Because if she didn’t do as she was told, the handlers would cause them pain.
Now free, she prowled around the desolate valley, venturing back to where they had fought and killed the evil wizard. She saw human figures there in the moonlight, four of them, all females who had come out to the lone oak sapling that had grown up at the site of the battle. Sniffing the air, Mrra recognized them as people from the city inside the cliff. An older woman and three young ones.
They were not prey, and therefore held no interest for her.
Mrra ran on into the night, hunting. She picked up the scent of a scrawny antelope that had ventured out of the foothills. The big cat loped onward, picking up speed. Even though the antelope was nearly invisible against the dusty brown landscape, her sharp eyes detected the movement. With a burst of speed and fire through her muscles, she bounded forward.
Even though the panicked antelope tried to run, hooves clattering over the loose rocks, Mrra ran it down and knocked it into the dust. In a flash of fangs, she tore out its throat, then ripped open the antelope’s guts while the hooves and the head kept twitching.
The warm blood was delicious, magnificent! She began to feed with a contented, rumbling purr.…
In bed, far away, Nicci let out a long satisfied sigh in her sleep.
CHAPTER 58
The great dry valley was intensely silent in the night, brittle with lingering death when it should have been teeming with life. Victoria was offended just to be here. This place should be lush with vegetation, tall grasses, thick forests, and fields of waving grain.
Roland had caused this—stolen all the life, sterilized the land. Even though Nicci had stopped him, that was only part of the solution, and Victoria would not settle for half measures. The others at Cliffwall could congratulate one another, but there was far too much work to do. She would not rest until the job was done, and she could trust no one else to take the necessary measures.
Accompanied by the three loyal young women, she left Cliffwall in the gathering darkness, and together they made their swift expedition across the wasteland out to the site of the Lifedrinker’s lair. Laurel, Audrey, and Sage were eager to help, their shining eyes filled with hope. Though the journey took them nearly two days, Victoria had revealed only part of what she intended to do, but these were her acolytes and they would submit to the world’s need.
“Our work here is not for personal gain,” she said to them. “It will be a triumph for every living man, woman, and child.”
At last, at nightfall of the second day, they reached the silent and shuddering area surrounded by fallen obsidian blocks, cluttered with the broken carcasses of giant scorpions and the bony husks of dust people. It was a frightening place, and also a sacred place.
Victoria led them to the lone oak sapling, the frail and fragile tree that had grown from the Eldertree’s last acorn.
“It looks so small and weak,” Sage said.
“But it has the power of the Eldertree,” Laurel said.
“It has the power of the world,” Victoria corrected. “But its special magic burned away in the battle, and it seems to be just a normal tree now. Nevertheless, it is a tiny spark, a symbol—and we have the power, you three and I, to fan this small flame into a bonfire of life. Are you willing to help?” She looked at the acolytes in turn. “Are you willing to invoke the necessary magic?”
The women nodded without hesitation. Victoria had never had any doubt.
Standing under the moonlight near the thin gray sapling, Victoria loosened the lacings of her dress, then pulled open the collar so that she could remove the garment. She pulled off the drab gown over her head and tossed it aside. The garment fell onto one of the jagged obsidian blocks, and she stood naked in the moonlight, smelling the dusty breezes, experiencing the chill of the darkness.
She turned to her acolytes. “You three must disrobe. You are life. You are pure and fertile. And you must stand as you were born for this sacred process of creation.”
The women did as she asked, pulling off their white woolen shifts so that they all stood nude, regal and flawless. Creamy skin glowed in the starlight, their breasts full, their hips rounded. They let their hair flow loose and free.
Audrey’s raven locks flowed back like a deeper part of the night, matched by the dark thatch between her legs, while Laurel’s strawberry-blond hair looked like gold burning in a slow fire. Sage’s nipples were dark and erect in the chill; her breasts were perfectly rounded, flush with the need to create new life.
The power of their beauty took Victoria’s words away. These acolytes were the purest personification of female energy, of life itself.
