Naked Empire (22 page)

“I don’t make mistakes.”

Ann wasn’t nearly as tall as the blond woman in red leather. She hardly came up past the yellow crescent and star across her stomach.

“No, I don’t suppose you do. What’s this about?” Ann asked, losing the timid innocent tone.

“Wizard Rahl wanted us to bring you in.”

“Wizard Rahl?”

“Yes. Wizard Nathan Rahl.”

Ann heard a gasp from the woman beside her. She thought the woman was going to faint, and so took hold of her arm.

“Are you all right, my dear?”

She stared, wide-eyed, at the woman in red leather glowering down at her. “Yes. I have to go. I’m late. I must go. Can I go?”

“Yes, you had better go,” the tall blonde said.

The woman dipped a quick bow and muttered “Good night” before scurrying off down the hall, looking over her shoulder only once.

Ann turned back to the scowl. “Well I’m glad you found me. Let’s be off to see Nathan. Excuse me…Wizard Rahl.”

“You won’t be having an audience with Wizard Rahl.”

“You mean, not tonight, I won’t be having an…audience with him tonight.”

Ann was being as polite as she could be, but she wanted to clobber that troublesome man, or wring his neck, and the sooner the better.

“My name is Nyda,” the woman said.

“Pleased to meet—”

“Do you know what I am?” She didn’t wait for Ann to answer. “I am Mord-Sith. I give you this one warning as a courtesy. It is the only warning, or courtesy, you will receive, so listen closely. You came here with hostile intent against Wizard Rahl. You are now my prisoner. Use of your magic against a Mord-Sith will result in the capture of that magic by me or one of my sister Mord-Sith and its use as a weapon against you. A very, very unpleasant weapon.”

“Well,” Ann said, “in this place my magic is not very useful, I’m afraid. Hardly worth a hoot, as a matter of fact. So, you see, I’m quite harmless.”

“I don’t care how useful you find your magic. If you try to so much as light a candle with it, your power will be mine.”

“I see,” Ann said.

“Don’t believe me?” Nyda leaned down. “I encourage you to try to attack me. I haven’t captured a sorceress’s magic for quite a while. Might be…fun.”

“Thank you, but I’m a bit too tired out—from my travels and all—to be attacking anyone just now. Maybe later?”

Nyda smiled. In that smile Ann could see why Mord-Sith were so feared. “Fine. Later, then.”

“So, what is it you intend to do with me in the meantime, Nyda? Put me up in one of the palace’s fine rooms?”

Nyda ignored the question and gestured with a tilt of her head. Two of the men a short way back up the hall rushed forward. They towered over Ann like two oak trees. Each grasped her under an arm.

“Let’s go,” Nyda said as she marched off down the hall ahead of them.

The men started out after her, pulling Ann along with them. Her feet seemed to touch the floor only every third or fourth step. People in the hall parted for the Mord-Sith. Passersby pressed themselves up against the walls to the side, a goodly distance away. Some people disappeared into the open shops, from where they peered out windows. Everyone stared at the squat woman in the dark dress being hauled along by the two palace guards in burnished leather and gleaming mail. Behind she could hear the jangle of metal gear as the rest of the men followed along.

They turned into a small hall to the side going back between columns holding a projecting balcony. One of the men rushed forward to unlock the door. Before she knew it, they’d all swept through the little door like wine through a funnel.

The corridor beyond was dark and cramped—nothing like the marble-lined hallways most people saw. Not far down the hall, they turned down a stairway. The oak treads creaked underfoot. Some of the men handed lanterns forward so Nyda could light her way. The sound of all the footsteps echoed back from the darkness below.

At the bottom of the steps, Nyda led them through a maze of dirty stone passageways. The seldom-used halls smelled musty, and in places damp. When they reached another stairwell, they continued down a square shaft with landings at each turn, descending into the dark recesses of the People’s Palace. Ann wondered how many people in the past were taken by routes such as this, never to be seen again. Richard’s father, Darken Rahl, and his father before him, Panis, were rather fond of torture. Life meant nothing to men such as those.

Richard had changed all that.

But Richard wasn’t at the palace, now. Nathan was.

