“But what about the consuls?” Wigg asked urgently. His hands were balled up into fists, his knuckles white with anger. “It is their very mission in life to do good deeds among the populace, and hopefully at least some of them survived the attack by the Coven and the Minions of Day and Night. Are they not helping?”
Joshua looked down at his hands. “I fear, Lead Wizard, that there are perhaps too few of us left to do any real good,” he answered. “And if the things in the trees that carried off the others of my squad are still active, perhaps we now know why. Especially if there are more of them than I saw. I had to travel for weeks to find Argus and his group. We both know that such a thing could not have happened under normal circumstances. With all of the consuls away from the Redoubt and in the countryside, we should have been bumping into one another.”
Joshua paused for a moment, to let his words sink in. “But now, I fear, even the consuls of the Redoubt may be few. This could add immeasurably to our troubles,” he said weakly.
The strain was clearly starting to show again in the consul’s face, and both Wigg and Faegan could see he was near the point of total exhaustion.
“It is time for you to rest,” Faegan said gently. “I am going to put you into a deep, induced sleep. When you wake we will feed you, wash you, and give you a new robe. But right now, your most important mission is to rest. Do you understand?”
Joshua nodded weakly and closed his eyes. The elder wizard closed his eyes also, and immediately the consul was surrounded by the azure glow of the craft. In a moment, he was deeply asleep, and the glow was gone.
Faegan turned to look at Wigg, and Tristan finally returned from his stance in front of the fireplace to rejoin the wizards. A seemingly interminable period of silence reigned in the room.
The madness never ends, Tristan thought sadly to himself. Finally it was Faegan who broke the silence. He closed his eyes as he began to speak.
“ ‘And there shall be a great struggle in the skies, but it shall be as only one part of the larger, more perilous carnage below,’ ” he began. “ ‘In this the ones of the scarlet beacons shall struggle with the others who also have dominion in the firmament. And the blood of each, endowed and unendowed alike, shall flow down upon the ones below as rain, and caress the white, soft ground of the nation before it is completed. And the child himself shall be forever watching.’ ” Faegan opened his eyes and smiled slightly, waiting for the inevitable questions.
“Another quote from the Tome?” Wigg asked. Faegan was the only living person to have read the entire volumes of both the Vigors and the Vagaries. Gifted with the very rare power of Consummate Recollection, the older wizard could recall anything he had ever seen, heard, or read throughout his entire lifetime. Wigg leaned forward intently, his curiosity at equal measure with the sadness he felt at hearing the consul’s disturbing words.
“Yes, quite,” Faegan whispered almost to himself, obviously lost in his own thoughts. “It is a quote that has long intrigued me.” He looked up and smiled again. “For over three hundred years, in fact. I have never been certain of its meaning, but I believe we may be at least one step closer to learning its secrets. The ‘ones of the scarlet beacons’ I believe to be Joshua’s birds with the bright red, glowing eyes. There has been no other creature in my personal experience with such unique attributes. Still, I have absolutely no idea about what is meant by ‘the white, soft ground of the nation.’ And I certainly do not know what it means when it says that ‘the child himself shall be forever watching.’ The only child I can think of that might in any way be relevant would be Morganna, Shailiha’s baby. But for the life of me I can’t understand how or why.” He sat back in his wooden chair and stroked his cat.
Tristan turned to Wigg to see that the lead wizard was also lost in the maze of questions that lay before them. “Do you believe the consuls to be dead?” he asked bluntly.
Pursing his lips, Wigg placed a thumb and forefinger to either temple. “That is impossible to say at this time,” he answered. “It would certainly explain why none of them have returned to the Redoubt.”
“One thing is sure,” Faegan ruminated. “These things—these birds of prey—are definitely not a product of the Vigors. They are without compassion, and their ends are served only through violence. Azure radiates about them, meaning that they are a product of the craft. But they also do not sound as if they are of great intelligence, and therefore may be controlled by another, higher power somewhere.”
He paused for a moment, then turned his gray-green eyes to Wigg and Tristan. “This means, my friends, that someone in Eutracia is again practicing the Vagaries,” he said angrily. He looked down at his useless legs and, as if in shame, pulled the hem of his robe down a bit, covering them more completely. “There is nothing in the world that angers me as much as the misuse of the craft,” he added softly. The meaning of his words were not lost upon the prince and Wigg. It had been the Vagaries that had destroyed his legs.
Tristan would never forget that day upon the mountain when Wigg had called forth the physical manifestations of both the Vigors and the Vagaries. The Vigors had appeared as a giant orb of dazzling, golden light. The Vagaries had been an orb of the same size, but black, ominous looking, and literally dripping with the energy of destruction. The two opposite orbs of the craft were constantly attracting each other but never able to touch, immediately repelling each other when coming too close.
Wigg had explained to him then that the improper combination of their energies would result in the total destruction of everything they knew. Supposedly Tristan, the Chosen One, was to be the first to successfully join these opposite powers for the good of the land. Just now it seemed such a day was far off, indeed.
“Joshua remains our only key to the answers about the flying creatures,” Wigg added. “But we must wait until he awakens. Then we shall tend to his health. He has been through a great deal.”
A dense, almost palpable silence reigned, the only sound the occasional snapping of the wood burning in the fireplace. Tristan looked down into the face of the sleeping consul as a sad, ironic notion suddenly came to him.
Even this injured consul has more freedom than I do now. I have been a virtual prisoner in this cavern of marble. Perhaps even a criminal in my own country—for crimes I was forced to commit. But tonight, at least, I will see the graves of my family—wizards or no wizards.
Feeling the need to check on his still-fragile sister, the prince walked slowly to the door. Wearily, he faced the others. “I will meet with you both again in the morning,” he said. “Now I go to see Shailiha.”
He turned and walked through the door, leaving the two wizards lost in their contemplations.
3
The afternoon was darkening as Geldon carefully guided his bay mare through the ragged streets of Tammerland. A rainy night was coming, and he made a mental note to be sure to leave the city early enough to avoid it. The strengthening wind occasionally picked up litter from the unkempt streets, blowing it around into little maelstroms of filth and debris. It only added to the general drabness and oppression that now characterized this place.
Such a pity, the hunchbacked dwarf thought. This city must have been magnificent before the coming of the Coven and the Minions of Day and Night. Perhaps the wizards and the Chosen One can somehow make it so again.