Savage Messiah

Faegan shook his head. "I wish that there were," he answered. "We could quash some of the fires, but surely not enough to do much good. And once the pollution reaches the most inhabited sections of the city, it will cause ten new fires for every one that we could extinguish. It would be like shoveling sand against the tide."

"What shall we do, then?" Adrian asked.

"What we have been doing, with a few notable exceptions," Faegan answered. He looked at Duvessa. "After Tristan and Traax, who is the ranking Minion officer?"

"A warrior named Ancaeus," she answered. "He is very capable. But Traax ordered that Ancaeus go with him to attack Wulfgar. Of the other warriors you are acquainted with, Ox is of course with Wigg and Tristan, and K'jarr is aboard Tyra

Faegan thought for a moment. "The Minion captain named Dax, the one who first brought us the news about the Sippora being polluted," he said. "He impressed me. Do you know whether he is still attached to the warrior group defending the palace?"

"Yes," Duvessa answered, "I believe he is. Do you wish me to send for him?"

"All in good time," Faegan answered. "You and Dax are about to receive the promotions of a lifetime. Until either Traax or Tristan returns, you are both to be promoted to the temporary rank of field commander. You are to be in charge of the palace defenses-including the siege preparations. I know that you are both relatively inexperienced, but you can glean advice from others as need be. I want to be familiar with those giving the orders."

Duvessa's mouth fell open. She had never expected to have so much responsibility thrust upon her. She knew that Dax would be equally overwhelmed.

"As…as you wish," she whispered.

Faegan's face darkened a bit. "I'm afraid that your jobs will not be easy," he added. "As much as it pains me to say it, you must both harden your hearts. If Traax fails and Wulfgar comes, many of the citizens outside the palace are sure to die. If and when that day arrives, we will protect them as best we can, but you mustn't allow more of them access to the palace grounds, no matter how much they plead. Their added numbers will only harm our efforts to defend this place. I don't like it any better than the rest of you. But desperate days call for desperate measures. They always have."

He turned to look at the other women. "Adrian, I want you to select one acolyte to sail aboard each of Tyra

"Tyra

"I understand," the privateer said. "We may be few in number, but with the Minions and the acolytes aboard, we will give the demonslavers a reception they will never forget."

"What about the rest of us?" Shailiha asked.

"You are to stay here and help Jessamay and me. And you can pray that Wigg and Tristan arrive home in time. Without the Jin'Sai and the First Wizard, everything else we do will be for naught."

CHAPTER LXXVII

With Celeste still unconscious in his arms, Tristan followed the Scroll Master down the brilliant azure hallway. Wigg walked beside him. The prince's shoulder hurt desperately, but he refused to give Celeste to her father. If he should lose the love of his life this day, he wanted to remember that it had been he who had carried her. The only sounds were their footfalls as they followed the hovering boy.

Soon, though, they began to hear strange sounds as they walked. The sounds, which seemed to be a bizarre mix of moaning and sobbing, grew louder and more distinct, and at first Tristan thought he was imagining things. He looked over at Wigg. The First Wizard nodded; he heard it also.

Another intersection loomed up ahead. It was circular, with still more hallways branching off from it. Dense, gray fog filled the space where a floor should have been and spilled out over the narrow walkway around the edge of the room. A white marble railing ran around the edge of the walkway.

As he entered the intersection, Tristan's nerves coiled up. Now he could recognize the sounds for what they were: the combined wails of a host of human beings. Not since the day of his ill-fated coronation and the attack of the Minions upon Eutracia had Tristan heard such a chorus of human suffering. But he could see nothing save for the marble walkway, gray fog, and circular railing that lay several steps beyond.

The young Scroll Master stopped and turned to face them. His face was serene, his ma

"You may put the woman down," he said. "She will survive for the time being. There is something I must show you. If you follow my instructions, you will be safe. Disobey me, however, and harm will befall you beyond even my control."

Unsure of what to do, Tristan looked over at Wigg. The First Wizard nodded. Tristan gently lowered Celeste to the floor.

"Come with me," the boy said. "Under no circumstances are either of you to violate the boundaries of the rail."

Doing as they were told, they followed the boy to the rail. As they did, the rising gray fog slowly wound around their feet. Tristan looked down.

The breath rushed from his lungs, and for several long moments the prince was sure that he would become ill. Then his nerves began to quiet. As he had suspected, there was no floor beneath the fog. The circle was far larger than it had first appeared. Tristan now guessed it to be at least one hundred meters across. But how can this be? he wondered. Somehow, the normal rules of space and distance do not apply here.

About five meters down, billowing waves of black fog washed to and fro. They looked bottomless. The wails and cries were much louder now.

From amid the waves of fog, naked human beings rose and fell. Blood ran from their eyes. As if trying to save themselves from drowning, they fought their way to the surface, only to be sucked back down into the churning, swirling chaos.

As they cried out, sometimes they would claw, strike, and bite one another in their never-ending attempts to rise free. Some of them would scrabble at the smooth glassy walls, only to fall prey to the grasping fog once again and disappear. Their bleeding gazes stabbed their way into the prince's heart.

Tristan turned to the Scroll Master. "Is this the Afterlife?" he asked, horrified.

The young boy shook his head. "This is the Abyss of Lost Souls," he said. "It is for neither the living nor the dead. It is, rather, the place in between. Only certain souls suffer the misfortune of imprisonment here. Each of them is of endowed blood, and once one is cast into the pit, his life and his suffering become eternal. Those you see here died over the course of aeons in your world, but they did not successfully cross over into the Afterlife."

"I don't understand," Wigg said.

"The answer is as simple as it is complex, as crude as it is elegant," the boy said. "You see, each of these lost souls-were they one time of either the Vigors or of the Vagaries-once possessed Forestallments. But when they died-their blood signatures dying shortly thereafter-in your world no thunder rumbled across the sky, and no wind rose. They simply went into the void, to end up here."

"Why?" Wigg asked.

"Because their Forestallments were not collected successfully," the boy answered. "That is why they bleed from their eyes. You have by now learned that blood runs closest to the surface of the body in the white of one's eyes, have you not? And that if properly trained, one of the craft is able to detect the lean of a blood signature simply by looking into a subject's eyes?"