“You need to grow up and accept the truth. You can’t live a lie forever. Just because your mother was evil that doesn’t mean you are or that you have to uphold a false belief. My father was an evil man. I understand that, I know that I am not him, just as you are not your mother. You stand on your own two feet and make your own way in life. You can still be the woman you thought she was.
“This is a time when you have to live up to your responsibility as a woman and take up the difficult business of using your head to see the truth that’s right here before you, even though it may be hard, and even though it may be painful.”
Samantha lifted her chin. “I don’t believe your invented stories. They aren’t the truth.”
“The truth is that your mother even talks in here with Dreier about what they should do if you became suspicious.”
Her gaze shifted to the book and then back to him. “What lies did you make up about that?”
“None. You can read it for yourself, judge for yourself. Dreier told your mother that she may need to eliminate you like she eliminated the others who became suspicious. Your mother told Dreier that once the rest of us were taken prisoner here at the citadel, he was welcome to take care of you himself in any manner he wished so that you wouldn’t become a problem.”
Her hands fisted at her sides again. “She wouldn’t do that! She loved me!”
Richard leveled a stern look on the young woman. “You were in chains down in that dungeon because she wanted you in chains. How do you think it happened that you were caught with Kahlan, Nicci, and me? Dreier wanted us, and she made sure he had us.
“She was going to let Dreier use his occult abilities to torture you to death the same as he did to so many others who were taken to his abbey and the same as he was going to do to us had we not escaped. He was ruthless and your mother let him have you knowing how brutal he would be in eliminating you. Had we not escaped, you would have been tortured to death along with us because your mother wanted you out of her way. You were an inconvenience to her.”
Samantha stood motionless for a moment, only the muscles in her jaws flexing and the tendons in her arms tightening as she fisted her hands even tighter.
Suddenly, she flung her arms out from beneath the cape and toward him. Richard had hoped she would not react in this way, but he had been ready just in case.
He already had his hand on the sword, letting its power seep through him. When he saw her begin to cast magic at him, he drew the sword in a heartbeat. The unique ring of steel filled the murky air and carried out across the grassy marshland.
A bolt of power, crackling and booming like lightning, shot toward him from her outstretched arms. The loud rumble of that lightning shook droplets of water from the grasses all around.
Richard, holding the hilt of the sword in his right hand, gripped the blade near the point with his other hand and held the weapon up like a shield. The thunderous explosion of the lightning bolt smashed into the sword, sending a shower of sparks out to the sides as the flashes curled all around him. The sound of the explosion reverberated across the countryside, echoing back from the forested hills.
When she saw that Richard wasn’t harmed, Samantha growled in rage and cast another bolt of power, this one a bluish white color and thicker. It crackled through the air, sending off secondary threads of sizzling power as it came, lighting all the grass and rushes in a harsh glare. Richard bent at the knees, bracing for the impact.
When it hit the sword the force of it knocked him back a step. Upon impact, the flash of glowing power, split by the sword, spread in a shower of sparkling light around both sides of him. The scintillating discharge was so hot it ignited patches of grass and rushes, even though they were wet. Green blades of grass briefly turned an incandescent yellow-orange before crumbling to ash in the heat. An intense inferno whooshed up from those crackling fires, swirling as it rose into the air. The flames died out as the power dissipated.
Samantha slowly lowered her arms, then, staring at something behind him. Richard kept the sword up to shield himself as he looked back over his shoulder at what Samantha was staring at.
It was Kahlan, making her way through the rushes, gracefully pushing them aside with a hand as she approached. She finally came to a halt at Richard’s side, her noble demeanor looking every bit the Mother Confessor.
Samantha stopped and stared, her eyes growing wider. She had driven a knife through Kahlan’s heart, and certainly didn’t expect to see her alive.
“I killed you. I know I did.”
“You certainly did,” Kahlan said. “Fortunately, Richard kept you from being a murderer. Now, he is trying to keep you from forever losing your way.”
Samantha’s expression turned icy calm. It was a look Richard knew all too well. The girl was beyond seeing reason.
Her arms came up once more. “Now I’m going to have to kill you again to make him pay, but this time I’m going to make sure he won’t be able to bring you back.”
Richard stepped in front of Kahlan and held the sword out to deflect a spreading font of blindingly bright orange flame that roared toward them. He and Kahlan both turned their faces away from the dazzling light and intense heat as they crouched behind the protection of the sword.
When they looked back, Samantha was no longer standing there. Richard spotted her just as she disappeared into the shadows back in the woods.
“I have to go after her,” he said.
As he took the first step, a hand snatched his sleeve and jerked him back.
“No, you are not going after her,” Nicci said through gritted teeth, meaning for him to know that she meant it.
“I have to stop her,” he said, pulling his arm from her grip. “She will come back after us.”
Nicci gave him an admonishing look. “Richard, have you forgotten that that girl can make all those trees explode? If you go into those woods, she will blow the forest apart, and you with it. We won’t be able to find anything left of you to put on a funeral pyre. You would be shredded into nothing.”
