Shailiha’s mind turned back to the palace they had left only a few hours ago, to her mother and father, the king and queen, and to all of the other people who lived there. She never ceased to be amazed at how many it took to oversee everything and to help the king to rule. From the royal family, the Directorate, and the Royal Guard, all the way down to the lowliest stable boy now sworn to secrecy by Wigg and including the hundreds of people in-between, each had their place and their responsibility in the scheme of things. And all of them were diligently working now toward one common goal; the abdication ceremony of her father, King Nicholas, and Tristan’s concurrent coronation as the new king. It was a grand and joyous event that was always anxiously awaited by the populace. The preparations had been going on for months.
This evening there was to be a royal inspection of the ceremony preparations in the Great Hall. Literally hundreds of people would be milling about waiting for them, each hoping to please the royal entourage with his or her work. There would be decorators, advisors, entertainers, chefs and pastry makers, maidservants and cleaners, not to mention the entertainers, musicians, and curious dukes, duchesses, and diplomats from the various provinces of Eutracia. She sighed slowly, letting her breath out in a long stream. There would also be the usual covey of available women who hoped to catch the prince’s eye.
Was it possible that Tristan had run away permanently instead of just for the day? Did he hate the prospect of being king to such an extent that he would go into hiding? Would he do such a thing to all of us?
Totally nonplussed, her head began to reel with the unsettling, new set of complications and repercussions. Who would break the news to her parents, if Tristan was truly gone? And who would succeed her father, King Nicholas, without Tristan to fill the void? The terrifying prospect of becoming the queen of Eutracia suddenly loomed before her. The realm had never had a queen. But if Tristan had indeed disappeared, she remained the only heir of endowed blood from the union of her parents, and her mother had long since been unable to give birth. Would the Directorate simply choose another of the Eutracian citizens to become king, as they had done in the past? Or would they force her to take the throne in light of the fact that she was pregnant and might give birth to a son of their family’s endowed blood? Then, in another thirty years, Eutracia would once again have a king. Upon his succession, would she be forced to join the Directorate by her father’s decision regarding Tristan’s fate? And as what? A sorceress? Wasn’t that what they used to call women who were trained in the craft? But there had been no sorceresses in Eutracia since the training of women of endowed blood had been banned at the end of the Sorceresses’ War, over three hundred years earlier. What, then, would become of her?
A tear began to trace a shiny path down one cheek. Tristan, where are you?
As if reading her mind, Wigg gently extended one of his hands to her face, wiping away the tear, his previously harsh demeanor temporarily faded.
“Don’t worry, little one,” he said comfortingly. “We shall find him. He doesn’t know I can sense his location, and it is only a matter of time, especially if he is not on the move. Most probably he has simply forgotten tonight’s festivities.”
A small clearing had appeared in the midst of the ever-thickening forest. It looked like a good place to stop. He hated the idea of taking time to rest, but feared the princess may need it. Neither did he mention to her that Tristan could probably survive alone in these woods indefinitely if he chose to, perhaps avoiding even the old wizard himself. No one knew these woods like Tristan.
Wigg lowered his eyes slightly before speaking his next carefully measured words. “If he refuses to return of his own free will to fulfill his duties, the situation will become difficult, and even though I love him as I would my own child, I may have to take action to ensure his return. I have a great responsibility to your father.”
Just as Shailiha began to wonder what type of action Wigg was referring to, her bay mare abruptly stopped walking, then began to paw the ground nervously, snorting and shaking her head back and forth, rattling her bridle. Wigg’s black gelding reared up and whinnied loudly. Despite any prodding from their riders, the two horses refused to advance into the clearing.
With a quick gesture from Wigg, Shailiha stopped trying to spur her horse onward. He put an index finger vertically across his lips to indicate silence, and she nodded. Wigg quickly dismounted, holding his reins firmly in one hand as he walked forward and turned to face the gelding. Closing his eyes, he placed his right hand flat upon the horse’s forehead for a moment. Immediately, the gelding began to calm down, while Shailiha’s mare still continued to dance about. Fearing for her unborn child, she started to dismount. But, as if seeing her through his closed eyes, Wigg immediately stretched his other arm forward, gesturing to her to stay in her saddle.
She watched Wigg as he abruptly turned away to look into the clearing. Then, completely amazed, she watched the color immediately drain from his face. Automatically, the princess lifted her eyes to follow his gaze… and began to shake uncontrollably, bile rising in her throat and making her feel as if she might vomit.
It was something out of a nightmare, and its eyes were focused directly on Wigg.
It was too large and misshapen to be a man. Yet it stood on two legs and had arms like a man. The huge, elongated head held insane, bloodshot eyes, but there was no nose, only slits in the skin where a man’s nostrils would be. On each side of the bald head were flat, elongated ears, the earlobes ending in long, ragged points of skin. Hanging from each corner of the mouthful of dark and decaying teeth was a perfect white incisor fang as long as her index finger. Lathered drool ran from the mouth to the chin, and down to its hairy chest in long white strings. Its only clothing was a leather-fringed warrior’s skirt, which did little to hide the grotesque, misshapen male genitals beneath it. Its own dried excrement clung darkly to its legs, and each of the highly elongated fingers and toes ended in long, tearing talons. Around its neck hung an odd chain of small round orbs. Gasping, Shailiha realized they were a collection of desiccated eyeballs. It held in its hands a terrible battle ax such as she had never seen. The long, black helve was randomly patterned with dried blood, and its top was crowned with a cracked human skull. From each of the skull’s temples a shiny silver ax blade extended outward at right angles. The sun streaming through the treeless clearing glinted menacingly off their highly polished edges.
She looked again at the nightmare’s eyes. They weren’t just insane. They held something else—something she could only describe as an insatiable, uncontrollable need.
From the center of the clearing it stared unflinchingly at Wigg for what seemed an eternity, its chest heaving. Another string of white drool snaked wetly from its chin to the ground.
Then, without warning, the thing raised the battle ax high above its head and charged headlong at the old wizard. Its speed was amazing. Crossing the clearing in an instant, it let forth a deranged battle scream. Terrified, Shailiha watched as Wigg stood frozen before his horse, almost as if he were willingly embracing his own death. Finally, at the last possible instant, the wizard seemed to regain his senses and rolled nimbly to the right across the field, the silver, wheeling blur of the battle ax barely missing his head. The ax blades continued their deadly swath downward, cleaving point-blank into the black gelding, slicing horsehide, bone, and muscle. The horse screamed. Blood erupted everywhere as the head and neck finally tore away from the shoulders. Its legs helplessly kicking, the gelding lost his brief struggle with death in midair and crashed sideways upon the ground.