Naked Empire

by Angreal

"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."

  Nyda shot a dark look back over her shoulder. "Nathan has nothing to talk to you about."

  At an uncomfortably narrow passageway tunneling into the stone on the right, Nyda led them into the darkness. The way the woman rushed lent a frightening aspect to an already frightening journey.

  Ann at last saw light up ahead. The narrow passageway emptied into a small area where several halls converged. Ahead and to the right they all funneled down steep stairs that twisted as they descended. As she was prodded down the stairs, Ann gripped the iron rail, fearful of losing her footing, although the big hand holding a fistful of her dress at her right shoulder would probably preclude any chance of falling, to say nothing of running off.

  In the passageway at the bottom of the stairs, Nyda, Ann, and the guards came to a halt under the low-beamed ceiling. Wavering light from torches in floor stands gave the low area a surreal look. The place stank of burning pitch, smoke, stale sweat, and urine. Ann doubted that any fresh air ever penetrated this deep into the People's Palace.

  She heard a hacking cough echoing from a dim corridor to the right. She peered into that dark hall and saw doors to either side. In some of the doors fingers gripped iron bars in small openings. Other than the coughing, no sound came from the cells holding hopeless men.

  A big man in uniform waited before an iron-bound door to the left. He looked as if he might have been hewn from the same stone as the walls. Under different circumstances, Ann might have thought that he was a pleasant enough looking fellow.

  "Nyda," the man said by way of greeting. When his eyes turned back up after a polite bow of his head, he asked in his deep voice, "What have we here?"

  "A prisoner for you, Captain Lerner." Nyda seized the empty shoulder of Ann's dress and hauled her forward as if showing off a pheasant after a successful hunt. "A dangerous prisoner."

  The captain's appraising gaze glided briefly over Ann before he returned his attention to Nyda. "One of the secure chambers, then."

  Nyda nodded her approval. "Wizard Rahl doesn't want her getting out. He said she's no end of trouble."

  At least half a dozen curt responses sprang to mind, but Ann held her tongue.

  "You had better come with us, then," Captain Lerner said, "and see to her being locked in behind the shields."

  Nyda tilted her head. Two of her men dashed forward and pulled torches from stands. The captain finally found the right key from a dozen or so he had on a ring. The lock sprang open with a strident clang that filled the surrounding low corridors. It sounded to Ann like a bell being tolled for the condemned.

  With a grunt of effort, the captain tugged the heavy door, urging it to slowly swing open. In the long hallway beyond, Ann saw but a couple of candles bringing meager light to the small openings in doors to each side. Men began hooting and howling, like animals, calling vile curses at who might be entering their world. Arms reached out, clawing the air, hoping to net a touch of a passing person.

  The two men with torches swept into the hall right behind Nyda, the firelight illuminating her in her red leather so all those faces pressed up against the openings in their doors could see her. Her Agiel, hanging on a fine chain at her wrist, spun up into her fist. She glared at the openings in the doors to each side. Filthy arms drew back in. Voices fell silent. Ann could hear men scurry to the far recesses of their cells.

  Nyda, once certain there would be no misbehavior, started out again. Big hands shoved Ann ahead. Behind, Captain Lerner followed with his keys. Ann pulled the corner of her shawl over her mouth and nose, trying to block the sickening stench.

  The captain took a small lamp from a recess, lit it from a candle to the side, and then stepped forward to unlock another door. In the low passageway beyond, the doors were spaced closer together. A hand covered with infected lesions hung limp out of one of the tiny openings to the side.

  The hall beyond the next door was lower, and no wider than Ann's shoulders. She tried to slow her racing heart as she followed the rough, twisting passageway. Nyda and the men had to stoop, arms folded in, as they made their way.

  "Here," Captain Lerner said as he came to a halt.

  He held up his lantern and peered into the small opening in the door. On the second try, he found the right key and unlocked the door. He handed his small lamp to Nyda and then used both hands to pull the lever. He grunted and tugged with all his weight until the door grated partway open. He squeezed around the door and disappeared inside.

  Nyda handed in the lamp as she followed the captain in. Her arm, sheathed in red leather, came back out to seize a fistful of Ann's dress and drag her in after.

  The captain was opening a second door on the other side of the tiny room. Ann could sense that this was the room containing the shield. The second door grated open. Beyond was a room carved from solid bedrock. The only way out was through the door, and the outer room that contained the shield, and then the second door.

