Naked Empire (51 page)

Once, when they were alone while the Sister had gone to check on the preparations in the next tent, Adie had asked what he would do if they presented him with something that would materially help Jagang win. Zedd hadn’t had a chance to answer; the soldiers had come in then and taken the two of them to the Sister in the next tent.

He was hoping to drag out the process for as long as possible. He hadn’t counted on how they would keep at it day and night.

It sometimes took quite a while for the Sisters to get out the next treasure and have it ready. They were understandably cautious and took no chances. Those strange men without any trace of the gift who helped them might not be harmed if any errant item of magic were to accidentally be set in motion, but everyone else certainly was vulnerable. Careful as they were, there were enough people working at the preparations that Zedd and Adie were not allowed to sleep for long before they were taken off to unravel the next puzzle for them.

As he and Adie were dragged through the dark camp to the next tent, Zedd’s legs would hardly hold him. Seeing his daughter’s long-lost ball had sapped much of his remaining strength. He had never felt so old, so feeble. He feared that his will to go on was flagging.

He didn’t know how much longer he could keep his sanity.

He wasn’t at all sure that he actually still possessed it. The world seemed to have turned into a crazy place. At times the whole thing seemed dreamlike. What he knew and what he didn’t know sometimes seemed to have all twisted together into a knot of confusion.

As he was marched through the dark camp, through the humid heat, he began to imagine that he saw things—mostly people—from his past. He began to doubt that he really had seen that ball. He wondered if, like some of the other things he was seeing, he had imagined it as well. Could it maybe have been a simple ball, and he only thought that it was the one his daughter had lost? Had he imagined the zigzagged colors around it? He was beginning to question himself over every little thing.

Looking up at all the people in the crowded encampment, he thought he saw his long-dead wife, Erilyn, in the faces of the women held nearby under guard. They were mothers, their worst nightmares ready to come to life if Zedd didn’t cooperate. His gaze passed over children clutching their mother’s skirts, or their father’s legs. They looked at him, his wavy white hair in disarray, probably thinking he was some crazy man. Maybe he was.

The torches lit the sprawling camp with a kind of flickering light that made everything seem imaginary. The campfires, spread as far as he could see, looked like a star field lying across the ground, as if the world had turned upside down.

“Wait,” the Sister said to the guards.

Zedd was jerked to a halt as the Sister ducked inside the tent. Adie cried out as the man holding her wrenched her arm in the act of stopping her.

Zedd swayed on his feet, wondering if he might pass out. The whole nighttime camp wavered in his vision.

As he looked at one of the girls held captive across the way, he stared, astonished, thinking he recognized her. Zedd looked up at the emperor’s elite guard in the distance holding the child. Zedd blinked his blurred vision. The guard, in leather and mail armor, with a belt full of weapons, looked like a man Zedd used to know. Zedd turned away at the memory, only to see a Sister, making her way among the tents not far away, who also looked like someone else he knew. He looked around at soldiers going about their business. Elite soldiers guarding the emperor’s compound looked like men he thought he remembered.

Zedd truly was terrified, then. He was sure that he was losing his mind. He couldn’t possibly be seeing the people he thought he saw.

His mind was all he had. He didn’t want to be some babbling old man sitting by the side of a road begging.

He knew that people sometimes became irrational—lost their mind—when they got old or were pressed past their endurance. He had known people who had snapped, who had gone insane, and saw things that weren’t really there. That’s what he was doing. He was having visions of people from his past who weren’t really there. That was a sure sign of insanity—seeing your past come to life, thinking you were back with long-lost loved ones.

His mind was the most important thing he had.

Now he was losing that, too.

He was losing his sanity.

Nicholas heard an annoying noise back in another place.

A disturbance of some sort, back where his body waited.

He ignored it, watching the streets, watching the buildings go by. The sun had just set. People, wary people, moved past. Color. Sound. Activity.

