Shroud of Eternity

by Terry Goodkind

From a side passage, where Nicci knew the apprentice handlers lived and slept, came the three who had replaced Ivan—the ones who had helped capture Mrra. Dorbo, the angry lantern-jawed man, stalked out, his hands clenched into fists. “By the Keeper, what do you think you’re doing?”

  When Dorbo recognized Mirrormask, his mouth dropped open. The rebel leader said, “Why, we are throwing Ildakar into turmoil. It’s a shame you won’t see it.”

  The rebels flung open cages and ran away as the animals burst out: emaciated and desperate spiny wolves, snapping swamp dragons, and blood-maddened boars. From a large pen two hooded figures loosed a gigantic scaly bull with two sets of prominent horns. The creature charged through the tunnels, bellowing. Its enhanced hooves clattered sparks from the floor.

  Dorbo and his two companions stood in the way with raised hands, using their gift to deflect the stampeding monster, but the huge bull charged forward, drawn toward the handlers rather than shying away. The beast ran harder and faster.

  Mirrormask ducked against the side wall as the bull thundered past. One of the apprentice handlers shrank away and fled, while tall Dorbo and his companion desperately worked their magic, trying to bring the monster under control. But it was too late.

  At the last moment, Dorbo turned to escape, but the bull gored him, impaling him on all four thick horns. The senior apprentice vomited blood as his eyes bulged. He flailed, clutched at the ivory spear points that had sprouted from his chest.

  The second handler went down, smashed under the onslaught, and the bull kept charging with Dorbo’s body dangling from its horns. The third apprentice was trampled under the steel-hard hooves, crushed into a broken horror of blood and shattered bones.

  Now that the handlers’ manipulative gift had vanished, the freed animals rampaged with greater fury. Rebels spread through the tunnels, releasing countless creatures, while Nicci went ahead, looking for one particular barred lair. Mirrormask followed her, nodding at the mangled bodies of the three dead apprentices. “That went well, I think.”

  Nicci felt a surge of relief when she saw the alcove that held her sand panther. She turned to Mirrormask. “Go find the fighter trainees and release them from their cells. You’ll find weapons there as well. Tell them to fight for their lives. This is more important than any arena combat.”

  “As you command, Sorceress.” A hint of sarcasm tinged his muffled words behind the mask.

  “Find Bannon, and tell him I am here.”

  With a swirl of gray robes, Mirrormask flitted down the main tunnel to where the passages connected with the training chambers. The shouts of responding guards and warriors were drowned out by the cacophony of roars from liberated beasts.

  Nicci stepped up to Mrra’s cage. The big cat looked thin, beaten down by captivity and brutal training, but she recognized Nicci, her sister panther. Mrra roared in triumph. Her feline eyes blazed golden.

  Nicci wasted no time. She worked the latch, yanked the cold iron bars to open the door, and Mrra launched herself out, growling and purring deep within her chest. She licked Nicci’s hand with her hot, bristly tongue. Though other freed animals bounded past, the big cat did not want to leave Nicci’s side again.

  “Come, Mrra.” She sprinted down the passageway to where it opened into the periphery of the warrior barracks. She stopped, because Mirrormask stood ahead of her with his back turned. He stretched out both arms, holding a curved sacrificial knife in his left hand, the one with which he had killed the Norukai captive, Dar. He glanced at her over his shoulder. “We have a problem, Sorceress.”

  He faced a grim and snarling Adessa. The morazeth leader stood before him with her short sword raised. Smoldering piles of brown rags and greasy smoke, the remnants of incinerated rebels, lay on the floor on either side of Adessa. She must have killed them the moment they surged into the fighters’ barracks.

  Now she blocked Mirrormask with a hateful look in her eyes. “You are a traitor, a gadfly, a hateful annoyance.” Adessa lunged forward with the point of her sword, and Mirrormask danced out of the way. He held up his sacrificial knife, clanging its blade against hers, but he had little finesse as a fighter.

  “I will kill you in short order.” Adessa slashed a long cut in his gray robe, and he struck out with the knife, but the morazeth batted it away. “You seem to be all talk. You let others do the fighting for you—because you have no skill.”

