like a diamond as it hung there in the bright, white glow. Suddenly, without warning, the light completed its journey through the Paragon and shot out the lower end of the stone, refracting into thousands of separate shards of light, each one seeming to have both form and substance, as it one could literally reach out and touch them. Their beauty was dazzling. Each of the shards had its own distinct color, and they all pointed from the stone downward toward the blood in the goblet. As Tristan watched, they began to grow in length like the stalactites of the Caves, creeping lower toward the rim of the goblet. When they reached the mingled blood of the sorceresses the liquid would be empowered, and all that would remain would be for the mistresses to drink it, thus harnessing within each of them both the power of the Paragon and the blood of the female Chosen One for the first time in the history of the world.

In only moments the stretching fingers of light would reach the blood.

What is the answer? he cried to himself. He wanted to look to Wigg and Geldon to see if they were well, but he dared not take his eyes off the scene for fear something would change without his knowing it, despite the incredible pain looking at it was causing him. He could feel it burning through his eyes and into the back of his brain. What is the answer? he lamented. Why is it I do not know?

Tristan finally closed his eyes against the light, trying to calm his mind and recall all he could about the stone and the Communion. The stone begins to die if not around the neck of one of endowed blood or immersed in the water of the Caves, he remembered.

He forced himself to look back at the Paragon as the light shattered his senses. His eyes narrowed in disbelief. The stone’s bloodred color had completely returned as it collected the light from above. The stone needs the host or the water to stay alive, but now it has neither. His mind rebelled against the truth that lay before him. Then how is it that the stone can now be red once again?

And then it hit him. Tristan suddenly felt a door open in his mind, and it all became clear, the knowledge flowing through his consciousness, heart, and endowed blood as if it had been there always, from the day of his birth.

The light is sustaining the stone, he realized.

And he also realized that the knowledge was no longer coming from his mind, but from the endowed blood that now so quickly coursed through his veins.

The light is not just flowing through the stone to empower the blood below, draining the Paragon of its power as Faegan thought, but is actually sustaining the Paragon as it does so. There is a third, before now completely unknown entity, other than the host and the water, that can empower and sustain the Paragon. The light that Failee has called down. That is why the Directorate did not know of it—its description was contained only in the Vagaries. The forbidden, esoteric Vagaries that Failee tore from Faegan’s mind with the Chimeran Agonies and was forced to combine with the Vigors to produce this bastardization of the craft. And in her thirst for the Reckoning, the First Mistress herself is not even aware of the danger she has created. In that part of it, Faegan was indeed correct. He felt almost as if an unseen presence was speaking to him from somewhere far away. Once again he heard Wigg’s riddle, and now he knew the answer.

“Sometimes only a small urging is all that is required to move mountains. And sometimes it is better to let a thing come to you, rather than for you to go to it.” Wigg wants me to use my gift to bring the stone to me, removing it from the stream of light. If I am able to do that, the Communion cannot proceed because the Paragon will lose its sustenance, the light will have no partner, and the Coven will still be defenseless. And then, suddenly, a new fear seized him.

If he took the stone from the light, the Communion would end. But, given enough time away from a host and the water as well, would the Paragon die? He had no water from the Caves in which to submerge it—and that had to be done first, in order to return it to a virgin state so it could be given to a new host of endowed blood, whether that person was Wigg or Tristan. But if he did not move the stone, would the improper combination of the Vigors and the Vagaries that Failee was employing destroy everything, as Faegan predicted? Was there really any choice?

The shards of light were reaching past the rim of the goblet now. The mistresses were still unmoving as the blood in the goblet started to roil with the impending power of the light. The Paragon itself was beginning to shake as if it could no longer stand the strain of the improper combination of the Vigors and Vagaries, as if begging for someone to stop the ritual. Tristan knew the time to act was almost upon them all. He could feel his blood beckoning him to remember the wizard’s instructions on how to use the rudimentary beginnings of his gift.

“In order to see the bridge, you first had to stop trying to see it, and let it come to you,” Wigg had said. “Let it come to you …” Tristan thought. The second part of the wizard’s riddle. “And then once you had mastered that… you heard the beating of your own heart,” Wigg had continued. “When you finally hear your heart, you must use your mind to will whatever it is you want to take place… It will take everything you have.”

The intensity of the light reaching lethal proportions, the Paragon itself close to bursting, the prince closed his eyes. He knew he must somehow shut down his mind, shut out the activity in front of him, and join with his blood. He lowered his breathing and tried to hear the beating of his heart.

There was nothing.

Again he calmed himself, trying to imagine only the quiet stillness that he required for the gift to come to him, for the beating of his heart to be heard. But still no sound reached his ears.

He opened his eyes to take a precious moment to look at the Paragon. It was swelling almost to the bursting point, and seemed to be calling to him, begging him to fulfill the demands now being placed on his blood. Tristan closed his eyes. There would be only one more chance.

And finally, almost silently, it began.

The quiet, rhythmic beating of his heart arrived in his mind as his endowed blood surged past his eardrums, telling him to continue. He opened his eyes and found that he could now see the stone clearly, despite the white light that coursed through it.

Continuing to stare at the stone, he willed it closer to him, away from the path of the light. Nothing moved.

Again he tried, straining his mind almost to the breaking point, willing, wishing, demanding that the stone come to him. But still there was nothing. In only seconds now they all would be dead, and he knew it. And then he heard his blood call to him.

No, Chosen One. Do not use your mind. Use me, his blood seemed to whisper to him from somewhere far away.

He relaxed his mind, this time somehow sure of what he was doing, and looked at the Paragon.

It began to move—slowly at first, then more dramatically, and finally completely away from the light. Free of the descending rays, it fell to the marble floor of the Sanctuary. The result was overwhelming.

