Nicholas must have far more in mind than the mere taking of the consuls, Ragnar mused.
Nicholas turned to Scrounge. “You may leave us now,” he said.
“Yes, my lord,” the assassin answered without hesitation.
When he was gone, Nicholas turned his dark, upturned eyes on the stalker. “You trust him completely?”
“Without reservation,” Ragnar replied. “He has been with me virtually his entire life. I discovered him as a young orphan, long after my partial conversion by the Coven. Although he is not blessed by the time enchantments as you and I are, his talents for killing and gleaning information are unsurpassed.”
“Good,” Nicholas said. “For just as you are my link to the Chosen Ones, Scrounge is our link to the outside world.” He paused for a moment, smiling. “In truth, our relative situations are not that different. The Chosen Ones and the wizards are imprisoned within the Redoubt. And we, for other reasons, are imprisoned here. But they will soon come to us, rest assured.”
Ragnar again touched the unhealed wound in his head, realizing he was in sudden need of ingesting more of the odorous, yellow fluid. It had been Wigg who had chained him to the ecstasy of his own stalker brain fluid—and it was that very liquid by which both Wigg and the Chosen One would suffer. Poetic justice indeed. He smiled.
Nicholas smiled back. “I have plans for the wizards. I also have very specific intentions for the Chosen One—my father of this world. None of them are to be killed, nor is my presence to be revealed to them until I tell you differently.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Now leave me,” Nicholas said calmly. “I still have much to do.”
With that the stalker left the boy, making his way back to his personal quarters, where he wasted no time in grabbing up the vial containing the yellow fluid. He drank deeply, feeling its ecstasy ripple through him as it went down.
Revitalized, he replaced the vial and headed out again, this time to one of the several bedrooms he kept occupied. Without announcement he abruptly entered the room.
The woman seated before the mirror was his favorite of those he kept here. She looked up tentatively at him. Seeing in his eyes the power of the fluid, she braced herself for what she knew would follow.
He fell upon her, taking her roughly, as though she were a mere possession.
7
“It cannot be true,” Faegan breathed as he looked at the Paragon. It was lying on Wigg’s palm, and the lead wizard’s hand was shaking.
“Nonetheless, there it is,” Wigg answered softly. A quick glance at Shailiha’s bed reassured him that the princess continued to sleep peacefully. He looked back at the Paragon in his hand.
The square-cut, bloodred stone that sustained the power of the craft of magic would have seemed, to the untrained eye, to be quite normal. But to Faegan and Wigg its subtle, yet discernible alteration was readily apparent. Especially when coupled with the subsequently small, almost minuscule loss of power they had both felt in their blood during their time with the princess. Quite clearly, the Paragon was beginning to die.
The uncalled-for change in the stone was a calamity of unparalleled proportions. Such a circumstance had never occurred since the Paragon’s discovery, over three hundred years ago.
“Why?” Wigg whispered in horror.
“I do not know,” Faegan answered quietly but with equal emotion, moving his chair a little closer to the stone.
They both stayed that way, each of them trying to absorb the disaster that was unfolding before their eyes. What they were now witnessing had always been believed to be a complete impossibility. The continued, unchecked ramifications of this would mean the end of all they loved, had for so long held dear, and had so many times risked their very lives for. Faegan sat back in his chair, his normally crafty, mischievous expression replaced by one of defeat.
“How is such a thing possible?” Wigg asked. “The stone, provided it is being worn by one of the endowed blood, has kept its power for over three centuries. Why would it suddenly begin to dissipate?”
“I can only believe it is being influenced by someone or something beyond these walls,” Faegan answered, already lost within his own thoughts. “That is the only possible explanation, and the philosophy from which we must start. Although we still do not know how such a thing is possible, it must be tied to the appearance of Joshua’s creatures. Someone is once again practicing the Vagaries, and these two occurrences simply cannot be coincidental.”
Wigg wondered if Faegan even knew his hands were balled into fists. The elder wizard’s face was a study in contempt.
“How can you be so sure?” Wigg asked, his constantly skeptical attitude launching one eyebrow up.
Faegan closed his eyes. He searched his mind with the power of Consummate Recollection, attempting to retrieve the obscure passage from the Tome. After several long moments, he began to speak.
“ ‘And the stone shall one day begin to expire. With this shall come those of the scarlet beacons,’ ” he began. “ ‘The guardians of the stone shall therefore struggle to maintain its life in a great conflict, part of which shall be determined in the firmament. For if the stone dies, all those of the Vigors shall die with it, the child forever watching from his place of victory.’ ” He opened his eyes again.
“Yet another reference to ‘those of the scarlet beacons,’ ” Wigg ruminated. He carefully replaced the Paragon beneath his robes.
“Indeed,” Faegan answered, almost to himself. “But what disturbs me most is the repeated reference to ‘the child.’ The only child of importance I am aware of is Morganna, and for the life of me I cannot comprehend what meaning she may have in all of this. For she is truly an innocent.” Taking a deep breath, he shook his head in frustration.
“There is something else that makes no sense, assuming your theories are correct,” Wigg said cautiously.
“And that is?” Faegan asked.
The lead wizard turned back to the wizard in the chair. His right index finger went up into the air, just as it had done so many times before when he had been Tristan’s teacher. “Assuming that someone or something is indeed causing the stone to lose its power, you have postulated that this unknown presence is of the Vagaries. I now agree. And as the stone loses its power, so shall we. But because the stone empowers all of endowed blood, the force behind this shall therefore lose its powers as well. This will eventually render us all equal, and quite powerless in the craft. Why would such an endowed person or thing want to dissipate its own power of magic, despite the fact that we lose our powers as well? Assuming this scenario to be true, we all lose. It makes no sense.”
Faegan furrowed his brow and pursed his lips in thought. “Well done, Wigg,” he said. “A point that up to now had escaped me, much as I hate to admit it. Why would he or she want to do such a thing indeed?” Yet another question was now swirling its way through his mind, just as he suspected it was bothering Wigg. He finally decided to bring it out into the open. “Based upon the rate the stone is decaying,” he asked quietly, “how long do you give us before our powers become of no consequence?” He already had his own estimate, but wished to see what Wigg’s would be.
The lead wizard put a finger to his lips as he contemplated the answer. The loss of power he had felt had been minuscule, but real nonetheless.
“Several months, at most,” he said. “Then the craft as we know it shall cease to exist.”
Faegan’s guess exactly. Neither of them spoke for the moment.