Ann had known Nathan for a very long time—for nearly a thousand years. For most of that time, as Prelate, she had kept him locked in his apartments. Prophets could not be allowed to roam free. Now, though, this one was free. And, worse, he had managed to establish his authority in the palace—the ancestral home of the House of Rahl. He was an ancestor to Richard. He was a Rahl. He was a wizard.

Ann’s plan suddenly started to seem very foolish. Just catch the prophet off guard, she’d thought. Catch him off guard and snap a collar back around his neck. Surely, there would be an opening and he would be hers again.

It had seemed to make sense at the time.

At the bottom of the long descent, Nyda swept to the right, following a narrow walk with a stone wall soaring up on the right and an iron railing on the left. Ann gazed off over the railing, but the lantern light showed nothing but inky darkness below. She feared to think how far it might drop—not that she had any ideas of a battle with her captors, but she was beginning to worry that they just might heave her over the edge and be done with her.

Nathan had sent them, though. Nathan, as irascible as he could sometimes be, wouldn’t order such a thing. Ann considered, then, the centuries she had kept him locked away, considered the extreme measures it had sometimes taken to keep that incorrigible man under control. Ann glanced over the iron rail again, down into the darkness.

“Will Nathan be waiting for us?” she asked, trying to sound cheerful. “I’d really like to talk to him. We have business we must discuss.”

Nyda shot a dark look back over her shoulder. “Nathan has nothing to talk to you about.”

At an uncomfortably narrow passageway tunneling into the stone on the right, Nyda led them into the darkness. The way the woman rushed lent a frightening aspect to an already frightening journey.

Ann at last saw light up ahead. The narrow passageway emptied into a small area where several halls converged. Ahead and to the right they all funneled down steep stairs that twisted as they descended. As she was prodded down the stairs, Ann gripped the iron rail, fearful of losing her footing, although the big hand holding a fistful of her dress at her right shoulder would probably preclude any chance of falling, to say nothing of running off.

In the passageway at the bottom of the stairs, Nyda, Ann, and the guards came to a halt under the low-beamed ceiling. Wavering light from torches in floor stands gave the low area a surreal look. The place stank of burning pitch, smoke, stale sweat, and urine. Ann doubted that any fresh air ever penetrated this deep into the People’s Palace.

She heard a hacking cough echoing from a dim corridor to the right. She peered into that dark hall and saw doors to either side. In some of the doors fingers gripped iron bars in small openings. Other than the coughing, no sound came from the cells holding hopeless men.

A big man in uniform waited before an iron-bound door to the left. He looked as if he might have been hewn from the same stone as the walls. Under different circumstances, Ann might have thought that he was a pleasant enough looking fellow.

“Nyda,” the man said by way of greeting. When his eyes turned back up after a polite bow of his head, he asked in his deep voice, “What have we here?”

“A prisoner for you, Captain Lerner.” Nyda seized the empty shoulder of Ann’s dress and hauled her forward as if showing off a pheasant after a successful hunt. “A dangerous prisoner.”

The captain’s appraising gaze glided briefly over Ann before he returned his attention to Nyda. “One of the secure chambers, then.”

Nyda nodded her approval. “Wizard Rahl doesn’t want her getting out. He said she’s no end of trouble.”

At least half a dozen curt responses sprang to mind, but Ann held her tongue.

“You had better come with us, then,” Captain Lerner said, “and see to her being locked in behind the shields.”

Nyda tilted her head. Two of her men dashed forward and pulled torches from stands. The captain finally found the right key from a dozen or so he had on a ring. The lock sprang open with a strident clang that filled the surrounding low corridors. It sounded to Ann like a bell being tolled for the condemned.

With a grunt of effort, the captain tugged the heavy door, urging it to slowly swing open. In the long hallway beyond, Ann saw but a couple of candles bringing meager light to the small openings in doors to each side. Men began hooting and howling, like animals, calling vile curses at who might be entering their world. Arms reached out, clawing the air, hoping to net a touch of a passing person.

