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A man on one of the big warhorses suddenly galloped out of the smoke. The soldier raised his sword as he screamed a battle cry. Before Nicci could do anything, Sa'din bellowed in rage and snapped, ripping the war-horse's ear off. The wounded horse screamed in terror and pain as it spun and bucked. The soldier was sent flying into the burning bodies.
Nicci directed a web of power at men rushing in at her, each in turn —just for an instant, but long enough to stop their hearts. They stumbled, clutching their chests. In a way, it was more frightening for men to see their comrades gasp and drop from a mysterious cause than it was to see them rent by violence. From Nicci's point of view it was just as effective and it didn't take as much of her strength; even though it required specific targeting, stopping a heart was easier than conjuring flames or lightning. With so many men all around her and all rushing in at her, she knew she was going to need all her strength if she hoped to get out of the camp alive.
While the men in the immediate area knew what was happening, as of yet those in the outlying areas of the camp weren't fully aware of what was specifically going on, although they now knew they were under some sort of attack. Being well trained, they all rallied.
From all directions, arrows zipped through the air. Spears began flying past. An arrow flicked through Nicci's hair. Another clipped her shoulder just enough to cut her. Nicci drummed her heels against Sa'din's ribs and lay forward over his whithers. She was astonished at the power with which the horse leaped away. He fearlessly galloped right through men rushing in at them. The stallion's hooves made a sickening sound as they struck bone. Men tumbled away. Sa'din jumped over tents and fires. The air was alive with terrible screams. As she raced through the camp Nicci took every opportunity to inflict yet more death and destruction.
But from behind her, a swelling, angry roar began to lift from thousands upon thousands of men all the way across the valley. The power of it, the ferocity, was frightening.
Nicci vividly recalled Richard's warning that all it would take was one lucky arrow. Now there were thousands. Nicci diverted her power from attacking to shielding her and her horse.
As Sa'din carried her back through the men, horses, wagons, and tents, Nicci let go of her defenses and again focused a scythe of her gift to slice through anything living that was close enough. The intensely concentrated and compacted edge of air sliced through men as they ran in to intercept her. As her horse leaped some obstacles and dodged others, that deadly edge of her power cut some men off at the knees and decapitated others. Horses screamed as their legs were cleaved from under them and they crashed to the ground. Shrieks of horror and pain from wounded men followed in her wake. But there were growing cries of rage.
As she charged through the camp, Nicci could see men all around swiftly saddling their horses and mounting up. Spears and lances were snatched from those stacked everywhere throughout the encampment. Nicci wished she could destroy the weapons, but she had to concentrate just to hold on to Sa'din as he bounded over anything in his way, including an occasional wagon. The horse seemed possessed to get her out of the danger as swiftly as possible. Even so, men in gathering numbers were taking up the chase, whether on horse or foot.
As she cleared the last of the tents, Nicci looked back over her shoulder. The place was in an uproar. Flames still shot skyward. Billowing clouds of oily black smoke rose in several places. She didn't have any idea how many men she had killed, but there were thousands of them coming after her. The pounding she was taking atop a galloping horse was making her back hurt something fierce.
At least she had eliminated Kronos. They had tried to trick her, but in the end it had cost them a second wizard that she hadn't even known they had with them and would have been terrible trouble for the defenders back at Altur'Rang. It had turned out to be a bit of good fortune.
As long as they didn't have three wizards.
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
Nicci directed a web of power at men rushing in at her, each in turn —just for an instant, but long enough to stop their hearts. They stumbled, clutching their chests. In a way, it was more frightening for men to see their comrades gasp and drop from a mysterious cause than it was to see them rent by violence. From Nicci's point of view it was just as effective and it didn't take as much of her strength; even though it required specific targeting, stopping a heart was easier than conjuring flames or lightning. With so many men all around her and all rushing in at her, she knew she was going to need all her strength if she hoped to get out of the camp alive.
While the men in the immediate area knew what was happening, as of yet those in the outlying areas of the camp weren't fully aware of what was specifically going on, although they now knew they were under some sort of attack. Being well trained, they all rallied.
From all directions, arrows zipped through the air. Spears began flying past. An arrow flicked through Nicci's hair. Another clipped her shoulder just enough to cut her. Nicci drummed her heels against Sa'din's ribs and lay forward over his whithers. She was astonished at the power with which the horse leaped away. He fearlessly galloped right through men rushing in at them. The stallion's hooves made a sickening sound as they struck bone. Men tumbled away. Sa'din jumped over tents and fires. The air was alive with terrible screams. As she raced through the camp Nicci took every opportunity to inflict yet more death and destruction.
But from behind her, a swelling, angry roar began to lift from thousands upon thousands of men all the way across the valley. The power of it, the ferocity, was frightening.
Nicci vividly recalled Richard's warning that all it would take was one lucky arrow. Now there were thousands. Nicci diverted her power from attacking to shielding her and her horse.
As Sa'din carried her back through the men, horses, wagons, and tents, Nicci let go of her defenses and again focused a scythe of her gift to slice through anything living that was close enough. The intensely concentrated and compacted edge of air sliced through men as they ran in to intercept her. As her horse leaped some obstacles and dodged others, that deadly edge of her power cut some men off at the knees and decapitated others. Horses screamed as their legs were cleaved from under them and they crashed to the ground. Shrieks of horror and pain from wounded men followed in her wake. But there were growing cries of rage.
As she charged through the camp, Nicci could see men all around swiftly saddling their horses and mounting up. Spears and lances were snatched from those stacked everywhere throughout the encampment. Nicci wished she could destroy the weapons, but she had to concentrate just to hold on to Sa'din as he bounded over anything in his way, including an occasional wagon. The horse seemed possessed to get her out of the danger as swiftly as possible. Even so, men in gathering numbers were taking up the chase, whether on horse or foot.
As she cleared the last of the tents, Nicci looked back over her shoulder. The place was in an uproar. Flames still shot skyward. Billowing clouds of oily black smoke rose in several places. She didn't have any idea how many men she had killed, but there were thousands of them coming after her. The pounding she was taking atop a galloping horse was making her back hurt something fierce.
At least she had eliminated Kronos. They had tried to trick her, but in the end it had cost them a second wizard that she hadn't even known they had with them and would have been terrible trouble for the defenders back at Altur'Rang. It had turned out to be a bit of good fortune.
As long as they didn't have three wizards.
CHAPTER 28
As Nicci crested a hill, the first glimpse of the vast city in the distance was a beautiful sight. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed the thundering cavalry right on her heels. Nicci was able to see the raised swords, axes, spears, and lances glinting in the light of the setting sun like steel quills of an immense porcupine. The cloud of dust boiling up behind them blotted out the darkening eastern sky. The bloodthirsty battle cries were terrifying.
And that was only the cavalry. She knew that farther back came the tide of foot soldiers.
Even if the sun wouldn't have been in her eyes, Nicci didn't think that she could have spotted anyone in the city. That was as it should be. She wanted people, for the most part, to stay hidden. Even so, it was not reassuring to feel all alone with an angry hornets' nest chasing her.
She had told Victor and Ishaq the route she would try to take when returning so that they could concentrate their defenses to the best advantage. She hoped they were ready. There hadn't been a great deal of time to prepare. They would get no more, though; time was up.
With the city looming closer, Nicci at last spared the effort to snake her right arm through the sleeve of her dress, then reached back and threaded her left arm through the other sleeve. Holding the reins in one hand, leaning forward over the galloping horse's withers, she at last managed to blindly button her dress back up. She smiled at the small victory.
The first small buildings flashed by. Although there had been a cutoff from the main road that would have more quickly gotten her into the confines of the city, Nicci had kept to the main road down out of the hills. Entering Altur'Rang, the road turned into a broad boulevard, the main east-west thoroughfare. As the buildings grew closer together, they also rose up higher. In places along the road trees lined the way. She could see fastened on the bark of those trees the split-open, empty skins of cicadas that had molted. It gave Nicci a fleeting memory of lying in the shelter, in the warmth of Richard's arm.
Sa'din was sweating into a lather and she knew that he had to be tiring, but he didn't show any sign of wanting to slow. She had to urge him to ease up just a little anyway so that the cavalry would get closer to her. She wanted them to believe they were catching her. Once a predator chasing prey was closing in they tended to lose sight of everything else. The instinct to chase was as strong in soldiers as it was in wolves. Nicci wanted them to throw caution to the winds as they ran her down, so she leaned a little to the side, making it look as if she might be wounded and ready to fall.
Running down the center of the road, trailing a ribbon of dust, she began to recognize groups of buildings. She remembered patterns of windows. She saw a butter-colored clapboard building to the left and red shutters to the right that she recognized. In the shadows down an alleyway just beyond a row of closely packed buildings that she knew were homes because of the laundry hanging on lines between them, she spotted some of the men hiding. They all had bows. She knew she wasn't far.
