The dark one was using her, encouraging her, and Samantha was willingly summoning the full power of her unbridled wrath.
As she shook with anger, the rock of the cave trembled in response. He knew what she was doing. He had, after all, taught her to do it.
Richard knew that he had no time to lose. If he was going to stop her, it had to be now, before she brought the rock down on them. He had no hesitation about the need to kill her. If that dance with death had taught him anything, it was that his life and the lives of innocent people couldn’t be forfeited for sentiment. A lethal threat had to be recognized for the reality of what it was. Such threats had to be stopped.
Before he could charge out, Richard had to duck when a slab of thicker stone behind them blew apart. Jagged shards of rock whistled through the air, one going over the top of his bowed head, just missing him.
Then another area out in front of him and down a side tunnel exploded apart. All up and down the passageways rock began exploding in a ripping string of thunderous blasts. The cave trembled with the unfathomable force Samantha was focusing into the rock, blowing it apart. The echo of explosions rippled throughout the cave.
Thunderous blasts rang out painfully in the confined space as the explosions of rock came almost one atop another. Richard was pelted with pieces of rock that sailed through the passageway and ricocheted off walls. The whole mountain shook. He had to close his eyes and turn his face away from debris clouds that blew past him. The sound of it was deafening.
And then, out in front of him, where he was just about to charge out at Samantha and tumble under anything she could throw at him, the entire ceiling let out a reverberating, crackling boom as it was abruptly driven downward by a thunderous explosion. The massive section of the mountain above them had suddenly collapsed.
The force of the entire ceiling giving way shook the mountain so violently that Richard, Kahlan, Nicci, Cassia, and Vale were all knocked from their feet. Along with the Mord-Sith, Richard immediately rolled up onto a hand and a knee, with his other foot on the ground, ready to spring into the fight. Kahlan was on her hands and knees, looking dazed. They all turned their faces away from the blast of wind forced out from under the rock as it came crashing down. The blast of the shock wave caught Nicci off-balance and knocked her flat on her back. The two Mord-Sith were also sent tumbling back by the wall of air.
Richard braced for the next blast, looking to the sides to try to find a place for them to run, a shelter where they could get away from the flying rock, but there was no other intersection. There was no immediate route for an escape. Cassia and Vale scrambled to their feet, picking up their torches off the ground as they did so.
The torches hissed and sputtered, but other than that, the debris settled, rocks rolled to a stop, and everything began to go quiet. The rumbling and shaking had stopped. The explosions had stopped. The echoes of it all gradually died out.
Richard wondered what would be coming next, what power Samantha would unleash. He needed to stop her, first.
In the sudden silence he finally peeked around the corner and saw something out ahead of them, beyond the nearly empty red leather Mord-Sith outfit. He took a torch from Vale and cautiously inched out from the protection of the jut of rock where he had been to see if it was what he thought it was.
He stood to his full height when he saw that he had been right. It was Samantha’s bloody arm sticking out from beneath a massive section of granite that had collapsed from overhead. It had crushed the young woman.
“Well, isn’t that something,” Cassia said as she stepped up beside Richard, holding her torch up with one hand as she brushed the dirt off herself with the other.
The wavering light of their torches lit the bloody forearm and fist–the only thing they could see of Samantha. The rest of her was buried under countless tons of stone that had let go and come down atop her.
“She gets so angry, so focused,” Kahlan said, “that she forgets about her own safety. When we were in the gorge when the army of half people were chasing us, she was bringing the mountain down atop them and I had to snatch her up and carry her away or it would have come down on top of her, just like this.”
Nicci was nodding in agreement. “I saw that immaturity in her. It frightened me from the first. Her ability exceeded her capacity to handle it.”
That bloody arm had a ghostly appearance to it, a dark shadow that moved as if it were alive whereas the arm was dead still. As Richard watched, that shadow faded away into nothing. The demon that had been with her, helping her, had melted back beyond the veil. Without a worldly form to possess and hold it in the world of life, it could not keep the skrin from pulling it back into the world of the dead.
For now, some of those forces still held. At least, to a certain extent.
“I can’t believe she so willfully killed those men,” Kahlan said. “She knew them. She liked them. At least, she did at one time. She had helped them. I can hardly believe she would so easily kill them.”
Richard felt a twinge of sadness for the girl whose ability made her so out of place and who had been trying so hard to become a woman. She’d had such potential. He guessed that the potential and talent did her no good in the end when she instead let herself be ruled by hate. In the end, hate destroyed her.
“She killed her entire village as well,” Richard said. “The people she had grown up with and had hoped to protect.”
Nicci glared at the bloody, splintered arm. “I told you she was dangerous, that her anger was dangerous.”
“One of the Wizard’s Rules I learned long ago,” Richard said. “Passion rules reason. I’m sorry that I didn’t see the indications in her sooner. Had I paid more attention to the signs I might have been able to help her to choose positive things rather than the dishonesty of hate. I guess I was blind to it, thinking she just needed to grow up a little.”
“A lot,” Nicci grumbled. “You couldn’t have helped her, Richard. It was what was inside her. It was her inborn nature. None of us could have changed her.”
