Naked Empire

Chapter 30

Ann squinted in the harsh glare as the Mord-Sith stepped over the sill and ducked in through the doorway into the room. Unaccustomed to the lantern light, Ann at first could only discern the red leather outfit and the blond braid. She didn’t like to contemplate why one of the Lord Rahl’s elite corps of torturers would be coming down to the dungeon to see her. She knew Richard. She could not imagine that he would allow such a practice to continue. But Richard wasn’t here. Nathan seemed to be in charge.

Squinting, Ann at last realized that it was the woman she had seen before: Nyda.

Nyda, appraising Ann with a cool gaze, said nothing as she stepped to the side. Another person was following her in. A long leg wearing brown trousers stepped over the sill, followed by a bent torso folding through the opening. Rising up to full height, Ann saw with sudden surprise who it was.

“Ann!” Nathan held his arms open wide, as if expecting a hug. “How are you? Nyda gave me your message. They are treating you well, I trust?”

Ann stood her ground and scowled at the grinning face. “I’m still alive, no thanks to you, Nathan.”

She of course remembered how tall Nathan was, how broad were his shoulders. Now, standing before her, the top of his full head of long gray hair nearly touching the stone chisel marks in the ceiling, he looked even taller than she remembered. His shoulders, filling up so much of the small room, looked even broader. He wore high boots over his trousers and a ruffled white shirt beneath an open vest. An elegant green velvet cape was attached at his right shoulder. At his left hip a sword in an elegant scabbard glimmered in the lamplight.

His face, his handsome face, so expressive, so unlike any other, made Ann’s heart feel buoyant.

Nathan grinned as no one but a Rahl could grin, a grin like joy and hunger and power all balled together. He looked like he needed to sweep a damsel into his powerful arms and kiss her without her permission.

He waved a hand casually around at her accommodations. “But you are safe in here, my dear. No one can harm you while under our care. No one can bother you. You have fine food—even wine now and again. What more could you want?”

Fists at her side, Ann stormed forward at a pace that brought the Mord-Sith’s Agiel up into her fist, even though she stayed where she was.

Nathan held his ground, held his smile, as he watched her come.

“What more could I want!” Ann screamed. “What more could I want? I want to be let out! That’s what more I could want!”

Nathan’s small, knowing smile cut her to her core. “Indeed,” he said, a single word of quiet indictment.

Standing in the stony silence of the dungeon, she could only stare up at him, unable to bring forth an argument that he would not throw back at her.

Ann turned a glare on the Mord-Sith. “What message did you give him?”

“Nyda said that you wanted to see me,” Nathan answered in her place. He spread his arms. “Here I am, as requested. What is it you wanted to see me about, my dear?”

“Don’t patronize me, Nathan. You know very well what I wanted to see you about. You know why I’m here, in D’Hara—why I’ve come to the People’s Palace.”

Nathan clasped his hands behind his back. His smile had finally lost its usefulness.

“Nyda,” he said, turning to the woman, “would you leave us alone for now. There’s a good girl.”

Nyda appraised Ann with a brief glance. No more was needed; Ann was no threat to Nathan. He was a wizard—no doubt he had told her that he was the greatest wizard of all time—and was within the ancestral home of the House of Rahl. He had no need to fear this one old sorceress—not anymore, anyway.

Nyda gave Nathan a if-you-need-me-I’ll-be-right-outside kind of look before contorting her perfect limbs through the doorway with fluid grace, the way a cat went effortlessly through a hedge.

Nathan stood in the center of the cell, hands still clasped behind his upright back, waiting for Ann to say something.

Ann went to her pack, sitting on the far end of the stone bench that had been her bed, her table, her chair. She flipped back the flap and reached inside, feeling around. Her fingers found the cold metal of the object she sought. Ann drew it out and stood over it, her shadow hiding it.

Finally, she turned. “Nathan, I have something for you.”

She lifted out a Rada’Han she had intended to put around his neck.

Right then, she didn’t quite know how she had thought she could accomplish such a feat. She would have, though, had she put her mind to it; she was Annalina Aldurren, Prelate of the Sisters of the Light. Or, at least, she once had been. She had given that job to Verna before feigning her and Nathan’s death.

“You want me to put that collar around my neck?” Nathan asked in a calm voice. “That’s what you expect?”

Ann shook her head. “No, Nathan. I want to give this to you. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking while I’ve been down here. Thinking about how I’d probably never leave my place of confinement.”

“What a coincidence,” Nathan said. “I used to spend a great deal of time thinking that very same thought.”

