“I can’t,” Tristan said angrily.
“But you must,” Wigg answered. “It has been a long time since we had any nourishment. Especially you. You must keep your strength up for as long as you can . . .”
The prince knew the answers to his many questions about Ragnar would eventually come, but only in the wizard’s good time. He took a piece of cheese and a hunk of bread for both himself and Wigg, placing the wizard’s portions into the old one’s hands. He did it for no other reason than to get Wigg talking. It worked.
In between bites of cheese and bread, Wigg related the story of Ragnar. Of how he and Tretiak had tried to heal him, only to have their well-meant compassion end in tragic results. Tristan listened in silence.
“How did he become so needful of his own brain fluid?” he asked when Wigg was done. “If it is of his own body, then how can it be addictive?”
“If you better understood the craft, you would have a keener grasp of that,” Wigg answered. “Simply put, since Tretiak and I interrupted the process begun by the Coven, it was never completed. This means that, unlike other, fully developed stalkers, his process of transformation goes on unabated, even to this day, the incantation still trying to turn him. Some incantations, such as those used upon the stalkers by the Coven, had an infinite timeline until purposely discontinued by their creator. But that is another subject, for yet another day.” He paused again, taking another drink of the wine as he continued to collect his thoughts.
“Anyway,” he continued, “what all of this means is that his system continues to produce fluid, driven relentlessly forward by the ongoing incantation. But the wound in the side of his head releases it again, partially negating the process. Ingesting it is one way to get it back into his body, thereby simultaneously slowing down the need to create more, and causing a pleasurable sensation of release upon his nervous system. This process has apparently gone on for centuries, and will continue to do so unless he is killed. He is, in effect, his own prisoner of time. And also a prisoner of the craft. One must always be careful in the application of the craft, Tristan. For each way in which an incantation can proceed successfully, there are a hundred ways for it go awry.”
“And he blames you for his addiction,” Tristan concluded.
“Yes. That is why he blinded me. He wanted to satisfy his desire for revenge by using the same weapon I tried to help him with. In those days we all carried the golden daggers as a symbol of our brotherhood. As difficult to believe as it may now seem, Ragnar was once a part of that. But never forget that as a stalker, even a partial one, he is quite mad.” He shook his head. “There remain, however, many things I do not understand.”
“Such as the amazing azure glow that crept out from the doorway,” Tristan said. “I felt very drawn to it for some reason, as if it were somehow a part of me, a part of my very own blood.”
“Yes,” Wigg agreed. “I could see the effect it was having on you. That glow was the most awe-inspiring manifestation of the craft I have ever witnessed. But Ragnar never had that kind of power, and I very much doubt that he does now. No, someone else was there also, listening to every word. I believe it to have been the same being who is responsible for the draining of the stone. I am convinced that much of what Ragnar told us is lies, designed to throw us off. And much of it, conversely, I also believe to be the truth. A great portion of this riddle remains unexplained, purposely shrouded in a dense fog much like that glow we saw there in the chamber.”
“Such as placing a bounty on my life, when they have no desire of my ever being caught,” Tristan wondered aloud. “That makes no sense. And what is their need for the consuls, especially with all of their tattoos removed? What possible difference could that make? Not to mention the purported thousands of hatchlings camped at Farplain.”
His face darkened, especially at the thought of so many of Ragnar’s second-generation hatchlings loose upon the land. Wigg turned blindly toward the prince. Tristan winced at the memory of the wizard’s once-commanding aquamarine eyes.
“And then there is the greatest threat of all to our safety,” Wigg said solemnly. “The Chosen One has been polluted with the brain fluid of a stalker. I know you feel well at this moment. But soon, very soon, you will begin to feel its effects. We must get back to the Redoubt and inform Faegan. With the aid of the Tome, perhaps there is something we can do.”
“And about your blindness, as well?” Tristan asked.
“Perhaps. But it is you who are most important.” Then a look of concern crossed Wigg’s face. “The Tome! It is here, as Ragnar promised, is it not?” He stretched out an arm and began to pat the ground beside him, searching.
Suddenly anxious, Tristan looked around. At last he saw the thick, white leather book sitting in the grass a few feet away. “Yes! It’s here!” he exclaimed. For the first time that night, he saw Wigg smile.
Slowly, reverently, Tristan took the Tome into his hands. He could not believe that the once-gigantic treatise he had seen in the Caves could in fact be the same book. Very carefully he opened it—the collection of volumes that were to explain the very meaning of his life and the life of his sister. It was a moment he had waited impatiently for.
But what he saw within the Tome made his breath come out in a rush. Quickly, almost in a panic, he thumbed through the rest of the pages in utter disbelief.
Every single page of the Tome was solid black. No words, no letters, no symbols.
He looked at Wigg in horror. “I don’t understand!” he exclaimed. “The pages are all black. The Tome is ruined! This must be some trick of Ragnar’s!”
Despite his affliction, Wigg smiled. “The Tome is not ruined,” he said compassionately. “The great book has been made smaller for the purposes of transporting it from one place to the next.”
“What good is the Tome if it cannot be read?” Tristan asked in frustration.
“There is, in fact, great value in not being able to read the Tome,” Wigg answered. “Think for a moment. Right now the Tome is out in the open, where anyone could conceivably take it from us. When the spell is enacted, the Tome’s cover and pages shrink, but the writing upon its pages does not. As the pages compress, the words written upon them are therefore literally forced into and over the top of one another. So much so that all of the white space is covered over, creating a completely black page. In this way not only can the great book be easily hidden or moved, but if it falls into hands that have also captured the Paragon, it still cannot be read.” Wigg took another sip of the wine.
“As the book shrinks, the pages also become rearranged, or ‘repaginated,’ if you will, in a completely random order. Pages from one volume may even appear within another. So even if a thief were somehow able to restore it to its original size, it would remain impossible to use. Clever, don’t you think?”
Tristan shook his head. “But why would Ragnar let us have the Tome?” he asked. “Is possessing both the Paragon and the Tome not an incredible advantage?”
Wigg’s face darkened. “I do not know,” he said slowly, the wheels turning in his mind. “Unless you take him at his word and believe that he has read the entire treatise, and requires it no longer. But for him to voluntarily relinquish his grasp of the Tome would also mean that he has somehow acquired the gift of Consummate Recollection, and to my knowledge Faegan is the only living wizard who is so gifted. Why Ragnar gave us the Tome remains a puzzle as truly confounding as why he let us live and put us back here, on the trail to safety. But then again, do not forget that he is at least somewhat mad. His words and deeds may have no meaning whatsoever, sending us uselessly chasing our tails. His apparent study of the Vagaries may also have harmed his mind, just as it drove Failee to the edge.” At the mention of his wife of so long ago, Wigg’s face fell slightly.