Death's Mistress

CHAPTER 29

Continuing down the path, Nicci moved through the forest, and Bannon hurried after her. “Don’t worry, Sorceress, I can keep up. A woman traveling alone on an empty trail might attract trouble, but if any dangerous men see me and my sword, they will think twice before they harass you.”

She turned her cool gaze on him. “You’ve seen what I can do. Do you doubt my ability to take care of any problem that might arise?”

“Oh, I know about your powers, Sorceress—but others may not. Just having me here with a sharp blade”—he patted his sword—“is sure to prevent problems. The best way out of a difficult situation is to make sure it doesn’t arise in the first place.” He lowered his voice. “You taught me that yourself, after you rescued me from the robbers in Tanimura.”

“Yes, I did.” Nicci gave him a small nod of acknowledgment. “Don’t make me rescue you again.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“Don’t make promises, because circumstances have a way of making you regret them. Did you promise your friend Ian that you would always stay by his side? That you wouldn’t abandon him in times of danger?”

Bannon swallowed hard, but he kept walking beside her. “I had no choice. I couldn’t do anything about that.”

“I did not accuse you, nor did I say you had a choice. I just point out that if you had made such a promise, it was one you could not have kept.”

He pondered in silence for a dozen steps. “You know that my childhood wasn’t as perfect as I wish it had been. That doesn’t mean I can’t hope for better.” He moved aside an aspen branch that dangled across the path. Nicci ducked and kept moving. “And what about you, Sorceress? Did you have a terrible childhood? Someone must have hurt you badly to give you such a hard edge. Your father?”

Nicci stopped in the track. Bannon took several more steps before he realized she had paused behind him. He turned.

“No, my father didn’t hurt me. In fact, he was rather kind. His business was making armor, and he was quite well known. He taught me the constellations. I grew up in a village that was nice enough, I suppose, before the Imperial Order came.” Nicci looked up, finally admitting aloud what she had known for a long time. “It was my mother who made my childhood a nightmare. She scarred me with lessons that she called the truth, made me think that my hardworking father was the evil one, that his beliefs were oppressive to all people. And the Imperial Order reinforced those beliefs.”

She strode ahead at a faster pace, not caring whether Bannon kept up with her. “She made me live in terrible, dirty places. Again and again I was infested with lice, but it was all for my own good, she said. It was to build my character, to make me understand.” Nicci sneered. “I loathe my mother for it now, but it took me a century and a half to realize it.”

“A century and a half?” Bannon asked. “But that’s not possible. You, you’re—”

She turned to look at him. “I am over one hundred and eighty years old.”

“You’re immortal, then?” he asked, wide-eyed.

“I age normally now, but I still have a long life ahead of me, and I intend to accomplish much.”

“As do I,” Bannon said. “I’ll accompany you and do my best to help you and Wizard Nathan achieve your purpose. I can prove myself.”

She barely gave him a glance. “You may stay with us, so long as you don’t become a nuisance.”

“I won’t become a nuisance. I promise.” He realized what he had said and bit back his words. “I mean, I don’t promise, but I will do my best not to be a nuisance anymore.”

“And will you know when you become a nuisance?”

He nodded. “Absolutely. There is no doubt.”

Nicci was surprised at his confidence. “How will you know?”

“Because you will tell me in no uncertain terms.” His face was so serious she couldn’t help but believe him.

Though the wide path implied that it had once been well traveled, the downed aspens and oaks hadn’t been cleared after several winters, and she and Bannon frequently had to climb over or step around. If there was a village ahead, its people did not often come this way. She had seen no footprints, no sign of other travelers, and she decided they would probably end up camping again in the forest.

The young man broke the silence again. “Do you think anyone has the perfect life I imagine? Do you believe there is an idyllic place like that?”

“We would have to make it for ourselves,” Nicci said. “If the people create an oppressive culture, if they allow tyrannical rulers, then they get what they deserve.”

“But shouldn’t there be a peaceful land where people can just be happy?”

“It is naive to entertain a fantasy like that.” Nicci pursed her lips. “But Lord Rahl is trying to build a world where people live in freedom. If they wish to make an idyllic place, they will have the chance to do so. That is what I hope for.”

The path widened into a road, and the forest thinned into an open park, an expansive area where they could see homesteads with a patchwork of crops across the cleared land. The farmhouses were built from logs and capped with shake-shingle roofs.

Bannon said, “Those must be outlying farms for the village we’re looking for. See how the trees have been cut down, the land cleared? All those fences made from fieldstones?”

“I see no one about, though,” Nicci said.

Although the road remained a prominent track, it was overgrown with grass, showing no recent hoofprints or wheel marks. They passed stone walls that had fallen into disrepair; weeds and grass protruded from the cracks. Even the fields were wild and overgrown. The area seemed entirely abandoned.

Nicci grew more wary as the silence deepened. On one farm, a field of tall sunflowers drooped, their large heads sunbursts of yellow petals around a central brown circle. Bannon pointed out, “Those fields went to seed over several growing seasons. Notice how disorganized they are.” He shook his head. “No cabbage farmer would be so unruly.” He stepped up to the nearest sunflower, ran his hands along its hairy stalk. “These were planted in rows several years ago, but they grew up and went unharvested. The new ones are scattered everywhere. Birds spread them out, and next year after those go to seed, the pattern disappears even further.” He glanced around. “And look at the vegetable garden. It’s entirely untended.”

Nicci felt uneasy. “This homestead has been abandoned. They’re all abandoned.”

“But why? The land looks fertile. See these crops? The soil is dark and rich.”

Hearing an odd sound, she spun, ready to release her magic in case she had to attack, but it was only the bleat of a goat. Two gray and white animals came forward, attracted by their conversation.

Bannon grinned. “Look at you!” The goats came forward, and each one let him pat it on the side of the neck. “You look like you’re eating well.” He frowned at Nicci in puzzlement. “If goats run loose, they’ll ransack the vegetable garden. My mother would never let goats come close to our house.”

They walked up to a log cottage, where the shake roof had fallen into disrepair. An overturned cart with a sprung wheel was covered with weeds. “No one lives here,” Nicci said. “That much is apparent.”

They went around to the side of the farmhouse, where they came upon two unexpected ornamental statues, a life-size man and woman dressed as farmers. The expressions on their stone faces showed abject misery. The man’s lips were drawn back in anguish, his face turned to the sky, his marble eyes staring. His mouth was wide open in a wordless wail of grief. The woman was hunched, her hands to her face as if weeping, or maybe clawing out her eyes in despair.

Bannon looked deeply unsettled, and Nicci could not help but recall the stone carvings Emperor Jagang and Brother Narev had commissioned in Altur’Rang, making sculptors depict the corruption and pain of humanity, rather than its majesty. Jagang and Narev had wanted all statues to reflect the most horrific expressions, just like what Nicci saw now. Was this some other follower of Narev’s teachings?

When she had lived with Richard in Altur’Rang, he worked as a stone carver and ultimately sculpted a breathtaking representation of the human spirit, a statue he called Truth. That was when Nicci had experienced a fundamental epiphany. She had changed.

That had been the end of her life as Death’s Mistress, as a Sister of the Dark.

But whoever had carved these statues had apparently not received the same epiphany.

“We should find another farmhouse,” said Bannon. “I don’t like those statues. Who would want something like at their home?”

Nicci glanced at him. “Obviously someone who does not share your vision of an idyllic world.”