Sprawled around the base of the plateau were informal markets where people gathered to buy, sell, and trade goods. On the climb all the way up through the interior of the plateau to reach the palace itself, Ann had passed many permanent shops. The palace was a center of trade, drawing people from all over D’Hara.
More than that, though, it was the ancestral home of the House of Rahl. As such, it was grand for arcane reasons beyond the awareness or even understanding of most of the people who called it home or visited it. The People’s Palace was a spell—not a place spelled, as had been the Palace of the Prophets where Ann had spent most of her life. The place itself was the spell.
The entire palace had been built to a careful and precise design: that of a spell drawn on the face of the ground. The outer fortified walls contained the actual spell form and the major congregations of rooms formed significant hubs, while the halls and corridors themselves were the drawn lines—the essence of the spell itself, the power.
Like a spell being drawn in the dirt with the point of a stick, the halls would have had to have been built in the sequence required by the specific magic the spell was intended to invoke. It would have been enormously expensive to build it in that manner, ignoring the typical requirements of construction and accepted methods of the trade of building, but only by doing so would the spell work, and work it did.
The spell was specific. It was a place of safety for any Rahl. It was meant to give a Rahl more power in the place, and to leach power away from anyone else who entered. Ann had never been in a place where she felt such a waning of her Han, the essence of life and the gift within. She doubted that in this place her Han would for long be vital enough to light a candle.
Ann’s jaw dropped in astonishment as another element of the spell abruptly occurred to her. She looked out at the halls—part of the lines of the spell—filled with people.
Spells drawn with blood were always more effective and powerful. But when the blood soaked into the ground, decomposed, and dissipated, the power of the spell would often fade as well. But this spell, the drawn lines of the spell itself—the corridors—were filled with the vital living blood of all the people moving through them. Ann was struck dumb with awe at such a brilliant concept.
“So, you’re renting a room, then.”
Ann had forgotten the woman beside her, still staring at her, still holding the smile on her painted lips. Ann forced herself to close her mouth.
“Well…” Ann finally admitted, “I haven’t actually made arrangements yet as to where I will sleep.”
The woman’s smile persisted, but it looked as if it was taking more and more effort all the time. “You can’t curl up on a bench, you know. The guards won’t allow it. You have to rent a room, or be put out at night.”
Ann understood, then, what the woman was driving at. To these people, most dressed in their finest clothes for their visit to the palace, Ann must look like a beggar in their midst. After all the gossip about what people were wearing, this woman must have been disconcerted to find herself beside Ann.
“I have the price of a room,” Ann assured her. “I just haven’t found where they are, yet, that’s all. After such a long journey, I meant to go there right away and get myself cleaned up, but I just needed to rest my weary feet for a bit, first. Could you tell me where to find the rooms to rent?”
The smile looked a little easier. “I’m off to my own room and I could take you. It isn’t far.”
“That would be kind of you,” Ann said as she rose now that she saw the guards moving off down the corridor.
The woman stood, bidding her two benchmates a good night.
If Ann was tired, it was only from being caught up in the afternoon devotion to the Lord Rahl. A bell in an open square had tolled, and everyone had moved to gather there and bow down. Ann had noticed then that no one missed the devotion. Guards moved among the crowd watching people gather. She felt like a mouse being watched by hawks so she joined with the other people moving toward the square.
She had spent nearly two hours on her knees, on a hard clay tile floor, bowed down with her forehead touching the ground like everyone else, repeating the devotion in concert with all the other somber voices.
Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.
Twice a day, those in the palace were expected to go to the devotion. Ann didn’t know how people endured such torture.
Then she remembered the bond between the Lord Rahl and his people that prevented the dream walker from entering their minds, and she knew how they could endure it. She, herself, had briefly been a prisoner of Emperor Jagang. He murdered a Sister right before her eyes, just to make a point.
In the face of brutality and torture, she guessed that she knew how people endured a mere devotion.
For her, though, such a spoken devotion to the Lord Rahl, to Richard, was hardly necessary. She had been devoted to him for nearly five hundred years before he had even been born.
Prophecy said that Richard was their only chance to avoid catastrophe. Ann peered carefully around the halls. Now she just needed the prophet himself.
“This way,” the woman said, tugging at Ann’s sleeve.
The woman gestured for Ann to follow her down a hallway to the right. Ann pulled her shawl forward, covering the pack she carried, and hugged her travel bag closer as she followed along the wide corridor. She wondered how many people sitting on benches and low marble walls around fountains were gossiping about her.
The floor had a dizzying pattern of dark brown, rust, and pale tan-colored stone running across the hall in zigzag lines meant to look three-dimensional. Ann had seen such traditional patterns before, down in the Old World, but none of this grand scale. It was a work of art, and it was but the floor. Everything about the palace was exquisite.
Shops were set back under a mezzanine to each side. Some of them looked to sell items travelers might want. There was a variety of small food and drink stands, everything from hot meat pies, to sweets, to ale, to warm milk. Some places sold nightclothes. Others sold hair ribbons. Even at this late hour, some of the shops were still open and doing brisk business. In a place such as this, there would be people who worked at night and would have need of such shops. The places that offered to do up a woman’s hair, or paint her face, or promised to do wonders with her fingernails, were all closed until morning. Ann doubted they could pull off wonders with her.