  The House of Rahl knew how to build a secure dungeon.

  Nyda's hand gripped Ann's elbow, commanding her into the room beyond. Even Ann, as short as she was, had to duck as she stepped over the high sill to get through the doorway. The only furniture inside was a bench carved from the stone of the far wall itself, providing both a seat and a bed off the floor. A tin ewer full of water sat on one end of the bench. At the opposite end was a single, folded, brown blanket. There was a chamber pot in the corner. At least it was empty, if not clean.

  Nyda set the lamp on the bench. "Nathan said to leave you this."

  Obviously it was a luxury the other guests weren't afforded.

  Nyda stepped one leg over the sill, but paused when Ann called her name.

  "Please give Nathan a message for me? Please? Tell him that I would like to see him. Tell him that it's important."

  Nyda smiled to herself. "He said you would say those words. Nathan is a prophet, I guess he would know what you would say."

  "And will you give him that message?"

  Nyda's cold blue eyes looked to be weighing Ann's soul. "Nathan said to tell you that he has a whole palace to run, and can't come running down to see you every time you clamor for him."

  Those were almost the exact words she had sent down to Nathan's apartments countless times when a Sister had come to her with Nathan's demands to see the Prelate. Tell Nathan that I have a whole palace to run and I can't go running down there every time he bellows for me. If he has had a prophecy, then write it down and I will look it over when I have the time.

  Until that moment, Ann had never truly realized how cruel her words had been.

  Nyda pulled the door shut behind her. Ann was alone in a prison she knew she could not escape.

  At least she was near the end of her life, and could not be held as a prisoner for nearly her entire life, as she had held Nathan prisoner for his.

  Ann rushed to the little window. "Nyda!"

  The Mord-Sith turned back from the second door, from beyond the shield Ann could not cross. "Yes?"

  "Tell Nathan ... tell Nathan that I'm sorry."

  Nyda let out a brief laugh. "Oh, I think Nathan knows you're sorry."

  Ann thrust her arm through the door, reaching toward the woman. "Nyda, please. Tell him ... tell Nathan that I love him."

  Nyda stared at her a long moment before she pushed the outer door closed.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 21

  Kahlan lifted her head. She gently laid a hand on Richard's chest as she turned her ear toward the sound she'd heard off in the darkness. Beneath her hand, Richard's chest rose and fell with his labored breathing, but, even at that, she felt relief—he was still alive. As long as he was alive she could fight to find a solution. She wouldn't give him up. They would get to Nicci. Somehow, they would get to her.

  A quick glance to the position of the quarter moon told h
er that she'd been asleep less than an hour. Clouds, silvery in the moonlight, had silently begun streaming in from the north. In the distant sky she saw, too, the moonlit wings of the black-tipped races that always trailed them.

  She hated those birds. The races had been following them ever since Cara had touched the statue of Kahlan that Nicci said was a warning beacon. Those dark wings were never far, like the shadow of death, always following, always waiting.

  Kahlan recalled all too well the sand in that hourglass statue trickling out. Her time was running out. She had no actual indication of what would happen when the time that sand had represented finally ran out—but she could imagine well enough.

  The place where they had set up camp, before a sharp rise of rock with a stand of bristlecone pine and thorny brush to one side, wasn't as protected or tenable a camp as any of them would have liked, but Cara had confided that she was afraid that if they didn't stop, Richard wouldn't live the night.

  That whispered warning had set Kahlan's heart to pounding, brought cold sweat to her brow, and swept her to the verge of panic.

  She had known that the rough wagon ride, slow as it had been while they made their way across open country in the dark, seemed to have made it more difficult for Richard to breathe. Less than two hours after they had started out, after Cara's warning, they'd been forced to stop. After they had stopped, they were all relieved that Richard's breathing became more even, and sounded a little less labored.

  They needed to make it to roads so that traveling would be easier on Richard, and so they could make better time. Maybe after he rested the night, they could make swifter progress.

  She had to fight constantly to tell herself that they would get him there, that they had a chance, and that the journey's purpose wasn't merely empty hope meant to forestall the truth.

  The last time Kahlan had felt this helpless, felt this sense of Richard's life slipping away, she'd at least had one solid chance available to her to save him. She'd had no idea, at the time, that that one chance taken would be the catalyst that would initiate a cascade of events that would begin the disintegration of magic itself.