"It is," Richard said. "You're lucky: I made dinner tonight, instead of Cara."

Cara, proud of being a poor cook, smiled as if it were an accomplishment of note.

Kahlan was sure it was a story that would be repeated to wide eyes and stunned disbelief: the Lord Rahl himself serving food to one of his men. By the way the captain ate, she guessed it had been longer than a day since he had eaten. As big as he was, she figured he had to need a lot of food.

He swallowed and looked up. "My horse." He began to stand. "When Mistress Cara. . . I forgot my horse. I need-"

"Eat your food." Richard stood and clapped Captain Meiffert's shoulder to keep him seated. "I was going to check on our horses anyway. I'll see to yours as well. I'm sure it would like some water and oats, too."

"But, Lord Rahl, I can't allow you to-"

"Eat. This will save time; when I get back, you'll be done and then you can give me your report." Richard's shape became indistinct as he dissolved into the shadows, leaving only a disembodied voice behind. "But I'm afraid I still won't have any orders for General Reibisch."

In the stillness, crickets once again took up their rhythmic chirping. Some dis 43

tance away, Kahlan heard a night bird calling. Beyond the nearby trees, the horses whinnied contentedly, probably when Richard greeted them. Every once in a while a feather of mist strayed in under the overhang to dampen her cheek. She wished she could turn on her side and close her eyes. Richard had given her some herb tea and it was beginning to make her drowsy. At least it dulled the pain, too.

"How are you, Mother Confessor?" Captain Meiffert asked. "Everyone is terribly worried about you."

A Confessor wasn't often confronted with such honest and warm concern. The young man's simple question was so sincere it almost brought Kahlan to tears.

"I'm getting better, Captain. Tell everyone I'll be fine after I've had some time to heal. We're going someplace quiet where I can enjoy the fresh air of the arriving summer and get some rest. I'll be better before autumn, I'm sure. By then, I hope Richard will be

of the war."

The captain smiled. "Everyone will be relieved to know you're healing. I can't tell you how many people told me that when I return they want to hear how you're doing."

"Tell them I said I'll be fine and I asked for them not to worry anymore about me, but to take care of themselves."

He ate another spoonful. Kahlan saw in his eyes that there was more to the man's anxiety. It took him a moment before he addressed it.

"We are concerned, too, that you and Lord Rahl need protection."

Cara, already sitting straight, nevertheless managed to straighten more, at the same time making the subtle shift in her posture appear threatening. "Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor are not without protection, Captain; they have me. Anything more than a Mord-Sith is just pretty brass buttons."

This time, he didn't back down. His voice rang with the clear tone of authority. "This is not a matter of disrespect, Mistress Cara, nor is presumption intended. Like you, I am sworn to their safety, and that is my proper concern. These brass buttons have met the enemy before in the defense of Lord Rahl, and I don't really believe a Mord-Sith would want to deter me from that duty for no more reason than petty pride."

"We're going to a remote and secluded place," Kahlan said, before Cara could answer. "I think our solitude, and Cara, will be ample protection. If Richard wishes it otherwise, he will say so."

With a reluctant nod, he accepted her answer. The last of it, anyway, settled the matter.

When Richard had taken Kahlan north, he had left their guard forces behind. She knew it was deliberate, probably part of his conviction about what he felt he had to do. Richard wasn't opposed to the concept of protection; in the past, he had accepted troops being with them. Cara, too, had been insistent on having the security of those troops along. It was different, though, for Cara to admit it directly to Captain Meiffert.

They had spent a good deal of time in Anderith with the captain and his elite forces. Kahlan knew him to be a superb officer. She thought he must be approaching his mid-twenties-probably a soldier for a decade already and the veteran of a number of campaigns, from minor rebellions to open warfare. The sharp wholesome lines of his face were just beginning to take on a mature set.

Over millennia, through war, migration, and occupation, other cultures had mixed

44

in with the D'Haran, leaving a blend of peoples. Tall and broad-shouldered, Captain Meiffert was marked as full-blooded D'Haran by blond hair and blue eyes, as was Cara. The bond was strongest in full-blooded D'Harans.

After he had finished about half his rice, he glanced over his shoulder, into the darkness where Richard had gone. His earnest blue eyes took in both Cara and Kahlan.

"I don't mean it to sound judgmental or personal, and I hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but may I ask you both a . . . a sensitive question?"

"You may, Captain," Kahlan said. "But I can't promise we will answer it."

The last part gave him pause for a moment, but then he went on. "General Reibisch and some of the other officers . . . well, there have been worried discussions about Lord Rahl. We trust in him, of course," he was quick to add. "We really do. It's just that . . ."

"So what are your concerns, then, Captain?" Cara put in, her brow drawing tight. "If you trust him so much."

He stirred his wooden spoon around the bowl. "I was there in Anderith through the whole thing. I know how hard he worked-and you, too, Mother Confessor. No Lord Rahl before him ever worried about what the people wanted. In the past, the only thing that mattered was what the Lord Rahl wanted. Then, after all that, the people rejected his offer-rejected him. He sent us back to the main force, and just left us"-he gestured around himself-"to come here. Out in the middle of nowhere. To be a recluse, or something." He paused while searching for the right words. "We don't . . . understand it, exactly."

He looked up from the fire, back into their eyes, as he went on. "We're worried that Lord Rahl has lost his will to fight-that he simply no longer cares. Or perhaps . . . he is afraid to fight?"

The look on his face told Kahlan that he feared reprisal for saying the things he said, and for asking such a question, but he needed the answer enough to risk it. This was probably why he had come to give a report, rather than send a simple messenger.

"About six hours before he cooked that nice dinner pot of rice and beans," Cara said in a casual manner, "he killed a couple dozen men. All by himself. Hacked them apart like I've never seen before. The violence of it shocked even me. He left only one man for me to dispatch. Quite unfair of him, I think."

Captain Meiffert looked positively relieved as he let out a long breath. He looked away from Cara's steady gaze and back into his bowl to stir his dinner.

"That news will be well received. Thank you for telling me, Mistress Cara."

"He can't issue orders," Kahlan said, "because he unequivocally believes that, for now, if he takes part in leading our forces against the Imperial Order, it would bring about our defeat. He believes that if he enters the battle too soon, we will then have no chance of ever winning. He believes he must wait for the right time, that's all. There's nothing more to it."

Kahlan felt a bit conflicted, helping to justify Richard's actions, when she wasn't entirely in favor of them. She felt it was necessary to check the advance of the Imperial Order's army now, and not give them a chance to freely pillage and murder the people of the New World.

The captain mulled this over as he ate some bannock. He frowned as he gestured with the piece he had left. "There is sound battle theory for such a strategy. If you have any choice in it, you only attack when it's on your terms, not the enemy's."

45

He became more spirited as he thought about it a moment. "It is better to hold an attack for the right moment, despite the damage an enemy can cause in the interim, than to go into a battle before the right time. Such would be an act of poor command."

"That's right." Kahlan laid her arm back and rested her right wrist on her brow. "Perhaps you could explain it to the other officers in those words-that it's premature to issue orders, and he's waiting for the proper time. I don't think that's really any different from the way Richard has explained it to us, but perhaps it would be better understood if put in such terms."

The captain ate the last bite of his bannock, seeming to think it over. "I trust Lord Rahl with my life. I know the others do, too, but I think they will be reassured by such an explanation as to why he is withholding his orders. I can see now why he had to leave us-it was to resist the temptation to throw himself into the fray before the time was right."

Kahlan wished she was as confident of the reasoning as the captain. She recalled Cara's question, wondering how the people could prove themselves to Richard. She knew he would not be inclined to try it through a vote again, but she didn't see how else the people could prove themselves to him.

"I'd not mention it to Richard," she said. "It's difficult for him-not being able to issue orders. He's trying to do what he believes is right, but it's a difficult course to hold to."

"I understand, Mother Confessor. `In his wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are his.' "

Kahlan studied the smooth lines and simple angles of his young face lit by the dancing firelight. In that face, she saw some of what Richard had been trying to say to her before. "Richard doesn't believe your lives are his, Captain, but that they are your own, and priceless. That is what he is fighting for."

He chose his words carefully; if he wasn't worried about her being the Mother Confessor, since he hadn't grown up fearing the power and the rule of such a woman, she was still the Lord Rahl's wife.

"Most of us see how different he is from the last Lord Rahl. I'm not claiming that any of us understands everything about him, but we know he fights to defend, rather than to conquer. As a soldier, I know the difference it makes to believe in what I'm fighting for, because. . ."

The captain looked away from her gaze. He lifted a short branch of firewood, tapping the end on the ground for a time. His voice took on a painful inflection, "Because it takes something precious out of you to kill people who never meant you any harm."

The fire crackled and hissed as he slowly stirred the glowing coals. Sparks swirled up to spill out from around the underside of the rock overhang.

Cara watched her Agiel as she rolled it in her fingers. "You . . . feel that way too?"

Captain Meiffert met Cara's gaze. "I never realized, before, what it was doing to me, inside. I didn't know. Lord Rahl makes me proud to be D'Haran. He makes it stand for something right .... It never did before. I thought that the way things were, was just the way things were, and they could never change."

Cara's gaze fell away as she privately nodded her agreement. Kahlan could only imagine what life was like living under that kind of rule, what it did to people.

"I'm glad you understand, Captain," Kahlan whispered. "That's one reason he

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worries so much about all of you. He wants you to live lives you can be proud of. Lives that are your own."

He dropped the stick into the fire. "And he wanted all the people of Anderith to care about themselves the way he wants us to value our lives. The vote wasn't really for him, but for themselves. That was why the vote meant so much to him?"

"That's why," Kahlan confirmed, afraid to test her own voice any further than that.

He stirred his spoon around to cool his dinner. It no longer needed cooling, she was sure. She supposed his thoughts were being stirred more than his dinner.

"You know," he said, "one of the things I heard people say, back in Anderith, was that since Darken Rahl was his father, Richard Rahl was evil, too. They said that since his father had done wrong, Richard Rahl might sometimes do good, but he could never be a good person."

