Nadine nodded. Kahlan released her. She redirected her anger to the task at hand.
She could feel blood dripping from the ends of the fingers of her left hand. She didn’t think she could lift her left arm, and she needed her right arm to touch Marlin. At least Nadine could hold a torch for her. Kahlan hoped that she wasn’t making a mistake, hoped that Nadine wouldn’t slow her.
She hoped she wasn’t letting Nadine come for the wrong reasons.
Nadine took Kahlan’s right hand and placed it to her bleeding left shoulder. “We don’t have time to fix this, now. Hold that wound closed as tight as you can, until you need your hand, or you’ll lose too much blood and not be able to do what you must.”
A bit chagrined, Kahlan squeezed the wound. “Thanks. If you’re going to come, then stay behind me, and just light the way. If soldiers can’t stop him, you can’t hope to do better. I don’t want you getting hurt for nothing.”
“Got it. Right behind you.”
“Just remember what I said, and don’t get in my way.” Kahlan stretched up, looking back behind Nadine to the soldiers. “Use arrows or spears if you get a shot, but stay behind me. Get some more torches. We need to corner him.”
Some of them trotted back to retrieve torches as Kahlan started away. Nadine held her torch out ahead of her as she trotted to keep up. The flame fluttered and roared in the wind of their flight, illuminating the walls, ceiling, and floor for a short distance around them, creating an undulating island of light in a sea of blackness. Close behind, men with torches created their own islands of light. Heavy breathing echoed through the hall as they ran, along with the thud of boots, the jangle of chain mail, the clang of steel, and the roar of flame.
Above it all, in her mind, Kahlan could still hear Cara’s screams.
Kahlan halted at an intersection, panting to get her breath as she looked ahead, and then down the corridor that branched to the right.
“Here!” Nadine pointed to blood on the floor. “He went this way!”
Kahlan looked up the dark hall ahead. It led to the stairwells and up into the palace. The other corridor that branched off to the right led under the palace in a labyrinth of storerooms, abandoned areas once used in the excavation of the bedrock the palace was built atop, access tunnels to inspect and maintain the foundation walls, and drainage tunnels for the springs the builders had encountered. At the ends of the drainage tunnels, massive stone grates let the water out through the foundation walls, but prevented anyone from getting in.
“No,” Kahlan said. “This way—to the right.”
“But the blood,” Nadine protested. “He went this way.”
“We’ve seen no blood until this place. The blood is a diversion. That way leads up into the palace. Jagang went this way, to the right, where there are no people.”
Nadine followed after as Kahlan started down the corridor to the right. “But why would he care if there are people? He killed and wounded all those soldiers back there!”
“And they managed to take off an arm. Now Marlin is wounded. Jagang won’t care if we kill Marlin, but, on the other hand, if he can escape, then he can use Marlin to cause more harm.”
“What more harm could he cause than hurting people? Hurting all those people upstairs and the soldiers?”
“The Wizard's Keep,” Kahlan said. “Jagang doesn’t have command of magic, other than his ability as a dream walker, but he can use a person with the gift. From what I’ve seen so far, though, he doesn’t know much about using another’s magic. The things he did back there, simple use of air and heat, are far from inventive for a wizard. Jagang only thinks to do the simplest of things with their magic, things of brute force. That is to our advantage.
“If I were him, I would try to get to the Keep, and use the magic there to cause the most destruction I could.”
Kahlan turned down an ancient stairwell carved from rock, taking the steps two at a time. At the bottom, the rough, tunnel-like hall ran in two directions. She turned to the soldiers still racing down the stairs behind.
“Split up—half each way. This is the lowest level. When you encounter more junctures, cover them all. Remember which way you went at each turn, or you could be lost down here for days.
“You’ve seen what he can do. If you find him, don’t take a chance trying to take him. Post sentries so we know if he backtracks, and then send runners to come get me.”
“How will we find you?” one asked.
