Sister Philippa appeared middle-aged, but with Sisters that meant little. She might have lived at the Palace of the Prophets for only a year, or for centuries. With dark eyes and high cheekbones she was an exotic-looking woman. As in the Midlands, there were places in the Old World where the people had unique physical characteristics. Sister Philippa moved the way high-minded women tended to move, like a swan taken to human form.
“How may I be of service, Wizard Zorander?”
“Zedd will do. Is this Prelate of yours awake?”
“She is. This way, Zedd, if you please.”
He fell in behind the woman as she glided off toward the dark shapes of tents. “Got anything to eat around here?”
She looked back over her shoulder. “This late?”
“Well, I’ve been traveling hard. . . . It’s not really all that late, is it?”
In the dark, she assessed him briefly. “I don’t believe it’s ever too late, according to the teachings of the Creator. And you do look emaciated—from your travels, I’m sure.” Her smile warmed a little. “Food is always at the ready; we have soldiers who are active through the night and need to be fed. I believe I could find something for you.” She returned her gaze to the indiscernible path.
“That would be a kindness,” Zedd said in a jovial voice as he scowled at her back. “And I’m not emaciated; I’m wiry. Most women find lean men appealing.”
“Do they? I never knew that.”
Sisters of the Light were a lofty lot, Zedd thought ruefully. For thousands of years it had been a death sentence for them to even set foot in the New World. Zedd had always been a little more lenient—but not by much.
In the past, the Sisters only came into the New World to steal boys with the gift—they claimed to be saving them. It was a wizard’s task to train wizards. If they came for the reason of taking a boy back beyond the great barrier to their palace, Zedd viewed it as the gravest of crimes.
They had come for that very reason only the winter before, and taken Richard. Sister Verna was the one who had captured him and taken him to the Old World. Under the spell of their palace, he could have ended up being there for centuries. Leave it to Richard to make friends with the Sisters of the Light, of all people.
Zedd guessed he and the Sisters were even—that they had good reason to view him in a harsh way. He had, after all, set the spell that Richard had used to destroy their palace. But Ann had helped, knowing it was the only way to prevent Jagang from capturing the palace and acquiring the prophecies therein for his own purposes.
All around, guards, big guards, prowled the encampment. In chain mail and leather armor, they were an imposing sight. They watched everything as they slipped through the darkness. The camp was relatively quiet, considering its size. Noise could give away a variety of information to an enemy. It was not easy to see to it that this many men kept quiet.
“I’m relieved that our first incursion by someone possessing the gift turned out to be a friend,” the Sister said.
“And I’m glad to see that the gifted are helping to keep watch. But there are types of enemy forays that the regular sentries could not identify.” Zedd wondered if they were really prepared for those kinds of troubles.
“If magic is involved, we will be there to detect it.”
“I suppose you were watching me the whole time.”
“I was,” Sister Philippa said. “From the time you crossed the line of hills, back there.”
Zedd scratched his jaw. “Really? That far away.”
With a satisfied smirk she said, “That far.”
He peered over his shoulder into the night. “Both of you. Very good.”
She halted and turned to him. “Both? You knew there were two of us, watching?”
Zedd smiled innocently. “But, of course. You were just watching. She was farther away, following, conjuring some little nasty should I prove hostile.”
Sister Philippa blinked in astonishment. “Remarkable. You could sense her touching her Han? From that distance?”
Zedd nodded with satisfaction. “They didn’t make me First Wizard just because I was wiry.”
Sister Philippa’s smile finally looked sincere. “I am relieved you came as a friend, rather than one intent on harm.”
There was more truth in that than the woman knew; Zedd had experience in the unpleasant, dirty business of magic in warfare. When he’d come near their camp, he saw the holes in their defense and the weaknesses in the way they used the gift for their purpose. They were not thinking as their enemy would think. Had he been intent on harm, the entire camp would be in an uproar by now, despite what they had done to prepare for one such as he.
