Naked Empire

Chapter 46

Following behind the messenger, Verna stepped aside as a tight pack of horses raced by. Their bellies were caked with mud, their nostrils flared with excitement. The eyes of the cavalry soldiers bent over their withers showed grim determination. With the constant level of activity of recent weeks, she had to maintain a careful vigil whenever she stepped out of a tent lest she be run down by one thing or another. If it wasn’t horses charging through camp, it was men at a run.

“Just up ahead,” the messenger said over his shoulder.

Verna nodded to his young face as he glanced back. He was a polite young man. His curly blond hair and his mannerly behavior combined to remind her of Warren. She was defenseless against the wave of pain that cut through her with the memory of Warren being gone, at the emptiness of each day.

She couldn’t remember this messenger’s name. There were so many young men; it was hard to recall all their names. Though she tried her best, she couldn’t keep track of them. At least for a while now they hadn’t been dying at a terrifying rate. As harsh as the winters were up in D’Hara, such weather had at least been a respite from the battles of the previous summer, from the constant fighting and dying. With summer again upon them, she didn’t think that the relative quiet was going to last much longer. For now the passes held against the Imperial Order. In such narrow and confined places, the enemy’s weight of numbers didn’t mean so much. If only one man would fit through a narrow hole in a stone wall, it meant little that there were a hundred waiting behind him to go through, or a thousand. Defending against one man, as it were, was not the impossible task that it was trying to fight the onslaught of Jagang’s entire force.

When she heard the distant thunder, felt it rolling through the ground, she glanced up at the sky. The sun had not made an appearance in two days.

She didn’t like the looks of the clouds building against the slopes of the mountains. It looked like they could be in for a nasty storm.

The sound might not have been thunder. It was possible that it was magic the enemy hammered against the shields across the passes. Such battering would do them no good, but it made for uneasy sleeping, so, if for no other reason, they kept at it.

Some of the men and the officers passing in the other direction gave her a nod in greeting, or a smile, or a small wave. Verna didn’t see any Sisters of the Light. Many would be at the passes, tending shields, making sure none of the Imperial Order soldiers could get through. Zedd had taught them to consider every possibility, no matter how outlandish, and guard against it. Day and night Verna ran every one of those places through her mind, trying to think if there was anything they had overlooked, anything they had missed, that might allow the enemy forces to flood in upon them.

If that happened, if they broke through, then there was nothing to stop their advance into D’Hara except the defending army, and the defending army was no match for the numbers on the other side of those mountains. She couldn’t think of any chink in their armor, but she worried constantly that there might be one.

It seemed that the final battle might be on them at any moment. And where was Richard?

Prophecy said that he was vital in the battle to decide the future course of mankind. With it appearing that they very well could be one battle from the end of it all, of freedom’s final spark, the Lord Rahl ran the very real risk of missing the moment of his greatest need. She could hardly believe that for centuries Prophecy foretold of the one who would lead them, and when the time finally arrives, he’s off somewhere else. Lot of good Prophecy was doing them.

Verna knew Richard’s heart. She knew Kahlan’s heart. It wasn’t right to doubt either of them, but Verna was the one staring into the eyes of Jagang’s horde and Richard was nowhere to be found.

From what little information Verna had gleaned from Ann’s messages in the journey book, there was trouble afoot. Verna could detect in Ann’s writings that the woman was greatly troubled by something. Whatever the cause, Ann and Nathan were racing south, back down through the Old World.

Ann avoided explaining, possibly not wanting to burden them with anything else, so Verna didn’t press. She had enough trouble conceiving of why Ann would have joined with the prophet rather than collaring him. Ann said only that a journey book was not a good place to explain such things.

Despite the good work the man sometimes did, Verna considered Nathan dangerous in the extreme. A thunderstorm brought life-giving rain, but if you were the one struck by its lightning, it didn’t do you much good. For Ann and Nathan to join forces, as it were, must be indicative of the trouble they were all in.

Verna had to remind herself that not everything was going against them, not everything was hopeless and dismal. Jagang’s army had, after all, suffered a stunning blow at the hands of Zedd and Adie, losing staggering numbers of soldiers in an instant and suffering vast numbers of casualties.

As a result the Imperial Order had turned away from Aydindril, leaving the Wizard’s Keep untouched. Despite the dream walker’s covetous hands, the Keep remained out of his reach.