"I heard that too," Cara said. "Not just in Anderith, but a lot of places."

"That's wrong. Why should people think that just because one of his parents was cruel, those crimes pass on to someone who never did them? And that he must spend his life making amends? I'd hate to think that if I'm ever lucky enough to have children, they, and then their children, and their children after that, would have to suffer forever for the things I've done serving under Darken Rahl." He looked over at Kahlan and Cara. "Such prejudice isn't right."

In the silence, Cara stared into the flames.

"I served under Darken Rahl. I know the difference in the two men." His voice lowered with simmering anger. "It's wrong of people to lay guilt for the crimes of Darken Rahl onto his son."

"You're right about that," Cara murmured. "The two may look a little alike, but anyone who has ever looked into the eyes of both men, as I have, could never begin to think they were the same kind of men."

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Chapter 6


Captain Meiffert ate the rest of his rice and beans in silence. Cara offered him her waterskin. He took it with a smile and his nod of thanks. She dished him out a second bowlful from the pot, and cut him another piece of bannock. He looked only slightly less mortified to be served by a Mord-Sith than by the Lord Rahl. Cara found his expression amusing. She called him "Brass Buttons" and told him to eat it all. He did so as they listened to the sounds of the fire snapping and water dripping from the pine needles onto the carpet of leaves and other debris of the forest floor.

Richard returned, loaded down with the captain's bedroll and saddlebags. He let them slip to the ground beside the officer and then shook water off himself before sitting down beside Kahlan. He offered her a drink from a full waterskin he'd brought back. She took only a sip. She was more interested in being able to rest her hand on his leg.

Richard yawned. "So, Captain Meiffert, you said the general wanted you to give a full report?"

"Yes, sir." The captain went into a long and detailed account on the state of the army to the south, how they were stationed out on the plains, what passes they guarded in the mountains, and how they planned on using the terrain, should the Imperial Order suddenly come up out of Anderith and move north into the Midlands. He reported on the health of the men and their supply situation-both good. The other half of General Reibisch's D'Haran force was back in Aydindril, protecting the city, and Kahlan was relieved to hear that everything there was in order.

Captain Meiffert relayed all the communications they'd received from around the Midlands, including from Kelton and Galen, two of the largest lands of the Midlands that were now allied with the new D'Haran Empire. The allied lands were helping to keep the army supplied, in addition to providing men for rotation of patrols, scouting land they knew better, and other work.

Kahlan's half brother, Harold, had brought word that Cyrilla, Kahlan's half sister, had taken a turn for the better. Cyrilla had been queen of Galea. After her brutal treatment in the hands of the enemy, she became emotionally unbalanced and was unable to serve as queen. In her rare conscious moments, worried for her people, she had begged Kahlan to be queen in her stead. Kahlan had reluctantly agreed, saying it was only until Cyrilla was well again. Few people thought she would ever have her mind back, but, apparently, it looked as if she might yet recover.

In order to soothe the ruffled feathers of Galea's neighboring land, Kelton, Richard had named Kahlan queen of Kelton. When Kahlan first heard what Richard had done, she had thought it was lunacy. Strange as the arrangement was, though, if

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suited both lands, and brought them not only peace with each other, but also into the fold of those lands fighting against the Imperial Order.

Cara was pleasantly surprised to hear that a number of Mord-Sith had arrived at the Confessors' Palace in Aydindril, in case Lord Rahl needed them. Berdine would no doubt be pleased to have some of her sister Mord-Sith with her in Aydindril.

Kahlan missed Aydindril. She guessed the place you grew up could never leave your heart. The thought gave her a pang of sorrow for Richard.

"That would be Rikka," Cara said with a smile. "Wait until she meets the new Lord Rahl," she added under her breath, finding that even more to smile about.

Kahlan's thoughts turned to the people they had left to the Imperial Order-or more accurately, to the people who had chosen the Imperial Order. "Have you received any reports from Anderith?"

"Yes, from a number of men we sent in there. I'm afraid we lost some, too. The ones who returned report that there were fewer enemy deaths from the poisoned waters than we had hoped. Once the Imperial Order discovered their soldiers dying, or sick, they tested everything on the local people, first. A number of them died or became sick, but it wasn't widespread. By using the people to test the food and water, they were able to isolate the tainted food and destroy it. The army has been been laying claim to everything-they use a lot of supplies."

The Imperial Order was said to be far larger than any army ever assembled. Kahlan knew that much of the reports to be accurate. The Order dwarfed the D'Haran and Midland troops arrayed against them perhaps ten or twenty to onesome reports claimed more than that. Some reports claimed the New World forces were outnumbered by a hundred to one, but Kahlan discounted that as outright panic. She didn't know how long the Order would feed off Anderith before they moved on, or if they were being resupplied from the Old World. They had to be, to some extent, anyway.

"How many scouts and spies did we lose?" Richard asked.

Captain Meiffert looked up. It was the first question Richard had asked. "Some may yet turn up, but it appears likely that we lost fifty to sixty men."

Richard sighed. "And General Reibisch thinks it was worth losing the lives of those men to discover this?"

Captain Meiffert cast about for an answer. "We didn't know what we would discover, Lord Rahl; that was why we sent them in. Do you wish me to tell the general not to send in any more men?"

Richard was carving a face in a piece of firewood, sporadically tossing shavings into the fire. He sighed.

"No, he must do as he sees fit. I've explained to him that I can't issue orders."

The captain, watching Richard pick small chips of wood from his lap and pitch them into the fire, tossed a small fan of pine needles into the flames, where it blazed in short-lived glory. Richard's carving was a remarkably good likeness of the captain.

Kahlan had, on occasion, seen Richard casually carve animals or people. She once had strongly suggested that his ability was guided by his gift. He scoffed at such a notion, saying that he had liked to carve ever since he was little. She reminded him that art was used to cast spells, and that once he had been captured with the aid of a drawn spell.

He insisted this was nothing like that. As a guide, he said he'd passed many an

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evening at camp, by himself, carving. Not wanting to carry the added weight, he would toss the finished piece into the fire. He said he enjoyed the act of carving, and could always carve another. Kahlan considered the carvings inspired and found it distressing to see them destroyed.

"What do you intend to do, Lord Rahl? If I may ask."

Richard took a smooth, steady slice that demarcated the line of an ear, bringing it to life along with the line of the jaw he had already cut. He looked up and stared off into the night.

"We're going to a place back in the mountains, where other people don't go, so we can be alone, and safe. The Mother Confessor will be able to get well there and gain back her strength. While we're there, I may even make Cara start wearing a dress."

Cara shot to her feet. "What!" When she saw Richard's smile, Cara realized he was only joking. She fumed, nonetheless.

"I'd not report that part of it to the general, were I you, Captain," Richard said.

Cara sank back down to the ground. "Not if Brass Buttons, here, values his ribs," she muttered.

Kahlan struggled not to chuckle, lest she twist the ever present knives in her ribs. Sometimes, she felt as if she knew how the chunk of wood Richard was carving felt. It was good to see Richard, for once, get the best of Cara. It was usually she who had him flustered.

"I can't help you, for now," Richard said, his serious tone returning. He went back to his work with his knife. "I hope you can all accept that."

"Of course, Lord Rahl. We know that you will lead us into battle when the time is right."

"I hope that day comes, Captain. I really do. Not because I want to fight, but because I hope there to be something to fight for." Richard stared into the fire, his countenance a chilling vision of despair. "Right now, there isn't."

"Yes, Lord Rahl," Captain Meiffert said, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence. "We will do as we think best until the Mother Confessor is better and you are then able to join us."

Richard didn't argue the time schedule, as the captain had described it. It was one Kahlan hoped for, too, but Richard had never said it would be that soon. He had, in fact, made it clear to them that the time might not ever come. He cradled the wood in his lap, studying what he had done.

He ran his thumb along the fresh-cut line of the nose as he asked, "Did the returning scouts say . . . how it faired for the people in Anderith . . . with the Imperial Order there?"

Kahlan knew he was only torturing himself by asking that question. She wished he hadn't asked; it could do him no good to hear the answer.

Captain Meiffert cleared his throat. "Well, yes, they did report on the condiions.

"And . . .?"

The young officer launched into a cold report of the facts they knew. "Jagang set up his troop headquarters in the capital, Fairfield. He took over the Minister of Culture's estate for himself. Their army is so huge that it swallowed the city and overflows far out onto the hills all around. The Anderith army put up little resistance. They were collected and all summarily put to death. The government of Anderith

50

for the most part ceased to exist within the first few hours. There is no rule or law. The Order spent the first week in unchecked celebration.

"Most people in Fairfield were displaced and lost everything they owned. Many fled. The roads all around were packed solid with those trying to escape what was happening in the city. The people fleeing the city only ended up being the spoils for the soldiers in the hills all around who couldn't fit into the city. Only a trickle mostly the very old and sickly-made it past that gauntlet."

His impersonal tone abandoned him. He had spent time with those people, too. "I'm afraid that, in all, it went badly for them, Lord Rahl. There was a horrendous amount of killing, of the men, anyway-in the tens of thousands. Likely more."

"They got what they asked for." Cara's voice was as cold as winter night. "They picked their own fate." Kahlan agreed, but didn't say so. She knew Richard agreed, too. None of them were pleased about it, though.

"And the countryside?" Richard asked. "Anything known about places outside Fairfield? Is it going better for them?"

"No better, Lord Rahl. The Imperial Order has been methodically going about a process of `pacifying' the land, as they call it. Their soldiers are accompanied by the gifted.

"By far, the worst of the accounts were about one called `Death's Mistress.' "

"Who?" Cara asked.

" `Death's Mistress,' they call her."

"Her. Must be the Sisters," Richard said.

"Which ones do you think it would be?" Cara asked.

Richard, cutting the mouth into the firewood face, shrugged. "Jagang has both Sisters of the Light and Sisters of the Dark held captive. He's a dream walker; he forces both to do his bidding. It could be either; the woman is simply his tool."

"I don't know," Captain Meiffert said. "We've had plenty of reports about the Sisters, and how dangerous they are. But they're being used like you said, as tools of the army-weapons, basically-not as his agents. Jagang doesn't let them think for themselves or direct anything.

