Jagang had his own team, which served to demonstrate the indomitable supremacy of the emperor. They were an extension of his power and might, an object of awe. They reflected that awe onto the emperor. His Ja’La team connected the emperor to his men, made him like them, while at the same time stressing his superiority.
Having spent so much time with him, as his Slave Queen, Nicci knew that despite all of those calculated factors, Jagang, like his men, had actually become caught up in the game. For Jagang, combat was the ultimate game. Ja’La dh Jin was a kind of combat he could enjoy when he was not engaged in actual combat. It kept his own aggressive juices flowing. Since assembling his new team of unbeatable men, a team universally feared, he had come to feel that he, personally, was the master of Ja’La dh Jin.
It had become more than a game to Jagang. It had become an extension of his persona.
Nicci turned away from the sight of the Imperial Order forces gathered below. She could no longer endure the sight, or the thought of the bloody games she so hated. The muffled roars washed over her, a building blood lust that would eventually be turned loose on the People’s Palace.
Once back inside, Nicci waited until Nathan pushed the heavy door closed against the cold night descending on the outside world.
“I need to go down to see Panis Rahl’s tomb.”
He looked back over his shoulder as he forced the latch into place. “So you said. Let’s go, then.”
As they started away, Ann hesitated. “I know how much you hate going down in that tomb,” she said to Nathan as she caught his arm, bringing him to a halt. “Verna and Adie will be waiting. Perhaps you could see to that while I take Nicci down to the tomb.”
Nathan cast her a suspicious look. He was about to say something when Ann gave him a look of her own. He seemed to grasp her meaning.
“Yes, that’s a good idea, my dear. Cara and I will go speak with Verna and Adie.”
The leather of Cara’s outfit creaked as she folded her arms. “I’ll stay with Nicci. In Lord Rahl’s absence it’s my job to protect her.”
“I really think that Berdine and Nyda would like to talk over some issues of palace security with you,” Ann said. When Cara didn’t look at all inclined to agree to the plan, Ann hastily added, “For when Richard gets back. They want to be certain that everything is being done to insure his security when he returns to the palace.”
Nicci thought that there were few people as wary as a Mord-Sith. They seemed to be constantly suspicious and to assume the worst. Nicci could tell that Ann simply wanted to speak with her alone. She didn’t know why she didn’t just tell Cara that. She guessed that Ann probably wasn’t convinced that such an approach would work.
Nicci placed a hand on the small of Cara’s back and leaned toward her. “It’s all right, Cara. Go on with Nathan and I’ll join you shortly.”
Cara looked from Nicci’s eyes to Ann’s. “Where?”
“You know the dining room between the Mord-Sith quarters and the devotion square beside the small grouping of trees?”
“Of course.”
“That is where Verna and Adie are to meet us. We’ll catch up with you there after Nicci has had her look at the tomb.”
Only when Nicci gave Cara a nod did she finally agree.
As they started away, Nicci just caught a parting look that Ann gave Nathan. It was an intimate gaze warmed by a childlike smile, a look of shared understanding and affection. Nicci almost felt embarrassed to be witness to such a private moment. At the same time, it revealed a quality of both Ann and Nathan that she found captivating. It was the kind of simple thing that almost anyone who saw it would understand and appreciate.
The brief glimpse into their feelings gave Nicci a sense of comfort and peace. This was not just the prelate she had feared for so much of her life, but a woman who shared the same feelings, longings, and values as most anyone.
As they made their way back along the hallway while Nathan and Cara vanished down a stairwell, Nicci glanced over at Ann.
“You love him, don’t you?”
Ann smiled. “Yes.”
Nicci stared, unable to think of what to say.
“Surprised that I would admit it?” Ann asked.
“Yes,” Nicci confessed.
Ann chuckled. “Well, I guess there would have been a time when I would have been surprised as well.”
Nicci loosely intertwined her fingers. “When did all this happen?”
Ann stared off into memories. “Probably centuries ago. I was just too foolish, too caught up in being the Prelate, to recognize what was right there before me. Maybe I thought I had a duty which came first. But I think that’s just an excuse for being a fool.”
Nicci was struck dumb by such a frank admission from this woman.
A look of amusement overcame Ann when she saw the look on Nicci’s face. “Shocked to find me human?”
Nicci smiled. “That’s not a very flattering way to put it, but I guess that must be the heart of it.”
They turned down a long flight of stairs with evenly spaced landings in the square stairwell descending through the palace. The railing all the way down was vinelike wrought iron, held in place by masterfully worked iron made to mimic leafy branches.
“Well,” Ann sighed, “I guess that I, too, was shocked to find out that I was human. At the same time, at first anyway, it made me quite sad.”
“Sad?” Nicci frowned. “Why?”
“Because I had to admit to myself that I had thrown away most of my life. I’ve been blessed by the Creator with a very long life, but I realized only as I approach the end of it that I had lived very little of that life.” She looked up at Nicci as they reached a landing. “Doesn’t it make you feel remorse to realize how much of your life you wasted without ever realizing what was really important about that life?”
