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CHAPTER 62
Wake him! the voice in her head commanded.
Verna cried out. It felt as though she was covered with wasps, and they were all stinging her at once. She frantically swiped at her arms, her shoulders, her legs, her face. She screamed in panic, swatting, swatting. Wake him! came the voice in her head again. His Excellency's voice.
Verna snatched the cloth from the bucket. She turned Warren's head. He was sprawled forward on the table, unconscious. She dabbed the wet cloth on his cheeks, his forehead. With trembling fingers, she smoothed back his hair. He hadn't been out long, so she had a better chance to bring him around. "Warren. Warren, please wake up. Warren!"
He moaned in delirium. She pressed the wet cloth to his lips. She rubbed his back with her other hand as she kissed his cheek. It broke her heart to see him so afflicted with the pain, not only of the dream walker but of the gift out of control. She pressed her fingers to the back of his neck and let a warm flow of Han seep into him, hoping it would give him strength, hoping it would bring him around.
"Warren," she cried, "please wake up. Please, for me, wake up, or His Excellency will be angry. Please, Warren."
Tears streamed down her face. She didn't care. She needed only to wake Warren, or His Excellency would make them both suffer. She had never known that resistance could be so futile. She had never known that she could so easily be made to betray everything in which she believed.
She couldn't even protect those she loved by killing herself. She had tried. Oh, how she had tried. He wouldn't allow it; he wanted them alive so that they could serve him. He wished to use their talents.
She now knew that it had to be true: Richard had to be dead. The bond to him was broken, and they were defenseless against the dream walker. He intruded into her mind at will. With frightening ease, Jagang bent her to his wishes. It was as if she were no longer in control of the simplest of actions. If Jagang willed it, her arm lifted, and she could do nothing but watch. He controlled her use of her Han, too. Without the bond, she was powerless.
Warren let out another groggy groan. He moved of his own accord, at last. Only Verna seemed able to wake him when he passed out from the gift. That was the only reason Jagang hadn't sent her to the tents.
Only his heart's co
"Sorry," Warren mumbled. "I. . I couldn't. ."
"I know," Verna comforted, "I know. Wake up, now. Warren. His Excellency wants us to keep working. We have to keep working." "I. . can't. I can't, Verna. My head-"
"Please, Warren." Verna couldn't control the tears. The pain of a thousand wasps stinging her everywhere at once made it impossible to hold still. She flinched constantly. "Warren, you know what he'll do to us. Please, Warren, you must go back to the books. I'll carry them down. Just tell me which ones you need. I'll get them for you."
He nodded as he pushed himself up. He was becoming more alert. Verna slid the lamp near him and turned up the wick. She pushed close the volume he had been reading when he had passed out, and tapped the page.
"Here, Warren. Here. This is where you were. His Excellency wants to know what this means."
Warren pressed his fists to the sides of his head. "I don't know! Please, Excellency, I don't know. I can't make the visions of prophecy come at will. I'm not a prophet yet. I am only begi
Warren panted as his agony subsided. He bent over the book, licking his lips. Fingers shook as he set them to the book, following along the line of words, the line of prophecy.
" 'Patronizing past, " he muttered as he read to himself. " 'Patronizing past carries forward the same disfavor twisted to new use, for a new master… Dear Creator, I don't know what it means. Please, let the vision come." Clarissa peered out into the darkness as the coach rocked to a stop. Dust hung in the air, their ghostlike escort. A stone fortress rose up just outside the coach's window. It was dark, and she couldn't see the whole thing, but what she could see made her heart pound out of control.
She waited, twisting her fingers together, until the soldier opened the door. "Clarissa," he whispered. "This is the place."
Clarissa took his hand as she stepped out into the inky night. "Thank you, Walsh."
The other one of Nathan's soldier friends, a man named Bollesdun, waited up in the driver's seat, keeping tight the reins.
"Hurry, now," Walsh told her. "Nathan said he doesn't want you in there for more than a few minutes. If anything happens, the two of us aren't going to be able to fight much of a battle to get you out."
She knew the truth of that. They had ridden past so many tents that it left her stu
Clarissa pulled up the hood on her cloak. "Don't you worry, I know better than to dally. Nathan told me what to do."
She clutched her cloak together in her fist. She had promised Nathan. He had done so much for her. He had saved her life. She would do this for him. She would do this so others wouldn't die.
As terrified as she was, she would do anything for Nathan. There was no better man in the whole world. No kinder man. no more compassionate, no braver.
Walsh walked beside her as they passed under an iron portcullis, and then into an entryway under a barreled roof. Two brutish guards, wearing hide mantles and hung with grisly-looking weapons, stood beside a hissing torch.
Clarissa kept her cloak tightly drawn and her hood pulled forward. She hung her head so that the guards couldn't see her face in the shadow. She let Walsh do the talking, as she had been instructed.
Walsh flicked his hand toward her. "The representative of His Excellency's plenipotentiary. Lord Rahl," he said in a gruff voice, as if unhappy that this assignment had fallen to him.
The bearded guard grunted. "So I've been told." He lifted a thumb toward the door. "Go on in. Someone is supposed to be waiting for you."
Walsh adjusted his weapons belt. "Good. I have to drive this one back tonight. Can you believe it? Won't even let us wait until morning. That Lord Rahl is as demanding as they come."
The guard grunted, as if he well understood the a
The guard shrugged. "Sorry. Jagang took out of here this morning. He took most everyone with him. Just left a few behind to mind things."
Clarissa's heart sank with disappointment. Nathan had been hoping that Jagang would be here, but he had said that even though he hoped it, Jagang would likely be smarter than that. Jagang wasn't one to trust his life to the unknown abilities of a wizard as powerful as Nathan.
Walsh took Clarissa's arm and pushed her on ahead as he gave the guard a good-natured slap on the shoulder. "Thanks."
"Yea, just go on in down the hall. There's one of the women waiting there for you. Last I saw her, she was pacing by the second set of torches."
Walsh and Bollesdun were Imperial Order soldiers, and they had had no trouble with any of the other soldiers, either. Clarissa dreaded to think what would have happened to her without those two the times their coach had been stopped by troops to query its mission. Walsh and Bollesdun also had little trouble ushering her through checkpoints.