"This one, from the reports, anyway, behaves very differently from the others. She acts as Jagang's agent, but still, the word is she decides things for herself, and does as she pleases. The men who came back reported that she is more feared than Jagang himself.

"The people of one town, when they heard she was coming their way, all gathered together in the town square. They made the children drink poison first, then the adults took their dose. Every last person in the town was dead when the woman arrived-close to five hundred people."

Richard had stopped carving as he listened. Kahlan knew that unfounded rumors could also be so lurid as to turn alarm into deadly panic, to the point where people would rather die than face the object of their dread. Fear was a powerful tool of war.

Richard went back to the carving in his lap. He held the knife near the tip of the point, like a pen, and carefully cut character into the eyes. "They didn't get a name for her, did they? This Death's Mistress?"

"I'm sorry, no, Lord Rahl. They said she is simply called by everyone `Death's Mistress.' "

"Sounds like an ugly witch," Cara said.

"Quite the contrary. She has blue eyes and long blond hair. She is said to be one

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of the most beautiful women you could ever lay eyes upon. They say she looks like a vision of a good spirit."

Kahlan couldn't help notice the captain's furtive glance at Cara, who had blue eyes and long blond hair, and was also one of the most beautiful women you could ever lay eyes upon. She, too, was deadly.

Richard was frowning. "Blond. . . blue eyes . . . there are several it could be .... Too bad they didn't catch her name."

"Sorry, but they gave no other name, Lord Rahl, only that description .... Oh yes, and that she always wears black."

"Dear spirits," Richard whispered as he rose to his full height, gripping his carving by its throat.

"From what I've been told, Lord Rahl, though she looks like a vision of one, the good spins themselves would fear her."

"With good reason." Richard said, as he stared into the distance, as if looking beyond the black wall of mist to a place only he could see.

"You know her, then, Lord Rahl?"

Kahlan listened to the fire pop and crackle as she waited along with the other two for his answer. It almost seemed Richard was trying to find his voice as his gaze sank back down to meet the eyes of the carving in his hand.

"I know her," he said, at last. "I know her all too well. She was one of my teachers at the Palace of the Prophets."

Richard tossed his carving into the flames.

"Pray you never have to look into Nicci's eyes, Captain."

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Chapter 7

Look into my eyes, child," Nicci said in her soft, silken voice as she cupped the girl's chin.

Nicci lifted the bony face. The eyes, dark and wide-set, blinked with dull bewilderment. There was nothing to be seen in them: the girl was simple.

Nicci straightened, feeling a hollow disappointment. She always did. She sometimes found herself looking into people's eyes, like this, and then wondering why. If she was searching for something, she didn't know what it was.

She resumed her leisurely walk down the line of the townspeople, all assembled along one side of the dusty market square. People in outlying farms and smaller communities no doubt came into the town several times a month, on market days, some staying overnight if they had come from far away. This wasn't a market day, but it would suit her purpose well enough.

A few of the crowded buildings had a second story, typically a room or two for a family over their small shop. Nicci saw a bakery, a cobbler's shop, a shop selling pottery, a blacksmith, an herbalist, a shop offering leatherwork-the usual places. One of these towns was much the same as the next. Many of the town's people worked the surrounding fields of wheat or sorghum, tended animals, and had extensive vegetable plots. Dung, straw, and clay being plentiful, they lived in homes of daub and wattle. A few of the shops with a second story boasted beam construction with clapboard siding.

Behind her, sullen soldiers bristling with weapons filled the majority of the square. They were tired from the hot ride, and worse, bored. Nicci knew they were a twitch away from a rampage. A town, even one with meager plunder, was an inviting diversion. It wasn't so much the taking as the breaking that they liked. Sometimes, though, it was the taking. The nervous women only rarely met the soldiers' bold stares.

As she strolled past the scruffy people, Nicci looked into the eyes watching her. Most were wide with terror and fixed not on the soldiers, but on the object of their dread: Nicci-or as people had taken to calling her, "Death's Mistress." The designation neither pleased nor displeased her; it was simply a fact she noted, a fact of no more significance to her than if someone had told her that they had mended a pair of her stockings.

Some, she knew, were staring at the gold ring through her lower lip. Gossip would have already informed them that a woman so marked was a personal slave to Emperor Jagang-something lower even than simple peasants such as themselves. That they stared at the gold ring, or what they thought of her for it, was of even less significance to her than being called "Death's Mistress."

Jagang only possessed her body in this world; the Keeper would have her soul

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for eternity in the next. Her body's existence in this world was torment; her spirit's existence in the next would be no less. Existence and torment were simply the two sides of the same coin-there could be no other.

Smoke, rolling up from the fire pit over her left shoulder, sailed away on a fitful wind to make a dark slash across the bright blue afternoon sky. Stacked stones to each side of the communal cooking pit supported a rod above the fire. Two or three pigs or sheep, skewered on the rod, could be roasted at once. Temporary sides were probably available to convert the fire pit into a smokehouse.

At other times, an outdoor fire pit was used, often in conjunction with butchering, for the making of soap, since making soap was not something typically done indoors. Nicci saw a wooden ash pit, used for making lye, standing to the side of the open area, along with a large iron kettle that could be used for rendering fat. Lye and fat were the primary ingredients of soap. Some women liked to add fragrance to their soap with herbs and such, like lavender or rosemary.

When Nicci was little, her mother made her go each autumn, when the butchering was being done, to help people make soap. Her mother said helping others built proper character. Nicci still had a few small dots of scars on the backs of her hands and forearms where she had been splashed and blistered by the hot fat. Nicci's mother always made her wear a fine dress-not to impress the other people who didn't have such clothes, but to make Nicci conspicuous and uncomfortable. The attention her pink dress attracted was not admiration. As she stood with the long wooden paddle, stirring the bubbling kettle while the lye was being poured in, some of the other children, trying to splash the dress and ruin it, burned Nicci, too. Nicci's mother had said the burns were the Creator's punishment.

As Nicci moved past, inspecting the assembled people, the only sounds were the horses off behind the buildings, the sporadic coughs of people, and the flags of flame in the fire pit snapping and flapping in the breeze. The soldiers had already helped themselves to the two pigs that had been roasting on the rod, so the aroma of cooking meat had mostly dissipated on the wind, leaving the sour smells of sweat and the stink of human habitation. Whether a belligerent army or a peaceful town, the filth of people smelled the same.

"You all know why I'm here," Nicci announced. "Why have you people made me go to the trouble of such a journey?" She gazed down the line of maybe two hundred people standing four and five deep. The soldiers, who had ordered them out of their homes and in from the fields, greatly outnumbered them. She stopped in front of a man she had noticed people glancing at.

« Well?"

The wind fluttered his thin gray hair across his balding, bowed head as he fixed his gaze on the ground at her feet. "We don't have anything to give, Mistress. We're a poor community. We have nothing."

"You are a liar. You had two pigs. You saw fit to have a gluttonous feast instead of helping those in need."

"But we have to eat." It was not an argument, so much as a plea.

"So do others, but they are not so fortunate as you. They know only the ache of hunger in their bellies every night. What an ugly tragedy, that every day thousands of children die from the simple want of food, and millions more know the gnawing pain of hunger-while people like you, in a land of plenty, offer nothing but selfish excuses. Having what they need to live is their right, and must be honored by those with the means to help.

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"Our soldiers, too, need to eat. Do you think our struggle on the behalf of the people is easy? These men risk their lives daily so you may raise your children in a proper, civilized society. How can you look these men in the eye? How can we even feed our troops, if everyone doesn't help support the cause?"

The trembling man remained mute.

"What must I do to impress upon you people the seriousness of your obligation to the lives of others? Your contribution to those in need is a solemn moral dutysharing in a greater good."

Nicci's vision suddenly went white. With a pain like scorching hot needles driven into her ears, Jagang's voice filled her mind.

Why must you play this game? Make examples of people! Teach them a lesson that 1 am not to be ignored!

Nicci swayed on her feet. She was completely blinded by the pain bursting inside her head. She let it wash through her, as if watching it happen to a stranger. Her abdominal muscles twitched and convulsed. A rusty, barbed lance driven up through her, ripping her insides, could not have hurt more. Her arms hung limp at her sides while she waited for Jagang's displeasure to end, or for death.

She was unable to tell how long the torture lasted. When he was doing it, she was never able to sense time-the pain was too all-consuming. She knew, from what others told her when they saw it done to her, and from seeing it done to others, that it sometimes lasted only an instant. Sometimes it lasted hours.

Making it last hours was a waste of Jagang's effort-she couldn't tell the difference. She had told him as much.

Suddenly, she was unable to draw a breath. It felt like a fist squeezed her heart to a stop. She thought her lungs might burst. Her knees were about to buckle.

Do not disobey me again!

With a gasp, air filled her lungs. Jagang's discipline ended, as it always did, with an impossibly tart, sour taste on her tongue, like an unexpected mouthful of fresh raw lemon juice, and pain searing the nerves at the back of her jaw under her earlobes. It left her head ringing and her teeth throbbing. As she opened her eyes, she was surprised, as she always was, not to see herself standing in a pool of blood. She touched the corner of her mouth, and then brushed her fingers to an ear. She found no blood.

She wondered in passing why Jagang had been able to come into her mind now. Sometimes, he couldn't. It didn't happen that way for any of the other Sisters-he always had access to their minds.

As her vision cleared, she saw people staring at her. They didn't know why she had paused. The young men-and a few of the older ones, too-were sneaking peeks at her body. They were used to seeing women in drab, shapeless dresses, women whose bodies exhibited the toll taken by endless hard work and almost constant pregnancy from the time they were old enough for the seed to catch. They had never before seen a woman like Nicci, standing straight and tall, looking them in the eye, wearing a fine black dress that hugged a nearly flawless shape marred by neither hard work or the labor of birth. The stark black material contrasted the pale curve of cleavage revealed by the cut of the laced bodice. Nicci was numb to such stares. Occasionally, they suited her purposes, but most of the time they didn't, and so she disregarded them.

