Naked Empire

Nicholas strolled around the man in the center of the room. He gestured with the empty antidote bottle at the surroundings. "Not my idea of the proper way to live, if one has to live."

"So, you would have riches as a reward for doing your duty to the Creator, to the Imperial Order, and to your emperor."

The way Nicholas saw it, he had done more than his duty that night in the woods with the Sisters. Instead of saying so, he shrugged.

"Well, I will let you have the rest of the world you have fought so hard to gain. I only want D'Hara. An empire of worth for my own."

"You wish to rule the land of D'Hara?"

Nicholas performed an exaggerated bow. "Under you, of course, Excellency." He straightened. "I will rule as do you, through fear and terror, all in the name of sacrificing for the betterment of mankind."

The dream walker watched through the eyes of the frightened soldier.

The glint in those eyes was looking dangerous again.

"You play a risky game, Slide, making such demands. Your life must mean little to you."

Nicholas showed the emperor a smile that said he was tiring of trifling. "Hate to live, live to hate."

Finally, the emperor's smile returned to the man's lips.

"D'Hara is your wish? It is done. Lord Rahl dead, and the Mother Confessor delivered to me, alive, and you will then have D'Hara to do with as you wish… as long as you pay homage to the rule of the Imperial Order."

Nicholas indulged Jagang with a more polite smile as he bowed his head.

"But of course."

"Then, when Richard Rahl is dead and I have the Mother Confessor, you shall be named Emperor Nicholas of the land of D'Hara."

"You are a wise emperor."

This was the man who had prescribed Nicholas's fate. This was the man who had sent those Sisters to practice their vile craft, to sunder him with the terrible agony of destroying who he had been, to mother him in an agonizing second Creation.

They had decreed that he sacrifice himself to their cause. Nicholas had had no say in it. Now, at least, for the small task of dealing with the petty enemies of the Order, he would have his reward. He would have riches and power that he could never have dared imagine before he had been reborn.

They had destroyed him, but they had created him again more powerful than he had ever been.

Now he was but one step away from being Emperor Nicholas.

It had been a bitter road.

Driven by angry need, by hatred, Nicholas thrust out his hand as he thrust his own mind, like a hot dagger, into the mind of this man before him, into the spaces between his thoughts, into the marrow of his soul.

He hungered to feel the slick heat of this other spirit slide into his own, the hot rush of taking him while Jagang was still within the man's mind.

But there was nothing there.

In that spark of time, Jagang has already slipped away.

The man crashed to the floor, dead.

Nicholas-Emperor Nicholas-smiled at the game only just begun. He was beginning to wonder if he had set the price too low.

CHAPTER 51

As they made their way up the street, Kahlan glanced to the small windows in the surrounding buildings. In the gathering darkness, she doubted that the faces she saw peering out of the windows could tell much about the people they saw out in the street, but she pulled the hood of her cloak forward anyway.

From the stories the men had told, it was not safe to be a woman in Bandakar, so Kahlan, Jennsen, and Cara covered their identity to draw as little attention as possible. Kahlan knew that people in fear for their own lives sometimes tried to shift attention away from themselves by offering another to the wolves. Worse, she also knew that there were bitter people devoted to the morbid ideal of the perpetual cannibalism of appeasement that they defined as peace.

Richard slowed and checked the alley as they passed. One hand gripped the front of his simple black cloak so that, if need be, he could lift it open and draw his sword.

Their men were spread out so as not to appear to be a mob moving through Northwick. Any gathering of crowds of men, except in markets, would no doubt be reported and swiftly draw the attention of the Imperial Order soldiers. They had timed their entry into the city to be just as night fell so as to better obscure them, yet not so late that their presence on the streets would be suspicious. "There," Owen said as they reached the corner, tilting his head to the right. "Down that way."

Richard looked back over his shoulder to make sure that everyone was still with him, then turned down the narrow street. The buildings in the city were mostly single-story, but they were entering a district where a number had a second story, usually hanging several feet out over the street.

Kahlan saw nothing taller than the squat two-story buildings.