  Mirrormask glanced toward Nicci. “A little assistance, please, Sorceress?”

  “I would be happy to.” She and Mrra bounded forward.

  Adessa caught the rebel leader unawares when she swung with her brass-studded gauntlet, punching Mirrormask in the stomach, and as he buckled, she drove the butt of her short sword into his face.

  The round pommel struck the polished mask with a hard shattering noise that broke his mirror into several pieces. Crying out, he reeled backward, dropping his ceremonial knife with a clang to the stone floor. He used both hands to hold the broken pieces of his reflection in place. Blood poured from between the cracks.

  Nicci and Mrra both threw themselves upon Adessa. The big cat drove the morazeth to the ground while Mirrormask, sobbing for breath, scrambled away. He held his hands against his face as he disappeared into one of the many side tunnels that branched out from the training grotto.

  Adessa fought off the sand panther, pummeling her with the hard gauntlet, and tried to stab her with the sword. The instant before the blade could pierce Mrra’s vulnerable hide, Nicci lashed out with her magic. She knew she could not strike Adessa through her protective spell runes, but she realized what she should have done during the combat in the ruling tower.

  Nicci sent a surge of incandescent heat into the hilt of Adessa’s sword, and the morazeth yelped and dropped the blade. Even so, she managed to punch the sand panther in the throat, knocking Mrra away from her.

  Just as Nicci and the sand panther were poised to attack, three more morazeth women charged in, blades drawn, ready to fight. Nicci saw no sign of Mirrormask, who had fled. No matter. She was ready to fight all of them.

  With a squeal and a snort from behind them in the tunnels, two speckled boars charged into the chamber, thrashing with their tusks. One of the new morazeth shrieked and spun away, but the first boar gored her, ripping her thigh all the way to her crotch. The woman collapsed, fountaining blood, and the great pig stomped on her neck with a sharp cloven hoof.

  Nicci and Mrra ducked into a side tunnel as the second boar thundered into the chamber, followed by three howling spiny wolves. Nicci hated to retreat, and longed to have her real rematch against Adessa, but the other morazeth had scattered as well, and more animals raced into the warrior barracks.

  As Adessa retreated and the animals continued to rampage, Mrra growled, as if longing to join them, but Nicci placed her fingers on the panther’s well-muscled back. “We’ll have our chance. We will fight her again.”

  She looked forward, remembering the tunnels, knowing where they led. “First, let’s go release Bannon.”

  CHAPTER 70

  Blood and magic hung like a vibrant mist in the air as the night deepened. Amos could smell it. He could sense it. He found it exhilarating, even arousing, and the young man knew exactly what to do with his arousal.

  He had a few hours before the ceremonial killings at the pyramid. His mother and father would be making their preparations along with the duma, but the young man had no part in that, nor did his friends. Someday, Amos supposed, he would become a member of the council, if any of the other wizards ever died. He doubted they would retire.

  But he was not overly eager. He had everything he wanted and no responsibilities. For tonight, he would merely be an avid spectator, watching the cascades of blood spout from hundreds of slashed throats. He hoped he could be close enough to smell the moist iron in the air. He licked his lips in anticipation.

  While he wouldn’t mind having the shroud drop at occasional times, so he and his friends could go out and vandalize the stone soldiers, he
knew they would find other amusements even if the protective bubble remained permanently in place. No doubt there would be more entertaining battles in the combat arena. His lips quirked in a smile. Soon, according to the morazeth trainers, the bumpkin Bannon would be ready to die in the arena. Amos looked forward to watching what the cabbage farmer might do.

  “That will be a thing to see,” he said aloud.

  Beneath him, Melody whimpered.

  He slapped her again for good measure, and she bit back another outcry of pain. The bitch simply wouldn’t learn. “If you stop making noises, I’ll stop hitting you. You’re so stupid.”

  Melody whimpered again, and Amos knew it was a wasted effort to strike her again. Then he realized that he enjoyed it, and with a sharp smack he brought his open hand across her mouth, splitting her lip a second time. Blood dribbled down her chin.

