“How long do you think you can hold me, Nicci?” In frustration, Richard ran his fingers back through his wet hair. “It isn’t going to work, whatever it is you want. How long until you tire of this absurd sham?”
Her eyes narrowed, studying his profound innocence, if not ignorance.
“My dear boy, I was born into this wretched world one hundred and eighty-one years past. You know that. Do you suppose I have not learned a great deal of patience, in all that time? Though our bodies may look about the same age, and in many ways I am no older than you, I have lived near to seven of your lifetimes. Do you honestly believe that you would have patience to exceed mine? Do you think me some young foolish girl for you to outwit or outwait?”
His demeanor cooled. “Nicci, I—”
“And don’t think to make friends with me, or win me over. I am not Denna, or Verna, or Warren, or even Pasha, for that matter. I’m not interested in friends.”
He turned a little and ran a hand over the stallion’s shoulder when the horse snorted and stamped a hoof at the smell of the woodsmoke curling out from the upper limbs of the shelter tree.
“I want to know what vile thing you did to that poor woman to make her tell you about Denna.”
“The Mord-Sith told me in return for a favor.”
Frowning his incredulity, he turned to her once more. “What favor could you possibly do for a Mord-Sith?”
“I cut her throat.”
Richard closed his eyes as his head sank with grief for this unknown woman who had died because of him. He clenched her weapon in his fist to his heart.
His voice lost its fire. “I don’t suppose you know her name?”
It was this, his empathy for others, even others he didn’t know, that not only made him the man he was, but shackled him. His concern for others would also be the thing that eventually brought him to understand the virtue in what she was doing. He, too, would then willingly work for the righteous cause of the Order.
“I do,” Nicci said. “Hania.”
“Hania.” He looked heartsick. “I didn’t even know her.”
“Richard.” With a finger under his chin, Nicci gently brought his face up. “I want you to know that I did not torture her. I found her being tortured. I was not happy about what I saw. I killed the man who did it. Hania was beyond any help. I offered her release from her pain, a quick end, if she would tell me about you. I never asked her to betray you in any way that the Order would want. I asked only about your past, about your first captivity. I wanted to understand what you said that first day at the Palace of the Prophets, that’s all.”
Richard didn’t look relieved, as she had intended.
“You withheld that quick release, as you call it, until she had given you what you wanted. That makes you a party to her torture.”
In the gloom, Nicci looked away in pain and anguish at the memory of that bloody deed. It had long since lost its ability to make her feel anything more than a ghost of emotions.
There were so many needing release from their suffering—so many old and sick, so many wailing children, so many destitute and hopeless and poor. This woman had merely been another of life’s victims needing release. It was for the best.
Nicci had renounced the Creator in order to do His work, and sworn her soul to the Keeper of the underworld. She had to; only one as evil as she would fail to feel any fitting feelings, any proper compassion, for all the suffering and desperate need. It was grim irony—faithfully serving the needy in such a way.
“Perhaps you see it that way, Richard,” Nicci said in a hoarse voice as she stared into the numb nightmare of memories. “I did not. Neither did Hania. Before I cut her throat for her, she thanked me for what I was about to do.”
Richard’s eyes offered no mercy. “And why did you make her tell you about me—about Denna?”
Nicci snugged her cloak tighter on her shoulders. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“You couldn’t possibly make the same mistake Denna made. You aren’t the woman she was, Nicci.”
She was tired. The first night, he had not slept, she knew. She had felt his eyes on her back. She knew how much he hurt. Turned away from him, she had wept silently at the hate his eyes held, at the burden of being the one to have to do what was best. The world was such an evil place.
“Perhaps, Richard,” she said in a soft voice, “you will someday teach me the difference.”
She was so very tired. The night before, when he had succumbed to his weariness, and turned away from her to sleep, Nicci had in turn stayed awake all night, watching him in his sound sleep as she felt the connection of magic to the Mother Confessor. The connection brought Nicci great empathy for her, as well.
It was all for the best.
“For now,” Nicci said, “let’s get inside out of this foul weather. I’m cold and I’m hungry. We need to get some rest, too. And as I’ve told you, we have things to discuss, first.”
She couldn’t lie to him, she knew. She couldn’t tell him everything, of course, but she dared not lie to him in the things she did tell him.
The dance had begun.
Chapter 26
Richard broke up the sausage Nicci gave him from her saddlebag and tossed it in the pot with the simmering rice. The things she had told him kept shouting in his mind as he tried to fit them into their proper order.
He didn’t know how much of what she had said he dared to believe. He feared it was all true. Nicci just didn’t seem to need to lie to him—at least not about what she had told him so far. She didn’t seem as…hostile, as he thought she would have to be. If anything, she seemed melancholy, perhaps because of what she had done—although, he had trouble believing that a confessed Sister of the Dark would suffer a guilty conscience. It was probably just some bizarre part of her act, some artifice directed toward her ends.
He stirred the pot of rice with a stick he’d peeled the bark off of. “You said there were things to discuss.” He rapped the stick clean on the edge of the pot. “I assume that means there are orders you wish to issue.”
