“All?” he asked, not understanding.
After Audrey finished dressing, she came back to his pallet, where he lay drifting and happy, his entire body tingling. She kissed him again. “Thank you,” she said, then slipped out of his chambers, darting silently into the corridors.
Bannon’s head was spinning. He was sure he would have a foolish grin on his face for days, if not months. He closed his eyes, let out a long sigh, and tried to sleep, but his body was still on fire. He had heard many love poems before, minstrels singing about the yearning of romance, and had not quite understood it. Of course, Bannon remembered his foolish attraction for Nicci, his inept flirtation in giving her the deathrise flower, but he had never dreamed of anything like Audrey. Perfect, beautiful, and hungry Audrey.
He lay for an hour, wanting to sleep, but not wanting to let go of a single moment of these cherished memories. He relived in his mind her every touch, imagining the feel of her lips on his cheek, on his mouth, on his chest—everywhere.
He heard a rustle of the fabric door hanging and didn’t at first understand what it was, until he raised his head, blinking. Had Audrey come back?
Laurel stood just inside the doorway, her strawberry-blond hair brushed and shining in the faint light of the remaining candle, adorned with a single decorative braid. She responded with a seductive smile, and her green eyes sparkled. Her tongue flicked around the corner of her mouth, and she showed perfect white teeth.
“I see you’re still awake.” She glided closer to his sleeping pallet as Bannon struggled to sit up. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.” As Laurel moved toward him, her hands worked at the tie at her waist, and she slid out of her acolyte’s gown like a beautiful naked butterfly emerging from a chrysalis.
Bannon drew in a quick breath. He was alarmed, confused—and aroused again. “Audrey was just—” he said, reaching up, but instead of being pushed away, she met him, took his left hand, and placed it against her breast. It was smaller and firmer than Audrey’s. Her nipples were erect.
“Audrey has already had her turn,” Laurel said with a smile. “I hope you’re not too tired.” She reached down, ran her fingers along his belly, then farther down to stroke the corn silk there. She grinned with delight. “I see you’re not tired at all.” She started kissing him, and now that Bannon knew exactly what to do, he responded with increasing enthusiasm. Given his earlier practice, Bannon decided he might be getting good at this after all.
Laurel was slower and gentler than Audrey, but more intense. She caressed him and showed him how to caress her, wanting to enjoy his entire body, and Bannon proved to be an avid student again. When he tried to rush, feeling the passion build within him, she held him back, strung him along, teased him. Then she rolled him over, slid beneath him on the narrow pallet, drew him down on top of her, and wrapped her arms around his back.
She whispered hotly in his ear, “It’s all right. There’s no hurry. Sage won’t be here until closer to dawn.”
CHAPTER 49
After seeing the desolation of the Scar firsthand, Nicci immersed herself in the lore in the wizards’ archive, devoting every hour to the piles of old books. And although Thistle tried to help in every way, fetching books she thought looked interesting, bringing food from the kitchens, she was bored.
The girl wished she could offer some assistance, but her skills as a scholar were minimal. When she had helped her friends survive in the wilderness, she’d felt important, useful to be catching lizards, finding water. But, books … Thistle didn’t know enough about magical lore or ancient languages.
Her aunt and uncle had taught her letters, so she knew how to read some basic words. She took it upon herself to memorize certain key terms that Nicci was interested in—“life,” “energy,” “Han,” “diminish,” “drain”—and she would stand in front of the shelves in the great reading rooms, going from spine to spine, book after book, scroll after scroll. Each time she found a likely prospect, she would hurry with it over to Nicci, adding it to the sorceress’s reading stack. Nicci always took her offerings seriously, but so far no one had found any revelation about the Lifedrinker’s possible weaknesses.
Thistle had always been independent, able to take care of herself. She sensed that Nicci valued her in part because the sorceress appreciated someone who could handle her own problems. Thistle wanted to prove that she could be a valuable member of their group, but she felt left out, without a purpose to serve.