Zedd and Adie had the defense of the Keep well in hand, so it was not all trouble and strife; there were valuable assets on the side of the D’Haran Empire. The Keep might yet prove decisive in helping to stop the Imperial Order. Verna missed that old wizard, his advice, his wisdom, though she would never admit it aloud. In that old man she could see where Richard got many of his best qualities.

Verna halted when she saw Rikka striding across in front of her. Verna snatched the Mord-Sith’s arm.

“What is it, Prelate?” Rikka asked.

“Have you heard what this is about?”

Rikka gave her a blank look. “What what’s about?”

The messenger stopped on the other side of the intersection of informal roads. Horses trotted past in both directions, one pulling a cart of water barrels. Fully armed men crossed on the side road. The encampment, one of several, surrounded by a defensive berm, had evolved into a city of sorts, with byways through its midst for men, horses, and wagons.

“Something is going on,” Verna said.

“Sorry, I haven’t heard anything.”

“Are you busy?”

“Nothing urgent.”

Verna took a good grip on Rikka’s arm and started her walking. “General Meiffert sent for me. Maybe you’d best come along. That way if he wants you, too, we won’t have to send someone looking for you.”

Rikka shrugged. “Fine by me.” The Mord-Sith’s expression turned suspicious. “Do you have any idea what’s wrong?”

As Verna kept an eye on the messenger ahead of her weaving his way among men, tents, wagons, horses, and repair stations, she glanced over at Rikka. “Nothing that I know of.” Verna’s expression contorted a bit as she tried to put her queazy mood into words. “Did you ever wake up and just feel like there was something wrong, but you couldn’t explain why it seemed like it was going to be a bad day?”

“If it’s to be a bad day, I see to that it’s someone else’s, and I’m the cause of it.”

Verna smiled to herself. “Too bad you’re not gifted. You would make a good Sister of the Light.”

“I would rather be Mord-Sith and be able to protect Lord Rahl.”

The messenger stopped at the side of the camp road. “Back there, Prelate. General Meiffert said to bring you to that tent by the trees.”

Verna thanked the young man and made her way across the soft ground, Rikka at her side. The tent was away from the main activity of the camp, in a quieter area where officers often met with scouts just back from patrols.

Verna’s mind raced, trying to imagine what news scouts could have brought back. There was no alarm, so the passes still held. If there was trouble, there would be a flurry of activity in the camp, but it seemed about the same as any other day.

Guards saw Verna coming and ducked into the tent to announce her arrival. Almost immediately, the general stepped out of the tent and rushed to meet her. His blue eyes reflected iron determination. The man’s face, though, was ashen.

“I saw Rikka,” Verna explained as General Meiffert dipped his head in a hurried greeting. “I thought I ought to bring her just in case you needed her, too.”

The tall, blond-headed D’Haran glanced briefly at Rikka. “Yes, that’s fine. Come in, please, both of you.”

Verna snatched his sleeve. “What’s this about? What’s going on? Is something wrong?”

The general’s eyes moved to Rikka and back to Verna. “We’ve had a message from Jagang.”

Rikka leaned in, her voice taking on an edge. “How did a messenger from Jagang get through without someone killing them?”

It was standard practice that no one came through for any reason. They didn’t want so much as a mouse making it through. There was no telling if it might be some kind of trick.

“It was a small wagon, pulled by a single horse.” He tilted his head toward Verna. “The men thought the wagon was empty. Remembering your instructions, they let it through.”

Verna was somewhat surprised that Ann’s warning to let an empty wagon through had been so correct. “A wagon came of its own accord? An empty wagon drove itself in?”

“Not exactly. The men who saw it thought it was empty. The horse appears to be a workhorse that is used to walking roads, so it plodded along the road as it had been trained.” General Meiffert pressed his lips together at the confusion on Verna’s face and then turned away from the tent. “Come on, and I’ll show you.”

He led them to the third tent down the line and held the flap aside.

Verna ducked in, followed by Rikka and the general. On a bench inside sat a young novice, Holly, with her arm around a very frightened-looking girl no more than ten years old.

“I asked Holly to stay with her,” General Meiffert whispered. “I thought it might make her less nervous than a soldier standing over her.”

“Of course,” Verna said. “Very wise of you. She’s the one who brought the message, then?”

The young general nodded. “She was sitting in the back of the wagon, so the men seeing it coming at first thought it was empty.”

