The arena beasts reveled in their freedom, ready to attack any prey in their confusion. One of the swamp dragons grabbed a merchant out of his doorway and pulled him screaming into the street. A second giant lizard scuttled close and bit his head off.
Drenched in blood and shaking from their battle with the combat bear, Nicci and Nathan stood shoulder-to-shoulder and rallied as a pack of spiny wolves charged toward them. One wolf caught Nicci by surprise, driving her backward as she raised her daggers. Instinctively, she released a ball of wizard’s fire, but the heat rippled up and away from the enormous wolf, deflected by the protective runes branded on its hide.
Recovering, she stabbed her left dagger through its ribs and cut downward, slicing it open. Even though Nicci had delivered a mortal wound, the infuriated creature kept attacking. More wolves piled on her, but Nathan rushed in, decapitating one with a downstroke of his sword. Shouting, he hacked the spine of one, thrust the blade deep into the haunch of another. The maddened wolves did not retreat—but they did die, one by one.
As the wizard Quentin fought, he snarled at Andre, “How do we kill these things? You created them.”
“Yes, I did! Aren’t they magnificent?”
“Magnificent until they tear you apart,” Damon snapped. “Don’t they have any weaknesses?”
The fleshmancer snorted. “If I knew of any weaknesses, I would have removed them, hmmm?”
Elsa tried to work a spell, but was frustrated. “Our magic doesn’t work on them.”
“That is the way they are designed, to be better fighters in the arena. We’ll just have to be superior, hmmm?” Andre said, smiling. “And we are indeed superior.”
Finally, High Captain Stuart called in his archers. Dozens of crossbowmen climbed to the rooftops and balconies of the nearby buildings. They wound back their strings and loaded quarrels. “Aim carefully, but kill them all!” Stuart shouted.
A rain of sharp metal quarrels peppered the rampaging bull, leaving it looking like the pincushion of a greedy seamstress. The beast groaned and staggered, barely able to walk with its broken forelimb. It tottered, went down on the other leg, and crashed to the street.
“Reload!” Stuart yelled. Choosing their targets at a glance, the crossbowmen shot at the scattered animals, and another rain of crossbow bolts killed four spiny wolves and the two swamp dragons. The leopards fell alongside the dead combat bear.
A speckled boar the size of an ox stampeded out of the shadows, and more than twenty arrows barely slowed it. The boar slashed the air with its horrible tusks, and High Captain Stuart killed the thing himself by thrusting his sword through its chest again and again.
As the archers reloaded, Nicci saw the troka of sand panthers emerge from the dark tunnel, covered with blood. They looked much like Mrra, bound to one another from the time they were cubs—but not bonded to her. They loped forward, snarling.
Nicci and Nathan stood side by side, blades ready, as the sand panthers closed in. Their feline muscles bunched, their claws extended to attack.
Stuart shouted, and a storm of quarrels blanketed the troka of panthers, dozens of shafts killing them before they could even spring. The three magnificent cats lay dead on the ground, covered in blood. Nicci felt a sharp sympathetic pain, but she knew it was a mercy that all three sister panthers died simultaneously. She remembered the trauma and despair Mrra had felt after losing her spell-bonded sisters, left alone and alive.
Arrows still clattered on the streets, and the city guard ranged through nearby alleys, looking for stragglers. Dead animals lay everywhere, on doorsteps, in the gutters, out in the open.
“I believe they’re all slaughtered,” Damon said. “The city is saved.”
The ache in Nicci’s heart washed away the rush of energy from the fight.
“They’re all dead,” Elsa replied, shaking her head. “They were so desperate to get away.”
“They were driven to this by the chief handler,” Nicci said, turning to Thora. “What did you expect would happen if they got loose?”
“I did not expect them to get loose,” said the sovrena.
“The air stinks of blood,” Elsa said.
“Yes it does, my dear.” Nathan brushed at his own red-drenched robes. “We all need fresh garments.”
Thora’s face twisted in a rictus of hate. “This was caused by Mirrormask and his rebels. They mean to bring down our society, to cause harm to our way of life.” She gestured to the butchered animals and the dozen or more human bodies that lay strewn in the streets. “And this! If the rebels care so much about the lower classes, then perhaps they shouldn’t have unleashed these wild animals upon the city! Look at all the dead!”