The woman cleared her throat as they strolled down the broad corridor, gazing at the shops to each side. “And where have you traveled from?”
“Oh, far to the south. Very far.” Ann took note of the woman’s focused attention as she leaned in a bit. “My sister lives here,” Ann said, giving the woman something more to chew on. “I’m here to visit my sister. She advises Lord Rahl on important matters.”
The woman’s eyebrows lifted. “Really! An advisor to Lord Rahl himself. What an honor for your family.”
“Yes,” Ann drawled. “We’re all proud of her.”
“What does she advise him on?”
“Advise him on? Oh, well, matters of war.”
The woman’s mouth fell open. “A woman? Advising Lord Rahl on warfare?”
“Oh yes,” Ann insisted. She leaned over and whispered, “She’s a sorceress. Sees into the future, you know. Why, she wrote me a letter and told me she saw me coming to the palace for a visit. Isn’t that amazing?”
The woman frowned a bit. “Well, that does seem rather remarkable, since here you are and all.”
“Yes, and she told me that I’d meet a helpful woman.”
The woman’s smile returned, it again looked forced. “She sounds to be quite talented.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” Ann insisted. “She is so specific in her forecasts about the future.”
“Really? Had she anything else to say about your visit, the
n? Anything specific?”
“Oh yes indeed. Why, do you know that she told me I would meet a man when I came here?”
The woman’s gaze flicked around the halls. “There are a lot of men here. That hardly seems very specific. Surely, she must have said more than that…I mean, if she is so talented, and an advisor to Lord Rahl and all.”
Ann put a finger to her lip, frowning in feigned effort at recollection. “Why, yes, she did, now that you mention it. Let’s see if I can remember…” Ann laid a hand on the woman’s arm in a familiar manner. “She tells me about my future all the time. My sister is always telling me so many things about my future in her letters that I sometimes feel as if I’m having trouble catching up with my own life! I sometimes have trouble remembering it all.”
“Oh do try,” the woman said, eager for the gossip. “This is so fascinating.”
Ann returned the finger to her lower lip as she gazed at the ceiling, pretending to be engaged in deep thought, and noticed for the first time that the ceiling was painted like the sky, with clouds and all. The effect was quite clever.
“Well,” Ann finally said when she was sure she had the woman’s full attention, “my sister said that the man I would meet was old.” She returned the hand to the woman’s arm. “But very distinguished. Not old and decrepit, but tall—very tall—with a full head of white hair that comes all the way down to his broad shoulders. She said that he would be clean-shaven, and that he would be ruggedly handsome, with penetrating dark azure eyes.”
“Dark azure eyes…my, my,” the woman tittered, “but he does sound handsome.”
“And she said that when he looks at a woman with those hawklike eyes of his, their knees want to buckle.”
“That is precise,” the woman said, her face getting flushed. “Too bad she didn’t know this handsome fellow’s name.”
“Oh, but she did. What kind of advisor to the Lord Rahl would she be if she wasn’t talented enough to know such things.”
“She told his name, too? She can really do such tellings of the future?”
“Oh my yes,” Ann assured her.
She strolled along for a time, watching people making their way up and down the hall, stopping at some of the shops that were still open, or sitting on benches, gossiping.
“And?” the woman asked. “What is the name your sister foretold? The name of this tall distinguished gentleman.”
Ann frowned up at the ceiling again. “It was N something. Nigel or Norris, or something. No, wait—that wasn’t it.” Ann snapped her finger and thumb. “The name she said was Nathan.”
“Nathan,” the woman repeated, looking almost as if she had been ready to pluck the name off Ann’s tongue if she didn’t spit it out. “Nathan.”
“Yes, that’s it. Nathan. Do you know anyone here at the palace by that name? Nathan? A tall fellow, older, with long white hair, broad shoulders, azure eyes?”
The woman peered up at the ceiling in thought. This time it was Ann leaning in, waiting for word, watching intently for any reaction.
A hand seized Ann’s dress at her shoulder and brought her to an abrupt halt. Ann and the woman turned.
Behind them stood a very tall woman, with a very long blond braid, with very blue eyes, wearing a very dark scowl and an outfit of very red leather.
The woman beside Ann went as pale as vanilla pudding. Her mouth fell open. Ann forced her own mouth to stay shut.
“We’ve been expecting you,” the woman in red leather said.
Behind her, back up the hallway a short distance, spread out to block the hall, stood a dozen perfectly huge men in perfect leather armor carrying perfectly polished swords, knives, and lances.
“Why, I think you must have me mistaken for—”
“I don’t make mistakes.”
Ann wasn’t nearly as tall as the blond woman in red leather. She hardly came up past the yellow crescent and star across her stomach.
“No, I don’t suppose you do. What’s this about?” Ann asked, losing the timid innocent tone.
“Wizard Rahl wanted us to bring you in.”
“Wizard Rahl?”
“Yes. Wizard Nathan Rahl.”
