Rise of the Blood Royal dobas-3

by Robert Newcomb

  At first a perplexed expression crossed Tyranny’s face. Then she suddenly grasped Scar’s meaning and her visage went ashen.

  “I still don’t understand,” Tristan protested. “What is the threat?”

  “We shrank the ships,” Wigg answered, “and the power that the subtle matter generated to perform that task was immense, unlocking high degrees of heat. Also, the ships sat landlocked in their cradles for days while Minion warriors loaded them with supplies. There can be no question that the hulls dried to some degree. How much so, we might never know. But if the dried hull timbers are absorbing azure water, the ships could be deteriorating as we speak. I’m sorry, Tristan, but no one expected this. Even Faegan would be surprised.”

  Sighing, Tristan sat back in his chair. “When will we know?” he asked.

  “As soon as the ships can be flown,” Wigg answered. “When the hulls are lifted from the sea we will send Minion shipwrights soaring down to examine them. Until then, there is only one sure way to tell.”

  “And what is that?” Tristan asked.

  “If either ship starts to take on water and list,” Tyranny said softly. “But by then the end will already be in sight. And as we already know, the channel seems bottomless.”

  Like Tristan, Tyranny could hardly believe what she was hearing. Second only to her service on the Conclave, these ships had become her life. To lose one on the high seas during battle where the decisions and responsibilities were hers she could understand, even accept. But losing them to some unexpected and insidious aspect of the craft seemed cowardly and honorless. Worse, this was a foe that she didn’t know how to combat. She looked back at Wigg with angry eyes.

  “Is there nothing we can do?” she asked.

  Wigg pursed his lips, thinking. “We must get the ships airborne as soon as possible, then do everything in our power to keep them free of the azure water. But the best solution for all of our problems is to reach Shashida quickly.”

  Tristan suddenly had a thought. “Please find some parchment, some ink, and a quill,” he asked Phoebe.

  Wigg raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “You’ll see,” Tristan answered.

  “Very well,” Wigg answered. “Phoebe, you’ll find what you need at my desk.”

  Phoebe went to Wigg’s desk and sat down. Soon she had collected what Tristan asked for.

  “I’m ready,” she told him.

  Tristan nodded. “I want you to take notes of this meeting,” he said. “Be concise, but also be sure to include all the important points. Start with the battle against Khristos and then go on to our new worry about the ships.”

  “As you say,” Phoebe answered.

  She dipped the quill into one of the ink bottles. Using the craft to speed her task, she started writing about the recent battle and the fresh concern about the ship’s hulls, the point of her quill noisily scratching across the page.

  Jessamay shot Tristan a puzzled look. “Why do we need notes?” she asked.

  “You’ll understand soon enough,” he answered. “Right now there are things I need to learn.” He looked at Wigg again.

  “I know how much it pains you to talk about Failee,” Tristan said. “But when I asked you about Khristos earlier, you also mentioned her. Why was that?”

  Before answering, Wigg caused his wine cup to levitate, then grasped it and took a long swallow. The drink seemed to help prepare him for what he needed to say. Slowly rolling the cup between his palms, he looked Tristan in the eyes.

  “Khristos is an ancient Vagaries wizard,” he said. “He is quite powerful. The call of his left-leaning blood enticed him to Failee’s cause. He soon became one of her best wizard-generals. But in the end he was much more.”

  “What was that?” Tristan asked.

  Wigg sighed deeply. “Failee’s lover,” he answered softly.

  “I’m sorry,” Tristan said. “I didn’t know. But the Sorceresses’ War ended more than three centuries ago. Where has he been all that time? Why did he choose now to surface?”

  After sipping some more wine, Wigg shook his head. “I have no idea,” he answered. “When the war ended and Failee’s forces surrendered, Khristos was not among the captured. The Directorate assumed he was killed. Seeing him on that bloody beach was one of the greatest shocks of my life.”

  “Did Blood Vipers serve Failee during the war?” Astrid asked.

  “No,” Wigg answered. “Like all of you, I had never seen one until Tyranny brought the captured one to the palace.”

