Cassia frowned. “No matter what we hear? What are we likely to hear?”
“I don’t know,” Nicci said in a distracted voice as she turned back to the open expanse of floor. “The screams of the dead–that sort of thing. Just don’t open the door. I must let the underworld free in here. The room needs to remain sealed lest that darkness get out beyond.”
Cassia shared a quick look with the other two. “I think we will be happy to keep it closed.”
“What if one of you cries out for help?” Vale asked.
“The only one crying out for help will be you, if you open the door.”
“Right, then,” Vale said. “The door stays closed.”
Once the three Mord-Sith had left and closed the door, and even though Kahlan was in the room with a witch woman and the sorceress, she felt lonely. Both of these women dealt in matters Kahlan could not adequately imagine. Worse, Nicci intended to once more take up her skills as a Sister of the Dark.
Kahlan’s gaze wandered to Richard. Knowing that he was dead made her feel more than merely lonely. She felt alone and lost.
When she finally turned back, she saw that Nicci had begun using the bowl of blood to make a large circle. She dipped a hand in the fresh blood and used her dripping fingers to paint on the floor with the blood.
“What are you doing?” Kahlan asked the sorceress.
“Drawing the outer circle of the Grace,” she said without looking up, “starting with the boundary to the underworld.”
Some of Kahlan’s earliest memories as a girl had been watching gifted people draw the Grace. Drawing the Grace was both a deeply reverent act and an invocation of magic. It was central to many things in the lives of the gifted. Although a Grace looked relatively simple, the complexities of it took a lifetime of study if they were to be used properly.
Though it could be drawn in only two dimensions, it was meant to represent all four–the three physical dimensions in space and the fourth dimension of time. Converting those four elements into two dimensions of the Grace through the use of the gift was serious business.
Kahlan had very rarely seen anyone dare to draw a Grace with blood.
Much less her blood.
She knew that drawing a Grace with blood could invoke alchemy of consequence as well as dark forces that ought not be called upon. She supposed that this required nothing less.
The creation of the Grace had to be done in precise fashion, the way Nicci was starting it, with that outer circle representing the beginning of the infinite world of the dead out beyond the circle. Out beyond the circle there is nothing else, there is only forever. This was why the Grace was begun with that circle: out of nothing, where there was nothing, Creation begins.
Nicci dipped her hand in the bowl of blood as she whispered incantations in a strange language Kahlan had never heard before. The sorceress used her crimson hand like a brush, dipping it in the bowl for more blood as necessary, and quickly created a precise square to a mathematical formula in her head, to an orientation only the sorceress understood. The square, its points just touching the inside of the circle, represented the veil between the worlds of life and death. The square was always drawn second so that it would be in place to protect the world of life, once it was laid down, from the power of the underworld.
Nicci again dipped her hand in the blood and painted with it the smaller circle, representing the beginning of life, just inside the square so that it touched the sides of the square in the center of each of its four sides. In this way, life touched and was bounded by the veil, that also touched the beginning of the underworld.
With more blood, Nicci drew a precise eight-pointed star inside the smaller circle. The star represented the light of Creation. Outward from each point of the star, the sorceress painted a straight, bloody line, crossing the inner circle, the square, and the outer circle. The first four rays she drew bisected the corners of the square, and then the last four crossed the center of each side of the square.
Each ray beginning at a point of the star crossed the inner circle and then the square, finally crossing the outer circle to end at one of the eight candles. Each flame, once the bloody line reached it, seethed momentarily with shimmering colors.
Nicci, wearing a glove of blood, looked up in the soft candlelight. “I need a drop of Richard’s blood. Use the sword. Bring the drop on the blade.”
Kahlan found the dark nature of Nicci’s voice disturbing. Without pause to consider the instruction, she went to the bed, sat on the side, and pulled Richard’s hand into her lap. With the point of the sword she pierced the end of a finger. Working her fingers on his, she squeezed blood out, letting it collect in a fat crimson droplet on the end of his finger. Using the blade, she scooped it up near the point. She could feel the magic within the sword react with anger to the touch of Richard’s blood. Kahlan carefully carried the sword over to Nicci, being sure not to let the blood she had collected drip off, or let the sword’s anger distract her.
This was the same blood that had been used to bring Sulachan’s spirit back from the world of the dead into the world of life.
Kahlan held the sword out in both upturned palms, offering it to Nicci. The sorceress shook her head, as if not wanting to touch it.
“The Grace is drawn in your blood. You need to do it. Put the drop in the exact center of the circle.
“Although it can’t be seen,” Nicci said in a solemn voice, “this circle has a true and absolute center point, which is that point at which we come to be, when we are created, when we acquire a soul. But unlike the outer circle, which represents a beginning without end, this circle is finite. It represents an outer boundary so to speak–death–and a point of beginning.”
Kahlan held the point of the sword just above the floor in the center of the circle, letting Richard’s blood drip off.
“So, then, you are connecting it all with blood,” the witch woman said from the shadows. “You are making the Grace viable.”
