hree-quarters centuries,
among  the imposing columns and arches of immaculate rooms,  the intricately
carved stone vines and buttery smooth wood  paneling,  the feather  beds and
silk coverlets,  the exquisite carpets and rich  draperies,  the silver  and
gold ornamentation, and the bright sparkle of windows made  of colored glass
composed into epic scenes. The Sisters there offered Nicci brighteyed smiles
and clever conversation.
     The extravagance meant no more  to her  than the rubble of the streets,
the cold wet blankets laid on rough ground, the beds made in the slime among
greasy runnels in the muck of narrow alleys  with nothing but the bitter sky
overhead. The huddled people there never offered  a smile, but  gaped up  at
her with hollow eyes, like so many pigeons cooing for alms.
     Some  of  her  life was spent among splendor, some  among garbage. Some
people were fated to spend  their lives in one place, some in the other, she
in both.
     Nicci  reached  for the silver handle on one of the ornate double doors
flanked by two husky soldiers who had probably been raised in a sty with the
hogs, and saw that her hand  was covered  in blood. She  turned and casually
wiped the  hand on the filthy, bloodstained fleece vest  worn by  one of the
men.  The  biceps of his  folded  arms were nearly as  thick  as her  waist.
Although he scowled as  she cleaned her hand on him, he made no move to stop
her. After all, it wasn't as if she were defiling him.
     Hania had kept her part of the bargain.  Nicci rarely resorted to using
a weapon; she usually used her gift. But of course, in this case, that could
have been a mistake. When she had held the knife  over her throat, Hania had
whispered her thanks for what Nicci was about  to do. It was the  first time
anyone had ever thanked Nicci before  she  had killed them. Few  people ever
thanked Nicci for the help she provided. She was able, they were not; it was
her duty to serve their needs.
     When she had finished  cleaning her hand on the mute guard, she flashed
an empty smile at his dark glaring visage and then went on through the doors
into a stately reception hall. A row of tall windows lining one wall of  the
room was trimmed  with wheat-colored drapes.  Near their tasseled edges, the
curtains sparkled in the lamplight as if they might be embellished with gold
thread. Latesummer rain spattered  against tightly  shut  glass  panes  that
revealed only darkness outside, but reflected the activity  inside. The pale
wool carpets, graced with flowers painstakingly sculpted in relief  by means
of different-length yarn, were tracked with mud.
     Scouts came  and went, along  with messengers and soldiers giving their
reports  to  some  of the  officers. Other  officers barked orders. Soldiers
carrying rolled maps

     followed a  few of the higher-ranking men  as they meandered around the
stuffy room.
     One of  the maps lay unrolled across a narrow table. The table's silver
candelabrum  had been  set aside on the  floor  behind the table.  As  Nicci
passed the table,  she glanced  down and saw that it was missing many of the
elements so carefully marked on the  map  drawn by the D'Haran messenger. On
the map laid out over the narrow table, there was nothing but dark splotches
from spilled ale in the area to the northwest; in the map etched  in Nicci's
mind, there were the mountains,  rivers, high passes, and streams there, and
a dot, marking the  place where Richard was, along with his Mother Confessor
bride, and the Mord-Sith.
     Officers  talked among  themselves,  some  standing  about,  some  half
sitting on iron-legged, marbletopped tables, some lounging in padded leather
chairs as they  took delicacies  from  silver trays borne on  the  trembling
hands of sweating servants.  Others  swilled ale from tall  pewter mugs, and
yet  others drank wine  from dainty  glasses,  all  acting as  if  they were
intimate  with such splendor,  and all  of them looking  as  out of place as
toads at tea.
     An older woman, Sister Lidmila, apparently  trying to be unobtrusive by
cowering  in the shadows beside the  drapes, snapped upright  when  she  saw
Nicci marching across the room. Sister  Lidmila stepped out of  the shadows,
briefly pausing to  smooth her dingy  skirts, an act that could not possibly
produce any noticeable improvement; Sister Lidmila once  had told Nicci that
things learned in youth never left you, and were often much easier to recall
than yesterday's dinner. Rumor had it that the old Sister, skilled in arcane
spells known  to only  the most powerful sorceresses,  had  many interesting
things from her youth to recall.
     Sister Lidmila's leathery skin was stretched so tight over the bones of
her skull that  she reminded Nicci of nothing so  much as an exhumed corpse.
As cadaverous looking as  the aged Sister was, she advanced across the  room
in quick, sharp movements.
     When she was only ten feet away, Sister Lidmila waved an arm, as if not
sure Nicci would  see her. "Sister Nicci. Sister Nicci, there you are."  She
seized  Nicci's wrist. "Come along,  dear.  Come  along. His  Excellency  is
waiting for you. This way. Come along."
