CHAPTER

Three

D reng!" the wizard Faegan shouted happily from his chair on wheels. "That's another two hundred points!" Using a feathered quill, he made an exaggerated show of noting the tally down on a small pad. Smiling coyly, he sat back and stroked Nicodemus, his blue cat, as he waited for the inevitable outburst from the lead wizard. It didn't take long.

"Once again I say you're cheating! You must be!" Wigg shouted back. His jaw stuck out like the prow of a ship. "You're using the craft! I don't know how you're managing it, but I'll find out! No one gets a full dreng on only two hands! Not even you!"

Wigg, onetime lead wizard of the Directorate, was becoming more furious by the minute. His craggy face was red, and he glared at Faegan with the mighty, all-consuming surety of his convictions.

Grabbing up the cards to shuffle them and deal out another hand, Faegan only smiled.

Tristan of the House of Galland, prince of Eutracia, sat at the rectangular, upholstered gaming table listening to the two ancient wizards bicker. It had been this way for the better part of an hour. He normally found it comic when they were at each other's throats, usually over something trivial. Today it was starting to annoy him.

Six of them were playing the card game dreng, and the score was tied. Wigg captained the team consisting of himself, his daughter Celeste, and Tristan. The team sitting across from them was made up of Faegan, Geldon the hunchbacked dwarf, and Princess Shailiha, Tristan's twin sister. Morganna, Shailiha's baby, sat on the carpet, batting at some scattered toys.

At first Wigg had not wanted to play, arguing, as usual, that there were far more important matters to attend to. In truth he had probably been right. But after some stiff cajoling by Shailiha and what Tristan thought to be comic but shameless outright begging by Celeste, the lead wizard had finally given in.

These two strong-willed women had become Wigg's and Faegan's soft spots, and everyone in the palace knew it. There was in fact very little in this world that the two women could not get either of the wizards to do, especially if they both asked at once-a strategy the women had been quick to learn, and to capitalize upon.

Tristan cast an eye across the table toward his sister, and gave her a slight smile. Shailiha smiled back, her long blond hair and hazel eyes as lovely as ever. She then looked at Wigg. The lead wizard's face was red, and a vein had begun throbbing in his right temple. Suddenly unsure about the relative wisdom of purposely engaging the two irascible wizards in a competition, she looked back over at her twin brother.

Tristan ran a hand impatiently through his dark hair. He stretched back in his chair, uncoiling his long legs, and glanced at the floor, where he had placed his dreggan-the nasty curved sword he had taken from one of his deadliest enemies-and the quiver of throwing knives that he usually wore across the back of his right shoulder. Despite the fact that the palace was relatively secure, he always made it a point to never be far from his weapons. Life had been far too dangerous of late.

The room in which they were playing was sumptuous-one of those that had been recently refurbished by the Minions of Day and Night, the winged army Tristan commanded. The marble of the floor and walls was of the palest gray, shot through with streaks of indigo. A huge oil chandelier hung in the center of the ceiling, giving off a soft, comforting glow.

It was nearly dinnertime, and Tristan was hungry. Despite the distance from this game room to the palace kitchens, he had almost convinced himself he could smell the aroma of the warm, inviting food that would soon be served by the gnome wives. He sighed. A glass of wine would be especially welcome.

Gazing over at the open balcony window, he saw the sun setting down into the western horizon. It had been four months since he had witnessed the death of his son Nicholas and the destruction of the Gates of Dawn. Nicholas had planned to use the gates to rend open the heavens, allowing the return of the Heretics of the Guild, masters of the Vagaries who would then use the dark side of the craft to rule forever. An anomaly in Nicholas' blood had killed him just before he had been able to accomplish this feat. At that point, the Gates had collapsed and the Heretics had once again been confined to the heavens.

As Tristan had predicted, the recent Season of Crystal had been unusually harsh, with heavy snowfall and ice-cold winds. But now the Season of New Life-his personal favorite-was coming into full bloom. Flower buds and green grass were springing up, and the air was full of the many wonderful scents that only nature's rebirth could provide. The last few days had been wonderfully warm. So warm, in fact, that today they had been able to leave the balcony doors open for the first time.

A shout from Faegan brought the prince's attention back to the gaming table. Faegan, the impish, three-hundred-year-old rogue wizard, protector of the area of Eutracia known as Shadowood, was the keeper of many secrets. He possessed the very rare power of Consummate Recollection, which allowed him to recall instantly anything he had ever seen, read, or heard. He was also the only living person to have completely read the first two volumes of the Tome, the great book of the craft. His gray-black hair, carelessly parted down the center, fell almost to his shoulders. Over his loose-fitting black robe he wore the Paragon, the bloodred jewel that helped sustain the craft of magic. Amazing gray-green eyes set in an intense, commanding face only hinted at the awesome power lying behind them.

He was flanked by Geldon and Celeste. Loyal, intelligent, and kind, Geldon had contributed mightily to their survival over the recent past. A slave of the sorceresses for nearly three centuries, he had been instrumental in defeating the Coven and helping to destroy Nicholas' Gates of Dawn.

For the thousandth time, Tristan turned his dark eyes toward Celeste.

Over three hundred years old, protected by time enchantments that kept her forever youthful, she was the long-lost daughter of Wigg and the first mistress of the recently defeated Coven of sorceresses, Failee. Celeste had finally discovered her true identity by bravely escaping Ragnar, the mutated blood stalker who had endowed her with time enchantments and kept her as his slave in the Caves of the Paragon for more than three centuries. She was originally to have been Failee's fifth sorceress; her blood quality was supposedly second only to that of Tristan and Shailiha, the Chosen Ones of prophecy.

Dark red hair parted on one side fell down to Celeste's shoulders. Her sapphire eyes showed both intelligence and compassion. The hint of a cleft in her chin gave her the appearance of personal strength, even though her talents and confidence in her new world above ground were still developing. Whenever Tristan was near her he could smell a hint of myrrh, and it had been her scented, embroidered handkerchief that he had carried into battle to defeat his son Nicholas.

"I still say you're cheating!" Wigg said to Faegan, distracting Tristan.

"No, I'm not." Faegan sniffed. "I don't need to, especially considering the amateurish way you're laying down your cards."

With a smile, he winked at Tristan, then levitated his cards in a straight line, just above the surface of the table.

Wigg shook his head angrily, laying down another card. "Must you show off that way?" he huffed. The knight card he had just played would trump Faegan's page, and the lead wizard knew it. Thinking he finally had Faegan's team on the run, he smiled wickedly.

Played with two-sided cards, dreng was a notoriously difficult game to learn, and an even more difficult game to play with any degree of expertise. Played in teams, it could easily develop many unexpected twists and turns-something that Wigg was being increasingly reminded of.