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"Unlike you to be so ignorant."
Her cheeks mantled. "You don't know the half of it." She finally turned away from him and headed for the steps. "I told you, we have much to talk about."
Richard caught her arm, turning her back. "Did you have anything to do with Samuel being able to sneak up on Chase or surprise Tovi and steal that box? Other than providing him with the weapon to accomplish the deed and no doubt telling him all about the power the boxes of Orden contain, I mean."
She searched his eyes for a time. "Do you wish to kill me, Richard?"
"Kill you? Shota, I've been the best friend you've ever had."
"Then you will put your anger aside and listen to what we have come to tell you." She pulled away from the grip on her arm and again started for the steps. "Let's get inside and out of this foul weather."
Richard glanced to the blue sky. "The weather is beautiful," he said as he watched her ascend the steps.
At the top she halted to share a brief glare with Nicci before turning to look down at Richard. It was the kind of haunting, timeless, troubling look that he imagined only a witch woman could conjure.
"Not in my world," she said in a near whisper. "In my world it's raining."
* * *
CHAPTER 11
Shota glided down the steps to stand before the fountain. The diaphanous fabric of the dress that covered her statuesque form moved ever so slightly, as if in a gentle breeze. The gushing, cascading, effervescent waters danced and sparkled in the light from the skylights far above, putting on an exhilarating performance for the gathered audience. Shota stared absently at it for a moment, as if preoccupied with her own private thoughts, and then turned to the small crowd waiting just inside the huge double doors. They all stood silently, watching her, as if awaiting a queen's pronouncement.
Behind Shota, the water in the fountain sprayed high into the air. The exuberant surge of spray abruptly stopped. The last of the water, still rising just before the flow had cut off, reached its zenith, a dying liquid arc, and fell back as if slain. The dozens of uniform streams of water overflowing the down-turned points in the tiers of bowls, as if embarrassed by their frothy frolic, slowed to a stop and finally fell silent.
Zedd stepped to the brink of the steps, a forbidding look settling into the lines of his face. As he halted, the swirl of his simple robes gathered around his legs. At that moment it struck Richard that his grandfather looked very much like who he was: the First Wizard. If Richard had thought that Nicci and Shota had looked dangerous, he realized that Zedd was no less so. At that moment he was a thundercloud harboring hidden lightning.
"I'll not have you tampering with anything in this place. I indulge you because you have come here for reasons that may somehow be important to us all, but my leniency will not tolerate your meddling with anything here."
Shota flicked a hand, dismissing his warning. "I assumed that you would not acquiesce to me going any farther than this room. The fountain is noisy. I don't want Richard to fail to hear anything I or Jebra has to say."
She lifted an arm toward Ann, standing beside Nathan, watching, almost unseen in the deep shadows of the balcony and soaring red pillars. "It is a matter that has been close to your heart for half of your life, Prelate."
"I am no longer Prelate," Ann said in a quietly commanding voice that sounded very much as if she still were.
"Why were you hunting Samuel?" Cara asked, drawing the witch woman's attention.
"Because he was not supposed to have left my valley in Agaden Reach. Moreover, he should not have been able to do so without my expressed permission."
"And yet he did," Richard said.
Shota nodded. "So I went looking for him."
Richard clasped his hands behind his back. "How is it, Shota, that you weren't aware that Samuel was going to leave you? I mean, considering your power, vast knowledge, and all that business you've explained to me about how a witch woman can see the way that events flow forward in time. For that matter, how was he able to do so without your consent?"
Shota did not shrink from the question. "There is only one way."
Richard bit back the sarcastic remark that came to mind and instead asked, "And what would that be?"
"Samuel has been bewitched."
Richard wasn't sure that he'd heard her correctly. "Bewitched. But you're the witch woman. You're the one who does the bewitching."
Shota clasped her hands, looking down at the floor a moment as she folded her fingers together. "He was bewitched by another."
Richard descended the five steps. "Another witch woman?"
"Yes."
Richard took a deep breath as he glanced around to see the others sharing troubled looks. No one appeared inclined to ask, so he did. "You mean to say that there is another witch woman around, and she bewitched Samuel away from you?"
"I thought that I had made that perfectly clear."
"Well… where is she?"
