“How is Chase?” Richard asked, considerably quieter. He wanted to know why Shota was hunting Samuel, but at the moment there were more important worries weighing on his mind. “Is he going to be all right?”
“I believe so,” Shota said. “He’d been run through with a sword—”
“With my sword.”
Shota didn’t argue the distinction. “I’m not a healer, but I do have certain abilities and I was able to at least reverse his journey toward death. I found some people who could care for him and help him recover. I believe he is safe for the time being. It will be a while before he is on his feet again.”
“And why didn’t Samuel kill him?” Cara asked from the top step.
“He stabbed Tovi the same way,” Nicci said. “He didn’t kill her, either.”
“Samuel is certainly capable of murder,” Richard pointed out.
Shota clasped her hands before herself. “Samuel apparently couldn’t muster the courage to kill with the sword. He has done so in the past—when the sword was his before—and so he knows the pain it causes
when it is used to kill.” She arched an eyebrow at Richard. “I’m sure you know well what I’m talking about.”
“It’s a weapon that does not belong in the wrong hands,” Richard said.
Shota ignored Richard’s gibe and went on. “His is the way of a coward. A coward will often leave the person to die on their own, away from his sight.”
“They suffer all the more that way,” Zedd pointed out. “It’s more cruel. Perhaps that was his reason.”
The witch woman shook her head. “Samuel is a coward and an opportunist; his goal is not cruelty but rather is entirely self-centered. Cowards don’t necessarily think things out. They act on whim. They want what they want when they want it.
“Samuel will rarely bother to consider the consequences of his actions; he simply snatches something when he sees an opportunity, when he sees something he desires. He shrinks from the pain it would cause him to kill with the sword and so he fails to complete the killing he initiated on impulse. If the person he injures suffers an agonizing and prolonged end, it doesn’t matter to Samuel because he isn’t around to witness it. Out of sight, out of mind. That was what he did to Chase.”
“And you gave him the sword,” Richard said, unable to disguise his anger. “You knew what he was like and you still made it possible for him to do this.”
Shota regarded him a moment before answering. “That’s not the way it was, Richard. I gave him the sword because I thought it would make him content. I believed that he would be satisfied to have it back in his possession. I thought it would mellow his lingering resentment at having the sword so abruptly taken from him.”
Shota cast a brief but murderous look at Zedd.
“So, you didn’t consider the consequences of your actions,” Richard said. “You simply wanted what you wanted when you wanted it.”
Shota’s gaze slid back to Richard. “After all this time, and everything that has happened, you are still as flippant as ever?”
Richard wasn’t in a mood to apologize.
“I’m afraid that there is more to this,” Shota said, somewhat less heatedly, “more than I realized at the time.”
Zedd rubbed his chin as he considered the situation. “Samuel must have stabbed Chase and then kidnapped Rachel.”
Richard was surprised by Zedd’s suggestion; he hadn’t thought of that. He had assumed that Rachel had gone to find help.
He turned a frown on Shota. “Why would Samuel do such a thing?”
“I’m afraid that I don’t have any idea.” Shota looked up at Nicci, still standing at the top of the granite steps. “Who is this woman you say he stabbed? This Tovi?”
“She was a Sister of the Dark. And it is no idle accusation. Tovi didn’t know the person who stabbed her, didn’t know who Samuel was, but she certainly knew the Sword of Truth; she was once one of Richard’s teachers back at the Palace of the Prophets. Just before she died she told me how she and three other Sisters of the Dark had ignited a Chainfire spell around Kahlan to make everyone forget her. They then used Kahlan to steal the boxes of Orden from the People’s Palace.”
Shota’s brow creased. She looked truly perplexed.
“The boxes of Orden are in play,” Richard added.
Shota flicked a hand dismissively as she stared off in thought. “That much I have come to know. But I did not know how it came to be.”
Richard wondered how much more of the story she knew, but he told it anyway. “Tovi was taking one of the boxes of Orden away from the People’s Palace, in D’Hara, when Samuel jumped her, ran her through with the sword, and then stole the box she was carrying.”
Shota again looked surprised, but the look was quickly banished by quiet fury as she silently considered what she’d been told.
“I’ve known Chase my whole life,” Richard said. “While anyone can make a mistake, I’ve never known him to be caught off guard by someone lying in wait. I can’t imagine that Sisters of the Dark are much easier to ambush. Gifted people of their level of talent and ability have a sense of people being around them.”
Shota looked up at him. “Your point?”
“Samuel was somehow able to surprise a Sister of the Dark, and a boundary warden.” Richard folded his arms across his chest. “What’s more, every time Samuel tries to accomplish something evil you always act all surprised and disavow any knowledge of what he was up to. What’s your part in all this, Shota?”