The shards of light that had been extending down toward the goblet shattered into thousands of pieces, each one pointed at the end, and began to swirl around the walls of the room in a great circle as an almost-solid mass, a riot of color. It was as if it had suddenly become a conscious mind and was searching for something. The unknowing mistresses remained still, their eyes high and unseeing as the shards gathered speed, turning faster and faster as they circled the walls of the room. Tristan watched in amazement as the colored daggers of light finally found their destination.

The shards tore relentlessly into the bodies of the sorceresses, tossing them from their thrones and onto the floor. The room was filled with a swirling riot of color. Though he was frantic to locate his sister, he could no longer see what was happening. But he could hear the screams of the defenseless women as the shards went round and round, stabbing and slicing through their bodies. Finally, almost silently, the shards of light careened upward, still seemingly of one mind, and exited through the skylight above.

Without warning each of the gibbets dissolved, and the three prisoners fell crashing to the marble floor.

Tristan landed like a cat, despite the weakness in his legs. Dreggan in hand, he crouched, looking around the room with deadly, animal-like intent, ready to kill if necessary. The view was indescribable.

Everywhere he looked there was blood. It covered the floor in pools and dripped long, crimson fingers down the Sanctuary walls. Failee, Vona, Zabarra, and Succiu all lay on the floor, dead. Zabarra had been decapitated. Vona was missing an arm, Failee a leg. Succiu, covered with blood, stared blindly up at the ceiling from where she lay on her back. The prince looked sadly at her abdomen, mourning the child she had carried. My firstborn, he thought.

He looked behind him to see Wigg and Geldon gingerly picking themselves up off the hard marble floor, shaken, but apparently unhurt. The three of us still live, he thought. How is it that the sorceresses died, and we still live? Frantic, he began searching the room for his sister. It was then that the familiar sound of her crying began.

Quickly looking around, he found Shailiha cowering in one corner of the room, sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth, babbling to herself incoherently. Her black silk gown was soaked in blood, and she was rubbing her abdomen frantically, crying hysterically, looking outward but seeing nothing. Exactly as she was that day upon the dais, when Frederick was killed, Tristan thought. Sheathing the dreggan, he ran to her as fast as he could and kneeled down to hold her in his arms. She did not fight him, but it was clear that she didn’t know him, either. I have you, Shailiha, he told her silently. And I shall never let you go again.

He opened his mouth to speak to her, but before he could, from the center of the earth came a great clap of noise that sounded something like thunder, and the Recluse literally started to come apart.

Tristan held his sister close as the walls and floor of the Sanctuary began to crack, dust and noise filling his ears and lungs. The cracks in the floor widened, their depths seemingly endless. He pulled Shailiha closer to the wall. The wind howled like thunder, and debris washed viciously in and out of the skylight despite the great distance to the top of the Recluse roof. Covering his sister with his own body, he finally recognized the destruction for what it was.

Just as when we killed Natasha and the sound of thunder and the great gusts of wind came, so, too, it is for these dead sorceresses, he realized.

After what seemed to be an eternity, the shaking and thunder slowly stopped, and the haze in the room began to clear. Dazedly looking around to find the wizard and the dwarf, Tristan saw Wigg and what he saw would remain burned into his memory forever.

Wigg was sitting on his heels before the dead body of Failee, seemingly oblivious to the devastation that surrounded him. He was weeping, his hands covering his face as the tears ran blatantly down and onto his gray robe. Stunned, Tristan couldn’t find his voice to ask the questions. Once again, as if reading the prince’s mind, Wigg lowered his hands and turned his great, wet, aquamarine eyes to the prince.

“I can easily understand your surprise,” he said gently, his body still shaking, tears still spilling from his eyes. “You see, Tristan, once, long ago, before the Sorceresses’ War, Failee was my wife. I loved her dearly. And, in many ways, I always have.”

Tristan simply sat there, shocked, unable to speak, his joy at once again holding his sister at odds with the incomprehensible revelations of the old wizard. Layers of thought and deed, he said to himself.

And then he realized how it all fit together. How it had been right there, before him, his entire life. There had always been Wigg’s dark reaction each time Failee’s name was mentioned, and his reluctance to speak of her. Faegan’s offhand references to Failee during their meeting that night, and the Lead Wizard’s sad, lonely reaction when he had walked to the window to gaze out at the sea, looking east to Parthalon—-just as the prince himself had done that very night when he had thought of his sister. Tristan also recalled the strangely sick, almost loving way Failee had caressed the wizard’s face when he was imprisoned in the gibbet. And finally there was the Directorate’s decision, centuries ago, to ban the sorceresses instead of killing them—and Wigg having been chosen as the one to take them into the Sea of Whispers, no doubt an appointment made out of reverence and respect for their new Lead Wizard and the woman he had once loved.

“Yes,” Wigg said softly. “The signs were always there, despite how hard I tried to hide them. Sometimes it is not a simple thing to put a hand over your heart, even when one is a wizard.” He turned once again to look down at the corpse that had once been Failee.

“She first began to go mad during our marriage, and there was nothing I could do to bring her back, no matter how hard I tried. After she left me, she began teaching other women of endowed blood the workings of the craft. But only those women who would blindly follow her insanities.” The tears started to come again, and Tristan’s heart went out to the old one.

“It was my wife who was responsible for the Sorceresses’ War, Tristan,” Wigg said, his voice almost inaudible. He looked behind him to see Geldon come up and stand tentatively next to the corpse of Failee. “I had no idea,” the dwarf said.

“Nor did I,” Tristan replied.

Wigg turned his attention to Shailiha. “How is she?”

“She is unhurt, but is once again hysterical and doesn’t seem to know me,” Tristan said sadly. “But she doesn’t seem afraid of me, either.” He looked down at his sister as she rocked back and forth in the circle of his arms, rubbing her abdomen, still lost in some world of torment all her own.