  The thick sexual arousal from the impending sacrifice had made him hungry to expend some of that energy. Without bothering to call Jed and Brock, because he didn’t need them dangling from him like leeches, he had gone to the dacha of the silk yaxen and paid his coin to the surly doorman. Amos had grabbed Melody from where she sat prettily next to a fumbling merchant, a chubby man Amos recognized as a seller of glazed pots.

  Melody had blinked up at him, then recognized him. She drew back with fear, and Amos’s arousal increased. He grabbed her by the wrists, saw the fading bruises on her arm, and realized that he hadn’t come here since the Norukai had visited this place.

  “She is mine tonight,” Amos said to the pottery merchant, and dragged her off the divan. Melody barely struggled, her arms and legs flopping as she stumbled to keep up with him.

  The merchant sputtered and looked disappointed, but Amos was the son of the wizard commander and the sovrena, so the man found another equally beautiful and equally cooperative whore.

  “We need a private room,” Amos said, “a place that will muffle the sounds.”

  Melody had begun to whimper even before he shoved her through the doorway. She sprawled on the bed, turning to look up at him. He closed the door and very carefully said, “Tonight I’m going to make you scream.”

  Melody’s loose gossamer gown was made of pink silk, held together with loops of lace designed to be easily undone. Amos had made a point of ripping the garment off of her, tearing the fabric with a loud and satisfying sound. She crawled backward, propping herself on her elbows. Amos had been hungry for the animal release of sex.

  Melody barely formed the words, “I … please you?”

  “You will, one way or another,” he growled as he undid his pantaloons and pulled them off. Striding forward, he breathed hard and fast. He was extremely aroused, like a warrior with an outthrust sword ready to go into battle. And battle he did.

  He pressed Melody down and pried her legs apart, grabbing the thatch of short blond fur between them. He found no moistness there, but decided he didn’t care. She was the one who would hurt if she wasn’t ready for him.

  Amos thrust into her with angry passion, drawing pleasure not from the act itself, but from what it did to her. Silk yaxen were bred for this, creatures who lived for no other purpose than to let men use them—to let Amos use her.

  The private room was brightly lit with many candles rather than the low romantic illumination in other chambers. Amos didn’t mind. He wanted to see what he was doing. Melody lay back on the bed, closed her eyes, and let him do whatever he wished. He thrust repeatedly, watched her body move, up and back.

  Though it was what she always did, her passivity annoyed him tonight. Amos grabbed her throat and squeezed hard as he continued to push into her. Her eyes widened and swelled. She clawed at his hands, straining to breathe. As she fought harder and harder, he reached his own peak of intensity and shuddered with pleasure, releasing his hold on her throat and collapsing on top of her. Melody squirmed while Amos relaxed, enjoying the waning euphoria.

  But as she struggled to crawl out from under him, his anger came back and he punched her in the face, drawing more blood. Melody squirmed off the edge of the bed and dropped to the floor. He let her go, sitting up on the fine mattress so he could watch her pathetic movements.

  Melody was crying, which seemed strange because silk yaxen didn’t have the brains or the emotions to cry. The red mark around her eye had begun to swell, which made Amos think of the bloodworking that would occur soon. Now that he had expended himself inside the whore, he could shift his anticipation to other pleasures.

  Melody worked her way across the room to a stool before a small bureau and a mirror. Pots of makeup, colorings for the eyes, rouge for the lips, sat out on display. It was a place for silk yaxen to prepare themselves before each new customer. Candles burned on either side of a mirror, and Melody sat staring at her reflection. Tentatively she reached forward, touched a fingertip to her split lip, to the blood there. She smeared it across her lips, reddening them as if with rouge. When she stared at her reflection, tears filled her eyes. She reached up to touch her swollen face, the prominent red mark that would become a black eye. Her other hand reached her throat where Amos had nearly strangled her.

  He lurched off the bed, annoyed that she would give more attention to her own reflection than to him. “I’m paying you for my time here. I’m the one who needs to look at your bruised and ugly face.” Amos snatched one of the pots of makeup and hurled it at the mirror, smashing it. Cracks spiderwebbed out from the impact point, and silvered shards dropped out of the frame, clattering to the bureau.

  Melody gasped and sniffled. She picked up one of the broken shards and held it wonderingly in her hand.

