Phantom (26 page)

Rachel wondered if Violet had ordered all the advisors put to death. The last time Rachel had been at the castle, Violet, at her mother’s side, was just beginning to order executions. Now that she was queen, with Six to back her, there would be nothing to restrain Violet’s whims.

“Six gave me my tongue back. Gave me my voice back. The Seeker thought he had taken all of that from me, but now I have it back. Tamarang is safely in my hands.”

Had it not been so frightening a thought, so horrifying a concept, Rachel might have laughed at the very idea of Violet being queen. Rachel had been Violet’s playmate, her companion—really nothing more than her personal slave. Violet’s mother, Queen Milena, had gotten Rachel from an orphanage, intending her to be someone upon whom Violet could practice leadership, someone younger whom Violet could easily handle, and abuse.

Rachel had not only escaped, she taken Queen Milena’s precious box of Orden with her, eventually giving it over to Richard and Zedd and Chase.

That had been a long time back. Violet looked to be about in her middle teens by now, although Rachel wasn’t good at guessing older people’s ages. She was a lot bigger than the last time Rachel had seen her, that much was for sure. Her dull hair was even longer. Her bones had gotten heavier, thicker. Like the rest of her, her face was still plump, but with those small, dark, calculating eyes, it had lost its childlike quality. Her chest was no longer flat, either, but had grown womanly. She looked like an adult just about to emerge from her cocoon. She had always been much older than Rachel, but now she seemed to have spurted up and widened the gap.

Even so, she didn’t seem anywhere near old enough to be a queen.

But queen she was.

Rachel’s knees, naked against the rock, were hurting something fierce. She didn’t dare to ask to get up, though. Instead, she asked a question.

“Violet—”

Smack.

Before she had time to think, Violet had struck, seemingly out of nowhere, as if she had been waiting for an excuse. Rachel’s vision swam sickeningly. It felt like the blow might have knocked teeth loose. Rachel gingerly felt with her tongue before she was sure they were all still in place.

“Queen Violet,” Violet growled. “Don’t make that mistake again or you will be put to torture as an instigator of treason.”

Rachel swallowed back the lump of terror. “Yes, Queen Violet.”

Violet smiled at the triumph. She was indeed the queen.

Rachel knew that Violet had a taste for only the most exquisite things, the most elaborate decoration, whether it be draperies or dishes, the most beautiful dresses, and the the most precious jewels. She insisted on surrounding herself with the best of everything—and that had been back when she’d only been a princess. That made it seem all the stranger that she would be in a cave.

“Queen Violet, what are you doing in this awful place?”

Violet stared down at her a moment, then waggled what looked like a piece of chalk before Rachel’s face. “My heritage, my inheritance.”

Rachel didn’t understand. “Your what?”

“My gift.” She shrugged offhandedly. “Well, not exactly the gift, but something akin to it. You see, I come from a long line of artists. You remember James? The court artist?”

Rachel nodded. “He had only one hand.”

“Yes,” Violet drawled. “A man a little too forward for his own good. Just because he was a relative of the queen he thought that he could get away with certain indiscretions. He was wrong.”

Rachel blinked. “Relative?”

“Distant cousin, or something like that. He shared some little trace of the royal bloodline. That exceptional bloodline carries a unique gift for…artistry. The family of the rulers of Tamarang still carry the thread of that ancient talent. My mother didn’t have the ability, but through that bloodline, it turns out that she did pass it along to me. At the time, though, the only one we knew of who still had that rare talent was James. Thus it came to be that he served as the court artist, served the crown, my mother, Queen Milena.

“The Seeker, the previous Seeker, Richard, before he caused the trouble that resulted in the murder of my mother, also murdered James. Our land was for the first time in history without the services of an artist to protect the crown.

“At the time we weren’t aware that I, in fact, carry the ancient talent.” She gestured to the tall woman beside her. “Six saw it in me, though. She told me of my remarkable ability. She has been helping me learn to use it, guiding me in my…art lessons.