He thought of the dreggan in its scabbard on his back, wondering if he could ever really use it to take his sister’s life, yet also knowing that he still might have to. The sorceresses were dead, but he was unsure whether Wigg would be willing to risk taking her back with them in her present condition. She posed a potential threat, and he knew it. Come back to me, he begged her silently. Come back to me, my sister, or I shall have to take the light from your eyes and leave you here, in a foreign land.

“At least she is stable for the time being,” Wigg said, his countenance beginning once again to show the indomitable spirit the dwarf and prince were accustomed to. “I will attend to her shortly, but first there are things that must be done.”

“Your powers have returned?” Tristan asked hopefully, seeing the light returning to the wizard’s eyes.

“No,” Wigg said, standing up, “but when Failee died, so did most of her incantations. Remember, her knowledge of the Vagaries was fragmentary. Therefore, so were many of its applications. But first we must find the Paragon. Quickly. Too much time may already have gone by.”

Tristan left Shailiha in Geldon’s care and went to search the carnage. After a few moments he found the stone, still on its chain, lying in a corner. It was completely clear, cold to the touch, and covered with dust and soot. Picking it up, he was surprised at how heavy it was as he handed it to the wizard.

Wigg took the Paragon lovingly in his hands, brushed it off, and held it under the light of one of the wall sconces. The infamous eyebrow came up in concern.

“Pray we are not too late,” he said simply as he quickly began to remove his robe.

“What are you doing?” Tristan asked. “You cannot wear the stone until it has been prepared for a new host.”

“Who said anything about wearing the stone?” Wigg said, finally allowing a smile to crease his face. He dropped the robe to the floor and reached for the pewter locket that hung around his neck.

The locket, Tristan thought. I had completely forgotten about the locket!

Wigg unceremoniously removed the top of the locket, then slid the Paragon from its gold chain. After placing the stone into the locket, he carefully screwed the top back on and hung both the locket and the Paragon’s chain around his neck. Last, he put the robe back on. He stood there imperiously staring at the prince, daring him to figure it out.

And then Tristan understood. He found himself smiling at the old wizard. “Water from the Caves,” he said simply as the old one stood there before him, smiling back. “From Faegan.”

“Yes,” Wigg replied. “The rogue wizard in the trees tends to be quite clever, you know.” Tristan could tell from the tone in his voice that Wigg had long since decided to forgive Faegan for whatever had transpired between them so long ago.

“But aren’t you now wearing the stone?” Tristan asked. “After all, it is around the neck of one of endowed blood.”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Wigg asked impishly. “The pewter insulates the stone from my blood. It is the only substance other than the water of the Caves that can do so. Another nugget of wisdom from the wizard in Shadowood. Shortly, we shall know the fate of the stone, and therefore also the fate of my powers.” Then his expression grew more serious.

“By the way, I am most relieved that you were able to decipher my riddle and use your gift to move the stone.” He pursed his lips and looked narrowly at the prince. “As you can imagine, there is much to be said of your first use of the craft, but right now time does not permit it.”

“But how did you know?” Tristan asked. “How could you have possibly realized that moving the stone was the answer?”

“I couldn’t be sure,” Wigg told him. “But I did know that the only time the Coven was vulnerable was when the stone was off Failee’s neck. And the Communion apparently needed the stone not just to begin the ritual but also to sustain it. Removing the stone while the Communion was in progress seemed the only solution. But even I did not know that the Paragon could be sustained by the light itself until I saw its color begin to reappear.” His eyebrow came up as he looked at the prince.

“What kept Failee from simply putting the stone back around her neck?” the prince asked.

“Apparently she did not immediately know it had been moved away from the light, or she would surely have tried. Protecting their eyes from the light seemingly kept them unaware. And remember, her knowledge of the Vagaries was fragmentary, and therefore seriously flawed. What ultimately killed the mistresses was Failee’s incomplete knowledge of the Vagaries. But what she truly knew or did not know will probably always remain a mystery.”

Tristan’s mind flew back to the question that had occurred to him upon first seeing the dead sorceresses. “How is it that they died, and we did not?” he asked. “I can see no logic to the pattern.”

Wigg pushed the tip of his tongue against the inside of his cheek, thinking. “Without taking valuable time to consider it further, I can only assume that the shards of light, being a product of the Coven, were therefore also a product of the craft itself. When the stone was removed from the light, they too needed sustenance, just as the stone did. In any event, the shards were forced to search for endowed blood to sustain themselves. My powers were gone, so they detected nothing of me, nor of Geldon. And as far as you and your sister are concerned, I can only assume that, ironically, it was the vast quality of your blood that protected you from them. Simply put, your blood may have been too powerful for them to thrive upon, and so they rejected it. In the end, I doubt we will ever really know.”

Wigg walked quickly to Shailiha and sat down next to her. The princess had stopped crying but was continuing to stare blindly at nothing. Wigg raised one of her eyelids and peered at her eye. He then placed an affectionate hand on her abdomen and closed his own eyes for a time.

“She is well, at least physically, and so is her child,” he announced at last, showing partial relief. “The daughter she is carrying is very near to term. But Shailiha’s mind is still haunted by the Agonies. The women she thought were her sisters have all been killed before her eyes, just as were the family and husband she once knew, adding to her trauma. And the Agonies seem to linger, despite the death of Failee. The total damage may be more than even we had assumed.” He rubbed the back of his neck in frustration.

“I cannot be sure that she will ever return to us,” he continued. “There is much to consider, and despite the urgency to leave, now is the proper time to make such decisions.” The wizard frowned and looked at the prince. “Before we leave for the portal,” he added glumly.

Tristan went cold inside, knowing what the wizard was about to say next.

