Zedd snatched the purse from the man. “I’ll take a look.”
The purse held mostly gold coins, with a few silver. Zedd felt one of the gold coins between a finger and thumb. He could feel the slight after-tingle of magic. The coins had probably started out as coppers, and Nathan had changed them to gold with magic.
Zedd had been hoping that Nathan didn’t know how to do that. Changing things to gold was dangerous magic. Zedd only did it himself if there was no other choice.
Inside the purse, besides the coins, was a folded piece of paper. He pulled it out and turned it over in his fingers, giving it a good look in the dim light, wary of any form of magic snare that might be attached to it.
William pointed. “That’s what he gave me. He told me to give it to you when you caught me.”
“Anything else? Did he tell you anything else, besides to give me this message?”
“Well, as we were parting, he paused and looked up at me. He said, ‘Tell Zedd it’s not what he thinks.’ ”
Zedd mulled this over for a moment. “Which way did he go?”
“I don’t know. I was atop my horse, and he was still afoot. He told me to ride, then he slapped my horse’s rump and I rode.”
Zedd tossed the purse to William. While keeping a wary eye on the man, he unfolded the paper. He squinted in the dim light of the single candle as he scanned the message.
Sorry, Ann, but I have important business. One of our Sisters is going to do something very stupid. I must stop her, if I can. In case I die, I want you to know I love you, but I guess you knew that. I could never say it as long as I was your prisoner. Zedd, if the moon rises red, as I expect it to, then we are all in mortal danger. If the moon rises red for three nights, it means Jagang has invoked a bound fork prophecy. You must go to the Jocopo treasure. If you instead waste precious time coming after me, we will all die, and the emperor will have the spoils. The bound fork prophecy enforces a double bind on its victim. Zedd, I am sorry, but the victim named is Richard. May the spirits have mercy on his soul. If I knew the meaning of the prophecy, I would tell you, but I don’t—the spirits have denied me access to it. Ann, go with Zedd. He will need your help. May the good spirits be with you both.
As Zedd blinked, trying to clear his watery vision, he noticed a smudge. He turned the message over and realized that the smudge was wax residue. The message had been sealed, but in the poor light lie hadn’t noticed before.
Zedd looked up to see William’s club. He flinched back, but felt the stunning pain of a blow. The floor crashed against his shoulder. William pounced atop him, holding a knife to his throat. “Where’s this Jocopo treasure, old man! Talk, or I’ll slit your throat!”
Zedd tried to hold on to his vision as he felt the room spinning and tilling. Nausea gagged him. He was in an instant sweat. William’s eyes were wild above him.
“Talk!” The man stabbed him in the upper arm. “Talk! Where’s the treasure?”
A hand reached down and snatched William by the hair. It was a middle-aged woman in a dark cloak. Zedd couldn’t seem to make sense of who she was, or what she was doing there. With surprising strength, the woman threw William back. He crashed against the wall beside the open door and slumped to the floor.
She sneered down at Zedd. “You have made a big mistake, old man, letting Nathan get away. I suspected that following that old crone would net me the prophet, so I’ve followed you two until I could sense your link with him. Yet what do I find at the end of your magic hook but this fool here, instead of Nathan? So, now I have to make things unpleasant for you. I want the prophet.”
She turned and cast a hand out toward the naked woman frozen in place. The room erupted with thunder as a midnight-black discharge of lightning arced from her hand. The deathlike bolt of lightning sliced the woman and the sheet she held cleanly in half. Blood splattered the wall. The top half of her toppled to the floor like a statue cleaved in two. Her insides spilled across the floor as her torso hit the ground, but her limbs remained frozen in the same pose.
The woman hovering above him turned back. Her eyes were molten rage. “If you would like a taste of Subtractive Magic, one limb at a time, then just give me a reason. Now, let me see the message.”
Zedd opened his hand to her. She reached out. He focused his mind through the dizziness. Before she could snatch the paper, he ignited it. It went up in a bright yellow flash.