Nicci nodded. “Life and death are connected in much the same way that Additive and Subtractive Magic depend upon each other to define their nature. Thus, there is, in a very real sense, a connection between everything, even something as elemental as light and dark. Where a shadow is cast across the ground, the shadow is not only connected to what casts it and on what produced it, but it also exists through the presence of the negative shape it creates. Thus, all things, even a seemingly simple shadow, are inextricably linked, locked together, both positive and negative, each depending on the other to exist.
“Just as we need dark to show light, the underworld defines life. Death defines life. The blood gives that representation of life, in the Grace, a reality it would not otherwise have.
“This is all part of what the Grace represents–how the elements are not separate, but interconnected.”
“It used to be that wizards traveled between worlds,” Red said, transfixed by the bloody Grace.
“Since that time,” Nicci said, “they have forgotten how to ride the rim, as it used to be called, between the worlds of life and death.”
“Not all of them,” Kahlan reminded her, drawing Nicci’s gaze. “Richard has done that before. He has gone to the underworld and returned.”
Nicci nodded. “Another of the things wizards used to be able to do that Richard somehow managed to accomplish instinctively. Another of the things that mark him as the one.”
“Can you travel there?” Kahlan asked, wondering how the sorceress was going to contact the spiritist they needed.
Nicci finally spoke into the silence. “I was a Sister of the Dark. Still, I cannot travel the underworld as Richard or those wizards once did. I can, though, part the veil and look beyond.”
Kahlan glanced around the room. “How are you going to see into the spirit world?”
Nicci lifted both arms, gracefully turning her hands over. All the candles in the room except the eight around the Grace extinguished. The room out beyond those eight candles seemed to va
nish into nothingness.
“Everything about Richard’s life emanating from that point of his blood, touches you,” Nicci told Kahlan. “Everything he is touches you. In that way, he exists through you. That is how I will reach into the spirit world–through you.”
The sorceress gestured. “Sit in the center, beside that drop of your husband’s blood.”
Kahlan, tears running down her cheeks, carefully stepped over the bloody lines of the Grace and sat in the center beside Richard’s blood.
“To see into the spirit world,” Nicci said, “I must be able to look beyond this world to that other realm that exists in the same place all around us, at the same time, in the same place as existence, the negative to the positive, the Subtractive to the Additive.
“In a way, it is the shadow cast by life.
“We are all part of all things. We merely need to look beyond what is around us.” She gestured to the candles. “The light of those flames will be our anchor to this world, the world of life, our reminder of what actually exists.”
Nicci’s words brought back haunting memories for Kahlan of being in that dark place where her soul had been drawn.
Nicci closed her eyes then and began a soft chant in the same strange language she had used before. Kahlan trembled slightly at the enormity of dealing with the world of souls, at her abject misery of having lost her soul mate.
As she was lulled by Nicci’s soft, throaty chant, she felt a strange tingling run through her, as if a thousand distant voices were all trying to speak through her. The feeling strengthened or lessened somehow with Nicci’s words.
Kahlan waited until Nicci fell silent before speaking. “What is that language you’re speaking?”
“It is the opposite of the language of Creation. It is the language of the dead,” Nicci said softly without opening her eyes. “It is used by Sisters of the Dark to summon that other world all around us that we never see. The language of the dead contains Subtractive threads that bring about the parting of the veil to the underworld.”
In a way, it all made sense. It made Kahlan, sitting in the center of the Grace, feel a part of everything. The problem was going to be finding the one they needed out of all the souls in the darkness beyond the veil, out of all those voices she heard.
“Wait,” Kahlan said as she frowned in thought.
Nicci opened her eyes and looked up.
“You said ‘Sacred is the sword when there is no hope but in the blade.’ I think I know what needs to be done.”
She scrambled to her feet and retrieved the amulet from around Richard’s neck. In its place, she laid the Sword of Truth down the length of Richard’s body. She placed his arms across his chest and then folded his fingers around the wire-wound grip and the word TRUTH woven in gold through the silver wire.
“Let the sword’s anger help be your beacon,” she whispered to Richard. “Let the righteous rage from the sword help you find your way back to the righteous anger against evil and those who would end life. Let anger be your guide back to the fight for life.”
She could feel the magic of the sword’s anger heat in response.
When finished, she carefully stepped over the blood and back into the center of the Grace. She held the amulet out by the chain and dropped it into Nicci’s hand when she turned up her palm. Kahlan tried not to think about how she had just handed an ancient object of power to a Sister of the Dark.
Nicci placed the chain around her neck and let the ancient amulet, made by Baraccus himself, lie against her chest, against her heart.
“Time to dance with death,” she whispered into the darkness.
CHAPTER
14
Hannis Arc, standing in the well-used road, gazed with displeasure at the closed gates in the wall around the small city of Drendon Falls. With the heavy gates closing off the road, the sheer cliffs hard against the back of the city, and the forested mountains all around, the place was well protected from threat of conquest. The falls showering down from the cliffs at the back of the city, fed by mountain springs above, provided ample water flowing through waterways that eventually drained underground, so the people of Drendon Falls felt confident they could close the city gates and be able to endure a long siege.