Richard squatted down and touched the red leather that had belonged to Laurin.
“She gave her life trying to protect you, Lord Rahl,” Cassia said in comfort. “Any of us would have done the same. She died a noble death.”
“As did all those men,” he said. “But they are all still dead.”
He picked the Agiel out of the black crystallized pieces that were all that was left of Laurin. He stood and showed it to Vale. “Now you must wear the Agiel of a brave Mord-Sith, a sister of the Agiel, as does Cassia, and gain strength from it.”
She bowed her head as he placed the chain around her neck. “I’m sorry that those men and Laurin had to die this day.”
“Those men of the First File and Laurin died to protect you, Lord Rahl,” Cassia said. “That was their chosen calling. They died doing what they wanted most to do. They were all honored by your trust in them. They died heroes in their mission to make sure you and the Mother Confessor were safe, now.”
He smiled his thanks for her words.
“We’re not exactly, safe, though,” Richard said as he looked up at the solid wall of rock. “I’m afraid we’re trapped in here.”
CHAPTER
38
“What do you mean we’re trapped in here?” Nicci asked with a mix of suspicion and concern. “There were passageways everywhere. There have to be interconnecting tunnels running all through this place. There has to be a way to get around this collapsed section of ceiling.”
As his gaze swept over the wall of rock, Richard slowly shook his head. “You’re right that the tunnels interconnect. A little farther back we could have gone down some of those side intersections and they would take us a different way around to the opening at the top of the cliff. But not this far back in this particular corridor.
“We’re now in a dedicated corridor that runs back deeper into the mountain. This passageway is unlike the rest. It has a primary purpose, so it doesn’t hav
e the typical intersecting routes that crisscross in and out of the general network of tunnels. The builders apparently intended to limit access to it.
“It does have side branches with a number of rooms, some of them places where people lived, but those side passageways are all part of this limited-access area, so none of them lead back out. They all dead-end. From back here the only way back out, back into the general tunnel complex, is through this collapsed wall of rock.”
“Maybe it’s not as big a problem as it seems,” Cassia said, trying to sound positive. “Maybe the five of us can dig our way out. It probably wouldn’t be as hard as it looks.”
Richard frowned over at her. “Look at it.” He gestured to the wall of rock. “Cassia, it’s solid granite. It’s not a pile of rubble that maybe we could dig through. It’s a single, massive block of granite.
“Granite is often layered in thick lifts like this. Some of those slabs can be dozens of feet thick and they can run on horizontally for quite some distance. Weather will create and open up natural breaks, but protected inside a mountain like this, these lifts are massive. It must have fractured along a natural horizontal split higher up in the rock and because of what Samantha was doing, the unsupported weight all dropped down into this void.”
“Maybe it’s not very wide, though,” Kahlan offered. “People cut granite into blocks to use in buildings.”
“Sure,” Richard said, “but that takes specialized chisels and wedges to split the rock. We don’t have any of that.”
Kahlan turned hopefully to Nicci. “Maybe you can use your gift to open up a hole–maybe crack the rock or something–to get us through to the other side? Move some of it aside?”
Nicci frowned her incredulity. “There’s no way. The entire face of the mountain was weakened by what Samantha was doing. Remember what she did in that mountain gorge? This here all dropped down into the void of the caverns, like stepping on an anthill. The whole network of tunnels from this point back is crushed. It’s solid rock from here to what used to be the mouth of the cavern.”
“How far is that?” Vale asked, hopefully.
Richard made a bit of a face at her. “How long were we running to get away from her?”
Vale looked sheepish. “A pretty long way, I guess.”
“You guess right. It’s hundreds of feet. We might as well be inside the middle of the mountain.”
He pointed to the side. “Look at the way the softer stone is pushed out into this void back here. That’s a good indication of the massive size and weight of all the granite that came down from above. As extensive as the network of caves may be, to the mountain it’s like the anthills Nicci mentioned. From here to the outside there are no longer any caves. They are all crushed. There is nothing to dig through or cut through. The original people who made these caves surely had hundreds of workers and the tools necessary for such an undertaking. We don’t.”
Kahlan folded her arms. “What are we doing here, Richard?”
Richard looked over at her. “What do you mean?”
“Richard, we’re all afraid. We’re going to die in here if there isn’t another way out. You wanted to come here because you said it was too far to make it back to the People’s Palace. There isn’t a containment field here where Nicci could extract that poison from you.
“So why are we here? What’s really going on?”
Richard pressed his lips together a moment. “Well, I figured you all would think I was crazy, so I wanted to find it first.”
Kahlan kept her admonishing gaze fixed on him. “Find what?”
It was clear she expected the truth. It was also clear to him that she deserved it. So did the rest of them.
“A well for the sliph.”
The cavern rang with silence for a moment as everyone stared at him.
Kahlan’s expression shifted to a frown. “The sliph? You think the sliph has a well here? Why would you think that?”
