“Why me?” She asked as she watched him. “Why do you want me?”
He paused with a finger on a large leatherbound volume. He watched her, the way a hawk watched a mouse, as he withdrew the book. He took it to the pile of eight or ten already on the floor, set it down, and picked up one already there.
He paged through it after he stopped before her.
“Here. Read this.”
She lifted the heavy book from his hands and read where he pointed:
Should she go freely, one ringed will be able to touch that long trusted into the winds alone.
Long trusted into the winds alone. The very idea of such an incomprehensible thing made her want to run.
“One ringed,” she said. “Does that mean me?”
“If you choose to go freely.”
“What if I choose to stay, and hide? Then what?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Then I will find another who wants to escape. I offered you the chance first for my own reasons, and because you can read. I’m sure there are others who can read. If I have to, I will find another.”
“What is it ‘one ringed’ can touch?”
He took the book from her tremulous hands and snapped it shut. “Don’t try to understand what the words mean. I know that you people try to do that, but I am a prophet, and I can tell you with a great deal of authority that such an endeavor is futile. No matter what you think, what you fear, you will be wrong.”
Her resolve to leave with him weakened. Despite his seeming kindness in saving her up in the tower, the prophet frightened her. A man who knew things such as he could know frightened her.
They had put a silver ring through her lip. Not copper. Maybe that meant she would be treated better. At least she would live. They would feed her, and she would live. She wouldn’t have to fear some terrifying, unknown death.
She started when he spoke her name.
“Clarissa,” he said again. “Go get some of the soldiers. Tell them that you are to lead them to the archives, down here.”
“Why? Why do you want me to get them?”
“Do as I say. Tell them that Captain Mallack said you were to lead them down to the books. If you have any trouble, tell them he also said to ‘get their sorry hides down to the books right now or the dream walker would pay them a visit they would regret.’”
“But, if I go up there…”
Her words trailed off in the grip of his gaze. “If you have trouble, tell them those words, and you will be all right. Lead them down here.”
She opened her mouth to ask why he wanted them to come down to the books, but his expression changed her mind. She dashed up the stairs, glad to be away from the prophet, although she realized that she would have to face the brutes.
She paused before the door to the great room. She could run away. She remembered the Abbot suggesting the same thing, and she remembered knowing how foolish the idea was. There was nowhere to run. She had a silver ring; maybe that would be good for something. These men valued her at least that much.
She opened the door and took one step before the sight brought her to a wide-eyed halt. The double door to the street was splintered and broken in. The floor was strewn with the bodies of men who had run to the abbey for shelter.
The great room was packed with invaders. Among the bloody bodies of the dead, the women were being raped. Clarissa stood frozen, her mouth agape.
Men stood in groups, waiting their turn. The largest groups were for the women with gold rings. The things being done to those women brought vomit up into Clarissa’s mouth. She covered her mouth and forced herself to swallow it.
She stood transfixed, unable to turn her eyes away from a naked Manda Perlin, one of the young women who frequently tormented her. Manda had married a wealthy, middle-aged man who lent money and invested in cargos. Her husband, Rupert Perlin, lay close by, his throat so viciously cut that his head had been nearly severed from his body.
Manda wailed in terror as the brutes held her down. The men roared with laughter at her wails, but they could hardly be heard above all the noise. Clarissa felt her eyes water. These were not men. They were wild animals.
A man snatched Clarissa by the hair. Another hooked her leg with an arm. They laughed as her scream joined all the others. Before she landed on her back, they had her dress up.
“No!” she cried out.
They laughed at her, as the others were laughing at Manda.
“No—I was sent!”
“Good.” one man said. “I was tired of waiting my turn.”
He smacked her when she fought off his hands. The pain of the wallop stunned her, and made her ears hum.
She had a silver ring. That meant something. She had a silver ring.
She heard a woman not two feet away grunt as a man flopped down on her back. Her silver ring did her no good, either.
“Mallack!” Clarissa screamed. “Captain Mallack sent me!”
The man put a fist in her hair and crushed a grimy, bristly kiss to her lips. Her wound, from the ring through her lip, sang with pain and she could feel blood gush anew across her chin.
“My thanks to Captain Mallack,” he said. He bit her ear, making her scream again as the other man pawed at her small clothes. She tried desperately to remember what the prophet had told her to say.
“Message!” she cried out. “Captain Mallack sent me with a message! He said I’m to lead you down to the books. He said to tell you to get your sorry hides down to the books right now or the dream walker would pay you a visit you would regret.”
The men cursed obscenely, then pulled her to her feet by her hair. She smoothed her dress down with trembling hands. The half dozen men around her laughed. One slid a hand back up between her legs.
“Well, don’t just stand there enjoying it, bitch. Get going. Lead the way.”
Her legs had all the starch of wet rope and she had to hold the rail on the way down the stairs. Visions of what she had seen flashed through her mind in a jumble as she led the half dozen men down to the archives.
