Shroud of Eternity

CHAPTER 27

Seeing the tension in Nicci’s demeanor as they stood together in the slave market, Nathan said, “The legends of Ildakar are better than the reality. This bothers you, Sorceress, and I understand why.”

“Slavery bothers me, in all forms,” she said. “I used to be called the Slave Queen myself, but Richard changed me.”

Bright colors, sweet-smelling flowers, and excited chatter could not hide the fact that this was a grim and dark place. Anger knotted inside Nicci as she watched. “Pretty blooms growing in a pile of manure cannot mask the stench.”

The slave market was an open plaza with perfectly fitted flagstones and tall white buildings on all sides of the square. They passed a new white statue—the defiant young yaxen herder, recently petrified. Most pedestrians paid no attention to the statue, but some did, knowing exactly what it meant. Nicci saw tiny glints of broken mirrors around its base, shards that the street crews had not yet cleaned up.

People flowed in from side streets and main thoroughfares, eager to see what the Norukai ships had brought. Well-dressed merchants and tradesmen were followed by slave workers in drab tunics and plain sandals. Gifted nobles seemed excessively proud of their silks and furs, their golden necklaces, jeweled amulets, and cloak clasps.

Like flowers blooming after a sudden rain in the desert, wine-merchant stalls sprang up. Carts arrived with bottles of bloodwine and a panoply of clay, pewter, or crystal goblets. Food vendors hurried in to claim a good place just outside the square. Small charcoal braziers roasted sizzling meat, and the vendors bellowed over one another, boasting about their merchandise. Sullen slaves carried bolts of cloth for tailors ready to sell new garments for anyone who purchased the day’s slaves and needed them dressed appropriately.

In the center of the slave market, a raised rectangular platform stood empty, ready to hold at least a hundred people. A wooden arbor towered over the platform, draped with dark green vines that curled around the support beams, as if the plants meant to strangle the wood. From the trellis slats overhead drooped lush sweet-smelling flowers, crimson wisterias that looked like gouts of gushing blood.

A flustered-looking wizard Renn wiped his brow, then adjusted his maroon robes as he hurried past. “I need another dozen slaves, but I’ll be gone across the wilderness searching for Cliffwall.” He shook his head. “Keeper’s beard, this is terrible timing for me!” Looking harried, he skewered Nicci and Nathan with a gaze. “You kept detailed accounts of your journeys. Tell me how to find this great archive, so my trip can be swift and efficient.”

Nathan quickly covered his troubled look, and Nicci gave a cool answer. “As I told the sovrena, we must respect their wish to remain isolated.”

Renn pushed out his lower lip, annoyed. “I expected more cooperation from you. I will just head west over the mountains and search in the canyons. With my gift, I’m sure I can’t miss it.” He let out a long sigh, looking around the slave market. “For now, this is a lost opportunity.”

With a snort, Quentin waggled his hands. His cloud of dark gray hair looked like a thunderhead. “Now is the time you need slaves to keep your household together. You can buy them today and let them manage your residence while you’re gone.”

Renn looked at him in horror. “Untrained slaves? They would burn my villa to the ground.”

Quentin snorted again. “Then we’d gut them in public and make an example of them.”

“At the cost of my villa? No thank you.” He fidgeted, then finally gave up in exasperation. “I need to gather my people and supplies. Captain Trevor has his soldiers ready, and we plan to leave the city before sundown. It’s a long journey.” He turned to look hopefully at Nathan. “It’s just over the mountains?”

Warily, Nathan just shrugged.

“Then I must be going.” Renn turned about with a swirl of his robes and left the slave market, exuding disappointment.

The matronly Elsa, with her short graying hair and sturdy figure, stopped beside Nathan and said conversationally, “I could use another four or five household slaves. It’s been months since the Norukai came here with new possibilities, but…” She shrugged, flashed him a faint smile. “I haven’t purchased slaves in years. I suppose it’s overdue. Many of mine are so old they can barely do their chores, but I’m fond of them.”

In raised stone seats not far from the rectangular platform, prospective buyers showed their sacks of coins, declared their intent, and received bidding status. The duma members took reserved seats up the stone steps, but guards raised their hands when Nicci and Nathan attempted to join them. “Apologies,” said a stony-faced young man with corn silk for a beard. “You two are not citizens of Ildakar, and these seats are for bidders only. Unless you intend to spend money on slaves?”

