The fifth sorceress, p.69
The Fifth Sorceress, page 69
‘Liar!’ she screamed. ‘My ministrations were complete; I could feel it. No trick of yours now will save you from becoming a stalker, Wizard.’
‘You do not fully understand what you have become over the last three hundred years,’ Wigg rasped. ‘If studied improperly the Vagaries cause not only madness but addiction, leading the practitioner into a false sense of knowledge, infallibility, and an unquenchable lust for sexual depravity.’ He paused, searching for the words to continue. ‘The feelings you and the other mistresses are experiencing are therefore both real and false at the same time. And the manner in which you plan to employ your power is totally, irreversibly deadly. If you persist in this ritual of the Communion and the Reckoning, it will be the death of both us and all that we know.’
Somehow Wigg found the strength to continue. ‘It is the Reckoning that is the greatest danger. Because your knowledge is fragmentary, you will be forced to try to combine the Vigors and the Vagaries during your attempt, and it will be cataclysmic. The powers of the gold and black orbs were meant to be combined and employed by only one person: Tristan, the male of the Chosen Ones, as proclaimed in the Prophecies. As the Ones Who Came Before intended it to be.’ And then Wigg did something unexpected. He smiled.
‘Tell me, Failee, have you felt the need to draw upon your knowledge of the Vigors in your daily rituals preceding the Communion? That is exactly what Faegan said would happen. Let me rephrase something you said to me a time long ago upon the decks of the Resolve, the night you were banished from Eutracia. Your Sisters all think you have won. Tell me, Sorceress, are you yourself so sure?’
Tristan listened in amazement. Why would Wigg tell her that? It was the only knowledge they had that she did not. And then it hit him. Wigg knows we are going to die. There is no chance for us now. If he can make her stop the Communion and the Reckoning, then perhaps, someday, Faegan and the consuls of the Redoubt may be able to overcome her and the Coven. But either way, the wizard, the dwarf, and I will not live to see it.
A storm passed over Failee’s face and then seemed to vanish as quickly as it had come. ‘Liar,’ she said quietly. ‘You know my powers are much greater than your own. Who are you to lecture me upon the use of the craft? Both the Communion and the Reckoning shall occur as promised, and both you and the Chosen One will be alive to see the world enslaved to my bidding.’
She turned to face Kluge. ‘Commander!’
Immediately Kluge was at her feet like an obedient dog. ‘I live to serve,’ he said.
‘A small, yellow leper’s robe was found among their things,’ she said. ‘Its size indicates that it belonged to the dwarf, the one who led the prince and wizard to the Recluse. There remain lepers only in the Ghetto; therefore the Ghetto has something to do with their arrival here in Parthalon, and it is there that I wish you and the entire Minion force to begin your search. Tear the city down one brick at a time if you must, but find me the ones who helped these three make their way here. There had to be conspirators; I can feel it in my blood.’
Geldon must have had another yellow robe in his saddlebags, Tristan realized. An extra one. And that mistake is about to cost a great many innocent people their lives.
Kluge asked for permission to speak freely. Failee nodded.
‘We have underestimated the prince before,’ Kluge said cautiously, acutely aware of the second mistress’s attraction to the prince, not wishing to leave Succiu and Tristan in the same room together without him. ‘I am uncomfortable with not commanding a force here at the Recluse to guard you.’
‘The wizard is incapacitated, and the prince has not been trained. Do you forget who I am? We are in no danger. I want their friends in the Ghetto found and dealt with.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Make their deaths as painful as possible.’
‘I live to serve,’ came the reluctant reply. With a final look of hatred toward the prince, Kluge was gone.
Failee raised her hand, and an empty gibbet appeared, hovering in the air next to the prince’s. She pointed to the wizard and levitated his body upward and back into the floating prison. Wigg tried to stand but was too weak, instead half collapsing, half kneeling in the cruel cage.
Failee turned to her prisoners as she gathered her mistresses around her. ‘Sleep well,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Especially you, Chosen One. I have decided that there will be a special surprise awaiting you tomorrow.’
