Blood of the Fold

  “None of us enjoys being in the same room with an evil one such as her, but it’s my duty to question her, and at least you could make it smell a little better for me.”

  “Yes, Sister, I’ll do it for you, then, for a true Sister of the Light, so you won’t have to bear her stink at least.” Millie spat in Verna’s direction again.

  Verna was near to tears, humiliated to know that Millie thought those terrible things of her. Everyone else did too. She was no longer positive that they were untrue. Her mind was so dizzied by the tests of pain that she could no longer trust that she was thinking straight to believe in her own innocence. Perhaps it was wrong to be loyal to Richard; he was, after all, a mere man.

  When Millie finished, then Leoma would start again. She heard herself sob at the helplessness of her situation. When Leoma heard the sob, she smiled.

  “Empty that reeking chamber pot,” Leoma said.

  Millie huffed in disgust. “All right, all right, just hold your skirts on and I’ll empty it.”

  Millie pushed the bucket of soapy water closer to Verna’s pallet and collected the brimming chamber pot. Holding her nose, she carried it out of the room at arm’s length.

  After she had shuffled off down the hall, Leoma spoke. “Notice anything different?”

  Verna shook her head. “No, Sister.”

  Leoma lifted her eyebrows. “The drums. They’ve stopped.”

  Verna started with the realization. They must have stopped while she was asleep.

  “Do you know what that means?”

  “No, Sister.”

  “It means that the emperor is close, and will be arriving soon. Maybe tomorrow. He wants results from our little experiment. Tonight, you either forsake your fidelity to Richard, or you will answer to Jagang. Your time has run out. You think on that, while Millie finishes cleaning up a bit of your stink.”

  Muttering curses, Millie returned with the empty chamber pot. After she put it in the far corner, she went back to scrubbing the floor. She dunked her rag in the water and slopped it on the floor, working her way toward Verna.

  Verna licked her cracked lips as she stared at the water. Even if the water was soapy, she wouldn’t care. She wondered if she would be able to get a gulp of it down before Leoma stopped her. Probably not.

  “I shouldn’t have to do this,” Millie grouched to herself, but loud enough for the other two to hear. “It’s bad enough that I now have to clean the Prophet’s room, now that we have another. I thought I was done with going in there to clean the room of a madman. I think it’s about time a younger woman had to do the work. Strange man, he is. Prophets are all loony, they are. I don’t like that Warren any more than the last one.”

  Verna nearly burst into tears at the mention of Warren’s name. She missed him so. She wondered if they were treating him well. Leoma answered her unspoken question.

  “Yes, he is a bit odd. But the tests with the collar are bringing him back into line. I’m seeing to that.”

  Verna turned her eyes away from Leoma. She was doing it to him, too. Oh, dear Warren.

  With a knee, Millie pushed her bucket closer as she scrubbed the floor. “Don’t you be watching me. I don’t like your filthy eyes on me. Gives me the shivers it does, like having the Nameless One himself watching me.”

  Verna turned her eyes down. Millie tossed the rag into the bucket and dunked her hands in deep to wash it out. She looked back over her shoulder as she worked the rag in the water.

  “I’ll be finished soon. Not soon enough for me, but soon. Then you can have this vile traitor to yourself. I hope you won’t be kind to her.”

  Leoma smiled. “She will get what she deserves.”

  Millie brought her hands out of the soapy water. “Good.” She jammed one wet, callused hand against Verna’s thigh. “Move your feet! How can I wash the floor when you sit there like a lump?”

  Verna felt something rigid against her thigh after Millie took her hand away.

  “That Warren is a pig, too. Keeps his room a mess. I was just there earlier today, and it stunk nearly as bad as this sty.”

  Verna moved her hands to each side of her legs and put them under her thighs as if to balance herself while she lifted her feet for Millie. Her fingers found something hard, and thin. At first, her dull mind couldn’t decipher the feel. It came to her with a jolt of recognition.

  It was a dacra.

