5 Soul of the Fire

by Goodkind, Terry

  Through the pain of the memories, Richard sought to explain, in words Kahlan would understand. "What they did was a kind of test. A live-or-die test. It forced me to learn to use the magic of the sword in a way I never before realized was possible. In order to survive, I had to draw on the experience of the people who had used the sword before me."

  "What do you mean? How could you draw on their experience?"

  "The magic of the Sword of Truth retains the essence of the fighting knowledge of all those who've used the sword before-both the good and the wicked. I figured out how to tap that skill by letting the spirits of the sword speak to me, in my mind. But in the heat of combat there isn't always time for me to comprehend it in words.

  "So, sometimes the information I need comes to me in images-symbols-that relate it. That was a pivotal connection in understanding why I was named in prophecy fuer grissa ost drauka: the bringer of death."

  Richard touched the amulet on his chest. The ruby represented a drop of blood. The lines around it were a symbolic portrayal of the dance. It held meaning for a war wizard.

  "This," Richard whispered. "This is the dance with death. But back then, with Du Chaillu and her thirty, that was when I first understood.

  "Prophecy said I would someday come to them. Prophecy

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  and their old laws said they had to teach me this-to dance with the spirits of those who had used the sword before. I doubt they fully understood how their test would do this, just that they were to uphold their duty and if they did and I was the one, I would survive.

  "I needed that knowledge to stand against Darken Rahl and send him back to the underworld. Remember how I called him in the gathering with the Mud People, and how he escaped into this world, and then the Sisters took me?"

  "Of-course," Kahlan said. "So they forced you into a life-or-death fight against impossible odds in order to make you call upon your inner strength-your gift. And as a result you killed her thirty blade masters?"

  "Yes, exactly. They were fulfilling prophecy." He shared a long look with his only true wife-in his heart, anyway. "You know how terrible prophecy can be."

  Kahlan looked away at last and nodded, caught in her own painful memories. Prophecies had caused them many hardships and subjected them to many trials. His second wife, Nadine, forced upon him by prophecy, had been one of those trials.

  Du Chaillu's chin lifted. "Five of those the Caharin killed were my husbands and the fathers to my children."

  "Her five husbands ... Dear spirits."

  Richard shot Du Chaillu a look. "You're not helping."

  "You mean, by her law, killing her husbands compels you to become her husband?"

  "No. It's not because I killed her husbands, but because defeating the thirty proved I was their Caharin. Du Chaillu is their spirit woman; by their old laws the spirit woman is meant to be the wife of the Caharin. I should have thought of it before."

  "That's obvious," Kahlan snapped.

  "Look, I know how it must sound-I know it doesn't seem to make any sense-"

  "No, it's all right. I understand." Her chill expression heated to simmering hurt. "So you did the noble thing, and married her. Of course. Makes perfect sense to me." She

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  leaned close. "And you just got so busy and all, you forgot to mention it before you married me. Of course. I understand. Who wouldn't? A man can't be expected to recall all the wives he leaves lying about." She folded her arms and turned away. "Richard, how could you-"

  "No! It wasn't like that. I never agreed. Never. There was no ceremony. No one said any words. I never stood and swore an oath. Don't you understand? We weren't married. It never happened!

  "So much has been going on. I'm sorry I forgot to tell you, but it never entered my mind because at the time I dismissed it as an irrational belief of an isolated people. I didn't put any stock in it She simply thinks that since I killed those men to defend myself, that makes me her husband."

  "It does," Du Chaillu said.

  Kahlan glanced briefly at Du Chaillu as she coolly considered his words. "So then you never, in any sense, really agreed to marry her?"

  Richard threw up his hands. "That's what I've been trying to tell you. It's just the Baka Ban Mana's beliefs."

  "Baka Tau Mana," Du Chaillu corrected.

  Richard ignored her and leaned close to Kahlan. "I'm sorry, but can we talk about it later? We may have a serious problem." She lifted an eyebrow. He amended to, "Another serious problem."

  She gave him an indulgent scowl. He turned away, pulling a stalk of grass as he considered the plausibility of worse trouble than Kahlan's ire.

  "You know a lot about magic. I mean, you grew up in Aydindril with wizards who instructed you, and you've studied books at the Wizard's Keep. You're the Mother Confessor."

  "I'm not gifted in the conventional sense," Kahlan said, "not like a wizard or a sorceress-my power is different- but, yes, I know about magic. Being a Confessor, I had to be taught about magic in many of its various forms."

  "Then answer me this. If there's a requirement for magic,

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  can the requirement be fulfilled by some ambiguous rule without the actual required ritual taking place?" "Yes, of course. It's called the reflective effect." "Reflective effect. How does that work?"

  Kahlan wound a long lock of damp hair on a finger as she turned her mind to the question. "Say you have a room with only one window and therefore the sun never reaches the corner. Can you get the sunlight to shine into a corner it never touches?"

