Death's Mistress

CHAPTER 32

As the Adjudicator’s magic closed around her like a clenching fist, Nicci struggled, but her body wouldn’t move and her brain felt as if it had fossilized from the core outward. She could hardly think. She was trapped.

The dark wizard must have sensed her own powerful gift, because he struck in a way that she could not resist, with a spell she had never previously encountered. Her flesh tightened, hardened, and crystallized her body. Time itself seemed to stop. The warm tones of her skin turned to cold gray-white marble. She felt her lungs crush, her bones grow impossibly heavy.

Vision dimmed as her eyes petrified. Her blue irises crackled, hardened … and with the last hint of vision she saw young Bannon with his long red hair and his pale, freckled face. His expression had often been so innocent, so cheerful and unscarred by reality, that it set Nicci on edge. Now, though, his face filled with despair and misery. His mouth dropped open, his lips curled back, and even though her own ears roared with the sound of encroaching silence, she thought she heard him say “… kittens…” before he became completely fossilized, the sculpture of a man buried under an avalanche of unbearable grief and guilt.

When Nicci’s vision faded, all she was able to see were the nightmarish remnants of her own past actions. Her memories rose up, as if they, too, were preserved in perfectly carved stone. Horrific, tense memories.

* * *

Shaken from his encounter with the spectral army that manifested through the bloodglass, Nathan left the watchtower. Alone and wary, he made his way through the darkening, sinister forest as the sun fell below the line of hills.

He hadn’t expected his side trip to take so long, but the experience had been valuable for what he had seen and learned, in a historical sense if nothing else. These lands of the Old World were soaked with the blood of centuries of warfare, petty warlords turning against one another after the great barrier was erected to seal off the New World during the ancient wizard wars. Reading history was one thing; experiencing it was quite another.

He picked his way through the increasing shadows, heading back in the direction of the faint road they had been following, but Nathan feared he would walk right past the trail in the deepening twilight.

Much as he would have liked to join Nicci and Bannon in a town, hoping for a fine inn and hot food, he decided to make camp where he was. He was eager to tell his companions about the sentinel tower, and just as eager to sample the local ale. Instead, he would have to spend the night alone in the forest. “Not all parts of an adventure have to be charming and enjoyable,” he said aloud.

He found a quiet clearing under a large elm tree, where he could use his pack as a pillow. As he sat under the branches and the night grew darker and colder, he pondered his lack of magic and what had happened when he had tried to practice en route to the tower. Right now, looking at the pile of dry sticks he had assembled, he could not help but think how it would have been so simple to make a cheery campfire, if he had magic to light the spark. He had never been good at using flint and steel. He didn’t have the patience or the skill; when had Nathan Rahl ever needed it, if he could simply twitch a finger and light a fire?

Resigned, he ate cold pack food and wrapped himself in his brown cape from Renda Bay for warmth, then bedded down to a restless, uncomfortable sleep. The homespun linen shirt that had belonged to Phillip also kept him warm.

He set off at first light, bushwhacking through low saplings and shrubbery, heading instinctively in the right direction, and when he finally encountered the main path, he felt a sudden flush of satisfaction. Now that he was back on the road again, he could catch up with Nicci and Bannon. According to the map, a sizable town—Lockridge—should be only a few miles ahead.

It was late morning before he saw the first abandoned farmstead. He drank from the well, sure no one would complain, and chased off two pesky goats who were hungry for attention. The hideous ornamental statues seemed bizarre and out of place, but Nathan had seen many odd and inexplicable things before. People often had questionable tastes in art, and these sculptures were indeed questionable.

The road took him past other farms and dwellings, all of them just as silent, all populated with anguished statues. Maybe some petty local prince fancied himself a sculptor and required each of his subjects to own his hideous work.

By noon, Nathan reached the town, a typical mountain village with all the expected shops and houses, a marketplace, a square, a livery, an inn, a blacksmith, a potter, a woodworker—but it was populated with hundreds more statues, stone people depicted at a moment of horrific nightmares.

Nathan cautiously walked ahead, scratching the side of his face, stepping carefully in his high leather boots, afraid he might awaken the eerie sculptures. He felt like an intruder here. Under normal circumstances, he should have been able to sense sorcery or danger, and he dug deep within himself, found the writhing, sleeping magic there, the frayed tangles that remained after his gift of prophecy had been uprooted. But his Han was restless and uncooperative, and he didn’t dare use it. He knew better.

At another time, he might have raised his voice and shouted out, but the hush was too ominous, even more so than at the ancient watchtower. The palpable horror and despair in the faces of these sculptures made his skin crawl. He saw people of all sorts: tradesmen, farmers, washerwomen, children.

In the Lockridge town square two fresh statues looked whiter and cleaner than the others, new creations made by the mad sculptor. The appalled expression made the young man’s face unrecognizable at first, but then Nathan knew. Bannon!

