The four spirits stared at her with the kind of great sadness that can come only from understanding and empathy.
“I came to find a way to bring his spirit back to his worldly form. The world needs him. His body waits for him in the world of life, touched with a link to this world to keep it ready.”
“But if he died,” Naja said, “then his spirit is where it belongs.”
“Ordinarily, yes. But not in this case. Just as with the Mother Confessor, Richard was touched by a Hedge Maid with a poison containing the call of death. It was killing them. But in this world, the opposite–life–taints him with what does not belong here. Carrying that taint of life, he does not belong here. He belongs in the world of life.”
“All men die,” Naja said.
“Yes, but it is not his time just as it was not the Mother Confessor’s time. It was only by the meddling of Sulachan using and distorting forks of prophecy as well as dark elements. Richard belongs in the world of life for now. He must return to stop Emperor Sulachan and fight for life or the veil will be torn apart and the worlds will implode together.”
The world of the dead was silent for a moment. It could have been an eternity.
“We must see if we can help him,” Magda finally said in a quiet voice filled with compassion. She lifted out a glowing spirit hand toward the light of Kahlan’s spirit. “For her.”
“For everyone,” Nicci corrected.
The spirit of Naja smiled. “Spoken like a true sorceress.”
The spirit of Merritt moved to Naja. “You must help her find him. You know Sulachan’s demons better than anyone. You helped him create them. Now you must help stop them.”
“Much the same way as I worked for evil once, much as she worked as a Sister of the Dark?” Naja asked in a tone of irony. “You think I still need absolution?”
With a glowing visage of compassion, Magda shook her head. “You came to us to fight the evil of Sulachan,” she said. “You know that absolution comes from within. Now she comes to you in much the same way. She understands because she has traveled your path.”
Naja nodded. “We both have worked for evil, and we both have struggled to change. We both did change.” She turned to Nicci. “What you are doing now is for good. I will help you.”
As a spirit arm surrounded Nicci and began to carry her away, Nicci looked back to the smiles of Magda and Merritt, following behind. It was about the most beautiful sight she could imagine. It was love and understanding, peace and joy, confidence and competence, hope and well wishes.
It reminded her of something. At first she couldn’t understand what. And then it came to her. It reminded her of the aura of light she saw in Richard and Kahlan.
“You have a very interesting spirit,” Naja said to Nicci as they raced through eternity. “It will serve you well in this place.”
CHAPTER
16
Even though the darkness of the underworld was beyond dark, Nicci began to sense that they were moving into places darker yet. Where before she had seen the glow of spirits, she now saw spirits drifting through the darkness and those spirits were sometimes so dark they were difficult to see. Some were darker than the surrounding darkness. It was a disturbing sight.
“This is not going to be easy,” Naja said as she pulled Nicci ever downward among the churning, pitch-black clouds of souls billowing up from below.
“What do we need to do?” Nicci asked.
“Hope that we can do the impossible.”
“And do you know how to do the impossible?” Nicci pressed.
Naja’s spirit didn’t answer.
Nicci began to notice that the dark shapes seemed to be shadowing them, keeping pace, gathering as they traveled downward with them.
When Naja noticed Nicci looking at them, she drew Nicci closer. “Evil spirits,” she said in a low hiss.
“How do we fight such spirits in their world?” Nicci asked, more to herself than to Naja.
Naja lifted her arms out as she sailed effortlessly through the eternal night, and her whole spirit gradually began to glow brighter. It was a divine sight. In the glow of Naja’s spirit, the dark ones retreated back into the darkness.
“You can’t fight them,” Naja said. “Not these. These want you to fight them. They want you to be filled with loathing. That only feeds their hate. Showing them light gives them the kind of pain only their kind can feel. It’s a hatred turned inward and burns their soul.”
“I wish I could glow like that,” Nicci said, again half to herself.
Naja’s spirit beamed with a bright smile. “You do. You just can’t see it yet. I can. One day you will, too.”
Nicci couldn’t say she was looking forward to it. But she did envy the sense of peace all the spirits had shown her. Ever since Richard had come into her life, it seemed all she had done was to fight for peace. Seeing it in these spirits was uplifting, a rewarding glimpse of its true meaning.
“The dark ones that have Richard,” Naja warned, “are not like these. They are not simply wicked souls. They are wicked souls that Sulachan has shaped into demons to do his bidding. They are his dark army in this dark place. I helped him in this, so I know what terrible creatures they really are. I know their terrible strength. They are like the wolves of the darkness, with fangs and claws that can catch a spirit and drag it down forever into the darkest depths of the Keeper’s realm.”
Nicci watched off to the sides, watched the darkness shadowing them as they glided effortlessly ever downward.
“Even if we can find Richard, hidden by the dark ones in eternal darkness, I don’t know how we can get him out of the clutches of those demons. I don’t have that kind of power.”
“Why couldn’t Merritt have helped?” Nicci asked. “He was a powerful spirit.”
Naja leaned forward, stretching her neck out, sailing faster yet through the void. “He was, and he has that kind of power, but he does not have the necessary links.”