“The people should have just gotten out of the way,” Maxim said. “Now half of our fighting specimens are dead. How disappointing.”
“They only did what they were born and trained to do,” Nicci said. “Chief Handler Ivan lost control.”
“Where is Ivan?” Sovrena Thora snapped. “We need to understand what went wrong.”
Fleshmancer Andre emerged from the tunnels, where he and several city guards had gone. Just behind him, Adessa and two morazeth came out, bloody and exhausted.
Rather than looking defeated or troubled, Andre had a gleam in his eyes. He stepped directly up to Nathan. “Good news for you, my friend. Good news indeed. We must take advantage of this.” He said the next two words with deliberate intent. “Wizard Nathan.”
“What happened?” Nathan asked.
“The sand panthers attacked and mauled Ivan.”
“He is dead,” Adessa announced. “The cats tore him to pieces. I saw it.”
“Nearly dead.” Andre raised a finger. “Thankfully, I used a spell to preserve him at the moment of infinite agony, on the edge of his death. He is suspended there, but the Keeper doesn’t have him yet. Still, we should hurry.”
Nicci was too exhausted and angry to play games. “Hurry to do what?”
“Why, this is your chance, Nathan! Chief Handler Ivan is dying … but his heart is intact. This is exactly what you’ve been waiting for since you arrived in Ildakar, hmmm? The heart of a wizard.”
CHAPTER 50
Bloody after the battle in the training tunnels, Adessa rolled a wooden cart out into the street. One of the wooden wheels squeaked and wobbled as she pulled it along. Its red-stained bed held the burly form of Chief Handler Ivan.
Adessa released the handles and turned toward the bloody form lying in the shadows. “Ivan used this cart to bring butchered meat for his pets.” She smiled at the irony. “It seemed appropriate.”
Taking Nathan’s wrist, Andre pulled him closer. “Come, you must see! What a wonderful opportunity, hmmm?”
Nathan looked down at the body, disturbed. The chief handler sprawled motionless. The tan leather of his jerkin had been shredded by the claws. Fangs had savaged his spine, torn a huge chunk from his shoulder, ripped open his ribs. The three panthers had eviscerated him, and his glistening guts lay spread out. Ivan’s bearded face was twisted, his lips drawn back to expose his teeth, as if caught in a howl. His eyes were wide open and staring—but frozen.
“You were most fortunate, Nathan. If I hadn’t been here…” Andre gestured to the man’s torn abdomen. Ivan looked like a clumsily gutted fish.
“I am not feeling terribly lucky right now,” Nathan said.
“Oh, but you should, hmmm? The sand panthers caused horrific damage, but the rib cage and breastbone protected his heart. The organ is intact—exactly what you need.”
Nicci showed no grief for the man’s bloody and painful end. “He deserved whatever they did to him, but Ivan is dead now, just like the cats he trained.”
She looked around them, where workers with carts were cleaning up the massacre, hauling corpses away, animals and humans alike. The city guard plucked crossbow bolts from the bodies to wash and return them to their store of weapons. Downcast slaves came forward with buckets to wash the blood off the streets, kneeling to scr
ub with thick, stiff-bristled brushes.
“Oh, but Ivan isn’t dead, Sorceress,” Andre said. “I reached him just in time. He was very near death, wallowing in agony, bleeding every drop of life away. I fear his heart had only a few more beats left in it. But I worked my spell and preserved him. I stopped time around his body, so he will endure that last endless moment of pain, on the very cusp of death. I’m sure he desperately wants that moment to end, to slip through the veil into the underworld. But is there any better way for one to remember being alive, hmmm?”
“I can think of many better ways,” Nicci said.
Nathan shook his head, exhausted and trying to understand. He could barely breathe with the suffocating stench of blood hanging like a metallic fog in the air.
“As I said, Nathan—and soon I will call you Wizard Nathan, ha ha!” The fleshmancer reached down to touch the mangled body, running his fingers through the sticky blood that covered the leather jerkin. “In order to restore your gift, you need the heart of a wizard. Chief Handler Ivan is a powerful wizard, and as you can see, he no longer needs his heart. I intend to give it to you.”
