“For one thing, I fear that there has been too much attrition in the Minion forces for the campaign to succeed,” Tristan answered. “Serena is being aided by the Heretics. Two ships have already been lost, and one-third of the warriors are casualties. Our forces need to come home so that they can regroup, and be joined by the highlander cavalry.”
“Will you go through the portal to give this order?” Abbey asked Tristan.
Tristan shook his head. “I would like to, but I mustn’t,” he said.
“Why not?” Aeolus asked.
“You’re forgetting something,” Tristan said. “Crysenium’s existence is a secret, and must be kept that way. If I am captured, the information might be tortured from me. Nor may either of you go for the same reason. For the time being, we must allow no one with the fleet to understand my true motives for ordering them home. To do so could alert those at the Recluse. Instead, I will send a letter back to Shailiha, citing her recent losses as the only reason for my decision. I suspect that given the situation, she might soon come to that decision on her own, anyway. When our forces return we will quickly ready another invasion fleet, including the highlander horsemen. Then we will sail for Parthalon and lay siege to the Recluse.”
“We will attack the Recluse?” Abbey asked. “Not the Citadel?”
“That’s right,” Tristan answered. “We can only guess at whether Serena remains at the Citadel, but weknow that Einar and Reznik have taken sanctuary in the Recluse. Stopping them from completing the formula will be as effective as capturing Serena and Clarice. Both are needed for the Heretics’ plan to work.”
Aeolus thought for a moment. “If thePon Q’tar are in possession of a powerful Forestallment that alters all blood signature lean at once, then why haven’t they used it against their enemies on their side of the world?” he asked.
“They tried to do so, aeons ago,” Tristan answered. “And they nearly succeeded. Luckily, the Ones got wind of it and developed a counterspell. Millions were converted before the Ones could turn the tide.”
“Why can’t the counterspell be used on this side of the Tolenkas to protect us?” Abbey asked.
“I asked the Envoys the same question,” Tristan answered. “Simply put, there isn’t enough time. You must remember that our knowledge and power in the craft is infantile compared to that possessed by the Ones and the Heretics. I was told that our learning to employ the spell could take far longer than the time required for Clarice to grow old enough for her blood to accept the needed Forestallment.”
Tristan stood from the table, walked to Faegan’s desk, and looked through its drawers. He soon produced a parchment, an inkwell, and a quill. After giving the issue some thought, he penned a letter to Shailiha. When he had finished he placed the letter in an envelope, sealed it with hot wax, then removed his signet ring and forced an impression into the fresh wax.
He turned toward the door. “Guard!” he called out.
At once the doors opened. A sturdy Minion warrior entered the room and clicked his heels.
“I need to see Kratos,” Tristan said. The warrior bowed, then left the room. Kratos soon appeared. Tristan beckoned him closer and handed him the letter. He gave the warrior a stern look.
“This might be the most important mission of your life,” he said. “When Faegan’s portal opens tomorrow at midday, you are to enter it and return to the fleet. Give that letter to Princess Shailiha. She will surely pen another letter back to me. Bring it back as fast as you can. Until then, you are to guard this letter with your life.”
Kratos bowed.“Jin’Sai,” he said solemnly. As he turned and left the room, Tristan returned to the meeting table.
Silence reigned again. Abbey put one hand atop Tristan’s. “Will your stated reason be enough for Shailiha to obey your orders?” she asked.
Tristan turned to look into the fire. “It has to be,” he said. He turned back to worriedly look at the herbmistress and newest Conclave member.
“If the Conclave doesn’t come home soon,” he added softly, “all is lost.”
CHAPTER LII
“COLLECT A SAMPLE OF HIS BLOOD,” ONE OF THEM SAID.“It is time to test our latest discovery.”
The harsh words awakened Xanthus. As he came around, he found himself in the same room where he had been interrogated twice before. Azure bands again bound him to a simple chair. A glowing light shone down on him from overhead, its stark beacon the only reprieve from the darkness. Although he was weak, Xanthus had yet to be harmed. Their faces bathed in shadow, twelvePon Q’tar clerics again sat at a table across from him.
Xanthus watched with fear as a cleric pointed at him. With his powers gone, he could do nothing but wait for the agonizing pain. But this time the suffering never came. Instead he felt a slight tingling in one wrist, nothing more.
Xanthus looked down to see that he had been bound to the chair with his right wrist upturned. He watched a painless incision form to release a single drop of his endowed blood. The incision closed. As the azure blood drop hovered to a place between him and the clerics, it smoothly evolved into his blood signature.
The male cleric who had spoken seemed to be in charge. Peering through the gloom, Xanthus watched him move his index finger slightly. At once the blood signature obeyed and floated closer to the clerics’ table.
“Watch as I bring the needed spell,” the lead cleric told the others. “The theory behind the nautilus effect is vastly complex,” the cleric added. “Behold.”
At once a series of Old Eutracian symbols and numbers started materializing in midair. They swirled about the room for several moments before silently arranging themselves into a horizontally aligned formula. Xanthus tried to decipher it, but he soon realized that its complexities went far beyond his knowledge. Then the formula aligned itself vertically, and the symbol at the line’s top revolved several times, twisting the formula into a tight spiral.
Looking closer, he saw that the numbers and symbols had an unusual thickness about them. This formula’s configuration was different from every other he had seen. Not only did it carry a vertical orientation, but it seemed to also have a physical, three-dimensional substance about it.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the lead cleric asked his fellows. “What you see is the product of more than a decade of work by our best Heretic researchers. It couldn’t have come at a better time.”
The lead cleric pointed at Xanthus’ blood signature. It obediently came to rest on the formula’s top, then started winding down its length, leaving a blood trail as it went. When it reached the end it stopped.
At once the formula lost its spiral shape, then started curling from the bottom upward, securing Xanthus’ blood signature tightly at its center. As it finished winding up, its numbers and symbols vanished.
In their places, outward-facing chambers appeared. Spiraling tightly in a clockwise direction, they looked like those shown if a nautilus mollusk had been cut in half lengthwise. But unlike a naturally occurring nautilus, this one had grown to over two meters across, and held hundreds of individual compartments. The spiraling compartments grew in size as they radiated outward from the nautilus’s center. Each compartment held brilliantly colored patterns, like those viewed in a kaleidoscope. As it hovered in the air, its outer shell glowed.
“I give you the nautilus effect,” the lead cleric said. “From this day forward, no one of endowed blood will be able to hide his or her memories from us-even if those memories have been altered by the craft.”
“Breathtaking,” one of the female clerics said.
“Indeed,” the lead cleric answered. “Like the sea mollusk, this shell is separated into a series of progressively larger compartments. With the nautilus effect, each successive compartment holds not an ever-growing sea creature, but an ever-growing number of memories, taken directly from the subject’s blood. The physical similarity between the naturally occurring mollusk and the nautilus effect is strictly coincidental. Still it makes for a good comparison, hence the name.
“The subject’s earliest memories are at the nautilus’s center,” the cleric added. “Because there are fewer retrievable memories available from one’s formative years, the chambers near the center are the smallest. Succeeding chambers grow in size as the subject ages and ever more memories are created and retained in the subconscious. Because these memory chambers arise from one’s blood rather than one’s mind, our researchers doubt that they can be tampered with. Should Xanthus’ memories gleaned in this manner prove different from those we found while searching his mind in the traditional way, we will know that trickery is afoot.”
“How are these closeted memories shown?” another of thePon Q’tar women asked. Xanthus could tell that she