“None. I had no idea of what he was up to.”
“Unlike you to be so ignorant.”
Her cheeks mantled. “You don’t know the half of it.” She finally turned
away from him and headed for the steps. “I told you, we have much to talk about.”
Richard caught her arm, turning her back. “Did you have anything to do with Samuel being able to sneak up on Chase or surprise Tovi and steal that box? Other than providing him with the weapon to accomplish the deed and no doubt telling him all about the power the boxes of Orden contain, I mean.”
She searched his eyes for a time. “Do you wish to kill me, Richard?”
“Kill you? Shota, I’ve been the best friend you’ve ever had.”
“Then you will put your anger aside and listen to what we have come to tell you.” She pulled away from the grip on her arm and again started for the steps. “Let’s get inside and out of this foul weather.”
Richard glanced to the blue sky. “The weather is beautiful,” he said as he watched her ascend the steps.
At the top she halted to share a brief glare with Nicci before turning to look down at Richard. It was the kind of haunting, timeless, troubling look that he imagined only a witch woman could conjure.
“Not in my world,” she said in a near whisper. “In my world it’s raining.”
Shota glided down the steps to stand before the fountain. The diaphanous fabric of the dress that covered her statuesque form moved ever so slightly, as if in a gentle breeze. The gushing, cascading, effervescent waters danced and sparkled in the light from the skylights far above, putting on an exhilarating performance for the gathered audience. Shota stared absently at it for a moment, as if preoccupied with her own private thoughts, and then turned to the small crowd waiting just inside the huge double doors. They all stood silently, watching her, as if awaiting a queen’s pronouncement.
Behind Shota, the water in the fountain sprayed high into the air. The exuberant surge of spray abruptly stopped. The last of the water, still rising just before the flow had cut off, reached its zenith, a dying liquid arc, and fell back as if slain. The dozens of uniform streams of water overflowing the down-turned points in the tiers of bowls, as if embarrassed by their frothy frolic, slowed to a stop and finally fell silent.
Zedd stepped to the brink of the steps, a forbidding look settling into the lines of his face. As he halted, the swirl of his simple robes gathered around his legs. At that moment it struck Richard that his grandfather looked very much like who he was: the First Wizard. If Richard had thought that Nicci and Shota had looked dangerous, he realized that Zedd was no less so. At that moment he was a thundercloud harboring hidden lightning.
“I’ll not have you tampering with anything in this place. I indulge you because you have come here for reasons that
may
somehow be important to us all, but my leniency will not tolerate your meddling with anything here.”
Shota flicked a hand, dismissing his warning. “I assumed that you would not acquiesce to me going any farther than this room. The fountain is noisy. I don’t want Richard to fail to hear anything I or Jebra has to say.”
She lifted an arm toward Ann, standing beside Nathan, watching,
almost unseen in the deep shadows of the balcony and soaring red pillars. “It is a matter that has been close to your heart for half of your life, Prelate.”
“I am no longer Prelate,” Ann said in a quietly commanding voice that sounded very much as if she still were.
“Why were you hunting Samuel?” Cara asked, drawing the witch woman’s attention.
“Because he was not supposed to have left my valley in Agaden Reach. Moreover, he should not have been able to do so without my expressed permission.”
“And yet he did,” Richard said.
Shota nodded. “So I went looking for him.”
Richard clasped his hands behind his back. “How is it, Shota, that you weren’t aware that Samuel was going to leave you? I mean, considering your power, vast knowledge, and all that business you’ve explained to me about how a witch woman can see the way that events flow forward in time. For that matter, how was he able to do so without your consent?”
Shota did not shrink from the question. “There is only one way.”
Richard bit back the sarcastic remark that came to mind and instead asked, “And what would that be?”
“Samuel has been bewitched.”
Richard wasn’t sure that he’d heard her correctly. “Bewitched. But you’re the witch woman. You’re the one who does the bewitching.”
Shota clasped her hands, looking down at the floor a moment as she folded her fingers together. “He was bewitched by another.”
Richard descended the five steps. “Another witch woman?”
“Yes.”
Richard took a deep breath as he glanced around to see the others sharing troubled looks. No one appeared inclined to ask, so he did. “You mean to say that there is another witch woman around, and she bewitched Samuel away from you?”
“I thought that I had made that perfectly clear.”
“Well…where is she?”
“I have no idea. Certain issues in the flow of time are my business—I have seen to it. For me to be this blind to events that eddy so tightly through my purview can only mean that another witch woman has deliberately occulted those flows from me.”
