Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Chapter 26

“Well, what do you expect me to do?” Verna asked as they marched past a smoking torch in an iron bracket. “Pull Nicci out of thin air?”

“I expect you to find out where she and Ann went,” Cara said. “That’s what I expect.”

Despite the Mord-Sith’s innuendo, Verna wanted to find Nicci and Ann as much as Cara did. She just wasn’t as vocal about it.

The red leather outfit Cara wore stood out like blood against the virtuous white of the marble walls. The Mord-Sith’s mood, which seemed to match the color of her outfit, had only gotten worse as the day had worn on and the search had turned up nothing. Several other Mord-Sith followed some distance back, along with a contingent of the First File—the Palace Guard. Adie was not far behind while Nathan was out by himself in the lead.

Verna understood Cara’s feelings, and in an odd way was cheered by them. Nicci was more than Cara’s charge, more than a woman Richard had wanted Cara to protect. Nicci was Cara’s friend. Not that she would openly admit as much, but it was clear enough by her smoldering rage. Nicci, like Cara herself, had long been someone lost to a dark purpose. They had both come back from that terrible place because Richard had given them not only the chance to change, but a reason to.

It wasn’t so much when a Mord-Sith shouted and yelled that alarmed Verna, it was when their questions became quiet and terse. That was what lifted the hackles on the back of her neck—when it was clear that they meant business, and the business of Mord-Sith was not at all pleasant. It was best not to find yourself in the way of a Mord-Sith when she meant to have answers. Verna only wished that she had them.

She understood Cara’s frustration. She felt no less anxious and bewildered at what could have happened to Nicci and Ann. She knew, though, that repeating the same questions and insisting on answers would not produce those answers any more than it would produce the two missing women. She supposed that Mord-Sith fell back on their training when there seemed no other solution.

Cara stopped, hands on hips, and looked back down the marble hallway. Behind them a few hundred men of the First File slowed to a halt so that they wouldn’t overrun those in the lead. The echo of boots on stone slowly dwindled to a whisper. Several of the soldiers had crossbows with red fletched arrows at the ready. Those arrows made Verna sweat. She almost wished that Nathan had never found them. Almost.

The seemingly endless maze of halls behind the heavily armed soldiers was empty and silent but for the hissing torches. Cara frowned in thought for a moment, then started out once again. This was the fourth time since Ann and Nicci had disappeared the night before that they had been down in the halls that led to the tombs. Verna couldn’t begin to imagine what the Mord-Sith could be trying to figure out. Empty passageways were empty passageways. The two missing women were hardly likely to pop out of the marble walls.

“They had to have gone somewhere else,” Verna finally said, even though no one had seen them.

Cara turned back. “Like where?”

Verna lifted her arms and finally let them flop back down to her sides. “I don’t know.”

“It be a big palace,” Adie said. The torchlight lent the sorceress’s completely white eyes a disturbing, translucent quality.

Verna gestured down the silent passageway. “Cara, we’ve spent hours going up and down these halls and it’s just as obvious now as it was the last time we were down here—or the first time for that matter—that they are empty. Nicci and Ann have to be somewhere up in the palace. We’re wasting our time down here. I agree that we need to find them, but we need to look elsewhere.”

Cara’s eyes looked like blue fire. “They were down here.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’re right. But were is the word in what you said that matters. Do you see any trace of them? I don’t. You’re no doubt correct that they were down here. It’s obvious, though, that they’ve since gone elsewhere.” Verna sighed impatiently. “We’re wasting valuable time marching up and down empty halls.”

As everyone waited where they stood, Cara paced up the hallway a short distance. When she returned she again planted her fists on her hips.

“There’s something wrong down here.”

Nathan, out by himself in the lead and keeping his own counsel, stared back at them, for the first time curious. “Wrong? What do you mean . . . wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Cara admitted. “I can’t put my finger on it but there’s something down here that doesn’t feel right to me.”