She began walking down the line of people again, ignoring Emperor Jagang's orders. She rarely complied with his orders. She was, for the most part, indifferent to his punishment. If anything, she welcomed it.

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Nicci, forgive me. You know I don't mean to hurt you.

She ignored his voice, too, as she studied the eyes peering up at her. Not everyone did. She liked to look into the eyes of those courageous enough to risk a glimpse of her. Most were filled with simple terror.

There would soon be abundant justification for such apprehension.

Nicci, you must do as I tell you, or you are only going to end up forcing me to do something terrible to you. Neither of us wants that. Someday, I am going to end up doing something from which you will be unable to recover.

If that is what you wish to do, then do it, she thought, in answer.

It was not a challenge; she simply didn't care.

You know 1 don't want to do that, Nicci.

Without the pain, his voice was little more than a fly annoying her. She paid it no heed. She addressed the crowd.

"Do you people have any concept of the effort being put into the fight for your future? Or is it that you expect to benefit without contributing? Many of our brave men have given their lives fighting the oppressors of the people, fighting for our new beginning. We struggle so that all people will be able to share equally in the coming prosperity. You must help us in our effort on your behalf. Just as helping those in need is the moral obligation of every person, so, too, is this."

Commander Kardeef, displaying a look of sour displeasure, planted himself in front of her. The sunlight slanting across his lined face cast his hooded eyes in deep shadows. She was not moved by his disfavor. He was never satisfied with anything. Well, she corrected herself, almost never.

"People can only achieve virtue through obedience and sacrifice. Your contribution to the Order is to implement their compliance. We are not here to hold civic lessons!"

Commander Kardeef was confident in his privileged mastery over her. He, too, had given her pain. She endured what Kadar Kardeef did to her with the same detachment with which she endured what Jagang did to her.

Only in the furthest depths of pain could she begin to feel anything. Even pain was preferable to the nothingness she usually felt.

Kadar Kardeef was probably unaware of the punishment Jagang had just completed, or his orders; His Excellency didn't use Commander Kardeef's mind. It was an arduous undertaking for Jagang to control those who didn't possess the gift-lu could do it, but it was rarely worth his effort; he had the gifted to control people for him. A dream walker somehow used the gift in those who possessed it in order to m help complete the connection to their minds. In a way, the gifted made it possible

for Jagang to so easily control them.

Kadar Kardeef glowered down at her as she gazed up at his darkly tanned creased face. He was an imposing figure, with the studded leather straps that crossed his massive chest, his armored leather shoulder and breast plates, his chain mail, array of well-used weapons. Nicci had seen him crush men's throats in one of big, powerful hands. As silent witness to his bravery in battle, he bore a number scars. She had seen them all.

Few officers ranked higher or were more trusted than Kadar Kardeef. He been with the Order since his youth, rising through the ranks to fight alongside ' Jagang as they expanded the empire of the Imperial Order out of their homeland Altur'Rang to eventually subjugate the rest of the Old World. Kadar Kardeef was the hero of the Little Gap campaign, the man who almost single-handedly

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the course of the battle, breaking through enemy lines and personally slaying the three great kings who had joined forces to trap and crush the Imperial Order before it could seize the imaginations of the millions of people living in a patchwork of kingdoms, fiefdoms, clans, city-states, and vast regions controlled by alliances of warlords.

The Old World had been a tinderbox, waiting for the spark of revolution. The preachings of the Order were that spark. If the high priests were the Order's soul, Jagang was its bone and muscle. Few people understood Jagang's genius-they saw only a dream walker, or a ferocious warrior. He was far more.

It had taken Jagang decades to finally bring the rest of the Old World to heel-to put the Order on its final path to greater glory. During those years of struggle for the Order, while engaged in nearly constant war, Jagang toiled building the road system that allowed him to move men and supplies great distances with lightning speed. The more lands and peoples he annexed, the more laborers he put to the construction of yet more roads by which he could conquer yet more territory. He was thus able to maintain communications and to react to situations faster than anyone would have believed possible. Formerly isolated lands were suddenly connected to the rest of the Old World. Jagang had knitted them together with a net of roads. Along those roads, the people of the Old World had risen up to follow him as he forged the way for the Order.

Kadar Kardeef had been part of it all. More than once he had taken wounds to save Jagang's life. Jagang had once taken a bolt from a crossbow to save Kardeef. If Jagang could be said to have a friend, Kadar Kardeef was as close as any came to it.

Nicci first met Kardeef when he had come to the Palace of the Prophets in Tanimura to pray. Old King Gregory, who had ruled the land including Tanimura, had disappeared without a trace. Kadar Kardeef was a solemnly devout man; before battle he prayed to the Creator for the blood of the enemy, and after, for the souls of the men he had killed. That day he was said to have prayed for the soul of King Gregory. The Imperial Order was suddenly the new rule in Tanimura. The people celebrated in the streets for days.

Over the course of three thousand years, the Sisters, from their home at the Palace of the Prophets in Tanimura, had seen governments come and go. For the most part, the Sisters, led by their prelate, considered matters of rule a petty foolishness best ignored. They believed in a higher calling. The Sisters believed they would remain at the Palace of the Prophets, undisturbed in their work, long after the Order had vanished into the dust of history. Revolutions had many times come and gone. This one, though, caught them up.

Kadar Kardeef had been nearly twenty years younger, then-a handsome conqueror riding into the city. Many of the Sisters were fascinated by the man. Nicci never was. But he was fascinated by her.

Emperor Jagang, of course, did not send such invaluable men as Commander Kardeef out to pacify conquered lands. He had entrusted Kardeef with a much more important task: guarding his valuable property-Nicci.

Nicci turned her attention away from Kadar Kardeef and back to the people.

She settled her gaze on the man who had spoken before. "We cannot allow anyone to shirk their responsibility to others and to our new beginning."

"Please, Mistress . . . We have nothing-"

"Disregard of our cause is treasonous."

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He thought better of disagreeing with that pronouncement.

"You don't seem to understand that this man behind me wants you to see that the Imperial Order is resolute in their devotion to their cause-if you don't do your duty. I know you have heard the stories, but this man wants you to experience the grim reality. Imagining it is never quite the same. Never quite as gruesome."

She stared at the man, waiting for his answer. He licked his weather-cracked lips,

"We just need some more time .... Our crops are doing well. When the harvest comes in . . . we could contribute our fair share toward the struggle for . . . for. . ."

"The new beginning."

"Yes, Mistress," he said, bobbing his head, "the new beginning." When his gaze returned to the dirt at his feet, she moved on down the line.

Her purpose was not really to collect, but to cow.

The time had come.

A girl gazing up at her snagged Nicci to a stop, distracting her from what she had intended. The girl's big, dark eyes sparkled with innocent wonder. Everything was new to her, and she was eager to see it all. In her dark eyes shone that rare, fragile, and most perishable of qualities: a guileless view of life that had yet to be touched by pain or loss or evil.

Nicci cupped the girl's chin, staring into the depths of those thirsting eyes.

One of Nicci's earliest memories was of her mother standing over her like this, holding her chin, looking down at her. Nicci's mother was gifted, too. She said that', the gift was a curse, and a test. It was a curse because it gave her abilities others didn't have, and it was a test to see if she would wrongly exert that superiority. Nicci's mother almost never used her gift. Servants handled the work; she spent most of her time nested among her clutch of friends, devoting herself to higher pursuits.

"Dear Creator, but Nicci's father is a monster," she would complain as she wrung her hands. Some of her friends would murmur their sympathy. "Why must he burden me so! I fear his eternal soul is beyond hope or prayer." The other women would ask in grim agreement.

Her mother's eyes were the same dull brown as a cockroach's back. To Nicci's mind, they were set too close together. Her mouth, too, was narrow, as if fixed is -. place by her perpetual disapproval. While Nicci never really thought of her mother as homely, neither did she consider her beautiful, although her friends regularly reassured her that she most surely was.

Nicci's mother said beauty was a curse to a caring woman and a blessing only to whores.

Puzzled by her mother's displeasure of her father, Nicci had finally asked why had done.

"Nicci," her mother had said, cupping Nicci's small chin that day. Nicci eagerly awaited her mother's words. "You have beautiful eyes, but you do not yet see with .them. All people are miserable wretches, that is the lot of man. Do you have any idea how it hurts those without all your advantages to see your beautiful face? That , is all you bring to others: insufferable pain. The Creator brought you into the world 1 for no reason but to ease the misery of others, and here you bring only hurt." Ha mother's friends, sipping tea, nodded, whispering to one another their sorrowful b ` firm agreement.

That was when Nicci had first learned that she bore the indelible stain of so shadowy, nameless, unconfessed evil.

58 Nicci gazed into the rare face looking up at her. Today this girl's dark eyes would see things they could not yet imagine. Those big eyes eagerly watched without seeing. She could not possibly understand what was to come, or why.

What kind of life could she have?

It would be for the best, this way.

The time had come.

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Chapter 8

Before she could begin, Nicci saw something that ignited her indignation. She whirled to a nearby woman.

"Where is there a washtub?"

Surprised by the question, the woman pointed a trembling finger toward a two story building not far off. "There, Mistress. In the yard behind the pottery shop are laundry tubs where we were washing clothes."

Nicci seized the woman by her throat. "Get me a pair of scissors. Bring them to me there." The woman stared in wide-eyed fright. Nicci shoved her. "Now! Or would you prefer to die on the spot?"

Nicci yanked free a well-worn, reserve studded strap bunched with several others and secured over Commander Kardeef's shoulder. He made no effort to stop her, but as she gathered up the strap, he seized her upper arm in his powerful grip.

"You had better be planning on drowning this little brat-or maybe cutting off hunks of her hide and then stabbing out her eyes." His breath smelled of onion and ale. He smirked. "In fact, you start in on her, and while she's screaming and begging for her life, I'll begin separating out some young men, or perhaps I'll select some women to be an example. Which would you prefer, this time?"