The two men with torches swept into the hall right behind Nyda, the firelight illuminating her in her red leather so all those faces pressed up against the openings in their doors could see her. Her Agiel, hanging on a fine chain at her wrist, spun up into her fist. She glared at the openings in the doors to each side. Filthy arms drew back in. Voices fell silent. Ann could hear men scurry to the far recesses of their cells.

Nyda, once certain there would be no misbehavior, started out again. Big hands shoved Ann ahead. Behind, Captain Lerner followed with his keys. Ann pulled the corner of her shawl over her mouth and nose, trying to block the sickening stench.

The captain took a small lamp from a recess, lit it from a candle to the side, and then stepped forward to unlock another door. In the low passageway beyond, the doors were spaced closer together. A hand covered with infected lesions hung limp out of one of the tiny openings to the side.

The hall beyond the next door was lower, and no wider than Ann’s shoulders. She tried to slow her racing heart as she followed the rough, twisting passageway. Nyda and the men had to stoop, arms folded in, as they made their way.

“Here,” Captain Lerner said as he came to a halt.

He held up his lantern and peered into the small opening in the door. On the second try, he found the right key and unlocked the door. He handed his small lamp to Nyda and then used both hands to pull the lever. He grunted and tugged with all his weight until the door grated partway open. He squeezed around the door and disappeared inside.

Nyda handed in the lamp as she followed the captain in. Her arm, sheathed in red leather, came back out to seize a fistful of Ann’s dress and drag her in after.

The captain was opening a second door on the other side of the tiny room. Ann could sense that this was the room containing the shield. The second door grated open. Beyond was a room carved from solid bedrock. The only way out was through the door, and the outer room that contained the shield, and then the second door.

The House of Rahl knew how to build a secure dungeon.

Nyda’s hand gripped Ann’s elbow, commanding her into the room beyond. Even Ann, as short as she was, had to duck as she stepped over the high sill to get through the doorway. The only furniture inside was a bench carved from the stone of the far wall itself, providing both a seat and a bed off the floor. A tin ewer full of water sat on one end of the bench. At the opposite end was a single, folded, brown blanket. There was a chamber pot in the corner. At least it was empty, if not clean.

Nyda set the lamp on the bench. “Nathan said to leave you this.”

Obviously it was a luxury the other guests weren’t afforded.

Nyda stepped one leg over the sill, but paused when Ann called her name.

“Please give Nathan a message for me? Please? Tell him that I would like to see him. Tell him that it’s important.”

Nyda smiled to herself. “He said you would say those words. Nathan is a prophet, I guess he would know what you would say.”

“And will you give him that message?”

Nyda’s cold blue eyes looked to be weighing Ann’s soul. “Nathan said to tell you that he has a whole palace to run, and can’t come running down to see you every time you clamor for him.”

Those were almost the exact words she had sent down to Nathan’s apartments countless times when a Sister had come to her with Nathan’s demands to see the Prelate.
Tell Nathan that I have a whole palace to run and I can’t go running down there every time he bellows for me. If he has had a prophecy, then write it down and I will look it over when I have the time.

Until that moment, Ann had never truly realized how cruel her words had been.

Nyda pulled the door shut behind her. Ann was alone in a prison she knew she could not escape.

At least she was near the end of her life, and could not be held as a prisoner for nearly her entire life, as she had held Nathan prisoner for his.

Ann rushed to the little window. “Nyda!”

The Mord-Sith turned back from the second door, from beyond the shield Ann could not cross. “Yes?”

“Tell Nathan…tell Nathan that I’m sorry.”

Nyda let out a brief laugh. “Oh, I think Nathan knows you’re sorry.”

Ann thrust her arm through the door, reaching toward the woman. “Nyda, please. Tell him…tell Nathan that I love him.”

Nyda stared at her a long moment before she pushed the outer door closed.

Kahlan lifted her head. She gently laid a hand on Richard’s chest as she turned her ear toward the sound she’d heard off in the darkness. Beneath her hand, Richard’s chest rose and fell with his labored breathing, but, even at that, she felt relief—he was still alive. As long as he was alive she could fight to find a solution. She wouldn’t give him up. They would get to Nicci. Somehow, they would get to her.

