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He told her that there were four men following her. She asked, “Do you choose to help me?”
Before his mind could form a thought, he heard himself say, “Yes.”
He had never for an instant been sorry that he said yes.
She needed help now.
His last thoughts as he drifted into tormented sleep were of Kahlan.
Chapter 9
Ann hurriedly hung the simple tin lantern on the hook outside the door. She focused her Han into a bud of heat and it bloomed into a small flame in the air above her upturned palm. As she stepped into the small room, she gently sent the little flame flitting onto the wick of a candle on the table. As the candle came to life she closed the door.
It had been quite a while since she had a received a message in her journey book. She was impatient to get to it.
The room was sparse. The plain plastered walls had no windows. A small table and a straight-backed, wooden chair that she had asked to have brought in almost filled the space not used by the bed. Besides its use as a bedroom, the room also made a suitable sanctuary, a place where Ann could be alone, where she could think, reflect, and pray. It also provided privacy for when she used the journey book.
A small plate of cheese and sliced fruit sat waiting for her on the table. Jennsen had probably left the plate before going off with Tom to stare at the moon.
No matter how old Ann got, it invariably brought her a sense of warm inner satisfaction when she saw that look of love in a couple’s eyes. They always seemed to think they did a fine job of hiding their feelings from others, but, as obvious as it usually was, they might as well be painted purple.
At times, Ann privately regretted that she had never had a time like that with Nathan, a time to indulge in complete, simple, extravagant attraction. Expressions of feelings, though, were deemed unbecoming for the Prelate.
Ann paused. She wondered exactly where she had come to have such a belief. When she had been a novice they didn’t exactly hold classes in which they said, “Should you ever be appointed Prelate, you must always mask your feelings.” Except disapproval, of course. A good prelate, with no more than a look, was supposed to be capable of making people’s knees tremble uncontrollably. She didn’t know where she had learned that, either, but she had always seemed to have had the knack.
Maybe all along it had been the Creator’s plan for her to be the Prelate and He had given her the appropriate disposition for the job. How she sometimes missed it.
More than that, though, she had never allowed herself to consciously consider her feelings for Nathan. He was a prophet. When she was Prelate of the Sisters of the Light and sovereign authority at the Palace of the Prophets, he had been her prisoner—although they dressed it up in less harsh terms, trying to put a more humane face on it, but it had been no more complicated than that. It had always been believed that prophets were too dangerous to be allowed to run free in the world, among normal people.
In confining him from a young age they had denied the existence of free will, preordaining that he would cause harm even though he would never been given the chance to make a conscious choice in his own actions. They had pronounced him guilty without benefit of a crime. It had been an archaic and irrational belief that Ann had unthinkingly adhered to for most of her life. At times, she didn’t like considering what that said about her.
Now that she and Nathan were both old and found themselves together—however improbable that might have seemed at one time—their relationship could not be described as extravagant attraction. Indeed, she had spent the vast majority of her life enduring her displeasure with the man’s antics and seeing to it that he never escaped either his collar or his confinement in the palace, thereby insuring his intractable behavior, thereby incurring the ire of the Sisters, which made him more unruly yet, round and round in a circle.
No matter the uproar he had been able to ignite, seemingly at will, there had always been something about the man that made Ann smile, inwardly. At times he was like child. A child who was nearly a thousand years old. A child who was a wizard. A child who carried the gift for prophecy. A prophet had but to open his mouth, but to utter prophecy to the uneducated masses, and it would ignite riots at the least, war at the worst. At least, that had always been the fear.
Although she was hungry, Ann pushed the plate of cheese and fruit aside. It could wait. Her heart fluttered with the anticipation of what news the message from Verna might bring.
Ann sat and scooted her chair close to the simple wooden table. She pulled out the little leather-covered journey book and thumbed through the pages until she again spotted the writing. The room was small and dark. She squinted to help her better make out the words. She finally had to pull the fat candle a little closer.
