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Nicci nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.”
“In the meantime,” Nathan pressed, “what news is there?”
Nicci was still disoriented from traveling in the sliph. It was a distracting experience in which time seemed to lose all meaning. On top of that, being in the People’s Palace only added to her discomfort. The entire palace existed within a spell that amplified the power of the Lord Rahl. At the same time, the spell diminished the power of every other gifted person. Nicci wasn’t used to the feeling. It made her restless and uneasy.
Being in the sliph also reminded her of Richard. She supposed that everything made her think of Richard. It seemed that her nerves were always on edge with worry for him.
It took a moment for Nicci to focus her mind on the question as she struggled to put thoughts of Richard aside. As improbable as it seemed, this man, not Richard, was now the Lord Rahl. Ann, the former prelate, his former jailer, stood beside him waiting to hear the answer to his question.
“I’m afraid that the news is not very good,” Nicci admitted.
“You mean about Richard?” Ann asked.
Nicci shook her head. “We’ve had no news about him, yet.”
Nathan’s brow took on an even more suspicious slant. “Then what news are you talking about?”
Nicci took a deep breath. It still felt strange breathing air after being in the sliph. Despite having traveled in the strange creature before, she didn’t think she would ever get used to breathing into her lungs the liquid silver essence that was the sliph.
Mentally gathering her thoughts, she gazed out over the short section of balcony railing. The particular portion of the hallway that they were in bridged a complex of expansive halls below. Overhead, out through the opening with the balcony, late-day light flooded into the palace through skylights above. The short balcony, between rather dark runs of the hallway beyond in either direction, was almost like a window looking out into the People’s Palace. Nicci imagined that, being a rather small opening, it was probably meant to allow a covert place to watch the halls below.
Now, far below, people filling the various passageways hurried in every direction. Their movements looked purposeful. Nearly all of the benches were empty. Nicci didn’t see people gathered in casual conversation the way they had in the past. This was a time of war; the People’s Palace was under siege. Worry was everyone’s constant companion. Guards patrolled, watching not just every person, but every shadow.
Trying to decide how to sum up the troubling news, Nicci ran her fingers through her hair, sweeping it back away from her face. “Remember Richard telling us about how the taint left by the chimes having been in the world of life was causing magic to fail?”
Ann flicked her hand in a dismissive gesture as she heaved a sigh, apparently annoyed to revisit an old topic. “We remember. But I hardly think that it’s our most pressing problem.”
“Maybe not,” Nicci said, “but it has begun to cause some very real trouble.”
Nathan lifted a hand, the backs of his fingers touching Ann’s shoulder, as if to implore her to let him handle the matter. “How so?”
“We’ve been forced to abandon the Wizard’s Keep,” Nicci told him. “For the time being, at least.”
Nathan’s eyebrows lifted. As he tilted his head toward her some of his long white hair fell forward over his broad shoulders. “Why? What happened?”
Nicci smoothed the black dress at her hips. “The magic of the Keep is beginning to fail.”
“How do you know?” Ann demanded.
“The witch woman, Six, got into the Keep,” Nicci said. “The alarms failed to warn us. A number of the shields are down. She was able to go where she pleased within the Keep without the shields stopping her.”
Ann poked a loose strand of gray hair back into the knot of hair at the back of her head as she considered Nicci’s words.
“That isn’t necessarily convincing evidence that the magic of the Keep is failing,” she finally said, “or even that magic is tainted by the chimes and failing. It’s difficult telling just how talented a woman like Six is liable to be. Just because there is some sort of problem with the Keep there is no way to know its cause, much less know that the chimes are the cause. With a place as complicated as the Keep it’s difficult to really know if it really is all that serious. It could simply be a temporary—”
“Blood is coming out of the stone walls of the Keep,” Nicci said in a tone that made it clear she didn’t want to debate it. She didn’t appreciate being treated like a novice frightened by shadows on her first night away from home. She needed to get on to other matters. “It’s worse down in the lower areas, in the foundation.”
