Shroud of Eternity Read online

  “My smallclothes as well?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  Andre sniffed. “You wanted your magic restored everywhere, didn’t you?”

  With a sigh, Nathan submitted and stood completely unclothed before the alarmingly eager fleshmancer.

  Andre walked around him, studying the old wizard’s well-toned form. He made nonverbal noises, some questioning, some approving. Nathan had been preserved for a thousand years in the Palace of the Prophets, and since leaving there, he had exercised and maintained his physical appearance. Women had never been disappointed in him.

  But Andre showed an unhealthy analytical fascination for his body. Standing behind Nathan, Andre ran his flat palm across the other man’s back from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, then down the bumps of his vertebrae. Nathan felt the lingering touch, and a heated flush came to his cheeks. He forced himself to remain motionless for the inspection.

  Andre came around to the front, humming to himself. He reached out with a finger to touch Nathan’s forehead, then traced the side of his face, running the fingertip up to the top again, forming an oval. “I sense the lines of Han in you, like scars, but I also see how the tracks have faded … as a scar fades.”

  “I don’t want my gift to fade,” Nathan said.

  “That is what we’re trying to fix, hmmm? We may have to find your gift elsewhere and re-graft it onto you, assemble you again from your very core … the way I have so successfully put together other specimens for the combat arena.” He grinned so widely that Nathan could see all his slightly uneven teeth. “Chief Handler Ivan says that my creations have made our arena exhibitions more spectacular than any previously seen in Ildakar’s history. I help develop new fighting beasts for precisely that purpose.”

  “Fighting beasts?” Nathan thought of the horrific monster they had encountered in the scrub oak grove. “I think we encountered one of them, a creature that looked like a bear.”

  Andre nodded. “Hmmm, several of our combat bears got loose. They are very difficult to kill, much more terrible than a normal bear.”

  “We killed it,” Nathan said, “but the task was not easy.”

  “Ahh, that is sad. I worked hard to create such a thing.” When the fleshmancer shrugged, his bony shoulders popped up and down. He bent lower to touch Nathan’s chest, then followed some sort of invisible line down his abdomen. “But my creatures are designed to fight and kill … and die. I suppose that one served its purpose.”

  He pressed down on Nathan’s stomach and traced his left hip. Nathan shivered and grew more tense.

  Suddenly, shouts echoed from the courtyard beyond the large arched foyer. Gruff male voices called out, “Fleshmancer! We have materials for you. A practice fight between two of Adessa’s warriors left them both nearly dead. We thought you could save them … or use them.”

  Distracted, Andre snapped his attention away from Nathan’s naked form. “Dress yourself—I’ve seen all I need. Let us go see what wondrous things have come to us.”

  The fleshmancer bustled out as Nathan hurriedly donned his green robe and gathered his dignity. Leaving the laboratory room under the dark blue fabrics, they rushed out into the bright sunlight.

  Waiting at the end of the crushed-stone path stood a wooden cart drawn by a single glum-looking yaxen. One outflung, bloody human arm flopped over the side of the cart. Andre peered eagerly down into the bed. Nathan joined him and looked at the bodies of two well-muscled men wearing only loincloths, their skin laced with a webwork of old scars as well as fresh, open wounds that oozed blood. Both were mortally injured, barely clinging to life. One of the two men was shaved bald, but with a round swatch of his skull waxy and pale from a long-healed head wound. Blood bubbled up from his neck, where a blade had cut deep, nearly to the spine.

  “The sword practically lopped off his head,” said one of the men at the cart. “A blunted sword! It was supposed to be a practice fight.”

  The second worker had blue-black whiskers that stuck out from his chin like wires. He flashed a strangely excited grin. “Adessa commands them to fight as if their lives depend on it … and sometimes I think the warriors want to die.”

  “They live only to fight and die,” Andre said dismissively. “Now let’s see what we can make of these two.”

