“Use your magic, witch.”
“I think not. You see, I know a bit about you women.”
Defiance blazed up from the blue eyes. “You know nothing.”
“Oh, but I do. Richard told me. You would know him as your Lord Rahl, but he was for a time my student. I know that women like you have the ability to capture the power of the gifted, if that power is used against you. Then, you can turn it against us. So, you see, I know better than to use my power on you.”
The woman looked away. “Then torture me if that is what you came to do. You will learn nothing.”
“I’m not here to torture you,” Nicci assured her.
“Then what do you want?”
“Let me introduce myself,” Nicci said. “I am Death’s Mistress.”
The woman’s blue eyes turned back, betraying for the first time a glint of hope. “Good. Kill me.”
“I need you to tell me some things.”
“I’ll not…tell you…anything.” It was a struggle for her to speak. “Not anything. Kill me.”
Nicci picked up a bloody blade from the table and held it before the blue eyes. “I think you will.”
The woman smiled. “Go ahead. It will only hasten my death. I know how much a person can take. I am not far from the spirit world. But no matter what you do, I’ll not talk before I die.”
“You misunderstand. I do not wish you to betray your Lord Rahl. Didn’t you hear your questioner hit the ground? If you turn your head a little more, perhaps you can see that the man who did this to you is now dead. I don’t wish you to tell me any secrets.”
The woman glanced, as best she could, toward the body on the ground. Her brow twitched. “What do you mean?”
Nicci noticed that she didn’t ask to be freed. She knew she was well past the point of hope to live. The only thing she could hope for, now, was for Nicci to end her agony.
“Richard was my student. He told me that he was once a captive of the Mord-Sith, Now, that’s not a secret, is it?”
“No.”
“That’s what I want to know about. What is your name?”
The woman turned her face away.
Nicci put a finger to the woman’s chin and turned her head back. “I have an offer to make you. I won’t ask you anything secret that you aren’t supposed to tell. I’ll not ask you to betray your Lord Rahl—I wouldn’t want you to. Those are not the things that are of interest to me. If you cooperate”—Nicci held up the blade again for the woman to see—“I will end it quickly for you. I promise. No more torture. No more pain. Just the final embrace of death.”
The woman’s lips began trembling. “Please,” she whispered, the hope returning to her eyes. “Please…kill me?”
“What is your name?” Nicci asked.
Nicci, for the most part, was numb to sights of torture, but this she found disturbing. She avoided looking away from the woman’s face, down at the naked body, so as not to have to consider what had been done to her. Nicci could not imagine how this woman could keep from screaming, or even how she was able to speak.
“Hania.” The woman’s hands and ankles were shackled to the table, so she was unable to move much other than her head. She stared up into Nicci’s eyes. “Will you kill me?… Please?”
“I will, Hania, I promise. Quickly and efficiently—if you tell me what I want to know.”
“I can’t tell you anything.” In despair, Hania seemed to sag against the table, knowing her ordeal was to go on. “I won’t.”
“I only want to know about when Richard was a captive. Did you know he was once a captive of the Mord-Sith?”
“Of course.”
“I want to know about it.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to understand him.”
Hania’s head rocked side to side. She actually smiled. “None of us understands Lord Rahl. He was tortured, but he never…took revenge. We don’t understand him.”
“I don’t either, but I hope to. My name is Nicci. I want you to know that. I’m Nicci, and I’m going to deliver you from this, Hania. Tell me about it. Please? I need to know. Do you know the woman who captured him? Her name?”
The woman considered for a moment before she spoke, as if testing in her own mind whether or not the information was in any way secret, or could in any way harm him.
“Denna,” Hania whispered at last.
“Denna. Richard killed her in order to escape—he already told me that much. Did you know Denna before she died?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not asking anything of secret military importance, am I?”
Hania hesitated. She finally shook her head.
“So, you knew Denna. And did you know Richard at the time? When he was there, and she ha
d him? Did you know he was her captive?”
“We all knew.”
“Why is that?”
“Lord Rahl—the Lord Rahl at the time—”
“Richard’s father.”
“Yes. He wanted Denna to be the one to train Richard, to prepare him to answer without hesitation whatever questions Darken Rahl asked him. She was the best at what we do.”
“Good. Now, tell me everything about it. Everything you know.”
Hania drew a shaky breath. It took a moment before she spoke again. “I won’t betray him. I am experienced at what is being done to me. You cannot trick me. I will not betray Lord Rahl just to spare myself this. I have not endured this much to betray him now.”
“I promise not to ask anything about the present—about the war—anything that would betray him to Jagang.”
“If I tell you only about when Denna had him, and not about now, about the war or where he is or anything else, do you give me your word that you will end it for me—that you will kill me?”
“I give you my word, Hania. I wouldn’t ask you to betray your Lord Rahl—I know him and have too much respect for him to ask that of you. All I wish is to understand him for personal reasons. I was his teacher, last winter, instructing him in the use of his gift. I want to understand him better. I need to understand him. I believe I can help him, if I do.”
“And then you will help me?” There was a shimmer of hope along with the tears. “You will kill me, then?”
This woman could aspire to nothing more, now. It was all that was left to her in this life: a quick death to finally end the pain.
“Just as soon as you’re finished telling me all about it, I will end your suffering, Hania.”
“Do you swear it by your hope to an eternity in the underworld in the warmth of the Creator’s light?”
Nicci felt a sharp shiver of pain wail up from her very soul. She had started out near to one hundred and seventy years before wanting nothing but to help, and yet she could not escape the fate of her evil nature. She was Death’s Mistress.