Nicci swallowed back a pang of regret of her own as they reached the edge of a landing and started down the next flight of stairs. “We have that in common.”
Together they listened in silence to the whisper of their footsteps as they made their way down the rest of the stairs.
When they finally reached the bottom they took a broad hallway leading straight ahead rather than one of the passageways branching off to the sides. The hallway carried the spiced scent from the evenly spaced oil lamps.
Cherrywood squares paneled the walls to each side, each panel separated by straw-colored draperies spaced at uniform intervals. Each set of draperies was swagged with a golden rope terminated with gold and black tassels. The reflector lamps hung in every other opening between the drapes lent the hall a warm glow.
In every other warmly paneled square hung a painting. Most were ornately framed, as if the works of art were beloved. Each painting had a panel to itself.
While the subject matter varied greatly, from a late-day mountain scene beside a lake, to a barnyard scene, to a towering waterfall, the thing that all the paintings had in common was an achingly beautiful use of light. The mountain lake sat between soaring mountains with light from beyond hazy mountains breaking through billowing, golden clouds. A shaft of that glorious light spilled across the shoreline. The forest all around fell back into a cozy darkness, while in the center, the distant couple standing on a rocky prominence were bathed in the warmth of the shaft of light.
In the barnyard scene the chickens scratched on stone pavers littered with straw and lit by an unseen source of muted light that, without the harsh touch of direct sunlight, made the whole painting all the more vibrant. Nicci had never before thought of a barnyard as beautiful, but this artist had seen the beauty in it, and brought it forth.
In the foreground of the painting with the towering waterfall spilling over a distant, lofty ridgeline, the arch of a natural stone bridge emerged from dark woods to either side. A couple faced each other across that bridge, backlit by the setting sun, which had turned the majestic moun
tains a deep purple. Standing in that light the two people had a nobility about them that was transfixing.
Nicci found it interesting to note that so much about the People’s Palace was devoted to beauty. From the design of the interior, to the variety of stones used for the floors, stairs, and pillars, to the statues and artwork, the place seemed to be filled with a celebration of the beauty of life. Everything from the structure of the palace itself to its contents seemed intent on displaying the highest accomplishments of man. It was almost a setting dedicated to virtuosity meant to inspire.
What was perhaps even more intriguing was that these masterful paintings would be seen by few people. This was a private corridor, down in the depths of the palace on the way to the tombs of past leaders. It would be used almost exclusively by the Lord Rahl.
Some might see it as a display of greed, a private show of possessions, but that would be a mistake born of cynicism.
Nicci knew that different sorts of men had been the Lord Rahl. Richard’s own father had been a brutal tyrant. His ancestors, much farther back, had been anything but. Original intent was often twisted and corrupted by following generations just as the original intent of these works of art had probably been lost, warping into entitlement of the elite. Wise leaders were often followed by fools who threw away all that had been won by their ancestors. Nicci supposed that all that could be hoped for was for each generation to be raised to be sensible enough to learn from the past, not to lose sight of the things that mattered, and to understand why they mattered.
Still, every person had to make choices for themselves. Those who lost sight of the values fought for and won in the past usually came to lose those values, leaving subsequent generations to have to fight to win them back, only for them to be squandered by their heirs, who didn’t have to face the struggle to gain them.
Nicci saw the paintings along this long walk to visit the dead as messages from past generations meant to remind the latest to become Lord Rahl of the value of life. As he went to visit tombs of those passed away, this hall was intended to remind him where his attention belonged. In a way, this was the Lord Rahl’s reminder of his proper duty: to life.
Many who had taken this long walk had lost sight of that, and in so doing, generations of people also lost what their ancestors had enjoyed, and they had taken for granted.
That was why the entire palace was created in the form of a spell to give the House of Rahl more power, and why the place was so filled with beauty—to remind him of what was important, and give him the power to keep hold of it for his people.
None of it, though, as breathtaking as it all was, was as beautiful to Nicci as the statue Richard had carved down in Altur’Rang. That statue had been so powerfully filled with the vitality of life that it had touched Nicci’s soul and changed her for all time.
Richard was a Lord Rahl who carried that sense of life within him. He understood what could be lost.
“You love him, don’t you?”
Nicci blinked. She looked over at Ann as they marched down the passageway.
“What?”
“You love Richard.”
Nicci turned her eyes back ahead. “We all love Richard.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
Nicci maintained her composure. On the outside, anyway.
“Ann, Richard is married. Not just married, but married to a woman he loves. Not just loves, but loves more than life itself.”
Ann didn’t say anything.
“Besides,” Nicci added into the awkward silence, “I
could have ruined his life—all of our lives—when I took him away down to the Old World. I nearly did. By all rights he should have killed me back then.”
