Confessor (57 page)

In this place there was no help to be had. Denna could do nothing against a conjured creature of this sort, a creature in its own element.

There was no way he could even make it back to the Hall of Sky, where the ceiling of stone was like a window showing the sky across its surface. Even that now seemed forever ago, forever distant across the eternity of nothing. His connection to it was lost somewhere in the blackness.

As he felt the tormenting claws of death itself tearing to get at him he only wanted out.

His mind held those essential elements he had come for in a death grip. The beast was trying to strip them away from him. Even if it cost him his life, he could not let those things go. If he lost those ephemeral aspects, there would be no point in going back to the world of life.

“I have to do it,” he cried through the stunning pain of what was ripping at his very soul.

Denna’s arms tightened protectively, desperately, around him, but there was no protection to be had in that embrace. Despite how much she wanted to help him, this was a thing
she could not fight. She was his protector in this world, but only in the sense of being his guide to help him find what he needed while keeping him from straying into dangers that would suck him forever downward into darker places yet. She was not his guardian from what might come out of that darkness, and she had no ability to stop a conjured creature that did not exist.

“I have to!” he cried out, knowing that there was nothing else to try.

Shimmering tears traced their way down Denna’s beautiful, glowing face.
“If you do this, I can’t protect you.”

“If I don’t, what do you suppose will happen to me?”

She smiled sadly.
“You will die here.”

“Then what choice do I have?”

She began floating away, only her hand holding his.

“None,”
her silken voice said in his mind.
“But I can’t be with you if you do this.”

Twisting in pain as the beast tightened around him, Richard managed to nod. “I know, Denna. Thank you for all you have done. It was a true gift.”

Her sad smile widened as she drifted farther away.
“For me, too, Richard. I love you.”

Richard felt her fingers still touching his. He nodded as best he could. “One way or another, you will always be in my heart.”

He felt her kiss on his cheek.
“Thank you, Richard, for that above all else.”

And then she was gone.

When she vanished, and Richard was suddenly alone, enveloped in incomparable solitude and darkness, in the absence of everything, he released Additive Magic into the beast in a world where it could not exist.

In that instant, as the concussion of the Additive came into being in the heart of nowhere, the beast, unable to endure such an irreconcilable clash between what was
and what was not, between the world of life and the world of the dead, between suddenly containing without any protective buffers an element of Additive in a world of Subtractive, disintegrated out of existence in both worlds.

At the same time, Richard felt a stunning blow from every direction at once.

There was suddenly ground under his feet.

Unable to stand, he collapsed among skulls.

Naked men, painted in wild designs, sat in a circle all around him.

Shaking with pain and shock, he felt comforting, calming hands on him. From all around he heard words he didn’t understand.

But then he began to see faces he recognized. He saw his friend Savidlin. At the head of the circle he saw the Bird Man.

“Welcome back to the world of life, Richard with the Temper,” a familiar voice said. It was Chandalen.

Still catching his breath, Richard blinked at the grim faces watching him. They were all painted in wild designs with black and white mud. He realized that he understood the symbols. When he had first come to these people and asked for a gathering, he had thought the black and white mud was simply random patterns. He knew now that it wasn’t. It had meaning.

“Where am I?”

“You are in the spirit house,” Chandalen said in his deep, grim-sounding voice.

The men all around him speaking in the strange language were the Mud People elders. It was a gathering.

Richard looked around at the spirit house. This was the village where he and Kahlan had been married. This was the place where they had spent their first night as husband and wife.

The men helped Richard stand.

“But what am I doing here?” he asked Chandalen, still not sure if he was dreaming…or dead.

The man turned to the Bird Man. They exchanged brief words. Chandalen turned back to Richard.

“We thought you would know, and that you could tell us. We were asked to have a gathering for you. We were told that it was a matter of life or death.”

Richard frowned as he carefully stepped out of the collection of skulls of ancestors. “Who asked you to have a gathering?”

Chandalen cleared his throat. “Well, at first we thought it might be a spirit.”

“A spirit,” Richard said as he stared.

Chandalen nodded. “But then we realized it was a stranger.”

Richard tilted his head toward the man. “A stranger?”

“She flew here on a beast, and then—” He stopped when he saw the look on Richard’s face. “Come, they will explain it.”

“They?”

“Yes, the strangers. Come.”

“I’m naked.”