“No, we do not,” Nicci said sharply.

Nathan leaned close, his expression distraught. “Maybe we should, Sorceress. If we had enough gold, we could buy a few of the poor wretches, give them a good life, set them free. We could set an example for the city.”

She looked at her companion, proud of his determination but thinking him naive. “I applaud the suggestion, but where would you get enough Ildakaran coins to outbid all these nobles?”

“If I had my gift, I could create all the gold I might need. It’s a useful skill.…”

“And all the other wizards of Ildakar could do the same. No, we have to think much bigger, find a way to overturn the whole problem. Buying one or two slaves would make no difference.” She narrowed her blue eyes, looking around the crowd, seeing the excitement and hunger in their expressions.

“It would make a difference to the one or two slaves we set free,” he said in a quiet voice.

“In that, you are correct,” she admitted. Her mind prowled through possibilities like a hunting cat, tried to find a way to make a difference. She kept her expression neutral, studying the crowd as it continued to swell. “I always thought I was free, but the Imperial Order had me shackled in chains of my own beliefs. I served Jagang, not knowing I was a slave to my own delusions.”

Nathan stroked his smooth chin. “And as a Sister of the Dark you were trapped by your loyalty to the Keeper.”

She let out a breath slowly to calm herself, but she didn’t want to be calm. She just wanted to focus her determination. How could she fight an entire city, a way of life entrenched for thousands of years, and a cadre of powerful wizards whose gift was unknown?

“Now I’m free to serve Richard Rahl in a quest to make others free.” She looked around the slave market and felt a heaviness in her heart. “But here, I suspect these chains are too thick and too strong.”

“The Sisters kept me a prisoner as well,” Nathan pointed out, “a slave to prophecy, locked in their impregnable tower because of my gift. But I broke free—and you managed to throw off the bonds of the Keeper and of Jagang. Let’s take heart; nothing is impossible.”

Nicci agreed. “Nothing is impossible.”

Arriving late, the fleshmancer Andre hurried through the crowd. Grinning, he shot Nathan a quick glance. “Perhaps I can buy test subjects, and then we can experiment to find a way to give you back the heart you need, hmmm?”

Because the bidders’ stands were full by now, Andre had to take one of the lower seats, which made him moody, but he perked up when drums began to pound outside the square. The audience turned, waiting. Bodies shifted, and the crowd split apart like a stream diverting around a stone.

The Norukai slavers arrived, a procession that stalked into the square. They moved through the gathered people as if they were no more than air.

Nicci bristled. The Norukai were burly men, built to be fighters, made rugged by their windswept islands and their violent lives. Their arms were as thick as any normal man’s thigh. They wore a variety of tough vests made of a thick, scaly leather like sharkskin, but the scales were larger. Each one had iron-shod leather boots, black leggings, and a thick, armored girdle around his waist and hips. An assortment of double-bladed axes, swords, wicked-looking iron clubs, and knives dangled from their belts. Some sported braided leather whips, the tips of which were splayed, like a horse’s tail; the multiple strands would, no doubt, inflict great pain on a victim.

Every one of the Norukai had a hideously scarred face. They intentionally sliced their cheeks from the corners of their lips back to the hinge of the jaw, then stitched them up again. Some had tattooed scale designs to make them look more like the powerful serpents carved into the prows of their ships.

“I remember killing many of them,” Nicci said.

“We saved the people of Renda Bay,” Nathan said. He touched the ornate sword at his side. “I proved I could be a deadly warrior even without my magic.” He flashed his azure eyes at Nicci. “But I would much rather have my magic.”

The Norukai led a procession of more than a hundred captive men, women, and children. All were gaunt, dusty, and miserable, wearing only scraps of clothes. Some still wore ragged boots or sandals, while others were barefoot, trailing blood across the flagstones as they stumbled along. Most kept their eyes cast down toward the heels of the person in front of them. When a few saw the broad platform in the center of the slave market, they began to mutter.

Nicci’s stomach clenched, her fist opened and closed as anger flared inside her. With a surge, she could release wizard’s fire and kill all of the raiders … but what good would that do? She had been reckless before, fighting for lost causes, but this was a greater battle, and she had to do it properly.

