“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.