A long time ago, Victoria herself had been just as beautiful. Men had lusted after her, but she had given herself only to Bertram. With a long sigh, she recalled that first time when he had taken her in an orchard on a night with no moon, while the canyon brook made trickling music, but not loud enough to drown out her gasps of pleasure. As Bertram stole a kiss, then stole her virginity, they had lain entangled under the soft, fallen leaves, exploring each other. It had been perfect.
After that night, Victoria had never imagined being satisfied with any other man. She had found herself pregnant a month later, which was no surprise since she and Bertram had enjoyed each other many more times. They spoke the ancient marriage rituals to each other, reciting the words that memmers kept in their minds. But only two months into their marriage, Victoria lost the baby after hours of agonizing cramps and a gush of blood that produced a small fetus about the size of her finger. It didn’t even look human. And there had been so much blood.
In her misery, Bertram held her, promised that they would have many more children. But that had never happened. Discovering that she was barren had devastated Victoria, one of her greatest disappointments, one of her greatest failures. She had never given birth to a single son or daughter, no matter how much she longed for it, no matter how often she and Bertram tried.
She loved her husband very much, but eventually their physical pleasure had become more of a duty, and a hopeless one at that. So Victoria became a surrogate mother to her acolytes and especially these three perfect, beautiful young women. Victoria claimed that she was now the true mother to so many more children than she could ever have had on her own, but she did not convince even herself.
After invoking tonight’s ancient, powerful spell, however, she would be mother to the entire world. Even with the price to be paid, how could Victoria have any second thoughts?
“Male magic is the magic of conquest and death, of hunting and killing,” she said. Her voice sounded very loud in the silent, secret place. “Female magic is the magic of life—and our magic is stronger.” She smiled at the three.
Audrey, Laurel, and Sage were flushed as they stood naked together, breathing hard with anticipation. They moved slowly, swaying their hips, shifting from one foot to the other. Victoria could see that they were aroused. Perhaps enhanced by magic, their own sweat, scent, and inner heat filled the air. Audrey reached down to touch herself and let out a small gasp. Tempted, Laurel and Sage did the same. The night itself was charged with potential, with life. Even the oak sapling seemed to tremble.
Victoria’s heart ached, and she drove away her growing dread, refusing to let it delay her work, her vital work.
As the three young women stood ready, their eyes half closed, soft groans of pleasure came from deep in their throats. Victoria rummaged in the wadded fabric of her dress and removed the vial she had brought. It was a tincture bottle filled with a deep blue liquid. “You must each drink of this. One swallow should be enough.”
Audrey reached out to take it. Her fingers were moist as she removed the cap. “What is it?”
“A vital part of the spell. Drink.”
Audrey took a cautious swallow, then passed the bottle on to Laurel, who looked at it. “If you are certain, Victoria…”
“I am certain. I have pondered long and hard. We must bring life back to
the land, and this is the way we can do it.”
Laurel drank without further question; then Sage drained the last of the dark liquid from the bottle.
With a heavy heart, Victoria watched her three acolytes sway, then go limp and collapse to the ground. They were so trusting.…
Working quickly, she pulled their naked forms together, propping them up near the Eldertree sapling. Now she could let herself weep, because the girls were unconscious. Hidden in folds of her dress, she had brought strong leather bindings, and she lashed their wrists together, as well as their feet.
The naked young women breathed heavily in their deep drugged sleep, but they would awaken soon, and Victoria had many preparations to make.
Copying what she had memorized in the ancient book and what she had drawn on her scrap of paper for absolute certainty, Victoria scribed a complex spell-form on the ground, etching out the angles and curves of symbols in a long-forgotten language so that the pattern surrounded her acolytes. They were her seeds now; they were the start of new life, the power of which could not be measured.
But there was a cost—there was always a cost. Life required life. Blood required blood.
