Naked Empire (Sword of Truth 8)

Richard knew that with everyone evacuated from Aydindril, the Imperial Order would now turn its swords on D’Hara. Despite the competence of the D’Haran troops, they would be overwhelmed by the numbers that Jagang would throw at them. If the Order was not diverted from its cause, or at least divided into smaller forces, D’Hara would fall under the shadow of the Order. The D’Haran Empire, forged to unite the New World against tyranny, would end before it had really gotten started.

Richard had to get back to Victor and Nicci so that they could all continue what they had begun—devising the most effective strategy to overthrow the Imperial Order.

But they were running out of time to resolve another problem, a problem they didn’t yet understand.

“I’m glad you found us, Sabar. You can tell Victor and Nicci that we need to see to something first, but as soon as we do, we’ll be able to help them with their plans.”

Sabar looked relieved. “Everyone will be happy to hear this.”

Sabar hesitated, then tilted his head, gesturing north. “Lord Rahl, when I came to find you, following the directions Nicci gave me, I went past the area where she was to meet with you, and then I continued coming south.” Worry stole into his expression. “Not many days ago, I came to a place, miles wide, that was dead.”

Richard looked up. He realized that his headache seemed to be suddenly gone. “What do you mean, dead?”

Sabar waved his hand out toward the evening gloom. “The area where I was traveling was much like this place; there were some trees, clumps of grass, thickets of brush.” His voice lowered. “But then I came to a place where everything that grew ended. All at the same place. There was nothing but rock beyond. Nicci had not told me that I would come to such a place. I admit, I was afraid.”

Richard glanced to his right—to the east—to the mountains that lay beyond. “How long did this dead place last?”

“I walked, leaving life behind, and I thought I might be walking into the underworld itself.” Sabar looked away from Richard’s eyes. “Or into the jaws of some new weapon the Order had created to destroy us all.

“I came to be very afraid and I was going to turn back. But then I thought about how the Order made me afraid my whole life, and I didn’t like that feeling. Worse, I thought about how I would stand before Nicci and tell her I turned around rather than go to Lord Rahl as she asked of me, and that thought made me ashamed, so I went on. In several miles I came again to growing things.” He let out a breath. “I was greatly relieved, and then I felt a little foolish that I had been afraid.”

Two. That now made two of the strange boundaries.

“I’ve been to places like that, Sabar, and I can tell you that I, too, have been afraid.”

Sabar broke into a grin. “Then I was not so foolish to be afraid.”

“Not foolish at all. Could you tell if this dead area was extensive? Could you tell if it was more than just a patch of open rock in that one place? Could you see if it ran in a line, ran in any direction in particular?”

“It was like you say, like a line.” Sabar flicked his hand toward the east. “It came down out of the far mountains, north of that depression.” He held his hand flat like a cleaver, and sliced it downward in the other direction. “It ran off to the southwest, into that wasteland.”

Toward the Pillars of Creation.

Kahlan leaned close and spoke under her breath. “That would be almost parallel to the boundary we crossed not far back to the south. Why would there be two boundaries so close together? That makes no sense.”

“I don’t know,” Richard whispered to her. “Maybe whatever the boundary was protecting was so dangerous that whoever placed it feared that one might not be enough.”

Kahlan rubbed her upper arms but didn’t comment. By the look on her face, Richard knew how she felt about such a notion—especially considering that those boundaries were now down.

“Anyway,” Sabar said with a self-conscious shrug, “I was happy I did not turn back, or I would have had to face Nicci after she had asked me to help Lord Rahl—my friend Richard.”

Richard smiled. “I’m glad, too, Sabar. I don’t think that place you went through is a danger any longer, at least not a danger the way it was once.”

Jennsen could contain her curiosity no longer. “Who is this Nicci?”

“Nicci is a sorceress,” Richard said. “She used to be a Sister of the Dark.”

Jennsen’s eyebrows went up. “Used to?”

Richard nodded. “She worked to further Jagang’s cause, but she finally came to see how wrong she had been and joined our side.” It was a story he didn’t really feel like going into. “She now fights for us. Her help has been invaluable.”