The prophet met them at the door, as if he were about to leave.
“There you are. About time,” the prophet said in an irritable voice. He gestured back to the room. “Everything is in order. Start packing them up before anything happens, or the emperor will be using us as firewood.”
The men frowned in confusion. They glanced about the room. In the center, where Clarissa had seen the prophet stack the books he had taken from the shelves, there was only a stain of white ash. The empty places where he had pulled out books had been closed up, so it didn’t appear that any had been removed.
“I smell smoke,” one of the men said.
The prophet thunked the man’s skull. “Idiot! Half the city is ablaze. At last, you begin to smell smoke? Now, get to it! I have to report on the books I found.”
One of them snatched Clarissa’s arm as the prophet started leading her out. “Leave her. We’ll be needing some entertainment.”
The prophet glared at them. “She’s a scribe, you fool! She knows all the books. We have more important work for her than amusing you lazy oafs. There are women enough when you finish your work, or would you rather have me report you to Captain Mallack?”
Even though they were confused by who Nathan was, they decided to get to work. Nathan closed the door behind him. He pushed Clarissa on ahead.
On the steps, alone with him in the silence, she halted, leaning against the railing for support. She felt light headed and sick to her stomach. He put his fingers to her cheek.
“Clarissa, listen to me. Slow your breathing. Think. Slow it down, or you will faint.”
Tears coursed down her face. She lifted a hand toward the room she had gone to to get the men. “I… I saw…”
“I know what you saw,” he said in a soft voice.
She slapped him. “Why did you send me up there? You didn’t need those men!”
“You think you will be able to hide. You won’t. They will search
every hole in this city. When they are finished, they will burn it all to the ground. There will be nothing of Renwold left.”
“But I… I could… I’m afraid of going with you. I don’t want to die.”
“I wanted you to know what will happen to you should you choose to stay here. Clarissa, you are a lovely young woman.” He pointed with his chin toward the great hall. “Believe me, you do not want to be here to experience what is going to happen to the women here over the next three days, and then as slaves to the Imperial Order. Please believe me, you don’t want that.”
“How can they do such things? How can they?”
“This is the unspeakable reality of war. There are no rules of conduct except those the aggressor makes, or those the winner can enforce. You can either fight against this, or submit to it.”
“Can’t… can’t you do anything to help these people?”
“No,” he whispered. “I can only help you, but I’m not going to waste precious time doing it unless you are worth saving. The dead here died a quick death. Terrible as it was, it was quick.
“Vast numbers of people, many times as many people as lived in this city, are about to die horrible, suffering, lingering deaths. I can’t help these people, but I can try to help those others. Is freedom worth having, life worth living, if I don’t try?
“It is time for you to decide if you will help, if your life is worth living, worth the Creator’s gift of your soul.”
Visions of what was happening up in the great hall, out in the streets, and to her whole city flashed chaotically through her mind. She felt as if she were already dead. If she could have a chance to help others, and to live again, she must take it. This was the only chance she would get. She knew it was.
She wiped the tears from her eyes, and the blood from her chin. “Yes. I’ll help you. I swear on my soul that I will do what you ask, if it means a chance to save lives, and a chance at my freedom.”
“Even if I ask you to do something that you fear? Even if you think you will die doing it?”
“Yes.”
His warm smile made her heart lift. Surprisingly, he drew her to him and gave her a comforting hug. She had been a child the last time she had been comforted with a hug. It made her weep.
Nathan put his fingers to her lip, and she felt a warm sensation of succor. Her terror eased. Her memories of what she had seen now gave her the determination to stop the men who did this, to prevent them from visiting suffering on others. Her mind filled with hope that she might do something important that would help other people to be free, too.
Clarissa felt her lip after Nathan had taken his hand away. It no longer throbbed. The wound was healed around the ring.
“Thank you—Prophet.”
“Nathan.” He ran a hand down her hair. “We must go. The longer we stay here, the greater the chance of never getting away.”
Clarissa nodded. “I’m ready.”
“Not yet.” He cupped his big hands to her cheeks. “We must walk through the city, through it all, to get away. You have seen too much already. I don’t want you to see any more, or hear any more. I would spare you that much, at least.”
“But I don’t see how we can ever get past the Order.”
“You let me worry about that. For now, I am going to put a spell over you. You will be blind, so that you don’t have to see any more of what is happening to your city, and you will be deaf, so that you don’t have to hear any more of the suffering and death that now possesses this place.”
She suspected that he feared she might panic and get them caught. She didn’t know that he might not be right.
“If you say so, Nathan. I will do as you say.”
Standing there in the dim light, two steps below her so that his face was closer to hers, he gave her a warm smile. For as old as he was, he was a strikingly handsome man.
“I have chosen the right woman. You will do well. I pray the good spirits grant you freedom in return for your help.”
Holding his hand as they walked was her only connection to the world. She couldn’t see the slaughter. She couldn’t hear the screams. She couldn’t smell the fires. Yet she knew that those things had to be happening around her.
