Nicci emerged into what appeared to be a vast pit gouged into the ground of the Azrith Plain. She couldn’t see what was up beyond the dirt and rock walls, but she didn’t need to see it to know what was up there.
Out past the rim of the pit, the imposing ramp, lit by torches, rose up into the cold night sky. In the distance the dark shadow of the plateau that held the People’s Palace, looking like it touched the stars themselves, towered over the dirt and gravel ramp.
The floor of the pit was a confusing maze of various elevations, apparently the result of different gangs of workers laboring to scoop up material for the ramp. Those workers were nowhere to be seen. It had to be that when they were digging in the area where she stood they had discovered the catacombs.
While the laborers may have been long gone, there were now soldiers everywhere. The ones she saw weren’t regular Imperial Order troops, who were little more than an organized mob of thugs. These were the professional soldiers, the experienced men closest to Jagang. These were the trusted core of men who had fought with him in various campaigns over the years.
Because these were men who had always been closest to the emperor, Nicci recognized many of them. Although she didn’t see any individuals she knew by name, she knew many of the faces watching her. These men all recognized her as well.
A woman like Nicci, with her fall of blond hair and shapely figure, hardly went unnoticed in the Imperial Order camp. More than that, though, she was recognized by every one of these men as Death’s Mistress.
They knew her by that name because she had in the past commanded many of them. They feared her. She had killed some of their comrades who had failed to follow her orders in the way she had expected of them. Belief in the Order called for selfless sacrifice for the greater good—the sacrifice of this life for the afterlife—yet when she had brought that righteous sacrifice upon them, ushering them into their longed-for afterlife, the very core of the beliefs for which they fought, they hated her for it.
Every one of these men also knew that she was Jagang’s woman. In a movement dedicated to the greater good over individual rights, to ideals of absolute equality of all, he enjoyed making it clear that she was his personal possession.
Like the common soldiers, not one of these men ever dared to touch her. Jagang had in the past, however, given her as a favor to some of his inner circle of officers, men such as Commander Kadar Kardeef.
Many of these men had been there the day Nicci had ordered Kardeef burned to death. Some of them, at her command, had helped tie their commander to a stake and put him over the fire. Despite their reluctance, they dared not contradict her orders.
She kept her previous status in mind as she stood in the frigid night with all eyes upon her. Like a protective cloak, she once again wrapped that former persona around herself.
That image of her was her only protection. She held her head erect, her back straight. She was Death’s Mistress and she wanted everyone to know it.
Rather than wait for Sister Armina to direct her, Nicci started up the ramp. She had surveyed the encampment from up on the observation platform in the palace and knew how it was laid out. She knew where to find the command tents. She would have no trouble making her way to Jagang’s tent. Since Jagang was probably watching Nicci through Sister Armina’s eyes, the woman did not object to Nicci striking out on her own.
There was no use being dragged kicking and screaming to the emperor’s feet. It wouldn’t change anything. She might as well go to her fate under her own power and with her head held high.
More than that, though, Nicci wanted Jagang to see her in the same way as he had always seen her. She wanted him to see what he knew, see her as the same, even if she wasn’t. Even if he suspected she might be somehow different, she wanted to present him with the familiar.
In the past her safety had been in her indifference to what he might do to her. That indifference gave Jagang pause. It infuriated him, it frustrated him, and it fascinated him. She had been someone who had fought on his side, fought for his goals, and yet she had been someone he could have only by force.
Even if she didn’t have command of her power, she did have command of her mind, and it was her mind that was her true power—that was what Richard had taught her. With or without her gift, she could still be indifferent to what Jagang might do to her. That indifference gave her power.
Once up and out of the pit and past the heavily armed perimeter guards, she began encountering row upon row of workers hauling dirt and rock from other pits. Hundreds of mules, pulling every sort of wagon, plodded along in long
lines through the darkness. Torches showed the rows of men the way to the ramp. The men, the average soldiers in the Imperial Order, the young, the strong, the pride of the Old World, had become common laborers. Not exactly the glory for which they had gone off to fight.
