Zedd peered at her with one eye. “But the node on the inner half, where the true event takes place, would be vulnerable to breach. Though created by necessity, it would be a dangerous flaw. Do you know where the inner node is located?”
“We stand in it.”
Zedd straightened. He glanced around. “Yes, I can see the thought that went into it—placing it in the bedrock under everything else where it would be best protected.”
“That’s why, on the off chance it could bring havoc, we unequivocally forbid wizard’s fire anywhere on Halsband Island.”
Zedd absently waved a hand. “No, no. Wizard’s fire wouldn’t harm such a node.” He turned to her with a suspicious glare. “What are we doing here?”
“I brought you here to give you the opportunity to do what you wish to do—to destroy the spell.”
He stared, he blinked, and he stared some more. At last, he spoke. “No. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Wizard Zorander, this is a highly inconvenient time for you to be overcome with morals.”
He folded his skinny arms. “This spell was placed by wizards greater than I will ever be, greater than I can even imagine. This is a wonder, a thing of profound mastery. I won’t destroy such a piece of work.”
“I broke the truce!”
Zedd lifted his chin, “Breaking the truce condemns any Sister who comes to the New World to death. We are not in the New World. Breaking the truce says nothing about me going to the Old World and doing harm. By the terms of the truce, I have no right to do such a thing.”
She leaned closer with a dark look. “You promised me that if I took you away by that collar, endangering your friends, you would come to my homeland and lay waste to the Palace of the Prophets. I am giving you your chance.”
“It was a temporarily, passionate outburst. Reason has returned to my head.” He fixed her with a scolding scowl. “You’ve been using devious tricks and sly deception to try to convince me you’re a vile, contemptible, immoral malefactor, but you have failed to fool me. You are not the evil sort.”
“I’ve shackled you! I abducted you!”
“I won’t destroy your home and your life. Doing so, destroying the spell, would alter the pattern of the lives of the Sisters of the Light and, in essence, be ending their lives prematurely. The Sisters and their charges live by standards of time that to me seem strange, but to them are normal.
“Life is perception. If a mouse with a life span of only a few years were to have the magic to make my life as short as its life, that, to my perception, would be killing me, though to the mouse it would seem he were granting no less than a normal life span. That’s what Nathan meant when he said you were killing him.
“I would be shortening their lives to the same as the rest of us, but by their expectations and the oath they have taken, that would be the same as killing them before they have a chance to live, I won’t do it.”
“If I have to, Wizard Zorander, I’ll use the collar to give you pain until you agree.”
He smirked. “You have no conception of the tests of pain I have passed to become a wizard of the First Order. Go ahead, do your best.”
Ann pressed her lips together in exasperation. “But you have to! I’ve put a collar around your neck! I’ve done terrible things to you to make you angry enough to do this! The prophecy says the anger of a wizard is necessary to destroy our home!”
“You’ve been playing me for a dancing frog.” His hazel eyes hovered closer. “I don’t dance unless I know the tune.”
Ann sagged in frustration. “The truth is that Emperor Jagang is going to take the Palace of the Prophets for his own use. He’s a dream walker, and controls the minds of the Sisters of the Dark. He intends to use the prophecies to find the forks he needs to win the war, and then he’s going to live under the spell for hundreds of years, ruling the world and everyone in it as his own.”
Zedd considered her with a scowl. “Now, that gets my blood to boiling. That’s a worthy reason to level the palace. Bags, woman, why didn’t you just tell me the truth in the beginning?”
“Nathan and I have been working on this fork in the prophecies for hundreds of years. The prophecy says a wizard will level the palace in fury. Failure is too dark a vision for the world to take any risk, so I did the thing I thought would work. I’ve been trying to make you furious enough to want to destroy the Palace of the Prophets.” Ann rubbed her tired eyes. “It was a desperate act, because of a desperate need.”
