Taking a breath, she blew out the light.

PART V

Retribution

CHAPTER

Fifty-nine

It is not for myself that I go forth to do this thing, but for all of those who came before, who tried but failed in their attempts to ensure that the Vagaries shall one day rule supreme.

– Wulfgar

G lad to be home finally, Tristan sat drinking wine at a butcher's table in the palace kitchens. It was early evening, and Wigg and Faegan sat there with him, along with the young man named Marcus. The massive hearths were directly behind them; copper pots and pans hung overhead, dangling from iron hooks.

When the gnome wives had first seen the two dirty, half-starved children, they had insisted on feeding them immediately, regardless of whatever the wizards might have to say about it. The wonderful smells of the women's creations still hung stubbornly in the air.

Tristan felt mournful. The loss of Pilgrim had been a shock that he knew would take a long time to recover from. At least the stallion had not died in vain: They had successfully secured the Scroll of the Vigors, and for that he was glad. The document was safe and sound, locked below the palace in the Hall of Blood Records. But before they examined it, the two wizards wanted some answers, and they were determined to get them as soon as they could.

After Tristan had removed Pilgrim's saddle and bridle, Wigg had lowered his head to call the craft and set fire to the horse's body. At first Tristan couldn't bring himself to watch. But in the end he had finally looked over, tearfully doing his best to honor the companion that had seen him through so much.

Then Wigg had respectfully done the same thing with the body of the artifacts dealer and what was left of the harlequin. As Wigg went about his work, frightened citizens had begun to mill tentatively around the edges of the plaza, but upon seeing the lead wizard's use of the craft, none of them had approached.

On the way back to the palace, Wigg had explained to the prince what had unfolded in the plaza. Wigg had been the first to see Rebecca run away. Suspicious of such a young, obviously terrified girl running through the square, he had ridden his horse over to her and scooped her up. As for the artifacts dealer, it seemed that it had been Grizelda who had so conveniently plunged the dagger into his back. They still didn't know who the bizarre harlequin had been, but they hoped that the herbmistress would soon shed some light on that subject, as well. For now, she was securely locked behind one of the hundreds of doors deep in the bowels of the Redoubt.

The clubfooted girl named Rebecca had been too terrified by what she had seen to be of much help with the wizards' questions. Seeing this, Shailiha and Celeste had requested-and received-permission to take her away to feed her, bathe her, and reassure her as best they could.

Now the wizards wanted to hear from the young man named Marcus. His knife had been discovered and taken from him on the way to the palace. So far, the dirty, curly-haired redhead had barely stopped eating, and there seemed to be no end to the amount of food he could consume.

"Now then," Wigg began. "What is the name of your family house?"

"First things first," Marcus answered arrogantly, as if he owned the palace he was sitting in. He kept on chewing as he talked. "Where is my thirteen thousand kisa?"

Reaching out, he rudely swiped up yet more of the sliced lamb and stuffed about three bites' worth into his mouth all at once. Chewing hurriedly, he washed it down with another glass of goat's milk. After wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he turned to look greedily at Tristan's wine goblet.

"Give me some of that, and I'll gladly tell you who I am," he said confidently. "It seems the least you could do. I didn't ask to come here, you know."

With a brief snort, Faegan smiled and shook his head. But it was clear that the lead wizard didn't think any of this was particularly humorous.

Knowing that Marcus was still hungry, Wigg called on the craft. Almost immediately all of Marcus' precious food and drink rose into the air. The young man's eyes went wide. Then Wigg caused all of the dishes to go flying out the kitchen door and into the adjoining hallway. Without taking his eyes from Marcus, Wigg folded his arms across his chest and calmly leaned back in his chair. With that, everything fell crashing to the hallway floor-the dishes smashed, the food ruined, and the drinks spilled.

Frozen in place, Marcus stared at Wigg as if the wizard had just descended from one of the moons. Leaning in, Wigg cast his aquamarine eyes sternly at the young man and lowered his voice.

"Now that I have your full attention, let's try again, shall we?" he asked quietly. "What is the name of your family house?"

Lowering his face slightly, Marcus scowled and placed his greasy hands on his lap. "Stinton," he finally answered. "The House of Stinton."

"And where are you from?"

"Ilendium."

Wigg raised an eyebrow. "And the girl you travel with. She's your sister, is she not?"

Marcus nodded. "Rebecca." He added softly, "I call her 'Becca."

"I see," Wigg said a bit more compassionately. "And your parents. What of them? They must be worried about you."

"They're both dead. Killed by the great birds that came one night. 'Becca and I are orphans."

On hearing about the "great birds," Wigg looked at Tristan and Faegan. They nodded back. Marcus had to be referring to Nicholas' hatchlings, the winged beings that had so ruthlessly destroyed the city of Ilendium just before the construction of the Gates of Dawn.

"I'm sorry," Faegan said softly from the other side of the table. He was beginning to have genuine admiration for the brash young man, even if the boy was a thief. Master Stinton was nothing if not resourceful, he decided.

"How was it that the two of you were not also killed?" Faegan asked.

" 'Becca and I had gone fishing at the head of the Sippora River. We used to like to do that sometimes. And it was helpful, especially when father wasn't doing so well. But the fishing had been good, and we were very late getting home that night. By the time we did, everything was gone."

"I'm sorry, too," Wigg said earnestly. "But what did you mean about your father not doing so well? What was his trade?"

Marcus smiled again and puffed out his chest with pride. "My father was a pickpocket-the best in Eutracia. He could slip one hand into your drawers and come back out holding your private parts if he chose to, long before you felt the draft. And I'm just as good, if I do say so myself."

Sighing, Wigg placed one hand over his forehead, closed his eyes, and leaned his elbow on the table. He shook his head slowly.

Tristan tried hard not to smile.

"And where did you get the scroll?" Wigg asked without looking up.

"We found them in one of the broken marble sections, left over from the destruction when those monuments, or whatever they were, fell to the ground," Marcus answered simply. It was clear he did not understand the importance of the site he and his sister had visited.

"Everything there stayed so hot, it took a week before 'Becca and I could do a proper search of the place," he went on. "We were on our own by then, and looking for food." Then he smiled again. "But that wasn't what we found."

Wigg's face shot up. "You said 'them'. Do you mean to say that both scrolls were there when you first went in?"

"Yes. But they were so heavy I could only take one. And there was no way 'Becca could handle the other, especially with her bad foot. Later I came back for the other scroll, but it was already gone. Somebody beat me to it."