A captive woman moaned and sniffled, struggling mightily not to wail. One of the Norukai struck her on the side of the face, his knuckles smashing her temple so that she reeled. As she started to collapse, the slaver grasped her hair and yanked her back up, dragging her along. She stumbled, her legs flopped, and she fought to regain control of her body. One of her fellow slaves took her arm, tried to help her along. Eventually, somehow, the woman found the strength to keep her feet moving.

While the slavers were distracted by the stumbling woman, a bedraggled man bolted from the line of prisoners and rushed into the crowd, as if he expected to disappear among them.

“What does he think he’s doing?” Nathan cried.

Nicci straightened, ready to fight in case a brawl broke out. “He’s a fool.”

The desperate man took four steps, holding up his hands as if someone from Ildakar might take him under their wing.

Two Norukai broke from their escort line and lunged after him like wolves. One Norukai drew a sword, swept his arm back, and skewered the fleeing man through the ribs. Blood sprouted like a blossom in his side. With a gleeful expression in his eyes, although his slashed and mangled lips could not show a smile, the second Norukai withdrew an iron club studded with metal points at the top, like fangs. He swung the club down on the captive’s shoulder, smashing through skin and bone. The desperate man was already collapsing, mortally wounded from the sword thrust. Even so, the second Norukai struck him in the back of the head, caving in his skull.

The Ildakaran spectators recoiled to avoid being splashed by the gore, and yet they were fascinated. Another blow smashed the man’s face into the paving stones of the square. The first Norukai raised his sword again, stabbed the man in the back, then stabbed him five more times, while his companion continued to pound him with the spiked iron club until the victim was no more than a human-shaped stain oozing onto the flagstones.

Satisfied, the two slavers replaced their weapons and returned to the line. The remaining captives were aghast, sickened—chastened.

As if they had expected this to happen, Ildakaran slaves arrived in the square with buckets and brushes and began to clean up the mess.

The Norukai leader at the front of the procession had a hooded brow and a high forehead. His face and head were shaved smooth, but on the left side of his skull, above the temple, a sharp triangular tooth was inset, perhaps a shark’s tooth. Skin and scar tissue had grown around it so that it looked as if the tooth sprouted from his head.

Nathan muttered, “Dear spirits, they find new ways to make themselves more appallingly ugly than the last.”

Sitting nearby on the row of stone seats, Andre clucked his tongue. “Yes, it is disappointing. Their techniques are so crude. I could easily have reshaped them with my gift, but they seem to enjoy the pain and scars.”

“No doubt it makes them feel strong and brave,” Nicci said. “I’ve known men like that before.”

Dressed in business robes, slave merchants gathered on the rectangular platform under the trellis of red flowers, waiting for the captives to arrive. The Norukai leader raised his voice defiantly. His loose, gashed jaw distorted his words, but the power in his voice was unmistakable. “I am Kor, captain of this brace of ships. We’ve brought one hundred sixty to your market. We expect a good price. We will be glad to rid ourselves of this walking meat.”

The Norukai herded the captives onto the large platform where the cowed and whimpering men, women, and children stood under the high trellis. The raiders glowered at them, making guttural sounds in their throats, calling up saliva that made their exhalations sound like serpent hisses.

Ildakaran slave merchants hurried about, tugging down the lush green vines of the wisterias. When they touched vine tendrils to the captives, like laughably thin ropes to hold them in place, the slaves became docile. Their expressions of terror melted into contented apathy.

Even from the bidding benches, Nicci could smell the flower perfume growing thicker, headier. She began to feel dizzy, and she assumed it was some kind of drug, a tranquilizing effect from the flowers, enhanced by the merchants’ gift.

When all the captives had been tamed, the slave merchants went up and down the rows, ripping the rags, pulling off tunics, scraps of cloth, dresses and shawls that covered the haggard and abused captives. The merchants took special pleasure in exposing the young women, even fondling their breasts while the audience made comparative notes. The most beautiful girls were brought to the front. One of the slave merchants slapped at their inner thighs, making them spread their legs apart so that all prospective buyers could see their thatches of hair.

Young children were herded in another section, also naked, for sale to the more disgusting appetites of Ildakar. The stronger male captives were segregated, as were the middle-aged women, who would be the best domestic servants. The observers talked in a drone of casual conversation, while Nicci simply felt fire in her throat, all of her unspoken words turning to acid.

