Tristan turned frantically to Wigg to see that the wizard was finally employing the craft. Bolts of energy shot from his hands to strike many of the advancing consuls in the chest, burning them in agony, but another was approaching Wigg from the rear. Tristan tossed his sword over into his left hand and gripped one of his dirks with his right. The silver-bladed knife wheeled through the air almost before he was aware of throwing it, burying itself in the eye of one of the consuls and killing him instantly. More gray matter leapt from the gaping, destroyed eye socket. But there were too many of them, and Tristan knew it.
As he swung the great sword endlessly, striking down one after the next, it seemed that for every one he and the wizard cut down several more rose to take their place. The door at the other side of the room with the glowing, beckoning heraldry of his family seemed a hundred leagues away.
Sweat ran maddeningly into his eyes, and the stench of the dead consuls smothered him. He had lost track of Wigg. He began to sense the desperation in his tired arms, the heavy dreggan almost becoming too much to lift.
It was then that the blow came to the back of his head. Blindingly white light shot through his brain, and then his entire world went suddenly, completely black.
The softly crashing sounds came quietly to him at first, as if from a dream. He found them very reassuring. Gently caressing his ears and his mind, the harmonious ebb and flow of their timbre made him feel welcome and safe.
What beautiful sounds. His eyes still closed, he had only partially risen to the surface of awareness. It sounds like the sea. The roar of the ocean, like waves crashing. But that would be impossible . . .
And then came another, more familiar sound.
Women’s voices, laughing . . . speaking my name . . .
His mind suddenly rebelled, his body twisting in futility and fear. His frightened subconscious recalled the time he had been in the depths of the Coven’s Recluse—when he had heard the voices of the four mistresses while teetering on the cusp of death.
For a moment he thought he heard Wigg call out to him in pain, and he felt discomfort in his arms and shoulders. Then all went silent again. He lost his fight to rejoin the world around him, falling back down into a long, dark tunnel of sleep.
When he finally opened his eyes, Tristan took an astonished breath and immediately closed them again. He must be hallucinating. He shook his head, trying to understand. He hoped that when he opened his eyes, the scene would be different.
But pain barreled through him, forcing him to face reality. He opened his eyes, and his jaw fell in wonder.
A great ocean lay before him, its blue waves stretching away from the rocky shore.
He was still in the depths of the Caves. A ceiling of rock lay above him where the blue of the sky should have been. The radiance stones ensconced within it lit this place brightly, stretching as far as his eyes could see. Even the ocean itself, wide and foam crested, seemed endless.
The smell of the cool, almost comforting breeze blowing in off the water reminded him of the coast of Eutracia. Unbelievably, the froth-tipped waves were the exact hue produced by the craft. They tumbled toward him over and over again, crashing noisily upon the sandy shore only meters away from his feet.
The scene mesmerized him so much that it took him several moments to fully realize his plight.
His hands were in iron manacles, his back against a very high stone wall. He was hanging by his wrists, and his shoulders suddenly reminded him of how much pain he was in. Looking down, he saw that his boots were dangling at least a meter off the ground. He still had his weapons, but there was no way to reach them. His shoulders and wrists on fire, he looked to his left and finally saw Wigg. The wizard’s condition was even worse.
Also hanging from manacled wrists, Wigg was clearly unconscious. His eyes were closed, and his head was slumped forward on his chest. His right foot was clearly injured. An incision had been made along the inside of his boot, running halfway from the toe to the heel. Dried, endowed blood was caked all around the leather of the opening and had created an odd-looking red trail that ran crazily up and over the top of his foot.
Straining his neck, Tristan tilted his head to look down at the sand below the wizard’s feet. It was red. Wigg had been purposely drained of his blood.
For a moment the prince was perplexed. Then he understood.
The consuls we fought with said that we must first be prepared, he realized. They have drained blood from Wigg, so as to render him powerless in his use of the craft.
Tristan’s memories took him back to the fateful day when Succiu, second mistress of the Coven, had taken her own life and the life of their unborn child. Before doing so she told the prince that when an endowed loses a significant amount of blood, his powers of the craft are drastically reduced. He knew that this was what had been done to Wigg. But by whom? he wondered.
He looked around at the sandy beach, trying to find a clue. But now the puzzle grew even more complex. There were no footprints. Just the undisturbed beauty of the sand as the ocean continued to rush up against it.
“Wigg!” he called out loudly. “Wigg! Wake up! Talk to me!”
But it was to no avail. In a sudden panic Tristan narrowed his eyes to peer at the wizard’s chest. With great relief he saw that it continued to rise and fall with the old one’s labored breathing. At least Wigg was still alive.
The prince looked sadly at the impossible ocean that lay so beautifully, so incongruously before him. His shoulders and wrists seemed about to dislocate. The only sound coming to his ears was the crashing of the waves.
The shore that should not be here, he thought. And then a new worry crowded into his mind. Is this to be my fate? Perhaps the consul I killed was only speaking to Wigg when he said he must be prepared. Perhaps Wigg, because he is trained in the craft and I am not, is the only one they wish to see. That might explain why nothing has been done to “prepare” me. Will I simply remain here, pinned to this wall of stone, until I die? He suddenly felt very alone.
