Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 47

After an endless but brief journey immersed in the silvery froth of the sliph, Nicci emerged from a well nearly identical to the one in Ildakar. She couldn’t see through the quicksilver behind her eyes, inside her mouth and lungs.

“Breathe!” the sliph commanded. “Breathe now!”

Nicci choked, coughed. She had been engulfed in that otherworldly presence, soaring along, but now that they had arrived at their destination, the sliph ejected her. Nicci tumbled over the low wall around the well.

She dropped to her knees and sucked in lungfuls of air, tried to assemble details, remembering where she expected to be. Tanimura! Dry branches, weeds, and twigs snapped under her knees and palms as she moved forward, then climbed back to her feet.

She saw an overcast night sky above, crisscrossed with forest branches. She heard the whispering sounds of night insects, the cry of a hunting bird, but she saw no sign of any city. “Where?” she coughed out, and turned to see the form of the hard-featured silver woman rising above the mirrored pool.

“Tanimura. As you commanded.”

Nicci looked around. “This is a forest.”

“The forest is outside of Tanimura. Because of our hidden plans in the war, we could not put the sliph well in the middle of the city where others might find it.” The sliph looked at Nicci as if she were slow-witted. “You can walk to your rendezvous from here.”

Nicci slowly recognized the Hagen Woods, a wilderness on the outskirts of Tanimura. “At least the well wasn’t inside the Palace of the Prophets,” she said. “It has been destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” said the sliph, sounding surprised. “As part of a battle? Is it a great victory for our cause?”

“The palace was destroyed in a battle,” Nicci answered cautiously, not wanting to give information that the sliph didn’t need to know. “I have my mission. I will call you when I am ready to return.”

The sliph’s features showed nothing but determination. “I will be here. We must achieve victory against the evil wizards of the New World.”

The strange creature settled back into her metallic pool like a candle melting in a puddle of wax. Nicci heard a rushing sound as the silver froth retreated into the depths.

The Hagen Woods … it made sense to her now. For centuries this dark forest had been a sinister place, supposedly haunted and dangerous. The gifted young men trained by the Sisters were warned never to go there, but Nicci and the Sisters of the Dark had performed numerous rituals in the woods. With a chill, Nicci remembered when she herself had been brought into the forest as a young convert, surrounded by grim Sisters who indoctrinated her into the service of the Keeper. The initiation had been horrific and painful. The other Sisters had watched with acid enjoyment as they tied Nicci down and summoned the Keeper’s monstrous servant. She’d been forced to submit to the brutal caresses of the warty-skinned being who took her and took her again, as she writhed in pain, unable to fight. Nicci had wept but clenched her teeth, trying not to scream. It hadn’t been rape because she had requested it. She surrendered her body and soul, and it had changed her forever.

Now she shuddered. No wonder the sliph well had remained hidden in the Hagen Woods for all this time. Few people explored here, and those who did seldom returned. Nicci wondered how long the rumors and warnings had existed about the dark forest. Maybe this had been part of Sulachan’s insidious cause, too, a bastion of rumors spread to keep the woods empty so the sliph could transport spies whenever she wished.

After marking the location of the well so she could find it again, Nicci worked her way through the shadowy forest, finally coming upon a clearing from which she could see the delta of the Kern River and the lights of Tanimura. She knew where to go.

With the cloth-wrapped glass secured against her side, Nicci walked in her black dress through the underbrush. She made her way down to the city’s outer districts by dawn. She had walked these streets for many years on business for the Palace of the Prophets.

In the port where sailing ships docked and unloaded their exotic cargo, she had served the Sisters for decades, arranging for supplies, negotiating with craftsmen, buying fabrics, commissioning garments to be made by seamstresses. Nicci remembered that Sister Hilda had been fond of preserved kraken meat, and she had often been dispatched to buy a crate of the fresh catch when the stinking, oily ships came in. No one but Sister Hilda could tolerate the rubbery meat that befouled the air of the palace kitchens whenever the chefs attempted to cook it. Hilda offered to share her delicacy, but none of the Sisters accepted her offer.

Nicci had also gone on dark missions for the Keeper, helping recruit for the Sisters of the Dark, assassinating victims identified by the Keeper, although she was never allowed to know why such people needed to die. Nicci didn’t ask, suspecting it might just be a test to prove her unquestioning loyalty.

She walked into the streets of Tanimura as the sun rose and craftsmen emerged sleepy-eyed, building fires in their forges, filling cooling buckets from public wells. Tanners began scraping skins stretched on racks, potters added water to soft clay or brushed glaze on unfired pots they had fashioned the previous day and let dry overnight.

Barking dogs chased chickens into alleys. Children walked with their mothers, carrying dough for community ovens where the women would bake the day’s bread and carry it home in baskets. Nicci walked among them, calling no attention to herself. She remembered Tanimura as a thriving place with markets, crowded dwellings, inns and brothels, glassblowers and leatherworkers. She wasn’t a customer, though. She needed to find the D’Haran garrison.

Richard had begun to consolidate the new reaches of his empire. The first soldiers had come down to Tanimura by the time she and Nathan arrived here on their travels. Now she hoped the military had a significant presence in Tanimura so she could deliver her report about Utros’s huge army.

Pausing at the stall of a man who made jaunty hats, she asked, “Where can I find the garrison? Surely there is a commander here.”