Chandalen nodded. “We knew you were coming, so we brought clothes for you. Come, they are just outside, and you can talk to the strangers. They are eager to see you. They feared you would never come. We have been in here for two nights, waiting.”

Richard wondered if it was Nicci and maybe Nathan. Who but Nicci could have known to do such a thing?

“Two nights…” Richard mumbled as he was funneled out the door among all the elders as they touched him, patted his shoulder, and jabbered greetings. Despite the unexpected circumstances, they were pleased to see him. He was, after all, one of them, one of the Mud People.

It was dark outside. Richard noticed the slender crescent
of the moon. Attendants waited with clothes for all the elders. One of the men handed Richard buckskin trousers, and then a buckskin pullover shirt.

Once Richard was dressed, the group of men swept him through the narrow passageways. Richard felt as if he had awakened in some past life. He remembered all these passageways through the buildings.

Richard was eager to see Nicci. He couldn’t wait to find out what had happened, how she knew to help him escape. It was probably the prophet who had known of the problem he would face, and she must have figured a way to help him by providing a way for him to step back into the world of life. He couldn’t wait to tell her what he had managed to do in the underworld.

The Bird Man laid an arm around Richard’s shoulder and spoke in the words Richard didn’t understand.

Chandalen answered him, and then spoke to Richard. “The Bird Man wants you to know that he has spoken with many ancestors in a gathering, but in all his life he has never seen one of our people return from the spirit world.”

Richard glanced over at the smiling Bird Man.

“It’s a first for me as well,” he assured Chandalen.

In the open center of the village large fires were burning, lighting the crowds attending the feast. Children ran through the legs of adults, enjoying the festivities. People were gathered on and around the platforms.

“Richard!” a girl shouted.

Richard turned to the sound and saw Rachel jump off a platform and run toward him. She threw her arms around his waist. She seemed a head taller than the last time he’d seen her. As he embraced her, he couldn’t help laughing with the joy of seeing her again.

When he looked up, Chase was standing there as well. Chase made the largest among the Mud People look the size of children.

“Chase, what are you doing here?”

He folded his arms, looking unhappy. “It’s too incredible. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Richard gave him a look. “I just came back from the underworld. I think I have you beat for incredible.”

Chase thought it over. “Maybe. I was at camp. I’d been searching for Rachel. My mother visited me.”

“Your mother? Your mother passed away years ago.”

Chase made a face as if to say he knew that better than Richard. “That kind of thing gets your attention.”

“Well,” Richard said, trying to grasp what was going on, “it obviously wasn’t your mother. Didn’t you think to ask who she really was?”

Chase, his arms still folded, shrugged. “No.” He glanced off into the darkness. “It was a rather emotional experience. You would have had to have been there.”

“I imagine you’re right,” Richard said. “Did she tell you why she had come to visit you?”

“She told me that I had to come here as fast as I could. She said that Rachel would be here, and that you needed help.”

Richard was dumbfounded. “Did she tell you what sort of help I needed?”

Chase nodded. “Horses. Fast horses.”

“My mother came to me, too,” Rachel said.

Richard looked from the girl back up at Chase. Chase shrugged as if to say he had no answer.

“Your mother?” Richard asked Rachel. “You mean Emma?”

“No, not my new mother. My old mother. My mother who gave birth to me.”

Richard didn’t quite know what to say. “What did she want with you?”

“She told me that I had to help you by coming here. She said that I needed to tell these people that you were in
the spirit world and they had to have a gathering so that you would have a way to get back.”

“Really” was all Richard could think to say.

Rachel nodded. “She said I had to hurry, that there was little time, so she had a gar fly me here. His name was Gratch. He was real nice. Gratch told me that he loves you. But he had to go home after we came here.”

Richard could only stare.

“That was a few days back,” Chase said. “We’ve been waiting for you. The Mud People had to prepare for the gathering. I brought you three fast horses. We have food packed up for you. They’re ready to go.”

“Ready to go?”

Chase nodded. “As much as I’d like to visit, and believe me, I think we have some things to talk about, my…mother said that you would be in a hurry to get to Tamarang.”

“Tamarang,” Richard repeated. “Zedd was going to Tama rang.”

That wasn’t all that was there. The book that Baraccus had written for Richard and then hidden for him three thousand years before was in Tamarang. Richard had found the book but then been captured by Six. The book,
Secrets of a War Wizard’s Power,
was hidden in a stone cell in Tamarang.

