Nathan chuckled. “Are you suggesting the ancient wizards in the time of Baraccus and Merritt knew all there is to know?”
The studious woman’s brow furrowed as if he had questioned her reason for existence. “Why, of course! This is Cliffwall. All knowledge was placed here for safekeeping. All knowledge.”
He drew two fingers down his chin and gave her an indulgent look. “I’m glad you have such faith in the ancients.”
Mia nodded. “They were much more powerful than anyone alive now.”
“But if they had all that knowledge, then why did they fail?”
She responded with a stern look. “Just because knowledge exists, doesn’t mean people know how to use it.”
“Well, I wish I had your confidence, young woman.” Nathan peeled open the cover of the book he had chosen, frowning to see that the pages were swollen and rippled, as if they had been soaked in water and improperly dried. Some of the pages were torn, the ink smudged and unreadable. He brushed clumpy dust off the cover of the next book in the stack. “Where did these volumes come from? Did you dig them out of a hole?”
Mia looked embarrassed. “After the sorceress opened the sealed vault beneath the damaged tower, our laborers used picks and chisels to break into other previously inaccessible chambers. Some of the books had been partly fused into walls, others buried under rubble. No one has looked at them yet, but I wanted you to see them right away, in case they were important.”
He picked up a third book, trying to decipher the embossed symbols on the cover. “I thought the damaged tower contained only books on prophecy. I doubt they will help.”
“No, the prophecy sections were in the upper levels. In the final days of building Cliffwall, the ancient wizards were in a panic to finish, being hunted down by the forces of Emperor Sulachan. The lower vaults were piled with last-minute additions. No one has seen them except you, Wizard Rahl.”
“Then I am absolutely delighted by the opportunity, my dear.” He patted the empty chair beside him. “Would you help me study them? I only have two eyes, and together we could read twice as fast.”
Mia beamed. “I’d like that.” She sat beside him, chose a book at random, and began working her way through the smudged and faded letters.
*
Deep within the resurgent forest—which was her heart, her very soul—Victoria felt the magic of reawakened life pulsing through her … and, by extension, through everything she had made, the burgeoning life that came from the stillborn ground. The tortured Scar had been as painful to her as the stillborn baby that she and Bertram had so wanted to have.
But unlike her bloody and painful miscarriages, Victoria now had the power she had always longed to have: a woman’s power to create and nurture life. As proof, she needed only to look out at the flourishing new jungle she had created. The growth charged forth like a wild stampede, but Victoria didn’t want to control it, not at all. She wanted it to fill the valley, roll over the mountains, and sweep across the continent, pristine, primeval, and unstoppable.
Life would triumph over death. Her unquenchable victory would overtake all efforts to stop it. “Victory” … the very word was in her name. She was Victoria. She was Life’s Mistress. Within her, she had a power to rival the Creator Himself.
As she pondered her new role, thickets rose and swirled around her body. Thorny vines and flowers exuded a heady, hypnotic perfume. The trees grew so swiftly they swelled, shattered, and toppled over. And then even the splintered trunks hosted swarming worms and beetle grubs, as well as fungi and molds that churned the fallen tree into mulch, which became fertilizer for more life.
And yet more life.
Her acolytes, who wielded the same energy of vibrant fertility, had gone separately across the primeval jungle. They were stewards of the reawakened life now, nurturing the trees, the insects, the birds, and more. Victoria would see to that. The world would once again be pristine.
As Life’s Mistress, she would never be satisfied to merely return this valley to its former baseline, an exploited landscape with enslaved herds and rigidly defined croplands. Victoria understood now what her true role in the world was. All the generations of memmers and their preserved ancient lore had led to this. Victoria could not be content with memorization for its own sake; she had to find those powerful spell-forms, the maps of magic that would let her accomplish what was necessary.
As her unnatural body thrived and the tendrils of her forest conquered the barren territory, her mind unlocked more of what it remembered, revealing esoteric and deadly magic that she could use.
The wizard Nathan and the sorceress Nicci had searched for a way to destroy the Lifedrinker, and she had no doubt they were applying themselves with as much determination to eliminate her—and Victoria would not stand for it. She felt the power of life, the power of the Creator, and knew she was stronger than any magic those two adversaries could hurl against her.
Even so, she did not underestimate their abilities.
Although Nicci claimed credit for killing the evil Lifedrinker, Victoria knew that the Eldertree acorn was truly responsible for that triumph. The sorceress was undeniably powerful, nevertheless, and Victoria did not want to be hindered in her sacred work. She already knew that Nicci was a nuisance, interfering where she was not wanted.
Although Nathan Rahl’s ability to use magic was minimal, perhaps even imaginary, he was a man with great knowledge and experience, and thus a threat to her as well. There was something about the man, and Victoria did not wish to be sanguine about him, either.
They both must be stopped.
In the thriving thickets, trees, vines, and mushrooms swelled around her like a bubbling life spring. The buzz of swarming flies, bees, and beetles hummed an intense lullaby. As her wisdom and power expanded, Victoria recalled forgotten methods and incantations that the ancient wizards had sealed behind the camouflage shroud, preserved for millennia among the memmers.
With that knowledge, Victoria understood how to create a weapon to eradicate both Nicci and Nathan, perhaps a weapon strong enough to tear down Cliffwall, stone by stone. To activate the magic, Victoria didn’t even need to move, because she was the forest, all the stirrings within, all the leaves and branches, the wings of insects, the flutter of birds. Everything belonged to her, was part of her.
She released the magic to create her emissary, an assassin, a manifestation of the jungle’s primeval power: a shaksis. A shaksis was a creature molded entirely of debris, the detritus of the forest.