  “Khristos doesn’t look entirely human,” Tyranny offered. “He resembles the Blood Vipers at his command. It’s ghastly. Was he always that way?”

  Wigg shook his head. “When I knew him, he was as human as we. Something happened to him in the meantime-something that I cannot explain. Clearly, his changed appearance has to do with the Vagaries. Perhaps Faegan and Aeolus can answer that.”

  “They also knew him?” Tristan asked.

  “Yes,” Wigg answered. The First Wizard paused to take another sip of wine.

  “Khristos was a well-known wizard in his day,” he added. “But what strange course his life took after the war is a great puzzle. Even so, two things seem certain. After failing to stop us, he will soon go after Shailiha.”

  “And what is the other?” Phoebe asked.

  “Khristos took his army into the Caves to try and stop us from reaching Shashida,” Wigg said. “And I think I know who ordered him to do it.”

  “So do I,” Tristan said. “It was thePon Q’tar. They have found a way to commune with him. It’s the only answer that fits. For some time now it seems that they have been watching us. How can this be?”

  Wigg rubbed his chin, thinking. “I don’t know,” he answered. “It’s all a great mystery.”

  “Why did the rock walls suddenly rise?” Tristan asked.

  “It might have to do with the sudden nearness of your blood,” Wigg answered. “Jessamay and I have discussed it, but we can attain no greater insight about it than that.”

  Phoebe suddenly looked up from her parchment. “There might be another reason,” she offered from across the room.

  Everyone turned to look her way. “What could that be?” Tristan asked.

  As Phoebe put down her quill a thoughtful look came over her face. “The Ones tempted us to come here by way of their subtle matter message,” she said, “telling us that we must cross the Azure Sea. If that’s true, then the rock walls might exist for our benefit.”

  Tyranny shook her head. “With all due respect, Sister, that can’t be true. Those walls are just waiting out there to destroy these ships. They’re far more of a threat than a help, I assure you.”

  Phoebe shook her head. “Not necessarily,” she said. “Don’t you see? At first, the Azure Sea looked endless in every direction. Then the walls rose to create this channel.”

  Wigg smiled. “Well done,” he said. “Well done indeed.”

  “What is she talking about?” Scars asked.

  “It’s all so clear now,” Wigg said. “Who knows in what direction we might have sailed had we had our choice? Like Tyranny says, the compasses and sextants don’t work here. We might have sailed in circles while using up all of our supplies. The coming of the channel ensured that only one course was available to us. We were forced to take it, like it or not!”

  “To Shashida?” Tristan asked.

  “Still unknown,” Wigg said. “Unless you want to go back, we must keep going through the channel.”

  Tristan sat back in his chair. What Phoebe said made sense. But for now the time for talking was over and another task needed his attention. He looked back at Phoebe.

  “Are you finished with the notes?” he asked. “Make sure that you include mention of the Minion losses.”

  “Just a moment,” she answered, her hand still moving like lightning. “There,” she said a few moments later.

  “Good,” Tristan answered.

  He walked to s
tand beside the desk. Reaching out, he took up a blank sheet of parchment, then asked for Phoebe’s quill. After unrolling the parchment on the desk he loaded the quill with more ink. The acolyte watched with curiosity as Tristan scrawled two short words onto the paper:

  FIND FAEGAN

  Taking up Phoebe’s notes, Tristan walked to the other side of the room, then placed the parchments atop the meeting table.

  “What in blazes are you doing?” Tyranny asked.

  “Patience,” he answered.

  Tristan took his gold medallion into his hands, then called forth one of his two forestallments. In his mind’s eye he pictured two medallions side by side. Soon they merged into one. Tristan opened his eyes to see the medallion hanging around his neck start glowing with the color of the craft. He then turned it over.

  At first he saw only the shiny golden obverse. Then an image slowly started swimming to its surface to show Shailiha’s face smiling back at him. The scene’s outline was blurry, but it seemed that she was in the Archives of the Redoubt.

