The Scrolls of the Ancients

by Robert Newcomb

  Sometimes his unique blood made him feel very isolated. Every time he was wounded, no matter how slight the insult to his body, if his blood was drawn, his enemies would be able to recognize him immediately. They wouldn’t even need to examine his blood signature to know who he was, for the color of his blood would tell it all. Then he remembered Faegan’s warning, spoken that night in his mansion in Shadowood, not so long ago.

  “Although it does not say how, the second volume of the Tome affirms that he may be forever, inalterably changed. You must be on the lookout for this change, whatever it is to be.”

  And his own silent vow: “I will not rest until I have discovered who has poured such endowed blood into my veins, and why. I shall know why I have become the vessel that contains the blood of the fates . . .”

  He stared out over the sea, yearning for home, for the company of his sister and his friends—and especially for Celeste. He had fallen deeply in love with the beautiful, red-haired daughter of the lead wizard, and he knew it. But he also knew her psyche wasn’t ready to accept his affection on that level, and he had no choice other than to accept it. He could only wait, hoping that one day they could be truly together.

  Engrossed as he was in his thoughts, he didn’t hear Tyranny’s footsteps until she came to a stop directly alongside him. Smiling slightly, she laced her fingers together and leaned her forearms on the rail.

  “Tell me about her,” she said simply.

  “Tell you about who?” he asked.

  Tyranny responded with a wry, knowing smile. “Don’t be coy,” she replied. “It doesn’t suit you. You’re the straightforward type, just like me. Besides, you forget that I have been sailing these waters in the company of men for the majority of my life. I know their every mood, and the expressions and gestures that go along with them. You miss someone special. A woman—I’m sure of it. And you miss her very much, but not in the same way you miss your sister, the princess. After some of the interesting things you have told me about yourself, I must admit that I’m curious about the kind of woman it takes to hold your heart.” She looked around, then conspiratorially lowered her voice. “So tell me, crown prince of all of Eutracia, what is she like?”

  Smiling and shaking his head, Tristan looked back out to sea. “It’s a long story,” he answered honestly. “Three hundred years in the making, in fact. Which also happens to be how old she is.”

  Turning back, he looked into Tyranny’s wide, blue eyes and watched as the wind moved through her haphazardly cut hair. It was the first time since knowing her that he had seen real surprise cross her face. True to form, however, she recovered quickly.

  “My, but you do like them mature, don’t you?” she teased. Then her expression softened a bit. “Still, it’s nice to have someone who wants to share the same rainbow’s end, isn’t it?”

  Before Tristan could frame an answer, they heard the unmistakable peal of the warning bell high in the crow’s nest.

  Drawing her sword, Tyranny looked up to see one of her crew already climbing the rigging. Scars appeared by her side, and only moments later, the crewman who had scaled the rigging was back again.

  “Screechlings!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Three separate maelstroms of them, about to rise no more than half a league off the bow!”

  Confused, Tristan followed Tyranny and Scars as they ran frantically forward. Standing with them at the bow, Tristan could just make out three huge, dark circles that seemed to lie atop the waves. His first thought was that at last he was seeing the legendary Necrophagians—the monsters that made the Sea of Whispers impassable to all but those who were willing to make the necessary sacrifice. But something about what he saw told him that was not the case. Perplexed, he turned to Tyranny. She stood still, brandishing her sword with one hand, holding her spyglass to one eye with the other.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “A nightmare,” she responded tensely, not taking the lens from her eye. “Creatures of the sea, said to be of the craft. No one knows for sure, for they have only recently begun to appear. What we do know is that they hunt in packs.” Then she lowered her spyglass, and Tristan clearly saw the worry on her face. “I know of no vessel that has ever survived an onslaught of three maelstroms, but I refuse to go down without a fight!”

  “Maelstroms?” Tristan repeated. “What are they? What can I do?”

  “You will understand all too soon,” she answered, her right eye squarely against the spyglass again. “Try to stay near me or Scars! It seems that you are finally going to get your chance to show us how well you use those unusual weapons you carry across your back!”

  “Can’t we outrun them?”

  “No,” she said adamantly. “No ship ever built could outrun them at this range—not even The People’s Revenge. The only course now is to stand and fight, and hope we can survive them.” Then she barked out some orders to her crew, and everything began to change.

  Turning to look behind him, Tristan saw that the ship had become even more alive with furious activity. Shouting crewmen were forcing the confused slaves belowdecks, while others frantically tried to close and lock all of the remaining deck hatches and stairwell doors. The rigging was covered in seamen frantically reefing the sails. One man was hurriedly tying off the ship’s wheel. Tristan was only a novice sailor, but he knew enough to realize that with all of her sails reefed and her wheel tied off, The People’s Revenge would be dead in the water, rocking back and forth at the mercy of the waves. After having been told repeatedly that speed was often the only thing that kept them alive, he was completely stymied.

  He turned to look out over the bow again. Stunned by what he saw, he quietly drew his dreggan from its scabbard.