Kahlan looked to the right. “At every choice, I’ll take the one to the right, so you can follow where I went. Now hurry. I think he’s headed for any opening out of the palace he can find. We can’t let him get out. If he gets to the Keep, he can get through shields there that I can’t.”
With Nadine and half the men, Kahlan rushed on through the dank hall. They encountered several rooms, all empty, and before long, several more corridors. At every branch, she divided the men and took her continually dwindling force to the right.
“What’s the Wizard's Keep?” Nadine asked as they moved on through the darkness.
“It’s a massive fortress, a stronghold, where wizards used to live. It predates the Confessors’ Palace.” Kahlan lifted a hand, indicating the palace above them. “In ages long forgotten, nearly everyone was born with the gift. Over the last three thousand years the gift has been dying out in the race of man.”
“What’s in the Keep?”
“Living quarters, long abandoned, libraries, rooms of every sort. And things of magic are stored there. Books, weapons, things like that. Shields protect important or dangerous parts of the Keep. Those without magic can’t pass through any of the shields. Since I was born with magic, I can pass through some of them, but not all.
“The Keep is vast. It makes the Confessors’ Palace look like a cramped cottage, by comparison. In the great war, three thousand years ago, the Keep was filled with wizards and their families. Richard says it was a place filled with laughter and life. At that time, the wizards had both Subtractive and Additive Magic.”
“And now they don’t?”
“No. Only Richard has been born with both sides.
“There are places in the Keep that I, and the wizards I grew up with, could not enter because the shields are so powerful. There are other places that have not been entered in thousands of years because they are shielded with both sides of the magic. No one could get past the shields.
“But Richard can. I fear Marlin can, too.”
“Sounds a dreadful place.”
“I’ve spent a good portion of my life there, studying books of language, and learning from the wizards. I never thought of it as anything but part of my home.”
“Where are these wizards now? Can’t they help us?”
“They all killed themselves, at the end of last summer, in the war with Darken Rahl.”
“Killed themselves! How awful. Why would they do that?”
Kahlan was silent for a moment as they moved relentlessly onward into the darkness. It all seemed a dream from another life.
“We needed to find the First Wizard, to have him appoint the Seeker of Truth to stop Darken Rahl. Zedd was the First Wizard. He was in Westland, on the other side of the boundary. The boundary was linked to the underworld, the world of the dead, so no one was able to cross it.
“Darken Rahl was also hunting Zedd. It took all the wizards to conjure magic to get me through the boundary to go after Zedd. If Darken Rahl had captured the wizards, he might have used his vile magic to make them confess what they knew.
“To give me the time to have a chance to succeed, the wizards killed themselves. Darken Rahl still managed to send assassins after me. That was when I met Richard. He protected me.”
“Blunt Cliff?” Nadine said in questioning amazement. “There were four huge men found dead at the bottom of the cliff. They had leather uniforms, and weapons of every sort. No one had ever seen men like them before.”
“That was them.”
“What hap
pened?”
Kahlan gave her a sidelong glance. “Something like you and your experience with Tommy Lancaster.”
“Richard did that? Richard killed those men?”
Kahlan nodded. “Two of them. I took another with my power, and he killed the last. Those were probably the first men Richard had ever encountered who wanted to do more to him than simply give him a beating when he chose to protect someone. To protect me. Richard has had to make a lot of hard choices since that day on Blunt Cliff.”
For what seemed hours, but she knew couldn’t be more than fifteen or twenty minutes, they continued on into the dark, stinking halls. The stone blocks were larger, some so huge that single blocks ran from floor to ceiling. They were roughly cut, but fit with no less precision that the other mortarless jointwork elsewhere in the palace.
The halls were wetter, too, with water running down the walls in places, draining into small tiled weep holes at the edges of the floor that had a crown to direct the water to the drains. Some of the drains were plugged with debris, allowing shallow pools to form.
