Cara, proud of being a poor cook, smiled as if it were an accomplishment of note.
He swallowed and looked up. "My horse." He began to stand. "When Mistress Cara. . . I forgot my horse. I need-"
"But, Lord Rahl, I can't allow you to-"
In the stillness, crickets once again took up their rhythmic chirping. Some dis 43
"How are you, Mother Confessor?" Captain Meiffert asked. "Everyone is terribly worried about you."
"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
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."
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.
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."
"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."
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.
Over millennia, through war, migration, and occupation, other cultures had mixed
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.
"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?"
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 . . ."
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."
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.
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.
"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."
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."
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."
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."
"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."
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."
"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 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.
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."
"I'm glad you understand, Captain," Kahlan whispered. "That's one reason he
worries so much about all of you. He wants you to live lives you can be proud of. Lives that are your own."
"That's why," Kahlan confirmed, afraid to test her own voice any further than that.
"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."
"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."
"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."
47
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.
"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.
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.
48
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.
"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.
"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."
"How many scouts and spies did we lose?" Richard asked.
Richard sighed. "And General Reibisch thinks it was worth losing the lives of those men to discover this?"
Richard was carving a face in a piece of firewood, sporadically tossing shavings into the fire. He sighed.
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.
He insisted this was nothing like that. As a guide, he said he'd passed many an
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.
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.
Cara shot to her feet. "What!" When she saw Richard's smile, Cara realized he was only joking. She fumed, nonetheless.
Cara sank back down to the ground. "Not if Brass Buttons, here, values his ribs," she muttered.
"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."
"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."
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.
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.
"And . . .?"
50
"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."
"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.
"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.
"Who?" Cara asked.
"Her. Must be the Sisters," Richard said.
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."
"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.
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.
"I'm sorry, no, Lord Rahl. They said she is simply called by everyone `Death's Mistress.' "
"Quite the contrary. She has blue eyes and long blond hair. She is said to be one
of the most beautiful women you could ever lay eyes upon. They say she looks like a vision of a good spirit."
Richard was frowning. "Blond. . . blue eyes . . . there are several it could be .... Too bad they didn't catch her name."
"Dear spirits," Richard whispered as he rose to his full height, gripping his carving by its throat.
"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.
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.
Richard tossed his carving into the flames.
52
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.
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.
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.
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."
53
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.
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.
"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.
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."
"But we have to eat." It was not an argument, so much as a plea.
54
The trembling man remained mute.
Nicci's vision suddenly went white. With a pain like scorching hot needles driven into her ears, Jagang's voice filled her mind.
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.
Making it last hours was a waste of Jagang's effort-she couldn't tell the difference. She had told him as much.
Do not disobey me again!
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.
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.
Nicci, forgive me. You know I don't mean to hurt you.
There would soon be abundant justification for such apprehension.
If that is what you wish to do, then do it, she thought, in answer.
You know 1 don't want to do that, Nicci.
"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."
"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!"
Only in the furthest depths of pain could she begin to feel anything. Even pain was preferable to the nothingness she usually felt.
for Jagang to so easily control them.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nicci turned her attention away from Kadar Kardeef and back to the people.
"Please, Mistress . . . We have nothing-"
57
"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."
"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. . ."
"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.
The time had come.
Nicci cupped the girl's chin, staring into the depths of those thirsting eyes.
"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.
Nicci's mother said beauty was a curse to a caring woman and a blessing only to whores.
"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.
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.
It would be for the best, this way.
59
"Where is there a washtub?"
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?"
"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?"
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.
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.
60
"What's the matter with you!" Nicci shook the gasping girl. "Don't you know you're crawling with lice?"
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.
"No--"
"Please! I'll try to do better. I'll wash. I promise!"
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.
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.
The girl nodded her oath.
It was a memory of the first time she had seen Richard.
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
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.
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 . . .
"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.
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.
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.
The vast chamber fell to an astonished hush.
Her trembling fingers clutched the rail for support.
His fingers tapped the Rada'Han around his neck.
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.
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
"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."
"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."
"That is the sole purpose of a collar. You collar a beast. You collar your enemies.
"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.
Little did he know that some of them were.
The room was as silent as a tomb.
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.
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."
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.
"I give you a blood oath!" he cried out. "Harm the Baka Ban Mana, harm Sister
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!"
"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."
Nicci knew that the profound importance of what she had seen in his eyes and in his presence would forever haunt her.
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.
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.
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
simple, if strange, kindness. She erred on the side of caution. Once again, his nature had stayed her hand.
In the end, Nicci understood that quality in his eyes no better than the first moment she had seen it.
--]--- The girl ran for her mother when Nicci released her grip on the studded strap around her neck.
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.
She gestured. "You two. Seize the commander."
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.
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.
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.
65
"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."
"Do as I say, or die. I will not wait."
"What do you think you're doing?" Kadar Kardeef roared at her as the men pulled him to his feet.
"Why, Commander, I am merely following your orders."
She smiled without humor just because she knew it would further madden him.
"Don't hurt him-I want him fully conscious. Strip him and bind him to the pole."
"The pole that held the pigs you men ate."
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."
They could not know that, for some reason, Jagang did not have access to ha mind right then.
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Watching the eyes of the town's people, Nicci pointed behind her.
Nearly everyone shook their heads as they all mumbled, "No, Mistress."
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.
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.
"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"
"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!"
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
a treat to the minds of young immortals. Someday, they might make good Order troops-if they didn't grow up.
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.
When the commander finally went silent, Nicci turned her eyes from the girl and spoke to the town's people.
They did not doubt her. If there was one thing they obviously wanted, it was never to see her again.
There was no mistaking Jagang's voice, or the rage in it.
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.
"What do you think?"
"Get yourself back here right now!" the soldier roared in Jagang's voice. "Do you understand? Right now!"
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.
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.
The commander would have murdered you; the emperor, through me, has instead'
shown his compassion. Spread the word of the mercy and wisdom of Jagang the Just, and I will have no need to return."
"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.
"By your command," he said with a bow. He circled his arm and ordered the men to mount up and move out.
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.
She felt no joy, no fear. She sometimes wondered why she felt nothing but the need to hurt.
She thought about his gray eyes.
When she thought about Richard, like now, only one haunting need burned in her: to destroy him.
C H A P T E R 9
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
Nicci knew all too well what it meant.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"Of course," Sister Georgia said, dry-washing her hands as she dipped her head.
"Sister Nicci . . . His Excellency is very angry," Sister Rochelle said.
Nicci only stared.
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?"
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Nicci frowned. "Why? He has his tents."
"Proper? Proper for what?"
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."
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."
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?"
It didn't sound like much had changed, except the setting.
"All right. How do I find the place?"
"Sister Alessandra has vanished," Sister Georgia said in a voice straining mightily to sound nonchalant.
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.
"What do you mean, Sister Alessandra has vanished?"
Still, Nicci did not move. "I see."
Nicci denied them the reward of astonishment.
"Not Verna," Sister Rochelle said. She leaned in. "Ann."
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The three Sisters smiled like cats with a carp. They looked eager for a long game of truth-and-gossip.
Sisters Rochelle and Aubrey blanched.
"Why would she come into Jagang's midst?"
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-"
"That's what she claimed," Sister Georgia said.
That might explain much of what Nicci didn't understand: why Jagang sometimes couldn't enter her mind.
"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."