He pressed a quick kiss to the worry lines on her brow. “Of course we’re going to get out of here alive. I promise.” He took her hand and ducked under a low beam. “Come on, the vaults are just ahead.”
The stone of the bleak passageway was streaked with pale yellow stains where water leaked between joints and over the blocks. In places on the ceiling, drops of water hung from stone icicles the color of egg yolk, to drip occasionally onto ripply stone mounds on the floor. Beyond two torches, the passageway widened and the ceiling rose up to accommodate the huge round door to the vaults.
As they came in sight of the six-foot-thick stone door, Richard knew something was wrong. Not only could he see an eerie light beyond, but the hairs at the back of his neck were standing on end, and he could feel the whisper of magic against his arms, like spiderwebs brushing the hairs.
He rubbed at the tickling sensation on his arms as he leaned close, “Do you feel anything odd?”
She shook her head. “But there’s something funny about the light.”
Kahlan’s step faltered. Richard saw the body at the same time as they approached the round opening into the vaults. Ahead, a woman lay curled up on the floor, as if she were asleep, but Richard knew she wasn’t sleeping. She was as still as the stone.
As they stepped closer, they could see beyond the wall to the right that there near to a dozen dead Blood of the Fold scattered about the floor. Richard winced at the sight, and a queasy feeling settled in his stomach. Each man was sliced cleanly in half, armor, cape, and all, at midchest. The floor was a lake of blood.
His apprehension burgeoned with every slow step toward the round opening in the rock.
“Look, I have to go get something first,” he said. “You wait here until I get back. It should only take a few minutes.”
Kahlan tugged him back by his shirtsleeve. “You know the rules.”
“What rules?”
“You’re not allowed to get more than ten feet from me for the rest of your life, or I get angry.”
Richard stared into her green eyes. “I’d rather have you angry than dead.”
Her brow drew down into a scowl. “You only think that now. I’ve been waiting too long to be with you to let you go off by yourself now. What’s so important that would make you want to go in there? We can try to do something from out here—throw in torches, set the place ablaze, or something. All that paper should burn like tinder grass. We don’t need to go in there.”
Richard smiled. “Did I ever tell you how much I love you?”
She cuffed his arm. “Talk. What are we risking our lives for?”
Richard yielded with a sigh. “There’s a book of prophecy in the back that’s over three thousand years old. It has prophecies in it about me. It helped me before. If we’re successful at destroying all these books, I’d like to at least take that one with us. It may be a help again.”
“What’s it say about you?”
“It calls me ‘fuer grissa ost drauka.’”
“What does that mean?”
Richard turned back to the vault. “The bringer of death.”
She was silent a moment. “So how do we get back there?”
Richard surveyed the dead soldiers. “Well, for sure we don’t walk.” He held his hand up to his chest. “Something cut them down at about this high. Whatever we do, we don’t stand up.”
At about that height, a wafer-thin haze, like a stratified layer of smoke, hung in the air in the vault room. It seemed to be glowing, as if lit from something, but Richard couldn’t tell what.
On their hands and knees, they crawled into the vault and under the strange blush of light. They stayed near the wall until they reached the bookshelves so they wouldn’t have to crawl through the pools of blood. Once beneath the glowing haze, it seemed even more peculiar. It didn’t seem to be like any fog or smoke Richard had ever seen before; it seemed to be made of light.
A grating sound caused them to pause, motionless. Richard looked back over his shoulder and saw the six-foot-thick stone door swinging closed. He judged that no matter how fast they moved, they wouldn’t be able to make it back before the door closed shut.
Kahlan turned from the door. “Are we locked in here? How are we going to get out? Is there another way out?”
“It’s the only way out, but I can open it,” Richard said. “The door works in conjunction with a shield. If I put my hand to the metal plate on the wall, it’ll open.”
Her green eyes studied his face. “Richard, are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. It always worked in the past.”
“Richard, after all we’ve been through, now that we’re together, I want both of us to get out of here alive.”
“We will. We have to; there are people who need our help.”
“In Aydindril?”
He nodded, trying to find the words for what he had been wanting to say to her, words to fill the space he feared was between them, the space he feared he had put there.
“Kahlan, I didn’t do what I did there because I wanted something for myself—I swear. I want you to know that. I know how much I’ve hurt you, but it was the only thing I could think to do before it was too late. I only did it because I truly believe that it’s our only chance to keep the Midlands from falling to the Imperial Order.
“I know that the goal of the Confessors is to protect people, not to simply hold dominion. I trusted that you would see that I was acting on those goals, if not your wishes. I wanted to protect people, not rule them, but I’ve been heartsick over what I’ve done to you.”
Dead silence stretched in the stone room for a long moment. “Richard, when I first read your letter, I was crushed. A sacred trust was placed in my hands, and I didn’t want to be known as the Mother Confessor who lost the Midlands. On the way here, with that collar around my neck, I’ve had a lot of time to think.
“The Sisters did something noble tonight. They’ve sacrificed a three-thousand-year legacy for a higher purpose: to help people. I may not be happy about what you did, and you still have some explaining to do, but I’ll listen with love in my heart, not just for you, but for the people of the Midlands who need us.
