“Have you eaten?” he asked simply. Wigg shook his head. Tristan produced a large wedge of cheese from the basket and began to eat. He was starving. Tentatively he added, “I’m sure everyone is angry with me.” He turned and studied the wizard’s profile for a moment. “I truly had expected to be back at the palace by now.”
“But?” Wigg turned and raised the infamous eyebrow, staring at the prince through the glow that the young man was obviously unaware of. Good, the wizard thought. At least for now he cannot see it.
Tristan gave Wigg his best look of nonchalance. “I was detained.”
“I see. Would you care to talk about it?”
“No, Lead Wizard, I would not.”
Tristan desperately wanted to change the subject but didn’t know how. The old wizard decided not to press the issue. It would be difficult enough to explain both the blood stalker and Tristan’s discovery of the Caves to the king and to the Directorate tonight, as he knew he must do.
Wigg reached into his robes and produced part of the twisted oak branch that had been torn from the tree. “Your clothes are filthy,” he said with distaste. He held the limb before Tristan’s face. “Perhaps this had something to do with it?” He turned the branch over in his hand a few times, still looking at the prince.
As foolish as he felt about it, Tristan breathed an inward sigh of relief, sensing that this topic was much safer than a conversation about the falls. He explained the incident of being pushed out over the cliff in graphic detail, the words tumbling from his mouth between bites of cheese. He reached for the bottle of ale. It had been a long day.
When Tristan finished, Wigg remained silent, shredding yet another piece of grass between his ancient fingers.
“Next time I’ll tie up my horse,” the prince offered.
Wigg shook his head and cast his eyes to the horizon past Tammerland.
“There shall be no need,” he said. “The king of Eutracia does not have to come here.”
Before Tristan could respond, they both heard Shailiha begin to stir. Wigg quickly pointed his left hand toward her, and she peacefully drifted back into a deep sleep. He had no desire for her to overhear their conversation. They both turned back toward the view of the valley.
“Why is she here?” Tristan finally asked. “She shouldn’t be out of the palace in her condition, and everybody knows that. I can’t believe my parents would let her come out here with you.”
“For better or worse, your parents do not know,” Wigg said simply. “Only she, myself, and the Directorate know. And the stable boy who saddled your horse.” His eyebrow launched upward into its familiar display of sarcasm. “But I don’t think he will be saying anything.”
Tristan bit his lip. He was beginning to feel pangs of guilt about coming up here today. But despite that, he knew he had made a wonderful discovery, and he had never felt so strong and vibrant in his life. That part of it all he refused to feel guilty about.
The old wizard sighed. “And as for why she came with me… well, it is because she loves you so much. They all do. Your entire family and Directorate of Wizards itself would go to the ends of the world for you.” He paused. “Although sometimes I don’t know why. Not with the way you’ve been behaving lately.” He looked directly into the prince’s dark-blue eyes. “We were almost killed this afternoon while trying to find you.” Wigg turned his gaze back out to the valley.
Tristan drew a sharp breath, but before he could speak, Wigg had begun to tell him about the encounter with the blood stalker, being careful to reveal only what he had told Shailiha. Any more was for the ears of his Directorate only, and his king. Wigg pointed to a tree at the side of the clearing, up against which he laid the stalker’s battle ax. “I kept his calling card.”
Seeing the ax, Tristan felt truly ashamed. But working against that emotion were other emotions of equal, if not greater, energy. Ever since he had left the stone pool of the falls, two desires had struck his heart as surely as he knew the sun would rise the next morning. First was the need to return there as soon as possible. Second was the overpowering hunger to learn, a thirst to drink in all the knowledge of the craft he could find. And the feeling had been steadily increasing ever since he had left the cavern.
He needed the knowledge of magic.
He turned toward Wigg, waiting for the old one to face him.
Unafraid, he wanted to look directly into the wizard’s eyes when he asked him.
As if he knew what Tristan’s sudden desires were, yet also chose not to fulfill them, the old one continued to gaze out at the distance. But in his heart the wizard knew what was coming.
Tristan drew a breath. Somehow, inside of him, he knew that once he asked, there would be no retreat. No going back.
“Wigg, tell me, please. I need to know about your craft.” The old wizard’s mind was racing. And so it begins. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
Wigg turned to look at the prince. The azure aura that emanated from Tristan’s head and body had, impossibly, become even more luminescent. Silently, Wigg gave thanks to the fact that he would be the only one in the kingdom to see it. Only those of endowed blood—and then only one who was as highly trained as himself—could recognize the aura. Even the other wizards of the Directorate would not see it. Wigg looked at Tristan with suddenly sad and tired eyes. The young prince had no idea what he had done, and the old one knew he must choose his words with care. He looked imperiously down his nose at the young man, determined to remain in control of the conversation.
“Until this moment, my prince, you’ve never expressed anything but disdain for the throne, and rather rude requests for the teaching of the magic that may follow the king’s reign. Even your previous questions about the craft have, upon occasion, seemed ingenuine to us.” He knew the second part was not true, but he kept his eyes on Tristan and schooled his face to show no emotion. “What is the reason for this apparent change of heart?”
Tristan drew both knees up under his chin and joined his hands in front of him, not knowing how to answer the question without revealing his discovery of the falls. Finally, in a less commanding voice he said, “I suppose it is the story of the blood stalker that has aroused my interest. I have never heard of one before.”
Wigg sniffed. “I see.”
The wizard was sure now that Tristan would not reveal his secret visit to the falls unless it was literally dragged out of him. And deep down the old one knew why. But he considered Tristan’s request and decided to give the prince some rudimentary explanations—no more.
He changed his position so that he was sitting facing Tristan, and beckoned the prince to do the same. As they sat face-to-face, Wigg felt almost blinded by the azure aura around Tristan, and also by the need, the hunger, that was in the younger man’s eyes. From this day on, the wizard knew, the man before him would never be the same.
“Magic begins with blood, Tristan,” he began slowly. “It has always been this way, even before the Sorceresses’ War, and before the commencement of written history and the organized recording of births.” He gathered his robes closer around him to ward off the chill of the coming night.
“Children are born either ‘endowed,’ or ‘common,’” the wizard continued. “As you know, both you and your sister are of endowed blood, as are both of your parents. The union of two parents of endowed blood always produces progeny of endowed blood. Only one in a thousand births from a mixed union—common and endowed—results in an endowed offspring.” He raised both eyebrows. “Endowed blood is necessary to the mastery of magic. Trying to teach it to one of common blood is like trying to teach your stallion to play the harp.”
Tristan smiled at the image, but he was becoming impatient. This talk of Wigg’s was something that he already knew, that everyone in Eutracia knew.