“Of course!” the hatmaker said. “My, but they are excellent customers. Soldiers off duty love a fine hat for when they flirt with the ladies. My partner in the next block makes felt jackets and fur-lined cloaks. He and I are the ones who make the D’Haran army look so dashing.”

“I don’t care whether they are dashing,” Nicci said. “They need to be warned. Where can I find them?”

The man straightened his hats on display, running his fingers along a dyed feather. “General Linden is in charge of the garrison, since General Zimmer and Prelate Verna took a large expeditionary force to the south.”

“Verna?” Nicci asked, remembering Verna from the Palace of the Prophets. She was the one who had finally brought Richard in so he could begin his training. “With the Palace of the Prophets ruined and prophecy itself eliminated, I’m surprised there are any Sisters who need a prelate at all.”

“Oh, there are still Sisters, my lady. I don’t know what the world would come to if there were no Sisters of the Light! Who would hold the Keeper at bay, I ask you?” He chuckled nervously.

“Who indeed?” Nicci asked, then added in a firm voice, “Tell me how to find the garrison.”

It was midmorning by the time she worked her way around the bustling harbor, through market squares, to the district where the D’Haran garrison was. Because she had spent so much time in the city, some of the townspeople actually knew Nicci. Her dress was distinctive because she had always worn black, even among the Sisters who more often chose bright colors.

The D’Haran army had coopted several multistoried inns and warehouses. The buildings had been gutted and remodeled, and lumber from numerous sawmills brought in to erect barracks inside the compound. Soldiers wearing the armor of D’Hara marched on patrol. Tanimura would be a good beachhead for Richard’s expanding empire. Even though the city might have seemed the southern limit of civilized lands, Nicci now knew there was far more to the Old World, including General Utros and his vast army.

As two soldiers walked toward her, side by side, nodding politely to passersby, Nicci was glad to see that the Tanimurans were not frightened by the soldiers, unlike the reaction when Jagang’s army occupied a town. Nicci stepped in front of the pair, blocking their way. “Gentlemen, I need you to take me to your commander.”

The two young soldiers blinked in surprise. “That’s most irregular. I—”

“I am the sorceress Nicci. I fought with Lord Rahl.”

“Nicci?” cried the other guard. His eyes ran up and down her form. “I know your black dress, but your hair—what happened?”

“Are you soldiers or hairdressers? I need to speak with General Linden. I have news that Lord Rahl must learn immediately.”

“Yes, Sorceress, of course!” The two men turned about and walked at a pace brisk enough to satisfy even Nicci.

They led her through the gates of the garrison, where soldiers were practicing swordplay in the yard. They all stopped and looked at her. Someone whispered loudly, “That’s Death’s Mistress.” Nicci ignored the comment.

The headquarters building was a two-story wooden structure with open double doors. The three hurried up a staircase of fresh pine boards to the second level, where General Linden sat in his main office. He was busy at his desk, writing reports, folding them, dribbling red wax to seal them, and pressing the wax with the stylized “R” of Lord Rahl.

“Excuse me one moment,” he said without looking at them. He folded another document, scribbled with a quill pen, then sealed it with more wax, which he set aside to dry. Then he glanced up.

The two soldiers stepped forward to report, but Linden turned his full attention to Nicci. He was obviously surprised by the intensity he saw in her. The thin officer was no older than his midthirties, with a port-wine splotch high on his left cheek. The crookedness of his nose implied that it had been broken at least once, but he seemed a calm man, not an embittered veteran.

“General Linden, this woman is…” The soldier’s voice faltered.

Nicci stepped between them and approached the desk. She removed the rectangle of glass from her side, but kept the wrappings in place. “I am Nicci, companion to Lord Richard Rahl. On his orders, the wizard Nathan and I are exploring the Old World as his ambassadors.”

Linden sat back in his desk chair and smiled. “Yes, of course. I am honored to see you, and more than a little surprised. We received messages up from Renda Bay and a report from Cliffwall. Thanks to your message, General Zimmer and Prelate Verna took a hundred soldiers as well as the Sisters of the Light to protect the great archive there.”

Nicci was pleasantly surprised. “I am glad to hear that. The knowledge in Cliffwall would be very dangerous if it fell into enemy hands. Now, it is more important than ever to keep the archive protected.” She leaned across the desk and impatiently moved aside the document he had just signed. “General Linden, we must send word north to the People’s Palace as well as make preparations throughout the cities of the Old World. A vast army from ancient times has reawakened, and they are on the move.”

“Ancient soldiers?” Linden asked. “That sounds like a story told in the tavern.”

“It’s true, and they have laid siege to the city of Ildakar. So far, the wizards there have held them off, but now General Utros is dividing his forces, sending thousands of troops on exploratory missions. Sooner or later that great force will move north.”

Linden looked at the papers on his desk as if one of them might contain instructions for a situation such as this. Behind Nicci, the two escort soldiers muttered in surprise.

“I can’t emphasize the danger enough. Lord Rahl needs to know, and you must prepare. We have to fortify not only Tanimura, but all the cities up and down the coast. We need the D’Haran army.” She unwrapped the cloth from the glass rectangle Elsa had created. “Here is the proof you need.”

Nicci turned the magical window with its implanted images so Linden could see Utros’s ancient army covering the plain.

“They have already begun to move, General, but you have the advantage of time and distance, so long as you begin your preparations now.”

Linden stared at the images in the glass. “Dear spirits…”