  Her chest constricted. Her muscles stiffened. She could hardly make herself breathe.

  Millie suddenly spat in her face again, causing her to flinch and turn away. “Don’t you be looking at an honest woman like that! Keep your eyes off me.”

  Verna realized Millie must have seen her eyes open wide.

  “I’m done,” she said as she straightened her sinewy frame, “unless you want me to give her a bath, and if you do, you’d better think again. I’m not touching that evil woman.”

  “Just get your bucket and go,” Leoma said, her impatience growing.

  Verna had the dacra gripped so tightly in her fist that it was making her fingers tingle. Her heart hammered so hard she thought it might crack a rib.

  Millie shuffled out of the room without looking back. Leoma pushed the door closed.

  “This is your last chance, Verna. If you still refuse, you will be turned over to the emperor. You will soon wish you had cooperated with me, I can promise you that much.”

  Come closer, Verna thought. Come closer.

  She felt the first wave of pain coursing up through her. She flopped back on the pallet, turning away from Leoma. Come closer.

  “Sit up and look at me when I speak to you.”

  Verna could only let out a small cry, but she stayed where she was, hoping to lure Leoma closer. She would have no chance if she lunged from this far; the woman would hobble her before she made the distance. She had to be closer.

  “I said sit up!” Leoma’s footsteps approached.

  Dear Creator, please bring her close enough.

  “You will look at me and tell me you renounce Richard. You must renounce him so the emperor can enter your mind. He will know when you have quit your loyalty, so don’t think to lie.”

  Another step. “Look at me when I speak to you!”

  Another step. A fist snatched her hair and jerked her head upward. She was close enough, but her arms seared with pain, and she couldn’t lift her hand. Oh, dear Creator, don’t let her start the test with my arms. Let her start with my legs. I need my arms.

  Instead of beginning in her legs, the nerve-burning pain shot down her arms. With all her strength, Verna tried to lift the hand with the dacra. It would not move. Her fingers twitched with stabs of pain.

  Despite her straining, her fingers tugged opened in spasms and the dacra fell out.

  “Please,” she wept, “don’t do my legs this time. I’m begging you, don’t do my legs.”

  Leoma’s fist in her hair tilted her head back, and the woman struck her across the face. “Legs, arms, it doesn’t matter. You will submit.”

  “You can’t make me. You’re going to fail and…” Verna got no more out before the hand struck her face again.

  The searing pain jumped to her legs, and they flopped uncontrollably with the jolts. Verna’s arms tingled, but she could at last move them. Her hand groped blindly along the pallet, frantically searching for the dacra.

  Her thumb touched it. She curled her fingers around the cool metal handle, pulling it up in her fist.

  Summoning all her strength and resolve, Verna plunged the dacra into Leoma’s thigh.

  Leoma cried out, releasing Verna’s hair.

  “Still!” Verna panted. “I have a dacra in you. Stay still.”

  One hand slowly lowered to comfort her leg above the dacra in her thigh muscle. “You can’t possibly think this will work.”

  Verna swallowed, catching her breath. “Well now, I guess we are going to find out, aren’t we? Seems I have nothing to lose. You do—your life.”

  “Be careful
, Verna, or you will find out just how sorry you can be for doing something like this. Take it out, and I will pretend this didn’t happen. Just take it out.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s such wise advice, advisor.”

  “I have control of your collar. All I have to do is block your Han. If you make me do that, it will go worse on you.”

  “Really, Leoma? Well, I think I should tell you that on my journey of twenty years, I learned a great deal about using a dacra. While it’s true that you can block my Han through the Rada’Han, there are two things you had better think on.

  “First, while you can block my Han, you can’t block it fast enough for me not to touch just the tiniest flow first. From my experience, I judge that that would be enough. If I touch my Han, you will be dead instantly.

  “Secondly, for you to block my Han, you must link with it through the collar. That gives you the ability to manipulate it; that’s how it works. Do you suppose that the act of blocking my Han by touching it would in itself power the dacra and kill you? I’m not sure myself, but I must tell you that from my end, the handle end, I’m willing to put it to the test. What do you think? Do you want to put it to the test, Leoma?”