  Nathan stood there, feeling flustered and out of place as he heard the dying men groan and gurgle. They both bled from chest wounds, deep sword thrusts to their sides; they had nearly hacked each other to pieces. The bald warrior’s foot had been mangled and his right arm had been lopped off at the elbow.

  “Carry them inside to the studio. Better hurry.” Andre’s voice was vibrant and animated now. He smiled at Nathan. “I apologize for the distraction, but this will occupy my attention today.” He bustled behind the two cart workers as they manhandled the dying warriors, lifting the hacked bodies out of the cart and dragging them through Andre’s well-manicured garden into the mansion. He led them into the main room under the dark blue fabrics. “Use two of the clean tables, hmmm? Adjacent ones. I want the specimens next to each other.”

  The men did as they were told, showing no hesitation, no queasiness. After they had hauled the victims onto the tables, Andre chased them away. “Thank Adessa for me, and let Chief Handler Ivan know I may have something interesting to turn loose for an upcoming exhibition.”

  The two blood-spattered workers were all too happy to depart, without waiting to be paid.

  Nathan wanted to leave as well, but he felt obligated to remain, though not sure how he could help. He remained in the background, trying not to get in the way, and also reluctant to be splashed with the warriors’ blood. He was close enough to hear their sickening groans.

  Andre circled the tables as he gathered tools, decanters, and powders, flasks filled with bright liquids, packets of dried herbs. Nathan noticed that the perimeter of each table was etched with faint and obscure spell-forms, binding labyrinths designed to keep a patient’s lifeblood confined while the fleshmancer did his work.

  He looked up at Nathan as if he were a colleague. “These were two well-recognized fighters from the combat pits, trained for years. Very strong. Good specimens.”

  “They appear to be dying,” Nathan said. “And I’ve seen more dying men than I care to remember.”

  “Yes, they may be dying, but we can still use them.” Andre moved about frenetically. “There’s not much time. This one here is nearly dead.” He indicated the deep neck wound, the burbling blood. “With the loss of the arm and the damaged leg, the rest of his body is useless. But his head appears mostly intact. The other one will heal … but perhaps he could benefit from the Han of the first. Two together. They will live to be more than the sum of their parts.” He seemed to be dancing with glee. “I have never done this before. Grafting one man’s head onto the shoulders of another. Which brain will be dominant, I wonder? Hmmm?”

  Nathan was horrified. “Do you really mean to put a second head on the first man’s shoulders?”

  “Why not? It’s perfectly possible with fleshmancy. I will have to split and move the vertebrae in order to create a proper anchor point for the necks.” He spoke faster, like a chef making plans for a large banquet. “I will extrude the nerves and connect them to the brain of the second head. From there, fusing blood vessels and connecting flesh is a simple matter, like a sculptor manipulating clay.”

  “Dear spirits,” Nathan muttered, “I don’t know what to say. Why would you do such a thing?”

  Andre blinked at the seemingly absurd question. “Because I can. Because it would be interesting.”

  Nathan felt deep doubts as to whether this man could help him with his own problem. He wasn’t sure he wanted the fleshmancer to reshape his flesh and his mind, and his own Han.

  Andre seemed impatient. “Without your gift, you cannot assist me in the operation, Nathan. In fact, your lack of magic may dampen my own abilities. I’d rather you left the studio now. Let me mull over how to restore your gift, but I
’ve seen enough to determine a solution. It is obvious what’s wrong with you.”

  Nathan had begun to retreat, but those words brought him to a stop. “You know what made me lose my magic?”

  “The gift is intrinsic to you, but you have lost the heart of a wizard. You need to gain it back. Some spark within you changed with the star shift, but it can be fixed.”

  “How?” Nathan asked.

  The two dying warriors groaned and coughed on the table, bleeding out into the spell-confined troughs. The one with the grievous neck wound fell into an ominous gurgling silence.

  “Your heart must be replaced with that of a powerful, gifted man, and then your Han will be whole. You will once again be the great wizard that you always wanted to be.” The fleshmancer bent over the two bleeding forms in front of him, his attention drawn away from Nathan. “But that cannot be done today. Leave me to do my work before time runs out, and these two poor souls become little more than useless hunks of meat.”