“A lot of people were opposed to me becoming queen—some, even, among the crown’s highest advisors. Fortunately, Six told me of the covert plots.” She lifted the chalk before Rachel’s face. “The traitors found drawings of themselves down here on these walls. I made sure that everyone knows what happens to traitors. With that, and with Six’s help and counsel, I became queen. People no longer dare oppose me.”

When she had lived at the castle before, Rachel had thought that Violet was dangerous in the extreme. She’d had no idea at the time just how much more dangerous she would become. Rachel felt a sense of crushing hopelessness.

Violet and Six glanced up when they heard Samuel rushing back in. Fearing that Violet was liable to whack her again, Rachel decided not to turn and look. She could hear Samuel panting, though, as he got close.

Violet swished her hand, commanding Rachel aside and out of the way. Rachel immediately scrambled to comply, only too happy to be out of the reach of Violet’s arm, if not her authority.

Samuel had a leather bag held closed with a drawstring. He set the bag down carefully and opened it. He looked up at Six. She rolled her hand, urging him to get on with it.

It appeared to be a box of some kind. When it came out of the bag, Rachel saw that it was as black as doom itself. She thought that they all very well might be sucked into that black void and vanish into the underworld.

With one hand, Samuel held the sinister thing up to Six. Smiling, she lifted it out of his hand.

“As promised,” she said to Violet, “I present you with Queen Violet’s box of Orden.”

Rachel remembered Queen Milena lifting that same box with the same kind of awed reverence. Except that now it wasn’t all covered in the silver, gold, and jewels. Zedd had told Rachel that the real box of Orden had been under those jewels. This had to be that box that had all along been inside when Rachel had spirited it away from the castle just as Wizard Giller had asked her to do.

Now Giller was dead, Richard no longer had his sword, and Rachel was back in the clutches of Violet. And now Violet had herself a precious box of Orden, just as her mother had.

Violet smirked. “You see, Rachel? What need have I of those old, useless advisors? Could they have accomplished any of what I have accomplished? You see, unlike those weak people you threw in with, I always persevere until I succeed. That’s what it takes to be a queen.

“I have the box of Orden back. I have you back.” She waggled the chalk again. “And I will have Richard back to face his punishment.”

Six sighed. “Enough of this happy reunion. You have what you asked for. Samuel and I need to go have a talk about his next assignment, and you need to get back to your ‘art’ lesson.”

Violet smiled conspiratorially. “Yes, my lesson.” She glared down at Rachel. “There is an iron box waiting for you back at the castle. And then there is the matter of your punishment.”

Six bowed her head. “I will be off, then, my queen.”

Violet flicked her hand in a gesture of dismissal. Six grasped Samuel’s upper arm and started away with him. He had to watch his balance to keep
his footing as he stepped over and around rocks. Six seemed to glide through the dim light without any trouble at all.

“Come along,” Violet said in the kind of pretend cheerful tone that made Rachel’s blood run cold. “You can watch me draw.”

As Violet grabbed the torch Rachel stood on wobbly legs, then followed her queen, the light of the flagging flame illuminating walls covered with endless drawings of terrible things being done to people. There was not a spot on the walls that didn’t have some sort of horrific scene. Rachel missed Chase something fierce, missed his reassurance, his smile when she had done a lesson well, his comforting hand on her shoulder. She loved him so much. And Samuel had killed him, killed all her hopes and dreams. She felt numb despair as she followed Violet deeper into the darkness, deeper into the madness.

Nicci spotted Richard far off down the long rampart, standing at the crenellated outer wall not far from the base of a soaring tower, gazing out over the deserted city far below. Twilight had muted the colors of the dying day, turning the distant rolling summer-green fields to gray. Cara stood not far from his side, silent but watchful.

Nicci knew Richard well enough that she could easily read the heightened tension in his body. She knew Cara well enough to see the reflection of that stress lurking in her intently calm appearance. Nicci pressed a fist over the knot of anxiety tightening in her middle.

