Naked Empire

  The front of Zedd’s confining box crashed open, letting in more light and dust. A shadow fell across him as a man approached. Because his face was pinned to the floor by the chain, Zedd couldn’t see the man. A big hand reached in, fitting a key to the lock. Zedd kept his head stretched as far away as possible to give the man all the room available to let him do his work. Such effort earned Zedd a heavy punch in the side of his head. The blow left his ears ringing.

  The lock finally sprang open. The man’s big fist seized Zedd by the hair and dragged him, like a sack of grain, out of the box and toward the rear of the wagon. Zedd pressed his lips together, to keep from crying out as his bones bumped over protruding wooden runners in the wagon bed. At the back edge of the wagon he was summarily dumped off the back to slam down onto the ground.

  Ears ringing, head spinning, Zedd tried to sit up when he was kicked, knowing it was a command. He spat out dirt. With his hands tied behind his back he was having difficulty complying. After three kicks, a big man grabbed him by the hair and lifted him upright.

  Zedd’s heart sank to see that they sat among an army of astounding size. The dark mass of humanity blighted the land as far as he could see. So, it would seem, they had arrived.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Adie sitting in the dirt beside him, her head hanging. She had a livid bruise on her cheek. She didn’t look up when a shadow fell across her.

  A woman in a long drab skirt moved in before them, distracting him from his appraisal of the enemy forces. Zedd recognized the brown wool dress. It was the Sister of the Dark who had put the collar around their necks. He didn’t know her name; she’d never offered it. In fact, she hadn’t spoken to them since they were chained in their boxes. She stood over them, now, like the strict governess of incorrigible children.

  The ring through her lower lip, marking her as a slave, in Zedd’s mind irrevocably tarnished her air of authority.

  The ground was covered with horse manure, most, but not all, old and dried. Out beyond the Sister, horses stood picketed seemingly without any order among the soldiers. Horses that looked like they might belong to the cavalry were well kept. Workhorses were not so healthy. Among the horses and men, wagons and stacks of supplies dotted the late-day landscape.

  The place had the foul stink of shallow latrines, horses, manure, and the filthy smell of crowded human habitation failing to meet common sanitary needs. Zedd blinked when acrid woodsmoke from one of the thousands of cook fires drifted across him, burning his eyes.

  The air was also thick with mosquitoes, gnats, and flies. The flies were the worst. The mosquito bites would itch later, but the flies stung the instant they bit, and with his arms bound behind his back, there wasn’t much he could do about it other than shake his head to try to keep them out of his eyes and nose.

  The two soldiers who had freed Zedd and Adie from their boxes stood patiently to the sides. Beyond the woman’s skirts a vast encampment spread out as far as the eye could see. There were men everywhere, men engaged in work, at rest, and at recreation. They were dressed in every variety of clothing, from leather armor, chain mail, and studded belts to hides, dirty tunics, and trousers in the process of rotting into rags. Most of the men were unshaven, and all were as filthy as feral recluses living in mad seclusion. The mass encampment generated a constant din of yells, whistles, men hollering and laughing, the jangle and rattle of metal, the ring of hammers or rhythm of saws, and, piercing through it all, the occasional cry of someone in agonizing pain.

  Tents by the thousands, tents of all sorts, like leaves after a big wind, lay littering the gently rolling landscape at the foothills of towering mountains to the east. Many a tent was decorated with loot; gingham curtains hung at an entrance, a small chair or table sat before a tent, here and there an item of women’s personal clothing flew as a flag of conquest. Wagons and horses and gear were all jammed together among the rabble in no seeming plan. The ground had been churned to a fine dust by the masses in this mock city devoid of skeletal order.

  The place was a nightmare of humanity reduced to the savagery of a mob on the loose, the scope of their goals no more than the impulse of the moment. Though their leaders had ends, these men did not.

  “His Excellency has requested you both,” the Sister said down to them.

