The Fifth Sorceress, page 17
Ironically, the darkness of the meeting’s agenda was completely offset by the light and airy beauty of the room. The walls and floor were of the finest blanched white marble. Paintings and sculptures in a variety of styles and colors were strategically placed about. One entire wall of the great room had been given over to leaded stained-glass windows that were now shut, and highly patterned rugs lay here and there upon the marble floor. Several gold oil lamp chandeliers hung from the ceiling, giving the room a soft, golden touch as twilight slowly advanced with the coming of night.
Without speaking, she looked in turn into each of the faces of her Sisters, the other mistresses who had been with her so long and had gone through so much. To her immediate right in a stunning red gown sat Succiu, second mistress of the Coven. On Succiu’s right was Vona. Her straight, red hair did little to detract from the intensity of her blue eyes. An emerald representation of the Pentangle hung around her neck on a gold chain. The last was Zabarra, the youngest of them but one of the most powerful. She was also one of the most sarcastic. Her green eyes smiled at Failee as she played with the end of one of her blond ringlets.
Failee continued to gaze at the three other women. They appeared to be younger than she, since the time enchantments had come to her later in life. She smiled to herself knowingly. The wizards, too, had been older at the time they had discovered the time enchantments. Like me, they appear mature, she thought. And always will.
But the three before her she had chosen as her most trusted followers not only because of their power but also because of their relative youth and vitality – vitality that would be forever preserved by the time enchantments. The fact that they were younger and less experienced did not concern her, since she knew she would have all of eternity to train them. And she did not envy their eternal youth and beauty. After all, she thought, they shall never possess the power that I do.
‘You’re late,’ Vona said almost casually, her face a curious mixture of courtesy and impertinence. ‘Has it now to become the custom to keep other Sisters waiting for the beginning of such an important meeting?’
‘Your tone tells me that perhaps you need a visit to the Stables, Vona,’ Failee said easily, but her hazel eyes stared commandingly into Vona’s deep blue ones. She tossed back heavy, dark hair that was shot through with streaks of premature gray. ‘After all, they are there for your unlimited enjoyment, are they not?’
Failee could see the anger begin to rise in Vona’s face, but before the redhead could answer she was interrupted by a different voice. A male voice.
‘Good evening, Mistress,’ Geldon gurgled as he trudged out from behind Succiu’s throne.
Succiu slapped the dwarf across the face with the back of her hand. He went down hard upon the marble floor, his cheek bleeding from the cut put there by the ornate gemstone ring that Succiu always wore on the third finger of her left hand. Failee saw Geldon’s eyes blaze red for a moment before slowly returning to their usual look of controlled servitude.
‘How dare you speak to the First Mistress without being spoken to first!’ Succiu hissed, her eyes narrowed into slits. ‘Perhaps I should simply take you back to that awful place where I found you.’ She threw one side of her long black hair over her shoulder as if in contempt of his very presence. Geldon slowly rose back up to his feet.
‘Even though you insist upon being around that gruesome creature, at least you are keeping it on a leash,’ Zabarra said, shaking her head, her eyes to the ceiling. The tip of her right index finger remained lost inside the end of one of her ringlets as she spoke. ‘We are fully aware that he does all of the scouting for us, but must you always bring him here, as well?’
‘Take care, Sister,’ Vona cautioned. ‘One day he will turn on you.’
Succiu laughed impulsively. ‘Really, Vona?’ she retorted. ‘And just how would he accomplish that? After all, he’s only a man. And a little, mortal, emasculated one at that.’
‘Enough of this,’ Failee snapped, once more in command of the meeting. ‘Our guest should by now be waiting outside the door. Zabarra, please bring in Commander Kluge.’
Zabarra went to the double doors and opened them, letting a tall man into the room. He walked slowly to the front of the table and stood quietly. His name was Kluge, and he was the commander of the Minions of Day and Night, the personal army of the Coven.