Overhead the slate gray clouds roiled, spitting an occasional fat drop of rain. Distant thunder rumbled through the mountain passes, promising a tempestuous night to come. Despite the dark, seething clouds, the air was strangely still. The heat of the day had abruptly vanished, as if fleeing before the storm that was about to break.

As she came to a stop, Nicci rested a hand on the crenellated wall and took a deep breath of the humid air.

“Rikka said that you needed to see me. She said it was urgent.”

Richard looked the match for the brewing storm. “I have to leave. At once.”

Nicci had somehow expected just that. She glanced past Richard, to Cara, but the Mord-Sith showed no reaction. Richard had been brooding for days. He’d been quietly distant as he considered everything he had learned from Jebra and Shota. Zedd had advised Nicci to leave him to his deliberation. Nicci had not needed such advise; she probably knew his darker moods better than anyone.

“I’m going with you,” she said, making it clear that she was leaving no room for discussion.

He nodded absently. “It will be good to have you with me. Especially for this.”

Nicci was relieved not to have him argue, but the knot of anxiety tightened over the last part of what he’d said. There was a palpable sense of danger in the air. At that moment her concern was to insure that—whatever he was about to do—he was as well protected as she could manage.

“And Cara is going too.”

Still, he gazed off into the distance. “Of course.”

She realized that he was looking south. “Now that Tom and Friedrich are back, Tom will insist on coming along as well. His talents will be valuable.”

Tom was a member of an elite corps of protectors to the Lord Rahl. Despite his amiable appearance, Tom was more than formidable in his duty. Men like him were not advanced to such trusted positions of protection to the Lord Rahl because they had nice smiles. Like other D’Haran protectors to the Lord Rahl, Tom had come to feel passionately about his duty to protect Richard.

“He can’t come with us,” Richard said. “We’re going in the sliph. Only Cara, you, and me are able to travel in the sliph.”

Nicci swallowed at the thought of such a journey. “And where are we going, Richard?”

At long last, his gray eyes turned to her. He gazed into her eyes with that way he had about him, as if he was looking into her soul.

“I’ve figured it out,” he said.

“You’ve figured what out?”

“What I must do.”

Nicci could feel her fingers tingling with a shapeless dread. The look of terrible resolve in his gray eyes made her knees weak.

“And what is that you must do, Richard?”

He puzzled a moment. “Did I ever tell you thanks for stopping Shota when you did, when she was touching me?”

Nicci was not disconcerted by Richard’s abrupt change of topic. She had learned that it was Richard’s way. It was especially characteristic when he was greatly troubled. The more agitated he was, it seemed that there were all the more things going on in his head at the same time, as if his thoughts were in a whirlwind of inner activity that pulled everything up into that tumultuous rush of deliberation.

“You told me, Richard.”

About a hundred times.

He nodded slightly. “Well, thanks.”

His voice had turned absent, distant, as he descended back into the dark depths of some inner equation upon which the future hinged.

“She was doing something painful to you, wasn’t she.”

It was not a question, but a statement that Nicci had come to believe more and more in the days following Shota’s visit. Nicci didn’t know what Shota had done, but she wished she had not allowed even that brief touch. There was no telling how much the witch woman could have conveyed in that touch, even as abbreviated as it had been. Lightning, after all, was brief as well. Richard had never said what Shota had shown him, but it was ground that Nicci, for some reason, feared to tread upon.

Richard heaved a sigh. “Yes, she was. She was showing me the truth. That truth is in part how I’ve come to understand at last what it is I must do. As much as I dread it…”

When he drifted into silence, Nicci patiently prodded him. “So, what have you figured out you must do?”

Richard’s fingers tightened on the stone as he looked out again over the darkening countryside far below, and then to the somber jumble of mountains rising up beyond.

“I was right in the beginning.” His gaze turned to Cara. “Right when I took you and Kahlan away to the mountains far back in Westland.”

