“The Sisters of the…” She glanced back into the main room. Even if it was empty, there was no telling how far one with Subtractive Magic could hear. They had heard Prelate Annalina name them. “You know.” She lowered her voice. “Warren, though you have the gift, it will not protect you against them. This will. There is no protection against this. None.” She spun the weapon in her hand with practiced grace, walking it over the backs of her fingers as it twirled. The dull silver color was a blur in the lamplight. She caught the rodlike blade and held the handle out to him. “I found extras in my office. I want you to have one.”
He flipped his hand dismissively. “I don’t know how to handle that thing. I only know how to read the old books.”
Verna snatched his violet robes at his neck and drew his face close. “You just stick it in them. Belly, chest, back, neck, arm, hand, foot—it doesn’t matter. Just stick them while you’re shrouded in your Han, and they will be dead before you can blink.”
“My sleeves aren’t tight like yours. It will just fall out.”
“Warren, the dacra doesn’t know where you keep it, or care. Sisters practice for hours on end, and carry them in our sleeve so they will be readily at hand. We do that for protection when we go on journeys. It doesn’t matter where you carry it, only that you do. Keep it in a pocket, if you wish. Just don’t sit on it.”
With a sigh, he took the dacra. “If it will make you happy. But I don’t think I could stab anyone.”
She released his robes as she looked away. “You would be surprised what you can do, when you have to.”
“Is this what you came for? You found an extra dacra?”
“No.” She drew the little book from its pouch behind her belt and tossed it on the table before him. “I came because of this.”
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Going somewhere, Verna?”
Scowling, she smacked his shoulder. “What’s the matter with you?”
He pushed the book away. “I’m just tired. What’s so important about a journey book?”
She lowered her voice. “Prelate Annalina left a message that I should go to her private sanctuary, in her garden. It was shielded with a web of ice and spirit.” Warren lifted an eyebrow. She showed him her ring. “This opens it. Inside I found this journey book. It was wrapped in a piece of paper that said only ‘Guard this with your life.’”
Warren picked up the journey book and thumbed through the blank pages. “She probably just wants to send you instructions.”
“She’s dead!”
Warren cocked an eyebrow. “Do you think that would stop her?”
Verna smiled in spite of herself. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we burned the other with her, and she intended to run my life from the world of the dead.”
Warren’s expression slipped back to sullen. “So, who has the other one?”
Verna smoothed her dress behind her knees and sat, scooting the chair closer. “I don’t know. I’m worried that it could be a telltale of sorts. She might have meant it to mean that if I discovered the other, it would identify our enemy.”
Warren’s smooth brow wrinkled up. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know, Warren.” Verna wiped a hand across her face. “It was the only thing I could think of. Can you think of anything that would make more sense? Why else would she not tell me who had the other? If it was someone meant to help us, someone on our side, then it would only make sense for her to have told me the name, or at least that it was a friend who had the other.”
Warren returned his stare to the table. “I suppose.”
Verna checked her tone before she spoke. “Warren, what’s wrong? I’ve never seen you like this before.”
She shared a long look with his troubled blue eyes. “I’ve read some prophecies I don’t like.”
Verna searched his face. “What do they say?”
After a long pause, he reached down, and with two fingers turned a piece of paper around and pushed it toward her. Finally, she picked it up and read it aloud.
“When the Prelate and the Prophet are given to the Light in the sacred rite, the flames will bring to boil a cauldron of guile and give ascension to a false Prelate, who will reign over the death of the Palace of the Prophets. To the north, the one bonded to the blade will abandon it for the silver sliph, for he will breathe her back to life, and she will deliver him into the arms of the wicked.”
Verna swallowed, afraid to meet Warren’s eyes. She set the paper on the table and folded her hands in her lap to stop their trembling. She sat silently staring down, not knowing what to say.
“This is a prophecy on a true fork,” Warren said, at last.
“That’s an audacious statement, Warren, even for one as talented with prophecies as you. How old is this prophecy?”
“Not yet a day.”
Her wide eyes came up. “What?” she whispered. “Warren, are you saying that… that it came to you? That you have at last given a prophecy?”
Warren’s red eyes stared back. “Yes. I went into a kind of trance, and in this state of rapture, I had a vision of fragments of this prophecy, along with the words. That was the way it happened for Nathan, too, I believe. Remember that I told you I was beginning to understand prophecy in a way I never had before? It’s through the visions that the prophecies are truly meant to be revealed.”
Verna swept her hand around. “But the books hold prophecies, not visions. The words prophesy.”
“The words are only a way to pass them down, and only meant to be clues that trip the vision in one who has the gift for prophecy. All the studying the Sisters have done for the last three thousand years is only a partial understanding of them. The written words were meant to pass knowledge to wizards through the visions. That’s what I learned when this one came to me. It was like a door opening in my mind. All this time, and the key was right inside my own head.”
“You mean you can read any of these, and have a vision that will reveal its true meaning?”
He shook his head. “I’m a child, who has taken his first step. I’ve a long way to go before I’ll be vaulting over fences.”
