Severed Souls (51 page)

Before the general could object, Commander Fister gave the man the kind of look that tended to render most people speechless. The implication was clear.

The general clapped his fist to his heart. “Of course, Lord Rahl.”

The general, reluctantly but with increasing speed, made his way back out the door. One of the men closed it behind him.

None of the men of the First File were anything less than intimidating-looking, and the commander more so. Of course, Richard knew many of them on a more personal level, and some of them were actually quite shy—except when they were in a fight.

“Thank you all,” Richard called out to the staff waiting across the room by the grand stairway, “but we have some matters to see to so you aren't needed just yet. Please go about your duties, and one of my men will summon you when we're ready.”

The staff, a little confused not to be called upon and given orders, made their way off through the hallways to the sides.

After they had gone, there was one bent, older man who purposefully remained behind.

“May I help you?” Richard asked the man.

The man bowed a little. The way his back was hunched, he didn't have far to go to complete a bow. When he straightened up as best he could, Richard thought that he detected a ghost of hostility in the man's drooping eyes.

“I am Mohler, Lord Rahl. I am the scribe here at the citadel. I have worked here my whole life.” The challenge seeped back into the steady look in his eyes. “I knew your father.”

Richard focused his attention more intently on the man. He now understood the shadow of hostility in the old man's eyes.

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

Richard's words had not been what the man had expected to hear and it confused him. The creases in his forehead deepened as he frowned. “Excuse me, Lord Rahl?”

Richard needed to get to their business and wasn't in the mood to soften it for him. “Darken Rahl, like his father before him, was a tyrant who tortured and murdered people in order to maintain his grasp on power. He was an evil man. Everyone suffered under his rule. He hurt people I cared about.”

The hunched scribe still looked suspicious. “So you knew the man, then.”

“I'm the one who killed him.”

For the first time, Mohler's eyes seemed to brighten and he showed the hint of a smile. “I had heard the rumor, Lord Rahl. I did not know if it was true. It seems I may have heard wrong.”

It was Richard's turn to be confused. “What did you hear?”

“That you killed him in order to seize rule for yourself.”

“I was a woods guide, and would be happy to be one today. I only fill the role of Lord Rahl to give people the chance to live their own life as they choose. Nothing would make me happier than to be able to go back to my life and do the same.

“But sometimes, when the choice presents itself, we all have to decide if we will stand up for what's right. If not, evil people will be the ones to dictate how we live our lives.”

The old scribe tipped his head in a nod of appreciation. “Thank you for setting the record straight.”

“What does a scribe at the citadel do, exactly?” Richard asked.

“I have worked here my whole life, recording prophecy brought in to Bishop Arc. He has an extensive collection.”

Richard couldn't help himself. “Another evil man with the same hate in his heart that Darken Rahl harbored.”

The man bowed his nearly bald head covered over with wisps of gray hair. “If you say so, Lord Rahl. I am but a humble scribe and such things are above my station in life.”

“No, they aren't,” Richard said, holding up an admonishing finger. “You are entitled to live your life for your own ends, just as everyone else is. Your former master, Hannis Arc, will likely not be coming back here. He has gone off to bring misery and suffering, like he has inflicted here, to the rest of the world. Unless I can stop him.

“The prophecy you have recorded here might be of help to me in finding a way to stop Hannis Arc from hurting a great many people, the way Darken Rahl did.”

Mohler smiled the slightest bit. Richard thought it looked genuine, like a small ray of sunlight coming from within.

His voice lowered. “I will be here to assist you, Lord Rahl, should you wish my help.”

Richard nodded. “Thank you, Mohler. I would like it very much if you would show me the prophecy you are in charge of maintaining, but maybe later, after we've rested.”

“Of course, Lord Rahl. I will leave you, then, until I am needed.”

Richard watched the old scribe shuffle off toward the grand stairs at the far end of the room, wondering if the prophecy Hannis Arc had used might be of help in finding out exactly what he planned, or even a way to stop him and the dead spirit king.

 

CHAPTER

73

Once the scribe had disappeared up the stairs, Richard turned back to those waiting with him.

“We're in luck. They have horses here. Once we're healed and I take a quick look at the prophecies that Hannis Arc used, and if we hurry, we might still be able to beat him and Sulachan back to the Palace of the Prophets. First, though, it's time we finally got rid of Jit's poison.”

He pulled Irena forward by her arm. “Where is the containment field? Show us the way.”

Irena nodded. “Gladly, Richard. At last! This way,” she said, pointing to the right, off between columns holding up a balcony above a dark gallery below it.

She looked thrilled to finally be the center of importance, to finally be able to fulfill her role. She hurried on ahead of them, leading the way, with a gleeful Samantha right on her heels. Samantha, proud of her mother's part in saving their lives, flashed a wide grin back over her shoulder.

Richard couldn't help feeling cheered himself. He acknowledged the smile with a brief one of his own.

He couldn't wait for Kahlan to be healed. He could tell by the dull look in her green eyes that the darkness within was growing ever stronger. He wanted her healed first.

He was also pretty sure that after the poison was out of her, Kahlan would be herself again and realize the need to stop the threat from Hannis Arc and Emperor Sulachan. It aggravated him, every time he thought about it, how his blood had been used to bring the spirit of Sulachan back from the dead. Richard needed to set that right. Once well again, Kahlan would feel the same.

In the corridor beyond the gallery, when Irena headed down the first set of stairs she came to, Richard signaled to the men. Several of them took up stations, guarding the stairwell at the top. He didn't know what was below, but while they went to find out, he wanted men watching their backs.

The rest of the group—Richard, Kahlan, Nicci, Commander Fister, and all the men with them—funneled down a wide stairwell after Irena and Samantha. Kahlan's hand found his. She gave it a silent squeeze that he returned.