  There was a long silence in the dimly lit room. Verna could feel warm blood oozing over her hand. At last Leoma’s small voice filled the quiet. “No. What do you want me to do?”

  “Well, first of all, you are going to take this Rada’Han off me, and then, since I appointed you as my advisor, we are going to have a little talk—you are going to advise me.”

  “After I take the collar off, then you will remove the dacra, and I will tell you what you want to know.”

  Verna looked up at the panicked eyes watching her. “You are hardly in a position to make demands. I ended up in this room because I was too trusting. I’ve learned my lesson. The dacra remains where it is until I’m finished with you. Unless you do as I say, you have no value to me alive. Do you understand that, Leoma?”

  “Yes,” came the resigned reply.

  “Then let’s begin.”

  Like an arrow he shot ahead with blistering speed, yet at the same time he glided with the slow grace of a turtle beneath still waters on a moonlit night. There was no heat, no cold. His eyes beheld light and dark together in a single, spectral vision, while his lungs swelled with the sweet presence of the sliph as he breathed her into his soul.

  It was rapture.

  Abruptly, it ended.

  Sights exploded about him. Trees, rocks, stars, moon. The panorama gripped him in terror.

  Breathe, she told him.

  The thought horrified him. No.

  Breathe, she told him.

  He remembered Kahlan, his need to help her, and let out the sweet breath, emptying his lungs of the rapture.

  With a reluctant yet needful gasp, he sucked in the alien air.

  Sounds rushed in around him—insects, birds, bats, frogs, leaves in the wind, all chattering, whooping, clicking, whistling, rustling—painful in their omnipresence.

  A comforting arm set him up on the stone wall as the night world around him settled into a familiar presence in his mind. He saw his mriswith friends scattered about in the dark woods beyond the stone ruins around the well. A few sat on scattered blocks, and a few stood among the remains of columns. They seemed to be at the edge of an ancient, crumbling structure.

  “Thank you, sliph.”

  “We are where you wished to travel,” she said, her voice echoing out through the night air.

  “Will you… be here, when I want to travel again?”

  “If I am awake, I am always ready to travel.”

  “When do you sleep.”

  “When you tell me, master.”

  Richard nodded, not sure at all what he was nodding to. He looked out on the night as he stepped away from the sylph’s well. He knew the woods, not by sight, but by their manifest feel. It was the Hagen Woods, though it had to be a place much deeper in their vast tract than he had ever ventured, because he had never seen this place of stone. By the stars he knew the direction of Tanimura.

  Mriswith were coming in numbers from the somber, surrounding woods to the ruins. Many passed him with a “Welcome, skin brother.” As they passed, the mriswith tapped their three-bladed knives to his, causing both to ring.

  “May your yabree sing soon, skin brother,” each said as they tapped.

  Richard didn’t know the proper response, and so said only, “Thank you.”

  As the mriswith slunk past him to the sliph, tapping his yabree, the humming ring lasted longer each time, its pleasant purr warming his whole arm. As other mriswith approached, he altered his course so that he might tap his yabree to theirs.

  Richard looked to the rising moon, and the position of the stars. It was early evening, with a faint glow still in the western sky. He had left Aydindril in the dead of night. This couldn’t be the same night. It had to be the next night. He had spent almost a full day in the sliph.

  Unless it was two days. Or three. Or a month, or even a year. He had no way to tell; he knew only that it was at least one day. The moon was the same size; maybe it was only a day.

  He paused to let another mriswith tap his yabree. Behind, mriswith were entering the sliph. A whole line of them stood waiting their turn. Only seconds passed before the next stepped off the wall to drop into the shimmering quicksilver.

  Richard stopped to feel his yabree sending a warming purr all though him. He smiled with the singing hum, the soft song pleasant in his ears, and in his bones.

  He felt a disturbing need that interrupted the joyful song.