  Disheartened and sickened, Nathan hurried from Andre’s dwelling.

  CHAPTER 16

  When Verna, prelate of the Sisters of the Light, arrived in Tanimura, she saw that the city had changed dramatically, but not nearly as much as the world had changed. She could hardly believe it herself, but she fought to remain strong, because the Sisters depended on her.

  After Lord Rahl defeated Emperor Sulachan and sent the omen machine Regula back to the underworld where it belonged, all prophecy was gone. The stars had shifted, and magic had changed throughout the world. Richard Rahl considered that a good thing.

  But the Sisters of the Light were suddenly like a ship without a rudder, their sails torn by the turbulent storm of changed reality. They had devoted countless centuries and countless lives to studying and interpreting prophecy, and now all that effort was obsolete, useless. Returning to Tanimura was just a poignant reminder to her of how much was now different.

  Verna had come south with a contingent of soldiers, members of the D’Haran army dispatched by Lord Rahl, to help consolidate the empire. She often walked wherever she needed to go, sometimes on long journeys accompanied by her fellow Sisters, sometimes traveling in disguise. This time, the prelate had a full military escort and a fine horse to ride. Richard Rahl had taught her how to appreciate her mount during their first journey together, when she had taken him for training in the Palace of the Prophets.

  Even on horseback, the trip down from the capital of the D’Haran Empire took more than ten days, and the soldiers—especially an eager young captain named Norcross—attended to her needs, which were few enough. Norcross made sure that her tent was erected properly, that her bedroll was soft and dry, that she received the first servings from the camp cook tent.

  Several days into the journey, Verna learned that the captain’s solicitous behavior was in part because his young sister, Amber, was a novice among the Sisters of the Light, joined only recently. Although Verna was prelate of the order, she knew little about the girl. There had been so much turmoil in recent years.…

  Now, with her riding her black mare beside Captain Norcross, they topped a ridge and started down the well-traveled road to the outskirts of Tanimura. She could see the sweep of the city stretching out along the coastline, the green-blue crescent of the harbor, the numerous ships flitting about on the sea.

  This wasn’t the first time she had returned to Tanimura. In fact, she had spent twenty years away from the Palace of the Prophets—and away from the antiaging spells woven into the structure of that place—in her original search for Richard. She had finally found him and then convinced him—coerced him—to come to the palace, where the Sisters trained him to use his gift.

  That had set so many titanic events in motion … exactly to fulfill the prophecy. But now prophecy was no more.

  “A lovely view, Prelate,” said Norcross. “Since I grew up outside of Aydindril, I’ve never seen the ocean before. How does a ship sail off into that watery emptiness and not get lost?”

  “Their captains have magic of their own,” Verna said, “although some simply call it navigation. You’re not due to sail away from here, though, are you, Captain?”

  “No, we’re here to establish the garrison. General Zimmer has already commandeered some large buildings on the waterfront, and he’s reinforcing them to hold five hundred, even a thousand soldiers who will eventually be stationed here. But that’s just the beginning.” The sandy-haired captain smiled at her, and she noticed that his left front tooth was a little crooked, giving him a roguish look. “Now that the Imperial Order is defeated, we’ll be setting up garrisons down the coastline and throughout the Old World.”

  Verna pressed her lips together. “That is the best way to insure that no great tyrants rise to power again.”

  Sparse pine trees lined the side of the road, but many of the hills had been cleared for firewood and construction material. The air was warm as they rode onward. She wanted to take a break in the shade to eat a brief midday meal, but she longed to be back in Tanimura, her home.…

  As they rode down the rutted road, she heard the punctuated rumble of other horse hooves as the hundred D’Haran soldiers rode along in the column. On the outskirts of town they came upon paddocks that held sheep and goats, large household gardens, orchards of old apple and pear trees. Farther in, the dwellings became more crowded, some of them poor and ramshackle, while others were well maintained by families who felt that even a shack deserved to be kept clean and well repaired because it was their home. People emerged to watch as the soldiers rode in under the banners of D’Hara. Captain Norcross raised a gauntleted hand, waving at them.

