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When they had walked into the middle of the huge enemy camp, Nicci and Nathan trusted in the general’s legendary honor. But what was he planning now? How did he think he could breach the city’s defenses or fight the many gifted who would defend the city?
As she watched the blackness and the vault of stars overhead, Nathan emerged from the grand villa to join her, dressed in his ruffled shirt, black trousers, and boots instead of his white wizard’s robes. He even carried his ornate sword, as if to remind himself how much he enjoyed being an adventurer as well as a wizard. He looked up at the unrecognizable constellations, a vault of night like another kind of shroud. “Out to gaze at the stars, Sorceress? They’ve changed, but someday they will become familiar to us.”
After the star shift, Nicci had paid little attention to the patterns in the sky. “If General Utros is as honorable a man as your history claims he is, I hope we can find a way to save Ildakar and also let him save face. We can resolve this, if he wants to.”
The sparkle in Nathan’s expression was unsettling to her. “You wear your optimism as easily as you wear that black dress, and it fits you just as well. Next thing, you may be creating rainbows out of the ruling tower.”
He was teasing her, but she was not amused. “I was a Sister of the Dark and I gave myself over to the Keeper, then I served the dream walker Jagang. I brought enough despair to the world before Richard showed me a different way to succeed through cooperation, friendship, and faith. He opened my eyes to the stain of the Imperial Order and made me realize how I myself had been spreading that poison.” Her voice grew softer. “Richard taught me hope, and that’s a lesson I don’t ever intend to forget.”
She walked along the path that led past other lighted villas toward the immense sacrificial pyramid, Ildakar’s center of power. That structure was where the bloodworking apparatus had been set up, where hundreds of slaves would have been massacred to raise the shroud of eternity, but Nicci, Nathan, and other rebels had defeated Sovrena Thora and ruined the structure.
Nicci felt drawn to the place now. If the pyramid was the heart of Ildakar’s magic, she wondered if she could use that magic against the siege.
The wizard realized where she was going. “Elsa and I have climbed through the rubble already looking for any viable remnants. Alas, we found nothing that would be of use to us.”
Nicci didn’t slow her pace. “We have to keep searching. You found the well of the sliph. Who knows what else Ildakar holds?”
“Elsa and I completed our search of the other sealed ruins, but I’m afraid all we found was a lot more dust.” The wizard frowned. “A barrel of forgotten apples that must have been there for centuries, tools and bits of iron-hard leather in what was once a cobbler’s shop. Nothing, alas, that would make Utros tremble in his sleep.”
Jogging footsteps crunched on the path behind them, and she turned to see Bannon, his long red hair loose, his shirt untucked as he ran with his sword in hand. Grinning, the young man called, “Where are you going? Let me join you, in case it’s dangerous.”
Nathan gave him a paternal smile. “We will risk it ourselves, my boy.”
Bannon was out of breath but excited. “Today I went to see Jed and Brock. Believe me, I had words with them.” He huffed.
Nicci frowned as they reached the largest stone blocks at the base of the pyramid. She had never liked the two young men or their ringleader Amos, knowing how badly they had treated Bannon, who was desperate for friendship. Since the first time she had rescued him from robbers in a Tanimura alley, she had felt responsible for him. She had held little hope that the eager young man would amount to anything or survive this long, but he’d surprised her after all. She admitted that he had proven himself useful in some of their adventures.
“I would probably have killed them both for what they did,” she said. “But you have your own way of fighting your battles.”
“Let me come with you now,” Bannon suggested, sounding altogether too excited. “Maybe I’ll offer some ideas. A different perspective.”
Nicci kept walking into the wreckage of the pyramid, letting him tag along. “You’ve earned it. You fought well many times, and you helped us free the slaves.”
Bannon blushed. “You aren’t often generous with your compliments, Sorceress. Thank you.”
“It was a fact,” Nicci said, “not meant as a compliment.”
