“And the voice of Morganna that came to us in the Caves?” Wigg asked.
Ragnar laughed. “The good Queen Morganna is as dead as dead can be. I imitated her voice to draw the two of you here, knowing that the prince would be compelled to follow it. The sliding walls blocking your retreat were also of my doing, as were the glowing signs of the heraldry the prince prizes so much.”
“But why go to all that trouble?” Wigg asked.
“For exactly the reasons that the false voice of the queen told you,” the blood stalker responded. “The protection of your well-being. We wished to herd you here to this precise spot, without delay or unnecessary risk. Had we not done so you would have become lost within the Caves’ newfound complexities, most probably starving to death. Besides, without my ‘help,’ how would you have ever crossed the sea?” Ragnar grinned over his long incisors while taking a bit more of the yellow fluid. “It could be said that I saved both of your lives.”
“But why do you want Tristan’s blood?” Wigg asked. “If I am to die, then there is no reason to keep the answer from me.”
Smiling, Ragnar waggled a finger at the wizard. “Some things are better left unsaid. Besides, my good fellow, who said anything about you dying? What I have planned for you is much more refined. But first we must discuss the Tome.”
Wigg glanced toward the great book resting peacefully on the white altar. “What of it?” he asked skeptically.
“Since your powers are temporarily gone, I will perform the spell of compression and pagination for you now. It will be given to you after you’ve departed. When you are finally back in the Redoubt, I suggest you restore the book to its natural form as soon as possible.”
Tristan looked quizzically at Ragnar. What in the name of the Afterlife is he talking about?
Wigg’s expression registered surprise. “Why are you giving us the Tome? You must know that we will only use it against you!”
“I have already read it,” Ragnar answered quietly. “I have no further need for it.”
“That’s impossible!” Wigg exploded. “Even if you could somehow have read it without the Paragon, you couldn’t possibly recite the entire treatise! It’s tens of thousands of pages long! Only Faegan can do that, for he is the only known living being with the Power of Consummate Recollection! And it is difficult, even for him!”
Ragnar smirked at Wigg. “Is that so?” he asked quietly. Tristan saw the color drain from the wizard’s face.
“Enough of this chatter,” Ragnar said suddenly. “Time to get down to business.”
The blood stalker pointed one of his extremely long fingernails in the direction of the Tome. The entire book began to glow. Then it became smaller and smaller, until it was the size of an extraordinarily thick personal journal. Finally Ragnar dropped his arm. “There,” he said almost casually. “That should make things much easier for you on your journey home.”
He rose from his throne and walked to the altar, where he picked up the once-gigantic book. Then he sauntered over to Wigg and reached through the warp surrounding the lead wizard to deposit the Tome within Wigg’s robe. “There is, however, one more piece of unfinished business,” he whispered nastily.
Ragnar snapped his fingers. Scrounge jumped down from his throne, coming like an obedient dog to his master’s side. From a pocket in his dark brown leather trousers he produced a small silver tube, which he handed to Ragnar.
“Tell me, Wigg, how much do you know about stalker brain fluid?” Ragnar asked. “It’s a fascinating subject all of its own, quite full of riddles and complexities. Did you know, for example, that if enough of it is collected at once, it can be condensed and dried into a powder? And that the older the powder is, the less power it contains?” He slowly opened the top of the silver tube.
Removing the golden dagger from its scabbard at his side, he sprinkled some of the fine, light yellow powder along the length of the blade, holding it to the light of the chandelier.
“This powder is almost three hundred years old,” Ragnar continued. “I have been saving it all this time for you, and you alone. It has taken all of those centuries for it to lose just the right amount of its power. You should feel complimented. Unlike the brain fluid that was placed into the bloodstream of the prince, this powder will not kill you. I do not wish you to die. I do, however, wish for you to suffer, just as I have suffered for centuries.”
He held the shiny blade of the dagger before the Wigg’s face. “Fitting, is it not, that the instrument of this act should be the very same blade that you once used to harm me?” And with that, the stalker blew the powder from the blade directly into Wigg’s eyes.
Wigg screamed and snapped his head back and forth as torrents of pain cascaded through his eyes and into his brain. Long minutes passed, until Wigg let out a final, great scream of torture and his head lolled down onto his chest. Tears of pain and sadness ran down upon his robe, creating dark blotches as they went. Then he groaned softly and fainted.
“You bastards!” Tristan screamed, fighting the warp that held him. “What have you done to him?”
“Why don’t we let him tell you?” Ragnar answered pleasantly. He reached through the warp and began slapping Wigg viciously across the face.
Wigg finally opened his eyes, and Tristan stared in horror. The wizard’s eyes were totally white and lifeless.
“Wigg!” Tristan screamed. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” Wigg responded thickly. “But I am quite blind.”
Now it was Tristan’s turn to cry. Trembling with hate, he whispered to both the stalker and the assassin at once, “I swear to the Afterlife, I shall kill you both. By all that I am, I will see you die at my feet.”
Ragnar smiled. “Given your condition, that is quite doubtful. You have unknowingly hit upon one fact, however.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “The Afterlife is more responsible for all of this than you know.
