Terry Goodkind
Siege of Stone
CHAPTER 1
The city of Ildakar continued to burn, even though the violent revolt had run its course. Riled up by the rebel leader Mirrormask, the city’s downtrodden had torn apart the prosperous neighborhoods. Arena warriors, tradesmen, and gifted nobles battled one another with every weapon and resource at their disposal.
As Nicci worked alongside Nathan Rahl to quell the worst of the destruction, she knew the unrest was far from over, but Ildakar’s woes were no longer her problem to solve. Nicci had helped bring freedom to the oppressed city, and now these people would have to rebuild their own society—nobles and slaves, gifted wizards and everyday laborers. In order for a city to function, all the parts need to work together.
Back in the D’Haran Empire, Richard was likely facing the same turmoil, but on a grander scale. It was Nicci’s job to spread Lord Rahl’s message of freedom to the entire Old World, not just one city, and she and her companions were anxious to move on to other destinations.
In the last hours of the exhausting night, though, Ildakar remained her priority. She shouted orders, calling the people together to fight a fire that roared out of control in a silk merchant’s warehouse. Flames licked up the wooden walls and shattered the window glass, then spilled out of the upper windows. Ildakar was famed for fine silks, created by gifted craftsmen in the spinners’ guild. Now hundreds of bolts of valuable cloth went up in flames, sending a sour smell of smoke into the air.
“We have to get this fire under control before it spreads to other buildings.” Nicci swept her piercing blue gaze across the bedraggled crowd, assessing them as fighters, as helpers. Many of them wore clothes spattered with blood and grimy with soot, while others looked battered and disheveled from fighting one another or trying to put out the scattered fires. “This is not a time to choose who benefits most.”
Rendell, one of the older house slaves who had joined Mirrormask’s revolt, rallied several of his comrades. “We destroyed the water basins so Sovrena Thora couldn’t spy on us, but we can still use the water from the aqueducts.” He ran to a nearby wall where a public fountain had been smashed. Together, he and several companions used metal bars to break the cap that blocked the fountain pipe, and a silvery ribbon of liquid sluiced out. “Buckets! We need buckets!”
From nearby shops and homes, people emerged with pails and tubs. Together they collected the spraying water and rushed to throw it on the fire in the silk warehouse.
The cavernous building had become a blazing furnace. Flames erupted through a hole in the tile roof, and sparks shot through the air like night wisps. Dawn would arrive in an hour or two, but for now, the orange glow of burning lit the sky.
Flaming tatters of silk wafted through the air toward the nearby rooftops. Nicci summoned her gift and created a river of wind that drove the sparks away from nearby roofs before they could catch fire. The embers swept higher, twirling like orange stars against the deep darkness, until they extinguished themselves.
The wizard Nathan stood beside her, his long white hair tangled from the night’s struggles. He showed no lack of confidence, and he smiled as he took a step forward. “Now that I have my gift back, Sorceress, it’s time to get a little more practice with magic.”
So long stripped of his gift, Nathan reveled in having his abilities back. That was one reward he had received from the wizards of Ildakar, though the fleshmancer had been forced to rip out Nathan’s heart and give him a new one from the dying Chief Handler Ivan. A horrific process, but that had cured his problem at last.
As Rendell and his companions continued their bucket brigade, pouring water on the flames at the street level, Nathan blasted open a second fountain at a nearby intersection so that more water gushed into the streets. He called upon the flow, tugging the stream like a liquid whip, looping it in the air. The manipulated water rose above the warehouse roof, then struck down like a viper. The column of water poured through the open roof and onto the roaring flames. Nathan pulled more water from the aqueducts to continue the deluge. With a whistling hiss, a mist of steam sprayed out, overwhelming the black smoke. The flames began to sputter and withdraw from the warehouse windows.
Nicci formed a wall of air to surround the broken walls where the flames tried to escape.
Nathan flexed his fingers, as if feeling the tingle of magic through them. “It’s quite exhilarating to be able to do that again!”
The warehouse owner watched the destruction of his goods, his face sagging with dismay. The man had a lush brown beard and overly curled locks of long hair. He wore layers of colorful silk robes that were now rumpled from the night’s ordeal. “All of my silk, all of my wealth. The slaves destroyed it!”
“The fire destroyed it,” Nicci said. “The nobles and merchants are as much to blame for the uprising as the slaves.”
Rendell handed the distraught merchant a wooden bucket full of water. “If you want to save part of what you have, then pitch in and help with the rest of us.”
The merchant held the bucket and looked helplessly at the team of people pouring load after load of water on the now-dying fires.
“This isn’t our warehouse,” Rendell scolded him in a stern voice. “We’re doing this to save Ildakar.” He nudged the reluctant man into motion.
The dazed merchant squared his shoulders and got in line with the workers, filling the bucket at the nearest gushing pipe. “For Ildakar,” he muttered, as if to convince himself.
The legendary city had hidden beneath the shroud of eternity for fifteen centuries. During that time, Sovrena Thora had tried to build her perfect society, which had become more grim and stagnant over the years. Thora and the other gifted nobles had been oblivious to the explosive situation they were creating. Thora’s own husband, Wizard Commander Maxim, had exploited that situation, fashioning himself into a rebel leader and trying to destroy the city just because he was tired of it. But his guise of Mirrormask had been exposed, and Maxim had fled the city at the height of the revolt. Thora was also overthrown, turned to stone by members of her own duma—just like the hundreds of thousands of stone soldiers that had laid siege to Ildakar fifteen centuries earlier.
“Nicci!” called a familiar voice. Bannon Farmer, who had journeyed with them across the Old World, ran to them with his long ginger hair flying wild. The young man had gained some muscle during his travels, but Nicci noticed how fit Bannon’s physique had become from his training as an arena fighter. He was still shirtless from escaping the combat pits, and he carried his unremarkable sword, Sturdy.
He stopped in front of them, breathing hard with alarm. “Three spiny wolves are loose in Potter’s Alley, and they’ve killed nine people already. Some citizens have blocked them, but they can’t kill those beasts.” He held up his sword. “And I can’t do it by myself.”
“You are not by yourself, boy,” said a wiry young woman who trotted up beside him. She wore a black leather wrap around her waist, and another enfolded her breasts. Her short light brown hair stuck out in spiky strands. Her body was marked with protective runes that had been branded into her skin during her training to become a morazeth, a ruthless female warrior. Lila had put Bannon through harsh training to become an arena warrior, but after the revolt, she now offered her grudging cooperation to help.
“Spiny wolves were bred to slaughter humans,” Nathan said. The fleshmancers of Ildakar had altered fearsome wild wolves, added muscles, arched their backs, extended their teeth.
Bannon said, “They were turned loose by escaping slaves, but now we have to take care of them before they hurt anyone else.”