Shroud of Eternity

CHAPTER 50

Bloody after the battle in the training tunnels, Adessa rolled a wooden cart out into the street. One of the wooden wheels squeaked and wobbled as she pulled it along. Its red-stained bed held the burly form of Chief Handler Ivan.

Adessa released the handles and turned toward the bloody form lying in the shadows. “Ivan used this cart to bring butchered meat for his pets.” She smiled at the irony. “It seemed appropriate.”

Taking Nathan’s wrist, Andre pulled him closer. “Come, you must see! What a wonderful opportunity, hmmm?”

Nathan looked down at the body, disturbed. The chief handler sprawled motionless. The tan leather of his jerkin had been shredded by the claws. Fangs had savaged his spine, torn a huge chunk from his shoulder, ripped open his ribs. The three panthers had eviscerated him, and his glistening guts lay spread out. Ivan’s bearded face was twisted, his lips drawn back to expose his teeth, as if caught in a howl. His eyes were wide open and staring—but frozen.

“You were most fortunate, Nathan. If I hadn’t been here…” Andre gestured to the man’s torn abdomen. Ivan looked like a clumsily gutted fish.

“I am not feeling terribly lucky right now,” Nathan said.

“Oh, but you should, hmmm? The sand panthers caused horrific damage, but the rib cage and breastbone protected his heart. The organ is intact—exactly what you need.”

Nicci showed no grief for the man’s bloody and painful end. “He deserved whatever they did to him, but Ivan is dead now, just like the cats he trained.”

She looked around them, where workers with carts were cleaning up the massacre, hauling corpses away, animals and humans alike. The city guard plucked crossbow bolts from the bodies to wash and return them to their store of weapons. Downcast slaves came forward with buckets to wash the blood off the streets, kneeling to scrub with thick, stiff-bristled brushes.

“Oh, but Ivan isn’t dead, Sorceress,” Andre said. “I reached him just in time. He was very near death, wallowing in agony, bleeding every drop of life away. I fear his heart had only a few more beats left in it. But I worked my spell and preserved him. I stopped time around his body, so he will endure that last endless moment of pain, on the very cusp of death. I’m sure he desperately wants that moment to end, to slip through the veil into the underworld. But is there any better way for one to remember being alive, hmmm?”

“I can think of many better ways,” Nicci said.

Nathan shook his head, exhausted and trying to understand. He could barely breathe with the suffocating stench of blood hanging like a metallic fog in the air.

“As I said, Nathan—and soon I will call you Wizard Nathan, ha ha!” The fleshmancer reached down to touch the mangled body, running his fingers through the sticky blood that covered the leather jerkin. “In order to restore your gift, you need the heart of a wizard. Chief Handler Ivan is a powerful wizard, and as you can see, he no longer needs his heart. I intend to give it to you.”

As if with a sympathetic connection, Nathan’s own heart skipped a beat. “Accept his heart? You mean … in a literal sense?”

“Of course, my friend! What did you think I was talking about, some esoteric wish? I am a fleshmancer. You have been to my studio. You’ve watched me work with living forms as a sculptor works clay.”

Nathan shuddered, taking a step back from the cart and its bloody burden. He recalled with the clarity of shattered crystal how Andre had created the two-headed fighter from the pieces of grievously injured fighters. “Dear spirits…”

Andre was not deterred. “It is the only way to restore your gift, as I said. I thought that was what you wanted, hmmm?”

Nathan reeled, and Nicci reached out to grasp his arm. Her fingers felt like an iron clamp. She turned to the fleshmancer with clear challenge in her tone. “How can you be certain this will work?”

“There are never guarantees, Sorceress. We are speaking of magic, and there is a … variable factor. But I am confident. I’ve done far more challenging experiments.” He glanced at the bodies of the monstrous arena animals being hauled away. “I’ve had mixed success, I admit, but I am an artist.” He stroked his bloody hands down the thick braided beard on his chin, leaving red streaks on the pale whiskers. His eyes bored into Nathan’s uncertain expression. “Is this not why you came to Ildakar in the first place? Did you not stand before the wizards’ duma and beg for our help to restore your gift? This is us helping you.” He gestured to the torn body.

The glint of agony on Ivan’s face remained unchanged. The whites of his pain-widened eyes were muddled with red from hemorrhages. Nathan could only imagine how much torment the chief handler was undergoing, endlessly, every instant.

Perhaps as much pain as he himself had inflicted on the animals that had attacked him.

Swallowing hard, Nathan felt his pulse racing, his heart beating. His heart, the heart that had lost its Han, thus rendering him useless as a wizard. Yes, he had read the words written in his life book, Red’s pronouncement. From Kol Adair he would behold what he needed to make himself whole again—and from Kol Adair he had seen this marvelous city in the distance. Ildakar.

The wizards of Ildakar were among the most powerfully gifted in all of history.

This was why he and his companions had come here. He had begged for a solution. How often had he demanded that Andre find a way? And if this was the only way in which he could regain his gift, the only way he could be a powerful wizard again, then Nathan must do it to help Nicci, and Bannon … and even Mirrormask. Was that their destiny? If he had his gift back, they could remake the city of Ildakar into the wondrous place it aspired to be. That was exactly what Richard had dispatched them to do, to spread his cause of freedom, to help build a golden age for the new and expanded D’Haran Empire.

