Slowly he pulled the dagger from its highly patterned, gold scabbard to read the flourished, centuries-old engraving on the blade. The words lay just above the patterned blood groove: In Brotherhood We Serve the Vigors. The symbol of the Paragon, the square-cut jewel of the craft of magic, was also fashioned in solid gold and adorned the top of the hilt.
Such daggers had at one time been carried by all of the more powerful wizards, prized as the weapon of choice before they eschewed such crude devices in favor of their quickly increasing knowledge of the craft. Over the last three centuries, this particular dagger had been the focus of Ragnar’s intense, compelling hatred. For this was the very tool with which Wigg had not only given him his wound, but had caused his addiction to his own brain fluid, making Ragnar unique in all the world. As this dagger is now. The stalker smiled.
He closed his eyes, and memories came flooding back as if they had happened only yesterday. His knuckles turned white upon the dagger’s golden handle.
It had been during the Sorceresses’ War, when the fighting had still been somewhat crude and had as much to do with physical confrontation on the battlefield as it did with the manipulation of the craft. The sorceresses, led by Failee, Wigg’s onetime wife, had employed blood stalkers and screaming harpies to overcome much of the civilian population. They had conquered vast amounts of land with their largely conscripted army and were closing on the fortress city of Tammerland. The end had seemed very near for the wizards who continued to resist them.
And then the tide of the conflict had started to turn in favor of the wizards, for they had unraveled the secrets of the Caves, the Tome, and the Paragon. They used their increasing knowledge of the craft to push the sorceresses’ forces westward, into retreat. And Ragnar, once one of the most powerful of the wizards, had been there to witness it all.
Looking back on it now, the very thought of having served against the sorceresses, swearing to pursue only the weak, altruistic Vigors, made him angry almost to the point of self-destruction. Wigg, Tretiak, Killius, Maaddar, Egloff, and Slike. How easily he remembered their faces and their names, and what hatred these same names always conjured within him! These were the so-called “brilliant” wizards who would not only win the war, but also drive the sorceresses into exile. They would then go on to selfishly grant themselves time enchantments, form the Directorate itself, and oversee the rule of Eutracia for the next three hundred years.
But not Ragnar. Instead, he was to be given the great privilege of knowing the combined joys and power of being simultaneously a blood stalker and a wizard. Failee herself had carefully converted him to the superior creature he was now, at the same time showing him the ecstasy of the fundamental practices of the Vagaries.
He had been on patrol under Wigg’s orders, in charge of one of the companies of civilian troops loyal to the wizards. They were chasing what they had believed to be the Coven itself. Night had fallen, and they had been forced to make camp. It was then, deep in the night while they slept, that the Coven had quietly fallen upon them, massacring all of his troops. Failee had then told the lone, terrified wizard that he had been saved for a specific reason, which would only be revealed to him later, when she knew the time was right.
And then Failee had relentlessly worked her magic upon him, employing the incantation that would convert him to a blood stalker. Surprisingly, she stopped before the process was complete, leaving him half human and half stalker, the only such mutant ever created. She spent the next several days teaching him some of the arts of the Vagaries, and revealing to him that the exclusive practice of the Vigors was a waste of time and knowledge for one with his immensely high quality of blood.
Finally, the first mistress opened his mind, showing him that the cause of the Coven was both just and true, forcing his sensibilities away from the greedy pestilence that were the wizards. And then she left him to explore his newfound talents on his own.
It was during this time that Wigg and Tretiak came upon him. Wigg was much younger then, not more than thirty-five Seasons of New Life. The Directorate was not yet formed, so he wore no wizard’s tail of braided hair down the center of his back, nor had he yet donned the gray robes of office. But he was among the strongest wizards of his day, and the appointed commander in chief of all of the forces warring against the sorceresses. The golden dagger, the chosen weapon of the wizards, lay in its sheath at his side.
As they rode up over the rise to find the horrible, ghastly scene that lay before them, the wizards could not know that Ragnar was now a mutated stalker. Ragnar watched cautiously as Wigg pulled his stallion up short.
The battlefield Ragnar lay upon was staggering. At least one hundred civilian troops were dead, their bodies strewn carelessly across the lush, contrasting grass of the field like so many fallen leaves. Smoke from the recent struggle rose faintly up into the sky. Carrion birds had already begun to circle, so that they might start to pick apart their next easily stolen meal. The stench of death was all around him, and nothing moved, nor was there any sound.
Ragnar watched hatefully as the wizards rode down into the midst of the carnage. Wigg stopped his horse and jumped down, as did Tretiak. Ragnar’s body and extremities twitched back and forth as if he were in the midst of some form of horrible seizure.
Then Ragnar did something no stalker should have been able to do. He spoke to them. “Pestilence of the craft!” he growled, turning his horrible features up to his onetime allies. “I shall kill you both! You will become my first two trophies in my war against the wizards!”
With that he raised his hands, sending twin bolts of energy toward Wigg. They struck the wizard in the center of his chest, lifting him into the air and throwing him violently to the ground more than a dozen feet away, nearly rendering him unconscious.
Tretiak responded immediately, and the glowing, azure bars of a wizard’s warp rapidly surrounded Ragnar. Ragnar struck out at the sides of the barrier like a cornered animal, snarling with hate as he continued to glare at the two wizards who had once been his friends. Tretiak ran to Wigg and helped him stand.
“Forgive me, but how is it that you are not dead?” Tretiak asked Wigg. His eyes were the size of saucers. “When I saw his twin bolts go to you, I was sure it would be the end of first you, and then of me, as well!”
Despite his weakened condition, Ragnar could easily hear what Tretiak had said. I will still eliminate you both, he thought.
Before responding, Wigg looked quickly at the gleaming cube. He smiled briefly as he collected himself, brushing the dirt from his clothes.
“A little gift from Faegan,” he said. “There is an incantation, something that Faegan has just come across in the Tome, that creates a sort of shield around one of the endowed. He taught it to me before we left, thinking that it might be useful.” Wigg rubbed his chin for a moment.
“And thank the Afterlife for your quick use of the wizard’s warp,” he added. “It was exactly the right thing to do. Now we may be able to find out exactly what it was that happened here, and help him if we can. But be very careful as we come closer to him. The warp you created should keep him from harming us further, but the fact that he is a stalker, yet is still able to speak and use the craft, is something we have not seen before, and is more than a little disturbing.” Wigg paused for a moment, lost in thought. “This is no doubt something new that Failee has developed,” he added sadly.
The two wizards approached the gleaming cage slowly and stopped before it.
“It seems my former wife has finally learned how to perform her stalker incantation without bringing it to its logical conclusion, leaving Ragnar both a stalker and a wizard at the same time,” Wigg mused sadly. “What you see before you has been one of the greatest fears: a still-effective wizard who has also become a stalker, complete with the unyielding desire to kill males of trained, endowed blood. I need not tell you what this would mean, should the number of halflings grow. If we now have two separate sects of the endowed to struggle against, it could mean the end of us.”