Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Chapter 11

Shota glided down the steps to stand before the fountain. The diaphanous fabric of the dress that covered her statuesque form moved ever so slightly, as if in a gentle breeze. The gushing, cascading, effervescent waters danced and sparkled in the light from the skylights far above, putting on an exhilarating performance for the gathered audience. Shota stared absently at it for a moment, as if preoccupied with her own private thoughts, and then turned to the small crowd waiting just inside the huge double doors. They all stood silently, watching her, as if awaiting a queen’s pronouncement.

Behind Shota, the water in the fountain sprayed high into the air. The exuberant surge of spray abruptly stopped. The last of the water, still rising just before the flow had cut off, reached its zenith, a dying liquid arc, and fell back as if slain. The dozens of uniform streams of water overflowing the down-turned points in the tiers of bowls, as if embarrassed by their frothy frolic, slowed to a stop and finally fell silent.

Zedd stepped to the brink of the steps, a forbidding look settling into the lines of his face. As he halted, the swirl of his simple robes gathered around his legs. At that moment it struck Richard that his grandfather looked very much like who he was: the First Wizard. If Richard had thought that Nicci and Shota had looked dangerous, he realized that Zedd was no less so. At that moment he was a thundercloud harboring hidden lightning.

“I’ll not have you tampering with anything in this place. I indulge you because you have come here for reasons that may somehow be important to us all, but my leniency will not tolerate your meddling with anything here.”

Shota flicked a hand, dismissing his warning. “I assumed that you would not acquiesce to me going any farther than this room. The fountain is noisy. I don’t want Richard to fail to hear anything I or Jebra has to say.”

She lifted an arm toward Ann, standing beside Nathan, watching, almost unseen in the deep shadows of the balcony and soaring red pillars. “It is a matter that has been close to your heart for half of your life, Prelate.”

“I am no longer Prelate,” Ann said in a quietly commanding voice that sounded very much as if she still were.

“Why were you hunting Samuel?” Cara asked, drawing the witch woman’s attention.

“Because he was not supposed to have left my valley in Agaden Reach. Moreover, he should not have been able to do so without my expressed permission.”

“And yet he did,” Richard said.

Shota nodded. “So I went looking for him.”

Richard clasped his hands behind his back. “How is it, Shota, that you weren’t aware that Samuel was going to leave you? I mean, considering your power, vast knowledge, and all that business you’ve explained to me about how a witch woman can see the way that events flow forward in time. For that matter, how was he able to do so without your consent?”

Shota did not shrink from the question. “There is only one way.”

Richard bit back the sarcastic remark that came to mind and instead asked, “And what would that be?”

“Samuel has been bewitched.”

Richard wasn’t sure that he’d heard her correctly. “Bewitched. But you’re the witch woman. You’re the one who does the bewitching.”

Shota clasped her hands, looking down at the floor a moment as she folded her fingers together. “He was bewitched by another.”

Richard descended the five steps. “Another witch woman?”

“Yes.”

Richard took a deep breath as he glanced around to see the others sharing troubled looks. No one appeared inclined to ask, so he did. “You mean to say that there is another witch woman around, and she bewitched Samuel away from you?”

“I thought that I had made that perfectly clear.”

“Well . . . where is she?”

“I have no idea. Certain issues in the flow of time are my business—I have seen to it. For me to be this blind to events that eddy so tightly through my purview can only mean that another witch woman has deliberately occulted those flows from me.”

Richard stuffed his hands in his back pockets as he tried to reason it out. He paced briefly before turning back to her.

“Maybe it wasn’t a witch woman. Maybe it was a Sister of the Dark or someone like that. A gifted person. Maybe even a wizard. Jagang has those, too.”

“To manipulate a witch woman in an insignificant way is far from an easy task.” She shot a brief glare up at Zedd. “Ask your grandfather.”

Shota gestured around at some of the people in the room before her gaze returned to Richard. “A gifted person, even such as these, no matter how talented, could not begin to achieve a deception as comprehensive as this one has been. Only another witch woman could slip herself unseen into my domain. Only another witch woman could draw a shroud over my vision and then bewitch Samuel into doing what he has done.”

“If your vision is shrouded,” Cara asked, “how can you be so certain that Samuel has been bewitched? Maybe he was acting on his own. From what I’ve seen of him, he needs no mysterious enchantress to coax him into impulsive behavior. He seemed plenty treacherous all on his own.”

Shota slowly shook her head. “You have only to look at what you’ve told me to see that this involves not simply cunning but knowledge beyond Samuel’s ability. A Sister of the Dark was attacked; a box of Orden was stolen from her. In the first place, how would Samuel be aware that this woman had anything valuable? I didn’t know of her myself because that is part of what has been hidden from me, so I couldn’t have told him—not even absently, carelessly, or inadvertently, which is what you’re thinking. So, Samuel didn’t learn of it from me. If he happened across a treasure of some sort there is no doubt that Samuel is fully capable of doing whatever he could to snatch it, that much I concede.”