Sister Philippa turned back to the night to lead him on. It was somewhat unsettling for Zedd to walk through a D’Haran camp—even though he knew they were, now fighting on the same side. He had spent a good deal of his life dealing with D’Harans as the deadly enemy. Richard had changed all that. Zedd sighed. He sometimes thought that Richard might make friends with thunder and lightning and invite them both to dinner.
Dark shapes of tents and wagons loomed all around. Pole weapons were stacked upright in neat ranks, ready, should they be suddenly needed. Some soldiers snored, and some sat around in the dark, talking in low voices or laughing quietly, while others patrolled the inky shadows. Those passed close enough for Zedd to smell their breath, but in the darkness he could not make out their faces.
Well-hidden sentries were stationed at every possible approach route.
There were very few fires in the camp, and those were mostly watch fires set away from the main force, leaving the mass of the camp a dark whole of night. Some armies carried on a considerable amount of work at night, performing repairs or making things they needed, and letting the men do as they would. These men remained quiet; throughout the night so watching eyes and listening ears could gain little if any help, for an invading force.
These were well trained, disciplined, professional soldiers. From a distance it was difficult to tell the size of the camp. It was huge.
Sister Philippa brought Zedd to a sizable tent, one tall enough to stand in. Light from lamps hanging inside gave the canvas walls and roof a soft amber glow. She ducked beneath a tent line and poked her head in under the flap.
“I have a wizard out here who wishes to see the Prelate.”
Zedd heard muffled, astonished acknowledgment from inside.
“Go on in.” Sister Philippa smiled while giving his back a gentle push. “I’ll see if I can find you some dinner.”
“I would be not only grateful, but greatly in your debt,” Zedd told her.
As he stepped inside the tent, the people were just coming to their feet to greet him.
“Zedd! You old fool! You be alive!”
Zedd grinned as Adie, the old sorceress known as the bone woman in their adopted homeland of Westland, rushed into his arms. He let out a grunt as she momentarily squeezed the wind from his lungs. He smoothed her square-cut, jawlength black and gray hair as he held her head to his chest.
“I promised you’d see me again, now didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did,” she whispered into his heavy robes.
She pushed back, holding his arms, and looked him over. She reached up and smoothed down his unruly, wavy white hair.
“You look as lovely as ever,” he told her.
She peered at him with her completely white eyes. Her sight had been taken from her when she was but a young woman. Adie now saw by means of her gift. In some ways, she saw better.
“Where be your hat?”
“Hat?”
“I bought you a fine hat and you lost it. I see you still have not replaced it. You told me you would get another. I believe you promised.”
Zedd hated the hat with the long feather she’d bought for him when they’d acquired the rest of his clothes. He’d rather be wearing the simple robes befitting a wizard of his rank and authority, but Adie had “lost” them after he purchased t
he fancy maroon robes with black sleeves and cowled shoulders he now wore. Three rows of silver brocade circled the cuffs. Thicker gold brocade ran around the neck and down the front. A red satin belt set with a gold buckle gathered the outfit at his thin waist. Such clothes marked one with the gift as an initiate. For one without the gift, such clothes befitted nobility or in most places a wealthy merchant, so although Zedd disliked the ostentatious attire, it had at times been a valuable disguise. Besides, Adie liked him in the maroon robes. The hat, though, was too much for him. It had been “misplaced.”
He noted that Adie had managed to keep her simple clothes along the way. Yellow and red beads around the neck of her robes, sewn in the shapes of the ancient symbols of her profession of sorceress, were the only ornamentation she wore.
“I’ve been busy,” he said, flicking his hand, hoping to dismiss the matter, “or I would have replaced the hat.”
“Bale,” she scoffed. “You be up to mischief.”
“Why, I’ve been—”
“Hush, now,” Adie said. Holding his arm in a tight grip, she held out the long thin fingers of her other hand. “Zedd, this be Verna: Prelate of the Sisters of the Light.”