Next to him stood the beautiful sorceress, whose curves and fine dress would have been a work of art for any imaginative sculptor. Nicci’s face showed less misery than the faces of the other statues, but her expression still carried clear pain, as if her guilt and regrets had been smashed into numerous sharp shards, then imperfectly reassembled again.

A deep chill shuddered through Nathan, as he slowly turned around. Some terrible magic was at work here, and even though he could think of no spell that would have caused this, he was certain these were not mere sculptures of his friends, but Nicci and Bannon themselves, transformed somehow.

A powerful baritone voice cut through the crystalline silence of the town. “Are you an innocent man? Or have you come to be judged like the others?”

A tall black-robed man came striding toward him, his elongated bald head crowned with a gold circlet. The robes were open at his chest to display bubbling scars and waxy skin fused around a golden amulet.

On guard, Nathan replied, “I have lived a thousand years. It’s hard to hold on to innocence and purity for all that time.”

“A righteous man could do it.”

“I haven’t been overburdened with guilt, either.” Nathan was certain this grim wizard had created the statue spell, trapping or petrifying these victims—including Nicci and Bannon. “I am a traveler, an emissary from the D’Haran Empire. The roving ambassador, in fact.”

“And I am the Adjudicator.” The man stepped forward, and the deep red garnet on his fused amulet began to glow.

At another time, Nathan would have released his magic to attack, but he had no gift that would help him. His hand darted down to grab the hilt of his sword, but his arm moved slowly, lethargically. He realized his feet were rooted in place. Nathan guessed what was happening.

The Adjudicator closed in, his water-blue eyes fixed on him. “Only the innocent shall pass onward, and I will find your guilt, old man. I will find all of it.”

* * *

Nicci was frozen inside a petrified gallery of her life, the accusatory moments of her actions. She had no choice but to face the terrible things she had done, the darkness of her life … Death’s Mistress … servant of the Keeper. That psychological weight was far greater than tons of rock.

She had tortured and killed many as a necessary part of her service to Jagang. She had aided the Imperial Order, falsely believing that she served all humanity by enforcing equality, helping the poor and the infirm, redistributing the wealth of greedy manipulators. She felt no guilt for that.

From a long time ago, she regretted that she had missed her father’s funeral, but the Sisters had not allowed her to leave the Palace of the Prophets. Her father, an ambitious armorer, a good manager (she realized now), a man whose work had been appreciated by his customers until the Order ruined him. Nicci had been part of that downfall, as a dedicated young girl, brainwashed by her mother. She had become a believer, a wholehearted follower.

When one believed and followed something that was wrong, must there be guilt?

Kept inside the Palace of the Prophets for so many years, Nicci had also missed the death of her overbearing mother. She had attended that funeral, however, although she felt no guilt over the loss of the abusive woman. In order to obtain a fine black dress for the ceremony, Nicci had surrendered her body to the groping, lecherous embraces of a loathsome tailor, but it was the price she had agreed to pay. She had done what was necessary. That held no guilt. And she had preferred to wear a black dress ever since.

As those preserved dark memories rose inside her mind, she felt a need to atone for abducting Richard from his beloved Kahlan, forcing him to go away with her in a sham partnership to Altur’Rang. That had been a terrible thing, even if Nicci had been doing it to convince Richard of the correctness of her beliefs. During that time, she had fallen in love with him, but it was a twisted and broken emotion that even Nicci didn’t understand.

The worst thing she had done, perhaps, was when Richard had rebuffed her advances, refused to make love to her, and so she had thrown herself upon another man in the city, letting him treat her roughly, slap her and rape her—though it hadn’t been rape, because she herself had insisted on it. And all the while she knew that because of the maternity spell that linked them, Kahlan would experience every physical sensation that Nicci felt … and Kahlan would believe in her heart that Richard had been unfaithful to her, that he was the one taking his pleasure on Nicci’s body, wild with lust.

How that must have hurt Kahlan … and Nicci had taken great joy in it.

Yes, for that she felt guilt.

But Nicci had already made her peace with it. Kahlan and Richard had forgiven her. That embittered, evil person might have been who she was a long time ago—Death’s Mistress—but Nicci was different now. She did not wallow in her past and was not haunted by the ghosts of her deeds. She had served Richard, had fought for him, had helped overthrow the Imperial Order. She had commanded Jagang to die. She had served Richard with relentless dedication and killed countless numbers of bloodthirsty half people from the Dark Lands. She had done whatever Richard asked, had even stopped his heart to send him into the underworld so he could save Kahlan.

She had given him everything except for her guilt. Nicci did not hold on to guilt. Even when she had committed those crimes, she had felt nothing.