Nicci turned her glare down at his fingers on her arm. He removed them as he growled a warning. She turned to the girl and whipped the strap twice around her neck to serve as a collar, twisting it into a handle in the back so she could control the girl with it. The girl squeaked in choked surprise. She had probably never been handled so roughly in her entire life. Nicci forced her ahead, toward the building the woman had pointed out.

Seeing how angry Nicci had suddenly become, no one followed. A woman not far off, undoubtedly the girl's mother, began to cry out in protest, but then fell silent as Kardeef's men turned their attention on her. By then Nicci already had the perplexed girl around the corner.

Out back, drab laundry, deformed and crumpled from its ordeal on the washboard, and now stretched and pinned to lines, twisted in the wind as if struggling to escape. Smoke from the fire pit peeked over the top of the building. The nervous woman waited with a large pair of shears.

Nicci marched the girl up to a tub of water, drove her down on her knees, and shoved her head under the water. While the girl struggled, Nicci snatched the scissors from the woman. Her chore completed, the woman held her apron up over her mouth to muffle her wails as she ran off in tears, not wanting to watch a child being murdered.

Nicci pulled the girl's head up out of the water, and while she sputtered and gasped for air, began clipping her dark, soaking wet hair close to the scalp. When

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Nicci had finished cutting it off in sodden clumps, she dunked the girl again while leaning over and scooping up a cake of pale yellow soap from the washboard on the ground beside the tub. Nicci hauled the girl's head up and then began scrubbing. The girl screeched, flailing her spindly arms and clawing at the strap around her neck by which Nicci controlled her. Nicci realized she was probably hurting her, but from within the grip of rage, it was only a dim realization.

"What's the matter with you!" Nicci shook the gasping girl. "Don't you know you're crawling with lice?"

"But, but-"

The soap was harsh and as rough as a rasp. The girl squealed as Nicci bent her over and put more muscle into the scouring.

"Do you like having a head full of lice?"

"No--"

"Well, you must! Why else would you have them?"

"Please! I'll try to do better. I'll wash. I promise!"

Nicci remembered how much she hated catching lice from the places her mother sent her. She remembered scrubbing herself, using the harshest soap she could find, only to again be sent off to another place, where she would get infested with the hated things all over again.

When Nicci had scrubbed and dunked a dozen times, she finally dragged the girl to a tub of clean water and swished her head about in it to rinse her off. The girl blinked furiously, trying to clear her eyes of the stinging, soapy water as it streamed down off her face.

Gripping the girl's chin, Nicci peered into her red eyes. "No doubt your clothes are lousy with nits. You're to scrub your clothes every day-underthings, especially-or the lice will just be right back." Nicci squeezed the girl's cheeks until her eyes watered. "You are better than to be filthy with lice! Don't you know that?"

The girl nodded, as best as she could with Nicci's strong fingers holding her face. The big, dark, intelligent eyes, although red from the water and wide with shock, were still filled with that rare sense of wonder. As painful and frightening as the experience was, this had not dispelled it.

"Burn your bedding. Get new." Given the way these people lived and worked, it seemed a hopeless challenge. "Your whole family must burn their bedding. Wash all their clothes."

The girl nodded her oath.

Task completed, Nicci marched the girl back toward the gathered crowd. Forcing her along by the studded strap used as a collar, Nicci was unexpectedly struck by a memory.

It was a memory of the first time she had seen Richard.

Nearly every Sister at the Palace of the Prophets had been gathered in the great hall to see the new boy Sister Verna had brought in. Nicci lingered at the mahogany rail, twining around her finger a lace dangling from her bodice, only to pull the lace straight and then to twine it again, when the pair of thick walnut doors opened. The rumbling drone of conversation, sprinkled with bright laughter, trailed to an expectant hush as the group, led by Sister Phoebe, marched into the chamber, past the white columns topped by gold capitals, and in under the huge vaulted dome.

The birth of gifted boys was rare, and a cause of expectant delight when they were discovered and finally brought to live at the palace. A grand banquet was planned for that evening. Most of the Sisters, dressed in their finery, stood on the

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floor below, eager to meet the new boy. Nicci remained near the center of the lower balcony. She didn't care whether she met him or not.

It came as something of a shock to see how Sister Verna had aged on her journey. Such journeys typically lasted at most a year; this one, beyond the great barrier to the New World, had taken nearly twenty. Events beyond the barrier being uncertain, Verna had apparently been sent off on her mission too far in advance.

Life at the Palace of the Prophets was as long as it was serene. No one at the Palace of the Prophets appeared to have aged at all in so trifling a span of time as two decades, but away from the spell that enveloped the palace, Verna had. Verna, probably close to one hundred and sixty years old, had to be at least twenty years younger than Nicci; yet she now looked twice Nicci's age. People outside the palace aged at the normal rate, of course, but to see it happen so rapidly to a Sister . . .

As the roaring applause thundered on in the huge room, many of the Sisters wept over the momentous occasion. Nicci yawned. Sister Phoebe held up her hand until the room fell silent.

"Sisters." Phoebe's voice trembled. "Please welcome Sister Verna home." She finally had to raise a hand to again bring the clamor of applause to a halt.

When the room had quieted, she said, "And may I present our newest student, our newest child of the Creator, our newest charge." She turned and held an arm out in introduction, wiggling her fingers, urging the apparently timid boy forward as she went on. "Please welcome Richard Cypher to the Palace of the Prophets."

Several of the women stepped back out of the way as he strode forward. Nicci's eyes widened; her back straightened. It was not a young boy. He was grown into a man.

The crowd, despite their shock, clapped and cheered with the warmth of their welcome. Nicci didn't hear it. Her attention was riveted by those gray eyes of his. He was introduced to some of the nearby Sisters. The novice assigned to him, Pasha, was brought before him and tried to speak to him.

Richard brushed Pasha aside, a stag dismissing a vole, and stepped out alone into the center of the room. His whole bearing conveyed the same quality Nicci beheld in his eyes.

"I have something to say."

The vast chamber fell to an astonished hush.

His gaze swept the room. Nicci's breath caught when, for an instant, their eyes met, as he probably met countless others.

Her trembling fingers clutched the rail for support.

Nicci swore at that moment to do whatever was necessary to be named as one of his teachers.

His fingers tapped the Rada'Han around his neck.

"As long as you keep this collar on me, you are my captors, and I am your prisoner."

Murmurs hummed in the air. A Rada'Han was put around a boy's neck not joust to govern him, but to protect him as well. The boys were never thought of as prisoners, but wards who needed security, care, and training. Richard, though, did not set ' it that way.

"Since I have committed no aggression against you, that makes us enemies. We are at war."

Several older Sisters teetered on their heels, nearly fainting. The faces of half the women in the room went red. The rest went white. Nicci could not have imagined

62 such an attitude. His demeanor kept her from blinking, lest she overlook something. She drew slow breaths, lest she miss a word. Her pounding heart, though, was beyond her ability to control.

"Sister Verna has made a pledge to me that I will be taught to control the gift, and when I have learned what is required, I will be set free. For now, as long as you keep that pledge, we have a truce. But there are conditions."

Richard lifted a red leather rod hanging on a fine gold chain around his neck. At the time, Nicci hadn't known it to be the weapon of a Mord-Sith.

"I have been collared before. The person who put that collar on me brought me pain, to punish me, to teach me, to subdue me."

Nicci knew that such could be the only fate of one like him.

"That is the sole purpose of a collar. You collar a beast. You collar your enemies.

"I made her much the same offer I am making you. I begged her to release me. She would not. I was forced to kill her.

"Not one of you could ever hope to be good enough to lick her boots. She did as she did because she was tortured and broken, made mad enough to use a collar to hurt people. She did it against her nature.

"You . . ." His gaze swept all the eyes watching him. "You do it because you think it is your right. You enslave in the name of your Creator. I don't know your Creator. The only one beyond this world who I know would do as you do is the Keeper." The crowd gasped. "As far as I'm concerned, you may as well be the Keeper's disciples."

Little did he know that some of them were.

"If you do as she, and use this collar to bring me pain, the truce will be ended. You may think you hold the leash to this collar, but I promise you, if the truce ends, you will find that what you hold is a bolt of lightning."

The room was as silent as a tomb.

He was alone, defiant, in the midst of hundreds of sorceresses who knew how to harness every nuance of the power with which they were born; he knew next to nothing of his ability, and was collared by a Rada'Han besides. In this, he may have been a stag, but a stag challenging a congregation of lions. Hungry lions.

Richard rolled up his left sleeve. He drew his sword-a sword!-in defiance of the prodigious power arrayed before him. The distinctive ring of steel filled the silence as the blade was brought free.

Nicci stood spellbound as he listed his conditions.

He finally pointed back with the sword. "Sister Verna captured me. I have fought her every step of this journey. She has done everything short of killing me and draping my body over a horse to get me here. Though she, too, is my captor and enemy, I owe her certain debts. If anyone lays a finger to her because of me, I will kill that person, and the truce will be ended."

Nicci couldn't fathom such a strange sense of honor, but somehow she knew it fit what she saw in his eyes.

The crowd gasped as Richard drew his sword across the inside of his arm. He turned it, wiping both sides in the blood, until it dripped from the tip. Nicci could plainly see, even if the others could not much as she saw in his eyes a quality others did not see-that the sword united with, and completed, magic within him.

His knuckles white around the hilt, he thrust the glistening crimson blade into the air.

"I give you a blood oath!" he cried out. "Harm the Baka Ban Mana, harm Sister

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Verna, or harm me, and the truce will be ended, and I promise you we will have t, war! If we have war, I will lay waste to the Palace of the Prophets!"

From the upper balcony, where Richard couldn't see him, Jedidiah's mocking voice drifted out over the crowd. "All by yourself?"

"Doubt me at your peril. I am a prisoner; I have nothing to live for. I am the t flesh of prophecy. I am the bringer of death."

No answer came in the stupefied silence. Probably every woman in the room knew of the prophecy of the bringer of death, though none was certain of its intended meaning. The text of that prophecy, along with all the others, was kept in the vaults deep under the Palace of the Prophets. That Richard knew it, that he dared declare it aloud in such company, augured the worst possible interpretation. Every lioness in the room retracted her claws in caution. Richard drove his sword home into its scabbard as if to punctuate his threat.