  A vast area of the ocean lying before them had come alive. Three whirling spouts of swirling, foaming seawater had risen from the ocean, dark and foreboding. On and on the huge waterspouts rose, spinning and rising with dizzying speed. About one-eighth of a league ahead of the bow, they were already nearly the height of the ship’s mainmast, and they were climbing still.

  Then they began to glow strangely from within, circling colors that spun in a continuous riot of alternating hues. Had he not been told the maelstroms were deadly, he would have considered them one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

  Suddenly the glowing maelstroms flattened out at their tops, gained some distance between themselves, and then careened with impossible speed in a straight line toward the three unmoving ships. Tristan heard Tyranny’s voice ring out beside him.

  “Come on then, you bastards!” she screamed, holding her sword high above her head. “You filthy scavengers! Come to me! Let’s see how many of you I can kill on the first pass!” When they finally reached her she began swinging her sword with abandon, and thin, watery, bright red blood began raining down.

  When the first of them buzzed by his head, Tristan thought he must be seeing things. As it passed, he heard the unmistakable sound of teeth snapping together and realized that his hesitation had nearly cost him his life. Making insane screeching noises as they came, another flew by him, then more still, until their numbers finally became so great that they blotted out the sun and covered the deck of the frigate with their shadows. Viciously they attacked both the crewmembers and the rigging, tearing away those sails that had not already been reefed.

  Swinging his dreggan, Tristan missed the first one, then finally managed to take one down. It was a glancing, not a killing blow, but as the dazed thing lay bleeding at his feet, he finally got a look at it up close.

  He was amazed to see what appeared to be some kind of very large, very strange, fishlike creature. It was almost two meters long, half a meter deep, and very brightly colored with what seemed to be luminescent stripes running down along its sides. Instead of fins, it had three oddly shaped, scaly wings, one on either side of its colorful body, and a third rising vertically from its spine, just forward of its large, wide tail. As he watched, its mouth opened, revealing a
multitude of razor-sharp teeth. Seeing that brought Tristan back to the reality of the battle raging around him. With a single stroke of his dreggan, he beheaded the monster. But he had lost precious time.

  Pain seared through both his shoulders, as he was swept off his feet and flown toward the starboard gunwale. Horrified, he realized that two of the vicious, powerful things had their teeth in him and were carrying him away. He tried to use his sword, but the pain in his arms was too great. And as the gunwale grew closer, he realized what was about to happen to him, for he could see the same thing happening to a host of other screaming, defenseless crewmen.

  The monsters were about to fly him over the side and drown him in the Sea of Whispers.

  The sea surrounding the ship was already swirling with the bodies of those who had gone over before him. Some were still alive, flailing about, trying desperately to swim back to the ship, only to be dragged under by snapping jaws. Screaming and twisting wildly against his captors, Tristan almost passed out from the pain. But it was no use. In mere seconds he would be over the side, lost forever.

  Then two massive hands reached out to take hold of the thing on Tristan’s right side and muscle it down to the deck. Tristan landed hard on his back, the teeth of the other creature still embedded in his shoulder. But his right arm was free. Trying as best he could to ignore the pain, he dropped his dreggan and reached back for one of his throwing dirks. Turning wildly to his left, he plunged the point of the dirk directly into the monster’s left eyeball, killing it instantly. With its death, Tristan finally found himself free of its jaws. He threw it to one side and dragged himself to his feet to see Scars standing near him, the other beast still screaming and writhing in his awesome grip.

  With a single grunt, Scars tore the screaming thing in half and threw the two pieces to the deck. Giving the prince a short nod, he immediately went about finding more of the things to kill.

  Wasting no time, Tristan began using his dreggan to hack the things out of the air as best as his injured shoulders would allow. Many died at his hands. Somehow he managed to avoid being taken again. After what seemed an eternity, he saw that the struggle was finally abating. His chest heaving, he walked to the gunwale and looked over. A mass of torn clothing and dead bodies bobbed on the surface of the water. Then he turned back to look at the ship.

  Bodies—human and monster both—lay everywhere, and the deck was awash with blood. Several of the ship’s spars were broken and dangling awkwardly from their ropes. Sails lay in tatters, completely beyond repair.

  Looking across the sea, he saw that the other two ships had fared no better. The stench of blood filled the air, and a terrible silence engulfed the stricken vessels as they rocked listlessly from port to starboard and back again. After all of the screaming and noise, everything seemed strangely quiet.

  Looking across the deck, his azure blood still oozing from each of his shoulders, Tristan searched for Tyranny. He finally found her standing on the mizzen deck, her face down, her sword hanging from one hand as though she no longer had the will or the strength to raise it. She was covered with blood, and as he started toward her she slowly turned to him and looked him in the eyes.

  Just as he reached her she collapsed, and he quickly hoisted her limp body into his arms. Holding her there, he looked sadly at the bloody, mangled ship and wondered what would become of them now.