She looked at the page on the table and then glanced away as she twisted the ring around and around on her finger. “And does this one, the one that came to you, mean what it sounds like?”
Warren licked his lips. “Like an infant’s first step, which is not very steady, this is not the most stable of prophecies. You might say it’s sort of a practice prophecy. I’ve found others that I think are the same sort of first attempts, like this one here—”
“Warren, is it true or not!”
He tugged his sleeves down his arms. “It’s all true, but the words, as in all prophecies, while true, are not necessarily what they would seem.”
Verna leaned close as she gritted her teeth. “Answer the question, Warren. We’re in this together. I have to know.”
He flipped his hand, as he often did when trying to diminish the importance of something. To Verna, though, that flip of a hand was like a flag of warning. “Look, Verna, I’ll tell you what I know, what I saw in the vision, but I’m new at this, and I don’t understand it all, even though it’s my prophecy.”
She kept a stead glare on him. “Tell me, Warren.”
“The Prelate in the prophecy is not you. I don’t know who it is, but it isn’t you.”
Verna closed her eyes as she sighed. “Warren, that’s not as bad as I thought. At least it’s not to be me who does this terrible thing. We can work to turn this prophecy to a false fork.”
Warren turned away. He stuffed the paper with his prophecy into an opened book and flopped it closed. “Verna, for someone else to be Prelate, that has to mean you will be dead.”
23
When his whole body suddenly flushed with the sweet agony of desire, he knew, even though he couldn’t see her, that she had entered the room. His nostrils filled with her unmistakable scent, and alread
y he ached to surrender. Like a furtive movement in the mist, he couldn’t discern the essence of the threat, but somehow in the dim recesses of his awareness he knew without doubt that there was one, and the exquisite peril, too, excited him.
With the desperation of a man being stormed by an overpowering foe, he clawed for the hilt of his sword, hoping to rally his resolve and stay the hand of submission. It wasn’t bared steel he sought, though, but the bared teeth of anger, a rage that would sustain him and give him the will to resist. He could do it. He had to; everything turned on this.
His hand anchored on the hilt at his belt, and he felt the flood of perfect fury coursing through his body and mind.
When Richard glanced up, he could see the approach of Ulic and Egan’s heads above the knot of people before him. Even if he hadn’t seen them, to see the space between them where she would be, he knew she was there. Soldiers and dignitaries began parting to make way for the two big men and their charge. Heads tilted in waves, reminding him of the rings of ripples in a pond, as they passed whispers to others. Richard recalled that the prophecies had also named him “the pebble in the pond”—the generator of ripples in the world of life.
And then he saw her.
His chest constricted with longing. She was wearing the same rose-colored silk dress that she had worn the night before, having no change of clothes with her. Richard recalled vividly how she had said she slept naked. He could feel his heart hammering.
With great effort, he struggled to put his mind to the task at hand. She looked with wide eyes at the soldiers she knew; they were her Keltish palace guard. Now, they wore D’Haran uniforms.
Richard had been up early, preparing everything. He hadn’t been able to get much sleep anyway, and the sleep he had gotten had been wracked with dreams of longing.
Kahlan, my love, can you ever forgive me my dreams?
With this many D’Haran troops in Aydindril, he had known there would be supplies of all sorts available, so he had ordered spare uniforms brought out. The Keltans, being disarmed as they were, were in no position to argue, but after they had put on the dark leather and mail, and had had a chance to see how fierce they looked in the new outfits, they began to grin with approval. They were told that Kelton was now a part of D’Hara, and were given back their weapons. They stood in rank, now, proud and straight as they kept an eye on the representatives of the other lands who had yet to surrender.
As it had turned out, the bad luck of the storm that had allowed Brogan to escape had also carried good fortune as a balance; the dignitaries had wanted to wait out the foul weather before departing, so Richard had taken what the fates had offered him and had brought them back to the palace before they were to leave later that morning. Only the highest, the most important, of those officials were present. He wanted them to witness the surrender of Kelton: one of the most powerful lands of the Midlands. He wanted them to have one final lesson.
Richard stood as Cathryn started up the steps at the side of the dais, her gaze sweeping the faces watching her. Berdine stepped back to give her room. Richard had positioned the three Mord-Sith at the far ends of the platform, where they wouldn’t be too close to him. He wasn’t interested in anything they might have to say.
When Cathryn’s brown-eyed gaze finally settled on him, he had to lock his knees to keep his legs from buckling. His left hand, gripping the hilt of his sword, was beginning to throb. He reminded himself that he didn’t need to be holding the sword to command its magic and chanced removing his hand to wiggle some feeling back into his fingers while he contemplated the tasks before him.
When the Sisters of the Light had tried to teach him to touch his Han, they had had him use a mental picture to concentrate his inner will. Richard had selected an image of the Sword of Truth to be his focus, and he had it firmly fixed in his mind, now.
But for the battle with the people gathered before him today, his sword would be of no use. Today he would need the deft maneuvers devised with the aid of General Reibisch, his officers, and knowledgeable members of the palace staff, who had also helped with the arrangements. He hoped he had it all right.