     Nicci clasped the Sister's tugging hand. "Lead the way, Sister Lidmila.
I'm right behind you."
     The  older  woman smiled  over  her shoulder.  It wasn't a pleasant  or
joyous smile, but  one of relief. Jagang punished anyone who displeased him,
regardless of their culpability.
     "What  took  you  so long, Sister  Nicci? His Excellency  is in quite a
state, he is, because of you. Where have you been?"
     "I had . . . business I had to attend to."
     The woman had  to  take two or three steps  for every  one  of Nicci's.
"Business indeed!  Were  it  up to me,  I'd  have  you  down  in the kitchen
scrubbing pots for being off on a lark when you are wanted."
     Sister Lidmila was  frail  and forgetful, and she  sometimes  failed to
realize she was no longer at the Palace of the Prophets. Jagang  used her to
fetch  people,  or  to  wait for them  and show them the  way-usually to his
tents. Should she forget the way, he could always correct her route, if need
be.  It  amused  him  to use a  venerable Sister  of the Light -a  sorceress
reputedly possessing knowledge of the most esoteric  incantations-as nothing
more than an errand girl. Away from the palace and it's

     spell  that slowed aging, Sister Lidmila was in a sudden headlong  rush
toward the grave. All the Sisters were.
     The  round-backed Sister, her dangling arm swinging,  shuffled along in
front of Nicci, pulling her by her hand, leading her through grand rooms, up
stairways,  and  down hallways. At a doorway framed in gold-leafed moldings,
she finally paused, touching her fingers to her lower lip as she  caught her
breath.  Sober soldiers  prowling the hall painted Nicci with glares as dark
as her dress. She recognized the men as imperial guards.
     "Here it is." Sister Lidmila peered up at Nicci. "His Excellency is  in
his rooms. Hurry, then. Go on. Go on, now." She swirled her hands as if  she
were trying to herd livestock. "In you go."
     Before entering, Nicci took  her hand from the lever and turned back to
the old woman. "Sister Lidmila, you once told me that you thought I would be
the one best suited for some of the knowledge you had to pass on."
     Sister Lidmila's  face brightened with a sly  smile. "Ah,  some  of the
more occult magic interests you, at long last, Sister Nicci?"
     Nicci  had  never  before been  interested  in what  Sister Lidmila had
occasionally pestered  her  to  learn.  Magic  was a  selfish pursuit. Nicci
learned what she had to, but never went out of her way  to go beyond, to the
more unusual spells.
     "Yes, as a matter of fact, I believe I am at last ready."
     "I  always told the Prelate that  you were the  only one at the  palace
with the power for the conjuring I know." The woman leaned close. "Dangerous
conjuring, it is, too."
     "It should be passed on, while you are able."
     Sister Lidmila nodded with satisfaction. "I believe you are old enough.
I could show you. When?"
     "I will come see you . . . tomorrow." Nicci glanced toward the door. "I
don't believe I will be able to take a lesson tonight."
     "Tomorrow, then."
     "If I . . . do come around to see you, I will be most eager to learn. I
especially wish to know about the maternity spell."
     From what Nicci knew  of it, the  oddly  named maternity spell might be
just what she needed. It had the further advantage that once invoked, it was
inviolate.
     Sister Lidmila straightened  and again touched her fingers to her lower
lip. A look of concern crossed her face.
     "My, my. That one,  is it? Well,  yes,  I could teach you. You have the
ability-few do. I'd trust none but you to be able  to bring such a thing  to
life;  it requires tremendous power  of the gift.  You have that. As long as
you  understand and  are  willing  to  accept the cost involved, 1 can teach
you."
     Nicci nodded. "I will come when 1 can, then."
     The  old  Sister  ambled on  down the  hall,  deep in thought,  already
thinking about the  lesson. Nicci didn't know if  she would live to take the
lesson.
     After she had  watched  the  old Sister vanish around the corner, Nicci
entered a quiet room lit by myriad candles and lamps.  The high  ceiling was
edged  with  a  painted  leaf-and-acorn  design.  Plush couches  and  chairs
upholstered in muted browns were set about on thick carpets of rich yellows,
oranges, and reds, making them look like a forest floor in the autumn. Heavy
drapes  had  been  pulled  closed across an expanse of windows. Two  Sisters
sitting on a couch leaped to their feet.
     "Sister Nicci!" one virtually shouted in relief.

     The  other ran to the double doors at the other side  of the  room  and
opened one  without knocking, apparently by instruction. She stuck her  head
into the room beyond to speak in a low voice Nicci couldn't hear.
