The Gates of Dawn

Prologue The Servants

He reached up slowly to feel the thick, warm fluid at the side of his head, the fluid he both loved and hated so intensely. As he ran his fingers luxuriously through the yellow liquid, his thoughts went for the thousandth time to what he had become.

A blood stalker.

I bleed again today, he thought. He smiled to himself. Though it is not truly blood.

The half-human wizard, half-mutated blood stalker named Ragnar walked to the candlelit mirror on the opposite wall. He gazed carefully at the fluid running down the side of his face from the small, never-healing wound in his right temple. The wizard Wigg, onetime lead wizard of the Directorate, had given him that wound over three hundred years before, saying that the incision would help cure him—perhaps even help him gain his rightful place among the Directorate of Wizards. But it had not. And Wigg had gone on to other things, leaving Ragnar in his tortured, addicted, half-transformed state.

Looking into the mirror he saw the shiny, bald head, dangling earlobes, and long, sharp incisors of a blood stalker. The bloodshot, blue-gray eyes stared back at him from the mirror with a hunger that only vengeance could satisfy.

But he was so much more than a mindless stalker, he mused. His other half was still human wizard. And Wigg had no idea that he still lived.

Wigg has finally returned to Eutracia, he exulted. And with him have come both of the Chosen Ones. He smiled briefly. Good. The child will be pleased.

He liked the changes the child had made in the stone fortress. The room reflected in the mirror, his private drawing room, was sumptuous. The walls were of the deepest red marble. Oil sconces and candles gave off a soft, enduring glow. Colorful, luxurious furniture, intricately patterned rugs, and various works of art adorned the room. But the harsh, acidic scent of the fluid seeping from his wound returned his mind to his current task.

It must never be wasted, he thought. He placed the first two fingers of his right hand, the hand already wet with the fluid, into his mouth. Almost immediately he felt its searing heat run through him, teasing him. The fluid was both his curse and his blessing.

Turning to the other person in the room, he asked, “Are you ready?” It was much more a command than a request.

“Yes,” came the reply.

Ragnar turned to look upon Scrounge, his trusted assassin, personal servant, and spy. Tall and ravenously lean, Scrounge had a ferretlike face and dark, overly long hair. He had been an orphan his entire life, and the name that had come to him so early in his career of crime upon the streets of Tammerland fit him perfectly. He knew every inch of the ravaged city, and also a great many of the people still residing there—people who could be particularly useful, especially now that crime and violence had overwhelmed Tammerland in the absence of the Royal Guard.

In his hand Scrounge held a small glass beaker, the base of which was connected to a tube. At the end of the tube was a broad needle. In between the needle and the beaker, connected into the tube, was a crude wooden handle. Scrounge smiled, revealing several dark, decaying teeth. “All is ready,” he said, in his brittle, high-pitched voice.

“Then let us begin,” Ragnar replied.

Taking a seat in one of the ornate chairs, the blood stalker watched as Scrounge approached him with the beaker. Gently, Scrounge inserted the needle directly into the wound in the side of Ragnar’s head.

“You may proceed,” Ragnar said, closing his eyes.

The assassin carefully began to pump the wooden handle. The yellow fluid that had been freely oozing from the wound slowly flowed into the tube and began filling the glass container. Ragnar continued to sit there quietly, almost blissful in the knowledge that he would soon have collected a sufficient quantity of the precious liquid to see him through yet another month.

When the glass beaker was full, Scrounge removed the needle from his master’s wound and opened the top of the container. “As usual?” he asked. “Two-thirds for you, one-third for myself?”

“Yes,” Ragnar answered. “And be judicious in its use. Wigg and the Chosen One will soon be here, and the time of our victory upon us.” A smile played at the edges of his lips at the prospect of seeing the lead wizard again, and of laying his eyes upon the Chosen One for the first time.

“Both the wizard and the Chosen One will curse the day they find us,” the blood stalker added softly as Scrounge picked up the beaker.

Making sure not to touch the liquid, Scrounge very carefully poured the thick, yellow fluid from the beaker into two other containers. He handed the larger of them to Ragnar, who immediately dipped the first two fingers of his right hand into it and placed them into his mouth, closing his eyes in ecstasy.

Scrounge placed his own vessel upon a nearby marble table and turned to look at Ragnar. “He asks for you,” he said simply.

The blood stalker stopped what he was doing and placed his beaker on the table next to the other one. “In that case, I need to know how far you have progressed.”

Scrounge retrieved a leather satchel from across the room. Opening it, he shook the contents out onto the floor.

Ragnar smiled. “How many today?”

“Over thirty, Sire,” Scrounge replied, a wicked grin beginning to walk the length of his mouth. “They came even more easily this time.”

“Then the child’s creatures are proving ever more effective,” Ragnar mused.

He looked down at the items on the floor. They were small, square, and quite obviously recently removed from their victims.

They were pieces of human skin.

Each of the small, rectangular patches of freshly incised skin carried an identical tattoo: the perfect image of a bloodred, square-cut jewel. Some of them still dripped blood.

Endowed blood. Ragnar smiled. This was quickly becoming a very good day.

“And the consuls these came from? Where are they now?” he asked.

“In the areas beneath, as usual, Sire,” Scrounge replied. “And the endowed children that were available have been separated from their fathers.”