Unkempt but clean black hair streaked with gray fell past his shoulders. The dark, neatly trimmed mustache and goatee surrounded a firm mouth, and intelligent eyes, piercingly dark to the point of almost being black, seemed never to miss a thing. He was a tall, muscular man, almost handsome, except for the whitish scar that ran from the outside corner of his left eye, down his cheek, and into the small forest of his goatee. The energy and strength apparent in him were always kept under tight control, yet it always seemed as if simply looking at him could somehow cause one harm.
Upon his promotion to commander, Failee had given him permission to wear black. The sleeveless, black leather tunic revealed strong, scarred chest and arm muscles. Silver-trimmed forearm gauntlets, also black, ended at the first knuckle of each hand. Just above the first knuckle of each finger were spiked, silver finger rings, designed for stabbing and slashing at close quarters. Black leather boots trimmed in silver and a shiny winged helmet with horizontal eye slits held under the left arm completed the picture.
The curved, sheathed sword at his side was the mainstay of the Minion warrior. The sword, called a dreggan, looked like an ordinary sword, but at the touch of a lever built into the hilt, the blade would extend with great force up to another foot. During running swordplay, in which proper distancing was crucial, a Minion could surprise his opponent with the sudden appearance of an extra foot of swinging, flashing steel that had not been there before; or he could place the dreggan against the opponent’s body and suddenly impale him with no apparent effort. A blood groove always ran down the blade’s shiny, silver edge. It was fabled to be so sharp that when a silk scarf had once been thrown into the air in jest, it had been neatly halved by a well-turned dreggan before it hit the ground.
But the last of Kluge’s weapons was the one that Failee found the most intriguing.
The returning wheel.
Hanging from Kluge’s right hip was a silver hub, from which protruded flat, curved blades, equally distanced apart. When properly thrown, the returning wheel could slice through a victim cleanly and then return in a large circle to its owner. To be in the midst of a battle amid a flurry of returning wheels brought obvious danger not only to the enemy, but also to the Minions themselves. The proper use of a returning wheel took years to perfect, and Kluge was an expert. Failee glanced at the glove that Kluge wore over his right hand. The palm of the black leather glove was padded with lead, which allowed the returning wheel to be safely plucked back out of the air upon its return. The pad of Kluge’s glove had long since been permanently stained with blood.
The other mistresses were also watching Kluge as he stood quietly at attention, waiting to be addressed. Succiu’s eyes in particular roamed his face and body. She licked her lips, slowly.
Yet the most amazing of Kluge’s attributes were barely visible, rising only slightly above each of his shoulders from the rear. Failee herself had been responsible for this anomaly. As a master of the Vagaries, she had worked for over a decade to produce just the right combination of blood mix from other creatures with incantations of her own to create this particular attribute, making sure it was both inheritable and completely functional. Since then, each member of the Minions of Day and Night had been born with the same amazing feature.
Wings.
Not the feathered wings of birds. Not light, fluffy, and hollow of bone. Instead, these dark, leathery wings were strong enough to break an enemy’s back. Open, each wing stretched half again as far as an outstretched arm. After a few quick paces, a Minion warrior could leap into the air and fly, covering great distances. Given enough portable food and water, Minion warriors could remain aloft uninterrupted for up to two days and two nights.
Early on it had become obvious to the Coven that trying to conscript and train an army of the male weaklings of this strange land would be impossible. And so they had decided to use a different method to ensure themselves of warriors who would someday be worthy of their plans.
They would breed them.
It had begun with the abduction of several handpicked men and women of the populace. They had been forced to mate continuously under the supervision of Failee and an occasionally voyeuristic Succiu, to begin the growth of what would become a population of well-trained male warriors. Failee eliminated the problem of inbreeding through incantations of her own design. Any child with a deformity or ailment was immediately put to the sword. Females were used for breeding only, relegated to the brothels inside the various Minion fortifications that had begun to dot the countryside. Women who were infertile or past their childbearing years were assigned other duties, such as cooking, learning to make weapons, or serving as midwives in the birthing houses.
