Turning, he looked back at the wagon. The canvas flap was lowered; no light shone from inside. Finally deciding, he stood and climbed the wagon’s steps. Pushing aide the flap, he went inside.
Lying naked atop the wagon bedding, Yasmin’s body glistened in the moonlight. Her long, dark hair was splayed out over her pillow, and her perfume returned to arouse his senses. Lying down beside her, Tristan started to speak. But before he could, she placed her fingertips across his lips.
“There is only one thing to consider,” she whispered. Lowering her hand, she looked into his eyes. “Do you want this, Jin’Sai?”
“Yes,” he whispered back.
Leaning down, he placed his mouth onto hers.
CHAPTER XL
BY THE TIME WIGG, FAEGAN, AND JESSAMAY FINALLYstruggled their way back to theTammerland ’s top deck, the scene before them was so terrifying that they all stopped short the second they cleared the hatchway.
The fog had rolled in over the night sea from seemingly nowhere and everywhere, engulfing the entire fleet. Thick and gray, it clung to everyone’s clothes and skin. With the fog’s arrival the temperature had plummeted, making everyone’s breath appear as ghostly vapors. The wind had calmed, resulting in a glass-smooth sea. Their dreggans drawn, thousands of Minion warriors crowded the fleet’s top decks.
Some of the fog had coalesced into massive columns, rising from the water. As the Conclave members knew would happen, the columns had morphed into giant hands, each pair grasping a ship by opposite ends. All the fleet’s ships were thus caught. As the Necrophagians’ wailing assaulted their ears, Wigg, Faegan, and Jessamay hurried to find the others.
The princess and the captain were standing in the bow with Adrian, Traax, and Scars. Although their insane howling was growing ever louder, the Necrophagians had yet to appear. Tyranny spun around to give Wigg a serious look.
“What about the aft hallways?” she shouted. “Were you able to seal them from the sea?”
Leaning closer, Wigg put his mouth near Tyranny’s ear. “Yes!” he shouted back. “But the meeting room is completely flooded! The strain of keeping the spell in place is exhausting the three of us!”
Regardless of the Necrophagian threat, Tyranny was sea captain enough to know that the condition of her crippled vessel came first. She immediately ran to the starboard gunwale, then looked over the side. Her worst fears were quickly realized. Because of the flooding, the flagship was riding dangerously low in the stern, and threatening to go down. Tyranny knew that the trapped seawater was immensely heavy, forcing her to wonder whether the mystics would be able to return theTammerland into the air.
“We’re foundering!” she shouted as best she could above the terrible wailing. “The flooded compartments are nearly sinking us! Even if we unfurl the sails, there is no wind to fill them! Our only hope is to fly away!” Grabbing Wigg by his shoulders, she glared desperately into his face. “Please tell me that you and the others can release us from the Necrophagians’ grip and get us aloft!”
Wigg shook his head in frustration. He was about to answer when Shailiha called out. She was standing at the opposite gunwale with an astonished look on her face. The others hurried to her and stared over the side.
The sea around the fleet had begun to bubble and roil, like something was trying to come to the top. Then faces started to form on the ocean surface. The Necrophagians-the ages-old Eaters of the Dead-were coming into view.
Everyone stared in awe at the rapidly forming beings. There seemed to be hundreds of them. Their flesh was a mixture of sea green and dark red and streaked with ancient wrinkles and boils. Where eyes and mouths should have been there were only dark, empty holes. Then the wailing unexpectedly stopped. As the faces drifted ominously among the waves, an eerie silence reclaimed the night.
Faegan looked at Wigg and Jessamay. “Follow me!” he ordered.
Praying that his assumptions about the Necrophagians were correct, he levitated his chair and soared over the gunwale to hover directly above the hundreds of menacing faces. Wigg and Jessamay quickly followed him. As the three mystics hovered in the air, they looked down on the terrible threat.
“You are all about to die!”the Necrophagians suddenly shouted as one.
Their words were so explosive that everyone thought their eardrums might burst. Such torrential wind accompanied the Necrophagians’ unexpected statement that the three hovering mystics struggled mightily to keep from being blown far out to sea, their robes and hair flying as the awful wind struck them.
As the angry Necrophagians waited for a response, the terrible wind subsided. Composing himself, Wigg looked down into the awful faces lying just meters below his boots.
“Why must we die?” he asked respectfully. “We have done nothing to harm you. We only ask permission to cross, and we will pay if we must. That is the standard arrangement, is it not?”
“You and theJin’Saiare responsible for the death of the Enseterat!”the voices answered.“You also wish to attack the Citadel. That must not be allowed to happen. We are ordered to destroy you.”
“Ordered by whom?” Faegan asked.
“Fools!”the voices screamed.“Powers far beyond your ken command us!”
Faegan suddenly realized that his suppositions about these strange beings might be true after all. That would explain so much! But it would also make crossing nearly impossible.
“It was Wulfgar who freed you from your previous territories as he traveled west on his way to Eutracia, was it not?” Faegan asked. “Then he ordered you to follow him to the Eutracian coast, and to help him in his invasion. But the invasion failed and Wulfgar was killed, leaving you free to roam the sea at last.”
Silence reigned again. Faegan cast a knowing glance at Wigg and Jessamay. The First Wizard raised an eyebrow. It seemed that Faegan had struck on something important-something the Necrophagians were uncomfortable dealing with.
“Tell me,” Faegan pressed. “With Wulfgar dead, has Serena become your new mistress?”
“Our true masters are the same as they have always been, their magnificence long since ensconced on the other side of the Tolenka Mountains,”the voices answered.“Travelers may form bargains with us, just as Failee and Wulfgar did. But they can never truly rule us. That remains the province of only one group of indomitable mystics, the likes of which your minds cannot grasp. We tell you these things only because you are about to die.”
Like the Necrophagians were suddenly humbled by this new topic, their voices had quieted to their usual whisper. The terrible wind that had once accompanied their screeching also stilled, as did the sea. But the mysterious hands of fog still held each vessel tight in their iron grips.
Fascinated, Faegan lowered his chair closer to the waves. “Who are these great mystics?” he asked. “Are they the Heretics of the Guild? Do you commune with them?”
At first the Necrophagians did not answer. When they finally did, their voices were even softer, like they were speaking of the divine.
“We commune with only the most powerful of the Heretics,”the voices answered,“those in whose blood the highest gifts of the Vagaries flow.”
Intrigued by the Necrophagians’ answer, Faegan thought for a moment. “Who are these mystics?” he asked again. Like the Necrophagians, his voice had also become a whisper.
“They are the embodiment of the Vagaries,”the voices answered back.“They are the ones to whom all other Vagaries practitioners bow. They are the Pon Q’tar.”
“You were once members of the Ones Who Came Before, were you not?” Faegan pressed. “Captured in the War of Attrition, you were morphed by the Heretics into the Eaters of the Dead. Then you were ordered to remain in this sea forever, protecting the Citadel by devouring any who dared come near. Some of you even commanded these Black Ships in the service of the Vigors. Isn’t that true? Will you not spare an answer, and grant the dying wish of an old, foolish wizard?”
Tense moments passed.“We do not…remember,” the chorus of whispers answered.
“What is thePon Q’tar?” Wigg asked.
“Enough of this!”the voices shouted back, their voices thunderous again.“You are of the Vigors! You mean to
