She was a fallen woman.
She ran the side of a finger down Hania’s soft cheek. The two women shared a long and intimate look. “I promise,” Nicci whispered. “Quick and efficient. It will be the end of your pain.”
Tears overflowing her eyes, Hania gave a little nod.
Chapter 13
The estate was a grand place, she supposed. Nicci had seen grandeur such as this before. She had also seen much greater majesty, to be sure. She had lived among such splendor for nearly one and three-quarters centuries, among the imposing columns and arches of immaculate rooms, the intricately carved stone vines and buttery smooth wood paneling, the feather beds and silk coverlets, the exquisite carpets and rich draperies, the silver and gold ornamentation, and the bright sparkle of windows made of colored glass composed into epic scenes. The Sisters there offered Nicci bright-eyed smiles and clever conversation.
The extravagance meant no more to her than the rubble of the streets, the cold wet blankets laid on rough ground, the beds made in the slime among greasy runnels in the muck of narrow alleys with nothing but the bitter sky overhead. The huddled people there never offered a smile, but gaped up at her with hollow eyes, like so many pigeons cooing for alms.
Some of her life was spent among splendor, some among garbage. Some people were fated to spend their lives in one place, some in the other, she in both.
Nicci reached for the silver handle on one of the ornate double doors flanked by two husky soldiers who had probably been raised in a sty with the hogs, and saw that her hand was covered in blood. She turned and casually wiped the hand on the filthy, bloodstained fleece vest worn by one of the men. The biceps of his folded arms were nearly as thick as her waist. Although he scowled as she cleaned her hand on him, he made no move to stop her. After all, it wasn’t as if she were defiling him.
Hania had kept her part of the bargain. Nicci rarely resorted to using a weapon; she usually used her gift. But of course, in this case, that could have been a mistake. When she had held the knife over her throat, Hania had whispered her thanks for what Nicci was about to do. It was the first time anyone had ever thanked Nicci before she had killed them. Few people ever thanked Nicci for the help she provided. She was able, they were not; it was her duty to serve their needs.
When she had finished cleaning her hand on the mute guard, she flashed an empty smile at his dark glaring visage and then went on through the doors into a stately reception hall. A row of tall windows lining one wall of the room was trimmed with wheat-colored drapes. Near their tasseled edges, the curtains sparkled in the lamplight as if they might be embellished with gold thread. Late-summer rain spattered against tightly shut glass panes that revealed only darkness outside, but reflected the activity inside. The pale wool carpets, graced with flowers painstakingly sculpted in relief by means of different-length yarn, were tracked with mud.
Scouts came and went, along with messengers and soldiers giving their reports to some of the officers. Other officers barked orders. Soldiers carrying rolled maps followed a few of the higher-ranking men as they meandered around the stuffy room.
One of the maps lay unrolled across a narrow table. The table’s silver candelabrum had been set aside on the floor behind the table. As Nicci passed the table, she glanced down and saw that it was missing many of the elements so carefully marked on the map drawn by the D’Haran messenger. On the map laid out over the narrow table, there was nothing but dark splotches from spilled ale in the area to the northwest; in the map etched in Nicci’s mind, there were the mountains, rivers, high passes, and streams there, and a dot, marking the place where Richard was, along with his Mother Confessor bride, and the Mord-Sith.
Officers talked among themselves, some standing about, some half sitting on iron-legged, marble-topped tables, some lounging in padded leather chairs as they took delicacies from silver trays borne on the trembling hands of sweating servants. Others swilled ale from tall pewter mugs, and yet others drank wine from dainty glasses, all acting as if they were intimate with such splendor, and all of them looking as out of place as toads at tea.
An older woman, Sister Lidmila, apparently trying to be unobtrusive by cowering in the shadows beside the drapes, snapped upright when she saw Nicci marching across the room. Sister Lidmila stepped out of the shadows, briefly pausing to smooth her dingy skirts, an act that could not possibly produce any noticeable improvement; Sister Lidmila once had told Nicci that things learned in youth never left you, and were often much easier to recall than yesterday’s dinner. Rumor had it that the old Sister, skilled in arcane spells known to only the most powerful sorceresses, had many interesting things from her youth to recall.