Nicci paid the activity little heed. It no longer mattered to her what they were doing with the ramp—the ramp was only a diversion. She felt sick at the thought of the brutes spread out in the camp getting up inside the palace.
She had to think of a way to stop them.
For a brief moment the very thought of her stopping them struck her as absurd. What was she going to do to stop them? She stiffened her resolve, along with her back. She would fight them with her last breath if need be.
Sisters Armina and Julia both trailed behind as Nicci marched through all the activity of the camp. Sister Armina would only make herself look silly if she pushed her way out front, now. By taking the lead, Nicci had already re-taken her place as the Slave Queen.
Old patterns were hard to break. Now that they were entering the camp, neither Sister wished to challenge what Nicci was doing, at least not for the moment. She was, after all, stalking off toward where they would have taken her anyway. They would have no way of knowing for sure if Jagang was in her mind or not. They knew, the same as the soldiers knew, that she was Jagang’s woman. That gave her unspoken rank over them. Even back at the Palace of the Prophets, she had always been a mystery to them. They had always been resentful and jealous of her—which meant that they feared her.
For all they knew, it was possible that the emperor had merely sent them to bring his stubborn and defiant queen back to him. Jagang, no doubt watching Nicci through their eyes, seemed to be making no effort to change that perception in their minds. It could even be that Jagang really did
look at it that way, that he really did think that he could have her back.
She noticed but didn’t acknowledge the large contingent of guards who had formed up into a train behind her. A queen did not acknowledge her attendants. They were beneath her. Fortunately, they couldn’t hear her heart hammering.
As they entered the camp proper, where the regular soldiers had set up their tents in squalid clusters, men stood mute, looking like beggars watching a royal procession passing before them. Others rushed up from the darkness to see what was happening. Hushed whispers passed through the crowd; Death’s Mistress had at long last returned.
To many of these men, even though they feared her, she was a heroine of the Order, a powerful weapon for their side. They had seen her rain down death on those who opposed the teachings of the Fellowship of Order.
Even though it felt strange to be back, the camp itself was no different than she remembered. It was the usual jumble of men, tents, animals, and equipment. The only difference was that as it sat unmoving for so long it was all beginning to take on the look of rot and decay. Firewood out on the Azrith Plain was virtually nonexistent, so fires were few and small, leaving the whole place gripped by a kind of grim gloom. Sloppy midden heaps growing everywhere among the men drew clouds of flies. With so many animals and men in the same place for so long the smell was worse than the usual stench.
The crush of unkempt men crowding in all around, which she had never paid a great deal of attention to in the past, was unnerving. They barely looked human. In many ways they weren’t. In the past, not caring what happened to her, Nicci had been indifferent to these brutes. Now, since she cared about her life, it was different. More than that, though, in the past she had always known that she had the
use of her power if their fear of her for some reason didn’t keep them away. Now she could only count on their fear to keep them at arm’s length.
It was a long walk through hundreds of thousands of men to reach her destination, but because the camp had been in place for so long trails had become established. In places trails had widened into roads that had gradually pushed aside tents and corrals. Now, as Nicci walked those roads, trailed by her entourage, wide-eyed men lined the way, watching.
Beyond the immediate silence of the men standing close by staring at her as she passed, the camp was a noisy place, even at this late hour. Behind her was the sound of the work on the ramp, wagons rolling, rock scraping and tumbling, and men calling out in unison as they pulled on heavy lines. In the camp all around the voices of soldiers laughing, talking, and arguing carried through the cold night air. She heard orders being yelled over the rhythmic sound of hammers ringing.
She could also hear the distant roar of crowds cheering for Ja’La games still going on even at this late hour. Sometimes collective boos of disapproval rose into the night air, only to be drowned out by wild yells of support. During runs with the broc men sometimes chanted shouts for their team to score.
As she made her way past a corral filled with huge war-horses, and then a line of empty supply wagons, the command tents came into view. Beneath a starlit sky flags atop the tents fluttered in the cold breeze. The sight of the largest tent, the emperor’s tent, threatened to drain her of courage. She wanted to run, but she was not going to be able to run ever again.