Ann and Nathan both straightened.
Ann opened her mouth to say something, but Cara spoke first, apparently as disinterested in having to argue the point as Nicci. “The blood oozing out of the stone in various places all over the Keep is all human blood.”
Again, both the prophet and the former prelate went mute with surprise.
“Well now,” Nathan finally said as he scratched under his jaw with one finger, “that certainly is serious.” He gestured up the hall. “Where are you headed?”
“Cara and I need to go out to see how Jagang’s ramp is progressing. I also want to have a look at the Order’s army and see if I can tell how they’re doing. I’m hoping that Richard’s plan will work, that the D’Haran troops sent to the Old World will be able to cut the supply lines. If they succeed, Jagang is going to have a problem. If all those men down there can’t be supplied, they can’t sit there all winter. They’ll starve. I think it may turn out to be a race between the ramp and their supplies running out.”
Nathan nodded as he stepped past Nicci and Cara. “Come on, then. We’ll go with you and you can tell us about your encounter with this witch woman.”
Nicci stood her ground, not following after the prophet. “She took the box of Orden.”
Nathan turned back and stared at her. “What?”
“She stole the box of Orden we had. The one that the witch woman’s companion, Samuel, stole from Sister Tovi and that Rachel had then managed to get ahold of and bring to us. We thought it was safe in the Keep. Turns out it wasn’t.”
“It’s gone?” Ann seized Nicci’s sleeve. “Do you have any idea where she went with it?”
“I’m afraid not,” Nicci said. “I’m hoping that you two can give us some clues about the witch woman. We need to find her. Anything you can tell me about her, no matter how insignificant it seems, might be of help. We need to get that box back.”
“At least Nicci was able to put the power of Orden in play before the box was taken,” Cara said.
Nathan and Ann could not have looked more stunned.
“She did what?” Nathan whispered, seemingly unable to stop staring at Cara, as if hoping he might have heard her wrong or, if he hadn’t, that she might think better of what she’d said and recant the claim.
“Nicci put the power of Orden in play,” Cara said.
Nicci thought that the Mord-Sith sounded a
bit proud of the accomplishment, proud of Nicci.
“Are you out of your mind!” Ann roared as she rounded on Nicci, her face going scarlet. “You named yourself a player for the power of Orden!”
“No, that’s not at all what happened,” Cara said, once more drawing the attention of the prophet and the former prelate. “She named Richard the player.”
Cara smiled just the slightest bit, as if pleased to prove that Nicci was better than Nathan and Ann seemed to think. For their part, Nathan and Ann stood thunderstruck.
While it had indeed been quite an accomplishment, Nicci didn’t feel any pride for having done such a thing—she had been driven to it out of desperation.
Standing there in the hallway in the vast complex of the People’s Palace, acutely aware of the interlocking layers of problems they faced, Nicci suddenly felt overwhelmingly weary, and it wasn’t from her power being drained by the spell around the People’s Palace. Besides the recent events, exhaustion was beginning to take its toll. There was so much to do and so little time.
Worse, only she had the necessary knowledge or ability to deal with many of the problems they faced. Who but she had a chance to teach Richard about the use of Subtractive Magic that was necessary to open the boxes of Orden? There was no one else. Nicci felt the terrible weight of that responsibility.
There were moments when the enormity of the battles facing them stood out for her in stark clarity. Sometimes when that happened Nicci’s courage wavered. She sometimes feared that she was deluding herself that they could actually solve the monumental problems they faced.
She remembered how, as a little girl, her mother had forced her to go out with bread to feed the poor and, later, how Brother Narev of the Fellowship of Order had shamed her into working tirelessly to serve the endless needs of people. No matter how much effort she put into solving the problems of all those who were needy, their problems only seemed to grow, outpacing her ability to satisfy them, binding her ever tighter in slavery to the growing ranks of those in need. She was taught that, because she had the ability, it was her duty to ignore her own wants and needs and to sacrifice her life to the wants and needs of others. Their inability, or unwillingness to try, made them her masters.
