Naked Empire

Chapter 53

Standing in dusty streamers of late-day sunlight, Zedd wavered on his feet as he waited not far from the tent where Sister Tahirah had just taken a small crate. While she was inside carefully unpacking and preparing the item of magic for inspection, the guards stood not far off, talking among themselves about their chances of having ale that night. They were hardly worried about a skinny old man with a Rada’Han around his neck and his arms shackled behind his back causing them any trouble or running off.

Zedd used the opportunity to lean against the cargo wagon’s rear wheel.

He wanted only to be allowed to lie down and go to sleep. Without being obvious, he looked over his shoulder at Adie. She gave him a brief, brave smile.

The wagon he leaned against was full of items looted from the Keep that had yet to be identified. For all Zedd knew, he could be leaning against a wagon full of simple magic meant to entertain and teach children, or something so powerful that it would hand Jagang victory in one blinding instant.

Some of the items brought from the Keep were unknown to Zedd. They had been locked behind shields that he had never been able to breach. Even in his childhood the old wizards at the Keep had not been able to get at what was behind many of the shields. But the men who had assaulted and taken the Wizard’s Keep were untouched by magic and apparently had no trouble getting through shields that had been in place for thousands of years. Everything Zedd knew had been turned upside down. In some ways, it seemed like this was not only the end of the Wizard’s Keep as it had been intended and envisioned, but the end of a way of life as well, and the death of an era.

The items brought from the Keep that Zedd had so far identified were of no great value to Jagang in winning the war. There were a few things, now back in protective crates, that were a mystery to Zedd; for all he knew, they could be profoundly dangerous. He wished that they could all be destroyed before one of the Sisters of the Dark discovered how to use them to create havoc.

Zedd looked up when he saw one of the elite soldiers in leather and mail pause not far away, his attention keenly focused on something. His right ear had a big V-shaped notch taken out of the upper portion, the way some farmers marked their swine. Although he wore the same kind of outfit as the rest of the elite soldiers, his boots weren’t the same. Zedd saw, when the man looked around, that his left eye didn’t open as wide as his right, but then he moved off into the bands of patrolling soldiers.

As Zedd watched the constantly churning press of soldiers, Sisters, and others moving past, he kept having the disconcerting visions of people from his past, and others he knew. It was disheartening to be having such will-o’-the-wisps-illusions spawned by a mind that from lack of sleep, and perhaps the constant tension, was failing him. The faces of some of the elite guards looked hauntingly familiar. He guessed he had been seeing the men for days and they were beginning to look familiar.

In the distance he saw a Sister walking past who looked like someone he knew. He had probably met her recently, was all. He’d met a number of Sisters recently, and it was never congenial. Zedd admonished himself that he had to keep a grasp on his wits.

One of the little girls not far away, being held prisoner by a big guard standing over her, was watching Zedd and when he glanced up at her, she smiled. He thought it the oddest thing a frightened child—amid such chaos of soldiers, prisoners, and military activity—could do. He supposed that such a child could not possibly understand that she was there to be tortured, if necessary, to make sure Zedd told all he knew. He looked away from her long blond hair cascading down around her shoulders, her beautiful, oddly familiar face. This was madness—in more ways than one.

The hump-nosed Sister emerged from the tent. “Bring them in,” she snapped.

The four guards jumped into action, two seizing Adie, the other two taking Zedd. The men were big enough that Zedd’s weight was trivial to them.

The way they held him up by his arms prevented half his steps from touching the ground. They horsed him into the tent, advanced him around the table, spun him around, and dropped him into the chair with such force that it drove the wind from his lungs in a grunt.

Zedd closed his eyes as he grimaced in pain. He wished they would just kill him so that he wouldn’t ever have to open his eyes again. But when they killed him, they would send his head to Richard. Zedd hated to think of the anguish that would cause Richard.

“Well?” Sister Tahirah asked.

Zedd opened his eyes and peered at the object sitting before him in the center of the table.

His breath caught.

