For the final ingredient, Reznik walked to the center of the cottage floor, pushed the throw rug to one side, and reached down to grasp the iron ring embedded in the floorboards. With a quick tug, he pulled open the trapdoor and then let it fall over backward onto the floor. As he walked down the steps and into the darkness, he started to whistle again. as Satine guided her gelding through the labyrinthine passageway, a shudder went through her. She did her best to remain calm. If she didn't, she could become disoriented, take a wrong turn at some point, and die in this place. This was the only way in and out of the community of rogue partial adepts, Reznik had once told her. She hated coming here-but it was a necessary evil.
No potion she had ever found rivaled the quality and effectiveness of Reznik's. Nor had any other tool of assassination ever granted her the all-important margin of safety this one did. It had been one of the mainstays of her art for several years now. Her current sanctions would most certainly call for its use, and she had little left of her last supply.
In order to supply the community with goods, the smooth, square-cut tunnel was wide enough to accommodate even the largest of wagons and teams. But this path was meant only for those partial adepts accepted into the community and able to employ magic in order to recall the safe route through the unforgiving maze. For them, it held no more danger than a walk through a flower garden. Reznik had accompanied Satine through the many twists and turns the first few times she came. After that, he coldly told her that she was on her own, no matter how many kisa she might be willing to pay him for his services. It had only been her ability to pay such large sums that had convinced him to show her the way in the first place. The other partials had been none too happy to know that he had brought her here.
But after Reznik's payment of a few well-placed bribes, even the more distrustful had grudgingly decided to ignore Satine's occasional comings and goings. Provided, of course, that she didn't visit too often, or reveal the secret to anyone else.
As usual she had seen the sentries high atop the sheer, smooth bluff. Recognizing her, one of them waved his hand and a section of the rock wall slowly darkened to reveal the passageway. Spurring her horse onward, she nervously entered the tunnel. The darkness closed in around her as the sentry sealed the entrance again.
The tunnels were slick and sheer, about five meters high. Enchanted wall torches burned continually, producing no smoke. There were numerous intersections, each of which had to be navigated correctly. Reznik had told her that if even one wrong branch was selected, the craft would immediately sense it and arise to kill her-but he never told her what form her death might take.
While Satine's horse walked along, the clip-clop of his hooves rang out crisply, and the scent of the torches combined with the fetid smell of damp mildew clinging to the walls. Shivering slightly, she drew her gray cloak closer and began to search for the first of the marks she had surreptitiously scratched into the walls with her dagger the last time she had come here with Reznik.
But as she approached the first crossing, her heart skipped a beat and she pulled her horse up short. Even in the flickering torchlight, she could see that her life-preserving marks had been eradicated.
The partial adepts must have finally discovered her secret. Now she would have to find her way through twenty deadly intersections by means of memory alone.
Turning in her saddle, she looked longingly back the way she had come. She could turn her horse around and leave. She hadn't been through any of the intersections yet, so going back now would all but guarantee her safety. Provided, of course, that one of the sentries sensed her presence and opened the exit. But if she turned back she would never gain her potion, which she absolutely needed to fulfill her sanctions.
She considered abandoning the mission entirely and running. But she had already accepted partial payment from Wulfgar. Should she try to double-cross him, his wrath would be great and his reach long. She had no desire to be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life, continually wondering when one of his vengeful consuls would suddenly come looming out of the dark.
Satine began to sweat. There was no man or blade in the world that she feared. This was different, however. The craft was at work here, and there was nothing she could do to change that. Trying to control her emotions, she looked carefully at the first of the intersections.
Four separate paths branched off in various directions. Wall torches hung at their entrances, beckoning her forward. She felt fairly certain about which path to take at this first juncture. Taking a deep breath, Satine reached down toward her right thigh and slid one of her daggers from its sheath.
She gently spurred her horse forward toward the first path on the right, reaching out as she did so to mark the wall with her blade. That should at least help guide her back during her return.