“You mean the way he acquired the Sword of Truth in the first place?” Zedd asked.

Shota met his gaze briefly but chose to return to the matter at hand rather than confront the challenge. “Secondly, how would Samuel know where he could find a Sister carrying a box of Orden? You can’t seriously mean to suggest that you think he simply was wandering around—way off in D’Hara—and by chance happened across this very Sister of the Dark, stabbed her, and robbed her of what she was carrying only to have it turn out to be one of the boxes of Orden?”

“I have to admit,” Richard said, “I never have much believed in coincidence. It certainly doesn’t seem plausible in this case, either.”

“My thoughts, exactly,” Shota said. “And then there’s Chase. Due to his grave condition I wasn’t able to learn much from him, but I was able to discover that he had been ambushed. Another coincidence—Samuel happening across and randomly attacking someone and it just happens to be someone else you know? I hardly think so. That leaves the question of why Samuel would be lying in wait for a man you know. Why would he attack him? What thing of value did Chase have?”

“Rachel,” Zedd answered as he stared off, rubbing his chin in thought.

“But what would he want with a girl?” Cara asked. When several people glanced her way with troubled looks, she added, “I mean, that girl in particular?”

“I don’t know,” Shota said. “And that’s the problem. As I’ve said, the events surrounding all of this are blocked to me, but blocked in a way that I didn’t recognize, so I was unaware that anything was being hidden. It’s obvious that there is a hand directing Samuel. That hand could only be another witch woman’s.”

“Do you know her?” Richard asked. “Do you know who it is, or who she might be?”

Shota regarded him with as forbidding a look as he had ever seen grace such feminine features. “She is a complete mystery to me.”

“Where did she come from? Do you have any idea about that much of it?”

Shota’s scowl only darkened. “Oh, I think I do. I believe she came up from the Old World. When you destroyed the great barrier several years back she no doubt saw an opportunity and moved into my territory—in much the same way that the Imperial Order saw an opportunity to invade and conquer the New World. By bewitching Samuel she is sending a message that she is taking my place, taking what is mine—including my territory—as her own.”

Richard turned toward Ann, off at the side of the anteroom. “Do you know of a witch woman in the Old World?”

“I ran the Palace of the Prophets, guiding young wizards and a whole palace full of Sisters toward the way of the Light. I paid great heed to prophecy in that task but, other than prophecy, I didn’t really involve myself in the goings-on in the rest the Old World. From time to time I heard vague rumors of witch women, but nothing more than rumors. If she was real, she never stuck her head up for me to know of her.”

“I never knew anything of a witch woman, either,” Nathan added with a sigh. “I never even heard the rumors of such a woman.”

Shota folded her arms. “We’re a rather secretive lot.”

Richard wished he knew more about such things—although knowing one witch woman had proven on more than one occasion to be trouble enough. It seemed that there might now be twice the trouble.

“Her name is Six,” Nicci said into the quiet anteroom.

Everyone turned to stare at her.

Shota’s brow drew down. “What did you say?”

“The witch woman down in the Old World. Her name is Six, like the number.” Nicci’s expression had that cool absence of emotion again, her features as still as a woodland pond at dawn after the first hard freeze of the season. “I never met her, but the Sisters of the Dark spoke of her in hushed tones.”

“It would be those Sisters,” Ann grumbled.

Shota’s arms slowly dropped to her sides as she took a step away from the fountain, toward where Nicci stood on the expanse of marble floor at the top of the steps. “What do you know of her?”

“Nothing much. I’ve only heard her name, Six. I only remember it because it was unusual. Some of my superiors at the time—my Sisters of the Dark superiors—apparently did know her. I heard her name mentioned several times.”

Shota’s countenance had turned as dark and dangerous as that of a viper with its fangs bared. “What were Sisters of the Dark doing with a witch woman?”

“I don’t really know,” Nicci said. “They may have had dealings with her, but if they did I never knew about it. I wasn’t always included in their schemes. It may be that they only knew of her. It’s possible they never even met her.”

“Or it’s possible that they knew her well.”

Nicci shrugged. “Maybe. You’d have to ask them. I suggest you hurry—Samuel has already killed one of them.”

Shota ignored the taunt and turned away to stare into the still waters of the fountain. “You must have heard them say something about her.”

“Nothing very specific,” Nicci said.

“Well,” Shota said with exaggerated patience as she turned back around, “what was the general nature of what they were saying about her?”

“I only got a sense of two things. I heard that the witch, Six, lived far to the south. The Sisters mentioned that she lived much deeper down in the Old World, in some of the trackless forests and swampland.” Nicci gazed resolutely into Shota’s eyes. “And they were afraid of her.”

