evolved in strikingly different ways. However, most Rustannicans who hold positions of power are fluent in the Shashidan dialect.”
“I suspected as much,” Wigg replied. “The wrecked ship we found held Rustannican skeletons and weapons. I was able to partly decipher some writing on one of the swords. It seems that they once used Blood Stalkers in their campaigns. Do they use them to this day?”
“Yes,” Renjiro answered, “and with greater effectiveness than did the Coven of Sorceresses.”
Tristan was immensely eager to learn all he could about Shashida and Rustannica, but he knew that the shocking news from home must take precedent. Looking around the table, he fixed his gaze on Mashiro.
“We know who Khristos is,” he said. “But what we cannot understand is why he finally surfaced again after all this time. What does he hope to gain?”
“At first his mission was solely to fulfill Failee’s mad need for revenge,” Renjiro answered. “She condemned him and her embryonic vipers to a river in Hartwick Wood to wait in silence until she called them forth. One droplet of left-leaning endowed blood entering the river was all that her spell needed to release her former lover and his fully evolved servants. Like Failee’s vicious Parthalonian Swamp Shrews, her vipers were to be a means of retribution against the Vigors wizards should she lose the war. But because the First Mistress is dead and Khristos now serves thePon Q’tar, he hopes not only to destroy your Conclave and Minions, but to one day rule your side of the world. Unless he is stopped soon, that might well happen.”
“What do you mean when you say that Failee condemned Khristos and the viper embryos to a river?” Tyranny asked. “Surely some body of water cannot be where they waited for three centuries, only to emerge now and wreak their havoc.”
“Ah, but it was,” Kaemon answered. “With the permission of my fellowInkai, allow me to tell you the tale. You will find it a fascinating one. Failee was nothing if not brilliant.”
For the next hour Kaemon explained Failee’s search for vengeance and conquest, including the recent battle in Tammerland and Khristos’ attempt to steal one Black Ship and to destroy the other. When Kaemon finished, it was plain to see that Wigg, Tristan, and Tyranny were deeply troubled by the story. But it also explained many of the mysteries surrounding Khristos-not the least of which was his ability to hide from the Night Witches, only to suddenly emerge elsewhere to cause further mayhem.
Determined to stop Khristos at any price, Tristan leaned over the table and looked at Mashiro. “Can theInkai help my mystics in Eutracia defeat the Viper Lord?” he asked. “With so many Minions dead, Shailiha injured, and the Black Ships useless, their ability to stop him has been drastically curtailed. And although Faegan is an accomplished herbmaster, Abbey’s unique craft abilities will be sorely missed. If there is a way to help, we must do so.”
“Although victory over Khristos cannot be certain, yes, we can help,” Hoshi said.
“How did Khristos know that we were going to cross the Azure Sea?” asked Wigg. “He and his forces ambushed us there and we barely escaped with our lives.”
“We can only surmise that thePon Q’tar ordered him to attack you in that place,” Mashiro answered. “Most likely it was Gracchus who gave the order.”
“Gracchus?” Tristan asked.
Mashiro nodded. “As the leadPon Q’tar cleric, he is my Vagaries counterpart in Rustannica.”
“What about the Azure Sea itself?” Tristan asked. “Wigg and I were told by the half-Blood Stalker Ragnar that the sea was unexpectedly released when my son Nicholas further excavated the Caves. He was trying to capture the energy from the Paragon as part of his plan to raise the Gates of Dawn, and he nearly succeeded. Was Ragnar telling the truth?”
“No,” anotherInkai answered.
Tristan looked to the right to recognize the woman who had been introduced as Tamika of the House of Green Forests. A row of green pine trees was embroidered on her white silk robe. Her long white hair had been wound atop her head with care, and black lacquered wooden sticks held it in place.
“So Ragnar lied after all,” Tristan mused. “If that’s the case, was the Azure Sea always there?”
“No,” Mashiro answered. “Just as the Rustannicans have their Borderlands, we have our Azure Sea.”
“I don’t understand,” Tyranny said. “Do you mean to say that youcreated it?”