She suddenly came upon the three story brick building. In the late light she almost didn't recognize it. The spikes lying across the road were covered with a thin layer of dirt to hide them from the soldiers. As she galloped past, she spotted men hiding just around the corner, ready to pull up the spikes once she was by.
«Wait until most are past!» she called out to the waiting men just loud enough for them to hear but not so loud that those following could hear.
She saw one of them nod to her. She hoped they understood. If the spikes were pulled up at the head of the cavalry, bottlenecking them all, then only those in the lead would be taken out and most of those in the rear would escape injury and regroup. If that happened then they would have lost their chance to break up the cavalry. Nicci needed the defenders manning the spikes to allow most to get past.
Nicci looked back over her shoulder to see the big men with their weapons raised thundering past the brick building. Most cleared the rear of the building, but then, there was a sudden howling boom as charging warhorses crashed headlong into the iron spikes. Horses behind weren't able to stop and violently collided with the animals that had been impaled.
Riders cried out as they were crushed. Other men tumbled over the heads of their horses.
From the windows, arrows rained down as soldiers now on foot tried to halt the tail of the cavalry still charging in. Men desperately slowed their mounts. As they did they were hit with arrows. Men and horses were hit with a withering flight of arrows from several directions. Most of the men put an arm up, only to then realize that they had neglected to take the time to get their shields.
As the last of the riders were still crashing into the sudden blockade, Nicci went right at the fork in the wide road. The cavalry was right on her heels and swept down the street after her.
«Wait until half are past!» she yelled at the men hiding around the corner of a tall stone wall as she raced past.
Again came the hard impacts and terrible noise of animals screaming in pain and terror as they were unexpectedly impaled or torn open. Soldiers cried out as they were violently unhorsed. Men carrying spears rushed out from behind the building, running the soldiers through before they had a chance to get to their feet and fight. Axes, swords, and flails belonging to fallen soldiers were swept up by men to be used against the Order.
Some of the cavalry, fooled a second time, didn't intend to be fooled again and at a full gallop peeled off from the main column, some taking another street to the left. Others turned down a narrow road to the right.
The riders following her had gone hardly any distance at all and had not had a chance to fully consider if they should break off the charge, when Nicci cleared the third barrier of iron spikes as men yanked them up and jammed posts in place. The horses just behind her crashed into the spikes. From immediately behind came the most terrible noise of the immense weight of horseflesh thudding into the lead animals already caught up on the iron spikes and stopped cold in their tracks. A great cry lifted from the cavalrymen as they were ensnared in the violent debacle. Almost at the same time the riders who had taken roads to the right and left suddenly found themselves caught up in the same iron traps. The enemy found themselves in a box canyon of brick and iron, rather than rock.
The impact of the horses running at full speed clouting into a tangled pile of broken men and animals blocking the main road was ghastly. Flesh pounded against flesh and bones snapped. Horses screamed in pain. So powerful was the force of the impact that it broke the spike wall and blew a hole through the bottleneck of carcasses. Great warhorses, some with their face armor and some without, spilled through the gap, slipping and sliding on the blood and gore of slain comrades and other animals. In the treacherous footing, some of the horses and riders fell. Others pouring through the gap at a full gallop didn't have anywhere else to go and trampled them.
Men bristling with spears rushed out of alleyways to the sides and into the path of the charging cavalry to close the breach in the line. The horses, already in shock from the carnage and terrible destruction of so many of their kind, now faced rank upon rank of men running in at them, yelling battle cries, thrusting spears into their sides. The animals squealed with horrific, desperate screams as they were mercilessly gored. The fallen animals tripped up those still running in an attempt to escape. The evening air sounded as if it were ripping as archers rained down a hail of arrows on cavalrymen struggling to escape the carnage.
Nicci doubted that these Imperial Order troops would have deliberately attacked into the city, using the cavalry in such a fashion, if they had not been goaded into it. These kind of horses were not meant for this kind of fighting. They simply couldn't maneuver properly in the close quarters and the cavalrymen couldn't effectively cut down their opposition. To make matters more difficult for them, the defenders had too many places to hide for a cavalry charge to be truly effective. The purpose of the cavalry would have been to swiftly crush any organized resistance out in the open hoping to stop the Order before they reached the city, and then to run down anyone who tried to escape the city after the troops were sent in. Had the commanders been properly in control of the situation and their men, Nicci doubted they would have allowed such a crazy cavalry charge into the confines of a city. Nicci, of course, had known all that when she went to whack the hornets' nest.
The folly of a cavalry attack into a city was becoming all too apparent. The killing was as swift as it was brutal. The gruesome sight of so many horses and men torn open seemed somehow unreal. The stench of blood was gagging.
When she saw a column of the enemy turn down an alleyway to make an escape, Nicci cast her Han outward, using a concentrated spike of force to snap the bones of the lead horse. As the animal's legs folded under it the horses following crashed into it at full speed, breaking their legs as the first horse rolled under them before they were able to leap up out of the way. A few of the horses following behind, seeing what was happening and having more time to react, were able to jump clear. Nicci saw the men at the far end of the narrow alleyway close off their escape route.
Nicci cut around the corner to reach the main bottleneck and help prevent any Imperial Order cavalry from escaping the trap. As she rounded the final building, she encountered a knot of cavalry as they broke through the lines of men with spears. Nicci sent a molten ball of flame howling toward the enemy. It cleared the heads of the defenders and hit the street, splashing liquid fire across the horses' flanks. The animals, their hides ablaze, reared up, allowing the flames to roll up onto the men on their backs.
Nicci raced around tightly packed buildings to come up behind the tail end of the center trap that had ensnared a large number of the enemy. The men of the city had already set upon them. For once, the cavalrymen were outnumbered, disorganized, and unable to break free of the onslaught. Men fighting for their freedom had a burning determination that the soldiers had not expected to encounter. Their tactics of intimidation and simple slaughter had fallen apart.
In the fading light of dusk, Nicci spotted Victor swinging a heavy mace at any Imperial Order head he could find. She urged Sa'din through the slaughter.
«Victor!»
The man looked up with a murderous scowl. «What!» he cried out over the din of the battle, blood dripping from the steel blades of his weapon.
Nicci stepped her horse closer. «The soldiers are coming right behind the cavalry. They will be the real test. We don't dare let them change their mind about attacking now. Just in case they are having any second thoughts, I'm going to go give them something irresistible to chase into the city.»
Victor flashed her a grim grin. «Good. We will be ready for them.»
Once the army poured into Altur'Rang, there was no way they would be able to stay together. They would split up to move down different streets. Once they did that, each of those groups could be further divided by the defenders. As each group fled or charged, they would face hidden archers and groups of men with spears, to say nothing of the numerous traps.
Altur'Rang was huge. As darkness took the city, many of the invaders would become disoriented and lost. Because of the narrow warren of streets they wouldn't be able to stay together to present a coordinated attack. They would not be allowed to go where they wished, as they wished, attacking helpless people; they would be relentlessly pursued and harried. Each group would get smaller all the time, both because they would be whittled down while under constant attack, and because some of their men would try other routes to find a way to safety. Nicci had made sure that there was no place of safety in the city.
«There is blood all down the front of you.» Victor called up to her. «Are you all right?»
«I got clumsy and fell off my horse. I'm fine. This must end tonight,» she reminded Victor.
«In a hurry to go after Richard?»
She smiled but didn't answer his question. «I'd better go whack the hornets' nest. I will bring them on my heels.»
He nodded. «We're ready.»
When she spotted three soldiers in the distance trying to make an escape without their horses, Nicci paused to cast a shimmering spell down a narrow twisting street. With three rapid thuds, the lance of power slammed through flesh and bone to drop the three.
«And Victor,» she said turning back to the man, «there's one last thing.»
«What would that be?»
«No one gets away alive. No one.»
With the sounds of battle raging behind him, he appraised her eyes for a moment. «I understand. Ishaq will be waiting for you; try to get the hornet's nest there as quickly as you can.»
Nicci, checking the reins to hold Sa'din in place, nodded. «I will bring the soldiers right down.»
She turned to the sudden whoosh of flame. Great gouts of fire flared up to the east. She knew that it could mean only one thing.
Victor cursed and climbed up to stand on the carcass of a dead war-horse as he craned his neck, trying to get a view over the rooftops at the thick smoke billowing up into the darkening sky.
He cast a suspicious scowl at Nicci. «You failed to get Kronos?»
«I got Kronos,» she growled through gritted teeth, «and another wizard. It would appear that they have another gifted with them. I guess they came prepared.» Nicci laid the reins over, turning Sa'din toward the distant sounds of screams. «But they didn't come prepared for Death's Mistress.»
