Shroud of Eternity

CHAPTER 60

As she recovered in the shadowy aqueducts of Ildakar, Nicci found the strength to use her own healing gift to repair the bruises and knit the cracked bones.

Someone had used moist cloths for tender ministrations while she was unconscious, cleaning her up, wiping the blood from her face. But, more mystifying, she knew that someone else had healed her enough to keep her alive. Therefore, someone among the rebels possessed the gift, which meant that not all of these rebels were mere slaves or members of the lower classes. The ability to heal injuries so severe was not minimal magic.

When Nicci asked Melba and the others about it, no one answered her questions, but she didn’t need to know the answers. She would rely on herself, gather her own strength. She was already making plans about how to challenge the ruling council members again, particularly Sovrena Thora.

As soon as she was ready.

Restless, she explored the aqueduct tunnels that wound throughout the city. One of the rebels who attended her, a soft-spoken middle-aged man named Rendell, accompanied her with a lit lantern. He knew his way around the maze.

He explained, “Our water supply flows in from creeks and streams across the plain, but the bulk of it comes from the Killraven River.”

“But the river is far below, at the bottom of the bluff,” Nicci said.

“The wizards use transfer runes to make the water flow where they wish it to go—uphill, downhill, it does not matter.” Rendell paused at an intersection, looked at the flowing water in the canal, and chose to go left. Nicci followed him. The light of his lantern shed a warm orange glow on the sandstone walls. “With their gift they distribute water throughout the city, filling the fountains, basins, and gardens of the gifted nobles.”

Nicci adjusted the skirts at her knees as she bent down and extended her fingers into the flowing water. “That must require a great effort.”

He looked at her. “Of course, and the wizards of Ildakar are not averse to making grand and unnecessary gestures to prove their strength.”

Nicci wiped her wet hand on her dress. “No, I suppose they’re not.”

Rendell was a household slave who had run away from the wizard Damon, had changed his allegiance to Mirrormask, and had hidden here in the aqueducts for more than a year. Damon had considered the man nothing more than an object, like furniture. Although Rendell’s expression rarely showed any emotions, his eyes flashed when he spoke about his freedom. Nicci could read the simmering outrage there, a power that Mirrormask had channeled. All of his followers felt the same way.

Nicci spoke to them in order to understand who they were. Some were escaped household slaves who had been in Ildakar for their entire lives, while others were new arrivals, sold by the Norukai in the last few years. Some visited the tunnels rarely, while others remained underground all the time, like beetles burrowing through the rotted hulk of a fallen tree. Mirrormask visited only every day or so, and even in the safe secrecy of the tunnels he never removed the reflective disguise across his face.

He found Nicci while she walked the tunnels with her guide. Her own distorted reflection greeted her where his face should have been. “There you are! I know you are growing impatient, Sorceress. Come with me. We have another guest down here in the aqueducts, and I think you will enjoy our conversation with him.” With a swirl of his gray robes, he strode down the tunnel. “It will likely be his last conversation.”

Nicci followed, wary and curious. They passed along the branched, low-ceilinged tunnels and crossed over narrow plank bridges the rebels had laid down. Near an intersection of canals, they came upon a small alcove which had become a dungeon cell.

A naked man was manacled to the rough wall. Iron bolts fastened the chains securely in place, and the prisoner stood stretched upright, so that his feet barely touched the ground. When the man saw them coming, he twisted and thrashed, hissing at them like a captive reptile.

The comparison was apt, Nicci saw, when she recognized the horrifically scarred face, the slashes from the corners of the lips all the way back to the hinge of the jaw, the scale tattoos, the pair of long thin brown braids that dangled from the back of his shaved skull. A glare simmered in the captive Norukai’s shadowed eyes. He twisted on the chains, throwing himself to the extent of the links. She watched the muscles ripple beneath his emaciated form. His ribs stood out, reminding her of the sea-serpent skeleton that she, Nathan, and Bannon had encountered along the shore of the Phantom Coast.

“That’s the Norukai who went missing.” She narrowed her eyes, trying to recall the man’s name. “Dar.”

“Yes, the others sailed off without him, which demonstrates how loyal they are to their own people,” said Mirrormask. “The Norukai wear the armor of arrogance, but that armor is no shield against freedom. Dar now understands what it is like to be a captive.”

“Walking meat,” Nicci said.

The Norukai snapped his jaws like a wild animal trying to bite its tormentor.

“Well, he won’t be walking very much.” Mirrormask stepped up to within a handsbreadth of the twisting prisoner. “His comrades left him here for us to play with. Many of my followers remember the gentle caresses of the Norukai before they were sold to Ildakar.”

Much of Dar’s body was an angry deep red. All along his arms, as well as rectangular patches on his thighs and the left side of his back, his flesh was raw and red. She realized that the skin had been flayed off of him.

Mirrormask saw her attention and said, “I have to give my followers something. I give them sharp knives and let them take their revenge, one narrow strip at a time.” He chuckled. “The waiting list is quite long.” He turned his reflective face toward Nicci, and although she could read no expression, she heard the tone of his muffled voice change. “It has been a challenge for me to keep the others from killing him. Such anger…” Under the hood, he shook his head. “Such anger could be so useful.”