The woman looked to be in her late thirties, perhaps early forties; Zedd knew her to be much older. Ann, Verna’s predecessor, had told him Verna’s age, and while he couldn’t recall the exact number, it was somewhere close to one hundred and sixty years—young for a Sister of the Light. She had simple, attractive features and brown hair with just enough curl and body to add a hint of sophistication. Her intent, brown-eyed gaze looked as if it could scour lichen off granite. By the lines of a resolute expression enduringly fixed on her face, she appeared to be a woman with a shell as tight as a beetle’s and just as hard.
Zedd bowed his head. “Prelate. First Wizard Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander, at your service.” He let her know, by his tone, that it was merely a figure of speech.
This was the woman who had taken Richard away to the Old World. Even if she believed it was to save his life, Zedd, as First Wizard, viewed such an act as abhorrent. The Sisters—sorceresses all—believed they could train gifted young men to be wizards. They were wrong; such a task could only be adequately accomplished by another wizard.
She offered her hand with the sunburst-patterned gold ring of office.
He bent forward and kissed it, out of what he thought must be their custom.
She pulled his hand close when he had finished, and kissed it in return.
“I am humbled to meet the man who helped raise our Richard. You would have to be as rare a person as I found him to be when we helped begin his training.” She forced a chuckle. “We found it a formidable labor, trying to teach that grandson of yours.”
Zedd slightly altered his opinion of the woman, treating her with greater caution. The air in the tent was stuffy and uncomfortable.
“That is because you are all oxen trying to teach a horse to run. You Sisters should stick to work more befitting your nature.”
“Yes, yes, you be a brilliant man, Zedd,” Adie scoffed. “Simply brilliant. One of these days even I may come to believe you.” She tugged his sleeve, turning him from Verna’s scarlet face. “And this be Warren,” Adie said.
Zedd inclined his head toward Warren, but the boy was already falling to his knees and bowing his blond head.
“Wizard Zorander! This is quite an honor.” He popped back up and seized Zedd’s hand in both of his, pumping it until Zedd thought his arm might come undone at the shoulder. “I’m so pleased to meet you. Richard told me all about you. I’m so pleased to meet a wizard of your standing and talent. I would be so happy to learn from you!”
The happier he looked, the more Verna scowled.
“Well, I’m pleased to meet you, too, my boy.” Zedd didn’t tell Warren that Richard had never mentioned him. But that was not out of disrespect or neglect; Richard had never had a chance to tell Zedd a great number of very important things. Zedd thought he could sense through Warren’s grip that the young man was a wizard of unusual talents.
A bear of a man with a curly rust-colored beard, a white scar from his left temple to his jaw, and heavy eyebrows stepped forward. His grayish green eyes fixed on Zedd with fierce intensity, but he had a grin like a soldier on a long march who had spotted a lonely cask of ale.
“General Reibisch, commander of the D’Haran forces here in the south,” the man said, taking Zedd’s hand when Warren at last surrendered it and stepped back beside Verna. “Lord Rahl’s grandfather! What good fortune to see you, sir.” His grip was firm, but not painful. It got tighter. “What very good fortune.”
“Yes, indeed,” Zedd muttered. “Unfortunate as the circumstances are, General Reibisch.”
“Unfortunate . . . ?”
“Well, never mind, for the moment,” Zedd said, waving off the question.
He asked another, instead. “Tell me, General, have you begun to dig all the mass graves, yet? Or do you intend the few who are left alive to simply abandon all the bodies.”
“Bodies?”
“Why . . . yes, the bodies of all your troops who are going to die.”
Chapter 16
“I hope you like eggs,” Sister Philippa sang out as she swept into the tent, holding out a steaming plate.
Zedd rubbed his hands together. “Delightful!”
Everyone else was still standing in stiff, stunned silence. Sister Philippa didn’t seem to notice all the hanging jaws.