“Well done,” Ragnar answered. “We must have as many of the Brotherhood as possible stripped of their markings and under our control before the arrival of our very special guests.”

The child would be pleased to learn that so many have been taken in a single day, he thought. “I will now go to him.”

Ragnar turned away from Scrounge and left the room, his slow, heavy steps curiously quiet upon the shiny marble of the floor. Through numerous corridors he went, until at last he stopped before a heavy door of the finest black marble. From beneath the door seeped an intense glow, its radiance flooding the marble floor where he stood. It was far brighter, he noticed, than the dimmer, more ethereal glow that accompanied the actions of those less powerful in the craft. It seemed to possess a genuine physical presence that could be actually touched.

His aura is even brighter than before, the stalker mused. His knowledge and stature grow daily. And the Chosen One is not yet trained in the craft, nor does he know the child lives.

Ragnar continued to stand there for a moment, remembering the day not so long ago when the child, little more than an infant at the time, had literally materialized before him and begun speaking. Ordering Ragnar to do his bidding, the child had partially explained from where he had come, and why. And after hearing the wonder of it all, the blood stalker had gladly obeyed him.

Gathering up his nerve, Ragnar slowly opened the great door, and stepped inside.

In the stillness of the room, a young boy hovered above the marble floor, unmoving, silent. He was surrounded by an incredibly intense azure glow. The last time Ragnar had seen him, he had appeared to be no more than eight Seasons of New Life. Already his power had been immense. Now the boy seemed to be around the age of ten.

All his attention was focused on the table before him—and what sat on that table.

The Tome, the great treatise of the Paragon.

The boy’s face was observant and peaceful as he continued to regard the pages of the Tome. His eyes were of the darkest blue and slanted upward at the corners slightly like those of his mother, giving him an exotic, attractive appearance. He had high cheekbones, the beginnings of a strong jawline, and a firm, sensual mouth. Black, straight, shiny hair that could have been made of strands of silk reached almost to his broad shoulders. His simple, unadorned robe was of the purest white, untouched by the glow that surrounded him and radiated ever outward, constantly waving to and fro in its strength.

Ragnar went down on both knees. “You summoned me, Lord?” he asked, head bowed in supplication.

It was like kneeling before a god.

As the boy narrowed his dark eyes, the gilt-edged pages of the great book turned themselves over. He read them in the blink of an eye—far more quickly than Ragnar would have ever dreamed possible. Successive pages flashed by hauntingly one after the next in the ghostly silence of the room. The child didn’t even require the Paragon to read the Tome; he had told Ragnar that his “parents above” had gifted him with the power of doing so. After what Ragnar could only guess to be several hundred more pages had flown by in mere moments, the child finally lifted his face to the stalker, his eyes going to the wound at the side of Ragnar’s head.

“The fluid has come?” he asked quietly. His voice was young, but neither pliant nor soft.

“Yes, my lord,” Ragnar answered. “There was a sufficient quantity for my needs, and for the requirements of Scrounge, as well.”

“And the single, dead consul that I requested?” the child said. At Ragnar’s nod, he went on. “You will now have him taken to the palace, his tattoo intact. As for the others, I am inducing the spell of accelerated healing upon them as we speak.”

Without emotion, the boy returned his attention to the great book. The pages again began to hurry by at unbelievable speed.

His abilities grow every day, Ragnar thought.

“And the hatchlings?” he asked the child. “They continue to perform their deeds well?”

“Yes,” the boy answered without looking up. “The maturation of the first generation is complete.” He paused for a moment.

“The two Chosen Ones and the lead wizard have returned to Eutracia,” he went on at last. “And the crippled wizard of Shadowood is with them. I can feel the twisted, flaccid return of the Vigors, and the pestilence it has caused within the endowed blood of the two wizards.”

“As can I, my lord,” Ragnar responded. “It was wise of you to order the moving of the Tome to this place.” He paused for a moment, wondering if he had overstepped his bounds. “Your reading goes well?”

The youth raised his face again. A short, menacing smile flashed briefly. “The Tome amuses me, nothing more,” he said. “I find this supposedly magnificent work to be both boring and sophomoric. But it is interesting from a historical standpoint, written as it was by the Ones Who Came Before. In truth, I do not need it to practice the craft. Nor shall I eventually require the Paragon, that bauble they all seem to prize so highly.”

The child looked down to the great, gilt-edged book. The pages resumed flying by at a dizzying speed. “The ones we seek will soon be here,” he said suddenly, “and all must be ready. It is now time to spread the word of the Chosen One’s return, and also the news of the bounty that is to be offered for his life in punishment for his murder of the king. The wizards will never allow him to be caught, but there are other, more compelling reasons for what I now do. Reasons far beyond your ken.” The child lifted his exotic eyes to the stalker.

“They have without question taken refuge in the Redoubt of the Directorate,” he said. “But there is no need for us to go to them, for they shall come to us. And my father of this, the lower, lesser world, shall know of my existence soon enough.”

“Yes, my lord,” Ragnar said reverently.

Without being told, the blood stalker knew it was time for him to leave. He rose and walked softly from the room. And though he closed the door behind him, the child’s radiance again spread across the floor, spilling out into the darkness of the serpentine hallways.