“Yes,” Ann said, nodding. “I expect you did.” She handed him the Rada’Han. “Here. Take this. I never want to see one of these again. While I did what I thought best, I hated every minute of it, Nathan. I hated to do it to you, especially. I’ve come to think that my life has been a misguided mess. I’m sorry I ever put you behind those shields and kept you a prisoner. If I could live my life over again, I’d not do it the same way.

“I expect no leniency; I showed you none.”

“No,” Nathan said. “You didn’t.”

His azure eyes seemed to be looking right into her. He had a way of doing that. Richard had inherited that same penetrating Rahl gaze.

“So, you are sorry you kept me a prisoner all my life. Do you know why it was wrong, Ann? Are you even aware of the irony?”

Almost against her better judgment, she heard herself ask, “What irony?”

“Well,” he said as he shrugged, “what is it we’re fighting for?”

“Nathan, you know very well what we’re fighting for.”

“Yes, I do. But do you? Tell me, then, what it is we’re struggling to protect, to preserve, to insure remains alive?”

“The Creator’s gift of magic, of course. We fight to see that it continues to exist in the world. We struggle for those who are born with it to live, for them to learn to use their ability to its full extent. We fight for each to have and to celebrate their unique ability.”

“I think that’s kind of ironic, don’t you? The very thing you think is worth fighting for is what you feared. The Imperial Order proclaims that it’s not in the best interest of mankind for a gifted individual to possess magic, so that unique ability must be stripped away from them. They claim that, since all do not have this ability in identical and equal measure, it’s dangerous for some to have it—that man must cast aside the belief that a man’s life is his own to live. That those who were born with magic must therefore be expunged from the world in order to make the world a better place for those who don’t have such ability.

“And yet, you worked under that very premise, acted on those same wicked beliefs. You locked me away because of my ability. You saw what I am able to do, that others cannot do, as an evil birthright that could not be allowed to be among mankind.

“And yet, you work to preserve that very thing which you fear in me—my unique ability—in others. You work to allow everyone born with magic to have the inalienable right to their own life, to be the best of what they can be with their own ability . . . and yet you locked me away to deny me that very same right.”

“Just because I want the Creator’s wolves to run free to hunt, as they were intended, doesn’t mean that I want to be their dinner.”

Nathan leaned toward her. “I am not a wolf. I am a human being. You tried, convicted, and sentenced me to life in your prison for being who I was born, for what you feared I might do, simply because I had the ability. You then soothed your own inner conflict by making that prison plush in an attempt to convince yourself that you were kind—all the while professing to believe that we must fight to allow future people to be who they are.

“You qualified your prison as right because it was lavish, in order to mask from yourself the nature of what you were advocating. Look around, Ann.” He swept his arm out at the stone. “This is what you were advocating for those you decided did not have the right to their own life. You decided the same as the Order, based on an ability you did not like. You decided that some, because of their greater potential, must be sacrificed to the good of those less than they. No matter how you decorated your dungeon, this is what it looks like from the inside.”

Ann gathered her thoughts, as well as her voice, before she spoke. “I thought I had come to understand something like that while I sat all alone down here, but I realize now that I hadn’t, really. All those years I felt bad for locking you away, but I never really examined my rationale for doing so.

“You’re right, Nathan. I believed you held the potential for great harm. I should have helped you to understand what was right so you could act rationally, rather than expect the worst from you and lock you away. I’m sorry, Nathan.”

He put his hands on his hips. “Do you really mean it, Ann?”

She nodded, unable to look up at him, as her eyes filled with tears.

She always expected honesty from everyone else, but she had not been honest with herself. “Yes, Nathan, I really do.”

Confession over, she went to her bench and slumped down. “Thank you for coming, Nathan. I’ll not trouble you to come down here again. I will take my just punishment without complaint. If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to be alone right now to pray and consider the weight on my heart.”

“You can do that later. Now get up off your bottom, on your feet, and pick up your things. We have matters to attend to and we have to get going.”

Ann looked up with a frown. “What?”

“We have important things to do. Come on, woman. We’re wasting time. We need to get going. We’re on the same side in this struggle, Ann. We need to act like it and work together toward preserving our causes.” He leaned down toward her. “Unless you’ve decided to retire to sit around the rest of your life. If not, then let’s be on our way. We have trouble.”

Ann hopped down from the stone bench. “Trouble? What sort of trouble.”

“Prophecy trouble.”

“Prophecy? There is trouble with a prophecy? What trouble? What prophecy?”

Fists on his nips, Nathan fixed her with a scowl. “I can’t tell you about such things. Prophecy is not meant for the unenlightened.”

