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.