And that was only the cavalry. She knew that farther back came the tide of foot soldiers.
Even if the sun wouldn't have been in her eyes, Nicci didn't think that she could have spotted anyone in the city. That was as it should be. She wanted people, for the most part, to stay hidden. Even so, it was not reassuring to feel all alone with an angry hornets' nest chasing her.
She had told Victor and Ishaq the route she would try to take when returning so that they could concentrate their defenses to the best advantage. She hoped they were ready. There hadn't been a great deal of time to prepare. They would get no more, though; time was up.
With the city looming closer, Nicci at last spared the effort to snake her right arm through the sleeve of her dress, then reached back and threaded her left arm through the other sleeve. Holding the reins in one hand, leaning forward over the galloping horse's withers, she at last managed to blindly button her dress back up. She smiled at the small victory.
The first small buildings flashed by. Although there had been a cutoff from the main road that would have more quickly gotten her into the confines of the city, Nicci had kept to the main road down out of the hills. Entering Altur'Rang, the road turned into a broad boulevard, the main east-west thoroughfare. As the buildings grew closer together, they also rose up higher. In places along the road trees lined the way. She could see fastened on the bark of those trees the split-open, empty skins of cicadas that had molted. It gave Nicci a fleeting memory of lying in the shelter, in the warmth of Richard's arm.
Sa'din was sweating into a lather and she knew that he had to be tiring, but he didn't show any sign of wanting to slow. She had to urge him to ease up just a little anyway so that the cavalry would get closer to her. She wanted them to believe they were catching her. Once a predator chasing prey was closing in they tended to lose sight of everything else. The instinct to chase was as strong in soldiers as it was in wolves. Nicci wanted them to throw caution to the winds as they ran her down, so she leaned a little to the side, making it look as if she might be wounded and ready to fall.
Running down the center of the road, trailing a ribbon of dust, she began to recognize groups of buildings. She remembered patterns of windows. She saw a butter-colored clapboard building to the left and red shutters to the right that she recognized. In the shadows down an alleyway just beyond a row of closely packed buildings that she knew were homes because of the laundry hanging on lines between them, she spotted some of the men hiding. They all had bows. She knew she wasn't far.
She suddenly came upon the three story brick building. In the late light she almost didn't recognize it. The spikes lying across the road were covered with a thin layer of dirt to hide them from the soldiers. As she galloped past, she spotted men hiding just around the corner, ready to pull up the spikes once she was by.
«Wait until most are past!» she called out to the waiting men just loud enough for them to hear but not so loud that those following could hear.
She saw one of them nod to her. She hoped they understood. If the spikes were pulled up at the head of the cavalry, bottlenecking them all, then only those in the lead would be taken out and most of those in the rear would escape injury and regroup. If that happened then they would have lost their chance to break up the cavalry. Nicci needed the defenders manning the spikes to allow most to get past.
Nicci looked back over her shoulder to see the big men with their weapons raised thundering past the brick building. Most cleared the rear of the building, but then, there was a sudden howling boom as charging warhorses crashed headlong into the iron spikes. Horses behind weren't able to stop and violently collided with the animals that had been impaled.
Riders cried out as they were crushed. Other men tumbled over the heads of their horses.
From the windows, arrows rained down as soldiers now on foot tried to halt the tail of the cavalry still charging in. Men desperately slowed their mounts. As they did they were hit with arrows. Men and horses were hit with a withering flight of arrows from several directions. Most of the men put an arm up, only to then realize that they had neglected to take the time to get their shields.
As the last of the riders were still crashing into the sudden blockade, Nicci went right at the fork in the wide road. The cavalry was right on her heels and swept down the street after her.
«Wait until half are past!» she yelled at the men hiding around the corner of a tall stone wall as she raced past.
Again came the hard impacts and terrible noise of animals screaming in pain and terror as they were unexpectedly impaled or torn open. Soldiers cried out as they were violently unhorsed. Men carrying spears rushed out from behind the building, running the soldiers through before they had a chance to get to their feet and fight. Axes, swords, and flails belonging to fallen soldiers were swept up by men to be used against the Order.
Some of the cavalry, fooled a second time, didn't intend to be fooled again and at a full gallop peeled off from the main column, some taking another street to the left. Others turned down a narrow road to the right.
The riders following her had gone hardly any distance at all and had not had a chance to fully consider if they should break off the charge, when Nicci cleared the third barrier of iron spikes as men yanked them up and jammed posts in place. The horses just behind her crashed into the spikes. From immediately behind came the most terrible noise of the immense weight of horseflesh thudding into the lead animals already caught up on the iron spikes and stopped cold in their tracks. A great cry lifted from the cavalrymen as they were ensnared in the violent debacle. Almost at the same time the riders who had taken roads to the right and left suddenly found themselves caught up in the same iron traps. The enemy found themselves in a box canyon of brick and iron, rather than rock.
The impact of the horses running at full speed clouting into a tangled pile of broken men and animals blocking the main road was ghastly. Flesh pounded against flesh and bones snapped. Horses screamed in pain. So powerful was the force of the impact that it broke the spike wall and blew a hole through the bottleneck of carcasses. Great warhorses, some with their face armor and some without, spilled through the gap, slipping and sliding on the blood and gore of slain comrades and other animals. In the treacherous footing, some of the horses and riders fell. Others pouring through the gap at a full gallop didn't have anywhere else to go and trampled them.
Men bristling with spears rushed out of alleyways to the sides and into the path of the charging cavalry to close the breach in the line. The horses, already in shock from the carnage and terrible destruction of so many of their kind, now faced rank upon rank of men running in at them, yelling battle cries, thrusting spears into their sides. The animals squealed with horrific, desperate screams as they were mercilessly gored. The fallen animals tripped up those still running in an attempt to escape. The evening air sounded as if it were ripping as archers rained down a hail of arrows on cavalrymen struggling to escape the carnage.
Nicci doubted that these Imperial Order troops would have deliberately attacked into the city, using the cavalry in such a fashion, if they had not been goaded into it. These kind of horses were not meant for this kind of fighting. They simply couldn't maneuver properly in the close quarters and the cavalrymen couldn't effectively cut down their opposition. To make matters more difficult for them, the defenders had too many places to hide for a cavalry charge to be truly effective. The purpose of the cavalry would have been to swiftly crush any organized resistance out in the open hoping to stop the Order before they reached the city, and then to run down anyone who tried to escape the city after the troops were sent in. Had the commanders been properly in control of the situation and their men, Nicci doubted they would have allowed such a crazy cavalry charge into the confines of a city. Nicci, of course, had known all that when she went to whack the hornets' nest.
The folly of a cavalry attack into a city was becoming all too apparent. The killing was as swift as it was brutal. The gruesome sight of so many horses and men torn open seemed somehow unreal. The stench of blood was gagging.
When she saw a column of the enemy turn down an alleyway to make an escape, Nicci cast her Han outward, using a concentrated spike of force to snap the bones of the lead horse. As the animal's legs folded under it the horses following crashed into it at full speed, breaking their legs as the first horse rolled under them before they were able to leap up out of the way. A few of the horses following behind, seeing what was happening and having more time to react, were able to jump clear. Nicci saw the men at the far end of the narrow alleyway close off their escape route.
Nicci cut around the corner to reach the main bottleneck and help prevent any Imperial Order cavalry from escaping the trap. As she rounded the final building, she encountered a knot of cavalry as they broke through the lines of men with spears. Nicci sent a molten ball of flame howling toward the enemy. It cleared the heads of the defenders and hit the street, splashing liquid fire across the horses' flanks. The animals, their hides ablaze, reared up, allowing the flames to roll up onto the men on their backs.
Nicci raced around tightly packed buildings to come up behind the tail end of the center trap that had ensnared a large number of the enemy. The men of the city had already set upon them. For once, the cavalrymen were outnumbered, disorganized, and unable to break free of the onslaught. Men fighting for their freedom had a burning determination that the soldiers had not expected to encounter. Their tactics of intimidation and simple slaughter had fallen apart.
In the fading light of dusk, Nicci spotted Victor swinging a heavy mace at any Imperial Order head he could find. She urged Sa'din through the slaughter.
«Victor!»
The man looked up with a murderous scowl. «What!» he cried out over the din of the battle, blood dripping from the steel blades of his weapon.
Nicci stepped her horse closer. «The soldiers are coming right behind the cavalry. They will be the real test. We don't dare let them change their mind about attacking now. Just in case they are having any second thoughts, I'm going to go give them something irresistible to chase into the city.»
Victor flashed her a grim grin. «Good. We will be ready for them.»