He needed that book now more than ever. Baraccus had already provided invaluable help. If Richard was to open the boxes of Orden, though, that book might well provide the things he needed.

“Tamarang,” Richard said again in thought. “There was a spell there that cut me off from my gift.”

Rachel nodded. “I fixed it.”

Richard stared down at her. “You fixed it?”

Chase gave Richard a look. “Like I said, there are some things we need to talk about, but now is not the time. As I
hear it told, you’re in a big hurry. You only have until the new moon.”

With a feeling of sinking dread, Richard glanced at the sliver of a moon. “I can’t get back to the People’s Palace by the new moon. It’s too far away.”

“You aren’t going to the Peoples’ Palace,” Chase reminded him. “You’re going to Tamarang.”

Richard grasped Chase by the arm. “Take me to the horses. I’m running out of time.”

Chase nodded. “So my mother told me.”

Zedd winced in pain. He heard someone calling his name again. The voice sounded like it was drifting into him from some distant world. He didn’t want to answer the call, didn’t want to open his eyes, didn’t want to be fully conscious and have to feel the full brunt of awareness.

“Zedd,” the voice called again.

A big hand shook him, gently rocking his body back and forth. Zedd forced his eyes open just a little, squinting with the full dread of consciousness. Rikka and Tom, hunched over him, were both looking down with intent worry. Zedd saw that the side of Tom’s blond hair was matted with blood.

“Zedd, are you all right?”

It was Rikka’s voice, he realized. He blinked, trying to tell if every bone in his body was broken or if it only felt that way. Fear lurking in the shadows of his mind whispered that this might be the end of everything.

His middle hurt. That was where Six’s spell had caught him.

He felt like a fool. Having taken the measure of her before, he had been prepared. He had been sure that he could counter the woman’s ability—and he would have been able
to, except that she had caught him off guard with a form of constructed spell, a little surprise that she’d had drawn in the caves, patiently waiting for his arrival should he ever enter her domain. Even though it was the type of thing he’d never known a witch woman to do, he should have considered that possibility. He should have been ready for a trick.

She was a witch woman, not a sorceress or wizard, and she knew that, while she had considerable talents of her own, she was vulnerable to certain things Zedd could do. He had revealed some of those things back at the Wizard’s Keep by preventing her from killing him and the others when she tried. She had learned from that experience and found a way to construct a counter—something that was simply out of character for a witch woman. It was quite brilliant, actually, but right then he wasn’t exactly in the mood to marvel at her accomplishment.

“Zedd,” Rikka said, “are you all right?”

“I think so,” he managed. “You?”

Rikka grunted with a note of displeasure. “They were certainly ready for us. What ever she did kept me from being able to stop her.”

“Well, don’t feel bad, she did the same to me.”

“With you unconscious all those soldiers were more than I could handle,” Tom added. “Sorry, Zedd, but I let you down when you needed me the most. I should have been the steel against steel for you.”

Zedd squinted up at the man. “Don’t be silly. Steel has its limits. It was I who shouldn’t have allowed us to be taken in such a way. I should have known better and been prepared for it.”

“I guess we all failed,” Rikka said.

“Worse, we failed Richard. We didn’t even make it into the cave to help him. We need to get into the cave to break that spell keeping him from his gift.”

“Not much hope of that, now,” Rikka said.

“We’ll see about that,” Zedd grumbled. “At least it appears we’re safe for the moment.”

“Unless Six returns to finish us.”

Zedd peered up at the man. “You’re a comfort.”

With the help of both of them pulling on his arms, Zedd sat up. “Where are we, anyway?” he asked as he looked around in the dim light.

“Some sort of prison room,” Tom said. “The walls are entirely stone, except for the door. The hallway outside is filled with guards.”

It wasn’t especially large. A lantern burned on a small table. There was a single chair. Other than that the room was barren.

“The ceiling is beams and planks,” Zedd observed. “I wonder if I could breach them with my power, enough for us to sneak out of here.”

With their help he staggered to his feet. Rikka steadied him as he lifted an arm to use his gift to probe the ceiling.

“Bags,” he muttered. “When she used that constructed spell she also put some kind of barrier around this room. It keeps me from breaching it with my gift. We’re sealed in.”

“Something else,” Tom said. “The guards are mostly Imperial Order soldiers. It appears that Six is working on the same side as Jagang.”

