Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

His age, like Nicci's, was relevant only to those who at the time had lived outside the spell of the Palace of the Prophets. Those in the palace aged just like anyone else, but at a slower rate only when compared to those who lived outside the spell. Time had moved differently within the palace. Now that the palace, the home of the Sisters of the Light for thousands of years, had been destroyed, Nathan, Ann, Nicci, and all the others who had once called the place home would age at the same rate as everyone else.

Nicci remembered the prophet as always wearing robes when he'd lived as a captive in his apartments at the Palace of the Prophets. As a Sister of the Light, it had sometimes been required that she visit him in those apartments to write down anything he claimed to be prophecy. Nicci never really thought one way or the other about the task; it was just one of many required of her. There were Sisters, though, who would not go down into Nathan's apartments alone.

Now he was in brown trousers and a ruffled white shirt under a dark green vest. The hem of his maroon cape hovered just above the floor, swirling around his black boots after he came to a halt. Dressed as he now was, he cut an imposing figure.

Nicci couldn't imagine why, but at his hip he wore a sword sheathed in an elegant scabbard. Wizards hardly needed swords. Being the only prophet those at the palace had known of in recent centuries, he had always been an unfathomable character.

Many of the Sisters at the palace used to believe that Nathan was crazy. Many feared him. It wasn't so much that Nathan gave them cause for their fear as it was that their imagination provided colorful terrors that the mere sight of him somehow seemed to confirm. Nicci didn't know if very many of the Sisters now thought any differently, but she did know that a number of them were greatly worried because he was no longer locked up behind powerful shields. While a few thought he was rather harmless, if a little odd, most of the Sisters considered him to be the most dangerous man alive. Nicci had come to see him differently.

Moreover, he was now the Lord Rahl, standing in for Richard.

"Where is Verna?" Nicci asked. "I need to talk with her as well."

Coming to a halt beside Nathan, Ann tipped her head back toward the empty hallway. "She and Adie are off meeting with General Trimack about security issues. Since it's getting late I told Berdine to let them both know that you and Cara just arrived from the Keep and that we will all shortly meet them in the private dining room."

Nicci nodded. "That sounds like a good idea."

"In the meantime," Nathan pressed, "what news is there?"

Nicci was still disoriented from traveling in the sliph. It was a distracting experience in which time seemed to lose all meaning. On top of that, being in the People's Palace only added to her discomfort. The entire palace existed within a spell that amplified the power of the Lord Rahl. At the same time, the spell diminished the power of every other gifted person. Nicci wasn't used to the feeling. It made her restless and uneasy.

Being in the sliph also reminded her of Richard. She supposed that everything made her think of Richard. It seemed that her nerves were always on edge with worry for him.

It took a moment for Nicci to focus her mind on the question as she struggled to put thoughts of Richard aside. As improbable as it seemed, this man, not Richard, was now the Lord Rahl. Ann, the former prelate, his former jailer, stood beside him waiting to hear the answer to his question.

"I'm afraid that the news is not very good," Nicci admitted.

"You mean about Richard?" Ann asked.

Nicci shook her head. "We've had no news about him, yet."

Nathan's brow took on an even more suspicious slant. "Then what news are you talking about?"

Nicci took a deep breath. It still felt strange breathing air after being in the sliph. Despite having traveled in the strange creature before, she didn't think she would ever get used to breathing into her lungs the liquid silver essence that was the sliph.

Mentally gathering her thoughts, she gazed out over the short section of balcony railing. The particular portion of the hallway that they were in bridged a complex of expansive halls below. Overhead, out through the opening with the balcony, late-day light flooded into the palace through skylights above. The short balcony, between rather dark runs of the hallway beyond in either direction, was almost like a window looking out into the People's Palace. Nicci imagined that, being a rather small opening, it was probably meant to allow a covert place to watch the halls below.