Ann pursed her lips, about to launch into scolding him up one side and down the other, when she caught the smile working at the edges of his mouth.

It caught her up in a smile of her own.

“What’s happened?” she asked in the tone of voice friends used when they had decided that past wrongs were recognized and matters now set on a correct path.

“Ann, you’ll not believe it when I tell you,” Nathan complained. “It’s that boy, again.”

“Richard?”

“What other boy do you know who can get in the kind of trouble only Richard can get into.”

“Well, I no longer think of Richard as a boy.”

Nathan sighed. “I suppose not, but it’s hard when you’re my age to think of one so young as a man.”

“He’s a man,” Ann assured him.

“Yes, I guess he is.” Nathan grinned. “And, he’s a Rahl.”

“What sort of trouble has Richard gotten himself into this time?”

Nathan’s good humor evaporated. “He’s walked off the edge of prophecy.”

Ann screwed up her face. “What are you talking about? What’s he done?”

“I’m telling you, Ann, that boy has walked right off the edge of prophecy itself—walked right off into a place in prophecy where prophecy itself doesn’t exist.”

Ann recognized that Nathan was sincerely troubled, but he was making no sense. In part, that was why some people were afraid of him. He often gave people the impression he was talking gibberish when he was talking about things that no one but he could even understand. Sometimes no one but a prophet could truly understand completely what he grasped. With his eyes, the eyes of a prophet, he could see things that no one else could.

She had spent a lifetime working with prophecy, though, and so she could understand, perhaps better than most, at least some of his mind, some of what he could grasp.

“How can you know of such a prophecy, Nathan, if it doesn’t exist? I don’t understand. Explain it to me.”

“There are libraries here, at the People’s Palace, that contain some valuable books of prophecy that I’ve never had a chance to see before. While I had reason to suspect that such prophecies might exist, I was never certain they actually did, or what they might say. I’ve been studying them since I’ve been here and I’ve come across links to other known prophecy we had down in the vaults at the Palace of the Prophets. These prophecies, here, fill in some important gaps in those we already know about.

“Most importantly, I found an altogether new branch of prophecy I’ve never seen before that explains why and how I’ve been blind to some of what’s been going on. From studying the forks and inversions off of this branch, I’ve discovered that Richard has taken a series of links that follow down a particular pathway of prophecy that leads to oblivion, to something that, as far as I can tell, doesn’t even exist.”

One hand on a hip, the other tracing invisible lines in the air, Nathan paced the small room as he talked. “This new link alludes to things I’ve never seen before, branches that I’ve always known must be there, but were missing. These branches are exceedingly dangerous prophecies that have been kept here, in secret. I can see why. Even I, had I seen them years ago, might have misinterpreted them. These new branches refer to voids of some sort. Since they are voids, their nature can’t be known; such a contradiction can’t exist.

“Richard has gone into this area of void, where prophecy can’t see him, can’t help him, and worse, can’t help us. But more than not seeing him with prophecy, it’s as if where he is and what he is doing do not exist.

“Richard is dealing in something that is capable of ending everything we know.”

Ann knew that Nathan would not exaggerate about something of this nature. While she was in the dark about precisely what he was talking about, the essence of it gave her the cold sweats.

“What can we do about it?”

Nathan threw up his arms. “We have to go in there and get him. We have to bring him back into the world that exists.”

“You mean, the world that prophecy says exists.”

Nathan’s scowl was back. “That’s what I said, isn’t it? We have to somehow get him back on the thread of prophecy where he shows up.”

Ann cleared her throat. “Or?”

Nathan snatched up the lamp, then her pack. “Or, he will cease to be part of viable lines of prophecy, never to be involved with matters of this world again.”

“You mean, if we don’t get him back from wherever his is, he will die?”

Nathan gave her a curious look. “Have I been talking to the walls? Of course he will die! If that boy isn’t in prophecy, if he breaks all the links to prophecy where he plays a role, then he voids all those lines of prophecy where he exists. If he does that, then they become false prophecy and those branches with word of him will never come to pass. None of the other links contain any reference to him—because in the origin of those links, he dies, first.”

“And what happens on those links that don’t contain him?”

Nathan took up her hand as he pulled her toward the door. “On those links, a shadow falls over everyone. Everyone who lives, anyway. It will be a very long and very dark age.”

“Wait,” Ann said, pulling him to a halt.

She returned to the stone bench and placed the Rada’Han in the center.

“I don’t have the power to destroy this. I think maybe it should be locked away.”

Nathan nodded his approval. “We will lock the doors and instruct the guards that it is to remain in here, behind the shields, for all time.”