Shota folded her arms across her breasts again. “Afraid of her,” she repeated in a flat tone.

“Terrified.”

Shota appraised Nicci’s eyes for a time before finally yet again turning to stare into the fountain, as if hoping to see some secret revealed in the placid waters.

“There’s nothing to say that it’s the same woman,” Richard said. “There’s no evidence to say that it’s this witch woman, Six, from the Old World.”

Shota glanced back over her shoulder. “You, of all people, suggest that it’s mere coincidence?” Her gaze again sought solace in the waters. “It doesn’t really matter if it is or not. It matters only that it is a witch woman and she is bent on causing me trouble.”

Richard stepped closer to Shota. “I find it pretty hard to believe that this other witch woman would have bewitched Samuel away from you just to show you up and have what’s yours. There has to be more to it.”

“Maybe it’s a challenge,” Cara said. “Maybe she is daring you to come out and fight.”

“That would require her to make herself known,” Shota said. “She has done just the opposite. She is deliberate and calculating about remaining concealed so that I can’t fight her.”

As he considered, Richard rested a boot on the marble bench surrounding the fountain. “I still say there has to be something more to this. Having Samuel steal one of the boxes of Orden has darker implications.”

“The more likely answer points to none other than your own hand, Shota.” Zedd’s words drew everyone’s attention. “This sounds more like one of your grand deceptions.”

“I can understand why you would think so, but if that were true then why would I come here to tell you of it?”

Zedd’s glare didn’t falter. “To make yourself look innocent when you are really the one in the shadows directing events.”

Shota rolled her eyes. “I don’t have time for such childish games, wizard. I have not been directing Samuel’s hand. My time has been spent on other, more important matters.”

“Such as?”

“I have been to Galea.”

“Galea!” Zedd snorted his disbelief. “What business would you have in Galea?”

Jebra laid a hand on Zedd’s shoulder. “She came to rescue me. I was in Ebinissia, caught up in the invasion and then enslaved. Shota pulled me out of the middle of it.”

Zedd turned a suspicious look on Shota. “You went to the crown city of Galea to rescue Jebra?”

Shota glanced briefly at Richard, a clouded look laden with meaning. “It was necessary.”

“Why?” Zedd pressed. “I’m relieved to have Jebra at last rescued from that horror, of course, but what exactly do you mean when you say that it was necessary?”

Shota caught a diaphanous point of the material making up her dress as it lifted ever so gently upward, like a cat arching its back, craving a gentle stroke from its mistress’s hand. “Events march onward toward a grim conclusion. If the course of those events does not change then we will be doomed to the rule of the invaders, bound to the mandate of people whose conviction, among other things, is that magic is an evil corruption that must be eradicated from the world. They believe that mankind is a sinful and corrupt being who should properly be unremarkable and helpless in the face of the almighty spectacle of nature. Those of us who possess magic, precisely because we are not unremarkable and helpless, will all be hunted down and destroyed.”

Shota’s gaze passed among those watching her. “But that is merely our personal tragedy, not the true scourge of the Order.

“If the course of events does not change, then the monstrous beliefs that the Order imposes will settle like a burial shroud over the entire world. There will be no safe place, no refuge. An iron mandate of conformity will be locked around the necks of all those left alive. For the delusion of the common welfare, in the form of lofty slogans and vacuous notions that incite the feckless rabble into nothing more than a mindless lust for the unearned, everything good and noble will be sacrificed, deadening civilized man into little more than an organized mob of looters.

“But once everything of value is plundered, what will be left of their lives? By their contempt for the magnificent and disdain of all that is good, they embrace the petty and the crude. By their rabid hatred for any man who excels, the beliefs of the Order will doom all men to grubbing in the muck to survive.

“The unwavering view of mankind’s inherent wickedness will be the collective faith. That belief, enforced through ruthless brutality and unspeakable hardship, will be their enduring high-water mark. Their legacy will be mankind’s descent into a dark age of suffering and misery from which it may never again emerge. That is the terror of the Order—not death, but life under their beliefs.” Shota’s words cast a pall over the room. “The dead, after all, can’t feel, can’t suffer. Only the living can.”

Shota turned to the shadows, where Nathan stood. “And what say you, prophet? Does prophecy say it otherwise, or do I speak the truth?”

Nathan, tall and grim, answered quietly. “As far as the Imperial Order goes, I’m afraid that prophecy can offer no testimony to the contrary. You have aptly and succinctly described several thousand years of forewarning.”

“Such ancient works are not easily understood,” Ann cut in. “The written word can be quite ambiguous. Prophecy is not a subject for the inexperienced. To the untrained it can seem—”

“I sincerely hope that is a judgment based on a shallow opinion of my looks, Prelate, and not my talent.”

