The Scrolls of the Ancients

CHAPTER

Sixty-one

F rom his place in the bow of his warship, Wulfgar watched and listened as the oncoming waves split noisily against the prow. Looking higher out over the breadth of the nighttime sea he felt his long, sandy hair sway behind his back in the wind, in time with the ceaseless rocking of the ship.

The voyage of the last seven days had been uneventful, and the cold winds had remained brisk, allowing his fleet to make good time. The screechlings and sea slitherers had kept pace well, following dutifully behind in the wake of his vast armada. Demonslavers prowled the decks, the ships' running lamps pointing up their lifeless white skin. As the ship swayed beneath him, Wulfgar took a deep breath of the crisp sea air.

Looking at the reflections of the rose-colored moons in the ever-surging waves, his thoughts turned back to Serena and Krassus. He had no doubt that the diseased wizard was dead. Watch for the lightning and the wind, he had told Serena. Then shall you know that he has truly expired. When it happens, order a contingent of slavers to lay his body in a small skiff and set it ablaze as they push it out to sea. Wulfgar and Serena owed everything to Krassus, and he deserved to be well remembered. Then Wulfgar's thoughts drifted to his beautiful new queen.

He loved her deeply, and missed her as he missed nothing else in the world. Since she had been turned to the Vagaries, she had never been away from his side until now. He missed how she looked, how she smelled, and the supple touch of her skin. He wanted to hold her in his strong arms and take her over and over again, making her beg, then gasp, and finally cry out in joy, just as she always did. And already he missed the daughter she carried, even though her pregnancy was still without outer evidence. He would finish Nicholas' work quickly, and return home to the Citadel in triumph.

Nicholas, he thought. The nephew he had never seen. What a magnificent being he must have been! How he would have loved meeting him, conversing with him, planning with him. Part of Wulfgar could even understand how Krassus had been so willing, almost eager, in fact, to die and go to him, even though it had been Nicholas himself who had made it so.

But Nicholas' plans lived on-first in the blood of Krassus, and now in Wulfgar's. He would reign supreme, he swore. The practitioners of the Vigors would soon know the exquisite sting of their defeat, as would the entire world.

Then the wind stopped completely, and he knew. Even though there was no land in sight, Wulfgar's fleet had arrived at the first of their destinations. And the new lord of the Vagaries was prepared.

Wulfgar turned to his first mate. "Furl the sails, tie off the wheel, and signal that the same be done to every other ship in the fleet," he ordered. "There are to be absolutely no exceptions. Have the forty remaining Talis slaves brought up out of the hold." Pausing, he smiled. "We are about to have guests."

With a nod, the first mate went off to perform his duties.

Then the fog rolled in over the night sea from seemingly nowhere and everywhere, quickly engulfing the entire fleet. Thick and gray, it clung to his clothes and his skin. With the arrival of the fog, the temperature plummeted, and soon Wulfgar could see his breath.

The fog coalesced into hundreds of great columns that rose up out of the sea. And then, just as Krassus had told him would happen, the columns morphed into giant hands, each pair of them grasping a ship by the opposite ends. All his ships were thus caught. The demonslavers looked up in awe but remained disciplined, ready to carry out any commands their master might order.

Wulfgar stood in sheer joy at this example of the Vagaries. To his enlightened mind it was not only magnificent, but was also something to take advantage of-and he would be the first being in the history of the world to do so.

Turning to look down the deck, Wulfgar saw that the forty Talis slaves had been brought topside. They stood in four neat lines of ten each, shivering from both the cold and their sense of foreboding.

As Wulfgar expected, the sea around the fleet began to bubble and roil, as if something was trying to come to the top. Then faces began to form on the surface of the ocean. They were the Necrophagians-the endowed, ages-old Eaters of the Dead.

And I am the only living being who both truly knows what they are and can also call them into his service, Wulfgar thought as he greedily looked over the side of the ship.

He stared at the faces. There seemed to be hundreds of them, their flesh a horrible mixture of sea green and dark red, streaked with ancient wrinkles and boils. Where eyes and mouths should have been there were only dark, empty holes. And then came the expected demand.

"Pay us our bounty, or we shall take both your bodies and your ships," the faces whispered in the strangest of voices. There were many speaking at once in complete conformity, yet so softly that they could barely be heard.