“If she does not improve, we cannot take her back, Tristan,” the old one said compassionately. “To return one of such endowed blood, one who was actually a member of the Coven and still exhibits the effects of Failee’s Agonies, would be completely irresponsible, no matter how much we love her. There is very little I can do for her, since I am not trained in the Vagaries. Faegan, perhaps, but not me. And we cannot simply leave her here, like this, to the mercy of the Minions. With the Coven no longer here to protect her, you know what that would mean.”

Tristan knew what Wigg was saying, and if ordered to he would obey. He remembered the vow he had made never to doubt the old one again, and he intended to keep it if he must. But not without first trying everything he could think of to save Shailiha.

“How much time do we have?” he asked the wizard. Wigg turned to the dwarf, understanding what Tristan was asking. “Geldon,” he said sharply, “you have lived in the Recluse all of your life, and no doubt have a greater appreciation of the time that may have passed since we entered this room. What day is it?”

The dwarf was taken aback. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean, how many days, in your opinion, have we been here in the Recluse?”

“If you are asking me how many more days will Faegan’s portal open in the Ghetto of the Shunned, the answer is this is the sixth day. If we do not reach the Ghetto in time, we will have to wait until tomorrow—and that could be disastrous. The Minions would surely know of our escape by then.”

Wigg pursed his lips. “Quickly,” he said, “go to the skylight and look up to the sky. Tell me what color it is.”

Geldon ran to the skylight, jumped up on the altar, and peered upward. “It is still dark,” he said. “But dawn will break soon. Faegan’s portal opens for one hour. I estimate we have about seven hours to reach it.”

Tristan looked deep into the wizard’s eyes. “Wigg, we must take her with us,” he said sternly. “If she is not improved by the time we are forced to enter the portal, I will do my duty, make no mistake. But we cannot take her life now. We owe it to her, to my family, and to her unborn child to take her with us and give her every possible chance.”

“But surely she cannot ride,” Wigg said, putting a finger to his lips in thought. “We would need a wagon. Keeping her calm and comfortable may help prevent her giving birth while we try to get back to the portal.”

Tristan thought for a moment, wondering why the wizard would say such a thing. “Would the birth of her daughter before we went back be such a bad thing?” he asked.

“It is not as simple as that,” Wigg said simply. It was obvious he had anticipated the question, and just as obvious that he would take no joy in answering it.

Saying the next words came hard for the prince. “But if we killed her, we would also kill her daughter, providing Shailiha had not already given birth.” He looked to the dead Succiu, and then, sadly, to her swollen abdomen, thinking sadly of the child that she had carried. He turned his attention back to the wizard.

“But if Shailiha’s daughter had already arrived,” he continued, “we could take the newborn back with us.” At least one member of my family could be saved from this place.

“Tristan, you must listen to me,” the wizard said sternly, putting a hand on the prince’s shoulder. “I will agree to taking Shailiha with us as far as the portal. But it is not so simple a thing as one might think. You see, we must also consider the possibility that the Chimeran Agonies could pass from mother to child. By now you are well aware of the Coven’s penchant for creating horrors that lived on and on for centuries. Knowing Failee as I did, I would actually be surprised if such was not the case here, as well.”

Tristan looked into the face of the old one. He could see that it hurt the wizard to say these words as much as it did for the prince to hear them.

“Either way we cannot leave living endowed blood here, in Parthalon,” Wigg stated with finality. “Removing endowed blood from this place, coupled with retrieving the stone, was the very reason we came. But bringing back with us endowed blood that might be tainted by the Coven is obviously impossible.”

The wizard’s logic was harsh, but inescapable. “Fair enough,” Tristan reluctantly agreed. Then I must find a way to bring her back to us, he thought, shaking his head in frustration. The insanity never ends.

“Help your sister to her feet,” Wigg said. “It is past time for us to take our leave of this place.”

Tristan was just bending over to take her in his arms when he noticed the soft shifting sounds, like grains of sand washing smoothly across the shore. Then he saw the white dust and grain of crushed marble falling from between the cracks in the ceiling as the Recluse began to shift once again, the rumblings growing ever stronger. Marble block grated loudly against marble block, the noise blotting out everything as the convulsions knocked all three of them to the floor next to the princess. The room was literally cracking in half, the already-gaping crevice in the floor widening menacingly, its dark, deepening fingers reaching for the far wall of the Sanctuary. The white altar was thrown into the air along with several of the black thrones, and fell back to the earth heavily, cracking in half. Then the far wall began to split open, leaving a gaping, vertical gash in the marble.

A deathlike silence gradually descended over the room, marble dust choking their eyes and lungs as it fell delicately to the floor like the finest of snow. And then all became silent again.

“Aftershocks!” Wigg shouted urgently. “Sometimes it is the same following the death of a blood stalker! We must leave before the entire building comes down around us! We have waited too long already!”

He and Geldon reached for Shailiha as Tristan rose to his feet.

It was then that they heard the hissing begin.

They turned to look at the far end of the Sanctuary, the end that Failee had opened earlier to reveal her “children.” The tremors had caused the wiktor pit to become uncovered, and the wiktor that Tristan had fought in Eutracia was coming up the stone steps. It stopped at the edge of the pit, its tail snaking back and forth anxiously as it stared at the bloody bodies of the dead sorceresses now half buried amidst pieces of marble and the dust of the wreckage.

It turned its head toward the four survivors, green drool slipping from around its teeth and dripping down to the floor. Tilting its head toward Tristan, the wiktor smiled.

“And so the Coven is no more,” the monstrosity hissed, its tone a mixture of both sadness and a quiet kind of delight. “You have somehow managed to destroy them, but in doing so you have unwittingly released us for all time.

