Faith of the Fallen

Chapter 15

Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander had been able to talk and smile his way past the other soldiers, but these were not moved by his explanation that he was Richard’s grandfather. He supposed he should have entered the camp in the daylight—it would have avoided a lot of the suspicion—but he was tired and hadn’t thought it would be that much trouble.

The soldiers were properly suspicious, which greatly pleased him, but he was weary and had more important things to do than answer questions: he wanted to ask them, instead.

“Why do you want to see him?” the bigger guard repeated.

“I told you, I’m Richard’s grandfather.”

“This is the Richard Cypher, you’re talking about, who you now say—”

“Yes, yes, that was his name when he grew up and that’s what I’m used to calling him, but I meant Richard Rahl, who he is now. You know, Lord Rahl, your leader? I would think being the grandfather of someone as important as your Lord Rahl would accord me some respect. Maybe even a hot meal.”

“I could say I’m Lord Rahl’s brother,” the man said, keeping a tight grip on the bit in the mouth of Zedd’s horse, “but that doesn’t make it so.”

Zedd sighed. “How very true.”

As vexing as it was, Zedd, at some dim inward level, was pleased to see that the men weren’t stupid, nor easily duped.

“But I’m also a wizard,” Zedd added, drawing low his eyebrows for dramatic effect. “If I wasn’t friendly, I could simply do you up crisp and be on my way past the both of you.”

“And if I wasn’t friendly,” the man said, “I could give the signal—now that we’ve let you venture in this far so that you’re completely surrounded—and the dozen archers hiding all around you in the dark would let fly the arrows that are at this moment trained on you, as they have been ever since you approached our encampment.”

“Ah,” Zedd said, holding up a finger in triumph, “all very well and good, but—”

“And even if I were to die in a final flame of service to the Lord Rahl, those arrows will let fly without me needing to give any signal.”

Zedd harrumphed, lowering his finger, but inwardly he smiled. Here he was, First Wizard, and if he weren’t entering a friendly camp, he would have been bested in this game of banter by a simple soldier.

Or maybe not.

“In the first place, Sergeant, I am, as I said, a wizard, and so I knew of the archers and have already dealt with the threat by spelling their arrows so they will fly no truer and with no more deadly effect than wet dishrags. I have nothing to fear from them. In the second place, even if I’m lying—which is precisely what you are considering at this very moment—you have made a mistake by telling me of the threat, which enables me, as a wizard of great repute, to now use my magic to nullify it.”

A slow smile came to the man’s face. “Why, that’s remarkable.” He scratched his head. He looked to his partner and then back to Zedd. “You’re right, that was exactly what I was thinking: that you could be lying about knowing the archers were back there in the dark.”

“You see there, young man? You’re not so smart after all.”

“You’re right, sir, I’m not. Here I was, so busy talking to you and being so intimidated by your wizardly powers and all, that I plumb forgot to tell you about what else was out there in the dark, watching you . . .”—the soldier’s brow lowered—“and it would be a mite more trouble than any simple arrows, I dare say.”

Zedd scowled down at the man. “Now see here—”

“Why don’t you do as I ask and come down here in the light, where I can see you better, and answer some of our questions?”

With a sigh of resignation, Zedd dismounted. He gave Spider a reassuring pat on her neck. Spider, a chestnut-colored mare, had a leggy black splotch on her creamy rump, from which she had acquired her name.

Young, strong, and possessing an agreeably spirited nature, she made a pleasant traveling companion. The two of them had been through a great deal together.

Zedd stepped into the intimate circle of light from the watch fire. He turned his a hand up and brought a white-hot flame to life just above the flesh of his palm. The two soldiers’ eyes widened. Zedd scowled.

“But, I have my own fire, if you need to see better. Does this help you see things better, Sergeant?”

“Uh . . . why, yes it does, sir,” the man stammered.

“Yes, it does indeed,” a woman said as she stepped into the light. “Why didn’t you simply use your Han and give a display of your craft in the first place?” She motioned into the darkness, as if signaling for others to stand down. She turned back with a smile that was no more than courteous.

“Welcome, wizard.”

Zedd bowed from the waist. “Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander, First Wizard, at your service . . . ?”

“Sister Philippa, Wizard Zorander. I am aid to the Prelate.”

