“Three other gifted handlers are already with us in the warehouse,” the guard said, still breathing hard. “They are using their magic to try to control the panther. But they may need help.…”
Nicci was already pushing past him, out the front entryway. “Show me!” Her tone of command made the man snap to attention and hurry after her.
In her dreams, Nicci had seen through the eyes of her sister panther as Mrra prowled the streets, and the big cat had refused to leave, no matter how much Nicci insisted. Now Mrra was also bottled up inside the city and separate from time. For many nights she had hunted in the shadows. Nicci had tasted the blood of rats and dogs in her mouth from the panther’s kills, but she longed to run across the open prairies chasing antelope and deer. She was trapped inside the city she hated, where she had been born and branded and forced to fight in the combat arena.
Against her own interests, Mrra had stayed to be with her sister panther. With Nicci. And now she was imprisoned, surrounded by tormentors. She was looking for Nicci.
With a surge of smoldering hatred, Nicci viewed through Mrra’s senses and understood what had happened. Someone had accidentally discovered the panther’s daytime lair, and now guards and handlers closed in to capture her. Mrra was ready to fight, to attack, to kill.
Nicci raced ahead of the guard, drawn to where her sister panther cried out for her.
The building was a large warehouse filled with sacks of grain, burlap bags of ground flour. Wire-mesh hoppers held dried corn cobs. Daylight spilled through cracks in the walls, and dust motes swirled in the air like gold dust in a stream. As she and the guard entered through the large open doors of the warehouse, Nicci’s eyes adjusted to the gloom.
Sovrena Thora stood next to the wizard commander, both of them with arms identically crossed over their chests, as if they really were a dedicated couple. Three gifted apprentice handlers moved warily into the shadows, making their way among the sacks of grain and the half-full corn hopper. They looked unskilled and uncertain. Nicci had seen the apprentices working with Ivan before, but now that the chief handler was dead, their gift would have to be sufficient.
Wearing his red shoulder pauldron, High Captain Stuart shouted orders, directing his guards to box in the cornered sand panther. The armored men in front extended their short swords, while the three behind them held cocked crossbows.
“Don’t kill it,” said the sovrena. “We lost enough of our animals last night. We need this one for the arena.”
Nicci pushed her way forward, not caring who might resist her. She gripped the forearm of the nearest crossbowman. “Leave her alone. This panther does not belong here. She is mine.”
Thora’s eyes flared in surprise at Nicci’s interference. “No, she does not. The panther belongs in the cages. If she is to die, she will die fighting one of our trained warriors.” The tendons in her porcelain neck stood out. “With all the tension in this city, our people need the release of entertainment. Now that the shroud is up, we must get the city back to normal. It would be better if you chose to help us.” Her voice held clear threat.
Nicci whirled. “You must not send her to the combat pits. She doesn’t belong here with you.”
The wizard commander let out a scratchy laugh. “Where else should she be? She can’t leave Ildakar, and we cannot allow a wild panther to prowl the streets.”
She sensed a rush of predatory anger through her nerves, and she spotted the sleek feline form crouching among the tallest piles of sacks, up in the shadows. With a low growl, Mrra bounded up to one of the wooden rafters overhead. Her tail thrashed as she glowered at those who would trap her.
“I will take care of her myself.” Nicci didn’t know what else to offer. “She is my sister panther.”
“Nonsense.” Thora scowled at Nicci. “At least the sand panther belongs here. You and your companions remain only because we allow it.”
“I think she’s a charming and provocative guest,” said Maxim. “And as you said, my dear, where else should she be? With the shroud in place, Nicci cannot leave Ildakar.”
“There are other ways to leave,” Thora muttered.
Concentrating on the large cat in the rafters above, the apprentice handlers spread out below. The senior apprentice, a lantern-jawed man named Dorbo, said, “We can use the gift to push her back and capture her again.” Two of them carried long wooden poles with a nooselike loop around the end, and the third held a wicked-looking whip. The senior apprentice carried a club emblazoned with Ildakaran runes.
“Once we get the beast down to the floor level,” said the second apprentice handler, “we can incapacitate it.”