  Neither Zedd nor Adie said anything. The men hauled them both to their feet. A sharp shove started them moving behind the Sister after she marched away. Zedd noticed, then, that there were more soldiers, close to a dozen, escorting them.

  The wagon had delivered them to the end of a road, of sorts, that ran a winding course through the sprawling encampment. The end of the road, where wagons sat in a row, appeared to be the entrance to an inner camp, probably a command area. The regular soldiers outside a ring of heavily armed guards ate, played dice, gambled, bartered loot, joked, talked, and drank as they watched the prisoners being escorted.

  The thought occurred to Zedd that if he called out, proclaiming that he was the one who was responsible for the light spell that had killed or wounded so many of their chums, maybe the men would riot, set upon them, and kill them before Jagang had a chance to do his worst.

  Zedd opened his mouth to try out his plan, but saw the Sister glance back over her shoulder. He discovered that his voice was muted through her control of the collar around his neck. There would be no speaking unless she allowed it.

  Following the Sister, they walked past the standing row of wagons in front of the one that had brought them. There were well over a dozen freight wagons all lined up before the cordoned-off area with the larger tents. None of the wagons were empty, but all were loaded with crates.

  With sinking realization, Zedd understood. These were wagons with goods looted from the Wizard’s Keep. These were all wagons that had made the journey with them. They were all full of the things those ungifted men, at the Sister’s orders, had taken out of the Keep. Zedd feared to think what priceless items of profound danger sat in these crates. There were things in the Keep that became hazardous to anyone should they be removed from the shields that guarded them. There were rare items that, if removed from their protective environment, such as darkness, for even a brief time, would cease to be viable.

  Guards in layered hides, mail, leather, and armed with pikes set with long steel points flanked by sharpened winged blades, huge crescent axes, swords, and spiked maces prowled the restricted area. These grim soldiers were bigger and more menacing-looking than the regular men out in the camp—and those were fearsome enough. While the special guards patrolled, ever watchful, the unconcerned regular soldiers just outside the perimeter carried on with their business.

  The guards led the Sister, Zedd, and Adie through an opening in a line of spiked barricades. Beyond were the smaller of the special tents. Most were round and the same size. Zedd thought that these were probably the tents of the staff the emperor would keep close, his attendants and personal slaves. Zedd wondered if the Sisters were all held within the emperor’s compound.

  Up ahead, the palatial vision of the grand tents of an emperor and his entourage rose up in the late-afternoon light. No doubt some of these comfortable tents set about the center compound, within the ring of tents for servants and attendants, were accommodations for high-ranking officers, officials, and the emperor’s most trusted advisors.

  Zedd wished he had a light spell and the ability to ignite it. He could probably decapitate the Imperial Order right then and there.

  But he knew that such confusion and turmoil would only be a temporary setback for the Imperial Order. They would provide another brute to enforce their message. It would take more than killing Jagang to end the threat of the Order. He wasn’t even sure anymore just what it would take to free the world of the oppression and tyranny of the Imperial Order.

  Despite the seductively simplistic notions held by most people, the Emperor Jagang was not the driving force of this invasion. The driving force was a vicious ideology. To exist, it could not permit su
ccessful lives to be lived in sight of the suffering masses produced as a result of the beliefs and dictates of the Imperial Order. The freedom and resulting success of the people living in the New World put the lie to all the Order preached. It was blasphemy to succeed on your own; since the Order taught that it could not be done, it could only be sinful. Sin had to be eliminated for the greater good. Therefore, the freedom of the New World had to be crushed.

  “These the ones?” a guard with short-cropped hair asked. The rings hanging from his nose and ears reminded Zedd of a prized pig decorated for the summer fair. Of course, prized pigs would have been washed and clean and would have smelled better.

  “Yes,” the Sister said. “Both of them, as instructed.”