Nicci knew that the profound importance of what she had seen in his eyes and in his presence would forever haunt her.

She knew, too, that she must destroy him.

Nicci had to surrender favors and commit to obligations she never imagined she would have willingly done, but in return, she became one of Richard's six teachers. The burdens she had taken on in return for that privilege were all worth it when she sat alone with him, across a small table in his room, lightly holding his hands-if one could be said to lightly grasp lightning-endeavoring to teach him to touch his Han, the essence of life and spirit within the gifted. Try as he might, he felt nothing. That, in itself, was peculiar. The inkling of what she felt within him, though, was often enough to leave her unable to bring forth more than a few sparse words. She had casually questioned the others, and knew they were blind to it.

Although Nicci could not comprehend what it was about his intellect that his eyes and his conduct revealed, she did know that it disturbed the numb safety of her indifference. She ached to grasp it before she had to destroy him, and at the same time ached to destroy him before she did.

Whenever she became confident that she was beginning to unravel the mystery of his singular character, and thought she could predict what he would do in a given , situation, he would confound her by doing something completely unexpected, if not impossible. Time and again he reduced to ashes what she had thought was the foundation of her understanding of him. She spent hours sitting alone, in abysmal misery, because it seemed to be in plain sight, yet she couldn't define it. She knew only that it was some principle important beyond measure, and it remained beyond her .: grasp.

Richard, never happy about his situation, became increasingly distant as time passed. Forlorn of hope, Nicci decided that the time had come.

When she went to his room for what she meant to be his final lesson and his end, he surprised her by offering her a rare white rose. Worse, he offered it with a smile and no explanation. As he held it out, she was so petrified that she could only manage to say, "Why, thank you, Richard." The white roses were from only one kind of place: dangerous restricted areas no student should ever have been able to enter. That he apparently could, and that he would so boldly offer her the proof of his trespass, startled her. She held the white rose carefully between a finger and thumb, not knowing if he was warning her-by giving her a forbidden thing-that °; he was the bringer of death, and she was being marked, or if it was a gesture of

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simple, if strange, kindness. She erred on the side of caution. Once again, his nature had stayed her hand.

The other Sisters of the Dark had plans of their own. Richard's gift, as far as Nicci was concerned, was probably the least remarkable and by far the least important thing about him, yet Liliana, one of his other teachers, a woman of boundless greed and limited insight, thought to steal the innate ability of his Han for herself. It sparked a lethal confrontation which Liliana lost. The six of them, their leader, Ulicia, and Richard's five remaining teachers-having been discovered, escaped with their lives and little else, only to end up in Jagang's clutches.

In the end, Nicci understood that quality in his eyes no better than the first moment she had seen it.

It had all slipped through her fingers.

--]--- The girl ran for her mother when Nicci released her grip on the studded strap around her neck.

"Well?" Commander Kardeef shrieked. He planted his fists on his hips. "Are you through with your games? It's time these people learned the true meaning of ruthless!"

Nicci stared into the depths of his dark eyes. They were defiant, angry, and determined-yet they were nothing at all like Richard's eyes.

Nicci turned to the soldiers.

She gestured. "You two. Seize the commander."

The men blinked dumbly. Commander Kardeef's face went red with rage. "That's it! You've finally gone too far!" He wheeled to his men, a whole field of them-two thousand of them. He pointed a thumb back over his shoulder at Nicci. "Grab this lunatic witch!"

Half a dozen men nearest to her drew weapons as they rushed her. Like all Order field troops, they were big, strong, and quick. They were also experienced.

Nicci thrust a fist out in the direction of the closest as he lifted his whip to lash out and entangle her. With the speed of thought, both Additive Magic and Subtractive twined together in a lethal mix as she unleashed a focused bolt of power. It produced a burst of light so hot and so white that for an instant it made the sunlight seem dim and cold by comparison.

The blast blew a mellon-sized hole through the center of the soldier's chest. For an instant, before the internal pressure forced his organs to fill the sudden void, she could see men behind through the gaping hole in his chest.

The afterimage of the flare lingered in her mind's eye like lightning's arc. The acrid smell of scorched air stung her eyes. The clap of her power's thunder rumbled out across the surrounding green fields of wheat.

Before the soldier hit the ground, Nicci unleased her power on three more of the charging men, taking off one's entire shoulder, the wallop whirling him around like a ghastly fountain, the dangling limb flinging off into the crowd. A third man was cut almost in two. She felt the concussion of the following bolt deep in her chest and, amid a blinding flash, the fourth man's head came apart in a cloud of red mist and bony debris.

Her warning gaze met the eyes of two men with knives gripped in white-knuckled

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fists. They halted. Many more took a step back as the four reports, to her so separate yet so close atop one another that they almost merged into one ripping blast, still echoed off the buildings.

"Now," she said in a quiet, calm, composed voice that by its very gentleness betrayed how deadly earnest was the threat, "if you men do not follow my orders, and seize Commander Kardeef, I will seize him myself. But, of course, not until after I've killed every last one of you."

The only sound was the moan of wind between the buildings.

"Do as I say, or die. I will not wait."

The big men, knowing her, made their decision in the instant they knew was all she would grant them, and leaped to seize the commander. He managed to draw his sword. Kadar Kardeef was no stranger to pitched battle. He screamed orders as he fought them off. More than one man fell dead in the melee. Others cried out as they took wounds. From behind, men finally caught the deadly sword arm. Additional men piled on the commander until they had him disarmed, down on the ground, and finally under control.

"What do you think you're doing?" Kadar Kardeef roared at her as the men pulled him to his feet.

Nicci closed the distance between them. The soldiers held his arms twisted behind his back. She stared into his wild eyes.

"Why, Commander, I am merely following your orders."

"What are you talking about!"

She smiled without humor just because she knew it would further madden him.

One of the men glanced back over his shoulder. "What do you want done with him?"

"Don't hurt him-I want him fully conscious. Strip him and bind him to the pole."

"Pole? What pole?"

"The pole that held the pigs you men ate."

Nicci snapped her fingers, and they began pulling off their commander's clothes, She watched without emotion as he was finally stripped. His gear and prized weapons became plunder, quickly disappearing into the hands of men he had commanded. They grunted with effort as they fought to bind the struggling, naked, hairy commander to the pole at his back.

Nicci turned to the stunned crowd. "Commander Kardeef wishes you to know how ruthless we can be. I am going to carry out those orders, and demonstrate it for you." She turned back to the soldiers. "Put him over the fire to roast like a pig."

The soldiers bore the struggling, furious Kadar Kardeef, the hero of the Little Gap campaign, to the fire pit. They knew that Jagang watched them through her eyes. They had reason to be confident that the emperor would stop her if he wished to. After all, he was the dream walker, and they had seen him force her and the other Sisters to submit to his wishes countless times, no matter how degrading those wishes were.

They could not know that, for some reason, Jagang did not have access to ha mind right then.

The wooden ends of the pole clattered into the sockets in the stone supports to each side of the fire pit. The pole sprang up and down with the weight of its load The weight finally settled, leaving Kadar Kardeef to hang facedown. He had little choice but to watch the glowing coals beneath him.

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Even though the fire had burned down, it wasn't long before the heat of the wavering, low flames began causing him distress. As people watched in silent dismay, the commander twisted as he shrieked orders, demanding that his men take him down, promising them punishment if they delayed. His diatribe trailed off as he began gasping for control of his growing dread.

Watching the eyes of the town's people, Nicci pointed behind her.

"This is how ruthless the Imperial Order is: they will slowly, painfully, burn to death a great commander, a war hero, a man known and revered far and wide, a man who has served them well, just to prove to you, the people of an insignificant little town, that they will not hesitate to kill anyone. Our goal is the good of all, and that goal is held more important than any mere man among us. This is the proof. Now, do you people, for any reason, still think that we would shrink from harming any or all of you if you don't contribute to the common good?"

Nearly everyone shook their heads as they all mumbled, "No, Mistress."

Behind her, Commander Kardeef writhed in pain. He again yelled at his men, commanding them to bring him down, and to kill "the crazy witch." None of the soldiers moved to comply with his orders. To look at them, they didn't even hear him. These men had no notion of compassion. There was only life, and death. They chose life; that choice required his death.

Nicci stood watching the eyes of the people as the minutes dragged on. The commander was up a good distance from the low flames, but there was a expansive bed of broiling hot coals. She knew that, from time to time, the gusty breeze diverted the fierce heat to give him a fleeting reprieve. It would only prolong his ordeal; the heat was inexorable. Still, it would take some time. She didn't ask for more firewood. She was in no hurry.

People's noses wrinkled; everyone could smell his body hair burning. No one dared speak. As the ordeal wore on, the skin across Kardeef's chest and stomach reddened, and then darkened. It was a good fifteen minutes before it finally began to crack and split open. He shrieked in pain nearly the entire time. The smell turned to a surprisingly pleasant aroma of cooking meat.

In the end, he gave in to wailing for mercy. He called her name, begging her to bring it to an end, to either free him or to finish him quickly. As she listened to him sob her name, she stroked the gold ring through her lower lip, his voice little more to her than the buzzing of a fly.

The thin layer of fat that lay over his powerful muscles began melting. He grew hoarse. Fueled by the fat, flames flared up, scorching his face.

"Nicci!" Kardeef knew his pleas for mercy were falling on indifferent ears. He betrayed his true feelings. "You vicious bitch! You deserved everything I did to your"

She casually confronted his wild gaze. "Yes, I did. Give my regards to the Keeper, Kadar."

"Tell him yourself! When Jagang finds out about this, he'll tear you limb from limb! You'll soon be in the underworld, in the Keeper's hands!"

His words were once more but a trifling drone.

Sweat beaded on people's foreheads as the spectacle dragged on. They needed no spoken orders to know she expected them to remain and watch the whole thing. Their own imaginations, should they consider disobeying her unspoken orders, would dream up punishments she never could. Only the boys were fascinated by the remarkable exhibition. Knowing looks passed among them; torture such as this was

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a treat to the minds of young immortals. Someday, they might make good Order troops-if they didn't grow up.