  He stopped a mriswith. “Where am I needed?”

  The mriswith pointed with its yabree. “She will take you. She knows the way.”

  Richard wandered off in the direction the mriswith had indicated. In the darkness near a ruined wall, a figure waited. The singing of his yabree urged him onward with need.

  The figure wasn’t a mriswith, but a woman. In the moonlight, he thought he recognized her.

  “Good evening, Richard.”

  He took a step back. “Merissa!”

  She smiled congenially. “How is my student? It’s been a while. I hope you are well, and your yabree sings for you.”

  “Yes,” he stammered. “It sings of a need.”

  “The queen.”

  “Yes! The queen. She needs me.”

  “Are you ready, then, to help her? To free her?”

  After he nodded, she turned and led him on into the ruins. Several mriswith joined them as they entered the broken doorways. Through vine-rimmed gaps in the walls, moonlight streamed in, but when the walls became more solid, blocking the moonlight, she lit a flame in her palm as she glided along. Richard followed her up stairs coiling into the gloomy ruins and down halls that looked to have been undisturbed for thousands of years.

  The illumination from the light in her palm suddenly became inadequate as they entered a huge chamber. Merissa sent the small flame into torches to either side, bringing flickering light to the vast room. Long-dead balconies covered with dust and spider webs ringed the room, looking down on a tiled pool making up the main floor. The tiles, once white, were now dark with stains and dirt, and the murky water in the pool was laced with strings of muck. Overhead the partly domed ceiling was open in the center, with structures rising up beyond the opening.

  The mriswith slipped up beside him, standing close. Both tapped their yabree to his. The pleasant singing resonated with the calm center within him.

  “This is the place of the queen,” one said. “We can come to her, and when the young are born they may leave, but the queen cannot leave here.”

  “Why?” Richard asked.

  The other mriswith stepped forward and reached out with a claw. As it came in contact with something unseen, a whole domed shield lit with a soft glow. The sparkling dome fit neatly within the one of stone, except it had no hole in the top. The mriswith pulled its claw back, and the shield became invisibl
e again.

  “The old queen’s time is passing, and she is at last dying. We have all eaten of her flesh, and a new queen emerged from the last of her young. The new queen sings to us through the yabree, and tells us that she is rich with young. It is time for the new queen to move on, and establish our new colony.

  “The great barrier is gone and the sliph is awakened. Now you must help the queen so we may establish new territories.”

  Richard nodded. “Yes. She needs to be free. I can feel her need. It fills me with the singing. Why haven’t you freed her?”

  “We cannot. Just as you were needed to still the towers, and to wake the sliph, only you can free the queen. It must be done before you hold two yabree, and they both sing to you.”

  Guided by his instinct, Richard moved to the stairs at the side. He could sense that the shield was stronger at the base; it had to be breached at the top. He held the yabree to his chest as he climbed the stone steps. He tried to imagine how wondrous two would be. Its comforting song soothed him, but the queen’s need drove him on. The mriswith remained behind, but Merissa followed him.

  Richard moved as if he had made the journey before. The stairs led outside, and then up spiraling steps beside the ruins of columns. The moonlight cast jagged shadows among the craggy stone still standing among the devastation.

  They at last reached the top of a small circular observation tower, pillars rising to the side of it, connected overhead by the remains of an entablature decorated with gargoyles. It looked as if at one time it had circled the entire dome, connecting towers like the one atop which they stood. From the high tower, Richard could look down through the opening of the dome. The curved roof bristled with huge columns, like spikes, radiated out and down in rows.

  Merissa, in a red dress, the only color he had ever seen her wear when she had come to give him instruction, pressed up close behind him, looking silently down into the dark dome.

  Richard could feel the queen in the mirky pool below, calling to him, urging him to free her. His yabree sang through his bones.

  Casting his hand down, he let his need flow outward. He cast the other arm out, pointing the yabree down along with the fingers of his other hand. The steel knives knelled, vibrating from the power coursing out of him.