Providing, of course, she returned at all.
CHAPTER XV
With his short neck craned over the side of the litter and the wind tearing at his hair and clothes, Geldon searched for the Orb of the Vigors. When the destroyed village of Brook Hollow came into sight, he ordered the litter down so that they might search for survivors. When his litter finally came to rest in a nearby field, the hunchbacked dwarf felt his stomach turn over as he surveyed the destruction. The accompanying Minion phalanx landed warily all around him, dreggans drawn.
Most of the village had disappeared, reduced to little more than piles of rubble. Strangely, random areas of the town stood unharmed, as though nothing untoward had happened at all. Smoke and ash swirled in the wind, occasionally blotting out the sun, and the stench of dead and burned bodies lingered with the heat.
Geldon turned sadly toward Ox. The Minion warrior was as overcome as he was.
"Ox never hear of so much bad happen so fast," he said. "Even Minion war party not able make such death in so short time."
Geldon pointed to the haphazard rows of surviving homes. "I want a group of warriors to search those dwellings for survivors. If you find any, bring them straight to me."
Nodding, Ox went to pass on the order, and several warriors immediately took flight.
Geldon removed a handkerchief from his trousers and held it over his nose and mouth as he walked deeper into town. Ox and the remaining Minions followed silently along, the still-warm cinders crunching beneath their boots.
A baby's burnt crib lay here, a father's boot there. Parts of chimneys still stood valiantly, like charred, broken fingers pointing accusingly at the sky. Those corpses that hadn't been completely consumed by the orb's energy lay all about, contorted in death, the remnants of their clothing flapping in the breeze. The charred skeletons of entire families could be seen holding on to one another.
Flies had been feasting here for some time. In the sky, vultures careened and turned.
His first instinct was to burn all of the dead upon funeral pyres. There were enough warriors to do the job, and he felt the victims deserved at least that much. But he couldn't spare the time. Tristan would be aching for a report, and they had to keep moving if they were to find the rampaging orb. Saying nothing, he lowered his head and walked on.
Then, in an open spot in the rubble, Geldon saw a small, charred body. It had been turned to ash, but the shape remained: long hair splayed out and hands stretched forth in a posture of beseeching, as though begging the orb not to harm him or her.
Kneeling down, Geldon found himself saddened, yet mesmerized. It was like looking into the recent past, and seeing a moment captured forever.
A sudden gust came up and scattered the ashes to the winds. Just like the village of Brook Hollow, the memory of the young child was no more.
Standing slowly, Geldon saw that the Minion search party was returning-without survivors. Landing in the rubble beside him and Ox, the officer in charge snapped his heels together.
"All of the standing houses are empty," the officer said. "Whoever once lived in them, do so no more."
Nodding at the officer, Geldon looked over at Ox
.
"What do now?" Ox asked.
"We do what we came for," Geldon answered. "We find the ruptured orb, and we send a report back to the Jin'Sai. May the Afterlife grant that we find no more disasters such as this."
Turning, Geldon left the death site of the anonymous child and led the Minions back to his litter. two hours later, they still hadn't located the orb. They knew that finding it would only be a matter of time, for the destruction it left in its wake was impossible to miss. After Brook Hollow, the charred, smoking chasm in the ground was the most telling sign of its passing.
They soon came upon the place where the orb's zigzagging path entered the waters of the Sippora.
The dripping energy had apparently entered the river directly east of where Fledgling House sat quietly nestled at the base of the Tolenka Mountains. Fed by melting snows and glacial runoff, the river was notoriously cold. But as they all looked on in awe, it was clear that the mighty Sippora had been assaulted by a power that even Wigg and Faegan could not have mustered. The Sippora was boiling over its banks.
Multiple geysers of steaming water flew hundreds of feet into the air-so high that the flying Minions had to convey the litter farther up. As the hissing, superheated water landed again, it scorched white all of the vegetation it touched. The heavy steam rising from the river made it difficult to see, and even at this altitude it burned their skin.