Ann held a warning finger up before him. “Don’t get the idea that just because you’re not wearing a collar I will tolerate misbehavior.”

Nathan’s grin returned. He didn’t come right out and agree. Before he went through the door, he turned back to her.

“By the way, have you been talking to Verna through your journey book?”

“Yes, a little. She’s with the army and pretty busy, right now. They’re defending the passes into D’Hara. Jagang has begun his siege.”

“Well, from what I’ve been able to gather from military commanders here, at the palace, the passes are formidable and will hold for a while, at least.” He leaned toward her. “You have to send a message to her, though. Tell her that when an empty wagon rolls into their line, to let it through.”

Ann made a face. “What does that mean?”

“Prophecy is not meant for the unenlightened. Just tell her.”

“All right,” Ann said with breathless difficulty as Nathan pulled her through the tight doorway. “But I’d best not tell her you’re the one who said it, or she will likely ignore the advice. She thinks you’re daft, you know.”

“She just never got a chance to come to know me very well, that’s all.” He glanced back. “What with me being unjustly locked away, and all.”

Ann wanted to say that perhaps Verna knew Nathan all too well, but decided better of it right then. As Nathan started to turn toward the outer door, Ann snatched his sleeve.

“Nathan, what else about this prophecy you found aren’t you telling me? This prophecy where Richard disappears into oblivion.”

She knew Nathan well enough to know by his agitation that he hadn’t told her everything, that he thought he was being gallant by sparing her worry. With a sober expression, he gazed into her eyes for a time before he finally spoke.

“There is a Slide on that fork of prophecy.”

Ann frowned as she turned her eyes up in thought. “A Slide. A Slide,” she muttered to herself, trying to recall the name. It sounded familiar. “A Slide . . .” She snapped her fingers. “A Slide.” Her eyes went wide. “Dear Creator.”

“I don’t think the Creator had anything to do with this.”

Ann impatiently waved in protest. “That can’t be. There has to be something wrong with this new prophecy you found. It has to be defective. Slides were created in the great war. There couldn’t be a Slide on this link of prophecy—don’t you see? The prophecy must be out of phase and long ago expired.” Ann chewed her lower lip as her mind raced.

“It isn’t out of phase. Don’t you think that was my first thought, too? You think me an amateur at this? I worked through the chronology a hundred times. I ran every chart and calculation I ever learned—even some I invented for the task. They all came out with the same root. Every link came out in order. The prophecy is in phase, chronology, and all its aspects are aligned.”

“Then it’s a false link,” Ann insisted. “Slides were conjured creatures. They were sterile. They couldn’t reproduce.”

“I’m telling you,” Nathan growled, “there is a Slide on this fork with Richard and it’s a viable prophetic link.”

“They couldn’t have survived to be here.” Ann was sure of what she was saying. Nathan knew more about prophecy than she, there was no doubt of that, but this was one area where she knew exactly what she was talking about—this was her area of expertise. “Slides weren’t able to beget children.”

He was giving her one of those looks she didn’t like. “I’m telling you, a Slide walks the world again.”

Ann tsked. “Nathan, soul stealers can’t reproduce.”

“The prophecy says he wasn’t born, but born again a Slide.”

Ann’s flesh began to tingle. She stared at him a time before finding her voice. “For three thousand years there have been no wizards born with both sides of the gift but Richard. There is no way anyone . . .”

Ann paused. He was watching her, watching her finally realize what had to be. “Dear Creator,” she whispered.

“I told you, the Creator had nothing to do with this. The Sisters of the Dark mothered him.”

Shaken to her core, Ann could think of nothing to say.

There was no worse news she could have heard.

There was no defense against a Slide.

Every soul was naked to a Slide’s attack.

Outside the second door, Nyda waited in the hall, her face as grim as ever, but not as grim as Ann’s. The hall was dark but for the dim light coming from the still flames of a few candles. No breath of wind ever made it this deep into the palace. The only color among the dark rock soaking up that small bit of light was the blood red of Nyda’s red leather.

Being pulled along by the hand, feeling a jumble of emotions, Ann leaned toward the woman and vented a pent-up fiery scowl. “You told him what I said to tell him, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” Nyda answered as she fell into step behind the two of them.

Turning halfway around, Ann shook a finger at the Mord-Sith. “I’ll make you sorry you told him.”

Nyda smiled. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

Ann rolled her eyes and turned back to Nathan. “By the way, what are you doing wearing a sword? You, of all people—a wizard. Why are you wearing a sword?”

Nathan looked hurt. “Why, Nyda thinks I look dashing with a sword.”

Ann fixed her eyes on the dark passageway ahead. “I just bet she does.”