"So many questions, aren't there, my love?" he asked, lowering his awful face closer to her own. The smell of his fetid breath brought back horrible, mind-numbing memories of her times with him.

"Did you and the wizards actually believe that Nicholas, my beloved master, would really want me dead?" he added. "Or did any of you, as you reveled in the destruction of the Gates of Dawn, actually see my corpse? No. I now serve Krassus, and together he and I carry on a part of Nicholas' glorious work. But first I am going to take you back to the Caves with me. And this time you will never leave, I promise you."

As he spoke, he ran the long, pointed fingernails of one hand down the side of her face. "You always were my favorite." Then a strange look came over him, and he lowered himself even closer.

"And one other thing, my love," he added softly. "Krassus has very kindly imbued me with the Forestallment that, after three hundred years of failed attempts, shall finally grant me the power to make you pregnant. I can't wait to see what our children will look like." He stood up again, his robe falling open obscenely.

"Before we leave here together, I shall take you right here in this very bed," he added menacingly. "A fitting insult to Wigg, my dearest enemy, don't you think? To luxuriate in his only daughter yet again, in the very seat of his power! With both the wizards and the Chosen One gone, there is no one left here of any consequence to stop me. And who knows-you might even conceive here in the royal palace this very night! Deliciously ironic, wouldn't you agree?"

As she watched in helpless horror, he reached down and parted his robe fully. Reaching out, he caressed her face once more.

"It shall be just as you remember it," he said smoothly. "Long and slow, and again and again. And this time, my sweet, it shall go on for eternity. I may even allow enough of your powers of speech to return so that I might hear you softly whimper." Again the wicked smile came. "Surely you remember how much I enjoyed hearing you weep."

Ragnar held out a finger and pointed it at the bodice of her dress. She heard a slow, deliberate ripping sound, and looked with horror as a rip parted her dress at the top and began to tear its way down. Her body wanted to shake with fear but couldn't, locked as she was within the monster's unyielding warp.

Saying nothing more, his bloodshot eyes gleaming, Ragnar knelt by the side of her bed, placed his wet, pink tongue against the inside of one of her thighs, and began moving it upward.

Screaming, Celeste bolted from the bed and fell to the floor. For a moment she remained on all fours, her chest heaving and sweat running down her face. Then, finally, she dared to look about the room.

Amazingly, everything was just as it should be. The windows were open, and the night breeze was caressing the tree branches outside. The Minion campfires were lit, sending their glow upward into the dark of the night sky.

And there was no Ragnar. It had been another nightmare.

Lowering her head in shame, she sobbed mightily, wondering when she would ever be free of her horrific memories. At last she rose to stand on shaky legs, walked to the mirror, and slowly lifted her head to regard the stranger staring back at her. The eyes were red; the long dark red hair was disheveled; and the woman staring back at her was shaking uncontrollably. She placed her quivering hands over her face so that she couldn't look any longer.

This is what he still does to you, even though he is dead, she heard her mind whisper. Suddenly, though, several more words floated to the surface-unusually defiant, challenging words that, after three hundred years of torment finally transformed her life.

But I will allow it no more!

And then something in her psyche snapped.

She stamped to the door, tore at the doorknob, and sprinted down the hallway. Her newfound rage intensifying with every stride, she went faster and faster, trying to dispel her energy. When she reached one of the secret passageways leading down into the Redoubt, she opened the door, went through, and practically ran down the circular staircase.

Her fury was limitless. Soon she found herself banging on the door of the Hall of Blood Records and screaming relentlessly, demanding to be let in.

A startled Shailiha came to the door, only to have the exhausted, furious Celeste embrace her desperately, the tears coming yet again.

The princess quickly dismissed Abbey and Lionel, and the two women sat and talked until dawn.

CHAPTER

Thirty-one

T he darkness was impenetrable; there was absolutely no sound. For all the lead wizard knew, this place could be either very small, or endless. Uncertain what might lie beneath them, he dared not release the spell that kept him hovering in the air. Floating weightless, all of his senses deprived, Wigg wondered if this was what it was like to be dead.

He could not see his own hand before his face. Only the familiar squeak of Faegan's chair, caused by the crippled wizard's turning it in an attempt to look around, told Wigg that he was not alone.

As Faegan raised his hand to produce some light, the Paragon hanging around his neck began to glow, just as it had done earlier. It flooded the room with its vibrant, red illumination.

The stone chamber in which they found themselves was quite unremarkable. One might even have called it disappointing. It seemed to be little more than a small, square room cut out of the rock, with a matching stone floor and a rather low ceiling. Looking at each other in silent agreement, they gratefully lowered themselves.

When they touched ground, an azure beam shone from the ceiling, illuminating a hole in the floor. They went to it and looked down. It was the opening to a circular stairwell that was barely large enough for Faegan's chair to pass through. It wound its way down into utter darkness.

Taking a deep breath, Wigg looked over at Faegan. "After you?" he said dryly.

Pursing his lips, Faegan looked tentatively down the hole, then seemed to make up his mind. Levitating his chair, he lowered himself into the depths, the wheels narrowly scraping their way by on either side. With a sigh and a concerned shake of his head, Wigg began following Faegan down.

The winding staircase was very small and cramped, lined by walls of solid stone that added greatly to the sense of confinement. It was exactly like being trapped in a cramped, stone tube. Like Tristan, the lead wizard hated being closed in. The farther down he went, the greater his sense of foreboding became. The air grew cold and smelled increasingly damp and musty.

After a while Wigg looked up, trying to gauge how far they had come. He paused, taken aback.

The opening to the stairwell was gone, replaced by another ceiling of solid rock, just inches above the top of his head. In fact, the length of circular stairway they had just descended was gone, too. A solid stone wall had silently materialized only inches behind him, blocking their way back. Between the cramped ceiling, rear wall, and sidewalls, he could extend his hand no more than half a meter in any direction other than downward. The red light from the Paragon around Faegan's neck cast eerie, sharp shadows against the unforgiving barriers and added greatly to the suffocating sense of helplessness.

Wigg felt like a trapped rat. Despite the coolness of the air, he broke out in a sweat, his sense of dread growing by the moment. Looking forward, he saw Faegan continue down the staircase, apparently quite unaware of their predicament.

Wigg took another tentative step down the stairs. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw the wall just behind him silently, quickly advance by the exact length of the step, while the ceiling closed in by the same margin. And the step he had last stood on had disappeared, leaving only the one he was now occupying and those that lay below him. Someone or something had taken great pains to make sure the two wizards could continue their trek in only one direction: downward.