In her silent world, she prayed as she walked, prayed that the good spirits would keep safe the souls of those who had died here this day, and for those who still lived she prayed for the good spirits to give them strength.
He guided her around rubble, and around the heat of fires. He held her hand tight when she stumbled over debris. It seemed they walked for hours through the ruins of the vast city.
Occasionally they stopped, and she lost the connection to his hand as she stood still and alone in her silent world. She could neither see nor hear, so she didn’t know the exact reason for the stop, but she suspected that Nathan was having to talk their way out. Sometimes those stops dragged on and on, and her heart raced at the thought of what unseen danger Nathan warded. Sometimes, the stop was followed by his arm around her waist pulling her into a run.
She felt confident in his care, and comfort, too.
Her hip sockets ached from walking, and her weary feet throbbed. He at last placed both hands on her shoulders, turned her, and helped her sit. She felt cool grass under her.
Her vision suddenly returned, along with her hearing and sense of smell.
Rolling green hills spread away before her. She looked around and saw only countryside. There were no people anywhere. The city of Renwold was nowhere to be seen.
She dared to feel the budding of sweet relief, not only at having escaped the slaughter but at having escaped her old life.
The terror had burned so deep into her soul that she felt as if she had been recast in a furnace of fear, and had come out a shiny new ingot, hardened for what lay ahead.
Whatever she had to face, it could be no worse than what she would have faced had she stayed. If she had chosen to stay, it would have been a turning away from helping others, and from herself.
She didn’t know what he was going to ask her to do, but every day of freedom she had was one she wouldn’t otherwise have had if not for the prophet.
“Thank you, Nathan, for choosing me.”
He was staring off in thought, and didn’t seem to hear her.
23
Sister Verna turned to the commotion and saw a scout leaping from his lathered horse before it had skidded to a stop in the near darkness. The scout panted, trying to catch his breath, at the same time as he relayed his report to the general. The general’s tense posture visibly relaxed at the report. He gestured in a jaunty fashion for his officers to stand down their concern, too.
She couldn’t hear the scout’s report, but she knew what it would be. She didn’t have to be a prophet to know what the scout would have seen.
The fools. She had told him as much.
The smiling General Reibisch approached her, his heavy eyebrows arched with his good humor. When he came into the ring of firelight, his grayish-green eyes searched her out.
“Prelate! There you are. Good news!”
Verna, her mind on other, more important matters, loosened the shawl around her shoulders.
“Don’t tell me, general; my Sisters and I won’t have to spend the whole night calming nervous soldiers and casting spells to tell you where panicked men have run off to hide while they await the end of the world.”
He scratched his rust-colored beard. “Ah, well, I do appreciate your help, Prelate, but no, you won’t. You’re right, as usual.”
She snorted an I-told-you-so.
The scout had been watching from atop the hill, and from there could see the moonrise before any of them down in the valley.
“My man said that the moon didn’t rise red, tonight. I know you told me it wouldn’t, and that three nights of it was all there would be, but I can’t help being relieved to know things are back to normal, Prelate.”
Back to normal. Hardly.
“I’m glad, general, that we will
all get a good night’s sleep for a change. I hope, too, that your men have learned a lesson, and that in the future, when I tell them that the underworld isn’t about to swallow us all, they will have a little more faith.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Yes, Prelate. I believed you, of course, but some of these men are more superstitious than is healthy for their hearts. Magic scares them.”
She leaned a little closer to the man and lowered her voice. “It should.”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, Prelate. Well, I guess we better all get some sleep.”
“Your messengers haven’t returned yet, have they?”
“No.” He traced a finger down the lower part of the white scar running from his left temple to his jaw. “I don’t expect they’ve even reached Aydindril yet.”
Verna sighed. She wished she could have heard word first. It might have made her decision easier.
“I suppose not.”
“What do you think, Prelate? What’s your advice? North?”
She stared off, watching the sparks from the fire spiral up into the darkness, and feeling its heat on her face. She had more important decisions to make.
“I don’t know. Richard’s exact words to me were, ‘Head north. There’s an army of a hundred thousand D’Haran soldiers heading south looking for Kahlan. You’ll have more protection with them, and they with you. Tell General Reibisch that she is safe with me.’”
“It would have made things easier if he would have said for sure.”
“He didn’t say for us to go north, back to Aydindril, but it was implied. I’m sure he thought that’s what we would do. However, I take seriously your advice in matters such as this.”
He shrugged. “I’m a soldier. I think like a soldier.”
Richard had gone to Tanimura to rescue Kahlan, and had managed to destroy the Palace of the Prophets, along with its vault of prophecies, before Emperor Jagang could capture it. Richard had said that he had to return to Aydindril at once, and that he didn’t have time to explain, but only he and Kahlan had the magic required that would allow their immediate return. He said he couldn’t take the rest of them. He had told her to go north to meet up with General Reibisch and his D’Haran army.