Ann heard a gasp from the woman beside her. She thought the woman was going to faint, and so took hold of her arm.
“Are you all right, my dear?”
She stared, wide-eyed, at the woman in red leather glowering down at her. “Yes. I have to go. I’m late. I must go. Can I go?”
“Yes, you had better go,” the tall blonde said.
The woman dipped a quick bow and muttered “Good night” before scurrying off down the hall, looking over her shoulder only once.
Ann turned back to the scowl. “Well I’m glad you found me. Let’s be off to see Nathan. Excuse me…Wizard Rahl.”
“You won’t be having an audience with Wizard Rahl.”
“You mean, not tonight, I won’t be having an…audience with him tonight.”
Ann was being as polite as she could be, but she wanted to clobber that troublesome man, or wring his neck, and the sooner the better.
“My name is Nyda,” the woman said.
“Pleased to meet—”
“Do you know what I am?” She didn’t wait for Ann to answer. “I am Mord-Sith. I give you this one warning as a courtesy. It is the only warning, or courtesy, you will receive, so listen closely. You came here with hostile intent against Wizard Rahl. You are now my prisoner. Use of your magic against a Mord-Sith will result in the capture of that magic by me or one of my sister Mord-Sith and its use as a weapon against you. A very, very unpleasant weapon.”
“Well,” Ann said, “in this place my magic is not very useful, I’m afraid. Hardly worth a hoot, as a matter of fact. So, you see, I’m quite harmless.”
“I don’t care how useful you find your magic. If you try to so much as light a candle with it, your power will be mine.”
“I see,” Ann said.
“Don’t believe me?” Nyda leaned down. “I encourage you to try to attack me. I haven’t captured a sorceress’s magic for quite a while. Might be…fun.”
“Thank you, but I’m a bit too tired out—from my travels and all—to be attacking anyone just now. Maybe later?”
Nyda smiled. In that smile Ann could see why Mord-Sith were so feared. “Fine. Later, then.”
“So, what is it you intend to do with me in the meantime, Nyda? Put me up in one of the palace’s fine rooms?”
Nyda ignored the question and gestured with a tilt of her head. Two of the men a short way back up the hall rushed forward. They towered over Ann like two oak trees. Each grasped her under an arm.
“Let’s go,” Nyda said as she marched off down the hall ahead of them.
The men started out after her, pulling Ann along with them. Her feet seemed to touch the floor only every third or fourth step. People in the hall parted for the Mord-Sith. Passersby pressed themselves up against the walls to the side, a goodly distance away. Some people disappeared into the open shops, from where they peered out windows. Everyone stared at the squat woman in the dark dress being hauled along by the two palace guards in burnished leather and gleaming mail. Behind she could hear the jangle of metal gear as the rest of the men followed along.
They turned into a small hall to the side going back between columns holding a projecting balcony. One of the men rushed forward to unlock the door. Before she knew it, they’d all swept through the little door like wine through a funnel.
The corridor beyond was dark and cramped—nothing like the marble-lined hallways most people saw. Not far down the hall, they turned down a stairway. The oak treads creaked underfoot. Some of the men handed lanterns forward so Nyda could light her way. The sound of all the footsteps echoed back from the darkness below.
At the bottom of the steps, Nyda led them through a maze of dirty stone passageways. The seldom-used halls smelled musty, and in places damp. When they reached another stairwell, they continued down a square shaft with landings
at each turn, descending into the dark recesses of the People’s Palace. Ann wondered how many people in the past were taken by routes such as this, never to be seen again. Richard’s father, Darken Rahl, and his father before him, Panis, were rather fond of torture. Life meant nothing to men such as those.
Richard had changed all that.
But Richard wasn’t at the palace, now. Nathan was.
Ann had known Nathan for a very long time—for nearly a thousand years. For most of that time, as Prelate, she had kept him locked in his apartments. Prophets could not be allowed to roam free. Now, though, this one was free. And, worse, he had managed to establish his authority in the palace—the ancestral home of the House of Rahl. He was an ancestor to Richard. He was a Rahl. He was a wizard.
Ann’s plan suddenly started to seem very foolish. Just catch the prophet off guard, she’d thought. Catch him off guard and snap a collar back around his neck. Surely, there would be an opening and he would be hers again.
It had seemed to make sense at the time.
At the bottom of the long descent, Nyda swept to the right, following a narrow walk with a stone wall soaring up on the right and an iron railing on the left. Ann gazed off over the railing, but the lantern light showed nothing but inky darkness below. She feared to think how far it might drop—not that she had any ideas of a battle with her captors, but she was beginning to worry that they just might heave her over the edge and be done with her.
Nathan had sent them, though. Nathan, as irascible as he could sometimes be, wouldn’t order such a thing. Ann considered, then, the centuries she had kept him locked away, considered the extreme measures it had sometimes taken to keep that incorrigible man under control. Ann glanced over the iron rail again, down into the darkness.
“Will Nathan be waiting for us?” she asked, trying to sound cheerful. “I’d really like to talk to him. We have business we must discuss.”
Naked Empire Page 21