Nicci met the glare of the girl. The hatred in those eyes was breathtaking. Even though the girl had been afraid of the dunking and scrubbing, her eyes, at the time, had shown that the world was still a wondrous place, and she was someone special. Now, her eyes betrayed her lost innocence.

The whole time, Nicci stood tall, with her back straight and shoulders square, to take the full blow of the girl's bright new hatred, feeling the rare sensation of experiencing something.

The girl had no idea that Commander Kardeef had taken her place in the flames,

When the commander finally went silent, Nicci turned her eyes from the girl and spoke to the town's people.

"The past is gone. You are part of the Imperial Order. If you people don't do the moral thing by contributing toward the well-being of your fellow citizens of the Order, I will return."

They did not doubt her. If there was one thing they obviously wanted, it was never to see her again.

One of the soldiers, his fists trembling at his sides, tramped forward in halting steps. His eyes were wide with bewildered pain. "I want you back, darlin," he growled in a voice that didn't match the startled expression in his eyes. The voice turned deadly. "And I want you back right now."

There was no mistaking Jagang's voice, or the rage in it.

It was difficult for him to control the mind of one without the gift. He had the soldier in a tenacious grip. Jagang would not have used a soldier, thereby betraying his impotence, had he been able to reach in and control Nicci's mind.

She had absolutely no idea why he had suddenly lost the link to her. It had happened before. She knew he would eventually reestablish his ability to hurt her. She had merely to wait.

"You are angry with me, Excellency?"

"What do you think?"

She shrugged. "Since Kadar was your better in bed, I would think you would be pleased."

"Get yourself back here right now!" the soldier roared in Jagang's voice. "Do you understand? Right now!"

Nicci bowed. "But, of course, Excellency."

As she straightened, she yanked the soldier's long knife from the sheath at his belt and slammed it hilt-deep into his muscled gut. She `gritted her teeth with the effort of pivoting the handle sideways, sweeping the blade in a lethal arc through his insides.

She doubted the man felt his messy death writhing at her feet while she waited for her carriage to make its way around the square. He died with Jagang's chuckle on his lips. Since a dream walker could only be in a living mind, for the time being, the afternoon returned to quiet.

After her carriage rocked to a dusty halt, a soldier reached up and opened the door. She leaned out from the step, turning back to the crowd, holding the outside handrail in order to stand straight so that they all might see her. Her blond hair fluttered in the sunny breeze.

"Do not forget this day, and how your lives were all spared by Jagang the Just!

The commander would have murdered you; the emperor, through me, has instead'

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shown his compassion. Spread the word of the mercy and wisdom of Jagang the Just, and I will have no need to return."

The crowd mumbled that they would.

"Do you want us to bring the commander with us," a soldier asked. The man, Kadar Kardeef's loyal second, now wore Kardeef's sword. Like vegetables, fidelity's fresh vitality was fleeting, its final fate stench and rot.

"Leave him to roast as a reminder. Everyone else will return with me to Fairfield."

"By your command," he said with a bow. He circled his arm and ordered the men to mount up and move out.

Nicci leaned out farther and looked up at the driver. "His Excellency wishes to see me. Although he has not said as much, I'm reasonably sure he would like you to hurry."

Nicci took her place on the hard leather cushion inside, her back straight against the upright seat, while the driver let out a shrill whistle and cracked his whip. The team leaped forward, jerking the carriage ahead. With a hand on the windowsill, she steadied herself as the ironbound wheels bounced over the hard, rough ground of the town square until they reached the road, where the carnage settled down into this familiar jolting ride. Sunlight slanted in the window, falling across the empty cushion opposite her. The bold bright patch glided off the seat as the carriage negotiated a curve in the road, finally slipping up to come to rest in her lap like a warm cat. Darkly clad riders to each side, ahead, and behind stretched forward over the withers of their galloping mounts. A rumbling roar along with billowing plumes of dust lifted into the air from the thundering hooves.

For the moment, Nicci was free of Jagang. She was surrounded by two thousand men, yet she felt totally alone. Before long, she would have pain to fill the terrible void.

She felt no joy, no fear. She sometimes wondered why she felt nothing but the need to hurt.

As the carriage raced toward Jagang, her thoughts were focused instead on another man, trying to recall every occasion that she had seen him. She went over every moment she had spent with Richard Cypher, or as he was now known-and as Jagang knew him-Richard Rahl.

She thought about his gray eyes.

Until the day she saw him, she had never believed such a person could exist.

When she thought about Richard, like now, only one haunting need burned in her: to destroy him.

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C H A P T E R 9

Huge garish tents festooned the prominent hill outside the city of Fairfield, yet despite the festive colors erected amid the gloom, despite the laughing, the shouting, the coarse singing, and the riotous excess, this was no carnival come to town, but an occupying army. The emperor's tents, and those of his retinue, were styled in the fashion of the tents used by some of the nomadic people from Jagang's homeland of Altur'Rang, yet they were embellished far beyond any actual tradition. The emperor, a man vastly exceeding any nomadic tribal leader's ability to imagine, created his own cultural heritage as he saw fit.

Around the tents, covering the hills and valleys as far as Nicci could see, the soldiers had pitched their own small grimy tents. Some were oiled canvas, many more were made from animal skins. Beyond the shared basics of practicality, there was uniformity only in their lack of conformity to any one style.

Outside some of the shabby little tents, and almost as large, sat ornate upholstered chairs looted from the city. The juxtaposition almost looked as if it had been intentionally done for a comical effect, but Nicci knew the reality had no kinship to humor. When the army eventually moved on, such large, meticulously crafted items were too cumbersome to take and would be left to rot in the weather.

Horses were picketed haphazardly, with occasional paddocks holding small herds. Other enclosures held meat on the hoof. Individual wagons were scattered here and there, seemingly wherever they could find an empty spot, but in other places they had been set up side by side. Many were camp followers, others were army wagons with everything from basic supplies to blacksmith equipment. The army brought along minimal siege equipment; they had the gifted to use as weapons of that sort.

Brooding clouds scudded low over the scene. The humid air reeked of excrement from both animals and men. The green fields all around had been churned to a muddy morass. The two thousand men who had returned with Nicci had disappeared into the sprawling camp like a sprinkling of raindrops into a swamp.

An Imperial Order army encampment was a place of noise and seeming confusion, yet it was not as disorderly as it might appear. There was a hierarchy of authority, and duties and chores to attend. Scattered men worked in solitude on their gear, oiling weapons and leather or rolling their chain mail inside barrels with sand and vinegar to clean it of rust, while others cooked at fires. Furriers saw to the horses. Craftsmen saw to everything from repairing weapons to fashioning new boots to pulling teeth. Mystics of all sorts prowled the camp, tending impoverished souls or warding troublesome demons. Duties completed, raucous gangs gathered together for entertainment, usually gambling and drinking. Sometimes the diversions involved the camp followers, sometimes the captives.

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Even surrounded by such vast numbers, Nicci felt alone. Jagang's absence from her mind left a feeling of staggering isolation-not a sense of being forsaken, but simply solitude by contrast. With the dream walker in her mind, not even the most intimate detail of life-no thought, no deed-could be held private. His presence lurked in the dark mental corners, and from there he could watch everything: every word you spoke; every thought you had; every bite you took; every time you cleared your throat; every time you coughed; every time you went to the privy. You were never alone. Never. The violation was debilitating, the trespass complete.

That was what broke most of the Sisters: the brutal totality of it, the awareness of his constant presence in your own mind, watching. Worse, almost, the dream walker's roots sunk down through you, but you never knew when his awareness was focused on you. You might call him a vile name, and, with his attention elsewhere, it would go unnoticed. Another time, you might have a brief, private, nasty thought about him, and he would know it the same instant you thought it.

Nicci had learned to feel those roots, as had many of the other Sisters. She had also learned to recognize when they were absent, as now. That never happened with the others; with them, those roots were permanent. Jagang always eventually returned, though, to once again sink his roots into her, but for now, she was alone. She just didn't know why.

The jumble of troops and campfires left no clear route for the team, so Nicci had left her carriage for the walk the rest of the way up the hill. It exposed her to the lecherous looks and lewd calls of the soldiers who crowded the slope. She supposed that before Jagang was finished with her, she might be exposed to far more from the men. Most of the Sisters were sent out to the tents from time to time to be used for the men's pleasure. It was done either to punish them or, sometimes, merely to let them know it could be ordered on a whim-to remind them that they were slaves, nothing more than property.

Nicci, though, was reserved for the exclusive amusement of the emperor and those he specifically selected-like Kadar Kardeef. Many of the Sisters envied her status, but despite what they believed, being a personal slave to Jagang was no grace. Women were sent to the tents for a period of time, maybe a week or two, but the rest of the time they had less demanding duties. They were valued, after all, for their abilities with their gift. There was no such time limit for Nicci. She had once spent a couple of months sequestered in Jagang's room, so as to be there for his amusement any time of day or night. The soldiers enjoyed the women's company, but had to mind certain restrictions in what they could do to them; Jagang and his friends imposed on themselves no such limits.

On occasion, for reason or not, Jagang would become furious at her and would heatedly order her to the tents for a month-to teach her a lesson, he would say. Nicci would obediently bow and pledge it would be as he wished. He knew she was not bluffing; it would have been a lesser torment. Before she could be out the door to the tents, he would turn moody, command her to return to face him, and then angrily retract the orders.

Since the beginning, Nicci had, measure by measure, inch by inch, acquired a certain status and freedom afforded none of the others. She hadn't specifically sought it; it just came about. Jagang had confided to her that he read the Sisters' thoughts, and that they privately referred to her as the Slave Queen. She supposed Jagang told her so as to honor her in his own way, but the title "Slave Queen" had meant no more to her than "Death's Mistress."

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For now, she floated like a bright water-lily flower in the dark swamp of men. Other Sisters always made an attempt to look as drab as the men so as to go less noticed and be less desirable. They only deceived themselves. They lived in constant terror of what Jagang might do to them. What happened, happened. They had no choice or influence in it.