     The Sister leaped  back  when Jagang,  in the inner room,  roared, "Get
out! All of you! Everyone else out!"
     Two more young  Sisters,  no doubt personal  attendants to the emperor,
burst out  of the room. Nicci  had to step out of the way as all four gifted
women made for the doorway  leading out of  the apartment. A young man Nicci
hadn't noticed in the corner joined the  women. None even glanced in Nicci's
direction as they rushed to do as they  were ordered.  The first lesson  you
learned as a slave to Jagang was that  when he told  you to do something, he
meant you to do it right now. Little provoked him more than delay.
     At the door to the inner room, a woman Nicci didn't recognize ran  out,
following close on the heels  of  the  others. She was young  and beautiful,
with dark hair  and  eyes, probably a captive picked up  somewhere along the
long march,  and no doubt  used for Jagang's amusement. Her eyes reflected a
world gone mad for her.
     Such  were the unavoidable  costs if the world was to be  brought  to a
state of order. Great leaders, by their very nature, came  with shortcomings
in  character,  which  they  themselves  viewed as  mere  peccadilloes.  The
far-ranging  benefits  Jagang  would bring to  the poor suffering masses  of
humanity  far  outweighed his  crass acts of personal gratification  and the
relatively  petty  havoc he  wrought. Nicci  was often  the  object  of  his
transgressions.  It  was  a  price  worth  paying for  the  help  that would
eventually accrue  to the helpless;  that was the only matter  that could be
considered.
     The outer  door closed and  the apartment was finally empty of everyone
but  Nicci and  the  emperor. She stood erect, head held high,  arms at  her
sides, relishing the  quiet of the place. The splendor  meant little to her,
but quiet  was a luxury she had come to appreciate, even if it was  selfish.
In the tents  there was  always the noise  of the army pressed close around.
Here,  it  was  quiet.  She glanced  around  the  spacious  and  elaborately
decorated outer room, contemplating the idea that Jagang would have acquired
the taste for such places. Perhaps he, too, simply wanted quiet.
     She  turned  back  to  the inner  room. He was  just  inside,  waiting,
watching her, a muscled mass of fury coiled in rage.
     She strode directly up to him. "You wished to see me, Excellency?"
     Nicci felt a stunning pain as the back of his beefy hand whipped across
her face. The  blow spun her around. Her knees  hit the floor. He yanked her
to  her feet by  her  hair. The  second time, she  clouted  the  wall before
crashing to the floor again. Stupefying pain throbbed through her face. When
she had her bearings, she got her legs under her and stood before him again.
The third time, she took a freestanding candelabrum  down  with her. Candles
tumbled and rolled across the floor.  A long  wisp °f sheer curtain she  had
snatched as she grabbed for support ripped away and drifted down over her as
she  and  an upturned  table  slammed to  the  floor. Glass shattered. Metal
clattered as small items bounded away.
     She was dizzy and stunned,  her vision faltering. Her  eyes felt as  if
they might have burst, her jaw as if it  had been shattered, her neck as  if
the  muscles  had  ripped.. Nicci lay sprawled on  the  floor,  savoring the
strident waves of pain, wallowing 'n the rare sensation of feeling.
     She saw blood splattered across the  light fringe of the carpet beneath
her  and across the warns glow of wooden flooring. She  heard Jagang yelling
something at her, but  she  couldn't make out the words  over the ringing in
her ears. With a shaky

     arm pushed  herself up onto her hip. Blood warmed her fingers  when she
touched them to her mouth.  She relished the hurt. It had been so long since
she had felt anything, except  for that too brief moment with the Mord-Sith.
This was a glorious wash of agony.
     Jagang's  brutality was  able to  reach down into  the abyss,  not only
because of the cruelty itself, but because she knew she  need not suffer it.
He,  too,  knew  that she was  here  by  her  choice,  not  his.  That  only
intensified his anger, and thus, her sensations.
     His rage  seemed  lethal.  She merely  noted the  fact  that  she  very
probably wouldn't leave the room alive. She would probably not  get to learn
Sister Lidmila's  spells. Nicci simply  waited  to  discover  what fate  had
already decided for her.
     The  room's spinning finally slowed enough for her to once more make it
to her feet. She pulled herself up straight before the silent brawny form of
Emperor Jagang. His shaved  head reflected points of light from  some of the
lamps.  His only facial  hair was a two-inch braid of mustache growing above
each corner of his mouth, and another in the center under his lower lip. The
gold ring through  his left  nostril  and  its  thin  gold chain running  to
another ring in his left ear glimmered in the mellow lamplight. Except for a
heavy ring on each finger, he was without the plundered  assortment of royal
chains and jewels  he usually wore around his neck. The rings glistened with
her blood.
