Death's Mistress

CHAPTER 79

Nicci watched the wizard withdraw into disappointment and defeat. His expression looked as bleak as the patches of glaciers across the mountain valley. “Nothing,” he said, flexing his fingers.

Nathan Rahl had always been personable, confident, intelligent—a perfect roving ambassador for D’Hara. Nicci had accompanied him on the journey for her own purposes, but along the way she had come to value the wizard’s abilities and knowledge. There was more to the former prophet than was immediately obvious from his demeanor and his personal façade.

Together, they had come a great distance and endured many hardships to find Kol Adair, all based on the whim of a witch woman. Yes, this immense, virgin land must be filled with resources, incredible wealth to whet the appetite of any ambitious ruler. But there was no magic here for Nathan. He had not found what Red promised.

Intensely weary, the old wizard folded his legs and sat on the tundra next to the cairn’s piled stones. He opened the leather pouch at his side and sadly removed his new life book. “I wonder if she left me another message.” When he turned back the cover, he saw only the sketches and journal entries that he himself had written. Hoping for answers, he skimmed the lines, but the words offered no surprises.

Future and Fate depend on both the journey and the destination.

Kol Adair lies far to the south in the Old World. From there, the Wizard will behold what he needs to make himself whole again. And the Sorceress must save the world.

He closed the cover and tucked it away again. “What should I do and where should I go now? I came to Kol Adair. Why haven’t I been made whole?” Now he only frowned at the spectacular view. “What more am I supposed to behold?”

Nicci said, “We have the rest of the Old World to explore. Maybe someone else can tell you the answer.”

Bannon looked down at the carved words in the granite tablet again, as if he had somehow misread the simple sentence. “‘Behold what you need to make yourself whole again.’” He stood up quickly. “Wait, listen to what it says! The witch woman didn’t claim you would be restored just by coming to Kol Adair. She said this is where you would see what you need.” The young man’s freckled face flushed with excitement. “Maybe we just haven’t seen it yet.”

Nathan struggled to his feet. “That means we have to look for whatever it is I need, my boy.” He pursed his lips. “Maybe some magical artifact, or a spell-form laid out in the rocks here on the pass. The witch woman wouldn’t be so obvious.”

“A witch woman rarely is,” Nicci said.

Nathan was grinning with renewed hope. “Dear spirits, there’s still a chance … but what are we even looking for?”

Bannon bent down to the large cairn and began searching among the mottled rocks, looking for answers. “Maybe something is hidden here. It’s the most obvious thing.” He found a loose stone at the base and rolled it aside, surprised to find a second flat slab with more engraved words. “I don’t think you’re finished yet, Nicci.”

She felt a chill as she saw the ominous statement carved years—or centuries—ago, but she already guessed what it would say. Sorceress, save the world. “I don’t need some ancient writing to tell me what to do,” she grumbled.

The cairn held no other messages, no artifacts, no clues. At a loss, standing on the high mountain pass, the companions searched the distance. The grand view encompassed countless miles of breathtakingly beautiful terrain, but nothing at all that might help the wizard regain his magic.

The wind whistled around them, mocking. Nathan’s azure eyes sparkled with a hint of desperate tears, and he stared as if the very intensity could make his need come true. “We’ve come a very long and difficult way to reach this place.” He shouted, “I would appreciate instructions that are a little less obtuse!”

Just then the sun shone at an angle from a precise spot up in the sky. The air shimmered on the far side of the mountains like a curtain opening, a veil pulled away—to reveal a sudden, startling vision of a distant plain beyond the mountains.

Catching a quick breath, Nicci thrust out her arm. “Look there! It’s a … city!”

Nathan and Bannon turned. The sand panther let out a low growl.

Bannon cried, “That looks even bigger than Tanimura. It wasn’t there before!”

Nathan looked giddy with excitement. “No, my boy. No, it wasn’t. Why didn’t we see it?”

Nicci drank in the unbelievable details. The far-off city was a magnificent metropolis, perhaps greater even than Aydindril and Altur’Rang combined. The skyline was a forest of fantastic construction, exotic architecture with high temples and civic buildings, crowded dwellings and elaborate villas. The tall buildings stretched upward, soaring towers built of white stone. Their roofs shone with vibrant enamel tiles; windows flashed with jewel colors of extensive glass mosaics.

The air around the whole city flickered and blurred, seen through a viewing lens that sharpened details into amazing clarity before they grew fuzzy again. It was as if a huge dome shielded the strange metropolis, hiding it—and for just a brief moment, the magic and the vantage from Kol Adair had revealed it to them. The dome was crumbling, fading.

“We are seeing it from here, for the first time.” Nathan was breathing hard. “That must be what Red meant! We reached Kol Adair, and from this exact viewpoint, we can see that city. ‘Behold what you need to make yourself whole again.’” He turned to Nicci, his smile bright. “We need to go to that city. The answer lies there. It has to.”

Nicci had spent most of her time in crowded civilization, and she much preferred a city to the austerities of life on the trail. The flickering mirage intrigued her with its possibilities. “I agree.”

Before they set off, the air shimmered again—and the entire majestic metropolis simply vanished. On the other side of the mountains, the land appeared completely empty.

Bannon yelped. “Was it just an illusion?”

“Not an illusion,” Nathan insisted. “It can’t be an illusion. Maybe the city is hiding itself somehow, camouflaged by a shroud similar to the one that hid Cliffwall for so many centuries.” He nodded, convincing himself as much as the others. “But now we know it’s there. Come, Sorceress! We still have a long journey ahead of us, but at least we realize where we have to go.”

Mrra continued to rumble with an uneasy growl at the sight, but the wizard would not be deterred. He set off, picking his way down the slope from the pass. They would have to cross many mountain valleys and work their way through the stark snowcapped crags before they reached the site of the mysterious vanishing city.

As they came over the next ridge, they found a prominent trail from the south, a clear footpath that wound through the mountains. “This is not a game trail,” Nicci said. In one section, the path widened to reveal moss-covered paving stones, an ancient thoroughfare that had been laid down for traffic. But it had obviously been used in recent days.

“A road!” Nathan could not suppress his optimism. “We are on our way now, Sorceress. That was the sign we needed.”

Tall, black rocks blocked their view as they descended another convoluted ridge. When they rounded a barren swell, following the narrow road, Nicci stopped as they beheld a startling and repulsive sight. Bannon gasped, sickened.

Set upon tall spikes on either side of the path were four severed heads, the faces partially crow-pecked, but otherwise preserved by an anti-decay spell. The skin on the faces had slackened in death, but their mouths had been horrifically and distinctively scarred—sliced from the corners of the lips all the way back to the hinge of the jaw, then sewn up and healed. Their cheeks were tattooed with scales to give them the appearance of serpent men.

Nicci recognized them from their attack on the poor people of Renda Bay.

Bannon flushed with anger. “Norukai slavers.”

“It appears they must have offended someone,” Nathan said.

Nicci stepped forward to scrutinize the appalling heads. “The preservation spell masks how long they’ve been here.”

Beneath the first stake rested a blood-spattered placard written in strange symbols that Nicci couldn’t read. She did, however, recognize the arcane letters as similar to those branded onto Mrra’s hide.

The sand panther growled again, long and low.

Nicci flashed a hard smile and looked along the winding trail that led toward the vanished city. “Yes, that place might be very interesting indeed.”