Cara frowned. “I remember you saying that we were going back into those deserted mountains because you had come to understand that we could not win the war by fighting the army of the Imperial Order. You said that you could not lead them in such a battle that they were sure to lose.”

Richard nodded. “And I was right. I know that now. We can’t win against their army. Shota helped me to see that. She may have been trying to convince me that I must fight that battle, but in part because of all that she and Jebra showed me, I know now that we can’t win it.

“Now, I know what I must do.”

“And what would that be?” Nicci pressed.

Richard finally pushed away from the stone merlon. “We have to go. I don’t have time to lay it all out right now.”

Nicci started after him. “I threw some things together. They’re ready. Richard, why can’t you tell me what you’ve decided?”

“I will,” he said, “later.”

“You’re wasting your time,” Cara said under her breath to Nicci as she fell in with her behind Richard. “I’ve already paddled up that creek until I got too tired to paddle anymore.”

Richard, hearing Cara’s remark, took Nicci by the arm and pulled her forward. “I’m not finished thinking it all through. I need to finish putting it all together. I’ll explain it when we get there, explain it to everyone—but right now we don’t have the time. All right?”

“Get where?” Nicci asked.

“To the D’Haran army. Jagang’s main force will soon be heading up into D’Hara. I have to tell our army that we have no chance to win the battle that is coming for them.”

“That ought to cheer their day,” Cara said. “Nothing makes a soldier feel better on the eve of battle than their leader telling them that they are about to lose the battle and die.”

“You want me to tell them a lie, instead?” he asked.

Cara’s only answer was a scowl.

At the end of the rampart Richard pulled open the heavy oak door at the base of the tower. Inside was a room where some of the lamps were already lit. Nicci could hear people rushing up the stone steps to the side.

“Richard!” It was Zedd following behind the big, blond-headed D’Haran, Tom.

Richard halted, waiting for his grandfather to reach the top of the steps and make it into the simple stone room. Zedd rushed closer, gulping air.

“Richard! What’s going on? Rikka came by in a rush saying that you were leaving.”

Richard nodded. “I wanted you to know that I’ve got to go, but I won’t be gone for long. I’ll be back in a few days. Hopefully, in the meantime you and Nathan and Ann can find out something in the books that will be helpful with the Chainfire spell. Maybe you can even work on coming up with some solution to the contamination from the chimes.”

Zedd waved irritably at the suggestion. “While we’re at it, would you like me to cure the sky of that thunderstorm?”

“Zedd, don’t be angry with me, please. I have to go.”

“All right, but where are you going—and why?”

“I’m ready, Lord Rahl,” Tom said as he hurried into the room.

“I’m sorry,” Richard told him, “but you can’t go. We’re going to need to go in the sliph.”

Zedd threw his arms up in the air. “The sliph! You do your best to convince me that magic is failing, and now you intend to put your life in the hands of a creature of magic? Are you losing your mind, Richard? What’s going on?”

“I’m aware of the danger, but I must take the risk.” Richard gestured. “You know that starburst symbol on the door of the First Wizard’s enclave, up there?” When Zedd nodded, Richard tapped the top of his silver wristband. “It’s the same as this one here.”

“What about it?” Zedd asked.

“Remember, I told you that it has meaning? It’s an admonition not to allow your vision to lock on any one thing. It’s a warning to look everywhere at once, to see nothing to the exclusion of everything else. It means you mustn’t allow the enemy to draw your attention and make you focus on what he wishes you to see. If you do, you will be blind to everything else.

“That’s what I’ve been doing. Jagang has been forcing me—forcing everyone—to focus on one thing. Like a fool, I’ve been doing just that.”

“His army,” Nicci guessed. “That’s what you mean? That we’ve all been focusing on his invasion force?”

“That’s right. This starburst means that you must open to all there is, never settling on just one thing, even when cutting your enemy. It means that instead of focusing on one thing, you must open your mind to everything, even when it is necessary to keep that one central threat at the center of your attention.”