She gestured and the sergeant took the reins from Zedd’s hand to lead the horse away. Zedd clapped the man on the back to let him know there were no hard feelings, and then gave a similar pat to Spider to let her know it was all right to go with the men.

“Treat her especially well, Sergeant. Spider is a friend.”

The sergeant saluted by tapping his fist to his heart. “She’ll be treated as a friend, sir.”

After the soldiers had led Spider away, Zedd said, “The Prelate? Which one?”

The narrow-jawed Sister clasped her hands together. “Prelate Verna, of course.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Prelate Verna.”

The Sisters of the Light didn’t know Ann was still alive. At least, she had been alive when Zedd last saw her, several months past. Ann had written in her journey book, telling Verna that she was alive, but also asking her to keep that information private for the time being. Zedd had been hoping that perhaps Ann had turned up at the D’Haran army camp, with her Sisters of the Light. He was sorry to learn she hadn’t. It boded ill for her.

Zedd held no favor with the Sisters of the Light—a lifetime of disapproval was not easily forgotten—but he had come to respect Ann as a woman of self-discipline and resolve, even if he took a dim view of some of her convictions and past objectives. He knew that, at the least, he and Ann shared many important values. He didn’t know about the rest of the Sisters, though.

Sister Philippa appeared middle-aged, but with Sisters that meant little. She might have lived at the Palace of the Prophets for only a year, or for centuries. With dark eyes and high cheekbones she was an exotic-looking woman. As in the Midlands, there were places in the Old World where the people had unique physical characteristics. Sister Philippa moved the way high-minded women tended to move, like a swan taken to human form.

“How may I be of service, Wizard Zorander?”

“Zedd will do. Is this Prelate of yours awake?”

“She is. This way, Zedd, if you please.”

He fell in behind the woman as she glided off toward the dark shapes of tents. “Got anything to eat around here?”

She looked back over her shoulder. “This late?”

“Well, I’ve been traveling hard. . . . It’s not really all that late, is it?”

In the dark, she assessed him briefly. “I don’t believe it’s ever too late, according to the teachings of the Creator. And you do look emaciated—from your travels, I’m sure.” Her smile warmed a little. “Food is always at the ready; we have soldiers who are active through the night and need to be fed. I believe I could find something for you.” She returned her gaze to the indiscernible path.

“That would be a kindness,” Zedd said in a jovial voice as he scowled at her back. “And I’m not emaciated; I’m wiry. Most women find lean men appealing.”

“Do they? I never knew that.”

Sisters of the Light were a lofty lot, Zedd thought ruefully. For thousands of years it had been a death sentence for them to even set foot in the New World. Zedd had always been a little more lenient—but not by much.

In the past, the Sisters only came into the New World to steal boys with the gift—they claimed to be saving them. It was a wizard’s task to train wizards. If they came for the reason of taking a boy back beyond the great barrier to their palace, Zedd viewed it as the gravest of crimes.

They had come for that very reason only the winter before, and taken Richard. Sister Verna was the one who had captured him and taken him to the Old World. Under the spell of their palace, he could have ended up being there for centuries. Leave it to Richard to make friends with the Sisters of the Light, of all people.

Zedd guessed he and the Sisters were even—that they had good reason to view him in a harsh way. He had, after all, set the spell that Richard had used to destroy their palace. But Ann had helped, knowing it was the only way to prevent Jagang from capturing the palace and acquiring the prophecies therein for his own purposes.

All around, guards, big guards, prowled the encampment. In chain mail and leather armor, they were an imposing sight. They watched everything as they slipped through the darkness. The camp was relatively quiet, considering its size. Noise could give away a variety of information to an enemy. It was not easy to see to it that this many men kept quiet.

“I’m relieved that our first incursion by someone possessing the gift turned out to be a friend,” the Sister said.

“And I’m glad to see that the gifted are helping to keep watch. But there are types of enemy forays that the regular sentries could not identify.” Zedd wondered if they were really prepared for those kinds of troubles.

“If magic is involved, we will be there to detect it.”

“I suppose you were watching me the whole time.”

“I was,” Sister Philippa said. “From the time you crossed the line of hills, back there.”

Zedd scratched his jaw. “Really? That far away.”