Sister Lidmila’s leathery skin was stretched so tight over the bones of her skull that she reminded Nicci of nothing so much as an exhumed corpse. As cadaverous-looking as the aged Sister was, she advanced across the room in quick, sharp movements.
When she was only ten feet away, Sister Lidmila waved an arm, as if not sure Nicci would see her. “Sister Nicci. Sister Nicci, there you are.” She seized Nicci’s wrist. “Come along, dear. Come along. His Excellency is waiting for you. This way. Come along.”
Nicci clasped the Sister’s tugging hand. “Lead the way, Sister Lidmila. I’m right behind you.”
The older woman smiled over her shoulder. It wasn’t a pleasant or joyous smile, but one of relief. Jagang punished anyone who displeased him, regardless of their culpability.
“What took you so long, Sister Nicci? His Excellency is in quite a state, he is, because of you. Where have you been?”
“I had…business I had to attend to.”
The woman had to take two or three steps for every one of Nicci’s. “Business indeed! Were it up to me, I’d have you down in the kitchen scrubbing pots for being off on a lark when you are wanted.”
Sister Lidmila was frail and forgetful, and she sometimes failed to realize she was no longer at the Palace of the Prophets. Jagang used her to fetch people, or to wait for them and show them the way—usually to his tents. Should she forget the way, he could always correct her route, if need be. It amused him to use a venerable Sister of the Light—a sorceress reputedly possessing knowledge of the most esoteric incantations—as nothing more than an errand girl. Away from the palace and its spell that slowed aging, Sister Lidmila was in a sudden headlong rush toward the grave. All the Sisters were.
The round-backed Sister, her dangling arm swinging, shuffled along in front of Nicci, pulling her by her hand, leading her through grand rooms, up stairways, and down hallways. At a doorway framed in gold-leafed moldings, she finally paused, touching her fingers to her lower lip as she caught her breath. Sober soldiers prowling the hall painted Nicci with glares as dark as her dress. She recognized the men as imperial guards.
“Here it is.” Sister Lidmila peered up at Nicci. “His Excellency is in his rooms. Hurry, then. Go on. Go on, now.” She swirled her hands as if she were trying to herd livestock. “In you go.”
Before entering, Nicci took her hand from the lever and turned back to the old woman. “Sister Lidmila, you once told me that you thought I would be the one best suited for some of the knowledge you had to pass on.”
Sister Lidmila’s face brightened with a sly smile. “Ah, some of the more occult magic interests you, at long last, Sister Nicci?”
Nicci had never before been interested in what Sister Lidmila had occasionally pestered her to learn. Magic was a selfish pursuit. Nicci learned what she had to, but never went out of her way to go beyond, to the more unusual spells.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I believe I am at last ready.”
“I always told the Prelate that you were the only one at the palace with the power for the conjuring I know.” The woman leaned close. “Dangerous conjuring, it is, too.”
“It should be passed on, while you are able.”
Sister Lidmila nodded with satisfaction. “I believe you are old enough. I could show you. When?”
“I
will come see you…tomorrow.” Nicci glanced toward the door. “I don’t believe I will be able to take a lesson tonight.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“If I…do come around to see you, I will be most eager to learn. I especially wish to know about the maternity spell.”
From what Nicci knew of it, the oddly named maternity spell might be just what she needed. It had the further advantage that once invoked, it was inviolate.
Sister Lidmila straightened and again touched her fingers to her lower lip. A look of concern crossed her face.
“My, my. That one, is it? Well, yes, I could teach you. You have the ability—few do. I’d trust none but you to be able to bring such a thing to life; it requires tremendous power of the gift. You have that. As long as you understand and are willing to accept the cost involved, I can teach you.”
Nicci nodded. “I will come when I can, then.”