My dearest Ann, began the message from Verna written in the book, I hope this finds you and the prophet well. I know you said that Nathan was proving to be a valuable contribution to our cause, but I still worry about you being with that man. I hope his cooperation hasn’t soured since last I heard from you. I admit to having difficulty imagining him being cooperative without a collar around his neck. I hope you are being cautious. I’ve never known the prophet to be entirely sincere—especially when he smiles!
Ann had to smile herself. She understood all too well, but Verna didn’t know Nathan the way Ann did. He could sometimes get them into trouble faster than ten boys bringing frogs to dinner, and yet, after all was said and done, after so many centuries knowing the prophet, there really wasn’t anyone with whom she had more in common.
Ann sighed and turned her attention back to the message in the journey book.
We have been kept quite busy warding off Jagang’s siege of the passes into D’Hara, Verna wrote, but at least we have been successful. Perhaps too successful. If you are there, Prelate, please answer.
Ann frowned. How could one be too successful in keeping marauding hordes from overrunning your defenses, slaughtering your defenders, and enslaving a free people? She impatiently pulled the candle closer still. In truth she was quite jumpy over what Jagang was up to, now that winter had ended and the spring mud was past.
The dream walker was a patient foe. His men were from far to the south, in the Old World, and weren’t used to the winters up north in the New World. While many had fallen victim to the harsh conditions, vast numbers died of the diseases that swept through his winter encampment. Despite losing men in battles, to sickness, and by a variety of other causes, more of the invaders poured north all the time so that, despite everything, Jagang’s army inexorably continued to grow. Even so, the man did not waste any of his vast numbers in pointless and futile winter campaigns. He didn’t care about the lives of his soldiers, but he did care about conquering the New World, so he only moved when the weather was not a factor. Jagang did not take risks he didn’t need to. He simply, steadily, resolutely ground his enemies to dust. Bringing the world to heel was all that mattered to him, not how long it took. He viewed the world of life through the prism of the beliefs of the Fellowship of Order. Individual life, including his, was of no importance; only the contribution that a person’s life could make to the Order was meaningful.
With such a vast army in the New World, the forces of the D’Haran Empire were now at the mercy of what the dream walker did next. To be sure, the D’Haran forces were formidable, but they certainly weren’t enough to withstand, much less turn back, the full weight of the seemingly endless numbers of Imperial Order troops. At least, not until Richard did whatever he could to effect some change in the tide of war.
Prophecy said that Richard was the “pebble in the pond,” meaning that he caused ripples that spread through everything, affected everything. Prophecy also said, in many different ways and in many different texts, that only if Richard led them in the final battle did they have a chance to triumph.
If he didn’t guide them in that final battle, prophecy was clear and unambiguous; it said that all would be lost.
Ann
pressed her fist against the queazy pain in the pit of her stomach and then pulled the stylus from the spine of the book that was the twin to the one Verna had.
I am here, Verna, she wrote, but you are the Prelate now. The prophet and I are long dead and buried.
It was a deception that had enabled the two of them to save a great many lives. There were times when Ann missed being Prelate and missed her flock of Sisters. She had dearly loved many of them, at least the ones who hadn’t ended up being in truth Sisters of the Dark. The burning pain of that betrayal, not just of her but of the Creator, never eased.
Still, being free of such towering responsibility left her better able to put her mind to other, more important work. While she hated having lost her old way of life, of being Prelate and running the Palace of the Prophets, her calling was to a higher purpose, not to stone walls and the administration of an entire palace of Sisters, novices, and young wizards in training. Her true calling was helping to preserve the world of life. In order for her to do that, it was better that the Sisters of the Light and everyone else believed her and Nathan dead.
Ann sat up straighter when Verna’s writing began appearing across the page.
Ann, I am comforted to have you back with me, if only in the journey book. There are so few of us left. I confess that sometimes I long for the days of peace back at the palace, the times when everything seemed to be so much easier and to make so much more sense and I only thought it was all so difficult. The world certainly has changed since Richard was born.
Ann couldn’t argue with that. She popped a piece of cheese in her mouth and then leaned in and began writing.
I pray every day that such order and peace can again settle over the world and we can go back to complaining about the weather.
Verna, I am confused. What did you mean when you said that perhaps you were too successful in defending the passes? Please explain. I await your reply.