“Over the weeks as we traveled here, I thought about how we must live in the future and not the past. I want the future to be a place where we can live in peace and safety. That’s more important than anything else. I know you, and I know that you wouldn’t do as you did for selfish reasons.”
Richard brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “I’m proud of you, Mother Confessor.”
She kissed his fingers. “Later, when people aren’t trying to kill us and we have the time, I’ll fold my arms and frown and tap my foot like the Mother Confessor is supposed to, while you stutter and stammer and try to explain the sense of what you did, but for now, could we just get out of this place?”
His worry eased, Richard smiled and started off again, crawling past the rows of bookcases. The thin layer of glowing haze over their heads seemed to stretch across the entire room. Richard wished he knew what it was.
Kahlan hurried closer to his side. Richard checked for trouble down each row they passed, guiding them around the inexplicable feel of danger whenever he encountered it. He didn’t know if the sense of danger was a true perception or not, but he dared not ignore the feelings. He was learning to trust in his instincts and be less concerned with proof.
When they entered the small alcove in the back, he scanned the books on the shelf, and saw the one he wanted. The problem was that it was above the level of the haze. He knew better than to try to reach through it; he didn’t know exactly what the glow of light was, but he knew it was magic of some sort, and he had seen what it had done to the soldiers.
With Kahlan’s help, they rocked the bookcase until it fell over. When it toppled against the table, the books pitched out, but the one he wanted landed on the table. The layer of glowing haze hovered mere inches above the book. Richard carefully eased his hand along the table
top, feeling the tingling sensation of the magic floating just above his arm. At last, he caught the book with his fingers and drew it off the edge.
“Richard, something’s wrong.”
He picked up the book and thumbed through it quickly to confirm that it was the right one. Though he could read the High D’Haran words, now, and he recognized some of them, he didn’t have time to address what the book said.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Look at the fog over us. When we came in, it was chest high. It must have been what cut those men down. Look at it now.”
Without his noticing, it had descended to just above the table. He tucked the book under his belt. “Follow me, and hurry.”
Richard scrambled out of the room with Kahlan right at his heels. He didn’t know what would happen if the glowing magic reached them, but he didn’t have much trouble imagining.
Kahlan cried out. Richard turned and saw her sprawled flat on the floor.
“What is it?”
She tried to drag herself ahead by her elbows, but went nowhere. “Something has me by my ankle.”
Richard clambered back to her and grabbed her wrist.
“It let go. As soon as you touched me, it let go.”
“Grab hold of my ankle and let’s get out of here.”
She gasped. “Richard! Look.”
The glow over their heads had lowered when he touched her, as if the magic had felt the touch, felt its prey, and was lowering in pursuit. It barely gave them room to crawl. Richard, with Kahlan holding his ankle, raced for the door.
Before they reached the door, the line of light overhead lowered until Richard could feel its heat against his back.
“Get down!”
She flattened to her stomach when he ordered it, and they squirmed forward on their bellies. When they at last reached the door, Richard flopped over on his back. The haze hovered inches above them.
Kahlan grabbed ahold of his shirt and pulled herself close. “Richard, what are we going to do?”
Richard stared up at the metal plate. It was above the glowing layer that extended from wall to wall. He could no longer get to the plate without reaching through the menacing light over them.
“We have to get out of here, or that thing is going to kill us, just like it killed those men. I have to stand.”
“Are you crazy? You can’t do that!”
“I have the mriswith cape. Maybe if I use that, the light won’t find me.”
Kahlan threw and arm over his chest. “No!”
“I’m dead anyway if I don’t try.”
“Richard, no!”
“Do you have a better idea? We’re running out of time.”
She growled in anger and extended her arm toward the door. Blue lightning exploded from her fist. The door sizzled with streaks of blue light racing around the perimeter of the door.
The thin layer of hazy light recoiled back, as if alive, and the touch of her magic was painful. The door, however, didn’t move.
As the light retreated, bunching in the center of the room, Richard sprang up and slapped a hand to the plate. The door groaned and began to move. The crackling blue flashes from Kahlan died out as the door inched opened. The glow began to flatten and spread once more.
Richard snatched Kahlan’s hand. He stood and squeezed through the opening, pulling her with him. They fell to the ground once outside, panting and holding on to one another.
“It worked,” she said, catching her breath from the fright. “I knew you were in danger, so my magic worked.”
As the door opened the rest of the way, the slick of light seeped into the corridor toward them.
“We have to get out of here,” he said as they came to their feet.
They trotted backward, keeping an eye on the creeping fog that pursued them. They both grunted when they smacked into an invisible barrier. Richard groped along its surface, but could find no opening. He turned back to see the light almost upon them.
With a rage of need, without thought, Richard threw his hands out.
Ropes of black lightning, undulating voids in the existence of light and life, like eternal death itself, blasted outward, twisting and curling away from his outstretched hands. The crack of lightning as the Subtractive Magic ripped into the world was deafening. Kahlan winced. She covered her ears and shrank from the sight.
