Page 13 of Death's Mistress (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles 1)

Bannon grinned. “I’d like that.” A troubled expression crossed his face. “Well, I don’t mean I’d like being killed, but I would like to make a brave accounting of myself if I were ever in a great battle.”

“Those fighting at your side would like you to make a brave accounting as well, my boy.” Nathan stroked his chin with his left hand. “I may be a thousand years old, but I’m relatively new at being an adventurer. A sword looks so … dashing, don’t you think?” He held up the point.

“Your sword is fine, sir,” Bannon admitted. “But will a fine sword and a dashing appearance frighten away a horde of monsters?”

“I suppose not,” Nathan said. “Maybe we both could use the practice.” He wrapped his hands around the hilt and tried different stances. “Shall we learn together, Bannon Farmer?”

Grinning, the young man lifted his sword and stepped back to crouch into a fighting stance, or at least the best imitation of a fighting stance he could manage.

When Nathan swung, Bannon slashed sideways to meet the blade, but Nathan had to adjust the sweep of his arc to insure that their swords met with a clang. Then he struck backward, hitting the young man’s blade as it came up in defense. In a flurry of attack, Bannon swung and chopped, flailing from side to side.

The wizard scolded, “Are you a woodsman trying to clear a forest?”

“I’m trying to slay a thousand enemy soldiers!”

“An admirable goal. Now let’s try a combination of strokes and jabs and deflections.”

Bannon responded with another wild combination of slashes and counterslashes, which the wizard easily met, although he was by no means a master swordsman himself. In any confrontation, Nathan would always rely on magic as his first line of attack rather than a sword, but to teach the cocky young man a lesson, he worked his way through Bannon’s defenses and smacked him on the bottom with the flat of his blade.

Stung, Bannon yelped, his face flushing so crimson that even his freckles vanished. “You’ll pay for that, Wizard!”

“Take my payment on credit,” Nathan said with a proud smirk. “It may be quite some time before you can make me fulfill the debt.”

Some of the other sailors observed, amused by the swordplay. They howled with laughter. “Look at the cabbage farmer!” snorted Karl, a muscular veteran of many voyages, who considered it his duty to make sure Bannon was well initiated.

“Indeed, look at him,” Nathan called back. “Soon enough you’ll be afraid of him.”

Attacking again, Bannon released a bottled-up anger that startled Nathan, even frightened him. Ducking and defending himself, the wizard chided, “Show control as well as enthusiasm, my boy. Now then, let’s do it slowly. Watch me. Match my strokes.”

The two practiced for an hour in the hot sun, sweating with exertion. After Nathan had led him through several fluid but basic exercises, Bannon began to grow more confident with his weapon. He was bright-eyed and grinning as they picked up speed. The ring of blades brought out most of the crew to watch.

Finally panting with exhaustion, Nathan raised his hand to signal a halt. “Dear spirits, you’ve had as much instruction as you can handle for one day. I’d better give you time to absorb what you’ve learned.” He tried to control his heavy breathing so Bannon would not notice how winded he was.

The young man’s hair was damp with perspiration, but the sea breezes blew it in all directions. He showed no sign of being ready to give up.

Nathan continued, “Maybe it’s time for me to tell stories and teach you a bit about history. A good swordsman is also an intelligent swordsman.”

Bannon kept his sword up. “But how will a story from history teach me to be better with my blade?”

Nathan smiled back at him. “I could tell you the tale of a poorly skilled swordsman who had his head chopped off. Would that be a good enough object lesson?”

Bannon wiped his brow and sat on a mound of coiled rope. “Very well then, let’s hear the tale.”

* * *

Nicci spent the day at the ship’s stern in Captain Eli’s large chart room on the piloting deck. The captain had opened up twin windows at the rear to let in fresh breezes. The view of the ocean behind them showed a curl of foamy wake as the Wavewalker sailed along. The line of stirred water reminded Nicci of the broad imperial roads that Jagang had built across the Old World, but while Jagang’s roads would endure for a long time, this watery path faded as soon as the ship passed.