“And now it is time for the two of you to leave us, for my work is done,” he said. “When you wake, you will find yourselves back on the trail leading to the Redoubt. You will find your horses there. During your return you will not be harassed by any of our forces. The Tome will still be in the wizard’s robe.”
Tristan felt the wizard’s warp fall away—and then everything went black.
Ragnar turned to Celeste. “You are dismissed, my dear,” he said. Without a glance at him she left the room, closing the heavy door behind her.
As soon as she was gone, Nicholas emerged from the hallway, coming to hover quietly over the inert body of the prince. He bent to run his smooth, white palm across the face of the Chosen One.
“So this is he who dares to call himself my father,” Nicholas said softly. “The Chosen One, his azure blood now polluted with the brain fluid of a stalker. How fitting. And next to him lies his sightless, quite useless wizard.” He closed his eyes, lifting his head toward the ceiling. “The Chosen One shall soon see who the true parents are.”
He turned to Ragnar. “Call for two of the hatchlings to return them to the trail, as promised. Make sure the Tome goes with them.”
“My lord,” Ragnar whispered back.
With that, Nicholas glided from the room, followed by the blue glow that receded down the hallway and out of sight, like a shimmering wave.
Ragnar and Scrounge bent over to pick up the bodies.
CHAPTER
Twenty-five
Tristan! Wake up! Drink!”
The urgent words came to the prince’s ears as a distant, hazy sound, growing ever clearer as he regained consciousness. The voice was familiar. A flask of water met his lips, and some of it was poured carefully down his parched throat. He swallowed automatically, greedily. Lying in Wigg’s lap in the dark of night, he finally opened his eyes. What he saw was not comforting.
The wizard’s eyes were still that milky white.
It’s true! Tristan realized, his mind finally clearing. It all really did happen! He sat up, looking around.
&nbs
p; “We are safe, at least for the time being,” Wigg said weakly. “The basket of food and drink and even the fire were already here when I came to. It appears Ragnar kept at least part of his promise.”
Finding that some of his lost strength had returned, Tristan tentatively stood. For several moments he carefully surveyed the scene. Their horses stood nearby, tied to a tree. He checked his weapons; they were intact.
They were on the trail to the Redoubt; he recognized the bend just ahead, and the fallen tree lying partly across it. A campfire burned brightly before them, its comforting, wood-laden scent reaching for the sky. Alongside the wizard was a basket of food, with two flasks inside. A soft breeze rustled through the night, and the stars in the dark sky competed for attention with the three magenta moons.
Once convinced that they were alone, Tristan sat down next to the blind wizard. He raised one hand, slowly passing it before Wigg’s face. But there was no reaction; the wizard’s dead, white eyes registered absolutely nothing. And then Wigg spoke.
“Yes, it’s true,” he said. “I am blind.” He paused for a moment, as if trying to find the words. “And I may be so forever.”
Tristan put his hand on the old one’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “Other than your vision, are you all right? Have your powers returned? I hope so. But Wigg, I understand nothing of this. Who is Ragnar? And why does he hate you so much?”
“Ragnar . . .” Wigg sighed. “What happened between us was over three hundred years ago, during the height of the Sorceresses’ War, Long before you were born, and long before we learned of the eventual arrival of you and your sister.” He paused for a moment. “When I first awakened I discovered the flasks, and smelled wine in one of them,” he said. “Would you give me some? I fear that just now I could use it.”
Tristan placed the wine flask into the wizard’s hands. Wigg took a long pull from the opening. “First things first,” he said finally, the wine seeming to fortify him. “How do you feel?”
“I’m better,” Tristan answered, moving a little nearer to the warmth of the fire. He looked to his shoulder; there was absolutely no evidence of what Scrounge had done to him. As was sometimes his habit, he pulled his knees up to his chin, holding them there. “It is as if nothing ever happened to me.”
Oh, but it has, Wigg thought sadly. And it is my fault.
“Other than my vision, I am also well,” the wizard told him. “My powers have not completely returned. But they will certainly have done so by the time we return home—or at least to some semblance of what they once were, considering the continual draining of the stone.” He turned his lifeless, once-beautiful eyes in the direction of the prince. “But right now we should both eat.”
“I can’t,” Tristan said angrily.
“But you must,” Wigg answered. “It has been a long time since we had any nourishment. Especially you. You must keep your strength up for as long as you can . . .”
The prince knew the answers to his many questions about Ragnar would eventually come, but only in the wizard’s good time. He took a piece of cheese and a hunk of bread for both himself and Wigg, placing the wizard’s portions into the old one’s hands. He did it for no other reason than to get Wigg talking. It worked.
In between bites of cheese and bread, Wigg related the story of Ragnar. Of how he and Tretiak had tried to heal him, only to have their well-meant compassion end in tragic results. Tristan listened in silence.
“How did he become so needful of his own brain fluid?” he asked when Wigg was done. “If it is of his own body, then how can it be addictive?”