Verna now understood why such a messenger got through. Soldiers weren’t nearly so likely to kill a child, and the Sisters could test her to insure she was no threat. Verna wondered if Zedd would have something to say about that; threat often came in surprising packages. Verna approached the pair on the bench, smiling as she bent down.

“I’m Verna. Are you all right, young lady?” The girl nodded. “Would you like something to eat?”

Trembling slightly as her big brown eyes took in the people looking at her, she nodded again.

“Prelate,” Holly said, “Valery already went to get her something.”

“I see,” Verna said, holding the smile in place. She knelt down and gently patted the girl’s hands in her lap to reassure her. “Do you live around here?”

The girl’s big brown eyes blinked, trying to judge the danger of the adult before her. She calmed just a little at Verna’s smile and kind touch.

“A bit of travel to the north, ma’am.”

“And someone sent you to see us?”

The big brown eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t cry. “My parents are back there, down over the pass. The soldiers there have them. As guests, they said. Men came and took us to their army. We’ve had to stay there for the last few weeks. Today they told me to take a letter over the pass to the people here. They said that if I did as I was told, they would let my mother and father and me go home.”

Verna again patted the girl’s small hands. “I see. Well, that’s good of you to help your parents.”

“I just want to go home.”

“And you shall, child.” Verna straightened. “We’ll get you some food, dear, so you have a full tummy before you go back to your parents.”

The girl stood and curtsied. “Thank you for your kindness. May I go back after I eat, then?”

“Certainly,” Verna said. “I’ll just go read the letter you brought while you have a nice meal, and then you can return to your parents.”

As she sat back up on the bench, squirming her bottom back beside Holly, she couldn’t help keeping a wary eye on the Mord-Sith.

Trying not to show any apprehension, Verna smiled her good-bye to the girl before leading the others out of the tent. She couldn’t even imagine what Jagang was up to.

“What’s in the letter?” Verna asked as they hurried to the command tent.

General Meiffert paused outside the tent, his thumb burnishing a brass button on his coat as he met Verna’s gaze. “I’d just as soon you read it for yourself, Prelate. Some of it is plain enough. Some of it, well, some of it I’m hoping you can explain to me.”

Stepping into the tent, Verna saw Captain Zimmer waiting off to the side. The square-jawed man was absent his usual infectious smile. The captain was in charge of the D’Haran special forces, a group of men whose job it was to go out and spend their days and nights sneaking around in enemy territory killing as many of the enemy as possible. There seemed to be an endless supply. The captain seemed determined to use up the supply.

The men in Captain Zimmer’s corps were very good at what they did. They collected strings of ears they took from the enemies they killed. Kahlan used to always ask to see their collection whenever they returned. The captain and his men dearly missed her.

They all glanced up at a flash of lightning. The storm was getting closer. After a moment’s pause, the ground shook with the rolling rumble of thunder.

General Meiffert retrieved a small folded paper from the table and handed it to Verna.

“This is what the girl brought.”

Looking briefly to the two men’s grim expressions, Verna unfolded the paper and read the neat script.

The arm holding the paper in her trembling fingers lowered.

“Dear Creator,” Verna whispered. She felt dizzy.

Rikka snatched the paper from her hand and stood facing away as she read it. She cursed under her breath.

“We have to go get him,” Rikka said. “We have to get Zedd and Adie away from Jagang.”

Captain Zimmer shook his head. “There is no way we could accomplish such a thing.”

Rikka’s face went red with rage. “He’s saved my life before! Yours, too! We have to get him out of there!”

In contrast to Rikka’s anger, Verna spoke softly. “We all feel the same about him. Zedd has probably saved all of our lives more than once. Unfortunately, Jagang will do all the worse to him for it.”

Rikka shook the message before their faces. “So we are just going to let him die there? Let Jagang kill him? We sneak in, or something!”

Captain Zimmer rested the heel of his hand on a long knife at his belt.

“Mistress Rikka, if I told you that I had a man hidden somewhere in this camp, in one of the hundreds of thousands of tents, and no one would bother you or ask you any questions, but would allow you to freely go about a search, how long do you think it would take you to find such a hidden man?”

“But they won’t be in just any tent,” Rikka said. “Look at us, here. This message came. Did it go to just any random tent in the whole camp? No, it went to a place where such things are handled.”

“I’ve been to the Imperial Order encampment too many times to count,” Captain Zimmer said as he cast his arm out toward the enemy over the mountains to the west. “You can’t even imagine how big their camp is. They have millions of men there.

