“Witch women don’t ask for silver or gold.”
Nicci looked sympathetic. “That doesn’t mean the things they see really turn out to be true.”
“Red told me that I would be murdered.”
Nicci paused momentarily at such news. “And did she tell you that Richard would give his life to go to the underworld to come after you?”
“No. That’s the point. That’s why I have to go see her.”
“What do you mean, that’s the point?”
“She told me that Richard is the pebble in the pond, and because he acts of free will, the ripples of those things he does touch everything, so it disrupts what she can see.” Kahlan gestured toward the puddles. “The same way ripples from the raindrops disturb the reflection.”
“Meaning?” Cassia asked, her wet, red leather creaking.
Kahlan looked to the hope in the eyes of the three Mord-Sith. “Meaning, there may be a way for us to bring Richard’s soul back to his body in this world.”
“Bring him back to life?” Vale asked in a tone of astonished hope.
Kahlan gave her a quick nod. “Yes.”
“But you just said that she can’t see what Richard will do,” Cassia said.
“That’s right–that’s my point. She can’t see what he will do, but she may be able to see what others will do, what others might be able to do, or have the potential to do. Don’t you see?” Kahlan turned back to Nicci. “Red told me to kill you.”
Nicci’s mouth fell open. “What?”
Kahlan grasped Nicci’s arm and pulled her a little farther away from the soldiers. The three Mord-Sith followed, forming a shield from the others.
“Red saw that if you weren’t stopped, you would kill Richard,” Kahlan said in a lower voice. “She didn’t know what Richard would do because she can’t predict his actions, but she knew what would happen to others and what you would do. She knew that you would kill him.
“She said that the future–all of our lives–depends on Richard. Without him, we were all lost. That includes her. Do you see? She has a vested interest in Richard surviving because she would not want the Keeper of the underworld to be able to get hold of her outside the natural order of the Grace.
“Sulachan and Hannis Arc want to do exactly that. They intend to break the Grace, break the division between the world of the living and the world of the dead. See what I mean? As a witch woman, she would be doomed to an eternity of torture.
“She says that Richard is the only one who can stop them. You probably know better than I do all the prophecy that names Richard, and all the different ways he is named and the way he always seems to be at the center of everything.”
Nicci sighed. “Indeed I do.”
“So, Red told me that I had to kill you so that you in turn couldn’t end Richard’s life. She said he must live in order for everyone else to have a chance at life. She told me that I would be murdered before you killed him, so I had to kill you first.
“She was right about it all. But at the time I told her I didn’t believe you would kill Richard. She said you would do it because you love him. That was all true. It happened just as she said, but at the time it made no sense.
“She didn’t say that you would do it out of an act of love. She only said you would do it because you love him. I thought it meant that she was saying you would somehow do it out of anger or jealousy or something.” Kahlan tried to dismiss the accusation with a quick wave of a hand. “You know what I mean.”
Nicci’s only answer was to let out a deep sigh.
“That part just didn’t seem possible to me,” Kahlan said. “I couldn’t bring myself to believe you would do such a thing to Richard and I told her so. She said that if you lived, you would. In the end I couldn’t seriously consider ending your life on her word when it made no sense to me.”
Nicci smiled sadly, then. “Thank you for believing in me.”
The sorceress looked over at Richard lying atop the funeral pyre. Men were starting to clamber up over the planks and logs to carefully lift him down.
“Maybe you should have taken her advice,” Nicci said. “Had you done as she insisted, Richard would be alive right now. I’d rather it be me lying there dead than him.”
“Done is done,” Kahlan said, waving off the notion. “We can’t change what is done, but maybe we can change what will be.”
Nicci looked back at her. “What do you mean?”
“Red felt real sorrow for me, true compassion. I know she did.” Kahlan gestured off toward Hunter. “Because she did, I thought that Red sent Hunter as a way of offering her condolences.”
Nicci was beginning to look more intrigued. “Now you think otherwise? You think she sent him for some other reason?”
“Yes–maybe. The last time she sent Hunter to me, it was so he could lead me safely to her so that she could tell me what she saw in the flow of time. She wanted to protect Richard and she believed that I was the best one to do that. She said that she could not kill you herself because it is not her place to interfere directly. Her place is to see what she can in order to help others do what must be done. She was right about it all, but I didn’t believe her and so I didn’t follow her instructions.”
Kahlan gripped Nicci’s arm. “What if that’s what she is doing this time as well? What if that’s why she sent Hunter? What if she sees something in the flow of time, something we could do to help bring Richard back?”
Nicci’s expression was guarded. “Witch women often seem like they are trying to help you, but that isn’t necessarily the case. They have their own agenda and they have an unpleasant way of giving you false hope to serve their own ends.”
Kahlan knew that Nicci would do anything, take any chance no matter how crazy, if it could save Richard, so she knew that the sorceress was expressing doubt as a way of testing the strength of Kahlan’s theory.
“Her agenda this time is for Richard to survive in order to stop Sulachan. There is no bigger threat to her. What if there really is a way?” Kahlan asked. “What if the witch woman sees something, some way to help Richard? While it’s true that they misdirect you at times, it’s never with lies–there is always a core of truth in what they say. I actually liked her, Nicci. I think she really cares about all of us.”