  CHAPTER

  Thirty

  Stirring from her nap, Celeste yawned, then stretched her back and arms as she lay on the huge, four-poster, canopied bed. The large hourglass on the nearby stand told her that a little less than two hours had gone by since she had left Shailiha and Abbey to make their way down into the Redoubt and to the Hall of Blood Records.

  She rose up on her elbows and looked out through one of the four open, stained-glass windows lining the exterior wall of her private quarters. The soft indigo that always preceded dusk had begun to encroach on the turquoise edges of the sky and would soon overtake it altogether. Then the many lights from the Minion campfires would begin to flicker like stars in the night. Beautiful and reassuring. But then the usual frightening thoughts crowded in again, and she lay back down on the bed, staring at the red velvet canopy above her.

  She was desperately worried, as was everyone remaining here at the Redoubt. Tristan had been gone for days, and there had been no success in the search launched by the Minions. Even Ox’s hopefulness seemed to deteriorate with each passing hour, despite the fact that he was trying to act like a warrior and not let his concern show.

  Wigg and Faegan had not returned from their journey to the place the Tome called the Chamber of Penitence, and her fear for her newfound father and the crippled wizard was great. But it was Tristan upon whom her heart dwelled the most.

  She rose from the bed and padded in her slippers to the other side of the room to retrieve her pearl-handled hairbrush from the dresser, then mechanically began brushing her hair, her worry for Tristan still filling her thoughts.

  She wanted desperately to be near him again, to see him, to know that he was safe. Sometimes she thought she might burst with the conflicted feelings that surged through her whenever the prince was near. But it was easy to simply miss him and worry about him when he was gone, especially now that he was in danger.

  As she ran the brush through her long, deep red hair, she heard the evening wind comfortingly rustling the trees outside her window. Then she heard the squeak of a window hinge. The wind was stronger than she’d thought, and she turned to shut the windows, in case a storm was rising.

  Her heart leapt into her throat, and she dropped the brush.

  Three of the four windows were shut and locked, and the last one was hauntingly closing by itself.

  Before she could run for the door, an azure beam appeared out of nowhere, snaked itself around her waist, and threw her across the length of the room, back onto her bed. She raised an arm to counter with a bolt of her own, but the glow had her pinned to the bed. She was caught in a wizard’s warp, she realized, just like the one Krassus had used against them all that day in the card room, when he had assaulted Wigg and violated the wizards’ minds.

  She tried to scream, but found to her horror that her voice carried no sound. Terrified, she turned her eyes as best she could to look over at the windows.

  The last of them had finished closing, and the latch was slowly coming down, locking itself into place. Her heart pounded relentlessly as she waited and watched, unable to do anything else.

  Now another glow was building in the room, growing brighter and brighter until it began to take on a shape. Her terrified mind convinced her that it must be Krassus, come back to the palace for some reason. But as she looked closer, she began to recognize the shape standing so dangerously close to the edge of her bed. Tears welled up in her eyes and cascaded maddeningly down her cheeks.

  The thing spoke.

  “Hello, my darling,” it said in a deep, melodious voice. “It has been far too long since we have lain together. I have missed you dearly.”

  She was going to faint—she knew it. But then her mind was touched by that of the being standing before her, and she was fully conscious once more.

  It was Ragnar, the half wizard, half blood stalker who had for over three hundred years kept her his prisoner, abusing her incessantly.

  She saw the bald, shiny head, dangling earlobes, and the long, yellow incisors that that jutted down just below his smiling bottom lip. His white robe was untied and slightly open down the center. He was clearly aroused. The mad, bloodshot eyes looked up and down her body with a hunger that seemingly knew no bounds. The small wound in the side of his head was still there, and as a drop of yellow ooze dripped from it, he reached up to wipe it away. Then he placed the wet fingertip into his mouth and smiled.

  “So many questions, aren’t there, my love?” he asked, lowering his awful face closer to her own. The smell of his fetid breath brought back horrible, mind-numbing memories of her times with him.

/>   “Did you and the wizards actually believe that Nicholas, my beloved master, would really want me dead?” he added. “Or did any of you, as you reveled in the destruction of the Gates of Dawn, actually see my corpse? No. I now serve Krassus, and together he and I carry on a part of Nicholas’ glorious work. But first I am going to take you back to the Caves with me. And this time you will never leave, I promise you.”

  As he spoke, he ran the long, pointed fingernails of one hand down the side of her face. “You always were my favorite.” Then a strange look came over him, and he lowered himself even closer.

  “And one other thing, my love,” he added softly. “Krassus has very kindly imbued me with the Forestallment that, after three hundred years of failed attempts, shall finally grant me the power to make you pregnant. I can’t wait to see what our children will look like.” He stood up again, his robe falling open obscenely.

  “Before we leave here together, I shall take you right here in this very bed,” he added menacingly. “A fitting insult to Wigg, my dearest enemy, don’t you think? To luxuriate in his only daughter yet again, in the very seat of his power! With both the wizards and the Chosen One gone, there is no one left here of any consequence to stop me. And who knows—you might even conceive here in the royal palace this very night! Deliciously ironic, wouldn’t you agree?”