“That depends on how much pain she’s willing to endure,” said the third. “The stun spell won’t work with her protective runes.”
“The club itself will work well enough,” said Dorbo.
Nicci used a firm tone of command. “You will not harm her.”
Her comment elicited a glare from Thora. “We will do what is necessary for the good of Ildakar. I could have them truss you as well, Sorceress.” Maxim snickered.
Nicci did not flinch. “They are welcome to try, although with the death of Ivan, I wouldn’t suggest you sacrifice your remaining apprentice handlers. Then you’d have no one to control the animals.”
The wizard commander chuckled at the two of them. The archers nocked quarrels in their crossbows. High Captain Stuart watched anxiously, but he was calm and reserved, not willing to take precipitous action. He looked toward the rafters above, where the silhouette of the panther hunched out of reach.
“Remember, Sovrena and Wizard Commander, any regular magical attack will just slide off of her,” said Dorbo. “But the branded symbols do allow a handler to use certain types of spells. Let us do our work, and we will have the cat in hand in no time.”
Nicci felt as trapped as the big cat. Mrra had chosen a good lair, but it was only a matter of time before she was discovered. Nicci knew she could dispense with the handlers, but the wizard commander and the sovrena were both powerful with the gift. Nicci would still fight them, but even if she managed to keep Mrra free for now, what then? The big cat couldn’t simply wander the streets of Ildakar. Nicci’s heart ached.
The three apprentice handlers worked together, summoning their gift, prodding with their magic. Mrra snarled, paced back and forth along the wide rafter above. Her golden eyes glared down, and her white fangs gleamed in the stray sunbeams. Her growl was vicious and threatening … and Nicci caught herself making a similar growl from her own throat.
The handlers sent their gift into Mrra’s mind, forcing her to move. The sand panther had been trained and twisted in this manner when she was just a cub, and the handlers drove her now, jabbed her pain centers. With a roar she leaped from the rafter onto the mounded sacks of grain.
“That isn’t one of Ivan’s!” cried one of the apprentices. “Not the cats that escaped last night.”
“She’s an old one,” said Dorbo. “Must have been set loose by the rebels a long time ago.”
“She does not want to be here,” Nicci warned. “Don’t attack her. She will kill you … and I will help her do it.”
The handlers ignored her, using their combined gift to push and prod and drive. Mrra fought back, snarling. Nicci felt part of the pain echoing through their spell bond, and fury built within her just as a parallel fury built within Mrra. The panther crouched on top of the mounded sacks until, sufficiently provoked, she leaped for the gathered people on the floor.
Nicci shouted, “Be careful!” But she was warning Mrra, not the intended targets.
This was exactly what the handlers had wanted her to do. One of Stuart’s guards didn’t get out of the way quickly enough, and Mrra’s claws tore open the leather and chain mail on his back. The man staggered away, bleeding, but the cat did not bother with him further.
The three handlers closed in, Dorbo holding up his curled fingers to focus the gift. Together, they pummeled Mrra with their special magic, knuckling he
r under. Two extended their poles with the open loops. Dorbo removed his whip and cracked it through the air like serpentine lightning strikes. The tip struck Mrra’s haunch, drawing blood. She whirled, raking claws through the air to grab at the painful strand.
“Stop!” Nicci lashed out at the handlers with her gift, shattering one of their wooden poles into splinters. They stared at her in shock.
Thora twirled her right hand in the air, and Nicci felt unseen bonds of wind coalesce, wrapping her body like a cocoon, pulling tight in a suffocating grip.
Focused on their own target, the other two handlers slipped forward, jabbing the loops at the panther’s head, and one succeeded in slipping it around the tawny neck.
Nicci fought to get free, struggling to pull her arms loose. Shredding the bonds of solidified air, she dissolved the invisible ropes, then flung the magical tatters back at the sovrena.
Mrra thrashed to get away, but the noose was cinched tight. Both apprentices grabbed the pole, using all their physical strength to hold their captive.
“Leave her alone!” Now that she was loose, Nicci called crackling fireballs in each hand, ready to hurl them at the handlers.