Nicci regarded her with a skeptical expression but didn’t say anything.
“Since I didn’t do as she told me to do and stop Richard’s death by killing you, that changed events, changed the course and flow of events in time. Richard’s act of free will changed the future. What if she now sees something new in the flow of time, something that we could do–something that has only now become a possibility because Richard did what he did by coming after me?”
Nicci looked off toward Hunter.
“Let’s go,” Cassia said, growing impatient with the discussion. “We’re wasting time. Let’s get to this witch woman and find out.”
“She wanted me to come alone the last time,” Kahlan told the Mord-Sith.
Cassia drew her hand down the single, wet blond braid lying over the front of her shoulder. “That’s nice. This time you’re not going alone. We’re going with you. If there is a way to bring Lord Rahl back, we’re going with you to help make sure you get there to find out how it can be done, and then get back and do it.”
Kahlan knew it was pointless arguing with a Mord-Sith who had her mind made up, and besides, maybe the woman had a point. The Dark Lands were a dangerous place.
“I’m going, too,” Nicci said with finality.
“No one is arguing,” Kahlan said as she gripped the hilt of the sword and started making her way back through the gathered throng of soldiers and a few of the staff from the citadel. Everyone stepped back, making way for her. All eyes were on her and those eyes were filled with hope, even if the people didn’t understand why Kahlan herself suddenly seemed to have found some.
“I have to go see Red. Make sure Richard is well protected until we can get back,” she called
over her shoulder to the commander.
He hurried to catch up with her. “Mother Confessor, we should go with you for protection. Lord Rahl would insist. You need to have some of the First File with you. You’ve fought with these men. You know their heart and their strength.”
“I do, but I want you all to wait here,” Kahlan said to the commander. “This is a witch woman. They are private and secretive. She will not be happy and may not help me if I bring an army.”
The big officer’s knuckles were white as he gripped the hilt of the sword at his hip. “If it’s an army, I don’t think there is a lot she could have to say about it.”
Kahlan cocked her head toward the man. “To get to where she lives, I had to walk over a valley carpeted with human skulls. It was impossible to take a step without putting a foot on one.”
That gave the man pause.
“Nicci is protection enough from things magic,” Kahlan said before he could take issue with letting her go without him and his men. “Cassia, Laurin, and Vale are protection enough from other dangers.”
The three Mord-Sith showed the commander self-satisfied smiles as they passed him on their way to follow after Kahlan.
Kahlan paused momentarily to look back at the concern on Commander Fister’s face. She lifted the sword a few inches from its scabbard and let it drop back. “Besides, I have Richard’s sword with me and I know how to use it.”
Commander Fister let out a deep breath. “We know the truth of that.” Behind him a number of his men nodded in agreement.
Nicci leaned over close as Kahlan turned and started out once more. “What if she can’t tell us anything?”
“She will. That’s why she sent Hunter for me.”
Once they were beyond the square, Nicci gently took Kahlan’s arm and brought her to a halt. “Look, Kahlan, it’s not that I don’t want to try, or that I wouldn’t do anything, give anything–including my own life–to be able to bring Richard back. I just want you to be realistic and not get yourself carried away with false hope.
“After Richard died and you came back, it was the other way around–I wanted to grasp at any straw and you were the one who was being realistic. You said we had to accept the hard truth and not wish and hope for what was beyond hope. Remember? If it does turn out to be nothing more than a false hope, it will only make it hurt worse.”
“It couldn’t hurt worse,” Kahlan said.
Nicci sighed as she nodded in understanding. Kahlan started across the empty grounds around the citadel, Nicci at her side.
Thinking about Nicci’s words, she finally lifted her fist to show Nicci the ring with the Grace on it. “Magda Searus, the first Mother Confessor, and Wizard Merritt, left this ring for Richard. It waited three thousand years for Richard to find it along with their message and with prophecy. This is what they were fighting for, what Richard was fighting for, what we are fighting for.”
Nicci nodded. “When Richard laid your dead body on the bed, before I healed you, he took off that ring and put it on your finger.”
Kahlan hadn’t known that. “This means something, Nicci. Everything that has happened–all the prophecy that has named Richard, all the different peoples who have recognized him by other names and titles, all the things Richard has learned, the things he has done, finding the omen machine, and finding this ring left for him–it all means something. It has to.
“The flow of time that witch women can see into means something. She sees it for a reason. It has meaning.
“All of those things are connected and have a larger meaning. All of it can’t simply come to an end. We can’t allow it. We have to fight, for if we don’t we will surely all die.
“I was blinded to it by grief for a time. But now I see the bigger picture. I can see it the way Richard would want me to see it.” She held her fist up again as she walked. “If Richard put this on my finger, it was for a reason.
“Red can tell us something, Nicci. I know she can. I’m not going to let that chance–any chance–pass me by.
“Besides, what do we have to lose? How much worse off could we possibly be than we are now? Are you willing to let the chance pass, no matter how slim?”
