Heart of Black Ice

CHAPTER 16

After a day sealed inside the ancient buildings, Nicci felt restless. She understood the plight of the Hidden People against the bloodthirsty zhiss, but her greatest concern was General Utros’s army and the threat to the entire continent. He might be marching now! She couldn’t hide inside the safety of shadows when those soldiers might be battering down the walls of Ildakar. Or Ildakar itself might be gone, if she understood the cryptic comment the sliph had made before vanishing.

The ambitious general would not rest on one victory or one failure. Conquest was his mind-set, and Nicci had to help stop him. She had left Nathan and Bannon behind, as well as the gifted members of the wizards’ duma. She needed to find a way to go back.

Recovering from her strange weakness after her last sliph journey, Nicci rested in former guest quarters in the emperor’s palace. Most furnishings had long since been removed, and the remaining tapestries and curtains were faded. The Hidden People lived a drab existence devoid of sunlight, color, and joy.

Young Asha brought her water, bread, and meat, and Nicci tried to rebuild her energy, but sleep refused to come. Too many priorities and frustrations consumed her.

Her sensitive ears picked up soft footsteps in the corridor, and Cora appeared in the open doorway. The old woman said, “The sun has gone down, and it is safe for us to venture out into the darkness. If you want to go into the city streets, now is the time for you to do so.”

“I’m not your prisoner then?” Nicci asked.

Cora was startled. “Not at all. We tried to keep you safe, not hold you captive! You are a powerful sorceress. If you wanted to fight your way free, we could not stop you.”

“No, you could not. It is good that you won’t try.”

Backlit by the hall torches, Cora adjusted her gray garments. “We hope you understand the danger now. The sun is down, the city is dark, and the zhiss have returned to their lair. You can go where you wish. If you decide you must leave Orogang, make sure you are far from the city by dawn, or the zhiss will find you.”

Nicci had crossed a continent with Nathan and Bannon, and long before that, when she had kidnapped Richard, the two of them traveled from Westland all the way to Altur’Rang. She had seen the sculpted map in the speaking chamber and knew generally how she could travel south out of the mountains back to Ildakar. Such a trek would take planning, though, and Nicci reconsidered. “I’m not ready for that yet. I must try another means of travel first.” Maybe she could get the sliph to listen.…

She followed Cora through the winding corridors of the imposing palace to where the main wooden doors swung wide to the night. Nicci breathed deeply, letting the cool air bathe her face. A faint breeze ruffled her ragged blond hair. Trellises held sweet-smelling vine flowers, and fluttering moths swooped around, drinking nectar from the white blossoms.

Outside, the Hidden People scoured the nearby hills. Some were already returning with cartloads of wood, while others moved supplies from isolated storage buildings. Silent men and women worked in garden plots or tended orchards. Except for the constant danger of the zhiss, this city seemed almost peaceful.

While Cora joined a team harvesting vegetables from gardens, Nicci walked through the streets of Orogang, always aware that she had to get back to shelter by sunrise. She remembered how the black cloud had swarmed around the two hapless deer and drained them dry.

She explored, walking among the fallen columns, collapsed archways, and the huge sunken amphitheater. She passed the towering statue of General Utros, where the dour Cyrus bowed reverently to his long-lost military hero. Others of his faction had draped offerings of night-blooming lilies around the granite base. The delicate pale flowers would shrivel in the next day’s sunlight, but the Hidden People who revered the ancient general would add fresh flowers, night after night. Though she didn’t accept the deluded prophecy that their great hero would return, Nicci did not disturb them. She had other business. She made her way to the empty sliph well.

The toppled statue of Emperor Kurgan sprawled in the square, the head broken off, the stone arm snapped just above the elbow. The emperor’s face retained a haughty expression. Even if she had known nothing about Iron Fang’s violent history, she would have disliked him just from the stone sneer.

Nicci had little interest in a forgotten tyrant, though. Right now the sliph was the most important thing … the sliph who had served Emperor Sulachan and despised anyone who did not follow that evil man’s cause.