So, she explored the great stone buildings and the tunnels that ran through the heart of the plateau like the worm tracks in a rotting tree. Absorbed in their research, the Cliffwall scholars paid little attention to Thistle.
She avoided Victoria, not wanting to be indoctrinated as a memmer to memorize old books. Once, she came upon one of their rote-memorization sessions, with young men and women sitting cross-legged on the stone floor while Victoria read a paragraph aloud and then had them all repeat it word for word. Spotting her, the matronly woman gestured for Thistle to join them, but she ducked away. The older woman’s intensity made her uneasy. She didn’t want to be locked up here poring over dusty old books all her life. She wanted to stay with Nicci instead. She wanted to share in her adventures.
Thistle found a restless Bannon prowling the tunnels as well, carrying his sword. He commiserated with her. “I wish we could just do something.” He swung his sword at invisible opponents, though there was little room in the passageway for a satisfying imaginary battle.
“We should go out and fight the evil wizard together,” Thistle said.
“You’re just a girl.”
Thistle scowled. “And you’re just a boy.”
Bannon huffed. “I’m a man, and I’m a swordfighter. You should have seen how many selka I killed when they attacked the Wavewalker.”
“You saw me fight the sand panthers,” Thistle said, “and the dust people.”
With a sigh, he rested his sword on the stone floor of the tunnel. “Neither of us poses much of a threat to the Lifedrinker. We have to wait until someone learns how to destroy him.”
Thistle frowned. “The waiting is driving me crazy.”
Bannon went off down the tunnel battling imaginary foes with his sword, but when he came upon Victoria’s three beautiful acolytes, he awkwardly stumbled to a halt. As opponents, Audrey, Laurel, and Sage could have hamstrung him with a flirtatious glance. Thistle rolled her eyes.
She made her way through the tunnels to the window on the outer steep slope of the plateau. As she gazed out on the Scar, Thistle’s heart ached to see the sweeping devastation and the distant heat shimmer. She longed to know what this beautiful valley must have looked like at one time.
The scholar-archivist Simon found her standing there. “I stare out at it every day,” he said. “Each morning I watch the Lifedrinker expand his terrain and suck more and more life out of the world. If you’ve been here as long as I, you know just how much we’ve lost.”
Thistle looked up at him. “What was it like?”
Simon gestured out the opening. “From here, you could see lakes and rivers. The hills were thick with forests, and the sky was blue, not this dusty gray. There were roads from one end of the valley to the other, connecting the villages. Pastures and crops dotted the countryside.” He blew a soft whistle through his teeth. “Sometimes it seems I’m just remembering a dream. But I know it was true.”
Thistle felt a tingle of warmth and determination. “We can make it that way again. I know we can.”
Simon’s voice took on a harder edge. “It should never have happened in the first place—one of our scholars unleashing a spell he couldn’t control. Now the valley is gone, the towns dried up—including my old home. The people are all dead.” A low groan came out of his throat. “And it’s our fault. We have to find some way to fix it.”
“I want to help,” Thistle said. “There must be something I could do.”
He gave her a patronizing smile. “I’m afraid this is a problem best lef
t to the scholars.”
Stung, Thistle turned away, muttering a quiet vow that she would help make the world right again. Even after she left, the scholar-archivist continued to stare out at the far-off wasteland.
* * *
Forgoing sleep, Nicci read the words of tome after tome until her eyes ached and her skull throbbed from trying to take in so much information. Although she learned a great deal, including many derivations of spells she had used in the past, she did not find the answers she sought. She set aside another volume in impatient disgust.
Now she had a greater grasp of just how dangerous, how devastating the Lifedrinker was, and if she did not stop him, then the world was indeed at stake—she did not underestimate the threat. The Scar would grow and grow, eventually drowning the Old World, then D’Hara.
Now she knew full well why she was here.