Zedd grinned. “Desperate act. I like that. I like a woman who can appreciate the occasional need for acts of desperation. Shows spirit.”
Ann clutched his sleeve. “Will you do it, then? We don’t have any time to spare; the drums have stopped. Jagang could be here at any moment.”
“I’ll do it. We’d better get back near the entrance, though.”
When they were back near the huge round door to the vaults, Zedd reached into a pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a stone. He tossed it on the floor.
“What’s that?”
Zedd glanced back over his shoulder. “Well, I conjecture you told Nathan to cast a light web.”
“Yes. Other than Nathan, a few sisters, and myself, no one knows how to spin a light web. I think Nathan has enough power to breach the outer node once a cascade is begun on this inner one, but I know neither of us has the power to start the one needed in here. That’s why I needed to bring you here. I fear only a wizard of the First Order will have the power necessary.”
“Well, I’ll do my best,” Zedd grumbled, “but I’ve got to tell you, Ann, as vulnerable as a node would be, it’s still a spell cast by wizards the vastness of whose power I can only imagine.”
He spun his finger around, and the stone on the floor before him popped and snapped as it rapidly grew to a broad, flat rock. He stepped up onto it.
“You get out of here. Go wait outside. Make sure Holly is safe while I do this. If anything goes wrong, and I can’t control the cascade of light, you won’t have time to get out of here.”
“Act of desperation, Zedd?”
He answered with a grunt as he turned back to the room and lifted his arms. Already, sparkling colors were rising from the rock, engulfing him with spiraling shifts of humming light.
Ann had heard of wizard’s rocks, but she had never seen one, and didn’t know how they worked. She could feel the power that began emanating from the old wizard when he had stepped up on the thing.
She hurried from the vault as he wished. She wasn’t sure if he really wanted her out of the room for her own safety, or if he didn’t want her to see how he was going to do such a thing. Wizards did tend to guard their secrets. Besides that, Zedd was proving to be even more devious than Nathan—an achievement she would have thought impossible.
Holly wrapped her thin little arms around Ann’s neck when she squatted down by the dark niche.
“Has anyone come past?”
“No, Ann,” Holly whispered.
“Good. Let me squeeze in here with you, while we wait until Wizard Zorander is finished with his task.”
“He yells a lot, and says a lot of bad words, and waves his arms around like he’s going to call a storm around us, but I think he’s nice.”
“You aren’t still itching from snow fleas.” Ann smiled in the dark of the small hiding place among the rock. “But I think you may be right.”
“My grandmamma would get angry, sometimes, like when people meant to hurt us, but you could tell she really meant it. Wizard Zorander doesn’t really mean it. He’s just pretending.”
“You are more perceptive than I have been, child. You’re going make a splendid Sister of the Light.”
Ann held Holly’s head to her shoulder as she waited in the silence. She hoped the wizard would hurry. If they were caught in the vaults, there was no way out, and a fight with Sisters of the Dark, despite his power, would prove more than dangerous.
Time dragged on with agonizing stubbornness. Ann could tell
by her slow, steady breathing that Holly had fallen asleep against her shoulder. The poor child hadn’t been getting enough sleep—none of them had, rushing day and most of the nights, too, to get to Tanimura in time, to beat Jagang to the palace. They were all exhausted.
Ann started when there was a tug on her dress at her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here,” Zedd whispered.
Pulling Holly with her, she squeezed back out of their hiding place. “Did you do it?”
Zedd, looking worse than merely vexed, glanced back through the huge round door to the vaults.
“I can’t get the confounded thing to work. It’s like trying to start a fire under water.”
She clutched his robes in a fist. “Zedd, we have to do this.”
He turned his worried eyes to her. “I know. But the ones who wove this web had Subtractive Magic. I have only Additive. I’ve tried everything I know. The web around this place is stable beyond my ability to breach. It can’t be done. I’m sorry.”
“I’ve woven a light web in the palace. It can be done.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t weave one, I said I can’t get it to ignite. Not down here in the node, anyway.”
