Severed Souls (54 page)

If ever there was an argument as to why he couldn't quit the struggle, this was it—innocent people helpless against brutality. The sword was a reminder that while others were often helpless, he had the ability to act on their behalf. Except right at that moment he couldn't reach his sword to help himself, much less anyone else.

But having the sword on his hip did keep the anger close. Every time his anger flared, the sword's anger rose expectantly. He could feel it seething to be let loose.

The tallest of the three women stepped confidently to him. Like the others, she was blond, muscular, and wore the traditional long, single braid that all Mord-Sith wore. He found the black leather, though, to be less impressive than the red. The red had a purpose that, because of its practical aspect, actually made Mord-Sith look all the more intimidating. It was meant to mask the presence of large quantities of blood, so the red leather thereby emphasized the unsettling purpose of Mord-Sith. The black was a crude and graceless attempt by the man who made them wear it to create something more menacing. Richard suspected that Ludwig Dreier thought he could make death more frightening than the Keeper himself.

Rather than the other two going to the women chained to the wall, they stayed close behind the one looking into Richard's eyes.

“I am Cassia,” she finally said. She briefly lifted a hand back to the other two. “This is Laurin and Vale.”

Richard thought that maybe he could focus their cruel attention on him, and make them forget the others.

“Out for an evening stroll, are we?” he asked.

Cassia smiled crookedly with one side of her mouth. “I had heard that you had a sense of humor. Strange quality for a man in your position.”

Richard braced himself for her Agiel, but it didn't come.

She shook her head, instead. “No. We have come to ask you some questions.”

Although Richard heard no hostility in her voice, he groaned inwardly. He knew all too well what it meant for a Mord-Sith to ask questions. What he found a bit odd was her informal tone. It wasn't the icy voice Mord-Sith typically used when they meant to torture answers out of a person.

“What is it you want to know?”

“We have heard rumors about you. We want to know if they are true. If you lie to us … well, I think you know what will happen if you lie to us.”

“Yes. Denna taught me.”

That gave all three pause. The two behind Cassia shared a look. Richard wondered how they knew Denna, yet came to be here.

“You knew Denna?” Cassia asked. “Is that the truth?”

“Yes. Darken Rahl had her capture me. She had me for a long time, and in that time she taught me a lot of things.”

Cassia nodded with an intent expression. “I knew Denna. I knew her well at one time.” Her brow twitched with a puzzled look. “If Denna had you, and was training you, then how is it that you got away from her? Darken Rahl would have sent Denna for only one reason. People did not get away from Denna.”

Richard didn't shy away from Cassia's steady, blue-eyed gaze. “I did. Now, what is it you want to know?”

“Answer the question I asked, first, and this will be a lot easier—for all of us.”

Richard's whole body ached from being restrained and unable to sit or lie down. His legs hurt, his back hurt, and his head pounded. He didn't know what kind of occult powers Ludwig Dreier had used to subdue them, but the aftermath was painful.

“I killed her,” Richard said as he looked Cassia in the eye. “That's how I got away. I killed her. I don't wish to talk about it. Despite what she did to me, she was only doing what she did because she had been broken.”

Cassia nodded, seeming to understand. Richard didn't quite know what to think of that. This woman was not reacting the way a Mord-Sith typically acted when she was intent on getting answers, or when she had been sent to torture a victim.

He decided to be a little less hostile in his answers.

“What is it you came to ask, Cassia?”

He deliberately did not address her as “Mistress.”

Cassia, looking down in thought, finally lifted her head. “I have heard a rumor that you presided over the marriage of a Mord-Sith.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Richard shared a look with Kahlan. The two behind Cassia were intently focused on him.

“Yes, that's right, Cara.”

“Cara? Cara married?” Cassia looked astonished and incredulous all at once. “Cara is as resolute and formidable as they come.”

“Cara was our protector, but she came to be more than simply a protector to the Lord Rahl. She had become a close friend to the Mother Confessor and me.”

Cassia looked over at Kahlan. “Is that true?”