He blinked at what he saw, too astonished to let out the breath.

It was constructed magic called a sunset spell.

Zedd swallowed. Surely, none of the Sisters had opened it. No, they wouldn’t have opened it. He wouldn’t be sitting there if they had.

Before him on the table sat a small box, the size of half his palm. The box was shaped like the upper half of a stylized sun—a half disc with six pointed rays coming out from it, meant to represent the sun setting at the horizon. The box was lacquered a bright yellow. The rays were also yellow, but with lines of orange, green, and blue along their edges.

“Well?” Sister Tahirah repeated.

“Ahh . . .”

She was looking in her book, not at the small yellow box. “What is it?”

“I’m . . . not sure I remember,” he said, stalling.

The Sister wasn’t in a patient mood. “Do you want me to—”

“Oh, yes,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant, “I recall, now. It’s a box with a spell that produces a little tune.”

That much was true. The Sister was still reading in her book. Zedd glanced back over his shoulder at Adie sitting on the bench. He could see in her eyes that she knew by his demeanor that something was up. He hoped the Sister couldn’t detect the same thing.

“It’s a music box, then,” Sister Tahirah murmured, more interested in her catalog of magic.

“Yes, that’s right. A box that contains a spell for music. When you remove the lid, it produces a melody.” Sweat trickled down from his neck, down between his shoulder blades. Zedd swallowed and tried not to let his trembling carry in his voice. “Take the lid off—you’ll see.”

She peered suspiciously over the top of the book. “You take the lid off.”

“Well . . . I can’t. My hands are shackled behind my back.”

“Use your teeth.”

“My teeth?”

The Sister used the back end of her pen to push the yellow half-sun box closer to him. “Yes, your teeth.”

He had been counting on her suspicion, but he dared not overplay it. He worked his tongue in his mouth, desperately trying to work up some saliva.

Blood would be better, but he knew that if he bit the inside of his lip the Sister would get suspicious. Blood was too common a catalyst.

Before the Sister got leery, Zedd leaned forward and tried to stretch his lips around the box. He worked to get his bottom teeth at the bottom of the sun and his top teeth hooked over a pointed ray. The box was a hair too big. With a hand on the back of his head, Sister Tahirah pushed him down on it. That was all he needed and he captured the lid with his teeth.

He lifted the lid, but the whole box came up off the table. He shook his head and, at last, the top came free. He set the lid aside.

If not opened by a party to the theft of items preserved at the Keep, a sunset spell had to be activated by a wizard whom the spell would recognize.

Quickly, before she saw what he was doing, he let some saliva drop into the box in order to activate the spell.

Zedd felt giddy as the music started. It worked. It was still viable.

He glanced through the narrow slit of the tent flap. The sun would be down soon.

He wanted to jump up and dance to the merry tune. He wanted to let out a whoop. Even though he didn’t have long to live, he still felt exhilarated.

The ordeal was almost over. In a short time, all the things of magic that were stolen would be destroyed, and he would be dead. They would never get anything out of him. He would not betray their cause.

He felt bad that the captured families who were being used to help gain his cooperation would also die, but at least they would no longer have to suffer. He felt a sudden pang of sadness that Adie, too, would die. He hated the thought of that nearly as much as the thought of her suffering.

The Sister reached in and replaced the lid. “Very cute.”

The music stopped. It didn’t matter, though. The spell had been activated. The music was simply confirmation—and a warning to get out of range. No chance of that.

It didn’t matter.

Sister Tahirah scooped the yellow box off the table. “I’m going to put this back.” She leaned down toward Zedd. “While I’m gone, I’m going to have the guards bring in the next child and let you have a good look at her, let you think about what those men in the next tent are going to do to her—without hesitation—if you stall and waste our time like that again.”

“But I—”

His words were cut off as she used the Rada’Han around his neck to send a shock of searing pain from the base of his skull down to his nips. His back arched as he cried out, nearly losing consciousness. He slumped back in his chair, his head hanging back, unable to lift it for the moment.