Verna spread her hands, searching for understanding. “You mean some kind of . . . essence of magic, or something?”

“No,” Cara said, waving off the very notion. “I don’t mean anything like that.” She returned the hand to her red leather-clad hip. “It’s just that it seems like something is wrong—I don’t know what, but something.”

Verna glanced about. “Do you think something is missing?” She gestured ahead, up the empty passageway. “Decorations, furnishings, something of that nature?”

“No. As I recall there never was any decorations down in most of these halls. But I haven’t been down here to the tombs much—no one has.

“Darken Rahl would visit his father’s tomb from time to time, but as far as I know he didn’t have any interest in visiting the others. The area down here with the tombs is private and he made it off-limits. When he went to his father’s tomb he usually took his bodyguards, not Mord-Sith, so I’m just not all that familiar with the place.”

“Maybe that’s all it is,” Verna suggested, “an uneasy feeling brought on by unfamiliarity.”

“I suppose that could be it,” Cara said, her mouth twisting with annoyance at having to admit it was a possibility.

Everyone stood silently, considering what they should do next, if anything. It was always possible, after all, that the two missing women could show up at any moment and wonder what all the fuss was about.

“You said Ann and Nicci had wanted to be alone to have a private conversation,” Adie said. “Perhaps they went off somewhere private.”

“All night?” Verna asked. “I can’t imagine that. The two of them didn’t have much in common. They weren’t friends. Dear Creator, I don’t think they even liked each other all that much. I can’t imagine them chatting the night away.”

“Me neither,” Cara said.

Verna looked up at the prophet. “Do you have any idea what Ann might have wanted to talk to Nicci about?”

Nathan’s long white hair brushed his shoulders when he shook his head. “Ann naturally took a dim view of Nicci, considering that she turned to the Sisters of the Dark. I know that always bothered her—and not without sound reason. It was more than a betrayal of the cause of the Light; it was a personal betrayal and a betrayal of the palace. Ann might have wanted to get Nicci alone so she could counsel her about coming back to the Creator.”

“That would have been a brief conversation,” Cara said.

“I suppose so,” Nathan admitted. He scratched the bridge of his nose as he considered. “Well, knowing Ann, it very well might be something about Richard.”

Cara’s blue eyes narrowed as they turned up toward the prophet. “What about Richard?”

Nathan shrugged. “I don’t know for certain.”

Cara’s brow tightened. “I didn’t say that it had to be for certain.”

Nathan looked somewhat reluctant to speak of it, but he finally did. “Ann sometimes mentioned how she thought that Nicci might be able to guide him.”

Verna joined Cara in frowning. “Guide him? Guide him how?”

“You know Ann.” Nathan smoothed the front of his white shirt. “She always thinks she needs to have a hand in guiding everything. She has often mentioned to me how uneasy it makes her to have so tenuous a connection to Richard.”

“Why does she think she needs a ‘connection’ to Lord Rahl?” Cara asked, ignoring the fact that it was now Nathan who was Lord Rahl and not Richard.

Verna couldn’t say that she was any more comfortable with the thought of Nathan being the Lord Rahl than was Cara.

“She has always thought she needed to control what Richard might do,” Nathan said. “She is always calculating and planning. She has never liked leaving anything to chance.”

“True enough,” Verna said. “The woman always did have a network of spies to help her insure that the world was revolving properly. She had connections in the most far-flung places in order to exert influence toward what she saw as the cause of her life. She never liked leaving anything important to others, much less to chance.”

Nathan heaved a deep sigh. “Ann is a determined woman. She believes that Nicci, since renouncing the Sisters of the Dark, has no other choice, now, except to return her devotion to the cause of the Sisters of the Light.”

“What cause? Why does she think Nicci has to be devoted to the Sisters of the Light?” Cara asked.

Nathan leaned a little toward the Mord-Sith. “She thinks that us wizards need a Sister of the Light to guide our every thought and action. She has always believed that we should not be allowed to think for ourselves.”