Then he saw the glow of the craft forming in the air before him. Wondering if he was seeing things, he closed his eyes once more. When he opened them again, a door frame had formed. Slowly, hauntingly, it began to move closer.
“Wigg, you must wake up!” Tristan shouted. “I need you!” But the wizard did not move.
The portal now floated directly before him. For a brief moment Tristan thought he saw some movement within it. Then the azure fog began to dissipate, and three beautiful women flew directly out of the mist on large, diaphanous wings. Rather small, they would not have quite reached to his shoulders had they all been standing on equal ground. Their entire presence glowed with the craft as they whirled about his face and body as if examining him. At first Tristan recoiled. But then, after a time, he relaxed as he realized that they did not seem to be harming him.
They were all exquisitely beautiful. They wore elaborate, low-cut gowns of the palest white. They all had very long, curly hair, and their eyes were the deepest blue he had ever seen.
At last one of them spoke. “We are here to prepare you.” Her voice was earthy, welcoming, and smooth.
“Who are you?” Tristan whispered back in awe.
“We are the master’s wraiths,” she answered, looking deeply into his eyes. She shook her head gracefully, as if wondering how it was that the prince did not already know that. Her long azure hair flowed out behind her on the breeze from her wings.
“And who is your master?” Tristan asked. He instinctively recoiled a bit as the two other wraiths moved to either side of him.
The first one smiled. “He is the one who has waited so long to see both of you. But we had no idea that the Chosen One would prove to be so compelling.”
Before Tristan could ask what she meant, the two wraiths hovering on either side of him began to caress his body. Their hands softly teased his groin; their tongues and lips circled his own. The sweat of his nervousness ran down into his eyes, and he twisted as best
he could to avoid them. But he could only hang there, receiving whatever it was they chose to do.
“Please let them pleasure you,” the one before him said softly. “It will help you deal with what I must do.”
Tristan looked directly into her face, and in horror watched her beautiful eyes begin to change. Her deep blue irises slowly narrowed, running vertically, and turned yellow. The deep, black pupils were now mere slits. Snakelike eyes looked calmly at him, and she opened her mouth. A forked tongue appeared.
“You do not like me this way?” she asked coyly. The long, pink tongue slithered in and out between her full lips, flicking back and forth as it tested the air.
“No!” Tristan snarled angrily. Trying hard to keep his concentration while the other two wraiths continued to caress him, he glared into her yellow, reptilian eyes. “Whatever it is you intend to do, get it over with!”
She smiled. “Very well.” Whipping her pink tongue back and forth, she wetly ran the flat of it up and down his right cheek. Moving lower, she slithered her tongue in and out between the laces of his leather vest, toying with the hair on his chest, then finally ran it down the length of his torso.
Not knowing what would happen next, Tristan closed his eyes and tried to steel himself.
The serpentlike wraith shot her tongue out, cleanly slicing through the leather of his left boot. She then probed it into the cut in the boot to carefully slice a wound in his foot. Tristan cried out, trying to shake her off. But he was too late. Blood was already running out of his boot and into the sand. As the blood came more quickly, a silver bowl appeared on the ground below him.
Once his azure blood began to drip into the bowl, the two wraiths on either side of him stopped their molestations and hovered quietly before him.
“Why?” he snarled. “I know why you would want to bleed the wizard, but why me? I am untrained, and represent no threat to you while still in these chains!”
“We have bled you and the wizard for the same reason,” the first wraith said, smiling. Her eyes and tongue had returned to normal; her incredible beauty was restored. “We wish you to become weak, and therefore controllable. An appropriate amount of blood loss will accomplish that in the Chosen One, just as it would in any human. Trained or untrained. But in your case there is yet another reason. The Chosen One’s blood has uses all of its own.”
Looking into Tristan’s puzzled face, she smiled again. “Ah, I see you do not understand,” she purred. “So much that you still do not know, Chosen One. But the days of your ignorance are finally coming to an end.”
Tristan did not know what she meant by that, and part of him was past caring. He struggled against the manacles as his foot throbbed. His shoulders and wrists felt as if they were being burned away from his body, and additional rivulets of azure blood began to run crazily down the length of his arms from where he had been struggling against the iron. He looked back up into the eyes of the wraith with hatred.
“So what happens now?” he spat at her.
“We wait,” she answered pleasantly.
“For what?”
“For enough of your blood to have been collected. We have no need for the wizard’s blood, only yours. Then the master’s other servants will come.”
Tristan wanted to ask them what other servants were meant, but they flitted away along the beach. He sought desperately for a means of escape as he listened to the dribble and plop of his life’s fluid hitting first the metal and then later its own pool, but no answer presented itself.
Just as the blood in the bowl began to splatter over the edge with the continuing flow from his foot, the wraiths reappeared.
The one who had cut him looked down into the bowl and smiled. “There now,” she cooed. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Now we can heal you and the wizard.”
Tristan had been greatly weakened from the loss of blood, and he knew it. He hung limply in his chains, doubting that he would have the strength to raise his dreggan even if he were free.