Once the army poured into Altur'Rang, there was no way they would be able to stay together. They would split up to move down different streets. Once they did that, each of those groups could be further divided by the defenders. As each group fled or charged, they would face hidden archers and groups of men with spears, to say nothing of the numerous traps.
Altur'Rang was huge. As darkness took the city, many of the invaders would become disoriented and lost. Because of the narrow warren of streets they wouldn't be able to stay together to present a coordinated attack. They would not be allowed to go where they wished, as they wished, attacking helpless people; they would be relentlessly pursued and harried. Each group would get smaller all the time, both because they would be whittled down while under constant attack, and because some of their men would try other routes to find a way to safety. Nicci had made sure that there was no place of safety in the city.
«There is blood all down the front of you.» Victor called up to her. «Are you all right?»
«I got clumsy and fell off my horse. I'm fine. This must end tonight,» she reminded Victor.
«In a hurry to go after Richard?»
She smiled but didn't answer his question. «I'd better go whack the hornets' nest. I will bring them on my heels.»
He nodded. «We're ready.»
When she spotted three soldiers in the distance trying to make an escape without their horses, Nicci paused to cast a shimmering spell down a narrow twisting street. With three rapid thuds, the lance of power slammed through flesh and bone to drop the three.
«And Victor,» she said turning back to the man, «there's one last thing.»
«What would that be?»
«No one gets away alive. No one.»
With the sounds of battle raging behind him, he appraised her eyes for a moment. «I understand. Ishaq will be waiting for you; try to get the hornet's nest there as quickly as you can.»
Nicci, checking the reins to hold Sa'din in place, nodded. «I will bring the soldiers right down.»
She turned to the sudden whoosh of flame. Great gouts of fire flared up to the east. She knew that it could mean only one thing.
Victor cursed and climbed up to stand on the carcass of a dead war-horse as he craned his neck, trying to get a view over the rooftops at the thick smoke billowing up into the darkening sky.
He cast a suspicious scowl at Nicci. «You failed to get Kronos?»
«I got Kronos,» she growled through gritted teeth, «and another wizard. It would appear that they have another gifted with them. I guess they came prepared.» Nicci laid the reins over, turning Sa'din toward the distant sounds of screams. «But they didn't come prepared for Death's Mistress.»
CHAPTER 29
«What do you think it could mean?» Berdine asked.
Verna glanced over at the Mord-Sith's blue eyes. «Ann didn't say.»
The library was dead quiet but for the soft hiss of oil lamps. What with the row upon row of aisles along with the woodwork and shelves of dark walnut, the lamps and candles did little to illuminate the vast inner sanctuary. Had Verna lit all of the reflector lamps lining the walls and hung on the end caps of shelves, the place could have been made to be considerably brighter but, for their purpose, she didn't think it necessary.
In a way, Verna felt that if they were to light too many lamps, pull out too many ancient volumes, disturb the sanctum to a large degree, it might wake the ghosts of all the Master Rahls who haunted the place.
Heavy beams divided the dark, frame and panel woodwork of deep-set ceiling coves. Gilded carvings of vines and leaves meandered up columns to the side that supported those massive timbers. Strange yet beautiful symbols were painted in rich colors across the faces of the beams. Underfoot were spread luxurious carpets woven with elaborate designs in muted colors.
And everywhere, around the outer walls in cases behind glassed doors and in freestanding shelves marching through the library in orderly row upon row, were books by the thousands. Their leather bindings, mostly in deep colors with at least some gold or silver leaf on the spines, added a rich, mottled texture to the place. Verna had rarely seen libraries so grand. The vaults at the Palace of the Prophets where she had spent a great deal of time in study had also held thousands of books, but the place had been utilitarian, serving only the function of storing books and providing a practical place to read them. This palace revealed a reverence for the books and the knowledge they contained.
Knowledge was power, and throughout the ages each Lord Rahl in turn had such power at his fingertips. Whether or not he used that knowledge wisely was another question. The only problem with such vast amounts of information would be accessing a specific item, or even knowing that it existed in such an immense collection.
Of course, in times long past there would have been scribes who, besides their work of making copies of important works, attended the libraries and were responsible for specific sections. The master could then easily ask a few relevant questions, narrowing the search to the individual dedicated to the particular area of interest, and be pointed in the right direction. Now, without such specialists tending the libraries, the priceless information contained in the countless volumes was considerably more difficult to retrieve. In a way, the magnitude of information became a hinderance to its own purpose, and, like a soldier carrying so many weapons he couldn't move, nearly useless.
The books held in this one library alone represented almost an unimaginable amount of work by countless scholars and a great many prophets. A short stroll through the isles had revealed works here on history, geography, politics, the natural world, and prophecy that Verna had never seen before. A person could spend a lifetime lost in the place, and yet, Berdine had said that the People's Palace had a number of such libraries, from some that a variety of people were allowed to visit, to some that no one but the Lord Rahl, and, Verna assumed, his most trusted confidants, could enter. This library was one of the latter.
Berdine had said that because she knew High D'Haran, Darken Rahl had sometimes brought her into the most private of the libraries to get her opinion on translations of obscure passages in ancient texts. As a result, Berdine was in a unique position to know at least something about the wealth of potentially hazardous knowledge stored in the palace.
Not all prophecy was equally troublesome, though. A lot of it turned out to be incidental and rather harmless. What most people didn't realize was that a lot of prophetic space was taken up with what amounted to little more than the stuff of gossip.
But by no means was all prophecy so congenial or frivolous, and wandering through the titillating trivia of everyday lives tended to lull one into complacency and then when you least expected it, dark things came out of the pages to snatch at your soul.
While there were volumes that were by and large completely harmless, there were others that were, for anyone but the untrained, unsafe from the first words to the last. This particular library held some of the most dangerous books of prophecy Verna knew of, books that at the Palace of the Prophets were considered so volatile that they were not kept in the main vault, but in smaller, heavily shielded vaults restricted to all but a handful of people at the palace. The presence of those books was probably the reason why this particular library was a very private retreat for Master Rahl alone; Verna seriously doubted that the guards would have allowed her in had a Mord-Sith not been escorting her.
Verna could happily spend a great deal of time in such a cozy place, exploring countless books she had never seen before. Unfortunately, she didn't have the luxury of time. She idly wondered if Richard had ever even seen what was now his as the Lord Rahl.
Berdine tapped a finger to the blank page in The Glendhill Book of Deviation Theory. «I'm telling you, Prelate, I studied this book with Lord Rahl at the Wizard's Keep in Aydindril.»
«So you said.»
Verna found it interesting, to say the least, that Richard knew of The Glendhill Book of Deviation Theory. She found it even more curious, considering his distaste for prophecy and the fact that this book of prophecies was mostly about him, that he'd studied it.
There seemed no end to the curious little things that from time to time Verna discovered about Richard. Part of his dislike for prophecy, she knew, was his aversion to riddles: He hated them. She also knew, though, that in large measure his animus toward prophecy was due to his belief in free will, his belief that he himself, and not the hand of destiny, made his own life what it was.
While enormously complex and with layers of meaning beyond most people's comprehension, prophecy certainly did revolve around core elements of the preordained in its nature, and yet Richard had more than once fulfilled prophecy while at the same time proving it wrong.
Verna sourly suspected that, in a perverse way, prophecy had foretold of Richard's birth just so that he could come into the world to prove the concept of prophecy invalid.
Richard's actions had never been easy to predict, even, or perhaps especially, for prophecy. In the beginning Verna had been baffled by the things he would do and was perpetually unable to predict how he would react to situations or what he might do next. She had come to learn, though, that what she had thought was his confounding switching in a blink from one matter to something completely unrelated was, simply, at its core, his singular consistency.
Most people were not able to remain riveted to a goal with such dedicated determination. They tended to become distracted by a variety of other urgent matters requiring their attention. Richard, as if in a sword fight with a number of opponents at once, prioritized those ancillary events, holding them in abeyance or dispatching them as need be, while always keeping his goal firmly fixed in his mind. It sometimes gave people the false impression that he was skipping from one unrelated thing to another, when in reality he was, to him, innocently dancing across rocks in the river of events around him as he worked his way steadily toward the opposite bank.
At times he was the most wonderful man Verna had ever met. At other times, the most exasperating. She'd long ago lost track of how often she had wanted to strangle him. Besides being the man born to lead them in the final battle, he had by force of his own will become their leader, the Lord Rahl, the linchpin of everything she had struggled for as a Sister of the Light.
Just as prophecy foretold.
But not at all in the manner it had so carefully laid out.
Perhaps more than anything else he meant to them all, Verna valued Richard as a friend. She ached for him to be happy, the way she had once been happy with Warren. Her time with Warren after they were married and before he had been killed had been the most alive she had ever felt. Since then, she felt like the living dead, alive but not part of life.
