Tristan looked over to his sister. Kluge had been only partially correct. Shailiha was cured, no longer the damaged person Kluge had said she would forever be. But apparently the other side of his prediction had come true: Tristan was now a wanted man in his own nation, being hunted by the same subjects he had risked his life so many times to protect. And someone was willing to pay one hundred thousand kisa to bring him in.
“How is it that you came by this poster?” Wigg asked Geldon softly, obviously taken aback by the news.
“It was being distributed in the Hog’s Hoof Tavern,” Geldon answered, “and it caused quite a stir.” He looked over at the prince with sad eyes. “I’m afraid they all quite believe it.”
“Believe what?” Tristan whispered back, finally finding his voice.
Geldon looked down at his hands. “The fact that you killed your father . . . They believe it was intentional, and that you were in league with the Coven and the Minions.”
Lowering his head with the pain, Tristan closed his eyes. This simply cannot be happening.
“Who was distributing these posters?” Faegan asked, calmly stroking the cat in his lap. “Did you see him?”
“Oh, yes,” Geldon replied, looking again at the dead man on the other side of the room. “I believe him to be the same one who killed this consul.”
Tristan’s head quickly came up. “Why?” he asked sharply.
“He walked into the tavern with a roll of posters under one arm and jumped up on the bar, shouting his invective at the crowd,” Geldon explained. “He condemned you as a traitor, saying that the reward would be paid in gold.” He turned his attention back to the table as a whole.
“He also viciously attacked an ex-member of the Royal Guard,” the dwarf continued. “The man tried to stand up for you, and the assassin hurt him badly. He used a miniature crossbow, strapped over his right forearm. It is very ingenious, and the only other weapon I have ever seen to be as fast as your dirks. I believe it caused the wound on the consul’s forehead. The points of the arrows were coated with some kind of strange yellow stain.”
At the mention of the yellow stains on the assassin’s weapons, the two older wizards looked quickly to one another. Narrowing his eyes, Wigg placed either hand into the opposite sleeves of his robe while Faegan continued to stroke his cat, his gaze turning far away.
“What is his name?” Tristan asked, his knuckles white around the chalice he held.
“Scrounge,” Geldon answered. “This killing of the consul, combined with the fact that the poem is signed ‘S,’ leads me to believe that he is the murderer. The bartender also told me that Scrounge is a professional killer, and one of the most accomplished assassins in all of Eutracia. Yet he is rumored to have only one employer—the same sponsor who is putting up the money for Tristan’s capture.”
“And the name of his employer?” Tristan countered.
“Unknown,” Geldon answered softly. Again the room went uncomfortably, deafeningly quiet.
“After he wounded a soldier with his crossbow, the soldier swore that he would one day kill Scrounge. And then the assassin said something strange.”
“And that was?” Wigg asked calmly from the other side of the table.
“Scrounge told the officer that he doubted it, since the soldier was already dead. But clearly he was not. What did he mean?”
Wigg glanced over to Faegan, and said, “Would you like to tell them, or should I?”
“Be my guest,” the elder wizard answered rather blankly, still off somewhere in his own private world.
“The reason this Scrounge person said the officer was already dead was because he wounded the man with a weapon that was dipped in a very special fluid. A poison, actually.” Wigg paused, wondering how to say the next words. “The yellow stain you saw was the dried fluid from the brain of a blood stalker.”
“But you told me once that the fluid from a stalker’s brain was instantaneously fatal,” Shailiha said from across the table. “If that is the case, then why did Scrounge’s arrow not kill the officer immediately?”
The princess could still remember the day not so long ago when she and Wigg had been in the Hartwick Woods, searching for Tristan. Wigg had killed a stalker that had been secretly tracking them. It was the first and only time she had ever seen one, and the wizard had gone on to explain the stalkers to her. Each stalker, he said, had once been a wizard, but had been captured by the sorceresses and mutated by incantation.
“Well done, Princess,” Wigg said, smiling for the first time.
“So what is the answer?” Tristan asked.
“The fluid kills instantaneously only in its liquid form. Once it dries out, the resultant powder must somehow get into the victim’s bloodstream in order to be deadly. And that effect is not immediate.”
“So that is what Scrounge meant when he said the officer was already dead,” Shailiha whispered, almost to herself. She looked up at Wigg in horror. “How long will it take him to die?”
“That depends upon the type and strength of the person’s blood,” Wigg answered. “If the officer is unendowed, which is most likely the case, then he will die in a matter of only days. But if the victim is one of endowed blood, the torment can last much longer.”
And all because someone stood up for me against Scrounge, Tristan thought. Yet another reason to kill him.
“Why would someone bother to dip the ends of their weapons in this fluid and only wound them, when they could just as easily kill them outright and be done with it?” Shailiha asked.
“Because a person like that doesn’t kill just for the money, Shai,” Tristan said. His expression had turned dark again. “I have seen this before, in Parthalon. Such a person also kills because he enjoys it. He takes pleasure in knowing his victims continue to suffer, even after he has finished with them.”
“That much is true,” Geldon interjected. “And he is very good.”
So am I, Tristan thought viciously.
“In truth, the yellow liquid dried around the forehead wound on the consul had not escaped Faegan and me,” Wigg said thoughtfully. “But I first thought that he had been killed by a stalker. Now that we believe it was Scrounge, this puts an entirely different light on things.”
“Indeed,” Faegan responded simply.
“How so?” Geldon asked.
“Well, for one thing,” Faegan began, “how did Scrounge get the fluid to dip his weapons into, and who taught him about all of this? Such things are not common knowledge. An obvious conclusion is that a blood stalker is actually in league with this man. But such a relationship would be highly unlikely, since stalkers have relatively little ability to communicate, and are almost always completely mad as a result of their transformation. No, this issue is far from resolved.” He paused for a moment, his gray eyes shining with thought. Anger chased sadness across his face, and he looked down at Nicodemus in his lap. If only he had not stayed in Shadowood all those years! He shook his head. There was no time for regrets. There were puzzles to solve and action to plan. He had to concentrate on what he could do now. He looked up again.
“There is an even greater problem we must still discuss,” he continued. “And I now believe that the two are related.”
“And that is. . . ?” the prince asked, unable to fathom what else might possibly be wrong.
Faegan did not immediately answer. Instead, he looked across the table at Wigg, who nodded. Wigg stood to walk to the spot at the left of the fireplace, touching the wall gently with his fingertips. Immediately the fireplace began to pivot, causing Geldon’s and Shailiha’s jaws to drop. “Shall we?” Wigg asked, motioning everyone through.
The Well of the Redoubt was exactly as the prince remembered it from that day when the lead wizard had first brought him here, just after the murder of his family. The black trough of marble was as breathtaking as ever, the dark red waters from the Caves still happily, noisily splashing down and out from the spigot in the wall. He couldn’t imagine what the problem might be.