During the great war three millennia ago, this sliph had been created with terrible magic, a zealous volunteer transformed into a liquid-metal creature. That fiercely dedicated young woman had given up her life to become an inhuman being with the power to transport clients through a secret network. Nicci did not know the woman’s original name, only that she considered her duty to Emperor Sulachan to be greater than her own happiness, her own family, her own loves, her own life.

Now, Nicci stepped up to the waist-high wall that encircled a bottomless pit. The stones had been mortared together, fitted so well that she could barely see the cracks. A dank smell wafted up from the depths.

She had traveled by sliph many times before, engulfed in the amorphous silvery substance and hurtled along the unseen passageways. The sliph had brought her here to Orogang because she said Ildakar was gone. They had both been damaged by the unexpected deflection from their goal.

Worse, Nicci had unwittingly revealed to the sliph the failure of Sulachan’s cause, telling her that the ancient emperor was long dead. The petulant creature had fled, vowing never to help her.

Leaning over the low wall, Nicci felt the resounding silence in that deep well. “Sliph! I wish to travel.”

Her words echoed in the well, bouncing down like dropped stones that never hit bottom. Not expecting an immediate answer, she listened but did not hear the frothy sound of the approaching creature. Nicci peered into the depths and thought of the blackness she had held in her own heart. She was stronger than that now, better than that.

“Sliph!” she called again. “I command you. I wish to travel. You were made to carry passengers, and you have carried me before. Take me back to Serrimundi.” She raised her voice. “Take me back! Now!”

Her words were just hollow ricochets down into the emptiness. She gripped the edge of the low wall, pressing her hands hard into the cool stone. She reached out with magic, shouting with more than just words. She touched the Subtractive side of her gift, the darkness that had once served the Keeper, and she also pulled with Additive Magic, stretching out to summon the sliph with the full spectrum of her abilities. Only those with both sides of the gift could summon a sliph, and now Nicci beseeched her.

The silvery woman ignored her.

If she could not persuade the sliph to grant her passage to one of the great cities, Nicci would have to set off on foot. But if Ildakar had disappeared, that journey across the continent might take months or longer. Where would she go? All the way back to Serrimundi?

“Sliph!” she shouted with greater desperation. Nicci had no way to force the creature, no means to bribe her, if she could even guess what the sliph might want.

Then Nicci realized that she did have something to offer! She had made the sliph distraught by telling her that Sulachan was gone, but she had explained nothing more. This woman had surrendered her humanity because she was so dedicated to an ancient cause. The sliph would want to know the answers about her sacred leader, and Nicci was her only possible source for information.

It was a gamble, but she thought it might work, the most tantalizing carrot she could dangle before the sliph. Nicci leaned over the well. “If you take me back to Serrimundi, then I will tell you what happened to Sulachan. All of it. Every detail. I’ll reveal the history of how he was defeated in his original war, but Sulachan came back from the dead to lead his armies again—and that was only a year ago. Can you exist without knowing? I will tell you about your cause.” After a pause, she spoke louder. “After three thousand years Sulachan returned as the spirit king and almost conquered the world again—while you slept. I will tell you how you could have helped him. Don’t you want to know?”

She hunched over the well and waited, listening. Surely the temptation would be great? She heard nothing but the Hidden People stirring in the dark city.

Nicci called down even louder. “This is your cause, sliph, and I am the only one who has the answers! I can tell you. If we cannot go to Ildakar, then take me back to Serrimundi. I have much to reveal to you. Don’t you want to know?” She felt certain that the sliph had heard her, but no response came. “Don’t you need to know?”

Throughout the night, the moon moved overhead in a slow arc across the heavens. Nicci remained there for hours, cajoling the sliph, enticing her, but to no effect. As the night ended, the Hidden People moved back toward their shadowy sanctuaries. Nicci was sure she had failed. She was stuck in the heart of an empire that no longer existed.