Tristan looked at each of their faces in turn, ending with Succiu. As she looked him up and down, her almond eyes smiled and the full, red lips parted to allow the tip of her tongue out to touch one corner of her mouth. Smiling, Failee led them out of the room. Once the women were gone, the light from the wall sconces faded, finally dying entirely.
The three captives continued to twist and turn in their strange, hovering prisons, lost in the total, empty darkness of the belly of the Recluse.
Chapter Twenty-nine
In his strange, cruel prison, Tristan had lost all concept of time. He knew neither what day it was, nor the hour. Pain wracked his legs, and a powerful thirst rose with the realization that he could not remember how long it had been since he had consumed food or drink.
The pitch-black darkness of the room was now impenetrable, and he knew that his vision would not improve in it or become accustomed to the light, because there was none.
He made a mental note to himself to close his eyes the next time he heard the Coven enter the room. He remembered stories from near the end of the war of prisoners who were suddenly released after having been held in total darkness, only to be rushed out into the sunshine and immediately be struck permanently blind, their eyes unable to adjust quickly enough to the sudden brightness. But first of all he had to know about Wigg.
‘Wigg,’ he whispered tentatively in the dark. For some reason, whispering seemed the only appropriate tone of voice in this place. ‘Wigg,’ he repeated, ‘are you all right?’
The reply was immediate. ‘If you mean having had my gift taken from me, my wizard’s tail removed, and being almost choked to death, then yes, I’m fine,’ came the caustic reply. Despite their circumstances, Tristan managed to smile to himself in the dark, glad to see that the old one had not completely lost his sense of self.
‘We need to talk,’ the wizard said seriously, ‘and we must speak obliquely, if you follow my meaning. There is much to be said, with perhaps little time in which to say it, for I fear these walls may have ears.’ Wigg paused for a moment, and then added, ‘Geldon, are you conscious?’
Tristan could now hear the soft, low sobbing that came from the direction of the dwarf’s gibbet.
Geldon finally spoke, his voice cracking and childlike under the strain. ‘I am better,’ he said softly. ‘Succiu has used her powers to tighten my collar a great many times over the course of the last three centuries, and it is something I will recover from this time as well.’ He paused, and both the wizard and the prince could tell he was struggling with his next words.
‘I killed them,’ he said finally. ‘All of those whom I brought here, to this awful place …It is my fault.’
‘It is no one’s fault but the Coven’s,’ Wigg said adamantly. ‘And I do not have the time to waste to try to convince either of you of that fact. We have other matters to attend to. Remember, Tristan, speak obliquely.’
Tristan’s mind went back to his education with the wizards – the education he had then thought to be of such little use, and which he now wished he had paid more attention to. Think obliquely, he remembered the wizards of the Directorate teaching him. Try to think as we do. In intricate layers of thought and deed.
‘We have an old friend at home, do you remember?’ the wizard began. ‘He likes to think he lives rather above us all.’
An old friend, Tristan thought. Faegan. Living above us in the tree house. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘He is very generous, do you remember?’ the wizard asked.
Tristan was initially stymied. Generous …giving …gifts …And then he had it. The locket!
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I remember his generosity.’
‘Good,’ Wigg said. ‘I remember it too. His generosity still touches my heart.’
He’s telling me that the locket Faegan gave him is still around his neck, lying upon his chest. If only he had told me what it was for. ‘Open the locket, look into it, and you will understand,’ was all he said.
‘I remember. Sometimes one must uncork the stream of knowledge to recognize what is before him,’ Tristan replied, referencing the unknown contents of the locket.
‘Good,’ Wigg said. ‘Then you remember what I said of it. But there is something else that our friend said to me, about you, that I passed along to you just before we entered this place.’