“Feeding upon the populace had always been our greatest pleasure, and after disposing of you we shall all be free to do so throughout eternity, protected by time enchantments as we go,” it said, the long, yellow teeth flashing. “I thank you for our freedom. And before we leave the Recluse, I shall take all of your hearts for the murder of our mother and our sisters.” The slanted eyes focused upon Shailiha. “Including the heart of the newest mistress.”

As it took yet another ominous step forward, Tristan could hear the many hundreds more below it in the pit as they began to clamber up and out. Pushing Geldon and Shailiha behind him, Wigg stepped forward to stand alongside the prince and face the wiktor.

Tristan drew his dreggan, the familiar, reassuring ring of the blade resounding off the Sanctuary walls, as if it meant never to fade away. It quieted eventually, though, leaving only the sound of hissing from the pit. In an unusual move, the prince tossed the sword to his left hand. Wigg narrowed his eyes in puzzlement.

Tristan turned his dark eyes to the wizard, silently telling him not to interfere. He wanted this moment for himself.

There are old scores to settle, even if he dies trying, Wigg thought. I should force him to obey me, but I won’t. He nodded shortly to Tristan and stepped behind him.

The wiktor took yet another step closer to the prince. Other pairs of slanted, yellow wiktor eyes could now be seen starting to peer menacingly over the edge of the pit. The hissing grew louder still.

This is where we die, Tristan told himself. There are simply too many of them to kill, even for a wizard. But I will kill this one before they take me, I swear it.

And then he did something unheard of in battle. He closed his eyes.

The wiktor smiled again. “I can see you have become too much of a coward to look death in the face. Apparently you realize that you were simply lucky the last time,” it hissed angrily, running one of its talons along the scar around its neck in a bizarre fondling motion. It licked more of the green drool from its teeth.

“Prepare to die, Chosen One,” it said simply.

Wigg now understood what the prince was doing. He is calling upon his fledgling gift, the old one thought, in the only way he knows how. He nervously looked at the wiktor, wondering how long it would wait before it struck. Wondering if Tristan could ready himself in time.

The answers were quick in coming.

Without warning the wiktor leapt at Tristan, covering half the distance between them in a heartbeat. Tristan’s eyes snapped open.

The wizard’s jaw fell open at what he saw next. He had seen Tristan use his knives before, but never had he seen him throw his knives with the aid of the craft.

Tristan threw two of his dirks, one immediately after the other, so quickly the wizard couldn’t see his arms moving, much less the knives as they whistled through the air with a shrill, shrieking sound.

They hit the wiktor simultaneously—one in each eye.

The impact of the knives was so great that they tore through the back of the thing’s head, heaving the screaming wiktor up into the air and back down over the edge of the pit, where it crashed into its brothers as it tumbled down the length of the stone steps, blood and brain matter running freely from its head.

Tristan looked quickly to the wizard. He had accomplished his goal, but the four of them were dead, and he knew it. Dozens of wiktors were clambering uncaringly over the body of their leader, seeking to satisfy their need to revenge his death.

And to feed.

Tristan looked into Wigg’s aquamarine eyes for what he was sure would be the last time. “Is this the day we finally die?” he asked.

The wizard’s face was hard as stone. “No,” he said softly, narrowing his eyes. “This is the day that they finally die.”

The Lead Wizard walked even closer to the edge of the pit just as some of the winged, green monsters were starting to land upon the floor of the Sanctuary. Taking the locket from his robes, he removed the stone and peered at it in the light. Then he poured a very small amount of water into the palm of his other hand. He stood there for a moment examining the water, collecting himself as the wiktors drew nearer. Leaving the locket open, dangling from its chain, he faced the edge of the pit as hissing wiktors continued to climb up and over.

Then Wigg held his palm up before his face and blew the water of the Caves into the air in the direction of the wiktors.

Tristan couldn’t believe his eyes.

The air over and inside the wiktor pit immediately caught fire and began to rage, searing everything around it. Instead of being red and orange the flames were azure blue, just as Tristan had seen with every other important use of the craft the old one had performed. But this time the azure contained streaks of white-hot bolts that shot through the fire as the wizard stood, arms raised, before the burning air.

Amazed, Tristan watched as the fire consumed everything in the pit. He could hear the wiktors screaming, and their bodies bursting as the gases inside them expanded in the sucking heat of the azure maelstrom. More blood splattered along the wall, so much that some of it mixed with the blood of the Coven that was already on the floor of the Sanctuary.

Slowly Wigg lowered his hands. As he did so, the fire subsided, leaving nothing but the smell of cinders and the stench of scorched flesh. Tristan walked to stand next to the wizard and looked down into the pit. He was joined by Geldon, who held Shailiha close at his side. The scene at the bottom of the wiktor pit was horrific.

Masses of organs and bones lay amidst piles of ashes and a sea of blood. Nothing moved, and the sickly sweet death smell that filled the Sanctuary was overpowering.

Tristan was the first to speak.

“So the stone is rejuvenated?” he asked hopefully.

“No, not entirely,” Wigg answered. “But when I removed the stone from the locket I hoped there would be enough regenerative power to perform some single act of the craft. Such a thing had never been attempted before. It was a gamble, but it worked.” He pursed his lips in thought, and once again the infamous eyebrow came up.

“We were indeed fortunate,” he continued. “And I now believe that the stone will completely reinvigorate, given enough time.” He returned the stone to the locket once again, replacing the top.

“Can the wiktors rejoin their limbs to come alive once again?” Tristan asked. He had no desire to face another such creature ever in his lifetime.

“No,” Wigg assured him. “The fire has consumed them to the point that we shall have no worry of that.” No other words regarding the wiktors were necessary. “Time to go,” he said simply.

Tristan turned and, with a grateful look at Geldon, took his sister in his arms. With the others by his side, he headed across the destroyed room to the circular staircase. It was incredible that the staircase had survived all the upheaval. With any luck, it would lead them all the way up and out of the Recluse.

