Heart of Black Ice

CHAPTER 22

After darkness fell like a protective blanket over the ruins of Orogang, the palace doors opened again. The Hidden People performed the same tasks they had undertaken for countless generations, and they were no closer to defeating the zhiss.

Nicci explored the streets, looking for something she could use. She understood the danger of the bloodthirsty cloud, but she could not stay here. Unlike the Hidden People, Nicci was not satisfied with just waiting. Since the sliph refused to answer, she needed to take supplies and head out on her own, though the journey would take many days or weeks. But it was her only option if she had any hope of intercepting General Utros and his army.

In front of the statue, a group of twenty men and women practiced with swords from the armory vault. Nicci watched them with a skeptical eye. They had sparred with one another for so long, using the same skills and moves, but they had never battled a real opponent. She realized that if Cyrus and his zealous followers actually joined Utros somehow, then they would become her enemy. They didn’t understand their own legends.

Nicci spent the night searching the wide streets and plazas, the empty passageways and alleys. The sliph well remained silent. The bowl-shaped amphitheater was like a deep crater in the middle of the city, and Nicci stood on the outer rim, looking down. She imagined Kurgan down there skinning Majel alive and then planting flesh beetles in her wounds. No wonder the people had risen up and overthrown him, pulled down and smashed his towering statue.

Suddenly, she sensed another presence nearby, powerful and dangerous. She snatched one of the daggers from her waist as a tan shadow leaped over a collapsed marble column. The big cat bounded toward her, and Nicci gasped, opening her arms wide. The sand panther drove her backward with momentum and exuberance, then licked her face with a raspy tongue. Laughing, Nicci wrapped her arms around Mrra’s neck. Pulling away, the cat paced around her, rubbing her fur against Nicci’s black dress, nearly knocking her over again. An ominous purr rumbled through her chest.

“Mrra, you’re back!” Nicci held the big predator tight. She had lost so much, been through such ordeals, that just having her sister panther gave her great reassurance. “Oh, Mrra! I can’t imagine how far you’ve come.” She pressed her cheek against the soft fur.

When she saw more movement at the edge of the plaza, she realized that other cats had entered the city, a dozen or more. Their glowing eyes gleamed in the shadows of the ruins, but they did not venture closer, even though Mrra had convinced them to join her pride.

“The people in this city are my friends, Mrra,” Nicci explained. “Allies. Your sand panthers must not harm them. They are not prey.” She concentrated hard, hoping that Mrra could communicate the warning to the other panthers.

Across the city Nicci heard the Hidden People raising their voices, and she saw a faint glow outlining the eastern mountains. Daybreak. Recalling what had happened to the two hapless deer, she felt sudden alarm. “Mrra, we have to get inside. You can shelter in the palace with me and my friends.” She tugged on the panther’s neck. “You need to tell the others to hide, though.” She summoned an image in her mind of the deadly zhiss swarm that would appear with the sunrise. Under normal circumstances, sand panthers would bed down in a dark protected area during the day, but she felt a great sense of urgency. “Tell them, Mrra! This is important.”

When her sister panther roared, the other cats twitched their tails, flashed a last feline glance at Nicci, and bounded off into the ruins in search of a shadowy lair. Nicci hurried with Mrra back to the palace entrance. Cora and the Hidden People looked at the predator with alarm, drawing back as Nicci led Mrra inside. “She is mine. She won’t hurt you.”

The drab people withdrew as she took Mrra inside the sheltered corridors before the sun spilled over the mountains. Throughout the ruined city, barricades slammed into place, entryways sealed to hide from the sun. In a rush, the Hidden People pulled shut the palace doors.

In a last glimpse, Nicci saw the swirling black cloud flowing into Orogang like a million wasps.

Mrra growled, and Nicci held her sister panther as the Hidden People barred the door.

The wild cat did not like being trapped inside the stone walls. Mrra was haunted by horrific memories of being tortured and trained by Chief Handler Ivan. Through her spell bond, Nicci saw memory flashes of the young cub clawing and biting the iron bars of her cage. Back then, the only freedom Mrra and her sister panthers had experienced was when they were turned loose onto the bloody arena sands. Now, she longed to be outside.

But Nicci knew what the zhiss would do to any living creature they encountered. She stroked the panther’s tan fur, running her fingertips along the branded rune scars. “I need to keep you safe. Trust me.”

Today, the Hidden People seemed tense and fearful, but it had nothing to do with the big panther locked inside with them. They were preparing to do something Nicci had not seen before. A group of the muttering people moved to the barricaded entrance. Young Asha caught Nicci’s eye and hurried in among the nervous gray-robed men and women.

Intrigued, Nicci followed them to the closed main door, where one middle-aged man stood alone, facing the rest of them. He had a worn expression and sad brown eyes. He braced himself and ate a mouthful of the fleshy, poisonous mushrooms as if for extra energy.

The Hidden People looked at him with reverence. Several touched him on the arm. “Thank you, Cal.”

“We appreciate you, Cal,” said another.

A drab woman kissed him on the cheek. “Oh, Cal…” She couldn’t form any other words.

Nicci didn’t understand what was happening. Cal swallowed the poison fungus and turned to the barricade, as if in a trance. Two men lifted the crossbar as he stood at the door, trembling.