With a cry of fury, she spun to William. “What did it say, you little worm!”
William, until that instant rigid in panic, flung himself through the door and bolted down the hall.
Her stringy hair whipped around her face as she spun back to Zedd. “I’ll be back to get answers from you. You will confess everything before I kill you.”
As she lunged for the door, Zedd felt an unfamiliar composition of magic ram through his hasty shield. Pain erupted in his head.
Trying to gather his senses, he fought through the grip of blinding agony. He wasn’t paralyzed, but he was unable to think of how to make himself get up. His arms and legs battled the air as ineffectively as a turtle on its back. The searing pain made it difficult to do much more than maintain consciousness.
He pressed his hands against the sides of his head, feeling as if it was going to come apart and he had to hold it together. He could hear himself gasping for breath.
The sudden thud of a concussion jolted the air and briefly lifted him clear of the floor.
A blinding flash lit the room as the roof tore open, the ripping roar of splintering wood and snapping beams was nearly lost in a deafening boom of thunder. The pain extinguished. The light web had ignited.
Dust billowed through the air as smoking debris rained down around him. Zedd drew into a ball and covered his head as boards and bits of rubble peppered him. It sounded like being under a kettle in a hailstorm.
When silence settled over the scene, Zedd finally took his hands from his head and looked up. To his surprise, the building was still standing—after a fashion. The roof was mostly gone, letting the wind pull the dust away into the dark night above. The walls were holed like moth-eaten rags. Nearby lay the gory remains of the woman.
Zedd took assessment of himself, and was surprised to find he was in remarkably good condition, considering. Blood was running down the side of his head from where William had clubbed him, and his arm was throbbing where he had been stabbed, but other than that, he seemed uninjured. Not a bad bargain, in view of what could have been, he decided.
Moans drifted in from outside. A woman screamed hysterically. Zedd could hear men throwing wreckage aside, calling out names as they searched for the injured or dead.
The door, hanging crookedly from one hinge, suddenly exploded open as someone kicked it in.
Zedd sighed in relief as he saw a familiar, squat form rush in, her red face etched with concern.
“Zedd! Zedd, are you alive?”
“Bags, woman, don’t you think I look alive?”
Ann knelt beside him. “I think you look a mess. Your head is bleeding.” Zedd grunted in pain as she helped him sit up. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you alive. I feared you might have been too close to the light spell when it ignited.”
She pawed through his blood-matted hair, inspecting the wound. “Zedd, that wasn’t Nathan. I almost snapped the collar around that man’s neck when he ran into the spell. Then Sister Roslyn came flying out the door. She threw herself on him, screaming something at him about a message.
“Roslyn is a Sister of the Dark. She didn’t see me. My legs aren’t what they used to be, but I ran like a girl of twelve when I saw her trying to use Subtractive Magic to undo the spell.”
“I guess it didn’t work,” Zedd muttered. “I guess she never encountered a spell cast by a First Wizard. But I certainly didn’t make it that big. Using Subtractive Magic on the light spell expanded its power. It cost innocent people their lives.”
“At least it cost that evil woman hers too.”
&n
bsp; “Ann, heal me, and then we have to help these people.”
“Zedd, who was that man? Why did he set off the spell? Where is Nathan?”
Zedd held out his hand and opened his tightly closed fist. He let the warmth of magic flow into the ashes in his hand. The powdery black residue began clumping together as the inky ashes lightened to gray. When the charred ruins reconstituted itself into the paper it had been, it finally returned to pale brown.
“I’ve never seen anyone able to do such a thing,” Ann whispered in astonishment.
“Be thankful that Sister Roslyn hadn’t, either, or we would be in even more trouble than we are. Being First Wizard has its advantages.”
Ann lifted the crumpled paper from his palm. Her lower lids brimmed with tears as she read the message from Nathan. By the time she had finished, silent tears were running down her round cheeks. “Dear Creator,” she breathed at last.