Victoria shuddered as she finished the pattern, telling herself repeatedly that the benefit was worth the cost. The fecundity spell left no doubt: these three droplets of life would unleash a vivifying downpour. They would restore this verdant valley and heal the wound in the world.
But, oh, Audrey, Laurel, and Sage …
Victoria paused to suck in a long shaking breath, and then she let herself sob. Tears flowed down her cheeks. But it had to be done.
When she looked up many minutes later, Victoria saw that the three acolytes had awakened, sooner than expected. Their eyes were still groggy and confused, but the spell required that they had to be conscious, had to be willing. They had already given Victoria their permission.
“What are you doing?” asked Laurel. “What’s happening?”
“You’re saving us all.” With tears pouring down her face, the matronly woman took the knife from her wadded dress and knelt beside the first acolyte.
Sage’s eyes went wide, and she squirmed in fear as Victoria drew the razor edge across her throat, spilling a river of blood down her neck and over the swell of her perfect breasts. Her heart kept pumping, gushing out her life’s blood onto the achingly sterile ground.
“I’m sorry,” Victoria said as she moved to Audrey. Gathering the girl’s long dark hair in one hand, she pulled back Audrey’s head and slashed her throat.
Laurel looked up at her in defiance, her jaws clenched. She struggled against the leather bonds for just a moment, but her shoulders slumped as she felt her two companions sag in death against her, still bubbling blood across the ground. In a quavering voice, Laurel said, “Tell me it is necessary.”
“There is no other way,” Victoria answered.
Then Laurel lifted her chin, and Victoria slashed for the third and final time.
When the girls had finished their long wet dying, Victoria wailed with grief. These had been like her daughters, her perfect followers … and she’d killed them. But she had done it to bring life.
Now, Victoria worked the spell. The restoration magic unleashed a flood of fecundity strong enough to bring back the forests, the meadows, the grassy plains, the croplands.
Rich blood poured out of the three sacrifices, and Victoria spoke the incantation that she had so perfectly memorized and practiced. The blood flowed like runnels of melted candle wax into the spell-forms she had etched there. The liquid glowed a deep red like lava … and then the blood changed, darkened, freshened. It turned green and bright as it seeped into the devastated soil, which began to awaken.
Tiny shoots appeared in the brown dust; blades of grass, wide-leaved weeds, tangled green branches, bushes, and flowers sprang up.
Victoria stood back and gasped in wonder. The Eldertree sapling grew upward and outward, and more branches unfurled as it rose taller and spread itself. Ferns uncurled like bullwhips and expanded into fanlike fronds. Colorful mushrooms boiled out of the ground, swelled, and burst in an eruption of spores that led to another generation of furiously growing fungi. The ground simmered and crackled as it awakened.
Newborn insects scuttled around, and the night was abuzz with flying creatures—moths with bright feathery wings, beetles with iridescent carapaces.
Victoria stepped back and listened to the rush of life. Inhaling deeply, she smelled moisture, pollen, the perfume of flowers, the resinous scent of fresh trees, the waxy green aroma of leaves. Vines scrambled out of the ground like serpents, following the lines of spilled blood. Roots expanded and thrashed, knitting the broken soil together, raising woody stems and bunches of leaves. Tendrils coiled around the bloodstained bodies of the sacrifices, engulfing the three young women as fertilizer, as trophies.
Victoria stared around herself with wonder. She had never felt so much life before, and she had created this! She had sparked this rebirth. Her rejuvenation spell was powerful enough to overwhelm the damage done by the Lifedrinker.
The verdant forest seemed manic, exploding with life, desperate to reclaim lost territory. Victoria stepped back, proud of what she had done. The scholars at Cliffwall would see the rebirth here, and they would know that Victoria was responsible for it. She stood there naked and pleased, satisfied with her accomplishment. She closed her eyes and let out a sigh of gratitude.
Something seized her ankle. Her eyes flew open and she saw a writhing vine coiling upward, touching her calf. With the speed of a striking viper, it wrapped around her knee and held tight.