  With deliberate care the man’s dark-eyed gaze took in Adie and then Zedd. By his scowl, he apparently thought himself a righteous man who was displeased with what he saw: evil. After noting the collars they both wore, showing that they would be no danger to the emperor, he stepped aside and lifted a thumb, directing them through a second barricade beyond the tents of the attendants, servants, and slaves. The guard’s glare followed the sinners on their way to meet their proper fate.

  Other men, from inside the inner compound, swept in to surround them. Zedd saw that these men wore more orderly outfits. They were layered in similar leather and mail, wearing heavy leather weapon belts, their chests crisscrossed with studded straps. There was a uniformity to them, a sameness, that showed these were special guards. The weapons hung on those wide belts were better made, and they carried more of them. By the way they moved, Zedd knew that these were not typical men rounded up to be soldiers, but trained men with highly developed talents for warfare.

  These were the emperor’s elite bodyguards.

  Zedd looked longingly at the nearly full water bucket set out for the men standing guard in the heat. It wouldn’t do, if you were an emperor, to have your elite guards falling over from lack of water. Knowing what the response was likely to be, Zedd didn’t ask for a drink. A sidelong glance showed Adie licking her cracked lips, but she, too, remained silent.

  Up a slight rise sat by far the largest and grandest of the tents, among the impressive but lesser quarters of the emperor’s retinue. The emperor’s tent appeared more a traveling palace, actually, than a tent. It boasted a tri-peaked roof pierced by high poles bearing colorful standards and flags. Brightly embroidered panels adorned the exterior walls. Red and yellow banners flapped lazily in the hot, late-day air. Tassels and streamers all around it made it look like a central gathering tent at a festival.

  A guard flanking a doorway met Zedd’s gaze before he lifted aside the lambskin covered with shields of gold and hammered medallions of silver, allowing them entrance. One of the other guards stiff-armed Zedd’s shoulder, nearly knocking him sprawling. Zedd staggered through the doorway into the dimly lit interior, Adie stumbling in after him.

  Inside, the raucous noise of the encampment was muted by layers of rich carpets placed haphazardly. Hundreds of silk and brocade pillows lined the edge of the floor. Colorfully decorated hangings divided up the murky interior space and covered the outer walls. Openings overhead, screened with gauzy material, let in little light but did allow some air to move through the quiet gloom of the grand tent. It was so dim, in fact, that lamps and candles were needed.

  In the middle of the room, toward the back, sat an ornate chair draped with rich, red silks. If this was Emperor Jagang’s throne, he was not in it.

  While guards surrounded Zedd and Adie, keeping them restricted in place, one of the men went off behind the fabric walls from where a glow of light came. The guards standing close around Zedd stank of sweat. Their shoes were caked with manure. For all the sumptuous surroundings doing their best to simulate a reverent aura, a sacred setting, an abiding barnyard stench permeated the place. The horse manure and human sweat of the men who had entered the tent with Zedd and Adie were only making it worse.

  The man who had gone behind the walls poked his head back out, signaling the Sister forward. He whispered to her and then she, too, disappeared behind the walls.

  Zedd stole a look at Adie. Her completely white eyes stared ahead. He shifted his weight as an excuse to lean toward her and stealthily touched her shoulder with his, a message of comfort where there could be none. She returned a slight push; message received, and appreciated. He longed to embrace her, but knew he probably never would again.

  Muffled words could be heard, but the heavy wall hangings muted them so that Zedd couldn’t understand any of it. Had he access to his gift, he would have been able to hear it all, but the collar cut him off from his ability. Even so, the nature of the Sister’s report, the words, were short and businesslike.

  Those slaves working in the tent at brushing carpets, or polishing fine vases, or waxing cabinets paid no attention to the people the guards had brought in, but the sudden, low tone of menace that came from beyond the wall caused them all to put markedly more attention into their work. While no doubt prisoners were brought before the emperor often enough, Zedd was sure that it would not be wise for those working in the grand tent to pay any notice to the emperor’s business.

  From beyond the walls composed of woven scenes also came the warm smell of food. The variety of scents Zedd was able to detect was astonishing. The stink of the place, though, tended to make the fragrant aromas of meats, olive oil, garlic, onions, and spices somewhat repugnant.

