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.