She cried out and tried to pull back, but the vine was as unyielding as an iron spring. It tugged in response, dragging her back. Ferns uncurled, bowing over her, closing in. Branches extended toward her, and she struggled to push them away. A curling twig caught her wrist. Vines erupted from the ground, like a swarm of thrashing tentacles that seized her legs. More writhed up to encircle her waist and then tightened.
Victoria screamed and tried to pull away. Roots grabbed her feet, anchoring her. “No! I didn’t—!”
As she shouted, a leafy branch thrust into her mouth and pushed into her throat. She gagged and coughed. Fresh green fronds wrapped around her eyes, blindfolding her. She thrashed her head from side to side, choking.
Tendrils thrust into her nostrils, growing deep into her head, while others poked into her ears and explored deeper. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. Victoria fought as the vines squeezed tighter.
Then, like the arms of a mighty muscled warrior, the vines pulled her legs apart. She writhed, twisting her hips in a desperate attempt to get away. She felt another vine rising up along her legs, gliding against the side of her thigh, then, with only the slightest hesitation, it plunged between her legs and thrust upward, swelling there, filling her.
The agony throughout her body lasted a long, long time, before the tendrils finally pierced her brain, and her soul was swallowed up in a green darkness.
CHAPTER 59
As Cliffwall stirred with morning activity, Nicci awoke with the taste of blood in her mouth, a delicious coppery flavor that felt warm and hot, but soon faded with the dream memory. She blinked and sat up.
Thistle was beside her, shaking her shoulders. “I was worried about you. You were sleeping so deeply.”
Nicci brushed a hand over her eyes, stretched her arms. Her body felt strange. “I am awake now.”
“You growled and twitched in your sleep. You must have been having a nightmare.”
Flashes of feral memory rose up like tantalizing mist-echoes. “A nightmare, of sorts.” She frowned as she tried to remember. “But it wasn’t all a nightmare.” In fact, the dream in which she hunted with Mrra, in which she had been part of Mrra, held a great deal of pleasure. Nicci was strong and exuberant, her instincts singing, every muscle alive as she bounded along, free in the world. Her human lips quirked in a smile.
Thist
le knelt beside her pallet with a look of grave concern. “I thought maybe you were dying. I’ve been trying to wake you up. Your eyes were open, but they were all white, as if you weren’t there … as if you were somewhere else.”
“I was somewhere else,” Nicci said. “Gone on a journey. I was with the sand panther, and we were hunting.” She lowered her voice, quiet with wonder. “I didn’t remember my body here at all.”
She went to the low table and splashed her face with water from the basin while she recalled riding inside the sand panther’s mind, as if she were an animal dream walker, like Jagang. But while she had dreamed with Mrra, her body here had remained in a deep trance, completely helpless—and that concerned her. Nicci did not like to be vulnerable. She could never allow that to happen again unless she was in a sheltered place, watched over by a guardian.
She straightened her soft shift and combed her blond hair. “If Nathan has found his maps, we will prepare to leave today,” she said, hoping to distract the orphan girl. “We have done all we can at Cliffwall.”
The girl nodded. “With the Lifedrinker dead, the valley is safe. Someday, I’ll return.” She flashed a bright, optimistic smile. “The people of Cliffwall will write about this in legends, won’t they?”
“I have no wish to be a legend,” Nicci said.
They would need packs filled with supplies, fresh travel garments, mended boots. Nicci was still uneasy about having the girl accompany them into unknown dangers, but Thistle certainly was resourceful, fast, clever, independent. Her loyalty and dedication made her a worthy companion, and good companions could be an asset when traveling.
Nicci thought about the great unexplored continent of the Old World, where there were new cities and cultures … perhaps with oppressed people, enslaved lands, or ruthless rulers who would need to be brought into line for Lord Rahl’s golden age. With a twinge and a shudder, she saw the vivid images from Mrra’s mind: the searing white-hot pain as the handlers branded spell symbols into her hide, the great city, the huge coliseum, the wizard commander, the bloodshed.