Verna hoped that some day, maybe when they finally won the struggle against the Order, that Richard could find someone to love. He loved life so much; he needed someone to share that with.
She smiled inwardly. From the first day she had met him and put the collar around his neck to take him back to the Palace of the Prophets to be trained to use his gift, her life had felt as if it had been caught up in the whirlpool that was Richard. She vividly remembered that snowy day, back at the mud people's village, when she had taken him away. It had been profoundly sad, because it had been against his will, and at the same time it had been a momentous relief after having searched for him for twenty years.
To be sure, he had not gone willingly into such benevolent captivity. In fact, two of the Sisters with Verna had died in the effort to make Richard put on that collar he so hated.
Verna frowned — put on the collar.
That was odd. She tried to recall exactly how it was that she had managed to get him to put the collar around his neck, as it had to be done. Richard hated collars-especially after having once been a captive of a Mord-Sith-and yet he had put it on of his own free will. For some peculiar reason, though, she couldn't seem to recall just how she had managed to get him to-
«Verna, this is really strange.» The brown leather of Berdine's outfit creaked as she leaned in a little more, peering intently at the last of the text in the ancient volume laid open on the table before her. She carefully turned a page, checking, and then turned it back. She looked up. «I know this book had writing in it before. That writing is now missing.»
As Verna watched the candlelight dance in Berdine's blue eyes, she set aside memories from long ago and returned her full attention to the important matters at hand.
«But it wasn't this book, now, was it?» When Berdine frowned, Verna went on to explain. «It may have been the same title, but it wasn't this very book. You were at the Keep; it was a different copy of this book. Yes?»
«Well, sure, I guess you're right that it wasn't this actual book.» Berdine straightened and scratched her head of wavy brown hair. «But if it's the same title, then why do you think that the copy at the Wizard's Keep has all the writing in it while this one has big sections of the writing missing?»
«I didn't say that the copy there still has all the writing in it. I'm only saying that the copy at the Keep, not this one, was the one you studied with Richard. That you recall reading it and not seeing any blank pages doesn't prove anything because it wasn't this very same book. But even more importantly, this book might in fact be identical in that it contains all the same text, but the scribe who made this duplicate might have simply left blank pages among that text for any number of reasons.»
Berdine looked skeptical. «What reasons?»
Verna shrugged. «Sometimes books with incomplete prophecy, such as these here, have blank places left in them to provide room for future prophets to finish the prophecy.»
Berdine planted her fists on her hips. «Fine, but answer me one question. When I look through this book I recall the things I'm reading. I may not understand most of it, but I remember it in a general sense, remember reading these passages. So why is it that I can't remember a single thing about the sections that are missing from the book?»
«The simple explanation is that you don't recall anything of the blank sections because they are simply that, blank places, as I said, that were left in the book by the person who made the copy.»
«No, that's not what I mean. I mean, I recall the general nature of the prophecies-the length of them. As a gifted person you would be more attuned to what you're reading. I wouldn't. Since I never really understood these prophecies, I instead remember more of the way they looked. I remember how long they were. These are no longer complete. I didn't understand them, and I remember how long they seemed and how hard it was to make sense of such long prophecies.»
«When something is hard to understand it always seems longer than it really is.»
«No.» Berdine screwed up her face with conviction. «That's not it.» She turned to the last prophecy and tapped the page. «This one here is only a page long followed by a number of blank pages. I can't say that I remember the others so well, but for some reason I paid more attention to the last one. I'm telling you, I remember that this one for sure was a lot longer. I can't swear to how long the others were, or how long this one is supposed to be, but I do know for certain that this last one, at least, was more than a page. It wasn't incomplete, as this one here is, now. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to remember how long it was, or what it said, but I know that it was more than a single page.»
That was the confirmation Verna had been waiting for.
«While most of it makes little sense to me,» Berdine went on, «I do remember this part, this beginning having to do with all the talk about a forked source and the confusing business about going back to a mantic root, and then the 'splitting the horde that vaunts the Creator's cause' —that part at least sounds like the Imperial Order-but I can't recall the rest of it that's blank after 'a leader's lost trust.'
«I'm not imagining it, Verna, I'm not. I can't say why I'm so sure that the rest of it is missing, but I am. And therein lies what has me so bothered-why is the part that's missing from the book missing from my memory?»
Verna leaned close and lifted an eyebrow. «Now, that, my dear, is the question that I find troubling.»
Berdine looked startled. «You mean, you know what I'm talking about? You believe me?»
Verna nodded. «I'm afraid so. I didn't want to plant the seed of suggestion in your mind. I wanted you to confirm my own suspicions.»
«Then this is what Ann was concerned about, what she wanted us to check?»
«It is.» Verna shuffled through the disorderly jumble of books on the sturdy table, finally pulling out the one she wanted. «Look here at this book. This is the one that is perhaps the most troubling to me. Collected Origins is an exceedingly rare prophecy in that it was written entirely in story form. I studied this book before I left the Palace of the Prophets to search for Richard. I practically knew the story by heart.» Verna fanned through the pages. «The book is now entirely blank and I can't remember a single thing about it except that it had something to do with Richard —exactly what, I have no idea.»
Berdine studied Verna's eyes the way only a Mord-Sith could study someone's eyes. «So this is some kind of trouble, and that trouble is a threat to Lord Rahl.»
Verna let out a deep breath. The flames of several of the closer candles fluttered as she did so.
«I'd be lying if I said otherwise, Berdine. While the missing text doesn't all have to do with Richard, it all pertains to a time after his birth. I don't have a clue as to the nature of the problem, but I admit that it has me greatly concerned.»
Berdine's demeanor changed. Usually the woman was the most good-natured of any of the Mord-Sith that Verna knew. Berdine had a kind of simple, childlike glee about the world around her. At times she could be heartwarmingly curious. Despite hardships that had others complaining, Berdine usually wore an unaffected smile.
But at the impression of some kind of threat to Richard, she changed in a flash to all business. And now she had turned as suspicious and coldly menacing as any Mord-Sith ever was.
«What could be the cause of this?» Berdine demanded. «What does it mean?»
Verna closed the book full of blank pages. «I don't know, Berdine, I really don't. Ann and Nathan are as puzzled as we are-and Nathan is a prophet.»
«What does that part about people losing trust in their leader mean?»
For an ungifted person, Berdine had managed to single out the most crucial part of a very oblique prophecy.
«Well,» Verna said, cautiously framing her answer, «it could mean a number of things. It's hard to tell.»
«Maybe hard for me, but not hard for you.»
Verna cleared her throat. «I'm not an expert in prophecy, you understand, but I think it has something to do with Richard.»
«I know that much. Why would this prophecy talk about people losing trust in him?»
«Berdine, prophecy is rarely as straightforward as it seems.» Verna wished the woman would stop staring at her. «What it seems to say usually has nothing at all to do with the actual event involved in the body of the prophecy.»
«Prelate, this prophecy seems to me to suggest that questions of soundness of mind are going to be the cause of 'a leader's lost trust.' Since this prophecy names the leader as the one opposed to the horde that vaunts the Creator's cause-that would be the Imperial Order-that means it has to be talking about Lord Rahl. It then follows that Lord Rahl is the leader in whom people will lose trust. It comes after the part about the splitting of the horde, which the Order has now done. That makes the threat imminent.»
Verna felt sorry for anyone who ever made the unfortunate mistake of underestimating Berdine.
«It is my experience that prophecy sometimes tends to fret over Richard like a doting grandparent.»
«This sounds to me like a specific threat.»
Verna folded her hands before herself. «Berdine, you are a very smart woman, so I hope you can understand why it would be a grave mistake for me to argue or even discuss this prophecy with you. Prophecy is beyond the mind of the ungifted. It has little to do with how smart a person is. Prophecy is a creation of the gifted and meant only for those who are gifted in the same way. They are not even intended for other types of wizards.
«Even us Sisters, talented sorceresses though we may be, had to train for years before we were allowed to even look at prophecy, much less work with it. It is exceedingly dangerous for the untrained to hazard guesses at the meaning of prophecy. You may recognize the words, but you do not recognize the meaning of those words.»
«That's silly. Words are words. They have meaning. That is how we can understand the world around us. Why would prophecy take words that mean something and use them for some other unknown meaning?»
Verna felt as if she were stepping gingerly through a field of bear traps. «That isn't exactly what I meant by what I said. Words can be used to make people understand, to explain, to veil, and to interpret the world, but they can also be used to explain things that are only speculation. If I foretell that dark times will come into your life, those words may be true, but it could mean that you will suffer a loss that will sadden you, or it could mean that you will be murdered. Though the words might be true, their exact meaning is not yet known. It would be a grave injustice to use those words as a reason to start killing everyone around you because the words made you fear you would be murdered.