Rats used the tiled drains as tunnels. They squeaked and scurried away at the approach of light and sound, some taking to the drains, some running on ahead. Kahlan thought again of Cara, and wondered if she was still alive. It seemed too cruel that she should die before having a chance to taste life without the madness that shadowed her.
A series of connecting tunnels finally reduced Kahlan’s company to Nadine and two men. The way was so narrow that they had to proceed single-file. The low, arched ceiling forced them to trot in a crouch.
Kahlan saw no blood—Jagang probably used his control of Marlin’s mind to cut the flow—but in several places she did see that the slime on the wall was smeared in horizontal streaks. As low and narrow as the passageway was, it would be difficult to avoid grazing the close walls. Kahlan brushed against the wall more than she wished to; it hurt her shoulder when the knuckles of her hand over the wound struck the slimy stone. Marlin—Jagang—had to have been through the passageway and brushed against the same wall.
She felt both a rush of heady relief that she was on his tail, and terror at the prospect of catching him.
The arched passageway narrowed again, and the ceiling became even lower. They had to hunch into a deep crouch to proceed. The flames from the torches folded to lap at the stone close overhead, and the smoke billowed along the ceiling, burning their eyes.
As the passageway started into a steep descent, they all slipped and fell more than once. Nadine skinned her elbow as she fell on it while maintaining a grip on the torch. Kahlan slowed, but didn’t stop, as one of the soldiers helped Nadine regain her feet. The other three quickly caught up.
Ahead, Kahlan heard the rush of water.
The narrow passageway opened into a large, tubular tunnel. Water rushed in a torrent down the round tunnel that was part of the drainage system below the palace. Kahlan paused at the edge.
“What now, Mother Confessor?” one of the soldiers asked.
“Stick to the plan. I’ll go with Nadine downstream, to the right. You two go upstream to the left.”
“But if he’s trying to get out, he would have gone to the right,” the soldier said. “He would hope to get out where the water does. We should go with you.”
“Unless he knows we’re after him, and he’s trying to send us the wrong way. You two go left. Come on, Nadine.”
“In there? The water must be waist-deep.”
“A little more, I’d say. It’s run-off from the spring melt. It’s usually no more than a foot or two deep. There are stepping stones along the other side, but they’re just underwater now. In the center of where this passageway opens into the drain tunnel there will be an oblong stone to step across on.”
Kahlan stretched and stepped out, putting a foot into the center of the torrent and onto the flat stone just under the surface of the water. She lifted her other leg across the rushing water, testing until her foot found one of the stones against the far wall. She clasped a hand with Nadine and boosted herself across. Standing on the stone, the water was only ankle-deep, but it quickly soaked through the lacing and filled her boots. It was ice cold.
“See?” Kahlan’s voice echoed, and she hoped it didn’t carry far. “But be careful; it isn’t an unbroken walkway. The stones are spaced apart.”
Kahlan moved to the next stepping stone and gave Nadine a hand across. She gestured to the men to go up the tunnel. They crossed and moved quickly off into the darkness. Soon, the light from the men’s torches vanished around a bend, and Kahlan was left with Nadine in the dim light of a single torch. Kahlan hoped it would last long enough.
“Careful, now,” she said to Nadine.
Nadine cupped her ear. It was hard to hear over the roar of the water. Kahlan put her mouth close and repeated the admonition. She didn’t want to yell, and alert Jagang, if he was close.
Even if the torch had been brighter, they wouldn’t have been able to see far. The drainage tunnel twisted and turned on its way down and out of the palace underground. Kahlan had to put a hand to the cold, slimy stone wall in order to keep her balance.
In several places the tunnel took a steep descent, the stones along the side following it down like a stairway down through a roaring rapid. Icy water misted the air and soaked them to the skin.
Even in the flatter sections, running was impossible, as they had to step carefully from stone to stone. If they went too fast and missed a step, they could break an ankle. Down in the tunnel, in the water, with Jagang somewhere about, would be a very bad place to be hurt. The blood running afresh down Kahlan’s arm reminded her that she was already hurt. But at least she could walk.