“You tried to ignite it! Are you crazy?”
He shrugged. “Act of desperation, remember? I had my suspicious about it working, so I had to test it. Good thing I did, or we would have thought it would work. It won’t. It will ignite only for life. It won’t expand and consume the spell.”
Ann sagged. “At least if anyone goes in there, hopefully Jagang, it will kill them. Until they discover it, anyway, and then they will drain the shield and have the vaults to do with as they will.”
“It will cost them dearly. I’ve left a few ‘tricks’ of my own in their. The place is a death trap.”
“Is there nothing else we can do?”
“It’s big enough to take down the entire palace, but I can’t set it off. If these Sisters of the Dark really can wield Subtractive Magic, as you say, we could ask one of them if they would try to ignite the light web for us.”
Ann nodded. “That’s all we can do, then. We have to hope the things you left in there will kill them. Even if we can’t destroy the palace, maybe that will be enough.” She took Holly’s hand. “We had better get out of here. Nathan will be waiting. We must escape before Jagang arrives, or the Sisters discover us.”
Chapter 50
When she saw the flash of steel in the moonlight, Verna ducked behind a stone bench. The sounds of battle rolled up the lawns toward her from lower down on the palace grounds. Some of the others had told her that the crimson-caped soldiers had arrived not long ago to join with the Imperial Order, but they now seemed bent on killing everyone in sight.
Two men in the crimson capes raced up out of the darkness. From the other direction, where she had seen the flash of steel, someone sprang out and in an instant had cut them down.
“It’s two of the Blood,” a woman’s voice whispered. The voice sounded familiar. “Come on, Adie.”
Another thin form emerged from the shadows. The woman had used a sword, and Verna had her Han to defend herself. She took a chance, and stood.
“Who is it? Show yourself.”
Moonlight glinted off the sword as it rose. “Who wants to know?”
She hoped she wasn’t taking a foolish chance, but there were friends among the women here. Still, she kept a firm grip on her dacra.
“It’s Verna.”
The shadowed figure paused. “Verna? Sister Verna?”
“Yes. Who is it,” she whispered back.
“Kahlan Amnell.”
“Kahlan! It can’t be.” Verna rushed out into the moonlight and lurched to a halt before the woman. “Dear Creator, it is.” Verna threw her arms around her. “Oh, Kahlan. I was so worried you were killed.”
“Verna, you can’t know how glad I am to see a friendly face.”
“Who is it with you?”
An old woman stepped closer. “A long time, it has been, but I still remember you well, Sister Verna.”
Verna stared, trying to place the face of the old woman, “I’m sorry, but I don’t recognise you.”
“I be Adie. I was here for a time, fifty years ago, in my youth.”
Verna’s eyebrows went up. “Adie! I remember Adie.”
Verna left unsaid that she remembered Adie as a rather young woman. She had learned long ago not to say such things aloud; those from the outside world lived by a different pace of time.
“I think you may remember my name, but not my face. It be a long time ago.” Adie embraced Verna in a warm hug. “You be one I remember. You be kind to me when I be here.”
Kahlan interrupted the brief reminiscing. “Verna, what’s going on here? We were brought here by the Blood of the Fold, and have just managed to escape. We have to get out of here, but it seems the place is erupting in battle.”
“It’s a long story, and I have no time right now to tell it all. I’m not sure I even know it all. But you’re right, we must escape at once. The Sisters of the Dark have taken the palace, and Emperor Jagang of the Imperial Order is due to arrive at any time. I have to get the Sisters of the Light away from here at once. Come with us?”
Kahlan scanned the lawns for trouble. “All right, but I have to go get Ahern. He’s been steadfast; I can’t leave him behind. He’ll be wanting to get his team and coach, if I know Ahern.”