“I would like to study your charts and maps,” she told the captain. “As an emissary for Lord Rahl, I must see the far reaches of the Old World, where the Imperial Order conquered. That is all part of D’Hara now.”

Captain Eli toyed with his long-stemmed pipe, tapping its bowl on the hard wood of a map table. “Many captains keep their routes confidential, since the swiftest passage means money for a trader. I once knew the currents and the reefs and the shoreline so very well.” He sucked on the end of his pipe, musing to himself, but he didn’t light it inside the chart room, lest a stray ash catch the maps on fire. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“I am not your competition, Captain,” Nicci said. “I have no interest in a map of the ocean. I want to know the coastline and the landscape inland. My companion and I are searching for a place called Kol Adair.”

“Never heard of it. Must be far inland, and any place away from shore doesn’t have much meaning for my life.” He scratched the side of his face. “But I did not mean you were my competition. I meant that the current maps don’t matter because all is changed, you see. Everything’s different now.

“In the last two months the currents have shifted. The wind patterns that I knew so well have now changed direction, as if the seasons are all mixed up.” He let out a long groan. “And the stars at night are in the wrong places. How am I supposed to navigate? My astrolabes and sextants are useless. My constellation maps don’t show the same stars. Sweet Sea Mother, I don’t even know if the compass points true north anymore. I am making my way by instinct.”

Nicci knew full well what had happened. “It is a new world, Captain. Prophecy is entirely gone. Magic has changed in ways that we haven’t begun to fathom.” Then she turned her bright blue gaze toward his, and drew a breath of the damp air as a breeze rippled the papers on the chart table. “But someone has to be the first to make new star charts, the first to map out the changed currents, and the first to discover the best places to drop anchor. You can be one of those firsts, Captain.”

“That would be a wonderful thing … if I fancied myself an explorer.” The captain scratched his trim of a beard around his jaw. “But my ambition has always been to serve as a successful cargo captain going from port to port. I have families to support, many children. I see little enough of them as it is, and I want to be able to arrive on time.”

“Families?” she asked. “More than one?”

“Of course.” Captain Eli ran his fingers over his dark hair, tucking a silver-shot lock behind his ear. “I have a wife a

nd two daughters in Tanimura, a younger wife and three sons at Larrikan Shores, and a very beautiful one in Serrimundi, the daughter of the harborlord.”

“Do they know about your other families?” Nicci asked. “Is this an unusual arrangement among sea captains?”

“I take care of each one in turn, wherever I go. Every wife has a fine house. Each of my sons or daughters is comfortable, with food, shelter, and an education. Most sailors and captains would simply visit the brothels at every port city, and I know of many a captain who caught a loathsome disease and gave it to his wife when he came home.” Captain Eli stared out at the endless sea behind the stern. “No, that’s not for me. I have chosen my wives, and I am faithful to them. I am an honorable man.”

Considering the countless women Emperor Jagang had taken, including her, and how he had thrown Nicci and others into the tents to be raped again and again by his soldiers, she did not judge Captain Eli Corwin. She had never felt any inclination to be a man’s wife, or one of his wives, except for the time she had forced Richard Rahl to pretend to be her husband. Nicci had imagined a perfect domestic existence, sure that she could convince him to adopt the philosophy of the Imperial Order. That had been not only a lie, but a bitter lie, and Richard had hated her for it.

Unconsciously, Nicci rubbed her lower lip, still imagining the long-healed scar there from Jagang’s gold ring. Nicci had never realized that her sick dream of forcing Richard to be her husband was a delusion as foolish as Bannon Farmer’s imagined perfect world.

Fortunately, she was a different person now. After living secretly as a Sister of the Dark for so many years, then being enslaved by Jagang, broken, then rebuilt—but rebuilt wrong, until she was finally fixed by Richard—she understood everything better now. Nicci owed Richard more than she could ever repay. And he had given her a mission.

“Let me see your charts nevertheless,” she said, driving away the memories. “The more I know about the Old World, the more I know for Lord Rahl’s sake.”

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