  Verna sat straight-backed on her black mare, looking at all of the smiling people and feeling out of place. Her brown eyes were still bright, though they showed the beginnings of weariness from her age, and her wavy dark hair was still mostly brown, except for the increasing gray strands she discovered when she studied herself in a mirror. The years were weighing upon her, not just from time, but from the heavy responsibility as well.

  She knew at least ten other Sisters had come to Tanimura ahead of her, hoping to return to the Palace of the Prophets. Prelate Verna felt the same pull on her heartstrings, but when she gazed around the shoreline to the flat brown expanse of Halsband Island, her heart ached in a different way.

  Across a bridge from the Kern River, the island had once been home to the truly titanic palace, an ancient structure large enough to rival the Wizard’s Keep or the Confessors’ Palace in Aydindril. But now it was gone, leveled, when Richard brought down the entire structure by triggering the embedded spell webs. That disaster had destroyed the antiaging spells, the protective webs, the countless chambers and tunnels, the towers, the libraries, the vaults beneath. The Palace of the Prophets had simply disintegrated. Richard had done it to keep the incredible knowledge stored there from falling into the hands of Jagang, the evil dreamwalker who could have used that lore to crush the world.

  And in the chaos of the palace’s destruction, the prophet Nathan had somehow managed to escape, to break free of the iron collar around his neck, the Rada’Han, and to fake his own death. He had slipped away with Verna’s predecessor, Prelate Ann. Verna wished she could give that responsibility back to the older woman; she had never wanted it.

  “The island looks so empty,” she said. “Has anyone searched the ruins of the palace?”

  “You’ll have to ask General Zimmer,” Norcross said. “I haven’t been here before, but from what I’ve heard tell, there are no ruins to search.” His smile turned into a frown. “There’s just … nothing.”

  As they passed through the streets of Tanimura, the horses’ hooves clattered on the cobblestones. They rode through squares where children clambered up the sides of buildings to hang pennants of D’Hara. From the shelter of alleys, small dogs barked at the long line of soldiers, but the D’Haran horses were as well trained as the men, and they did not spook.

  Norcross continued to wave, calling
out to the people, “We bring greetings and good wishes from Lord Rahl.”

  The crowds in the streets waved and shouted, “Lord Rahl, Lord Rahl!”

  Verna knew that here, far to the south, these people had faced the oppression of the Imperial Order, and they had good reason to celebrate Richard’s victory, but they had escaped the recent war of the soulless half people raised by Hannis Arc and Emperor Sulachan.

  When the contingent finally reached the waterfront, Verna smelled the salt air and smiled as she looked out at the busy harbor, where creaking two- and three-masted ships filled the piers. Fishmongers, shell sellers, and merchants waving exotic items vied for the attentions of passersby. Painted women in filmy clothes leaned out of brothel windows, flirting with the soldiers, confident that their business would pick up soon.

  Verna spotted the newly constructed garrison headquarters that had replaced several dockside warehouses, fronted by a stockade built from fresh-scrubbed timber. Captain Norcross informed her that the soldiers had spacious new barracks inside the garrison, but many of the inns and large warehouses had also been pressed into service to accommodate the increased military presence. As the long column of horses rode along the waterfront road, watchmen at the garrison walls blew horns to call the stationed soldiers to order. The new stockade gates opened, and armored men came out to greet them.

  The horses cantered into the garrison yard while soldiers hurried out to flank them and greet them. Captain Norcross slid off his dappled gray horse and took the halter of Verna’s black mare. “I’ll help you down, Prelate. General Zimmer will want to see you right away.”

  “You overstate my influence. I am just your guest,” she said. “He should be far more concerned with accepting your reinforcements for the garrison.”

  Norcross laughed. “Dear spirits, Prelate, sometimes you say amazing things! Don’t you realize how important you are?”