As if with a sympathetic connection, Nathan’s own heart skipped a beat. “Accept his heart? You mean … in a literal sense?”
“Of course, my friend! What did you think I was talking about, some esoteric wish? I am a fleshmancer. You have been to my studio. You’ve watched me work with living forms as a sculptor works clay.”
Nathan shuddered, taking a step back from the cart and its bloody burden. He recalled with the clarity of shattered crystal how Andre had created the two-headed fighter from the pieces of grievously injured fighters. “Dear spirits…”
Andre was not deterred. “It is the only way to restore your gift, as I said. I thought that was what you wanted, hmmm?”
Nathan reeled, and Nicci reached out to grasp his arm. Her fingers felt like an iron clamp. She turned to the fleshmancer with clear challenge in her tone. “How can you be certain this will work?”
“There are never guarantees, Sorceress. We are speaking of magic, and there is a … variable factor. But I am confident. I’ve done far more challenging experiments.” He glanced at the bodies of the monstrous arena animals being hauled away. “I’ve had mixed success, I admit, but I am an artist.” He stroked his bloody hands down the thick braided beard on his chin, leaving red streaks on the pale whiskers. His eyes bored into Nathan’s uncertain expression. “Is this not why you came to Ildakar in the first place? Did you not stand before the wizards’ duma and beg for our help to restore your gift? This is us helping you.” He gestured to the torn body.
The glint of agony on Ivan’s face remained unchanged. The whites of his pain-widened eyes were muddled with red from hemorrhages. Nathan could only imagine how much torment the chief handler was undergoing, endlessly, every instant.
Perhaps as much pain as he himself had inflicted on the animals that had attacked him.
Swallowing hard, Nathan felt his pulse racing, his heart beating. His heart, the heart that had lost its Han, thus rendering him useless as a wizard. Yes, he had read the words written in his life book, Red’s pronouncement. From Kol Adair he would behold what he needed to make himself whole again—and from Kol Adair he had seen this marvelous city in the distance. Ildakar.
The wizards of Ildakar were among the most powerfully gifted in all of history.
This was why he and his companions had come here. He had begged for a solution. How often had he demanded that Andre find a way? And if this was the only way in which he could regain his gift, the only way he could be a powerful wizard again, then Nathan must do it to help Nicci, and Bannon … and even Mirrormask. Was that their destiny? If he had his gift back, they could remake the city of Ildakar into the wondrous place it aspired to be. That was exactly what Richard had dispatched them to do, to spread his cause of freedom, to help build a golden age for the new and expanded D’Haran Empire.
Yes, this was why Nathan had come to Ildakar.
“I agree,” he said, in a quiet voice. “I’ll do it.” He looked at Nicci, knowing she could read the tension on his face. But he was Nathan Rahl. He was strong. He was brave. And he had already lived more than a thousand years.
“As you wish, Wizard,” Nicci said.
“Good, good!” The fleshmancer rubbed his hands together. He barked orders at two slave workers who were lifting a spiny wolf onto a sledge to haul the body away. “Come, take this cart to my studio. It isn’t far—bring the chief handler. Nathan and I will follow. We have much to accomplish this night.”
* * *
As he sat on the clean table inside the fleshmancer’s studio, Nathan felt cold sweat on his body. Memories of what he had previously seen there yammered through his mind, but he tried to control his thoughts.
“Nothing to fear,” he muttered to himself, but the words sounded false to the point of being ridiculous. He had much to fear and much to endure, but he had made his decision.
“Remove your robe and smallclothes, Nathan, or they will be completely soaked and ruined with all the blood.”
“I don’t find that statement very heartening,” Nathan muttered.
“Heartening? Quite amusing, my friend,” the fleshmancer chuckled.
Nathan found no humor in the unintended joke. He drew a breath and undid his borrowed wizard’s robe, exposing his chest. “When I have my gift back, I will wear this proudly. I will have earned it.” He slipped the green robe off and cast it on the floor beside the table. Naked, he lay back on the cold surface. Ready.
Andre puttered about, humming to himself. “I agree, and now that the shroud is restored, you shall be here in Ildakar for a long time to come. You’ll have ample opportunity to exercise your gift. And there is an important purpose now, hmmm?”
