Page 10 of Shroud of Eternity (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles 2)

“Even though the outside world always had interest in us,” Maxim interjected, cocking a grin. “My dear Thora possesses no curiosity.” He rose from the throne in a fluid, catlike movement, stepping toward Nicci. “Welcome to Ildakar. We are always eager to meet intrepid explorers from the hostile world outside of our protective bubble.” He waved his left hand to indicate generalized but unidentified lands beyond the boundaries of the city.

While Bannon hung back, clearly out of his depth, Nathan followed Nicci’s lead. The former wizard fluffed the front of his ruffled shirt, adjusted his own cape, and tried to make himself presentable. He broke in, smiling. “We have much knowledge to share, and we can benefit greatly from one another.” He brushed back his long hair, seeming oddly uncertain, even nervous. Nicci knew how badly he wanted answers.

Gathering his courage, Bannon stepped up to join Nicci and Nathan. Before she could caution him to remain silent, the young man blurted out, “We saw your city from Kol Adair. We came from over the mountains. I am from Chiriya Island. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

“Islands are in the sea,” Sovrena Thora said. “And the sea is far from here, miles downriver and beyond the estuary.”

“Then perhaps we should know more about it, my dear,” said Maxim. “Knowledge equals power.”

“We have enough power,” Thora said.

“Never enough power.”

“You two must be married,” Nathan pointed out, striking a light tone. “Is that true?”

“For nearly two thousand years,” Maxim said, “even before General Utros came to lay siege to the city.”

Thora’s icy expression indicated that she had stopped counting the years of marriage long ago, and simply endured.

The doors opened on the side of the receiving room, and six wizards hurried in, gifted men and a woman wearing robes and amulets, carrying staffs or other obvious trappings of their position. High Captain Avery rose to his feet and stepped back. “The wizards’ duma has arrived.”

Still sitting on her throne, Thora said, “Thank you for summoning them, Captain. The duma members should hear what these guests have to say.” She paused. “In case any of it is relevant.”

Wizard Commander Maxim strolled down from the dais and crossed the blue marble floor to the long stone tables as the other six wizards took their seats. He swept his hands out in a grand gesture, looking back at the guests. “Allow me to introduce the other primary wizards of Ildakar—Damon, Elsa, Quentin, Ivan, Andre, and Renn.”

Nathan gave a brief respectful bow, but he raised his eyebrows in a question. “An even number of voters on a council? You must all be in agreement.”

“They are,” Thora said.

“We used to have an odd number, but one sorceress decided to challenge the sovrena. Very unwise.” Maxim stroked his dark goatee. “And as you see, she lost her bid. Poor Lani.” He indicated a white statue standing on display opposite the wall of windows—a tall, regal-looking woman whose hair was in ringlets, all preserved in stone. Her face looked angry, her hand outstretched, her fingers curled as if about to release a spell. But she had been petrified in place.

“That happened a century ago,” Thora said. “No one has challenged me since.”

“We have done just fine without Lani, hmmm?” said the wizard named Andre. He had a shaved head and a gray-brown beard tightly braided like a thick brush that protruded from the point of his chin. “We have our own work in Ildakar, each of us with our special areas of expertise.”

Nicci looked from Maxim to Thora, noting the icy, invisible curtain that seemed to hang between them. She couldn’t help but contrast this coldness with the depthless love that Richard and Kahlan had for each other. The sovrena and the wizard commander clearly had no such bond, at least not anymore.

“Fifteen centuries of peace,” mused Elsa, a matronly woman who wore deep purple robes. “At one time we all banded together to defend Ildakar, and we succeeded. Now we have Ildakar … exactly as it is.”

“Exactly as it is,” Thora agreed. “We preserved Ildakar. We built our own perfect society, just as we wish it to be.”

“We saw the army outside,” Nathan said. “Hundreds of thousands of warriors turned to stone. That is quite an impressive display of your magic. They’ve been here—petrified, all those centuries?”

