PULLING HER STRONG WINGS THROUGH THE EVENINGair, Sigrid soared eastward high above Eutracia. The night was clear, allowing her an excellent view of the ground below. Perhaps more than any other Minion, she was the one most eager to begin this fight. More important, she considered it her personal mission to ensure that Valda and the twenty-eight other members of the Night Witch patrol she once commanded had not died in vain. Our revenge will be sweet, she thought as her dark eyes scanned the Sippora River slipping by beneath her.
Despite her broken arm, soon after she reported back from the slaughter in Tanglewood she had begged Traax for command of another Night Witch group. Traax had agreed heartily, adding that although her group had perished, no one considered her personally responsible for the defeat. In fact, her service and bravery had been exemplary, he said. It was because of these qualities that she had been given the honor of leading this vastly important war party through the night. Although her fellow Minions saw her as a hero, Sigrid did not share that opinion. For her, this new command was a rare opportunity to redeem her honor, and she would sooner die than waste it.
Looking rearward, she saw her twenty-nine new Night Witches steadfastly following her. Rather than accept command of an established group, Sigrid had requested only Minion females whose specialized Night Witch training was still incomplete, so that she might mold them to her liking. After Traax granted her request, Sigrid hand-picked the twenty-nine who would become hers. Despite her injured arm, Sigrid had been training these women since the Tanglewood slaughter, and they were ready to serve. Sigrid had learned much from that fight, and in some ways her new group was superior to the one she lost. Their new war cry “Remember Tanglewood!” was heard each time her group took to the skies and went on patrol.
Show yourself, Khristos, she thought as the cool evening air rushed past her face. This time you will not find my warriors to be such easy prey.
Half the entire Minion force followed her lead, six of them carrying a litter bearing Shailiha, Faegan, and Traax. Determined never to make the same mistake again, Shailiha ordered that Aeolus, Duvessa, Sister Adrian, all the consuls and acolytes, and the other half of the Minion force remain behind to guard the palace and the Redoubt. They would be sorely missed in the coming fight, but every Conclave member had agreed with the princess’s decision.
Gambling that Khristos and his vipers were heading toward the coast, the war party had left the palace two hours ago to fly east, following the course of the Sippora River. In truth the Conclave could not know the enemy’s position. But if Khristos and his forces wished to remain unseen, they had no choice but to remain submerged in the Sippora.
That left the Viper Lord only three options. He could remain in the river, he could head upstream and deeper into Eutracia, or he could head downstream toward the sea. Staying in place seemed unlikely, for Khristos surely knew that the section of river where the recent fighting had taken place would be swarming with Minion warriors desperate to kill him and his followers. The enemy might proceed upriver, but Traax had wisely ordered several thousand of his troops to swoop low over the river and continuously dredge its bottom with weighted nets. Khristos could easily use the craft to destroy the nets, the Conclave realized, but if he did, they would know it, and Shailiha’s war party could be called home to deal with him there.
Heading toward the sea was Khristos’ likely choice, the Conclave decided. Perhaps of greatest concern was that the Sea of Whispers would provide a huge place in which Khristos and his Blood Vipers could hide. No longer limited to Eutracia’s rivers, they could travel up and down the length of the Eutracian coastline at will, then surface anywhere of their choosing and travel overland. They could also again slink up the length of the Sippora River, or choose the Vitenka River lying to the south from which to reenter Eutracia.
The theory that Khristos was heading for the sea was but one of several possibilities, but by necessity it must be the first place that the Conclave searched. Once the Viper Lord and his followers were loosed into those waters, all the advantages would be theirs. Searching the sea itself would be pointless, for if Khristos had already managed to reach it he could be lurking anywhere in its depths. And so the Conclave’s search would start at the coast of the Cavalon Delta and backtrack westward along the Sippora’s winding length. It was hoped that Khristos and his vipers would be found somewhere between the delta and where the Minions dredged the Sippora in Tammerland.
