Naked Empire (Sword of Truth 8)

She strolled along for a time, watching people making their way up and down the hall, stopping at some of the shops that were still open, or sitting on benches, gossiping.

“And?” the woman asked. “What is the name your sister foretold? The name of this tall distinguished gentleman.”

Ann frowned up at the ceiling again. “It was N something. Nigel or Norris, or something. No, wait—that wasn’t it.” Ann snapped her finger and thumb. “The name she said was Nathan.”

“Nathan,” the woman repeated, looking almost as if she had been ready to pluck the name off Ann’s tongue if she didn’t spit it out. “Nathan.”

“Yes, that’s it. Nathan. Do you know anyone here at the palace by that name? Nathan? A tall fellow, older, with long white hair, broad shoulders, azure eyes?”

The woman peered up at the ceiling in thought. This time it was Ann leaning in, waiting for word, watching intently for any reaction.

A hand seized Ann’s dress at her shoulder and brought her to an abrupt halt. Ann and the woman turned.

Behind them stood a very tall woman, with a very long blond braid, with very blue eyes, wearing a very dark scowl and an outfit of very red leather.

The woman beside Ann went as pale as vanilla pudding. Her mouth fell open. Ann forced her own mouth to stay shut.

“We’ve been expecting you,” the woman in red leather said.

Behind her, back up the hallway a short distance, spread out to block the hall, stood a dozen perfectly huge men in perfect leather armor carrying perfectly polished swords, knives, and lances.

“Why, I think you must have me mistaken for—”

“I don’t make mistakes.”

Ann wasn’t nearly as tall as the blond woman in red leather. She hardly came up past the yellow crescent and star across her stomach.

“No, I don’t suppose you do. What’s this about?” Ann asked, losing the timid innocent tone.

“Wizard Rahl wanted us to bring you in.”

“Wizard Rahl?”

“Yes. Wizard Nathan Rahl.”

Ann heard a gasp from the woman beside her. She thought the woman was going to faint, and so took hold of her arm.

“Are you all right, my dear?”

She stared, wide-eyed, at the woman in red leather glowering down at her. “Yes. I have to go. I’m late. I must go. Can I go?”

“Yes, you had better go,” the tall blonde said.

The woman dipped a quick bow and muttered “Good night” before scurrying off down the hall, looking over her shoulder only once.

Ann turned back to the scowl. “Well I’m glad you found me. Let’s be off to see Nathan. Excuse me…Wizard Rahl.”

“You won’t be having an audience with Wizard Rahl.”

“You mean, not tonight, I won’t be having an…audience with him tonight.”

Ann was being as polite as she could be, but she wanted to clobber that troublesome man, or wring his neck, and the sooner the better.

“My name is Nyda,” the woman said.

“Pleased to meet—”

“Do you know what I am?” She didn’t wait for Ann to answer. “I am Mord-Sith. I give you this one warning as a courtesy. It is the only warning, or courtesy, you will receive, so listen closely. You came here with hostile intent against Wizard Rahl. You are now my prisoner. Use of your magic against a Mord-Sith will result in the capture of that magic by me or one of my sister Mord-Sith and its use as a weapon against you. A very, very unpleasant weapon.”

“Well,” Ann said, “in this place my magic is not very useful, I’m afraid. Hardly worth a hoot, as a matter of fact. So, you see, I’m quite harmless.”

“I don’t care how useful you find your magic. If you try to so much as light a candle with it, your power will be mine.”

“I see,” Ann said.

“Don’t believe me?” Nyda leaned down. “I encourage you to try to attack me. I haven’t captured a sorceress’s magic for quite a while. Might be…fun.”

“Thank you, but I’m a bit too tired out—from my travels and all—to be attacking anyone just now. Maybe later?”

Nyda smiled. In that smile Ann could see why Mord-Sith were so feared. “Fine. Later, then.”

“So, what is it you intend to do with me in the meantime, Nyda? Put me up in one of the palace’s fine rooms?”

Nyda ignored the question and gestured with a tilt of her head. Two of the men a short way back up the hall rushed forward. They towered over Ann like two oak trees. Each grasped her under an arm.

“Let’s go,” Nyda said as she marched off down the hall ahead of them.

The men started out after her, pulling Ann along with them. Her feet seemed to touch the floor only every third or fourth step. People in the hall parted for the Mord-Sith. Passersby pressed themselves up against the walls to the side, a goodly distance away. Some people disappeared into the open shops, from where they peered out windows. Everyone stared at the squat woman in the dark dress being hauled along by the two palace guards in burnished leather and gleaming mail. Behind she could hear the jangle of metal gear as the rest of the men followed along.

They turned into a small hall to the side going back between columns holding a projecting balcony. One of the men rushed forward to unlock the door. Before she knew it, they’d all swept through the little door like wine through a funnel.

The corridor beyond was dark and cramped—nothing like the marble-lined hallways most people saw. Not far down the hall, they turned down a stairway. The oak treads creaked underfoot. Some of the men handed lanterns forward so Nyda could light her way. The sound of all the footsteps echoed back from the darkness below.

At the bottom of the steps, Nyda led them through a maze of dirty stone passageways. The seldom-used halls smelled musty, and in places damp. When they reached another stairwell, they continued down a square shaft with landings

at each turn, descending into the dark recesses of the People’s Palace. Ann wondered how many people in the past were taken by routes such as this, never to be seen again. Richard’s father, Darken Rahl, and his father before him, Panis, were rather fond of torture. Life meant nothing to men such as those.

Richard had changed all that.

But Richard wasn’t at the palace, now. Nathan was.

Ann had known Nathan for a very long time—for nearly a thousand years. For most of that time, as Prelate, she had kept him locked in his apartments. Prophets could not be allowed to roam free. Now, though, this one was free. And, worse, he had managed to establish his authority in the palace—the ancestral home of the House of Rahl. He was an ancestor to Richard. He was a Rahl. He was a wizard.

Ann’s plan suddenly started to seem very foolish. Just catch the prophet off guard, she’d thought. Catch him off guard and snap a collar back around his neck. Surely, there would be an opening and he would be hers again.

It had seemed to make sense at the time.

At the bottom of the long descent, Nyda swept to the right, following a narrow walk with a stone wall soaring up on the right and an iron railing on the left. Ann gazed off over the railing, but the lantern light showed nothing but inky darkness below. She feared to think how far it might drop—not that she had any ideas of a battle with her captors, but she was beginning to worry that they just might heave her over the edge and be done with her.

Nathan had sent them, though. Nathan, as irascible as he could sometimes be, wouldn’t order such a thing. Ann considered, then, the centuries she had kept him locked away, considered the extreme measures it had sometimes taken to keep that incorrigible man under control. Ann glanced over the iron rail again, down into the darkness.

“Will Nathan be waiting for us?” she asked, trying to sound cheerful. “I’d really like to talk to him. We have business we must discuss.”