Verna’s gaze wandered off down the empty passageway. “I guess that I used to believe much the same thing. But that was before Richard.”

“Keep in mind, though, that you’ve spent far more time with Richard than Ann ever did.” Nathan shook his head sadly. “While she had to have come to much the same understanding about Richard needing to act on his own as most of us agree he must, she seems lately to be reverting to her old ways, her old beliefs. I’m not sure that the Chainfire spell hasn’t wiped away those changes in Ann, erased the things she had learned.”

Verna had suspected much the same. “We must let Ann speak for herself, but I think that it’s clear that the Chainfire spell is affecting us all. We know that, unchecked, it will likely continue to run rampant through our minds and very possibly destroy our ability to reason. The problem is, none of us is aware of how we are changing. Each of us feels that we are the same as we’ve always been. I doubt that to be true. There is no telling how much any one of us has changed. Any of us could unwittingly lead our cause astray.”

“You can discuss all that with Ann when we find them,” Cara said, impatient to get back to the issue at hand. “They’re not down here. We need to spread our search.”

“Maybe they’re not done with whatever they had to talk about,” Nathan suggested. “Maybe Ann doesn’t want to be found until after she is finished with trying to convince Nicci of what she must do.”

“That sounds like a possibility,” Verna agreed.

Nathan fussed with the edge of his cape. “I wouldn’t put it past the woman to abscond with Nicci, intent on being alone with her so she can browbeat her into Ann’s way of thinking.”

Cara flicked a hand dismissively. “Nicci is devoted to helping Richard, not Ann. She wouldn’t go along and Ann couldn’t make her—Nicci can wield Subtractive Magic, after all.”

“I agree.” Verna said. “I can’t imagine the two of them just wandering off for this long without letting us know where they are.”

Adie turned to Verna. “Why not ask her where she be?”

Verna frowned at the old sorceress. “You mean use the journey book?”

Adie gave a single, firm nod. “Yes. Ask her.”

Verna was skeptical. “Being here in the palace it’s hardly likely that she would look in her journey book for a message from me.”

“Maybe she not be in the palace,” Adie said. “Perhaps the two of them had to leave for some sudden, important reason and she already sent you a message in the journey book.”

“How in the world could the two of them leave the palace?” Verna asked. “We’re surrounded by the army of the Imperial Order.”

Adie shrugged. “It not be impossible. I can see with my gift, not my eyes. It be dark last night. Maybe in the dark they had to slip away for some reason. Maybe it be important and they didn’t have time to tell us.”

“You could do that?” Cara asked. “You could go out in the dark and make it through the enemy?”

“Of course.”

Verna was already thumbing through her journey book. As she had expected, it was completely blank. “There is no message.” She tucked the small book back behind her belt. “I’ll try your suggestion, though, and write Ann a message. Perhaps she will look in her journey book and reply.”

With a flourish of his cape, Nathan once again started away. “Before we go off to look elsewhere I want to check the tomb again.”

“Post a guard up here,” Cara called back to the soldiers. “The rest of you come with us.”

Already some distance off down the hall, Nathan turned down a stairway. The rest of them all followed behind, their footsteps echoing as they hurried to catch up. Nathan, Cara, Adie, Verna, and the soldiers bringing up the rear all descended down to the next level.

The walls of the lower level were stone block, rather than marble. In places they were stained by centuries of water seeping through. The seepage left behind yellowish formations that made the stone look as if it were melting.

They soon enough arrived at stone that really had melted.

Nathan came to a halt before the opening to Panis Rahl’s tomb. The tall prophet, his face grim and drawn, stared past melted stone into the tomb. It was the fourth time he had returned to look into the tomb and this time it looked no different than on previous visits.

Verna was worried about the man. While he was worried and wanted to find answers, there was a kind of rage simmering just below the surface. She had never seen him like this before. The only person she could think of who had same quality of quiet, bottled fury that could make her heart race was Richard. Such focused anger had to be, she thought, a Rahl quality.