     He was  bare-chested, but unlike his  head,  his  chest  was covered in
coarse hair. His muscles bulged, their tendons standing out as he flexed his
fists. He had the neck of a bull, and his temperament was worse.
     Nicci, half  a  head shy  of  his  height, stood  before  him, waiting,
looking into the eyes she used to  see  in her nightmares. They were a murky
gray, without whites, and clouded over with sullen, dusky  shapes that stole
across a surface of inky obscurity. Even though they had no evident iris and
pupil-nothing but  seeming  dark voids where  a  normal  person had eyes-she
never had any doubt whatsoever as to when he was looking at her.
     They were the eyes of a dream  walker. A dream walker  denied access to
her mind. Now, she understood why.
     "Well?" He growled. He threw  up  his hands.  "Cry!  Yell! Scream! Beg!
Argue make excuses! Don't just stand there!"
     Nicci  swallowed back the sharp taste  of  blood as  she gazed placidly
into his scarlet glare.
     "Please be specific, Excellency, as to which one you would  prefer, how
long I should carry on, and if I should end it of my own accord, or wait for
you to beat me into unconsciousness."
     He lunged at  her  with a  howl of fury. He  seized  her  throat in his
massive fist to  hold her as he struck  her. Her knees buckled, but  he held
her up until she was able to steady herself.
     He released her throat  with a shove. "I want to  know why you did that
to Kadar!"
     She offered only a bloody smile to his anger.
     He wrenched her arm behind  her  back and pulled  her hard against him.
"Why would you do such a thing! Why?"
     The deadly  dance with  Jagang had  begun. She dimly  wondered again if
this time she would lose her life.
     Jagang had killed  a number of  the  Sisters  who  had  displeased him.
Nicci's  safety  hIm-such as it  was-lay in her  very  indifference  to  her
safety. Her utter Ikerest in her own life fascinated  Jagang because he knew
it was sincere.

     "Sometimes, you're a fool," she said with true  contempt, "too arrogant
to see what is in front of your nose."
     He twisted her  arm until she thought it surely would snap. His panting
breath was warn on  her throbbing cheek. "I've killed people for saying much
less than that."
     She  mocked  him through  the pain. "Do you intend to bore me to death,
then?  If  you want  to kill me, seize me by the  throat and strangle me, or
slash me to a bloody mess so  that I will bleed  to death at your feet-don't
think you can suffocate me with the sheer weight of your monotonous threats.
If you wish to kill me, then be a man and do so! Or else shut your mouth."
     The mistake most people made with Jagang was to believe, because of his
capacity for  such profound brutality,  that he was an ignorant, dumb brute.
He was not.  He  was  one of  the most  intelligent  men Nicci had ever met.
Brutality was but  his  cloak. As an outgrowth of his access to the thoughts
of  so  many different  people's minds,  he was directly  exposed  to  their
knowledge, wisdom, and ideas; such exposure augmented his intellect. He also
knew what people most feared. If anything  about him  frightened her, it was
not  his brutality,  but his  intelligence, for  she knew  that intelligence
could be a bottomless well of truly inventive cruelty.
     "Why did you kill him, Nicci?" he asked again, his voice losing some of
its fire.
     In her mind, like a protective stone wall, was  the thought of Richard.
He had to see it in  her eyes. Part  of Jagang's  rage, she knew, was at his
own impotence at penetrating her mind, of possessing her as he could so many
others. Her knowing smirk taunted him with what he could not have.
     "It amused  me to hear  the great Kadar Kardeef cry for mercy, and then
to deny it."
     Jagang roared again, a beastly sound out of place for such  a  mannerly
bedchamber. She saw the  blur of his arm swinging for her. The  room whirled
violently around  her. She expected  to  hit something with a  bone-breaking
impact. Instead, she upended and crashed  onto unexpected softness: the bed,
she realized. Somehow, she had  missed the marble and mahogany  posts at the
corners-they  surely would  have killed her.  Fate, it seemed, was  trifling
with her. Jagang landed atop her.
     She thought he  might beat her to  death  now.  Instead, he studied her
eyes  from inches away.  He  sat up,  straddling  her  hips. His meaty hands
pulled at  the laces on the bodice of her  dress. With a quick yank  of  the
material, he exposed her breasts. His fingers squeezed her bared flesh until
her eyes watered.
