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“Yes it is,” Nicci said. “This is Mrra. She is bonded to me.” She tried to summon more fire, but Maxim and Thora turned on her together, crushing down with a weight of air to hold her deadly fire in place.
“Do not interfere,” Thora warned. “Or Maxim will turn you to stone.”
Nicci drew a breath for a defiant shout, but then felt an impossible blow to her head and a blur of scrambled thoughts. One of the handlers had stepped away from the thrashing panther and struck her with his specially endowed cudgel. While Mrra’s runes might have protected her from a magical attack, Nicci had no protection against the stun spell.
While the debilitating magic rang through her skull, making her knees buckle, the handlers closed in and got a second loop over the cat’s head. Two guards threw a net over Mrra, and as she thrashed, guards swarmed in with ropes. One blow from Dorbo’s club—even without the boost of the spell—sent the sand panther writhing.
“We have her now!” said one of the apprentices. “We did it!”
Nicci forced her hammering thoughts to crystallize, and she threw off the efforts of the sovrena and the wizard commander. She felt the gift coiling through her like black lightning, and she drew herself up and faced Thora, her eyes flashing. “Mrra is part of me,” she growled, ready to release a storm of Additive and Subtractive Magic.
The sovrena stared directly back, her sea-green eyes as cold as a howling blizzard. “The panther belongs to Ildakar’s arena. See the spell symbols branded on her side? That beast is our property.”
“No. Mrra is free.”
The handlers managed to subdue the cat, using their magic to render her helpless. Mrra lay unconscious, growling and bleeding.
High Captain Stuart and his guards looked uneasily at the confrontation between Nicci and the sovrena, holding their weapons ready. She had no doubt whose side they would take if they decided to join the attack, too.
She knew she could kill all of them. Or most of them. If she had to.
Thora spoke sourly, as if lecturing a child. “Your belief in freedom is misplaced. Animals aren’t free. Slaves aren’t free. Lesser humans aren’t free. They are all property. Now that you are our guest under the shroud in Ildakar, you must understand how this city works. Ask the fleshmancer—those animals exist because of us. We created them.”
Nicci did not back down. She inhaled sharp dusty air. “Or did they create people like you?”
Thora prepared to lash out with her magic, and Nicci could feel the sizzle in the air around her. Maxim stood next to Thora, holding his gift at bay, but threatening nevertheless. The handlers also came to their feet next to the unconscious panther. Nicci felt the brewing magic all around her.
She even saw the archers pointing their crossbows toward her, ready to move should the sovrena or the wizard commander give a signal.
Though her defiance continued to rumble within her, Nicci was outmatched. Back at the fleshmancer’s villa, Nathan lay unconscious, recovering, and he might not ever be able to use his magic again. Even Bannon wasn’t there, wandering the city with his newfound companions. Nicci suddenly realized how alone she was in Ildakar. She could not fight them all. Not yet.
As her head continued to throb from the stun club, she vowed she would pick her time.
“Clearly I still have much to learn about this city.” Nicci meant her words to be as cutting as the handler’s whip that had struck Mrra.
“Indeed you do,” Thora said. “Take care to learn before you regret it.”
The handler apprentices and the guards took the bound panther with them, hauling Mrra out of the granary and off to the animal pens.
CHAPTER 53
Nicci’s anger built like a distant, ominous storm. She had no way to contact Mirrormask and no other allies in Ildakar—and she needed to begin her fight. Now.
She returned to the grand villa by midmorning and went to Bannon’s guest quarters. Even though she knew the young man could do little to help her against the powerful wizards, she still wanted to see him. But his bed was made and his clumsy-looking sword was gone. She saw no sign of Amos, Jed, or Brock either. Her concern grew.
When she’d first met him in Tanimura, the victim of petty thieves, Nicci had found the young man’s optimism and constant chatter bothersome. Since then, he had become a reliable companion. The young man was a good fighter, didn’t complain overmuch, and was certainly devoted to Nathan and Nicci. Most important to her, he accepted Lord Rahl’s cause. She wanted him with her now, but she realized she had not seen him for days.