Richard let out a deep breath as he gestured to the southwest. “Look how far it is back to the People’s Palace. It’s even farther to the Wizard’s Keep in Aydindril.” He turned back, sharing a look with both Kahlan and Nicci. “The sorceress in charge here, at Stroyza, was supposed to keep watch and then go to the Keep to warn them that after thousands of years the barrier to the third kingdom had been breached and the greatest threat to mankind that has ever existed was now on the loose. That is Stroyza’s purpose, that’s why it was built here by the same people who built the barrier, and that’s why a gifted person has always lived here.”
Puzzled, Kahlan shrugged. “What of it?”
“So you think the builders of the barrier containing that great evil expected this one person to run all the way back to the Keep and warn everyone that the barrier had been breached by that evil? They entrusted the fate of the New World, the fate of life itself, to this one sorceress to run all the way back to the Wizard’s Keep?
“The fate of the world depended on her evading half people, staying out of the clutches of a spirit king risen from the dead, his reanimated dead, occult powers, and all the natural threats and difficulties making the journey all the way across the trackless forests of the Dark Lands entailed? She had to make it across wilderness, mountain ranges, and then across more mountains in D’Hara, to finally get to the Wizard’s Keep to warn the wizards there? Really? You really believe that people gifted and intelligent enough to build a barrier that stood for three thousand years, build the citadel, and build this place to watch over the barrier would do that–put the fate of the world in the hands of a sorceress from this place successfully making such a long and perilous journey?”
Nicci folded her arms as she glanced over at Kahlan. “I hate to say it, but when he puts it that way it’s hard to disagree. The threat was deadly serious and profoundly difficult to handle. If it could have been ended they would have ended it back in the great war rather than lock it away behind the barrier.”
“Right,” Richard said, “so they wouldn’t have depended on one person to travel all that way and put their faith in her making it there safely, much less make it in time for them to do something about the expanding threat.
“She would have faced the same problem we have now: time. She wouldn’t be able to make it there in time, and worse, the half people that had escaped would likely already be out ahead of her, so she would not only have to evade being caught and eaten, she would have to find a way to get past them.”
Kahlan stared off in thought for a moment before speaking. “A well for the sliph would have given the lookout here a swift and easy way to get back to the Keep. It makes sense.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Richard said.
Kahlan folded her arms. “So, if there is a well here for the sliph, why didn’t we see it when we were here before? Samantha showed you the shielded caves where Naja Moon wrote instructions and where they have the viewing port. So where is this well if there really is one here?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” Richard admitted. “I never saw it when I was here before. But I saw the shielded areas, so I figure there must be a shielded room with a well for the sliph–like there is at the Keep. All we have to do is find it.”
Nicci aimed a thumb back at the granite wall that used to be the ceiling. “What if it’s under there?”
“Like I said, this is a dedicated corridor with no other way in. I think that was by design to keep it safe. I think we’re in the right passageway.”
Kahlan was still staring off in thought. “We could get back to the palace in short order. Nicci could cure you, then. And then you would be able to stop Sulachan and end prophecy.”
CHAPTER
39
In the torchlight, Richard lightly touched the Grace carved into the door. Magda Searus had left a ring with the Grace on it in the shielded hallways beyond. The ring was meant to remind him what he was fighting for. He didn’t really need the reminder; he was pretty clear on what he was fighting for.
&n
bsp; “These are the quarters for the gifted charged with watching over the barrier,” he told the others. “Samantha and her mother, Irena, lived here.”
“Rather ironic,” Kahlan said, “that the gifted here were supposed to be guardians of what the Grace represented, and all the while Irena was working to destroy it.”
“And her daughter took up that cause,” Nicci said.
“Seems that is often the case with people who rule,” Richard said as he pushed open the door, “even those who rule a place as small as this. They work to destroy what it is they are there to protect.”
“Not all of them, Lord Rahl. Not you,” Cassia said.
He briefly smiled back over his shoulder at her. “Maybe because I never wanted to rule. I just want to live my life in peace.”
A few fat candles sitting in puddles of melted wax were burned almost all the way down but still lit. A few others had already used themselves up. A simple but well-made cabinet stood to the side of a low bench. A crumpled blanket had been pushed to the side of a sleeping mat. It looked like Samantha had been living in the room after wiping out the entire village, even the cats. Especially the cats.
Cassia’s torch was sputtering and nearing the end of its usefulness, so she took a lantern from a shelf at the side of a dark hallway at the back of the room. She lit the lantern with a splinter lit from the torch before extinguishing it in a wooden bucket of water. The lantern cast its mellow light down the hallway that led them past dark rooms.
Vale thrust her torch ahead of her into each room to check what or who might be inside. “Nothing,” she said as she pulled back out of the last one. “They look like extra bedrooms.”
Farther down the hallway they passed a recess cut into the wall that Richard remembered. Three plank shelves in the niche held a few simple clay statues. One of the figures was a shepherd standing beside several sheep. Another statue was another shepherd among a small flock, his hand shielding his eyes as he apparently gazed into the distance. It seemed like a typical country theme. Shepherds were supposed to watch over their flock and watch for danger. On the lower shelves were a few books, and some folded linens.