     Nicci didn't  watch him, or resist, but instead  went limp as he pushed
her dress  up around  her waist. Her mind  began its  journey away, to where
only she alone  could go. He fell on her, driving the wind from her lungs in
a helpless grunt.
     Arms lying at her sides, her fingers  open and slack, eyes  unblinking,
Nicci stared at the folds of the  silk in the  canopy  of the bed, her  mind
unaffected in the distant
     quiet  place.  The pain seemed remote.  Her struggle  to breathe seemed
trivial.
     As he went about his coarse  business, she focused her thoughts instead
on what  she  was going  to do. She had never believed possible what she now
contemplated; now she knew it was. She had only to decide to do it.
     Jagang slapped her, causing her to focus her  mind back on him. "You're
too stupid to even weep!"
     She realized he had finished; he was not happy that she hadn't noticed.
She had to make an effort not to comfort her jaw, stinging  from what to him
was a smack, but to the  person receiving it was a blow nearly strong enough
to cripple. Sweat

     dripped from his  chin onto her face. His powerful body glistened  from
the exertion she had not perceived.
     His  chest heaved as he glared down at  her.  Anger, of course, powered
the glare, but Nicci thought she saw  a  tinge of something else there, too:
regret, or maybe anguish, or maybe even hurt.
     "Is that what you wish me to do, then, Excellency? Weep?"
     His voice  turned bitter as he flopped onto his side beside her. "No. I
wish you to react."
     "But I am," she said as she stared up at the canopy. "It is simply  not
the reaction you wish."
     He sat up. "What's the matter with you, woman?"
     She gazed up at him a moment, and then turned her eyes away.
     "I have no idea," she answered honestly. "But I think I must find out."


        Chapter 14

     Jagang gestured.  "Take off  your  clothes.  You're spending the night.
It's been too long." This time, it was he who stared off at the walls. "I've
missed you in my bed, Nicci."
     She didn't  answer.  She did  not believe  that in  his  bed he  missed
anything. She didn't believe she could conceive of him understanding what it
was to  miss  a person. What he missed, she  thought, was being able to miss
someone.
     Nicci sat up  and threw  her  legs  over the  side of  the  bed as  she
untangled herself from the black dress.  She pulled it off over her head and
then  laid  it out across the  back of a padded leather chair. She reclaimed
her underthings from the tangles of the bed covering and  tossed them on the
chair before drawing off her stockings and placing them, too, on the seat of
the  chair. He watched her body the whole time, watched her as she tended to
her  dress, smoothing it to straighten what he had  done  to it, watched the
mysterious allure of a woman acting a woman.
     When she had finished she turned back to him. She stood proudly, to let
him see that which he could have only by force, and never as a willing gift.
She  could detect the  sense of  privation in his  expression. This, was the
only  victory she could have: the more  he took her by  force, the  more  he
understood that that was the only way he could ever  have her,  and the more
it  maddened him.  She  would just  as soon  die as willingly  give him  the
satisfaction of that gift, and he knew the brutal truth of that.
     He  finally forced  himself  away from  his private, bitter longing and
looked up into her eyes. "Why'd you kill Kadar?"
     She  sat  on  the  edge  of the bed opposite him, just out of  his easy
reach, but within range of his lunge, and shrugged her bare shoulders.
     "You  are  not the Order. The Order  is no single man, but  an ideal of
equity. As such, it  will survive any one  person. You serve  that ideal and
the Order, for now, in the capacity of but a brute. The  Order could use any
brute  to  serve its  purpose. You, Kadar,  or another. I  simply eliminated
someone  who  might one  day have been a threat to  you before you  can rise
above your present role."
     He grinned.  "You  expect  me  to  believe that  you were  doing  me  a
kindness? Now you mock me."
     "If it pleases you to think so, then do."
     Her smooth  white limbs were  a  vivid  contrast  to  the  heavy, dark,
variegated  verdant bedcover  and  sheets.  He lay  back  atop them  against
several  rumpled pillows.  immodestly  displayed before her. His eyes looked
even darker than usual.
     "What's all this talk I keep hearing about 'Jagang the Just'?"
     "Your new title. It is the thing  that  will  save  you, the thing that
will win  for you, the thing  that  will bring you more  glory than anything
else. Yet, in return for elimi-

     nating a future threat to your standing,  and for making you a  hero to
the people, you draw my blood."
     He  put  an  arm  behind his head. "Sometimes you make me  believe  the
stories fat people tell, that you really are crazy."
     "And if you kill everyone?"
     "Then they will be dead."
     "I have recently been through towns  visited by your soldiers. It seems
they  didn't harm the people-at  least, they  didn't slaughter  everyone  in
sight, as they did when fey began their march into the New World."