Richard stuffed his hands in his back pockets as he tried to reason it out. He paced briefly before turning back to her.
“Maybe it wasn’t a witch woman. Maybe it was a Sister of the Dark or someone like that. A gifted person. Maybe even a wizard. Jagang has those, too.”
“To manipulate a witch woman in an insignificant way is far from an easy task.” She shot a brief glare up at Zedd. “Ask your grandfather.”
Shota gestured around at some of the people in the room before her gaze returned to Richard. “A gifted person, even such as these, no matter how talented, could not begin to achieve a deception as comprehensive as this one has been. Only another witch woman could slip herself unseen into my domain. Only another witch woman could draw a shroud over my vision and then bewitch Samuel into doing what he has done.”
“If your vision is shrouded,” Cara asked, “how can you be so certain that Samuel has been bewitched? Maybe he was acting on his own. From what I’ve seen of him, he needs no mysterious enchantress to coax him into impulsive behavior. He seemed plenty treacherous all on his own.”
Shota slowly shook her head. “You have only to look at what you’ve told me to see that this involves not simply cunning but knowledge beyond Samuel’s ability. A Sister of the Dark was attacked; a box of Orden was stolen from her. In the first place, how would Samuel be aware that this woman had anything valuable? I didn’t know of her myself because that is part of what has been hidden from me, so I couldn’t have told him—not even absently, carelessly, or inadvertently, which is what you’re thinking. So, Samuel didn’t learn of it from me. If he happened across a treasure of some sort there is no doubt that Samuel is fully capable of doing whatever he could to snatch it, that much I concede.”
“You mean the way he acquired the Sword of Truth in the first place?” Zedd asked.
Shota met his gaze briefly but chose to return to the matter at hand rather than confront the challenge. “Secondly, how would Samuel know where he could find a Sister carrying a box of Orden? You can’t seriously mean to suggest that you think he simply was wandering around—way off in D’Hara—and by chance happened across this very Sister of the Dark, stabbed her, and robbed her of what she was carrying only to have it turn out to be one of the boxes of Orden?”
“I have to admit,” Richard said, “I never have much believed in coincidence. It certainly doesn’t seem plausible in this case, either.”
“My thoughts, exactly,” Shota said. “And then there’s Chase. Due to his grave condition I wasn’t able to learn much from him, but I was able to discover that he had been ambushed. Another coincidence—Samuel happening across and randomly attacking someone and it just happens to be someone else you know? I hardly think so. That leaves the question of why Samuel would be lying in wait for a man you know. Why would he attack him? What thing of value did Chase have?”
“Rachel,” Zedd answered as he stared off, rubbing his chin in thought.
“But what would he want with a girl?” Cara asked. When several people glanced her way with troubled looks, she added, “I mean, that girl in particular?”
“I don’t know,” Shota said. “And that’s the problem. As I’ve said, the events surrounding all of this are blocked to me, but blocked in a way that I didn’t recognize, so I was unaware that anything was being hidden. It’s obvious that there is a hand directing Samuel. That hand could only be another witch woman’s.”
“Do you know her?” Richard asked. “Do you know who it is, or who she might be?”
Shota regarded him with as forbidding a look as he had ever seen grace such feminine features. “She is a complete mystery to me.”
“Where did she come from? Do you have any idea about that much of it?”
Shota’s scowl only darkened. “Oh, I think I do. I believe she came up from the Old World. When you destroyed the great barrier several years back she no doubt saw an opportunity and moved into my territory—in much the same way that the Imperial Order saw an opportunity to invade and conquer the New World. By bewitching Samuel she is sending a message that she is taking my place, taking what is mine—including my territory—as her own.”
Richard turned toward Ann, off at the side of the anteroom. “Do you know of a witch woman in the Old World?”
“I ran the Palace of the Prophets, guiding young wizards and a whole palace full of Sisters toward the way of the Light. I paid great heed to prophecy in that task but, other than prophecy, I didn’t really involve myself in the goings-on in the rest the Old World. From time to time I heard
vague rumors of witch women, but nothing more than rumors. If she was real, she never stuck her head up for me to know of her.”
“I never knew anything of a witch woman, either,” Nathan added with a sigh. “I never even heard the rumors of such a woman.”
Shota folded her arms. “We’re a rather secretive lot.”
Richard wished he knew more about such things—although knowing one witch woman had proven on more than one occasion to be trouble enough. It seemed that there might now be twice the trouble.
“Her name is Six,” Nicci said into the quiet anteroom.
Everyone turned to stare at her.
Shota’s brow drew down. “What did you say?”