Sitting in the speeding litter alongside Faegan and Traax, Shailiha looked eastward with worry. Unlike the many other times when she had faced danger, tonight she felt hesitant. Despite the wondrous help given to the Conclave by theChikara Inkai, the marked absence of so many Conclave members was causing her to feel uneasy, as if an important part of her human arsenal were missing. Abbey’s death had heightened this feeling, as did her brother’s absence. If was as if little by little the membership of the Conclave was being stripped away and she would one day be left all alone to face Eutracia’s foes.
A great portion of her misgivings could be attributed to her infirmities, she knew. Because her body still ached, she had reason to doubt her swordsmanship. Her hampered vision had improved little, and it handicapped her not only physically but psychologically as well. Of necessity she continued to wear the black eye patch, and its presence still caused her to feel freakish and conspicuous. Even so, she staunchly resolved to keep her personal insecurities hidden and to command her forces with decisiveness. Suddenly reminded of her late mother, she closed her eyes.
A queen cannot always let her feelings be known, she thought, even if she is only a queen in waiting. At least this eye patch has taught me that much.
Sensing her discomfort, Faegan reached out to touch her hand. “A kisa for your thoughts,” he said.
She gave him a slight smile. “There’s no need to pay me for my thoughts,” she answered. “You’ve always been able to sense my moods and you know it. It has something to do with being a wizard, I imagine.”
Faegan smiled. As the litter jounced through the air he cradled the precious vial of subtle matter lying in his lap.
“Each of us has a part to play,” he answered. “And we can do so only according to our gifts. Your gifts are great, Shailiha. Never forget that. Despite all of the things that seem to overwhelm you just now, when the time comes, you’ll do well. I’m sure of it.”
Shailiha’s good eye looked at the vial in Faegan’s lap. “Is that all of it?” she asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Faegan answered. “The length of the Sippora between the delta and Tammerland is vast. Despite theInkai ’s advice, I hope that there will be no need to use it all. Unless a safe way is found to travel back and forth between Shashida, we on this side of the world might never see its like again.”
“Do you agree with theInkai ’s plans for the craft?” Shailiha asked. “Banning the use of forestallments and destroying the Tome, both Scrolls, and their indexes seem to be drastic measures. I must admit that such radical theories would never have occurred to me.”
“Nor to me, had they not first been explained to us by theInkai, ” Faegan answered. “Although seeing things from our perspective is probably impossible because you are so young, you must always try to remember what has gone before,” he added. “Because the Tome has been in our possession for hundreds of years and because it taught us how to use the craft, we always viewed it as a treasure to be protected at all costs. But theInkai see it as nothing more than some obsolete old text, and rightly so. The same is true of the Scrolls and their indexes. So you see, it is all a matter of perspective. Like Wigg and Tristan, we have come to believe that theInkai are right. Once Rustannica and Shashida are united, only radical changes to the craft and to everyone’s blood signatures will enable both sides to live together in peace. If these things are not done, the continued pull of the Vigors and the Vagaries on the human condition will doom history to repeat itself. A radical notion, you say? You are right, my dear, but it is far more than that! To us old mystics, it seems downright treasonous! But that’s the strange thing about a truly honorable peace, Shailiha. For it to last and to be effective, each side-even the victors-must make sacrifices. That’s the mistake that the late Directorate made with the Coven of Sorceresses, and no one need tellyou about how that came back to haunt us! If Tristan and theInkai can one day defeat Rustannica, the craft and the world it governs will likely change forever.”
Taking his gaze from hers, Faegan looked out toward the eastern horizon.
“I hope we will all live to see that day,” he added quietly.
“As do I, old friend,” replied the princess.
Just then a Night Witch flew up alongside the litter and shouted something to Traax. Traax nodded, then ordered her to return to the formation. He was by Shailiha’s side in seconds.
“Sigrid informs us that the coast is near, Jin’Saiou, ” he said. “What are your orders?”
Shailiha looked eastward to where the sea met the shore. The Cavalon Delta lay there, the Sippora separating into three streams across its marshy land before it flowed into the sea. Khristos could be hiding in one or more of those branches, or in none of them, she realized.