Jennsen leaned in, even more astonished. “But can you trust someone like that, someone who had labored on behalf of Jagang? Worse, a Sister of the Dark? Richard, I’ve been with some of those women, I know how ruthless they are. They may have to do as Jagang makes them, but they’re devoted to the Keeper of the underworld. Do you really think you can trust with your life that she will not betray you?”

Richard looked Jennsen in the eye. “I trust you with a knife while I sleep.”

Jennsen sat back up. She smiled, more out of embarrassment than anything else, Richard thought. “I guess I see your point.”

“What else did Nicci say,” Kahlan asked, keen to get back to the matter at hand.

“Only that I must go in her place and meet you,” Sabar said.

Richard knew that Nicci was being cautious. She didn’t want to tell the young man too much in case he was caught.

“How did she know where I was?”

“She said that she was able to tell where you were by magic. Nicci is as powerful with magic as she is beautiful.”

Sabar said this in a tone of awe. He didn’t know the half of it. Nicci was one of the most powerful sorceresses ever to have lived. Sabar didn’t know that when Nicci was laboring toward the ends sought by the Order, she was known as Death’s Mistress.

Richard surmised that Nicci had somehow used the bond to the Lord Rahl to find him. That bond was loyalty sworn in the heart, not by rote, and its power protected those so sworn from the dream walker entering their minds. Full-blooded D’Harans, like Cara, could tell through the bond where the Lord Rahl was. Kahlan had confided to him that she found it unnerving the way Cara always knew where Richard was. Nicci wasn’t D’Haran, but she was a sorceress and she was bonded to Richard, so she might have been able to manipulate that bond to tell where he was.

“Sabar, Nicci must have sent you to us for a reason,” Richard said, “other than to say that she couldn’t wait for us at our meeting place.”

“Yes, of course,” Sabar said as he nodded hastily, as if chagrined to have to be reminded. “When I asked her what I was to say to you, she told me that she had put it all in a letter.” Sabar opened the leather flap of the pouch at his belt. “She said that when she realized how far away you really were, she was distraught and couldn’t take the time to journey to you. She told me that it was important for me to be sure I found you and gave you her letter. She said the letter would explain why she could not wait.”

With one finger and a thumb, Sabar lifted out the letter, looking as if he were handling a deadly viper instead of a small roll sealed with red wax.

“Nicci told me that this is dangerous,” he explained, looking up into Richard’s eyes. “She said that if anyone but you opened it, I should not be standing too close or I would die with them.”

Sabar carefully laid the rolled letter on Richard’s palm. It warmed appreciably in his hand. The red wax brightened, as if lit by a ray of sunlight even though it was getting dark. The glow spread from the wax to envelop the whole length of the rolled letter. Fine cracks raced all across the red wax, like autumn ice on a pond breaking up under the weight of a foot placed on it. The wax suddenly shattered and crumbled away.

Sabar swallowed. “I hate to think of what would have happened ha

d anyone but you tried to open it.”

Jennsen leaned in again. “Was that magic?”

“Must have been,” Richard told her as he started to unroll the letter.

“But I saw it fall apart,” she said in a confidential tone.

“Did you see anything else?”

“No, it just all of a sudden crumbled.”

With a thumb and finger, Richard lifted some of the disintegrated wax from his palm. “She probably put a web of magic around the letter and keyed that spell to my touch. If anyone else had tried to break that web to open the letter it would have ignited the spell. I guess that my touch unlocked the seal. You saw the result of the magic—the broken seal—not the magic itself.”

“Oh, wait!” Sabar smacked his forehead with the flat of his palm. “What am I thinking? I’m supposed to give you this, too.”

Shrugging the straps off his shoulders and down his arms, he pulled his pack around onto his lap. He quickly undid the leather thongs and reached inside, then carefully lifted out something wrapped in black quilted material. It was only about a foot tall but not very big around. By the way Sabar handled it, it appeared to be somewhat heavy.

Sabar set the wrapped object on the ground, upright, in front of the fire. “Nicci told me that I should give this to you, that the letter would explain it.”

Jennsen leaned in a little, fascinated by the mystery of the tightly wrapped object. “What is it?”

Sabar shrugged. “Nicci didn’t tell me.” He made a face that suggested he was somewhat uncomfortable with the way he was in the dark about much of the mission he’d been sent on. “When Nicci looks at you and tells you to do something, it goes out of your head to ask questions.”