“The witch woman down in the Old World. Her name is Six, like the number.” Nicci’s expression had that cool absence of emotion again, her features as still as a woodland pond at dawn after the first hard freeze of the season. “I never met her, but the Sisters of the Dark spoke of her in hushed tones.”
“It would be those Sisters,” Ann grumbled.
Shota’s arms slowly dropped to her sides as she took a step away from the fountain, toward where Nicci stood on the expanse of marble floor at the top of the steps. “What do you know of her?”
“Nothing much. I’ve only heard her name, Six. I only remember it because it was unusual. Some of my superiors at the time—my Sisters of the Dark superiors—apparently did know her. I heard her name mentioned several times.”
Shota’s countenance had turned as dark and dangerous as that of a viper with its fangs bared. “What were Sisters of the Dark doing with a witch woman?”
“I don’t really know,” Nicci said. “They may have had dealings with her, but if they did I never knew about it. I wasn’t always included in their schemes. It may be that they only knew of her. It’s possible they never even met her.”
“Or it’s possible that they knew her well.”
Nicci shrugged. “Maybe. You’d have to ask them. I suggest you hurry—Samuel has already killed one of them.”
Shota ignored the taunt and turned away to stare into the still waters of the fountain. “You must have heard them say something about her.”
“Nothing very specific,” Nicci said.
“Well,” Shota said with exaggerated patience as she turned back around, “what was the general nature of what they were saying about her?”
“I only got a sense of two things. I heard that the witch, Six, lived far to the south. The Sisters mentioned that she lived much deeper down in the Old World, in some of the trackless forests and swampland.” Nicci gazed resolutely into Shota’s eyes. “And they were afraid of her.”
Shota folded her arms across her breasts again. “Afraid of her,” she repeated in a flat tone.
“Terrified.”
Shota appraised Nicci’s eyes for a time before finally yet again turning to stare into the fountain, as if hoping to see some secret revealed in the placid waters.
“There’s nothing to say that it’s the same woman,” Richard said. “There’s no evidence to say that it’s this witch woman, Six, from the Old World.”
Shota glanced back over her shoulder. “You, of all people, suggest that it’s mere coincidence?” Her gaze again sought solace in the waters. “It doesn’t really matter if it is or not. It matters only that it is a witch woman and she is bent on causing me trouble.”
Richard stepped closer to Shota. “I find it pretty hard to believe that this other witch woman would have bewitched Samuel away from you just to show you up and have what’s yours. There has to be more to it.”
“Maybe it’s a challenge,” Cara said. “Maybe she is daring you to come out and fight.”
“That would require her to make herself known,” Shota said. “She has done just the opposite. She is deliberate and calculating about remaining concealed so that I can’t fight her.”
As he considered, Richard rested a boot on the marble bench surrounding the fountain. “I still say there has to be something more to this. Having Samuel steal one of the boxes of Orden has darker implications.”
“The more likely answer points to none other than your own hand, Shota.” Zedd’s words drew everyone’s attention. “This sounds more like one of your grand deceptions.”
“I can understand why you would think so, but if that were true then why would I come here to tell you of it?”
Zedd’s glare didn’t falter. “To make yourself look innocent when you are really the one in the shadows directing events.”
Shota rolled her eyes. “I don’t have time for such childish games, wizard. I have not been directing Samuel’s hand. My time has been spent on other, more important matters.”
“Such as?”
“I have been to Galea.”
“Galea!” Zedd snorted his disbelief. “What business would you have in Galea?”
Jebra laid a hand on Zedd’s shoulder. “She came to rescue me. I was in Ebinissia, caught up in the invasion and then enslaved. Shota pulled me out of the middle of it.”
Zedd turned a suspicious look on Shota. “You went to the crown city of Galea to rescue Jebra?”
Shota glanced briefly at Richard, a clouded look laden with meaning. “It was necessary.”
“Why?” Zedd pressed. “I’m relieved to have Jebra at last rescued from that horror, of course, but what exactly do you mean when you say that it was necessary?”
Shota caught a diaphanous point of the material making up her dress as it lifted ever so gently upward, like a cat arching its back, craving a gentle stroke from its mistress’s hand. “Events march onward toward a grim conclusion. If the course of those events does not change then we will be doomed to the rule of the invaders, bound to the mandate of people whose conviction, among other things, is that magic is an evil corruption that must be eradicated from the world. They believe that mankind is a sinful and corrupt being who should properly be unremarkable and helpless in the face of the almighty spectacle of nature. Those of us who possess magic, precisely because we are not unremarkable and helpless, will all be hunted down and destroyed.”