  The Sister stepped out from behind the wall of colorful hangings. The ring through her lower lip stood out in stark relief against her ashen skin. She gave a slight nod to the men to either side of the prisoners.

  Powerful fingers gripping their arms, Zedd and Adie were ushered toward the opening and the glow of light beyond.

  Chapter 37

  Dragged to an abrupt halt, Zedd, at last, stood shackled before the intent glower of the dream walker himself, Emperor Jagang.

  Enthroned in an ornately carved high-backed chair behind a grand dining table, Jagang leaned on both elbows, a goose leg spanning his fingers as he chewed. Points of candlelight reflecting off the sides of his shaved head danced as the tendons all the way up through his temples rippled with his chewing. A thin mustache, growing down from the corners of his mouth and at the center under his lower lip, moved rhythmically in time with his jaw, as did the fine chain connected to gold loops in his ear and nose. Greasy goose fat covering his meaty, ringed fingers glistened in the candlelight and ran down his bare arms.

  From his place behind his table, Jagang casually studied his latest captives.

  Despite the candles set about the table and on stands to either side, the inside of the tent had the murky feel of a dungeon.

  To each side of him on the broad table sat plates of food, goblets, bottles, candles, bowls, and, here and there, books and scrolls. There being no room for all of the silver platters among the multitude, some of them had to be strategically balanced atop small decorated pillars. There looked to be enough food for a small army.

  For all the Order’s talk of sacrifice for the betterment of mankind being their noble cause, Zedd knew that such abundance at the emperor’s table was meant to send a contradictory message, even when there was no one but the emperor himself to see it.

  Slaves stood lined up along the wall behind Jagang, some holding additional platters, some in stiff poses, all awaiting command. Some of those in back were young men—young wizards, from what Zedd had heard—dressed in loose-fitting white trousers and nothing else. This was where wizards in training at the Palace of the Prophets had ended up, along with the captured Sisters who had been their teachers. All were now captives of the dream walker. The most accomplished of men, men with enormous potential, were used as houseboys to perform menial tasks. This, too, was a message sent by the emperor of the Imperial Order to show everyone that the best and the brightest were to be used to clean chamber pots, while brutes ruled them.

  The younger women, Sisters of both the Dark and the Light, Z
edd assumed, wore outfits that ran from neck to wrist to ankle, but were so transparent that the women might as well have been naked. This, too, was meant to show that Emperor Jagang thought little of these women’s talents, and valued them only for his pleasure. The older, less attractive women standing off to the sides wore drab clothes. These were probably Sisters who served the emperor in other menial ways.

  Jagang delighted in having under his control, as slaves, some of the most gifted people in the world. It suited the nature of the Order to demean those with ability, rather than to celebrate them.

  Jagang watched Zedd taking in the house slaves, but showed no emotion. The dream walker’s bull neck made him look almost other than human. The muscles of his chest, as well as his massive shoulders, were displayed by an open, sleeveless lamb’s-wool vest. He was as powerful and brawny a man as Zedd had seen, an intimidating presence even at rest.

  As Zedd and Adie stood mute, Jagang’s teeth tore off another chunk of meat from the goose leg. In the tense silence, he watched them as he chewed, as if deciding what he might do with his newest plunder.

  More than anything, it was his inky black eyes, devoid of any pupils, irises, or whites, that threatened to halt the blood in Zedd’s veins. The last time he had seen those eyes, Zedd had not been shackled, but that ungifted girl had prevented Zedd from finishing the man. That was going to turn out to be the missed opportunity that Zedd would most regret. His chance to kill Jagang had slipped through his fingers that day, not because of the vast power of all the skilled Sisters and troops arrayed against him, but all because of a single ungifted girl.

  Those black eyes, the eyes of a mature dream walker, glistened in the candlelight. Across their dark voids, dim shapes shifted, like clouds on a moonless night.