UNDER TRISTAN’S ORDERS, FAEGAN, AEOLUS, AND JESSAMAYwere also searching for Serena as they cautiously prowled the Recluse’s second floor. Like everywhere else, the fighting there was a terrible mixture of smoke, magic, and sudden death.
Shrews and envelopers still controlled the Recluse, but the tide was slowly turning. Faegan had ordered a dozen Minion warriors to follow his group up the stairs. Not to be outdone, Rafe and twenty of his highlander riders had spurred their horses up the foyer staircase to follow along.
Blood smeared the second-floor walls, and the hallway floors were littered with bodies from both sides. Smashed furniture, torn paintings, and ripped draperies lay everywhere. Stained-glass windows were scattered in pieces around their broken window frames. Levitating his chair as he went, Faegan led the charge. The hallways were so wide that Aeolus, Jessamay, and several warriors could run alongside him.
Faegan soon saw an intersection up ahead. The area was huge. Five massively wide hallways joined ends there, creating a pentagonal sitting area. The center of the intersection was open and overlooked the marble floor below. A huge ceiling mirror hung directly above the intersection opening, reflecting a fountain sitting on the first floor. The fountain water shot high into the air, climbing up through the intersection opening before falling back. An intricately carved wooden railing protectively lined the intersection’s five angled sides. It was a beautiful part of the Recluse that incongruously belied the brutal ugliness taking place elsewhere.
As Faegan and his party neared the intersection they suddenly heard screeching sounds. Searching for prey, dozens of envelopers soared upward from the first floor to careen through the intersection’s open center. At once the sitting room became a riotous madhouse.
The Conclave mystics immediately raised their hands. Azure bolts struck many envelopers, killing them instantly. But soon the flow of envelopers became a constant stream, forcing Faegan to admit that his group could not overcome them. Just then the warriors started charging ahead to engage the envelopers.
“No!” Faegan shouted at the warriors. “There are too many of them for you to kill! You must come back!” As the warriors returned, Faegan looked anxiously at Aeolus and Jessamay.
“Unless I miss my guess, the beasts will gather for a coordinated assault!” he warned them. “Then we will act!”
As they waited and watched, it became clear that Faegan was right. Soon the intersection was full of envelopers, ominously circling the massive room. So many were gathering that Jessamay could imagine no way to survive their impending onslaught. While more soared up from the first floor to join the whirling maelstrom, she frantically looked at Faegan.
“Whatever you have in mind, you must do it soon!” she shouted.
Faegan shouted out a quick series of orders to Jessamay and Aeolus. It worked once, so it should work again, he reasoned. But we must perform our parts to perfection, or we’re all dead.
Envelopers finally stopped rushing up from the first floor. Knowing that they hadn’t a second to lose, Faegan gave the order, and the three mystics raised their arms.
Faegan acted first by sending an azure bolt toward the ceiling mirror. On hitting the mirror, the reflected beam streamed straight down into the water swirling in the massive fountain. Calling on the same spell that Wigg had used for the Recluse lake water, Faegan commanded the fountain water to keep its shape and lift into the air. The ring of water quickly levitated to the second floor, engulfing the surprised envelopers.
Twin beams shot from Aeolus’ and Jessamay’s hands. The beams hit the ring of water, and it started twinkling with an icy blue. Then it instantly froze solid, trapping all the envelopers in midflight.
As Aeolus and Jessamay lowered their hands, Rafe trotted his horse through the warrior ranks to stop beside the mystics. He had seen many amazing things this day, but this feat stunned him most of all.
“I beg the Afterlife…,” he breathed.
The huge, frozen ring imprisoning the envelopers revolved gently in the air. Rafe correctly guessed that it revolved because of the momentum it had gathered when the circling beasts first entered it. He turned his incredulous gaze toward Faegan.
“Are they dead?” he asked.
Faegan rubbed his chin. “I don’t know,” he answered. “If not, they soon will be. We will sustain the spell and let them freeze to death.”
“Reznik!” a male voice called out from the floor below. They heard boot heels running across marble.
“Einar is dead!” the unfamiliar voice shouted. “If you want to live, you must come with us!” As he heard the words, Faegan stiffened.
Reznik.
Without hesitation, Faegan flew his chair into the sitting room. Narrowly missing the hovering ring of ice, he launched over the railing and soared down toward the first floor.
