Blood of the Fold (9 page)

They had had to search the vaults for guidance as no one living had ever participated in the ceremony; it had not been performed in almost eight hundred years—791, to be precise: the last time a prelate had died.

As they had learned in the old books, only the Prelate was to have her soul released to the Creator’s protection in the sacred funeral rite, but in this case the Sisters had all voted to grant the same privilege to the one who had struggled so valiantly to save her. The books had said that dispensation from the exclusion could only be granted by unanimous consent. It had taken heated persuasion to make it so.

By custom, as the sun finally and fully gained the horizon, washing the fire with the complete spectacle of Creator’s own light, the flow of Han was withdrawn. Their power recalled, the pyre collapsed, leaving only a stain of ash and a few charred logs to mark the site of the ceremony on the green hilltop. Smoke curled upward, dissipating into the silent, brightening day.

Grayish white ashes were all that was left in the world of the living of Prelate Annalina, and the prophet Nathan. It was done.

Without words, Sisters began drifting away, some in solitude, others placing a comforting arm around the shoulder of a boy or a novice. Like lost souls, they meandered down the hill toward the city, and the Palace of the Prophets, going to a home without a mother. As Sister Verna kissed her ring finger, she guessed that with the prophet also dead, they were in a way without a father as well.

She folded her fingers together over her stomach as she absently watched the others walking off into the distance. She had never had the chance to make her peace with the Prelate before she had died. The woman had used her, humiliated her, and allowed her to be abased for doing her duty and following orders. Though all Sisters served the Creator, and she knew that what the Prelate had done must have been for a greater good, it hurt that the Prelate had exploited that fidelity. It made her feel a fool.

Because Prelate Annalina had been injured in the attack by Ulicia, a Sister of the Dark, and had since remained unconscious for near to three weeks prior to her death, Sister Verna had never had a chance to talk to her. Only Nathan had attended the Prelate, trying tirelessly to heal her, but in the end he had failed. It was cruel fate that took his life, too. Though Nathan had always seemed vigorous to her, the strain must have been too much for him; he had, after all, been near to one thousand years old. She guessed he had aged in the twenty-odd years she had been away seeking Richard and finally bringing him to the palace.

Sister Verna smiled at the memory of Richard; she missed him, too. He had vexed her to the limits of her tolerance, but he, too, had been a victim of the Prelate’s plans, although he seemed to have understood and accepted the things she had done and had not held any ill feelings toward her.

She felt a pang of heartache at the thought that Richard’s love, Kahlan, had probably died in the climax of that terrible prophecy. She hoped it wasn’t so. The Prelate had been a resolute woman, and had orchestrated events in the lives of a great many people. Sister Verna hoped it had truly been done for the good of the Creator’s children, and not simply for the Prelate’s own ambitions.

“
You look angry, Sister Verna.”

She turned to see young Warren standing with his hands in the opposite, silver brocade sleeves of his deep violet robes. She glanced around and realized that the two of them were alone on the hillside; the others, long gone, were dark specks in the distance.

“
Perhaps I am, Warren.”

“
What are you angry about, Sister?”

With the palms of her hands, she smoothed her dark skirt at her hips. “Maybe I’m just angry with myself.” She sought to change the subject as she straightened her light blue shawl. “You’re so young, in your studies I mean, that I’m still having trouble getting used to seeing you without a Rada’Han.”

As if she had reminded him, his fingers stroked his neck where the collar had been for most of his life. “Young for those living under the spell at the palace, perhaps, but hardly young for those in the outside world—I am one hundred and fifty seven, Sister. But I do appreciate that you took my collar off.” He took his fingers from his neck and brushed back a lock of curly blond hair. “It seems like the whole world has been turned upside down in the last few months.”

She chuckled. “I miss Richard, too.”

An easy grin brightened his face. “Really? He was a rare person, wasn’t he. I can hardly believe that he was able to prevent the Keeper from escaping the underworld, but he had to have stopped the spirit of his father, and returned the Stone of Tears to its rightful place, or we would all have been swallowed by the dead. To tell the truth, I was in a cold sweat the whole of winter solstice.”

Sister Verna nodded, as if to add emphasis to her sincerity. “The things you helped teach him must have been valuable. You did well, too, Warren.” She studied his gentle smile for a moment, noticing how little it had changed over all the years. “I’m glad you decided to remain at the palace for a time, even though you have your collar off. We are without a prophet, it would seem.”

He looked to the stain of ashes. “Most of my life I’ve studied the prophecies down in the vaults, and I never knew that some were given by a prophet still living, much less at the palace. I wish they had told me. I wish they had let me talk to him, learn from him. Now the chance is lost.”

“
Nathan was a dangerous man, an enigma who none of us could ever fully understand or trust, but maybe it was wrong of them to prevent you from visiting him. Know that in time, when you learned more, the Sisters would have allowed it, if not required it.”

He glanced away. “But now the chance has been lost.”

“
Warren, now that you have the collar off, I know you’re anxious to go out into the world, but you’ve said that you intend to stay at the palace, at least for a time, to study. The palace is without a prophet, now. I think you should consider the fact that your gift manifests itself strongly in that area. You could someday be a prophet.”

A gentle breeze rippled his robes as he looked out over the green hills toward the palace. “Not only my gift, but my interest, my hopes, have always involved the prophecies. I’ve only recently begun to understand them in a way that no one else does, but understanding them is different than giving them.”

“
It takes time, Warren. Why, when Nathan was your age, I’m sure he was no more advanced in prophecy than you. If you stayed and continued to study, I believe that in four or five hundred years you might be a prophet as great as Nathan.”