     He lunged and seized a fistful of her hair. With a snarl, he yanked her
onto her  back beside him. She caught her  breath as he rose up on an  elbow
and directed his disturbing gaze down into her eyes.
     "It is your job to make examples of people, to show them that they must
contribute  to our cause; to make  them fear  the Imperial Order's righteous
wrath. That is the task I assigned you."
     "Is that so? Then why did the soldiers not make examples, too?  Why did
they let those towns be? Why did they not  contribute to striking  fear into
the hearts of the people? Why didn't they lay waste  to every  city and town
in their path?"
     "And then who would I rule but my soldiers? Who would  do the work? Who
would make things? Who would grow the  food? Who would pay tribute? To  whom
will I bring the hope of the Order? Who will there be  to  glorify the great
Emperor Jagang, if I kill them all?"
     He flopped onto his back. "You may be  called Death's  Mistress, but we
can't have it your way and kill everyone. In this world you are bound to the
Order's purpose.  If  people feel the Order's arrival can  mean nothing  but
their death,  they  will resist to the  end. They must know that it  is only
their resistance which  will  bring a swift and sure death.  If they realize
our arrival  offers  them a  moral  life,  a life which puts  man  under the
Creator and the welfare of man above all else, they will embrace us."
     "You dealt death to this city," she taunted, forcing him to unwittingly
prove the validity of what she had done. "Even though they chose the Order."
     "I've given orders that any  people of the city still alive  be allowed
to go back to  their homes. The rampage is ended.  The people  here betrayed
their  promises and  thus  invited  brutality; they saw it,  but now that is
finished and a new day  of order has come. The  old ideas  of separate lands
are  over, as it  was  ended in  the  Old World. All people will be governed
together, and will enter a new age of prosperity together-under the Imperial
Order. Only those  who resist will be crushed-not  because they  resist, but
because, ultimately, they are traitors to the well-being of their fellow man
and must be eliminated.
     "Here, in Anderith, was the turning point in our struggle. Richard Rahl
was at last cast out by the people themselves, who came to see the virtue of
what we offer. No longer can he claim to represent them."
     "Yet you came in and slaughtered-"
     "The leaders here betrayed certain promises to me-who knows how much of
the  general population may  have collaborated in that-and so the people had
to pay a puce, but collectively they  have also earned a place in the  Order
for their  courage  In  emphatically rejecting Lord  Rahl and the  outdated,
selfish, uninspired morals he offered them.

     "The tide has turned. People no longer have faith in Lord Rahl, nor can
he now have any faith in them. Richard Rahl is a fallen leader."
     Nicci smiled inwardly, a sad smile. She was a fallen woman, and Richard
was a fallen man. Their fate was sealed.
     "Perhaps here, in this  one small place," she said, "but he is far from
defeated. He is still dangerous.  After all, you  failed to  gain everything
you  sought here in Anderith because of Richard Rahl. He not only denied you
a  clear victory by destroying  vast  stores  of supplies  and  leaving  the
systems  and services of production in  total disarray, but  he also slipped
right through your fingers when you should have captured him."
     "I will have him!"
     "Really?  I wonder." She watched his  fist, and waited until it relaxed
before  she  continued. "When will  you  move  our  forces  north,  into the
Midlands?"
     Jagang stroked his hand down  his woolly chest.  "Soon. I  want to give
them  time to become careless, first.  When  they  grow  complacent, I  will
strike north.
     "A great  leader must  read the  nature  of  the battle, to be  able to
adjust his tactics. We will be liberators, now, as  we  move north into  the
Midlands, bringing the Creator's glory to the people. We must win the hearts
and minds of the unconverted."
     "You have  decided  this change? On your own? You do  not consider  the
will of the Creator in your campaign?"
     He glared at her insolence, as if to  tell her she knew better  than to
even ask such a question.
     "I am the  emperor; I  need not consult our spiritual guides, but since
their.  counsel  is always  welcome, I've already  talked  to  the  priests.
They've spoken favorably  about my plans.  Brother Narev thinks it wise  and
has given his blessing. You had better keep to your job of extinguishing any
ideas of  opposition. If you  don't follow my orders, well, no one will miss
one Sister. I have others."
     She was not moved by his threats, real as they were. By his  suspicious
look, he was beginning to understand her vision, too.
     "What you are doing is fitting," she said, "but it  must be cut up into
little pieces the people can chew.  They  do not have  the Order's wisdom in
seeing what is best for them-the public  rarely does. Even one as bullheaded
as you must be  able to see that I have  anticipated your  plans  by helping
those  you can't  afford to kill to understand that you are sparing them out
of your sense of justice. Word of such deeds will win hearts."