Whatever doors had once guarded the crypt had been replaced with a kind of white stone intended to seal the large tomb. It appeared to have been hastily constructed, but it hadn’t succeeded in halting the strange conditions overcoming Panis Rahl’s tomb.

Inside, fifty-seven cold torches rested in ornate gold brackets. Nathan cast out a hand, using magic to light several of them. As they burst into flame the walls of the crypt came alive with flickering light that reflected off the polished pink granite of the vaulted room. Beneath each of the torches was a vase meant to hold flowers. By the fifty-seven torches and vases, Verna guessed that Panis Rahl must have been fifty-seven when he died.

A short pillar in the center of the cavernous room supported the coffin itself, making it look as if it floated above the floor of white marble. The gold-enshrouded coffin glowed softly in the wavering, warm light of the four torches. The way the walls were covered in polished crystalline granite that ran up and completely across the vaulting, Verna imagined that when all the torches around the room were lit the coffin must glow in golden glory as it floated all by itself in the center of the room.

Words carved in the ancient language of High D’Haran covered the sides of the coffin. Cut into the granite beneath the torches and gold vases. an endless ribbon of words in the same nearly forgotten language ringed the room. The deeply incised letters shimmered in the torchlight, almost making them look as if they were lit from within.

Whatever was causing the white stone that had once blocked the entrance to the tomb to melt was beginning to affect the room itself, although not to the same extent. Verna suspected that the white stone used to wall over the entrance was a stopgap, a sacrificial substance deliberately selected to draw and absorb the invisible force responsible for the trouble. Now that the white stone was almost all melted away those forces were beginning to attack the tomb itself.

The stone slabs of the walls and floor hadn’t melted or cracked, but they were just beginning to distort, as if they were being subjected to great heat or pressure. Verna could see that the joints between the ceiling and walls out in the hall were splitting open under the pressure of the deformation from within the room itself. Whatever was causing such an event, it was obvious that it was not a construction defect, but rather some kind of external force.

Nicci had said that she wanted to see the tomb because she thought she knew why it was melting. Unfortunately, she hadn’t revealed the nature of her suspicion. There was no sign that she and Ann had visited the tomb.

Verna was impatient to find both women so that the whole mystery could be solved. She couldn’t imagine what the trouble with the tomb of Richard’s grandfather could be, or how much worse it would get, but she didn’t think it would turn out to be anything good. Nor did she think that there was much time left to answer the riddle—any part of it.

“Lord Rahl,” a voice called.

They all turned back. A messenger came to a halt not far away. All the messengers wore white robes trimmed around the neck and down the front with a design of intertwined purple vines.

“What is it?” Nathan asked.

Verna thought that as long as she lived she would never get used to hearing people call Nathan “Lord Rahl.”

The man bowed briefly. “There is a delegation from the Imperial Order waiting on the other side of the drawbridge.”

Nathan blinked in surprise. “What do they want?”

“They want to speak to Lord Rahl.”

Nathan glanced to Cara and then Verna. Both were just as surprised as he.

“It could be a trick,” Adie said.

“Or a trap,” Cara added.

Nathan’s face bent into a sour expression. “Whatever it is, I think I’d better go look into it.”

“I’m going, too.” Cara said.

“As am I,” Verna added.

“We’ll all go,” Nathan said as he started away.

Verna and the small clutch of people with her followed Nathan out of the grand entrance of the People’s Palace and into the bright late-afternoon sunlight. Long shadows cast by the towering columns cascaded down the hillside of steps before them. In the distance, across the expanse of grounds, the great outer wall stood at the edge of the plateau. Men patrolled a walkway between crenellated battlements along the top of the massive wall.