“Links?”
“You have to have friends, here,” Naja said, cryptically. “Spirits with the power and the proper links.”
Nicci wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, except that it sounded like it meant they were in trouble.
“But far more problematic,” Naja said, “even if we find him and even if we somehow can get him away from the demons, we on this side cannot send souls back to the world of life. We don’t have that kind of power. Once your soul is here in death, it cannot return.”
Nicci gestured to the light of Kahlan’s spirit. “Kahlan’s did.”
Naja’s spirit turned sorrowful. “She had Richard here to help her. He is different. That is what I meant when I said you need friends here with the proper links. He has always been different, and could always do what no other could do. He was able to recognize and use the unique conditions of the situation to help her to return. For him, if we can get him free, it would still take help from the other side.”
“But he still has a spark of life in his soul.”
“He may still carry the spark of life that would let it blossom again, like the Mother Confessor did, but unlike her, he has no one to help carry him back to the light of the Grace so that he can return. It would take someone on the other side to do that for him now.”
Nicci considered for a time as they glided effortlessly through eternity.
“The witch woman said that someone would have to give up their life for him to live again.” Nicci stared off into the darkness. “I’ll do it. I will give up my life so that he may live. He has to live. The world needs him. Only he can defeat Sulachan and Hannis Arc. I will do it. I will stay here and die in his place.”
Naja regarded Nicci with a sorrowful look. “It may be necessary. But I don’t know if even that would be sufficient.”
Nicci felt fear and trepidation at the thought of dying, of giving up the only life she would ever be blessed with, but at the same time it no longer felt quite so terrifying as it once did, nor as vital that Richard retur
n. In the past when she had traveled the underworld as a Sister of the Dark, it had been on behalf of the Keeper for the darkest of dark matters. Much as Naja had been doing the bidding of Sulachan, she had been doing the bidding of the Sisters of the Dark on behalf of the Keeper of the underworld. The world of the dead had been a place festering with evil that filled her with panic and dread, even as she worked toward its victory over life.
It no longer felt that way to her. Despite her fear, it felt rather … peaceful. She could sense areas of cruel desolation, but they were somewhere off in the darkness and she was not in those places. They couldn’t touch her–at least not while she was being guided and protected by Naja.
Traveling this time with a good spirit was a journey of wonder. She longed for such a sense of peace and contentment.
Sensing something, she looked behind and saw specks of light that seemed to be following.
“Good spirits,” Naja explained when she saw where Nicci was looking. “Richard Rahl has made many friends among them. They carry that bond with him for eternity.”
“Could they help us, then? You said he needed friends.”
Naja was quiet for a time. “No,” she finally admitted. “None among them has the power. They merely hold him in esteem.”
Naja’s spirit lifted a glowing arm out, pointing. “At last. There. See them?”
“No,” Nicci said, shaking her head as she stared as hard as she could, trying to see in the blackness what only the spirit could see. “What is it?”
“Dark ones,” Naja said quietly as she leaned closer. “They have him.”
Nicci felt a flush of hope. “Richard? It is Richard somewhere in that darkness?”
“It is,” the smiling spirit told her as she increased their speed to catch the demons in their swift descent.
“The battle begins,” Naja said as she looked over at Nicci. “This is a battle we dare not lose, or we lose it for eternity.”
“Dear spirits help us,” Nicci whispered as she at last saw dark, winged forms with fangs and claws coming for them.
CHAPTER
17
It was the darkness that hurt. It was not the kind of pain he had felt in life. It was different, and vastly worse. This was pain not merely down to his bones, but down to his soul.
This was the darkness of demons, of the Keeper himself, of being hopelessly lost for eternity.
Richard struggled, as he had for what seemed an eternity, trying to rip away the claws feeling like they were dug into his shoulders and legs, trying to pull off the wings wrapped around him, smothering him. It was a suffocating feeling, but it was a different kind of suffocating than any had been in life.
This was a suffocation in darkness. His soul longed for the light. It was a suffocation of being able to get no light. It was the darkness of doomed souls being forever banished from the light, a soul being condemned to an eternity of abject misery with no appeal, no escape, no way to free himself.
Despite all that, it was worth it. He had saved Kahlan from the same fate, a terrifying journey into forever. He would have done it for her all over again, and then done it again. It was more than worth it. It was worth the price, no matter what that price might be, to have her safe, to have the brightness of her spirit once more in the world of life. The world needed that kind of light to counter the darkness.
It was hard, though, to make sense of any of it. It had been so long since he had been alive. It was an eternity ago. At times, it felt like perhaps this was life–a life of misery, fear, dread, and desolation. That was what life without Kahlan had been like. That was why he had gone after her. Life without her was not worth living.
Something shifted. He paused in his struggle. He felt the claws tear through his shoulder, as if they were being pulled away and the demon was sinking them in deeper to hold on, hooking bones even though there were no bones in this place. He felt the fangs sinking deeper into his middle, even though his middle was only the glow of light. The misery was beyond worldly agony. This was an agony of the spirit.