That was when Nadine squealed from behind and went into the water.
“Don’t lose the torch!” Kahlan screamed.
Nadine, chest-deep in the rushing water, thrust the torch up in the air to keep it from being doused. Kahlan snatched her wrist and strained against the drag of the water as the current swept Nadine past. There was nothing for Kahlan to grab hold of with her other hand. She hooked the heels of her boots over the edge of the stepping stone to keep from being pulled off.
Nadine thrashed with her other hand, searching for one of the stepping stones. She found one and grasped it. With Kahlan’s help, she pulled herself back up.
“Dear spirits, that water is cold.”
“I told you to be careful!”
“Something, a rat, I think, grabbed my leg,” she said, trying to catch her breath.
“I’m sure it was dead. I’ve seen others float past. Now be careful.”
Nadine nodded in embarrassment. Because she had been swept past Kahlan, Nadine was now in the lead. Kahlan didn’t see how they could change places without a struggle, so she motioned Nadine on.
Nadine turned to start out. Suddenly a huge shape erupted from the black depths. Water sluiced from Marlin as he bobbed up and snatched Nadine’s ankle with his one hand. She shrieked as she was yanked feet-first into the inky water.
11
On her way down, Nadine swung the torch and caught Marlin square across the bridge of his nose. He let go of her as he madly groped to wipe the burning pitch from his eyes. The current swept him away.
Kahlan gripped Nadine’s arm, still holding the torch above the water, and helped her back up on the stepping stone for a second time. They flattened themselves against the wall, gulping air and shaking in shock.
“Well,” Kahlan said at last, “at least we know which way he went.”
Nadine was shivering violently from her second dunking. Her hair was plastered to her head and neck. “I can’t swim. Now I know why I never wanted to learn. I don’t like it.”
Kahlan smiled to herself. The woman had more pluck than she would have thought. Her smile wilted when she remembered why Nadine was there, and who had sent her.
Kahlan realized that in the surprise of the ambush she had missed her chance to get Jagang.
“Let me g
o first.”
Nadine held the torch up with both hands. Kahlan put her arms around Nadine’s waist as they twisted around on tiptoes to change places on the stone. The woman was as cold as a fish in winter. Kahlan wasn’t much warmer from being in the frigid tunnels with the icy water lapping around her ankles. Her toes were numb.
“What if he swims upstream and escapes?” Nadine asked, her teeth chattering.
“I don’t think that likely, with only one arm. He was probably holding a stone, keeping just his face above the surface as he lurked in the water, waiting for us.”
“And what if he does it again?”
“I’m in front now. It will be me he grabs hold of, and that will be the last mistake he makes.”
“And what if he waits until you pass, and pops up and grabs me again?”
“Then hit him harder the next time.”
“I hit him as hard as I could!”
Kahlan smiled and gave Nadine a reassuring squeeze on her arm. “I know you did. You did the right thing. You did well.”
They inched along the wall, passing several more gentle turns, watching the water the whole time for Marlin’s face peering up at them. Both started at things they saw in the water, but it always turned out to be nothing more than pieces of flotsam.
The torch was sputtering more, and looked to be near its end. The drains all led outside, and they had traveled a goodly distance in this one. Kahlan knew that the tunnel must end soon.
She realized the thought was more hope than knowledge; as a girl she had explored the tunnels and drains down here, though not when they had been so swollen with run-off, and although she had a good idea of where she was, she didn’t know their exact location. She remembered that some drainage tunnels seemed to go on forever.
As they moved along, the sound of the roaring water seemed to change pitch. Kahlan wasn’t sure what that meant. Ahead, the tunnel bent to the right.
A thump that she could feel in her chest more than hear made her stop. She held out a hand, not only to halt Nadine, but to signal silence.
The wet stone of the walls ahead brightened, glistening with a reflected bluish glow from something beyond the bend. A low howl rose in pitch until they could hear it clearly over the rush of the water.