The old Sister ambled on down the hall, deep in thought, already thinking about the lesson. Nicci didn’t know if she would live to take the lesson.
After she had watched the old Sister vanish around the corner, Nicci entered a quiet room lit by myriad candles and lamps. The high ceiling was edged with a painted leaf-and-acorn design. Plush couches and chairs upholstered in muted browns were set about on thick carpets of rich yellows, oranges, and reds, making them look like a forest floor in the autumn. Heavy drapes had been pulled closed across an expanse of windows. Two Sisters sitting on a couch leaped to their feet.
“Sister Nicci!” one virtually shouted in relief.
The other ran to the double doors at the other side of the room and opened one without knocking, apparently by instruction. She stuck her head into the room beyond to speak in a low voice Nicci couldn’t hear.
The Sister leaped back when Jagang, in the inner room, roared, “Get out! All of you! Everyone else out!”
Two more young Sisters, no doubt personal attendants to the emperor, burst out of the room. Nicci had to step out of the way as all four gifted women made for the doorway leading out of the apartment. A young man Nicci hadn’t noticed in the corner joined the women. None even glanced in Nicci’s direction as they rushed to do as they were ordered. The first lesson you learned as a slave to Jagang was that when he told you to do something, he meant you to do it right now. Little provoked him more than delay.
At the door to the inner room, a woman Nicci didn’t recognize ran out, following close on the heels of the others. She was young and beautiful, with dark hair and eyes, probably a captive picked up somewhere along the long march, and no doubt used for Jagang’s amusement. Her eyes reflected a world gone mad for her.
Such were the unavoidable costs if the world was to be brought to a state of order. Great leaders, by their very nature, came with shortcomings in character, which they themselves viewed as mere peccadilloes. The far-ranging benefits Jagang would bring to the poor suffering masses of humanity far outweighed his crass acts of personal gratification and the relatively petty havoc he wrought. Nicci was often the object of his transgressions. It was a price worth paying for the help that would eventually accrue to the helpless; that was the only matter that could be considered.
The outer door closed and the apartment was finally empty of everyone but Nicci and the emperor. She stood erect, head held high, arms at her sides, relishing the quiet of the place. The splendor meant little to her, but quiet was a luxury she had come to appreciate, even if it was selfish. In the tents there was always the noise of the army pressed close around. Here, it was quiet. She glanced around the spacious and elaborately decorated outer room, contemplating the idea that Jagang would have acquired the taste for such places. Perhaps he, too, simply wanted quiet.
She turned back to the inner room. He was just inside, waiting, watching her, a muscled mass of fury coiled in rage.
She strode directly up to him. “You wished to see me, Excellency?”
Nicci felt a stunning pain as the back of his beefy hand whipped across her face. The blow spun her around. Her knees hit the floor. He yanked her to her feet by her hair. The second time, she clouted the wall before crashing to the floor again. Stupefying pain throbbed through her face. When she had her bearings, she got her legs under her and stood before him again. The third time, she took a freestanding candelabrum down with her. Candles tumbled and rolled across the floor. A long wisp of sheer curtain she had snatched as she grabbed for support ripped away and drifted down over her as she and an upturned table slammed to the floor. Glass shattered. Metal clattered as small items bounded away.
She was dizzy and stunned, her vision faltering. Her eyes felt as if they might have burst, her jaw as if it had been shattered, her neck as if the muscles had ripped. Nicci lay sprawled on the floor, savoring the strident waves of pain, wallowing in the rare sensation of feeling.
She saw blood splattered across the light fringe of the carpet beneath her and across the warm glow of wooden flooring. She heard Jagang yelling something at her, but she couldn’t make out the words over the ringing in her ears. With a shaky arm, she pushed herself up onto her hip. Blood warmed her fingers when she touched them to her mouth. She relished the hurt. It had been so long since she had felt anything, except for that too brief moment with the Mord-Sith. This was a glorious wash of agony.