“I had the cook add some ham and a few other things he had about.” She glanced down at Zedd’s form. “I thought you could use some substance.”
“Marvelous!” Zedd grinned as he relieved her of the plate mounded high with scrambled eggs and ham.
“Ah . . .” the general began, seemingly befuddled as to how to frame his question, “might you kindly explain . . . what you mean by that, Wizard Zorander?”
“Zedd will do.” Zedd looked up from inhaling the intoxicating aroma of the dish. “Dead.” He drew the fork across his throat. “You know, dead. Nearly all of them. Dead.” He turned back to Sister Philippa. “This smells delightful.” He again inhaled the steam lifting from the plate of eggs.
“Simply delightful. You are a woman of a kind heart and a skillful mind, to think to have the cook add such a splendid complement of ingredients. Simply delightful.”
The Sister beamed.
The general lifted a hand. “Wizard Zorander, if I may—”
Adie hushed the burly general. “You be poor competition to food. Be patient.”
Zedd took a forkful, humming his pleasure at the flavor he encountered.
As he took a second forkful, Adie guided him to a simple bench at the side of the tent. A table in the middle held a few mugs and a lamp that lent the cozy tent not only its light but its oily odor as well.
Despite Adie’s advice to be patient, everyone began talking at once, asking questions and offering objections. Zedd ignored them as he shoveled in the scrambled eggs. The large chunks of ham were delicious. He waved a particular juicy piece of meat to the confounded spectators to indicate his pleasure with it. The spices, the onions, the peppers, and the warm lumps of cheese were delightful. He rolled his eyes and moaned in bliss.
It was the best food he’d had in days. His traveling rations were simple and had long ago become boring. He had often grumbled that Spider ate better than he did. Spider seemed smug about it, too, which he had always found annoying. It wasn’t good for a horse to be smug with you.
“Philippa,” Verna growled, “must you be so pleased about a plate of eggs?”
“Well, the poor man is practically starving.” Puzzled by Verna’s scowl, she waggled her hand at Zedd. “Just look at him. I’m simply happy to see him enjoy his meal, and pleased I could help one of the Creator’s gifted.”
Zedd slowed when he all too soon approached the end of his meal, putting off the last few bites. He could have eaten another plate the same size. General Reibisch, sitting on a be
nch on the opposite side of the small tent, had been furiously twisting a strand of beard. Now, he leaned forward, his intent gaze fixed on Zedd.
“Wizard Zorander, I need—”
“Zedd. Remember?”
“Yes, Zedd. Zedd, the lives of these soldiers are my responsibility. Could you please tell me if you think they are in danger?”
Zedd spoke around a mouthful. “I already did.”
“But . . . what is the nature of the danger?”
“The gifted. You know, magic.”
The general straightened with a sober expression. His fingers dug into his muscular thighs. “The gifted?”
“Yes. The enemy has gifted among them. I thought you knew.”
He blinked a few times as he seemed to run it through his mind again, trying to discover the nugget of invisible danger in Zedd’s simple statement.
“Of course we know that.”
“Ah. Then why haven’t you dug some mass graves?”
Verna shot to her feet. “In the name of Creation! What do you think we are, serving wenches? Here to bring you dinner? We are gifted Sisters, here to defend the army from Jagang’s captive Sisters!”
Adie stealthily signaled Verna to sit down and keep quiet. Her voice came out like gravel in honey. “Why don’t you tell us what you have found, Zedd? I be sure the general and the Prelate would like to hear how to improve our defenses.”
Zedd scraped the small yellow lumps across the plate, collecting them into a final, pitifully small forkful. “Prelate, I didn’t mean to imply a deliberate inadequacy on your part.”
“Well you certainly—”
“You are all too good, that’s all.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Too good. You and your Sisters have spent your lives trying to help people.”
“Well . . . I, we—why, of course we help people. That’s our calling.”
Faith of the Fallen tsot-6 Page 19