His own eyes stung with tears. “Indeed,” he whispered in response. “Zedd, what is the Jocopo treasure?”
He blinked at her. “I was hoping you would know. Why would Nathan tell us to go protect something, and not tell us what it is?”
People outside were crying in pain and calling for help. In the distance, a wall, or perhaps a piece of roof, crashed to the ground. Men were yelling directions as they dug through the rubble.
“Nathan forgets that he is different from other people. Just as you recall things from a few decades ago, he also recalls what was, except what he recalls is sometimes not a couple of decades ago, but a couple of centuries.”
“I wish he would have told us more.”
“We have to find it. We will find it I have a few ideas.” She shook her finger at him. “And you are coming with me! We still haven’t got Nathan. That collar stays on for now. You’re going with me, do you understand? I’ll hear none of your arguing!”
Zedd reached up and unsnapped the collar around his neck. Ann’s eyes went wide and her jaw dropped.
Zedd tossed the Rada’Han into her lap. “We have to find this Jocopo treasure that Nathan spoke of. Nathan is not playing games about this. This is deadly serious. I believe what he wrote in that message. We are in a lot of trouble. I’m going with you, but this time we must be more careful. This time we must cover our trail with magic.”
“Zedd,” she finally whispered, “how did you get that collar off? It’s impossible.”
Zedd scowled at her to keep himself from weeping at the thought of the prophecy trapping Richard. “Like I said, being First Wizard has its advantages.”
Her face flushed crimson. “Did you just . . . How long have you been able to take off the Rada’Han?”
Zedd shrugged a bony shoulder. “It took me a couple of days to figure it out. Since then. Since after the first two or three days.”
“Yet you went with me? You still went with me? Why?”
“I guess I like women who do things out of desperation. Shows character.” He balled his trembling hands into fists. “Do you believe everything Nathan said in that message?”
“I wish I could say no. I’m sorry, Zedd.” Ann swallowed. “He said, ‘May the spirits have mercy on his soul,’ meaning Richard. Nathan didn’t say ‘good spirits,’ he just said ‘spirits.’ ”
Zedd wiped his sticklike fingers across his face. “Not all spirits are good. There are evil spirits, too. What do you know about double fork prophecies? About prophecy that enforced a double bind?”
“Unlike your collar, there is no escape from one. The cataclysm named has to be brought about to invoke the prophecy. Whatever it is, the event has already happened. Once invoked, the nature of the cataclysm is self-defining, meaning that the victim has only the choice of one of the two forks in the prophecy. The victim can choose only which way he would rather . . . Surely you must know this? As First Wizard, you would have to know.”
“I had been hoping you would tell me I was wrong,” Zedd whispered. “I wish Nathan would have at least written the prophecy for us to see.”
“Be thankful he didn’t.”
Chapter 21
Clarissa gripped the weathered sill of the window in the stone tower of the abbey in an effort to control her quaking. She clutched her other hand over her thundering heart. Even with the acrid smoke burning her eyes, she had to force herself to blink as she stood transfixed, watching the tumult in the city, and the square below.
The noise was deafening. The invaders screamed battle cries as they charged ahead, swinging swords, axes, and flails. Steel clashed and rang. The air hissed with arrows. Horses screamed in panic. Balls of light and flame wailed in from the distant countryside and exploded through the stone walls. The grisly invaders blew shrill horns and bellowed like beasts as they poured through the rents in the city walls, their impossible numbers darkening the streets in a sooty flood. Flames whooshed and roared and snapped.
Townsmen wept unashamedly as they begged for mercy, their hands outstretched, imploring, even as they were put to the sword. Clarissa saw the bloody body of one of the assembly of seven being dragged down the street on a rope behind a horse.
The shrill screams of women pierced through it all as their children, their husbands, their brothers and fathers were murdered before their eyes.
The hot wind carried the jumbled smells of a burning city, pitch and wood, oil and cloth, hide and flesh, but laced through it all, in every breath she pulled, was the gagging stench of blood.