“Yes,” theInkai leader said. “The explanation is a long one, and it is probably best told later. For now, suffice it to say that when we inhabited all the lands that are now known as Eutracia, Parthalon, Rustannica, and Shashida, just after the sudden rising of what you call the Tolenka Mountains, we became landlocked here in the west. Then Rustannica split away to become a martial rogue nation. ThePon Q’tar conjured the Borderlands as a defense between our two warring states. Once the mountains rose, the Caves became the only way for someone east of the mountains to reach Shashida. And just as thePon Q’tar felt the need to isolate Rustannica from Shashidan incursion, we needed a way to prevent those of left-leaning blood from using the Caves to invade Shashida from the east. You saw the rock walls rise from the Azure Sea because the water detected the sudden presence of so much high-quality right-leaning endowed blood. Part of the spell that we devised to conjure the sea also included the channel. If the azure water detects sufficient power of right-leaning blood, the walls rise and guide its owners to the rocky dead end where our portal can sense their presence and come to their aid. If the water detects left- leaning blood, rather than forming a channel to the dead end the walls also rise, but in that case they form a long, winding maze from which there is no escape. As the enemy is forced to endlessly sail the maze they eventually die from dehydration and starvation. Although the concept seems simple, its application was not, I assure you. The water did not detect Khristos’ left-leaning blood because unlike your group, he alone possessed it.”
“Amazing,” Wigg breathed. “But tell me-did Nicholas ever try to cross the Azure Sea?”
“We do not know,” Midori answered, “but it is unlikely. The quality of his blood would probably have called forth the maze, and even he would have died while trying to navigate it. He likely knew better than to try because he was in communication with the Rustannicans. In truth, Nicholas knew much that he never told you.”
“But his hatchlings carried Wigg and me across the Azure Sea and delivered us to another area in the Caves,” Tristan protested. “That is where Ragnar blinded Wigg and poisoned my blood. Why didn’t the rocky walls rise while we were waiting by the shore? And how did Nicholas get across the sea without the maze being summoned?”
“We might never know, but the walls probably did not rise because they did not detect sufficient quantities of endowed blood,” Mashiro answered. “Much of yours and Wigg’s blood had been drained to weaken you and make you more manageable. Had that not been the case, the walls would have surely risen. As for Nicholas, we might never know the whole truth. But the Caves are vast. He and Ragnar mightn’t have needed to directly cross the sea to reach where they awaited you and Wigg. Instead, they might have simply found a way to go around it.”
“And the wrecked Rustannican warship that we saw beached on the rocky wall?” Tyranny asked. “How did that get through the maze?”
“That was the first and last Rustannican vessel ever to do so,” Kaemon answered. “It was part of a Vagaries strike force from the east that managed to get that far because at the time our spell was incomplete. Far more Rustannican warships rest at the bottom of the channel maze, I assure you. Like you, they used subtle matter to shrink their war vessels, allowing them to be transported through the caves for use on the Azure Sea. It is interesting how minds of the endowed often think alike, regardless of whether their owners’ blood favors the Vigors or the Vagaries! Before our development of the formulas allowing for the maze, many great naval battles took place on that Azure Sea.”
His mind awhirl, theJin’Sai sat back in his chair. He knew that there remained a staggering amount to learn about this side of the world and the people in it, and the mere thought of it all seemed overwhelming.
Deciding that the time had come to put other questions aside, he resolved to ask about the great personal mystery that had eluded him for so long. The first time he had used the vanished azure pass to travel through the Tolenkas and reach this side of the world, he had learned that it was his and his sister’s destiny to somehow stop the War of Attrition so that the practitioners of the Vigors and the Vagaries might live together in peace, in one unified nation under the guidance of one ruler. That ruler, he had been told, was to be him.
But in his heart he knew that there must be far more to this ultimate riddle. How could he-an untrained person from a faraway land-ever hope to accomplish what these supremely august mystics could not? Although he had defeated many enemies in the name of the Vigors, and he was the onlyJin’Sai to have reached this side of the world, the nature of what these people required from him seemed impossible in the extreme. Summoning up his courage, he looked Mashiro in the eye.