The litter rocked back and forth wildly, threatening to buckle in the heat. Geldon had no choice but to order his bearers higher yet. Urgently wiping the moisture from his eyes, Geldon looked down.
Thrown free by the surging geysers, dead, stinking fish lay all along the banks. New plumes of steam and water continued to erupt. It was as if all of the various powers of nature had suddenly joined to go berserk in this one spot. But it wasn't nature that had gone berserk, Geldon realized. It was the very craft itself.
The spectacle was as hypnotizing as it was terrifying. Still, he knew there was nothing that they could do here. They needed to move on. Finally, he shouted orders to Ox, and the litter and its protective phalanx traveled north, between the base of the majestic Tolenkas and the impossible, boiling river. after another hour of flight, Geldon and his warriors caught up to the orb. It had finally ceased following the river and had begun zigzagging its way northwest, the telltale canyon snaking along in its wake like the blood trail of a wounded animal.
As they drew nearer, the heat from the scarred earth below became far more intense and the smoke thickened. Then they began to hear screeching and howling. The noise was deafening.
At last they saw it. Thunderstruck, Geldon watched as the wounded Orb of the Vigors burned its way across a field, and then tore into the pine forest lining the base of the Tolenka Mountains, setting fire to everything in its path and lighting up the dark forest in every direction. Undeterred by the thick trees, it crashed through the woods with offshoots of the palest white radiating from its sides. Around it, the raging forest fire leaped higher and higher. Soon the rising smoke became so thick that they could barely see what was happening. Tears filling his eyes, the dwarf lowered his head.
This was not the same orb Geldon had seen that night on the palace roof, when Wigg and Abbey had defeated Wulfgar. This was a wounded, suffering thing. Careening to and fro without reason, it screamed in pain.
Geldon had no idea whether the orb might actually be a sentient being. But right now he pitied it and wanted to help. He just didn't know how. That was when the other sounds of torment began reaching their ears.
Many of them already ablaze, beasts and birds barreled from the fiery inferno in wild-eyed panic. The hordes of terrified beasts trampled one another as they tried to escape. Geldon had never known that animals could sound so human as they screamed in their suffering.
Now hundreds of birds-many of them ablaze-were flying out of the forest and directly at the litter and the Minion phalanx. They were a living, breathing cloud of darkness and fire.
Part of Geldon's litter burst into flames. Through the fire and smoke, he caught sight of Ox signaling to the others, and the litter lurched sickeningly upward. Holding on as best he could, Geldon felt his stomach rise into his throat.
Birds pummeled him and the struggling warriors, their beaks and claws puncturing skin. Flying with all their might, the Minions climbed faster, until they finally broke out of the swarming, dying birds.
Geldon leaned out to watch the scene below, and suddenly he understood what was about to happen.
All of the land animals so desperately trying to escape the fires were about to charge into the smoking, superheated ditch left by the Orb of the Vigors.
Their vision clouded by the smoke still spewing from the canyon, the unsuspecting creatures ran straight over the edge. Amid bloodcurdling cries and the sound of snapping limbs, they exploded into flames. After what seemed like an eternity their numbers finally thinned and it was over. A sickening stench rose from the mass grave.
Geldon looked over at Ox. Both were bloody and wounded, but alive. Looking around, he could see that they had lost some of their warriors. Those who remained alive were covered with wounds and completely spent. With a nod, he told Ox to order them down.
His damaged litter came to earth a safe distance from the forest, and Geldon set foot upon the ground on shaking legs. Turning, he looked back to find the rampaging orb. Despite all of the smoke, he could still see it: it was plowing through the woods, setting countless more trees ablaze.
As the exhausted Minions half-landed, half-fell to the ground around him, he walked as close to the smoldering canyon as he dared. He could smell the carnage.