“Yes,” Kahlan said without hesitation. “Cara was as hard as nails, but she also had a good heart. We loved her.”

The three seemed mystified by that, as if they didn't know what to think.

“Then where is she now?” the one named Vale asked from behind. “If she is your protector, and your friend, then why isn't she here protecting you? Did she die in her service to you?”

“No,” Richard said with a deep sigh. “It's a long story.”

“Make it short,” Cassia said. “We don't have a lot of time.”

Richard looked at the intent expressions of the two behind before looking back at Cassia. He wondered what she meant about not having a lot of time, but went ahead and answered anyway.

“Kahlan and I were captured by Jit, a Hedge Maid. Jit infected us with a kind of deadly poison. Cara and others came to help us. In the meantime, the barrier to the third kingdom failed. Hannis Arc called the long-dead Emperor Sulachan back from the world of the dead in part by using my blood. The half people—people without souls—captured Cara, her husband, and all of our other friends. Kahlan and I were unconscious, so Cara hid us before the attack. Because of that, the half people didn't take us with the others. We later went in there and got them out. As we were escaping, Cara's husband was killed.”

“I see,” Cassia said. “So what happened to Cara? Why isn't she still with you?”

As the painful memory came flooding back, Richard had to pause. It was a long moment before he answered.

“Cara asked to be released from her service to me.”

The room was silent but for the hissing torches as the Mord-Sith tried to take in an act that he knew must be incomprehensible to them.

“What is it you really want to know?” Richard finally asked.

“You are called Lord Rahl. Darken Rahl was the Lord Rahl. Darken Rahl was our master.” Cassia lifted her chin while looking him in the eye. “Did you kill him?”

That was the question he had been afraid they were going to ask. Nonetheless he answered it with straightforward, plain honesty.

“Yes.”

 

CHAPTER

78

Cassia, Laurin, and Vale stared at him for a long, silent, uncomfortable moment.

Richard decided that maybe he should elaborate on his reasons, so that they would not mistakenly think it was by chance, or accident. He wanted them to know the truth.

“Darken Rahl was an evil man who caused untold suffering and death. I sent him to the underworld so that he couldn't harm anyone else and I would do it all over again.”

“So then, how is it that you became the Lord Rahl?”

“He raped my mother. That makes me his offspring. I inherited the gift from him.

“At the time I wasn't interested in being the Lord Rahl, or even willing to accept the fact that I had the gift, but I came to see that I could use my ability, and the bond between the Lord Rahl and the people of D'Hara, to fight for something worthwhile—freedom. Freedom to live our lives without the boot of tyranny on all of our necks. Freedom to live in a just world. Many wanted a chance for that and helped in the struggle. Cara was but one of them.

“She and the other Mord-Sith who have joined in that struggle are not weak for wanting freedom. They are stronger for it. I have held Mord-Sith in my arms as they died for our shared cause. I have worn the Agiel of Mord-Sith who have given their lives fighting for our beliefs.

“Those people, like those Mord-Sith, who want the same things in life that I want, are the reason I fight. I fight on behalf of all of them. There have been times when I have been weary and wanted to give up that struggle and leave the fighting to others.”

He glanced briefly at Kahlan. “But the Mother Confessor, who is the one who came to ask for my help in the first place, is my strength, and it is for her, and all those like her, that I fight. I will fight for what is right to the very end. I will fight with my dying breath if need be.

“That, Cassia, Laurin, Vale, is why I killed Darken Rahl. He needed killing and I was the only one who could do it. That is why I am and must be the Lord Rahl.”

Kahlan gave Richard her special smile. He was heartened to see it, even if it ended up being for the last time.

Cassia abruptly turned to Nicci. “I have heard that you were once a Sister of the Dark, but no longer. Why not?”

Nicci was straightforward and simple in her answer. “Richard showed me a better way. He is a good man. Kahlan is a good woman. I wanted to live life the way they showed me I could, if I chose to.”

Cassia nodded in thought. She looked down as she rolled her Agiel in her fingers for a time, carefully considering her next words. Richard knew the agonizing pain caused by holding that weapon. Mord-Sith were taught to endure and ignore pain. In the madness these women had been cast into, pain was a refuge.