It was a dingy place, with buildings crowded close. Watch, watch. Alleyways were dark and narrow. Strangers stared. The street smelled. None of the buildings were more than two stories; he was sure of it. Most were not even that.

Again, he heard the noise back where his body waited. It was forceful, calling his attention.

He ignored the thump, thump, thump back somewhere else as he watched, trying to see where they were going. What’s this? Watch, watch, watch. He thought he knew, but he wasn’t positive. Look, look. He wanted to be sure. He wanted to watch.

He so enjoyed watching.

More noise. Obnoxious, demanding, thumping noise.

Nicholas felt his body around him as he slammed back to where it waited, sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor. He opened his eyes, blinking, trying to see in the dim room. Slivers of dusk leaking in around the edges of the closed shutters lent only somber light to the room.

He stood, wavering on his feet for a moment, not yet used to the strange feeling of being back in his own body. He started walking across the room, looking down, watching as he lifted each foot out ahead, shifted his weight with every step. He had been gone so much lately, day and night, that he was not used to having to do such things on his own. He had been so often in another place, another body, that he had difficulty adjusting to his own.

Someone was banging on the door, yelling for him to open it. Nicholas was furious at the uninvited caller, at such a rude intrusion.

With wobbly gait, he made his way to the door. It felt so confining being back in his own body. It moved in such an odd manner. He rolled his shoulders, resisting the urge to bend forward. He pulled and stretched his neck one way, then the other.

It was bothersome to have to move himself about, to use his own muscles, to feel himself breathe, to see, hear, smell, feel with his own senses.

The door was barred by a heavy bolt to prevent unwelcome callers from entering while he was off to other places. It wouldn’t do to have someone messing with his body while he wasn’t there using it himself. Wouldn’t do at all.

Someone pounding on the other side of the door bellowed his name and demanded to be let in. Nicholas lifted the heavy bolt and heaved it over. He threw open the thick door.

A young soldier stood just outside in the hall. A common, grubby soldier. A nobody.

Nicholas stared in stunned fury at the lowly man who would just walk up the stairs to the room everyone knew was off-limits and pound on the forbidden door. Where was Najari’s flat, crooked nose when he needed it? Why wasn’t someone guarding the door?

A broken bone jutted from the back of the bloody fist the man had been hammering against the door.

Nicholas craned his neck, peering past the soldier out into the dimly lit hall, and saw the bodies of guards sprawled in pools of blood.

Nicholas ran his fingernails back through his hair, shivering with delight at the silken smooth feel of oils gliding against his palm. He rolled his shoulders with the pleasure of the sensation.

Opening his eyes, he fixed his gaze on the wide-eyed, common soldier whom he was about to kill. The man was dressed like many of the Imperial Order soldiers, at least the better-outfitted soldiers, with leather chest armor, a sleeve of protective mail on his right arm, and a number of leather straps and belts holding a variety of weapons from a short sword to a mace with a spiked metal head to knives. Despite how deadly all his gear appeared, the expression on his face was one of startled terror.

Nicholas puzzled for a moment at what such a meaningless man could possibly have to say that would be worth his life.

“What is it, you insipid fool?”

The man lifted an arm, then the hand, then a single finger in a manner that reminded Nicholas of nothing so much as a puppet having its strings pulled. The finger tipped to one side, then the other, then back again, the way someone might waggle a finger in admonition.

“Ah, ah, ah.” The finger twitched side to side again. “Be polite. Be awfully polite.”

The soldier, his eyes wide, seemed surprised by his own haughty words. The voice sounded too deep—too mature—to belong to this young man.

The voice, in fact, sounded dangerous in the extreme.

“What is this?” Nicholas frowned at the soldier. “What’s this about?”

The man started into the room, his legs moving in a most peculiar, stilted manner. In some ways it reminded Nicholas of how it must look when he used his own legs after not being in his body for a long spell. He stepped aside as the man walked woodenly into the center of the dim room and turned. Blood dripped from the hand that had been pounding against the door, but the man, his eyes still wide with fear, seemed not to notice what had to be painful injuries.