«Wars have started over such misunderstandings about prophecy. People have died as the result of the untrained hearing what they think are the simple words of prophecy. That is why the books of prophecy were kept in secure vaults below the Palace of the Prophets.»
«These books of prophecy are not kept in vaults.»
Verna's brow drew down as she leaned toward the Mord-Sith. «Perhaps they should be.»
«Are you saying that I'm wrong in what I believe this prophecy says?»
Verna heaved another sigh. «Right or wrong is impossible to discern in this instance. We can't even begin to intelligently dissect this prophecy because it's incomplete. We have here only the beginning of it and then a number of blank pages.»
«So?»
«So, it could be just as you say, that it's about Richard and people will question his judgment and lose faith in him, but maybe the missing text says that the issue will be resolved the next day by some other event of consequence and they will think more of him than they ever had before. Not only can prophecy be forked, meaning that it may be an either-or kind of statement, but the same prophecy could mean opposite things.»
«I don't see how it can mean opposite things. And how could something happen in the missing text of this prophecy to change people's minds?»
Verna shrugged as she gazed around the vast, dimly lit library, trying to think of an example. «Well, say that they thought his battle plan was crazy. Maybe the army officers think it ill advised. That could be something that would result in this prophecy, in people losing faith in him. Then, say that, despite the advice of officers, Richard insists and so, despite their doubts and lack of faith, the soldiers follow his plan as ordered and achieve a victory that they never thought they could win. Their faith in Richard as their leader would be restored and they would probably have even more respect for his judgment than they ever did before.
«But if the prophecy were to be acted upon without understanding its true meaning, those actions very well could countermand the rest of the event as it would have taken place naturally and give the illusion that the prophecy had been fulfilled, but in fact the real and truly prophesied events had been bypassed by foolishly invoking a misinterpretation of the actual prophecy.»
Berdine, watching Verna the whole time, drew her single brown braid through a loose fist. «I guess that could make sense.»
«You see, Berdine, why prophecy is so confusing, even for those of us trained in it? But to make matters worse, without the whole prophecy we dare not even begin to try understand them or to assign any significance to them. The complete text is indispensable if one is to even begin to try to understand prophecy. Without all the text it's as if prophecy has gone blind. That's one reason why this is so disturbing.»
«One reason?» Berdine looked up again, still running her braid through her fist. «What is the other reason?»
«It's bad enough to be without the text that was previously there, but the cause behind such an unprecedented event-the text of prophecy vanishing-is troubling in the extreme.»
«I thought you just said that we shouldn't jump to conclusions when it comes to prophecy.»
Verna cleared her throat, feeling as if one of those bear traps just snapped closed on her leg. «Well, that's true, but it's obvious that something is going on.»
Berdine folded her arms as she pondered the problem. «What do you think could be happening?»
Verna shook her head. «I can't begin to imagine. Such a thing, to my knowledge, has never happened before. I have no idea why it's happening now.»
«But you think it's trouble that involves Lord Rahl.»
Verna gave Berdine a sidelong look. «The simple fact that so much of prophecy involves him makes that conclusion impossible to avoid. Richard is born to trouble. He is at the center of it.»
Berdine didn't appear to like that one bit. «That is why he needs us.»
«I've never argued that he didn't.»
Berdine relaxed, if only a notch, and flicked her braid back over her shoulder. «No, you have not.»
«Ann is searching for him. Let's hope she can find him, and soon. We need him to lead us in the coming battle.»
As Verna spoke, Berdine idly pulled a book from one of the glass cases and began leafing through it. «Lord Rahl is supposed to be magic against magic, not the steel against steel.»
«That is a D'Haran proverb. Prophecy says that he must lead us in the final battle.»
«I suppose,» Berdine mumbled without looking up as she slowly turned pages.
«With part of Jagang's forces headed south around the mountains, we can only hope that Ann will find him in time and bring him to us.»
Berdine was puzzling at the book. «What is it that is buried with the bones?»
«What?»
Berdine was still frowning as she tried to work out something in the book. «This book caught my attention before because it says Fuer Grissa Ost Drauka on the cover. That's High D'Haran. It means.»
«The bringer of death.»
Berdine glanced up. «Yes. How did you know?»
«There was a widely known prophecy that the Sisters back at the Palace of the Prophets used to debate. It had, actually, been hotly debated for centuries. The first day I brought Richard to the palace he declared himself to be the bringer of death and thus named himself to be the one in the prophecy. It caused quite a stir among the Sisters, I can tell you. One day, down in the vaults, Warren showed Richard the prophecy and Richard himself solved the riddle of it, although to Richard it wasn't a riddle. He understood it because he had lived portions of the prophecy.»
«This book has a lot of blank pages in it.»
«No doubt. It sounds like it's about Richard. There are probably a great number of books here that are about him.»
Berdine was reading again. «This is in High D'Haran. Like I said, I know High D'Haran. I would have to work at it to be able to translate it more completely, and it would help if there wasn't so much missing text, but this place is apparently talking about Lord Rahl. It says something like, 'what he seeks is buried with the bones,' or maybe even 'what he seeks is buried bones'-something like that.»
Berdine looked up at Verna. «Any idea what that's about? What it could mean?»
«What he seeks is buried bones?» Verna shook her head with regret. «I have no idea. There are probably countless volumes here that have interesting, or puzzling, or frightening things to say about Richard. As I told you, though, with copy missing, what is there is next to useless.»
Verna glanced over at the Mord-Sith's blue eyes. «Ann didn't say.»
The library was dead quiet but for the soft hiss of oil lamps. What with the row upon row of aisles along with the woodwork and shelves of dark walnut, the lamps and candles did little to illuminate the vast inner sanctuary. Had Verna lit all of the reflector lamps lining the walls and hung on the end caps of shelves, the place could have been made to be considerably brighter but, for their purpose, she didn't think it necessary.
In a way, Verna felt that if they were to light too many lamps, pull out too many ancient volumes, disturb the sanctum to a large degree, it might wake the ghosts of all the Master Rahls who haunted the place.
Heavy beams divided the dark, frame and panel woodwork of deep-set ceiling coves. Gilded carvings of vines and leaves meandered up columns to the side that supported those massive timbers. Strange yet beautiful symbols were painted in rich colors across the faces of the beams. Underfoot were spread luxurious carpets woven with elaborate designs in muted colors.
And everywhere, around the outer walls in cases behind glassed doors and in freestanding shelves marching through the library in orderly row upon row, were books by the thousands. Their leather bindings, mostly in deep colors with at least some gold or silver leaf on the spines, added a rich, mottled texture to the place. Verna had rarely seen libraries so grand. The vaults at the Palace of the Prophets where she had spent a great deal of time in study had also held thousands of books, but the place had been utilitarian, serving only the function of storing books and providing a practical place to read them. This palace revealed a reverence for the books and the knowledge they contained.
Knowledge was power, and throughout the ages each Lord Rahl in turn had such power at his fingertips. Whether or not he used that knowledge wisely was another question. The only problem with such vast amounts of information would be accessing a specific item, or even knowing that it existed in such an immense collection.
Of course, in times long past there would have been scribes who, besides their work of making copies of important works, attended the libraries and were responsible for specific sections. The master could then easily ask a few relevant questions, narrowing the search to the individual dedicated to the particular area of interest, and be pointed in the right direction. Now, without such specialists tending the libraries, the priceless information contained in the countless volumes was considerably more difficult to retrieve. In a way, the magnitude of information became a hinderance to its own purpose, and, like a soldier carrying so many weapons he couldn't move, nearly useless.
The books held in this one library alone represented almost an unimaginable amount of work by countless scholars and a great many prophets. A short stroll through the isles had revealed works here on history, geography, politics, the natural world, and prophecy that Verna had never seen before. A person could spend a lifetime lost in the place, and yet, Berdine had said that the People's Palace had a number of such libraries, from some that a variety of people were allowed to visit, to some that no one but the Lord Rahl, and, Verna assumed, his most trusted confidants, could enter. This library was one of the latter.
Berdine had said that because she knew High D'Haran, Darken Rahl had sometimes brought her into the most private of the libraries to get her opinion on translations of obscure passages in ancient texts. As a result, Berdine was in a unique position to know at least something about the wealth of potentially hazardous knowledge stored in the palace.
Not all prophecy was equally troublesome, though. A lot of it turned out to be incidental and rather harmless. What most people didn't realize was that a lot of prophetic space was taken up with what amounted to little more than the stuff of gossip.
But by no means was all prophecy so congenial or frivolous, and wandering through the titillating trivia of everyday lives tended to lull one into complacency and then when you least expected it, dark things came out of the pages to snatch at your soul.