Zedd cocked his head. “Richard, you’ve got to focus on the threat that’s about to kill you. His army is millions of men strong. They’re coming to crush all opposition and enslave us all.”

“I know. That’s why we can’t fight them; we will lose.”

Zedd’s face went crimson. “So you propose to allow their army to roll into the New World unopposed? Your plan is to let Jagang’s army freely overrun cities and allow to happen all the things Jebra told us had happened in Ebinissia? You want to so easily allow all those people to be slaughtered or enslaved?”

“Think of the solution,” Richard reminded his grandfather, “not the problem.”

“Not very comforting advice to those having their throats cut.”

Richard froze and stared at his grandfather, seemingly struck silent by Zedd’s words.

“Look,” Richard finally said, running his fingers back through his hair, “I don’t have time for this right now. I’ll talk to you about it when I get back. Time is of the essence. I’ve already wasted far too much of it. I only hope that we still have enough time left.”

“Enough time for what!” Zedd roared.

Nicci heard footsteps rushing up the stairwell. Jebra dashed into the room.

“What’s going on?” she asked Zedd.

Zedd waved a hand in Richard’s direction. “My grandson has decided that we must lose the war, that we must not fight Jagang’s army.”

“Lord Rahl, you can’t be serious,” she said. “You can’t seriously consider allowing those brutes…” Jebra’s voice trailed off as she stepped forward, peering up at Richard. She stilled in midstride. She staggered back a step.

The blood drained from her face.

Her jaw dropped open. Her jaw trembled as she tried without success to bring forth words. Her features slackened with dread.

Her blue eyes rolled back in her head as she fainted.

As she toppled back, Tom caught her in his arms and laid her gently on the granite floor. Everyone closed in around the unconscious woman.

“What happened?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know,” Zedd said as he knelt down beside the woman, pressing his fingers to her forehead. “She’s fainted, but I’m not sure why.”

Richard headed for the door that opened to the iron stairs running down the inside of the tower. “I’ll leave you to take care of her, Zedd—you’re the expert at healing. She’s in good hands. I can’t afford to waste any more time right now.”

He turned back from the doorway. “I’ll be back as soon as I can—promise. We shouldn’t be more than a few days.”

“But Richard—”

He had already started down the iron steps. “I’ll be back,” he called up at them, his voice echoing from the gloom.

Without hesitation, Cara followed after him down into the dark tower.

Nicci didn’t want to let him get too far without her, but she knew that he would have to call the sliph, so she had a few moments. As Zedd checked different spots on Jebra’s head, Nicci squatted down beside the unconscious Jebra, across from him.

Nicci felt the woman’s brow. “She’s burning up.”

Zedd looked up in a way that nearly stopped Nicci’s heart. “It’s a vision.”

“How do you know?”

“I know about seers in general and this one in particular. She’s had a powerful vision. Jebra is more sensitive than most seers. Her emotions, with a certain kind of vision, sometimes overcome her. This vision had to have been something that was so powerful it rendered her unconscious.”

“Do you think it was about Richard?”

“There’s no way to tell,” the old wizard said. “She will have to be the one to tell us.”

Zedd may not have been willing to venture a guess, but Jebra had looked up into Richard’s eyes just before she fainted. Nicci didn’t have time to be discreet. She couldn’t allow Richard to leave without her—and she knew that he would if she wasn’t there when he was ready to go—but at the same time she couldn’t leave without knowing if Jebra had had a vision about him that could reveal something important.

Nicci slipped her hand under the woman’s neck, pressing her fingers to the base of Jebra’s skull.

“What are you doing?” Zedd asked, suspiciously. “If you’re doing what I think you are, that’s not just reckless but dangerous.”

“So is ignorance,” Nicci said as she released a flow of power.

Jebra’s eyes popped open. She gasped.

“No…”

“There, there,” Zedd comforted, “it’s all right, my dear. We’re right here with you.”

“What did you see?” Nicci asked, getting right to the point.