“Challenging our city was the greatest mistake General Utros made,” said Maxim. “That fool Emperor Kurgan thought that if he had a big enough army, he could simply walk all over the world, take anything he liked.” Maxim tugged at the silk fabric of his open shirt, as if he’d grown hot in the chamber. “But as you could see, even an army so huge was no match for the wizards of Ildakar.” He strolled in front of the seated duma members. “While Iron Fang lounged in his capital and let his general do all the fighting for him, our city built up defenses that proved to be his downfall.”

Thora picked up the story, as if to upstage her husband. “General Utros brought his armies over the mountains. According to our scouts, he started with an army half a million strong, but only part of it survived to lay siege to Ildakar. But how does one feed an army of such size?”

“Or half that size, for that matter,” the wizard Damon interjected. He had shoulder-length dark hair and long drooping mustaches, each tip adorned with a pearl.

Ivan, a gruff and burly man with thick black hair and an unruly black beard, hunched at his bench, as if looking for something to break. He wore a tan jerkin of animal hide branded with strange symbols. With a sharp realization, Nicci thought the leather jerkin looked much like Mrra’s marked hide. Ivan grumbled, “We may have done them a favor by turning them to stone. We should have left them to starve out there. Or fester with disease. Let them rot and die while we laughed at them from inside the city.”

“By joining together, we defeated them with a single blow,” Thora said, still sitting in her tall chair. “We worked massive magic, unleashed power from the soul of our people. And, oh, the cost…” She looked at her husband with grudging respect. “The wizard commander was the focal point for the petrification spell. Maxim used the magic and turned them all to stone.”

He seemed immensely pleased with himself. “I was always the best sculptor in Ildakar, although my dear wife has potent magic as well—which she used against dear Lani.”

“We stopped the siege and defeated Utros’s army, but we knew more war would come,” Thora continued. “Emperor Kurgan might raise another force to get revenge, or if not Kurgan, then some other despot. We were weary of it.” The sovrena’s porcelain face grew flushed.

“We were also bored with it,” Maxim added, flashing a smile at Nicci. She stiffened. Was he flirting with her? The wizard commander continued, “So, we removed ourselves from the perilous outside world. We built the proper spell-forms throughout the walls of the city and then raised a shroud that encapsulated us in a protective reality where we have remained safe for one thousand five hundred years.” He crossed his thin arms over his open shirt.

Thora slid one slender leg over the other, rippling her sky-blue skirts. “Thus leaving us free to create our perfect society here.” She looked down at the visitors, and her smile reminded Nicci of the curve of a sharp knife.

CHAPTER 9

As they descended the last line of mountains heading west, far from Cliffwall, the two young scholars paused to stare at the wide band of water ahead of them. Yes, they were on an important mission for the sorceress Nicci, but would wonders never cease?

Oliver blinked several times, trying to focus his eyes. After all his years in the isolated archive, his vision was better suited for close-up reading, studying countless documents in faded handwriting by lamplight. This expansive landscape stretched his imagination. “Is that the ocean?” he asked with a clear sense of awe. “I’ve never seen the ocean.”

“No one from Cliffwall has,” said Peretta, “not in our lifetimes.” Standing all too close to him, the skinny young woman shaded her eyes against the slanting after

noon sun. She was a memmer, one of those who used their gift to memorize countless volumes of magical and historical lore from the wizards’ archive. Unfortunately, that ability seemed to make Peretta think she knew everything. “But that isn’t the sea.” She extended her thin arm, pointing a stern finger as if she were about to lecture him. “It’s just a river flowing down toward the ocean, exactly as the people of Lockridge told us. You can see the bank on the opposite side.”

Oliver squinted again. Yes, there was a bank on the other side, not even terribly far away. “It’s so much wider than the water running through the Cliffwall canyons.”

Peretta sniffed. “All we had was a stream. This is a real river.”

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