The fifth sorceress, p.72
The Fifth Sorceress, page 72
‘So as to placate the other members of the Coven, I have devised a little gift for the wizard.’ She raised her right index finger toward Wigg, and immediately the wizard put his hands to his throat, protectively, and opened his mouth to speak. But no words came. In a flash, his arms were frozen at his sides. Whatever slight amount of room that might have once existed in his gibbet was now obviously gone.
Wigg looked at Tristan with what the prince thought to be an even greater sense of urgency; his mouth moving silently, pitifully, as he hung there in his cage. Geldon, trembling with terror, looked back and forth between the prince and the wizard, as if he could somehow help them communicate. But Tristan could see in the dwarf’s eyes that he, too, knew all was lost.
‘The Lead Wizard is now unable to speak or to raise his hands or arms to gesture to you in any way,’ Failee said haughtily. ‘Qualities I enjoy in all wizards. For your information, the old one is in no pain and is still quite able to watch the ritual that I am about to perform. But any communication that the two of you may have been planning on during the Communion, verbal or otherwise, should now be quite impossible.’ She turned to look lovingly at the four other members of the Coven standing dutifully before the altar.
‘And so it begins,’ she said quietly, as if to herself. Without further explanation, she glided back down to the floor, stopping at the altar. Tristan watched as she placed the golden goblet directly in the center of it, beneath the skylight.
Tristan looked again to Wigg, but the helpless wizard could only stare back frantically in return. Think, you fool! the prince thought angrily. What was it that Wigg was trying to tell me?
Tristan began to try to remember everything that Faegan had told them that night about the Communion. A small amount of blood would be taken from each of the five sorceresses and combined in the goblet. The goblet would then be placed in the center of the altar, directly below the skylight, and Failee would begin the ritual. The stone would be removed from around her neck and suspended over the goblet of blood.
He stopped thinking for a moment to glance at Wigg, as if seeing the wizard would help him to remember. Finally, the tragedy of the Communion came back to him. The mistresses would take their places in their thrones at the five points of the Pentangle, and the combination of the stone and the blood would call the light from the sky. It would strike the stone, refracting it into different colors that would cascade into the goblet, charging the blood, already strengthened by the purity of Shailiha’s blood, with the power of the stone.
Then they would each drink, sharing the power, the Communion complete. The Reckoning would invariably follow.
Tristan’s head hung down to his chest in defeat, his mind painfully calculating the horrors that the Reckoning would bring. World enslavement, he thought. The death of Geldon and Wigg. The loss forever of Shailiha and her daughter to the Coven. And the enslavement of myself to produce Failee’s super being, so that she might rule with it in perpetuity, continuing to ‘experiment’ on the masses. The insanity never ends! And the culmination of it all is almost here.
Failee beckoned for the other mistresses to gather around her, and they did so silently, forming a small circle around her just before the altar. Then she began to speak in a low, guttural tone, in a language that the prince did not understand.
Each of the four held out their right, upturned wrists in the direction of the First Mistress. Failee narrowed her eyes at the wrist offered first by Vona, and Tristan watched in dread as a small wound opened on the younger woman’s forearm. The incision had the appearance of a straight line, no more than one or two inches long. Failee held out the goblet as the blood began to well up, creating a shiny bracelet of red and finally dripping into the golden vessel beneath it. When the First Mistress apparently felt there was enough, she removed the goblet from beneath Vona’s wrist and started the process over again, this time with Zabarra.
The bloodletting has begun, Tristan thought in a panic. In only a few moments she will call the light from the sky. Think! What is the answer to Wigg’s riddle? The old wizard’s words raced through his head for the hundredth time. ‘Sometimes only a small urging is all that is required to move mountains. And sometimes it is easier to let a thing come to you, rather than for you to go to it.’ What does it mean? What in the name of the Afterlife is the answer?
Tristan looked back down to see that Failee had completed the bloodletting of the four other sorceresses and was now performing the same ritual on herself. Her blood dripped slowly, agonizingly, into the goblet as Tristan hung there in his cage, powerless to stop it. His face and body were covered with a light sheen of sweat, and he found himself breathing so heavily he thought his heart might burst.
Failee stopped speaking and gestured for the mistresses to take their thrones. Dutifully, they walked to the massive black marble chairs and sat down, the matching black silk of their gowns flowing down and over their feet, the maternity gowns of Succiu and Shailiha draping elegantly over their abdomens. None of the five looked at the three prisoners in the gibbets. Tristan knew instinctively that at this point in time, nothing existed for them except the completion of the Communion.
Failee gently, reverently, placed the goblet of blood in the center of the altar, directly below the skylight that reached up through the height of the Recluse and to the heavens. Slowly she removed the stone from around her neck and held it in the air above the goblet. She closed her eyes and removed her hands from the Paragon. Because the stone no longer had a host, its deep, bloodred color immediately began to diminish, just as it had that evening on the dais when Tristan’s father had removed it and handed it to Wigg. When Failee opened her eyes, the Paragon remained hovering above the goblet. She slowly walked to her throne and sat down, her face a mask.