“You know she’s right, Richard,” Kahlan said. “Don’t do what she just did and avoid the truth because it’s ugly. We have to use our heads. We have more important things to worry about. We need to stop Sulachan, not Samantha.”
Richard knew that they were both right. He couldn’t let himself be distracted by Samantha. He had given her a chance to accept the truth. Those who refused to see the truth were not immune from it.
Richard finally nodded. “I wish I could talk to Red. She saved our lives because she knew what was about to happen with that tower.”
Kahlan shook her head. “She’s gone.”
“Vanished like a ghost,” Nicci confirmed.
Richard’s expression soured. “Isn’t that just like a witch woman.”
“She helped you all she could,” Kahlan said. “It’s not her place to help us any more than she already has.”
Richard let out a heavy sigh. “I suppose you’re right. Let’s go find Mohler, the scribe. We’re in the dark about too many things and that leaves us behind events. We need to get ahead of Sulachan and Hannis Arc if we are going to stop them.
“There are prophecies here that Hannis Arc somehow used to bring Sulachan back from the dead. I want to know everything he knew. For the most part we all know what Hannis Arc has done, but key elements of how he did them are missing. If I’m going to stop him, I need to find those key elements.”
Kahlan gave him a crooked smile and then put her arm through his as they started back toward the citadel. “That’s the Seeker I know so well.”
CHAPTER
25
Up on the top floor of the citadel, Mohler, the old scribe, looked back over his shoulder as he lifted the lantern out toward the oak door. With its heavy iron straps it looked like it could be a door to a treasure vault, or a dungeon.
“This is the place, Lord Rahl,” Mohler said. “This is–was–Bishop Arc’s study. It’s the recording room where all t
he prophecies have always been kept and where he worked most of the time.”
Richard wasn’t especially happy about getting tangled up in the uncertainties and misdirection of prophecy, but he needed to know what information Hannis Arc had been using as he hatched his plot to bring Emperor Sulachan back from the underworld. It was clear that something he had been using was effective or Sulachan would still be in the world of the dead.
Mohler lifted a finger out from his fist holding the metal ring of the lantern and placed it against the door as he smiled back at Richard, Kahlan, Nicci, and the three Mord-Sith. Richard thought it was more an apologetic smile than one of pleasure.
“Like the scribes before me, I’ve spent nearly my entire life working in here, devoted to the prophecies kept here, tending the old ones and recording new ones that came in for Bishop Arc.”
Richard glanced from the old scribe to the door. “Let’s hope there is something in them that will help us stop the man.”
The hunched scribe conceded the point with a nod before leaning down even more to pick the proper key from the ring of keys he always had with him. Long wisps of gray hair did little to cover the top of his bald head and the blotches of dark spots scattered across his scalp. Richard lifted the lantern from the man’s hand to make it easier for him to select the right key and unlock the door.
Mohler finally stuck the correct key in the lock, and holding the handle, jiggled it in a way the old lock needed to be finessed in order to make the bolt clang back. He pushed the heavy door inward and retrieved his lantern from Richard before leading them into the room. Once inside, cocooned in the lantern light against the darkness, he plucked a long sliver from a small iron cup mounted on the wall near the door and lit it in the flame of his lantern, then let the glass cover back down before rushing around the room using the flaming sliver of fat wood to light candles and lamps along the way. Each flame added its own little bit of light until the room was fully revealed.
There were no windows to allow the night to look in. High beams on the ceiling were all decorated with ornamental carving. The plastered walls had darkened over the ages from the soot of candles and lanterns, leaving them a dark, mottled tan.
Laurin closed the door and then stood before it. The other two Mord-Sith took up posts to either side of the door, guarding it so that no one could disturb them.
Considering the size of the citadel, the recording room was far more expansive than Richard had expected, even though it wasn’t nearly as large as many prophecy rooms he had seen before. Since the citadel was primarily a prison to hold those who had been born with occult power leaking out from beyond the barrier until they could be executed, it seemed strange that so much space would be devoted to prophecy.
He supposed that it might not have been intended for such a use when it had been first built, and along the way those who ran the citadel, like many people, became increasingly obsessed with prophecy. Prophecy, too, even false prophecy, gave those controlling it power over people.
Mohler pointed to ledgers lining shelves of tall bookcases to the left side, as if to answer the question in Richard’s expression. “I believe that originally, many ages ago, this was the place where information from the condemned was recorded. All those books there hold names and family links. I think that those in charge back then used those ledgers as a way to try to contain the spread of any infection leaking from the third kingdom. But at some point, prophecy became more important to the people who ran this place and the ledgers were forgotten, along with the original purpose of the citadel.”
Richard nodded. “I think that the inmates took over the prison, so to speak. Once they were in charge, they came to believe that prophecy was their means of changing their place in the world to one of domination.”
“Prophecy certainly was an obsession of Hannis Arc,” Mohler confirmed, “and he was obsessed with domination. Especially of the House of Rahl.”
“Why would he be so concerned with the House of Rahl?” Kahlan asked.