They have us exactly where they want us, he thought. Weakened and humbled. And there is nothing either the wizard or I can do about it.
He immediately began to feel the itching in his foot that signified the incantation of accelerated healing. Turning, he saw that Wigg’s wound was closing, as well. The wraiths were hovering over Tristan’s bowl. The one who was their apparent leader picked it up, then smiled at him.
“Good-bye, my sweet prince,” she whispered. “We may never meet again. But if we do, by then there will be far more for us to discuss.” She looked him up and down, then gazed reverently into the bowl containing his blood. “So many questions, aren’t there?” she teased. “And so few remaining of the craft who can answer them for you.”
The chains holding the wizard and the prince snapped open, dropping them to the sand. Tristan tried to stand and somehow slowly came to his feet. But when he attempted to reach for his dreggan he fell back down, unable to rise again.
Noticing the wraiths had directed their attention to the ocean, his tired eyes searched the sea, trying to find what it was they were waiting for. Finally, he saw three small black dots against the sage horizon. As they drew closer, he could tell what they were. The horrific birds of prey.
Tristan crawled across the sand as best he could, coming nearer to Wigg. Shaking the wizard did no good, nor did several sharp slaps across the face.
The birds of prey came nearer. Stretching their pointed wings to buffet the air, they landed softly on the beach. Tristan narrowed his eyes in disbelief. These were not the same kind he and Wigg had observed in the Hartwick Woods. These birds were more advanced. As he looked closer, the grotesque, obvious differences in them made his breath come quickly to his lungs. These birds had human-looking arms and hands in addition to their wings.
Their arms extended from just beneath the top of the middle wing joint, and ended in hands of five perfectly formed fingers each. The arms were sculpted and muscular. Black leather gauntlets adorned their wrists. Around the chest of each bird was a black leather baldric holding a long, sheathed sword. In addition, their mannerisms told the prince that they were far more intelligent than the ones he had seen the previous night. The birds before him did not possess the jerking, uncertain movements of the others. Rather, they seemed calm and in control.
Everything else about them seemed to be the same as the others, however. The long, pointed heads, the leathery wings, and the great black claws at the ends of the feet were identical. Their scarlet, grotesque eyes rotated constantly, taking in the wizard, the prince, and the wraiths all at once. And then, unbelievably, one of them spoke.
“They have been bled?” it asked, turning its awful head toward the wraiths. Its voice was high and eloquent.
“Yes,” the wraith who had cut Tristan said. “We now have a sufficient quantity of the blood of the Chosen One. I am pleased to present the bowl to my master’s hatchlings.” Hovering nearer, she placed the bowl of azure blood into the waiting arms of one of the other birds.
Without speaking further, the hatchling who seemed to be their leader walked closer to the prince, drawing his sword. Tristan’s breath came harder. He wished with all of his being that he could find the strength to take his dreggan into his hands.
The hatchling placed the tip of his sword beneath the prince’s jaw, raising Tristan’s face painfully upward. After regarding him for a time, the great bird lowered his sword.
Another time, I promise you, the prince swore silently.
The hatchling turned to address the wraiths. “You are free to go.”
Without further discussion, the wraiths flew through the waiting door frame, disappearing, leaving the wizard and prince alone with the three awful birds.
“What do you want?” Tristan shouted weakly, trying to stand and take his sword into his hand. But standing was impossible, as was pulling the heavy dreggan from its scabbard.
Somehow, impossibly, the thing with the long, pointed beak full of teeth smiled. “We wan
t you,” it said softly.
With that, the other hatchling that was not holding the bowl walked over to take the inert body of the wizard into its claws. Using one of its powerful feet, the leader roughly pushed the prince down into the sand and curled its long, black claws around Tristan’s body. Struggling against the bird’s unyielding talons, Tristan used up the remainder of his strength.
Stretching their leathery wings, the hatchlings flew toward the horizon of the magnificent, azure sea.
As they did so, Tristan finally lost his battle to stay conscious.
CHAPTER
Twenty-one
Geldon looked down from his litter to see the lush Parthalonian countryside flying by. Joshua, in the litter next to him, still had his eyes closed. It made the dwarf wonder whether the younger man would ever get used to this form of travel.
Peering out into the distance, Geldon could pick out the island upon which the Recluse had stood before its destruction by the aftershocks accompanying the sorceresses’ deaths.
Tristan had given the Minions many orders that day, not the least of which had been for them to rebuild that terrible, imposing fortress. They had also been ordered to strip away any reminders of the Coven, such as the five-pointed star.
Not an easy task, Geldon thought. He squinted, trying to see the remains of the once-great structure. It will be interesting to see what they have done.
As they approached the Recluse, Geldon could not help but be reminded of his life of servitude there. He also thought of the coming of Tristan and Wigg to find Shailiha, who had been kidnapped and subverted by the Coven. Tristan had regained his sister, but he had lost his son. Geldon looked down at the moat surrounding the island and took a deep breath, making a decision.
The prince did not ask me to do this, he thought. But I could see the need in his eyes, and I will honor it.
Geldon waved to Baktar. The leader of the Minions nodded back, coming to fly alongside the dwarf’s litter.
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