At the bottom of the stairs, Nicci used her gift to send sparks of flame into lamps hung at intervals along the wall so they could see as they followed a series of utilitarian passageways toward a door at the end. It was a simple oak door but looked heavily built. With a silent signal from Commander Fister, one of the men drew his axe and rushed out in front of everyone else to get to the door first.

“Is that really necessary?” Irena asked, puzzling back at the commander as they all hurried down the hall toward the door.

“It is,” he said without apology or bothering to tell her why. To the commander, the need seemed not only obvious, but routine and hardly worthy of explanation.

Irena shrugged. “I guess it can't hurt to be on the safe side.”

They all slowed and waited as the man with the axe took a lamp from the wall and then slipped behind the door to check the hall beyond. When he returned and gave them the all-clear, everyone swiftly followed Irena into the darkness beyond.

She stopped not far ahead where light spheres brightened in her presence. She lifted one of the glass spheres resting in a row of iron brackets and handed it to Nicci, then gave one to Samantha, and finally she took one for herself. The light spheres were powered by the gift, and started glowing brighter with greenish light as each woman took one. Since Richard was cut off from his gift, it wouldn't do him any good to take one, so, like some of the men, he took a cold torch from the assortment standing on end in a woven wicker basket to the side.

He held the torch out and let Samantha light it for him. She ignited a flame over her palm and sent fire into the torches of several men, who hurried off down the hall, in turn lighting torches for others. The flames sent yellow-orange light flickering ahead into the darkness. Acrid smoke from the hissing, popping torches rolled along the sooty ceiling.

Irena's face looked greenish in the strange light of the sphere she was holding. “Down this way,” she said before turning and heading for another, smaller stairway.

The stairs were roughly cut stone, as were the walls, and not as wide as the previous steps. In pairs, they all followed the stairs down around several landings as they descended to the foundation level of the building. Richard supposed that it made sense for the containment field to be in as secluded and secure a place as possible.

At the bottom of the stairs, they held out the light spheres and the torches Richard and several other men carried to peer off into the darkness of the stone corridor. The air was musty and damp, but at least there was no standing water.

“Down there,” Irena said, “near the end. I believe it is rarely used anymore so the place is in a mostly forgotten corner.”

Leading them onward, she hurried off down the hall, the crunch and pop of crumbled granite littering the floor under their boots echoing back from the distance as they passed rooms off to the sides. Some of the rooms had no doors, but most did. From what Richard could see when he thrust his hissing torch through a few open doorways, the pitch-black rooms beyond looked to be storage rooms for rarely needed supplies and building materials for making repairs—roof slates, beams, and planks in a variety of sizes. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust.

The commander used hand signals to send men off in various directions to check the rooms and branching passageways. Richard knew that it would take time to conduct a thorough search of what was turning out to be an extensive maze under the citadel, but at least they could clear the immediate area.

The stone hallway, built of granite blocks, looked eerie in the greenish luminescence of the light spheres. It reminded him, in a way, of the veil to the underworld that had infected them. He was relieved that the open passageway to the underworld infecting them would soon be withdrawn and kept by the containment field from escaping out into the world of life.

“Here,” Irena said, gesturing to an iron door to the right side of the hallway. “It's through here.” She tugged on the door. “Through this place in here.”

One of the soldiers stepped up and pulled the heavy iron door open for her. Irena, not waiting for a soldier to check what was beyond, rushed inside with her light sphere.

“This is an entryway of some kind leading to the containment field,” she said, her voice echoing in the darkness.

Her sphere dimmed considerably once inside. Their torches gave off somewhat better light, but even they dimmed.

In weak glimmers of light, Richard saw that it was a dusty, dirty room. It was a lot longer than it was wide. The faint rays of light cut through the pitch blackness to reveal abandoned items—a broken loom, some scaffolding, and other worn-out implements—stacked in a careless jumble in one of the far corners. Planks and old tools in the other corner were blanketed with old sheets in an effort to keep the dirt off them. A thick layer of brownish-gray dust covered everything in the room, including the sheets.

Holding out his torch as he passed through the doorway into the dark room, Richard could feel the power of a shield tingle across his flesh. He held Kahlan's hand as she followed him in. Commander Fister and the men took up positions outside in the hall, guarding the doorway.

Irena's light sphere had dimmed to nearly being dark.

“Oh, I forgot,” Irena said, sounding disgusted with herself. “We have to go in through here, and these light spheres don't work at all as we get closer to the containment field itself. They have special light spheres made for this area that they keep in a nearby room. I'll run and get them—I'll only be a minute.” She rushed back out the doorway before Nicci had a chance to enter. “Samantha, come help me carry them.”

Samantha instead ducked under her mother's arm and into the room ahead of Nicci, eager to see the place. “I want to stay with Lord Rahl,” she said, her voice echoing as she peered around in the dim light. She held her light sphere up, trying to see, but it was fading fast.

“Oh, all right,” Irena said, “I'll do it myself. I can get some of the men to help me carry them. I'll just be a minute—I know right where they are.”

“I'll help you,” one of the men offered, following after her as she rushed back down the hall.

Richard noticed that for some reason, there were sheets hung on the opposite, long wall, covering something.

“This feels too easy,” Kahlan said as she peered around in the dim, flickering light of the torches.

Zedd's frequent admonishment came to mind.

“Nothing is ever easy,” Richard said.

He lifted his sword a few inches to check that it was clear before letting it drop back into its scabbard.

“Where's the entrance to the containment field?” Samantha asked as she looked around. “I don't see it.”

When Nicci stepped into the room, her light sphere went nearly dark. Richard saw a trace of a frown just beginning to grow on the sorceress's face.

As soon as she was inside, her frown became more troubled. “This isn't a containment field,” she said, sounding, now, more than a little suspicious.