“Perhaps,” Ann said, “but that was then, this is now.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged as they turned at an intersection toward another set of stairs that would take them down to the level with the tombs. “Well, I guess that Nathan had every reason to hate me, in much the same way that Richard had every reason to hate you. As it happens, things just didn’t turn out that way.
“As I mentioned a little while ago, we all make mistakes. Nathan was able to forgive mine. Since you’re still alive, Richard obviously forgave yours. He must care about you.”
“I told you, Richard is married to the woman he loves.”
“A woman who may or may not exist.”
“I put Orden in play. Believe me, I now know that she exists.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant.”
Nicci slowed. “Then what do you mean?”
“Look, Nicci…” Ann paused as if distracted. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for me not to call you ‘Sister’ Nicci?”
“You’re going off the subject.”
Ann flashed a brief smile. “Quite so. What I mean is that this is all larger than one man.”
“What is?”
Ann threw her arms up. “All of it. This whole war, him being Lord Rahl, his gift, the war with the Imperial Order, the problems with magic caused by the chimes, the Chainfire spell, the boxes of Orden—all of it. Right now, who knows what trouble he’s in. Look at all he faces. He’s just one man. One lonely man. One man without anyone to help him.”
“I can’t deny the truth of that,” Nicci said.
“Richard is a pebble in the pond—an individual at the center of so many things. He touches so many things. He has turned out to be a core element in all of our lives. Everything turns on what he does, on the decisions he makes. If he takes a wrong step, we all fall down.
“And look at the poor boy, the first born in three thousand years with Subtractive Magic, raised without learning to use his gift. Born a war wizard without even knowing how to use his own ability.”
“I suppose. What of it?”
“Nicci, can you even imagine what it must be like for him? Can you imagine the pressure he must feel? He grew up in Westland in a small place and became a woods guide. He grew up without knowing anything about magic. Can you imagine what it must be like to have so much responsibility placed on your shoulders without even knowing how to call forth your gift? And on top of that, he is now a player for the power of Orden.
“When he finds out that the power of Orden is in play—in his name—can you imagine how such a thing will terrify him? He doesn’t even know how to connect with his Han and now he is expected to manipulate what is perhaps the most complex bit of magic ever conceived by the mind of man?”
“That is what I’m for,” Nicci said as she once more started down the hall. “I will teach him. I will be his guide.”
“That’s what I mean. He needs you.”
“He has me. I would do anything for him.”
“Would you?”
Nicci frowned over at the prelate’s unreadable look. “What do you mean by that?”
“Would you do anything? Would you be the person he needs most?”
“And what would that be?”
“His partner.”
Nicci’s nose wrinkled with her frown. “Partner?”
“His partner in life.”
“He has a partner. He has a—”
“Can she use magic?”
“She’s the Mother Confessor.”
“Yes, but can she use magic? Can she call upon her Han the way you can?”
“Well, I don’t—”
“Can she use Subtractive Magic? You can. Richard was born with the gift for Subtractive Magic. You know how to wield such power. I don’t, but you do. You are the only one on our side who does. Have you ever thought that you ended up near him for a reason?”
“A reason?”
“Of course. He can’t do this alone. You are perhaps the only person alive who can be what Richard needs most—a partner who loves him, is able to teach and guide him, and who is able to be his proper mate.”
“His proper mate?” Nicci could hardly believe her ears. “Dear spirits, Ann, he loves Kahlan. What are you talking about, his proper mate?”
“His proper mate.” She gestured vaguely with one hand. “His equal. His equal in the feminine sense, anyway. Who better than you to be what Richard really needs? What we really need?”
“Look, I know Richard,” Nicci said, bringing up a hand to halt the conversation before it went any farther. “I know that if he loves Kahlan then she must be someone remarkable. She must be his equal. You love what you admire. It is the Order’s way to do the opposite, to say that you must love what is loathsome.
“She may not be able to use magic in the same ways that he can, but she has to be someone he admires, someone
who completes and complements him. He would not be so devoted to her were she not. Richard wouldn’t love anyone who was less.
“You are discounting her without the benefit of remembering anything about her. We don’t remember Kahlan or what she’s like, but you only have to know Richard to understand just how remarkable a woman she has to be.
“Besides, she’s the Mother Confessor—a very powerful woman. She may not be able to do the same kinds of things with her power that a sorceress can, but a Confessor can do what no sorceress can.
“Before the boundaries and barriers came down, the Mother Confessor oversaw the Midlands. Queens and kings bowed to her. Could we do such a thing? You ruled a palace. I am nothing but the Slave Queen. Kahlan is a real ruler, a ruler her people depended on, a ruler who fought for them, fought to keep them free. A woman who, according to Richard, crossed the boundary itself—crossed through the underworld—to get help for her people. While I had Richard down in the Old World she stood in for Richard. She fought with and directed the D’Haran forces, slowing Jagang’s advance to buy time to try to find a way to stop him.