With a satisfied smirk she said, “That far.”

He peered over his shoulder into the night. “Both of you. Very good.”

She halted and turned to him. “Both? You knew there were two of us, watching?”

Zedd smiled innocently. “But, of course. You were just watching. She was farther away, following, conjuring some little nasty should I prove hostile.”

Sister Philippa blinked in astonishment. “Remarkable. You could sense her touching her Han? From that distance?”

Zedd nodded with satisfaction. “They didn’t make me First Wizard just because I was wiry.”

Sister Philippa’s smile finally looked sincere. “I am relieved you came as a friend, rather than one intent on harm.”

There was more truth in that than the woman knew; Zedd had experience in the unpleasant, dirty business of magic in warfare. When he’d come near their camp, he saw the holes in their defense and the weaknesses in the way they used the gift for their purpose. They were not thinking as their enemy would think. Had he been intent on harm, the entire camp would be in an uproar by now, despite what they had done to prepare for one such as he.

Sister Philippa turned back to the night to lead him on. It was somewhat unsettling for Zedd to walk through a D’Haran camp—even though he knew they were, now fighting on the same side. He had spent a good deal of his life dealing with D’Harans as the deadly enemy. Richard had changed all that. Zedd sighed. He sometimes thought that Richard might make friends with thunder and lightning and invite them both to dinner.

Dark shapes of tents and wagons loomed all around. Pole weapons were stacked upright in neat ranks, ready, should they be suddenly needed. Some soldiers snored, and some sat around in the dark, talking in low voices or laughing quietly, while others patrolled the inky shadows. Those passed close enough for Zedd to smell their breath, but in the darkness he could not make out their faces.

Well-hidden sentries were stationed at every possible approach route.

There were very few fires in the camp, and those were mostly watch fires set away from the main force, leaving the mass of the camp a dark whole of night. Some armies carried on a considerable amount of work at night, performing repairs or making things they needed, and letting the men do as they would. These men remained quiet; throughout the night so watching eyes and listening ears could gain little if any help, for an invading force.

These were well trained, disciplined, professional soldiers. From a distance it was difficult to tell the size of the camp. It was huge.

Sister Philippa brought Zedd to a sizable tent, one tall enough to stand in. Light from lamps hanging inside gave the canvas walls and roof a soft amber glow. She ducked beneath a tent line and poked her head in under the flap.

“I have a wizard out here who wishes to see the Prelate.”

Zedd heard muffled, astonished acknowledgment from inside.

“Go on in.” Sister Philippa smiled while giving his back a gentle push. “I’ll see if I can find you some dinner.”

“I would be not only grateful, but greatly in your debt,” Zedd told her.

As he stepped inside the tent, the people were just coming to their feet to greet him.

“Zedd! You old fool! You be alive!”

Zedd grinned as Adie, the old sorceress known as the bone woman in their adopted homeland of Westland, rushed into his arms. He let out a grunt as she momentarily squeezed the wind from his lungs. He smoothed her square-cut, jawlength black and gray hair as he held her head to his chest.

“I promised you’d see me again, now didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did,” she whispered into his heavy robes.

She pushed back, holding his arms, and looked him over. She reached up and smoothed down his unruly, wavy white hair.

“You look as lovely as ever,” he told her.

She peered at him with her completely white eyes. Her sight had been taken from her when she was but a young woman. Adie now saw by means of her gift. In some ways, she saw better.

“Where be your hat?”

“Hat?”

“I bought you a fine hat and you lost it. I see you still have not replaced it. You told me you would get another. I believe you promised.”

Zedd hated the hat with the long feather she’d bought for him when they’d acquired the rest of his clothes. He’d rather be wearing the simple robes befitting a wizard of his rank and authority, but Adie had “lost” them after he purchased the fancy maroon robes with black sleeves and cowled shoulders he now wore. Three rows of silver brocade circled the cuffs. Thicker gold brocade ran around the neck and down the front. A red satin belt set with a gold buckle gathered the outfit at his thin waist. Such clothes marked one with the gift as an initiate. For one without the gift, such clothes befitted nobility or in most places a wealthy merchant, so although Zedd disliked the ostentatious attire, it had at times been a valuable disguise. Besides, Adie liked him in the maroon robes. The hat, though, was too much for him. It had been “misplaced.”