To better control the female population within the fortifications, the women’s wings were clipped and their feet bound. To produce the largest number of warriors in the shortest amount of time the Coven had cast time enchantments of acceleration and deceleration upon them, forcing the boys and girls to reach puberty faster than normal, and the adults to age more slowly than normal, thus widening the window of opportunity for breeding. The results had surpassed even Failee’s expectations.
The man who now stood before the Coven was their selection to command it all. The only authority he recognized was the Coven itself.
‘Commander Kluge, you may approach,’ Failee said gently.
Kluge immediately bent to one knee, his head bowed. ‘I live to serve,’ came the short, deep-voiced reply. He stood and stepped nearer the table, where he once more waited to be spoken to.
‘Please inform us of the status of your command, Commander,’ Failee said. ‘Leave out nothing. The time of your proving will shortly be upon us.’
Kluge placed the highly polished helmet on the floor and folded his hands in front of himself, gathering his thoughts.
‘Yes, Mistress. The current number of men under arms stands at one hundred fifty thousand, seven hundred and ten. Additionally, as you know, this now increases daily at a rate of approximately two hundred, due to the great effectiveness of the time enchantments. Births are upward of about double that amount, less of course the execution of the newborn undesirables and death from natural causes.’ Always the political animal, he paused, carefully glancing at each of the mistresses in turn, making sure he was addressing them as a group. As usual, however, his eyes seemed to linger a bit longer upon Succiu than the others.
‘Foot soldiers, approximately sixty thousand. Elite assassins, twenty thousand. Captains of ocean-going warships, one thousand. Warship warriors, fifty thousand. Officers, eight thousand. Archers, two thousand. The remaining number of troops are divided into the usual support staff – cooks, blacksmiths, armorers, healers, and so on.
‘As for the status of the Minion population including females for breeding, the current situation is good. There is very little disease and virtually no crime. The brothels have many new additions, and the visitation rate by the troops is as high as I have ever seen it. As a result, the birthrate is high. The construction of additional birthing houses with the usual complements of midwives and nursery guardians may be in order if this continues, but I must also add that if there are any problems at all, these are good ones to have.
‘Training of the warriors continues relentlessly. Those injured in training and no longer capable of battle are housed in separate quarters, and used for siring purposes only. This serves two purposes. First, it is a reward for their service. And second, it prevents the number of males available for breeding from continuing to dwindle. We have lost far more warriors than usual in recent months – warriors who would have normally sired children. These losses are due to the vastly increased training to the death that I have seen fit to order in preparation for our mission. But I feel that the results have been worth the losses. The current male/female ratio is approximately even, making for a total Minion population of just over three hundred thousand. Officers of importance have, at your request, been secretly briefed that they are about to engage in a campaign, although they are unaware, as am I, of the specific nature of the confrontation.’ He turned and addressed Failee specifically. ‘All is ready.’
Failee rose from her throne and glided to the largest of the stained-glass windows. As she pointed a finger, the double windows gently opened outward. She took a breath of the sweet Parthalonian early-evening air, gazing west into the sunset toward her homeland of Eutracia, out toward the Sea of Whispers that separated the two lands. The northern coastline of Parthalon was just visible from here, one reason the Coven had selected this area for the Recluse: so that they could never forget the centuries-ago war, the loss of so many of their Sisters at the hands of the wizards, and the desperate search to find a way across the supposedly uncrossable sea. They had washed ashore like peasants in a land no Eutracian knew existed, much less had ever set eyes on. The burning desire to return and reclaim their power set fire to her soul each time she viewed this ocean. Only four mistresses remained from the hundreds she had loved, lost, and left behind. Soon, my dead Sisters, she thought. So many shall pay. Pay for the sins of their ancestors.