Zedd scratched his scalp. “Great, that’s all we need.”

“At least she didn’t kill us,” Tom offered.

“Yet,” Rikka added.

Zedd squinted as he looked up at the ceiling. He pointed. “What’s that?”

“What?” Tom said, looking up.

“That there. At the edge of the ceiling, up against the wall. There is something wedged between that last beam and the top of the wall.”

Tom pulled the chair over and used it to reach the dark bundle hidden in the shadow of the beam. He tugged on it
until it suddenly fell to the floor. Some of the things inside tumbled out.

“Dear spirits,” Zedd said, “that’s Richard’s pack.”

He recognized some of the things that had fallen out. He bent to right the pack, inspecting the clothes briefly before stuffing them back inside the pack.

When he lifted the black shirt trimmed in gold and returned it to the pack, he spotted a book lying on the floor. He picked it up, squinting in the dim light of the lantern.

“What sort of book is it?” Rikka asked.

Tom leaned closer to see. “What does it say?”

Zedd could hardly believe what he was seeing. “The title says
Secrets of a War Wizard’s Power
.”

Rikka let out a low whistle.

“My sentiment as well,” Zedd muttered as he inspected the front and back covers. “Where in the world would Richard have gotten such a thing? This could be invaluable.”

“What does it say about his powers?” Rikka asked, as if eager for gossip.

Zedd opened the cover and turned over a page, then another. He blinked in surprise.

“Dear spirits…” he murmured in astonishment.

Nicci looked up when she saw a shadow fill the doorway. It was Cara.

“How are you doing?” the Mord-Sith asked in a quiet voice that seemed to get lost in the somber room.

Nicci’s gaze wandered off to stare into space. She couldn’t really see the relevance of the question. She supposed that Cara was just trying to find something to say, something that reflected her genuine concern. It struck Nicci as tragic that a Mord-Sith would come to finally possess such simple, decent qualities when it was too late to matter.

“I don’t know anymore, Cara.”

“Have you figured out what went wrong?”

Nicci looked up from the padded leather chair she was in. “What went wrong? Isn’t it pretty obvious?”

Cara stepped closer and idly stroked a finger along the other side of the mahogany table. In the dimly lit library her red leather stood out like a splash of blood.

“But Lord Rahl will find a way back.”

It sounded to Nicci like a plea rather than a statement.

“Cara, if Richard was coming back he would have been back ten days ago,” Nicci said in a dejected voice, unable to summon a lie. Cara deserved more than to have the truth obscured with the deceit of false hope.

“Well, maybe it took longer than the two of you thought it would take.”

Nicci wished it were that simple. She shook her head. “He should have been back by the next morning. Since he never returned that means he didn’t survive what he—”

“But he has to come back!” Cara shouted as she leaned over the table, unwilling to allow Nicci to finish such a thought.

Nicci watched the anxiety on Cara’s face for a moment. What was there to say? How could she explain such a thing to a person who didn’t really understand the things that were involved?

“Believe me, Cara,” Nicci said at last. “I want him to return just as much as you do, but if he was able to survive the spell and the journey to the underworld, he would have been back long ago. He couldn’t stay there this long.”

“Why not?”

“You might say that it’s a little like diving to the bottom of a lake. You can hold your breath for a time, but you need to come back out of the water within a certain amount of time. If you get your foot caught under a log at the bottom of the water, you will drown. He couldn’t survive there this long. Since he didn’t return when he should have…”

“Well, maybe he came out somewhere else. Maybe he came up for air in another place.”

Nicci shook her head. “Imagine that the lake is covered with ice. The hole he went through—that’s the spells in the sorcerer’s sand—is the only way back out. The boxes of Orden are a gateway. This part of it was using elements of Orden, of that gateway. The underworld is just emptiness.”

She knew she was getting tangled up trying to make it understandable to Cara. Nicci didn’t even fully grasp the nature of the underworld herself. “Let’s just say that if he tried to come up somewhere else under the ice of the frozen lake, he couldn’t break through. He needs to come back through that hole he cut, the hole he created into the underworld, through the gateway. Does that make any sense?”

“In a way, but it should have worked.” She gestured to all the books lying open all over the table. “The two of you had it all figured out. Darken Rahl did it. There is no reason this wouldn’t have worked just the same. There’s no reason it shouldn’t have worked for Richard just as well.”

