Blood of the Fold (Sword of Truth 3)

“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 shafts 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 there. 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.”

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?”