“Come with me,” Sister Tahirah said to the guards. “I’ll need some help. The guard who brings in the next child can watch them for a few minutes.”

Panting from the lingering pain, tears filling his eyes, Zedd stared at the ceiling of the tent. He saw light as the flap was opened. Shadows moved across the canvas as the Sister and the four men left and she sent in the guard with the child. Zedd stared up at the ceiling, not wanting to look at the face of another child.

Finally, recovered from the bout of pain, he sat up.

One of the big elite guards, dressed in their leather, mail, and a broad belt holding an assortment of weapons, stood to the side with a blond-headed girl held before him. It was the girl who had smiled. Zedd closed his eyes a moment in the agony of what they would do to this poor child who reminded him so much of someone he knew.

When he opened his eyes, she smiled again. Then she winked.

Zedd blinked. She lifted up her flower print dress just enough so that Zedd could see two knives strapped to each of her thighs. He blinked again at what he was seeing. He looked up into her smiling face.

“Rachel . . . ?” he whispered.

Her smile widened into a beaming grin.

Zedd looked up at the face of the big man standing guard behind her.

“Dear spirits . . .” Zedd whispered.

It was the boundary warden.

“I hear you’ve gotten yourself into a bit of trouble,” Chase said.

For an instant, Zedd thought that for sure he must be seeing things.

Then he realized why Rachel looked so familiar, yet different; she was more than two and a half years older than the last time he’d seen her. Her blond hair, once chopped short, was now long. She had to be nearly a foot taller.

Chase hooked his thumbs behind the broad leather belt. “Adie, as levelheaded as you are, I imagine it had to be Zedd who got you into this fix.”

Zedd looked over his shoulder. Adie wore a beautiful, tearful smile. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her smile.

“He be nothing but trouble,” she told the boundary warden.

It had been two and a half years since he’d seen Chase. The boundary warden was an old friend. He was the one who had taken them to meet Adie back then so she could show Richard the way through the boundary before Darken Rahl had brought it down. Chase was older than Richard, but one of his dearest and most trusted friends.

“An older boundary warden, Friedrich, came looking for me,” Chase explained. “He said that ‘Lord Rahl’ had sent him to the Keep to warn you about some trouble. He said that Richard had told him about me, and since you were gone and the Keep had been captured, he came to Westland looking for me. Boundary wardens can always count on one another.

“Rachel and I decided to come pull your scrawny hide out of the fire.”

Zedd glanced at the sunlight coming through the tent’s narrow opening.

“You have to get out of here. Before the sun sets—or you’ll be killed. Hurry, get out of here while you can.”

Chase lifted an eyebrow. “I’ve come all this way and I don’t intend to leave without you.”

“But you don’t understand—”

A knife poked through the side of the tent and ran a slit down through the canvas. One of the elite guards pushed his way in through the slit. Zedd stared in astonishment. The man looked familiar, but he didn’t look right.

“No!” Zedd called to Chase as the big man went for the axe hanging at his hip.

“Stay where you are,” the man who came in through the slit in the side of the tent said to Chase. “There’s a man right outside who will put a sword through you if you move.”

Zedd’s jaw dropped. “Captain Zimmer?”

“Of course. I’ve come to get you out of here.”

“But, but, you have black hair.”

The captain flashed one of his infectious smiles. “Soot. Not a good idea to have blond hair in the middle of Jagang’s camp. I’ve come to rescue you.”

Zedd was incredulous. “But you all have to get out of here. Hurry, before the sun sets. Get out!”

“Do you have any more men?” Chase asked the captain.

“A handful. Who are you?”

“An old friend,” Zedd told him. “Now, look here—”

At that, cries and shouts came from outside. Captain Zimmer rushed to the tent’s opening. A man poked his head in.

“It’s not us,” he said in answer to the captain’s unspoken question.

In the distance, Zedd could hear the shouts of “Assassin!”

Captain Zimmer rushed behind Zedd and worked a key in the manacles.

