CHAPTER

Seventeen

Closing his eyes, Ragnar placed his thick index finger into the gaping wound along his right temple. He found no fluid there today. But he soon would. The three rose-colored moons of the Eutracian night sky would again soon be full, and his gash would produce anew the yellow fluid. Just as it had been doing for the last three hundred years.

He dipped his finger into the vial of brain fluid that Scrounge had drawn from him not so long ago, then inserted it into his mouth. Immediately he felt searing heat run through his tortured body.

Wigg and the Chosen One will soon be here, he thought, again dipping his finger into the vial. And at last Wigg will stand before me and receive his just reward for the three centuries of pain and disgrace he has caused me.

He stood from the ornate, velvet-upholstered chair and paced slowly around the room like a caged animal. Ever since the child had told him of the impending arrival of his enemies, his memories had come to haunt him even more than usual. His eagerness to face Wigg grew with each passing day.

His personal chambers were both his prison and his home. The furniture and draperies were of the highest quality. Magenta streaks darted across the black marble walls like shooting stars in the sky. The candlelight flickered softly, barely piercing the darkness that he preferred for his personal reveries.

Soon, Wigg, we will make a new history together. He smiled to himself. This time it shall be you, not I, who will carry the burden of suffering for all eternity.

He reached to the marble table that stood nearby and took up a sheathed dagger that lay there.

He fondled it gently, almost lovingly, then placed the coolness of its scabbard along the length of his heated, maddened brow. This dagger had once belonged to Wigg. It would serve in the plans Ragnar had for the lead wizard. The child had already granted him permission.

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.‖

Ragnar remained silent as he listened to the two wizards, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

―There is something else that I find interesting,‖ Wigg went on, his eyebrow launching upward. ―Ragnar is still convulsing. That makes me think that even though Failee‘s part of it is done, and the incantation is advancing rapidly, the transformation still incomplete. If that is true,‖ he added slowly, ―we may be able to reverse it, and save him.‖

Tretiak‘s jaw dropped. ―In the name of the Afterlife, how?‖

―We already know that the stalker‘s brain fluid is what makes each one unique, and perpetuates the horror he has become. If we can drain the fluid from his head while the process is still taking place, thereby taking away what it is that makes him so, we may be able to reverse its otherwise inexorable progress. The odds are slim, but I feel we at least owe it to him to try.‖

―And just how do we accomplish such a thing?‖

―I want you to control his limbs,‖ Wigg answered, ―but keep him conscious. Then remove the cage. I will make an incision in his skull and try to use the craft to drain off the fluid. But we must act quickly. Are you with me?‖

―Of course.‖

―Then we are wasting time,‖ Wigg said with finality. ―Begin the incantation.‖

Come and try, pestilence of the craft, Ragnar seethed. I will fight you with everything I have.

Tretiak closed his eyes. Almost immediately Ragnar began to strain against the onset of Tretiak‘s incantation. The two fought each other‘s minds for what seemed to be an eternity.

Sweat broke out upon Tretiak‘s brow as he struggled against the mutated powers of the stalker. Finally Ragnar slipped to his knees and fell to the grass. He was still alert, but unable to move. The azure bars of the wizard‘s warp began to fade away, finally retreating into nothingness.

―Can you hold him in that state?‖ Wigg asked nervously.

―I am not sure,‖ Tretiak responded, strain in his voice. ―His ability with the gift is strong, perhaps even more so now that he is a stalker. We must hurry.‖

Wigg ran to seat himself the grass next to Ragnar and carefully lifted the stalker‘s head into his lap. Removing his wizard‘s dagger from its scabbard, he gave Tretiak a meaningful look.

―Above all, we cannot come into contact with the fluid,‖ he said sternly. ―To do so would mean a horrible and instantaneous death. I will make an incision in his temple, and when the fluid begins to drain I will accelerate the process with the aid of the craft, causing it to pour out upon the ground. When I am done I want you to reactivate the cage at once. Are you ready?‖

Tretiak nodded.

―Very well,‖ Wigg said. ―May the Afterlife grant us strength.‖

No sooner had Wigg made the incision than the stalker started to move again, the combination of Ragnar‘s innate desire to kill the wizards and the sharp, sudden pain from Wigg‘s knife apparently overcoming Tretiak‘s incantation. Tretiak tried to keep him under, but Ragnar finally broke partially free of Wigg‘s grasp. The quickly flowing, stinking brain fluid splattered in all directions, narrowly missing the two wizards. A few drops landed on Wigg‘s boots, causing them to sizzle and smoke.

Wigg still had hold of his dagger, its blade covered with the yellow fluid. He desperately tried to control the stalker and activate his incantation at the same time. ―Hold him with the craft!‖

he screamed at Tretiak.

Wigg closed his eyes. Ragnar continued to struggle. With a surge of unexpected strength, Ragnar broke farther free, then turned his face up toward Wigg, screaming in triumph. Still trying desperately to perform his incantation, Wigg had inadvertently turned his dagger point down toward Ragnar‘s face, and some of the awful substance dripped down the blade.

The fluid fell directly into Ragnar‘s open mouth. The mutant would hold that pain in his memories forever.

His eyes bulging, screams of torment tearing from his lungs, Ragnar yanked himself away from Wigg and sent a bolt into Tretiak‘s chest, knocking the wizard to the ground. He then instinctively reached for what he perceived to be the instrument of his torture—Wigg‘s dagger. He first tore the dagger from Wigg‘s grasp, and then the scabbard from the wizard‘s side. Running from his former friends and jumping on Wigg‘s stallion, he was gone in an instant. Perhaps knowing that they could never catch Ragnar with the two of them atop the only remaining horse, the wizards had not given chase. As soon as he dared, he had stopped to bandage the wound in his temple, but it was too late for the horse. Continuing on foot, he reflected that he had gotten away, but he would never be the same again.

His mind finally returning from his reveries, Ragnar opened his eyes.

Failee"s mistake was not realizing you were near, Wigg, he thought. Your mistake was not killing me the moment you saw me lying there on the bloody grass of that field. And the Chosen One"s mistake was to leave his seed behind in Parthalon. So many mistakes are about to intersect upon the tightly woven tapestry of time.

He smiled into the gloom.

It was you who caused my addiction, Wigg. And it is now you who shall pay. Both you and the Chosen One shall very soon know your fates, by my hand and the hand of the child. Each of us is now your enemy—the living, breathing results of your mistakes.

The blood stalker gently replaced the dagger into its golden scabbard. With a brief glance he extinguished the candles in the room, then sat alone with his hatred, his madness, and his thoughts.