A quick glance to the position of the quarter moon told her that she’d been asleep less than an hour. Clouds, silvery in the moonlight, had silently begun streaming in from the north. In the distant sky she saw, too, the moonlit wings of the black-tipped races that always trailed them.

She hated those birds. The races had been following them ever since Cara had touched the statue of Kahlan that Nicci said was a warning beacon. Those dark wings were never far, like the shadow of death, always following, always waiting.

Kahlan recalled all too well the sand in that hourglass statue trickling out. Her time was running out. She had no actual indication of what would happen when the time that sand had represented finally ran out—but she could imagine well enough.

The place where they had set up camp, before a sharp rise of rock with a stand of bristlecone pine and thorny brush to one side, wasn’t as protected or tenable a camp as any of them would have liked, but Cara had confided that she was afraid that if they didn’t stop, Richard wouldn’t live the night.

That whispered warning had set Kahlan’s heart to pounding, brought cold sweat to her brow, and swept her to the verge of panic.

She had known that the rough wagon ride, slow as it had been while they made their way across open country in the dark, seemed to have made it more difficult for Richard to breathe. Less than two hours after they had started out, after Cara’s warning, they’d been forced to stop. After they had stopped, they were all relieved that Richard’s breathing became more even, and sounded a little less labored.

They needed to make it to roads so that traveling would be easier on Richard, and so they could make better time. Maybe after he rested the night, they could make swifter progress.

She had to fight constantly to tell herself that they would get him there, that they had a chance, and that the journey’s purpose wasn’t merely empty hope meant to forestall the truth.

The last time Kahlan had felt this helpless, felt this sense of Richard’s life slipping away, she’d at least had one solid chance available to her to save him. She’d had no idea, at the time, that that one chance taken would be the catalyst that would initiate a cascade of events that would begin the disintegration of magic itself.

She was the one who had made the decision to take that chance, and she was the one responsible for all that was now coming to pass. Had she known what she now knew, she would have made the same decision—to save Richard’s life—but that made her no less liable for the consequences.

She was the Mother Confessor, and, as such, was responsible for protecting the lives of those with magic, of creatures of magic. And, instead, she might very well be the cause of their end.

Kahlan sprang to her feet, sword in hand, when she heard Cara’s whistled birdcall to alert them to her return. It was a birdcall Richard had taught her.

Kahlan slid the shutter on the lantern open all the way to provide more light. She saw Tom, hand resting on the silver-handled knife at his belt, rise from the nearby rock where he’d been sitting as he watched over both the camp and the man Kahlan had touched with her power. The man still lay on the ground at Tom’s feet where Kahlan had ordered him to stay.

“What is it?” Jennsen whispered as she appeared at Kahlan’s side, hastily rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“I’m not sure, yet. Cara signaled, so she must have someone with her.”

Cara walked in out of the darkness, and, as Kahlan had suspected, she was pushing a man ahead of her. Kahlan frowned, trying to recall where she’d seen him before. She blinked, then, realizing it was the young man they had come across a week or so back—Owen.

“I tried to get to you sooner!” Owen cried out when he saw Kahlan. “I swear, I tried.”

Holding him by the shoulder of his light coat, Cara marched the man closer, then yanked him to a halt in front of Kahlan.

“What are you talking about?” Kahlan asked.

When Owen caught sight of Jennsen standing behind Kahlan’s shoulder, he paused with his mouth hanging open for an instant before he answered.

“I meant to get to you earlier, I swear,” he said to Kahlan, sounding on the verge of tears. “I went to your camp.” He clutched his light coat closed at his chest as he began to tremble. “I, I saw…I saw all the…remains. Dear Creator, how could you be so brutal?”

Kahlan thought Owen looked like he might throw up. He covered his mouth and closed his eyes as he shook.

“If you mean all those men,” Kahlan said, “they tried to capture us, to kill us. We didn’t collect them from their rocking chairs beside their hearths and bring them out into this wasteland where we slaughtered them. They attacked us; we defended ourselves.”

“But, dear Creator, how could you…” Owen stood before her, unable to control his shivering. He closed his eyes. “Nothing is real. Nothing is real. Nothing is real.” He repeated it over and over, as if it were an incantation meant to protect him from evil.