In the center of the vaults, the hazy glow seemed to ignite. He felt a powerful, low-pitched thump in his chest and the stone beneath his feet.
The bookshelves were blown back, flinging a blizzard of papers into the air to flame briefly like thousands of sparks from a bonfire. The light howled as if alive. He could feel the black lightning exploding from within himself, power and fury beyond his comprehension, burning through him and twisting into the vault.
Kahlan tugged on his arms. “Richard! Richard! We have to run! Richard! Listen to me! Run!”
Kahlan’s voice sounded as if it came to him from a great distance. The black ropes of Subtractive Magic abruptly ceased. The world returned, rushing into the void of his awareness, and he felt alive again. Alive, and aghast.
The invisible barrier blocking their escape was gone. Richard snatched Kahlan’s hand and ran. Behind, the core of light tumbled and wailed, brightening all the time as the sound rose in pitch.
Dear spirits, he thought, what have I done?
They ran through the stone corridors, up stairs, and through halls that became more elaborate at each level, paneled and carpeted, with lamps lighting their way instead of torches. Ahead of them their shadows stretched out, but it wasn’t from the lamps —it was from the living light behind.
They burst through a door, out into a night alive with battle. Men wearing crimson capes fought bare armed men Richard had never seen before. Some wore beards, and many a head was shaved smooth, but each had a ring through his left nostril. In their strange leather belts and straps, some studded with spikes, and layers of hides and fur, they looked to be wild, savage men, an impression aided by the way they fought: gruesome smiles bared gritted teeth as they swung swords, axes, and flails, slogging into their opponents, sweeping aside strikes and pushing ahead with round bucklers set with long center spikes.
Though he had never seen the men before, Richard knew they had to be the Imperial Order.
Richard didn’t slow, but wove his way through openings in the battle, pulling Kahlan behind as he raced for a bridge. When one of the Imperial Order soldiers lunged at him, driving a boot toward him to stop him, Richard sidestepped, hooked his arm under the man’s leg, and flipped him aside, hardly slackening his headlong rush. When one of the Order’s soldiers came at him, Richard drove an elbow into the man’s face, knocking him aside.
In the center of the east bridge, which led into the countryside where lay the Hagen Woods, a half-dozen men of the Blood grappled with a like number of the Order. When a sword swung at him, Richard ducked under it, shouldering the man over the edge into the river before dashing on through the opening it created.
Behind, over the sounds of battle, the clash of steel and the cries of men, he could hear the wail of the light. He ran, his legs pumping seemingly of their own volition to escape; what they fled from was something worse than swords or knives. Kahlan needed no help in keeping up; she was right beside him.
Once they were on the other side of the river and not far into the city, the night vanished in a harsh glare that cast sudden inky shadows pointing away from the palace. The two of them ducked behind the plastered wall of a closed-up shop and, squatting down, gasped to catch their breath. Richard peeked around the side of the building and saw dazzling light blazing from all the windows in the palace, even those in the high towers. Light seemed to be oozing through the joints in the stone.
“Can you run some more?” he asked as he panted.
“I didn’t want to stop,” she said.
Richard knew the city well between the palace and the countryside. He led Kahlan though the confused, frightene
d, ululating mass of people, up streets tight with buildings and those wide with trees, until they reached the outskirts of Tanimura.
Halfway up the hill out of the valley where the city lay, he felt a hard thud in the ground that nearly took his feet out from under him. Without looking back, Richard swept an arm around Kahlan and dove with her into a low cut in the granite. Sweaty and exhausted, they clung together as the ground shook.
They stuck their heads up just in time to see the light ripping apart the massive towers and stone walls of the Palace of the Prophets as if they were paper before a hurricane. The whole of Halsband Island seemed to rend. Parts of trees and huge chunks of lawns lifted into the air along with stone of every size. A blinding flash drove a dome of dark debris before it. The river was stripped of water and bridges.
The curtain of light expanded outward with a clacking roar. The city beyond the island somehow stood up against the fury.
Overhead, the sky lit as if a celestial vault were flaring in sympathy with the bedazzling core below. The skirts of the shimmering bell of light overhead cascaded to the ground miles away from the city. Richard remembered that boundary; it was the outer shield that kept him here when he wore a Rada’Han.
“Bringer of death, indeed,” Kahlan whispered as she watched, awestruck. “I didn’t know you could do such a thing.”
“Neither did I,” Richard said under his breath.
A blast of air tore at the grass as it roared headlong up the hill. They ducked down as a roiling wall of sand and dirt raced past.
They cautiously sat up when all went still. Night had returned, and in the sudden darkness, Richard couldn’t see much below, but he knew—the Palace of the Prophets was gone.
“You did it, Richard,” Kahlan said at last.
“We did it,” he answered as he stared down at the dead, dark hole in the center of the city lights.
“I’m glad you brought that book. I want to know what else it says about you.” A smile began to spread on her lips. “I guess Jagang won’t be living there.”
Blood of the Fold Page 67