It was the Season of New Life in Parthalon, and the beautiful countryside was blooming. The three red moons rose in the sky here each evening, just as they had in Eutracia. The bugaylea trees were just coming to full color, their leaves turning gracefully in the wind. A gorgeous squadron of black-and-yellow honeybees, growing in this land to the size of a man’s hand, flew by noisily just below the open window. But her sorceress’s heart yearned for Eutracia.
Her mind turned briefly to the man standing behind her. How could such a blunt instrument as Kluge ever understand the full motives behind this undertaking? She gently smiled to herself, knowing that it didn’t matter, that his loyalty and the performance of the warriors and the warships were all the mistresses required of him. Indeed, she thought, the subtleties of the ultimate prize would be totally lost on Kluge. He lived only for war. Had she herself not bred him to be so?
She had seen Succiu’s eyes roam over Kluge’s body, and she knew why. Smiling, the memories of so long ago began to fill the corners of her mind.
As she continued to stare out at the Parthalonian countryside, one memory in particular came back to her, one that she had taken the luxury of revisiting often during these last, important days. Her mind began to drift happily back to over 300 years ago, during the war in Eutracia when she had first taken the knowledge of the Vagaries from the wizards.
It had been in Florian’s Glade, a city recently taken by the Coven. The captured wizard had been brought to her as a delightful surprise, and she had ordered him to be bound to a chair in the center of the town square in preparation of her interrogation of him.
But this one was strong, she knew, and she therefore decided first to try another way to convince him to give up his secrets rather than simply trying to force the knowledge from him. She smiled to herself, luxuriating in the irony of the moment and the solution that had so conveniently offered itself up.
For the Coven already had his daughter.
As Vona dragged the young girl forward to face her father in his simple but unforgiving prison in the sun, Failee gave him one brief, awful chance to save his only child. She stared down into his amazingly potent eyes and issued her stark, excruciating demand.
‘Give all of your knowledge to me,’ she said quite simply, ‘or you shall witness your only child, your beautiful daughter of endowed blood, perish before your eyes.’
At first the wizard was dumbstruck to see before him the daughter he had thought dead for so long, and the tears that began to form in the corners of his eyes ran down his cheeks and into the thirsty dirt of the courtyard. But strangely, he did not speak. He lowered his head in defeat.
But then his countenance hardened, as he became certain of the path he must take regardless of his personal feelings. He looked the First Mistress in the eyes, trying at the same time to avoid the eyes of his only child.
‘No,’ he said simply. He spat as hard as he could into Failee’s face, his heart tearing in two, knowing that he had just condemned his daughter to death.
Upon a short nod from Failee, Vona immediately grabbed the now-screaming girl by the hair and dragged her into a nearby house. The begging and shrieking were horrifying, and seemed to go on and on forever as if the sorceress was taking her time with her grisly task, enjoying her work. The wizard, powerless against the combined talents of the Coven, struggled pitifully in his chair, trying to escape while the unthinkable happened. And then all went quiet as Vona walked back out into the center of the square with a bloody dagger in one hand and a lock of his daughter’s blond hair in the other.
She threw it into his face, laughing.
At that point the torture had started. And the Vigors and Vagaries that were so painfully ripped from the wizard’s mind became an essential part of the powers of the Coven. As Failee’s torture of the wizard progressed, her powers and understanding of the craft grew, and she willingly passed on the basic tenets of the darker side of the craft to her Sisters, the three females of endowed blood whom she had chosen to be her closest allies and to help her rule Eutracia after they had taken the kingdom.
She could still remember the moment when she finally broke through his mind and found what it was she had been searching for.
You have done it, her heart cried out. You have broken the most powerful of them all! And then she had smiled at him yet again, and had spoken the words intended to pierce his heart like daggers.
‘You are now completely mine,’ she said softly, almost reverently, to the wizard as he sat there in his chair of torture, unable to move.