It was all happening, just as he had said it would. Clarissa had laughed at him. She didn’t think she would ever be able to laugh again as long as she lived. At the thought of how short a time that might be, her legs nearly gave way.
No. She wouldn’t think that. She was safe here. They wouldn’t violate the abbey. She could hear the throng seeking safety in the great room below weeping and crying out in terror. This was a sacred place, devoted to the worship of the Creator and the good spirits. It would be blasphemy even for these beasts to spill blood in such a sanctuary.
Yet, he had told her they would. Below, out in the streets, the army’s resistance had been crushed. The Renwold defenders had never before let an invader set foot inside the walls. It was said the city was as safe as if the Creator Himself defended it. Invaders had tried before, and had always departed bloodied and dispirited. No horde from the wilds had ever breached the city walls. Renwold had always stood safe. This day, as he had said it would, Renwold had fallen.
For their audacity at refusing to surrender the city and its spoils peacefully, without a fight, the people of Renwold were being shown no mercy. Some had urged surrender, arguing that the red moons of the previous three nights had been an ill omen. But those voices were few; the city had always been held safe before.
The good spirits, and the Creator Himself, had turned away from the people of Renwold this day. What their crime was, she couldn’t fathom, but, surely, it must be terrible indeed to warrant no mercy from the good spirits.
From her vantage point at the top of the abbey, she could see the people of Renwold being herded into clusters in the streets, the market district, and courtyards. She knew many of the people being forced at the point of steel into the square below. The invaders, clad in foreign outfits of studded metal, and spiked leather straps and belts, and layers of hides and fur, looked to her the way she imagined savages from the wilds.
The invaders began sorting through the men, pulling aside those with trades: smiths, bowyers, fletchers, bakers, brewers, butchers, millers, carpenters—anyone of a craft or trade who might be put to use. Those men were chained together, to be marched off as slaves. The very old, young boys, and those seemingly without useful trades, like valets, yeomen, innkeepers, city officials, and merchants, were slaughtered on the spot—a sword hacked to the side of the neck, a spear through the chest, a knife in the gut, a flail across the skull. There was no system to the slaughter.
Clarissa stared as an invader clubbed the head of a man on the ground who wouldn’t seem to die. It reminded her of
a fisherman, clubbing a catfish on the bank—thunk, thunk, thunk. The man doing the clubbing didn’t seem to think any more of it than a fisherman would. Dumb Gus, the poor half-wit who ran errands for merchants, shopkeepers, and inns, his work paid for with food and a bed and watered ale, kicked one last time as his thick skull gave way with a resounding crack.
Clarissa put trembling fingers over her mouth as she felt the contents of her stomach lurch up into the back of her throat. She swallowed it back down and gasped for air.
This wasn’t happening, she told herself. She was dreaming. She repeated the lie over and over in her head. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. But it was. Dear Creator, it was.
Clarissa watched as the women were culled from the men. The old women were summarily put to death. The women judged worth keeping were shoved, screaming and crying for their men, into a group. Invaders sorted through them, further winnowing them according to age and, apparently, looks.
Laughing invaders held the women as others of the beasts methodically went from woman to woman, seized them by their lower lip, and poked it through with a thin spike. A ring was pushed through each woman’s lip, its split opening efficiently closed with the aid of the invader’s teeth.
He had told her this, too: the women would be marked into slavery. This, too, she had laughed at. And why not? He seemed to her as daft as dumb Gus, expounding his crazy, preposterous ideas and nonsense.
Clarissa squinted, trying to see better. It appeared that the different groups of women had different-colored rings put through their lips. One group of older women of every shape looked to have copper-colored rings. Another group of younger women screamed and fought as silver rings were put upon them. They stopped fighting and meekly submitted after a few who fought the hardest were run through with swords.
The smallest group of the youngest, prettiest women were in the grip of the greatest terror as they were surrounded by a gang of burly invaders. These women received gold rings. Blood ran down their chins and onto their fancy dresses.
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