His voice, though, came out anything but afraid. “Where are they, Nicholas?”

Nicholas approached the man and cocked his head. “They?”

“You promised them to me, Nicholas. I don’t like it when people don’t keep their word. Where are they?”

Nicholas drew his brow down even farther, leaned in even more. “Who?”

“Richard Rahl and the Mother Confessor!” the soldier bellowed in unrestrained rage.

Nicholas backed away a few paces. He understood, now. He had heard the stories, heard that the man could do such things. Now he was seeing it for himself.

This was Emperor Jagang, the dream walker himself.

“Remarkable,” Nicholas drawled. He approached the soldier who was not a soldier and tapped a finger against the side of the man’s head. “That you in there, Your Excellency?” He tapped the man’s temple again. “That’s you, isn’t it, Excellency.”

“Where are they, Nicholas?” It was as dangerous-sounding a question as Nicholas had ever heard.

“I told you that you would have them, and you shall.”

“I think you’re lying to me, Nicholas,” the voice growled. “I don’t think you have them, as you promised you would.”

Nicholas flipped a hand dismissively as he strolled off a few paces. “Oh, foo. I have them by a string.”

“I think otherwise. I have reason to believe that they aren’t down here at all. I have reason to believe that the Mother Confessor herself is far to the north…with her army.”

Nicholas frowned as he approached the man, leaning in close, peering into the eyes. “Do you completely lose your senses when you go cavorting into another man’s mind like that?”

“Are you saying it isn’t so?”

Nicholas was losing patience. “I was just watching them when you barged in here to pester me. They were both there—Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor.”

“Are you sure?” came the deep gravelly voice out of the young soldier’s mouth.

Nicholas planted his fists on his hips. “Are you questioning me? How dare you! I am Nicholas the Slide. I will not be questioned by anyone!”

The soldier took an aggressive step forward.

Nicholas held his ground and lifted a finger in warning. “If you want them, then you had better be awfully careful.”

The soldier watched with wide eyes, but Nicholas could see more in those eyes: menace.

“Talk, then, before I lose my patience.”

Nicholas screwed his mouth up in annoyance. “Whoever told you that they were to the north, that the Mother Confessor is with their army, either doesn’t know what they’re talking about or is lying to you. I’ve kept a careful eye on them.”

“But have you seen them lately?”

The room was growing dark. Nicholas cast a hand toward the table, sending a small spark of his gift into three candles there, setting their wicks to flame.

“I told you, I was just watching them. They are in a city not far from here. Soon, they will be coming here, to me, and then I will have them. You don’t have long to wait.”

“What makes you think they’re coming to you?”

“I know everything they do.” Nicholas held his arms aloft, his black robes slipping up to his elbows, gesturing expansively as he walked around the man, speaking of what he alone knew. “I watch them. I have seen them lying together at night, the Mother Confessor tenderly holding her husband in her arms, holding his head to her shoulder, comforting his terrible pain. It’s quite touching, actually.”

“His pain?”

“Yes, his pain. They are in Northwick right now, a city not far to the north of here. When they are finished there, if they live through their visit, then they will be coming here, to me.”

Jagang in the soldier looked around, taking in the freshly dead bodies lying against the wall. His attention returned to Nicholas.

“I asked, what makes you think so?”

Nicholas looked over his shoulder and lifted an eyebrow at the emperor. “Well, you see, these fool people here—the pillars of Creation who so fascinate you—have poisoned the poor Lord Rahl. They did it to try to insure his help in getting rid of us.”

“Poisoned him? Are you sure?”

Nicholas smiled at the note of interest he detected in the emperor’s voice. “Oh, yes, quite sure. The poor man is in a great deal of pain. He needs an antidote.”

“Then he will do what he must to get such an antidote. Richard Rahl is a surprisingly resourceful man.”

Nicholas leaned his backside against the table and folded his arms. “He may be resourceful, but he’s now in a great deal of trouble. You see, he needs two more doses of the antidote. One of them is in Northwick. That’s why he went there.”