And then he stopped short, and the blood ran from his face.

Succiu’s body was gone.

A winding trail of dark-crimson blood led across the marble floor and to the staircase. Bloody footprints marked the ascending spiral steps. The other mistresses of the Coven still lay dead where they had fallen.

Tristan stared at the blood trail, speechless. He didn’t even know what to think.

Wigg’s voice broke the silence. “It’s all my fault!” the old one shouted. His hands were balled up into angry fists; his face was dark and threatening. He was literally trembling with rage.

“I should have known; I should have known!” Tears started to come to the old wizard’s eyes as he stood there in embarrassment and anger, beside himself with the pain of the shattering revelation flowing through his mind.

“It’s your blood,” he said, finally lifting his troubled face to the prince. “She carries your child, and therefore her body now also carries your blood. That’s why the shards did not immediately finish her, just as they did not harm you and your sister. I was a fool not to recognize the possibility sooner.” He turned to look at the bloody staircase she had used to make her escape.

“She was alive the entire time,” he said, curling his upper lip in anger. “Probably wounded, but alive. All she needed was an opportunity to run, and when we all faced the wiktor pit we conveniently gave it to her.”

The second mistress lives, Tristan thought in shock. And therefore so does my firstborn.

Before the wizard could stop him, Tristan handed his sister to the dwarf and ran up the bloody staircase.

32

The climb was hard, and the wound in his side had started to bleed again. He ignored it.

Tristan quickly realized that he had no idea how far up he would have to go to reach the first floor of the Recluse, since he had been unconscious during the trip down to the Sanctuary. Parts of the circular hallway looked as though they might give way at any moment. Dust and debris from the aftershocks burned his eyes and lungs as he forced himself on, wondering with every step if he would suddenly look up to see the slanted, almond-shaped eyes of Succiu waiting for him somewhere up ahead.

When the steps finally ended at a landing, he cautiously opened the facing stone door a crack and peered out. He could see no one. Opening the door completely, he walked through, dreggan drawn.

Slowly, he lowered his sword arm as he surveyed the devastation before him. He was standing in a great, circular hall, or rather, he reflected, what was left of one. In the center of the room stood another winding staircase, miraculously unharmed amidst the wreckage. Around it, entire sections of the pale-blue marble walls had been ripped away as if made of paper. Most of the stained-glass windows that had once surrounded the circular chamber now lay in colorful shards on the floor, their twisted lead frames yawning before him, revealing the predawn sky over the still-dark hills of the countryside beyond the Recluse. The soft flames of the wall sconces were flickering from the breeze that carried into the room the clean, fresh scent of an early morning rain. Everywhere there was silence.

Looking down he quickly found the blood trail. The second mistress had likely lost a large quantity of blood by now, and it increased his hopes of catching her. The trail once again led to the spiral stairs, and he began his second long climb upward.

The stairs finally emptied out onto what was a great, flat section of the Recluse roof. It, too, was of the same pale-blue marble. See-throughs lined every side of it, and other structures had been built upon its vast, rain-slickened surface. He stepped out onto the roof slowly, looking around, his dreggan firmly in his right hand. His eyes narrowed. There was no sound other than the rain that fell down upon him, beginning to soak through his clothes. It was then that he saw her, his endowed blood rising in his veins.

She was not as he expected her to be.

The second mistress was standing at one corner of the roof, bent over from her great loss of blood. The tatters of her once-resplendent black gown were completely soaked through from the rain and clung almost seductively to her skin. Her long, wet hair was matted against her face and shoulders, and there was a growing puddle of blood beneath her. Her belly hugely swollen, she looked as if she might give birth at any moment.

But it was her face that he found most arresting. She had a softer, more compassionate look, as if the wounding by the shards or the loss of so much endowed blood had in some way given her a greater sense of vulnerability. The almond-shaped eyes looked at him with apparent sadness in place of the loathing and hatred that he was accustomed to seeing in her face.

It is almost as if the loss of her sorceress’ blood has made her more human, he thought. She almost seems to be a different woman standing before me, rather than the one I know and hate so much.

Tristan stood his ground, not speaking, lost in a whirlwind of emotions as Succiu continued to crouch in the rain, shivering, watching his every movement like a wounded, cornered animal. I must kill her now if I can, while she is still weak from blood loss, he thought. If I do not, she may somehow regain her powers and be the end of us all. I must not make the same mistake twice. Not with this woman.

But there was something in her face that he saw as he stood there, something he had never before seen in her, and he wavered, thinking also of his firstborn child. If she dies now, so does my child, he thought. There has never been a more difficult choice in my life. He lowered the tip of his sword.

She smiled knowingly. “Do not fear, Chosen One. I cannot hurt you,” she said softly. “I do not have the strength.”

She raised one arm weakly and pointed a finger at his sword. A soft, azure light arced from her hand, but before it could reach its destination, it fell rather pitifully to the roof of the Recluse, dissipating and sizzling into nothingness in the cold puddles of rainwater.

“You see?” she said, almost kindly. “It’s true. I am no threat to you unless you let me live. To do so would be a grave mistake on your part.” She paused.

“And I can see in your eyes that you already care too much for our child that I carry,” she continued. “The ultimate decision, is it not? To kill a defenseless woman and therefore your own child, or let me live and endanger everyone you love, including that same unborn child as well?”

He took a step toward her, still unsure of what to do. She immediately took a weak, matching step backward, closer to the edge of the wall.

Despite all that he had heard and seen, Tristan had made his decision. Although his heart was breaking, there was no other answer. He remembered what Wigg had told him only minutes before, and he had to agree with it, no matter how hard it was to do. No endowed blood can be left in Parthalon. Finding the button at the hilt of the dreggan he loosed the blade the extra foot, its clear, slashing sound echoing off the rainy roof of the Recluse. Tears in his eyes, his sword hand trembling, he took another step forward. Soft thunder rumbled across the still-dark sky.