Cara forcibly dragged Owen back a bit and sat him down on a shelf of rock. Eyes closed meditatively, he mumbled “Nothing is real” to himself continually while Cara took up a position to the left side of Kahlan.

“Tell us what you’re doing here,” Cara commanded in a low growl. Although she didn’t say it, the “or else” was clear enough.

“And be quick about it,” Kahlan said. “We have enough trouble and we don’t need you added on top of it.”

Owen opened his eyes. “I went to your camp to tell you about it, but…all those bodies…”

“We know about what happened back there. Now, tell us why you’re here.” Kahlan was at the end of her patience. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

“Lord Rahl,” Owen wailed, tears bursting forth at last.

“Lord Rahl what,” Kahlan demanded through gritted teeth.

“Lord Rahl has been poisoned,” he blurted out as he wept.

Gooseflesh prickled up Kahlan’s legs. “How can you possibly know such a thing is true?”

Owen stood, clutching twisted wads of his coat at his chest. “I know,” he cried, “because I’m the one who poisoned him.”

Could it be? Could it be that it wasn’t really the runaway power of the gift killing Richard, but poison? Could it be that they had it all wrong? Could it be that it was all caused by this man poisoning Richard?

Kahlan felt her sword’s hilt slip from her fingers as she started for the man.

He stood watching her come, like a fawn watching a mountain lion about to leap.

Kahlan knew there was something strange about this man. Richard, too, had thought there was something unsettling about him, something not quite right.

Somehow, this quaking stranger had poisoned Richard.

Richard barely hung to life. He was suffering and in pain. This man had been the cause of it all. Kahlan would know why, and she would know the truth of it.

Kahlan closed the distance quickly. She would not risk his escape. She would not risk his lies.

She would have his confession.

Her hand started coming up toward him. Her power was recovered—she could feel it there, in the core of her being, at the ready.

This man had tried to kill Richard. She intended to find out if there was a way to save him. This man could tell her.

She committed herself to taking him.

It was not necessary for Kahlan to invoke her birthright, but merely to withdraw her restraint of it. Her feelings about what this man had done faded away; they no longer mattered in this. Only the truth would serve her now. She was a being of raw commitment.

He had no chance. He was hers.

She saw him standing frozen, watching her come, saw his blue eyes widen, saw the tears running down his cheeks. Kahlan felt the cold coil of power straining for release, demanding to be freed. As her hand rose toward this man who had harmed Richard, she wanted nothing so much as what she would have.

He was hers.

Cara abruptly jumped in between them.

Kahlan’s sight of the man was blocked by the Mord-Sith. Kahlan tried to brush Cara aside, but she was ready and firmly held her ground. Cara seized Kahlan by the shoulders and forced her back three paces.

“No. Mother Confessor, no.”

Kahlan was still focused on Owen, even if she couldn’t see him. “Get out of my way.”

“No. Stop.”

“Move!” Kahlan tried to shove Cara aside, but the woman had her feet spread and couldn’t be budged. “Cara!”

“No. Listen to me.”

“Cara, get out of—”

She shook Kahlan so hard that Kahlan thought her neck would snap. “Listen to me!”

Kahlan panted in rage. “What.”

“Wait until you hear what he says. He came here for a reason. When he finishes, you can use your power if you want, or you can let me make him scream until the moon covers its ears, but first we need to hear what he says.”

“I’ll find out soon enough what he says, and I’ll know the truth. When I touch him he will confess every detail.”

“And if Lord Rahl dies as a result? Lord Rahl’s life hanging in the balance. We must think of that first.”

“I am. Why do you think I’m going to do this?”

Cara pulled Kahlan close to hear her whisper. “And what if using your power on this man kills him for some reason we don’t yet even know about. Remember when we didn’t know everything in the past? Remember Marlin Pickard announcing he had come to assassinate Richard? It was too easy then, and it’s too easy this time.

“What if your touching this man is someone’s design—a trick, with this man sent as bait of some sort? What if they want you to do it for some reason? What if you do what they intend you to do—then what? It won’t be a simple mistake that we can work to fix. If Lord Rahl dies we can’t bring him back.”