Summoning a powerful counterattack with her magic, Thora sent a wall of air that knocked Nicci backward, slamming her into the rattling bin that held dry corn. “This is none of your concern, Sorceress.”
“Yes it is,” Nicci said. “This is Mrra. She is bonded to me.” She tried to summon more fire, but Maxim and Thora turned on her together, crushing down with a weight of air to hold her deadly fire in place.
“Do not interfere,” Thora warned. “Or Maxim will turn you to stone.”
Nicci drew a breath for a defiant shout, but then felt an impossible blow to her head and a blur of scrambled thoughts. One of the handlers had stepped away from the thrashing panther and struck her with his specially endowed cudgel. While Mrra’s runes might have protected her from a magical attack, Nicci had no protection against the stun spell.
While the debilitating magic rang through her skull, making her knees buckle, the handlers closed in and got a second loop over the cat’s head. Two guards threw a net over Mrra, and as she thrashed, guards swarmed in with ropes. One blow from Dorbo’s club—even without the boost of the spell—sent the sand panther writhing.
“We have her now!” said one of the apprentices. “We did it!”
Nicci forced her hammering thoughts to crystallize, and she threw off the efforts of the sovrena and the wizard commander. She felt the gift coiling through her like black lightning, and she drew herself up and faced Thora, her eyes flashing. “Mrra is part of me,” she growled, ready to release a storm of Additive and Subtractive Magic.
The sovrena stared directly back, her sea-green eyes as cold as a howling blizzard. “The panther belongs to Ildakar’s arena. See the spell symbols branded on her side? That beast is our property.”
“No. Mrra is free.”
The handlers managed to subdue the cat, using their magic to render her helpless. Mrra lay unconscious, growling and bleeding.
High Captain Stuart and his guards looked uneasily at the confrontation between Nicci and the sovrena, holding their weapons ready. She had no doubt whose side they would take if they decided to join the attack, too.
She knew she could kill all of them. Or most of them. If she had to.
Thora spoke sourly, as if lecturing a child. “Your belief in freedom is misplaced. Animals aren’t free. Slaves aren’t free. Lesser humans aren’t free. They are all property. Now that you are our guest under the shroud in Ildakar, you must understand how this city works. Ask the fleshmancer—those animals exist because of us. We created them.”
Nicci did not back down. She inhaled sharp dusty air. “Or did they create people like you?”
Thora prepared to lash out with her magic, and Nicci could feel the sizzle in the air around her. Maxim stood next to Thora, holding his gift at bay, but threatening nevertheless. The handlers also came to their feet next to the unconscious panther. Nicci felt the brewing magic all around her.
She even saw the archers pointing their crossbows toward her, ready to move should the sovrena or the wizard commander give a signal.
Though her defiance continued to rumble within her, Nicci was outmatched. Back at the fleshmancer’s villa, Nathan lay unconscious, recovering, and he might not ever be able to use his magic again. Even Bannon wasn’t there, wandering the city with his newfound companions. Nicci suddenly realized how alone she was in Ildakar. She could not fight them all. Not yet.
As her head continued to throb from the stun club, she vowed she would pick her time.
“Clearly I still have much to learn about this city.” Nicci meant her words to be as cutting as the handler’s whip that had struck Mrra.
“Indeed you do,” Thora said. “Take care to learn before you regret it.”
The handler apprentices and the guards took the bound panther with them, hauling Mrra out of the granary and off to the animal pens.
CHAPTER 53
Nicci’s anger built like a distant, ominous storm. She had no way to contact Mirrormask and no other allies in Ildakar—and she needed to begin her fight. Now.
She returned to the grand villa by midmorning and went to Bannon’s guest quarters. Even though she knew the young man could do little to help her against the powerful wizards, she still wanted to see him. But his bed was made and his clumsy-looking sword was gone. She saw no sign of Amos, Jed, or Brock either. Her concern grew.
When she’d first met him in Tanimura, the victim of petty thieves, Nicci had found the young man’s optimism and constant chatter bothersome. Since then, he had become a reliable companion. The young man was a good fighter, didn’t complain overmuch, and was certainly devoted to Nathan and Nicci. Most important to her, he accepted Lord Rahl’s cause. She wanted him with her now, but she realized she had not seen him for days.