Just then she bent over in agony, screaming. Raising her face to his as best she could, she said the words that would remain in his heart forever.

“Your child, Chosen One,” she whispered. “The firstborn child of the Chosen One is coming.” And then she stepped up on the edge of the wall.

Her intentions were clear.

He stopped short, the breath coming quickly to his lungs. Dropping to his knees before her, he looked up into her eyes. “Please,” he half whispered to her, “please, I beg you, let me give you a quick death after the birth, but do not take our child with you!” He dropped the dreggan to the roof and held his scarred palms up to her, but she only inched herself closer to the edge.

“I’m sorry, Tristan,” she said, using his name for the first time since he had known her. “But with the coming of the child, there are no more decisions to be made. Because your firstborn chooses to come now, at this moment, its fate is sealed. Poor Tristan, there is still so much you and the wizard do not know. Just as you cannot let me live, for reasons you do not as yet understand I cannot allow the child to be taken by you and the wizard.”

Looking down at her abdomen, she placed an affectionate hand there. “Our child would have been beyond description,” she whispered.

Wracked with pain, she looked into his eyes once again, searching his face as if trying somehow to keep the memory of him forever within her.

“Forgive me,” she said.

Opening her arms to the arriving dawn, she threw herself off the roof of the Recluse.

Removing one of his dirks from its quiver, he steeled his heart tor the task that lay before him.

Although the sun was beginning to rise in the east, its brightness was obscured by the gray rain clouds. The showers still came, although lighter now, and the air around him was silent and still. The unrelenting drizzle seemed, to him, to almost match drop for drop the tears that came from his eyes as he sat on his heels next to the dead body. The quiet, gray pall of violent death surrounded everything.

He had raced back down the stairways and out of the Recluse as fast as he had been able, stopping for nothing, hoping against hope that there could be some kind of chance. Running out and over the drawbridge, he had finally found her body facedown in the moat that surrounded the castle. It was immediately apparent that she had not yet given birth. Pulling her out as quickly as he could, he placed his fingers against the side of her throat, hoping for a pulse. None came.

He continued to sit there in the grass alongside her body, sobbing, his mind refusing to accept the unbelievable nature of all that had occurred between himself and the second mistress. Succiu, he thought. One of the women I had sworn to kill. And, unbelievably, the mother of my first child. It was then that he first smelled the smoke.

Looking up he saw a column of unusually dark smoke rising from the roof of the shattered Recluse, and instinctively he knew what it was. Wigg is burning the bodies of the sorceresses, he realized, including that of the one who was once his wife. He wants to be sure this time. The odor that came to him was the same sickly sweet yet repugnant foulness that he had first encountered about the funeral pyres of the Minions following the attack in Tammerland.

Tristan looked back down at the body of Succiu, and to her abdomen that still contained his firstborn. Wigg will soon be here, he thought, and will want to do the same thing to Succiu. Especially to Succiu. And he is right. He thought for a moment, trying to make his decision, the tears coming again. Finally, he knew what he had to do.

Walking guardedly through the rain, Wigg approached the dead sorceress and kneeling prince. There seemed to be no one about, but given what had apparently happened the wizard wanted to make sure that he and Tristan were alone before they spoke to each other.

Everyone associated with the disintegrating Recluse had fled, no doubt terrified at the turn of events, understandably wanting to be as far away from the place as possible. The old one briefly wondered what such people would do with their newfound freedom after having served the sorceresses for so long. The Lead Wizard sighed resignedly. And the Minions, he thought suddenly. With the Coven gone, who is there to control them? It was then that he saw the grave.

Tristan, his hands bloody and dirty, was sitting on his heels before a small, sad little pile of rocks. Some freshly picked flowers had been placed on top, and a broken piece of wood that served as a makeshift marker had been shoved into the wet earth at one end. As he approached, the wizard could make out the writing that had been carefully carved into it with a knife. It read:

Wigg looked at the bloody body of the dead sorceress and immediately knew what had transpired here. Tristan saw the smoke and knew I was burning the bodies, he realized. Instead of letting his son be burned with his mother, he decided to give him a proper burial.

The old wizard continued to examine the corpse that had once been Succiu. Her naked abdomen had been incised, her shredded gown falling around her on either side. Her once-beautiful but now lifeless eyes were staring blankly into the rainy sky.

Tristan did what he felt he must, Wigg reflected. I cannot blame him for that. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to fathom the horror the prince must have felt—and the courage it must have taken to do the deed.

“Is Shailiha safe?” Tristan suddenly asked in a husky voice. He did not turn around to look at the wizard.

“Yes,” Wigg answered softly. “She rests in the back of a wagon that Geldon and I stole from the horse barns. We filled the back full of hay for her to lie in, and luckily she fell into a deep sleep.” He stopped short, wishing he had not said that just now. In the awkward silence that followed, the old one cleared his throat.

When Tristan didn’t respond, Wigg slowly walked around to face him, squatting down to look him in the eyes. Tristan’s cheeks were covered with the streaks of dried tears, and he continued simply to look at the little grave, almost as if not seeing it.

“What happened?” Wigg asked softly.

“I followed her to the roof,” the prince finally said, still gazing at the little pile of rocks. “She was badly wounded, and had lost a great deal of blood. Her powers were gone, and she couldn’t harm me. I was about to take her life when she went into labor. Rather than deliver the child to us she chose to jump, killing both herself and my son.” His voice trembled, and he paused, not sure he could say any more right now.

“I’m sorry, Tristan,” the old one said.

“It was a boy. A son,” the prince whispered softly to himself. “My son.” He touched the top of the grave lightly with the palm of one hand. “He will be staying here now.”