Mohler turned to look at her. “They murdered his family when he was still a boy.”
Richard nodded. “Some of my ancestors murdered a lot of people and made a lot of enemies.”
“Well,” Nicci said, changing the subject as she looked around, “this is no match for the vaults of prophecy that were once at the Palace of the Prophets.”
“Let’s hope that what is here at least turns out to be valuable to us,” Kahlan said.
Even with all the candles and lanterns Mohler had lit, the recording room was rather dark and gloomy, but more than that, the place was decidedly strange. An odd assortment of various items stood all throughout the expansive room. Glassed display cases held odd collections of smaller objects. Randomly throughout the room were low cabinets, cases, statues, and pedestals grouped in no particular order that Richard could make out, but he did see that everything had been placed in an even grid pattern, so that they almost resembled pieces on a giant game board. Around the edges of the room in several places there were overstuffed chairs, comfortable spots to relax or read.
Richard frowned as he scanned the room, trying to make sense of it, but he decided in the end that maybe it wasn’t supposed to make sense. Not everything had to make sense. Sometimes people simply put new things they collected wherever they could find space. Most likely, the items, everything from marble statues to a bronze sundial, were placed in the room as they were collected. Collected, though, by a disorderly mind that would put a sundial in a dark room with no windows, as if hiding it from its purpose. Either that, or Hannis Arc found comfort in chaos.
They walked slowly, silently, past glassed cabinets that held odd collections of items. There were bones from strange creatures Richard didn’t recognize, common-looking rocks, small figures made of straw wearing crudely sewn clothes, carvings of people and animals arranged in scenes of country life, and geared mechanical devices the purpose of which Richard couldn’t begin to guess.
Although, those geared devices did remind him in a way of Regula, the omen machine. Regula was filled with complex geared workings.
The shelves in the cabinets also held small boxes in a variety of sizes along with round tubes with symbols in the language of Creation carved all over them. Scanning a few of the boxes, Richard mentally translated some of the symbols and saw that each item told a story, not unlike the scenes depicted by some of the little carved figures.
Nicci shook her head as she stared into one of the cases. “I hate to imagine where Hannis Arc would have obtained some of these rare objects.”
When she looked at Mohler, he shrugged an apology for not having an answer. “He didn’t collect all of them. Some of these things were here since I was young. I know that he did add items from time to time, but others were here before I was born.”
There were also a number of preserved animals in different places around the room. Besides more common creatures in common poses such as a deer standing in a display thick with dried grass, a family of beavers posed on a mound of sticks, and raptors, their wings spread as they stood on bare branches, there was also a large bear towering up on its hind legs, jaws spread wide in a silent roar, its claws raised so that it looked perpetually ready to attack.
In various places throughout the room, conforming to the grid pattern, large pedestals stood in random spots within that gridwork, in no apparent order. Each carved wooden or stone pedestal held an enormous open book, each with a heavy leather binding. Some of the books were decorated with gold leaf. Most showed great age and wear, with frayed edges all around their covers. They would have been hard to move because of their sheer size, but because they appeared to be quite fragile they probably had permanent homes on their pedestals rather than on one of the bookshelves against the back wall.
They all lay open to different places in the volumes, places where the latest entries had been made. Some were opened in the middle, others closer to the end. Only a few lay open near the beginning.
Tabl
es near the pedestals holding the books were piled with disorderly stacks of scrolls. Richard unfurled several and it confirmed his speculation that they were prophecies that had come in to the citadel for Mohler to record in the permanent collection of large books. While a few of the prophecies sounded complex, most were simpler than the typical prophecies he had read. The wax seals on many of the scrolls were unbroken, the scrolls waiting their turn to be opened and recorded.
Kahlan had told him the horror of how Ludwig collected prophecy by torturing captives. It was probable that for some of those scrolls, at least, someone had died at Ludwig Dreier’s hands. It had to be the ultimate terror to be at the mercy of such a madman.
And yet, strangely, it appeared that Hannis Arc was in no particular hurry to see all the new prophecies lying untouched. Richard was beginning to suspect that something else must have commanded the man’s attention, which meant that, for Hannis Arc at least, the prophecies were not the most important thing in the room, and not what occupied most of his time. Something else was. Richard wondered what that something else could be.
Mohler swept a hand of gnarled, arthritic fingers around, indicating the open books. “This has been my life’s work, Lord Rahl. These are the books where I recorded prophecy collected from out in the Dark Lands.” With a kind of reverent affection, he let the hand settle on one of the open books. “These books are where I would write down all the prophecy brought to the citadel, as scribes before me had done for generations.”
“Did all of these prophecies come from Ludwig Dreier?” Richard asked.
“Actually, only a small portion came from Abbot Dreier. He believed that he was the bishop’s most important source of prophecy, but actually he wasn’t. Most of the scrolls and even ledger books are brought in from various places around the Dark Lands. A number of emissaries from the citadel traveled the towns and more remote areas out among the villages and the cunning folk to collect prophecies from anyone with the talent for such foretelling. Once each foretelling arrived back here, I recorded it in these books.”