As he swung the great sword endlessly, striking down one after the next, it seemed that for every one he and the wizard cut down several more rose to take their place. The door at the other side of the room with the glowing, beckoning heraldry of his family seemed a hundred leagues away.
Sweat ran maddeningly into his eyes, and the stench of the dead consuls smothered him. He had lost track of Wigg. He began to sense the desperation in his tired arms, the heavy dreggan almost becoming too much to lift.
It was then that the blow came to the back of his head. Blindingly white light shot through his brain, and then his entire world went suddenly, completely black.
The softly crashing sounds came quietly to him at first, as if from a dream. He found them very reassuring. Gently caressing his ears and his mind, the harmonious ebb and flow of their timbre made him feel welcome and safe.
What beautiful sounds. His eyes still closed, he had only partially risen to the surface of awareness. It sounds like the sea. The roar of the ocean, like waves crashing. But that would be impossible . . .
And then came another, more familiar sound.
Women’s voices, laughing . . . speaking my name . . .
His mind suddenly rebelled, his body twisting in futility and fear. His frightened subconscious recalled the time he had been in the depths of the Coven’s Recluse—when he had heard the voices of the four mistresses while teetering on the cusp of death.
For a moment he thought he heard Wigg call out to him in pain, and he felt discomfort in his arms and shoulders. Then all went silent again. He lost his fight to rejoin the world around him, falling back down into a long, dark tunnel of sleep.
When he finally opened his eyes, Tristan took an astonished breath and immediately closed them again. He must be hallucinating. He shook his head, trying to understand. He hoped that when he opened his eyes, the scene would be different.
But pain barreled through him, forcing him to face reality. He opened his eyes, and his jaw fell in wonder.
A great ocean lay before him, its blue waves stretching away from the rocky shore.
He was still in the depths of the Caves. A ceiling of rock lay above him where the blue of the sky should have been. The radiance stones ensconced within it lit this place brightly, stretching as far as his eyes could see. Even the ocean itself, wide and foam crested, seemed endless.
The smell of the cool, almost comforting breeze blowing in off the water reminded him of the coast of Eutracia. Unbelievably, the froth-tipped waves were the exact hue produced by the craft. They tumbled toward him over and over again, crashing noisily upon the sandy shore only meters away from his feet.
The scene mesmerized him so much that it took him several moments to fully realize his plight.
His hands were in iron manacles, his back against a very high stone wall. He was hanging by his wrists, and his shoulders suddenly reminded him of how much pain he was in. Looking down, he saw that his boots were dangling at least a meter off the ground. He still had his weapons, but there was no way to reach them. His shoulders and wrists on fire, he looked to his left and finally saw Wigg. The wizard’s condition was even worse.
Also hanging from manacled wrists, Wigg was clearly unconscious. His eyes were closed, and his head was slumped forward on his chest. His right foot was clearly injured. An incision had been made along the inside of his boot, running halfway from the toe to the heel. Dried, endowed blood was caked all around the leather of the opening and had created an odd-looking red trail that ran crazily up and over the top of his foot.
Straining his neck, Tristan tilted his head to look down at the sand below the wizard’s feet. It was red. Wigg had been purposely drained of his blood.
For a moment the prince was perplexed. Then he understood.
The consuls we fought with said that we must first be prepared, he realized. They have drained blood from Wigg, so as to render him powerless in his use of the craft.
Tristan’s memories took him back to the fateful day when Succiu, second mistress of the Coven, had taken her own life and the life of their unborn child. Before doing so she told the prince that when an endowed loses a significant amount of blood, his powers of the craft are drastically reduced. He knew that this was what had been done to Wigg. But by whom? he wondered.
He looked around at the sandy beach, trying to find a clue. But now the puzzle grew even more complex. There were no footprints. Just the undisturbed beauty of the sand as the ocean continued to rush up against it.
“Wigg!” he called out loudly. “Wigg! Wake up! Talk to me!”
But it was to no avail. In a sudden panic Tristan narrowed his eyes to peer at the wizard’s chest. With great relief he saw that it continued to rise and fall with the old one’s labored breathing. At least Wigg was still alive.
The prince looked sadly at the impossible ocean that lay so beautifully, so incongruously before him. His shoulders and wrists seemed about to dislocate. The only sound coming to his ears was the crashing of the waves.
The shore that should not be here, he thought. And then a new worry crowded into his mind. Is this to be my fate? Perhaps the consul I killed was only speaking to Wigg when he said he must be prepared. Perhaps Wigg, because he is trained in the craft and I am not, is the only one they wish to see. That might explain why nothing has been done to “prepare” me. Will I simply remain here, pinned to this wall of stone, until I die? He suddenly felt very alone.
Then he saw the glow of the craft forming in the air before him. Wondering if he was seeing things, he closed his eyes once more. When he opened them again, a door frame had formed. Slowly, hauntingly, it began to move closer.
“Wigg, you must wake up!” Tristan shouted. “I need you!” But the wizard did not move.
The portal now floated directly before him. For a brief moment Tristan thought he saw some movement within it. Then the azure fog began to dissipate, and three beautiful women flew directly out of the mist on large, diaphanous wings. Rather small, they would not have quite reached to his shoulders had they all been standing on equal ground. Their entire presence glowed with the craft as they whirled about his face and body as if examining him. At first Tristan recoiled. But then, after a time, he relaxed as he realized that they did not seem to be harming him.
They were all exquisitely beautiful. They wore elaborate, low-cut gowns of the palest white. They all had very long, curly hair, and their eyes were the deepest blue he had ever seen.
At last one of them spoke. “We are here to prepare you.” Her voice was earthy, welcoming, and smooth.
“Who are you?” Tristan whispered back in awe.
“We are the master’s wraiths,” she answered, looking deeply into his eyes. She shook her head gracefully, as if wondering how it was that the prince did not already know that. Her long azure hair flowed out behind her on the breeze from her wings.
“And who is your master?” Tristan asked. He instinctively recoiled a bit as the two other wraiths moved to either side of him.
The first one smiled. “He is the one who has waited so long to see both of you. But we had no idea that the Chosen One would prove to be so compelling.”
Before Tristan could ask what she meant, the two wraiths hovering on either side of him began to caress his body. Their hands softly teased his groin; their tongues and lips circled his own. The sweat of his nervousness ran down into his eyes, and he twisted as best he could to avoid them. But he could only hang there, receiving whatever it was they chose to do.