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Nicci found it appalling to contemplate all the individuals she was seeing. These had all once been living people who had been born, grown up, and lived lives probably filled with family and love. Now there were only bones to say that they had ever existed.
Nicci swallowed at the frightening thought that she would soon end up yet another anonymous skull that someone might one day see and wonder about. Just as she didn’t know anything about these people, what they dreamed, what they believed, what they loved, or even how they had looked in life, she would be nameless bones slowly crumbling to dust.
She had such a short time ago been up among the beauty of the palace, among color and life. Now she found herself among nothing but dust and dirt and death, on her way to her own.
The two Sisters in front led them through a confusing series of intersections. Some of the passageways they took sloped downward. In several areas they had to descend yet more flights of stairs to halls even deeper in the ground.
Everywhere there were rooms filled with bones, some with skulls, some with other bones stacked neatly in every available space, all bearing silent witness to lives once lived. Some of the passageways they passed through were made of brick but most had been constructed of stone. By the varying sizes of stone and styles of construction it seemed like they were passing from one era to another, each age preferring a different method to add to the ever-growing catacombs for their dead.
The next turn took them past a room with a different kind of entrance. Thick stone slabs that had closed off the cavern beyond had been slid aside. Nicci was surprised to see another Sister standing guard there. Beyond, back inside, in the shadows, there were big Imperial Order guards. Judging by their size, the type of chain mail they wore, the leather straps crossing their chests, along with the tattoos back across their shaved heads, these were some of Jagang’s most trusted, and skilled, soldiers.
Back behind them Nicci saw that the low room was tightly packed with shelves holding countless books. Beyond, behind the rows in various places, the light from lamps revealed where people were searching through the volumes. Jagang had teams of scholars devoted to scouring caches of books for him. They were specially trained and knew the sorts of things Jagang was looking for.
The place reminded Nicci of nothing so much as the catacombs down in Caska. That was where, with the help of Jillian, Richard had discovered the Chainfire book. Nicci realized that these catacombs as well were liable to have a number of rooms with books.
“You,” Sister Armina said to one of the guards, “come here.”
When the man came to a stop out in the hall and leaned on his lance, she gestured back the way they had come. “Get some workmen together and—”
“What kind of workmen?” the man interrupted. Men like these were not intimidated by Sisters of the Dark—mere captives, slaves of the emperor.
“Men who know how to work with stone,” she said, “with marble slabs. Sister Greta will go with you and show you what must be done. His Excellency doesn’t want anyone to know that we’ve discovered a way into the palace.”
Jagang, being a dream walker, frequently entered the minds of the Sisters. It was becoming increasingly obvious to the soldier that Sister Armina was operating under the direction of the emperor himself, so he nodded without objection as she went on.
“There is a place right near where we entered up top where the stone has been damaged. It’s a small secondary network of halls. You will need to pull some of the undamaged slabs off the walls in the area with the damage and use them to block off that branch of halls. From the other side it needs to look like part of the wall of the main corridor. It needs to fool anyone who goes down that corridor into thinking there is not supposed to be an opening there. It needs to be done immediately.” She tipped her head toward Nicci. “Before anyone looking for her discovers the damage.”
“Won’t people who know the place realize that an intersection has been blocked off?”
“Not if it looks seamless, if it looks like it’s always been that way. It’s the tomb area of the palace. The Lord Rahl uses it to visit his ancestors, but only if he ever wishes to do such a thing. It’s likely to be rare for anyone else to go down there, so no one else is likely to notice that an intersection is missing—at least, not until it’s too late.”
The man cast a forbidding look at Nicci. “Then what was she doing down there?”
When Sister Armina turned a questioning look at her, Nicci felt a sudden shock of pain caused by the collar.
Sister Armina lifted an eyebrow. “Well? Answer the man’s question.”
Nicci gasped in a breath against the razor-sharp pain searing down her back and legs. “Just going for a walk…to have a private conversation…where no one would bother us,” she managed between gasps of agony.
The Sister seemed indifferent to Nicci’s explanation. She turned back to the soldier. “See? It’s mostly an unused area. But before anyone goes down there looking for her, and the woman we killed, it needs to be done. Work as swiftly as possible.”
The man smoothed a hand back over his bald, tattooed head. “All right. But it seems a lot of work to hide some damage.” He shrugged. “After all, if they see it, they won’t know why it’s damaged. They’ll probably think it’s from before. There have been battles in the palace in the recent past.”
Sister Armina did not look pleased to have the man second-guess her. “His Excellency does not want anyone up there to know that we’ve found a way in. This is of paramount importance to him. Would you like me to tell him that you suggest the work is not worth the effort and he should simply not worry?”
The man cleared his throat. “No, of course not.”
“Besides that, it will give us a place to assemble and prepare without anyone knowing that we are all right there, just on the other side of a thin veneer of marble.”
He dipped his head. “I will see to it at once, Sister.”
Nicci felt sick. Once that opening was covered with marble slab the Order would be able to gather a sizable assault force veiled from those in the palace. No one would know that the enemy had found a way in. They were expecting the Order to have to finish the ramp before they could attack. The defending forces within the palace would be caught off guard.
A jab of pain started Nicci moving again. Sister Armina guided her with that pain, rather than simply telling her where she needed to turn. They walked down endless corridors, all made of stone block and with barrel ceilings, that seemed to connect clusters of rooms and networks of corridors.
As they rounded a corner, Nicci saw a knot of people in the distance lit by torches. As they got closer she saw a ladder ascending into darkness. She had long since understood where they had to be, and where they were going.
Royal guards had massed around a place broken open in the barrel ceiling. These men were the elite. They knew their business.
At the thought of what was up that ladder, Nicci feared her legs might give out.
One of the royal guard, who obviously recognized Nicci, stepped aside, never taking his eyes off her.
“Start climbing,” Sister Armina said.
CHAPTER 22
Nicci emerged into what appeared to be a vast pit gouged into the ground of the Azrith Plain. She couldn’t see what was up beyond the dirt and rock walls, but she didn’t need to see it to know what was up there.
Out past the rim of the pit, the imposing ramp, lit by torches, rose up into the cold night sky. In the distance the dark shadow of the plateau that held the People’s Palace, looking like it touched the stars themselves, towered over the dirt and gravel ramp.
The floor of the pit was a confusing maze of various elevations, apparently the result of different gangs of workers laboring to scoop up material for the ramp. Those workers were nowhere to be seen. It had to be that when they were digging in the area where she stood they had discovered the catacombs.