  Amos laughed.

  She turned, lifted the long shard, and then, smoothly—as if she were practicing, not sure what would happen—Melody sliced the jagged glass across his throat, opening up the skin like an astonished new mouth beneath his chin.

  Amos blinked at her, too confused to feel the instant razor of pain. Bright red blood showered out all over Melody. He watched the spray drench her, and she gazed at him, looked down at the broken mirror, and smiled.

  Amos grabbed his throat. He choked and gurgled, unable to hold his wound closed. The crimson waterfall spewed through his clenched fingers, just like the blood he had so anticipated being spilled from the sacrificial slaves during the midnight ritual.

  Amos collapsed to the floor, still twitching as a lake of blood pooled around him. Some ran down his naked chest, while more drained toward Melody’s bare feet. She let the warm blood touch her.

  She turned her interest back to the broken mirror. She picked up another shard and another, holding the broken pieces in her hands, and then she gently, experimentally, raised them to her face. She pressed the flat, silvered surfaces against her cheeks, trying to form a mask of her own.

  CHAPTER 71

  With the roars of wild beasts and the clash of swords behind him, Mirrormask fled. He would let Nicci do the rest here. The sorceress had the incentive, and she certainly had the powers. He could think of more spectacular things to do.

  With all the combat animals turned loose, ready to kill anyone they encountered, the ruling council would have to respond, including even icy Thora. It would surely disrupt their plans for the bloodworking at the pyramid. He did not want the shroud permanently reinforced to trap all of Ildakar under a suffocating dome forever. Its people would be no more than fish in a bowl, swimming around in endless circles, going nowhere. He was sick of Ildakar’s stagnation.

  Although Nicci and the rebels would cause quite a stir with the deadly animals and the warrior slaves, Mirrormask had plans of his own. The sorceress wasn’t thinking big enough. He could cause so much more mayhem!

  He clutched his broken mask, using just enough of his gift to fuse the pieces clumsily together so that the mirror was intact again, though distorted. Blood still flowed from the gashes on his face. He healed it just enough to create scabs, not wasting the time or energy to do more right now.

  He ducked through a side
tunnel, looking for a way back out to the streets. The stench of blood and rotting meat filled his nostrils. This was the passageway through which slaves delivered the animal feeding carts, but the slaves had all fled now. Many were probably among his own followers. Mirrormask didn’t know them by name, saw them mainly as a resource to drive his own plans.

  Bells began to ring from the city towers, not to mark the sacrifice, but to summon the city guard. Armored soldiers ran through the streets, marching out from garrisons, strapping on swords, quivers, and crossbows. Angry lower-class people were shouting, rushing out of alleys and side streets to attack the guards with makeshift clubs or confiscated swords.

  Most of the soldiers were not gifted, but they had training and superior weapons, which the slaves did not. However, Mirrormask—and yes, Nicci, too—had given the rebels and the downtrodden another weapon. Their anger and indignation, their thirst for revenge, made them selfless fighters and therefore more deadly than any trained guard. They fell upon the soldiers.

  Knowing this was happening throughout the city, Mirrormask smiled behind his clumsily repaired mask. He didn’t let anyone see him. He kept to the shadows, flitting down alleys, working his way around the looming combat arena with its observation towers and raised seats above the killing sands. This revolution was far more entertaining than any arena spectacle.

  Mirrormask climbed the streets, knowing the back ways, slipping through orchards and climbing walls until he reached the sprawling mansion of the fleshmancer Andre. He could enter one of the wings from the back.

  With his gift, he easily diverted Andre’s guardian spells, but he had more trouble with the vicious thorns in the squirming hedge of eyeflowers that surrounded the courtyard. His gray robe was torn in several places and he was disgusted with the inconvenience. But he got inside.

  He knew that Nathan, the traveler and supposed wizard, remained an experimental subject inside the fleshmancer’s studio. Nathan had survived the horrific exchange of hearts, although it remained to be seen whether he could demonstrate any restored capacity for the gift. Perhaps all that pain and effort had been for naught. Mirrormask did not know if Nathan Rahl would be an enemy or an ally, but unless the useless wizard could release his magic, he was irrelevant.