Silent, unmoving, and totally oblivious to their wounds, the mistresses sat on their thrones as the blood dripped slowly from their arms to pool on the white marble floor. A tear escaped the corner of the prince’s eye as he looked down at his sister, resplendent in her black gown. The fifth sorceress, he thought. No one moved; no one spoke.
The room had become as silent as death.
Then, almost imperceptibly at first, the Sanctuary began to lighten.
The light crept into the room gradually as it descended through the long tunnel of the skylight. It was the purest, whitest light Tristan had ever seen. Streaming down as if it were alive, it flowed straight into the Paragon. Slowly but dramatically the light grew brighter and brighter until the prince could barely look upon it. It was magnificent.
The blood and the stone are calling forth the light just as Faegan said they would, Tristan thought, not wanting to believe the awful, wondrous thing that was occurring before him. Tearing his eyes from the stone, he looked at the members of the Coven. What he saw before him made his breath stop short in his lungs.
Each of the mistresses’ eyes had rolled all the way up until only the whites could be seen. The women seemed to be staring lifelessly, unseeing, out into the room as the light pouring into the stone continued to brighten.
They’re defenseless, Tristan suddenly realized. No person of endowed blood is wearing the stone, nor is it in the water of the Caves. ‘This is the only time you can even think of acting against them,’ he remembered Faegan saying that night in the tree house. And then he realized something else.
The mistresses must be protecting their eyes from the light! And while they do so, they seem to be temporarily blinded. If I am able to do something, they may not be able to detect it.
Think! he told himself as the light continued to rain down upon the stone, its rays increasing to a white-hot pitch. Think, before the light blinds you for life. The mistresses do not care whether you are able to see, only if you are able to give them your seed. Think!
The Paragon had become devoid of color, looking almost like a diamond as it hung there in the bright, white glow. Suddenly, without warning, the light completed its journey through the Paragon and shot out the lower end of the stone, refracting into thousands of separate shards of light, each one seeming to have both form and substance, as if one could literally reach out and touch them. Their beauty was dazzling. Each of the shards had its own distinct color, and they all pointed from the stone downward toward the blood in the goblet. As Tristan watched, they began to grow in length like the stalactites of the Caves, creeping lower toward the rim of the goblet. When they reached the mingled blood of the sorceresses the liquid would be empowered, and all that would remain would be for the mistresses to drink it, thus harnessing within each of them both the power of the Paragon and the blood of the female Chosen One for the first time in the history of the world.
In only moments the stretching fingers of light would reach the blood.
What is the answer? he cried to himself. He wanted to look to Wigg and Geldon to see if they were well, but he dared not take his eyes off the scene for fear something would change without his knowing it, despite the incredible pain looking at it was causing him. He could feel it burning through his eyes and into the back of his brain. What is the answer? he lamented. Why is it I do not know?
Tristan finally closed his eyes against the light, trying to calm his mind and recall all he could about the stone and the Communion. The stone begins to die if not around the neck of one of endowed blood or immersed in the water of the Caves, he remembered.
He forced himself to look back at the Paragon as the light shattered his senses. His eyes narrowed in dis-belief. The stone’s bloodred color had completely returned as it collected the light from above. The stone needs the host or the water to stay alive, but now it has neither. His mind rebelled against the truth that lay before him. Then how is it that the stone can now be red once again?
And then it hit him. Tristan suddenly felt a door open in his mind, and it all became clear, the knowledge flowing through his consciousness, heart, and endowed blood as if it had been there always, from the day of his birth.
The light is sustaining the stone, he realized.
And he also realized that the knowledge was no longer coming from his mind, but from the endowed blood that now so quickly coursed through his veins.
The light is not just flowing through the stone to empower the blood below, draining the Paragon of its power as Faegan thought, but is actually sustaining the Paragon as it does so. There is a third, before now completely unknown entity, other than the host and the water, that can empower and sustain the Paragon. The light that Failee has called down. That is why the Directorate did not know of it – its description was contained only in the Vagaries. The forbidden, esoteric Vagaries that Failee tore from Faegan’s mind with the Chimeran Agonies and was forced to combine with the Vigors to produce this bastardization of the craft. And in her thirst for the Reckoning, the First Mistress herself is not even aware of the danger she has created. In that part of it, Faegan was indeed correct. He felt almost as if an unseen presence was speaking to him from somewhere far away. Once again he heard Wigg’s riddle, and now he knew the answer.
‘Sometimes only a small urging is all that is required to move mountains. And sometimes it is better to let a thing come to you, rather than for you to go to it.’ Wigg wants me to use my gift to bring the stone to me, removing it from the stream of light. If I am able to do that, the Communion cannot proceed because the Paragon will lose its sustenance, the light will have no partner, and the Coven will still be defenseless. And then, suddenly, a new fear seized him.
If he took the stone from the light, the Communion would end. But, given enough time away from a host and the water as well, would the Paragon die? He had no water from the Caves in which to submerge it – and that had to be done first, in order to return it to a virgin state so it could be given to a new host of endowed blood, whether that person was Wigg or Tristan. But if he did not move the stone, would the improper combination of the Vigors and the Vagaries that Failee was employing destroy everything, as Faegan predicted? Was there really any choice?