Yes, this was why Nathan had come to Ildakar.

“I agree,” he said, in a quiet voice. “I’ll do it.” He looked at Nicci, knowing she could read the tension on his face. But he was Nathan Rahl. He was strong. He was brave. And he had already lived more than a thousand years.

“As you wish, Wizard,” Nicci said.

“Good, good!” The fleshmancer rubbed his hands together. He barked orders at two slave workers who were lifting a spiny wolf onto a sledge to haul the body away. “Come, take this cart to my studio. It isn’t far—bring the chief handler. Nathan and I will follow. We have much to accomplish this night.”

* * *

As he sat on the clean table inside the fleshmancer’s studio, Nathan felt cold sweat on his body. Memories of what he had previously seen there yammered through his mind, but he tried to control his thoughts.

“Nothing to fear,” he muttered to himself, but the words sounded false to the point of being ridiculous. He had much to fear and much to endure, but he had made his decision.

“Remove your robe and smallclothes, Nathan, or they will be completely soaked and ruined with all the blood.”

“I don’t find that statement very heartening,” Nathan muttered.

“Heartening? Quite amusing, my friend,” the fleshmancer chuckled.

Nathan found no humor in the unintended joke. He drew a breath and undid his borrowed wizard’s robe, exposing his chest. “When I have my gift back, I will wear this proudly. I will have earned it.” He slipped the green robe off and cast it on the floor beside the table. Naked, he lay back on the cold surface. Ready.

Andre puttered about, humming to himself. “I agree, and now that the shroud is restored, you shall be here in Ildakar for a long time to come. You’ll have ample opportunity to exercise your gift. And there is an important purpose now, hmmm?”

“What is that?” Nathan asked.

“After the death of Ivan, and with Renn gone, the wizards’ duma is certainly in need of a new member. Perhaps that could be you.”

On the table adjacent to Nathan lay the chief handler’s burly form. The mangled jerkin was peeled away to expose his torn flesh. His eyes still stared upward with that single spark of endless pain.

The fleshmancer ran his hands over Ivan’s broad chest. He bent close to the man’s bearded face, to the snarled agony on his lips. “My dear Ivan, we had some fine times did we not? I did tell you on numerous occasions that if you played with such dangerous pets, then someday you would get hurt. I created them, and I know how dangerous they can be.” He stroked the skin, pressed his palm down on the breastbone, listened, frowned.

“But with half of your animals slain in such a debacle, you would have died from embarrassment, I’m sure. This way your death serves a glorious purpose, helping to restore poor Nathan. Now he can become the powerful wizard that you apparently failed to be.” Andre grinned down at the burly man. “Not that you ever wished to help people, did you?”

He straightened the fingers on both of his hands and pointed them down, palms together, like a pair of spatulas. Summoning his gift, the fleshmancer dipped his fingertips directly into Ivan’s chest. He pushed downward, easily penetrating the skin and the breastbone as if it were no more than butter, then pulled his hands apart. A loud crack and a wet squelching sound accompanied the movement, and a red, yawning gap opened in the center of Ivan’s chest. The fleshmancer moved aside the pieces he didn’t need, exposing the beet-red heart tangled with veins and nestled between his pink foamy lungs. “My, what a beauty! Would you like to have a look, Nathan?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Nathan’s stomach twisted and roiled. He lay back, breathing hard.

Andre rummaged around inside Ivan’s chest cavity, using his fingertips to magically snip the connecting blood vessels, working his gift on the time-frozen heart. Finally he lifted his trophy, like a midwife holding up a newly delivered baby. “There we are!”

Nathan dredged up his courage again. This is what I wanted. This is why I came to Ildakar.

“You look terribly frightened, my friend. There’s no need. Have confidence in me.” Andre smiled. Specks of blood dotted his pale cheeks. “I’ve never actually done this before, but I’m certain I can figure it out.”

Nathan quailed, tried to cringe away, but he could barely move.

The fleshmancer reached a bloody hand toward where Nathan lay, gestured with his fingers, and released a quick flow of his gift. The magic washed over Nathan’s chest like a bucket of water on a cold winter’s morning. He found he couldn’t move. Everything inside him was completely frozen.

“I’ve stopped time within you as well. Your heart is no longer beating, your body no longer functioning, your blood no longer flowing. Fortunately, your mind still works. Your thoughts are able to observe what I am doing. As an educated man and a wizard, you’ll appreciate the experience.”

Nathan wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t flinch, couldn’t control a cell in his body.

“The nerves themselves still function,” Andre continued, “so I’m afraid you’ll feel all of the pain. Just keep in mind, it is a reminder that you are still alive.” He leaned close to Nathan’s face. “And you will feel very, very alive.”

He ran his fingers down Nathan’s chest, caressing the skin, lingering longer than was absolutely necessary. Nathan couldn’t raise his head to see exactly what the fleshmancer was doing. He watched Andre straighten his fingers just as he had done above Ivan.

Andre plunged his hands deep into Nathan’s chest.