“The pain of the Agiel helps you to think,” he said. “It's familiar, ever-present, comforting.”

She looked up in wonder. “I guess Denna really did teach you many things.”

“She taught me that people who had been ripped from everything good they knew in life, and were made to suffer for no reason but to turn them into monsters who could be used to serve the cause of evil, could still find their way back.”

“Not all of them,” she said with quiet remorse.

“No, not all of them. Some have been severed from their souls, and can never come back to humanity. But some still can.”

Cassia let her Agiel drop to dangle on the fine gold chain on her right wrist, as if suddenly not wanting to be reminded of the pain.

“We served under Darken Rahl.” She gestured back at the other two. “The three of us. He was everything you say. I would venture to say that we know that better than you ever could.”

Richard nodded. “I understand. I know some of what was done to you by that man, but I'm sure I could never know it all.”

The truth of his words ghosted across her face.

“We finally found a way to leave him,” Cassia said. “Bishop Arc offered us refuge by using his powers to take up our bond. We thought it would be better.

“We found life with Hannis Arc to be little different, except that his schemes for evil were even more grandiose than Darken Rahl's had been. Once bonded to him, we only then learned that one of our own, Alice, had tricked us—betrayed her sisters of the Agiel.” A dark look settled into her features. “She had delivered us to him in exchange for favors for herself.

“Then, just days ago, Lord Dreier arrived and enslaved us in service to him by using his occult powers to link our bond to him instead, as if we were property he could walk in and seize. In many ways, personal ways, he has proven to be more than a match for the savagery of Darken Rahl or Bishop Arc.

“Those two used torture as a means to an end. Lord Dreier, though, gets pleasure from the things he does to people. Sick pleasure.

“There were four of us he put into bondage to him when he arrived here. Like Darken Rahl, he took us to his bed as a form of domination, to show us our place as his property, to let us know that he can use us as he wishes, however he wishes.

“One night, he took Janel to his bed. He was fascinated—captivated—by her beauty. In the morning, he decided that because she was Mord-Sith and he found her so achingly beautiful, she would be the perfect one to use in his effort to obtain prophecy from the other side of the veil.”

“He tortured her?” Richard asked. “One of his own Mord-Sith?”

Cassia nodded. “He and Erika commanded the three of us to watch it being done, to show us, he said, the tremendous value and importance of the work he does.

“There was no value in what he did to Janel. There was no point to it other than his desire to watch her naked body break. He got no prophecy in exchange for her life. He shrugged it off as a ‘worthy attempt.'”

When she fell silent, Richard said, “Believe me, Cassia, I share your revulsion at all three of the men who enslaved you. That's why I fight against them and those who help them.”

She nodded, looking down, rolling the red leather weapon in her fingers again as she considered. She spoke as she watched her Agiel turn first one way and then the other.

“Our lives have been in service to brutes, each worse than the last. We have never had any say in it. It was always framed as a choice but it was never really any choice at all. We have been the chattel of evil men, property, weapons they used for their ends, weapons they used to intimidate and harm others. Some Mord-Sith came to embrace that role. Some did not.”

The other two silently watched Cassia speaking for them. Richard didn't say anything, giving her the space to find her own words.

“What we have come to ask,” she finally said in a quiet voice, “is if you will take us back, if we can serve as your Mord-Sith. If you will be our Lord Rahl.”

Richard shared a look with Kahlan.

Cassia still hadn't looked up into his eyes.

Richard spoke softly. “I can't do that to you, Cassia.”

Finally she looked up, a tear rolling down her cheek. “May I know why not?”

Richard nodded—as best he could in the iron collar. “Cassia, I'm dying. We came here because we thought there was a containment field here where Nicci could heal us. But there isn't. With this sickness inside me and Kahlan, our abilities are cut off from us. If I were to take you up on your offer, I would only put your lives in mortal danger because I can't power the bond, and without that bond, your Agiel wouldn't work.