Everything he had seen that day suddenly became too much to bear, and the waves of nausea came. This time he had no choice but to go to his knees and simply let the sickness come.
CHAPTER XVI
Looking up from the scroll he was reading, Faegan wearily rubbed his eyes. "Have you found anything?" he asked.
Wigg, Abbey, Adrian, and Celeste all glumly shook their heads. They had been deep into research for two days, but the secret they were searching for had yet to reveal itself. Frowning, Faegan let go a sigh as he watched his companions go back to their studies.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he took a moment's respite to look around the great room. Nicodemus sat contentedly in his lap. Without looking down, Faegan scratched the cat under the chin.
The five of them sat at a table in the Archives-the great library of the craft, located deep beneath the palace.
The square chamber measured at least two hundred meters on each side, and was seven stories deep. Seven levels of bookshelves lined the walls, each level bordered by a walkway and railing and accessed by a magnificent set of curved mahogany stairs.
The floor and ceiling of the Archives were of dark green marble shot through with traces of gray and magenta. Several hundred finely carved desks, reading tables, and beautifully upholstered chairs were tastefully arranged on the bottom floor. Golden light was supplied by a combination of oil-lamp chandeliers, wall sconces, and table lamps, all enchanted to burn eternally and without smoke. The room smelled pleasantly of must and old parchment.
Faegan had asked the others here because they were the only other members of the Conclave of the Vigors who could read Old Eutracian, the lost language in which the Tome of the Paragon, the Scroll of the Vigors, and many of the other works housed in this room were written.
Having already read the first two volumes of the Tome, Wigg and Faegan knew that only the Jin'Sai would be able to save the damaged orb. But to do that, Tristan had to be trained in the craft, and that could not be accomplished without first finding the way to turn his incredible blood back to its proper red color.
And so had come the mind-numbing work of trying to find the answer. Both of the wizards were convinced that it lay here, hidden away somewhere in the Archives of the Redoubt. But with thousands of documents to pore over, Faegan realized that it would be akin to finding a thimble in a sneezewee
d stack, as Abbey was so fond of saying. With the orb destroying everything in its path, time was of the essence.
Faegan was convinced that the answer they sought lay somewhere within the Tome of the Paragon. He could recall countless references in the Tome to Tristan's blood, including mentions of it turning azure, should the prince ever successfully employ his gifts without first having been trained. Still, the wizard had yet to recall any outright mention of how to reverse what Tristan had unwittingly done to himself.
Adding to their frustration was the fact that each of them wanted to be out in the countryside, trying to do something about containing and healing the damaged orb. Tristan was especially eager to leave the palace. But he agreed that little could be gained by going until they knew more about the disaster they faced.
By now Geldon and his party of warriors would have tracked the orb down and sent back a report. Faegan was eager to read whatever Geldon might have to say, and to learn where the orb had traveled. But there was nothing any of them could do until they had found and grasped the loose thread of knowledge they needed and pulled upon it to unravel the mystery of Tristan's blood.
Faegan gently picked the cat up off his lap and placed him on the floor. After a luxurious stretch, Nicodemus walked over to Wigg and rubbed the length of his body up against the wizard's leg.
Scowling, the First Wizard did his best to pretend he hadn't noticed. Other than whenever one of them turned over a page of crinkled text or rolled some dusty scroll open or closed, the dense silence in the room went on unabated.
Faegan finally abandoned the disappointing scroll he had been reading and wheeled himself over to a nearby table. He took up his violin and bow, placed the instrument under his chin, and began to play. When he heard the sweet, sorrowful refrain begin, Wigg raised a critical eyebrow but did not look up.
Faegan often took up his ancient instrument when he was under great mental stress. Sometimes he would simply leave it on a table and allow the craft to select the notes and seesaw the resin-laden bow. Today he preferred to play it himself, and to let his mind soar freely with the music. Wigg shook his head and sighed.
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