With Mrra captured and Nathan comatose, Nicci again felt the chill of being alone.
Nicci thought of her years serving Emperor Jagang. Even with the full might of the Imperial Order and his army behind her, Nicci had been alone. She had fought by herself, using her powers in service of Jagang. She had thought she could survive without friends, had never wanted any. She considered friends a potential weakness—and Nicci was not weak.
While among the fiercely dedicated Sisters of the Dark, she had been closely allied with her Sisters and teachers Tovi, Cecilia, Armina, and Ulicia, but they had never been friends. Nicci had always solved her own problems, and now Ildakar was the problem. She had been called Death’s Mistress and Slave Queen. She claimed to have a heart of black ice. Nicci would find a way to take care of this, even without Bannon, Nathan, or Mrra.
“I beg your forgiveness for the interruption, Sorceress.” It was a young, pasty-faced guard with a pointed reddish beard and pale brown eyes partially shadowed beneath his helmet. He found her as she stood in the open hallway outside Bannon’s room. “The wizard commander requests a private meeting with you. And he sends his apologies.” The young guard fidgeted. “I don’t know what he means by that, I’m afraid.”
Nicci frowned. Maxim had allowed Mrra to be captured, and she would not forgive him for that. “I am not ready to accept his apology.” She looked at the disturbing statue of the bent-backed old woman who had been petrified while going about her daily toil. “What does he want?”
The young guard seemed embarrassed. “He swore me to confidence. He wants you to meet him alone for a private conversation—an important one, he says—on top of the ruling tower.” The guard swallowed visibly, his larynx bobbing up and down. “He is alone in the gardens there.”
Nicci summoned her power and stepped closer to the young man. Her gaze bored into him. She did not use her magic, but she knew he would be able to sense the threat she posed. “Tell me honestly—is it a trap?”
The guard stammered, “N-No, Sorceress. He genuinely wishes to speak with you, and he asked me to make
sure that Sovrena Thora did not know.”
“You mean his wife?” she asked, suspicious again. She decided she would incinerate him if he made lascivious comments to her.
“Yes … I suppose so. I don’t know what this is about. It isn’t…” He shook his head. “Please, Sorceress, I’m just following orders.”
“There, you’ve completed your mission. Leave me. I will go there of my own volition.” The guard hurried away, relieved.
Not sure what the wizard commander intended, Nicci tossed her loose hair, made sure that her black travel dress was immaculate, and set off. Head high, she strode across the upper streets to the ruling tower that rose like a sentinel overlooking the streets and rooftops far below.
She ascended the main central staircase to the empty ruling chamber, then climbed a winding stair even higher, taking the polished stone steps in a corkscrew up to the summit and the open sky.
Nicci emerged to the scent of fresh citrus blossoms and the hum of bees. She saw scalloped birdbaths spaced among manicured jasmine hedges. Songbirds chirped and flitted about. On poles around the perimeter of the tower hung a fine mesh of nearly invisible silken threads to catch the myriad larks. The nets were retracted now, since Thora needed no more docile larks for her golden cages, and they hung in baggy folds from each pole.
Maxim paced about in his black pantaloons and open shirt. Seeing Nicci, he turned to face her, a grin lighting up his face like a sunrise.
But after that morning’s capture of Mrra, she had no patience for small talk, especially not with him. “What do you wish to say to me, Wizard Commander?”
He pouted. “Oh? I had hoped such a beautiful woman would indulge me with a few pleasantries.”
“It’s been a grim day. My sand panther was beaten and captured, taken to the arena cages—as you well know. The wizard Nathan lies unconscious, recovering from the fleshmancer’s experiment. And my friend Bannon is missing. Have you seen him? How can I make inquiries of the city guard?” Her words were hard, demanding.
Maxim made a noncommittal sound. “My, it has been a difficult day for you! I’m sure Bannon is off partaking in whores or gambling with Amos and his friends. The boy has no gift and no responsibilities. You cannot blame him.”