Nicci blinked, as if he’d caught her thinking about something else. She looked out of place, sitting prim and straight in a wayward pine, dressed as she was in her fine black dress. Richard would never before have ever thought of Nicci out-of-doors, much less sitting on the ground. The very idea had always seemed ludicrous to him. Her dress constantly made him think of Kahlan, not only because of it being so completely opposite that it evoked the comparison, but also because he so vividly recalled Nicci connected to Kahlan by that awful rope of magic.
That memory twisted him in agony.
“Orders?” Nicci folded her hands in her lap and met his gaze. “Oh, yes, I have a few requests I wish you to honor. First, you may not use your gift. Not at all. Not in any way. Is that clear? Since, as I recall, you have no love of the gift, this should be neither a burden nor a difficult request for you to follow, especially because there is something you do love which would not survive such a betrayal. Do you understand?”
Her cold blue eyes conveyed the threat perhaps even better than her words. Richard gave her a single nod, committing himself to what, exactly, he wasn’t entirely sure at the moment.
He poured her steaming dinner in a shallow wooden bowl and handed it to her along with a spoon. Nicci smiled her thanks. He set the pot on the ground between his legs and took a spoonful of rice, blowing on it until it was cool enough to eat. He watched her from the corner of his eye as she took a dainty taste.
Beyond her physical perfection, Nicci had a singularly expressive face. She seemed to go cold and blank when she was unhappy, or when she meant to convey anger, threat, or displeasure. She didn’t really scowl the way other people did when they felt those emotions; rather, a look of cool detachment descended on her. That look was, in its own way, far more disturbing. It was her impenetrable armor.
On the other hand, she was expressively animated when she was pleased or thankful. Even more than that, though, su
ch pleasure or gratitude appeared genuine. He remembered her as aloof, and while she still possessed a noble bearing, to some extent her air of reticence had lifted to reveal an innocent delight in any kindness, or even simple courtesy.
Richard still had bread Cara had baked for him. He hated sharing that bread with this evil woman, but it now seemed a childish consideration. He tore off a piece and offered it to Nicci. She took it with the reverence due something greater than mere bread.
“I also expect you to keep no secrets from me,” she said after another bite. “You would not like me to discover you were doing so. Husbands and wives have no need for secrets.”
Richard supposed not, but they were hardly husband and wife. Rather than say so, he said instead, “You seem to know a lot about how husbands and wives behave.”
Rather than rising to his bait, she gestured with her bread at her bowl. “This is very good, Richard. Very good indeed.”
“What is it you want, Nicci? What is the purpose of this absurd pretense?”
The firelight played across her alabaster face, and lent her hair a torrid color it didn’t in reality possess. “I took you because I need an answer which I believe you will provide.”
Richard broke a stout branch in two across his knee. “You said husbands and wives have no need for secrets.” He used half the branch to push the burning wood together before placing the branch atop the fire. “Then aren’t wives, too, supposed to be honest?”
“Of course.” Her hand with the bread lowered. She rested her wrist over her knee. “I will be honest with you, too, Richard.”
“Then what’s the question? You said you took me because you need an answer you think I can provide. What’s the question?”
Nicci stared off again, once more looking anything but the grim captor. She looked as if memories, or perhaps fears, haunted her. It was somehow more unsettling than the sneer of an armed guard outside of the bars of his cage.
The rain outside had increased to a dull roar. They’d made camp just in time. Richard couldn’t help but remember the cozy times he’d had in wayward pines huddled beside Kahlan. At the thought of Kahlan, his heart sank.
“I don’t know,” Nicci finally said. “I honestly don’t, Richard. I seek something, but I will only know it when I find it. After nearly all my one hundred and eighty-one years without knowing it existed, I finally saw the first hint of it not long ago….” She seemed to be looking through him again, to some point beyond. Her voice, too, seemed to be addressed to that distant place her vision beheld. “That was when you stood in a collar before all those Sisters, and defied them. Perhaps I will find the answer when I understand what it was I saw that day, in that room. It was not just you, but you were its center….”
Her eyes focused once more on his face. She spoke with gentle assurance. “Until then, you will live. I have no intention of harming you. You need fear no torture from me. I’m not like them—that woman, Denna, or like the Sisters of the Light, using you for their games.”
“Don’t patronize me. You are using me for your own game, no less than they used me for theirs.”
She shook her head. “I want you to know, Richard, that I have nothing but respect for you. I probably have more respect for you than any person you have ever met. That’s why I took you. You are a rare person, Richard.”
“I’m a war wizard. You’ve just never seen one of those before.”
She spurned the notion with a dismissive flick of her hand. “Please don’t try to impress me with your ‘power.’ I’m not in the mood for such silliness.”
Richard knew it was no idle boast on her part. She was a sorceress of remarkable ability. He doubted he had any hope of outsmarting her knowledge of magic.
She was not acting the way he had expected a Sister of the Dark would act, though. Richard put his anger, hurt, and heartache aside for the moment, knowing he had to face what was, rather than putting his hope in wishes, and spoke to Nicci in the same gentle fashion she used with him.
“I don’t understand what it is you want of me, Nicci.”
She shrugged in an involuntary gesture of frustration. “Neither do I. Until I do, you will do as I ask and everything will be fine. I will not harm you.”
