They stood before the trough. “Do you see anything different about this place?” Wigg asked darkly.
Tristan was perplexed. Absolutely nothing, as far as he could tell, was unusual about the Well of the Redoubt. “No,” he answered. “I do not.” He was also feeling the effects of the waters on his untrained blood. His heart beat faster, and he felt flushed. He knew neither he nor his sister would be able to withstand the proximity of the waters for long.
“And those of you here with endowed blood, have you felt anything unusual in the last several days?”
“What do you mean?” Shailiha asked, now clearly dizzy and holding onto her brother for support.
“I mean, other than just now, have you sensed any unusual weakness in your physicality, or mental abilities?” Wigg answered.
“No,” Tristan said, and Shailiha shook her head in agreement. Joshua, however, nodded.
“Just as we expected,” Wigg said. He carefully removed the Paragon from beneath his robes and held it before them. “Look closely at the stone, and tell me what you see.”
Tristan looked hard at the Paragon, the jewel that controlled the power of the craft. At first it seemed absolutely normal to him. And then he saw the anomaly. His breath caught in his lungs. It can’t be! his mind cried out.
There was clearly something wrong with the stone. Instead of being deep red, the upper right-hand corner of the gem was pink. The Paragon was losing its color—and therefore its power, as well.
Tristan regarded the stone in horror. “Why?” the prince whispered to Wigg. “How can this be?” Now dizzy, he was finding it difficult to get the words out. He knew that Shailiha was faring no better, and Morganna had begun to cry. He hoped the wizards would let them leave the room soon, despite the drastic nature of the circumstances.
“Now that you all understand, we shall leave,” Faegan said simply. He turned his chair toward the door and started to wheel his way out. The prince and Shailiha also made for the door, Geldon, Wigg, and Joshua following them. Wigg closed the secret door, and almost immediately the prince began to feel somewhat better. He could tell that Shailiha did too.
Nonetheless, Tristan felt as if he had just been struck down by some kind of terrible blow. The combination of the effects of the waters and the awful knowledge regarding the stone left him stunned and questioning. For a moment he simply sat there, trying to collect himself, watching his sister do the same. Finally, he spoke.
“But why?” he whispered to the wizards. “What would cause the Pargon to lose its color?”
“We do not know,” Wigg replied. “Faegan and I both felt the decay in the stone before we actually saw it. It happened to each of us at the same time, just after our last session with the princess. Although at this point the loss is minute, we did sense a slip in our powers. At the current rate of decay the stone will soon become clear, and lose its power in no more than several months.”
“It is truly distressing,” Joshua said, concern plainly showing in his face. “I have also felt a decrease in my gift, but I thought it was malnutrition,” he said simply. “Now I know differently.”
“Has this ever occurred before?” Tristan asked, still overwhelmed by the implications of it all.
“The only time the stone ever loses its color is when it has been removed from a human host, or prematurely from the waters of the Caves. Otherwise, there is no reason for this phenomenon,” Faegan interjected, still stroking his cat.
“I don’t understand,” Shailiha said, now almost fully recovered. “If the stone loses its power when removed from a human host, then how is it that it can be moved from one person of endowed blood to another?”
“An excellent question.” Wigg smiled at her. “And one that took us a great deal of time in the early days of the monarchy to unravel. It was Egloff, our resident expert on the Tome, who first came up with the reason. Simply put, the stone needs a host for its continued survival, and there are only two types it will accept. A person of endowed blood, or the waters of the Caves. Nothing else will do.” He paused for a moment, thinking of how best to explain.
“In order to change human hosts, such as at the coronation of a new king, the stone is first removed from around the person’s neck. The Paragon, because it now has no host, will immediately begin to lose its color. If this process were allowed to continue, the stone would eventually die without either the waters or another human host of endowed blood to sustain it. But because the relationship between the wearer and the stone is so strong, it must first be prepared for another wearer, or returned to a ‘virgin’ state, if you will. For this reason it is immersed in a small quantity of the water. The procedure must be performed exactly right, or the stone is in great peril of being extinguished forever. As the Paragon returns to its normal color, the waters become clear. This signals that the waters have performed their task—that is, to reenergize the stone and make it ready to accept another host of endowed blood. The Paragon is then ready to be placed around the neck of its new human host.”
“Then why is the stone losing its color now?” the princess asked.
“Wigg and I think that the stone is actually being drained in some way, by some other power,” Faegan answered. “Perhaps even from a long distance. If that is true, then our chances of stopping its decay are much less.”
“But why would someone wish to do such a thing?” Geldon asked. His understanding of the stone was no doubt less than that of anyone else in the room, but his question was important, nonetheless. “If this decay is being accomplished by someone of endowed blood and the stone loses its power, then will the person causing this to happen not also lose his mastery of the gift? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Indeed,” Faegan replied. “Frustrating, isn’t it?” His mouth quirked up at one side in a half smile, as it always did when he was presented with a seemingly contradictory problem of the craft.
The prince was suddenly concerned with the long-term effects of all of this. “Assuming all that you say is correct,” he began, “and the stone loses all of its color several months from now, what is the ultimate effect on our lives?” He felt sure he already had the answer, but he wanted to hear it from the ones who were the true experts on the Paragon.
Wigg and Faegan looked at each other as if they were about to discuss the end of the world. Perhaps they are, Tristan thought glumly.
“The first and most obvious effect will, of course, be that Wigg, Joshua, and I will begin to lose our powers,” Faegan said quietly. “This will happen slowly, over time. The end result will be that when the stone is completely clear, we will be totally stripped of our use of the craft. It will also of course mean that we are no longer protected by the time enchantments. Therefore, if we don’t find the cause for all of this and correct it quickly, as time goes inevitably forward our abilities to perform the craft and also to remain healthy and alert will be greatly diminished. This will vastly reduce our chances of success. But there remains another, even more dangerous result of all this—one that we have feared for over three centuries.”
“And that is?” Tristan asked quietly.
“A world without magic,” Wigg whispered. “Or, I should say, a world such as the one Faegan and I inhabited three centuries ago, before the Paragon was discovered and we accepted its powers over what were at that time our far less powerful practices of the craft. But given the fact that this calamity has no precedence, we simply can’t be sure. It is possible that with the Paragon drained, there may finally exist no magic at all.”
For a moment the prince was stunned, unable to imagine such a thing. But then he realized that what the wizards were saying was of course quite true. The Paragon empowered the craft. Without the stone, the craft would die. And a great many dreams and hopes carried over from the last three centuries would die with it, never to return.