He noted that Adie had managed to keep her simple clothes along the way. Yellow and red beads around the neck of her robes, sewn in the shapes of the ancient symbols of her profession of sorceress, were the only ornamentation she wore.

“I’ve been busy,” he said, flicking his hand, hoping to dismiss the matter, “or I would have replaced the hat.”

“Bale,” she scoffed. “You be up to mischief.”

“Why, I’ve been—”

“Hush, now,” Adie said. Holding his arm in a tight grip, she held out the long thin fingers of her other hand. “Zedd, this be Verna: Prelate of the Sisters of the Light.”

The woman looked to be in her late thirties, perhaps early forties; Zedd knew her to be much older. Ann, Verna’s predecessor, had told him Verna’s age, and while he couldn’t recall the exact number, it was somewhere close to one hundred and sixty years—young for a Sister of the Light. She had simple, attractive features and brown hair with just enough curl and body to add a hint of sophistication. Her intent, brown-eyed gaze looked as if it could scour lichen off granite. By the lines of a resolute expression enduringly fixed on her face, she appeared to be a woman with a shell as tight as a beetle’s and just as hard.

Zedd bowed his head. “Prelate. First Wizard Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander, at your service.” He let her know, by his tone, that it was merely a figure of speech.

This was the woman who had taken Richard away to the Old World. Even if she believed it was to save his life, Zedd, as First Wizard, viewed such an act as abhorrent. The Sisters—sorceresses all—believed they could train gifted young men to be wizards. They were wrong; such a task could only be adequately accomplished by another wizard.

She offered her hand with the sunburst-patterned gold ring of office.

He bent forward and kissed it, out of what he thought must be their custom.

She pulled his hand close when he had finished, and kissed it in return.

“I am humbled to meet the man who helped raise our Richard. You would have to be as rare a person as I found him to be when we helped begin his training.” She forced a chuckle. “We found it a formidable labor, trying to teach that grandson of yours.”

Zedd slightly altered his opinion of the woman, treating her with greater caution. The air in the tent was stuffy and uncomfortable.

“That is because you are all oxen trying to teach a horse to run. You Sisters should stick to work more befitting your nature.”

“Yes, yes, you be a brilliant man, Zedd,” Adie scoffed. “Simply brilliant. One of these days even I may come to believe you.” She tugged his sleeve, turning him from Verna’s scarlet face. “And this be Warren,” Adie said.

Zedd inclined his head toward Warren, but the boy was already falling to his knees and bowing his blond head.

“Wizard Zorander! This is quite an honor.” He popped back up and seized Zedd’s hand in both of his, pumping it until Zedd thought his arm might come undone at the shoulder. “I’m so pleased to meet you. Richard told me all about you. I’m so pleased to meet a wizard of your standing and talent. I would be so happy to learn from you!”

The happier he looked, the more Verna scowled.

“Well, I’m pleased to meet you, too, my boy.” Zedd didn’t tell Warren that Richard had never mentioned him. But that was not out of disrespect or neglect; Richard had never had a chance to tell Zedd a great number of very important things. Zedd thought he could sense through Warren’s grip that the young man was a wizard of unusual talents.

A bear of a man with a curly rust-colored beard, a white scar from his left temple to his jaw, and heavy eyebrows stepped forward. His grayish green eyes fixed on Zedd with fierce intensity, but he had a grin like a soldier on a long march who had spotted a lonely cask of ale.

“General Reibisch, commander of the D’Haran forces here in the south,” the man said, taking Zedd’s hand when Warren at last surrendered it and stepped back beside Verna. “Lord Rahl’s grandfather! What good fortune to see you, sir.” His grip was firm, but not painful. It got tighter. “What very good fortune.”

“Yes, indeed,” Zedd muttered. “Unfortunate as the circumstances are, General Reibisch.”

“Unfortunate . . . ?”

“Well, never mind, for the moment,” Zedd said, waving off the question.

He asked another, instead. “Tell me, General, have you begun to dig all the mass graves, yet? Or do you intend the few who are left alive to simply abandon all the bodies.”

“Bodies?”

“Why . . . yes, the bodies of all your troops who are going to die.”