“What is that?” Nathan asked.
“After the death of Ivan, and with Renn gone, the wizards’ duma is certainly in need of a new member. Perhaps that could be you.”
On the table adjacent to Nathan lay the chief handler’s burly form. The mangled jerkin was peeled away to expose his torn flesh. His eyes still stared upward with that single spark of endless pain.
The fleshmancer ran his hands over Ivan’s broad chest. He bent close to the man’s bearded face, to the snarled agony on his lips. “My dear Ivan, we had some fine times did we not? I did tell you on numerous occasions that if you played with such dangerous pets, then someday you would get hurt. I created them, and I know how dangerous they can be.” He stroked the skin, pressed his palm down on the breastbone, listened, frowned.
“But with half of your animals slain in such a debacle, you would have died from embarrassment, I’m sure. This way your death serves a glorious purpose, helping to restore poor Nathan. Now he can become the powerful wizard that you apparently failed to be.” Andre grinned down at the burly man. “Not that you ever wished to help people, did you?”
He straightened the fingers on both of his hands and pointed them down, palms together, like a pair of spatulas. Summoning his gift, the fleshmancer dipped his fingertips directly into Ivan’s chest. He pushed downward, easily penetrating the skin and the breastbone as if it were no more than butter, then pulled his hands apart. A loud crack and a wet squelching sound accompanied the movement, and a red, yawning gap opened in the center of Ivan’s chest. The fleshmancer moved aside the pieces he didn’t need, exposing the beet-red heart tangled with veins and nestled between his pink foamy lungs. “My, what a beauty! Would you like to have a look, Nathan?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Nathan’s stomach twisted and roiled. He lay back, breathing hard.
Andre rummaged around inside Ivan’s chest cavity, using his fingertips to magically snip the connecting blood vessels, working his gift on the time-frozen heart. Finally he lifted his trophy, like a midwife holding up a newly delivered baby. “There we are!”
Nathan dredged up his courage again. This is what I wanted. This is why I came to Ildakar.
�
��You look terribly frightened, my friend. There’s no need. Have confidence in me.” Andre smiled. Specks of blood dotted his pale cheeks. “I’ve never actually done this before, but I’m certain I can figure it out.”
Nathan quailed, tried to cringe away, but he could barely move.
The fleshmancer reached a bloody hand toward where Nathan lay, gestured with his fingers, and released a quick flow of his gift. The magic washed over Nathan’s chest like a bucket of water on a cold winter’s morning. He found he couldn’t move. Everything inside him was completely frozen.
“I’ve stopped time within you as well. Your heart is no longer beating, your body no longer functioning, your blood no longer flowing. Fortunately, your mind still works. Your thoughts are able to observe what I am doing. As an educated man and a wizard, you’ll appreciate the experience.”
Nathan wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t flinch, couldn’t control a cell in his body.
“The nerves themselves still function,” Andre continued, “so I’m afraid you’ll feel all of the pain. Just keep in mind, it is a reminder that you are still alive.” He leaned close to Nathan’s face. “And you will feel very, very alive.”
He ran his fingers down Nathan’s chest, caressing the skin, lingering longer than was absolutely necessary. Nathan couldn’t raise his head to see exactly what the fleshmancer was doing. He watched Andre straighten his fingers just as he had done above Ivan.
Andre plunged his hands deep into Nathan’s chest.
CHAPTER 51
The two visiting ships spent several days in Serrimundi, where Harborlord Otto was quite accommodating. The man remembered Oliver and Peretta, and he’d heard positive reports about Lord Rahl from travelers and traders out of Tanimura.
Though Serrimundi had not yet declared overt allegiance to the D’Haran Empire, the people in the city were thriving. They, too, had spent generations under the stranglehold of the Imperial Order, but now with Jagang defeated, the cause of freedom spread down the coast with the speed of rumor. The people flourished without being harassed by petty warlords or would-be tyrants. The power vacuum in the Old World had been filled by determined, hardworking people who chose their own rulers and governed themselves fairly. Several minor local bullies had appeared in scattered villages, but the citizens had united to run those puffed-up tyrants out of town.
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