Robert Newcomb - Savage Messiah

"What of it?"

"Bratach explained to me what is happening. Does that have anything to do with why I am here?"

Ivan leaned toward her. "It has everything to do with it," he answered. "But for our safety and your own you are to know little more of it than that, unless such information impacts your mission. Succeed in your task, and all will go according to plan." He began rolling the wine glass between his hands again as he thought for a moment.

"The wonderful byproduct of the rupture in the orb is the fact that so many wounded are rushing into Tammerland," he continued. "One of the greatest tenets of the craft states that chaos is the overriding principle of the universe. The wizards of the Redoubt are now suffering more chaos than they can effectively deal with. And it will only worsen as time goes by.

"At first, our master thought he had completely failed in his attempt to pollute the Orb of the Vigors," he said. "But when we discovered that the orb had ruptured, we immediately sent word to him. Now things have changed. While it was once our mission to destroy the orb, we must now see to it that it isn't interfered with in any way. Ironic, wouldn't you agree?"

Satine had suddenly had quite enough talk of wizards, magic, and orbs. She wanted to be gone from this suffocating place, and begin her sanctions. There were still two places she needed to go first, and she wouldn't get there by sitting here talking politics with some fat consul in a bleak cellar. After taking a final sip of wine, she stood up.

"Is there anything else?" she asked.

Ivan pointed to the closed door on the other side of the room. "Exit by that passageway," he answered. "It will bring you up into an alley several blocks from here. You will have to circle back around to collect your horse. Each sanctuary has a secret tunnel out." The smile came again. "A fact you would do well to remember."

Satine walked to the door and pried it open. A curving, brick-lined tunnel led upward. It was lit with oil sconces. She started to leave, then stopped and turned back to Ivan.

"Thank you," she said softly.

"Just do your job properly, woman," he answered back. "That's all the thanks we of the Vagaries require of you."

Turning back to face the tunnel, Satine walked in and closed the door behind her.

NIGH had fallen at the citadel, and wulfgar was alone. The hour was late. His pregnant queen and her handmaidens had long since retired. Looking out over the dark Sea of Whispers from the comfort of his throne room, the bastard brother of the Jin'Sai found himself restless, and concerned.

While he sat and pondered, the blazing fires in the urns on either side of the twin thrones cast spectral shadows across the polished marble walls and ceilings. He heard only the distant crashing of the waves. He had grown to love this chamber, especially when Serena was by his side.

He raised his damaged arm before his good eye. The nearly useless appendage somehow seemed even more hideous in the firelight. He lowered it and silently cursed the wizards of the Redoubt, and his half brother and sister. His jaw hardened as he gazed back out over the sea.

His mind turned toward the professional killer he had hired. Satine had impressed him. Still, he understood that the assassin-no matter how deadly she might be-was only an oblique part of his overall plan. Satine was a form of guarantee that the Orb of the Vigors would continue to deteriorate.

His spying consuls in Eutracia-especially his secret servant within the walls of the royal palace-were keeping him well informed of the movements of the ruptured orb.

Nonetheless, obstacles remained, not the least of which was the considerable time involved in receiving crucial information from Eutracia. He had lied to Satine when he told her that he had only a few demonslavers remaining. There were in fact tens of thousands of them still here at the Isle of the Citadel. Those remaining slavers and the ships they manned were relaying the information back to him from his consuls in Eutracia. Still, he seethed at the slowness of it.

What worried him above all else was that his Citadel consuls had not yet discovered the formula in the Scroll of the Vagaries that he needed most: the calculations for the single, all-important spell that would ensure his victory.

The scroll's unexpected references to this all-important Forestallment had been discovered only days earlier, by his ceaselessly researching consuls and its suggested existence had come as a shock to them all. When Wulfgar had been informed, his heart had leapt for joy. He quickly realized that if it could be deciphered and then imbued into his blood, his victory over the Jin'Sai would be all but assured. Then, as the Lord of the Vagaries, he would reign supreme in the practice of the craft.

Soon Wulfgar meant to invade Eutracia and make the nation his. Once he had taken Eutracia, the less sophisticated nation of Parthalon would succumb easily.

Standing from his throne, he laid the mangled side of his face against the nearby marble column. The coolness of the stone always comforted his tortured flesh, but he granted himself this show of weakness only when he was alone. He had tried repeatedly to heal his body and face by means of the craft, but even his powers had proven inadequate. Since learning that his consuls might identify and decipher the Forestallment they sought, his hope for a recovery had been renewed.

Lifting his face from the marble, he thought of Serena and the unborn girl-child she carried. Serena was brave, and she loved him. But in his heart he could sense both the pain and the revulsion she tried so hard to hide. In truth, who could blame her?

She and her husband were both fervent practitioners of the Vagaries. They were also human beings who loved each other deeply. He knew that she desperately wanted to see him the way he had looked when they had first fallen in love during their early days here at the Citadel.

Even more, Wulfgar wanted his daughter to see him as he had once been: handsome and strong, rather than the freak he had become at the hands of the wizards of the Redoubt. A deformed monster who would undoubtedly make his new daughter cry, simply by looking down into the crib in which she would soon lie.

He heard the huge double doors at the other side of the room unexpectedly swing open. Turning, he saw one of his armed demonslavers enter.

"What is it?" Wulfgar snapped.

The demonslaver bowed. "Forgive me, my lord," he answered. "But Einar has come, begging an audience. He says it is most urgent."

Wulfgar nodded. "Very well."

The demonslaver bowed again and walked back through the doors. In a few moments the visitor entered the room and approached.

Tall, erect, and almost ravenously lean, he had prematurely gray hair, which he kept tied behind his head, and bright blue eyes, which at the moment were calmly scanning his master's face. Einar was the most gifted of Wulfgar's Citadel consuls, and he was in charge of both their training and their day-to-day activities. He was also the overseer of the scriptorium, the great library that held the fortress' most precious texts and scrolls.

Then Wulfgar saw that the Scroll of the Vagaries glided along by Einar's side. An azure glow surrounded it, telling Wulfgar that the consul had been recently working with it. Normally Wulfgar would be furious that the precious document had been removed from the scriptorium without his permission. But something about the fearless look on his lead consul's face told him that he should hear what the man had to say.

Einar stopped before him, the scroll hovering just a meter or so away. Wulfgar pointed to the parchment.

"Why did you bring the scroll here?" he demanded.

"I wanted to bring you this news personally," Einar said. His eyes flashed with promise, and his gaze was steady.