The prince remembered back to when he had made use of his gift to see the bridge to Shadowood, without having been first trained in the craft, and to the words Wigg had spoken just before they entered the Recluse. ‘When Faegan heard of it, he was astounded,’ the wizard had said. ‘He told me that he believes if you concentrate hard enough, due to the quality of your blood you might be able to use the craft …Not in any major way, since you are untrained, but hopefully in some small way that might help us. Something simple, such as moving an object or lighting a flame …When you finally hear your heart, you must use your mind to will whatever it is you want to take place …It will take everything you have.’
‘I remember,’ Tristan said. ‘Sometimes it takes another to convince one of his abilities.’
‘Precisely,’ Wigg said. ‘And knowing exactly when to do such a thing can always be of the utmost importance. Patience has always been a virtue.’ He paused. ‘And sometimes the smallest urging can move mountains.’
Wait, Tristan thought. He’s telling me to wait until the right moment to try to use the gift, because there probably won’t be a second chance. But what did he mean by the smallest urging moving mountains?
Pausing for a moment, the old one finally said, ‘And do you remember the charge that our old friend burdened you with?’
This time he knew immediately what Wigg was referring to. My charge, my responsibility regarding Shailiha, he thought. That the time may come when I must kill her, and not hesitate in doing so.
‘I remember,’ he said. If either the wizard or the slave had been able to see his expression, they would have known it had become hard and dark with responsibility. ‘My heart does not reject the duty as it once did,’ he said simply.
‘Good,’ Wigg said compassionately. ‘For all things there is a reason.’ Darkness and silence hung between them like a cloud for several more moments before the wizard spoke again.
‘Each time a door opens, another closes,’ he said simply. ‘Just like the quest for knowledge, doorways can be elusive.’
Doors, Tristan thought. Faegan’s portal. The swirling vortex that brought us here, and the knowledge of it that could take us home. But how many days has it been?
Panic began to grip his mind. He had no idea how long he had been here, and did not know how many more times the portal would be opened, if at all. Has the portal opened and closed for the last time? he wondered.
Tristan decided to play on the wizard’s own words. ‘Each time a door opens, another closes,’ he repeated to Wigg. ‘But sometimes, despite the best of intentions, one misses the opportunity.’ He hoped he was not being too revealing.
‘And then again, if one is lucky, one may grasp the opportunity for such freedom of knowledge not just once, but perhaps even twice more,’ Wigg answered.
Twice more, the prince said to himself. Wigg is telling me that the portal will open twice more. Two more chances left.
‘We have spoken enough,’ the wizard said with finality. ‘I suggest we try to sleep as well as we can. Rest may become our most valuable asset.’
As the silence of the room once more surrounded them, Tristan took the opportunity to ask Wigg one last, more blatant question.
‘Wigg,’ he ventured, ‘what will happen to us?’
‘We are alive,’ the wizard said softly. ‘And our old friend at home will twice more do his duty. I also continue to believe in his generosity that still touches my heart. Anything can happen.’
Sleep finally began to overtake them all as the gibbets turned softly, endlessly, in the depths of the darkness.
He had no idea how long he had been there, half asleep, turning in the dark, but there were now some things softly gnawing at the underbelly of his consciousness; a flurry of noise, and a distinctive, gathering lightness in the atmosphere of the room. Tristan gradually awakened, trying to remember to open his eyes slowly, letting them adjust to the light. As he did so, he could see several people entering the room from the long set of circular stairs that led down to the Sanctuary.
The first to enter the room was Succiu, dressed in the same highly erotic black leather clothing that he had last seen her wearing. A black leather bullwhip hung from one side of the belt slung low on her hips.
Following her came his sister. In stark contrast to the second mistress, Shailiha wore a long, beautiful maternity gown of the palest blue, with touches of white lace at the bodice, hem, and wrists. The gold-threaded Pentangle was sewn over her left breast, and a pair of highly polished, sapphire shoes completed the picture. She smiled at Tristan as she entered the room.
Behind her came six slaves from the Stables. Three men and three women, they were all clad only in loincloths. They seemed singularly detached and uncaring, as if in some kind of stupor.
The wiktors must be fed, Tristan realized.