Nicci realized they were going to let this man out into the sun. Mrra’s tail thrashed, and a low growl filled her throat, but Nicci rested a hand on the furred shoulders to calm her. “What is he doing?” Nicci asked Cora. “You’re letting him out? What about the zhiss?”

The old woman turned to her, and Nicci saw tears filling the wrinkle tracks in her cheeks. “We’ve had to do this every month. It is the only way we keep the zhiss under control.”

The men pulled hard on the heavy doors and opened them to let an axe blade of sunlight spill into the gloom. Cal turned to the gathered people. “Farewell. I—” His voice cracked. He dashed into the bright morning, pulling the hood over his head like a man darting into a downpour. The Hidden People pressed closer to watch.

Once away from the great building, Cal paused out in the open sunshine, filled with wonder. Turning slowly, he pulled down his hood and lifted his face to the sky. He squinted in the blinding sun, but reveled in the warm light.

“What is that man doing? Why is he sacrificing himself?” Nicci fought back the urge to push past these people and rush out to rescue him. “What will he accomplish? The zhiss will feed on him.”

Cora narrowed her eyes. “We are counting on it.”

The man walked placidly to the middle of the plaza near the toppled statue of Kurgan, where he stripped off his gray robe and tossed the garment away. His pale skin was milky, translucent, his face filled with rapture. He spread his arms, felt the sunlight, touched his bare chest. “This is my payment! Oh, what glory the sun is!”

Inside, the muttering people fell into a hush as Nicci heard a buzzing sound that grated her teeth, her spine. Mrra’s growl grew louder, and her ears flattened.

Flowing among the high buildings like a shapeless predator, the black swarm approached, thousands of black specks. Cal kept his eyes closed, refusing to look at the deadly cloud as he drank in the sun. The swarm swirled and knotted, then rolled forward, picking up speed.

“They’ll drain him dry,” Nicci said. “You said that if the zhiss feed on human blood, their numbers will increase dramatically.”

“Not with our blood.” Cora gestured outside. “Watch.”

Obviously agitated, the black cloud was ravenous as it closed in on its victim. Cal faced it and knotted his hands into fists. He howled in defiance as the zhiss swarmed over him, covering his body like a thousand biting black flies, coalescing as they had done around the two unfortunate deer. Within moments, the man was just a vaguely human shape cloaked in black.

Flailing about, Cal dropped to his knees and then collapsed face-first onto the flagstones. More zhiss pounced in to drink deep of the blood. The buzzing grew louder, like a brewing thunderstorm.

Once they had gorged themselves, the individual specks rose up from the body like fat raindrops. The dark red globules wavered, a cloud heavy with Cal’s blood. But instead of drifting off, as they had done after draining the deer, they became discolored. The crimson from Cal’s blood turned a sick brownish purple. Hundreds, thousands of the floating zhiss swelled, wobbled like drifting pustules, and burst in the air, splattering dark stains across the plaza. Every one of the zhiss that had fed upon Cal suffered, swelled up, and died.

“Because we spend our lives eating the poison fungus, our flesh and blood is deadly to them,” Cora explained. “Individually, the zhiss have no minds, only instinct. This is how we keep the swarm in check. Cal just destroyed a good part of them. We choose a new sacrifice every month to curtail the growth of the cloud.” The old woman continued to stare longingly into the sunshine. “The zhiss learn their lesson for a time, and then they forget.”

Nicci watched the flickering black cloud disperse, the surviving zhiss aimlessly flying away from the desiccated body.

“All of our generations have been a sacrifice,” Cora continued. “Someday, I will draw the marked token, and I’ll go out to surrender my life just as Cal did. We only hope there will be enough of us in Orogang to keep the zhiss from prowling elsewhere.”

When part of the black cloud wandered toward the palace, the Hidden People swung shut the door and lowered the crossbar into place.

Asha came up, her eyes sparkling. “It is our sworn duty, even if no one else knows what we do.”

“I know what you do,” Nicci said. “But you don’t know how to destroy them. If you’re all committed to destroying them, why don’t you send fifty people out there in a single sacrifice? If you each destroy as many of the zhiss as Cal did, then surely that would eradicate the whole swarm.”

“We’ve tried that, many times,” the old woman said, shaking her head. “Some of the zhiss are fooled, but the others flit away. Many of us died, and still the black cloud returns.”

Asha pulled on Nicci’s arm, pleading. Her pale cheeks were streaked with drying tracks of tears. “You are a great sorceress, Nicci. Can you help us? Can you find a way to destroy the zhiss?” She hung her head. “Or will you just leave us?”

After growing impatient with these sullen, passive people, Nicci had almost made up her mind to set off on foot. She could not ignore the threat that General Utros posed, but now she also had a different perspective on the danger posed by the zhiss. If the deadly black cloud ever left this ruined city and swarmed overland to engulf other human settlements, doubling in size each time, the entire world could be covered in a black, blood-drinking shroud.

Nicci recalled what the witch woman Red had written in Nathan’s life book, long ago: And the Sorceress must save the world. She had accepted that mission for her own reasons. After Richard showed her a different way to live, a different role to play, her heart of black ice had melted enough to allow love and duty.

And the Sorceress must save the world.

Nicci saw the tentative hope on their faces. “I will find a way.” She let no doubt creep into her voice or into her heart. When Nicci made up her mind to do the impossible, she usually succeeded. “I will find a way.”