During the day, sunshine streamed in through the lensed windows of the towering stone buildings to illuminate the document rooms. During the night she read by the warm yellow light of candles or oil lamps. Nicci turned pages, studied the cryptic ancient languages, and dismissed ten more volumes by morning.
Absorbed in his own research, Nathan could skim and grasp the contents with ease, and he had always been more studious than Nicci. She was a woman of action, trying to save the world. She had in fact saved the world by helping Richard Rahl, and saving the world from the Lifedrinker’s debilitating spell was exactly what she needed to do next.
Her eyes burned, and her neck and shoulders ached. Needing to clear her head and breathe the open air, Nicci left the archive rooms and emerged from the highest stone tower in the sheltered cave grotto. She looked across the narrow inner canyon, thinking of the people who had lived there undisturbed for centuries. Although it was midmorning, the sun had not yet risen high enough to remove the dark cloak of shadows in the narrow canyons.
She saw sheep grazing near the central stream flanked by blossoming trees in the nut orchards. Nicci inhaled, enjoyed the cool bite of the morning air. A faint breeze blew stray wisps of blond hair around her face.
Nathan stepped out into the open to join her. “Out for a breath of fresh air, Sorceress? Ah, when you look out at the sheltered settlement here, you can almost forget the Scar and the Lifedrinker on the other side of the plateau.”
“I can’t forget.” She glanced over at him. “I need to consider what we should do. I found many tangential spells, but nothing good enough. This morning I’ve been studying how one might kill a succubus, on the off chance it might prove useful.”
Nathan stroked his hands over his white hair. “How does a succubus relate to the Lifedrinker?”
“Both of them drain life. A succubus is a kind of witch woman who has the power to absorb vitality through sex. Men find her irresistible, and she tempts them with physical pleasure, trapping them as she drains them to nothing more than a husk.” Nicci added with skeptical sarcasm, “The men supposedly die with smiles on their lips, even as their faces shrivel away.”
Nathan laughed uneasily. “It would not be wise for a woman as beautiful as yourself to have such magic, Sorceress.”
Nicci lifted her chin. “I already have more powerful magic than that. It is all a matter of control—and I do have control. The Lifedrinker, however, does not. He drains the vitality of his victim, and in this case his victim is the whole world. In that sense, he is like a succubus.”
“Quite extraordinary. And how is a succubus killed, then? What did the old document say?”
“The succubus is responsible for her own demise … in a way,” Nicci said. “In each of the countless times she lies with a man, there is a very small chance she will get pregnant. If that happens, the succubus is doomed. The child itself, always a daughter, is a powerful entity that gestates and grows, until it absorbs the life from its own succubus mother—doing the same thing to her as she does to men, draining the mother dry until she is nothing but a husk. Then the baby claws its way out of her womb … to become the next deadly succubus.”
Nathan pursed his lips. “That does not sound like a practical method of killing a succubus if we were to encounter one. There is no other way?”
“According to the legend, the newborn succubus is weak. If one times an attack properly, the baby can be killed, thus terminating the line of succubi.”
Nathan looked across the quiet, narrow canyon at a shepherd guiding his small flock to a flower-strewn patch of grass. “Although that tale is delightful and fascinating, I fail to see how it can be useful in our situation.”
“I don’t see how it can help either.” She sighed.
Victoria emerged from the tower library with a determined look on her face. Seeing them, she hurried forward. “In our communal discussions, my memmers recalled something important.” She focused on Nathan. For the past two days, since Nicci had refused to let her take Thistle as a new acolyte, the matronly woman had given her a cold shoulder. “Because each of us remembers different books, the memmers compared notes, made suggestions.”
“And you have remembered something useful?” Nicci asked. “That would be a welcome change.”
Victoria’s eyes flashed with annoyance, and the wizard quickly broke in, “What is it? The original Lifedrinker’s spell?”
Victoria rocked back, lifting her chin. “It is a story about the original primeval forest that once covered the Old World, the pristine wilderness that thrived in perfect harmony with nature. The Eldertree was the first tree in the first forest—a towering and titanic oak that was the most powerful living thing in the entire world. It is a story of creation.”
