Naked Empire

Now that the palace had been destroyed, they would all age at the same rate as everyone else. What had only a short time ago been a future of maybe another hundred years of life for Ann was suddenly perhaps no more than a blink of a decade-certainly not much more.

But she doubted she would live all that long in such a dank hole, away from light and life.

Somehow, it didn't seem as if she and Nathan were close to a thousand years old. She didn't know what it felt like to age at the normal rate outside the spell, but she believed she felt little different than those outside the palace felt as they aged. She believed that the spell that slowed their aging also altered their perception of time-to a degree, anyway.

The footsteps were getting closer. Ann wasn't looking forward to another meal in this place. She was beginning to wish they would let her starve and get it over with. Let her die.

What good had her life been? When she really thought about it, what good had she really accomplished? The Creator knew how she tried to guide Richard in what needed to be done, but in the end it seemed that it was Richard's choice to act as he did, in most cases against what she thought needed to be done, that turned out to be correct. Had she not tried to guide events, bring him to the Palace of the Prophets in the Old World, maybe nothing would have changed and that would have been the way he was to save them all-by not having to act and letting Jagang and the Imperial Order eventually wither and die in the Old World, unable to spread their virulent beliefs beyond. Maybe she'd brought it all to ruin with her efforts alone.

She heard the door at the end of the passageway to her cell scrape open. She decided that she wouldn't eat. She wouldn't eat again until Nathan came to speak with her, as she had requested.

Sometimes, with the food, they sent in wine. Nathan sent it in to vex her, she was sure of that. From his confinement in the Palace of the Prophets, Nathan had sometimes requested wine. Ann always saw the report when such a request was made; she declined every such request.

Wizards were dangerous enough, prophets-who were wizards with the talent of prophecy-were potentially vastly more dangerous, and drunken prophets were the most dangerous of all. Prophecy given out willy-nilly was an invitation to calamity. Even simple prophecy escaping the confines of the stone walls of the Palace of the Prophets had started wars.

Nathan had sometimes requested the company of women. Ann hated those requests the most, because she sometimes granted them. She felt she had to.

Nathan had little of life, confined as he was to his apartments, his only real crime being the nature of his birth, his abilities. The palace could easily afford the price of a woman to sometimes visit him.

He made a mockery of that, often enough-giving out prophecy that sent the woman fleeing before they could speak with her, before they could silence her.

Those without the proper training were not meant to see prophecy.

Prophecy was easily misinterpreted by those without an understanding of its intricacies. To divulge prophecy to the uninitiated was like casting fire into dry grass.

Prophecy is not meant for the unenlightened.

At the thought of the prophet being loose, Ann's stomach tightened into a knot. Even so, she had sometimes secretly taken Nathan out herself, to go on important journeys with her-mostly journeys having to do with guiding some aspect of Richard's life, or, more accurately, trying to insure that Richard would be born and have a life. Besides being trouble on two feet, Nathan was also a remarkable prophet who did have a sincere interest in seeing their side triumph. After all, he saw in prophecy the alternative, and when Nathan saw prophecy, he saw it in all its terrible truth.

Nathan always wore a Rada'Han-a collar-that enabled her, or any Sister, to control him, so taking him on those journeys wasn't actually putting the world at risk of the man. He had to do as she said, go where she said. Whenever she had taken him out on a mission with her, he was not really free, since he wore a Rada'Han and she could thus control him.

Now he was without a Rada'Han. He was truly free.

Ann didn't want any supper. She resolved to turn it away when they passed the pole in to her. Let Nathan fret that she might refuse food altogether and die while under his fickle control. Ann folded her arms.

Let him have that on his conscience. That would bring the man down to see her.

Ann heard the footsteps come to a halt outside the far door. Muffled voices drifted in to her. Had she ready access to her Han, she would have been able to concentrate her hearing toward those voices and easily hear their words. She sighed. Even that ability was useless to her here, in this place, under the power invoked by the spell form of the layout of the palace. It would hardly make sense to create such elaborate plans to curtail another's magic and allow them to hear secrets whispered inside the walls.