“Their encampment is a quagmire of cutthroats. It’s a place of chaos. That disorder allows us to slip in, kill some of them, and get out fast. You don’t want to be there very long. They recognize outsiders, especially blond outsiders.

“Moreover, there are layers of different kinds of men. Most of the soldiers are little more than a mob of thugs that Jagang turns loose from time to time. None of them are allowed beyond a certain point within their own camp. The men guarding the areas with higher security are not nearly so stupid and lazy as the common soldiers.

“The men in those protected areas aren’t as numerous as the common soldiers, but they are trained professionals. They are alert, vigilant, and deadly. If you could somehow manage to get through the sea of misfits to reach the island at the core where the torture and command tents are, those professional soldiers would have you on the end of a pike in no time.

“Even they are not all the same. The outer ring of this core, besides having these professionals guarding it, is where the Sisters are. They both live there and use magic to watch for intruders. Beyond them are further rings, starting with the elite guards, and then, finally, the emperor’s personal guards. These are men who have been fighting with Jagang for years. They kill anyone, even the elite guard officers, if they become at all suspicious of them. If they even hear word of someone saying disparaging things about the emperor, they hunt them down and have them tortured. After being tortured, if they live through it, they are then put to death.

“I’m not saying that my men and I would be unwilling to risk our lives trying to get Zedd out of there; I’m saying that we would be giving our lives up for nothing.”

The mood in the tent could not have been more hopeless.

The general gestured with the paper when Rikka handed it back. “Any idea what a Slide is, Prelate?”

Verna met his blue-eyed gaze. “A soul stealer.”

The general frowned. “A what?”

“In the great war—three thousand years ago—the wizards of that time created weapons out of people. Dream walkers, like Jagang, were one such weapon. The best way I can explain it to you is that a Slide is in some ways like a dream walker. A dream walker can enter a person’s mind and seize control of them. A Slide, I believe, is something like that, only he seizes your spirit, your soul.”

Rikka made a face. “Why?”

Verna lifted her hands in frustration. “I don’t really know. To control their victim, perhaps. Altering gifted people was an ancient practice. They sometimes changed gifted people with magic to suit a specific purpose. With Subtractive Magic they took away traits they didn’t want, and then they used Additive Magic to add to or enhance a trait they did want. What they created were monsters.

“I’m not really well versed in the subject. When I became Prelate I had access to books I had never seen before. That’s where I saw the reference to Slides. They were used to slip into another person’s being and steal the essence of who they where—their spirit, their soul.

“Altering people in such a way as to create these Slides is a long-dead art. I’m afraid that I don’t know a great deal about the subject. I do remember reading that the ones called Slides were exceedingly dangerous.”

“Long-dead art,” the general muttered. He looked like he was making a great effort to restrain himself. “Those wizards of that time made such weapons as Slides, but how could Jagang? He’s no wizard. Could it be that he’s lying?”

Verna thought about the question a moment. “He has gifted people under his direct control. Some are able to use underworld magic. As I said, I don’t know a great deal about it, but I suppose it’s possible that he was able to do it.”

“How?” the general demanded. “How could Jagang do such things? He’s not even a wizard.”

Verna clasped her hands before herself. “He has Sisters of the Light and the Dark. In theory, I suppose he has what he needs. He is a man who studies history. I know from personal experience that he puts great value in books. He has an extensive and quite valuable collection. Nathan, the prophet, was very concerned about this very thing, and destroyed a number of important volumes before they could fall into Jagang’s possession.

“Still, the emperor possesses a great many others—in fact, he has a huge collection. Now that he has captured the Keep, he has access to important libraries. Those books are dangerous, or they wouldn’t have been sealed away in the Wizard’s Keep in the first place.”

“And now Jagang has control of them.” General Meiffert ran his fingers back through his hair. He gripped the back of the chair set before the small table and leaned his weight on his arms. “Do you think he really has Zedd and Adie?”

The question was a plea for some thread of hope. Verna swallowed as she carefully considered the question. She answered in an honest voice, not wanting to be the founder of a false faith. Since she’d read the message from Jagang, she, herself, had been searching for that same thread of hope.

“I don’t think he’s a man who would find any satisfaction in bragging about something he hadn’t actually accomplished. I think he must be telling us the truth and wants to gloat over his accomplishment.”

The general released his grip on the chair and turned as he considered Verna’s words. Finally, he asked a question worse yet.

