Terry Goodkind
Death's Mistress
CHAPTER 1
Another skull crunched under Nicci’s boot, but she kept trudging forward nevertheless. In the thick forest, she could not avoid all the bones underfoot or the clawlike branches that dangled near her head. The way would have been treacherous even in full daylight, but in the deep night of the Dark Lands, the trail was nearly impossible.
Nicci never bothered to acknowledge the impossible, though, when she had a task to complete.
Piles of moss-covered human remains cluttered the shadowy forest. Yellowing bones stood out in the gloom, illuminated by moonlight that seeped through the leafy vine-strangled boughs overhead. When she climbed over a rotted oak trunk that had collapsed across the path, her heel crushed the old shell of another skull, scattering ivory teeth from a gaping jaw—as if these long-dead victims wanted to bite her, like the cannibalistic half people who had recently swarmed out of the Dark Lands.
Nicci had no fear of skulls. They were just empty remnants, and she had created plenty of skeletons herself. She paused to inspect a mound of bones stacked against a lichen-covered oak. A warning? A signpost? Or just a decoration?
The witch woman Red had an odd sense of humor. Nicci couldn’t understand why Nathan was so insistent on seeing her, and he refused to reveal his intentions.
Crashing through tangled willows ahead, Nathan Rahl called back to her. “There’s a big meadow up here, Sorceress. We’ll make better time across the clearing.”
Nicci did not hurry to catch up to the wizard. Nathan’s impatience often led him to make rash decisions. She pointed out coolly, “We would make better time if we didn’t travel through the thickest forest in the dark of night.” Her long blond hair fell past her shoulders, and she felt perspiration on her neck, despite the cool night air. She brushed a few stray pine needles and the ragged lace of a torn spiderweb from her black travel dress.
Pausing at the edge of the wide meadow, the wizard raised an eyebrow. His long white hair seemed too bright in the shadows. “Judging by all the skeletons, we must be close to our destination. I am eager to get there. Aren’t you?”
“This is your destination, not mine,” she said. “I accompany you by choice—for Richard.” The two had trudged through the trackless forest for days.
“Indeed? I thought you were supposed to watch over me.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s what you thought. Perhaps I just wanted to keep you out of trouble.”
He arched his eyebrows. “I suppose you’ve succeeded so far.”
“That remains to be seen. We haven’t found the witch woman yet.”
Nathan Rahl, wizard and prophet, had a lean and muscular frame, azure eyes, and handsome features. Although the two men were separated by many generations, Nathan’s face, strong features, and hawklike glare still reminded Nicci of Richard Rahl—Lord Rahl, leader of the much-expanded D’Haran Empire, and now leader of the known world.
Under an open vest, Nathan’s ruffled white shirt was much too frilly to serve as a rugged travel garment, but he didn’t seem to mind. He swirled a dark blue cape over his shoulders. The wizard wore tight but supple black pants and stylish leather boots with a flared top flap and dyed red laces for a flash of color.
As Nicci joined him, he put a hand on the pommel of the ornate sword at his hip and gazed across the starlit clearing. “Yes, traveling through the night is tedious, but at least we keep covering distance. I spent so many centuries in one place, locked in the Palace of the Prophets. Indulge me for being a little restless.”
“I will indulge you, Wizard.” She had agreed to take him to the witch woman, but after that she had not decided how best she would serve Richard and the D’Haran Empire. “For now.” Nicci was also restless, but she was a woman who liked to have a clear, firm goal.
He smiled at her brusque tone. “And they say prophecy is gone from the world! Richard predicted you might find my company frustrating as we traveled together.”
“I believe he used the word ‘obnoxious.’”
“I’m quite sure he didn’t say it aloud.” They crossed the dew-scattered meadow, following a faint trail that led to the trees on the other side. “Nevertheless, I am pleased to have such a powerful sorceress protecting me. It befits my position as the roving ambassador for D’Hara. With my skills as a wizard and a prophet, we’ll be nearly invincible.”
“You are no longer a prophet,” Nicci reminded him. “No one is.”
“Just because a man loses his fishing pole doesn’t mean he ceases to be a fisherman. And if my gift of prophecy is taken away, I will still muddle along. I can draw upon my vast experience.”
“Then perhaps I should let you find the witch woman yourself.”
“No, for that I need your help. You’ve met Red before.” He gestured ahead. “I think she likes you.”
“I’ve met Red, yes, and I survived.” Nicci paused to regard a knee-high pyramid of rounded skulls, a sharp contrast to the peaceful starlit meadow. “But I am the exception, not the rule. The witch woman likes no one.”
Nathan was not deterred, nor had she expected him to be. “Then I will work my charms. So long as you help me find her.”
Stopping under the open sky, Nicci looked up into the great expanse of night, and what she saw there frightened her more than any moldering skeletons. The panoply of stars, twinkling lights strewn across the void, were all wrong. The familiar constellations she had known for nearly two centuries were now rearranged with the star shift Richard had caused.
When Nicci was a little girl, her father had taken her out into the night and used his outstretched finger to draw pictures across the sky, telling stories of the imaginary characters up there. Only two weeks ago, those eternal patterns had changed; the universe had changed, in a dramatic reconfiguring of magic. And when Lord Rahl realigned the stars, prophecy itself was ripped from the world of the living and sent back through the veil to the underworld. That cataclysm had changed the universe in unknown ways, with consequences yet to be seen or understood.
Nicci was still a sorceress, and Nathan remained a wizard, but all the intricately bound lines of his gift of prophecy had unraveled within him. An entire part of his being had now been simply stripped away.
Rather than worrying about the loss of his ability, though, Nathan seemed oddly enthusiastic about this unexpected new opportunity. He had always considered prophecy to be bothersome. Imprisoned in the Palace of the Prophets for a thousand years, considered a danger to the world, he had been denied the opportunity to lead his own life. Now with prophecy gone and the undead Emperor Sulachan sent back to the underworld, Nathan felt more free than ever before.
He was delighted when Richard Rahl sent him off as a roving ambassador for the newly expanded D’Haran Empire, to see if he could help the people in the Dark Lands—a thinly disguised pretext for Nathan to go wherever he liked while still ostensibly achieving something useful. The wizard had been eager to see lands unknown. (And the way Nathan said the words made it sound like the name of an actual country, “Lands Unknown.”)
Knowing his intent, Nicci couldn’t possibly let the wizard go off alone. That would have been dangerous to Nathan and possibly dangerous to the world. While the battered D’Haran army returned from the bloody battles, and the dead were still being tallied and mourned, Nicci had accepted an important mission of her own. A mission for Richard.
Everyone from Westland to the Midlands, from D’Hara to the Dark Lands, and even far south into the Old World, needed to know that Lord Rahl was the new ruler of a free world. Richard had decreed that he would no longer tolerate tyranny, slavery, or injustice. Each land would remain independent, so long as the people followed a set of commonly agreed-upon rules and behaviors.