Nathan patted him on the shoulder. “Now we have to save the city from the siege. Any ideas are welcome.”
They worked their way up the broken stairsteps, layer upon layer. The apex had been blasted away in the battle, leaving huge chunks of rubble all around.
Nathan mused aloud, “I wonder how many people were sacrificed here over the centuries when Ildakar was trapped beneath the shroud. How much blood did they spill just to keep the shroud intact?”
Nicci spread her fingers and concentrated. “I feel nothing. The magic here is dead.” She closed her eyes and continued searching for any hint of the gift, but shook her head. “Nothing.”
Nathan concurred.
Then she felt a strange tingle emanating from herself, like a probing unwelcome finger inside her, a touch that stretched to her spine, then climbed to the back of her neck. Her head began to throb, her scalp crawled.
“Wait, there’s something else, something powerful.” Feeling the energy increase, she looked around in growing alarm. Her blond hair crackled with static electricity, wafting gently around her. She took a step higher on the pyramid steps. Overhead, the stars were diamond bright, and the lights of the city shone out like thousands of eyes.
Something wasn’t right.
Nathan frowned as he sensed the change in the air, too. “My dear sorceress, are you certain you’re not summoning it?”
“Not intentionally, but it’s coming to me.” Her long hair crackled and thrashed about as if in a brewing storm. She clutched a handful, wrapping her fingers around the golden strands. It seemed like something alive.
To her astonishment, she watched her hair grow between her fingertips. The blond locks lengthened like mad weeds. All around her head, the hair writhed out like living threads in a voluminous mane. She grabbed at it, but the strands whipped like probing tentacles. Her hair kept growing, out of control. She clawed at it, tugged, but the hair fought back.
Stepping forward with his sword, Bannon cried desperately, “What can we do?”
Nicci tugged hard on her own hair as it tried to wrap around her like a strangler’s garrote. The golden strands thrashed at her, already longer than her waist, some strands down to her knees, wrapping around her like ropes, twisting and clumping together. The hair wound around her arm like thin chains as she reached up to tug at it. Another clump circled her neck, wrapping tight and cutting off her flow of air.
Nicci struggled, choking. With one hand, she snatched the dagger at her right hip and hacked at the hair around her neck, severing a long clump, which she threw to the ground. More hair tightened around her wrist until she thought her bones would break.
Diving in to help her, Nathan swung his ornate sword, cutting at the thrashing strands. “Your hair is quite beautiful, but I’m afraid it has to go.” He hacked hard, lopping off a long hank of strands that continued writhing like worms, even when they were severed from her head.
Bannon sliced with his sharpened sword, careful not to hurt her, and then the hair lashed out at him, too.
When she shouted, another tentacle of strands dove into her mouth, thrusting down her throat. Gagging, she bit down with her teeth, grinding until she cut it off. She slashed with her knife, cutting her other wrist free, but more hair looped around her waist and lashed her legs together, drawing tight until she collapsed to the stone step of the pyramid. She sawed with her dagger, hacking off another hank of hair.
Still, it continued to grow like an infestation. Her hair struck out to snare Bannon’s sword arm. He yelped and fought back but couldn’t free his wrist. He tugged against her violent hair, whil
e more locks lashed out to catch his leg, winding around his left boot, and dragging him closer to the main mass. He couldn’t even swing his sword. “Help! Sweet Sea Mother.”
Nathan chopped more strands of hair, then sliced the locks that had captured Bannon. The young man staggered away, stumbling on the steps.
Nicci kept cutting, throwing severed handfuls of hair to the ground. Even so, the cut strands flopped and squirmed in search of more targets. They slithered forward to wrap around Nathan’s boots.
No matter how much they cut, Nicci’s hair kept growing, long past her feet, wrapping around and around her like a cocoon. Already exhausted, she realized she couldn’t succeed by hacking more away. She had to find a different answer, a smarter solution. She needed to turn her magic against the attacker, somehow.