They broke open. Zedd’s arms were suddenly free. The captain hurried to undo Adie’s as she stood and turned her back to him.

“Sounds like our chance,” Rachel said. “Let’s use the commotion to get you out of here.”

“The brains of the group,” Chase said with a grin.

The first thing Zedd did when his arms were free was fall to his knees and hug the girl. He couldn’t bring forth words, but they weren’t needed. To feel her spindly arms around his neck was better than any words.

“I’ve missed you, Zedd,” she whispered in his ear.

Outside the tent, mayhem had broken out. Orders were being shouted, men were running, and in the distance the clash of steel rang out.

The Sister burst back into the tent. She saw Zedd free and immediately released a bolt of power through his collar. The shock sent him sprawling.

Just then, a second, young, blond Sister in a drab brown wool dress charged in behind Sister Tahirah. Sister Tahirah spun around. The second Sister smacked her so hard it nearly knocked the woman from her feet.

Without pause, Sister Tahirah unleashed a bolt of her power that lit the inside of the tent with a blinding flash. Instead of it blasting the second Sister back through the tent’s doorway, as Zedd had expected, Sister Tahirah cried out and crumpled to the ground.

“Got you!” the second Sister growled as she planted a boot on Sister Tahirah’s neck, keeping her on the ground.

Zedd blinked in astonishment. “Rikka?”

Rikka was already turning her Agiel in her fist. She held it toward Chase.

“Rikka?” Captain Zimmer asked from the other side of the tent, sounding startled, not just to see who it was, but perhaps to see the Mord-Sith with her blond hair undone from its single braid and flying free.

“Zimmer?” She frowned at his black hair. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here!” He gestured to her dress. “What are you wearing?”

Rikka grinned that wicked grin she had. “The dress of a Sister.”

“Sister?” Zedd asked. “What Sister?”

Rikka shrugged. “One who didn’t want to give up her dress. She lost her head over the whole affair.” With her finger and thumb Rikka pulled her lower lip out. “See? I borrowed her ring, too. I spread the split and hung it here, so I’d look like a real Sister.”

Rikka pulled Sister Tahirah up by her hair and shoved her toward Adie.

“Get that thing off her neck.”

“I will do no such—”

Rikka drove her Agiel up under the Sister’s chin. Blood gushed out over her lower lip. The Sister started choking on it as she gasped in agony.

“I said, get that thing off Adie’s neck. And don’t you ever question me again.”

Sister Tahirah scrambled to Adie to do as the Mord-Sith had commanded.

Chase planted his fists on his hips as he glared down at Zedd, still on the ground. “So what are we going to do now—draw straws to see who gets to rescue you?”

“Bags! Isn’t anyone listening? You people have to get out of here!”

Rachel shook a finger at Zedd. “Now, Zedd, you know you’re not supposed to say bad words in front of children.”

Sputtering in frustration, Zedd gaped up at Chase.

“I know,” the boundary warden said with a sigh. “She’s been a trial for me, too.”

“The sun’s about to set!” Zedd roared.

“It would be better if we could delay until it did,” Captain Zimmer said. “It would be easier to get out of camp in the dark.”

A humming noise filled the tent, making the very air vibrate, and then there was a sudden metallic pop. Adie cried out with relief as the collar fell away.

“Isn’t anyone listening?” Zedd scrambled to his feet and shook his fists. “I’ve ignited a sunset spell!”

“A what?” Chase asked.

“A sunset spell. It’s a protective device from the Keep. It’s a shield of sorts. When it recognizes that other shields are being violated and protected items are being taken, it insinuates itself among the stolen goods. When a thief opens it to see what it is, it activates the spell. At the first sunset the spell ignites and destroys everything that has been plundered.”

Sister Tahirah shook her fist at him. “You fool!”

Rikka seized his arm. “Then let’s get going.”

Chase grabbed Zedd’s other arm and pulled him back. “Now, hold on.”