  "Since it's called the reflective effect, I'd guess you'd use a mirror to reflect the sunlight into the corner."

  "Right." Kahlan let the hair go and held up the finger. "Even though the sunlight could never itself reach the corner, by using a mirror you can get the sunlight to fall where it ordinarily wouldn't. Magic can sometimes work like that. Magic is much more complex, of course, but that's the easiest way I can explain it.

  "Even if only by some ancient law that completes a long-forgotten condition, the spell might reflect the condition to fulfill the arcane requirements of the magic involved. Like water seeking its own level, a spell will often seek its own solution-within the laws of its nature."

  "That's what I was afraid of," Richard murmured.

  He tapped the end of the stalk of grass flat between his teeth as he stared out at the lightning flickering ominously in the distant clouds.

  "The magic involved dates from the time of that ancient mandate about the Caharin," he said at last. "Therein lies the problem."

  Kahlan gripped his arm, turning him back to face her. "But Zedd said-"

  "He lied to us. I fell for it." Exasperated, Richard flung the stalk of grass aside. Zedd had used the Wizard's First Rule-people will believe a lie either because they want to believe it's true, or because they fear it is-to mislead them.

  "I wanted to believe him," Richard muttered. "He tricked, me."

  "What are you talking about?" Cara asked.

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  Richard heaved a crestfallen sigh. He had been careless in more ways than one. "Zedd. He made all that up about the Lurk."

  Cara made a face. "Why would he do that?"

  "Because for some reason he didn't want us to know the chimes are loose."

  He couldn't believe how stupid he'd been, forgetting about Du Chaillu. Kahlan was right to be angry. When it came down to it, his excuse was pathetically inadequate. And he was supposed to be the Lord Rahl? People were supposed to believe in and follow him?

  Kahlan rubbed her fingertips across the furrows of her brow. "Richard, let's think this through. It can't be-"

  "Zedd said you would have to be my third wife in order to have called the chimes forth into this world."

  "Among other things," Kahlan insisted. "He said, among other things."

  Wearily, Richard lifted a finger. "Du Chaillu." He lifted a second finger. "Nadine." He lifted a third finger. "You. You are my third wife. In principle, anywa
y.

  "I may not look at it that way, but the wizards who cast the spell wouldn't care how I may wish to look at it. They cast magic that would be set into motion by keying off a prescribed set of conditions."

  Kahlan heaved a long-suffering sort of sigh. "You're forgetting one important element. When I spoke aloud the names of the three chimes, we weren't yet married. I wasn't yet your second wife, much less your third."

  "When I was forced to wed Nadine in order to gain entrance to the Temple of the Winds, and you were likewise forced to wed Drefan, in our hearts we said the words to each other. We were married then and there because of that vow-as far as the spirits were concerned, anyway. Ann herself agreed it was so.

  "As you have just explained, magic sometimes works by such ambiguous rules. No matter our feelings about it, the formal requirements-the requirements of some ancient magic conjured by wizards during the great war when the

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  prophecy about the Caharin and the old law were set down-have been met."

  "But-"

  Richard gestured emphatically. "Kahlan, I'm sorry I foolishly didn't think, but we have to face it-the chimes are loose."

  CHAPTER 28

  DESPITE HOW VALID HE thought his reasoning, it didn't at all look to Richard that Kahlan was convinced. She didn't even look amenable to reason. What she looked was angry.

  "Did you tell Zedd about... her?" Kahlan gestured heatedly at Du Chaillu. "Did you? You had to have said something to him."

  He could understand her feelings. He wouldn't like to discover she had another husband she had neglected to mention-no matter how innocent she might have been-even if it was as tenuous as was his connection with Du Chaillu.

  Still, this was about something considerably more important than some convoluted condition that contrived to make Du Chaillu his first wife. It was about something dangerous in the extreme. Kahlan had to understand that. She had to see that they were in a great deal of trouble.

  They had already wasted valuable time. He prayed to the good spirits that he could make her see the truth of what he

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  was telling her without having to reveal to her the full extent of why he knew it to be true.

  "I told you, Kahlan, I didn't even remember it until now because at the time I didn't consider it authentic and so I didn't realize it could have any bearing on this. Besides, when would I have had time to tell him? Juni died before we had a chance to really talk to him, and then he made up that story about the Lurk and sent us on this fool task."

  "Then how did he know? In order to be tricking us, he would have had to know about it first. How did Zedd know I am in fact your third wife-even if only by some ..." Her fists tightened. "... some stupid old law you artfully forgot?"

  Richard threw up his hands. "If it's raining at night, you don't have to be able to see the clouds in the dark to know the rain has to be falling from the sky. If Zedd knew the fact of something and knew it was trouble, he wouldn't worry about the how of it, he would worry about fixing the leak in the roof."