The new lord of the Vagaries knew full well that the Necrophagians were referring to the forty cowering slaves on deck. To allow safe passage across the sea, the Eaters of the Dead were demanding to be fed. It was known as the bargain of tenfold times four-the pact made with them by Failee, first mistress of the Coven, as she tried to save her life and the lives of her sisters after having been banished by the Directorate of Wizards more than three centuries before. But this time, Wulfgar knew, things would be different.

Leaning over the side of the vessel, Wulfgar raised his arms. "Eaters of the Dead!" he shouted out over the sea. "I honor you, and come prepared to pay your bounty! Or you may choose a different path this day. I suggest that a new bargain be struck-one that will release you from your ages-old bondage and allow you to follow me!"

A deathly silence followed as Wulfgar's entire fleet waited, dead in the water. Finally, the eerie whispering came again.

"Who are you to bargain with us?" came the voices. "And who are you to speak of our freedom? Even Failee, the one with whom we struck our agreement so long ago, did not possess such power. No one can free us of our torment except he or she who shall eventually command the Scroll of the Vagaries."

"I am that man," Wulfgar replied calmly. "I am also the only living being in the world who knows who you truly are, and why you were condemned to this purgatory in the sea. I and the Heretics of the Guild need you now, and your penance can finally be over, should you choose. But first you must follow me, and serve me in my mission." Silence reigned again.

"Do you mean to say that the Scrolls of the Ancients have finally been loosed upon the world?" the voices asked, their combined tones even more hushed this time.

"Yes," Wulfgar replied, determined to stand his ground.

"We require proof," the voices replied. "It is said that he or she who would eventually command the sacred Scroll of the Vagaries would have the proof of it in his blood. Show us your proof now, or be devoured for wasting our time. If you are not that person, we tire of your foolishness."

Smiling, Wulfgar narrowed his eyes and called on the craft. Raising his arms, he levitated himself up and over the warship's gunwales and came to hover only inches above the sea, directly over the horrific faces in the water. Extending his right arm, he turned up his wrist and caused an incision to form. A single drop of red blood dripped from the wound and hovered in the air.

Almost immediately Wulfgar's blood signature began to form. Raising his arms, he caused it to increase in size until it seemed to take up the entire night sky. Hundreds of Forestallments could be seen branching away from the main body of the signature, but there was one among them that clearly stood out, its massive length and width overshadowing all of the others. The magnificent Forestallment seemed to surge with life, as if impatient to fulfill its destiny.

This was the Forestallment Krassus and the consuls had worked so long and hard to find in the depths of the scroll-the same one Wulfgar would soon unleash upon his unsuspecting enemies.

"What say you now, Eaters of the Dead?" Wulfgar asked calmly.

"Are you truly the Enseterat?" the voices asked reverently. "Has he finally come to us?"

"He who was to have been the first Enseterat is now dead," Wulfgar answered. "He was the son of the Chosen One. I am the brother of the Chosen Ones, and have inherited both the mantle and the glorious, unfinished work of the Enseterat."

"What would you have us do in return for our freedom, Enseterat?" the voices asked.

For several long moments, Wulfgar explained his mission and the rewards he would give them for traveling in his service. Another long silence followed.

"We will serve you, Enseterat," the Necrophagians finally whispered with one voice.

Wulfgar turned to look over at the forty cowering, shivering slaves. "Will you be requiring the offering I brought?" he asked.

"That will not be necessary this time," they whispered back. "For we now have a new master, and where we are going, there shall be many such offerings. If we succeed, we shall no longer need them. And if you fail we shall soon consume all that you are, in any event."

"Very well," Wulfgar answered. Raising his arms again, he levitated himself back aboard.

With the new bargain struck, the hundreds of foggy hands released the ships, and the temperature returned to normal. Wulfgar ordered the fleet's sails unfurled. They snapped open to the easterlies and began moving the ships forward. The terrified slaves were ordered chained belowdecks once again.

As the fleet plowed through the sea, the screechlings, the slitherers, and the Eaters of the Dead, all under the command of the Enseterat, followed dutifully behind in its wake. Wulfgar gazed west, toward the sacred home of his prize.

Everything was going according to plan.