After a quick click of his heels, Ox left.
"A good man…" Faegan said, his voice fading away as he became lost in his thoughts.
"Faegan!" Celeste called. "We're waiting!"
"Uh, er, yes-yes, of course," the wizard said. He turned his chair back to face the room. His grim look returned.
"Very well," he began. "I will start by telling you what I have already expressed to Wigg, just before he and Tristan left." He paused for a moment, as if not really knowing where to begin.
"If what Wigg and I believe is true, then we are facing a calamity of epic proportions," he said. "What we witnessed tonight may be just the beginning…"
In measured tones, the wizard began to explain his theories. As he did, the people before him turned to one another, aghast. Several of those with endowed blood wept openly. Those without did the best they could to comfort the others.
The wizard's talk lasted hours.
CHAPTER VI
By the time Tristan, Wigg, and the minion phalanx saw the cause of the terrible destruction, the village of Brook Hollow was already in flames. Wigg ordered the Minions to take the litter as close as they dared.
The terrible noise shot like daggers through Tristan's ears, a plaintive screeching howl. He watched, dumbstruck, as the thing continued on its path of annihilation across the land. Then he lowered his head, as if by doing so he might somehow make the whole scene disappear.
All the death and chaos originated from the same revered phenomenon that sustained the benevolent side of the craft: the Orb of the Vigors.
Night had fallen, and the golden sphere lit up the land and heavens for leagues in every direction as it soared above the earth. So huge that it seemed to take up the entire sky, it was a wondrous, terrifying sight. Although the prince had seen the orb only a few times in his life, he was sure that it was now spinning faster on its axis than ever before. It was almost as if some form of madness had overtaken it.
Its mate-the dark, ominous Orb of the Vagaries-was nowhere to be seen. Pale white spears radiated from its center and darted off into nothingness. From a jagged tear in its lower half, the orb dripped pure, living energy. Whatever the gold stuff fell upon either vaporized instantly or was severely burned.
White-knuckled, Tristan gripped the sides of the litter. Suddenly, he understood. Wulfgar, he thought. This damage was a result of that night on the roof of the palace, when his half brother had tried to pollute the orb.
Tristan was about to shout his suspicions to the wizard, but Wigg was already calling new orders to the Minions, telling them to take the litter even closer to the deadly orb. The warriors obeyed, and as they neared, the orb illuminated the litter and the straining Minions flying alongside it, turning them into surreal specters in the sky. Tristan could feel the orb's intense heat.
Then the orb's shock waves struck. The litter swung wildly, and the warriors carrying it nearly lost their hold. Twice it listed so badly that Tristan and Wigg almost fell. Finally righting the litter again, the warriors did their best to inch forward in the sky. Tristan watched in awe as they fought against the blasts that whipped at their bodies and wings.
The orb's awful energy threatened to set the litter ablaze. If that happened, Tristan thought, he and the wizard were done for.
Suddenly two of the warriors carrying the litter burst into flames. Screaming wildly, they plummeted to the scorched earth below. Warriors fell all around them now, bodies and wings ablaze as they tumbled. Tristan could only watch, horrified, and hope they died before they hit the ground.
The wizard stood up in the litter. His arms outstretched, he braced himself precariously against the bludgeoning force of the orb. The wind and heat tore wildly at his hair and robes. Tristan knew that were it not for the First Wizard's powers in the craft, he would have been blown from the litter. At first Tristan didn't understand what Wigg was doing, but then he realized that the wizard was trying to save Brook Hollow.
Tristan had seen the wizard call forth the orb several times before. But he had no idea whether the First Wizard could summon enough power to actually change the thing's course.
Just as twin azure bolts shot from Wigg's hands, a massive spray of the orb's golden energy tore into the litter and its bearers. The last thing Tristan saw before tumbling from the burning litter toward the earth was Wigg's robes catching fire.
Then he heard the wizard scream.
CHAPTER VII
Perched on the windowsill in the captain's quarters of her flagship, Teresa of the House of Welborne-known to friend and foe alike as Tyranny-calmly regarded the Sea of Whispers. It was nearly dawn. The winds were steady, and the three Eutracian moons were high, bathing the ever-shifting ocean in their magenta glow.
Tyranny stretched her back against the window frame and ran one hand through her short, dark hair. She had never bothered preparing for bed: She still wore the high-waisted brown-and-tan striped pants and worn leather jacket that she'd put on the previous morning. Her short sword hung from her left hip and her pearl-handled dagger sat in its sheath, tied down to her right thigh. Lost in thought, as she had been most of the night, she fiddled with the single gold hoop that dangled from her earlobe.
Too often, of late, she was eschewing sleep for a night of thinking. She still could not believe her good fortune-a full fleet under her command; and official letters of marque, a pirate's dream; and the fact that she had been made a permanent member of the newly formed Conclave of the Vigors. The latter was an honor she'd never dreamed of, and she wondered how she could both fulfill her duties to the Conclave and continue to ply the waters in search of any possible surviving demonslaver ships of the late Wulfgar's fleet.
Her jaw hardened at the thought of the demonslavers. She had reasons aplenty to hate those monsters, the greatest of those reasons personaclass="underline" The demonslavers had murdered her parents and captured her beloved brother, Jason. Although she had rescued him and returned him home, he would never be the same. Jason had been an expert swordsmith. After the torture by the demonslavers, his hands were ruined: He would never practice his chosen art again.
Most of her allies who had participated in the destruction of the demonslaver fleet assumed them all to be dead. Tyranny had her doubts. And as long as there was a single demonslaver still alive in these waters, she would search out and kill him.
Shrugging off her thoughts, she rose from the windowsill and crossed the cabin to her ornate desk. She took up a carved wooden box, opened the lid, and removed one of her small, dark cigarillos. Placing it between her lips, she reached for a common match, which she struck against the sole of one of her scuffed knee boots. Cupping her hands around the flame, she lit the rolled tube of dried leaves and inhaled deeply.
As she breathed out a long stream of smoke, she pulled out her desk chair and sat down. Then she reached for the open bottle of red wine atop her desk and took a long swallow straight from the lip. Leaning back in her chair, she gave herself to the seductive rocking of the Reprise as it plowed through the waves.
The comforting sound of ship's bells rang out on the night air. She was so used to their sound that they automatically registered in her mind, without the need to be counted.
"Ding…ding…" came the clear, bright tones. Two hours to dawn, she thought, as the last of them faded away.
She walked back over to the windowsill and sat down again. She took a pull on her cigarillo, and then flicked the ash from its glowing end into the sea before having another sip of wine.
She had begun as a pirate, and ended up…legal. And it was all due to Prince Tristan of the House of Galland.
Tristan had seen to it that she received her letters of marque and the one hundred thousand kisa that had been part of their bargain for taking him safely home. She was now most probably the wealthiest woman in all of Eutracia. It had also been Tristan who had given her the twelve stout, ex-pirate vessels she now commanded, not to mention her new seat on the Conclave of the Vigors. She owed him much. And she missed his company, though she would never admit it, except here, in the safe confines of her own cabin before dawn.