It had been a long journey up from the tombs deep within the palace and they were all winded. Verna shaded her eyes with a hand as they descended the grand stairs in the wake of the long-legged prophet. Guards posted on each of the expansive landings saluted the Lord Rahl with a fist to their hearts. There were greater numbers of soldiers in the distance patrolling the broad sweep of grounds leading to the outer wall.

The stairs ended in a broad area of bluestone that took them to a roadway winding up from around the side where stables and carriages would be. Tall cypress trees lined the short road as it led toward the outer walls.

Beyond the gates through the massive wall the road was less grand as it followed the sheer walls of the plateau down in a series of switchbacks. Each turn gave the silent company an unbroken view of the Imperial Order spread out far below.

The drawbridge was guarded by hundreds of troops of the First File. These were all well-trained, heavily armed soldiers committed to insuring that no one came up the road to assault the People’s Palace. There was little chance of that, though. The road was too narrow to mount any kind of meaningful attack. In such tight confines a few dozen good men could hold off an entire army. More than that, though, the drawbridge was up. The sheer drop was dizzying. It was too far across for assault ladders or ropes with grappling hooks. Without the bridge down no one could cross the chasm and approach the palace.

Beyond the drawbridge a small delegation waited. By their simple dress they looked to be messengers. Verna did see a few dozen lightly armed soldiers, but they remained well back from the messengers so as not to appear threatening.

Nathan, his cloak buttoned back on one shoulder even though it was a cold day, came to a halt at the edge of the chasm, feet spread, fists on his hips, looking imposing and commanding. “I am Lord Rahl,” he announced to the party across the drop. “What do you want?”

One of the men, a slender fellow wearing a simple tunic of darkly dyed fabric, shared a look with his comrades and then stepped a little closer to his side of the brink. “His Excellency, Emperor Jagang, has sent me with a message for the D’Haran people.”

Nathan glanced around at the others behind him. “Well, I’m Lord Rahl, so I speak for the D’Haran people. What is the message?”

Verna eased up beside the prophet.

The messenger was looking more displeased by the moment. “You are not the Lord Rahl.”

Nathan eyed the man with a Rahl scowl. “Would you like me to use a bit of conjured wind and blow you off that road? Would that settle the matter to your satisfaction?”

The men across the way stole glances down the drop. “It’s just that we were expecting someone else,” the messenger said.

“Well, I’m Lord Rahl so I’m what you get. If you have something to say, then say it, otherwise I’m busy. We have a banquet to attend.”

The man finally bowed slightly. “Emperor Jagang is prepared to make a generous offer to those in the People’s Palace.”

“What sort of offer?”

“His Excellency has no desire to destroy the palace or its inhabitants. Surrender peacefully, and you will be allowed to live. Fail to surrender and each of them will die a slow and agonizing death. Their bodies will be thrown off the walls to the plain below, where they will feed the vultures.”

“Wizard’s fire,” Cara said under her breath.

Nathan frowned back over his shoulder. “What?”

“Your power works here. Theirs, if they are gifted, wouldn’t work as well up here, so their shields would be less effective. You can incinerate the lot of them from here.”

Nathan waved his arm in a grand gesture to those across the way. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”

The man bowed his head indulgently.

Nathan led Cara and Verna back up the road to where Adie, several other Mord-Sith, and the escort of soldiers waited.

“I agree with Cara,” Verna said before the prophet could say anything. “Give them our answer in the only way the Order understands.”

Nathan’s bushy brow drew down over his azure eyes. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

Cara folded her arms. “Why not?”

“Jagang is probably watching our reaction through the eyes of those men,” Verna said. “I agree with Cara. We need to show him strength.”

Nathan frowned. “I’m surprised at you, Verna.” He smiled politely at Cara. “I’m not surprised at you, however, my dear.”

“Why are you so surprised?” Verna asked.

“Because it would be the wrong thing to do. You usually don’t give such poor advice.”