     He cast her a sidelong glance. "I  am the  Order's cleansing fire.  The
fire is a necessary conflagration, but not the important  end-it  is  merely
the means to the end. From the ashes I, Jagang, create, new order can sprout
and grow.  It  is this end, this glorious new  age of man, that warrants the
means. In this, it is  my responsibility  not yours-to decide  justice, when
and how I will dispense it, and who will receive it."
     She  grew impatient  with his vanity.  Scorn seeped into her voice.  "I
have simply put a name to it-Jagang  the  Just-and begun  to spread your new
title  for you when the opportunity  arose. I sacrificed Kadar to  that end,
for all the same reasons you've listed. It had to be done now  in order  for
it to have the necessary time to spread and flourish, or the New World would
soon harden irreversibly against the Order. I  chose the time and place, and
by  using Kadar Kardeef's life-a war hero's life-proved your devotion to the
cause of the Order above all else. You benefit.
     "Any  brute could ignite the conflagration;  this new title  shows your
moral

     vision-another manifestation  of worth over other men.  I have  planted
the vital seed that will make you a hero to the common people and, even more
important,  to  the priests. Are  you going to pretend you  think  the title
inadequate? Or that it will not serve you well?
     "What I alone have  done  will help win what your powerful army cannot:
willing  allegiance without a battle,  at a  cost  of nothing. With  Kadar's
life,  I,  Nicci, have made  you more  than you  could  make of yourself. I,
Nicci, have given you  the reputation of honor. I, Nicci, have made you into
a leader people will trust because they believe you to be just."
     He brooded for  a time, turning his gaze  from  her  hot glare. His arm
finally fell own  and his fingers tenderly trailed down her thigh. The touch
was an admission for him-an admission  that she was  right, even if he would
not say the words.
     After a few moments he yawned,  and then his eyes closed. His breathing
evened, and he started to drift off into a nap, as was  his way with her. He
expected her to remain right  where she was, so that when he awoke she would
be available to him. She supposed she could leave. But it was not time.  Not
yet.
     He  finally  awoke an hour later.  Nicci  was  still  staring up at the
canopy, thinking about Richard. There seemed to be one piece missing  in her
plan, one more thing that she felt needed to fall into place.
     In his sleep Jagang  had rolled over on his side facing away  from her.
Now,  he  turned back.  His  dark  eyes took  her in  with  a  look of  lust
rekindled. He drew her close. His body was as warm  as a rock in the sun and
only slightly softer.
     "Pleasure me," he commanded in a husky growl that would have frightened
any other woman into doing as ordered.
     "Or what? You will kill me? If I feared that, I would not be here. This
is by force, not consent. I  will not  willingly take part in it, nor will I
allow you to deceive yourself into believing that I want you."
     He  backhanded  her,  knocking  her  across  the  bed. "You  take  part
willingly!" He seized her by the wrist and dragged her back toward him. "Why
else would you be here?"
     "You ordered me here."
     He smirked. "And you came when you could have fled."
     She opened  her mouth, but  she had no answer she could put into words,
no answer he would understand.
     With a grin of victory, he fell on her and pressed his lips to hers. As
much as it hurt  her, for Jagang this was gentle behavior. He had  told  her
several times that she was the only woman  he ever  cared to kiss. He seemed
to  believe  that  by expressing those emotions  for her, she could have  no
alternative but to  surrender  feelings in kind, as  if spoken feelings were
currency with which he could purchase affection on demand.
     It was only the beginning of  a long night-along  ordeal-she  knew. She
would  have to  endure his  forceful violation  several  more  times  before
morning. His question haunted the distant place in her mind.
     Morning came, accompanied by the dull throbbing of a  headache from her
succeeding beating, and the sharper aches from the  places where he'd struck
her when he came to find that what he thought was her willing submission was
but a  delusion  that  left him  more angered than before. The pillows  were
stained with her blood. It had
     g been a long night of rare sensations experienced. -HIre knew  she was
evil, and deserved to be violated in such a brutal fashion. She

     could offer no moral  objection to it; even  in the  terrible things he
did  to her, Jagang was  nowhere  near  as corrupt as  she. Jagang erred  in
simple matters of the flesh, and that could only be expected all people were
corrupt in the flesh-but because of her indifference to the suffering around
her, she failed in  matters of  the spirit. That, she knew,  was pure  evil.
That was why she deserved to suffer  whatever he did to her. For the moment,
that deep dark place within came close to being sated.