“I was only . . .” Ann began.

Shota dismissively flicked a hand as she turned away. Her gaze settled on Richard, as if he were the only one in the room. She spoke as if addressing him alone.

“Our lives may be the last lives lived free. This may very well be the end for all time of the best of what can be, of striving for values, of the potential for each of us to rise up and achieve something better. If the course of events does not change, then we are now witnessing the dawn of the worst of what can be, of an age where, lest anyone dare live better through their own effort and for their own ends, mankind will be reduced to living the Order’s idealized lives of ignorant savages.”

“We all know that,” Richard said, hands fisted at his sides. “Don’t you understand how hard we’ve been fighting to prevent that very thing? Don’t you have any idea of the struggle we’ve all endured? Just what do you think I’ve been fighting for?”

“I don’t know, Richard. You claim to be committed, and yet you have failed to change the course of events, failed to stem the tide of the Imperial Order. You say that you understand, yet still the invaders come, subjugating more and more people with every passing day.

“But even that is not what this is about. It is about the future. And in the future, you are failing us.”

Richard could hardly believe what he was hearing. He wasn’t just angry but appalled that Shota would say such a thing. It was as if everything he had done, every sacrifice he had made, every effort, was meaningless to her—not only now, but in the future.

“You have come to tell me your prophecy that I will fail?”

“No. I have come to tell you that the way it now stands, unless you change things, we will all fail in this fight.”

Shota turned from Richard and lifted an arm up toward Nicci. “You have shown him the dull, numb death that is all that can result from the beliefs held by the Order. You have shown him the bleak existence that is all there is under their dogma, that life’s only value is in how much of it you sacrifice, that your life’s only purpose is a means to an otherworldly end: a lifeless eternity in the next world.

“In that, you have done us all a great service and you have our gratitude. You have truly fulfilled your role as Richard’s teacher, even if it was not in the way you had expected. But that, too, is only a part of it.”

Richard didn’t see how his captivity—being made to live a harsh life down in the Old World—could be regarded as a service. He hadn’t needed to live through it to understand the hopeless futility of life under the rule of the Imperial Order. He didn’t dispute one word Shota had said about what would befall them if they didn’t prevail, but he was angered that she seemed to think that he needed to hear it again, as if he did not grasp what they were fighting for and as a result was failing to be fully committed to their cause.

Richard didn’t know how it happened, because he had not seen her move, but Shota was suddenly right before him, her face mere inches from his.

“And yet, you are still not cognizant of the totality of it, still not resolved in a way that is essential.”

Richard glared at her. “Not resolved? What are you talking about?”

“I needed to find a way to make you understand, Seeker, to make you see the reality of it. I needed to find a way to make you see what is in store for the people of not just the New World, but the Old World as well—what is in store for all of mankind.”

“How could you possibly think that I—”

“You are the one, Richard Rahl. You are the one who leads the last of the forces that resist the ideas that fuel the conflagration that is the Imperial Order. For whatever reasons, you are the one who leads us in this struggle. You may believe in what you fight for, but you are not doing what is necessary to change the course of the war or else what I see in the flow of events forward in time would not be as it is.

“As it now stands, we are doomed.

“You need to hear what is going to be the fate of your people, the fate of all people. So I went to Galea to find Jebra so that she could tell you what she has seen. So that a Seer can help you to see.”

Richard thought that maybe he should have been angry at the lecture, but he could no longer summon anger; it was slipping away. “I already know what will happen if we fail, Shota. I already know what the Imperial Order is like. I already know what awaits us if we lose in this struggle.”

Shota shook her head. “You know what it is like after. You know what it is like to see the dead. But the dead can no longer feel. The dead can’t scream. The dead can’t cry in terror. The dead can’t beg for mercy.

“You know what it is like to see the wreckage the morning after the storm. You need to hear from one who was there when the storm broke. You need to hear what it was like when the legions came. You need to hear the reality of what it will be like for everyone. You need to know what will happen to those alive if you fail to do what only you can do.”

Richard glanced up at Jebra. Zedd’s comforting arm encircled her shoulders. Tears ran down her ashen face. She trembled from head to toe.

“Dear spirits,” Richard whispered, “how can you be so cruel as to think for an instant that I don’t already know the truth of our fate should we lose?”

“I see the flow of the future in this,” Shota said in a quiet voice meant for him alone. “And what I see is that you have not done enough to change what will be, or else it would not be as I see it. It is as simple as that. There is no cruelty involved, simply truth.”

“Just what is it you expect me to do, Shota?”

“I don’t know, Richard. But whatever it is, you are not doing it, now, are you? As we all slide into unimaginable horror, you are doing nothing to stop it. You are instead chasing phantoms.”