Hannis Arc had no interest in conducting a siege.
Soldiers of their home guard, most armed with bows or spears, manned the tops of the walls ready to repel any assault. They all watched from a position they considered to be safe, and although obviously tense, didn’t look overly concerned. None of them had arrows nocked, or spears at the ready. Hannis Arc knew that Drendon Falls had withstood sieges in the past, and had never been conquered.
Of course, there was not much reason for an enemy to bother with putting a lot of effort into conquering Drendon Falls. The small city lay on a less important trade route in one of the less populated areas of D’Hara. There were bigger and more important conquests to be made elsewhere. That, in large part, and not the walls, was what had kept the place safe from conquest. It also meant that the defenses had never really been tested in the heat of battle.
For Hannis Arc, it was not a matter of conquest, but a matter of respect. He should not need to conquer people he already considered his subjects. They seemed to be unclear on that point. He intended to make it clear to them.
“You dare to close the gates to the city?” Hannis Arc called up to the man in simple robes standing with both hands resting on the edge of the wall.
“We mean you and your people no ill will,” the man called down, “but there have been rumors of terrible atrocities being visited on other places. As the mayor of Drendon Falls I must think first of the safety of the people of my city. We make no judgment against you, sir, and certainly intend no offense, but we must err on the side of safety and keep our gates closed.”
Hannis Arc glanced over at Emperor Sulachan, the glow of his spirit twisting the face of his long-dead worldly form into a grim smile.
Hannis Arc looked back up at the mayor on the wall. “I sent people on ahead from other cities with instructions that they speak to you of that very matter–the safety of your people. They were to inform you of your fate should you and the people of your city not bow down and show proper respect.”
The man on the wall spread his arms. “We deeply respect all people, and we respect them all equally. We do not want war.”
“War!” Hannis Arc exclaimed with a grunt of a laugh. “This is not a war.” He looked around, feigning incredulity. “There is no war. The war is long over. This is a matter of rule. It is a matter of allegiance to the D’Haran Empire.”
“We are loyal to the D’Haran Empire,” the man insisted.
“Well, I am Lord Arc, the ruler of the D’Haran Empire.”
The man paused, momentarily unsure what to say. “Lord Rahl is the ruler of the D’Haran Empire.”
“Not any longer.” Hannis Arc dismissed the distasteful notion of the long line of the House of Rahl with a wave of his hand. “I told you, the war is over.”
“We heard of no war for rule,” the mayor called down.
“Richard Rahl now resides in the world of the dead,” Emperor Sulachan said in a voice that caused the armed men on the wall to take a step back from the edge.
“Dead…?” the mayor asked. “Are you certain?”
“My servants in the underworld have taken his soul and carry it into a forever of darkness.”
Hannis Arc checked the silent, eager Shun-tuk nation waiting quietly behind. Only a portion of them were visible among the thick growth of trees. So vast were their numbers that their army extended far back into the forested valley, filling it from the mountains on one side to the mountains on the other.
“Do you really think this place worth the bother?” Sulachan asked in a low, gravelly voice. “Shouldn’t we be getting on to the People’s Palace? That is the seat of power you seek.”
Hannis Arc wasn’t worried about the seat of power for the D’Haran Empire going anywhere
. “We will be there soon enough.”
Sulachan regarded him with a dark look. “We would be best served by securing the omen machine.”
Hannis Arc returned a look in kind. “I am the one who awakened it out of millennia of darkness. I alone awakened it to help me in bringing you back into the world of life. The only man besides me who could use the omen machine is Richard Rahl and he is dead.”
Sulachan gazed at him with dead eyes that were alive with the menace of his spirit. “Even so, it would be best–”
“It can’t cause us any trouble now that Richard Rahl is dead. I rule the D’Haran Empire, now.”
The spirit appraised him for a moment. “You will, but only once you take the seat of power for that empire and secure the omen machine. With the help of my army of half people, of course.”
“In good time.” Hannis Arc looked off toward the southwest, imagining that he could almost see the vast palace up on the heights of the plateau rising from the Azrith Plain. “Unlike these outposts along the way, the People’s Palace is not an easy place to take. You, better than anyone, should realize that. You, better than anyone, understand the importance of instilling terror in an enemy.
“This is all a necessary part of the plan to insure that we will have no opposition in taking the People’s Palace. Better to break their spirit before we get there. That will make our reception one of celebration.”
The spirit considered briefly before shrugging. “I am in no hurry. I have all of eternity. If that is what you want, so be it.”
“What I want is a palace from which I can rule.” His temper heating, Hannis Arc leaned toward the spirit king. “I don’t want to have to reduce the place to rubble.”
The unsettling spirit gaze returned. “As long as the omen machine is secured, that is all that matters.”
“Richard Rahl is dead, so for all practical purposes it is secure since there is no one else who could use it. You see to it that the dark ones take him into oblivion and I will see to the omen machine.”