Nicci did not try to hide her disappointment. “How does an ancient myth about a tree help us against the Lifedrinker? He is a present threat, not an old fable.”
Victoria’s expression darkened. “Because all strands of life are connected, Sorceress. When the primeval forest covered the land, the world had great power and great magic.” She addressed her story to Nathan, finding him a more receptive audience. “Even before the wizard wars three thousand years ago, devastating armies swept across the Old World, cutting down trees, razing the last remnants of the original forests. Those evil men cut down the original Eldertree, a task so difficult that it required a hundred powerful wizards and even more laborers. And when the great tree fell, a vital part of the world died.
“But one acorn was saved, one last seed from the Eldertree. As the armies cut down the sweeping forests, they drove all the energy of life back into the Eldertree until at last it was condensed into this single acorn, the final spark of the primeval forest. All the energy of the Eldertree and all its offspring concentrated into that single acorn, stored there, where it could someday be released in an explosion of incomprehensibly powerful life itself.”
Nathan sucked in a quick breath of air. “And you think that might be powerful enough to kill the Lifedrinker?”
“It must be,” Victoria insisted. “But the more powerful he becomes, the more difficult the task will be. Soon it will be too late. At the moment, I believe that Roland, or what is left of Roland, will be no match for the last spark of the Eldertree.”
“Again, how does this help us?” Nicci said. “Do you believe the acorn truly exists? If so, where can we find it? I have read many books and found no mention of the legend or the seed itself.”
Nathan also shook his head. “Nothing in my studies either.”
“But I remember,” Victoria said. “It is in one of my memorized books. The acorn of the Eldertree was locked away here in Cliffwall, deep in a vault … somewhere over there.” She indicated the misshapen tower that was partially melted into a glassy lump at the side of the alcove. “It is still here.”
CHAPTER 50
Under Simon’s guidance, workers from the other canyon settlements brought their tools to Cliffwall and set to work trying to reach the lower levels of the damaged tower, hoping to find where the Eldertree acorn had been stored. In the cool, dusty underground, some of the access passage
s had slumped, the stone melting like wax to clog shut the openings, but the determined laborers used hammers and chisels to penetrate the hard slickrock.
A solid wall of vitreous rock had flowed over the opening, sealing off an entire basement level. Laborers were already hard at work, hammering and hauling away the rubble of broken rock. A grime-streaked stonecutter groaned and turned to Simon. “It’ll take many days to carve even a small hole through that, sir.”
After they followed the workers down into the deep underground passages, ducking and crawling into the damaged vaults, Nathan looked at Nicci. “Sorceress, surely a barricade of solid stone is not too great a challenge for you?”
“No, it is not. Allow me—we are in a hurry.” The workers backed away, curious, and Nicci reached out to touch the smooth wall of melted rock. When she released her magic, the stone that had flowed once, now flowed again. She did not need to resort to Subtractive Magic, but was able to work the material like clay, not destroying the rock but simply moving it. She lifted handfuls of fluid stone like a ditch digger slogging through mud. Although she expended a great effort, Nicci succeeded in carving out a tunnel, widening it, lifting the ceiling, and burrowing farther ahead.
After using her magic to move aside ten feet of stone blockage, Nicci began to doubt there truly was another chamber on the other side of the rock. What if the clumsy and untrained wizard had solidified the entire archive with his disastrous accident? Soon, though, she felt the stone grow thin in front of her, then break like an eggshell, and she pushed her way into a dark, claustrophobic vault, exactly where the plans suggested they look. Inside, the air was thick and stale, sealed away for years.
Cupping her hand, Nicci ignited a light spell so she could see the walls dotted with cubbyholes carved into the slickrock. She shone the diffuse glow around the chamber, seeing shadows dance around reverent display shelves that were filled with valuable, mysterious objects, artifacts, sculptures, amulets, all of them covered with dust.
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