"I have no idea. Certain issues in the flow of time are my business—I have seen to it. For me to be this blind to events that eddy so tightly through my purview can only mean that another witch woman has deliberately occulted those flows from me."
Richard stuffed his hands in his back pockets as he tried to reason it out. He paced briefly before turning back to her.
"Maybe it wasn't a witch woman. Maybe it was a Sister of the Dark or someone like that. A gifted person. Maybe even a wizard. Jagang has those, too."
"To manipulate a witch woman in an insignificant way is far from an easy task." She shot a brief glare up at Zedd. "Ask your grandfather."
Shota gestured around at some of the people in the room before her gaze returned to Richard. "A gifted person, even such as these, no matter how talented, could not begin to achieve a deception as comprehensive as this one has been. Only another witch woman could slip herself unseen into my domain. Only another witch woman could draw a shroud over my vision and then bewitch Samuel into doing what he has done."
"If your vision is shrouded," Cara asked, "how can you be so certain that Samuel has been bewitched? Maybe he was acting on his own. From what I've seen of him, he needs no mysterious enchantress to coax him into impulsive behavior. He seemed plenty treacherous all on his own."
Shota slowly shook her head. "You have only to look at what you've told me to see that this involves not simply cunning but knowledge beyond Samuel's ability. A Sister of the Dark was attacked; a box of Orden was stolen from her. In the first place, how would Samuel be aware that this woman had anything valuable? I didn't know of her myself because that is part of what has been hidden from me, so I couldn't have told him—not even absently, carelessly, or inadvertently, which is what you're thinking. So, Samuel didn't learn of it from me. If he happened across a treasure of some sort there is no doubt that Samuel is fully capable of doing whatever he could to snatch it, that much I concede."
"You mean the way he acquired the Sword of Truth in the first place?" Zedd asked.
Shota met his gaze briefly but chose to return to the matter at hand rather than confront the challenge. "Secondly, how would Samuel know where he could find a Sister carrying a box of Orden? You can't seriously mean to suggest that you think he simply was wandering around—way off in D'Hara—and by chance happened across this very Sister of the Dark, stabbed her, and robbed her of what she was carrying only to have it turn out to be one of the boxes of Orden?"
"I have to admit," Richard said, "I never have much believed in coincidence. It certainly doesn't seem plausible in this case, either."
"My thoughts, exactly," Shota said. "And then there's Chase. Due to his grave condition I wasn't able to learn much from him, but I was able to discover that he had been ambushed. Another coincidence—Samuel happening across and randomly attacking someone and it just happens to be someone else you know? I hardly think so. That leaves the question of why Samuel would be lying in wait for a man you know. Why would he attack him? What thing of value did Chase have?"
"Rachel," Zedd answered as he stared off, rubbing his chin in thought.
"But what would he want with a girl?" Cara asked. When several people glanced her way with troubled looks, she added, "I mean, that girl in particular?"
"I don't know," Shota said. "And that's the problem. As I've said, the events surrounding all of this are blocked to me, but blocked in a way that I didn't recognize, so I was unaware that anything was being hidden. It's obvious that there is a hand directing Samuel. That hand could only be another witch woman's."
"Do you know her?" Richard asked. "Do you know who it is, or who she might be?"
Shota regarded him with as forbidding a look as he had ever seen grace such feminine features. "She is a complete mystery to me."
"Where did she come from? Do you have any idea about that much of it?"
Shota's scowl only darkened. "Oh, I think I do. I believe she came up from the Old World. When you destroyed the great barrier several years back she no doubt saw an opportunity and moved into my territory—in much the same way that the Imperial Order saw an opportunity to invade and conquer the New World. By bewitching Samuel she is sending a message that she is taking my place, taking what is mine—including my territory—as her own."
Richard turned toward Ann, off at the side of the anteroom. "Do you know of a witch woman in the Old World?"
"I ran the Palace of the Prophets, guiding young wizards and a whole palace full of Sisters toward the way of the Light. I paid great heed to prophecy in that task but, other than prophecy, I didn't really involve myself in the goings-on in the rest the Old World. From time to time I heard vague rumors of witch women, but nothing more than rumors. If she was real, she never stuck her head up for me to know of her."