Tristan gathered himself up and looked into the wizard’s eyes. “She said that there was still so much that you and I did not know, that just as we could not let her live, so could she not let us have my firstborn.” He wiped one of his cheeks. “Despite how much she wanted the child, she would rather see him dead than with his father. Do you know why?”

Wigg had no idea what the sorceress had been referring to, and he found the prospect unsettling. “I don’t know,” he said compassionately. “But we have little time, and I must burn the body before we leave. I only pray that the stone has rejuvenated sufficiently for me to accomplish it.”

Gesturing for Tristan to rise, Wigg led him back a short distance from the corpse. He produced the locket from under his robe and removed the stone. Pulling his hood over his head, the old one lowered his face and clasped his hands in front of himself. Almost immediately Succiu’s body began to go up in flames. The wizard returned the stone to the locket, and hid it once again in his robes.

When the familiar azure fires died down, all that was left of the sorceress was a charred, black, lifeless form. Tristan walked over to it and knelt down. As if trying to retain some memory of the woman who had been his son’s mother, he reached out a finger to touch the remains.

Immediately the charred figure collapsed into a long, flat pile of ashes and began to scatter aimlessly on the rising breeze.

“The sorceresses of the Coven are no more,” Wigg said simply.

Tristan turned for the last time to look at the grave of his son, and then the two of them began to walk away in the rain.

33

Upon reaching the wagon, Tristan could see that Geldon had hitched a team of two horses to it. “I’m glad to see you are well,” the dwarf said. “When you ran from the Sanctuary, Wigg and I were greatly concerned.” Tristan smiled back as best he could.

Quickly walking to the back of the wagon, he looked down at the face of his sister. Peacefully asleep, her eyes closed, she seemed to be the same kind, affectionate woman he had known and loved in Eutracia, the long blond hair and strong jawline just as familiar as ever. A blanket had been placed over her and drawn up to her chin.

Tristan was suddenly reminded of the day she and the wizard had come to the Hartwick Woods to find him, the same day he had first found the Caves of the Paragon. She had gladly risked the wrath of both their parents and the Directorate of Wizards because she had been worried about him. He put a palm to one side of her face. You came to find me once, he said to her silently. And now I have come for you.

Wigg appeared next to him, also looking down at the princess. The infamous eyebrow came up. “There is something I must show you,” he said rather sternly. “I am hoping you can shed some light on the little mystery that I have uncovered.”

Without further discussion, the wizard pulled down the blanket from around Shailiha’s throat. The prince’s jaw fell open in amazement.

A gold medallion, identical to the one that lay around his own neck, was around the neck of his sister, lying upon the black silk of her sorceress’ maternity gown. The image of the lion and broadsword, the heraldry of the House of Galland, was clearly engraved upon it.

Impossibly, it was an exact duplicate of his own.

“It slipped out of her gown as we put her in the wagon,” Wigg said, frowning. “Was this a gift from her mother, as yours was?” he asked. He thought he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from the prince.

“It couldn’t have been,” Tristan answered, thinking to himself.

“Why not?” Wigg asked, testing him.

Tristan reached out to feel the medallion, as if needing to prove to himself that it was real. “The answer is simple,” he said. “Shailiha wasn’t wearing this at the coronation ceremony when the Coven first took her. I’m sure of it. If we are to assume that she was taken from the Great Hall directly to Succiu’s boat, then, impossible as it might seem, this medallion must have somehow originated here in Parthalon.”

“Precisely,” Wigg answered.

“But how?” Tristan asked. “I know much less than you about the workings of the Coven, but I cannot believe they would purposely allow her to wear something that would remind her of her homeland.”

“Of course not.” Wigg smiled. “The only answer is that she had been wearing it for only a short time, and the Coven was unaware of it.”

“But where did it come from?” Tristan asked, still incredulous. He could remember seeing the chain around her neck for the first time in the depths of the Sanctuary, but he had never been able to see what was at the end of it. He stared at the wizard. “How did it get around her neck?”

“Without time for a greater study of it, I can only guess the medallion to be some oblique manifestation of the Chimeran Agonies, perhaps even left here in the physical world as a result of Failee’s fragmentary knowledge. If the Coven did not put it around her neck, as we know they would not, then somehow perhaps the princess did it herself. The only continuing link to her mental condition is the Agonies. And if she does not show any signs of improvement, I fear we shall never know.” He paused, hoping that the prince would remember his duty regarding the princess if and when the time came.

“I’m sorry about Failee,” Tristan said simply. They were words that he would never have thought he could say, but that needed to be spoken, nonetheless.

“I know, Tristan,” Wigg said softly, pain and fatigue showing in his aquamarine eyes. “We have both had our losses in this place. It is perhaps best to leave the memories of them here, as well.”

He looked to the sky, where the sun was just beginning to break through the parting rain clouds. “We have only three hours until high noon,” he said sternly. “And a hard gallop to the Ghetto will take at least two, perhaps longer because of the princess. We must leave now.” Although it showed in his face, the old one made no mention of what all three of them knew to be their greatest challenge.

In her raging, insane hate, Failee had sent all the legions of the Minions of Day and Night to the Ghetto to look for conspirators. The entire force. And the prince, wizard, and dwarf knew in their hearts that despite the power of the Lead Wizard, even he would not be able to overcome all of them. Failee’s fateful decision would most probably spell their deaths.

Tristan climbed into the back of the wagon and cradled his sister in his lap, tucking the blanket snugly around her as the dwarf and the wizard climbed up onto the front seat. His thoughts went to Narrissa, wondering where she was and what had actually become of her. His jaw tightened, thinking of the unbelievable treatment she would have received from Kluge. Sadly, he had to admit to himself that with only hours remaining until the opening of the portal, he would probably never see her again.

With a snap of his whip, Geldon charged the horses down the road to the Ghetto of the Shunned.