Jagang’s brutality was able to reach down into the abyss, not only because of the cruelty itself, but because she knew she need not suffer it. He, too, knew that she was there by her choice, not his. That only intensified his anger, and thus, her sensations.
His rage seemed lethal. She merely noted the fact that she very probably wouldn’t leave the room alive. She would probably not get to learn Sister Lidmila’s spells. Nicci simply waited to discover what fate had already decided for her.
The room’s spinning finally slowed enough for her to once more make it to her feet. She pulled herself up straight before the silent brawny form of Emperor Jagang. His shaved head reflected points of light from some of the lamps. His only facial hair was a two-inch braid of mustache growing above each corner of his mouth, and another in the center under his lower lip. The gold ring through his left nostril and its thin gold chain running to another ring in his left ear glimmered in the mellow lamplight. Except for a heavy ring on each finger, he was without the plundered assortment of royal chains and jewels he usually wore around his neck. The rings glistened with her blood.
He was bare-chested, but unlike his head, his chest was covered in coarse hair. His muscles bulged, their tendons standing out as he flexed his fists. He had the neck of a bull, and his temperament was worse.
Nicci, half a head shy of his height, stood before him, waiting, looking into the eyes she used to see in her nightmares. They were a murky gray, without whites, and clouded over with sullen, dusky shapes that stole across a surface of inky obscurity. Even though they had no evident iris and pupil—nothing but seeming dark voids where a normal person had eyes—she never had any doubt whatsoever as to when he was looking at her.
They were the eyes of a dream walker. A dream walker denied access to her mind. Now, she understood why.
“Well?” He growled. He threw up his hands. “Cry! Yell! Scream! Beg! Argue—make excuses! Don’t just stand there!”
Nicci swallowed back the sharp taste of blood as she gazed placidly into his scarlet glare.
“Please be specific, Excellency, as to which one you would prefer, how long I should carry on, and if I should end it of my own accord, or wait for you to beat me into unconsciousness.”
He lunged at her with a howl of fury. He seized her throat in his massive fist to hold her as he struck her. Her knees buckled, but he held her up until she was able to steady herself.
He released her throat with a shove. “I want to know why you did that to Kadar!”
She offered only a bloody smile to his anger.
He wrenched her arm behind her back and pulled her hard against him. “Why would you do such a thing! Why?”
The dea
dly dance with Jagang had begun. She dimly wondered again if this time she would lose her life.
Jagang had killed a number of the Sisters who had displeased him. Nicci’s safety with him—such as it was—lay in her very indifference to her safety. Her utter disinterest in her own life fascinated Jagang because he knew it was sincere.
“Sometimes, you’re a fool,” she said with true contempt, “too arrogant to see what is in front of your nose.”
He twisted her arm until she thought it surely would snap. His panting breath was warm on her throbbing cheek. “I’ve killed people for saying much less than that.”
She mocked him through the pain. “Do you intend to bore me to death, then? If you want to kill me, seize me by the throat and strangle me, or slash me to a bloody mess so that I will bleed to death at your feet—don’t think you can suffocate me with the sheer weight of your monotonous threats. If you wish to kill me, then be a man and do so! Or else shut your mouth.”
The mistake most people made with Jagang was to believe, because of his capacity for such profound brutality, that he was an ignorant, dumb brute. He was not. He was one of the most intelligent men Nicci had ever met. Brutality was but his cloak. As an outgrowth of his access to the thoughts of so many different people’s minds, he was directly exposed to their knowledge, wisdom, and ideas; such exposure augmented his intellect. He also knew what people most feared. If anything about him frightened her, it was not his brutality, but his intelligence, for she knew that intelligence could be a bottomless well of truly inventive cruelty.
“Why did you kill him, Nicci?” he asked again, his voice losing some of its fire.
In her mind, like a protective stone wall, was the thought of Richard. He had to see it in her eyes. Part of Jagang’s rage, she knew, was at his own impotence at penetrating her mind, of possessing her as he could so many others. Her knowing smirk taunted him with what he could not have.
Faith of the Fallen Page 16