“I still have Sisters out collecting all those loyal.” Verna said. “We’re to meet just over there, on the other side of that wall. The guard hiding on the other side, beside the gate, is loyal to Richard, as are all the rest guarding the gates in that wall. His name is Kevin. He can be trusted. When you get back, just tell him you’re a friend of Richard. It’s a code he knows. He’ll let you into the compound.”
“Loyal to Richard?”
“Yes. Hurry. I have to go inside to get a friend out. You can’t let your man bring his team through this way, though; the palace grounds are becoming a battlefield. He’ll never make it.
“The stables are at the north end. That’s the way we’re leaving. I have Sisters guarding the small bridge there. Have him head north to the first farm on the right with a stone wall around the garden. That’s our secondary meeting place, and it’s secure. For the moment, anyway.”
“I’ll hurry,” Kahlan said.
Verna caught her arm. “We can’t wait for you if you don’t get back here in time. I must get a friend and then we must escape.”
“I don’t expect you to wait. Don’t worry, I have to get away, too. I think I’m the bait to draw Richard here.”
“Richard!”
“Another long story, but I have to get away before they can use me to lure him here.”
The night suddenly lit, as if by silent lightning, except it didn’t go out like lightning. They all turned to the southeast and saw massive balls of flame boiling up into the night sky. Thick black smoke billowed into the air. It seemed the entire harbor was aflame. Huge ships were thrown into the air atop colossal columns of water.
The ground suddenly shook, and at the same time the air boomed with the rumbling sound of distant explosions.
“Dear spirits,” Kahlan said. “What’s going on?” She glanced about. “We’re running out of time. Adie, stay with the Sisters. I hope to be back soon.”
“I can get the Rada’Han off,” Verna called out, but too late. Kahlan had already dashed away into the shadows.
Verna took Adie’s arm. “Come on. I’ll take you to some of the other Sisters behind the wall. One of them will get that thing off you while I go inside.”
Verna’s heart pounded as she slipped through the halls inside the prophet’s compound after leaving Adie with the others. As she moved deeper into the dark halls, she braced herself for the possibility that Warren was dead. She didn’t know what they had done to him, or if they had decided to simply eliminate him. She didn’t think she could endure it if she were to find his body.
No. Jagang want
ed a prophet to help him with the books. Ann had warned her, what seemed ages ago, to get him away at once.
The thought entered her mind that maybe Ann wanted her to get Warren away to keep the Sisters of the Dark from killing him because he knew too much. She put the troubling thoughts from her mind as she scanned the halls for any sign that a Sister of the Dark might have slipped into the building to hide from the battle.
Before the door to the prophet’s apartments, Verna took a deep breath, and then moved into the inner hall, through the layers of shields that had kept Nathan a prisoner in the place for near to a thousand years, and now kept Warren.
She breached the inner door into the gloom. The far double doors to the prophet’s small garden stood open, letting in the warm night air and a shaft of moonlight. A candle on a side table was lit, but provided little illumination.
Verna’s heart pounded as she saw someone rise from a chair.
“Warren?”
“Verna!” He rushed forward. “Thank the Creator you escaped!”
Verna felt a clutch of dismay as her hopes and longings sparked her old fears. She retreated from the brink. She shook a finger at him. “What kind of foolishness was that, sending me your dacra! Why didn’t you use it and save yourself—to escape! That was reckless sending it to me. What if something had happened? You already had it, and you let it out of your hands! What were you thinking?”
He smiled. “I’m glad to see you, too, Verna.”
Verna dammed up her feelings behind a gruff reply. “Answer my question.”
“Well, first of all, I’ve never used a dacra, and worried I might do something wrong, and then we would lose our only chance. Secondly, I have this collar around my neck, and unless I get it off, I can’t get through the shields. I feared that if I couldn’t get Leoma to take it off, if she would rather die than do it, then it would all be for naught.
“Third,” he said, taking a tentative step toward her, “if only one of us was to have a chance to get away, I wanted it to be you.”
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