The sensation was amazing. He could now feel every little bump, every nuance of the dried blood as his fingers traced the lines. And then, just as he approached one of the gentle curves at the top, he abruptly stopped. He backed up, tracing over the spot again.
Sure of his findings, Tristan opened his eyes and looked down. But he could see nothing unusual about the signature he had just felt.
“There is a gap in the top line of the signature,” he said quietly, still not fully understanding the ramifications of his words. “Why can I feel it with my fingers, but not see it with my eyes?”
“The answer to that is very simple,” Faegan answered. “The lead wizard did not enchant your eyes.”
“But what does all of this mean?” Shailiha asked. “I am assuming that this ‘gap’ is some kind of imperfection. But how did it get there? Does this mean that Tristan’s blood signature is imperfect, too? And what did you mean about Tristan, Succiu, and Failee having all killed Nicholas?”
Wigg smiled. “One question at a time, Your Highness. First of all, as to how the imperfection came about.” He took a deep breath, thinking about how to best explain.
“We shall begin at the beginning,” he said. “First of all, we believe that the Forestallments discovered by Faegan were created by Failee, first mistress of the Coven, and were placed into Tristan’s blood during Succiu’s rape of him. Succiu’s immediate, endowed conception of Nicholas meant that Nicholas not only carried Tristan’s blood, albeit in a slightly less powerful form because it was mingled with hers, but that he also inherited Tristan’s Forestallments. As you may remember, the fact that Forestallments can be passed on from one generation to another was proven when we examined the blood of Morganna, Shailiha’s daughter.”
“So it was his inherited Forestallments that killed him?” Celeste asked skeptically.
Wigg smiled. “No, Daughter,” he answered. “It was Nicholas’ Forestallments that made him strong.”
“What is all of this leading to?” Tristan asked impatiently.
“Think back,” Wigg said. “Back to that fateful day in Parthalon when you chased Succiu to the roof of the Recluse. I know this is painful for you, but tell me—was Nicholas ever really born into this world?”
Tristan closed his eyes for a moment, taking himself back in time to that day in the rain—the day he lost his son. “No,” he answered. “Succiu jumped from the roof just as she went into labor. She landed in the moat and died. I took her out and incised Nicholas from her womb with my knife, then buried him in the little grave.”
“That’s right,” Wigg said softly, understanding how hard this was for the prince. “And as such, Nicholas was never really ‘born.’ ”
“I still don’t get your meaning,” Shailiha said.
“The meaning is really very simple,” Faegan said from his chair. “When Succiu jumped from the roof, killing herself and her unborn child, she interrupted Nicholas’ gestation.”
“But that can’t be correct,” Tristan protested. “If Succiu went into labor, doesn’t that mean that Nicholas’ gestation was complete? Is that not the natural order of things? Or are you telling me that his birth was premature?”
“No,” Wigg answered. “His birth was not premature. But that is not to say that his blood was fully formed.”
“What are you talking about?”
“After greater study of Egloff’s scroll, Faegan and I now believe that the blood signature is the last thing to form in the unborn, endowed child. We think that this happens just before birth, perhaps even occurring as late as labor. But until now, we could never prove it. However, the strange, unexpected death of Nicholas atop the gates, combined with the circumstances surrounding his aborted, earthly birth, finally do just that. You see, the act of the blood signature forming is the craft’s way of placing its final, unique mark upon yet another of its potential practitioners, if you will. But the blood of Nicholas was never given enough time to do so. He was killed when Succiu jumped, just as her labor began. In essence, he was never really born. His body had been prepared for his birth, but the blood signature had not finished forming completely. The virtually microscopic size of the gap is further proof of how narrowly close his signature was to completing itself, just as Succiu went into labor. Had she not jumped when she did, and instead given birth naturally, his signature would have formed completely. Trust me when I say that had this occurred, our futures would have been very different.”
“Then it was this ‘gap,’ this imperfection, that killed him?” Tristan asked.
“Of and by itself, no,” Wigg answered. “But it was the major contributing factor. It was actually his gathering of the power of the Paragon into himself, and his subsequent empowerment of the Gates of Dawn, that finally killed him. Had he never tried to accomplish such an incredibly high aspect of the craft he might have lived among us forever, the imperfection in his blood of absolutely no consequence. But he was most certainly not sent here to accomplish the mundane.”
The lead wizard sat back in his chair, seeing that the faces gathered around him were still very perplexed. “When one of the trained endowed calls upon the craft, the endowed’s blood in turn calls upon the Paragon,” he elaborated. “It is a symbiotic relationship, and always has been. Tristan, do you remember that day on the mountain, when I told you that the most important determinant of the power of an endowed person is the inherent quality of his or her blood? That has always been true. When Nicholas took so much of the power of the stone into himself, he magnified both his powers and Forestallments hundreds of times over. Perhaps even more. This occurred for two reasons. First and foremost, in order to have the power required to perform the Confluence. And secondly, to simultaneously reduce the powers of Faegan and myself. From the very beginning this was the plan of the Heretics, the ones who sent him here. Whenever he needed to call upon his blood for any so-called ‘normal’ use of the craft, such as his conjuring of the hatchlings, he had no need to draw upon all of the power of the stone and his blood could stand the strain, so to speak. Simply put, the imperfection in his blood signature did not matter.” Wigg paused for a moment, letting his words sink in.
“But when he needed to call upon so much more of the power of the stone to activate the Gates of Dawn as was dictated by the Confluence, bringing to life both the mixture of endowed fluids covering them and the azure blood of the Heretics that already lay within, his blood simply could not survive it.”
Wigg again looked at Tristan. “In the end,” Wigg said quietly, “Nicholas died of simple blood loss.” He watched the mixed emotions that played across Tristan’s face.
“Do you remember how your blood reacted in the Caves, when we spent too much time trying to decide whether to enter the tunnel?” Wigg continued. “Now imagine that same kind of feeling, that agitation of endowed blood if you will, magnified literally hundreds of times over.”
Out of respect for the prince, the table went quiet for a long time. Finally it was Tristan who broke the silence.
“But there is still something I do not understand,” he said. “Nicholas appeared to me as a grown man. That was why I could not recognize him at first. How could he return to our world in so short a time as a fully mature being?”
“An excellent question,” Faegan said from the far end of the table. “And if Wigg will allow me, I will endeavor to answer it.” Glancing over to the lead wizard, Faegan saw him nod.
“First of all,” he began, “it is entirely possible that Nicholas was returned by the Heretics while still an infant, or at least as a very small child. But if the Heretics were aware of the many Forestallments he inherited from Tristan, as we now believe they must have been, then they may also have been able to enact many or all of them before sending him here, giving him immense wisdom and powers for one so young. These abilities would have had little or nothing to do with his chronological age. And as we now know from Shailiha’s experiences with winged creatures of the craft, Forestallments can be activated even if the subject has never been trained. In fact, it is quite logical to assume that all of Nicholas’ gifts were the result of Forestallments. And if that is true, we may then postulate that as he took the power of the stone for himself, both his physical and mental growth continued to advance at a rate never before seen.”