Aeolus and Jessamay realized that they had no choice but to go, too. As they levitated over the railing they heard two thunderous explosions boom out. The Minions dutifully followed the mystics. Unable to go with them, Rafe and his riders charged their horses back down the hallway in search of more prey.
When Aeolus and Jessamay landed on the first floor they saw two dead consuls with their heads blown apart. One lay on the floor. The other hung on a wall, his chest impaled by an iron sconce bracket. Bits of the smashed globe the bracket had once held lay on the floor, beneath the dead consul’s dangling feet.
Faegan sat nearby. His arms were raised, and dark smoke drifted from his scorched fingertips. He faced a trembling man trapped in a nearby corner. The fellow was a fat, greasy-looking creature, and he wore a bloody butcher’s apron.
Aeolus and Jessamay immediately suspected that the man was Reznik. As they stared at him the Minions descended. Looking around warily, the warriors confirmed that this part of the Recluse was peaceful. Even so, the sounds of fighting going on elsewhere eerily drifted toward them.
Faegan glared at the man in the corner. “You’re Reznik,” he growled. “You do not wear a blue consul’s robe, and I heard your name called out from the room above.”
Reznik cowered before the wizard. “I am he,” he said. “Please don’t kill me!”
“Is Serena’s child reborn?” Faegan demanded. Knowing that there was nowhere for the Valrenkian to go, Faegan lowered his arms.
“Yes…,” Reznik answered.
“Where are they?” Faegan asked.
“I don’t know,” Reznik answered.
“Don’t lie to me, you piece of filth!” Faegan shouted.
For a moment Reznik beseechingly cast his eyes around the room like he was searching for someone to take pity on him. No one took the bait. He looked back at Faegan.
“If I answer, will you spare my life?” Reznik countered.
“I’ll consider it,” Faegan answered.
As Reznik tried to decide, he started shaking, and a stream of urine ran down one of his legs to form a puddle on the marble floor. He nervously wiped his damp palms down the front of his bloody smock.
“Serena and Clarice are on the second floor, in Failee’s previous quarters,” he finally answered.
“I have ways of finding out if you’re telling the truth,” Faegan warned him. “If I think you’re lying to me, my methods of making sure can be most unpleasant.”
“It’s the truth, I swear it!” Reznik pleaded. Suddenly a more confident look overcame the Valrenkian’s face.
“I just remembered something else,” he said. “You’re a member of the late Directorate of Wizards! You took vows against murder!” Suddenly surer of himself, Reznik laughed at Faegan’s expense. “Because I am not attacking you, you must take me alive!” he added brazenly. When he heard no response he decided to press his advantage.
“Since that is the case, let me tell you something else, wizard, ” he added nastily. “I enjoyed making those potions for Satine, and I reveled in the fact that she killed your precious Geldon and Lionel! I have tortured and killed hundreds during my career, and I loved every minute of it! My only regret is that you didn’t die with so many of your Minions in those traps I left behind in Valrenkium! I spit on their graves, you useless cripple!”
Sure that he had found the secret to his survival, Reznik held out his hands. “Go ahead, wizard, ” he said snidely. “Take me into custody.”
Faegan had become so incensed that he trembled with rage. He raised his hands and pointed his scorched fingers at the Valrenkian. Aeolus started to make a move toward stopping him, but Jessamay quickly touched him on one arm. His face grim, Aeolus took Jessamay’s advice and decided not to interfere.
If there had been any mercy in Faegan’s heart for the Valrenkian, Reznik’s boasting had just destroyed it. Taking a deep breath, Faegan decided.
“You’re wrong on two counts,” he said quietly. “First, I was never a member of the Directorate of Wizards. And second, I never took their vows.” He raised his hands a bit more.
Reznik’s look of terror quickly returned. “You said that if I told you where Serena and Clarice are, you would let me live!” he pleaded.
“No I didn’t,” Faegan answered quietly.
Before Reznik could protest, Faegan launched twin beams at him. The beams quickly blanketed Reznik’s body and lifted him into the air.
Faegan moved his arms. The twin beams threw Reznik violently across the room and headlong into a wall, breaking the Corporeal’s right arm and leg in grisly compound fractures. Then the bolts threw him across the room again like he was nothing more than some broken doll. Screaming wildly, Reznik smashed into the marble fountain. His skull split open, killing him instantly. As Aeolus, Jessamay, and the warriors looked on, the room fell silent.
After folding his scorched hands in his lap, Faegan lowered his head.