  She pinched the bridge of her nose as she took a breath. "Richard, maybe he really believes what he told us about the Lurk." Kahlan cast a cool glance at his first wife. "Maybe he believes it because it's true."

  Richard shook his head. "Kahlan, we have to face it. We make it worse if we ignore the truth and invest hope in a lie. People are already dying."

  "Juni's death doesn't prove the chimes are really loose."

  "It's not just Juni. The chimes' presence in this world caused that stillborn baby."

  "What!"

  In frustration, Kahlan ran her fingers back into her hair. Richard could understand her wishing it to be the Lurk, and not the chimes, because unlike the chimes they had a solution for the Lurk. But wishing didn't make it so.

  "First you forget you already have another wife, now you rush off down some road of fancy. Richard, how could you come to such a conclusion?"

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  "Because the chimes being in this world somehow destroys magic. The Mud People have magic."

  Though the Mud People were a remote people living a simple life, they were unlike any others; only they had the ability to call their ancestors' spirits in a gathering and talk to the dead. While they didn't think of themselves as having magic, only-the Mud People could call an ancestor from beyond that outer circle of the Grace, bringing them across the boundary of the veil and into the inner circle of life, if only for a brief time.

  If the Imperial Order won the war, the Mud People, among many others, would eventually all be slaughtered for possessing magic. With the chimes loose, they might not live long enough to face that possibility.

  Richard noticed Chandalen, not far off, listening intently. "The Mud People have the unique magical ability of the gathering. Each is born with this ability, this magic. That makes them all vulnerable to the chimes.

  "Zedd told us, and I also read it in Kolo's journal, that the weak are affected first." Richard's voice softened with sorrow. "What could be weaker than an unborn child?"

  Kahlan, touching the stone of her necklace, looked away from his eyes. She dropped her hand to her side, and looked to be trying to veneer her ire with patient logic.

  "I can still feel my power-just as always. As you said, if the chimes were loose, they would be causing the failure of magic. We have no proof that's happening. If it were true, don't you think I would know? Do you think me woefully inexperienced in knowing my own power?

  "Richard, we can't leap to conclusions. Newborns die all the time. That is no proof magic is failing."

  Richard turned to Cara. She was standing not far off, listening as she watched the grasslands, the Mud People hunters, and in particular, the Baka Tau Mana.

  "Cara, how long has your Agiel been useless?" he asked.

  Cara quailed. She could hardly have looked more startled had he unexpectedly slapped her. She opened her mouth, but no words came.

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  She lifted her chin, thinking better of admitting such defeat. "Lord Rahl, what makes you think-"

  "You pulled Chandalen's knife. I have never before seen you forsake your Agiel in favor of another weapon. No Mord-Sith would. How long, Cara?"

  She wet her lips. Her eyes closed in defeat as she turned away.

  "In the last few days I have begun to have trouble sensing you. I don't feel any difference, except I have increasing difficulty sensing your location. At first, I thought it was nothing, but apparently the bond grows weaker by the day. The Agiel is powered by the bond to our Lord Rahl."

  When the Mord-Sith were within a reasonable distance, they always knew precisely where he was by that bond. He imagined it had to be disorienting to suddenly lose that sense.

  Cara cleared her throat as she stared off at the distant storm clouds. Tears glistened in her blue eyes.

  "The Agiel is dead in my fingers."

  Only a Mord-Sith would anguish over the failure of magic that gave her pain every time she touched it. Such was the nature of these women and their unqualified commitment to duty.

  Cara looked back at him, the fire returning to her expression. "But I am still sworn to you and will do what I must to protect you. This changes nothing for the Mord-Sith."

  "And the D'Haran army?" Richard whispered as he considered the spreading extent of their troubles. The D'Haran people were charged to purpose through their bond. "Jagang is coming. Without the army ..."

  The bond was ancient magic he had inherited because he was a gifted Rahl. That bond was created to be protection from the dream walkers. Without it...

  Even if Kahlan believed it was the Lurk, and not the chimes, Zedd had told them that, too, would cause magic to fail. Richard knew Zedd would have had to make whatever story he invented relate closely to reality in order to fool them.

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  Either way, Kahlan would understand the rotting fruits of the dying tree of magic. Her reassuring fingers found his arm.

  "The army may not feel th
eir bond like before, Richard, but they are bonded to you in other ways. Most in the Midlands follow the Mother Confessor, and they are not bonded to her by any magic. In the same way, soldiers follow you because they believe in you. You have proven yourself to them, and they to you."

  "The Mother Confessor is right," Cara said. "The army will remain loyal because you are their leader. Their true leader. They believe in you-the same as I."

  Richard let out a long breath. "I appreciate that, Cara, I really do, but-"

  "You are the Lord Rahl. You are the magic against magic. We are the steel against steel. It will remain so."