The shards of light were reaching past the rim of the goblet now. The mistresses were still unmoving as the blood in the goblet started to roil with the impending power of the light. The Paragon itself was beginning to shake as if it could no longer stand the strain of the improper combination of the Vigors and Vagaries, as if begging for someone to stop the ritual. Tristan knew the time to act was almost upon them all. He could feel his blood beckoning him to remember the wizard’s instructions on how to use the rudimentary beginnings of his gift.
‘In order to see the bridge, you first had to stop trying to see it, and let it come to you,’ Wigg had said. ‘Let it come to you . . .’ Tristan thought. The second part of the wizard’s riddle. ‘And then once you had mastered that …you heard the beating of your own heart,’ Wigg had continued. ‘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.’
The intensity of the light reaching lethal proportions, the Paragon itself close to bursting, the prince closed his eyes. He knew he must somehow shut down his mind, shut out the activity in front of him, and join with his blood. He lowered his breathing and tried to hear the beating of his heart.
There was nothing.
Again he calmed himself, trying to imagine only the quiet stillness that he required for the gift to come to him, for the beating of his heart to be heard. But still no sound reached his ears.
He opened his eyes to take a precious moment to look at the Paragon. It was swelling almost to bursting point, and seemed to be calling to him, begging him to fulfill the demands now being placed on his blood. Tristan closed his eyes. There would be only one more chance.
And finally, almost silently, it began.
The quiet, rhythmic beating of his heart arrived in his mind as his endowed blood surged past his eardrums, telling him to continue. He opened his eyes and found that he could now see the stone clearly, despite the white light that coursed through it.
Continuing to stare at the stone, he willed it closer to him, away from the path of the light. Nothing moved.
Again he tried, straining his mind almost to breaking point, willing, wishing, demanding that the stone come to him. But still there was nothing. In only seconds now they all would be dead, and he knew it. And then he heard his blood call to him.
No, Chosen One. Do not use your mind. Use me, his blood seemed to whisper to him from somewhere far away.
He relaxed his mind, this time somehow sure of what he was doing, and looked at the Paragon.
It began to move – slowly at first, then more dramatically, and finally completely away from the light. Free of the descending rays, it fell to the marble floor of the Sanctuary.
The result was overwhelming.
The shards of light that had been extending down toward the goblet shattered into thousands of pieces, each one pointed at the end, and began to swirl around the walls of the room in a great circle as an almost-solid mass, a riot of color. It was as if it had suddenly become a conscious mind and was searching for something. The unknowing mistresses remained still, their eyes high and unseeing as the shards gathered speed, turning faster and faster as they circled the walls of the room. Tristan watched in amazement as the colored daggers of light finally found their destination.
The shards tore relentlessly into the bodies of the sorceresses, tossing them from their thrones and onto the floor. The room was filled with a swirling riot of color. Though he was frantic to locate his sister, he could no longer see what was happening. But he could hear the screams of the defenseless women as the shards went round and round, stabbing and slicing through their bodies. Finally, almost silently, the shards of light careened upward, still seemingly of one mind, and exited through the skylight above.
Without warning each of the gibbets dissolved, and the three prisoners fell crashing to the marble floor.
Tristan landed like a cat, despite the weakness in his legs. Dreggan in hand, he crouched, looking around the room with deadly, animal-like intent, ready to kill if necessary. The view was indescribable.
Everywhere he looked there was blood. It covered the floor in pools and dripped long, crimson fingers down the Sanctuary walls. Failee, Vona, Zabarra, and Succiu all lay on the floor, dead. Zabarra had been decapitated. Vona was missing an arm, Failee a leg. Succiu, covered with blood, stared blindly up at the ceiling from where she lay on her back. The prince looked sadly at her abdomen, mourning the child she had carried. My firstborn, he thought.
He looked behind him to see Wigg and Geldon gingerly picking themselves up off the hard marble floor, shaken, but apparently unhurt. The three of us still live, he thought. How is it that the sorceresses died, and we still live? Frantic, he began searching the room for his sister. It was then that the familiar sound of her crying began.
Quickly looking around, he found Shailiha cowering in one corner of the room, sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth, babbling to herself incoherently. Her black silk gown was soaked in blood, and she was rubbing her abdomen frantically, crying hysterically, looking outward but seeing nothing. Exactly as she was that day upon the dais, when Frederick was killed, Tristan thought. Sheathing the dreggan, he ran to her as fast as he could and kneeled down to hold her in his arms. She did not fight him, but it was clear that she didn’t know him, either. I have you, Shailiha, he told her silently. And I shall never let you go again.
He opened his mouth to speak to her, but before he could, from the center of the earth came a great clap of noise that sounded something like thunder, and the Recluse literally started to come apart.
Tristan held his sister close as the walls and floor of the Sanctuary began to crack, dust and noise filling his ears and lungs. The cracks in the floor widened, their depths seemingly endless. He pulled Shailiha closer to the wall. The wind howled like thunder, and debris washed viciously in and out of the skylight despite the great distance to the top of the Recluse roof. Covering his sister with his own body, he finally recognized the destruction for what it was.
