In those moments when she thought their present problems were insurmountable, she felt again the way she had as a child, like a slave to the problems. In those dark moments of self-doubt she wondered if she could ever really shed the mantle Jagang himself had laid around her shoulders when he named her the Slave Queen. He’d had no idea how apt the title really was.
In a way, that was how she sometimes felt in this struggle. While she knew that this cause was right, it still seemed hopeless to think that they could win when they were up against so many who sought to crush them.
Sometimes, in the face of the seemingly insurmountable, Nicci wanted nothing so much as to sit down and give up. In private moments in the past, Richard had confessed to having the same self-doubts as she felt, and yet she’d seen how he still forged ahead. Whenever Nicci felt discouraged, she thought of Richard, of how relentless he was, and she once again made herself get to her feet if for no other reason than to make him proud of her.
She believed in and fought for their cause, but that cause was crystallized in Richard.
They needed him. She didn’t know how they were ever going to find him or, if they did, how they would get him back. That was assuming he was still alive.
Richard being dead, though, was a thought that she refused to contemplate and so she immediately shoved the very idea aside.
Ann seized Nicci’s upper arm in a firm grip, bringing her out of her dark thoughts. “You put the boxes of Orden in play, and you named Richard the player?”
Nicci wasn’t in the mood to address the denouncement within the rhetorical question, to yet again have the same argument she’d already had with Zedd.
“That’s right. I had no choice. Zedd at first had the same reaction as you. When I explained it all to him, explained why I had to do as I had done, and once he’d calmed down, he came to see that there truly is no other way.”
“And who are you to decide such a thing?” Ann demanded.
Nicci chose not to rise to the insult and instead kept her voice, if not deferential, at least civil. “You yourself said that Richard is the one who must lead us in this battle. You and Nathan have waited nearly five hundred years for Richard to be born and worked to make sure that he could lead us. You yourself saw to it that he had The Book of Counted Shadows so that he could fight this fight. You seem to have decided a great deal for him before I ever came along.
“The Sisters of the Dark have already put Orden in play. I hardly need to tell you what their goal is. That makes this the final battle—the battle for life itself. Richard is the one who must lead us. If he is to succeed he must have the ability to fight them. You gave him a mere book. I gave him the power, the weapon, that he needs to win.”
Nathan laid a big hand on Ann’s shoulder. “Perhaps Nicci has a point.”
Ann glanced up at the prophet. She visibly cooled as she considered his words. Back when she’d lived at the Palace of the Prophets, Nicci would never have expected the prophet, of all people, to be able to bring the prelate to see reason. There had been few at the palace who thought that Nathan had the ability to reason.
“Well, done is done,” Ann said, her voice considerably calmer. “We’ll have to give some thought to what we must do next.”
“What about Zedd?” Nathan asked. “Does he have any ideas to help Richard?”
Nicci tried to keep her voice, as well as her expression, from betraying her level of concern. “Since Zedd believes that spells cast in the sacred caves in Tamarang are responsible for blocking Richard from the use of his gift, he, Tom, and Rikka are on their way there now. They hope to be able to help Richard by finding a way to eliminate whatever spell is barring him from his gift.”
“You make it sound simple,” Nathan said as he considered the problem. “Such a thing will be far from simple.”
Nicci lifted an eyebrow. “I doubt that standing around wishing for a solution will work better.”
Nathan grunted his agreement. “What about the Keep?”
Nicci turned and started down the hall, talking back over her shoulder. “After Cara and I left in the sliph, and before he started out for Tamarang, Zedd was going to use a spell to close down the Keep.”
“What about the others—Chase, Rachel, and Jebra?” Nathan asked.
“Jebra vanished a while back. Zedd thinks it’s possible that she regained consciousness and because of everything she’s been through, she simply ran away.”
“Or the witch woman has been influencing her mind yet again,” Nathan suggested.
Nicci opened her hands. “That’s possible too. We just don’t know. Rachel vanished as well, just the other night, the night before Six arrived. Chase went looking for her.”
Nathan shook his head in frustration. “I hate being stuck here when so much is going on.”
“Zedd wanted you two to know about the trouble with the magic of the Keep,” Nicci said. “He said that there are defenses protecting the People’s Palace that may be similar to those at the Keep, so he wants you to be aware of the problem. There’s no telling how the contamination from the chimes will affect magic, whether it will hamper all similar power, or whether it’s a function of location—if the contamination might be confined to a specific area.”
“After we’re finished here,” Cara put in, “Nicci and I are going to travel in the sliph down to the Tamarang area to help Zedd get Lord Rahl’s power back. Then we’re going after Lord Rahl.”
Nathan didn’t object that he presently held the title of Lord Rahl. He, of all people, knew that Richard was the one that prophecy had named to lead them. Nathan was the one, after all, who had originally revealed that prophecy said they stood a chance against the coming storm only if Richard led them.
Cara’s plan that they were “going after Lord Rahl” was news to Nicci. If they knew where Richard was, Nicci would already be headed there.
As Nicci continued to answer Ann’s steady barrage of questions, Nathan led them through several rather simple passageways until they finally came to one with a heavy oak door at the end. As Nathan pulled the door open for them, cold air rushed in.
A bloodred sky greeted Nicci as she stepped out onto a platform high above the rampart of the outer wall. “Dear spirits,” she whispered to herself. “Every time I see them it’s a terrible shock.”
Nathan squeezed out beside her. There was room for only two people on what was apparently an observation platform. Ann and Cara watched from just inside the doorway.
The height was dizzying. Nicci gripped the waist-high iron railing as she leaned out a little, peering over the side. She could see over the edge of the outer wall, and the plateau itself, all the way down to the Azrith Plain.
The ground immediately around the plateau was deserted. The Imperial Order had camped some distance back, apparently not wanting to chance drawing any unpleasant attention from the gifted up in the palace before absolutely necessary. While the Imperial Order had Sisters and even several young wizards who could shield them from any conjuring from above, Jagang would want to keep them in reserve, keep them healthy, strong, and alive until he began his final attack.
A thick red overcast hung above the distant plain black with the invading army. They spread all the way to the horizon in every direction. Nicci rubbed her shoulders with the chill she felt from within. While from this distance it was hard to see much detail, she knew what it was like to be among such men. She knew all too well what they were like. She knew all too well what their officers were like. She knew all too well what their leader was like.
It made Nicci’s skin crawl to think of being down among those men.
When she had served with that army she had not given a great deal of thought to how not only physically filthy but spiritually squalid it was. As the Slave Queen she had been willfully blind to it. She had believed that brutes like Jagang and his men were necessary in order to impose higher ideals on mankind. Benevolence enforced through brutality. Looking back on such a thought, she could ha
rdly believe how contradictory those convictions really were, and that she had accepted them without question. Not just accepted them, but helped enforce them. She had been so effective at enforcing the Order’s will that she had become known as Death’s Mistress.
She could hardly believe that Richard had put up with her. Of course, she had given him no choice in the matter.