  Reaching out, he took up the parchment asking her to go and fetch Faegan and he held it before the disk. But that wasn’t needed, for soon the crippled wizard’s face appeared alongside Shailiha’s. Wasting no time, Tristan dropped the first parchment, then took up the one with Phoebe’s notes and held it before the disk, knowing that if Faegan read them they would immediately be committed to his gift of Consummate Recollection and never be forgotten.

  As the moments passed, Wigg’s quarters became deathly still, and the once happy expressions on Faegan’s and Shailiha’s faces slowly darkened.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  THOUSANDS OF LEAGUES SOUTH OF ELLISTIUM AND JUSTacross thePon Q’tar- controlled Borderlands lay a gently rolling plain. Stretching for many leagues, its grasses waved gracefully beneath the midday sun. The only sounds came from the passing wind and the black and yellow striped honeybees buzzing about in search of their daily nectar.

  A lone oak tree stood broad and tall in the midst of the plain. Its gnarled trunk had struggled skyward thousands of years ago from a single acorn carried there by some meandering bird. The tree’s thick branches and deep green leaves cast an irregular shadow over the grass, the ever-moving umbra slowly tracing a path around the trunk as the sun chased it from east to west. Dark mountain ranges loomed to the east of the field, their tops capped with ice and snow that melted each year to replenish the fountainheads of the Six Rivers.

  Under normal circumstances the idyllic scene might have granted a place where lovers might couple unseen amid the waves of tall grass. But this day the tree and the rolling grassland surrounding it would serve a far darker purpose than providing some secret trysting place. Instead, it would soon become the staging area of Vespasian’s campaign against Shashida.

  Had those imaginary lovers truly been there they would have seen a strange pinprick of azure light form in the air near the tree trunk. Soon the mysterious star broadened into a whirling spiral, its outer edges gaining speed and size to form a circle many meters across. The azure spiral grew darker, then parted down the center to unleash the first of many horrors that would eventually mass in the quiet field.

  While one rider led the way, ninety-nine more followed him out of the azure spiral. The one hundred mounted Blood Stalker scouts attached to the mighty Twenty-third Legion rode quickly across the grass to become the vanguard of Vespasian’s invasion force.

  As their horses pawed and snorted, the riders formed one line. Each was eager to start the hunt, but first they would search the immediate area for right-leaning endowed blood. Only then would the main body of Vespasian’s forces start arriving by way of hundreds more vortices, each far larger than that which had just formed. The stalkers knew that their sweep of this place had to be thorough, for Vespasian’s forces must arrive unseen.

  Unlike those that once served Failee, some Rustannican Blood Stalkers retained their intelligence and their powers of speech. But less than one in one thousand of them were high-functioning, because among their many other deformities, the vast majority always suffered irreparable brain damage and cleft palates during their forced conversions from captured Shashidan mystics to Blood Stalkers. Only those Shashidans mystics of great intelligence and inordinately highly endowed blood kept their ken and their vocal gifts fully intact. From the earliest days thePon Q’tar clerics had recognized the usefulness of such superior stalkers and used them for a higher purpose than that of their drooling, less sentient brothers.

  Because the lesser stalkers could be rebellious, only the intelligent ones were allowed to command patrols without the aegis of an Imperial Order Tribune. Known in Old Eutracian as “carnefiis,” or “tormentors,” a famous carnifex commanded this first reconnoitering. Some of the regular stalkers here with him today-also known as “vulgarium,” or common-had proudly taken part in the recent coliseum massacres during which Vespasian offered phrygian status to one of the Shashidan captives. It would be the task of the carnefiis to take charge of the individual groups formed when the stalkers split up to start their far-ranging search.

  Because of their rarity, carnefiis were valuable assets to the legions. On surviving the painful transformation with their intellects and vocal skills intact, all memories of their previous Shashidan lives were cleansed from their minds byPon Q’tar clerics. The forestallment allowing them to sense right-leaning blood was granted while all their other gifts save for the ability to launch azure bolts were wiped away. They were then given Rustannican names and indoctrinated body and soul into the empire’s war machine. Like the vulgarium, their devotion to the Vagaries was unshakable.