While there were volumes that were by and large completely harmless, there were others that were, for anyone but the untrained, unsafe from the first words to the last. This particular library held some of the most dangerous books of prophecy Verna knew of, books that at the Palace of the Prophets were considered so volatile that they were not kept in the main vault, but in smaller, heavily shielded vaults restricted to all but a handful of people at the palace. The presence of those books was probably the reason why this particular library was a very private retreat for Master Rahl alone; Verna seriously doubted that the guards would have allowed her in had a Mord-Sith not been escorting her.
Verna could happily spend a great deal of time in such a cozy place, exploring countless books she had never seen before. Unfortunately, she didn't have the luxury of time. She idly wondered if Richard had ever even seen what was now his as the Lord Rahl.
Berdine tapped a finger to the blank page in The Glendhill Book of Deviation Theory. «I'm telling you, Prelate, I studied this book with Lord Rahl at the Wizard's Keep in Aydindril.»
«So you said.»
Verna found it interesting, to say the least, that Richard knew of The Glendhill Book of Deviation Theory. She found it even more curious, considering his distaste for prophecy and the fact that this book of prophecies was mostly about him, that he'd studied it.
There seemed no end to the curious little things that from time to time Verna discovered about Richard. Part of his dislike for prophecy, she knew, was his aversion to riddles: He hated them. She also knew, though, that in large measure his animus toward prophecy was due to his belief in free will, his belief that he himself, and not the hand of destiny, made his own life what it was.
While enormously complex and with layers of meaning beyond most people's comprehension, prophecy certainly did revolve around core elements of the preordained in its nature, and yet Richard had more than once fulfilled prophecy while at the same time proving it wrong.
Verna sourly suspected that, in a perverse way, prophecy had foretold of Richard's birth just so that he could come into the world to prove the concept of prophecy invalid.
Richard's actions had never been easy to predict, even, or perhaps especially, for prophecy. In the beginning Verna had been baffled by the things he would do and was perpetually unable to predict how he would react to situations or what he might do next. She had come to learn, though, that what she had thought was his confounding switching in a blink from one matter to something completely unrelated was, simply, at its core, his singular consistency.
Most people were not able to remain riveted to a goal with such dedicated determination. They tended to become distracted by a variety of other urgent matters requiring their attention. Richard, as if in a sword fight with a number of opponents at once, prioritized those ancillary events, holding them in abeyance or dispatching them as need be, while always keeping his goal firmly fixed in his mind. It sometimes gave people the false impression that he was skipping from one unrelated thing to another, when in reality he was, to him, innocently dancing across rocks in the river of events around him as he worked his way steadily toward the opposite bank.
At times he was the most wonderful man Verna had ever met. At other times, the most exasperating. She'd long ago lost track of how often she had wanted to strangle him. Besides being the man born to lead them in the final battle, he had by force of his own will become their leader, the Lord Rahl, the linchpin of everything she had struggled for as a Sister of the Light.
Just as prophecy foretold.
But not at all in the manner it had so carefully laid out.
Perhaps more than anything else he meant to them all, Verna valued Richard as a friend. She ached for him to be happy, the way she had once been happy with Warren. Her time with Warren after they were married and before he had been killed had been the most alive she had ever felt. Since then, she felt like the living dead, alive but not part of life.
Verna hoped that some day, maybe when they finally won the struggle against the Order, that Richard could find someone to love. He loved life so much; he needed someone to share that with.
She smiled inwardly. From the first day she had met him and put the collar around his neck to take him back to the Palace of the Prophets to be trained to use his gift, her life had felt as if it had been caught up in the whirlpool that was Richard. She vividly remembered that snowy day, back at the mud people's village, when she had taken him away. It had been profoundly sad, because it had been against his will, and at the same time it had been a momentous relief after having searched for him for twenty years.
To be sure, he had not gone willingly into such benevolent captivity. In fact, two of the Sisters with Verna had died in the effort to make Richard put on that collar he so hated.
Verna frowned — put on the collar.
That was odd. She tried to recall exactly how it was that she had managed to get him to put the collar around his neck, as it had to be done. Richard hated collars-especially after having once been a captive of a Mord-Sith-and yet he had put it on of his own free will. For some peculiar reason, though, she couldn't seem to recall just how she had managed to get him to-
«Verna, this is really strange.» The brown leather of Berdine's outfit creaked as she leaned in a little more, peering intently at the last of the text in the ancient volume laid open on the table before her. She carefully turned a page, checking, and then turned it back. She looked up. «I know this book had writing in it before. That writing is now missing.»
As Verna watched the candlelight dance in Berdine's blue eyes, she set aside memories from long ago and returned her full attention to the important matters at hand.
«But it wasn't this book, now, was it?» When Berdine frowned, Verna went on to explain. «It may have been the same title, but it wasn't this very book. You were at the Keep; it was a different copy of this book. Yes?»
«Well, sure, I guess you're right that it wasn't this actual book.» Berdine straightened and scratched her head of wavy brown hair. «But if it's the same title, then why do you think that the copy at the Wizard's Keep has all the writing in it while this one has big sections of the writing missing?»
«I didn't say that the copy there still has all the writing in it. I'm only saying that the copy at the Keep, not this one, was the one you studied with Richard. That you recall reading it and not seeing any blank pages doesn't prove anything because it wasn't this very same book. But even more importantly, this book might in fact be identical in that it contains all the same text, but the scribe who made this duplicate might have simply left blank pages among that text for any number of reasons.»
Berdine looked skeptical. «What reasons?»
Verna shrugged. «Sometimes books with incomplete prophecy, such as these here, have blank places left in them to provide room for future prophets to finish the prophecy.»
Berdine planted her fists on her hips. «Fine, but answer me one question. When I look through this book I recall the things I'm reading. I may not understand most of it, but I remember it in a general sense, remember reading these passages. So why is it that I can't remember a single thing about the sections that are missing from the book?»
«The simple explanation is that you don't recall anything of the blank sections because they are simply that, blank places, as I said, that were left in the book by the person who made the copy.»
«No, that's not what I mean. I mean, I recall the general nature of the prophecies-the length of them. As a gifted person you would be more attuned to what you're reading. I wouldn't. Since I never really understood these prophecies, I instead remember more of the way they looked. I remember how long they were. These are no longer complete. I didn't understand them, and I remember how long they seemed and how hard it was to make sense of such long prophecies.»
«When something is hard to understand it always seems longer than it really is.»
«No.» Berdine screwed up her face with conviction. «That's not it.» She turned to the last prophecy and tapped the page. «This one here is only a page long followed by a number of blank pages. I can't say that I remember the others so well, but for some reason I paid more attention to the last one. I'm telling you, I remember that this one for sure was a lot longer. I can't swear to how long the others were, or how long this one is supposed to be, but I do know for certain that this last one, at least, was more than a page. It wasn't incomplete, as this one here is, now. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to remember how long it was, or what it said, but I know that it was more than a single page.»
That was the confirmation Verna had been waiting for.
«While most of it makes little sense to me,» Berdine went on, «I do remember this part, this beginning having to do with all the talk about a forked source and the confusing business about going back to a mantic root, and then the 'splitting the horde that vaunts the Creator's cause' —that part at least sounds like the Imperial Order-but I can't recall the rest of it that's blank after 'a leader's lost trust.'
«I'm not imagining it, Verna, I'm not. I can't say why I'm so sure that the rest of it is missing, but I am. And therein lies what has me so bothered-why is the part that's missing from the book missing from my memory?»
Verna leaned close and lifted an eyebrow. «Now, that, my dear, is the question that I find troubling.»
Berdine looked startled. «You mean, you know what I'm talking about? You believe me?»
Verna nodded. «I'm afraid so. I didn't want to plant the seed of suggestion in your mind. I wanted you to confirm my own suspicions.»
«Then this is what Ann was concerned about, what she wanted us to check?»
«It is.» Verna shuffled through the disorderly jumble of books on the sturdy table, finally pulling out the one she wanted. «Look here at this book. This is the one that is perhaps the most troubling to me. Collected Origins is an exceedingly rare prophecy in that it was written entirely in story form. I studied this book before I left the Palace of the Prophets to search for Richard. I practically knew the story by heart.» Verna fanned through the pages. «The book is now entirely blank and I can't remember a single thing about it except that it had something to do with Richard —exactly what, I have no idea.»
Berdine studied Verna's eyes the way only a Mord-Sith could study someone's eyes. «So this is some kind of trouble, and that trouble is a threat to Lord Rahl.»
Verna let out a deep breath. The flames of several of the closer candles fluttered as she did so.
