Tristan took a slow, measured step forward. "The same way it will feel when I kill my only brother," he growled quietly. "Sad, but necessary."
Wulfgar shook his head. "Krassus told me you would be inordinately stubborn in your beliefs," he said. He looked down into the courtyard to see that the prince's Minions were finishing off his demonslavers. Strangely, he seemed quite unconcerned.
"Don't you care about what is happening to them?" Tristan asked.
"Why should I?" Wulfgar answered. "You have apparently done away with my fleet, or you wouldn't be standing here. I don't know how you did it, and I don't care. None of that matters any longer, for neither of your wizards can help you. The demonslavers, the screechlings, and the sea slitherers were only a means to an end. Besides, the slavers were all originally your subjects, not mine.
"And by the way," he continued, "order those Minion warriors behind you to go back down into the courtyard and tell the others not to come up. If any of them approach, our lovely sister-your famous twin-will die."
Turning, Tristan looked at the warriors and gave them a nod. Reluctantly they jumped from the edge of the roof and soared toward the courtyard.
Trying hard not to look up at the hill above them, Tristan turned back to Wulfgar. He could only hope that after hearing what Wigg had told them in the litter, Shailiha and Tyranny would have the good sense to do the same.
He thought desperately, as if by willing it hard enough he could somehow make them hear him. If Wulfgar turned his gaze there, they would all be finished.
"Now then," Wulfgar said, almost politely. "Shall we begin?"
Raising one arm, he encased everyone before him on the roof in a wizard's warp. Tristan couldn't move any of his limbs, but he found that he still controlled his powers of speech. Apparently satisfied, Wulfgar stared calmly at the people trapped in his warp.
"You're going to destroy the Orb of the Vigors, aren't you?" Shailiha asked. "That's what this has been about all along!"
"Of course," Wulfgar answered calmly. "But before I do, there is something I would like the two of you to know. It will pain you to hear it, I'm sure. But then again, making my brother and sister happy isn't really why I have come."
"What is it?" Tristan asked.
Looking over to one side, Wulfgar pointed down at the Scroll of the Vigors.
"That scroll," he began, "the one you held in your possession so briefly, holds many of the answers you seek. Yes, Jin'Sai, it even tells of the potential coming of your azure blood, and of how you might eventually rid yourself of it. But now, with the scroll in my possession, none of those things will ever happen. For until your blood reverts you cannot be trained, cannot wear the Paragon, and cannot read the Tome, and you will be unable to fulfill your so-called destiny. You will even be barred from siring children, for your tainted blood would be far too dangerous for any woman's to join with. Have your friends the wizards told you that yet? Your famous, all-powerful blood that was to have empowered you above all others is now the very thing you must most despise." The wicked smile came again.
"Aside from me, of course," he added knowingly. He turned to look at the orbs.
"How can one of our blood be so evil?" Shailiha shouted at him. "Doesn't any part of you care about the horrific, irreparable damage you are about to cause?"
Turning back from the orbs, Wulfgar looked directly into his sister's eyes.
"Evil, you say?" he asked her. "Don't you understand? I have no concept of the word 'evil.' As Krassus was so fond of saying, we of the Vagaries simply have a different point of view."
Turning again, he raised his hands. Almost immediately the orbs began burning brighter.
Never taking his eyes from his bastard brother, Tristan turned his thoughts toward the hill.
A bbey saw Wulfgar turn toward the orbs and saw them glow even more brightly. She levitated the parchment Wigg had given her so that it hovered in the air before her. Opening the cinch bag at her waist, she took out a pinch of precious herbs and placed them on the tinder she had prepared and lit. Then she stood back and used her gifts to force the fire higher and higher. When it was at last about two meters high and a meter wide, she crooked a finger toward her, ordering the flame to divide into two unequal branches. Curling her finger again, she pointed to the right, and the smaller of the two flames flattened out, coming dangerously close to scorching her hands and face. Looking down, she blessed the Afterlife that Wulfgar's back was still toward her.
She threw another pinch of herbs into the branch of flame, then reached for and opened the silver locket that hung around her neck. The usual dark locket of hair, the one belonging to the lead wizard, still lay inside as always. But now there was another with it. It was sandy colored, and secured around its center with a red ribbon.
It was Wulfgar's-the lock of hair that she had first seen in the Hall of Blood Records when Wigg had explained Wulfgar to them and shown them his blood signature. The lock of his hair that his grandmother had taken from him before her daughter gave him over to the orphanage, thirty-four years ago.
She removed the ribbon and divided the lock of hair into two halves, than dropped one half into the lower of the two flames and held the other half high. She was ordering her flame to find Wulfgar, even though he was in plain view.
She knew she was risking her life by doing so. She was only a partial, and so her attempt to find Wulfgar, one of those of the womb of Queen Morganna, would undoubtedly call forth the Furies-the same phenomenon that she had experienced that day in the courtyard when she, Faegan, and Shailiha had nearly been killed while trying to find the prince by employing a drop of his twin sister's blood.
But this time, she prayed, she had the answer.
A s the orbs and the Isthmus joining them glowed ever more brightly, Wulfgar smiled. Even though the Forestallment required to accomplish his task was immensely refined, the concept behind his mission was exceedingly simple. He could still hear Krassus explaining to him how it was to be done, as though it were only yesterday.
First, call upon your blood and conjure forth the Isthmus. When the Isthmus has appeared and the orbs seem stable, then use your mind to open the gate at the end connected to the Orb of the Vagaries, and allow its dark energy to trickle through. As it begins to reach the Orb of the Vigors, open the other end of the Isthmus and force the dark energy inside the Orb of the Vigors without allowing it to return to its source. The Orb of the Vigors shall therefore become polluted, while the Orb of the Vagaries shall remain pristine. When enough dark energy has finally been transfused, however, the cataclysm will wish to commence, and you must be exceedingly careful lest you risk the destruction of the world, for chaos is the natural order of the universe. But if done correctly, before the great cataclysm occurs the controlled nature of your work will cause the Orb of the Vigors to explode in a great ball of fire and light, and your mission will be complete. The Vigors will be no more, Wulfgar, and you may return to the Citadel and rule in splendor forever.
Closing his eyes, Wulfgar used his mind to open the floodgate at the end of the Isthmus touching the Orb of the Vagaries. As he did, its destructive energy trickled into the Isthmus and flowed down the length of its interior, making it darker as it went. Any second now, Tristan saw, the energy of the Vagaries would reach the Orb of the Vigors, and everything they treasured would be gone forever.
J ust as it had done that day in the courtyard, the top of Abbey's gazing flame began to swell. The viewing window also began to form, but that was not her main concern this time.
Looking at the parchment hovering in the air before her, she began urgently reading aloud the formula that Wigg and Faegan had found in the Scroll of the Vigors only days before-the formula that the community of partial adepts had for centuries whispered would countermand the action of the Furies and send the energy back to the subject a thousandfold.