Nicci simply didn't care. She wore her fine black dresses and left her long blond hair uncovered for all to see. For the most part, she did as she wished. She didn't care what Jagang did to her, and he knew it. In much the way Richard was an enigma to her, she was an enigma to Jagang.

Too, Jagang was fascinated by her. Despite his cruelty toward her, there was a spark of caution mixed in. When he hurt her, she welcomed it; she merited the brutality. Pain could sometimes reach down into the dark emptiness. He would then recoil from hurting her. When he threatened to kill her, she waited patiently for it to be done; she knew she didn't deserve to live. He would then withdraw the sentence of death.

The fact that she was sincere was her safety-and her peril. She was a fawn among wolves, safe in her coat of indifference. The fawn was in danger only if it ran. She did not view her captivity as a conflict with her interests; she had no interests. Time and again she had the opportunity to run, but didn't. That, perhaps more than anything, captivated Jagang.

Sometimes, he seemed to pay court to her. She didn't know his real interest in her; she never tried to discover it. He occasionally professed concern for her, and a few times, something akin to affection. Other times, when she left on some duty, he seemed glad to be rid of her.

It had occurred to her, because of his behavior, that he might think he was in love with her. As preposterous as such a thought might be, it didn't matter one way or the other to her. She doubted he was capable of love. She seriously doubted that Jagang really knew what the word meant, much less the entire concept.

Nicci knew all too well what it meant.

A soldier near Jagang's tent stepped in front of her. He grinned moronically; it was meant to be an invitation by means of threat. She could have dissuaded him by mentioning that Jagang waited for her, or she could even have used her power to drop him where he stood, but instead she simply stared at him. It was not the reaction he wanted. Many of the men rose to the bait only if it squirmed. When she didn't, his expression turned sour. He grumbled a curse at her and moved off.

Nicci continued on toward the emperor's tent. Nomadic tents from Altur'Rang were actually quite small and practical, being made of bland, unadorned lambskin, Jagang had re-created them rather more grandly than the originals. His own was more oval than round. Three poles, rather than the customary one, held up the multipeaked roof. The tent's exterior walls were decorated with brightly embroidered panels. Around the top edge of the sides, where the roof met the walls, hung fistsized multicolored tassels and streamers that marked the traveling palace of the emperor. Banners and pennants of bright yellow and red atop the huge tent hung limp in the stale, late-afternoon air.

Outside, a woman beat small rugs hung over one of the tent's lines. Nicci lifted aside the heavy doorway curtain embellished with gold shields and hammered silver medallions depicting battle scenes. Inside, slaves were at work sweeping the expanse of carpets, dusting the delicate ceramic ware set about on the elaborate furnishings, and fussing at the hundreds of colorful pillows lining the edge of the floor. Hangings

72 richly decorated with traditional Altur'Rang designs divided the space into several rooms. A few openings overhead covered with gauzy material let in a little light. All the thick materials created a quiet place amid the noise. Lamps and candles lent sleepy light to the soft room.

Nicci did not acknowledge the eyes of the guards flanking the inside of the doorway, or those of the other slaves going about their domestic duties. In the middle of the front room sat Jagang's ornate chair, draped with red silks. This was where he sometimes took audiences, but the chair was empty. She didn't falter, as did other women summoned by His Excellency, but strode resolutely toward his bedroom in the rear section.

One of the slaves, a nearly naked boy looking to be in his late teens, was down on his hands and knees with a small whiskbroom sweeping the carpet set before the entrance to the bedroom. Without meeting Nicci's gaze, he informed her that His Excellency was not occupying his tents. The young man, Irwin, was gifted. He had lived at the Palace of the Prophets, training to be a wizard. Now Irwin tended the fringe of carpets and emptied the chamber pots. Nicci's mother would have approved.

Jagang could be any number of places. He might be off gambling or drinking with his men. He could be inspecting his troops or the craftsmen who attended them. He might be looking over the new captives, selecting those he wanted for himself. He might be talking with Kadar Kardeef's second.

Nicci saw several Sisters cowering in a corner. Like her, they, too, were Jagang's slaves. As she strode up to the three women, she saw that they were busy sewing, mending some of the tent's gear.

"Sister Nicci!" Sister Georgia rushed to her feet as a look of relief washed across her face. "We didn't know if you were alive or dead. We haven't seen you for so long. We thought maybe you had vanished."

Being that Nicci was a Sister of the Dark, sworn to the Keeper of the underworld, she found the concern from three Sisters of the Light to be somewhat insincere. Nicci supposed that they considered their captivity a common bond, and their feelings about it paramount, overcoming their more basic rifts. Too, they knew Jagang treated her differently; they were probably eager to be seen as friendly.

"I've been away on business for His Excellency."

"Of course," Sister Georgia said, dry-washing her hands as she dipped her head.

The other two, Sisters Rochelle and Aubrey, set aside the bag of bone buttons and tent thread, untangled themselves from yards of canvas, and then stood beside Sister Georgia. They both bowed their heads slightly to Nicci. The three of them feared her inscrutable standing with Jagang.

"Sister Nicci . . . His Excellency is very angry," Sister Rochelle said.

"Furious," Sister Aubrey confirmed. "He . . . he railed at the walls, saying that you had gone too far this time."

Nicci only stared.

Sister Aubrey licked her lips. "We just thought you should know. So you can be careful."

Nicci thought this would be a poor time to suddenly begin being careful. She found the groveling of women hundreds of years her senior annoying. "Where's Jagang?"

"He has taken a grand building, not far outside the city, as his quarters," Sister Aubrey said.

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"It used to be the Minister of Culture's estate," Sister Rochelle added.

Nicci frowned. "Why? He has his tents."

"Since you've been gone, he's decided that an emperor needs proper quarters," Sister Rochelle said.

"Proper? Proper for what?"

"To show the world his importance, I suppose."

Sister Aubrey nodded. "He's having a palace built. In Altur'Rang. It's his new vision." She arced an arm through the air, apparently indicating, with the slice of her hand, the grand scale of the place. "He's ordered a magnificent palace built."

"He was planning on using the Palace of the Prophets," Sister Rochelle said, "but since it was destroyed he's decided to build another, only better-the most opulent palace ever conceived."

Nicci frowned at the three women. "He wanted the Palace of the Prophets because it had a spell to slow aging. That was what interested him."

All three women shrugged.

Nicci began to get an inkling of what Jagang might have in mind. "So, this place he's at now? What is he doing? Learning to eat with something other than his fingers? Seeing how he likes living the fancy life under a roof?"

"He only told us he was staying there for now," Sister Georgia said. "He took most of the . . . younger women with him. He told us to stay here and see to things in case he wished to return to his tent."

It didn't sound like much had changed, except the setting.

Nicci sighed. Her carriage was gone. She would have to walk.

"All right. How do I find the place?"

After Sister Aubrey gave her detailed directions, Nicci thanked them and turned to go.

"Sister Alessandra has vanished," Sister Georgia said in a voice straining mightily to sound nonchalant.

Nicci stopped in her tracks.

She rounded on Sister Georgia. The woman was middle aged, and seemed to look worse every time Nicci saw her. Her clothes were little more than tattered rags she wore with the pride of a fine uniform. Her thin hair was more white than brown. It might once have looked distinguished, but it didn't appear to have seen a brush, much less soap, for weeks. She was probably infested with lice, too.

Some people looked forward to age as an excuse to become a frump, as if all along their greatest ambition in life had been to be drab and unattractive. Sister Georgia seemed to delight in dowdiness.

"What do you mean, Sister Alessandra has vanished?"

Nicci caught the slight twitch of satisfaction. Georgia spread her hands innocently. "We don't know what happened. She's just turned up missing."

Still, Nicci did not move. "I see."

Sister Georgia spread her hands again, feigning simplemindedness. "It was about the time the Prelate disappeared, too."

Nicci denied them the reward of astonishment.

"What was Verna doing here?"

"Not Verna," Sister Rochelle said. She leaned in. "Ann."

Sister Georgia scowled her displeasure at Rochelle for spoiling the surprise-and a surprise it was. The old Prelate had died-at least, that was what Nicci had been told. Since leaving the Place of the Prophets, Nicci had heard about all the other

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Sisters, novices, and young men spending the night at the funeral pyre for Ann and the prophet, Nathan. Knowing Ann, there was obviously some sort of deception afoot, but even for her, such a thing would be extraordinary.

The three Sisters smiled like cats with a carp. They looked eager for a long game of truth-and-gossip.

"Give me the important details. I don't have time for the long version. His Excellency wishes to see me." Nicci took in the three wilting smiles. She kept her voice level. "Unless you want to risk him returning here, angry and impatient to see me."

Sisters Rochelle and Aubrey blanched.

Georgia abandoned the game and went back to dry washing her hands. "The Prelate came to the camp when you were gone-and was captured."

"Why would she come into Jagang's midst?"

"To try to convince us to escape with her," Sister Rochelle blurted out. A shrill

titter jittery, rather than amused-burbled up. "She had some silly story about the chimes being loose and magic failing. Imagine that! Wild stories, they were. Expected us to believe-"

"So that was what happened . . ." Nicci whispered as she stared off in reflection. She realized instantly it was no wild story. Pieces began fitting together. Nicci used her gift, the others weren't allowed to, so they might not know if magic had failed for a time.

"That's what she claimed," Sister Georgia said.

"So, magic had failed," Nicci reasoned aloud, "and she thought that would prevent the dream walker from controlling your minds."

That might explain much of what Nicci didn't understand: why Jagang sometimes couldn't enter her mind.

"But if the chimes are loose-"

"Were," Sister Georgia said. "Even if it was true, for a time, they now have been banished. His Excellency has full access to us, I'm happy to say, and everything else concerning magic has returned to normal."

Nicci could almost see the three of them wondering if Jagang was listening to their words. But if magic was returned to normal, Jagang should be in Nicci's mind; he wasn't. She felt the spark of a possible understanding fizzle and die. "So, the Prelate made a blunder and Jagang caught her."