«I'd be lying if I said otherwise, Berdine. While the missing text doesn't all have to do with Richard, it all pertains to a time after his birth. I don't have a clue as to the nature of the problem, but I admit that it has me greatly concerned.»
Berdine's demeanor changed. Usually the woman was the most good-natured of any of the Mord-Sith that Verna knew. Berdine had a kind of simple, childlike glee about the world around her. At times she could be heartwarmingly curious. Despite hardships that had others complaining, Berdine usually wore an unaffected smile.
But at the impression of some kind of threat to Richard, she changed in a flash to all business. And now she had turned as suspicious and coldly menacing as any Mord-Sith ever was.
«What could be the cause of this?» Berdine demanded. «What does it mean?»
Verna closed the book full of blank pages. «I don't know, Berdine, I really don't. Ann and Nathan are as puzzled as we are-and Nathan is a prophet.»
«What does that part about people losing trust in their leader mean?»
For an ungifted person, Berdine had managed to single out the most crucial part of a very oblique prophecy.
«Well,» Verna said, cautiously framing her answer, «it could mean a number of things. It's hard to tell.»
«Maybe hard for me, but not hard for you.»
Verna cleared her throat. «I'm not an expert in prophecy, you understand, but I think it has something to do with Richard.»
«I know that much. Why would this prophecy talk about people losing trust in him?»
«Berdine, prophecy is rarely as straightforward as it seems.» Verna wished the woman would stop staring at her. «What it seems to say usually has nothing at all to do with the actual event involved in the body of the prophecy.»
«Prelate, this prophecy seems to me to suggest that questions of soundness of mind are going to be the cause of 'a leader's lost trust.' Since this prophecy names the leader as the one opposed to the horde that vaunts the Creator's cause-that would be the Imperial Order-that means it has to be talking about Lord Rahl. It then follows that Lord Rahl is the leader in whom people will lose trust. It comes after the part about the splitting of the horde, which the Order has now done. That makes the threat imminent.»
Verna felt sorry for anyone who ever made the unfortunate mistake of underestimating Berdine.
«It is my experience that prophecy sometimes tends to fret over Richard like a doting grandparent.»
«This sounds to me like a specific threat.»
Verna folded her hands before herself. «Berdine, you are a very smart woman, so I hope you can understand why it would be a grave mistake for me to argue or even discuss this prophecy with you. Prophecy is beyond the mind of the ungifted. It has little to do with how smart a person is. Prophecy is a creation of the gifted and meant only for those who are gifted in the same way. They are not even intended for other types of wizards.
«Even us Sisters, talented sorceresses though we may be, had to train for years before we were allowed to even look at prophecy, much less work with it. It is exceedingly dangerous for the untrained to hazard guesses at the meaning of prophecy. You may recognize the words, but you do not recognize the meaning of those words.»
«That's silly. Words are words. They have meaning. That is how we can understand the world around us. Why would prophecy take words that mean something and use them for some other unknown meaning?»
Verna felt as if she were stepping gingerly through a field of bear traps. «That isn't exactly what I meant by what I said. Words can be used to make people understand, to explain, to veil, and to interpret the world, but they can also be used to explain things that are only speculation. If I foretell that dark times will come into your life, those words may be true, but it could mean that you will suffer a loss that will sadden you, or it could mean that you will be murdered. Though the words might be true, their exact meaning is not yet known. It would be a grave injustice to use those words as a reason to start killing everyone around you because the words made you fear you would be murdered.
«Wars have started over such misunderstandings about prophecy. People have died as the result of the untrained hearing what they think are the simple words of prophecy. That is why the books of prophecy were kept in secure vaults below the Palace of the Prophets.»
«These books of prophecy are not kept in vaults.»
Verna's brow drew down as she leaned toward the Mord-Sith. «Perhaps they should be.»
«Are you saying that I'm wrong in what I believe this prophecy says?»
Verna heaved another sigh. «Right or wrong is impossible to discern in this instance. We can't even begin to intelligently dissect this prophecy because it's incomplete. We have here only the beginning of it and then a number of blank pages.»
«So?»
«So, it could be just as you say, that it's about Richard and people will question his judgment and lose faith in him, but maybe the missing text says that the issue will be resolved the next day by some other event of consequence and they will think more of him than they ever had before. Not only can prophecy be forked, meaning that it may be an either-or kind of statement, but the same prophecy could mean opposite things.»
«I don't see how it can mean opposite things. And how could something happen in the missing text of this prophecy to change people's minds?»
Verna shrugged as she gazed around the vast, dimly lit library, trying to think of an example. «Well, say that they thought his battle plan was crazy. Maybe the army officers think it ill advised. That could be something that would result in this prophecy, in people losing faith in him. Then, say that, despite the advice of officers, Richard insists and so, despite their doubts and lack of faith, the soldiers follow his plan as ordered and achieve a victory that they never thought they could win. Their faith in Richard as their leader would be restored and they would probably have even more respect for his judgment than they ever did before.
«But if the prophecy were to be acted upon without understanding its true meaning, those actions very well could countermand the rest of the event as it would have taken place naturally and give the illusion that the prophecy had been fulfilled, but in fact the real and truly prophesied events had been bypassed by foolishly invoking a misinterpretation of the actual prophecy.»
Berdine, watching Verna the whole time, drew her single brown braid through a loose fist. «I guess that could make sense.»
«You see, Berdine, why prophecy is so confusing, even for those of us trained in it? But to make matters worse, without the whole prophecy we dare not even begin to try understand them or to assign any significance to them. The complete text is indispensable if one is to even begin to try to understand prophecy. Without all the text it's as if prophecy has gone blind. That's one reason why this is so disturbing.»
«One reason?» Berdine looked up again, still running her braid through her fist. «What is the other reason?»
«It's bad enough to be without the text that was previously there, but the cause behind such an unprecedented event-the text of prophecy vanishing-is troubling in the extreme.»
«I thought you just said that we shouldn't jump to conclusions when it comes to prophecy.»
Verna cleared her throat, feeling as if one of those bear traps just snapped closed on her leg. «Well, that's true, but it's obvious that something is going on.»
Berdine folded her arms as she pondered the problem. «What do you think could be happening?»
Verna shook her head. «I can't begin to imagine. Such a thing, to my knowledge, has never happened before. I have no idea why it's happening now.»
«But you think it's trouble that involves Lord Rahl.»
Verna gave Berdine a sidelong look. «The simple fact that so much of prophecy involves him makes that conclusion impossible to avoid. Richard is born to trouble. He is at the center of it.»
Berdine didn't appear to like that one bit. «That is why he needs us.»
«I've never argued that he didn't.»
Berdine relaxed, if only a notch, and flicked her braid back over her shoulder. «No, you have not.»
«Ann is searching for him. Let's hope she can find him, and soon. We need him to lead us in the coming battle.»
As Verna spoke, Berdine idly pulled a book from one of the glass cases and began leafing through it. «Lord Rahl is supposed to be magic against magic, not the steel against steel.»
«That is a D'Haran proverb. Prophecy says that he must lead us in the final battle.»
«I suppose,» Berdine mumbled without looking up as she slowly turned pages.
«With part of Jagang's forces headed south around the mountains, we can only hope that Ann will find him in time and bring him to us.»
Berdine was puzzling at the book. «What is it that is buried with the bones?»
«What?»
Berdine was still frowning as she tried to work out something in the book. «This book caught my attention before because it says Fuer Grissa Ost Drauka on the cover. That's High D'Haran. It means.»
«The bringer of death.»
Berdine glanced up. «Yes. How did you know?»
«There was a widely known prophecy that the Sisters back at the Palace of the Prophets used to debate. It had, actually, been hotly debated for centuries. The first day I brought Richard to the palace he declared himself to be the bringer of death and thus named himself to be the one in the prophecy. It caused quite a stir among the Sisters, I can tell you. One day, down in the vaults, Warren showed Richard the prophecy and Richard himself solved the riddle of it, although to Richard it wasn't a riddle. He understood it because he had lived portions of the prophecy.»
«This book has a lot of blank pages in it.»
«No doubt. It sounds like it's about Richard. There are probably a great number of books here that are about him.»
Berdine was reading again. «This is in High D'Haran. Like I said, I know High D'Haran. I would have to work at it to be able to translate it more completely, and it would help if there wasn't so much missing text, but this place is apparently talking about Lord Rahl. It says something like, 'what he seeks is buried with the bones,' or maybe even 'what he seeks is buried bones'-something like that.»
Berdine looked up at Verna. «Any idea what that's about? What it could mean?»
«What he seeks is buried bones?» Verna shook her head with regret. «I have no idea. There are probably countless volumes here that have interesting, or puzzling, or frightening things to say about Richard. As I told you, though, with copy missing, what is there is next to useless.»