“If you better understood the craft, you would have a keener grasp of that,” Wigg answered. “Simply put, since Tretiak and I interrupted the process begun by the Coven, it was never completed. This means that, unlike other, fully developed stalkers, his process of transformation goes on unabated, even to this day, the incantation still trying to turn him. Some incantations, such as those used upon the stalkers by the Coven, had an infinite timeline until purposely discontinued by their creator. But that is another subject, for yet another day.” He paused again, taking another drink of the wine as he continued to collect his thoughts.
“Anyway,” he continued, “what all of this means is that his system continues to produce fluid, driven relentlessly forward by the ongoing incantation. But the wound in the side of his head releases it again, partially negating the process. Ingesting it is one way to get it back into his body, thereby simultaneously slowing down the need to create more, and causing a pleasurable sensation of release upon his nervous system. This process has apparently gone on for centuries, and will continue to do so unless he is killed. He is, in effect, his own prisoner of time. And also a prisoner of the craft. One must always be careful in the application of the craft, Tristan. For each way in which an incantation can proceed successfully, there are a hundred ways for it go awry.”
“And he blames you for his addiction,” Tristan concluded.
“Yes. That is why he blinded me. He wanted to satisfy his desire for revenge by using the same weapon I tried to help him with. In those days we all carried the golden daggers as a symbol of our brotherhood. As difficult to believe as it may now seem, Ragnar was once a part of that. But never forget that as a stalker, even a partial one, he is quite mad.” He shook his head. “There remain, however, many things I do not understand.”
“Such as the amazing azure glow that crept out from the doorway,” Tristan said. “I felt very drawn to it for some reason, as if it were somehow a part of me, a part of my very own blood.”
“Yes,” Wigg agreed. “I could see the effect it was having on you. That glow was the most awe-inspiring manifestation of the craft I have ever witnessed. But Ragnar never had that kind of power, and I very much doubt that he does now. No, someone else was there also, listening to every word. I believe it to have been the same being who is responsible for the draining of the stone. I am convinced that much of what Ragnar told us is lies, designed to throw us off. And much of it, conversely, I also believe to be the truth. A great portion of this riddle remains unexplained, purposely shrouded in a dense fog much like that glow we saw there in the chamber.”
“Such as placing a bounty on my life, when they have no desire of my ever being caught,” Tristan wondered aloud. “That makes no sense. And what is their need for the consuls, especially with all of their tattoos removed? What possible difference could that make? Not to mention the purported thousands of hatchlings camped at Farplain.”
His face darkened, especially at the thought of so many of Ragnar’s second-generation hatchlings loose upon the land. Wigg turned blindly toward the prince. Tristan winced at the memory of the wizard’s once-commanding aquamarine eyes.
“And then there is the greatest threat of all to our safety,” Wigg said solemnly. “The Chosen One has been polluted with the brain fluid of a stalker. I know you feel well at this moment. But soon, very soon, you will begin to feel its effects. We must get back to the Redoubt and inform Faegan. With the aid of the Tome, perhaps there is something we can do.”
“And about your blindness, as well?” Tristan asked.
“Perhaps. But it is you who are most important.” Then a look of concern crossed Wigg’s face. “The Tome! It is here, as Ragnar promised, is it not?” He stretched out an arm and began to pat the ground beside him, searching.
Suddenly anxious, Tristan looked around. At last he saw the thick, white leather book sitting in the grass a few feet away. “Yes! It’s here!” he exclaimed. For the first time that night, he saw Wigg smile.
Slowly, reverently, Tristan took the Tome into his hands. He could not believe that the once-gigantic treatise he had seen in the Caves could in fact be the same book. Very carefully he opened it—the collection of volumes that were to explain the very meaning of his life and the life of his sister. It was a moment he had waited impatiently for.
But what he saw within the Tome made his breath come out in a rush. Quic
kly, almost in a panic, he thumbed through the rest of the pages in utter disbelief.
Every single page of the Tome was solid black. No words, no letters, no symbols.
He looked at Wigg in horror. “I don’t understand!” he exclaimed. “The pages are all black. The Tome is ruined! This must be some trick of Ragnar’s!”
Despite his affliction, Wigg smiled. “The Tome is not ruined,” he said compassionately. “The great book has been made smaller for the purposes of transporting it from one place to the next.”
“What good is the Tome if it cannot be read?” Tristan asked in frustration.
“There is, in fact, great value in not being able to read the Tome,” Wigg answered. “Think for a moment. Right now the Tome is out in the open, where anyone could conceivably take it from us. When the spell is enacted, the Tome’s cover and pages shrink, but the writing upon its pages does not. As the pages compress, the words written upon them are therefore literally forced into and over the top of one another. So much so that all of the white space is covered over, creating a completely black page. In this way not only can the great book be easily hidden or moved, but if it falls into hands that have also captured the Paragon, it still cannot be read.” Wigg took another sip of the wine.
“As the book shrinks, the pages also become rearranged, or ‘repaginated,’ if you will, in a completely random order. Pages from one volume may even appear within another. So even if a thief were somehow able to restore it to its original size, it would remain impossible to use. Clever, don’t you think?”
Tristan shook his head. “But why would Ragnar let us have the Tome?” he asked. “Is possessing both the Paragon and the Tome not an incredible advantage?”
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