With Mrra captured and Nathan comatose, Nicci again felt the chill of being alone.
Nicci thought of her years serving Emperor Jagang. Even with the full might of the Imperial Order and his army behind her, Nicci had been alone. She had fought by herself, using her powers in service of Jagang. She had thought she could survive without friends, had never wanted any. She considered friends a potential weakness—and Nicci was not weak.
While among the fiercely dedicated Sisters of the Dark, she had been closely allied with her Sisters and teachers Tovi, Cecilia, Armina, and Ulicia, but they had never been friends. Nicci had always solved her own problems, and now Ildakar was the problem. She had been called Death’s Mistress and Slave Queen. She claimed to have a heart of black ice. Nicci would find a way to take care of this, even without Bannon, Nathan, or Mrra.
“I beg your forgiveness for the interruption, Sorceress.” It was a young, pasty-faced guard with a pointed reddish beard and pale brown eyes partially shadowed beneath his helmet. He found her as she stood in the open hallway outside Bannon’s room. “The wizard commander requests a private meeting with you. And he sends his apologies.” The young guard fidgeted. “I don’t know what he means by that, I’m afraid.”
Nicci frowned. Maxim had allowed Mrra to be captured, and she would not forgive him for that. “I am not ready to accept his apology.” She looked at the disturbing statue of the bent-backed old woman who had been petrified while going about her daily toil. “What does he want?”
The young guard seemed embarrassed. “He swore me to confidence. He wants you to meet him alone for a private conversation—an important one, he says—on top of the ruling tower.” The guard swallowed visibly, his larynx bobbing up and down. “He is alone in the gardens there.”
Nicci summoned her power and stepped closer to the young man. Her gaze bored into him. She did not use her magic, but she knew he would be able to sense the threat she posed. “Tell me honestly—is it a trap?”
The guard stammered, “N-No, Sorceress. He genuinely wishes to speak with you, and he asked me to make
sure that Sovrena Thora did not know.”
“You mean his wife?” she asked, suspicious again. She decided she would incinerate him if he made lascivious comments to her.
“Yes … I suppose so. I don’t know what this is about. It isn’t…” He shook his head. “Please, Sorceress, I’m just following orders.”
“There, you’ve completed your mission. Leave me. I will go there of my own volition.” The guard hurried away, relieved.
Not sure what the wizard commander intended, Nicci tossed her loose hair, made sure that her black travel dress was immaculate, and set off. Head high, she strode across the upper streets to the ruling tower that rose like a sentinel overlooking the streets and rooftops far below.
She ascended the main central staircase to the empty ruling chamber, then climbed a winding stair even higher, taking the polished stone steps in a corkscrew up to the summit and the open sky.
Nicci emerged to the scent of fresh citrus blossoms and the hum of bees. She saw scalloped birdbaths spaced among manicured jasmine hedges. Songbirds chirped and flitted about. On poles around the perimeter of the tower hung a fine mesh of nearly invisible silken threads to catch the myriad larks. The nets were retracted now, since Thora needed no more docile larks for her golden cages, and they hung in baggy folds from each pole.
Maxim paced about in his black pantaloons and open shirt. Seeing Nicci, he turned to face her, a grin lighting up his face like a sunrise.
But after that morning’s capture of Mrra, she had no patience for small talk, especially not with him. “What do you wish to say to me, Wizard Commander?”
He pouted. “Oh? I had hoped such a beautiful woman would indulge me with a few pleasantries.”
“It’s been a grim day. My sand panther was beaten and captured, taken to the arena cages—as you well know. The wizard Nathan lies unconscious, recovering from the fleshmancer’s experiment. And my friend Bannon is missing. Have you seen him? How can I make inquiries of the city guard?” Her words were hard, demanding.
Maxim made a noncommittal sound. “My, it has been a difficult day for you! I’m sure Bannon is off partaking in whores or gambling with Amos and his friends. The boy has no gift and no responsibilities. You cannot blame him.”