“Of course not.” Nicci finally showed the faintest of smiles. “If there is a way, you would be the one to find it. Richard loved you enough to go to the underworld to bring you back. We will try anything, do anything, to bring him back.”
Kahlan summoned all her courage to show the woman a smile. “The way ahead may be painful, in ways we can’t yet imagine.”
Nicci’s eyes revealed her resolve. “If it has a chance to bring him back, it will be done.”
CHAPTER
4
Kahlan, the baldric now resting over her right shoulder and the sword at her left hip, made her way across the grounds of the citadel toward the wall, the sorceress beside her and the three Mord-Sith in tow.
Although common sense told them that there could be no hope of bringing Richard’s soul back from the underworld, the three Mord-Sith looked willing to believe it could be done. Kahlan hoped they weren’t all investing hope where there was none. But she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t turn over every last stone, even if that last stone was a witch woman.
Kahlan knew that people didn’t come back from the dead, but she had been witness to times when someone seemed to be lost to death, only to recover. Richard needed more than merely to recover, as if he had suffered a grave wound or fallen through the ice and seemingly drowned, but where did one draw the line–draw the veil across life?
She worried, though, that her whole life had been dedicated to finding truth. Richard was dead, and her fear told her that she had to accept that truth.
Try as she might, she couldn’t bring her internal argument to some kind of resolution. When, exactly, was dead final? When was the veil closed for good?
Who was to say when life really was beyond recovery?
After all, because of the Hedge Maid’s taint of poison in them both, she had carried its balance of a spark of life with her into the underworld after she died, and because of that she had returned. Had she not experienced it herself, she might have difficulty believing such a thing was even remotely possible.
So, despite how remote the hope, it worked for her. If it worked for her, maybe since Richard carried that same touch from the occult they could find a way for it to work for Richard. She couldn’t imagine how it could be done, especially after all the time that had passed, but that was why they had to go to the witch woman. If there was a chance, she would be the one who could give them a direction or something useful to help them find a way.
Hunter was sitting quietly on a small, dark outcropping of rock, his green eyes tracking her as she passed beneath the arched opening through the modest stone wall. Kahlan checked in both directions to make sure there were no surprises hiding close. They still had to worry about half people showing up.
As Kahlan approached, Hunter began a deep, murmuring purr, as if he was happy to see her again. Kahlan was certainly happy to see him. He gave her a reason to hope, something to latch on to.
The small animal was unlike any other creature she had ever seen. Although he resembled a cat in some ways, she didn’t know what he was, except that he was at least two or three times the size of a regular cat, with long whiskers and the same kind of almond-shaped eyes. But his legs were considerably stockier than a typical cat’s, and his body broader, more like a badger’s. His paws were disproportionately large, showing that he was immature and had yet to grow into them. The short, tan fur of his back was covered in dark spots. The fur became darker down toward his haunches and shoulders. The creature reminded her of nothing so much as a cross between a lynx and something like a wolverine or badger, with the same kind of muscular shoulders but not the long nose or short legs of one of those animals. The head was more like a cougar’s or lynx’s, but broader and with a heavier brow. His long, pointed ears had tufts of fur at the ends.
&n
bsp; When she had first encountered the creature, Kahlan had pulled a thorn from his paw. As a result Hunter had been rather fond of her ever since. He had even slept curled against her that first night. Still, he was the offspring of a creature that Red had assured her was not simply large but quite menacing. Kahlan would not want to have to battle Hunter, much less his mother. But she and Hunter had become friends in a way, and she didn’t fear him.
She hoped, though, that like the last time he had really come to lead her to the witch woman.
Kahlan squatted down before the purring creature and looked into his green eyes. She scratched behind an ear and then ran her hand down his fur. Hunter pressed himself against her hand, liking her touch.
“Red sent you to get me, didn’t she?”
She didn’t know if Hunter could understand her, but he purred louder before looking off toward the dark woods. It seemed to her like he really did know what she was asking.
Kahlan stood, resting the palm of her left hand on the hilt of the sword as she peered off into the forest. It was a long way to the mountain pass where Red lived. Although there was still plenty of light, it was getting late in the day and it would be dark soon. Being out in the wilds of the Dark Lands at night, exposed to whatever dangers it held, was not a pleasant thought.
Letting Richard slip away from them was an even more unpleasant thought.
More important than the approaching night, time may have been meaningless in the underworld, but it was not meaningless in the world of life. With all kinds of dangers closing in on them, she didn’t know how much time they might have, but she knew that it couldn’t be much. Hannis Arc along with Emperor Sulachan and his legions of half people were rampaging across D’Hara on their way to take the People’s Palace. Along the way, they were raising the dead to help them. Every moment counted.
“We don’t have any time to waste,” Kahlan said, half to herself. “Hunter, can you take us to your mistress? Can you take us to Red?”
As if he understood, Hunter turned and bounded down off the rock and then across a field of tall grasses. He stopped not far away and turned back to wait and make sure she was following him. He had watched over her and kept her safe the last time. Had it not been for Hunter they might not have found their way and survived.