“Do you think he’s telling the truth that this Slide has Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor? Do you think this terrible creation, this Slide, will soon deliver the two of them to Jagang?”

Verna wondered if this was the reason for Ann and Nathan’s headlong rush down through the Old World. Verna knew that Richard and Kahlan were down there, somewhere. There could be no more urgent reason for Ann and Nathan to race south. Was it possible that this Slide had already captured them, or captured their souls? Verna’s heart sank. She wondered if Ann already knew that the Slide had Richard, and that was why she wasn’t saying much about her mission.

“I don’t know,” Verna finally answered.

“I think Jagang just made a mistake,” Captain Zimmer said.

Verna lifted an eyebrow. “Such as?”

“He has just betrayed to us how much trouble he’s having with the passes. He’s just told us how well our defenses are working and how desperate he is. If he doesn’t get through this season, his whole army will have to sit out another winter. He wants us to let him through.

“D’Haran winters are hard, especially on men such as his, men not used to the conditions. I saw with my own eyes good indications of how many men he lost last winter. Hundreds of thousands of men died from disease.”

“He has plenty of men,” General Meiffert said. “He can afford the losses. He has a steady supply of new troops to replace the ones who died from the fevers and sickness last winter.”

“So, you think the captain is wrong?” Verna asked.

“No, I agree that Jagang would like very much to get it over with; I just don’t think he cares how many of his men die. I think he’s eager to rule the world. Patient as he generally is, he sees the end at hand, the goal within his grasp. We’re the only thing standing in his way, keeping his prize from falling to him. His men, too, are impatient for the plunder.

“His choice to split the New World first by driving up to Aydindril has left him close to his goal, but in some ways, even more distant from it. If he can’t make it through the passes, he may decide to pick up his army and make a long march back south again, to the Kern River valley, to where he can then come over and up into D’Hara. Once his army takes to the open ground down south, there’s no way for us to stop them.

“If he can’t break through the passes now, it means a long march and a long delay, but he will still have us in the end. He would rather have us now and is willing to offer the lives of our men to close a deal.”

Verna stared off. “It’s a grave mistake to try to appease evil.”

“I agree,” General Meiffert said. “Once we opened the passes, he would slaughter every last man.”

The mood in the tent was as gloomy as the sky outside.

“I think we should send him back a letter,” Rikka said. “I think we should tell him that we don’t believe him that he has Zedd and Adie. If he expects us to believe him, he should prove it; he should send us their heads.”

Captain Zimmer smiled at the suggestion.

The general tapped a finger on the table as he thought it over. “If it’s as you say, Prelate, and Jagang really does have them, then there’s nothing we can do about it. He will kill them. After what Zedd did to Jagang’s force back in Aydindril, to say nothing of all the havoc he caused the Imperial Order last summer when the Mother Confessor was with us, I know it won’t be an easy death, but he will kill them in the end.”

“Then you agree that nothing else can be done,” Verna said.

General Meiffert wiped a hand across his face. “I hate admitting it, but I’m afraid they’re lost. I don’t think we should give Jagang the satisfaction of knowing how we truly feel about it.”

Verna’s head spun at the thought of Zedd and Adie being put to torture, of them being in the hands of Jagang and his Sisters of the Dark. She quailed at the thought of the D’Haran forces losing Zedd. There simply was no one with his experience and knowledge. There was no one who could replace him.

“We write Jagang a letter, then,” Verna said, “and tell Jagang we don’t believe he has Zedd and Adie.”

“The only thing we can do,” Rikka said, “is to deny Jagang what he wants most. What he wants is for us to give up.”

General Meiffert pulled out the chair at the table, inviting Verna to sit and write the letter. “If Jagang is angered by such a letter, he just might send us their heads. If he did, that would spare them terrible suffering. That’s the only thing we can do for them—the best we could do for them.”

Verna took stock of the grim faces and saw only resolve at what had to be done. She sat in the chair the general held for her, wiggled the stopper out of the ink bottle, and then took a piece of paper from a small stack in a box to the side.

She dipped the pen and stared at the paper for a moment, trying to decide how to phrase the letter. She tried to imagine what Kahlan would write. As it came to her, she bent over the table and began writing.

Reading over Verna’s shoulder, Rikka said, “I like it.”

Verna looked up at the others. “How should I sign it?”

“What would make Jagang the most angry—or worried?” Captain Zimmer asked.

Verna tapped the back of the pen against her chin as she thought. Then it came to her. She put pen to paper.