“I have given you my answer,” he said flatly. He handed Wigg one of the razor-sharp dirks from his quiver. “And now I am going to give you yet another order. It is obvious that either Kluge will kill me, or the others will. When I am dead, use the knife first to take Shailiha’s life as quickly as you can. Then Geldon, Narrissa, and finally yourself, if there is time. And above all keep the stone hidden beneath your robes and do not use your powers. The Paragon is of no use to them without knowledge of the craft and the endowed blood to command it, but we must not show Kluge that we have it. Let him think that it perished with the sorceresses in the destruction of the Recluse. There is no other way.” He paused, gathering the courage for his next words. “We are lost, and there can be no endowed blood left in Parthalon,” he whispered, quoting the wizard. “Including yours or mine.”
Tristan looked again into the craggy, intelligent face of the man he had loved and trusted for so long. “Good-bye, my friend,” he said. He turned and walked out into the center of the square to face his death. Raising his face, he looked directly into the Minion commander’s dark, piercing eyes.
Kluge towered over him, waiting, his arms crossed over his chest, obviously enjoying the situation. “Now it is time to enlighten you, Chosen One, and finally tell you of all the things you have done for me.” His smile broadened at Tristan’s look of puzzlement. “Oh yes, you heard me correctly, the things you have done for me. You don’t realize it yet, do you? Then we shall start from the beginning.”
Kluge pointed to the sky north of the city, to the smoke that still lingered in the air over the demolished Recluse. “Any fool can plainly tell that the sorceresses are dead,” he said menacingly. His face darkened slightly. “I loved the second mistress, it is true, and now she is no more. But there is little I can now do about that. How you managed to kill them is of no concern to me. All that matters now is that she and the rest of them no longer exist to give me orders. And, despite my once-unshakable allegiance to them and the loss of the one I loved, recent developments have persuaded me not to grieve too terribly for them.” A wicked smile began to spread across the monster’s face. “You see, Chosen One, you have now freed me to take control of the entire nation, with the Minions at my command. Something I could never have dreamed of if any of the sorceresses, including Succiu, still lived.”
Unsurprised, Tristan continued to listen cautiously, braced for the huge warrior’s imminent attack. He watched hatefully as Kluge began to pace triumphantly back and forth in front of him.
“But there is still so much more to thank you and the wizard for, I hardly know where to begin. My scouts tell me that not only have the two of you dispatched the Coven, but the entire wiktor colony, as well.
Again, I salute you. They would have proven to be a difficult though not impossible challenge to my reign.”
Tristan silently stood his ground, the sun rising ever higher in the sky, the time growing shorter. It no longer matters, he thought sadly, for we are already dead.
Kluge’s face suddenly turned serious again, and he walked closer to the prince, his sword still sheathed. “And lastly, you ignorant, royal bastard, I want to thank you for the greatest prize of all.” He paused, letting his words sink in for a moment. “Thank you for handing me the kingdom of Eutracia.”
Kluge reached into the belt at his waist and withdrew some pieces of paper, which he carelessly let go, watching as they fluttered to the ground. For a moment, Tristan’s heart stood still. He immediately recognized what they were: the parchments from the aviary. The collected correspondence of Faegan to Ian, the keeper of the birds.
Tristan froze, his blood running cold in his veins. Eutracia, he realized in despair. Kluge knows about the portal!
“That’s right,” Kluge whispered to him evilly. “That weak little leper named Ian talked. It’s amazing how persuaded one can become while having one’s eyes gouged out. In any event, we also found the parchments, which illuminated far more than our conversation with the diseased bird boy. Apparently the fool was born here, and was so enamored of the outside world that he foolishly took to saving Faegan’s correspondence. I now know how you got here, and how you planned to go back. I also know more of the wizard named Faegan who guards the other side in the place called Shadowood. Once you and the Lead Wizard are dead, I plan to send my troops through to subjugate him. Despite his knowledge of the craft, due to our sheer numbers he will eventually find himself in the same position you are now in. Completely overpowered. I shall use his talents to come and go between the two nations as you have done. We will then also be entrenched in Eutracia, and I will stand astride not one nation, but two.” He smiled again.
“Since there is no longer any semblance of the Royal Guard in your feeble country,” he sneered, “it shouldn’t be all that difficult. I doubt Faegan’s gnomes will provide much of a challenge.” He broke into laughter.
Tristan stood before the winged freak, stunned. Had Kluge chosen that moment to attack him, he would surely have died on the spot. But the commander did not, instead relishing the pain he could see in the prince’s eyes.
“And still there is one other thing, Chosen One,” he said, stepping even closer. Tristan could almost smell the foulness of his breath, just as he had that day in the Great Hall when Kluge had slaughtered his family and the Directorate of Wizards. The first day he had learned of the horrors that the Coven and the Minions could bring. The day his life had changed forever.
“I must also thank you for what may indeed prove to be the ultimate gift,” Kluge continued. “During my reign I shall need a queen, and since I have already tasted women without wings and find them to be highly superior to Minion whores, I believe I shall not only have such a woman again, but also one of royalty, as well. Your sister shall make me a wonderful queen, don’t you agree?” He looked hungrily at Shailiha as she leaned up against the foundation, oblivious to the scene, completely unaware of the fate that loomed before her.
“Given her condition, I doubt whether she will be of any mind to object to whatever I choose to do to her,” he gloated nastily. “After she gives birth to the weakling growing in her belly I will dispose of the child, because it is not of my seed. I will then make Shailiha mine. Perhaps our children may even have both wings and endowed blood. Such an interesting combination, don’t you agree?” The monster leaned in conspiratorially to smile slyly at the prince. “I am most anxious to discover whether she tastes as sweet as her mother.” He paused, relishing the obscene luxury of his words. “And thanks to your stupidity I shall have that which I have wanted for so long: to see your endowed blood running into the dirt of the square, and to possess a woman of equally endowed blood, indeed of blood that surpasses even that of my dead Succiu.”
Kluge’s jaw hardened, making it clear he was close to finishing what he had to say. “Your life, your family, your Directorate, both Parthalon and Eutracia, and your only sister—in one way or another I shall have taken each of them, and all because you were weak enough to hand them to me, you ignorant bastard.”
He finally backed away, drawing his dreggan from its scabbard, the blade’s familiar ring slowly fading away in the confines of the square. “Gifts,” he whispered, “given to a simple warrior born of a Minion whore’s bed, from an irresponsible man across a supposedly uncrossable sea. A man who did not want to become king.”
The commander of the Minions of Day and Night backed away from the prince cautiously, taking a quick look at the sun. “Faegan’s portal arrives soon, Chosen One,” he said quietly. The shiny tip of his dreggan pointed menacingly at Tristan’s face. “It is at last time for you and me to settle our differences.”