And now in this new journey of her life, she served an even greater purpose—not just the man Richard Rahl, whom she loved, but the dream of Richard Rahl—and in that service there could be no guilt. Nicci was a sorceress. She had the power of the wizards she had killed. She had all the spells the Sisters had taught her. She had a strength in her soul that went beyond any imagined calling of this deluded Adjudicator.

The magic was hers to control, and the punishment was not his to mete out.

Her body might have turned to stone, trapping her thoughts in a suffocating purgatory, but Nicci’s emotions had been like stone before, and she had a heart of black ice. It was her protection. She called upon that now, releasing any spark of magic she could summon, finding her flicker of determination and her refusal to accept the sentence this grim wizard imposed upon her.

As her fury grew, the magic kindled within her. She was not some clumsy, murderous villager, she was not a petty thief. She was a sorceress. She was Death’s Mistress.

Inside and around her Nicci felt the stone begin to crack.…

* * *

The Adjudicator’s long face was sallow and dour, as if all humor had been leached away. He showed no pleasure as he explained Nathan’s punishment and worked the spell to trap him. “They are all guilty,” he said, “every person. I have so much work to do…”

Nathan strained, struggling to move his petrified arm. “No, you won’t.” His hand had nearly reached the sword, but even if he touched the hilt, it would do no good. The stone spell surrounded him and was rapidly fossilizing his tissues, stopping time inside his body. Nathan could not fight, could not flee, could barely even move. His only recourse would have been to use magic, to lash out with a retaliatory spell. But if he couldn’t light so much as a campfire, he certainly couldn’t fight such a powerful wizard.

Even if he summoned his wayward magic, though, Nathan knew he couldn’t control it. He could not forget trying to heal the wounded man in Renda Bay, ripping him asunder with what should have been healing magic. Nathan had only tried to help him.…

Maybe that was the moment of great guilt the Adjudicator would force him to endure for as long as stone lasted.

He heard the grinding crackle as the spell petrified even his leather pouch, along with his travel garments, and the life book. He could not breathe.

Nathan felt the magic squirming within him, ducking away like a snake slithering into a thicket. What did it matter if he unleashed it now and the spell backfired? What greater harm could it cause than the harm he was already facing? Even Nicci had been trapped in stone, and Bannon, poor Bannon, was already paralyzed in endless anguish.

Nathan had nothing to lose. No matter what unexpected backlash his magic might trigger, if he could release it and strike back, even in some awkward way, at least that would be something.

His lungs crushed down as the stone weight of guilt squeezed him, suffocated him, but he managed to gasp out some words. “I am Nathan … Nathan the prophet.” He caught one more fractional breath, one more gasp of words. “Nathan the wizard!”

The magic crawled out of him like a fanged eel startled from a dark underwater alcove. Nathan released it, not knowing what it would do … not caring. It lashed out, uncontrolled.

He heard and felt a white-hot sizzle building within his body. For a moment he was sure that his own form would explode, that his skull would erupt with uncontained power.

In front of him, the statue of Nicci seemed to be changing, softening, with countless eggshell cracks all over the white stone that had captured her perfection. Nathan didn’t think he was doing it. His own magic was here … boiling out—and spraying like scalding oil on the Adjudicator.

The grim wizard recoiled, staggering backward. “What are you doing?” He raised a hand and clapped the other to his amulet. “No!”

The petrification spell that the Adjudicator had wrapped around Nathan like a smothering cloak now slipped off of him, ricocheted and combined with Nathan’s wild magic. Reacting, backfiring.

The dour man straightened, then convulsed in horror. His lantern jaw dropped open, and his expression fell into abject despair. His water-blue eyes began to turn white, and his robe stiffened, changing to stone. “I am the Adjudicator!” he cried. “I am the judge. I see the guilt…”

With a crackling, shattering sound, Nicci fought her way out of her own fossilization, somehow using her powers. Nathan’s vision became sharper as he felt the intrusive stone drain out of his body like sand through an hourglass. His flesh softened, his blood pumped again.

Nathan’s unchecked magic likewise thrashed and curled and whipped. The Adjudicator writhed and screamed as he gradually froze in place, even his robe turning to marble.

“You. Are. Guilty!” Nathan said to the transforming Adjudicator when he could breathe again. “Your crime is that you judged all these people.”

Stone engulfed the Adjudicator, crackling up through his skin, stiffening the lids around his wide-open eyes. “No!” It wasn’t a denial, but a horror, a realization. “What have I done?” His voice became scratchier, rougher as his throat hardened and his chest solidified so that he couldn’t breathe. “All those people!” The stone locked his face in an expression of immeasurable regret and shame, his mouth open as he uttered one last, incomplete “No!” He became the newest statue in the town of Lockridge.

Staring at the stone figure, Nathan felt his rampant magic dissipate. Just like that, it was no longer available to his touch. He sucked in a deep breath and felt life flow through him again.