“You would be surprised at what that man can accomplish.” It would have been impossible to miss the bristling anger in the emperor’s voice. “You would be a fool to underestimate him, Nicholas.”

“Oh, but I never underestimate anyone, Excellency.” Nicholas smiled meaningfully at the emperor watching him through another man’s eyes. “You see, I’m reasonably sure that Richard Rahl will retrieve the antidote in Northwick. In fact, I am counting on it. We shall see. I was watching him as you came in, watching what would happen. You spoiled it.

“But even if he obtains the antidote in Northwick, he will still need to get the last dose. The antidote in Northwick alone will not spare his life.”

“Where’s this other dose of his antidote?”

Nicholas reached in a pocket and showed the emperor the square-sided bottle, along with a satisfied smile.

“I have it.”

The man with an emperor inside him smiled. “He may come to take it from you, Nicholas. But, more likely, he will have someone else make him more of the antidote so that he won’t even have to bother coming here.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. You see, Excellency, I am quite thorough in my work. This poison that Lord Rahl took is complex, but not nearly as complex as the antidote. I know, because I had the only man who can make it tortured until he told me what it was, told me all about it, told me its secrets. It contains a whole list of things I couldn’t even begin to recall.

“I had the man killed, of course. Then I had the man who tortured the confession out of him, tortured the antidote’s list of ingredients out of him, killed as well. It wouldn’t do to have the resourceful Richard Rahl find either man and somehow discover from them what was in the cure.

“So, you see, Excellency, there is no one to make Lord Rahl any more of the antidote.” He held the bottle by the neck and wagged it before the man. “This is the last dose. Lord Rahl’s last chance at life.”

Through the eyes of a young soldier, Jagang watched the bottle Nicholas dangled before him. Any trace of humor had vanished.

“Then Richard Rahl will come here and get it.”

Nicholas pulled the cork. He took a whiff. The liquid inside carried the slight aroma of cinnamon.

“You think so, Excellency?”

Making a great show of it, Nicholas poured the liquid out onto the floor.

As Emperor Jagang watched, Nicholas shook the bottle, making sure that the very last drop fell out.

“So, you see, Excellency, I have everything well in hand. Richard Rahl will not be a problem. He will shortly die from the poison—if my men don’t manage to get him before then. Either way, Richard Rahl is a dead man—just as you requested.”

Nicholas bowed, as if at the conclusion of a grand performance before an appreciative audience.

The man smiled again, a smile of strained forbearance.

“And what of the Mother Confessor?” the emperor asked.

Nicholas noted the clear undertone of restrained wrath. He was displeased not to be roundly admired for his great accomplishment. After all, this Emperor Jagang had not managed to capture the prize he so keenly sought. Nicholas smiled indulgently.

“Well, the way I see it, Excellency, now that I’ve told you Lord Rahl is soon to join the ranks of the Keeper’s flock in the underworld, I have no assurance that you will keep your part of the bargain. I would like a commitment, on your part, before I give you the Mother Confessor.”

“What makes you think you can capture her?”

“Oh, I have that well in hand. Her own nature will deliver her into my hands.”

“Her own nature?”

“You let me worry about that, Excellency. All you need know is that I will deliver the Mother Confessor to you, alive, as promised. You might say that Lord Rahl was free—a gift on my part—but you will have to pay the price if you are to have the prize you covet: the Mother Confessor.”

“And what would be your price?”

Nicholas strolled around the man in the center of the room. He gestured with the empty antidote bottle at the surroundings. “Not my idea of the proper way to live, if one has to live.”

“So, you would have riches as a reward for doing your duty to the Creator, to the Imperial Order, and to your emperor.”

The way Nicholas saw it, he had done more than his duty that night in the woods with the Sisters. Instead of saying so, he shrugged.

“Well, I will let you have the rest of the world you have fought so hard to gain. I only want D’Hara. An empire of worth for my own.”

“You wish to rule the land of D’Hara?”