Deep in the place of the dead, near the highest spot, where the weathered trees grew large and twisted, they came at last to a grand grave marked with a huge, ornately crafted stone monument. Atop it sat a speckled gray granite urn that held olives, pears, and other fruits, with grapes spilling out over one side, all carved from the same piece of stone. Grandfather, who had taken her to see this monument many times as he gave her tellings, said that the urn was meant to represent the bounty of life that man created through his creative efforts and hard work.

He watched her as she paused and then stepped closer to a huge gravestone for someone long dead, carved from one piece of stone back in the time that the ancient city had been alive. She wondered what he had been like. She wondered if he had been kind, or cruel, or young, or old.

Lokey alighted atop the carved stone grapes and ruffled his glossy black feathers before settling himself. She was glad that Lokey would keep her company in such a lonely place.

Jillian reached out and traced a finger through the letters that spelled out the name carved in the gray granite.

"Do you think the tellings are true, Grandfather? I mean, really true?"

"I was taught that they are."

"Then he really will come back to us from the world of the dead? Really, truly come back to life from the dead?"

She looked back over her shoulder. Her grandfather, standing close behind her, reached out and reverently touched the stone monument. He nodded solemnly.

"He will."

"Then I will wait for him," she said. "The priestess of the bones will be here to welcome him and serve him when he returns to life."

Jillian briefly glanced at the dust rising at the horizon and then turned back to the tomb. "Please hurry," she implored of the dead man.

As her grandfather watched, she gently ran her small fingers through the bold letters on the tomb.

"I can't cast the dreams without you," Jillian said softly to the name carved in the stone. "Please hurry, Richard Rahl, and return to the living."

CHAPTER 45

As Nicci's horse, Sa'din, stepped through the empty city, the clop of his hooves on the stone cobbles echoed among the canyons of deserted buildings like a forlorn call that went unanswered. Colorful shutters stood open on some of the windows, closed on others. On the second floor of many of the buildings, tiny balconies overlooking the empty streets had wrought-iron railings standing in front of doors with drapes pulled tightly closed. There was no breeze to move the legs of a pair of pants Nicci saw hanging on a line strung between the second floors on opposite sides of an empty alleyway. The owner of the pants had long ago walked off without them.

The quiet was so imposing that it bordered on ominous. It was an eerie feeling being within a city without its people, the mere shell that had once held life and vitality, now with form but no purpose. It was somewhat reminiscent of viewing a corpse, the way that it seemed so nearly alive and yet so still that there could be no doubt as to the terrible truth. If left this way, if not brought back from the cold brink with life, it would eventually crumble into forgotten ruins.

Through narrow gaps between buildings, Nicci caught glimpses of the Wizard's Keep embedded in a rocky slope high up on the monstrous mountain. The vast, dark complex perched like a menacing vulture ready to pick over the remains of the silent city. Spires, towers, and high bridges rising up from the Keep snagged clouds slowly drifting past the sheer, fractured face of the rock. The immense edifice was as sinister a sight as she had ever seen. Still, she knew that in reality it wasn't a sinister place, and she was relieved to at last have arrived.

It had been a long and difficult journey from the Old World up to Aydindril. There had been times when she had feared she would never be able to escape the snares of troops strung out along the way. There had been times when she had for a time lost herself in killing them. There were so many, though, that she knew she had no realistic hope of making any meaningful reduction in their numbers. It had enraged her that she could be little more than a pest to them. Still, her real purpose had been to reach Richard. The Order troops were merely an obstacle in her way.

Through the conjured connection she had forged with Richard, Nicci knew that she was at long last near to him. She hadn't found him yet, but she knew she soon would.

For a time, before she had even started on her way, she had come to think that she would never again have a chance to see him.

The fighting for control of Altur'Rang had been brutal. The troops who had attacked, having been surprised and bloodied in the beginning as evening had fallen, being as experienced and battle-hardened as they were, had quickly gathered their wits and their numbers and, by the light of fires they'd set, made a concentrated effort to turn the tide of battle.

Even with as much as Nicci knew about the manner in which Jagang would deal with the insurrection in Altur'Rang, even she didn't expect all that he had thrown an them. For a time, with the help of an unexpected third wizard, it had seemed that the Order troops would overpower the inexperienced defenders. It was a darkly hopeless moment when it appeared that the efforts of the people of Altur'Rang to defend themselves were to be for naught. The specter of failure, and the ensuing slaughter everyone knew such a failure would bring, came to seem not only inevitable, but all too real. For a time, Nicci and those with her believed they would not survive the night.

Despite her wounds and exhaustion, and even more than her sincere desire to help the people she knew in Altur'Rang and all the innocent and helpless souls who would be slaughtered if they lost, the thought of never seeing Richard again had galvanized Nicci and given her the extra strength of will to push on. She used her fear of never seeing Richard again to ignite a fierce rage that could only be quenched with the blood of the enemy who stood in her way.

At the crucial point in the battle, in the harsh, flickering light of the roaring blazes from buildings burning all around, as the enemy wizard stood on the platform of a public well in an open square casting death and ghastly suffering as he urged his men onward, Nicci appeared like an avenging spirit in the midst of their ranks and bounded up onto the platform. It was an event so unexpected that it caught the attention of everyone. In that brief fraction of time when they all stared in stunned surprise, in full view of the Order troops, she abruptly cleaved the chest of their astonished wizard and with her bare hands ripped out his still beating heart. With a cry of primal anger, Nicci held the bloody trophy up for his soldiers to see and promised them the same.

At that moment, Victor Cascella charged with his men into the center of the invaders. He was gripped by rage of his own, not just that the marauding thugs would murder and pillage the people of Altur'Rang, but that they would steal his hard-won liberty. Had he the gift, his fierce glare alone might have cut down the enemy. As it was, his bold attack was as unexpected as it was ferocious. That combination of events broke the courage of the attackers. None of them wanted to face the wrath of the blacksmith and fall under the fury of his mace any more than they wanted a mad sorceress who seemed like the avenging spirit of death itself to rip out their hearts.

The elite Order troops turned and tried to escape from the city, from the middle of an enraged populous. Rather than let the people of the city be satisfied with victory, Nicci had insisted that the enemy be pursued and killed to a man.

She alone fully understood how important it was that none of the soldiers escaped to tell the tale of their loss. Emperor Jagang would be awaiting word that his home city had been brought back under his command, that the insurrectionists had been tortured to death, and that the people of the city had been driven to their knees, that there was such slaughter that it would for all time serve as a warning for others.