Elsa pointed to the group of middle-aged women and called out, “What is the starting bid for those four?”

Chief Handler Ivan growled in his deep voice, “And those men, the front ones. Are they combat-trained? Can they fight in the arena?”

Captain Kor sneered up at the buyers in the stands. “I did not interview them about their skills. I have no need for housekeepers on our serpent ships, so they cowered belowdecks. During the raids, we killed any man who fought against us, so I would say that these are not the best fighters.” He glanced at the captives crowded on the platform and turned back with a withering glare. “You ask questions that do not interest me. These are only walking meat. Norukai are the herdsmen and, if necessary, the butchers. Buy them and do with them what you will.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Nicci saw a young man pushing his way through the crowd—Bannon. He looked sullen, his long ginger hair tied back in a ponytail that fell between his shoulders. He reached Nicci and Nathan, shaking his head. “I was with Amos and the others when we saw the ships come in. But I … I had to come here. I had to see. All these people…” He swallowed hard. “Ian was one of them, years ago.”

Nicci knew what he was thinking. Very likely his friend had been in the same situation, beaten into submission, starved into weakness, unable to fight, held listless by the vines of the bloodred wisterias.

“I’ll bid four golds for those four domestic women,” Elsa said. “They look useful, and I’ll treat them well.”

“I care not how you treat them,” Kor said.

“Four golds?” another woman grumbled. “You set the price too high!”

“If you pay well and treat them well, they serve you well,” Elsa said.

One fat nobleman touched his fingertips together, like a spider dancing on a mirror. “How much for the three little boys, the tender ones?”

The boys didn’t even flinch. They stood naked at the corner of the dais, touched by the tendrils of the vines.

“Enough—this market is over!” said a powerful voice. Sovrena Thora emerged from the main thoroughfare on the left, walking alongside Maxim. She still showed no warmth toward her husband, but they seemed united in their purpose now.

“We invoke the city privilege,” Maxim said. “We’ll buy the whole lot.”

The slave merchants looked surprised. “But we have yet to set a fair price, Wizard Commander.”

“We have the entire city treasury,” he said flippantly. “It’ll be a fair price … but we want them all.”

Quentin said, “You can’t cull out just a few of them? This is the first time the Norukai have arrived in months. The whole city has need of slaves. So many have fled once the shroud started going down, thanks to Mirrormask helping them escape.”

“Our own slaves are breeding well enough,” Thora said. “We require these for the upcoming blood magic to restore the shroud. That will stop them from fleeing.”

Elsa looked nervous and disappointed. “In the past you needed only fifteen or twenty slaves to erect the shroud. There are one hundred sixty here.”

Thora sniffed. “Perhaps we mean to do a greater bloodworking this time, a more permanent spell.”

“It never hurts to be sure,” Maxim said. He gestured to the stone benches where the disappointed bidders sat squirming. “Elsa has set the price—four golds for four slaves. I’ll have the treasurer settle up with the merchants.” He gave a polite nod to Captain Kor. “You’ll be paid well enough that I hope you return the next time our shroud comes down.”

“If we ever allow it to come down,” Thora said.

The crowd muttered at having their entertainment cut short. The wine merchants dropped their prices and shouted their specials. Food vendors waved leftover skewers and pastries in the air.

Queasy, Bannon shook his head. “I do not like this city,” he said, looking at Nathan. “Do you have any hope Andre will restore your gift soon? There’s so much more of the Old World to explore.” He swallowed. “Isn’t there?”

Nathan said, “I’m as anxious to be on our way as you are.”

Nicci, though, was hard and determined. “I am reluctant to abandon these people. Ildakar was once a bright and legendary city, but now it is a festering sore. Lord Rahl sent us on our mission. Could there be any more fundamental need than these people have demonstrated? How can we not help them? We must find a way to overthrow this practice and bring freedom—as Richard demands.”

Nathan looked as if he had swallowed a piece of rotten fruit. “I cannot help you fight until I get my gift back … and in order to accomplish that, I have to play along with these people, even though I’m beginning to despise what I see all around me.” He looked discouraged, angry at his own helplessness. “Sorceress, you can’t bring down a city’s centuries-old tradition all by yourself.”

She fastened her blue-eyed gaze upon him. “I’m not alone. I have you.”

Bannon stepped close and touched the hilt of his sword. “And me.”