Zedd yanked both arms free and pointed out through the slit in the side of the tent at the setting sun. “We’ve got mere moments until this place is a fireball.”

“How big a fireball?” Captain Zimmer asked.

Zedd threw up his hands. “It will kill thousands. It won’t destroy the camp by any means, but this whole area is going to be leveled.”

Everyone started talking, but Chase cut them all off with an angry command for silence. “Now listen to me. If we look like we’re escaping, we’ll be caught. Captain, you and your men come with me. We’ll pretend like Zedd and Adie are our prisoners. Rachel, too—that’s how I got in here; I found out they were holding children.” He flipped a hand toward Rikka and Sister Tahirah. “They will look like Sisters in charge of prisoners, along with us playing as the guards.”

“Do you want that thing off your neck, first?” Rikka asked Zedd.

“No time for that now. Let’s go.”

Adie grabbed Zedd’s arm. “No.”

“What!”

“Listen to me, old man. There be those families and children in these tents around us. They will die. You go. Get to the Keep. I will get the innocent people out of here.”

Zedd didn’t like the idea, but arguing with Adie was a fool’s task, and besides, there was no time.

“We split up, then,” Captain Zimmer said. “Me and my men will play the part of guards and get the men, women, and children out of here, back to our lines, along with Adie.”

Rikka nodded. “Tell Verna that I’m going to go with Zedd to help take back the Keep. He will need a Mord-Sith to keep him out of trouble.”

Everyone looked around to see if there would be any arguments. No one said anything. It suddenly seemed settled.

“Done,” Zedd said.

He threw his arms around Adie and kissed her cheek. “Be careful. Tell Verna I’m going to take the Keep back. Help her defend the passes.”

Adie nodded. “Be careful. Listen to Chase—he be a good man to come all this way for you.”

Zedd smiled and then gasped as Chase grabbed his robes and yanked him out of the tent. “The sun is setting—let’s get out of here. Remember, you’re our prisoner.”

“I know the part,” Zedd grumbled as he was dragged out of the tent like a sack of grain. He smiled as Adie, already rushing away, looked over her shoulder one last time. She smiled back, and then was gone.

“Wait!” Zedd called. He quickly reached into one of the wagons and retrieved something he didn’t want to be destroyed. He slipped it into a pocket. “All right, let’s go.”

Outside the tent, the camp was in pandemonium. Elite guards, in a state of high alert and with weapons drawn, raced past on their way toward the command tents. Other men ran to the ring of barricades. Trumpets blared alarms and coded messages that directed men to tasks. Zedd feared his small group might be set upon and held for questioning.

Instead of waiting for that to happen, Chase reached out and snatched a soldier running past. “What’s the matter with you? Get me some protection for these prisoners until I can get them to a safe place! The emperor will have our heads if we allow them to be recaptured!”

The soldier quickly collected a dozen men and fell in around Rikka, Sister Tahirah, Chase, Rachel, and Zedd. Rachel was doing a convincing job of bawling in fear. For effect, Chase would occasionally give her a shake and yell at her to shut up.

Zedd glanced back over his shoulder, seeing the sun touch the horizon.

He growled at Rikka, out ahead, for her to pick up her pace.

At the barricades, scowling guards looked them over carefully as they approached and then opened their ranks. They were preventing anyone from getting in, and were momentarily confused by such a company of their own men with prisoners making their way out. One man decided to step out to stop and question them.

Chase straight-armed him. “Idiot! Out of our way! Emperor’s orders!”

The man frowned as he stared at the procession sweeping past. While he considered what to do, they were past and gone, swallowed up in the larger camp.

In moments, they were out of the heart of the camp. In short order, regular soldiers, seeing Rikka at the lead, moved to block their path. A beautiful woman out among the regular soldiers was asking for trouble, and with the confusion the men saw in the command area, they believed they had an opportunity while those in authority were busy. Rikka and Chase kept their small group moving at a quick pace. The grinning soldiers closed ranks, blocking the way. One of the men, missing his two front teeth, took a step out in front of his men. With one thumb hooked behind his belt, he held up the other hand.