“Considering the circumstances, do you really expect me to take your word?”
“I’m telling you the truth, Richard. If you were to twist your ankle, I would, like a good wife, put my shoulder under your arm and help you to walk. From now on, I am devoted to you, and you to me.”
He could only blink at how crazy this was. He almost thought she might be mad. Almost. He knew that would be too easy an answer. As Zedd always said, nothing was ever easy.
“And if I choose not to go along with your wishes?”
Again, she shrugged. “Then Kahlan dies.”
“I understand that, but if she dies, then you lose the collar around my heart.”
She fixed him with cold blue eyes. “Your point?”
“Then you couldn’t get what you wanted from me. You would have no leverage.”
“I don’t have what I want now, so I would be losing nothing. Besides, if you were to do that, then Emperor Jagang would welcome your head as a gift. I would no doubt be showered with gifts and riches.”
Richard didn’t think Nicci wanted gifts or riches showered on her. She was a Sister of the Dark, after all, and he supposed she could manage to be so showered if she really wished it.
Even so, he was sure his head would have a price, and she could salvage that much out of it if he proved ungovernable. She might not care for gifts and riches, but if there was one thing she did want, it had to be power. He was pretty sure she could gain a good measure of that, should she slay the enemy of the Imperial Order.
He bent over the pot between his legs and went back to his dinner, and his dark thoughts. Talking to her was useless. They just went around in circles.
“Richard,” she said in a quiet tone, drawing his eyes to her gaze, “you think I’m doing this to hurt you, or to defeat you because you are the enemy of the Order. I am not. I told you my true reasons.”
“So, when you finally find this answer you seek, in return for my ‘help,’ then you will let me go?” It was not really meant as a question, but as trenchant incrimination.
“Go?” She stared down into her bowl of rice and sausage, stirring it around as if it might reveal a secret. She looked up. “No, Richard, then I will kill you.”
“I see.” He hardly thought that was a way to encourage his cooperation in her search, but he didn’t say so. “And Kahlan? After you kill me, I mean.”
“You have my word that if I decide I must kill you, as long as I live, she will, too. I have no ill will toward her.”
He tried to find solace in that much of it. For some reason, he believed Nicci. Knowing that Kahlan would be all right gave him courage. He could endure what was to happen to him, if only she would be all right. It was a price he was willing to pay.
“So, ‘wife,’ where are we going? Where is it you’re taking me?”
Nicci didn’t look at him but instead used her bread to sop up some of her dinner. She considered his question as she nibbled.
“Who are you fighting, Richard? Who is your enemy?” She took another small bite of her bread.
“Jagang. Jagang and his Imperial Order.”
Like an instructor correcting him, Nicci slowly shook her head. “No. You are wrong. I think perhaps you are in need of answers, too.”
Games. She was playing foolish games with him. Richard ground his teeth, but held his temper in check.
“Then who, Nicci? Who, or what, am I fighting if it is not Jagang.”
“That is what I hope to show you.” She watched his eyes in a way he found unsettling. “I am going to take you to the Old World, to the heart of the Order, to show you what you are fighting—the true nature of what you believe to be your enemy.”
Richard frowned. “Why?”
Nicci smiled. “Let’s j
ust say it amuses me.”
“You mean we’re going back to Tanimura? Back to where you lived all that time as a Sister?”
“No. We are going to the heart and soul of the Old World: Altur’Rang. Jagang’s homeland. The name means, roughly, ‘the Creator’s chosen.’”
Richard felt a chill run up his spine. “You expect to take me, Richard Rahl, there, into the heart of enemy territory? I hardly doubt we will be living as ‘husband and wife’ for long.”
“Besides not using your magic, you will not use the name associated with that magic—Rahl—but instead the name you grew up with: Richard Cypher. Without your magic, or your name, no one will know you are anyone but a humble man with his wife. That is exactly what you shall be—what we both shall be.”
Richard sighed. “Well, if the enemy should find I’m more, I guess a Sister of the Dark can…exert her influence.”
“No, I can’t.”
Richard’s eyes turned up. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t use my power.”
Gooseflesh prickled his arms. “What?”
“It’s devoted to the link with Kahlan, to keeping her alive. That is how a maternity spell works. It requires a prodigious amount of power to even establish such a complex spell, much less maintain it. My power must be invested into the labor of preserving the living link. A maternity spell leaves nothing to spare; I doubt I could make a spark.
“If we have any trouble, you will have to handle it. Of course, I can at any time call upon my ability as a sorceress, but to do so I would have to draw the power from our link. If I do that without her near… Kahlan dies.”
Alarm raced through him. “But what if you accidentally—”
“I won’t. As long as you take good care of me, Kahlan will be safe enough. If, however, I should fall off my horse and break my neck, her neck snaps, too. As long as you take good care of me, you are taking good care of her. This is why it’s important that we live as husband and wife—so that you can be close at hand, and so that I can guide and help you, too. It will be a difficult life with both of us living without our power, just as any other married couple, but I believe this to be necessary if I am to find what I seek from you. Do you understand?”
Faith of the Fallen Page 33