  The carnifex commanding this mission was named Aegedes, and although he no longer remembered it, several centuries ago he had been an important Shashidan mystic. Like all carnefiis he had been granted the time enchantments that protected him from sickness and old age. If carnefiis served the empire well they were sometimes rewarded with gold, lands, and captured Shashidan women. Aegedes was many centuries old, his exploits and skills legendary among the legions. He enjoyed killing Shashidans and he was especially good at it.

  Although his grotesque bodily appearance was the same as other stalkers’, Aegedes’ uniform resembled that of a tribune. He wore a gold breastplate and leather greaves and gauntlets. A golden helmet topped with a red horsehair comb sat on his head. Like all stalkers he wore a fringed warrior’s skirt and thick battle sandals laced up the calves. Around his neck hung a collection of desiccated eyeballs, grisly trophies he had taken over the centuries from Shashidan victims.

  At his left hip hung the legionary sword, or gladius, and in one hand he held a traditional stalker’s axe, its bottom end resting in one stirrup, its shiny opposing blades topped with the skull taken from his first victim, a gold imperial eagle with outstretched wings bolted to its forehead. The eagle signified Aegedes’ rank of Carnifex Magnus, allowing him to command not only all common stalkers, but all other carnefiis as well. Aegedes was the only Carnifex Magnus in all Rustannica. It was a singular title that he bore proudly.

  Sitting atop his war mount, Aegedes said nothing as he too employed the craft to search out Shashidan endowed blood. His gift revealed nothing. Spurring his horse, he rode down the long line of waiting stalkers, looking sternly at each vulgaris and carnifex in turn. Each stalker shook his head, indicating that he too sensed no right-leaning blood.

  Satisfied for the moment, Aegedes ordered his most trusted carnifex from the line. The stalker obeyed instantly and spurred his mount forward.

  The carnifex’sPon Q’tar- given name was Paganus, and he had served with Aegedes in many campaigns to capture and kill Vigors worshippers. Unlike Aegedes he wore no gold breastplate or helmet. Two shiny black leather belts crisscrossed his chest and attached to his warrior’s skirt at opposite hips. A shiny gold disk engraved with the imperial eagle lay where the belts crossed, showing Paganus’ rank as a carnifex. He too wore battle sandals and a warrior’s skirt and carried the traditional ax
e. Like all carnefiis, he wore a gladius at his hip. Pulling his horse to a skidding stop, Paganus looked into his master’s eyes.

  “Yes, my lord?” he asked.

  “Send them out,” Aegedes ordered simply. The Carnifex Magnus possessed a strong voice and its tone was always decisive, commanding deep respect from his underlings.

  “Three leagues in every direction should suffice,” he added. “I want this done quickly, Paganus. My group and I will wait here and protect the portal. When all nine patrols have reported and I am sure that this area is clear, I will return to the war camp and inform the First Tribune. Be quick, for he eagerly awaits our word. Remember, we are not here to take slaves, only lives. Follow these directives to the letter and there’ll be no need to subject you to an Imperial Order court-martial.” Turning to look back at the line of waiting stalkers, Aegedes clenched his jaw. “Should any of the patrols fail in their duties, I will kill you personally.”

  From atop his impatient horse Paganus immediately gave his master a crisp legionary salute.

  “All will be done as you say,” he answered. Spurring his horse, he returned to the long line of eager stalkers and started barking out orders.

  Aegedes watched as his stalkers broke into groups of ten, with one carnifex leading each group save for his own. As he rode his horse back toward his waiting group, the other nine patrols charged off in different directions, their horses’ shoes flinging grass and dirt as they went. While riding away for three leagues, each group would use their specialized gifts to search for endowed blood. If none was found, Aegedes could be certain that an invasion staging area measuring six leagues in diameter was free of Shashidan mystics.

  Under normal circumstances, Aegedes’ standing orders were specific. When Shashidans were found, they were to be taken alive if possible, then sent home to meet their fates atop the slave block in Ellistium’s great forum. If Shashidan mystics were met, they were to be killed or taken as prisoners of war. But capturing mystics was a risky business, often resulting in many stalker deaths.