‘I will not watch this disgusting freak show!’ he shouted at the second mistress. Wigg and Geldon remained silent, surprised at the prince’s sudden outburst.
Succiu whirled to face him, unaccustomed to having males speak to her without first having been given permission.
‘Vigorous, isn’t he?’ she commented to Shailiha, her almond eyes roaming over Tristan’s body. ‘Keep that strength, Chosen One. You will soon need it.’ She smiled knowingly at him as he twisted in his cage. ‘But first there are some duties to be performed.’
She raised her right hand and Tristan saw the altar in the center of the room begin to glow a soft, radiant azure. Then the glow faded, and an assortment of sumptuous-looking food and drink appeared on the altar. The scent of the food came to his nostrils, quickly reminding him of how hungry and thirsty he was. Again raising her right hand, Succiu watched as the area around the altar began to take on the same, familiar glow, and soon there were three chairs there as well.
Without warning, the second mistress pointed in the direction of the three gibbets and they dissolved, sending their prisoners crashing down the fifteen feet or so to the cold, marble floor. Despite the weariness in his legs Tristan landed quickly like a cat. He was about to reach for one of his knives when he found suddenly that he could not move. Caught in Succiu’s warp, he fell awkwardly over on one side on the floor, paralyzed.
At first the prince didn’t know which he hated more, being caught in the gibbet like some prize in a zoo, or being on the floor at Succiu’s feet, unable to move his arms and legs. His endowed blood roared in his veins, and he once again made the promise to himself: I will kill this woman. I will kill them all. Looking over as best he could to the wizard and the dwarf, he could see that they, too, lay paralyzed on the floor, but appeared to be otherwise unhurt.
‘The First Mistress has made several decisions,’ Succiu told them simply. ‘First, that you should eat and drink.’
‘And the second?’ Tristan snarled.
‘That you should watch Sister Shailiha tend the wiktors,’ she said matter-of-factly, as though she were discussing the weather rather than condemning six innocents to death.
‘Am I to assume there is a third decision?’ he asked sarcastically.
Succiu walked over to where he lay, taking the black leather whip from her belt. Holding the woven handle, she bent down and placed it beneath his chin, raising his eyes up to meet hers.
‘Oh yes, Chosen One,’ she said softly, almost lovingly. ‘There is indeed a third decision. It involves you, myself, and Shailiha. But that we will keep as a surprise.’
She backed away from him and narrowed her eyes. Immediately he could sense that his legs had been freed, though his arms were still paralyzed. ‘Walk to the chairs at the table,’ she ordered. ‘Sit down. Do not make any heroic gestures, or I shall kill the dwarf, and then the wizard. Bear in mind I can do so with a single thought.’ She licked her lips strangely. ‘Besides, you wouldn’t want to deprive them of the upcoming performances, now would you?’
With great difficulty the three of them struggled to their feet, their arms frozen at their sides, and shuffled to the table on trembling, exhausted legs. They sat down heavily, hungrily taking in the sight of all the food before them, inhaling the enticing odors. Tristan looked questioningly at the wizard.
‘Yes,’ Wigg said, ‘we can eat this food. If they wanted us dead, we would have been gone long ago.’
‘Quite right, Wizard,’ Succiu said, snapping her fingers. The six slaves walked to the table, the dumb, vacant looks still on their faces. ‘Serve them,’ she said simply. Succiu looked briefly up to Shailiha as the slaves began feeding the immobilized prisoners. ‘You will learn, my Sister,’ she said, turning her attention to one of her long, painted nails, ‘that there really is no point in having a slave if you can’t tell him what to do.’
Another chair had appeared from nowhere, next to the one in which the prince was sitting. Succiu sat down in it, smiled, and crossed her long legs up and over the top of the table, propping her high, shiny, black leather boots close to his face. Tristan felt his skin crawl with her closeness, and could smell the jasmine in her long, dark hair as it fell over the back of the chair and nearly to the floor. Staring at him, she formed a circle with the thumb and index finger of her left hand, and began to gently push the handle of the whip in and out of it, imitating the action of intercourse.