“Hold on there. I think the ladies would like to stay for a visit.”

Without pause, Rachel reached under the hem of her dress and pulled a knife. She didn’t slow or even look back as she flipped the knife up over her shoulder. In one fluid motion, without missing a step, Chase caught the knife by the tip and heaved it at the toothless man. With a thunk, the knife slammed hilt-deep into the man’s forehead.

As he was still toppling back, Rachel flipped a second knife up over her shoulder. Chase caught it and sent it on its way. As the second man twisted toward the ground, dead, the rest of the men backed away to let the small group, marching onward, in among them. Deadly rights within the Imperial Order camp were not a rarity.

Elite guards or not, the soldiers were confident in their numbers and, with a beautiful woman in their midst, sure of what they wanted. Men all around closed in.

Zedd snatched a quick glance back. “Now! Hit the ground!”

Rikka, Chase, Rachel, and Zedd dove to the dirt.

For an instant, everyone above them froze, staring in surprise. The soldiers who were accompanying them, weapons already drawn for the fight they expected, also stopped and stood in confusion.

Sister Tahirah saw her opportunity and cried out. “Help! These people are—”

The world ignited with brilliant white light.

An instant later a thunderous blast rocked the ground. A wall of debris followed, driven before a roar of noise.

Men were blown into the air. Some were cut down by flying wreckage. The elite guards that had escorted them tumbled through the air over Zedd.

Sister Tahirah had turned toward the flash. A wagon wheel shot toward them at incredible speed, hitting her chest-high, cutting her in two. The bloodied wheel sailed onward without even being slowed. The Sister’s shredded remains were flung across the ground along with the bodies of countless men.

As the blast from behind still rumbled, the screams of terribly wounded men rose into the lingering rays of sunset.

Zedd dearly hoped that Adie had not wasted any time in escaping.

Chase seized Zedd’s robes at one shoulder and hauled him to his feet as he swept Rachel up in his other arm. Rikka grabbed Zedd’s robes at the other shoulder and pulled him ahead. Together, Zedd’s two rescuers rushed with him into the carnage.

Rachel hid her face in Chase’s shoulder.

Zedd was about to ask Chase why in the world he would teach a young girl such things with knives when he recalled that he himself had been the one who had once commanded Chase to the task of teaching her everything the boundary warden knew.

Rachel was a special person. Zedd had wanted her to be prepared for what life might have in store.

“You should have let me make the Sister take off that collar when we had the chance,” Rikka said as they ran.

“If we had taken the time,” Zedd answered, “we would have been back there and caught up in that fireball.”

“I suppose,” she said.

As they slowed a bit to catch their breath, men ran in every direction.

In the confusion and disorder, no one noticed that the four of them were making good their escape. As they hastily made their way through the vast Imperial Order encampment, Zedd put an arm around Rikka’s shoulders and pulled her closer.

“Thank you for coming to save my life.”

She flashed him a cunning smile. “I wouldn’t leave you to those pigs—not after all you’ve done for us. Besides, Lord Rahl has Cara protecting him; I’m sure he would want a Mord-Sith protecting his grandfather as well.”

Zedd had been right. The world was turned upside down.

“We have horses and supplies hidden,” Chase said. “On our way out of this place, we’d better take a horse for Rikka.”

Rachel looked back over Chase’s shoulder, her arms around his neck. She gave Zedd a serious frown as she whispered, “Chase is unhappy because he had to leave all his weapons behind and be so lightly armed.”

Zedd glanced to the battle-axe at one hip, the sword at Chase’s other, and two knives at the small of his back. “Yes, I can see where being so defenseless would make a man grumpy.”

“I don’t like this place,” Rachel whispered in Chase’s ear.

He patted her back as she laid her head on his shoulder. “We’ll be back in the woods in no time, little one.”

Amid the screams and death, it was as tender a sight as Zedd could imagine.