“Richard, what—”
“Welcome, Duchess. Everything has been prepared.” Richard scooped up her hand and kissed it in a manner he judged befitting a queen being greeted before an audience, but touching her only fired his heat. “I knew you would want these representatives to witness your bravery at being the first to join with us against the Imperial Order, the first to break the path for the Midlands.”
“But I… well, yes… of course.”
He turned to the watching faces. They were a considerably more quiet and compliant group than they had been the last time, as they waited in tense anticipation.
“Duchess Lumholtz—whom you all know is soon to be named queen of Kelton—has committed her people to the cause of freedom, and wished you to be here to witness as she signs the documents of surrender.”
“Richard,” she whispered as she leaned a little closer, “I must… have them looked over by our barristers first… just to be sure everything is clear, and there will be no misunderstandings.”
Richard smiled reassuringly. “Though I’m sure you will find them quite clear, I’ve already anticipated your concern and took the liberty of inviting them to the signing.” Richard held a hand out to the other end of the dais. Raina seized a man’s arm and urged him up the steps. “Master Sifold, would you give your future queen your professional opinion?”
He bowed. “As Lord Rahl says, Duchess, the papers are quite clear. There is no room for misinterpretation.”
Richard lifted the ornately decorated document from the desk. “With your permission, Duchess, I would like to read it to the gathered representatives, so they may see that Kelton wishes this joining of our forces to be unequivocal. So they may see your bravery.”
Her head rose with pride before the eyes of the representatives of the other lands. “Yes. Please do, Lord Rahl.”
Richard glanced to the waiting faces. “Please bear with me; this isn’t long.” He held the paper up before himself and read it aloud. “Know all peoples, that Kelton hereby surrenders unconditionally to D’Hara. Signed, in my hand, as the duly appointed leader of the Keltish people, the Duchess Lumholtz.”
Richard set the document back on the desk and dunked the quill pen in a bottle of ink before offering it to Cathryn. She stood stiff and unmoving. Her face had gone ashen.
Fearing she would balk, he had no choice. Summoning strength he knew he was stealing from what he would need later, he put his lips close to her ear, enduring silently the torturous wave of longing at the warm fragrance of her flesh.
“Cathryn, after we finish here, would you go for a walk with me, just the two of us, alone? I dreamed of nothing but you.”
Radiant color bloomed in her cheeks. He thought she might put an arm around his neck and thanked the spirits when she didn’t.
“Of course, Richard,” she whispered back. “I, too, dreamed of nothing but you. Let’s get this formality over with.”
“Make me proud of you, of your strength.”
Richard thought that, surely, her smile would make others in the room blush. He could feel his ears burn at the meaning her smile conveyed.
She took the quill pen, brushing his hand as she did so, and held it up. “I sign this surrender with a quill from a dove, to signify that what I do is done willingly, in peace, and not as one defeated. I do it out of love for my people, and a hope for the future. That hope is this man here—Lord Rahl. I swear the undying vengeance of my people on any of you who would think to harm him.”
She bent and scrawled her sweeping signature across the bottom of the surrender document.
Before she could straighten, Richard produced more papers and slid them under her.
“What…”
“The letters you spoke of, Duchess. I didn’t want to weigh you down with the tedium of having to do the work yourself when we could put the time
to a better purpose. Your aides helped me draw them up. Please check them, just to be sure all is as you intended when you made the offer last night.
“Lieutenant Harrington, of your palace guard, helped with the names of General Baldwin, commander of all Keltish forces, Division Generals Cutter, Leiden, Nesbit, Bradford, and Emerson, and a few of the guard commanders. There’s a letter to each for you to sign, ordering them to turn over all command to my D’Haran officers. Some of your palace guard officers will accompany a detachment of my men along with the new officers.
“Your adjutant aide, Master Montleon, has been of invaluable assistance with the instructions to Finance Minister Pelletier; Master Carlisle, the deputy administrator of strategic planning; the governors in charge of the trade commission, Cameron, Tuck, Spooner, Ashmore; as well as Levardson, Doudiet, and Faulkingham of the office of commerce.
“Coadjutant Schaffer, of course, drew up the list of your mayors. We didn’t want to offend anyone by leaving them out, of course, so he had several aides help him work up a complete list. There are letters here for them all, but of course the letters of instruction are the same, with just the proper name to each, so you only have to check over one, and then just sign the rest. We’ll handle it from there. I have men ready to ride with the official document pouches. A man from your guard will accompany each, just to make sure there’s no confusion. We have all the men from your guard here to witness your signature.”
Richard drew a breath and straightened as Cathryn, still holding the pen in midair, blinked at all the papers Richard had pushed before her. Her aides had all come up to surround her, proud of the job they had accomplished in such short order.
Richard leaned close to her again. “I hope I got it all as you wished, Cathryn. You said you’d take care of it, but I didn’t want to be away from you while you toiled at the work, so I rose early and took care of it for you. I hope you’re pleased.”
She glanced over letters, pushing them aside to look at others underneath. “Yes… of course.”
Richard slid a chair closer. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
Blood of the Fold Page 31