“We will perform this search one stream at a time,” she ordered. “If he is not found, we will search the next one and finally the third, if need be. Only when we know that all three branches are free of him will we turn westward and search the river proper. Order Sigrid to lead us toward the shoreline where the southernmost branch meets the sea. We will start our search there.”
Traax stood and snapped his boot heels together. “Very good, Highness,” he answered. Looking toward his warriors, he immediately began barking out orders. At once the entire war party started its descent and turned southeast.
Within moments they had arrived. As the flight of warriors swooped low over the estuary, Shailiha turned to Faegan and nodded.
At once the crippled wizard lifted the precious vial from his lap and poured some of the precious subtle matter onto the surface of the stream. As it landed atop the water, he recited the incantation supplied to him by theInkai.
When he finished, Shailiha gave him a worried look. “Can this actually work?” she asked. “It seems impossible…”
“I understand,” Faegan answered, his eyes glued intently on the water. “Even so, because this part of the process has been taught to us by theInkai, I do not doubt its efficacy. Once Khristos has been found, it’s the next part of the plan that gives me pause.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because we will then be relying on Failee’s mastery of the craft, rather that the expertise of the Shashidans,” he answered, still searching the water for signs of life. “The First Mistress was brilliant, but the secret spell that she devised to deal with Khristos and then hid in her grimoire remains untested-it must be so, or the Viper Lord and his servants would already be dead. Thus, we cannot be sure that it will work. An unproven spell is a dangerous thing, Princess. For each way that it can go right, there are always one hundred ways for it to go wrong. We agree that it worked at one time, because as you know, Succiu once used it centuries ago to torture someone who would later become a member of the Conclave. But that person had been human, and our enemies are not. If the spell does not perform exactly as outlined in Failee’s grimoire, we might accomplish no more than to unleash an even greater monster of some kind. I suspect that even Failee was unsure how her original spell might have affected Khristos and the viper embryos when she first condemned them to that river in Hartwick Wood. If they were somehow further changed without her knowing, all of this might be a grave mistake.”
Faegan shook his head as he suddenly grasped a bizarre irony.
“For the first time in my more than three centuries of existence, I am forced to hope that one of the First Mistress’s spells works perfectly,” he said ruefully. “May the Afterlife forgive me for this use of the Vagaries.”
Shailiha looked back down at the southernmost stream and saw that the telltale phenomena described by theInkai were not appearing.
“We have failed here,” she said. “We must search the next branch.”
After Shailiha shouted out new orders to Traax, the Minion commander relayed them to Sigrid and the war party turned north. Soon they were at the shoreline where the middle stream met the sea. Again theJin’Saiou nodded to Faegan, and the wizard started the painstaking process anew. After more subtle matter had been dropped onto the water, Faegan again recited the incantation. Tense moments passed as the war party hovered, every eye trained on the dark, rippling water below.
Suddenly Shailiha saw the glow of the craft appear. The process was mesmerizing. Little by little, azure dots of light were gathering atop the surface of the tributary. Before she knew it there were thousands of them, each one signifying the exact place where a Blood Viper lurked in the water below.
Then her blood ran cold as she realized that the multitudes of haunting azure dots were slowly moving toward the restless ocean. In mere moments the first of them would enter the Sea of Whispers and perhaps escape forever. Desperate to start the second part of the process, she turned toward Faegan.
“We’ve found them!” she shouted. “But we have little time! You must call Failee’s spell before they reach the sea!”
Everyone in the war party knew how vitally important it was that Faegan perform the next part of the attack flawlessly, lest the monsters and their terrible leader escape them forever. Summoning all of his power, Faegan began reciting Failee’s centuries-old incantation:
’Tis your blood that is sought; ’Tis heat to be wrought; No god or man can end my toil; No savior may cause this enchantment to spoil; I command your blood essence to writhe and churn; You shall feel your very soul to burn.
Her heart in her throat, Shailiha stared breathlessly at the water.