Verna restrained herself. This was not the time to launch into a heated lecture—especially not in front of Jagang’s eyes. She also recalled all too vividly how she had thought for most of her life that the prophet was mad. She wasn’t entirely sure that her assessment had been wrong. She also knew from past experience that lecturing Nathan was like trying to talk the sun out of setting.

“You can’t seriously be considering surrender,” she said in a low voice that those across the way wouldn’t hear.

Nathan made a sour face. “Of course not. But that doesn’t mean that we should kill them for asking.”

“Why not?” Cara spun her Agiel up into her fist as she leaned toward the prophet. “I, for one, think that killing them is an excellent idea.”

“Well, I don’t,” Nathan huffed. “If I incinerate them that will tell Jagang that we have no intention of considering his offer.”

Verna contained her fury. “Well, we don’t.”

Nathan turned an intense look on her. “If we tell them that we have no intention of considering the offer then the negotiations are ended.”

“We’re not going to negotiate,” Verna said with rising impatience.

“But we don’t have to tell them that,” Nathan explained with exaggerated care.

Verna straightened and fussed with her hair, using the moment to take a deep breath. “What would be the purpose of not telling them that we have no intention of seriously considering their offer?”

“To buy time,” Nathan said. “If I blast them off that road Jagang would have his answer, now wouldn’t he? But if I take the offer under consideration we can string out the negotiations.”

“There can be no negotiations,” Verna said through gritted teeth.

“To what end?” Cara asked, ignoring Verna. “Why would we want to do such a thing?”

Nathan shrugged as if it were obvious and they were all idiots for not seeing it. “Delay. They know how difficult it is going to be to take the palace. With every foot of elevation that ramp of theirs gains it becomes exponentially more difficult to construct. It could easily take them the winter, and possibly a great deal longer, to build that thing. Jagang can’t be looking forward to an army that massive sitting out there on the Azrith Plain for the entire winter. They are a long way from home and supplies. He could lose the whole army to starvation or a virulent sickness, then where would he be?

“If they think we might consider surrender then they might put thought and effort into winning the palace in that way. Our surrender would solve their problem. But if they think there is no way but to rout us from the place then they will put all their efforts into that method. Why push them to it?”

Verna’s mouth twisted. “I suppose that makes some sense.” When Nathan smiled at the small triumph, she added, “Not a lot, but some.”

“I’m not at all sure it does,” Cara said.

Nathan spread his arms. “Why turn them down? There is nothing to be gained by doing so. We should keep them guessing, keep them wondering if we might be considering giving up without a fight. Enough cities have surrendered to make it seem like a reasonable possibility that we might do the same. If they think there is a chance we might surrender then that hope will keep them from being fully committed to finishing their ramp and ending it with a rout of the palace.”

“I must admit,” Cara said, “there is value in stringing people along so that they fall into waiting for an answer they really want.”

Verna finally gave him a nod. “I guess that for now it can’t hurt to let them wonder.”

Finished with the task of bringing them around to his way of thinking, Nathan brushed his hands together. “I will tell them that we will take their offer under advisement.”

Verna wondered if Nathan had another reason for wanting to say he would consider the offer. She wondered if he could actually be contemplating surrendering the palace. While Verna held no illusions that Jagang would actually keep his word not to harm those in the palace if they surrendered, she wondered if Nathan was thinking of secretly arranging his own surrender deal, a deal that would leave him as the permanent Lord Rahl of a vanquished D’Hara under the authority of the Imperial Order.

After all, once the war was over Jagang would need people to rule far-flung conquered lands.

She wondered if Nathan was capable of such treason.

She wondered how much his resentment had grown over nearly a lifetime of imprisonment in the Palace of the Prophets for no more of a crime than what the Sisters of the Light thought him capable of. She wondered if he could be thinking of revenge.

She wondered if the Sisters of the Light, by their well-intentioned treatment of a man who had done them no harm, might have sown the seeds of destruction.

As Verna watched a smiling Lord Rahl marching back to the edge of the chasm, she wondered if the prophet was scheming to throw them all to the wolves.