Robert Newcomb: The Gates of Dawn

Many thanks must go to those who helped make this, the second of my books, all it could be. To my agent, Matt Bialer, whose faith in me seemingly never wavers, and to my hugely patient editor, Shelly Shapiro, who is my trusted literary gyroscope. And to my publicist, Colleen Lindsay, and all the other folks at Del Rey who have helped make this series a success. A large helping must also go to the many booksellers—the folks in the stores who help introduce the reading public to the realms of the fantastic. And last, but surely not least, to my wife Joyce, who started it all by daring me to succeed.

He reached up slowly to feel the thick, warm fluid at the side of his head, the fluid he both loved and hated so intensely. As he ran his fingers luxuriously through the yellow liquid, his thoughts went for the thousandth time to what he had become.

A blood stalker.

I bleed again today, he thought. He smiled to himself. Though it is not truly blood.

The half-human wizard, half-mutated blood stalker named Ragnar walked to the candlelit mirror on the opposite wall. He gazed carefully at the fluid running down the side of his face from the small, never-healing wound in his right temple. The wizard Wigg, onetime lead wizard of the Directorate, had given him that wound over three hundred years before, saying that the incision would help cure him—perhaps even help him gain his rightful place among the Directorate of Wizards. But it had not. And Wigg had gone on to other things, leaving Ragnar in his tortured, addicted, half-transformed state.

Looking into the mirror he saw the shiny, bald head, dangling earlobes, and long, sharp incisors of a blood stalker. The bloodshot, blue-gray eyes stared back at him from the mirror with a hunger that only vengeance could satisfy.

But he was so much more than a mindless stalker, he mused. His other half was still human wizard. And Wigg had no idea that he still lived.

Wigg has finally returned to Eutracia, he exulted. And with him have come both of the Chosen Ones. He smiled briefly. Good. The child will be pleased.

He liked the changes the child had made in the stone fortress. The room reflected in the mirror, his private drawing room, was sumptuous. The walls were of the deepest red marble. Oil sconces and candles gave off a soft, enduring glow. Colorful, luxurious furniture, intricately patterned rugs, and various works of art adorned the room. But the harsh, acidic scent of the fluid seeping from his wound returned his mind to his current task.

It must never be wasted, he thought. He placed the first two fingers of his right hand, the hand already wet with the fluid, into his mouth. Almost immediately he felt its searing heat run through him, teasing him. The fluid was both his curse and his blessing.

Turning to the other person in the room, he asked, “Are you ready?” It was much more a command than a request.

“Yes,” came the reply.

Ragnar turned to look upon Scrounge, his trusted assassin, personal servant, and spy. Tall and ravenously lean, Scrounge had a ferretlike face and dark, overly long hair. He had been an orphan his entire life, and the name that had come to him so early in his career of crime upon the streets of Tammerland fit him perfectly. He knew every inch of the ravaged city, and also a great many of the people still residing there—people who could be particularly useful, especially now that crime and violence had overwhelmed Tammerland in the absence of the Royal Guard.

In his hand Scrounge held a small glass beaker, the base of which was connected to a tube. At the end of the tube was a broad needle. In between the needle and the beaker, connected into the tube, was a crude wooden handle. Scrounge smiled, revealing several dark, decaying teeth. “All is ready,” he said, in his brittle, high-pitched voice.

“Then let us begin,” Ragnar replied.

Taking a seat in one of the ornate chairs, the blood stalker watched as Scrounge approached him with the beaker. Gently, Scrounge inserted the needle directly into the wound in the side of Ragnar’s head.

“You may proceed,” Ragnar said, closing his eyes.

The assassin carefully began to pump the wooden handle. The yellow fluid that had been freely oozing from the wound slowly flowed into the tube and began filling the glass container. Ragnar continued to sit there quietly, almost blissful in the knowledge that he would soon have collected a sufficient quantity of the precious liquid to see him through yet another month.

When the glass beaker was full, Scrounge removed the needle from his master’s wound and opened the top of the container. “As usual?” he asked. “Two-thirds for you, one-third for myself?”

“Yes,” Ragnar answered. “And be judicious in its use. Wigg and the Chosen One will soon be here, and the time of our victory upon us.” A smile played at the edges of his lips at the prospect of seeing the lead wizard again, and of laying his eyes upon the Chosen One for the first time.

“Both the wizard and the Chosen One will curse the day they find us,” the blood stalker added softly as Scrounge picked up the beaker.

Making sure not to touch the liquid, Scrounge very carefully poured the thick, yellow fluid from the beaker into two other containers. He handed the larger of them to Ragnar, who immediately dipped the first two fingers of his right hand into it and placed them into his mouth, closing his eyes in ecstasy.

Scrounge placed his own vessel upon a nearby marble table and turned to look at Ragnar. “He asks for you,” he said simply.

The blood stalker stopped what he was doing and placed his beaker on the table next to the other one. “In that case, I need to know how far you have progressed.”

Scrounge retrieved a leather satchel from across the room. Opening it, he shook the contents out onto the floor.

Ragnar smiled. “How many today?”

“Over thirty, Sire,” Scrounge replied, a wicked grin beginning to walk the length of his mouth. “They came even more easily this time.”

“Then the child’s creatures are proving ever more effective,” Ragnar mused.

He looked down at the items on the floor. They were small, square, and quite obviously recently removed from their victims.

They were pieces of human skin.

Each of the small, rectangular patches of freshly incised skin carried an identical tattoo: the perfect image of a bloodred, square-cut jewel. Some of them still dripped blood.