“And has the pain been useful, too? Have you interrogated him?” Nicci knew how dangerous and loathsome the Norukai were, and she didn’t trust them to have no interest beyond mere trade. “Do you know why they come to Ildakar?”

“To sell slaves.”

“And is that all? I think I can get more information from him.” Nicci actually relished the prospect. She remembered how the ruling council had seen no advantage in questioning the rejuvenated stone soldier Ulrich.

“We are fighting for freedom,” said Mirrormask. “We have little experience in interrogation.”

Nicci smiled. “Then allow me.” She recalled torturing captives for Emperor Jagang, and she had been very good at extracting vital information. “A flicker of fire in the lung, cracking one bone at a time, raising heat in the marrow, or maybe freezing one eyeball, then the other.”

Dar strained against his manacles again, and Nicci saw the raider’s strength in the rattling links. Given time and his refusal to accept the pain around his bloodied wrists, Dar could probably work the iron bolts free from the sandstone wall—if Mirrormask decided to keep him that long.

Dar hissed and snapped his grotesque mouth. “You will all die! King Grieve will avenge me.”

“King Grieve doesn’t know you are here,” Mirrormask said, “and since the shroud is back in place again, there’s nothing he can do.”

Grimacing in pain, Dar thrashed again. “Oh, he will be back the moment your shroud drops. He will bring all the Norukai. He is already building his navies and his armies.”

“You sound brave,” Nicci said, “but I know nothing about this King Grieve. He can’t be much of a threat.”

“You will know his name,” Dar snarled. “Grieve—named because that is what people do when they have seen him.”

Nicci realized that the Norukai was simmering. He wanted to boast about his people. “He is so eager to talk, I might not even need to use my techniques.” Disappointment was clear in her voice.

Mirrormask said in a bored voice, “King Grieve will get revenge. Yes, yes, we’re very frightened.” He turned to Nicci. “Sorceress, would you like to peel a strip of skin for your own satisfaction?” He withdrew a curved, golden-hilted knife from his gray robe.

Nicci recognized it. “That looks like one of the sacrificial knives the council members held during the blood magic.”

“Yes, a fitting irony, don’t you think? One of the raiders who sold the sacrificial slaves now has to face pain from the same sort of knife.”

“Where did you get it?” Nicci asked.

Mirrormask held up the blade, turned it in front of his reflective face as if regarding the details. “My followers are everywhere.”

“King Grieve and his army will come here,” Dar insisted. “Why do you think our slavers trade with Ildakar? We are gathering information. You think your city is invincible, but you are overconfident and weak.” His excessive jaw opened and closed like a flapping skull. He worked up the saliva to spit at them, but it only drooled down the scarred sides of his mouth. “We sell the walking meat, take your gold, and learn everything about your city so that we can capture it along with the rest of the Old World.”

“He is quite ambitious, isn’t he?” Mirrormask said in his muffled voice.

Nicci did not dismiss the threat so lightly. “What do you mean, the Norukai have armies and navies? How do they intend to conquer the Old World?”

Dar sneered at them. “You are all walking meat to us. You are weak. We build our strength on the Norukai islands, and we intend to take over the mainland.” He laughed. “We saw the thousands of stone soldiers outside of your city. You thought that was a fierce army? With our ships, we will have twice as many warriors—and soon we will launch.” He laughed, knowing he would die eventually.

Nicci wondered how long the rebels would continue peeling the skin off of him. He could probably survive for days longer.

Rendell and several other rebels had quietly followed them down the tunnels to watch the interrogation, and many of them seemed restless and hungry, wanting their chance to inflict pain as well.

Mirrormask looked at the golden-handled knife, where his reflection ricocheted in the polished steel of the blade. “Alas, you will not be here to see that victory.”

In a swift motion, he slashed the Norukai’s throat. Dar writhed and jittered on the manacle chains. As blood spurted out, Mirrormask deftly stepped aside so that the spraying crimson did not splatter his gray robe, but several warm drops struck Nicci’s cheek. The other rebels stood back, muttering as the blood flowed down the slaver’s naked chest, pooling on the narrow walkway and dripping into the canal, adding blood to the city’s water supply.

The people of Ildakar had been exposed to blood before. Nicci was not queasy about the murder of Dar, or the blood in the canal. “I do not like his talk of a great conquering army. What do we know of the Norukai?”

“Very little, nor do I care,” Mirrormask said. “We are protected inside the shroud. The business of Ildakar is my concern.”

After Dar stopped twitching, Mirrormask grasped his forehead and pressed him back against the sandstone wall. He pressed hard with the long knife and sawed across the throat again, slicing through the larynx, windpipe, and finally the spine. He held Dar’s severed head by one of the dangling braids at the back of the skull and tossed it to Rendell, who meekly caught it. Blood splashed on the escaped slave’s drab clothes.

Mirrormask said, “Under cover of darkness, take that and mount it on a pike somewhere inside the city. Because of the shroud, we can’t take it to one of the paths leading to Ildakar, as we did with the others. But the message should be plain enough.”

The rebel leader turned and strode away along the aqueduct tunnels, leaving his hidden nest of followers.