This was the place where Nicci’s whole life caught up with her.
This was the place where it all ended.
Rather than avoid the inevitable, she marched purposefully toward it. She didn’t slow for the first of the checkpoints in the outer rings of protection around the command area. The big men standing watch eyed her as she approached. Their gazes also took in the contingent of the emperor’s personal guard marching behind her. She was glad that she happened to be wearing a black dress because that was what she had always worn when these men would have seen her in the past. She wanted them to recognize her. A brief glare insured that none accosted her.
Each successive layer of men in closer to the center of the compound was more trusted. Each ring of men around the command tents had their own units, methods, and equipment. Each wanted to be the ones to stop any harm from reaching their emperor. They each had different protocol for entering their area of responsibility.
Nicci ignored those protocols. She was Death’s Mistress, the emperor’s Slave Queen. She stopped for no one. No one challenged her.
Jagang’s tent was set back in a grouping of larger tents but, unlike all the other tents in the camp, it had ample space around it. Sisters patrolling the area took note of Nicci, as did the gifted young men she saw, but their gazes fell away when Nicci fixed them in her glare. The guards, too, all watched her but tried to be less obvious about it.
Nicci was encouraged to see that none of these people saw her as anything but what she had been when last among them.
She saw then a strange sight. Besides a cadre of Jagang’s personal guards standing to either side of the heavy hanging covering the opening into his tent, there were other soldiers as well—regular soldiers. Pacing back and forth, they, too, appeared to be guarding the tent. She couldn’t imagine why in the world regular soldiers would be inside the emperor’s compound, much less guarding his tent.
Such men had never before been trusted inside the command area.
Ignoring the curiosity of regular soldiers being there in the compound, Nicci headed straight for the heavy hanging over the opening into Jagang’s tent. The two Sisters, already lagging behind, reluctantly followed Nicci toward the emperor’s tent. Color drained from their faces. No one, least of all a woman, was eager to enter Jagang’s private sanctuary. While he was sometimes pleasant to some of his trusted officers, he did not treat others indulgently.
Two big men, each holding a pike, their faces tattooed with animalistic designs, drew back the hanging. The small silver discs attached to the lambskin made soft metallic ringing sounds, letting the emperor know that someone was entering his tent. She recognized both men holding the hanging out of the way for her but didn’t acknowledge them as she lifted her skirts to step over the threshold and into the darkness beyond.
Inside, slaves were busy clearing plates and platters from the emperor’s table. The aroma of all the food reminded Nicci that she hadn’t eaten. The knot of anxiety in her middle masked her hunger.
Dozens of candles gave the place a dimly lit, cozy warmth. Thick carpets covered the floor so that footsteps of slaves going about their work would not disturb the emperor. Some of the slaves, all with heads bowed, were new. Some she remembered. Jagang appeared to have already finished his meal and was not in the outer areas.
The two Sisters, having entered behind her, edged their way into the shadows toward the far walls of the tent. This was apparently as far as they were to go, and within the outer room they wanted to be as far away as possible.
Knowing where Jagang would be, Nicci headed across the room. Slaves scurried to stay out of her way. At the hanging over the opening into the bedroom, she lifted the covering aside and ducked through.
Inside the emperor’s bedchamber Nicci at last saw him. He was sitting facing away from her on the other side of the plush bed covered with gold-colored silk. Points of light from the candles and oil lamps reflected off his shaved head. His bull neck spread into broad, powerful shoulders. He was wearing a lamb’s-wool vest, and his massive arms were bare.
He was occupied with thumbing through a book, absorbed in scanning the text. While easily given to violence, Jagang was, in certain areas, an intelligent man who prized the knowledge to be found in books or sifted from the minds he inhabited. Emotionally convinced of the veracity of his beliefs, he never troubled himself to subject those beliefs to reasoning. In fact, he viewed such questioning to be heresy. Instead, his efforts were spent collecting information in narrow areas. He knew that the right kind of knowledge could be a valuable weapon. He was a man who liked to be well armed—with every form of weapon.