He was silent for a time. “But there’s a whole world out there. I’ve heard there are books at the Wizard’s Keep in Aydindril, and other places, too. Richard said there are sure to be many at the People’s Palace in D’Hara. I want to learn, and there may be things to know that can’t be found here.”

Sister Verna rolled her shoulders to ease their ache. “The Palace of the Prophets is spelled, Warren. If you leave, you will age the same as those outside. Look at what’s happened to me in a scant twenty-odd years away from it; even though we were born only a year apart you still look as if you should be thinking of marriage, and I look as if I should be preparing to bounce a grandchild on my knee. Now that I’m back, I will age by the palace’s time again, but what has been lost cannot be recovered.”

Warren averted his eyes. “I think you see more wrinkles than are there, Sister Verna.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “Did you know, Warren, that I was once smitten with you?”

He was so astonished he stumbled back a step. “Me? You can’t be serious. When?”

“
Oh, it was a long time ago. Well over a hundred years, I would suppose. You were so scholarly and intelligent, with all that curly blond hair. And those blue eyes made my heart race.”

“
Sister Verna!”

She couldn’t hold back a chuckle as his face went crimson. “It was long ago, Warren, and I was young, as were you. It was a fleeting infatuation.” Her smile ghosted away. “Now you seem a child to me, and I look old enough to be your mother. Being away from the palace has aged me in more ways than one.

“
Out there, you will have a few brief decades to learn what you could before you grow old and die. Here, you would have the time to learn and perhaps become a prophet. Books from those places could always be borrowed, and brought here for study.

“
You’re the closest thing we have to a prophet. With the Prelate and Nathan dead, you may know more about the prophecies than anyone alive, now. We need you, Warren.”

He turned to the sunlight shimmering off the spires and roofs of the palace. “I’ll think on it, Sister.”

“
That’s all I ask, Warren.”

With a sigh, he turned back. “What now? Who do you think will be chosen as the new prelate?”

They had learned through their research of the funeral rite that the process of selecting a new prelate was quite involved. Warren would know of it; few knew the books in the vaults as well as he.

She shrugged. “The post requires vast experience and knowledge. That means it would have to be one of the older Sisters. Leoma Marsick would be a likely candidate, or Philippa, or Dulcinia. Sister Maren, of course, would be a top nominee. There are any number of qualified Sisters; I could name at least thirty, though I doubt that more than a dozen truly have a serious chance to become prelate.”

He absently rubbed the side of his nose with a finger. “I suppose you’re right.”

Sister Verna had no doubt that Sisters were already maneuvering to place themselves in contention, if not at the top of the list, with the less venerated choosing their champion and forming rank to back her, doing their best to see to it that she was selected, and hoping to be awarded a position of influence if their favorite became the new prelate. As the field of candidates narrowed, the more influential Sisters who hadn’t yet chosen sides would be courted until they were won over to one or another of the leading Sisters. It was a momentous decision, one that would affect the palace for hundreds of years to come. It would likely be a bitter battle.

Sister Verna sighed. “I don’t look forward to the struggle, but I guess that the selection process must be rigorous, so that the strongest will become prelate. It could drag on for a long time; we could be without a prelate for months, maybe a year.”

“
Who are you going to support, Sister?”

She barked a laugh. “Me! You’re only seeing the wrinkles again, Warren. They don’t change the fact that I’m one of the younger Sisters. I have no influence among those who would count.”

“
Well, I think you had better try to get some influence.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice even though there was no one around. “The six Sisters of the Dark who escaped on that ship, remember?”

She looked to his blue eyes and frowned. “What does that have to do with who will become prelate?”

Warren twisted the robes at his stomach into a violet knot. “Who’s to say there were only six. What if there’s another at the palace? Or another dozen? Or hundred? Sister Verna, you’re the only Sister I trust to be a true Sister of the Light. You must do something to insure that a Sister of the Dark doesn’t become prelate.”

She glanced to the palace in the distance. “I told you, I’m one of the younger Sisters. My word holds no sway, and the others know that the Sisters of the Dark all escaped.”

Warren looked away, trying to smooth out the wrinkles in his robes. Suddenly, he turned back, suspicion creasing his brow.

“
You think I’m right, don’t you. You think there are still Sisters of the Dark at the palace.”

She met his intense eyes with a placid expression. “While I don’t think it entirely out of the realm of possibility, there is no reason to believe it is so, and beyond that, it is only one of a great many matters that must be taken into consideration when—”

“
Don’t give me that double-talk that comes so easily to Sisters. This is important.”

Sister Verna stiffened. “You are a student, Warren, speaking to a Sister of the Light; show the proper respect.”

“
I’m not being disrespectful, Sister. Richard helped me to see that I must stand up for myself and for what I believe. Besides, you’re the one who took my collar off, and as you said, we’re the same age; you are not my elder.”

“
You are still a student who—”

“
Who you yourself said probably knows more about the prophecies than anyone else. In that, Sister, you are my student. I admit that you know more than I about a great many things, like the use of Han, but I know more than you about some things. Part of the reason you took the Rada’Han from around my neck is because you know it’s wrong to hold someone captive. I respect you as a Sister, and for the good you do, and for the knowledge you have, but I am no longer a captive of the Sisters. You have earned my respect, Sister, not my submission.”

She studied his blue eyes for a long moment. “Who would have known what was under that collar.” At last, she nodded. “You’re right, Warren; I suspect there are others at the palace who have given a soul oath to the Keeper himself.”

“
Others.” Warren searched her eyes. “You didn’t say Sisters, you said others. You mean young wizards, too, don’t you?”

“
Have you so soon forgotten Jedidiah?”

He paled a little. “No, I haven’t forgotten Jedidiah.”