     Nicci touched  her mouth and  found  the  cuts painful, but closed. The
healing  of wounds,  though,  did  not  offer the  warranted  sensations  of
receiving them, so she resolved to have  one  of the other Sisters heal her,
rather  than  give  him the  satisfaction of  witnessing  her  suffering the
inconvenience of the injures.
     With that, her mind turned to thoughts of Sister Lidmila.
     Nicci realized that Jagang wasn't in bed beside her. She sat up and saw
him in a chair not far away, watching her.
     She pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts, speckled with droplets of
dried blood. "You are a pig."
     "You can't get  enough of me. Despite what  you say, Nicci, you wish to
be with me. If not, why would you stay?"
     Those nightmare eyes of his  watched her, trying to find a way into her
mind. There  was none. He could no  longer be a nightmare  for her.  Richard
guarded her mind.
     "Not  for  the reasons you wish to believe. I stay because the ultimate
cause  of  the  Order is  a  moral one. I wish  it  to succeed. I  wish  the
suffering of life's helpless  victims to end. I wish everyone to finally  be
equal and to finally live with everything they need. I have worked nearly my
entire life for those goals. The Order can see to it that  such a fair world
comes to be. If  I must endure  you-even aid you-for such an end, then it is
but an insignificant gnat to swallow."
     "You  sound so  very noble, but I think  there is  something more basic
behind it. I think you would have left  if you could,  or"-he smiled-"if you
could,  you  would  have left  if  you really  wanted to. Which is it, then,
Nicci?"
     She didn't want to contemplate the question. Her head hurt.
     "What's all the talk about you building a palace?"
     "So you heard, then." He took a deep breath and  sighed wistfully.  "It
will  be the grandest palace ever built. A fitting  place for the Emperor of
the Imperial Order, for the man who rules both the Old and the New Worlds."
     "The  man who wants to  rule.  Lord Rahl stands in your way.  How  many
times has he bested you, now?"
     Jagang's eyes flashed a  rage she knew could turn  violent. Richard had
frustrated Jagang a number of times. Even if  Richard hadn't been victorious
over Jagang, he had stung him.  Quite an accomplishment,  really, for such a
tiny force against the
     array of the Imperial Order. A man like Jagang hated the humiliation of
a sting almost as much as he would hate to be gored.
     "I will eliminate Richard  Rahl, don't you worry," Jagang said in a low
growl'
     She changed  the subject  back to what she really wanted to know about.
"Sine when  has the all conquering Emperor Jagang turned soft and  wanted to
live in splendor?"
     "Ali, but I am Jagang the Just, now. Remember?" He  returned to the bed
and  flopped down beside her. "Nicci, I'm sorry I  hurt you. I never want to
hurt you, but you make me do it. You know I care about you."
     You  care  about me yet you heat me? You care about  me,  yet you never
bothered

     to tell  me of such  an enormous project as the building of a palace? I
am insignificant to you.
     "I  told you, I'm sorry I hurt you-but  that was your own fault and you
know  it."  He  spoke the words almost lovingly. With mention of the palace,
his face  had softened into a visionary look. "It's only proper and  fitting
that I at last have the prestige of such a monumental edifice."
     "You, the man who was content in tents in the, field, now wants to live
in a resplendent building? Why?"
     "Because once I bring the New World under the  guidance of the Order, I
will owe it  to all the  people, as their  leader,  to be seen in a majestic
setting . . . but it will have more than simple splendor."
     "But of course," she sniped.
     He gathered up  her hand. "Nicci, I will proudly wear the title  Jagang
the  Just.  You're right, the  time has come  for  such  a move. I was  only
angered because you
     wrongly made that move without first  discussing it with me. But let us
forget that, now."
     She  said  nothing.  He  gripped  her hand  more  tightly,  to show his
sincerity, she supposed.
     You're going to love the  palace,  when it's finished." He ran the back
of the fingers of his other  hand tenderly down her cheek. "We will all live
there for a very long time."
     The words struck a cord in her. "A very long time?"
     For the first time  she realized there was  something more to this than
simply  his  vanity  of  wanting a palace after  Richard had  denied him the
Palace of the Prophets. He wanted what else Richard had denied him. Could it
be . . .
     She looked up into his face, searching for the answer. He simply smiled
at the questions in her eyes.
     "Construction has already begun,"  he said, turning his words away from
those questions. "Architects and great  builders from all over the Old World
have  gathered  to  work on it.  Everyone wants to be part  of such  a grand
project."
     "And Brother Narev?" she probed. "What does he think of building such a
frivolous monument to one man when there is important work to be done for so
many needy people?"
     "Brother  Narev  and his disciples  greatly favor