Cara’s fierce blue eyes were wet. Her powerful fingers dug into Kahlan’s shoulders. “What can it hurt to hear him first, before you touch him? You can then touch him, if you still think it’s necessary—but hear him first. Mother Confessor, as a sister of the Agiel, I’m asking you, please, for the sake of Lord Rahl’s life, wait.”

More than anything, it was Cara’s reluctance to use force that gave Kahlan pause. If there was anyone who would be more than willing to use physical force to protect Richard, it was Cara.

In the dim light of the lantern, Kahlan studied the emotion in Cara’s expression. Despite everything Cara said, Kahlan didn’t know if she could afford to take the chance, to hesitate.

“What if it’s a stab in the dark?” Jennsen asked from behind.

Kahlan glanced back over her shoulder at Richard’s sister, at the worry on her face.

Kahlan had made a mistake before in not acting quickly enough, and it resulted in Richard being captured and taken from her. Then it was his freedom; this time it was his life at stake.

She knew that while hesitation had been a mistake in that instance, that didn’t mean that immediate action was always right.

She looked back into Cara’s eyes. “All right. We’ll hear what he has to say.” With a thumb, she brushed a tear from Cara’s cheek, a tear of terror for Richard, a tear of terror at the thought of losing him. “Thanks,” Kahlan whispered.

Cara nodded and released her. She turned and folded her arms, fixing Owen in her glare.

“You had better not make me sorry for stopping her.”

Owen peered about at all the faces watching him—Friedrich, Tom, Jennsen, Cara, Kahlan, and even the man Kahlan had touched, lying on the ground not far away.

“In the first place, how could you possibly have poisoned Richard?” Kahlan asked.

Owen licked his lips, fearful of telling her, even though that was apparently why he had returned. His gaze finally broke toward the ground.

“When I saw the dust rising from the wagon, and I knew that I was near, I dumped out what water I had left, so it would appear I had none. Then, when Lord Rahl found me, I asked for a drink. When he gave me his waterskin so I could have a drink, I put poison in it, just before I handed it back. I was relieved that you had showed up, too. It was my intention that I poison both Lord Rahl and you, Mother Confessor, but you had your own water and didn’t take a drink when he offered it to you. But I guess it doesn’t matter. This will work just as well.”

Kahlan couldn’t make sense of such a confession. “So you intended to kill us both, but you were only able to poison Richard.”

“Kill…?” Owen looked up in shock at the very idea. He shook his head emphatically. “No, no, nothing like that. Mother Confessor, I tried to get to you earlier, but those men went to your camp before I got there. I needed to get the antidote to Lord Rahl.”

“I see. You wanted to save him—after you’d poisoned him—but when you got to our camp, we’d gone.”

His eyes filled with tears again. “It was so awful. All the bodies—the blood. I’ve never seen such brutal murder.” He covered his mouth.

“It would have been murder—our murder,” Kahlan said, “had we not defended ourselves.”

Owen seemed not to hear her. “And you were gone—you’d left. I didn’t know where you’d gone. It was hard to follow your wagon’s trail in the dark, but I had to. I had to run, to catch up with you. I was afraid the races would get me, but I knew I had to reach you tonight. I couldn’t wait. I was afraid, but I had to come.”

The whole story was nonsense to Kahlan.

“So you’re like one of those people who starts a fire, calls out an alarm, and then helps put it out—all so you can be a hero.”

Startled, Owen shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that. Nothing like that at all—I swear. I hated doing it. I did. I hated it.”

“Then why did you poison him!”

Owen twisted his light coat in his fists as tears trickled down his cheeks. “Mother Confessor, we have to give him the antidote, now, or he will die. It’s already so very late.” He clasped his hands prayerfully and gazed skyward. “Dear Creator, let it not be too late, please.” He reached out for Kahlan, as if to urgently beg her as well, to assure her of his sincerity, but at the look on her face, drew back. “There’s no more time, Mother Confessor. I tried to get to you earlier—I swear. If you don’t let him have the remedy now, it will be the end of him. It will all be for naught—everything, all if it, all for nothing!”