Nicci looked away from Cara’s intent blue eyes. “Yes, there is.”

Cara straightened. “What do you mean? What reason?”

“The beast.”

Cara stared for a long moment. “The beast. You think the beast might have found him there, in the underworld?”

Nicci shook her head. “No. The beast found him here, in this world, as he drew the spell. When Richard finally went through that gateway he’d created, it was waiting and ready. The beast followed him into the underworld.”

Cara’s expression was somewhere between horrified and enraged. “But he would have fought it.”

Nicci looked up from under her brow. “How?”

“I don’t know. I’m no expert on such things.”

“Neither is Richard. In the underworld it would be different than here. In the past he used his sword or the
shields to stop it. When the beast appeared the last time, he was able to shoot it with one of those special arrows. What was he going to do to fight it in the underworld? He had to go naked. He had no weapons, no way to fight it.”

Cara’s expression tipped toward enraged. “Then why would you allow him to go?”

“He had already gone into the underworld when I saw the beast. It went down after him. There was simply no way to stop the beast or even to warn Richard.”

“There had to be some way you could have stopped him.”

Nicci stood. “Going to the underworld is something he had to do if he was to have had a chance to use the power of Orden. Without going he can’t counter Chainfire and if he can’t counter Chainfire we’re all lost. Besides, I couldn’t have stopped him if I wanted to.”

Cara paced before the table. “But it’s going to be the new moon in a few days. We’re running out of time. There has to be something you can try. There has to be a chance that he’s still trapped there, holding his breath. Lord Rahl has never given up on us. Lord Rahl would fight with his last breath for us.”

Nicci nodded as she stepped around the table. “You’re right. I’ll go back to the Garden of Life and cast some calling spells.”

She knew it was a silly idea. She knew that such a thing was not only impossible, but a waste of time. Still, she felt like she needed to do something or she would go mad, and it would at least make Cara feel better until the end came. Besides, what else was there to do, now.

“Good idea,” Cara said. “Do some calling spells until you pull Lord Rahl back.”

Out in the hallway, Nicci saw that in both directions it was blocked off by men of the First File. They each had a crossbow armed with a red-fletched bolt. It looked like the men were deliberately sealing off the library area.

Nicci saw the top of Nathan’s head of white hair as he made his way through the dense wall of men. The prophet finally stepped through all the soldiers. Spotting Nicci, he immediately headed toward her.

His face looked more than grim. Just seeing the look on his face made Nicci’s mouth go dry.

“Nathan, what is it?” she asked as he came to an abrupt halt before her.

His azure eyes looked tired. “I’m sorry, Nicci, but this is the only way.”

Nicci blinked in confusion. She glanced briefly to the soldiers standing shoulder-to-shoulder across the hallway. They, too, looked bleak about being there.

“What is the only way?” she asked.

He looked away from her eyes to wipe a weary hand across his face. “Richard and I had an earnest talk before he left on his dangerous journey. He told me that if he failed to return I should do what must be done to save the people here from the horrors Jagang would set loose upon them. Without Richard, prophecy says that we will lose in this final battle.”

“We have always known that.”

“I know a thing or two about going to the underworld, Nicci. I am familiar with the spell-forms he used. I’ve been up to the Garden of Life. I’ve studied the things he did. Richard got it all correct. It should have worked.”

“The beast chased him into the underworld,” Cara said.

Nathan sighed heavily, but didn’t look all too surprised. “I figured it had to be something like that. The thing is, I’ve studied the methods Richard used.”

Cara appeared hopeful that the prophet could offer an answer that Nicci couldn’t provide. “Good. Have you figured out a way to get him back from the underworld? Nicci’s going to cast calling webs. Maybe you could help her. The two of you together…”

Her voice trailed off. Nathan didn’t look in the mood to entertain such nonsense.

“There is no such thing, Cara. We can’t get him back from the underworld after this amount of time. Richard is lost to us.”

Cara blinked away tears, unable to abide such a proclamation.

“The emperor is going to get in here,” Nathan said. “It’s only going to be a matter of time. The great void will shortly be upon us. All we can do now is hope to spare as many people in the palace as possible.”

Nicci held up her chin. “I understand.”

“The only way to do that is to surrender the palace as soon as the new moon arrives—and to do it in the way that Jagang has demanded.”

Nicci swallowed. “I can’t say that I know any other way, Nathan.”