And then he thought he saw a spot of light in the surrounding blackness. It had been brief, and then it was gone, as if the wings had momentarily lost their grip around him, momentarily parted to let through a sliver of light but then closed in again. Richard took that chance to fight even harder against the darkness suffocating him.
Again, light came in between the dark layers of wings, this time for longer before the wings were able to close over him and lock it away. He struggled and again saw an opening in the darkness, and through that opening a warm glow. He frantically fought toward that light, forcing the powerful wings back, pulling the gap open wider. He dragged the inky wings away from his body, only to have them once more crush in to cocoon him.
But then a blinding flash made the dark ones shriek in rage and pain. Again a blinding flash in the eternal night tore at them. Fangs snapped in the darkness as the demons tried to sink those fangs into him again. Claws snatched for him even as they were being pulled back away.
Yet more flashes came in quick succession. He recognized the flashes–not so much for the way they looked, as the way they felt. They were discharges of magic. It was that magic that Richard recognized.
The dark ones howled with the frightful kind of shriek that could only come from the depths of the underworld. It was a sound that could sear the flesh from the living and break bones. It was the sound of doomed souls realizing their fate.
The flashes came with overwhelming speed, one upon another, hammering the demons. Ropes of light ignited in the darkness. Wings caught in bolts of that luminescence ripped asunder. Screams escaped wide mouths lined with fangs. Gleaming spears of magic lanced through their ulcerous bodies.
A form slipped between him and the dark ones, protecting him, sheltering him.
“I’m sorry, Richard,” an intimate voice said. “I’m afraid that you are in the world of the dead, again.”
Richard looked over his shoulder at the figure close behind him. Arms draped with glowing white robes opened from their protective embrace. The radiant figure regarded him with a sad smile. He recognized the face.
It was a woman he had once killed.
In the distance beyond her outstretched, protective arms, he saw dark, winged figures with glowing red eyes swoop in closer. The protective arms again circled tighter, shutting him away from the demons.
Behind her, a furious battle raged. Light and darkness intertwined, opposites of power clashing with ferocious violence that was both out of place and at home in this strange place.
“You are safe,” the intimate voice assured him.
“Denna?”
She smiled at hearing her name from him, especially from him. It had been so long since he had seen that smile. It had been a long time because Denna had long ago died. He had seen her spirit before. She had helped him before.
Then, beyond the protective embrace of the good spirit, Richard saw another spirit, one he didn’t recognize. He also saw a presence with form and yet it was not a spirit. He recognized that form.
“Nicci?”
“I’m here, Richard.”
“Is Kahlan all right?”
Nicci shook her head with profound sadness. “No. She mourns for you. Life is as unbearable for her with you gone as it was for you with her gone. You condemned her to live the misery you yourself could not endure without her.”
Richard felt such guilt as he had never felt. He hadn’t thought of it that way. He had wanted so much for her to live that he had not considered if life would be worth living for her. It wasn’t worth living without her, and hers wouldn’t be worth living without him.
“Soul mates should not be separated,” said a voice Richard recognized.
“Zedd?”
The spirit came closer. Although it did not look like Zedd in exactly the way Richard remembered, it was unmistakable. It was all glowing light, very much like his own glowing soul, and the form of that singular light, like the light of
other good spirits, mimicked the vessel it had filled in life. It was the radiant spirit of his grandfather.
Richard’s soul was filled with jubilation at seeing Zedd looking glorious.
“Seems you have gotten yourself into some trouble, again, my boy. I came to help.”
“I don’t understand,” Richard said, looking around at spirits he knew and others he didn’t recognize.
“The flow of time had need of me here,” the old wizard said. “I didn’t know it at the time, but there was a purpose in that flow and a purpose in my death. This was the purpose. I had lived my life and done all I could there, and now I needed to be here for you, because life has desperate need of you. I am the only one who could pull those demons off of you.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
Zedd’s gloriously beautiful spirit smiled. “It takes the gift carried into the underworld, and that gift needs to be connected by blood if it is to be able to help you here.”
“To be helped, in a situation such as you find yourself, it takes many friends,” the spirit of a woman said. “I am Naja,” the spirit said when she realized his confusion.
“Naja. Naja, as in the one who wrote the account on the walls of the caves at Stroyza?”
The spirit smiled. “The same.”
“That was an awfully long time ago,” Richard said.
The spirit gave him an unreadable look. “Not so long. From here it seems only a moment ago.”
“Or an eternity,” another spirit said.
Richard didn’t recognize her, either, but because she was with Naja, and another spirit was with her, he suspected that he knew who it was.
“Magda Searus?”
The smiling spirit nodded and held out a glowing hand. “And this is Merritt, my soul mate.” She lifted her hand back toward the constellation of lights behind. “Baraccus is here with us as well. He was pulled to the amulet he once made. We have all come to do whatever we could to help free you.”
Richard saw the spirit of Baraccus, as well as countless others there with him. He saw his friend Warren. He saw Ben, Cara’s husband, and legions of soldiers, now good spirits, who had fought with him in the world of life.